Hundreds of veterans of the US Armed Forces have been sickened after being stationed at a top secret base in the Nevada desert, but the confidential nature of their work there has prevented them from receiving benefits for their health conditions.
US media documented the story of one such former servicemember, who worked at an installation sometimes called Area 52.
“It scarred my lungs,” said Mark Ely, a 63-year-old retired Air Force technician. “I got cysts on my liver… I started having lipomas, tumors inside my body I had to remove. My lining in my bladder was shed.”
For years the United States conducted extensive nuclear testing near the secret base.
A 1975 federal report acknowledged that toxic radioactive dust scattered throughout the area posed a risk to people stationed nearby, but government analysts concluded nuclear testing should continue.
“Discontinuing the work done at the Range would be against the national interest,” concluded the assessment. “The Range could in principle be decommissioned, but the cost would be great… Shutting the Range down or moving its operations elsewhere would also have an adverse impact on the economy of the Tonopah area.”
“The environmental costs inherent in the work are small and reasonable for the benefits received.”
Some $25.7 billion in health benefits have been allocated to employees of the US Department of Energy and other federal agencies who were stationed in the area. But the work of Ely and other military veterans is excluded from service records, meaning they cannot prove they were present at Area 52.
“It makes me incredibly mad and it hurts me too because they're supposed to have my back,” said Ely. “I had theirs and I want them to have mine.”