Idealist - Global nuclear testing fallout

From 1945 through the 1990s, global nuclear powers conducted nuclear tests equivalent to about 42,000 Hiroshimas (630 million-tons). These underground and above-ground nuclear tests, numbering over 2,000, didn't level cities or burn down villages. But they did inject a staggering amount of radioactive contaminants into the Earth's air, land, sea and even outerspace.

In 1997, the United States government released a study that looked at one of the radioactive contaminants in the fallout 'mix' from U.S. aboveground nuclear tests in Nevada. That was Iodine-131.

But Iodine-131 is a short-lived danger in fallout; although it can cause cancer, oftentimes decades after initial exposure, it results rarely in fatal cancer. Four radioactive chemicals that make up about 75% of the lingering residue from nuclear fallout - zirconium-95, carbon-14, strontium-90, and cesium-137 - were never part of any U.S. fallout study. (Lingering fallout usually refers to the long-lived radionuclides that remains on the ground after several years or decades have passed.)

Of these four radioisotopes, strontium-90, which has a half-life of about 30 years (it takes about 600 years to decay to safe levels), is the most worrisome. Although U.S. and world populations were exposed to Strontium-90 at radiation levels that were less intensive than Iodine-131, it takes a much smaller dose of Strontium-90 than Iodine-131 to cause 'insult' to the body. These facts have been grossly misunderstood by public health administrators for decades.

In the mid-20th century, it was difficult for most people to conceive that a human-made explosion or accident at one location could contaminate the entire Earth. But bomb testing did the job. Nuclear tests, especially large thermonuclear tests, not only deposited radioactive chemicals in all corners of the globe, but some of those radio-chemicals, especially strontium-90, are still in the bodies of nearly all peoples. This 'legacy' of the Cold War is still contributing to significant disease and death.

Strontium-90 is a shiny, silvery metal that is not found in nature. It is mostly produced from nuclear bomb testing and created in and emitted by nuclear power plants.

Atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s injected substantial quantities of strontium-90 into the environment and leading scientists of the day were deeply concerned of the biological dangers posed by this toxin. Worldwide protest forced a suspension of U.S. and U.S.S.R. above-ground nuclear testing in 1958 and a permanent test ban in air, space and sea in 1963. It wasn't until 1992 that the U.S. unilaterally passed a moratorium on underground nuclear testing, although subcritical nuclear tests and hydro-nuclear-tests were never banned.

Scientists' worries over Strontium-90 stemmed from its behavior as a 'biological analog' for calcium: it is mistaken for calcium and taken into the bone, through contaminated milk, water and foodstuffs.

Like calcium, Strontium-90 accumulates in the teeth and also the bone. That is where cells of the immune system originate and where the real problems begin. Consider that a single atom of strontium-90 shoots out a beta-ray with a 'half-value distance' (or the distance after traveling that energy strength is cut by half) of 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) in human tissue. One centimeter is a tremendous distance when considering the minute-size of human cells. (In air, the beta particles have a half-value distance of 10 centimeters.) These beta-rays can lead to the formation of free-radicals, capable of dissolving cell membranes and causing a range of disorders in the body. At high levels of exposure, strontium-90 may cause cancer or leukemia of the bone. Long-term exposure at lower-doses, however, can weaken the immune system, reducing the individual's ability to fight infectious disease and cancer. Low-dose exposure in embryonic or fetal development can lead to congenital and hormonal damage, or low birth weight.

Because infants and children need calcium and absorb it 'like a sponge,' younger Americans had uptakes of Strontium-90 in their diet in the 1950s and 1960s, especially milk, at levels that exceeded some past and most current radiation standards. A UNSCEAR Report (1977) stated that milk products contributed about 30 percent of the strontium-90 transfer from food in most areas and, in general, “⁹⁰Sr in the diet comes mainly from milk products, grain products, fruit and vegetables.”

The problem of Strontium-90 in our food supply didn't end with the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. As you can see in the below graph, the amount of Strontium-90 in U.S. surface soils nearly doubled in quantity from the time of the above-ground testing ban in 1963 to about 1966, and stopped increasing around 1970. The reason was that so much of it entered a part of the atmosphere where commercial airplanes fly called the 'stratosphere.' Scientists have found that when debris from volcanic or megaton-class nuclear explosions was injected into the Earth's stratosphere there was a delay in their 'return' to the Earth. At first, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) thought that the half-life of 'stratospheric fallout' was around 15 years but scientists later found they overestimated the rate by a factor of about 10 to 15.

So, Strontium-90 injected into the stratosphere in 1961-1962, the two worst years of global nuclear testing, began to come back to Earth in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, etc... and continued dropping to Earth from the stratosphere through the early 1970s. (This is one fact that should debunk the myth, perpetuated by RECA legislation, that 'downwinders' were exposed only during the actual timeframe of testing). Fallout from some 1960s high-altitude nuclear tests is actually still coming down to Earth in the 21st century!

Although present Strontium-90 levels in U.S. soils have since decreased by more than 50% due to radioactive decay, declining levels have been partially offset by increases from underground nuclear testing, Chernobyl, nuclear power plant releases and resuspension.

Although the 100 nuclear bombs tested aboveground at the Nevada Test Site injected fresh strontium-90 that was deposited all over the continental United States and parts of the globe, the worst contamination came from 'offshore tests.' The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, the predecessor to the U.S. DOE) conducted huge thermonuclear tests, aka 'hydrogen bomb' blasts, in the 'Pacific Proving Grounds.' Nevada tests accounted for about 100,000 Curies or 1.5% of the U.S.'s 'contribution' to the Earth's environment of Strontium-90 from bomb testing.

