Cancer Rates Drop After Nuclear Reactor Closes

[Octafish]

Source: Medscape Medical News

Roxanne Nelson
Apr 03, 2013

The closure of a nuclear reactor could be linked to a long-term decrease in the incidence of cancer.

Since the Rancho Seco nuclear reactor, located in Sacramento County, California, closed in 1989, there have been several thousand fewer cancer deaths in the region.

Results from the first long-term study to examine the impact of the closure of a nuclear reactor on health were published online March 27 in Biomedicine International.

The research was conducted by Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, an epidemiologist and executive director of the radiation and public health project in New York City, and Janette Sherman, MD, adjunct professor of environmental studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

"We believe that further research is now warranted to see if there is a cause and effect relation between the elimination of nuclear emissions from power plants and a significant long-term decline of cancers," Mangano said during a press briefing.

Read more: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/781880

---

Thyroid and breast cancer rates decreased in the area under study.

[iemitsu]

1. Interesting study.

I wonder how those, who defend the nuclear industry, will explain this evidence away?

[valerief]

2. They'll say smoking has decreased. Or something else. Never the elephant in the room. nt

[iemitsu]

3. Yep. How about the increased use of GM foods

has led to more healthy individuals?

[valerief]

5. Bwahaha. Yeah, up is down these days, and it's not like the major rags have real journalists to

dispute any claims.

[closeupready]

7. lol, you win ... a NEW CAR!

For putting in a single sentence almost everything that's wrong with our 'Fourth Estate' for the last 15 years.

[madokie]

4. I can't get the link work for me

all I get is a 404
I'll try later.
At any rate I get chastised for suggesting that nuclear power plants come with higher cancer rates. I remember when they tried to build a nuclear power plant a few miles upwind from where I live, all my family lives. We found out then that the nuclear industry could not be trusted for a second. I never heard so many half truths and out right lies in my life. By taking it to them and not backing down we stopped the project in its tracks. I'm getting too old for that kind of thing again so I hope it won't be necessary. Hopefully people have learned from this incident that maybe they aren't so safe after all and put a stop to any more being built. If the commercial nuclear power industry had to stand on their own two feet there would never have been one built. As Dad would say, You can take that to the bank.

[bananas]

9. It's in google's cache

I get a login page, but the article is in google's cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.medscape.com%2Fviewarticle%2F781880

[madokie]

10. Thank you bananas :hi:

Pretty conclusive that the two are related. At least in this case. I suspect the data would or could be duplicated for the other 100 or so nuclear power plants we have.
if the nuclear power industry had to stand on their own two feet there would be no nuclear power plants today. If we had put the resources that has been thrown at this attempt to paint lipstick on this pig, rather, onto research we'd not have the coal plants that are killing us just as dead, that we have today. Oil, coal or nuclear is not the end. They are or should have only been the beginning.

[closeupready]

6. Just a coincidence, I'm sure. Radiation is invisible, so

it clearly has no impact on human health.

[DhhD]

8. At the end of a program in a Nuclear Power Plant, I ask an energy official how did the facility count

its thermal neutron radiation. He had no answer. He answered the questions from others about staying a safe distance away from alpha and beta radiation.

Studies about the electron radiation coming off of large power lines has been done.

Studies on particle radiation from the Sun are available too.

Most high school chemistry textbooks explain nuclear decay. The forces of motion and mass of the particles (radiation) is not well known by the public at large.

Thermal neutrons are hot because they move very quickly and do a lot of damage to cellular molecules including DNA. Other radiation can damage cells to if it is moving fast enough=hot enough to penetrate, like UVA and UVB rays. You might want to do a search on the Photoelectric Effect. Or search, sun tanning lotion as a need to protect your skin from radiation from the Sun.

[RC]

12. "...electron radiation coming off of large power lines..."?

The electrons themselves stay within the conductor. The magnetic field generated by the electron flow (current) however, can extend for quite a ways, dependent on the current flow. Even though one influences the other, they are not the same. Magnetic fields are not radiation either.

"Thermal neutrons are hot because they move very quickly..."

All radiation, including light, moves quickly. You might be wanting to brush up on your physics a bit.

[caraher]

11. Mangano & Sherman are professional data cherry-pickers

The more I read of the work their less persuasive it becomes. If you sift through enough data and post-select the right subsets, it's trivially easy to come up with "statistically significant" correlations that support your pet theory and claim they warrant "further investigation."

