Project 2025 looks to resume nuclear testing that had deadly fallout for Utahns
As a clean air and public health advocacy group, hearing of plans to resume nuclear testing, which previously had such devastating consequences for Utahns, is a nightmare come true. The government was pressured to funnel over 2.5 billion dollars to victims of testing in Nevada which didn’t end until the 90’s through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).
RECA expired in June of this year, leaving victims of the government’s reckless and incessant testing out to dry. The bill, which not only resumed but expanded coverage, passed the Senate but hasn’t been put to a vote by House Speaker Mike Johnson (202-225-2777).
We already have the research showing millions of Americans were exposed to various types of cancer linked to the testing.
James Rice, a sociology professor and author on nuclear testing fallout, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “St. George accounts for one-fifth of the cumulative external gamma radiation exposure imposed nationwide upon the public. It’s pretty clear that St George was probably the hardest-hit community in the United States between 1951 and 1962.” He also said that it took its biggest hit from “shot Harry,” a 32-kiloton nuclear bomb — more than double that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II — detonated in Nevada on May 19, 1953.
“As Harry swept through St. George and outlying areas, some residents noted a strange metallic taste in the air, the remnants, ostensibly, of the tower and metal shed which had housed the device,” Rice continued. “There were scattered reports of nausea, headache, and burns on exposed skin, indicative of radiation sickness.”
Resuming testing would have undeniable consequences for “downwinders,” like those in the fast growing southwest community of Utah. UPHE’s co-founder and president identifies with the downwinder community, living through the testing and eventually developing cancer along with many others in his family and community. He had an excellent op-ed on the importance of RECA, and was featured in a recent film on the impacts of the testing, called “Downwind.”
Read the Salt Lake Tribune coverage.
Dr. Moench’s op-ed on RECA ↓↓↓