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European Union health ministers on Wednesday tackled the issue of designer drugs, as the bloc’s current leader Poland urged its 26 fellow member nations to step up the fight.

“The biggest problem is the distribution of designer drugs via the Internet,” Poland’s Health Minister Ewa Kopacz told reporters after talks with her counterparts in the Baltic Sea resort of Sopot.

“We need to take European-level action to fight against that form of supply,” she added.

Poland, whose six-month term at helm of the EU started last Friday, has cracked down at home on such laboratory-created drugs, which imitate the effect of banned narcotics but whose individual chemical components are not necessarily illegal.

“There’s no sense in banning such substances in a single EU member state. We need to work towards uniform legislation across the EU,” said Adam Fronczak, Poland’s deputy health minister. continue reading…

Australia introduced world-first plain packaging laws for cigarettes into parliament Wednesday, vowing not to bow to big tobacco’s “intimidation tactics” and legal threats.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the laws, which will have to be debated by MPs before being passed, would see Australia become the first country to go down this path.

“Introducing this legislation today I think shows that the big tobacco’s intimidation tactics have not worked. Our government won’t be deterred from taking this action,” Roxon told reporters.

“And we believe that we are on very strong ground — although this is a world first, taking this action — and are determined to proceed with it.” continue reading…

Cairo denied responsibility on Wednesday for E. coli outbreaks that killed 49 people in France and Germany and were blamed by the European Union on fenugreek seeds imported from Egypt.

The Egyptian agriculture ministry said the incriminated lot was imported as dried seeds in 2009 and argued that the bacteria could not have survived for so long.

“Lot no. 48088 had been exported on November 2009 as dried seeds. Scientifically, the bacteria cannot remain on this dry surface from 2009 till June 2011,” the ministry said.

The contamination of fenugreek sprouts “could be related to different handling processes as the re-packing or water used for sprouting,” the statement added. continue reading…