A new study suggests that people living near the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island in 1979, when it released radioactive gas into the air, may have suffered of a higher rate of certain cancers in the first years after the accident. But many epidemiologists are skeptical about the provocative findings, which were published today in a report in the current issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives .
After the accident, residents near the plant in Pennsylvania began reporting nausea, vomiting, hair loss and rashes - are signs of radiation exposure. Exactly how much radiation was released is a big question. In 190, a report Maureen Hatch, now the School of Medicine Mount Sinai in New York, and colleagues at Columbia University found that not enough radiation escaped into the environment to increase risk of cancer in 1985. But after reviewing the statistics on cancer in the region and the radiation levels measured, epidemiologist Steven Wing and colleagues at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that more radiation may have escaped summer measured and that the risk of certain cancers occurs.
Wing found that persons alleged to have been exposed to higher doses of radiation were almost twice as likely to develop lung cancer were those who received the lowest doses. His team also found that the risk of adult leukemia was almost seven times higher for those in the most exposed group.
Other experts are not impressed. For example, some epidemiologists stress, smoking may have contributed to the increased risk of lung cancer. Regarding leukemia numbers, such a high risk usually means a real effect, said Charles Land, a statistician at the National Cancer Institute. But he stressed that the data are insufficient to show a trend in the two most reliable indicators of radiation exposure - childhood leukemia and thyroid cancer. Reanalysis, Earth concludes, "not persuaded" Wing could not be reached for comment
More data could possibly settle the issue on the horizon of a study... cancer rates around Three Mile Island in 1985 by epidemiologist Evelyn Talbott of the University of Pittsburgh to be submitted for publication this summer. His analysis will include thyroid cancer and childhood leukemia in 1992 to 32,000 people living within 8 kilometers of Three Mile Island. the study is the control of confounding factors such as smoking and employment in the nuclear industry.
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