MAY CAUSE DEFORMITY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 17 December 1947, Page 4

MAY CAUSE DEFORMITY

ATOM BOMB EFFECTS NEW YORK, Nov. 20. Laboratory tests with corn by the California Institute of Technology scientists indicate that radio-activity from the two atom bomb explosions in Japan rhay result in inheritable defects producing human deformities for the next 1000 years. The tests were made with corn grown from seeds exposed to last year's atom bombing at Bikini. One scientist said it was impossible to conduct experiments with humans, but the same biological laws applied to them as to the corn The tests were the first laboratory confirmation of the theory that atomic bomb exposure can lead to inheritable defects. “Affected genes and chromosomes in some Japanese people may result in the birth of morons, cripples and deformed progeny in future generations,” Dr. Ernest Anderson, biologist and professor of genetics, said. “Mutations (changes) did not appear in the first corn plantings, but were of a recessive nature, appearing in the second generation of plants. It is quite possible that these recessive genes will gradually spread throughout Japan, and many years hence, probably not in our lifetime, it would follow that much human deformity would be apparent in offspring in that country.”