A group of families who have suffered serious health problems because of exposure to pesticides urged EU lawmakers not to row back on safety standards for pesticides in the bloc’s latest move towards light-touch regulation.
“Alternatives exist…we need a European policy that is coherent…and to put public health at the heart of policy,” said Florence Jamault, an organic vegetable farmer, whose child was a victim of pesticides exposure, at a hearing on Wednesday (1 July) organised by Friends of the Earth, an NGO.
For his part, Franck Rinchet-Girollet, whose child suffered from paediatric cancer and lives on a cereal plain near La Rochelle, France, an area heavily exposed to intensive agricultural practices, called for a gradual phase-out of synthetic pesticides.
Friends of the Earth warned that the planned reforms would shift the burden of proof from pesticides producers to public authorities and described them as “the most far-reaching attack on EU pesticides safety standards”.
Rendert Algra, a farmer’s son and former Dutch Christian Democrat MP, who believes that his Parkinson’s illness was caused by childhood exposure to chemicals, called for compensation for those who suffer illness because of exposure.
