Beginning as the Division of Chemistry and then (after July 1901) the Bureau of Chemistry, the modern regulatory functions of the FDA traces back to 1906 with the passage Pure Food and Drugs Act on June 30, 1906, “this added regulatory functions” toe the Bureau’s scientific mission.” [1, 2]
Harvey Washington Wiley, Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Chemistry in the Department of Agriculture, had been the driving force behind this 1906 law (known as the Wiley Act) and headed its enforcement in the early years, providing basic elements of protection that consumers had never known before that time.
In July 1927 the Bureau of Chemistry became the Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration when the non-regulatory research functions of the bureau were transferred elsewhere in the department.
In July 1930 the name was shortened to the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA remained under the Department of Agriculture until June 1940, when the agency was moved to the new Federal Security Agency. In April 1953 the agency again was transferred, to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). By 1968 the FDA became part of the Public Health Service within HEW, and in May 1980 the education function was removed from HEW to create the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), FDA’s current home. [2]
In 2001 it was stated the US FDA “is a scientific, regulatory, and public health agency that oversees items accounting for 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers. Its jurisdiction encompasses most food products (other than meat and poultry), human and animal drugs, therapeutic agents of biological origin, medical devices, radiation-emitting products for consumer, medical, and occupational use, cosmetics, and animal feed….The agency grew from a single chemist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1862 to a staff of approximately 9,100 employees and a budget of $1.294 billion in 2001.
“Also, the FDA monitors the manufacture, import, transport, storage, and sale of about $1 trillion worth of products annually at a cost to taxpayers of about $3 per person.”