Kay Nimmo has commented that "several Member States and other
organistaions are strongly against this exemption for deca-BDE under
RoHS and e.g. the European Parliament is taking the Commission to court,
challenging the basis for that exemption, and aiming to achieve
withdrawal of it." She also stated that deca-BDE "was not exempt until
the published decision last year that specified that." What she did not
say is that the decision was the only rational response to data
resulting from the most extensive environmental and health testing of
any substance in history. The testing lasted more than ten years. 

She also did not say why the various Member States are strongly against
the exemption, but I will offer my explanation. The representatives of
these Member States had already decided that deca-BDE is harmful, and
they now refuse to accept the clear scientific evidence that they had
been prejudiced against it. 

This example shows a serious shortcoming of the Precautionary Principle,
to which these representatives all subscribe. It is impossible to
convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. Yet these same people
will welcome products containing non-brominated substitutes for
deca-BDE, none of which has received nearly the scrutiny that the object
of their hatred has. Does anyone really believe that the motive for
these sore losers in their continued opposition to deca-BDE is their
concern for the environment rather than that it is contrary to the
tenets of their religion, which they want government to force down the
throats of everyone?

 

Gordon Davy 

Baltimore, MD 

410-993-7399 


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Leadfee Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send: SET Leadfree NOMAIL/(MAIL)
Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------