By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Former employees of a nuclear weapons plant in St. Louis might be closer to faster government payments.
The families and their survivors are seeking the money for illnesses related to radiation exposure at the Mallinckrodt plants.
Testimony continued Tuesday in St. Louis from the workers, who are seeking compensation for illnesses from radiation exposure.
The group wants the government to expedite their claims in order to receive a $150,000 payment.
A federal advisory board agreed with many who testified, saying there's insufficient record of how much radiation workers were exposed to. It concluded it would be unrealistic to require those workers to determine how much radiation they absorbed.
"There was a lot of manual handling and transfer of very dusty material in this process -without ventilation, without workplace monitoring practices or controls to minimize and limit exposure," said Larry Elliot, of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
The workers want the government to eliminate the provision that requires them to prove how much exposure they received.
The faster payments, though, would only happen if other federal agencies accept the board's conclusion.
But the board's conclusion was only based on those who processed uranium at the plant from 1942-1948. No determination was made on those who worked there after that time.