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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 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON WORKER OUTREACH

+ + + + +

TUESDAY,

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

+ + + + +

The Work Group meeting convened in 

the Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott Hotel, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, 

Kentucky at 9:30 a.m., Michael H. Gibson, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MICHAEL H. GIBSON, Chairman

JOSIE BEACH, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member*

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

NANCY ADAMS, NIOSH Contractor*

TERRIE BARRIE, ANWAG*

ANTOINETTE BONSIGNORE, Linde Petitioner*

LAURIE BREYER, NIOSH OCAS*

LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH OCAS

MARY ELLIOTT, NIOSH Contractor

DONNA HAND, Public*

EMILY HOWELL, HHS

J.J. JOHNSON, NIOSH OCAS

MARK LEWIS, ATL

VERNON MCDOUGALL, ATL

ROBERT MCGOLERICK, HHS

NANCY MAHR, Public*

ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

KATHRYN ROBERTSON-DEMERS, SC&A
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I-N-D-E-X

Welcome and Introductions.................. 4

Discussion of Draft Implementation Plan.... 6

Worker/Advocates/Claimants Concerns

and Comments

Terry Barrie, ANWAG ............... 169

Donna Hand ........................ 170

Antoinette Bonsignore .............. 174

Nancy Mahr ........................ 201

Further Discussion of Draft

Implementation Plan ................ 175

Adjourn
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 9:34 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay, this is an 

4 official good morning to everyone. Again, the 

5 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, 

6 Worker Outreach Work Group, and we're going to 

7 do roll call and then get right to business 

8 beginning with board members in the room.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Mike Gibson, 

10 Chair of the Work Group.

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Phil Schofield, 

12 board member.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Josie Beach, board 

14 member. 

15 MR. KATZ: And on the line?

16 MEMBER MUNN: Wanda Munn, board 

17 member.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. And then going 

19 through the room, first NIOSH OCAS team?

20 MR. ELLIOTT: Larry Elliott, 

21 director of the Office of Compensation 

22 Analysis and Support.
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1 MR. KATZ: And contractors.

2 MR. LEWIS: I'm Mark Lewis, 

3 Advanced Technical Laboratories, contractor 

4 for NIOSH.

5 MR. MCDOUGALL: Vern McDougall, 

6 ATL, contractor for NIOSH.

7 MR. JOHNSON: J.J. Johnson, OCAS.

8 MR. KATZ: And --

9 MS. ELLIOTT: Mary Elliott, 

10 contractor for NIOSH.

11 MR. KATZ: On the line, OCAS or 

12 ORAU or ATL or other contractors?

13 MS. BREYER: This is Laurie Breyer 

14 and I'm with OCAS.

15 MS. ADAMS: This is Nancy Adams, 

16 contractor with NIOSH.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. How about 

18 ombudsmen? Do we have Denise with us yet? 

19 Brock? Okay. I think she hopes to join us. 

20 Then SC&A team in the room.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm Kathy 

22 Robertson-DeMers, SC&A.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm Arjun 

2 Makhijani from SC&A.

3 MR. KATZ: And on the line, SC&A?

4 DR. MAURO: John Mauro, SC&A.

5 MR. KATZ: Welcome, John. Okay. 

6 Then other federal employees in the room.

7 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS.

8 MR. MCGOLERICK: Robert 

9 McGolerick, HHS.

10 MR. KATZ: And on the line, other 

11 federal employees? Okay. And then members of 

12 the public who want to identify themselves on 

13 the line. Any folks from the public?

14 (No response.)

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. Mike. Oh I 

16 just, and I think everyone on the line knows 

17 this, but please mute your phone except when 

18 you're addressing the group, *6 if you don't 

19 have a mute button, and then *6 again to come 

20 back on. Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. We've got 

22 a pretty full agenda. Hopefully if we can 
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1 stay on task here we can possibly shorten the 

2 day a little bit, but I think it's important 

3 that we get our draft plan finalized as much 

4 as possible and then discussion of the 

5 potential evaluation and communication 

6 specialists I think are probably the two most 

7 important things today. So with that we'll 

8 move right into the draft implementation plan. 

9 Does everyone have that, or have it available 

10 to them?

11 MEMBER MUNN: Mike?

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, Wanda?

13 MEMBER MUNN: I sent you very late 

14 -- my apologies -- a request to take a look at 

15 the wording in our mission statement to see if 

16 we could un-garble the syntax on that. You 

17 would have only received that message just in 

18 the last few minutes, again, my apologies for 

19 that. But as we address the implementation 

20 plan, either before it or at some time during 

21 that time it would be helpful perhaps for us 

22 to take a look at the proposal, clarifying 
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1 that wording. It's just breaking it up into 

2 two sentences and making a couple of gerunds 

3 out of nouns, other nouns that we've used in 

4 the past which I think makes it read a little

5 better. But you might incorporate that into 

6 your agenda at some point.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I just 

8 pulled that up and I agree with Wanda, I 

9 think, to start out with the mission 

10 statement. Wanda has proposed that we, like 

11 she said, just break up the mission statement 

12 into a couple of sentences and it reads like 

13 this. "The mission of the Advisory Board on 

14 Radiation and Worker Health's Worker Outreach 

15 Work Group is to evaluate the effectiveness of 

16 NIOSH activities in obtaining and making use 

17 of information from current and former workers 

18 and their representatives," period. "The 

19 mission also includes monitoring and 

20 evaluating the effectiveness of NIOSH and 

21 other sources of assistance to assure this 

22 information is available to as many potential 
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1 EEOICPA claimants as possible." I think it 

2 does a good job of breaking it up and making 

3 it a little more easy to understand. 

4 MEMBER BEACH: So the two changes 

5 were adding a period after "representatives" 

6 and making "obtain" "obtaining?" Is that the 

7 only two changes?

8 MEMBER MUNN: No. The second 

9 sentence then, "obtaining" and also "making 

10 use of information" in the first sentence. 

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: How would the 

12 second sentence start?

13 MEMBER MUNN: "The mission also 

14 includes monitoring and evaluating --

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Arjun, I can 

16 forward it to you if you want me to.

17 MEMBER MUNN: -- "the 

18 effectiveness of NIOSH and other sources of 

19 assistance to assure this information is 

20 available to as many potential EEOICPA 

21 claimants as possible." I believe it says the 

22 same thing, but with a little less redundancy.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Arjun, I sent 

2 you a copy of it.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, thank you.

4 MR. KATZ: You scratched, "for 

5 potential EEOICPA claimants," right? 

6 MEMBER MUNN: No, I changed it. I 

7 moved it so that instead of saying "assistance 

8 for" I moved "potential EEOICPA claimants" 

9 down to after "available to as many."

10 MR. KATZ: Oh okay, good.

11 MEMBER MUNN: And then scratched 

12 "of these current and former workers."

13 MR. KATZ: Got it.

14 MEMBER MUNN: We said "current and 

15 former workers" in the first sentence.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes. That sounds nice, 

17 easier on the ear and eye.

18 MEMBER BEACH: I think that cleans 

19 it up nicely. Thank you, Wanda.

20 MEMBER MUNN: You're most welcome.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, then we'll 

22 do that, incorporate that on the next round of 
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1 this. Thanks, Wanda.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, sir.

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, now if we 

4 can move into the scope of the Worker Outreach 

5 Work Group. Does anyone have any thoughts, 

6 discussions, questions, concerns?

7 MEMBER MUNN: A couple of 

8 comments. In the body of that statement, in 

9 the sentence that references PR-012 the second 

10 time it reads, "Detailed description of each 

11 meeting is available in OCAS-PR-012." 

12 Shouldn't that say "description of each 

13 meeting type" because the procedure does not 

14 describe each meeting, it describes each type 

15 of meeting? Is that not correct?

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's 

17 true.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So, instead of 

19 "detailed description of each meeting" it 

20 would be?

21 MEMBER MUNN: "Each meeting type."

22 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: "Each meeting 
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1 type." 

2 MEMBER MUNN: And just as a matter 

3 of form, two sentences later it's easy enough 

4 to use the active voice rather than the 

5 passive voice by saying, "OCAS provided input 

6 to the working group," rather than, "input was 

7 provided." 

8 MEMBER BEACH: Can you repeat 

9 that, Wanda?

10 MEMBER MUNN: That sentence, if 

11 we're going to use the active voice which is 

12 usually preferable should read, "OCAS provided 

13 input to the working group on June 24," rather 

14 than, "input was provided by OCAS." 

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: All right. Any 

16 other grammatical concerns?

17 MEMBER MUNN: Next to the last 

18 sentence currently reads, "Some specific types 

19 of meetings actually provide as well as 

20 gather." I don't know, other eyes, but I had 

21 to go back and reread that a second time to 

22 understand what it says which isn't clear, but 
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1 had to reread it. I think we could avoid that 

2 by saying, "Some specific types of meetings 

3 both provide as well as gather" rather than 

4 "actually." "Both provide as well as gather 

5 information from workers."

6 MR. KATZ: Yes. You can drop 

7 "specific" too which is redundant, really.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Drop what, Ted?

9 MR. KATZ: Drop "specific." I 

10 mean, "some types of meetings both provide as

11 well as," however Wanda had it.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, "both provide 

13 as well as gather information."

14 MEMBER BEACH: Wanda, if we go 

15 back up, Wanda, to your first correction under 

16 "detailed description of each meeting type in 

17 OCAS-PR-012," that needs something I think. 

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

19 MEMBER BEACH: "A detailed 

20 description" possibly, just add an "a" before 

21 detailed? I'm not sure how to fix that, but 

22 it's not correct the way it is.
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1 MR. KATZ: You could just say 

2 "detailed descriptions" plural.

3 MEMBER BEACH: That would help. 

4 Okay. 

5 MR. KATZ: "Detailed descriptions 

6 of meeting types are available" is one way to 

7 do it. Right?

8 MEMBER BEACH: Sounds better.

9 MR. KATZ: That okay with you, 

10 Wanda?

11 MEMBER MUNN: Sure.

12 MR. KATZ: Sure, okay.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. And then 

14 as far as the types of meetings that are 

15 outlined in the bullets with bullets, does 

16 that look like it's a good description, 

17 correct description, anything needs to be 

18 changed?

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have a question 

20 for Larry. Do you also have meetings when you 

21 gather information for Technical Information 

22 Bulletins or not?
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1 MR. ELLIOTT: It's possible that 

2 we could hold a focus group meeting.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Should that 

4 be added to the second bullet, or should that 

5 be a third bullet there?

6 MR. ELLIOTT: I think "technical 

7 basis document" covers TIB. I think under 

8 Information-giving we should add a third 

9 bullet for our workshop efforts.

10 MEMBER BEACH: It's on the second 

11 page.

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh yes, dose 

13 reconstruction. I see. 

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Is that better 

15 under information-giving or is it a two-way 

16 street?

17 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it's a two18 way. I think this is fine. I'm sorry, I 

19 failed to read further on.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Well, and I just 

21 wonder if under the information-giving if the 

22 other outreach venues made the information-
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1 giving and -gathering, add that to the very 

2 first and have all those bullets together, or 

3 do they need to be separated like that?

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Do what now? 

5 Say that again?

6 MEMBER BEACH: Well, where it says 

7 information-giving and then it gives the two 

8 bullets, SEC petition process and then the 

9 town hall meetings to educate, and then we go 

10 to other outreach venues. Do we need to keep 

11 those separate, or can we add those together 

12 and then the bullets all together? 

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, the way 

14 I'm reading it, it's like some of the meetings 

15 are more intended to gather information, some 

16 are more intended to give information, and 

17 then there are some that are a mix.

18 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that's correct.

19 MEMBER MUNN: In the title "Other 

20 Outreach Venues," do we actually mean may be 

21 information-giving and gathering, or do we 

22 mean may be information-giving or gathering? 
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1 One would be just as correct as the other 

2 depending upon the meaning.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

4 it's an and/or.

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, it would 

6 seem to me that -- and maybe I'm wrong, but 

7 the other outreach venues are intended for the 

8 back and forth, whereas in the information9 gathering or giving there could be potential 

10 input that would be used. Does that sound 

11 right, Larry?

12 MR. ELLIOTT: I have no problem 

13 how you phrase it here. To mean it's six of 

14 one, half a dozen of the other.

15 MR. KATZ: You could even take out 

16 the "may be" and just say "information-giving 

17 and gathering" I think here. I just wonder 

18 for completeness, it's not a meeting per se 

19 but you do have other things, you have the 

20 ombudsmen, you have the petition counselor. 

21 Do you want these reflected here somehow?

22 MEMBER MUNN: It's my opinion they 
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1 should be since we currently are concerned 

2 with --

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: -- the other 

4 sources.

5 MR. KATZ: Could you address them 

6 later -- in the plan they're addressed.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, I agree.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay, so there's the 

9 SEC petition counselor and the NIOSH EEOICPA 

10 ombudsman.

11 MEMBER MUNN: They could very 

12 easily be included in the paragraph --

13 MR. KATZ: What is the third 

14 category?

15 MR. MCGOLERICK: Doesn't that come 

16 under information-giving under SEC petition 

17 process and education?

18 MR. KATZ: I think -- I mean, I 

19 think I can speak more for the ombudsman than 

20 the petition counselor. I know the ombudsman 

21 does a bunch of both. She's not just giving 

22 information, but she receives a lot of 
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1 information that she provides on to OCAS and 

2 the program. Larry could speak about that.

3 MR. ELLIOTT: That's true. I 

4 guess my question is different. Is the 

5 Ombudsman's Office subject to review.

6 MR. KATZ: Well, it's not an OCAS 

7 -- to be clear, that's not an OCAS function, 

8 that's a NIOSH function. But it is certainly 

9 part of the portfolio of what gets done for 

10 claimants in that respect. I think it's 

11 proper for the Worker Outreach Group to be 

12 looking at that to be sure.

13 MEMBER BEACH: I agree.

14 MEMBER MUNN: It appears that a 

15 sentence just before the last sentence in the 

16 following paragraph, the paragraph that 

17 immediately follows the listing of the types 

18 of meetings could be inserted. Just before 

19 "tracking would focus on information provided 

20 by site operations," et cetera. Where we're 

21 listing CATI's --

22 MR. KATZ: Oh, right.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: -- DHA meetings, 

2 close-out interviews. It seems an appropriate 

3 place to add.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, I agree Wanda, I 

5 think that's another way to do it. And it 

6 sort of -- it fits it in the sense that this 

7 is sort of routine, ongoing service like the 

8 CATIs. 

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Wanda, could you 

10 try to put a sentence together, an email to us 

11 of how you'd want it to go in there?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Oh dear. Yes. You 

13 want to include -- please give me the list of 

14 what you want me to include in it. 

15 MR. KATZ: So we're just -- we're 

16 just talking about the NIOSH EEOICPA ombudsman 

17 and the SEC petition counselor.

18 MS. BREYER: And Ted I'll just add 

19 in here -- this is Laurie -- that it's similar 

20 for me. I mostly educate. I would say the 

21 majority of the work I do with individuals and 

22 the public is to educate them about the SEC 
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1 petitioning process, but if I do receive 

2 information, you know, I do have a process to 

3 make sure that gets to the right individuals 

4 as well. 

5 MEMBER MUNN: Okay, so the NIOSH 

6 ombudsman and the SEC petition counselor are 

7 the two that you want to include in this. 

8 MR. KATZ: Yes. They may need a 

9 separate sentence, looking at this.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it appears to 

11 me that they may. And it will be a very 

12 simple one, but yes, I'll put something 

13 together for us later in the meeting.

14 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Wanda.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Does that 

16 -- so that's all the changes we think we need 

17 to make in the scope? Is everyone happy with 

18 the content?

19 MEMBER MUNN: It certainly seems 

20 to cover the scope. 

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: What did you 

22 say, Wanda?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: I said it certainly 

2 seems to be an adequate scope.

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Bill, you 

4 guys have any concerns?

5 MEMBER BEACH: I was just sitting 

6 here trying -- I see on the last paragraph 

7 that it talks about previous worker outreach 

8 databases, TopHat, WISPR, I was just looking 

9 to see where the current one, if it fits in. 

10 Do we want that in our scope and not just in 

11 our --

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, we 

13 would have to get rid of "previous."

14 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I think maybe 

15 we should do that. 

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So get rid of 

17 the word "previous," right?

18 MEMBER BEACH: Does it need to be 

19 in parentheses, or can it just be part of a 

20 sentence?

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, any other 

22 concerns with the scope?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: I guess, I'm looking 

2 at that first sentence there that we were just 

3 discussing. It indicates what some of the 

4 sources are, but it doesn't really state that 

5 we're including these. It just lists these as 

6 additional.

7 MR. KATZ: I think it could be re8 framed to say basically that, you know, in 

9 addition to the various meetings, et cetera, 

10 that are listed above, OCAS and NIOSH provide 

11 and obtain information through a variety of 

12 other means, and then list these things, you 

13 know, and make clear that these will be 

14 evaluated too. 

15 MEMBER BEACH: To keep consistent, 

16 maybe we should bulletize them in the way that 

17 we've done the others, by Arjun specialties. 

18 I don't know if it's necessary, but it would 

19 make it clearer.

20 MR. KATZ: I think just the 

21 English needs to be clear as to what the 

22 relevance of these is for this Work Group, but 
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1 I think that's a simple rewrite.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It needs to be 

3 clear that is within our scope.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes. I mean, I agree.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Am I being tasked 

6 with something?

7 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

8 MR. KATZ: You know, I don't think 

9 they have to be all bullets, but I think it 

10 could be done nicely in a paragraph. Wanda, 

11 maybe if you're going to add a sentence anyway 

12 covering the two additional items, if you want 

13 to take a crack at this today.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

15 MEMBER BEACH: Well and the only 

16 other thing I have Mike is we've got basically 

17 what our mission is. We don't ever say how 

18 it's going to be accomplished or how it's 

19 going to be tracked. And it may not belong in 

20 this first section, but it's something we need 

21 to think about.

22 MR. KATZ: Well, the framework for 
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1 how is the evaluation question.

2 MEMBER BEACH: Correct.

3 MR. KATZ: Which follows. I mean, 

4 that's just the broad framework for how and of 

5 course down the road that'll get fleshed out, 

6 but.

7 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. So we'll get 

8 to that then.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So would it be 

10 better then after the scope section, before 

11 the first evaluation objective if we add a 

12 sentence or two that says, you know, this will 

13 be accomplished by the following objectives? 

14 To show that we're taking a second step. We 

15 went from the scope to how we're going to do 

16 it. Does that make any sense or is that just 

17 adding needless words?

18 MR. KATZ: No, I think it's a good 

19 idea to have an introductory sentence or two 

20 that says in effect that the evaluation to be 

21 conducted by the work group will be -- I'm not 

22 going to say it in good English here, but will 
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1 be conducted under the following framework as 

2 something to introduce that this is the 

3 framework under which these elements will be 

4 evaluated. 

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe -- above the 

6 list of objectives maybe there can be an 

7 overall title that says objectives and then a 

8 sentence like what you just said. And then go 

9 to Objective Number 1, 2, and so on. Because 

10 firstly there is the mission statement, then 

11 there's Scope of Worker Outreach Working Group 

12 as titled, and the third title can be 

13 Objectives.

14 MR. KATZ: Yes and then an 

15 introductory sentence or two. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, right.

17 MR. KATZ: And then follow with 

18 the actual objectives. That's good.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Is that one you're 

21 working on, Arjun?

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. The 
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1 evaluation will be conducted by the Work 

2 Group. Well what I wrote down is the 

3 evaluation will be conducted by the Work Group 

4 in the follow-up framework as specified in the 

5 following four objectives. 

6 MEMBER MUNN: With the following 

7 four objectives as a basis.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Did you say "as a 

9 basis?"

10 MR. KATZ: I think if you just 

11 say, "under the following framework" or 

12 something like that. We don't need to say 

13 much.

14 MEMBER MUNN: That's simpler.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: And then at some point 

17 if you add an objective you don't have to 

18 revise that sentence.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So we are 

20 ready to look at the objectives now. Start 

21 with Number One, any comments or concerns? Is 

22 there anything that needs to be cleared up or 
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1 added?

2 MEMBER BEACH: Mike, before we go 

3 there I just have one brief question, and this 

4 might be a Larry question. In that -- under 

5 Outreach Venues including giving and gathering 

6 information, under the Dose Reconstruction 

7 Workshop that we just went to, that was 

8 considered an information-giving, or was it a 

9 giving/gathering?

10 MR. ELLIOTT: It was primarily to 

11 give information, but while we're there we 

12 certainly collect information. We've had SEC 

13 petition genesis occur at those workshop 

14 meetings.

15 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: So I see it 

17 primarily as a giving, but we do collect 

18 information, we do welcome input as you heard 

19 and I've already got three letters from last 

20 week's workshop about things that we could do 

21 better.

22 MEMBER BEACH: Right. So just for 
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1 me, I just kind of wanted to know if we were 

2 coming to audit or coming to look at it, you 

3 know, how we would know if it was more giving 

4 or gathering, or if it's just always going to 

5 be a little bit of both under those titles? 

6 So.

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I don't know 

8 that there's a strong distinction to make. 

9 You know, I think there's -- it's recognized 

10 that there's an opportunity in these forums to 

11 not only give, but to take in information and 

12 we want to address that opportunity both ways. 

