A Utah family’s search for answers after a mother’s death led to an alarming discovery and is helping launch new research into the long-term effects of nuclear weapons testing.
Scientists want to know whether radioactive exposure from decades ago can still be detected in the body and linked to long-term illness.
The effort began after Salt Lake City visual artist Cara Despain sent a bone fragment from her mother, Bonnie Despain, for testing and learned it contained an extraordinary level of radioactive cesium, according to KUER.
Here’s what to know
Bonnie Despain spent her childhood in Newcastle, Utah, about 130 miles from the Nevada Test Site. In the postwar years, the U.S. carried out 100 aboveground nuclear tests there, and people exposed to the fallout became known as downwinders…