Tom Harkin: “I rise to introduce a bill requiring studies of the health effects of nuclear weapons testing. This would build upon the…”

“I rise to introduce a bill requiring studies of the health effects of nuclear weapons testing. This would build upon the study by the National Cancer Institute that was released October 1 of this year. On October 1, following some major news coverage, the NCI testified before the Senate Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee on their efforts to connect nuclear weapons testing with thyroid cancer. The NCI testimony and the report released that day were startling. Atomic bomb tests in Nevada during the 1950's exposed millions of Americans--particularly children--to large amounts of radioactive iodine-131. The levels of radioactive iodine exposure is far worse than previously reported by the Government. Hot spots where the iodine-131 fallout was greatest includes many counties far away from Nevada, including New York, Massachusetts, and Iowa. Hot spots were identified as receiving as high as 5-16 rads of exposure of iodine-131, with children being exposed to a risk up to 10 times higher. Iodine-131, which accumulates in the thyroid gland, has been linked to thyroid cancer. To give some understanding of the enormity of the U.S. atomic tests in Nevada, 116 million curies of iodine-131 were released in the United States above ground tests. This compares to 7.3 million from Chernobyl disaster the former Soviet Union. The NCI report clearly shows that the U.S. atomic tests exposed a lot of people to risks now considered unacceptable.”