Big Idea

• Victims of the Trinity test and Downwinders from Arizona will travel to Washington
• The RAdiation Exposure Compensation Act was intended to provide justice
• Radiation exposure is associated with many deadly conditions
• Our government must take care of the people who got sick because of radiation testing
• Read more...

On Sunday, Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” which tells the story of the development of the atomic bomb and the Trinity test in New Mexico, will compete for Best Picture, among 12 other Oscar nominations. This week, I will be joining victims of the Trinity test, along with Downwinders from Arizona and other states, on a trip to Washington to ask Congress to protect and improve a program that offers cancer screenings and financial assistance to the people sickened by radiation from U.S. nuclear weapons.

This is personal to me. Members of my family have been diagnosed with radiation-linked cancers. For so many of us in Arizona the question is not ‘if’ we will receive a cancer diagnosis, but ‘when?’

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was intended to provide justice for people who lived downwind of U.S. nuclear test sites or worked in toxic uranium mines. But many communities have been left out, from the victims of the very first nuclear weapon test in New Mexico, to Downwinders in Southern Arizona. These communities have never received compensation for damages and medical costs that resulted from exposure to nuclear testing fallout.

Oppenheimer’s Trinity test was just the beginning. Between 1945 and 1962, the U.S. government conducted over 200 above-ground nuclear tests, spreading radiation thousands of miles away from test sites and exposing thousands of people to unsafe levels of radiation.

Since RECA’s creation in 1990, science has expanded our understanding of who was hurt by our nation’s nuclear tests. We know radiation does not stop at county lines, and studies have shown that Downwinders in Southern Arizona received radiation dosages comparable to those already covered by RECA in Northern Arizona. New research from Princeton suggests that radiation from Trinity and the Nevada test sites spread across the United States.

Exposure to radiation from nuclear tests, nuclear waste, and uranium mining is associated with leukemia, lymphoma and several other kinds of cancer, lung disease, kidney disease, autoimmune disorders, and thyroid disease. Atmospheric testing at the Nevada Test Site was estimated to have caused between 11,000 and 212,000 cases of thyroid cancer in the U.S. public.  

RECA has been a lifeline for many Downwinders. It has provided crucial cancer screenings, helped families manage medical bills that would otherwise have left them in massive debt and offered compensation for life-changing illnesses.  It can mean the difference between bankruptcy and financial stability, forgoing treatment or being able to pay for cancer care. 

Downwinders and uranium miners have paid the cost for America’s nuclear arms race with their health and wellbeing. Our government knew the risks: they planned tests on days when the wind was blowing away from the heavily populated West Coast, choosing instead to direct it towards those of us "downwind." But the government failed to warn or protect us. Now our government must take care of the people who got sick because of their actions. Congress must act NOW to protect and improve the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include all of Arizona and other communities sickened by radiation exposure.