Radioactive fallout from Cold War-era global nuclear weapons tests has caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in the United States, according to an unreleased government report obtained by USA Today. The report is the U.S. government’s first attempt to assess the affects of radiation stemming from aboveground nuclear tests in the former Soviet Union, on several Pacific islands, and at the Nevada Test Site. Such tests were banned in 1963, but their effects linger; the report concluded that no U.S. resident born after 1951 has escaped exposure. In addition to the 15,000 fatal cancers, at least 20,000 non-fatal cancers, and possibly many more, have been caused by radiation.
