A historical cohort study of agricultural workers exposed to chlordecone in Guadeloupe and Martinique

Chlordecone is an insecticide used between 1973 and 1993 in the French West Indies in banana plantations. Banned afterwards because of its toxic effects, its use has resulted in soil and water pollution and a continuing contamination of the population. Adverse health effects have been reported. Agricultural workers are a particularly exposed population. A cohort of approximately 14,000 agricultural workers, who worked on a banana farm in Guadeloupe and Martinique during the period of chlordecone use, was set-up. Exposures to chlordecone and to about twenty other pesticides were retrospectively reconstructed. Vital status and causes of death are searched in national files. The main objective is to compare the mortality by cause of death in the cohort to that of the general population, and to analyze cause-specific mortality according to exposure to chlordecone and other pesticides.