Small part of cancers is linked to fallout

Somewhere between about 13,695 and 16,390 Americans have died or are yet to die as a result of fallout from nuclear weapons testing by this country and other nations, based on a report by three experts from the National Cancer Institute.

The report does not present a total tally, but the general numbers given add up to that range.

Around 49,000 cases of thyroid cancer — possibly 5 percent to 10 percent of which may prove fatal — can be attributed to ingesting radioactive iodine particles released by atomic bomb tests of the 1950s and '60s at the Nevada Test Site. A main route for this internal exposure would be iodine picked up by grazing cattle, which went into milk.

The report, "Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests and Cancer Risks," printed in American Scientist magazine, says almost all these thyroid cases would be in people who were under age 20 for at least part of the period 1951-57. That is because age at exposure plays a role in cancer.

About 4,900 additional U.S. cases of thyroid cancer may be due to global nuclear testing, bombs set off by the former Soviet Union, France, England and China, says the report in the magazine's January-February issue. (If the 5 to 10 percent fatality rate holds true for these, deaths would be 245 to 490.)

By comparison, without fallout, about 400,000 thyroid cancers could have been expected among Americans alive at that time, it adds.

For external radiation exposure, which does not count cancer caused by radioactive iodine in milk, 22,000 cancers are expected, about half of them fatal. These were attributed both to NTS fallout and global fallout.

An estimated 1,800 leukemia deaths caused by external exposure, from both domestic and foreign fallout, are part of the tally.

For perspective, the numbers of fallout cancers and deaths are small compared with the huge toll that cancer takes anyway. About 1.5 million leukemia deaths might be expected among Americans who were alive in 1952, compared with the 1,800 deaths caused by fallout.

Cancer is so common that 42 percent of Americans will have the affliction sometime in their lives, which would amount to about 60 million people among America's population in 1952 (when bombs were going off above ground at the NTS), it adds. Around 25 percent of the cancers are expected to be fatal, according to the report.

The report also cites research by University of Utah scientists into the relationship between fallout and cancer.