Downwinders and the Radioactive West [FULL DOCUMENTARY]
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- In the 1950s and ‘60s, the U.S. government conducted a series of nuclear tests in the Nevada desert. #nucleartesting #radioactive #nuclear_bomb #radioactivedecay
The resulting fallout would kick off a decades-long debate over cancer rates, the costs of patriotism, and the responsibility of a nation to protect its citizens.
Nuclear testing in the 1950s started a decades-long controversy that endures today. Narrated by actor Peter Coyote, Downwinders and the Radioactive West tells the unsettling stories of those affected by environmental contamination due to nuclear testing in Nevada.
Downwinders and the Radioactive West premiered on Wednesday, January 27 2021. The documentary first aired in recognition of the National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders in the United States. In November 2011, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution designating the day to acknowledge the harm caused to Americans by the fallout from nuclear testing in Nevada.
The era of nuclear testing changed the world forever; it's a part of America's history and downwinders are part of a nuclear testing legacy that continues to affect Utahns and their communities to this day.
On August 6, 1945, a clear, Monday morning at the height of WWII, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, ushering in a new, terrifying era of modern warfare unlike that the world had ever seen. But the bombs detonated in the skies above Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not the first above-ground nuclear tests, neither would they be the last.
The first successful test of atomic weapons had been conducted three weeks prior at the Trinity test site in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The sparsely-populated desert landscape provided an ideal location for top-secret experimental weapons testing. After four years of heavy nuclear testing in the U.S.-controlled Marshall Islands, President Truman would relocate the bulk of the nation’s nuclear testing to a more accessible location, approximately 144 miles west of St. George, Utah - the Nevada Test Site.
In the 1950s, St. George was the epitome of small town America: a good place to raise a family, with mom & pop businesses all down Main Street. Residents of small town Utah were fiercely patriotic, and welcomed the opportunity to do their part for American national security with pride. Residents were notified in advance of nearby nuclear tests; school children would be led outside to watch for the familiar mushroom-shaped cloud to appear on the horizon.
The first signs of trouble came from the sheep. Local ranchers observed sheep with signs of burns, bleeding lips, hide that sloughed off with a touch. Lambs were born with severe birth defects, and consequently died. The ranchers were convinced radiation from nuclear testing was the cause; the Atomic Energy Commission denied all accusations. In 1956, Utah ranchers took the federal government to court, alleging the loss of more than 4,000 animals. They lost.
In subsequent years, communities in southern Utah began to notice a troubling phenomenon - friends, neighbors, and relatives were being diagnosed with cancer. Cancer clusters were emerging in different communities, with relatively rare cancers such as thyroid cancer and leukemia showing up even among children.
In the same way that mercury collects in aquatic animals at the top of their food chain, such as tuna, iodine-131 collected in the thyroid glands of children living in southern Utah - children who drank milk from local cows that had grazed on grass on which nuclear fallout containing iodine-131 had landed.
Utahns were documenting increased rates of cancer in their families and communities - but the federal government had not taken responsibility, and the ranchers had lost their case in 1956. In 1979, then-lawyer Stewart Udall agreed to take the case; in a landmark ruling in a Salt Lake City courtroom, the judge ruled in favor of the downwinders. And in 1990, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, was signed by President H.W. Bush."
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I was born and bred in South Australia. Maralinga was 1 of the nuclear sites from British Atomic testing in the 1950-1960. I was exposed to fallout along with 1000’s of others. My mother died of cancer my sister died of cancer and I have thyroid cancer. I feel your concerns and pain.
Thank you for taking time to share your words. Very sorry to hear about this losses in your family. Take care.
Woomera.......
Dust storms were the worst.....
50,000 was the population of Las Vegas during the height of the cold
war? Oddly, that was the population of the tri-cities near Hanford Nuclear Reservation at the same time--the 3rd largest city in Washington State, now a permanent deadly waste site. Hanford was where the plutonium was produced for the nuclear arms race. Decades ago, it was officially recognized that Hanford employees and tri-city residents had a higher risk of developing cancer due to the enrichment process and radioactive waste
The Atomic Energy Commission (later absorbed by the Dept of Energy) would legally drag its feet for years before paying restitution to the victims until (I believe it was the early 90's) a judge finally forced them to pay. The Government settled with the 5 people who remained...all 5 had cancer.
