Thu, 23 Nov 2006

Founding president Konrad Schily resigns from Witten/Herdecke University

WITTEN-HERDECKE (NNA) - The founding president of Witten/Herdecke University, Dr.  Konrad Schily, has left the institution due to differences over its strategic direction, the university has announced. At the same time Schily - until his resignation a member of the university’s board of directors - declared his willingness to continue to provide positive support for the university, it added in a statement.

However, the university was not prepared to reveal details of the differences that caused Schily to leave the first private university in Germany. Discussions of the board of directors were not made public, press spokesman Bernd Frye told NNA.

Dr.  h.c. August Oetker, chairman of the board of directors, said he regretted the departure of the 69-year-old founding president. “Dr.  Schily has an exceptional knowledge of the German and international higher education system. We are very pleased that he will continue to be associated with us,” Oetker emphasised, expressly thanking Schily for his work.

The current president, Prof. Wolfgang Glatthaar, also paid tribute to Schily’s achievements in transforming the German higher education scene through the establishment and successful development of the private university.

The neurologist Schily was part of a group of medics who together with the support of Deutsche Bank board spokesman Dr.  Alfred Herrhausen founded Witten/Herdecke University. Its first faculty, Medicine, opened in 1983.

Konrad Schily was president of the university until September 1999 and again from June 2002 to December 2003. Thereafter Schily was mainly involved as a full member of the board of directors, the highest decision-making body of the university.

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Item: 061123-03EN Date: 23 November 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/

German health insurer demands debate about risks of nano-technology

HAMBURG (NNA) – Securvita, the German alternative ethical-ecological health insurer, has called on the German government to investigate possible health risks posed by nano-technology in much greater depth. The risk assessment was lagging far behind the industrial application of the new technology, the insurance company said in a statement.

Even the federal research ministry had admitted that the possible toxic effects of nano-particles had not been sufficiently studied. Just as with genetic engineering, there had to be adequate safeguards for consumers before nano-technology was introduced.

Patients and consumers had a right to be informed about research results indicating risks to health from the tiny particles. A clear legal framework and a public debate about its acceptance and risk were required.

Industrial production was already in the starting blocks, with nano-research having received 1.3 billion euros in public funding in Germany alone, Securvita quotes figures from the federal research ministry.

Yet the “nano-invasion” was taking place largely in secret, the statement adds. A series of nano-products was already being manufactured but consumers were being left largely in the dark.

There was no requirement to label products as containing nano-technology, as there was for additives, food chemistry or genetically modified products. Critics fear that the technology is being introduced by the back door to prevent a controversial public debate.

According to the health insurer, nano-technology promises “a revolution in medicines and foods”. With active ingredients which are millionths of a millimetre small, medicine had completely new possibilities: drugs could be packaged in tiny “submarines” which could bypass the bloodstream altogether and deliver their load directly into the cells concerned, such as cancerous tissue. This created the possibility of new cancer treatments. Foodstuffs, too, acquired completely new characteristics with nano-particles.

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Item: 061123-02EN Date: 23 November 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/

Catalogue of Steiner Library in Stuttgart now available online

STUTTGART (NNA) – The almost complete catalogue of the Rudolf Steiner House Library in Stuttgart, Germany, with literature covering all anthroposophical subject areas, is now available for public use on the Internet.

The task of putting the large stock of the library online took two years and books can be searched by title, author, keyword or keyword combination and borrowed by interlending.

A further project of the library is to catalogue the journals to provide access to important articles, but whether this project comes about depends on finding the necessary financial support.

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Links: www.rudolf-steiner-bibliothek.de and follow “Katalog” links to catalogue which is also searchable in English, email: bibl@anthroposophie-de.com

Item: 061123-01EN Date: 23 November 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/