The EPH Programme/Platform wishes you a pleasant 2013 Spring
EPH Will celebrate soon 20 years of EU Policy in the field of environment & health, following the 1993 EPH European Declaration on Environment and Public Health in Modern Society in the framework of the first Treaty on the European Union, the so called Maastricht Treaty (1993)
EPH Krakow Consultative Working Meeting reported on progress of 4 EPH Working Parties/Sections
Implementing the EPH Potsdam Work Programme (2011)
As the Consultative Conference in Krakow is the last Meeting in the Consultaion Process on Environment and Public Health in the European Union, set up by the EPH Programme/Platform, in the framework of the Mandate of the EPH Procurator (European S.R.E.H.) you will be definitely interested in participating in the final outcome of the Consultation on Environment and Public Health.
The EPH 2012 Core Group Committee had chosen to have all EPH 2011 Berlin-Potsdam scientific sessions and their proposals for European Working Parties and Platforms to be again discussed in Krakow 2012 and to have the first results presented by some EPH Sections or Working Parties in a restricted working meeting with renewed consultative status. The Consultative Work Meeting was held under the Patronage of the Polish Ministry of the Environment with contributions from the Polish research community in the E & H field.
During the Berlin-Potsdam Consultative Conference the Director-General Karl Falkenberg of DG Environment of the European Commission expressed the need of such platforms as EPH for the European Institutions. More than 17 platform issues where proposed. In Krakow EPH "Faciliators" presented first results of the concepts of their Working Party or Subgroup (Sections) through a variety of contributions and scientific and policy oriented presentations.
Facilitators for various EPH Sections being appointed
Progress of the EPH Programme & Platform
Brussels 30 November 2012
Report on Krakow 2012 coming soon with progress of 4 Working Parties or EPH Sections.
The Working Parties and EPH Sections are established as part of the EPH Programme/Platform and are a result of the EPH Potsdam Work Programme. An EPH Core Group (formling transitional Committee) of reknown experts from various EU members-states had been worked out on a set of Guidelines for the Working Parties and EPH Sections after the Berlin-Potsdam Consultative Conference in 2011. They were finalized by the Chair of the EPH Expert Panels and the EPH Procurator. Due to limitations a the EPH Office in Brussels the process is slower than previously expected.
The facilitators for EPH Sections (or Working Parties) are in the process of forming a coordination group in their designated field of environment and health. Each coordination group will elect a chairperson and prepare for their own EPH Seminar/Workshop or plenary session at the future annual meetings. The coordination groups will develop within the EPH Community open Working Paltforms for scientists and professionals in the area of concern.
The various Sections/Platforms coordinate their part at the EPH Annual Meeting. The global outcome of the EPH Annual Meeting can be used as instruments for policy and the science-policy interface and science policy relevant for prevention. In a preliminary Meeting of facilitators and priority working parties in May 2012 in Brussels, an EPH MetaMeeting has been proposed in order to translate science into policy working packages, few months after the Annual Conference. The proposal was made by Professor Stamati (Athens) and Professor Hens (VITO, Belgium) supported by Guy Aloïs Magnus as Procurator of the European S.R.E.H..
Hosted by the European Union (Committee of the Regions) leading to EPH Brussels Statement, 2010. This first Annual Meeting of EPH within the European Union was incorporated into the 2nd High Level Expert Meeting on Environment and Health research & prevention, set up in collaboration with officers of the European Commission, the Presidency of the European Parliament. The Meeting had a double label under the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
EPH Berlin-Potsdam Consultative Conference leading to the Potsdam EPH Working Programme (Potsdam EPH Programm) establishing in 2012 EPH Working Parties & Working Groups (task forces) working out specific work plans on priority setting within consultative platforms. The Potsdam EPH Programme is part of the EPH Programme/Platform, initiated in the period 2005-2008 as the European EPH Community.
