What’s in the hair of senators? Mercury, pesticides, plasticizers, but also “rare earths”, these metals used in smartphones and other high-tech objects, reveals an analysis conducted among 26 elected socialists.

In July 2022, they entrusted a lock of their hair to the private and independent laboratory tocSeek, which screened for 1,800 organic pollutants and 49 metals. The results were released on Tuesday.

“It’s an alert that we send”, comments to AFP the senator of Lot, Angèle Préville, who initiated this study. “If it’s in our hair, that means we’re contaminated,” adds the elected official, who is very committed to the environment, in particular against plastic pollution.

The analyzes revealed in 93% of the senators a presence of “rare earths” (lanthanides), higher than the control population of the laboratory.

“Rare earths” are metals and metal compounds used in the manufacture of high-tech objects that have invaded our daily lives: smartphone chips, laptop computer screens, electric and hybrid car batteries, LEDs, etc.

This higher prevalence than the general population can probably be explained, according to tocSeek, by the significant and regular use of communication tools by elected officials.

Not surprisingly, however, mercury, this heavy metal present in particular in dental amalgams or certain fish, is found in all the senators tested.

They are also all “contaminated” by at least one pesticide. Forty-five different products (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides) have been identified, including a pesticide banned in Europe since 2008, carbofuran.

Finally, the “di-n-octyl phthalate” (DNOP) plasticizer was detected in 69% of elected officials. Plasticizers are used to give flexibility to plastics.

The most committed against pollution, Angèle Préville, is also the most protected from pollutants.

“Our way of life weighs on our health quality, it is clear”, notes the president of the socialist group Patrick Kanner, who is one of the senators tested.

“When I’m in Paris, morning, noon and evening I eat outside, and I don’t control what I consume”, testifies the senator from the North, who combines “rare earths”, mercury, pesticides, phthalates – substances chemicals used as plasticizers – and parabens – a preservative primarily used in cosmetics.

For Matthieu Davoli, co-founder of the tocSeek group, with the exception of “rare earths”, the results “are very consistent with what we usually see” in the population. This testifies to “repeated and regular” exposure to pollutants present in food and cosmetic or hygiene products.

He points out that “long-term contamination can bring effects of endocrine disruption and lead to chronic, autoimmune, neurodegenerative diseases, cancers…”

Regarding “rare earths”, seven senators have “significant contamination”, including Yan Chantrel, representing the French living outside France, in this case Canada.

After changing his habits, he agreed to be retested next fall, with two of his colleagues who declared symptoms that could be associated with intolerance to magnetic fields (significant fatigue, headaches, etc.).

Cut the wifi at night, do not use your smartphone as an alarm clock…, small gestures to practice on a daily basis to act individually.

But the senator insists that public health issues be “fully integrated” into environmental policies.

“This questions the modes of production and consumption of our society, which ultimately create new diseases”, he warns.

The National Assembly is no exception. On Wednesday, Green MP Nicolas Thierry will present to the press the results of an analysis of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as “eternal pollutants”, carried out in the hair of 14 MPs.

Already in 2017, seven personalities in ecology, including Nicolas Hulot, José Bové, Yannick Jadot and Delphine Batho, had lent themselves to a hair analysis which had shown the presence of endocrine disruptors.

27/06/2023 07:29:16 –         Paris (AFP) –         © 2023 AFP