Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DECISION-MAKING of world food standards body Codex Alimentarius could be made simpler and more transparent, under a review by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation and World Health Organisation. They think, with the World Trade Organisation increasingly using Codex standards to adjudicate food trade disputes, governments and other parties should have more input into their establishment.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
THE FIRST steps have been taken towards making cigarettes – a cornerstone of small shop revenue – an under-the-counter product worldwide. Laws have already been passed in Canada and Ireland banning the public display of tobacco products, dismaying shopkeepers’ representatives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne has unveiled food industry proposals that the European Commission will make later this year. They include regulations on nutritional, functional and health claims made on packaging, updating rules on food contact materials for new types of packaging, non-GM reforms to the EU novel food regulation and amendments to EU legislation on food additives and sweeteners.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A SURVEY conducted by the Food and Veterinary Office of the European Commission on pesticide residues has found that maximum safety limits were exceeded in 4.5 per cent of 45,000 samples of fruit, vegetable and cereals analysed in the year 2000.…

BY MARK ROWE
FRENCH scientists may have found the first biological evidence that tobacco can make smokers less intelligent and more forgetful. Scientists at the Paris-based National Institute for Health and Medical Research found in tests on rats that the harmful nicotine in cigarettes destroys brain cells and impedes production of new ones.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has extended a ban on the export of all live pigs, together with porcine semen, ova and embryos, to parts of France, Germany and Luxembourg following new outbreaks of classical swine fever. At the same time it has ordered a one-month extension of controls in Spain until 30 June.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LETS face it. The reputation of the European Union for taking firm action against crime is not solid. Rather it is known for issuing waffley communiqués that say what needs to be done, without saying when or how.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Space Agency is offering to check how countries are implementing environmental treaties such as monitoring the growth of forests under the Kyoto Protocol or their rate of shrinkage under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Its Treaty Enforcement Services using Earth Observation can use ESA satellites to check the extent of national woodland stocks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ARCANE procedures of the world’s food standards body the Codex Alimentarius could be made simpler and more transparent, because of the launch joint review of its work by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Health Organisation.…

Keith Nuthall
FINAL agreement has been secured on the shape of an updated European Union directive on employees’ safety from exposure to mechanical vibrations, with the European Parliament cutting the latest deadline companies have to introduce technical changes reducing exposure from 2011 to 2010.…