[ RadSafe ] 51 years later, cancers from Bikini Atoll H-bomb tests only half over

[Andrew McEwan]

The National Cancer Institute report on “Estimation of the Baseline Number
of Cancers Among Marshallese and the Number of Cancers Attributable to
Exposure to Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Testing Conducted in the Marshall
Islands” should be viewed with caution. The report itself strongly cautions
that its estimates of radiation induced cancer cases are overestimates
because, for the higher exposures (e.g. to Rongelapese) no account is taken
of cell killing effects. A consequence is that the estimates for numbers of
cancers in the exposed Rongelap and Utirik populations exceed the number of
persons resident there in 1954. The report, however, does not similarly
caution that its estimates of cancers in the remainder of the Marshall’s
population, exposed in 1954 and subsequent years to much lower doses, are
reliant on an uncertain linear extrapolation, and that in fact for the
lowest exposure categories the magnitude of effects is unknown. For most of
the Marshall Islands the generally very low doses received have been given
at low dose rates (with the major contribution to exposures from 137Cs).
Even so, for the numbers of radiation–induced cancers which have been
calculated in the NCI study for residents, excluding those on Rongelap,
Alinginae and Utirik, it is doubtful that epidemiological studies could find
any increase in cancers, other than thyroid cancer, in the Marshallese
population.

Andrew McEwan

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj at aecl.ca>
To: "Radsafe (E-mail)" <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 2:23 AM
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] 51 years later, cancers from Bikini Atoll H-bomb
tests only half over