LEUKEMIA CLUSTERS
It is self-evident that people dying of infectious diseases do not die uniformly throughout the world, but in clusters, either in space or in time, where the infection has taken hold. Diseases which are not infectious are not expected to cluster, except in so far as there might be exogenous causes. Cancer is generally believed to be a non-infectious disease. Only 3% of cancers are leukemias; but about 15% of cancers that are induced by radiation in the first 30 y after exposure seem to be leukemias (BEIR 1990). This is because of the relatively short latent period for leukemia. This suggests looking for leukemias--particularly acute myeloid leukemias--as an indicator or marker of radiation exposure.
