Annex A
10. RESEARCH
INTO HEALTH
RISKS FROM
BRADWELL AND
OTHER NUCLEAR
INSTALLATIONS
10. (a) There are two sides to the debate
about nuclear installation health effects. The "orthodox"
approach rests, primarily, upon criteria of risk drawn from short
term exposure to high levels of radioactive material: Hiroshima
and Nagasaki atom bomb survivors, plus some experiments involving
the sub-cutaneous placement of radioactive material and irradiation
of non-human subjects. Statistical procedures are also applied,
post hoc, to aggregate health data which often have the effect,
intentionally or unintentionally, of smoothing out many apparent
cancer clusters. [See: C Busby, Wolves of Water, Green
Audit, 2006, pp 322-27]. Moreover, where cancer clusters have
been detected around nuclear installations, their significance
has been discounted through the deployment of atom bomb based
criteria of risk. [see, for instance, the discussion in pp 24-6
of the 9th COMARE report, of 2004].
10. (b) Relatively low levels of radioactive
material can have a cumulative effect that could be damaging to
some of its recipients, particularly during their developmental
years. With an emphasis upon water borne contaminants, particularly
in muddy estuaries, the unorthodox side focuses upon clusters
of cancers amongst populations of settlements immediately bordering
the waters adjoining nuclear installations.
10. (c) The emergence of the debate between
orthodox and unorthodox positions led, in 2001 to the formation
of an internally adversarial body—the Committee Examining
Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters (CERRIE) to supplement the
work of the existing Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation
in the Environment (COMARE). CERRIE'S functioning between 2001
and 2004 proved to be highly acrimonious [Busby, pp 406-28: and
Radioactive Times, vol 6, no 1, May 2005] but did result
in a final report that highlighted many areas of continuing uncertainty.
CERRIE had also planned further research into nuclear health issues
around Bradwell, but this was cancelled when the committee's work
was suddenly subjected to an arbitrary deadline in summer of 2004.
Whatever the intrinsic merits of this action, it remains a tactical
and presentational miscalculation of major proportions for a government
that was eventually to commit itself to a programme of new nuclear
reactors.
10. (d) The consequences of CERRIE's premature
termination were dramatic. A vitriolic exchange of articles and
letters appeared in The Guardian newspaper in the autumn
of 2004. [See: C Busby, Wolves of Water, Green Audit, 2006,
pp 322-27].
10. (e) COMARE's 9th report in October 2004
was devoted to a detailed and well-balanced response to the CERRIE
final report and identified numerous areas of continuing concern
and need for further research. COMARE's subsequent 10th and 11th
reports continued to highlight uncertainties and further research
needs. However, they also continued to emphasise both disputed
statistical techniques and criteria for radiation risk drawn from
exposure to atomic bomb blasts, and to focus overwhelmingly on
childhood cancers, rather than cancers subsequently contracted
by adults living near nuclear installations.
10. (f) COMARE's approach to the identification
of health risks from nuclear installations is highly cautious.
This is quite understandable in the light of the irresponsible
alarmism over the MMR inoculation. However, the anxieties of many
who live close to nuclear installations have not been quelled
by its work and general faith in orthodox scientific positions
has not been encouraged by the example of the determined resistance
to early suggestions of a link (by Richard Lacey, in particular)
between BSE and its human equivalent. This general unease, moreover,
comes against a background of growing distrust for government
statements and official statistics as reported by the Financial
Times [report of 30 December 2009—High Levels of scepticism
over data revealed"] and widespread concern at the kinds
of statistical operations—"tricks"—of which
staff at the climate change unit at the University of East Anglia
have recently been accused.
10. (g) The controversy about the health
effects of nuclear installations is likely to fester indefinitely
unless new approaches to research are adopted. One avenue would
be to undertake detailed, longitudinal studies of relatively discrete
populations, such as Tollesbury in Essex, where cohorts can be
identified and their development tracked with relative ease. The
second, and even more powerful, possibility has just arisen with
the announcement by 454 Life Sciences of the successful sequencing
of cancerous tumors [See the report by EmaxHealth: "Breakthrough
in DNA Sequencing for Cancer Research", http://www.emaxhealth.com/51/6413.html].
