Scientist urges study of Nevada health problems for link to radiation

Thursday, Oct. 16, 1997 | 10:05 a.m.

A medical anthropologist says a study should be done of Nevada residents to learn the extent of birth defects and other health problems that could be traced to radiation exposure from above-ground nuclear weapons testing.

Such knowledge is critical if Nevada is to prepare itself for being the host state for high-level nuclear waste, Marie Boutte of the University of Nevada, Reno said Wednesday at a meeting of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects.

The federal government is considering the Nevada Test Site for temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste and it's studying Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a site for permanent storage.

Boutte said the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects could help identify funding sources for a thorough study of the health effects of nuclear testing on Nevadans.

From after World War II through 1963, above-ground tests were conducted at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Below-ground tests were conducted thereafter until President George Bush imposed a moratorium in 1992.

Boutte said federal and state agencies have known about high rates of thyroid problems and leukemia among Nevadans for more than 30 years, yet few studies have been undertaken. She points out that people in Washington state and Utah have been studied extensively.

"We are really out of the loop when it comes to such studies in Nevada," Boutte said.

A controversial radioactive iodine study released last month by the National Cancer Institute included children 11 to 18 years old from Nevada, Utah and Arizona, she said.

In Lincoln County, 383 children were tracked while 2,304 in Utah and 2,131 in Arizona were included in the national study. The results indicated higher thyroid problems in Nevada and Utah children.

The former U.S. Public Health Service knew leukemia rates were rising, but the former Atomic Energy Commission, replaced by the Department of Energy, suppressed the study until the late 1970s, Boutte said.

The major problems with these studies include small populations, lack of information on accurate radiation exposures, the long latency period from exposure to disease and poor health records, she said.

Many health problems remain locked in family records kept in outlying communities, Boutte said.

The Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office initiated an expert panel in 1994 to begin looking at possible health effects from the proposed dump at Yucca Mountain. But no one has yet undertaken a survey to properly document the toll on Nevadans from the nuclear tests, particularly the above-ground ones.

In her own research, Boutte discovered letters written to then-Sen. Alan Bible, D-Nev., from a doctor serving families living in Fallon during the 1950s about birth defects such as club feet, missing hands and other abnormalities.

Five infants were born with defects in a four-month period, although the town's doctor had seen none in his previous practice, she said.

"This state has no registry for birth defects," Boutte said. "We don't know what kinds of birth defects have occurred here."

Boutte said she has served on the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee, a panel studying health impacts from the Washington state plant where plutonium was processed since the 1940s.

She suggested banding together with Utah and Arizona to present a regional approach for health studies in Nevada.