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ABSTRACT
How many nuclear weapons can be detonated in support of weapons development or during a war before imperiling humans from radioactive fallout? That’s the question the Atomic Energy Commission asked in the 1950s. To find the answer, scientists, citizens, and later the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information looked at baby teeth where strontium 90 – a radioactive isotope – is absorbed as if were calcium. The work combined scientific research with a political movement aimed at ending the nuclear arms race. It also played a role in the ratification of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty. The wisdom and extraordinary effort of preserving these baby teeth for some 60 years opened doors for cutting-edge research involving an array of pollutants.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Funding
Notes on contributors
Robert Alvarez
Robert Alvarez is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999. During this tenure, he led teams in North Korea to establish control of nuclear weapons materials. He also coordinated the Energy Department’s nuclear material strategic planning and established the department’s first asset management program. Before joining the Energy Department, Alvarez served for five years as a senior investigator for the US Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, chaired by Sen. John Glenn, and as one of the Senate’s primary staff experts on the US nuclear weapons program. In 1975, Alvarez helped found and direct the Environmental Policy Institute, a respected national public interest organization. He also helped organize a successful lawsuit on behalf of the family of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear worker and active union member who was killed under mysterious circumstances in 1974. Alvarez has published articles in Science, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Technology Review, and The Washington Post. He has been featured in television programs such as NOVA and 60 Minutes.
Joseph Mangano
Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, is the executive director for the Radiation and Public Health Project in New York and has served the organization since 1989. He is the author of 38 medical journal articles and the books Radioactive Baby Teeth: The Cancer Link (2008), Mad Science: The Nuclear Power Experiment (2012), and Low-Level Radiation and Immune Disease: An Atomic Era Legacy (1998).