Mortality of veteran participants in the CROSSROADS nuclear test.

Operation CROSSROADS, conducted at Bikini Atoll in 1946, was the first post World War II test of nuclear weapons. Mortality experience of 40,000 military veteran participants in CROSSROADS was compared to that of a similar cohort of nonparticipating veterans. All-cause mortality of the participants was slightly increased over nonparticipants by 5% (p < .001). Smaller increases in participant mortality for all malignancies (1.4%, p = 0.26) or leukemia (2.0%, p = 0.9) were not statistically significant. These results do not support a hypothesis that radiation had increased participant cancer mortality over that of nonparticipants.