LOS ANGELES, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- American Indians suffered a much higher cancer death rate as a result of contaminated waste of uranium mines during the Cold War, but the U.S. government did little to address the problem, a newspaper report said Sunday.

    Uranium mines left contaminated waste scattered around the Indians whose homes were built with the material that silently pulsed with radiation, the Los Angeles Times reported.

    The cancer death rate on the Indian reservation - historically much lower than that of the general U.S. population - doubled from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, the paper quoted Indian Health Service data as saying. The overall U.S. cancer death rate declined slightly over the same period.

    Though no definitive link has been established, researchers say exposure to mining byproducts in the soil, air and water almost certainly contributed to the increase in Navajo cancer mortality.

    "The government has never conducted a comprehensive study of the health effects of uranium mining on the reservation," said the paper. "But individual scientists working on their own have documented sharply elevated cancer rates near old mines and mills.High concentrations of uranium, arsenic and other heavy metals have been found in one out of five drinking-water sources sampled."

    Particularly toxic were the "hot" houses built with radioactive debris, said the paper.

    From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted from the mountains and plains. The mines provided uranium for the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb, and for the weapons stockpile built up during the arms race with the then Soviet Union, according to the paper.

    The U.S. government was the "sole customer" of all the uranium produced there by private companies.

    The boom lasted through the early '60s. As the Cold War threat gradually diminished over the next two decades, more than 1,000 mines and four processing mills on tribal land shut down.

    "The companies often left behind radioactive waste piles and open tunnels and pits. Few bothered to fence the properties or post warning signs. Federal inspectors seldom intervened," said the paper.

    Over the decades, Navajos inhaled radioactive dust from the waste piles, borne aloft by fierce desert winds. They drank contaminated water from abandoned pit mines that filled with rain. They watered their herds there, then butchered the animals and ate the meat. Their children dug caves in piles of mill tailings and played in the spent mines.

    "Today, there is no talk of cancer immunity in the Navajos," said the paper.