FORMER UK environment minister Michael Meacher has demanded an independent probe into claims of a "cancer cluster" in North Wales children linked to nuclear power.
 The highly-respected Labour MP claimed controversial research, suggesting child leukaemia in the Menai Strait area is 28 times the UK average, had not been properly investigated. The nuclear industry and the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit have dismissed the findings. But Mr Meacher said two existing watchdogs did not have the muscle to do the job because they were not fully independent and should therefore be scrapped. Instead, he demanded a powerful committee with sufficient funds to launch independent inquiries and full-time civil service back-up. The former minister's campaign is a big boost to research, published in February, which blamed the cancer cluster on the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. Radiation expert Chris Busby, of Aberystwyth, said there were three cases of child leukaemia in Caernarfon in 2000-03, when in fact only 0.1 should have been expected. He also found at least five cases of brain and spinal tumours in the town since 1996 in children aged up to 14 - 18 times the UK average. He concluded the "link between Sell-afield and excess childhood cancer is indisputable" after studying 34 wards around the Menai Strait. When the research was released, by the environmental group Green Audit, it was dismissed by the nuclear industry as the latest attempt to discredit it. | 
