The European Commission’s Fifth Annual Forum on Endocrine Disruptors was held from 19-20 October 2023. The Forum is the platform to hear the latest state of the art science and discuss the follow-up actions on endocrine disruptors in the EU’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. Again, this year the Forum was held as a hybrid event, held at the Commission’s Charlemagne Building in Brussels. Due to limited room capacity, online attendees were also able to interact during the event. The Annual Forum brings together scientists, policymakers, public and private stakeholders with expertise on endocrine disruptors to exchange information and best practices, identify challenges and build synergies, in order to inform the Commission’s reflections.
Day one of this year’s Forum included presentations on the latest state of the art science and human health protection including progress updates from the EURION Cluster and HBM4EU, the Commission’s work on the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability and a focus on endocrine disruptors known as PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances).
The work of the EURION Cluster, including its visions on knowledge gaps and future research needs on endocrine disruptors was presented by GOLIATH Coordinator, Prof. Juliette Legler (Utrecht University, the Netherlands). Juliette’s talk entitled ‘Tackling metabolic disruption in EURION’ focused on the metabolic disruption research projects, EDCMET, GOLIATH and OBERON. Over the last few decades, the prevalence of obesity and metabolic disorders has increased exponentially. Exposure to a type of endocrine disruptors known as metabolism disrupting chemicals (MDCs) has been linked to obesity, diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. EDCMET, GOLIATH and OBERON are identifying the action of these chemicals, defining key events and pathways, and providing increased understanding for their role in adverse outcomes. The projects are developing a battery of in vitro and in silico assays, as well as improved animal studies for MDC identification and health effects.
