Anyone for cocktails?
It is a known fact that chemical substances can have negative impact on human health and the environment. Long-term exposure to low levels of some substances may have devastating effects. But they may also affect us slowly.
Data from the industrialised world show that certain forms of cancer and other disabilities are increasing rapidly. It has not been possible to connect this development with specific chemical substances, but few scientists doubt that there is a link to the increasing long-term exposure to chemicals.
Substances that break down slowly are particularly problematic. Once released into the environment, they can cause problems for a long time. PCB is an example of such a substance. Despite it being banned in some countries thirty years ago, it still creates huge problems in these places.
Some chemical substances stay in the fat in our bodies once we have inhaled or swallowed them. They stay there and accumulate, building up higher levels all the time. From the fat they are released to human breast milk and passed on to our children. Hundreds of man-made chemicals can be found in human milk in most parts of the world.
Some substances in common use are also suspected of disrupting the endocrine system, causing developmental problems in the early lives of humans.
To make the picture even more complex, when chemicals break down in the environment they give rise to new substances with properties and effects we have no way of predicting. Additionally, the fact that humans and the environment are not exposed to chemicals one at a time – as in laboratories – but in combinations, increases insecurity further.
We are exposed to chemicals continuously in our daily lives. There are approximately 100 000 chemical substances registered in the EU and on a dialy basis citizens are exposed to hundreds or thousands of them. We inhale them, eat them and drink them all the time, like a cocktail. Except we don't know what is in it.
Concerning effects on human health, a study from the OECD of the 1500 most common substances shows that only a minor part had been adequately examined and ten percent had not been examined at all. When it came to effects on the environment, virtually none of them had been thoroughly examined.
Recommended Reports
Principles for a toxic free environment (pdf)
The Precautionary Principle:
A common sense way to protect our health and environment
