Advocates are working to expand and extend legislation that provides one-time compensation for victims of radiation exposure before the bill expires next July
By Tamar Sarai Davis, Prism
Claudia Peterson’s childhood in Hamilton Fort, Utah, was replete with many of the trappings typical of a small farm community. She and her siblings grew up with a large garden and cared for chickens, pigs, and a cow. Her neighbors herded sheep, and she always looked forward to playing with their baby lambs. But all around there were also small hints that not everything was as normal or idyllic as it appeared.
There were the piles of dead, deformed lambs she came across one year. Potassium iodine pills were distributed to her sister’s class after—not before—a nearby nuclear test was administered, and she and her classmates were given routine Geiger counter tests.

”There were two or three of us in the class that lit it up and we were kind of excited,” recalled Peterson. “We [asked] what that meant and they [told] us it was for dental X-rays.”
Then people around her started getting sick and dying. As a child, Peterson lost classmates to cancer. When she was a young adult, her father died of a stroke three months after he had surgery to remove a brain tumor. And then Peterson’s young daughter Bethany was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer while Peterson’s sister discovered she had melanoma.
Recent Posts
We Can’t Assume That Trump Will Author His Own Undoing
March 14, 2025
Take Action Now There will surely be turf wars and palace intrigue within the administration, but there is little reason to think that its core…
The Arrest Of Mahmoud Khalil, A Zero Hour Conversation With Sonali Kolhatkar
March 13, 2025
Take Action Now Eskow and Kolhatkar argue that if this repression is not challenged, it will escalate, targeting more individuals and further eroding…
Five Years After COVID, The GOP Is The Anti-Vaccine Party
March 12, 2025
Take Action Now Despite the ongoing spread of COVID, measles and bird flu, Trump has handed power to anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics.By Sasha…
Mahmoud Khalil’s Wife Speaks Out On His Unconstitutional Arrest
March 12, 2025
Take Action Now The following is a press statement from Mahmoud Khalil’s wife. Khalil was unconstitutionally arrested by ICE agents over the…