May. 03, 2006 - 20:10 MDT

DELAY CONTINUED

A news article published in the Rocky Mountain News on April 28th hs been churning in my mind and heart. It is by Ann Imse of that paper. Quoted in full, any italics and bolds mine:

BOARD DELAYS FLATS DECISION

Ex-workers at plant must wait to learn if illnesses covered

"When Charley Wolf was an engineer running demolition of a plutonium building at Rocky Flats, he'd check on the work daily. Often, his radiation monitoring badge was somewhere else."

"Now, I've got a big hole in my head," he told a federal radiation board meeting in Denver on Thrusday, while rubbing his fingers against a scar where a tumor was cut out of his brain."

"But Wolf has beens rejected in his attempt to get federal compensation. Without the badge readings, he can't prove that radiation at the defunct nuclear weapons plant caused his cancer."

"Many workers say Rocky Flats radiation exposure records are missing and wrong, so it's impossible to prove a connection between their work and their illnesses. They argue they should be allowed to join cancer patients from four other weapons plants who have been grandfathered into the compensation program because of a lack of records."

"After hearing other stories like Wolf's the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health decided Thursday there are still too many questions about whether Rocky Flats radiation records are accurate and whether they should be used to deny compensation."

So the board postponed until June its recommendation on whether the denials should stand, or whether all Rocky Flats workers with 22 specific cancers should be given $150,000 AND medical care."

"More than 1,100 former Rocky Flats workers with cancer have applied for compensation. If the exemption from proof is approved, first by the board and then by Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, thousands more would be eligible."

The national Institute for Occupational safety and Health has been plowing through worker's radiation exposure records and EXTRAPOLATING to fill in the gaps. That has infuriated workers, who say many records are missing, erroneous or downright falsified. NIOSH is filling in blanks on records with the average dose of a large group of other workers."

"Jerry Hardin, who spent 35 years monitoring radiation at the plant, said that won't work, however, because the radiation hazard could be dramatically different just a short distance apart within the same building."

++++

It still boggles my mind, 1,100 workers with cancer of the 22 varities known to be associated with exposure to radiation. Seems to me, that should be evidence that the radiation records in the most diplomatic language are faulty.

And four other plants workers have been grandfathered into the compensation program, why have not the Rocky Flats workers been included too ? That to me indicates that the batting average of atomic weapons plants is in the basement.

"Extrapolating to fill in gaps," to me is a fancy word to say guessing based on the faulty records that caused the four atomic weapons plants to allow compensation to workers of four plants.

So, to my mind the philosophy of the Cold War was pushing atomic weapons production and disregarding workers safety in the fear of, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING paranoia.

Looks to me that Jerry Hardin's words will be disregarded by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Workers Health and after June 2006, I guess more blather will hang the procedure up and the workers will be in the same boat as others of our countrymen who have been let down by our patriotic bureaucracy.

My arithmentic is a bit old and faulty but it seems that 1100 times $150,000 figures out to $165,000,000 -- which in English is one hundred sixtyfive million dollars. A drop in the bucket compared to what war in Iraq is costing our country per day.

As time goes on more people die and get beyond medical help. Sadly the farce goes on, now in the nth stage of DELAY CONTINUED . . . . . . . . . .

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