Digestive cancers and occupational asbestos exposure: incidence study in a cohort of asbestos plant workers.

Objective: The aim of our study was to estimate the incidence of digestive cancers within a cohort of asbestos-exposed workers.

Methods: Our study was based on a cohort of 2024 participants occupationally exposed to asbestos. The incidence of digestive cancers was calculated from 1 January 1978 to 31 December 2009 and compared with levels among the local general population using Standardised Incidence Ratios (SIRs).

Cancer incidence within a cohort occupationally exposed to asbestos: a study of dose--response relationships.

Objectives: The aim of our study was to analyse the dose-response relationship between occupational asbestos exposure and risk of cancer.

Methods: Our study was a retrospective morbidity study based on 2024 subjects occupationally exposed to asbestos, conducted over the period 1 January 1978 to 31 December 2004. Analysis of the dose-response relationship between occupational asbestos exposure, as a time-dependant variable, and risk of cancer was performed using a Cox model.

Comparative analysis of medicolegal compensation for occupational cancers in France and other western European countries: development proposals.

In France, contemporary medicolegal reparation system of occupational diseases--in particular occupational cancer--has been questioned, constantly, due to changes in the state's legal system. For a long time, associated legislation was considered as a genuine social breakthrough. However, it shall remain acknowledged that over the past 15 years, it has been the French legal system itself that generated a certain level of inequality among victims of occupational diseases.

Children employed in the performing arts, advertising and fashion industry: what legal protection do they have?

Ill-treatment can sometimes take on an unfamiliar face. Particularly, this is the case for certain types of child employment. In France, as in most European countries, there are laws for protecting children and guaranteeing their right to schooling.

The French medico-legal concept of aptitude and fitness appraisal by occupational physicians: an ethical issue?

For many years, medical aptitude in occupational health, a French exception, did not raise any particular issue. However, from the 1980's onwards, this concept has been approached from a more critical point of view, authors questioning its compatibility with personal liberty. The increase in precarious working conditions have but reinforced such criticism, raising the question of the confrontation of such a concept with due respect of the right to work and the right for health protection.

Professional photosensitive eczema of fishermen by contact with bryozoans: disabling occupational dermatosis.

Eczema associated with bryozoans is a form of occupational dermatosis caused by a living animal, involving contact eczema, occasionally associated with photosensitivity and concerning fishermen on a quasi-elective basis. This affection can prove to be extremely disabling, frequently generating disastrous social consequences, since the eviction of the responsible allergen is very often synonymous to occupational reclassification, a measure which fishermen, highly attached to their profession, have great difficulty in accepting. Based on the description of three cases of photosensitive eczema associated with contact with the bryozoan, Alcyonidium gelatinosum, identified in fishermen from the English Channel coastline, we describe the characteristics and the specificities of this occupational dermatosis, then approach the issue of its prevention, which, unfortunately, remains limited.