The secretary of Health and Human Services has approved loosening the

requirements for more Hanford workers to receive $150,000 compensation for

many types of cancer.

If Congress does not object within 30 days, the decision by Secretary

Michael Leavitt becomes final.

"I'm pleased by this decision," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in a

statement.

The process to ease compensation rules "is very involved and takes longer

than I and many others would like, but the right decision has been made for

these Hanford workers and their families," he said. "Now we still need a

fair resolution for workers since 1968."

The new requirements, which are included in a special exposure cohort, would

cover workers in Hanford's 300 Area just north of Richland from September

1946 through 1961. It also would cover workers in the 200 East Area and 200

West Area of central Hanford from 1949 through 1968.

That will cover most workers at the site during those years the isotope

programs overlapped other than those who worked in the reactor areas along

the Columbia River.

Usually the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health estimates

how much radiation workers received on the job to determine if there is at

least a 50 percent chance the exposure caused cancer. But if reliable

estimates cannot be made for groups of workers, a special exposure cohort

may be declared and workers automatically are compensated for a wide variety

of cancers.

At Hanford a special exposure cohort initially was approved for workers

during World War II and shortly thereafter when DuPont operated the site and

radiation monitoring was believed to be inadequate.

Leavitt's decision eases the rules for workers during years that special

isotope programs were conducted at Hanford without adequate monitoring for

radiation from those isotopes and without related data maintained to

reliably estimate worker exposure to radiation.

Originally just the workers in buildings where the programs were conducted

were being considered for the special compensation status. But it was

expanded to all workers in the 200 and 300 areas because day-to-day records

of where workers were assigned may not exist. For example, maintenance

workers, instrument technicians and construction workers may have been

exposed to those isotopes even if they were not based in those buildings.

In the programs, thorium, then called myrnalloy, was fabricated into fuel in

the 300 Area as part of a limited research program for uranium 233 production

for the nation's nuclear weapons program. At the 200 Area, americium was

recovered at the Plutonium Finishing Plant for use in the nation's space

programs.

Once the special exposure cohort designation clears Congress, it will be

sent to the Department of Labor to implement and determine if it covers any

compensation claims previously denied or any pending or new claims. It will

check whether workers held jobs that exposed them to radiation and that they

worked for at least 250 days in the 200 or 300 areas during the covered

years.

Covered cancers include bone cancer, renal cancer, some leukemias, some lung

cancers, multiple myeloma, some lymphomas and primary cancer of the bile

ducts, brain, breast, colon, esophagus, gall bladder, ovary, pancreas,

pharynx, salivary gland, small intestines, stomach, thyroid, urinary bladder

and liver, with some restrictions. The special exposure cohort does not

cover prostate cancer.

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program also

reimburses medical care in addition to the $150,000 payment. Survivors of

deceased workers also may be eligible for compensation.

The recommendation for the eased rules related to special isotope programs

at Hanford was made to Leavitt by the National Institute of Occupational

Safety and Health Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health in April.

The Department of Labor, which administers the program, already has paid out

$242 million to Hanford and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory workers or

their survivors in cancer compensation, medical reimbursement and coverage

for lost wages or impairment for cancer and other conditions.

For information on applying for the compensation program, call the Hanford

Resource Center at 946-3333 or 888-654-0014.