letterA letter sent on the 19/8/14 to the President-elect of the European Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker signed by 25 NGO’s asked for the post of Chief Scientific Adviser be abolished.

The letter is a follow up to a previous letter expressing concern that the post is: “fundamentally problematic as it concentrates too much influence in one person, and undermines in-depth scientific research and assessments carried out by or for the Commission directorates in the course of policy elaboration”.

Scientific advice given to the president by the current CSA is not publically available making the process un-transparent. The signatories support the principle that scientific advice should be independent and objective, and the process transparent. NGOs are worried that by placing all the onus on one person for the whole of EU policy, this would make the principle difficult to uphold.

“The influence of corporate lobbyists is made even easier by the fact that the CSA of the European Commission has no obligation to publish the advice given to the President,” the NGOs say.

Among EU countries, only the UK maintains the position of CSA as a full-time government office.

Policy should not be swayed by vested interests, and the scientific resources consulted to inform decisions on the health and well-being of EU citizens and workers should be made available along with the advice given, in a spirit of democracy. The need for independent, objective and transparent scientific advice to the EC should be self evident.

Greenpeace has issued a press release on the issue and there is a press piece on the letter from Euractiv here.

 

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Published by wildcardenvironmentalist

Helen Lynn has worked on issues linking women, gender, health and the environment since 1995, initially at the Women’s Environmental Network where she was health co-ordinator for 12 years, then as a freelance consultant. She has worked internationally and at EU level with Women in Europe for a Common Future and is on their International Advisory Board. Her campaign work began with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map, which encouraged women to map local sources of pollution alongside incidence of breast cancer and she was one of the founders of the No More Breast Cancer Campaign. She is on the Soil Associations Health Products Standards Committee which develops and keeps under review standards for organic health and beauty care products. While at WEN she and the health team initiated the Getting Lippy campaign on harmful ingredients in cosmetics, the campaign covered all aspects of the issue including information on toxic ingredients, making your own cosmetics, misleading labelling and advertising of the products and which alternatives are available. Other campaigns Helen worked on included the Ban Lindane (a toxic pesticide used on crops) Campaign, Healthy Flooring, Enviromenstrual, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. She currently facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention which works with occupational and environmental health specialists and activists to challenge the existing emphasis on control and treatment of cancer as the only way forward and to get equal recognition for primary prevention, particularly in relation to environmental and occupational risk factors. In 2014 along with fellow breast cancer activists she began the From Pink to Prevention campaign which aims to move the agenda towards Stopping Breast Cancer before it Starts.