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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
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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.