Cumulative Exposure to Organic Pollutants in French Children Assessed by Hair Analysis

Abstract

In 2014, the total quantity of pesticide sales in the EU-28 amounted to close to 400’000 tons, with France as the second pesticide consumer with 75’000 tons used for agriculture (Eurostat 2017). Children represent one of the most vulnerable category of the population. Chronic exposure to pesticides has been proven in the literature to be highly related with developmental issues as well as with several diseases such as leukaemia. Although a few studies based on biomonitoring approaches were conducted in France to assess pesticide exposure in adults or pregnant women, studies conducted on children are still absent. Hair analysis has been proven to give more accurate and reliable information than urine and blood, becoming a promising matrix for biomonitoring of chronic exposure. Moreover, pesticide concentration in hair is correlated to the level of exposure.In the present study hair samples were collected from 142 French children from different areas: rural (n=36), urban (n=72), wine production (n=25) and a remote island (n=9). Hair samples were analysed with an analytical method (GC/MS-MS) allowing for the detection of 55 currently used and banned pesticides, 4 PCBs and 5 brominated flame retardants.All the samples tested positive for at least 9 and up to 37 compounds (average =21). Three organochlorine pesticides, 1 organophosphate metabolite and 1 pyrethroid metabolite were detected in all the samples. The highest concentration was observed for permethrine (>5000 pg/mg). The highest number of chemicals was observed in children living in urban areas (mean = 52) and the lowest in children from the remote island (mean = 28).Although these results cannot be considered representative of all French children, they demonstrate the diversity in the exposure between different areas. These results also highlighted the cumulative exposure to pollutants from different chemical families and for most of them provide the first values of concentration in children’s hair.