December 1950, President Truman authorized the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to conduct Atmospheric Nuclear tests in the continental United States.
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The handbill to the left was distributed in Southern Utah 16 days before the first nuclear device was detonated at the Nevada Test Site. It states there will be no danger.
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“Between 1951 and 1962, over 100 nuclear bombs were detonated in the open air of Nevada’s desert. Utahans were never told the fallout was dangerous to their health, or to seek shelter as the radioactive clouds rained fallout over their homes, gardens and pastures. During the Cold War we were told that the real nuclear danger would come from abroad and the Soviet Union. Unbeknownst to Utahans, the biggest threat was from our very own government that subjected millions of people to fallout from its nuclear weapons testing program in Nevada.”
-- Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL)
-- Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL)
As fallout was raining down on the inter-mountain West, it was years before the AEC started to study the impact of the fallout. “Ground monitoring did not begin until 1953, and monitoring of radioactive deposits in the food chain did not begin until 1958, after the tests had ended” (Ball, 47).
One Example of how the Bombs Made people Sick:
Lifestyles of people who lived in Utah at the time were rural. “55 percent of the people obtained milk from their own cow, 44 percent drank milk at every meal…56 percent obtained their drinking water from a spring, and 65 percent grew their own leafy vegetables” (Fradkin, 11).
"Three decades after the radiation exposures, the medical researchers' preliminary conclusions now indicate that the radiation doses in St. George, Utah were probably underestimated by 400%" (Ball, 197).
Dr. Lyon from University of Utah studied children from 17 counties who later died of leukemia and found that they had a 59% chance of having the leukemia having been caused by fallout and for the 5 counties closest to the test site a 71% chance.
When University of Utah vice-president of health services, Chase Peterson found out about the results of Lyons study he said, “I honestly think it ranks with the discovery of the germ theory of medicine or the discovery of penicillin in terms of how we’re going to live with ourselves and our civilization over the next century” (Fradkin, 220).
Eventually, there were enough protests world-wide that above ground testing was banned. President Kennedy in 1963, while giving a speech regarding the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty said: "The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby -- who may be born long after we are gone -- should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
The problem is that even underground tests can cause fallout, as seen in the picture below from the Underground Baneberry test in 1970.
"Three decades after the radiation exposures, the medical researchers' preliminary conclusions now indicate that the radiation doses in St. George, Utah were probably underestimated by 400%" (Ball, 197).
Dr. Lyon from University of Utah studied children from 17 counties who later died of leukemia and found that they had a 59% chance of having the leukemia having been caused by fallout and for the 5 counties closest to the test site a 71% chance.
When University of Utah vice-president of health services, Chase Peterson found out about the results of Lyons study he said, “I honestly think it ranks with the discovery of the germ theory of medicine or the discovery of penicillin in terms of how we’re going to live with ourselves and our civilization over the next century” (Fradkin, 220).
Eventually, there were enough protests world-wide that above ground testing was banned. President Kennedy in 1963, while giving a speech regarding the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty said: "The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby -- who may be born long after we are gone -- should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
The problem is that even underground tests can cause fallout, as seen in the picture below from the Underground Baneberry test in 1970.
Fradkin wrote, “These people were betrayed by their government – the ultimate sin in a democracy. It was a crime of betrayal perpetuated in the name of national security.”