Radiation Studies May Be Inconclusive : Scientists Probing Health Risks From Atmospheric Nuclear Tests

Three major studies to be released within a year may be inconclusive on whether atmospheric nuclear blasts in the 1950s and 1960s in Nevada caused health problems such as cancer, scientists said Saturday.

The first results from two studies sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Cancer Institute focusing on radiation problems in Western states are due by the end of this year, and results from a nationwide study by the National Cancer Institute should be released within a year.

Officials of the three studies met Saturday to discuss their efforts with scientists conducting a fourth study on radiation releases during the last four decades from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

‘Extremely Difficult’

“I think the overall result of the study is going to be that while there has been some harm done by these tests, finding that harm is going to be extremely difficult to do,” said Lynn Anspaugh, director of environmental sciences at Livermore National Laboratory.

Anspaugh is scientific director for the Offsite Radiation Review Project, which the Energy Department started in 1979 in the hope of determining the radiation doses people received in Western states from the Nevada atmospheric weapons tests that were conducted mainly in the 1950s and that ended in 1963.

Anspaugh said the study has confirmed previous reports that people in St. George, Utah, received doses of radiation much higher than what normally occurs in the environment--particularly children who drank milk contaminated because cows ate radioactive feed.

“Within the other locations throughout the area we think the doses were quite a bit smaller than that, although at some isolated locations like ranches and so forth the doses might have been somewhat larger,” he said.

Principal Investigator

Walter Stevens, dean of the University of Utah Medical School, is principal investigator for a National Cancer Institute study on whether residents of southern Utah, western Nevada and northern Arizona suffered higher rates of leukemia and thyroid disease because of the tests.

Asked whether the study has found a direct link between the tests and cancer, he said, “We’re dealing with a small number of people so it may be difficult to give an absolute answer of yes, no or maybe.”

“There’s nothing that is alarming,” he said of the results so far.

Andre Bouville, lead scientist for the National Cancer Institute study trying to determine radiation doses nationwide from the Nevada fallout, also said there is considerable uncertainty.

Milk Contamination

That study focuses on how milk became contaminated because cows ingested radioactive iodine 131, and has found great differences among how much milk individual people drank at the time.

“You find evidence--at least indirect evidence--of contamination all throughout the United States. Generally speaking, the people living in the eastern United States were more exposed than people living in the West because of prevailing winds from west to east.