85,000 baby teeth studied by researchers

ST. LOUIS -- About 85,000 baby teeth collected decades ago and only discovered recently could be useful in pinpointing whether fallout from Cold War nuclear bomb tests caused cancer and other health problems years later, researchers say.

The teeth, stockpiled from area children from 1959 to 1970 and nearly tossed out when found in May, could settle a long scientific debate about whether the tests by the United States and the Soviet Union harmed civilians, especially those born from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s.

"We flipped out when we heard about the 85,000 teeth," Joseph Mangano, national coordinator with the independent, nonprofit Radiation and Public Health Project research group, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story Friday. "It was like an early Christmas present."

The teeth, found in hundreds of boxes by Washington University officials cleaning out a school bunker where they'd been stored since the 1970s, were remmants of the St. Louis Baby Tooth Survey, in which area children gave their baby teeth to science instead of the tooth fairy.

The children or their parents sent the teeth to the Greater St. Louis Citizens Committee for Nuclear Information, along with a card listing their name, address, birth date and other information.

The Baby Tooth Survey was a unique, citizen-based effort to help scientists assess whether children were absorbing radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests. The study found that kids were, in fact, absorbing radioactive material.

The study received international attention and helped persuade the nation to adopt a 1963 treaty banning atmospheric bomb tests.

Now, researchers in New York have launched a project to find the owners of the teeth and determine whether they've experienced health problems, such as thyroid cancer.

Mangano wants anyone born and living in St. Louis from the late 1940s through the 1960s -- especially if they believe they submitted teeth -- to contact his group.

If matched with any of the baby teeth, the caller would be asked for a mailing address to get a health questionnaire.

After World War II, the U.S. government set off about 100 nuclear bombs in above-ground tests in the West.

Public concern about radioactive fallout rose as scientists began to find it in the environment and milk supply downwind from the explosions.