A blogger at Scientific American gives a good breakdown of Mangano & Sherman's "methods."

[Octafish]

14. Good point. The thing is they are almost alone trying to analyze what's going on.

Here's analysis of that 2011 SciAm blog (the article includes links pro- and anti-nuclear power):

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/12/study-fukushima-radiation-has-already-killed-14000-americans.html

It's getting clear that the outsiders are left to make the best guesses they can. The insiders (the nuclear priesthood) have no interest in slowing their nuclear gravy train.

TEPCO has a track record of lying from March 11, 2011 to the present. They underestimated the scale of the disaster, as well as the types and amounts of radiation released. If anything, I'd bet the health effects will be much worse than what Mangano & Sherman have found. So, rather than slam them for their methodology in 2011, I'll go with those trying to learn more about a subject that seems to have dropped off the media radar.

[caraher]

15. They're almost alone in imagining there's anything there to see

It's no mere quibble to note that they have repeatedly fabricated statistical significance by judicious massaging of datasets. (You've probably seen their work on US deaths they attribute to Fukushima, which is simply not credible.) That is not science, that is dressing up a pre-ordained conclusion in the trappings of science, and it is just as deserving of dismissal no matter who does it.

Yes, TEPCO is beyond sleazy and dishonest, but that doesn't automatically make the work of anyone critical of them and other nuclear power companies worthwhile. There are plenty of good science-based critiques of nuclear energy, but holding up efforts this flawed as a good example, or the work of the only people with the guts to stand up to industry, only makes it easier for the nuclear industry to smear all opposition as scientifically ignorant.

[Octafish]

16. Well, what there is to see are three meltdowns and exposed spent fuel pools.

Other than that, there are explosions that have largely destroyed two containment buildings, exposed their irradiated interiors, and scattered plutonium and who knows what to the winds, waters and the four corners of the earth.



Knowing all that, why is the EPA silent? They have radiation monitoring stations across the nation; the Pentagon, around the globe. Where are their data? Where are the scientists and institutions?

Their silence exposes them for what they are: Cowards.

[caraher]

20. Yes, what's happening where the picture is and nearby is awful

Last edited Thu Apr 4, 2013, 01:46 PM - Edit history (1)

But what I'm referring to is effects many thousands of miles away.

And why do you claim the EPA is silent? Data from their monitoring stations are online for anyone who cares to look for it, as well as the data from other independent scientists. If by "silent" you mean "not stampeding people into a panic" it's for the very simple reason that there's not enough hazard, according to any well-known science, to justify sounding an alarm.

[Octafish]

22. No where does EPA -- or the NRC, for that matter -- mention Fukushima and plutonium.

And that's a problem, no matter how far away it is.

DOE-STD-1128-98

Guide of Good Practices for Occupational Radiological Protection in Plutonium Facilities

EXCERPT...

4.2.3 Characteristics of Plutonium Contamination

There are few characteristics of plutonium contamination that are unique. Plutonium
contamination may be in many physical and chemical forms. (See Section 2.0 for the many
potential sources of plutonium contamination from combustion products of a plutonium fire
to radiolytic products from long-term storage.) [font color="blue"]The one characteristic that many believe is
unique to plutonium is its ability to migrate with no apparent motive force. Whether from
alpha recoil or some other mechanism, plutonium contamination, if not contained or
removed, will spread relatively rapidly throughout an area. [/font color]

SOURCE (PDF file format): http://www.hss.doe.gov/nuclearsafety/techstds/docs/standard/DOE-STD-1128-2008.pdf

PS: Thanks for the link. Odd how the EPA didn't look for plutonium in their sampled air filters when the MOX spent fuel pools are exposed to the elements and scattered to the winds, thanks to the explosion in Reactor 3. Judging by the height of the blast cloud, it looks like the stuff got about a third-mile boost into the stratosphere.

PPS: Don't worry. I'll look on the bright side and thank my lucky stars for air-cooling.

[RobertEarl]

19. Sorry caraher

But you present no science. All you present is personal slams against two widely known and respected scientists.

Here's another scientist you can take a whack at.
Hermann Mueller, just a Nobel Prize winner


There is no 'safe' exposure to radiation

Bioaccumulation is one reason why it is dishonest to equate the danger to humans living 5,000 miles away from Japan with the minute concentrations measured in our air. If we tried, we would now likely be able to measure radioactive iodine, cesium, and strontium bioaccumulating in human embryos in this country. Pregnant women, are you OK with that?

