Nuclear Workers' Illness Recognized

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday July 15 5:18 PM ET 

Nuclear Workers' Illness Recognized

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government acknowledged for the first time 
Thursday that thousands of workers were made sick while making 
nuclear weapons and announced a plan to compensate many of them for 
medical care and lost wages.  

Congress must still approve the compensation, which would end years 
of litigation over claims by the workers that they became sick while 
employed by private contractors at federal nuclear weapons facilities 
during the Cold War.  

``The U.S. government is acknowledging that we made a mistake. ... We 
need to right this wrong,'' Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said, in 
announcing the compensation plan after years of government rejection 
of the health claims.  

He was joined by nine members of Congress from some of the regions 
where many of the former weapons workers live or were employed. They 
promised to wage a bipartisan campaign to get the legislation 
approved this year.  

``It will not be easy to craft and will not be easy to pass,'' Rep. 
Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said. There remain disputes over how broad the 
compensation should be and how many workers should be covered.  

The administration's plan would initially limit compensation to 
workers who became ill from exposure to beryllium, a chemical element 
that was used as a strengthening alloy in atomic weapons. The cost of 
such compensation was estimated at $13 million a year over 10 years.  

But workers and their advocates have argued the program should be 
broadened to cover illnesses from other toxic and radioactive 
materials at weapons plants. They maintain that thousands of workers 
suffer from lung disease or cancers because of exposure to mercury, 
uranium, asbestos and other radioactive substances.  

Beryllium, which causes a debilitating lung disease for which there 
is treatment but no cure, has been used historically at 20 Energy 
Department sites. The workers were largely in seven states: Colorado, 
Illinois, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington.  

The Energy Department and other sources estimate 20,000 to 26,000 
workers may have been exposed to beryllium at DOE sites over 50 
years. There are believed to be 500 to 1,000 cases of the disease, 
officials said.  

Richard Miller of the energy workers' union said the union will press 
Congress to broaden coverage beyond those workers exposed to 
beryllium. Several of the lawmakers at the news conference also said 
compensation needed to be expanded.  

Richardson said the plan calls for the president's National Economic 
Council to examine compensation for other occupational illnesses 
related to the weapons program, including asbestosis and radiation-
induced cancers. A report is expected next March.  

Meanwhile, Richardson said financial assistant for workers made ill 
from beryllium was ``long deserved and long overdue.'' Until now, the 
Energy Department had routinely opposed work-related illness claims 
from contractor employees, although several dozen lawsuits seeking 
compensation have been filed against the government.  

The decision to reverse years of policy and make the workers eligible 
for federal compensation and marks the first time the federal 
government has acknowledged that nuclear weapons production caused 
illnesses in thousands of workers during the Cold War years.  

``It signals a new era for the Department of Energy in its treatment 
of its workers,'' said Richardson.

``Many of the men and women who helped us win the Cold War worked in 
extremely sensitive conditions and were exposed to extremely 
hazardous substances,'' he said, adding that they should ``not be 
punished with health care bills they can't pay.''   

Under the administration's plan, workers found to eligible would be 
reimbursed medical costs, compensated for lost wages and given 
vocational assistance. As an option, they could take a $100,000 lump-
sump benefit payment. In cases in which the worker has died, 
survivors' benefits would be provided, officials said.   

The workers union and other advocates have argued for years that the 
Energy Department and ts predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, 
provided insufficient safeguards and inadequate safety standards for 
workers involved in the production, manufacture and assembly of 
nuclear materials and weapons.  

Although private contract employees made up the vast majority of the 
work force at these facilities, they are ineligible to apply for 
federal compensation. Nor are such illnesses normally covered by 
state workmen's compensation benefits.  

Most of the workers with chronic beryllium disease were employed at 
Rocky Flats in Colorado, the Oak Ridge weapons complex in Tennessee, 
the Hanford reservation in Washington state, Los Alamos National 
Laboratory in New Mexico and the Argonne laboratory in Chicago, 
according to the Energy Department. Many of them also worked for 
private vendors in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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