Is there any evidence that regulating by hazard would improve safety or environmental protection?
The group commented that for persistant, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) hazards and for persistant organic pollutants (POP)), a hazard based approach was perhaps the best approach as once present in the environment these substances could cause the greatest problems. However there is no evidence that the current robust scientific system of risk assessment would not be capable of managing this. Similarly there was no evidence that a hazard based system would offer improvements in health and safety or in environmental protection. If we were to regulate by hazard, which hazards would take precedence when ranking products (i.e. hazards to humans, non-target animals, non-target plants etc.) and why? It was clear that hazard assessment would be used for both human health and environmental assessments. The group noted particular concerns about the use of endocrine disruption as a regulatory trigger in that as yet there are no test methods. It was suggested that it was inappropriate to regulat