13 When you look at just the -- I think by 

14 comparison the information-giving aspect of 

15 these two bullets that are listed here, SEC 

16 petition process education and town hall 

17 meetings to educate about changes in site 

18 profile, those are primarily directed at just 

19 providing information. Certainly at those 

20 venues we may walk away with some new 

21 thoughts, ideas and inputs, but you know our 

22 intended goal is to make sure that we 
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1 communicate effectively about how to process a 

2 petition, how to submit a petition, how the 

3 site profile may have been changed and what 

4 was changed, why it was changed.

5 MEMBER BEACH: Well, it's real 

6 easy to see what you're giving. It's harder 

7 to see what you're getting back and how you're 

8 noting that and how you're documenting it so 

9 that was where my question kind of came from 

10 for us.

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Laurie, can I 

12 ask you a quick question on these? When 

13 you've done a lot of these workshops where 

14 you're trying to educate people on the dose 

15 reconstruction or SEC petition process, do you 

16 receive a lot of feedback at that time?

17 MS. BREYER: Well, you did say 

18 Laurie, right?

19 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

20 MS. BREYER: Okay. I receive 

21 some. The workshops, the dose reconstruction 

22 workshops, they usually request feedback from 
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1 the participants, and I think Larry and Mary 

2 can also talk about that. As far as like the 

3 SEC workshops that Denise and I have done in 

4 the past, we don't have any kind of formal 

5 process for receiving feedback. We do have 

6 some informal conversations with people before 

7 and after the meeting, and get a lot of people 

8 that provide comments about things they did 

9 understand or didn't understand, or you know, 

10 typically they're positive. But we don't like 

11 document the feedback in any kind of formal 

12 process.

13 MR. KATZ: If I could make a 

14 distinction here, there's -- when you ask for 

15 feedback on a process that's a giving, for 

16 giving information then you ask for feedback, 

17 how well did I do this, that's really distinct 

18 from what's being talked about in this 

19 evaluation plan, meaning NIOSH getting 

20 information related to its technical 

21 documents, et cetera, versus giving 

22 information. So I think it's a little bit --
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1 we're mixing apples and oranges here. And if 

2 a dose reconstruction workshop is really just 

3 to give them information about how we do dose 

4 reconstructions, if we're just soliciting 

5 information about how well we did that, that's 

6 just part of still the giving process really 

7 and the board then can evaluate how well we 

8 did that, but OCAS is just doing its own due 

9 diligence in evaluating how well are we doing 

10 this. But if the dose reconstruction workshop 

11 is also a venue in which people raise issues 

12 about you know whether there needs to be an 

13 SEC petition at a site for whatever technical 

14 reasons, what have you, if it's intended to 

15 address that sort of purpose then that's 

16 something that would be evaluated for 

17 information-gathering, under an information18 gathering mission. So again, so I guess it's 

19 really up to OCAS to specify whether these 

20 different venues -- what their objectives are 

21 and then you evaluate them according to the 

22 objectives that OCAS specifies. But just 
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1 taking in information as to how well OCAS --

2 OCAS taking information in about how well it's 

3 doing its job, that's not information4 gathering in the sense that we have it in this 

5 framework.

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So, do we need 

7 to make that clear? I agree with you. So do 

8 we need to make that clear in one of our 

9 objectives?

10 MR. KATZ: So I think, I mean, for 

11 this thing what I think, as long as OCAS is 

12 comfortable with the categories that these are 

13 placed in, I mean I think that's good enough 

14 here, but then when you go into detailed 

15 evaluation of these different venues, I mean 

16 you know OCAS will lay out for you here are 

17 objectives for this that you can be evaluating 

18 and then you'll, you know, you'll evaluate it 

19 against those objectives, against those 

20 purposes. So you'll have very specifically 

21 from OCAS what they were trying to obtain. 

22 And then you can very specifically evaluate 
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1 how well that's getting done and if there are 

2 any ways to improve that.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So the 

4 workshop was presented as providing 

5 individuals with information that they can 

6 share with other claimants. Period. The end. 

7 Okay? But there were comments invited in the 

8 workshop that were pertinent to the site 

9 profile and dose reconstruction, so kindly 

10 clarify what you mean.

11 MR. KATZ: So, I mean that's an 

12 argument that even though they had the 

13 objective just of giving information, they 

14 have an open forum where people can provide 

15 that kind of input and so that's why you have 

16 it now, and I guess Larry agreed that it 

17 belongs under this giving and getting.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: But in 

19 terms of evaluating we're only going to 

20 evaluate them to the definition that they 

21 presented to the participants.

22 MR. KATZ: No, but if they took in 
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1 information at the venue that was related to 

2 the technical content of their TBDs and what 

3 have you, then you could still follow up as to 

4 how did that information get incorporated, for 

5 sure. 

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Josie raised that 

7 earlier, you know, when information comes up 

8 basically what documentation, follow-up, and 

9 essentially what you would think.

10 MR. ELLIOTT: And there may not be 

11 a formal process. Let's just be frank about 

12 it. I mean, Andrew Evaskovich last week 

13 reported that he thought dose reconstruction 

14 reports were being produced for LANL claimants 

15 using two technical information bulletins that 

16 were not final, were still in draft form, 

17 okay? Well that perks our ears up, that's a 

18 flag that gets raised in our minds. What do 

19 we do about that? Well, you know, I asked 

20 Andrew to send an email to the OCAS inbox so 

21 that we can have something from him in writing 

22 documenting what his concern was. Then we 
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1 took that and we provided an answer to him. 

2 Before we got our answer developed fully he 

3 realized that he was speaking in error and so 

4 told us in a further email. So, I mean in 

5 that instance, that example there may be a 

6 documentation trail that could be followed. 

7 You know, I think there were other things that 

8 we could point to that were brought up in last 

9 week's workshop that probably don't have that 

10 level of formality associated with them. 

11 Something might have been said that we've 

12 already considered and we don't find it to be 

13 something we're going to carry forward and do 

14 anything with, and hopefully that person was 

15 told that. 

16 MR. KATZ: I mean, when someone's 

17 doing an evaluation they could interview you 

18 about that, they could find out what happened 

19 there and they could lay the facts on the 

20 table. And that may be perfectly appropriate 

21 for that situation.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 
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1 Kathy. Can I ask you to kind of clarify 

2 something? Is the OCAS inbox the same as the 

3 docket?

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Things can be 

5 submitted to the OCAS inbox for the docket. 

6 In other words, somebody can write in and say 

7 through the OCAS inbox I'd like to make 

8 comment on NIOSH's technical bulletin or 

9 whatever and they can either ask or we will 

10 make a decision and it should be placed in the 

11 docket associated with that technical

12 bulletin. I think if you look at our website 

13 there is also a reference to how to submit 

14 written comments to the docket office 

15 directly. There's an address, there is a 

16 docket officer mentioned, so it's handled both 

17 ways. Formal comments can be submitted to the 

18 docket office and comments can be submitted 

19 through the OCAS inbox which we will then 

20 place in the docket appropriate to that 

21 document. Either way a response should be 

22 crafted and developed and forwarded back to 
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1 the individual. The response may be nothing 

2 more than, "We've received your input," by the 

3 way. "We will consider it as we revise our 

4 technical approach," or what have you.

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: This line of 

6 discussion we're just having, that is 

7 something that will be evaluated under 

8 Objective 2, correct?

9 MR. KATZ: Yes.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Before we go to 

11 Objective 2, under Objective 1 one of the 

12 things that really impressed me with the 

13 meeting that we went to was who was around the 

14 table. I thought it was a really good 

15 collection of people. They were obviously 

16 experienced advocates. As a result there was 

17 a lot of very good back and forth that 

18 happened, a lot of lively questioning, 

19 discussion, and so on. And so I think who 

20 gets around the table and the process for that 

21 seemed to be kind of pretty appropriate. I 

22 don't know if you want to add a bullet because 
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1 I don't see one. Maybe an elaboration of the 

2 second bullet, how OCAS informed workers, or 

3 how OCAS or ATL work together because I 

4 understood that it was some kind of -- Larry 

5 had a letter, I've seen that letter, and then 

6 Mark also invited people. I don't know 

7 whether you want to have a bullet for that 

8 process or assessing that process for who gets 

9 around the table or not.

10 MEMBER BEACH: I guess my question 

11 is does it change. Is there a different 

12 process at each meeting, or?

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think you're 

14 attempting to look into something that is 

15 perhaps not very well formalized, not 

16 documented in any procedure of any sort. As 

17 we approach the commitment to put on one of 

18 these workshops we through ATL's good offices 

19 they identify the organized labor reps that 

20 have not attended one of these in the past, or 

21 have attended but feel that they could benefit 

22 from a refresher, or they want to bring 
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1 somebody else with them. So there's an effort 

2 that ATL performs in that regard and they 

3 certainly -- or Mark or Mary could talk about 

4 that at length. The former worker screening 

5 programs, this is the second workshop. We 

6 really tried to include them and so, you know, 

7 we're operating with a list there and 

8 availability comes there, those individuals, 

9 when they can attend, when they can't attend, 

10 you know. They may get an invitation and they 

11 can't, so we just go down on the list. 

12 Advocates in the same way. I think we've had 

13 advocates in this workshop audience probably 

14 from the second workshop on and so, you know, 

15 as we encounter advocates that we feel could 

16 benefit from participating in the workshop and 

17 could aid claimants and have the right -- I 

18 need to be careful in my choice of words here,

19 but have the ability to get the information 

20 across to the claimants too. Quite frankly, 

21 some advocates don't, you know, won't benefit 

22 from our workshop because they're not going to 
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1 come in and take away what we hope that they 

2 will take away. So that doesn't mean we won't 

3 invite them, but we tried to identify those 

4 individual advocates that have a constituency 

5 out there that they're really trying to help 

6 and they could benefit from having this 

7 information that we can impart to them. And 

8 so we're limited by the space available in the 

9 venue that ATL has the logistical arrangement 

10 that they have arrived at with -- I'm not --

11 ICWUC. And so you know, you can only pack so 

12 many people into that space according to the 

13 fire code. And we're trying to do this on the 

14 cheap to a certain extent. We could certainly 

15 rent a bigger space, a bigger hotel, but we 

16 find that that can be problematic too. The 

17 more people you pack into the room perhaps the 

18 less effective we are, the less efficient we 

19 are. And so we really tried to target these 

20 to 24 or so people because that's what that 

21 room will hold and that's what we feel that we 

22 can get around the tables and work with in the 
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1 exercises with enough staff there to help 

2 individual groups from that 24 work through 

3 the exercises, et cetera. So I don't know. 

4 Does that help your understanding of how we 

5 come up with these folks? I mean, you know we 

6 had three or four people drop out of this one. 

7 After they got the invitation they couldn't 

8 attend, so we went on down the list and 

9 continued to invite till we got to 24. Vern, 

10 you want to?

11 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes, a couple of 

12 things. One, the ICWUC is in the process of 

13 getting newer somewhat upgraded space, but I 

14 don't want you to think we're stuck in that 

15 room for the wrong reasons. One, especially 

16 with the people that have traditionally come 

17 to these things it creates a nice -- it 

18 creates a good atmosphere for worker 

19 education. If we had a bigger venue, a tenet 

20 of sound worker safety and health training is 

21 you don't want to get much bigger than 25.

22 MEMBER BEACH: I don't think we 
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1 were concerned with the space or the size. I 

2 think the size was perfect. I think ours was 

3 just how do you get the people there, and we 

4 know that Mark contacted some people, we know 

5 that Larry sent out a letter to --

6 MR. ELLIOTT: I sent a letter to 

7 all participants.

8 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes, but let me 

9 address that just for a second because it's a 

10 little richer and more structured than that. 

11 Larry's letter went to people that we 

12 identified, okay? We do the groundwork first. 

13 We're talking with all of these people with 

14 the exception of a couple of advocates that I 

15 think Denise talked to. Everybody else was 

16 there because we reached out to them, 

17 explained what the workshop was about, 

18 discussed it, who should attend, and the list 

19 of people that should get Larry's letter came 

20 out of those discussions, okay? There were 

21 people who run medical screening programs who 

22 did not get Larry's letter because they told 
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1 me up front they -- because they were not 

2 interested up front, or one that got Larry's 

3 letter then decided they weren't interested. 

4 But it's a process. And the letter from ATL 

5 is basically providing more information to 

6 people who have already basically accepted 

7 Larry's kind of formal invitation. So it's 

8 all a process. Nobody is sending out letters 

9 cold just to people on a mailing list saying 

10 hey, do you want to come to our workshop, 

11 okay? We spend a good amount of effort and I 

12 think skill in working that through.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just so my comment 

14 wasn't misunderstood. I was actually -- we 

15 do, in my other hat, my institute hat, we do 

16 annual workshops that are teaching workshops 

17 basically, about a variety of technical things 

18 to community advocates and leaders, and we 

19 have also found with the staff that we have 

20 which is several staff people that if you have 

21 more than two dozen you can't do it right. 

22 And because the interchange -- you can have 
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1 30, we experimented with 30, and I know 30 

2 pushes the limit. So it wasn't a comment that 

3 there were too few people --

4 MR. ELLIOTT: No, we didn't take 

5 it as that.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- or the room was 

7 too small or anything like that. It was just 

8 that I was impressed with who was around the 

9 table.

10 MR. ELLIOTT: And you wanted to 

11 know how we arrived at that.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: And so, you know, 

13 is there a process to make that a repeatable 

14 result, is that typical, is there something 

15 the work group can learn, and so on.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: So this workshop 

17 that you observed last week, we wanted it to 

18 have a diverse audience so that's why we 

19 invited folks from organized labor, advocates 

20 and the former worker screening program folks 

21 that you saw. We also had and we invited 

22 Department of Labor's Ombudsman's Office 
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1 because we had heard in a previous workshop it 

2 would be beneficial to have somebody from DOL 

3 there to talk about Part E. And quite frankly 

4 we thought that Ombudsman's Office could 

5 benefit from what we provided as information 

6 as well, and I think they did. We also have 

7 had workshops and will have I think a workshop 

8 in the future where the audience is 

9 substantially different. It can be the whole 

10 -- it can be devoted just to resource center 

11 and Department of Labor claims examiners. 

12 We've done one of those in the past where it 

13 was dedicated just to those. We didn't have 

14 claimants in the room, we didn't have 

15 advocates in the room, we didn't have 

16 organized labor folks in the room. It was to 

17 inform DOL, the claims examiners and resource 

18 centers, what NIOSH's responsibilities are and 

19 how we go about performing those so that 

20 they're better educated in dealing with the 

21 claimant population. And we've already heard 

22 that DOL would like to have us hold one of 
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1 those workshops in the future because they've 

2 had a number of new claims examiners come 

3 onboard.

4 MEMBER BEACH: So you have a 

5 tentative April meeting scheduled. When will 

6 you decide who's going to be in attendance at 

7 that, or is it just a process?

8 MR. ELLIOTT: We haven't decided 

9 if that will be dedicated to the resource 

10 center DOL folks. Or you know I think Mark 

11 and Vern have got to run their trap lines and 

12 determine have they got a cadre of folks that 

13 didn't get to go to this last one that are 

14 anticipating the next one because that'll 

15 help. We may put on two real close. This is 

16 a lot of work. There's a lot of effort that 

17 goes into one of these things behind the 

18 scenes and it's like getting ready for a board 

19 meeting almost. But they do a fine job and I 

20 think it pays dividends to us and so we 

21 haven't decided at this point, you know, other 

22 than in April we're going to try to schedule 
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1 one. Now whether it'll be DOL or it'll be 

2 labor and advocates and who else, we don't 

3 know that yet.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Is there any 

5 thoughts to looking into like outside of 

6 labor, other professional organizations, 

7 Society of Engineers or known retiree groups 

8 or something you know? 

9 MR. MCDOUGALL: We don't 

10 consciously exclude retiree groups, for 

11 example, but first of all let me tell you Mike 

12 that a lot of these folks, the folks who come 

13 to these things don't really draw the 

14 distinctions between their roles in the way 

15 that we are around the table here. For 

16 example, the people from Oak Ridge were both 

17 from Y12 and ORNL. That four people were both 

18 the leadership of the medical screening 

19 program and the leadership of the ATLC, and 

20 the head of the medical screening program used 

21 to be the head of the ATLC. And the core 

22 group. And a lot of these people who run 
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1 medical screening programs may see themselves 

2 as advocates. I'm not sure, if you look at 

3 Andrew, because Andrew was there with the 

4 president of his union. Is he there as a 

5 Labor guy or is he there as an advocate? 

6 Well, you may define him, but I'm not sure 

7 that he needs to define himself that 

8 precisely. So this is some of the -- you 

9 know, there's a certain amount of art 

10 involved.

11 MR. ELLIOTT: I would draw you 

12 back to our purpose in holding these workshops 

13 and that is to assist, inform, subsidize, help 

14 people who are out there helping the 

15 population at large that are affected by this 

16 program. So if somebody said to us hey, the 

17 Painter's Guild, you know, there's a guy there 

18 that really is out there reaching out to folks 

19 and trying to help folks and he would benefit 

20 from your workshop certainly we would sick 

21 Mark on him and let him go. We realize at 

22 certain sites there isn't an organized labor 
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1 group that might be appropriate for us to 

2 tackle and so they talked with retired folks, 

3 they talked with, you know, who's out there 

4 helping these folks, who can we benefit in 

5 their work. That's the purpose.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Well there continues 

7 to be concern and adequate concern --

8 MR. KATZ: Wait, hold on a sec 

9 Wanda. You guys are talking over each other 

10 and it's impossible for the recorder to 

11 capture both. 

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Go ahead.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, go ahead Wanda.

14 MEMBER MUNN: It remains a quite 

15 valid concern that certainly by appearance 

16 many of the special meetings that are 

17 organized are organized specifically by and 

18 for organized labor members or people who are 

19 associated with organized labor's activities. 

20 Whether, as in the case quoted, one of those 

21 individuals may or may not serve some function 

22 outside a specific union function, that 
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1 doesn't change the fact that there's a real 

2 concern and it is quite obvious to those who 

3 are not members of organized labor that the 

4 same attention is not paid to other not 

5 organized groups and individuals as is paid to 

6 organized labor in setting up these kinds of 

7 activities. There's no way that is obvious at 

8 first glance to change anything that's been 

9 done in the past so that the same kind of 

10 requests are received and the same kind of 

11 unified effort is made because most of the 

12 non-organized units are by definition not 

13 organized. It is worthwhile for this board 

14 certainly to keep in mind that despite common 

15 understanding, the work "worker" does not by 

16 definition mean a union member.

17 MR. MCDOUGALL: Wanda, if I may, 

18 part of it I think you nailed it when you said 

19 something about organized. If people aren't 

20 organized in groups in some fashion it's real 

21 hard to deal with them. Where we've found 

22 organized groups we've dealt with them. An 
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1 example that I think I might have mentioned 

2 before is Pinellas where the -- and that was a 

3 non-union group down there, and the retiree 

4 group that we started with several years ago 

5 has at least in part morphed into whatever 

6 that advocacy group is called in Florida now. 

7 At least some of the leadership of that 

8 original retiree group went into there. There 

9 are retiree groups at some of these other 

10 sites that we have reached out to and 

11 basically they have not been, the ones that 

12 we've identified have not been that 

13 interested. So --

14 MEMBER MUNN: That's always the 

15 case if the information doesn't get to the 

16 specific person involved and that of course is 

17 something that may not be doable under any 

18 circumstances.

19 MR. MCDOUGALL: Well, we deal with 

20 the people who have been identified as the 

21 president --

22 MEMBER MUNN: Right.
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1 MR. MCDOUGALL: -- the president 

2 of the retire group and frankly it's the same 

3 with the unions, Wanda. You start with the 

4 leadership and you kind of depend on the 

5 leadership of any of these organizations to be 

6 willing to identify the folks that are going 

7 to be interested and are going to be 

8 contributors.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. 

10 Good morning everyone. I'm listening to the 

11 conversation and I just thought I would offer 

12 up a perspective that might be helpful. It 

13 appears that there are two different missions 

14 that we have today and we're discussing them 

15 together in a confounding way. Stay with me 

16 for a minute. One is to come to some 

17 sensibility regarding of course the mission 

18 statement and the implementation plan, and the 

19 other is to implement that plan. The 

20 conversations that we are having right now are 

21 almost a form of implementing the plan. What 

22 I mean by that is to discuss what is going on, 
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1 how it's being done, who are we reaching, how 

2 we're reaching them. In other words, we're 

3 into what I would say the actual 

4 implementation and doing the job. But it was 

5 also my understanding that we may want to do a 

6 little bit of that, but more importantly we 

7 want to do a little bit of that so that we can 

8 get a richer understanding of our 

9 implementation plan and whether or not the 

10 language we have, the scope and how we've 

11 defined ourselves in terms of the 

12 implementation plan is what we want and what 

13 we want to bring to the full Board for their 

14 blessing. So I just wanted to say that it 

15 sounds like these conversations are very 

16 useful, but only at this point in the process 

17 to the extent that they enrich our 

18 understanding of what our implementation plan 

19 should look like. 

20 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you, John. 

21 You are correct from my perspective. I 

22 believe we're ahead of the curve. We haven't 
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1 gotten through our implementation plan yet and 

2 we're discussing whether or not the 

3 implementation plan that we're trying to put 

4 together is working now. 

