U.S. Studies Possible Cancer, A-Plant Link

Federal health officials, troubled by newly reported links between cancer and nuclear plant emissions, have begun an unprecedented national study of mortality rates in communities surrounding the nation’s more than 100 power plants, officials said Friday.

Many questions--largely unanswered--have arisen periodically over the possible link between cancer and nuclear plants since the 1960s, but the new research effort was ordered in response to particularly disturbing studies conducted recently in Massachusetts and Britain.

Those studies suggest an incidence of leukemia near nuclear facilities that, in some cases, was twice the normal expectation. The reports “alerted us to the possible problem, and we thought it was worth checking,” said Dr. John Boice, chief of radiation epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute. “Our level of concern was raised.”

In California, Orange County officials said Thursday that they expect that the area around the San Onofre nuclear power station south of San Clemente will be part of the National Institutes of Health study.

The study of the nuclear plant emissions, which began in December and is to last 18 months, was first disclosed publicly this week by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). It will compile cancer-related death rates since the 1950s in communities around the nation’s nuclear power plants and compare them with other communities that are considered similar in composition and geography but are not exposed to the low-level nuclear emissions.

Public interest groups and others involved with the issue at local levels, citing the potential to verify or disprove the evasive health connection once and for all, generally praised the federal government’s initiative in undertaking the national study.

But an official with a national lobbying group that represents the nuclear industry contended that the study, by its very existence, lends credence to an unproven link between low-level radioactive emissions and cancer. In addition, it unjustly singles out nuclear plants as a possible source, said Ellen Werther of the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness.

‘Jumping the Gun’

“It’s unfair to the American public to needlessly frighten them again,” she said. “I think some people are jumping the gun and looking for any excuse to blame the nuclear industry for any problem in their area.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Sidney Cobb, an epidemiologist who helped conduct the Massachusetts research, said that a national sampling could offer “a real contribution” in helping resolve the lingering scientific debate if the studies are done correctly.

Cobb, a Brown University professor emeritus who has testified before Massachusetts state panels on the issue, co-authored one of several studies of the link in five towns downwind from the now-closed Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth, Mass., from 1982 to 1984. The plant has been closed since April, 1986, because of equipment and management problems.

In a concentrated 20-mile strip, his study found the incidence of myelogenous leukemia--a bone marrow disorder thought to be caused at least partly by radiation--to be 150% to 200% higher than what he said should be the norm.

The professor, while qualifying the results by saying that the danger was no greater than many other environmental harms, said: “The (leukemia) cluster seemed to be there, and it looks as though (the towns’ proximity to the Pilgrim plant) is the best explanation.”

The other recent study that caused the resurgence of concern about the cancer issue found that the death rate for childhood leukemia was twice as high for children living within six miles of nuclear reactors in Britain.

Overall, cancer-related deaths did not appear to have increased for the two decades examined in that study, and project director Sir Richard Doll was quoted as saying last fall: “I personally wouldn’t have the slightest worry about living near (a nuclear plant), nor would I have the slightest worry in having children around there.”

‘No Difference’ Near San Onofre

An analysis of 1984 cancer rates in the San Onofre area showed “no difference” with rates throughout the rest of Orange County, according to Dr. Hoda Anton-Culver, director of the county’s cancer surveillance program, based at UCI Medical Center.

Anton-Culver said the county has about 7,000 new cancer cases annually. Pointing out that 1984 was the first year for which “full data” was available, she said she intends to map 1985 and 1986 cancer rates soon.

An earlier study conducted by the UCLA School of Public Health and the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center also showed cancer rates in the San Onofre area between 1960, the year the plant began operating, and 1978, were no different than those anywhere in California or the nation.

However, James B. Wyngaarden, director of the National Institutes of Health, said that the studies in Britain and Massachusetts “led us to initiate a large-scale evaluation” of the nuclear plant-cancer connection. “The risks at low levels (of exposure) need clarification,” he wrote in a Jan. 28 letter to Kennedy.

Kennedy opposes reopening the Pilgrim plant until “we get satisfactory answers to these disturbing health questions.” His inquiries on a national study “accelerated our efforts” and prompted the NIH to move on the study “perhaps a little faster than we would have if he didn’t contact us,” Boice said.

Times staff writer Jeffrey A. Perlman contributed to this story from Orange County.