A "situation of significant danger for children".
Forty Roma minors living in an unsanitary camp on the Butte de Montarcy, in Méry-sur-Oise (Val-d'Oise), have lead poisoning, said the Île-de-Île Regional Health Agency. France Friday after a Liberation investigation.
In September 2020 and February 2021, the ARS carried out two screenings on 54 children who live in this slum.
However, 41 of them presented "a threshold higher than 50 µg per liter of blood, that is to say the threshold of mandatory declaration" of lead poisoning, called lead poisoning, explained the health agency to AFP.
The ARS alerted Public Health France, specifying that its teams had been mobilized "for a long time on this problem".
Exceeding the threshold does not automatically mean "that children are sick with lead poisoning but that they have a presence of lead which triggers closer medical supervision", she adds.
The affected families relocated
The only way to protect these children is to "keep them away from the source of contamination" with lead, which finds in the loose and dusty ground of their slum a favorable environment, explains the ARS Île-de-France.
The prefecture said it had rehoused affected families even if some, in great precariousness, continue to go to the site.
For children sheltered, "the second screening (Editor's note: carried out in 2021) showed a decrease in blood lead levels," she noted.
A water fountain has been installed 800 m from the entrance to the place to promote hygiene measures, said the prefecture, which says it is looking for "sustainable solutions".
“We ask that people be relocated differently.
We cannot leave them in this situation of significant danger for children, ”said Jean-Claude Vitran, departmental coordinator of the Roma Support Collective.
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The Butte de Montarcy is located in the plain of Pierrelaye, polluted by the spreading of wastewater from Parisian sewers for a century, like two other plains of the Yvelines.
Market gardening has been banned there since 1999.
Two studies on lead in these areas, published in 2018 by ARS and Public Health France, showed a level of 156.6 mg / kg, i.e. nearly three times the benchmark value in Île-de-France (53.7 mg / kg). Public Health France concluded that it was "not possible to exclude" a "health effect" on children under 6, in whom lead poisoning notably affects the development of the nervous system.
