Leukemia Cluster Elbmarsch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sketch: Area of ​​the Elbmarsch leukemia cluster, the Krümmel nuclear power plant (KKK) and the GKSS research center are shown

The term leukemia cluster Elbmarsch describes an accumulation ( cancer cluster ) of leukemia in children in the area of ​​the integrated municipality of Elbmarsch ( Harburg district , Lower Saxony ) and the neighboring Geesthacht ( Duchy of Lauenburg , Schleswig-Holstein ) that occurs from 1990. According to EU authorities, this is the world's highest recorded leukemia rate in a small area in children and at the same time the best recorded and documented cluster worldwide.

The cause of the cluster has not yet been scientifically proven. The possible causes that have so far been considered by experts, the population or journalists can be summarized in five categories:

  1. Emissions from the nuclear facilities Krümmel nuclear power plant and Geesthacht research reactors , which are located in the cluster area
  2. Residues from the Krümmel explosives factory
  3. other environmental factors in the area
  4. demographic factors (EUROCLUS study)
  5. coincidence

The Elbmarsch leukemia cluster is one of 240 leukemia clusters that were identified in 17 countries in the course of the EUROCLUS study when 13,351 cases of childhood leukemia (diagnosed between 1980 and 1989) were recorded. In 2007, 14 cases of childhood leukemia were found there; according to the national average, four would have been expected. The incidence of leukemia is thus significantly increased.

Consideration of the frequency of leukemia cases

The German Childhood Cancer Register in Mainz has been registering all cancer cases in under-15s in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1980. In order for the attending physician to report the data, the parents must agree. According to the Children's Cancer Register, more than 95 percent of cases are registered in leukemia. So far, 59 clusters, i.e. areas with a noticeable cluster, have been identified in Germany.

In the Geesthacht / Elbmarsch area, between 15 and 19 children have been registered since 1989, depending on the counting method. The children's cancer registry assumes that between 1990 and 2005 only five cases would have been expected statistically. The Association of International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Doctors in Social Responsibility (IPPNW) is based on a different calculation. According to this, a child leukemia case is to be expected statistically about every 58 years in the area, instead of the real rate of about one case per year on average. None of the parties involved deny that there is an above-average accumulation.

Since 1990, 19 children in the Elbmarsch have developed leukemia , four of them have died of the disease. The Elbmarsch leukemia cluster represents the world's highest recorded leukemia rate in a small area in children, but the cause is still unknown today. The Krümmel nuclear power plant and the research reactors in Geesthacht have often been linked to the leukemia cases. Scientific proof of their joint responsibility has not yet been provided.

On December 9, 2006, the state newspaper reported that in 2006 there were leukemia cases in young children in Scharnebeck , 16 kilometers south-east, and in Bardowick, 14 kilometers south. In the same year there were two cases of leukemia in Winsen (Luhe) , 12 kilometers to the southwest. In April 2009 there was another case of childhood leukemia in Barum - Horburg (5.5 kilometers south).

Root cause research: studies and reports

The search for the causes has so far proven to be extremely difficult and tedious. Numerous studies and investigations have been commissioned so far, mostly by the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.

Overview of expert commissions and working groups

Numerous working groups have been active in Northern Germany since 1990 on questions relating to the Children's Leukemia Cluster Elbmarsch and other questions related to leukemia risks. The task of such expert commissions is to make recommendations for the implementation of measures, such as soil sample studies, measurements, and demographic studies. These are therefore groups of experts who advise the state governments and ministries. The measures are then carried out by an external institute after the order has been issued by the responsible ministry.

The various leukemia commissions often had identical members. The members of the commissions are mostly renowned scientists such as university professors. You work part-time and on a voluntary basis in the commissions and are only reimbursed for travel costs and expenses from public funds.

