Following a well-deserved summer break, it is time to step up our efforts again and continue communicating the ‘10 Small Steps’ everyone can take towards good hormone health as well as other key messages that are part of the ongoing #BecauseHormonesMatter campaign.

You will find the current Toolkit with resources on the ‘10 Small Steps – Recommendations for Good Hormone Health’, which you can share with colleagues, local and national media, policy makers and on your own social media, on the European Hormone Day website: www.europeanhormoneday.org.  

Remember you can use #BecauseHormonesMatter on any social media activity that relates to raising awareness of hormone health – not just for European Hormone Day activities.  

Within a challenging political environment where endocrine health and research do not always receive the attention they deserve, it is crucial that we continue to actively communicate the importance of why hormones matter and the measures that are needed to improve our hormone health to our local, national and European policy makers.  

At the ESE Office we have already started to look ahead to next year and will be sharing some major announcements on the 2025 campaign soon - so keep an eye out for more information on how you can be involved!  

#BecauseHormonesMatter

Now that the dust has started to settle inside the European Parliament, we can start to assess which key Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in the area of health and environment have been re-elected, and at the same time become familiar with some new faces who we think could provide political support for the topics we consider important, including cancer, rare endocrine diseases, obesity, endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) as well as endocrine research in general.

ESE champions that have been re-elected
Looking at the MEPs who have been re-elected, we are particularly pleased with the return of MEP Martin Hojsík (Renew Europe Group, Slovakia) who has supported several ESE initiatives to date and is an official political advocate of the #BecauseHormonesMatter campaign and signatory of the Milano Declaration. Secondly, we are hopeful that Sirpa Pietikäinen will also manage to get a seat following her extensive support for ESE and its activities including hosting the 7 June EDC event last year inside the European Parliament.

Whether she obtains a seat or not will depend on whether MEP Henna Virkkunen becomes the next Finnish European Commissioner. If Henna Virkkunen is approved by the European Parliament during the upcoming hearings, her seat will automatically pass on to MEP Pietikäinen.  

Additionally, we are pleased that several other signatories of the Milano Declaration have been re-elected as well, including: 

- MEP Ewa Kopacz (European People’s Party, PL) 
- MEP Bartosz Arłukowicz (European People’s Party, PL)  
- MEP Martin Hojsík (Renew Europe Group, SK) 
- MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen (European People’s Party, FI) 
- MEP Manuela Ripa (Greens/European Free Alliance, DE) 
- MEP Sara Cerdas (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, PT) 
- MEP Jutta Paulus (Greens/European Free Alliance, DE) 
 
In collaboration with our National Partner Societies of ECAS (ESE Council of Affiliated Societies) – we intend to continue our collaboration with these MEPs and engage with them where possible and appropriate.  

Several doctors among the newly elected MEPs
Staying with the new MEPs, several interesting names have shown up on our political radar who we believe could have the potential to significantly impact the EU’s health and environment agenda.

We especially want to highlight the return to the Brussels arena of the former EU Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis (S&D, Lithuania) who successfully ran for a seat in the European Parliament and, amongst others, will join the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). This committee is one of the two largest, and perhaps most prestigious, committees within the European Parliament and of key importance for the direction of health and environment policies and legislation at the EU level.

Another interesting newcomer is Antonio Decaro (Italy) who gained fame during the Covid-19 Pandemic when he called out those who didn’t comply with the Covid-19 restrictions. He has been parachuted in to chair the ENVI Committee.

Other newcomers worth mentioning are András Kulja, a Hungarian heart surgeon and Ignazio Marino, an Italian transplant surgeon and former mayor of Rome. Both will also take a seat on the ENVI committee.

On 17 September 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented her new lineup of EU Commissioners to the European Parliament for the next five years. They will need to be approved individually as well as a collective through European Parliament hearings that are likely to take place between 4 and 12 November. In 2019, three candidates were denied by the European Parliament due to a lack of trust in their competency and/or integrity and it will be interesting to see if any won’t pass the grilling by the European Parliament this time.

From ESE’s perspective, the main Commissioners of interest are Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare Olivér Várhelyi (Hungary) as well as Jessika Roswall (Sweden), Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, Ekaterina Zaharieva (Bulgaria), Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation and to a lesser extent Wopke Hoekstra (the Netherlands), Commissioner for Climate, Net-Zero and Clean Growth and Stéphane Séjourné (France), Executive Vice President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy.
 
Together they will be driving the health, environment and research agenda within the European Commission. With the help of our partners and political supporters we will aim to actively influence and inform their decision-making and ensure endocrinology and related areas receive the attention it deserves. 

Politico has a full overview of all the candidates with some snappy insights around their political pasts and some more personal notes around their private lives.   

Mission letters
The Commissioners also each receive a ‘mission letter’, which outlines the policies they are expected to implement during their upcoming term. The mission letters and the CVs of the newly appointed Commissioners can be found here.  

