John Wayne Like a lot of other Americans, John Wayne died of cancer. But is there more to this story? In 1955, Wayne was in Utah shooting the film The Conqueror. Across the state line, in Nevada, the United States military was testing atomic bombs.

Radioactive fallout from those tests drifted across the filming location. A total of 46 of the 220 people working on the film eventually died of cancer. Cancer experts estimate that one would expect only about 30 cancer deaths in a group this size.

a) Is the death rate among the movie crew unusually high?

b) Does this prove that exposure to radiation increases the risk of cancer?