Search Results for: Environmental health

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has announced a project to prevent blindness in children that will be initially funded by a US$3.75 million Lions Clubs International Foundation donation. The strategy would include funding immunisation against measles and rubella, improving supplies of vitamin A, supplying prophylaxes against eye diseases in babies, (including gonococcal infection), and deterring the use of harmful eye medicines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAT holy grail of environmentalists, an economy that grows, yet imposes a declining burden on the environment, has yet to be achieved in the European Union, although some important steps have been made in the right direction, claims the European Environment Agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
STONE discards stored by a quarry for future sales, should be classified as waste under European Union regulations, even if they do not “pose any real risk to human health or the environment” the European Court of Justice has ruled.…

KEITH NUTHALL
AQUACULTURE takes centre stage in the new proposals for reforming the European Union Common Fisheries Policy in which the need to conserve dwindling wild fish stocks is clearly recognised. With Brussels moving to limit and reduce the size of fishing fleets, the European Commission’s new ‘road map’ for a reviewed CFP highlights fish farming as “a valuable alternative source of employment in coastal areas as well as offering quality fisheries products to consumers.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation will hold an “expert consultation” after the Swedish National Food Administration claimed accumulations of the toxin acrylamide have been found in fried and baked food, to “determine the full extent of the public health risk.”…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THOUSANDS of tonnes of mildly radioactive steel could come onto the European market because of pressure on countries waiting to join the European Union to dismantle their decrepit Russian-built nuclear power stations. Aware of the need to assuage public distrust of even the lowest levels of radioactivity, the European Union’s Joint Research Centre is investigating the levels of radiation likely to be involved in this steel, taken from buildings that do not house the reactor itself.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
ALMOST three quarters of Britain’s firms carry out little or no investigation into workplace accidents according to a study whose results were revealed at a major safety conference today.

Dr David Embrey, managing director of consultancy firm Human Reliability Associates (HRA), told the RoSPA Safety and Health at Work Congress 2002 that the findings would fuel pressure for legislation requiring all organisations to carry out proper accident inquiries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MEXICO and the United States made pledges on several food industry issues during recent two-day talks. The countries have agreed to work together on sanitary policies, animal health, food safety, and research. US-Mexico agricultural trade has doubled since 1993 to US$13 billion in 2001.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has launched a comprehensive research programme to unmask mysteries surrounding the contraction of venous thrombosis by air passengers, including epidemiological, pathophysiological and clinical studies.

Scientists will aim to determine the frequency and causes of travellers’ thrombosis, to identify who is at greatest risk and what may be done to prevent the condition.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that it is spending Euro 20 million on research projects designed to unveil the real effects of endocrine disrupters on human health and the environment. Grants will be paid to 22 research teams from 10 European countries which will explore the effect of exposure from low doses and mixtures of disrupters on human beings, aquatic wildlife and laboratory animals, among other topics.…