Such DNA sequencing could, eventually, provide concrete evidence
about the genesis of individual tumor, thus highlighting the cause(s)
of specific cancers and providing powerful ammunition for those
victims who might wish to seek redress from past and future operators
of nuclear installations, where low-level radioactive contamination
can be proven to have been in any way culpable.
10. (h) The Energy and Climate Change Committee
is uniquely placed to investigate further many of the continuing
controversies over the health effects of the operation of UK nuclear
reactors and their implications for new nuclear construction.
Key questions include:
— Are the orthodox statistical techniques
appropriate, particularly: the radial analysis of areas of potential
effect, that otherwise ignore topographical features; and the
adoption of "Bayesian smoothing" to reduce the apparent
incidence of cancer clusters. Moreover, are the criticisms directed
against advocates of the unorthodox position fair, particularly
the claim of "Texan sharpshooter targeting" in the identification
of cancer clusters? [see: Busby, pp 322-27]
— Is the orthodox focus upon the effects
of exposure to high level radioactive material valid, or should
more attention be paid to longer-term exposure to lower level
radioactive materials, particularly those that are water-borne?
— Is there not now a case for initiating
longitudinal studies of relatively discrete communities to establish
whether there have, or have not, been cancer clusters amongst
their long-term residents? Earlier work by J F Bithell (whose
work is relied upon by COMARE to counter the implications of the
KiKK report) and colleagues, suggested the possible desirability
of something along just such lines [J F Bithell, S J Dutton, G
J Draper, N M Neary "Distribution of childhood leukaemias
and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas near nuclear installations in England
and Wales", BMJ, 20 August 1994]. Also, might it now
be timely to encourage the application of DNA sequencing to cancers
developed in the vicinities of nuclear installations?
— Why has the existence and work of CERRIE,
and attendant controversies, been excluded from the "health"
sections of the NPS EN-6 and the accompanying sustainability assessment
[Draft National Policy Statement for Nuclear Power Generation
(EN-6), London Stationery Office, November, 2009, eg, pp
77-9; and Appraisal of Sustainability: Site Report for Bradwell,
Department for Energy and Climate Change, November 2009, pp 23-6]
and the German KiKK report only been paid scant attention in the
Appraisal of Sustainability. [Bradwell Appraisal Report, p 25
and for the details of the KiKK report See the summary in: http://teknorg.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/german-kikk-study-higher-cancer-risk-nex|]
— Why, moreover, has COMARE turned the
focus of its major reports away from nuclear power stations' health
effects since its last report on the issue—the 11th report
of July 2006, save for ad hoc responses to external stimuli
like the publication of the German KiKK report? Is the government's
revival of the nuclear energy option significant in this respect?
10. (i) In exploring these questions, the
ECC committee might consider:
— Interviewing members of CERRIE to investigate
its functioning and findings, particularly its chairman Professor
Dudley Goodhead, a key secretary, Dr Ian Fairlie, Dr Chris Busby
of Green Audit and Richard Bramhall of the Low Level Radiation
Campaign.
— Interviewing one or more experts in statistical
techniques to establish the appropriateness of the specific statistical
techniques that have been employed in identifying levels of cancers
(particularly childhood) in the work of COMARE and its contributors.
— Interviewing one or more of the authors
of the German KiKK study to determine their view of the reworking
of UK nuclear cancer clustering by Bithell, et al, [J F
Bithell, T J Keegan, M E Kroll, M F G Murphy and T J Vincent,
Childhood leukaemia near British nuclear installations: methodological
issues and recent results, Radiation Protection Dosimetry,
2008, 132(2)]
— Interviewing the head of the Health Protection
Agency to establish his/her view of the current state of research
on the health effects of radioactive materials and exposure.
— Recommending longitudinal studies of
rates of cancer in discrete communities near nuclear reactors,
like Tollesbury in Essex.
— Interviewing the head of the Welcome
Trust to review the prospective contribution of DNA sequencing
to the identification of specific causes of cancers commonly found
in communities adjoining nuclear reactors.
January 2010
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