Tag: food safety

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) received more than 200 comments during an online public consultation on its draft opinion on the food additive aspartame. The results, together with the outcome of a stakeholder meeting last week, will be published with EFSA's final scientific opinion in May.

The European Commission has proposed increased DNA testing of meat products to assess the scale of a scandal involving horsemeat sold as beef that has shocked the public and raised concern over the continent's food supply chains.

Reacting to the furore over the discovery of horse meat in Irish beef patties, MEPs on Wednesday (23 January) called for stronger EU labelling laws as Ireland's agriculture minister defended the safety of his country’s meat products.

A European regulatory panel has called for a temporary ban on the sale of fresh foods showing high levels of two substances used for cleaning and disinfection under guidelines that take effect today (26 July).

Germany has finally pinned down the deadly E.coli outbreak to contaminated bean sprouts and shoots grown at an organic farm in northern Germany. But officials said they do not plan to take legal action against the organic grower, saying the contamination was down to "bad luck".

The European Union this week put in place strict checks on imports of food and feed from areas of Japan that could be affected by radiation from the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima. 

The European Parliament's environment committee this week adopted a report by Swedish Green MEP Carl Schlyter which calls for tighter controls on nanotechnology, including the application of the 'no data, no market' principle contained in the REACH Directive.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on how European farmers can improve the quality of their food and drink to achieve the added value needed to compete with much lower production costs in emerging countries.

The European Parliament yesterday (3 September) called on the Commission to submit proposals prohibiting the use of cloned animals in food products following the publication of a highly cautious report by the EU's food safety authority on the issue.

The French EU Presidency's health priorities are five-fold: food safety, healthy ageing, cross-border health care, health determinants such as alcohol and tobacco and pharmaceuticals, French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot told Parliament.

Amid growing criticism of its GMO bias and growing overall workload, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has decided to develop a database of external scientific experts to help the agency carry out risk assessments and enhance the transparency of the expert recruitment process. 

Members of Parliament from all political horizons have reacted with fury to a Commission proposal yesterday (28 May) to re-allow imports of poultry rinsed with chemicals, stemming mainly from the United States.

Europeans are increasingly concerned about climate change and think EU agricultural policies are failing to address rising food costs, according to two new Eurobarometer surveys published yesterday (13 March). Three quarters of Europeans also say they are ready to pay more for greener goods, but few have actually done so, the surveys found. 

A ban on advertising is not the right solution to fighting childhood obesity, argues Guillaume Vuillemey in this paper from the Institut Économique Molinari.

UK veterinary authorities informed the European Commission on 22 September 2007 of the presence of the bluetongue viral infection in cattle near Ipswich, Suffolk, in another blow for farmers beset by the reinstatement of the EU's ban on British meat exports, following the re-emergence of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK.  

Veterinary experts from the 27 EU member states have unanimously agreed to lift a ban on British meat, milk and live animal exports, imposed since 6 August following an outbreak of the highly infectious foot-and-mouth disease.

The Commission has asked the EU's Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to assess whether meat and dairy products from cloned animals are safe to eat. 

The first results from the EU's Sixth Research Framework programme (FP6) relate to healthier and better quality nutrition.

As a response to concerns over children's consumption of "unhealthy foods", Latvia will ban their sale in schools later this year.

The European Food Safety Authority review of the toxicological data of illegal dyes found in food will help EU member states in their food risk management.

EU food safety experts have agreed to withdraw from the market all spices containing over 1 mg/kg of Para Red, an illegal chemical dye first detected in spicy exotic food on sale in the UK.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded on 10 July that there was no new scientific evidence that would necessitate the banning of certain GMOs in Upper Austria.