Description
Book SynopsisFor more than four decades, the Hanford nuclear weapons facility in Washington State secretly blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest with low-dose ionizing radiation, the byproduct of plutonium production. Trisha Pritikin tells the devastating story of those who were harmed in Hanford's wake and, seeking justice, were subjected to more suffering.
Trade ReviewThe discussion of health effects from exposure to radioactive contaminants tends to focus on acute effects--cancers and death tolls. Pritikin shows in heart-breaking detail the stockpile of health problems from exposure to radioactivity and how painfully these chronic health problems dismantle lives. A passionate and carefully researched account of the failed fight for atomic justice." - Kate Brown, author of
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters and
Manual for Survival: An Environmental History of the Chernobyl Disaster"Given the current political climate--North Korea's nuclear threat, the current US administration's provocation of North Korea, the potential unraveling of Iran's nuclear deal, and the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan--Trisha Pritikin's
The Hanford Plaintiffs is a timely addition to literature that has addressed the health harm caused by radiation exposure downwind of weapons' production and testing sites as well as from the use of nuclear weapons in warfare; from uranium mining, milling, or transport; from nuclear power plant accidents; and from leaking nuclear waste. Pritikin's work stands out, not only in its description of the plight of the people--called downwinders--in and around the Hanford site but also in its disclosure of the callous disregard of the US government for the innocent citizens it was supposed to protect." - Yuki Miyamoto, PhD, associate professor of religious studies, DePaul University, and author of
Beyond the Mushroom Cloud"
The Hanford Plaintiffs is an urgent book for our times. We think we know about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on the one hand, and Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima on the other. We might imagine that these places stand for events safely consigned to the past or that the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear power are separate affairs. Now we are encountering, once again, cavalier talk about the use of nuclear weapons.
The Hanford Plaintiffs opens our eyes to the reality of how the atomic age has played long-term, continuing havoc with whole communities, the environment, and democratic principles in the United States and throughout the world by presenting the life stories of the downwinders of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb was produced. Pritikin lays out her material methodically, providing the scientific, medical, legal, and historical components important to readers' full understanding." - Norma Field, PhD, professor emerita, University of Chicago, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and author of
In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: Japan at Century's End"
The Hanford Plaintiffs is an extraordinary and unique exposé of the human results of deliberate releases of huge quantities of radioactive isotopes from the Hanford reactors and nuclear complex over many years of operation." - Helen Caldicott, MD
