Episode notes
In 1902, the U.S. government recruited young volunteers to eat meals deliberately laced with preservatives like borax. This episode tells the story of Harvey Washington Wiley, the eccentric chemist behind the Poison Squad, and his crusade to create federal food safety in America.
We follow Wiley from an Indiana farm and a remarkable education to the USDA, where the polariscope helped him expose adulterated food. We explore formaldehyde-laced milk, the coalition of women's groups and producers like H.J. Heinz that pushed the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act into law, his battles over saccharin and Coca-Cola, and his later work launching the Good Housekeeping seal.
- How the polariscope revealed sugar cut with cheap glucose
- Why embalmed milk and borax-treated meat became common in a rapidly urbanizing country
- The hygienic table trials and the physical toll on the Poison Squad volunteers
- How Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and export fears helped pass the 1906 food laws
- Wiley's clash with Theodore Roosevelt, the Coca-Cola caffeine trial, and the libertarian critique of his legacy