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Grudging recognition of cancers caused by radiation, among uranium workers

employees who worked outside of those dates still have to prove their cancer was caused by radiation at the plant….“They waited so long until almost everyone died,” Wytovak said.

They’re hoping for help in radiation case, Fuel Fix 3 March 2011, “…………“I thought it was a fertilizer plant,” said Wytovak, who discovered later during his 20 years at the plant that he had been part of an unwitting team extracting uranium for nuclear weapons. The phosphate ore was mined in Florida and shipped to Texas City Chemicals, and it was Wytovak’s job to work on the pumps and filters.

“It was all hush-hush,” recalled Wytovak, who also began to wonder whether it was harmful to his health after he was diagnosed with tongue cancer in 1977. The left side of his tongue was removed.

Protective gear consisted of flimsy paper masks, he said, describing how he’d eat his lunch each day with dust covering his arms and legs. His wife washed his work clothes with the family laundry, which makes Wytovak wonder if that exposure contributed to her lung cancer. His wife, who never worked at the plant and smoked her last cigarette about 60 years ago, had part of a lung removed about 12 years ago.They’re hoping for help in radiation case, Fuel Fix, 3 March 11, Earlier this week, many former employees of Texas City Chemicals or their survivors got news they’ve waited years to hear.

After government hearings in 2007 in Texas City and a push in October from U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, the Labor Department said they could participate in a government program that provides financial compensation and medical care to former employees.

The Department of Health and Human Services will presume that eligible employees suffering from any of 22 kinds of cancer contracted the disease because of exposure to radiation while working on nuclear weapons.

But that doesn’t help Wytovak, because it only applies to those who worked at Texas City Chemicals for at least 250 days between Oct. 5, 1953, and Sept. 30, 1955 — more than a year before Wytovak took the job there…….

But employees who worked outside of those dates still have to prove their cancer was caused by radiation at the plant. That’s because U.S. Atomic Energy Commission records show the Texas City plant extracted uranium under contract from Jan. 1, 1952, to Dec. 31, 1956, according to testimony at a worker outreach meeting in 2007 that was sponsored by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

“They waited so long until almost everyone died,” Wytovak said.

For others, though, the news from the Labor Department was heartening if overdue.

Fuel Fix » Working: They’re hoping for help in radiation case

March 4, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Uranium, USA