Health Warning to Cumbria - "Population Mixing"

If proposed nuclear developments go ahead - the population of Cumbria will increase in a relatively short space of time by the tens of thousands. There have been lots of studies looking into why there are substantially more childhood cancers and blood disorders in the vicinity (up to 50Km+) around nuclear plants. Successive governments have dismissed those studies which point to radioactive emissions as the cause and have endorsed those which point to "population mixing."

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Will the government be issuing a health warning to Cumbria?

Radiation Free Lakeland have written to Dr Heather Dickinson - one of the co-authors of a report entitled:

"Quantifying the effect of population mixing on childhood leukaemia risk: the Seascale Cluster"

to ask if a Health Warning will be recommended on the evidence of this report citing "population mixing" as the cause of increased "substantial risk" of cancers and blood disorders in the vicinity of nuclear installations.

By their own (blinkered) criteria, a responsible government should therefore be issuing public health warnings.  The public health warnings would cite the North of England Children's Cancer Research Unit which told government in 1999 what it wanted to hear about the Seascale Cluster : 

“After allowing for age, the incidence of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma was significantly higher among children born in areas with the highest levels of population mixing.”

So according to the government line "population mixing" near nuclear installations rather than radioactive emissions is the cause of increased cancers. Either this is a genuinely held belief and Cumbria will be issued with a public health warning. Or they know very well that the cause lies with nuclear developments.... and there will be nothing said to scare the horses being lined up for "significantly higher risks of cancers and blood disorders"

REFS:

POLICE CHIEF’S HOPES AND FEARS OVER POPULATION BOOM Wed 19 Jan 11 http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/news/police-chief-s-hopes-and-fears-over-population-boom-1.800525?referrerPath=news

Quantifying the effect of population mixing on childhood leukaemia risk: the Seascale cluster http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374359/

The German KiKK study http://www.alfred-koerblein.de/cancer/english/kikk.htm

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------

Subject: Population Mixing

Date: Wed, January 26, 2011 3:50 pm

Dear Dr Dickinson,

In explaining significantly increased childhood cancers around nuclear plants the government has been persuaded by the "population mixing" model rather than emissions from nuclear power plants. A paper you wrote in 1999 describes population mixing as "a significant risk factor for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, especially in young children, accounting for over 50% of cases in Cumbria and most cases in Seascale".

If all the proposed nuclear developments in West Cumbria go ahead the population is predicted to increase in a relatively short period of time by tens of thousands.

Will the North of England Children's Cancer Research Unit / Northern Institute for Cancer Research/Cancer Research UK be acting on their research and advising the government to put out a public health warning of the "significant risk factor"?

yours..

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Radiation Free Lakeland

Contact email: rafl@mariannebirkby.plus.com