According to a recent New York Times article, thyroid cancer in the U.S. has been on the rise for nearly 40 years.
The long-standing explanation that this is due to better diagnostics is no longer accepted. This also means that the impacts of radioactive iodine fallout from nuclear weapons testing and Chernobyl cannot be so readily ruled out.
With a half-life of 8.5 days, Iodine-131 rapidly contaminates air, vegetation and milk supplies. Because it is absorbed mostly in the body's thyroid, radioactive iodine has been linked to thyroid cancer and other types of thyroid damage in humans for several decades. It takes about 90 days for the radioactivity of I-131 to diminish to very small levels. Thyroid cancer can have a latency period as long as 38 years.
According to the National Cancer Institute in 1992, about 150 million curies of radioactive iodine was released in open air from nuclear testing in Nevada, causing heavy contamination of the nation's milk supplies from the early 1950's to the early 1960's. This is more than 20 times the amount estimated to have been released by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. At the time of open air testing, millions of children were drinking this contaminated milk. In the early 1950's when radioactive fallout was over-exposing film in cardboard made with contaminated straw, the Eastman Kodak company secretly complained and was given routine warnings by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The public was never warned by the U.S. government about the dangers of consuming milk it was contaminating in its quest to amass a nuclear arsenal.
After the ratification of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration established "Protective Action Guides" for Iodine-131 that triggered removal of dairy products from human consumption following nuclear accidents. Had these limits been in place during the open air nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's, the NCI study indicates that milk supplies would have had to be removed from the markets for months at a time. The NCI admitted in testimony before the U.S. Congress in 1998, after an investigation by the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, that it suppressed this study for 5 years. The NCI also conceded this may have caused as many as 212,000 excess thyroid cancers.
With trust in the U.S. government sinking like a stone, it's time for greater transparency about the price paid for nuclear weapons. As former Senator John Glenn (D-OH), a staunch supporter of the military, warned, "What good is it to protect ourselves with nuclear weapons, if we poison our people in the process?"
Perhaps this other number - average lifespan - also has something to do with the incidence of slow-moving and high-latency cancers?
... and is effectively gone within two years of its release (Google: 8.5 days * (log(Avogadro's number)/log(2)) = 1.83838093 years). 131-I from testing and Chernobyl can not physically have anything to do with thyroid cancer rates.
Meanwhile, my wife /has/ thyroid cancer*. You can live a very long time with it and suffer no ill effects - so the assertion that "The long-standing explanation that this is due to better diagnostics is no longer accepted." seems like a lie to me. I'll ask her endocrinologist next time we have to go see him.
The prevailing explanation for her cancer is carcinogens found in the waste treatment sourced sludge that was unregulatedly used in the 1980's for fertilizer.
* She had her thyroid removed and her system ablated with 131-I about 6 years ago. Recently, new cancer cells were detected in three lymph nodes and they had to be removed as well. Her doctor is trying to avoid secondary ablation as the radiological load from 131-I carries not just the low risk for causing lymphoma, but also imposes a heightened risk of thyroid damage for anyone around her.
Just you wait. Someone will try to sell it. I can just see the marketing: "Science has discovered how to safely harness the quantum power of radioiodine to energize this homeopathic preparation as a safe, nonradioactive cancer treatment!"
As for the link to iodine-131, this is simple junk. The isotope is all gone within a year of its creation, and the maximum latency of 38 years means there are no cases left from weapons testing. Chernobyl never raised I-131 levels in the US.
The article also strongly indicates that the extra cases are not radiologically-caused cancers.
So all the Mr Alvarez's article amounts to really is him jumping and down with an unclear statistic and shouting "ooh! scary!"
Take a look at this article. I don't usually refer people to Wikipedia, but this is a good place to start your own search for more information. While I am giving a link to the Sedan crater in Nevada, it is important to know that the fallout from the Sedan detonation was unintentional. This explosion wasn't the only 'oops' moment in our nuclear weapons testing. Also, iodine was not the only element involved in fallout, as I am sure you know. Anyway, here is another reference to check out.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/TTW_C1-BW.html
Toxic chemicals, whether nuclear or organic, are bad for your health. Even President Bush's Commission highlighted the link between chemical/radiation exposure and cancer. \\http://www.nukewatch.com/quarterly/fall2010/page5.pdf
Information about toxics peaks for itself. We might want to take note and be vigilant to your own health needs.
I don't disagree with the concept that there are more possibilities of harm to be considered in general - but the article above was specific to thyroid cancer, attempting to link that to things it could not realistically be linked to.
I would never agree that information on toxic materials speaks for itself. A case needs to be made of the amount and the effect. Simple detection of a substance is not sufficient to indicate that it is present in harmful amounts.
You might like to wonder whether there is a differential in thyroid cancers for the age range that was in childhood at the same time as the weapons tests. Alvarez doesn't mention any strong indicators like that - which suggests to me they don't exist.
I know thyroid cancers can manifest relatively quickly, so I took "a latency period as long as 38 years" to mean the upper limit. That was potentially an over-interpretation. However, even if it's a midpoint, it wouldn't explain a currently rising trend. If anything it should be falling, if the weapons tests really were a major persisting cause.
The term fro radiation releases at our nation's commercial nuclear reactors is: Federally-permitted release of radiation form nuclear reactors. The releases occur everyday at all 104 commercial reactors.
http://www.ratical.com/radiation/CNR/PP/chp5.html (Promises, Promises, Promises)
http://www.whoseflorida.com/nuclear_waste.htm
http://www.nutritionmission.org/page/page/1026915.htm
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Effects/wenw_chp2.shtml
1963 Story on Weapons produced radioactive Iodine 131
http://books.google.com/books?id=fac8ChOi7tMC&pg=PA375&lpg=PA375&dq=atmospheric+distribution+of+radioactive+iodine,+strontium+and+cesium+from+weapons+testing&source=bl&ots=8K5HHetKOF&sig=sRvBtjp7nGBF7EiYSUZx3JoW8ks&hl=en&ei=F6a4TPqAEoP2swPRtJiGDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CCYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.environmental-studies.de/Radioecology/Radiocesium/Cs_E1/cs_e1.html
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10621&page=53
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.982,y.2006,no.1,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx
http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.aspx?key=xi6i6nJGw48IQTs+AgnHKN0OscjVJv13
The rest haven't demonstrated any higher incidence of mortality at concentrations relative to I131.
http://www.ccnr.org/plute_tox.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1976869/
http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-3/puhealth.html