July 21, 2008 1:39 PM
Reporter Laura Frank on the Deadly Denial series
Mark_Wolf(Q) Briefly, what's the genesis of Deadly Denial?
Laura_Frank(A) We had been hearing two things that didn't seem to mesh: One, from the program officials, about how well the program was going and how many people had been compensated. The other, from people across the nation who were having terrible trouble proving they qualified for compensation. So we set out to see what was happening and why.
Mark_Wolf(Q) What kind of cooperation did you get from the Labor Department when you requested information?
Laura_Frank(A) We'll, very little. We requested an interview with a top Labor Department executive, Shelby Hallmark, more than two months ago. When we got no response to that, we sent a 3-page letter detailing findings of our investigation. Week before last, the department spokesman said they had a 6-page response to give us. After promising it three times, they never delivered.
Mark_Wolf(Q) Why does it take so long for sick workers to prove they're qualified for compensation?
Laura_Frank(A) Some of the time is taken with what's called a "dose reconstruction." That's when government scientists at the National Insitutute for Occupational Safety and Health try to make a scientific estimate of how much radiation a worker absorbed over the span of a career. It can involved finding decades-old records from top-secret facilities. Sometimes the information was destroyed. Sometimes the records became radioactively contaminated and had to be buried. Sometimes monitoring was never done and records simply don't exist.
Mark_Wolf(Q) You found that people who criticized the compensation program had their claims delayed?
Laura_Frank(A) Yes. Some of the people who have spoken out for the longest time, and the most loudly, on behalf of not only themselves, but other sick workers, have evidence their advocacy became an issue in their cases.
Arn(Q) Any response to your stories from the Labor Department?
Laura_Frank(A) Well, Arn, as of 11 a.m. mountain time today, no. We've not received any response.
Mark_Wolf(Q) What kind of changes in rules were made and how did they affect claimants?
Laura_Frank(A) Here's one example. Rocky Flats workers who were at risk of exposure to a particularly dangerous kind of radiation (neutron), which was not monitored at the plant site in the early days, are supposed to be automatically compensated if they develop one of 22 types of cancers listed in the law. But after making this decision, the Labor Department changed the way it determines which people meet that definition. The result was people who'd been told at the end of last year that their claims would be compensated were then told at the beginning of this year that they wouldn't.
Mark_Wolf(Q) When the compensation program was shifted to the Department of Labor did it overwhelm the department's resources?
Laura_Frank(A) Yes, I think it did in the beginning. The labor department didn't want this program to begin with. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao tried to get the Justice Deparment to take it. But labor department officials have said they are mostly caught up on the cases that came over from the energy department four years ago.
Mark_Wolf(Q) The government put some of the program's critics under federal surveillance?
Laura_Frank(A) We found evidence that top compensation program officials *considered* putting some workers under surveillance. Since they would not consent to an interview or respond to our findings, we do not know if that ever happened.
Mark_Wolf(Q) How many former workers are involved in compensation cases?
Laura_Frank(A) More than 165,000 people have submitted claims. Many are former workers, but many also are the surviving spouses and children of workers who have died. About 10,000 of those claims came from Colorado, but claims have come from every state in the nation.
Kristen(Q) Can you comment on the potential of medical monitoring for residents near Rocky Flats? Particularly those who grew up next to RF during the 1957 and 1969 fires.
Laura_Frank(A) I am familiar with several kinds of medical monitoring programs going on for former workers. For example, former Rocky Flats workers who were exposed to beryllium can get checked every couple years to see if they're developing chronic beryllium disease, which affects the lungs.
Arn(Q) Reading your coverage it really does seem as if the government is trying to find any excuse not to compensate people. Is that a fair assumption?
Laura_Frank(A) That is certainly the feeling many claimants have. You'll see a startling example in tomorrow's stories from a widow who accidently mispronounced the type of cancer that killed her husband.
Mark_Wolf(Q) Some of the people who had been in charge of some nuclear program are now working for the government and their reviews are affecting the status of claims?
