Contact: Rob Ostrander 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Friday, April 22, 2005

WASHINTON, DC - U.S. Senator Kit Bond today called on a federal advisory panel to allow the remaining Cold War-era Mallinckrodt workers, who were exposed to large doses of radiation, to be eligible for immediate compensation of $150,000 from the federal government.

“I am once again urging the advisory board to designate the remaining Mallinckrodt workers, who worked at the downtown site from 1949 through 1957, as members of the Special Exposure Cohort,” said Bond in a letter Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chairman of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Advisory Board for Worker Safety and Radiation Health.

“There are too many complicating circumstances and too much missing and inaccurate data regarding these former Mallinckrodt workers that make it impossible for NIOSH to proceed with dose reconstructions with any degree of accuracy and credibility. Sadly, for many of these aging cold war warriors, time is a luxury that they simply do not have.”

On April 25-27 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and after further review of information, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) advisory board is expected to make a recommendation to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for Mallinckrodt workers employed between 1949 and 1956.

In February, a federal panel meeting in St. Louis announced that Mallinckrodt workers employed between 1942 and 1948 at the downtown site and who now suffer from one of 22 specific cancers should be eligible for immediate compensation of up to $150,000 from the federal government.

Earlier this month, Bond applauded HHS for recommending faster payments for Mallinckrodt workers employed at the downtown site between 1942 and 1948.

The St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt Chemical Company's nuclear production facilities employed about 3,500 people who were exposed to large doses of radiation. Until the announcement earlier this month, none of these workers had been granted a special federal health designation from the federal government, called a Special Exposure Cohort (SEC). An SEC designation would prevent the workers from going through the cumbersome process known as dose reconstruction and would make them immediately eligible for compensation.

According to federal officials, 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.