Nuclear tests cancer toll

Radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests has contaminated the globe. According to a report by the US Department of Health and Human Services, at least 11,000 Americans have died from cancers caused by the radioactivity released from the 390 nuclear bombs exploded worldwide above the land and sea by the US, the former Soviet Union, Britain and France between 1951 and 1963. But experts say the US death toll is only the tip of the iceberg. “Similar assumptions would lead to estimates of many thousands more cancers throughout the world,” says Dudley Goodhead, a radiation specialist with the Medical Research…