No Excuses For Late Radiation Data Public Should’ve Been Told Sooner, National Cancer Institute Head Says

The government should have told the public sooner that nuclear bomb testing exposed parts of the country to high doses of radiation in the 1950s, the National Cancer Institute’s director said Wednesday.

The bulk of the institute’s fallout study was finished in 1992, and people in high-risk areas should have been told of the potential danger then, Richard Klausner told a Senate subcommittee.

The 100,000-page study was released Wednesday. It says children, even those who lived thousands of miles from the Nevada site where bombs were detonated, were exposed to large amounts of radioactive iodine, which has been linked to thyroid cancer.

Infants and children under 5 who drank raw milk from cows and goats grazing on contaminated pastures faced the highest risk.

Those children now are entering middle age, when latent thyroid problems can develop.

Rather than warn the public in 1992, the agency decided to wait until its investigation was completed. Preliminary findings have appeared in scientific journals since the early 1990s.

The Spokesman-Review reported on the long-sequestered study in an article in July.

The study was first requested by Congress 14 years ago. Klausner said he has pushed for the study’s release for the last eight months.

The study shows fallout “hot spots” in parts of Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, the Midwest and the East Coast.

Four of the five counties with the worst fallout are in Idaho: Custer, Gem, Blaine and Lemhi.

Under questioning from members of a Senate subcommittee, Klausner tried to explain why the study took 14 years to complete.

The complexity of the study required scientists to chart years of weather patterns and analyze decades of records.

That explanation didn’t satisfy the institute’s critics, who charged the agency was obligated to warn Congress and Americans about possible risks from fallout.

“It failed in that responsibility,” Spokane resident Tim Connor told the subcommittee.

Connor, former research director for the Hanford Education Action League of Spokane, is a member of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel that has pressed for access to the study for more than a year.

Researchers had compiled and analyzed enough evidence to identify the sections of the country where people could be at greater risk for developing thyroid cancer and other thyroid-related health problems, Connor said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., blasted the cancer institute in her opening statement.

“It is reprehensible that our citizens were intentionally exposed to radioactivity and yet those who knew remained silent - even in the face of evidence that said if we provided treatment and information early, we might alleviate suffering or prevent disease,” Murray said.

During the Cold War tests of more than 100 bombs, detonated over a seven-year period, about 160 million people were exposed to radioactive Iodine-131. Areas north and east of the southern Nevada test site had the highest exposure, averaging from five to 16 rad.

The tiny thyroid gland of a growing child is considered highly vulnerable to Iodine-131. A 10-rad dose has been shown to damage a child’s thyroid, institute officials said. In the fallout study, the average national exposure to adults was 2 rad. That’s still far higher than the amount people get from natural sources of radiation, about .1 rad each year.

But infants and young children got doses as high as 160 rad from the bomb testing.

Klausner told the subcommittee that scientific studies have not found a conclusive link between Iodine-131 and thyroid cancer. The increased rate of that cancer may be caused by high doses of radiation given off by X-rays in the 1950s, he said.

Critics disagreed.

Joseph Lyon, a professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine who has studied health risks from fallout, cited a study that found a clear association between fallout and thyroid cancer.

Connor said that while there might not be evidence directly linking Iodine-131 to thyroid cancer, he has “seen enough victims” downwind from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to be concerned about fallout.

Each year, about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer are reported, with an estimated 1,230 deaths, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said “there’s a crying demand to know” what the study means in terms of risk to the public.

The National Institutes of Health will conduct another study of those risks.

In the meantime, Klausner recommended that people who lived in fallout areas, especially as children, get a thyroid test from their physician.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: NCI study on the Web The National Cancer Institute’s study on Americans’ exposure to radioactive fallout from bomb testing is on the Worldwide Web. The full report, including maps, is available from the institute’s home page. Here are the addresses: http://www.nci.nih.gov or the NCI’s subpage for the public and the media, http://rex.nci.nih.gov Click on “What’s New” at either location to access the material. People with questions about fallout and their health can call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER. The NCI also has established a technical assistance help line for county and state health officials and other health professionals concerned about fallout. To access the line, call 1-800-273-7092.