Joseph Mangano, executive director of the group, the Radiation and Public Health Project, said the legacy of the study should not be overlooked.

“It was a factor in speeding the test ban treaty, which to this day was one of the great environmental treaties in history,” he said. “It sort of started the world on the path from inevitable nuclear war and disaster to disarmament.”

The idea for the study was hatched in the mid-1950s during the build up of the Cold War. By then, the U.S. and Soviet Union had tested hundreds of nuclear weapons. Prevailing winds carried the radioactive debris from the U.S. tests, many of which were conducted in the desert regions of the West, to St. Louis and farther east.

As the Baby Tooth Survey later proved, strontium 90 was ending up in pastures and fields, in grass consumed by goats and cows. It worked its way up the food chain into children’s milk. And because the chemistry of strontium 90 is similar to calcium, it was taken up by bones and teeth.

A group of prominent St. Louis scientists and physicians was concerned about the effects of radioactive fallout from the tests. They lectured to groups across the city, informing the public about isotopes and half-lives, and later formed the Citizens Committee for Nuclear Information.