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Show The Salt Lake Tribune NATION *50s Fallout Fell in Every cause an increase in cancer among people who were exposed? The significance of the NCI studyis not the finding that iodine 131 traveled across the country — U.S. County that has been known for years. But this will bethe first time any- onehas determined whereit landed and the degree to which people @ Continued from A-1 sy, with some claiming the government took far too long to release its sensitive findings. Among them: the NCI study shows that under today’s federal limits, people in every county in were exposed. The study determines exposure by examining milk consumption. Muchofthe iodine 131 traveled through the atmosphere and rained down onthe grass. It then was eaten by cows and goats, and concentrated in their milk. mystery. Studies doneso far have beentantalizing and frustratingin equal measure. Most of the stud- ies in the United States have focused on the downwinders, In the most recent study, pub- lished in Journal ofthe American Medical Association in 1993, researchers found 19 thyroid abnormalities among downwinders, eight of them cancerous. Perhaps six are thoughtto be linked to the nuclear tests. All of the volunteers, examined when they were aged 9 to 19, were young children when the nuclear “The study indicates that the entire populationat that time received some level of exposure,” who were exposed to the mostiodine 131 were the most vulnerable: children. tests were conducted. Researchers focused on children because the rapidly dividingcells in their growing thyroids appear to be most susceptible to cancer-caus- “This is a crucial step in understanding the impactof the nuclear dosesofradiation. up the study. “We found areasin weapons tests on public health,” Wachholzsaid. the nation were exposed to too muchiodine 131 in the 1950s. said Bruce Wachholz, who headed the country wherethefallout and the [radioiodine] doses were higher than anywhere else. We don’t know whatthoserelationships are [to cancer]at this point,” “The basie question is whether Therefore, many of the people But somesay it has taken too long, and there are charges that the study’s authors, afraid of the publie’s reaction, sat on complet- ed data for several years. “We are profoundly troubled iodine 131 causes thyroid cancer — that’s what counts,” added Merril Eisenbud,retired profes- by NCI’s handling of this important study,” said a letter issued Wednesday by Physicians for So- sor at New York University Medi- eial Responsibility and the Military Production Network,a coali- cal Center and oneofthe nation’s premier authorities on atomic fallout. “Whether it causes cancer in humans has never been decided for certain.” Those uncertainties were behind Congress’ demand in 1982 for the NCI study. Now, 15 years later, the resulting 100,000-page report only goes halfway: The study details how much ra- dioiodine Americans living in each of the nation’s then-3,071 counties absorbed when aboveground nuclear tests were con- ducted between 1951 and 1962. Ever since America dropped thefirst atomic bombs on Hiroshimaand Nagasaki in August 1945, researchers have been trying to measure what happens whenatoms shatter with explosive force, and howthe resulting gales of radiation and fallout affect those whosurvive. The NCIstudyis a first step in solving one of the most daunting medical mysteries of the nuclear age: Did the radioactive fallout from the Nevada bomb tests ing contaminants. Some got high Seventy-three percent of the children were exposed by unwittingly drinking contaminated milk. Those who drank milk from family eows and goats got the mostintensive exposure, because the radioactive iodine had less time to decay during transport. Still; because there were so few cases of cancer, David Becker, professor of radiology at New York Hospital/Cornell University Medical Center,calls the assotion of nuclear watchdog groups~..ciation between iodine 131 and “NCI officials have failed to re- thyroid cancer ‘‘weak.” lease the material in their possession that would allow the public, The 1986 meltdowitofthe.nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, the media to begin assessing the impacts of these exposures.” tragic picture of fallout, for rea- health experts, policy-makers and Wachholzsaid it took research- ers a lot of timeto interpret the voluminous material, draw con- Ukraine,presents a dramatic and sons researchers do not entirely understand. Here the link between radioiodine and thyroid cancer seemed clusions and summarizefindings. obvious: More than 500 children have come downwiththedisease. subtle. Researchers arestill trying to pin down the cancer-causing isotope The effects of falloutcan be Fallout rides prevailing winds and can coat muchof a continent. And fallout carries iodine and dose, which may depend on AT Friday, July 25, 1997 such disparate factors as age; the child’s