The
Poison Squad,
as it came to be known, was a human feeding experiment that took
place in the basement of the Agriculture Department's former Bureau
of Chemistry in 1902. The experiment was to feed twelve men food
laced with various additives and poisons and monitor the results. All
twelve men took oaths promising that for one year, they would only
eat food prepared in the Poison Squad's kitchen. They also waived
their right to sue the government for any damages to their health
that resulted from these experiments, including death.
The project
was started by scientists from the Bureau of Chemistry, now the Food
and Drug Administration. Headed by Chief Chemist Harvey W. Wiley,
M.D.. His goal was to learn “whether preservatives should ever be
used or not, and if so, what preservatives and in what quantities.”
Furthermore, Wiley wanted to “investigate the character of food
preservatives, coloring matters, and other substances added to foods,
to determine their relation to digestion and to health, and to
establish the principles which should guide their use."
Wiley
himself was a food purist. Soon after being hired by the Agriculture
Department, he began pushing for federal regulation of additives, but
lobbyists from the packing and canning industries responded with
backlash, shutting down every bill Wiley proposed. This was the
reasoning behind the Poison Squad program; he wanted to showcase the
physical costs of food additives. Wiley hoped that these trials would
act as a springboard to widespread food regulation.
Wiley
began with borax,
one of the most common food preservatives at the time. Used to
tighten up animal proteins, it would would give the impression of
freshness, as well as artificially “fix” decomposing meat. For
eight months, the twelve subjects ate it with every meal. The group
concluded that the preservative caused
headaches, stomachaches, and other digestive pains. Wiley soon moved
on to test other common additives such as sulfuric acid, saltpeter,
formaldehyde, and copper sulfate. Copper
sulfate, a common pesticide today, was found to cause nausea,
diarrhea, vomiting, liver damage, kidney damage, brain damage, and
jaundice, among other things.
Even
after demonstrating the vast negative effects on human health caused
by additives, Wiley still faced an uphill battle against the powerful
food lobby. Corruption at it's finest, the
Secretary
of Agriculture concealed several of the Poison Squad’s reports, the
one on benzoic acid only getting out because of a
miscommunication between him and his secretary.
Wiley's
efforts finally resulted in some success when Congress passed the
Meat
Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in
1906, although Teddy Roosevelt took full credit these acts.
Something
to think about
It's
important to note that not all additives in your food today have been
tested in this way. In fact, many of them have not. Today's “farmers”
hose our crops down with pesticides as they wear hazmat suits. While
I realize that pesticides are technically
(by
FDA definition) not additives, if it is unsafe to be around these
pesticides to the extent where hazmat suits are needed, it is really
safe to put these chemicals in your body on a daily basis?
Furthermore, no studies have been conducted on the long-term effects
that genetically modified foods may have on the human body. These
foods are required to be labeled in 64 countries, the United States
absent from that list. In many cases, we do not know what the future
holds in regards to side effects and health threats these additives,
chemicals, and pesticides hold. Be wary of what you put in your body,
for it may be killing you slowly.
Sources:
http://www.toxicology.org/gp/21_PoisonSquadFDA.pdf
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