This text is part of the special Feminine Leadership notebook
A specialist in the effects of endocrine disruptors on animal health, researcher from the National Institute of Scientific Research Valérie Langlois works to raise awareness among the public and elected officials about the effects of contaminants on the environment.
For as long as she can remember, Valérie Langlois has always been fascinated by nature, concerned from a young age by the effects of pollution on ecosystems.
It is therefore not surprising that she is today a professor at the Eau Terre Environnement Center of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique du Québec (INRS), where she holds the Research Chair of the Canada in ecotoxicogenomics and endocrine disruption and scientific manager of the Laboratory in ecotoxicogenomics, environmental DNA/RNA and endocrine disruption.
“Very young, I understood that by pouring chemicals into the water of the lakes, it had effects on the species that lived there,” she says from France, where she is on a sabbatical year. But I didn’t understand why we accepted this, as a society, when I could see that it couldn’t last long. »
We are therefore talking here about a vocation, a life mission. As part of his research, Mme Langlois studies the effects of contaminants on animal health. For two decades, she has been particularly interested in endocrine disruptors, that is to say substances foreign to the body which have the effect of disrupting the body’s hormonal balance.
“It is important to understand which products cause which consequences to determine whether they are harmful or not, but also to what extent we can use them without causing long-term harmful effects on the health of a species,” explains the woman who is also director of the Intersectoral Center for the Analysis of Endocrine Disruptors, an international group of more than 150 researchers from diverse fields.
Take the pilgrim’s staff
Drawing on her research, which covers some “400 study subjects”, Valérie Langlois sees the fruit of her work as “ammunition” allowing her to strengthen her argument with political leaders in order to encourage them to better regulate the use multiple disruptive substances and their release into nature, particularly through the discharge of wastewater.
“I am a fairly nuanced person,” says the professor. I am aware that it would be very difficult to appear before a government and tell it that we should no longer use a certain substance at all. »
Also, the researcher says she poses as a mediator in search of a balance between societal behaviors and those recommended by science. “I try to make people understand the effects of pollutants to raise awareness among governments, businesses and the public. »
A task that is not always easy and takes time. “The most difficult thing is to change the way governments work, these are big issues that don’t move much and even less quickly,” confides M.me Langlois. “No city in the world checks whether its wastewater contains endocrine disruptors before returning them to the environment,” she says as an example.
However, this awareness and advice work is bearing fruit: “We have raised awareness among the Quebec government so that it develops a testing approach before rejection, and today, the ministry [de l’Environnement] has just equipped itself with technology and hired my doctoral student to put everything into practice,” says the winner of the 2019 Next-Generation Excellence Prize from the Université du Québec Network and the 2020 Prix du Québec Relève scientifique .
As co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Pest Control Products, Valérie Langlois also has the ear of the federal Minister of Health.
But the researcher’s popularization and awareness-raising work is not only aimed at decision-makers. In addition to giving conferences or interviews in different media, Mme Langlois will launch a series of children’s books next spring. Published by Multimondes, it will address science and environmental values.
Optimistic for the future
Valérie Langlois says it herself: it is almost impossible to work in your field and hope to bring about lasting changes without a good dose of optimism… and naivety.
“I continue to believe that everything is possible, even if we hear more and more about eco-anxiety and the effects of climate change,” confides the researcher, who combines this mission with her role as a full-time mother of two little girls.
She is also delighted to see the next generation more aware of these issues. “Now there are a lot more of us,” she notes. Young people have more knowledge than I had at their age. Government decision-makers are also more aware of environmental issues. I think there is hope. »
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