Hanford's Military Downwinders May Be Studied

SPOKANE - Recent federal disclosures of government-sponsored human radiation experiments could lead to a study on the health of soldiers exposed to radiation released at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a private group says.

The study of thousands of soldiers who were based in Eastern Washington and northern Idaho during the Cold War was recommended in 1986 by a panel of scientists, but never funded.

The Clinton administration has expressed interest in providing money, said H.W. "Wally" Cummins, director of the Radiation Health Effects Public Interest Law Group in Washington, D.C.

"The new administration is willing to talk about completing the study," Cummins said.

"Many of these soldiers were hardly more than children," he said. "They were never included in any legislative remedies and they were forgotten."

The Department of Energy in recent weeks has released long-classified information detailing government radiation experiments conducted on humans who were unaware of the health risks. In addition, the Clinton administration has asked all government agencies to search their files for more information on radiation victims.

The federal government is studying radiation exposures and the incidence of thyroid disease among civilians who lived near Hanford during production of plutonium used to make nuclear bombs. But it has not tracked military personnel who served at 11 bases in Eastern Washington and northern Idaho from 1943 to 1962.

Cummins and British epidemiologist Alice Stewart have completed the first phase of the Hanford Veterans Cancer Mortality Study by compiling the names of 23,000 military personnel who were stationed in the area at the time. They spent $205,000 in private contributions to develop the list.

Cummins and Stewart signed a contract with U.S. Veterans Affairs in December 1990. The $350,000 to complete the project was never appropriated during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Personnel stationed at military sites at Hanford, Spokane, Moses Lake, Othello and Pasco and at the Farragut Naval Station in Northern Idaho would be the prime subjects of the study.

Some ex-military personnel who developed illnesses they believe were caused by radiation releases from Hanford have applied for medical benefits through Veterans Affairs. But many have been denied compensation on grounds that their illnesses were not service-related.

Soldiers who served near Hanford, including guards who worked on the nuclear reservation, were not told of the risks from releases like 1949's Green Run, Cummins said.

In that experiment, clouds of radioactive iodine 131 were deliberately released and spread as far away as Spokane and Klamath Falls, Ore. The test was not disclosed until 1986.