Nobody is arguing that the population of the US was illiterate when the FDA was established. The argument is that it might have made sense at a time when the US

Nobody is arguing that the population of the US was illiterate when the FDA was established. The argument is that it might have made sense at a time when the US population was illiterate, but now that everyone has access to a world of knowledge in the palm of their hand 24x7x365 the FDA does not make sense. The argument was that the FDA never made sense, not even when it was first established in America, and for precisely that reason -- Americans were not illiterate.