Downwinders of Nevada Test Site nuclear fallout

Who are the downwinders?

"A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE “DOWNWINDERS”

Following World War II, the United States exploded atomic weapons at the Pacific islands of Bikini and Eniwetok; and in December 1950, President Truman authorized the Atomic Energy Commission (“AEC”) to conduct tests within the continental United States. The AEC selected the Nevada Test Site in southeastern Nevada because the federal government owned hundreds of square miles of surrounding desert land, and because it contained, in the contemptuous words of one bureaucrat, “a low-use segment of the population” – the Mormon citizens of St. George, Cedar City and other sacrificial cities of southwestern Utah.

For seven years between 1951 and 1958, the AEC aimed deadly radiation at soldiers positioned as close as 3.9 miles from the explosions and at the people of southeastern Nevada, northwestern Arizona and southern Utah by detonating atomic weapons above ground at the Nevada test site. After the United States ratified a Limited Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union in August 1963, the AEC continued to conduct underground tests, many of which erupted through the surface to again blanket citizens from those states with radioactive debris.

As evidence mounted of the deadly poisons these tests rained radioactive fallout on the people of Utah, Nevada and Arizona. AEC officials induced their employees to lie about the danger. After establishing a ground-monitoring program in the spring of 1953, the AEC conducted a series of test in the Upshot-Knothole series. In one of these tests – nicknamed “Dirty Harry” – a radioactive cloud lofted by the explosion hovered over St. George, Utah for more than two hours. Fallout reached levels far above those considered safe even by conservative AEC standards. Never the less, in an immoral cover-up justified by a twisted appeal to national security, the AEC instructed its employees to release vague statements to the public and press. When humans and animals began dying, and AEC official told subordinates to keep quiet, “in the interest of national defense.” Following this directive, AEC officials falsified data from the St. George monitoring station to make it appear that the radiation could not have harmed anyone.

In the years that followed the testing, AEC officials suppressed medical studies that showed an increased incidence of leukemia and cancer from exposure to atomic radiation. The, in addition to easing out scientists who refused to lie for them, AEC officials brought in “hired guns” – scientists motivated by a federal paycheck, personal loyalty and patriotism – to prostitute themselves, like those hired by the tobacco industry, by commenting negatively on studies that showed links between atomic fallout and leukemia and cancer."

http://www.mohavedownwinders.com/history.htm

What follows the nuclear testing of NTS is an increased rate of cancer in the residents living downwind of the NTS. The Western Shoshone call the land claimed by the NTS Newe Sogobia, their home for thousands of years. The Treaty of Ruby Valley was violated by the US military who illegally occupies and bombs Shoshone land to this day..

"Following this principle, the Western Shoshone Nation’s long possession of Newe Sogobia for thousands of years prior to the existence of the United States excludes the U.S. claim to that country. The Treaty of Ruby Valley recognizes this principle.

A treaty, within the constitutional framework of the United States, is "the supreme law of the land." The Treaty of Ruby Valley, therefore, is a shield to protect and safeguard the homeland of the Western Shoshone."

http://www.wsdp.org/press/2002-03-18_2.htm

Most of the territory Newe Sogobia is currently under US military occupation. Bombing and other ecological disasters are frequent in this land from military training activites..

Treaty of Ruby Valley -1863

http://www.angelfire.com/nv2/wells/treaty.html

"When the continued presence of radiation is imposed on an ecosystem, both human residents and wildlife are adversely effected. Another similar situation is witnessed in Iraq following the continued use of depleted uranium by the US military. Both Iraqi civilians and US soldiers show greater risks of cancer from exposure to radioactive D-U fragments. A condition known as hydrocephalus is witnessed in children born in Iraq, most likely either exposed to D-U while in the womb or from the genetic mutations of parents from earlier exposure..

In the areas where depleted uranium was used in Southern Iraq, a number of serious health problems have emerged among both soldiers and civilians.
For instance, there has been a 66% increase in leukaemias and cancers in Southern Iraq. There has also been a marked increase in the numbers of children born with birth malformations, with horrific reports of 3 children in one family being born with severe congenital malformations.
Maggie O'Kane, Felicity Arbuthnot, and journalists working with Desert Concerns, have all reported on the health crisis in Southern Iraq. The former reported a Dr Zenad Mohammed, from a hospital in Basra, herself pregnant, who was so terrified of giving birth to a severely malformed child, that she was doing her own monitoring of the problem. Her notes begin "In August we had three babies born with no head. Four had abnormally large heads. In September we had six with no heads, none with large heads and two with short limbs. In October, one with no head, four with big heads and four with deformed limbs or other types of deformities."



Severe case of hydrocephalus with defects of the cerebral nerves and debility, seen in Southern Iraq
Photo: Siegwart-Horst Günthor

There are also large numbers of soldiers who served in the Gulf with Allied forces and in the Iraqi army, who are now suffering from mysterious illnesses - often referred to as Gulf War syndrome. Many of these illnesses reflect those seen among Iraqi children and civilians. For example, of the 697,000 US troops who served in the Gulf, over 90,000 have reported medical problems. Symptoms include respiratory, liver, and kidney dysfunction, memory loss, headaches, fever, low blood pressure. There are also defects reported among their newborn children. In a veterans community in Mississippi, 67% of the children were born with malformations.

UK and US Gulf War veterans have tested positive for depleted uranium poisoning, although the governments of both countries have at every turn denied proper independent testing for all veterans.

For more information on depleted uranium and Gulf War Veterans see the National Gulf War Resource Centre's information at;"

http://www.ngwrc.org/Dulink/du_link.htm

or the

Military Toxics Project: http://www.miltoxproj.org


CADU - Campaign Against Depleted Uranium

http://www.cadu.org.uk/info/iraq/7_1.htm

During the 50's the Dept of Energy and the military at Nevada Test Site were very concerned about public opinion of the nuclear weapons testing. People were unaware that the Shoshone were also living downwind of the tests, there was little media coverage during the height of the Cold War and the McCarthy crusades against the "hidden menace of communism". Any media coverage about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy was positive and upbeat. Cancer, leukemia and other "bad words" were censored from the media and the public eye. As a result many of the downwinders born with cancer or hydrocephalus were kept hidden from view by the NTS and DOE. The downwinders were made to feel ashamed and personally responsible when they cried out in anguish at their deformed children and the lack of government concern. It would not be surprising if during the Red Scare and McCarthy censorship some of the children with hydrocephalus from radiation exposure were secretly disappeared and studied at government test labs (Area 51?) to examine the reuslts their weapons would have on the enemy..

History of Nevada Test Site;

http://www.shundahai.org/nevada_test_site_history.htm

Area 51 - is it real?

http://www.shundahai.org/area_51_nts.htm

In this case the enemy was a small community of Mormons and Shoshone who lived downwind of the NTS. Or maybe we are all the enemy in the eyes of the nuclear weapons scientists and US military generals..

We demand an end to continued manufacture of nuclear weapons by the US government, military weapons contracters and DOE. We cannot point the finger at Iran when we ourselves have contaminated our own backyard with radioactive nuclear fallout and remain in possession of the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons..