{"id":32118,"date":"2025-07-18T18:32:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T18:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=32118"},"modified":"2025-07-18T19:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T19:24:15","slug":"robert-alvarez-76-dies-called-attention-to-nuclear-waste-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=32118","title":{"rendered":"Robert Alvarez, 76, Dies; Called Attention to Nuclear-Waste Safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A self-taught expert, he spent decades working in both nonprofits and the government to expose problems in the production of atomic weapons.<\/p>\n

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Robert Alvarez, a self-taught expert on nuclear power, nuclear weapons and the waste that both produce who worked for decades as an activist outside the government and, during the 1990s, as a high-ranking official within it, died on July 1 in Virginia Beach, Va. He was 76.<\/p>\n

His daughter Amber Alvarez Torgerson said he died in an assisted living facility from complications of Parkinson\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

Mr. Alvarez did not set out to become a key voice in the campaign to clean up America\u2019s vast and deadly network of nuclear-waste sites. As a young legislative aide for Senator James Abourezk<\/a>, a Democrat from South Dakota, in the mid-1970s, he focused mainly on American Indian affairs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But after meeting with a group of Navajos whose decades of labor in uranium mines had left them with a raft of illnesses, he drafted a bill to extend federal medical coverage for black lung disease \u2014 a chronic problem for coal miners \u2014 and to include nuclear workers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A painting on an abandoned tank on the Navajo Nation near Cameron, Ariz.<\/span>David McNew\/Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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To his surprise and frustration, his bill never even got a hearing. He was told that it would cast a negative light on the nuclear energy and weapons industries, powerful forces with extensive pull on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

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A self-taught expert, he spent decades working in both nonprofits and the government to expose problems in the production of atomic weapons.Robert Alvarez, a self-taught expert on nuclear power, nuclear weapons and the waste that both produce who worked for decades as an activist outside the government and, during the 1990s, as a high-ranking official within it, died on July 1 in Virginia Beach, Va. He was 76.His daughter Amber Alvarez Torgerson said he died in an assisted living facility from complications of Parkinson\u2019s disease.Mr. Alvarez did not set out to become a key voice in the campaign to clean up America\u2019s vast and deadly network of nuclear-waste sites. As a young legislative aide for Senator James Abourezk, a Democrat from South Dakota, in the mid-1970s, he focused mainly on American Indian affairs.But after meeting with a group of Navajos whose decades of labor in uranium mines had left them with a raft of illnesses, he drafted a bill to extend federal medical coverage for black lung disease \u2014 a chronic problem for coal miners \u2014 and to include nuclear workers.A painting on an abandoned tank on the Navajo Nation near Cameron, Ariz.David McNew\/Getty ImagesTo his surprise and frustration, his bill never even got a hearing. He was told that it would cast a negative light on the nuclear energy and weapons industries, powerful forces with extensive pull on Capitol Hill.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32120,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32121,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32118\/revisions\/32121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}