By Robert Alvarez

Decades of nuclear weapons tests and other radioactive experiments injured or killed scientists, soldiers, and innocent bystanders. Many of them, and their relatives, have never been compensated, but new efforts may change that. A former Senate staffer and expert on the US nuclear program looks back at its harmful effects, and how the government addressed them—or didn’t.

Congress recently decided not to expand the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include several additional Western states (including Trinity Test downwinders in New Mexico), as well as tribal uranium miners and Missouri residents impacted by contamination from illegal dumping of Manhattan Project wastes. As the empirical evidence of the radiological legacy of the Manhattan Project and the early Cold War grows, the Congressional Budget Office puts the price-tag for the expansion of RECA to include victims not accounted for in earlier legislation at $147 billion over the next 10 years.[1]

Despite the price tag and the recent congressional decision not to expand RECA, the effort to gain compensation for more radiation victims is far from dead—especially with elections looming in less than a year. RECA expansion has received unusual bi-partisan support in Congress, especially from members representing “red states” impacted by the early nuclear weapons program. And cancer victims and their families are well organized and not giving up.

RECA is unique in that it offers an explicit congressional apology and financial restitution for placing Americans into harm’s way without their knowledge or consent. As of May 2022, compensation benefits have been paid out to 30,092 Nevada Test Site downwinders and onsite participants, totaling $1.63 billion. Under RECA, 9,098 uranium miners and process workers who worked up to 1971 have received $974 million in compensation benefits, including health care.[2] In terms of the overall compensation picture, an important element of the story is the Energy Employee Occupational Illness Program Compensation Act of 2000. Under this law, 139,973 nuclear weapons workers have been granted $24.45 billion in compensation.[3]…

https://thebulletin.org/2024/02/the-fallout-never-ended/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter08292024&utm_content=NuclearRisk_FalloutNeverEnded_02012024

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