Karen Silkwood was a nuclear power plant technician and whistleblower who reported on unsafe work conditions at the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Fuel Rod Production facility to the Atomic Energy Commission. She raised concerns about lack of employee training, failure to minimize contamination, inadequate protection gear and poor monitoring. During the course of her duties, polishing plutonium pellets used to make fuel rods for a "breeder reactor" (uses very small amount of uranium) nuclear-power plant, she observed faulty fuel rods ground down to obscure obvious defects. She died on November 13, 1974 in a fatal yet mysterious one-car crash. It was claimed that her death was premeditated (forced off the road by another car) , a manilla folder filled with compromising evidence which was to be presented to the Union Officials and the New York Times was supposedly missing, her phones were tapped and was placed under surveillance, and plutonium was planted at her home and subsequently ingested by her.