5 DR. MAURO: But it's good. As I 

6 mentioned, it's good that you talk about the 

7 real world, that we've participated in two 

8 meetings and there's an enormous amount of 

9 experience and going to that place and then 

10 coming back again and asking ourselves some 

11 probing questions regarding the implementation 

12 plan is a good way to do this.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: May I say 

14 something? I think what Arjun was proposing 

15 was to add another question that says how do 

16 you determine who you invite to worker 

17 outreach meetings. And it's not just the 

18 workshop. It's even more important with the 

19 information-gathering.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes, Arjun mentioned --

21 I concur with everything you said, John, but I 

22 thought it was great actually. I was very 
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1 pleased to hear the work group actually doing 

2 some of the evaluation now. I think that's 

3 great for the reason you said, but also 

4 because this has to be -- these questions have 

5 to be asked as part of the evaluation itself. 

6 So I think that's great. On Kathy's point 

7 just now, Arjun had said well, the second 

8 bullet probably needs to be revised. I think 

9 he said something along those lines anyway. I 

10 mean you could revise it just to say how OCAS 

11 identifies and informs as opposed to how OCAS 

12 informs and that then covers this point.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well I've got a 

14 question for Mark. He years ago came out to 

15 New Mexico from PACE Union and gave a 

16 presentation. Very professional, it was very 

17 useful, but what I want to know is how did 

18 PACE -- I mean, just using this as an example 

19 -- how did he get identified. How you're 

20 going to present this and who you're coming 

21 for -- I mean, looking at?

22 MR. LEWIS: I was invited there by 
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1 what are called the POWs. They asked me to 

2 come out and as far as how I was going to 

3 present it I just winged it. I only had a 

4 little bit of information and what I could 

5 find out about how -- I just went by how --

6 what I did, what we did as the PACE Union as 

7 far as empower people and doing outreach for 

8 the retiree group like some of the stuff we're 

9 talking here. I just went out and just was 

10 myself.

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: So the union 

12 didn't have a formal --

13 MR. LEWIS: No.

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. That's 

15 what I was getting at.

16 MR. LEWIS: That was me just doing 

17 a request from someone from Los Alamos and I 

18 went to the international, blessed it, took my 

19 little boy with me and away we went.

20 MEMBER BEACH: So if we get back 

21 to Objective 1. The first sentence after the 

22 objective says, "Examine procedures by which 
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1 OCAS solicits worker involvement." Do we need 

2 to list the procedure or procedures? Are 

3 there more than one procedure? Because I know 

4 we've got OCAS-PR-012.

5 MEMBER MUNN: I would suggest we 

6 not list procedures simply because we change, 

7 add to and delete procedures from time to 

8 time. And we can very easily get caught in 

9 the trap of having to follow a thread of a 

10 change like that through multiple documents.

11 MEMBER BEACH: What if we say 

12 "process?"

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's actually 

14 what we're doing.

15 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. But I hate to 

16 say "procedures" and then, well what 

17 procedures are we supposed to be looking at 

18 and it's not clear.

19 MR. KATZ: Well, some procedures 

20 aren't written, but processes, procedures and 

21 processes if you want to. That sounds like a 

22 good idea because you just basically 
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1 interviewed Larry and ATL about process, you 

2 know, as part of this.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Yes. And do we 

4 need to add ATL to the OCAS, or do we need to 

5 leave it as OCAS? Understanding that you're 

6 quite a big part of this.

7 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Oh that's fine.

9 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't think you 

10 should name contractors because contractors 

11 can change over time. I don't want them to 

12 change, but --

13 MEMBER BEACH: That's fine, I was 

14 just asking the question.

15 MEMBER MUNN: One comment with 

16 respect to the structure of our evaluation 

17 Objective Number 1 as well, that the bullets 

18 probably would be clearer if they all followed 

19 the questions format rather than making a 

20 statement and putting a question after it. 

21 That first word, I mean that first sentence 

22 underneath the evaluation where we say, 
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1 "Examine the procedure by which OCAS solicits 

2 worker involvement," we might want to add, "by 

3 reviewing:" and then listing those bullets. 

4 That first bullet would probably read more 

5 properly if it said, "How does OCAS determine 

6 whether an outreach meeting is to be conducted 

7 for a facility? How does OCAS identify and 

8 inform workers of the opportunities for 

9 input?" The others are all appropriate 

10 questions. Those first two are statements 

11 followed by a question mark.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Well, I guess 

13 Arjun, are you making all the changes that 

14 we're doing here?

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I'm 

16 following along to the extent that, you know, 

17 the kind of different words that are being 

18 said by different people. So I have my 

19 version that I can send around so you all can 

20 look at it and see if I captured the 

21 discussion. I am making notes.

22 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I was just 
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1 curious if there was just one official version 

2 that.

3 MR. KATZ: I think it would be a

4 good idea for everyone to take notes for the 

5 review process.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, 

7 Arjun's doing the electronic note-taking.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: For us.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm doing 

10 the handwritten.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so the very 

12 first statement, "Examine the." We changed it 

13 to "process," got rid of "procedures," I 

14 thought, "by which OCAS solicits workers' 

15 involvement." And then Wanda added "by 

16 reviewing" and that was all I got, Wanda.

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. We want it to be 

18 plural, whatever, "processes" because 

19 obviously there are many, many approaches to 

20 this depending on what's needed.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Are we leaving 

22 "procedures" and adding "processes" or? I 
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1 thought that's what she suggested.

2 MEMBER BEACH: We are leaving 

3 "procedures" and adding -- okay. That's fine.

4 MR. KATZ: Processes and 

5 procedures.

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. 

7 Evaluation 1. Is there any other changes that 

8 need to be made? Is there anything missing 

9 that we may have identified with our 

10 discussions here?

11 MEMBER MUNN: In that final 

12 bullet, again just grammatical I think. "Are 

13 arrangements made to participate for those 

14 interested but unable to travel to the 

15 outreach meeting" rather than the current 

16 wording with the gerund in it. "Are 

17 arrangements made to participate for those 

18 interested but unable to travel to the 

19 outreach meeting?" 

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

21 that we're still missing the question of how 

22 do you determine who's invited?
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: I thought we added 

2 that.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, we added that.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Should I read it 

5 back, the first three things as I have them 

6 and then you can change them, just so? Okay. 

7 So I have at the top, "Examine the procedures 

8 and processes by which OCAS solicits worker 

9 involvement by reviewing the following," and 

10 then there's a set of bullets. And the first 

11 bullet is "How does OCAS determine whether an 

12 outreach meeting is to be conducted for a 

13 facility?" The second bullet is "How does 

14 OCAS identify and inform workers of the 

15 opportunities for input and follow-up to 

16 secure participation?" Those are the only 

17 changes I have so far in the first set of 

18 bullets.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And Wanda just 

20 suggested the last bullet, to add "to 

21 participate" after the word "made."

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: I didn't follow 
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1 exactly.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. Arjun, would 

3 you like me to read the sentence as I read it 

4 earlier?

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sure.

6 MEMBER MUNN: "Are arrangements 

7 made to participate for those interested but 

8 unable to travel to the outreach meeting?" I 

9 just moved the "participation" up to follow 

10 "made."

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'd like to 

12 suggest a friendly amendment to that, Wanda --

13 MEMBER MUNN: Go ahead.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- which is to the 

15 idea really here which is just to participate 

16 in outreach meetings. If you make it plural, 

17 I gather some of these meetings are not really 

18 set up to have people connected by phone, that 

19 they won't necessarily all be the right forum 

20 to have someone, but I guess the question is 

21 valid whether there are means taken to allow 

22 participation for people who can't travel to 
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1 one meeting or another, not necessarily a 

2 specific meeting. But are there arrangements 

3 made for people who can't travel is sort of 

4 the question, right?

5 MEMBER MUNN: That's the bottom 

6 line.

7 MR. KATZ: So arrangements made to 

8 participate for those interested but unable to 

9 travel to outreach meetings, just to make it 

10 plural. Then what's clear is that these 

11 people can't travel to meetings we hold far.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, agreed.

13 DR. MAURO: This is John. I have 

14 one more thought along this sequence. It 

15 seems that at the end of each piece there 

16 should be a question where we solicit. It may 

17 already be there. I don't have what you have 

18 in front of you, but solicit from the 

19 participants whether or not the approach that 

20 was used at that particular get-together was 

21 effective in reaching out to the right people. 

22 Did they get the material in a timely 
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1 fashion. In other words, seeking feedback on 

2 that aspect of the program, namely how it was 

3 all arranged and who we reached out to and the 

4 other elements that make up that particular 

5 step in the process. So we have what I call a 

6 self-improving process where we're always 

7 getting feedback from the parties that we're 

8 interested in and then captured that and make 

9 sure that the next time we do it we take those 

10 new things and recommendations into 

11 consideration.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, John. Those 

13 kinds of questions crop up in this second 

14 objective.

15 DR. MAURO: They do? Okay.

16 MEMBER MUNN: What information was 

17 obtained, was it communicated to participants, 

18 did the participants have the opportunity to 

19 comment. That's captured in the second 

20 objective.

21 DR. MAURO: Okay.

22 MEMBER MUNN: I think.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: There's also 

2 evaluation stuff in the fourth objective.

3 MEMBER BEACH: So I'm having a 

4 little trouble with the sentence, "Examine 

5 several examples of OCAS solicitations and 

6 follow-up associated with several particular 

7 work products." What are we looking for 

8 there, or am I just missing?

9 MR. KATZ: So, the first series of

10 bullets is looking at processes and 

11 procedures, and the second arena is to 

12 actually take some examples sort of -- so 

13 there was some discussion earlier about some 

14 specific examples, but to take some examples 

15 and examine them in detail what happened. So 

16 versus looking at generic processes and 

17 procedures and understanding what are they and 

18 do they make sense and so on. Then it's in 

19 real life looking at a few examples, narrow 

20 our focus, held meetings, how were those 

21 meetings held, how do they compare, the 

22 reality compares to the processes and 
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1 procedures.

2 MEMBER BEACH: That helps, thank 

3 you. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: I'd like to offer a 

5 suggestion. I don't want to lose the word 

6 "worker" but I think that it would benefit 

7 from adding "worker and stakeholder 

8 involvement." 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Where are we, 

10 Larry?

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think if you 

12 look at the first, right under Evaluation 

13 Objective 1, that first sentence that you 

14 worked on, "Examine the procedures," la, la, 

15 la. I think if you insert "and stakeholder 

16 involvement" it becomes a little broader and 

17 perhaps more encompassing and appropriate. I 

18 think there are some other areas here that 

19 you've got just "workers," maybe that's okay, 

20 maybe you want to add "and stakeholder," but 

21 just a suggestion.

22 MEMBER MUNN: I don't know whether 
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1 "stakeholder" -- it's such a broad term. 

2 "Worker representatives" possibly? It's a 

3 grammatical thing.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think - I'm 

5 proposing this or suggesting this because we 

6 want to talk to workers, we do talk to 

7 workers, but we also talk to claimants who are 

8 not workers. We talk to petitioners, who are 

9 not necessarily workers. We talk to advocates 

10 who in their own right have a job and they are 

11 working, but they're not a worker as we would 

12 define it in the context of this document, 

13 this program. And I think all of those folks 

14 are a stakeholder. 

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I tend to agree 

16 with that.

17 MR. KATZ: Workers, claimants and 

18 their representatives would probably cover the 

19 waterfront.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Ted, if I could 

21 take a second here. I just got an email from 

22 Terrie Barrie that said she's trying to call 
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1 in and she just gets a busy signal. So I'm 

2 not sure the phones are working.

3 MR. KATZ: Well, we're listening 

4 to Wanda and John and to the folk, right? We 

5 still have you all?

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, you sure do.

7 MR. KATZ: So the phone line is 

8 working. I'm wondering if Terrie, if you want 

9 to send her the phone number again, maybe 

10 she's dialing the wrong number.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I've sent her a 

12 copy of the agenda.

13 MR. KATZ: And we don't have many 

14 people on this phone line. It's probably 

15 automatically at least 50 people can join and 

16 we have something like seven.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, there were only 

18 six when I dialed in.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Could you ask 

20 and see if she's on the line?

21 MR. KATZ: Terrie, have you joined 

22 us now?
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I'll just tell 

2 her to try to dial again.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, I would try to 

4 dial again because we wouldn't have John and 

5 Wanda if the phone line weren't working.

6 MR. ELLIOTT: I would also like to 

7 go back and make a distinction on this 

8 discussion about evaluation of did we meet the 

9 target, did we hit the target. There's an 

10 evaluation that we should be performing at the 

11 end of these workshops or at the end of these 

12 outreach events ourselves trying to gain a 

13 perspective from the attendees and the 

14 participants as to whether or not they found 

15 it to be helpful and official or productive. 

16 But you know, I think last week in the 

17 workshop it was suggested that maybe each of 

18 the participants be touched by SC&A or the 

19 board member present to see what their 

20 thoughts were. And I think that's problematic 

21 in that if you use a questionnaire approach 

22 you run up against the Paperwork Reduction Act 
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1 and you need OMB clearance to touch more than 

2 10 people that way. So you need to be 

3 cognizant of that concern, that issue. 

4 Certainly any of the evaluation sheets that we 

5 would provide at the end of a session should 

6 be loaded up in the database for that event so 

7 that, you know, the reviewers could see what 

8 was commented upon what was said.

9 DR. MAURO: Larry, this is John. 

10 I want to second that. I feel it's very 

11 important that SC&A or the Board's contractor 

12 that's sitting in on these meetings is doing 

13 so in a passive mode, collecting information, 

14 trying to make intelligent observations, but 

15 we should not be intrusive. Our role is after 

16 the meeting doing the things we're doing right 

17 now, namely feeding back to the Work Group 

18 some of our observations, maybe some 

19 suggestions, but I don't - right now at least, 

20 unless things - I think that at least we 

21 should not be thinking in terms of SC&A as 

22 being part of trying to gather data ourselves 
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1 on part of the board unless the Work Group 

2 wants that, but my suggestion would be no, we 

3 have a passive role.

4 MEMBER BEACH: Well, can we 

5 evaluate the questions that are asked at the 

6 end of the workshop? Would that be something 

7 we could do then?

8 DR. MAURO: I would argue that 

9 yes, we certainly should do that, but only at 

10 the meeting when we regroup here. In other 

11 words, you know, one of our roles would be 

12 let's say, as Larry just pointed out, there 

13 may be a lot of give and take and seeking 

14 information from the participants on the 

15 effectiveness of the meeting, and that 

16 information is going to be acquired and we 

17 should be there taking notes, listening to 

18 what people say, but I don't think we should 

19 become part of that. I think then we later 

20 during the post-meeting activities when the 

21 SC&A and the Work Group reconvene in some 

22 capacity, it's at that time that we feedback 
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1 our information, rather than becoming active 

2 participants in these meetings unless for some 

3 reason Work Group members or Larry and the 

4 folks want to elicit anything from SC&A during 

5 the meeting. I would assume that that would 

6 be unusual, but certainly I mean if such an 

7 event occurs where a question may be asked of 

8 the Work Group representatives related to some 

9 matter in real time during the meeting, well 

10 fine. But other than that I think the ground 

11 rules at least for now should be a passive 

12 role.

13 MEMBER BEACH: I agree.

14 MEMBER MUNN: I would strongly 

15 suggest that we follow Josie's suggestion. As 

16 a matter of fact, it never occurred to me that 

17 we would expect our contractor to take an 

18 active role in these meetings unless they were 

19 specifically directed to do so by the Board. 

20 Au contraire.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

22 Kathy. One of the things that I did after 
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1 observing the workshop was to walk through the 

2 evaluation criteria and what I found is that 

3 some of the questions I needed to go back to 

4 NIOSH to get clarification, and some of the 

5 questions I couldn't answer merely by 

6 observation.

7 MEMBER MUNN: We wouldn't 

8 anticipate that anyone would be able to answer 

9 all the questions. All the questions should 

10 not be applicable to any given meeting or to 

11 any given process. What this document is that 

12 we're supposedly working on now is a broad 

13 scope document which would cover, we would 

14 hope, almost any conceivable type of outreach 

15 that we might be involved in. A specific 

16 meeting in itself should -- cannot possibly be 

17 viewed in the context of every single one of 

18 the aspects that we're attempting to cover 

19 here I shouldn't think.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I realize 

21 that, but there are some items that are 

22 applicable to this type of meeting that you 
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1 just need to be aware you may not be able to 

2 answer that question by observation.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I think what 

4 John and Kathy are saying are two different 

5 things. One is we have ground rules for 

6 participating as observers as the charter that 

7 was given to us by the working group. And so 

8 it's changed. I think that's what it should 

9 be. This is NIOSH's show and ATL's show and 

10 we should observe that. And there's a report11 back process that you know the Work Group can 

12 set up if you want verbal reports, if you want 

13 written reports. I think what Kathy is saying 

14 which I would support, we discussed and the 

15 context in which sending the question came up 

16 is if we want to know what the participants 

17 got out of it, it may be necessary to call up 

18 a couple of them and say okay, you know, you 

19 heard about dose reconstruction, do you 

20 understand more now than before, do you know -

21 - are you stuck on something, are you able to 

22 help advocate better to have our own 
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1 evaluation at the Work Group as to whether the 

2 process is working. But that's clearly a 

3 post-meeting function.

4 DR. MAURO: Arjun, this is John. 

5 I would argue strongly that certainly that is 

6 a matter of great interest, but that's 

7 something that is within the purview of NIOSH 

8 whereby -- and OCAS, whereby they would be the 

9 ones on the front lines who would be very 

10 interested in finding that out, and so 

11 something that we -- now if that's not done, 

12 we as assistants to the Work Group might want 

13 to discuss this matter at one of our meetings 

14 saying that we noticed that there really was 

15 no effort made to do X, Y and Z. We might 

16 want to suggest you want to consider that, but 

17 we don't do that. I don't see it, at least at 

18 this stage in the development of the program 

19 that we would go in and start to perform our 

20 own surveys of the effectiveness of the 

21 program. I think surveys of the effectiveness 

22 of the program in whatever form it takes is 
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1 certainly and entirely within the purview of 

2 OCAS. 

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: You're not 

4 understanding. We're developing -- maybe I 

5 didn't say what I meant to say. We've got all 

6 of these exhortations, evaluate this, examine 

7 that, review the other as part of the 

8 procedure the Work Group is setting up for 

9 itself. And in the course of doing that --

10 NIOSH of course, we know NIOSH and ATL are 

11 doing evaluations of the workshop. They hand 

12 out an evaluation form and workers fill them 

13 out and they give us copies of the form and 

14 they do their own evaluation, but if the Work 

15 Group wants to do this and sees a function for 

16 SC&A, then it may be necessary to contact some 

17 participants within the restrictions of NIOSH 

18 and the law and so on. Someone actually 

19 brought this up with Larry informally and 

20 that's how this whole thing came up is because 

21 I was concerned that we shouldn't be sending 

22 out interview questionnaires without informing 
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1 NIOSH as to what the proper procedure should 

2 be.

3 DR. MAURO: I understand what 

4 you're saying, Arjun. Well, this is certainly 

5 a very, very important question that needs to 

6 be discussed by the Work Group, that is, the 

7 degree to which the Work Group and its 

8 contractor should independently evaluate and 

9 test the waters on effectiveness. I have to 

10 say in my mind that was not at least initially 

11 going to be something that we would be doing. 

12 But if that's something -- in other words, in 

13 the process of assessing, my mind was 

14 assessing was more in the passive role as 

15 opposed to an active role.

16 MR. KATZ: Just my thoughts on 

17 this. I mean I -- I think you would want --

18 in an evaluation you would want to start by 

19 looking at the data that's available. So I 

20 mean, if you go through the data that's 

21 available through the evaluations that OCAS 

22 does itself pertinent to a question, an 
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1 evaluation question, and that data is 

2 sufficient, then certainly you don't need to -

3 - there's no point in duplicating OCAS 

4 efforts. If you go through the data that's 

5 available and you find that it's not 

6 sufficient for you to answer the question, 

7 then you have to think about collecting data.

8 MR. ELLIOTT: Or you can make that 

9 as a comment.

10 MR. KATZ: What have you, either 

11 way. But I mean, it really is -- you can only 

12 make decisions about this as you get to the 

13 point where you find you don't have sufficient 

14 information. 

15 MR. ELLIOTT: I think there's a 

16 lot of churning here, but I'm not sure to what 

17 degree of benefit the churning is going to 

18 result in. You have to recognize that, 

19 whether it's a workshop or it's an SEC town 

20 hall meeting, and quite frankly some of the 

21 meetings that we hold we don't have an 

22 evaluation tool at the end of the meeting. We 
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1 have never seen the need to have one. Maybe 

2 that's a fault, maybe that's misplaced, I 

3 don't know. Maybe that's a finding you all 

4 could come in and talk to us about. But these 

5 people that we invite to a workshop, that we 

6 invite to a focus group to talk about a site 

7 profile or to -- five workers around a table 

8 to talk to us about an SEC petition and 

9 elaborate on what the work practices and work 

10 experience was like, you know, I'm not sure 

11 that in every instance we know what those 

12 people's motivations are, what they hope to 

13 get out of it, what they expect to get out of 

14 it, whether it's a workshop or they understand 

15 they're being asked to participate to help us 

16 better understand their working conditions. 

