LAPWAI, Idaho ? A new study shows local Indians were exposed to more Hanford site radiation than previously thought, but tribal members aren’t surprised.
For more than 40 years, the U. S. government produced weapons-grade plutonium at the Hanford Site in south central Washington State. During its operation, the facility released significant amounts of 11 different radioactive materials. From 1944 to 1957, most of these releases were into the air. From the 1950s and 1960s, radioactive substances were released into the Columbia River through water used by Hanford reactors.
The Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction project was established to estimate what radiation dose people living near Hanford might have received from releases of radioactive materials. A recent reevaluation of the HEDR project by the Centers for Disease Control showed the study underestimated Native American fish consumption ? the primary means of radioactive material transmission.
In a February meeting, Risk Assessment Corporation scientist Dr. Helen Grogan told tribal representatives that culturally biased assumptions led researchers to underestimate Indians’ exposure to river-borne radiation. Columbia Basin tribes ate more fish and more parts of the fish than was assumed by the earlier study, Grogan found. That means tribal members are also at greater risk for cancer and genetic mutations that have been linked to chronic ionizing radiation exposure.
That’s no surprise to Justine Miles or Viola Allen, Nez Perce women who have both been diagnosed with lupus.
In lupus, the immune system attacks the body’s joints and ligaments. It is similar to rheumatoid arthritis and it hurts, the women said. Scientists have identified a possible link between the disease and ionizing radiation. A look around the Nez Perce reservation seems to prove the link, the women said.
At least eight of the 4,000 Nez Perces in Lapwai have been diagnosed with lupus ? almost five times the average for North American Indians.
“We just blow the statistics right out of the water,” Miles said.
The Nez Perce are a fishing tribe. Allen says she’s eaten salmon from local rivers at least three times a week her whole life. During fishing season, that’s about all Miles’ family eats. But both women think the traditional foods that sustain them are full of poisons that may have caused their illnesses.
“I’ve seen glowing fish ? cut them open and they’re fluorescent,” Miles said.
Doctors won’t say what causes lupus, but residents do know Lapwai is a “cesspool,” gathering waste from all sides.
Lapwai means land of the butterflies, but there aren’t any butterflies here anymore. There are few frogs left. Noxious weeds have mostly replaced the hillside grass.
Over-spray from nearby farms douses houses and schools. There are days residents can smell the Potlatch pulp mill ? seven miles away in Lewiston ? from inside their homes.
They are downwind from the Hanford nuclear site.
Since lupus doesn’t have many outward symptoms, it can be hard for relatives and spouses to be sympathetic. After 21 years of marriage, Allen’s husband divorced her because he couldn’t take it any more, she said. Rich Ramsey, Miles’ husband, used to think she was just making it up.
Ramsey said that although he understands more about Miles’ disease now, it’s hard because they can’t do things normal couples their age do.
“I get frustrated,” Ramsey said. “I just have to keep pinching myself and saying it’s not her, it’s her disease.”
During lupus flare-ups, the women said they get hot, every part of their body feels swollen and painful. Nothing seems to alleviate the pain.
“You don’t have any control over your own body,” Miles said. “One minute you’re fine, and the next minute all you can do is go to the emergency room and say ‘somebody help me.’”
“At times, I thought about suicide,” Allen said.
“You’ve got all the pills,” Miles said.
Miles takes 24 prescriptions daily to control her lupus and related health problems. She takes several pain relievers and two separate antidepressants, but she still can’t sleep at night.
Allen has literally fought with pharmacists who questioned her pain prescriptions and treated her like a drug addict. She tried going to a support group, but when members started dying it was too painful for her. Both women feel hopeless, isolated. They can’t even begin to tally what they’ve lost.
“I’ve basically lost four years of my life being sick,” Miles said. “How do you replace that?”
Simple acts like grating cheese, opening a jar of jelly are too painful for lupus sufferers. Allen said she hasn’t cooked in two years and it makes her feel helpless. When a community member dies, she can’t cook food for the family. She said it feels like her womanhood has been taken from her.
When Allen was diagnosed 10 years ago, she was in the prime of her life. For years since, she has been in terrible shape, her medicine chest overflowing with prescriptions.
“I was so bad I couldn’t even function my own body movements,” she said. “I had to take pills to go pee, pills to have bowel movements.”
Now Allen has joined the Native American Church. She is down to one pill a day. Twice daily, she drinks peyote tea and prays.
“It helps my depression, it helps me physically, mentally,” she said. “I don’t know where I would be without the Native American Church.”
Miles was diagnosed with lupus two years ago, when she was 26. It was another chapter in a series of health problems that started in her 20s and included several miscarriages, broken bones, endometriosis, life threatening infections and meningitis.
Miles says that some days the only thing that keeps her going is the thought of her family. But her thoughts of loved ones aren’t always comforting.
“The scary thing is we send fish back to my brother-in-law’s family in Chicago,” she said. “I think, God, those people are probably going to get sick from our fish.”
