Search Results for: Environmental health

BY PHILIP FINE

SEVERAL major bacterial food-borne illnesses seem to be on the decline in the United States, according to a recent survey of clinical laboratories that test for infection. In their annual release of data, the US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surveyed labs that serve 13 per cent of the American population and found that sustained progress is being made in meeting the national health objectives for illnesses caused by listeria and campylobacter, when comparing 2002 data with 1996-2001 numbers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s Scientific Steering Committee – the body offering the European Commission expert advice on food safety issues – has held its final meeting, six years after its creation. Its functions are to be taken over by the new European Food Safety Authority.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CHILDREN exposed to passive smoking have twice as many tooth cavities as those who are not, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The findings, derived from the USA’s Third National Health and Nutrition Survey, concluded that inhaling ‘second-hand’ smoke inhibits a child’s ability to fend off bacteria that causes tooth decay.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SUCCESSFUL trial of electronic tags for livestock has been announced by the European Commission, which has inspired a proposed regulation that would create a unified system for accurately monitoring farm animals across the European Union (EU).

Brussels officials have unveiled in Italy the results of the IDEA project (Electronic IDentification of Animals), a one million animal trial spanning France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation (ILO) report published to mark this week’s World Day for Safety and Health at Work has claimed that every year around two million lives and US$1.25 trillion of global economic earnings are lost to work-related accidents and illnesses.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is developing plans to set up a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which would coordinate efforts by European Union (EU) Member States to fight outbreaks of communicable viruses such as SARS.

In a speech to the European Parliament, EU health Commissioner David Byrne said that this would be “the most effective way to strengthen EU activities” against this disease and others such as TB.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has given the Spanish government two months to provide full information about the environmental impact of its highly controversial National Hydroelectric Plan (NHP) or face a possible action in the European Court of Justice. The Commission says Spain has not responded to a request for information made last September on how it assessed a proposed hydro-electric project in the catchment area of the River Ulla in Galicia.…

KEITH NUTHALL
INNOVATION from European Union-funded research has continued to offer improvements to the way that EU water utilities work. For instance, the European Commission-funded MicroChem initiative has developed miniaturised laboratory-on-a-chip systems suitable for rapid field testing of water streams. They examine water in tiny pictolitre quantities, flowing through microbore channels produced by photolithographic etching.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SPAIN is facing legal action at the hands of the European Commission over its failure to respond to a request for information on how it has applied the EU’s environmental Impact Assessment Directive with regard to a waste-water treatment plant serving tanneries at Lorca in Murcia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUNDBREAKING legal watchdog, charged with ensuring governments abide by a new international convention on environmental decision-making and information dissemination, has had its first meeting. This Compliance Committee of the recently strengthened Aarhus Convention will, from October, have the right to consider complaints from individual citizens and non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) that their governments are not complying with its terms.…