mar 5, 1906 - Federal Meat Inspection Act

Description:

A law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under strictly regulated sanitary conditions. These requirements also apply to imported meat products, which must be inspected under equivalent foreign standards. USDA inspection of poultry was added by the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (1938) authorizes the FDA to provide inspection services for all livestock and poultry species not listed in the FMIA or PPIA, including venison and buffalo. The Agricultural Marketing Act (1929) authorizes the USDA to offer voluntary, fee-for-service inspection services for these same species.

The law was partly a response to the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, an exposé of the Chicago meatpacking industry, as well as to other Progressive Era muckraking publications of the day. While Sinclair's dramatized account was intended to bring attention to the terrible working conditions in Chicago, the public was more horrified by the prospect of bad meat.