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Nuclear Power - Childhood Leukaemia

Research is continuing worldwide into the causative mechanisms for human leukaemia, but until a scientific mechanism that explains how it develops can be established scientist will continue to say that no link has been proven to the nuclear industry while action groups will maintain that the link is obvious.

Despite the rigorous control of radioactive discharges from power stations, it has been suggested that these increase the risk of childhood leukaemia, and links have been claimed at some nuclear sites. This suggested association has been the subject of intensive research. An authoritative study in England and Wales by Oxford University researchers, published in the British Medical Journal in 1994, used a very sensitive, new technique for detecting raised incidence of disease near a suspected source of risk.

Whilst an excess of childhood leukaemia and related diseases near Sellafield was clearly apparent, the authors concluded that there was no evidence of a general increase of these diseases around all nuclear installations. A similar conclusion was reached in a recent study in Scotland. Other possible explanations have been put forward to explain the excess near Sellafield, notably the Kinlen hypothesis that leukaemia is a rare response to a common infection whose spread is facilitated by population mixing, as in new towns, for example. Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) pointed out that "No leukaemias were recorded until several years after the start of military plutonium operations in West Cumbria in the early 1950s, despite the significant influx of almost 8000 construction workers in the 1940s".

CORE also detailed BNFL's funding links with Newcastle University and with the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and added that some small Cumbrian villages close to the Irish Sea and where there has been little or no population mixing, have significantly high rates of childhood leukaemia.

The Irish Sea factor was also picked up by the Low Level Radiation Campaign. The Irish Sea is heavily contaminated with insoluble particles of plutonium and uranium which migrate inland and are retained in the lymph nodes after inhalation. The lymphatic system is recognised as a critical organ for leukaemogenesis, and post mortem analysis of nuclear workers and members of the Cumbrian public has shown extremely high concentrations of plutonium in tracheo-bronchial lymph nodes.

In 2012 the UK government's scientific advisory group found no link between childhood leukaemia and proximity to nuclear power plants (handy as they intend to build more....), but German and French research has found an alarming doubling of risk. Please click here to read more on this issue.