Lyon said bureaucratic barriers erected by the CDC consumed much of the time for the study, and overhead accounted for a great deal of the cost. Also, the CDC's requirements made for slow going, he said.

"CDC made very sure that we were going to do the most thorough exam and interview possible," with four people to do each exam, he said. "That's not a cheap thing to put in the field."

The study was designed to check 4,000 people, many of whom had to be tracked down, and that took time. So far, only 1,300 have been studied.

Since 2000, he and his colleagues provided the CDC with their projected budgets needed for completion, Lyon said.

"We have said very clearly for at least four years, going on five, that this is what it's going to cost to do the study the way you want it done," he said.

Stephen C. Alder, who works on the study's statistics, said it's well-confirmed that "it's simply not possible" to finish the study by Aug. 31.

"That really surprises me that they (CDC) would say that," he said. "For the funds that we have received, we simply cannot finish the work. We're doing our darnedest to try and do as much with the resources we have.

"But there is simply no way to finish the study with the funds that we have, by the end of this funding year."

Alder said he talked with the project manager on that topic. "She verified . . . that, in fact, at the beginning of the funding year we had informed CDC that we would be about a third of the way through the examinations by the end of the funding year.

"So they were well aware of that."

Harbin emphasized there are other studies CDC is supporting that examine people who were exposed to radiation. The fallout study is "just one of the efforts CDC has under way to study the health effects of these exposures," she said.

The other investigations she noted were a study of thyroid disease among people who may have been exposed to radioactive iodine from the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington and dose reconstructions involving the Savannah River site in South Carolina, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the Hanford site and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

"We expect that all of these studies are going to provide very valuable information on the health effect of past radiation exposure," she said.

Kevin Keane, assistant secretary of HHS for public affairs, said Leavitt "obviously cares about this issue (fallout), and it is an issue of concern for him."

That is especially the case because of Leavitt's southern Utah roots, he indicated.

Keane said the former Utah governor is "comfortable with how the scientists at CDC have decided to proceed."

The agency is continuing to study radiation effects from nuclear production facilities, he said.

"When this grant and study was supported by the CDC, it was for a five-year time period," Keane said. "That was the agreed-upon time frame, and CDC has twice extended the time frame for a total of seven years and $8 million.

"That's a considerable investment," Keane said, adding that it should not be diminished.

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com