In 2004, using cancer as a model, researchers at ARTAC contributed to the discovery that many diseases and afflictions actually had an environmental origin; and that, among their causes, chemical pollution was a leading cause.
Hence the Paris Appeal, an international declaration signed by several thousands of scientists worldwide, including several Nobel Medicine Prize, stating the health dangers of chemical pollution and calling for action, more precisely for the implementation of genuine public health policy including environmental prevention.
In fact, as a confirmation of this new environmental paradigm such as started in the Paris Appeal, a great number of patients suffering from new diseases and afflictions related to pollution, or from long-identified diseases but whose environmental contribution has now been proven, are requesting that these diseases be acknowledged, considered and specifically treated. Unfortunately, this new environmental medicine paradigm has not taken into account in most medical practice, and so contemporary medicine cannot effectively take care of such patients.
A new type of medicine is thus required, environmental medicine, for which our environment is the core medical concern and is consequently taken into account from clinical and biological viewpoints, not only to determine diagnosis, prognosis, and find new treatments; but especially to put prevention and protection into their rightful place in medicine.
Hence in 2009 we were driven to open a unique consultation in environmental medicine at the Clinique Alleray-Labrouste (France).
But to honor environmental medicine’s general principles, and to encourage its development among medical practitioners, we needed to further characterize this new medical practice.
Therefore we STRONGLY support the international medico-scientific movement created in 1990 by the International Society of Doctors for Environment ISDE.