17 You know, so I just want to lay that out 

18 there. I don't think you can go into this 

19 with a mind set that if you ask three or four 

20 people from the workshop last week whether or 

21 not they understood dose reconstruction better 

22 or they got what they thought they needed to 
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1 get out of it if that's going to be very 

2 telling.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: That can be a very 

4 good point. I think some of this comes, in my 

5 mind at least, from a prior review we did of 

6 CGR 97 which is now being replaced. And at 

7 that time we were reviewing only the 

8 information that NIOSH was getting from 

9 workers, and how NIOSH was documenting and 

10 using that. And in that context I think this 

11 particular thing is much more important. 

12 Because I agree, I mean, when you do workshops 

13 for 25 people let alone a town hall meeting 

14 with 50 or 100, what people get out of it is 

15 going to vary a great deal. And yes, so the 

16 Work Group needs to consider, you know, 

17 exactly you know, how information-giving 

18 workshops -- I think it's much more important 

19 to follow the trail in information-getting 

20 workshops where NIOSH is soliciting input to 

21 TBDs or SECs or developing its own matrix and 

22 so on, whether that was thorough and what 
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1 happened to that information. 

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I tell you what. 

3 Why don't we take a 10-minute break and when 

4 we come back just try to focus back on the 

5 written words and make sure that everything is 

6 covered.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think we 

8 lost the trail somewhere off the written thing 

9 here. I lost the trail. We were --

10 MR. KATZ: Let me just check 

11 before I put the phone on mute whether Terrie 

12 has joined us? Terrie?

13 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Terrie's here.

14 MR. KATZ: Okay, great.

15 MS. BARRIE: Yes, I don't know 

16 what the problem was. And I had to hang up 

17 and then call back in. Then I got immediate 

18 busy signal, but then I redialed and I'm back 

19 on.

20 MR. KATZ: Oh good, okay. Well 

21 I'm sorry you had trouble.

22 MS. BARRIE: Okay, thanks.
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1 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

2 matter went off the record at 11:04 a.m. and 

3 resumed at 11:18 a.m.)

4 MR. KATZ: Okay. We're getting 

5 restarted. Folks, do we have you on the 

6 phone, Wanda?

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, you do.

8 MR. KATZ: Great. 

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, so we 

10 looked at Evaluation Objective Number 1. Are 

11 we satisfied with it? Anymore discussion we 

12 need on it?

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Should I just read 

14 back what I wrote in place of workers in 

15 response to what Larry was saying?

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: "Examine 

18 procedures and processes by which OCAS 

19 solicits the involvement of workers, claimants 

20 and their representatives by reviewing the 

21 following." So instead of -- in place of 

22 "worker" was the involvement of workers, 
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1 claimants and their representatives. Because 

2 Wanda thought that was too broad. Those are 

3 the words somebody said.

4 MR. KATZ: I did.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I think that's 

6 what we agreed to earlier.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, fine.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Are we 

9 ready to move on to Evaluation Objective 

10 Number 2?

11 MEMBER MUNN: We didn't finish, 

12 did we, with -- once we had gotten through 

13 that first set of bullets we didn't cover the 

14 "Examine several examples," did we?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Not really.

16 MEMBER MUNN: I didn't think we 

17 did. Those, from my perspective appear to be 

18 the correct questions. It isn't clear to me 

19 whether we anticipate in each case that we as 

20 a Work Group are going to do this examination, 

21 or whether we're anticipating that our 

22 contractor will essentially do most of this 
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1 and report to us. But in either case, in that 

2 second bullet under "Examine several examples" 

3 we have the question "Did OCAS make an 

4 appropriately extensive effort to obtain 

5 elicit," my suggestion would be to eliminate 

6 the word "obtain" there because whether or not 

7 one makes an effort to obtain something is 

8 different than whether one makes an effort to 

9 elicit it. It is probably wise for us to 

10 remember that one can only elicit 

11 participation and information. One can't 

12 really force that participation or obtain it 

13 in any way other than through eliciting it. 

14 So my suggestion would be to eliminate the 

15 word "elicit" there. In either case, if we 

16 retain it then it needs to be "obtain and/or 

17 elicit" whichever. One of those two words 

18 needs to go.

19 MR. KATZ: My English sense is I 

20 would dump "elicit" but the emphasis is on the 

21 effort, not on you know obviously you make the 

22 effort, but what you get in response is 
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1 another question. But anyway, I don't --

2 either one will work. But I agree, both 

3 aren't needed.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. What do 

5 you want to keep Bill, any?

6 MEMBER BEACH: I don't care. I 

7 already marked off "obtain" so I don't care 

8 either way. Whatever's best.

9 MR. KATZ: Sounds good.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Let's just leave 

11 it as "elicit" for now. When we get all our 

12 different versions in we may change it to 

13 "obtain." Okay, any other concerns under the 

14 last three bullets Wanda or Josie?

15 MEMBER MUNN: No, none at all. I 

16 still do have a concern though over whether we 

17 are setting these requirements or proposed 

18 requirements for ourselves, or whether we're 

19 setting them out for our contractor. But 

20 that's not -- this may not be the time to 

21 discuss that. Just something to keep in mind 

22 I think as we're going through these 
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1 questions.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Okay. 

3 Evaluation Objective Number 2, obtaining and 

4 documenting input from workers.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Now, that's --

6 there's a question. Are we appropriately 

7 couching our objectives as questions? Should 

8 we not be couching our objectives as 

9 statements? We have the same problem of 

10 course, the same question, the same issue with 

11 each of the objectives. Number 1 is also 

12 couched as a question.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I think they 

14 should be statements myself, not questions.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Objective Number 1 

16 perhaps, determine whether OCAS is taking 

17 appropriate measures, et cetera. And in 

18 Number 2 it would be determine whether OCAS is 

19 obtaining and documenting input from workers.

20 MR. ELLIOTT: I suggest that you 

21 can drop it three letters up. I think it's 

22 OCAS and contractors. We don't have some 
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1 contractors.

2 MR. KATZ: And is this, well, is 

3 this all procedures or are there actually 

4 processes that -- are there processes that 

5 aren't proceduralized as well? Okay, so we 

6 probably need to make that change too here. 

7 Well, it's just you're going to be looking at 

8 processes and procedures, rather than just 

9 procedures because I gather there will be 

10 processes that aren't documented in a formal 

11 procedure.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have a question 

13 about these three bullets. The way they are 

14 written right now doesn't fully correspond to 

15 the objective. Because all the questions 

16 relate to whether OCAS has a procedure to do 

17 this or that, it doesn't actually --

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The 

19 original intention was to assess the program 

20 against the procedure.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, but it 

22 doesn't actually say that we're going to 
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1 assess the program, or you know, is OCAS 

2 adequately documenting worker -- you know, how 

3 is OCAS -- if you follow the first set you 

4 would say how is OCAS documenting the input 

5 and is it following the procedure. So I 

6 presume the existence of a procedure, and Ted 

7 was saying it may be more of that.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well and 

9 that's -- originally it was targeted at the 

10 procedure. Now we just change the words. So 

11 now -- now we need to modify it because the 

12 questions were directed at the procedure.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

14 MEMBER BEACH: Well, we didn't 

15 take out procedures, we just added "and 

16 processes" right?

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: And my question 

18 was to the three bullets under that. They 

19 seem to not correspond to the breadth of the 

20 objective, that in the objective we say we 

21 want to determine whether OCAS is obtaining 

22 and documenting, and so you want bullets that 
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1 will go to how we're going to do that, the 

2 questions that relate to that. Like the first 

3 question might be how does OCAS document the 

4 input that it gets from workers, whatever. I 

5 mean, I'm just raising the question. Those 

6 bullets seem very narrow.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Did you have any 

8 suggestions for language?

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You can say 

10 processes or procedures and then take out --

11 you can put in "processes and procedures" and 

12 then take out "as defined in the OCAS-012." 

13 MEMBER BEACH: So we're not really 

14 asking if they have a procedure because they 

15 do, 012 is the procedure, correct? So are 

16 they effectively gathering information based 

17 on that procedure and their processes?

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: I would --

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We just 

20 changed the intent of the first statement by 

21 adding "processes." Now we have to modify the 

22 bullets underneath to reflect that 
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1 modification. 

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: What I might 

3 suggest for the first one would be "How does 

4 OCAS document worker input from information5 gathering meetings." 

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes. I think maybe 

8 some of Arjun's discomfort or mine is at least 

9 that what he's saying has some resonance is 

10 the way these are stated right now it's as if, 

11 if you answer these three questions you've 

12 covered the topic and these are very -- some 

13 of them, like particularly the third bullet is 

14 a very narrow sort of question that you can 

15 ask. So I sort of agree with the direction 

16 Arjun's going in and just broadening this so 

17 that it's -- I don't think -- my guess is that 

18 people don't have all the questions at this 

19 point right now at the table that you'd want 

20 to ask. But if you have a very broad question 

21 like Arjun suggested or several broad 

22 questions, then you sort of fill in the 
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1 details as you go along, but we don't have 

2 those questions right now at the table. 

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And that's 

4 something --

5 DR. MAURO: This is John. I might 

6 be repeating what I heard. I wasn't able to 

7 hear everyone clearly, but there seems to be a 

8 disconnect between the statement of Objective 

9 2 which is a very broad statement: is OCAS 

10 obtaining and documenting input? Well, the 

11 three bullets really don't go that broadly. 

12 They go only, well, they only talk about the 

13 procedures. Perhaps the problem is the 

14 definition of the objective. It could be 

15 broadened to include, you know, the degree to 

16 which there are procedures and second, the 

17 degree to which those procedures are 

18 effective. 

19 MR. KATZ: I mean John, the thing 

20 that you're missing is that there's sort of a 

21 set of looking at procedures and processes.

22 DR. MAURO: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: And then there's a set 

2 of questions that -- actually them in 

3 progress, the effectiveness of them in 

4 practice. So it is covered, but the first set 

5 is sort of looking at, well, first you look at 

6 the processes and procedures and then you look 

7 at how effective are they in practice.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay.

9 MR. KATZ: So it gets to --

10 DR. MAURO: It gets there. You're 

11 saying that it's structured that way, so it's 

12 a two-tier process that does both.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes. Right.

14 DR. MAURO: As long as everyone is 

15 comfortable with that, I'm fine. 

16 MR. KATZ: Because you would 

17 probably want to know the processes and 

18 procedures, understand them well before you 

19 start evaluating how well they're working.

20 DR. MAURO: And I agree, I agree. 

21 I just looked at the first three bullets as 

22 being the heart of the matter and those three 
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1 bullets didn't seem to get to the heart of the 

2 matter.

3 MR. KATZ: Right. But all I was 

4 saying here about these first three bullets is 

5 I think they're a narrow construction and 

6 you'd want it more open-ended so that more 

7 detailed evaluation questions could be asked 

8 once more is understood about these processes 

9 and procedures.

10 MEMBER MUNN: This starts getting 

11 much broader in the bullets in the second part 

12 of that.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Because the review 

14 of the procedures is in the preamble to these 

15 questions. Before you get into the 

16 effectiveness you're actually saying yes, 

17 okay, we reviewed PR-012. Now we're going to 

18 look at is it working.

19 DR. MAURO: Yes, right.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: So then in that 

21 light it changes all the questions.

22 MR. KATZ: So Arjun, do you want 
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1 to sort of?

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, the suggested 

3 wording for the first question to follow on 

4 this line of thinking would be how does OCAS 

5 document worker input from information6 gathering meetings and the second one would be 

7 is the procedure that OCAS has for documenting 

8 site expert interviews effective. 

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: And I think the 

11 third question would then be -- or maybe it 

12 can be left. 

13 MR. KATZ: The third bullet, you 

14 mean?

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, the third 

16 bullet.

17 MR. KATZ: To me that's just a 

18 detailed question, but there could be any

19 number of detailed questions. It makes it --

20 it's sort of strange just to have that one 

21 there.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Is there a reason that 

2 one's there, Kathy?

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, there 

4 was the outreach meeting, there's the site 

5 expert interviews and then there is the other 

6 venue type items.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, I see what 

8 you're getting at. There are issues that 

9 occur at other venues that could be useful to 

10 NIOSH in their own work, like what we were 

11 just talking about and what Larry was 

12 mentioning happens in information-gathering 

13 meetings and so on. Is that what the part 

14 was? Because I'm not clear.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, and I 

16 think Wanda coined the term "reoccurring" in 

17 the last meeting.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: I'm not quibbling at 

20 all. I think the issue of reoccurring issues 

21 is a good one. I'm just saying that that's 

22 one narrow question among probably many that 
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1 you can ask once you look at the processes and 

2 procedures. So you may want to retain that 

3 somewhere as a possible detail, but it's more 

4 an "e.g." than really sort of filling out the 

5 scope of these questions about processes and 

6 procedures. 

7 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it 

8 goes back to the paragraph under Other 

9 Outreach Venues on Page 2, and all we're 

10 trying to say is, is there a procedure or 

11 process in place to document what you get out 

12 of these.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. That's not what 

14 this says though.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I know.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's a detail of 

17 the first bullet, really. Because the first 

18 bullet is very broad as written now, how does 

19 OCAS document. So before I think it was 

20 probably necessary for it to be called out 

21 because you had this specific thing in mind. 

22 Now we're saying okay, they've got procedures, 
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1 we're going to review them and then we're 

2 going to evaluate how does OCAS document 

3 worker input from information-gathering 

4 meetings. And nothing prevents the Work Group 

5 from evaluating whether recurring issues are 

6 documented or whether something -- the workers 

7 at any particular meeting wasn't followed up 

8 on even though it was kind of very important 

9 for a TBD.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Then we 

11 need to drop the word "meetings" from the 

12 first bullet because some of these things are 

13 not meetings.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Information15 gathering meetings or other venues?

16 MEMBER MUNN: Or other various --

17 "other" probably would be simpler. What I 

18 have reworded here is "Does OCAS have a method 

19 for noting reoccurring issues associated with 

20 worker communication from other venues?" 

21 MR. KATZ: Okay. So Arjun has 

22 rewritten the first bullet here, "How does 
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1 OCAS document worker input from information2 gathering meetings" and other venues probably, 

3 right? Or in other venues? So that covers 

4 the scope. And then the Bullet 3 is really a 

5 detail under that, but there are many details 

6 that are unspecified so I would just leave it 

7 out.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: So is that the 

9 third bullet?

10 MR. KATZ: Well it's up to the 

11 Work Group, but if it was up to me I'd change 

12 it.

13 MEMBER MUNN: I'm sorry Ted, I 

14 didn't get your recommendation. What were you 

15 thinking?

16 MR. KATZ: So I was recommending 

17 that you just drop the third bullet entirely 

18 because it's a detail under the first bullet 

19 of which there would be many details.

20 MEMBER MUNN: But the issue of 

21 recurring concerns though is probably the 

22 outstanding detail, and I think Kathy is 
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1 probably correct in segregating it into an 

2 elevated position of noting on its own. 

3 There's -- as a Board we've even attempted to 

4 set up what we've called overarching issues, 

5 the things that go from one site to another or 

6 from one group to another. And this is -- if 

7 we're looking at communications with workers 

8 at outreach and we're saying that if OCAS 

9 documents all of this appropriately that these 

10 issues will crop out, I'm not at all sure that 

11 that's exactly what we should be attempting to 

12 convey. In my mind what we should be 

13 attempting to convey for this question is 

14 whether a method exists for noting that those 

15 issues reoccur. I don't know that there is 

16 such a method and it's an open question I 

17 think for all of us.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, for 

19 identifying.

20 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I had 

21 "noting," but "identifying." Identifying it 

22 is different than documenting it necessarily. 
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1 It's important --

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it 

3 could be identifying and documenting.

4 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. The 

5 documenting makes it possible for us to 

6 identify that it's been done, but it's more 

7 important firstly on a purely operational 

8 point of view that it be noted, that the 

9 gathering agency is aware that these issues 

10 are recurring. But it's a difficult question.

11 MR. KATZ: So Wanda, if you want 

12 to not lose it and you want to put it in there 

13 as an "e.g." under the first bullet, all I'm 

14 saying is it is properly sort of a sub15 component of that first bullet in my view. 

16 But if you want to call it out as its own 

17 bullet you can, it's just -- it's sort of a, 

18 you know, you're just sort of having apples 

19 and oranges as bullets then in terms of levels 

20 of evaluations. Because it's a sub-element of 

21 the first bullet.

22 MEMBER MUNN: I understand. I 
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1 understand what you're saying.

2 MR. KATZ: But you can do it any 

3 way you want.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I agree with 

5 Wanda. I mean, the Board as a whole has 

6 looked hard at all kinds of areas where 

7 there's been repeated occurrences of 

8 something, whether it's in a dose 

9 reconstruction, whether it's in everything 

10 else. So I'd feel better leaving it as a 

11 separate issue. You know, that's just 

12 something we'd want to stay away from is 

13 reoccurring issues. So it's a subset, but I 

14 think it's worth calling out separately. 

15 Josie, Bill?

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think yes, 

17 it's something that certain items are going to 

18 come up over and over and over. Are these 

19 being identified and addressed?

20 MEMBER BEACH: I'm okay either 

21 way. I already scratched it off and added it 

22 to the first, but if you'd rather have it as a 
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1 bullet I'm okay with that too. Either way.

2 MEMBER MUNN: The wording that I 

3 used was, "Does OCAS have a method for noting 

4 reoccurring issues associated with worker 

5 communication from other venues?" 

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can you 

7 slow down?

8 MEMBER BEACH: Can you say that 

9 one more time, Wanda?

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. "Does OCAS 

11 have a method for noting reoccurring issues 

12 associated with worker communication from 

13 other venues?"

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And I don't know 

15 that I'd leave "other" in there. I mean, 

16 we're going to go back to look at all of it 

17 for reoccurring issues, not just the other. 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Various venues 

19 including CATI and so on? Otherwise it's just 

20 --

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It's all forms 

22 of worker communication. I mean, it's --
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1 MEMBER MUNN: "Various" is fine 

2 with me.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Various venues, 

4 e.g. You want to leave the "e.g." in?

5 MEMBER MUNN: That's probably 

6 simpler than "including."

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Do we really to 

8 leave the examples in there? That's taking --

9 it's like we're only looking for reoccurring 

10 issues in other forms of communication. 

11 MEMBER MUNN: It doesn't seem 

12 necessary to me, but it's a preference. From 

13 the point of view the question stands alone 

14 without that.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: What is your 

16 pleasure?

17 MR. KATZ: No "e.g.s."

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: No "e.g.s."

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, anything 

20 else on the first of what was three sets of 

21 bullets? I believe this would be four, right?

22 MEMBER BEACH: We didn't do 
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1 anything with the second bullet, did we?

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, we did.

3 MEMBER BEACH: We did, okay.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: We changed the 

5 second bullet to "Is the procedure that OCAS 

6 has for documenting site expert interviews 

7 effective?"

8 MEMBER BEACH: Thank you.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Because the review 

10 of the procedure is already up before the 

11 bullets. That's what I thought Ted's 

12 suggestion was. Because that's what I have.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. 

14 MEMBER MUNN: And then we get down 

15 to reviewing the sampling.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you like that 

17 second bullet or do you want to change it?

18 MR. KATZ: Well, let me just ask a 

19 question about it because we're done with 

20 processes and procedures. Now we're down to a 

21 question about one procedure and once you get 

22 below those little paragraphs to the separate 
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1 set of bullets, they're all about looking at 

2 effectiveness. So I wonder if this isn't just 

3 sort of a preface for this whole next section, 

4 or maybe it's already covered by "review a 

5 sampling of interviews and meetings," et 

6 cetera. 

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, that's just 

8 a sampling.

9 MR. KATZ: No, but you're looking 

10 at a sample to see whether the processes and 

11 procedures are effective, right? That's the 

12 purpose of all the bullets that come after, I 

13 think. 

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So what you're 

15 suggesting, Ted, is that the bullets under the 

16 paragraph that starts with, "Review" --

17 MR. KATZ: Are all approaches at 

18 looking at the effectiveness of --

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Including site 

20 experts.

21 MR. KATZ: -- processes and 

22 procedures, yes. 
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh yes, because it 

2 says that actually. 

3 MR. KATZ: It's sort of redundant 

4 to have it when it doesn't really belong up 

5 here is all I'm saying.

6 MEMBER BEACH: That probably just 

7 needed to be a paragraph up there. Not 

8 necessarily questions, but.

9 MR. KATZ: So that would leave 

10 just two bullets above the line, above, and 

11 then you get into effectiveness. 

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, because it 

13 does say that.

14 MEMBER MUNN: We're taking out 

15 Bullet 2.

16 MR. KATZ: So yes, taking out 

17 Bullet 2 from.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

19 MR. KATZ: And then you walk right 

20 into effectiveness questions. 

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, is 

22 everyone good with that?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: No, I have a problem 

2 with how one even goes about answering the 

3 first question. What information was 

4 obtained. You're going to have an awful lot 

5 of data if you're going to answer that 

6 question very thoroughly. 

7 MEMBER BEACH: Well, let's --

8 Wanda, before you get there, is that first 

9 sentence, "Reviewing a sampling of interviews 

10 and meetings where the above-referenced 

11 procedures were implemented by OCAS and its 

12 contractor to determine whether the procedures 

13 were followed and effective in practice." Is 

14 that okay the way it's written?

