In December 2, 1861 an act was passed to establish the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), President Abraham Lincoln signed the act into law May 15, 1862. Around this time half of all Americans lived on farms – which is why Lincoln referred to it as “The People’s Department.” [1, 2, 3]
The first “Commissioner of Agriculture Isaac Newton, head of the new Department of Agriculture, appointed Charles M. Wetherill to the position of Chemist of the Department in 1862, a function that the Patent Office had transferred to Agriculture.” …The position eventually grew into the Division of Chemistry and then by 1901 the Bureau of Chemistry. [5]
The role of the Division of Entomology at the USDA was to “learn everything there was to know about agricultural pests, and then to destroy them. The intended beneficiaries of this project were panicked farmers whose [emerging monoculture] fields were being decimated by insect invasions.” The first head of the USDA Division of Entomology was Charles Valentine Riley who advocated for biological control, although “amateurish” chemical compounds of “arsenic and lead and kerosene” were also sprayed over crops at the time. After Riley’s accidental death on September 14, 1895, Leland Howard, a “good progressive” took charge of the Entomology department and ushered in the era of widespread chemical pest control. [6]
Prof. Howard, who contributed to Ronald Ross’ 1910 book on Malaria, seised the opportunity to promote chemical control of insects by shifting focus to the “tormenting plague” of mosquitoes and a means of alleviating the “public health anxieties…” [6, 7]
Up until June 1940 the FDA resided under the purview of the USDA. [4] but with the advent of edible vaccines, who’s role is it to regulate prophylactic food?