The European Commission has just published its annual report on “Safety Gate”, the European rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products. The most frequently reported type of health risk was related to chemicals. For the second year in a row, toys and cars topped the list of product categories with the highest number of notifications. Cosmetics came third.
In 2022, authorities from the 30 participating countries of the Safety Gate network (EU Member States, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) reacted to 2,117 alerts with 3,932 follow-up actions.
The number of alerts validated remained around the level of the previous 5 years. However, there were major changes in the number of alerts notified per country. German alerts dropped by more than 22%, as did those form Portugal, triggered most likely by a general drop in the motor vehicle industry sales. Both these countries are historically the countries that filed the highest number of alerts on motor vehicles.
On the other hand, countries that historically were less active in lodging notifications such as Austria, Czechia, Latvia and Norway more than doubled the number of their alerts.
Risks related to chemical substances, injuries and choking were the most notified.
Toys top the list of most commonly notified product categories (23%), followed by motor vehicles (16%) and cosmetics (10%). Cosmetics received a significantly higher number of alerts in 2022, due to the presence of recently banned chemicals, including Butylphenyl Methylpropional (BMHCA) and Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde (HICC) in perfumes and …
