Contact: Rob Ostrander 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Friday, August 26, 2005

WASHINTON, DC B U.S. Senator Kit Bond today praised a federal advisory board for recommending faster payments for Cold War-era Mallinckrodt workers.

A federal panel meeting in St. Louis this week announced that Mallinckrodt workers employed between 1949 and 1957 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. The Department of Health and Human Services now has 30 days to approve the recommendation.

“Today, long-awaited justice has been served for these cold war warriors. “This decision will mean these families will receive the compensation they deserve for their great service to our nation,” said Bond.

“I am absolutely ecstatic. Without Senator Bond, today’s success would not have been possible,” said worker advocate Denise Brock. “Finally justice has been served for these workers.”

Earlier this year, following a February hearing at which Bond testified, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) advisory board approved compensation for Mallinckrodt workers employed between 1942 and 1948 at the downtown site. These workers passed their final hurdle when the recommendation was approved by the Department of Health and Human Services this spring. NIOSH convened in April and again in July to consider the remaining downtown workers but concluded further examination of the evidence was necessary.

The St. Louis-based Mallinckrodt Chemical Company's nuclear production facilities employed about 3,500 people who were exposed to large doses of radiation. Unfortunately, until the approval by the HHS, none of these workers had been granted a special federal health designation from the federal government, called a Special Exposure Cohort (SEC), which would prevent the workers from going through the cumbersome process known as dose reconstruction in order to be eligible for immediate compensation.

The 2000 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was designed to compensate former energy workers, like those at Mallinckrodt, 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.

Bond, who came close to winning SEC designation for the former workers through a legislative fix last year, has insisted throughout the process that all of the Mallinckrodt sites in Downtown St. Louis and Weldon Springs meet the criteria for a full cohort. Since then he has testified at NIOSH hearings and has been in regular contact with federal health officials to push the special designation.