Unaware and unwitting Americans have been guinea pigs over the years for several secret U.S. government scientific experiments that have created lifelong health problems for thousands.
Nuclear tests in Nevada in the 1950s and 1960s took a special toll among so-called "downwinders" in nearby states that were sprinkled with radiation fallout as it drifted on winds across Western states.
Although $440 million has been paid to eligible "downwinders" in 21 Arizona, Nevada and Utah counties through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, Idaho victims were omitted.
Idaho U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo is finally rectifying that unjust exclusion with legislation co-sponsored by Idaho's Sen. Larry Craig and supported by Idaho Congressman Butch Otter to include victims in Gem, Lemhi, Blaine and Custer counties, where radiation levels and individual thyroid dosage were high during the test years.
Crapo's welcome bill has prompted Montana to also seek inclusion.
Compensation would be too late for those who've already died of radiation maladies. But for others, the remedy is just and needed.
Sen. Crapo's legislation also is a stark reminder of another truth beyond the awful health and financial consequences of secret experimental government weapons programs that callously submit unsuspecting citizens to frightful dangers when experimenters treat Americans as a giant pool of lab rats.
The dead and dying from nuclear weapons were not only Japanese citizens of A-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, but also thousands of Americans who were regarded indifferently as negligible costs of radiation spewed over Western states during the Cold War that followed.
