HSE investigation of leukaemia and other cancers in the children of male workers at Sellafield.

  • Great Britain. Health and Safety Executive.
Date:
1993
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: HSE investigation of leukaemia and other cancers in the children of male workers at Sellafield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Lt; on discharge from the Medical Centre”, and because there is no association with work in areas with higher contamination potential. It is clear that the pattern of associations for other cancers is quite distinct from that seen for leukaemias and NHL. There is no evidence of excess associated with Seascale or with father’s pre-conception radiation dose. Indeed, the other cancer case fathers had significantly lower average pre-conception radiation dose than control fathers. This means that if there is a real effect for leukaemias and NHL involving Seascale and paternal pre-conception radiation, it must be due to mechanisms specific for these cancers, or for these cancers and a limited range of other cancer types occurring in this age group (too few in number for this study to detect). There is no evidence of any effect across all cancer types. 118 149 120 Residence of the family in Seascale at the date of the child’s birth appears from this study to be important for leukaemia and NHL. (Only one case of a cancer other than leukaemia or NHL was born in Seascale.) Over the whole study period, the ratio of observed to expected cases of LLNH and LNHL in the children of the Sellafield workforce born in Seascale was about fourteen whilst for the children of the workforce with non-Seascale residence the ratio was about two. The latter ratio is not statistically significant and is partly based on 3 cases born before their fathers started work at Sellafield. A further peculiarity of these Seascale cases is that they have strikingly higher radiation doses than other Seascale subjects. In other words, the data support the “Gardner” association within the Seascale-resident part of the Sellafield workforce. In addition, the Seascale case fathers were more likely to have been involved in contamination incidents than Seascale control fathers. The relationship with radiation in the non-Seascale part of the study population is at best weak, and arguably non- existent, and there are no consistent relationships with contamination incidents involving fathers resident outside Seascale. The hypothesis put forward by Kinlen that the incidence of childhood leukaemia may be raised in areas where there has been a recent inflow of non-local people may be relevant here. It is certainly the case that Seascale has an unusually high immigrant (non-Cumbrian born) proportion of fathers. Estimated from present data, the ratio of non-Cumbrian born to Cumbrian born fathers is 4.5 among the Seascale fathers and 0.24 in the rest of the population on which the study is based. If Kinlen’s hypothesis is correct, it could explain why the leukaemia rate at Seascale is raised.