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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT ISSUES WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

FRIDAY,

JULY 24, 2009

+ + + + +

The work group meeting convened 

via teleconference at 3:00 p.m., James M. 

Melius, Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

JOSIE M. BEACH, Member

MARK GRIFFON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Acting Designated Federal Official

HANS BEHLING, SC&A

ANTOINETTE BONSIGNORE, Linde Ceramics

LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH OCAS

EMILY HOWELL, ESQ., HHS

BONNIE KLEA, Participant

MIKE MAHATHY, NIOSH ORAU

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A

ROBERT McGOLERICK, HHS

DAN McKEEL, Dow Petitioner

JIM NETON, NIOSH OCAS

CHICK PHILLIPS, SC&A

LAVON RUTHERFORD, NIOSH OCAS

MUTTY SHARFI, NIOSH ORAU

BILL THURBER, SC&A
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page No.

Roll Call 4

Discussion on Dow Site 8

Discussion on Metallurgical Labs Site 50
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 3:04 p.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Let me get the ball 

4 rolling then, starting with roll call.

5 This is the Advisory Board on 

6 Radiation and Worker Health, Special Exposure 

7 Cohort Issues Working Group, and beginning 

8 with roll call, we are going to be discussing 

9 two sites as part of this meeting, both the 

10 Dow Madison site and the Met Labs site, so I 

11 would ask, I'm not sure that there are any 

12 conflicts, but I would ask that everybody 

13 address conflict of interest as they go 

14 through roll call, starting with the Advisory 

15 Board, with the Chair, Dr. Melius.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Jim Melius. I 

17 have no conflicts.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Paul Ziemer, no 

19 conflicts.

20 MEMBER GRIFFON: Mark Griffon, no 

21 conflicts.

22 MEMBER ROESSLER: Gen Roessler, no 
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1 conflicts.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, no 

3 conflicts.

4 MR. KATZ: Great, and then members 

5 of NIOSH and its contractors, ORAU, and so on.

6 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I 

7 have no conflict with the Metallurgical 

8 Laboratory, but if the discussion rolls into 

9 any Argonne National Laboratory I do have a 

10 conflict there.

11 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry 

12 Elliott. I have no conflicts.

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon 

14 Rutherford. I have no conflicts.

15 MR. SHARFI: Mutty Sharfi, ORAU 

16 team, no conflicts.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay.

18 MR. MAHATHY: Mike Mahathy, ORAU 

19 team, no conflicts.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay, that does it for 

21 NIOSH ORAU staff, okay then, SC&A staff, 

22 please.
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1 DR. MAURO: John Mauro here, no 

2 conflicts.

3 MR. THURBER: Bill Thurber, no 

4 conflicts.

5 MR. PHILLIPS: Chick Phillips, no 

6 conflicts.

7 DR. BEHLING: Hans Behling, no 

8 conflicts.

9 MR. KATZ: Other federal staff, 

10 whether it's NIOSH, HHS, DOL or DOE.

11 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS, no 

12 conflicts.

13 MR. McGOLERICK: Robert 

14 McGolerick, HHS, no conflicts.

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. And then any 

16 members of the public or staff of 

17 congressional offices who would like to 

18 identify themselves for this call.

19 DR. McKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. 

20 I'm a co-petitioner for Dow.

21 MS. BONSIGNORE: This is 

22 Antoinette Bonsignore for the Linde Ceramics 
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1 facility.

2 MS. KLEA: This is Bonnie Klea, 

3 California Santa Susana Field Lab.

4 MR. KATZ: Welcome to all three of 

5 you. Okay.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Ted, excuse me, 

7 this is Arjun from SC&A, I just joined. No 

8 conflicts.

9 MR. KATZ: Oh, great, welcome 

10 Arjun, too. All right, then, that's it for 

11 the roll call. 

12 Let me ask everybody on the line, 

13 please, who -- when you are not speaking 

14 addressing the group, to put your phones on 

15 mute, *6 if you don't have a mute button, and 

16 to take it off mute you just hit *6 again. 

17 Please do not put the call on hold, just hang 

18 up and dial back in if you need to go away for 

19 a bit, and I think that takes care of that, 

20 Dr. Melius.

21 MEMBER ROESSLER: Ted, let me ask, 

22 this is Gen, I didn't hear was that *6 or #6?
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1 MR. KATZ: It's *6.

2 MEMBER ROESSLER: *6 okay, thanks.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, I believe 

5 it's *6 to turn it back on, too.

6 MR. KATZ: right.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Turn off mute, 

8 which is not the right keys on other phone 

9 systems, as I have found out the difficult way 

10 by trying to talk and not being able to.

11 The meeting today is a focused 

12 meeting. We are only going to cover two 

13 sites. One is the -- the first is the Dow 

14 site, and the second is Metallurgical Labs. 

15 Both of these we have discussed in the past at 

16 the Board level, and, actually, have approved 

17 these being added to the special exposure 

18 cohort for specific time periods. For the Dow 

19 site there's a question for later time 

20 periods. We've already added 57 to 60, and 

21 for Metallurgical Labs it's a question of the 

22 issue of 250 days of exposure.
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1 So, we'll start with the Dow site. 

2 We had a work group meeting that discussed 

3 the Dow site in November of last year. At 

4 that time, there were still a number of issues 

5 outstanding, where we didn't have complete 

6 information on, and the petitioner, Dan 

7 McKeel, had been, at that point, waiting a 

8 long period of time to get some of the 

9 documentation relevant to that time period, 

10 and we've finally, more recently, received at 

11 least some of that information, I know not 

12 all, Dan, and we'll talk about that a little 

13 bit later.

14 So the purpose of the call today 

15 is to just, I think, try to identify sort of 

16 key issues and see if there's anything else 

17 that is still outstanding before we can have 

18 full deliberations on that -- on the site, 

19 that there are still some issues I know we at 

20 least need to address.

21 The first thing, and I don't know 

22 if, Larry, you or Jim, or who can do this, but 
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1 is probably give us an update on sort of the 

2 covered period, residual period issues with 

3 this site.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, this is Larry 

5 Elliott. I can speak to that.

6 The question revolves around the 

7 Dow Chemical Madison site's residual 

8 contamination period, which on the report 

9 that's currently shown on our website covers a 

10 period of 1961 through 2000 -- it shows a 

11 period of 1961 through 1998, and the new 

12 report that we have going through the 

13 clearance process for issuance, and I can't 

14 say -- it's just in that process, it is, you 

15 know, imminent, I hope, to be delivered and 

16 issued to the Congress. It will be a Federal 

17 Register notice and certainly be posted on our 

18 website and notified through our web update, 

19 as to when it is issued.

20 But the new residual contamination 

21 period for Dow, from this new update, will 

22 cover 1961 through 2007. So bottom line, I 
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1 don't have the report to share, but I can 

2 share what it says, I hope will say, about Dow 

3 Chemical.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, Larry, can 

5 you just describe sort of, what's the process 

6 once that report is formally issued?

7 MR. ELLIOTT: The Department of 

8 Energy and Department of Labor will receive a 

9 copy of the report, and they use the report 

10 to, primarily DOL will use this report for Dow 

11 to extend the covered period for the residual 

12 contamination through 2007.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And so we really 

14 have two time periods we are waiting on, one 

15 would be for your report to get reviewed and 

16 formally issued to Congress, and secondly for 

17 Department of Labor to, in effect, process 

18 that report.

19 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, it's in the --

20 it's in the CDC secretarial clearance process.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

22 MR. ELLIOTT: That's where it's 
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1 at. It's beyond NIOSH.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Jim, this is 

3 Ziemer. Could I ask a question?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Sure, go ahead.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: I guess, Larry, 

6 I'll pose it to you, or, perhaps, Dr. McKeel 

7 also can help me answer this.

8 Are there documents related to 

9 that report, in terms of the decision to 

10 extend the residual contamination period, are 

11 there documents that the petitioners are still 

12 awaiting that have any bearing on that 

13 decision?

14 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't believe that 

15 the petitioners are waiting on any 

16 documentation that was used to make this 

17 determination.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

19 MR. ELLIOTT: I believe that 

20 information is out there. I believe, in fact, 

21 they provided some of that information, or 

22 they've provided duplicates of the information 
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1 we had.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

3 MR. ELLIOTT: So I can't speak for 

4 Dr. McKeel's perspective. Certainly he should 

5 do that, but from my perspective, and on what 

6 we see, and how we arrived at the 

7 determination on Dow Chemical, the 

8 documentation is there to support it, and DOL 

9 will likely use that, look at that, if they 

10 don't accept ours on the recommendation of the 

11 determination.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

13 Dan, did you have anything to add 

14 to that?

15 DR. McKEEL: Yes, sir, just one 

16 thing. I believe I have all the documentation, 

17 but what I'm not sure about is what 

18 documentation NIOSH sent to Department of 

19 Labor and Department of Energy. And what I 

20 believe it should include is the final clean21 up report from the Pangea Group, which gives 

22 the date for when the residual contamination 
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1 was actually cleaned up.

2 But I also think that letter that 

3 went from Illinois Emergency Management 

4 Agency, which I think is dated June 8, 2008, 

5 Dow Madison or Spectralite, and Chris Barnes, 

6 who is the CEO there, stating the site was 

7 finally released from unrestricted use.

8 So, you know, DOL should at least 

9 be aware of the fact that there were some 

10 months from the time that Pangea Group said 

11 that it had finished cleaning up the residual 

12 contamination until the time that the agency 

13 in this agreement, State of Illinois, IEMA, 

14 actually agreed that the site was completely 

15 cleaned up for unrestricted use.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well do we know 

17 which of those dates is used as the official 

18 end of the residual contamination period? Is 

19 it the final clean-up date or the date that it 

20 is declared open for general use?

21 DR. McKEEL: I understood from Mr. 

22 Elliott that the date that NIOSH wanted to use 
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1 or has proposed is the November, 2007 time 

2 frame, but I am not exactly sure of that fact. 

3 I actually asked Laurie Breyer if she could 

4 release to me the exact date in the new 

5 congressional report for the end of the 

6 residual period, and she said, at that time, 

7 that was several weeks ago, was unable to do 

8 that.

