The Nation - News from April 12, 1989

The Navy issued a public denial stating it had never received any medical evidence suggesting sailors who served aboard nuclear missile submarines were more likely to contract cancer. Responding to a report Monday in the trade publication Navy News and Undersea Technology alleging increased risk, the Navy released a 140-page statistical study by the Yale School of Medicine that tracked both the in-service and post-service death rates for nuclear submariners. The study, conducted at a cost of $600,000, was originally completed in August, 1985, and then updated and revised in April, 1987.