There are no legal maximum levels for pesticide residues on cut flowers. It has not yet been confirmed with certainty whether this makes working with them dangerous for pregnant women. Now a mother from France has received compensation anyway.
Large amounts of pesticides are used to grow cut flowers. Studies suggest that these substances increase the risk of leukemia for children in the womb.
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The single neighbor broke her leg? Get well soon – and here is a bouquet of flowers as a splash of color for the hospital room. The colleague just had a child? Congratulations – and the bouquet of flowers will arrive in the mail.
Cut flowers bring joy to many people. A case from France now makes it clear that – due to their production – they do not only have positive properties. An authority has awarded a woman compensation because her child died of leukemia – caused by cut flowers.
Her story was made public by one Joint research by the French state broadcaster Radio France and the daily newspaper “Le Monde”. The woman worked for a flower importer for years and unpacked deliveries every day, even during her second pregnancy. According to the mother, the fetus gained little weight and after birth the placenta was black; A midwife asked the mother whether she had taken drugs. At the age of three, the child was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Despite chemotherapy, the girl died seven years later.
Only later did the mother find out that the flowers she dealt with every day were contaminated with dozens of pesticides. She filed her case with the Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund. According to the report, the decision of the panel made up of scientists and doctors was unanimous: there was a causal connection between the death of the child and the mother’s employment as a florist.
A clear connection between pesticides and leukemia is difficult to prove
In leukemia, the precursor cells of white blood cells multiply uncontrollably and displace other, healthy blood components. Depending on which subgroup of white blood cells the diseased cells developed from, a distinction is made between myeloid leukemias – from the spinal cord – and lymphatic leukemias from the lymphatic system.
Acute lymphocytic leukemia can occur at any age, but it is much more common in children up to the age of five than in other age groups: around five in 100,000 children are affected. 90 percent of them can now be cured thanks to chemotherapy, although often with long-term effects.
The genetic makeup of the cells often changes in the womb, i.e. during pregnancy. However, the causes of this are still largely unknown.
One of the potential causes of the disease is pesticides to which the mother is exposed; Epidemiologists refer to this direct exposure to dangerous conditions as exposure. Although there is a lot of research into the connection between pesticide exposure and leukemia, the evidence is not clear.
“Epidemiological studies show a fairly strong link between maternal occupational exposure during pregnancy and/or the first year of life and the occurrence of ALL in the child,” explains Aurélie Berthet, head of the environmental medicine department at the University of Lausanne. “But it is very difficult to establish a clear connection between pesticide exposure and cancer. As far as I know, none of the studies clearly show a causal connection.”
Ben Spycher, a specialist at the University of Bern on environmental exposures and cancer in children, also says: “It is hardly possible to conclude in individual cases that there is an environmental cause of cancer in children. Such connections are suspected and investigated epidemiologically, but the evidence is not yet clear.”
There are no legal maximum levels for pesticides on cut flowers
However, it is hardly disputed that cut flowers are heavily contaminated with pesticides. Unlike fruit and vegetables, there are no legal regulations regarding pesticide residues in cut flowers in either the European Union or Switzerland.
Most cut flowers are imported from non-European countries. “Pesticides, especially insecticides and fungicides, are also used there, which are banned in Europe and Switzerland,” says Berthet.
An analysis commissioned by the Austrian environmental protection organization Global 2000 found pesticide residues in 97 percent of the specimens purchased in Austria and Germany72 percent of them were those that are classified as harmful to human health.
Hygiene measures are intended to reduce the risk for florists
The question is how much of these pesticides enters the bodies of people who handle the flowers through the skin or breathing. “For florists, the dose is probably rather low,” says Berthet. “However, they are exposed to it five or six days a week, so they receive a chronic low dose of pesticides.”
One Study from Belgium found increased amounts of active ingredients from pesticides in the urine of florists; However, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) criticized the methodology of the study in a statement.
The BfR does not deny that the flowers are contaminated to a certain extent – but this does not pose a risk if gloves are worn and work and eating are separated. Such hygiene measures are a matter of course.
When asked, the Swiss Florists’ Association wrote that since 2012 there has been a leaflet on the subject of skin protection and pesticides developed together with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Association members are regularly informed that cut flowers may contain pesticides and how they can handle them properly. This happened again due to the specific case in France.
There is no risk associated with having a bouquet of flowers on the table at home – at least not for those who just put them in the vase. For those who grow the flowers and those who put them together in the bouquet, things are a little different.
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