ADVOCATES of nuclear power have a new battle to fight. Tritium, a radioactive isotope discharged in large amounts from nuclear plants, may raise the cancer risk of people exposed to it by twice as much as previously assumed, says a report by the UK鈥檚 . International safety standards need to be tightened up, it suggests, and this would put pressure on nuclear plants to cut their emissions.
鈥淭he risks have increased and we need to be a bit more careful,鈥� says Mark Little, one of the report鈥檚 authors from Imperial College London. The risks remain very low even among workers in nuclear power plants, but are greater than those from gamma radiation used in hospital radiotherapy, for example. Little says the evidence for a biological effect is now 鈥渟olid enough鈥� to justify a change.
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