EU has the obligation to protect its people and the environment from all harm caused by endocrine disrupting chemicals. The EDC Free Future Campaigns has eight demands for an EU EDC strategy.
In light of the upcoming debate in the House of Lords on Monday 5th and Wednesday 7th March discussing what will happen to UK chemicals regulations after Brexit, the Alliance for Cancer Prevention calls on the Lords not play hard Brexit with our health. For the sake of the health of current and future generations, we hope the Lords will ultimately vote to keep the UK under current and upcoming European pesticide and chemicals regulations.In October, the Alliance for Cancer Prevention joined with 20 other NGOs in a letter to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove MP, calling on him to protect our health, environment and wildlife by remaining under REACH (Registration, Authorisation and Evaluation of Chemicals) current European Chemicals regulation. His ambiguous response did not reassure us that the government was putting our health at the forefront of any chemicals regulation. Brexit, it seems, could pave the way for separate UK chemicals regulation or a ‘REACH replicant’ which was termed an ‘ideological indulgence’ by Mary Creagh MP.
As the country stumbles towards a shambolic and increasingly disastrous Brexit and just when we thought things can’t get any worse, a leaked government impact assessment report reiterates how the UK will be worse off after Brexit under every scenario studied. The assessment, called the EU Exit Analysis – Cross Whitehall Briefing details the fact that almost every sector and UK region will be negatively impacted, with chemicals, clothing, manufacturing, food and drink being hardest hit, after we Brexit.