By the end of the 19th century, food could be dangerous. Products were often diluted or contaminated with chemicals; food manufacturers were knowingly selling harmful products in the race to cut costs and embrace the rise of industrial chemistry. 'The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century' tells a dramatic true story of Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley who, as chief chemist of the government's Department of Agriculture, began methodically investigating food and drink fraud, pushing back against manufacturers on the side of government regulation.

Deborah Blum, director of MIT's Knight Science Journalism Program and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, tells this sometimes disgusting story, including the human tests conducted by the department, with help from John Jay College professors Nathan Lents and Gerald Markowitz.

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