Assistant Deputy Minister of Health Horacio Arruda has decided on his own to postpone the publication of worrying results for the health of the population of Rouyn-Noranda, Premier François Legault said on Wednesday.
Mr. Legault claimed that Dr. Arruda, then national director of public health, acted independently of political power when he withdrew, in 2019, data from a report showing that lung diseases and low birth weight births were more numerous in this city of Abitibi-Témiscamingue than elsewhere in Quebec.
“They are completely autonomous so it is not an intervention of anyone other than public health, said the Prime Minister from Saguenay where he was traveling. What I understand with the questions put to Dr. Arruda is that he was waiting for more certain results before publishing them. It is completely under the responsibility of Public Health. »
Mr. Arruda decided to withdraw data showing in particular that the incidence of lung cancer is significantly higher in the city of Rouyn-Noranda, where there is a copper smelter exposing the population to significant levels of emissions. arsenic, Radio-Canada recently reported. The regional authorities wanted to notify the population instead, after having hypothesized that the contaminants of the installation could be the cause.
This information was finally published in May by the Abitibi-Témiscamingue regional public health department. The data indicate in particular that the life expectancy of the inhabitants of Rouyn-Noranda was 81.4 years, for the period 2014-2018, against 82.5 years for all of Quebec.
The low birth weight rate was 7.5% in Rouyn-Noranda between 2015 and 2019, higher than the result of 6% for the Quebec population in general. As for lung cancer, the rate was 140 per 100,000 people, compared to 107.7 for all of Quebec, during the period from 2013 to 2017.
Mr. Arruda must explain Wednesday afternoon about his decision.
More details will follow.
with Florence Morin-Martel