https://www.savereca.org/about daily 0.75 2026-01-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/57749551-4aa0-4ab5-b384-a976bd957ebc/RECACoveredAreas.jpg About RECA Covered Areas from 2000-2024 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/bb0297b7-00ff-436c-bbde-66d09aebd39e/RECA-map_new+as+of+2025_no+legend.png About - Make it stand out RECA Covered Areas as of 2025 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028845332-BBT17UGMFQFVPHX9MJ9L/gc_uranium_Radiation_Sign_%28c%29_Blake_McCord.jpg About - Make it stand out Photo: Blake McCord, Grand Canyon Trust https://www.savereca.org/francis-lincoln-grahlfs daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028810817-IEG4F48KDL3713RPDE6L/lincoln+grahlfs.jpeg Lincoln Grahlfs Testimony - Make it stand out F. Lincoln Grahlfs, in his US Navy uniform, circa 1946. https://www.savereca.org/cip-lucero daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028812556-F5SK8A1FGFW066T4AJS4/cip+lucero+pic.jpeg Cip Lucero Testimony - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.savereca.org/chase-testimony daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028814063-5DP93ID0HX1RQ1V5OCEF/Untitled+design.png https://www.savereca.org/home daily 1.0 2026-01-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028815789-LIR0S22CTBQ8Y3WGLDQ9/LindaEvers_web-scaled.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028815798-CCUBSIZ1D7F5OR7IWAH3/mary+dickson.jpg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028815805-9A29WPXQVTVJ31WZIMBA/lincoln+grahlfs.jpeg Home https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028815771-BRU4POR95QV5HSN4LPZK/trinity-downwinders.jpeg Home - Make it stand out Tina Cordova and Laura Greenwood of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium https://www.savereca.org/atomic-veterans-docuemntary daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://www.savereca.org/robert-celestial daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028817555-BLIVC5ZNVVGX9ZN34Z4X/5b34a22f025dd.image.png Robert Celestial Testimony - Robert Celestial U.S. Senate Judiciary Hearing June 27, 2018 Testimony by: Mr. Robert N. Celestial, PARS President Senate Bill 197: Radiation Exposure Compensation Act 2017 https://www.savereca.org/larry-king daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://www.savereca.org/cruz-testimony daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028819364-PSPOT660VUYRAN43T3ZG/Untitled+design.png https://www.savereca.org/eric-barton daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028820842-66XU4IJ2H0LVFQ06ATQE/20180519_092725+-+Copy.jpg Eric Barton Testimony - Make it stand out F. Lincoln Grahlfs, in his US Navy uniform, circa 1946. https://www.savereca.org/reynaldo-torres daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028822479-M06DSTVD4D3J2EKUG4UH/Reynaldo+Torres.jpg https://www.savereca.org/policy daily 0.75 2026-01-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706030318478-7LCRC9JXUYFYOG8FHDAB/image-asset.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028824030-A1OON86R1OU6T8I03COS/RECACoveredAreas.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/65774ccc-382e-4e6d-aa0a-b029f226a697/2025+expansion+map+legend.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/bb0297b7-00ff-436c-bbde-66d09aebd39e/RECA-map_new+as+of+2025_no+legend.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028824035-QXZD2SQRIPVXZ9MTCSGW/downwind-banner.jpg https://www.savereca.org/loretta-berlonghi daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028825630-N0FCA4RYHV57ZFZESTNF/Loretta+2.png Loretta Berlonghi Testimony - Loretta Berlonghi I’m a Downwinder They told us it was safe, but the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) knew the bomb tests could be lethal. The AEC began an open air atomic bomb testing program at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) on January 17, 1951 and it continued until the end of 1962. We were in a race with the U.S.S.R. for nuclear supremacy. I lived in Utah during all 100 atmospheric tests, before they were forced underground by the Test Ban Treaty signed in 1963. They weren’t safe. I developed a blood cancer. When I learned the bombs had names, I felt sick to my stomach. I thought it couldn’t be true. But it was. The first grouping of tests, called Operation Ranger, consisted of five bombs with Code Names: Able, Baker, Easy, Baker-2, and Fox. The last one, Fox, was detonated on February 6, 1951 (two days after I was born) and had an energy yield of 22,000 tons of TNT. In comparison, 6 years earlier, the Hiroshima bomb named Little Boy had a yield of 15,000 tons of TNT and the Nagasaki bomb called Fat Boy yielded 21,000 tons of TNT. The NTS detonations only took place when the wind was blowing south easterly which meant that fallout radiation would blanket everything in its path from Nevada to the east coast. The AEC chose the Nevada location because they considered the nearby inhabitants “a low use segment of the population.” I was considered dispensable, part of an experiment and a Cold War victim. But really it was the entire country. It’s been 15 years since I had a bone marrow transplant to treat Acute Leukemia. I lived in a RECA area from 1960 until 1963 and therefore qualified as a compensable Downwinder. Although