Nexus - 0705 - New Times Magazine-pages

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wrote about the beneficial effects of inhaling radioactive radon gas in deep mines. Even today, The Merry Widow Health Mine near Butte, Montana, and the nearby Sunshine Radon Health Mine advertise that visitors to the mines report multiple benefits from inhaling radioactive radon,* even though numerous studies now indicate that the only demonstrable health effect of radon gas is lung cancer. Thus the medical world and popular culture together embraced X-rays (and other radioactive emanations) as miraculous reme- dies, gifts to humanity from the foremost geniuses of an inventive age. wrote about the beneficial effects of inhaling radioactive radon power President Eisenhower warned against in his final address to gas in deep mines. Even today, The Merry Widow Health Mine Congress in 1959. near Butte, Montana, and the nearby Sunshine Radon Health Throughout the 1950s, the military detonated A-bombs above Mine advertise that visitors to the mines report multiple benefits ground at the Nevada Test Site, showering downwind civilian from inhaling radioactive radon,’ even though numerous studies populations with radioactivity.’ At the Hanford Reservation in now indicate that the only demonstrable health effect of radon gas Washington state, technicians intentionally released huge clouds is lung cancer. of radioactivity to see what would happen to the human popula- Thus the medical world and popular culture together embraced tions thus exposed. In one Hanford experiment, 500,000 curies of X-rays (and other radioactive emanations) as miraculous reme- radioactive iodine were released; iodine collects in the human thy- dies, gifts to humanity from the foremost geniuses of an inventive roid gland. The victims of this experiment, mostly Native age. Americans, were not told about it for 45 years.’ American sailors on ships and soldiers on the ground were exposed to large doses THE LEGACY OF "ATOMS FOR PEACE" of radioactivity, just to see what would happen to them. The mili- In the popular imagination, these technologies suffered a seri- tary brass insisted that being showered with radiation is harmless. ous setback when atomic [and hydrogen] bombs were detonated In his autobiography, Karl Z. Morgan, who served as Radiation over Japan in 1945. Even though the bombs arguably shortened Safety Director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Clinton, World War II and saved American lives, John Hersey's descrip- Tennessee, from 1944 to 1971, recalls: "The Veterans tion of the human devastation in Hiroshima forever imprinted the Administration seems always on the defensive to make sure the mushroom cloud in the popular mind as an omen of unutterable victims are not compensated.""” Morgan recounts the story of ruin. Despite substantial efforts to cast The Bomb in a positive light, radiation technology would never recover the lustre it had gained before American sailors on ships and John D. Smitherman, a US Navy man who received large doses of radiation during A-bomb experiments on Bikini Atoll in 1946." wl ; soldiers on the ground were The Veterans Administration even years after the nuclear denied any connection to radia - bombs were used in war, Dwight exposed to large doses of tion exposure until 1988, when it had awarded his widow benefits. Eisenhower set the US Government radioactivity, just to see what Be he time of hte death on a new course, intended to show the world that nuclear weapons, would happen to them. Smitherman's body was almost radioactivity and radiation were not AA Frayer consumed by cancers of the harbingers of death but were in fact The military brass insisted lung, bronchial lymph nodes, powerful, benign servants offering that being showered with diaphragm, spleen, pancreas, almost limitless benefits to humankind. The "Atoms for Peace" program was born, explicitly aimed at convincing Americans and the world the VA revoked them from that these new technologies were full of Smitherman's widow. hope, and that nuclear power reactors should be developed with Starting in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, thousands tax dollars to generate electricity. The promise of this newest of uranium miners were told that breathing radon gas in the urani- technical advance seemed too good to be true: electricity "too um mines of New Mexico was perfectly safe. Only now are the intestines, stomach, liver, and adrenal glands. In 1989, a year after it had awarded the benefits, radiation is harmless. cheap to meter".° radon-caused lung cancers being tallied up, as the truth leaks out The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 created the civilian Atomic 50 years too late. Energy Commission, but as a practical matter the nation's top mil- In retrospect, a kind of nuclear mania swept the industrial itary commanders maintained close control over the development world. What biotechnology and high-tech computers are today, of all nuclear technologies.’ Thus, by a series of historical acci- atomic technology was in the 1950s and early 1960s. dents, all of the major sources of ionising radiation fell under the Government contractors spent billions to develop a nuclear- urview of people and institutions who had no reason to want to —_— powered airplane, even though simple engineering calculations explore the early knowledge that radiation was harmful. told them early in the project that such a plane would be too In 1927, Hermann J. Muller had demonstrated that X-rays heavy to carry a useful cargo. Monsanto Research Corporation caused inheritable genetic damage, and he received a Nobel Prize _ proposed a plutonium-powered coffee pot that would boil water for his efforts. However, he had performed his experiments on for 100 years without a refuelling.’ A Boston company proposed fruit flies and it was easy, or at least convenient, to dismiss his cufflinks made of radioactive uranium for the simple reason that findings as irrelevant to humans. uranium is heavier than lead and "the unusual weight prevents In sum, to physicians, radiation seemed a promising new therapy cuffs from riding up"."* for treating nearly every ailment under the Sun. For the military In 1957, the Atomic Energy Commission established its and the Joint Commission on Atomic Energy in Congress, it Plowshare Division—named of course for the biblical "swords unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars—a veritable flood of into plowshares [ploughshares]" phrasing in Isaiah (2:4).'° Our taxpayer funds, most of which came with almost no oversight | government and its industrial partners were determined to show cause of official secrecy surrounding weapons development. the world that this technology was benign, no matter what the For private-sector government contractors like Union Carbide, facts might be. Monsanto Chemical Co., General Electric, Bechtel Corporation, On July 14, 1958, Dr Edward Teller, "the Father of the H- DuPont, Martin Marietta and others, it meant an opportunity to join bomb", arrived in Alaska to announce Project Chariot—a plan to the elite "military-industrial complex"—whose growing political carve a new harbour out of the Alaska coast by detonating up to American sailors on ships and soldiers on the ground were a a Po exposed to large doses of radioactivity, just to see what would happen to them. The military brass insisted that being showered with radiation is harmless. 34 - NEXUS AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2000