Radiation Exposure:
Fathering cancer: Is the next generation paying the price for Sellafield after all?
Blood Weekly
(c) Copyright 2002 Blood Weekly via NewsRx.com
2002 JUL 18 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Working at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria, U.K., may have been harmful after all, according to a study published in the International Journal of Cancer and reviewed in New Scientist (www.newscientist.com). Children of men who had been exposed to radiation while working at the plant have twice the normal risk of leukemia and lymphoma, according to a major new study sponsored by the nuclear industry.
Arguments have been raging for 12 years over whether radiation from Sellafield is to blame for a local cluster of childhood cancers. The suggestion that there was a link between the doses of radiation received by fathers and the incidence of leukemia among their children was first made in 1990 by the late Martin Gardner, an epidemiologist from the University of Southampton.
But his hypothesis has since been heavily criticized. Many experts have argued that large numbers of people moving in and out of the area, which is thought to spread infections that might increase the risk of cancer, can explain all the extra leukemia cases seen around Sellafield.
Now, in the biggest and most comprehensive study to date, scientists from the University of Newcastle have refocused the debate. "Gardner may have been right," said Heather Dickinson from the university's North of England Children's Cancer Research Unit. She and her colleague Louise Parker compared the fates of 9859 children fathered by men exposed to radiation at Sellafield with those of 256,851 children born to other fathers in Cumbria between 1950 and 1991.
Throughout the whole of Cumbria, they found that the incidence of leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma was twice as high among the Sellafield children. The incidence was 15 times as great in Seascale, a small village next to the nuclear plant. Crucially, they also discovered that the risk to children rose in line with the radiation dose received by their fathers.
Because a lot of people have moved in and out of Seascale, the researchers found that population mixing did account for most of the extra risk in that village. But for Sellafield children throughout the county, mixing couldn't explain the two-fold increase in risk.
There is growing evidence from human and animal studies that radiation damage can be passed from one generation to the next (New Scientist, May 11, 2002, p. 5). But Dickinson and Parker point out that the risks are small: Only 13 children of Sellafield workers contracted leukemia over the 41 years. And because workers now receive much lower doses than in the past, there are unlikely to be implications for the current workforce.
The research was partly funded by the Westlakes Research Institute, which is sponsored by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), the state-owned company that runs Sellafield. "This study is very reassuring for our workforce and confirms that the excess risk of leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, particularly in Seascale, can be largely attributed to population mixing," said BNFL's health director Paul Thomas (Int J Cancer, 2002;99:437; New Scientist, June 2002).
But local antinuclear campaigners see it differently. "BNFL has tried to discredit Gardner's hypothesis for years," said Janine Allis-Smith from Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment. "This study vindicates him and it is irresponsible of BNFL to ignore it."
This article was prepared by Blood Weekly editors from staff and other reports.