{"id":112044,"date":"2023-07-11T00:03:16","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T22:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/?p=112044"},"modified":"2023-07-11T11:22:39","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T09:22:39","slug":"european-citizens-alarmingly-high-chemical-exposure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/european-citizens-alarmingly-high-chemical-exposure\/","title":{"rendered":"Largest ever public screening finds \u201calarmingly high\u201d chemical exposure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s largest ever screening programme for toxic chemicals has found significant parts of the population exposed to multiple hazardous substances above levels that could cause serious illnesses.<\/strong><\/p>\n

European Human Biomonitoring Initiative <\/strong>(HBM4EU<\/a>) is a five-year programme involving 116 government agencies, laboratories and universities – that tested<\/a> for the presence of 18 of the most problematic groups of chemical substances in the urine and\/or blood samples from more than 13,000 people from 28 European countries. Researchers found that the population is exposed to “alarmingly high” levels of hazardous chemicals, especially of children,<\/strong> according<\/a> to the programme co-coordinator.<\/p>\n

Much of that exposure stems from EU regulatory weaknesses that allow dangerously uncontrolled use of chemicals, according to the European Environmental Bureau<\/a> and CHEM Trust<\/a>, two NGOs who followed the program.<\/p>\n

Despite the scientists\u2019 findings and calls for stronger regulatory action, Brussels is planning to drastically scale back a pledge to ban the most harmful chemicals<\/strong> from consumer products<\/strong> according to a draft impact assessment<\/strong><\/a> obtained through freedom of information rules by Corporate Observatory Europe (CEO)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Exactly 1,000 days ago, the European Commission\u2019s executive vice president Frans Timmermans <\/a>promised<\/a> that \u201cas a rule, the use of the most harmful substances will be prohibited in consumer products\u201d. <\/em>The impact assessment suggests that the Commission’s commitment would no longer be so ambitious. Instead of covering all consumer products with the new ban, it plans to ban 50% of products at most and just 1% at minimum<\/strong>, which would allow widespread public exposure to highly dangerous chemicals to continue. This would fail to prevent severe health damage, including contributions to cancer, infertility, obesity, asthma and neurological diseases.<\/p>\n

Even with such a weak plan, redacted parts of the same impact assessment, seen by the EEB, state that direct costs to the chemical industry of banning the most harmful chemicals from consumer and professional products would be offset more than 10 times over by human health benefits. [1]<\/p>\n

The European Commission committed, in its Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, to ban the most harmful chemicals in all consumer products through a revision of the EU’s chemical safety law, REACH. The revision had been promised for the end of 2022, but EU Commissioners decided to delay it after pressure from the German chemicals industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biomonitoring programme produced 168 peer reviewed papers<\/a> that fo<\/a>und<\/a>:<\/p>\n