Learn more about the substances you breathe, especially when it comes to pesticides. This is the work in which the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Security launched in June 2018.

It has just delivered the results of this recent national campaign to measure pesticides in outdoor air. While it has not identified any particular health risks at this stage, it has decided to conduct an in-depth assessment for 32 substances, including glyphosate and lindane.

#Pesticides in the air - Of the 70 substances found in the outdoor air, @ Anses_fr has identified 32 priority substances for which work taking into account all the routes of exposure to pesticides will soon be initiated.

➡️https: //t.co/pMi93oTKT8 pic.twitter.com/mEo8ABJj9I

- Anses (@Anses_fr) July 2, 2020

During one year, to cover the seasonal use of pesticides in agriculture, some 1,800 samples were collected from 50 sites in mainland France and overseas.

If certain products are found frequently, the 100,000 data generated do not "highlight, in view of current knowledge, a strong health problem associated with the exposure of the general population via the outside air", ensures the Security Agency sanitary.

But there are “limits” to this preliminary assessment, explains Ohri Yamada, plant protection pharmacist at ANSES. The toxicological reference values ​​are thus generally established on the basis of studies on the ingestion of the substance, not its inhalation.

The 32 "substances of interest", identified by cross-checking the frequency with which they were found with the toxicology data for each of them, will therefore be the subject of "in-depth evaluations".

Lindane, banned in France since 1998

Firstly, lindane, banned in France in agriculture since 1998 and classified as carcinogenic and toxic to fertility and the development of the embryo. Probably re-vaporized in air from the soil where it persists, is the one that was found most often, in almost 80% of the samples.

Glyphosate, which had so far been little measured in air, now includes this list of substances to watch for. It was found in about half of the samples analyzed but requiring a dedicated measuring device, it was only searched at eight sites, the most exposed. "The concentrations measured are low enough that we have not identified an alert at this stage," says Ohri Yamada.

Chlordecone, a pesticide used until 1993 which has contaminated the soils of Guadeloupe and Martinique for decades, has however not been detected in any sample, including in the Antilles.

Another study, PestiRiv (ANSES / Santé Publique France), is to examine the exposure of immediate residents, starting in 2021 with wine-growing areas.

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20 Minutes with AFP