Scary

A scary little tidbit I found written on /. about the FDA's start:

In 1937, the Massengill Company put on the market an antibiotic elixer for children composed of the drug sulfanilamide dissolved in diethylene glycol and flavoured with raspberry extract. Massengill never tested the product for safety. Diethylene glycol being a very nasty poison, 107, mostly children, died shortly thereafter from liver failure caused by this medicine. Massengill could not be sued under the laws at the time because, as the President of the company said,

My chemists and I deeply regret the fatal results, but there was no error in manufacture of the product. We have been supplying legitimate professional demand, and not once could have forseen the unlooked for results. I do not feel that there was any responsibility on our part.
The nation's response to this was to pass the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which established the FDA and granted it sweeping powers to regulate the market to ensure that all food, drugs, and cosmetics were safe.

Wow. Hard to believe that's the way things worked before 1938.