How did these Pacific hydrogen bomb blasts create so much fallout? A typical hydrogen-bomb (aka 'fusion') bomb device is made of one fission bomb (aka atomic bomb) surrounded by 'fusion' material (lithium deuteride). For reference, the bombs dropped on Japan and most bombs tested aboveground in Nevada were fission devices.

Hydrogen bombs are fitted with a fission bomb to generate temperatures needed to result in a fusion reaction. The most common type of hydrogen bomb tested during the Cold War was the super-hydrogen bomb, which was a fission-fusion bomb encased in an outer shell of Uranium-238 (aka depleted uranium, DU). A hydrogen bomb's fission device creates nominal fallout but it is really the outer shell in a 'super' bomb that, when subjected to a frenzy of neutrons, creates great quantities of 'dirty' radioactive fallout.

Pro-bomb politicians and atomic scientists during the Cold War tried to convince the American public that hydrogen bomb testing in the Pacific was safe. That was far from the truth. A hydrogen bomb test (fission-fusion) isn't 'clean' because it produces radioactive fallout from the A-bomb (fission) component.

Strontium-90 became more of a focus with hydrogen bomb fallout because hydrogen bomb tests largely injected their tremendous radioactive burden into the stratosphere. Up there in the stratosphere, things don't come down very quickly, and as such most of the short-lived fallout fission products, like radioiodines, decayed. About 99% of the Iodine-131 from H-bomb tests became ' stuck' in our upper atmosphere where it decayed to safe levels in mere months. So, Iodine-131 is a problem largely attributed to fission bomb tests like those conducted at the Nevada Test Site, although Nevada (fission fallout) also included Strontium-90, which traveled through the troposphere.

The difference between tropospheric fallout and stratospheric fallout is simple. Tropospheric fallout is usually attributed to plumes of radioactive clouds traversing the globe subjected to the forces of gravity and regional variances in weather and precipitation; it creates 'hot spots' across the Earth. In stratospheric fallout, because of the long 'residence' time of H-bomb test fallout in the upper atmosphere, radiochemicals like Strontium-90 become evenly distributed in 'bands' of latitude and when it comes down to Earth it coats the globe, across these bands of latitude, evenly and homogeneously. However, there is one exception to this: in certain areas of the globe where there are strong convection storms (like in the Great Plains states) fallout from the stratosphere is accentuated and results in extreme hot spots. See the boxed-feature 'The Northern Plains Hotspot' below.

The below graph⁵ compares the approximate global aboveground fission yield (see above boxed-article 'Nuclear test yields') with Strontium-90 levels in milk in two U.S. 'wet' cities - where rain frequently brought down radioactive pollution from the sky. (If you take just about any other major city in the Northern Hemisphere, the fluctuation in milk contamination would be very similar because strontium-90 nearly evenly blanketed the Northern Temperate Zone.)⁶.)

Although the science behind 'stratosphere-troposphere interference' is complex, fallout from the USSR (red bars) fell out more quickly from the stratosphere than U.S. (Pacific) fallout, which took 3-5 years to come down. The most salient trend in the graph is that even after aboveground testing stopped in 1962, Strontium-90 levels in milk didn't drop to zero, but rather descended very gradually. This is because of the mechanism of stratospheric fallout. Fallout from the stratosphere is never due to gravity but rather the mixing of air at the 'tropopause,' the imaginary line that can be as low as 5 miles at the poles and 30 miles at the equator. (Note that the Strontium-90 milk levels depicted in pink and yellow are in units of picocuries per liter per day and are based on taking the yearly average daily value; using Public Health Service data)

To demonstrate that no city in the U.S. (and for that matter, the globe) was spared from Strontium-90 'stratospheric fallout', here is a chart of Strontium-90 in milk in nine major U.S. cities. (This includes some of the earliest governmental data ever recorded on radioactive contaminants in milk in the U.S.). Also below is a companion table of data and an 'atlas' of fallout in milk in the U.S.:

Note that the graph, table and following discussion utilize the unit of picoCurie. Pico means one part per trillion of some quantity; a Curie is a measure of radioactivity. When discussing strontium-90, we use the picocurie to express the the amount of radiation in a mass of something. With foods, we will say that there are 20 picocuries per kilogram of wheat or 10 picocuries per liter of milk. We also use the picocurie to express the amount of strontium-90 in relation to a mass of calcium. This is usually done when referring to bone or teeth concentrations of strontium-90. (Although it is sometimes used also for food.) For instance, we would say that a child has a concentration of strontium-90 in teeth of 5 picocuries per gram of calcium; that means for every gram of calcium, on average, in that child's teeth and bones, there are 5 picocuries of strontium. Since children and adults, respectively, have about the same amounts of calcium as one another per age group in their skeleton/teeth, then we can easily refer to the pCi/g Ca (picoCurie per gram of Calcium) number to ascertain that one child (or population group) has more strontium-90 in their bones than another.

Another way we use picocurie is in dietary intake per unit of time - either picocuries of strontium-90 per day, or per year.

