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STOP PRESS
US to challenge
EU’s GM ban at WTO
Ahold
director quits in wake of accounting scandal
UK marked down in innovation stakes
McDonald’s goes vegetarian
Artificial intelligence spots new genetic regulators
FDA proposes two new anti-bioterror rules
GM
US to
challenge EU’s GM ban at WTO
The United States is to challenge
the European Union’s four year moratorium on the import and cultivation
of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) at the World Trade Organisation.
The move marks an escalation in the
trade disputes between Europe and the US, some of which related to the
subsidies each government pays to its farmers and to trade barriers such
as import tariffs on commodities such as steel.
David Byrne, Europe’s consumer
protection commissioner, described the Americans’ timing as
“eccentric”. He believes the ban will be lifted by the end of the
year, well before the WTO has a chance to hear the case.
It is believed that the US is
acting heavy pressure from GMO suppliers such as Monsanto and food
exporters. Ironically, the Bush administration faces calls for tougher
rules on GM crops from US food and beverage manufacturers. They are
worried that GM organisms could wind up in the food supply.
Business
Ahold
director quits in wake of accounting scandal
Jim Miller, chief executive of US
FoodService, the subsidiary company that misled Dutch retailer Ahold to
the tune of $880 million, has quit.
Ahold chairman Henny de Ruiter
announced today that the Ahold board had accepted Miller’s resignation.
The scandal has already cost the careers of Ahold’s chief executive and
chief financial officer, as well as US Foodservice’s finance and
marketing bosses. More resignations and criminal prosecutions may follow
once internal and Securities Exchange Commission staff have completed
their investigations.
Innovation
UK marked down
in innovation stakes
Britain’s ability to innovate and
so gain a competitive edge has been blunted by poor middle management,
short term thinking by investors, low investment in research &
development, and an education system that avoids maths and science.
These are some of the main findings
in a report by competition guru and Harvard professor Michael Porter
published this week. The report, UK Competitiveness: moving to the next
stage, was commissioned by the UK’s Department of Industry, and
co-written by Christian Ketels.
The report finds Britain at a
transition point. It has almost exhausted the competitive benefits of the
changes wrought during the Thatcher era, and now finds itself behind the
US, France and Germany in terms of capital intensity, infrastructure,
unique value added features, formal education for managers (at junior and
middle levels), labour productivity and use of advanced technology.
Porter and Ketels believe British
managers are following the least cost/lowest price route to a competitive
position. In contrast, most of its peers are looking to combine high value
products with advanced management and control
systems.
“To achieve higher prosperity, UK
companies will need to upgrade their productivity by competing on more
unique and more innovative products and services,” say the authors.
“This will require changes in management behaviour, but it will also
require targeted investments in the business environment, and the
development and strengthening of new types of institutions. It will no
longer be sufficient to just increase the efficiency of the existing
infrastructure, the educational institutions, and the science and
technology system; it will require the commitment of additional
resources.”
They add both private and public
sector will have to review their traditional roles. “The challenge is
not solely private sector management (as) is sometimes assumed; it is how
the public and private sector can jointly make the leap to the next
stage.”
They argue for less government
control and for the private sector to take the lead in improving
competitiveness and prioritising actions. “Tight government control now
will make success less likely. It will crowd out private sector leadership
and runs the risk of picking bad priorities.”
To see the entire report click here.
Food service
McDonald’s
goes vegetarian
US fastfood company McDonald’s,
once synonymous with fat-rich meals, is offering healthier options to
Californians from today.
McDonald's 600 restaurants in
Southern California have a new "Salads & More" menu that
includes an all-new McVeggie Burger, a meatless Yves Veggie Cuisine
soy-based patty with tangy barbeque sauce, fresh lettuce, tomato, slivered
onions and pickles, all served on a toasted whole-wheat bun. At 8 grams of
fat and 350 calories, the sandwich is cholesterol free, low in saturated
fat and a good source of protein, vitamins and minerals, and all for about
$2.19.
Another new product, a whole wheat
grilled chicken sandwich with barbeque sauce, complements three
recently-introduced premium salads plus a side-ranch medley salad, all
served with Newman's Own(R) salad dressings. A fruit/yogurt parfait and a
chicken fajita complete the new menu.
Comment: This
could be a seminal moment in food history; the day McDonald’s became
politically correct. After all McDonald’s has been nothing if not
controversial. Remember the court cases, the desecration of Brazil’s
rainforests, the bombs, the dehumanised service staff. For those who have
grown up under the Golden Arches, soon it will no doubt bring a nostalgic
tear to the eye to hear someone ask “Do you want fries with that?”
