I live near Oak Ridge TN, They had a independent group come in and the biggest contributing factor to cancer they found was income and education. I think Morgan and Scott counties had the highest rates and lowest life expectancy. Even though Oak Ridge Reservation is mostly in Roane and Anderson Counties. THese counties are upwind and up stream from Oak Ridge the majority of the time, It can also be genetics where the same family gets the same cancer , this can throw off the statistics. Basically poor, smoke more, fatter,less money to take care of themselves, and less educated on how to take care of themselves.
Not saying this in this case , I do not know the area , There was Love Canal that had a definite link, this was chemical not rad though.
There is a school of thought that a little rad is good for you and actually cuts down on cancer and increases life expectancy, I believe the professors name was DR. Luckey and the theory was hormesis. There is a curve for this. Like vitamins are good if you take the right amount, too much can hurt you. A person actually died from a water drinking contest.
Proponents of radiation hormesis accept that high radiation levels are harmful; that intense artificial radiation, for example, is toxic. But they believe that low levels of radiation, comparable to the natural background level of radiation are not harmful. The subject of radiation hormesis has captured the attention of scientists and public alike in recent years, perhaps because of its counter-intuitive properties. Opinion pieces on chemical and radiobiological hormesis appeared in the journals Nature[1] and Science[3] in 2003.
While most major studies have used the linear no-threshold model (LNT),[8] the 2005 French Academy of Sciences-National Academy of Medicine's report concerning the effects of low-level radiation rejects LNT as a scientific model of carcinogenic risk associated for doses less than 100 mSv. They consider there to be several dose-effect relationships rather than only one, and that these relationships have many variables such as target tissue, radiation dose, dose rate and individual sensitivity factors. They propose that more study is done on low doses (less than 100 mSv) and very low doses (less than 10 mSv) as well as the impact of tissue type and age. The Academy considers the LNT model useful for regulatory purposes as it simplifies the administrative task. However, they also point out that approximately 40% of laboratory studies on cell cultures and animals report some sort of radiobiological hormesis.[7] They state:
"...its existence in the laboratory is beyond question and its mechanism of action appears well understood."
They go on to outline the growing body of research that illustrates that the human body is not a passive accumulator of radiation damage but it actively repairs the damage caused via a number of different processes, including:[7]
Mechanisms that mitigate reactive oxygen species generated by ionising radiation and oxidative stress.
Apoptosis of radiation damaged cells that may undergo tumorigenesis is initiated at only few mSv.
Cell death during meiosis of radiation damaged cells that were unsuccessfully repaired.
The existence of a cellular signaling system that alerts neighboring cells of cellular damage.
The activation of enzymatic DNA repair mechanisms around 10 mSv.
Modern DNA microarray studies which show that numerous genes are activated at radiation doses well below the level that mutagenesis is detected.
Radiation induced tumorigenesis may have a threshold related to damage density, as revealed by experiments that employ blocking grids to thinly distribute radiation.
A large increase in tumours in immunosuppressed individuals illustrates that the immune system efficiently destroys aberrant cells and nascent tumors.
Increased sensitivity to radiation induced tumourgenesis in the rare inherited condition Ataxia-telangiectasia like disorder, illustrates the damaging effects of loss of the DNA repair gene Mre11h (with Nibrin & hRad50).[9] More Here
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Hormesis_dose_response_graph.svg/220px-Hormesis_dose_response_graph.svg.png&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis&usg=__Avvj82mOODCV_YqUUdAlBdxLoI4=&h=145&w=220&sz=6&hl=en&start=13&itbs=1&tbnid=VCnz616qmFBgOM:&tbnh=71&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dluckey%2Bhormesis%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
