America's Cold War casualties

From the dawn of the nuclear age, researchers recognized that the risks posed to nuclear weapons workers over time were poorly understood. Robert Stone, head of the health division of the Manhattan Project, noted shortly after World War II that worker radiation protection ... rested on rather poor experimental evidence." He concluded, "The whole clinical study of the personnel is one vast experiment. Never before has so large a collection of individuals been exposed to so much irradiation."

Beginning in the mid-1970s, studies of DOE workers engendered considerable controversy, in large part because of concerns over the DOE's conflict of interest as an employer. The person who sparked the controversy was Mancuso, a quiet, unassuming researcher. The Atomic Energy Commission approached Mancuso in 1964 to study the potential long-term health impact on workers at several government nuclear facilities. As an AEC advisor described it, "Much of the motivation for starting this study arose from the 'political need' for assurance that AEC employees were not suffering harmful effects."

But instead of reducing pressures in the AEC, the research Mancuso did with Stewart and Kneale only exacerbated matters. Indeed, the DOE, the AEC's successor, expressed its ingratitude for their groundbreaking work by terminating their research contract.

In 1990, the DOE was forced by Congress to turn over data from other DOE sites to Stewart, who had, along with her colleagues, continued the research with independent funding. The same year, also as a result of congressional pressure and a growing lack of public trust, the DOE entered into a formal agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services to manage and conduct DOE worker health studies. Yet these studies have been obscured from public attention, largely because the controversy within the DOE had died down.

As the DOE confronts its nuclear legacy, the pattern established by Curie is repeating itself. First, the early warning signs appear -- as when young journalist Florence Pfaltzgraph in 1926 told Curie about the young women at a radium plant in Essex, N.J., who were dying from necrosis of the jaw after blithely ingesting deadly amounts of radium, which their managers had told them would add to their vitality.

Today, the signs are still either ignored or attacked as not being credible. Then official disbelief sets in until the evidence becomes overwhelming. (Curie herself refused to accept that radiation had anything to do with the New Jersey tragedies, only to die herself less than a decade later of bone marrow cancer.) By the time officials acknowledge the problem, it's too late.

Even though the American victims of the Cold War have a powerful supporter in Energy Secretary Richardson, he will soon be gone, perhaps even before the end of the Clinton adminstration. In his wake, many questions will remain: Will the next energy secretary be as committed as Richardson to helping the sick workers? Even if Congress enacts compensation legislation this year, will it be enough? And will Congress be willing to continue the program next year? If the DOE is allowed to decide on compensation, will sick workers get as much priority in the next administration as nuclear weapons production and environmental cleanup? What form of justice, if any, will America's Cold War veterans ultimately get?

• View blog reactions