HEAL considers that a focus on reducing administrative cost and burden to businesses is a shortsighted and narrow perspective, disregarding the significant costs to people's health and the need for strengthened resilience of the natural environment in view of pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss.
Under the theme “Health for a stronger European Union – high time for action!”, the European Health Forum Gastein will explore how health can serve as a strategic pillar of European unity and resilience, while strengthening cooperation, reinforcing shared values, and advancing a stronger European Union.
HEAL Executive Director Genon K. Jensen will be speaking at the session, Regulatory shield defending Europe’s brain’s health in a volatile environment, hosted by the Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), the Brain Health Mission, and the European Academy of Neurology.
Alongside Hélène Nicora, Director General at Parkinson’s Europe, she will be exploring the theme of “Evidence to Policy.” They will present case studies that connect the human and societal cost of neurotoxic exposure to EU proposals aimed at “simplifying” pesticide and chemicals policy — including the Food and Feed Safety Simplification omnibus proposal.
This will be followed by a townhall debate with all members of the panel which also includes Ulf Kallweit, Co-Chair of the Environmental Influences in Neurology Task Force at the European Academy of Neurology, and MEPs Kulja, Sokol, and Andriukaitis.
“A regulatory environmental shield is essential for disease prevention, and to help reduce the economic burden of pollution. Deregulation endangers brain health, for example in the case of the Food and Feed Safety Simplification Omnibus, by suggesting unlimited approvals for pesticides linked to brain damage, sidelining the latest science.“
Génon Jensen, Executive Director, HEAL
“We are increasingly understanding that the environment in which we live is also shaping the health of our brains. Recent research has strengthened the evidence linking long-term air-pollution exposure with dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, while new evidence continues to associate pesticide exposure with Parkinson’s disease. These findings make it clear that brain health cannot be considered separately from environmental and chemical policy.”
Ulf Kallweit, Co-Chair, Environmental Influences in Neurology Task Force, European Academy of Neurology
Session details and registration (online participation is free of charge).
