Search Results for: Environmental health

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney
AN AUSTRALIAN early warning device that monitors water quality in tuna cages and phones its information back to shore is proving to be a lifesaver for aquaculture fish stocks; the slightest change in conditions can wipe out millions of dollars worth of marine stocks and cripple sectors of the industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRICE of tobacco products fell in developing countries from 1990-2000, according to the World Health Organisation, which has concluded that they are now “sometimes even cheaper than bread or rice.” By contrast, the WHO tobacco price trends study assessing more than 80 countries concluded that cigarettes have become more expensive in most industrialised countries, such as Norway, Australia and Hong Kong.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A TASK force of the world’s food standards body, Codex Alimentarius, has agreed detailed draft guidelines on how to assess the safety of genetically modified foodstuffs and on how to trace and remove from sale any product that is subsequently shown to pose a hazard to human health.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced a ban on the sale in the EU of jelly mini-cups containing the food additive konjac (E 425), which take time to dissolve and have lead to the deaths of several American and Canadian children through choking.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATIONAL regulatory authorities have the power to refuse to allow waste shipments to leave EU ports or cross their territories via inland waterways, whether they represent the country sending a cargo, receiving it or being used for transshipment, the European Court of Justice has ruled.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ALL 187 Member States of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have endorsed a global programme to strengthen commercial aviation security on a global scale, primarily through a mandatory audit of national services at a two day High-Level, Ministerial Conference held at ICAO Headquarters in Montreal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FORMAL proposals have been released by the European Commission for a programme to help spread medicines fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries. The plans include budget lines of Euro 26.1 million, covering aid from January 2003 to December 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOD safety and quality need to be improved in all European countries because of the increase in food-borne diseases in the past decade, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A POLITICAL standoff between the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers is delaying the passage of a proposed ban on feeding catering waste to farm animals, because the European Parliament is resisting the measure, which is backed by the EU Council of Ministers.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN Tobacco growers are still waiting for their country’s cigarette companies, such as Imperial Tobacco, to stump up their share of an CAN $80 million programme, initiated by the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers Marketing Board, to retrofit kilns to destroy nitrosamine, a substance Health Canada declared toxic two years ago, by introducing indirect heat to the curing process.…