Impact of risk assessment and the control of chemicals on assuring the safety of the food supply

Abstract

Measures for the protection of the consumer are amongst the earliest examples of social legislation. For food, protection of the purchasers against short weight in bread and the sale of unsound meat was attempted by an Act in England in 1266. Between the 13th and 19th centuries various other statutes were passed to deal with adulteration of foods, some of which, for example spices, were valuable as preservatives in pretechnological society. AlI such measures were ineffective largely because reliable methods for analysing food were not available. When analytical chemistry developed to the extent that the accurate and scientific identification of the ingredients of food became possible in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and improved educational facilities resulted in certain widespread publicity on food adulteration in the press and popular literature of the day having an impact on the public at “grass roots” level, the scene was set for the creation of the Select Committee on Adulteration of Food in 1855. The revelations in the Report of this Select Committee made inevitable the introduction of legislation which appeared as the Adulteration of Food and Drink Act in 1860. Since all the Act did was to empower Local Authorities to appoint Public Analysts to whom citizens could bring samples of food and drink for examination if they could afford the then enormous fee of up to 1 Os.6d, it was in practice a complete failure. Nevertheless it established that consumer protection was the proper role of the State. In 1872 the Act was strengthened, making the appointment of Public Analysts mandatory, and provided that Local Authority Inspectors be empowered to take samples of food, drink, and drugs for analysis. Public Analysts were also required to furnish quarterly reports to Local Authorities. But it did not require action to be taken, so enforcement was variable and urban authority complaints of weaknesses in the Act led to a further Select Committee review. Recommendations from this Committee resulted in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act (1875), which forms the basis of current law in the United Kingdom, over 100 years later. Herein appeared for the first time the socalled general provisions of the Act making it an offence to add anything to food or subtract anything from food so as to render it injurious to health, and providing clearly that “no person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food or anything which is not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by such purchaser.” Heavy penalties were imposed for the adulteration of food. The law, however, was still permissive, and since much still depended on enforcement, Local Authorities had to be persuaded to take enforcement action and appoint Public Analysts. Some were reluctant to do so, understandably perhaps in the context that the