[ RadSafe ] Asbury Park Press on Mangano's press conference

[Norm Cohen]

Tooth testers say grants add bite to nuke debate

Critics question validity of results

Posted by the Asbury Park Press <http://www.app.com>  on 06/13/07

BY NICK CLUNN <MAILTO:NCLUNN at APP.COM> 
STAFF WRITER

TRENTON - With support from an anti-nuclear nun and $90,000 in grants, the
epidemiologist behind the Tooth Fairy Project announced Tuesday the start of
a campaign meant to drum up support for his research linking childhood
cancer to the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant.

Joseph J. Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project said he and a
group of scientists intend to speak with lawmakers, hold public forums and
write opinion pieces to win over skeptics and inspire others to help fund
research.

Mangano's findings show a 15-year positive relationship between the level of
radiation found in Shore-area baby teeth and the diagnosis of cancer in
Shore-area children.

The radioactive isotope measured in the donated teeth, strontium-90, is
released by the Lacey plant in low, legal levels, but Mangano said his
research suggests that those levels might have been high enough to cause
cancer in children under 10 from Monmouth and Ocean counties.

But Mangano's critics, including the state Commission on Radiation
Protection, have said that it's highly likely that fallout from worldwide
nuclear-weapons tests explains the presence of the isotope in baby teeth,
not commercial nuclear-power plants.

Commissioners in January 2006 released a report that questioned the validity
of the research group and recommended to Gov. Corzine that the state no
longer fund its work.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors the products plants
release into the air and water, has had long-standing concerns about the
research group's methodology and "cherry-picking of the data," commission
spokesman Neil Sheehan said.

"They tend to select data that matches their conclusions," he said.

And studies published by the National Institutes of Health and the American
Cancer Society have found no evidence connecting cancer cases and nuclear
reactors.

"There is no new information presented in his studies, just more of the same
that has been debunked by regional and national health organizations such as
the National Institutes of Health," said Leslie Cifelli, a spokeswoman for
Oyster Creek.

Yet Mangano said he has circumstantial evidence linking Oyster Creek to the
strontium-90 and is confident that further research would bear out that
assertion.

"We have really opened the gates to more research on this topic," he said.

Mangano is timing his campaign with an effort by plant operator AmerGen
Energy Co. to renew Oyster Creek's license for an additional 20 years. A
renewal from the NRC would allow the plant to run beyond a scheduled
shut-down date in April 2009.

Grants totaling $90,000 from the Education Foundation of America and the
Louis and Harold Price Foundation will help fund the outreach effort,
Mangano said.

Mangano may be best known for a prior study he drafted. Called the Tooth
Fairy Project, it suggested a correlation between cancer deaths in counties
around commercial reactors - Monmouth and Ocean included - and levels of
strontium-90.

Actor Alec Baldwin and supermodel Christie Brinkley helped publicize the
study when the research group came to Toms River to announce its results in
May 2000.

During a press conference at the Statehouse on Tuesday, Mangano was
supported by Rosalie Bertell, a 78-year-old nun with a doctoral degree in
environmental epidemiology.

Bertell in 1984 founded the International Institute of Concern for Public
Health, which informs the public of health hazards posed by industry and the
government.

On Tuesday, she said that limits for allowable releases of radiation are
based on a risk-benefit analyses. However, from a health basis, the standard
for the release of low-level radiation should be zero, Bertell said.

Nick Clunn: (732) 643-4072 or nclunn at app.com