04 May
2006 - Brussels, Belgium — What business does
a chemical company have between your bedroom sheets?
Should chemical companies be meddling with the
protection of your health? Of course they should
have no business in your sex life or personal
health, but unfortunately the chemical industry
is fighting hard to protect their privilege to
make hazardous chemicals with the potential to
seriously affect both.
Across the industrialised world
sperm counts have fallen as much as 50 percent
in the last 50 years. (The 'endangered sperm',
anyone?) Infertility rates have more than doubled
in industrialised countries since the 1960s, while
testicular cancer has become increasingly common.
Reproductive system birth defects are increasing
in baby boys. The exact cause of these changes
is unknown but one of the suspects is our exposure
to the increasing amount of hazardous chemicals
in our daily lives. So great is our exposure that
unborn children can be exposed to over 100 manmade
industrial chemicals while still in the womb.
Many of these substances have the potential to
harm the development of an infant's reproductive
system.
Our report, 'Fragile: Our reproductive
health and chemical exposure', collates the findings
of a number of scientific studies. Together, the
studies show for the first time a comprehensive
picture of an increase in reproductive health
disorders, mirroring the rising presence in our
lives of man-made chemicals.
Fix required, but trashing
in progress
At least in Europe there is
an attempt underway to address growing concerns
about chemical pollution and the effects of hazardous
chemicals on public health and the environment.
A new law (REACH) is being drafted but has come
under unprecedented, concerted attack from the
chemical industry.
The chemical industry has led
a massive lobby effort in Brussels to make sure
the new law will do more to protect their short-term
profit rather than provide long term solutions
to chemical contamination of our environment,
our homes and our bodies. Some of the 'highlights'
of the chemicals industry's efforts to trash REACH
include:
• Denying and undermining the health and environmental
problems caused by hazardous chemicals.
• Deliberately exaggerating potential costs and
scare-mongering about job losses to mislead and
intimidate European politicians into watering
down the REACH proposal. Actual costs of the law
will be a tiny fraction of the chemical industry's
huge profit margins.
• Actively slowing down and stalling the process
of drafting REACH in an attempt to prevent it
ever becoming law.
Our man in Brussels, Jorgo Riss
has seen this industry lobby up close and knows
it's not pretty: "Lack of accountability
and transparency in Brussels decision-making comes
at the cost of public interest legislation. The
chemicals industry's corrosive campaign to destroy
REACH thus far has depended on the willingness
of key officials to abandon their role as public
servants and behave like industry lobbyists."
Putting a face to the lobby
One of the main backers
of the lobby effort is German chemical giant BASF.
While industry has argued that
extra protection from hazardous chemicals will
cost too much , the income of BASF rose 50 percent
to a huge US$3.7 billion! With those profits,
BASF can afford to maintain a close relationship
with many politicians. In 2005, over 235 politicians
received money from BASF in Germany alone.
We have been pressuring European
politicians to stand up for the interests of the
people who actual elected them rather than the
chemical industry. Now we are exposing the companies
who lobby against health and the environment.
Mother and baby protest at chemical company BASF,
which has been lobbying against stronger laws
on hazardous chemicals.
To expose the dark side of BASF, we turned up
at the company's annual meeting with mothers demanding
that BASF stop producing chemicals that contaminate
their babies.
Ulrike Kallee was at the BASF
meeting: "When I learned I was pregnant,
I was immediately distressed by the knowledge
that my child will be born with hazardous chemicals
in his or her body. I find it totally immoral
that companies like BASF can continue to produce
such chemicals even when safer alternatives exist.
Help me to stop this madness and protect the health
of all of our children."
At the Danish BASF headquarters
pregnant women protested the production by BASF
of chemicals that are known to contaminate unborn
babies.
If you live in Europe you can
pressure European politicians to resist industry
lobbying and demand that publicly elected officials
stand up for your rights.