Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-29-Speech-4-107"
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"en.20070329.23.4-107"2
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Today’s first-reading agreement on medical products misses the great chance for a ban on highly hazardous substances in them. That the stonewalling by the EU Member States has made it possible for substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic to reproduction to continue to be used even when safe alternatives have long been available is a poor show.
These clear limits on the use of hazardous soft PVC in ventilation tubes, stomach probes and infusion devices have been long overdue, for these materials contain high concentrations of the softening agent DEHP, which is toxic to reproduction and dangerous particularly to babies, children and dialysis patients, with premature babies taking in a dose of DEHP that is up to 200 times in excess of the norm.
One glimmer of hope is that the obligation to label hazardous softeners has been adopted, thus making it possible for medical personnel to take the conscious decision to use products not containing soft PVC, and consumers to actively demand that they do so. Producers are also being made subject to more stringent obligations to justify why medical products with soft PVC can be used on children and pregnant women.
This is, in any case, no more than a temporary solution, for the Commission has, this week, at last recommended – on the basis of a risk assessment going back as far as 2001, that the use of DEHP in medical products for certain groups of people at risk be prohibited. This ban may well be long overdue, but it is a case of ‘better late than never’ and the Commission must submit a proposal for legislation by the end of the year at the latest."@en1
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