Leavitt urged to release nuclear test data

WASHINGTON — Two Western environmental groups have petitioned Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt to release the final version of a national study on the health consequences from nuclear weapons testing — a study the government has kept under wraps for years.

The Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) and Idaho's Snake River Alliance wrote to Leavitt on Tuesday asking his assistance in releasing "A Feasibility Study of the Health Consequences to the American Population from Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted by the United States and Other Nations."

"As the former governor, you are painfully aware of the health effects wrought by decades of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site," wrote Vanessa Pierce, HEAL's program director, and Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance.

"While the federal government has started to develop an understanding of how radioactive iodine fallout from U.S. nuclear tests affected the American population, we have yet to fully understand the impacts that other radionuclides and other countries' global nuclear testing had on the health of the American public," the letter continued.

Congress directed the National Cancer Institute in 1983 to study the health impacts of nuclear testing fallout. The study was finally released in 1997.

In 1998, the Senate Appropriations Committee asked the Department of Health and Human Services to look into the feasibility of a study concerning the health consequences to the American population due to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing by the United States, France, Great Britain, India, China, the Soviet Union and other foreign nations.

According to the activists' letter, the scope of the study called for consideration of the health consequences to both high-risk populations and the general public from exposure to plutonium, strontium-90, iodine-131, radioactive cesium and other radioactive elements produced by nuclear weapon tests.

The request resulted in a collaborative effort by staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

"In 2002, nearly four years later, HHS transmitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee an August 2001 progress report and an extensive two-volume draft feasibility study providing details on the study's scientific methods and conclusion," the activists wrote.

But the report has yet to be released.

"It is late in the day to withhold reports such as this, particularly information that could have an impact on the health and well being of Americans," they wrote. "We ask for your immediate assistance to release and publicize the feasibility report."

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