Endocrine Society supports call to better regulate EDCs in Europe

The Endocrine Society issued a statement of support after a European Parliament resolution passed Thursday calling for greater action to regulate endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the European Union, including improved testing and tighter regulation of chemicals in toys, cosmetics and materials that come into contact with food.

The nonbinding resolution directs the European Commission to propose legislation to regulate EDCs in toys and cosmetics and to update the regulations governing EDCs in food-contact materials by June 2020. It emphasizes that EDCs pose a public health threat similar to that from carcinogens and concludes that EDCs should be regulated in the same manner by the EU. The resolution was adopted by a large cross-party majority during the final voting session of the current parliament’s term.

“This welcome vote shows that all major political groups in Parliament are committed to protecting current and future generations from the public health threat posed by EDCs,” Angel Nadal, PhD, chair of the society’s EDC advisory group, and a professor at Miguel Hernández University in Elche, Spain, said in a press release. “The resolution’s passage reflects years of advocacy by the Endocrine Society as a scientific authority calling for evidence-based regulation of EDCs.”

Scientists, citizens and policymakers continue to debate the effects of chemicals commonly found in consumer goods worldwide and in the EU, in particular. In a June 2018 statement reported by Endocrine Today, the Endocrine Society raised concern that the bar for defining a chemical as an endocrine disruptor in pesticides and biocides in the EU is too high. The EU’s criteria for biocides, which took effect June 7, 2018, are implemented according to a guidance document issued by the European Chemicals Agency and the European Food Safety Agency. In the statement, the society noted its scientific experts remain concerned that the final criteria require an “excessively high level of proof” that a chemical is an endocrine disruptor and that the guidance document creates “further unnecessary barriers to regulating harmful EDCs.”

The new European Parliament vote comes 1 month after the Parliament’s Committee on Petitions unveiled a scientific report demonstrating how current EU regulations are limited in their ability to identify EDCs and fail to protect consumers from the effects of exposure to chemical mixtures. Endocrine Society members Barbara Demeneix, PhD, of Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, and Rémy Slama, PhD, of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Grenoble, France, wrote the report, which called for the development of a coordinated set of EU regulations to govern all types of EDCs across different uses and EU laws.

The resolution addresses the need to accelerate the development of better tests and strategies for identifying EDCs. The resolution also calls for the EuropeanCommission to promote research related to EDCs.

A series of economic analyses found EDC exposure may be costing the European Union approximately $177 billion per year. Society experts led the effort to quantify the public health impact of EDCs on the economy.

“We applaud this resolution sending a strong political signal, based on latest science, that it is high time for the EU to take serious action to address the cumulative impact of our daily exposure to chemical mixtures on public health,” Nadal said in the release – by Regina Schaffer

Disclosures: Nadal is chair of the Endocrine Society’s EDC advisory group.