Nuclear regulators want new study on cancer rates near nuclear reactors

Nuclear regulators on Wednesday asked the National Academy of Sciences to study whether nuclear power plants present a cancer risk to people living nearby.

The study will update a 1990 report from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that examined 900,000 cancer deaths from 1950 to 1984 in counties that contain nuclear facilities. That study examined mortality rates and ultimately determined there were no links between the proximity to nuclear power plants and cancer.

But Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Energy and Environment subcommittee and a critic of the nuclear industry, said the NCI study was “flawed” in a statement crediting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for reexamining the issue. He has called on the NRC to conduct a new study since at least 2005.

That year Markey sent a letter to then-NRC Chairman Nils Diaz questioning whether NCI erred in measuring mortablity rates because the information is based on where people die rather than where they lived during the period prior to contracting cancer. Measuring mortality rates rather than incidence rates may also negate the full health impacts of cancer because not everyone who contracts the disease dies.

Markey also questioned the use of county-wide data to reach a conclusion. The lack of precision may dilute the health impact on the communities that live closest to a reactor, Markey wrote in his 2005 letter.

“We need to ensure that this new study examines rates of cancer incidence, utilizes relevant data, and is conducted independently,” Markey said in a release on Wednesday.

Markey had written a letter in December 2009 to the NRC urging it to request the National Academy of Sciences to perform a cancer study.