Metals in tobacco harmful to health Growing tobacco plants acquire metals from soil, fertilisers, and industrial pollution. Smoking liberates some of these metals from tobacco into smoke to be inhaled by the smoker and bystanders.
RIVM writes Novel Tobacco Products paper for WHO The World Health Organization (WHO) Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI) has just published a Report of the WHO Study Group on Tobacco Product Regulation (TobReg).
New insights on ammonia emissions Calculated ammonia emissions in the Netherlands are still declining. However, emissions overall are greater than previously assumed.
Harmful substances in e-cigarettes assessed While e-cigarettes are less harmful to health than tobacco cigarettes, the vapour from an e-cigarette contains substances and chemical impurities in concentrations that could be detrimental to heal
Big Data gives more insight into the health impacts of air pollution Long-term exposure to particulate air pollution and nitrogen dioxide has been found to be associated with total mortality and mortality from respiratory diseases and lung cancer in the Netherlands.
Risk of degradation of European ecosystems by air pollution is decreasing The number of natural areas in Europe that are threatened by air pollution will decrease between 2005 and 2020.
RIVM participates in large EU project to head up global fight against infectious diseases COMPARE, a large EU project intends to speed up the detection of, and response to disease outbreaks among humans and animals worldwide, through the use of new genome technology.
Biobased alternatives to hormone disrupting substance in cash register receipts Chemicals made from vegetable or animal waste may be an alternative to the use of the substance Bisphenol A (BPA) in thermal paper. Thermal paper is widely used for cash register receipts.
Release of QMRAspot v2 for quantitative microbial risk assessment of drinking water RIVM has developed a new version of QMRAspot (2.0), a user-friendly computational tool to calculate the risk of becoming infected by pathogenic microorganisms in drinking water.
Promising biobased alternatives to substances of very high concern There are many possible biobased alternatives to substances of very high concern (SVHC). Some are even ready to be deployed right away.