Laura_Frank(A) This has been an issue for some years. When the program began to try to figure out what kinds of exposures workers faced -- to use the information in those dose reconstructions I mentioned earlier -- they went to people who knew about the sites. But what concerned the claimants, and some members of Congress, was that the practice put people who had been in charge of the programs during the Cold War in the position of basically critiquing their own work. The labor department now has a policy on conflict of interest.
Mark_Wolf(Q) Does the Labor Department have an explanation for spending a third of the program's budget on administrative expenses?
Laura_Frank(A) Again, we didn't get any answers from the Labor Department. But they have made the point in the past that this is a very complex program. That's very true. The dose reconstructions take years to do and involved lots of research and even developing new scientific techniques. That's very slow, labor intensive and tedious work. And very expensive.
Laura_Frank(P) Going back for a minute to what Arn asked about the claimants: I would highly recommend watching the videos that are on the website. Each day's story has a mini-documentary that goes with it, but you can see all three there today. They really give you a sense, I think, of what people are going through.
Mark_Wolf(P) Thanks to Laura Frank for her time and insight into her Deadly Denial series.
Laura_Frank(P) Thanks, Mark. It was my pleasure.
November 7, 2008
10:49 PM
Anonymous writes:
I read through the Rocky Talk Live. First, many thanks to Laura Frank, Reporter of Rocky Mountain
News. I talked with you over the phone a few days followed by one a 100-page documents to you including my 30-age letter to Idaho Governor Butch Otter a few days before the Democratic Convension in Denver.
I am a PhD nuclear engineer/scientists, exposed to neutron radiation at Idaho National Laboratory for two years(1976-1978). I left INL very sick. I have suffered deteriorating eyesight, nausea and vomiting and dacay/loss of my teeth in acid reflux, colorectal bleeding requiring enema,every 3 to 4 hours, heart condition/shortness of breath
lesions(lumps) debeloping on my chest, tongue, heart and right ankle, and depression for nearly 30 years.
Labor Department informed me that INL is not part of the EEOICP. Forget about it. I left INL in 1978 and moved back to the East Coast, Califonria and then, back to East Coast for my federal career with the US NRC. Some of the radiation symptoms long time(5, 10, 20, 30 years). When I started conspicous symptoms of my radiation illness around in early 1990s, I was forced to retire for disability without being told about my radiation illness. On 4/25/2002, Prof/Dr. Ernest J. Sternglass and Director of Radiological physics reviewed my medical files and told me, "Your symptoms are signs of a radiation victim. See a spcialist."
I thought that I got my radiation exposure at the NRC's TMI site in 1984. However, NRC objected to my federal Workers' Compensation, saying that commercial nuclear reactor fuel contains only 3 to 5% UO2. Your symptoms are those of high radiation, not from the NRC sites and DOL/OWCP denied compensation in summer of 2006. However, I received a USW(United Steel Workers) Union letter via IRS (with my name and SSN)rec'd 1/3/2007. I started contacting DOL' EEOICP Seattle/WA Office,
Idaho National Laboratory and Idaho Industrial Commssion(IIC) to file my State Workers' Comp(WC) with Wausau Surety Insurance Co. who insuranced INL employees. Within a week, I contacted all of them only to find their staff were very evasive, never returned my calls and if they picked up my calls by mistakes, then they hung up on me. I hired an Idaho WC attorney in Idaho Falls, ID who went into collusion with Wawsau and missed the filing deadline of 1/3/2008 and IIC gave a permission to separate from my case on 4/17/2008.
Now, it has become a legal case IIC tried to cover him up. Yesterday(11/6/7) I contacted US Justice Department Civil Rights Division to ask DOJ crack down the Idaho law. I was told to call Idaho Governor's Office which only gave me a run-around. Most of radiation workers at INL, and national laboratories have been insured by Wausau. Our US Government has given no federal Workers' Compensation to any radiation victims since 1945. Now, Wausau, a private insurance co. is trying to deceive and get away from me. I do not know what happened to other INL workers. I called some of my co-workers at INL only to find that all of them retired and most of them died. I was 34 when I started working at INL. You article should cover State Workers' Compensation to help most of the radiation victims. I will be fully cooperative with your undertaking. I have well-documented my case. May I hear from you? I am 66 now. I may not live long, but most of my co-workers at INL died, are dying or will die soon. Most of them did not know that they were exposed to radiation and died. The souls of my coworkers won't rest in peace. According to the DOL statistics, there were 4,729 EEOICP claims filed as of January 1, 2008 by the still surviving INL co-workers, but mostly from their survivors(wives and children). I would like to hear from you and some of the EEOICP filers.
