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The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expires this summer. The initial bill passed the Senate earlier this year but has yet to be considered in the House. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has been pushing to expand and extend the initiative and has tried to add it as an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) bill.
“If we’re not going to get amendment votes, I’m not going to help them speed this along,” Hawley told reporters about the FAA legislation.
The bill is just one effort that residents in Missouri say, would help those sickened from toxic sites in the region.
“There’s no windfall for anybody,” Former Missouri Resident Kim Visintine said. “This is not, ‘we’re just giving money to these citizens, and they’re going to have all this random money to spend.’ A lot of these medical bills… it’s a drop in the bucket.”
AMERICANS EXPOSED TO NUCLEAR RADIATION BY GOVERNMENT WOULD BE COMPENSATED UNDER APPROVED SENATE BILL
Visintine grew up near Coldwater Creek in North County St. Louis. The area is part of a superfund site where toxic waste has been found, years after the city’s nuclear program ended. Visintine says she frequently visited the creek as a child and now believes the toxins are to blame for illnesses in the region. Those sickened include someone very close to her.
“We were told that he was one in one million. That children just don’t get this cancer,” Visintine said.
Her son, Zach, had his first neurosurgery within a week. He started chemo soon after. Visintine and her husband consulted specialists in an effort to cure the rare cancer.
“Even with me having full coverage of insurance and my husband having full coverage, our out-of-pocket costs for out of network and specialists after a year of treatment was $100,000,” Visintine said.
Zach lost his battle with cancer in 2006. As his parents began to process the loss, they also began to ask why this may have happened.
LAWMAKERS PUSH TO RENEW, EXPAND RADIATION EXPOSURE COMPENSATION ACT
“It…
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