State extracts funds for tooth fairy project

LACEY -- Local volunteers looking for a way in which to help fund the "Tooth Fairy Project" will have to look some place other than the state government.

Gov. Christie Whitman has deleted the line item introduced by Sen. Leonard Connors, R-Ocean, which would have appropriated $75,000 for use in gathering donations of baby teeth in Ocean and Monmouth counties to test them for effects of low-level radiation.

The official statement out of the governor's office regarding the effort by Connors to appropriate the $75,000 was that the STAR Foundation and Radiation and Public Health Project "should apply for a grant or explore private or federal funding."

Actor Alec Baldwin, a member of the board of directors for the STAR foundation, was dissatisfied with the governor's decision not to appropriate the $75,000 in support of the Tooth Fairy Project. "I am disappointed that Gov. Whitman would veto such a modest appropriation that would have done so much to investigate the impacts of the Oyster Creek reactor upon local health," said Baldwin. "Clearly, public health and objective analysis are not Gov. Whitman's priorities."

Connors speculated the governor may have been concerned that the money would not have been used for research exclusively in the local area. "And I guess I can understand her reasoning there. After all, who knows if the $75,000 would have been used here or to pay somebody's salary. But it was one of the few things she red-lined, and it was one of the things we thought would definitely go through," said Connors.

Scott Cullen of the STAR foundation, however, was unable to understand the governor's reasoning. "We gave the government a detailed outline of how the money was to be used locally in the area," he said. He also pointed out that Whitman has received hundreds of letters from constituents in support of the project.

The Tooth Fairy Project is a study researching the presence of strontium-90 (Sr-90) in baby teeth. It is supported by the efforts of Standing for Truth about Radiation foundation and the Radiation Public Health Project. The two foundations are working together to collect the baby teeth, which are then scientifically analyzed. According to the RPHP Internet Web site, the element in question, "the cancer- causing radioisotope strontium-90 (Sr-90) has been found in the teeth of children born in the 1980s at levels equal to those of the middle 1950s when the U.S. and the former Soviet Union were conducting routine above-ground bomb tests."

Public attention has been drawn to the matter through the voluntary participation of celebrities Baldwin and Christie Brinkley. Both Baldwin and Brinkley have attended seminars in Toms River as recently as May, in an effort to discuss the existence of strontium-90 in the teeth of children and the long-term health effects of its presence.

The concern voiced by the members of the organizations, according to Ernest Zobian, local coordinator of the Tooth Fairy Project, is that the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, opened in 1969, has been releasing low-level radiation for a long period of time. The presence of Sr-90 in the baby teeth of the children of Ocean and Monmouth counties, the organizations contend, is solid, scientific proof that such radiation emissions are having a negative effect on local health.

Joe Mangano, author of the book "Low Level Radiation and Immune System Damage: An Atomic Era Legacy" and a member of the RPHP, said that Oyster Creek's record of emissions is documented in an annual report published by Brookhaven National Laboratories.

"Oyster Creek is the dirtiest nuclear power plant on the eastern seaboard in terms of low-level radiation emitted, and the second dirtiest in the United States, the only dirtier reactor being the Dresden plant in Joliet, Ill.," said Mangano. "But Dresden has three reactors compared to Oyster Creek's one."

Scott Cullen of the STAR foundation explained the measurement of emissions: "Low level radiation is measured in terms of 'Curies'. A typical level of radiation emitted from a plant should be from one to four Curies. Oyster Creek's level was at 76 Curies. As a basis of comparison, Three-Mile-Island at the peak of its problems only measured 14 Curies," said Cullen.

"These levels concern airborne emissions of radioactive materials with a half-life of eight days," said Mangano. "That's plenty of time."

"The zone of effect admitted to by the state is an evacuation area of 10 miles," according to Zobian. "But there is an area of ingestion that is 50 miles in radius. Daily small releases have effects up to 50 miles."

He said that this has national implications.

"There are over 100 nuclear power plants still operating nationally. Thus two-thirds of the country fall within the effect of radiation being released."

According to the RPHP, "The chemical structure of radioactive strontium (called Sr-90) is similar to calcium, and, when ingested by pregnant women, some of it is transferred to the bones of the fetus. Sr-90 can be measured in the deciduous teeth that children lose between the ages of 5 and 11. Once in the body, Sr-90 continually irradiates cells in the bone and blood-forming element for many years where it can induce bone cancer or leukemia. Babies who ingest breast milk and children who drink cow's milk and formula-based milk may also ingest Sr-90, which settles in their bones."

Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station representative and nuclear safety assessor, Mark Budaj, said Tuesday that the power plant is operating in compliance with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Any information regarding the performance of the generating station is public knowledge," he said.

When asked his reaction to the above statistics regarding radiation emissions from the power plant, Budaj responded, "We completely support any studies of the generating station 100 percent, however, the suggestion that strontium-90 is being emitted by Oyster Creek is something I can't comment on. I have no knowledge of that."

