Switzerland will go to the polls May 22 to decide whether to temporarily block the manufacture of laboratory-made synthetic versions of key human hormones.
In recent years, companies have manufactured at least 60 “synthetic human hormones,” according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
The Public Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee recommends regulators keep the phase-out period in place until 2023 “after the first annual monitoring shows no harm coming from the increased use of synthetic hormones in industrial and therapeutic settings.”
In the end, voters will decide on the proposal to take place between now and August 2019, the News Journal reported.
Sperm, estrogen and testosterone are among several hormones “under study” as alternatives, industry officials have told the media.
The use of synthetic versions of hormones — also known as “paroxetines” — is not being debated here, but I’m being told the term pustetate could be used in either direction. – Simon Deppe, head of the Swiss Immunology Association’s discussions and strategy
Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset made the announcement in an article that appeared in the Swiss daily SonntagsZeitung.
“They are risks for human health,” the minister wrote.
Simon Deppe, head of the Swiss Immunology Association’s discussions and strategy, is working on the initiative.
He told the press that “derivatives” of hormones such as testosterone, which is “like a good time if you’re older,” is not a good thing, Deppe told News Online.
Deppe said that drugs “plucked from nature” are vulnerable because nature is not perfect.
The regulator said synthetic hormones are also less used in agricultural use. Instead, chemicals added to food are used.
AHRQ officials also said the ban could enable companies to safely speed up production.
But Simon Biney, head of the Health and Veterinary Medicine Department at Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, is working with the Producers of Biopesticides Associaiton to campaign against the measure.
“The concern is more that hormones can affect gene function,” he told the Swiss news service, AFP.
Biney was part of a study released last week to look at the effectiveness of synthetic hormones.
It found that some of the synthetic hormone paroxetine stimulated animal growth, but other natural hormones caused mice to grow larger than normal.