Safe to Eat? American Food Safety · Episode 4 of 8 · 16 min
One Hundred Dead, and a New Law
In 1937 a Tennessee drug company dissolved a medicine in a chemical cousin of antifreeze. More than a hundred people died, many of them children, and the only crime was mislabeling. The outrage broke a congressional deadlock and produced the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, followed by mid-century amendments that built today's regulatory architecture.
Who's who
- Harold Cole WatkinsMassengill chief chemist who formulated the elixir without safety testing
- Franklin D. Roosevelt+28 more episodesPresident who signed the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
Where it happens
- Bristol, TennesseeHome of the S.E. Massengill Company
Timeline
- September-October 1937Elixir Sulfanilamide sold; more than 100 people die across 15 states
- 1938Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act signed, replacing the 1906 law
- 1954Miller Pesticide Amendment sets pesticide-residue tolerances
- 1958Food Additives Amendment requires safety proof and includes the Delaney Clause
- 1967Wholesome Meat Act strengthens the 1906 meat law
Still debated
The death toll is given as more than a hundred, with 107 most often cited. The Delaney Clause's strict zero-tolerance rule sits uneasily with modern trace-detection science, and the 1938 Act had been debated for years before the disaster broke the deadlock.
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