U.S. Secretary of Labor Announces New Members and New Chair Of Advisory Board Focused on Nuclear Weapons Worker Health

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Labor has appointed 12 new members to the Advisory Board on Toxic Substances and Worker Health for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). The Board advises the Secretary on technical aspects of the Act, including the Department’s site exposure matrices database, which includes information about toxic substances present at EEOICPA-covered facilities, and established causal links between those substances and certain occupational illnesses.

Appointed to 2-year terms, the board members represent the scientific, medical and claimant communities. Five members are newly appointed to the Board and seven members have served previously. The new members are:

• Aaron Bowman, professor and head of Purdue University’s School of Health Sciences;
• Mark Catlin, principal industrial hygienist at MDC Consulting & Training;
• Jim H. Key, president of the United Steelworkers’ Atomic Energy Worker’s Council;
• Mike Van Dyke, associate professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Center for Health, Work, and Environment, Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado; and
• Dianne Whitten, assistant to the employee health advocate, Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council and a radiological control technician at the Hanford site.

The returning members are:

• George Friedman-Jimenez, assistant professor of population health, medicine and environmental medicine, and director and attending physician for Bellevue/New York University Occupational & Environmental Medicine Clinic;
• Rose Goldman, director of faculty affairs, Department of Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School and associate professor of environmental health sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health;
• Steven Markowitz, professor and director of the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment at Queens College, and professor at the City University of New York School of Public Health;
• Marek Mikulski, adjunct assistant professor, assistant research scientist, and co-principal investigator for the Burlington Atomic Energy Commission Plant and Ames Lab Former Department of Energy Worker Medical Screening Programs, College of Public Health, University of Iowa;
• Duronda Pope, emergency response coordinator, United Steelworkers;
• Kenneth Z. Silver, associate professor of environmental health, East Tennessee State University; and
• Calin Tebay, beryllium health advocate for Mission Support Alliance at the Hanford Beryllium Program.

Dr. Steven Markowitz will continue to serve as the Chair of the Advisory Board.

Questions about the board can be emailed to EnergyAdvisoryBoard@dol.gov. More information is available at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/energy/regs/compliance/AdvisoryBoard.htm.

The mission of the Department of Labor is to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights.