Getting Guam Into RECA - 0 views
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"Guam - A group of Guam lawmakers and residents will soon be headed to Washington to push for Guam's inclusion in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act known as RECA. alt Dim lights Embed From 1945 through 1962, the United States detonated nearly 200 atmospheric nuclear weapons, .many of the tests were conducted in the Marshells on Eniwetok Atoll. Guam is more than 1,600 miles downwind from the Marshalls. Until recently, many thought, it was too far away to suffer any radiation fallout from the atmospheric testing. But that turned out not to be true. That became apparent when President Clinton signed an Executive Order declassifying thousands of pages of documents showing Guam was exposed to fallout carried down wind from the Marshalls. And as "downwinders" Senator Ben Pangelinan says Guam should be included in RECA which would provide up to $50-thousand dollars in compensation to people who lived on Guam between 1946 and 1974. Robert Celestial is the President of the Pacific Islands Association for Radiation Survivors. He was the one who searched through the de-classified documents back in the 90's and found the evidence of Guam's exposure to fallout from the nuclear testing in the Marshalls. Both Pangelinan and Celestial believe that there are links to Guam's high cancer rates and the radiation that fell on island during the atmospheric nuclear testing in the Marshalls."