9 So Larry --

10 MR. ELLIOTT: I've given you all I 

11 can tell you until this report is cleared for 

12 distribution. I'm sorry, but this is a report 

13 that gets issued from the Office of the 

14 Secretary to Congress, and so, you know --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Once the report is 

16 out we'll know.

17 MR. ELLIOTT: I've got clearance 

18 to tell you what the report says on Dow 

19 Chemical. I think the clear indication by 

20 saying it goes through -- the residual period 

21 goes through 2007, covers the issue that Dr. 

22 McKeel has raised, but, you know, I'm going to 
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1 stop short of that in speaking specifically 

2 about documentation that is used to make this 

3 determination.

4 I don't want to be -- I don't want 

5 to sound obstinate in that regard, but I just 

6 -- I can't go farther than that at this point 

7 in time.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's fine. I'm 

9 okay with that. I just wondered if it was 

10 known at this point, but we'll wait until the 

11 report comes out.

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks, Larry 

14 and Dan, for that.

15 Now my understanding is there's 

16 also questions on other operations at that 

17 site that may extend, not the residual period, 

18 but the overall sort of covered period or 

19 covered time periods.

20 Larry, do you have any comment on 

21 that at this point?

22 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have any 
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1 comment on that. I don't know if LaVon 

2 Rutherford or Jim Neton have anything that 

3 they are prepared to offer at this point or 

4 not.

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, this is 

6 LaVon Rutherford, and are you -- Dr. Melius, 

7 are you speaking to, or has there been things 

8 provided to the Department of Labor to extend 

9 covered activities or covered period based on 

10 activities, or are you asking if there were 

11 new things that we had determined recently? 

12 I'm kind of confused.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Both.

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. As far as 

15 I know, that all the information that we've 

16 received from [Identifying information 

17 redacted] on potentially extending the covered 

18 period for -- based on, you know, the thorium 

19 work, beyond the 1960, we have provided -- we 

20 provided all our information, she provided all 

21 her information to Department of Labor, and 

22 Department of Labor, the last I had heard, had 
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1 issued their memo stating that they weren't 

2 going to extend the covered period.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So since that 

4 time you've heard nothing? That was really my 

5 question.

6 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right. I've 

7 heard nothing since that time.

8 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry 

9 Elliott. I know that maybe LaVon didn't have 

10 this, but I see that [Identifying information 

11 redacted] has submitted a new request to 

12 Department of Labor just this afternoon. I 

13 haven't had a chance to read through it, but I 

14 know that that came in today. Is that what 

15 you are asking about?

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I didn't 

17 know about that, so that's what happened this 

18 afternoon. So that is news, I guess.

19 DR. McKEEL: Just for the record, 

20 this is Dan McKeel. I didn't know about that 

21 either.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.
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1 MR. ELLIOTT: So I guess we are 

2 not clear on what you are referring to, Dr. 

3 Melius, in your question.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm just trying 

5 to get an update for everyone involved in the 

6 work group about the Dow site.

7 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton.

8 I guess I'm a little confused as 

9 to the relevance. The SEC has already been 

10 established for 57 through 60. I mean, so we 

11 -- I thought we were engaged in a discussion 

12 of whether or not thorium could be 

13 reconstructed in the residual period beyond 

14 the 1960 covered dates.

15 I mean, so --

16 DR. McKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. 

17 I think the relevance that Dr. 

18 Neton asked about is that [Identifying 

19 information redacted] 2008 information stated 

20 -- at least her comments to the Board stated 

21 that there was a new Dow Madison AEC contract 

22 that she had discovered, which indicated that 
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1 the same thorium that Department of Energy 

2 acknowledged in January, on January 8th of 

3 '08, was used in nuclear weapons and was 

4 responsible for making Dow Madison an AWE 

5 based on the thorium work, that that same --

6 that that new contract indicated AEC thorium 

7 contract at Dow Madison she said extended 

8 beyond 57, 58.

9 So I gather that in the letter 

10 that Rachel Leiton did share with me, and I 

11 assume with all of you, dated March 10, 2009, 

12 that Department of Labor looked at all that 

13 information and decided that it was not 

14 convincing enough to extend the covered 

15 period.

16 However, there has been no 

17 consideration of that information by anybody 

18 other than the Department of Labor that I'm 

19 aware of. Department of Energy got the same 

20 packet and the same information, and they have 

21 not given their opinion on those documents 

22 yet.
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1 So my own opinion is that even 

2 though it's up to Department of Labor to make 

3 the determination about changing the covered 

4 period, that there are -- there is a request 

5 in from [Identifying information redacted]

6 from late 2008 and, apparently, a new one from 

7 today which indicates that, perhaps, the 

8 thorium AEC contract period at Dow Madison 

9 should be extended over a wider period of 

10 time.

11 And my understanding is that the 

12 contract she found for the thorium work for 

13 the AEC was earlier than 1957 and extended 

14 later than 1958. And in Glen Podonsky's letter 

15 of January the 8th he said that Department of 

16 Energy had determined that thorium alloy HK-31 

17 was actually used in nuclear weapons between 

18 1956 and 1969, and he was talking about, you 

19 know, complex-wide, whereas the only two 

20 purchase orders to Mallinckrodt for that 

21 material were from 1957 and `58. 

22 But as the work group well knows, 
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1 there are still on the table, from the 

2 petitioner's point of view, affidavits from 11 

3 Dow workers at the Madison site that said they 

4 also shipped the same type of HK-31 alloy, 

5 magnesium thorium alloy, to Rocky Flats, and 

6 they are absolutely 100 percent adamant that 

7 it was not sent to the Rocky Mountain arsenal 

8 but to Rocky Flats. So that's where that 

9 stands that I'm aware of.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, Jim Neton, 

11 to answer -- directly answer your question, I 

12 mean, what I was asking for was an 

13 informational update that I think NIOSH would 

14 be aware of any actions or, you know, possible 

15 actions by Department of Labor before we would 

16 that, you know, could affect the schedule for 

17 this, you know, work group to complete its 

18 work.

19 And I understand, I think we all

20 understand that it is not -- you are not 

21 empowered to make those decisions on covered 

22 activities and so forth.
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1 DR. NETON: Understood.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, that's all 

3 for that. Okay.

4 Anything else on that subject? If 

5 not, I'd like to move out to identify any 

6 other unfinished sort of technical issues and 

7 so forth. And I know we do have one that I've 

8 actually asked John Mauro and his staff to at 

9 least address verbally at this meeting today, 

10 and that concerns the review of TBD-6000, the 

11 appendix that covers Dow, which I believe is 

12 Appendix C, which was issued after the last 

13 review that SC&A had done. So it was not 

14 included in their last report to us, which is 

15 called Appendix 2. So we have different 

16 appendices here.

17 John, do you want to speak to 

18 update us on that?

19 DR. MAURO: Yes. After I received 

20 your inquiry, I read -- we had not reviewed 

21 that. I did read it, 13 pages, but I can say, 

22 you know, right now the -- SC&A's work does 
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1 not include a review of that appendix.

2 If you'd like me to comment 

3 briefly, when I did read it, I'd certainly be 

4 glad to, but it really was just a quick read, 

5 just to make sure that I understood what was 

6 in it, and also to make sure that there wasn't 

7 anything, you know, is there any new material. 

8 And there is some new material, so there is 

9 some new material related to methodology for 

10 reconstructing doses during the covered 

11 period, and right now my observations of that 

12 work is that it does not have too much effect 

13 on the uncovered period, except that as I 

14 understood it when I read it, because of the 

15 extension of the time period, I guess, one of 

16 our concerns was that dust loadings that were 

17 used from I guess surveys collected during 

18 D&D, we felt that that information was part of 

19 the residual period analysis for coming up

20 with the exposure model, and our only comment 

21 was that at the time of our review that dust 

22 loading was associated with D&D, but the time 
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1 period of interest at that time did not 

2 include the D&D operation.

3 So I think that that was the one 

4 observation I found that may now have been 

5 resolved, because it's been extended.

6 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

7 I'd like to make a comment, if I could.

8 DR. MAURO: Sure, please.

9 DR. NETON: Again, my 

10 understanding is that we were down to 

11 examination of the residual -- reconstruction 

12 of thorium dose in the residual period, and if 

13 you look at Appendix C, I mean, I'm reading 

14 from the last paragraph on page six of the 

15 document, it says, "The thorium and thoron 

16 intakes during the residual contamination 

17 period are estimated using the technique 

18 described in Addendum 2 of the SEC evaluation 

19 report."

20 So in essence, what we've done is 

21 formalized what was written up in Addendum 2, 

22 so that we would have a procedure to refer to 
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1 when we use that methodology, not an SEC 

2 evaluation report. So that, in essence, is the 

3 crux of what happened, and Appendix C is 

4 relevant, I think, to the residual period.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks for that 

6 clarification. I mean, I was aware of that, 

7 and I think John was also, from his quick 

8 reading. I just think we, you know, just need 

9 to sort of directly address that, and if 

10 there's any additional information in there 

11 that is relevant to SC&A's review they should, 

12 you know, bring it forward. If not, then 

13 there's no need to do that. My communication 

14 with John has all taken place, I believe, 

15 since Wednesday of this week, so to be fair to 

16 him I don't think they've had time to, you 

17 know, sort of fully review the documents and 

18 so forth.

19 Are there any other outstanding 

20 technical issues that anyone has that we 

21 haven't addressed or are not addressed in the 

22 NIOSH reports or the SC&A reviews of those 
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1 reports that people believe that we do need to 

2 address?

3 DR. McKEEL: Dr. Melius, I have a 

4 couple.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: We'll get to 

6 you, Dan. Let me just start with the work 

7 group first.

8 DR. McKEEL: I apologize.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And then, we 

10 will get to you.

11 DR. McKEEL: I apologize.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Anybody on 

13 the work group have any comments?

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well let me just 

15 ask. SC&A did a focused review on what was 

16 called Addendum 2.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: And it wasn't 

19 clear from what Jim Neton -- I think, Jim, you 

20 were just saying that you now have just 

21 formalized that procedure, right, in terms of 

22 --
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1 DR. NETON: Correct.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: So in that sense 

3 it's already been reviewed. Has anything 

4 changed?

