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U.S. gov't announces decision to halt cancer risk study at nuclear facilities

Xinhua, September 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

The U.S. government has decided to end a five-year study that tries to determine cancer risks in populations near U.S. nuclear power facilities.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said in a statement this week that continuing the work was impractical, given the significant amount of time and resources needed and the agency's current budget constraints.

In 2010, the NRC commissioned the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct the study at seven operating and decommissioned nuclear facilities. That's intended to update a 1990 government report that found no increased risk of death from cancer for people living near nuclear facilities.

"We're balancing the desire to provide updated answers on cancer risk with our responsibility to use Congressionally-provided funds as wisely as possible," said Brian Sheron, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. "The NAS estimates it would be at least the end of the decade before they would possibly have answers for us, and the costs of completing the study were prohibitively high."

In a five-page memo, dated Aug. 21 and made public Tuesday, the NRC explained that it may take NAS eight to 10 years to complete the study pilot at a cost of 8 million U.S. dollars, leading it to conclude that it's not timely and the costs are excessive.

Meanwhile, the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), an organization chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1964, indicated that it could update the 1990 report in two to years and for about 2.5 million dollars, the NRC memo added.

The NRC stated that U.S. nuclear power plants comply with strict requirements that limit radiation releases from routine operations.

It also cited studies in Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Spain and Switzerland in the memo that generally found no association between facility operations and increased cancer risks to the public that are attributable to the releases or radiation exposure. Endit