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Nuclear power more than doubles child leukaemia risk

dv | 15.01.2008 01:47 | Climate Chaos | Ecology

'The Telegraph' reports that children living within three miles of nuclear power stations are over twice as likely to develop leukaemia than those living further away. The report cites a large study commissioned by the German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BFS), which found leukaemia clusters among under-fives living near 16 nuclear power stations.

Here is the full report:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=FORWRKPNVU2E3QFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/earth/2008/01/10/scileuk110.xml

Can nuclear power really be part of the solution to climate change and energy security? Are the lives and health of our children really worth so little? One can only hope there will be a mass mobilisation against the government's plans - announced last week - to support the construction of at least four new nuclear power stations in the UK by Gordon Brown's brother's firm, French-owned EDF. Of course, the government is also to streamline the planning process to make it easier to steamroll over public opinion and get its new nuclear power stations (toxic white elephants) built.

dv
- e-mail: dviesnik at yahoo dot co dot uk

Comments

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Deaths from cancer on an epidemic scale in the UK.

15.01.2008 11:51

For many years the people living in North Wales have been aware that their friends, family and neighbours have been dropping like flies with all manner of cancers. The death rate from cancer in North Wales is the highest in Europe.

North Wales has a number of nuclear reactors, Trawsfynydd (no longer operational), Wylfa, Capenhurst (near Chester but close enough) and nearby Sellafield too. The Irish sea is the most radioactive in the world. This due to discharges from Sellafield mainly.

Successive governments has chosen to cover this up.

There have been studies, see  http://www.llrc.org/health/subtopic/menai2.htm

The latest plans to create more nuclear energy have lead to specualtion that Trawsfynydd will be reopened. How much longer will they allow the people living in these areas to have their lives ended, or ruined, by the effects of nuclear energy?

Rosa

missing stations

16.01.2008 11:21

you failed to mention heysham power stations 1 and 2, near Morecambe and Lancaster. The reactor shield of one of the stations cracked in 1989, releasing thousands of tons of radioactive sulphur dioxide. The mud up the lune valley is also radioactive from the tidal river that empties (and is filled from) Morecambe Bay and therefore, the Irish sea. a bit of trivia: both wylfa and heysham stations are built next to bays called 'half moon bay' and also within a couple of miles of a couple of the earliest celtic christian settlements in their respective countries: both have St Patrick's Chapels, dating from the 6th to the 8th Century AD. spooky huh?

anarchoteapot