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

  • 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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    their illness in West Cumbria. Through the use of questionnaires and other methods, comparing the cases with other children as controls, the Gardner team examined the relative risks associated with various factors including paternal preconception radiation dose, maternal abdominal X-rays in pregnancy, paternal and maternal ages, maternal viral infection during pregnancy, family eating and children’s play habits, paternal occupation and proximity of residence to Sellafield. The results of the study’ showed any significant association with childhood leukaemia except fathers’ pre- conception radiation dose. Professor Gardner concluded that: “The raised incidence of leukaemia, particularly, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among children near Sellafield was associated with paternal employment and recorded external dose of whole body penetrating radiation during work at the plant before conception. The association can explain statistically the observed geographical excess.” The highest relative risks* recorded were of the order of sixfold for fathers with total radiation doses of 100 mSv or greater before the date of their child’s conception, or doses of 10 mSv or greater during the six months before conception. The publication of this report caused considerable public and political interest. Discussions were held between the Department of Health and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to determine what action should be taken. It was clear that the Gardner findings suggested a possible occupational cause which was a matter that HSE should pursue, and it was agreed that HSE would carry out an investigation into occupational factors arising at Sellafield which might shed further light on these findings. The Health Minister announced the start of this investigation on 15 February 1990%. A group was formed for this purpose with staff drawn from HSE’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) and the Epidemiology Unit of its Health Policy Division (which now forms part of the Technology and Health Sciences Division, THSD). The term relative risk in this report means the ratio of the probabilities that a case will occur in one group compared to another. In case-control studies, the relative risk is estimated by the “odds ratio (OR): this i6 the ratio of the odds that a case will occur in one group compared to another.