[ RadSafe ] Fwd: Hanford radiation victims win federal suit

[Norm Cohen]

------- Forwarded message -------

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Jury awards $545,000 to two Hanford-area cancer
victims

[seattlepi.com]

Friday, May 20, 2005

  Others lose out in suit blaming diseases on radiation releases

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SPOKANE -- A federal jury awarded more than $500,000 yesterday to two
thyroid cancer victims who blamed their disease on radiation from the
government's Hanford nuclear installation, which made plutonium for bombs
for four decades.

The jury deadlocked over whether another plaintiff's thyroid cancer was
caused by Hanford radiation, and it ruled against three others with
thyroid-related autoimmune diseases.

The verdicts came in a 14-year-old lawsuit against corporations that made
plutonium for the federal government at the south-central Washington
reservation, and was claimed as a victory by both sides.

"It is still a historic day," said plaintiffs' attorney Richard Eymann,
because a jury for the first time found that Hanford emissions caused
thyroid cancer.

"They went in saying we could not prove any of this, and we
picked up two and had a hung jury on a third," Eymann said. "The Department
of Energy should take a hard look at this."

The six people who went to trial were the so-called bellwethers among  
nearly
2,300 Hanford "downwinders" who have sued major contractors who ran the
federal nuclear reservation for the government after it started making
plutonium in 1944.

Kevin Van Wart, whose Chicago law firm represented General
Electric Co., E.I. DuPont de Nemours Co. and UNC Nuclear Inc., said the six
"were their best, handpicked cases," and the plaintiffs won only two.

He noted that the jury awarded only $227,508 in damages to Steve Stanton  
and
$317,251 to Gloria Wise, far less than it cost to bring the case to trial.

Plaintiff Shannon Rhodes of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, said she was shocked that
the jury deadlocked on her claim that her thyroid cancer was caused by the
radiation.

"I'm just so disappointed," Rhodes said.

The jury of six men and six women in the three-week trial ruled against the
autoimmune disease claims of Wanda Buckner, Shirley Ann Carlisle and
Katherine Goldblum. All six of the plaintiffs grew up near the Hanford
reservation.

Meetings will be scheduled soon to determine what to do about the hung jury
in Rhodes' case, and how to deal with the others who have filed claims,  
U.S.
District Judge Frem Nielsen said. The decisions could be appealed.

"I hope at this stage the parties give a good-faith effort tomediation,"
Nielsen said.

Attorney Roy Haber of Eugene, Ore., who represented Wise, saidthe jury was
able to see that there was a clear scientific link between radioactive
iodine 131 and thyroid cancer.

Haber said the science wasn't as clear in the autoimmune cases, but has
become clearer recently and would be more convincing in the next trials.

Haber also criticized the companies for choosing to spend some $70 million
in federal money on litigation, rather thancompensating victims.

Nielsen ruled that jurors would not be allowed to hear that it is the
government, not the contractors, who would pay if the plaintiffs won. The
government also is paying for their defense.

The six downwinders were infants and small children living near the site
during the 1940s, when there were many radiation releases from plutonium
factories.

Other downwinders lived in Eastern Washington, northeastern
Oregon and north-central Idaho.

   [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA
98119 (206) 448-8000

©1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer



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