New London County (NLC), home to the Millstone Nuclear Power Station, has the highest cancer rate for females in the state of Connecticut, according to a recent study by the Connecticut Tumor Registry.

Millstone's two nuclear reactors regularly release carcinogenic radioactive chemicals into the air and Long Island Sound. The nuke station also routinely releases dozens of other cancer causing toxic chemicals into those waters. Millstone has been operating since 1970.

The March 2006 study, 'Cancer Incidence in Connecticut Counties, 1990-2002,' calculated age adjusted cancer incidence rates for the periods 1990-97 and 1998-2002. During both periods, for all cancers for females, New London County had the highest rate among state counties.

And that rate increased from the first to the second period studied by 3.6%, a change 57% higher than the change in the state rate.

The Tumor Registry study did not delve into possible reasons for New London County females having this dubious distinction, nor did it name possible causes of cancers. The closest it came was stating that there are "multiple contributing factors, including, presumably, some that are related to socioeconomic status."

Thus the agency ignored contributions of manmade pollution as causative factors. That let Millstone off the hook in New London County, as well as the Axis of Evil on the east bank of the Thames River in Groton: Pfizer, General Dynamics Electric Boat Company, and the Navy Sub Base. Not to be forgotten either is Dow Chemical further upstream in Gales Ferry. All have had high pollution rates in the past and/or present.

The Tumor Registry is a division of the Connecticut Department of Health.

A breakdown of these high rates for all female cancers reveals high rates for specific cancers as well.

For cancers of the lung, trachea and bronchus, NLC females had the second highest state rate for '90-'97, and the highest rate in '98-'02. The rate increased by 18% in the second period over the first. The Tumor Registry study defined a change in the second period rate over the first of 10% or more as "high."

NLC females had the highest state rates for cancers of the colon, rectum and anus for both periods. The rate in the second period was 11% higher than in the first.

For bladder cancers, county females went from having the sixth highest state rate in the first period to second highest in '98-'02. The county's rate was 22% higher in the latter period, compared to the earlier one.

Females in NLC had the third highest rate of uterine cancer in the state in '90-'97, and the highest in the latter period. The change in the county's rate over the two periods was also 22%, compared to only a 2% rise statewide.

For cervical cancer, the county female rare was number one in the state for both periods, even though NLC's declined 18% in the second period.

County females had the highest rate of ovarian cancer during '90-'97 and fourth highest for '98-'02. The report noted that many ovarian tumors previously considered cancerous had been redefined as "of uncertain malignancy," and therefore removed from the registry's tally in this report.

For myeloma, NLC females had the second highest rate in the state during both periods studied.

And for breast cancer, females in the county had the second highest rate in the state during the earlier period, and the fourth highest in the latter one. The county rate actually increased in the second period, however.

New London County males did not escape high rates of specific kinds of cancers either. They were number three in the state during '90-'97, and number one in '98-'02, for cancers of the lung, bronchus and trachea. Their rate for bladder cancer went from eighth (last) in the state in the earlier period, to second in the latter one. For cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx, the NLC male rate was highest in the state in both periods, though it went down 18% in the latter one. And the male NLC rate for thyroid cancer went from number three in the state in '90-'97 to number one in '98-'02, with a 57% increase in the county rate change from the first to the second period.

Interestingly, the NLC thyroid rate for females rose 36% in the second period, compared to that of the first one. Thyroid cancer rates in the state overall rose 39% for males, and 64% for females, from '90-'97 to '98-'02.

For both genders, NLC leukemia rates rose sharply from the first to the second period, by 26% for males and 15% for females.

In addition, the way the current study divides the periods it studied sometimes obscures previous findings of high cancer rates in New London County. Two previous studies, from 2002 and 2004, respectively, studied cancer rates in Connecticut counties from 1995 to 1998, and then 1995 to 1999. In those studies, all cancers for males in NLC had first the highest, and then the second highest rates in the state. But the present study divides the years in the earlier studies, adding '95-97 to the earlier period and '98-99 to the latter one. This makes it impossible for the reader of the current report to see if trends in the earlier reports continued or not, say, from '95 to '02.

Besides that, the current study does not include a significant number of specific cancers whose rates were calculated in the earlier studies. This includes some diseases which showed high rates in NLC, such as cancer of the esophagus, liver, testis, other female genital, and melanoma.

Though not alone, neither the Tumor Registry nor any other governmental agency responsible for the public's health and safety has yet come to terms with another report, this one released last year by the National Academy of Sciences.

The academy's committee studying the effects of low level radiation on human health concluded that there is no such thing as a risk free dose of it. It implicated low level radiation in causing cancer, as well as heart disease.

The committee's chairman, Richard Monson of the Harvard School of Public Health, stated, upon the study's release, "the scientific research shows that there is no threshold below which low levels of ionizing radiation [the kind released by nuclear weapons and reactors] can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial. The health risks, particularly the development of solid cancers in organs, rise proportionally with exposure. At low doses of radiation, the risk of inducing solid cancers is very small. As the overall lifetime exposure increases, so does the risk."

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell certainly hasn’t gotten this message. Earlier this year she deep-sixed a measly $25,000 grant already promised by the state to the independent Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP). The funding had been promised to study children’s teeth in the state for the presence of strontium 90, a dangerous long lived radioactive carcinogen released from nuclear weapons and power reactors like Millstone. In previous studies funded by other states, the RPHP found that teeth from children living near nuclear reactors had higher amounts of strontium 90 than those from kids living further away. Another of its studies showed that children living near nuclear reactors have a greater chance of developing cancer while still kids.

Is there any doubt that Rell and her nuclear power supporters are afraid of the inconvenient truths that might emerge from similar studies in Connecticut?