Group: Chernobyl fallout posed hazard

OCEAN CITY, N.J., March 21 (UPI) -- Current declarations that elevated U.S. radiation levels are harmless are premature, says a researcher who studied radiation from the Chernobyl meltdown.

"Chernobyl fallout reached the U.S. atmosphere just nine days after the meltdown, and entered the American diet, Joseph Mangano, an epidemiologist and executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, a group of researchers who study radiation health risk, says in a statement. "Medical journal articles show American infants and children suffered from higher rates of infant deaths, leukemia, thyroid cancer, and under-active thyroid glands. Similar studies should be conducted in the U.S. to measure effects of radiation from Japan."

Citing Environmental Protection Agency measurements at 68 locations, Mangano says for six weeks in May-June 1986 following the Chernobyl meltdown, the average level of radioactive Iodine-131 in U.S. milk was nearly six times greater than normal.

Potassium-131, which damages thyroid cells, decays quickly -- with a half life eight days. In Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash., its averages were 28 and 22 times above normal, as rainfall was greatest in the northwest. By July 1986, I-131 levels had returned to normal, Mangano says.

For the same six weeks in spring 1986, the average level of radioactive Cesium-137 in U.S. milk was nearly four times greater than normal, EPA data showed. Cs-137, which damages soft tissues, decays slowly -- half life 30 years -- and the average in Seattle and Spokane, Wash., was 15 and 11 times above normal and Cs-137 levels only returned to normal three years later.