Downwinders
[3] In regions near U.S. nuclear sites, downwinders may be exposed to releases of radioactive materials into the environment that contaminate their groundwater systems, food chains, and the air they breathe.
[5] The impact of nuclear contamination on an individual is generally estimated as the result of the dose of radiation received and the duration of exposure, using the linear no-threshold model (LNT).
Sex, age, race, culture, occupation, class, location, and simultaneous exposure to additional environmental toxins are also significant, but often overlooked, factors that contribute to the health effects on a particular "downwind" community.
[7][8] These nuclear tests infused vast quantities of radioactive material into the world's atmosphere, resulting in widely dispersed radiation and its subsequent deposition as global fallout.
Additionally, some explosions injected radioactive material into the stratosphere, more than 10 kilometers above ground level, meaning it may float there for years before being subsequently deposited uniformly around the earth.
While "downwinders" refers to those who live and work closest to the explosion site and are thus most acutely affected, there is a global effect of increased health risks due to ionizing radiation in the atmosphere.
[9] The earliest concerns raised about the health effects of exposure to nuclear fallout had to do with fears of genetic alterations that may occur among the offspring of those most exposed.
As studies of biological samples (including bone, thyroid glands and other tissues) have been undertaken, it has become increasingly clear that specific radionuclides in fallout are implicated in fallout-related cancers and other late effects.
[12] This places the cancer mortality rate for the 220 primary cast and crew quite near the expected average,[13] but it needs to be noted that this statistic does not include the Native American Paiute extras in the film.
[17][18][19][20] In 2011, the US Senate designated January 27 as a national day of remembrance for Americans who, during the Cold War, worked and lived downwind from nuclear testing sites.
[22] In 2023, after the film Oppenheimer brought renewed attention to the test, the United States Senate approved the New Mexico downwinders' inclusion in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act amendment.
[15] In the 1950s, people who lived in the vicinity of the NTS were encouraged to sit outside and watch the mushroom clouds that were created by nuclear bomb explosions.
The planned "Divine Strake" test would have raised a large mushroom cloud of contaminated dust that could have blown toward population centers such as Las Vegas, Boise, Salt Lake City, and St. George, Utah.
By February 1986, mounting citizen pressure forced the U.S. Department of Energy to release to the public 19,000 pages of previously unavailable historical documents about Hanford's operations.
The water and the radioactive materials it contained were released into the river after passing through the reactors, thus contaminating both groundwater systems and aquatic animals downstream as far west as the Washington and Oregon coasts.
Further evidence of sex-based disparities in radiation-induced cancers was published in the 2006 report by the National Research Council's Committee to Assess Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation (known as the BEIR VII report), which found that women's risk due to radiation exposure exceeded men's by 37.5 percent.
[34] The differences in risk are even greater when considering organ-specific cancers, especially given that both reports identify breast, ovarian, lung, colon, and thyroid tissues as the most radiosensitive among women.
It is also clear that fetal malformations are a greater risk if a woman is exposed to high doses of nuclear-related radiation in early pregnancy, when organs are being formed.
Fetal malformations are most likely to occur if a pregnant woman receives a radiation dose >500 mSv between the 10th and 40th day of pregnancy, the period of organogenesis during which the organs are formed.
After the 40th day, the effects of radiation exposure are likely to include low birth weight, delayed growth, and possible mental deficits rather than fetal malformations.
[43] Adverse effects on a mother carrying a female fetus may therefore be multigenerational and increase both the daughter's and grandchildren's risks for ovarian cancer, infertility, and other reproductive developmental problems.
[46] Initially, RECA had narrow definitions regarding eligible people and covered diseases, but complaints arose regarding these limitations, leading to efforts to amend the act.
[45] Advocacy initiatives were directed towards extending coverage to include additional occupations, lower the standard of proof for uranium miners, eliminate distinctions between smokers and nonsmokers, and increase compensation for eligible individuals, which led to approved amendments to RECA in 2000, expanding coverage and modifying eligibility criteria to assist affected groups.
[48] Miners' compensation covers workers employed in uranium mines in five states-Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, and Utah-between January 1947 and December 1971.
