In 1966 an Air Force bomber carrying 4 hydrogen bombs crashed near Palomares, Spain, spreading plutonium dust over a small area. US airmen arrived quickly and began cleaning the area without appropriate safeguards and without appropriate equipment. For security and legal reasons, the Department of Veterans Affairs has denied health coverage to those airmen and denied their radiation exposure despite high rates of cancer. Many anecdotes, some retold in a recent New York Times article, are even more sinister.
Independent of their actual exposure levels, the afflicted veterans reasonably suspect that their cancerous tumors are caused by their service to our nation. We call on the President to direct the VA to acknowledge and fully cover those veterans who served us all at Palomares.