A POSTnote on preventing zoonotic diseases will review the evidence on a One Health approach to zoonoses prevention. It will focus on the animal-environment-human interface in both wild and domestic animals, reviewing national and international policy approaches, and lessons learnt from previous epidemics. It will also summarise opportunities and challenges for the UK’s role in global health and biosecurity policy arenas post COVID-19. Provisional start date: January 2021.
Documents to download
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Irradiation of food (157 KB, PDF)
Irradiation of food has been illegal in the UK since 1967, with exemptions to sterilise the food of patients susceptible to infection. Elsewhere, commercial application of irradiation has slowly expanded. Today, 36 countries approve the use of radiation processing for more than 40 different kinds of foods and food ingredients, under international guidelines set down by the Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1983.
Since some other European countries employ food irradiation, the EEC has proposed a Draft Directive preventing Member States from prohibiting the marketing of foods irradiated according to the Codex guidelines. The DHSS/MAFF Advisory Committee on Irradiated and Novel Foods (ACINF) had already reported in 1986 that irradiation would be an 'efficacious food preservative treatment that would not lead to a significant change in the natural radioactivity of the food or prejudice its safety and wholesomeness'.
This briefing note describes the science and technology underpinning the irradiation of foods in order to assist Parliamentarians reach a view on this issue.
Documents to download
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Irradiation of food (157 KB, PDF)
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A POSTnote on childhood obesity will summarise the latest trends in children’s diet, obesity and related health conditions and review the impacts of previous policy changes such as the tax on sugar sweetened drinks. It will also examine the factors underlying the growing gap in outcomes for children from the most and least deprived backgrounds. Provisional start date: January 2021.
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Evolving life sciences and agricultural research approaches may have a decreasing need to access physical resources in future, such as plant seeds or viral material. Information and genetic data may be all that is required for commercial exploitation of biological resources. This POSTnote summarises the challenge this creates for international discussions on the governance of genetic resources and the possible options for addressing these.
