Originally published July 10 2005
Compensation finally arrives for Iowa ammunitions workers
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Eight years after 4,000 workers began assembling and testing nuclear weapons, individuals with work-related, radiation-induced illnesses are finally seeing their due compensation of $150,000 each and medical care, though workers in Middletown, Iowa are still frustrated because many of the recipients already died of cancer.
If former plant workers have any of these types of cancers, they are automatically granted compensation.
An eight-year battle for compensation in Middletown is over.
"Welcome to Middletown, Home of the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant."
Today --- more than half a century after 4,000 workers began assembling and testing some of this country's most impressive nuclear weapons, and eight years after they slowly came to realize the plant probably caused widespread illnesses --- a hint of sunlight pokes through the dark cloud.
Today is 30 days after the Department of Health and Human Services approved a recommendation that qualifying workers with radiation-induced illnesses should receive $150,000 and medical care.
The checks from the Department of Labor, which should start filtering down within a couple of months to the 364 former nuclear workers and their surviving families who have already filed claims, aim to compensate for lost lives, harrowing illnesses and decades of more questions than answers from the government.
Anderson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1988 and says the slow-growing cancer will kill him.
Anderson wrote to Harkin about the disproportionate number of workers suffering from cancer.
He made no mention of monetary compensation, just that he wanted people to know of the dangers.
"People had lots of exposure," said Dr. Lar Fuortes, director of the Burlington Atomic Energy Commission Plant-Former Worker Program at the University of Iowa.
Another program under the Department of Labor, the so-called Part E under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act, deals with former workers who have occupational illnesses related to plant work, such as chronic beryllium disease, lung disease and asthma.
Workers wonder whether their protracted battle illustrates democracy at its best or bureaucracy at its worst.
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