South of Rouen, around Pont-de-l’Arche, sixteen children have fallen ill in five years: leukemia, lymphoma, brain tumor… They were between 2 and 14 years old at the time of diagnosis.
>> In 2021, the National Assembly voted an extension of 20 million for research against pediatric cancers against the advice of the government
To find out why they fell ill, their parents analyzed their hair and that of healthy children before meeting in the village hall of Igoville to comment on the results of these tests. The association of victims of Lubrizol, this chemical factory which burned down in 2019, provided them with sampling kits and the ToxSeek laboratory carried out the analyses. The results are overwhelming: in almost all of the eleven children tested, there is lead in abnormal quantities, but also Cerium and Lanthanum, two rare metals found in telephones or in batteries.
Two pollutants from environmental sources have been detected https://t.co/Zll8dxHEle
– France Bleu Normandie (Seine-Maritime, Eure) (@fbleuhnormandie) June 25, 2022
Hugo is 13 years old. He was treated for lymphoma. He is currently in remission and wants to get his hands on the person responsible. “If I had this pain, it must be someone or something’s fault”he rebels, confident that he has “A desire for revenge. Let them pay! I know that in the end, those who did this will be punished, that comforts me”.
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But finding the culprit is far from simple. ToxSeek is the only laboratory capable of tracking 1,800 pollutants and 49 heavy metals and yet its co-founder, Matthieu Davoli, cannot determine the cause of this abnormal number of pediatric cancers. “We can only make a toxicological findinghe explains. We cannot make the causal link, it is not our job. On the other hand, associations can use these analyzes to look for potential sources or factors that could have led to the creation of this type of cancer.
Precisely, these parents who live near Rouen, have set up an association to find the origin of their children’s cancers and they want to continue their investigations. Coralie Jarguel is Hugo’s mother. She set up the association “Cancers: the truth for our children” with two other mothers of sick children and for her, the results of these hair analyzes are already a good start.
“We know where we have to go to fight, so we are already moving forward because before, we were fighting in a vacuum.”
Coralie Jarguel, co-founder of the association “Cancers: the truth for our children”at franceinfo
“We rush into the breach and we’re going to digshe says, combative. The next step is to list all the industries and see which ones can potentially release lead.” If they find the culprit, these moms will go to court. “To make it stop, says Coralie Jarguel. Our goal, our ambition, is that there are no more sick children.”
In the viewfinder of the association, there are two relay antennas installed near the college and a company that pollutes more than the others. The parents of Igoville and Pont-de-l’Arche want to do other tests, blood in particular, involving more people.
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Requested by the parents of these children with cancer, the health authorities also conducted the investigation. The Normandy Regional Health Agency, the Regional Directorate for the Environment and SPF have concluded that there is indeed a cluster of leukemia cases, but the analyzes of the air and environmental pollution have not made it possible to detect common exposure factors for all sick children, so no designated culprits.
To find them, more in-depth analyzes would be needed, in the laboratory, explains Robert Barouki, toxicologist, director of research at Inserm: “To prove that it is indeed this chemical factor that is at the origin of this pathology, we have to go to the experimental level where we can, for example, add these substances to cells, see what their impact is and correlate that’s what happens in human epidemiology. You need both to be sure.”
In summary, what would be needed to establish the cause of these cancers are large studies carried out on a large number of people, ideally pregnant women who would be followed with their children for years, with a lot of samples taken: hair , blood, urine, skin… And once the culprits have been identified, move on to laboratory research to prove that the molecules in question are indeed responsible for these cancers. However, for the moment, in France, no study of this magnitude has been launched.