Work-Related Illnesses at Uranium Plant Identified

A four-year study by government-paid doctors that was released Monday suggests conditions at a former uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge caused illnesses among workers.

The health problems are not cancers caused by radiation. Rather, doctors linked a variety of illnesses, from trembling hands to asthma, to hazardous materials in the former K-25 plant.

Fifty-three ill workers were examined. Most worked 20 or more years at the Energy Department installation, and are too ill to work today.

Dr. Richard C. Bird Jr., one of the researchers, would say only a “substantial” number of the 53 workers showed signs of work-related illnesses. More study is required, he said.

He said the study should not be used to draw conclusions about the thousands of people who worked at K-25 from its opening in 1944 to its closing in 1985.

But Bird said it does show that other workers who fear their jobs made them sick should seek help, and he recommended the Energy Department pay outside consultants to do the exams because many workers don’t trust the agency.

Department spokesman Steve Wyatt said the agency will help workers with job-related illnesses receive workers’ compensation. Many ill workers, however, are seeking improved medical benefits and back pay as well.

“They used us until we couldn’t do our job and then they sent us home,” said Tommy Fox, 55, who worked at K-25 for 20 years before his breathing became too strained.

“I think I was misled,” said Eddie Gray, 54, who suffers from a variety of illnesses he links to chemical poisons at K-25.

“I always thought that beryllium was at Y-12 [the nuclear weapons plant], but in the last two years I found out it was all over K-25 and we didn’t know it. I was never told,” he said.

The study found beryllium sensitization among six of the 53 workers studied: Three had never worked in Y-12 where beryllium was used extensively in weapons production.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has proposed cash compensation for beryllium workers. Help for other sick workers is pending before Congress.

At a briefing Monday, Bird and his colleagues worried about ways such unlikely people as secretaries and cafeteria workers could have been exposed to heavy metals and other hazardous materials.

Recently disclosed documents suggest that piping at the K-25 complex could have been connected in a way that allowed contaminated water to be sent into drinking water pipes.