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Three Mile Island : Health effects of Three Mile Island in question

By ROB STEIN, UPI Science Writer

BOSTON -- Nearly a decade after the near-meltdown at the Three Mile Island power plant, researchers are still trying to sort out the possible health effects of the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident.

Most recently, doctors from the Pennsylvania Department of Health released results from two new studies and updates on two others at a meeting of the American Public Health Association.

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So far, officials say, they have found no evidence of any adverse effect on the health of residents living near the central Pennsylvania plant.

'We have not seen any significant, important physical impact of the accident,' said Dr. George Tokuhata, director of the department's Division of Epidemiology Research and its TMI Research Program.

The studies have not, however, reassured people living near the plant. Many say they are convinced radiation released in the accident affected their health and question the validity of the state studies.

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'I'm not confident that the expertise used in putting these studies together took into consideration all the components to tailor a study that would come out to answer all questions,' said Kay Pickering of Three Mile Island Alert Inc., a citizen's group.

'I know that in the community people have said to me they have seen an increase in thyroid problems. There are doctors who have said they've seen an increase in leukemias,' she said in a telephone interview after the meeting.

Federal studies after the March 29, 1979, accident concluded radiation released was not enough to cause public health damage, a conclusion challenged by TMI Alert.

Some 2,000 personal injury suits filed as a result of the accident, many claiming that area residents developed cancer from radiation exposure, are still pending.

Aside from the state studies, the only other research released so far has been on the psychological effects of the accident. Those studies found the accident and restart of the plant caused significant stress among residents.

The only other research on the health effects of the accident is being funded by a settlement from insurance companies. But those results have not been released.

In the first state study released in Boston, researchers compared the perceptions of 1,850 pregnant women who lived within a 10-mile radius of the plant when the accident occurred with those of the same number of women living in the same area who became pregnant a year later.

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When the women were surveyed in 1985 and 1986, a significantly greater proportion of the women who were pregnant when the accident occurred perceived their child's health as poor.

Although the findings are disturbing, Tokuhata said he believed the findings were a result of a bias among the women and not actually due to their children having poorer health.

'Pregnant women who were very upset during the crisis were especially alert to health problems in their children and tend to remember those problems,' Tokuhata said.

But the researchers are analyzing the childrens' medical records to determine whether their health was actually poorer.

In the second study, researchers compared the death rate of about 36,000 people who lived within a 5-mile radius of the plant when the accident occurred to the overall death rate in the state for six years following the accident.

The researchers, who examined the overall mortality rate, deaths from cancer and 10 additional major causes of death, found no significant increase in deaths among those living near the plant.

Tokuhata also updated another study that examined the pregnancy outcomes of 3,946 women who lived within a 10-mile radius of the plant and delivered a baby within a year of the accident. Those women were compared to 4,046 women who lived in the same area but delivered a year later -- meaning they were not pregnant when the accident occurred.

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The researchers found no significant increase among the women pregnant when the accident occurred in terms of the rate of babies being born stillborn, dying within the first 27 days of life, being born with a birth defect, being born prematurely or scoring low on a scale that measures health at birth.

The only significant finding was that women who were pregnant when the accident occurred were more likely to take extra medications, such as sleeping pills, painkillers or high blood pressure drugs. Those women were also twice as likely overall to give birth to low birthweight babies.

Although this amounted to a relatively small number of babies, the researchers plan to follow them carefully because being born underweight is one of the most important risk factors for developing later health problems.

In the last study, the researchers compared the infant mortality rate among babies in a 10-mile radius of the plant and found no significant increase among babies living near the plant.

'Taking all this together up to this point we have not seen any measure of significant physical effects of the accident,' Tokuharta said.

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