An important July 2026 scientific report examines how radiation from nuclear weapons production and testing can affect human health—and why cancer may be only part of the story.

Rocky Flats Downwinders is seeking independent researchers in epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, research methodology, health policy and public-health communication to evaluate both CDPHE's Rocky Flats cancer studies and how their findings have been communicated. The objective is not to predetermine whether Rocky Flats caused disease. It is to determine what the existing evidence can—and cannot—establish and ensure that Colorado communicates those distinctions

Existing cancer-registry studies provide useful information about people diagnosed while living near Rocky Flats—but that is not the same as following the people who lived there during historically relevant periods. RFD is advocating for independent research that considers residential history, migration, latency, exposure-informed geography and long-term health outcomes.

Rocky Flats Downwinders is launching the Truth & Transparency Campaign to ask Colorado for clearer disclosure about what existing Rocky Flats cancer studies can—and cannot—tell us, greater data transparency, independent technical review, and research designed to address the health experiences of people who actually lived near Rocky Flats during historically relevant periods.

The Union of Concerned Scientists explains how ionizing radiation can affect the body immediately or contribute to illnesses that emerge years later. Learn why this research matters to communities connected to the nuclear-weapons life cycle, including Rocky Flats.

Colorado has monitored cancer incidence around Rocky Flats for decades, but an exchange with the state's cancer registry raises an important methodological question: Can data based largely on where people live when diagnosed adequately evaluate a community defined by where people may have lived and been exposed decades earlier?

CDPHE's Rocky Flats Historical Public Exposures Studies reconstructed radioactive and chemical releases, modeled potential exposures, and estimated cancer risks. But the research was federally funded, relied on incomplete historical records and hypothetical exposure scenarios, and did not follow the actual long-term health outcomes of Downwinders. We examine its findings, limitations, funding, and influential recommendation against further epidemiological studies.