Roy Becker was a chemical engineer at the Wah Chang plant in Albany, Oregon beginning in 1956. Over the years, Roy Becker rose to become superintendent of the separations division of the plant. In 1974, he was diagnosed with melanoma and, despite chemotherapy treatments, in 1981 he died of lung cancer. Roy Becker was only 59 at the time of his death.
In the aftermath of his father’s death, Roy Becker’s son Mark sought survivor’s benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). This program provides compensation for medical bills and lost wages for atomic weapons workers like Roy Becker who develop certain cancers or other covered illnesses as a result of their exposure to radiation (the Wah Chang plant was briefly engaged in melting down and reprocessing depleted uranium as part of the United States’ nuclear weapons program between 1971 and 1972). The EEOICPA also provides a survivor’s benefit. Difficulties in obtaining benefits on behalf of his mother, though, would lead Mark Becker to make it easier for others who worked at the Wah Chang plant to obtain EEOICPA benefits.
The Becker Family’s Struggle in Obtaining EEOICPA Benefits
In order to obtain benefits under the EEOICPA, a process known as “dose reconstruction” needed to be completed before Becker’s claim could be approved. With “dose reconstruction,” a team works to attempt to reconstruct a covered person’s level of radiation exposure on the job and then further determine whether that level of radiation exposure would have caused the covered person’s cancer or illness. If the team concludes that it is at least as likely true as not that the covered person’s qualifying cancer or illness was caused by workplace radiation exposure, then the claim succeeds. This process of “dose reconstruction,” however, can be quite time-consuming. Six years elapsed between the time the Beckers’ claim was filed and the time the dose reconstruction team informed them that it had accumulated sufficient information to begin the dose reconstruction process.
Setting Up a Special Exposure Cohort for Wah Chang Workers
It was then that Mark Becker learned about setting up a special exposure cohort for Wah Chang workers like his father. If a claimant is part of a special cohort, then there is no requirement that dose reconstruction occur. Instead, it is presumed that if a person worked at a specific job site for at least 250 work days and developed one or more covered illnesses then he or she is entitled to compensation.
Mark Becker was successful in having the special exposure cohort established, but he failed in obtaining the benefits he sought on behalf of his mother. After the establishment of the special exposure cohort, it was determined that the type of cancer that ultimately led to his father’s untimely death was not one of the approximately two dozen types of cancer that are specified under the EEOICPA. However, it is believed that Mark Becker’s quest for compensation for his mother may have made it easier for hundreds of other Wah Chang workers to obtain EEOICPA and RECA benefits.
