Gemma Donna Louise D'Arcy was born in Cumbria in November 1983. She was briefly famous in Britain due to suffering

chronic myeloid leukaemia Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), also known as chronic myeloid leukemia, is a cancer of the white blood cells. It is a form of leukemia characterized by the increased and unregulated growth of myeloid cells in the bone marrow and the accumulati ...

, extremely rare in children and hypothesised to have been caused by her family living in proximity to the

Sellafield Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nucle ...

nuclear power plant. She died in September 1990 after three bone marrow transplants, aged six years and ten months. Her life was the subject of an ITV docu-drama ''Fighting for Gemma'' in 1993, detailing her family's attempts to bring a criminal case against

BNFL British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was a nuclear energy and fuels company owned by the UK Government. It was a manufacturer of nuclear fuel (notably MOX), ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel (mainly ...

for damages relating to her illness. Her mother Susan later wrote a book, ''Still Fighting For Gemma'' in which she voiced her criticisms of British Nuclear Fuels and the nuclear industry in general.

References

1983 births 1990 deaths Deaths from chronic myeloid leukemia British anti–nuclear power activists {{environmentalist-stub