Tooth fairy in USA Today

["Genzer, Peter A" <genzer@BNL.GOV>]

All, 



The following well-balanced article on the Tooth Fairy Project appeared in

today's USA Today.



Pete Genzer

Media & Communications Office

Brookhaven National Laboratory

DATE:  01-29-2002

Eyeing baby teeth from the Cold War era Source Website: http://www.usatoday.com

>From the late 1950s until around 1970, tens of thousands of children in the

St. Louis area gave their baby teeth to science. Researchers at that city's Washington University analyzed the teeth for

levels of strontium 90, which is contained in the fallout from nuclear bomb

testing. Closely related to calcium, strontium is absorbed by teeth and

bones. The scientists found that levels of strontium 90 in the teeth rose and fell

over the years, along with the bomb tests. They helped persuade President

Kennedy to adopt a 1963 treaty banning atmospheric testing. For decades, 85,000 leftover teeth, in shoe-box-size boxes, lay among other

scientific debris in a former St. Louis munitions bunker. Last summer,

Washington University employees stumbled upon the tiny relics from an era

when ''duck and cover'' was nearly as common a ritual in U.S. schools as the

Pledge of Allegiance. At least one news report called the find a ''scientific gold mine.'' But

several scientists -- including the former Washington University biology

professor who conceived of the original study -- are questioning the methods

and motives of the new keepers of the teeth. ''They have an agenda to pursue, and they will leave nothing undone to

achieve their goals,'' health physicist Dade Moeller, a Harvard University

professor emeritus, says of the Radiation and Public Health Project, which

for several years has been collecting baby teeth from the USA and abroad. ''Their aim is well known,'' says health physicist Stephen Musolino of the

Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New

York. ''They dislike anything nuclear.'' Blaming nuclear radiation Statistician Jay Gould, founder of the Radiation and Public Health Project,

published a book in 1996 that blames nuclear radiation for many of society's

ills, from lower SAT scores to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And after analyzing levels of strontium 90 in hundreds of baby teeth

collected in New York and Miami, Gould's group in the late 1990s concluded

that nuclear power plants were releasing dangerous amounts of radiation.

Yet, scientists from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission say such plants emit

inconsequential levels of strontium 90. For a small, independent organization that has not yet obtained enough

funding to study the St. Louis-area teeth, the Radiation and Public Health

Project has some high-profile backers. A letter from actor Alec Baldwin, whose mother is a survivor of breast

cancer, appears on the project's Web site. In it, Baldwin asks for donations

of baby teeth. ''We're all retired,'' Gould says of himself and his collaborators. ''We

work for nothing, and we have the support from a handful of people who think

we're on the right track. Gould says he and his collaborators are not anti-nuclear activists. ''Just

calling us names and saying what we're doing is not possible is not a

rational response to what we're doing. We're not calling for the closing of

nuclear reactors. What we are calling for is information on health effects

of emissions.'' Perhaps it is impossible to separate politics from the debate. The original

study of the St. Louis baby teeth certainly had political roots. It was

spearheaded by biology professor Barry Commoner, who helped found the

Citizens Committee for Nuclear Information. Commoner, now at Queens College

in New York, often is referred to as the father of theenvironmental movement and ran as the Citizens' Party candidate for U.S.

president in 1980. ''I meet people all the time who tell me they gave us their baby teeth,''

Commoner says. ''That experience, during the fallout period when kids were

hiding under their desks at school, has left a big impression in people's

minds.'' Since learning through news reports that the baby teeth had been

rediscovered, more than 2,000 people have e-mailed his group to say that

theirs might be among them, Gould says. In a few months, he says, his group

hopes to list all of the donors on its Web site in the hope that they make

contact. ''We know virtually nothing about the health effects of the Cold War bomb

testing,'' says Joseph Mangano, national coordinator for Radiation and

Public Health, acknowledging, ''we may find nothing with this study.'' Connection to cancer? While Commoner and colleagues simply analyzed the teeth, Gould's group wants

to go further. Besides measuring strontium 90, the researchers hope to

locate and question the baby boomers who donated them. The researchers want

to see whether levels of strontium 90 in the baby teeth might be associated

with cancer, asthma and other health problems in the donors. Although Commoner was politically motivated, ''what he did was grounded in

proper science,'' Musolino says. ''They were just proving that atmospheric

weapons test fallout was creating a pathway back to humans.'' Musolino, like other critics, is less complimentary of Gould's group. For

one, critics note, sick people, who tend to want an explanation for their

condition, are much more likely to respond to the group's request for health

information than healthy people. Another flaw in the group's approach, Musolino says: The level of

radioactivity in a tooth is minuscule and not reflective of the dose to the

entire body. ''You can't correlate radiation dose to a person from a tooth,'' he says.

''It's far too indirect a method.'' A more direct measure can be obtained by

sampling air, water, soil and food, Musolino says. Even if scientists could extrapolate radiation dose from the level of

strontium 90 in baby teeth, it's impossible to prove that that exposure

caused health problems decades later, skeptics say. ''There are a lot of other factors that need to be considered,'' says Paul

Garbe, associate director for science in the environmental hazards and

health effects division of the National Center for Environmental Health in

Atlanta. ''It would be a very difficult study to design. It would take a lot

of resources.'' Even Commoner is skeptical. ''To use this for an epidemiological link to

disease is very iffy,'' he says. ''They mean well, but I have never

associated myself with their results.'' 





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