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> "Quite a few have died from cancer," he told reporter Bill Broad. "No doubt it was related to the testing." Here in Australia, veterans of nuclear testing on

> "Quite a few have died from cancer," he told reporter Bill Broad. "No doubt it was related to the testing." Here in Australia, veterans of nuclear testing only just received access to the 'Gold Card' which covers all healthcare costs. Of course, many of those exposed have now died. http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/federal-budget-2017/2017-05-07/federal-budget-2017-veterans-welcome-gold-card-decision/8504884 http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/federal-budget-2017... The people in the photo might have known what they were signing up for, and an idea of the risk, but many service people had no idea at all.

jessriedel 9y ago
Do we actually know that anyone involved in this story had cancer that was likely caused by testing? The size of effects of very low dosages (which are only seen at the population-level) is not well understood, but the risks of dosages with large effect is very well quantified. Certainly, it does not appear that the radiation dose from this single test was large enough to give someone cancer with large (e.g., >5%) probability, which is less than the baseline population rate.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  We don't know how much radiation the cameramen were exposed to. If they were close to enough nuclear tests they might very well have gathered a lifetime dose in the 100s of mS range without ever getting radiation poisoning. Which is certainly enough to up your cancer rates quite a bit. Some online calculators tell me that the 5 guys in the photo got about 50 mS which is barely enough to detectably raise cancer rates. With small nukes like that 2kt one the main danger tends to be from radiation rather than heat and blast. With big 2Mt nukes it's the opposite. Well, 2Mt nukes are basically all fission-fusion-fission devices and that last U-238 fission stage creates an immense amount of fallout.
- tgjsrkghruksd 9y ago
  If it was testing it wasn't just this test. The exposure appears to be minimal.

jessriedel 9y ago

Do we actually know that anyone involved in this story had cancer that was likely caused by testing? The size of effects of very low dosages (which are only seen at the population-level) is not well understood, but the risks of dosages with large effect is very well quantified. Certainly, it does not appear that the radiation dose from this single test was large enough to give someone cancer with large (e.g., >5%) probability, which is less than the baseline population rate.

Symmetry 9y ago
We don't know how much radiation the cameramen were exposed to. If they were close to enough nuclear tests they might very well have gathered a lifetime dose in the 100s of mS range without ever getting radiation poisoning. Which is certainly enough to up your cancer rates quite a bit. Some online calculators tell me that the 5 guys in the photo got about 50 mS which is barely enough to detectably raise cancer rates. With small nukes like that 2kt one the main danger tends to be from radiation rather than heat and blast. With big 2Mt nukes it's the opposite. Well, 2Mt nukes are basically all fission-fusion-fission devices and that last U-238 fission stage creates an immense amount of fallout.
tgjsrkghruksd 9y ago
If it was testing it wasn't just this test. The exposure appears to be minimal.