What About the Atomic Vets?

What About the Atomic Vets?

TimesUnion.com August 30, 2009  by Don Rittner

“………….When Saratoga’s John Delay was drafted into the army in 1956, at age 19, he thought his time would be spent like most post war GI’s – perform his assigned duties and go back home. What he didn’t know was that he would become a human guinea pig in a series of radiation experiments conducted by the U.S. Government. Many people have compared these experiments to the human atrocities of Germany and Japan during the second war.

It is estimated that at least 250,000 American soldiers were used as human guinea pigs during some 235 atomic tests conducted between 1946 and 1962 in the Marshall Islands* and State of Nevada to assess, among other things, psychological reaction and how soldiers and civilians would react in case of an all out atomic war. Hundreds of unsuspecting civilians became targets of various studies including the ingestion of very toxic plutonium and other materials. In Nevada and the Marshal Islands, soldiers were placed behind sand bags or in trenches not far from a nuclear blast, were forced to walk into ground zero, and even forced to fly their planes into atomic mushroom clouds. Additionally, some 750,000 civilians have been exposed to radionuclide fall-out.

MORE THAN 200 ATOMIC TESTS PERFORMED”,

The human experiments began with the largest “Operation Crossroad” at Bikini Atoll in 1946 (a proposed series of three shots: Abel, Baker and Charlie), exposing over 42,000 men to potential harmful levels of radiation from the Bikini Lagoon. The lagoon became filled with fission products from the second underwater shot, “Baker.”

Dr. Stafford Warren head of the radiology party found that after Abel and Baker, over 120 ships, the whole lagoon, and the island itself were contaminated to dangerous levels of radiation. He cancelled the third “Charlie” shot fearing lawsuits. More than 200 other tests would follow however under 19 different “operations.”……………………

….What is even worse is the roadblocks that have been set up to prevent these survivors from seeking compensation for themselves and their families. In 1984, Senator John W. Warner, a republican from Virginia attached an amendment to a bill that prevented those exposed to radiation, or otherwise injured as the result of working for the nuclear weapons contractors, from suing either the contractor or the U.S. government. The Warner Amendment came at the request of the Reagan Administration and three contractors in atomic weapons tests: The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratories, both in New Mexico. The amendment resulted in the dismissal of a number of lawsuits brought by atomic veterans and civilians employed by the nuclear contractors as well as their widows. Coupled with the Feres Doctrine, a supreme court ruling that bars veterans from seeking damage from the government while on active duty, most of the survivor’s claims have been refused.

What About the Atomic Vets – Don Rittner – timesunion.com – Albany NY

August 31, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, environment, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive | 2 Comments