Dead man accuses N-plant

A CONSULTANT surgeon, who died of stomach cancer, wrote his own obituary in which he suggested that his disease may have been caused by going to school near the Sellafield nuclear power plant.

Charles Clyne, 46, who died on 1 July, went to St Bees School in Cumbria, five miles from the nuclear processing plant.

In his obituary, which appears in the British Medical Journal, Mr Clyne said: 'Adenocarcinoma of the stomach with bony metastases is rare, and I feel somewhat cheated by my early departure from life and question the role of the proximity of Sellafield to the school I attended in the 1960s.'

Mr Clyne, who left a wife and three children, was appointed consultant surgeon in general and vascular surgery at Torbay District General Hospital in 1984. He became the first medical director of South Devon Healthcare Trust in 1991.

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting a link between radiation from Sellafield and cancer. Two years ago a report by Professor Martin Gardner found there was a link between high levels of leukaemia among children near Sellafield and the radiation doses their fathers received while working at the plant. In January, the National Radiological Protection Board, said it had found 'the best evidence so far' of an association between leukaemia and levels of exposure among radiation workers.

But doctors are divided about how radiation could have contributed to the cancers, some believing another factor, such as a virus, may be responsible.