What’s in the hair of senators? A variety as interesting as it is disturbing. Mercury, pesticides, plasticizers, but also “rare earths”, these metals used in smartphones and other high-tech objects, reveals an analysis conducted among 26 elected socialists. In July 2022, they entrusted a lock of their hair to the private and independent laboratory tocSeek, which screened for 1,800 organic pollutants and 49 metals. The results were released on Tuesday.
“It is an alert that we send”, comments to AFP the senator from Lot, Angele Preville, who initiated this study. “If it’s in our hair, that means we’re contaminated,” adds the elected official, who is very committed to the environment, in particular against plastic pollution. The analyzes revealed in 93% of the senators a presence of “rare earths” (lanthanides), higher than the control population of the laboratory.
“Rare earths” are metals and metal compounds used in the manufacture of high-tech objects that have invaded our daily lives: smartphone chips, laptop screens, electric and hybrid car batteries, LEDs, etc.
Elected officials more exposed than the general population
This higher prevalence than the general population can probably be explained, according to tocSeek, by the significant and regular use of communication tools by elected officials. Not surprisingly, however, mercury, this heavy metal present in particular in dental amalgams or certain fish, is found in all the senators tested.
“Our way of life weighs on our health quality, it is clear”, notes the president of the socialist group Patrick Kanner, who is one of the senators tested. “When I am in Paris, morning, noon and evening I eat outside, and I do not control what I consume”, testifies the senator from the North, who combines “rare earths”, mercury, pesticides, phthalates and parabens.
Matthieu Davoli, co-founder of the tocSeek group, points out that “long-term contamination can have effects of endocrine disruption and lead to chronic, autoimmune, neurodegenerative diseases, cancers…”
Already in 2017, seven personalities in ecology, including Nicolas Hulot, José Bové, Yannick Jadot and even Delphine Batho, had lent themselves to a hair analysis which had shown the presence of endocrine disruptors.