Search Results for: Environmental health

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW “smart card” for health and safety to be launched in the UK next year could have important implications for insurance companies in the occupational safety and health field. The so-called Prevencard is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International using technology developed under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SMART cards for health are not exactly a novelty but the Prevencard to be launched in the UK next year uses some particularly smart technology.

Prevencard, which is being marketed by the Spanish company Grupo Prevencard International, is a commercial application of security research carried out under the EU’s 5th Framework Programme for research.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
TEENAGE girls who perceive themselves as being overweight are more likely to take up smoking than girls who are comfortable with their self-image, according to a study in the Canadian Journal of Public Health.

Researchers found that girls who used weight control behaviour, such as exercising to lose weight, skipping meals, vomiting or taking diet pills were 50 per cent more likely to smoke compared to girls who thought themselves too thin or average.…

BY PHILIP FINE

WITH genetically engineered cows, goats and pigs being developed for pharmaceutical purposes other than providing us with filet mignon, chèvre cheese and strips of bacon, one serious question left begging is whether the pharmaceuticals industry should start to think more about adjusting their operations so that they can incorporate farmers and meat and dairy producers?…

BY ALAN OSBORN
CAR registration taxes in the European Union would be abolished and road

taxes harmonised under a batch of recommendations announced by the European

Commission. Brussels said it was also examining ways of restructuring existing vehicle taxes so as to promote environmental objectives.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the creation of a central European Union aid fund commanding between Euro 500,000 and Euro 1 billion, which could be raided by Member States and eastern European countries wanting to join the EU that fall victim to natural disasters.…

BY MONICA DOBIE and KEITH NUTHALL
A GROUND-breaking environmental initiative is being developed in Greece involving a desalination plant being powered wholly by the heat of the earth’s upper crust.

The plant’s electricity turbines will be driven by geothermal fluids pumped from deep underground fissures under the island, whose temperatures can reach 100°C.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMAN insurance group Gerling is providing financial and managerial support to a ground-breaking environmental initiative in the hope that it will be copied and that the company will be asked to underwrite similar initiatives because of its expertise.…

BY MARK ROWE
A VERMONT maple syrup producer has joined forces with environmental groups to sue the American government for recklessly contributing to global warming, claiming it has damaged his business.

A lawsuit filed by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace in San Francisco claims that two American export credit agencies illegally provided US$32billion in financing for oil fields, pipelines and coal-fired plants over the past 10 years without assessing their contribution to global warming, as required by national law.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU health Commissioner David Byrne has been awarded with the Goethe Challenge Trophy for Smoke-Free Environment, notably for his pan-European information anti-smoking campaign for adolescents, “Feel Free to Say No”.…