Proposition 54K1367

Proposition de résolution relative aux perturbateurs endocriniens.

General information ¶

Authors

Ecolo Marcel Cheron, Muriel Gerkens, Georges Gilkinet, Benoît Hellings, Jean-Marc Nollet, Sarah Schlitz, Gilles Vanden Burre, Véronique Waterschoot
Groen Kristof Calvo, Anne Dedry, Stefaan Van Hecke, Evita Willaert

Submission date

Oct. 9, 2015

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

occupational medicine chronic illness endocrine disease occupational health toxic substance cancer resolution of parliament public health disease prevention

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR PVDA | PTB PP

Abstained from voting

∉ N-VA VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Kristien Van Vaerenbergh (N-VA) voted to adopt.
• Peter Luykx (CD&V) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 21, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr Vercammen and Mr Janssens and Mrs Muylle, rapporteurs, refer to the written report.

This draft resolution has taken a very long way. We submitted the proposal in October 2015. We have discussed it five times and amended it equally often in the committee to finally land on 26 February last year.

The breakthrough came thanks to an excellent informative report from the Senate. This was adopted on 23 March 2018. You all know that our faction is a cool lover of the Senate. However, honour is worthy of honour, because on the initiative of Mr. Thiéry of the MR, steps were made forward. He submitted an amendment, according to the new insights from the Senate Information Report.

This information report has a very large support. It has also put the counties to work, with CD&V headed in the Flemish Parliament. In the meantime, this is even included in the prevention decree.

Following the general amendment of the MR, we as a group decided to work on this. We always have a very constructive opposition. We have submitted a number of sub-amendments to further clarify the spirit and letter of the information report in this resolution.

Thank you, my colleagues, for approving all these sub-amendments. This explains the precautionary principle and the cocktail effect of hormone disruptors and in particular the attention to vulnerable groups such as premature babies, pregnant women, children and adolescents, in addition to the alternative solutions.

In the end, we unanimously approved this draft resolution, with two abstentions following the N-VA. This, however, had nothing to do with the content, but rather with the fact that the N-VA does not intend to adopt resolutions in a period of ongoing affairs. Therefore, I allow myself to say that we unanimously approved this draft resolution.

I close around with a personal note, which is usually not the habit on this speaker.

I have been knocking on the nail of the hormone disruptors for several years. As is often the case, last summer the hormone disruptors also hit my private life, when my daughter had to undergo a very heavy surgery due to endometriosis, resulting in fertility problems. The doctors then clearly identified the hormone disruptors as the cause. My daughter, meanwhile, makes it and I will soon be a grandmother, so it’s all done well.

I cannot, therefore, emphasize enough that we should not deduce the present resolution as ‘but a resolution’, which after this legislature will be cleanly forgotten. I can only hope that in the next legislature there will indeed be further construction with serious legislative work. I know from my personal experience how important this topic is.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I would like to thank Mrs. Dedry for her speech, which very appropriately summarizes the content of our work on this rather old text.

The term endocrine disruptors is somewhat obscure, if only in recent months it has been talked about more and more. Furthermore, these disruptors are present absolutely everywhere: if they are in our foods, cosmetics, pesticides, they also occupy the European political scene, television debates and press articles.

It is estimated that 84,000 chemicals were marketed in 2017. However, only 1% of them were tested to see if they were not at risk of endocrine disruption. The World Health Organization, however, has drawn our attention, since 2002, on the dangers of endocrine disruptors for the functioning of our organism. The WHO defines an endocrine disruptor as “an exogenous substance or mixture that alters the functions of the endocrine system and causes negative or undesirable effects in an intact organism, its offspring or subpopulations.”

Health consequences are multiple: obesity – which we talked about no later than last week –, diabetes, autism, hyperactivity, reproductive and fertility disorders – in short, a lot of neuro-behavioral disorders. It is important to emphasize that it is not really the dose that makes the poison, but rather the mixture that, in fact, is the time of exposure that represents the real danger, which is called the "cocktail effect".

As you mentioned, Mrs. Dedry, the Senate has been working on the issue for two years. Many hearings were held. As far as I know, more than 70 recommendations have been drawn up on this subject. Our will was obviously – because, Mrs. Dedry, you know my pragmatism – to serve us with a work already existing. This is what led me to propose this comprehensive amendment, which has been long discussed in the committee.

This amendment covers six key areas listed below very briefly.

First, the general political approach: we are aware of the complexity of our Belgian operating system. It is necessary to receive cooperation from federal entities: it is a request to the government.

Second, scientific research: gathering data from independent studies – I insist on the scientific and independent validity of these studies –, establishing a broad federal human biomonitoring programme and ensuring an inter-federal report listing the results of the various human biomonitoring research and programs. This is also a request from the Government.

Third, consumer protection: emphasis on information and public awareness-raising on the basis of clear communication. The implementation of prevention and use measures in the framework of integrated management of pesticides should continue to be promoted.

Fourth, product labelling: encourage consumers to make greater use of their right to information. They are holders of that right.

Fifth, the limitation and fixation of product standards: I think more specifically of the prohibition of endocrine disruptors in products in which their presence is not really necessary, in order to limit exposure to the disruptors in question to the maximum. In particular, for children from 0 to 3 years of age, as part of the dossier we have named bisphenol A, it is requested that action be taken to ensure that this product is no longer used in all food containers intended for them.

Sixth, in connection with international and European policy, like the IPCC in the field of climate, to call on international experts capable of providing us with objective information on endocrine disruptors, enabling us to ensure coordination and research at the international level, and to insist on the European Union to set promptly precise and ambitious criteria for identifying endocrine disruptors, as it did for biocides and pesticides.

Those were the various elements, of course not exhaustive, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, that I wanted to highlight regarding this resolution, which was carefully drafted and based on both concrete and scientific data. It is up to the next government to do everything it can to ensure that this resolution does not go untouched.