Health authorities

A method that would enable detection and classification of the bone content in 100% of the incoming frozen fish blocks in real time without delaying the production line was desired. An obvious solution to this was the use of X-ray inspection. X-ray inspection however requires the integration of a highly sensitive inspection equipment with the corrosive atmosphere associated with food processing as well as the tough restrictions imposed by the health authorities regarding irradiation of food. 

Sanitization is a cleaning procedure that reduces microbial contaminants on certain surfaces to safe or relatively safe levels, as defined by the EPA or pubHc health authorities. The article is usually cleaned with hot water and various germicidal detergents. Sanitization can be safe for a product in contact with intact skin or for food utensils, but it is not considered safe for articles to be inserted in the human body. Effective sanitization is a requirement in the processing of reusable medical suppHes before packaging and sterilization. It is also a requirement in the maintenance of utensils and containers used for food preparation. 

Small Communities. Small communities and recent subdivision additions to larger communities, which have not yet been coimected to municipal coUection systems, must have a means of waste disposal. Septic tanks are a possibiHty, but require periodic servicing and cleaning. Furthermore, the soil is not always suitable for accepting the effluent. An alternative is the package plant. These units are commercially produced to serve small areas. They furnish primary treatment and some secondary treatment, and require only minimal operating supervision. Capacity can be varied as needs dictate. In general, pubHc health authorities prefer such installations instead of septic tanks. 

TABLE 5.24 Toxicity Studies for Safety Evaluation of Drugs, Pesticides, Food Additives, and Other Chemicais Utilizing Experimental Animals and Other Systems Required by Health Authorities... 

Hepatitis A vaccine. Hepatitis A vaccine is recommended for use in selected states and regions, and for certain high-risk groups consult your local public health authority. See MMWR. l999 48(RR-l2) l-37. 

As long as the health authorities accept 90-110% specification limits on the drug assay, the normalization method presented above will barely suffice for batch release purposes. Since there is a general trend toward tightening the specification limits to 95-105% (this has to do with the availability of improved instrumentation and a world-wide acceptance of GMP-standards), a move toward options 1 (HPLC) and 2 (DA-UV) above is inevitable. 

Situation A cream that contains two active compounds was investigated over 24 months (incomplete program if today s ICH standards are applied, which require testing at 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months). The assays resulted in the data given in file CREAM.dat. Program SHELFLIFE performs a linear regression on the data and plots the (lower) 90% confidence limit for the regression line. For each full time unit, here months, it is determined whether this CL drops below levels of y = 90% resp. y = 95% of nominal. Health authorities today require adherence to the 90% standard for the end-of-shelf-life test, but it is to be expected that at least for some products the 95% standard will be introduced. 

For those who act responsibly, the legal and regulatory compliance departments and the health authorities benefit because complex scientific judgment is reduced to the mechanics of wielding checklists. 

Without good laboratory error explanations to ward off REJECTED labels, batch failure rates are likely to increase under the strict interpretation. The health authorities are waiting The rejection rate is a criterion they use to judge the trustworthiness of the companies they inspect and license. 

The context of this work, at least superficially, is quality control in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The general principles apply to any form of (chemical) analysis, however, whether in an industrial setting or not. Other readers need only to replace some phrases, such as Health Authority with discriminating customer or official requirements with market expectations, to bridge the gap. The specifically chemical or pharmaceutical nomenclature is either explained or then sufficiently circumscribed so that the essentials can be understood by students of other disciplines. 

The ventilation system must be able to carry away hazardous fumes that may form during normal work. Monitoring the laboratory atmosphere for such fumes while work is in progress is not only advisable, but may even be required by law. Monitoring must be repeated whenever new fume-producing procedures are introduced or any time modifications are made to the ventilation system. Local health authorities should be contacted about... 

Baird R.M. (1985) Microbial contamination of non-sterile pharmaceutical products made in hospitals in the North East Regional Health Authority. J Clin Hasp Pharm, 10, 95-100. 

Because of the requirement by public health authorities that any chemical used in the production of food should pose no risk to the consumer, the safety of food chemicals has mostly been approached from the perspective of whether or not the chemical poses a toxicological hazard. If it does so then it is argued that it is likely to present some degree of risk to the consumer even if humans are exposed to very low levels of that chemical in their diets. However, if exposure is minimal, depending on the nature of the toxicity, it is likely that the risk is acceptable because it is so low. What is not considered, or even tested in the experimental systems designed to study the toxicological effects of chemicals, is whether there are levels of exposure where there might be potential health benefits. The assumption is made that any nonnatural, adventitious substance that can be shown to be toxic is unlikely to have health benefits. 

Coutts, I. (1990). The Bodmin water clinics. In Lowermoor Water Incident , pp. 6-18. Tmro Conference Report. Cornwall Health Authority. 

The drug price intervention system in place in Spain since 1991 is based on the fixing of the price of each product by the health authorities, calculated according to its cost . This system allows for the possibility of excluding certain products or therapeutic groups from the price intervention system. It would be desirable to apply this exclusion principle to those products that are subject to a reasonable level of competition. Briefly, the main features of the Spanish system of price regulation are as follows ... 

For their part, the Spanish health authorities have historically been less demanding in the authorization process for new therapeutic substances. 

Approval of pharmaceuticals by health authorities The decision we are faced with here is whether a particular drag should be on the market or not. Normally governments decide whether to approve or reject the marketing of drugs solely on the basis of effectiveness and safety considerations. Should/can economic evaluation play a part in this ... 

Rice, N., P. Dixon, D. Lloyd and D. Roberts (2000), Derivation of a needs based capitation formula for allocating prescribing budgets to health authorities and primary care groups in England regression analysis , British Medical Journal, 320, 284-8. 

To assess the regional variations of Rn-222 in Norwegian dwellings, a simple and practical sampling procedure was chosen. The local health authorities in 75 municipalities were asked to select about 20 houses in their municipality, and dosemeters were sent by mail to the local health inspectors who in their turn contacted the householders. 

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