Thyroid Cancer Explosion Could Slow Nuclear Plants
BY TONY WEST/
Will the region’s nuclear power industry, which is eyeing a new era of expansion, collide with a wall in the form of a fear of spreading cancer?
PSEG has begun public rollout of its plan to build a fourth reactor at its Salem/Hope Creek complex in South Jersey. If it is approved and built, perhaps by the year 2022 it will be the 14th reactor within a 100-mile radius and the first to come online since 1989.
Thyroid cancer has also been coming online in this region since the first wave of nuclear plants was built. The rate of this relatively rare disease is on the rise in the United States – but particularly so in Eastern Pennsylvania. A coalition of researchers and environmentalists says nuclear power may be the culprit.
That’s not clear. But it does create a new public-relations hurdle for the industry to leap.
Joseph Mangano, a South Jersey expert with the Radiation & Public Health Project, has published an article in the current International Journal of Health Studies showing Pennsylvania leads the nation in thyroid cancer, especially at its eastern end. Lehigh Co. (the Allentown area) has the highest rate in the USA: 21.4 per 100,000, or almost two and a half times the national rate. All other counties also show an elevated rate of this cancer. Philadelphia’s rate, 11.5, is 29% higher than the national average.
It wasn’t always so. For many years, Eastern Pennsylvania’s thyroid-cancer rate was well below the national average. Starting around 1990, though, it began to climb. By 2000, our rate was 30% higher than the national rate and has stayed that way ever since.
Not much is known about the causes of this form of cancer. It is so rare that it hasn’t attracted much research. But radiation can definitely be one cause. Radioactive iodine, in particular, is a danger because that element makes a beeline for the thyroid gland, an almond-sized organ in the neck. Tiny traces of radioactive iodine, among other chemicals, can occur in releases from a nuclear plant.
Nevertheless, it is impossible, at this point, to blame thyroid cancers on nuclear power. For one thing, “tiny,” in this case, means “really tiny.” Joe Scopelliti, a spokesman for PPL’S Susquehanna nuclear-power plant, noted the overall background rate of radiation in his area is about 350 millirems (a millirem is a unit of radiation). “In the area immediately surrounding our facility, the amount of radiation that is traceable to its emissions is only .01 millirem,” he said. In other words, the plant increases total radiation in the environment by one-350,000th.
PPL maintains a research farm on its property. Ecologists regularly study its simple organisms that lie at the base of the food chain for signs of radioactive effluent.
“It seems unlikely that such a small effect could trigger a large increase in illness rates, Scopelliti said. “People should not be quick to jump to conclusions.”
Radon gas occurring naturally in the soil is a problem for many parts of Eastern Pennsylvania. It is a known radioactive health hazard. Scopelliti, who lives one mile from his power plant, has installed a passive radon vent in his basement. “If there is a regional pattern that might be caused by radioactivity, I would first look to radon,” he said.
In any event, it isn’t a power company’s job to research the causes of cancer. It is an intensely regulated industry, and complying with numerous government standards is the main mission of a plant operator. The US government does not currently recognize any health threat from any or all of the reactors in our region.
Cancer was one of the first dangers found to be caused by radioactivity. A lot of scientists have spent a lot of time looking for correlations between nuclear power plants and cancer, and failed. Most recently, the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2005 that the health risk from low levels of ionizing radiation is small.
However, it is unlikely the earth suddenly began to emit more radon shortly before 1990. Most of the region’s power plants, by contrast, went into operation between 1973 and 1989.
But the use of medical radiation has also exploded since the 1970s. It has become ever more widely used as a treatment for cancer. CAT scanning, which was being developed as the first nuclear power plants were being built, also emits radiation; in 2007, 70 million CAT procedures were carried out in the USA.
Some observers suggest the concentration of advanced medicine in Eastern Pennsylvania may have dramatically increased exposure of its population to radiation in recent years. It’s an alternative explanation for the increase in thyroid cancer.
Other contend an increase in the thyroid-cancer rate may be caused by better diagnosis. By this reasoning, physicians may simply have become better at finding it, thereby driving its numbers up.
But Mangano said he is unaware of any focus on improved diagnosis of this form of cancer in particular. From 1980 to 2006, the incidence of thyroid cancer across the USA went up by 154%. During the same period, breast cancer, which was receiving enormous popular attention and a vast influx of research, increased by only 20%, he pointed out.
Nobody really knows. And even at current rates, this is still an uncommon cancer – one-tenth as common as female invasive breast cancer, for instance. It tends to strike late in life. It is easily treated and highly survivable.
Still, that is no comfort to those who get it. Suzanne Litzenberger, who lives in the Lehigh Valley, was diagnosed with the disease in 2004 when she was only 24. Today, she is a member of a survivor support group that was stimulated by the sobering discovery they are living in a disease hotspot.
“We often discuss the possible sources of our cancer,” she said. “Nuclear-power plants have often come up in our conversations as well as other environmental factors. It would put our minds at ease to know why this happened and discover possible ways to prevent it in the future.”
I mustsay that I like what you posted, and I’ve added your site to my .