The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

“’These were the first public attacks on me and they cut to the quick’ Wiley later wrote. ‘I felt hurt to be the victim of such insinuations and misstatements.’ […] The best way to respond to such attacks, he would gradually come to believe, ‘is to go about one’s business and let enemies do their worst.’”

A man of great personal integrity, Dr. Wiley frustrated those whose agendas and ambitions he thwarted in his uncompromising pursuit of the pure food cause. Wiley’s scientific methods were also called into question, typically by those without his level of expertise in chemistry and medicine, but the personal indictments against Wiley’s character were most distressing to him. Wiley realized that his detractors harbored a diverse array of motives upon which they acted, and he became confident that the legitimacy of his scientific claims would protect him from even the harshest scrutiny.

“He found a receptive audience in Wiley, who was starting to worry that the continual exposure to low doses of industrial chemicals – yet to be tested for safety – might indeed be a health issue. […] At least, he argued, there should be a requirement of accurate information on labels, which should, at a minimum, ‘give the name of the preservative and the quantity employed.’ But Wiley also wondered what good it would do to list the ingredients in a food product if no one knew whether those ingredients were safe and in what does. He began thinking about how he could test to see how much of such additives a person could consume safely.”

In developing his Poison Squad series of experiments, Wiley sought to ascertain definitively whether the preservatives which were being added to food products could be harmful. Until he designed these experiments, no scientific studies had assessed the effects of preservatives on the human body. Wiley further wanted to know whether cumulative, prolonged exposure to these chemicals made a difference in the nature and extent of harm accrued, especially because these preservatives were so ubiquitous.

“When it was Wiley’s turn to speak, he emphasized his belief that chemistry was a science that had enormous power to improve and be part of people’s lives – and that scientists themselves should share their work with others: ‘The chemist is a social being, and there is a life outside of the laboratory as beautiful and useful as the life within. The highest culture is not found in books, but in men. And thus to widen his horizon and broaden his views the chemist must leave his desk and seek the acquaintance of his fellows.”

Dr. Wiley’s enduring personal commitment to American citizens explains the growing frustration he feels as Wilson increasingly suppresses the publication the bureau’s scientific bulletins. Wiley circumvents this censure by interacting directly with the public through regular speaking engagements, activism, and advocacy. As an employee for a public agency, Wiley was determined not to allow his supervisor to interfere with the objective of his role.

“The canned beef had been garden-variety cheap meat – stringy, gristly, poorly handled, and too quick to decompose. And rather than using preservatives too heavily, the cost-conscious meat packers hadn’t used enough salts to prevent decomposition when the cans were exposed to the Cuban heat. This lack had accounted for much of the rot and discoloration found in many cans when they were opened. […] Perhaps the most condemnatory conclusion that the USDA chemists had reached was that the canned meat that had so disgusted soldiers in Cuba was almost exactly what U.S. consumers were finding on grocery shelves.”

The “Beef Court” was one of the first hearings held concerning food manufacture, and what it revealed appalled the American public. People were incensed by the injurious and insulting act of intentionally supplying young men serving in the military with such poor and potentially harmful rations. The testimony given also provided insight into how food was processed. This had largely been an industry secret to that point, and the responding outrage was palpable.

“[…] Wiley told the assembled senators that such regulations needed to be grounded in good science. He urged that the government invest in studying the health effects of such additives. If risks were clearly and methodically identified, then those compounds should be removed from all food and drink. And, somewhat wearily, he once again recommended that manufacturers be required to tell consumers, on labels, what was being mixed into their products. ‘Were it as harmless as distilled water,’ he said, ‘there would be no excuse of its addition to food without notification to the consumer.’”

Dr. Wiley knew that appeals on the basis of ethics would never compel most food manufacturers to change their practices. Further, he faced opposition to his insistence that food labels should contain a complete list of ingredients. By quantifying the actual effects of chemical adulteration, Wiley felt that advocacy for change would be facilitated by demonstrable, concrete results. These would be less open to interpretation or opinion, and his clear measurements bolstered his case for complete ingredient lists.

