The Downwinders' Fight for Compensation
Abstract
Between 1945 and the early 1980s, five nations detonated nuclear bombs including the United States. Nuclear testing was done in Nevada with radioactive contamination affecting not only that particular state, but also neighboring Utah and Arizona, with nuclear fallout reaching Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California. However, Downwinders, people who were contaminated and reported adverse health effects due to their relative proximity to nuclear testing sites, in Nevada were given compensation by the federal government after a lengthy legal battle that spanned from the first case of contamination in the 1950s, until the passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in the early 1990s.
This paper has been withdrawn.