For Dr. Bruce Wachholz (the scientist who oversaw a 14-year health study of radiation fallout from Cold War bomb tests) to say the main reason the NCI Fallout Report was not released after it was completed in 1992 was because no one seemed to be interested is pure nonsense, and is a bold faced lie and he knows it!
A CALL FOR THE INDICTMENT OF DR. BRUCE WACHHOLZ !
(Please see bottom of page for news item)
It is yet one more example of the basic problem with the NCI report . In today's climate of talking about what can be done legally to government officials who lie to the American public and to committees, Dr. Bruce Wachholz should be right up there at the top of the list of those who have blithely and blatantly deceived the public.
Many activists (from among those most exposed to the fallout the report addresses) constantly tried to obtain the release of that report during the period of 1992 to 1997 yet Wachholz states no one seemed interested. There are additional and more serious examples which make a liar out of Wachholz. A University of Utah researcher told the Senate last year that federal agencies for years covered up, tried to discredit and failed to follow up on evidence that atomic test fallout could cause thyroid cancer.
In 1994 the state health department of at least one upper Midwest state, along the worst of the fallout path, was trying to conduct a scientific study to determine if fallout had anything to do with excess thyroid and other cancers in their state. It took the intervention of its Senator to get the documents needed for the study. And once completed, guess who at the NCI was its biggest critic? Dr. Bruce Wachhotz
Well guess what? Just a year before leaks to the press finally forced the public release of the NCI report, the Centers For Disease Control had requested the NCI provide them with data from the report for studies they were doing on Hanford downwinders for possible thyroid cancer. The NCI refused to provide them with any data from this report, then completed and awaiting release, for use in their research! And guess who at the NCI was responsible for refusing to give them the information? Dr. Bruce Wachholz that's who!
So isn't it about time Dr. Bruce Wachholz be held to account for his actions in lying to the American Public, lying to a United States' Senate Committee, and that a formal investigation be undertaken to determine what legal actions can be taken against him for his attempts to cover up information highly relevant to the health and well being of American citizens? And with the extent of the fallout spread and numbers exposed, that adds up to a total of 160 million Americans who were originally put at risk.
Don't any of us have any rights?
J Truman
Director
Downwinders
September 18, 1998
Wednesday September 16 6:20 PM EDT
Fallout Study Delayed 14 Years
H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON (AP) - The scientist who oversaw a 14-year health study of radiation fallout from Cold War bomb tests apologized Wednesday for years of delay in making the findings public.
``The sense was that nobody was really terribly interested in this,'' Bruce Wachholz, chief of the radiation effects branch of the National Cancer Institute who coordinated the fallout study, told a Senate hearing.
To which Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, responded: ``The public couldn't be interested in what the public didn't know.''
The study, which tracked fallout nationwide from 100 aboveground nuclear explosions in the Nevada desert during the early years of the Cold War, was released last October, nearly 15 years after Congress ordered it.
Three months earlier, key findings were made public. The study concluded that exposure to iodine-131 from the bomb test fallout may have caused 11,300 to 212,000 additional cases of cancer.
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee members asked senior National Cancer Institute officials why the findings were not made public earlier, since the basic results were known as early as 1989 and a final draft report was completed in 1992. Some lawmakers have suggested the release was delayed out of concern about public reaction.
Wachholz said there was ``no intention to deceive or conceal this information'' but acknowledged the report ``received little attention'' for several years after it was largely completed as some of the same researchers focused on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident.
``The report should have gotten out faster,'' said Wachholz.
But another witness suggested that public relations concerns may have played a part.
``There was concern within the (National Cancer Institute) about the negative impact that the study might have on public perception about the legacy of atmospheric testing of nuclear devices,'' said Owen Hoffman, who was a consultant on the fallout research.
``This concern may have been partially responsible for delay in publication of the results,'' said Hoffman, now president of SENES Oak Ridge Inc., a consulting firm on risk analysis.
Richard Klausner, who became NCI director in 1995, acknowledged that he became aware of the study because of an inquiry from Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
``Somewhere, obviously, this fell through the cracks,'' said Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio. ``We shouldn't have to heckle people to get a report.''
In releasing the report last year, the NCI concluded that bomb testing in Nevada between 1951 and 1962 exposed millions of American children to radioactive iodine-131, which can cause thyroid cancer.
The report estimated there would be 11,300 to 212,000 additional cases of thyroid cancer as a result of the exposure, particularly in the Farm Belt where children often drank fallout-contaminated milk.
The NCI last year urged those who believed they were exposed and are worried about it to see a doctor for a thyroid examination. Some scientists have suggested a more formal regional screening of exposed victims, but the NCI said that might cause more problems than it resolves.
Earlier this month, an Institute of Medicine committee also called regional screening unnecessary because it would provide no significant health benefits. The panel concluded ``the number of excess cases of thyroid cancer is impossible to predict.''
``A national or regional screening effort could result in needless worry and unnecessary surgeries because the tests used to detect the disease are so often inconclusive,'' said Robert Lawrence, a Johns Hopkins School of Public Health professor and the chairman of panel.
William Raub, deputy assistant secretary for science policy at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency was reviewing conflicting scientific assessments on screening.