Environmental Study: Presented to the European Parliament on March 26, 2008, Part 3

"Probably carcinogenic"

Certain pesticides are suspected of causing cancer and being genetically harmful. There are however still large gaps in our knowledge on this subject. Testers did find substances in the ten German wines tested from Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse or Württemberg and in Austrian wines as well which are categorized as "possibly" or "probably" carcinogenic in the USA. However, in the European Union these categories have not existed up to now. In comparison, wines from France, Italy, Chile or South Africa were shown to contain pesticides which can cause cancer, even according to the standards of the European Union.

Since the substances found did not exceed the given limits, the consequences of this study are still being disputed in the European Parliament. Hiltrud Breyer, a member of the Green Party in parliament, said these were "alarming and shocking results." She called for stricter regulations in the current legal proceedings to ban especially dangerous pesticides. Christa Klaß, a member of the European Parliament for the Christian Democratic Union, issued a warning about drawing the wrong conclusions: "According to the present law, these wines are completely harmless," she stated. Should however these be a health risk, the European Union would have to consider stricter approval procedures.

The Pesticide Action Network did not want to go as far as to advise lovers of wine to give it up: "We don't want to tell anyone to stop drinking wine," PAN spokesperson Elliott Cannell said. However, he called on all wine-growers to decrease the use of pesticides considerably. According to information given by PAN, 20 per cent of all the pesticides used in Europe are sprayed on grapevines, although these only take up 3 per cent of the area used for agricultural purposes

Source: hda/AFP URL: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,543553,00.html

Erich Hartl
hartl@weinpur.com
www.organicwinepure.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - o - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -