East County : SANTA SUSANA : State Studies Cancer Risk Near Lab Site
A state health report on the incidence of cancer in nine census tracts located near Rockwell International’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory will be released at the end of June, officials said Monday.
The date of the report’s release has not been determined, said Robert L. Holtzer, a public health officer with the state Department of Health Services.
The census tracts covered in the report are within a five-mile radius to the north of the lab site. Rockwell tests rocket engines at the laboratory and formerly did extensive nuclear work there for the U.S. Department of Energy. The lab occupies 2,668 acres southeast of Simi Valley, in the 23900 block of Woolsey Canyon Road.
The health report will focus on the year 1988, the only year for which data on the incidence of cancer in this area is readily available, Holtzer said.
A similar study of five Los Angeles County census tracts near the lab was released in February. That report found elevated rates of bladder cancer in three tracts east of the plant.
The report said the levels were about 50% higher in the three tracts in Canoga Park and Chatsworth than for Los Angeles County as a whole. The tracts studied were within five miles of Santa Susana.
However, state health officials maintain that the bladder cancer findings are preliminary and not necessarily related to the lab.
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