<P> Under the law, drug labels, for example, had to list any of 10 ingredients that were deemed "addictive" and / or "dangerous" on the product label if they were present, and could not list them if they were not present . Alcohol, morphine, opium, and cannabis were all included on the list of these "addictive" and / or "dangerous" drugs . The law also established a federal cadre of food and drug inspectors that one Southern opponent of the legislation criticized as "a Trojan horse with a bellyful of inspectors and other employees ." Penalties under the law were modest, but an under - appreciated provision of the Act proved more powerful than monetary penalties . Goods found in violation of various areas of the law were subject to seizure and destruction at the expense of the manufacturer . That, combined with a legal requirement that all convictions be published as Notices of Judgment, proved to be important tools in the enforcement of the statute and had a deterrent effect upon would - be violators . Deficiencies in this original statute, which had become noticeable by the 1920s, led to the replacement of the 1906 statute with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act which was enacted in 1938 and signed by President Franklin Roosevelt . This act, along with its numerous amendments, remains the statutory basis for federal regulation of all foods, drugs, biological products, cosmetics, medical devices, tobacco, and radiation - emitting devices by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration . </P> <P> It took 27 years to the 1906 statute, during which time the public was made aware of many problems with foods and drugs in the U.S. Muckraking journalists, such as Samuel Hopkins Adams, targeted the patent medicine industry with its high - alcoholic content patent medicines, soothing syrups for infants with opium derivatives, and "red clauses" in newspaper contracts providing that patent medicine ads (upon which most newspapers of the time were dependent) would be withdrawn if the paper expressed support for food and drug regulatory legislation . The Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Chemistry, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, captured the country's attention with his hygienic table studies, which began with a modest Congressional appropriation in 1902 . The goal of the table trial was to study the human effects of common preservatives used in foods during a period of rapid changes in the food supply brought about by the need to feed cities and support an industrializing nation increasingly dependent on immigrant labor . Wiley recruited young men to eat all their meals at a common table as he added increased "doses" of preservatives including borax, benzoate, formaldehyde, sulfites, and salicylates . The table trials captured the nation's fancy and were soon dubbed "The Poison Squad" by newspapers covering the story . The men soon adopted the motto "Only the Brave dare eat the fare" and at times the publicity given to the trials became a burden . Though many results of the trial came to be in dispute, there was no doubt that formaldehyde was dangerous and it disappeared quickly as a preservative . Wiley himself felt that he had found adverse effects from large doses of each of the preservatives and the public seemed to agree with Wiley . In many cases, most particularly with ketchup and other condiments, the use of preservatives was often used to disguise insanitary production practices . Although the law itself did not proscribe the use of some of these preservatives, consumers increasingly turned away from many products with known preservatives . </P> <P> The 1906 statute regulated food and drugs moving in interstate commerce and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous patent medicines . The Act arose due to public education and exposés from public interest guardians such as Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, social activist Florence Kelley, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, and President Theodore Roosevelt . </P> <P> The 1906 Act paved the way for the eventual creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is generally considered to be that agency's founding date, though the agency existed before the law was passed and was not named FDA until later . "While the Food and Drug act remains a foundational law of the FDA mission, it's not the law that created the FDA . (Initially,) the Bureau of Chemistry (the precursor to the FDA) regulated food safety . In 1927, the Bureau was reorganized into the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration and the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils . The FDIA was renamed the FDA in 1930 ." </P>

What led to the passage by congress of the pure food and drug act