A breakout for nuclear energy that should have happened no later than 2007, is coming within range now. That year, the Dose Response medical journal covered a story that should have shaken the rafters. Ten thousand Taiwanese who had been living in 1700 apartments for between 9 and 20 years, were told that the walls contained large amounts of radioactive cobalt-60! Panic broke out and every tenant was tested for cancer and congenital deformations, the two greatest bugaboos. Unexpectedly, cancer deaths were only 3.5% of those in the general population! Likewise, congenital malformations were only 6.5%!
The figures were derived as follows: the mean cancer mortality in Taiwan during the period 1983–2002 would mean 232 deaths from cancer for the apartment dwellers, the actual number, only 7!
Some 46 congenital abnormalities were assumed for a population of 2,000 children under the age of 19 among the residents, but there were only 3.