Mercury-in-glass thermometer Medical Center and Las Piñas Hospital also made steps to ban the toxic chemical. The country was the first one to make a step to ban mercury from its health care system in Southeast Asia. Since European Union directive 2007/51/EC came into force on 3 April 2009, the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) reported that mercury thermometers could no longer be sold to the general public. Shops holding stocks of unsold thermometers had to withdraw them from sale; mercury thermometers purchased before this date could be used without legal implications. The purpose of these restrictions is to protect the environment
Substantial equivalence been used in various fields of science and technology. The OECD bases the substantial equivalence principle on a definition of food safety where we can assume that a food is safe for consumption if it has been eaten over time without evident harm. It recognizes that traditional foods may naturally contain toxic components (usually called antinutrients)—such as the glycoalkaloids solanine in potatoes and alpha-tomatine in tomatoes—which do not affect their safety when prepared and eaten in traditional ways. The report proposes that, while biotechnology broadens the scope of food modification, it does not inherently introduce additional risk, and therefore, GM