By Professor John Robertson

I’m grateful to JB for alerting me to this. I knew nothing of it because mainstream UK media do not seem to have covered it at all.

On 30^th June 2011, the German Bundestag voted to phase out nuclear energy.

Why?

Safety was a paramount concern in the decision to phase out nuclear power: the use of nuclear energy causes highly dangerous radioactive radiation for humans and the environment and leaves behind highly toxic waste. High safety precautions must be taken throughout the entire life cycle – from the extraction of the raw material uranium to the production of the fuel, the operation of nuclear power plants and final disposal. This is the only way to reduce risks to humans and the environment, and to prevent misuse.

Yet, in the past, there have been several serious accidents that had catastrophic consequences for society and the environment affected. This is why the German society concluded that the risks of this technology exceeded the benefits, and subsequently decided to phase-out the use of nuclear energy. ¹

What was the research evidence upon which they made this momentous decision?

This research from Germany published in October 2008 in Deutsches Ärzteblatt International:

An association was found between the nearness of residence to nuclear power plants and the risk of leukemia (593 cases, 1766 controls). Within the 5-km zone, the OR for the development of leukemia in children under 5 years of age was 2.19 compared to the rest of the region, and this elevation of the OR was statistically significant. The incidence of leukemia in the overall study region was the same as that in Germany as a whole (SIR=0.99; 95% confidence interval 0.92–1.07). ²

The authors held back from directly attributing the leukemia cases to radiation from the plants, as impartial researchers must, and UK Government commentary in March 2010 attempted to dismiss its findings as an outlier ³, but in Environmental Health, September 2009, a Commentary noted:

In 2008, the KiKK study in Germany reported a 1.6-fold increase in solid cancers and a 2.2-fold increase in leukemias among children living within 5 km of all German nuclear power stations. The study has triggered debates as to the cause(s) of these increased cancers. This article reports on the findings of the KiKK study; discusses past and more recent epidemiological studies of leukemias near nuclear installations around the world and outlines a possible biological mechanism to explain the increased cancers. This suggests that the observed high rates of infant leukemias may be a teratogenic effect from incorporated radionuclides. Doses from environmental emissions from nuclear reactors to embryos and fetuses in pregnant women near nuclear power stations may be larger than suspected. Hematopoietic tissues appear to be considerably more radiosensitive in embryos/fetuses than in newborn babies. ⁴

So, one of the most advanced nations in the world, Germany, decides to phase out nuclear power on health risk grounds after research finds higher rates of childhood leukemia near every one of their 17 nuclear power stations. The UK MSM ignore the report and the UK Labour Government of Gordon Brown, long wedded to nuclear power and weapons, funded by the GMB, commissions a report to debunk it, finding no causal link between the power plants and the disease?

The commentary in Environmental Health offers a possible mechanism to explain the clear and strong correlation for the under 5’s living 5km or less from the plants but, actually, we don’t even need that.

The onus is not upon us, to prove that the radiation around nuclear plants is safe but is upon the industry and our government to prove that it is not dangerous and to use genuinely independent researchers, not those working for government departments or in university research groups dependent on grants from government or the industry to show that it is not.

The much vaunted, by scientists, precautionary principle applies here. No potentially dangerous technology should be implemented until it is proven to be safe for all of us, from conception to the grave.

In the July 4^th 2024 UK General Election, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives back new nuclear power stations in Scotland.

1. https://www.base.bund.de/EN/ns/nuclear-phase-out/nuclear-phase-out_node.html#:~:text=Safety%20was%20a%20paramount%20concern,leaves%20behind%20highly%20toxic%20waste.

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2696975/

3. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7e0ccd40f0b62305b80788/HPA-RPD-066_for_website2.pdf

4. https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1476-069X-8-43