A Scientific, Moral and Diplomatic Misstep

On advice from the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Energy has proposed draconian cuts in its budgetary support of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1). Founded in 1975, under a bi-national agreement as successor to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, RERF's study of the atomic bomb survivors remains the most important single source of information about the long-term effects of acute radiation in humans. Of the 86 thousand plus members of the life-span study cohort, some 45% are still alive, principally those exposed at or under 10 years of age. The latest compendium of cancer and noncancer mortality among atomic bomb survivors was published in this journal last year (2), and the results of the study of Yamada et al. on the relationships between the incidence of noncancer diseases and atomic bomb radiation...