Deutsche Welle has a story from December 8 on the greater likelihood of children living near nuclear power stations to suffer from leukemia than those living farther away:
"Our study confirmed that in Germany a connection has been observed between the distance of a domicile to the nearest nuclear power plant ... and the risk of developing cancer, such as leukemia, before the fifth birthday," the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted the report as saying.
Government radiation specialists said they could not explain the finding, since there was no direct radiation from the 16 German plants, which are all scheduled for closure in the early 2020s.
The study was paid for by the German Federal Radiation Protection Agency [BfS] the government's main adviser on nuclear health.
It was conducted by the German Register of Child Cancer, an office in Mainz which is funded by the 16 German states and the federal Health Ministry.
The study found that 37 children had come down with leukemia in the period between 1980 and 2003 while having home addresses within 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of nuclear power plants. The statistical average for Germany would have predicted just 17 cases in that group.
Statistically, the 20 extra cases could be associated with living close to the plants, but the BfS said more research was needed to discover if the presence of reactors was actually the cause of the cancers....
No comments:
Post a Comment