'JUNK' SCIENTISTS HYPE DUBIOUS RADIATION STUDY

Two well-known anti-nuclear scientists are criss-crossing the country touting a series of unpublished allegations that purport to link fatal breast cancer to proximity to nuclear power plants. They first released the allegations to coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness month in October.

Women who live in 268 counties within 50 miles of nuclear facilities experienced a 10 percent increase in breast cancer deaths between 1950 and 1989 because of "nuclear emissions," according to Ernest Sternglass and Jay Gould of the Chicago based Cancer Prevention Coalition. The national increase in breast cancer deaths during that time was only 4 percent, they said.

Sternglass, a physicist, and Gould, a statisician, have collaborated on other anti-nuclear studies that were discredited by reputable scientists and physicians across the country. Over the past 30 years, Sternglass has claimed that nuclear energy caused cancer, high infant mortality rates, lyme disease, AIDS, and low SAT scores.

The definitive assessment of cancer and nuclear energy- published in September 1990 by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health- concluded that there was "no general increased risk of death from cancer for people living in 107 U.S. counties containing or closely adjacent to 62 nuclear power facilities."

The National Cancer Institute stands by its study. Since the Sternglass/Gould allegations have not been published nor peer-reviewed, the institute has no way to address its specific claims, a spokeswoman said.

Sternglass and Gould allege that the 107 "nuclear" counties designated by the National Cancer Institute had a 6 percent increase in breast cancer mortality rates between 1950-54 base period and the 1980-84 base period, and a 5 percent increase between the base period and 1985-89. Even using Sternglass' and Gould's own numbers, however, these figures are far below the mortality increases in NON-nuclear states for the same time periods (15.4 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively.)

Publicity for the Sternglass/Gould allegations was handled by Greenpeace.

This article was clipped from an NEI mailing. NEI is located at

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