Almost two decades ago I started collecting vintage watches which introduced me to the study of radioactivity and radioactive luminous compounds and while my scientific fascination with this entire subject continues to this day, The use of dogs and other animals in direct exposure to the bast makes me both angry and sick.
John Wayne's absolute worst movie was "The Conqueror". Can you imagine him playing Genghis Khan in dark-face and scotch-tape-slanted eyes, with that cowboy accent? Yes, this ludicrous farce was produced by the then-turned-insane ex-aviator Howard Hughes. Filmed with horses kicking up the fallout-saturated red desert sands just west of St. George, Utah, downwind of the Nevada tests. Cast and crew ended up suffering from (I think) at least three times the cancer rate compared to the rest of the USA. Wayne, a very heavy smoker, died of (apparently unrelated) lung cancer. But most of the rest involved in the on-site making of "The Conqueror" died early deaths from leukemia. The government never warned them of the known radioactive danger; no one ever warned them or owned up to the responsibility of exposure.
The cast and crew of The Conqueror’s cancer and death rates were perfectly normal for their time and demographics. Who would have thought that smoking like a freight train and drinking like a fish was bad for your health? The newspaper story that started the myth accidentally got the death rates for non-smokers from an actuarial and used it and didn’t get the actual death rates for heavy smokers and/or drinkers which counted for most of the cast and crew of The Conqueror. There is some evidence that some of the cancer types were different than expected though.
What few Americans understand is that the US Constitution in NO Way mandates that the Fed Govt is responsible for the Welfare of The People. FDR tried to change this with his proposal for an Economic Bill of Rights in 1945. However, he died a few months later and his proposal died with him. Notice that all food banks are stocked from private contributions, not the Govt. All the Homeless & Hungry People on America's streets today, while our Fed Govt sends billions to Ukraine & Jizrael should be proof enough that our Fed Govt bears no reponsibility for its own People. Long story short, given the above, I'm not a bit surprised that the Fed Govt Does NOT Give A $HIT about the Downwinders.
I know John McStain didn't. He promised to look into getting Mohave County in Arizona downwinder funds, but nothing ever came of it. All surrounding Counties get it but not us. We're about 100 miles away from the test sites. Obviously I never liked him but that's one more reason I call him McStain.
My father died from cancer, my aunty died from cancer and so did several of my uncle's. How revolting this's. I was born in 1963 and was diagnosed with Hashimotos disease of my thyroid gland 30 years later
Both my parents died from cancer in 1986. Lived in Nebraska and Wyoming in the 50’s and 60’s. Fallout downwind was supposedly slight, but is there any “safe” dose?
In Washington State the Government in 1947 sprayed iodine 131 from Granger Washington to Mabton Washington. All my aunts and uncles who were in that path all had thyroids troubles. In 2012 eleven years after my mother died her law suite with the government was settled. She was awarded $1,600. Lawyers took no money from the judgement because their fees would of been more than the awarded judgement.
I got a dose of the Utah radiation as a very young child. Then we moved to Washington. Grew up fairly close to Hanford. I don't have a thyroid any more.
Bruce Church is either living in an absurd denial or he has been paid to deny the consequences.
Crimes against humanity. An American tradition.
Moving testing to the lower 48 was due to cost more than anything. Testing in the pacific was extremely expensive.
Peter Coyote is the best narrator EVER!!! 🤗
As soon as I heard his voice, I was thinking this.
HIM HAU ALL YOU WANT! PEOPLE WERE EXPOSED AND PEOPLE ARE STILL AFFECTED AND HARMED BY THE TEST!!!!
"I have become death. The destroyer of worlds."
Imagine if our innovation of that time had not been in defensive or War minded intention. Imagine if we had used that time and knowledge for something that would have sealed mankind's survival certian,rather then demise.
Think of the Ocean itself. All of the pacific ocean has been the substrate for this self-destruction
Not just the Pacific - every ocean in the world. Now it's mostly tritium from power reactors, but there's a few hotspots here and there from reprocessing facilities in Europe, old testing sites in the Marshall Islands, etc.
It explains why Godzilla is so angry with us, doesn't it?
2,590?...nuclear weapons tested since 1945, in space, in the outer atmosphere, in the sky, on the land, underground, above and under the sea..all that haf no effects on the environment or health of any creatures.
