Exposed: Texas Instruments employees with cancer eligible for compensation

http://www.tauntongazette.com/article/20140614/NEWS/140617328/1994/NEWS

Exposed: Texas Instruments employees with cancer eligible for compensation

Taunton’s Stephen Foster, who worked at the Texas Instruments plant in Attleboro for about 35 years, suffered through four surgeries and two rounds of radioactive iodine treatment, after thyroid cancer was discovered by chance during an unrelated MRI in 2005.

It wasn’t until five years later that Foster learned he was eligible for compensation and medical benefits through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, as a result of radioactive exposure caused by governmental nuclear operations at the Attleboro plant, which was formerly known as Metals and Controls Corp.

“Nobody that worked there knew they were being exposed to that,” Foster said. “Nobody knew about it until there was a lot of sick people on the site … There are probably still people out there who have some condition caused by it who aren’t aware of the program. One of the issues was there was very little public knowledge that people could get some type of compensation.”

To provide more information about potential compensation, the U.S. Department of Labor is hosting a town hall meeting on Wednesday in Attleboro, for all workers at Texas Instruments sites and 32 other New England facilities covered by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The event begins at 9:30 a.m. at Bristol Community College, 11 Field St., starting with a program overview presentation, with experts available to answer questions about eligibility.