"Choking Game" and other Fainting Games

Françoise Cochet

Description

The game that young people call the "choking game", which has been picked up on in the media and which the media helps to spread, is certainly not new. However, new communication channels have taken away the secrecy surrounding various practices that share the same aim of inducing cerebral hypoxia whilst they portrayed them as trivial or even harmless. Given that it may never be in our power to control the flood of information over the Internet, how can we convey full, objective information, which is still the best means of prevention against the pipe-dreams, manipulations and lark mirrors?

Sujets

• Éducation
• Sociologie
• Travail social

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 176
• EAN13: 9782296702547
• Langue: Français

Extrait

APEAS

International Symposium
"Choking Game" and other Fainting Games

Practices, Consequences and Prevention
Françoise Cochet (ed.)
APEAS President


APEAS

International Symposium
"Choking Game" and other Fainting Games

Practices, Consequences and Prevention


L’HARMATTAN
© L’Harmattan, 2010
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http://www.librairieharmattan.com
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[e-mail]

ISBN : 978-2-296-12292-5
EAN : 9782296122925

Fabrication numérique : Socprest, 2012
Ouvrage numérisé avec le soutien du Centre National du Livre
APEAS
International Symposium
"Choking Game" and other
Fainting Games: Practices,
Consequences and Prevention
Thursday, 3 rd December 2009
Introduction
Françoise Cochet
APEAS President

I think we will get started now, even though we are still awaiting a number of people, who are at the registration desk, because we do not want to get too far behind schedule.
On behalf of Apeas Association, of which I am President, I would like to thank you for attending. I also thank all those who had planned to attend today and who were prevented from doing so, either by the flu or vaccine shot requirements. We have not had much luck, given the concurrence of this issue.
In particular, I wish to thank Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, Minister of Health and Sport, for having kindly agreed to host this event, and lent us this room and all of the equipment in it for these two days of our conference. She will be represented by Doctor Penanster, from the French National Health Directorate.
I also thank Luc Chatel, Minister of Education, who was unable to make himself available over these two days, but who will be represented by the Director General of Primary and Secondary Education, Jean-Louis Nembrini.
I wish to thank Marie-Dominique Simonet, Minister of Compulsory Education in the French-Speaking Community of Belgium, for her support. She will be represented by Etienne Jockir, Advisor to the PMS Centres.
Patrick Gerard, Rector of the School Board and Chancellor of the Universities of Paris, whom I thank for his support, kindly sent Sylvie Gonnet, Technical Advisor to the Rector’s Office, to represent him.
My sincerest gratitude goes to Jean-François Dehecq, Chairman of Sanofi-Aventis, who, for years now, since 2002, when upon being informed of our initiative, he immediately recognised it as the serious health issue that it is and the need to break the taboo on this form of children’s "play" – for, indeed, it is "play", which actually translates into practices that can turn out deadly or have disastrous consequences (i. e., permanent disabilities). These practices have been so widespread for dozens of years, yet ultimately only came under scrutiny in 2000, previously unknown to parents and professionals, meaning physicians or nurses, alike. Jean-François Dehecq recognised this as a public health issue before us and has unceasingly supporting us, helping us out and advising us. His sponsorship department at Sanofi-Aventis, present with us today, also deserves our sincerest thanks for its support, headed by Director Caty Forget, as well as the entire team at the department.
I would also like to thank the French MPs present in the room or soon to arrive, in particular those from the UMP, who worked all summer on a report on this topic: Cécile Dumoulin, Member of Parliament representing the Yvelines and Patrice Verchère, MP representing the Rhone. As well, I thank the Belgian MPs and their representatives.
On behalf of the association, I would like to express our profound gratitude to all of those who agreed to speak at this conference.
Jean-Marie Huet, Judge and Director of Criminal Affairs and Pardons at the Ministry of Justice, kindly agreed to share with us how penal law considers these practices. He will join us later this morning.
Professors Andrew MacNab and Thomas Andrew, who crossed oceans to be with us for these two days, will share their work and thoughts with us as well.
Doctor Marie-France Le Heuzey, who agreed to come share her opinion, as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, as well as her conclusions.
Dr Charly Fampou-Toundji and the city of Noisy-le-Sec, where he is public health coordinator, who will talk about his experience in prevention.
Naturally, I think all of the members of our Scientific Committee, composed – you will hear each of them, so I will not mention them each by name – doctors, emergency doctors, paediatricians, sociologists specialised in risk behaviours, including one Professor from the University of Strasbourg, psychiatrists, child psychiatrists, as well as one person who comes from Lisbon, who has carried out a great deal of research on the existing literature and will address a particularly thorny topic for us tonight.
I also wish to thank the National Civil Police Force, the National Military Police Force, the United States Police Force, also represented today, the Ministry of the Interior’s victims’delegation, which has launched a number of very important initiatives, precisely aimed at informing the civil police, the military police and also the fire-fighters. The Victims’Delegation will be represented by Ms Chapalain, a police officer who retired this summer.
I also thank the entire national education community. In addition to Mr Nembrini, it is represented in particular by Françoise Cusin, physician and technical advisor to the Saone-et-Loire School Board, which has been partner to our association for many years. She will also speak tomorrow afternoon and her presentation of what her department has achieved will be very valuable to us.
My sincerest gratitude goes to the families of the victims present and who will remain with us throughout these two days. Not all of the victims’families are here, of course, as their large numbers would have more than filled this venue, Salle Laroque. These are families of victims and parents who have committed to carrying out information and prevention initiatives, or parents who are professionals themselves, for instance, in medicine or biology or nursing. I thank all of the parents who came from different continents, spending many hours in airplanes to join us and who will speak, tomorrow, about the initiatives underway in their countries and how they managed to break the taboo on this game that has taken so many lives. We learned of further deaths this week in France as well as abroad.
I will conclude by addressing special thanks to the parents of victims who have come together in two associations, Chousingha and Gasp, and the Caljar Support Committee, several representatives of which are here today.
Thanks to Cabu, for the drawing he gave us for this conference. Thanks to Davy Kilembe, who will sing us his "Indian Dream" song tomorrow.
As stated, we will start by setting out the issue. We will try to understand the why, the how, the causes and the consequences. Why are these practices so dangerous? How can we warn parents, of course, but also children – from the youngest to those at university – of the horrifying consequences of these practices, which they believe to be harmless, which they think are totally commonplace and which cause deaths, as I told you, every month in France and, as I stated, across the world. Thank you.
Dominique De Penanster
Promotion de la santé et prévention des maladies chroniques
Direction Générale de la Santé

