NEI Nuclear Notes

Another public health department has taken a closer look at Joe Mangano's work and determined it's fatally flawed. This time it's the Public Health Department of San Luis Obispo County, Califoria . You'll recall that Mangano most recently released a study claiming all sorts of ailments arose around Diablo Canyon in the wake of its opening. From the press release  ( our emphasis in bold ): “As the Health Officer for San Luis Obispo County, I take the health of our residents very seriously, and when a claim was made that excess cancer and infant mortality was occurring in our County, I made it an immediate priority to investigate further. However, upon examination of the report issued by the World Business Academy (WBA) of Santa Barbara, it became evident that flawed methodology and selective exclusion of populations of interest were used to achieve a result not consistent with standard scientific investigation and practice ” states Dr. Penny Borenstein, Health O...

The story in the April 2014 issue of Popular Mechanics that debunks Joe Mangano's anti-nuclear research has just been published online and has gotten some additional attention -- including a link from UT-Knoxville law professor Glenn Reynolds , better known as Instapundit . There are plenty of great quotes in the Popular Mechanics piece, but this passage really sticks out: The Mangano and Sherman paper is a prime example of a troubling new trend in which junk science is becoming harder to distinguish from rigorous research. It is an example of activists using the trappings of science to influence public opinion and policy. Today there are cottage industries that produce and disseminate skewed research in publications that masquerade as legitimate science journals. Celebrities and mainstream media outlets then tout the results, so that even retracted or clearly biased research can reach larger audiences than ever before. These studies cause real harm—for instance, by denoun...

For years, we've been telling you about freelance anti-nuclear activist Joe Mangano and how he leverages flawed research to stoke fears about nuclear energy. Now, another serious science writer has taken a closer look at Mangano's studies and says it's part of a larger trend of agenda-driven science being peddled to the press. On newsstands now is the April 2014 issue of Popular Mechanics . There you'll find a feature (yet to be published online) titled, "Junk Science." In it, Science Editor Sarah Fecht investigates a claim that Mangano and Janette Sherman made in 2012 that 14,000 American deaths could be linked to fallout from Fukushima Daiichi . Interviewed for the piece is Dr. Robert Emery of the University of Texas at Houston : "I read the thing and was taken aback," says Emery, who has a doctorate in public health and is a licensed health physicist. The study implied fallout from Fukushima caused 484 deaths in Houston. If there had been...

You knew it would only be a matter of time before Joe Mangano resurfaced. This time, he's brought his brand of junk science to California's Central Coast in order to make some scurrilous claims about the Diablo Canyon Power Plant . This time, a story appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press (paywall), which is where NEI's Steve Kerekes steps into the picture: While antinuclear groups hail Mr. Mangano’s study, others argue that the science behind Mr. Mangano’s report is far from settled. “(Mr. Mangano) is a traveling roadshow of fearmongering,” said Steve Kerekes, director of media relations with the Nuclear Energy Institute. “Once to twice a year he pops up in some corner of the country,” Mr. Kerekes said. “It’s always a similar scenario: he throws a bunch of data at the wall and sees what sticks, but there’s no direct cause and effect between the data and the nuclear facility he is smearing.” Mr. Kerekes said his organization has regularly debunked Mr. Mangano’s ...

Now that we're in the first few days of the period of extended operations for Indian Point Unit 2 , local anti-nuclear activists are doing their best to turn up the heat. After a smattering of events last week, they've decided to haul out one of the big guns in the form of actor and periodic anti-nuclear activist Alec Baldwin . On Friday night, Baldwin, who is scheduled to begin hosting a Friday night talk show on MSNBC later this month, will take part in a panel discussion about Indian Point at Rockland Community College -- an event that will double as a fundraiser for the Radiation and Public Health Project, an organization run by Joseph Mangano. Readers of NEI Nuclear Notes will probably recognize that name. Mangano continually attempts to draw a straight line between nuclear power plant emissions and negative health impacts. Mangano makes these claims despite the fact that nuclear power plants only account for .1% of the radiation that a typical American is exposed t...

More than a few folks have passed along a news clip to us from The Chattanoogan detailing another " study " by Joseph Mangano of the Radiation and Public Health Project and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) claiming that they've discovered higher mortality rates in populations living near the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant . We don't believe this study is credible. Mangano and company are making these claims despite the fact that nuclear power plants only account for .1% of the radiation that a typical American is exposed to over the course of a year . Meanwhile, exposures from life saving medical procedures like CT scans and X-Rays account for about 50% . Putting that aside, a number of third party experts and journalists have regularly taken turns debunking Mangano's research. In 2011, Michael Moyer of Scientific American said the following about one Mangano study that claimed Americans were suffering from severe health effects in the wake ...

