No connection between leukemia and aces?

Radiation exposure aces no reason for cancer?

Is there a correlation between the increased leukemia rate and the nuclear waste disposal site "Asse"? A rays

The population is worried about the occurrence of blood cancer cases in the region around the dilapidated nuclear waste storage Asse. Experts speak out, doubting that "low radiation exposure" causes cancer. The citizens' initiative environmental protection Lüchow-Dannenberg (BI) does not believe in a desire to educate the Lower Saxony state government. It is striking that a possible cooperation is denied in advance, according to the initiative.

No correlation between low radiation exposure and blood cancer?
A blight of the conspicuous accumulation of leukemia cases (blood cancer) in the vicinity of the operated nuclear waste disposal stock Asse II holds the rays of the University of Essen, Wolfgang-Ulrich Müller unlikely. Many studies have investigated in recent years a possible context between radiation exposure from nuclear plants and cancer. According to the expert opposite the magazine „Focus“ be „on closer examination never something resilient left“. The expert previously headed the Radiation Protection Commission (SSK), which advises the Federal Environment Ministry. Today, he is the chairman of the SSK working group „radiation risk“. A "biological mechanism" can not explain how the low radiation exposure triggers cancerous tumors. „For the supposedly threefold increased cases of thyroid cancer, for example, so much radioactive iodine would have been released that the measuring instruments would have sounded the alarm.“, so the biologist opposite the „Focus“. In the case of blood cancer cases, too, Müller's view is that other explanatory patterns are more likely than the measured radioactivity. Rather pesticides or infections for the occurrence of leukemia in question.

“If one considers the leukemia diseases in the integrated municipality of Asse, one would expect one case per year”, said in a note from the Ministry of Social Affairs. From 2002 to 2009, however, 18 cases have occurred. A cause for it could not be determined so far, so the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment. The citizens' initiative environmental protection Lüchow-Dannenberg was surprised that the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) tries to "appease the population". “Without analyzing the individual cases of illness, the BfS explained that contamination by radioactive substances from the aces was not to be feared. That fuels doubts about whether the will to become serious and “unsparing” Education is available if the result is already established.” The BfS as the competent authority in the field of radiation protection should primarily urge that the federal states quickly implement the federal provisions on the compilation of cancer registries, criticize the environmentalists.

State government shows little will to enlightenment
The Lower Saxony state government showed in the opinion of the citizens' initiative little will to explore the leukemia clusters and their causes. How little will the state government has to investigate leukemia clusters and their causes has been learned recently, criticizes BI. At the meeting of the Committee for Social Affairs and Health of the Lower Saxony Parliament, the representatives of the CDU and the FDP last Wednesday had virtually ended the cause research on leukemia in the Elbmarsch, further soil samples should not be investigated. To date, 19 leukemia cases have occurred in the vicinity of the nuclear facilities in Krümmel and the GKSS site in Geesthacht. “So much for the will to explain the Lower Saxony state government, only where the focus of public attention, something happens”, holds BI spokesman Wolfgang Ehmke before the state government. The citizens' initiatives now suspect that the particular accumulation of blood cancers around „Krummel“ due to an accident involving nuclear material on 12 September 1986 on the GKSS premises. (sb, 28.11.2010)

Also read:
Leukemia risk due to ailing aces plant?
Nuclear power plants do not promote malformations?
Aces: Increased number of leukemia disorders

Picture credits: Thorsten Bischoff