January 27, 2005

Arizona House of Representatives
Arizona Senators
All concerned with the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act

RE: Downwinders Victims

To Whom it May Concern:

My name is Linda Laulo. My family and I have resided in Mohave county since the early 1900's. My father, Robert Lee Williams (Bud), was a wonderful person. Dad had a great love for the outdoors and his kids. He took us hunting, scouting for game and prospecting just about every weekend and sometimes on the weekdays too. Growing up, we never spent much time on television and expensive toys. No one did. Dad hauled us all over Mohave county. I bet I've been on every road, cow trail and wash, you name it, in the entire county.

I remember when I was a young girl I saw all the lights, heard all the booms and even saw a mushroom cloud from the bombing in Nevada. It was scary. Dad told all us kids not to worry; the bombs weren't harmful to us. The Government said it was okay. One day, dad called my mother outside. He had his Geiger counter and pointed to his work boots. "HOT!" That's what it read and boy was mom upset. I guess they threw the boots in the garbage. it seemed strange to us but again the Government told us there was nothing to worry about. Basically, we were all illiterate when it came to radiation exposure and how harmful it is to anything living. After all, we were drinking the milk and eating the game meat that was exposed to the same high levels of radiation we were.

In 1980 dad died of lung cancer. Oat cell was not curable. My father went through 9 months of hell. His lever was the size of a turkey roaster and he was only 80 pounds when he passed away. I quit my job for a year to help my mom, Retha Joe Williams, cope with dads' death. It was not easy.

Approximately 10 years later, my mother came down with breast cancer. She survived the breast cancer only to fall victim to lung cancer about seven years later. In addition, she now had a cancerous growth that filled the spot where she had given her kidney to my older brother Tommy Joe Williams. Both my daughter and I took four weeks off of work to take care of her while she was in hospital and at home dying.

My mother and father lived next door to me for 28 years and my mom was like a second mother to my kids. There was not any thing that I wouldn't do to help my mom. After she died I was close to a nervous breakdown. I cried over nothing and everything until my kids straightened me up. There's also my brother, but I can't write about him right now. He has also passed away.

I miss all my family, friends, classmates, aunts and cousins that are now gone. They all suffered and many were used as guinea pigs in an attempt to find a cure of cancer. So little was knows in the early years about how to treat cancer. At the time, Demerol was the drug of choice for pain. Morphine wasn't available and doctors seemed as concerned about patients becoming addicted to prescription drugs as they did about the actual pain from cancer. How long do my sister, Claudia Dodge, and I have before we get some form of cancer or disease from the same exposure to radiation my parents did. I am very mad and scared.

Linda Laulo

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