Analysis of Sr90 consumption from milk 1957-1966 - adding up the data reveals some interesting totals

	NEW YORK	CINCINNATI	ST. LOUIS	SALT LAKE CITY	SACRAMENTO	ATLANTA	AUSTIN	CHICAGO	SPOKANE
sum of monthly averages (pCi's)	1447	1633	3097	1126	695	2307	595	1318	1297
Estimated sum of total Sr90 consumption^a	43998	49646	94161	34224	21122	70130	18079	40079	39435
cumulative adult dose^b (milliRem)	336	379	719	261	161	535	138	306	301
cumulative child dose^b (milliRem)	815	919	1744	634	391	1299	335	742	730

Note that in present times, the maximum routine exposure to the public from a nuclear facility via all pathways - air, water, and food - is limited to 25 millirem per year to any organ (except 75 millirem to the thyroid) or to the whole body. Exposures during the 1960s from just Strontium-90 in milk easily surpassed these present limits! Through 1987, the total yearly estimated exposure for an American to all forms of natural and manmade radiation was 170 milliRem or 0.17 Rem, yet many people in the 1950s and 1960s received a fully extra 0.17 Rem yearly from just drinking milk poisoned with just Strontium-90 (and their dose was even more for Strontium-90 from other ingestible forms, and then all the forms of radiocesium, radioiodine, etc...)

Children raised in St. Louis during the mid-1950s through mid-1960s somehow were truly hit hard by Strontium's impacts and probably received over 2 Rems of exposure just from Strontium-90 poisoning in milk products. Most "wet areas" of the U.S. - where it rains some or most of the time - came close to this figure; they received strontium primarily via 'rain-outs' that leached into milk supplies. Drier areas fared slightly better. Rural areas mostly fared worse than the cities.

The U.S. National Research Council has found that an average of 800 extra cancer deaths are expected per 1 million "person-rem" of exposure. If we assume that, on average, all Americans received 1 Rem from Strontium-90 exposure from drinking milk from 1957 to 1966, and using the U.S. census figure of 180 million Americans living in 1960, then we can assert that the cumulative dose of 180 million person-Rem translates into 225,000 'extra' fatal cancers that have resulted or will result just from Strontium-90 poisoning of our milk supplies from 1957 to 1966. The late Dr. John Gofman argued in his 1990 book 'Radiation-Induced Cancer: An Independent Analysis' that the National Research Council was off by a factor of about 3.25, so the extra fatal cancers would be near 731,000. In 1972, Dr. Ernest Sternglass noted that 'an intake of 24 picocuries per liter represents an excess mortality of 56,000 individuals in the United States each year during just the peak years of fallout [1963 and 64] and perhaps some ten times as many deaths for the world as a whole...' ('Radiation Risks,' Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, June 1972)

These numbers don't take into account childrens' extra vulnerability to radiation. These numbers also don't take into account that unlike most other types of radiation, strontium-90 is carried by the bones and skeletons for decades. The strontium-90 was built into baby-boomers' bones and teeth for life. Imagine mini x-ray machines in your body affecting every vital function served by the bone, the bone marrow, the teeth and blood until our death - this is the cost we have all borne from exposure to nuclear weapons fallout. Worse, we know awfully little about the long-term health impacts of low-dose radiation from within our bones.

There was a foodstuff consumed by millions of Americans that contained even more radioactive strontium than milk, or any other plant for that matter: wheat⁸. Wheat, which in North America is predominantly grown in the Plains States and Canada, tends to concentrate manmade fallout radioactivity in the 'anatomical' starchy plant parts - the bran⁹, germ and endosperm. Americans were partially lucky in that these parts - the bran, germ and usually the endosperm (all three comprising about 30% of the weight of the wheat plant) - were (and still are) removed during refining. This processing reduced the radioactive content of wheat products by 80-90%. They were also half-lucky because calcium or strontium-90 (Sr90) from milk is much more readily absorbed into the bone than calcium or strontium-90 from wheat. During the 1960s, the Soviet people had a higher dietary intake of Sr90 (high consumption of bread products) than in the U.S. (by 2 or 3 fold) but the bone concentration of Sr90 was slightly higher in the U.S. than in the Soviet Union. The technical term is 'relative availability' - the relative availability of Ca or Sr90 from milk is much higher than in bread products.

The American diet of the 1960s (and now) included consumption of bran and germ products of the wheat plant. American diet also included plenty of foodstuffs made of unrefined whole wheat - such as yeast bread products like rolls, bagels, sandwich breads, and hearty 'artisanal' breads. All of these foodstuffs contain the 'wholesome' germ, bran and endosperm, all relatively highly radioactive parts of the wheat plant.

The type of wheat most relied upon for 'hearty' unrefined flours and whole grain products has been 'hard red spring wheat' - aka 'Dark Northern Spring.' A protein-rich variety of wheat, spring wheat is grown in the northern Plains states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota and in several Canadian provinces¹⁰. It is planted in April and May and harvested in August and September, and is one of the six categories of wheat: durum, hard red spring and hard red winter, hard white and soft white, and soft red winter. North Dakota actually is the largest 'spring wheat' producing state in the U.S.¹¹

We probably all are familiar with breadstuffs made with 'winter wheat,' which has less protein than 'spring wheat' and is generally refined during milling to remove the bran, germ and endosperm. The end-product is unbleached all-purpose flour, which we use for crackers, pancakes, cupcakes, muffins, cookies, and pretzels and anything else that one bakes.

It is worthwhile, therefore, to plunge deeper into hard red spring wheat, the foodstuff with the notorious distinction of being the most radioactive vegetable in the early 1960s.

As nuclear testing yields figuratively mushroomed in the early 1960s and unprecedented levels of strontium-90 entered into the stratosphere, a complex meteorological process caused the fallout to come down in northern latitudes (in the U.S. and Canada) via strong convection storms. The areas worst hit were the Canadian and U.S. 'bread baskets.'

