DIRTY MILK KILLS 3000 EACH YEAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18046, 5 January 1927, Page 3

DIRTY MILK KILLS 3000 EACH YEAR.

ENGLISH TRADERS LAUGH AT LAW. (Special to the “Star.”) LON DON, Xovember 4. Startling evidence of the mortality and sickness caused by dirty milk, and glaring instances of how unscrupulous distributors evade the totally inadequate laws, will be given at a National Milk Conference in London this month, held under the chairmanship of Mr Neville Chamberlain, Minister of Health. -Tuberculosis caused by dirty milk is estimated to kill 3000 people a year in England and Wales. The efforts of Parliament to deal with the purification of the milk supply have been dogged with misfortune, writes our Political Correspondent. The problem was never an easy one, as in legislating against badly-managed dairy farms care has to be taken not to penalise the good farmers who supplv pure milk. The pre-war efforts of the Local Government Board culminated in a Milk and Dairies Act in 1914, which was to have been enforced in 1915, but the wax and its aftermath put this Act hopelesslv on the shelf, for many years. Sir Alfred Mond, in 1922, took up the subject, and passed an Act making some provisional reforms. It was not until September, 1925, that the old Act came into operation, and by then some provisions were out of date. Accordingly Mr N. Chamberlain this summer drafted a number of more up-to-date purification regulations. Objection was taken to these py some dairy interests, and a two months delay took place. The regulation requiring a supply of

water on all registered premises ” .suitable and sufficient ” was postponed for eighteen months, some other alterations were made, and the amended regulations came into operation at the beginning of last month. UNCOUNTABLE GERMS. The conference convened by the National Clean Milk Society will have the support of 35 other important bodies. “ We hope to make a big stride in our endeavours to purify milk,” the secretary of the National Clean Milk Society~ told the " Westminster Gazette ” yesterday. “ Reports sent in by medical officers of health show the presence of 10,000,000 germs per cubic centimetre in some cases, and in others so many that the examiners could not count them. “ The maximum number allowed in ‘certified’ milk is 30,000, and in Grade ‘A ’ milk 200,000. Anything over 1,000,000 per cubic centimetre is highly dangerous.” The conference will discuss the sale of milk by firms who, unable to secure license to grade their bacterial milk as Grade "A,” or “certified,” attract the custom of mothers by such catch phrases as “ guaranteed milk,” or “ nursery milk.'' Mr Wilfred Buckley, founder of the National Clean Milk Society, told the “ Westminster Gazette ” that the examination of 1215 cases of human tuberculosis showed that 935 cases were purely human and 2SO were of bovine infections, a bovine percentage of 23.05. “ It is estimated,” he said, “ that the bovine bacillus causes about 0.44 per cent, of the total deaths from tuberculosis in England and Wales, or approximately 3000 deaths every year. CRIPPLED FOR LIFE. “ The number of people who do not die, but who sutler, perhaps throughout life, from tuberculosis as a result of drinking infected milk, is very much higher.” A Harley Street specialist stated }resterdav that in the case of children he i had found that tuberculosis other than pulmonary tuberculosis was due in 33 1-3 per cent, of instances to contaminated milk.