- "It's like the devil has been let
loose in my body,"
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- A mysterious pattern of illnesses - from
immune systems gone haywire to brain malfunctions doctors can't explain
- is emerging around this nation's nuclear weapons plants and research
facilities.
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- The ill live in places unlike others,
where poison bomb ingredients floated into the air, sank into the soil
and leaked into the water for half a century.
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- No one has ever taken a comprehensive
look at their health - not the federal government that owns the sites,
the public health agencies charged with protecting their well-being, nor
the politicians who represent them in Congress.
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- Scientists have been concerned for decades
about radiation from nuclear production and its link to cancer. But the
illnesses emerging now are something different.
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- In 1997, The Tennessean found scores
of people suffering a pattern of unexplained illnesses around the Oak Ridge
nuclear reservation in East Tennessee. This year, the newspaper found hundreds
of people with similar illnesses around 10 other nuclear weapons sites
nationwide.
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- ''It's like the devil has been let loose
in my body,'' said Freddie Fulmer, 41, a former worker at the U.S. Department
of Energy's Savannah River nuclear site near Aiken, S.C. Fulmer, declared
disabled in 1995, suffers from a degenerative joint and spine disease,
kidney ailments and a rare disorder that causes his immune system to attack,
rather than protect, his internal organs.
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- ''Every single morning my whole body
hurts so badly I can barely get out of bed to go stand under a hot shower
until I can move around using my cane,'' Fulmer said. ''And then there's
the weird stuff, like once I had a fever for seven months straight. But,
like everything else, the doctors couldn't tell me why or help me.''
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- He is one of 410 people in 11 states
interviewed by The Tennessean who are experiencing a pattern of unexplained
immune, respiratory and neurological problems attacking their bodies and
minds. Illnesses include tremors, memory loss, debilitating fatigue and
an array of breathing, muscular and reproductive problems.
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- The newspaper found ill residents and
workers in Tennessee, Colorado, South Carolina, New Mexico, Idaho, New
York, California, Ohio, Kentucky, Texas and Washington state. In many cases,
the ill were not aware scores of others in their own communities are suffering
like them.
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- Activists believe many people are suffering
from illnesses at other weapons sites across the nation, too. And top scientists
say the newspaper's findings are disturbing.
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- ''It is criminal. There is no doubt these
people are sick and need help,'' said Dr. Victor Sidel, former president
of the American Public Health Association and distinguished professor at
New York City's Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
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- Sidel, a co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning
activist organization Physicians for Social Responsibility, added: ''The
government has both an ethical and moral responsibility to come forward
and help them as a public health policy, whether specific links between
the illnesses and the weapons centers can ever be established.''
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- Many of the ill believe, and some experts
agree, that their ailments stem from exposure over time to low levels of
many toxic agents that were released into the environment near nuclear
weapons sites.
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- But the ill have no scientific evidence.
Their belief stems from what they see happening to themselves and others.
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- The government has traditionally required
proof of harm before medical help is offered. So the ill must prove toxic
exposure has hurt them, or hope the nation will help them based on anecdotal
evidence.
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- There's no question that ill workers
live in places with uncommon quantities of contaminants: radioactive elements
like plutonium and cesium; chemical compounds such as the solvent carbon
tetrachloride and cancer-causing PCBs; toxic metals, such as lead, mercury
and arsenic.
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- The government acknowledges the contamination
and has launched billion-dollar cleanup plans. But, federal officials say,
contamination rarely reached workers or residents in harmful amounts, although
they're looking for what caused health problems.
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- ''Where there's a plausible connection
we'll follow up on it,'' said Peter Brush, DOE's acting assistant secretary
for environment, safety and health. ''Plausible connection'' between nuclear
sites and worker health is being studied, he added.
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- But, those studies haven't keyed on people,
looking instead at such things as levels of poison in ants in Idaho and
turtles in Tennessee.
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- Some scientists say it is time to consider
helping the sick.
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- ''It's really inappropriate for us to
simply use science as an out, and say 'We just don't understand this, we'll
come back when we do,''' said Dr. Bernard D. Goldstein, a member of the
National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. ''We have to at least
be responsive to people now.''
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- Many of the ill are longtime workers
at complexes opened during World War II or the Cold War to produce more
than 70,000 nuclear weapons for the nation's defense.
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- ''We were saving America,'' said Ray
Guyer, 60, who worked at the Rocky Flats complex near Denver for more than
30 years. Doctors found radioactive plutonium in a bone spur from his knee,
but they can't explain his dizziness, numbness, rashes or other health
problems.
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- ''We were young and believed in what
we were doing,'' he added, his voice cracking with emotion. ''Now we just
need some help.''
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- A few of the ill said their health problems
began three or four decades ago. Most said symptoms began in the 1980s
and 1990s.
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- Why would people be getting sick now,
years after Cold War weapons production ceased? And why would only some
be getting sick? Certainly, most people around these sites remain healthy.
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- ''Those are two hard questions because
we don't know what controls'' the start of disease, said David Ozonoff,
chairman of Boston University's Department of Environmental Health and
a top expert in tracking disease. Political leaders, like scientists, have
differing views about what to do.
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- Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., whose state
is home to a major nuclear weapons site, promised to ''encourage the Department
of Energy to carefully review these findings and determine how best to
act.''
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- But Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the only
physician in the Senate, said ''The health complaints gathered from people
living in communities near nuclear plants certainly raise questions. Before
drawing any conclusions, however, we must be careful to rely on scientific
evidence.''
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- That is little consolation for Gay Brown,
57, who grew up near the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation and was a special
education teacher before becoming totally disabled in 1977.
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- Now, Brown leads a ''pretty lonely life,''
rarely leaving her house except to go to the doctor or hospital for illnesses
she describes as ''weird things going on in my blood and immune system.
My bones and muscles hurt so bad at times, I can't stand to be touched.
I've got awful skin rashes that won't go away. There's the thyroid problems,
memory loss, blackouts ... oh, just about everything is breaking down,
inside and out.''
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