Former government employees who contracted cancers while working on America's nuclear weapons are unable to get the government to review their medical claims in order to obtain compensation after the administration made rollbacks.
The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is composed of doctors, nuclear experts, former nuclear weapon employees, and others, who dedicate their time to understanding if a specific ailment is tied to a worker's exposure to radiation and advising the Department of Health and Human Services about potential compensation.
Their findings help determine whether former nuclear employees at U.S. facilities qualify for government compensation.
But the board has been effectively shut down because of President Donald Trump's plan to reduce the size of the federal government and streamline processes.
That means those including Steve Hicks are left in limbo. The 70-year-old, who spent 34 years working as a nuclear mechanist at the Y-12 National Security Complex, which enriched uranium for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, is battling skin cancer and seeking compensation.
"I made a good living there, but I am not happy that I am this sick," Hicks told Reuters in an interview published Friday. "And there are people who worked there that are sicker than me."
Hicks is one of the thousands of former nuclear employees who suffer from cancers associated with radiation exposure.
He previously had kidney cancer, which is one of the 22 cancers the government recognizes, and provides a $150,000 lump-sump payment and medical expense compensation.
But skin cancer is not on that list.
Hicks has spent a lot of time petitioning the government to provide coverage for his skin cancer treatment and for them to add the cancer to the "Special Exposure Cohort" which are cancers the government does compensate.
The "Special Exposure Cohort" was established by a congressional act in 2000, to compensate former nuclear weapons workers who were diagnosed with cancer due to high radiation exposure. To qualify, an employee must have worked at least 250 days, before February 1992, at three gaseous diffusion plants in Kentucky, Ohio, or Tennessee and have one of the 22 cancers.
But to add another cancer to the list is an extremely arduous process and can take years.
When it was first established, Congress had 13 cancers on the list and have added to it over the years through the petition process.
"I've contacted politicians and the White House and haven't heard anything back," Hicks told Reuters.
But the process has now become virtually impossible because the board has been inactive since the start of the Trump administration.
The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health was in the process of reviewing eight petitions from former nuclear workers when HHS suspended its activities in January.
The board is supposed to meet six times per year, according to law. But its 10 members told Reuters that it has not met since December 2024.
"Meetings of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health are currently paused due to outstanding administrative requirements, which the program is actively working to resolve," a CDC spokesperson told Reuters.
The Independent has asked the CDC for comment.
As of last year, the U.S. had given $25 billion in compensation and medical benefits to the more than 100,000 atomic weapons workers who made claims, according to the Department of Energy.
But that could end for good soon because it has a statute expiration of September 2025.
Unless the Trump administration chooses to renew the compensation program those former nuclear weapons employees who are hoping to receive assistance with their medical payments will no longer have the opportunity.
"The board's suspension effectively stops the entire compensation process for nuclear workers, leaving many without the medical coverage and recognition they desperately need," Brad Clawson, a former nuclear fuel operator at the Idaho National Lab, told Reuters.
"Thousands and thousands of people still haven't had their day to prove that they were injured by this."