Troops Who Cleaned Up Radioactive Islands Cant Get Medical Care

[burfman]

Source: NY Times

RICHLAND, Wash. — When Tim Snider arrived on Enewetak Atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to clean up the fallout from dozens of nuclear tests on the ring of coral islands, Army officers immediately ordered him to put on a respirator and a bright yellow suit designed to guard against plutonium poisoning.

A military film crew snapped photos and shot movies of Mr. Snider, a 20-year-old Air Force radiation technician, in the crisp new safety gear. Then he was ordered to give all the gear back. He spent the rest of his four-month stint on the islands wearing only cutoff shorts and a floppy sun hat.

“I never saw one of those suits again,” Mr. Snider, now 58, said in an interview in his kitchen here as he thumbed a yellowing photo he still has from the 1979 shoot. “It was just propaganda.”

Today Mr. Snider has tumors on his ribs, spine and skull — which he thinks resulted from his work on the crew, in the largest nuclear cleanup ever undertaken by the United States military.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/troops-radioactive-islands-medical-care.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=nytmm_FadingSlideShow_item&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

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I'm shocked by this going on during the late 1970's. You can't blame it on lack of scientific knowledge or keeping classified secrets from the Russians. It was just a lack of caring for the value of a human life.

burfman......................

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. One of the biggest Republi-CONs is "Support Our Troops". You betcha. This I can tell you.

In the meantime, the President finds it more worthwhile to spend time tweet lies and falsehoods about NYT/WaPo circulation numbers while his own 'subscribers' (approve/disapprove net) goes from even (0%) to -8%.

[FairWinds]

2. This is how we "nuke" ourselves . .

there are hundreds of thousands of down winders, miners,
soldiers sailors and airmen/women who have been exposed.

Veterans For Peace opposes nuclear weapons (see our VFP Golden Rule Project),
and the atomic veterans.

[dwilso40641]

3. This is

what is going on with agent orange.
When you have a bunch of Draft Dodging scum in Congress and Senate this is what you get.
Even Vets like cotton are lower than life.

[The_Voice_of_Reason]

4. DOE Just as bad...

Look at DOE sites (and former sites known as Portsmouth and Piketon Gaseous Diffussion Plants) and you will find a similiar situation. DOE would spend MILLIONS on litigation before they would admit any of their employees illnesses and health issues were a direct result of their exposure to radioactive contaminants.