Madame Françoise Cochet, Chairperson,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would first like to apologise on behalf of Roselyne BACHELOT, Minister of Health and Didier HOUSSIN, Chief medical officer in France, who are sorry that they are unable to open this conference but have been detained elsewhere in connection with the ongoing flu pandemic, as I’m sure you will understand. They have asked me to represent them and to assure you of the close attention with which they are following the topic that has brought us together for these two days.
I am particularly pleased to welcome you to the Ministry of Health, to demonstrate the support of the French Department of Health and my department in particular for the work of the Association of Parents of Children Involved in Strangulation Accidents (Association de Parents d’Enfants Accidentés par Strangulation, Apeas), which has organised this event. Preventing risk behaviour in young people is one of the key aspects of the public health policy in this segment of the population which Roselyne Bachelot initiated in February 2008 in the Youth Health Plan.
Every accident is a tragedy. And it is all the more so when a young person is involved and when the outcome is disability or death. But these causes of morbidity and mortality are avoidable and that is why the Ministry of Health undertook to fight against dangerous games two years ago, when you, Madame Cochet, came to present the problem to me at our first meeting.
On that occasion, introducing your association to me, you said that: "Our only wish is that no one should experience the nightmare that we have been through, and that no another child or teenager should die because he or she took part in a foolish game, unaware of or under-estimating the danger involved". We can only reiterate these words and make the battle that you are fighting our battle. Each year in Fr