Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND ALAN OSBORN
THE TOP selling guidebook Lonely Planet is rather dismissive of San Marino, calling the world’s oldest republic and Europe’s third smallest state “a silly place”. True, there is a touch of the comic opera about this Italian-speaking enclave, with it spiffily unformed ceremonial guards and its reliance on sales of colourful stamps, but San Marino does have a significant financial sector, and so is of interest to anti-money laundering professionals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has released safety assessments of a number of substances used food contact materials for packaging, including activated charcoal and silicic acid. EFSA has also declared safe the use of 41 acetals of aliphatic saturated primary alcohols and aldehydes, and one orthoester of formic acid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released a policy paper recommending that a dedicated European tobacco and nicotine products agency be set up, mirroring the creation of EU agencies to regulate the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetics industries. The agency should, it suggests, have the authority to authorise the sale of tobacco products on the EU market, as well as order and conduct research into tobacco and nicotine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE USA has lifted its ban on French foie gras and cooked meat products exports. It was imposed over food health concerns, but followed an EU ban on American chicken after this year’s US bird flu outbreak. France’s agriculture minister Herve Gaymard claiming the decision showed “the trustworthiness of the French food safety system.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRITISH and other EU governments have been given the right to subsidise food processors with small grants, from an overall allocation for micro-payments to the sector. The bulk of these will go to farmers and fishermen, but under new European Commission scheme, the UK – for instance – is free to choose how it annually spends Euro 72 million on agricultural food production and Euro 12.6 million on fish production…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU food producers and manufacturers will gain duty free penetration of the Romanian market by 2007, with Romanian duties being phased out on lines ranging from confectionary and dairy products to bread and vegetables. In return, Romanian producers get duty free access by 2007 for a similarly wide range of food products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has refused to set an acceptable daily intake (ADI) for food preservative propyl paraben because tests showed it affected the sex hormones and male reproductive organs of rats. It has however set ADIs of 0-10 mg/kg of body weight for preservatives methyl and ethyl p-hydroxybenzoic acid esters (together) and their sodium salts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL and MONICA DOBIE
AT least one million cases of pesticide poisonings occur annually worldwide, killing thousands of people, with children being especially at risk, a United Nations (UN) agency joint-report has claimed.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) say most poisonings occur in developing country rural areas, with poor countries accounting for 99% of these deaths, while using just 25% of the planet’s pesticides.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
THERE is no scourge worse than tobacco, Markos Kyprianou the incoming European Union (EU) Commissioner for health and consumer protection declared at the outset of his European Parliament (EP) hearing last week which is to determine his suitability for the job.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Medicines Agency (EMEA) and the USA’s Food and Drug Administration will stage a pilot of their new confidentiality agreement aimed at enabling pharmaceutical companies to obtain parallel advice from the two bodies. The deal involves exchanging information, including on pre-authorisation and post-authorisation applications, inspections and guidance documents.…