5 DR. NETON: Well, you know, I have 

6 not gone through all the calculations in 

7 Appendix C, but based on the statement in 

8 there, the intent was that it formalized all 

9 the discussion that we had, you know, in 

10 Addendum 2 as to how we would reconstruct 

11 doses during the residual period.

12 There's more to it -- there's more 

13 in there than that. As John mentioned, 

14 there's, you know, some reconstruction 

15 information during the covered period, as well 

16 as the residual period.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. And, John 

18 Mauro, you folks had a number of observations, 

19 or I guess they were findings.

20 DR. MAURO: Yes, we --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- on Addendum 2.

22 DR. MAURO: Yes.
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1 DR. NETON: Yes, this is Jim. I 

2 think where we are at, and correct me if I'm 

3 wrong, John, but I think SC&A issued a brief 

4 report in March.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: That's correct.

6 DR. NETON: That commented on our 

7 comments.

8 DR. MAURO: Yes.

9 DR. NETON: And, in essence, my 

10 take on this, and this might be over 

11 simplistic, but, in essence, there's agreement 

12 that we -- you know, that the approach is 

13 bounding that we've put forth. However, there 

14 remains some, I would consider, tweaking 

15 issues, as to which samples are included or 

16 not included in the analysis to get the final 

17 numbers for exposure during the later years of 

18 the residual period.

19 DR. MAURO: I agree with that 

20 characterization.

21 DR. NETON: That's where I believe 

22 we are at.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And just as I 

3 understand it then, Appendix C of TBD-6000 was 

4 issued after that report, after that March 

5 report, and after the review, and then I 

6 brought that to John's attention this week as, 

7 you know, a potential issue, and asked him to 

8 take a quick look at it.

9 I actually think it would be 

10 appropriate for them to allow them time to 

11 take -- you know, sort of do a focused review, 

12 which I don't think will involve a lot of time 

13 or effort, but at least to, you know, read it 

14 through in more detail and compare it with 

15 what they did for their earlier review, and 

16 then report back to the work group on that.

17 Is that satisfactory with 

18 everybody? Again, I don't think it involves a 

19 lot, but, again, I think it's important that, 

20 you know, they do take a look at this since it 

21 does have -- potentially have some impact on 

22 the review.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, Jim, this is 

2 John, yes, and from my read of it, it's 

3 something that will take a marginal amount of 

4 work, it would not be a big -- we'd issue a 

5 memo to the effect to see how things changed 

6 and what their potential importance are. I 

7 don't see it being a large effort, a few work 

8 days.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody in the 

10 work group have any objections or agreements, 

11 disagreements with that?

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. If we need to 

13 formally task that, you know, we are going to 

14 meet in a couple days, so we can take that in 

15 the framework of the total picture.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, I'm not 

17 sure --

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: But this won't be 

19 a big ticket item.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- right. I'm 

21 not sure, we've tasked -- I can't remember 

22 what we specifically tasked SC&A for the first 
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1 time on this one, or last time, but we can 

2 check and then finish it up next week, finish 

3 the tasking next week. Any other issues that 

4 people in the work group have or, John Mauro, 

5 you have?

6 DR. MAURO: I don't. I have Bill 

7 Thurber and Chick Phillips on the line. Is 

8 there anything about the discussion we just 

9 had that you'd like to comment on?

10 MR. THURBER: No, I think that --

11 I believe it was Jim Neton, pretty much hit 

12 the nail on the head, that there is -- we felt 

13 there is some transparency in some of the 

14 comments that NIOSH had made that would 

15 improve the story and make it easy for people 

16 to follow and understand.

17 COURT REPORTER: I'm sorry, this 

18 is the court reporter. Can I ask who is 

19 speaking?

20 MR. THURBER: I'm sorry?

21 COURT REPORTER: Could you 

22 identify yourself, please?
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1 MR. THURBER: Oh, Bill Thurber, 

2 sorry.

3 COURT REPORTER: All right, thank 

4 you.

5 MR. THURBER: So, yes, I think 

6 that some clarification of some of the things, 

7 as Jim mentioned, showing what samples were 

8 used and what samples weren't used and why, 

9 that sort of thing. But, again, they are not 

10 show stoppers.

11 MR. PHILLIPS: This is Chick 

12 Phillips. I don't have anything else to add, 

13 John.

14 DR. MAURO: Thank you.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Dan, you had 

16 some comments you wanted to make or issues to 

17 bring up?

18 DR. McKEEL: Jim, thank you very 

19 much, yes.

20 I guess my comment about Appendix 

21 C is that I'd be very happy if SC&A did a

22 focused review, and I think they should 
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1 because -- just to reiterate what I think this 

2 represents. The first SEC was awarded to Dow 

3 Madison because they -- because NIOSH admitted 

4 it could not reconstruct the thorium doses 

5 during the production period, the AEC contract 

6 period, and they issued an 8314 SEC. So that 

7 really wasn't at issue.

8 By now, NIOSH claims that, in 

9 fact, they can do the thorium reconstruction 

10 of intakes during the residual period, and one 

11 of the issues that I brought up when the SEC 

12 was in my two addresses about the original SEC 

13 and then extending the SEC to the Board, was 

14 that I had questions about whether the data 

15 that was attributed to Dow Madison and used as 

16 new data that came in after the SEC 

17 determination was really all from Dow Madison.

18 If it were not from Dow Madison 

19 but from other Dow plants and facilities, then 

20 in my opinion, since there was no such data 

21 from Dow Madison that the Board's surrogate 

22 data criteria and NIOSH's surrogate data 
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1 criteria in OCAS IG-004 should be applied and 

2 to see whether NIOSH had justified the use of 

3 surrogate data properly.

4 So I think my own opinion is that 

5 issue is still out there and, you know, needs 

6 to be resolved.

7 The other issue is that to my 

8 knowledge, except in the discussions in the 

9 work group, there has never been a formal 

10 resolution -- dispute resolution statement 

11 that all the findings that NIOSH -- I mean, 

12 that SC&A had in the Addendum 2 had actually 

13 been fully resolved and were now off the 

14 table. So I think that ought to be done.

15 The remaining technical issue that 

16 I know of is, in a drawing of the plant, a 

17 floor diagram that I obtained from the Dow 

18 workers and presented to the Board in, I 

19 think, the last presentation I gave them about 

20 the residual period. There was drawn on the 

21 plan, near what was called the NDT, or the 

22 non-destructive testing room at Dow Madison, a 
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1 little red box that was labeled "batatron," B2 A-T-A-T-R-O-N, which I think is a misspelling 

3 for betatron, and the workers have testified 

4 that that betatron unit was manufactured by a 

5 company named Kelly-Koett, K-E-L-L-Y dash K-O6 E-T-T.

7 And as I think I mentioned to the 

8 Board, Kelly-Koett did manufacture betatron, 

9 and, you know, that's easy to establish. And 

10 so if -- and I think OCAS IG-003 guidance is 

11 still operative here, and that guidance is 

12 that such devices should be considered during 

13 the AEC, all radiation source terms should be 

14 considered during the production period.

15 Now I understand that an SEC has 

16 been awarded for the uranium production period 

17 1957 to `60, and I suppose you could say that 

18 the fact that the betatron by Kelly-Koett was 

19 not considered in that decision, is kind of, 

20 you know, water that's passed over the dam.

21 But I think that it at least 

22 should be mentioned in Appendix C because 
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1 Appendix C does not just cover the residual 

2 period, it also covers the production period, 

3 and, as a matter of fact, that is the sole 

4 site profile type document that exists for Dow 

5 Madison.

6 So I think that's a very important 

7 document, and if it's used as guidance for 

8 dose reconstructions, which have accelerated 

9 at Dow Madison recently and fortunately and 

10 all to the good, then the fact that there was 

11 a betatron at the plant operating during the 

12 production period should be at least factored 

13 into dose reconstruction. So I realize that 

14 this group is primarily focused on the SEC, 

15 but that's really an unresolved, in my 

16 opinion, technical issue.

17 So, you know, I think that that is 

18 -- I guess that's what I would say. I think 

19 the final issue that I would like to say about 

20 the Rocky Flats shipments is from everything 

21 that I can gather from the workers those 

22 shipments, if, indeed, they took place, may 
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1 have extended before and after the period of 

2 `57 to `60.

3 So one of the things that I think 

4 has -- should be pursued has not really been 

5 fully pursued, is to go back again to the 

6 Department of Energy and ask them to look for 

7 those records and search their files, 

8 including the unclassified ones, to see if 

9 they can confirm that fact or not.

10 And I merely remind everybody that 

11 although for many years Department of Energy, 

12 the Army Corps of Engineers, absolutely, and 

13 during the FUSRAP clean-up, the Army Corps of 

14 Engineers maintained steadfastly that all 

15 thorium work at Dow Madison was commercial and 

16 not related to AEC.

17 Then lo and behold, in 2008 now, 

18 eight years later, or ten years after the 

19 clean-up, DOE acknowledges with documents that 

20 were obtained through Dow Headquarters in 

21 Michigan that, in fact, Dow Madison HK-31 was 

22 used in nuclear weapons. So that would be my 
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1 justification for saying that there is a 

2 significant possibility that DOE still 

3 maintains those confirming records. I believe 

4 that additional efforts should be made to try 

5 to obtain them.

6 So anyway, that's where I am on 

7 the technical issues, and, again, I very much 

8 appreciate having you all allow me to give 

9 that input.

10 MR. KATZ: Dan, this is Ted. 

11 Would you just do me a favor for the 

12 transcript and spell out the manufacturer of 

13 the betatron that you spoke of there?

14 DR. McKEEL: Well, I already did 

15 that, but I'll do it again, and the name of 

16 that manufacturer is Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y, then 

17 there's a hyphen, and K-O-E-T-T.

18 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

19 DR. McKEEL: Kelly-Koett. I don't 

20 know how you pronounce it, but that's the way 

21 it's spelled.

22 MR. KATZ: Thank you.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, NIOSH, do 

2 you have any response to that or comments you 

3 want to make on those issues, or anybody from 

4 the work group?