The first two expert commissions for leukemia were set up in the early 1990s by the federal states of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein after the first cases of childhood leukemia had occurred. The full name for these commissions is "Scientific commissions to investigate the causes of leukemia in the Elbmarsch":

  1. Expert Commission Leukemia Lower Saxony (from 1990, Head: K. Aurand from January 1991 H.-Erich Wichmann )
  2. Expert Commission Leukemia Schleswig-Holstein (from 1992, head: O. Wassermann )
    From 1992 the two groups met together, alternately in Kiel or Hanover. Among other recommendations, the North German Leukemia and Lymphoma Study (NLL) was a joint recommendation of these two groups.

As is customary in larger studies, the North German Leukemia and Lymphoma Study (NLL Study) was accompanied by an advisory board:

  1. Scientific advisory board for the NLL study , from 1996, (international epidemiological advisory board, chaired by K.-H. Jöckel )

Working groups were set up to support the technical commissions that focused on individual aspects:

  1. Working group on pollution indicators (from 1993, Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment, head: E. Greiser )
  2. Tritium working group (Schleswig-Holstein)

There was also a round table on site:

  1. Working group leukemia in the Elbmarsch
  2. Information meeting in June 1986 in Geesthacht with two members of the electoral community GAL Harburg-Land, a representative from Die Grünen Geesthacht and a doctor from the Elbmarsch about 3 current cases of child leukemia.

This working group served as an interface between the commissions and the citizens in the affected area. In addition to representatives of the individual commissions, representatives of the local authorities were among the members.

Final reports of the leukemia commissions

In its final report from November 2004, the Lower Saxony Leukemia Expert Commission informed about the investigation of numerous potential risk factors. Investigated risk factors that are not related to the nuclear facilities are, for example, local drinking water, X-ray examinations of the children affected, building material from the dykes in the area, pollutants washed up by the Elbe in the bank area or electromagnetic fields from power lines. The results of the investigation of such factors were negative; no significance in connection with the cases of illness could be recognized for any of these factors. The NLL study was initiated to examine the local nuclear operations, i.e. the nuclear power plant and the GKSS research center, as possible causes of the disease. Ultimately, however, this study did not deal with child leukemia cases, so that no conclusions could be drawn here either, due to the lack of a corresponding question ( see below ). The Lower Saxony Expert Commission considered chance (chance hypothesis) as the last remaining possibility.

In September 2004 the Schleswig-Holstein Leukemia Expert Commission ended its work. In their final report, which six of the eight experts signed, it says: “We have lost confidence in this state government.” The scientists, headed by Otmar Wassermann, throw the (in office until 2005; see state government of Schleswig-Holstein ) State government of Schleswig-Holstein and the public prosecutor's office obstruction of their work and unwillingness to clarify. In particular, the presumed fire on the GKSS site in September 1986 ( see below ) and the possible resulting contamination of the environment with nuclear fuel ( Pac beads ) should be investigated urgently. They announced that they would work with non-governmental institutions such as the "Association of International Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War" and resigned their mandates in protest. The state government of Schleswig-Holstein described the accusations of the scientists of the Schleswig-Holstein Commission in a press release (November 2004) as "absurd and abstruse", "baseless and dubious" and spoke to the head of the Lower Saxony commission, H.-Erich Wichmann, the confidence out.

The states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony closed the Elbmarsch files after the official final reports. It is extremely difficult for the groups involved to find politically neutral scientists who are prepared to examine the facts objectively. The Second German Television (ZDF) claims in a report broadcast at the beginning of April 2006 that many institutes did not examine soil samples from the Geesthacht area out of existential fear. The laboratory operators feared that they would be punished by the governments or other agencies in the future by not placing orders. In order to maintain objectivity, the soil samples in the Sakharov Institute were examined without notification of the location, the report says.

NLL study

The North German Leukemia and Lymphoma Study (NLL) was jointly awarded by the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony to the Bremen Institute for Prevention Research and Social Medicine (BIPS). The study was carried out from December 1996 to around April 2003. According to BIPS, it is the largest case-control study in Europe to research the causes of blood cancers. It was investigated whether adults who live in the vicinity of normal nuclear plants are exposed to a higher risk of leukemia. To this end, a total of 4,500 interviews were conducted in six north German districts. The NLL study did not deal with childhood cancer in general or the Elbmarsch leukemia cluster in particular, which the coordinator of the study, Wolfgang Hoffmann, also confirms. The study cannot make any contribution to elucidating possible cause-effect relationships between the nuclear plants at Krümmel and the child leukemia cluster.

