11/16/2012
Fast Forward to 2012
Beginning of USDA
~
Division of Chemistry 1860-1890
Richard Ferguson and Larry West
USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service
National Soil Survey Center
Lincoln, NE
Leading up to 1862 – STATES’ RIGHTS!
1800’s Challenges
• Until the mid 1800s, many states vehemently
opposed increased involvement by
Washington in agriculture, animal husbandry,
and pharmaceutical industry.
• Increased involvement by the Federal
government was seen as a step towards
increased taxation, less profitability, less
independence, and loss of control.
• Thousands of useless “medicines” were being
peddled by profiteering quacks.
• In the animal industry, livestock disease was a
persistent, largely uncontrolled problem that
individuals States were left to deal with.
• There was a need for sustainable agricultural
practices and oversight of food quality to feed
a developing country.
Pharmaceuticals
Livestock Disease
Milk Sickness
How could a disease, perhaps the leading cause of
death and disability in the Midwest and Upper
Cows
People
South for over two centuries,
go eat
unrecognized
by get
snakeroot
the medical profession at large
until 1928? sick
--William Snively, "Mystery of the Milksick" (1967)
The White Snakeroot
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11/16/2012
Livestock Disease
Livestock Disease
Bovine tuberculosis
+ Mycobacterium
Tuberculosis
Diseased
Cattle
Farming
• Plowing the land
• Water, drought, weather
extremes
• Pests
• Fire
• Lack of machinery
• Transportation costs
• Growing conditions
• Knowledge
Human tuberculosis
2007
Late
1800’s
Civil War – 1861-5
Some of the
challenges were the
same as today’s
challenges, but with
less resources to
address them.
"Agriculture, confessedly the largest interest of the
nation, has not a department nor a bureau, but a
clerkship only, assigned to it in the Government.
While it is fortunate that this great interest is so
independent in its nature as to not have demanded
and extorted more from the Government, I
respectfully ask Congress to consider whether
something more can not be given voluntarily with
general advantage.... While I make no suggestions
as to details, I venture the opinion that an
agricultural and statistical bureau might profitably
be organized.”
Organic Act – Passed May 15, 1862
Established the Department of Agriculture
Acquire and to diffuse among the people of the United
States useful information on subjects connected with
agriculture, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among
the people new and valuable seeds and plants.
Concomitantly:
•
Homestead Act – passed May 20, 1862
•
Morrill Land Grant College Act – July 2, 1862
Abraham Lincoln, December 3, 1861
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11/16/2012
Beginnings
Isaac Newton: First Commissioner USDA
About: A farmer who had served as chief of the agricultural
“He (Newton)
wasOffice
not asince
wellAugust
known
agriculturist
section
of the Patent
1861
and as a department chief alternately showed
1. Collecting, arranging, and publishing statistical and
both ability
and blundering. He proved to be a
other useful agricultural information
controversial
political
figure,
too.
the same, he
2. Introducing
valuable
plants
andAll
animals
soon had
botanist,
a chemist
4. aTesting
agricultural
implements , an
5. Conducting
analysesworking
of soils, grains,
fruits,–
entomologist,
and achemical
statistician
for him
plants, vegetables, and manures
all very able
persons…” Historian Gabor S. Boritt
3.
Answering inquiries of farmers regarding agriculture
6. Establishing a professorship of botany and entomology
7. Establishing an agricultural library and museum.
Beginnings
Harvey W. Wiley: Appointed Chief Chemist in 1883
•
•
•
•
•
Took aim at the drug industry
Took his findings to the public
Strongly supported by Women’s Clubs and National
Consumer Groups
Strongly opposed patent medicine firms and their
advertisers
Generally credited with taking the biggest bite out of
food adulteration and quack remedies
Beginnings
Charles M. Wetherill: First Chief Chemist of the
USDA Division of Chemistry*
(*later called the Bureau of Chemistry in 1901)
•
•
Key regulatory challenges
First
Wine making
• project:
Some states
had no laws
Next
stop:
Gunpowder
•
Some
states lacked enforcement
•
Some adjoining states had conflicting
Wetherill, fellow
lawsscientists, and successors looked into :
•
Adulteration
of milk
with water
•
Numerous
variations
in labeling
•
Toxic
food
colorslaw
andwas
preservatives
•
National
needed
•
The problems using arsenic and copper as pesticides
•
Quack medicines (e.g., colored water as treatment
for scurvy)
Birds Eye View - FDA
1862 Division of Chemistry, US Department of Agriculture
1901 Bureau of Chemistry, USDA
1927 Food and Drug Insecticide Administration, USDA (regulatory)
& Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, USDA
1930 Food and Drug Administration, USDA
1940 FDA, Federal Security Agency
1953 FDA, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
1968 FDA, Public Health Service
1970 Pesticide issues transferred to new EPA
1972 Regulation of Biologics transferred from PHS to FDA
1988 Food and Drug Administration Act establishes FDA as an
agency of the Department of Health and Human Services
“Crusader Chemist”
Thank you all for listening!
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