Westminster – The 11-member Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health took a straw vote today giving medical benefits to people who worked at Rocky Flats from 1952 to 1958 and should have been monitored for neutron exposure.
A final vote will be taken Friday.
Over the next 30 days, the board will consider giving the status to another three classes of workers: those who worked at Rocky Flats from 1959 to 1970; those who worked in Building 81; those who may have been exposed to phorium.
Former workers and their families who had gathered to testify in favor of getting “special exposure cohort” status were upset and angry at the vote.
“Most of the people who fit in the categories are probably dead,” said Liz Huebner, noting that most of those seeking the status worked there – as did she – in the 1980s.
The special status would mean that workers with any of 22 cancers could receive $150,000 compensation plus medical help.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt must approve the decision, and Congress could weigh in.
Jennifer Thompson, a petitioner representative, said the moves by the advisory board would exclude about 80 percent of those who worked at Rocky Flats.
