Hanford puts woman in fight of her life

“Until my early 60s, I didn’t know I was a victim of World War II. In retrospect, it seems the United States fought a dual war — using the atomic bomb against foreign enemies and harming its own people in the manufacturing of the bomb. The winds carried lethal emissions from the Hanford Nuclear Power Plant depositing them on the land, in the water and upon the people. Those of us who were affected are called ‘downwinders.’” — Shannon Rhodes

Shannon Rhodes says she was exposed to iodine-131 (I-131), a radioactive byproduct of nuclear weapons production, when it was released from Hanford in Washington state during production of the world’s first plutonium bombs. A thick loose-leaf binder contains years of news articles of the legal pursuits of several thousand victims.

Hanford was operated by DuPont and General Electric for the federal government during World War II and the Cold War. It produced plutonium for nuclear weapons starting with the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bombs.

For 50 years it was the nation’s largest producer of plutonium.

Hanford played a crucial role in World War II and as the Cold War increased it became a source of government pride. Its scientists made the plutonium used in the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

Farming region affected

Rhodes’ family owned a wheat and barley farm and had horses and dairy cows in the farming community of Colfax in eastern Washington.

She and her lawyers contend that the invisible emissions settled on pastures, were ingested by the cows and transferred to the thyroid glands of children when they drank milk.

Studies show that the “milk pathway” is the primary way that people were exposed to the Hanford emissions.

Rhodes said there was also exposure from chickens and eggs, wheat and barley as the invisible toxic emissions fell silently reaping health havoc decades later.

Her health problems began in her thyroid in 1978, but cancer was not diagnosed then. In 2002, when she and her husband moved from Washington to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, she saw a new physician who ordered a chest X-ray for a recurring cough. This is when she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer that had metastasized to her lung.

“My system was compromised over a period of time...in 1978, my thyroid was misdiagnosed; medical records show it was malignant then,” she said.

Rhodes is not the only one in her family to have serious health problems. A cousin who lived a quarter mile away has multiple sclerosis, other cousins who lived nearby have thyroid problems.

After surgery in 2002, Rhodes contacted Downwinders.com and was told a large majority of several thousand, who also had major health problems they said were related to Hanford emissions, wanted to go to court.

“Six of us were chosen for a bellwether case in 2005,” she said. “Three of us had thyroid cancer and three had other thyroid problems.

“The government attorneys (for GE and Dupont) were very well prepared. They wouldn’t allow three new tumors in my body as evidence…The jury heard all six cases; I believe it was too much for the jury to comprehend.”

In the end, two plaintiffs with cancer jointly won damages totaling $544,759. Rhodes was not one of them. It was a 10-2 hung jury for her case, one short of the majority needed. She lost on retrial.

She appealed, and the case went to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California, which in a separate ruling, said downwinders have the right to sue the government. The defense took the ruling to the Supreme Court, which in December denied their appeal.

“I’m waiting to see what’s next,” Rhodes said.

Asked why she thought the jury awarded damages to two others with cancer but not to her and the other three plaintiffs, Rhodes said, “That’s the big question. Both had thyroid cancer. They had their thyroid removed and were fine. It doesn’t make sense. If they thought Hanford wasn’t responsible no one should have gotten an award. The government attorneys presented such a strong case and the jury was persuaded… the jury foreman said we didn’t get justice.”

Emissions revealed

It wasn’t until 1986, that residents of the region where Rhodes grew up learned of Hanford’s radioactive emissions. It was then that the U.S. Energy Department released 19,000 pages of previously classified information detailing the emissions.

It revealed that most of Hanford’s emissions of I-131 occurred from 1944-47; Rhodes was born in 1941.

Now, decades later after drinking possibly contaminated farm milk, bread and eggs, Rhodes is hooked up to a long oxygen tube that trails her everywhere she goes around the clock.

She recently finished six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation but won’t know until late March when she has a scan if a large tumor in her right lung and two tumors compromising her trachea have shrunk.

“I’m an ever-positive person, but I’d say my prognosis is poor because the tumor in my lung is pressing on my trachea, aorta and superior vena cava in my heart.

“I’m working on the last third of a book, ‘Sins of Emission: A Downwinder’s Story.’ It’s a book that needs to be out there. A lot of downwinders don’t know they’re downwinders. The book educates about more than I-131.”

Rhodes’ Web site, shannonrhodes.com, details her story. On the home page she cites a quote by Thomas Jefferson: “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.”

Ellen Sussman is a freelance writer in Green Valley. Contact her at ellen2414@cox.net.