health and lifestyle factors. The same questionnaire would also be sent toa similar number of veterans who had no history of such participation. Results from the two groups, adjusted for age, occupation, smoking habits, and other influences, would be compared. The second phase would include medical and physiological examinations of an unspecified number of veterans and the collection of data regarding possible congenital or genetic abnormalities in their children. The method- ology for the analysis of this information was not addressed. The VA plan was first reviewed by a panel of Government scientists, headed by Dr. Glyn Caldwell, who had authored the SMOKY study at CDC. The Caldwell review was then submitted to the Committee on Interagency Radiation Research and Policy Coordination (CIRRPC). Both the Caldwell committee and CIRRPC concluded that the VA plan did not describe a feasible study since it would be impossible to detect the small excess of disease expected in a group of approximately 200,000 personnel exposed to the reported low levels of radiation. The VA plan and the Caldwell/CIRRPC review were submitted to the Director of OTA for review in January 1985. OTA examined these documents and conducted its own independent review of the feasibility of the epidemiological study. The independent OTA study analyzed two strategies for assessing the health of these veterans. The first was similar to that proposed by the VA, that is to study approximately 200,000 participants in the nuclear tests. (The Hiroshima/Nagasaki occupation troops were excluded since the doses were so low that their inclusion would weaken rather than strengthen the power of the study.) The second strategy was to study approximately 1,400 veterans with measured or estimated doses greater than 5.0 rem. The power of each strategy to detect the expected excess of radiogenic cancers was calculated based on the radiation dose information available. These calculations were repeated for doses several times higher to account for possible understatement of reported dose. The OTA concluded, as had the Caldwell committee and CIRRPC, that such "global" studies concerning the health of nuclear test veterans are not 192