Fallout-thyroid link gets boost
New downwind study headed by U. professor
The study's lead author is the University of Utah's Dr. Joseph L. Lyon, who has been pursuing the issue for many years.
In March 2005, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based in Atlanta, abruptly canceled a study headed by Lyon that involved checking thyroid glands of downwind residents, looking for abnormities.
Thyroid glands accumulated radioactive iodine from milk from grazing cows. Children were most vulnerable.
Four studies have been launched: an examination in 1965-66 of schoolchildren exposed to fallout; an update 30 years after exposure and published in 1993; an attempted 50-year update canceled by the CDC after years of work and millions of dollars; and the new study, which is a re-evaluation of the 1993 report.
The latest is to be published in "Epidemiology," a peer-reviewed scientific journal that is the official publication of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. The study is to be published in the Nov. 1 issue, but an abstract is already online at the journal's Web site, www.epidem.com/pt/re/epidemiology under "Epi Fast-Track."
The 1993 report concluded there was a connection between radiation from the Test Site and abnormal thyroid growth such as tumors.
In the latest effort, the team, which included radiobiologists, re-examined the data in the 1993 study, correcting mistakes that crept into the original effort. They found an even stronger connection between thyroid abnormalities and fallout.
Errors crept into the study published in 1993 because "there were a lot of uncertainties (about) what people were eating and where they lived and where they moved," Lyon said Wednesday.
Also, problems with the earlier computer system required reconstructing the system. Radiation doses were recalculated. Two computer programmers independently rewrote the algorithm, rechecking each step, Lyon said.
"It took them months," he said.
The re-examination also reviewed all the diagnoses that were reported.
Some diagnoses were changed and others were dropped as not sufficiently documented. This step was more conservative than in the 1993 study.
"We set up very rigid criteria," he said. "What we came up with was a much stronger association with thyroid neoplasms (growths, including tumors). It more than doubled."
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