Euro Brief
16-31 May 2005 No. 10/2005
- Parliament rejects strict rules on health claims for foods
- New EU Rules for Human Tissue Engineering
- Information Technology and Health
- ECDC has its Eagle Eye on Bird Flu
- Services Directive Update
MEPs voted to allow foods to bear health claims such as 'low fat' even if the level of salt content is unhealthily high.
On 26 May 2005, the European Parliament voted down a clause in the proposed food labelling regulations that would prohibit health claims, such as 'low fat', 'lowers cholesterol', and 'sugar free' on foods, unless the claim was justified by all the product ingredients.
The proposed regulation lists common health claims and stipulates that they can only be attached to foods complying with certain 'nutrient profiles'. These profiles require specific levels for all the food’s ingredients especially salt, fat and sugar.
However, MEPs rejected the clause on the grounds that foods should not be seen as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Instead, there should be an emphasis on a balanced diet.
Parliament also rejected the idea of prior authorisation by the European Food Safety Agency in favour of simple notification by food manufacturers of health claims. It would then be up to health authorities to object post facto to the validity of the claim.
A disappointed, Markos Kyprianou, the Health and Consumer Commissioner said that the nutrient profile was the cornerstone of the regulation and that the Commission could not accept its deletion.
New EU Rules for Human Tissue Engineering
The European Commission, on 19th May, proposed new rules to regulate the new lucrative human tissue engineering industry.
The new rules are aimed to make it easier for companies and research bodies to win regulatory approval and put them on a level playing field with the US. The Commission is also keen that regulations will ensure that products, such as heart valves or skin, cartilage and bone engineered from human cells, can be used safely on patients.
Under a controversial deal agreed two years ago, Member States will be left to decide whether embryonic stem cell research would be allowable.
The proposals cover three advanced therapies: human tissue engineering, gene therapy and somatic cell therapy. To date, there has been no standard EU legislation for human tissue engineering.
The European Medicines Agency would be responsible to overcome the patchwork of national laws which makes it difficult to trade tissue engineered products cross border.
Information Technology and Health
The Commission along with the Luxembourg Presidency and the Norwegian government held a ministerial conference on 23 and 24 May to promote the use of information technology in the health sector.
The conference in Tromsų was part of the eHealth action plan, a policy priority in the Commission’s programme to promote Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Europe.
Speakers included health professionals, computer specialists, social scientists and politicians from all EU member states, as well as commissioners Viviane Reding (Information Society and Media).
Participants discussed patient mobility, responsiveness of health services, health information, access to and quality of care as well as patient safety.
ECDC has its Eagle Eye on Bird Flu
The newly created European Centre for Disease Control has stepped up monitoring of the Bird Flu threat.
The ECDC has set up round-the-clock surveillance to identify any outbreaks in Europe. More than 50 humans have contracted the H5N1 bird flu strain in Asia although there are no signs yet that the virus has mutated to a form easily transmissible between humans.
On 20 May, the ECDC launched 24-hour monitoring and began daily reports. It also started work on a network of reference laboratories across Europe to analyse flu and monitor vaccinations against the virus.
Speaking to the Financial Times on 19 May, the head of the ECDC, Zsuzanna Jakab rejected criticism that the ECDC is woefully unsuited to the task of combating communicable diseases, especially emerging diseases like bird flu. Some critics say that the ECDC should have its own specialist labs, like its giant US counterpart.
However Jakab countered, “ Countries have their own laboratories. We don’t have them and we don’t need them”. Nevertheless, she wants her Stockholm-based team to move closer to the Karolinska Institute in Sweden since she believes its labs would attract the top micro-biologists. “We need excellent people. That is the key to building our image and credibility”, she told the FT.
Acknowledging some good surveillance networks already in place, notably for TB, HIV and salmonella, she stresses that for many of the 46 diseases under her responsibility, such as hepatitis and vaccine-preventable illnesses, there is a lot of work to do.
She points out that the West can learn from central and east European member states. For instance, many of the accession states have broader vaccination coverage than western EU states and good surveillance networks for communicable diseases. She singles out her own country – Hungary for praise in its rapid adoption of breast and cervical cancer screening.
Services Directive Update
The Parliament’s Rapporteur on the Services Directive, Evelyne Gebhardt, presented the second part of her Report to the Internal Market Committee. She is calling for healthcare, regulated professions and the recognition of professional qualifications to be excluded from the directive, dubbed “Bolkestein’s Monster”. A deadline of 9 June was given for amendments. German MEPs, Lechner, Weiler and Wuermeling said health should be kept within the scope. UK Conservative Malcolm Harbour said there would be nothing left in the directive if Gebhardt succeeded in carving out large parts of it. A deadline of 9 June was given for amendments. In the Employment committee, Ann Van Lancker’s Report on Services also called for health to be excluded.