Review Slated for Troops Involved in Atomic Tests

Scientists on Wednesday began a five-year study of whether thousands of U.S. troops were harmed by being too close to atomic explosions or by going to Ground Zero too soon afterward.

The study replaces one that was inconclusive and scientifically discredited: Eight years ago, it found no clear cause-and-effect between the atomic tests and cancer rates.

“As far as we are concerned, the facts have been in for many years,” Oscar Rosen, commander of the National Assn. of Atomic Veterans, told scientists at the Institute of Medicine.

Rosen’s group and others like it are convinced that the government jeopardized people’s lives and then hid the information about it.

They also are convinced that people have died as a result.

In the new study, the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, will look at participants in the same five atomic test series as the original research: Greenhouse, Upshot-Knothole (1953), Castle (1954), Redwing (1956) and Plumbbob (1957).

Four years after the first study, the Pentagon revealed that it accidentally included 15,000 people who were not at the bomb tests and failed to include another 28,000 who were there. The Office of Technology Assessment, the scientific arm of Congress, said last year that the old study should be redone.

About 200,000 U.S. troops from all branches of the service took part in 235 atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons. By last year, 13,334 had filed claims for benefits and 1,166 were deemed disabled, Donna St. John, spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, said Wednesday.

Eldon Praisewater, a 72-year-old retired Air Force sergeant who was at the Greenhouse test in 1951, said: “I don’t want money. I don’t want any money whatsoever. I just want them to tell me the truth.”