WWF report: Czech and Slovak Environment Ministers full of chemicals

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has released the results of a survey conducted in June to test the effects pollution has on our health. Fourteen EU Environment Ministers agreed to give blood samples to determine how many and what kind of man-made chemicals are in their bodies. For the Czech and Slovak ministers, the results were shocking.

Libor Ambrozek with his WWF results

Of the fourteen ministers, the 38-year old Czech Environment Minister Libor Ambrozek and his Slovak counterpart, 55-year old Laslo Miklos had the worst results, with large counts of DDT and other dangerous chemicals in their blood. Minister Ambrozek:

"I thought that I was too young to have so many chemicals in my blood. This proves that socialist agricultural measures have left a mark on the southern Moravian mellow countryside that I grew up in. The amount of polychlorinated biphenyls and DDT was higher than usual. I can only speculate that my Slovak colleague was worse off than me because he is older. But, the results do show that Czechoslovakia was severely contaminated with most of the chemicals tested. In comparison to other European ministers, the amounts of DDT were quite high."

Of the 103 chemicals that the ministers were tested for, fifty-five were found in their blood - many of them chemicals that are in water or grease-resistant coatings for pizza and french-fry boxes, clothes, carpets and even pans and organo-chlorine pesticides, the most infamous of which is DDT. The WWF insists that no conclusions should be drawn, but Jindrich Petrlik from the Czech environmental association Arnika says the results should be taken as a warning by Czech manufacturers:

"At least half of the chemicals tested are no longer in use or were banned as long as twenty years ago. I do not believe that we are talking about effects from past pollutions. In Mr Ambrozek's blood, we found high amounts of biphenyls that are used as flame retardants on carpets, curtains, computers, and so on, today."

The WWF hopes the tests will highlight the almost complete absence of publicly available safety information on most chemicals in everyday use and stimulate debate on REACH - new EU rules to identify and phase out the most harmful chemicals. Up to date, no-one knows what effect most chemicals found in the ministers have on the human body.