Europe’s largest ever screening programme for hazardous chemicals has found significant parts of the population exposed to multiple hazardous substances above levels that could cause serious illnesses. Despite this, plans to strengthen European chemical protections are being watered down, suggests an internal EU document obtained by NGOs. Read the press release here.
This joint project required the parsing of hundreds of scientific and other bio-monitoring papers into a media briefing, which also included details of a pressure campaign to water down an EU manifesto pledge and an unpublished official document suggesting strong industry influence. It was a challenge to summarise five years of research involving 116 institutions and present that content as new a year after the project had ended. Despite this, results were strong, with nearly 200 articles, including in Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Mundo, The Guardian and ORF. The story featured prominently in Le Monde and The Guardian homepages.
