The Expertise Ethics Committee considers that the procedure used to assess the dangerousness of products contravenes European law, commercial formulations escaping the exam.
by Stéphane Foucart
The risk assessment of pesticides, as practiced in community and national levels, does not respect European law. This is the meaning of an opinion rendered Monday November 7 by the National Commission for Ethics and Public Health and Environment Alerts (CNDASPE): it notes that phytosanitary products, such as put on the market, do not not the subject of the tests however provided for in a 2009 European regulation.
As confirmed by a judgment rendered in 2019 by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“Blaise judgment”), this regulation provides that commercial preparations (or “formulated products”) must undergo an assessment risks in the same way as active substances. These conditions do not always seem to be met.
To understand, you should know that active substances – molecules that produce an insecticide, fungicide or herbicide effect – are not used alone in the products used ultimately by farmers and gardeners. They are mixed with a variety of other products (or “co-formulants”) intended to increase its efficiency. According to the findings of the CNDASPE, the risks presented by these mixtures are not systematically evaluated.
No clear answers
The independent commission made up of qualified personalities, created by the 2013 law on whistleblowers, had been seized of this issue in April, by a coalition of non -governmental organizations (gathered in the collective toxic secrets) and About twenty French and European deputies. “The parliamentarians who seized us did not manage to obtain clear answers from the administrations concerned, on how the mixtures of substances present in commercial formulations are assessed,” explains Denis Zmirou-Navier, honorary professor of public health (University of Lorraine) and president of the Cndaspe.
“Not having the means to conduct an exhaustive study on all the products currently on sale, we have selected some files on the sites of the European Food Safety Authority [EFSA] and the agency national health security for environmental and work food [ANSES, his French counterpart], continues Mr. Zmirou-Navier. The examination of these authorization files indicates that neither EFSA nor handles do not carry out the risk assessments provided for by the regulations. “
For the former president of the health-environment-work-work department of the School of Advanced Studies in Public Health (EHESP), this situation is “very unfortunate” because the co-formulants used in mixing with active substances can in Some cases increase their toxicity. “Some co-formulants aim for example to accentuate the capacity of the product to enter the cells of the targeted organism, therefore potentially in human cells, he explains. Today, the risks linked to these effects are not not well characterized. “
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