Suffering Effects of 50's A-Bomb Tests

[Guest guest]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/national/05nuke.html?th

 

Suffering Effects of 50's A-Bomb Tests

By SARAH KERSHAW

 

Published: September 5, 2004

 

EMMETT, Idaho, Aug. 31 - In the 1950's and early

1960's, at the height of the cold war, people in this

southwestern Idaho town thought what they occasionally

saw dusting their fruit orchards and cow pastures was

frost - only it was not cold to the touch, several

longtime residents said. Others described it as a

gray-white powder that seemed to come out of nowhere.

 

The residents of this town of dairy and cattle farmers

did not know it then, but half a century ago, northern

winds blew radioactive fallout into southeastern Idaho

when the federal government set off about 90 nuclear

bombs at its Nevada test site near Las Vegas.

 

There is not any doubt that Emmett, population 5,500,

and other towns in four Idaho counties were exposed to

high levels of radiation from the open-air atomic bomb

blasts, receiving among the highest doses of a

radioactive chemical that has been linked to increased

risk for thyroid cancer. The National Cancer Institute

in 1997 released a detailed study and a map plotting

the locations of the fallout across the country,

ranking concentrations of Radioactive Iodine-131, an

isotope released when a nuclear bomb is detonated,

from Nevada to upstate New York. The study put the

four Idaho counties - Gem County, which includes

Emmett; Lemhi; Blaine; and Custer - and one in Montana

at the top of that list.

 

But few Emmett residents heard about that study,

dozens said in recent interviews. Even as sick

residents of other Western states received

compensation from the government, the question of how

Idahoans may have been affected by the nuclear tests

received little attention. But now a furor has erupted

here and elsewhere in Idaho, set off by one Emmett

native, who survived thyroid cancer but is dying of

breast cancer that has spread to her liver and her

bones.

 

The native, Sheri Garman, 52, who now lives in

Vancouver, Wash., wrote a long letter to an Idaho

state legislator - a high school classmate - after

learning that the National Academy of Sciences, at the

request of the federal government, is currently

re-evaluating the extent of the fallout from the

Nevada test site and its connection to other cancers

and diseases besides thyroid cancer.

 

The academy's Board on Radiation Effects Research has

held three hearings on the matter over the last year,

two in Utah, including one on July 29, and one in

Arizona.

 

" I think Idahoans were severely misled on the

seriousness of the situation, " Ms. Garman wrote on

July 14 to Kathy Skippen, a state representative from

Gem County. " It's not just thyroid cancer. It's not

insignificant. It's deadly, expensive and it is

known. "

 

Like many Emmett residents, Ms. Garman grew up on a

dairy farm, drinking fresh milk. Children of her

generation living in places like Emmett, where the

1997 cancer institute study showed residents had

received large doses of Radioactive Iodine-131, are at

greater risk for developing thyroid cancer because the

cows ingested contaminated grass.

 

The study, of 3,071 counties, concluded the fallout

caused or would eventually cause tens of thousands of

cases of thyroid cancer. Radiation from fallout is

measured in rads; one rad is equivalent to the amount

of radiation absorbed by the thyroid of a person who

has 10 X-rays in the neck area. Residents of the four

Idaho counties, the study said, received average

thyroid doses of 12 to 16 rads, but the dose to some

children may have been as high as 100 rads.

 

Idaho officials, including Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, then

a United States senator, responded to the study by

calling the situation an " outrage " and demanding

further investigation. At the time Mr. Kempthorne also

asked that Idaho be included in a government

compensation program that now provides $50,000 each to

residents of 21 counties in Utah, Nevada and Arizona

whose illnesses have been diagnosed with any of 19

cancers. But Idaho residents were not included in the

compensation program, which has thus far paid $780

million to other " down winders " exposed to radiation

during the bomb tests as well as employees at the

weapons testing sites and uranium mine and mill

workers.

