LETTER: Why official theories may hide the true nuclear risks

Sir: Raw sewage may have its part to play in the cluster of leukaemia found in Seascale, but having recently studied the issue, I feel that nuclear power plants play an important role in leukaemia clusters, not just in Sellafield but around the country.

Roman and her colleagues, when examining West Berkshire & Basingstoke and Hampshire district health authority data, within which lie Aldermaston and Burghfield MoD sites, with Harwell UKAEA research establishment a few miles away, found 29 cases of leukaemia and cancers in children aged 0-4 years old where only 14 cases were expected. Goldsmith (1992), studying leukaemia incidence in the vicinity of pre-1955 installations, found 165 observations where 133 were expected from regional data and 141 expected from comparison area data.

Did Professor Bridges examine the possibility that plutonium attached to silt and mud in the sea had been washed up on local beaches and had subsequently been inhaled by children and adults alike? A few grammes of dried silt inhaled from Cumbrian estuaries is enough to satisfy the annual inhalation dose limit for adults.

Caroline J Bustard

Coventry