Commission aims to boost child health

Date: 19/06/03

By Karen Carstens

THE European Commission has launched a strategy that aims to protect children from harmful health problems triggered by environmental degradation.

"We have tended in the past to view children as small adults," said Ewa Hedlund, spokeswoman for Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström, adding that the strategy seeks to rectify this with an initial emphasis on children, focusing in particular on respiratory diseases, neuro-development disorders, cancer and endocrine disrupting effects.

A recent European Environmental Agency report states that up to 60,000 deaths per year in large European cities are caused by long-term exposure to air pollution.

Moreover, Hedlund said, Europe's 157 million children are often harder hit, as their systems are more sensitive to environmental threats.

"One in seven children is affected by asthma in western European countries," she said. "This is ten times the rate in eastern European countries."

While EU legislation has tended to look at "a single factor like air, water or soil" to target harmful health effects, the new strategy aims to combine efforts of several DGs responsible for environment, research and health.

An 11 July meeting of experts in these fields will launch a consultation process that will culminate in three regional conferences this autumn, Hedlund said.

These should result in an "Action Plan" for a "European Environment and Health Strategy" to be implemented in cycles from 2004 to 2010. The plan will be presented ahead of an inter-ministerial conference on the subject in Budapest in June 2004, which will focus especially on children.

ESO: In Focus: Protecting future generations from environmental pollution, June 2003 http://www.europeansources.info/record/protecting-future-generations-from-environmental-pollution-june-2003/

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