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The US Government conducted hundreds of atomic weapons tests at a remote site in the state of Nevada. This was all done in the 1950s to up their nuclear capabilities while the tensions in the Cold War were building up. There were some reckless experiments before 1963 and had really dire consequences. The nuclear fallout from the bomb tests was unintended and a new research shows that it the consequences were far more extreme than what they were previously thought. The above ground tests on the US soil exposed millions of Americans to high amounts of radioactive pollution. The radioactive particles made their way into the environment and food supply and led to as many as 695,000 deaths from 1951-1973. These figures make them comparable to the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the recent study, Keith Meyers, a researcher from the University of Arizona analyzed annual county-level fallout patterns across the US. What he discovered that the Americans came in contact with radioactive pollution through milk. "During the 1950’s most milk was consumed in the local area it was produced," Meyers explains. On examining the estimates of the pollution concentrations in the locally produced milk, Meyers found that the radioactive isotopes from the tests contributed to as many as 395,000-695,000 deaths.

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Nuclear Bomb Tests In The 1950s May Have Killed Almost 700,000 People, New Study Concludes