WASHINGTON — Dear National Research Council,
Because I live far away, I could not attend your hearing in St. George, Utah, on Monday about whether to expand the compensation program for downwind victims of atomic bomb testing in the '50s and '60s. So I am writing you this open letter.
For 22 years, I have covered "downwinders" — and watched many of them suffer painful deaths, including some close relatives and friends.
Most did not qualify for government compensation because of problems in its formulas but died believing that they were victims. I believe that, too. But, according to the qualification formulas, they lived a few miles in the wrong direction, or lived in the right place at the wrong time, or were too old or young, or had the "wrong" type of illness.
I believe myriad such people nationally should qualify for government compensation. But I also am confident that politics will never allow that. Why? Paying all of them would be too expensive. The country could not afford it.
But that decision is not really facing a special Research Council panel formed by legislation passed by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. He wants it to see if science warrants expanding the compensation program he created in 1990.
Let me offer some reasons why expansion would be fair — which unfortunately are also reasons why politically it likely will never happen.
First, government studies have clearly shown that blasts at the Nevada Test Site scattered radiation in virtually every county in the nation. But only residents in a few counties in southern Utah, Nevada and Arizona now qualify for compensation.
For example, 10 years ago I obtained copies of early radiation maps from the Energy Department. I was astonished to see that the Nevada tests caused radioactive snow in faraway Rochester, N.Y. Scientists at the Kodak photo plant there discovered it because it was fogging film.
So government officials set up some quick monitoring to track radiation after later tests. Quick studies found soon thereafter that radioactive snow fell in Troy, N.Y.; Chicago; Rochester (again); Salt Lake City (twice); and many smaller communities. Obviously, millions of people lived in those areas.
Other studies also showed that heavily populated Salt Lake County — and areas from Idaho to the Midwest and East — were sometimes hit much harder than southern Utah counties. But compensation came only for those lightly populated areas. Hatch said he did what was possible politically — but more victims may have been left out than were included.
That frustrates many who believe they are victims. I can relate to that. My dad died of multiple myeloma — a once rare cancer that has claimed many Utahns I knew (including former Gov. Scott Matheson).
My dad bought a new house in Kearns in Salt Lake County in 1952. I imagine him and many of our neighbors working outside landscaping their new homes during the era of upwind atomic tests, or drinking milk from cows in such areas (milk was a main way radiation entered the food chain). I am amazed at how many of my old Kearns neighbors have died of cancer. Of course, none qualified for compensation.
My dad — and many relatives — also occasionally had helped with a family sheep-shearing business in the West Desert. My uncle Art described how one yellowish fallout cloud produced rain that killed thousands of just-sheared sheep. Most of the sheep-shearers and ranchers that tried to help them later died of cancer, including Art.
They were not full-time residents of eligible counties — so they and their survivors never qualified for compensation. That is another big problem with current formulas.
Again, I don't expect that politics and costs will allow expanding the compensation program much or fairly. But the new panel could offer a worthwhile consolation prize: clear information about what science knows and does not know about where radiation spread and the range of diseases that could have caused.
That might at least help lead to better cancer screening and even save some lives with earlier treatment. While that is less than a perfectly fair solution, it would at least be something for the many victims who have been given virtually nothing so far.
Deseret Morning News Washington correspondent Lee Davidson can be reached by e-mail at lee@desnews.com