Dr. MICHAELS: The Department of Energy had never gone out and systematically talked to its workers about what happened at our facilities. The exposures that they were exposed to, the chemicals and materials that they worked with and we never really asked our workers if they thought they were getting sick because of the work they did. We thought that any initiative that we would take on for Sec. Richardson in terms of taking care of sick workers had to involve the workers themselves. The best way we could do that was to go out and talk with them.

We held meetings at eight different facilities, nearby eight facilities about three thousand workers and family members came out we heard from about 400 of them in person. I attended every one of those meetings. People came and gave us really gut wenching stories about working in conditions of secrecy, very high hazard, making the parts that helped America win the cold war. And now they're sick and many believe they were made sick because of our exposure.

CALLISON: I guess I'm curious what prompted these hearings. Why did DOE decide that now was the time to do this?

Dr. MICHAELS: Sec. Richardson is the motor behind this initiative. When he came on as Sec. of Energy almost two years ago he started hearing from workers around the country that they believe that they were being made sick because of their work. I was sworn in several months later and the first thing he asked me to do was to go to Oakridge and talk to the sick workers there and tell them that he wanted to help them. Subsequently, I visited a number of sites and I kept hearing the same stories. We decided by that basis that we would formally go out to talk to people.

CALLISON: What are your findings from these hearings?

Dr. MICHAELS: Well not surprisingly we have heard from many sick people and people have told us that they have been exposed to very dangerous chemicals and they report that their physicians in many cases and or some cases, world famous physicians, have associated their illnesses with the work that they did.

We've also heard that people have been afraid or unwilling to apply for workers compensation 'cause they think that they will be out gunned. The DOE has always payed for lawyers to fight them and people felt given they had relative good health insurance it wasn't worth clamming their condition to be work related. Sec. Richardson has changed the position of the Dept. of Energy rather than fighting workers we're going to help them, we're going to be their advocates. We're getting out of the business of denying workers compensation claims. Um, and that really is in response to what we heard at these hearings all around the country.

CALLISON: Do you have any idea how big the potential problem is nation wide?

Dr. MICHAELS: What we're trying to look at now that we know for example for Beryllium disease we've identified several 100 people around the complex who have chronic Beryllium disease and several hundred more were sensitized which means it's likely in many cases they will develop the disease some time in the future.

For some of the other conditions we are just now gathering that information. We have medical surveillance programs for our former workers at ten different sites around the country. And the results are coming in and were finding a number of people with asbestos-related disease. In Nevada were finding people with silica disease because they were miners who dug holes for the underground nuclear blast to be blown up in. And I'm finding different conditions around the country. I think we're talking in the hundreds of cases not tens and thousands but, it's a significant number.

CALLISON: Um, It seems that these hearings are focusing mostly on the workers. Is this like a solely a worker issue or is it a broader issue?

Dr. MICHAELS: This is primarily a workers issue um, fortunately or not fortunately our sites are generally located in remote areas and because of the risk involved with detonation of the parts that we use there are relatively few people who live very near our sites. Of course there are some exceptions to that. Um, we have very good evidence that workers are getting sick. The studies on people who live near our facilities are much more complicated, they're much more ambiguous in their results and much harder to take on were starting with workers were are certainly looking for community residents we're interested in them and we're trying to determine if we made people sick as well but this initiative is about workers.

CALLISON: Um, from what you've learn so far um, I mean how likely do you think that these health problems are related to exposures from the facilities?

Dr. MICHAELS: There's a jump that has to be made between epidemiology and studies of populations to individuals. We have evidence from epidemiology that in general in our populations, well for the most part, our workers are healthy and don't have conditions related to their exposure. There certainly are places where there is elevated risk of disease. In other words, there are people who have diseases which we think is related to our exposure. The science doesn't tell us which ones and when we have higher rates of leukemia at the site for example, we can't tell from the study who got the leukemia, who wouldn't have had it have not been the exposure, versus who had it because of the exposure. When you get to the individual level though, we have to look at every individual and we look at their exposure and we say how probable is it those exposures led to disease. We certainly have people around the complex who I have spoken to personally who I think there's very strong medical evidence that our exposures caused or contributed to their disease.

CALLISON: Does it make a difference if the worker has more than one illness? Does that make it harder to link them, asier to link it?

Dr. MICHAELS: Well every, we have to look at each individual worker as a unique being. And if someone has multiple illnesses we have to look at the potential cause for each illness. There are of course some conditions which an individual can have which can be caused by the same condition. Um,there are people who have lung cancer and asbestosis caused by asbestos exposure. In that case, both of them may have the same ideology or cause in other cases there may be very different.

