Seven children were born without arms or without hands between 2009 and 2014 around the village of Druillat, in Ain. Faced with this phenomenon, experts do not agree.
Can we speak of a health scandal? Or a battle of government agencies, in this case Santé Publique France against Remera? Faced with the seven children born without arms or without hands between 2009 and 2014 around the village of Druillat, in Ain, the experts do not agree. The Remera structure, specializing in the identification of malformations, speaks of an “abnormal concentration” of these cases, while Public Health France considers that “the statistical analysis does not highlight an excess of cases compared to the national average”.
It all started with a confidential report sent by the Remera structure, specializing in the identification of malformations, to the health authorities and revealed by a report from France 2. This one reports an anomaly: a concentration 58 times higher than normal of children born with a defect in the arm or hand.
Ultrasounds revealed nothing to parents
The report features eight-year-old Ryan, born without his right hand. A shock at birth since the ultrasounds had revealed nothing to the parents, Mélanie and Jonathan Vitry. “I cried, of course. And my husband fell in love with it,” recalls the mother. Ryan is one of eight children living around the village of Druillat, within a 17-kilometer radius, to be born between 2009 and 2014 with a deformity. What alert the specialized structure Remera which sent a report to the health authorities at the end of 2014.
For the moment, no medical explanation justifies this concentration of badly trained newborns in this commune. The only thing in common is that mothers of children born in arms live in rural areas, near fields of sunflowers and corn. Remains that “this case is becoming a health scandal, the denial pushed to the extreme of Public Health France questions us”, estimates the epidemiologist Emmanuelle Amar, who had launched the alert several years ago on this disturbing phenomenon. “They are wrong! They assume that the rate is not abnormal, because there were seven cases from 2000 to 2014. However, this number was recorded over a much shorter period, between 2009 and 2014. How can we say that there has not been a case before? It is impossible to know, there was no monitoring of malformations before 2009 in the Ain! We did not have in charge of this department! “.
“Public health France has not identified a common exposure”
For its part, Public Health France recognizes the number of cases, but believes that there is no particular problem. “Today, following the investigation of the 7 cases reported in Ain born between 2009 and 2014, the statistical analysis does not highlight an excess of cases compared to the national average, and Public Health France does not has not identified a common exposure to the occurrence of these malformations. The absence of a hypothesis of a possible common cause does not allow to direct further investigations “, indicates the agency.
These experts also conducted similar investigations on two reports that occurred in Loire Atlantique (3 cases born between 2007 and 2008) and in Brittany (4 cases born between 2011 and 2013). For Loire Atlantique and Brittany, the investigation concluded that there were an excess of cases. However, as in Ain, no common exposure was identified for the grouped cases of these two regions. In this context, “the Agency maintains with the French network of registers very particular attention to the occurrence of new cases in these regions and in the rest of France”. In other words, no particular action is going to be taken.
Public subsidies to Remera have been cut
This battle of experts becomes even murkier when we consider that public subsidies to Remera, which has been working on this issue for 45 years, were cut this summer. “The consequences are very simple, it is the end of the monitoring of malformations, that is to say clearly the end of the alert too”, protests Emmanuelle Amar. The region simply replies that this is no longer part of its remit. Inserm justifies the abandonment of the subsidies by asserting that “the contribution of the register for research is very low”. A comment that questions since two years ago, the former Minister of Health Marisol Touraine praised the work of Remera.
Each year, in France around 150 children are born with a malformation of one or more upper or lower limbs: arms, forearms, hand, foot, tibia, fibula, etc. We then speak of “congenital agenesis or amputation”, corresponding to the absence of formation of a limb during embryonic development, and “dysmelia”, which means a malformation of one or more limbs. This makes a maximum of one and a half cases per department and per year …
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