Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution

The CPP (Commission de la Prevention et de la Precaution) of the Ministere de l'Environnement would like to thank you for sending us the interesting document on the proposed study of long term effects of chemical substances.

The CPP consists of about scientific 20 experts and its function is to advise the government on environmental health risks. For example, it has issued a detailed report on dioxins (which will also be published in English) and another one on the health impacts of glycol ethers.

The CPP has the following comments on your document, in particular the list of 18 issues. We believe that you might place more emphasis on:

a)    the difficulties of predicting future exposures (which depend on future uses of the substances, on life styles, and on complicated multi-media pathways including the food chain and the processes that remove the substances from the environment).

b)    The means of measuring the exposures (costs, accuracy, use of bio-markers, traceability of exposure to source of emission).

c)    Possible interactions of simultaneous exposure to several substances.

d)    Conflicts between the need to inform the public and the need to protect industrial secrets.

e)    Bioconcentration.

f)    Recycling.

g)    Segments of the population that may be especially sensitive (children, pregnant women).

Back to Index of comments to the scoping of the Chemicals Study