PRESS RELEASE - According to an official, unpublished study
WASTE INCINERATORS PROVOKE THE BIRTH OF DEFORMED
BABIES
Paris, January 21st, 2003. CNIID reveals today the existence
of an official epidemiological study showing that waste incinerators provoke
the birth of deformed babies. It was done in one of the biggest regions of the
country and takes into account 70 incinerators. The authors conclude that
"globally, significant risks for the exposed populations are observed for
two types of deformities: chromosomal anomalies and other major
deformities" (1).
Furthermore, they found "high and significant
risk (...) for facial clefts, renal dysplasia, and egacolon". These are,
among other things, deformities of the face, kidney and sex. Waste incineration
is thus responsible for the birth of an important number of deformed babies.
For Pierre-Emmanuel Neurohr, Director of the
National Center for Independent Information on Waste (CNIID), "Starting from today, Roselyne Bachelot, environment
minister, takes judicial responsibility for every incinerator that is built in
France. Waste incineration will be the asbestos of the 21st century, and she
has the choice: either to declare a moratorium on the building of new incinerators,
effective immediately, or face in a few years' time a judgement for
poisoning". This study adds to the case on the danger posed by
waste incineration as such, including the higher levels of cancer around the
Besancon incinerator.
Furthermore, CNIID has asked the minister to
clarify her policies on freedom of information. How is it possible that her
ministry has known for months that incinerators provoke the birth of deformed
babies without informing at once the public?
An incinerator emits hundreds of toxic substances.
According to the environment ministry, when it comes to dioxin, the dirtiest
incinerators in France include St-Ouen (at the entrance of Paris) which emits
4,9 g per year, Strasbourg, which emits 8,7 g per year and Lyon, which emits
4,4 g per year. Dioxin's toxicity is counted in millionths of millionths of
gram. CNIID is currently doing a
postcards campaign in favor of the reduction of
waste at the source aimed. Such a policy is the only viable alternative to incineration.
For more information, please contact
Pierre-Emmanuel Neurohr at + 33 1 55 78 28 60.
(1) Risk of congenital anomalies in the vicinity of
municipal solid waste incinerators, Inserm, Afssaps, Institut européen des
génomutations, not published yet.
------------------------
Note: Although the study itself has not been
published yet, the following abstract was presented during a conference of
"French-speaking epidemiologists".
Background
Although it appears indisputable that municipal
solid waste incineration (MSWI) increases the overall environmental load of
particulate matter containing dioxins and metals, the evidence of
health consequences to populations is very limited.
We used the birth defects registry for southeast France to attempt to assess at
the regional level the impact of these emissions on birth defect rates.
Methods
We studied communities surrounding the 70
incinerators having operated at least one year in the region during the study
period (1988-1997). Each exposed municipality (N=196) was assigned an exposure
index estimated from a Gaussian plume model. With Poisson models and a
reference population of the 2683 unexposed communities in the region, relative
risks for congenital malformations were adjusted for year of birth, maternal
age, population density, average family income and local road traffic for
exposed communities.
Results
Both chromosomal and other major anomalies (mainly
facial clefts, renal dysplasia, and megacolon) were more frequent in the
exposed than the non-exposed communities. Within exposed communities, a
dose-response trend of risk with increasing exposure was observed for
obstructive uropathies.
Risks of cardiac anomalies, renal dysplasia,
obstructive uropathies and skin anomalies increased linearly with road traffic
density.
Conclusions
Although both incinerator emissions and road
traffic are plausible candidates for explaining the excess risks found, we
cannot exclude several alternative explanations, including exposure
isclassification, ascertainment bias and residual confounding. It should be
stressed also that parts of the effects observed, if real, might be attributed
to old technology MSWI and the long lasting pollution around them.
The closest we have to this is probably the work on
childhood cancer by Professor Knox published in June 2000 (Childhood cancers,
birthplaces, incinerators and landfill sites. Knox E Int J Epidemiol 2000
Jun;29(3):391-397).
Knox examined 70 municipal incinerators, 307
hospital incinerators and 460 toxic-waste landfill sites in Great Britain for
evidence of emissions causing childhood cancers. Knox was aware that municipal
incinerators had previously shown significant excesses of adult cancers within
7.5 and 3.0 km (Cancer incidence near municipal solid waste incinerators in
Great Britain. Elliott P, Shaddick G, Kleinschmidt I, Jolley D, Walls P,
Beresford J, Grundy C Small Area Health Statistics Unit, Department of Public
Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. Br J Cancer
1996 Mar;73(5):702-10) but that the relative risks for adults had been marginal
and that an analysis of childhood cancers seemed to offer a more sensitive
approach.
The child-cancer/leukaemia data showed no
systematic migration-asymmetries around toxic-waste landfill sites; but showed
highly significant excesses of migrations away from birthplaces close to
municipal incinerators. Relative risks within 5.0 km of these sites were about
2:1. Hospital incinerators gave analogous results. The ratios greatly exceed
findings around 'non-combustion' urban sites.
Knox concluded that because of their locations, the
specific effects of the municipal incinerators could not be separated clearly
from those of adjacent industrial sources of combustion-effluents. Both were
probably carcinogenic. Landfill waste sites showed no such effect.
This study follows on from earlier work by Knox
(Migration patterns of children with cancer in Britain. Knox EG, Gilman
EA Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, Medical School, University of
Birmingham. J Epidemiol Community Health 1998 Nov;52(11):716-26) in which
he was not specifically studying incineration but he confirmed the main
findings of that work, based upon a different and independent method.
Specifically that proximities to several types of industrial source, around the
time of birth, were followed by a raised risk of childhood cancer. Combustion
products and volatile organic compounds were especially implicated. Within the
16 year limit of the study, the increased risk did not decay with advancing
age. Low atmospheric concentrations of many carcinogenic substances suggest
that the mother acts as a cumulative filter and passes them to the fetus across
the placenta or in breast milk.
Knox suggested that:
"As with previous studies of proximities of
childhood cancers to industrial sites, and of exposures to pre-natal medical
radiation, the excesses were similar for leukaemia and solid tumours of all
types. This is as we might expect for agents with systemic access to the
DNA/RNA of all types of fetal cells."
The work by Staessen also touches upon this area
but not so specifically (Renal function, cytogenetic measurements, and sexual
development in adolescents in relation to environmental pollutants: a
feasibility study of biomarkers Jan A Staessen, Tim Nawrot, Elly Den Hond,
Lutgarde Thijs, Robert Fagard, Karel Hoppenbrouwers, Gudrun Koppen, Vera Nelen,
Greet Schoeters, Dirk Vanderschueren, Etienne Van Hecke, Luc Verschaeve, Robert
Vlietinck, Harry A Roels, for the Environment and Health Study Group* Lancet
2001; 357: ---
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déchets
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