The extraordinary fire at the Seveso Lubrizol plant in 2019 in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) had a “negative effect” on the “psychological health” of the exposed population, according to a study of Public Health France (SPF) published Monday. “There is a deterioration in mental health a year after” the fire, said Franck Golliot, deputy director of SPF during a meeting on the fire in the prefecture.
SPF investigated 5,300 people representing 340,000 inhabitants of 133 affected municipalities, including 3,764 adults and 1,029 children from the exposed area, and 1,015 adults and 208 children representing the population of Le Havre and its surroundings. The data was collected by questionnaire in the fall of 2020.
Psychological symptoms
According to this study, 62% of residents felt at least one symptom or health problem that they attributed to the fire. This figure is 60% in children and 66% in adults. The most common disorders in adults are psychological symptoms: nervousness, stress, anxiety, anxiety and / or panic have been reported in 40% of cases. In children, the frequency of ear, nose and throat (ENT) disorders is 33%, and that of stress or panic is 30%.
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Almost 38% of adults experienced tingling of the nostrils, throat, tongue, nasal discharge or obstruction, 37% of headaches feeling unwell or dizziness, 15% coughing or bronchial congestion or difficulty breathing or an asthma attack. Only 17% of adults who experienced at least one health problem used the healthcare system.
The symptoms perceived after the fire are mainly psychological, ENT (itching of the nostrils, throat, nasal discharge and obstruction), general (headache, malaise, fatigue), ocular (tearing, conjunctival redness), respiratory (cough, dyspnea, more rarely asthma attack) and sleep disorders.
The timeframe of the study in question
“Why did it take a year to launch the sanitary study,” when in the United States, where a Lubrizol group plant was affected by a fire in Rockton in mid-June, “they are already in the process of to launch health monitoring, “asked Christophe Holleville, secretary of the Union of Lubrizol Victims during the meeting.
In Rockton, the choice was made to “let it burn” for several days, which “forced the population to be evacuated over 1.5 km”, while in Rouen the fire was extinguished in 24 hours, specified the Prefect Pierre-André Durand. The population had not been evacuated in 2019.
“Why didn’t you choose a toxicological approach?”
“Why not have chosen a toxicological approach?”, With analyzes of the blood of the population, also asked Nathalie Le Meur, pharmacist biologist of the Rouen Respire association. This would be “irrelevant”, replied Sébastien Denys of SPF because there is “no objective element in favor of a long-term overexposure of local populations” to dangerous substances likely to come from the fire ( hydrocarbons, dioxins).
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The environmental measures “do not make it possible to conclude that there is contamination linked to the fire that can be distinguished from historical industrial pollution”, prior to the fire, he added. “How do you explain that we find xenene, ethylbenzene and toluene in breast milk, that we observe a peak after the fire and that then it decreases?” Reacted Nathalie Le Meur. Nearly 10,000 tonnes of chemicals burned during the Lubrizol and Normandie Logistique fire on September 26, 2019 in Rouen.
