View report page

138
Your Medical Officer's appointment as certifying officer was sanctioned by
the Board on 6th November, 1907.
The certifying officer is required to keep himself informed, by personal
inquiry and other available ways, as to —
1. Structure and character of premises on which the meat foods are
prepared, stored, or packed (as the case may be) in regard to
opportunities of objectionable or unwholesome contamination of
these foods, at any stage of their preparation, storage, or packing.
2. Cleanliness and wholesomeness of methods employed in preparing,
storing, or packing the meat foods in question.
3. Precautions taken to avoid the utilisation for food purposes of
diseased, unsound, or unwholesome meat in any portion of the
premises; and arrangements safely to dispose of any meat which, on
account of disease, unsoundness, unwholesomeness, or for any other
reason is unfit for human food.
If the information obtained by the certifying officer in regard to (1), (2)
and (3) above is not in his view satisfactory, certification is to be withheld.
Information is forthwith to be given to the Board by the certifying officer
in any instance where he has refused to grant a certificate.
The certifying officer will, as and when requested by the Board, give such
information as may be required by them in regard to the methods of inquiry,
inspection, and certification which have been adopted in regard to the premises
in question.
If the Board have reason to believe that improper use is being made at any
time of any declaration, or of any certificate given by a certifying officer
respecting any premises, the Board will cease to authorise the issue of official
certificates in respect of such premises.
To the United States of America and the Philippine Islands.
Very similar procedure to the foregoing is now required in the case of
meat food products exported to the United States of America and the
Philippine Islands.
In consequence of the Food Laws in force in these places, requiring that all
imported meat food products shall be accompanied by an official attestation of
precautions taken to safeguard the wholesomeness of the foods in question,
the Local Government Board, at the request of the Foreign Office, have
issued a memorandum for the guidance of persons in England and Wales
engaged in the export of such articles to these places.
The Regulations laid down were almost precisely the same as those relating
to meat products exported to the Argentine, the only difference being that in
addition to the certifying officer being required to keep himself informed with