Euroclus study

In contrast to the aforementioned studies, which focus on the geographical region of the Elbmarsch, the EUROCLUS study attempted to find matches between the 240 leukemia clusters identified in the study.

The evaluation of the study showed that it was not environmental factors such as the proximity to nuclear power plants, military airfields or other facilities that are often considered to be responsible for the incidence of leukemia, but that demographic factors are the most significant features in which the investigated Clusters match.

Sparsely populated residential areas were identified as typical regions for the occurrence of childhood leukemia, in which new residents from other residential areas moved in to the initially isolated residents. This finding is reflected in the " Greaves Hypothesis".

The "Greaves Hypothesis" is supported, for example, by a control study that was carried out by the children's cancer registry on behalf of the State of Lower Saxony. The result of this study comes to the conclusion that the likelihood of developing leukemia (ALL) increases with immunological isolation. Characteristic of immunological isolation are a low vaccination rate, little contact with other children and the characteristic of the firstborn.

Possible causes

Possible fire incident at the GKSS in 1986

On September 12, 1986, an alarmingly high level of radioactivity was suddenly measured at several measuring points at the Krümmel nuclear power plant. The operators of the nuclear power plant ruled out an incident within the power plant. The cause of the increased values ​​must therefore have been outside the nuclear power plant. Several eyewitnesses reported a fire (yellow-bluish pillar of fire without smoke) that they saw on the premises of the neighboring GKSS research center . After the alleged accident, eyewitnesses claim to have seen workers in contamination protection clothing on the affected premises, which would indicate a worryingly high level of radiation. There were reports in the local press.

The fire brigade's logs from September 1986, which could contain more detailed information about a fire incident, were destroyed by a fire in their archives in September 1991 according to the local fire brigade (see final report of the Schleswig-Holstein Leukemia Commission).

Those in charge of the Krümmel nuclear power plant and the state supervisory authority declared that the naturally occurring radioactive noble gas radon , which can escape from the ground, accumulated on this day due to an inversion weather situation in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant close to the ground and is said to have triggered the alarm. In general, the soils in Lower Saxony and southern Schleswig-Holstein are considered to be poor in radon; values ​​between 10,000 and 20,000 Becquerel per cubic meter of air, based on the air at a depth of one meter, are assumed. A relevant soil investigation by geologists has not yet been carried out in the Krümmel area.

When assessing the alleged scene of the accident, the parties involved even argue about details that are normally objectively verifiable, including:

  • the age of the trees growing there,
  • a building ("Institute for Physics") that is said to have suddenly disappeared after the accident or which allegedly never existed,
  • damaged or undamaged power lines,
  • Burns of the soil and vegetation,
  • possibly dating and cause of these burns,
  • Weather on the day of the event,
  • the alleged relocation of a radioactivity measuring station,
  • possibly missing data of this station, as well
  • Indications of the execution of earth movements (or the reasons for such work) in the area in question and
  • Transport of radioactive material to Karlstein / Bavaria ,
  • Declaration of this material as "fuel rod segments" ".

A search for impartial experts to clarify these questions has not yet been carried out.

The official bodies dispute the accident theory. Wilfried Voigt , the responsible state secretary under the state government of Schleswig-Holstein, which was in office until 2005, said he personally inspected the site in question and came to the conclusion that there was no accident there. The citizens' initiative and some of the scientists involved in the investigations, however, speak of their investigations being hindered by public authorities and these statements by politicians only reinforce their fears that an incident in one of the two plants should be covered up.

Pac beads

Pac spheres are roughly spherical particles of nuclear fuel . Pac beads were e.g. B. used in the spherical fuel elements of the THTR-300 nuclear power plant in Hamm-Uentrop. The diameters of such spheres are in the order of magnitude between a few hundredths of a millimeter and one millimeter.

