Statement II on emerging health and environmental issues (2022)

SCHEER members: Roberto Bertollini, Teresa Borges, Wim de Jong, Pim de Voogt, Raquel Duarte-Davidson, Peter Hoet, Rodica Mariana Ion, Renate Krätke, Demosthenes Panagiotakos, Ana Proykova, Theodoros Samaras, Marian Scott (Rapporteur), Emanuela Testai, Theo Vermeire (Chair), Marco Vighi, Sergey Zacharov
Contact:SANTE-C2-SCHEERec [dot] europa [dot] eu (SANTE-C2-SCHEER[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
On request from: European Commission
Adopted on: 13 January 2022

According to the Commission Decision C(2015) 5383, the Scientific Committees shall draw the Commission's attention to specific or emerging problems which may pose a potential risk to consumer's safety, public health or the environment. The Scientific Committees review and evaluate relevant scientific data and assess potential risks. The SCHEER Committee provides opinions on questions concerning health, environmental and emerging risks. The SCHEER statement II on emerging health and environmental issues draws the Commission Services’ attention to 9 emerging issues in the non-food area that Committee members have identified as having a potential impact on human health and/or the environment in the future.

Among the risks identified are the human-computer/robot interfaces, climate change and water pollution, nanotechnology organics, and the chemical risks in a circular economy. There is also considerable interest in how a degraded environment may contribute to the transmission of diseases across species barriers as well as the Hydrogen economy and the risks attached. This second statement describes also the emerging methodological issues of wastewater-based epidemiology and the early detection of risks in general.

Keywords:

SCHEER, emerging issues, emerging risks, newly identified health risks, health, environment, impacts

Opinion to be cited as:

SCHEER (Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks). SCHEER Statement II on Emerging Issues (2022), 13 January 2022.