St. Louis Baby Tooth "Nuclear Fallout" Study --any St. Louis Boomers?

[darkstar]

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/Baby-Teeth-Fallout-Study.htm

So I was reading at work and came across Strontium 90,one of isotopes from nuke blast radiation. Remembered sending my teeth in as a kid in St. Louis back in the early 60's as part of a S 90 study, but was under the impression (in my adult recollections) that it had to do w/ some *nation wide* effort by the government to track extent of fallout.

A like ageged co-worker who grew up on the East Coast found it hard to believe, having never heard of it nor remembering the ads that I insisted ran during cartoons where, according to the jingle, "The Tooth Fairy says, 'Send your teeth to science.'"

So it turns out we were both right. First, the study was done by anti-nuke Washington University scientists--not the government--in St. Louis and was not nation wide in scope. For some reason, St. Louis was a hot spot for fallout.

Anyone know why this was the case?

(In much googling, I've yet to find out why St. Louis was so "hot"; I've kind of theorized that w/ the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, high precipitation caused it to fall to earth, but that's just a guess.)

And now, even stranger, some left over teeth were found in 2001 and some researchers want to use them and original participants as basis for longitudinal study. I distincly recall sending my teeth in 3-4 times

All very strange to recall this many years on. Any one else recall this? Heard of the study? The discovery a few years back of the left over teeth?

Finally, was there a spike in chilhood leukemia in and around St. Louis? I recall one 2-year span or so where 2 kids about 4 years younger than me died of leukemia at the church we went to. They would have been in the right window for fetal absorbstion in 63, the height of the S 90 fall out.

Very freaky Friday for me.

[Aiptasia]

1. I remember something to that effect

Not just that, but there have been a few radioactive NASA payloads that have burnt up in the atmosphere in the 1970's that scattered radioactivity across the USA. Not to mention Chernobyl and all of the above ground testing.

I live in South Carolina, and the Savannah River nuclear refinery (the last remaining weapons grade plutonium refinery in the USA) has released millions of gallons of toxic mercury and deutirium (heavy water) into the Savannah river. What's most fun about that is that it's heavier than water, so it's built up as a sludge at the bottom of the Savannah riverbed and is slowly moving like a radioactive effluvia towards the Atlantic shelf. Radioactive mercury poisoning our fish for thousands of years to come.

It's a wonder we're not all dead.

[lowela]

2. my husband is an sl boomer

He grew up in university city - says he sent his teeth in. Had a childhood friend who recently died of lou gehrigs. Said he heard st louis was supposed to be a top nuclear target as it was surrounded by missile silos. He heard incidence of lou gehrigs is higher there.

[darkstar]

4. Hi and welcome

to DU.

:hi:

He recalled sending his teeth in too? Kind of strange, after all these years, to think that part of you has been archived for such, ugh, an unsettling reason.

I've called the tw folks I've stayed in touch w/ over the years who I knew grew up in St. Louis--that is, I have not stayed friends w/ anyone who I knew for certain sent in teeth--so your husband is the first person to "share" this with. My co-workers all thought this sounded very "X-Files," so it's somehow interesting to me to touch base w/ someone else


Did you tell him about the find of 85,000 teeth in 2001? Does he recall the ads? The little certificates they'd send you?

Anyhow, welcome again, lowela!

[Goathead]

5. Did he live near Whiteman AFB?

There were Minuteman Missiles there but I think it is closer to K.C. Saint Louis is what is termed a "cultural target" merely wiping out scores of human beings and infrastructure. Ain't life grand?:eyes:

[Goathead]

3. Isn't Times Beach near St Loius?

Or is it K.C. Anyway, the city of Times Beach back in the seventies or eighties sprayed their streets with Dioxin to "keep the dust down" The EPA had to buy the whole town and move everybody out. A lot of people died from cancer from their exposure to the Dioxin. Maybe it has something to do with that?

[darkstar]

6. Hey Goathead

:hi:

I think this was mostly aimed at fallout from above grund nuke testing. The link above had the most succinct summary of the study I found, including the original purpose in the 50s and 60s and the discovery of 85,000 remaining teeth in 2001.

Like I said, what I really don't get was why St. Louis was a hot spot.

But you know your Missouri trouble spots, it sounds like. Those little lab experiments w/ dioxin just came a little later.

We need an smilie for :glowing:

[azoth]

7. Times Beach was a suburb of St Louis...

about 20-25 minutes out of downtown. The town was "closed" in the late 80s. It's now been reopened as a "nature preserve" but there are no inhabiting people.

[Dees]

8. Times Beach was a very small Meramec River community

about 20 miles south of St. Louis. In the early eighties the community hired waste hauler Russell Bliss to spray the dusty roads with oil to relieve the probelm. Unfortunately the waste oil was contaminated with an extremely high level of dioxin which Bliss had picked up from a chemical firm in Southwest Missouri. The EPA set up an incinerator to burn contaminated soil near the town. Times Beach, right on I-44, is a ghost town now and is slated to become a preserve.