Scientists have been concerned for decades about radiation from nuclear production and its link to cancer. From immune systems going haywire to brain malfunctions, the illness now emerging are somewhat different which the doctors can't explain, The Tennessean said in a special investigative report.

The paper said no one has ever taken a comprehensive look at the health of these people -- not the public health agencies responsible for their well-being or politicians who represent them, not even the federal government which owns the sites.

In 1997, The Tennessean found scores of people suffering a pattern of unexplained illness around Oak Ridge Nuclear Reservation in East Tennessee. This year, the paper found hundreds of people with similar illness around ten other nuclear weapon sites nationwide.

``It's like devil has been letloose in my body,'' it said, quoting a former worker at the United States department of Energy's Savannah river nuclear site near Aiken. Disabled in 1995, he suffers from a degenerative joint and spine disease, kidney ailment, and a rare disorder that causes the immune system to attack rather than protect internal organs.

``Every single morning my whole body hurts so badly, I can barely get out of bed to go stand under a hot shower until I can move with my cane. Doctors couldn't tell me why or help me,'' he was quoted as saying.

The paper said he is one of the 410 interviewed in 11 states who are experiencing a pattern of unexplained immune, respiratory, and neurological problems attacking their bodies and minds.

The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nation's premier disease tracking agency, is investigating the Old Ridge illness at the request of the state government.

The CDC began its probe in the neighbourhood closest to the reservation and so far has found severerespiratory problems in one-third of children there.

Top scientists interviewed by the paper said the findings are disturbing.

Many of the ill, the paper said, are long time workers at the complexes opened during the Second World War or the Cold War to produce more than 70,000 nuclear weapons for the nation's defence.

While official line appears to be that they lack sufficient evidence to link the diseases to radiation, other scientists say it is time the sick were helped.

Experts were quoted as saying no one knows what can happen to the human body if it is exposed to low levels of many different toxic agents over time. That is the most likely kind of exposure these people could have.

They live near places contaminated by an array of exotic metals and chemicals, a spectrum of radioactive substances and common toxic agents used in wholly uncommon quantities, the paper said.

Among these are radioactive elements like plutonium and cesium, chemical compound such as the solvent carbon tetrachloride,cancer-causing substances, and toxic metals such as lead, mercury, and arsenic.

Government officials, the paper says, acknowledge the nuclear development sites are highly contaminated and have launched billion dollar cleanup plans. But, they say, the contamination rarely reached workers or residents in amounts high enough to harm them.