Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-14-Speech-2-063"
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"en.20061114.7.2-063"2
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"I also welcome this report on mercury in the environment and on ways of reducing it.
We all have to agree that where a substitute for a measuring device containing mercury exists, such a device must be removed from the environment. There is enough mercury in a single thermometer to contaminate fish in a twenty-hectare lake. However, it is also necessary to realise that there are other devices used in the healthcare sector that contain mercury but that as yet have no equivalent substitute – for example, pressure gauges, barometers and manometers.
Mercury sphygmomanometers used in the treatment of high blood pressure or arrhythmia do not have an equivalent substitute capable of equal accuracy, and alternative methods would be extremely expensive. Therefore, I support the rapporteur’s opinion that the directive should not apply to such healthcare-sector instruments, because while we might be decreasing mercury in the environment we would also be jeopardising patients’ lives.
The priority we must focus on in this legislative proposal is to reduce the amount of mercury in household waste. It will be probably difficult, particularly in the new Member States, to ask all households to replace the thermometers they use for measuring body temperature; however, we should be able to limit their use."@en1
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