Workers wearing masks and protective clothes have gassed thousands of ducks in south-west France, in a massive cull that was ordered in an attempt to prevent a spread of the H5N8 bird flu virus.
At one farm in the village of Latrille, in the heartland of duck and geese rearing country, 8,000 ducks were taken by hand and put in coloured metal containers where carbon dioxide was piped in to kill them, normally within seconds.
Workers clad in head-to-toe protective suits, face-visors and gas masks, finished the slaughter in the space of a few hours.
France, which has the largest poultry flock in the European Union, has reported 95 outbreaks of the virus.
Most of the cull is taking place in and around the Gers area of south-west France, where geese and ducks are reared in vast numbers to make foie gras.
About 800,000 birds out of a population of about 18m in the whole of the south-west are due to be killed in the coming week.
Workers carry ducks before placing them in a bin filled with carbon dioxide at a poultry farm in Latrille, south-west France. Photograph: Bob Edme/AP
The operation is part of mass cull of poultry in France, which has reported 95 outbreaks of the H5N8 bird flu virus. Photograph: Bob Edme/AP
France, which has the largest poultry flock in the EU, has ordered the cull of ducks in its three most-affected regions. Photograph: Regis Duvignau/Reuters
This morning, my three-year-old daughter uttered seven words that fill many mothers with dread: “Mummy, can you come on the trampoline?”
As a mother of five children, having been through four vaginal births, an episiotomy, and natural twin labour (with one breech) – and having had more stitches than Frankenstein’s monster – I should be no stranger to the world of embarrassing leaks and incontinence pads. After all, an estimated one in three women suffer from bladder incontinence, a condition that can come about due to weakened pelvic floor muscles after childbirth.
In fact, having read Nadia Sawalha’s recent admission that she has suffered from incontinence for 13 years, since the birth of her daughter, it seems nothing short of miraculous that, while my stomach might have seen better days, my pelvic floor is as reliable as a Dyson.
Why? I live in France. Here, at each of my eight-week checks following the birth of my children I have been prescribed 20 sessions of physio to “re-educate” my pelvic floor.
The first time this procedure was prescribed (alongside a prescription for something called “vaginal probe”), I did what most sane women would do. Put it at the bottom of my in-tray and tried not to think about it. However, on speaking to French friends I decided to give it a go.
As a nervous, body-conscious Brit, I was terrified when I first walked into the local physio’s office for my appointment. He strolled up, all dark eyelashes, stubble, and the kind of casual chic that only a French man in an unbuttoned white coat can carry off, and instructed me to disrobe and lie on the bench – covering my modesty with a towel – while he left the room.
So far, so dignified.
Then, on his return, he attached my “probe” to the wires on a little machine, covered it in a generous serving of lube and asked me to “put it in”, while he casually averted his eyes.
Fiddling around under my towel, in a desperate attempt to remain dignified in this most disconcerting of situations, I had to blush as I squished the probe into place. I was then asked to squeeze my pelvic muscles, making little lines on the screen jump – measuring the strength of my overworked undercarriage.
Unperturbed by this most awkward of situations, the physio looked at me with his brooding eyes. “I am sorry,” he said. “But if you turn it. It will be better.”
Cue more fumbling; followed by the mother of all squelches.
The physio remained blase. Me, slightly less so. However, after a couple of sessions, I could feel the difference in my pelvic floor. I no longer felt the worrying bounce of a threatened prolapse when I went jogging; I developed a cold and hacked to my heart’s content without fear of urinary feedback.
My embarrassment tipping point, too, became more robust. I was able to whip off my knickers and scoot under the towel as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Then came part two of the treatment. Stimulation.
The physio adjusted two buttons on the screen and suddenly I could feel a pulse of electricity where no pulse of electricity should ever be felt. “Say when it is too strong,” he said, turning a dial. I duly did. Then lay there for five minutes as my muscles were worked in the manner of a Slendertone, just in a very different place.
Why in the UK are we encouraged by adverts to accept incontinence pads as inevitable?
Of course, while the embarrassment or comic potential of this kind of procedure is high, there is a serious point to make. Although electrical stimulation can be prescribed on the NHS, referrals to special “continence centres” aren’t routine. And an estimated 50% of women don’t seek treatment in the first place. But with the necessary, fairly small equipment, this treatment could even be offered – as it is in France – by local professionals rather than at specialist centres.
So, why in the UK are we encouraged by adverts to accept incontinence pads as inevitable when in France doctors routinely prescribe this treatment (as well as physio for the abdomen)? And since when did incontinence get euphemised with the term “sensitive bladder”?
