Deadly Denial
Tens of thousands of America's former nuclear bomb builders are sick, dying or already dead because of their exposure to radiation and other poisons. You knew that.
After decades of stonewalling, the government started a compensation program in 2000. You knew that.
After four years of bungling, Congress reformed the program, demanding that it be "compassionate, fair and timely." Perhaps you knew that.
But what you may not know is that today only one in four claimants has been compensated and millions more of your taxpayer dollars have been wasted creating hurdles instead of help.
For many of the nation's cold warriors, the government's game is deadly denial.
Deadly denial: Government fails to help sick nuclear workers
Compensation plan forged within cauldron of politics
Ben Ortiz was warned that steps to help his case will backfire
With a 25-pound liver, Janine Anderson was told she isn't too sick
George Barrie is dying. His wife's advocacy work may have become a weapon against him
Deadly denial: Shifting rules drowning sick nuclear workers
Feds apparently disregarded toxic links to illnesses
Dee Hasenkamp's husband died; she was told to figure out why on her own
Charlie Wolf should be dead, but six years later, he's still fighting for aid
Final decisions on aid veiled in secrecy
Deadly denial: Navajo miners stand ground in a different kind of Cold War
As workers await relief, program doles out big bonuses to its own
Ross Williams is too weak for the tests he needs to receive compensation
Condemnation from lawmakers
Lawmakers with ties to nuclear weapons work blast the way the program has been run.
Levi Samora got a stack of rejection letters — one on the day he received aid
Graphics show how the federal compensation plan works, who is covered by it, where the major nuclear facilities in the U.S. are, and how radiation exposure is linked to cancer.Some files are large. Right-click and choose "Save as ..." to download.
- The U.S. bomb 'factory'
- Aid spigot open to some
- How the program works
- Claims compensation by state
- Linking radiation to cancer
- Cancer and compensation
- Mosier e-mail on surveillance
- Mosier e-mail on undercover
- Senate letter to Chao on modifying the law
- NIOSH response to Rocky investigation
- Document linking Janine Anderson's denial to her advocacy
- Letter telling Dee Hasenkamp to find her own evidence
- DOL bulletin that opinions not be given to claimants
- DOL's "no pay" list
- DOL bulletin rescinding the "no pay" list
- Bonuses for compensation program officials at DOL
- Request for secret reports denied
- Letter to Department of Labor from Reps. Perlmutter, Udall
- The Rocky's special report on Rocky Flats nuclear workers
- U.S. Department of Labor Web site concerning nuclear workers' compensation program
CHAT TRANSCRIPTS
- Transcript of RockyTalk Live chat with reporter Laura Frank about the final installment in the series. (07/23/2008)
- Transcript of RockyTalk Live chat with Terrie Barrie, co-founder of the Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups and the wife of a former machinist at Rocky Flats. (07/22/2008)
- Transcript of RockyTalk Live chat with reporter Laura Frank. (07/21/2008)
- Reporter: Laura Frank
- Photographer: Javier Manzano
- Video: Javier Manzano
- Print designer: Steve Miller
- Graphics artist: Michael Hall
- Web producer: Duncan Taylor
- Copy editor: John Moore
- Photo editor: Dean Krakel
- Project editor: Jim Trotter
26 comments:
Frank - Thank you so very much for all the time and effort it took to place this information on the blog.
WTF does this have to do with the situation at LANL? Last visit to the blog until this post "goes away."
I read this website for LANL information. I don't want to read it if it's not about LANL or LANL connected.
7:49 AM,
You really don't need to thank me. The thanks should go to the folks at The Rocky Mountain news and of course all the workers who are paying a terrible price for the work they did to support our nation.
11:21 AM and 1:46 AM,
There have been 955 posts since I started this blog. This post is just eight sentences, a couple of pictures, and a bunch of links to stories that you don't have to click. If you only click one, please read the one about Ben Ortiz. Yes, he worked at LANL.
If you don't like this post then don't read it.
If you don't like the blog then don't read it.
If you're waiting for me to delete this post and apologize, then don't hold your breath.
My experience is that if you have a dispute with the lab, don't waste time with DOE or LANL. This will lead nowhere, very slowly.
Get a lawyer and file a lawsuit. Be prepared for threats and slander.
Your mileage may vary.
WTF does this have to do with the situation at LANL? Last visit to the blog until this post "goes away."
7/28/08 11:21 AM
The NIOSH and EEOICPA programs apply to LANL workers just as they apply to workers at other facilities. How can this not be of interest to LANL workers?
My suggestion to the negative commenters is the opposite of Frank's.
I suggest that they do hold their breath until he changes the posting. Then there would be fewer self centered comments to read.
:-D
Frank's agenda is showing (again). He doesn't give a flip about LANL or its employees, one way or the other. Never an employee or Los Alamos resident and never took enough time to learn about his (minor and short) job as a contractor - just enough time to be ignorant and scared that he *might* have been exposed to something. Jeez, what an excuse for running a LANL blog. Is there any other reason, Frank? Don't we at least have a right to expect that the host of this blog has an interest in LANL?
7/28/08 8:21 PM,
7/28/08 6:05 PM here. You have a right to expect that the host of this blog has an interest in LANL?
A right?
Damn, I don't know where that has ever been stated as being even a reasonable expectation.
Blog hosting sites exist so that anyone can host pretty much whatever type of blog they want - on any topic, for whatever audience shows up and with pretty much whatever constraints or liberties the blogger assigns to the visitors.
Therefore, you have a right to not visit a blog if it doesn't meet your expectations but I don't see many other rights that could be assigned to you, the person clicking the URL for this blog.
Frank says the post is four sentences. It actually appears as 12 pages on the screen at 1024 x 768 resolution. Is there not one link to the story?
