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Comment by adam-f | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why an accidental detonation of a warhead would produce "lethal" fallout. Yet there's comparatively little concern (and rightfully so) over the 2000+ intentional test detonations done around the world so far?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

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A 3.8 megaton H-bomb exploding at ground level would have created a lot of fallout - most tests were careful to explode high yield weapons high enough that fall out wouldn't be a problem.

Where tests of large H-bombs were done at ground level there were huge amounts of fallout created. However, these tests were usually in very remote places with nobody around in the few hundred miles downwind. However, there were still serious problems with fallout:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

St. George, UT, downwind of the Yucca Flats test site, had a markedly increased cancer rate among the people who lived there at the time. A friend's aunt had her thyroid removed as a teenager, presumably consequent to fallout exposure from nuclear weapons testing. (Naturally, the government made her and her family agree never to say, or even speculate aloud about why it was done when they paid for the surgery...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George,_Utah#Nuclear_conta...

    "Naturally, the government made her and her family agree 
    never to say, or even speculate aloud about why it was 
    done when they paid for the surgery..."

I find it shocking that we afford the government the unilateral right to gag an individual from talking in exchange for treatment owed. I would hope that our judicial system would review such an arrangement and nullify a non-disclosure clause in this incident. Near as I can tell it sounds like your friend's aunt never entered into a binding legal relationship with those that contributed to her cancer until after it had been demonstrated that they were at fault. How those responsible can get a judgement or arbitration that includes such a non-disclosure when that party is so obviously wrong and at fault is simply mind-boggling.

Most out-of-court settlements entail non-disclosure and non-disparagement. It's fairly standard.

"comparatively little concern"? The US and USSR stopped above-ground testing in 1963 and there has not been an above-ground test anywhere on earth since 1980. 159 countries have ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [1]. There has been a hell of a lot of concern over the past 68 years over nuclear detonations (and rightfully so).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Nuclear-Test-Ban_...

You mean like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_atomic_experiments#Afte...

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