Thirty associations and deputies are preparing to seize justice to oblige the executive to take into account the “cocktail effect” of these molecules not declared by the manufacturers.
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The government is requested to review its copy on pesticide authorization procedures. Thirty non -governmental organizations (Friends of the Earth, our business to all, future generations, peasant confederation …) gathered under the banner of the “toxic secrets” campaign and as many deputies of the new ecological and social popular union ( NUPPES) sent a letter on Wednesday October 5 to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, to ask the executive to strengthen the criteria for the permission of pesticides marketed in France, in order to take into account the effects of all the formulants who enter in their composition. This is a prior request by lawyer, the first formal first step before a legal appeal, in two months, before the Council of State.
This question is also raised across the Atlantic, after the discovery in half a dozen pesticides of alarming levels of per- and polyfluoroalkylated products (PFAS), which count among the most persistent and toxic synthetic substances .
“We are simply asking the government to comply with the law, sums up Andy Battenier, director of the toxic secret campaign. European legislation is very clear: it provides that a pesticide can only be authorized if it is demonstrated Whether it has no short or long -term harmful effects on health or the environment. “However, in marketing authorization files, the health authorities only assess the active substance declared by The manufacturer but not toxicity or long -term carcinogenicity of complete formulations as marketed.
“The guinea pigs are”
Associations and parliamentarians at the origin of the action are based on a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). As early as 2019, the CJEU considered that the “summary tests” claimed by the health authorities “could not be enough to carry out this verification”. “It is the absolute vacuum in terms of risk assessment associated with all the molecules that fall into the final composition of a pesticide, comments the deputy (La France insoumise-numes) by Gironde Loïck Prud’homme, one of the elected officials Signatories. Today, guinea pigs are us since ANSES [National Health Safety Agency] withdraws authorizations to pesticides twenty years after their placing on the market. “
Several scientific publications report toxic effects up to 1,000 times greater of complete formulations compared to the active substances declared by the agrochemical giants. A study published in 2020 in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology had notably highlighted the presence, sometimes at high doses, of several undeclared toxic substances (thirty-five heavy metals and sixteen polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) in fifteen herbicides used in Europe in substitution for the controversial glyphosate.
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