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National Cancer Institute U.S. National Institutes of Health www.cancer.gov
Radiation Epidemiology Branch

Fallout Studies

Reconstruction of radiation exposures from fallout from nuclear weapons tests

While radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests and potential fallout-related health effects to exposed populations have been of concern for more than 50 years, a systematic program to study and understand those effects was not initiated until the early 1980s. In recent years the Radiation Epidemiology Branch (REB) contributed detailed estimates of geographic region-specific fallout exposures from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) (http://www.cancer.gov/i131) and disseminated them in the form of a web-based thyroid dose and risk calculator which can be used to estimate an individual’s thyroid dose and cancer risk from Iodine-131 in fallout (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/i-131/estimating-your-exposure). Also, in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, REB estimated for the first time radiation doses and risks of related health effects to representative persons in all counties of the contiguous United States from a set of important radionuclides produced from testing of nuclear weapons from 1951 through 1962 by the United States and other nations. The estimated doses and risks are available in a report that can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation.

Currently, REB investigators are conducting studies to:

  • Estimate and improve radiation dose and risk from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted in the Republic of the Marshall Islands from 1946 through 1958. This effort includes a detailed assessment of all historical and contemporary measurements of environmental radiation on the atolls from the Bikini and Enewetak tests as well as the use of a model of atmospheric dispersion and deposition; and
  • Assess radiation doses from fallout in Kazakhstan resulting from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site(SNTS), Kazakhstanbetween 1949 and 1962 The methodology of dose estimation has been developed by a joint American-Russian collaboration.