| UC Toxics News: Spring 2006
David Eastmond, UC Riverside Professor and associate director of the TSR&TP lead campus in Toxic Mechanisms, related his experience as a scientific advisor with the U.S. State Department last year. In 1999, the National Research Council identified that many of the major goals of the State Department involve science, technology or health and they did not have the expertise. Colin Powell said that American diplomacy must help to advance the world of science. This resulted in creating the Office of the Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State. Eastmond was one of 5 Jefferson Science Fellows and he worked in the Bureau of European and Eurasian affairs section writing background papers for presidential visits and preparing for a summit in the EU. He also worked on the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) initiative, the European response to replace the patchwork of existing laws regulating chemicals. REACH is expected to be approved by the European Union this fall and the new legislation would transfer responsibility for producing toxicity data for chemicals produced in quantities over one tonne to the manufacturers instead of the government. “The impact of REACH would potentially involve 30,000 chemicals and most articles manufactured in Europe or imported. Direct costs have been projected to be $3.5 to $6 billion dollars over 11-14 years. Benefits are hard to guage, but some have estimated that it may prevent 2200-4300 occupational cancer cases per year, and provide a health savings of $61 billion over 30 years,” said Eastmond. The U.S. government position is that REACH is overly costly, creates trade barriers, and there are concerns about the technical ability to implement the law. The U.S. produced a number of official publications expressing their displeasure with REACH. Eastmond spent a good deal of time looking at the initiative and came up with some ideas to improve it, but because these ideas were not part of the official U.S. Government position, they were not shared in his meetings and communications with the Europeans on this issue. Eastmond shared some of his thoughts with the group. He is not sure the initiative is the best approach–one size fits all is almost unworkable. Eastmond said he didn’t feel there were enough toxicologists in all of Europe to conduct their current work and carry out the new requirements. “The exposure assessments that will have to be conducted may require as many people as for all the rest of the toxicological requirements of the legislation.” Eastmond said we should be more thoughtful about how legislation
is implemented. “The public and state of California should continue
to pressure industry to make changes to improve, to reduce use of hazardous chemicals.”
If REACH becomes law, testing will have to be done and the information
will become publicly available. “Information is usually good,
so this will be beneficial to find out more about what’s going
on in the environment. It’s a major change in Europe and it will
impact the U.S.,” said Eastmond. |