Various groups involved in researching the cause, as well as individuals, such as the Doctors for the Prevention of Nuclear War ( IPPNW ), have found globules in the Elbmarsch area in the ground and on thatched roofs . The finds occurred in different concentrations around the Krümmel nuclear power plant. The suspected fire in 1986 is considered to be the source of this contamination.

The other side, e.g. the state government of Schleswig-Holstein (2004), relies on scientific reports that are intended to refute these findings. Laboratory tests carried out by Wladislaw Mironow at the Sakharov University in Minsk showed that the pac beads were definitely not attributable to the Chernobyl accident or the fallout of nuclear weapons tests.

Dirk Schalch (Head of the Central Radiation Protection Group at the University of Gießen) also shares Mironov's opinion: "Here it is the case that Professor Mironov's results clearly show that they do not come from the fallout, they do not come from Chernobyl ." Schalch also states that the globules only occur in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power plant. They do not occur in the rest of Germany.

The results of Wladislaw Mironow were publicly presented on March 31, 2006 by the "Citizens' Initiative Leukemia" at a press conference. Gitta Trauernicht , at the time the results were published, Minister for Social Affairs, Health, Family and Seniors was not prepared to comment.

This investigation into the Pac beads could result in the case being re-investigated by official bodies. The investigation was commissioned by the “Leukemia Citizens' Initiative” and the IPPNW. The investigations in Minsk contrast with the results of the investigations at the Mineralogical Institute in Frankfurt. These investigations did not reveal any indications of a nuclear accident. The results have been published.

So far there is no evidence that the pellets originate from one of the two plants, or that they are actually nuclear fuel particles, i.e. H. Pac beads, acts. The Commission on Radiological Protection wrote a year before the publication of the Expert Panel in its report to the measurements:

“According to the assessment by the SSK, the various test results do not give any indications of the presence of nuclear fuel in these globules. The claims of ARGE PhAM cannot be confirmed in view of the available results. The beads can be natural (e.g. resin or mineralized parts of animals or plants) or non-natural (e.g. fly ash). The SSK sees no evidence of a local or even large-scale occurrence of nuclear fuel-containing pellets in the areas examined. "

The atomic policy spokesman for Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen of the Lower Saxony state parliament Andreas Meihsies and the physicist Wolfgang Neumann took a look at the archive of the GKSS research center in September 2007. They could not find any evidence of a connection between an alleged incident at the GKSS and the leukemia cases.

In addition to other investigations, such as the classification of the shape, size and surface properties of the particles, the analysis of the radioactive elements and decay products is of great importance. Here, the same results are usually interpreted in contradiction by the different sides: The artificial radioactivity of the material is not due to the fallout of the known above-ground nuclear weapons tests, according to the experts on one side. The transuranic elements indicated the bomb fallout, there was no evidence of nuclear fuel, according to the other side. It is agreed that transuranium elements existed in the area around the nuclear power plant.

Microspheres were found around the THTR-300 in Hamm and played a role in the discussion about a conspicuously increased incidence of thyroid cancer . According to a report by the state government signed by Environment Minister Johannes Remmel in 2013, however, these were pellets made of iron oxide, such as those produced during welding work.

Suspected special experiments on the GKSS site in Krümmel

The six resigned members around the former chairman Otmar Wassermann identified in 2004 as the cause of the accumulation of "secret nuclear special experiments on the GKSS premises" that has occurred since 1989. The Munich radiation doctor Edmund Lengfelder, one of the resigned scientists, insisted in 2004 to the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “The commission found millimeter-sized ceramic spheres containing nuclear fuel in the vicinity of GKSS and Krümmel. They could have been used to make miniaturized atomic bombs. The spheres were apparently released in a fire in 1986 and scattered in the landscape. ”Lengfelder assumes secret experiments in which a millimeter-sized bead of plutonium 239 is compressed so highly by means of a laser pulse that it leads to a chain reaction and at the focal point of a ceramic ellipsoid a release of energy corresponding to an explosion of about 500 to 1000 kilograms of TNT explosives come. A mixture of fission and activation products, transuranium elements ( plutonium and americium ) and other nuclear fuels (enriched uranium and thorium derivatives ) should indicate this. Similar spheres made of thorium were produced in Hanau for the fuel elements of the planned high-temperature reactor.

