[Mad cow disease: 20 years after].

Mad cow disease: 20 years after. Twenty years after the peak of the mad cow disease crisis, an overview was made by the National Food Council about the public health consequences, scientific advances, management measures taken to control the disease, persistent uncertainty about long-term impact on human health, and the difficulty to communicate in such a critical context. An in depth work to follow and explain the evolution of food production and transformation methods is indispensable.

[Global health security at the time of Nagoya].

The International Health Regulations are the main legal instrument to prevent the international propagation of diseases, particularly related to infectious agents. It supports the exchange of samples between countries. These exchanges have raised expectations, in many countries, about the sharing of the benefits resulting from these exchanges.

[Health international agreements: what are they? For what purpose?].

Health international agreements: what are they? for what purpose?. Under the auspices of the World Health Organization, the efforts made to strengthen public health at the world level are reflected in three international agreements. The commitment of Member States to contribute to the protection of the health of the world population is underlined in the International Health Regulation and in the Pandemic influenza preparedness Framework.

[National health security agencies: facts and perspectives].

Despite major changes in its composition over the past two decades, the French health security infrastructure, currently consisting of eight agencies, has endured. This infrastructure has reinforced the French state's capacity to protect the health of its population, but it did not yet provide total protection. The future of national health agencies will depend on their ability to maintain the priority given to public health security ; to preserve credible, high-level scientific expertise ; to meet the challenges of healthcare safety ; and to organize health security at the European level.

[National plan for the prevention and control "influenza pandemic"].

France has developed a national plan for the prevention and control of an influenza pandemic with the aim of reducing its health impact and its consequences on the economic and social life of the country. The main objectives of the plan are to prepare the country to face an epizootic of avian influenza due to a highly pathogenic virus, to detect the first manifestation of a new flu virus, to curb its spread by adopting early and appropriate public health measures and to protect the French population, as well as French citizens abroad. Ensuring that the population has the best possible access to prevention and care, through the organisation and adaptation of the health system facing a pandemic, is one of the major goals of the plan.

[The Direction Générale de la Santé today].

The Direction générale de la santé, created fifty years ago as part of the French Ministry of Health, is devoted to public health. Among the current challenges which the Direction générale de la santé must meet are various types of potential health crisis, preparing the country for major health threats, reinforcing disease prevention and risk management, coordinating health institutions at the national level, and promoting French health policies within Europe and internationally.

Liver repopulation trial using bone marrow cells in a retrorsine-induced chronic hepatocellular injury model.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the potential of bone marrow derived cells to participate in liver repopulation. In this model, the injected cells had a "selective growth advantage" compared to the native hepatocytes whose proliferation was blocked by retrorsine.

Methods: Total bone marrow cells were isolated from male Fisher 344 rats not deficient in dipeptidyl peptidase activity (F344, DPP IV+).