Initial Steps—Implementation of Food Safety Standards

Food safety is an issue that concerns anyone who eats food. Whether or not a person thinks about food safety before eating a meal, a host of other people have thought about the safety of that food, from farmers to scientists to company presidents to federal government officials and public health officials. Maintaining the safety of food is a shared responsibility among producers, industry, government, and consumers. Safe food is food that is not only free from toxins, pesticides, and chemical and physical contaminants, but also from microbiological pathogens such as bacteria, parasites, and viruses that can potentially cause illness.

The earliest food safety regulations in the United States did not emerge from a desire to provide safe food to consumers, but rather out of foreign trade concerns. In 1641, Massachusetts passed the Meat and Fish Inspection Law to assure foreign trading partners that the colony produced high-quality food products. As the population shifted from rural to urban, people no longer had a personal connection with food producers, and thus the food supply became more national in scope and distribution. This national scope required national regulation.

The year 1906 was an important one for federal food safety regulations with the passage of both the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act. Writings such as A Popular Treatise on the Extent and Character of Food Adulterations and Upton Sinclair’s famous book, The Jungle, about the filthy conditions and adulteration of meat that was common in the Chicago meat industry, ignited the consumers’ interest in food safety.

The Federal Meat Inspection Act protected consumers by “assuring that meat and meat food products are wholesome, not adulterated, and properly marked, labeled, and packaged.” The act created sanitary standards and mandated continuous inspection of cattle, sheep, goats, and equines before, during, and after slaughter. The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act forbade the adulteration of foods, drinks, and drugs in interstate commerce.

Despite being a good start, the Pure Food and Drug Act had some very evident flaws. Since the act did not set standards as to what exactly should be in a particular food, it was near impossible to prove the adulteration of a food. The act required that the government prove that the offenders intended to deceive or poison consumers with their product. When brought to court defendants pleaded ignorance.

In 1938, Congress passed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). This act, with some adjustments and amendments, is still the major force regulating food. The act succeeded in broadening the scope of federal regulation and eliminated many of the loopholes that were present in the 1906 act. The law defined adulteration to include bacteria or chemicals that are potentially harmful; allowed the FDA to inspect food manufacturing and processing facilities; required ingredients of nonstandard foods to be listed on labels; prohibited the sale of food prepared under unsanitary conditions; gave the FDA the authority to monitor animal drugs, feeds, and veterinary devices; and authorized mandatory standards for foods. The overall goal of the law was to avoid the distribution of harmful or deceptive food and drug products.

In August 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), essentially changing the way the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates pesticides used in the production of food. The FQPA set special provisions concerning pesticide ingestion for infants and children because very little data exists on pesticide intake for children. The EPA is required to periodically review pesticide registrations, with a goal of establishing a fifteen-year cycle, to ensure that all pesticides meet updated safety standards. Most importantly, the law establishes a health-based safety standard for pesticide residues in all foods. It implements “a reasonable certainty that no harm” will result from all combined sources of exposure as the general safety standard. This facet of the FQPA is arguably the most important because it prohibited the addition of any cancer-causing substance to foods.