“When you demonize things and when you scare everyone, by definition, you can have this result,” said Monday, July 21 at RMC Laurent Dupumb. Senator LR was questioned about the request against the law that bears his name and exceeded 1.6 million signatures.
This law reintroduces acetamipride without delay and under conditions, an insecticide of the family of neonicotinoids prohibited since 2018 in France but authorized in the European Union until 2033. It was a particular claim in particular by beets and hazelnut producers. According to Laurent Dupumb, by continuing to prohibit this pesticide, France “raises an unfair competition” to these farmers.
According to Inrae researchers, the harmful effects of this neonicotinoid on pollinators, especially bees, are “clearly documented.” On the other hand, the signatories of the petition, and more widely the opponents of the law, also indicate the consequences on human health. They accuse the Dupomb Pro-Low of playing with the uncertainties of science on this subject. So what are we talking about?
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“EFSA does not consider acetamipride and also for ANSES as a toxic product,” said Laurent Dupumb last January in the public Senate. In June, in TF1, the Minister of Agriculture Annie Ginevard said that this insecticide is “authorized in all parts of Europe because it was not judged by European scientists as dangerous to the environment and human health.”
The EFSA (European Food Security Authority), in an opinion of 2013, asked about the non -toxicity of neurodescarral development of acetamiprid, that is, the risk of a harmful effect on the brain during its development in a fetus or a child. She believed that the industrial did not documented her sufficiently and that another study would be carried out.
This insecticide can affect “the development of neurons and brain structures associated with functions such as learning and memory,” said the body. He rewritten the same in 2022, asking for additional studies again …
Last year, EFSA still advised to divide the permissible daily doses of acetamipride, believing that the current threshold could have a risk. The “important uncertainties” remain in the effects of neurological development of acetamiprid, she summarized in 2024.
For its part, during the work between 2016 and 2017, ANSES estimated that these studies “do not highlight any harmful effect on human health, in accordance with the employment conditions established in marketing authorizations.”
Uncertainties patterns
And yet. The acetamipride “is perhaps the least toxic of neonicotinoids for pollinators, bees in particular, but we are likely to have absolute conviction (absolute certainty does not exist in science), which is the most toxic to human health,” said the last May of Bonmatina de Jean-Marc, a CNRS researcher in chemistry and neonicotinoids of toxicology in 20 minutes.
According to him, many scientific studies have shown that exposure to neonicotinoids could be linked to fetus neuros development problems, cancers, heart malformations or chronic renal diseases.
In fact, the current consensus, as given by scientific literature and especially the various health authorities, adds greatly with uncertainty, sometimes accompanied by calls to respect for the precautionary principle.
“Neonicotinoids are pesticides that have been little studied for their effects for humans,” Sylvie Bortoli, toxicologist from Inserm, told AFP. “The bibliography remains quite incomplete compared to other emblematic pesticides such as DDT or glyphosate.”
A research corpus has existed for several years. Essentially combines the “in vitro” work, which describes what happens when a cell is exposed in the laboratory to neonicotinoids, animal studies, generally mice.
If these studies support the idea that neonicotinoids have potential risks, they do not definitely conclude that they really play a role in human pathologies, at least at the level at which these products are used in real life.
Researchers agree on the need to carry out more epidemiological studies. These studies evaluate, within a group of people, the frequency of certain disorders according to the more or less large exposure to a given factor, here neonicotinoids.
These studies would bring important elements to know if toxicity, measured in the laboratory or in animals, actually translates into health problems in the population. And, in this case, they would make it possible to evaluate the risk according to the type of exposure: in the farmers, in people living near the farms, among the consumers of food treated with neonicotinoids …
In a report published in May, the Association of Futures of Génération highlights the existence of “40 new academic studies published in only two years and indicating a whole toxicity of acetamipride”.
The same neurological “effects” like bees?
What you should know is that the specificity of neonicotinoids is to aim at the nervous system. Consequently, they question their neurological effects, in particular their potential role in neurodevelopmental disorders in children.
“All living beings who have a central system can be subject to harmful impacts,” said Jean-Marc Bonmatin for 20 minutes.
Acetamipride acts on the central nervous system of bees through receptors and disorient. Then they will take longer to find their hives, run and die. “Humans have the same type of receiver, so we expect the same effects,” explains the information of France Sylvie Bortoli, research engineer in mechanistic toxicology in INSERM.
Among the studies carried out, the first type (known as mechanism) has noted the harmful effects of neonicotinoids on neurons.
For example, a study, published in 2017 in the Environmental Health Perspectives magazine, points out, for example, a less good intellectual development of children whose mothers have approved their pregnancy near operations using neonicotinoids. But the sample remains limited (around 300 Californian families) and other works would be necessary to confirm this effect.
According to a 2019 study, neonicotinoids, and in particular acetamipride, are able to pass the placenta barrier and, therefore, reach the development of the child’s neurode in their mother’s womb. “Some are born with an insufficient size, others with anencephaly, the lack of a part of the brain,” Jean-Marc Bonmatin says with France.
Endocrine disruptor? Carcinogen?
In addition to risk potential, other studies highlight the action of acetamiprid in other pathologies. Last May, the Agnès Pannier-Runacher Ecological Transition Minister said the substance was an “endocrine disruptor.”
As the world indicates in an article, exposure to neonicotinoid can be associated with a drop in testosterone levels, according to a study conducted in mice, but also in a representative sample of the human population. Results that, therefore, suggest properties of the endocrine disruptor.
In addition, as for other types of pesticides, an important question also arises: is it associated with a higher risk of cancer? A study, published in 2022 in the Environment International magazine, showed the acetamiprid capacity to cause breast cancers in mice.
On this issue, the ARC Foundation for Cancer investigation expressed concern in a press release published on July 17.
“This law is a decrease in public health. The rapid increase in the incidence of several cancers in children under 50, almost 80% in thirty years, logically attracts attention to the responsibility of a series of environmental factors at the forefront of which certain pesticides. Roussy and vice president of the ARC Foundation.
Recent preliminary studies have established links between exposure to neonicotinoids and cardio-methabolic diseases or even gestational diabetes.
More than 1,000 scientists, doctors and caregivers have sent an open letter to the government in which they alert about the dangers of acetamipride and request that it will not be reintroduced in France.
“The main source of pollution remains food”
According to studies, one of the peculiarities of Acetamipride is its persistence. According to the CNRS Philippe GrandColas Research Director à Bon Pote, “this problem of toxicity for humans is aggravated by the characteristics of acetamiprid, a remaining molecule after administration in the environment (half of the substance is always present 79 days after administration)”.
“We expected to find more neonicotinoid traces among people living in the countryside, but that was not the case,” said Jean-Marc Bonmatin, interviewed by France Info.
According to Sylvie Bortoli, “it is possible to contaminate by respiratory means, when the products spread in the air with the propagation skin; in a skin, when the farmers do not carry the protective support; but the main source of pollution remains food.”
What consequences?
With more than a million signatures in the petition, what will happen now? The Government said Monday night “available” Monday night for a new debate in Parliament.
But the law will not be examined again at the bottom and even less repealed. No request has been discussed in the hemicycle in the history of the fifth Republic.
“I work in pesticides and I have never had as much evidence about the damage of a pesticide as with Acetamipride,” concludes Jean-Marc Bonmatin about France’s information.
According to him, “the list continues to lay down from discovery in discovery.” Scientists are also concerned about the risk of “cocktail effect” on human health by mixing acetamipride with others.
Source: BFM TV
