Childhood Leukemia Spikes Near Nuclear Power Plants

File photo: The nuclear power plant in Belleville sur Loire,
France, 01/21/08. (photo: Herve Lenain/Corbis)

By John LaForge, CounterPunch

28 January 12

rench researchers have confirmed that childhood leukemia rates are shockingly elevated among children living near nuclear power reactors.

The "International Journal of Cancer" has published in January a scientific study establishing a clear correlation between the frequency of acute childhood leukemia and proximity to nuclear power stations. The paper is titled, "Childhood leukemia around French nuclear power plants - the Geocap study, 2002-2007."

This devastating report promises to do for France what a set of 2008 reports did for Germany - which recently legislated a total phase-out of all its power reactors by 2022 (sooner if the Greens get their way).

The French epidemiology - conducted by a team from the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, or INSERM, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire, or IRSN, and the National Register of hematological diseases of children in Villejuif, outside Paris - demonstrates during the period from 2002-2007 in France the doubling of childhood leukemia incidence: the increase is up to 2.2 among children under age five. READ MORE