The “Vert de rage” investigation team estimates that three villages in Pas-de-Calais hold the sad record of 5,815 children suffering from lead poisoning, a serious lead poisoning that causes intellectual disabilities in particular.
Equipped with an X-ray fluorescence gun, Martin Boudot concentrated his samples on the site of the former Metaleurop foundry, which ceased operations in 2003, and on the town of Évin-Malmaison.
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The First Lines journalist, who has won multiple awards around the world, delivers his entire investigation in the documentary Les Enfants du Plomb on France 5.
"On the industrial site where companies have relocated, the lead content at ground level is up to 774 times higher than the tolerated threshold of 300 mg/kg in France.
In a nearby vegetable garden, the leeks have a content 80 times higher than the norm.
In 1986, the toxicologist Jean-Marie Haguenoer carried out an analysis on the umbilical cords, concluding that nearly 40% of children would be in a situation of lead poisoning”
, summarizes Martin Boudot.
“The study which measures lead contamination on the intelligence quotient of children was taken up by thirty-four media”.
Martin Boudot
With this season 3 of the documentary series “Vert de rage” on France 5, the journalist continues his original media chronology:
“We never keep our information for ourselves.
We make scientific studies public so that everyone can take hold of them and that the subject continues to live.
Our documentary reports a posteriori on the considerable impact of our work in France and Peru.
The study which measures lead contamination on the intelligence quotient of children was taken up by thirty-four media.
Read alsoNearly 800 million children poisoned with lead in the world, according to Unicef
Last June the Pas-de-Calais prefecture announced a lead poisoning screening campaign for those under 18 living near the site of the former Metaleurop factory.
Another impact in Peru, in Cerro de Pasco, a town located on the edge of a gigantic zinc and lead mine, where the survey shows that children suffer from headaches, vomiting, hemorrhages and intellectual retardation, the hospital has finally acquired a measuring device for lead contamination.
“Green Rage” investigations to follow.
The result of a year of investigation, season 3 of Vert de rage, now broadcast on Mondays on France 5, focuses on two other serious pollutants.
The Damned of Petroleum
, an investigation around the largest petrochemical refining platform near Le Havre and in Iraq, in Basra, a major extraction site.
Finally,
Eternal Pollutants
targets the perfluorinated scandal (PFAS) in the Arkema factory, south of Lyon, and near the Dutch border.
A broadcast of Vert de rage in 25 countries
“80% of the job is to find the right scientists, but never pure activists. The Canadian Jennie Christensen, who takes samples from children's hair, thus providing proof of an outdoor pollution still present in the north of France, had initially carried out a study on lead in bear hair! But his method interested us.
As confirmed by Martin Boudot, Vert de rage spends on average between 5,000 and 10,000 euros on scientific studies per survey, offset by distribution in 25 countries around the world under the name “Green Warriors”.
“But our pride is when major scientific journals take up our data.
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Évin-Malmaison and its gardens.
ANDBZ/ABACA