I received $50,000 from the Department of Justice in 2008, it wasn’t nearly enough to cover medical expenses, loss of my business and my health for a lifetime. The duration from exposure to diagnosis varies, for me it was 45 years. Now we know there is no such thing as a “low dose of radiation” because its absorption is cumulative. Hundreds of thousands of other U.S. citizens who were exposed, developed cancers and other diseases, have not been compensated. They should be. The compensation package needs to be increased to at least $150,000 per individual, myself included. Still, it wouldn’t be enough to counteract the years of illness, 528 hours of chemotherapy, 25 blood transfusions, total body irradiation and a bone marrow transplant. My health and personal loss can never be restored. https://www.savereca.org/gayla-bradberry daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028827102-DYZ7UW0U4B99YITSE990/gayla+bradberry.jpeg Gayla Bradberry Testimony - Gayla Bradberry My mother died of cancer at age 51, in 1963. I was 16 years old. She had received radiation treatments for 4 years previously at a medical facility in El Paso, TX, 200 miles away from our home in New Mexico. My father also died of cancer 5 years later after being hospitalized for 6 months in Albuquerque, NM, 250 miles in the other direction from home. My family had a “primitive” cabin (one room, no plumbing, drywall, or electricity) in Lincoln County, NM, where my father was a partner with his dad and brother in a cattle operation. Upon their marriage in 1933, my parents built that cabin. Around 1953, they purchased their own 160 acre ranch nearby. Both properties were in the direction of the plutonium cloud that drifted after the Trinity Test at White Sands in 1945. My brothers and I had to liquidate the ranch in 1970 in order to pay the bills for my dad’s hospitalization and treatments. https://www.savereca.org/reca-bill-comparison daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://www.savereca.org/stories daily 0.75 2025-11-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828702-EPHGK1TIXVCJDTCW1JCP/Screen+Shot+2022-06-30+at+10.58.47+AM.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828707-L4ICQPUXB8RB17KW3BZP/Mary+Dickson+1.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828711-86DJDXAAZRZ5LRE0W24R/Eve+Mary+Verde.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828715-31XJF4VPNHAOXUNURKAB/Loretta+2.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828719-CHI7HZH4I62PXNG3EL0C/Laura+Greenwood.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828724-EOA7W4X7TN31IWMYMPMT/gayla%2Bbradberry.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828728-HAE9I95B116DPVZ5S65J/robert+celestial.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828732-2M4U35AWJIZFKEKKS9U2/XPino+Greg_28.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828736-6OJXIDR36222J3L9QVFA/Untitled+design.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828740-BHN72RRLBKNLFIUSKOCI/Untitled+design.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828744-FZZDJ5G57BXSW2C7JHRT/Karen+King.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828748-JDH7U4D9MBL9NHXXI3KO/Untitled+design.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828755-TDS5QKU63JHN332XEEAY/larry+king+pic.png Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828761-7BNIR003Z3WSHIX01R1L/LindaEvers_web-scaled.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828767-IN29M6AUDTNKZ13QBBOO/cip+lucero+pic.jpeg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828771-KCB5OUTCSXQR78U8EKDD/Reynaldo+Torres.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828776-OM4PR2EC09L6RJCEKO30/Screen%2BShot%2B2022-06-30%2Bat%2B10.48.05%2BAM.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828783-CD9CPMR7F9SVM43FA930/lincoln+grahlfs.jpeg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828794-ZDVDDX156USI9BO3V8I6/20180519_092725+-+Copy.jpg Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828801-F4XIMZ9ELKWD0YUBIPZ9/tularosa+memorial.jpg Stories Annual vigil held by the Tularosa Basin Downwinders with candles symbolizing over 800 people who died of cancer from small villages near the Trinity Test Site. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028828807-JPAUBX7Q52GT72AKN2S1/Tona+pages+of+names.jpg Stories - Make it stand out Tona Henderson, Idaho Downwinders: “The pages of names are friends and family of mine that have had cancer from Gem County, [Idaho] ...1055 of them.” https://www.savereca.org/contact daily 0.75 2026-01-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028835310-3VS0O1P1J584A4QU0SXU/Mary+Dickson+2.jpeg Contact - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028835317-9802V00N0465IDK9AMFM/15.10+Lujan+meeting+uranium+workers.jpeg Contact - Make it stand out Uranium workers in New Mexico meet with Sen. Ben Ray Lujan. