Nuclear reactors are perfectly safe and don’t have any effect on the health of people living nearby. Right. Closing a reactor, on the other hand, is another story. According to INTERPRESS SERVICE, a study released last month shows a sudden decrease in infant death rates in counties near to and downwind from five reactors in the United States in the first two years after the reactors closed.
There was a similar drop in newly diagnosed cases of leukemia and cancer in children under five years in the four-county area downwind from Rancho Seco reactor, near Sacramento. In the neighborhood of one reactor in Michigan the infant mortality decrease after the reactor’s close was 54.1 percent.