published by WISE News Communique on February 23, 1990

Leukemia link to fathers employed in N-plants


An alarming UK study linking childhood leukemia to fathers exposed to radiation has created furor in Great Britain and elsewhere. The study found that children living in Seascale, a village near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, were 10 times more likely to suffer from leukemia than children in the general population; one in five of the children with the disease studied had fathers who worked at the plant.

(328.3276) WISE Amsterdam - The study, led by Professor Martin Gardner of Southampton University on behalf of the British Medical Association (BMA), was published in the British Medical Journal* Friday, 16 February, and was picked up immediately by the British media, making the front page of virtually every daily coming out of Britain and prompting calls for action.

The BMA study found an unusually high incidence of leukemia among children living near the Sellafield plant in Cumbria, in the northwest of Britain, and provides the strongest link yet between leukemia clusters with nuclear power facilities. Media reports are calling it the first study of its kind in the world, but in fact it is the latest in a long line of studies (most of which have so far been ignored) that show that radiation is considerably more dangerous than when the current safety standards were set 13 years ago. Where it differs from most other studies, though, is in the genetic implications: The study suggests that radiation at Sellafield effected the sperm of men working there, possibly introducing a genetic mutation. It found that where workers received only 10 mSv in the six months prior to conception, their children also faced a 6-8 fold increase in risk of developing leukemia. (The current annual dose limit is 50 mSv). It is not, however, the first time that damage to sperm has been linked to radiation. For example, according to Greenpeace, genetic implications of radioactive exposure on nuclear submarines were revealed in a study which showed that between 1972 and 1975 four babies born to submariners on the Polaris submarine HMS Resolution were born with hair lip and cleft palate.

LIVING IN THE SHADOW: The Story of the People of Sellafield, by Jean McSorley, Pan Books, London, 1990, 219 pp.
Living in the Shadow, which describes the history of the last thirty years of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing complex in West Cumbria, was, as it happened, published on 9 February, just a week before the results of the British Medical Association's Sellafield study were released. It is the first book to tell the story of the plant in the words of the men, women and children who have lived, worked and been brought up in the area, and whose lives have been altered by it - in many cases radically.

The book tells the story of the 1957 Windscale fire and gives graphic eyewitness accounts of how the fire was fought; gives the background story of the "accidental" release into the Irish Sea in November 1983 of a very radioactive slick which closed beaches for six months; reveals the inaccuracy of the Black Report of 1984 on the incidence of leukemia in local children and; explores the attitude of the unions towards Sellafield. It contrasts the attitudes of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd with the stories told by local people whose relatives have died and who are fighting for compensation, and the doctors at the center of the medical controversy. And, much to BNFL's dismay, it brings in new medical evidence the company would rather not have publicized. Finally, it is a moving story of human suffering behind the might of technological creation.

The author, Jean McSorley, is in a particularly good position to set out the views of all those involved in the debate - management, unions, politicians, doctors, and scientists, as well as the workers and area residents. She was born in nearby Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in 1958. She is one of the founding members of CORE (Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment), which has over the past ten years campaigned against the import of foreign nuclear waste to Sellafield; for the elimination of the sea and air discharges from Sellafield; for just compensation for workers and public alike who suffer ill-health effects from Sellafield; against any form of nuclear waste dumping, and; for lower radiation levels from all man-made sources; for the cessation of the use of nuclear power for both civil and military purposes.

Contact: The book can be ordered from CORE, 98 Church Street, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, UK; or direct from the publisher, Pan Books Ltd., Cavaye Place, London SW10 9PG, UK, tel: 01-373-6070. Cost: UK 5.99 pounds stirling. (Money from the sale of the book will go to CORE's Campaign and Compensation Fund.)

The scientists in the BMA study found that of 52 local children who had leukemia between 1950 and 1985, 10 had fathers who worked at Sellafield. The link was strongest where the father had received particularly high doses of radiation before the child's conception. Scientists and engineers at British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which runs the Sellafield plant expressed "deep concern" and called for urgent action to reduce radiation dose limits for employees. At the same time, however, BNFL said that while the report came from a "respectable source", it did not believe it established a link between radioactive discharges from the plant and childhood leukemia.

Workers at Sellafield were told about the findings before they left work on the day before the study hit the front pages. Shop stewards began considering their response that night, but already the Transport and General Workers Union, on behalf of the industrial unions in the nuclear industry, are calling for urgent action. At Sellafield alone, there are some 14,000 people working at the plant, and thousands more depend on it for a living.

In a follow-up story on the study the Sunday after it was released, the UK newspaper The Guardian ran a headline saying "Cumbrians Calm on Sellafield Report". But the article itself contradicted this. One person interviewed, Christopher Merlin, who had already begun a lawsuit against BNFL after plutonium from the plant was found in his household dust, predicted it would have a "disturbing effect on marriages in the area." Another man said, "I would be worried if I were starting a family. I've worked there for four years." Even a woman who said, yes, people were taking it calmly and there was, she thought, "no panic", went on to add, "Yet I think young people are bound to think twice about whether there is any risk." Let's hope the authorities who set dose limits think twice, too.

* "Results of a case-control study of leukaemia and lymphoma among young people near Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria", by Gardner et al, The British Medical Journal Vol. 300, No.6722, p.423.

Sources:

Contacts: CORE, 98 Church Street, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria LA14 2HJ, UK, tel: 0229-33851
Patrick Green, FoE Radiation Campaigner, 26-28 Underwood St., London N1 7QJ, UK, tel: 01-253-4156
David Gee, FoE Campaign Coordinator (UK), tel: 01-490-0290
John Willis, Greenpeace (Montreal), tel: 514-933-0021; Ian Fairlie, Greenpeace, 427 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1X7 tel: 416-538-6470.

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