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 Printable version |
Prevalence of congenital malformations in the vicinity of nuclear plants: Data from the Central-East France registry |
Environnement, Risques & Santé. Volume 4, Number 3, 179-86, Mai-Juin 2005, Article original
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Sylviane Gautheron, Cécile Chevrier, Jean Claude Laborier, Élisabeth Robert-Gnansia |
Summary : Aim: To study the prevalence of malformations around the nuclear power plants in the Rhone-Alps region and compare it with their distribution in other parts of the region monitored by the registry. Methods: Municipalities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants surrounding the 5 nuclear plants in operation from 1979 through 2002 were studied. Every municipality situated near a nuclear site (n\=121) was assigned an exposure index, which we estimated from the distance between the municipality and the plant. A Poisson model and a reference population, defined as the 2154 municipalities in the region situated farther than 10 km from a nuclear plant were used to calculate relative risks for congenital malformations, after adjustment for year of birth, maternal age, district of birth, population density, average family income, and presence of chemical plants subject to EU “Seveso” regulations. Results: Significant differences were not observed for either gene/chromosome anomalies (p\=0.50) or minor malformations (p\=0.14). Risks for overall malformations and those defined as “major non-syndromic” appear to be reduced in areas less than 5 km from nuclear plants (RR\=0.75 and RR\=0.71, respectively). The only comparison showing a higher rate of malformations in populations living near nuclear sites involved rural communities situated 5 to 10 km from a plant (RR\=1.41 for the major non-syndromic malformations and 1.31 for all malformations). Conclusion: These results may be random or may be explained by exposure to the plants, but a more likely explanation is the existence of confounding factors for which we could not adjust, such as road traffic for urban communities and pesticides in rural ones. |
Keywords : abnormalities, epidemiology, nuclear reactors, power plants, prevalence, registries |
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