by Gilles-Eric Seralini
Network on Risks, Quality and Sustainable Environment and Faculty of Sciences, University of Caen Normandy, 14032 Caen, France
Toxics 2024, 12(2), 151; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics12020151
Submission received: 22 January 2024 / Accepted: 1 February 2024 / Published: 15 February 2024
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pesticides in Formulations: Toxicological and Regulatory Assessments, New Developments)
Everything began with the discovery that pesticides have long had unintended side effects on non-target species, which is illustrated by Ponepal et al. in this Special Issue (contribution 1). In fact, pesticides, whether used in agriculture or indoors, are always sold and used as mixtures, called formulations, which are not single chemicals but always contain adjuvants; however, their nature is not fully detailed. However, the negative unintended effects of these mixtures are thus largely demonstrated in the whole ecosystem for numerous formulations because they are the only ones used there, and there are many. It is true that species are not only exposed to the entirety of a single commercial formulation in nature but also to mixtures of a wide range of residual pollutants including, of course, pesticides but also plasticizers of different sizes, such as nanoparticles (some of which are incidentally used in adjuvants), as well as various heavy metals or metalloids, additives, preservatives, petroleum molecules, etc. The very stable residues of our industrial chemicals are all present and have considerably increased to reach any form of life in a chronic way since pollutants are spread everywhere. This was the intent of the interesting, real-life risk simulation conducted by Vardakas et al. in this Special Issue (contribution 2); this method should be used more regularly, as demonstrated and explained by the authors and detailed in the study protocol by Karzi et al. in this Special Issue (contribution 3). Numerous chemicals, such as bisphenols and phthalates, are used as pesticide adjuvants, but they are also used as plasticizers. This is the crucial meaning of studying the real-life effects of mixtures to which we are truly exposed. Their real long-term effect is not only the additive theoretical effect, as demonstrated in this Special Issue, and could explain numerous chronic human or animal diseases in various kingdoms or even in plants or microbes where there is also a loss of biodiversity.