Beginning in the 1950s, the US government conducted hundreds of above-ground atomic weapons tests at a remote site in Nevada.

But, nuclear fallout from reckless experiments prior to 1963 had grave and unintended consequences—and, new research reveals they may have been far more extreme than ever suspected.

Above-ground tests on US soil left millions of Americans exposed to "tremendous" amounts of radioactive pollution, which made its way into the environment and the food supply, leading to as many as 695,000 deaths from 1951–1973.

This shocking figure is more than the combined total number of American military deaths in WWI [116,516], WWII [405,399] and Vietnam [58,209].  Or put another way, it is more than three times the combined total death tolls of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [226,000].

After 1963, tests in the US were moved underground, but by then, there had already been 100 atmospheric tests at the Nevada Test Site.

The study by University of Arizona researcher Keith Meyers analysed annual county level fallout patterns across the USA.  And, there was one vector in particular through which Americans came in contact with the deadly pollution—milk.  

"During the 1950's most milk was consumed in the local area it was produced," Meyers explains.

"It is through this channel where local fallout deposition would enter the local food supply."

Meyer's paper titled:  "Some Unintended Fallout from Defense Policy:  Measuring the Effect of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing on American Mortality Patterns" can be found here.

One estimate places the total atmospheric release of radioactive material from the NTS (Nevada Test Site) as over 12 Billion Curies between 1951 and 1963.  In comparison, Chernobyl released an estimated 81 Million Curies of radioactive material (LeBaron, 1998).  

These nuclear tests exposed millions of Americans to harmful radioactive material and many people are still living with the consequences of this pollution today.

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