The Associated Press - Story last updated at 1:33 p.m. on Monday, February 1, 1999

   The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Health Department have found no evidence of widespread respiratory problems in children living in a neighborhood near the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation.

The agencies plan to release a final report in about two weeks detailing findings from a yearlong study of the Scarboro neighborhood, The Tennessean reported Sunday.

"I'm confident through the survey and physical exams that were done that children in Scarboro are generally healthy, and that while some children in Scarboro do have respiratory illnesses of one form or another, neither the severity, nor pattern, nor prevalence is abnormal," said Dr. Paul Ervin, East Tennessee regional director for the Health Department.

For years, some residents of Sacrboro have expressed concern that emissions from the nearby Y-12 nuclear weapons plant have caused unexplained illnesses.

Last summer, initial results from a study conducted by the CDC found 13 percent of 119 Scarboro children surveyed had physician-diagnosed asthma. The national average is 7 percent.

Dr. Stephen Redd, chief of the CDC's air pollution and respiratory health branch, said the slightly higher asthma rate still is "within range of normal."

Larry Gipson, a Scarboro resident since 1949 who retired last year from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, hailed the findings.

"We've been probed and turned over and examined from every damn side, and it's about time that someone stepped forward and made it front-page news that there's nothing wrong with this community," he said.

Ruth Walker, another longtime resident, was not so quick to endorse the findings. She said she does not trust the agencies that conducted the study.

"They said they have done all the tests, but I don't know," she said. "It could be something they are not checking for, such as some of these other chemicals released into the air."

The Scarboro study is the first step in the CDC's investigation of unexplained health problems in the Oak Ridge area. The probe began more than a year ago after U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., Gov. Don Sundquist and state Health Commissioner Nancy Menke asked the CDC to look into the situation.