Compensation announced for U.S. workers exposed to radiation

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Compensation announced for U.S. workers exposed to radiation

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (April 12, 2000 12:09 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The

Clinton administration, acknowledging the thousands of people sickened by

radiation, is unveiling a broad package of compensation Wednesday for ailing

workers who were exposed to radiation at the country's nuclear bomb

factories during the Cold War, government sources said.

Energy Secretary Bill was to announce the compensation program,

most of which will still have to be approved by Congress.

The plan would offer lump-sum payments of at least $100,000 to workers or

their survivors, or allow them to negotiate a package that would cover

medical costs, lost wages and job retraining, according to sources familiar

with the proposal.

While it's unclear how many people would be affected, the Energy Department

has estimated that about 3,000 former workers at nuclear weapons plants, or

their families, are likely to be eligible because of exposure to radiation

in the 1950s and, in some cases into the 1970s.

The plan estimates the cost of the program at as much as $400 million a year

in the early years, but costs would decline as the number of eligible

workers declines, said officials.

The plan represents the first action by the government that would affect

long-standing claims by nuclear-weapons workers throughout the government's

vast nuclear weapons production complex covering facilities in more than a

dozen states.

It was not immediately clear what specific facilities would be covered,

although workers at uranium enrichment plants in Paducah, Ky., and Piketon,

Ohio are among the locations where compensation was expected.

Last January, a White House panel concluded there was credible evidence that

many workers at the nuclear weapons plants became ill with lung cancer and

other serious illnesses because of exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals.

Until then, the government had always denied a direct link between work

exposure and later illnesses.

Under the proposal being unveiled Wednesday, the government would assume

workers were exposed to the highest expected level of radiation associated

with their work if actual medical records were not available, said the

sources, who spoke on condition of not being further identified.

The proposed compensation plan, which was put together by the White House

National Economic Council, was first reported by The Washington Post and The

New York Times.

The plan expands an earlier proposal by the Energy Department that would

provide compensation to a limited number of workers who have contracted an

incurable beryllium disease because of exposure to chemicals and radioactive

material at the Kentucky and Ohio uranium enrichment plants.

" The government is done fighting workers and now we're going to help them.

We're reversing the decades-old practice of opposing worker claims and

moving forward to do the right thing, " was quoted as saying by

the Post.

The findings last January that illnesses were linked to nuclear weapons work

was based on a review of dozens of studies and raw medical data covering an

estimated 600,000 workers at 14 nuclear weapons sites.

While the panel said the evidence did not in all cases show a direct causal

link between workplace exposures and specific illnesses, it found that

workers at the plants suffered higher than normal rates of a wide range of

cancers and that they clearly were exposed to cancer-causing radiation and

chemicals in the workplace.

The studies examined health records and other data covering three decades of

the Cold War, and officials emphasized the findings do not relate to working

conditions at the plants Wednesday.

The report said elevated rates of 22 categories of cancer were found among

workers at 14 facilities in the department's atomic weapons complex. They

included leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, kidney,

salivary gland and lung.

President Clinton ordered the review after the Energy Department concluded

the government should compensate workers who had developed an incurable lung

disease because of exposure to beryllium, a material used in nuclear weapons

production.

and the White House wanted to determine if other nuclear weapons

plant workers likewise should be compensated because of exposure to

plutonium, uranium and a variety of radioactive or highly toxic substances.

The interagency group reviewed dozens of epidemiological studies, raw health

data and other documents, many of which in the past have been dismissed by

the government.

The report's findings included workers at plutonium production facilities at

Savannah River in South Carolina and Hanford in Washington state; the Rocky

Flats plant near Denver, where plutonium was molded into weapons components;

uranium enrichment and processing plants at the Oak Ridge, Tenn., complex;

the Fernald uranium processing plant near Cincinnati; and the Lawrence

Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories in California and New Mexico,

respectively.