The Consumer Council is a curious creature. It is, according to its ordinance, not a part of the government. It is, though, according to the same ordinance, required to follow any written instruction from the chief executive.
And it is, of course, governed, so far as the actual council governs anything, by government appointees. This is not usually relevant to the council’s work, which is to help consumers with individual complaints and publish reports on topics relevant to consumption. The reports are a reliable source of news, though sometimes seem to be trying rather too hard.
Some of the “safety hazards” of which the council warns us are rather remote. A recent survey of bottled drinking water, for example, worried about bromates, chemicals often found in water which has been chemically purified. Bromates pose a cancer risk.
On the other hand if you drink a daily two quarts, or 1.89 litres, of bottled water containing the upper end of the range of bromates allowed by food regulations, your lifetime cancer risk goes up by about two in 10,000, according to the New York State Health Department. Other risks which agitate the council are rather obvious.
A report on beer, for example, warned that consuming large quantities regularly will make you grow fatter. This will not have come as a great shock to the beer-drinking community. And so to last week, when the Consumer Council departed from its usual confident, if nit-picking, tone to engage in a full-court grovel before .