=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #245
—August 7, 1991—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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MORE DANGERS FROM NUCLEAR RADIATION.
The finding of excessive leukemias (cancers of the blood-forming
cells) among atomic workers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
in Tennessee (see RHWN #244) raises the specter of health damage
from radiation exposures thought to be entirely safe.
This is not the first time the specter has been raised.
In November, 1983, a British television station ran a documentary
called “Windscale: The Nuclear Laundry” about the Windscale
nuclear fuel reprocessing plant on the coast of Cumbria. The TV
program suggested an excess of leukemia afflicting children in
villages near the plant.[1]
The TV program led to an official British government
investigation (the “Black Report” of 1984), which led to more
studies.
Nearly seven years later a careful analysis of the situation
concluded that, yes, there is definitely an increased occurrence
of leukemias near the Windscale plant (which has, in the
meantime, been renamed the Sellafield plant). The risk of
leukemia and/or lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes or spleen)
among children near Sellafield is 10 times normal.[2]
The study’s authors believe that children near Sellafield are
getting cancer as a result of their fathers’ exposure to
radiation at work before the children are conceived. They believe
children are inheriting a genetic defect caused by radiation
exposure of the fathers’ sperm. An alternative explanation is
that the fathers become contaminated at work and somehow carry
radioactivity home (perhaps on their clothing), thus irradiating
their unborn children during pregnancy or very early in life. In
any case, the exposures to the children are small but the effects
are grave, so this bodes ill for nuclear technology and for its
promoters.
In the meantime, while the Sellafield study of childhood
leukemias was going on, the British Office of Population Censuses
and Surveys conducted its own study of cancer deaths within
districts near 14 nuclear facilities, including power generating
stations.[3] They found increased myeloid (bone marrow) leukemias
and brain tumors among young people (age 24 and under) living, on
average, five miles or less from nuclear installations, including
nuclear power plants.
A late 1987 study of people in five towns near the Pilgrim
nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts revealed increased
leukemias.[4]
A 1988 study of workers at British nuclear weapons plants
revealed cancer rates twice the national average for cancers of
the prostate gland and kidneys.[5]
A 1989 study of three U.S. government nuclear weapons plants[6]
revealed a significant increase in cancers of the bone marrow
(multiple myelomas) among workers at the Hanford, Washington,
facility.
So the revelation in 1991 of increased leukemias among workers at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (see RHWN #244), viewed in
historical perspective, does not seem very surprising.[7]
In fact, after reviewing the literature cited above, one begins
to be surprised by studies that show no cancer increases among
people exposed to low levels of radiation for long periods of
time. For example, a 1991 study by Seymour Jablon and others[8]
in the Journal of the American Medical Asssociation (JAMA) finds
no increased cancers in people living “near nuclear facilities.”
The authors say they initiated their study of U.S. nuclear power
plants specifically because of British reports finding leukemia
and lymphomas among young people living near Sellafield.
JAMA provides an editorial to help interpret the Jablon study.[9]
The editorial declares that, “This study, in conjunction with the
extrapolated results from highdose studies [of Japanese survivors
of atomic bombs], provides substantive evidence that the normal
operation of nuclear facilities in the United States doe not lead
to any undue risk of cancer in those residents living near such
facilities.” Living near such facilities? What does that mean
exactly?
In the case of the British studies, living “near” means living,
on average, within 5 miles; in one study it means living within 3
miles. But in the Jablon study, living “near” seems to mean
living, on average, 14 miles from a plant. .[10] Thus the Jablon
study has included many people whom you would never expect to be
“exposed” by living “near” a nuclear facility because, in fact,
they live so far away. Thus any real cancer effect that might
exist among people living near a U.S. nuclear facility has been
diluted by the inclusion of thousands of people who are not
affected. Jablon chose to study entire counties that contain
nuclear power plants, not the towns or–better yet–zip codes
really near nuclear facilities. In this way, Jablon is able to
report “no problem” when, in fact, his study seems incapable of
revealing a problem of the kind the British have discovered, even
if one exists. In its investigative power, Jablon’s study is
certainly not comparable to the British studies that, he says,
prompted his own work.
Thus do we learn that this science business is subject to
manipulation and to differing interpretations, even when everyone
is playing by the rules.
Do six individual studies (cited in footnotes 1 through 7)
linking nuclear facilities to cancer prove in a scientific sense
that living near a nuclear plant, or working with radioactive
materials, increases your risk of cancer? Perhaps not, in a
scientific sense. On the other hand, do those studies show,
beyond a reasonable doubt, that you’re better off avoiding
radioactive materials whenever possible? Seems to us they do.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
===============
[1] Martin J. Gardner, Andrew J. Hall, Michael P. Snee, Susan
Downes, Caroline A. Powell, and John D. Terrell, “Methods and
basic data of case-control study of leukemia and lymphoma among
young people near Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria,”
BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL Vol. 300 (February 17, 1990), pgs.
429-434..”
[10] In fact, unlike his British counterparts whose work prompted
his own, Jablon gives us no details about the location of the
plants he studied in relation to the humans he studied. Jablon
studied the populations of U.S. counties containing nuclear power
plants. The average U.S. county covers an area of 1190 square
miles. This is equivalent to a square 34.5 miles on a side, or a
circle with a radius of 19.5 miles. If we assume a nuclear
facility lies near the center of a county, then the half of the
county’s area closest to the facility will lie within a circle
with a radius of 13.8 miles, and half will lie outside that
circle. Thus if we assume, on average, a uniform distribution of
people in the county, half will live 14 miles or less from a
plant, and half will live further away.
Descriptor terms: radiation; leukemia; cancers; ornl; windscale;
black report; sellafield; children; genetic disorders; bone
marrow; brain cancer; plymouth; hanford; wa; tn; jablon; health
effects; nuclear power;