Biotech
Artificial
intelligence spots new genetic regulators
US and Israeli computer scientists
and geneticists have developed a method that uses pattern recognition to
identify the genes that control the genetic machinery of a cell.
In a paper published online
yesterday in Nature Genetics, researchers from Stanford University
and Israel's Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute said that
their method revealed several previously unknown control, or regulatory,
genes from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker's yeast.
The results come from software that
develops general models for recognising meaningful patterns that span many
related databases. This unique ability to "mix and match"
biological data sources gives the new method its power.
Regulatory genes are usually
identified experimentally, not computationally. The new method identifies
regulatory candidates for testing in the lab and predicts how each
regulator will affect cellular activity.
In response to internal or external
signals, regulatory genes tell clusters of genes to turn on or off, in
other words, to start or stop making proteins. The proteins from each gene
cluster, in turn, are responsible for a different cell process. These
processes include converting sugar to energy, responding to stress,
folding proteins, and building cellular components such as the nucleus.
The pattern recognition technique
uses statistical models and relational databases to look for patterns
across many different data sources. These include microarray data, DNA
sequence data or protein-protein interaction data.
This lets the researchers assemble data sets like Lego blocks,
plugging a new database into the relational structure and letting the
algorithm go to work. To make
the results of this type of analysis more accessible to biologists, the
group has developed the GeneXPress visualisation and exploration tool,
freely available on the web.
Food safety
FDA
proposes two new anti-bioterror rules
The US food & Drug
Administration has proposed two new food safety regulations to bring
industry in line with the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism
Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.
The two new rules deal with
establishing and maintaining records among food firms, and the
administrative detention of foods that may pose a risk to public health.
The other two proposals, concerning the registration of food facilities
and prior notice of imported foods, were published in January 2003.
"These proposed regulations
measures will further bolster FDA ability to protect the more than 400,000
domestic and foreign facilities that deal with food within our
country," said FDA Commissioner Dr Mark McClellan.
Food and beverage manufacturers,
processors, packers, distributors, receivers, holders and importers would
be required to keep records identifying the immediate source from which
they received the food, as well as the immediate next recipient. This
would apply to almost all foreign and domestic food sources and almost all
recipients of food destined for consumption in the US.
“It would assist FDA in
addressing credible threats of serious adverse health consequences or
death to humans or animals,” the FDA said.
For persons other than
transporters, the proposed rule requires the records to contain the
following information for each article of food:
-
the firm's name, and the
responsible individual representative of the firm that was the
immediate previous source or the immediate subsequent recipient of the
food
-
the address, telephone and fax
numbers, and e-mail address of that person, if available
-
the type of food, including
brand name and specific variety
-
the date received or released
Lot number or other identifier number, if available
-
the quantity and type of
packaging
-
the name, address, telephone
number and, if available, fax number and e-mail address of the
transporter who transported the food
-
the immediate previous source.
The specific source of each
ingredient used to make every lot of finished food product would have to
be identified if this information is reasonably available.
“What is reasonably available may
vary from case to case,” says FDA, adding firms have between four and
eight hours to tell the FDA of suspect items.
Transporters such as trucking
companies, private delivery carriers, railroads and airlines may also have
to keep similar documentation, including information about all the means
of transportation used.
FDA proposes that firms hold
records for a year for perishable foods not intended for processing into
non-perishable foods, and for animal food including pet food. Records for
all other foods would have to be retained for two years after the date
they were created.
There are some exemptions: farms,
restaurants, (including all operations that prepare food for, or serve
food directly to consumers), fishing vessels not engaged in processing,
and firms regulated exclusively by the US Department of Agriculture. Some
foreign facilities may also escape if their food products undergo further
manufacturing/processing, including packaging, by another facility outside
the United States.
FDA must publish a final rule no
later than 12 December 2003, in accordance with the deadline given in the
Act.
The other proposed regulation on
administrative detention allows the FDA to detain any article of food for
which there is credible evidence that it is a health threat.
Meanwhile the FDA and the Centres
for Disease Control (CDC) are to expand the National Laboratory Response
Network (LRN) and the Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) to include
more counter terrorism laboratories capable of analysing foods.
The CDC will set up special funding
arrangements to cover the extra cost of the work.
The CDC is expanding the scope of
its cooperative agreements in the current funding cycle to include
preparedness and response capacity of state food laboratories and other
laboratories. The expanded network will accommodate the need for effective
and efficient testing of food specimens to help public health officials
deal with apparent or actual incidents of biological or chemical
terrorism. |
