March 22, 2000

To the United States Government

RE:       Senate Hearing on DOE Illnesses

Testimony of Linda Cox

I am Linda Cox and I worked at the K-25 plant for 20 years.  I started out as a janitor, worked my way up to a supervisor in that department and was over the laundry for awhile.  When I was laid off, I was a compliance officer and building operator.  It was my job to take care of the maintenance for six buildings.  I did the paperwork and got rid of contaminated waste for custodial, laundry and the respirator department.  I was also a relief supervisor for those three departments and for another building operator when needed.

My husband, Lynn Cox, also worked there for 20 years and was a Captain in the Security Department at the time he was laid off.  He, too, had worked his way up the ranks and besides his normal duties he was assigned to special DOE projects.

I started getting sick in 1994, although, some time before that I was experiencing extreme tiredness and could not do what I used to do.  I chalked that up to working two jobs most of my adult life, hard work and just age.  It was in late 1994 when I had to start going to the doctor with the question, “What is wrong with me?”  After many different dotors and many tests, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which is an incurable disease of the muscles and joints.  At that same time, I found out that I had high levels of cyanide in my body.  I am a non-smoker and my level should have been “4" but, it was “33".  Needless to say, I was scared.  I worried: “What’s going to happen to me?  Am I going to be all right?  Is my family going to have to go on without me?”

I started talking to people at work and found out that I wasn’t the only one with these concerns and problems.  I started meeting with some of these people and we were known as “The Exposed.”  Several of us were vocal about our concerns.  By that I mean we talked to other people in the plant, co-workers, supervisors, management, friends and family, and were even on television and radio several times about the health concerns at K-25 and other surrounding plants.  Many political officials were contacted over and over.  During this time, I was just getting worse and worse.  I called the DOE hot-line many times and never heard from them.  I went out on “short-term” disability in June of 1996.

While I was off work, one of my doctors told me I had to have one to two weeks of complete bed rest.  In just a few months I had lost four people in my family.  One was my father.  My husband was in the hospital several times and my son shot himself while I was on the phone with him.  Now, on top of this, I was extremely sick and still had all the questions I mentioned earlier.  So, Lynn, my husband, went to his supervisor to ask for a week off work to take care of me.  He was going to use vacation for the week.  He had been keeping his supervisors informed about my health and he jokingly asked if when he returned from vacation would he still have a job since there was lay-offs going on.  He was told he had nothing to worry about because his projects were of the utmost importance and he had too much time in for him to worry about being laid off.

Now, let me back up to about a week before we left for vacation.  “The Exposed” group had a public meeting in Oak Ridge.  The purpose of the meeting was to inform the public about hazardous materials concerns in the area, about people with health problems that their doctors may have said to them “There is nothing wrong with you. Maybe it is in your head or it could just be nerves.”  We wanted them to know that there may be something wrong with them and it is not “just in your head.”  We wanted them to know that there are people they can talk to.  The meeting was never meant to slam the company.

We went on vacation and when we returned, the first day back home, I received a phone call from my boss informing me that I was laid off work.  I was on “short-term” disability.  Lynn had stayed home with me that day and the next day he returned to work and received a lay-off notice as well.  There were four levels of supervision in his boss’s office that day because they knew that Lynn would ask why he was being laid off after he was told he wouldn’t be.  In the history of the plant, there had never been a husband and wife laid off at the same time.  One job was always saved.  We feel both of our jobs were terminated because of my being vocal.  For months after we were laid off, even really sick people would not say anything about the problems.  The comment was heard over and over: “You see what happened to Lynn and Linda.  I’ve got a family and I can’t say anything.”  A very chilling effect was all over the plant because of this.  Lynn nor myself were the lesser senior people in our departments.  We should have not been the ones to receive lay-offs.

Let me breeze through quickly about one of Lynn’s health problems.  He has a back problem which was partly from birth.  He had to have a morphine pump put in and it pumps morphine to his back every hour.  This was done surgically in 1995. In 1999, he had to have it taken out because of staph infection.  The medication he has to take costs $980 every month.  We pay $116 for this drug because we have insurance right now.  This medication is only one prescription we pay for each month.  His other medications cost us over $300 every month.

Lynn left the plant because of the lay-off.  He received $200 per week for unemployment and I received 60% disability insurance.  Finally, Lynn started receiving Social Security Disability because of his back problem.  Met Life Disability kicked me off of the disability after two years because “I was, according to their doctor (who would not know me from Mickey Mouse), able to return to work and even gave four or five jobs that he says I can perform.  Well, I have news for you, I can’t hold down a job for eight hours much less 40 hours a week.  Social Security has deemed me totally disabled and I receive Social Security Disability but the Met Life Insurance refuses to acknowledge my disability.  My point is we were up to $90-100,000 a year income between the both of us.  We now live on two Social Security Disability checks.

Since we have lost our jobs, we have to “rob Peter to pay Paul”, as the saying goes.  One month it is our phone being cut off and the next month it is the electric and the next it is something else.  We have had to sell what we could.  We’ve had two vehicles repossessed since we lost our jobs, one of which was back in December of 1999.  We continuously get foreclosure notices on our home.  Our son has had to quit college and come home because I was so sick and we could not afford to pay for him to stay there.  The list goes on.

Since we have left work, Lynn has a lot of the same symptoms as the rest of us.  We both have been tested and tested and tested to find out what is wrong with us.  Vials upon vials of blood has been taken.  We went to Kentucky for testing, to Cincinnati, Ohio for testing.  Dr. Kaye Kilburn from the University of Southern California has diagnosed me (and several others) with chemical encephalopathy, which is brain damage.  Now the doctors DOE has hired want us to go through more testing.  How much more testing do we need?  These doctors have even put in Lynn’s report that he is suicidal.  There is no reason for that and we do not know why they put that in the report.  We both have aluminum, beryllium, bismuth, lead, nickel, tin, titanium, and others I cannot even pronounce, which were found in hair analysis.

Please, we do not need more testing or studies.  We have lost our health and everything we have worked for is gone or going.  What does the government want from us?  We gave them the best 20 years of our lives and we can’t get any help.  If we do get help, 80% is taken back because the insurance company takes it away from us.  I am sorry, but, there is something wrong with this picture.  We need to be compensated without it being taken away.

Sincerely,

Linda Cox

500 Melton Hill Drive

Clinton, TN 37716

865-463-0270