Search Results for: Environmental health

BY DERIDRE MASON
MANY health and safety leaflets are going over their targets’ heads because the reading age needed to understand them is too high, delegates at the recent Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents health at work conference at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, heard.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEMBERS of the European Parliament have proposed changing the name of the nascent European Food Authority, to make it a European Food Safety Authority. The proposal is one of 200 amendments agreed by the parliament’s environment committee for approval by a later plenary session.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MARITIME workers are to be covered by EU health and safety legislation on noise, after the Council of Ministers (employment and social policy) struck a compromise deal on a new ‘health and safety: physical agents (noise)’ directive. They had been excluded from an earlier 1986 directive, which the EU is currently updating.…

Keith Nuthall
MEMBER States of the European Union have come under political pressure from Brussels to outlaw the designing and marketing of alcoholic drinks, such as alcopops, to children and adolescents, as part of a move against under-age drinking.

The EU Council of Ministers (health) has adopted a Recommendation, (formal non-binding guidelines), which calls on national governments to “ensure” that the drinks industry does not produce alcoholic beverages specifically “targeted, designed or promoted to appeal” to young people.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SOUTH Korea has announced that its half of the 2002 World Cup finals will be free from “tobacco sales, consumption, promotion and sponsorship.” The tough line on smoking in and around matches has been welcomed by both the World Health Organisation and EU health Commissioner David Byrne, who said: “This decision clearly puts tobacco products offside the World Cup.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
COMPANIES with manual labour using heavy plant will have to check their guidelines regarding employees’ safety from exposure to mechanical vibrations, because of a proposed EU directive.

The Council of Ministers, (general affairs), last week gave the proposal its formal approval.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation is to target women’s exposure to passive smoking because of male smokers as part of its long-standing campaign against tobacco consumption. In a new monograph, it has called for bans on smoking in public places and advertising, pointing out that while worldwide 48 per cent of men smoke, the figure is just 12 per cent for women.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union money is to be spent on helping developing countries implement anti-smoking policies, the EU Council of Ministers (health), has concluded. It agreed that the spending should be part of the EU’s commitments under the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which is currently being discussed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DIFFERENTIAL pricing in world pharmaceutical markets has been backed by a joint workshop involving the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, the Global Health Council and its national host, Norway.

A report released from the meeting has born out a general consensus reached by participants that “differential pricing could, and should, play an important role in ensuring access to existing essential drugs at affordable prices, especially in poor countries, while allowing the patent system to continue to play its role of providing incentives for research and development into new drugs.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AGRICULTURE ministers of the 15 EU countries have agreed a seven-point plan to curb beef production. Consumption remains “considerably below normal” and is not expected to recover fully for two years while there is a big backlog of animals to be presented for slaughter later in the year, says the European Commission.…