French patients demand standing at cancer test inquiry
Last Updated: Friday, July 4, 2008 | 12:04 PM NT
CBC News

Cancer patients from the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon, off the south coast of Newfoundland, say they were the last to know about breast cancer testing mistakes in the labs of Eastern Health.

Now the patients want standing at an inquiry looking into those mistakes, and are waiting for a written apology.

France pays for its citizens on the islands to receive treatment from the Newfoundland and Labrador health-care system, allowing them to travel to St. John's.

The Eastern Health authority, now at the centre of a public inquiry investigating why hundreds of breast cancer patients received inaccurate hormone receptor test results, began telling its Canadian patients in 2005 that a problem had been discovered.

Hormone receptor tests are used to determine which course of treatment a patient already diagnosed with breast cancer should receive.

Jacqueline Park, Canada's honoury consul to St-Pierre-Miquelon, told CBC that some French patients weren't told about the faulty tests until the spring of 2008.

Park helped establish a patient's rights group in St-Pierre-Miquelon for those affected by the faulty tests from Eastern Health after hearing about a French woman's struggle to find out about potential problems with her breast cancer treatment.

"That's when I discovered what this person was going through since 2005, and it is really abominable," Park said.

The group Park formed is demanding to have its say at the inquiry headed by Justice Margaret Cameron, and has written a letter to her asking for standing at the inquiry.

Peter Dawe, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Cancer Society, said he was shocked that the French patients were not getting the information that Canadian patients were.

"Absolutely, I think they were overlooked," Dawe told CBC News. "We were amazed that they had so many questions and nobody was sharing information with them."

Nine, or possibly 10, hormone receptor tests from French patients were re-tested along with those of patients from Newfoundland and Labrador. Of those nine or 10, three tests were converted, or got different results on retesting. Three other patients have died and the results of their retests are not known.
Still waiting for apology

In April, Eastern Health sent letters of apology to the Canadian patients affected by the botched test results.

However, Andrée Olano, president of the St-Pierre-Miquelon patients rights group, said patients from the French islands have yet to recieve any such letter.

"It's very difficult emotionally, for us, for the patients who had the wrong tests," Olano said.

"And for the families too — we have contacts with these people — that's awful," Olano said about the lack of apology for the French patients.

Patricia Pilgrim, chief operating officer at Eastern Health, confirmed Friday that the letters to St-Pierre-Miquelon patients were not sent because of problems translating the English copy to French.

She said she did meet with the group from the French islands Thursday, and apologized at that time.

The Cameron inquiry has been hearing testimony in St. John's since March.

www.cbc.ca . . .

Cancer patients from the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon, off the south coast of Newfoundland, say they were the last to know about breast cancer testing mistakes in the labs of Eastern Health.

Now the patients want standing at an inquiry looking into those mistakes, and are waiting for a written apology.

They'll be dead before they get an apology from the Canada's National Health Service.

France pays for its citizens on the islands to receive treatment from the Newfoundland and Labrador health-care system, allowing them to travel to St. John's.

The Eastern Health authority, now at the centre of a public inquiry investigating why hundreds of breast cancer patients received inaccurate hormone receptor test results, began telling its Canadian patients in 2005 that a problem had been discovered.

Jacqueline Park, Canada's honoury consul to St-Pierre-Miquelon, told CBC that some French patients weren't told about the faulty tests until the spring of 2008.

Come to the US, we care about saving people's lives.

However, Andrée Olano, president of the St-Pierre-Miquelon patients rights group, said patients from the French islands have yet to recieve any such letter.


Patricia Pilgrim, chief operating officer at Eastern Health, confirmed Friday that the letters to St-Pierre-Miquelon patients were not sent because of problems translating the English copy to French.

Can't translate a letter in 3 years and people are supposed to trust you with the lives of their loved ones. How fucked up is that?

In April, Eastern Health sent letters of apology to the Canadian patients affected by the botched test results.

Well, that is just not good enough. Canada needs to declare war on Frankarabia. French health care has killed a Canadian for the last time!

There was a French rat posting here from Saint Pierre and Miquelon and it would be ironic, if he fell prey to France's inferior, corrupt health care system.

JeanValette wrote:

French patients demand standing at cancer test inquiry
Last Updated: Friday, July 4, 2008 | 12:04 PM NT
CBC News

Cancer patients from the French islands of St-Pierre-Miquelon, off the south coast of Newfoundland, say they were the last to know about breast cancer testing mistakes in the labs of Eastern Health.

Now the patients want standing at an inquiry looking into those mistakes, and are waiting for a written apology.

France pays for its citizens on the islands to receive treatment from the Newfoundland and Labrador health-care system, allowing them to travel to St. John's.

The Eastern Health authority, now at the centre of a public inquiry investigating why hundreds of breast cancer patients received inaccurate hormone receptor test results, began telling its Canadian patients in 2005 that a problem had been discovered.

Hormone receptor tests are used to determine which course of treatment a patient already diagnosed with breast cancer should receive.

Jacqueline Park, Canada's honoury consul to St-Pierre-Miquelon, told CBC that some French patients weren't told about the faulty tests until the spring of 2008.

Park helped establish a patient's rights group in St-Pierre-Miquelon for those affected by the faulty tests from Eastern Health after hearing about a French woman's struggle to find out about potential problems with her breast cancer treatment.

"That's when I discovered what this person was going through since 2005, and it is really abominable," Park said.

The group Park formed is demanding to have its say at the inquiry headed by Justice Margaret Cameron, and has written a letter to her asking for standing at the inquiry.

Peter Dawe, executive director of the Newfoundland and Labrador branch of the Canadian Cancer Society, said he was shocked that the French patients were not getting the information that Canadian patients were.

