Childhood Leukaemia in Northern Scotland

Population mixing and leukaemia in young people around the La Hague nuclear waste reprocessing plant

“…The increased risks of leukaemia in young people living in the vicinity of the nuclear waste reprocessing plants at Sellafield, Dounreay and La Hague have been the subject of extensive scientific study (Black, 1984;Gardner et al, 1990;Guizard et al, 2001;Heasman et al, 1986;Pobel and Viel, 1997;Urquhart et al, 1991;Viel et al, 1995). Radiological assessments concluded that the levels of radiation in these areas were far below those necessary to account for the observed excesses (COMARE, 1988(COMARE, , 1996Rommens et al, 2000).…”

Long-Term Effects of Exposure to Low-Levels of Radioactivity: a Retrospective Study of 239Pu and 90Sr from Nuclear Bomb Tests on the Swiss Population

“…In Switzerland, a monitoring program of 90 Sr in milk teeth was initiated by the Federal Office of Public Health in the late fifties and is still ongoing (Froidevaux et al, 2006b). Figure 1 displays the features of the 90 Sr content of milk teeth monitored in Switzerland (1951-2002, (Froidevaux et al, 2006b), Denmark (1953-1963, (Aarkrog, 1971, United-Kingdom (1960-1971, (Hodgson et al, 2004), Germany and Northern Ukraine (1982( -1986( , (Schmitz et al, 2004) and shows the maximum value determined in Norway (1965) and Finland (1963) and, between 1976and 1979, in French Polynesia (Badie et al, 1987. Dates must be understood as the birth year of the children.…”

“…Laurier et al (Laurier et al, 2008) have reviewed studies dealing with as much as 198 nuclear installations, three of them showing a significant excess of leukemia among children under 18 years of age (on the order of 5 cases detected for less than one expected). While the statistics tend to support the excess risk, the radioecological studies carried out on these sites failed to correlate the ERR with a significant increase of radioactivity burden in the environment or in food (Heasman et al, 1986;Black et al 1994;Bithell et al, 1994;Hoffmann et al, 1997). The most recent study concerning the adverse effects of living in the proximity of a NPP revealed an odd ratio (OR) of 2.19 (with lower one-sided 95% confidence limit of 1.51) for leukemia in young children living in the vicinity of German NPP (Kaatsch et al, 2008).…”

Childhood Acute Leukemias in Hispanic Population: Differences by Age Peak and Immunophenotype

“…When clusters of childhood leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma were observed in the early 1980's near nuclear plants in Cumbria, England (Black, 1984), and at Dounreay, Scotland (Heasman et al, 1986), it was thought that such increase could have been a consequence of radioactive contamination by the nuclear plants, which might have caused somatic or germinal line mutations that produce cancer. However, there was no evidence of radioactive leaks (Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment [COMARE], 1986) or of epidemiological associations that showed greater occupational exposures of the parents (Gardner et al, 1990).…”