The links contain a lot of anecdotal claims from some very unfortunate people. It would be interesting to know what is the probability that a random person in the area would have caught cancer, how much the probability was increased because of their work, and what is the probability that the cancer was actually caused by their work.
This should also apply to the claim at the top of the post about "Tens of thousands of America's former nuclear bomb builders...." This seems like an exaggeration to me, but without careful analysis it is impossible to prove either way.
To: 11:21 AM and 1:46 AM,
Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
This is relavent information to present and former LANL employees.
Since LANL is slated to become the next Rocky Flats via the expanded pit production at the new building at TA-55, extremely sick people like those featured in the articles could be you or your children or your grandchildren. On wait, there are already current and former LANL employees fighting to receive compensation for their illnesses. Denial and rhetoric doesn't make the history of documented related pit production illnesses go away.
2:34 makes some good points. However, since the DOE and DOL appear to hide information, it would be wise to assume that the conclusions are unflattering to these departments.
Or do you think they are withholding information that looks favorable to them?
7/28/08 8:21 PM,
You managed to get nothing correct in your entire comment. My agenda is effluent leaks in PF-4. Of the 956 blog posts to date, that agenda is covered in two. And this post is not one of those two.
Go read those two posts, comment there if you desire, and stop trying to change the subject here.
7/29/08 2:34 AM,
I said eight (8) sentences, not four (4).
And yes there is a link in this post to "the story". It's the first link in the post, the title "Deadly Denial". Click it and you will be taken to a web page that may look vaguely familiar to you.
I can post information to the blog, and can provide links to it. I can't make you read it or comprehend it.
This post has been up for 24 hours and what's the LANL workforce reaction thus far?
zzzzzz....
"WTF does this have to do with the situation at LANL? Last visit to the blog until this post "goes away." said 7/28/08 11:21 AM
Oh so typical. Who gives a damn if the person next to us is dying of cancer or whatever, just so long as nobody yanks our the federal tit from our collective mouths. Heaven forbid we should even show sympathy! No, let's just leave our chest-thumping hypocrisy for Sunday mass.
Nope, not gone yet. Just checking. Bye.
OK, here are a few comments after reading the "page view" layout of the first day's report:
page 4 "Aid Spigot Open to Some" shows overall 51,000 claims have been paid and 82,000 have been denied. There's a footnote: "Includes applications rejected as non-covered because the claimant failed to prove employment at a covered facility, could
not provide medical records of a covered disease or was an adult child of a deceased worker, and therefore covered under Part B,
but not Part E."
I would first like to know how many of the claims were denied because people couldn't follow instructions, versus how many denied for the reasons claimed in the main body of the article.
I was also fascinated by the statement early in the article that there was less compensation paid to sick workers last year (around $1 billion) than was spent on maintaining the warheads they built (around $1.4 billion).
It's a provacative statement, but really, what would be the "right" ratio of expenditures?
7:21 am
Read how much documentation was required and how the mountains of documents were "lost". Not all of these workers have our level of education and the ability to read and comprehend the various federal statutes. Hell, I recall several bloggers complaining about the confusion regarding submitting safety and security and QA paperwork with PRs. NOW is our chance to volunteer our acumen and help these workers fill out their paperwork instead of being dismissive. Show a bit of compassion to our fellow man. Not everyone has our advantages. Hey, this would be a great volunteer effort through the community relations office, we all get 80 hours a year to volunteer, and LANS gets the credit. Win Win? How about it Mike A?
"Since LANL is slated to become the next Rocky Flats via the expanded pit production at the new building at TA-55, extremely sick people like those featured in the articles could be you or your children or your grandchildren. On wait, there are already current and former LANL employees fighting to receive compensation for their illnesses. Denial and rhetoric doesn't make the history of documented related pit production illnesses go away."
First, there is no new building slated to expand the current pit production mission, other than CMRR but this is mostly designed to hold the current analytical capabilities at the old CMR. Second, TA_55 has been open since 1978. Please refer to a post under the article about LANL being slated to get the PDCF mission. Lots of Pu has been pumped through PF-4 and I would argue, there are no exponential increases in illnesses related to handling rad materials. This is not a new concept here at LANL. Making a few extra pits a year doesn't even put a dent in previous production history.
10:07,
It's 7:21 here. You make an excellent suggestion, but I wish you'd managed to do it without judging me quite so harshly. I chose the word "couldn't" carefully, as opposed to "didn't." Having trained and volunteered as a literacy and ESL tutor since I moved to NM, and having helped LANL wokers deal with their own forms and emails, I probably know the impact of this in individuals far better than you do. So Thank You for assuming I'm strolling around on The Hill with a silver spoon in my mouth, looking down on the unwashed masses who are too stupid to fill out a simple form.
Now, if you'd stop judging me for a second, maybe you could try to understand that my point was to distinguish between the types of nefarious rejections that are claimed in the article, versus claims that were rejected for all sorts of everyday reasons that we all deal with - as you point out, LANL employees deal with rejected claims and requests from UHC and Concur on a daily basis and I would not particularly expect the DOL to be any less of a messed-up bureaucracy.
Thanks for listening.
It's a blog (in particular, a LANL blog). No one's listening.
You're listening, and that alone makes it all worthwhile!
I am so glad this information is here. Please keep it always - this is important history.
"It's a blog (in particular, a LANL blog). No one's listening."
I don't know about you, Frank, but I get a kick out of how desperate this person sounds in his attempts to make it appear as if there is no readership here.
The last time I checked you were still getting about 1,200 hits per day, representing about 800 unique visits, each and every day. Sounds like a readership to me.
I hope it doesn't sound like bragging, but if people who don't want to see the news on the blog are reading it anyway - I think that's an accomplishment.
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