"Absolutely, I think they were overlooked," Dawe told CBC News. "We were amazed that they had so many questions and nobody was sharing information with them."

Nine, or possibly 10, hormone receptor tests from French patients were re-tested along with those of patients from Newfoundland and Labrador. Of those nine or 10, three tests were converted, or got different results on retesting. Three other patients have died and the results of their retests are not known.
Still waiting for apology

In April, Eastern Health sent letters of apology to the Canadian patients affected by the botched test results.

However, Andrée Olano, president of the St-Pierre-Miquelon patients rights group, said patients from the French islands have yet to recieve any such letter.

"It's very difficult emotionally, for us, for the patients who had the wrong tests," Olano said.

"And for the families too — we have contacts with these people — that's awful," Olano said about the lack of apology for the French patients.

Patricia Pilgrim, chief operating officer at Eastern Health, confirmed Friday that the letters to St-Pierre-Miquelon patients were not sent because of problems translating the English copy to French.

She said she did meet with the group from the French islands Thursday, and apologized at that time.

The Cameron inquiry has been hearing testimony in St. John's since March.

www.cbc.ca . . .

'It feels like a sci-fi film' - accidents tarnish nuclear dream

French nuclear companies are hoping to play a central role in the government's plan to build a new generation of reactors. At home, however, the industry has been buffeted by a series of mishaps. Angelique Chrisafis reports from Bollène

* guardian.co.uk,
* Friday July 25 2008

Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.

For the past two weeks, Eymard, 41, and her children, 13 and seven, have had a phobia of taps. To wash up, they go out to the yard and fill a bowl from a specially delivered plastic tank of purified water on a fork-lift tractor. They carry the water up to the bathroom to wash. Even the dog drinks bottled water, and it is left out for the birds.

"I feel as if everything's constantly dirty," Eymard said, her hands deep in soapy lather scrubbing plates.

The view from the house over the fields is dominated by the nearby cooling towers of the Tricastin site, a nuclear power plant run by EDF, the company which is poised to buy British Energy and take control of most UK nuclear stations.

Next to the plant is a nuclear treatment centre run by a subsidiary of Areva, the nuclear group which hopes to design many of the new British reactors. Last month an accident at the treatment centre during a draining operation saw liquid containing untreated uranium overflow out of a faulty tank. About 75kg of uranium seeped into the ground and into the Gaffiere and Lauzon rivers which flow into the Rhône. Eymard's house is 100 metres from one of these streams.

Like a handful of rural homes near the nuclear site, hers is plumbed into the local groundwater from wells. For 20 years she has drunk from the tap. But after the incident there was a ban on drinking the groundwater, using it to water fields - as all local farmers do - or swimming or fishing in local lakes and streams. Since then, Eymard feels like she is in an episode of The Simpsons, in a Springfield where people's trust has been abused by haphazard mistakes. "It feels like a science fiction film where experts constantly come to examine and film the people who've been exposed."

At the centre for adults with learning disabilities where she works, some have seen her on the TV news and innocently asked for her autograph. At 10.30am on the dot, two men in green overalls from the nuclear site appear at her door to collect the daily sample of water from her tap to analyse it for uranium. Levels have fluctuated daily.

Even after the official ban was lifted this week and the families' urine samples tested normal, Eymard won't drink from the tap. "I always trusted that nuclear was totally secure. But now I wonder, have there been other accidents in the past we haven't been told about?"

The nuclear site at Bollène sits in a picturesque corner of Provence between the lavender fields and cypress trees that stretch north to the nougat capital of Montélimar and to the historic town of Avignon 30 miles to the south, which was hosting its famous theatre festival when the spillage occurred.

Until now most locals have accepted the plant as a risk-free part of everyday life in nuclear-dependent France. More than 80% of France's electricity is generated by the country's 58 nuclear reactors - the world's highest ratio. But the leak has shaken French trust in nuclear safety and embarrassed Nicolas Sarkozy as he crusades for a French-led world renaissance in atomic power.

The president wants to export French nuclear know-how around the world, including to Britain where nuclear power supplies 19% of electricity, and London and Paris are to cooperate on a new generation of nuclear power plants. Areva, 90% state-owned, is at the heart of foreign cooperation agreements not just with Europe but countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Libya. Last year it clinched the biggest commercial nuclear power contract on record, worth €8bn (£6.3bn), to supply China with two reactors and provide nuclear fuel for nearly two decades.

Areva has been criticised by France's nuclear safety watchdog over the Tricastin leak for not adequately informing local authorities and for unsatisfactory measures and operational procedures. The leak rated at level one of the seven-stage scale of nuclear incidents.

It was detected on the night of July 7 but the town hall and locals who continued to drink water contaminated with uranium were not informed until the following afternoon. Areva's chief executive, Anne Lauvergeon, called the leak an "anomaly" which posed no danger to humans or the environment. The treatment plant has been shut and the subsidiary's director removed.

But in recent days there have been other, lesser incidents at nuclear sites. In Romans-sur-Isère, north of Tricastin, at another site run by an Areva subsidiary, officials discovered a burst underground pipe which had been broken for years and did not meet safety standards. A tiny amount of lightly enriched uranium leaked but not beyond the plant. This week, about 100 staff at Tricastin's nuclear reactor number four were contaminated by radioactive particles that escaped from a pipe. EDF described the contamination as "slight".

The French government has now ordered tests on the groundwater around all nuclear sites in France. The environment minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there were 86 level-one nuclear incidents in France last year and 114 in 2006.

People living near the Tricastin plant remain concerned. In basil and coriander fields farmed by the extended Eymard family not far from the nuclear site, part of the crop was ruined after wilting during the ban

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