The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have stopped funding for a study that was investigating the relationship between radioactive fallout and thyroid disease in people who lived at risk of exposure to fallout from Nevada's atomic bomb tests of the 1950s and early 1960s. Only $8 million had been spent on the study when the CDC cancelled funding. There have been conflicting results of previous studies, with some showing no connection between fallout and cancer, and others showing increased disease, especially among people exposed as children. CDC spokesman John Florence told the Deseret Morning News: "CDC does not have the financial resources available to continue the project...It's a funding issue."

Study head Dr. Joseph L. Lyon, has said that he feels the federal government does not want to know about health effects of fallout on American citizens. "That's the only interpretation I can place on it," he said.

In studies that began in the 1960s, federal researchers concluded that fallout had not increased disease, but Lyon's studies, beginning in 1977, concluded that fallout did cause increased incidence of cancer.