Publication Laka-library:
Health effects of low dose exposure to fission products from Chernobyl and Fermi nuclear reactor in the population of the Detroit Metropolitan Area (1998)
| Author | E.J.Sternglass, J.J.Mangano, Jay M.Gould, RPHP |
| Date | March 1998 |
| Classification | 3.01.8.32/01 (UNITED STATES - SITES - FERMI) |
| Front | 
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From the publication:
Abstract. Although the evidence for an adverse effect of very low doses of ionizing radiation discovered some forty years ago for the case of in utero exposures to diagnostic X-rays has been widely accepted, this is not the case for the even smaller, protracted internal doses from fission products due to distant fallout, nuclear accidents, or normal releases from nuclear reactors. The principal reason is that an assumed linear extrapolation from high dose-rate medical and bomb exposures based on direct damage to DNA leads to expected effects much too small to be detectable in the small number of childhood cancers in existing studies. However, the mounting evidence for the role of indirect free-radical damage increasing with declining dose-rate removes this objection, justifying further epidemiological studies using larger populations. The present paper describes the results of the exposure of a very large population in the Detroit, Michigan, area to fallout from Chernobyl measured in 1986, followed by the reported releases from the start-up of the Fermi-II nuclear plant in 1988located 20 miles from the city that receives its drinking water from Lake St. Clair downwind to the north-east of the plant. Due to the prior existence of a local cancer registry for a total population of about 4 million, and the availability of reliable public- health statistics by age, race andsex, combined with the absence of an accident known to produce population movement and stress, highly significant rises and declines of the incidence of early childhood leukemia and other cancers could be related both geographically and temporally to the observed rises and declines of fission products in the milk as well as releases from the reactor.
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