[ RadSafe ] Child cancer risk higher near German nuclear plants

[Bjorn Cedervall]

Can anyone in Radsafers Land summarize the characteristics of the closer environment around the German nuclear power plants? Is it about country side environments or urbanized or whatever?
 
What I am after is the degree of general industrialization, roads, old waste dumps (which may or may not be toxic but contribute to an ugly looking area) and so on.
 
If there indeed is a less attractive character of any area - this may not attract those who are wealthy - and as a consequence low-income households may instead dominate such areas - people who have a lifestyle that increases the risk for childhood leukemias (For reference, see Peters et al., Cancer Causes and Control, 1994: A VERY strong correlation between hot dog consumption and leukemias among Californian children - the hot dog is in this latter case probably an indicator of a larger complex of "bad" factors).
 
A known or unknown confounder not taken into account may totally distort a statistical analysis which is based on some other hypothetical factor: perhaps some epidemiologists here at Radsafers could help here with some numbers and rules of thumb.
 
My personal initiative & reflection only,
 
Bjorn Cedervall    bcardsafers at hotmail.com
 
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