Francesca Blog Post 2

A famous whistle blower in the United States that could be compared to Dr. Stockman is Karen Silkwood. Karen was a nuclear facility technician at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron River nuclear facility in Crescent, Oklahoma. After working there for some time, Karen became increasingly worried about the health conditions at the plant. The reason for the rise of investigation by Karen was the plutonium that was produced by the plant. This chemical was found in the fuel rods of the plant, created by uranium atoms. Karen started investigating this situation and reported it. She claimed that she had proof. She leaked this information to a friend who was a New York Times news reporter. One night, while driving to Oklahoma City, Karen was found dead at the scene of what was said to be a case of falling asleep at the wheel. She was on her way to bring her friend from the New York Times a manila folder filled with paperwork about the alleged health and safety violations of the plant. When her autopsy was performed, a high dose of a chemical that causes drowsiness was found in her blood stream. Karen and the investigations that she performed were similar to Dr. Stockman. She as well as the Dr. were fighting to save the health of others and themselves. The Dr. was investigating water pollution and Karen was investigating plutonium in the factories. Plutonium is deadly, by the way. They both were reporting these investigations to whoever would take a look at them. This is how they were similar. They were different because Dr. Stockman was declined of his investigations and Karen, well, she never made it that far. She died before she could get anything figured out. Her estate was rewarded money for the loss of Karen and her findings and the factory was taken care of as well (as far as the plutonium goes).