By Dr. Royal Lee

Summary: In this 1957 article form Herald of Health magazine, Dr. Royal Lee discusses the addictive qualities of caffeine as well as the health-busting practice of the originators of Coca-Cola to add extra, isolated caffeine to its popular soft drink. “The effects of drinking caffeine on an empty stomach and in a free state are far more dangerous than drinking an equal quantity of caffeine wrapped up with tannic acid in tea and coffee,” Dr. Lee writes, quoting the first head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Harvey Wiley. As Drs. Lee and Wiley also point out, the practices of Coca-Cola and many other of the country’s food processors were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court early in the twentieth century, but penalties against the companies have never been enforced because of the food manufacturers’ influence within the federal government. From Herald of Health magazine, 1957.