Childhood leukaemia in the United Kingdom

The aetiology of childhood in the neighbourhood of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has prompted a gret deal of research aiming to find whether the increased leukaemia incidence was specific to this area or whether similar cluster occurred irregularly throughout the country. It was found that if the hazards were specifically related to the nuclear industry the effect was due to an occupational hazard causing irradiation of mens's gonads with the production of mutations in post-meiotic germ cells than to direct effect of radioactive waste in the environment. It was concluded that the the evidence to relate the clusters of leukaemia in the United Kingdom to the nuclear industry is inconclusive. 37 refs., 7 tabs