5 DR. NETON: Well, this is Jim 

6 Neton. I certainly understand what Dr. McKeel 

7 is talking about. That was an issue that was 

8 raised in the affidavit for the SEC petition, 

9 and it's something we do need to consider.

10 And I also agree that it's not 

11 necessarily related to this SEC working 

12 group's task at hand, but it is something that 

13 does need to be -- we need to close the loop 

14 on that as a dose reconstruction issue.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry 

17 Elliott. The only thing I would have to offer 

18 a comment on here is, I believe we can check, 

19 but DOL, or DOE will say, I believe, that they 

20 have searched the record systems applicable to 

21 try to determine whether or not there were 

22 shipments to Rocky Flats. And the other thing 
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1 I would point out is that the Podonsky letter 

2 says this is not an established fact but it 

3 may have been possible, is the way it reads, 

4 may have been possible.

5 So, you know, I think good to 

6 Glen's word that he's trying to make DOE gain 

7 some humanity and make some good decisions, 

8 he's really given, you know, some benefit of 

9 the doubt here. So I just don't think that 

10 ought to be misrepresented.

11 DR. McKEEL: This is Dan McKeel. 

12 I'm not trying to misrepresent it, I 

13 appreciate it, but he did weigh the evidence 

14 and came to the conclusion that Dow Madison 

15 should be designated an AWE site for thorium, 

16 and did so. So I'm not misrepresenting what 

17 he did. 

18 He did send part of the Livermore 

19 documents that led to that conclusion, and 

20 there was clearly, there was -- the first page 

21 of those notes was most interesting because it 

22 said that the Department of Energy had 
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1 actually looked at a number of nuclear weapons 

2 parts pictures that used thorium HK-31A as 

3 part, and the issue they had was that they 

4 didn't have sufficient records to determine 

5 exactly where those parts were manufactured. 

6 And they speculated that they could have been 

7 Oak Ridge, et cetera.

8 So, again, and I'm not being 

9 critical of individuals, but after all, one 

10 could say that Department of Energy 

11 predecessor AEC should have maintained really 

12 great records on who supplied them with parts 

13 for nuclear weapons that could have 

14 devastating effects on humanity. And, you 

15 know, it's certainly not my fault that they 

16 don't have those records. 

17 So I think the DOE, you know, what 

18 they did is on the record, and it was pretty 

19 clear from that letter that despite the fact 

20 that it had taken two years to get that 

21 information, that they did have information 

22 that HK-31 thorium alloys were used in nuclear 
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1 weapons parts. So I don't think it's an 

2 unreasonable thing to ask them to go back to 

3 look again harder, in light of the previous 

4 performance.

5 So thank you.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I thank 

7 everybody.

8 What I'm going to propose we do, 

9 relative to this work group and trying to 

10 complete our work, is that we will have --

11 we'll task SC&A to do the Appendix C TBD-6000 

12 focus review, and then we will hold another 

13 work group meeting, hopefully between now and 

14 -- or our next Board meeting and the following 

15 meeting in October, I believe it is, and at 

16 that Board meeting try to bring closure to a 

17 recommendation on this particular SEC.

18 DR. MAURO: Jim, this is John 

19 Mauro. I just wanted to make sure, so we are 

20 being authorized, as of this phone call, to 

21 proceed work on that.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm not sure 
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1 whether we have to -- Ted, maybe clarify, you 

2 might want to wait until next week.

3 DR. MAURO: Okay.

4 MR. KATZ: Jim, it's fine. I 

5 mean, I can task them at any time, and so you 

6 can task them now on this call.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay, so you are 

8 tasked, John.

9 DR. MAURO: Okay, one more 

10 question. I noticed that there was a question 

11 that came up regarding the use of surrogate 

12 data that might have been part of the protocol 

13 used for the residual period. I don't recall, 

14 thinking back, whether or not any surrogate 

15 data was used or not. Do you want us to look 

16 into that aspect of the work also or just 

17 limit our work to Appendix C?

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't -- I'm 

19 trying to recall myself whether -- I don't 

20 believe it was.

21 DR. MAURO: Yes, I don't recall 

22 any surrogate data either, but certainly if 
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1 you'd like that to be part of what we look 

2 into, we can do that also.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I mean, I think 

4 in preparing for our discussion at the next 

5 work group meeting I think we ought to clarify 

6 that.

7 DR. MAURO: Okay.

8 MR. THURBER: This is Bill 

9 Thurber. I would note that in Appendix C that 

10 Bay City film badge data was used for the 

11 external dose pathways for thorium.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

13 MR. THURBER: Which would meet the 

14 surrogate data --

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: The review --

16 the work group review at the next meeting 

17 would be, in a sense comprehensive, we would 

18 go back through and review all these issues in 

19 the sense of a discussion and update.

20 DR. MAURO: Okay. Now, I presume, 

21 given the action item to do the review of 

22 Appendix C, we should put out a brief white 
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1 paper on that review and send it to the work 

2 group as soon as possible.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Correct.

4 DR. MAURO: Very good.

5 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. 

6 I've got a question of clarification, I guess. 

7 Appendix C covers both the residual and the 

8 covered period. If the covered period is 

9 already in the SEC, is the scope of the review 

10 going to be limited to the residual period in 

11 Appendix C or the entire operations at Dow 

12 Madison?

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'm at a little 

14 loss remembering what earlier reviews there 

15 had been done at Dow.

16 I think, well, John, do you recall 

17 --

18 DR. MAURO: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- whether --

20 DR. MAURO: I may be able to help 

21 out a little. I think that there are always, 

22 even though 1957 through 1960 is designated as 
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1 an SEC period, there are always issues 

2 regarding dose reconstruction for those 

3 workers who may have a cancer that is not 

4 covered by the SEC. So there's always an 

5 interest to make sure that the methodologies 

6 described -- for example, reconstructing the 

7 uranium exposures during the covered period, 

8 which NIOSH's position is they can do those.

9 So I would say that it makes sense 

10 for SC&A to not only look at the residual 

11 period, but also the covered period, too.

12 DR. NETON: I might argue, though, 

13 John, that to keep the scope that broad would 

14 just add more to the task of the focus of this 

15 SEC evaluation. I mean, we are really trying 

16 to focus on the SEC.

17 DR. MAURO: I understand.

18 DR. NETON: Whether we can 

19 reconstruct -- I mean, I don't disagree that 

20 that shouldn't be reviewed at some point, or 

21 is not up for review, but to bring that into 

22 the mix with another host of subset of 
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1 potential findings is maybe more problematic 

2 and adds more work to the SEC group that 

3 doesn't need to be there at this point. 

4 That's my opinion.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: This is Jim. I 

6 mean, my sense is that --

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I'm not sure 

8 that the -- this is Ziemer -- I'm not sure the 

9 SEC group should be tasking outside that 

10 framework, Jim. I guess we could do it on the 

11 TBD-6000 group at some point anyway.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would think if 

13 they identify issues during the covered time 

14 period that -- sort of site profile issues 

15 that should be addressed, that would be -- I 

16 mean, I would just hate at the same time to be 

17 inefficient, have them to have to go back a 

18 second time or whatever.

19 I certainly think in terms of 

20 discussion among this work group, we are going 

21 -- the next meeting we are going to focus on 

22 the SEC issues.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: With the 

3 residual time period, and we wouldn't be 

4 spending time on that. Whether those issues, 

5 you know, you are right, Dr. Ziemer, they may 

6 very well should go back to the TBD-6000 work 

7 group. Maybe, John, why don't you start the 

8 review and then consult with Dr. Ziemer and I.

9 Is that okay with you, Paul?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think the main 

12 issue is not to get bogged down in a long 

13 process, but at the same time, you know, to 

14 flag issues that might require further review 

15 at some point, and we can decide what's an 

16 efficient and fair way of doing that.

17 DR. MAURO: I understand. We'll 

18 go forward on that basis.

19 MR. KATZ: And, John, if you would 

20 just keep me in the loop on that, whatever 

21 discussions you have with Paul and Jim, so I 

22 know what the task is at the end of the day, 
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1 that would be great. Thanks.

2 DR. MAURO: Will do.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good, thanks. 

4 Thanks everybody, and thanks, Dan, for your 

5 input.

6 In terms of a schedule for this 

7 SEC review work group to look at Dow, that 

8 will be most likely determined, we'll have 

9 some better idea of that next week at the 

10 Board meeting, when we start talking about our 

11 schedules going forward and so forth, do that.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So I'd like to 

14 finish -- end up Dow and move on to 

15 Metallurgical Labs, and Metallurgical Labs we 

16 had asked SC&A to review from a 250-day issue 

17 perspective. We had approved the SEC, but 

18 there were issues raised in our discussions 

19 about whether people with less than 250 days 

20 of exposure should be included in the special 

21 exposure cohort.

22 SC&A completed their report on 
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1 this last month and distributed it to the 

2 Board and to NIOSH. I don't believe it's 

3 cleared Privacy Act review, so remind 

4 everybody, I guess we need to be somewhat 

5 careful in discussing any details in it.

6 I talked to Jim Neton before he 

7 went away to the health physics conference two 

8 or three weeks ago, I can't remember exactly, 

9 and asked him if he would have time to at 

10 least read through the report and be able to 

11 respond at the time of this conference call, 

12 since we established the time for the call.

13 He said he would, would have the 

14 time, so what I would ask is for SC&A to do a 

15 brief summary of their findings, and then 

16 we'll follow it with some response, at least 

17 preliminary response, from Jim Neton or from 

18 NIOSH. I don't know who else has looked at it 

19 for NIOSH. And then we can take it from 

20 there.

21 John, I believe you are on. I 

22 don't know.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, we'll keep it 

2 brief, and maybe I'd like to ask Hans, who is 

3 the author of the report, if he's still on the 

4 line, Hans, are you there?

5 DR. BEHLING: Yes, I am.

6 DR. MAURO: Could you give us the, 

7 you know, five-minute overview of the report 

8 and your conclusions?

9 DR. BEHLING: Okay. I hope I can 

10 stretch it a little bit beyond five minutes 

11 because, as was already mentioned by Dr. 

