By Professor John Robertson
Today, from the University of California in Irvine, USA:
A major update was made to the International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS), an international epidemiological study of workers in the nuclear sector to assess their risks of cancer and non-cancerous diseases.
The researchers assembled a cohort of more than 300,000 radiation-monitored workers from France, the United Kingdom and the United States, employed at nuclear facilities between 1944 and 2016.
The study revealed a positive association between prolonged low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation and mortality from these haematological cancers.
The University then tries to play down the risk, presumably using measures of statistical significance but these are no comfort to the many who died and their families. We’ve seen the same insensitivity in UK studies.
However, first, this new research follows on from another by the World Health Organisation, published only one month ago:
In a new article, researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and partner institutions in France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the USA who are studying the effects of persistent exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation on workers in nuclear facilities report an increase in mortality due to haematological neoplasms. The findings were published in The Lancet Haematology.The scientists found a positive association between long-term low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation and mortality due to leukaemia (excluding chronic lymphocytic leukaemia [CLL]), chronic myeloid leukaemia, acute myeloid leukaemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, and multiple myeloma.
The scientists estimated that the mortality rate due to leukaemia increased by more than 250%. https://www.iarc.who.int/news-events/leukaemia-lymphoma-and-multiple-myeloma-mortality-after-low-level-exposure-to-ionising-radiation-in-nuclear-workers-inworks/
From Anas Sarwar in 2023:
The Scottish Government’s attitude towards nuclear power has been condemned as “short-sighted” and “unambitious” by Anas Sarwar during a visit to Wick. Labour’s Scottish leader insisted nuclear energy had to be seen as part of the mix and said his party is supportive of it.
Thyroid cancer in Scotland, upstream from Sellafield, ‘the most toxic plant in Europe’ and host to several nuclear reactors and their waste since the 1950s and 1960s, has been steadily increasing:
Thyroid cancer was three times more common in females than in males and was more common in older than younger age groups. Between 1960 and 2000, the annual EASR of thyroid cancer increased from 1.76 to 3.54 per 100,000 for females (P < 0.001) and from 0.83 to 1.25 per 100,000 in males (P < 0.001). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15670190/
Remember the onus is not upon us to prove nuclear power is dangerous but upon the industry, university researchers and politicians to prove it is not.
Can we trust them?
On 30th 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 4th 2024 UK General Election, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Conservatives backed new nuclear power stations in Scotland.
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
In Scotland:
In 2021, the rate, or risk, of new cancers also increased to 644 per 100,000 [around 700 for men and 600 for women (an increase of 3.1% compared with 2019).
In England, in 2020, the rate for men was 590 and for women, 487.
These are significant differences.
There are several explanatory factors including smoking (England lowest 13%, Scotland next at 13.9%, N Ireland at 14% and Wales at 14.1%) and better NHS detection services but you have to wonder about the Sellafield reprocessing plant, the most toxic nuclear plant in Europe, seeping pollutants around our coast for 70 years now, the nuclear submarines in the Clyde and munitions on the roads and rail, the waste travelling to Sellafield, the rotting nuclear hulks in Rosyth, as well as the power stations, only recently shut down.
Sources:
Most official research into the health effects of living near Hunterston A and B has found, according to the researchers, no significant risks and, in particular no evidence of unusual levels of cancers.
For example, research by Aberdeen University in 1999 did find that more tumours (14%) of the nervous system were observed than expected within 25km of Hunterston but this was considered to be not statistically significant.[vii]
However, in 1987 the British Medical Journal reported on childhood leukaemia in West Berkshire and North Hampshire, within 10km of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston and the nearby Royal Ordnance factory, finding 29 cases among 0–4-year-olds when only 14.4 were expected based on national levels and 41 cases among 0–14-year-olds when only 28.6 were expected. [viii]
Then, in 1989, research by Southampton General Hospital found that the suggestion of raised cancer levels among young people around the Sellafield ‘has been supported by the findings’ [ix]. Contaminated effluent from the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Cumbria, described as ‘Europe’s most hazardous nuclear site’ [x], is carried by prevailing currents around the Ayrshire coast only a few miles away.
Much more dramatic, in 2002, the Guardian reported cancer rates in parts of Somerset, 5 miles downwind of the Hinkley Point plant, up to 6 times higher than the national average. [xi]
Then, in 2015, peer-reviewed research found breast cancer risks at up to 6 times higher than average around nuclear power stations in Wales and England. [xii]
The same researchers looked at breast cancer risk in Essex and found higher rates in disadvantaged areas than more affluent areas, near Bradwell power station.
Returning to the ‘official data’ recording levels of radioactivity in sediment, in soil or in life-forms, none can seriously doubt the accuracy of these but what we can legitimately do is question the safety of these levels of contamination. We can do this because they vary from country to country and over time so, by definition, are subjectively based, often influenced by economic priorities. The safe level for radioactivity in food in the EU is currently 370Bq/Kg for infants and for other foodstuff, it is 600. [xiii] In the UK, post Chernobyl it was 1 000 [xiv] and across the EU including Britain, post Fukushima for Japanese imports, it was 100 for general foods and 50 for infant products.[xv]
We have seen historically the scientific community fail to protect the public from the devastating effects of tobacco, asbestos, Thalidomide and, more recently, Primodos. The nuclear industry and the associated weapons development is an enormously powerful political and economic force. Scientists working in research centres and universities funded by government grants face powerful inhibitory pressures when it comes to doing any research that might undermine them. A powerful cultural predisposition against finding evidence of harm, against questioning the setting of ‘safe’ levels of exposure, overwhelms all but a very few and the latter do not last long.
