History of the Food and Drug Administration
In June 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Food and Drug Act, also known as the "Wiley Act" after its chief advocate. The Act prohibited, under penalty of seizure of goods, the interstate transport of food which had been "adulterated," with that term referring to the addition of fillers of reduced "quality or strength," coloring to conceal "damage or inferiority," formulation with additives "injurious to health," or the use of "filthy, decomposed, or putrid" substances. The act applied similar penalties to the interstate marketing of "adulterated" drugs, in which the "standard of strength, quality, or purity" of the active ingredient was not either stated clearly on the label or listed in the "United States Pharmacopoeia" or the "National Formulary". The act also banned "misbranding" of food and drugs. The responsibility for examining food and drugs for such "adulteration" or "misbranding" was given to Wiley's USDA Bureau of Chemistry.
United States v. Forty Barrels &amp; Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola
In 1906, Harvey Washington Wiley was the first commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. The FDA started prosecuting companies which were selling products with harmful components and companies which were making misleading claims about their products. In 1903, Coca-Cola had already started using spent coca leaves (which only carried trace amounts of cocaine) and had dropped the claim that it cured headaches. But it still contained caffeine, and Wiley believed that even small amounts of caffeine in beverages were harmful to people, and he was worried that Coca-Cola was being consumed by children as young as 4 years old. So, in 1909, he ordered the seizure of 40 barrels and 20 kegs of a Coca-Cola shipment.