Repair Podcast Gabriel Suazo

Hello, my name is Gabriel Suazo. This podcast episode is on the effects of radiation after the atomic bomb in the environment here in New Mexico. I chose this topic because I originally wanted to focus on mental health, but as I started my research, I bumped more into the health aspects of radiation and the atomic bomb here in New Mexico, so I just kind of followed along and I found some really interesting information, so I decided to just focus on that. I immediately thought about one of the readings that we did towards the end of the semester on environmental racism in the Tularosa Basin. This reading was by Mariah Gomez and she covers the case of the Trinity Downwinders and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Gomez, through the use of testimonies, portrays the impact of the world's first atomic blast here in New Mexico. The article further discusses environmental racism and how it played a role in selecting Trinity site as a detonation area and the disinterest when it came to examining the effects of radiation that it had in different communities. Furthermore, she also talks about the language used when discussing about New Mexico, where it's usually described as a wasteland and or remote and uninhabitable, which was clearly not the case since just a few miles away from ground zero of the blast, we could find people living here. So since we're talking about the language, I also thought about another reading that we did in class on the conquest of nature by David Blackburn. Here he talks about men against nature, and this was mainly focused on Germany's decision to build a drinking water reservoir, but the language is still the same. They talk about putting shackles on a gift given by nature in order to make it work according to a purposes, which is the same with the atomic bomb. This weapon is used as a way to control, to dominate, but not just like other nations, but the land as well. It was used here in New Mexico as a way of control, as a way of power. It basically took the land's virginity, took its purity away in a dominant way. It just took it away. We just decide, we choose what's valuable and not, and the government chose to use New Mexico as an experiment site. So now we can further talk about Gomez's comments, where she talks about the irony, basically, of how animals and plants were being tested more than humans, and this is basically connected to a symptom of environmental racism. Which is pretty much what I found in my research. There was really not a lot of information on how radiation affected people. It was mainly just focused on cattle in this case. Unfortunately, the government still fails to recognize the great damage it caused to multiple generations as they brought nuclear colonialism to New Mexico. Additionally, the government continues to ignore the Trinity Downwinders, which erases them from the nuclear narrative of history. Since the rural communities present here were mainly made up of Hispanic people, they experienced environmental racism and were the first victims of the atomic bomb. People back then had a very organic life, and everything was destroyed by the bomb as it contaminated their soil, food, drinking water, and their animals. People's lives were completely changed and destroyed. They were exposed to different illnesses and cancer. They weren't informed about the issues at hand, and they were not even told to evacuate. So this connects to some of the things that one of the articles or letters that I found in one of the archival boxes. There's this letter from a man called Paul C. Ebersold to Louis Henry Hempelman, who was the director of the health group at Los Alamos. Here they talk about different duties the doctors have there, like looking for signs for any possible personal injury, advice on wearing masks, or rapid evacuation, and basically how to check and record gamma intensely observed along the way to the camp. So they do kind of talk about the health of the personnel, but they don't really talk about the communities here in New Mexico. There's this letter sent from a biomedical research group leader to Madame Jacqueline Julliard, where they talk about Adam Ogordo's cattle, which represents the first atomic bomb casualty. However, they do acknowledge that they have forgotten most of the details and that a lot of information is top secret. So that basically means that they cannot guarantee that history would be completely correct or adequate for the purposes that Jacqueline Julliard might be looking for. In this letter, they express that just six hours after the bomb detonation, there was a ratio of seven on the radiation readings. There was considerable fallout at this point of injury to cattle, and the Red Canyon Cheap Company demanded that their cattle was affected by this, and they wanted this to be further evaluated. So after a rancher noticed that the majority of the cows had turned gray on their backs, some of them had lost their hair, and others had thick scabbing of the skin as well, the inspection trip was sent to this area, where they found out that 45% of the herd showed signs of precisely what I just mentioned. So those animals purchased cattle, and the tests said that they were so not unaffected. They basically like said that, oh, this is just superficial. You know, the cattle are perfectly fine, it's just the skin. However, as more people complained about, you know, issues with their cows, those animals bought 150 cows that eventually turned into 211. However, you know, like they had a control group that they compared this affected or irritated cows or cattle with, but there was no gross difference between them. Yes, you know, like the the ones who were exposed to the radiation had some grain, they were thin, or they even say dead appearing, but they said that they were thin not because of the radiation, but because of the diet. You know, after a few, you know, days of feeding the cows properly, they were perfectly fine. There was no significant blood differences. And if anything, the death, the death caused, you know, in both groups, you know, the control group and the irritated cattle was based, but it was based because of a disease that was going on called anastomosis, but not because of radiation. Most of these cows were only 12 to 15 miles away from the detonation point. And in this same letter, they have like some pictures that were sent that I used, and they basically represent, you know, a shot of the original herd. Another one shows how there is less hair in the back of the cows, and a third one shows scabbing and ulceration on the back of the calf. Furthermore, you know, we find the United States Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Test. This was a nuclear test personnel review where they talk about different groups, basically, that were responsible for the on-side or off-side of the area. They would monitor other conditions and the contamination, and had different practices, you know, for decontamination. The off-side teams basically encountered different gamma ratings that they would like record. And in this same article, we find that the North Shelter had an emergency evacuation with high enough radiation to result in measurable exposures to the personnel. So they had to like have really quick evacuation, and the gamma intensified. I think it reached like around a ratio of 15, just several hours after the detonation. However, a month later, these intensities had declined, and that's like one of the big points of the use here. Like there's, they kind of make it seem as if things are better just because there's a decline in radiation, and they don't really care to further study, you know, the issues at hand or how it affects that community. Right? Just like we see that, you know, they say, hey, the cows are completely healthy. There's no difference, you know, at all. It's just superficial. But yet again, you know, like as one of the letters mentioned, there's a lot of secrets there, you know, and we don't really know what's going on. We don't really know if they're trying to cover something up. But even if these cows are healthy right now, we don't know what's going to occur if they keep being here, you know, if they keep being exposed to radiation. We don't know how that's going to affect their genes or future generations. So it's the same with people. Like we don't really see how like this is affecting them, because they don't care enough to study these situations. They don't care enough to interact with these people. And even if they were, they don't really keep on going. Like all of these tests are pretty short, you know, they're focused on the short term instead of the long term. And that's one of the biggest issues that we see. They don't really care about what's happening to the community. They only care about, you know, taking advantage of the environment, using it for like the purpose of exploding a bomb. And they only try to be careful, you know, for them, you know, for their personnel. You know, they have certain practices and knowledges to keep from the radiation. But they don't even work with the communities. They don't even try to evacuate them or provide any help whatsoever. That's all I have to say. So thank you so much for your time.