Tooth Fairy Project: They're at it again

["Jim Hardeman" <Jim_Hardeman@MAIL.DNR.STATE.GA.US>]

URL = http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/florida/digdocs/061595.htm



Jim Hardeman

Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us 



===============================================

Miami Herald

Published Thursday, March 29, 2001 



Researchers want baby teeth

Radiation measured in kids near plants

BY CHRISTINE MORRIS 

cmorris@herald.com 





The ``Tooth Fairy Project'' wants your children's baby teeth.



Evidence that cancer rates may be rising because of radioactive emissions from nuclear power plants prompted the Radiation and Public Health Project to send letters this week to 5,000 families in Miami-Dade County and 5,000 on the Treasure Coast asking for donations of baby teeth.



The researchers want to find out if levels of strontium-90, a radioactive material released by nuclear reactors, are high enough to be harmful in children who live near the Turkey Point nuclear plant in South Miami-Dade or the St. Lucie plant.



Preliminary results from the project's study of strontium-90 in 500 teeth on Long Island, N.Y., suggest a possible correlation with cancer rate increases. The radioactive material, which enters drinking water, milk and food, lodges in bones and teeth.



On Long Island, ``when strontium-90 goes up, childhood cancer goes up a few years later,'' said Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project. ``This is knocking on the door of cause-and-effect proof.''



In South Florida, the project has analyzed 86 baby teeth. They show a higher than normal level of strontium-90, according to a report released Wednesday, but researchers want to test 1,000 teeth.



Actor Alec Baldwin, whose mother is a breast cancer survivor, has written the letter to 10,000 families asking for baby teeth.



Dr. Victor W. Sidel, past president of the American Public Health Association, said after a review of the project's initial findings in 1999: ``Given the biological risk associated with body burdens of even small amounts of long-lived radioactive strontium-90, it would be prudent to regard these findings as suggestive of a potential threat to human health.''



The state tests the soil, water, air, vegetation and fish near reactors. If safe limits of radiation were exceeded, the state would notify Florida Power & Light, operator of the South Florida plants, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.



But that has never happened, said Harlan Keaton, environmental administrator for the state Bureau of Radiation Control.



FPL also insists that the level of strontium-90 in the environment poses no health risk.



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.



------------------------------