Radioactive levels in wheat kept increasing from the early 1950s during (Nevada Test Site testing) to 1963, when it topped the list of radioactive crops. This Public Health Service (PHS) chart titled 'Average strontium-90 contents of foodstuffs, 1962-1964' shows that radiostrontium levels in average wheat products tripled from 1962 to 1963. U.S. whole wheat ('spring wheat') rose in radioactive strontium concentration from about 85 picocuries per kilogram (pCi/kg) in 1962 to 220 in 1963 and 140 in 1964. Canadian wheat fared worse¹² especially in latitude bands (50-60º N) that received the highest amount of stratospheric fallout. According to the Public Health Service (PHS), Canadian hard red spring wheat in crop year 1963 had highest strontium-90 levels in Central Alberta and lowest in Manitoba; and 'levels of strontium-90 were on the whole highest in the northern areas (51º - 54º N) with the southern areas (49º - 51º N) showing appreciably lower values.'

Let's try to calculate the dose to the 500 million people worldwide who were whole wheat consumers of North American wheat in 1962 (125 million of them children).

If 375 million adults in 1964 were eating 6 ounces (0.17 kgs) of unrefined whole wheat products per day, and we multiply this number by 365 and again by 220 pCi/kg to equal 13,650 picoCuries of strontium-90, and If each picocurie of Sr90 consumed by an adult gives a dose of 0.002 mrem, then that's 27 mRem/yr/adult, across a population of 375,000,000 adults, that's 10.1 million person-rem resulting in about 8,100 fatal cancers, or about 26,300 per Gofman's 'Fatal Cancer Yield.' But we must double that number for exposure to sum up exposure in the years preceding and succeeding 1963, so that's 16,200 fatal cancers or about 52,000 fatal cancers per Gofman.

In 1963, children were eating 3 ounces (or 0.085 kilograms) of whole grains per day (let's assume all unrefined wheat), then they were consuming about 31 kilograms of whole grain products yearly and (220 pCi/kg x 31 kg =) 6,825 picoCuries of strontium-90 annually. Childrens' dose per picocurie was higher than adults (around 0.004 mRem/Pci) and their 'fatal cancer yield' was also higher than adults. 125000000 children X 27.3 mRem/yr (6825*0.004) = 8,870 fatal cancer deaths (using Gofman's formula) multiplied by a factor of about 2 (to apply to children) = 17,740 fatal cancers.

You can disagree with these numbers or not, but it is a fair assessment for exposure of strontium-90 to the tissues from contaminated unrefined wheat in the diet. Most of the strontium-90 ended up in the bone, and so these 'excess' cancer deaths in 1962-64 are the tip of the iceberg.

We are going to do something different from the above tabulations and calculate the dose from strontium-90 in our bones.

Let's demonstrate this: an infant has about 30 grams of calcium that formed the skeleton. During the worst year of fallout, in 1964, studies of bones and teeth of infants and young children indicated strontium-90 concentrations of double digit (10, 11, 12, etc...) picoCuries of Strontium per gram of calcium. If we choose 11.6 pCi/g of Ca, then a child with a skeleton consisting of 30 grams of calcium would have roughly 350 picoCuries of Strontium-90 in her bones. When Strontium-90 is in the tooth or bone at levels of 1 picoCurie per gram of Calcium, it emits a years' radiation equivalent of 4.5 milliRems [source]. So, 350 picoCuries x 4.5 mRem = 1.4 Rem per year. (This would be in addition to natural and artificial (i.e. Xrays) radiation sources.) And if we take an adult whose skeleton (male) has about 1,000 grams of calcium, and assume 1960s average concentrations of 6 picocuries of Sr90 per gram of calcium, then this is 6,000 picoCuries times 4.5 millirems/picoCuries which is 27 Rems per year.

At these levels, tens of millions of people would be dead from strontium-90 poisoning of the bone in the 1960s.

Human bodies are affected from skeletal radiation in different ways from human tissue irradiation. Some scientists say that since bone is mostly a composition of organic sediments (like rock), ionizing radiation from strontium-90 won't destroy much of anything. But strontium-90 doesn't just sit in calcium fortified bone. It also is deposited near the bone marrow. That is where the problem begins.

It is hard to know the full extent of the problem without abundant research, but Idealist supports the hypothesis that strontium-90 weakens the body's immune system, which originates IN THE BONE MARROW. The bone marrow is the 'green zone' of our ability to fight off cancers, infections, and other diseases. When this zone is impaired, we suffer from illness and disease that healthier humans usually never suffer from.

Now consider the most vulnerable part of our population: infants. Newborns get all of their strontium-90 from their mothers, and it is the mothers who 'collect' strontium-90 in her soft tissue at rates higher than men of the same age or adults of any other age. Newborns' and infants' skeletons actually have concentrations of strontium-90 about twice that of adults. Babies are actually about twice as radioactive (in Strontium-90) than their mothers!

Because infants and children are more susceptible to radiation than adults (and their' skeletons had concentrations up to 28 picoCuries pf Sr90 per gram in the early- to mid-1960s), it is no wonder that Dr. Ernest Sternglass found an extremely close correlation between infant mortality (fetal deaths) and strontium-90 deposition (in New York State - chart). Sternglass' chart generated some of the greatest controversy in radiation health ever experienced.

