Chemicals: Does the consumer know?

The European Chemicals Industry Council (CEFIC), points to lack of data and scientific knowledge about the potential risks that some products could pose to human health. According to CEFIC, blood analyses of human exposure to chemicals are "a one-off measurement" which "do not provide any information as to whether the levels vary over time or what the source of exposure was". 

"On their own, these measurements do not provide enough information to determine risk or health effects," CEFIC says. Moreover, it points out that most of the chemicals measured in the blood tests relate to chemicals or pesticides that are either already banned or controlled by rigourous legislation. "The presence of trace amounts of chemicals in the body should bot be used as a pretext for demanding tougher controls than necessary," said CEFIC's Colin Humphris. 

"REACH aims to ensure the safety of chemical products on the EU market. It should lead to increased consumer confidence in the products that they use," said Charles Laroche, President of the International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products (A.I.S.E.). He calls for 'risk-based, consumer-oriented communication' to be an integral element of REACH. "Consumers want clear information on how to use a product safely. They want easy-to-understand symbols. That is why we wish to work with the institutions to find a way to label products sensibly and clearly, according to real risks - rather than hypothetical hazards." 

"Our aim is to continue to ensure safety of products that meet consumer expectations and to build confidence among consumers, authorities and NGOs," said Carlos Rodriguez from Procter & Gamble. The P&G has a specific website of its products to consumers - 'Science in the Box' explains the ingredients, and their specific role in the product. The site gives an access to the full list of ingredients present in P&G laundry and cleaning products currently on sale in Europe.

"Confining consumer information to the risks of specific substances would ignore the combined effects or synergies between different chemicals," argues the European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC). "It would ignore the effects of exposure to multiple sources of the same or different chemicals – which is one of the primary causes of consumer concern. So called 'consumer amendments related to risk communication' are far from being consumer-friendly; these proposed amendments consider slowly replacing hazard labelling by risk communication. This is unacceptable," reads a BEUC statement. 

"Consumers desperately lack awareness on REACH. Nobody knows the initiative," said Laura Degallaix, environment, safety and health officer at BEUC after the Friends of Europe lunch debate. Several participants also underlined that "a standard consumer is a confident one and trusts that the products put on sale are safe".

According to Bo Oscar Jansson, Professor at Stockholm University, the major sources of exposure to the chemicals are a) production process; b) industrial use; c) consumer use, and; d) waste. He argues that "production and industrial use together form the major risks, but consumer use and waste have more risks. Especially, exposure over time is far bigger from consumer use and waste than production and industrial use." 

However, Matti Jantunen, Research professor at the Finnish National Public Health Institute, argues that of all environmental exposure-related risk-factors, industry chemicals form the smallest group. "Even if REACH would eliminate all potential health risks from the chemicals assessed, it would have no real effect on the state of public health and death statistics, as the total risks from chemicals come from elsewhere. The main sources of exposure to harmful, for example, carcinogenic substances, are particles released during all kinds of burning, such as forestfires, grilling of food or industrial and domestic waste burn, as well as smoking, even passive, and various emissions from transport," Jantunen told EurActiv. 

"We have solid evidence that the majority of the chemicals surrounding us are not natural but are released," as a result of industrial processes and via use of consumer products, argued DG Health and Consumer Protection Director Agne Pantelouri in the Commission seminar on consumer exposure. She added that "all the sources of regular exposure, food and non-food, need to be assessed, because making a distinction between the sources is useless. If we have no data on exposure, we can not talk about risk management." 

"The question is, how do we combine the need for more efficient drugs, cosmetics and cleaning products with safety? In other words, how do we combine innovation and safety?" said Paula Pinho, a member of Commissioner Kyprianou's cabinet.