Hiroshima Time Bomb

One of the best-documented medical aftereffects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the leukemia that developed in many of the survivors. Those who received the heaviest doses of atomic radiation have been eight times more likely than other Japanese to get the disease. Now a new chapter of research by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission* reveals what has long been suspected: that those who lived through the A-bombings are more susceptible than others to a whole variety of cancers.

An American-Japanese investigatory team studied 20,000 Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivors, all of whom were under ten in 1945. The findings, reported in the British medical journal Lancet, define a "high-risk group" within the 20,000 as those who were exposed while in the open air one mile or less from the explosion's center. Cancer has been ten times more frequent in this group than among those who were inside shelters or situated farther from the explosion. Even among people exposed to a lesser degree of radiation, cancers of the thyroid, uterus and bone have developed in increasing numbers during the past decade. Numerous theories have been advanced over the years in an attempt to explain how radiation triggers cancer. The commission members hope that the cases of cancer in Hiroshima and Nagasaki will yield new clues.

Peak to Come. The cancer time bomb will continue to supply grim data. Because many ailing victims procrastinate in seeking medical help, commission physicians and statisticians have had to rely on death records to supply the full cancer census. Though the actual number of cancers detected so far in the high-risk group is only 19, the team points out that these occurred in a sampling of only 1,109 people, the oldest of whom is now just 35. Among Japanese of the same age who arrived in Hiroshima or Nagasaki after the bombings, cancer has occurred at less than one-fourth this rate. Even this incidence is unexpectedly high, and the investigators cannot yet explain it.

The casualty commission sees no evidence that a peak has yet been reached. During the next ten years, the young survivors will be entering the age bracket at which cancer rates ordinarily begin to increase sharply. The doctors plan an even closer watch on their health.

-An organization composed of Japanese and American scientists and financed by the two governments.

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