New finds of transuranium elements in the Elbe in 2010

Independent investigations into the Lower Elbe were carried out in mid-2010. Significantly increased, although radiologically insignificant amounts of transuranic elements , including plutonium , were found in the mud of the Elbe. Transuranic elements only occur in traces in nature, so they must have arisen artificially at higher concentrations.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ F. Alexander: Clustering of childhood acute leukaemia: The EUROCLUS Project. In: Radiation and environmental biophysics. Volume 37, Number 2, July 1998, pp. 71-74. PMID 9728737 (Review).
  2. ↑ W. Hoffmann, C. Terschueren, DB Richardson: Childhood leukemia in the vicinity of the Geesthacht nuclear establishments near Hamburg, Germany. In: Environmental health perspectives. Volume 115, number 6, June 2007, pp. 947-952, doi : 10.1289 / ehp.9861 , PMID 17589605 , PMC 1892150 (free full text).
  3. ↑ Study: More leukemia cases near atomic piles. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. December 7, 2007.
  4. ^ Elbmarsch: Another child falls ill with leukemia. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. April 20, 2009.
  5. ^ A b Findings of the Schleswig-Holstein Expert Commission on Leukemia. Final report. ( Memento of February 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) September 15, 2004 (PDF; 2.0 MB)
  6. ↑ Leukemia Cluster. ( Memento from September 6, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) (pro-elbmarsch.de, January 18, 2008)
  7. ^ The leukemia children of Krümmel. In: DRadio . August 14, 2005.
  8. ↑ Wolf Wetzel: An almost perfect crime. In: Friday. August 11, 2006.
  9. ↑ Sebastian Pflugbeil in an interview in the taz on November 28, 2011 According to his information, six of the eight members resigned from the investigative commission in 2004 and wrote their own final report in which they identified nuclear experiments on the GKSS site as the likely cause of the leukemia cluster information.
  10. ↑ Barbara Dickmann: And nobody knows why ... The puzzling death of children. 2008.
  11. ↑ Barbara Dickmann: And nobody knows why ... The puzzling death of children. 2008, p. 94.
  12. ↑ Barbara Dickmann: And nobody knows why ... The puzzling death of children. 2008, p. 96.
  13. ^ A. Gerdes: Elemental and U-Th-Pu isotope composition of soil and spherical particles from the Elbmarsch, Northern Germany. DMG, Hanover, 24.-26. September 2006. Beih. z. Eur. J. Mineralogy, 18: in press.
  14. ↑ Laboratory denies prohibited atomic experiments , Süddeutsche Zeitung of November 2, 2004
  15. ^ Evaluation of measurements by ARGE PhAM on radioactivity in the Elbmarsch , Radiation Protection Commission, February 14, 2003
  16. ↑ GREEN after inspection of the files at the GKSS. Press release no. 235. In: fraktion.gruene-niedersachsen.de. September 18, 2007, accessed April 24, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Hearing protocols: Protocols of the hearings of the Social Committee of the Lower Saxony State Parliament in Hanover on April 11 and 12, 2007 on the causes of the accumulation of leukemia near Geesthacht
  18. ↑ asc: THTR Uentrop: Globules are not dangerous - Hamm. In: wa.de. January 12, 2013, accessed June 3, 2016 .
  19. ↑ a b Christopher Schrader, Martin Urban: Geesthacht. Laboratory denies prohibited atomic experiments. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . November 3, 2004 (online)
  20. ↑ a b Martin Urban: Atomic pearls from Geesthacht. The “atom bomb in the briefcase”: Researchers believe they have discovered the cause of the children's tumors in the community of Geesthacht. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . November 2, 2004.
  21. ↑ How does the plutonium get into the Elbe? In: Norddeutsche Rundschau. August 13, 2010, accessed May 17, 2015.

Coordinates: 53 ° 24 ′ 16 ″  N , 10 ° 24 ′ 54 ″  E