The Alliance has joined with a new coalition comprising of 110 civil socities and institutions, as well as individual experts to call on European regulators to urgently reform the current pesticide risk assessment and risk management system.
Citizens for Science in Pesticide Regulation coalition produced a manifesto which highlights the reasons why the current pesticide risk assessment and management needs an overhaul. Although theoretically the European Union has one of the best regulations for pesticides in the world, it is not implemented in practice.
The manifesto calls for the prioritisation of public health, the environment and sustainable agriculture which ensures that decision makers rely on data that is complete, public, up to date and free from industry bias, which enables decision makers , civil society and the scientific community to scrutinise the integrity and effectivenesss of the policy.
The current pesticide risk assessment procedure that determines the approval of pesticide substances in the European Union ends up authorising the use of harmful chemicals in the production of our food and management of public green areas, putting at risk the health of European workers, citizens, and our environment.
The manifesto was first launched in Brussels on 31st October by the EU and national civil society organisations Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, ClientEarth, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), Global 2000 (Austria), Generations Futures (France) and Justice Pesticides (France), with a scientific conference followed by a press conference.
“If the EU pesticide regulation were properly implemented and risk assessment methods were overhauled to be scientifically rigorous and objective, a number of pesticides that were previously deemed safe would be shown to endanger human health and/or the environment and would have to be banned or restricted.”
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