[ RadSafe ] Child cancer risk higher near nuclear plants: study

[Bjorn Cedervall]

The publication is a so-called Early View for International Journal of Cancer. The text below is from the discussion.  Bjorn Cedervall    bcradsafers at hotmail.com
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"The association observed may possibly be influenced by confounders (like social class, pesticides, factors influencing immunological factors, exposure to other ionizing radiation). To assess this, a subset of the study subjects (diagnosed 1993 or later) was interviewed. Because response rates vary remarkably with the distance to the plants (total response: 78% for cases, 61% for controls; response in the inner 5-km zone: 63% for cases, 45% for controls), no conclusions on the relationship between potential confounders and the reported findings can be drawn.
  
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Generally, the radiation exposure near a nuclear power plant in routine operation is extremely small compared to exposure to ionising radiation of the general public from other sources (e.g., cosmic, terrestrial or medical irradiation). While annual natural radiation exposure in Germany is about 1.4 milli Sievert and the annual average exposure from medical examinations is about 1.8 milli Sievert per year,[26] radiation exposure near German nuclear power plants is a factor of 1,000-100,000 less.[12] The reported findings were thus not to be expected under radiation biological and epidemiological considerations."

 
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