We have been abandoned by our governments and are being left to bear the cost of toxic radiation exposure alone.
(AP file photo) This July 16, 1945, photo is an aerial view of the aftermath of the first atomic explosion at Trinity Test Site in New Mexico.
Mary Dixon | The Salt Lake Tribune
| May 24, 2024 7:19 pm
| Updated: 7:25 p.m.
A few years ago, before filmmaker Mark Shapiro came to interview me for his film Downwind, about the long shadow of Nevada nuclear testing, I was sitting on the floor of my office, surrounded by piles of articles (some of which I wrote), press clips, studies, obituaries, photographs, etc. I sat among those piles and cried, because after more than 30 years of working to fix the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), nothing had changed for those of us not covered by that law.
In comments to reporters earlier this month, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah suggested that all victims have been compensated. But that is not the case. We have been abandoned by our government and left to bear the costs of toxic radiation exposure alone.
Currently, only 10 counties in Utah and a few in Arizona and Nevada are covered. Salt Lake City, where I grew up, is not covered, even though it received as much fallout as the covered counties in southern Utah. Nor are many other communities in the West, including New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was detonated. Nor is Guam, which suffered fallout from U.S. nuclear tests in the Pacific. Nor is Missouri, where nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project was stored near St. Louis and is still leaching into streams and making people sick. Nor is it covered for uranium miners who worked after 1971, most of them on tribal lands, without protective gear, whose land and water are still contaminated with uranium, making them and their families sick.
I know how heartbreaking it is to be diagnosed with cancer. I know what it's like to watch so many of your loved ones get sick and die. I had thyroid cancer in my late 20s and underwent surgery and radiation. I stood with my family and her children at my older sister's hospital bedside when she passed away at age 46 after a nine-year battle with lupus. Another older sister had to move to the East Coast a few years ago to be treated for a rare form of stomach cancer. My youngest sister has been plagued by an autoimmune disease.
There were so many people in my childhood neighborhood who had cancer and radiation-related illnesses. Many did not survive. I was lucky. I got better. My cousin, who lost her husband to colon cancer, often tells me, “You can move your tragic story forward because your story did not end tragically.” I feel a great responsibility to see that justice is served for all of them.
Last week in Washington, I was able to publicly thank Sen. Ben Ray Luján (R-MO), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (R-MO), Rep. James Moylan (R-GUAM), Rep. Corey Bush (D-MO), and affected community members (some of whom drove all the way from New Mexico at their own expense) for their tireless work to expand RECA and right the injustices of the past. They give me hope and encouragement to move forward, even as my delegation fails to advocate for us, pushing through a two-year extension of RECA, delaying yet another step in doing the right thing, and more people die while they wait.
Even Sen. Mike Lee of Utah acknowledges that affected areas should be targeted, that it is the right thing to do, and that cost should not be the deciding factor. Perhaps feeling pressure from his constituents, Sen. Lee introduced a fast-track bill on Thursday that would require unanimous Senate approval to expand RECA to parts of Utah, New Mexico, and Missouri. This is puzzling, given that the Senate has already passed the much more comprehensive S.3853 with strong bipartisan support. Instead of supporting the existing bill and urging Utahns in the House to do the same, why did he introduce a much more limited bill that was doomed to fail, and it did? The best thing he can do for Utah and our country is to support S.3853.
It's finally time for our government to do the right thing for us. Expanding RECA is not an expense, it's a reimbursement for the costs we've already incurred: hospital bills, sleepless nights, and the loss of loved ones. This is just a fraction of the trillions of dollars this country has spent and will continue to spend on nuclear weapons. Part of the price of nuclear weapons should include caring for those who are harmed by them.
We are victims of the Cold War. Our government knew that the winds of this country would blow eastward, carrying radioactive fallout across the country when they detonated 100 bombs above ground in the Nevada desert. They knew that radiation exposure would make people sick. And yet they poisoned us, causing untold suffering that continues to this day. We paid a terrible price.
Governments have a moral obligation to their people to take steps that they know will cost them their own citizens. The U.S. Senate easily passed S.3853. Now it is up to Speaker Mike Johnson and the House of Representatives to strengthen and expand RECA and right the wrongs of the past before it expires on June 7. The two-year extension proposed by Representatives Celeste Malloy and Burgess Owens in the House is not enough. By supporting S.3853, Utah’s representatives, especially my representative Blake Moore, who wields influence as Vice Chair of the Republican Conference, can make a difference for their constituents and other Americans who have long been harmed and suffered from our government’s nuclear weapons program. We must do more than that.
(Photo by Mary Dixon) Mary Dixon
Mary Dixon is a Salt Lake City-based author and longtime advocate for survivors of nuclear weapons testing. She recently visited Washington, DC, where she met with members of Congress and spoke at a press conference in the Capitol Triangle.
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