Sincerely,
Unte Cheh, PhD, PE
209 Reading Terrace
Rockville, MD 20850
Phone/Fax:(301)424-0074
e-mail: untecheh1@verizon.net
November 7, 2008
11:00 PM
Unte Cheh, PhD, PE writes:
Laura Frank,
I am Unte Cheh. I had a phone conversation followed by my 100-page written document, 2 days before the Democratic Party convension in Denver.
I read your article 2nd time. It is great, but not perfect without covering the state Workers' Compensation for radiation victims. I have a complete, well-organized document for you. This will show how Idaho Insurance Department and Idaho Industrial Commission are corrupted, trying to cover up for WAUSAU Surety Insurance Company get away with no compensation for medical expenses of radiation victims at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, ID. Labor Department is wrong, but Idaho State Government is just as bad as the Labor Departmnet. May I hear from you soon? Tks.
Unte Cheh, PhD, PE
209 Reading Terrace
Rockville, MD 20850
Phone/Fax:(301)424-0074
e-mail: untecheh1@verizon.net
April 10, 2009
2:00 PM
Sue writes:
Google: "Buick City Metal Fluids Lawsuit won". Please read the entire story.And ofcourse GM/UAW did not have any accountability. As far as DOL goes they are a distraction. Designed to confuse.The game of the government is to stay in business.In my dealings with them,as one said,"is one side digs the hole,the other side fills it in & we pay for it".Government is one giant shovel & their job performance proves they do nothing, change nothing & get paid for doing so.Also the speed of a turtle(by design)in the 20th Century. They create another Task Force to investigate nothing.DOJ says they want truth & accountability & DOL provides the hurdles.Civil Rights/EEOC, OSHA, NLRB,Public Review Board, Workers Comp, Social Security are all owned & controled by our government,the courts & Corporate/Union & thats the facts. Only a few are allowed to slide thru. GM/UAW & government have the same game plan. This was an eye opening story & I feel bad for all the people involved.I know what you are going thru.If the Corporations & the government spent their time, money & resoures in a positive direction I know that would be more benefit to you & America but they spend more in the negative which is stagnation,unproductive & what they lose is their good name & our loyalty to them.But so what.They have no care about that.Money is much better. Greed is Good. Thank you,Laura Frank & sorry you lost your job. Same happend to me. Sue
May 7, 2009
12:57 AM
Unte Cheh, PhD, PE writes:
Hi, Laura Frank!
May 7, 2009
Hi, Laura Frank!
My e-mail address has been changed from untecheh1 @verizon.net to untecheh2@verizon.net effective March 6, 2009. Update my e-mail address so that I can hear and share my information with radiation victims at Idaho National Engineering Laborator(INEL), LANL, LLNL, ORNL and SNL and other national laboratories for the defense of our country and nuclear research. WAUSAU Surety Insurance Comapny tries to deny my Idaho state workers' Compnsation(WC)for my medical expenses to stop a floodgate of radiation claims from other EEOICP claimants at INEL by all means. Idaho Industrial Commission(IIC) and Department of Insurance(DOI) have refused to look into WAUSAU's illegal and unethical activities as of today(5/7/09). Only a class action law suit may stop the illegal and unethical activities by Surety insurance companies, state officials and my former WC attorney in a possible collusion with WAUSAU Surety insurance company to frustrate me to give up my claim. Idaho WC due process is not working as it should. I would like to share my experience with other radiation victims for a class action law suit against WAUSAU Surety Insurance Co. 4,729 EEOICP claims filed at INEL as of 1/1/08 and 5,338 as of 4/29/09. The number is increasing by 1 or 2 every day according to the DOL/EEOICP statistics. Tks.
Unte Cheh, Phone/Fax:(301)424-0074, e-mail: untecheh2@verizon.net