Deadly exposure: Cancers plague children of the Manhattan Project
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- TouchArt
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The New Mexican's cover story tells of how children in Los Alamos were another "collateral damage" of the government that failed to protect U.S. citizens from toxic exposure.
Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican
5/3/2008 -
"On its unclassified surface, the quiet mountain town of Los Alamos seemed an idyllic place to raise children in the 1940s and 1950s.
Young boys would run down the canyons, chasing paper sailboats as they splashed through trickling streams. They'd fish, or try to catch a glimpse of wild deer as they built tents to camp in the wilderness behind their homes in the sealed community.
Little girls would splash in puddles on the sidewalk in the late spring rains, and hug their daddies when they came home from their jobs — covered in the toxic and sometimes radioactive materials they secretly worked with during the day.
"We thought we were in a good place because it was a closed city and our parents didn't have to worry about us getting kidnapped," said Lynne Loss, 65, who lived in Los Alamos from 1949 to 1957. "We had no idea what was going on."
Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.
Photo by William H. Regan/Palace of the Governors, Negative No. 059227
An aerial view of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory around 1950 shows what appears to be an idyllic place. But some people who lived as children in Los Alamos in the 1940s and ’50s say the area was filled with toxic waste. A lawsuit filed last month charges the lab with negligence and wrongful death.
Image 3 of 3
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Via your friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
"Spread the word that nuclear energy and weapons kill our own, poison the earth and can not be safe." Charleen Touchette TouchArt@aol.com
Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican
5/3/2008 -
"On its unclassified surface, the quiet mountain town of Los Alamos seemed an idyllic place to raise children in the 1940s and 1950s.
Young boys would run down the canyons, chasing paper sailboats as they splashed through trickling streams. They'd fish, or try to catch a glimpse of wild deer as they built tents to camp in the wilderness behind their homes in the sealed community.
Little girls would splash in puddles on the sidewalk in the late spring rains, and hug their daddies when they came home from their jobs — covered in the toxic and sometimes radioactive materials they secretly worked with during the day.
"We thought we were in a good place because it was a closed city and our parents didn't have to worry about us getting kidnapped," said Lynne Loss, 65, who lived in Los Alamos from 1949 to 1957. "We had no idea what was going on."
Contact Sue Vorenberg at 986-3072 or svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.
Photo by William H. Regan/Palace of the Governors, Negative No. 059227
An aerial view of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory around 1950 shows what appears to be an idyllic place. But some people who lived as children in Los Alamos in the 1940s and ’50s say the area was filled with toxic waste. A lawsuit filed last month charges the lab with negligence and wrongful death.
Image 3 of 3
______________
Via your friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
"Spread the word that nuclear energy and weapons kill our own, poison the earth and can not be safe." Charleen Touchette TouchArt@aol.com
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- TouchArt
- 12 days ago
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Radiation is so powerful and mysterious to us still. But these are terrible ways to live and to die. Hopefully, we will have learned to be more careful with radiation...
But this is just convincing evidence against the use of nuclear weapons. It's not just the bomb itself–the explosion–that kills people. It's the radiation afterwards that does, too. And those deaths are never as quick as just an explosion, people are sick and in pain for years.
That's not even considering the fact that the radiation sticks around for years and years–you can't speed up radioactive decay. So of course it's not only the people that are affected, it's the wildlife, the environment, too.
Radiation is a cruel way to kill people, and a cruel way to leave the earth.-
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- slightlyavocado
- 12 days ago
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The documentary The Atomic Cafe is a compilation of propaganda films and other techniques put out by the government to reassure people about atomic blasts when little was known about them even to our own government. Americans were told this was "patriotic." It is beyond macabre.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0083590/plotsummary-
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- JanforGore
- 12 days ago
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the us government most likely planned the community just to see the effects.long term ,short term, i assume they took extensive medical reports on the workers at the lab.the animals in the area and los alamos itself .
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I am glad that they are going for such a lawsuit. Make it known about the lasting effects of radiation poisoning. Not just for the immediate worker but for all the community involved!!
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@TouchArt.... "...nuclear energy and weapons kill our own, poison the earth and can not be safe."
and other similar quotes, usually attributable to @JanforGore, have led me to a new phrase for my website at plusaf.com... <Quote> "No"-It-Alls <Quote>
you are becoming stereotypes for your "beliefs."
