I seem to have missed those, so let me just supplement my last post with two links to the website of the Swedish Presidency:
The official press release is found here and a short question and answers section with Ulf Björnhom, the chair of the Council Working Party on the Environment can be seen here.
Thomas
The European Council of (Environmental) Ministers has just published a conclusion on combination effects. The whole PDF is available for download here. In particular, the conclusion stresses that
further action in the field of chemicals policy, research and assessment
methods to address combination effects of chemicals is required, in particular taking into
account the fact that existing EU legislation in most cases builds on a chemical-by-chemical
assessment approach;
and the council invites (whatever that exactly means) the Commission to
assess how and whether relevant existing Community legislation adequately
addresses risks from exposure to multiple chemicals from different sources and
pathways, and on this basis to consider appropriate modifications, guidelines and
assessment methods, and report back to the Council by early 2012 at the latest,
NGOs have responded less-than-enthusiastically to the council conclusions, argueing that the conclusions “postpone action” and that the indicated deadline of 2012 is not early enough.
One particular concern raised in the conclusion are combination effects of endocrine disrupters on human health. The recent Danish activities on this issue certainly had a great influence on the text. Unfortunately, ecotoxicological aspects of chemcial mixtures in the environment only play a comparatively minor role.
Thomas
That website is going to cost me a couple of hours (days?): http://www.vega.org.uk/. A huge collection of high quality video streams about a range of scientific subjects, from current issues such as nanotechnology, climate change to interviews with Nobel laureates and young scientists. Not to forget the reflections on science or the next big thing.
The ”Vega Science Trust” who is running the show(s) has been founded by Sir Harry Kroto, who is Professor for Chemistry at Florida State University and received the Nobel Prize in 1996 for his work on buckyballs. Hence the site has a bit of a bias towards chemistry issues – but some areas also have a very broad content. The only (small) downer: why the heck do they have to put all videos online in realtime format only? And do they really need to try to disable my right mouse button on the site?
Anyway, technicalities aside: the site is truly a scientific treasure chest – absolutely marvelous. This is certainly not to say that I would agree with everything that is broadcasted, for example there are quite some statements and attitudes in the reality of risks discussion that I definitely would object. The precautionary principle as the “antithesis to science” (23.30 mins and onwards)? C’mon!
But the videos certainly provide food for thought. Talk about Open Science…
Happy watching!
Thomas
The Danish ministry for the environment recently conducted a workshop on combination effects of chemicals (28-30 January 2009). Although I was invited I unfortunately couldn’t make it. During the time I was hosting some nice, lively influenza viruses. All the fun you can have…
Andreas Kortenkamp from the School of Pharmacy in London was organising the workshop, hence it might not be that surprising, that the main focus was on mixtures of endocrine disrupters. However, most of the conclusions also hold true for mixtures of chemicals from other areas.
To just quote the summary:
An expert workshop on effects of combined exposure to chemicals, with special emphasis on chemicals with endocrine activity was held under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of the Environment. The aim of the workshop was to examine existing scientific knowledge on combination effects of endocrine disrupters, with a focus on regulatory aspects. The workshop participants considered the state of the science of mixtures risk assessment for endocrine disrupters, and discussed the feasibility of approaches to cumulative risk assessment.
A consensus about a number of important issues could be formulated, and this included a series of recommendations:
Cumulative risk assessment (CRA) for endocrine disrupters was seen as both necessary and feasible. The predominant chemical-by-chemical approach in risk assessment was regarded as insufficiently protective against the possibility of mixture effects/ effects of combined exposure.
The application of dose (or concentration) addition as an assessment method was recommended as a default, until evidence as to the suitability of alternative assessment concepts emerges.
A pre-occupation with mechanisms or modes of action as the starting point for the grouping of endocrine disrupters into classes to be subjected to mixtures risk assessment was seen as not practical and scientifically hard to justify. Instead, grouping criteria should focus on common health related effects and the likelihood of co-exposures.
The full potential of CRA for endocrine disrupters cannot be reached without filling a number of data gaps, most importantly in the area of mixtures exposure assessment.
An enhancement of the legal framework in Europe with a view to mandating CRA should be given serious consideration.
The final workshop report hast just been published and can be downloaded here (PDF, in English).
Thomas
ECHA, the European Chemicals Agency, published the first recommendations for substances to be included in Annex XIV of REACH, i.e. substances that are subject to authorisation. These are the following (excerpt from the offical press release of the ECHA):
The background information on the methods and approaches as provided by ECHA is given here.
Just as a reminder: in December 2008 ECHA ended the pre-registration phase, in which dossiers for around 150 000 chemicals were received. That means, that at the moment roughly 0.005% of the pre-registered chemicals are subject to authorisation…
Thomas
The Helsinki Chemicals Forum has organised a conference in May 2009. In his opening speech EU Commissioner for the Environment, Stavros Dimas said that
While REACH considers the effects of single substances, the fact is that we are most commonly exposed to a cocktail of many different substances. This is an area in which important gaps remain in terms of knowledge and assessment. These gaps need to be closed in the coming years.
I couldn’ agree more.
Other challenges that were specifically mentioned included endocrine disrupters and nanotechnology. No surprises there.
The whole transcript of the talk is downloadable as a PDF here. There is also a video of the speech online.
On a slightly different subject: from where I’m sitting, the website is a good example of how not to put together a site for the dissemination of (scientific) information. Simply because it does not provide any background information whatsoever on who is behind this “Helsinki Chemicals Forum”. How is one supposed to assess the quality, reliability and possible bias in the informations presented on the site? Of course, the names of the individual presenters speak for themselves, but it would still be nice to get an idea of who organised the event, why and what the long-term goals are.
When you are lucky, you manage to find the small “Organizer” button, where it then simply states:
HCF (the Helsinki Chemicals Forum) is organised by the Chemicals Forum Association, with partners such as City of Helsinki, European Chemical Agency, Chemical Industry Federation of Finland and University of Helsinki
How much does that tell? I would like to have seen a website of this “Chemical Forum Association”, a contact email, some names… So that I can make up my mind of the agenda of the Forum. Google’ing helps a bit – but why the heck do I have to hunt down those informations, instead of having them presented to me?
Here is some more information. And what do you find?
The organising power behind Helsinki Chemicals Forum is a non-profit organisation Chemicals Forum Association. The city of Helsinki, European Chemicals Agency, the Finnish Chemical Industry Association and Helsinki University are important partners of the Forum.
Great – still no solid information. Not even a full list of the partners behind the Forum, only the “important” ones (makes one wonder what makes an “unimportant” partner). And when you click on the provided link on the bottom of the page (www.helsinkichemforum.eu) you are simply transferred back to the conference site itself (which seems to be run by the conference center).
Some room for improvement…
Thomas
Here is another follow-up on the recent publication scam by Elsevier and Merck. The whole story can be found on The Scientist’s blog here and on the links provided in this Wikipedia article.
Thomas
