What are the consequences of caterpillars with stinging hairs for the health of professionals working in woods, forests or green spaces? What occupations and regions are the most exposed? To answer these questions, ANSES and the Central Fund for the Agricultural Mutual Insurance Scheme (MSA) are jointly launching a nation-wide study called CheniPRO.

More than one in three French people recycle their waste in garden or community composters. In addition to putting vegetable peels and scraps in them, some people add plastic waste, in particular “biodegradable” or “compostable” single-use plastic bags. And yet the total degradation of such plastics is not guaranteed in these composters, which means that use of the resulting compost can pose a risk to humans and the environment. ANSES therefore recommends not placing any plastics in garden composters.

Insecticides, hand sanitiser gels, rodent baits and surface disinfectants belong to a class of products called biocides that are part of our everyday lives. In order to reduce their impact on human and animal health and the environment, the French EGAlim Act provides for a ban on self-service sales of certain products to the general public. In this context, ANSES was tasked with defining criteria to determine which categories of biocidal products deserve special attention and restrictions on access. These products would nonetheless remain available for purchase under conditions to be defined by the authorities.

ANSES advises against including vitamin D3 in the list of substances to be mentioned as endocrine disruptors on food products, as part of implementation of the French AGEC Act.

The use of microsensors to monitor the quality of indoor and outdoor air has met with great enthusiasm in recent years. ANSES studied the benefits of their use for protecting the health of the population.

Turmeric is a plant that is used as a spice and is also found in a wide variety of food supplements on account of its digestive, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Following several reports of hepatitis in Italy and France, ANSES is drawing attention to the risk of adverse effects occurring in association with the consumption of food supplements containing turmeric.

To what pets can humans transmit monkeypox virus (MPXV)? For example, can dogs, cats and rodents get monkeypox? Due to the increase in the number of people infected with this virus in multiple non-endemic countries, including France, ANSES received an urgent request to answer these questions.

Salmonella, enterohaemorrhagic E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes – a wide range of bacteria can be found in the raw-milk cheeses and other raw-milk dairy products we consume. These are sometimes involved in cases of food poisoning, leading them to be recalled or withdrawn from the market. In order to further improve the control of these risks, ANSES has identified the types of raw-milk cheeses on which efforts should focus as a priority.

Herbal preparations (phytotherapy) and essential oils (aromatherapy) are increasingly being used as alternatives to other “allopathic” medicinal products for the treatment of animals. This is true even for food-producing animals. If the products used have a therapeutic purpose, they are considered veterinary medicinal products.This means it should be possible to guarantee there is no risk to consumers of foods derived from treated animals. However, it is complicated to implement the current regulations to assess this risk for herbal medicinal products. ANSES therefore issued an internal request to propose a specific assessment methodology for herbal veterinary medicinal products.