The intractable explanation of pediatric cancers in France

Sainte-Pazanne and Ligné in Loire-Atlantique, Igoville in the Eure, Saint-Rogatien in Charente-Maritime, Les Rousses in the Jura… These communes of a few thousand inhabitants spread over the territory have one thing in common: being the epicenter of known or suspected “clusters” of pediatric cancers. Epidemiology defines the term as a “Grouping of children under 18 suffering from the same disease in a given geographical area and period and whose number reported to its population is perceived as unusually high”. They were all identified by a relative or close friend of a young patient, thanks to word of mouth. And they are now tirelessly searching for answers to the inexplicable.

“When I discovered, while chatting in the corridors of the University Hospital of Rouen, where my 5-year-old daughter has been treated since August 2019, that five other children in our small town were also affected, it struck me,” tells Charlene Bachelet, who finally reported “Ten cases” concomitant with the regional health agency (ARS) of Normandy in October 2019.

” Timeline “

Chloé Fourchon, mother of a 4-year-old girl diagnosed a year and a half ago, has identified nine children “Mainly born between 2012 and 2015”, living in five neighboring communes of Haut-Jura, and whose cancers were declared between 2014 and 2019, from indiscretions heard from traders. In early July 2019, she sent a ” timeline “ summary to the ARS of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. “It took me a little while, she says, because these children are followed both in Lyon and Besançon, and even in Geneva, Switzerland. “

In Ligné, just before Christmas, it was the mother of a 5-year-old boy suffering from leukemia who asked the mayor to enter the ARS Loire-Atlantique-Vendée after establishing, “From an exchange with the families concerned”, the “Mapping” of “Six cases” diagnosed in the “Country of Ancenis” between December 2017 and October 2018.

Once these reports were made, an oiled mechanism was engaged. “Whether the report comes from families or health professionals, the ARS concerned make the first observations”, explains Franck Golliot, deputy director of regions at Public Health France, the body responsible for observation and epidemiological surveillance at the national level.

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