The Baby Tooth Survey was initiated by the Greater St. Louis Citizens' Committee for Nuclear Information in conjunction with

Saint Louis University Saint Louis University (SLU) is a private Jesuit research university with campuses in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, and Madrid, Spain. Founded in 1818 by Louis William Valentine DuBourg, it is the oldest university west of the Mississip ...

and the

Washington University School of Dental Medicine The Washington University School of Dental Medicine (WUSDM) was the dental school of Washington University in St. Louis. It operated from 1866 to 1991. Over 5,000 dentists were educated at WUSDM. WUSDM was a pioneer in Harvard School of Dental Medi ...

as a means of determining the effects of

nuclear fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

in the human anatomy by examining the levels of radioactive material absorbed into the

deciduous teeth Deciduous teeth or primary teeth, also informally known as baby teeth, milk teeth, or temporary teeth,Illustrated Dental Embryology, Histology, and Anatomy, Bath-Balogh and Fehrenbach, Elsevier, 2011, page 255 are the first set of teeth in the ...

of children. Founded by the husband and wife team of physicians Eric and

Louise Reiss Louise Marie Zibold Reiss (February 23, 1920 – January 1, 2011) was an American physician who coordinated what became known as the Baby Tooth Survey, in which deciduous teeth from children living in the St. Louis, Missouri, area who were bor ...

, along with other scientists such as

Barry Commoner Barry Commoner (May 28, 1917 – September 30, 2012) was an American cellular biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He was the director of the ...

and

Ursula Franklin Ursula Martius Franklin (16 September 1921 – 22 July 2016) was a German-Canadian metallurgist, research physicist, author, and educator who taught at the University of Toronto for more than 40 years.Lumley, Elizabeth (editor) (2008), ''Canadi ...

, the research focused on detecting the presence of

strontium-90 Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and i ...

, a cancer-causing radioactive isotope created by the more than 400 atomic tests conducted above ground that is absorbed from water and dairy products into the bones and teeth given its chemical similarity to

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...

. The team sent collection forms to schools in the

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

area, hoping to gather 50,000 teeth each year. The school-aged children were encouraged to mail in their newly lost baby teeth by colorful posters displayed in classrooms, and the reward of a colorful

button A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, ...

. Ultimately over 320,000 teeth were donated by children of various ages. The project was ended in 1970. Preliminary results published by the team in the November 24, 1961, edition of the journal ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'' showed that levels of

strontium 90 Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and i ...

in children had risen steadily in children born in the 1950s, with those born later showing the most increased levels. The results of a more comprehensive study of the elements found in the teeth collected showed that children born in 1963 had levels of

in their baby teeth that were 50 times higher than those found in children born in 1950, before the advent of large-scale atomic testing. The findings helped convince U.S. President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

to sign the

Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted ...

with the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, which ended the above-ground

nuclear weapons testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, Nuclear weapon yield, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detona ...

that placed the greatest amounts of

into the atmosphere.Hevesi, Dennis
"Dr. Louise Reiss, Who Helped Ban Atomic Testing, Dies at 90"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', January 10, 2011. Accessed January 10, 2011.

Background

According to Irish scientist

Kathleen Lonsdale Dame Kathleen Lonsdale ( Yardley; 28 January 1903 – 1 April 1971) was an Irish-born British pacifist, prison reformer and crystallographer. She proved, in 1929, that the benzene ring is flat by using X-ray diffraction methods to elucidate t ...

, in the mid-1950s or earlier it was known that strontium 90 is taken up particularly easily by children, that it causes bone tumors, and that "according to the British and American official reports, some children in both countries have already accumulated a measurable amount of radioactive strontium in their bodies."

Follow-up analysis

A set of 85,000 teeth that had been uncovered in storage in 2001 by Washington University were given to the

Radiation and Public Health Project Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization founded in 1985 by Jay M. Gould, a statistician and epidemiologist, Benjamin A. Goldman, and Ernest Sternglass. The "shoestring organization" with " ...

. By tracking 3,000 individuals who had participated in the tooth-collection project, the RPHP published results that showed that the 12 children who later died of cancer before the age of 50 had levels of

in their stored baby teeth that were twice the levels of those who were still alive at 50. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that these finding are seriously flawed and that the Radiation and Public Health Project has not followed good scientific practice in the conducting of these studies, in particular confusing correlation for causation and incorrectly conflating risk from nuclear weapon testing fallout with radiation from nuclear power plants.

Related projects

The Baby Tooth Survey inspired a number of similar initiatives in other parts of the world. For example, what became known as the Tooth Fairy Project was developed in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

by Dr.

Anthony Turton Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton ...

and his team at the

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is South Africa's central and premier scientific research and development organisation. It was established by an act of parliament in 1945 and is situated on its own campus in the cit ...

(CSIR) in order to determine whether human health impacts arising from radioactivity and heavy metal pollution downstream from gold mining activities, driven by

acid mine drainage Acid mine drainage, acid and metalliferous drainage (AMD), or acid rock drainage (ARD) is the outflow of acidic water from metal mines or coal mines. Acid rock drainage occurs naturally within some environments as part of the rock weathering ...

, was occurring. A number of related studies by the

assert that levels of radioactive strontium-90 (Sr-90) are rising in the environment and that these increased levels are responsible for increases in cancers, particularly cancers in children, and infant mortality. The group also made the claim that radioactive effluents from nuclear power plants are directly responsible for the increases in Sr-90. In one study, researchers reported that Sr-90 concentrations in baby teeth are higher in areas around nuclear power plants than in other areas. However, numerous peer-reviewed, scientific studies do not substantiate such claims. This has also sometimes been referred to as “The Tooth Fairy Project.”

Similar baby tooth studies

In early 1970s

Herbert Needleman Herbert Leroy Needleman (December 13, 1927 – July 18, 2017) researched the neurodevelopmental damage caused by lead poisoning. He was a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, researcher and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, an elected me ...

used baby teeth in the same way that Barry Commoner did but for testing

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

levels instead of strontium-90. Dr.

Mona Hanna-Attisha Mona Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician, professor, and public health advocate whose research exposed the Flint water crisis. She is the author of the 2018 book ''What the Eyes Don't See'', which ''The New York Times'' named as one of the 100 most ...

, a pediatrician who helped expose the Flint Water Crisis, has been promoting a similar study to track lead levels in the local children. Per the news coverage, "She expects the forthcoming report to include information on the initial results of brain assessments of children exposed to Flint water and early results of testing baby teeth of Flint children to measure their exposure to lead."

References

{{Reflist Radiation health effects research Research projects Research in the United States Saint Louis University Washington University in St. Louis Surveys (human research) Teeth