Exploitation of workers and communities based on class and race has profoundly influenced occupational and environmental health. During production and testing of nuclear weapons in the United States, class and race have affected exposures to radiation and other hazards as well as protection programs and monitoring of exposures. This situation has contributed to health disparities and has hindered advancement of research into the health effects of ionizing radiation and other exposures from nuclear weapons production. Organizing by workers and affected communities can bring about a better understanding of the health effects of ionizing radiation as well as more ethical research practices.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
MakhijaniA.HuH., and YihK., Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995).
2.
NussbaumR. H. and KohnleinW., “Inconsistencies and Open Questions Regarding Low-dose Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation,”Environ Health Perspect. 102 (8) (1994): 656–667.
3.
SterlingT. D., “The Health Effects of Low-dose Radiation on Atomic Workers. A Case Study of Employer-directed Research,”Int J Health Serv. 10 (1) (1980): 37–46.
4.
WingS., “Objectivity and Ethics in Environmental Health Science,”Environ Health Perspect. 111 (14) (2003): 1809–1818.
5.
NussbaumR. H., “Manipulating Public Health Research: The Nuclear and Radiation Health Establishments,”Int J Occup Environ Health. 13 (3) (2007): 328–330.
6.
HardingS., Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women's Lives (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).
7.
Fox-KellerE., “Science and its Critics,”Academe. September-October (1995): 10–15.
8.
LevinsR. and LewontinR. C., The Dialectical Biologist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985).
9.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and National Cancer Institute, “Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout Following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests” (NIH publication 97–4264), 1997.
10.
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, Final Report, Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995).
JohnsonL. and SchafferD., Oak Ridge National Laboratory: The First Fifty Years (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1994).
13.
WingS.WestC. M.WoodJ.L., and TankersleyW., “Recording of External Radiation Exposures at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Implications for Epidemiological Studies,”J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol. 4 (1) (1994): 83–93.
14.
WatkinsJ. P.ReaganJ.L., and CragleD. L., Data Collection, Validation and Description for the Oak Ridge Nuclear Facilities Mortality Study (Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge Associated Universities/DOE, 1993).
15.
WingS.RichardsonD. B.WolfS.MihlanG.Crawford-BrownD., and WoodJ., “A Case Control Study of Multiple Myeloma at Four Nuclear Facilities,”Ann Epidemiol. 10 (3) (2000): 144–153.
16.
GaetzK. A.RichardsonD. B., and WingS., “Inequalities in the Nuclear Age: Impact of Race and Gender on Radiation Exposures at the Savannah River Site (1951–1999),”New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy
17.
WingS.ShyC. M.WoodJ. L.WolfS.CragleD. L., and FromeE. L., “Mortality Among Workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Evidence of Radiation Effects in Follow-up through 1984,”JAMA265 (1) (1991): 1397–1402.
18.
WingS.RichardsonD. B., and StewartA., “The Relevance of Occupational Epidemiology to Radiation Protection Standards,”New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy9 (2) (1999): 133–151.
19.
BrownK., “Utopia Gone Terribly Right: Plutonium's “Gated Communities” in the Soviet Union and the United States,” in Communism Unwrapped: Consumption in Postwar Eastern Europe, BrenPaulina and NeuburgerMary (eds.), Under review at Oxford University Press.
20.
GeigerH. J.RushD., and MichaelsD., Dead Reckoning: A Critical Review of the Department of Energy's Epidemiologic Research (Washington, DC: Physicians for Social Responsibility, 1992).
21.
WilkinsonG., “Seven Years in Search of Alpha: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times,”Epidemiol. 10 (3) (1999).
22.
GreenbergM., “The Evolution of Attitudes to the Human Hazards of Ionizing Radiation and to its Investigators,”Am J Ind Med.20 (6) (1991): 717–721.
23.
GreeneG., The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999).
24.
LyonJ. L., “Nuclear Weapons Testing and Research Efforts to Evaluate Health Effects on Exposed Populations in the United States,”Epidemiol. 10 (5) (1999): 557–560.
25.
Secretarial Panel for the Evaluation of Epidemiologic Research Activities, Report to the Secretary by the Secretarial Panel for the Evaluation of Epidemiologic Research Activities for the U.S. Department of Energy (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, 1990).
26.
HuffJ., “Industry Influence on Occupational and Environmental Public Health,”Int J Occup Environ Health. 13 (1) (2007): 107–117.
27.
KrimskyS., Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research? (New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
28.
WashburnJ., University Inc: The Corporate Corruption of American Higher Education (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005).
