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Re: [Know_Nukes] Mangano urges new studies of TMI health effects
Since when is the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist peer
reviewed? I have never seen it carried in any reseach
library.
I bet Joseph Mangano would be willing to set up a
program to collect and "document" all of the health
effects. Can you say "retirement fund?"
--- Norm Cohen <ncohen12@comcast.net> wrote:
> LancasterOnline.com
>
> TMI health studies hit
> By Ad Crable
>
>
> Published: Aug 17, 2004 2:23 PM EST
>
> LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - A new, critical analysis of
> more than three-dozen
> studies into the health effects since the 1979
> accident at the Three Mile
> Island nuclear plant concludes ?it is likely a full
> accounting of health
> effects will never be known.?But the truth could and
> should be documented,
> argues researcher Joseph Mangano of the nonprofit
> Radiation and Public
> Health Project.
> His article, ?Three Mile Island: Health Study
> Meltdown,? is published in
> the new edition of the peer-reviewed Bulletin of the
> Atomic Scientists.
> Mangano criticizes the medical community for
> fixating on stress-related
> health effects from the accident and not doing
> extensive research into
> cancer rates in residents beyond five miles of the
> plant, where wind-blown
> radiation may have settled.
> Both the Bulletin and the Radiation and Public
> Health Project have been
> critical of nuclear power.
> ?Twenty-five years after the largest accident in the
> history of the U.S.
> nuclear power industry, the research completed to
> date is limited,? says
> Mangano, who has published 20 medical journal
> articles on radiation health
> effects.
> ?Nothing exists in the literature on infant
> mortality, hypothyroidism in
> newborns, cancer in young children, or thyroid
> cancer, even though data
> for all of these were routinely collected in 1979.
> ?All these conditions are especially sensitive to
> ionizing radiation. Many
> prominent journals have remained silent. Why??
> In partial answer to his own question, Mangano
> asserts that the official
> position of the federal and Pennsylvania governments
> that the accident had
> negligible health effects has had a chilling effect.
> That?s very unfortunate, he says, because the
> ?effects of ionizing
> radiation may take decades to manifest as the onset
> of a disease like
> cancer. So monitoring of disease patterns and
> dose-response comparisons
> should continue.?
> Mangano?s own research of public health data shows
> that death rates of
> Dauphin and Lebanon county residents who were
> children in 1979 continue to
> be well above average to this day.
> Both areas were downwind of TMI during the accident.
> ?The degree to which this reflects the latent
> effects of Three Mile Island
> should be explored, especially since no risk factors
> in these two counties
> are obvious,? Mangano says.
> Evidence surfaced after the accident that radiation
> releases traveled long
> distances. Both Albany, N.Y., and Portland, Maine,
> documented elevated
> radioactivity levels several days after the
> accident, according to Mangano.
> ?But these findings were largely ignored by health
> officials, and
> potential health effects in downwind areas further
> than 10 miles from the
> plant never examined.?
> Furthermore, Mangano maintains his examination of
> health data shows that
> in the two years after the accident, the infant
> death rate rose in 13 of
> the 19 counties downwind from the plant. Lancaster
> was not one of the
> counties identified as being down wind during the
> accident.
> He also rues that only five articles examining the
> link between radiation
> exposure and cancer near TMI have made it to medical
> journals. Four of
> those found no link between the accident and cancers
> near the plant.
> Effects of radiation may take decades to show up and
> scientists?
> understanding of the health effects from low-dose
> exposure continues to
> change, Mangano writes.
> The fact that there were no accurate readings of
> radiation levels outside
> the plant and that TMI health research has proved
> controversial should not
> deter scientists from seeking answer to unanswered
> TMI questions, Mangano
> asserts.
> ?If the public?s health is to be protected to the
> greatest degree
> possible, it is imperative we learn the full lessons
> of an event like
> Three Mile Island,? he said.
> Eric Epstein, head of the local Three Mile Island
> Alert safe-energy group,
> praised the study, saying it ?clearly demonstrates
> that further studies on
> the health effects on the accident are warranted.?
> At a press conference today, Epstein said he would
> ask the state Health
> Department to reopen its examination of adverse
> health effects from the
> accident.
> The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by
> the Educational
> Foundation for Nuclear Science, was founded in 1945
> by scientists who
> worked on the Manhattan Project. Based at the
> University of Chicago, it
> warns of the dangers of nuclear weapons.
> The New York-based Radiation and Public Health
> Project was established by
> scientists and physicians to focus on the
> relationships between low-level
> nuclear radiation and public health.
>
>
>
> © 2004 Lancaster Newspapers
> PO Box 1328, Lancaster PA 17608, (717) 291-8811
> Terms of Service Privacy Policy
>
>
>
>
> Researcher urges new TMI health studies
>
> Previous reports disagree on whether harm was done
> by the 1979 nuclear
> accident.
> By RICHARD FELLINGER
> Harrisburg bureau
> Wednesday, August 18, 2004
> At bottom: á MORE ON TMI
> HARRISBURG Ñ A new journal article concludes that
> scientific data is
> lacking on the health effects of the 1979 accident
> at Three Mile Island,
> and its author is urging public health officials to
> take a closer look at
> whether the nation's worst nuclear accident was
> harmful.
>
> Joseph Mangano, national coordinator for the New
> York-based Radiation and
> Public Health Project, wrote the article that
> appears in the
> September/October issue of the Bulletin of the
> Atomic Scientists. He held
> a news conference in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday to
> discuss the article
> that grew out of his research into the 25th
> anniversary of the accident on
> March 28.
>
> Mangano found five journal articles on the health
> effects of the accident
> and said their conclusions don't agree. Some
> researchers, such as those
> from Columbia University and the University of
> Pittsburgh, found no risk
> to nearby residents, while researchers from North
> Carolina University
> reported a link between the accident and cancer.
>
> But the state Department of Health does not see a
> need to study the
> accident further because it conducted 31 studies in
> the nearly 20 years
> following the accident, said spokesman Richard
> McGarvey.
>
> Of the state's 31 studies, only one reported harmful
> effects Ñ an increase
> in babies with low birth weight. McGarvey said the
> department followed up
> with another study of those babies and found no
> long-term problems.
>
> Mangano, who describes his own group as a small
> nonprofit, said government
>
=== message truncated ===
=====
+++++++++++++++++++
"Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects."
Will Rogers
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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