Red tape slows Nevada Test Site ailment claims

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/17/state/n000105D93.DTL&type=health

By KEITH ROGERS, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Las Vegas, NV (AP) --

Illness claims by hundreds of former Nevada Test Site workers and their families remain in limbo nine years after a compensation program was launched and 20 months after Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said those exposed to radioactive materials should be given special consideration.

That consideration, known as "special cohort status," would give those who worked at the test site during years of below-ground nuclear weapons tests the benefit of doubt that their illnesses were caused by radioactive materials without having government contractors estimate the exposures through a costly process called "dose reconstruction."

By granting the special exposure status, qualified workers who suffered from illnesses covered by the program would be entitled to compensation of at least $150,000 apiece.

Critics say the program run by the Department of Labor is snarled in layers of bureaucracy and red tape that so far has cost the government at least $391 million to administer. The program has resulted in more than $2.47 billion in compensation.

One critic, the wife of a former Nevada Test Site and Sandia National Laboratories worker, said she was dismayed because the Labor Department recently denied a request to reopen the claim of her husband, Michael L. Fisher, a 61-year-old software engineer who worked in top secret areas.

Since his claim was filed in 2005, a hair sample confirmed that Fisher was exposed to uranium, and three experts have linked medical problems including congestive heart failure to his exposure.

FULL story at link.