More Rocky Flats Coverage Possible

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2007/jun/12/061201823.html

LAKEWOOD, Colo. (AP) - A federal panel voted Tuesday to recommend special medical compensation for about 4,000 more former workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, but stopped short of including everyone who had worked there.

The decision still leaves about 15,000 former workers - some of them with life-threatening diseases they blame on conditions at the plant - without coverage.

The new vote by the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health would extend coverage to people who worked at the plant from 1959 to 1966. The final decision on coverage rests with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.

Previously, the board had recommended special coverage to workers from 1952 to 1958. That still left about 75 percent of the former workers without coverage. Workers can still apply for individual exemptions.

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