 

" What we need now, " Ms. Garman said in a telephone

interview, " is to get public hearings in Idaho. We

need our politicians to be our watchdogs. We're too

sick, and we're not all going to be there when this

happens. "

 

Critics say that Governor Kempthorne and other

officials, after initially expressing concern, have

ignored the public health threat to Idaho residents.

Nuclear watchdog groups have also questioned whether

the officials' reluctance to press the issue was

intended to protect Idaho's nuclear power industry, a

major employer in the state, or because they supported

the idea of resuming nuclear testing, as was proposed

in a Pentagon report in 2002. State officials denied

such motivations.

 

The controversy prompted Mr. Kempthorne and Senator

Larry E. Craig, both Republicans, to take the unusual

step of defending themselves two weeks ago on the

editorial pages of the state's largest newspaper, The

Idaho Statesman.

 

The governor, in an article published on Aug. 18,

said, " I urge anyone with a story to tell to come

forward. "

 

But he also cited a 1998 study by the Cancer Data

Registry of Idaho that found an increasing rate of

thyroid cancer in Blaine and Custer Counties, but was

unable to attribute the rising rates to a specific

cause.

 

Asked why the governor had waited until now to urge

Idaho residents to come forward if they suspected

fallout had made them sick, a spokesman for Mr.

Kempthorne, Mike Journee, said that the governor was

waiting for concrete proof. He said the governor would

support compensation for Idahoans if there were

evidence " comparable to the evidence that was used to

compensate folks in Utah. "

 

Yet when the compensation program was amended in 2000

at the urging of Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah to

include more counties in his state and in Arizona,

Utah officials had the same scientific information-

the 1997 Cancer Institute study - available to them as

Idaho officials did. Utah officials cited testimony of

residents from Utah and Arizona that was made

available to Mr. Hatch's office as a rationale for

including five more counties in those two states.

 

Senator Hatch, a Republican, wrote the original 1990

law that mandated compensation, known as the Radiation

Exposure Compensation Act; the payments are

administered by the Justice Department.

 

Mr. Journee said that Utah residents had been more

vocal about their illnesses than Idahoans had.

 

" They were engaged, " he said. " The reason folks down

in Utah got compensation is that they told their

stories. That's what the governor wants the people of

Idaho to do. "

 

[On Friday, Mr. Kempthorne wrote in a letter to the

National Academy of Sciences board studying the issue,

" I call upon the board to compare exposure information

for Idaho with the areas currently included " in the

compensation program. " Fairness, " he wrote, " must

recognize the human faces behind cold, and often

inconclusive studies and statistics. " ]

 

Here in Emmett, residents have spent the last several

days making lists of relatives and neighbors - living

and dead - with cancer. They have rushed to a local

bakery, aptly named the Rumor Mill, where the owner,

Tona Henderson, has produced a form letter of her own

that residents can fill out and send to the National

Academy of Sciences.

 

A committee of the academy is taking public comment

for a study on nuclear fallout and public health to be

submitted to the Department of Health and Human

Services, said Bill Kearney, a spokesman for the

academy. While many scientists and medical experts

have said there is a connection between exposure to

Iodine-131 and greater risk of thyroid disease and

thyroid cancer, a link between the fallout and other

diseases has not been established.

 

Still, in Emmett, dozens of residents have gathered in

coffee shops and farmhouses to talk about cancer. Many

furiously said they suspected their radiation exposure

was connected to their cancers.

 

" This whole thing is wrong, " said Richard Rynearson,

62, who is dying of colon and liver cancer, and who

ran a heating and air-conditioning business until he

became too sick to work. " Somebody needs to own up to

the fact that they messed up. "

 

Mr. Rynearson, who recalled seeing that strange gray

dust on the dairy farm where he grew up, said he first

learned of the nuclear fallout last week.

 

" I always thought maybe there was something wrong in

this valley, " he said. " But I would have liked to have

known 10 years ago if we had this problem. Maybe I

could have gotten checked out. "