The Phantom Fallout-Induced Cancer Epidemic in Southwestern Utah

In the 1950s, the government detonated many above-ground tests of nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site exposing the people living downwind, who became known as downwinders, to radioactive fallout. Almost three decades later, the downwinders were told that their cancer rates were more than double nationwide rates. Tort lawyers with the aid of activist, politicians, and the print and electronic media succeeded in creating an atmosphere of fear, panic, emotional hysteria, and political expediency that still lives in southwestern Utah over the dimly understood dangers of ionizing radiation. However, based on science and medical statistics and not on anecdotes, this book provides evidence that fallout did not provide a high enough radiation dose to produce a detectable increase in the overall cancer rates in southwestern Utah downwinders.