nuclear-news

3 year study of cancers near nuclear facilities: where are the results?

Nuclear Powered Cancer Clusters By Roger Witherspoon April 7, 2010 For the past 20 years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has used an epidemiologically invalid study to reassure the public that the continuous release of radioactive material from power plants into the surrounding regions did not contribute to increases in cancer.

To correct that unsubstantiated claim, the NRC has contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a two year study of both cancer incidence and mortality around former, current, and proposed nuclear reactor sites. The $5 million study, which is expected to take a year to design and two more years to complete, would be the first, comprehensive, government study of the health implications of the continuous release of radioactive into the air and water around nuclear facilities.

It would replace the 1990 study conducted for the NRC by
the National Institutes of Health – National Cancer Institute titled
“Cancer in Populations Living Near Nuclear Facilities.”  That study
concluded that the continuous release of radioactive gas, liquids, and
particles – both intentionally and accidentally – did not contribute
to the cancer mortality rates in the counties surrounding the 62
reactor sites housing 107 reactors. From an epidemiological
standpoint, that study was flawed in its conception and
implementation, and hampered by a dearth of data…….
Commercial nuclear power plants markedly differ from U.S. Navy
nuclear vessels in the way they handle radioactive emissions.  If Navy
vessels simply pumped their radioactive gasses into the air, in time
the accumulations in the ship would be so great that it would be a
multi billion dollar, radioactive, uninhabitable relic of a warship.
The Navy stores their waste until it can be properly disposed of. But
that is a cost commercial operations avoid.

The new NRC health impact study will look for cancers in
age groupings of 0-5, 0 – 10, 10 – 19, 20 – 39, 40 – 59, and 60 –
older years. It will study both the incidence and mortality from
Leukemia and A-Leukemia; Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas;
multiple myeloma; the digestive organs including stomach, colon,
rectum and liver; the trachea, bronchus and lungs; the prostate,
uterus and ovaries; breast, thyroid, bone and joints; bladder; brain
and central nervous system; and both benign and in-situ
neoplasms.http://spoonsenergymatters.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/nuclear-powered-cancer-clusters/

May 23, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA