Politics limit aid for victims of fallout
By Lee Davidson, Deseret News Washington correspondent
Copyright 1998 Deseret News
October 8, 1998
Last in a three-part series
Dr. Joseph Lyon of the University of Utah was aghast as Hanford, Wash.,
activists sought a hefty $75 million for
cancer screening and treatment from a government grant panel.
The compensation was wanted for about 3,000 residents who
lived downwind from a nuclear fuel plant who may face higher risk of thyroid
cancer because of emissions that spread radioactive iodine-131. The number was not in
any way comparable with the thousands of Utahns and other Westerners exposed to
radioactive fallout from nuclear testing in the 1950s.
Of
Hanford's request, Lyon said,
"That's an incredibly expensive program for a few people. But they got it anyway
- at least $5 million for the first year, and the program is expected to last for years to
come."
Meanwhile, Lyon said tens of thousands more people in Utah and other states
were likely hit with higher doses of iodine-131 from atomic bomb tests in
Nevada.
Lyon pointed that out to the Hanford activists. He said they told him simply,
"What you need is a good citizens' group to
force the government to put this kind of money into it." But, of course, the government can't afford that everywhere.
It's just one example of how politics may be more important than science or
justice in how different victims of America's atomic compensation programs are
treated and whether fixing the many disparities is
even possible.
New scientific developments suggest so many people were put at risk by the
Nevada series of tests that it may be politically and economically impossible
to compensate all those who suffered ill effects. That raises questions about
the justice of a 1990 law to compensate
particular ones, mostly in southern Utah.
The most significant such scientific development is a massive National
Cancer Institute study, finished last fall after 14 years of work, concluding that
every county in America experienced iodine-131 fallout from the Nevada bomb
tests.
And
many counties in northern Utah, Idaho, Montana, Iowa, Missouri and elsewhere
were hit with higher doses than some of the relatively few counties where
cancer victims can receive government compensation. The compensation program is
limited to southern Utah, Nevada and Arizona.
"If that study had been available back in 1990,
it (the downwinder compensation law) would never have passed. It would have
simply been too expensive," says a former aide to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Hatch was heavily involved in
negotiations to get the compensation bill through Congress.
He sponsored the law with former Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah. He doesn't go so far as to say legislation would have been
impossible,
but
"It at least wouldn't have been passed as well as it was."
Hatch's ex-aide, who did not want his name used, said the bill - offering $50,000 to some downwinders and $100,000 to atomic
program uranium miners
adversely affected - passed only when compensation was limited to a small group
in a limited area. It was the only way to control costs.
The compensation program has paid out $212.7 million so far to 2,875 people. In comparison, the U.S. government has
paid $1.65 billion to
81,278 Japanese-Americans who were shipped to detention camps during World War
II.
Another 3,133 atomic
cancer applicants have been denied, and thousands more who think they are fallout
victims likely didn't apply, knowing they would be denied by the law's strict
guidelines.
Hatch's ex-aide
said some senators, including former Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, originally
pushed for a far wider program. Metzenbaum wanted to extend coverage everywhere
from Nevada to Ohio and include more
cancers than are now covered.
Others blocked that, largely because of the expense. But when their leader,
former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., was shown a scaled-down plan that would
benefit many Wyoming residents who had been uranium miners, he dropped his
objections and it passed.
Efforts to add other groups came almost before the ink on the new law dried,
and they haven't
stopped since. Within weeks, a rider on another bill altered the law so that
cancer victims who had worked at the Nevada Test Site could also qualify for $75,000.
Janet Gordon, co-chairwoman of the National Committee for
Radiation Survivors, says pockets of
cancer
victims nationwide now are pushing for inclusion because of the National
Cancer Institute study showing they were hit by significant fallout.
On top of that, she says some Utahns, including herself, also are pushing to
change rules that exclude victims who lived a few miles outside of the eligible
boundaries, had
a
"wrong" type of
cancer or another illness or who can't quite meet requirements to prove residency and
medical problems.
Hatch says other recent scientific studies have also shown stronger
relationships between
radiation and some types of
cancer that were not included originally for lack of such evidence. He is
assessing whether changes to the law could be substantiated from the new
evidence.
"Some studies show maybe we should expand coverage to include
cancers of the lung, colon, brain, urinary bladder, salivary gland and male breast," Hatch said.
He said
cancers of the salivary gland and urinary bladder should definitely be added to his
law because they were added
in 1992 to a similar program compensating soldiers ordered to participate in
nuclear tests.
But, Hatch concedes,
"whether budgetary constraints will allow that is the big question." He worries that opening up the law for relatively minor
amendments could
create a rush for money by
so many groups that it could threaten the whole program.
Some, including Hatch's old aide and some House members, say because of such
problems, they doubt any tinkering with the law will or can occur, meaning its
deficiencies will remain.
Meanwhile, some science that might help settle what expansion of the
program is fair just hasn't been conducted yet. For example, scientists have
never directly proven that iodine-131 causes thyroid
cancer nor what dosages may increase risks significantly.
Lyon, whose early fallout studies showing an increase in some
cancers within the fallout area
helped secure passage of Hatch's compensation bill, said he once led a team
that likely could have settled that question. But its funding was cut long ago,
eliminating potential tracking of southern Utahns who had been exposed to
fallout.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, helped secure $3
million in this year's budget to renew such research, thanks to interest
created by the
Cancer Institute study. But government agencies have not yet determined exactly who
will get it for what types of study.
Still, Sens. John Glenn, D-Ohio, and Tom Harkin,
D-Iowa - whose brother died of thyroid
cancer after living in a high fallout area in Iowa - have vowed to ensure that
studies such as Lyon's proceed. Americans deserve to know how much risk they
faced, the congressmen say.
Applauding that is Darlene Phillips of Bountiful, who suffers
rare immune system disease doctors have told her may be related to fallout
exposure.
"If the Russians had dropped a bomb in Nevada, we would have been given
frightening reports about how bad fallout was and how far it spread. But
because they were our own bombs, that has never happened," she said.
Gordon also wishes
more work would be done on how much risk radioisotopes besides iodine-131 may
have posed downwind, and where.
She suspects heavier isotopes, which could have triggered many other types of
cancer, fell out of atomic clouds sooner in areas closer to the point of Nevada
explosions than the lighter iodine-131 studied by the NCI.
If so, that could justify Utahns' claims that they were at higher risk than
others and open the door to keeping the current compensation program in place
for Utahns. It also could help fix problems with the program.
But even many Utah victims figure that other alternatives
may be more fair.
One is St. George lawyer Clayton Huntsman, who has thyroid
cancer but doesn't qualify for compensation because as a child he lived outside of
southern Utah. His family resided in Idaho in a county where, the NCI study
found, fallout was heavy.
While he says extending compensation to such other areas would be fair, it may
not be affordable.
"Maybe they should pay for medical treatment for victims who can't afford it," he says.
Lyon agrees that idea may have merit.
"You could do that by expanding Medicaid" to cover these costs, he said. He adds that
training physicians what to look for in fallout areas may also be cheaper than
setting up the government's own screening and treatment programs.
Dennis Nelson, who grew up in St. George and has many family members who
suffered
cancer, said current forms of compensation may be
overrated.
"Compensation doesn't cover much. It's pocket change for a few months or years." He likes the idea of expanding
cancer research and treatment instead.
Myrna Cox of Glendale, Kane County, who received compensation for
cancer in her small intestine, says,
"I
don't know how you compensate all the people. Maybe even a fund to do
cancer research" would be wise.
Most of those involved say some meaningful steps to benefit all victims should
be done to restore faith in government. As Huntsman said,
"I have a hard time believing our own
government did this to us . . . That kind of arrogance has to be stopped."
Claudia Petersen of St. George, who lost a sister and daughter to
cancer she blames on atomic tests, says,
"We were perfect guinea pigs. . . . The government lied to us, telling us we
faced no danger - and it knew that wasn't true. We
even thought we were lucky to be part of history."
Lyon notes that the NCI estimates that up to 75,000 cases of thyroid
cancer alone may have come from fallout,
"meaning the government may have caused as much
cancer as anyone except maybe the tobacco industry" and has a responsibility to address it.
Hatch said that
despite flaws and whether they can be fixed, the current program is much better
than nothing. It required the government to accept some responsibility and help
many victims.
"Politics is the art of doing what's possible," he said. He adds that he and others had to fight such long odds to get
what
they did that
"maybe in this case, it was even the art of
doing the impossible" - even if it is imperfect.
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