Proposed European legislation must protect the Environment

[Guest guest]

European Citizens

A revised version of Directive 86/609 was formally proposed by the European Commission on 5th November 2008. Since the directive was issued in 1986 Member States have passed national laws on animal experiments with varying standards. The review was started six years ago with the intention of unifying standards and including modern technology. The Commission have responded to demands to promote validation of alternatives by stating an intention to set up new research facilities for this purpose. This promise must be delivered or there will be consequences for our Environment because in Europe today most regulated alternatives are concerned with toxicity testing of chemicals.

The new European chemical testing policy called REACH was introduced because prior to 1981 chemicals did not have to be safety tested as a legal requirement before being put on the market. Chemical producers must register safety data for over 30,000 chemicals in general use to the European Chemicals Agency. The European Commission have estimated that Reach will cost industry up to 5.2bn euros over the next 11 years. They defend the huge cost of REACH by saying it will eliminate the most toxic chemicals from the environment and so protect human health. This belief is justified if the testing methods used are validated alternatives that have been proven to reliably test the toxicity of chemicals.

About a million animals are used every year in Europe alone to test chemicals. But testing methods do not reflect today's scientific progress. New technologies such as in vitro (cell culture), bioinformatics, genomics and in silico (computer-based) systems offer alternatives which are quicker, cheaper and more reliable than animal tests but are being overlooked. The criterion necessary to legally endorse alternatives are strict and comprehensive. However, the Commission's list of approved methods does not include non-animal techniques that were approved for scientific validity in 2007 by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods. This delay was criticised by MEPs because it encourages companies to avoid using validated alternatives based on human biology and continue using animal tests that have remain unchanged for decades. To satisfy the REACH regulations new

procedures based on modern technology must be developed if only animal testing is available. This requires investment and a commitment to make medical progress a priority.

A report entitled Toxicity Testing in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision and a Strategy was published by the US National Research Council in June 2008 and provides further insight into how chemicals can be tested. It makes it clear that the testing of chemicals is better done with recent research concentrating on how damage occurs at the genetic and cellular level. Testing thousands of chemicals, the report states, is impractical due to the large number of combinations of chemicals required to produce realistic exposure scenarios. However, modern procedures such as in vitro tests should make this possible. The report concludes that over time the need for traditional animal testing can be eliminated with emphasis on more efficient alternative techniques.

It is known that marine biotoxins found in shellfish and other marine life are toxic to humans when consumed as food. However, in Europe legislated methods to detect these toxins are not sensitive enough and put our health at risk. This was made clear in October by a report from the European Food Safety Authority which supports In vitro (test tube) research, such as "chemico-physical analyses", as being superior to regulated animal methods for the detection of these biotoxins. Germany already uses sensitive analytical methods for marine biotoxin detection and has answered criticism with evidence that supported this approach over the use of established animal testing. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment is calling for European law to endorse these methods for the detection of marine biotoxins. Also, in Spain scientists have developed their own in vitro test for detecting marine

biotoxins with statements to reflect their confidence that they provide improved results. The scientists concluded that to protect our health from these marine biotoxins animal testing was not the solution.

The complete article athttp://www.alttox.org/spotlight/018.html

Backing validated alternatives is essential in all legislation that applies to the testing of chemicals. This is an important issue which must be discussed when the review of Directive 86/609 is debated in parliament.

To protect the Environment with the review of Directive 86/609 http://www.eceae.org/b_takeaction.php

You can also help by telling all your friends and associates about the review of this important legislation.

Thank you for your time,

Tony