15 MEMBER MUNN: I don't see any 

16 problem with that.

17 MR. KATZ: Well Wanda, I agree. 

18 What information was obtained is not an 

19 evaluation question.

20 MEMBER MUNN: No. What you want 

21 to know is was the desired information 

22 obtained. 
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1 MR. KATZ: Right, exactly. 

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Just one second. 

3 Back to what Josie was talking about. In 

4 that lead-in sentence there we just referenced 

5 procedures. We need to add the processes.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes, processes and 

7 procedures. 

8 MEMBER BEACH: In both. There's 

9 two places where it says "procedures" in that 

10 sentence.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe "they" were 

12 followed? Repeating it?

13 MEMBER MUNN: And then the first 

14 bullet becomes "was the desired information 

15 obtained."

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Larry's not here.

17 MEMBER BEACH: No, he stepped out.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is there -- in 

19 these sessions, does NIOSH have a kind of a 

20 specified target just in types of information 

21 its seeking or is it open-ended? I'm not 

22 clear.
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1 MR. JOHNSON: You're talking about 

2 the meetings?

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

4 MR. JOHNSON: Sure. Typically in 

5 some of the information-gathering we have 

6 questions. We put the focus on those 

7 questions in information-gathering. 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: So then 

9 appropriate questions.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Are we talking about 

11 giving as well? If so, then the question 

12 needs to be "obtained or disseminated."

13 MR. KATZ: No, no. I think this 

14 whole --

15 MEMBER MUNN: This is only 

16 obtained. Okay.

17 MR. KATZ: Right. This is --

18 MEMBER MUNN: Just checking.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes.

20 MEMBER MUNN: In Item 2, would it 

21 be how is it documented, or is it simply was 

22 it documented. 
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1 MR. KATZ: You can actually lap 

2 Bullet 1 and 2 together because the only way 

3 you're going to ascertain if it's obtained is 

4 if it's documented somewhere anyway.

5 MEMBER MUNN: If it's documented, 

6 yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Obtained and 

8 documented. And then it doesn't really matter 

9 where. That's something you'll get to.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Some of those 

12 meetings are very broad and some of them are 

13 very specific in nature. Would that first 

14 question kind of capture that, or?

15 MEMBER MUNN: I think so because 

16 it would matter what the focus of the meeting 

17 was. What was the desired information.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Then that's the way 

19 we needed to ask that question.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So it should 

21 read something like, "Was the desired 

22 information obtained and documented."
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Correct.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: And then delete 

3 the second bullet?

4 MR. KATZ: Yes.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm puzzled by 

6 this --

7 MEMBER BEACH: Third question?

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

9 MEMBER MUNN: That one needs work.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I give 

11 you kind of a concrete example?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. We 

14 went or we attended the Weldon Spring worker 

15 outreach meeting which was designed to present 

16 the site profile and solicit comments. So 

17 when we're -- one of the things that we still 

18 have to do for that evaluation is to wait till 

19 the meeting has come out and evaluate the 

20 meeting minutes compared to what was captured 

21 in the meeting, what was said in the meeting.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Because 
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1 this question doesn't say that. 

2 MR. KATZ: You could just say what 

3 the information recorded by NIOSH accurately 

4 and completely, or something along those 

5 lines.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Was the 

8 documentation of the meeting complete and 

9 reflective of what the presenters said.

10 MEMBER BEACH: So it's not NIOSH 

11 actually, or is it?

12 MR. KATZ: Well, OCAS.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Right, sorry.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Documentation 

15 regardless of who it is. Was the 

16 documentation of participants' comments 

17 reflective --

18 MR. KATZ: Accurate and complete.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Correct. 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Was the 

21 documentation of participants' comments made 

22 at the meeting accurate and complete.
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1 MR. KATZ: Is.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry?

3 MR. KATZ: Well we can say is, is 

4 the documentation. 

5 MEMBER BEACH: Arjun, can you 

6 repeat that please?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Is the 

8 documentation of participants' comments made 

9 at the meeting accurate and complete? That's 

10 it.

11 MEMBER MUNN: And do we want to 

12 actually say "made at the meeting" or --

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: We can delete 

14 that.

15 MEMBER MUNN: I would delete that 

16 because we want the comments where they're 

17 written and spoken or whatever.

18 MR. KATZ: That's true too.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Anything on the 

21 fourth bullet?

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You 
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1 understand what it's asking?

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Go ahead and 

3 explain it.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. What 

5 we're saying is that there's a process where 

6 meeting minutes are sent out to the 

7 participants and they're allowed to comment. 

8 And the question is whether everyone at that 

9 meeting is allowed that opportunity. 

10 MEMBER BEACH: That's not really 

11 what it says though.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, my question is 

13 that the process? Do we in fact send copies 

14 of meeting minutes to everyone who attended or 

15 who signed up?

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I 

17 believe in the past NIOSH has sent the primary 

18 union contract, but they'll have to elaborate 

19 on that.

20 MR. MCDOUGALL: Yes. Usually if 

21 it's at an organization we send it to the 

22 leader of that organization and they get to 
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1 dispose of the comments or the minutes as they 

2 please. They can share it with everybody, 

3 they can comment themselves.

4 MEMBER MUNN: We do post them, 

5 don't we?

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This is 

7 before they get posted. This is kind of a 

8 review to make sure that NIOSH captured the 

9 comments from the workers adequately from 

10 their perspective, from the workers' 

11 perspective.

12 MEMBER MUNN: If we want this to 

13 be a question of how this is done prior to the 

14 public dissemination we probably ought to say 

15 that. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: On the draft 

17 minutes or something. 

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Not the record of 

20 the meeting, but a draft.

21 MEMBER BEACH: So, "Did all 

22 participants have the opportunity to review 
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1 and comment on the draft meeting minutes." Is 

2 that what we're looking for?

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: Then we are 

5 including meeting minutes. 

6 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: So this could 

8 include the union contact actually. It 

9 wouldn't have to be you contacting everyone, 

10 but the union contact.

11 MR. MCDOUGALL: If they choose. 

12 Understand, we don't collect contact 

13 information on everybody who's in the meeting.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, I see.

16 MR. KATZ: Can I make a 

17 distinction here, maybe it'll be helpful? I 

18 mean, the way this is stated, sort of the 

19 assumption implicit in this question is that 

20 the ideal is that all participants would have 

21 an opportunity to review and comment on the 

22 capture of information. So that's sort of the 
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1 ideal that's implicit in this evaluation 

2 question. You know, and then, depending on 

3 what OCAS processes are, you may find they're 

4 whatever distance from that ideal. But if the 

5 Work Group feels that that's the ideal, that 

6 every participant has an opportunity to do it, 

7 to in other words see what a draft of what was 

8 captured from that meeting and have a chance 

9 to comment on it, then that is sort of your --

10 that's your measure, that's your ideal and 

11 then you go and you look and you see what 

12 procedures were used to get their feedback on 

13 what you captured and how close it is to that 

14 ideal. If you don't think that's necessary as 

15 the ideal then you change your evaluation 

16 framework.

17 MEMBER MUNN: It may be the 

18 philosophical ideal, but it may not be a 

19 realistic ideal. They're very different to an 

20 extreme. This type of objective could lead us 

21 to a kind of Wikipedia dilemma with respect to 

22 what was said as opposed to what was meant. 
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1 This is a tough one.

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, there's a 

3 prior question. I mean, if NIOSH is not 

4 collecting the information on the participant 

5 then this is moot. And so it may be -- I 

6 mean, I'm a little puzzled.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: What if we have 

8 something like "review how the draft comments 

9 are disseminated," whatever, and then if we 

10 see we don't like the process then we can make 

11 a recommendation to that effect.

12 MR. KATZ: I mean, the "how" comes 

13 up above under process. But I mean, a way you 

14 could make this sort of a more one-size-fits15 all question is you could say, instead of this 

16 very specific sort of ideal that you have here 

17 to fit all situations, you might say, "Did 

18 OCAS take appropriate steps to obtain 

19 participant comments on the minutes?" And 

20 then in a situation where OCAS only has a 

21 contact for the union, you know, the leaders 

22 of this meeting, but they don't have the 
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1 individual contact information it probably is 

2 appropriate, I'm not going to judge that, but 

3 I mean, to go to those contacts and ask them 

4 to do the job. In a case where OCAS has a 

5 workshop where it has invited all the 

6 individuals who have the contacts you might 

7 think it's appropriate for them to go back to 

8 all those individuals specifically. So it 

9 would sort of fit all the different 

10 possibilities for these various meetings. 

11 Does that make sense?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Then is the 

13 appropriate question whether the draft of 

14 meeting minutes is made available for 

15 participants to comment? 

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

17 MEMBER MUNN: That's the real 

18 question, isn't it?

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Going back 

20 to something, now I remember why we put the 

21 record of the meeting, because not all worker 

22 outreach meetings have meeting minutes. In 
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1 the case of your site expert interviews it's 

2 going to be a different type of product.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but in a 

4 realistic sense unless you have only invited 

5 participants there's no way that you can 

6 assure that all participants have a draft in 

7 their hands, and in many especially town hall 

8 meetings one can't force participants to note 

9 their presence and their contact information. 

10 I shouldn't say many, but some don't want to 

11 do that. So making it available for people 

12 who want to is probably the criterion we're 

13 searching for. It is in my mind, but I don't 

14 know whether it is in the rest of the Work 

15 Group's mind.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well you know, 

17 part of the problem I think has arisen from 

18 how we do our reviews because we always just -

19 - sorry. This is my perspective, it may not 

20 be Kathy's perspective. We generally do not 

21 interview more than three or four people at a 

22 time because we have this list of questions 
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1 and NIOSH does a lot of different type of 

2 meetings to obtain info. And you've got these 

3 open meetings with 50 people you'll actually 

4 never finalize minutes you know, when you have 

5 a lot of people to go back to. So I think 

6 there may be different appropriate steps for 

7 different types of meetings and that might be 

8 something that we could flesh out when you 

9 evaluate those different types of meetings as 

10 to what's appropriate and what's not 

11 appropriate. Maybe -- I'm just thinking out 

12 loud. I may be off base here.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Then would the 

14 question be -- and I'm typing as I'm thinking 

15 here -- would the question be, "Are the draft 

16 of meeting minutes available for appropriate 

17 participant review?"

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Wanda, 

19 that's why I'm trying to get away from the 

20 meeting minutes because that's what I was 

21 trying to say that's why we use the record of 

22 the meeting because there may not be meeting 
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1 minutes. It may be documented communications 

2 in the case of site expert interviews.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Well, but would --

4 we can't really use record instead of minutes.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Draft record?

6 MEMBER MUNN: The draft of the 

7 meeting record?

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: That sounds good.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

10 we're on the same page.

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I think that's 

12 the only logical way we can go on some of 

13 these because I've been in meetings where 

14 Larry came down to New Mexico and presented 

15 this information. We had maybe a hundred 

16 people in that room. There's no way you can 

17 know everybody in there and every word that 

18 was said so you kind of have to distill it 

19 down to what the general record of the meeting 

20 was and I don't think you can get actual 

21 meeting minutes out of something like that. 

22 MEMBER MUNN: No, I don't think 
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1 you can. The question then becomes is the 

2 draft of the meeting record available for 

3 appropriate participant review. Does that get 

4 to where we're going?

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I think we're 

8 all in agreement on the issue so once we put 

9 that to words.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Then the next 

12 question, the next bullet then would change 

13 "minutes" to "record," all right? And would 

14 be all right as is.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. Just "draft 

16 meeting record."

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, so that 

18 was pretty easy. Everyone's agreeing with 

19 that, correct? Okay. "Were comments 

20 incorporated into meeting minutes?"

21 MEMBER MUNN: "Meeting document" 

22 or "record" whichever. "Were comments 
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1 incorporated into the final meeting document" 

2 or "record" whichever you prefer.

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. "Were 

4 finalized meeting minutes made available to 

5 participants requesting copies in a timely 

6 manner?"

7 MEMBER MUNN: "Was the finalized 

8 meeting document made available in a timely 

9 manner to participants requesting it?"

10 MR. KATZ: Let's use "record" just 

11 to be consistent.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. "Made 

13 available in a timely manner," move that up.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: "In a timely 

15 manner" comes after "available."

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We're good with 

17 that one. Okay. Let's see if we can go ahead 

18 and try to finish up Evaluation 3 before we 

19 take lunch if possible, unless we get into 

20 some long, drawn-out discussion on one of 

21 these bullets. Evaluate the conduct of 

22 outreach meetings. First bullet. Required 
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1 instructor statements made at the beginning of 

2 the meeting.

3 MR. KATZ: I think this probably 

4 needs some sort of re-framing. I'm not sure 

5 what the required introductory statements are. 

6 I see the "e.g." there but I mean, I think 

7 this is a more general question with respect 

8 to was appropriate sort of introduction given 

9 on the purposes of the meeting and what have 

10 you.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Is there any 

12 reason why it was worded this way originally?

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The "e.g." 

14 was just an example. There are other things 

15 that have to be covered at the beginning of a 

16 meeting, so it's not just to classify 

17 information. Some IOs are outlined in the 

18 procedure.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Well then, 

20 introductory statements at the beginning of 

21 meetings vary widely. What's the type of 

22 meeting? "Were appropriate introductory 
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1 statements made at the beginning of the 

2 meeting" probably would be adequate.

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: There's 

4 some generic statements which should be made, 

5 like about the intent of the audiotape, the 

6 fact that if you're in a non-secured facility 

7 you can't disclose classified information, the 

8 discussions of how the Privacy Act will 

9 influence the meeting minutes.

10 MEMBER BEACH: So can you just ask 

11 the question what introductory statements were 

12 made at the beginning of the meeting and then 

13 leave it up to the auditor to put down what 

14 was said? Otherwise you're going to have to 

15 have examples.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes, I just -- what 

17 Wanda is saying, "Were appropriate 

18 introductory statements made at the beginning 

19 of the meeting," would cover Kathy's examples. 

20 Some of those may be mandatory, but there may 

21 be other appropriate introductory statements 

22 that also needed to be said depending on the 
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1 nature of the meeting, and some of the 

2 required sort of what Kathy's laid out as 

3 required statements may not be required in 

4 every kind of venue. So if you lay it out 

5 here just generally the question -- I mean, 

6 then when you actually are doing your 

7 evaluation you can dig into what the 

8 particulars are that are relevant for that 

9 scenario.

10 MEMBER MUNN: For example, a 

11 meeting of survivors of Blockson workers would 

12 be quite different than a meeting of retired 

13 Savannah River workers, entirely different 

14 setup.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Let's just take 

16 the first bullet and say "Were appropriate 

17 introductory statements made at the beginning 

18 of the meeting" period.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. Question mark 

20 is better.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. I had 

22 something longer, but we could do that.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I think that 

2 leaves it open to what we need to do, what we 

3 want to do. Did the participants feel that 

4 the meeting achieved the stated purpose?

5 MEMBER MUNN: And I don't think we 

6 can identify what anybody feels. We could be 

7 able to ask did the participants indicate that 

8 the meeting achieved its stated purpose. If 

9 they did not indicate it, then we have no way 

10 of evaluating what they felt.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Is everyone good 

12 with that?

13 MEMBER BEACH: Are we going to 

14 change it or strike it? Because I guess I'm 

15 wondering how we're going -- are we going to 

16 ask the participants?

17 MEMBER MUNN: Well, certainly in 

18 open meetings, most of the worker meetings 

19 that I've been to, the questions are usually 

20 asked at the tail end. This would be a good 

21 question I think for Laurie. She does these 

22 things all the time and it's my observation 
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1 that she has lots of verbal feedback over 

2 whether or not the people got the information 

3 that they thought they got, or whether the 

4 meeting was what they wanted it to be, whether 

5 they wanted some other kind of meeting other 

6 than the one they got. Laurie, are you there? 

7 She's gone.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: You know, if I 

9 might comment on this bullet. It seems to be 

10 more appropriate for a giving information 

11 meeting, where this objective is for getting 

12 information. So a participant won't be able 

13 to -- it's for NIOSH has an objective going 

14 into it of getting information meeting. And 

15 so it really -- did NIOSH get the information 

16 it was seeking is sort of -- and I think we 

17 covered that, I'm not sure.

18 MR. KATZ: If you go to Bullet 4, 

19 Bullet 4 is "Were participants allowed 

20 adequate time to provide comments?" I mean, 

21 you could broaden that a little bit maybe as 

22 to whether the circumstances, not just time, 
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1 may not be the only factor for whether they 

2 were able to give their input. But that's 

3 really the question there I think, right? So 

4 we could probably strike the second bullet and 

5 maybe somehow amend the fourth bullet and you 

6 would be getting the question that you're 

7 asking.

8 MEMBER MUNN: And use 

9 "opportunity" rather than "time."

10 DR. MAURO: This is John. I 

11 believe one of the dilemmas we run into as 

12 we're reading these is that some of these 

13 questions are raised as if these were 

14 questions that the Work Group would like to 

15 ask and find out more about, and they 

16 shouldn't be crafted in that form. If you're 

17 interested in the subject, that is if we want 

18 feedback that the participants didn't feel 

19 that the meeting achieved its stated purpose, 

20 this has to be one of the I guess parts of 

21 NIOSH's procedures. That is, basically 

22 embedded in their procedure would be a query 
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1 regarding at the end of the meeting posing 

2 that question so that on the record as part of 

3 the questions posed by NIOSH regarding the 

4 effectiveness of the meeting the participants 

5 have an opportunity to put that material on 

6 the record, and that's the material that's 

7 important to get on the record and then of 

8 course later on we all can sit around and 

9 discuss the record to -- and decide for 

10 ourselves whether we feel the record reveals 

11 to us that the participants felt this way or 

12 that way. So I think we have, you know, I 

13 guess this goes toward crafting the question 

14 in a way that we have to be sure that NIOSH in 

15 fact raises these issues during the course of 

16 the meeting so that we can create a record 

17 regarding material that we're interested in.

18 MR. KATZ: So John, the question 

19 that's been re-framed with Wanda and all, was, 

20 so "Were participants" the fourth bullet now 

21 would read "Were participants allowed adequate 

22 opportunity to provide comments" or their 
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1 input, comments. Then when you want to go 

2 about evaluating that, if OCAS has a procedure 

3 for getting that kind of feedback at the end 

4 of the meeting that'll be one of your sources.

5 DR. MAURO: Yes. We're on the 

6 same page.

7 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I 

8 propose a modification to the second bullet? 

9 Did the meeting achieve its stated purpose, 

10 period.

11 DR. MAURO: I don't agree that 

12 that statement should be here. I think what 

13 Ted said earlier go towards the NIOSH create 

14 the opportunity to put material on the record 

15 that will later allow us to make some 

16 judgments related to this matter. The way 

17 it's worded now it's almost as if it's a 

18 question that the Work Group is going to 

19 directly ask the participants and we're not 

20 going to do that.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: Actually, in the 

22 information-gathering meeting we have what 
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1 Kathy was saying in the prior set of bullets 

2 was the desired information obtained and 

3 documented. Essentially it says, you know, 

4 there's a purpose to the meeting. Was the 

5 purpose achieved?

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: And that directly 

8 goes to an information-gathering approach.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it 

10 goes to all meetings because what we've heard 

11 in the past NIOSH say that, you know, there is 

12 a purpose to each meeting. That's why they're 

13 a little bit different. And the question is 

14 was that purpose met. And it's not just 

15 information-giving or gathering, all of them.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, maybe that's 

17 in a separate place because this whole 

18 objective is about information-gathering. 

19 That's why I'm a little confused.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, this 

21 particular area is about the content of the

22 meeting.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, but an 

2 information-gathering meeting. This whole 

3 Objective Number 2 is information-gathering.

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, the 

5 way it's set up is you've got before the 

6 meeting, during the meeting, after the meeting 

7 and then information-gathering. 

8 MEMBER MUNN: And our overall 

9 objective here is whether OCAS is obtaining 

10 and documenting input from workers. So.

11 MEMBER BEACH: I think we need to 

12 be very clear on what we're doing in each one 

13 of our evaluation bullets so that it's 

14 understood completely. So this one should be 

15 gathering and if we need to capture that in 

16 another bullet I think we should make sure we 

17 capture it. That's just my thought. 

18 Otherwise this is going to be so confusing.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: You know Kathy, I 

20 think what you're talking about maybe we 

21 should revisit under Objective 4.

22 MEMBER BEACH: I agree.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: If I am not 

2 misremembering. I'm not sure.

3 MEMBER MUNN: It would appear to 

4 fit somewhere else better than here.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: What I'm 

6 trying to explain is that the way that these 

7 are laid out is the actions before the 

8 meeting, the actions during the meeting, the 

9 actions after the meeting, and then 

10 information-gathering. 

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: But that's not how 

12 the objectives read currently because 

13 Evaluation Objective 2 says "Determine whether 

14 OCAS is obtaining and documenting input from 

15 workers." And so this is just -- the way it 

16 reads, I don't know how it should be or what 

17 the intent was. The way it reads right now is 

18 it's just this objective is about gathering.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's not 

20 intended to be just about gathering.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, what's 

22 intended?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's 

2 intended to be about the conduct of the 

3 meeting. What happens during the meeting? Is 

4 there a procedure for the meeting? Is the 

5 documentation captured? Were the comments? 

