Statistics link nuclear reactors and infant mortality

A study of rates of infant mortality and low birthweights since 1945 for each of the states in the United States of America indicates a marked deterioration in newborn viability after 1945.

The study is published by the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a non-profit educational and scientific organisation established by scientists and physicians and dedicated to understanding the relationships between low-level nuclear radiation and public health.

Emphasising the fact that IMRs from 1935 to 1950 in the US registered an annual decline of about 4 percent, the study’s authors contend that decreases in the IMRs ” significantly reduced after 1945″ and radiation may have been a contributing factor.

Of equal concern to the report’s authors is the high number of low birthweights after 1945: “The corresponding increase in underweight live births after 1945 is a magnitude higher than the number of excess infant deaths. It and can also be correlated in each state with exposure to releases first from bomb tests and later from reactors,” the study says.