Meat Inspection Act of 1906

SIGNED INTO LAW by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 30, 1906, the Federal Meat Inspection Act enacted sweeping reform of the meat packing industry, mandating that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspect all cattle, swine, sheep, goats, and horses both before and after they are slaughtered and processed into products for human consumption. The act prohibits the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and products as food and ensures that livestock and products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. The act applies to livestock and products within the United States as well as imports, which must be inspected under equivalent foreign inspection standards.

The 1906 legislation amended prior Meat Inspection Acts of 1890 and 1891 and other laws passed in 1897 that had provided for USDA inspection of slaughtered animals and meat products, but had proven ineffective in regulating many unsafe and unsanitary practices by the meat packing industry, also known as the Beef Trust. Beginning in the 1880s, Harvey W. Wiley, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture, had issued reports noting the health hazards posed by the adulteration of processed foods such as canned meat and the chemicals used as preservatives and coloring agents. The Association of Official Agricultural Chemists (an organization founded by Wiley) began a lobbying effort in favor of federal legislation governing the packing and purity of food products.

The first widespread public attention to the unsafe practices of the meatpacking industry was in 1898, when the press reported that Armour & Co. had supplied tons of rotten canned beef to the U.S. Army in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The meat had been packed in tins along with a visible layer of boric acid that acted as a preservative and masked the stench of the rotten meat. Troops who consumed the meat fell ill, leaving them unfit for combat, and some died. Roosevelt, who served in Cuba as a colonel, testified in 1899 that he would as soon have eaten his old hat. Other soldiers and officers testified as well.

The canned meat scandal prompted Thomas F. Dolan, a former superintendent for Armour & Co., to sign an affidavit noting the ineffectiveness of government inspectors and stating that the company's common practice was to pack and sell “carrion.” The New York Journal published Dolan's statement on March 4, 1899. Several states subsequently passed laws regulating the purity of food products, and the Senate formed the Pure-Food Investigating Committee that held hearings in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City from 1899 to 1900. The committee declared such common meat preservatives as borax, salicylic acid, and formaldehyde to be “unwholesome,” but lacked convincing evidence that these preservatives or other additives and coloring agents were actually harmful to human health. The press also reported from the committee's hearings that as much as 15 to 20 percent of the nation's food supply was adulterated—made impure by the addition of foreign or inferior substances. These concerns were in addition to the health problems posed by the packaging of substandard or condemned meat products.

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