TMI 40th Anniversary Health Survey
For decades the official position of the U.S. government and the nuclear industry is that very little radiation was released during the March 1979 partial meltdown of Three Mile Island. Unfortunately, that lie has been told so often it has become part of the “official science.” We “human dosimeters,” who live in the shadow of TMI, have long questioned “official science.”
Following the accident, we learned the amount of radiation released was under-reported in official reports. Records of radiation gauges that went “off the scale” during the accident, the account of a local dentist who found all of his x-ray film fogged, and the accounts of thousands of local residents who reported a metallic taste in their mouths and other symptoms on the morning of the accident were “officially” discounted.
In the years since the accident, the evidence of ongoing health problems has grown. Local citizens like Jane Lee and Marjorie Aamodt voluntarily surveyed their neighbors and found alarming results.
University of North Carolina epidemiologist Dr. Steven Wing conducted a study that correlated meteorological data from the time of the accident (which way the wind was blowing) with increased cancers and other adverse health effects compared to those in the area, but not under the plume. A 2009 study in Germany found a 60 percent increase in cancers and a 120 percent increase in leukemia among children living within five kilometers of a nuclear power plant.
More recently, researchers at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center have pointed to a possible correlation between TMI and an increase in thyroid cancers in the area surrounding the plant.
In 2011, the National Academy of Science launched a two-phase study to look at cancer risks associated with nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission managed to kill that study characterizing it too costly and taking too long.
We all know people who believe TMI has adversely affected their health. A TMI Survivors Facebook page was launched in April 2016. It has more than 3700 subscribers. So, in the absence of an official inquiry, TMI Alert is seeking to gather information from accident victims. We are not scientists. This is not a survey designed by scientists. It is an effort to collect and document health-related data from those who survived TMI and from the next of kin and others related to TMI’s victims. Personal data collected about participants will not be made public and will only be shared with serious academic and medical researchers.
We hope this information, in the hands of researchers, will build a clear and compelling refutation of the fiction that there has been no harm from TMI.
