KLAS-TV: Exclusive: Atomic Workers Have New Weapon

[PhilipShore]

KLAS-TV
Exclusive: Atomic Workers Have New Weapon
Feb 16, 2006

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4510486

The clock is ticking for thousands of former Nevada Test Site employees, many of whom are sick or dying because of exposure to radiation during the atomic testing program. Critics say the government is waiting for the workers to die so it doesn't have to compensate them. Now, there's a new weapon that can be used in the fight.

Ray Slaughter said, "It seems like they look for reasons not to compensate you instead of trying to help and give the benefit of the doubt. They take every single thing they can to try and stop it."

Senator Harry Reid and Congresswoman Shelley Berkley helped to get the compensation program through the Congress. Both are sickened by the bureaucratic foot dragging. In November, Reid appealed to President Bush to take action. Months later, there has been no response from the White House, so Reid is planning a new approach that will be announced next week.

He and the test site workers will have a new arrow in their quiver. A government funded study, completed in December and not yet made public, analyzed the dose reconstruction process as it applies to test site workers and found much of it to be quote, "not scientifically defensible since it almost certainly underestimates radiation exposures in several different ways."

[file83]

1. One word: Karma.

Not that I wish ill will upon these people, but the "what goes around, comes around" factor of this story can not be ignored.

All the better, because the additional pain the Bush administration is placing on these suffering people will come back to haunt Bush as well. It's inevitable.

It's Karma.

[Ben Ceremos]

2. Karma...

I believe it was the author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" who described karma as an endless string of garbage cans that you are forced to carry with you. I believe his sentiment was intended negatively. These atomic workers actually helped keep the international peace for the last 50 plus years. Whether we appreciate the technology and the sword of Damocles that it constitutes for this planet, the workers are guilty only of having worked in defense of their nation and to support their families.
I find it loathsome that many here at DU are quite willing to "support the troops" as they rampage and kill in foreign lands, while condemning workers whose only "crime" was to use their skills and labor in the service of human inquiry and our only means of survival...technology. Atomic energy and weaponry is ruthless, but it is as much an expression of what it is to be human as the ability to have compassion. Compassion for ALL LIVING BEINGS. Peace and hope for humanity.

[medeak]

4. that is just evil

knew many good people who worked at the test site. Karma? Your thinking is distorted imo.

[file83]

6. Did I say they deserved it? No. But when you choose an

occupation of which it's end purpose is, if fully executed, would kill billions of human lives, I'd say that isn't a very wise choice as far as karma goes. You accuse me of having a distorted view, but you seem to be missing that most obvious function of nuclear weapons: To kill mass amounts of people. Women. Children. Elderly. Men. Mothers. Fathers. Grandparents. Sons. Daughters. Everyone.

That's why they are called Weapons of Mass Destruction and not Tools for World Peace.

Think about it. I encourage you.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Well I'm glad you've only got positive Karma.

How much Coltan is in your house?

[file83]

10. Is dry sarcasm the only thing in that bag of tricks?

Because it's getting predictable.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

13. It isn't sarcasm.

It's a legitimate question regarding where exactly you want to draw the line. The point being that everyone draws it in a different place.

[medeak]

14. as someone who lived with test site workers

what makes you think they had a choice to find a job? Their occupation wasn't "making bombs" They were ordinary folk who drove buses, janitors, secretarys, office troughers... I think you have the wrong impression of "employees" exposed to the test site.

[file83]

20. What makes me think they had a choice? Are you kidding?

You are speaking about America, right? That is the country of which we are discussing, or am I missing something? In the United States of America, believe it or not (your choice), but in America people actually get to choose their jobs! Yes, that's right. They have a choice.

So what country were you speaking of where you didn't think they "had a choice" in the industry they worked in?

[donsu]

16. I agree with you

nt

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. Why, of course.

Just look at all of the people who've been killed by nuclear weapons in the last 40 years.

[file83]

7. That was some witty rhetoric, but not that witty...

...your choice of the "40 year" limit was carefully crafted.

Is that as far back into history you are willing to go? Would you like to forget about WWII? If you are willing to forget about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then I'm sure you'd be willing to forget about the Holocaust and the Nazis. Is that a reasonable assertion on my part, or are you just being disingenuous?

Furthermore, need you be reminded how many nuclear weapons are currently ready, around the world, to launch and destroy the world as we know it? Don't think for a second that it could never happen. Russia and the US have come within minutes of pushing the button on numerous occasions in the last 40 years. Think about that. Think very hard.

The United States alone currently has 5,735 active nuclear warheads. How many large population centers are their in the world? Now, factor in all of the other nuclear powers' arsenals. You do the math.

Yeah, karma. It's something you can't escape, you can only shape. Just because those WMD (made in the last 40 years, as you limited it too) haven't been used yet, that doesn't erase what the intentions of the occupations of the people that worked at the nuclear test site were: to create/refine/contribute to creating the tools to destroy the world.

I don't consider that a very honorable profession. You might, but I don't.

[Demeter]

11. Mostly Those Who Built Them

[medeak]

3. fire dept hosed off our house after each test (pink dust)

in Overton NV.. think that's incriminating as well. Always wondered if that's why my Mom got cancer.....

[file83]

8. I'm sorry to hear about your mother.

Thanks for sharing the story about the fire department hosing off your house after each test. I remember reading about that a long time ago. It should be considered a crime against humanity to expose innocent people to the radiation that they obviously new was dangerous to the public health. Otherwise, why would they "wash it off" the houses?

Thanks again.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. You're not going out of your way to win new friends, are you?....

...The bottom line is that the people working in and around nuclear facilities were not told the truth about the dangers of radiation and/or fallout. The medical industry back then also had no concept of the long-term effects of exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.

Your 20/20 nuclear hindsight is typical of those people who like to use today's knowledge-base to slam those people who became the earliest victims of the nuclear industry.

[file83]

19. You're not going out of your way to think, are you?...

Are you trying to sell me the idea that the people working "in and around" nuclear facilities in the past didn't know that nuclear bombs were designed to kill people? Are you really trying to sell me that?

The communities in Nevada (and elsewhere) that had nothing to do directly with those nuclear facilities yet suffered the consequences of radiation exposure are the only innocent victims here, not the ones working at the facilities. They may be "victims", but innocent? No way.

You're blind hindsight is typical of those people that are attempting to create a false impression that those who worked in the past in the Nuclear industry are innocent because they were too stupid to have realized that nuclear bombs were designed to kill massive amounts of people.

Who do you think you are fooling? Yourself, maybe, but not me.

[hedgehog]

15. It's always fascinating to come across little comments like this

It's like people knew but didn't want to know what was going on.

[medeak]

17. early 50's

back then no one imagined the gov would do anything harmful ;-)

[Javaman]

18. Science? SCIENCE? we don't need your stinking science!!!

moron* only cares about science when it's making new munitions, taping phone lines or creating a new type of beer.