This research explores the rise of the public sector in the United States (US). In this research, the rise of the pub lic sector is reviewed through the illustration of two public sector organizations. In each instance, the motivations for the creation of the organizations, together with the function of the organizations, are presented. The two public sector organizations used for illustrative purposes in this research are the United States Food and Drug Administrtion (FDA), and the Federal Reserve System of the United States.
Environmental health, as a concept, contains elements of both environmental protection and public health, although the scope of environmental health does not encompass the totality of either environmental protection or public health. A soci ety's food supply is a part of its environment, and it is a part of the societal environment which affects public health. Protection of a society's food supply, thus, is a matter of national welfare. By protecting the food supply, a society attempts to insure that organisms and substances harmful to human life do not reach members of the society through the food chain.
1 2 In the United States, by the time one sits down to break fast, a "half a dozen agencies of the federal government have dealt with the food" (Cummings, and Wise, 1989, 12). One of these six federal agencies is the FDA. This state of affairs, however, was not always the case in the United States.
The Meat Inspection Act and the Food and Drugs Act were both enacted into law in 1906 (Kotler, 1987). The Meat Inspec tion Act provides for the federal enforcement of sanitary regu lations in meat packing facilities, and is administered by the Department of Agriculture. The Food and Drugs Act forbade the manufacture, sale, or transport of adulterated or fraudulently labeled food and drugs in interstate commerce (Peterson, 1986). It was not until 1927, however, that an independent regulato...