TIL about "Swill milk" where cows were fed distillery waste causing cow teeth rot and disease. It was also adulterated with raw eggs, burn sugar, etc. Swill milk lead to over 8,000 infant's deaths - eviltoast
  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    It’s so much worse than the headline. IIRC, mercury and lead (among others like just straight ass white paint) were used as whitening agents, and the milk was specifically marketed towards immigrants as an affordable and nutritious infant food. It caused a huge scandal at the time and (shooting from the hip here, double checking encouraged) prompted NY to implement some of the first food health laws in the US. I can’t help but think that this is the kind of market innovation we’ll get as republicans ‘deregulate’.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This is exactly what deregulation leads to. People seem to forget that regulations have a reason, just like vaccines have a reason. Granted some regulations are heavy handed or just overbearing, but then tweak them… don’t remove regulations because we never had someone do what it was designed to prevent.