JI am not writing today as a member of the Avenir Santé Environnement association but as the father of a 6-year-old boy, in remission from cancer and unfortunately exposed to pesticides. We live in the plain of Aunis (Charente-Maritime), this large cereal plain which surrounds La Rochelle.
If I write today, it is to tell my story. In 2019, my son was diagnosed with a rare cancer, Ewing’s Sarcoma. For our family, it’s a tsunami, the end of the sweet life, of carelessness, but also the beginning of a fight. Because, while we were fighting with our son against his cancer, we discovered that many children fell seriously ill in the region, and that environmental factors can trigger or aggravate these pathologies.
A study conducted by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), at the request of the League Against Cancer, has even scientifically demonstrated an excess risk of pediatric cancers in a municipality in our agglomeration. Children are getting seriously ill there, and some boys and girls have died. A “cluster of pediatric cancers” whose existence is known and on which we alerted the government in September 2022, in a forum revealing the catastrophic results of air quality measurements in the agglomeration.
Cocktail of 41 products
Next to 41 pesticide molecules were indeed noted there in 2021, reaching a record level of herbicides in France, in particular prosulfocarb. The sensor used for these measurements is located 30 meters from a school, in the town center of Montroy, more than 150 meters from the first crops. Residents are therefore exposed daily to this cocktail of 41 products, some of which are neurotoxic and others classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic or even endocrine disruptors. Children and pregnant women are particularly vulnerable.
Faced with the silence of the institutions on these revelations, I made the decision to have my son’s hair tested by a laboratory. The results have just come in and they are clear: his hair does contain agricultural pesticides, in particular pendimethalin, a herbicide authorized in the European Union (EU), but classified as a possible carcinogen for humans by the protection agency. environmental protection in the United States, and listed as a substance of concern by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This substance was among the 41 pesticides found in the air in 2021.
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