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CONTACT
ABOUT
Trisha Pritikin is an attorney and former Occupational Therapist. She was born and raised in Richland, WA. Her father worked at the Hanford Nuclear Site as a nuclear engineer. She was a plaintiff in In re Hanford Nuclear Reservation (In re Hanford), mass toxic tort litigation in which more than five thousand Hanford downwinders filed personal injury suits against former Hanford contractors. Trisha was a member of the Hanford Downwinders Coalition, a citizen action group, and served for more than eight years as a federally appointed Special Government Employee on the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee (FACA advisory board). She served as co-chair of the Hanford Health Information Network Resource Center Advisory Board, and as a Board member on the Hanford Health Information Archives, and the successor 510(c)(3) to that entity, the Radiochemical Health Effects Archives.
View Trisha's YouTube Channel: The Downwinders Information Channel
CURRENT WORK
National Downwinders Illness Compensation Act
Trisha is currently collaborating on a proposal for a no-fault civilian compensation program, entitled the National Downwinders Illness Compensation Act (NDICA), patterned on the federal nuclear workers compensation law, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).
If enacted, NDICA would rectify the continued failure of Congress to expand eligibility under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) [Public Law 101-426] to include all civilians who suffer from radiogenic cancers and other radiogenic disease following exposure to radioactive fallout released from the US nuclear weapons production and testing program. A series of failed bills have been introduced over the years by members of Congress whose constituents were exposed to levels of Nevada Test Site (NTS) fallout that were significantly higher than the levels received by people within geographic areas currently eligible for compensation under RECA. NTS fallout exposure levels outside of RECA eligibility areas were not revealed until seven years after passage of RECA, when the NCI’s Nevada Test Site I-131 Fallout Dispersion Study was finally released following years of delay.
NDICA addresses RECA’s omission of civilians who were exposed downwind of nuclear weapons production, testing, and waste sites, none of whom were included within RECA nor within the series of failed congressional bills intended to expand RECA.
A national, no-fault compensation program is required to address the national scope of this wrongdoing by the US government against its own civilians and the citizens of the Marshall Islands.
SUCCESSES
Trisha’s first book, The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice was published February 25, 2020 by the University Press of Kansas. Karen Dorn Steele, former investigative reporter with the Spokesman Review, collaborated as the author of the book’s Introduction.
The Hanford Plaintiffs presents the oral histories of twenty-four In re Hanford plaintiffs, interweaving their stories with the accounts of personal injury and ensuing litigation filed by civilians exposed downwind of atmospheric atomic tests at the Nevada Test Site.
The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic will be released in Japanese in 2023 (translation by Dr. Yuki Miyamoto) by Akashi shoten publishing (Tokyo).
The Hanford Plaintiffs has won the following awards since its release:
2022
Shortlist Grand Prize Finalist, Eric Hoffer Awards
London Book Festival- 1st place (wildcard)
2021
Paris Book Festival- 1st place, nonfiction
New York Book Festival- 1st place, general nonfiction
Los Angeles Book Festival- 1st place, biography/autobiography/memoir
Hollywood Book Festival- 1st place, (wildcard category)
American Book Fest, Best Book Awards- Finalist, US History
ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Writing Competition- Quarter Finalist
2020
Nautilus Silver Award for journalism and investigative reporting
New England Book Festival- 1st place, nonfiction
San Francisco Book Festival- 1st place, history
A full list of Trisha’s publications, media appearances, and presentations can be found on her website here: https://www.trishapritikin.com
OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLABORATION
I am interested in collaborating in projects furthering the welfare of victims of fallout exposure from the US nuclear weapons production and testing program.