Cancer Survivor Battles U.S. Government

Jackie Brown says her illnesses were caused by working at a now-closed nuclear weapons plant
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
St. Petersburg Times, December 15, 2007

When Jackie Brown developed cancer of the uterus at age 29, she was forced to have a hysterectomy. Sixteen years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy.

Brown blames her illnesses on 17 years as an employee for U.S. government contractors who operated a now-closed Pinellas County nuclear weapons plant.

The government disagrees with the St. Petersburg woman and has repeatedly rejected her claims for compensation.

Brown is among more than 1,000 people who have requested compensation for illnesses they say were caused by working at the plant at Bryan Dairy and Belcher roads operated initially by General Electric and Lockheed Martin and later by Martin Marietta.

Brown and other former workers are basing their claims on the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, passed in 2001 to compensate nuclear weapons workers who became ill as a result of exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica on the job.

Recently, she and 11 others spoke of their frustrations to U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's staff in Orlando, saying that the approval process for financial compensation is inconsistent and biased.

"Sen. Nelson has asked the CDC to put together a working group to examine the claims process involving the former Pinellas plant workers," said Bryan Gulley, a spokesman for Nelson's office.

"We're certainly sympathetic to the plight of the workers and would like to help them any way we can," he said.

Brown, 49, remembers being ecstatic when she landed the job at the GE facility.

"It was a very well-paying job with excellent benefits, but little did we know what it was doing to our bodies," she said.

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