EU intensifies research on health risks from polluted water
As the UN declared March 22 2001 'world water day', the European Commission's Research Directorate-General unveiled plans to intensify research on health risks from polluted water, through funds allocated within its Fifth Framework programme. It is particularly interested in chemical pollutants that are difficult to detect until it is too late, such as antibiotics and 'endocrine disrupters', which can respectively induce antibiotic resistance and disturb hormone levels in animals and humans. Concern over pollution from endocrine disrupters are also increasing because at high concentrations, they are linked to observations of some fishes changing sex. In response, early in May, the Commission will launch a dedicated call for research proposals under its Fifth Framework programme, through both the Quality of life and management of living resources and the Environment and sustainable development programmes. The call will target projects that aim to fill the gaps in current knowledge in endocrine disrupters. And to maximise the impact of research efforts, it will focus on a limited number of priorities and encourage integrated and multidisciplinary approaches to establishing a link between environment and human health implications. 'Research in this area is necessary to perform fully fledged risk assessment and therefore to EU policy making,' says the Commission. Community funds also support research activities on emerging problems such as the increasing presence of pharmaceuticals in water and waste water. 'The interest is particularly on understanding the effective risk they may pose to the environment and to human health,' the Commission says. Recently a cluster of projects named PHARMA has been launched combining three ongoing research projects focusing on the residues of pharmaceuticals in water and waste water . 'The cluster is unique in the sense that it aims at developing advanced monitoring and removal technologies in a field where very few and scattered previous investigations have been carried out in Europe, and the research will encompass both human and veterinary pharmaceuticals,' explains the Commission.