“Wiley had long worried about this lack of guidance, lack of dosage limits, lack of basic information. If Americans consumed multiple doses of untested compounds in every meal with no assurance of their safety, he thought, then government officials like himself were failing them. The only way to fix that, he’d decided, was to devise some real public health experiments. And the most direct way t­­­o get the information would be by using human volunteers.”

One of Wiley’s biggest concerns was the overwhelming prevalence of adulterants and preservatives in almost every food product available on the market. He wanted to know how each of the individual additives specifically impacted the human body upon ingestion, but he also felt it was essential to ascertain the cumulative effect of ingesting a combined array of multiple chemicals with almost every meal. By controlling the dosage levels and meticulously recording the physiological impacts of ingestion, he could isolate the incremental effects of each chemical.

“The department would not have done the work, he emphasized, if he’d believed at the start that chemical compounds deliberately mixed into American food posed an immediate deadly risk. He’d gone in hoping the materials were safe, and his worst-case guess before the trials started was ‘that there might be some disturbance in their systems.’”

Wiley’s ferocious advocacy for pure food regulations was regularly painted as anti-business by his detractors, but he did not undertake his initial Poison Squad experiments already convinced that the food adulterants he would be studying were inherently unsafe. Wiley’s concerns about additives were sparked by his frustration with the lack of transparency for the consumer in the ingredients being used by manufacturers. His hygienic table trials were not devised with any agenda other than the desire for clarity.

“The secretary and the chief chemist both complained repeatedly to the Post over the months that Brown’s articles were making the department a laughingstock. They got little satisfaction. But after the BOARDERS TURN PINK story, the paper’s editors had to acknowledge that their reporter had invented the whole thing. What the editors didn’t catch —not then, anyway— was that Brown had missed the most important, if not the most entertaining, aspect of the Poison Squad story. By the summer of 1903, Wiley was looking at results that suggested steady ingestion of borax was not nearly as benign as had been assumed.”

Wiley was fiercely protective of his volunteers and the methods and protocols he implemented in the Poison Squad studies. The guidelines his participants were expected to follow were designed to prevent any interference from external sources, but he could not prevent the public from becoming curious about his undertaking. He was frustrated at first, especially when the goings-on at the bureau were misrepresented or fictionalized, but he learned that the press would become one of his greatest assets in bringing awareness of food adulteration concerns to a national audience.

“Wiley, looking at another round of failed legislation now accepted that his longtime strategy of working with legislators and scientific experts was not enough. If the regulations he dreamed of were to stand a chance, he needed new allies. He already had friends in the increasingly politics-savvy community of women activists; now he further sought their help. […] women were helping to shape the nation’s opinion about the problem of food adulteration. […] His persistence, some said his obsession, on the issue of food and drug regulation kept earning him opponents. But he was also forging new partnerships, and the drive and determination of the women’s organizations gave him a fresh source of hope. […] He’d grown up with the understanding that women were strong, capable, smart, and worthy of respect.”

Advocates for pure food legislation were repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to pass laws to protect American consumers and regulate the food industry. This was largely due to the tenacity of legislators who worked on behalf of the food manufacturers, and the willingness of Wilson and his cooperatives to act with leniency toward these corporate interests. Women’s groups had grown in popularity, with the members of their ranks increasing steadily, and their influence, nationally and in their local communities, was increasing in scope. These women activists would comprise Wiley’s most loyal and enduring allies.

“Pickled beef had to be bathed in acid; the men working that line had their fingers eaten away by repeated exposure. Tuberculosis germs thrived in the moist, stinking air of the processing plants and spread from animal to animal, worker to worker. In the rendering rooms, there were open vats of acid set into the floor to help break down the carcasses. Workers occasionally fell in, and ‘when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting.’”

In the early 20th Century, with advancements in the fields of bacteriology and sanitation, the concepts of hygiene and sanitation captured the interests of the public. Fannie Farmer’s bestselling cookbook had been educating home cooks in the proper protocols for safe food preparation in the home, all while slaughterhouses were actively supply the spoiled meats from diseased carcasses to American homes. Readers of Sinclair’s novels and those who followed the findings of the subsequent investigations were horrified to consider the possibility that they had unwittingly been made cannibals by the meat industry.

