Thursday, August 7, 2008

Nuclear Power - Cancer In Kids

Children's risk of cancer goes up substantially the closer they live to a nuclear power plant, according to a German government study.

Researchers studied the occurrence of cancer in children under the age of five who were living within five kilometers (3 miles) of one of 21 nuclear reactors in 41 districts of the country between the years of 1980 and 2003.

A total of 4,735 children without cancer and 1,592 children with cancer were included in the study population.

There were 77 cases of cancer among the children studied, which came out to 60% more than the national average for childhood cancer. When only leukemia was examined, the rate was 117% higher: 37 cases of leukemia, in contrast to the expected 17.

The chance of contracting cancer went up the closer a child lived to one of the reactors.

"For the first time, exact data on the distance of a residence to a reactor could be taken into account in a case-control study," the office said. Read the entire article.

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