Study finds childhood leukemia doubled around French reactors

A major epidemiological study just published in the January 2012 edition of The International Journal of Cancer indicates there is “a possible excess risk” of acute leukemia among children living in close vicinity to French nuclear power plants (NPP). The study called for an “investigation for potential risk factors related to the vicinity of NPP, and collaborative analysis of multisite studies conducted in various countries.”

The study found a doubling of occurrence of childhood leukemia between the years of 2002-2007 among children under 5 years living within 5 km of nuclear plants – similar to the findings of the German 2008 study by the Cancer Registry in Mainz which found an association between the nearness of residence to nuclear power plants and the risk of childhood leukemia.

The epidemiological study was conducted by a team from the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) and the National Register of hematological diseases of children in Villejuif. The results marked a surprising and encouraging change at IRSN which had endeavored to discredit earlier French epidemiological studies that had shown an impact of nuclear facilities on health.



France admits nuclear security lax after Greenpeace activists enter plant

Interior Minister M. Claude Gueant admitted that security at France's nuclear plants is lax after Greenpeace activists scaled the walls of a nuclear plant. Greenpeace activists gained entry to the plant at Nogent-sur-Seine at dawn on December 5 and managed to climb the dome of one of its two reactors "in order to spread the message: 'Safe nuclear does not exist.'" “The aim is to show the vulnerability of French nuclear installations, and how easy it is to get to the heart of a reactor,” said Sophia Majnoni, a Greenpeace nuclear expert.

Intense protests against latest France to Germany radioactive waste train

French "red green" alliance advocates near 50% nuclear shutdown by 2050

The two French opposition parties - the Socialists and the Greens - have agreed to campaign for the shutdown of 24 of France's 58 nuclear reactors by 2025 and the immediate halt of the oldest plant at Fessenheim. The Greens favor a complete halt of France’s nuclear reactors, which provide more than three quarters of the country’s power, while Socialist candidate Francois Hollande has called for the lowering of France’s dependence on atomic power to 50 percent by 2025. The announcement caused stocks of the French utility, EDF, to slide as much as 6.4 percent to 19.40 euros, the lowest since Sept. 26 making it the worst-performing stock in Europe’s Stoxx 600 Utilities Index on November16.

EDF fined millions and its senior staff sentenced to years in prison for spying on Greenpeace France

Greenpeace International has blogged about the larger implications of a French court's conviction of Electricite de France (EDF) and two its senior staff for "complicity in computer piracy": hiring a private investigator to hack into Greenpeace computers and steal 1,400 documents. The court has fined EDF 1.5 million Euros ($2 million), ordered it to pay 500,000 Euros ($682,000) in damages to Greenpeace France, and an additional 50,000 Euros ($68,200) to the Greenpeace campaigner whose computer was hacked and confidential documents stolen. The court has sentenced two senior EDF officials, and two officials at the private investigation company, to 2-3 years of jail time each, as well as fining three of them thousands of Euros each. World Nuclear News has reported on this story.