A document from ARS Aquitaine confirms that the poisoning of 24 people in May 2014 is indeed linked to the spreading of pesticides.
Small corrigendum. The poisoning of 23 schoolchildren and their teacher after spraying pesticides in the town of Villeneuve-de-Blaye in May 2014, is not linked to the activity of an organic winegrower, as has been tried to believe FDSEA Gironde (Departmental Federation of Farmers’ Unions), which represents farmers in the region.
Spreading during school hours
As a reminder, the events took place in a primary school located in the middle of the Bordeaux vineyards. At the end of the morning, this Monday in May, the children and their teacher were seized with dizziness, tingling of the tongue, nausea, headaches, pain in the throat, cough… Around them, the vines are being cultivated. processing. Phytosanitary products are sprayed, therefore, near the establishment.
The case is sensitive in this wine-growing town. The mayor is herself the owner of one of the two plots adjoining the school. The link between exposure to pesticides in the school, and the symptoms observed in its occupants, is immediately questioned by several local stakeholders.
Including by the FDSEA Gironde. While residents, doctors and professionals claim through a petition organic treatment and outside school hours near establishments receiving children, the Federation, for its part, draws a very timely argument to exonerate synthetic pesticides.
Blame it on organic …!
According to him, the intoxication of the students is linked to the spraying of sulfur by a neighboring organic winegrower. And to conclude, in a press release dated 1er March 2015: “The petition aiming to treat organically near sensitive places is a false good idea! “
Today, the environmental and health associations involved in this affair want to put the points back on the i’s. An internal document from the Regional Health Agency (ARS) Aquitaine, relayed by the NGO Générations Futures, reveals the nature of the substances detected on the day of the poisoning.
“Tractors spread secondarily identified fungicides the same day [par le centre anti-poison du CHU de Bordeaux] containing the following active substances: mancozeb, mefenoxam, spiroxamine. (…) The known effects of the fungicides identified are consistent with the symptoms described by the children and staff of this school. “
Thus, “it is not possible to exclude a link being the spreading of plant protection products and the occurrence of symptoms”, concludes the ARS cautiously, while specifying that “no causal link can be objectified to this day ”- as is often the case in this type of case. A judicial investigation has also been opened to shed light on this incident, if there are still gray areas.
A tax to finance “phytopharmacovigilance”
For the past few months, companies that market plant protection products (pesticides) have had to comply with a tax, set at 0.2% of their turnover.
This tax should finance the new phytopharmacovigilance system put in place by ANSES at the end of 2014. The main objective of this system is to “characterize the possible effects of plant protection products on human health, the health of ecosystems, wildlife and the environment. flora and environmental contamination by plant protection products ”.
The introduction of phytopharmacovigilance is good news. In theory, it will allow us to learn more about the accidents linked (or suspected of being linked…) to the use of pesticides, which seem to be on the increase. And for good reason: the residents of vineyards, orchards and fields are directly exposed to pesticide spreading, as the recent survey of an environmental association demonstrated.
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