Search Results for: Environmental health

BY PHILIP FINE, in Montreal

A CALF’S destiny has long been dictated by two agricultural businesses: beef or dairy.

But there’s now a third industry that requires animals for its growing appetite: the pharmaceuticals sector.

As the latest scientific headlines have shown, farmyard animals – cows, goats and pigs – are now being employed for purposes other than providing us with filet mignon, goat cheese and bacon.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UNDETERRED by the scientific world’s comprehensive ignorance of the deep-sea environment, the United Nations’ International Seabed Authority is pressing ahead with research projects that will help it estimate the effect of submarine mining on species that have yet to be discovered.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE NATIONAL Coal Mining Museum for England is to receive a share of Euro 69 million in grants made by the European Commission under the EU LIFE Environment scheme. The museum’s INWATCO project has been selected for funding; it aims to demonstrate and evaluate innovative techniques and procedures for the integrated management of groundwater resources in coal mining areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UNDETERRED by the scientific world’s comprehensive ignorance of the deep-sea environment, the United Nations’ International Seabed Authority is pressing ahead with research projects that will help it estimate the effect of submarine mining on species that have yet to be discovered.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
WE know that irresponsible sea-sand dredging can led to coastal erosion, threatening beaches and ecological balance and even the livelihoods of whole sea-side or fishing communities. Yet there is today an unprecedented demand for sand as a building material.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPECIALIST United Nations agency has admitted that unless careful precautions are taken, the future exploitation of mineral deposits on the bed of deep oceans could lead to the extinction of species, many of which have yet to be discovered.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOBACCO companies should be made subject to tougher auditing controls, to enable customs and other regulators to better detect any diversion of products onto the black market, an International Conference on Illicit Tobacco Trade has concluded.

Staged in New York by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, with the assistance of the United Nations and World Health Organisation, a conference working party decided that “all persons engaged” in the tobacco sector could “be licensed at a national or sub-national level.”…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a research project examining the benefits and problems of cars using daytime running lights, as is common practice in Canada. It has issued tenders for research teams to bid for a contract to examine how they reduce accidents, including crashes with pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BEN & Jerry’s has been accused of falsely claiming that some of their ice cream and frozen yoghurt products labelled “All Natural” are not so because they contain hydrogenated oils and alkalised cocoa powder. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a US health and food safety advocacy group, wants the Food and Drug Administration to take action.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
NEW worries about the health and safety of teleworkers, homeworkers and others on short-term contracts are expressed in two new studies by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. It says they not only lack the protection of national occupational health and safety (OSH) regulations but may also suffer from “an increased sense of

job insecurity, often associated with work-related stress and its potential human and economic costs.”…