Carl Jean Johnson (1929-1988)

Fredrick Chancy Johnson (1902-c.1975) (left) and Carl Jean Johnson (1929-1988) (right)

Carl Jean Johnson (1929-1988)

Merge with Carl Jean Johnson (1930-1988)

Carl Jean Johnson (1929-1988) Physician and Colonel, US Army (b. July 02, 1929, Sims, Indiana, USA - d. December 29, 1988, Lutheran Memorial Hospital, Lakewood, Colorado, USA) Social Security Number 478281386.

Birth

Carl Jean Johnson was born in Marion, Indiana on July 2, 1929 to Fredrick Chancy Johnson (1902-c1975) and Enabel Routh (1907-c1945).

Siblings

• George Johnson (1927-c1992)
• Derrold Johnson (1931- )
• Sarah E. Johnson (1939- ) who married David L. Mort (1937-2005).

Tuberculosis

He was raised in Grant County, Indiana. At age 12 he came down with tuberculosis, and though he overcame the sickness his growth was stunted. He began a strict weightlifting regimen and developed proper eating habits that allowed him to overcome his physical weakness. At least once in his later life, he would have to have cysts from the tuberculosis infection removed.

Marriage

Carl married Kathryn Van Deusen (1922-2005). Kathryn was the daughter of Emmett Peter Van Deusen I (1878-1965) and Margaret McKenzie Barton (1885-1963).

US Army and education

He entered service in the United States Army on July 3, 1946 and was stationed in Guam as a surveyor. It was largely an uneventful tour of duty, with the exception of while surveying the island's jungles he found a wrecked bomber from World War II that still had the pilot's remains inside. He was discharged from Army service on March 18, 1949. He went to Michigan State University and the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He had a master's Degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rocky Flats

In 1976 he was the Director of the Jefferson County, Colorado Department of Health. He reported that soil around the Rocky Flats Plant contained 44 times more plutonium than the government claimed. In 1977 he reported higher-than-average rates of leukemia and cancer among the local people. In 1980 he reported that plant workers had eight times more brain tumors than expected. In 1981 he was fired. He later won a whistle blower lawsuit against Jefferson County, Colorado. In 1985 he lost an election to become the Boulder County, Colorado Director of Health.

Death and burial

He died on December 29, 1988 at Lutheran Memorial Hospital in Lakewood, Colorado of an unsuspected birth defect of the heart. He was buried in the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Colorado on January 3, 1989. His obituary appeared in The New York Times on December 30, 1988: "Dr. Carl J. Johnson, a public health official who attacked the Federal Government over the potentially dangerous effects of nuclear weapons testing, died of complications from heart surgery yesterday at Lutheran Memorial Hospital in Lakewood, Colorado. He was 59 years old and lived in Lakewood."

Obituary

"Dr. Carl J. Johnson Is Dead at 58; Opposed Nuclear Weapons Tests. By Susan Heller Anderson, December 30, 1988. Dr. Carl J. Johnson, a public health official who attacked the Federal Government over the potentially dangerous effects of nuclear weapons testing, died of complications from heart surgery yesterday at Lutheran Memorial Hospital in Lakewood, Colo. He was 59 years old and lived in Lakewood. Dr. Johnson, an epidemiologist and radiation specialist, was the public health director in Jefferson County, Colo., the site of the Government's Rocky Flats Plant, from 1973 to 1981. Rocky Flats, 16 miles northwest of Denver, shapes plutonium into triggers for thermonuclear weapons. The plant opened in 1953. Dr. Johnson was an early critic of the way the Government ran its weapons plants, concluding that they presented substantial health risks to the public and to workers. Backed by Medical Journal In 1984 Dr. Johnson's views attained considerable credibility after after The Journal of the American Medical Association published his study, 'Cancer Incidents in an Area of Radioactive Fallout Downwind from the Nevada Test Site.' At that time, The Journal's editor said that because of the study's sensitivity, he had subjected it to several reviews before printing it. Dr. Johnson published the study while he was a consultant at the Medical Care and Research Foundation in Denver, which had gathered the data for use in a lawsuit brought against the Government by 1,200 residents of southern Utah and the surrounding region. The suit eventually failed. The study found that radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests in Nevada caused an excess of cancer among Mormons in southern Utah. Previously, Dr. Johnson said, leukemia deaths among children in Jefferson County increased to twice the national rate from 1957 to 1962. Opposed Rocky Flats Housing In 1974 Dr. Johnson opposed housing developments in farmland adjacent to Rocky Flats because of heavy concentration of plutonium there. He said that in 1975 and 1976 his staff found 44 times more plutonium in soil near the plant than had been reported by the Government. Concentrations in the air and in drinking water were also found to be high. The plant has since ceased most of its operations. Carl Johnson, born in Sims, Indiana, graduated from Michigan State University and the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He had a master's degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley. He was an associate professor of pathology at the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine and a district health officer of the Seattle-King County Health Department. From 1985 to 1988, he served as medical officer in the South Dakota Department of Health. Surviving are his wife, Kathryn; three sons, Frederick, of Denver, Kendrick, of Golden, Colo., and Peter, of Fremont, Calif.; a sister, Sarah Mort, of Lafayette, Ind., and two brothers, George, of San Francisco, and Gary, of Miami, Fla."

Publications

• Carl J. Johnson, "Funding of Radiation Protection Standards Research", letter to the editor, American Journal of Public Health, February 1979.
• Carl J. Johnson, "Cancer Incidence in an Area of Radioactive Fallout Downwind from the Nevada Test Site", Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 251, Number 2, January 13, 1984.
• Carl J. Johnson, "Rocky Flats: Death Inc." The New York Times, Op-Ed; Sunday, December 18, 1988, Op-ed E-23.

References

• Susan Heller Anderson; New York Times, December 30, 1988, page A18; "Dr. Carl J. Johnson is dead at 58"
• Mort, Sarah; E-mail interview; 27 March 2006

Images

1929 birth certificate

1930 US census

Fredrick Chancy Johnson (1902-c.1975) (left) and Carl Jean Johnson (1929-1988) (right)

Carl Jean Johnson (1929-1988)

1988 obituary

Source

• Researched and written by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )