From Deseret News archives:

Fallout link to thyroid cancer gets boost

If cancer victim lived in '50s, Nevada tests could be to blame

Published: Saturday, Dec. 16, 2006 12:53 p.m. MST
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
Almost anyone diagnosed with thyroid cancer who was a child in the United States during open-air nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, and drank fresh milk from stores or farms, could make a case that development of the disease likely was influenced by radioactive fallout.

That's the belief of F. Owen Hoffman, one of the authors of a new report summarizing impacts of fallout on thyroid cancer. The report is "Thyroid Doses and Risk of Thyroid Cancer from Exposure to I-131 from the Nevada Test Site," prepared by SENES Oak Ridge Inc., consultants based in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

It calculates risks, breaking out several areas throughout the country and analyzing the danger of thyroid cancer to people born in certain years.

Federal fallout compensation is available only to people who lived in selected counties. But as documented years ago, fallout from open-air nuclear blasts at the test site fell throughout the country.

The National Institutes of Health has set up a fallout risk calculator on the Internet, which is useful for figuring exposure and risk. The program asks those using it for facts such as age, gender and residency.

SENES' study makes some of the same calculations for several groups of citizens, with birth year, gender and location playing important roles. It calculates risks based on these factors and shows estimates about exposure.

Story continues below
The new report's risk calculator is updated in a way that is similar to an improvement the NIH plans for its online site, according to the study.

"Virtually all 160 million Americans who lived in the continental U.S. during the nuclear testing period were exposed to I-131," the report says.

Radioactive Iodine 131 would churn into the air with a blast's fireball. It would travel in clouds and drop as fallout. Cattle eating contaminated grass would pass along I-131 in their milk, and the material tended to accumulate in thyroid glands of people who drank milk.

The federal government has laws governing compensation to atomic workers who were exposed to radiation and developed cancer.

For compensation, there must be at least a 1 percent chance that the baseline risk of thyroid cancer has doubled for the atomic worker, Hoffman, president and director of SENES, said when contacted by the Deseret Morning News. The baseline represents the risk to unexposed people of the same age, gender and other attributes.

Almost anyone in the United States who was "unfortunate enough to have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, a fairly rare disease, would qualify (for compensation) regardless of location of residence throughout the 3,090 counties of the USA," Hoffman said in an e-mail response.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

previousnext

Latest comments

Thanks "Concerned Advocate". I should mention that since I fight the State...

If it were not for our "elastic" currency we could just ignore those...

Provo convention center close

Actually Provo could be a convention destination if there was a good...

"TCU lost to Utah last year because they didn't have a team good enough to...

Letters: Chosen behavior?

The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an...

4A football: Mustangs vs. Tbirds

Mountain Crest's defense is too tough for Timpview. Our defense is more...

All i know is it won't be my cougars again! another year of great expectation...

One thing we have learned from recent history is that Utah can prepare for...

Great recruit and a great story. He has talent and Bronco will use his...

'Bad move by the Church. I am extremely disappointed!' Well I am happily...

Advertisements
Advertisement