Sirinw UNELASS irict health. This facilitared the dismissal or denial of health. . findings that might be alarming and the withholding, for decades of information on both accidental and deliberate radiation and other toxic releases to the environment. Perhaps most damaging of all was the violation of basic principles of unfettered scientific investigation. Secrecy is totally inappropriate in investigations of health and safety. While there is no reason to question the integrity of individual DOE-sponsored epidemiologic researchers, there is evidence extending over many decadesofintermittent administrative attempts by the AEC/ERDA/ DOEto suppress evidence suggesting health risks, to intimidate some epidemiologic and environmental investigators, and to highlight reassuring findings while downplaying or denying risks. The DOE epidemiology program has not been operated as a publicly funded program with public accountability. Recommendations In summary, the Task Force believes the findings of DOE-sponsored epidemiologic studies offer no firm basis for the repeatedly expressed official position that the health of workers and the public has been fully protected and that there are no excess risks of disease and death in the nuclear weapons workforce. There is a steadily growing body of troubling and disturbing findings which are not definitive but which call for urgent, expanded and independentinvestigation. We conclude that the AEC/ERDA/DOEepidemiology program is seriously flawed, inadequate in scope and pace of work, underfunded in relation to the studies that are needed, and burdened by an intrinsic conflict of interest and the public’s recognition ofthat conflict. Onthe basis ofits review, the Task Force makes the following recommendations: 1. Establish a new Office of Radtation and Toxins Health Assessments. The involvement of the Department of Energy (DOE) in the supervision of epidemiologic research activities on its workforce and on the health and environmental effects on surrounding communities should be ended completely and definitively. In its place, an aggressive and coordinated investigatory process to assess weapons complex-related occupational and environmental health effects should be established. This should be accomplished by statute, through a new Congressionally-mandated Radiation and Toxins Health Assessment Office within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), superseding the present DOE-HHS Memorandum of Understanding. 2. Providegreater direction and coordination ofhealth and environmental assessments.in and around the _ nuclear weapons complex. The new Office should direct, coordinate, and initiate comprehensive occupa- tonal and environmental health assessments at weapons complex facilities. It should coordinate ongoing and future efforts with the DOE, other HHSoffices and institutes, the Environmental Protecnon Agency (EPA) and state health departments on all matters of potential public health impacts of these facilities. The goal would be to evaluate the possibility and extent of occupational and off-site health effects, develop healthbased occupational safery and environmental cleanup priorities, and address worker and community health concerns. 3. Ensure worker and public participation. A primary task of the new Office should be to develop and imple- ment a process for idenufying worker and community concerns regarding potential health impacts and to obtain broad and meaningful involvementof indepen- dentscientists and the public in the health assessments. Such a process should involve oversight and periodic program review by non-governmental panels of quali- fied independentscientists and representatives of DOE workers and surrounding communities. Each epidemiologic project should have direct input from the population being studied—workers and/or residents of nearby communities—at every phase from the planning ofresearch, the dissemination ofinformation about ongoingresearchactivities, and the communicanon of the study’s results. As the Secretarial Pane! for the Evaluation of the Epidemiologic Research Ac- tivities pointed out, workers and the public have a right to know aboutcollective health experiences andrisks to which they are exposed. 4. Implement a uniform, system-wide radiation data collection. The new Office should take steps to assure that a uniform system-wide instrumentation for external and internal radiation dose measurement, and stan- dardized protocols, methods and forms for dose recording, data entry and storage are rapidly implemented throughout the weapons complex, in compliance with the 1989 National Academy of Science recommendation that “data collected within the complex should be comprehensive, accessible and comparable.” 5. Implement a detailed employee health information system. The new Office should take steps to assure that the DOEfully implements the detailed employee health information system promised in 1990, and currently limited to a small pilot program, with special attention DEAD RECKONING 13 UNC! Seeley effects in the nuclear workforce, permitting at best the selective and limited release of such information. These data thus became the virtual monopoly of an agency. with the inherently conflicting missions of increasing weaponsproduction and protecting worker and public.