He said the number of excess cancers in the group is about 700.

What is at stake," he continued, "is over 2,500 excess cancers alone just from routine day-to-day exposure to toxic air pollution.

The excess cancers, presumably due to hormone therapy, number 166, including 70 lobular tumors.

Anecdotes about excess cancers, birth defects and miscarriages abound in all of these communities.

The study cited such other possible causes for the excess cancer among marines with Vietnam service as anti-malaria drugs, diseases and statistical chance.

If 1 million women at age 40 received mammograms, 10 excess cancers could be caused by the test; but almost 800 cancers would be caught.

The cause of the excess cancers is a scientific mystery, but the suggestion of a link to the nuclear plant has set up a political controversy here.

"The department is one of the few in the country taking the phenomenon as a major, serious issue," he said of the excess cancers.

But it is still possible that other factors, like smoking, may have contributed to the excess cancer, they said.

We cannot, in any way, attribute excess cancers to the practices at, or discharges from, the plant.