Researcher-Activist Claims Cancer Rates Up Around Indian Point

A press conference at Columbia University Monday will cover new research from a controversial New Jersey activist-researcher about growth in thyroid cancer rates in Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester, the four counties around the Indian Point nuclear power plant. In January Entergy announced its intention to permanently shut down the two operating reactors there by 2021.

The press conference, sponsored by the non-profit Radiation and Public Health Project, will present and discuss the results of its executive director's newest work. Joseph Mangano's research claims that thyroid cancer rates locally "have increased eightfold since Indian Point’s nuclear reactors started operating, from 22 percent below the U.S. average in the 1970s to 53 percent above today."

The researchers call thyroid cancer an epidemic. According to the National Cancer Institute, rates for new thyroid cancer cases rose on average 3.8 percent each year over the 10 years ending in 2014.

Mangano's studies have been controversial. In 2011 the Annenburg Center for Health Journalism warned about Mangano after he published a paper connecting 14,000 American deaths to the Fukushima nuclear accident. The Annenburg Center specifically warned reporters against sensationalizing papers in scientific journals.

Scientific American accused Mangano of "torturing" his data.

In a 2014 article in Popular Mechanics called "What Can We Do About Junk Science?" he was criticized for skewing research for political activism.

He has published about other nuclear power plants. In 2014, for example, Mangano said the same thing about San Luis Obispo County in California that he is now saying about the counties around Indian Point, alleging that it had changed from a low-cancer to a high-cancer county since the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant opened in the mid-1980s. He was accused then by state and county public health officials of "cherry-picking" data to make a pre-conceived point. His research was funded as part of a long-term anti-nuclear-power campaign by an organization called the World Business Academy, according to California Healthline.

The Radiation and Public Health Project is a research and education group of scientists and citizens who have published 37 scientific journal articles and written eight books on the topic of health hazards of nuclear reactor emissions. For more information see www.radiation.org.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the NRC does evaluate health effects of nuclear power and seeks out new scientific information. However, Neil Sheehan told Patch the NRC finds little or no credibility in the RPHP's studies.

"The organization has published numerous studies seeking to link U.S. nuclear power plant operations with increases in thyroid cancer cases in the vicinity of those facilities," said Sheehan. "The NRC has found little or no credibility when it comes to those studies. What’s more, numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies do not support the organization’s assertions.

"Questions we have raised about the group’s studies have included the areas of methodology, assumptions and conclusions. In general, we have found that these studies have not followed good scientific principles."

However, Marilyn Elie, a northern Westchester resident who long fought for Indian Point to be closed, said Mangano does not claim cause and effect but rather something that should be studied more closely.

"The Mangano statistics, which are smaller and less costly than a full blown epidemiological study, show a correlation, or possible relationship, between living near Indian Point and thyroid cancer," she said. "His studies raise an important issue that needs to be explored for the health and safety of Hudson Valley residents."

The press conference will start at 12:30 p.m. Monday at Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall in Manhattan.

Other speakers Monday will include Susan Shapiro, JD, an attorney, Radiation and Public Health Project board member and Indian Point expert; and Joanne DeVito, a longtime resident of the Indian Point area. She and her three daughters have thyroid cancer, the press release said.

PHOTO: Indian Point Nuclear Facility/ Entergy

SEE ALSO:

• Closing Indian Point: The Locals Have A Checklist
• NY's Indian Point Closure Task Force to Hold 2nd Meeting
• No Need For Indian Point Seismic, Flood Evaluations: NRC