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Abstract: Historically, due to the often overwhelming complexity of the substances migrating from food contact materials (FCMs) into food, the specific legislation in Europe started from the substances used to manufacture these materials and articles. There are, however, FCMs with migrates almost exclusively consisting of reaction products, such as those produced from resins used, e.g. for coatings (epoxy resins, polyesters, organosols, trimellitic acid resins). Since the reaction products do not necessarily have the same toxicological profile as the starting substances to produce the resins, the use of authorized starting substances does not rule out the migration of compounds endangering human health. The European framework Regulation 1935/2004 requires the safety of all substances migrating from FCMs into food. Resolution AP2004/1 on coatings of the Council of Europe puts the emphasis on the safety evaluation of the migrants rather than that of the substances used for manufacturing the resins and then the coatings. Nonetheless, the Code of Practice for Coatings recently issued by industry focuses on the evaluation of the starting substances to produce resins. The authors of this paper consider the present situation unsatisfactory. It is the duty of industry to respect the legal requirements and of the regulatory authorities to ensure that these requirements are met. The authors recommend setting a time limit to have this achieved. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

EURECA (European Underground Rare Event Calorimeter Array) is an astro-particle physics facility aiming to directly detect galactic dark matter. The Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane has been selected as host laboratory. The EURECA collaboration unites CRESST, EDELWEISS and the Spanish-French experiment ROSEBUD, thus concentrating and focussing effort on cryogenic detector research in Europe into a single facility. EURECA will use a target mass of up to one ton, enough to explore WIMP - nucleon scalar scattering cross sections in the region of 10-9 - 10-10 picobarn. A major advantage of EURECA is the planned use of more than just one target material (multi target experiment for WIMP identification). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of drugs are recognized to induce distinctive patterns of infiltrative lung disease (ILD), ranging from benign infiltrates to life-threatening adult respiratory distress syndromes. In addition to drugs, biomolecules such as proteins and cytokines, and medicinal plants are also capable of inducing respiratory disease, some being severe and/or irreversible. For several reasons it is difficult to estimate the exact frequency of drug-induced infiltrative lung disease (DI-ILD). The risk for DI-ILD and the clinical patterns vary depending on a variety of host and drug factors. Although establishing the diagnosis is often difficult, systematic evaluation of the possible role of almost any kind of drugs in ILD is warranted, as stopping a drug may favourably influence prognosis. However, prognosis depends on the drug and the type of DI-ILD. Corticosteroids may suppress the inflammatory reaction, but for many drugs, proof of the effect of corticosteroids is lacking. Advances in prevention and prediction are needed. A user-friendly database of respiratory adverse drug reactions was made available on the web, to provide quick information in this area.