A new study will measure the impregnation of the West Indian population with chlordecone. The pesticide was involved in a health scandal in Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Other pesticides and heavy metals will also be searched for. The study will involve more than 3,000 randomly selected people, including 700 children aged 6 or over, from January to July in the Antilles. In a first study, 9 out of 10 West Indians were infected with the pesticide. The slow degradation of the molecule, and its infiltration into the water of groundwater and rivers from contaminated plots, means that it ends up in the food chain.