# Was Karen Silkwood Murdered?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 8, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155 "2007-01-08T16:06:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155/1 "2007-01-08T16:06:29Z")

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I have yet to read anything that (convincingly) answers what actually happened to Karen Silkwood. For those of you unfamiliar , Silkwood was a technician at a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, owned by the Kerr-McGee Chemical Co. She belived that many safety procedures were being violated at the plant, and raised complaints to her managers. These were denied, and Silkwood became something of a gadfly. While on the way to testify at ahearing (investigating safety procedures at the plant), Silkwood’s car went off the raod and crashed, killing her. So was she either:  
-a complete loon 9who may have contaminated herslf on purpose)  
-an incompetent technician, who caused the contamination by her own error  
-a courageous exposer of company shortcomings  
Anybody know what the current concensus is?

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**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155/2 "2007-01-08T16:52:53Z")

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Cannot prove it now. Too long ago. Political exposure can be dangerous. Pissing off a corp is too. Radicals are not born ,the system creates them.

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**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155/3 "2007-01-09T00:31:52Z")

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Well we can say for sure that she was a sloppy urine collector and food handler - or [so she claimed](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interact/silkwood.html) .

I think the Quaaludes probably had before jumping behind the wheel had more to do with her death than Kerr-Magee - but do I think they had totally clean procedures – no I guess I don’t.

The alternative, to me, is that Silkwood was smuggling out tiny, infinitesimal amounts of plutonium probably to make her point about her concerns once she was laughed at … that seems less likely, to me, than than she was accidentally contaminated by sloppiness at work - probably some hefty percentage of which was the fault Kerr-Magee.

Doesn’t mean she was murdered though.

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**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\
**Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155/4 "2007-01-09T00:33:39Z")

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[QUOTE=jimmmy]

I think the Quaaludes probably had before jumping behind the wheel had more to do with her death than Kerr-Magee -  
[/QUOTE]

Is Idiot for:

\*I think the Quaaludes she had before jumping behind the wheel probably had more to do with her death than Kerr-Magee \*

:smack:

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**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-karen-silkwood-murdered/387155/5 "2007-01-11T06:40:32Z")

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That’s okay. Blame the quaaludes you had before writing that post.

😃