KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasClocking is Ticking for Dying Test Site Workers -- Part 2
Ray Slaughter talks with George Knapp
Representative Shelley Berkley, (D) NevadaPost to the Test Site Workers message board
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Thousands of former workers at the Nevada Test Site accuse the government of waiting for them to die. By law, the workers are entitled to compensation for the diseases they've developed, but very few are getting any help at all.
Eyewitness News has been swamped in the past few days with messages from test site workers or their survivors about the shoddy treatment they've received from the federal government. These are the people who worked in secrecy under dangerous conditions to protect the rest of us. Now, they're being asked to jump through impossible hoops to get what was promised to them.
"This bottle right here is supposed to cost $5,000 bucks." If not for the Veteran's Administration, Ray Slaughter would have no coverage for the expensive eight-hour cancer treatments he's been receiving.
Doctors have told Slaughter he has maybe two years to live. He's been diagnosed with lymphoma, leukemia, silicosis, diabetes, and other diseases that almost certainly stem from his years at the Nevada Test Site, where he was exposed to radiation, toxic chemicals, deadly dust, and who knows what else.
"After a blast, I was the first one in there to muck the waste. We'd get close to Ground Zero after detonating that thing and they were always hot," Slaughter said. Five years ago, Slaughter's testimony helped Nevada lawmakers pass a compensation bill that was meant to help all of the atomic workers who risked their lives during the Cold War.
Ironically, Slaughter is one of the many being denied benefits under a program he helped to create, now administered by the Department of Labor.
"It seems like they look for reasons not to compensate you. Instead of trying to help and give the benefit of the doubt, they take every single thing they can to try and stop it," Slaughter said.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, (D) Nevada says, "It is absolutely shameful that we haven't provided this compensation that was passed in the law and I would have to say there is almost a conspiracy within our federal government to prohibit these people from getting the compensation they deserve.
Congresswoman Shelley Berkley and Nevada Senator Harry Reid have made the compensation program a priority for their offices, because they've both heard the stories first-hand, including those at a meeting of 200 former test site workers.
"The moderator got up and asked will anybody with cancer please stand up. George, everybody, every single person in that room stood up and it was breathtaking to look out there at these people, good decent patriotic Americans who have sacrificed so much, certainly their health, in the defense of this country," Berkley said.
So what's the hang up? The Dept. of Labor told Slaughter it will be two years before they can process his claim, even though they know he will likely be dead by then. Another government agency will run a dose reconstruction study on his case to try and figure out if the radiation he was exposed to 35 years ago caused the cancer that is killing him today.
It's a process that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence among the workers, many of whom believe radiation data was fudged, or lost, or both. Slaughter knows he got the maximum dose many times. "Then the next year I got zero. I don't know how that could happen. I don't think you can go on the test site without getting a ren or two."
Many claims have been rejected because the government thinks the cancers were caused by chemicals, not radiation. Workers or their widows are asked to list every chemical they came into contact with decades ago. If they can't, the claim can be rejected, and most have.
Of the six atomic weapons facilities, Oak Ridge, Tennessee has the highest percentage of paid claims -- 26%. The Nevada Test Site has the lowest. Only 6% to detonated weapons. "I think basically it's bureaucratic incompetence. It's there in the pipeline but the pipeline has a big clog," said Sen. Harry Reid, (D) Nevada.
Senator Harry Reid told Eyewitness News he plans to raise the subject with the president to see if the log jam can be broken up before more workers die with nothing.
"Do what's right. I'm not trying to hold them up. Is that the attitude? Yeah, like I got a gun to their head, trying to scam the... It's not a scam. I've got cancer," Slaughter said.
Senator Reid says it's not a question of money. The money has already been authorized by Congress and can't be spent on anything else. There's a strong suspicion among the workers that this isn't just bureaucratic foot dragging, that it's a concerted effort to delay and deny until they all die off. In the words of Shelley Berkley, it's a disgrace.
