nuclear-news

British Journal of Cancer and Cancer Research UK covers up health effects from nuclear contamiination

The BJC has now printed a similar article (Bunch et al, 2014) which, if anything, is even worse than the 2013 one. The new article also should never have been published.

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This study is reassuring for anyone who happens to be living near a power plant
Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK (from article linked at bottom of post)

 

Posted on July 25, 2014
http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/comments-on-another-bjc-article/

In 2013, the British Journal of Cancer published an article (Bithell et al, 2013) (for references see below) purporting to show there were no leukemia increases in young children near UK nuclear power plants (NPPs). I published a post criticising this article stating that it should not have been published. The BJC has now printed a similar article (Bunch et al, 2014) which, if anything, is even worse than the 2013 one. The new article also should never have been published.

The new report concludes, first, that children, teenagers and young adults currently living close to Sellafield and Dounreay are not at an increased risk of developing cancer. Second, it concludes there is no evidence of any increased cancer risk later in life among those resident in these areas at birth.

However a close reading of the actual data in the report’s table 3 in fact reveals statistically significant cancer increases measured across all years and ages. The data layout in their table 3 carefully hides these increases so the data are more clearly laid out below (for Seascale ward), together with p values kindly added by Dr Alfred Körblein.

The very low p values in Seascale ward show that the cancer increases there are statistically significant, ie are not due to chance. It is notable that these increases and their accompanying p values are NOT discussed in the new report.

Total leukaemias (0-24 y)

	Obs	Exp	SIR	P value*	RR	P value**
study region	6	0.91	6.59	0.0004
control region	68	76.33	0.89	0.8442	7.40	0.0002

All malignancies (0-24 y)

	Obs	Exp	SIR	P value*	RR	P value**
study region	12	3.66	3.28	0.0004
control region	321	322.27	1.00	0.5356	3.29	0.0005

Obs= observed, Exp= expected, SIR= standardised incidence ratio, RR= relative risk

*one-sided P value (Poisson test), **one-sided P value (Binomial test) both calculated by Dr Alfred Körblein

So, at Seascale, the leukemia risk is 7.4-times greater than the control area (RR=7.4, P=0.0002), and for all malignancies, the risk is 3.3 times greater than the control area (RR= 3.3, P=0.0005).

The new article should therefore have reported that statistically significant cancer increases occurred across all ages and cancers in Seascale, about 4 km from Sellafield. Instead, the printed conclusions refrain from this and make misleading inferences in selected analyses which appear to show the opposite. This is poor science.

Let’s unpack that first conclusion that “children, teenagers and young adults currently living near Sellafield are not at an increased risk of developing cancer”. This is presumably based on the most recent data (1991-2006) which show 1 observed case (0-14 yr olds) and 1 observed case (15-24 yr olds). In fact, these are increases over the expected numbers, but you can’t say anything definite one way or the other as the numbers are far too small for meaningful conclusions. Also these data are now eight years old: can we really say that young people currently living near Sellafield are not running risks?

Let’s unpack the second conclusion that “there is no evidence of any increased cancer risk later in life among those resident in these areas at birth”. This is presumably based on the data for those aged 15-24, but in fact, these again show actual increases (Observed 4, Expected 1.43 for all cases). Again you can’t be definite from such small numbers as the increases are still not statistically significant, but to say there was no increased risk when in fact the numbers show the opposite is perverse and misleading.

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July 25, 2014 Posted by arclight2011part2 | Uncategorized | Leave a comment