Cancer Rates Have Soared in Areas Near Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant
Authorities near the Indian Point nuclear power plant have said that cancer rates in the surrounding areas have soared to disturbing levels.
Vicki Fox, teacher of social studies at Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School close to the nuclear plant, revealed she has seen a rise in thyroid cancers among pupils and staff:
“My name is Vicki Fox, I’m a middle school teacher at a school that is just a few miles from Indian Point… I really can’t tell you how many teachers and students I’ve met there over the years who are survivors of cancer — specifically thyroid cancer.
I was talking about this to a woman who is an aide… and she said ‘Oh, do you know that I had thyroid cancer?’… She’s just another.
This year again I’m working with somebody who has had thyroid cancer. One of my students this year… he had cancer on his optic nerve and is almost blind.
As I said, I can’t believe the number of teachers who have gotten cancer. And I think it’s because they live in this area.”
The Russia Today news channel sent a reporter to investigate the rise in cancers in the areas, asking the pertinent question: why is nobody else reporting on a disaster that may be bigger than Fukushima?
Reporter: “It’s an alarming story, and I thought of it as an alarming story ever since I started researching it, because there are some things that people generally don’t know… it gave me a feeling of, ‘Why is this story not being covered by everybody?’
So I went there [to Indian Point] and of course have been told by the company running it that it is safe, that the latest leak has been contained, and that there is nothing to worry about.
But then I got to meet people who used to live in the area and they said that they had cancer, thyroid cancer, which was the biggest shocker to me since, again, it has been grossly under reported in the United States.
Or even more so, people are just laughing at the suggestion that a nuclear plant operating 25 miles from New York City can cause cancer. So this was the biggest shocker”…
Host: “If you’ve got a bunch of thyroid cancers around or downwind of Indian Point, that means that they’ve been venting radioactive gases?”
Reporter: “That’s the way any nuclear plant in the world operates, it emits radiation. Whether in large doses in case of a leak, or in small doses, but it does emit it anyways — it’s just the way it operates… I come from part of the world where Chernobyl happened… it’s been taught in schools that thyroid cancer is caused by radiation. You have people in the area of Indian Point in masses, 20,000 people diagnosed with cancer… over 15 years — more than anywhere else in the United States.”