By the mid-1950s, the U.S. and Soviet Union had detonated some 420 nuclear explosions in the atmosphere. From Nevada, prevailing winds blew radioactive clouds to St. Louis and on to the eastern seaboard.
A group of prominent scientists at Washington University, including Louise and Eric Reiss and Barry Commoner, founded the Greater St. Louis Citizen's Committee for Nuclear Information.
They decided to conduct a neutral study and let the facts speak for themselves. They hit on the idea of testing children's baby teeth for strontium 90, a radioactive byproduct of atomic bombs.
Louise Reiss was named project director.
The group faced an immediate problem: many children put their baby teeth under their pillows knowing they'd awaken to find a quarter.
Dr. Reiss and her co-workers visited hundreds of schools, churches, Scout groups, YMCAs and YWCAs.
They taught children and parents how to mail their newly fallen baby teeth to the scientific committee along with a form.
In return, each child received a button that said, "I gave my tooth to science."
Dr. Reiss published her findings in Science Magazine in 1961. She found an enormous buildup of radioactive fallout in the treated baby teeth.
Soon after, young Eric Reiss recalls answering the phone at home:
"This is John Kennedy, can I talk to your mom?"
President Kennedy had been closely following the study. He used the results to stop above-ground nuclear testing in the U.S. and to persuade the Soviet Union to do likewise.
Joe Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, has continued testing some of the teeth from the St. Louis study.
The results may help explain why 40 percent of Americans will develop cancer some time in their lives, although many have no known risk factors, he says.
Pretty scary if you ask me.
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