COURSES, MEETINGS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Third International Food Data Base Conference
Rome, Italy, 5 - 7 July, 1999

The FAO, the European Cooperation and Research Action on Food Consumption and Composition Data (COST 99 Action EUROFOODS), and the IUNS/UNU are jointly organising the Third International Food Data Base Conference (Third IFDBC) which will be hosted by FAO at its Headquarters in Rome, Italy, July 5 - 7, 1999. Mr. John R. Lupien, Director, Food and Nutrition Division, is the Conference Convenor.

This Conference will bring together scientists, international experts, government workers and food industry professionals who work in the area of food composition, to discuss current issues and future directions in generating, disseminating and using food composition data.

The conference theme ‘Back to basics’ has been chosen to emphasise such basic issues as sampling and design of research protocols. The Third IFDBC will include plenary lectures, workshops, oral presentations and poster sessions to provide opportunities for a variety of communications.

The conference is free but participants should registrer by 30 April, 1999. The deadline for call for papers (either poster or oral) is February 28, 1999. Those submitting abstracts should register by 28 February 1999.

Further details can be found on the FAO website at:
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/ECONOMIC/ESN/foodcomp/announce/announ-e.htm (english),
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/ECONOMIC/ESN/foodcomp/announce/announ-f.htm (french), or
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/ECONOMIC/ESN/foodcomp/announce/announ-s.htm (spanish). For further information, write to: Barbara Burlingame or Irela Mazar, Food and Nutrition Division, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100, Rome, Italy. Fax: (+39-06) 5705 4593 Email: [email protected] or [email protected].

Workshop Announcement Enhancing Nutritional Quality of Relief Foods
March 3-5, 1999.

An international workshop will be held in Washington, DC to discuss recent research and practice related to improvement in the nutritional value of ration foods given in humanitarian aid programs including emergencies, refuge/IDP camps, and transition situations. The core participants will be NGO staff responsible for food aid programs. The workshop will focus on exchange experiences of fortifying and improving ration quality and the potential future field research needed to test new technologies for fortifying foods.

The workshop is being organised by Food Aid Management, the Congressional Hunger Center, the American Red Cross, Sustain, the Micronutrient Initiative of Canada and USAID.

The organisers welcome papers, data, perspectives, or questions to be possibly added to the agenda.

For more information, or to send suggestions or papers, please contact any of the following: Congressional Hunger Center Email: [email protected] Food Aid Management Email: [email protected] FMA Email: [email protected]

George Beaton Presented with Two Awards

George Beaton has been selected as the eighth recipient of The Roger J. Williams Award in Preventative Nutrition. The award, which carries a cash prize of US $10 000, will be presented to George in Fort Worth on March 21, 1999.

Made possible by an endowment established by Bruce Street (formerly at the University of North Texas and the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine), the award is designed to recognise individuals who have made important contributions in the area of human nutrition. Previous award winners include William Shive (University of Texas), Hector DeLuca (University of Wisconsin), Robert Levy (Columbia University), Richard Wurtman (MIT), Bruce Ames (University of California), Scott Grundy (University of Texas) and Professor Vernon Young (MIT).

In October 1998, Dr Beaton was also presented with the 18^th Annual Bristol-Myers Squibb/Mead Johnson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research. Initiated in 1977, this annual award is given to individual researchers for distinguished achievement in the fields of nutrition, cancer, orthopaedic, neuroscience, cardiovascular/metabolic and infectious desease research. Previous recipients of the award for Nutrition Research have included Scott Grundy (University of Texas), Irwin Rosenberg (Tufts University), Vernon Young (MIT) and Doris Howes Calloway (University of California). George Beaton was presented with this award in recognition for his pioneering work in establishing a sound theoretical basis for estimating and applying human nutrient requirements.