CALLISON: Are there any illnesses that are known for sure are caused by exposure I cause we hear a lot I've talked to some of these workers and some of these other down winders and they say that a problem is just really hard to tell (there is ) and ...

Dr. MICHAELS: Well, we face the problem drawing the link between exposure and disease with those diseases who have multiple causes. Chronic Beryllium disease is very easy to explore and investigate because there's only one cause: beryllium exposure. The Department of Energy at one time used most of the United States' production of beryllium in producing nuclear weapons. If someone in our _____ has beryllium disease we know they didn't get it from the golf course. They got it working producing nuclear weapons.

Similarly asbestosis or silicosis are caused by exposure to an unique substances. Now one can be exposed to asbestos or silica on or off a DOE facility but the same time we know what the exposure was.

With cancer it's much more complicated. We know individuals get cancer who are exposed to radiation and who are not exposed to radiation. Different cancers have different causes for any individual. You can rarely be absolutely sure that the radiation caused the cancer. But for each type of cancer and based on each person's exposure we can initially look at probability, how likely was it that our exposure caused their disease and that's what we have to do.

CALLISON: Do you have a percentage likelihood that you kinda, like 50 percent likely 70 percent likely, is there kind of a cut off range?

Dr. MICHAELS: Where that's one of the approaches that the federal government uses. We haven't yet come to what our solution will be. Um, the Veteran's Administration excuse me let me start again. There are various approaches for determining the likelihood of causation in did the exposure cause the disease. The Department of Veterans Affairs has a system where if you were exposed to radiation as a soldier - in other words you were sent to Hiroshima or Nagasaki or the Nevada test site or like even the Hanford facility - if you developed certain cancers you will automatically it will be presumed that that cancer was work-related radiation-related. Other cancers based on your exposure and the level of exposure could that determination be made. For thyroid cancer for example, if you were exposed to a certain number of, of rem on the day that you were exposed or during the period you were exposed you will receive compensation. If you were exposed to less than that you won't. And that's the sort of approach that is taken by our agencies.

CALLISON: If the United States or DOE or whoever makes the ultimate decision, decides these cases are completely linked to exposure from the workers from working at the plants um, I guess I'm curious on how accountable the government should be held and in how they will go about making their compensations.

Dr. MICHAELS: Sec. Richardson has made his position very clear. We have to look independently at the exposures. If we made people sick we have to take care of them and we have to stop fighting them. We're preparing to propose to Congress a peaceful legislation that will allow the Department of Energy to do that, to step up to the plate and fairly and a science-based way adjudicate the cases but with each case on its merits decide whether we could have caused it and if we caused that disease pay people.

CALLISON: Can you um, I'm curious about the um, legislation and what's being proposed and how it's going to cover the ....(we're not there yet ... but you're coming out June 4^th right) it airs on June 4th...

Dr. MICHAELS:: Its likely that in the next few weeks there be some larger announcement and um you should stay in touch with the press office cause there be some events and probably some good footage.

CALLISON: In the past, DOE has been secretive about the materials that were used in nuclear weapons facilities has that, has the government changed the policy?

Dr. MICHAELS: The Department of Energy and its predecessors the agency Atomic Energy Commission has a long tradition of secrecy. During the Clinton/Gore administration we've tried to turn that around and a tremendous amount of declassification has occurred but there still are materials that are used which are classified and we have workers come to us and they show us their medical records when they ask for their medical records cause they believe they've been made sick there'll be lines through it. And that's because some of the materials they work with are still classified. We know we have to work with them and find physicians who have security clearance to help them cause we can't release the materials they work with and unfortunately there are going to be some cases where we can't. There certainly needs to be a systems and need prove um, if we made them sick we should take care of them.

CALLISON: So I think this, what you're saying, it sounds to me what your saying is not necessarily tell the worker what they were exposed to but find someone with the proper clearance that can be told to properly treat them.

Dr. MICHAELS: We'll like to tell workers everything we can about what they work with there are still some materials that are highly classified and that information can't be released. Um, we need to have a system that takes that into account and we don't have that system right now and that's one of the things we're working on.

CALLISON: Okay um, is the United States cleaning up um, radioactive waste and um, do you want to go there? (We don't need a 6 billion budget to clean up radioactive waste...)

Dr. MICHAELS: The Department of Energy spends a tremendous amount of money cleaning up radioactive waste. It's part of our legacy, but there's a whole legacy of issues that we need to take care of. One of them is trust. We spend so many years not telling workers and residents the truth and we have that legacy to contend with and we have to clean that up and the other is occupation illness. Just as we have to clean up the dirt around our facilities, if we made people sick we have to reach out to them and take care of them. So that's what Sec. Richardson's believes very firmly and that's why we have this program.