Hair analysis: the subjects tested were contaminated with up to 28 pesticides and other risk substances.

Carcinogenic pesticides in drinking water and vegetables, hormonally active chemicals in plastics and cosmetics: the tests of K-Tipp and "Saldo" have shown for more than 25 years that industry and agriculture use chemicals harmful to health with the blessing of the authorities.

The current K-Tipp hair analysis is now proving to be black on white: the laws and limit values in force are not sufficient to effectively protect the population against these pollutants.

A specialised laboratory in France analysed the hair of 20 people of different ages from German-speaking and western Switzerland to detect more than 1,800 substances harmful to K-Tipp (see box "How the hair was analysed").

Results: a large number of pollutants and heavy metals were found in all people. The specialised laboratory only listed those substances that the experts classified as a health risk in case of chemical exposure. The hair samples examined, which are three centimetres long, allow conclusions to be drawn about exposure to pollutants over the past three months. The hair of most of the people tested contained between 10 and 20 pollutants. This was also the case for the three toddlers - two two-year-olds and one four-year-old. A two-year-old boy is growing up in the centre of the city of Zurich. His example shows how the choice of food affects the level of pollutants in the body. The little child loves to eat grapes and sultanas. Residues of chloro-benzilates and naphth-hoxyacetic acid (Noa) have been found in his hair. These two substances are used in the cultivation of fruit. Chlo-benzilates are probably carcinogenic, according to laboratory experts. This substance is used against spider mites. Noa is a synthetic plant hormone used to control plant growth. The effects on humans have not been studied. Among the subjects tested, a young person from Fribourg is the healthiest. His hair sample revealed only eight pollutants.

The recipe: eat as consciously as possible. He says that he cooks fresh and uses only seasonal vegetables and fruit. "I don't smoke, eat hardly any exotic foods and use hardly any cosmetics," says the 27-year-old.

However, a conscious diet does not guarantee that the body absorbs few toxins. In addition to food, delicate substances also enter the bloodstream through the skin or by breathing. This is demonstrated by the two women with the most pollutant residues: more than 20 problematic substances were found in the hair of a 16-year-old Vaud woman and a 77-year-old Thurgau woman (see portraits below).

The reasons: The young Vaudoise likes to wear make-up, the older Thurgau woman lives in the countryside and her property is surrounded by farmland and a poultry farm. The differences between the man from the town of Fribourg and the woman from the canton of Thurgau are obvious: the place of residence has a major influence on people's exposure to pollutants. City dwellers are more likely to be able to eliminate sources of pollution through conscious consumption and thus reduce chronic exposure to sensitive substances. This is hardly possible in rural areas. Fences are powerless against pollutants from agriculture. Two recent studies by the Munich Environmental Institute (D) and the University of Neuchâtel also prove this. Both studies looked at the spread of pesticides in the air. The worrying result: spraying agents are distributed by the wind from kilometres away. Researchers at the University of Neuchâtel, for example, found numerous insecticides from adjacent fields in most of the biological fields studied.