A selection of policies in the mission letters with relevance for endocrinology: 

• A new Chemicals Industry Package, the simplification of REACH and clarity on PFAS. The responsible Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné and Jessika Roswall have been asked to work on these policies with sustainability, competitiveness, security and safety considerations in mind.  
• The continuous implementation of the Beating Cancer Plan with a focus on preventive health through health promotion and disease prevention. The focus on preventive health within the Beating Cancer Plan should also serve as an example for action on other disease areas including cardiovascular disease and mental health. Responsible Commissioner is Olivér Várhelyi. 
• Ensure the competitiveness and availability of medical devices. This will include potential new legislation in this area. Responsible Commissioner is Olivér Várhelyi. 
• New Critical Medicines Act to address medicine shortages across the EU. The legislation should reduce dependencies relating to critical medicines and ingredients and ensure the supply of affordable medicines. Responsible Commissioner is Olivér Várhelyi. 
• Complete the European Health Data Space framework. This legislation adopted under the previous Parliament still needs better implementation at the Member State Level. Responsible Commissioner is Olivér Várhelyi.   

Following the European Parliament elections in June and the instalment of the new Commission later than usual this year, ESE, together with our partners, has already planned a wide range of activities to keep endocrinology high on the EU health and environment agenda.  

General outreach to Members of the European Parliament 
In collaboration with ECAS and other partners we intend to reach out to the relevant MEPs and seek their political support in promoting endocrine health and, where possible, influence relevant policies and legislation at the EU/European level. We will re-engage with our former political allies while seeking partnerships with newly elected MEPs.  

As part of our overall approach, we will work with our partners to ensure that the endocrine perspective, for instance with regard to the EU chemicals legislation, receives attention during the upcoming Commissioner hearings. Obvious targets will be the Commissioners with health, environment or research in their portfolio. Proposed questions will mainly focus on endocrine disruptors including a call for more research in addition to more stringent legislative measures to reduce the presence of EDCs in our environment.  

Activities in relation to the REACH revision and the PFAS restriction proposal 
Together or in collaboration with the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE), the European Thyroid Association, the Endocrine Society and other partners, we will also issue joint statements and/or letters with regards to outstanding legislative dossiers including the revision of REACH and the PFAS restriction proposal.  

On the REACH proposal, Ursula Von der Leyen called for “simplification of REACH” in her policy brief where she outlined her plans for the new term of the European Commission. While it is positive that she mentions the need to revise REACH, a mere simplification of the regulation will not be sufficient to make chemicals in our environment safer.  

As highlighted repeatedly by our experts during meetings, at conferences and through different statements, REACH needs a complete overhaul to bring it up to speed with the latest scientific findings. The current REACH legislation stems from 2006 and therefore most of its assumptions are now outdated. A revised REACH legislation should be ambitious and truly protect the health of our citizens by adherence to the precautionary principle1 and only allow those chemicals on the EU market that, after a thorough independent assessment, are deemed safe and do not affect health or environment.  

As for the PFAS restriction proposal, deliberations within the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) are entering a critical phase with important discussions taking place this autumn, especially around potential exemptions. In September the focus within ECHA shifts to textiles, upholstery, leather, apparel, and carpets, food contact materials and packaging as well as petroleum and mining.  

Following the September evaluations, discussions will move to applications of fluorinated gases, transport and construction products. We and our partners would ideally like to see a world without PFAS due to its transgenerational severe health effects, but we understand that critical industries may temporarily have to be exempted. However, mechanisms should be put in place to force the industry to look for sustainable alternatives and entirely ban PFAS in the longer term from their products. We will work with our partners to issue a joint statement where these demands will be outlined in more detail.   

Toy Safety Regulation
The EU is in the process of adopting a new Toy Safety Regulation, revising the current rules to protect children from potential risks in toys. Even though toys in the European Union are among the safest in the world, they continue to contain endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), potentially damaging the health and wellbeing of children as well as the adults that play along.  

Initial positions by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers (Member States) have already been adopted earlier this year. While the position of the European Parliament was ambitious and even went beyond the Commission proposal in its ambition to ban EDCs from toys, this was not matched by the Council which did not align with the European Parliament in including a group ban on PFAS and bisphenols, nor in tightening the derogations to generic bans.  

ESE will support ESPE in its efforts to convince the Council to take a stronger stance and ensure the safety of our children.  

Please keep a close eye on our social media channels and our website to see the outcome of these planned activities and do not hesitate to support these initiatives by liking and reposting our content.  

#BecauseHormonesMatter 

A new survey has been launched to help identify the unavailability of specific medical devices and in vitro diagnostic medical devices (IVDs) within the last six months, and what is expected in the coming one to two years. The survey is intended for healthcare professionals, health institutions and medical device procurement bodies.  

The limited availability of medical devices and IVDs, and the disappearance of these devices from the market, is a growing concern that has a substantial impact on the quality of healthcare provided to European patients. BioMed Alliance has repeatedly raised awareness on this issue and contributed to this specific survey. 
 
The study is being conducted by a consortium led by the Austrian National Public Health Institute (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH / GÖG), in collaboration with Areté and Civic Consulting.  

The survey takes approximately 10-20 minutes to complete and the deadline is 30 September 2024. Please provide one response per person or institution if possible. The survey results will be available on a public dashboard. 

Access the survey here.