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Nuclink: Journal of Current Radiation and Public Health Issues Volume 1, Number 6 FURTHER OBSERVATIONS ON STRONTIUM-90
IN BABY TEETH AND EARLY CHILDHOOD CANCER (continued) DIETARY FACTORS AFFECTING THE IMMUNE RESPONSE One goal of the Baby Teeth Study is to ascertain whether the varying geographic levels in their average Sr-90 ratios to calcium are at least in part associated with radioactive releases from "nearby" reactors affecting the diet of pregnant women. Ground water flows carrying radioactive effluents may represent one important pathway, which may result in high average Sr90 levels in areas dependent on such sources of drinking water. Contaminated fresh milk from dairies in rural areas close to reactors are trucked overnight to the nearest metropolitan areas. One way to explore this factor is to note the extremely low mortality rates reported on death certificates for races other than Blacks or Whites, which includes Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans. It may come as a surprise that both infant and cancer
mortality rates for Other races are far lower than those of Whites. It
is widely recognized that Black infant mortality rates, because of poverty,
poor nutrition and proximity to sources of chemical pollution, are about
twice as high as those for Whites. Despite relatively lower income levels
than those of Whites, Other races, because they rarely drink milk, have
infant mortality rates that are only one-third that of Blacks. (Figure
7)
Figure 8 demonstrates that whatever factor responsible
for the good performance of Asians and the poor experience of Blacks with
respect to the very young, also holds for the very old.
The New York Times of June 25 carried a story, by Leslie Berger, entitled "A Racial Gap in Infant Deaths and a Search for Reasons." This story indicated that poverty alone does not explain why Black infant mortality rates are now 2.4 times higher than White rates. The story begins with a description of a professional Black couple, with a six-figure annual income that within the past few years suffered the deaths of three infants The article states:
Clearly, then there can be no genetic explanation of this epidemiological anomaly, which is clearly environmental. The performance of Other races in both Figure 7 and 8 suggest that immigrant mothers from nations whose residents are not exposed to emissions from nuclear power reactors do surprisingly better than Whites despite the fact that few new immigrants can match the income level of Whites. Because of immigration, Asian-Americans have been among the most rapidly increasing sectors of the U.S population since 1980. Black immigrant mothers from Africa also have superior infant mortality rates, suggesting that there appears to be an advantage to have been born elsewhere with a lesser exposure to food and water contaminated with nuclear emissions. One answer to the above anomalies has to do with the consumption of milk. Blacks and Asians lack the lactase enzyme necessary to digest milk sugar lactose. But milk is the principal pathway by which manmade fission products such as radioactive iodine adversely affect fetal thyroids and the bone seeking radioactive strontium affects the fetal immune response. Asian-Americans shun fresh milk, and thus avoid exposure to milk from dairy farms in rural areas located close to power reactors. Blacks on the other hand are generally unaware that the milk offered them by welfare programs encouraged by the Department of Agriculture is the cause of the uncomfortable abdominal pain, bloating, gas and diarrhea that often affect Black children. But the significantly toxic ingredients in milk, avoided by Asians, but not by Blacks, are man-made fission products like radioactive iodine and strontium, which is now doing as much harm to Blacks and Whites as had occurred in the above-ground bomb test years finally terminated in 1963. Dr. Milton Mills, head of the National Medical Association and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine composed of Black physicians is evidently aware of some but not all the dangers of permitting Blacks to depend on milk as a source of calcium in their diet. Dr. Mills, head of the latter organization has castigated the US Department of Agriculture for using milk in food welfare programs for young Black children who cant really digest it , stating that: "The issue of dairy consumption is especially important for African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican-Americans, who all have a gene less accustomed to the high fat and high-protein diets of Western Europeans. Caucasians however, must also be conscious of these health problems, as well as that of osteoporosis---which contrary to public opinion can actually be caused by dairy consumption." (14) There is a greater danger for all children obtaining their calcium from milk from diaries near reactors, but the fact that Mexican-Americans may also lack the gene necessary to digest milk is offset to a large degree, especially for all immigrant Hispanics, by the high calcium content of their diet before arriving here, which may lower their ratios of strontium to calcium. As reported by a United Nations study of the effects of bomb test fallout on world-wide strontium-90 levels, the lowest levels were found in Central America: "Corn grain (maize) is very low in calcium, but
when needed for tortilla making is boiled with lime water in the initial
stages of preparation. This process greatly enriches the diet in calcium;
in some areas 75 percent of the total calcium in the diet may be obtained
in this way…(as in) Guatemala and Honduras." (15) For example, there are 10 small counties near the Texas
border in which 89 percent of the total population of 1.2 million are
Chicanos. They are very poor, often exposed to pesticides in the course
of agricultural work, with extraordinary high unemployment rates of 16
percent, but yet the cancer mortality rates of older people in these counties
are far below the current level for the US and well below those of any
county within 50 miles of a reactor, as shown below in Figure 9. The 10
Texas border counties are Cameron, Dimmit, Hidalgo, Jim Hogg, Maverick,
Starr, Webb. Willacy, Zapata and Zavala.
Conclusions There will remain the task of ascertaining whether emissions
from specific reactors can be associated with adverse health effects to
those directly affected. When sufficient teeth and funds are collected,
a mail survey to secure health data of all children donating their teeth
may ascertain the degree to which Sr90 ratios are correlated with adverse
health effects. Currently the information gathered for each donor includes
birthweight data, and for the 1500 teeth analyzed to date the correlation
of Sr90 ratios with both low and high birthweights is suggested but is
not as yet statistically significant. With medical data for for thousands
of children that includes the relatively uncommon cases of childhood cancer,
we can include questions on more common childhood ailments such as asthma,
attention deficit disorder, learning disabilities, days of schooling lost,
immunological disorders etc. We may attain a database perhaps as valuable
as that developed by Dr. Alice Stewart in her Oxford survey of children
born in England in the years 1955 to 1980, that led to our current understanding
of the great vulnerability of the developing fetus to X-rays and other
forms of low-level radiation. (16)
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