The Dutch dairy industry continually monitors the purity and safety of milk and dairy products, taking account of a large number of risk factors. The Quality Programme for Agricultural Products (KAP) deals only with the residues and contaminants covered by the dairy industry’s monitoring programmes: organochlorine chemicals, PCBs and aflatoxin.

The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) manages a list of processing factors for (priority) pesticide residues in food. This list is used by the food industry and Dutch and foreign institutes for the calculation of dietary intake of certain pesticide residues.

The consumers of meat, milk and eggs expect the industry and the retail trade to supply safe and good products. Animal feeds are crucial to this, because they are an important link in the process of animal production. They have a direct influence on the quality and safety of foodstuffs of animal origin.

In 1997 the Dutch ate 3 percent more fish than in 1996. This increase is chiefly due to increased sales of fish in supermarkets. Fresh fish, such as cod and salted herring, is especially popular but smoked and packed fish such as salmon and, to a lesser extent, trout and saltwater trout are also eaten. However on average the population of the Netherlands eats relatively little fish, about 12 kg per person per year.

The ConsExpo nano tool can be used to estimate inhalation exposure to nanomaterials in consumer spray products. To run the model, user input on different exposure determinants such as the product and its use, the nanomaterial and the environmental conditions is required. Exposure is presented in different measures.

The 25-year old Dutch Breast Cancer Screening Program continues to satisfy expectations. Success is due to high quality and efficient organization, combined with a solid screening data recording system. The numbers of false-positives and overdiagnosis are less common than in some other countries, while the number of false-negatives is low. Full transparency and confidence about the results and (cost)effectiveness feed the lively effectiveness debate among researchers and in the lay press.

Weblog by Bernice Noteboom, climate reporter on Arctic March, a science mission in East Greenland to measure aerosols and black carbon. RIVM supports this research by providing knowledge about air pollution and the effects it has on the climate system.

Unfortunately the public database server is down at the moment.