Missouri’s chief medical officer, Dr. Heidi Miller, sounded the alarm this week, urging state legislators to confront a stark reality: radioactive contamination in the St. Louis area might be linked to a spike in rare cancers. Speaking before the Missouri House Special Interim Committee to Address Health and Environmental Impact of Nuclear Weapons Work, Miller, a seasoned primary care physician, didn’t mince words: “I’m as alarmed as you are.” Her call for urgent attention came after observing rare cases in her own practice, including a patient diagnosed with an exceedingly rare form of appendix cancer—a condition she’d never encountered in her 25 years of treating patients.
St. Louis’s radioactive waste problem dates back to the 1940s when uranium was refined in the city as part of the Manhattan Project. Once the war ended, radioactive materials were unceremoniously dumped in several areas across St. Louis and St. Charles counties. Decades later, the repercussions of this hazardous legacy are still felt. Leaking barrels from sites along the Missouri River and Coldwater Creek, a tributary that flows through residential neighborhoods, continue to raise red flags as residents report unusual cancer cases.
Missouri State Representative Tricia Byrnes, who leads the committee and has a personal connection to the issue, emphasized the importance of using the legislative platform to dig deeper than what’s possible during regular sessions. Byrnes recalled swimming as a teen in a now-contaminated quarry and shared her son’s battle with a rare cancer. “This is a great format to say Missouri has a problem here, and we need everyone to come together on what we should do next,” she said.
During the committee’s initial four-hour meeting, representatives from state health agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and community members provided testimony. Although government records have long shown the hazardous presence of radioactive waste, they have also documented decades of risk downplaying. A federal report from 2019 found that exposure to Coldwater Creek posed significant cancer risks, especially for children.
Dr. Miller urged increased awareness among Missouri’s medical community to help identify and study rare cancer cases. “We need to raise our awareness and study it in order to figure out what to do about it,” she stressed. The committee, she hopes, will catalyze long-overdue action for Missouri—a state grappling with the aftermath of atomic history. With more hearings scheduled, the committee aims to propose new legislation in January, potentially marking a turning point in the state’s decades-long struggle with radioactive waste.
