ADVANCED SEARCH

European Scientists Ramp Up Monitoring of Chemicals in People's Bodies

Joanna Roberts reported in Horizon, the EU research and innovation magazine, that "European scientists are joining forces to find out more about the impact of common chemicals on human health, with the aim of providing solid evidence of risk that can feed into new regulations and policies."

She wrote that 107 Organizations from 26 countries have come together to form the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU), with the aim of answering questions in chemical risk assessment to help policymakers protect human health.

Human biomonitoring involves assessing people's exposure to chemicals by measuring the amount of natural and synthetic compounds in tissues such as hair and nails, or bodily fluids such as blood, urine and breast milk. When combined with information about people's lifestyles and medical histories, it can help uncover information about what chemicals people are exposed to, where they come from and what effects they might have.

While this is done already at national level, the idea of HBM4EU is to join up research across the continent, allowing it to be shared between different countries and fed into policy decisions. The project will also carry out new studies into the effects of certain chemicals on people’s health.


Printable PDF version

Other Links