THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300454
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 46 lines
Navy personnel who participated in atomic bomb tests after World War II have a higher death rate than other sailors, but the increase cannot be linked to their exposure to radioactive fallout from the nuclear blasts, a study released Tuesday says.
The long-awaited survey assessed the death rates of 40,000 military personnel who participated in Operation Crossroads, a 1946 military exercise in which atomic bombs were detonated over empty target ships in a Pacific Ocean lagoon at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Sailors assigned to wash down the test ships immediately after the blasts have blamed cancers and other illnesses on the tests.
A scientific panel assembled by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine found that the overall death rate among the Operation Crossroads sailors was 4.6 percent higher than among a comparable group of sailors.
The panel also found that the Navy test veterans appeared slightly more likely to die from cancer, and leukemia in particular, diseases most likely to be caused by radiation exposure. However, those increases were not statistically significant, the panel said.
``These findings do not support a hypothesis that exposure to ionizing radiation was the cause of increasing mortality among Crossroads participants,'' the panel reported. ``Had radiation been a significant contributor to increased risk of mortality, we should have seen significantly increased mortality due to malignancies, particularly leukemia. . . . ''
The overall increased mortality rate could be due to two factors, the panel said. One possibility is ``an as yet unidentified factor other than radiation'' associated with the atomic tests, the panel said. The second could be that ill veterans were more likely to identify themselves to the military and become part of a medical follow-up group. That possibility was unlikely, however, the panel said, noting that virtually all of the 40,000 participants in the test had been identified and studied.
Donna St. John, a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said Congress had recently extended indefinitely the VA's authority to provide medical care for certain diseases affecting veterans who participated in the atomic tests. The VA also offers compensation to veterans who participated in the atomic tests and suffer from one of 15 cancers. A VA panel will review the new study to consider whether additional benefits should be offered the Operations Crossroads sailors, she said. by CNB