2024-06-28 07:24:51
How does phytopharmacovigilance respond to concerns related to the presence of pesticides in the environment?
As a health agency, our role is to be able to answer questions from our fellow citizens: Are certain illnesses linked to specific pollution? When an observation is cause for concern, is it just background noise or a report that needs to be investigated to verify if there is a health alert?
Phytopharmacovigilance Collect information on substances and plant protection products present in the environment that are sources of particular concern, with the aim of identifying as yet unidentified risks. It can also fill in missing data by funding measurement activities, research efforts and epidemiological studies.
For example, in 2023, the second national residential air measurement campaign considered the presence of pesticides in the indoor air of buildings, as well as the presence of pesticides in dust, which can be a significant source of exposure. The results will be analyzed in 2024 and presented to the scientific committee of the new Indoor Environmental Quality Observatory (OQEI) supported by Anses and the Center for Science and Technology in Architecture.
What challenges do you face in identifying risk exposures?
With this phytopharmacovigilance device, we have taken a real step towards capturing data on the phytopharmaceutical products used and their residues in the environment. The next step is Cross-referencing of banking and environmental information with other data, in particular health data, to be able to identify possible associations with chronic diseases. Indeed, whoever said chronic illness said chronic exposure!
Since there are no records documenting the products used, investigations tracking past exposure are tedious and must rely on strong approximations, such as those based on sales to farmers. Health alert expertise is always more effective when it is delivered alongside live, geo-located information, allowing a link to the substance or product causing the problem.
Digitization opens up many possibilities in this sense. The Agency therefore considers it necessary to make the collection of data on the use of plant protection products practical and sustainable. This of course requires the establishment of a strict framework: limiting access to the data for use, protecting the rights of professionals who share the data… owning the data in a reasonable way and anchoring it in the territory, for example, the conclusions of GEOCAP-Agri have the potential to go further Exploring the potential association between childhood cancer and living near a vineyard.
How can we further exploit the data generated?
Regardless of the source of exposure, ANSES encourages Increase opportunities to collect data, but also think regarding the format and use in advance. This is critical to making their operations simple and effective in public health terms. This means thinking regarding an open collection system, predicting future operations and interconnection with other types of data – on human health, soil, exposure to other risk factors, to name just a few.
To achieve these goals, there are many perspectives at the political and regulatory levels. A new national biomonitoring strategy will deepen the link between environmental health and human health. The Green Data for Health (GD4H) initiative of the Fourth National Environmental Health Program also constitutes a very interesting approach to institutionalizing a multidisciplinary approach by combining all environments and product types (including, of course, plant protection products).
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