Un droit de l'UE sur les produits chimiques coûteux et source d'expérimentation animale [en] 

The regulation may need 54 million research animals and cost 9.5 billion euros to implement over the next 10 years - 20 times the number of animals and six times the cost previously anticipated, they reported in the journal Nature.

The European Union's REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) legislation came into effect two years ago, requiring companies to assess the toxicity of chemicals that date from before the era of mandatory testing.

A new analysis  by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found the number of chemicals pre-registered for REACH by industry had vastly exceeded expectations, pointing to a vast volume of testing. The rise is mainly due to the EU's expansion, which according to the authors has increased chemical production volume by 18%.

"It was expected that 27,000 companies would submit 180,000 pre-registrations on 29,000 substances," said study author Thomas Hartung. "Instead, some 65,000 companies made more than 2.7 million pre-registrations for in excess of 140,000 substances."

Hartung and co-author Constanza Rovida said up to 101,000 chemicals could be covered by REACH, three times more than earlier estimates.

As a consequence, REACH's aim "will not be achieved" using traditional toxicity testing methods, Hartung claims. "Toxicologists do not have the appropriate tools -whether high-throughput methods or acceptable alternatives to animal testing - to meet these expectations," he said.

"As a toxicologist, I support the aims of REACH - it is the biggest investment into consumer safety ever," Hartung said. "However, I am concerned that we have underestimated the scale of the challenge. Investment into developing alternative research methods to meet REACH goals is urgently needed."

The 54 million additional animal tests mentioned in the study were dismissed as a "worst-case scenario" by the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), a Brussels-based organisation representing the European chemical industry.

"We are convinced that the situation in the article will not be reached because there will be fewer substances to be registered," said Erwin Annys, the council's director of chemicals policy, cited by Nature.

The REACH legislation has already proved controversial with some manufacturers, fearful it may push up costs, and with animal rights groups, who wrote to European regulators earlier this month calling for curbs on unnecessary animal tests.

(EurActiv with Reuters.)