RE: Article from Washington Post: Plant Hid Risk From Workers

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

Please, what is "highly radioactive plutonium (and neptunium)?" The only
isotope of Pu that could be considered "highly radioactive" that would
around long enough to expose workers at Paducah would be Pu241 (t 1/2 = 13.2
years, which I doubt would be that prevalent in small or trace amounts of
plutonium. Similarly, the isotope of Np that would qualify would be Np-235
(t 1/2 = 1.12 years), which is also pretty rare.

I do not question that Paducah workers could have been exposed to enough
uranium as UF6 or as yellowcake to cause significant occupational health
problems from the chemical impacts, especially in the 1950s, but I question
whether the radiological impact of Pu or Np could be the culprit.

I would be interested in what other RADSAFERs think, since I am by no means
a good physiologist.

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: December 23, 1999 6:29 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Article from Washington Post: Plant Hid Risk From Workers


This appeared in today's Washington Post, and is part of their ongoing
series of
investigative articles.  Anecdotal stories of some of the deceased workers
is
provided at the end of this posting.

-- John


Plant Hid Risk From Workers
Paducah Bosses Knew Some Had High Radiation Levels

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, December 23, 1999; Page A01 

PADUCAH, Ky.-One worker collapsed on the factory floor, his body ravaged by
lymphoma. Two others died within 105 days of different forms of leukemia. By
the
time Challie Freeman came down with a rare bone disease in the fall of 1979,
questions had morphed into suspicions:
Was something at the U.S. government's uranium plant making workers sick?

One possible answer--radiation exposure--seemed persuasive to Freeman's
doctor.
He fired off a letter to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. "It is
imperative," he wrote, "that we learn as soon as possible the extent, nature
and
type of radiation to which he was exposed."
The reply--"no significant internal exposure"--was brief and emphatic. It
was
also false.
While the plant was denying knowledge of significant hazards to Freeman's
doctors, confidential records showed the opposite: Freeman had tested
positive
multiple times for exposure to radioactive uranium and had even been
restricted
from working around uranium, an internal company memo shows.

In August, The Washington Post reported that Paducah workers were
unwittingly
exposed to highly radioactive plutonium and neptunium on the job from the
1950s
to the 1970s. A subsequent four-month Post investigation has found
additional
evidence that plant officials kept employees uninformed about chemical and
radiation hazards. In some cases, such as Freeman's, the plant withheld
accurate
medical information on radiation exposure--even while it privately tracked
cancer deaths among workers.

A limited review of Paducah employee death records also turned up rates of
leukemia among workers that appear higher than normal, based on government
mortality statistics. Epidemiologists who reviewed the findings described
the
data as intriguing but cautioned that a much more intensive scientific study
was
needed, involving investigators with full access to employee records and
medical
histories, to establish whether a pattern existed. Such a study has not been
done at Paducah.

The 48-year-old uranium plant is the subject of an Energy Department
investigation into worker health and safety practices. Union Carbide Corp.,
which allowed its operating contract to expire in 1984, declines to comment,
saying its Paducah managers are long gone from the company. Energy Secretary
Bill Richardson, whose agency owns the facility, has apologized for the
failure
to disclose plant hazards and has promised compensation for sick workers.

Any outside attempt to review medical issues at Paducah is complicated by a
lack
of complete information. The Energy Department, citing privacy laws,
declined to
release lists of workers and their assignments. But The Post obtained
company
rosters listing more than 200 Paducah employees who were hired to work in
some
of the plant's most dangerous uranium-handling areas between 1951 and 1971.
Scores of death certificates were examined and more than 120 surviving
employees
who worked in those areas were interviewed.

Professional help was retained to categorize deaths, and a software program
developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was
used
to compare incidences of cancer to national rates.

