While families continue to combat childhood cancer in eastern Sandusky County, Ohio, answers are still elusive. The Ohio EPA completed air, water and wildlife testing in the area and discovered no chemical or pollutant that constitutes as a smoking gun. But a new survey and radiation testing could shed light on the cases. Sandusky Register.

Beyond Nuclear note: Sandusky County, Ohio is the county directly south of the county where the Davis Besse nuclear reactor is located.

Women who, as children, had radiation cancer treatment on reproductive areas are more likely to experience a stillbirth or have a baby die in the first four weeks of life, a new report says. See the story.

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqui city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. Read the full story.

High levels of uranium, perhaps from depleted uranium used by the US in the Iraq war, along with other heavy metals, has been found responsible for brain disabilities among children, according to Germany's Microtrace Mineral Lab. Punjab Newsline reports that hair samples of affected children contain these heavy metals, uranium being the only radioactive one. Children of the southern Malwa region of the Punjab are most affected.

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, claims that by 2004, 985,000 additional deaths worldwide were caused by the disaster, 212,000 of them within European Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. These numbers contrast greatly with the United Nations’ Chernobyl Forum 2006 estimate of 9000 cancer deaths in the same areas for the period of 90 years after the meltdown. Children have been and continue to be particularly affected with multiple adverse health outcomes. Before Chernobyl exploded, eighty percent of children were considered healthy. After the explosion only twenty percent of children are healthy in some areas.

This report summarizes published data from the many regions contaminated by radioactive fallout, and is based on over 5000 studies, most of which were not available in English or outside of the former Soviet Union. Contact the New York Academy of Sciences to purchase a copy www.nyas.org. See Beyond Nuclear’s press release for more detail.