We can’t have both healthier children and nukes

According to The New York Times, a new Trump Administration Executive Order (EO) urges the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) “to reconsider its safety limits for radiation exposure, saying that current limits are too strict and go beyond what is needed to protect human health.” And yet, studies already show increases in childhood cancers, including leukemia and central nervous system cancers, around operating reactors in countries other than the U.S.

A decade ago, the U.S. opted not to continue a study that would have examined cancer incidence around NRC licensed facilities. Communities around uranium facilities have suffered increases in disease as well. The EO could potentially extend a cover-up of childhood health impacts around nuclear fuel chain facilities, and would contradict another of the Trump Administration’s Executive Order of February 13, 2025 establishing the MAHA Commission.

That EO stated that from 1990-2021 Americans experienced an 88 percent increase in cancer, the largest percentage increase of any country evaluated. The EO addresses the sad state of the American diet compounded by absorption of toxic material and environmental factors as cause for concern. Intake of radioactivity from the nuclear fuel chain is one factor of concern as we know that radioactivity can cause cancer and other health ailments and that children and pregnancy development are particularly susceptible to damage from radiation exposure.

The Trump Administration will have to decide: healthier children? Or an expensive and unnecessary nuclear industry. It’s impossible to have both.