12 Melius, this has not undergone the Privacy Act 

13 issues, so it's clear that not everyone has 

14 had access to the report and may not be 

15 necessarily familiar with some of the issues 

16 that I'd like to bring up.

17 But let me try to get us quickly 

18 through a summary of the report and the intent 

19 of the report. What I tried to do was to look 

20 at the available data to gain a general 

21 understanding of the processes, the 

22 conditions, and the operating protocols under 
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1 which the Metallurgical Laboratory was 

2 operated, and then assess the applicability of 

3 the 250-day criteria for SEC eligibility in 

4 context with that knowledge.

5 So in order to achieve that 

6 objective, I reviewed more than 500 separate 

7 documents and reports that were listed on 

8 behalf of the Met Lab in NIOSH's site research 

9 query database, and let me just quickly 

10 summarize.

11 Consistent with NIOSH's conclusion 

12 as cited in their evaluation report, I also 

13 concluded that there was little or no data 

14 pertaining to external/internal monitoring of 

15 individual workers.

16 Yet among the available documents 

17 there was ample evidence that suggests that 

18 many of the Met Lab workers may have been 

19 subjected to external and internal exposures 

20 that by today's standards would be regarded as 

21 very high.

22 And of greater relevance to the 
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1 250-day issue is that the potentially high 

2 doses that may have been received as a result 

3 of discrete incidences, in other words, a 

4 very, very brief period of time, perhaps a 

5 day, a few hours, or exposures that occurred 

6 under relatively brief time periods, and by 

7 that I mean time periods that were 

8 considerably less than the 250-day, and let's 

9 briefly think of 250-day as really the 

10 equivalent of one working year, in other 

11 words, five days a week, 50 work weeks a year.

12 So in order to support the above13 stated conclusions, let me just briefly go 

14 through various portions of the report. For 

15 those of you who may have access to the 

16 report, either by hard copy or, perhaps, on 

17 your computer, I will point to certain things.

18 In Section 2 of the report, I 

19 discuss briefly some relevant background 

20 information which I believe are very critical 

21 here, and one of the key issues is one has to 

22 understand the time frame. We are talking 
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1 about the early 1940s. This is really, and 

2 this is the beginning, the birth of the

3 Manhattan project, this is the beginning of 

4 the nuclear age, and at that time we had never 

5 had a reactor, which means that for the first 

6 time with the operation of CP1 we encountered 

7 certain radiologic conditions that were 

8 totally unprecedented, unprecedented in a 

9 sense where we were dealing with high 

10 radiation fields produced by fission products 

11 that had never been produced in significant 

12 quantities. For the first time we encountered 

13 neutron fields that had never been 

14 encountered, and activation products.

15 There was also, up to that period 

16 of time, very little understanding about 

17 radiation effects on humans because up until 

18 that moment in time our experience with 

19 radiation was pretty much limited to x-ray 

20 machines, which were produced early on in the 

21 '30s, after Dr. Röntgen had discovered the use 

22 of x-rays for medical purposes and, to a 
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1 limited extent, a handful of radionuclides, 

2 predominantly radium-226.

3 So there was a very limited 

4 understanding of, specifically of fission 

5 products, and when they are ingested or 

6 inhaled what happens to them. We didn't have 

7 any clue about the genetics. How long do they 

8 stay in the body? Where do they concentrate 

9 and so forth?

10 So in essence, there was very 

11 little information available to the people at 

12 the time of the Manhattan project that would 

13 allow them to really establish an 

14 understanding of how to curtail and control 

15 worker exposure, so that, in essence, the 

16 operations at Met Lab represented the very 

17 beginning of the nuclear era, and there was 

18 little information and few existing standards 

19 and methods for both monitoring the worker, 

20 for protecting the workers against 

21 unprecedented radiological environments, and, 

22 of course, the issue of how to safely operate 
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1 the nuclear reactor, because this is the very 

2 first nuclear reactor that had the ability to 

3 a sustained chain reaction.

4 So the unprecedented radiological 

5 hazards associated with the operation of CP1, 

6 with its high photon fields, neutrons, fission 

7 products, activation products, mandated a 

8 whole bunch of new things. First, it mandated 

9 development of new instrumentation that was 

10 needed to monitor individuals. Up in that 

11 period of time, there was very little 

12 understanding of how to even monitor. We had 

13 some very crude instrumentation, such as the 

14 pocket ionization chambers, which were proven 

15 to be, obviously, not very useful in 

16 monitoring for neutrons, and it was really the 

17 beginning of developing the film dosimeter for 

18 monitoring individuals.

19 There was also a very limited, I 

20 already alluded to, understanding in the dose 

21 response relationship to the various types of 

22 external and internal sources of radiation. 
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1 In other words, we didn't really have a lot of 

2 biological data to work with that would say 

3 how much radiation is acceptable or how much 

4 is too much for workers to be exposed to, and 

5 lastly there was, obviously, in context with 

6 the understanding of the dose response 

7 relationship, there was a need to now 

8 establish exposure limits for the workers, 

9 which had never been before a major issue. In 

10 other words, up to this period of time most of 

11 the radiation that people had access to were 

12 controlled sources of radiation, such as an x13 ray machine, where you could shut it off and 

14 turn it on, where there was the ability to 

15 shield, and the same thing with radium. For 

16 the first time we had radiation environments 

17 that were unprecedented in the sense they 

18 created environmental and working conditions, 

19 radiologic conditions, that were the result of 

20 airborne contamination, contamination that was 

21 spread around the laboratory, and so on.

22 In Section 3 of the report, I 
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1 describe the evolution of what is referred to 

2 as tolerance level for external and internal 

3 exposures, and in brief, the term "tolerance 

4 level" was generally defined as that amount of 

5 exposure below which deleterious health 

6 effects were unlikely, and one has to 

7 recognize what that means in context with the 

8 time.

9 We were mostly concerned, during 

10 that time, with acute effects, short-term 

11 effects. We were not, at that time, concerned 

12 about the induction of cancer as we are under 

13 current conditions, where radiation protection 

14 really focuses on the long-term or latent 

15 effects that are dominated by cancer 

16 induction.

17 At the time, the tolerance levels, 

18 as I said, were based on extremely limited 

19 historical data and had to be hurriedly 

20 supplemented by a lot of animal experiments. 

21 So much of the Metallurgical Laboratory and 

22 the Manhattan Project focused on actually 
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1 filling in a lot of gaps. They worked 

2 feverishly with animal models trying to 

3 establish what happens to develop biokinetic 

4 models that might be applicable to humans, and 

5 lastly, they worked with human subjects, 

6 patients who were terminally ill, patients who 

7 had cancer, and, in essence, they became 

8 surrogates for animal studies in order to 

9 establish how much radiation can humans 

10 tolerate and still survive.

11 So this is basically the backdrop 

12 of how these tolerance levels were developed. 

13 And so in Section 3 I talk about the 

14 tolerance levels that were developed for 

15 various different areas. In Section 3.2 I 

16 talk about tolerance levels for external 

17 exposures, from photons, from betas and 

18 neutrons, and, again, when you look at those 

19 in context today they were considerably 

20 higher. At the time, it was considered okay 

21 to expose individuals to 100 millirems per 

22 day, which translates to 30R per year. For 
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1 beta, the tolerance level was considered okay 

2 for 150R per year for the skin or extremities, 

3 and for neutrons they had some very unusual 

4 criteria for judging the levels of neutron 

5 exposures, and at the time that involved a

6 quality factor of 4, which is considerably 

7 lower than the quality factors we currently 

8 assign in converting a dose of neutrons to 

9 equivalent values in units of rem.

10 In Section 3.3, I talk about 

11 tolerance levels for airborne contaminants, 

12 and one of the unique features there was that 

13 at the time they actually looked at radium as 

14 a reference value, and at the time they 

15 considered that the tolerance level for 

16 plutonium was based on an assumption that 

17 radium per unit activity was actually ten 

18 times more hazardous than the same amount of 

19 plutonium. And, of course, one looks at dose 

20 conversion factors today and realizes that 

21 that is, obviously, in stark contrast with 

22 current-day DCS and to the DAC values with 
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1 regard to those two nuclides.

2 In Section 3.4 I talk about 

3 tolerance levels for absorbed radionuclides in 

4 the body, and again, they focus on radium, 

5 polonium and plutonium, and provide specific 

6 levels of how much could you at any moment in 

7 time maintain a body burden of these 

8 radionuclides?

9 And in Section 3.5 I describe 

10 tolerance levels for urinary excretion, and at 

11 the time they only developed it for polonium, 

12 and their tolerance level for daily, 24-hour 

13 excretion level, was based on 5,000 dpm in a 

14 24-hour urine excretion.

15 And lastly, in 3.5 I talk about 

16 tolerance level for the ingestion and 

17 inhalation, and for those of you who may have 

18 access to the report, either online or on hard 

19 copy, I just wanted to basically go back 

20 because it's quite important to look at the 

21 actual numbers.

22 In Exhibit 1, which is on page 16 
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1 of my report, I would just like to draw 

2 attention to, for instance, one particular 

3 isotope, iodine-131, and tolerance levels were 

4 not necessarily defined on behalf of a chronic 

5 exposure. If you do have access to Exhibit 1, 

6 you will see that for iodine they also had 

7 tolerable amounts of microcuries to be taken 

8 on a one-time basis. In other words, you 

9 could expose yourself on a single moment in 

10 time or a single day, to as much as 135 

11 microcuries of iodine, which, in fact, when I 

12 convert the airborne concentration in the next 

13 column over, which is defined in terms of 

14 0.028 microcuries per liter, if you convert 

15 that into microcuries per cubic meter you 

16 realize that the one-day exposure could 

17 involve as much as 28 microcuries of iodine18 131 in a single cubic meter of air. 

19 And so if you assume a person may 

20 have worked for, let's say, eight hours, and 

21 breathing at 1.2 cubic meter per hour, what 

22 that translates to is that in a single day a 
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1 person could have potentially inhaled as much 

2 as 280 microcuries of iodine-131, which based 

3 on dose conversion values would translate to 

4 over 300 rads.

