Mercury, pesticides and rare earths found in senators' hair

Mercury, pesticides, plasticizers or “rare earths”… So many ingredients that can be found on the head of a senator. Toxicological analyzes carried out on 26 voluntary socialist senators show the presence of these elements, the group revealed on Tuesday.

These elected officials, including the group’s president Patrick Kanner, entrusted a lock of their hair to the private and independent laboratory tocSeek in July 2022, which screened for 1,800 organic pollutants and 49 metals. 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 screens, electric and hybrid car batteries, LEDs…

This higher prevalence than the general population can be explained, according to the laboratory, by the significant and regular use of mobile phones, laptops or other tablets.

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

Seven senators have “significant contamination” with “rare earths”, including Senator 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 declaring symptoms that could be associated with an intolerance to magnetic fields (significant fatigue, headaches, etc.).

Not surprisingly, mercury contaminates all of the senators tested, who are also all contaminated with at least one pesticide. Forty-five different products (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides) have been identified, including a pesticide banned in Europe since 2008, carbofuran.

69% of senators are finally “contaminated” by the plasticizer “di-n-octyl phthalate” (DNOP). Plasticizers are used to give flexibility to plastics.

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”.