Fallout Study Delayed 14 Years
Date:	98-09-16 15:16:01 EDT
From:	Ndunlks
To:	Phikent

Fallout Study Delayed 14 Years
 
The Associated Press

  By H. JOSEF HEBERT
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The scientist who oversaw a 14-year health study of radiation fallout 
from Cold War bomb tests apologized Wednesday for years of delay in making the findings 
public.
 
 ``The sense was that nobody was really terribly interested in this,'' Bruce Wachholz, 
chief of the radiation effects branch of the National Cancer Institute who coordinated 
the fallout study, told a Senate hearing.
 
 To which Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, responded: ``The public couldn't be interested in 
what the public didn't know.''
 
 The study, which tracked fallout nationwide from 100 aboveground nuclear explosions in the 
Nevada desert during the early years of the Cold War, was released last October, nearly 15 
years after Congress ordered it.
 
 Three months earlier, key findings were made public. The study concluded that exposure to 
iodine-131 from the bomb test fallout may have caused 11,300 to 212,000 additional cases of 
cancer.
 
 Senate Governmental Affairs Committee members asked senior National Cancer Institute 
why the findings were not made public earlier, since the basic results were known as early 
as 1989 and a final draft report was completed in 1992. Some lawmakers have suggested the 
release was delayed out of concern about public reaction.
 
 Wachholz said there was ``no intention to deceive or conceal this information'' but 
acknowledged the report ``received little attention'' for several years after it was 
largely completed as some of the same researchers focused on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear 
accident.
 
 ``The report should have gotten out faster,'' said Wachholz.
 
 But another witness suggested that public relations concerns may have played a part.
 
 ``There was concern within the (National Cancer Institute) about the negative impact 
that the study might have on public perception about the legacy of atmospheric testing 
of nuclear devices,'' said Owen Hoffman, who was a consultant on the fallout research.
 
 ``This concern may have been partially responsible for delay in publication of the 
results,'' said Hoffman, now president of SENES Oak Ridge Inc., a consulting firm on 
risk analysis.
 
 Richard Klausner, who became NCI director in 1995, acknowledged that he became aware of 
the study because of an inquiry from Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
 
 ``Somewhere, obviously, this fell through the cracks,'' said Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio. 
``We shouldn't have to heckle people to get a report.''
 
 In releasing the report last year, the NCI concluded that bomb testing in Nevada between 
1951 and 1962 exposed millions of American children to radioactive iodine-131, which can 
cause thyroid cancer.
 
 The report estimated there would be 11,300 to 212,000 additional cases of thyroid cancer 
as the result of the exposure, particularly in the Farm Belt where children often drank 
fallout-contaminated milk. The NCI urged people who believe they may have been highly 
exposed to undergo thyroid screening even at this late date.
 
 Earlier this month, however, a committee of the Institute of Medicine called such 
screening unnecessary because it probably would not help people to live longer and would 
provide no significant health benefits.
 
 ``A national or regional screening effort could result in needless worry and unnecessary 
surgeries because the tests used to detect the disease are so often inconclusive,'' said 
Robert Lawrence, a Johns Hopkins School of Public Health professor and the chairman of 
panel.
 
 William Raub, deputy assistant secretary for science policy at the Department of Health 
and Human Services, said the agency was reviewing the conflicting scientific assessments 
on screening.
 
 AP-NY-09-16-98 1454EDT