Nature:
The latest report from the UK's Committee on Medical Aspects of
Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) calls into question the
findings of a 2008 study in Germany,
Kinderkrebs in der Umgebung von Kernkraftwerken (
KiKK), which claimed that clusters of leukemia cases
were more likely to be found near nuclear plants.
KiKK found that living within 5 kilometers of a
nuclear power plant doubled the risk of the disease. The COMARE
report looks specifically at the incidence of leukemia in
children under the age of five who live near one of the UK's 13
nuclear power plants. No significant association was found.
Small sample size adds to the difficulty of studying this issue
statistically—about 500 children are diagnosed with
leukemia in any given year in the UK, and over the entire study
period of 35 years, there were only 20 cases in children who
were under the age of 5 and lived within 5 kilometers of a
nuclear plant.