The result: The incidence of leukemia at Paducah appeared elevated,
according to
epidemiologists who reviewed the data. Of the 211 people on the lists who
could
be located--about 13 percent of the plant's work force in an average
year--10
died of cancers of the blood and lymphatic system, including six of
leukemia. By
comparison, government mortality statistics suggest that only a single
leukemia
death would be expected in a group of adults of that size.

Cancer clusters are difficult to document, and cancers are not necessarily
caused by radiation. Some studies at other Energy Department plants have
suggested links between workplace hazards and cancers; others have not.
Whether
chronic exposure to low doses of radiation causes cancer has been hotly
debated
for decades.

Still, several epidemiologists who reviewed the results said the unusual
incidence of leukemia and other rare diseases suggests the need for a closer
look.

"The findings are interesting and noteworthy and are grounds for a more
complete
study of the question," said David Richardson, an epidemiologist who is
researching radiation health effects for the World Health Organization.

Senior Energy Department officials said the findings highlight a major
policy
dilemma for the agency: whether to pursue more studies or to expand pilot
programs to directly compensate workers who get sick. Yesterday, the
department
announced that it had shifted spending priorities in its fiscal 2000 budget
to
increase money for health studies and medical monitoring at Paducah.
However,
officials worry that studies may not be the right approach.

"Epidemiology is not going to answer the questions precisely enough," said
David
Michaels, an epidemiologist and the assistant energy secretary for
environment,
safety and health.
Energy Secretary Richardson said he has proposed legislation to change the
way
his agency deals with its sick workers.

"Instead of fighting claims, we're actually helping workers without the
debate
about the rates of illness," he said. "The legislation we sent to Congress
takes
the burden of proof off those who are sick."

Documents obtained in October under the Freedom of Information Act show that
Union Carbide began tracking the repeated cancer cases in its work force in
the
1970s.

The first to die was Wade McNabb, a 20-year veteran who succumbed to chronic
leukemia in 1972. That same fall, another worker died of multiple myeloma, a
bone marrow disease.

Alton Henson died of leukemia in 1976. Two years later, three workers--Arvil
Bean, Leonard Lindblad and David Wilson--died of leukemia or bone marrow
diseases within a span of six months.
By 1982, the company had counted 13 fatal cancers of the blood or lymphatic
system out of a relatively stable work force that ranged from 1,200 to 2,000
people. The list appears on a single sheet of paper--stamped "confidential"
and
copied to senior plant officials--identifying workers sometimes by initials.
How
Union Carbide intended to use the list is unclear, but the plant's records
show
no attempt by contractors to investigate possible links between the deaths
and
workplace hazards.

Meanwhile, plant workers were told everything was fine. When Challie Freeman
fell ill with his deadly bone marrow disease at 59, plant officials offered
a
lot of sympathy but little truth, family members say.

Responding to a hematologist's queries about possible radiation exposure, a
plant physician in a letter described Freeman as a "very fine man" whose
exposure to hazardous materials had been near zero. Medical records produced
by
the plant showed "no significant internal exposure," based on years of
weekly
urine tests for uranium.

Not until 15 years after his death in 1984 did family members obtain his
medical
records from the Energy Department and learn the full story: Company tests
had
indeed found high levels of uranium in his body in the 1950s--so much, in
fact,
that Freeman once had to be moved to a different work area. His widow, Sue,
recalls that he was transferred to a different job in the 1950s after being
told
simply that his urine was "hot."

Freeman's physician, Nashville hematologist John Flexner, remembered that
the
company's response "downplayed the exposures."

"They made you think there was no way this could be a case of
cause-and-effect,"
Flexner said. "I guess I was naive to think they were telling the truth."

Union Carbide said that it did not have the ability to respond in the
Freeman
case because of the 20-year passage of time.

Plant policies required that workers exposed to certain amounts of radiation
be
moved to other, less hazardous jobs. But new records show this was ignored
in
some cases in which workers received up to twice the maximum dosage.

One who never got the word was A.B. Burris, a 74-year-old retiree who
learned of
his past exposures when he asked the Energy Department for his medical files
this fall.