Whether the problem is our inability to talk about it, or simply that the treatment isn’t commonly offered, it’s hard to say. But, if I, as a serial birther, can now leap on the trampoline with glee – surely British women, too, should be offered the chance to swap a few hours of embarrassment for a lifetime of dry knickers?
Paul Verlaine celebrated it in his 1889 poem Printemps as a “shining pink button”, but thanks to the sociomedical researcher Odile Fillod, French schoolchildren will now understand that it looks more like a hi-tech boomerang. Yes, the world’s first open-source, anatomically correct, printable 3D clitoris is here, and it will be used for sex education in French schools, from primary to secondary level, from September.
From Fillod’s sculpture, pupils will learn that the clitoris is made up of the same tissue as the penis. That it is divided into crura or legs, bulbs, foreskin and a head. That the only difference between a clitoris and a penis is that most of the female erectile tissue is internal – and that it’s often longer, at around 8 inches.
“It’s important that women have a mental image of what is actually happening in their body when they’re stimulated,” Paris-based Fillod says. “In understanding the key role of the clitoris, a woman can stop feeling shame, or [that she’s] abnormal if penile-vaginal intercourse doesn’t do the trick for her – given the anatomical data, that is the case for most women.”
“It’s also vital to know that the equivalent of a penis in a woman is not a vagina, it’s her clitoris. Women get erections when they’re excited, only you can’t see them because most of the clitoris is internal. I wanted to show that men and women are not fundamentally different.”
Fillod had been working with Toulouse-based V.Ideaux, creators of an anti-sexist web TV series, to create a modern sex education video when it struck her that the clitoris was never presented correctly in school textbooks. This catalysed her to develop her 3D model at the Fab Lab, of the Cité des Sciences et de L’Industrie in Paris.
Fillod’s 3D clit has come in the nick of time. This June, Haut Conseil à l’Egalité, a government body monitoring gender equality in public life, published a damning report on the state of sex ed in France. The report revealed that sex education is rife with sexism. Current official guidelines state that young boys are more “focused on genital sexuality”, while girls “attach more importance to love”.
Clitoris activism is hot in France right now. The feminist group Osez Le Féminisme has been vocal in combatting the silence around it since 2011. While in Nice, a group of sex-positive feminists, Les Infemmes, has created a “sensual counter culture” fanzine called L’Antisèche du Clito or The Idiot’s Guide to the Clit. There are funny drawings of “Punk Clit,” “Dracula Clit” and “Freud Clit”, as well as facts about the organ.
Meanwhile, jeweller Anne Larue has created a bronze clitoris pendant in conjunction with Les Infemmes artist Amandine Brûlée. “The clitoris has been the hidden, shameful organ for so long,” says Larue. “My necklace brings it to the light of day.” She reassures that the more timorous should not be worried about wearing it: “For the uninitiated, it looks like an octopus or a neolithic goddess.”
Related: Mystery of the female orgasm may be solved
The Australian doctor Helen O’Connell is often credited as being the first person to show the complete anatomy of the clitoris to the modern world in 1998. In fact that achievement belongs to LA-based activist-artist Suzann Gage, who realised, while looking for images of the clitoris to illustrate a book called A New View of a Woman’s Body in 1981, that her best information came from medical textbooks of the 1800s – when anatomical drawings were done from cadavers. So images of the clitoris might have existed for a long time but, on realising that it played no direct part in reproduction, the medical profession chose to ignore it.
Fillod has hopes that doctors as well as school teachers, will use her sculpture to learn – and teach – the truth about the female body. “France has the reputation for being sexually sophisticated, but often it’s about male sexuality.” However, she is optimistic about the future. “Understanding that they have an erectile system just like men, I think women will start to experiment more. They will understand that pleasure is not some magic that only a partner knows how to give.”
Medical interns from Montpellier visited the river gorges and limestone plateaux of Lozère. Photograph: Michael Busselle/Corbis
France’s least populated region has come up with an uncommon incentive to attract a future generation of physicians.
With the variety of GPs in France in steady decline, the south-eastern Lozère area played host this weekend to fifty five health care interns from Montpellier, showing off its gastronomic delights and landscapes of river gorges and high limestone plateaux.
Lozère, recognized for roquefort cheese, has a population density of only 15 people a square kilometre. Sixty per cent of medical doctors in the area are over fifty five, according to regional official Valérie Cogoluegnes, who advised Le Figaro that the division wants an additional 6 or 7 doctors to join the 58 who are currently practising. Right up until now, French rural locations have attempted to boost healthcare cover by offering economic rewards to physicians. In light of intensifying competitors, Lozère made a decision to increase its game.
