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CNN Saturday Morning News
Study Suggests Americans Have Been Exposed to Nuclear Fallout
Aired March 02, 2002 - 09:08 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: From the war on terrorism, we turn our attention back to the cold war and worldwide nuclear testing. A study now is in progress, and it suggests that anyone living in the United States since 1951 has been exposed to radiation fallout which, it reasons, has likely killed thousands of Americans.
CNN environment correspondent Natalie Pawelski reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Most nuclear explosions were not supposed to kill anyone. They were just tests aimed at proving what bombs could do in an age of mutually- assured destruction, but kill they did. Government numbers say widespread fallout from the tests has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans so far.
SEN. TOM HARKIN (D), IOWA: Well, what we know I think is sort of maybe the tip of the iceberg here. We know that there has been upwards of perhaps 15,000 deaths that are attributable to these nuclear tests.
PAWELSKI: Congress ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare a major report on these hidden Cold War health risks. The study is overdue. The Department has given Congress a progress report, but critics on the Hill say that's not enough.
HARKIN: People have a right to know if they were exposed, where the big areas of fallout were, and they need to be I think screened and told what to do to protect their health.
PAWELSKI: We may never know the names of the victims, because it's almost impossible to tie any one individual case of cancer directly with the tests. Who is to blame? Hard to say. When the damage was done, the world was at war, first hot, then cold.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: It's a bomb. Duck and cover.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALES (singing): Duck and cover.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PAWELSKI: Standards were different, and those doing the tests may not have realized all their potential impacts. But government fallout maps show how radioactive substances, even from tests far overseas, contaminated unexpected places.
ARIUN MAKHIJANI, INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH: What is surprising and very new is that it has created intense hot spots in the continental United States all the way from California, Washington and Oregon to Vermont, New Hampshire and North Carolina.
PAWELSKI: And there is domestic fallout from the U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada, which also spread radiation far afield.
MAKHIJANI: In some areas, children got doses to the thyroids as high as the fallout areas from the Chernobyl accident.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAWELSKI: Since the Manhattan Project, there have been more than 2,000 nuclear test detonations around the world. Now, most above- ground testing stopped about 40 years ago, but some of the radioactive substances put into the atmosphere from those tests remain dangerous a lot longer than that. More than a decade after it ended, the cold war may still be claiming victims -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Well, Natalie, you can't help but ask, are people still at risk?
PAWELSKI: Yes, that seems incredible, doesn't it, that after all the testing has, for the most part, stopped, people would still be at risk. But the experts I talked to said yes, for two reasons. The isotopes that were released by these tests are very persistent. Some of them have half-lives in the hundreds and even thousands of years.
Secondly, the cancers we're talking about can take decades to develop, and that's why this is such an important issue for a lot of people. They reason that it's like any other risk factor for cancer. Just as you want to know your family history for cancer to see if there's anything in particular you should look for, they argue that people living in these hot spots should be warned so that they can keep an eye out and make -- and if there is a cancer, catch it early and give them a chance of beating it -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And also, why did it take so long for this information to get out?
PAWELSKI: It seems like it's a mix of politics, science, and security concerns. When they first started doing these tests, people didn't really understand what radiation could do to people. And then during the cold war, there was a lot of secrecy attached to the program. Now that the cold war's finally ended, the argument is, we can be a little more honest about it now. And anywhere there are unintentional consequences, and so often it takes awhile to get a full accounting. That's what's being pushed for these days.
PHILLIPS: Natalie Pawelski, very interesting, thank you so much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