5 In other words, what I want to 

6 point out here is that the tolerance levels 

7 were not necessarily defined strictly for a 

8 chronic exposure, but they also made allowance 

9 for a single-day exposure that for the case of 

10 iodine would have allowed a single person to 

11 inhale as much as 280 microcuries in a single 

12 day.

13 Not surprisingly, when you look at 

14 all of these tolerance levels, that the 

15 limited knowledge, and, of course, the 

16 availability of -- the limited availability of 

17 data pertaining to the latent cancer cause and 

18 effects, we are not talking about the 

19 understanding of cancer induction, which at 

20 that time was really not an issue of concern.

21 And, of course, the complex 

22 biokinetic behavior of internalized nuclides, 
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1 all these combination of deficiencies in 

2 knowledge or the absence of data led to 

3 tolerance levels, as discussed in Section 4, 

4 that were significantly flawed and inadequate 

5 for protecting the health of workers.

6 And when we compared these values 

7 to present-day regulatory standards, tolerance 

8 level of external doses, air concentration, 

9 intakes by inhalation or ingestion, or 

10 sustained body burdens, were many, many times 

11 higher than they are today. And these are --

12 these ratios are defined in Section 4 of my 

13 report.

14 And, if, for instance, for those 

15 who have it, turn to Table 3 on page 18 --

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hans, could you 

17 try to sort of hurry up a little bit?

18 DR. BEHLING: Okay. You will see 

19 that, obviously, we are talking about ratios 

20 of what would be allowed today versus what was 

21 allowed back then in some instances were in 

22 the thousands of times higher.
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1 And I bring up the tolerance 

2 levels for the single reason that in 

3 Implementation Guide 1, which defines the 

4 basic core document for NIOSH and OCAS on how 

5 to deal with external radiation, we realize 

6 that in Section 3.1.4 we talk about photon 

7 dose reconstruction with regard to control 

8 limits, and I will quickly just read it.

9 That section says the following, 

10 "Dose reconstruction based only on 

11 administrative of radiologic controls will 

12 result in gross over-estimation of the 

13 claimant's dose. Unfortunately, if no 

14 monitoring records of any type can be found 

15 and the source term is unknown, an upper 

16 external dose estimate can be developed using 

17 occupational radiation protection limits."

18 And so this would be one option 

19 for looking at these tolerance levels and 

20 saying we will use them as a surrogate or as a 

21 last resort effort to reconstruct doses.

22 However, in the same paragraph the 
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1 Implementation Guidance also says that, "This, 

2 of course, assumes that appropriate controls 

3 were in place in order to prevent exposures in 

4 excess of occupational limits."

5 Now, as I said, when I looked at 

6 the reports there were plenty of data that 

7 would suggest, not only were these tolerance 

8 levels very, very high, but, moreover, there 

9 is evidence that many instances these 

10 tolerance levels were exceeded, and those are 

11 defined in Section 5. I won't go into it, you 

12 can read for yourself. Section 5.1 gives 

13 examples of external photon doses in excess of 

14 tolerance level. Section 5.2 gives examples 

15 of potentially high gamma and neutron doses 

16 received by operating the reactor. Section 

17 5.3 gives air concentrations well in excess of 

18 tolerance limits. There are examples, and 

19 these are actual documents. And in the last 

20 section we talk about plutonium contamination 

21 levels that were identified in the private 

22 residences of three individuals.
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1 The most relevant of all these 

2 things is that these radiation exposures that 

3 were, obviously, very, very high, can also be 

4 assumed to have been the result of an acute 

5 exposure because, for instance, when we talk 

6 about positive fecal samples, we can 

7 reasonably conclude that these are likely the 

8 result of a very recent inhalation or 

9 ingestion exposure.

10 Similarly, when you have 

11 significant changes in the cellularity of 

12 circulating blood, you usually conclude that 

13 these are the result of an acute exposure or a 

14 very short or brief exposure, and I talk about 

15 this to a large extent in the last section, 

16 when I talk about the issue of the fact that 

17 among the Met Lab workers there was a 

18 substantial number of people who were 

19 identified as having been exposed to excess 

20 amounts of radiation based on hematologic 

21 changes which have been the very topic of a 

22 discussion previously by the working group and 
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1 the Board as a whole, and in Section 6.3 I 

2 talk about what these doses might have been, 

3 and I conclude that on the basis of the fact 

4 that these observed hematological changes were 

5 observed among Met Lab workers, and then it 

6 describes in context with, for instance, the 

7 Y12 accident, we can conclude that some of 

8 these workers may have been exposed to doses 

9 in excess of hundreds of rads and resulted in 

10 these observed hematological changes.

11 So I will stop at this point.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you very 

13 much, Hans. I thought it was a very 

14 interesting and helpful report.

15 Jim, do you have --

16 DR. NETON: Yes, that's a hard act 

17 to follow, but I'll try to be brief and 

18 summarize. I had a chance to look at this in 

19 some detail, but not nearly as much as I would 

20 have liked.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And that's 

22 understood.
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1 DR. NETON: But I would comment 

2 that SC&A -- compliment them on a well 

3 written, scholarly review of work conditions 

4 and exposures during the Manhattan Project. 

5 It's an excellent resource document from that 

6 perspective.

7 That compliment notwithstanding 

8 though, I do have some comments based on the 

9 brief review I've had. My first one is I was 

10 generally kind of surprised how very little 

11 focused on the CP1 exposures, which I thought 

12 was the basis for this review in the first 

13 place.

14 If you look back at the 

15 transcripts that were provided as an 

16 attachment to the report, as well as the memo 

17 from Ted Katz, or email, it was clear in my 

18 mind that the issue arose at the meeting that 

19 this was an unshielded reactor, and would this 

20 be one of those situations where less than 250 

21 days might apply. In reality, there's almost 

22 nothing in the report that deals with 
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1 exposures at CP-1. In fact, it goes into 

2 great length on internal exposures, which 

3 we've kind of heard similar scenarios painted 

4 before.

5 DR. BEHLING: Can I make a comment 

6 to that effect?

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, go ahead, 

8 Hans.

9 DR. BEHLING: In looking over 

10 Appendix A, which is really the transcript for 

11 the working group, and I summarized those on 

12 page 6 of my report, and I itemized four 

13 bullets, and I said I think they summarize the 

14 transcript that is contained as Appendix A in 

15 our report.

16 First it says there were a 

17 substantial number of workers at Met Lab who 

18 were there for less than 250 work days. I 

19 think we agreed on that. Secondly, the 

20 operation of Chicago Pile-1, CP-1, was a 

21 planned event and not an uncontrolled critical 

22 event or operation.
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1 But, thirdly, in addition to the 

2 start up and operation of CP-1 as a plutonium 

3 production reactor however, the Met Lab was 

4 engaged in numerous other radiochemical 

5 operations which is why NIOSH established the 

6 SEC plan in the first place, and that third 

7 statement really was the reason why I focused 

8 a lot on tolerance levels and internal 

9 exposures because of the uncertainty that 

10 governs the internal exposures and the limited 

11 data that was known at the time to protect 

12 radiation workers.

13 DR. NETON: Again, I don't see 

14 that in the charts, but, anyway, that's 

15 another discussion for another meeting maybe.

16 But, given that, I did go and 

17 review the rest of the document, and Hans is 

18 right, there is evidence of very high acute 

19 external exposures, but in reality it appeared 

20 that the cases that are cited in the reports, 

21 and I went back and reviewed the reports that 

22 Hans based a lot of this on, was the medical 
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1 department's own self-identification of these 

2 elevated cases, these workers were selected 

3 for investigation because the existing 

4 monitoring program detected the exposures.

5 And they were, for the most part, 

6 not based on what the regulation would qualify 

7 as a discrete incident, but rather on what I 

8 would characterize as chronic. Now you can 

9 argue chronic may be less than 250, but they 

10 certainly weren't discrete incidents.

11 DR. BEHLING: Well, again, if you 

12 look at --

13 DR. NETON: Maybe I should just 

14 finish, and then we can talk about it.

15 DR. BEHLING: Okay, I'm sorry.

16 DR. NETON: Please.

17 In the internal exposure 

18 evaluation, we've seen similar analyses by 

19 SC&A at other sites, Ames in particular, where 

20 they do these hypothetical existence of large 

21 acute exposures that produce PoC values 

22 greater than 50 percent, and we discussed this 
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1 before, that is not in and of itself a basis 

2 for defining a class.

3 You know, we talked about this 

4 before, it's not a litmus test. In fact, that 

5 was intentionally avoided during development 

6 of the rule. It was avoided in part, as we 

7 discussed before, because there are, 

8 essentially, an infinite number of parameters 

9 to consider, for example, exposure magnitude, 

10 radiation type, cancer, target organ, 

11 demographics. It has to be evaluated to 

12 determine if, in fact, a PoC of 50 percent can 

13 be exceeded. So that calculation, in and of 

14 itself, doesn't establish it.

15 And then there's this contention 

16 by SC&A in the report that talks about the 

17 congressionally-established SEC class was 

18 based on modern -- possibly based on modern19 era exposures and not necessarily applicable 

20 to Manhattan-era project exposures.

21 I'm not sure of that. I think 

22 it's conjecture at best, and, in fact, it's 
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1 quite simple, once you go back and demonstrate 

2 that there are acute internal exposure 

3 scenarios at the covered gaseous diffusion 

4 plants that could also produce PoCs of greater 

5 than 50 percent for a very short period of 

6 time, such as exposure to highly insoluble 

7 very enriched uranium doses to the lungs. So 

8 I'm not sure that argument holds water with 

9 me.

10 In some ways, too, I believe the 

11 report mischaracterizes what the tolerance 

12 level was. There were some excursions 

13 allowed. But in one of the reports that Hans 

14 cited there's a paragraph that reads as such, 

15 "It must be continually borne in mind that the 

16 tolerance dose is not the assumed maximum that 

17 can be endured without effect" -- or "is the 

18 assumed maximum that can be endured without 

19 effect. It is not to be taken as the optimum 

20 to which one should expose them self. The 

21 less exposure anyone gets the better it is for 

22 him." So it's pretty clear that, you know, 
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1 the ALARA concept, at least to some degree, 

2 was in place in the early 40s.