The French medical association last week launched a thorough atlas on the distribution of health care providers nationally, which showed that the quantity of GPs dropped by six.5% in between 2007 and 2014. The variety of experts, nonetheless, enhanced by six.one% above the exact same period.
The Paris region has been the worst hit by the disappearing physicians, with a single in 5 leaving over the 7 years. Seine-Saint-Denis is the worst-served region with a single GP for every single one,500 residents.
But even although Lozère is struggling from a shortage of GPs, the health-related atlas showed that at least some therapy was at hand for its residents: the variety of psychiatrists has doubled in the past seven years.
The samples have been taken from childrenliving among 50 and 200 metres from agricultural zones. Photograph: Pascal Rossignol/Reuters
French children in agricultural regions are currently being exposed to a dangerous cocktail of pesticides, some of them banned, a French overall health and setting group has claimed.
Générations Futures carried out independent evaluation of the hair of youthful people residing or studying near farms or vineyards right after dad and mom expressed concern about their children getting exposed to poisons that could disrupt their endocrine technique.
The group, a non-profit organisation specialising in the use and results of pesticides on people and the environment, says its findings confirmed their fears.
Researchers took hair samples from a selected group of young children aged amongst three and ten living or attending colleges among 50 and 200 metres from diverse agricultural zones. It sent the samples to an independent laboratory in Luxembourg that utilised methods equivalent to those employed by detectives investigating poisoning circumstances.
A complete of 624 pesticide traces were found in the 29 samples tested – 1 sample was deemed of insufficient quantity – suggesting that 80% of the children had been exposed to agricultural pesticides in the earlier three months.
In total, the laboratory found traces of 53 pesticides believed to influence hormone technique of mammals, major to cancerous tumours, birth defects, developmental problems and understanding disabilities in humans.
An regular of 21.52 different pesticides had been found for every single little one, 35 so-known as “endocrine disruptor” pesticides were discovered at least when, even though 13 had been identified in every hair sample. Just underneath three-quarters of the young children ate natural make routinely, suggesting the contamination came from an outside source and not their meals.
“The presence of much more than 21 pesticides, on regular, that are endocrine disruptors in the hair that was analysed demonstrates that our children are exposed to a considerable cocktail of these substances,” mentioned François Veillerette, a spokesperson for Générations Futures. “Now the European commission must ultimately public a clear and protective definition of the endocrine disruptors that have to be banned.”
The group’s report urges urgent action. “Our demand is easy and primarily based on an ambitious aim: no organism need to include endocrine disruptors in buy to protect the overall health of unborn children.”
Générations Futures says the French government’s very own nationwide method to deal with endocrine disruptors has reached a dead end. The program was initially to be published in 2013, but has been repeatedly postponed until the end of this month.
“Because young children are portion of the population specially vulnerable to the dangers of endocrine disruptors, they must not be exposed to them,” it stated.
The study showed that many young children had been exposed to dangerous chemicals banned in agricultural use but still utilised in parasite therapies for pet animals.
Jean-Charles Bocquet, director of the European Association of Plant Safety Product Manufacturers, dismissed the analysis. “The presence of pesticide traces is not automatically indicative of a well being danger, particularly in infinitely modest doses. I am confident you’d discover traces of diesel in our hair if you looked for it,” he informed Le Parisien.
Veillerette disagreed. “It is not the dose that the issue, but the accumulation of pesticides leading to a cocktail result,” he said.
Générations Futures says it has sent its findings to a specialised university analysis staff for further examination.
Beijing artist Liang Kegang returned from a enterprise journey in southern France with effectively-rested lungs and a tiny item of protest towards his residence city’s choking pollution: a glass jar of clean, Provence air.
He put it up for auction before a group of about one hundred Chinese artists and collectors late final month, and it fetched 5,250 yuan (£512).
“Air should be the most valueless commodity, totally free to breathe for any vagrant or beggar,” Liang said in an interview. “This is my way to query China’s foul air and express my dissatisfaction.”
Liang’s perform is part of a gust of current artistic protest and entrepreneurial gimmickry reflecting widespread dissatisfaction more than air quality in China, in which cities frequently are immersed days on finish in dangerous pollutants at ranges several occasions what is regarded as risk-free by the Planet Health Organization. The persistent difficulty has spurred brisk markets for dust masks and residence air purifiers.
Automobiles drive on the 3 Ring Street amid hefty haze in Beijing in February 2014 Photograph: JASON LEE/REUTERS
China’s senior leaders have pledged to clean the country’s air, partly in response to a citizenry increasingly vocal about environmental troubles. But it is a daunting activity that need to be balanced with demands for economic improvement and employment vital to sustaining stability.
