MEPs call for immediate action on endocrine disrupters
The European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is calling for immediate action to prevent damage to the environment and health caused by endocrine disrupters. The human body's endocrine system regulates not only reproduction but also growth, blood pressure and blood sugar, the body's metabolism, the functioning of the brain and the nervous system. However, a wide range of chemicals - known as endocrine disrupters - are believed to disturb the endocrine system in both humans and animals. The European Commission plans to draw up a list of substances suspected of being endocrine disrupters and then subject them to further testing. But the committee wants action now. It says a list of substances should be identified, against which immediate steps should be taken under the precautionary principle. 'Measures should include banning, phasing out and/or limiting the use of these substances and the measures should be decided upon before mid-2001,' say the MEPs. The committee is now urging the Commission and Member States to establish a European screening and testing strategy. In its report on the subject, it calls for a European scientific research programme aimed at gathering information and scientific knowledge and encouraging the exchange of information on endocrine disrupters. It also requests that the Commission, which is proposing to analyse existing legal instruments only in the long run, now complete this study by mid-2001.