Dear Marco

In case you missed the news, a new leukaemia cluster has been discovered in Chepstow, opposite Oldbury nuclear power station. It is similar in significance to the Seascale cluster.

The report is on LLRC's web site http://www.llrc.org together with a report on cancer mortality around the Severn estuary - an area affected by discharges from 3 nuclear power stations and Nycomed Amersham the medical isotopes makers as well as by weapons test fallout draining from the Welsh hills.

The Observer reports:- "Vyvyan Howard, professor of toxico-pathology at Liverpool University, said: 'Busby is a good statistician.' And Professor Ray Cartwright, director of the Leukaemia Research Fund's centre for clinical epidemiology, said: 'His epidemiology is OK. It is important there is a robust debate about this.' "

The Low Level Radiation Campaign is calling for the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) and the Small Area Health Statistics Unit (SAHSU) to be scrapped. The discovery of the Chepstow cluster by independent researchers means that these bodies have failed.

After the Seascale cluster was found by Yorkshire TV's James Cutler the Black Committee was set up. Following the Black report SAHSU was set up to watch out for clusters, but their priority seems to be to make life easy for local authorities and health authorities by saying clusters are just part of the random distribution and that causes can't be found. Black also recommended a committee in addition to the "independent" National Radiological Protection Board to advise on possible links between disease and radiation.

This is the "independent" COMARE who recently failed to make a proper investigation of reports of high rates of cancer and leukaemia next to the Irish Sea. COMARE have always blindly accepted NRPB's appallingly unscientific view of the health effects of low radiation doses. NRPB and their incestuous parent the "independent" International Commission on Radiological Protection are the only factors preventing official bodies accepting that steadily increasing cancer rates are caused by widespread radioactive pollution.

It is time for a thorough and truly independent scientific review of radiation risk.

LLRC also calls for release of cancer incidence data to enable a study of the relationship between disease and levels of radioactive pollution in the environment.

The Cancer Registries have insisted on keeping incidence data secret on largely spurious grounds of patient confidentiality, but LLRC suspects that their real agenda is covering up the public health impact of industrial pollution.

The Observer reported the Chepstow cluster on the front page 29th April . It's on their website at http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,480235,00.html with a feature at http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,480229,00.html

The Sunday Times reported on page 2, 29th April. Radio stations and newspapers in the west of England and Wales have reported extensively.

MPs and Welsh Assembly Members are calling for investigation. The Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit have so far declined to comment. They have asked for a copy of the report.