{"id":281560,"date":"2021-08-20T06:04:51","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T06:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=120106"},"modified":"2021-08-20T06:04:51","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T06:04:51","slug":"childrens-teeth-collected-decades-ago-can-show-the-damage-of-nuclear-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/08\/20\/childrens-teeth-collected-decades-ago-can-show-the-damage-of-nuclear-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Children\u2019s Teeth, Collected Decades Ago, Can Show the Damage of Nuclear Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Nuclear Weapon Test, Bikini Atoll, 1954<\/p>\n

In 2020, Harvard University\u2019s T. C. Chan School of Public Health began a five-year study<\/a>, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that will examine the connection between early life exposure to toxic metals and later-life risk of neurological disease. A collaborator with Harvard, the Radiation and Public Health Project, will analyze the relationship of strontium-90 (a radioactive element in nuclear weapons explosions) and disease risk in later life.<\/p>\n

The centerpiece of the study is a collection of nearly 100,000 baby teeth, gathered in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information.<\/p>\n

The collection of these teeth occurred during a time of intense public agitation<\/a> over the escalating nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet governments that featured the new hydrogen bomb (H-bomb), a weapon more than a thousand times<\/a> as powerful as the bomb that had annihilated Hiroshima.\u00a0 To prepare themselves for nuclear war, the two Cold War rivals conducted well-publicized, sometimes televised nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere\u2014434 of them between 1945 and 1963<\/a>.\u00a0 These tests sent vast clouds of radioactive debris aloft where, carried along by the winds, it often traveled substantial distances before it fell to earth and was absorbed by the soil, plants, animals, and human beings.<\/p>\n

The hazards of nuclear testing<\/a> were underscored by the U.S. government\u2019s March 1, 1954 explosion of an H-bomb on Bikini Atoll, located in the Marshall Islands.\u00a0 Although an area the size of New England had been staked out as a danger zone around the test site, a heavy dose of nuclear fallout descended on four inhabited islands of the Marshall grouping and on a Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon<\/em>\u2014all substantially outside the danger zone\u2014with disastrous results.<\/p>\n

Criticism of the nuclear arms race, and especially nuclear testing, quickly escalated.\u00a0 Prominent individuals, including Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and Benjamin Spock, issued spirited warnings.\u00a0 New mass membership organizations arose, among them the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) in the United States, the National Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests (which morphed into the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) in Britain, and the Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs.<\/p>\n

The public grew alarmed<\/a>, particularly by the fact that strontium-90 from nuclear tests was transmitted from the grass, to cattle, to milk, and finally to human bodies\u2014with special concern as it built up in children\u2019s bones and teeth.\u00a0 By the late 1950s, polls found that most Americans considered fallout a \u201creal danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linus Pauling<\/a>, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, emerged as one of the most trenchant and effective American critics, circulating anti-testing petitions signed by thousands of U.S. scientists and even larger numbers of scientists abroad.\u00a0 Pauling charged that the nuclear bomb tests through 1958 would ultimately produce about 1 million seriously defective children and some 2 million embryonic and neonatal deaths.<\/p>\n

Determined to maintain its nuclear weapons program, the U.S. government was horrified<\/a> by the popular uproar and anxious to suppress it.\u00a0 U.S. intelligence agencies and congressional investigations were unleashed against groups like SANE and antinuclear leaders like Pauling, while U.S. information agencies and government officials publicly minimized the dangers of nuclear testing.\u00a0 In a Life<\/em> magazine article, Edward Teller<\/a>, often called \u201cthe father of the H-bomb,\u201d insisted that nuclear test radiation \u201cneed not necessarily be harmful,\u201d but \u201cmay conceivably be helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, public concern grew.\u00a0 In August 1958, Herman Kalckar<\/a>, a biologist at the National Institutes of Health, published an article in the journal Nature<\/em>, calling on public health agencies in multiple nations to engage in large-scale collection of baby teeth. Kalckar proposed testing teeth for strontium-90 from bomb fallout, as children are most vulnerable to the toxic effects of radioactivity.<\/p>\n

Washington University scientists<\/a> recognized that a tooth study could change public policy. In December 1958, they joined with leaders of the Committee for Nuclear Information, a citizen group opposed to nuclear war and above-ground bomb tests, and adopted a proposal to collect and test teeth for strontium-90 concentrations.<\/p>\n

For the next 12 years, the Committee worked furiously, soliciting tooth donations through community-based institutions like schools, churches, scout groups, libraries, and dental offices. A total of 320,000 teeth were collected, and a Washington University lab measured strontium-90.<\/p>\n

Results clearly showed a massive increase in strontium-90<\/a> as testing continued. Children born in 1963 (the height of bomb tests) had an average of 50 times more than those born in 1951 (when large-scale tests began). Medical journal articles detailed results.\u00a0 Information on the tooth study was sent to Jerome Wiesner, science advisor to President John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, already seeking a test ban treaty, was clearly influenced by the uproar over the fate of children.\u00a0 In his July 1963 speech<\/a> announcing the successful conclusion of test ban negotiations by the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, he argued that governments could not be indifferent to the catastrophe of nuclear war or to \u201cchildren and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs.\u201d\u00a0 The outcome was the Partial Test Ban Treaty<\/a>, which banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water.<\/p>\n

According to the ongoing tooth study, the average strontium-90 in baby teeth dropped by half<\/a> in just four years after the test ban. With their goal apparently accomplished, the Committee on Nuclear Information and the University halted tooth collection and testing.\u00a0 Soon thereafter, the Committee dissolved.<\/p>\n

Three decades later, Washington University staff discovered thousands of abandoned baby teeth<\/a> that had gone untested. The school donated the teeth to the Radiation and Public Health Project, which was conducting a study of strontium-90 in teeth of U.S. children near nuclear reactors.<\/p>\n

Now, using strontium-90 still present in teeth, the Radiation and Public Health Project will conduct an analysis of health risk, which was not addressed in the original tooth study, and minimally addressed by government agencies.\u00a0 Based on actual radiation exposure in bodies, the issue of how many Americans suffered from cancer and other diseases from nuclear testing fallout will be clarified.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>The post Children\u2019s Teeth, Collected Decades Ago, Can Show the Damage of Nuclear Testing<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n


\r\nThis content originally appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a> and was authored by Lawrence Wittner and Joseph Mangano.
<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nuclear Weapon Test, Bikini Atoll, 1954 In 2020, Harvard University\u2019s T. C. Chan School of Public Health began a five-year study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that will examine the connection between early life exposure to toxic metals and later-life risk of neurological disease. A collaborator with Harvard, the Radiation and Public Health [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post Children\u2019s Teeth, Collected Decades Ago, Can Show the Damage of Nuclear Testing<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,437,27398,308,138,34033,27139,378,27150,311,200,36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281560"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281570,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281560\/revisions\/281570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}