Downwinders

July, 1945 The First Atomic Bomb was detonated in New Mexico.

Officials kept the Atomic Bomb a secret. When the locals asked about the explosion and the bright light, officials said it was an accidental pyrotechnic and ammunition explosion. The scientists knew that the bomb had radioactive properties and that it caused cancer, but they never told the public.

Infant Mortality Rate

In October 1947, a local healthcare provider raised concerns about an elevated number of infant deaths in the vicinity of the Trinity test, prompting radiation safety experts from the US nuclear weapons program to investigate. However, their response involved a misrepresentation of health data from New Mexico, which was yet to be published. Both federal and New Mexico data reveal a consistent decline in infant mortality rates in the area downwind of the test site between 1940 and 1960. An exception occurred in 1945, coinciding with a significant increase in the infant death rate, particularly in the three months following the Trinity blast. The explosion, a 21-kiloton event that took place on a tower 100 feet above the ground, has been likened to a "dirty bomb" due to the widespread dispersion of heavily contaminated soil and debris, containing 80 percent of the bomb's plutonium, over thousands of square miles. A physician in Roswell observed this abnormal spike in infant mortality rates and brought it to the attention of radiation safety experts working for the US nuclear weapons program at that time (Mecklin, 2020).

Trinity Test Site

RECA

In 1990, The Department of Justice, Civil Division started “The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act”, commonly referred to as "the Act" or "RECA" (42 U.S.C. § 2210 note), instituted an administrative program to address claims associated with atmospheric nuclear testing and employment in the uranium industry. The Act empowered the Attorney General to formulate procedures and assess whether claims meet the criteria for statutory eligibility. (Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, 2024)

The New Mexico Downwinders were NOT included in RECA. The Downwinders of the Nevada Test Site were included though.

Did You Know?There were families living as close as 12 miles to the Trinity test site in 1945 and there were Thousands of families living in a 50 mile radius. The bomb was a plutonium based bomb and it was packed with 13 pounds of weapons grade plutonium but only 3 pounds of the plutonium fissioned. The remaining 10 pounds of plutonium was joined with the soil, sand, animal and plant life and incinerated. The resultant fireball exceeded the atmosphere and penetrated the stratosphere traveling more than 7 m

References:

Mecklin, J. (2020, July 22). Trinity: “the most significant hazard of the entire Manhattan project.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. https://thebulletin.org/2019/07/trinity-the-most-significant-hazard-of-the-entire-manhattan-project/

Prokop, D. (2023, December 27). “People have been dying ever since”: Anger mixes with hope for NM downwinders • Source New Mexico. Source New Mexico. https://sourcenm.com/2023/07/19/anger-hope-for-nm-downwinders/

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. (2024, March 4). https://www.justice.gov/civil/common/reca

Rice, James. Infant Mortality Downwind of the Trinity Detonation?. Health Physics 122(3):p 445-448, March 2022. | DOI: 10.1097/HP.0000000000001505

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