RE: DOE to compensate Paducah Workers

["Weiner, Ruth" <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

I have sent the following letter to Gary King, a deputy assistant secretary
in DOE, who happens to be from New Mexico and whom I happen to have met
several times.

 " I am writing because you can get to the Secretary and we, of course,
can't.  I think the notion of the sort of compensation for the Paducah
workers that I read about in the press is just crazy -- taking "mea culpa"
to some kind of ridiculous extreme.  If anyone can prove that any cancers in
these workers are due to plutonium exposure, they should get the Nobel prize
for medicine for having discovered the cause of cancer, as well as for
having separated it from a host of confounding factors!

I do know something about the hazards of working with uranium hexafluoride
and with yellowcake.  The chemical hazards of UF6 swamp any radiological
hazard by a huge amount, and the effects are immediate.  Similarly,
inhalation of enough yellowcake dust for the plutonium contamination to
"cause cancer" would likely produce other more serious respiratory problems
first.

Please please consult with some of us who know something about this!  Please
consult at least with the Health Physics Society -- not just with one or two
hand-picked doctors.  You yourself probably know enough about the chemical
literature to recognize the fallacies in some of these contentions.

Thanks for your attention."

Clearly only my own opinion.

Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
Sandia National Laboratories 
MS 0718, POB 5800
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
505-844-4791; fax 505-844-0244
rfweine@sandia.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacobus, John (OD) [mailto:JJacobus@exchange.nih.gov]
Sent: Thursday, September 16, 1999 6:33 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: DOE to compensate Paducah Workers


The following article appeared on the front page of today's Washington Post,
September 16, 1999.  As noted, workers at other plants are looking for
compensation. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/16/185l-091699-idx.html


(Hopefully, any threads on this subject will not last long as the Bq v. Ci
controversy.)


"My salad days,
When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
To say as I said then." 

William Shakespeare
from "Antony and Cleopatra"

-- John 

John Jacobus, MS
Health Physicist
National Institutes of Health
Radiation Safety Branch, Building 21
21 Wilson Drive, MSC 6780
Bethesda, MD  20892-6780
Phone: 301-496-5774      Fax: 301-496-3544
jjacobus@exchange.nih.gov (W)
jenday@ix.netcom.com (H)
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