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EU
Scientist Wants Chemicals Info Made Public LONDON, Aug. 2, 2000 The assessment of chemical risks in the European Union is being hampered because too little information on exposure to harmful substances is made public, a top EU scientist said Monday. Addressing a conference on risk assessment in EU policy making, James Bridges, head of the EU scientific committee on toxicology, ecotoxicology and the environment, said laws on information disclosure were not strong enough. "We have to move on from a situation where 90% of toxicological information is marked confidential," Bridges said. "We need more information on how chemicals may or may not be affecting humans in practice." A lack of information meant there were "major shortcomings" in the field of exposure analysis, he added. "We can't move forward as we ought to unless access to data is much more effective than currently." Bridges went on to criticize laws preventing authorities from accessing data from one product to use in assessments of others. "We're unable to draw on data for other substances" because there are "legal constraints on product comparison," he said. One task of Bridges' committee is to ensure quality in the EU's "existing substances" review program, which evaluates chemicals marketed in the EU before a strict authorization procedure was introduced in 1981. The program puts most of the burden of work on governmental authorities rather than industry and is seriously behind schedule A chemicals policy overhaul currently underway is likely to shift responsibilities toward industry. The chemicals sector has already anticipated the changes and has launched voluntary research programs to assess the intrinsic hazards of high production chemicals and the long-term health and environmental effects of their products. Everyone is now in the global economy, a social environment heavily dominated by privately owned industrial groupings. If Governments are not willing to represent public interests in such matters as environmental toxins and genetic manipulation of organisms then out of frustration the public will inevitably take the law into its own hands. Industry is going to find itself public enemy number one and shouldn't feign shock or surprise when it is confronted by protest of both a peaceful nature and otherwise.. .rs and posters with messages that demand jobs and an end to poverty. These foot-soldiers are mobilisi
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