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028835323-LN246O2SBWXPA9KJXUKM/lobbying+TBDC.jpg Contact - Make it stand out The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocates for RECA in Washington, D.C. https://www.savereca.org/north-testimony daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028836725-DAJQM543JZLM95QIMZFT/Untitled+design.png https://www.savereca.org/linda-evers daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028838232-27Y7O253N8E2FDCHN5MF/LindaEvers_web-scaled.jpg Linda Evers Testimony - Linda Evers Personal Testimony from 2018 To Whom It May Concern; My name is Linda Evers and I am 59 years old, my birthday is May 25, 1958. I began my work in uranium in 1976, after I graduated from high school at 18 years old, and my last year was in 1982. I live in Grants, New Mexico in the middle of what is considered the Grants Mineral Belt. https://www.savereca.org/christy-pino daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028839715-NNCLR77VI97AE5DSROYX/XPino+Greg_28.jpg https://www.savereca.org/laura-greenwood daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028842436-C39AG0ORH8T2CZGURZDY/Laura+Greenwood.png Laura Greenwood Testimony - Laura Greenwood My husband John Greenwood was born and raised in Alamogordo, New Mexico. John and I met in New Mexico, we married in 1982 and moved to my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas. John worked for Nueces County and for the State of Texas. John was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2008. The doctor removed 12 inches of his colon. Almost a year later, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and his right kidney was removed. John began very aggressive chemotherapy at M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital in Houston, Texas. By September 2010, John was cancer free. So, after surviving colon and kidney cancer, he decided to take the next step in his life and retire. Six months after retirement, the cancer metastasized to his liver, it was Stage 4 and terminal. Cancer is a terrible disease and when it attacks the liver then all you can do is fight for time. My husband and the love of my life lost his battle on June 20, 2012. John was the 13th member in his family to die from cancer. His mother died from uterine cancer and his father died from complications of colon cancer. He lost aunts, uncles, cousins, and his brother-in-law. His sister had colon cancer is the only family member of that generation to survive. There is now a genetic factor involved where cancer is being passed down through generations. Two of his children have already had cancer. His son had colon cancer at 43 yrs. and his daughter had uterine cancer at 40 yrs. and she had to have a total hysterectomy. John retired from the Texas Attorney General’s Office working under Greg Abbott where he was a Medicaid Fraud Investigator. Upon retirement, we moved to a home on a small acreage of land in Brady, Texas. John’s health insurance was Blue Cross Blue Shield with an 80/20 split where we had to pay 20% of all our health costs. John had two major surgery’s, scans, lab work, medication, doctor visits, blood transfusions, and chemotherapy treatments weekly that costs up to $100,000 for each treatment. In addition, there was traveling expenses. That 20% adds up rapidly causing enormous debit. It literally broke us. Our phone was cut off five times, our electricity was cut off four times and our vehicle was repossessed. I pawned and sold family jewelry and heirlooms just to get the electricity turned back on. When the cancer metastasized to his liver, the debt that we had previously incurred continued to add up. We got to the point where we could no longer afford a hotel, food and gas money on our trips to Houston. We would get up at 2:00am, pack a peanut butter sandwich and a bottle of water, leave Brady, Tx by 3:00am and drive 6 hours to Houston to MD Anderson Cancer Hospital. John would do lab work, see the doctor and have his chemotherapy treatment, then we would get in the car and drive 6 hrs. home arriving about midnight with a ¼ tank of gas and .87 cents in our pocket. The stress was unbearable. John and I always knew that the cancer in his family was a result of the Trinity Test but because we were living in Texas, we didn’t know how to find others like us. I found the Tularosa Basin Downwinders after John passed away and learned that there were so many others who had similar stories and had suffered just like us. I have been working with Tina Cordova and the Tularosa Basin Downwinders for about 7 years to get compensation to help these families with their health care expenses caused by the Trinity Test. I meet people in Texas all the time that have ties to New Mexico and have similar stories. I think we would all be surprised at how many people here in Texas were once living, working or visiting in New Mexico who were exposed to radiation and now are suffering with cancer. In 1990, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was passed by Congress to help the victims who lived in the area of the Nevada nuclear testing site who were exposed to radiation. New Mexico was not included in those benefits even though they were the victims of the very first atomic bomb, the Trinity Test. According to U.S. Census records, there were 40,000 people living within 50 miles of ground zero. The government did not warn or evacuate these families before detonating the atomic bomb. Some ranches were just 12 miles away from “ground zero” and they were never warned. Most of these resident’s learned the truth about what happened to them when they saw a news reel that played weeks later at the movie theater announcing the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan. Though