Environmental Health Perspectives 105, Supplement 6, December 1997

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Leukemia in the Proximity of a German Boiling-water Nuclear Reactor: Evidence of Population Exposure by Chromosome Studies and Environmental Radioactivity

Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake, Bettina Dannheim, Anna Heimers, Boris Oberheitmann, Heike Schröder, and Heiko Ziggel

Department of Physics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Abstract
Exceptional elevation of children's leukemia appearing 5 years after the 1983 startup of the Krümmel nuclear power plant, accompanied by a significant increase of adult leukemia cases, led to investigations of radiation exposures of the population living near the plant. The rate of dicentric chromosomes in peripheral blood lymphocytes of seven parents of children with leukemia and in 14 other inhabitants near the plant was significantly elevated and indicated ongoing exposures over the years of its operation. These findings led to the hypothesis that chronic reactor leakages had occurred. This assumption is supported by identification of artificial radioactivity in air, rainwater, soil, and vegetation by the environmental monitoring program at the nuclear power plant. Calculations of the corresponding source terms show that emissions must have been well above authorized annual limits. Bone marrow doses supposedly result primarily through incorporation of bone-seeking ß- and alpha-emitters. -- Environ Health Perspect 105(Suppl 6):1499-1504 (1997)

Key words: chromosome aberration analysis, childhood leukemia, leukemia cluster, ionizing radiation, fission products, nuclear power plant, overdispersion of chromosome aberrations

This paper is based on a presentation at the International Conference on Radiation and Health held 3-7 November 1996 in Beer Sheva, Israel. Abstracts of these papers were previously published in Public Health Reviews 24(3-4):205-431 (1996). Manuscript received at EHP 18 April 1997; accepted 22 July 1997.

Address correspondence to Dr. I. Schmitz-Feuerhake, University of Bremen, Department of Physics, P.O. Box 330 440, D-28334 Bremen, Germany. Telephone: 49 421 218 2414. Fax: 49 421 218 3601. E-mail: agmed@physik.uni-bremen.de

Abbreviations used: GKSS, Gesellschaft für Kernenergieverwertung in Schiffbau und Schiffahrt; KKK, Kernkraftwerk Kruemmel; LET, linear energy transfer; mSv, millisieverts; TLD, thermolumiscence dosimeter(s).

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