Duplomb Law: The Medical Association Takes a Stand Against It, Believing That "Alerts Cannot Be Ignored"

While the petition against the Duplomb law exceeded the two million signature mark on Monday on the National Assembly website, the National Council of the Order of Physicians took a position against it, stating that "the warnings cannot be ignored" , in a press release published Wednesday, July 30.

The law should allow, in particular, the conditional reintroduction of acetamiprid, an insecticide toxic to biodiversity and potentially to human health, banned in France since 2018, but authorized elsewhere in Europe.

"Several organizations, including the League Against Cancer, have warned of the serious health risks associated with this substance. (...) We deplore the persistent gap between available scientific knowledge and regulatory decisions. This discrepancy compromises the effective application of the constitutional principle of precaution," the body wrote.

"On a medical level, we affirm that doubt is not reasonable when it comes to substances likely to expose the population to major risks: neurodevelopmental disorders, pediatric cancers, chronic diseases. These alerts cannot be ignored," she continues.

In a column published Tuesday in Le Monde , learned societies and patient associations called on the Constitutional Council to reject the highly contested text. The latter is due to issue its decision "a priori" on August 7 .

For the medical association, "agricultural competitiveness and distortions of competition within the European Union must not be used as arguments to relax our vigilance in matters of protecting biodiversity and human health" , adding that "the real difficulties of the agricultural world must find responses compatible with these fundamental requirements".

The body is thus committed to launching a "reflection" on "the links between health and the environment" , which will bring together "field doctors, scientific experts, farmers, elected politicians and representatives of health users", in order to "make environmental health a pillar of public health policy".