A Public Policy Quarterly of The Ramazzini Institute

Volume Two, Number One                               January 2001

Inside

Who Are We?

Compensation Bill Signed

Amarillo Congressman Mac Thornberry [right] Chairman of a special nuclear weapons oversight panel , helped break the deadlock on a new compensation and medical assistance law signed into law October 30. Workers at Department of Energy and supplier facilities afflicted with disease from workplace exposure to radiation, asbestos, beryllium and other toxic agents, will receive $150, 000 lump sum payments from a $250 million fund to replace lost lifetime income. Sick workers will also receive future medical expenses.
     A partnership of unions, DOE and bipartisan sponsors in the House and Senate overcame stiff resistance to remedy the failure of state compensation systems to help those who made what President Clinton called “heroic sacrifices” in building the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

Amarillo Congressman
Mac Thornberry

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DOE Fact Sheet

Mize Wins One!
  In October, GEE! reported on asbestos in US DOD facilities, quoting a Stars & Stripes story about Don Mize in South Korea. Then we heard directly from Mr. Mize [from his sick bed recovering from heart surgery!]
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Richter, Soskolne, LaDou, and Berman
Environmental Whistleblowers:
The Trial of Socrates Revisited
  Look carefully at almost any case of moral malfeasance in Science, from homicide of research subjects to the falsification of data, and we find that the perpetrator’s action was known, protected if not condoned by the silence of others. While not quite a new idea, as the authors themselves point out, collective protective action must be taken by the scientific community to protect those who speak out, as proposed at a recent meeting in Washington. Read More

Nancye Buelow
Genetic Discrimination:
Update On The Terri Seargent Case
In the prior issue of GEE!, Nancye Buelow wrote about the Terri Seargent case: a young woman who after losing her brother to Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency was found to also have the disease. Her self-insured employer fired her after receiving the first b ill for preventative treatment, and Mrs. Seargent filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.
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Morris Greenberg
Genetic Selection To Replace Adequate Workplace Controls?
  Dr. Greenberg compares screening for  “susceptibles” or “sensitives” in the workplace, such as for those with the Sickle Cell Trait and G6PD, with classical strategies for worker protection. Read More

     On November 7, while millions of Americans trekked to the polls,
another drama took place in the Supreme Court. Arguments were heard in American Trucking v. Browner, in which EPA is defending its new ozone and particulate initiatives. The new standards address some of the inequities in the protection of vulnerable populations - including the genetic sensitive - under existing standards. [Not unlike the ‘inequities’ issue the court faced weeks later in deciding the Presidential Election.]
     More than 40 prominent economists associated with the prestigious AEI-Brookings regulatory group filed a brief in support of the industry’s basic argument: the agency, they allege, is not doing economic studies. At the same time, the European Union, the US and other industrial nations were preparing for two weeks of negotiations in The Hague on the international agreement to limit weather-altering greenhouse gas emissions. Negotiations broke down over US insistence on regulatory methods that mimic economic trade-offs.
     GEE! takes a look in April.

First In Series
Evaluation of the Beryllium Medical Surveillance Program
  The Ramazzini Institute begins its series on the human ecology of Chronic Beryllium Disease.
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Moral Questions
“The most difficult thing to predict is not the future, but the past.” ---Old Russian Proverb
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