nuclear-news

Elizabeth Butler: I’m proof that relaxing radiation exposure standards is a bad idea https://madison.com/ct/opinion/mailbag/elizabeth-butler-i-m-proof-that-relaxing-radiation-exposure-standards/article_d3e824a7-2108-54Dear Editor: I am a child of a nuclear worker at Oak Ridge National Laboratory who grew up there in the 1960s. I have, currently, five diagnoses of autoimmune diseases. These include multiple sclerosis, lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, Epstein-Barr syndrome, and skin issues. It is believed this is a result of my exposures to low-level radiation and other chemicals and heavy metals.My sister and my mother both have had similar outcomes. My father died of his exposures from ALS — Lou Gehrig’s disease. Researchers in Madison during the 1990s determined that Chernobyl victims were having the exact same results from their exposures to the radioactive fallout in their region, and documented this. They were not allowed to document the issue as well in the USA, where it was covered up, but there are reports — most of which were taken down from the internet when Trump took over and the EPA went under his control. Hazel O’Leary had put all the documentation for researchers online during the Clinton administration, and this basically saved my life as I could then prove my issues and get treatment. Before that I could not.

Do not allow the EPA to relax radiation exposure standards. The children, of those of us who managed to have them, had a much higher prevalence than normal of birth defects. Relaxing standards won’t just hurt the current workers, it would hurt their children and their children’s children. It would move through generations as half-lives are a very long time. Use me — I will testify to my family’s experience and my own. Don’t let other people suffer the way my family has.