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Radiation and Public Health Publications
U.S.A. Newborn Deterioration in the Nuclear Age, 1945-1996 In figure 4 we have calculated what the expected USA low birthweight percentage
would be after 1975 if the declining trend in the base-line period 1966-75 had
continued, a methodology followed for each state in Appendix
B. It is not possible to understand the enormous current deterioration in newborn
health in the United States today without comparing it with the sudden postwar
upsurge in low birthweights indicated in figures 3 and 4. In addition to the death toll there is the tragedy of an increased frequency of mental retardation, neurological learning disabilities and lower resistance to infections that handicap the surviving individuals for the rest of their lives. All these problems are even more severe in very low birthweight infants, infants weighing less than 1,500 grams (VLBW%). In 1995, some 53,000 such babies were born with very low birthweight in the USA. Major handicaps such as congenital defects, severe mental retardation, deafness, blindness and cerebral palsy are experienced by 6 to 8 percent of these infants. Another 25 to 28 percent have borderline IQ problems in understanding and expressing language or other deficits. 8 These children are more likely to be inattentive, hyperactive, depressed, socially withdrawn, violent or aggressive. Thus, although the recent advances in intensive care have improved the survival rates of low birthweight babies, they still have increasing risk of school failure with decreasing birthweight. As a result, there are also very large health and welfare costs and loss of productivity associated with low birthweight. These costs have increased dramatically with the ability to improve survival during the first few days and months of life. As of 1970, it was estimated that approximately 20 million individuals in the USA had disabilities from various neurological problems associated with the high rate of below-normal birthweights. 9 The special rehabilitation and education paid for by families and governments costs billions of dollars each year. Ways of preventing these defects are urgently needed. Public health officials now understand that underweight babies...constitute a major public health problem in both developed and developing countries....These infants experience greater morbidity and mortality, and their postneonatal rates of physical, neurological, and mental handicaps are known to be significantly higher. 10 Very little is known about birthweights prior to 1945, although several
observers have inferred that it was not a major contributor to infant
mortality because in the early years of the century most infant deaths
occurred after the first month, whereas today the majority of infant
deaths occur in the first month. Thus one observer noted that in 1953
infant deaths in England and Wales Another observer noted that At the turn of the century...postneonatal deaths were considered to reflect environmental factors, particularly infectious conditions resulting in diarrhea or respiratory illnesses. In developing countries where infant mortality rates remain high, largely because of high levels of postneonatal mortality from infectious causes, low birth weight accounts for less than half...of post neonatal deaths. This is also likely to have been the case in the US early in the century. 12 Others have noted that, since 1950, infants born weighing 2,500 grams or less account for two-thirds of neonatal deaths.8 The emergence of low birthweights as a major contributor to neonatal infant mortality in the second half of the century, as opposed to the first half, represents a significant epidemiological change that has never been adequately explained. Only a great new malign environmental factor could be responsible. It is also clear that an increase in the low birthweight percentage is a far more sensitive indicator of environmental danger, likely to precede a corresponding increase in the infant mortality rate, in the same way that an increase in morbidity would precede an increase in mortality. As indicated in The Enemy Within, the sharp rise after 1945 in the New York low birthweight percentage (LBW%) may have added to the public concern expressed by the Public Health Service in 1948 which led to the mandate to collect low birthweight data. Starting in 1950, every state health department was required to record birthweights for both Whites and Nonwhites on birth certificates. Hence a USA low birthweight database is now available for all states and counties since 1950, offering the possibility of analysis of changes of this key factor in relation to other variables. We have included in Appendix B figures tracing the annual movement of the LBW percentage for each state, this time in alphabetical rather than geographic sequence. This ordering illustrates that all states, regardless of geographic proximity to reactors or wind or rainfall patterns, exhibit a similar temporal pattern of exposure to radioactive fallout. Every state shows high or increasing low birthweight percentages during the initial 1950-65 period of exposure to above-ground test fallout. This was followed by a 10-year period of sharp improvement when the LBW% dropped when above-ground tests ceased and the civilian power reactors were just beginning to come on line. By 1975, the trend changed again, when the number of operating reactors began to reach peak levels. All states (including Hawaii, with no reactors and located 3,000 miles away from the USA mainland) display an ominous tendency for the LBW% to rise in the final 1975-95 period, very much as in the early years of the Nuclear Age. This tendency suggests that radioactive fallout from civilian reactors may now be affecting the weight of live births in the Northern hemisphere, where most of the world's reactors are concentrated. Even deviations from this systematic pattern can be associated with sharp changes in radioactive exposure. For example, note the 70 percent rise in the Nevada LBW% in 1951, when a sudden wind shift during the initial Nevada Test Site explosions in January of that year inadvertently exposed residents of Las Vegas to a large radioactive cloud. 13 Note too, that Washington, in the absence of direct exposure to reactor fallout, was the first state to reach the optimum infant mortality rate of 5 deaths per 1000 live births. It also appears to be the first to reach a similar optimum level of 5 low birthweight newborns per 100 live births. In each state the rise in the observed low birthweight percentage after 1975 is dramatized by calculating a least squares logarithmic straight line to the 1966-75 figures taken as a base line, to project what would be expected in the absence of radioactive fallout. These projections indicate that in almost all states the expected LBW percentages could eventually reach the optimum level of 5 percent achieved by Washington state. Sudden low birthweight increases in each state can offer clues to possible large reactor releases to local anti-nuclear groups in a position to ask state health departments for the infant mortality and low birthweight data for the counties closest to a reactor. For example, the Fermi #2 reactor was started up in 1988 near Detroit, Michigan, with huge emissions that were almost immediately reflected in significant rises in Black infant mortality and low birthweight rates in neighboring Wayne county. As another example, one might ask if the sudden upward spike in New Hampshire low birthweights in 1992 is associated with the opening of the ill-fated Seabrook reactor in that year? These and similar questions should be raised by local concerned citizens, for such county data are only made available by special request. In Table
1 we
summarize the average low birthweight percentages for each state in geographic
sequence (by Census region) for each of four successive time periods.
This sequence demonstrates that-despite the unique temporal pattern described
above-the absolute average level in each state and region, relative to
the corresponding USA average, remained essentially unchanged since 1950.
This means that in each state and region the observed LBW% reflected
stable wind, rainfall and demographic patterns. The only deviation was
exhibited by the relatively dry Mountain states close to the Nevada Test
Site, whose average LBW% level in the early 1950-65 period was 12 percent
above the national average, but which dropped below the national average
in the later periods when fallout from reactors dominated bomb-test fallout. 14 |
