§6264 Programs for persons who may have been exposed to radiation released from Hanford Nuclear Reservation

Summary

The Secretary of Energy must give $3,000,000 to Washington, $1,000,000 to Oregon, and $1,000,000 to Idaho from the funds authorized under title XXXI of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1991 (Public Law 101–510). The money must be used to set up and run programs to help people who may have been exposed to radiation from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington, between 1944 and 1972. The programs can only do three things: share health information about radiation with doctors and affected people, create ways to refer those people to doctors who know about radiation health effects, and look into — and possibly start — registering and monitoring people who might have been exposed. Washington, Oregon, and Idaho must make one joint plan. They must send that plan to the Secretary of Energy and to Congress by May 5, 1991, and send a single report on how the plan was carried out by May 5, 1992. While making and running the plan, the States must talk with people doing current dose and disease research, including the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (CDC) and the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project (DOE), and they must not seriously harm those research efforts. Information that identifies people in these programs may not be shared with the public, except if the person or their legal representative signs written permission. The three States must set up the same rules for how to handle consent, use the Hanford Health Information Network database, decide the database’s future, and enforce the privacy ban.