Should the current Supreme Court ever have the opportunity to rule on the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, chances are that they would kill it it as they have done with the Voting Rights Act.
Well, I haven't read [the decision] yet. Obviously, it is an important bill that passed back in the sixties, at a time when we had a very different America than we have today.
[...] I think I'm just going to have to read it first, but I would say that I do think America is very different from what it was in the 1960s.
America is also "very different" from what it was in 1906, so why not shit-can Teddy Roosevelt's Pure Food and Drug Act?
Face it, no one is being poisoned by borax, benzoate, formaldehyde, sulfites, and salicylates, which were all mixed in with America's food by food producers back before 1906. America is different, you see.
It's not like it was when putrid foods were laced with poison, which led to "Table Trials" where young men labeled "The Poison Squad" ate foods laced with harmful preservatives. The idea was spearheaded by the Bureau of Chemistry Chief chemist Harvey W. Wiley, M.D., considered by many to be the founding father of the FDA.
You can read about it here in detail- 'None But the Brave Can Eat the Fare' (pdf)
As daring as it was to submit to such testing in the first place, the men--who responded to Wiley's appeal to promote scientific knowledge while getting free meals--agreed to do so for at least six months. They also agreed to not hold the government responsible for any illness or injury that might result.
As a result, four of the preservatives tasted by the Squad are long gone from the food additive market--borax, salicylic acid, formaldehyde, and copper sulfate.
In essence, the experiment worked to some degree, just as the Voting Rights Act has.
Not all poisons have been eliminated from our food chain. The fight against Genetic Modified Organisms (GMOs) continues, but there is little doubt that the food chain and humans have been somewhat protected, and we are well aware of Republican abuses in even the most recent elections. Both the food supply and the voting booth need more protections, not fewer.
Wiley stopped the experiments only when the chemicals made several of the diners so sick that they couldn't function--nausea, vomiting, stomach aches, and the inability to perform work of any kind.
In the end, the Poison Squad, and all that they ate, helped pave the way for federal regulation of foods and drugs in the United States--the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, also called the "Wiley Act" and later its successor, the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
If we look at the SCOTUS ruling as an experiment, it is predictable that results will be more than just a tummy ache. If the conservative goal to control all three branches is eventually successful, the laws emanating from Washington will do more than make people ill. It will kill people.
Obamacare- gone
Social Security- gone
Medicare/Medicaid- gone
Unemployment benefits- gone or slashed
Food Stamps- gone or slashed
And, by the way, the FDA would be but a memory.
Formaldehyde, anyone?