During her pregnancy, Laure Marivain, then a professional florist, never stopped handling, cutting and watering flowers. Without knowing that she was therefore exposed to numerous pesticides. Since the vast majority of cut flowers are imported from abroad, they are heavily processed, with substances that may be prohibited in France to support the journey. Arriving in France, they are subject to less strict regulations than those surrounding food.
Laure Marivain learned all this when she saw her daughter Emmy fall ill, then die of cancer in 2022, at the age of eleven. Emmy Marivain is today the first child whose death is recognized by the Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund. A look back at this unprecedented case with sociologists Jean-Noël Jouzel and Giovanni Prete specialists in the issue of worker exposure to pesticideswho met Laure Marivain and followed her journey for several months.
In what context were you able to discover the case of Emmy Marivain?
In February 2024, as we began a new investigation into the issue of recognition of pediatric diseases linked to occupational exposure to pesticides. In this context, we met families working in very different environments, some in agriculture, but not only that. It is sometimes forgotten, but a lot of professional exposure to pesticides takes place outside of agriculture: working in green spaces, woodworking, flight attendants, dock workers… Laure Marivin’s family was one of these affected families. through professional exposure outside agriculture.
What surprised us a lot, in what she said about her professional career, was that she had never received any prevention messages, neither from occupational medicine, nor from the employer, nor from advisors. in prevention likely to intervene in this type of work space. Of course, it is difficult to have a very precise idea of the level of exposure and contamination to which someone who works in a florist is exposed, but we cannot assume that it does not exist. Compared to what one can imagine of possible contaminations in view of European regulations, in particular in terms of the maximum limit of residues authorized on imported products, there is a huge gap between this possibility of exposure and this absence of prevention. It was following this meeting that we began to make a inventoryof what research had been able to do on the question of the florists that we discovered.
Read more: Pesticides, plant protection products: what do these terms say about those who use them?
And so, what is the state of knowledge?
Knowledge is currently quite poor. There are a few studies which show that, for florist traders, who are at the end of the chain, exposure is far from negligible. In particular one Belgian study fairly recent document this. There is no equivalent in France, apart from a study carried out in the Paris region, which is quite old. There is also work that highlights the high levels of exposure of workers in flower production spaces (greenhouses, fields, etc.). Finally, in some European states expert reports have been written in recent years on the subject, mainly on the environmental and consumer risksbut not in France. That said, there is a real research effort to be carried out on the exhibition, to have more recent data and on the entire chain (transport, packaging, etc.), as well as work to disseminate this research.
For our part, we have ensured that a thesis can begin on this subject. Because it is not normal that we know so little about the risks of exposure of flower workers and, a fortiori, about prevention practices or the health consequences of these exposures.
Laure Marivain did not handle pesticides herself and was nevertheless impacted by these substances. What do we know about these kinds of indirect impacts of pesticides?
For a very long time, in agriculture we mainly focused on the risk of exposure of agricultural workers who prepare phytosanitary mixtures, who load them into sprayers, who spread them, who clean the treatment equipment. This is important because, indeed, there is
levels of exposure and contamination which are not at all negligible.
More recently, over the past twenty years, expology work has begun to focus on exposures that can sometimes be described as indirect: those of people who are not necessarily those who handle the products or spread, but who are exposed to the residues of these products, because they circulate in treated spaces or handle soiled objects (tools, plants, etc.). The contamination levels of these people can be higher, cumulatively over a year, than those who spray.
Beyond agriculture, pesticides travel, they do not stay in the fields or work spaces where they are spread. They can circulate in the form of drift – and contaminate the living spaces of local residents for example – but also in the form of residues, present on consumer products (vegetables, fruits, etc.) but also non-food products such as flowers. . There is also a specificity for flowers, which is that there is no regulatory residue limit for these products. As a result, flowers can be sold and circulated containing residues of products banned in Europe or products authorized in Europe but in significant quantities. European countries are currently considering whether or not it is necessary to set regulatory limits, with different positions depending on their interests. But for now, these limits do not exist. All these elements therefore raise real questions of prevention, well beyond the prevention of professional risks for farmers.
