Next door to nukes

From the York Daily Record: 

Citing the 20 years since the last comprehensive national study of its kind and information technology advances since then, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requesting a new study on potential health effects posed by nuclear power plants.

The request was made to the National Academy of Sciences, which will oversee the study.

Findings from a previous study from the National Cancer Institute were published in 1991 and did not find a connection between living next to a plant and cancer-related deaths.

The question of possible health effects comes up frequently from the public, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC.

"It's an appropriate time now," he said. "It's been two decades since this kind of national study."

Also, the previous study looked only at data on the county level to look for possible problems, Sheehan said, which might not have been refined enough.

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