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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- University of Utah researchers have to notify hundreds of nuclear fallout study participants they have thyroid cancer or other diseases.
The study, led by Joseph Lyon, examined the link between radioactive fallout and thyroid abnormalities downwind of the Nevada nuclear test site.
It was cut short after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled funding from Lyon's team. Still, researchers examined about 17-hundred of a planned 45-hundred people, mostly from southwestern Utah.
Lyon told the Deseret Morning News researchers have identified hundreds of cases of disease in those participants. That can cover a broad range, from benign thyroid nodules to cancer. He wasn't more specific about the findings.
The study will be over by August, but most of the employees working on it will be laid off by the end of this month.
Some environmentalists are upset the CDC is abandoning a comprehensive study on how fallout affects people.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
