On Feb. 24, 1914, the U.S. Supreme Court issued, in U.S. v. Lexington Mill and Elevator Company, its first ruling on food additives. It ruled that in order for bleached flour with nitrite residues to be banned from foods, the government must show a relationship between the chemical additive and the harm it allegedly caused in humans.

The court also noted that the mere presence of such an ingredient was not sufficient to render the food illegal. The primary purpose of Congress in enacting the Food and Drugs Act of 1906 was to prevent injury to the public health by the sale and transportation in interstate commerce of misbranded and adulterated food.

As against adulteration, the statute was intended to protect the public health from possible injury by adding to articles of food consumption poisonous and deleterious substances which might render such articles injurious to health. Where such a purpose has been effected by plain and unambiguous language by an act within the power of Congress, the only duty of the courts is to give the act effect according to its terms.

The inhibition in subdivision 5 of § 7 of the Food and Drugs Act of 1906 against the addition of any poisonous or other added deleterious ingredient which may render an article of food injurious to health is definitely limited to the particular class of adulteration specified, and in order to condemn the article under subdivision 5, it is incumbent upon the government to establish that the added substance may render the article injurious to health.

In subdivision 5 of § 7 of the Food and Drugs Act of 1906, the word “may” is used in its ordinary and usual signification, and if an article of food may not, by the addition of a small amount of poisonous substance, by any possibility injure the health of any consumer, it may not be condemned under this subdivision of the act.

“In my opinion, if the justices convicted the appellant of an offense under § 3 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875 on the ground that the ingredient mixed with the article of food was injurious to health, that the sulphate of copper was injurious to health, and not on the ground that the peas, by reason of the addition of sulphate of copper, were rendered injurious to health, the conviction is clearly wrong. To constitute an offense under the latter part of § 3, the article of food sold must, by the addition of an ingredient, be rendered injurious to health. All the circumstances must be examined to see whether the article of food has been rendered injurious to health.”

We reach the conclusion that the circuit court of appeals did not err in reversing the judgment of the district