Doe Balks At Funding Downwinder Program Agency Says Money For Health Screening Must Come From Area Office

The U.S. Department of Energy is balking at spending $12 million to screen the health of people who lived downwind of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and may have been exposed to radiation.

Federal health officials who designed the stalled program say it could save several lives each year.

Judith Jurji, who heads the Hanford Downwinders Coalition and suffers from thyroid disease often linked to radiation exposure, is bitter about the struggle for money.

“We’re kind of demoralized at this point,” Jurji said. “Actually, it feels like we’re dead in the water.”

The medical-monitoring program, designed by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, would be the first concrete assistance offered to downwinders after years of scientific studies and legal battles.

The monitoring program would alert former Hanford-area residents who have scattered around the country over the past 50 years to their potential health risks.

Agency studies estimate that such monitoring would uncover 38 new cases of thyroid cancer each year, potentially saving six to eight lives.

About 14,000 people would be eligible. They were children in Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon during the 1940s and early 1950s when large doses of radiation were released from Hanford during production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The program called for them to be screened periodically for thyroid problems, including cancer, and referred to doctors if necessary. The program would not provide medical care.

But in February, DOE’s Washington, D.C., headquarters said the regional office in Richland must pay for the monitoring out of its own budget.

In response, John Wagoner, manager of the Hanford site, said his office didn’t have the money to begin medical monitoring in 1998. He said the request would rob money for already delayed environmental cleanup efforts at the nuclear reservation.

“Do we do a medical-monitoring program or do we pump tanks?” said Guy Schein, spokesman for DOE Hanford. “It wasn’t a debate of our choosing.”

Downwinders and federal health officials claim health needs are being unfairly pitted against environmental concerns.

“This is a drop in the bucket. DOE spends more on stationery than we’re asking for,” said Jim Carpenter, public-health adviser for the Toxics agency.

Jurji’s family moved to Kennewick just after World War II, when her father took a job at Hanford. She suffers from hypothyroidism, or low thyroid-hormone levels, which can cause fatigue, hypertension and other symptoms.

Six of 10 members of her immediate family have some type of thyroid disease and several, including herself, have had fertility problems, she said.

Lawsuits by downwinders seeking medical benefits and compensation have been stalled for years in the courts.