2024-02-02 14:33:56
Pesticides and farmers’ health: autopsy of a…
(Source)
“#pesticides #health I will only give one answer among those who still question the health risks of pesticides.
Here are the MSA figures for farmers and agricultural employees whose occupational illness has been recognized as linked to pesticides 1/3 »
Autopsy of a stupidity or a trick, so as not to use a term with legal connotations? Or maybe both.
The author is not an ordinary user of X (formerly Twitter). She indicates that she was a member of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) from 2010 to 2020 and is co-president of FNE49 (France Nature Environnement (FNE Anjou)).
The graphic that she thus distributed with an anxiety-provoking text comes from “Focus Environnement & Santé” published in Documentation Française under the aegis of the Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition (name at the time) and Public Health France in June 2019.
He illustrated the section “Proven health impacts linked to chronic exposures”. The introductory paragraph:
“Among farmers, Parkinson’s disease and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL cancer) are officially recognized as occupational diseases and, since 2012 and 2015 respectively, have been added to the ten tables of diseases caused by pesticides. Since this recognition, around fifty cases of Parkinson’s disease linked to pesticides have been officially recognized each year. »
It’s a bit light, even downright cavalier.
Already the title of the section: are farmers subject to “chronic exposures” when they carry out a few treatments per year?
Then, this graph is misleading, even preceded by an explanation. So, when he finds himself “stark naked” in a tweet… followed by others who try to convince us of the existence of a major problem and scandals, in particular with reference to chlordecone and the “scale of the contamination of groundwater by veritable cocktails of pesticides”.
The uninformed reader gets the impression that cases of hemopathy and Parkinson’s disease are increasing, even though these are cumulative data. This is certainly specified in the legend, but who reads the legend of this graph in detail?
Moreover, if the introductory text mentions Parkinson’s disease, it “forgets” to specify that the cases of declared hematological diseases seem to be decreasing (+100 can be estimated between 2014 and 2016 and +50 between 2016 and 2018). We will not draw any conclusions from this.
Then, these are cases declared to the Mutuelle Sociale Agricole and recognized as occupational diseases. This says nothing regarding the incidence of these diseases in agricultural settings, nor regarding the incidences compared to the general population.
According to the legend, these are “cases of recognition of occupational diseases linked to pesticides”. This is the resumption of the title of the RA tables [régime agricole] 58 et 59.
The fact that a case is recognized as an occupational disease means that the conditions for treatment are met. It does not mean that it has been recognized that this case was “provoked[…] by pesticides”, a cause and effect link being impossible to establish in a particular case, with exceptions such as mesothelioma linked to asbestos.
It is even difficult for the general link between “pesticides” and health problems, as shown by the large AGRICAN cohort – which even finds that the incidence of certain conditions is lower among pesticide users than among non-users. users!
Finally, there is the definition of “pesticides”:
“The term “pesticides” refers to products for agricultural use and products intended for the maintenance of green spaces (plant protection products or plant protection products) as well as biocides and veterinary antiparasitics, whether or not they are authorized at the time. demand. »
Many of the responses on X highlighted the problems raised by the tweet reproduced above and its follow-up. They are always online, ready to feed the disinformation chain…
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#Pesticides #farmers #health #autopsy #a..
