A.B.C, DENIES RAYS:
KILLEDUTAHSHEEP
Exhaustive Study Undertaken|
After Stockmen Complained |
Losses Were Excessive
Special to THE New Yorx Times.
|
CEDAR CITY, Utah, Jan. 16—,
The Atomic Energy Commission}
closed the book this week on one}
of the most exhaustive investi-|
gations in its history.
The, inquiry
revolved
not’
around the hydrogen bomb, or
why ,electrons behaved so curi-
ously, but around the The Demise
of the Utah Sheep.
.
Last May, steckmen in southern Utah complained to the commission that an inordinately large
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Benasal
Burns Are Investigated
Three days later the inquiry
was put on a national basis, under the cooréitretien of the commission’s Divisign of Biology and
Medicine in Washington, D. C.
The following day, Dr. Paul B.
Pédarson, A. EB. C. medical expert.
with division associates and experts from both the Utah Agricultural College and the Univérsity of Tennessee, which collaborates with the commission's Oak
Ridge, Tenn., brartch, went to
number of their ewes and lambs
Cedar City and examined more'
sheep and collected water, soil
and plant samples from the graz-
its Nevada proving ground, near
Throughout the rest of June
arid July, all the investigators
pursued tests at their respective
that radioactivity from the ex-
twenty of the investigating personne] met at Salt Lake City to!
exrhange notes.
.
had been dying.
The
commission
had
just
staged a series of atomic tests at
the Utah line, including the biggest detonation ever set off on!
this continent. The suspicion was
plosions had killed the sheep.
_Upwards cf 5,000 sheep had
grazed in the. area, tMe closest
flocks about forty miles from the
test site, and upwards of 1,000
had come to untimely ends.
The episode presented the A.
E. C. with one of the moat ticklish situations since it began its
continental tests.
The agency was certain before:
it started the tests that they
could involve no hazard to anybody or anything off the test
reservation. Something like $10,000,000 has been invested in permanent facilities at the test site.
and the commission's develop-
ment program is geared to its
operation.
|
Yet if a thousand: sheep had
been killed by radiation, the inescapable inference was that it
might have been a thousand human beings.
Therefore
the
commission
spared no effort to trace any connection between the explosions
and the mortality of she sheep.
The quest—which, to obviate any
suspense, had a negative cutcome
—involved atomic installations
from Washington, D.C.,to Washington state, and took more than
six months.
On June 5 and 6 a joint team
of six medical experts from the
A. E. C. and the United Statea
Health Service went to the Cedar
“City area, and with Utah off!clals and representatives of the
stockmen performed autopsies on
some of the sheep and took blood,
bone and tissue specimens.
A week later, a health service|
doctor, with doctors from thei
Utah
Bureau
of
Animal
Hus-|
bandry and the. University of|
Utah Radiobiology Laboratory|
procured additional
specimens
from dead, sick and well sheep.
and took testimony from stock: |
men.
January 17, 1954
ing area.
Wlder Studles Planned
It was presented to the sheep-
men at Cedar City Wednesday.
It
any sort had Janded on the grazing area to cause the sores and
deaths among the sheep.
Dr. Pearsog said funds were
béing made available to the Utah
On Aug. 3 and 4,
spate Agricultural College and
the Univeraty of Nevada for|.
“follow-up” studies.
“¥¢ and when another atomic
detonation is scheduled in Nevada, we will have our teams on
the ground to immediately begin
an extensive atudy of the possible
A week later, representatives
of the commission,
the health.
service, the Bureau of Animal Industry, the Utah State Health
Department and the Utah State
Agricultural College met with
sheepmen in Cedar City to dis-
effects on vegetation and
into the veterinary side of the
mystery and suggest what might
have killed the sheep.
In view of the fact that there
were similar deaths later in the
year amongheep grazing entirely outside
the range of atomicHlaat effects, there was unofficial
speculation that the mortality
sores matched. They did not.
‘Meanwhile, on the chance that
the sheep might have swallowed
radioactive iodine, the A. E. C.’s
laboratories
Wash.,
Hanford,
were set to work testing sheep's
glands
(where
iodine
lodges). It was established that
the range sheep could not have).
gotten more than one-fortieth of
the minimum injurious dose.
On Oct. 27, the principal investigating personnel met once
live-
stock,” Dr. Pearson pledged.
The investigators did not go
cuss their research and get more
data.
Some burns on the sheep resembled atomic beta-ray burns.
The commission’s Los Alamos,
N. M., scientific laboratory, the
center of its bomb development,
wes set to work exposing test
sheep to beta rays to see if the
thyroid
in
n>» evidence could be found that
enough radioactive material of
|
laboratories.
recapitulated the studies
exhaustive detail, concluding that
5
might have resulted from a com-
bination of other circumstances,
These could be drought, plus
poor
g, which might iead
sheep tO
nibble unaccustomed
vegetation, among which there
are known to be poisonous plants.
The finding waa not much con‘polation to the sheepmen, but by
the same token implied reassurance to the population at large—
and to the A. WL a. b
7 i
more, at Los Alamos, compared
notes, and prepared a final re-
port on the inquiry,
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