Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation (DEEOIC)

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act established a Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) for certain classes of employees. The SEC allows eligible claimants to be compensated without the completion of a NIOSH radiation dose reconstruction or determination of the probability of causation. To qualify for compensation as a member of an SEC class, a covered employee must have at least one of the 22 specified cancers (shown below) and worked for a specified period of time at one of the SEC work sites. The statutory SEC classes describe employees who:

  • worked at gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah, Kentucky, Portsmouth, Ohio, or Oak Ridge, Tennessee for a total of at least 250 days before February 1, 1992, and were monitored for radiation exposure with dosimetry badges or had jobs with similar exposures to those monitored.
  • worked before January 1, 1974, on Amchitka Island, Alaska and were exposed to radiation related to the Long Shot, Milrow or Cannikin underground nuclear tests.

The Act also authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to add other classes of employees to the SEC. The following additional classes of employees have been added to the SEC. Click on the link for a site listed below to see details on each designation:

These employees or their survivors, from any of the above listed facilities, are eligible for benefits if, after beginning covered employment, they contracted one or more of the following specified cancers:

a. Leukemia. [Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is excluded]. The onset is to have occurred at least two years after initial exposure at any covered facility during a covered time period.

b. Primary or Secondary Lung Cancer. (In situ lung cancer that is discovered during or after a post-mortem exam is excluded.)

c. Primary or Secondary Bone Cancer. This includes myelodysplastic syndrome, myelofibrosis with myeloid metaplasia, essential thrombocytosis or essential thrombocythemia, and primary polycythemia vera (also called polycythemia rubra vera, P. vera, primary polycythemia, proliferative polycythemia, spent-phase polycythemia, or primary erythremia). (Note: Cancer of the hard palate is not bone cancer.)

d. Primary or Secondary Renal Cancers.

e. Other Diseases. For the following diseases, onset must have been at least five years after initial exposure at any covered facility during a covered time period:

(1) Multiple myeloma

(2) Lymphomas (other than Hodgkin’s disease). Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia is considered to be a type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

(3) Primary cancer of the:

(a) Thyroid;

(b) Male or female breast;

(c) Esophagus;

(d) Stomach;

(e) Pharynx – The pharynx has 3 parts - nasopharynx, oropharynx and hypopharynx. (The oropharynx includes the soft palate, the base of the tongue, and the tonsils);

(f) Small intestine;

(g) Pancreas;

(h) Bile ducts (includes Ampulla of Vater, a/k/a hepatopancreatic ampulla);

(i) Gallbladder;

(j) Salivary gland;

(k) Urinary bladder;

(l) Brain (malignancies only).

(m) Colon (includes rectum and appendix);

(n) Ovary;

(o) Liver (except if cirrhosis or hepatitis B is indicated);