Discussion on illnesses

[Magnu96196@aol.com]

Hello RadSafers,

     I'll have to say, this list is diverse in opinions.    And my mail box 
is overflowing, but its interesting.

    Sounds to me like some of the general HP community think the mess around 
the gas diffusion plants somehow points a bad finger at their science.    
Keep in mind that most of the HP community is allowed to do their jobs and 
they do them well at most of the commercial power plants, hospitals, 
pharmacutical labs, etc.    DOE operations are another story all together.   
In these plants the managers control everything, and they say what gets done, 
how its done, if it is reported.   You don't have rights or professional 
integrity in some problem zones.

   I noticed one of the Oak Ridge HP's discuss the IBM cards forced to be 
used to get smear samples for counting.    This is pure forced fraud to use 
card stock in place of absorbant wipes.   This won't pick up the metals dusts 
or the fluoride dusts.   This was not all the improper things that went on at 
gas diffusion sites.

   I was a little surprised to see not too many persons offered any good 
solutions for HP's being made to go against established procedures.    
Appears some sort of support eithics system is missing.

   Everyone seems to think is the problems at the gas diffusion plants are 
mostly rad based.   I don't think this is the case.    What appears to be 
happening is the news is into playing up radiation and this is coming from 
just a few sources, the lawyers pushing the Paducah suits mainly, and these 
same sources are also pushing the compensation with no proof idea also.   
Basically because there is no radiation data that supports the disease 
outcomes seen.   This suggesting the dominate cause is not radiation effects. 

    This is indeed a delima, as part of the problem is lots of the pure proof 
in records were not kept well.    But still the human dosimeters are 
indicating serious health problems in many workers.     There were unrecorded 
releases all over the place.   In some of the news they call these "midnite 
negatives"      The bulk of the health problems at these site is not cancers, 
its two dozen other immune disease related health outcomes.

     Part of the problem as to why the radiation is being emphasized appears 
to be to hide another problem linked to fluorides releases.    This buys DOE 
some liabilty reductions and they also want to try a quick lump sum payment 
without doing the real cause and effect.   There is lots of industrial data 
from the aluminum industry over the last 60 years or so on the extreme 
problems from fluoride toxic effects from HF releases.    The gas diffusion 
and aluminum business both release a lot of HF that goes on to form varous 
fluorides in air, which go to lung doses, retains in the body.    Aluminum 
companies have killed large areas of pine trees from the toxic effects of 
these fluoride releases.    These fluorides are akin to the same effects seen 
with dioxin on trees in this respect.    The Reynolds metal company had one 
of the worst plants that killed pine trees, honey bees, and devistated 
cattle.   These same kind of effects are seen around the gas diffusion site 
in Oak Ridge.    The aluminum companies also told all kinds of lies, obtained 
faked reports from experts, to hide the effects, same kinda deals appear 
around the gas diffusion sites.   Took years for the science to cut thru the 
cover ups of the aluminum industry, but the later reports finger fluorides as 
major problems in the Al business.   Gas diffusion problems are instant 
replays of these same Al plant HF problems, very same techniques used to 
confused and bury the problem.

  So, in regard to compensation there is considerable evidence that fluorides 
are involved and it appears the health effects show low level fluoride 
effects.   Many workers have lung and asthma like problems, many have 
arthritic like bone and joint pain, and all these effects show up well in the 
Al worker effects in the literature.    Fluorides also are being shown to 
injure the thyroid gland, and sites like Oak Ridge have a high thyroid 
incidence.  They also have neurological problems, also connected with 
fluorides.

   It appears that many on this list think that radiation is the main culprit 
in these reports,  this is mainly because the lawyers on these suits in 
Paducah keep playing up the radiation effects and the recycled fuels.    I 
think this is a problem in some areas like the fluorination stations, but the 
health effects in Oak Ridge cover a broad worker area and they are not just 
cancers.

   I don't think, if things are studied reliably, that there needs to be too 
many assumptions.   It appears better diagnosis can be made once all the 
exposure effects are out in the open.    One of the big problems is for 
decades no one could even say which toxin they were exposed to at work, so 
the epi data base is all screwed up.   

    HP's forget, sometimes the best dosimeters of all are the humans, when 
too many get sick at one time, there is a reason for it.   You definitely 
don't toss out that data, but DOE is sure trying too, as well as some on this 
list.    At the gas diffusion plants the big reason does not apear to be rad, 
but more chemical oxidant from the cumulative effects of long term low level 
fluorides releases.   And it appears that many of the illnesses can be traced 
to real toxic exposures, matching symptoms, and true cause and effect 
compensation can be established.    

    The problems at these plants need to be discussed widely and known, that 
is why different folks post these news stories for discussion.   It helps 
further to hear from some of the HP's that have worked the gas diffusion 
plants, direct experience counts.        And even lawyers can add more data, 
they have sick clients too, and they have lots more info that folks in other 
industies don't have, direct eyewitness connections.    The strongest 
information the lawyer community provides is along the lines of how to set up 
compensations based on past practices of industries toxic liabilties, 
knowledge of the running history of these.

   This problem is large, and the ultimate solution is not going to be easy.  
  Perhaps if we carried this to infinity------it a reason for nationalized 
health.    Gas diffusion sites are hardly the only problems the Manhattan 
Project go into, there are some more, which makes the mess even bigger and 
calls for a large scale comprehesive solution.    Guess I'll have to see if 
that comes along with more DOE revelations.

Sincerely,
Jim Phelps, former ORNL Sr. Staff---designer of the PDR-43R upgrade
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