6 How did they conduct the meeting? 

7 DR. MAURO: You see, to me the 

8 problem has to do with the definition of 

9 Objective 2. It's very simple, you know. Is 

10 OCAS obtaining and documenting input from 

11 workers? It doesn't say are the workers happy 

12 with the way the meeting went. You know, even 

13 though all the bullets are -- a lot of the 

14 bullets go toward issues like that, but that's 

15 not what this is trying to do. I mean, I 

16 think we've got a little bit of a problem and 

17 that is we define an objective, but then when 

18 we go with the bullets it opens up on us into 

19 areas that go beyond the scope of the 

20 definition of the objective, and that's fine. 

21 Then we can do one of two things, narrow down 

22 the bullets beneath it or expand the 
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1 definition of the objective. But right now I 

2 see an incongruity between the statement of 

3 the objective, Number 2 in this case, and the 

4 long list of things that we - questions that 

5 we're hoping to answer under Objective 2. So 

6 I'm very conscious of these kinds of 

7 structural things. I feel that there's a 

8 breakdown in parallel structure, at least in 

9 this case.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I just 

11 - do any of you have PR-012 with you?

12 MEMBER BEACH: I do.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Can 

14 you turn to Page 17? I'll pass this around. 

15 Maybe this is a better way to think about what 

16 I'm trying to say. They go through in their 

17 procedure and define pre-meeting activities, 

18 meeting activities and post-meeting 

19 activities. 

20 MEMBER BEACH: Maybe it's a good 

21 time for a break and we can make a copy of 

22 this for everybody. 
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, we'll have 

2 to decide. We've got quite a bit to do here 

3 and 2 o'clock is worker comments. That's

4 going to stay on track so if we're going to 

5 get out of here, you know, we might have to 

6 delay talking about this program 

7 evaluation/communication specialist to another 

8 meeting. So if you want to make some copies 

9 we can go ahead and take lunch now and when we 

10 come back try to stay as honed in as possible 

11 so we can get through this and have some time 

12 to talk about this communication specialist.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just as a comment, 

14 I have no opinion about how, you know, one way 

15 or another, just from a documentation point of 

16 view. Everything that is now under Objective 

17 2 is structured to an information-gathering 

18 meeting. So if we revisit that to what Kathy 

19 is saying with the original intent then we 

20 change Objective 2 and restructure everything 

21 under it. Because not necessarily -- we'll 

22 have to change Objective 2 and add things to 
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1 it that would make it appropriate to that 

2 objective.

3 MEMBER MUNN: My preference is not 

4 to change Objective 2, but to -- and to not 

5 lose this thought, but to place the thought in 

6 a different spot even though it was originated 

7 by the structure to which Kathy refers when 

8 she was putting this together. 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: But maybe conduct 

10 of meeting.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, the conduct of 

12 meeting from my perspective does not include 

13 evaluation of what the participants' reaction 

14 was. It's the conduct of the meeting itself. 

15 Did the agency that was performing the 

16 meeting, regardless of who they were, perform 

17 that meeting in the proper way. The results 

18 of that meeting are another set of issues to 

19 be addressed with other and what came out of 

20 the meeting, questions. And as far as lunch 

21 is concerned, Wanda always votes for lunch.

22 MR. KATZ: So, are we going to 
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1 abandon the effort on these bullets, the set 

2 of bullets before we wrap it up?

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, let's do 

4 that and just kind of maybe think about it a 

5 little bit at lunch. But you know, unless I'm 

6 strongly overruled we're not going to change 

7 the structure of this. We might move some 

8 bullets around, but we're going to get through 

9 it, get a rough draft out and then if we just 

10 don't like the whole product that's another 

11 day.

12 MR. KATZ: I think it's actually 

13 going okay.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: I agree.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It's a lot more 

16 to do.

17 MR. KATZ: Five minutes for lunch 

18 Wanda.

19 MEMBER MUNN: How about an hour 

20 and five minutes for lunch.

21 MR. KATZ: So it is now 12:25. 

22 You want an hour?
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I'd like 45, but 

2 it's probably more likely going to be an hour.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. So 1:30 

4 reconvening Eastern time. Is that good for 

5 everyone on the phone? 

6 MEMBER MUNN: Thank you. Bye.

7 MR. KATZ: Thanks, bye.

8 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

9 matter went off the record at 12:27 p.m. and 

10 resumed at 1:33 p.m.)

11 MR. KATZ: Hello, this is Ted 

12 Katz, Advisory Board on Radiation Worker 

13 Health, Worker Outreach Work Group. I'm the 

14 DFO and we're reconvening after a lunch break 

15 and we are still on the agenda item of 

16 reviewing the evaluation plan charge and the 

17 evaluation plan for the Work Group. And we 

18 broke off mid-sentence almost.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Mid-sentence. 

20 We're under "Evaluate the conduct of outreach 

21 meetings" and we were discussing the bullets 

22 underneath that. I think that perhaps Arjun 
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1 and Kathy discussed a little bit during lunch. 

2 Do you want to go ahead?

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I emailed 

4 this to Mike and Josie and Phil, and I think 

5 Wanda, Josie's emailing you the --

6 MEMBER BEACH: It's already -- it 

7 should be to her.

8 MR. KATZ: It may take a moment, 

9 Wanda, for it to actually arrive in your 

10 inbox.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: So let me just 

12 read through what Kathy wrote at lunch break. 

13 We are at the place that says "Evaluate the 

14 conduct of outreach meetings" under Objective 

15 2, the second set of bullets. And the first 

16 question that Kathy wrote was "Were the proper 

17 participants included in meetings where 

18 information-gathering is the stated goal of 

19 the meeting?" Do you want me to run through 

20 all of these? "Are presentations developed at 

21 the appropriate level for the participants at 

22 the meeting? Are sign-in sheets utilized for 
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1 outreach meetings so that the attendees can be 

2 contacted if needed with follow-up information 

3 or questions? Was the meeting held in an 

4 adequate facility such that individuals were 

5 not limited from providing substantive input 

6 based on security restrictions applicable to 

7 NNSA sites in some cases? Are appropriate 

8 introductory statements made at the beginning 

9 of the meeting? Are questions appropriate to 

10 solicit the desired information? Is adequate 

11 time allotted for presentation and participant 

12 comments? Is technical staff present at 

13 information outreach meetings where 

14 appropriate?" So that can -- I think some of 

15 these are already there in the section we're 

16 talking about, but others are not. 

17 MR. KATZ: So should we just go 

18 through these?

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. So we had 

20 "Were appropriate introductory statements made 

21 at the beginning of the meeting?" We already 

22 have that one. So that one I think is a 
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1 duplicate. Then the second one we already 

2 have is "Was the meeting approach open enough 

3 to enable workers to provide input to the 

4 extent that they wanted?" We haven't 

5 discussed that before lunch. And there's a 

6 corresponding question I think that Kathy 

7 wrote.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I did it 

9 from scratch, so the intent was almost to 

10 replace what was there.

11 MR. KATZ: What we had there 

12 before lunch that Wanda had revised, "Were 

13 participants allowed adequate opportunity to 

14 provide comments?"

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry, I did not 

16 get that.

17 MR. KATZ: And I think that covers 

18 the question.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: To provide 

20 comment.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And that 

22 was the one where I added "adequate time for 
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1 presentations" to it. I just added the 

2 presentation part.

3 MR. KATZ: The front end part, 

4 what's presented. Okay, that's a separate 

5 question, the presentations.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Was there adequate 

7 time for presentations? 

8 MR. KATZ: But that's by -- you 

9 mean OCAS?

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: By OCAS.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Then there's "Were 

12 proper participants included in meetings where 

13 information-gathering is the stated goal of 

14 the meeting?"

15 MR. KATZ: My question about that 

16 is it seems like we already addressed that 

17 question about identifying appropriate 

18 participants under Objective 1. 

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We don't 

20 need it.

21 MEMBER BEACH: Which one are we 

22 not needing?
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: "Were the proper 

2 participants included in meetings?" Because 

3 we already covered that. Then, "Was the 

4 meeting held in an adequate facility such that 

5 individuals were not limited from providing 

6 substantive input based on security 

7 restrictions applicable to NNSA sites?" So 

8 that's already --

9 MEMBER BEACH: That's covered on 

10 the next page, last bullet in that section.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, so I'm 

12 reading the bullets we already have, not the 

13 bullets that Kathy sent, some of which she 

14 seemed to have a fantastic ability to 

15 reproduce and have a very clear vision.

16 MR. KATZ: I just wonder if you 

17 want to generalize that thought, which I think 

18 is a good one, but I mean the question is are 

19 provisions available, you know, as 

20 appropriate. It's not necessarily true that 

21 you'll always need to hold a meeting with that 

22 kind of -- with those facilities, resources. 
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1 Larry can speak to it --

2 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't understand 

3 the question and the need for the question 

4 because we would not hold a meeting, any of 

5 our meetings are held with the intent that 

6 we're not having classified discussions. If 

7 we need to have a discussion of classified 

8 information, then that is scheduled with that 

9 individual separately and properly, the 

10 cleared folks are there and the secured 

11 setting is identified, and we do so under some 

12 control from DOE because they have to review 

13 what is produced as a product from that 

14 interaction before it can be released for 

15 public display or public consumption. So none 

16 of our outreach meetings go to this, you know. 

17 If we hear something that is raised in a 

18 board meeting in public comment, or we hear 

19 something that's raised in one of our 

20 interactions with workers, we use our own 

21 judgment as to how to intervene. At some 

22 times our judgment says don't do anything, 
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1 leave it alone, don't say anything, don't 

2 continue -- you know, if the discussion stops, 

3 that's good. If the discussion continues and 

4 these things continue to be brought up, then 

5 we need to have some kind of intervention 

6 where we stop that discussion and we would 

7 schedule a separate secure meeting for that. 

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So what 

9 you're saying is you're replacing in that 

10 situation worker outreach with site expert 

11 interviews?

12 MR. ELLIOTT: If we have a need to 

13 interview a site expert and we feel that 

14 that's going to take us into a situation where 

15 sensitive information is going to be 

16 discussed, we would do so in a secure setting 

17 with the properly cleared people available for 

18 it. 

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And I guess 

20 there are certain requirements that are being 

21 put on us by DOE at least with our site expert 

22 interviews that if we come to a site like 
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1 Pantex, even if we tell them not to tell us 

2 classified information, they're still 

3 requiring that we do it onsite in a secure 

4 location. And I'm just a little confused 

5 about how this might differ from that.

6 MR. KATZ: Well I was just 

7 suggesting, and I think Larry sort of fleshed 

8 it out for us, that you want a more 

9 generalized question, but that are provisions 

10 being made as appropriate to handle classified 

11 information, something along those lines, 

12 because that's what you're trying to get at, 

13 not imply that it generally is needed.

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Right. I agree with 

15 that.

16 MR. KATZ: When the situation 

17 arises.

18 MEMBER MUNN: And we are not 

19 including in our definition of "further 

20 outreach" the other kinds of activities that 

21 we require from our contractor in their other 

22 duties. I'm a little concerned about how this 
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1 particular issue will be likely to arise in a 

2 worker outreach meeting, unless as was 

3 mentioned earlier it might be possible that --

4 although seemingly unlikely to me -- that a 

5 worker would begin to move into potentially 

6 classified material in public discussion. Is 

7 it just -- am I the only person who's confused 

8 about this delineation between what we are 

9 calling worker outreach and what we are 

10 calling required interviews and activities by 

11 our contractor in other regards?

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, this 

13 is a matter of what's in the Security Plan and 

14 how things are changing as far as basically 

15 activities with workers at certain sites. And 

16 all I'm saying is at a site like Pantex we 

17 were not given -- DOE wants us to do it onsite 

18 just in case something comes out.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, it may be a 

20 prior question here, does this procedure cover 

21 NIOSH site experts or not, and are we 

22 reviewing that -- because that's a kind of a 
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1 worker outreach or site expert outreach. SC&A 

2 doesn't distinguish between those two things 

3 in our interviews. We kind of almost use the 

4 terms interchangeably, although site expert is 

5 broader than worker -- or interview workers 

6 sort of for the purpose of eliciting 

7 information. I mean, our goals are very 

8 narrow as compared to NIOSH. NIOSH has a 

9 broader, more complicated set of 

10 responsibilities.

11 MEMBER MUNN: That's exactly what 

12 I was asking, Arjun. What I hear you saying 

13 is that from your perspective our worker 

14 interview is a worker interview, whether it is 

15 in the process of identifying specific 

16 information for a TBD or whether it is in 

17 reference to a claim. And I guess that's what 

18 I'm asking of the rest of the Work Group. Is 

19 that your definition of worker outreach?

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's not what I 

21 meant, Wanda. So just, I might have not made 

22 myself clear, but that's not what I meant. In 
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1 any case, it's not for me to say.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Is there any 

3 instances that we know of where workers or 

4 claimants have been stymied in their efforts 

5 to talk about stuff classified? I mean, has 

6 there ever been a time where a classified 

7 setting was not provided to them when 

8 necessary?

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I can think of 

10 many occasions and many people that even 

11 include my career, there are certain areas I 

12 would not go into unless I was in a secured 

13 facility with the proper people. I mean, 

14 because you can cross that line real easy 

15 depending on what your background is.

16 MEMBER MUNN: But is this -- I'm 

17 not concerned about whether or not secure 

18 areas are necessary for certain types of 

19 interviews, my concern is specifically that we 

20 define very clearly the difference between 

21 worker outreach and worker interviews that are 

22 used for other purposes. Whether it is a 
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1 worker interview that is used for the purpose 

2 of producing an evaluation report, or a 

3 technical basis document in my mind is not 

4 worker outreach and that's what I'm trying to 

5 clarify here when we start talking about these 

6 secure facilities and who we are interviewing 

7 and for what.

8 MR. ELLIOTT: I think we would say 

9 that is outreach in our minds when we want to 

10 seek out certain individuals to gain 

11 information or input on our dose 

12 reconstruction approach for a given site, our 

13 site profile, an evaluation report. We start 

14 from a place that says we don't necessarily 

15 need to have a classified discussion, but we 

16 will arrange and welcome such a conversation 

17 if the interviewee feels it's necessary and 

18 appropriate.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Ah. I had been 

20 under a misapprehension for lo these many 

21 years. There was never any expectation from 

22 me that worker outreach as such included 
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1 interviews in establishing base operational 

2 documents. 

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I 

4 interrupt? This is more of a DOE issue and an 

5 issue where we're putting people in an area 

6 where they're comfortable talking versus out 

7 in the public.

8 MEMBER MUNN: I understand what 

9 you're talking about, Kathy, that's very clear 

10 in my mind. I just obviously had been 

11 confused for many years. I had no idea that 

12 worker outreach included interviewing the site 

13 experts to establish base documents like TBDs.

14 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: There are a 

15 number of people, a number of processes and 

16 stuff that you -- there's kind of a fine line 

17 between what you can discuss out in the open 

18 and where you probably would be better off in 

19 a secure facility with the proper people. 

20 That way if you say something you haven't 

21 crossed over that line, or if you did, you 

22 know. You basically you can work around this, 
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1 but given the fact that many people who are 

2 still in the business or who recently retired, 

3 you know, you can cross over that line so fast 

4 when you get into -- and some of this 

5 information is definitely relevant for people 

6 doing dose reconstructions, for understanding 

7 the health physics of an area, you know, and 

8 yet you're right on that border.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Most of the time 

10 it's pretty though, Phil. Most of us know 

11 what is sensitive information and what isn't. 

12 But it's now a non-issue from my point of 

13 view. If all contacts with workers are 

14 considered worker outreach then I've got it.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So it 

16 sounds like the general approach is we need to 

17 leave some kind of statement in there. So how 

18 do we want to word this statement?

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, here's what 

20 I wrote Ted as saying. "Are provisions made 

21 that are appropriate for interviews in a 

22 classified setting should the need arise?" 
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, so the 

2 rest of the bullets in this section.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: There were three 

4 bullets that Kathy added at lunch in the prior 

5 list. "Are presentations developed at the 

6 appropriate level?" You have that, right? 

7 You got that, right, from my email? 

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: "Are sign-in 

10 sheets utilized and are questions appropriate 

11 to solicit the desired information?" You want 

12 to insert those three in this list? 

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: That's fine with 

14 me. What's everyone else think?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Fine.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Add value? 

17 Okay. Put it in there.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, we'll put 

19 them at the bottom of the list that we were 

20 just discussing. 

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, is there 

22 anything else under that section? If not 
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1 we'll move on to evaluate the completeness and 

2 adequacy of the outreach tracking system. 

3 "Does OTS reflect the breadth and depth of the 

4 information provided by workers at the 

5 meetings?" Is everyone okay with that, 

6 understand the meaning? Going once, going 

7 twice, okay. "Did the OTS integrate action 

8 items accepted by OCAS or its contractors 

9 during the course of the meeting?" Any 

10 discussion on that or questions? Okay, what 

11 about the next one? "Were participant 

12 comments provided at information-gathering 

13 meetings included in OTS?" Okay, fourth 

14 bullet. "Is OTS an adequate method for 

15 documenting and tracking worker comments?" 

16 Everyone satisfied with those? Okay.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Will we need to 

18 answer that last bullet more than one time?

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Sorry, what do 

20 you mean Wanda?

21 MEMBER MUNN: Will we need to 

22 answer that last bullet more than one time?
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Once OTS has 

2 evaluated it we shouldn't, should we? Once 

3 that's done?

4 MEMBER MUNN: And if we're only 

5 going to open -- if we're only going to need 

6 to do it one time, then could it not be 

7 incorporated in the basis of the overriding 

8 question?

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Well, once we 

10 evaluate it once it could be that we 

11 periodically go back and just make sure that 

12 it continued to be maintained. 

13 MR. ELLIOTT: I might offer here 

14 that the different types of meetings that we 

15 would hold may result in different 

16 contributions to the OTS, different things get 

17 put there, so maybe that warrants looking at 

18 those things separately.

19 MEMBER MUNN: And does it need to 

20 add for the type of meeting under scrutiny?

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: For the various 

22 types of meetings.
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1 MR. KATZ: It's not just meetings 

2 though. I mean, there's input that comes in 

3 without meetings. I think when you actually 

4 do this evaluation you can go and you can look 

5 at the many venues by which information comes 

6 in and examine it against all of those.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So it's probably 

8 okay like it is.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I had one 

10 question though. Are we going to limit it to 

11 OTS or are we going to do some evaluations of 

12 how NIOSH has responded to comments in 

13 historical databases?

14 MEMBER BEACH: Well, we said at 

15 the beginning that we were going to look at 

16 historical databases, didn't we?

17 MR. KATZ: What are historical? 

18 I'm sorry.

19 MEMBER BEACH: WISPR.

20 MR. KATZ: How long has WISPR been 

21 out of --

22 MEMBER BEACH: Since about 2006?
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1 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know, but we 

2 don't use it anymore and you can look at it 

3 all you want if you can look at it. I don't 

4 know that you can even look at it. I mean, I 

5 don't think - is WISPR in a platform --

6 MEMBER BEACH: I looked at it a 

7 few months ago just because I wanted to see 

8 the last time you put something in, but it's 

9 been awhile. And I have never looked at 

10 TopHat. 

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We need 

12 printouts available from TopHat.

13 MEMBER BEACH: But on Page 2 we 

14 said outreach databases, so if we're not going 

15 to look at them then we ought to take them out 

16 of there as well. I mean, we have to decide 

17 as a Work Group.

18 MR. KATZ: I would think you'd 

19 want to know how things are being done now. 

20 And really historically how things were being 

21 done three years ago, I'm not sure that that's 

22 -- in terms of thinking about improving the 
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1 program, I don't know that that is the place 

2 to start. I would want to start with current 

3 practice if you want to make comments about 

4 improving.

5 MEMBER BEACH: I think we 

6 definitely want to start with current 

7 practices.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And it may be 

9 good to go back and take a look at the old one 

10 just to see maybe there was some progress 

11 made, you know, how it's been made. But you 

12 know, reviewing the old databases wouldn't be 

13 one of these ongoing things.

14 MR. KATZ: No. I guess my point 

15 is that, for example, if we're going to go in 

16 and evaluate how good WISPR was, it seems like 

17 that's really an academic point. If they're 

18 using OTS now, then whatever flaws it might 

19 have had, I'm not sure how it matters.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: OTS is not 

21 an all-encompassing database of all of the 

22 comments provided since the beginning of the 
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1 program. And we do have an interest in 

2 earlier comments that were provided to NIOSH 

3 and how they ended up influencing the dose 

4 reconstructions and site profiles.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I ask Larry 

6 a question? Larry, the WISPR/TopHat comments, 

7 are they going to be transitioned into a new 

8 database, or gone, or how does that sort of 

9 historical document weigh currently? See what 

10 I mean?

11 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I don't -- J.J. 

12 and Mary help me out here. I don't think we 

13 had a plan to incorporate TopHat and WISPR 

14 into this database.

15 MR. JOHNSON: TopHat is something 

16 that you can't even use. It was started and 

17 it was almost dead before it got going. The 

18 WISPR program is something that you can look 

19 at, but you can't necessarily take the 

20 information and move it into the Outreach 

21 Tracking System. We're going to be looking at 

22 it to see what might be out there, but for any 
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1 other purposes other than seeing if we can put 

2 it into OTS I don't know what's there, what 

3 exactly the purpose of looking at it, other 

4 than maybe missing something and that's 

5 something that would be of interest, but not 

6 necessarily --

7 MR. ELLIOTT: TopHat was in a 

8 proprietary software program that we couldn't 

9 transfer or something, is that correct?

