Mizz Marcia Ryder wrote:
> "maryanne kehoe" wrote :
> > Hubby and I were talking about Ed Bradley (60 Minutes) who died today of
> > leukemia. I thought that was more of a childhood disease, but it seems
> > *more* adults are coming down with it.
> >
> > Is this due to environmental or other factors? When I was a kid, it
> > seemed that most cases were very small children.
>
> I know of at least 3 farmers that have died or are currently being
> treated for it --- and I don't know many farmers. My uncle died
> of leukemia (he also later developed BC), having acquired it in is
> his early 70's. The doctors believed it was the constant contact with
> pesticides (eg DDT). Also a Vet friend of mine has it. He finally
> got the VA to admit it was caused by his exposure to Agent Orange
> in Nam and the finally reimbursed him for his expenses to that point.
>
> Of course this wouldn't explain all the adult leukemia and probably
> not Bradley's. However he did spend a lot of time in Nam and
> Cambodia during the war. But there are probably environmental
> cases, especially among adults.
>
> Just my anecdotal 2 cents (no science or stats)
This is one of the more shameful episodes of US government malfeasance,
no will probably ever know the ultimate toll of those who died because
of atmospheric nuclear testing:
http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/?q=node/3492
The bad and the ugly of underground nuclear tests
by Will Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune [US]
November 30th, 2003
"What killed John Wayne? How about Genghis Khan -- in southern Utah, no
less. As improbable as it may sound, the Mongol emperor may well have
done in the Duke -- with help from Edward Teller, the genius of the
nuclear age, the Atomic Energy Commission and five packs of Camels a
day. RKO pictures, Hollywood mogul Howard Hughes and director Dick
Powell picked Snow Canyon near St. George to play the Gobi Desert in
"The Conqueror," the extravaganza they made in 1954 about Genghis
Khan's humble beginnings. It was a star-studded, big-budget spectacle
of windblown battle scenes about the epic passion of one of history's
most misunderstood mass murderers for the beautiful princess Bortai,
played by bombshell Susan Hayward.
Marlon Brando was up to be the leading man, but for incomprehensible
reasons, John Wayne decided Genghis would be the role of a lifetime,
allegedly saying, "I see him as gunfighter." Powell signed up the
Shivwits band of Paiutes to stand in for the Golden Horde, and in a
stroke of genius, shooting was scheduled for St. George's balmy
summertime.
The local population pitched in and charmed the cast and crew, but
shooting the endless battle scenes proved to be about as much fun as
being on the receiving end of a 13th-century Mongol terror campaign. It
got so hot the Chamber of Commerce refused to print the temperatures.
Meanwhile, 136 miles downwind, the Atomic Energy Commission detonated
11 nuclear bombs in the open air above the Yucca Flats test site during
1954. The year before, the "Dirty Harry" and "Upshot-Knothole" tests
blanketed Utah with so much plutonium that the fallout set off Geiger
counters in Snow Canyon.
Powell was concerned about possible health risks, but government
officials assured him the radioactive sands posed no problem.
As art, "The Conqueror" was a bomb of atomic proportions and ranked as
one of the 50 worst movies ever made. Hughes, however, loved it, and in
his aged wisdom yanked it from the market and watched it over and over
and over and over . . .
Meanwhile, by 1980, almost half the film's cast had contracted cancer,
which killed Powell and all the leading stars, including John Wayne,
Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead.
And Teller? When scientists who had developed the atomic bomb refused
to produce a tactically useless hydrogen weapon, Teller volunteered on
the condition he could conduct open-air nuclear tests.
Up to 1963, the United States detonated 215 atmospheric nuclear blasts
totaling 428 megatons -- and the Nevada test site exploded 121 of them
upwind of Utah.
Of 760 known underground tests between 1962 and 1992, "a surprisingly
large fraction were not contained and contributed periodically to high
levels of radioactive fallout in downwind areas," wrote radiochemist
Edward Martell.
"The total number of excess cancer deaths in local and remote downwind
areas must have exceeded thousands. This does not include the added
toll of stillbirths, birth defects, chromosome-aberration diseases, and
other adverse radiation induced health effects."
Altogether, Nevada has seen 1,051 nuclear tests. How many Americans did
they kill? Nobody knows. One scientific study found 52 excess leukemia
deaths among Utah children between 1959 and 1967, but no one has looked
into a possible link to Utah's extraordinary rates of chronic diseases.
Earlier this month, 80 percent of Utah's congressional delegation voted
to spend $25 million to restart underground nuclear weapons testing. Of
course, none of these test supporters lost a father to cancer that his
family linked to radioactive fallout in southern Utah.
Of 2,043 known nuclear tests, how many times did a nuclear weapon fail
to detonate?
Not once."
</>
Slightly OT---question about leukemia (Ed Bradley) 
Linear Mode
