The Precautionary Principle and Science-based Limits in Regulatory Toxicology: The Human Experience, Individual Protection

Abstract

Responding to various concerns over the safety of chemicals, the Commission of the EU, since its foundation, has created, extended and continually revised the legislation which gives effect to those concerns. The many legal instruments issued by the appropriate Directorates General have seen the introduction of new controls in some member states as well as the overall harmonization of controls amongst those member states which had national legislation already in place. In keeping with the major purpose of the EU, to provide for unrestricted intra-community trade, chemical safety legislation applies to specified commodity classes such as medicines, cosmetics, food, drinking water, pesticides, animal feed additives, industrial chemicals and so on. Also apparent, however, are non-sectoral motivations, notably, a wish to improve worker safety in the case of exposure to chemicals during their manufacture, sale, use or disposal. That last concern, the safe disposal of chemicals, hints at that other great motivation in the EU, a drive to protect the environment.