From Deseret News archives:
Are Utah fallout stories grossly exaggerated?
"People in this area believe hundreds and hundreds of people died from fallout," says Miles, who received his doctorate in physical chemistry at the University of Utah in 1967 before teaching physics over nearly four decades at Westminster College and Dixie College. "I estimate that it was maybe five to 10."
His estimates are based on scientific data compiled by researchers who have systematically combed through southern Utah medical records and death statistics from 1952 through 1981 a time period extensive enough to chronicle most of the resultant damages from atmospheric nuclear testing that took place "upwind" at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 through 1958.
While it is possible although not a proven statistical fact that St. George and the surrounding area experienced an increased cancer rate during that period, Miles says the data suggest it was very slight. Certainly it was considerably less than the 5 percent cancer increase verifiably recorded among survivors of the atomic bombs that fell on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945.
If you think Miles is making sense, you're in good company. The Forum on Physics & Society, a quarterly publication of the American Physical Society, has published an article he has written on the subject in its October newsletter.
In "The Great Fallout-Cancer Story of 1978 and Its Aftermath," Miles presents his case that pits science against anecdote. He charts his personal history growing up in St. George during the above-ground nuclear tests in the 1950s and largely rebuffs the popular tales that have become accepted fact over the years about "children playing in fallout snow," "hair loss," "skin burns" and "paint burned off the hoods of trucks."
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