Compensation at last for excluded downwinders

WASHINGTON — For nearly 30 years, Isaac Nelson of Cedar City says, he's believed the government murdered his first wife through radiation from atomic bomb tests. The government denied it.

But late Wednesday, the Senate gave final passage to a bill that finally apologizes and offers compensation for her death — and for thousands of other downwind cancer victims who were excluded from earlier compensation programs.

Nelson said he's glad for the belated recognition, and might even apply for the $50,000 in compensation for which he appears now to be eligible. "But no amount of money will restore one hair to her head at this point. The government murdered my wife."

Nelson's first wife, Oleta, died of brain cancer. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said scientific studies did not strongly connect that form of cancer to radiation 10 years ago when he first passed a downwinder compensation program through Congress.

More recent studies did make that connection, though. So the new legislation, now going to President Clinton for his signature, adds brain cancer victims and others to compensation programs.

Nelson remembers well how he believes his wife was exposed to radiation. On May 19, 1953, a neighbor called him out of his home to watch a huge, pinkish fallout cloud from an atomic bomb test upwind in Nevada. That test has since been called "Dirty Harry" because of the heavy fallout it produced.

Oleta Nelson walked out too in a short-sleeved dress and bobby socks to watch the cloud, which the government said was harmless. That night she suffered diarrhea and nausea. A headache began that would last six months. Her doctor said she acted as if she had a bad sunburn, even though her olive skin rarely burned.

A few weeks later, she "let out the most ungodly scream I've ever heard," Nelson said. Half her hair slipped off her scalp and never grew back. She died of brain cancer after 12 years of severe suffering.

Nelson was among the first to join early lawsuits seeking to force the government to accept responsibility and pay damages. After years of battles, courts ruled that victims did not have the right to sue the government for actions taken for national defense.

So Hatch and former Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, worked for years in Congress — and finally passed in 1990 — a program to offer $50,000 to people who developed some types of cancer after exposure to radiation clouds. It also offered $100,000 to uranium miners and millers because the government knew they were at high cancer risk but never warned them.