Radiation workers don't father more stillborns

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

Radiation workers don't father more stillborns - study

UK: October 22, 1999

LONDON - Workers exposed to radiation are no more
likely on the whole to father stillborn babies than
other men, British researchers said.

But the scientists who examined birth records and radiation
levels of workers at a British nuclear reprocessing plant did
say there was an increased risk of stillbirths that
corresponded with cases of excessive radiation exposure.

"When we looked at the radiation effect, the risk of having a
stillborn child does increase with increasing radiation
exposure, but when that risk gets appreciable it's at a fairly
high dose and there are relatively few people with that
dose," Dr Louise Parker said in a telephone interview.

The epidemiologist and her colleagues at the Royal Victoria
Infirmary in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, northern England,
described it as a statistical association between radiation
exposure and stillbirths. They said they could not say if it
was causal.

"We, and hopefully other researchers elsewhere, need to go
on and address the question about whether what we have
found is reflecting causal association or not," Parker added.

The findings, which are reported in The Lancet medical
journal, are based on a comparison of stillbirth records in
the English county of Cumbria from 1950 to 1989 and a
database of workers at Sellafield, a local nuclear
reprocessing plant.

"Overall the current workforce would have very little excess
risk. So I don't think the current workforce should be
concerned on an individual basis," said Parker.

British Nuclear Fuels Plc (BNFL), which operates the
Sellafield plant, welcomed the findings of the study.

"The statistical association which the study reports actually
disappears altogether if just one single stillbirth case is
removed. The findings could also be interpreted as arguing
against any real effect for radiation," David Coulston, the
plant's environment, health and safety director, said in a
statement.

"It is important that nobody mistakenly interprets these
findings as 'cause and effect'," he added.

The researchers identified 130 stillbirths and 9,078 live
births fathered by employees at Sellafield. They examined
company records for the lifetime radiation exposure of each
worker and exposure in the 90 days before conception and
compared them with matched controls.

Story by Patricia Reaney
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
______________________________________________

Michael C. Baker
Environmental Technology Group (E-ET)
Environmental Science & Waste Technology Division
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Mail Stop J594, Los Alamos, NM 87545

mcbaker@lanl.gov

(505) 667-7334 (phone)
(505) 665-8346 (fax)
(505) 996-3519 (pager)
______________________________________________

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