In 2013, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, INSERM, published its first collective study on the effects of pesticides on human health, and which in France was regarded as a work of reference on the subject. On June 30th this year, it followed up on that research with a new report which has identified further pathologies that can be caused by the products, and also on the probability of their development in humans.
Here, Mediapart’s environment correspondent Amélie Poinssot interviews toxicologist Xavier Coumoul, a researcher with the University of Paris and a co-author of the latest INSERM report, published on June 30th (available in French here), and who argues that there is “a high probability” of farmers developing the several new pathologies identified in the study through their use of the chemical pesticides.
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Mediapart: What are the principal new elements advanced in this report compared to that published in 2013?
Xavier Coumoul: Eight years have passed and new pathologies have emerged. In 2013, we identified a link between exposure to pesticides and Parkinson’s disease, as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma and prostate cancer.
This time, we have shown that for a type of pesticides, those that are called organophosphates, there can be cognitive disorders, what can otherwise be called attention disorders. These insecticides are, certainly, used less and less but they are still present in our environment, and some farmers were exposed to them for years. For example, it includes diazinon, developed in the 1950s, chlorpyrifos, banned in Europe since several years but still authorised in France for the cultivation of spinach, and atrazine, a molecule that has in principle been banned [by the EU] since 2004. Others are still authorised.
The principle of these molecules is to block insects’ respiratory mechanisms. They are not without consequences for humans. A second group of pathologies has also emerged: chronic bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. For the time being, the latter is irreversible.
So we find six serious pathologies among people exposed to these pesticides, and a strong level of proof. Which means that there is a high probability of farmers developing these six pathologies.
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Mediapart: Are other sections of the population at risk?
X.C.: We haven’t studied pesticides in food, we work only on environmental exposure, and so our results don’t concern all of the population. However, one group, children, appeared in our research. They can develop four types of pathology and there is a strong presumption of a link between these and two types of pesticides.
On the one hand, organophosphate pesticides can provoke a deterioration in their motor, cognitive and sensorial functions. On the other, another family of pesticides, the pyrethroids – notably used to treat domestic animals or for gardening – can provoke cancers in the central nervous system, as well as acute leukaemia. We also show that exposure during the prenatal period can increase the risk of a child developing these illnesses.
What must be understood is that these pyrethroids – which are supposed to cause less damage than organophosphates, which were themselves introduced after the use of very dangerous products like DDT, from the family of organochlorine insecticides – also have in reality an impact on human health.
Thus, in comparison to the 2013 study, we observe that the spectrum of pathologies has widened; there are two more among adults, and those among children appear with greater precision, and the level of the probability of developing them is strong.
Mediapart: What do these conclusions signify in terms of public policy decisions? Do they indicate that there is an urgency to ban the use of these products?
X.C.: Unlike in 2013, when we recommended, to no effect, a reduction in the use of pesticides, this time we made no recommendation. If we made no recommendation, it is because the results are clear – we’re not talking about colds or mild flu. We now have sufficiently grave elements, above all regarding children. From that starting point – but this is only a personal opinion – it seems to me that the public authorities must recognise that the profession of farmer is a profession at risk, that it is a question of public health, and that a more incentive policy to reduce the use of pesticides is necessary.
It’s a delicate matter to ban products overnight, such as it is difficult to change habits. However, there are two obvious levers; a greater protection of farmers when they work, and an evolution in methods. There are indeed people who are involved in organic farming, so it is possible to cultivate without pesticides!
I don’t think farmers should be made to feel guilty. They aren’t chemists, they have been incited to use pesticides to increase their yields. But things can’t be left alone any longer. There’s getting to be a lot of pathologies.
Mediapart: So why, in that case, do the French national agency for the safety of health, food, the environment and labour, the ANSES, or the EU’s European Food Safety Authority, EFSA, not intervene in the matter?
X.C.: Their evaluation criteria are different from our methods of research. It might appear astonishing, but for EFSA, it is down to the industrialist who manufactures a pesticide to prove its harmlessness. Whereas one can imagine that it would do everything possible to be able to sell its product.
Mediapart: EFSA was in fact recently called into question by the NGO Corporate Europe Observatory. In a report published on July 3rd , it showed that out of 53 studies submitted by glyphosate manufacturers upon which EFSA referred to in its decision to maintain authorisation for the use of glyphosates in Europe, 34 were scientifically unreliable.
X.C.: The question is raised as to who should carry out an evaluation of the toxicology of products.
It can be observed that the [inter-governmental agency] IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which carries out studies, like we do at INSERM, of scientific literature, interests itself in the dangers of the molecule. In 2015, it classified it as carcinogenic.
A contrario, agencies like EFSA or the German health agency BfR [editor’s note, the German federal risk assessment agency, notably concerned with food and chemical products] base studies on tests upon cells, and for them glyphosate is not carcinogenic. This divergence in approach is a bit like placing a nutritionist and a gastronomist before a [butter-rich Breton cake] kouign-amann. Necessarily, they will come to different results on the quality of the product!
INSERM is situated somewhat between the two. We take into account both the tests and and the scientific literature. We estimate, without being completely certain, that a causality link can be found between the exposure to glyphosates and the development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. We are at a level of medium presumption.
EFSA should be listening to what independent institutions like ours do, in order to put in place new tests and to evolve their own methods of evaluation.
However, one must not limit [research] to [solely] the risk of cancer. The debate over glyphosate is focalised on that because in Europe a risk of [developing] cancer leads to a ban on the product. But there are other risks; the glyphosate molecule, the herbicide most used in Europe, as also in the United States, has the effect of blocking a metabolism in plants that is common to certain fungi and bacteria that can be found, among others, in our microbiota. So glyphosate could induce pathologies regarding our intestinal flora.
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- The original French text of this interview can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse