Having been quite close to my grandmother and having lived with her for most of my childhood, the speed and suddenness of her death left me with questions. Did something cause her cancer? How did the cancer come on so quickly? Unfortunately, I learned that my grandmother's cancer was not merely bad luck. Instead, my grandmother's cancer was caused by where she was born and raised.
Starting in 1945 and ending in 1962, the United States government detonated approximately one hundred above-ground nuclear bombs at a testing site in Nye County, Nevada. The government agency overseeing the detonations, the Atomic Energy Commission (The Commission), promised residents in the "fallout zone" that the testing was safe. One resident recalled her school teachers leading their class outside, watching the "orange shroud spread across the sky," "the clouds coming over our town and writing our names in the dust."
Soon after the detonations began, animal birth rates plummeted, and those born often survived only months before succumbing to illness or congenital disabilities. Responding to the alarm, The Commission investigated these occurrences and their connection to the detonations. In fact, in 1957, the Commission allegedly conducted thousands of tests and reports studying the effects of the nuclear fallout on those living within the nuclear fallout zone. Summarizing their findings, The Commission affirmed, "Simply stated, all such findings have confirmed that Nevada test fallout has not caused illness or injured the health of anyone living near the test site."
However, The Commission knew that their reassurances were lies. Declassified reports show that the scientists at the time had reported the deadly effects of nuclear fallout on humans, but The Commission ignored and suppressed that information. Some "downwinders," those living in nuclear fallout zones, recalled doctors coming into their classrooms when they were children, examining their thyroids, and passing out potassium iodide pills to combat the effects of radiation. For The Commission, sacrificing some lives was reasonable to save costs on testing in more remote areas.
Congress passed legislation in 1990 to provide relief to those affected by their actions of nuclear testing. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expanded in 2000 to include "downwinders" as qualifying for compensation. To be eligible for compensation as a "downwinder," individuals had to prove 1) they were within one of the specified counties during the time of nuclear testing and 2) they contracted one of three specified cancers in one of sixteen enumerated organs. What amount did the government feel appropriate to compensate victims they had knowingly given cancer? $50,000.
Additionally, the RECA provided $75,000 in compensation to individuals working on-site at the detonation facility and $100,000 to minors of the uranium used in the bombs. Arguably, those individuals had a better understanding of the potential dangers of their involvement, yet they were compensated more than the downwinders who were intentionally lied to about the dangers?
Seemingly, the government did not equally value the downwinder's lives. As one downwinder put it, perhaps the government thought the downwinders "were Mormons and cowboys and Indians--who cares? "Speaking of nuclear testing, other downwinders commented that the government "test[s] where they think there are populations that don't matter." Do we value life differently depending on where that life happens to live? Even if we reject that proposition, we must reconcile that rejection with the numerous instances where rural lives are expendable in pursuing "higher" causes.
My grandmother was an incredible person. Her life, and thousands of others, were sacrificed to reduce operating costs--not science that could save lives. Are we now a society that condones harming and killing if the cost-benefit analysis weighs towards the benefit? Is life only worth $50,000?
2 comments:
I am terribly sorry to hear about your grandmother. This is a fantastic post, and shows how easily the government can devalue the life of its citizens and can do so perhaps easily in rural communities (that by definition have less people and thus less political leverage at larger government institutions). This reminds me of inadequate automatic payments for wrongful convictions, and how the army was found not to be liable in United States v. Stanley for having given a soldier LSD without his knowledge as part of experimentation. We need, I think, to have leaders that continue to push for retroactive justice, as well as proactive protection of citizen's life and liberty.
How terrible about your grandmother - I am very sorry for your loss. Your post resonates with my interest in environmental law and land use decisions, because there is a clear environmental justice concern related to what happened to your grandmother's community.
In answer to your question, I think that we certainly value life differently depending on where it is located. Governments might construe decisions to build a pipeline or a refinery, or to conduct nuclear testing in rural areas as primarily based on safety concerns, but there is usually an economic component as well. The land and construction costs in a rural area will be significantly lower than in an urban or suburban one, and the potential for a lawsuit from local citizens, thereby raising the cost of construction or delaying the project, is much lower. The political cost is also lower as well, as there is less likely to be awareness or a strong opposition movement in more geographically dispersed and/or less wealthy area. And, as you point out accurately in your post, this political and economic pressure can lead to lower penalties or costs of repayment following a catastrophic impact on the local population.
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