size; the weight of the thyroid; the amount of fallout deposited nearby, the amount of milk a child consumes and even the lag time between the milking and the drinking. Despite researchers’ inability to draw any firm conclusions from the new fallout study, it car- ries profound impli for policy makers. Thestudyfirst becamea political hot potato more than a year ago, when an advisory panel from the Centers for Disease Control requested a copy of the fallout data and was rebuffed by the Can- cer Institute in a letter from Wachholz. Some members of the advisory panel subsequently complained publicly that the institute wastrying to suppress the data. The coming release of the study also has been the subject of high- level discussions at the U.S. Department of Energy, which will have to formulate an official response to the data’s release. Given the agency's recent promises of more opennessand accountability — promisesthat followed revelations that the U.S. government spent decades performing radiation tests on unwitting human subjects — many watchdog groups are eager to see what form that responsetakes. But many activists already are calling for additional studies in the high-dose counties identified in the new fallout study. “Essentially, the whole population of the country that was young or in utero for that whole period through 1962 needs to be studied,” said Arjun Makhijani, presi- dent of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. “This issue is going to go on for a very, very longtime.” arrow” inside. The rock’s arrow points toward the magnetic north pole just as a compass needle does. Earth’s Spin Spun Species, Say Scientists Byusing the rocks’ magnetic arrows to pinpoint the rocks’ origi- nal locations, scientists recon- @ Continued from A-1 culiarly interesting is its association with the Cambrian explosion,” said Joseph Kirschvink, a professor of geobiology from Cal- tech and head of the research team. If the researchers’ hypothesis is correct, they will have solved one of biology’s most perplexing puzales. Why life suddenly diversified 530 million years ago has confounded scientists since the dawnof the theory of evolution. In examining fossils, “Charles Darwin recognized 150 years ago that something was strange,” structed several maps of the ancient globe. In the maps just before the Cambrian much of. Earth’s land mass was concentrated near the poles. But the spinning of the planet pushed land away from the poles and toward the equator, the scientists said. By the time the Cambrian explosion began, Earth’s land masses had begun to move veryrapidly, the researcherssaid “The rates werereally off the scale. On top ofthat, every- thing looked like they were going the same direction,” Kirschvink said. Essentially, the skin of Earth slipped, the scientists said. While this kind of toppling of Kirschvink said the surface has never been noted Since then, biologists have proposed a plethoraof hypothesesto on Earth before, the scientists said there is evidence that both account for the evolutionary explosion. But noneof the hypothe- Marsand the moonhavereorient- ed themselvesthis way This rotation of Earth’s surface ses has offered the earth-shaking scenario thatthis one has. would have pushed frigid polar “It's logical,’’ said Blair Hedges, an evolutionarybiologist at Pennsylvania State University. “Geology has a big effect on evolutionary history throughout the fossil record.” In their study, Kirschvink, graduate student David Evans and geochemist Robert Ripperdan analyzed rocks fromAustralia and North America that formed between 500 million and 600 million years ago. As a molten rock cools,little regionsto the tropics,said the re- searchers. Torrid tropical regions, meanwhile, would have icedover. Shifts in ocean currents would have upset rainfall and wind patterns. Within the turbulent 15 million-year period, a region’s climatecould have changed dramatically many times. Rapid environmental changes could have magnified rates of natural selection, the’ process by which species adapt to survive in the world aroundthem. “It's a mechanism for speeding magnetic particles in the rock line up, creating a kind of “magnetic up evolution,” Kirschvink said 131 — which naturally concen- trates in the humanthyroid gland. The thyroid usesiodine to make thyroxine and other hormones that regulate metabolism. Children who do not get enough iodine may not grow normally or fully develop mentally. Adults develop goiters — enlarged, overworked glands struggling to meet the body's demand for thyroid rma) RCE Ses ag CCU) SEN hormones. The cancer-causing potential of radioactive iodine 131 remains a You don't need to trave to Australia to visit the Outback... ‘| Just head to Draper. We've opened .our 2nd locationjust south of the South TowneMall. Visit Utah's largest collection of fine Westem and Contemporary leather furnishings. 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