[Research ethics: French regulations and applications in radiation oncology]

French regulations about research ethics are based on the so-called Jardé law, which defines researches involving human beings. Researches involving human beings require the submission of research protocols to a committee for protection of persons with a precise list of documents to submit for a favourable opinion. This law describes different categories of researches and determines the ethical procedures to apply before setting up a research protocol. This issue of categorisation is central and must be taken into account by researchers from the beginning of the research process. Researches considered as not involving human beings also require a set of ethical precautions focused on patients' information and the collection of their non-opposition (due to the application of the General Data Protection Regulation adopted by the European Parliament). Thus, many regulations exist and they require a real work for researchers to meet these requirements in research ethics. This article aims to summarise French regulations. Selected examples are specifically taken into the field of radiation oncology research.

Effects of FSHR polymorphisms on premature ovarian insufficiency in human beings: a meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Whether follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) polymorphisms are implicated in premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) remains controversial. Thus, we performed this study to explore correlation between FSHR polymorphisms and POI in human beings.

METHODS

Literature retrieve was conducted in PubMed, Medline, Embase and CNKI. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated.

RESULTS

Sixteen studies were enrolled for analyses. No significant relationship with POI was found for rs6165 and rs6166 polymorphisms in overall analyses. Further subgroup analyses revealed that rs6166 polymorphism was significantly associated with the risk of POI in Asians with both FEM and REM. Nevertheless, we failed to detect any significant associations with POI for other ethnicities.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings indicated that FSHR rs6166 polymorphism may serve as a potential genetic biomarker of POI in Asians, but not in other ethnicities.

Is Life Expectancy of French Women Going to Plateau and Oscillate?

Some authors have hypothesised that life expectancy at birth could reach 100 years in developed countries in the next decades. Using recent data for French women, it is shown that life expectancy changes from 1993 to 2016 are mainly linked to mortality rates of oldest women. In recent years, it happened that life expectancy of French women oscillated, because of for instance influenza epidemics killing mainly oldest frail people. It is hypothesised that in coming years, life expectancy of French women (and one day of men?) will only very slightly increase and will show oscillations because of increased mortality the years of severe influenza, heatwave and other events threatening the life of frail oldest people. This fate could also be that of the other developed countries in the future, which would mean that life expectancy has begun to plateau.

Children's environmental chemical exposures in the USA, NHANES 2003-2012

Children are vulnerable to environmental chemical exposures, but little is known about the extent of multiple chemical exposures among children. We analyzed biomonitoring data from five cycles (2003-2012) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to describe multiple chemical exposures in US children, examine levels of chemical concentrations present over time, and examine differences in chemical exposures by selected demographic groups. We analyzed data for 36 chemical analytes across five chemical classes in a sample of 4299 children aged 6-18. Classes included metals, pesticides, phthalates, phenols, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. We calculated the number and percent of chemicals detected and tested for secular trends over time in chemical concentrations. We compared log concentrations among groups defined by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and poverty using multiple linear regression models and report adjusted geometric means. Among a smaller subgroup of 733 children with data across chemical classes, we calculated the linear correlations within and between classes and conducted a principal component analysis. The percentage of children with detectable concentrations of an individual chemical ranged from 26 to 100%; the average was 93%, and 29 of 36 were detected in more than 90% of children. Concentrations of most tested chemicals were either unchanged or declined from earlier to more recent years. Many differences in concentrations were present by age, sex, poverty, and race/ethnicity categories. Within and between class correlations were all significant and positive, and the principal component analysis suggested a one factor solution, indicating that children exposed to higher levels of one chemical were exposed to higher levels of other chemicals. In conclusion, children in the USA are exposed to multiple simultaneous chemicals at uneven risk across socioeconomic and demographic groups. Further efforts to understand the effects of multiple exposures on child health and development are warranted.

Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever: Current Scenario in India

India is considered as a hot spot for emerging infectious diseases. In the recent past many infectious diseases of emerging and re-emerging nature have entered this subcontinent and affected a large number of populations. A few examples are Nipah, Avian influenza, Pandemic influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus and Chikungunya virus. These diseases have not only affected human and animal health but also economy of the country on a very large scale. During December 2010, National Institute of Virology, Pune detected Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus specific IgG antibodies in livestock serum samples from Gujarat and Rajasthan states. Subsequently, during January 2011 Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus was confirmed in a nosocomial outbreak, in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, India. Retrospective investigation of suspected human samples confirmed that the virus was present in Gujarat state, earlier to this outbreak. This disease has a case fatality rate ranging from 5 to 80 %. Earlier presence of hemagglutination inhibition antibodies have been detected in animal sera from Jammu and Kashmir, the western border districts, southern regions and Maharashtra state of India. The evidences of virus activity and antibodies were observed during and after the outbreak in human beings, ticks and domestic animals (buffalo, cattle, goat and sheep) from Gujarat State of India. During the year 2012, this virus was again reported in human beings and animals. Phylogenetic analysis showed that all the four isolates of 2011, as well as the S segment from specimen of 2010 and 2012 were highly conserved and clustered together in the Asian/Middle East genotype IV. The S segment of South-Asia 2 type was closest to a Tajikistan strain TADJ/HU8966 of 1990. The present scenario in India suggests the need to look seriously into various important aspects of this zoonotic disease, which includes diagnosis, intervention, patient management, control of laboratory acquired and nosocomial infection, tick control, livestock survey and this, should be done in priority before it further spreads to other states. Being a high risk group pathogen, diagnosis is a major concern in India where only a few Biosafety level 3 laboratories exist and it needs to be addressed immediately before this disease becomes endemic in India.

The dream as space, time and emotion

Human beings, like all living organisms, use energy ceaselessly with whatever they do. Nothing at all happens without spending some energy, not even a glance or a dream. The Author proposes that dreams happen automatically in sleep to help us release unresolved frustration energy and emotional dilemmas left over from the day before. Energy administration is the common denominator behind the manifold workings of dreams, as it is behind all operations of our consciousness in daytime, and this is far more important than one might at first suspect. In summary, if in waking reality the day prior to a dream, a specific sensory composition (a perception or picture) frustrates our mind such that the mind is unable or unwilling to accept this sensory composition, it forms and traps within us an emotional energy charge that lingers inside till that same night when the dream uses it in order to energize from memory analogous sensory components that form a spatiotemporally similar overall representational composition of the daytime waking event. This ends up as the dream we may remember the next day. For example, if in a real event yesterday a red apple between two green apples were in front of us and for some reason we were unable or unwilling to see and accept this perception, in a dream the next time we sleep, we may see promptly a red peach between two green peaches, which will be energized temporarily from our memory to serve the need of our psyche to represent the unprocessed emotion(s) and balance the tensions inside us. The dream always produces more acceptable symbolic perceptions for us to see or sense, and in doing so uses and releases at the same time the unacknowledged emotional energy inside us pending since yesterday's event.