The following testimony on behalf of Radiated Veterans of America, Inc. (RVA) was given to the Congressinally mandated Veterans Advisory Board for Dose Reconstruction, San Diego, California on March 3, 2008. The presentation was made by Charles L. Clark, RVA President.
Chairman Zimble and Distinguished Panel Members:
My name is Charles L. Clark. I am a resident of Kailua, Hawaii.
I am a U.S. Navy Veteran of World War II and the Korean Conflict. I served in the Pacific and was one of the first Americans, not counting on-site Prisoners of War, to enter Nagasaki after the August 9, 1945 atomic bombing.
I am currently the President of Radiated Veterans of America, the only Internal Revenue Service recognized 501(c)(19) Veterans Service Organization representing statutory war veterans exposed to ionizing radiation during service to this nation.
The United States, by and large, has treated Radiated Veterans poorly. While laws have been passed, regulations created, and huge sums of money have been spent addressing ionizing radiation, precious few Veterans have been recognized, medically cared for, or compensated for their losses. This is, I believe, because there has been little continuity in addressing laws defining and addressing “Atomic Veterans”, being those potentially exposed to radiation during atmospheric, and a limited number of underground “tests”, and POWs and occupying troops at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yet the Veterans Administration’s Advisory Committee on Environmental Hazards, in 1993, noted 11 categories of Veterans, in addition to those statutorily listed as “Atomic Veterans” who could have been exposed to ionizing radiation as a result of their service.
Radiation is radiation, and the system, rather than treating all Radiated Veterans equally demonstrably discriminates between Veterans who have been exposed to ionizing radiation.
This is true even within the statutory “Atomic Veteran” classification where there is discrimination between those with so-called “presumptive” cancers and “non-presumptive” diseases recognized in the medical community as radiogenic in origin, for purposes of compensation.
The non-presumptive diseases require the Veteran, or his/her survivor to be subject to a Dose Reconstruction, admitted by government as “uncertain”, and expensive, before any compensation is awarded … and much more often than not, the claim is denied.
Dose Reconstruction is flawed, it is imperfect, and it is discriminatory toward Veterans and the Survivors of those who have died.
Even some members of this congressionally mandated advocate that all “Atomic Veterans” be treated as a special cohort and the sooner the better.
I strongly suggest this Special Cohort classification be adopted in law, and expanded to include all Veterans whose military duties put them at risk from ionizing radiation, including the 11 classifications recognized by the VA study group in 1993.
Further I strongly urge that the Dose Reconstruction program, which is fatally flawed, because the history of dose readings is itself flawed, be scrapped. Too much time, and too much precious capital, has been spent on this program.
The shortcomings of Dose Reconstruction, primarily based on theoretical statistics, and in too few instances actual recorded radiation readings, were recognized by the 2003 report issued by the National Research Council. The report was titled “A Review of the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency”.
Further I urge this Board to advise Congress to give more deference to the medical community and less to the physical scientists, in recognizing the human damage caused by ionizing radiation, which impacts not only those subject to radiation, but even unto progeny affected by genetic changes that occurred when a Veteran was exposed.
Also, I urge Congress to merge the various programs directed at Veterans and Civilians such as “Downwinders”, Uranium Miners, and Defense Workers, so that the nation can properly address the scourge brought about by the uncontrolled introduction of atomic energy, and the human experiments conducted to satisfy curiosities.
As an Atomic Veteran, who was damaged by residual radiation following the bombing of Nagasaki (I have, for example, had more than170 skin cancers removed from my face and neck, and have other maladies the medical community attributes to ionizing radiation) I can ask no less of this Board, and our elected representatives, for the benefit of fellow Veterans and all Humankind.
The history of the Atomic programs has been one of secrecy.
No Patriotic American, least of all Veterans, wanted, or wants, to see vital secrets, particularly in the technology and use of nuclear energy, disseminated to our enemies current and/or potential. However, in the case of those of us that served in the Military, and were exposed, mostly without our knowledge or permission, the matter of secrecy, in my opinion, has been carried too far, too long.
This secrecy began at the dawn of the Atomic Age, in great part by the leadership of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb in the early 1940’s. Secrecy carried not only to technology, but to the known and suspected detrimental effects of radiation, both in large and small doses.
News Zero, the New York Times and the Bomb by Beverly Ann Deepe Keever, Courage Press, 2004, noted the role of William Laurence, science writer for the New York Times, in covering the development of atomic weaponry and energy in “keeping the lid on” the dangers of radiation.
Margot Norris in War in the Twentieth Century Univ. of Virginia Press, 2000, noted the formerly TOP SECRET telephone conversation between General Leslie Groves head the Manhattan Project and a Lt. Col. Rea of the Oak Ridge Hospital, Aug. 25, 1945, discounting reports of radiation burns to victims at Hiroshima as Japanese propaganda, calling them all thermal burns.
