Dixie clinic aiding downwinders

ST. GEORGE — Becky Barlow hears it all the time from people who are sick and tired of living with the ramifications of being a "downwinder."

"We see a lot of patients, and it's very helpful for them to have their medical concerns validated," said Barlow, a registered nurse certified in adult and pediatric oncology at Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George. "They just want the government to admit that there is a health risk for those people who were exposed to radiation from nuclear tests."

The term downwinder is an unwelcome moniker for thousands of people who grew up in southwestern Utah during the 1950s. That's when above-ground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site released toxic clouds of radioactive dust into the air.

"My sisters and I would set our alarm clocks for 4 a.m. just so we could get up and watch the tests," said Betsy Fillmore Vaught, 67, who grew up in Beaver. "I remember the colors were so absolutely beautiful. Better than the best rainbows you've ever seen. It was just exciting."

Vaught and the rest of her extended family enjoyed those nighttime adventures, but they're paying for it now as year after year someone else is diagnosed with a form of cancer, she said.

"You can't blame everything on the bomb, but the government said it was OK to watch, and we believed them," said Vaught, who has a younger sister battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. "We have no choice but to try and educate people and hope they get screened."

Vaught said she took advantage of a special downwinders health clinic offered at the medical center, and she wishes more people would do the same.

"I really felt like it was one of the most worthwhile things I've ever done," she said. "Don't be afraid to find out if you're healthy right now. It's a good baseline."

Barlow directs the center's federally funded clinic called "The Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program," or RESEP for short. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Primary Health Care, RESEP opened its doors in March 2004.

So far, nearly 200 people, most of them downwinders, have been screened, Barlow said. More than half of those people were referred for a colonoscopy, and another 24 patients learned they needed further testing for suspicious lumps or lesions.

Another 53 women were told it was time for a mammogram, and one man who now lives in Bountiful learned he had prostate cancer. He has since had surgery and is fine, Barlow said.