As Congress considers payments to victims of Cold War-era nuclear contamination in the St. Louis region, people who were targeted for secret government testing from that same time period believe they’re due compensation, too.

As Congress considers payments to victims of Cold War-era nuclear contamination in the St. Louis region, people who were targeted for secret government testing from that same time period believe they’re due compensation, too.

  • Drusas@kbin.social
    31·
    1 year ago

    The government released documents in 1994 revealing details about the spraying. And St. Louis wasn’t alone in being subjected to secretive Cold War-era testing. Similar spraying occurred at nearly three dozen other locations.

    There were other types of secret testing. In a 2017 book, St. Louis sociologist Lisa Martino-Taylor cited documents obtained through a FOIA request to detail how pregnant women in several cities were given doses of radioactive iron during prenatal visits to determine how much was absorbed into the blood of the mothers and babies. The government also created radiation fields inside buildings, including a California high school.

    The area of the testing in St. Louis was described in Army documents as “a densely populated slum district.” About three-quarters of the residents were Black.

    Jesus christ, there’s always some new atrocity we’re learning about.