“Wiley sent Wilson an early copy of the report. It reinforced the secretary’s concern that his bureau chief had become more crusader than objective chemist. […] This was not the same prudent, methodical Harvey Wiley who had spoken so judiciously during the embalmed-beef hearings. Wilson had long supported Wiley’s activities, but his growing stridency was starting to alienate the chief chemist from his politically cautious boss.”

Dr. Wiley had always been a purist, but as his research progressed and he came to recognize the true danger of consuming food adulterates, his zeal increased. He emphatically resisted any concessions which resembled leniency or an opportunity for food manufacturers to continue shirking their responsibilities. Wilson resented what he perceived as Wiley’s insubordination; he thought that Wiley should answer to him as his superior, and Wiley believed that his responsibility was to the consumer.

“Sinclair was in a resentful mood, discontented even with the public’s response to his book. Despite incredible sales, no one was talking about the struggles of the workingman or socialist ideals. They were talking about filthy, germ-infested food and the possibility that their morning sausage contained scraps of rat and possibly human meat as well as the standard pork. ‘I aimed for the public’s heart,’ he would later say, bitterly, ‘And by accident I hit it in the stomach. Beginning the first week of publication in February, letters and telegrams of outrage arrived at the White House, demanding to know how Roosevelt planned to fix the problem of the country’s disgusting food supply.”

The vivid description of the realities inside Chicago’s slaughterhouses conveyed only a fraction of the horrors that the novelist witnessed. The public’s horror reached Roosevelt via letters and telegrams, and the president, recalling his experiences in Cuba, was angered but not surprised by what he read in the novel. The subsequent investigations by representatives from both Sinclair’s publisher and Roosevelt’s administration confirmed everything Sinclair had depicted, which bolstered the justification behind the Meat Inspection Act. However, Sinclair felt he had failed in his efforts to spark a broader socialist revolution.

“On June 30, 196, Roosevelt triumphantly signed both the Meat Inspection Act and the Food and Drug Act. […] He did not acknowledge Sinclair’s contribution, having decided, he told his friends, that the man was a crackpot. The president did not acknowledge Wiley either, not in the ceremony and not by any other gesture. […] Newspapers might frequently reference the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act as ‘Dr. Wiley’s Law,” but Roosevelt would never do so.”

In a momentous event, the passage of these laws was the first time the United States government committed itself in a meaningful way to consumer protections. The fault that Wiley found with the law was in its deviation from the original parameters he recommended, offering more leniency than he found acceptable. Further, the law was vague in its language, and Wiley took great care in drafting the subsequent regulations to try to make enforcement as straightforward and free of obstacles as he could.

“After the secretary ordered him to make Dunlap welcome, Wiley gave the newcomer an unsmiling tour of the bureau offices, offering him the smallest and shabbiest quarters available. The bureau staff, intensely loyal to their longtime chief, barely spoke to their new colleague. Even the secretaries were unfriendly. […] Dunlap had no experience as a food chemist. Wiley took the appointment as a ‘direct insult’ to him and to Bigelow, who had always served as acting director in his absence; he fumed that it was poor management to put a man ‘who knew nothing’ of the bureau or its food-law activities in charge of the program.”

Although Wiley was too celebrated for Wilson to dismiss him or replace him outright, Wilson found other ways to undermine the chief chemist. Dr. Wiley was deeply offended by Dunlap’s appointment because Wilson had chosen someone with no legitimate qualifications to undermine the doctor. The public and the rest of the department considered Wilson’s actions to be in poor form, and Wilson would soon contend with the loyalty Wiley garnered in his time at the bureau.

“For decades after the meeting, Wiley would replay this moment and wish he had sat silently and waited for Roosevelt to respond. […] No one had clearly proved injury yet; the research was still going on. But Wiley believed it and he said so. […] But although he was angry with Roosevelt, Wiley was angrier with himself for further alienating the president.”