EPH Brussels Statement on Environment and Public Health in Modern Society
From High Level Expert Meeting in 2010, hosted by the European Union
From 8-10 November the 2d High level Expert Meeting was held on Environment and Public Health at the Jacques Delors building of the EU in Brussels, hosted by the Committee of the Regions of the European Union. The Conference lead to EPH Brussels Statement on Environment and Public Health just at the end of the first Environmental and Health Action Plan 2004-2010 of the European Comission. It Double Conference & EPH Meeting was incorporating the first Annual Meeting of EPH within the European Union.
The Statement contains 10 Articles - Resolutions for which the final redaction was made by a committee of EPH experts from the participants involving all major actors. Both contributors and participants came from several Directorates-Generals of the European Commission. The Expert Meeting lead to very vivid discussions during the Round Table at the last day of Conference. The full texts of the Resolutions you find now on this website.
We ask you to disseminate as much as possible the Statement in view of advocacy for Environment and Health within the European Union & Abroad. Please create also a link on your site to the Brussels Statement and EPH.
The 2nd European High Level Expert Meeting on Environment and Health research and prevention (2010), and the Environment and Public Health in Modern Society Conference, hosted by the European Union was also made possible thanks to the kind support of
The need for support for European EPH Research & Prevention Platforms
as one of the policy instruments for European Institutions
Mr Karl Falkenberg, Director-General Environment of the European Commission participated at the EPH Consultative Conference on Environment and Public Health (EPH) known as the Berlin-Potsdam EPH Consultative Conference where the start was given for establishing Working Parties to develop as European Platforms on Environment and Health research & prevention. Mr. Karl Falkenberg stressed the urgent need to support such platforms as EPH open to all scientists and professionals and other actors of European Society. More information coming here soon for EPH registered persons from the various fields and levels in European Society.
European Parliament ENVI Committee Reviews Environmental Policy
Environment & Health in the 7th Environment Action Plan
During the Berlin-Potsdam EPH/SREH Management meeting at the State Chancellery of Brandenburg, it has been decided that EPH will further establish firm annual contacts with Members of European Parliament, at the proposal of Prof. Prindull (University of Göttingen), chair of the EPH Expert Panels supported by the EPH temporary Core Group of Experts.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) is currently reviewing the 6th Environment Action Programme and the setting of priorities for the 7th Environment Action Programme – a better environment for a better life.
A draft report has been prepared by MEP Mr. Jo Leinen (Germany), former chair of the ENVI Committee
Those FULL members of the EPH Community who want to contribute actively in advocacy at European Parliament are kindly invited to take contact with the EPH Office in Brussels and express their field and focus of interest.
EPH RECENT NEWS
from the EPH Office in Brussels
Brussels 25 January 2013
The EEA (European Environment Agency, Copenhagen just published the report:
Late Lessons from Early Warnings, volume II
New technologies have sometimes had very harmful effects, but in many cases the early warning signs have been suppressed or ignored. The second volume of Late Lessons from Early Warnings investigates specific cases where danger signals have gone unheeded, in some cases leading to deaths, illness and environmental destruction.
The publication results from the work of David Gee and the EEA team in Copenhagen. David Gee was one of the experts contributing to the EPH Consultative Conference in Berlin-Potsdam in 2011 where he contributed on the health risks of EMF and presented a firm analysis of the 2011 Publication in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) of a Danish Research report on EMF.
The EPH Office in Brussels informs you about the following concerning access to EPH Information through being Member of one of the three important Membership categories of the EPH Community:
Paying an Annual Fee in your category of Membership is your personal or institutional contribution to make EPH work and develop step-by-step through your direct input.
General information is available to the public and the scientific and preofessional communities covered by EPH.
Some more detailed information packages will be available at Regular (ordinary) Members at no costs, just by registering online or informing at euro@sreh.be, while more specialised documents and information packages will be restricted to EPhE Professionals Individual Members (low cost annual fee) and to EPH Full Members both individual and institutional.
A number of highly important documents and resources will only be available to EPH Full Members who have paid their corresponding annual membership fee.
Enjoy your EPH Programme/Platform membership joining actively the EPH Community within or with the European Union.
new website launched by the European Environment Agency (EEA)
Copenhagen 23 March 2012
Climate change is already evident in Europe. Across the continent, policy makers are starting to respond to current and future impacts and risks associated with rising temperatures, changing precipitation, melting glaciers, ice and snow, rising sea levels, and more frequent and intense floods and droughts.
