New study: British baby deaths- Chernobyl

[Chuck Cooper <ccc@pp.pdx.edu>]

British baby deaths "down to Chernobyl"

19:00 26 June 02



http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992458



[Please visit the original website to view the whole article. - Mod.]



Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition



Fallout from the accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station in the

Ukraine may have led to hundreds of deaths and deformities among

babies in Britain.



In April 1986, one of Chernobyl's reactors exploded and showered a

swathe of Europe with radioactivity. Although most experts say the

fallout had a detectable impact on human health only in the Ukraine,

Belarus and Russia, studies in Germany, Greece, Scotland and Wales

have suggested links between the accident and increases in infant

leukaemia.



Now research by John Urquhart, a statistician based in

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has discovered high rates of infant deaths and

birth defects in England and Wales in the three years after Chernobyl.

He estimates that between 1986 and 1989, at least 200 more children

than normal died before their first birthday.



He calculates there were over 600 extra cases of babies born with

Down's syndrome, spina bifida, cleft palate and other abnormalities in

these years. One possible explanation is that radiation from the

accident could have damaged the immune systems of the children or

their parents, rendering them more vulnerable to harmful viruses.



The results, unveiled at a conference on low-level radiation in Dublin

last weekend (Mod: http://resc.dit.ie/conferences/21062002.html -G] ,

were "unexpected but disturbing", Urquhart says. "We've probably been

too complacent about health effects from Chernobyl in western Europe."



High rainfall



Urquhart analysed 80,000 birth defects in children born in the 15

health regions of England and Wales between 1983 and 1992. He found

that most of the extra cases between 1986 and 1989 were concentrated

in just five English regions: Northern, North Western, Trent, South

Western and South West Thames.



When he looked at infant deaths in England and Wales from 1981 to

1992, he found a similar pattern. Death rates fell every year except

for 1986, with the extra deaths mostly occurring in four of the five

same regions. The odds that the overlap occurred by chance are 1 in

200, he says.



Urquhart can't explain why these particular regions should have

suffered more than others. But he points out that the total radiation

dose received by people in Britain was at least 40 per cent of that

received by people in the affected areas of the Ukraine, partly

because of high rainfall, and that doses varied across the country.



"At first sight his data appears to support his conclusions, and the

matter needs thorough examination," says Philip Day, a radiation

specialist from the University of Manchester.





Rob Edwards 





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