SCHEER - Call for information on the safety of cobalt in toys with regard to a possible derogation from its prohibition

Public health community

Call for Information - SCHEER Opinion on the safety of cobalt in toys with regard to a possible derogation from its prohibition

The Scientific Committee on health, environmental and emerging risks (SCHEER), has received from the Commission a request for a scientific opinion on safety of cobalt in toys.

This call for information is being launched according to the stakeholders dialogue procedures laid down in the Rules of procedure of the Scientific Committees.

The objective of the Call is to ensure that all relevant scientific information is available to the Scientific Committee for its assessment.

Scope of the call for information:

The Secretariat of the SCHEER would like to invite any interested parties to submit scientific information on:

• cobalt and migration or release from toys
• exposure measurements on cobalt used in toys
• presence and quantification of cobalt in nickel alloys
• market surveillance data on cobalt in/from toys
• presence or migration of cobalt or its impurities from materials other than metallic parts, e.g. polyester and colorants, in toys
• bioelution testing with cobalt

Submitted information will be considered by the SCHEER following the criteria defined by the "Memorandum on the use of the scientific literature for human health risk assessment purposes – weighing of evidence and expression of uncertainty"

Only submissions directly related to the call and complying with its specifications will be considered.

Submission of information:

All information should be submitted in electronic form to SANTE-C2-SCHEERec [dot] europa [dot] eu (SANTE-C2-SCHEER[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu) specifying “Call for Information – cobalt in toys” in the subject line of the e-mail.

All information is considered public unless otherwise stated by the provider.

A document on guidelines for submission of contributions, containing criteria for the call for information and guidance for submission can be found here.

The deadline for submitting information is 25 May 2021, 23:59 (CET). However, the call for information will remain open also after this date and additional studies (e.g. on-going studies and research that are not completed by the deadline) may be passed to the working group at a later stage, if needed.

Further information:

More information about SCHEER and the other Scientific Committees of the European Commission can be found here.