Distillery milk and Covid vaccine safety

Distillery milk, or swillmilk, poisoned and killed New York City children in the late 1800s. This and other scams led to today's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect American health.

Among the many reasons I've found for vaccine hesitancy, probably the most common one is whether it's safe. How can a vaccine, people ask, be developed so quickly? They must have taken shortcuts. 

Well the "they" in this instance is the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, which we hear talked about so often when news of the vaccine and its development and implementation is given over TV, the Internet, radio, etc. Now the FDA is more than 100 years old and has a very interesting history in protecting the health of Americans from new drugs, new food additives, or any medical device and procedure that is made available to the general public. 

In the late 1800s health standards were so low or non-existent that there existed a dangerous type of milk, more poison than food, that was delivered to children of New York City.

Devious dairy farmers and makers of grain alcohol combined to produce a concoction known as distillery milk. The scheme work this way: after grain alcohol was produced, there remained a weak yet slightly nutritious type of mash. The unscrupulous businessmen thought that this gruel could be given to dairy cows, which were producing milk in the borough of Brooklyn... remember this was the late 1800s.

The distillery owners and the dairy farmers got together, literally moving their plants next to each other to save every penny for their scam. The barely nutritious mash left over from the alcohol production was sent next door to the dairy cows. There the emaciated cows produced thin, blue colored milk, almost completely lacking in nutrition. 

To fix the color, the dairies added chalk. To thicken it, they added Plaster of Paris. Thus was born "distillery milk," also know as "swillmilk."

Children around New York City, particularly in Manhattan, were given this poison in schools, got sick, and died. An investigation by the private New York Academy of Sciences unveiled the scheme, and it was eventually stopped. 

So bad was the need for regulation that the federal Department of Agriculture began an investigation and by 1906, with the backing of President Theodore Roosevelt, the Pure Food and Drug law was enacted. With that law came the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration.

So while nothing is certain in this world, the presence and the rigorous testing and precautions of the FDA give us a sense of safety and security. Clinical trials are the gold standard for drugs. foods, and any medical devices or procedures. The Covid vaccines underwent rigorous four-step clinical trials, that were only speeded up by the vaccine makers who took the gamble that they could conduct several of these steps, at their own financial risk, at the same time. So sure were they that the vaccines would prove safe and effective that manufacturing actually began before the vaccines had received complete approval. The vaccines however could not be released to the public until that approval was granted by the food and drug administration.

Get the facts today!