Hermann Mueller, another Nobel Prize winner, is one of many scientists who would not have been OK with that. In a 1964 study, "Radiation and Heredity", Mueller spelled out the genetic damage of ionizing radiation on humans. He predicted the gradual reduction of the survival of the human species as exposure to radioactivity steadily increased. Indeed, sperm counts, sperm viability and fertility rates worldwide have been dropping for decades.

These scientists and their warnings have never been disproven, but they are currently widely ignored. Their message is very clear: Virtually every human on Earth carries the nuclear legacy, a genetic footprint contaminated by the Cold War, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, the 400-plus nuclear power plants that have not melted down and now Fukushima.

Albert Einstein said, "The splitting of the atom changed everything, save man's mode of thinking; thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe."



http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/51585989-82/nuclear-radiation-scientists-bullets.html.csp

[caraher]

21. It's no "personal slam" to look at their methods and find them severely lacking

There is a very small circle of researchers who find merit in this kind of work, folks like Busby and Helen Caldicott (whom I admire for her work in the '80s against the nuclear arms race, but who makes a lot of ill-founded proclamations about radiation hazards that are not remotely accurate). Mangano and Sherman are certainly widely-known - it's easy to become widely-known by making startling claims - but that scarcely means the respect they receive comes from mainstream scientists (which it assuredly does not).

As for the rest, of course radiation can have all those deleterious effects. Nobody is saying it doesn't. But the magnitude of the effects depends on how much exposure to what kinds of radiation. (There is debate about exactly what the dependence is, but this isn't homeopathic medicine here!)

The activist you quote (who himself is presuming to speak for the deceased Mueller) engages in exactly the same kind of specious argumentation that would flunk any budding scientist out of a basic course on data analysis. The US national debt has been rising continuously over the same decades that "sperm counts, sperm viability and fertility rates worldwide have been dropping;" do we therefore conclude that the US national debt is the cause?

Or do we instead think in terms of what putative causes might plausibly be expected to have those effects, estimate the relative magnitudes of those effects, and focus further study on the most likely causes? The answer depends on what the goal is. If the goal is to support a pre-ordained conclusion, the answer differs from the one that applies for someone trying to actually understand a given trend.

[RobertEarl]

23. Well, you got one thing right

When you say: "Or do we instead think in terms of what putative causes might plausibly be expected to have those effects, estimate the relative magnitudes of those effects, and focus further study on the most likely causes?"

That is what the study of nuclear radiation and its effects is attempting to do. Cause and effect. The radiation which is new being (as it is manmade) has caused sickness and disease. These are well known and established scientific facts.

Our problem is that the government and big industry do not want us to know what they have done releasing all this radiation and the only science that leaks out is from the few proud brave folks like those listed in this thread.

And what do you do? Attack them and make it seem like they are the liars. All the while the nuke industry keeps dumping their garbage on us.

That's just the plain facts.

[dreamnightwind]

13. When I was a child we used to fish there

in this very reactor's cooling water pond, which was stocked with fish. We'd float around out there in canoes with our lines in the water. Probably caught more than a few free radicals. Might have eaten fish from there, though I don't remember doing so, we weren't very good fishermen.

I was so happy when this reactor was closed by SMUD, which at that time was an outlier, a progressive-thinking public utility. Rancho Seco, R.I.P.

[Octafish]

17. Thanks for the memories!

Reading your words made it seem like I could see the cooling towers behind the tree line and the plant along the water's edge.

I grew up in Southwestern Michigan, between Palisades and Cook nuclear plants. I've got many memories of good times on the beach, including Frisbee the night Nixon resigned.

Lost more than a few friends to cancer over the years. Two were kids to leukemia. Not that there's any link or anything.

What a time, when the utilities were public trusts. It was called democracy.

[dreamnightwind]

18. Come to think of it

the Dad that used to bring the canoes died an early death. Next time I see my parents I'll ask if it was from cancer, can't remember. He was our real connection to that place, for some reason he liked to go there, friends of our family. I wonder how much exposure we got. I always assumed it was pretty low if anything, but the more I find out about the world, the less sure I am about that.

[dreamnightwind]

24. So I checked with my parents, melanoma killed him

in his early 50's. Interesting. Probably a coincidence, but he fished in their cooling pond fairly often, in his canoe.