Fallout likely caused 15,000 deaths

USA Today ^ | 2/28/02 | Peter Eisler

[GeneD]

WASHINGTON

[GeneD]

I can't believe no one's posted this; it appeared on the USA Today site about a half-hour after it broke the John Madden story.

Here are several USA Today maps. Quite interesting.

Here's a sidebar with more details.

[yankeedame]

You can hear the champagne corks going off in law offices all over the country.

[eddie willers]

It was stopped in 1963.
What's done is done and there is no way to determine if anyone's cancer is even related to this.

Oh what the hell...let's ask for reparations from Germany and Japan.

[Lurker]

Not so fast. They have to prove that the fallout was a direct cause of the cancer. Mere exposure won't do it.

Not that I don't expect them to try.

L

[the_Watchman]

Let's have an estimate of the number of lives saved by our nuclear arsenal during the cold war.

[gubamyster]

The study's estimates of radiation dispersal are based on complex computer analyses of weather patterns, population trends and other data that can help gauge public exposure to fallout from aboveground nuclear tests.

I stopped reading after this sentence. Figured they used the same "complex computer analyses" process that is being used for bogus global warming analyses.

[NormsRevenge]

I was warned not to eat the Yellow snow as a kid, but no one ever showed me how to screen for fallout. :-\

Who do I sue?

[Timesink]

Here are several USA Today maps. Quite interesting.

Sadly, I'm not allowed to view them, as USA Today has decided my computer doesn't have Flash installed, even though it does.

Oh well, the hell with them. There are lies, damned lies, and government studies ordered by Democratic senators in order to please their trial lawyer handlers.

[counterrevolutionary]

If you were born in the United States after 1951, call the law ofices of James L. Ambulancechaser....

[LenS]

Looks like the liberals are afraid we might nuke some Muslims. So it's time tp drag out the old horror stories.

[counterrevolutionary]

If you were born in the United States after 1951, call the law ofices of James L. Ambulancechaser....

[Ditto]

The cancer figures are a general nationwide estimate — there is no way to link specific cases to fallout. The study does not assess cancer risks in other countries.

Before sucking this down as fact, it is important to understand how they generate these estimates.

We know what the fatal radiation dose is. If you start at that point and draw a line back to zero, you get the curve they use to calculate the effects on large populations. So if you take the total amount of radiation released and spread it over all the population that could have been exposed you can then do the math to see how many ‘should have died’ even though none received a fatal dose. They do factor in distance, time and such, but basically it says if 100 units of exposure will kill a person or cause a cancer, then if 100 people are each exposed to 1 unit, one of them will die or get a cancer.

Let us say the fatal dose of aspirin is 100 tablets. If one person consumes 100 of them he will die. But projecting that back to zero, it says if 100 people each take one aspirin, one of them will die. Obviously, our government does not do pharmaceutical risk studies on a linear basis because it would be laughable. But they continue to use a linear model for radiation studies.

Long term studies (40+ years) using real-world samples of nuclear workers with known and documented exposure histories have shown that exposure to low levels of radiation do not appear to be harmful, and may in fact be beneficial. Nuclear workers tend to have less cancers and longer lives than the average population.

[Orangedog]

Not so fast. They have to prove that the fallout was a direct cause of the cancer. Mere exposure won't do it.

No they don't. They just have to convince 12 inner-city morons that this isn't "fair." The lawyers will get tens of millions and their clients will get coupons for accupuncture.

[EverOnward]

Make that 15,001 -- my mother. 15,002 -- my aunt. 15,003 --my dad. 15,004 -- my cousin. And so it goes -- neighbors, friends, family -- dead or surviving cancer and other maladies because of the fallout. I was one of the "low use population." Any other Downwinders still alive out there? I love this country. I love our military and YES many of our military personnel were forced near these nuclear blasts as guinea pigs. They're dead now, too.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear weapons tests across the globe probably caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951

Chump change . . . CAFE - induced vehicle weight reduction causes about 3,000 deaths in the US annualy. Doesn't even take 5 years to kill 15,000 . . . and the auto deaths probably average a lot younger, too.

[hollywood]

"Who do I sue?"

I'd start with everyone.

[Congressman Billybob]

What are the credentials of the people who did this study? Did they "cook the books" like the "scientific" study of tee-aged drinking, reported earlier this week?

Mark Twain, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Congressman Billybob

Column on Cornel West, Educated Moron"

[norwaypinesavage]

This study seems to show that we may have been exposed to some radiation due to fallout, but only makes an assumed lint to cancer. In fact, studies of actual populations exposed to very high amounts of radiation in Japan after the bomb and in Russia after the nuclear power plant fire, found no increases in cancer, except thyroid cancer. (See previous FR postings, I don't have the links) And, at that, thyroid cancer can be prevented, but treatment must occur within thre hours of radiation exposure to be completely effective. Let's see data on cancer rates in those high fallout areas compared with cancer rates in low fallout areas using data of statistical significance.

[jwalsh07]

Did you know there are studies showing that low levels of radiation are good for you?

I estimate 15,000 lives have been saved and 20,000 more benefited because of rads from nuclear fallout.

Now who has a better case?