Feasibility Study of Weapons Test Fallout

Report on the Health Consequences to the American Population from Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted by the United States and Other Nations

In 1998, the Senate Appropriations Committee asked the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct an initial assessment of the feasibility and public health implications of a study concerning the health consequences to the American population of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing. This request resulted in a collaborative effort by staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute to make crude estimates of doses and health risks from exposure to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests conducted from 1951 through 1962 at the Nevada Test Site and other sites throughout the world.

In 2002, HHS transmitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee a progress report and an extensive two-volume Feasibility Study providing details on the scientific methods and conclusions of this feasibility study. The draft Feasibility Study was also sent to the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Assessment of CDC Radiation Studies. A report from that committee issued in February 2003 was peer reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Committee to Review the CDC-NCI Feasibility Study of the Health Consequences from Nuclear Weapons Tests (NAS/NRC 2003). The recommendations and comments of the NAS/NRC committee were carefully considered. This final report, issued in April 2005, was prepared in consideration of those recommendations. CDC reviewed and addressed the comments received on the draft report, and on January 25, 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services transmitted to Congress the final “Report on the Feasibility of a Study of the Health Consequences to the American Population from Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted by the United States and Other Nations.”