This map shows just how many people were exposed to fallout from a single nuclear test:
http://www.americanscientist.org/include/popup_fullImage.asp...
No it doesn't. That map shows the wind disbursement of detectable fallout over a course of days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation#Atmospher...
That map shows how exposure was effected.
It notes that today background radiation is increased by 5µSv per year.
xkcd helps us understand it https://xkcd.com/radiation/
So the yearly increased dose from testing... is like getting a dental x-ray, taking a short flight, eating 50 bananas, or spending 4 days in Colorado.
* I-131 has a half life of 8 days
* statistically significant cancer rate increases are only seen when exposure happened under the age of 20
* cancer risk peaked 15 years after exposure
* the 30-year survival rate for related thyroid cancer is 90%
(don't worry about drinking milk these days)
So if you were a kid at the time, it happened to rain in the short time when atmospheric I-131 concentration was high after a test, and you drank a lot of milk... you had a noticeably higher chance of a fairly low risk cancer around 1980. A real risk to be sure, testing was stopped for a reason, but let's not blow it out of proportion or claim millions of people are still at risk.
And don't forget to notice that your risk of dying in a war is drastically lower as a direct result of these weapons. A direct result of their creation has resulted in relative peace unprecedented in the history of human civilization. War between major powers now seems impossible and old fashioned, though unfounded fear of these weapons was used for decades after WWII as an inappropriate game to control populations and fight-out conflicts between states that could no longer actually go to war.
It is reasonable to feel aggrieved about risk you have not consented to simply because it is an injustice. Perhaps the injustice won't be visited upon me in particular but that is not the point.
You're more at risk getting an x-ray at the dentists office.
Also, why specify the continental US? Is irresponsible offshore testing somehow okay?
A small distance away from 'ground zero' of the nuclear test sites there is basically zero difference in background radiation from elsewhere in the US in 2016.
Here's some data: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/11/10/the-h...
This is from Norway - they were close to the very large and frankly unsafe tests the Russians did. It claims some health-hazard, but then admit that the effective exposure of the population from all that testing was the equivalent of 2 medical x-rays. Not entirely benign, but not a massive health hazard either - and this is back in the 1950's right after the testing was done.
The lingering effects from nuclear testing in SE USA are really, really small and from a health perspective, completely irrelevant.
An airline pilot will be exposed to significantly more radiation than anyone living near the test sites.
I mentioned 'continental testing' because most testing in the US is not 'high yield'. The tests they did out in the Pacific were orders of magnitude greater, and there are almost zero health effects for anyone but the surrounding animals, granted the effects on sea life is not immaterial.
In the grand scheme of things, nuclear tests are a non-starter in terms of public health. Nothing has come of it.
Nuclear energy is a little bit of a different story, but even there there is a lot of hysteria and misinformation.
Well, yes, obviously. That's why I asked.
> This is from Norway - they were close to the very large and frankly unsafe tests the Russians did. It claims some health-hazard, but then admit that the effective exposure of the population from all that testing was the equivalent of 2 medical x-rays.
That is such a misrepresentation that you are basically lying. The article says the effective exposure was equivalent to sixty X-ray mammograms, or two whole-body CT scans. A single CT scan has an estimated 1/2000 chance of causing a fatal cancer[1], a reasonable risk if it's used to diagnose a much more dangerous existing condition. The population of Norway in 1956 was 3,460,000--that means ~3,500 deaths from the equivalent of two unnecessary CT scans, in Norway alone.
Additionally, from your article, "Exposure to nuclear radiation during months three and four of pregnancy [due to fallout over Norway, 1956-1966] was associated with reduced educational attainment, high school completion, and adult earnings. Such exposures were also associated with reduced IQ scores among boys at 18 years of age. A one standard deviation increase in ground exposure reduced high school completion by about 1 percentage-point among men, and by about 2 percentage points among women."
> The tests they did out in the Pacific were orders of magnitude greater, and there are almost zero health effects for anyone but the surrounding animals
This is also a complete lie. Read any account of Castle Bravo alone, and the radiation poisoning and birth defects inflicted on the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, which the US government covered up for decades.
[1] http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/ct-scan...
If think of exposure to radio isotopes in terms of 'chest x-rays' you need to study more.