The European strategy on endocrine disrupters: progress to date and EU/US cooperation

The European Commission has been active in the field of endocrine disrupters since 1995. Its first actions were to fund research projects through the Fourth Framework Programme for Research and Development covering various aspects of the issue (identification of endocrine disrupters, environmental and human health impacts). This involvement in research has continued through the Fifth Framework Programme and increased to this day. The publication of a specific call for proposals on endocrine disrupters on May 31, 2001 bears witness to these efforts. In parallel, the policy profile of the issue quickly rose and led to the adoption of the Community Strategy on Endocrine Disrupters (COM (1999)706 final) in 1999. This strategy identifies actions short, medium and long term and is supported by the European Parliament and the European Council. Its short-term actions focus on the establishment of a list of substances for further evaluation of their role in endocrine disruption and on the use of existing legislation to control the risk; the medium-term actions focus on the identification and assessment of endocrine disrupters as well as on further research to better understand the ED phenomenon, and the long-term actions focus on legislative actions to protect human health and the environment. These European developments have gone hand in hand with international cooperation with the USA on research (in the frame of the EC/US S&T cooperation agreement), with the WHO on health issues and with the OECD on screening and testing issues.