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Study being developed on cancer risks near nuclear plants

a number of epidemiological studies carried out near nuclear facilities in the U.S. and abroad found elevated cancer rates

Details emerge on study of cancer near U.S. nuclear plants, FACING SOUTH, By Sue Sturgis on April 27, 2010

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently asked the National Academy of Sciences to study cancer risk for people living near nuclear power plants and other nuclear facilities, and details of that research were discussed at yesterday’s meeting of the Academy’s Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board.

The study will look at nuclear power plants as well as nuclear fuel facilities. It comes as the Obama administration is encouraging the expansion of commercial nuclear power…

…the research would occur in two phases. The first, set to be completed next summer, would review off-site radiation doses, evaluate cancer mortality and incidence data, pinpoint areas of study and determine how best to conduct the epidemiological research.

The second phase, which would begin immediately after the first and last two to three years, would analyze incidence of and deaths from radiation-related cancers near nuclear facilities. Both phases would conclude with a written report to the public.

At yesterday’s session to discuss the study, the NRSB heard from a number of stakeholders who urged that the research be carefully designed for maximum reliability……………..

Also addressing the NRSB was Dr. Steve Wing, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill whose own research documented a rise in cancers near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania following the 1979 partial meltdown.

“Knowledge about this topic can be most effectively advanced by studying childhood cancer incidence and in utero exposures,” he said. Developing fetuses are known to be especially sensitive to radiation, and focusing on children rather than adults will largely eliminate interference from occupational exposures.

Wing also pointed out that a number of epidemiological studies carried out near nuclear facilities in the U.S. and abroad found elevated cancer rates, but the authors dismissed the possibility that they were related to the nuclear plants because the radiation doses were assumed to be too low.

“The evidence produced was not believed,” Wing said. “Why conduct a study if the results cannot be interpreted as providing support for the hypothesis?”……
eventually discovered through records from the Illinois Department of Public Health that the infant mortality rate in surrounding Grundy County doubled from 1995 to 1999, while the rate of childhood cancers increased almost 400% during the same period. They also learned that the plant had leaked radioactive tritium into the environment — some of which had seeped into water supplies used by the Sauers and other area residents. ISS – Details emerge on study of cancer near U.S. nuclear plants

April 28, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear, radioactive, uranium