ECPA Welcomes EFSA's Scientific Input but sees it as Late and Fears ED Rules will Crush Innovation in Farm Inputs

Brussels (ots/PRNewswire) -

Today the European Food Safety Authority's (EFSA) Scientific
Committee published its opinion on identifying endocrine disrupting
chemicals (EDs). ECPA welcomed the EFSA opinion but is concerned how
late the input has been requested in a process that has been rushed
to meet political deadlines. The process to create new EU rules to
identify and regulate EDs, threatens to take action based on
theoretical rather than proven risks, to the detriment of European
industry competitiveness and the broader public good.

"ECPA appreciates EFSA'sscientific input but sees its contribution
as unfortunately late when the ED criteria are all but finalised. It
is even more perplexing why the Commission's own scientific
committees have been absent from the development of the ED criteria"
- said Friedhelm Schmider, Director General of European Crop
Protection Association (ECPA). "Endocrine disruption is a complex
scientific issue and the Commission's own scientific committees could
have made an invaluable contribution in providing clear expert advice
to European regulators and politicians".

Ignoring established scientific principles and rushing the
development of the ED criteria risks dealing a crushing blow to
European industrial innovation. The criteria as recently drafted
would deny EU farmers access to essential and innovative plant
protection products which they safely use today. This will deprive EU
farmers of important tools at a time when productivity must rise to
meet increasing demand for food.

ECPA is clear that protecting human and environmental safety
should not be compromised. Satisfying this goal and retaining
industry competiveness can co-exist if the ED criteria focus on
actual rather than perceived risks. The EFSA opinion raises several
important technical considerations which ECPA welcomed and which
demand further consideration in this respect:

- risk assessment - EDs can be treated like most other substances and risk
assessment is a suitable method to evaluate the level of concern posed by EDs, i.e.
consideration of actual or predicted exposure and not only hazard;
- potency and severity - are important and relevant indicators of potential
concern, and should be considered; and
- establishing safe dose/concentrations, above which adverse effects occur, is
possible.

Further input of EFSA's Scientific Committee on the many complex
topics around endocrine disruption is essential. As the scientific
debate continues on these topics, robust and independent scientific
advice is important to ensure European regulation addresses
substantiated concerns rather than fear. A broader return to risk
assessment over hazard assessment would meaningfully contribute
towards this goal.

For the online version please follow the link: http://www.ecpa.eu/
news-item/human-health/03-20-2013/716/ecpa-welcomes-efsa-s-scientific
-input-sees-it-late-and-fears-e

Notes to editor

(1). ECPA (European Crop Protection Association) represents the
European R&D based manufacturers of plant protection products
(pesticides). Plant protection products are essential tools to help
EU farmers protect their crops from pests and diseases.

(2). Under the new pesticides regulation, Regulation 1107/2009,
substances considered to have "endocrine disrupting properties" in
humans or non-target species will not be approved. The inclusion of
this hazard based criteria is a departure from the established tool
of risk assessment for evaluating the safety of substances, where
both the hazard and exposure to a substance is considered. No
criteria are included to define what are considered to be endocrine
disrupting properties, however, the European Commission must come
forward with a proposal for these criteria for pesticides by 13
December 2013.

(3). Within the Commission, the responsibility for preparing the
scientific criteria has been delegated to DG Environment, who has
been tasked with developing criteria for the identification of
endocrine disruptors which will be applied to general chemicals
(REACH), biocides (Regulation 528/2012) as well as to pesticides
(Regulation 1107/2009), and possibly also to cosmetics (Regulation
1223/2009).

(4). In February 2013, DG Environment released a revised proposal
for the criteria for the identification of endocrine disruptors,
"Revised version of possible elements for criteria for identification
of endocrine disrupters". The final horizontal criteria are expected
to be published in May 2013 after which they will be transposed into
the different pieces of sectorial legislation, including Regulation
1107/2009 for pesticides.

(5). In September 2012, DG Sanco requested a scientific opinion
from the EFSA Scientific Committee (European Food Safety Authority)
as part of the input into the process for the development of the
endocrine disruption criteria.

(6) The European Commission has three non-food related Scientific
Committees, these include: Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety
(SCCS), Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks
(SCHER), Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health
Risks (SCENIHR). Although these committees have the relevant
expertise none have been formally consulted during the process for
the development of the criteria for the identification of endocrine
disruptors.

(7) Experts from industry, including ECPA, have contributed
significant scientific expertise to the issue of endocrine
disruption. Through ECETOC (European Centre for Ecotoxicology and
Toxicology of Chemicals, industry experts developed a regulatory
proposal for managing endocrine disruptors (Bars, R., I. Fegert, M.
Gross, D. Lewis, L. Weltje, A. Weyers, J.R. Wheeler, Galay-Burgos, M.
2012. Risk assessment of endocrine active chemicals: identifying
chemicals of regulatory concern. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol.
64(1):143-154). The publication was recently awarded the title of
"Best Published Paper Advancing the Science of Risk Assessment" by
the Society of Toxicology.

The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) represents the crop protection industry
interests at European level. Its members include all major companies and national
associations across Europe.
Contact:

Peter Day , Senior Health & Technical Affairs Manager, peter.day@ecpa.eu
Anna Seretny, Communications Coordinator, anna.seretny@ecpa.eu
European Crop Protection Association, aisbl,
Switchboard : +32(0)2-663-1550

For more general information:

http://www.ecpa.eu - http://www.pesticideinformation.eu -
facebook.com/cropprotection - twitter.com/cropprotection

ots Originaltext: European Crop Protection Association
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de