"I live with my daily problems," says Jean-Claude Terlet modestly when we hear about his health.
The septuagenarian, a farmer in the Aisne, suffers from prostate cancer.
In 2017, he sued the manufacturer of the herbicide Roundup, which he accuses of being responsible for his disease: Monsanto, now owned by Bayer.
A long series of appraisals and parts to be produced followed.
At the same time, the producer continued to sell his strawberries in the markets.
“He has a much diminished life and on a personal level, completely turned upside down.
An ablation of the prostate is something which handicaps enormously ", underlines Me Emmanuel Ludot, his lawyer.
Jean-Claude Terlet, 72, prefers to dwell on the results he received last week: analyzes, which he allowed us to consult, of hair but also of pubic hair, show persistence in his body glyphosate, the active substance in Roundup, into unsuspected areas.
“It surprised me terribly, in the sense that glyphosate circulates in the human body.
"
Far beyond the usual measures
This experience has, according to his lawyer, no precedent in legal proceedings involving glyphosate, even abroad.
It was carried out by the pharmaco-toxicology laboratory of the CHU Raymond-Poincaré in Garches, in Hauts-de-Seine.
On May 5, 2019, 4 cm of hair was taken from Jean-Claude Terlet, corresponding to approximately four months of growth and therefore exposure to the product.
One sample was washed, another was not.
Then each was ground to get a four month average.
Result: 168 picograms / mg for washed hair, 211 for unwashed hair.
By way of comparison, the same methods, applied at the same time to ten people who were a priori unexposed, resulted in levels below 10 picograms / mg, a threshold below which the substance is considered undetectable.
"At Monsieur Terlet, there is not much difference between washed and unwashed hair, which clearly shows that the glyphosate is in the inside of the hair since by removing what is outside , the quantity obtained remains significant ”, explains Jean-Claude Alvarez, head of the laboratory.
Even more surprising: the rate of 44 picograms / mg measured in the pubic hair of Jean-Claude Terlet, an area of the body which one can hardly suspect that it has been in contact with Roundup.
In its commentary, the laboratory rules out the possibility of "external contamination", favoring a "systemic passage through the body" through the blood, which a concomitant urinalysis confirms.
Thus, the presence, over four months, of glyphosate in the farmer, would not have been limited only to the parts of the body directly exposed.
“We cannot say that he is not exposed or that he does not have glyphosate in his body.
There is glyphosate in the body, ”insists Jean-Claude Alvarez, mandated by the farmer's lawyer.
"We are demonstrating that glyphosate is not completely eliminated in the urine and remains in the human body", adds Me Ludot.
"Arrive with a full bladder"
Before this examination, Jean-Claude Terlet had undergone a first urine analysis, in June 2017. But the validity of the sample and the reliability of its results, significant (250 micrograms / L), were questioned by Monsanto.
In the market gardener's camp, we reject any idea of fraud, arguing in particular that it is impossible to achieve a sufficiently precise dilution to obtain this concentration of glyphosate other than by urinating in a bottle.
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On these data, we interviewed a specialist, unrelated to the case, giving no indication of the profile of Jean-Claude Terlet.
“250 micrograms per liter in urine?
», Chokes the toxicologist Jean-François Narbonne.
"But it must be an exposed worker, a farmer?"
»Which, in this case, would not« surprise him ».
In order to decide, the legal experts carried out, in the presence of both parties, another urinalysis, in July 2019. Note that the summons asked Jean-Claude Terlet, who does not hide his incontinence problems since his prostate was removed, “to arrive with a full bladder”… The results are still awaited.
The analyzes on the hairs allow today to go further than the analyzes of urine, judges Professor Alvarez.
The former, he explains, demonstrate a "cumulative" effect over time, while the latter must be carried out within hours of exposure to find the substance sought.
“Whenever you have glyphosate in your blood, the molecule attaches itself to the bulb in the hair, which is being synthesized.
"
Lack of "adversarial debate"
According to Jean-François Narbonne, analyzes on hair and body hair are relevant in the case of workers in the agricultural world, since they would, unlike consumers, come into contact with potentially toxic solvents from pesticides.
“However, it's only interesting to show a presence.
For hair and body hair, there is no threshold from which we can say that it poses a health problem, ”continues this former ANSES, the health security agency.
In order to make up for the lack of data in this area, Professor Alvarez, from Garches hospital, intends to publish his method.
"We have a lot of compassion for Mr. Terlet, however, we are convinced that our herbicides based on glyphosate are not the cause of his disease", responded Bayer France to the Parisian.
Not wishing to comment on "ongoing legal proceedings", the group says that the tests on the hair "were not carried out under the aegis of forensic experts, do not correspond to those that the forensic experts appointed at the request of Mr. Terlet advocated and that they were carried out without adversarial debate ”.
“In addition, Mr. Terlet does not respond to questions and requests that legal experts have made on several occasions,” continues the agrochemical giant.
Monsanto's lawyers were not immediately available to answer us.
