News Story: 'Cancer link' to nuclear plants

["Michael C. Baker" <mcbaker@lanl.gov>]

'Cancer link' to nuclear plants

Paul Brown, environment correspondent, The Guardian
Thursday April 13, 2000

Women living downwind of mudflats which contain discharges from Hinkley 
Point nuclear power plants in Somerset have double the chance of getting 
breast cancer, according to research being published today.

The findings, which controversially associate the steady rise in breast 
cancer with radioactive discharges, mirror research done in the 1980s which 
showed that people under 25 living in the same area were more likely to 
contract leukaemia.

The study by the Green Audit organisation was funded by anti-nuclear 
organisations and made possible by the release for the first time of ward 
by ward details of causes of death between 1995 and 1998.

Data from 103 wards was examined, and distance from the mudflats and 
greater exposure to land-blown particles of radioactive matter from Hinkley 
Point show a statistically significant excess risk of dying of breast 
cancer. The worst affected area was Burnham North, directly downwind of the 
mudflats and the power station. National statistics show 8.7 cases could be 
expected and 17 deaths were reported. Low lying areas and river valleys 
where such contamination might be brought in on the tide also showed an 
excess, the report says.

The theory is that the discharges from the power station lodge in 50 square 
kilometres of the mudflats and dry out at low tide. They can be blow in on 
the prevailing wind or during storms in sea spray that penetrates well 
inland. Women living further inland and on the coast above 200 metres and 
away from the source of the particles had a below average chance of 
suffering breast cancer.

The findings by Chris Busby, Paul Dorfman and Helen Rowe from Aberystwyth 
are part of a series of investigations into the relationships between 
nuclear discharges, intertidal mudflats and cancer. There were similar 
findings in north Wales in Bangor, Llandudno and Conwy, where radioactivity 
from Sellafield is blown inshore from the mudflats. Michael Meacher, the 
environment minister, ordered an investigation into the findings but so far 
there have been no further results.

Dr Busby's report says that in the past 15 years leukaemia clusters have 
been found in the vicinity of all three nuclear reprocessing plants - 
Sellafield, Dounreay in Scotland and La Hague in France - and other nuclear 
stations using man-made radioactive substances. The one thing all the sites 
have in common is that they routinely discharge significant quantities of 
man-made radioisotopes to the air, river or sea, under government licences, 
the report says.

A previous study at Hinkley Point done by Cameron Borrie, the chief medical 
officer of Somerset, concluded that after the nuclear station opened in 
1964 there was a statistically significant increase in the rates of 
leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among under 25-year-olds living in a 
12.5 kilometre radius. Cases more than doubled in the first five years of 
the plant's opening.

Attempts by researchers to follow up these studies by using ward data have 
been rebuffed by the authorities on the grounds that the data was 
confidential, but the new office for national statistics makes information 
publicly available.

Dr Busby said: "Our conclusion is that the discharges may contribute to the 
risk of breast cancer but there may be some other explanation. The argument 
that possible causes should not be investigated because information is 
confidential is no longer supportable."

Jim Duffy, a member of the Stop Hinkley Campaign which partly funded the 
research, said: "These are very worrying findings and reinforce our view 
that the discharges have to stop."

British Nuclear Fuels, which runs Hinkley, rejected Dr Busby's findings 
yesterday. The company said he was a well known anti-nuclear activist and 
his previous research could not be trusted.

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