my husband John was born and raised in NM, he served the State of Texas for 30 years. If we had been able to have the same benefits as the Nevada Test Site victims, then it would have made a very difficult time in our lives a little less stressful and we could have just focused on John and what time we had left together. I will continue to fight as long as it takes to get the compensation that families like ours deserve. https://www.savereca.org/eve-mary-verde daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028843635-IXZN0ZNSP2STXS89UDJS/Eve+Mary+Verde.jpg Eve Mary Verde Testimony - Eve Mary Verde Testimony to the Board of Radiation Effects Research Given July 29, 2004 Updated October 2021 My name is Eve Mary Verde. I am a Utah native and grew up in Carbon County – 120 miles Southeast of Salt Lake City. When I was a young child, the “Big C” was rarely talked about, but it was a disease that began impacting my life even before I started school. As I played with my close friend and next-door neighbor, I recall vividly the fear I felt for my five-year-old friend, whose mother was dying of breast cancer. I had no idea what a “radical mastectomy” was; I only knew that it must be something horrible because I saw how ill she was and heard my parents discussing how difficult it was going to be for the father of this family, who would soon be left to raise three small children. That was my first introduction to cancer. Little did I know that additional occurrences would become commonplace in my small community of fewer than 10,000 people, where the incidences of cancer continue to be too numerous to count. I can tell you, however, that in my immediate family of four, every one of us was a victim of cancer – my father died of brain cancer in 1988. After my father was diagnosed, I researched brain cancer and learned that less than two percent of all brain cancers start in the brain – yet the doctors felt certain that this was the primary source of his cancer and could not find it anywhere else in his body. I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 45 in 1995. In 2005 I feared that I was once again facing cancer when numerous doctors told me that I most likely had ovarian cancer. This diagnosis, fortunately, turned out to be benign, but, once diagnosed with cancer, the fear of a reoccurrence never leaves you, no matter how many years go by. In 1999, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. In 2004, my 57-year-old brother was also diagnosed with colon cancer. His wife died of endometrial cancer in 2011, at the age of 64. He died a sudden and unexpected death this past June, but currently his 23-year-old granddaughter is currently undergoing tests to determine whether the tumors in her breast are benign or malignant. My father and his nine siblings were born and raised in Carbon County – some of them died having never traveled outside of the area. Five weeks after my dad died of brain cancer, his sister died of leukemia. Another sister died four years later of colon cancer. His oldest brother also died of leukemia. My mother had three siblings. Her oldest sister died of brain cancer. Her youngest brother had melanoma and died of bladder cancer in 2007. His twin sister had colon and breast cancer and died in 2019. Her father died of lung cancer. In a close circle of friends, my best friend’s husband had kidney cancer before he was 60; her sister’s husband died of melanoma and then this sister died of a rare cancerous lung disease less than one week following diagnosis. Nearly every household in the neighborhood I grew up in has at least one incident of cancer; sometimes numerous family members such as mine have had cancer. Shortly after my brother’s diagnosis, a friend who stopped by to see him asked if he had considered moving out of his current neighborhood, pointing out that nearly every house on the block had someone who had had either colon, breast or brain cancer. In the past few years, the cancer history of the 14 people in my immediate work group reads like this: a co-worker died of multiple myeloma; my boss’s mother died of breast cancer; the husband of one of my co-workers was diagnosed with melanoma and a very aggressive type of breast cancer, following a bout with testicular cancer 23 years before; the mother of another co-worker was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and her father currently has prostate cancer. It should be noted that less than two percent of all breast cancers occur in men. Dr. Seymour Jablon, former staff director for the medical follow-up agency for the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, reported several years ago that the risk of breast cancer from radiation exposure is greatest in girls between 10 and 19 at the time of exposure. I have so many friends and acquaintances that fit into this category that have had breast cancer that I can’t begin to count all of them. When I hear the American Cancer Society quote the statistics that one out of four people will experience cancer in their lifetime, I want to know where this is the case, because in Carbon County and the state of Utah, it seems much higher. During the 1950s and ’60s when our government was conducting nuclear testing in Nevada, I recall our teachers and government telling us to “go out and watch this historical event.” It was historical, alright – and now, as our government continues to hide the facts and shirk responsibility for its actions, I’m sure there are more than just a few who are glad to see that the “evidence” is dying. The officials who decided that only those cancer victims who lived in Southern Utah should be compensated obviously have not been personally affected by cancer. Not only should cancer victims in the entire state of Utah be compensated for our government’s actions – the entire nation should be. It’s not “weapons of mass destruction” in other countries that need be feared – it’s our government’s weapons that have killed our own. Now, the administration would add “insult to injury” by attempting to renew testing again in Nevada – let’s learn from the mistakes from the past and prevent this from happening again in the future. https://www.savereca.org/ut-downwinders daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://www.savereca.org/king-testimony daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028846757-KPDLWY7V79234LJ22GXN/Karen+King.png https://www.savereca.org/mary-dickson daily 0.75 2024-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65afef0aa07bfc77c526cd3d/1706028847905-GCHARYRAOY5RX5ZGN3LP/Mary+Dickson+1.jpg Mary Dickson Testimony - Mary Dickson My name is Mary Dickson. I am a lifelong resident of Salt Lake City, Utah and a survivor of nuclear weapons tests conducted by the U.S. government. Like tens of thousands of Americans, I grew up under the clouds of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing. I was only a child during the years of atmospheric detonations in Nevada. How were any of us to know that a silent poison was threading its way through our bodies when a government we trusted repeatedly assured us that “there is no danger” and distributed pamphlets telling us not to let reports of Geiger counters going crazy bother us. Between 1951 and 1992, the U.S. government detonated 100 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere and 828 underground – all of them more powerful than the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallout did not respect county or state borders. Winds carried it hundreds, even thousands of miles away from the Nevada Test Site, exposing countless people living downwind to deadly levels of radiation. In my 20s, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I underwent a thyroidectomy and radiation treatments. On my hospital door and my hospital bracelet was the radiation symbol. I was the radioactive material. When I left the hospital, they burned my clothes and told me not to be around pregnant women or try to get pregnant for a year. Tumors on my ovaries and uterus a few years later meant that I never could have children. Three years ago, I underwent emergency surgery as a result of scar tissue from that hysterectomy. My older sister and I compiled a list of childhood friends and neighbors who had cancer, tumors and autoimmune diseases. That list includes 54 people who lived in a five-block area of our childhood neighborhood. In 2001, I added my sister’s name to the list. She was only 46 when she died, leaving 3 young children behind. Now, my younger sister is battling a rare cancer and my youngest sister is being treated for autoimmune disorders. I could regale you for hours with heartbreaking stories of the harm wreaked on unsuspecting Americans by radioactive fallout. The Cold War had casualties and we are those casualties. We have suffered and continue to suffer, we have comforted the sick, buried and mourned the dead, worried with each ache, and worried with each pain and new lump that we are getting sick again. Our families and communities have been devastated physically, emotionally and financially. The genetic damage has been passed to new generations. We were patriotic Americans who believed our government when it assured us, “there is no danger.” Our government not only lied to us for decades, but considered us expendable. We have paid and continue to pay an enormous price. A government that knowingly harmed its own citizens has a moral responsibility to take care of those harmed. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) of 1990 was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. It has always been extremely limited in scope. For instance, neither I, my family, my neighbors nor anyone in northern Utah or surrounding states is included for compensation. We now know more about the extent of fallout and why RECA must be expanded. Without congressional action, RECA expires in July, which is why it is urgent that Congress pass the bipartisan HR 5338 introduced by Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico and co-sponsored by 60 members of the House. For those of us who have suffered for decades and are burdened with ongoing medical expenses, time is literally running out. Too many have already died waiting for justice. When RECA was passed in 1990, then President George HW Bush admitted that it could only be considered partial restitution. What price, afterall, can you put on human health or a human life? You now have a unique opportunity to right the wrongs of the past supporting this bill during markup. 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