OF COURSE "it's completely impossible for nuclear energy to EVER be safe!"... and completely impossible for you to realize or admit the utter stupidity of such a "No-It-All" statement.
thank you for inspiring.. http://www.plusaf.com/soapbox/no-it-alls.htm -
its just really interesting how the U.S. used its own Citizens for experiments without their knowledge. I did a report on the Manhattan Project and some of the things you find out will make you think: This is America? How can we be better than Hitler? Maybe these are some of the reasons why Michelle Obama is finally proud of her country.
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This is an incredibly sad story. People whose lives are ruined because cancers caused by radiation exposure have devastated them both physically and financially. And then we have old retired people like this "plusaf" (above) criticizing the original poster instead of rallying to the cause of spreading awareness of this terrible tragedy. It really boggles my mind how some people can be so petty and bitter, missing the forest for the trees. Thank you TouchArt, for spreading the word and don't pay any attention to others who snipe at you from the sidelines.
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- Julie_Soller
- 12 days ago
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@muckraker... when did the Manhattan Project begin? you researched this, right? When did it end?
yeah, lots of stupid people did lots of stupid things. now what? reparations? how much? to whom? paid how? paid when, and for how long? be specific or stop whining.
@Julie_Soller, i apologize for being old [62] and retired [and not a drain on my parents or children]....
i was criticizing the poster for their "No-It-All" position, not in any way NOT feeling bad for people whose lives have been damaged or ruined by stupidity perpetrated upon them by MY government...
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/timelines/blti... says that the Manhattan Project ran, basically, from December, 1941 through October of 1945.
i was born in November, 1945, so if you think i could have done anything to have prevented it or made things better for anyone, bite me.
i grew up in the 50s and 60s, when kids in grade school had regular emergency drills where we crawled under our desks to avoid the explosion of a nearby nuclear weapon. even at age 10 or 12, i remember thinking, "if the bomb is close, we're all dead; why the hell are we doing this? and we're in the middle of NJ, 30-40 miles from NY City. if they nuke NYC, we'd be under our desks avoiding some broken glass from the windows.
AND for those [virtually all of you] who were NOT alive then, the "Under God" part of the Pledge was inserted by the McCarthy-ites to try to flush out the hidden Communists "surely amongst us" who'd be really obvious to all of us by NOT repeating "under God" during the Pledge. more insanity. there are probably more Communists in the US today than there were then....
so you look at YOUR forests and trees, and i'll look at mine.
now, YOU, too, tell me what you want to do to help whom, and when and how long, and paid for how?
are you in favor of the gasoline tax holiday, too?! duh!
by the way, and just for the record, there was probably some deliberate crap going on back then, but there was also a lot of stupidity, driven by ignorance, too. how do you want that to be handled? young women, painting radium spots on the hands and numbers of clocks and watches would put the brush in their mouth to moisten it and make it pointy for their work. it was years or decades later that "we" discovered that their mouth and lip cancers were caused by that innocent and stupid, in retrospect, action. put that on your list of reparations, too.... how much, and for how long? how many generations? -
gee...someones gotten there's in a bunch
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@muckraker... :)))))))))))))))))) nah, you ain't seen THAT yet, here... try some of my OTHER comments...
:) -
Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's horrible what happened to the citizens living here, but is anyone really to blame? At that time I'm sure no one really knew what the long-term effects of the radioactive material would be and I doubt they knew how to use proper protection or waste disposal methods. Unfortunately most scientists who led the discovery of radioactive materials succumbed to the same fates because it was 'new' science.
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eg. Madame Curie.
By the time the Manhattan Project happened governments in the U.S. and Canada already knew radioactive ores caused cancer.
The young women painting their faces with radium were not informed.
Nor were the workers who prepared their paintbrushes by putting the radium contaminated paintbrushes into their mouths.
The Canadian corporation that mined the uranium that fueled the nuclear bombs dropped on Nagazaki and Hiroshima told the non-Indian miners and workers were given protective clothing and required to shower the yellow dust off them before returning home.
But the Dene Indians, who carried 40 pound gunny sacks of the powdery ore for pennies, were told nothing. Their families were exposed to the uranium they brought home on their clothes and hair and skin. The village of Delime, across Great Bear Lake from the mines at Port Radium became a village of widows and subsequent generations have had no grandfathers to teach and guide them.
