There are around thirty of them. Doctors and researchers no longer want to remain silent against hexane. Tuesday October 7, they signed a platform together of the World calling to “reduce the exposure of the French to hexane” by revising the authorized thresholds, or even by banning this solvent. Their message is unambiguous: “A product should only be authorized if the benefits outweigh the risks to public health. That’s not the case here.” A new tour de force as several NGOs and journalists have been denouncing the presence of this harmful solvent for a year.
A toxic solvent… but still allowed
Hexane is a solvent widely used in France to extract vegetable oils. But it is subsequently found in biscuits, margarine or infant milk, without being announced in the components. A detail? Not really. Hexane is toxic to the reproductive system and suspected of being an endocrine disruptor.
However, the information is nothing new. As early as 2014, ANSES already warned that it could cause “irreversible damage to the peripheral nervous system”. The National Institute for Research and Security (INRS) confirms that “chronic exposure leads to peripheral polyneuritis which can progress to paralysis..
In 2024, the European Chemicals Agency officially reclassified it as “proven neurotoxic”. Recent studies even suggest a possible link with Parkinson’s disease, which today affects nearly 300,000 people in France. Doctors also denounce risks for fertility: damage to spermatogenesis in men, toxicity to oocytes in women, and effects on embryonic development. Dangerous you said? And yet, hexane is found on our plates every day.
The Greenpeace investigation rekindles the debate
On September 22, Greenpeace published a shocking report: hexane residues were detected in 36 food products out of 56 tested — oils, butters, milks, poultry meats. If the quantities measured remain below the regulatory thresholds (1 mg/kg), the NGO denounces “obsolete and not very restrictive” limits, based on industrial data dating back to 1995, and has launched a petition for its ban.
This new scientific forum goes in the same direction. In a press release, Sandy Olivar Calvo, Agriculture campaigner at Greenpeace said:
“The message from this forum is clear: the use of hexane in the food industry is a major public health issue (…) Hexane is a proven neurotoxicant, a reprotoxicant and a potential endocrine disruptor: it is urgent to reduce the exposure of the French population to hexane by banning its use in food production. We urge public authorities to listen to scientists and react quickly to this health scandal.”
Political and media awareness
In May, the European Commission instructed the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to reassess “the safety of the use of hexane” in the food industry. In France, a parliamentary mission will soon examine the subject.
MP Richard Ramos (MoDem) was among the first to sound the alarm. “We find it everywhere, except on labels”he denounced in The Parisian in April. Classified as a “processing aid”, hexane is in fact exempt from any display obligation: traces can remain in food without the consumer being informed.
Last month, investigative journalist Guillaume Coudray also relaunched the debate with his book Gasoline on our plates, investigation into a well-oiled secret (La Découverte editions). He reveals the scale of a health scandal that has gone under the radar.
A platform that drives the point home?
The signatories of the forum also believe that the current thresholds are too lax. And above all, they do not take into account long-term effects or cumulative exposure to other pollutants. They are calling for an outright ban on the use of hexane in the food industry, recalling that alternatives already exist: mechanical extraction, biosourced and biodegradable processes, etc.
“Faced with the increase in neurodegenerative diseases and endocrine disorders, it becomes difficult to justify maintaining authorized use of this product,” they estimate.
The debate is now open between scientists, NGOs and public authorities. But one thing is certain: hexane, invisible on our labels, is increasingly in the sights of scientists and associations.