Ex-Test Site workers could develop illness from silica exposure

Monday, Oct. 4, 1999 | 12:06 p.m.

Doctors have discovered that Nevada Test Site workers may develop illnesses from materials they were exposed to other than radiation from nuclear weapons experiments.

In the past five years environmental health experts found that silica in dust, particles in diesel fuel fumes and beryllium -- a heavy metal found in bombs -- cause scars on the lungs and may lead to cancer, one of the leading doctors investigating worker exposure said last week.

Dr. Robert Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco, came to Las Vegas last week as part of a five-year screening program for former Nevada Test Site workers, who have come to Southern Nevada from as far away as Alaska and New York to have their hearts, lungs and blood checked.

Test Site workers who built tunnels, drilled holes and hauled tons of monitoring equipment in and out of the nuclear weapons area from 1951 until a testing moratorium took effect in 1992 are eligible for the screening, Harrison said.

Workers at the site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, from the '50s through the mid-'70s are at particular risk from silica raised in the huge amounts of dust the mining operations generated, Harrison said.

The silica, much like asbestos fibers from insulation materials used throughout this century, scars the lungs, the associate clinical professor from the university's Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine said.

Medical experts have known since the mid-'30s about the danger asbestos posed to workers who handled insulation and piping with dry fibers able to float into the air and into the lungs, but the realization of the dangers of silica are relatively new.

"We are now looking for lung cancer caused by silica," Harrison said as he gently placed a stethescope against the chest of John "Mad Dog" Madison, 70, who spent 33 years as a diamond driller hired by a government contractor to work in the Test Site's tunnels.

Madison, who got his "Mad Dog" nickname from an Indian co-worker, said he started drilling for petroleum companies when he was 16. "That was my first taste of drilling," he said of the oil rigs he cored from Kentucky to Colorado.

Although he said he has no health complaints, Madison could develop spots on his lungs at any time, Harrison said.

"It takes 15 to 20 years for the problem to show up," the doctor said, "and we have only learned about the potential problem from silica in the past five years."

Diesel exhaust poses another threat to Test Site workers who operated the heavy equipment underground and, before the 1970s never even wore a simple dust mask, let alone a respirator.

Test Site tunnel supervisor William M. Swena, 62, retired for medical reasons in October 1993 after 29 years on the job. He said he suffers from heart and lung problems as well as diabetes.

"We did the best we could for what we knew at the time," Swena said of protecting worker health. But the 1994 Radiation Compensation Act applies to so few cancers, it doesn't cover health problems like the ones these workers are encountering, he said.

Federal law currently compensates only civilian residents who lived downwind of above-ground testing done at the Test Site from 1951 to 1963. Workers receive no compensation or medical help.

"The ones that were out in it got nothing but abuse," Swena said of the Test Site tunnel workers exposed to radiation, fumes and dust.

Asked if he thought the Test Site workers should be compensated, he replied firmly, "Yes, I do."

Beryllium, a silver-gray metal used in nuclear weapons and piping that lined the tunnels leading to the nuclear test chambers, poses a different kind of threat to the lungs. Harrison said it could compound the damages from silica and diesel fumes.

"We're not sure yet how extensive beryllium exposure was at the Test Site," the doctor said, but if researchers find it poses a health threat, another round of special screening will be necessary.

Department of Energy spokeswoman Nancy Harkess said the government agency doesn't know the full extent of the worker exposure from beryllium, but it is part of the health investigations ongoing nationwide throughout the DOE.

Doctors such as Harrison have examined more than 800 Test Site workers. "And we hope many more workers from the Test Site will contact us if they worked underground," Harrison said.

This fall's screening took place Thursday through Saturday, and every available slot had filled by September, Sandie Medina of the Test Site's Medical Surveillance Project Office in Las Vegas said. Medina works for the Southern Nevada Building Trades, a sponsor of the screening program.

The screenings are scheduled four times a year -- in March, June, September and December, Medina said.

The DOE has funded the Building Trades and physicians from the University of California, San Francisco, Boston University's School of Public Health and the University of Nevada School of Medicine $3.5 million to complete these initial studies over five years. The study has been going for three years.

"If further testing is necessary, we will ask Congress for more funding," Harrison said.