For the nuclear industry, safety is the top priority, and it goes to great lengths to minimize radiation exposure to the public and employees. So exhaustive are these measures that nuclear power plants only account for .1% of the annual radiation that a typical American is exposed to. Nearly half come from medical exposures . Yet Joseph Mangano   seems intent on repeatedly and falsely stating otherwise. Most recently, Mangano published a study that suggests a correlation exists between the closing of Rancho Seco and the decline in cancer rates in the surrounding area. We responded by reminding the media to consider Mangano's lack of credibility when it comes to "scientific findings" before distributing the study to their readers. This week, local Pennsylvania experts came to the same conclusion about his bogus work. An especially compelling statement comes from the state's director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection : David J. Allard , director of the Penns...

Dr. Helen Caldicott For a number of years now, we've been sure to follow the public pronouncements of anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott and how the public is beginning to push back against her radical agenda . The latest example comes from the Sydney Morning Herald , where Caldicott's latest op-ed was greeted frostily in the comments section following the article. Here's a sampler: As someone who worked as a medical physicist, whose job it was to be on to of these sorts of issues. I must say this is alarmist, unbalanced and inaccurate and should be treated with a healthy degree of suspicion., Long on rhetoric, short on actual data. [...] I'm very surprised such a vague article could be published in the SMH. "Growing body of scientific evidence", "unprecedented increase" and "huge continuing" are the words used here to back up the basic premise. No numbers, emotive language and non-specifics - these are the hallmark...

We've gotten a heads up that Joseph Mangano , the brains behind the " Tooth Fairy " project, will be holding a press conference tomorrow afternoon fronting more junk science about nuclear energy. He'll be back with the usual suspects, Robert Alvarez and Janette Sherman, this time claiming that closing the Rancho Seco nuclear plant (click here for a photo) in California "might" have coincided with a decrease in cancer deaths. Mangano and company are making these claims despite the fact that nuclear power plants only account for .1% of the radiation that a typical American is exposed to over the course of a year. Meanwhile, exposures from life saving medical procedures like CT scans and X-Rays account for about 50%. Putting that aside, a number of third party experts and journalists have regularly taken turns debunking Mangano's research. In 2011, Michael Moyer of Scientific American said the following about one Mangano study that claimed Americans ...

Just a few minutes ago, I received the following statement from Dr. Robert Emery, Vice President for Safety, Health, Environment & Risk Management at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston concerning Dr. Joseph Mangano's recent study on fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility reaching the U.S. “We aggressively monitored for the presence of environmental radioactivity in Houston following the Fukushima event and worked closely with local public health authorities in the event we detected any threat to public health. We never detected any elevated radiation levels. I don’t see any evidence to supports the assertion made by this report that the additional 484 deaths in Houston in 2011 could in any way be related to radioactivity from Fukushima - we never detected any.” "Moreover the study bases its conclusion on the comparison of data from deaths in the U.S. in 2010 and 2011. Using this method you really can’t determine the specific ...

This time, the sledgehammer is delivered courtesy of Barbara Feder Ostrov's Health Journalism Blog . Like plenty of other folks, she was shocked at Joe Mangano's claims -- ones that he backed off from when under questioning from MedPage Today -- so she talked to some long-time medical journalists . Here's what Ivan Oransky of Reuters Health had to say about Mangano's research: I do use impact factor to judge journals, while accepting that it's an imperfect measure that is used in all sorts of inappropriate ways (and, for the sake of full disclosure, is a Thomson Scientific product, as in Thomson Reuters). I find it helpful to rank journals within a particular specialty. [...] I looked up the journal in question, and it's actually ranked 45th out of 58 in the Health Policy and Services category (in the social sciences rankings) and 59th out of 72 in the Health Care Sciences & Services category (in the science rankings). Here's Gary Schwitzer of Health Ne...

Mike Moyer, the writer at Scientific American who so expertly debunked Joe Mangano's "research" in June , had a chance to read the latest Mangano study that claimed 14,000 deaths in the U.S. were linked to fallout from Fukushima . The verdict: it's just another flawed study. No attempt is made at providing systematic error estimates, or error estimates of any kind. No attempt is made to catalog any biases that may have crept into the analysis, though a cursory look finds biases a-plenty (the authors are anti-nuclear activists unaffiliated with any research institution). The analysis assumes that the plume arrived on U.S. shores, spread everywhere, instantly, and started killing people immediately. It assumes that the “excess” deaths after March 20 are a real signal, not just a statistical aberration, and that every one of them is due to Fukushima radiation. Of course, as we pointed out yesterday, Mangano was forced to back off that last claim when pressed by a repor...

