Environment and Health
Report Huss “Environment and Health”
adopted unanimously by the Council of Europe
An important step for the recognition of the diseases related to the environmental pollution
One year ago, Jean Huss, deputy with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and Member of the Commission of the environment, was charged to write a report Environment and health: for a better prevention of the health risks related to the environment. After a series of hearings of experts, doctors and scientists, and the organization of a scientific conference relative to the environmental diseases, the report was finally voted in Paris on March 13th and adopted unanimously.
Jean Huss explains: “It is an important step for the recognition of the diseases related to the environmental pollution. The important thing now, is to continue to fight for better regulations concerning pollutants, like heavy metals, pesticides or other chemical and electromagnetic contaminations which at every moment are surrounding us in our life. The REACH Directive certainly is a first step in the right direction, but on another side much too weak and limited, unfortunately an example where a historical chance was sacrificed to the interests of industries”.
The report invites the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the 47 governments of the Member States to follow the recommendations of the report relating to the precautionary principle, to global policies accurate to prevention, to the need for an independent and contradictory expertise, to the recognition of the environmental diseases and the environmental medicine.
Summary
There are strong links between environmental pollution and increasing health risks. Environment-related pathologies are not confined to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and specific types of cancer, but also include other chronic and emerging pathologies which are also deemed to have links with the environment, including immune system impairment, neurological and neurodegenerative illnesses and disruptions of the hormonal and reproductive system.
Despite calls for the precautionary principle, there is still a lack of reaction to known or emerging environmental and health risks and virtually systematic delays in adopting and implementing effective preventive measures. The political authorities must act to prevent disease and health crises by adopting preventive health policies, especially at the level of the production and transformation of consumer products.
The report also calls for the recognition of environmental medicine as a new transverse medical discipline and the development of harmonised initial and further training programmes for students and physicians at the European level.
PROCEEDINGS from the conference
Environment and Health
Indoor Pollution and Multi System Illnesses
STRASBOURG, 5 December 2008
Org. Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs with the co-operation of AKUT, Environmental Health & Indoor Air Quality Association, Health & Environment Alliance and European Academy for Environmental Medicine