Interview with Matthieu Schuler Managing Director General of the Science for Expertise Division

How does phytopharmacovigilance address concerns about pesticides in the environment ?

In our role as a health agency, weneed to be able to answer the questionsasked by our fellow citizens:are certain diseases linked to specific types of pollution? When our attention is drawn to an observation, is it just “background noise” or is it a report that needs further investigation to determine whether or not it constitutes a health alert?

The phytopharmacovigilance scheme collects information on plant protection substances and products found in the environment that are a source of specific concern, with a view to detecting risks that have not yet been identified. It can also fill gaps in the data by funding measurement campaigns, research and epidemiological studies.

In 2023, for example, the second national campaign to measure air quality in homes took account of the presence of pesticides in the air inside buildings, as well as in dust, which can be a major source of exposure. These results will be analysed in 2024 and submitted to the Scientific Board of the brand new Indoor Environment Quality Observatory (OQEI) run by ANSES and the French Scientific and Technical Centre for Building (CSTB).

What challenges do you face in identifying high-risk exposure?

With this phytopharmacovigilance scheme, we have taken a real step forward in capturing data on plant protection products as used and their residues in the environment. Now we have to organise and store these environmental data and cross-reference them with other data, particularly on health, in order to identify any links with chronic diseases, because this automatically means past exposure!

In the absence of a register to keep track of the products applied, investigations to retrace past exposure are tedious and have to fall back Plant protection products: cultivating data on considerable approximations based, for example, on data on sales to farmers. Expert appraisals of health alerts are always more effective when carried out using geolocated information from the field, as this enables them to be linked to the substances or products raising concerns. Digital technology opens up many possibilities in this regard.

The Agency therefore stresses the importance of practicality and sustainability when collecting data on the use of plant protection products. This of course requires a strict framework to be put in place, with access limited to usage data only, protection of the rights of professionals sharing their data, etc. For example, if such data had been available, rationally and regionally based, it may have been possible to go further in the GEOCAP-Agri conclusions on the exploration of potential links between childhood cancers and residential roximity to vineyards.

What can we do to further exploit the data generated?

Regardless of the source of exposure, ANSES calls for greater opportunities to collect data, and recommends taking the time to consider in advance the best format and use for these data. This is essential to ensure they are easy to analyse and effective in public health terms.

This means considering an open data collection system, and anticipating future uses and interconnections with other types of data – on the state of health of people or soil, and on exposure to other risk factors, to give just a few examples. To meet these ambitions, a number of policy and regulatory options are available. The new national biomonitoring strategy will enable the links between environmental health and human health to be explored in greater depth. The Green Data for Health (GD4H) project under the Fourth National Environmental Health Plan (PNSE4) is also a very promising option for institutionalising a multidisciplinary approach, by combining all environments and product types, obviously including plant protection products.