The article says they argued that disposing of the milk would cause malnutrition. An obvious conclusion would be that they thought the risks from the contamination were smaller than the risks of malnutrition. They may well have known of some risks but not understood the magnitude.<p>When was it understood that radioactive iodine caused thyroid cancer, and that it could be mitigated by using iodine supplements? I couldn&#x27;t find any info on exactly when that whole chain was put together (not that I tried super hard).