When Wiley spoke out against saccharin in Roosevelt’s presence, he did so confidently based on what he had been observing in the Poison Squad studies thus far. But because his research had not yet concluded, he offered opinion as fact, which was rare for the precise, methodical chemist. This statement soured Roosevelt against Wiley permanently, and Wiley scolded himself for not anticipating the President’s response, Roosevelt’s temper and egotism were matters of common knowledge among both acquaintances and strangers. Wiley’s passion for pure food law was firmly rooted in the impartial results of his studies, but despite his expertise and integrity, he was at the mercy of commanders in chief who could base their decisions about him and his work on their opinions and feelings alone.

“But overall Wiley’s relationships with many of his more traditional scientific colleagues were beginning to deteriorate. […] The Remsen board, though, bothered him, and deeply. It seemed intended specifically to undercut and countermand the findings of the Bureau of Chemistry. He was dismayed that Remsen himself, the ‘alleged discoverer’ of saccharin, as Wiley put it, was given authority to rule on the sweetener’s safety. He was dismayed that Chittenden, so obviously pro-industry, was on the board at all. He saw both the creation of the board and its business-friendly composition, he told friends, as a betrayal not just of him but of the American consumer.”

Wiley was insulted by the implementation of a board designed to reassess his work, and he was frustrated by the additional measures which would now be required to further the pure food cause. He was also concerned that some of the progress he made to protect consumers might be reversed or amended based on the board’s findings. What upset Wiley most was his belief in the obvious bias inherent in board members who had personal connections to the food and chemical industries.

“Wiley added that food quality and safety represented not only good science but also moral decision-making. The wealthy, he pointed out, could easily afford fresh food and well-made condiments. The trade in cheap, chemically enhanced imitations catered to the poor. If the country could work to standardize good food, then it would also be promoting good health for all. ‘Whenever a food is debased in order to make it cheap, the laboring man pays more for any given nourishment than the rich man does who buys the pure food,’ he pointed out.”

Speaking before the National Association of State Dairy and Food Departments at their August 1908 conference, Wiley expressed his progressive and egalitarian belief that social justice was at the heart of the pure food movement. Those who could afford fresh, untainted, high-quality nourishment did so, at least in part, because their wealth allowed them the opportunity to pay the higher cost for the safest goods. They amassed that wealth by exposing their customers to the dangers the profits allowed them to avoid. Wiley asserted that the food safety standards he hoped to achieve would contribute to the improvement of the nation’s health.

“He is a government official of a type that happily is becoming more common – one of those men who appreciate that they represent the public and that they are expected to look after the interest of the public and not the interests of any class…No wonder he is so cordially hated by those who heretofore fattened at the expense of public health and well-being.”

This defense of Dr. Wiley in the Journal of the American Medical Association accused the Remsen board of minimizing the significance of any ill effects of adulteration, instead of evaluating Wiley’s findings objectively. The author urged Dr. Wiley not to accept defeat despite the restructuring of the bureau of chemistry in an intentional effort to subvert his work. The press may not have had the power to influence appointments to the bureau, but publications across the nation routinely expressed their gratitude for Dr. Wiley’s work. Journalists continued to put pressure on the USDA and the politicians involved in pure food legislation by exposing practices which were in opposition to public interest.

“Wilson also tried to prevent Wiley from taking his case to popular publications. ‘I regret that I shall have to withdraw my offer to write you an article which would be truthful, readable, and useful on the subject of “The Campaign for Pure Food, up to Date,”’ wrote Wiley to an editor at Century magazine. ‘As I told you, I submitted your request to the Secretary of Agriculture and he informed me that if I would write an article which he would approve I could publish it. The Secretary and I are so diametrically opposed in our view in regard to this matter that I am convinced it would be useless for me to try to secure his approval to any article which in my opinion would do anything like justice to the subject…I reluctantly ask you to cancel the engagement.’”

