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.
George P. Larrick
Following the war, he served as Assistant Commissioner, Associate Commissioner and finally Deputy Commissioner of the FDA. In 1954, he was appointed Commissioner, succeeding Charles Crawford. Commissioner Larrick headed the FDA during the period of its greatest growth. In 1954, the Agency had less than 1,000 employees to regulate more than one fourth of the nation's commerce in consumer goods. The First Citizen's Advisory Committee report became the blueprint for extensive changes in the organization and a rapid increase in its resources. During Larrick's tenure, FDA appropriations increased more than tenfold, from $5 million to over $50 million, and its staff expanded to almost 4,000. The building program inaugurated during Larrick's administration provided modern laboratories for a majority of the FDA field districts and a $25 million headquarter's laboratory. His last official act was its dedication in December 1965.