Biological markers, morbidity, and mortality in a long-serving radiation worker population
The Sellafield plant, now operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc and comprising the Windscale and Calder Works, began operations early in the 1950s with two air-cooled nuclear reactors and a fuel reprocessing plant for the production of plutonium for defense purposes. The first electrical power generating gas-cooled nuclear reactors (Calder Hall) started operation in 1956; the civil nuclear program developed subsequently and continues, much enlarged, to the present. On October 10, 1957, one of the two air-cooled Windscale military piles caught fire, and this resulted in the permanent shutdown of both piles. Over the 40+ yr of operations on the Sellafield site, some 16000 persons have been employed on the nuclear reactors and processing plants, amassing a collective occupational radiation dose of {approximately}1400 person-Sv. Large-scale studies of U.K. nuclear industry workers such as the Nuclear Industry Combined Epidemiological Analysis (NICEA) and the analysis by the U.K. National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) of the data held on the National Registry for Radiation Workers are under way, but the vast majority of individuals in those studies will have accumulated occupational radiation doses no greater than the range of variation in natural background radiation exposure in the United Kingdom. We report here a study of stable chromosome aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes, flow cytometric studies of single-gene mutation, and a further 5- to 10-yr followup since last publication of morbidity and mortality data in a cohort of 542 male workers, who had accumulated individual doses in excess of 500 mSv and up to {approximately}2 Sv by the end of 1983, and an overlapping cohort of 470 workers who were involved in fighting the Windscale pile fire in 1957 or in subsequent cleanup operations, having a collective occupational radiation dose of {approximately}180 person-Sv.
- OSTI ID:
- 88972
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-941102-; ISSN 0003-018X; TRN: 95:004215-0036
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 71; Conference: Winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), Washington, DC (United States), 13-18 Nov 1994; Other Information: PBD: 1994
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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