The National Institute of Health and the Italian Poison Centers Network: results of a collaborative study for the surveillance of exposures to chemicals.

Background: The Public Health Surveillance Systems are essential to improve and protect public health, as highlighted by the World Health Organization. According with this consideration, a systematic collaboration between the National Institute of Health and the Poison Centers of Northern, Central and Southern Italy was established. Its aim was to improve the national network for the surveillance of dangerous exposures to chemicals. The developed network provided harmonized data essential for evidence-based interventions and significantly ameliorated the data flow between the Poison Centers and the Central Health Institutions. Methods: The improvement of the system was obtained through several actions, such as the development of the "Online Surveillance Card" for the detection of sentinel events in real time and the harmonization of the data collection flow, including the product categorization according to the European Product Categorization System. Data analysis was carried out by Microsoft's IBM SPSS Statistics version 26, Access and Excel. Results: Important information was obtained, regarding also exposures to chemicals and their management in pediatric populations. The surveillance network was proved effective not only under "normal" conditions but also to promptly monitor changes during exceptional health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. During the 2020 lockdown the surveillance system registered a significant increase in the frequency of exposures to disinfectants (p-value=0.002), an evidence that highlighted the need of tailored intervention. Conclusions: This Italian Project model proves to be reliable and suitable to be transferred to other European countries, in order to realize an European Poison Centers' Network, able to overcome unsolved health problems and to globally improve the "evidence-based" prevention of exposures to chemicals.

Effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking in real-world rear-end crashes.

This study set out to evaluate the effectiveness of low speed autonomous emergency braking (AEB) technology in current model passenger vehicles, based on real-world crash experience. The validating vehicle safety through meta-analysis (VVSMA) group comprising a collaboration of government, industry consumer organisations and researchers, pooled data from a number of countries using a standard analysis format and the established MUND approach. Induced exposure methods were adopted to control for any extraneous effects. The findings showed a 38 percent overall reduction in rear-end crashes for vehicles fitted with AEB compared to a comparison sample of similar vehicles. There was no statistical evidence of any difference in effect between urban (≤60 km/h) and rural (>60 km/h) speed zones. Areas requiring further research were identified and widespread fitment through the vehicle fleet is recommended.

Influence of slaughtering method on some aspects of quality of gilthead seabream and smoked rainbow trout.

The effects of several slaughter methods on the quality of fresh and smoked trout and fresh gilthead seabream were evaluated during storage at 2 degrees C. Electrically stunned trout had slower ATP depletion of raw muscle and lower lipid oxidation in smoked product during storage. Gilthead seabream immersed in an ice slurry (IS group) after the harvest showed a more regular ATP depletion than in fish exposed to CO2. Nevertheless, in the case of the IS group, self-initiated behaviour, response to handling and breathing all ceased only after 15-20 min, whereas carbon dioxide-stunned fish appeared dead after 5 min. However, gilthead seabream group having slower ATP depletion also showed lower lipid oxidation of muscle during storage. In both species this could be due to the rapid conversion of xanthine dehydrogenase to xanthine oxidase induced by the rapid consumption of ATP. Xanthine oxidase, in the presence of redox iron and reintroduced oxygen, can produce hydrogen peroxide and, consequently, hydroxyl radicals.