<P> Based on these emission figures, early scientific publications, according to Mangano, on the health effects of the fallout estimated no additional cancer deaths in the 10 mi (16 km) area around TMI . Disease rates in areas further than 10 miles from the plant were never examined . Local activism in the 1980s, based on anecdotal reports of negative health effects, led to scientific studies being commissioned . A variety of epidemiology studies have concluded that the accident had no observable long term health effects . </P> <P> The Radiation and Public Health Project, an organization with little credibility amongst epidemiologists, cited calculations by its member Joseph Mangano--who has authored 19 medical journal articles and a book on Low Level Radiation and Immune Disease--that reported a spike in infant mortality in the downwind communities two years after the accident . Anecdotal evidence also records effects on the region's wildlife . For example, according to one anti-nuclear activist, Harvey Wasserman, the fallout caused "a plague of death and disease among the area's wild animals and farm livestock", including a sharp fall in the reproductive rate of the region's horses and cows, reflected in statistics from Pennsylvania's Department of Agriculture, though the Department denies a link with TMI . </P> <P> John Gofman used his own, non-peer reviewed low - level radiation health model to predict 333 excess cancer or leukemia deaths from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident . A peer - reviewed research article by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers from 1979--1985 among people who lived within ten miles of TMI; in 2009 Dr. Wing stated that radiation releases during the accident were probably "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates . A retrospective study of Pennsylvania Cancer Registry found an increased incidence of thyroid cancer in counties south of TMI and in high - risk age groups but did not draw a causal link with these incidences and to the accident . The Talbott lab at the University of Pittsburgh reported finding only a few, small, mostly statistically non-significant, increased cancer risks within the TMI population, such as a non-significant excess leukemia among males being observed . The ongoing TMI epidemiological research has been accompanied by a discussion of problems in dose estimates due to a lack of accurate data, as well as illness classifications . </P> <P> The TMI accident enhanced the credibility of anti-nuclear groups, who had predicted an accident, and triggered protests around the world . (President Carter--who had specialized in nuclear power while in the United States Navy--told his cabinet after visiting the plant that the accident was minor, but reportedly declined to do so in public in order to avoid offending left - wing Democrats who opposed nuclear power .) </P>

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