Pesticide industry critical of endocrine disruptors criteria

President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker said: "Endocrine disruptors can have serious health and environmental impacts and even if many substances containing them are already banned as a result of existing legislation on pesticides and biocides, we have to remain vigilant. The Commission is committed to ensuring the highest level of protection of both human health and the environment, which is why we are today putting forward strict criteria for endocrine disrupters – based on science – making the EU regulatory system the first worldwide to define such scientific criteria in legislation."

The Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen declared: "The scientific criteria for endocrine disruptors presented today will contribute to the objectives of minimizing exposure to endocrine disruptors and to bringing legal certainty. Today’s Communication outlines the issues we have considered in this process, it defines the scope of what is relevant to determining the scientific criteria, and sets out the implications of setting these criteria – for the two pieces of legislation directly concerned and for other parts of the EU regulatory framework and actions.”

Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, said: "The scientific criteria that the Commission is presenting today guarantee that the high level of protection of human health and of the environment set in our legislation on plant protection and biocidal products is maintained. The plant protection products and biocides' legislation are among the strictest in the world because of their prior approval system, their extensive data requirements, and their hazard approach for decision making. The Commission reinforces today its commitment to protect people's health in the European Union."

Jean-Charles Bocquet, Director General of ECPA, said: “These criteria fail to distinguish between those substances which may cause actual harm and others which pose no threat to safety. In our view, this could lead to bans on crop protection products with the same endocrine disrupting properties found in everyday products like coffee. We certainly recognise the significant public interest in this topic but believe we need a proposal that targets only those substances which cause actual harm otherwise we risk taking away tools from farmers which they need to sustainably produce our safe, healthy, affordable food”.

Lisette van Vliet, senior policy officer at the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) noted: “What the Commission has proposed today will not prevent diseases related to endocrine disrupting chemicals. The requirements are so strict, the burden of proof so high that we’ll have years of harm to health before we can remove them. This is not what the legislation requires, which is, that EDCs may cause adverse effects are banned.”

“Even worse, it would cripple the use of accumulated (and future) knowledge about effects on animals, which should be used to prevent harm to human health. A scientific consensus (3) exists on how best to identify these harmful chemicals (Option 3 of 4 in the roadmap (4)) but the College of Commissioners have not chosen to follow it,” she added.

Marco Mensink, Director General of the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) stressed: “Scientific criteria are needed to identify those endocrine disruptors of regulatory concern, and enable harmless substances to bring value to society. Unless potency is taken into account, we will fail to address only those substances that cause harm. Many years down the road, we now have a restatement of the WHO definition. This provides further clarity, but it is not sufficient. We need to ensure the highest standards of protection and also allow for innovation."

Karl-H. Foerster, Executive Director of PlasticsEurope, said: “Finally, the criteria to identify endocrine disruptors are out. We still lack a commonly accepted working criteria that would allow differentiating between a substance of regulatory concern and a substance of no or low concern.”

Sylvia Maurer, Head of the Sustainability and Safety Department at the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), underlined:

“An EU definition of hormone-disrupting chemicals needs to identify all the chemicals that may harm consumers’ health, this means both the chemicals we know are EDCs and those we suspect. This is the only way the EU can protect consumers from these harmful chemicals found in products we use every day such as cosmetics, clothes, and food packaging,”

“This proposal will not properly protect consumers from harmful endocrine disruptors as only a few substances would be defined and regulated as EDCs. This goes against the precautionary principle where protective action should prevail even in the face of scientific uncertainty. Sadly today’s package seems to confirm our concerns that the Commission has lowered its ambition concerning strong EDC criteria so as not to jeopardise the TTIP talks with the US,” she noted, adding that the Commission is heading down a dangerous path of ignoring chemicals’ toxic effects.

The European Commission was supposed to define test criteria for potential endocrine disruptors by December 2013. These chemical substances are present in a large number of everyday products: foods, cleaning products, food containers, etc.

But the initial deadline was missed, and still no official definition has been reached. Without a definition of endocrine disruptors, it is impossible to legislate on the subject.

The Commission has promised to publish this definition by summer this year.

• 8 July: Βiocides expert committee due to discuss the proposal
• 11-12 July: Pesticides Standing Committee due to discuss the proposal