Dr Beaton is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada. It was at this University where he received his BA in 1952, his PhD in Nutrition in 1955, and where he worked until 1994. Dr Beaton is an Elected Fellow of the American Institute of Nutrition, a past president of the Nutrition Society of Canada, a former Council vice president of the Royal Canadian Institute, and a member of the American Institute of Nutrition, American Society for Clinical Nutrition and American Board of Nutrition. He has chaired or served on numerous international nutrition committees including eight FAO/WHO expert committees on human nutrient needs.

George has been associated with the ACC/SCN for many years, and served on the Advisory Group on Nutrition for 6 years. We extend our congratulations to him on being awarded these prizes.

George Beaton can be contacted at GBH Consulting, 9, Silverview Drive, Willowdale, Ontario M2M 2B2, Canada. Tel: 1 416 221 7409 Fax: 1 416 221 8563 Email: [email protected]

Management of Agricultural Information Services

An international course on “Management of Agricultural Information services” will be held on 13-14 September, 1999 in Wageningen, Netherlands. The course is organised jointly by the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, and the International Agricultural Centre (IAC), Wageningen. Major elements of the course are:

à information services design and strategy development,
à management of information services, and
à development of a proposal specific to ones own needs.

The course is designed for professionals (university degree), who have at least five years of experience in the management and design of agricultural information units, libraries or documentation centres of international, regional and national organisations. Tuition fees are NLG 6,500 (~US$3400). The course is residential and participants will be accommodated in the hotel on the International Agricultural Centre, the WICC-IAC on the basis of full board and lodging. Costs are NLG 110 (~US$57) per day and are not included in the above tuition fee.

For more information and an application form contact: International Agricultural Centre, Information Services, P.O. Box 88, 6700 AB Wageningen-the Netherlands. Fax: +31-317-418552 Closing date for applications is June 1,1999.

Seeds for Peace

The Seeds for Peace organisation has assembled a series of 80 slides to promote home gardens in combating vitamin A deficiency. The slides were taken mainly in Hawaii, the Phillipines and China and promote the “Lazy Garden” technology - making gardens simple and efficient. The slides cover such topics as clinical symptoms of vitamin A deficiency, nutrient composition of vegetables and methods for small scale vegetable gardening. The slide set is accompanies by a 9 page explanation of the slides as well as a 30 minute audiotape in English or Chinese.

For additional information contact: Y.H. Yang, Seeds for Peace project Coordinator, UNA-USA Hawaii Division, 500 University Ave, Apt 918, Honolulu, 96826, USA. Cost is US $45 plus air shipment of $4 in USA or $12 in other countries.

The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) - One of the 1998 Right Livelihood Award Recipients

Founded in 1980, the Right to Livelihood Awards (RLA) were introduced ‘to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today’. The RLA Jury has honoured IBFAN “for its committed and effective campaigning over nearly twenty years for the rights of mothers to choose to breastfed their babies, in the full knowledge of the health benefits of breastmilk, and free from the commercial pressure and misinformation with which companies promote breastmilk substitutes”. IBFAN was the first international citizen’s group of its kind. Formed in 1979 it brought together the non-governmental organizations which were addressing infant feeding and infant health and united these organizations in a common aim: improving breast feeding rates, reducing dependence on industrial artificial milk products, and protecting families’ freedom of choice based on full, unbiased information and support.

IBFAN has pioneered the art of making transnational commercial enterprises more accountable through widely disseminated, mutually reinforcing inquires and actions by small groups and individuals. Monitoring the International Code and pressing governments and industry to adopt it in full has remained a central and ongoing struggle for the network. Twenty-seven governments have translated it into national law; another 48 have enacted portions of it or have laws in draft form. IBFAN has organized training courses for government officials and legal advisers to help them write their national legislation.

The Award is worth approximately US $230,000 and is shared with Samual Epstein, cited for his work on cancer, and Juan Pablo Orrego and his organisation for their work to prevent the ecological destruction of Chile’s Biobio river valley.

The 8^th World Salt Symposium May 7-11, 2000, Hague, Netherlands

The theme of the Symposium is “Salt; Life Depends on It”. Included in the plenary sessions will be a “State of the World Report” on salt iodization and the elimination of IDD. Examples of national progress and a discussion of what remains to be done to achieve the elimination of IDD will be included. Issues of quality assurance, law enforcement, education, product marketing and programs with multiple fortification will also be covered.

