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No one denies the potential dangers of fallout, but the statistics fail to show so far that the danger has been realized. The only man thought to have died as a result of testing fallout was a seaman on the Japanese fishing boat, The Lucky Dragon, which came too close to U.S. Pacific testing grounds—and doctors are not even sure of that. Public health figures show that the frequency of bone cancer or leukemia in adults as a result of fallout is practically negligible. Since the recent Russian tests, most U.S. children carry about ten units of strontium 90 in their bodies, far less than the top tolerance of 50 units, which has to be maintained steadily in the body before scientists consider it hazardous. Since strontium 90's effect declines as a child grows, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union would have to explode a tremendous number of bombs in succession even to get near the danger level.
As for the genetic effects of test fallout, says Professor Cyril L. Comar, head of the physical biology and radiation field lab at Cornell University, "As I see it, the absolute effect, in terms of the numbers involved and human suffering, will be very small. It will be of no significance." Scientists point out that people already unwittingly do many things that can produce mutations. Men who wear tight shorts or athletic supporters may produce genetic mutations by causing the testes to be maintained at a higher temperature than normal. And Norwegian scientists believe that people living in houses made of concrete get some 300 milliroentgens of radioactivity annually, three times more than the radiation from nuclear testing expected in 1962. Reason: concrete carries a higher rate of natural radioactivity than most building materials.
Milk in the Freezer. When they speak of fallout, the scientists are sanguine only about peacetime fallout from testing, which is not carried out in populated areas.
The only examples of wartime nuclear devastation that the world has to go on are the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The single bomb that fell on Hiroshima, packing only 20 kilotons of power, almost completely wiped out everything within 4.4 square miles, killed 70,000 to 80,000 people (total pop. 245,000) and injured an equal number. Some 62,000 of the 90,000 buildings in the urban area were leveled. Fires broke out instantly as far as 13,700 ft. from ground zero. Though thousands died that day from the effects of initial radiation, those outside the Hiroshima and Nagasaki areas have showed no ill effects from fallout, and there has been no later widespread incidence of cancer, sterility, cataracts or defective births.