Search Results for: Environmental health

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has adopted a new strategy for health and safety at work for 2002-2006, which would cover new types of workplace risk, such as bullying and violence at work and stress-related illnesses. The plan also seeks to develop office and factory risk prevention programmes.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to take Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Portugal to the European Court of Justice for allegedly failing to fully implement the EU Basic Safety Standards Directive on protecting the health of workers and the public against dangers from ionising radiation.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
THE SEAS around Australia are among the cleanest in the world, partly thanks to the ingenuity of local scientists, who are pioneering two projects to ensure local waters remain healthy, while assisting other more stressed ocean regions.

One involves an electronic mapping system developed by the Australian Marine Safety Authority (AMSA), which is being used to predict the effects of dangerous chemicals in the ocean.…

KEITH NUTHALL
HAULIERS are likely to escape the full burden of an energy taxation directive imposing minimum duty levels on petrol and diesel because of an about turn performed by European Union heads of government. A short but significant clause in the communiqué drawn up at the recent summit in Barcelona not only commits Member States to approving an energy tax law by this December, but crucially says that they should “bear in mind the needs of professionals in the road haulage industry.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is being urged, by a working party helping it write new welfare rules on laboratory animals, to take account of the effect of better conditions on experiment results. Tests have shown that subjects in comfortable surroundings are healthier than those in poor accommodation, and that these environmental factors should be considered when assessing results.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A REWRITTEN US Senate energy bill would see the use of ethanol in cars tripled and the unpopular gasoline oxygenate MTBE phased out in four years. A compromise was struck that tried to please the oil and gas, environmental, and agricultural sectors.…

BY PHILIP FINE

A MINE operation in Kentucky that saw a major slurry spill in the autumn of 2000 failed to properly follow a plan that had been implemented after a disaster six years earlier, according to a recently released report.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBER States of the European Union have been accused of dragging their feet while implementing 1976 a directive on the discharge of dangerous substances, which includes a comprehensive list of pollutants that should be removed from water sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MORE than 300 environmental experts at a World Health Organisation-supported meeting in Thailand have called for Asian governments to quickly restrict and ban leaded petrol. Researchers from Thailand’s Mahidol University released research on lower lead blood contamination in Bangkok children after the introduction of unleaded petrol.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has issued a new medical guide for international travelers, including advice on vaccinations and other preventative medicines, especially where diseases have spread to new areas, new diseases have appeared and drug resistance has developed in pathogens.…