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Mortality of Veteran Participants in the CROSSROADS Nuclear Test (1996) / Chapter Skim
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Study Rationale and Overview
Pages 4-7

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From page 4...
... From then until the test ban treaty in 1963, the Department of Defense and earlier agencies conducted 235 nuclear detonations, involving at least 210,000 military participants dubbed atomic veterans in 19 test series. Fifty years later, scientists, veterans advocates, health and environmental advocates, military spokespersons, politicians, and veterans and their families debate whether and to what extent exposure to the nuclear tests affected the participants health.
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From page 5...
... While the report discusses a somewhat broader range of questions in light of its findings, it does not purport to answer such questions as: Does low-level radiation cause cancer? Did the United States act appropriately, from the perspectives of medical science, environmental hazard control, and ethics, in its design and conduct of nuclear tests and follow-up activities?
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From page 6...
... First, this study's endpoint is mortality~hosen because such data are available and definableand most of these other conditions do not consistently result in death. Second, a recent Institute of Medicine report lays out in detail reasons for not studying adverse reproductive outcomes in atomic veterans, their spouses, and children (IOM 1995)
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From page 7...
... Whatever the unmeasured nonradiation risk factors the participants may have carried (e.g., behavioral, such as cigarette smoking; environmental, such as living on a ship; or demographic, such as education and income) , the comparison group is likely to be equivalent, reducing the opportunity for biased study results.
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Key Terms

  • atomic veterans
  • operation crossroads
  • veterans affairs
  • military personnel
  • defense nuclear

  • radiation exposure
  • nuclear tests
  • nuclear agency
  • study findings
  • earlier deaths

  • multiple myeloma
  • veterans advocates
  • outcome comparisons
  • narrower range
  • specific causes

  • gall bladder
  • useful adjunct
  • nuclear detonations
  • test ban
  • earlier studies

  • lymphocytic leukemia
  • operational period
  • tests affected
  • health outcome
  • chronic lymphocytic

  • special weapons
  • disease categories
  • extent exposure
  • report lays
  • list provided


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