Too Many Cancer Deaths Near TMI, Study Finds

The finding of a study conducted by anti-nuclear activists that cancer death rates near the Three Mile Island power plant were seven times higher than average is being supported by some experts.

State officials, meanwhile, held to their own finding of below-average cancer death rates in the vicinity of the reactors.

The study showing the higher death rate was done by Norman and Marjorie Aamodt, who have opposed restarting the undamaged reactor at the nuclear power plant near Harrisburg. The Aamodts once owned a farm about 45 miles from the plant and now live in Lake Placid, N.Y.

In a door-to-door survey, they found 20 cancer deaths in three communities in the path of the radioactive plume that resulted from the March 28, 1979, accident at the plant. That rate is seven times higher than average, they reported.

A state Health Department report, released earlier this month, concluded that the cancer death rate in the three residential areas south and west of the plant was 2.38 times higher than expected, but it said the numbers were not statistically significant and included types of cancer not associated with radiation exposure.

An epidemiologist criticized the state study on Friday, however, citing flaws in its methods and conclusions.

“There was an excess of cancer deaths around TMI, and the state understates that excess,” said Dr. Carl Johnson, who is also an expert on the medical effects of radiation.

The state’s methods were “arbitrary” and “simplistic,” said Johnson, who is associated with the Medical Care and Research Foundation in Denver. “The state should be more aggressive and search more deliberately for signs of effects.”

But Health Department spokesman William Lindeberg said Johnson’s views were dismissed by a federal judge in a November, 1984, radiation case decision in Kansas.

Lindeberg said the state’s study reviewed the cancer cases cited by the Aamodts and found that they were not connected with the TMI accident. He said the Aamodts spent nearly six years computing what they called a five-year study, and that made their figures seem more impressive.