Govt Water Down Chemical Testing

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Thursday, 30 October 2003

The European commission was accused of putting business above human health and the environment yesterday after it succumbed to lobbying from Tony Blair, the US government and Europe's powerful chemical industry. The charge came after proposals to test thousands of potentially hazardous chemicals found in everyday goods were watered down. All three had lobbied hard to scale back the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (Reach) system.

Over 100,000 chemicals that have never been tested are currently used in various consumer goods from cleaning products to children's toys. Some of them are strongly suspected of causing birth defects, serious allergies, lower sperm counts and cancer while others are thought to be doing untold environmental damage.

Under the commission's plans just 30,000 of those chemicals would need to be registered on a new EU database and a mere 6,000 of those would be tested.
Registration information for 20,000 of the 30,000 would be rudimentary and just 1,500 substances "of very high concern" would need licensing.
Source The Guardian