Phoebe Judge

Borax.

Soup.

Borax.

Turkey.

Borax.

The Washington Post reported on the poison squad often.

People seemed to like reading about it so much that sometimes a reporter would just make something up.

One article claimed that eating the borax had made the volunteers turn pink.

Quote,

Each of the young men undergoing the course of treatment has blossomed out with a bright pink complexion that would make a society bride sick with envy.

After it was published, the USDA received a stack of letters from women asking what they needed to take to get such beautiful skin.

But as the Borax experiment went on, the volunteers started getting very sick.

But it was too late.

Wiley and the Poison Squad had already moved on to salicylic acid, and those volunteers were doing even worse than the ones who had eaten the borax.

Wiley started writing complaint letters to magazines when they printed advertisements for foods that weren't what they claimed to be.

In one letter, he wrote about a product called malt coffee that was made from roasted barley and asked how it could have, quote, real coffee flavor.

He wrote, is there anything that can have the real coffee flavor except coffee?

Critics called him the policeman of the American stomach.

One editorial in a publication called The California Fruit Grower said, let somebody muzzle the chemist who would destroy our appetite.

We'll be right back.