3 Let's see, what else. I won't go 

4 into the high exposures in the internal. I 

5 think I've covered that. And finally, I've 

6 not had a chance to evaluate all the numbers 

7 and technical calculations in this document, 

8 but I did find what I think is an error in 

9 Table 10, where the case is being made that 

10 the potential exposures were as high, if not 

11 higher, than 300 rem, based on a comparison of 

12 the Y12 criticality incident.

13 The table has two columns 

14 transposed. One for neutron dose, the neutron 

15 and photon dose columns are transposed. In 

16 fact, the neutron doses were much higher than 

17 the photon doses, and those high neutron doses 

18 are reported in units of rem, which is a 

19 stochastic base value, it's based on the risk 

20 of developing cancer and should not be used to 

21 quantify a deterministic effect.

22 And with that I'll stop.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks, Jim, and 

2 we understand the limited time period you 

3 have. Any of the Board members have questions 

4 for either Jim or Hans at this point? I 

5 realize the Board members have also had 

6 limited time.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, this is 

8 Ziemer. I think one of the -- one of the 

9 things we were trying to get a handle on 

10 initially was whether or not one could bound 

11 the doses on the CP-1 operation.

12 I mean, our focus was on that 

13 initially, and we had that issue. It really -

14 - in fact, I think it was a meeting you 

15 weren't actually there, Jim, and we sort of 

16 had to fill you in later, but it was the issue 

17 of -- it was a planned criticality, certainly, 

18 the first one was, and I don't know how much 

19 they operated that CP-1 after that. 

20 Do we know that? How many --

21 because once they established criticality then 

22 went on and built the Argonne reactors and so 
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1 on, but do we know how much CP-1 was actually 

2 operated?

3 DR. BEHLING: Well, it only 

4 operated for a period of about less than three 

5 months.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, but I mean, 

7 during that period --

8 DR. BEHLING: Yes.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- like the first 

10 -- the first criticality was, obviously, just 

11 very brief. Once they went critical, they 

12 shut her down. It's not like they had it 

13 operating for days after that. I mean, they 

14 shut it down, and they all had a glass of wine 

15 and so on. But how much was it actually 

16 operated after that, and can the doses from 

17 the reactor actually be bounded?

18 I think Jim Neton also talked a 

19 little bit about that. We know something 

20 about, we know the enrichment and the 

21 configuration, and, actually, we know 

22 distances pretty well, from pictures and so 
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1 on.

2 DR. NETON: Right, LaVon, you are 

3 on the phone, I don't know if you have any 

4 more to add on how -- the operation period of 

5 the CP-1, but -- and I do know that we had 

6 talked about, you know, bounding the external 

7 on neutron exposures based on first principal 

8 type calculations, which we've done for other 

9 reactor configurations in the past. So it 

10 wouldn't be an insurmountable task to do that.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Well, Jim, this is 

12 Josie. Dr. Ziemer, on page eight it said that 

13 the CP-1 was terminated in February of 1943.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I understand 

15 that. My real question was, do we have -- do 

16 we know exactly, like did they operate it 

17 every day? It was a big job stack, and they 

18 spent a lot of time stacking graphite and 

19 uranium in different configurations and trying 

20 to get a critical configuration.

21 Once they reached that, did they 

22 operate that, you know, like every day, or do 
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1 we know much about that because I would -- I 

2 would think, this is intuitive now, and, Hans, 

3 maybe you have better information on this, but 

4 I would think intuitively they could not have 

5 gotten very much exposure if, like, a critical 

6 assembly where you just go barely critical. 

7 They are certainly not up to a high power. 

8 This is natural uranium. They are some 

9 distance away, and they operated it, 

10 apparently, for a few -- long enough to get 

11 the count rate on the instruments and show 

12 that they got multiplication.

13 DR. BEHLING: That --

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: I'm sorry, Hans. 

15 Dr. Ziemer, this is LaVon Rutherford.

16 I think we do have the information 

17 on how -- generally, how much it was operated. 

18 I don't have it in front of me right now or 

19 recall exactly, but it was learned relatively 

20 quickly that they were going to have to move 

21 it and establish CP-2, and the reason why they 

22 moved it and established CP-2 was because they 
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1 wanted to add shielding. So I think we have 

2 that information.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Anyway, I 

4 think the impetus for looking at this 

5 initially was, in fact, would there have been 

6 exposures during those initial experiments

7 that were high enough to be considered like an 

8 incident, or do we have enough information 

9 that they can be bounded? If you can bound 

10 them, then the incident issue goes away, I 

11 guess, or does it?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It sort of 

13 depends on how plausible you can bound it, I 

14 guess. The criteria we continue to wrestle 

15 with now. How good does the bounding have to 

16 be?

17 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton. I 

18 was kind of hoping that's what the SC&A report 

19 was going to flesh out a little bit in their 

20 evaluation of that process, and of course we 

21 didn't see that. We can certainly put our 

22 calculations on paper and come to some 
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1 conclusions based on this. I am not sure, I 

2 am not trying to direct the working group, if 

3 the working group wants to take up this entire 

4 SC&A 52-page report that covers the waterfront 

5 of all exposures for Met Lab and beyond we can 

6 certainly discuss that, too.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, Jim, this is 

8 Arjun. Let me throw my two cents worth in, 

9 since I've been kind of not on this report but 

10 on the 250-day issue with you in general on 

11 behalf of SC&A.

12 I think Hans's report does raise, 

13 you know, a lot of questions about acute 

14 doses. We've talked about internal doses in 

15 terms of, you know, the committed doses, and 

16 how that might be equivalent to criticality. 

17 But here, you are -- Hans is talking about 

18 doses where there were hematological changes 

19 and so on. We've not done that before. It 

20 seems like, you know, whatever merit it might 

21 have in relation to the CP-1 experiment, it 

22 does raise some 250-day issues that are 
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1 worthwhile.

2 DR. MAURO: I'd like to add a 

3 little bit to that, too. This is John Mauro.

4 Jim, you had mentioned something 

5 that struck me as important. When I saw the 

6 white blood cell depression amongst some of 

7 these workers, you know, right off the bat, 

8 you know, we are talking about doses that are 

9 considerable, perhaps, on the order of 100 rem 

10 delivered acutely, in order to cause that kind 

11 of depression.

12 But, and certainly if that 

13 occurred, and there might have been some other 

14 workers who were not, actually, brought into 

15 the hospital for a blood count, et cetera, et 

16 cetera, that could have experienced those 

17 doses, it's almost prima facie evidence that 

18 what we have here is something that is 

19 equivalent to a criticality in an uncontrolled 

20 circumstance.

21 But you had said something I think 

22 is important for everyone to consider, is the 
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1 people who did get those exposures were -- it 

2 was known, and they were brought into the 

3 hospital, and that they were dealt with, and 

4 in theory it's somewhat controlled. I'm not 

5 sure if that's controlled or not.

6 But there's a possibility, 

7 notwithstanding if it occurred during the CP-1 

8 criticalities or under other circumstances, if 

9 the situation existed in those years where 

10 there were workers that might have experienced 

11 exposures that could have caused white blood 

12 cell suppression and they went unnoticed, you 

13 know, it seems to me that is the definition of 

14 defining a group that might need to be 

15 included in the cohort.

16 DR. NETON: I don't disagree with 

17 you, John. I mean, I think that is the 

18 definition, were there incidents that were 

19 unrecorded that -- well, were there incidents 

20 out there that could have risen to these 

21 levels? And I think, you know, in reading 

22 through the documents that Hans relied on for 
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1 his information, you get the sense that there 

2 was a lot of attention paid to exposures.

3 I mean, yes, the levels were high, 

4 but they reacted very strongly in those cases 

5 to situations where there were like blood cell 

6 -- you know, these workers were restricted 

7 from work, or, you know, they changed source 

8 configurations, that sort of thing.

9 So it's not like there was a 

10 failure of radiation protection programs, 

11 almost, I mean they did acknowledge them and 

12 they dealt with them. So --

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: But did they 

14 identify all of them?

15 DR. NETON: Well, that's a 

16 hypothetical question. Can we make that case? 

17 I don't know.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, it --

19 DR. NETON: It's almost like 

20 proving the negative situations again, like 

21 was the program sufficiently robust to 

22 identify all possible workers. Could there 
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1 have been one person, and we don't have that 

2 anywhere right now that I see.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, my 

4 argument would be that we need to take a 

5 closer look so we can make some sort of 

6 judgment on what went on there, I mean, I 

7 think we have to recognize, one, is that our 

8 criteria for health endangerment is not very 

9 rigid, and to me it's problematic. You know, 

10 we've arbitrarily set 250 days, we've 

11 struggled and we've discussed at length the 

12 issue for less than 250 days. 

13 I would, you know, rather than try 

14 to get into the legalistic argument about that 

15 now, is let's go back and look at what 

16 happened there, given how long ago it was, 

17 given the fact that we know there were many 

18 people that worked a short period of time, 

19 let's try to get the facts together and see 

20 what information we have that would, you know, 

21 where does that lead us, and then we can make 

22 an assessment, what's the right and fair thing 
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1 to do for these people, and maybe it sheds 

2 light on how we deal with similar situations.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, this is Arjun 

4 again. I agree with you. Just a couple of 

5 other comments. I think NIOSH has already 

6 said they cannot reconstruct dose. I think 

7 the records show that the project was 

8 solicitous of extreme exposures and radiation 

9 protection and so on. I mean, after all, they 

10 established a health physics program, a lot of 

11 the people came from the Met Lab.

12 But since an SEC has already been 

13 established on the idea that NIOSH cannot 

14 reconstruct dose, we are only talking about 

15 health endangerment, and in health 

16 endangerment it's not whether it's controlled 

17 or uncontrolled, it's whether something 

18 equivalent to that occurred to endanger the 

19 health.

20 I don't think it matters whether 

21 it was a planned thing or an unplanned thing. 

22 The question, it seems to me, is whether the 
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1 health was endangered.

2 DR. NETON: Arjun, I would agree 

3 with you, except that if it was known and 

4 evaluated, then one could reconstruct that 

5 dose theoretically, right?

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: You've said that 

7 you can't reconstruct dose.

