Low-level Radiation and Infant Mortality

The results of an attempt to test systematically for possible effects of radioactive fallout on infant mortality in the U.S. are reported, clear from a review of all the data that certain gaps in the knowledge of how environmental levels of %h may affect the genetic material of individuals still exist and further studies in this direction are probably warranted.

Abstract

Annual data for 1960–70 for each of the 48 contiguous states are analyzed in a variety of ways to determine whether interstate or intertemporal differences in infant mortality were associated with differences in radioactive fallout as measured by 90Sr or 137Cs in pasteurized milk. Typically, the null hypothesis of no effect of fallout on infant mortality cannot be rejected. This conclusion is relatively robust under alternative specifications of time trends, the period of study, the timing of the relation between radioactivity and mortality, and the inclusion or exclusion of other variables. Changes in radiation levels do not explain the slow improvement in infant mortality in the early 1960s or the rapid improvement after 1965.