Our friend actor Gary Farmer (Dead Man, The Score, Pow Wow Highway) acted in the film "A Village of Widows" filmed in Winnipeg a few years back.
Thanks for all the support friends. I've been On the Road for Mixed Blood Radio Archives and out of internet range.
Tonight or tomorrow, I will write you about master international artist Hideo Sakata San, a founder of the L.E.L.A. International Artists group committed to work for peace with justice. Sakata San is a hibakusha. It was hard to hold back sobs as he told us the story of how he was 10 when the A bomb hit Nagazaki and how the wind and the mountain saved his life.
JanforGore and I are not "No - It Alls". But the anger of the accuser just affirms that she and I are on the right track. Mothers like us are about solutions and lifting everybody up and cleaning up the earth, air and water for our children and the 7th generation. We want peace with justice, so our children can be human beings who contribute instead of destroy the earth. We know working for peace can be dangerous, but as mothers of our own and our nation's children, we must speak up and act for peace. -
@TouchArt... you label me, i label you.
yes, Mme Curie, too... and i once met Herbert Isenburger. i lived a quarter mile away from him and his wife, Ann, in the "suburbs of Califon, NJ" for about five years... '73-'78.
herbert was one of the earliest pioneers in the field of X-Rays, too. some of his early experimental equipment and machines are, i'm told, on exhibit in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.
he died of cancer, too.
my righteous anger is directed towards people and organizations for whom and for which there is "no tolerable level of risk that's acceptable."
many people and organizations advocate this, and i will maintain to the end of my days that it's arrogant and stupid to profess such views and claim that there's any degree of logic or rational thought behind them.
i like clean water, clean air and a long healthy life, too. i'd like to live forever, because i'm so damned curious about "what's going to happen next," so fouling my own nest is pretty stupid, wouldn't you agree?
but i drive a car and always wear seat belts.
i believe that technology can reduce risks as well as create them, if given an intelligently thought-out chance, and if it's not ridiculed and slandered by pseudo-scientific "feelings" masquerading as "facts."
i've railed against many publishers and commentators here who "feel that things are terrible" but can't and are in no way willing to quantify anything other than "they feel like these things are bad."
well, bfd.... i do think it's analogous to use automobiles as an example.. in the REALLY OLD days, wrists and arms got broken by people simply trying to start their engines.
the electric starter was invented.
people got speared by their steering columns before the early 60s.
collapsible steering columns, seat belts and air bags followed.
people have died from a variety of radiation-caused sources.
and suddenly THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY to reduce that risk?
i call that immature and religious, NOT the result of any mote of "critical thinking."
and so far, you're not proving me wrong.
yeah, peace and no more wars is a great goal, too, but if you listen to some of the fundamentalist muslims and their views on YouTube, well... i promise you: WWIII has already begun, and you don't even know it started, and it will go on for a long time, and when it ends, a completely pacifist, anti-war attitude will spell death to those who maintain that position. i guarantee it.
similar to 100%-religious-anti-nuclear-fervor.
as Robert Anson Heinlein once put it... "Moderation in All Things... Including Moderation."
hugs to all, and all the best... Peace.... -
ps... the US government contacted the WWII Japanese leaders and told them that if they didn't surrender, we would unleash an extremely horrible weapon upon them.
they didn't believe it.
we dropped the Bomb on Hiroshima.
they still didn't surrender. why? they didn't know how devastating the damage was in Hiroshima, because NOBODY SURVIVED TO REPORT IT BACK TO THEM.....
so they didn't surrender.
it took the second Bomb to do it.
we dropped the bombs. they didn't surrender. that's war. blame is for sharing, not assigning 100% to any one side. to assign 100% blame that way exemplifies a "no-it-all" stance, too.
as you, yourself put it...
"nuclear energy...kill[s] our own, poison[s] the earth and CAN NOT be safe."
see? -
Plusaf,
The phrase "Under God" in the pledge did NOT have anything to do with old Joe McCarthy.
Do some research puhleeze:)
Now, it was a Catholic group, The Knights of Columbus that supported this.
Sounds like you might be "Anti-Catholic"?
I hope not!-
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- PatrickEdwardMurray
- 11 days ago
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@PatrickEdwardMurray... it had NOTHING to do with the Commie fearmongering of the 50s?! gee... i was there, and it sure seemed like that's why it happened....
