[Source: France 3 prompter] Will the chlordecone scandal be the subject of a prescription? This is what the prosecutor of Paris, Rémi HEITZ, implied in an interview... Enough to make react the civil parties launched in a legal battle for 15 years... This highly toxic insecticide has contaminated over 90% of the adult population in Guadeloupe and Martinique... Thomas CUNY and our teams in Overseas
In the West Indies, Emmanuel Macron created a surprise. He called for the recognition of chlordecone contamination as an occupational disease for farmers. This pesticide, used in banana plantations until 1993, has poisoned crops and water for centuries. The French state was accused of closing its eyes while the number of prostate cancers exploded. Used for 20 years in banana plantations to eliminate Charençon, chlordecone was banned in 1993, 17 years after the United States, it is suspected to be the cause of premature deliveries, development delays and explosion of prostate cancer. By announcing the possible recognition as an occupational disease of chlordecone exposure, the President of the Republic paves the way for compensation for agricultural workers victims of insecticide. - François DESRIAUX, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Santé et Travail": 'people are going to have to build occupational disease records based on what’s going to be in the occupational disease chart and then they’re going to have to go to Social Security or their courts and say that they’ve been infected and their pathology is coming home.' in this context." It is not known at this time what pathologies will be affected and what the compensation will be. - Mr François LAFFORGUE, advocate for victims: 'The victims are the farmers we defend, suffering from pathologies such as prostate or bladder cancer and there are environmental victims, residents who have contracted diseases related to chlordecone and we will also take action for them." Today, nearly 95% of the inhabitants of Martinique and Guadeloupe are contaminated with chlordecone but the head of state said he was opposed to a general compensation of the Caribbean population.
France remains one of the main countries using pesticides in agriculture: 70,000 tonnes per year despite the impact on the environment and health risks. In the West Indies chlordecone, which has been used for decades, is the cause of cancer and serious diseases. Entire lands have been polluted. The damage caused by this pesticide is still far from being definitively assessed. At the Pointe-à-Pitre hospital centre, prostate cancer patients. The number of these patients received each year by Professor Pascal BLANCHET and his team is exceptional. The West Indies hold the world record for prostate cancer. The cause of this is chlordecone, a pesticide used in banana plantations until the mid-2000s. The health and ecological consequences would be almost irremediable. - Corinne LEPAGE: "Many sick and many dead, considerable costs for Social Security and uneducated land for decades and decades". The babies are also victims of chlordecone which would trigger psychomotor disorders in them, except in cases of breastfeeding. Researchers are concerned about the possible persistence of these disorders. - Dr Luc MULTIGNER, researcher at INSERM: 'Will they diminish or rather increase and have a greater clinical manifestation?' At the request of the banana growers, the government has authorized by derogation the aerial spreading of pesticides in the West Indies while it is prohibited in France since 2010. An embarrassing question for the government at the environmental conference - Stéphane LE FOLL, Minister of Agriculture: "We are going to work quickly to ensure that we end up abandoning what is a health risk and what must be limited in the immediate term and abandoned in the medium term." Alerted by the oncologists, the council of the Martinique Medical Association issued an opinion against these sprays. - Prof Dominique BELPOMME, Director of the European Cancer Research Institute: 'There are other pesticides that have been withdrawn from the US market because they are highly toxic. We’ve stopped chlordecone, but we’re doing the same thing again to pollute these islands." For water and soil polluted with chlordecone, a sustainable solution is still far from being found.
According to the oncologist Dominique BELPOMME, the massive use of pesticides on farms in Martinique and Guadeloupe is responsible for a "health disaster". Following this investigation, he will request an investigation. According to Dominique BELPOMME, the use of chlordecone, an insecticide used massively in banana plantations until 1993, would cause abnormally high health problems in the French West Indies. In particular, the professor suspects that this product is responsible for prostate cancer and fertility disorders. But for the time being, no epidemiological investigation has been able to establish a relationship between chlordecone and the diseases affecting the West Indies. Luc MULTIGNER, a researcher at INSERM, believes that the exposure levels of the Caribbean population are not at risk: the concentrations of chlordecone in the blood are low. Commentary on illustration images alternating with interviews with Dominique BELPOMME and Luc MULTIGNER.
[Source: France 3 prompter] "No to impunity"... Thousands of people demonstrated yesterday in Martinique against the threat of prescription in the sensitive file of CHLOR DÉCONE... It is this carcinogenic INSECTICIDE that would have contaminated 90 percent of the Caribbean population... We take stock with Hugues HUET and our colleagues from Martinique La Première
Nine out of ten West Indians are said to have been contaminated with Chlordecone, an insectiside used against Charençon in banana plantations in the West Indies from 1973 to 1993 and which continues to pollute the soil. Testimony of a retired Guadeloupean agricultural worker, Claude JAFFARD, who handled the insectiside with his bare hands in the banana plantations: "We took the powder and put it like this at the foot of the bananas. We were given masks, but no one wore them. We were breathing plenty of it." At the time, no one warned him about the risk. At 73, he has prostate cancer. He accuses the state that authorized this product: "If it had been banned from the outset, no one could have used it. I’ve been poisoned and it’s slowly killing me."
The French West Indies hold the world record for prostate cancer. According to Professor Pascal BLANCHET, a urologist at Pointe-à-Pitre CHU, there is a link between chlordecone and the explosion of the number of cancers: "We double our risk of having this disease when the level of chlordecone in the blood exceeds one microgram per litre of blood." Doctors are also concerned about disorders in infants who have ingested chlordecone through diet and who have motor delays that may worsen as they grow older. Luc MULTIGNER, researcher at Inserm: "We suspect that it may have effects on other aspects of development, possibly pose obesity problems." Illustration: Images of two medical consultations.
In the French West Indies, Chlordecone was used as an insectiside to eliminate Charençon from 1973 to 1993. In the Lamentin, in Martinique, Louis BOUTRIN, lawyer and president of Martinique Ecologie denounces the pollution of the island’s waterways and the inaction of the public authorities which knew the risks incurred since 1990. He lodged a complaint against the State which protected the banana lobby at the expense of the health of the Martinican people who used the polluted water of the rivers. He specifically quotes the ministers Jean Pierre SOISSON, Louis MERMAZ and Henri NALLET who gave a derogation to the prohibition of chlordecone.