Contact: Rob Ostrander 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Monday, January 31, 2005

ST. LOUIS, MO B Senator Kit Bond, joined by employee advocate Denise Brock and former Mallinckrodt employees, today provided an update on the latest developments and new evidence in his efforts to help the former Cold War workers.

“Time is running out. Justice has long been denied to these workers who sacrificed so much to help America win the Cold War. Former Mallinckrodt workers have waited over 50 years for help and the only acceptable decision for NIOSH and the Advisory Board to make next week will allow for their immediate compensation from the federal government,” said Bond.

Recently Bond has been in contact with federal health officials to push for a special designation for former Mallinckrodt workers. In addition to a letter last week to the Secretary of Health and Human Services urging immediate action, Bond has talked with Dr. John Howard, Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), twice in the past three weeks to make him aware of new evidence and his strong support for a special status for the workers.

Bond emphasized that in addition to the already compelling existing evidence in the Mallinckrodt workers’ case, new evidence has been uncovered by Bond’s office over the past year. The recently uncovered information includes evidence of missing and possibly destroyed records and incomplete lab work on the workers.

“Even before this new evidence came to light, the case for Mallinckrodt workers was strong. With these recent discoveries I am even more convinced,” said Bond.

The St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt Chemical Company's nuclear production facilities employed about 3,500 people who were exposed to large doses of radiation, but those workers have not been granted a special federal health designation from the federal government.

The 2000 Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was designed to compensate former energy workers who were exposed to high levels of radioactive materials. One component involved creating Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) sites, a group of employees with specific cancers who worked with nuclear materials and are eligible for expedited medical cost payments of $150,000.

According to NIOSH there are two requirements for creating an SEC. One, if it is not feasible to estimate accurately the radiation dose employees received, and two, if there is a reasonable likelihood that such a radiation dose endangered the health of members of this class.

Convinced that the Mallinckrodt sites in Downtown St. Louis and Weldon Springs meet the SEC criteria, Bond came close to winning SEC designation for the former workers through a legislative fix last year.

Admonishing NIOSH for their administration of the EEOICPA legislation, Bond pointed out that that over 30 Mallinckrodt workers died while waiting for dose reconstruction. An SEC would prevent the workers from going through the long, cumbersome and arduous bureaucratic process known as dose reconstruction.

NIOSH and its Advisory Board on Radiation Safety and Worker Health are scheduled to be in St. Louis next week to recommend a decision on the SEC for the downtown St. Louis Mallinckrodt site.