Radiation and Public Health Publications
RPHP Monograph Series in electronic format

U.S.A. Newborn Deterioration in the Nuclear Age, 1945-1996

FALLOUT AND THE PHENOMENON OF LOW BIRTHWEIGHT BABIES

The percentage of underweight live births is a far more sensitive indicator of radiation-induced harm to the newborn than either infant mortality or neonatal mortality, as established in The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors, and shown in figure 3.



In New York state the low birthweight percentage rose by nearly 40 percent from 1945 to 1965, when there had been a corresponding many-fold increase in strontium-90 found in American baby teeth. The postwar low birthweight rise is best revealed by New York, for which data begin in 1945. The low birthweight percentages are perfectly correlated with the measured geometric rise and fall in strontium-90 in the bone of New York adults for the years 1955-70. 5

The low birthweight record for the USA and all states begins in 1950 and is seen to follow that of New York. After 1965 and the cessation of above-ground bomb tests, there was considerable improvement in the next decade in both the low birthweight percentage and the amount of strontium-90 found in humans. But since 1979 another slow rise has been observed in the USA low birthweight percentage in New York and every other state. This rise suggests that emissions from possibly corroding nuclear reactors may be contributing to the current deterioration of newborn viability, particularly after widespread fallout from the Chernobyl accident, which has been shown to account for otherwise inexplicable significant increases in newborn hypothyroidism, thyroid cancer and leukemia among children. 6

REFERENCES
5. Ibid, p.39. (back)
6. Ibid, p.53-63. (back)

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