Old tooth study revived to look at radiation effects
Questionnaires will soon be sent to thousands of men who donated their baby teeth half a century ago to scientists seeking to learn whether radioactive fallout in milk the donors drank as children affected their health later in life.
It's the latest step in a study that began in the 1950s and 1960s at Washington University, but then stalled for decades.
Fifty years ago, concern about atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons spurred a group of local scientists and other area residents to begin the project, then called the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey.
An early apparent link between fallout and health problems was established by the study. But now, more than 40 years later, the study is resuming. Researchers now hope to find links between fallout and instances of cancer in children born in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Letters containing health questionnaires are going out to the donors of 6,340 baby teeth. Those teeth have been kept in storage since the original study.
Preliminary results of the new study are expected by the middle of the year, a New York-based scientist says.
The scientist, Joseph Mangano, is executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project. He said in a telephone interview that his research group has had possession of 85,000 donated baby teeth since 2001 but lacked the money until recently to begin a full study of the cancer risk posed by nuclear tests.
McClatchy-Tribune
Teen pregnancy rate highest in Mississippi
Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen pregnancy rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, according to a new federal report released last week.
Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The teen pregnancy rate in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.
The three states have large proportions of black and Hispanic teenagers - groups that traditionally have higher birth rates, experts said.
The lowest teen birth rates continue to be in New England, where three states have teen birth rates at just half the national average.
It's not clear why Mississippi surged into first place. The state's one-year increase of nearly 1,000 teen births could be a statistical blip, said Ron Cossman, a Mississippi State University researcher who focuses on children's health statistics.