Earlier Norris wrote Dividing the Indivisible, the Fissured Story of the Manhattan Project, in the Univ. of Minnesota Press Cultural Critique, Winter 1996-1997. She noted the cancellation, under pressure, of a planned discourse on the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima by the Smithsonian Institution in 1994.
Yet despite the U.S. Government’s downplaying of the potential deleterious health effects of both high and low doses of radiation, well documented research has illustrated such radiation effects the whole body, and not just in the areas of politically correct cancers, as important as they are.
For example, the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, has a web site that relates to potential radiation damage to the eyes, ears/hearing, teeth, salivary glands, head and neck, bone, heart, peripheral arteries, lungs/pulmonary system, breast, liver, genitourinary/renal system, musculoskeletal system, nervous system, endocrine system, and skin.
The Hanford Health Information Network, in a web page published by the Washington State Dept. of Health, describes the “Immune System and Radiation”. They note such autoimmune illnesses as Rheumatoid arthritis, Graves' disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, insulin-dependent diabetes, some blood disorders, and multiple sclerosis as examples of autoimmune disease.
There are many more documents and studies worldwide that attribute many diseases to radiation, and Veterans should be given the “Benefit of the Doubt” as prescribed by law, if they served in a capacity that exposed them to radiation, and contract, at any stage of their lives, any disease suspected or identified by competent medical authority as potentially caused or aggravated by radiation.
Also, I urge this Board to give more attention to the progeny of Radiated Veterans, as privately gathered information from volunteer Radiated Veterans indicates genetic damage. Richard U. Conant, Atomic Veteran, former National Commander of NAAV, and keeper of the privately financed Independent Medical History Database writes:
“In Genetics 101 there are many examples of "how minor disturbances" affect the ‘norm’ in all beings. It doesn't take a ‘Rocket Scientist’ to understand the problem.
“The problem I have with the ABCC, RERF, and others is that none of their studies properly addresses the effects of radiation exposure to parents and the ‘mutation factor’ affecting offspring of future generations.
“Currently the data in the Independent Medical History Database reflects genetic damage to ‘Atmospheric Test Participants Offspring’ - now well into the fourth generation. The plight of those offspring has never been addressed by the U.S. Government, but is being addressed by other Nations whose Military & Civilian personnel were involved in U.S. Atmospheric Tests, or tests of their own.
“By precedent, the U.S. recognizes that Offspring of Agent Orange exposed Veterans, may have one genetic damage (probably more should be recognized). This is damage by chemical exposure. Why, if damage is induced by chemical exposure why not radiation exposure? Both exposure damages are well within the parameters of Genetics 101, and both effect the chemistry of the body."
I am happy to welcome, on behalf of the Radiated Veterans of America, Dr. Yasuhito Sasaki to this Board meeting. Dr. Sasaki, as a member of joint U.S. – Japan committees, has many years experience dealing with radiation plagued people, resulting from the bombing of Japan during wartime. He has been very active in dealing with citizens of that island nation exposed to both high and low doses. One such committee, the Radiation Effects Research Committee, on March 3 of this year, released the following:
“It has been 61 years since the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was established, during which time the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), a joint program between the United States and Japan, has taken over the task of accumulating scientific results of significant versatility, quality, and quantity, through its studies of radiation effects on human health, with generous cooperation and support from A-bomb survivors and their family members.
“Albeit a little later than cancer onset, relationship between radiation dose and incidence of and mortality of non-cancer diseases, such as cataract and circulatory diseases, has started to become evident. With aging of the cohort, relationship between such diseases and radiation exposure is becoming clearer. …. Incomparable detailed analyses of relationship between radiation dose and several immunological markers are now ongoing. These studies have important implications for risk assessment of low-dose”.
Please note this was published by a Joint U.S – Japan committee, addressing only Japanese citizens. As deserving as they are, would it not be advantageous for the United States to also study American Veterans? Just think of the medical advances that could have accrued during these more than 60 years if those serving the nation that instigated the problem, however, justified, had been just as respected and studied, as those victims of Japan.
In wrap-up, I request this Board, charged with reviewing and recommending actions concerning Dose Reconstruction, now well identified as an imperfect science so fraught with uncertainties that is very existence is suspect, expensive, and discriminatory toward Radiated Veterans, recommend to Congress that the program be abolished.
Further, I request this Board, also charged with communicating with Veterans, also recommend to Congress that all Veterans who served at risk from radiation, as previously described by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, be included in a cohort that receives equal protection of the laws and benefits.
And finally, and strongly, recommend, on behalf of the Radiated Veterans of America that survivors be given more deference and recognition by the United States Government. We all know the cases of widows and progeny that have suffered due to illnesses and death of loved one, yet ignored or denied by the very Society that the Veteran and themselves have served.
I will be happy to answer any questions.
The following testimony on behalf of Radiated Veterans of America, Inc. (RVA) was given to the Congressionally mandated Veterans Advisory Board for Dose Recponstruction, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 7, 2007. The presentation was made by Charles L. Clark, RVA President.