The Northern Plains Hotspot

Monthly Public Health Service maps of Strontium-90 concentrations in pasteurized milk show that fallout in the early 1960s from the stratosphere was being deposited over a 'great hot spot zone' apparently regularly centered in southern Canada just north of North Dakota (N.D. and its neighbors were consistently was hit with global testing stratospheric fallout causing levels in milk to nearly constantly exceed 40 pCi/L Sr-90 during 1963-1965).

This 'great hot spot zone,' from early 1963 to early 1965, fluctuated in area from 'light months' - when only North Dakota and an eastern part of Montana and/or western part of Minnesota were covered - to 'heavy' months - when all four states would be hit with enough strontium to elevate milk levels to the 50s and 60s and higher. These areas - and parts of southern Canada - had higher deposition levels of stratospheric fallout (and as a consequence have 'higher' levels of residual long-lived radionuclides) than most other areas in the continental U.S. - and therefore are 'hot spots.'

There is cause to explain why the scientists failed to re-create the 'great hot spot zone' and instead depicted two non-conjoined 'bubbles' in the northern Plains States. It was the result of the limited data in their study. A quick examination of their 'Supplementary Figure 1 - Locations of raw 137Cs data used in the study' reveals that there appears to be zero data points in North Dakota. Had data points been included from that state, we suspect the 'fallout map' would have shown an uninterrupted 'blob' over the northern Plains States as a large(r) concentrated hot spot with even perhaps a higher grade/estimation of deposition density for 137Cs.

A graph produced in the UNSCEAR 1969 report of cumulative strontium-90 in soils across the globe show that the northern Great Plains had some of the highest soil levels of radiostrontium globally, and that the 'hot spot' spanned a contiguous area across Canada and the U.S. that was the size of the southeastern part of the U.S. See Chart. (Isobars converted from km² to mi²: 80 pCi/km² = 207 pCi/mi²; 60 pCi/km² = 155 pCi/mi²; 40 pCi/km² = pCi/103 mi²). (Keep in mind that when the chart was made, in 1969, it was based on 1967 and prior data, so the strontium-90 from the stratosphere was still being 'tapped' significantly through the early 1970s and cumulative 90sr levels would have increased from depicted levels.)

Let's backtrack a bit. This area of the northern Great Plains, however, was not included in the aforementioned geographic data on strontium-90 in milk from 1957 to 1966 because of lack of 1950s data in the Dakotas. However, the town of Mandan, North Dakota, has long mystified scientists over its distinction of having highest ever recorded level of strontium-90 in milk in the early 1960s. In May 1963, a peak of 105 pCi/L of Sr90 was detected. The PHS noted that over a 12-month period through July 1964, residents of Minot, N.D., consumed 20,195 picoCuries (1 L/d); that's equal to just two 'eyedrops' in one 12-month period. According to E. W. Pfeiffer's article 'Mandan Milk Mystery' that appeared in the publication 'Nuclear Information' in September 1965, residents in North Dakota may have been consuming milk from 'some farms...producing milk with....as much as 199 S.U.' That's nearly 200 picoCuries of Sr90 per Liter; and 1 Liter of per day for one year would result in a cumulative dose of 73,000 picoCuries (or 7.3 eyedrops)! If 60 pCi gives a dose of 1 millirem, then that'd equal to a cumulative one-year dose of 1.2 Rems.

Now think of all the butter that was made in Mandan, ND, in the early 1960s and shipped around the state and region, and consider that the strontium-90 didn't really decay much as butter and butter products were consumed over the span of months and seasons. According to MandanHistory.org, one of the town's businesses shipped butter from 'coast to coast.' Pfeiffer emphasizes, however, that all Mandan milk measurements were averages since 'milk from many individual farms is brought to processors in Mandan where it is manufactured into butter.' The North Dakota State Historical Society website notes that 'The success of [the Mandan Creamery and Produce Company] depended on the many dairy production farms which shipped their cream to the company from east of Jamestown to as far west as Billings, Mont., and from the northern parts of South Dakota to the northern border of North Dakota.

Paul Langley, author of 'Medicine and the Bomb: Deceptions from Trinity to Marlinga: The Predictive Use of Pre War Medical Research by Nuclear Weapons Authorities' (vol. 1; Publisher: Paul Jeremy Langley, p.99) writes with indignation of the failure by the Australian government - which worked in concert until 1978 with the the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission on a global body (bone) snatching project - to medically study these two segments of the population with regards to strontium-90: newborns (fetuses) and mothers. Langley writes that these 'powers' have never released any 'analysis of the cause of stillbirths or other infant death...All that was reported...was the Sr90 load, not the cause of still birth or infant death.' He also notes, regarding released late-1960s bone study findings compiled by U.S.-Australian scientists, that 'female - male data...are lumped together despite the different factors. No female soft tissue data is presented.' Langley asserts his 'view that the military model from which the weapons tests arose ignored the major difference between the genders,' which he says amounts to 'scientific fraud.'

There is a tremendous hot-spot in Canada and the northern Plains States of long-lived radioactivity where 'spring wheat' is still grown and whole grain products originate - and that soil is now 30% - 40% of the radioactivity of original deposition levels. How much of the residual radioactivity is contaminating our food supply from that region? Well, in the late 1980s, a maximum measurement of 67 pCi/kg of strontium-90 was detected in whole grain products in the U.S. (Eisenbud M. (1987). Environmental Radioactivity: from Natural, Industrial, and Military Sources. Academic Press, Inc., New York, NY.) That was the highest of any food groups, other than a few samplings of food that was tainted from nuclear power plant radiation. So, we still have radioactive food, especially radioactive whole grain breads, flours, pastas, etc... being consumed by infants and adults in the U.S.A. and abroad.

