Luxembourg, 23/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - In Luxembourg, on Tuesday, Commissioner David Byrne drew the agriculture ministers' attention to the fact that the EU is better prepared for responding to an eventual bio-terrorist attack in the veterinary field than in the field of public health (Community measures exist for storage and rapid distribution of vaccines against foot and mouth disease but no system of this kind is in place for human diseases). Mr Byrne plans to encourage the agriculture ministers to increase the awareness of their counterparts responsible for health, and who are to meet on Thursday, on the lack of real coordination at Community level as far as public health is concerned. In the medium term, he suggested setting up an agency (like those already in place in Atlanta, in the United States), responsible for coordinating information on contagious diseases. He announced he would submit this question to the Standing Committee on Food Products and to the Standing Veterinary Committee in order to begin reflection on how to review "our defence systems" against such attacks.
Furthermore, the Council noted the presentations made by David Byrne of the three proposals concerning: - zoonoses; - pesticides; - and genetically modified organisms (GMO).