Utah's Downwinders - A Personal Story
In 2004, Tori Ballif was (by her own account) a self-absorbed high school student. She had never heard the term “downwinder” and certainly felt no connection to it in her own life. Then her grandmother died, after suffering from two separate bouts of cancer, and spending the last twelve years of her life convalescing in a full time care facility.
At the funeral, Tori grappled with a sense of disconnect from what was happening. She was struggling to feel a sense of loss for the grandmother whose life had been taken by cancer long before her actual death. Years later, when she was a student at the University of Utah, Tori finally asked her mother about her grandmother’s illnesses. She was stunned to learn that her grandmother was a “downwinder” – a word that represented so much personal devastation in so many lives.
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| Tori with her grandmother |
Tori is embarrassed to admit that this was the first time she had heard this simple term, used to describe those living downwind of the Nevada nuclear test site who were exposed to radioactive fallout as a result. When she learned what is meant, she was overcome with a tremendous sense of outrage, not just for her own grandmother, whose life was completely and irrevocably changed as a result of the above-ground nuclear testing, but also for the tens of thousands of others who were similarly impacted. Tori concluded that if she didn’t know about the radiation exposure, it was likely that many others of her generation didn’t know about it either. It was this realization that led her to tell her Grandmother’s story.
She began to read everything she could find about above-ground nuclear testing. In the process, she discovered she was eligible for funding through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), and began to craft the framework for a project around the testing. This would ultimately culminate in an honors thesis on the subject, and put her on a path that now leads to Stanford Law School.
Before Tori began her research project, she noted that her faculty sponsor, Mary Dickson, suggested that she broaden her vision, specifically encouraging her to explore compensation legislation associated with the Downwinders. Tori soon realized that one of the critical problems with the existing legislation is that it assumes the ability to geographically limit fall out from the nuclear testing, and it only covers 21 types of primary cancer. “Nuclear technology is still so new – we are just barely beginning to understand the impact of such testing.”
More than 30,000 individuals have applied for compensation under the Downwinders legislation. “Unfortunately,” notes Tori, “we don’t understand how radiation exposure affects future generations. We simply have no good sense of how long this will last, and issues of sterility and disease in children gestated during the testing have yet to be fully explored or defined.” She believes that recent advances in genetic mapping may help with this, providing at least a foundation to determine causation from nuclear fallout (i.e., if one is not genetically pre-disposed to get cancer, and does, it may be possible to start attributing causation.)
During her research project, Tori realized that at some point her question had shifted from “how are downwinders being compensated?” to “is compensation even possible?” She concluded that the answer lies in the difference between being “harmed” and being “wronged.” Harm denotes something that is quantifiable, i.e., finite damage that can be repaired. In contrast, a wrong is something that crosses the moral boundary, and for which it is impossible to compensate. She believes the government’s failure to inform citizens regarding the danger of the above-ground nuclear testing conducted in the 1950’s and 1960s’s constitutes a “wrong.” Tori notes another example of U.S. citizens being “wronged” is found in the medical files of our troops who fought in the Gulf War and endured significant chemical exposure. “You just can’t go back after something like that and make things right.” Her research has led her to conclude that what is really needed is more thoughtful and informed policy. “The best compensation for those impacted by above ground nuclear testing,” she states, “is to ensure that it never happens again.”
Tori recently graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in History, complimented by minors in English Literature and Documentary Studies. She’ll begin law school at Stanford this fall. When reflecting on her research experience, Tori notes that this passion about America’s nuclear history is something that will stay with her for her entire life. “This is very personal. It’s about me and about my family. It’s about my grandmother.”