“A US government study says that the fallout from cold war nuclear tests carried out by the US, Britain, France and the Soviet Union has caused the death of an estimated 15,000 Americans.

“The study was conducted by the National Cancer Institute and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, but its publication has been delayed by the US government. However, excerpts of the report were obtained by Tom Harkin, Democratic senator for Iowa, and have been published on a website run by a watchdog group, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (www.ieer.org),” The Guardian reports.

‘The message is we are all downwinders,’ said Bob Schaeffer, of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a coalition of pressure groups. He said the report summary obtained by Mr Harkin was dated August 2001, but claimed it had not been made public because of unwillingness by governments to acknowledge the impact of past nuclear testing programmes.

‘There is a pattern of denial by both the US and UK governments about the damage done to non-combatants by the nuclear weapons programme,’ he said. ‘We want to get this information out so people who live in the areas most affected can get screened and treated.’

Needs a bit of looking into, I’d say — though if you break down the numbers dispassionately, the averages, while certainly troubling (1600 instances per year, 300 deaths per year), don’t suggest any kind of hidden epidemic worthy of some nefarious government coverup. In fact, increases in CAFE standards are responsible for about 5 times this number of deaths each year, by some estimates.

Not that the two subjects are related, mind you. Just thought I’d mention it.

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