Compensating for cold war cancers

Although the Cold War has ended, thousands of workers involved in nuclear weapons production are still living with the adverse health effects of working with radioactive materials, beryllium, and silica. After a series of court battles, the U.S. government passed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Act in October 2000 to financially assist workers whose health has been compromised by these occupational exposures. Now work is underway to set out guidelines for determining which workers will be compensated. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has been assigned the task of developing a model that can scientifically make these determinations, a heavy task considering the controversies that lie in estimating low-level radiation risks and the inadequate worker exposure records kept at many of the plants.