London

The chemical industry could be facing a future filled with liability claims sparked by increased knowledge of the human genome, according to a British environmental group.

A report by Friends of the Earth, Crisis in Chemicals, warns that knowledge derived from the Human Genome Project on how chemicals affect individuals could open the legal floodgates. The group also calls for new legislation on the toxicity of chemicals.

New genomics data will mean that the chemical industry will be able to look at the human effects of a new product before it is made available. But it also means that companies failing to do so might face legal liabilities for negligence.

Industry, governments and the financial sector need to recognize the full implications of the biomedical revolution, says Michael Warhurst, one of the report's authors. “Companies that fail to clean up their act will face a heavy bill,” he says. “So will insurers and investors.”

The UK government has welcomed the report. “It highlights the possible implications of emerging research into the genetic susceptibility of individuals to chemicals, and rightly points out that this research will eventually bring a better understanding of the mechanisms of chemical toxicity,” says a spokesperson.

Friends of the Earth predicts that, without action now, there will be a crisis in the regulation and use of chemicals. The UK government is due to hold a ‘stakeholder forum’ on the regulation of chemical use in the next few months, where this will be discussed and which Friends of the Earth says it will attend.

But Warhurst says that Europe is where the real action on chemical regulation is taking place, and the European Commission is currently reviewing the regulation of industrial chemicals. A UK government spokesperson says: “The report makes some interesting recommendations for the future of European chemical legislation which we will be studying carefully.”

The Chemical Industries Association, a lobbying umbrella group for the UK chemical industry, has responded to the report by saying that a programme of “product stewardship” currently ensures that “nobody is exposed to danger from our products”. It adds that the chemical industry “is extremely highly regulated”.

→ http://www.foe.co.uk → http://www.cia.org.uk