Brussels, 24/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - The EU needs to establish identification criteria for endocrine disruptors according to 27,000 people who responded to the public consultation held by the European Commission on this subject, whose results were published on Friday 24 July.
The results indicate, however, that there are differing viewpoints when it comes to how identification is done and how these chemical substances should be regulated. At low doses, they can disrupt hormone balance in the body leading to the risk of foetal and genital malformations, cancer and infertility.
Many respondents recommended using the World Health Organisation IPC 2002 definition as the starting point for defining endocrine disruptors.
Farmers, private companies, industry, trade organisations and non-EU public authorities are calling for a risk-based regulatory approach.
The online public consultation held from 26 September 2014 to 16 January 2015 covered the definition of criteria for identifying endocrine disruptors in the context of the implementation of the Plant Protection Product Regulation and Biocidal Products Regulation. The Commission said its aim was to collect information for the current impact assessment in order to measure the economic, environmental and health impact of the various options. The Commission says it will take account in its impact assessment of the answers to the consultation.
The 27,000 people who took part in the consultation come from various parts of society, including doctors, farmers, non-governmental organisations, representatives of the chemical, electronic, food and medical devices industries, water companies and scientists. Individual contributions (as opposed to responses on behalf of organisations) accounted for more than 90% of responses. Of the 863 responses from organisations, 64% came from the United Kingdom. Only two health institutions or hospitals responded.
Many contributors expressed concern about the dangers of endocrine disruptors for food safety, public health and/or the environment. Farmers and the agri-food industry said they were concerned about the serious repercussions for agriculture of drawing up identification criteria for endocrine disruptors.
The European Commission was required to draw up identification criteria by 31 December 2013 so that endocrine disruptors can be banned under the EU regulations on marketing biocidal products (Regulation 528/2012/EU) and the pesticides regulation (1107/2009) - the previous Commission under José Manuel Barroso simply launched a public consultation and handed over this political hot potato to the current Juncker Commission.
Scientific criteria have not yet been established and some say this delay is due to intensive lobbying from industry and certain departments at the European Commission itself (see EUROPE 11319). The Commission is required to introduce a ban on endocrine disruptors and has postponed until 2017 any option of new rules and organised a conference on 1 June 2015 to discuss identification criteria for endocrine disruptors.
In February 2015, the EU Council of Ministers decided to back Sweden, which is taking the European Commission to the European Court of Justice over its failings in this area.
The identification criteria are required because the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) says that not all substances that affect the endocrine system are endocrine disruptors. It depends on the existence of reasonable proof demonstrating that a substance can have a damaging effect due to its interaction or interference with the endocrine system, but there is not yet any specific scientific research establishing a distinction between active substances and endocrine disruptors, explained the EFSA in a scientific opinion on risk assessments for endocrine disruptors published on 20 March 2013 (see EUROPE 10811).
A report on the outcome of the public consultation can be found online at: http://ec.europa.eu/health/endocrine_disruptors/docs/2015_public_consultation_report_en.pdf (Aminata Niang)