Read more: Pesticides: towards better recognition of the effects on the health of farmers’ children
It is therefore more difficult to know what the exposure and health effects are on professional groups other than farmers?
Even within the agricultural world, when we are interested in people other than just the farmers, it can be difficult to know what is happening the exhibition. It is possible to establish a cohort of farmers followed periodically to assess the effects of pesticides on their health. There are some in the United States, there are some in France. They have shown, for example, that occupational exposure to pesticides in agriculture increases the risk of having Parkinson’s disease, blood cancers, prostate cancer, respiratory diseases and neurological disorders.
On the other hand, it is much more complicated to produce exposure and epidemiological data on seasonal workers, who move around, often change jobs, sometimes have informal statuses… It is also difficult to document the effects of pesticides on local residents, who have very varied profiles, move, and are largely unaware of the products to which they are exposed. But the fact that we know less does not mean that there are no health concerns. Obviously, exposure levels are probably lower for local residents than for farmers, but they are not zero.
We can also recall that what we know about the health of local residents exposed to pesticides comes largely from one and the same place, which is California. In California, there has been a Pesticide use reporting systemthat is to say system of obligation for farmers who use pesticides to declare the products they use, their quantity, the date and place of spreading, etc. to agricultural and health authorities. Above all, this data is accessible to health authorities and researchers. If they are not perfect, they nevertheless facilitate epidemiological research. In France, and more broadly in Europe, research teams and health institutions devote a significant part of their resources to trying to reconstruct uses in a geolocalized manner. It is a waste of resources and time to produce epidemiological data or exposure models.
Read more: The red rose, object of globalization: from Kenyan greenhouses to Dutch platforms
If we return to the case of Emmy Marivain. She was recognized as a victim by the Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund. In what context was this fund created?
It was born in 2020 at the instigation of actors who were close to farmers who were victims of pesticides. Because civil law then remained very difficult to use successfully. It is therefore after several failures on the part of lawyers defending sick farmers and almost a decade of parliamentary discussion that this fund was created based on the following observations: on the one hand there are health problems linked to pesticides among farmers but on the other hand we see that it is difficult to compensate them correctly.
But this fund quickly proved to be quite disappointing. Because in fact it is above all a simplification of existing administrative procedures which makes it possible to compensate operators a little better, that is to say to compensate them at the level of employees. Ultimately, this is quite low compensation if we compare it with that offered by the compensation fund for asbestos victims, created twenty years earlier. It provides for more generous full compensation.
The Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund has, however, innovated on one thing, the possibility of compensating diseases caused on the bodies of the offspring of workers exposed during the in utero period. This possibility does not exist in the current occupational disease tables and it is this change which notably allowed Laure Marivain to request compensation following the death of her daughter.
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Before the case of Laure Marivain, was the Compensation Fund for Pesticide Victims primarily used by farmers?
The Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund and the laws governing it do not at all say that it is limited to agricultural workers. On the other hand, we believe that it was designed by people who had “the farmer” in mind as the victim of pesticides.
For example, when Laure Marivain submitted her request, she completed a form which, at the time, was constructed in such a way as to suggest that only agricultural families could obtain compensation. However, as we have said, there are other professions exposed. Beyond these administrative obstacles, there are many other obstacles to the recognition of pediatric pathologies linked to pesticide exposure. In particular, the interviews conducted with the families we met show to what extent the feeling of guilt can block families’ efforts. It is not easy to say that it is your own work that may have been responsible for your child’s illness. When a mother risks discovering that her son’s or daughter’s cancer or deformity may have been caused by the activities of the child’s father or her own professional activities, the temptation may be great to dismiss the question of cause. of the disease of reflections and discussions. However, it is essential that people speak out on these subjects so that prevention can improve. It is not, as some say, about making parents feel guilty, but on the contrary, about placing the question of their chemical exposures within a more general debate on working conditions.
