NUCLEAR FALLOUT, LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT, AND IMMUNE-DEFICIENCY

An investigation of the mortality rates of young adults born in the po stwar period of large-scale atmospheric nuclear testing (1945-1965) in the United States and other western industrial nations reveals an inc reasingly anomalous rise in mortality from its previous secular declin e. Beginning in the late 1970s and particularly since 1983, the deteri oration in the health of the 25-44 age group is related to in utero ex posure to fission products in the milk and diet, associated with an un precedented rise in underweight births and neonatal mortality known to be accompanied by loss of immune resistance. The 1945-1965 rise in th e percentage of live births below 2500 grams is highly correlated with the amount of strontium-90 in human bone, both peaking in the mid-196 0s. In the 1980s, for the baby boom generation (those born between 194 5 and 1965), cancer incidence and mortality due to infectious diseases associated with a rising degree of immune deficiency, such as pneumon ia, septicemia, and AIDS, increased sharply. This process of increasin g immune deficiency appears to have been exacerbated by continuing sec ondary exposures to accidental reactor releases and by an acceleration of radiation-induced mutation of pathogenic microorganisms increasing ly resistant to drugs.