The POISON MUSHROOM
Chairman Zimble and Board Members:
My name is Charles L. Clark. I am the president of Radiated Veterans of America, Inc., a non-profit organization recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501 (c) (19) Veterans Service Organization. Our membership is more than 90% statutory war veterans. I am a World War II U.S. Navy veteran of the occupation of Nagasaki, Japan, arriving there soon after the bomb was dropped in August 1945.
We are here to discuss the radiation Dose Reconstruction program. Your committee is charged to determine how to fix it. My organization is here to suggest that the only fix is termination of this expensive and time consuming prejudicial program that purposeful or not is but an extension of a radiation denial program that began even before the nuclear weapons program was begun.
It all started in 1939 when two refugee physicists at Columbia University were having an informal discussion on splitting uranium atoms. They were Italian exile Enrico Fermi and Denmark's Neils Bohr who spoke two words (“assist” and “cover up”) to the New York Times reporter William L. Laurence that would change mans’ destiny forever. (See the book 'NEWS ZERO', by Beverly Ann Deepe Keever)
It was the onsite reporting of Laurence at the Trinity Test Site, July 12, 1945, committing the sin of omission, when he and the photo editing staff covered up the government's lie about the presence of radiation. This began the sin of misleading the public about the true dangers and effects of radiation.
Laurence had agreed to be the embedded reporter for General Leslie Groves and served as an agent for the “atomic curtain for propaganda”. In doing so the author and the New York Times served to legitimize a government policy that would early on deny the existence, persistence and menace of atom bomb radiation and thus withheld vital information from readers.
Today, some 67 years later, the exposed Atomic Veterans remain under the ominous cloud of the mushroom. It was the military, and its contractors, both in academia and industry, that introduced the contamination into our lives and they must be brought to task by we that have been exposed! I say this, because unfortunately, the government, including this Committee, has failed to do so to date!
Attempting to create a “fix” to the broken Dose Reconstruction (DR) issue is not the way to bring justice to exposed Atomic Veteran, their families and survivors. Playing with statistics based on poor original data, and fudging to come up with an “upper limit” is plain poor science … especially when baseline (lower limit) exposures cannot be adequately computed as to effects on the human body. Identifying only certain cancers for purposes of a politically determined presumption of cause, while good for those who have the “right illness”, simply cheats others who must go through the unproven DR for conditions many in the medical community state can or may be caused by exposure to low-level radiation.
If it is true that no amount of radiation is safe, then the only issue for the Atomic Veteran, and the government, should be “was he/she there” and if so there is no need for a DR. The program should be terminated, and we strongly suggest this Committee should recommend such termination.
The history of radiation readings has never been consistent in methodology or measurement criteria. For example, radiation values as reported and recorded with Geiger counters for future study are now out of date and style since the advent of film badges and computer fractions (I personally have received ratings in three decimal points ie .025 and .075 rem). Yet the scientific community still is not able to determine single or multiple individual radiation doses.
In attempting to “recreate” a dose the only reference used by the DTRA’s contractor SAIC is to group activity participation or environmental conditions, when these are known, and oftentimes even these factors were poorly recorded.
This creates “uncertainty”, the term used in so many reports. Attempts to “guesstimate” upper limits of exposure are simply window dressing.
Dose Reconstruction, as a pseudo science, results in creating resentment against the DTRA and Veteran's Administration, and even worse, disenfranchisement for many Atomic Veterans.
Also, many in the Atomic Veteran community feel completely alone and frustrated because they are NOT kept abreast of the continuous changes being negotiated between the government and the Dose Reconstruction contractor SAIC, resulting in undue expense and wasted time. And as the Logo for my organization, Radiated Veterans of America, states, “Time is Running Out” for those in the Atomic Veteran community.
Thus again we must ask the age old question: why are we the tax payers paying such exorbitant costs for nothing, or at best, so little?
Atomic Veterans have no priority position that gives them a say on matters of their personal plight. As an, example, the VA recently notified some Atomic Veterans with pending claims that their cases were being transferred to Jackson, MS, to who knows who, or with what expertise, to decide compensation claims.
The continued distorted communications coming from the BVA makes for resentment. As a personal example I received a correspondence dated 25 October, 2006, stating the following: "troops participating in the occupation of Japan did not receive a dose from neutron radiation". This statement cannot be accepted because it cannot be proven. Can the writer prove that I didn't ingest or breathe neutron radiation while in Nagasaki. Or is the statement just another cover up, as so many statements made to Atomic Veterans appear to be?
If justice is to prevail the Atomic Veteran must ask the question "when"? It is very difficult to attempt to answer family notices of the death of a father and they didn't know that he, the father was exposed to radiation because no one cared to give the veteran the benefit of the doubt.
The growth of the poison mushroom must stop, We, the Atomic Veterans, desire and demand the full light of day. Code 500 another atomic veteran! Code 500 another atomic veteran.
Respectfully submitted
______________________
Charles L. Clark
President Radiated Veterans of America, Inc.
