AMERICAN FOOD PRODUCTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8174, 6 August 1906, Page 2

AMERICAN FOOD PRODUCTS.

Mr Chatnpe Andrews, counsel of tho Medical Sooiety of the County of New York and a leader in the movement to put an end to the poisoning of the people by means of adulterated foods and patent medicines, writes to the New York correspondent of "The Times as follows: —•' The exposure of the methods of the Beef Trust, though horrifying, fails to carry its full signihcance unless viewed as incidental and accidental exposure of a general system Of adulteration and deception in food products. Those familiar with the subject know that the greed of many producers of food and medical products m the Unitod States is responsible for conditions in business tnat are positively revolting, •fraudulent weights, infringements of copyright and labels, and cheats and frauds of similar characters aro the smallest part of these evils. Substitution of baso and injurious ingredients in both drugs and foods is practised on a gigantic scale. Dangerous dyes, chemicals, and adulterants are used wherever they can be substituted for more expensive materials. The one idea is to sell to the public as base an article as possible. That tho pub!i> aro gradually awakening to the need of organisation in their own defence is shown by the call for a conference of public-spirited men and women and representatives from pliilantrophic, charitable, and religious bodies generally to meet in New York in the autumn to discuss ways and means to suppress the adulteration of food products and the restitution of drugs and unrestricted sale of opium, alcohol, and poisons of many sorts in patent medicines. This movement, first suggested by me in the Journal of the American Med cal Association, has been taken up by the Academy of Medicine in New York, tho Civil Union of Philadelphia, and' many other prominent organisations of the country. Though no public announcement has been made yet in the press of the United States for various reasons, it bids fair to be a reform movement as far reaching in its plan and scope as any reform movement of the last 100 years. The outcome will undoubtedly be *he formation of a national society for tho preservation of public health."