Childhood Cancer and Nuclear Installations

Ed Valerie Beral, Eve Roman, Martin Bobrow BMJ, pounds sterling 27.95, pp 453 ISBN 0-7279-0815-4

The late Martin Gardner, to whom this book is dedicated, remains a central figure in the current debate about childhood leukaemia in the vicinity of nuclear installations. Most of his papers can be found in the BMJ or the Lancet. There are, however, arguments that take one further afield, such as whether childhood leukaemia can be caused by small leakages of radioactivity from nuclear power plants, or by fathers following occupations that increase the risk of sperm cell mutations, or by unusual patterns of migration increasing the risk of meeting with a rare leukaemia virus. These arguments are of great interest to lay people as well as doctors. So Beral, Roman, and Bobrow have done a public service by providing easy access to more than 50 papers, abstracts, letters, editorials, and reports published since 1984 and …