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Site prepared by the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Informa-
tion reaches the following conclusions: .
1)
Analysis of the available evidence shows that children
residing in the states bordering the Nevada Test Site have,
as a result of fallout from nuclear tests at that site,
probably been exposed to medically significant radiation.
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2)
These exposures were avoidable, for on the basis of
radiation monitoring carried out by the AEC during the teat
programs, the probability of exposure should have been evident
in time to warn the population to take simple precautionary
steps.
3)
Monitoring procedures in the Nevada Test Site regions
have been inadequate in that they do not take into account
the importance of internal exposure to radioactivity entering
the body in fallout-contaminated food.
Direct and prompt
measurement of iodine 131 in local milk, which is the nost
effective method of estimating the hazard from this isotope
have not been done, or, if done, have not been reported.
Moreover, indirect but nevertheless useful estimates of
the iodine 131 hazard, which can be determined from the available gross gamma and beta radioactivity measurements have not
been made heretofore.
4) Past assurances of the safety to nearby popplations
of the Nevada test prograzcs are not substantiated by the
present analysis of available data.
Assurances that “the
hazard has been successfully confined to the controlled areas