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This volume summarizes the current scientific evidence and identifies research priorities needed to decrease social inequalities in cancer. The publication, based on the expert knowledge of more than 70 international scientists from multiple disciplines, undertakes a populations-within-populations approach, highlighting the large variations in cancer incidence, survival, and mortality that exist between countries and, within countries, between social groups. Several factors may lead individuals with low social status to adopt unhealthy behaviors, to be exposed to a wider range and a higher intensity of cancer risk factors, and to have reduced access to health-care services, compared with their fellow citizens. A special focus is given to how the phenomenon of inequalities in cancer evolves and is reshaped over time, driven by economic, social, political, legislative, and technological forces; it affects everyone, but the most disadvantaged individuals are particularly hard hit. This IARC Scientific Publication was developed to serve as a reference for policy-makers and public health officials, linking to specific examples of interventions that may reduce future inequalities in cancer.

This report uses a comprehensive framework for studying health risks that was developed for the World Health Report 2002, which presented estimates for the year 2000. The report provides an update for the year 2004 for 24 global risk factors. It uses updated information from WHO programs and scientific studies for both exposure data and the causal associations of risk exposure to disease and injury outcomes. The burden of disease attributable to risk factors is measured in terms of lost years of healthy life using the metric of the disability-adjusted life year (DALY). The DALY combines years of life lost due to premature death with years of healthy life lost due to illness and disability. Health risks are in transition: populations are ageing owing to successes against infectious diseases; at the same time, patterns of physical activity and food, alcohol and tobacco consumption are changing. Low- and middle-income countries now face a double burden of increasing chronic, noncommunicable conditions, as well as the communicable diseases that traditionally affect the poor.

The monographs in this volume summarize the safety data on 10 pesticides that could leave residues in food commodities. These pesticides are aminocyclopyrachlor, cyflumetofen, dichlobenil, flufenoxuron, imazamox, mesotrione, metrafenone, myclobutanil, pymetrozine and triforine. The data summarized in the toxicological monographs served as the basis for the acceptable daily intakes and acute reference doses that were established by the Meeting.This volume and previous volumes of JMPR toxicological evaluations, many of which were published in the FAO Plant Production and Protection Paper series, contain information that is useful to companies that produce pesticides, government regulatory officers, industrial testing laboratories, toxicological laboratories and universities.

Draws together twenty-two WHO guidelines relevant to the quality assurance and control of pharmaceutical products. Most of these guidelines have appeared as annexes in various reports of the WHO Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations. Others are published here for the first time. By making these available in a single reference work, the book facilitates access to the complete body of WHO guidelines and recommendations issued to assist national drug regulatory and control authorities, particularly in developing countries. When viewed together, the collected guidelines also underscore the need for a comprehensive system of quality assurance and illustrate its various technical and administrative components in a logical way. The book has nine chapters organized to reflect the sequence of administrative and technical procedures needed to ensure that drugs meet acceptable standards of quality, safety, and efficacy. Chapter one sets out guiding principles for small national drug regulatory authorities. The second and most extensive chapter, on product assessment and registration, gives guidelines for the assessment of herbal medicines, the stability of drug dosage forms, the stability testing of products containing well established drug substances, and registration requirements to establish the interchangeability of multisource (generic) pharmaceutical products. Other chapters present recommendations for quality assurance in pharmaceutical supply systems, use of the International Pharmacopoeia to control the identity, purity and quality of products, and the development of simplified tests for verifying the identity of pharmaceutical products. A chapter on laboratory services contains proposed models for a first-stage laboratory for drug surveillance, and a medium-size drug control laboratory. The remaining chapters provide guidelines for international trade in pharmaceuticals, recommendations for dealing with the new threat posed by counterfeit products, and advice on training programmes for personnel conducting drug analysis for regulatory purposes.

Le prsent rapport lance un appel pour que des mesures d'urgence soient prises pour lutter contre l'pidmie d'obsit croissante qui touche maintenant aussi bien les pays en dveloppement que les pays industrialiss. Tout en adoptant une dmarche de sant publique, le rapport fait cho non seulement la gravit des problmes de sant lis l'obsit mais aussi la difficult notoire de traiter cette maladie complexe et multifactorielle. Compte tenu de ces problmes, le rapport se propose d'aider les responsables politiques lancer des stratgies de prvention et de gestion, mesures qui prsentent les plus grandes chances de succs. Il souligne plusieurs reprises l'importance que revt la prvention, stratgie la plus judicieuse dans les pays en dveloppement o l'obsit coexiste avec la dnutrition. Les lignes de conduite recommandes, qui sont l'expression du consensus auquel sont parvenus 25 autorits reconnues, reposent sur un examen critique des connaissances scientifiques actuelles au sujet des causes de l'obsit la fois chez l'individu et au niveau des populations. Mme si toutes les causes de l'obsit sont passes en revue, une attention particulire a t accorde aux changements de comportements et aux mutations sociales qui ont entran une augmentation de la densit nergtique des rgimes alimentaires, drgl les systmes de rgulation sophistiqus qui contrlent l'apptit et maintiennent l'quilibre nergtique et suscit une baisse de l'activit physique. Dans le rapport, les sujets concrets suivants sont examins: l'influence de la teneur en matires grasses des disponibilits alimentaires sur la gnralisation de l'obsit dans les populations, les conceptions errones des membres de la profession mdicale et du public en matire d'obsit, les stratgies propres lutter contre l'alarmante prvalence de l'obsit chez l'enfant. ...l'ouvrage est trs clair et riche d'informations succintes qui peuvent se rvler trs utiles pour quiconque s'intresse aux implications de l'obsit et de l'adiposit sur la sant publique, savoir les tudiants, les mdecins ou les chercheurs. - Journal of Biosocial Science

Evaluates the risks to human health and the environment posed by exposure to acrolein, a chemical produced in large quantities and used as an intermediate in the synthesis of several chemicals, most notably acrylic acid and its esters and DL-methionine, an essential amino acid used as a feed supplement for poultry and cattle. Acrolein also has direct application as an aquatic biocide used against algae, molluscs, and herbs in recirculating process water systems, irrigation channels, cooling water towers, and water treatment ponds. Acrolein accounts for about 3 to 10% of total automobile exhaust aldehydes, 1 to 13% of total wood-smoke aldehydes, and up to 7% of the aldehydes in cigarette smoke. The report notes that exposure of the general population occurs mainly via air, with mainstream and sidestream tobacco smoke representing the most important source. Other sources of exposure include inhalation of air polluted by vehicle exhausts, direct contact with acrolein-treated water, and consumption of alcoholic beverages and certain food items. Concerning effects on the environment, the report cites studies documenting adverse effects on crops grown on soil irrigated by acrolein-treated water, and a very high toxicity for bacteria, algae, crustacea, and fish, with bacteria being the most sensitive species. Acrolein is noted to threaten aquatic life at or near sites of industrial discharge or spills and in areas where acrolein is used as a biocide.