The deadline for abstract submission is May 1,1999. Most of the papers will be presented as posters. Companies producing salt, equipment used by the salt industry, including that needed to iodate and monitor salt, will be invited to exhibit.

17^th International Congress of Nutrition ‘Modern Aspects of Nutrition - Present Knowledge and Future Perspectives’
Vienna, August 27-31, 2001

Organised under the auspices of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS), the 17* International Congress of Nutrition, 2001, aims to provide an update on nutrition and food science issues and to discuss the impact of new knowledge on:

à goals for nutrition education;
à setting of nutrition policy and programmes;
à providing for food security and safety;
à implementing recommendations for nutrition practices that will optimise global health through the prevention and treatment of disease.

The scientific programme will also focus on future aspects of nutritional sciences and their development into the third millenium.

In addition to plenary lectures and traditional subject-specific symposia, the programme will include debate sessions on selected controversial discussions.

The official language of the Congress is English. The preliminary programme and call for abstracts will be mailed during late 2000. For further information and to be put on the mailing list, please send your name, address and contact details to the Administrative Secretariat, Austropa Interconvention, 17^th International Congress on Nutrition, Winger Strasse 6-8, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. Tel: +41 1 316 8017 Fax: +43 1 315 5650 Email: [email protected] The Scientific Secretariat for the Congress can be contacted at The Vienna Academy of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Alser Strasse 4, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. Tel: +43 1 405 13 83 14 Fax: +43 1 405 13 83 23 Email: [email protected] All details can be found on the Congress website at http://www.univie.ac.at/iuns2001/

Source: ‘Vienna calling. First Announcement’ booklet.

Arbor Clinical Nutrition Updates

The Arbor Clinical Nutrition updates are available free of charge to nutrition and health professionals including students. Intending subscribers should send an email to: [email protected] with your name, email address, location, professional background and nutrition interests. Subscribers from Africa and South America are partucularily welcomed.

Nutrition Society Information Sheets

The Nutrition Society has updated its Information Sheets listing postgraduate and short training courses in international human nutrition. These can be found on the Society’s website at http://www.nutsoc.org.uk/

The Information Sheet’s “Low-Cost Newsletters and Journals for Nutritionists”, which was published in the last issue of SCN News, has been amended (thanks to readers who sent corrections) and is also on the website. Please send any additions or changes for these Information Sheets to Ian Sambrook at [email protected]

SEAMEO-TROPMED Short Courses

The SEAMEO-TROPMED Regional Center for Community Nutrition is a training and research center for all South East Asian countries, located at the University of Indonesia. The SEAMEO-TROPMED Community Nutrition Training Programme consists of an MSc in nutrition (2 years), a Doctor of Nutrition (3 years), a diploma programme in management of community nutrition (3 months) and a field research programme (6-8 months).

In addition, the SEAMEO-TROPMED Nutrition Training Programme offers several short courses on specific community nutrition topics aimed at improving the professional’s knowledge and skills. For 1999-2000, the following short courses are offered:

· Food Safety and Food Control (4 Jan-15 Jan 1999)
· Nutrition, aging and non communicable diseases (July/August 1999)
· Micronutrients programme (August 1999)
· Public Health System (4-18 October 1999)
· Nutritional Epidemiology (6-20 September 1999)
· ZOPP¹ and nutritional planning and management (18 October-8 November 1999)
· Nutritional anthropology and communication planning for community nutrition programme (Jan 2000)

¹ Objective Oriented Program Planning (ZOPP - Ziel Orientierte Projekt Planung)

For further information and to obtain application forms, please contact the Training Programme Coordinator, the SEAMEO-TROPMED Regional Center for Community Nutrition, University of Indonesia, 6 Salemba Raya, Jakarta 10038, Indonesia. Tel: 62-21 330205/3913932-3 Fax: 62 21 3907695/3913933 Email: [email protected] or [email protected]