In his book 'No More War,' Linus Pauling stated that one teaspoon (about 4.2 grams) of Strontium 90 if distributed evenly amongst all people in the world would kill all of the people in the world (the 1950s population) in a few years. 4.2 grams is 60% of the weight of 1 Curie of Strontium-90. Yet over 20 million Curies of Strontium-90 entered our environment just from atmospheric nuclear testing.

It is difficult to comprehend the quantities and consequences of this one fatal long-lived chemical injected into the environments of all corners of our globe. Furthermore, it is astonishing that Strontium-90 was never studied: there are no fallout studies, no adequate maps or analyses concerning how much fell where, when and what it did to people.

Drs. Ernest Sternglass and Jay Gould brilliantly asserted in a 1993 scientific study¹⁵ why this is so. They state that because of a primary concern by the U.S. government to hide the health effects of radioactive poisoning of drinking water and foods by testing (and production) of nuclear weapons, the government downplayed 'environmental contaminants in general as a possible causal factor in the rise of cancer rates....agencies charted with the protection of public health and environment focused their attention on non-weapons-related effects...cancer research funding was directed into areas other than the effects of low level fission product contaminants in the diet...[and] led to government policies of concentrating all efforts on finding a cure for cancer rather than its prevention.'

How do you cure cancer or other common and rare chronic diseases that stem from Strontium-90 lodged in the bones and teeth of children and adults worldwide? You can't.

There is no cure for cancer that arises from radiation fallout. The only remedies are education, screening and preventing more of it from entering our environment. Regrettably, more of it IS entering the environment.

In 1972, a governmental study found that all Americans of all ages had concentrations of Strontium-90 of about 1.5 pCi/g (in adults) to 2-3 pCi/g in infants and children. Throughout the 1970s, although aboveground nuclear testing had basically stopped, these concentrations of strontium-90 in our skeletons actually stabilized; and today Americans still have skeletal concentrations of roughly 0.5 - 2.0 pCi/g Ca^13a [Strontium-90 concentrations in American childrens' teeth grew from an average of 0 picocuries of Sr90 per gram of calcium in 1945 to 0.2 picocuries per gram in 1950. Then they rose to 10.62 pCi/g in 1963 to 11.80 pCi/g in 1964 (Blumenthal HI, 'Strontium 90 in Children', 1964 source); New York adult bone concentrations rose from 1.0 pCi/g in 1954 to 2.2 pCi/g in 1964. ¹³ ]

Why did they stabilize? Well, America's food supply has continuously become re-contaminated from three sources: resuspension of nuclear testing fallout, nuclear power plant emissions and our contaminated 'bread basket' growing regions. Fallout radionuclides from these sources land on or enter into our food supply and has kept the average dietary intake of strontium-90 since about 1970 at about 10 picoCuries per day. These levels fell from a peak of 40 picocuries of strontium-90 per day in the early-1960s; to 30 picocuries in 1964; to about 17 picocuries in 1967-68; then to about 10 picocuries in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; and now is apparently rising again in some regions. In percentage terms, after 1964 our dietary levels of strontium-90 began dropping by about 15 percent per year, but slowed in around 1970 at the rate of 6 percent per year; and now it is increasing by a small rate in some areas.

Milk and milk products comprise about one-third of our strontium-90 intake; vegetables and grains the other two-thirds. Because we constantly shed calcium and aggressively seek out more calcium throughout our lives, we keep on getting strontium-90 from our foods deposited back in our skeletons!

Using the below chart, you can calculate your skeletal contamination according to the 'Range' of strontium-90 concentration.

		Strontium-90 concentration by weight
Your weight	kg	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100
Your weight	lbs	44	66	88	110	132	154	176	198	220
This is the weight of all calcium in you:	grams	285	429	571	714	857	1000	1143	1286	1429
This is the weight of all calcium in you:	lbs	.67	.94	1.25	1.57	1.88	2.2	2.5	2.83	3.14
Depending on your Sr90 'Range' (1-4), you have this many picocuries of Sr90 in your bones	1 pCi/g Ca	285	429	571	714	857	1000	1143	1286	1429
	2 pCi/g Ca	570	858	1142	1428	1714	2000	2286	2572	2858
	3 pCi/g Ca	855	1287	1713	2142	2571	3000	3858	3858	4287
	4 pCi/g Ca	1140	1716	2284	2856	3428	4000	5144	5144	5716
Multiply total picocuries by 0.004 to get your total yearly dose in Rems. (I.e. 4000 * 0.004 = 16 Rems)

Learn more about the 'Tooth Fairy Project' and reactor emissions on our nuclear power page.

Idealist hosts a growing collection of scanned 1960s Public Health Service maps and charts depicting nuclear testing fallout amounts in air, water, milk, and foodstuffs - a large number of these maps concern Strontium-90 levels in U.S. milk and foodstuffs and are truly a treasure-trove of data. See maps here.

