Annals of Occupational Hygiene Advance Access originally published online on July 14, 2006
Annals of Occupational Hygiene 2006 50(6):541-544; doi:10.1093/annhyg/mel008
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Occupational Hygiene Society
Some Economic Benefits of REACH
1 BG BAU—Berufsgenossenschaft der Bauwirtschaft, Prävention Frankfurt Postfach 600112, D-60331 Frankfurt, Germany
2 Beratungs- und Informationsstelle Arbeit & Gesundheit Schanzenstraße 75, D-20357 Hamburg, Germany
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: reinhold.ruehl@bgbau.de
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Forty years ago, Rachel Carson (1962) wrote in Silent Spring: ‘If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals—eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones—we had better know something about their nature and their power.’ She could surely not have imagined that her observation: ‘The full scope of the dangerous interaction of chemicals is as yet little known ...’ would still be so accurate in the third millennium.
In 2003 the European Commission published a draft regulation known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Administration of Chemicals). This will amend or replace most of the existing European Union (EU) legislation on supply of chemicals, introducing a common approach for existing substances and for substances new to the market, and shifting much of the responsibility for evaluation of hazard from the member states to industry (Musu, 2005). The traditional core area of
THE LIABILITY INSURANCE ASSOCIATIONS (THE BGS) AND OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE
THE COST OF OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE
Costs from BGs are an underestimate
Calculation of costs of ‘chemical-related illnesses’ in Europe
Epoxy resins and isocyanates
Other substances
CONCLUDING REMARKS