Work
23.March 2007 - 00:00
Commission's exaggeration
According to ENDS Europe Daily 2210 of 22 November 2006, ‘the European Commission has effectively admitted exaggerating environmental impacts on human health in an action plan launched two years ago’. The article says that in a new paper evaluating the 2004 ‘Scale’ environmental and health action plan it concludes that negative impacts are ‘relatively limited’ in the context of overall health risks. According to ENDS, a Commission official had told them that the decision to use this phrase was politically sensitive.
Scale was the brainchild of former Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström, and according to the article ‘insiders say that the initiative lost much of its political momentum almost as soon as she was replaced by Stavros Dimas’.
When the action plan was launched, the Commission insisted there was a ‘strong link between poor health and environmental problems’ and estimated that one sixth of all childhood deaths and diseases were due to environmental factors. However, a Commission official reportedly told ENDS that this latest analysis shows that environment-health issues are ‘less alarming than we thought when Scale was first launched’. He had admitted that the extent of the problem ‘may have been exaggerated’ under Margot Wallström.
Can the Commission comment on the motives behind such an exaggeration of problems?
Could there also be other issues where the Commission has exaggerated the extent of the problems? Does the Commission regard such news as something that may decrease its credibility?
Answer given by Mr Dimas on behalf of the Commission
The Commission launched the environment & health strategy (the strategy)(1) in 2003 and, as a follow-up, the environment & health action plan 2004 10 (the action plan)(2) in 2004. The action plan was presented by the Commission at the Ministerial Conference of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which took place in Budapest in June 2004.
In Objective 1, Actions 1-4 of the action plan, the Commission made the commitment to ‘improve the information chain by developing integrated environment and health information to understand the links between sources of pollutants and health effects’.
In this context, the Commission undertook an extensive review of current information and monitoring systems on environment and health. This resulted in the Commission staff working document ‘Environment and health information review and implementation plan’(3), which was adopted on 8 November 2006. This document is a follow-up to both the strategy and the action plan, whose emphasis is to improve the information base for future policy development and evaluation.
Estimating the impact of the environment on human health is a difficult task. In fact, the many estimates in this area vary considerably according to the diseases and to the environmental stressors they cover, and also according to the geographical areas and their particular characteristics.
For example, the WHO estimate quoted by the environmental data services (ENDS) refers to the WHO Europe 52 Member States. This includes the EU 27, countries from eastern Europe as well as from Eastern and Central Caucasia. In these latter countries, for example, water borne diseases (fairly absent in the EU) are very frequent. The WHO estimate also includes the impact of ‘accidents and injuries’, which are not considered as ‘environment’ in the Commission’s environment and health action plan. The latter, in fact, focuses on environmental impacts as traditionally understood in EU policy (air, water, chemicals, etc.).
For these reasons, the Commission staff working document ‘Environment and health information review and implementation plan’ states, in the executive summary, that the methods for estimating the impacts in question require further developments and that any conclusions must be treated with caution. It also states that for the EU, ‘the known impact of the environment on health is relatively limited in the context of public health issues as a whole’; ‘among the environment and health issues themselves, ambient air is by far the most significant’. It further underlines that ‘this reflects only the present state of knowledge about the environment-related disease burden’ and that ‘it is a provisional conclusion to be kept under constant review’.
The Commission staff working document ‘Environment and health information review and implementation plan’ focuses on areas where the information base has been improved or is in the process of being complemented or set up.
Most EU environmental policies have and will continue to have the protection of human health as a primary objective and will continue to be based on the best available information.
According to ENDS Europe Daily 2210 of 22 November 2006, ‘the European Commission has effectively admitted exaggerating environmental impacts on human health in an action plan launched two years ago’. The article says that in a new paper evaluating the 2004 ‘Scale’ environmental and health action plan it concludes that negative impacts are ‘relatively limited’ in the context of overall health risks. According to ENDS, a Commission official had told them that the decision to use this phrase was politically sensitive.
Scale was the brainchild of former Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström, and according to the article ‘insiders say that the initiative lost much of its political momentum almost as soon as she was replaced by Stavros Dimas’.
When the action plan was launched, the Commission insisted there was a ‘strong link between poor health and environmental problems’ and estimated that one sixth of all childhood deaths and diseases were due to environmental factors. However, a Commission official reportedly told ENDS that this latest analysis shows that environment-health issues are ‘less alarming than we thought when Scale was first launched’. He had admitted that the extent of the problem ‘may have been exaggerated’ under Margot Wallström.
Can the Commission comment on the motives behind such an exaggeration of problems?
Could there also be other issues where the Commission has exaggerated the extent of the problems? Does the Commission regard such news as something that may decrease its credibility?
Answer given by Mr Dimas on behalf of the Commission
The Commission launched the environment & health strategy (the strategy)(1) in 2003 and, as a follow-up, the environment & health action plan 2004 10 (the action plan)(2) in 2004. The action plan was presented by the Commission at the Ministerial Conference of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which took place in Budapest in June 2004.
In Objective 1, Actions 1-4 of the action plan, the Commission made the commitment to ‘improve the information chain by developing integrated environment and health information to understand the links between sources of pollutants and health effects’.
In this context, the Commission undertook an extensive review of current information and monitoring systems on environment and health. This resulted in the Commission staff working document ‘Environment and health information review and implementation plan’(3), which was adopted on 8 November 2006. This document is a follow-up to both the strategy and the action plan, whose emphasis is to improve the information base for future policy development and evaluation.
Estimating the impact of the environment on human health is a difficult task. In fact, the many estimates in this area vary considerably according to the diseases and to the environmental stressors they cover, and also according to the geographical areas and their particular characteristics.
For example, the WHO estimate quoted by the environmental data services (ENDS) refers to the WHO Europe 52 Member States. This includes the EU 27, countries from eastern Europe as well as from Eastern and Central Caucasia. In these latter countries, for example, water borne diseases (fairly absent in the EU) are very frequent. The WHO estimate also includes the impact of ‘accidents and injuries’, which are not considered as ‘environment’ in the Commission’s environment and health action plan. The latter, in fact, focuses on environmental impacts as traditionally understood in EU policy (air, water, chemicals, etc.).
For these reasons, the Commission staff working document ‘Environment and health information review and implementation plan’ states, in the executive summary, that the methods for estimating the impacts in question require further developments and that any conclusions must be treated with caution. It also states that for the EU, ‘the known impact of the environment on health is relatively limited in the context of public health issues as a whole’; ‘among the environment and health issues themselves, ambient air is by far the most significant’. It further underlines that ‘this reflects only the present state of knowledge about the environment-related disease burden’ and that ‘it is a provisional conclusion to be kept under constant review’.
The Commission staff working document ‘Environment and health information review and implementation plan’ focuses on areas where the information base has been improved or is in the process of being complemented or set up.
Most EU environmental policies have and will continue to have the protection of human health as a primary objective and will continue to be based on the best available information.