The Government has been accused of investing in outdated technology, whose safety has come under the microscope again after three studies highlighted possible links to childhood leukaemia.
The most significant of the three new studies was conducted for the German government and published in the International Journal of Cancer and the European Journal of Cancer.
It found a 117% increase in leukaemia among young children living near all 16 large German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003.
A second German study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, discovered a threefold increase in leukaemia among children living within five kilometres of the Krümmel nuclear station near Hamburg.
US researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina, analysed the results of 17 studies covering 136 nuclear sites in the UK, Canada, France, the US, Germany, Japan and Spain. Their study was published in the European Journal of Cancer Care.
They found that children under nine years old, living close to the nuclear sites, suffered a 14 to 21% increase in the rate of leukaemia.
Death rates from the disease were also increased by between five and 24%, depending on how close they were to the nuclear plants.
Dylan Morgan, the PAWB spokesman said: “Do we really want this type of archaic technology, which belongs to the mid-20th century, when we’re now finding new studies making a strong link between nuclear power stations and childhood leukaemia?.
“Whatever the nuclear industry's ambitions are, there is still a question mark about whether the people of Wales want this highly dangerous, dirty and astronomically expensive technology on their doorstep once again.
“We have had to put up with two stations in North-West Wales already (as well as Wylfa the region is also home to the now defunct Trawsfynydd power station).
“We have borne more than our fair share of the nuclear industry so far, and we certainly don’t want another plant here.”
Nastya, from Belarus, was only 3 when she was diagnosed with cancer of the uterus and lungs. Following the Chernobyl disaster. Research increasingly shows the deadly effects of even low levels of radiation. Another 10 years of restrictions have just been imposed on sheep farms in north Wales, 20 YEARS after Chernobyl. Do we really want a nuclear future for our children?