When Budaj, an engineer, was asked if he could think of any other sources in the area which might be causing strontium-90 to be present in children's teeth other than Oyster Creek, he replied "I have no knowledge of that."

Zobian was less than pleased over the governor's decision to decline support for the project. "The buck doesn't stop at Christie's desk," said Zobian. "At least two-thirds of the children in Ocean County have radioactive amounts measured in their baby teeth which are above the expected amounts. A large number of children in Ocean and Monmouth counties have an unacceptable level of strontium-90 in their teeth," said Zobian.

Is any level of Sr-90 in teeth acceptable? According to Mangano, the answer is no.

"It's sad that the money for something affecting local children should have to come from places outside the area," said Zobian. "The longer it goes on -- if we're correct -- the more children will die of cancer. We were planning a major grass-roots effort with the funding and also to speed up the collection of teeth," said Zobian.

Mangano added that Toms River is regarded by the federal government as an official cancer cluster.

"In fact, it is a very large cancer cluster," Cullen said. "The governor obviously feels that the money to look into it should come from the federal government or the private sector. That's just a way of passing it on."

Cullen said that the project now has two machines with which to analyze teeth. "It costs about $80 per tooth," he said. "We presently have collected about 2,000 teeth from New York, New Jersey and Florida. We need about 6,000 teeth for the study," said Cullen, "so the money Sen. Connors was trying to appropriate would have helped a lot. This veto slows things down with respect to the study in New Jersey."

Connors is concerned.

"We believe it's what you don't know that can hurt you rather than what you do know," he said. "It may very easily be that strontium-90 is present in baby teeth here."

Mangano, however, is adamant that strontium-90 exists in local children's teeth.

"We have the first evidence of the effects of radiation emissions in 18 years," he said. "In the 1960s there were three studies, one on teeth and two on bones, done by the federal government. But with the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which eliminated above-ground nuclear explosions, the government decided that testing for the effects of radiation emission on health should be stopped. But we believe it is important to continually monitor the connection between radiation and human disease."

Mangano, who emphasized that the RPHP is an organization made up of professional researchers and scientists, said the project now has analyzed more than 800 teeth. He also noted that results of the study thus far will be printed next month in the International Journal of Health Services, published by Johns Hopkins University. According to Mangano, three important points are made in the report.

"First, the amounts of Sr-90 in children in the 80s and 90s is much higher. It was expected that the levels would be 5-10 percent lower than they are, Mangano said.

"Second, there has been no steady decline in levels of strontium-90. The level rises and falls, but there is no decline. So something is causing it." Mangano adds, "We are not saying that nuclear power plants are exclusively causing this, but we are saying it is a potential source that should be looked at."

"And third, they have tied together the presence of Sr-90 in teeth with the occurrence of cancer in children. This is the most important point," Mangano emphasized.

Mangano says that the Tooth Fairy Project now shows that close to two-thirds of the teeth studied thus far show levels of strontium-90 above those expected to be found.

Luanne Acevedo, who is actively involved with the project, says she still finds much about which to be hopeful, despite the governor's veto. "I'm optimistic about the kids' participation in the project," said Acevedo. "After Mr. Baldwin got involved we had 30 high school kids working for us right away. I kept talking about Alec Baldwin to them, and finally one of them said to me, "You don't have to talk about him to motivate us, you know. We're doing this for ourselves."

"The kids give me a lot of hope," Acevedo said. But she added Baldwin's voluntary involvement in the project as a member of the board of directors for the STAR foundation has brought much needed public awareness.

"He is a very dedicated person," she said.

According to Cullen, of the STAR foundation, three different groups should be responsible for overseeing the levels of radiation emitted from a power plant and any resultant effect on public health.

"The three branches who are responsible are the public utilities, the regulators, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the state health departments. And all three have done nothing about this matter," he said.

Mangano refers to his own study, published in the April 2000 edition of the journal titled "Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology", which researched the occurrence of childhood cancer around 12 closed-down nuclear reactors. Results of the study, he said, showed that there was a 35 to 50 percent decrease in childhood cancer in those regions following the shut down of the reactors.

"The average was 25 to 30 percent less cancer, but ranged as high as 50 percent for children between the ages of six months and two years," he said. "Initially back in the '50s with Eisenhower, it was a well- intentioned thought that these nuclear plants would be a cleaner and cheaper way of energy, but they proved to be neither.

Edith Gbur, Toms River, is continuing with her efforts to help collect baby teeth for the project despite the failure of the measure to win the governor's support. "There are lots of places where people can donate baby teeth," Gbur said. "Envelopes are available in dentists' and doctors' offices, libraries, fitness centers, and many other places."

Tooth Fairy Project leaders Mangano and Cullen also point to their respective Internet Web sites, www.radiation.org and www.noradiation.org, as good sources of information regarding the entire matter, including details on how one may get involved.

The state of New Jersey's involvement in the project, however, is no longer an issue. "It's dead in the water," Connors said. "The governor has made that abundantly clear."

Published in the Times Beacon Newspapers 7/12-13/00

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