A brief summary of European legislation regarding animal welfare

An overview of the current European legislation concerning animal welfare is given. The legal requirements concern the housing and care of production animals (poultry, calves and swine), the transport of animals and the killing of animals (not only in slaughterhouses, but also in case of contagious animal disease outbreaks). General information concerning the principles and contents of European pieces of legislation as well as detailed information concerning requirements for individual animal species is given. Furthermore, other elements concerning animal welfare such as castration of piglets, ritual slaughter and animals used for experimental purposes are also reviewed. Finally, some recent initiatives in the field of animal welfare are mentioned and useful links are provided for finding the various legislative acts and additional supportive information.     

A brief overview of transgenic farm animals

Transgenesis offers new possibilities to rapidly modify the genome of living organisms. The application of transgenesis to farm animals faces many problems, more than those observed in the transgenesis of laboratory animals, as there are currently many different techniques available to obtain transgenic animals, which all have problems regarding low efficiency and high costs. When these techniques are applied to farm animals the problems concerning transgenesis are multiplied. Two main techniques, male pronuclear microinjection and sperm mediated gene transfer, utilised in farm animal transgenesis, are briefly presented. The improvement of these techniques and the employment of other biotechnologies such as cloning, could expand the uses of transgenic farm animals for human health.     

Long-term cryopreservation of microbial strains relevant to food hygiene

Experiments on long-time cryopreservation at -20 degrees C were conducted, using 42 microbial strains of relevance to food hygiene. Blood slant agar was coated with 10% glycerol solution, so that all strains were in re-culturing conditions, following 12 months of storage. Re-culturing of 18 in 20 of the microbial genera used in the experiment was possible after 24 months of storage, if strains had been kept only in 10% glycerol solution. The method proved suitable particularly for strain keeping of highly sensitive genera (Lactobacillus, Pseudomonas, Aeromonas, Shigella).     

The food legislation evaluation of environmental chemicals in freshwater fish

During the last 1 1/2 decades different regulatory limits have been given to value pollutants in fish under food-legal aspects. Their requested target, which consists of an effective consumer's protection however has been missed by various reasons: The production and distribution of environmental pollutants cannot be suppressed by limits for food. The selective elimination of limit-exceeding individuals from a lot is impossible. Treating both, natural pollutants like geogenic mercury and anthropogenic ones similar seems to be indefensible with regard to food law. Therefore proposals are made to rule only anthropogenic pollutants by law, when regulatory limits are planned to be supplemented. In case of natural distribution less stringent advisory limits seem to be more suitable.     

Morbillivirus infections in aquatic mammals: a brief overview

Since 1987, at least eight morbillivirus infection (MI) epidemics have caused mass mortality of several free-living pinniped and cetacean populations around the world. The responsible agents, all belonging to the genus Morbillivirus (family Paramyxoviridae), have been characterized as either "canine distemper virus" strains, infecting pinnipeds, or as three new morbilliviruses, namely "phocid (phocine) distemper virus" , "porpoise morbillivirus" and "dolphin morbillivirus" . The last two agents are currently gathered under the common denomination of "cetacean morbillivirus". At post-mortem examination, a commonly occurring macroscopic lesion is represented by more or less severe bilateral pneumonia, with consolidation, congestion and oedema of both lungs, which fail to collapse. Histologically, a non-suppurative broncho-interstitial pneumonia, characterized by type II pneumocyte hyperplasia and by formation of endobronchial, endobronchiolar and endoalveolar "Warthin-Finkeldey type" syncytia, as well as a multifocal, non-suppurative encephalitis, associated with a severe and generalized lymphoid tissue depletion, are common pathological findings. Furthermore, eosinophilic viral inclusions are often detected, at both the intracytoplasmic and intranuclear level, within bronchial and bronchiolar epithelial, pulmonary syncytial, neuronal and other cell types. These inclusions, along with lymphoid and other cellular elements, are often found to be immunohistochemically positive for morbillivirus antigen. Among the still debated, or even controversial issues regarding MI in sea mammals, the one related to the origin of their causative agents is of particular concern. Another intriguing issue regards the synergistic effects, if any, associated with chronic exposure to a number of environmental pollutants, such as organochlorines and heavy metals. In fact, it is also unknown whether and how these chemicals contribute towards modulating the pathogenic and pathogenetic activity primarily displayed by sea mammal morbilliviruses.