Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has ordered American medicines information company IMS HEALTH (IMS) to abandon its refusal to allow rivals to copy its pharmaceutical sales and prescriptions data collection system in Germany.

In an unusual step, Brussels has used its powers as a competition authority to tell IMS to immediately licence the use of its 1860 brick structure method, over which it has copyright, “on commercial terms.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally proposed its anticipated list of maximum dioxin contamination limits for food products. The levels for fish are as predicted last week in Environmental Health News. For dairy products, beef and sheep-meat it is three nanograms per kilogram of fat, for example.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is playing its part in the debate over whether companies should be given additional duties for promoting health and safety and a clean environment, by publishing a green paper on Promoting a European Framework for Corporate Social Responsibility.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development has drawn up plans to lend US $5 million to Bulgarian gold and copper mine Navan Chelopech A.D., to improve productivity and efficiency, “by bringing the mine up to international operating and environmental standards.”…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that strict dioxin contamination limits are introduced from January 2002, covering foodstuffs including fish and fish feed.

Products with dioxin contaminants exceeding these levels would be considered “unsuitable for consumption.”

The following maximum levels for fish dioxins have been tabled:

*Fish oil: 6 nanogram/kg;

*Fish meal: 1.25 nanogram/kg;

*Fish feed: 2.25 nanogram/kg;

*Fish meat (farmed and wild): 4 nanogram/kg.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MULTILATERAL sea and river organisations are usually created to deal with existing problems that cross national borders, but a new body has been making progress on a shipping issue that has yet even to happen: the exploitation and transport of subterranean solid mineral deposits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has been active recently, using its unique powers within international law to bring EU Member States to heel for failing to implement European legislation promoting health and safety.

Unlike any other international court, the ECJ has the power to fine sovereign states, which ignore its rulings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EURELECTRIC has welcomed the publication of guidelines from the European Commission that encourage local and national public authorities to use EU legislation on public procurement to promote the purchase of environmentally friendly goods and services.

Importantly, said Lars Peter Svane, the federation’s head of market regulation, the Commission’s “interpretive communication” does not advise local and national governments to adapt procurement practices so that environmental good practice automatically becomes a sales condition.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has announced an agreement with the world’s six largest medical journal publishers, where they will allow medical schools and research institutions to access their scientific information for free or at reduced rates.

Blackwell, Elsevier Science, the Harcourt Worldwide STM Group, Wolters Kluwer International Health & Science, Springer Verlag and John Wiley have agreed to grant almost 1,000 of these institutions preferential Internet access to their journals for at least three years from January 2002.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MAJOR EU research study has concluded that the ‘true’ price of using coal to generate electricity is double that usually assumed, taking into account the costs of cleaning up the resulting pollution and dealing with the health problems that arise because of it.…