At the end of 1997, the Committee was renamed 'GDCh Advisory Committee on Existing Chemicals' (abbreviation 'BUA' as before) and the statutes were revised to include EU level aspects of occupational safety for the handling of existing chemicals.
The cooperation between authorities, industry, and the scientific community, upon which the BUA is based, has a worldwide reputation. No other national or international body has dealt with the ecological and health-related effects of so many existing chemicals as the BUA. On the national level, the BUA has produced comprehensive reports on about 300 substances and carried out preliminary evaluation and classification (priority-setting) for approximately 200 more, as of 1997. Publication of the process leading to priority-setting, in addition to the BUA reports, lends transparency to the committee's work.
The BUA started an additional national project in 1997, which also selects and assesses existing chemicals with a lower production volume in the range of 100 – 1000 tons/year. Comprehensive reports are published on chemicals suspected of having a hazardous potential. If the data available for substance assessment are insufficient, the gaps in knowledge are documented and, if necessary, investigations recommended, the results of which are published in supplementary reports. This creates a basis for assessment for such substances as well. The BUA Reports serve the German federal government as a basis for measures to regulate environmental and health hazards.
All BUA reports are available in printed volumes. In addition, BUA reports starting with BUA report No. 213, are available in electronic version on the web site of the publisher S. Hirzel Verlag. Table of contents and summaries of these reports can be downloaded without cost.
Moreover, the BUA, as an expert committee, is addressing scientific questions and problems such as endocrine disruptors, selection criteria for persistent organic pollutants (POPs), risk assessment of substances in soils, evaluation criteria for the marine sector and safety factors within the framework of toxicological risk assessment. Through such scientific projects the state of scientific knowledge is researched, documented, and published as 'BUA reports'. The aim of BUA is to develop assessment concepts, determine data gaps, point out the need for further research and, last but not least, also to reduce information deficits in the general population.
| Munich, September 2002 | Helmut Greim |
| BUA Chairman | |
| Frankfurt/Main, September 2002 | Heinz Behret |
| BUA Managing Director |