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To raise awareness of the health impact of endocrine disruptors, 19 French personalities (artists, influencers, scientists) agreed to be tested to find out their level of exposure to these pollutants. Organized by the citizen mobilization movement “We are ready”, the experiment revealed that all the participants were exposed to six, or even ten, endocrine disruptors.
Endocrine disruptors are everywhere: in household products, in cosmetics, in our kitchen, in children’s toys… and even in the dust bunnies that accumulate in our homes! In France, awareness-raising operations to warn about the impact of these pollutants on human health are increasing. The latest one is #SickOfPlastic, launched by the citizen mobilization movement “We are ready”, made up of experts, scientists and personalities. With the help of the Strasbourg medical analysis laboratory Kudzu Science, the collective launched this campaign to warn of the dangers of plastic on human health. They asked 19 personalities, including singer Pomme, host Jean-Luc Reichmann and influencer Camille Chaudron, aka Girl Go Green. All agreed to have their level of exposure to endocrine disruptors assessed. Twelve of these substances were included in the analyses, including three bisphenols and nine phthalates.
Verdict: all the people who participated are exposed to six to ten pollutants on average. Eight of them are contaminated with ten out of twelve endocrine disruptors screened. Fourteen were contaminated with bisphenol S and nine with bisphenol A. As for phthalates, an exposure rate of 6, 7 or 8 was observed in very variable levels, depending on the participants. “Certain personalities find themselves exposed to phthalates at levels 120 times higher than others,” notes the laboratory which carried out the analyses.
The tests carried out as part of this experiment also included analyzes of hair strands. “Like the 19 volunteers in this test, the majority of French people undoubtedly have traces of bisphenols and several phthalates in their hair, and are therefore contaminated on a daily basis by these endocrine disruptors. These contaminations increase the risks of having fertility problems in men, in women and also in future men and women who were exposed when they were in their mother’s womb.“, underlines in a press release Mathilde Body-Malapel, researcher in an INSERM unit at the University of Lille, emphasizing the need to limit the consumption of these products on a daily basis. “There is a cocktail effect: the simultaneous presence of several endocrine disruptors in our body increase their impacts tenfold”, recalls the Kudzu laboratory.