- WASHINGTON -- A panel of
experts Tuesday affirmed a report that said nuclear fallout from atmospheric
atomic bomb tests reached virtually every part of the United States, causing
at least 11,000 cancer cases over 50 years.
-
- The panel appointed by the independent National Research
Council said the report, which was not officially published when it was
issued nearly a year ago but is nonetheless widely available, was put together
carefully and needed just a few adjustments.
-
- The atmospheric bomb tests were carried out mostly between
1951 and 1962 and kicked radioactive dust up thousands of feet into the
air, where it was carried literally around the world.
-
- For decades, various groups have expressed fears that
the fallout caused many cases of cancer, and government attempts to reassure
people have had little success.
-
- The report was compiled by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute at the request of Congress.
It followed previous studies which had largely focused on the effects of
radioactive iodine, called iodine-131, which is linked with thyroid cancer.
-
- Radioactive materials can build up in the body and cause
cancer. The biggest risk is to people who eat meat and milk, because cattle
eat the fallout when they graze, and over years it builds up in their bodies.
-
- Children are at the highest risk because they are so
small and because their thyroid glands, where radioactive iodine tends
to build up, are so active.
-
- Congress, led by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat
who lost four of his six siblings to cancer, asked the National Research
Council if the report might have missed something and whether a broader
study, looking at other radioactive materials such as strontium and cesium,
should be carried out.
-
- Sharon Friedman, an expert in risk communication at Lehigh
University in Bethlehem, Penn., who helped conduct the review of the original
report, said a broader study would not be feasible.
-
- LITTLE INFORMATION TO WORK WITH
-
- "We decided it wouldn't yield much information because
the base data were bad," Friedman said in a telephone interview. The
government at the time did little to keep track of who might be affected
by the fallout. "When these bombs were being tested above ground,
there were fewer than 100 sites in the United States that actually
measured what the radioactive fallout was -- and they were scattered willy-nilly
across the country," she added.
-
- Her committee's review said the original report assumed
that any exposure to radioactive materials at all was likely to cause harm.
-
- "We think it was very competently done. There are
a few things to be fixed here and there," she said.
-
- The original report said that anywhere between 11,000
and 200,000 extra cancer cases were likely to have been caused by fallout
over 50 years. This compares to 40 million overall cancer deaths over the
same period. An American has a 20 percent risk of developing cancer over
his or her life, and the fallout raises that risk to 20.03 percent, the
report said.
-
- Friedman said statistical analysis showed that the lower
numbers -- closer to 11,000 cases -- were more accurate and thus more likely.
-
- "It's a very low probability," she said. Effects
from strontium and cesium were likely to have been negligible.
|
