Leukemias among Chornobyl Cleanup Workers

Even with all that..the harm caused by Chernobyl in terms of death and disease is still less than that of a single airliner crash.

We have far more airliner crashes than nuclear accidents; and the damage toll due to airliner crashes is greater than that due to nuclear accidents.

However, is there a devoted cadre of pinheads that want to ban airliners? NOPE.

Is there a devoted cadre of pinheads that want to ban nuclear power?

YES - we see a bunch of them posting here daily.

Go figure.

Uno

CBC/Radio-Canada, makes precisely one (1) media outlet, in the Western World, which has covered this comprehensive, international, scientific study. Uno, by my count … rather- curious.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/11/08/chornobyl-radiation-l...

Chornobyl workers' leukemia risks estimated

Study aims to fill gap in extrapolating radiation risks

CBC News Posted: Nov 8, 2012 4:19 PM ET Last Updated: Nov 8, 2012 4:16 PM ET

People who helped clean up after the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear plant accident show a higher risk for developing leukemia, say researchers who hope the findings will help better define the cancer risk of low doses of radiation.

Researchers in the U.S, Ukraine and Russia followed more than 110,000 workers

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia was the most common type of leukemia among the workers and cases are expected to increase as they age, the researchers said.

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia accounts for about three per cent of all cases of leukemia in Japan compared with one-third of all leukemia cases in the U.S. and 40 per cent in Ukraine, the researchers said.

CBC/Radio-Canada

CLL radiogenic risk has important public health implications for the USA.

http://www.amstat.org/meetings/radiation/2012/AbstractDetails.cfm?Abstra...

Radiation-related risks of leukemia among Chornobyl cleanup workers from Ukraine

American Statistical Association Presentation *Lydia B. Zablotska, UCSF

The effects of ionizing radiation on leukemia have been clearly demonstrated by studies of individuals exposed to high doses of radiation, generally at high dose-rates, such as the study of the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and radiation treatment studies.

In the largest to date pooled analysis, nuclear workers were monitored for external radiation on a monthly or yearly level providing a rough estimate of the “dose-rate” effect. Overall, estimates were compatible with the estimates from the high-dose studies and confirmed that extrapolations from the high-dose studies did not underestimate radiation-related risks from low-dose exposure.

Cases were confirmed by the international panel of hematopathologists based on the description of the clinical courses and histological confirmation of the diagnosis from the medical records (available for all cases) and bone marrow aspirates/ biopsy slides and/or peripheral blood smears (available for 70% of cases). Acute leukemia types were classified using the WHO system of classification. CLL diagnoses were based on the criteria established by the NCI Working group.

The estimated risk of non-CLL was lower but compatible with the risk in the A-bomb study, providing some evidence of the sparing of late effects of radiation administered at a low dose-rate in comparison with the effects of almost instantaneous exposures. Further, our results indicate that risk estimates are similar for CLL and non-CLL. Increased risks of CLL were reported in the studies of Chornobyl cleanup workers from Belarus, the Russian Federation and Baltic countries and from uranium miners with exposures to alpha particles and gamma radiation in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Canada.

CLL is the most common type of leukemia in this cleanup worker population and, as they age, will rapidly increase in rates, raising concern for medical consequences. The radiogenic risk for CLL also has important public health implications in other populations as it is the most prevalent type of leukemia in Western populations, with approximately 20,000 cases estimated to be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2011.

“CLL occurring among the clean-up workers was of a more aggressive form than is normally seen in the community.”

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/archive/pdfs/NIOSH-209/0209-010108-hambl...

Science Direct

Have we been wrong about ionizing radiation and chronic lymphocytic leukemia?

Abstract

It is almost axiomatic that chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is not caused by ionizing radiation. This assumption has been challenged recently by a critical re-appraisal of existing data. A recent paper implicated radon exposure in Czech uranium mine workers as a possible cause of CLL and in this issue of Leukemia Research the first paper examining the incidence of CLL among those exposed to radiation from the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl is published. It suggests that CLL occurring among the clean-up workers was of a more aggressive form than is normally seen in the community.

“Radiation has been long known to increase the risk of various types of leukemia.”

Earlier studies of Chernobyl cleanup workers suggested there might be an increased risk of chronic lymphocytic leukemia associated with radiation exposure, and this new study provided stronger evidence to support this association.

http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/11/chernobyl-cleanup-worker...

Chernobyl Cleanup Workers Have Increased Risk for Leukemia

A new study found a significantly elevated risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia among workers who were engaged in recovery and clean-up activities following the Chernobyl power plant accident in 1986. Radiation has been long known to increase the risk of various types of leukemia.

Earlier studies of Chernobyl cleanup workers suggested there might be an increased risk of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (a less aggressive form of leukemia) associated with radiation exposure, and this new study provided stronger evidence to support this association.

“The findings shed light on the thorny issue of estimating cancer risk from low doses of radiation”

“The risk included a greater-than-expected number of cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which many experts did not consider to be associated with radiation exposure in the past.”

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/11/13087/chernobyl-cleanup-workers-had-sig...

In the journal Environmental Health Perspectives this week, an international team led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Chernobyl Research Unit at the Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute describes the increased risks of leukemia among these workers between 1986 and 2006. The risk included a greater-than-expected number of cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which many experts did not consider to be associated with radiation exposure in the past.

The new work is the largest and longest study to date involving Chernobyl cleanup workers who worked at or near the nuclear complex in the aftermath of the accident.

The findings shed light on the thorny issue of estimating cancer risk from low doses of radiation — an issue of importance to miners, nuclear workers and anyone who is chronically exposed to low levels of radiation at work or patients who receive sizeable radiation doses when undergoing medical diagnostic tests.

“Low doses of radiation are important,” said the lead researcher Lydia Zablotska, MD, PhD, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. “We want to raise awareness of that.”