Child radiation specialist Joseph Mangano wanted to find out whether the same had happened following the closing of 12 nuclear reactors 1987-98. First he looked at the five ex-reactors at least 70 miles from any operating nuclear reactor. He found that in just the first two years, the nearest counties experienced a 15-20% reduction. This compared to a 6.4% average decline across the US as a whole.

Focusing on one of these five, the Rancho Seco reactor 25 miles southeast of Sacramento, California, which operated 1974-89, he found that it was probably responsible for keeping strontium-90 levels in human bone high (these fell 22% in New York City, far from any reactor) and increasing levels of iodine-131 in pasteurised milk. When it was closed down, child mortality rates and the incidence of childhood cancer, congenital abnormality and child deaths from all causes fell rapidly.

Babies in the womb and infants are particularly susceptible to the effects of radiation. Not only can exposure cause low birth weights, it can also seriously effect cell health, increasing the risk of cancer, congenital malformations, and infant death. One historical example: having risen 2% for whites and 35% for non-whites between 1950 and 1966 (the atomic bomb testing era), the US infant mortality rate plunged over the ten years following the Partial Test Ban Treaty (which ended atomic bomb testing in Nevada).