Word: leukemias
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Almost as soon as the accident at Three Mile Island occurred, Radiation Physicist Ernest Sternglass was at the scene, Geiger counter in hand, crying disaster to anyone who would listen. He predicted an increase of 5% to 20% in the incidence of leukemia in children of the area within a year. A vehement foe of nuclear power, the University of Pittsburgh scientist exclaimed: "The reaction of the community should be to stand up and scream...
...generation later, the awe has turned into fear. Studies now show that an unusually high number of those Utah youngsters exposed to nuclear fallout eventually died of leukemia. Similarly, there are indications of a high cancer rate among military personnel who observed the tests at close range. At the same time, other investigations are finding high incidences of cancer among the workers who overhaul nuclear submarines at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Me. This evidence raises anew one of the most difficult questions of the nuclear age: What is the minimum threshold at which even seemingly low levels...
...study Dr. Joseph L. Lyon of the University of Utah's Medical College found that the incidence of leukemia deaths among children aged 14 or less who were living in Utah counties along the fallout pathway during the 1950s was 2.4 times as high as the rate among people of the same age who lived in the same area before and since. Lyon's findings are not conclusive, since he had insufficient information to prove cause and effect in any individual death. In addition, the actual numbers are small: 32 leukemia deaths in high-fallout counties...
Poring over union records and death certificates in the Portsmouth case, Dr. Thomas Najarian, a Boston blood specialist, concluded in 1977 that the overall cancer rate among the workers was twice the national average; the leukemia rate was four to six times as high. His report inspired Roland Belhumeur, a retired Portsmouth employee, to start a list of cancer deaths among shipyard workers. His tally so far: 40 men, all aged 45 to 50, a level of cancer mortality that he believes is unusually high...
Speaking on the task force's behalf, HEW Secretary Joseph Califano admitted that "the incidence of leukemia produced by low levels of radiation may be higher than scientists previously thought." But the report added: "Because the clinical features of cancer do not reveal its cause, it is impossible to distinguish the few [people] with radiogenic cancer from the larger group whose cancer was caused by other factors." What is more, it usually is impossible to determine just how large a dose of radiation a victim received. Consequently, although Califano professed dissatisfaction with the recommended safe level of 170 millirems...