{"id":5706,"date":"2014-10-26T17:55:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-26T15:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/?p=5706"},"modified":"2014-10-27T12:11:05","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T10:11:05","slug":"remarks-on-latent-nuclear-risks-in-the-vicinity-of-nuclear-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/?p=5706","title":{"rendered":"remarks on latent nuclear risks in the vicinity of nuclear plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nWe had two previous randform posts one was – amongst others – about an artwork by Cornelia Hesse-Honegger <\/a> in which you can – amongst others – see mutations of insects in the vicinity of the swiss nuclear power plants G\u00f6sgen<\/a> and Leibstadt:<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"IMG_9960-450\"<\/p>\n

The other randform post<\/a> was about the socalled KIKK study<\/a> (english<\/a> (see also here<\/a>)) in which a higher Leukemia risk for children in the vicinity of nuclear power plants<\/a> was reported. As it looks like <\/a> this study from 2007 was the last major study here in Germany with respect to this topic, at least I couldn’t find more on the websites (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) of the Childhood cancer registry. Amongst others there was however for the years 2002-2007 also a french study called GeoCap<\/a>, which revealed:<\/p>\n

Childhood AL risk and proximity of NPP
\nGeocap case control study (2002-2007)<\/p>\n

Among the 2,753 cases included in the case control study, 99 were living less than 20 km from a NPP . AL was significantly associated with living less than 5km from a NPP (OR<\/a>=1.9[1.0-3.2]) and ORs close to unity were observed for all the areas farther from the sites (table2). When the cases and controls were located in rings 2km wide instead of 5km wide , the logarithm of the odds ratio tended to increase slightly with the inverse of the distance from the nearest NPP (additional figure1), although this trend was not statistically significant when the inverse distance was considered a continuous variable in the regression model (p(one-sided)=0.18). For children less than 5 year old the OR observed in the closest area was of the same magnitude as that for the whole group, although not significant (OR=1.6[0.7-4.1])<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So a correlation between a higher rate of Leukemia for children 0-15 years and 0-5 years within 5kms of a nuclear power plant (NPP) was<\/strong> – like in the german KIKK study (the KIKK study investigated only 0-5 years) – observed.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

As I understood the higher rate was however only for the whole age group and for the under five year olds (like in the KIKK study), not for the other age groups. In the french GeoCap study the correlation was for the 0-5 years group – in contrast to the german KIKK study – however apparently not statistically (?) significant.<\/a> In addition as I understood this correlation hadn’t been observed in previous french studies. In addition the french study compared the results with actual radiation monitorings, which however didn’t “show an association to the leukemia risk of the children” according to a comment by the authors of the KIKK study on the GeoCap study<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the French study also had available estimated radiation dose data at the commune level (Dose Based Geographic Zoning). This showed no association to the leukemia risk of the children. It should be noted that the exposures are in the order of at most several micro sievert, it is very unlikely that any effect caused by this low dose radiation exposure can be found in an epidemiological study. Together with the fact that the effect is seen only in the subset of the years 2002\u20132007, we agree that the effects seen in Germany and France are not likely to be causal. Other, so far unknown causes associated with the proximity to a nuclear power station might exist, as well as the possibility of a completely random observation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So according to this study radiation<\/strong> seems not the cause<\/strong> for the higher risk. <\/p>\n

According to the GeoCap article the Dose Based Geographic Zoning (DBGZ) had been developped by the french National Institute of Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety for the authors previous analysis. It used estimated<\/em> bone marrow doses associated with gaseous radioactive discharges from the NPP’s to classify the exposures at the town halls of the communes located less than 20 kms from the nuclear sites (p.7). In particular estimated<\/em> seems to mean that no blood sample etc. measurements<\/a> were undertaken.<\/p>\n

In this context it is interesting to note that the swiss authorities now enlarged the circle of inhabitants to receive in zones around nuclear power plants (including that of G\u00f6sgen and Leibstadt) potassium Iodide tablets<\/a> from 20kms to 50kms<\/a> (the website is the official website of a representative of the swiss army pharmacy (armeeapotheke)<\/a> (via fefe<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5706"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5723,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions\/5723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.randform.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}