nuclear-news

Higher incidence of child leukaemia near nuclear plants

French nuclear plants double child leukemia – study  TVNZ January 12, 2012 Source: Reuters  The incidence of leukaemia is twice as high in children living close to French nuclear power plants as in those living elsewhere in the country, a study by French health and nuclear safety experts has found.

But the study, to be published soon in the International Journal of Cancer, fell short of establishing a causal link between the higher incidence of leukaemia, a type of blood cancer, and living near nuclear power plants..

… The study, conducted by the French health
research body INSERM, found that between 2002 and 2007, 14 children
under the age of 15 living in a 5km radius of France’s 19 nuclear
power plants had been diagnosed with leukaemia.

This is double the rate of the rest of the country, where a total of
2,753 cases were diagnosed in the same period.

“This is a result which has been checked thoroughly and which is
statistically significant,” said Dominique Laurier, head of the
epidemiology research laboratory at France’s nuclear safety research
body (IRSN)……
we are working on numbers which are very small and results have to be
analysed with a lot of care,” said Laurier, one of the authors of the
study.

Laurier said the findings indicated no difference in risk between
sites located by the sea or by rivers, nor according to the power
capacity of the plant. The IRSN said it recommended a more thorough
study of the causes of the leukaemia cases found near nuclear power
stations and hoped to set up international research collaboration.

“It’s a rare disease and working on a bigger scale would allow more
stable results,” said Laurier……
Studies have been conducted around the world into possible links
between the risk of childhood blood cancers and living near nuclear
plants.

A study on Germany, published in 2007, did find a significantly
increased risk, but the COMARE team said these findings were probably
influenced by an unexplained leukaemia cluster near a nuclear plant in
Krummel, north Germany,….
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/french-nuclear-plants-double-child-leukemia-study-4684348

January 12, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | France, health