Key actions to protect people and the environment from the combination effects of chemicals?
People and other living organisms are daily exposed to a wide mix of chemicals originating from various sources. Significant progress has been made in recent years to close some knowledge gaps on the impact of the combination effect of those chemicals. However, the safety of chemicals in the EU is usually assessed through the evaluation of single substances, or in some cases of mixtures intentionally added for particular uses, without considering the combined exposure to multiple chemicals from different sources and over time. For people, the combination effects of chemicals may intensify in closed environments. Some pieces of legislation require to assess the cumulative exposure to the same chemical from different sources. Explicit requirements to take into account the impact of unintentional mixtures is generally lacking, currently existing for the protection of workers. The pesticides and biocides legislation require to consider cumulative and synergistic effects. For pesticides, progress has been made in developing a targeted methodology, and work will be accelerated so that existing provisions can be fully implemented.
To adequately address the combination effect of chemical mixtures, legal requirements need to be consistently in place to ensure that risks from simultaneous exposure to multiple chemicals are effectively and systematically taken into account across chemicals-related policy areas. As it is currently not realistic nor economically feasible to specifically assess and regulate an almost infinite number of possible combinations of chemicals, scientific consensus is emerging that the effect of chemical mixtures needs to be taken into account and integrated more generally into chemical risk assessments. In parallel, targeted methodologies could be further developed and explored for specific policy areas.
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CHEMICAL MIXTURES The Commission will:
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Source: European Commission
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