Re: background vs man-made emmissions - cancer clusters, etc.

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

FYI, please find below some recent news stories about research on cancer
clusters.

Furthermore,
> 	Norman & Karen Cohen[SMTP:norco@bellatlantic.net] wrote on Saturday
> April 29, 2000 8:11 PM:
> 
> I've also been priviledged to host several Hibakusha (Japanese A-Bomb
> survivors), so I
know from them what long-term doses of radiation does in the form of latent
cancers.
<><><><><><><><>

Comment: A-bomb survivors did NOT experience "long-term doses of radiation"
-- quite the opposite: their entire exposure occured within a small fraction
of a second following the detonation of the A-bombs. This is why their imune
systems were not able to cope with the damage, in order to effect repairs,
as would be the case with chronic exposure to the same total dose. Its also
why such acute exposures are deemed (BEIR) some 2 to 3 times more likely to
cause cancer than chronic exposures. Many others (non-BEIR) believe it makes
the difference between damaging radiation exposures and beneficial, immune
system stimulating radiation exposures (along with an upper bound on total
dose of several tens of rem).
Please note that several Radon radiation spas in Europe & elsewhere are
still quite popular.
Others on this list have also mentioned the Japanese successes in cancer
treatment by low-dose whole-body irradiation for immune system stimulation.

Jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca


> Childhood leukemia linked to infection
> Clusters found in areas of 'population mixing' 
> Reuters News Agency
> Monday, August 16, 1999 
> London -- Childhood leukemia is caused by an infection, and clusters of
> cases around industrial sites are the result of population mixing that
> increases exposure, cancer researchers said on the weekend, citing new
> findings in Britain.
> The research published in the British Journal of Cancer backs up a 1988
> theory that an unidentified infection causes leukemia, and not the
> environmental factors widely blamed for the disease.
> Childhood leukemia appears to be "an unusual result of a common
> infection,"
> said Sir Richard Doll, an internationally known cancer expert who first
> linked tobacco with lung cancer in 1950. "A virus is the most likely
> explanation.
> "You would get an increased risk of it if you suddenly put a lot of people
> from large towns in a rural area, where you might have people who had not
> been exposed to the infection."
> Sir Richard was commenting on the new findings by researchers at Newcastle
> University, which focused on a cluster of leukemia cases around the
> Sellafield nuclear-reprocessing plant in Cumbria in northern England.
> Scientists have been trying to establish why there was more leukemia in
> children around the Sellafield area, but have failed to establish a link
> with radiation or pollution.
> The Newcastle University research by Heather Dickinson and Louise Parker
> showed the cluster of cases could have been predicted because of the
> amount
> of population mixing in the area, as large numbers of construction workers
> and nuclear-plant staff moved into a rural setting.
> "Our study shows that population mixing can account for the [Sellafield]
> leukemia cluster and that all children, whether their parents are incomers
> or locals, are at a higher risk if they are born in an area of high
> population mixing," Ms. Dickinson said in a statement issued by the Cancer
> Research Campaign, which publishes the British Journal of Cancer.
> Their paper adds crucial weight to the 1988 theory put forward by Leo
> Kinlen, a cancer epidemiologist at Oxford University, that said exposure
> to
> a common unidentified infection through population mixing results in the
> disease.
> Mr. Kinlen, commenting on the findings, said the challenge now is "to
> identify the infective agent and at the moment scientists have little idea
> what it could be."
> Sir Richard said an increased risk of childhood leukemia had also been
> noticed during the Second World War in areas where British children were
> moved in large numbers from cities that were being bombed into the
> countryside.
> 
> 
> posted at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_323000/323289.stm
> Monday, April 19, 1999 Published at 23:22 GMT 00:22 UK 
BBC Health
> Boats blamed for leukaemia 
> The BBC's Gill Higgins reports
> 
> The boat industry may be responsible for an increase in leukaemia cases,
> scientists have claimed. 
> 
> Research has found that coastal areas in Britain where there is a lot of
> boating activity have a higher number of leukaemia cases than other
> regions
> of the country. 
> The results of the study, carried out by the Institute of Public Health at
> Cambridge University, are similar to those of earlier studies which showed
> that people who live near river estuaries were more prone to develop
> leukaemia. 
> But unlike previous research which attributed the cancers to heavy metals
> and radioactive materials found in estuary silt, lead researcher Professor
> Nicholas Day and his team believe the cause is exposure to products
> connected with the boating industry. 
> They argue that there is no evidence that the population would suffer any
> appreciable exposure to pollution found in estuary silt. 
> But they say: "The estuaries involved, however, are noteworthy for the
> extent of maritime activities, both recreational and occupational with
> boat
> building and repair being important forms of employment. 
> "Both recreational and occupational activity would involve potential
> exposure to resins, solvents, paints and petroleum products, which have
> been
> shown to be risk factors for acute leukaemia." 
> Cancer data 
> The researchers, whose findings are published in the Journal of
> Epidemiology
> and Community Health, used data from the East Anglian Cancer Registry
> which
> has collected all new cases of cancer in the region since 1971. 
> For the period 1981-1994, there were 826 cases of acute leukaemia in the
> region. 
> They compared the numbers of actual cases with those that would have been
> statistically expected to occur. 
> Eight postcode districts were identified as having a small but significant
> excess of leukaemia cases. 
> These areas were all adjacent to the major estuaries around the Norfolk
> and
> Suffolk coast - the Stour, Orwell, Deben and the Ore. 
> The clustering was seen equally in men and women, before and after the age
> of 65. 
> 
> 
> posted at http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/990427/2530329.html
> Study links leukemia to moving Infections in new places weaken immune
> systems
> Pamela Fayerman
> Citizen Special 
> VANCOUVER -- A 10-year study led by B.C. Cancer Agency researchers on the
> connection between childhood leukemia and electromagnetic fields has
> resulted in some alarming and unexpected observations. 
> While the study found only a very slight increase in the risk of children
> contracting the cancer when they live near power lines, it discovered the
> risk of getting leukemia jumps 30 per cent with each successive move to a
> new home or community. The reasons for this phenomenon, and how widespread
> it is, aren't yet known. 
> The startling finding effectively overshadows the data on power lines and
> their role in leukemia, the most common form of childhood cancer,
> affecting one in every 6,400 children up to age 15, most often by age
> five. 
> Far more persuasive is the finding that childhood leukemia may be
> associated with infectious agents and the way the body's immune system
> handles them. 
> The study's principal investigator, cancer agency epidemiologist Mary
> McBride, said when families change homes and communities, children are
> bombarded with new and different bacterial and viral infections which are
> circulating in the new community. 
> She emphasizes the mobility issue is merely an observation at this point,
> but it jumped out at researchers involved in the five-province study
> because of the obvious trend. 
> "Children who had lived in more than four residences prior to their
> diagnosis of leukemia represented 26 per cent of those in the leukemia
> group while in the control (non-leukemia) group, just 16 per cent of
> children had moved that many times. 
> Moreover, the data showed that the risk increased 30 per cent with one
> move, 60 per cent with three moves and 90 per cent with four moves. 
> Ms. McBride hypothesizes that since leukemia is a cancer of the white
> blood cells which regulate immune system responses, it is possible the
> risk of contracting leukemia increases in "some genetically susceptible
> mobile children because their immune systems can't handle the different or
> unusual patterns in the exposure to infections." 
> Ms. McBride said the investigators, whose work will be published in the
> May issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, will now go back to the
> families of the 798 children involved in the study to ask them about their
> exposures to infectious disease. 
> The researchers may even ask for permission to peruse medical records for
> more solid evidence that mobility leads to more frequent infections, and
> that both of those may be linked to an increased risk of developing
> leukemia. 
> The study, launched 10 years ago, was the first in the world to measure
> the personal exposure of children to electromagnetic fields. Children in
> five provinces who had been diagnosed with leukemia between 1990 and 1995
> s were assigned to one group, while children in a control group were
> assigned to a control group. Each group wore teddy bear backpacks which
> contained meters that continuously measured electromagnetic exposures over
> a 48-hour period. 
> 
> 
NUCLEAR NEWS FLASHES - Friday, August 13, 1999
INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
--RADIATION FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES IS OFTEN WRONGLY LINKED WITH leukemia
clusters when the real culprit is more commonly migration patterns, said
internationally renowned cancer expert Sir Richard Doll. He discussed his
position in an editorial accompanying a study on the U.K.'s "Seascale
cluster," published in today's British Journal of Cancer. The theory that
some sort of infective agent passed on during "population mixing" causes a
higher risk of childhood lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
was put forward by Professor Leo Kinlen in 1988. Since then, more than 10
scientific papers have been published in support, according to Trevor Hince,
scientific director of the U.K.'s Cancer Research Campaign. The study
published today, by researchers Heather Dickinson and Louise Parker at
Newcastle University, finds the risk correlates with the degree of
population mixing going on in a formerly rural area, and that children are
much more likely to develop one of the two diseases if both their parents
are newcomers.

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