Nuclear reactors and childhood leukemia: the risk exists.

The issue of whether children living near nuclear reactors are more susceptible to childhood leukemia has long been a controversial issue, especially in Europe, where numerous studies have found significantly increased risk for leukemia among children living near reactors.

In 1990, a particularly noted report (the Gardner report) found the risk of leukemia among children near the U.K.’s Sellafield facility to be seven times higher than for children living away from nuclear facilities.

Here in the U.S., the controversy has been far less conspicuous, despite a few similar studies around selected reactors, perhaps because the nuclear industry has been more successful at quashing such studies as soon as they appear. 

This week in the U.K., a new study conducted through the auspices of Newcastle University purports to show that there is no increased risk of leukemia among children living near Sellafield or the Dounreay facility in Scotland.

But that study, while new, remains an outlier. In March 2014, Dr. Ian Fairlie published an article in the Journal of Environmental Radioactivity on childhood cancer and proximity to nuclear facilities, and this week he reprised the theme on his blog.  Dr. Fairlie was co-author of the authoritative TORCH report on the effects of the Chernobyl disaster, and has been studying the link between radiation and childhood cancer for many years.

Writes Dr. Fairlie:

“The core issue is that, world-wide, over 60 epidemiological studies have examined cancer incidences in children near nuclear power plants (NPPs): most (>70%) indicate leukemia increases. I can think of no other area of toxicology (eg asbestos, lead, smoking) with so many studies, and with such clear associations as those between NPPs and child leukemias. Yet many nuclear Governments and the nuclear industry refute these findings and continue to resist their implications. It’s similar to the situations with cigarette smoking in the 1960s and with man-made global warming nowadays.”

Dr. Fairlie goes on to say:

“In early 2009, the debate was partly rekindled by the renowned KiKK study (Kaatsch et al, 2008) commissioned by the German Government which found a 60% increase in total cancers and 120% increase in leukemias among children under 5 years old living within 5 km of all German NPPs. As a result of these surprising findings, governments in France, Switzerland and the UK hurriedly set up studies near their own NPPs. All found leukemia increases but because their numbers were small the increases lacked “statistical significance”. That is, you couldn’t be 95% sure the findings weren’t chance ones.”

Dr. Fairlie and a colleague then set out to prove a statistical significance by combining the datasets from those studies into a meta-study.

The result: “…a highly statistically significant 37% increase in childhood leukemias within 5 km of almost all NPPs in the UK, Germany, France and Switzerland. It’s perhaps not surprising that the latter 3 countries have announced nuclear phaseouts and withdrawals. It is only the UK government that remains in denial.”

Actually, the U.S. government—and many others—remain in denial too, and are likely to cite the Newcastle University study if the issue even comes up. The controversy is not going to go away, but the bulk of the evidence points toward a clear higher risk for leukemia among children living near nuclear reactors than for those living further away. And even if it is difficult—perhaps even impossible—to fully prove that higher risk, why should any parent be forced to take that additional risk when there are safer and cleaner ways to generate the electricity we all use.

Michael Mariotte

July 29, 2014

Permalink: https://www.nirs.org/2014/07/29/nuclear-reactors-and-childhood-leukemia/

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