Cancer and pesticides: the legal floodgates have opened

After long battles, three farmers in France have won legal claims that their cases of cancer and Parkinson's disease were caused by working with pesticides. Now they want to help others fight similar cases
Paul François says he is lucky to be alive. In April 2004, he went to clean out what he thought was the empty tank in his agricultural spraying machine. When he opened the cap, noxious fumes of some remaining pesticides escaped. He was not wearing a mask and therefore breathed in a lungful. Immediately admitted to hospital, he fell into a coma.

Since then his illness continues to affect his kidneys and nervous system and he has again fallen into comas on several occasions. Today, he is working on his case against Monsanto, the company that produced Lasso, the culprit pesticide that was taken off the market in 2007.

The victims

Paul told his story at the first meeting of a network of 'pesticide victims' in a small hotel near his farm in Poitiers. The 40 participants had gathered to work out how they could help each other, and what could be done to protect the health of others.

One of the difficulties in putting together a strong legal case - against either a pesticide company or the French authorities - is finding clear evidence from scientific studies and asking doctors to make the link between exposure to pesticides and a medical condition. François told the meeting that medical professionals had often turned him away:
'They tell me: "Go home, you are depressed because you are ill",' he said.

Agricultural worker, Gilbert Vende in Bourges was luckier - at least from the perspective of finding a more helpful medical professional. In 2001, after being drenched with gouache used to protect seeds in autumn, he suffered serious breathing problems. A year later, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. His doctor gave him a letter linking his condition to exposure to 'pesticides, insecticides, fungicides et gouache'. But even with this document, it took extraordinary diligence to win his case in October 2005 when he became the first person in France to have Parkinson's recognised as an occupational disease. He is now embarked on helping others.

Gathering evidence

Two other agriculturalists in France have won recognition for the link between pesticides and their leukaemia. Even before Vende won his case, Dominque Marchal, a cereal farmer in the Vosges became the first person in France to win recognition that his leukaemia was work-related. When he first became ill, his wife suspected that his daily pesticide spraying on their 100,000 hectare farm might be the cause. But when they talked to the medical authorities about this idea, they were treated with such 'scorn' that it made Madame Marchal determined to fight.

She employed a lawyer to help her gather the scientific evidence and herself set about gathering invoices and receipts to list which pesticides her husband had been using in previous years. Then, from their own pesticide stocks and with the help of neighbouring farms, she was able to gather samples of each of the potential cancer-causing substances. Her lawyer helped her find a laboratory willing to analyse the contents, and when the results came back they showed that 40 per cent contained benzene, a substance not marked on any of the contents labels but that is known to increase the risk of leukaemia.

Since the Marchals' success, other farmers and agricultural workers with cancers such as myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma are trying to gain recognition and compensation for their conditions. A second person in France had his Parkinson's disease recognised as an occupational disease in October 2009.