Wiley was offered the position of Chief Chemist in the
United States Department of Agriculture by
George Loring, the Commissioner of Agriculture, in 1882. Loring was seeking to replace his chemist with someone who would employ a more objective approach to the study of sorghum, whose potential as a sugar source was far from proven. Wiley accepted the offer after being passed over for the presidency of Purdue, allegedly because he was "too young and too jovial", unorthodox in his religious belief, and also a bachelor. Wiley brought to Washington a practical knowledge of agriculture, a sympathetic approach to the problems of agricultural industry and an untapped talent for public relations. After assisting Congress in their earliest questions regarding the safety of the chemical preservatives then being employed in foods, Wiley was appropriated $5,000 in 1902 to study the effects of a diet including various
preservatives, on human volunteers. These tests were called Hygienic Table Trials. The subjects received $5 a month and free food to be systematically poisoned. 12 volunteers were chosen. One additive was added per trial but he struggled to find non-adulterated products to add the poisons to. First to be tested was
borax which tightened old meat which was starting to decompose. The borax was fed to the men in meat and dairy products. Some were given borax and some were not in order to control the study. These "poison squad" studies drew national attention to the need for a federal food and drug law. Wiley was originally aiming just to get foods labelled to correctly show their additives. However, he concluded that certain chemicals should be banned. The food industry rose in protest. The proposed Food Bill of 1902 failed to even register a vote, being defeated by lobbyists. He sought the support of female groups, not due to their direct political influence (as they still had none) but due to the domestic pressure which they could exert. The campaign spilled into wider community health and welfare, calling for public (municipal) control of all water supplies and sewer systems. His campaign gained weight when
Fannie Farmer joined and paralleled the call for "pure food". Heinz were one of the first companies to join the push for pure food and changed their recipe for tomato ketchup in 1902 to replace chemical preservatives with vinegar and introducing very hygienic practices into their factories. In 1905, the Poison Squad was set to work on
salicylic acid which was used in multiple products. It was found to cause bleeding of the stomach. In December 1905, Wiley organized a meeting of more progressive food producers (including Heinz) plus female activists with
Theodore Roosevelt to lobby for safe food legislation.
Upton Sinclair's book
The Jungle revealed inside information from the slaughterhouses of Chicago which caused great consternation. This non-scientific expose of the canned
meat industry reminded Roosevelt of his experiences with shoddy meat in Cuba in 1898. In June 1906 this led to the passing of the Meat Inspection Act (controlling slaughterhouses) and the Food and Drug Act (looking at prohibition of additives). The law allowed new chemicals to be added to the list of banned additives. The first one to target was
Formaldehyde which in 1907 was found to be highly dangerous despite widespread use. President Roosevelt brought one of his heroes,
Ira Remsen, in to monitor Wiley. This was bound to create conflict as Wiley had raised concerns regarding the president's use of
saccharin which had been invented by Remsen. This was intended to curb Wiley who had been having large shipments of food and additives condemned. Wiley soon became a crusader and coalition builder in support of national food and drug regulation. His work, and that of
Alice Lakey, spurred one million American women to write to the White House in support of the
Pure Food and Drug Act. Wiley was nicknamed "Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act" when it became law in 1906. He wrote two editions of
Foods and Their Adulteration (1907 and 1911), which described for an audience of non-specialists the history, preparation and subsequent adulteration of basic foodstuffs. He was a founding father of the
Association of Official Analytical Chemists, and left a broad and substantial legacy to the American pure food movement as its "crusading chemist". Wiley targeted
Coca-Cola in 1909, not because of its use of
cocaine which had ceased a few years before, but because of the excessive use of
caffeine which was proven to be addictive. The fears were particularly regarding children. This went to trial in 1911 where Coca-Cola argued it could be drunk with no ill effects whether addictive or not. The courts decided that Wiley had gone too far and Coca-Cola were found not guilty of breaching the Food and Drug Act: see
United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola. President Taft was pressured into firing Wiley but the press supported his continuing. The enforcement of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was assigned to the
Bureau of Chemistry, instead of the
Department of Commerce or the
Department of the Interior, which was a tribute to the scientific qualifications that the Bureau of Chemistry brought to its studies of food and drug adulteration, and misbranding. The first food and drug inspectors were hired to complement the work of the laboratory scientists, and an inspection program was launched which revolutionized the country's food supply within the first decade under the new federal law. Wiley's tenure generated controversy over his administration of the 1906 statute. Concerns over chemical preservatives, which had not been specifically addressed in the law, continued to be problematic. The
Secretary of Agriculture appointed a Referee Board of Consulting Scientists, headed by
Ira Remsen of
Johns Hopkins University, to repeat Wiley's human trials of preservatives. The use of
saccharin, bleached flour,
caffeine, and
benzoate of soda were all important issues which had to be settled by the courts in the early days under the new law. Under Wiley's leadership, however, the Bureau of Chemistry grew significantly in strength and stature after assuming responsibility for enforcement of the 1906 Act. Between 1906 and 1912, Wiley's staff expanded from 110 to 146. Appropriations, which had been $155,000 in 1906, were $963,780 in 1912. The Bureau moved into its own building and used the healing symbol of
Aesculapius's staff, or
Ophiuchus. In 1911, his enemies urged his dismissal from the Department of Agriculture over the technicality that an expert in his department had been paid above the legal rate. But later in the year, President
William Howard Taft wrote a letter that fully exonerated Wiley. Taft expressed his regret at Wiley's resignation and Agriculture Secretary
James Wilson spoke highly of how "valuable" Wiley had been, and in turn, Wiley thanked Wilson for the "personal kindness and regard shown him." ==Work at
Good Housekeeping==