Julie Garnier
modified to
12:59 p.m., November 14, 2022
Should we expect a surge in bacteriological infections in France? In any case, this is what journalist Hugo Clément suggests when interviewed at the microphone of the program Media culture for his new episode of On the front, “Medicines: the time bomb”, broadcast this Monday evening on France 5. With his team, he invested the field of antibiotics, used in an abundant way in intensive breedings or even rejected in nature. And the report drawn up is for the moment… alarming.
“We reject these molecules of antibiotics in the environment, this causes bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics. And we have met in France many patients who are hospitalized with seemingly trivial infections, such as urinary tract infections, and who do not “cannot be treated because their bacteria are resistant to all antibiotics. So they find themselves bedridden for weeks or months with excruciating pain because we can no longer treat them”, warns the journalist.
Drug residue levels 100 to 200 times higher than thresholds
In this episode of his program dedicated to the fight for the protection of the environment, Hugo Clément first wanted to deconstruct a myth: that of Cyclamed, the public drug recycling policy in France. “I had been taking my medications to the pharmacy for years thinking that at least they were going to be reused or recycled. In fact, not at all. I realized, while doing this investigation, that they were just taken them to the incinerator, just like I put them in my garbage bin,” he reveals.
The documentary also reveals that drug residues sometimes land directly in rivers. “We carried out tests at the exit of certain wastewater treatment plants, in particular near Saint-Étienne, in a river. And we find levels of drugs, anti-inflammatories, antibiotics which are sometimes 100 times 200 times higher than the thresholds. So it’s really a dramatic problem that must be dealt with very urgently”, notes the journalist.
After On the frontHugo Clément launches his own media
Building on its success with On the front, Hugo Clément does not intend to stop there. The former Quotidien columnist will launch a new medium called “Vakita”. It will be an investigative media specializing in the environment which intends above all “to propose solutions and actions to the people who will follow the reports”.
A sort of follow-up to television programs intended for the general public, “Vakita” will be aimed at people wishing to “take the next step” and learn how to act concretely to fight against ecological excesses for a subscription of five euros per month. It is expected to go online very soon, in mid-November.