DANG! wrong again...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04E1DA...
i guess the NY Times was wrong, too....
'One Nation Under God'
Published: June 27, 2002
"Half a century ago, at the height of anti-Communist fervor, Congress added the words ''under God'' to the Pledge of Allegiance. It was a petty attempt to link patriotism with religious piety, to distinguish us from the godless Soviets. But after millions of repetitions over the years, the phrase has become part of the backdrop of American life, just like the words ''In God We Trust'' on our coins and ''God bless America'' uttered by presidents at the end of important speeches."
and, heck, nobody should believe anything they read on Slate, either, right? http://www.slate.com/?id=2067499
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance makes it pretty clear that the supporters of the additional phrase wanted it in for religious reasons. [not very big on "separation of Church and State," eh?... oh, wait,... that's not State, it's "Nation," right?
different? well, if you watch any of the documenaries about the Late Senator, you just MIGHT get an inkling that them of us who lived through it might have just an iota of truth to what we say. you're over 60, right?
by the way, i'm not "anti-Catholic" AT ALL.... turn off your "projector." :) anti-fundamentalist EVERYTHING, but not anti ANY religions at all, though i don't have any need for one, and find it puzzling that so many do... :))))))))))) -
@Julie_Soller....
by the way, many decades ago, Reason Magazine did a really neat cover story on the "Love Canal Disaster"....
it turned out that the creators of the pollution tried repeatedly to stop the housing development on the land they'd polluted.
nobody listened to them. local governments ignored their pleas and warnings and granted all kinds of building permits, and many homes were built on the tainted soil.
people got sick years later, and everyone blamed the guys who polluted the soil.
sounds fair to you, doesn't it?
ditto on radiation damage dating back to times of ignorance... and remember... NEVER blame the government... they're here to HELP us, right?
now, back to reparations... how much, when, for how long and paid to whom by whom? 50 years later? 100? 200? 500?
but remember ONE key thing: "the government does NOT PAY FOR ANYTHING" They take the money from taxpayers and give it to whomever you ask them to give it to.
ALWAYS....
ah, you forgot already.... sad.... -
Senator Barack Obama is questioned about nuclear power plants.
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B Reactor on the Hanford site was, the world's first industrial-scale nuclear reactor, used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. It was built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. To the left is Gable Mountain.
Intense sepia tone version. Some burning in the sky. Photo by Scott Buttner.
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@TouchArt and http://youtube.com/watch?v=xRxl2cVFTLw .....
that was one of the MOST level-headed views i think i've EVER heard from ANYONE running for ANY office, let alone the presidency!
he got my primary vote here in NC and it looks like he'll probably get my vote in November, too....
http://www.plusaf.com/aboutme.htm#2008elections
recommended by jade_azul16 -
No. 14: Seismic Events 7-4 June 2004
Revision 1 pp...184-185....
go to http://ocrwm.doe.gov/documents/43222_tbd/index.htm and click "Begin Document" in the lower right corner... then scroll down about 180+ pages... :)))))
like, you'll do that.... :)))))))))))))
"Seismic and tectonic effects on the natural systems at Yucca Mountain will not significantly affect repository performance. Yucca Mountain lies in a region of ongoing tectonic deformation, but the deformation rates are too slow to significantly affect the mountain during the 10,000-year regulatory compliance period.
Rises in the water table caused by seismic activity would be, at most, a few tens of meters and would not reach the repository. The fractured and faulted volcanic tuff that comprises Yucca Mountain reflects the occurrence of many earthquake-faulting and strong ground motion events during the last several million years, and the hydrologic characteristics of the rock would not be changed significantly by seismic events that may occur in the next 10,000 years."
from actually reading the report, the earthquake levels of 3-5 or more would have probabilities in the 10^-5 to 10^-6 range: hundreds of thousands to millions of years between events, on average.
this report, unless gainsaid by something newer or better basically says that, yes, Yucca Mountain's area is LOUSY with seismic features, NONE of which pose a high probability of causing any problem for maybe a million years.
of course, to a "No-It-All," that's nowhere near good enough, is it?
:) -
Not surprising people for the nuclear power industry support Obama.
Exactly why people who see renewable sustainable energy resources already ready to be implemented are the green solution, oppose Obama.
Especially because Senator Obama lied about passing a nuclear bill to protect Americans, when he did not.
