Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A LONG-TERM strategy to reduce the amount of PCB’s and dioxins in food and animal feed has been published by the European Commission. Alongside the already announced proposed maximum limits for the chemicals, which EU health ministers are expected to agree on November 15, Brussels has now also suggested actions to take over the next five years regarding hazard identification, risk assessment, risk management, research, public information and international cooperation.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
BRITAIN is being threatened with fresh legal action over its failure to comply with a European Court of Justice ruling concerning ground waters and surface freshwaters affected by nitrate pollution. These proceedings could result in London being given massive recurring fines of up to Euro 100,000 a day, until it obeys the ECJ.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed to launch a new wide-ranging round of talks on liberalising international commerce, negotiations that will include industrial goods, which will be combined with the ongoing discussions on services and agricultural products.

Ministers at the summit in Doha, Qatar, struck a deal after six days of bargaining, with their task being made achievable by the wide-ranging draft communiqué that was drawn up beforehand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed at its ministerial meeting in Qatar, to intensify its ongoing agriculture talks. Ministers ruled that by the end of 2003, member governments should propose formal concessions on quotas, tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed at its ministerial meeting in Qatar, to intensify its ongoing agriculture talks, which cover meat and meat products. Ministers laid down a deadline of the next WTO summit, which must take place in 2003, for member governments to propose a complete list of formal concessions they are prepared to make on quotas, tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU health and consumer affairs commissioner David Byrne has called for a strategic rethink by the food industry regarding the safety, quality and cost of its products, so that the sector is not driven purely by the desire for low prices.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has widened health research under the oncoming EU Sixth Framework Programme to include studies on traditional diseases, widening European Commission plans to limiting its life science work to genomics and biotechnology. By contrast, the parliament wants money spent on cancer, cardiovascular diseases, degenerative nervous system illnesses, (including CJD), diabetes, viral hepatitis C, allergies, rare diseases and ageing conditions.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE CANADIAN government has been urged to pass legislation that will force tobacco companies to make the cigarettes marketed as light or mild taste harsher.

A new report from one of Health Canada’s advisory bodies, the Ministerial Advisory Council on Tobacco Control, has recommended: “Once the government has addressed the issue of deceptive cigarette marketing, it should consider the issue of cigarette engineering that is misleading to smokers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been asked to approve the transfer of Euro 60 million from the general EU 2001 budget, (most of which is currently earmarked for fishery support), to help finance the UN’s Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
HEALTH experts have been discussing a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, (OECD), which has shown Britain performs poorly against its competitors in western Europe and north America, regarding the number of nurses employed per head of population in the late 1990’s.…