Study: No Higher Cancer Rates Among Former Rocky Flats Residents
DENVER (CBS4)- A study into cancer rates for people living around the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant shows that more people did suffer from certain cancers than the rest of the Denver metro area, but the reason may not be linked to the plant.
The Colorado Department of Health and Environment reviewed the rates for 10 different types of cancer among those residents between the years 1990 and 2014.
The study results failed to confirm decades-long speculations about the effects of living in communities near the former nuclear production facility.
The study found more people suffered from lung, esophagus, colo-rectal and prostate cancer than compared to the rest of the Denver metro area.
But the health department also found those residents had higher rates of smoking which is the primary risk factor for nearly all those cancers.
"This definitely does not rule out that any specific case of cancer could have been related to Rocky Flats-related exposures. But I think for the community at large we are not seeing an increased risk of cancer in those communities," said Colorado Department of Health and Environment spokesman Mike Van Dyke.
A separate study from Metro State University found higher rates of thyroid cancer in people living near the former nuclear weapons plant. The health department study did not examine cases of thyroid or other rare cancers.
