By Damien Grivois
Published on 22 Feb 21 at 9:29
–
“Although insufficient to conclude firmly on the links between the fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests and the occurrence of radiation-induced pathologies in French Polynesia, these results do not allow us to rule out the existence of health consequences either. ”
This is the main conclusion of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) which, at the request of the Ministry of Defense, carried out a collective expertise to assess the consequences on human health of nuclear tests in Polynesia. French. The atmospheric tests carried out by France in Moruroa and Fangataufa between 1966 and 1974 resulted in radioactive fallout – including on the island of Tahiti – whose health consequences are still poorly understood, recognizes the institute. Researchers believe that the link between pathologies and these nuclear tests is “difficult to demonstrate” in the Polynesian population.
The expert appraisal proposes several measures which would make it possible to better understand these risks, and recalls the health damage established by ionizing radiation. To answer this question, a multidisciplinary group of ten scientists bringing together skills in sociology, epidemiology, dosimetry, radiobiology and genetics, established an assessment of current knowledge on the association between nuclear tests and human health. “Given the scarcity of epidemiological studies specific to French Polynesia, the analysis was extended to the data available on the health damage from atmospheric nuclear tests carried out by other countries, in particular by the United States, the United Kingdom and the former USSR ”explains Inserm.
“Improve data collection”
The group of experts thus completed its work by studying the health damage caused by other types of exposure to ionizing radiation (atomic bombardments, nuclear accidents, occupational exposure of workers in the nuclear industry, medical exposures). The researchers were particularly interested in pathologies which can be radiation-induced (cancers, cardiovascular diseases, cataracts), in the effects on reproduction and development, and in the effects on the offspring, in particular in the event of long exposure. duration and at low doses. The institute ensures that they analyzed a total of 1150 documents of a sociological, epidemiological, biological nature, or relating to the methods of estimating the doses of ionizing radiation received during old exhibitions. The expertise makes several recommendations. She advocates improving the collection of health data by consolidating the French Polynesian cancer registry and creating others for cardiovascular diseases and congenital anomalies. It also suggests avenues “to refine the estimates of doses received by local populations and by civilian and military personnel who participated in the tests”. Finally, Inserm experts recall the importance of continuing to monitor the international scientific literature, “in particular on the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation, in particular on certain cancers not yet recognized as being capable of being radiation-induced,” but also on cardiovascular diseases and offspring. “
D.G.
Transmission of radiation-induced diseases: the poison of doubt
The question of the intergenerational transmission of radiation-induced diseases (therefore caused by exposure to radioactivity) arose almost by surprise in January 2018, the very day of the arrival at the fenua of the Minister of Overseas Territories, Annick Girardin. “It is obvious that in France and in French Polynesia, the political and health authorities, state and local alike, prefer to systematically deny or minimize the nuclear risk concerning the health of children and generations to come” declared on January 21 to the newspaper Le Parisien Christian Sweat, pointing to the possible consequences of the exposure of the grandparents to radioactivity on the grandchildren. The Country was indignant that this child psychiatrist who had just left Tahiti could come to hasty conclusions in a field as complex as genetics. The executive then requested a Japanese specialist, Doctor Katsumi Furitsu, who declined the proposal by denouncing a “total incompatibility between the scientific approach and militant and political demands”. Associations like 193 and Moruroa e tatou, suspicious of State insurance as well as those of the Country, still ask for the possibility of obtaining solid answers on the question of the genetic transmission of radiation-induced diseases. . Because they believe that this doubt continues to permanently poison the file of the reparation of the nuclear fact in French Polynesia. Dr Furitsu did not hide it at the time: such a study would take years and nothing says that in the end it would be able to provide answers … In the meantime, associations believe that a systematic census of all the radiation-induced diseases in Tahiti as in the islands would already be a necessary first step.
–
