Rocky Flats

Carla McCabe spent a decade building nuclear bombs at the sprawling Rocky Flats complex near Denver. When she developed a brain tumor and asked for help, federal officials told her that none of the toxic substances used at the top-secret bomb factory could have caused her cancer.

Now, on the eighth anniversary of the federal program created to help sick nuclear weapons workers, the man who until recently was the program’s top doctor says that McCabe, now 55, and many others like her are being improperly rejected.

The nuclear bombs Charlie Wolf built helped win the Cold War. But his toughest battles came afterward, when he applied to a troubled federal compensation program intended for those whose top-secret work made them sick.

Wolf wound up battling a bureaucratic morass for more than six years — all while fighting brain cancer that was supposed to have killed him in six months — trying to prove he qualified for financial and medical aid.

The conversation took place earlier this week between Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt. The discussion may have finally established the cooperation necessary to give ex-employees of the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant what they deserve: Compensation for diseases and other medical problems that came [...]