© 2002 American Public Health Association
Doug Brugge is with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Mass. Rob Goble is with the Center for Technology, Environment, and Development, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Doug Brugge, PhD, MS, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Tufts University School of Medicine, 136 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02111 (e-mail: dbrugge{at}aol.com).
From World War II until 1971, the government was the sole purchaser of uranium ore in the United States. Uranium mining occurred mostly in the southwestern United States and drew many Native Americans and others into work in the mines and mills. Despite a long and well-developed understanding, based on the European experience earlier in the century, that uranium mining led to high rates of lung cancer, few protections were provided for US miners before 1962 and their adoption after that time was slow and incomplete. The resulting high rates of illness among miners led in 1990 to passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. This article has been cited by other articles:
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