| Between the tenure of Harvey Washington Wiley, Progressive leader and father of modern federal food and drug regulation (1883-1912), and that of Arthur Flemming, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (1958-1961), the regulation of food chemicals evolved from matters of relative simplicity to challenges of great complexity. Controversies over whiskey and chemical preservatives like sodium benzoate and borax were instrumental in shaping the 1906 Food and Drugs Act, while early court cases involving bleached flour, Coca-Cola and saccharin extended the law's authority over the use of chemicals in foods. Such products, however, were simple in comparison with those of the new chemical age introduced into the American food market following World War II: pesticides applied to growing farm foods and functional chemicals used in processing frozen and other packaged foods.;If the relevant science had become infinitely more complex, the regulatory process was somewhat simplified by changes in the nation's food laws resulting from hearings by a House Selection Committee chaired by Congressman James J. Delaney (D-NY), 1950-1952. These laws shifted the burden of proving the safety of pesticide residues and food and color additives from the Food and Drug Administration to industry and provided FDA with important flexibility in regulating the avalanche of new food chemicals. More chemicals did make their way into foods than in the past, generating greater consumer criticism of the agency--a change from the days of consumer confidence under Harvey Wiley.;In the midst of mounting regulatory challenges, FDA's role nonetheless increased and retained--in the Delaney anti-cancer clause--a crucial component of the chemical fundamentalism that had characterized the Wiley era. The Delaney clause, however, prohibiting approval of any chemical carcinogen as a food or color additive, did not represent a final solution to the additives problem. The 1959 cranberry crisis involving aminotriazole was merely the first of a continuous sequence of contentious episodes challenging industry and disturbing public calm in the decades to follow. |