8 DR. NETON: We said we couldn't 

9 reconstruct exposures that occurred over 

10 chronic situations, over 250 days. If there 

11 were incidents that were known and identified 

12 and evaluated, we would certainly look at it 

13 critically to see if it could be 

14 reconstructed.

15 I mean, it doesn't mean -- just 

16 because a high -- a high exposure, in and of 

17 itself, does not equate to health 

18 endangerment. You have to have an inability 

19 to put an upper limit on it.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: We don't even know 

21 how long this -- how many times this reactor 

22 was operated.
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1 DR. NETON: We know the extent of 

2 the total operating period, and, according to 

3 LaVon, we have indications as to how much it 

4 was operated.

5 DR. MAURO: There's one more --

6 Hans, when we were talking about this report, 

7 you had mentioned that the number of people 

8 that worked there during the time period of 

9 interest, a very large number of them worked 

10 there for less than 250 days. In other words, 

11 the staff sort of cycled in and cycled out. 

12 It's not like a production place, where you 

13 have a baseline staff that's there for many 

14 years.

15 What was the number of people that 

16 you estimated were there for less than 250 

17 days?

18 DR. BEHLING: Well, one of those 

19 is right in the report, if you look at page 

20 33, you will see, as Exhibit 8, people who 

21 were defined as resigned or cut off. And if 

22 you realize the date for that particular 
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1 document, this occurs within seven months of 

2 the start up of the Metallurgical Laboratory, 

3 and the total number of people 167. 

4 So by definition these people all, 

5 even if they started on day one, would have 

6 worked for less than a 250-day period.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Many of them got 

8 reassigned once they decided to go to -- you 

9 know, build the reactors elsewhere, so that's 

10 sort of a given.

11 I really think one of the sort of 

12 interesting philosophical questions is, maybe 

13 it's the one Arjun raises, and it's sort of 

14 what we bump into over and over again, the 

15 sort of arbitrariness of saying that 250 days 

16 is the sort of cutoff point for health 

17 endangerment, and I guess philosophically, I 

18 think what Hans is arguing for is to say that 

19 we sort of accept that in a sense based on the 

20 way things are today, and if they were very 

21 much different 50-60 years ago, should the 

22 health endangerment period, in essence, be 
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1 shorter than that. That's kind of the 

2 argument, and that's very tough to deal with. 

3 I kind of am sympathetic toward that. I 

4 don't -- I don't know how to --

5 DR. BEHLING: I think we actually 

6 did -- we concluded that on behalf of people, 

7 for instance, like in the case of the Marshall 

8 Islands, which we, obviously, shied away from, 

9 but we said since these people there are on 

10 location 24 hours a day --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, yes, but see 

12 that's a 250-day equivalent. I think what we 

13 would end up arguing here would be that it 

14 didn't take 250 days worth of sort of normal 

15 exposure then to get the same -- I think you 

16 are arguing that it doesn't take -- it 

17 wouldn't take as long to get whatever it is to 

18 get to the same level of "health 

19 endangerment," as it does nowadays, based on 

20 very much different operating criteria.

21 DR. BEHLING: Exactly.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: If one argues that 
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1 -- and, again, who knows what the 250 day is 

2 really based on, it seems to be a working 

3 year, and it's in the legislation, and no one 

4 really ever said that if you work a year at 

5 current levels that that's, you know, the 

6 argument. But sort of intuitively it seems 

7 like you are arguing for considering that it 

8 was very different in those days.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And Congress at 

10 least recognized that, that there were 

11 different circumstances because the -- of how 

12 it handled the --

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I just think 

14 we are going to have to have some more 

15 discussions on this.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, and I'm not 

17 trying to -- I agree, and I guess my question, 

18 and maybe this is a question -- this is sort 

19 of a tasking issue going forward, and maybe 

20 people should think about it, and we can talk 

21 about it at the meeting next week, but I guess 

22 one is to give NIOSH time to more, you know, 
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1 formally and in more detail respond to the 

2 SC&A report, and then I think we could, based 

3 on this discussion and on that response, we 

4 could sit down and have a more fruitful 

5 discussion of this topic and this site, and 

6 then I guess the question on that is about 

7 trying to bound the exposures from the reactor 

8 as to who should do that.

9 I guess, Jim, you expected SC&A to 

10 take a shot at it, and they didn't, and does 

11 NIOSH want to do that and come back, or should 

12 we have -- task it to SC&A to do?

13 DR. NETON: I don't know. I'd 

14 like to think about this a little more because 

15 I don't necessarily disagree with what Dr. 

16 Ziemer stated, is that, you know -- I don't --

17 you know, it's clear that these exposures were 

18 higher --

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

20 DR. NETON: -- than what we would 

21 have experienced in today's workplace.

22 But the issue then becomes, you 
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1 know, you know, rather than to point-by-point 

2 sort of have NIOSH respond to all the issues 

3 that were raised in the SC&A report, it seems 

4 like there's more of a philosophical thing 

5 that, you know, we could address it from a 

6 more philosophical argument, as Dr. Ziemer was 

7 alluding to.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

9 DR. NETON: And maybe approach it 

10 from that perspective, rather than get balled 

11 up in these 50 percent PoC calculations and 

12 all that kind of stuff because that doesn't go 

13 anywhere --

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, no.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fine, 

16 Jim, and I agree, but I guess it would be 

17 helpful if you could organize -- you think 

18 other information that should be considered in 

19 that discussion, you brought up some issues 

20 today, so that we all have all the facts 

21 there.

22 So if you think there are other --
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1 it may not be, you know, calculations, it may 

2 be something else, but other things that need 

3 to be considered about that site that would be 

4 helpful as to that.

5 DR. NETON: Right.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Because I think 

7 we are having trouble how to frame the 

8 decision on this.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Exactly.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: On all these 

11 sites, and so, it's getting that --

12 DR. NETON: And I know you wanted 

13 to shy away from the regulatory issue, but at 

14 the end of the day we have two choices, 250 

15 days or present, and that's, to me, one of the 

16 biggest rubs in this issue, is I would agree 

17 that it might take less time to get to the 

18 endangerment, but we have to then go all the 

19 way to the other end of the spectrum and say 

20 just presence for one day at the site 

21 constitutes health endangerment, and that's 

22 not very, you know, palatable in my mind.
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1 So I don't know.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think 

3 all of us would agree on that formulation of 

4 it, but if you want to think about it, and 

5 let's talk next week about what should be an 

6 appropriate way of, you know, sort of NIOSH 

7 reporting or responding on that, or how we 

8 would then set up a work group discussion to 

9 go into this sort of appropriate level of --

10 sort of frame the discussion in a framework 

11 for dealing with this issue overall.

12 So --

13 DR. NETON: And I would say these 

14 high external exposures at the Met Lab are 

15 probably the closest we've come, at least in 

16 my mind, to get our heads around where to go 

17 with it. I think these were very high 

18 exposures, there's no doubt.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And they are --

20 yes, they are hard to ignore for that reason 

21 and feel that we are still being fair to 

22 claimants. I think to me that's the --
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1 DR. NETON: The internal issues, I 

2 think, that we tried to deal with for internal 

3 exposures are difficult for me because, like I 

4 said, we can come up with very high internal 

5 organ doses for even the congressionally 

6 mandated SEC, so, you know, that doesn't work 

7 real well for me. And those are chronic 

8 exposures at the end of the day anyway.

9 But this external thing, I'd like 

10 to think about some more.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I think we 

12 all will, the work group will also, and SC&A, 

13 and maybe we can do some site evaluations next 

14 week and come up with a way to move forward.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: Dr. Melius, this 

16 is LaVon Rutherford. I wanted to point out one 

17 thing just briefly, just so everyone knows.

18 I did happen -- and this has 

19 nothing to do with the overall decision, but I 

20 did look at the cases that we have, and we do 

21 only have two cases that had short duration of 

22 employment at the Met Lab during that period. 
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1 So I just thought that would be useful 

2 information.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: It is useful, 

4 and I'll point out my usual counterpoint that, 

5 you know, people, they know if they have short 

6 periods of employment they are not eligible, 

7 so they often don't apply.

8 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I'm sure 

10 they are advised that way by Department of 

11 Labor and others. 

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: I just wanted to 

13 --

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, no.

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- point it out 

16 just so you knew that we weren't holding up a 

17 bunch of claims or anything that way.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fair, 

19 LaVon.

20 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay.

21 DR. BEHLING: Dr. Melius, this is 

22 Hans. Can I just make a comment that goes back 
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1 to an earlier statement by Jim Neton that 

2 contested the issue No. 3, where I had quoted 

3 on page six of my report that part of this 

4 issue involved the Met Lab, where I quote, 

5 "The Met Lab was engaged in numerous other 

6 radiochemical operations, which is why NIOSH 

7 established the SEC class in the first place."

8 And I took that particular 

9 statement out of Appendix A on page 47, which 

10 is the transcript that involves the previous 

11 meeting of the work group, in which Dr. Ziemer 

12 made the following statement, Chairman Ziemer, 

13 "I think a little more discussion needs to 

14 occur because it's not clear to me how all 

15 these pieces fit together, the reactor versus 

16 the radiochemical operations that occur, which 

17 is why the class was added in the first place. 

18 And there's another class possibly there, so 

19 we need to talk through this." And that's the 

20 statement that I extracted in making reference 

21 on page six.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That will teach 
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100

1 Dr. Ziemer to say anything.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Keep my mouth 

3 shut, huh?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, right. I'm 

5 always taken back when I'm quoted in a report 

6 from a transcript.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Hard to argue 

8 that, right?

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, right, 

10 exactly. Did I really say that?

11 DR. BEHLING: Well, take a look on 

12 page 47.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no, I 

14 actually read those in the report, I came 

15 prepared. Thank you.

16 Okay, well, let's all talk next 

17 week, unless anybody else has any comments 

18 they feel necessary or would be helpful.

19 It's 4:45 on a Friday, at least on 

20 the East Coast.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

22 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If not, then I 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

101

1 think we'll adjourn, and we'll see everybody 

2 early next week.

3 Thanks everybody.

4 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

5 matter went off the record at 4:47 p.m.)