Three finger peace sign. June 24, 2010 4:05 PM   Subscribe

Help me find an old post about people in the late 60s I think that had an increased risk of cancer as a result of travelling through areas affected by US nuclear tests.
posted by lazaruslong to MetaFilter-Related at 4:05 PM (9 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

This doesn't match exactly, so you may not be thinking of Operation Upshot Knothole.
posted by carsonb at 4:15 PM on June 24, 2010


...but there are a lot of links in the comments to things that talk about fallout from above-ground testing in the US.
posted by carsonb at 4:16 PM on June 24, 2010


This one is even older (2002) and the link in the post is broken, but Owen Boswarva's linkdump comment at the bottom of the thread still seems to mostly work.
posted by carsonb at 4:26 PM on June 24, 2010


E. None of the above?
posted by carsonb at 7:07 PM on June 24, 2010


Of the 216 posts tagged with "nuclear," these had the word "cancer" somewhere within the post:

http://www.metafilter.com/17686/
http://www.metafilter.com/43118/Things-that-dont-go-boom
http://www.metafilter.com/64033/Kerr-Magee-had-applied-to-the-Nuclear-Regulatory-Commission-to-call-their-waste-an-experimental-fertilizer-and-just-spread-it-over-the-top-of-the-land

although none of them address driving through nuclear test sites. If you're interested in the topic in general in addition to a specific post, cancer resulting from driving through nuclear test sites is the subject of Terry Tempest William's essay "The Clan of One-Breasted Women:"

" I cannot prove that my mother... contracted cancer from nuclear fallout in Utah. But I can't prove they didn't...the September blast we drove through in 1957 was part of Operation Blumbbob, one of the most intensive series of bombs to be initiated."


posted by frobozz at 7:09 PM on June 24, 2010


I don't know if it was mentioned in any of the links in the previous MeFi thread, but Operation Upshot-Knothole might have been partially responsible for John Wayne's death (among other people):

Among the 220 or so cast and crew who filmed the 1956 film, The Conqueror, on location near St. George, Utah, ninety-one had come down with cancer, with an unheard of 41 percent morbidity rate, including stars Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead. The film was shot in Southwestern Utah, east of and generally downwind from where the U.S. Government had tested nuclear weapons in Southeastern Nevada, and many contend that radioactive fallout from these tests contaminated the film location and poisoned the film crew working there. Despite the suggestion that Wayne’s 1964 lung cancer and his 1979 stomach cancer resulted from this nuclear contamination, he himself believed his lung cancer to have been a result of his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit.
posted by sbutler at 7:31 PM on June 24, 2010


Thanks folks.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:41 AM on June 25, 2010


OK, hey, no problem! But, uh, was it any of those or not?
posted by carsonb at 7:30 AM on June 25, 2010


No, it wasn't any of those unfortunately. It's possible it was linked in a comment also, I'm not sure. It specifically related to hippies that made those popular cross country trips back then and the resulting cancer rates.

Fortunately, I got what I needed from a couple links. I wish I could find that original, but this'll do. It's really freakin hard to google about cancer....so many hits.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:27 PM on June 25, 2010


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