[How do we reduce the under-reporting of occupational primary lung cancer].

Unlabelled: The under-reporting of occupational lung cancer is due to insufficient recognition of occupational exposure and inadequate medico-legal action.

Materials And Methods: All cases of primary bronchial carcinoma seen at the University Hospital of Grenoble between October 1996 and December 1998 completed a standardised questionnaire set by a physician in occupational medicine. When evidence of exposure to occupational carcinogens was established a claim for occupational disease was made and the outcomes of these claims were obtained from the Department of Social Security at the end of 2000.

Biodegradation of atrazine in sand sediments and in a sand-filter.

The potential of a microbial consortium for treating waters contaminated with atrazine was considered. In conventional liquid culture, atrazine and its two dealkylated by-products were equally metabolised by the microbial consortium. Transient production of hydroxyatrazine was observed during atrazine catabolism, indicating that the catabolic pathway was similar to the one reported for isolates capable of atrazine mineralisation.

The potential of soil microorganisms to mineralize atrazine as predicted by MCH-PCR followed by nested PCR.

The potential of soil microorganisms to mineralize atrazine was studied in soil samples collected from fields with various histories of atrazine application. In contrast to many previous studies, which showed no atrazine mineralization activity, all the tested soils mineralized atrazine regardless of their atrazine application history. However, the delay before mineralization and the variation in the subsequent mineralization rate were in agreement with the initial copy number of the atrazine dechlorinaze gene, and the proliferation rate of the degraders.