DeepSummary
The episode discusses the first use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and the preceding Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico. It details the effects of radiation exposure on people living near the Trinity site, who were not warned or evacuated. Many suffered severe health consequences like cancer across multiple generations.
For decades, affected communities like that of Tina Cordova have fought for compensation from the US government under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Despite RECA's existence since 1990, it excluded the Trinity downwinders until recently when the Senate voted to expand the law to cover them.
The episode features interviews with Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor from a family impacted by the Trinity fallout, and Senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico. They discuss the immense multi-generational suffering caused by the nuclear testing and the decades-long battle to be recognized and compensated under RECA.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- The Trinity nuclear test in 1945 was the first use of nuclear weapons, conducted in secrecy in New Mexico.
- Local communities living near the Trinity site were exposed to high radiation levels and suffered severe, multigenerational health impacts like cancer.
- For decades, these 'downwinder' communities were excluded from federal compensation programs for victims of radiation exposure, despite being the first civilians affected.
- After years of advocacy by survivors like Tina Cordova, the Senate recently voted to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to cover the Trinity downwinders.
- The ethical, environmental and human costs of nuclear testing were largely unaddressed for the affected New Mexico communities until this breakthrough legislation.
- Interviewees poignantly conveyed the tragic personal toll, deep cultural ties to ancestral lands, and perseverance in seeking justice and recognition.
- The episode shines a light on an underreported chapter of nuclear history and the intergenerational struggle for accountability.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “The apparent sole survivor of that episode described to me that they were so excited that they got into bathing suits and played in a nearby river and were pressing the snow into their faces, into their skin, and that it absorbed really quickly.“ by Leslie Bloom
- “I'm a cancer survivor, so I'm the fourth generation in my family, and there's a fifth generation now. I have a 24 year old niece that was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the age of 23.“ by Tina Cordova
- “How can the community where the first nuclear bomb was tested on soil anywhere in the world, how was that community left out of downwind inclusion? And no one can answer that.“ by Ben Ray Lujan
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Episode Information
Consider This from NPR
NPR
3/7/24
The attack on Hiroshima marked the first time nuclear power was used in war, but the atomic bomb was actually tested a month earlier in the Jornada del Muerto desert of New Mexico.
At least hundreds of New Mexicans were harmed by the test's fallout. Radiation creeped into the grass their cows grazed, on the food they ate, and the water they drank.
A program compensating victims of government-caused nuclear contamination has been in place since 1990, but it never included downwinders in New Mexico, the site of the very first nuclear test.
This week, the Senate voted to broaden the bi-partisan legislation that could compensate people who have suffered health consequences of radiation testing. Now, the bill will go to a House vote.
Generations after the Trinity Nuclear Test, will downwinders in New Mexico finally get compensation?
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