From RossK, The Gazetteer, A New Market For A New White Powder:

…it has become religion among conservatives to denounce regulation, saying it stifles business and hinders economic growth. But consider:

At the turn of the last century, America was as riddled with scam artists as China is today. Snake oil salesmen—literally—abounded. Food safety was a huge issue. In 1906, however, Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle,” his exposé-novel about the meatpacking industry.

That book, pointed out Stanley Lubman, a longtime expert in Chinese law, in a recent blog post in The Wall Street Journal, is what propelled Theodore Roosevelt to propose the Food and Drug Administration. Which, in turn, reformed meat-processing— among many other things — and gave consumers confidence in the food they ate and the products they bought…