OGDEN -- Of the more than 50 workers compensation claims filed by police with ailments believed tied to exposure to methamphetamine labs, all but a handful have been denied.
The dismissals have come mostly for insufficient documentation, said Carla Rush, adjudication manager for the Utah Labor Commission, which handles the claims.
"They have to have enough evidence to justify the claims," she said. "Preferably a doctor saying they have been injured in a work-related exposure to meth. That would be the best evidence."
Only six cases as of Friday, all of them downstate, are still pending, she said, including one filed last month for a deceased Provo officer whose family filed the claim blaming meth exposure for his death.
The claimants now dismissed include three of the five original members of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force formed in 1988.
They were among the scores of agents statewide breaking down meth labs wearing T-shirts and shorts in the 1980s and 90s, with low awareness of the caustic chemicals involved.
Today, officers strap on air tanks and fully-enclosed, hazmat "moon suits" that are destroyed after one use.
The claims began piling up in 2005 and the number of methamphetamine- exposed officers reached the point in which the Utah Legislature, in 2006, commissioned a $500,000 study of the problem.
Five or more of the officers have died while their claims were pending, the first filed for job-related methamphetamine exposure.
The study, meant to establish a causal link between meth exposure and everything from cancer to nerve damage, was finished a year ago with inconclusive results.
Without the study, Utah Labor Commissioner Sherrie Hayashi said each officer has to prove the meth afflicted them, much like putting on a trial.
Labor commission officials were unaware if any of the officers had appealed the denials to a state district court.
The study was hampered by the fact only five percent of an "eligible population" numbered at 10,000 Utah police officers, as well as firefighters, with some meth exposure responded to the study.
The study, largely a survey, by the University of Utah's Rocky Mountain Center for Occupation and Environmental Health has been criticized for its methodology in news reports.
The study apparently didn't even include the 50-plus officers who filed the workers compensation claims, said Mike Wells, retired Weber County Sheriff's captain. He, along with Kelly Call and Donny Archuleta, are the three former strike force founders whose claims have been denied by the labor commission.
"I was never contacted for the study," Wells said. "I've been told none of the guys who had claims were contacted."
He and fellow agents Call and Archuleta were always skeptical of state officials willingness to step forward and cover the hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills for meth exposed cops around the state, as well as death benefits.
"They don't want to pay, period," Wells said. "It's not like we're suing for money, for damages. We just wanted medical coverage ... I honestly don't know what's supposed to happen next. Our attorney has said they'll keep us posted."
Wells, Call and Archuleta have all gone through treatment at the Utah Meth Cops Project detox center in Orem, spearheaded by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in 2007.
Well's daily headaches and muscle spasms were cut back to weekly events after the monthlong detox program. However, he said he still has no feeling in three of his fingers and the headaches and spasms are starting to creep back.
"It bothers me that the state can make it a law that a house that had a meth lab in it has to be sanitized, even torn down, the grounds sanitized, and sellers have to notify prospective buyers a meth lab was once there," Wells said. "But if a cop was in the lab, that's not a problem."
Comments