Media meltdown
Editorial
Copyright 1999 Washington Times
March 26, 1999
Twenty years ago this Sunday, U.S. residents came home from
work to the news
that doom was waiting for them. There had been an accident, some
kind of
"meltdown" at a little-known power plant outside of
Harrisburg, Pa., known as
Three Mile Island. It threatened to loose lethal
doses of radiation on area residents.
The avuncular CBS broadcaster Walter Cronkite promptly went
nuclear.
"The danger faced by man for tampering with natural forces, a
theme familiar
from the myths of Prometheus to the story of Frankenstein," he
said,
"moved closer to fact from fancy through the day."
Then-Pennsylvania Gov. Richard Thornburgh soon
advised all pregnant women and preschool children within 5 miles of
the plant
to evacuate. Activists and media descended on the area. A movie
about a
nuclear-plant accident, entitled
"The China Syndrome" and coincidentally released about
the same time, raised fears of a meltdown.
The
panic was on.
It all made for great drama but lousy science and
government policy. Since the
accident, researchers have searched continually for serious health
effects from
the accident, only to find that they couldn't find any. No one died
at
Three Mile Island.
No one even got seriously ill. Health experts said they could find
no more
cancer deaths, fetal or infant mortality, developmental
abnormalities or
genetic ill health than they would have expected to find without
the accident.
Indeed, in 1985 researchers found that a 5-year survey of
residents living within 20 miles of the plant showed they actually
suffered
fewer cancer deaths than would have been normally expected.
A federal judge in Harrisburg threw out a case in 1996
brought by persons
claiming ill effects from the accident. The plaintiffs, she said,
"have had nearly
two decades to muster evidence in support of their respective
cases. . . . The
paucity of proof alleged in support of the Plaintiffs' case is
manifest. The
court has searched the record for any and all evidence which
construed in a
light most favorable to Plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of
material
fact warranting submission of their claims to a jury. This effort
as been in
vain."
That's not surprising. Although radiation did escape the
plant that day,
residents' exposure was so small as to be negligible. The average
dose for
someone living within 5 miles of the plant was about what an
airline passenger
receives
during two round-trip transcontinental flights. (And that assumes
the
hypothetical resident was standing outside continuously from March
28 to April
7, 1979.) But no one on a plane trip expects to find Frankenstein
watching the
in-flight movie in the seat next to him.
Not that there
weren't any health effects. Researchers examining area residents
found that
the biggest health problem had to do with stress. There was a
"pronounced demoralizing effect" on residents in the
general area. Part of the problem was that they couldn't
decide how seriously to take the risk of remaining in the area.
Almost 20
percent of the homes surveyed in the area said there was
disagreement about
whether to leave.
Some of that ambivalence continues to this day, in part
because the media,
activists and similarly credentialed experts continue to play up
nuclear's
alleged risks. Such fearmongering makes it harder for utilities to
renew plant
licenses
for existing plants, much less order new ones. Losing a clean,
safe, relatively
inexpensive source of electricity like nuclear power would be a far
greater
disaster than
Three Mile Island.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to
post a public comment on the Trash Talk
Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private
comment to the Junkman.