In February, a group of twenty Beijing artists sporting dust masks lay on the ground and played dead in front of an altar at the city’s Temple of Heaven park in a functionality artwork protest.
In March, independent artists in the southern city of Changsha held a mock funeral for what they imagined would be the death of the city’s last citizen because of smog.
“If smog cannot be efficiently cleaned up, what it will leave us is death and cities of death,” artist Shao Jiajun said.
Liang’s contribution is a short, ordinary glass preserves jar with a rubber seal and a flip-leading. It has three small, handwritten paper labels: one particular with the identify and coordinates of the French village, Forcalquier, where he closed the jar 1 saying “Air in Provence, France” in French and a single with his signature in Chinese and the date 29 March.
The auction closed on the evening of thirty March, and Chengdu-primarily based artist and entrepreneur Li Yongzheng was the highest bidder.
“I have constantly been appreciative of Kegang’s conceptual artwork, and this piece was extremely timely,” Li said in a telephone interview. “This previous year, whether it was Beijing, Chengdu or most Chinese cities, air pollution has been a serious difficulty. This piece of function really suits the occasion.”
Liang is not the only one particular to make funds from China’s air-pollution angst. Entrepreneurs also see the possible, and so do tourism officials in components of the country where skies are clear.
Chinese President Xi Jinping joked to Guizhou province delegates in the course of last month’s Nationwide People’s Congress that the scenic southwestern province could place its air up for sale. Days later on, the province’s tourism bureau announced ideas to sell canned air as souvenirs for visitors.
“Canned air will force us to stay committed to environmental safety,” provincial tourism director Fu Yingchun mentioned not too long ago.
In central Henan province, nearby tourism authorities promoting a resort scooped up mountain air and gave away bags of it in downtown Zhengzhou, the provincial capital. City dwellers greedily inhaled the air, and some stated they planned to go to the mountain resort to get more than a lungful.
Chen Guangbiao, a recycling tycoon who briefly created headlines with his abortive program to purchase The New York Instances, has been marketing fresh air in cans below his “Very good Person” brand. They sell for $ three each on China’s on the web bazaar of Taobao.
Surgeons in France report that they have performed the very first complete endoscopic aortic valve replacement (TEAVR) in 2 human patients. Their paper has been published in the the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery [subscription required].
In latest many years the development of TAVR (transcatheter aortic valve replacement) has attracted enormous focus. But TAVR, which is carried out by an interventional cardiologist, is generally restricted to patients who are either not appropriate for surgical procedure or at extremely higher risk for surgery. The new paper is the most recent indication that surgeons also are now doing work to restrict as much as feasible the trauma of aortic valve surgical procedure.
The new process could allow surgeons to change the aortic valve without having opening the chest, even though it will nonetheless require cardiopulmonary bypass and excision of the old valve. The essential to the new procedure is the latest availability of sutureless aortic valve bioprostheses, in this situation the Medtronic 3f Allow bioprosthesis. In current many years these gadgets have allowed surgeons to build “minimally invasive” surgical techniques. The new report is about the very first surgical method in which the chest is not opened and the method is carried out totally by way of endoscopes. The authors pointed out that 1 advantage of TEAVR is that it is really straightforward to convert to a much more traditional open surgical procedure if it gets needed.
The two patients have been 82 and 93 years of age and had aortic valve stenosis. The patients spent about 2 and 1/two hours under cardiopulmonary bypass, but the real implantation of the device took only 45 minutes. Both individuals have been discharged from the hospital in a week and have had no severe complications.
The authors said that the procedure occasions were “acceptable” and that they think the studying curve for TEAVR could be shorter than for completely endoscopic bypass surgical procedure. They further anticipate that advances in engineering will lead to a lot more productive procedures.
The lead author of the paper, Marco Vola, a cardiovascular surgeon in Saint-Etienne, France, mentioned the improvement of the procedure in a press release issued by the journal: “In our institution, we started by adopting the mini-sternotomy strategy, involving a tiny incision via the sternum, as regimen. We then transitioned to the correct mini-thoracotomy technique, involving a small incision by way of the thorax, very first beneath direct see, then with an endoscopic camera. Finally we adopted a entirely endoscopic method.”
“These 1st procedures show that totally endoscopic sutureless aortic valve replacement is technically feasible,” he stated. “Further clinical expertise and technical development are essential to shorten operation occasions and to assess further the prospective postoperative benefits of TEAVR.”
