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A review by paroof
The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Deborah Blum
3.0
This is the Go Big Read book for our university this year. It's a fascinating look at the how and why the Food and Drug Administration was formed. My main take-away from the book is overwhelming gratitude for Dr. Harvey Wiley, a chemist in the Agriculture Department who unceasingly advocated for safe food and drug legislation. It was easy to compare the government's struggle to balance science, consumer advocacy and business interests back then to the current day issues.
It's an interesting piece of history, but the book focuses mainly on Wiley's life and advocacy and there is a lot of detail. At the end, the book touches briefly on some more recent food scares and policy issues. For me, I would have preferred a longer section on some of those items. However, I suppose those are left for another book - or as I imagine, quite a few student papers written on those topics.
It's an interesting piece of history, but the book focuses mainly on Wiley's life and advocacy and there is a lot of detail. At the end, the book touches briefly on some more recent food scares and policy issues. For me, I would have preferred a longer section on some of those items. However, I suppose those are left for another book - or as I imagine, quite a few student papers written on those topics.