Groups Push for Release of '50s Nuclear Radiation Studies

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (July 24, 1997 10:45 a.m. EDT) -- Saying the government has covered up results of 1950s domestic nuclear tests, two nuclear industry watchdog groups asked Cabinet secretaries Wednesday to release a study on radiation exposure from the tests.

The requests were made Wednesday by the Military Production Network and Physicians for Social Responsibility in a letter to Energy Secretary Federico Pena and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

The groups say the National Cancer Institute -- part of the Department of Health and Human Services -- has for years withheld information about radiation exposure millions of Americans received from the tests, even though evidence suggests the releases may be linked to thyroid cancer.

"This is appalling that the National Cancer Institute did not make this available as soon as possible. It's been too long sitting on this," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

"The thyroid doses to children who were around in the 1950s and drinking milk almost throughout the United States are much, much greater than previously thought," said Makhijani, who has seen some of the data.

About 1,200 cases of thyroid cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States.

The continuing study, begun in 1983, looks at the dispersal of radioactive iodine-131 from nuclear weapons tests in Nevada between 1951 and 1958. The material was carried by prevailing winds and deposited, sometimes by rainfall, in much of the continental United States and parts of Canada.

By PAUL SLOCA, The Associated Press