10 MR. JOHNSON: It was --

11 MR. ELLIOTT: It was not something 

12 we were asking for as a deliverable from the 

13 original contract.

14 MR. JOHNSON: Right.

15 MR. ELLIOTT: Something they were 

16 ginning up and here again we got into a 

17 situation where a contractor should not be 

18 developing a software program that's used for 

19 the government because, you know, it doesn't 

20 have utility and life expectancy that we need, 

21 nor did we ask for it. And then -- I mean, 

22 you all can look at what you can see there. I 
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1 think there are other ways to get at this 

2 question of whether or not we heard input and 

3 we reacted to it. You can go, for example, 

4 you can check out the second or third page in 

5 our Technical Basis Documents at the revision 

6 page, and usually we hope that's where it is 

7 captured that we heard worker input, or we 

8 heard Board commentary, or we heard -- what 

9 forced us to change that particular section of 

10 that document and what was the change. So 

11 there's that avenue that you might use.

12 MR. KATZ: Let me clarify my point 

13 because we're getting into really issues that 

14 are in the next evaluation objective with 

15 respect to this. My point, just to be clear, 

16 is whether OTS is a good method. Again, we're 

17 under Objective 2, the conduct of meetings, et 

18 cetera, and under Objective 2 you're asking 

19 the question is OTS an adequate method that 

20 they're using now to document and track worker 

21 comments. But Kathy raises the point you may 

22 want to know, you know, how comments received 
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1 prior to this, how they were addressed. 

2 You're going to get to that under Objective 3, 

3 but the question of whether that previous 

4 tracking method was a good method doesn't 

5 matter really. You need the information from 

6 there, absolutely, to be able to -- but you 

7 don't need the objective, evaluation 

8 objective, because who cares whether the old 

9 method was a good method of tracking. You 

10 just want to know what comments were received 

11 and how were they handled, and those are 

12 addressed then under Evaluation Objective 

13 Number 3.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And we're not 

15 precluded from going back and looking up that 

16 information. 

17 MR. KATZ: No.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So we're okay.

19 MR. KATZ: All I'm saying is we 

20 don't need to broaden this from is OTS an 

21 adequate method to what about the historical 

22 ones, were they adequate methods. That was my 
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1 point.

2 MEMBER MUNN: This entire 

3 discussion emanates from our failure to having 

4 answered one prior basic question at the 

5 outset, and that is once we have done these 

6 evaluations that we are asking ourselves and 

7 our contractors to do, to what end will that 

8 information be used. In other words, why do 

9 we do this in the first place? If the reason 

10 we are doing what we are doing is to provide 

11 assurance to ourselves and to others that this 

12 is being done in the best way we can, then 

13 reviewing a great deal of past material has no 

14 relevance. If there is some other reason 

15 we're doing this, then we need to clarify for 

16 ourselves why we are doing the evaluations 

17 that we are doing.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. I'm going 

19 to have to suspend this discussion at this 

20 point in the agenda right now. It's time for 

21 the workers, worker advocates and claimants 

22 have time now to make comments to the Work 
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1 Group here. So if anyone's on the line and 

2 you'd like to identify yourself to the court 

3 reporter and go ahead and make a comment.

4 MS. BARRIE: This is Terrie Barrie 

5 with ANWAG. 

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Hi Terrie, go 

7 ahead.

8 MS. BARRIE: I wasn't able to 

9 listen to the entire call this morning, but I 

10 was very interested in this recent discussion 

11 about the information given prior to the OTS 

12 database. And I am concerned that -- how 

13 these comments, you know, especially for the 

14 Rocky Flats where the public comment period 

15 for those Board meetings -- if NIOSH had 

16 addressed those concerns, I'm thinking in 

17 particular of a physician who had made a 

18 presentation on the IREP model, if that was --

19 this is just an example -- if that was ever, 

20 if NIOSH ever addressed those concerns to the 

21 physicians that presented. So the information 

22 that is in the WISPR database is important to 
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1 a degree if they were not addressed. And I 

2 think that, granted that looking back at the 

3 process is not important, but the information 

4 that is in that database obviously might be. 

5 And I thank you for allowing this time for the 

6 advocates and claimants to make comments. 

7 Thank you.

8 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Terrie. And I 

9 think what we just discussed is we totally 

10 concur with what you just said.

11 MS. BARRIE: Okay, good.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, any other 

13 workers or advocates, representatives on the 

14 phone? Anyone else that wants to make a 

15 public comment?

16 MS. HAND: Can you hear me? This 

17 is Donna Hand.

18 MR. KATZ: Hello Donna Hand.

19 MS. HAND: Okay. I am a worker 

20 advocate. I'd like to make some comments. 

21 It's that I understand this is supposed to be 

22 like the outreach everything work group, and 
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1 is that you know, the meetings and the 

2 transcripts that I am reading of the previous 

3 outreach, there's a lot of contingencies upon 

4 the workers that the information that they're 

5 giving to these people, to NIOSH and OTS 

6 representatives are being ignored. Even with 

7 a follow-up, you know, they're still, the 

8 information is being ignored. And again, 

9 whenever they come into the claimant interview 

10 section on a claim, they again address the 

11 dose reconstruction as evidence that was there 

12 in the Technical Basis Document as well as 

13 what was presented before the Technical Basis 

14 final draft was emitted and is still being 

15 ignored. As to the classified areas, the very 

16 first thing that these people come into from 

17 NIOSH, they say okay workers, tell us what you 

18 did at this facility, but don't tell us 

19 anything classified. Well these people have 

20 already been taught and their subconscious has 

21 been told to them everything you did at this 

22 plant was classified. You cannot tell us 
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1 anything. And so therefore they're saying 

2 well, you know, I can't tell you anything you 

3 should know because it's all classified. You 

4 have to address that type of mind set with 

5 these workers, especially the elderly workers 

6 when they have for these years been told and 

7 told again that this was classified 

8 information. Do not even tell your wives. I 

9 address it when I have my meetings is that I 

10 know it's classified, but you had a name for 

11 the project. You know, just tell me basically 

12 what type did you do with that project. Don't

13 tell me, you know, the circumstances, but what 

14 did you do. 

15 Pinellas Plant has classified 

16 product at this time. It was a whole building 

17 and area that is still classified and you just 

18 had a problem with that. However, the dose 

19 reconstruction does not even adhere to that, 

20 that building or that area, to any of the 

21 workers. And they keep on telling you guys, 

22 you know, this is what's happening. And then 
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1 the Technical Basis Document for Pinellas 

2 Plant which was done -- a rough draft in 2004, 

3 2005, 2006, two of them, they omitted certain 

4 things and then added on others but yet 

5 completely ignored some of the highly 

6 radioactive substances that were used in that 

7 facility. When you go to your claimant 

8 interviews and they do their interviews they 

9 tell you again this is what we did at Pinellas 

10 Plant, and then you ignore the processes and 

11 the products and the radiation material that 

12 they handled. So something needs to be 

13 addressed to assure these people that when you 

14 do these base reports or you do these 

15 interviews that you did acknowledge that they 

16 mentioned this to them, and why you did or did 

17 not address it into the Technical Basis 

18 Document or into the dose reconstruction for 

19 the people. Because they are very, very 

20 frustrated that what they're telling you guys

21 you're not listening to. Thank you very much. 

22 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Donna. 
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Anyone else? 

2 Public comment? Advocates, workers, 

3 claimants?

4 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes, this is 

5 Antoinette Bonsignore. 

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Hi Antoinette, 

7 go ahead.

8 MS. BONSIGNORE: Hi. I just 

9 wanted to raise an issue and I don't know if 

10 this was discussed earlier in the meeting, but 

11 regarding providing technical assistance to 

12 workers to better understand dose 

13 reconstruction reports with respect to the 

14 fact that since the Department of Labor and 

15 NIOSH do provide assistance to claimants 

16 regarding disputed medical issues -- they 

17 provide medical experts at DOL expense -- that 

18 NIOSH consider providing that type of 

19 assistance in terms of providing an expert 

20 advisor that a claimant can contact and speak 

21 with to better understand the substance of the 

22 dose reconstruction report, particularly when 
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1 a claim is being recommended for denial.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. 

3 Antoinette?

4 MS. BONSIGNORE: Yes.

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Larry Elliott 

6 had to leave the room so I don't know that 

7 NIOSH will have an answer for you today, but 

8 we'll sure take that question down and give it 

9 to them.

10 MS. BONSIGNORE: Okay. Thank you 

11 very much.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Thanks. Any 

13 other public comments from anyone? Any other 

14 public comments? Okay. Hearing none I think 

15 maybe we'll just go back to our discussion we 

16 were having previously and then within the 

17 next 45 minutes if anyone from the public 

18 comes on the line they can make a comment. 

19 Okay, so you were discussing the need to go 

20 back essentially through some of the older 

21 databases and I think we heard some public 

22 comment as to why there's certain areas that 
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1 that would be available. I think this 

2 document leaves us the latitude to do that so 

3 do we need to discuss that any further? If 

4 not we can move on to Evaluation Objective 

5 Number 3, is OCAS giving thorough 

6 consideration to information received from 

7 workers through the worker outreach efforts 

8 appropriating consideration of that material 

9 into its work products as appropriate and 

10 adequately communicating the impact of 

11 substantive comments to workers. Okay, does 

12 anyone want to start this discussion or any 

13 questions about the first bullet?

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Did you want to 

15 put the question?

16 MEMBER MUNN: I'm sorry, Mark. I 

17 didn't hear you begin your reading of that 

18 evaluation objective. You did change that 

19 into a statement, right? Determine whether 

20 OCAS is giving?

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I had not done 

22 that.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: I thought we had 

2 agreed that we would.

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We did, I just 

4 hadn't done it yet. Thanks, Wanda.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. 

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Depending on you 

7 to keep us in line.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Just already done it 

9 myself. Wanted to make it sure it was on the 

10 record.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. How does 

12 OCAS catalogue and consider worker input for 

13 inclusion into its technical documents, such 

14 as the site profiles and SEC evaluation 

15 reports? That's pretty straightforward, right 

16 everyone? Any questions with that or 

17 anything? Okay. What criteria are used to 

18 determine whether comments are substantive? 

19 MEMBER MUNN: That question and 

20 the following one probably could be combined. 

21 What criteria is used by whom to determine 

22 whether comments are substantive.
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1 MR. KATZ: I have a couple of 

2 questions about this. I mean, whether -- I'm 

3 not sure whether "substantive," I understand 

4 what it means to say whether comments are 

5 substantive. Are we asking whether the 

6 criteria used to determine whether the 

7 comments should result in a change? Or I'm 

8 not really understanding what we're meaning by 

9 "substantive."

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It should 

11 result in an action. Or a response.

12 MR. KATZ: In other words, should 

13 be evaluated?

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

15 MEMBER BEACH: So we're asking to 

16 look at OCAS's criteria of what they're using 

17 to decide what creates the change or an 

18 action?

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, let 

20 me kind of clarify. "Substantive" is not my 

21 word, it's a word that NIOSH has commonly 

22 used.
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay. But what does 

2 NIOSH mean when it uses it?

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, 

4 that's a good question. 

5 MEMBER MUNN: Perhaps 

6 "substantive" means to be expanded upon just 

7 with a couple of explanatory words, 

8 substantive enough to require action.

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

10 we're trying to make that determination of 

11 whether a comment deserves action or not. I 

12 don't know. For example, if someone comes in 

13 and says my Part E claim is not going through 

14 fast enough, that's not appropriate for NIOSH 

15 to respond to. They might forward it to DOL, 

16 but.

17 MR. KATZ: Well, just my thoughts 

18 here, but I think the key issue is you want to 

19 know whether -- right, we're trying to get at 

20 whether comments that might have a real impact 

21 on procedures, whether they were duly 

22 considered, right? That's what we want to 
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1 know, is that right? So you want to know what 

2 criteria are used to identify those comments 

3 that require technical consideration or 

4 something along those lines, require -- I'm 

5 just trying to.

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I like "require" 

7 because some comments --

8 MR. KATZ: "Deserve," whatever. 

9 So what criteria are used to identify a 

10 comment that deserves consideration for 

11 possible changes in technical documents, 

12 right? That's it? Is that it?

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I don't 

14 know if I'd add the technical documents 

15 because some of the departments are not 

16 specific to a particular technical document. 

17 They're more generic in nature.

18 MEMBER MUNN: And we're looking 

19 for something that requires a response or an 

20 action from the agency?

21 MR. KATZ: Right. And then the 

22 second bullet, the who, I don't -- I mean, my 
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1 opinion is it doesn't really matter who. You 

2 want to know that this is being done, but I'm 

3 not sure why you'd want to identify -- why 

4 evaluating this -- well maybe you do just to 

5 understand the process.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, it 

7 needs to be done by a technical person versus 

8 an administrative person in some cases. For 

9 example --

10 MR. KATZ: Are the appropriate 

11 personnel evaluating the input that's 

12 received. Is that the question you're trying 

13 to get at, Kathy?

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

15 MR. KATZ: I think that's a good 

16 question.

17 MEMBER BEACH: So are the 

18 appropriate personnel evaluating or 

19 determining that comments are subjective?

20 MR. KATZ: Just evaluating the 

21 input. Comments received.

22 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Are we good on 
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1 those two now, then?

2 MEMBER BEACH: Are we changing the 

3 second bullet, or are we going to leave it 

4 with the criteria are used to determine? 

5 MEMBER MUNN: I thought your 

6 suggestion for incorporating the two was good, 

7 Josie.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Either way is 

9 fine with me, just what do we want to do? Do 

10 we want to make it into one, or do you want to 

11 leave it separate?

12 MR. KATZ: Well, if you make the 

13 two into one you just have a compound 

14 sentence. You might as well have two bullets 

15 in my view.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Let's 

17 leave it two separate bullets.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Well, as long as one 

19 of them identifies what "substantive" means to 

20 this group.

21 MR. KATZ: So Wanda had suggested 

22 a change, but I don't know that anyone 
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1 recorded it or that I can remember it. But I 

2 mean -- because it's totally unclear what's 

3 meant by "comments are substantive." So we 

4 talked about what criteria are used -- that's 

5 Bullet Number 2, yes. 

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: So I did record 

7 what she said for Bullet Number 2. I didn't 

8 see anything in Bullet Number 1.

9 MR. KATZ: Bullet Number 1 I 

10 thought we were okay with.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: So I didn't have 

12 any change in that. What I wrote down for 

13 Bullet Number 2 was what criteria are used to 

14 identify comments that deserve consideration 

15 for inclusion in NIOSH and contractor 

16 documents. I wasn't clear -- inclusion in 

17 something.

18 MR. KATZ: It was for 

19 consideration --

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: For inclusion in -

21 -

22 MR. KATZ: To be NIOSH documents 
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1 or by NIOSH documents or actions I think is 

2 what Wanda said.

3 MEMBER MUNN: I had "require 

4 response or action."

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Do you want to 

6 repeat that, Wanda, please?

7 MEMBER MUNN: I had said -- I 

8 can't remember the first part of the sentence, 

9 but what comments are -- what word did we use?

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: I have it, Wanda. 

11 What criteria are used to identify comments 

12 that deserve consideration for a response or 

13 action by NIOSH.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Correct.

15 MR. KATZ: Yes, that sounds good.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We agreed to 

17 change the third one to something to the 

18 effect of are the appropriate personnel making 

19 these determinations.

20 MR. KATZ: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Are we 

22 ready for the fourth bullet? What procedures 
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1 are in place to determine input for action 

2 items in OTS? 

3 MEMBER BEACH: And do we need to 

4 say procedures and processes? Go ahead. 

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, go 

6 ahead.

7 MEMBER BEACH: I was just going to 

8 say do we need to add processes as we have 

9 throughout the rest of this document so far?

10 MR. KATZ: I agree, Josie, about 

11 processes and procedures because not 

12 everything may be proceduralized, but I don't 

13 understand this. I don't understand what we 

14 mean by "in place to determine input for 

15 action items." I just don't understand that.

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. In 

17 the OTS database NIOSH has changed their way 

18 of responding to comments versus, you know, 

19 how they responded to them with WISPR and they 

20 have created a field called Action Items based 

21 upon comments and that's why we see OTS there 

22 and not the other databases. So that's a 
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1 reference to the action items they take on in 

2 response to the comments.

3 MEMBER BEACH: So I guess my 

4 question is what is "Determine input for 

5 action items." What are you trying to get at?

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We want to 

7 know how they determine what action they're 

8 going to take.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so determine 

10 - does that work? Get rid of the --

11 MR. KATZ: So, how does NIOSH 

12 determine appropriate actions?

13 MEMBER BEACH: For items in OTS. 

14 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: How does NIOSH 

16 determine action items to be included in OTS? 

17 Is that what people are saying?

18 MEMBER BEACH: No. Determine what 

19 --

20 MR. KATZ: What actions to take in 

21 response to the comments received.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: How does 
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1 NIOSH determine appropriate actions for 

2 comments provided in OTS. That's what I got.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: It seems to be 

4 specific to OTS. 

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And it is -

6 -

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: So that's why I'm 

8 asking. 

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: In WISPR 

10 they put in a response to every comment that 

11 was received and they didn't have something 

12 called Action Items, nor did they with TopHat. 

13 MEMBER MUNN: How can you answer a 

14 question like that, how you determine -- that 

15 would seem to be different for every type of 

16 action that you can think of.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: What 

18 they're doing is they're putting in a comment 

19 that a worker provided and then there is an 

20 action field and the action for that comment 

21 can be no action or the action could be 

22 further investigate releases of UF6 from the 
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1 Cascades. And what we're trying to determine 

2 is if that action item is appropriate to 

3 adequately address the concerns.

4 MEMBER MUNN: You may ask five 

5 people that question and get three different 

6 answers as to why they made that decision or 

7 what process was used to conclude that no 

8 action was necessary or that some action was 

9 necessary, which action should be taken.

10 MR. KATZ: I wonder if we're not 

11 already getting at this. If we have what 

12 criteria are used to evaluate the comments 

13 received for action or changes in documents, 

14 whatever, we have that already. I mean isn't 

15 that really getting at the question?

16 MEMBER BEACH: But it's a twofold 

17 question because the front end of it is 

18 talking about what procedures and processes 

19 are in place and then it talks about determine 

20 what action. So are we wanting to look at the 

21 procedures that are in place or are we 

22 actually looking at the actions that were 
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1 determined. I guess Kathy, why did you put 

2 procedures and processes or procedures in the 

3 front. 

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: OTS is part 

5 of the PR-012 so it is included in the PR-012 

6 review of PR-012. It is an extension of the 

7 procedure.

8 MEMBER BEACH: So are we looking 

9 at the procedures that the rest of that 

10 sentence takes care of, or are you looking at 

11 the action you've taken because of the 

12 comment? It's very confusing.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I see these two 

14 questions as are we going to review the 

15 procedure that tells him what to do, how to 

16 put actions in as one thing and then if we do 

17 that are we also going to look at OTS, the 

18 action that was recorded, is it appropriate 

19 for the comments. There's two different. 

20 DR. MAURO: Mike, this is John. I 

21 agree. I think that this is the first bullet 

22 where we return to the procedures. It seems 
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1 to me the more fundamental question 

2 notwithstanding the procedures is that what 

3 action -- in other words, once an item has 

4 been recorded wherever it is, let's say it's 

5 in OTS, and it has been judged to be 

6 substantive to the extent that it needs to be 

7 recorded, then the question really becomes 

8 okay, we've identified something that is of 

9 interest and concern, what do we do about it? 

10 What are we going to do about it and I think 

11 that's what the real issue here is. Whether 

12 or not it's in the procedure, I think we've 

13 got it in the procedures elsewhere because 

14 this is the first place where we are asking a 

15 question in terms -- in the context of does 

16 the procedure provide for this. It seems to 

17 me the "procedure" word is out of place in 

18 this bullet. Not that it should not be 

19 addressed in a procedure review, but this 

20 particular evaluation objective doesn't seem 

21 to be a subset of any type of procedure. It's 

22 really functional. We functionally want to 
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1 know listen, if you've found something that 

2 you think is important what are you going to 

3 do about it?

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well 

5 there's that, and then there's whether NIOSH 

6 is following their own guidance within the 

7 procedure and doing that.

8 DR. MAURO: But this does not seem 

9 to be the place where we're doing a procedure 

10 review, right? I mean, Evaluation Objective 3 

11 is not couched in terms of procedure review. 

12 It almost transcends procedures.

13 MEMBER BEACH: Kathy, it seems to 

14 me you're trying to get at something and maybe 

15 you just need to reword it to what exactly --

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'll give 

17 you an example, okay? I'm going to use the 

18 coworker interviews as an example. In the 

19 CATI procedure there's an outline for when 

20 they do those type of interviews and there's 

21 kind of two things here. NIOSH has got in 

22 their mind how they determine what the action 
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1 items are. They've got a process for that. 

2 In that process we need to ask ourselves the 

3 question is that process complete.

4 MEMBER MUNN: The point I was 

5 trying to make --

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The 

7 criteria that they use to derive their action 

8 items.

