Search Results for: Belgium

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPECIAL properties of nanomaterials are a step closer to becoming controlled through a comprehensive European Union (EU) regulation, having been defined by the EU’s scientific committee on emerging and newly identified health risks. It has released an extensive report that specifies how nanomaterials can be identified, not just through their tiny scale, but by how they appear and behave within consumer products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SPECIAL properties of nanomaterials are a step closer to becoming controlled through a comprehensive European Union (EU) regulation, having been defined by the EU’s scientific committee on emerging and newly identified health risks. It has released an extensive report that specifies how nanomaterials can be identified, not just through their tiny scale, but by how they appear and behave within consumer products, including pharmaceuticals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A CALL for creating specific nanomaterials register under the EU’s REACH chemical control system has come from the European Union’s (EU) current Belgian presidency. "Nanomaterials are increasingly present in consumer products and everyday items," noted Belgium environment minister Paul Magnette at a Brussels seminar on the EU’s nascent nanotechnology regulations.…

BY David Haworth

New plans for broadening the two-way street between African and European universities were unveiled at a conference in Brussels when 150 delegates from both continents debated closer ties in higher education.

The conference focused on the newly published White Paper on bridging arrangements between institutions and greater cooperation between European scholars and their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WHILE the European Union’s (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF had a difficult birth in 1999, its childhood and developing adolescence have been easier, and this important organisation has become increasingly effective. It was never going to be an easy job investigating fraud in a polity as diverse as the EU, but given the unhealthy levels of fraud and financial mismanagement in EU budgets and its earmarked customs duty income, OLAF has to exist: someone has to investigate EU fraud.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission and allied European Union (EU) member states are pressing ahead with drafting reforms to the EU dairy market, which would strengthen producers negotiating with wholesalers and retailers. The Belgian government (holding the EU presidency) and the Commission have promised to proceed, after 22 out of 27 member states backed changing EU dairy market rules at an EU Council of Ministers meeting.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN chemical industry federation CEFIC has called for a review of administration under European Union (EU) chemical control system REACH to help small-and-medium-sized paint and other chemical companies (SMEs) deal with its burden. As the first key REACH chemical deadline of November 30 approaches, CEFIC director general Hubert Mandery said REACH costs hit smaller firms hard, especially for the oncoming two REACH registrations, involving smaller tonnages of chemicals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CANCER Research UK has criticised European Commission draft guidance for non-investigational medicinal products (NIMPs) in clinical trial authorisation (CTA) submissions, claiming it could make some tests "unworkable".

The research group warns in formal consultation documents that the guidance "does not make appropriate allowances for trials in high morbidity diseases where patients will inherently be receiving a vast array of treatments (established and experimental), often over a considerable period of time…"

It warns that the guidance is too inflexible on this point: "Our concern is that if this document is implemented and strictly interpreted, cancer trials will become unworkable," said Cancer Research UK.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KARRYN MILLER, GAVIN BLAIR, KEITH NUTHALL

MOST drinks manufacturers would bridle at the accusation that they used anything unnatural to make their products: after all poisoning consumers is bad for business. But in the world of marketing, everything is relative, and some ingredients are so fresh and untainted with processing chemicals that they can, simply, be sold as being more ‘natural’ than standard inputs.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KARRYN MILLER, GAVIN BLAIR, KEITH NUTHALL

MOST drinks manufacturers would bridle at the accusation that they used anything unnatural to make their products: after all poisoning consumers is bad for business. But in the world of marketing, everything is relative, and some ingredients are so fresh and untainted with processing chemicals that they can, simply, be sold as being more ‘natural’ than standard inputs.…