Press releases
Neonicotinoids and phenylpyrazoles, two families of pesticides used since the 90’s are accused to be at the origin of the massive disappearance of honeybee colonies worldwide spreading parallel to the use of these chemicals.
Brussels
Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and apples are the food items with on average the highest dose of endocrine disrupting pesticide residues. European consumers will potentially be exposed to up to 30 different pesticide residues with a risk of adverse health effects. This is the outcome of an analysis made by PAN-Europe based on the monitoring data of Food Authority EFSA.
PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Network) starts a court case against the decision of EU Commission to authorize the chemical Prochloraz.
EU Member States and Health DG SANCO allow data gaps on a massive scale in the approval process of pesticides.
On explicit request of the dominant farmers unions and the pesticide industry, the department taking care of health and consumers issues within the European Commission (DG SANCO) has proposed to dismantle the European safety system by removing the obligation on countries and farmers to contain the spread of a highly destructive maize pest ‐ Diabrotica virgifera virgifera Le Conte (the Western corn rootworm – from now on cited as WCR).
Today the European Commission published a roadmap for European Innovation Partnerships (EIP) on “Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability”, as part of the EU 2020 Strategy.
Food Authority EFSA’s scientific committee last week ‘s planned adoption of the proposal to substitute toxicity testing of chemicals by a controversial ‘threshold’-approach (TTC) didn’t take place because of continuing diverging views with DG SANCO’s non-food Committees.
A working group of Food Authority EFSA aimed at allowing toxic chemicals to be marketed without any toxicological testing was put together in 2008 without any evaluation by EFSA management or external reviewers – against EFSA’s own rules.
The new EU biocides regulation adopted today by the European Parliament (1) sounds ambitious but represents a standstill for health and environmental protection, according to health and environment groups.
A new PAN Europe report reveals that 10 out of 13 members of the EFSA working group on TTC (Threshold of Toxicological Concern, a method to decide on the health impacts of chemicals), have a conflict of interest.
