If you plan on seeing director Christopher Nolan’s new film “Oppenheimer” in New Mexico, you could potentially see a 15-second public service announcement before the film starts.
The Union of Concerned Scientists developed the PSA — running in five theaters in Santa Fe and Albuquerque — to remind individuals of the damage the state experienced as a result of the nuclear testing, according to KUNM-FM, a public broadcasting station based at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
“Oppenheimer” tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role in the development of the atomic bomb.
The trailer for the “Oppenheimer” movie is below.
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The world’s first nuclear explosion went off on July 16, 1945, at a testing site roughly 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Dylan Spaulding, a senior scientist with the advocacy group, told KOB-TV, “New Mexico suffered a toll as a result of being the home to atomic development, and that ranged from people that mined uranium to people who were downwind of the Trinity test.”
“It includes contamination, as well from the labs.”
A similar ad is also scheduled to air in Maine, according to KUNM.
Lilly Adams, also with the Union of Concerned Scientists, added, “In developing and testing nuclear weapons, the U.S. government poisoned its own people and many of those people, like we said, are still waiting for recognition and justice.”
New Mexico resident and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium Tina Cordova told KOB about what she said was the long-term impact the testing site has had on her state.
“I’m the fourth generation in my family to have cancer since 1945,” Cordova said.
“Downwinders always say, ‘we don’t ask if we’re going to get cancer, we asked when it’s going to be our turn, because everybody around us has been sick.’”
A new study out of Princeton University found the fallout from the test reached Canada, Mexico and 46 states, according to The New York Times.
However, the study has yet to reach the peer-review process.
Cordova also criticized the making of the blockbuster film, KOB reported.
“When they came here to film the ‘Oppenheimer’ movie, it was the same, similar invasion of our lands in our lives,” she stated.
“They took advantage of our tax incentives, they developed this blockbuster Hollywood movie that’s going to make hundreds of millions of dollars, and they walked away.
“They are telling an incomplete history,” Cordova said, “and we’re the inconvenient truth that they’re avoiding.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.