Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALMOST all eastern European countries applying to join the EU have asked for special transitional periods averaging three years to raise health standards at some of their food processing plants to meet EU regulations. Products from plants where improvements are still being made will not be able to circulate the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLIO has driven to the edge of extinction, the World Health Organisation has claimed, with only 537 cases being reported globally in 2001. However, an expert panel overseeing the WHO campaign against the disease has warned that given the current prevalence of conflict, polio must be wiped out now, as delays could jeopardise the effort launched in 1988, when polio paralysed more than 1,000 children daily.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered tests on all imports of shrimps from Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, (Burma), and poultry from Thailand to ensure antibiotic residues do not exceed EU health limits, following concerns raised by spot-checks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has hailed the entry into force of the first set of the European Union’s new so-called farm-to-fork food legislation that will underpin the work of the new European Food Safety Authority. The new laws include the start of the reinforced rapid alert system for feed and food risks, involving obligatory notification of any direct or indirect risk to human health, animal health or the environment to an network linking national authorities, the EFSA and the European Commission;

*New emergency powers for the European Commission to suspend or control sales when a feed or food constitute a serious health risk and where a national government cannot control the situation acting alone or where non-EU food is involved.…

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
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to order tests on all imports of shrimps from Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, (Burma), to ensure antibiotic residues do not exceed EU health limits, following concerns raised by spot-checks on cargoes from these countries.

Results showed unsatisfactory contamination of shrimps from Vietnam and Thailand by Nitrofuran, veterinary drugs banned for food producing fish and animals in the EU on health grounds, including a possible increased cancer risks through long-term consumption.…

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
FOOD safety and quality need to be improved in all European countries because of the increase in food-borne diseases in the past decade, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN Tobacco growers are still waiting for their country’s cigarette companies, such as Imperial Tobacco, to stump up their share of an CAN $80 million programme, initiated by the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers Marketing Board, to retrofit kilns to destroy nitrosamine, a substance Health Canada declared toxic two years ago, by introducing indirect heat to the curing process.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATIONAL regulatory authorities have the power to block waste shipments from leaving EU ports or crossing their territories via road, rail or inland waterways, whether they represent the country sending a cargo, receiving it or being used for transshipment, the European Court of Justice has ruled.…