What was the poison squad?
Harvey Wiley studied at Indiana Medical College where he received
him M.D. Wiley taught Indiana’s first
lab course in chemistry before being offered a position in chemistry at Purdue
University. Wiley spent a lot of his time studying sugar chemistry. In 1882
Wiley was offered the position of Chief Chemist in the U.S. Department of
Agriculture and this was an offer that Wiley was not going to pass up.
Wiley was assigned five thousand dollars in 1902 to “the Bureau
of Chemistry to study the effects of commonly used food preservatives on
human health, in which the public began to take an interest in federal food regulation.”
The public coined the phrase Poison Squad, after “Wiley referred to
his human subject research as the Hygienic
Table Studies. Scientists in the Bureau of Chemistry were astonished at the
publicity that their work received.”
“Wiley organized in 1902 a volunteer group of healthy young
men, called the Poison Squad, who tested the effects of chemicals and adulterated
foods on themselves”, to ultimately see if these men’s health would be affected
by any means. “Poison Squad studies were important for many reasons, but chief
among them was the fact that they had a profound influence on early food safety
policies under the 1906 statute.” After almost three decades President
Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act in which a great portion was
written by Wiley. Wiley left his position in office to take on a new
opportunity that arose, to set up and direct the Bureau of Foods, Sanitation
and Health for Good Housekeeping. Taking on this job at the magazine gave Wiley
the ability “to continue his fight for pure foods from the pages of the
magazine.” Harvey Wiley lived to be 86 years old and was one of the most
influential men who made an impact on our health and food industries.
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