Actor puts teeth into Radiation Study

["ERIC GOLDIN"<goldinem@songs.sce.com>]

Anyone in the Long Island area want to write letters to the editor?  If you 
don't know the basis for this, read between the lines and find out what Jay 
Gould stands for.

This website contained the following story.  
http://www.mostnewyork.com/1999-02-26/News_and_Views/City_Beat/a-20797.asp 

Actor Puts Teeth Into Radiation Study 
     
By DEBBIE TUMA 
Special to The News
     
Actor Alec Baldwin is taking on a new role _ spokesman for The Tooth Fairy 
Project, which is collecting baby teeth for a study of exposure to 
radioactivity.
     
This week, Baldwin, who lives in Amagansett with his actress wife, Kim Basinger,
sent letters to 15,000 families in the New York Metro, Long Island and New 
Jersey areas, asking them to donate the baby teeth of children ages 6 to 19.
     
In his letter, Baldwin explains, "We are collecting baby teeth as part of a 
national, scientific study to measure the levels of radiation, especially 
radioactive Strontium-90, in those teeth."
     
He writes, "To document a possible radiation/cancer connection, we only need one
or two of the baby teeth that your children lose between the ages of five and 
twelve."
     
Baldwin states that because he, his wife and daughter live in eastern Long 
Island, which has "the highest breast and prostate cancer rates in the state," 
and since his mother is a breast cancer survivor from Long Island, they are 
concerned about living in close proximity to several nuclear reactors.
     
These reactors _ the Millstone Nuclear Plants in Connecticut, Brookhaven 
National Lab in Long Island, Indian Point in Westchester and Oyster Creek in New
Jersey, have cancer clusters surrounding them.
     
The tooth study is being conducted by the Radiation and Public Health Project, a
nonprofit group, which will collect and code the teeth, to protect the identity 
of the donors, and will send them to an independent lab for scientific analysis 
of Strontium-90 levels.
     
Dr. Jay Gould, an epidemiologist of Manhattan and East Hampton, and director of 
the Radiation and Public Health Project, said Strontium-90 is an element that 
did not exist before the nuclear age, and is a proven carcinogen that is 
deposited in human bones and teeth, and passed on from mother to child during 
pregnancy.
     
Gould said his group began collecting baby teeth two years ago, after Brookhaven
Lab released radioactive discharges into the Peconic River and Strontium-90 was 
detected in the water.
     
"We knew this carcinogen was getting into our environment, and this is 
dangerous, because it has a half-life of 28 years," he said.
     
So far, his group has collected 400 baby teeth from the metropolitan area, and 
another 150 from Suffolk County.
     
He said the lab at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has tested 50 
teeth for Strontium-90 levels so far.
     
"Fifteen of these teeth were from Suffolk County, from the years 1977 to 1992, 
and we found an eightfold increase in the levels of Strontium-90 during this 
period," said Gould. "While this is alarming, it is still too small a number of 
teeth to get conclusive information."
     
For this reason, the group is appealing for more teeth.
     
Anyone wishing to donate baby teeth for this study may call (800) 582-3716.
     
Original Publication Date: 02/26/1999 

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