PAN Europe, together with MEP Tilly Metz, MEP Biljana Borzan, and CRIN organisation organised the webinar: "SUR: science calls for protection of children's health from long-term impacts of pesticides", on 14 November 2023.
The event took place ahead of the Plenary voting on the Commission’s proposal for the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products. This draft regulation includes critical provisions for protecting and limiting children’s exposure to harmful pesticides.
The right to a healthy and clean environment is a fundamental human right. The connection between children’s exposure to pesticides and diseases and disorders occurrence in early childhood and adolescence is now well documented in scientific studies.
This event aims to inform all stakeholders involved in the process of negotiations on the SUR about the consequences of children’s exposure to pesticides, urging them to recognise the link, and to act when working on the SUR proposal by:
- Strengthening provisions for sensitive areas and expanding the minimum buffer zones, ensuring protection from direct exposure to pesticides;
- Adding provisions on health, measuring the risk based on toxicological data on human health;
- Supporting the transition to agroecological food production systems, thus ensuring a safe environment and healthy food for children.
A child's brain, nervous system and organs develop intensively during the prenatal stage and the development continues after birth. Recent scientific data show that the blood-brain barrier is completely permeable to pesticides, up to the age of one.
Children are small, compared to adults, yet, the same rules are applied for the protection of their health, as are for adults.
In addition, children eat and drink more relative to their body weight than adults. This can lead to a higher dose of pesticide residue per kilogram of body weight. Babies crawl on treated lawns and carpets with pesticide residues from the air. Crawling rubs pesticide residue onto a baby’s skin. The baby also breathes in pesticide-laden dust, which might be more dangerous than pesticide residues in food - toxins go directly to the bloodstream, bypassing the liver.
Does the current legislation sufficiently protect children from exposure to pesticides? What are the acute and long-term impacts of exposure to pesticides?
This and more was discussed in the webinar.
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