Wilson had increasingly suppressed the publication of reports prepared by the bureau on their findings in pure food research. Wiley had been able to circumvent Wilson’s restrictions through his public outreach, but as the tension between the two continued to rise, Wilson also prevented Wiley from contributing to independent publications. In this letter to Century magazine, Wiley is frank in informing the publishers that it was not his choice to withdraw his article. Wiley’s relationship with the public and the press was his singular defense against his ever-narrowing scope of influence in his own department.

“This new mess – and it would be publicly revealed to be one of many in the Agriculture Department – grew out of a plot hatched by Dunlap, backed by McCabe and Wilson, with the goal of removing Wiley and his allies from the department. […] After pulling the Rusby file and studying the arrangement, Dunlap – knowing of Wilson’s discontent with the chief chemist – realized he could use Rusby’s hiring arrangement as the basis for charges that the chief chemists and his allies had defrauded the government.”

McCabe and Dunlap had been employed by Wilson largely because of the unwavering cooperation Wiley knew he could expect from them. This trio of detractors had been waiting for an opportunity to oust Dr. Wiley on legitimate grounds, and Dunlap believed that by intentionally misinterpreting the circumstances of Rusby’s employment they could justify his removal. Wilson, McCabe, and Dunlap were oblivious to the possibility that their own actions might come under scrutiny when they attacked Wiley’s sterling reputation.

“Now he had clear documentation of an actual plot, one that included Dunlap rummaging through his desk, secret meetings, and trumped-up charges. If he handled it right – and he’s been in federal service long enough to think he could – his enemies he just put a weapon in his hands. […] He was also touched to find himself surrounded by secretaries, clerks, other bureau scientists, and officials from other sections within the department, all of them offering to help prepare his defense. [...] Newspapers nationwide picked up the story and expanded on it, painting a portrait of corruption not by the dedicated food chemists but by Wilson, McCabe, and Dunlap.”

Wiley had toiled under the growing restrictions imposed upon him by Wilson, diligently fighting to effect change under circumstances designed to hinder his work. As detrimental as Wilson’s decisions had been, the encroachment on Wiley’s authority had not escalated to outright attacks against him until the issue of Rusby’s pay was raised. Wiley was relieved that he could fight this battle in the open and finally confront the collective animosity which had been cultivated toward him for years.

“The scandal, the Moss hearings, the fact that little had changed at the Agriculture Department – all had made it clear to both Wiley’s allies and his enemies that though he had survived the attack, though he had undaunted public support, he lacked vital internal support for his strict approach to food regulation. […] The food industry was now neatly sidestepping Wiley on a regular basis, taking complaints directly to Wilson. […] Wiley had declared that he would stay as long as the department would have him, but he had begun to see the futility of remaining in such a hostile environment.”

Wiley had endured the growing hostility around him because he believed so strongly that it was his duty to implement science in the service of the public good. He resigned because he realized that he was no longer effective under the whittled parameters of his role at the USDA. His supporters feared that the department would decline even further without his influence, but Wiley knew that he needed to choose a role which would afford him the freedom to educate the public on the complete scope of topics relevant to pure foods and their relationship to human health.

“Good Housekeeping was now his public platform – and it was an effective one. At the magazine, […] he was free to write what he chose in a monthly column. Not surprisingly, he wrote in support of state food safety regulations and better federal protections. He also reported on scientific developments in food and nutrition. […] When his editors complained that housewives were unlikely to appreciate so much technical chemistry, he brushed off the criticism. Women should be treated as intelligent human beings, not as children, he stated. His contract with the magazine specified that no advertisements of food, drugs, or cosmetics would be run without his approval. He sent samples of all advertised products to a commercial laboratory for analysis. […] If he found the products deceptive or risky, he had the power to censor the ad – and he did so.”

At Good Housekeeping, Wiley had direct access to an audience of 400,000 readers. Far from being censored in what he could write, Wiley had the additional welcome responsibility of vetting every product which would appear in the pages of the magazine. With his findings based in concrete scientific experiments conducted in his state-of-the-art lab in Washington, Wiley no longer had to acquiesce to the interests of bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, and tycoons. He was the happiest he had been in his life serving the public directly through his work at the magazine.