The impact of nuclear tests carried out by France in French Polynesia is weak but not non-existent on the risk of thyroid cancer, according to a new study presented Monday by Inserm, which for the first time exploits declassified data from the army.
In this study, the results of which are published in JAMA Network Open, the scientists conducted a risk prediction analysis, according to which nuclear tests carried out by France over decades in the archipelago could be responsible for 0.6% to 7.7% . of cases of this cancer.
“A “weak, but by no means non-existent” impact
“This is the proportion of thyroid cancers attributable to the trials among all the thyroid cancers that have developed or will develop in the people present at the time of the trials, all the islands combined,” Florent de Vathaire, a researcher at the Insert in Gustave-Roussy, first author of the study.
Or a “weak, but not non-existent” impact, according to him.
Following the initial work, published in 2010, the same research team conducted a second epidemiological study of 395 cases of thyroid cancer diagnosed between 1984 and 2016 in Polynesia and 555 controls from the general population.
“This is the first study to use confidential military reports declassified in 2013,” insisted Florent de Vathaire.
“A debt” of France with respect to Polynesia
Using these declassified documents, meteorological data, and an interview of each case and control, the authors were able to simulate the radioactive cloud from each nuclear test and estimate the radiation dose received by the thyroids of study participants (nearly 5 milligrays on average).
Of all the cancer cases diagnosed (395 people), the scientists found no “significant” association between radiation dose to the thyroid and the risk of thyroid cancer. However, if the analysis were limited to invasive cancers requiring treatment, the relationship would appear significant.
Visiting Papeete in July 2021, Emmanuel Macron had stated that France owed “a debt” to French Polynesia for having carried out nearly 200 nuclear tests in the Pacific over 30 years, until 1996, and had requested the opening of files to exception of the most sensitive military data.
In 2010, Paris recognized for the first time that these 30 years of atomic explosions had had an impact on the environment and health in Polynesia, paving the way for compensation.
Source: BFM TV
