Mercury and its health effects is a key priority of EPHA’s sister organisation the EPHA Environment Network (EEN). The issue is gradually moving up the EU agenda and EEN is actively involved in several important current and upcoming events and initiatives.
EEB and EEN International NGO Conference
The European Environmental Bureau in cooperation with EEN will host an International Environment and Health NGO meeting on Mercury. The meeting will take place on the 14-15 October 2005, in Brussels.
This will be the first time that environment issues related to mercury will be placed in the wider context of health implications and EEN hopes this will bring about cross fertilization of sectors as well as synergies. In addition, it forms part of the work towards the future UNEP discussions on Mercury in February 2007.
European Parliament report on the EU Mercury Strategy
In preparation of the EP’s first discussion of the EU Mercury Strategy in November EEN will be meeting with the Parliamentary rapporteur Mr Marios Matsakis to discuss how the health dimension of the current strategy can be strengthened.
Parliamentary timetable for the discussion of The EU Mercury Strategy is:
October: rapporteur’s first draft
November: discussion in the Environment, Public Health Committee
December: vote in above committee
February 2006: vote in plenary session
EEN Questionnaire on mercury
EEN is in the process of drafting 5 Mercury Fact Sheets in cooperation with Health Care Without Harm Europe. The fact sheets will be on:
Mercury & Health - the health problems from mercury, the exposures, pathways and toxicity profiles.
Mercury & Healthcare - where mercury is present in healthcare systems and how it could be reduced
Vaccines - the use of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, in vaccines
Amalgams - the different situations in European countries on the use of mercury in dental fillings
Fish - the different exposures from consumption of fish in European
countries
In order to obtain some of the information necessary for the factsheets, EEN has prepared a questionnaire to be distributed to European health and environment ministries. Please find the questionnaire attached.
Commission stakeholder meeting
On September 8 2005 the European Commission held a discussion with Member States regarding new legislation for banning the export of mercury from the EU and storage requirements for surplus mercury.
EEN was present at the meeting and presented the above mentioned questionnaire to member states to member states under the agenda point ‘any other business’.
For more information on the Commission’s work on mercury please consult the dedicated Commission webpage.
