January 27th is 'Downwinder Day.' The day is now official because several U.S. Senators managed to pass a resolution in Congress in the hopes of improving their chances of getting a bill passed. The bill is an amendment to a 1990 law called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (42 U.S.C. 2210), which provides payments to individuals who contracted certain cancers and other serious diseases as a result of their exposure to radiation released during above-ground nuclear weapons tests or as a result of their exposure to radiation during employment at atomic testing sites or in underground uranium mines.

Learn more about Trinity downwinders, Nevada Test Site downwinders and global fallout downwinders in our free book-in-progress called 'Nuclear Crimes: The Book' here

The amended bill would: triple the compensation amount to $150,000, and give $100,000 to each past successful downwinder claimant; give all successful claimants medical benefits; expand eligibility to be a 'downwinder' to the full geography of seven Western states (Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Utah), and Guam; widen the qualifications for those who worked in the uranium mines during the Cold War; fund $3 million for an epidemiological study relating to health and uranium development; allow affidavits to help victims prove residence/employment (during specified periods of time); would allow resubmission of previously denied RECA claims up to three times; and would extend the RECA Trust Fund's termination date from its current 'sunset' in 2022 to roughly 2029.

The bill would not leave unchanged the compensation scheme for law firms that do business in processing RECA claims; the new bill gives each law firm that succeeds with a claim an extra 8 percent kickback (on top of the original 'fixed' kickback of 2%); the bill would not fund the completion of a University of Utah study on the relationship between Iodine 131 fallout and thyroid disease that was cut in the 1990s before it could be completed; the bill curiously isn't affixed with a price-tag (we have calculated $57 billion in compensation payouts to downwinders, not including payouts to uranium workers, and program and medical costs); the bill wouldn't address many of the inadequacies of the original RECA bill as we lay out in our oped 'The Black and White World of RECA.'

Learn how we calculated $57 billion - at footnote 40 here

Excerpt from the (St. George) Spectrum's article 'Downwinders hope Day of Remembrance spurs change' link

"Some local downwinders saw the Day of Remembrance as difficult to embrace. Michelle Thomas, a St. George resident who was officially declared a downwinder when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993, called the declaration an insult.

"It's an empty occasion, devoid of any long-term positive benefit," she said, arguing that proclamations ring hollow when they are unlikely to come with any action. She said she is doubtful that a weapons ban or additional compensation is coming any time soon.

"The only thing that would make me feel better is if they initiated that we would implement in the school system a program to teach about downwinders," she said, advocating for Dickson's play to be introduced to young people and for downwinders to finally have their own recognition in history books.

"It's education that's necessary, not a proclamation," she said."

Prefixes, conversions and equivalents

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