The voters in Ayrshire and across Scotland needed to think about this before voting Labour. They clearly didn’t.
[i] https://www.gmb.org.uk/networks/politics/winning-for-working-people
[ii] https://www.gmb.org.uk/campaigns/voteyes/
[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunterston_A_nuclear_power_station
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunterston_B_nuclear_power_station
[v] https://www.robedwards.com/2009/09/revealed-radioactive-waste-leak-from-hunterston.html
[vi] https://www.ayradvertiser.com/news/15546135.concern-at-nuclear-waste-on-south-ayrshire-railways/
[vii] https://www.jstor.org/stable/27731111
[viii] https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:2936bac7-ec76-4120-a9af-0a1825b41a65
[ix] https://www.jstor.org/stable/2983129
[x] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-site-leak-could-pose-risk-to-public#:~:text=Sellafield%2C%20Europe’s%20most%20hazardous%20nuclear,public%2C%20the%20Guardian%20can%20reveal.
[xi] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jul/14/greenpolitics.science
[xii]https://www.academia.edu/95797729/Breast_Cancer_Mortality_in_Estuary_Wards_near_Bradwell_Nuclear_Power_Station_Essex_UK_2001_1995?uc-sb-sw=83553679
[xiii] https://measurlabs.com/blog/eu-regulations-on-food-contaminants/#:~:text=Most%20meat%20products%2C%20fats%2C%20and,3%20mg%2Fkg%20in%20supplements.
[xiv] https://www.reading.ac.uk/foodlaw/news/uk-09047.htm
[xv] https://www.pref.fukushima.lg.jp/site/portal-english/en01-03.html
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I well remember a time restriction placed on Royal Navy divers on a waste pipe heading into the Forth at Roysth.
it was 90seconds due to the high level of radiation. One wonders if that is still happening. The restriction was in place in the 1980s !
LikeLiked by 3 people
millions of people were impacted by Chernobyl fallout across europe and have thyroid cancer or hypothyroid – underactive thyroid , including me my wife and many many people i know.Nuclear is not safe how many disasters and deaths are needed before governments will stop building nuclear reactors , the answer to that is blowing in the wind , they will ignore the risks and the deaths and the disabilities caused.Where will they build them ? in SNP voting areas i would say and no that is not a ridiculous statement , just look at how uncaring they are of the devastation deaths and disabilities being caused in Gaza using weapons and equipment supplied by britgov, the people who govern us are uncaring of the general population who they deem disposable if there is power and profit to be had.
LikeLiked by 2 people
… hence the location of our ( sic ) nuclear subs and arsenal close to the largest city in Scotland . And ,of course , the UK Gov allowed the US to park their own subs in the same area as a ”F8ck you ! ” to the Scottish people .
LikeLiked by 3 people
I, too, reckon I was affected by Chernobyl.
After work I used to for a run because I had an hour to wait until my train to Glasgow was due. One evening shortly after I went out there was rainfall, the like of which I had not experienced before in Scotland. This was in an area of Central Scotland at fairly high altitude. I felt I was actually inside the rain cloud, visibility was low.
When I got home the news reported radioactive clouds drifting across parts of Europe including central and south Scotland and the north of England. A few months later I began to suffer from eczema (I had no history of this), I began to suffer in addition to the eczema, a general itchiness which is a feature of liver damage (I am teetotal) and a cataract began in one eye. I was not yet 40, but the optician who identified the early stage cataract described it as ‘senile’ cataract. I had an implant put in the eye a few years later. (I had an implant in the other eye when I was 72). In a routine medical in t.he early 2000s, I was diagnosed with an under active thyroid.
Fortunately, the eczema cleared after a few years and the general itching stopped. Apart from what I have described, my health is generally pretty good for my age (76).
I will not be able to prove that radiation was to blame. However, sales of meat from sheep reared in higher areas of Central and south Scotland and north England were banned for around 25 years after Chernobyl. My first degree is in Physics so I am fairly knowledgeable about radiation. I think it is plausible that I was a victim of Chernobyl.
Long before Chernobyl I was opposed to nuclear power stations.
Alasdair Macdonald
LikeLiked by 3 people
I hope this story does not seem flippant but..
In 2002, a local HT meeting discussed the worst year of S4 boys they could remember (one of them one of mine) when one HT offered the theory that they’d all been born around 1986 – the Chernobyl Boys!
Also, our cat had been out in heavy rain the night the radioactive clouds came over – developed a cancer and died that year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was living and working (farm work) in Dumfries and Galloway leading up to and after 1986. The sheep from D&G, Wales, Cumbria and other areas where the bequerel count in the sheep was above the theshold, were given a blob of colour on their necks. The colour was changed each year.
After testing and colouring the animal was shipped off to graze an area that did not have the rain during the passage of the Chernobyl cloud. Eventually the bequerel count would drop below the bench mark and the animal, if fat, went to market and into the foodchain. Leaving an enriched dung sample behind.
I understand that some of the sheep I knew of went to Yorkshire. I expect they could be marketed as good, clean Yorkshire finished lamb. A marketing advantage, incase there might be west coast prejudice.
Alan Gordon
LikeLike