Panorama

The Sacrifice Zone (1994x7)

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America began to conduct atomic tests at Yucca Flats in Nevada soon after the Second World War, and the "down-winders" across the border in Utah were repeatedly told they were safe. Now whole families have been devastated by cancer. Elsewhere, American doctors apparently administering radiation therapy were in fact experimenting with potentially lethal doses. After half a century of atomic and nuclear bombs, the horrors inflicted by America on its own people, in the interests of the arms race, are coming to light with the release of previously secret documents. Julian O'Halloran, who talks to "down-winders" and radiation doctors among others, investigates a scandal that has been compared to the experiments carried out on humans by Nazi doctors.