Prostate cancers linked to occupational exposure to pesticides are now recognized as an occupational disease, according to a decree published on Wednesday, December 22, Official newspaper.
This decision was “Expected, particularly in the West Indies”, where chlordecone has been used for decades, the health ministry noted in a press release. Chlordecone was authorized between 1972 and 1993 in the banana plantations of the Antilles and infiltrated the soils for hundreds of years, polluting water and agricultural production, while its toxicity and its persistent power in the environment had been known since the 1960s. .
The measure, intended to facilitate compensation for victims, is part of a series of actions carried out by the State in this extremely sensitive issue for years in the West Indies and described as “Environmental scandal” by President Emmanuel Macron. In July 2020, demonstrations turned into a riot in Fort-de-France for two nights, giving rise to arrests.
” The term “pesticides” relates to products for agricultural use and products intended for the maintenance of green spaces (phytosanitary products or plant protection products) as well as biocides and veterinary antiparasitics, whether or not they are authorized at the time of the request “, according to the decree. Work usually involving exposure to pesticides is carried out “During the handling or use of these products, by contact or by inhalation”, “By contact with crops, surfaces, treated animals or during the maintenance of machines intended for the application of pesticides”, specifies the text.
No estimate of the number of people affected
The decree published on Wednesday was announced in the fall by the Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie. It opens to the farmers concerned a fund created in 2020 and intended to compensate people with diseases linked to pesticides.
In detail, all farmers or agricultural employees will be able to apply for this status on two conditions: that they have worked for at least ten years in contact with chlordecone, and that less than forty years have elapsed between their last exposure and the diagnosis of Prostate cancer. Those are the “Generally accepted durations for this type of cancer”, recently explained the Ministry of Agriculture. People exposed under ten years old will still be able to make a request at the level of a regional commission, he said.
The government has refrained from estimating how many people could be affected by this compensation. He also did not advance on the total amount. “It will depend on the number of files that will be submitted”, explained the ministry, specifying that the decree also made it possible to compensate the children exposed during a pregnancy. “We cannot prejudge the number of victims upstream”, he insisted, indicating that at the individual level, compensation would represent between 1,000 and 19,000 euros per year for a farmer.
An “incomplete” advance
In the West Indies, the news was received favorably, although many elected officials stressed the limits of the decree.
For the environmentalist mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre, Harry Durimel, who for years has been fighting for the condemnation of those responsible for the chlordecone scandal, “It is a step forward, but it is still incomplete”, because “Poisoning with chlordecone is not only the fact of the professionals of the banana, but of the whole of the populations”. More than 90% of the adult population in Guadeloupe and Martinique has, in fact, been contaminated by chlordecone, according to Public Health France.
Olivier Serva, member of the majority and president of the overseas delegation to the National Assembly, for his part, welcomed the fact that Emmanuel Macron had “Was the first to recognize the responsibility of the State in this scandal, in September 2018”. It’s about “A small step forward, but unsatisfactory”, he added, with regard to the provisions necessary to benefit from the compensation, which maintain ” the blur “ on eligible persons and concern a “Reduced spectrum”.
In Martinique, Philippe Pierre-Charles, spokesperson for a collective of associations engaged in the fight for the recognition of the effects of chlordecone, estimated that the “Fight is not over”. “We must also consider other pathologies which are linked to chlordecone and which are not taken into account such as endometriosis or breast cancer”, he added.