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Atomic testing must not resume

By Linda Pentz Gunter, Nov 5, 2025

“We were used as guinea pigs”. Nuclear test victims bear witness in new book, No To Nuclear.
President Trump’s sudden and confusing announcement last week that the US would resume atomic testing (it won’t) because other countries are doing it (none are) brought back the horrors of what nuclear testing actually means. Just ask those who lived through the 2,000+ atomic tests conducted in the Cold War, whether innocent civilians on the ground or the military personnel forced to witness or conduct the tests and clean up afterwards.


All of them are paying the price with their health. Many are even seeing birth defects in their children and grandchildren, caused by their own exposures decades ago.


In my forthcoming book to be published in March 2026 by Pluto Press — No to Nuclear: Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress and Provokes War — I look at the effects of those atomic tests on real lives. The human suffering is intense. Their stories alone should be enough to put an end to nuclear weapons altogether.

Why are nuclear weapons discussed in a book about nuclear power? Because the materials and technology needed for a nuclear power program provide a direct pathway to nuclear weapons production. And because the source of both nuclear power and nuclear weapons is uranium. 

Uranium mining is the beginning of the tragic story of the deadly harm to human health from the entire nuclear sector. Atomic testing (which is effectively using nuclear weapons) is the catastrophic last chapter. As I write in my book: “Fallout from atomic tests has likely contributed to an increase in cancers and other maladies among humans and has poisoned animal and plant life in perpetuity as well.”

This is something no one should contemplate repeating. As one of the atomic veterans I quote says: “We were used as guinea pigs — every one of us.” So were the people whose atolls were blown to smithereens in the Pacific. And so were the people of the United States. As Mary Dickson, a Nevada Test Site downwinder where 928 atomic tests were conducted, asks: “What kind of government poisons its own people?


My book focuses on the human stories, taking us out of the abstract and into the real lived experiences of everyone along the uranium fuel chain. You can pre-order a copy here. And if you’d like to set up a webinar with me either pre- or post-publication, please get in touch by emailing linda@beyondnuclear.org https://www.plutobooks.com/product/no-to-nuclear/

November 7, 2025 - Posted by | Uncategorized

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