"They say I was put on 'strict restriction,' but I never found out about it
until weeks ago," he said. "I can tell you they never changed my job or said
anything to me about it."

Workers knew even less about potentially deadly plutonium and neptunium that
spread through the plant in shipments of recycled nuclear reactor uranium
fuel
from the 1950s to the 1970s, plant documents show.

Confidential, 40-year-old memos released by the Energy Department in
September
showed that Union Carbide officials had decided against testing workers for
exposure to the radioactive metals because of fears that workers would "use
it .
. . as an excuse for hazardous-duty pay."
Newly released memos show that senior managers were aware of the plutonium
and
neptunium problem as early as 1959 but concluded in classified studies that
contaminants were not a health hazard because the amounts in each shipment
were
small--a maximum of 10 parts per billion of plutonium in each uranium
shipment.

But over the years, the two metals began accumulating in soil and waste
materials.
In a survey of Paducah plant buildings conducted in the early 1990s, more
than
half of the work areas sampled exceeded the plant's safety limits for
plutonium
and neptunium--in some cases by a factor of 10. A survey of a men's locker
room
found high levels in shower stalls and even on toilet seats.

Workers did know enough about radiation hazards to formally request
additional
safeguards.
When Union Carbide decided to stop providing mechanics with coveralls, the
plant's union demanded in 1986 that the company take responsibility for
"radiation carried into our homes, autos and other areas." Union Carbide
denied
the request, although in 1975 the union negotiated the right to protective
clothing on demand.

The union was less successful in efforts to secure workers' rights to take
regular breaks in a radiation-free lunchroom. In a written grievance in
1979,
the union said workers "should not have to eat in a contaminated area."

The company denied the request.

Ailing workers in the past have had difficulty proving harm because they
lacked
accurate monitoring data, David Fuller, president of the Paducah chapter of
the
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers Union, testified at a
Senate
hearing on Paducah in October.

While applauding government promises to financially aid ailing Paducah
workers,
Fuller and other union officials called for a compensation program for all
workers that "reverses the burden of proof onto the government" while
expanding
medical monitoring for those most at risk.

"Monitoring is imperative," Fuller said, "but without any other remedy,
monitoring is simply a process to watch people get sick and die."

Director of computer-assisted reporting Ira Chinoy, database editor Sarah
Cohen,
and staff researchers Alice Crites, Nathan Abse and Nancy Shiner contributed
to
this report.
Challie Freeman

Job: Cascade worker, security officer
Age at death: 64 
Illness: Myelofibrosis

Did radioactive exposure on the job make Challie Freeman sick? His doctor
suspected a link, but plant managers said no. Asked by doctors to provide
details of Freeman's work history, a Union Carbide memo described light
exposure
to the skin but "no significant internal exposures." 

Fifteen years after Freeman's death, the family obtained confidential plant
memos that showed the opposite: Freeman had been restricted from uranium
work in
the 1950s because of "repeated positive urine samples" for radioactive
uranium.
The uranium remained high after weekends away from the job, the memo said.

Freeman became sick from a slowly progressing bone marrow disease in the
1970s
and died in 1984. Near the end his weight plummeted from 190 pounds to 100
and
he was in constant pain, said his wife, Sue, who quit her job to care for
him.
'We always wondered if it was the plant that made him sick,' she said. 'Now
I
have no doubt.' 

David R. Wilson
Job: Cascade operator
Age at death: 54
Illness: Lymphosarcoma

Like most Paducah workers, Wilson said little about his job, though
sometimes
he'd confide to his wife when he was exposed to unusually high levels of
radiation. "He would say just he had been 'hot,'" remembers his widow,
Winnie.
One day in early 1978 he was rushed to the hospital after becoming ill at
work.
Tests confirmed he suffered from a form of lymphoma, which ended his life
just
four months later.

