The National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine is conducting a study of lung fibrosis in plutonium workers at Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats workers can volunteer to participate in the U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries, operated by Washington State University. The registry offers a post-mortem tissue donation program so that workers who had been exposed to plutonium and other radionuclides can volunteer to have their tissues analyzed. The data from these analyses are used to improve the models scientists use to predict the retention and health risks of radioactive chemicals in the body. The Medical Monitoring of Former Rocky Flats Radiation Workers Program is a surveillance program for former Rocky Flats workers whose documented radiation exposures were high compared with those for the rest of the work force.
Participants receive periodic physical exams and tests for radionuclides in their bodies.
In addition, the Department of Energy conducts a surveillance program for workers and former workers from all of its sites who were exposed to the toxic metal beryllium, which was used in weapons production at Rocky Flats and other DOE facilities. The program is designed to identify and locate all exposed workers and to provide periodic examinations for chronic beryllium disease, an incurable lung disease. DOE's Epidemiologic Surveillance Program monitors the health of current workers. This program evaluates the occurrence of illness and injury in the work force on a continuing basis. Results are issued in annual reports.