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(81)
contain genuine cream,, Provision is made for the sampling officer to
inform the manufacturer or packer of a food that it has been sampled,
thus ensuring that the latter cannot be ignorant of the fact until,
perhaps, proceedings may be commenced against them. Similarly with
certain articles sealed in containers it is now unnecessary for the
sampling officer to open them to divide the contents; it will be
sufficient for him to buy three or multiples of three of the article
and to separate the containers or articles. This provision would
apply to such goods as whole fruit jam, medicaments containing
volatile constituents, condensed milk, etc.
Action may now be taken against proprietary medicaments, which
have previously been protected from attack if they were supplied in
response to a demand for the article.
Various other fresh points have been introduced. A part-time
Public Analyst has been placed in the same category as any other
officer of his Local Authority, when acting in his capacity as a
Public Analyst, Similarly a Public Analyst may now pass to another
Public Analyst a sample, which he is unable to analyse personally.
With the increase in cost of apparatus and the specialised knowledge
required to be able to operate some of this apparatus this provision
has become essential.
From the point of view of the Public Analyst and of the Local
Authority a most unfortunate insertion was made in the Act on the
third Reading in the House of Commons and it has been impossible to
have this removed. This is the clause relating to what has been
christened as the "Bob-a-nob" certificate or the provision that the
Local Authority must supply any vendor of a sample who demands it
with a copy of the Public Analyst's certificate on payment of a fee
of one shilling,, A public analyst can only report on a sample to
the best of his ability and knowledge. It is sometimes impossible
to detect the presence of some deleterious substance or the destruction
of some essential constituent in a food without inside information
or very specialised knowledge in a particular field. He may
therefore occasionally report an adulterated product as satisfactory.
During the late War it was a common practice for certain disreputable
manufacturers to ask Local Authorities whether samples had been
reported as genuine by Public Analysts and to use such reports when
any adverse comments were made. There appears, moreover, to be
nothing to prevent copies of these certificates being used for
advertisement purposes.
Care will have to be exercised in bringing into permanent
legislation much of the temporary legislation now in force. Thus the
new Act specifies that "chewing gum" is a Food but the Mineral Oil in
Food Order prohibits the presence of more than 0.2 per cent of mineral
hydrocarbons in foods, other than dried fruit, which may contain 0.5
Per cent, and citrus fruit which may only contain 0.1 per cent. Chewing
gu* generally contains up to A per cent of one or other of the various
paraffin wax hydrocarbon products.