U-S-A Today quotes parts of an unreleased federal report saying deadly fallout from U-S nuclear weapons tests decades ago blanketed states like Iowa. The report says the radioactive fallout could be to blame in at least 15-thousand cancer deaths and 20-thousand non-fatal cancer cases nationwide. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says it’s “inexcusable” the full report still hasn’t been released. He requested it be made public in 1997. He says all they have is a 15-page progress report, but he knows the report is done.Harkin lost his only two sisters to cancer. The family grew up in the Cumming area south of Des Moines, one of many regions considered “hot spots” for the fallout. He says he’s long suspected fallout from the tests of the “dirty bombs” in the Nevada desert during the 1950s and 60s was responsible for the numerous cases of cancer in America. He says no one was warned about the fallout or told to take tests even though Harkin says the government knew how deadly the fallout was.Harkin says he’s glad that at least some of the report is being published but is still “upset” that it’s been kept under wraps for so long.
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