With "Oppenheimer" expected to dominate the Academy Awards on Sunday, the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist known as the "father of the atomic bomb," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is hoping to shed some light on the everyday people still experiencing the side effects of the Manhattan Project nearly 80 years later.

“The 'Oppenheimer' film tells a compelling story of these test programs. But it does not tell the story of the Americans left behind—still reckoning with the health and financial consequences of America’s nuclear research, after all these years. Shouldn’t the victims who are still paying the price have a voice, too?” questioned Hawley in a recent letter to the Board of Governors of the Academy.

“The 'Oppenheimer' story is really not just about Oppenheimer, or the people who worked at Los Alamos. It's also about the many, many tens of thousands of good Americans who sacrifice their health, in some cases, their lives as part of the Manhattan Project,” Hawley said in an interview with Spectrum News. "And in my state in the state of Missouri, that sacrifice is ongoing."

“Missourians still have nuclear sites that have not been cleaned up, they're still being exposed to nuclear radiation, and they're still getting sick and dying as a consequence," he said. "So these victims' stories need to be heard. And most importantly, Congress needs to honor them, needs to respect their sacrifice and needs to compensate them for their harms their own government has asked them to endure.”

For Hawley, the fight to recognize and compensate the victims is personal: St. Louis was the site of uranium refinement for the project, and the nuclear waste left behind is believed to be sickening residents as a result. 

“I had a total hysterectomy, I had my gallbladder removed, I had my left adrenal gland removed because of a tumor. And then I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” said Christen Commuso, who grew up near Coldwater Creek, one of the sites of radioactive waste that has not been properly cleaned up. “I played in it as a child, later on then lived right next to the West Lake landfill. Everywhere I have lived, I have touched this waste.”

Commuso, who along with Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel founded nonprofit Just Moms STL, have been traveling to Washington frequently to lobby members of Congress to renew and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The original compensation fund, established in 1990 by Congress, has been renewed multiple times, but is set to expire in June. Sen. Hawley is pushing lawmakers to pass an expanded version of the bill that would include areas once left out, including St. Louis.

“We haven't heard any opposition on this issue at all. It's just been the price tag,” said Nickel on a recent trip to Capitol Hill. "And quite frankly, how can we put a price tag on people that are losing their lives or are very sick with something that the federal government did to us?"

During the Manhattan Project, Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, said it was not disclosed how far the radiation was dispersed to the public in part to keep the project secret.

“They didn't tell the people in New Mexico that the contamination fell, the radioactive fallout fell, nobody was warned anything in New Mexico, and the kids played in it, and they ate it. And they ate the cattle who were consuming it, and they drank the milk, and they died,” said Kuznick. “We absolutely need to compensate them for this.”

But Kuznick says it wasn’t just New Mexico residents who were not told about the dangers, but also those who had mined and refined the uranium for the bombs, and those who have been left behind in the aftermath.

“They were lied to by the government to tell them that they were safe. People downwind from the bomb tests were told nothing to worry about, that it wasn't a risk,” explained Kuznick. “The Army Corps of Engineers has not done a good job and has downplayed the risk. They're just finding out a lot of the people in that area in St. Louis. were sold a bill of goods and told that it was relatively safe when it wasn't and they didn't know about it.”

It’s a much needed update, Chapman says, for communities like hers, and a glimmer of hope as members of her community get sicker.

“It's one thing to feel like you're letting your family down and you're letting your community down if we're not successful [in getting RECA passed],” said Chapman. “To think that you have the weight of other communities across this nation, on your shoulders and the way it feels to know that we're privileged enough to get here and others can't and so we can't lose this for them. They're counting on us.”

Chapman, Nickel, and Commuso say they have seen the human toll that this radiation exposure is taking – and that with each trip to Washington, they have to be the voice for those who can’t be there. 

“The worst part is the photographs that were showing, who knows if the next time we're here, some of those people might not be gone? That's what we're finding is, is little by little people who were sharing their stories of what had happened to them, then it becomes a story about how this happened to them, and then they passed away. And that's just very traumatic,” said Chapman.

“It's very taxing for a person, all of us, to come here who are either sick ourselves, or are struggling with sick family members to show up here constantly and have to fight and basically beg for our lives and beg for help for something our government did,” added Commuso. “I have started to ration some of my care, I will skip certain scans, because I simply can't afford it. And I don't think that that's fair that that burden has been put on us.”

Kuznick acknowledges 'Oppenheimer' isn’t perfect; not only did it leave out the very important context of the long-term impact on those who have been exposed to the radioactive waste, it “effectively justifies it says that the bomb was necessary to avoid an American invasion of Japan in which a half million American boys would have been killed. That's the myth that was bred by [President Harry] Truman initially,” said Kuznick.

But he says the film has also raised more awareness about the tragedies of nuclear war and the Manhattan project, which many of the victims are still living through.

“it really has had a tremendous impact, and has led to more discussion of nuclear issues than we've seen since the 1980s,” said Kuznick. “It sad that they were victimized to begin with, sad that their lives had been so made so miserable by the health care that they've had to get throughout their lives, the suffering that they've gone through, and the fact that they the government didn't take responsibility for it is a tragedy and a crime”

RECA renewal was passed by the Senate last year as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act, but was later stripped from the final defense package, frustrating Hawley. After demanding a standalone vote, the Senate passed the reauthorization 69 to 30 on Thursday with strong bipartisan support.

Hawley’s RECA expansion bill includes coverage for uranium miners and individuals who were “downwinders” from the testing and mining sites, including Missouri, Idaho, Montana, Guam, Colorado, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alaska, and reauthorizes the compensation for a further five years.

“Tens of thousands of Americans are worried about their coverage and their healthcare now because of what [Republican Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell did in taking this out and it was a serious mistake. I have told that to him, I told him that to his face directly,” said Hawley on a call this week with reporters. He’s promised not to give up until it’s passed into law.

The House must now take it up, and if it passes, President Joe Biden has indicated he will sign it.

For Chapman, who was Hawley’s guest at the State of the Union address this week, its a sign their efforts have not been in vain.

“We have a lot of hope!” Chapman said via text Thursday. “We feel like although it will be a lot of work, we have a good chance in the House.”