RE: Gardner Sellafield cluster [was : reply to Cedervall ]

[James Salsman <james@bovik.org>]

Bjorn,



Sorry I missed your question in my earlier reply:



> Childhood cancers are mainly ALL, brain tumors and lymphomas (the other 

> cancers are extremely rare and at least some of them have a genetic 

> component) . When you write "cancer" you thus also suggest that it is about 

> brain tumors and lymphomas - have those been discussed in the Sellafield 

> context?



The Sellafield cluster was of leukemia and lymphomas.  For children

whose fathers worked at Sellafield, the rate of childhood leukemia

was twice to 2.5x as high as normal.  There was also an eight-fold

increase of leukemia in children whose fathers received, "a life-time

dose greater than 10 rem or a dose greater than 1 rem within the six

months before the children's conception."  I think, and others have

pointed out, that's an absurd explanation.  Uranium contamination is

a far more parsimonious explanation.



The U.S. and U.K. troop studies from the 1st Persian Gulf War, as

well as the Basrah civilians, showed a large miscarriage incidence

increase, beginning immediately after exposure and trailing off,

with a low point in 1997.  Then both the miscarriage and birth

defect rates go from near-baseline to more than a five-fold increase

three years later, at least for the Basrah population.  The Basrahis

had a very low incidence rate, almost undetectable compared to the

3% congenital malformation rate in the U.S. as a whole.  In 2000,

the Basrahis were at a 2% birth defect rate (up from 0.2% in 1997;

N=32), while all children of U.S. Gulf War veterans had a 5% birth

defect rate in 2000 (compared to the aforementioned 3% of population.)



Lowell E. Sever, an epidemiologist with Battelle's Seattle Research

Center, and others reported an association between neural tube

defects and the radiation dose fathers received before their

children were conceived. This effect was observed in children whose

fathers "received low doses (10 rem or less) of external whole-body

radiation while working at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in

Washington State."  My guess is that uranium contamination is a

very much more likely hypothesis there, too.



I think it wouldn't hurt to order the same urine tests for a

representative sample of plant workers that the U.S. military is

using on troops presently.  Those are not expensive tests.

On that subject, look at how the U.S. Department of Defense started

classification of DU exposure this year, from:

   http://www.bovik.org/du/du_medmgmt_otsg.pdf



Level I exposure:  embedded fragments that might contain DU.



Level II exposure:  routine entrance of damaged vehicles or

                     fighting fires involving DU munitions.



Level III exposure:  incidental or potential exposure.



I think those aren't the best categories, because the uranyl ion

blood concentration from people hit with DU shrapnel is not very

large compared to inhalation exposure.  I think the larger exposures

will come from those up to hundreds of meters downwind from muzzle

flash (e.g., from 30 mm air-fired rounds) or the pyrophoric impact

fires.  I guess they will get more exposure from people with Level

II exposure, on average, than many if not most of those in Level I.



In typical ground-level urban fighting that has been going on over

the last year, helicopters fire 30 mm rounds in support of troops

on the surface.  Not only do the helicopter rotors blow the muzzle

flash gases to the ground, but the pyrophoric bullets burn at the

locations that the ground troops are obligated to check and clear

of snipers, wounded, prisoners, etc., immediately after.



Someone associated with Netherlands' Army told me that the new

U.S. pyrophoric 30 mm DU rounds are going to be aluminum-clad,

but the only pictures I can find show a red enamel glaze.  It

would seem that an aluminum cladding would make the rounds less

pyrophoric, which is fine with me.



Sincerely,

James Salsman





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