The medical technology associations BVMed (Federal Medical Technology Association) and Spectaris (German Industry Association for Optics, Photonics, Analysis and Medical Technology) warn in a letter to the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) about the ban on perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). If there were to be a blanket ban on around 10,000 substances at EU level, this would have “devastating effects,” the associations write. Many of the substances are currently “indispensable and without alternative”. In addition, the transition period until the ban is to come into force in 2025 is too short.
According to the associations, the EU Council and the EU Parliament were involved far too late in the regulations planned by the EU Commission for the ban on PFAS. German health policy should get involved in the process and “quickly take a look at” the Brussels initiative. So far, the BMG has not commented on the letter.
Chemical Agency seeks PFAS ban
In January 2023, the draft for the PFAS restrictions was presented by the European Chemicals Agency ECHA. It is primarily about two substances from the chemical group: PFOA, which has now been banned, and PFOS, a substance that is subject to restrictions. Found in food, they can attach to serum proteins in the blood. Animal experiments have shown that high doses of these substances (in the microgram range) damage the liver and thyroid and are carcinogenic. In addition, the substances are associated with effects on the development and birth weight of unborn children.
According to the medical associations, however, the broad regulation of entire groups of substances should be rejected. “In medical devices, PFAS is precisely the technical property that is politically fatal for which they are used: their longevity and resilience on and in the human body,” write the associations. In medical technology, PFAS are so-called “high-performance materials” that would have made the medical-technical advances of recent decades possible in the first place.
The ban puts the production of “incubators for newborns, heart-lung machines or implants such as pacemakers, stents or joints, but also products that come into contact with blood or packaging for sterile medical devices” at risk. According to the associations, “urgent political need for action” is necessary. It would help if chemicals weren’t just dumped into groundwater.
Chemicals pumped into the sewage
The Netherlands recently held the US company 3M liable for damage allegedly caused by a Belgian chemical plant. Part of the chemical waste discharged into the river Scheldt had flowed from 3M to the Netherlands. The local residents were also financially damaged as a result, and 3M is now said to be liable. In the meantime, in 2022, 3M had to stop production processes in Belgium that worked with PFAS.
A Leipzig environmental research center wants to use samples from wild boar livers as an indicator to check the extent to which regions in Germany are already contaminated with the perpetual chemical PFAS.
(mack)
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