Our readers will recall that on Friday afternoon that we were alerted to the impending release of a study authored by Joseph Mangano and Dr. Janette Sherman on the alleged effects of radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi incident here in the U.S. Earlier today, Mangano and company held a teleconference to announce their findings : An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. Sounds scary, doesn't it? Then again, only a few hours later, Mangano admitted in an interview with MedPage Today that the results of his research weren't quite as definitive as his press release would have led folks to believe: But he (Managno) told MedPage Today that the researchers can't rule out factors other than the Fukushima radiation that might have accounted for the ...

Late this afternoon, it came to our attention that Joseph Mangano, Janette Sherman and Robert Alvarez will be holding a news conference on Monday morning (December 19) concerning a new study they've done about how Americans might be affected by radiation released into the atmosphere from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan. While we haven't seen the article as of yet and can't comment on it, our readers should know that reliable third parties have reviewed the work of all three authors in the past and found it to be fatally flawed. Here's what the New Jersey Commission on Radiation Protection had to say about Mangano's "Tooth Fairy" project : The Commission is of the opinion that "Radioactive Strontium-90 in Baby Teeth of New Jersey Children and the Link with Cancer: A Special Report," is a flawed report, with substantial errors in methodology and invalid statistics. As a result, any information gathered through this project would not...

Michael Moyer over at SciAm’s Observations blog made the easy calculations to discover how “physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano” manipulated radiation data to scare folks about the Fukushima accident. After digging into the Centers for Disease Control data, here’s what Moyer found: a check reveals that the authors’ statistical claims are critically flawed—if not deliberate mistruths. … Only by explicitly excluding data from January and February were Sherman and Mangano able to froth up their specious statistical scaremongering. This is not to say that the radiation from Fukushima is not dangerous (it is), nor that we shouldn’t closely monitor its potential to spread (we should). But picking only the data that suits your analysis isn’t science—it’s politics. Beware those who would confuse the latter with the former. It’s not too hard to bust holes in Mangano’s “essays,” we’ve been doing it for years. Great to see SciAm dig into the number...

Kentucky is close to repealing its 25-year moratorium on new nuclear plants. The State Senate has already approved the repeal but in an effort to stop this legislation, Joseph Mangano came out with his usual claims in an op-ed piece for Kentucky's Courier-Journal . Here's what Physical Insights had to say in response to Mangano's claims : Of course, some people, such as Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, a name that those with their finger on the pulse of nuclear energy policy in the United States and elsewhere will have heard before, has other ideas : “One problem with nuclear reactors is what to do with the high-level waste they produce. This waste is actually a cocktail of chemicals such as Cesium-137, Iodine-129, Strontium-90 and Plutonium-239, each radioactive and cancer-causing.” There’s no way that it is appropriate to call these kinds of materials waste - they are radionuclides with useful and important technological, s...

Joseph Mangano is up to his old tricks again, this time in Missouri . For the truth about what he's up to, click here for a look at our archives.

Back in June 2007, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League along with Joseph Mangano released a report on the supposed “ Health Risks of Adding New Reactors to the Vogtle Nuclear Plant .” The report analyzed the 11 counties closest to the existing Vogtle reactors for infant mortalities and cancer deaths. Based on their findings, they have concluded that the two existing reactors would cause “over 500 excess cancer deaths in Burke County” over the projected 40 year license period. The report also states that “adding two new reactors could potentially double the total.” The mortality rates the report cites comes from the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control. The website with the data can be found here . For my rebuttal, I only looked at the numbers for Burke County, GA (the county housing the Vogtle reactors). After corroborating the data for this county, I found so many incongruities in the analysis that I felt I didn’t need to look at any ot...

Joseph Mangano , is at it again with his baby teeth act, this time in the pages of the Star-Ledger with an op-ed calling for the closing of Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant. One more time, here's the crux of our case against Mangano . Eight state departments of health have investigated Mangano's claims, and all eight states (Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Michigan) refused to validate them. Even better, here's what the New Jersey Commission on Radiation Protection had to say about Mangano's research: The Commission is of the opinion that "Radioactive Strontium-90 in Baby Teeth of New Jersey Children and the Link with Cancer: A Special Report," is a flawed report, with substantial errors in methodology and invalid statistics. As a result, any information gathered through this project would not stand up to the scrutiny of the scientific community. There is also no evidence to support the allegation that the ...

Yesterday, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League ( BREDL ) unveiled a study that makes some startling claims about the community that hosts the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia: The number of people dying from cancer in Burke County is on the rise, and one group says a nuclear plant may be to blame. A new study released by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League shows the number of people dying of cancer in Burke County has shot up 25%, while the rest of country's cancer rate was on the decline. "If I lived in this county I'd want to know why these numbers are increasing," said Louis Zeller with Blue Ridge. [...] But the most startling statistic is the change in infant mortality. In Burke County the number of infant deaths increased 70% compared to the other surrounding counties in the CSRA . But even the backers of the study admit waste from other plants could be contributing to the problem. "It's like a crime being committed, but too many ...