ScienceDaily reports that a research team led by University of Massachusetts Amherst resource economist Sylvia Brandt, with colleagues in California and Switzerland, have revised the cost burden sharply upward for childhood asthma and for the first time include the number of cases attributable to air pollution, in a study released this week in the early online version of the European Respiratory Journal.
Filipino public interest network EcoWaste Coalition has highlighted unsafe levels of lead and other heavy metals in ornaments currently being marketed for Chinese New Year.
Gynecol Endocrinol. 2011 Sep;27(9):721-4. Epub 2011 Feb 9.
Peripheral precocious puberty in a 4-month-old girl: role of pesticides?
Gaspari L, Paris F, Jeandel C, Sultan C.
Unité d'Endocrinologie-Gynécologie Pédiatrique, Service de Pédiatrie 1, Hôpital Arnaud-de-Villeneuve, CHU Montpellier, Université Montpellier I, Montpellier, France.
Early life stress is one of the best characterized risk factors for psychiatric disorders, including depression, and many animal models have therefore studied the long-term physiological and behavioural consequences of early life stress.
In most approaches a very deterministic view of adverse experiences early in life prevails, linking these events inevitably with later pathology.
April 2011: Development and the Environment: Clues to Carcinogenesis, John D. Potter
As a result of considerable EMF research undertaken in Sweden, it is interesting to note that Swedish authorities have officially acknowledged adverse EMR as a problem and have categorized electrohypersensitivity as a functional impairment.
One year after the Fukushima reactor crisis in Japan, no meaningful progress has been achieved in improving the ability of first responders and medical professionals to react to a disaster on a similar scale in the United States. What is the situation in the EU in disaster preparadness ?
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has launched an online inventory giving hazard information on more than 100,000 substances. The information was collected under the classification, labelling and packaging (CLP) regulation.
The complexity of urban contexts poses new challenges and opportunities to processes of resilience building, evidencing the need for innovative tools and strategies.
EPH is a network linking scientists and professionals across various research and professional fields with the participation of representatives within local, regional (subnational and national), European and international authorities. EPH aims at improving and protecting human health, analizing and protecting where needed the ecosystems, and linking initiatives into global alliance (LiGA). EPH refers to the first Global and European Declaration on Environment and Public Health in Modern Society (EPH Declaration), issued on October 30, 1993 on behalf and with the support of EU and UN Organizations.
A Second "European" High Level Expert Meeting and EPH Conference took place in Brussels in 2010, hosted by the European Union, and leading to the EPH Brussels Statement on Environment and Public Health within the European Union.
facilitators & coordination groups being designated
The EPH Potsdam Work Programme
The EPH office follows up day to day practical development of the new EPH Working Groups/Working Parties facilitators & chairpersons. The Groups are being established during the following weeks and months.
Main tasks for the Working Groups/Parties will be to prepare their EPH Seminars or interlinked symposia at the forthcoming annual meetings in 2012 and 2013. Also the coordination groups for each theme or major subject will establish step-by-step an appropriate EPH Platform in conjuntion with existing EU committees, instances, and actors.
The work is guided by the Procurator of the European S.R.E.H., established at the Federal Research Foundation in Brussels and by the Chair of the EPH Expert Panels, as well as by the EPH Organizing Body and EPH Core Group (list of members to be published soon).
An EPH Expert Panel of 40 personalities guides at present the EPH Programme/Platform development (see above). From March 2012 on a team of facilitators and advisors in various fields of E & H research and prevention will execute the EPH Potsdam Work Programme leading to Working Parties and various open platforms within the European Union.
BECOME DONOR and/or SUPPORTIVE MEMBER
our responsability to protect public health and future generations
Become an EPH donor for independent science & knowledge based prevention platforms in the European Union, with an open scope to social & sustainable development at local & global scale. Donors can also conytribute financially to basic research, and translating basic research
Become a regular member at no costs with benefits or a full member with extensive benefits.
EPH Antwerp Declaration