Continuing victims of World War II-era nuclear radiation have suffered many diseases through the years, including various painful and lethal cancers, gastrointestinal problems and other maladies passed down through generations.

Even today their babies must be tested for cancer.

Their latest affliction, they say, is a chronic disregard from the government that commissioned the very nuclear age that torments them still.

Despite earlier Senate approval for extending and expanding the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to bring the bill to the floor – and the law, with its compensation for victims, was allowed to expire in June.

A sometimes angry, often choked-up parade of victims and their congressional advocates staged a Capitol press conference Tuesday to pressure Johnson to move the RECA reauthorization to a vote. Many were sickened Native Americans who rode 37 hours in a bus from the southwest to be in Washington, D.C.

One Native American woman told her harrowing tale of her and her family’s painful and continuing battles with radiation-caused cancers – even her grown grandson’s – after she and her mother and sister would wash her uranium mine-working father’s clothes back in the day. Her father would go on to die of lung cancer.

Some members of Congress appear intimidated by the Senate bill’s estimated $50-$60-billion cost over 10 years – and Punchbowl News has reported a tentative compromise might cap spending at $5 billion over five years.

But Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who has championed the bill, said at the press conference the bill’s true cost has been paid by the victims, in the form of pain, disease, grief, anguish, deaths and burials.

The cost of the bill, an animated Hawley said to applause, “has been paid by the people in this room. So, the United States government owes a debt to the people in this room. That’s what it’s about. It’s about discharging that debt. That’s the truth.

“I would just say, costs should be no barrier. There are numerous ways to get this done. I’ve had good conversations with the Speaker. I want to emphasize that I thank him for his engagement. And I hope now that we can reach a resolution, and reach it very, very soon.”

But while some said they were praying for Speaker Johnson, others were more pointed in their calls for action in the House, where a bipartisan majority, perhaps a super-majority, is said to be prepared to approve the bill.

“I’m not going to be nice,” said Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Missouri radiation advocacy group Just Moms STL, calling it “horrific to expect anybody who is under cancer treatment to go 37 hours on a bus to beg for something that should have been given to them that [already] passed the Senate.

“Horrific. It’s horrible.”

Regarding the Speaker, Chapman said “We will pray for him, but he needs to move and he needs to move today because this is ridiculous.

“Speaker Johnson is the only reason these people are suffering right now in this room, and he can fix it. There are a lot of things in this world that you cannot fix. This one can be fixed. This one can pass, and you just heard today that the votes are there.”

Several hours after the press conference and after various meetings with congressional members and staff, Chapman told The Heartlander she and others who made the trip to D.C. – many of whom have had recent radiation treatments and resemble wilted flowers after a trip that has taken a toll on them – are more hopeful than ever that a RECA reauthorization will pass.

Oddly, the original 1990 law never did include all the victims of WWII/Cold War radiation across the country, such as in the greater St. Louis area. In the years since, Hawley said, more has become known about the extent of contamination around the country, so the pending bill would expand compensation to the rest of the affected areas.

Chapman said a cap of $5 billion to $10 billion would be acceptable to the victims at the Capitol press conference Tuesday.

“For us, this is still a win,” she said. “We need to pass this program and we need to make sure that that nobody is cut out of it.” 

Chapman credited Missouri’s Rep. Ann Wagner and Sen. Eric Schmitt for their support and welcome to the Capitol – while adding Hawley has done everything he can to get the bill over the goal line.

“He is fighting so hard, and so is his staff,” she said. “I mean, I don’t think that they have slept in two days. And not just trying to keep us updated, but making sure that other community members, all the [victims] that were in that room, have direct access to Senator Hawley at any time.

“I can’t ask anymore of him. I think he’s been incredible. And I’ll tell you what, I think he’s going to get this done. I have faith in him, I really do.”