Cienciaes.com: Chemical danger. | Science Podcast

2021-04-28 11:43:37

As you will have seen since the “Vintage Quilos” series began, as I call this series of popularization topics from more than 2 decades ago, I have talked about resistance to antibiotics, cancer, mad cows, the virus Ebola and potential effects of contamination on frog leg development. Well, today I am going to talk about the danger posed by the chemical products that continue to be manufactured and escape to a greater or lesser extent into the environment, for those of us who are still unclear about the potential negative effects on our health. In January 2001, I published an article that described the state of the situation in relation to the danger that the chemical products that were manufactured and used at that time could pose to our health. Let’s see what happened then and then analyze whether things have gotten better or worse.

“I invite you to read that article here”:

Today it is not easy to obtain information on the current situation of chemical products that are manufactured with a high production volume, however, there has been progress. On June 1, 2007, a European regulation called “Registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemical products” (REACH), for its acronym in English. The regulations of REACH They are collected in a document of 849 pages that took 7 years to prepare and approve, which makes it one of the most complete in the European Union. Its full implementation in Europe took a 10-year process, so that it has only been fully in force for about 4 years, this legislation imposes restrictions on the manufacture and use of chemical products that may have potential effects on human health and the environment. atmosphere.

One of the requirements imposed by this legislation is that any company that imports or produces a new chemical in quantities greater than one tonne per year must register it in a chemical database of the European Chemicals Agency (CHECK). This database contains, as of April 14, 2021, information on 25,848 substances extracted from more than 100,000 documents communicated by companies to the agency. Of particular importance, among these, are substances of “high level of concern”, which may be suspected of being mutagenic, carcinogenic, affecting reproduction and non-degradable and accumulating in the environment. These substances require strict conditions of production and use.

There is no doubt that there has been substantial progress in regulating the production and use of chemical substances, although most substances remain under-researched. It is true that they are in the tens of thousands and it is true that their investigation would cost an enormous amount of effort and money. Chemical companies continue to resist investing a lot of resources in this research, arguing, as I already mentioned, in addition to the enormous costs they would incur, that other commonly used substances, such as tobacco, alcohol, even sunbathing on the beach they can cause more cancers and deaths than the chemicals they produce. So, in this sense, it doesn’t seem like we’ve made enough progress.

Jorga Laborda (28/04/2021)

The complete article on Jorge Laborda’s Blog

Works by Jorge Laborda.

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