How many tonnes of dust of radioactive heavy metals were spread in the environment ?!
100+ ?!
You'll need a very big + there
1000 tons or so I think. The first bombs were very large, heavy, and inefficient; they only burned say 2% of their fissile material. But the fallout actually got worse when they developed small high yield weapons because a much higher percentage of fairly stable material like P239 and U235 (fuel) was fissioned into highly radioactive daughter elements... Then with the thermonuclear testing you are talking many tons of material in a single device: shots like the Shrimp device used in the Castle Bravo test had a highly enriched uranium tamper that weighed over a ton all by itself, the design was immediately weaponized, and the bomb weighed 42,000 pounds US or 19 tonnes metric. This was typical of the weight of the first generations of U.S. and Soviet thermonuclear designs, the Mk-36 weighed 8 metric tonnes. All of these early, heavy, weapons, US, Russian, French, UK, yada yada were all atmospheric tested back in the 1950's.
Never realized how much Peter Coyote's voice sounds like Kevin costner. I've watched numerous CZcams documentaries and it's weird how many times it's Peter Coyote doing the narration😂
There is a book about the St George fallout called The Day We Bombed Utah by John G Fuller
Radionuclides also blew up into Idaho. Emmett, ID about 10 miles NW of Boise and for whatever reason was a concentrator. One of the reasons I decided not to move there. Kinda silly as this whole area was likely exposed to some extent.
There is a lot they did not know then. Didn't seem to stop the process or bother anyone in power very much. Scary thought, though!
I think our repressive government knew all too well the dangers of radioactive fallout; they just wanted to avoid all responsibility. Unfortunately, they succeeded all too well.
We still operate under very similar criteria in more ways now. FDA CDC this was never a fair battle. My family lived in SD. Mom and sister born in late 40s both have had thyroid conditions. Parents both died of cancers on there 60s approximately 40 yrs after bombs.
I was out there in the 1970s....I was in Las Vegas....I got sunburned in the pool at the hotel.. it was serious.... been on Highway 95.. going to Reno....I have been to Rachel.. Betty.. Tonapah and Goldfield......I know I did not feel safe being out there.....we knew about this....
Thanks for share
33:45 is the headline: they only tested when the wind blew to the least populated area, southern utah. Not one word about the 50k residents 65 miles away in las vegas!
Yeah, they didn’t test if the wind was blowing toward Vegas or LA.
@@sigsin1😂
Is it dangerous to live in Las Vegas and the surrounding area? Only 65 miles away is scary.
no
@@reillydougherty2166yes it’s the most radiated place on earth
Over 100 nuclear blasts happened there
Why do you care?
Probably not anymore. It's been more than 60 years since the last atmospheric test and the remaining material has mostly decayed to something non radioactive or settled somewhere. The soil seems to capture a lot of the radioactive compounds, reducing the contamination that people get exposed to.
at the time yes and that's what this program is about, but now its unlikely that any radioactive particles are still around most likely in the sea now and there half lifes passed i have a bit of trinitite from the test area and its not very radioactive now barely above back ground levels
Radioactivity, just the best! Those who got Cancer/Died, need to realize their patriotism!
Makes me wonder, what would have happened if Russia had invented nuclear weapons first… 🤔
All thanks to the architects of the counter culture of the 60's.
Deplorable.
Our government is disgusting! I’m embarrassed!
They found some real idiots to interview. Won’t blame nuclear radiation for anything!?!? Really??
Very sad. 1990? I didn't know.😢😢😢😢
"I would limit it to the people who were alive at the time of the tests.
Liar.
St. George
I Thought They Started Testing In Late 44 - Early 1945?
(New Mexico)
Thomas Cynthia Clark Jeffrey Martinez Edward
those subtitles....... DISLIKED
FDR hated Truman, which is one reason for not telling him.
I always wondered why they only were supposed to have met twice...
Just where did you get the "alternative fact" that "FDR hated Truman"?
War is hell
Now you know why Jesus is coming to set these matters straight once for all time !!
He said : "the elements becoming intensely hot will melt away with a hissing noise."
🎉
They put a a fake nuclear test video😂, the cameras strong and tape not over exposed 😂😂
?
Dumb
Ummm every one old who gets cancer and has it can now sue in a big group 😮🤔🤔🤔🤔lawyers dream comes reality 😂