A government report ordered by Congress offers little comfort to Utah's Downwinders. Rather, it confirms their fears that exposure to fallout from nuclear test explosions in Nevada between 1951 and 1962 increased their risk of cancers.
    The report -- released 14 months ago after the newspaper USA TODAY got a copy and detailed its findings -- is back in the news. The Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs is probing why the report was lost in the black hole of bureaucracy for nearly 15 years after it was ordered.
    The study was drafted in 1992, but not publicly released until the summer of 1997.
    It would be bad enough if this were simply the result of bureaucratic bungling. The Department of Health and Human Services and the National Cancer Institute did fail to provide oversight for the researchers after Congress demanded the report in 1982. But it seems to be more illustration of the failure of government to act in a fair, timely and open manner when told to investigate itself or its actions.
    Even when the report was issued in 1997, the blue-ribbon panel of scientists from the Institute of Medicine urged the government not to undertake medical screening or other services, apparently concluding that such programs would not be successful in identifying fallout-related illnesses.
    This is the same mentality that decided recently not to warn more than 3 million Americans who were exposed through tainted blood products to life-threatening Hepatitis C prior to development of a test for the virus. Bear in mind that the blood banks that provided these blood products have the names of the Americans who got the blood. Bear in mind that early detection, diagnosis and treatment of the infected persons may prolong their lives and give them a better quality of life.
    Are these the actions of the government of the people, by the people and for the people?
    They appear to be more the actions of a government out to deny responsibility and fool its people.
    This penchant for lying to the people is something American politicians criticize in the leaders of other nations. But the ability of the bureaucrats who staff the American government's national agencies to lie and delay is an ability that cheats every American who believes this government cares about anything other than covering its own butt.