¹ All nuclear testing (above- and below-ground) pumped a total of about 27 million curies of strontium into the environment

² The atmospheric nuclear years of U.S. tests included 1 megaton from Nevada, 109 MT from Marshall Islands (Enewetak & Bikini Atolls), 23 MT from Christmas Island, 21 MT from Johnston Atoll and 0.1 MT from other sites in North America, and Pacific and the South Atlantic Oceans; for total of 154 MT (UNSCEAR gives a value of 153.8 mt). USSR's contribution was about 216 MT: China: 21 MT, France: 10 MT; U.K.: 8 MT

³ A 1991 IPPNW report gives the total global atmospheric fission yield as 217.2 megatons whereas UNSCEAR 2000 gives 189 megatons. The difference lies in the assumptions of how much was the actual yield of many Soviet and U.S. blasts - most yields are still classified and many yield are not exactly known. Also, it is sometimes hard to calculate how much fission derives from fusion yields, especially if your own country didn't conduct the test. UNSCEAR notes in their ANNEX C that 'relatively low yield explosions may be assumed to be due to fission only' and the 'largest test, 50Mt, conducted by the former Soviet Union in 1961, was reported to have a fission yield of 3% and a fusion yield of 97%.' In between, UNSCEAR considers a 50% fission yield for 0.5-5 Mt, and 67% for tests in the range of 0.1-0.5 Mt. The variations in fission yield determinations stem from the fact that hydrogen bomb tests like 'Mike' had relatively high fission yields and others like, the 50 kt USSR blast, had 'special design measures' to obtain a low fission yield/high fusion yield.

UNSCEAR notes that "Tests with yields greater than 1 Mt accounted for over 90% of the total fission yield." Since hydrogen bomb tests injected Sr90 into the stratosphere, then about 90% of Sr90 from atmospheric testing ended up as stratospheric fallout.

Estimates for Sr90 provide a corresponding range with numbers derived from UNSCEAR 2001 at the low end (they give 16.8 MCi as the amount of Sr90 dispersed from global atmospheric nuclear testing through 1980) to IPPNW derived numbers. We use the rule of thumb: a fission yield of 10 megatons creates approximately 1 megacurie (1 million curie) of strontium-90, which is the same as saying 1 megatons equals 0.1 megacurie of Sr90. To convert to becquerels: 1 megaCurie = 35.7 petaBecquerels. So, each megaton equal 3.57 pBq of Sr 90. UNSCEAR uses 3.9 pBq in their calculations

1.1 million tons are attributed to NTS atmospheric testing, which generated 0.1 megaCuries (or 110,000 Curies) of Sr90.

⁴ Yield data from UNSCEAR. Estimates for Sr90 provide a corresponding range with numbers derived from UNSCEAR 2001 at the low end to IPPNW 1991 derived numbers. In 1962 alone, the U.S. injected 11 million tons of fission products in the stratosphere, about 1 million as Sr90; in 1961 and 1962, the USSR put 85 MT in the stratosphere, 10% of it as Sr90

⁵ Graph based on the following very rough estimations of fission yield: 50% of PPG testing yields was fission and 50% of USSR testing yields in '58, '61 and '62 was fission.

⁶ It is believed that the United States received a slightly worse 'burden' of Strontium-90 than other countries in the 30-60 degree latitudes owing to 'local' and 'intermediate' Strontium-90 fallout from Nevada Test Site bomb blasts; the burden added an extra 15 milliCuries per square mile. Actually less than 10% of the Strontium-90 from the NTS atmospheric blasts fell in local areas because, during 'isotopic fractionation' in the mushroom cloud, Sr90's precursor, a gas (Krypton 90), rose to higher parts of the cloud and the precipitating Sr90 would be carried far by the winds. Stratosphere fallout in Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes usually rose during the rainy times of late winter and early spring.

⁷ How the chart was made: Data through April 1963 - obtained from the October 1963 article "Summary of Results from the Raw Milk Sampling Program: June 1957 - April 1963" published in the Public Health Service's 'Radiological Health Data.' That article provided data on monthly milk samples taken during 1 to 2 days of milk production and used as a representation of a monthly sampling period. This sampling method was 'unsatisfactory' for adequately representing contamination of milk from short-lived radionuclides - '…single observations made at monthly intervals provide only an indication of its presence and would not represent the actual levels during the intervening period.' The method was satisfactory for longer-lived radionuclide concentrations in milk however rapid fluctuations would occur during rare periods of rapid change of strontium in the environment; during such time, strontium samples collected "at the beginning or end of the month may vary in Sr90 concentration by as much as 25 to 75 percent. " The above data reflects the evolution of the milk sampling program which during its first year of operation in 1957 surveyed five cities, then in the second year added stations in Atlanta, Chicago, Fargo-Moorhead, Austin and Spokane. (Fargo-Moorheaad discontinued participation in the program in Jan. 1960.)

Data from May 1963 to the end of 1966 - obtained from Appendix 1 of the article titled 'Comparison of Results Between the Public Health Service Raw Milk and Pasteurized Milk Networks for January 1964 Through June 1966' in the Sept. 1968 issue of 'Radiological Health Data' - this set of data was rounded up or down by PHS to the closest integer, unlike the data through April 1963, but also comprised 1-2 day composite samples taken once a month.

^aIn picoCuries; Assuming 30.4 days per month and also assuming consumption of 1 liter of raw milk consumption per day

^bUsing conversion ratios provided in NRC NUREG 1.109 rev. 1 Oct. '77, which gives 0.0185 milliRems bone dose per pCi of Sr90 for infant and 0.00758 mRem for adults, the above data can provide cumulative radiation exposure for children and adults in these 8 cities over a ten year period. To get a rough estimate anytime, use 60 pCi gives a dose of 1 milliRem (or for every pCi of Sr-90 in a liter of milk, you get 0.0172 millirems)

