Three Mile Island residents faced normal cancer rate: study

People living near the site of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident showed no significant rise in cancer deaths, according to a 20-year follow-up study.

Scientists had feared the release of radioactive gas after the 1979 accident in Harrisburg, Pa., may have led to a rise in cancer cases.

But researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health said their surveillance "provides no consistent evidence that radioactivity released during the nuclear accident has had a significant impact on the overall mortality experienced by these residents."

The study looked at 32,100 people who lived within an eight-kilometre radius of the nuclear plant. Researchers adjusted for other risk factors such as background radiation, educational level and smoking.

The study's lead author was epidemiology professor Dr. Evelyn Talbott of the University of Pittsburgh. She said that by analysing 13 years of mortality data, she would find cancers that take years to develop.

Talbott's team examined causes of death including heart disease and cancers that are sensitive to radioactivity, such as lung cancer, breast cancer in women and some lymphatic cancer.

They found virtually no differences between those who were exposed compared to the expected number of deaths in the general population.

Talbott said they found one blip, namely increased death rates from lymphatic cancer and hematopoietic cancer of the blood-forming organs.

After the more serious Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine in 1986, there was a large increase in the number of thyroid cancers among people in the area. But among the Three Mile Island population, there was only one case.

Researchers suggested the radiation exposure following Three Mile Island was less than the annual safe recommended dose for nuclear workers. But, they add, no one fully understands the long-term effects of low-level exposure to radiation.

Talbott suggested other researchers could take a closer look at the increased death rates from lymphatic and blood cancers.

The study appears on the Web site of the National Institutes of Health and will be published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.