Wade McNabb
Job: Cascade operator
Age at death: 55
Illness: Leukemia

The doctor's eyes spoke volumes. After breaking the awful news to McNabb --
a
diagnosis of leukemia at age 40 -- he asked the ailing man where he worked.
The
reply, "Atomic Energy Plant, Paducah," prompted a nod and a knowing look.
"Oh,
yes," the hematologist said, "I'm treating several patients from Oak Ridge,"
Paducah's sister plant in Tennessee. McNabb began treatment and returned to
the
same job to preserve his salary and health benefits. "We didn't know what
else
to do," Dove, his widow, says. "You couldn't even talk about it at work, not
if
you wanted to keep your job."

Jack Owens
Job: Cascade operator, emergency crew 
Age at death: 36
Illness: Rare blood/bone marrow disease
Owen's emergency crew job brought him into some of the most dangerous areas
to
clean up spills of chemicals and radioactive material. "Some days he'd come
home
with chemical burns at every orifice," remembers his widow, Norma Rebik.
"Later,
when his doctor asked what he had been exposed to, he said, 'Everything.'"
In
1961, at 36, he died of a form of thrombocytopenia, a condition sometimes
linked
to environmental exposures. "He went from perfectly well to dead in a week,"
his
widow said.

Leon Lindblad
Job: Cascade supervisor
Age at death: 62
Illness: Leukemia

An avowed believer in Paducah's "mission," Lindblad was ambivalent about
whether
the plant posed risks. "He'd say the radiation levels were not that high,"
remembers his widow, Virginia, and yet, he always "took his shoes off at the
door because he didn't want to bring that stuff inside the house."
Lindblad's
suspicions multiplied after he became sick with leukemia. He drew up a list
of
accidents and dates. "If I die, you can sue them," Lindblad explained to his
wife, "because they're the ones who did this to me." Virginia never got the
chance: On a Friday in 1976, Linblad stashed the list in his desk, never
suspecting that he would become gravely ill over the weekend. He never
returned
to work.

C. Arvil Bean
Job: Process maintenance
Age at death: 64
Illness: Leukemia

Bean's retirement plans included firing up the '49 Cadillac he was restoring
and
taking his wife on a trip to the Dakotas, where he was once stationed with
the
Army. Those ambitions faded the day he was diagnosed with acute leukemia at
age
55. He replayed in his mind the times he had been exposed to radiation --
like
the day he worked 16 hours cleaning up radioactive debris from a 1962
explosion.
Despite his illness, Bean clung to his vacation dreams to the end. "Every
few
days he'd go out there and crank up that old car," daughter Nita said, "even
in
the snow."

Charles Edward Harris
Job: Machinist
Age at death: 62
Illness: Cancer, multiple organs

For 25 years, Harris worked in the plant's machine shop, grinding down and
repairing the nickel-plated pipes and gear used to convert uranium powder to
nuclear fuel. Unknown to Harris and most other workers at the time, the
metals
were contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and neptunium, radioactive
elements far more dangerous than ordinary uranium. His son, David, may have
been
exposed to the same hazards during summer jobs at the plant: College
students
mowed grass and cleaned up pond sludge in areas now known to be contaminated
with the highly radioactive metals. "At the time they told us point-blank
there
was nothing there but uranium," David said.

Eugene Ragland
Job: Chemical operator
Age at Death: 49
Illness: Lung cancer

The accident and Ragland's death will always be connected, at least in the
mind
of his widow, Marie. She still remembers his worried voice the night in
March
1978 when he called to say he wouldn't be coming home from work. Ragland had
been exposed to radiation during a mishap and had been asked to stay
overnight
for testing. Four months later, a separate medical test found "something
wrong"
with his blood, she said -- a result that led to the discovery of a rapidly
spreading cancer in his lungs and chest. His death on Aug. 4 came so
suddenly
that Ragland had little time to ponder his illness, or the possible causes.
"He
always thought he was safe at the plant," Marie said. "They never let him
know
differently."


© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

  -----------------


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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