The Strontium dose can also be calculated if you know the amount in bones and teeth: "From 1954 to 1964, average picocuries of Sr-90 per gram calcium in the vertebrae of New York adults rose from under 0.1 to 2.2, more than a twenty-fold increase. The estimated dietary uptake of Sr-90 in adults rose thirty-fold, from 1 picocurie per gram of calcium in 1954 to 29.8 in 1964....The U.S. government also participated in a study measuring Sr-90 concentrations in the baby teeth of about 60,000 children by the St. Louis-based Committee for Nuclear Information (CNI) begun in 1958. The use of baby teeth made it simple to collect large samples, rather than relying on autopsy results. (5) The baby tooth analysis showed a rise from 0.77 pCi Sr-90/g Ca for 1954 births to a peak of 11.03 for 1964 births, just after the Test Ban Treaty. (6) From 1964 to 1970, Sr-90 in St. Louis baby teeth fell by more than half...One exception to this pattern took place from 1958 to 1961, when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. observed a voluntary moratorium on nuclear testing...." - 2000 study When Strontium-90 is in the tooth or bone at levels of 1 picoCurie per gram of Calcium, it emits over a year radiation equivalent to 4.5 milliRems [source] So, the above 29.8 pCi/g Ca figure equals an annualized dose of 134.1 milliRems.....and Sr-90 in deciduous teeth in the St. Louis area equated with an annualized dose of 3.15 mRem (low, in 1954) to 50.85 mRem (high, in 1964).

This chart shows the *yearly* averages of milk exposure in the same 8 cities but only from 1958-1962 here

⁸ An article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist in March 1962 ('Spring Fallout Increase Expected') noted that 'The Strotium-90 content of whole grain cereals was found to be quite high - several times higher per pound than any other plant found except tea.' In the late 1950s, the Atomic Energy Commission disclosed that whole wheat bread (spring wheat) had 3-4 times more radioactive strontium than white bread (NYT 'Whole Wheat Bread Exceeds White in Strontium Tests' 9/4/59.

⁹ The bran component can contain up to 80% of the radioactivity in a wheat plant

¹³ 'Thus, the 1972 report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) Volume I, Paragraph 205 gave the result that 1 picoCurie of Sr-90 per gram Calcium (pCi/gCa) produced a dose of 4.5 millirads (mrad) per year, and 1.95 mrad per year for the cells lining the walls of bone cavities containing the bone marrow where the cells of the blood and immune system are born.' source

In their paper 'An unexpected rise in strontium-90 in US deciduous teeth in the 1990s' published in journal The Science of the Total Environment in 2003, scientists at the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) found via a 'tooth study' surveying areas around 6 nuclear plants that for infants living nearby their teeth concentrations' "average Sr-90 rose 48.5% from the late 1980s to the late 1990s." RPHP studies of more than 4,000 baby teeth around seven reactors across the country reveal Sr90 concentrations 30-50% higher than average (i.e. in 'non-nuclear' areas).

^13a From Gould et al., “Strontium-90 in Newborns and Childhood Disease” (Archives of Environmental Health, 2000):

Time period	High pCi	Ave pCi (sample size)
1988-1990	7.86	1.45 (110)
1985-1987	7.26	1.5 (70)
1982-1984	2.6	1.26 (23)
1979-1981	3.45	1.11 (11)

latitude band	relative to hemispheric deposition		latitude burden (MCi)	Area of band (square miles)	deposition density (Mci/mi2)	Ci/mi2	mCi/mi2
80-90	0.12	0.017217	0.221750359	1505797.8	1.47264E-07	0.147264	147.2644	147
70-90	0.32	0.045911	0.59133429	4478783.2	1.3203E-07	0.13203	132.0301	132
60-70	0.81	0.116212	1.496814921	7297327.8	2.05118E-07	0.205118	205.1182	205
50-60	1.35	0.193687	2.494691535	9884211.2	2.52392E-07	0.252392	252.3916	252
40-50	1.51	0.216643	2.79035868	12162213	2.29429E-07	0.229429	229.4285	229
30-40	1.09	0.156385	2.014232425	14054112.8	1.4332E-07	0.14332	143.3198	143
20-30	0.83	0.119082	1.533773314	15521300.4	9.88173E-08	0.098817	98.81732	99
10-20	0.56	0.080344	1.034835007	16525165.6	6.26218E-08	0.062622	62.62176	63
0-10	0.38	0.054519	0.702209469	17027098.2	4.12407E-08	0.041241	41.2407	41
Most of the fallout in the above latitude bands came down with rain or snow and impacted chiefly 'wet' and agricultural areas. Drier areas, i.e. the U.S. Mountain states, got minimal sr90 global fallout. Note also that Chernobyl increased Sr90 levels in several latitude bands in Eurasia Data compiled from UNSCEAR 2000 Annex C report; report notes that by year 2000, 7 million curies (250 pBq) of Sr90 will be left from atmospheric testing fallout (after decay, from original 'creation' of 622 pBq). Therefore, present values should be about 30%-40% of above values.

20 Radioactive Dangers We All Face
1. Nuclear reactors crashing on Earth from space and fallout from: 2. Pacific nuclear testing 3. the Nevada Test Site 4. High-altitude nuclear tests 5. Project Rulison 6. Mighty Oak nuclear test 7. North Korea's nuclear tests 8. Global nuclear testing 9. 'Project 57' (Area 13) 10. Trinity, WSMR & Steel	11. Hanford & INL & LANL 12. Nuclear Power 13. DTRA's Divine Strake's babies 14. Fallout resuspension: Milford Flat Fire 15. Australia's fallout and duststorms 16. Hiroshima & Nagasaki -and- 17. Low-level radiation impacted viruses 18. Radioactivity in drywall (dust) 19. Nuclear waste transport 20. Greenham Common