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Karen Silkwood
"Karen Silkwood was a courageous woman worker whose life and death should not be forgotten" Peter Glimore

Karen Silkwood was born on February 19, 1946 in Longview, Texas. After her divorce she lost custody of her three kids she moved to Oklahoma city and in 1972 she started working at the Kerr Mcgee Metallography Laboratory in Cimarron, Oklahoma.

Karen was a union activist, a chemical technician and a member of the oi, chemical, atomic workers' union. She was the first woman member of the union bargaining committee. During her first assignment she became alarmed by the serious health risk in the plant and staarted investigating. She found evidence of spills, leaks and missing plutonium.

Karen Silkwood decided to tell a reporter to tell from the New York Times that the Kerr-McGee was neglient in maintaining plant safety and was involved in a number of unexplained exposures to plutonium. While collecting evidence her phone was bugged. Silkwood also testified againist Kerr McGee saying she suffered radiation exposure in a series of unexplained incidents.

On November 13, 1974 Karen Silkwood was killed in a one car accident which the police believed to have been a sleeping driver incident but they found dents in the back of her car making people think she had gotten run off the road. The evidence she had to show the New York Times was not found. The coroner found .35 milligrams of methaqualane and 50 milligrams of undissolved mathaqualane remained in her stomach. The autospy showed that Karen's body was contaminated by plutonium. Karen Silkwood was 28. In 1986 her family settled on $11.5 million plutonium-contamination lawsuit. The Kerr-McGee fuel plant closed in 1975.