Cindy Folkers and Ian Fairlie have published an essential book:
The Scientists Who Alerted Us to the Dangers of Radiation (Ethics International Press, 2024) presents the findings of 39 scientists who have studied and raised alarms over the health effects of radiation exposure and who often suffered severe harassment from government and industry insiders. The scientists showed that from the beginning of the atomic age radiation risks have “consistently been underestimated.” The authors report:
“[R]ecent epidemiology findings indicate that these radiation scientists were correct … but by larger margins than we had thought. For example, increased radiogenic risks are routinely ignored, the protections of children and women are not addressed, large dose/risk uncertainties are passed by, internal radiation exposures remain largely unexamined, cardiovascular risks ignored, and the hazards of common radionuclides are systematically minimized.”
Nine of the radiation scientists profiled in the book “observed increased incidences of childhood leukemias and solid cancers near U.S. nuclear facilities.”
“Indeed,” the authors note, “a strong pattern of epidemiological evidence indicates increased leukemia and solid cancer risks near all reactors world-wide, not just those in the U.S.”
The most important study on this matter was the German government’s 2008 KiKK study.*
“This found a 120% increase in leukemias and a 60% increase in all cancers among infants and children under 5 years old living within 5 km of all German NPPs” (nuclear power plants).
“KiKK was a large well-conducted study; its findings were scientifically rigorous; its evidence was particularly strong; and the German government’s radiation protection agency (the BfS) which commissioned the study, confirmed its findings. A BfS-appointed expert group stated:
“The present study confirms that in Germany there is a correlation between the distance of the home from the nearest NPP [nuclear power plant] at the time of diagnosis and the risk of developing cancer (particularly leukemia) before the 5th birthday.”
“The KiKK study refrained from discussing the reasons for its findings. However one hypothesis is that the infant leukemias were a teratogenic effect of in utero exposures from intakes of radionuclides during fetal development in pregnancies. The risks to embryos and fetuses that are exposed near NPPs were apparently much larger than currently estimated. For example, blood-forming tissues are considerably more radio-sensitive in embryos and fetuses than in adults. The combined immaturity of children’s nervous and blood-forming systems makes them particularly vulnerable to chronic radiation exposures from NPPs.”
(This highly influential study, followed three years later by the Fukushima-Daiichi triple reactor disaster in Japan, moved Germany’s government to phase out all 17 of its nuclear power reactors.)
The authors note that official organizations find it difficult to accept that cancer increases near NPPs may be due to radioactive emissions. Their view is that exposures to radioactive emissions from NPPs are too small to explain the increases. They assume: 1) that official risk models are correct; and 2) that official dose estimates are without uncertainties.
However, the UK government’s 2005 “Report of the Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters” found that “the models used to estimate radiation doses from nuclear plants are now known to be highly uncertain and unreliable.”
* German KiKK study: “Childhood Cancer in the Vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants,” P. Kaatsch et al (2008), International Journal of Cancer, #122; and “Case-control study on childhood cancer in the vicinity of nuclear power plants in Germany 1980 – 2003,” C. Spix et al (2008), European Journal of Cancer, #44 — JL
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