Tribune. If there is an indisputable invariant in terms of epidemics and public health, it is that of not being able to precisely anticipate their evolutions in the medium and long term. On the other hand, their emergency care meets proven standards of disaster medicine when there is no effective treatment or vaccine, with a predominant role for directly affected civil society.
The same is true of the pediatric cancer epidemic and the methods of action of the people concerned. It is estimated in France at 2,500 the number of new cases and 500 deaths per year. In addition, statistics from the National Health Insurance Fund reveal an increase of 18% between 2003 and 2019, figure largely underestimated because of methodological biases of census. In Sainte-Pazanne, near Nantes, there are 25 children suffering from cancer since 2015, including seven deaths, for a population of around 30,000 people. Not six months go by without a new case appearing.
In Saint-Rogatien, 2,200 inhabitants near La Rochelle, at least six patients have been identified, including one death, between 2008 and 2019. Other clusters, namely an abnormally high number of sick children in a given territory and period , were identified: 16 cases between 2011 and 2020 in Les Rousses, Prémanon, Morez and Longchaumois, four municipalities in Haut-Jura; 11 between 2018 and 2020 in Igoville and Pont-de-l’Arche, in the Eure. The incidence of the epidemic is thus progressing, at low noise, in connection with chronic exposure and the accumulation of environmental toxins in the sectors: hydrocarbons, endocrine disruptors, pesticides, electromagnetic waves, radon, among others.
Institutional slowness
At the same time, the harsh treatments for children and their families leave lifelong consequences for some cancers while others remain incurable. Faced with a tension between public health issues and private economic and political interests, families and relatives of sick children form associations and collectives to organize the defense of the right to life in good health, a public health mission such as ‘defined Charles Winslow in 1920, and that the health authorities are struggling to take charge of: improving knowledge of the real number of cases, identifying the origins of cancers and mobilizing means to prevent them, in addition to curing them.
“We need radical action to save lives exposed to multiple carcinogenic factors”
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