WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Grassley, today said that the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has designated the former workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (IAAP)to be members of the special exposure cohort.
Grassley said that the Secretary’s designation means that any former IAAP worker who is determined to fit the designation of the cohort, and had worked at least 250 days, and developed one of the 22 radiation induced cancers listed in the statute will receive compensation of $150,000 and payment of medical expenses from the date a claim is filed. If the employee is no longer living, the compensation is payable to eligible survivors.
"What a relief! I had a very good feeling after my meeting with Secretary Leavitt yesterday, but you can never be sure until it actually happens. Secretary Leavitt deserves a great deal of credit for making this decision so quickly," Grassley said. "The only thing that can stop these patriotic Americans from receiving the compensation they deserve is an act of Congress. This is one member of Congress who isn’t going to let anything happen to change this decision."
Leavitt’s designation will now be transmitted to Congress (in this case the Speaker of the House of Representatives). The designation will include a report providing the designation, the definition of the class of employees covered by the designation, and the criteria and findings upon which the designation was based.
The Secretary’s designation will take affect within 30 days unless Congress takes action to reverse the designation.
Grassley said that Leavitt used the same rationale to designate the former IAAP workers to be part of a Special Exposure Cohort as the advisory board. Leavitt and the board, in making their recommendations, concluded that the former IAAP employees worked in one of the earliest environments where nuclear materials were handled, and that the radiation doses at IAAP could have endangered the health of the workers.
The board also determined that the limited monitoring data available at IAAP raised serious doubts about the representativeness of the data that does exist, and that the limitations and uncertainties cause a number of difficulties for doing individual dose reconstructions.
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