[ RadSafe ] Clinton Takes on Uranium Inhalation Poisoners

[James Salsman]

Don Kosloff wrote:

>... according to the DU "poisoning" theories, the Bethlehem workers
> should have expressed the Gulf War Syndrome symptoms long before the Gulf
> War Syndrome symptoms were identified....

Indeed.  From below:  "It was only after those soldiers came back from 
the first Gulf War with health problems caused by irradiated bombs that 
[Gene O'Brien] made the connection," he said. "Exactly the same thing 
happened to me. I was hit with uranium dust."

http://buffalonews.com/editorial/20041216/1025306.asp

Former Marine suffered from secret uranium work at Bethlehem, fought battle

By JOHN F. BONFATTI
Buffalo News
12/16/2004

Like so many others of his generation, Gene O'Brien went off to fight 
the last great war and returned to a job at the bustling Bethlehem Steel 
plant.

As a Marine, O'Brien faced his share of danger.

But nothing, he believes, compared to the danger he unknowingly 
encountered at the sprawling steel plant on the Lake Erie shore.

The invisible threat was radiation from uranium that steelworkers were 
rolling into rods during secret government experiments in the early 1950s.

O'Brien wasn't alone. Thousands of men worked in the mills, exposed to 
the danger.

Of those workers, 2,985 claims for compensation had been filed on behalf 
of former employees at 13 area plants under the 2000 Energy Employees 
Occupational Illness Compensation program, as of early November.

What makes O'Brien different is that he got money from the government 
for his sufferings.

Not many others - just a few hundred - have seen any cash.

"I came out of the Marine Corps and World War II and never knew I went 
into World War III," O'Brien said. "I didn't get the protective 
equipment in World War III that I had in World War II."

O'Brien, 78, believes radiation at the plant damaged the front temporal 
lobe in his brain and led to the removal of his bladder and prostate.

The U.S. government apparently also believes radiation led to his health 
problems. In November, it issued him a check for $150,000.

"It took him three years to get this," said O'Brien's wife of 54 years, 
Jane, glancing at the piles of paperwork that clutter the kitchen table 
in their Elma home. "Three years of stuff all over the table."

The federal law was designed to compensate workers who were unknowingly 
exposed to radiation when they worked on secret atomic weapons programs 
and later contracted certain cancers linked to that exposure.

Successful claimants - like O'Brien - get $150,000 and money toward 
medical bills.

But nearly half of the claims involving area plants have been denied. 
O'Brien's is one of just 357 claims that have been paid so far. And he's 
one of the few successful claimants willing to talk about his 
experiences with the compensation program.

"It's good news," O'Brien said of his award, "but I'd rather have my 
health. And I feel sorry for the guys who are left. I don't think 
they're going to get anywhere."

That's because he feels those still pursuing claims are being victimized 
by the government bureaucracy administering the program.
Three agencies

Three federal agencies - the departments of Labor, Health and Human 
Services and Energy - are involved in the program, which started with a 
promise by the government that it would lean toward approving claims.

"That has not been the case," said Edwin Walker, leader of a group of 
former Bethlehem Steel workers who are critical of the program's 
administration. "They fight. They argue. They just don't respond."

In the case of Bethlehem Steel claimants, Walker, O'Brien and others 
blame a computer model designed to determine the likelihood that a 
claimant's cancer was caused by radiation exposure.

Earlier this week, a government audit pointed to significant flaws in 
the model, prompting local congressional leaders to call for it to be 
revised.

But a government official whose agency, the National Institute for 
Occupational Safety and Health, is responsible for developing the model 
has defended it and the program's administration.

"I think there are some very positive things to say about Bethlehem 
Steel and the claims in New York," said Larry Elliott, director of 
NIOSH's Office of Compensation Analysis and Support. "New York is much 
farther ahead than the other states."

The Bethlehem Steel model, Elliott said, is "a scientifically sound . . 
. document. It includes very favorable claimant assumptions."

The model was needed because there is scant hard evidence detailing how 
much radiation workers were exposed to in the late 1940s and early 
1950s, when the government conducted experiments at Bethlehem. The 
experiments involved rolling uranium for a federal reactor in Ohio.

O'Brien was an electrician at Bethlehem Steel. He didn't work much at 
the bar mill where the rollings took place, but, as a grievance chairman 
for the steelworkers union, he said he frequently visited the area to 
talk with workers about seniority issues they were having.

It was around this time, O'Brien said, that he inexplicably started 
having blackouts. Some occurred while he was driving his car, leading to 
at least three accidents.

"It was only after those soldiers came back from the first Gulf War with 
health problems caused by irradiated bombs that I made the connection," 
he said. "Exactly the same thing happened to me. I was hit with uranium 
dust."

First cancer in 1977

Ultimately, the blackouts led to his leaving Bethlehem Steel on 
disability in 1975.

The cancers followed.

In 1977, doctors diagnosed cancer in his bladder. That disappeared 
following chemotherapy, but in 1982, doctors found cancer in his 
prostate and, as a precaution, decided to remove both. In 1999, he was 
diagnosed with rectal cancer.

With two major surgeries, O'Brien thought the chances of a successful 
claim were good. He was stunned when his claim was initially rejected.

"When I first got rejected, I was hot," he said. "If I didn't get it, 
who the hell is going to get it?"

That's a question Walker said he has heard over and over.

"When we have our meetings, and there's usually 200 people or so, you 
hear them all (complain), not just one or two or ten. It's all the way 
down the line, the frustration," he said.

Walker is a one-time Bethlehem bricklayer who subsequently got bladder 
cancer. His claim has been rejected, and his appeal of that rejection 
has been denied.

O'Brien said the rejection of his claim prompted him to refile, this 
time adding what he thought were relatively minor skin cancers he'd had 
in the past.

As it turned out, "with the skin cancer alone, I would have had enough" 
to receive the compensation.

"I almost kicked the bucket with all this other stuff," Walker said of 
the bladder, prostrate and rectal cancers. Yet it was the inclusion of 
the skin cancers that resulted in his award.

"I don't get it," said O'Brien, echoing a sentiment shared by many 
frustrated claimants.