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Raging Controversy. Scientists agree that radioactivity in any quantity is bad for the human body. But a controversy rages about the actual effects of fallout and the level at which it becomes intolerably dangerous to human health. At one extreme is Dr. Linus Pauling, Caltech's Nobel Prizewinning chemist, who believes that the fallout danger point was reached when the U.S. exploded the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert in 1945 to usher in the Atomic Age. Pauling estimates that one 50-megaton bomb alone would cause 40,000 babies to be born with physical defects in the next few generations, and 400,000 more defective or still-born babies over the next 6,000 years—or slightly more than one a week. He also expects uncounted cases of bone cancer, leukemia and other physical defects to appear in humans now alive. At the other extreme is Dr. Edward Teller, professor of physics at the University of California and a developer of the H-bomb, who insists that there is no worldwide danger from fallout as a result of nuclear testing. Says Teller: "The fallout danger is grossly and improperly exaggerated." Last week the U.S. Public Health Service, guardian of the nation's health, announced that fallout levels in the U.S. as a result of the Russian tests "do not warrant undue public concern.'' The agency charged that the Soviet tests would indeed add to the risk of health damage and genetic effects in future generations, but added: "At present radiation levels, and even at somewhat higher levels, the additional risk is slight, and very few people will be affected.''
Unlucky Dragon. Though the Atomic Age is not yet old enough to produce definitive information on the long-term results of fallout, many scientists consider the problem far less serious than they thought it only a few years ago. Says Nuclear Scientist Bo Lindell of Sweden's Royal Caroline Institute: "No one needs to worry over the global fallout from nuclear tests. That can be said and must be said again and again." Says Dr. Merril Eisenbud, director of the environmental radiation laboratory of the New York University Medical Center: "Fallout is not a good thing. But of all the sources of man-made exposure to ionizing radiation, this is among the smallest. The total dose from fallout to the present time has been about 5% of the dose the average person receives from natural radioactivity. It's probably less than 5% of the dose delivered to the average person as the result of the improper use of X rays. It would be relatively simple for our physicians to improve their X-ray techniques, and thus reduce exposure by a much larger amount."