EU Dangerous Chemicals 'Pushback'

Geoffrey Lean suggests that industry lobbying and right wing politicians have successfully 'pushed back' against yet another of the EU's 'green' policies. Planned changes to the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) body have been, at least, delayed. The proposed changes would have required manufacturers of potentially hazardous chemicals to routinely provide safety information on their products. Updating REACH's mandate, would also have speeded up the outlawing of all but essential use of hazardous substances (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/18/harmful-toxic-chemicals-eu-dropped-plans-block-them). Lean notes, that although Europe has only 6% of the world's human population, it reports nearly 23% (more than 250,000) of all new cancer cases each year. He links this to the unavoidable 'cocktail of hazardous substances' to which Europeans are exposed. These numbers are very striking. The percentage could, however, be somewhat inflated, by Europe having better cancer screening and reporting than some other parts of the world. In spite of record profits, the chemical industries have apparently successfully argued they couldn't afford the regulatory changes. It's becoming predictable that commercial profits, generally trump human health.