Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA)

The act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 3, 1996. Since there was to be no phase-in period, the EPA was forced to begin quickly the process of writing and issuing interpretative policies and rules.

FQPA amended the food safety laws to establish a single, health-based safety standard for all pesticide residues in food. Under FQPA, EPA must specifically determine that each newly established tolerance is safe for infants and children.

FQPA amends the two most important laws regulating pesticides in the United States: the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which sets guidelines for pesticide use, registration, classification, an applicator certification; and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA), which regulates the setting of tolerances for pesticides used on food crops.

The Food Quality Protection Act puts the safety of the children first. First, it sets clear, consistent standards for all pesticide use on all foods for all health risks. It also sets that standard high for all pesticide use on all food for all health risks. The act also reformed the regulatory process for pesticides. Safer substitutes would be approved faster.
Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA)

Fair Packaging and Labeling Act

The two Acts which form the cornerstone for food labeling regulations in the USA are the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDA), and The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act.

The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (FPLA) 1966 standardized the labels of products and required that labels provide honest information. The FPLA relates only to the net quantity of contents information on packages, goods, or commodities that are sold on the basis of weight or measure.

These rules apply to all types of products, such as groceries, cosmetics, cleaners and chemicals. The FPLA requires that all packages of household consumer commodities, as defined by the Act, bear a label containing certain basic information about the nature source and contents of the commodity.

It is the responsibility of the consumer to compare weights and sizes of products available – a much easier job when accurate, standard information is available for comparison.

Amendments to the FPLA were passed in 1992. These laws require labels to include conversion of quantities into a metric measurement in additional to the US system of weights and measures.
Fair Packaging and Labeling Act

Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act 1938

Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act 1938 would provide for the establishment of 3 kinds of food standards
*Standard of identity
*Standards of quality
*Standards regulating the fill in container

In 1933, Rexford G. Tugwell, with help of Professors Milton Handler of Columbia and David Cavers of Duke, drafted new regulation. The bill greatly expanded government control over the drug and food processing industry.

A major push for the enactment of the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938 was the sulfanilamide elixir tragedy of 1937, which caused 107 deaths. Sulfanilamide was one of the first of the miracle anti-infective sulfa drugs marketed, but a manufacturer mistakenly used diethylene glycol as an agent in its preparation of sulfanilamide elixir.

The incident made the limits of the 1906 law quite clear. Because there were provision against dangerous drugs, the FDA could move only on the technically of misbranding. The new law required that no new drug could be marketed until proven safe for use when used according to directions on the label.

Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act 1938 simply eliminated the ‘distinctive name proviso’ and required instead that the label of a food ‘bear its common or usual name’.

The food would be illegal (misbranded under the law) if ti represented itself as a standardized food unless it conformed to that standard.
Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act 1938

Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

Federal regulation of food and drugs in the United States began, in a broad across-the-board way, with the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906.

The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the interstate distribution or sale of adulterated and misbranded food and drugs.

Prior to 1906 there were no national food safety regulations in the United Sates. Instead there was a hodgepodge of state and local laws and ordinances that were based more on quality of food than on its safety.

The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 became law mostly because of revelations of unsanitary and unethical practices in the meatpacking industry and because of the many potent and dangerous drugs in the market.

Many products including meats, patented medicines and substances that contained cocaine were sold to an unsuspecting public with labels that did not adequately describe the contents and the safety in consuming them. The Pure Food and Drug Act designated the USP (United States Pharmacopeia) and NF (National Formulary) as the official stands and empowered the federal government to enforce those standards.

The Pure food Act was later superseded in 1938 by Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. This act prohibited any food or drug that is dangerous to health to be sold in interstate commerce.
Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

Food Safety In History

Food Safety In History
Before manufacturing traditional, farming practices and preserving techniques were used to ensure safe food.

During industrial revolution, food began to be processed and packaged. Lacking regulation, manufacturers were free to add whatever they liked to their products. Sweeping from the floor were included in pepper, lead salts were added to candy and cheese, textile inks were used as coloring agents, bricks dust was added to cocoa, and copper salts were added to peas and pickles.

In the 1880s, women started organizing groups to protest the conditions at slaughterhouses in New York City and adulterated foods in other parts of the country.

In 1883, Harvey W. Wiley, chief chemist of the U.S Agricultural Department’s Bureau of Chemistry, began experimenting with food and drug adulteration.

Meanwhile, Upton Sinclair spent several weeks in a meat packing plant investigating labor conditions and turned his discoveries into a book, The Jungle, published in 1906. Although the focus of that book was the conditions immigrants experienced in the early twentieth century, there were graphic descriptions of the filth and poor hygiene in packing plants. It caught the public attention.

People began complaining to Congress and to President Theodore Roosevelt. Pressure was also mounting from foreign governments that wanted some assures that food imported from United States was pure and wholesome.

Two acts were passed in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Beef Inspection Act, to improve food safety conditions.

In 1927, U.S Food, Drug and Insecticide Administration (shortened to Food and Drug Administration) or FDA was created to enforce the Pure Food and Drug act.


The Pure food Act was later superseded in 1938 by Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. This act prohibited any food or drug that is dangerous to health to be sold in interstate commerce.

In 1958, concern over cancer led to the adoption of the Delaney Amendments, which expanded the FDA’s regulatory powers to set limits on pesticides and additives. Manufacturers had to prove that additives and pesticides were safe before they could be used.

The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 standardized the labels of products and required that labels provide honest information.

The next major act was the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. It set new regulations requiring implementation of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control points (HACCPs) for most food processor.

The Food quality Protection Act also changed the way acceptable pesticide levels are calculated. Now total exposure for all sources must be calculated.
Food Safety In History