Working together on the future of the limit values for carcinogens in Europe
Conference report - On 10 and 11 of February 2020, the Dutch Social and Economic Council (SER) organized the European Conference on Occupational Exposure Limit (OELs) values for carcinogens in the city of The Hague, the Netherlands.
The focus was on genotoxic carcinogens, carcinogens that are supposed to have carcinogenic risk even at very low doses. The setting of OELs for this types of carcinogens inevitably comes down to a discussion on the acceptability of a certain level of risk.
The aim of the conference was to contribute to the European discussion on the principles that can be used when setting EU OELs for carcinogens and mutagens under the Carcinogens and Mutagens Directive (CMD).
An audience coming from a variety of backgrounds explored the possibility of harmonization principles that would enable better cooperation in Europe and more efficient use of people and resources. Overall, there was fairly strong support for the notion that harmonized principles would speed up the process of developing limit values at European level for all relevant carcinogens by allowing the cooperation of different European institutions.