A little more than a century ago, concerned about the potentialdangers of food preservatives such as formaldehyde, Congresspassed, and President Theodore Roosevelt signed, the Pure Foodand Drug Act. The act sought to prevent the "manufacture, sale,or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonousor deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors." The officeinitially charged with this responsibility was the Bureau ofChemistry of the Department of Agriculture.
Since that time, the bureau has grown into the Food and DrugAdministration (FDA), an agency in the Department of Healthand Human Services (DHHS) responsible for oversight of . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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Dr. Hamburg is the commissioner, and Dr. Sharfstein the principal deputy commissioner, of the Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD.
This article (10.1056/NEJMp0903764) was published on May 26, 2009, at NEJM.org.
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