Opening
Statement of
Chairman Fred Thompson
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
March 22, 2000
Good morning.
I want to first welcome all of those who have come from Oak
Ridge, Tennessee and Piketon, Ohio to attend this hearing. We
certainly appreciate you traveling all this way to be here. I
know this issue is very important to you, and to many others at
both sites who could not be here today.
We are here
this morning to discuss one of the more unseemly aspects of the
Cold War: the possibility that the federal government put
workers at its nuclear weapons plants in harm’s way without
their knowledge.
I have been
concerned about this issue for some time, since I started
hearing from current and former workers in the Oak Ridge area
about a pattern of unexplained illnesses that many believed were
related to their service at the Department of Energy site. In
1997, I asked then-Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
to send a team to Oak Ridge to assess the situation and to try
to determine if what we were seeing there was truly unique.
Unfortunately, in the end, the CDC did not take a broad enough
look at the situation to really answer the questions that had
been raised.
And that, of
course, has been a pattern at Oak Ridge and at many of these DOE
sites over the years. Studies have been done, some on very
narrow populations and some on larger ones, some apparently
showing some correlations and some not able to reach any
conclusions at all. The data is mixed, some of it is flawed, and
we are left with a situation that is confusing and from which it
is very difficult to draw any definite conclusions.
And yet,
there is a growing realization that there are illnesses among
current and former DOE workers that logic tells us are probably
related to their service at these weapons sites. For example,
approximately 150 current and former workers in the DOE complex
have been diagnosed with Chronic Beryllium Disease. Many more
have so-called "beryllium sensitivity," which often
develops into Chronic Beryllium Disease. The only way to
contract either of these conditions is to be exposed to
beryllium powder . The only entities that use beryllium in that
form are the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense.
And there are
other examples, perhaps less clear cut, but certainly worthy of
concern. Uranium, plutonium, and a variety of heavy metals found
in people’s bodies. Anecdotes about hazardous working
conditions where people were unprotected both against exposures
they knew were there and exposures of which they were not aware.
It’s time for the federal government to stop automatically
denying any responsibility and face up to the fact that it
appears as though it made at least some people sick. The
question now is: what do we do about it? And how do we make sure
it never happens again?
I want to say
that I believe the Department of Energy, and especially Dr.
Michaels, who will be testifying here this morning, have taken
important steps forward in this regard. Rather than continuing
to deny any linkage, they have said that if the Department made
people sick, then we should compensate them for it. I look
forward to working with the Department, and with the Oak Ridge
community, and with my colleagues in the Senate to determine the
best and fairest way to accomplish that goal.
In the end,
we must remember that these workers were helping to defend our
nation and protect our security. They were patriotic and proud
of the work they were doing. If the federal government made
mistakes that jeopardized their health and safety, then we need
to do what we can to make it right. A great country can do
nothing less.
Thank you. |