Radiation and incidence of cancer around Ontario nuclear power plants from 1990 to 2008 (the RADICON study) : RADICON study

The purpose of the Radiation and Incidence of Cancer Around Ontario Nuclear Power Plants from 1990 to 2008 study (the “RADICON” study) was to determine the radiation doses to members of the public living within 25 km of the Pickering, Darlington, and Bruce NPPs and to compare cancer cases among these people with the general population of Ontario from 1990 to 2008. [...] The purpose of this study was to assess ionizing radiation doses to members of the public living within a 25-km radius of the three Ontario NPPs and to compare cancer incidence among these people with the general population of Ontario. [...] The Darlington and Pickering NPPs are on the shore of Lake Ontario and the Bruce NPP is on the shore of Lake Huron; therefore, much of the 25 km radius included water. [...] The more rare the type of cancer and the smaller the population, the more important the role of chance (natural random variation in disease) and the less dependable (unstable, variable) the risk estimate is [1, 41]. [...] The third column provides the range of doses estimated to a hypothetical individual at the fence line of each NPP from 1985 to 2002 for the Pickering and Bruce NPPs and from 1987 to 2002 for the Darlington NPP.