9 DR. MAURO: Let me try again. In 

10 other words, in the second bullet, just for an 

11 example, what criteria are used to determine 

12 something substantive. I realize there's some 

13 wording changes. It's not couched in terms of 

14 due to procedures contained criteria. In my 

15 mind, this is an overarching important 

16 question the answer to which when this 

17 question is posed may very well be yes, 

18 Procedure Number XYZ explicitly states these 

19 are the criteria we will use to determine when 

20 we're going to put a particular piece of 

21 information into OTS. That would be the 

22 answer to the question, but that's not the way 
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1 this is couched. This is couched transcendent 

2 to the procedure and I like the idea, quite 

3 frankly, that these series of bullets are 

4 attempting to transcend procedures because 

5 quite frankly procedures come, procedures go, 

6 they're improved, they're revised, but the 

7 fundamental essence of our concern is listen, 

8 when you find out there's something important, 

9 you write it down and you make sure some 

10 action is taken to correct it or to do 

11 whatever needs to be done and that's why I 

12 think this particular Objective Number 3 is by 

13 far the one of greatest interest to me. When 

14 you find out there's something that needs to 

15 be fixed we have to make sure it's recorded 

16 and that action is taken to fix it. In fact, 

17 when we all started all this many, many months 

18 ago, this is what triggered everything we were 

19 talking about. The concern, if you remember, 

20 we repeatedly ran into circumstances where 

21 workers and people we interviewed were giving 

22 us information and it never made its way home 
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1 into -- not never, but we often found that 

2 that material was not explicitly captured and 

3 incorporated into the site profile. So I mean 

4 this to me is something that transcends the 

5 procedures, it goes to the heart of why we are 

6 doing what we're doing in terms of from the 

7 technical side. See, I see this as from a 

8 technical point of view if there's a point 

9 that's being made that is important to dose 

10 reconstruction and that we didn't know about 

11 before but we do now because someone just 

12 informed us of it, we need to capture it and 

13 make sure it's reflected in how we go about 

14 doing our business. So I mean, I guess I feel 

15 strongly that we keep it in that vein and not 

16 make it a procedure review.

17 MR. KATZ: John, I think that's 

18 good, but I don't know, it's hard to get away 

19 from the word "procedures" but I think we're 

20 still asking the question what procedures are 

21 in place to ensure that comments are responded 

22 to appropriately, whatever, acted on 
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1 appropriately. 

2 MEMBER MUNN: But no matter how 

3 many procedures are written, no matter how 

4 many written processes are followed, sooner or 

5 later you come to a point where many of these 

6 items are in fact by necessity a result of an 

7 informed judgment call. 

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I kind 

9 of ask a question here? If I have two people 

10 or three people who are looking at a comment, 

11 is there a consistent criteria by which that 

12 comment is going to be judged by those three 

13 people?

14 MEMBER MUNN: And my point is the 

15 comment itself is likely to be viewed in a 

16 different light depending upon the 

17 circumstances of that employee's site, that 

18 employee's work and any other number of 

19 variables that might be involved. That's why 

20 I said informed review.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay, now 

22 these are three people at NIOSH who are 
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1 looking at the comments, okay? And are we 

2 saying that it's okay to be subjective, or do

3 you want criteria there, at least guidelines 

4 on what is a substantive comment?

5 MEMBER MUNN: Guidelines are 

6 always necessary, but seldom sufficient when 

7 one's attempting to move through such a wide 

8 variety of activities and such a wide variety 

9 of circumstances that have been encountered by 

10 our claimants.

11 MR. KATZ: Let me go at this 

12 again, Wanda, and see if I can't help here. 

13 We have criteria. What criteria are there to 

14 identify comments that deserve response, 

15 right? And then the next step really when you 

16 think about it, what procedure is in place to 

17 make sure that when you identify, if you're 

18 correctly identifying those items, to make 

19 sure those items get sent to the right people 

20 to give it consideration, in effect. I mean, 

21 you can't lay out the criteria for every 

22 different kind of comment, there's just no 
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1 way. I mean, that universe is huge so you 

2 can't -- I don't think you could expect to 

3 find in procedures here's how you do -- here's 

4 what you do for a comment of this nature, 

5 here's what you do for a comment of that 

6 nature. I guess you could do some categorical 

7 general procedures, but I don't know that they 

8 exist. But you certainly want to know once 

9 someone, whoever is on the front end -- the 

10 receiving end of the comments, once they 

11 receive this comment and it says XYZ about 

12 some process at some site, whatever, you want 

13 to be sure that there's a procedure to make 

14 sure that comment, as John was saying, doesn't 

15 get sort of lost between the cracks somewhere, 

16 but that it gets to the appropriate experts 

17 and whatever to give it consideration. Right? 

18 So that's sort of a procedure for ensuring 

19 that items that deserve some action or 

20 response get such an action and response.

21 DR. MAURO: You see, and I agree 

22 with everything you're saying. I'm sort of a 
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1 purist. I look at the evaluation criteria. 

2 If you want to make Evaluation Objective 3 a 

3 procedure review to make sure that there's a 

4 procedure in place that does all these 

5 important things, that's one thing. If you 

6 want Evaluation 3 to be something which is 

7 functional, that is I don't care about your 

8 procedures, I don't care if you have a 

9 thousand procedures. In the end I want to 

10 make sure that these things are happening. So 

11 I mean, it's two different --

12 MR. KATZ: John, I understand 

13 that, but the issue is that there's two parts 

14 to this, like with all the other objectives 

15 before. We have the parts of let's see what 

16 the procedures are to make sure things are 

17 handled correctly and this is falling under 

18 that because this is all under examine the 

19 process by which OCAS and its contractors 

20 evaluate worker input, and then there's the, 

21 again, the how is it working for us which is 

22 what you're talking about. That comes under 
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1 conduct a systematic review. So that's where 

2 you get to okay, we have these procedures to 

3 make sure for example that a substantive 

4 comment got to the right people and was given 

5 consideration. Now let's go look at some 

6 examples and see how it's working. So we take 

7 whatever, some Savannah River site profile, 

8 what have you, so and so SEC evaluation and we 

9 then track those actual items where comments 

10 were received. Did those comments actually 

11 get sent to the right people to give it 

12 consideration and so on. Does that make 

13 sense?

14 DR. MAURO: So right under the 

15 bold part of this Objective 3 there's a 

16 statement that says, "Examine the process by 

17 which."

18 MR. KATZ: Right.

19 DR. MAURO: Am I correct that this 

20 is going to be revised to say, "Examine the 

21 procedures and processes?"

22 MR. KATZ: Yes.
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1 DR. MAURO: Okay. My apologies. 

2 I must have missed that. Once you've 

3 incorporated the word "procedure," then 

4 everything from there on in is basically let's 

5 look at the procedure you're using to make 

6 sure that there is a procedure that provides 

7 for this. And then later on, the last part is 

8 okay, now we're going to audit it to see if in 

9 fact the procedure is being followed. I 

10 missed the part where you changed the process 

11 word. I'm okay.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Does someone want 

13 to take a stab at that sentence?

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Before we do 

15 that, let me just deviate here a little bit. 

16 We're still in the hour that was supposed to 

17 be public comment so let me just check and see 

18 if any other workers, advocates or claimants 

19 have gotten on the line and are waiting to 

20 make public comment. If so, go ahead and

21 identify yourself and make your comments.

22 MS. MAHR: This is Nancy Mahr.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Go ahead, 

2 Nancy.

3 MS. MAHR: What's unclear to me is 

4 how these substantive technical worker 

5 comments from let's say a labor union, how do 

6 they get transferred from the database into 

7 their technical documents like these site 

8 profiles? How does that happen?

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: J.J., do you 

10 want to take a stab at it?

11 MR. JOHNSON: The question is how 

12 do statements in a meeting get into the 

13 Technical Basis Document. What they do is 

14 that you have an HP at the meeting and the 

15 information is recorded, it's taken back and 

16 worked with the Technical Basis Document owner 

17 to determine its credibility when it comes to 

18 needing to change the Technical Basis 

19 Document. If it's found that it needs to 

20 change the Technical Basis Document it's 

21 incorporated into the Technical Basis Document 

22 through a procedure review and incorporation.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Does that answer 

2 your question, Nancy?

3 MS. MAHR: It does, but how do the 

4 workers know when these changes are made?

5 MR. JOHNSON: In the front of the 

6 Technical Basis Document there's a change 

7 process and in there it'll indicate whether 

8 the change was made based upon a reviewer 

9 comment or through another technical review

10 process.

11 MR. MCDOUGALL: And if I might 

12 add, the -- when we identify a Technical Basis 

13 Document that has such a notation in the front 

14 when it's issued, we as a general rule go back 

15 to the labor organization from whence that 

16 comment originated and notify them of that 

17 change and ask if they want to, you know, ask 

18 them to look at it, ask them if they want to 

19 have any further input.

20 MS. MAHR: Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, thank you. 

22 Are there any other workers, advocates, or 
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1 workers' reps on the phone that would like to 

2 make public comment at this time? Any other 

3 comments at this time? Okay, if not we're 

4 going to get back into the agenda. Maybe 

5 right around 3:00 we'll ask one more time. 

6 So, back to the discussion on I believe it is 

7 the fourth bullet. It started out saying 

8 "What procedures are in place to determine 

9 input for action items in OTS?" and we've had 

10 quite a bit of discussion about that. So, 

11 concerns, Kathy?

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you want me to 

13 read what I picked up from what was being

14 said?

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Go ahead.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: "What processes 

17 and procedures are in place to ensure that 

18 NIOSH is following up on the response and 

19 action items in OTS?" "In OTS" or leave that 

20 out?

21 MEMBER BEACH: I think that was an 

22 important part of it, the OTS.
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1 MR. KATZ: Unless -- if everything 

2 is captured in OTS then that works. If 

3 there's a broader universe than OTS, then you 

4 wouldn't want to limit it to OTS. 

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The only 

6 reason OTS is in there is because that action 

7 item comment portion is in there.

8 MR. KATZ: I know, but now we're 

9 not talking about action items.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And that 

11 relates to OTS.

12 MR. KATZ: So does OTS cover the 

13 universe for all input that comes in by all 

14 means?

15 MR. JOHNSON: It covers the issues 

16 that are addressed and identified by the HP at 

17 their respective meeting, and those are 

18 documented in OTS. 

19 MR. KATZ: So it would also, like 

20 individual interviews, would those be captured 

21 in OTS? 

22 MR. JOHNSON: They have not 
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1 necessarily happened probably because of the 

2 technical nature of them. That's why they 

3 would be --

4 MR. KATZ: May or may not be in 

5 there.

6 MR. JOHNSON: Right.

7 MR. KATZ: I mean, I just think 

8 you'd want to leave it broad. You can do OTS, 

9 you can have OTS as a subset.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I don't 

11 have a problem with taking it out. 

12 MR. KATZ: But you don't want to 

13 limit yourself to OTS.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I think we ought 

15 to take it out, but I think that part we take 

16 out should be probably put down for the next 

17 section about what we talked about to make 

18 sure the appropriate action items are being 

19 reported in OTS.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think 

21 that's right. In the next section you do have 

22 a review of the database.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

2 DR. MAURO: This is John. I've 

3 got a question that just struck me when Ted 

4 raised the question of OTS. I realize we're 

5 discussing outreach and making sure that 

6 important information that occurs through that 

7 process makes it into the final product and 

8 procedures the way in which work is being 

9 done. I'm going to ask a question that says 

10 what about all of the comments that are 

11 contained in the site profile reviews, 

12 procedure reviews, et cetera that are provided 

13 by SC&A to the board as being feedstock to the 

14 process? Because in a lot of respects, what 

15 we offer up by way of observations, comments, 

16 et cetera, are not unlike the kinds of things 

17 that are fed back to NIOSH through its 

18 outreach program.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Are you 

20 referring to the site expert interview 

21 summary?

22 DR. MAURO: I think the site 
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1 expert interview summary is captured by OTS 

2 under the new procedures. However, what's not 

3 -- and this is kind of a broader question, the 

4 list of findings that we have and we provide 

5 in our report in effect are on record, they've 

6 been filed, they're sitting in an electronic 

7 database, but I don't think that they're 

8 necessarily taken into consideration when the 

9 next version of a site profile is issued. 

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: You mean when 

11 there's no working group.

12 DR. MAURO: When there's no 

13 working group. And I guess I just took this 

14 as an opportunity to point out that to a 

15 degree the boundary between feedback obtained 

16 through outreach from interviewing workers and 

17 feedback obtained from the Board's contractor 

18 as a result of assignments that the Board's 

19 contractor is given, you know, I don't see 

20 them as that different.

21 MR. KATZ: John, I think they're 

22 apples and oranges. I think it's 
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1 exceptionally important, the point what 

2 happens to SC&A input that hasn't gone through 

3 a Board process. I think that's really 

4 important. We've talked about that, I concur 

5 100 percent, but I don't think that's part of 

6 the worker outreach.

7 DR. MAURO: Okay, yes. And just -

8 - the thought struck me when you defined OTS 

9 as is that the boundary. In other words, 

10 basically are we really saying that really the 

11 pot that we keep all these comments in and 

12 action items is in OTS, and everything really 

13 orbits around that, and that got me thinking 

14 about the broader context.

15 MR. KATZ: Because the answer 

16 actually to OTS is that it's limited. It 

17 doesn't even cover all of the worker input.

18 DR. MAURO: Okay. Thank you for 

19 your answer and I appreciate the fact that 

20 perhaps the subject would be a matter for 

21 another venue.

22 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So we're 
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1 clear on the fourth bullet and then we'll take 

2 out the second half of that somewhere in the 

3 next section. The last bullet was "Feedback 

4 provided to workers on the impact of 

5 substantive comments on OCAS technical 

6 documents." 

7 MEMBER BEACH: Are we just looking 

8 for feedback provided to the workers? Because 

9 I was thinking it needed to be shortened to 

10 "Was feedback provided to the workers on the 

11 comments on the OCAS technical documents?" Or 

12 is there more and I'm missing that? 

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's 

14 getting to what Nancy was bringing up in her 

15 question.

16 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: How do the 

18 workers know what's being done with their 

19 comments.

20 MR. KATZ: You might just frame 

21 this a little more broadly. How is feedback 

22 provided to workers on their comments because 
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1 there's different feedback depending on the 

2 nature of their comments. Some of their 

3 comments have substantive, you know, have 

4 potential impact and will change some 

5 documents. Some, you know, as you mentioned 

6 some are really comments that deserve to be 

7 considered by DOL or another agency. Some are 

8 comments that don't have a response I'm sure.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Broad, very broad.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, they're just all 

11 over the place, but if you just frame it 

12 broadly then you can pursue it in its details 

13 and different ways. 

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Does everyone 

15 agree with that? We'll drop the, "on the OCAS 

16 technical documents."

17 MEMBER BEACH: And just say "Was 

18 feedback provided to the workers on their 

19 comments."

20 MR. KATZ: I said how is feedback 

21 --

22 MEMBER BEACH: Or how.
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1 MR. KATZ: -- rather than was.

2 MEMBER BEACH: How is feedback 

3 provided.

4 MR. KATZ: And the impact of their 

5 comments. Well I didn't even limit it to --

6 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I got rid of 

7 that substantive. That was just me though.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: How is feedback 

9 provided to the workers --

10 MEMBER BEACH: On their comments.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: On the impact of 

12 their comments. 

13 MR. KATZ: On their comments.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: On their comments? 

15 Or the impact of it?

16 MR. KATZ: Or the response to 

17 their comments I guess, whatever. And then it 

18 really depends on the nature of their comments 

19 for what feedback you're going to find I 

20 imagine.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, that does 

22 it for that section, correct?
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, let me one 

3 more time before the top of the hour here just 

4 go back and ask if there's any workers, worker 

5 advocates or claimants on the phone that want 

6 to make public comment during this period. 

7 Any public comments at this time? Okay. So 

8 we want to take maybe a 10-minute break and 

9 then come back and discuss this. Okay? Come 

10 back about 3 o'clock.

11 MR. KATZ: I'm just putting the 

12 phone on mute.

13 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

14 matter went off the record at 2:52 p.m. and 

15 resumed at 3:03 p.m.)

16 MR. KATZ: Okay, we're back 

17 online. This is the Worker Outreach Work 

18 Group. We just had a 10-minute break and 

19 Mike?

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. We're 

21 still on Evaluation Objective Number 3. We're 

22 down to the second set of bullets under "Adopt 
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1 a systematic review of worker outreach 

2 databases at a point in time in relation to 

3 its impact on technical documents." First 

4 bullet, "Select a sample of site profiles and 

5 SEC evaluation reports for worker outreach 

6 meetings have been done to document whether 

7 and how worker equipment has been considered 

8 and included and evaluate if exclusions were 

9 appropriate." Any questions, concerns about 

10 that? If not, second bullet for follow-up 

11 discussions held with participants providing 

12 substantive comments. 

13 MR. KATZ: I have a question about 

14 that.

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: I'm not sure, sort of 

17 the assumption -- again, the assumption is 

18 there should be follow-up discussions with 

19 participants always, or I don't know? I mean, 

20 someone may provide substantive comments that 

21 are fully adequate and you go and you do what 

22 you need to do with it and it's done. I mean, 
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1 I just don't know.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's not 

3 all the time that's what happens.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: If necessary, 

5 maybe?

6 MR. KATZ: Yes, that would explain 

7 it I guess. Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Or would you 

9 rather have the question phrased in a 

10 different way to remove the illusion that they 

11 aren't expected to be held? Is that your 

12 concern, Ted?

13 MR. KATZ: Yes. So Arjun 

14 suggested, you know, when necessary or would 

15 be added to that.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Well, how does this 

17 differ from the last bullet at the bottom?

18 MR. KATZ: So I would just -- this 

19 may need clarification. When I was reading 

20 this I was thinking well someone's provided 

21 comments, but you need more detail than what 

22 you got, do you go back to the well, versus 
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1 responding and letting people know how their 

2 feedback was used. 

3 MEMBER MUNN: Well, it's hard not 

4 to consider follow-up discussion as feedback.

5 MR. KATZ: But I guess now that 

6 I'm thinking about this anyway, I mean, it 

7 seems like this belongs above -- with the 

8 other bullets anyway. This is more a process, 

9 procedures question than how are things 

10 working in reality, how are the processes and 

11 procedures working for us. So it seems like 

12 if it's not already covered by the other it 

13 belongs up above with the other bullets.

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I throw 

15 an example out there? If a worker comes to 

16 NIOSH and says there was fermium used at such 

17 and such a site, the first thing that at least 

18 I would ask is where. You go back to that 

19 person to ask that, and if he didn't have the 

20 answer, go to the documentation. 

21 MR. KATZ: Right. So I think I 

22 understood you perfectly there. I understand 
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1 that you may need to do follow-up work on 

2 comments that are received, but that seems 

3 like that's part of the processes and 

4 procedures for evaluating input up above 

5 versus the systematic review in relation to 

6 its impact on technical documents. 

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Perhaps like 

8 under the third bullet up above?

9 MR. KATZ: Yes. Sure. 

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Does everyone 

11 else agree with that?

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: So you're moving 

13 the second bullet up.

14 MR. KATZ: To be the fourth bullet 

15 in the list immediately above.

16 MEMBER BEACH: And then did you 

17 change the wording on that a bit too?

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: If necessary, yes. 

19 Isn't that what you had?

20 MR. KATZ: Yes. If, when.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: When?

22 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Now, the 
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1 third bullet which is our second bullet, "OCAS 

2 conduct research to determine the impact of 

3 substantive comments on the dose 

4 reconstruction process." 

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So in other 

6 words, going back to my comment or my example, 

7 we handled fermium at such and such a site. 

8 Well, they may have to go back and pull 

9 documentation to validate that.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't believe 

11 they do that in terms of their criteria, 

12 whether to -- the comment or not, right?

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I don't 

14 know what the criteria is.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: But that's sort of 

16 what we're seeking to find out, right? This 

17 is part of, you know, how do they decide 

18 whether something is relevant.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It could be 

20 a subcategory to that.

21 MR. KATZ: Yes. I mean, I think 

22 it's another detail. It goes above with the 
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1 other bullets. It's more of the process and 

2 procedures by which OCAS is responding to 

3 comments received.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: What's your 

5 pleasure, Mike? You want to move it up?

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, let's move 

7 it up. Try to keep it consistent.

8 MEMBER BEACH: The last bullet 

9 kind of goes with it also.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think both 

11 of the last bullets are in the same spirit. 

12 Should I put them at the end of that bullet 

13 above?

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: There was 

15 something that Mike wanted to make sure that 

16 we captured which was kind of the second half 

17 of the fourth bullet up top. 

18 MEMBER BEACH: The new fourth 

19 bullet? 

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, the 

21 original.

22 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: The second part 

2 of that question is something to the effect 

3 that we were going to look at the action items 

4 that are actually in OTS to see if they're 

5 appropriate based on the appropriate actions 

6 are being taken. We had talked about moving 

7 it down to this next section.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now I'm really 

9 confused. Are we in the worker input list and 

10 transferring stuff there? Do you want me to 

11 read you what I have in that list now?

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Because we've kind 

14 of moved stuff around a fair amount. I'm not 

15 sure that I did everything right, but at least 

16 let me tell you what I've got. So the first 

17 bullet in that worker input list in how does 

18 OCAS catalogue and consider worker input, et 

19 cetera, that hasn't been changed. And the 

20 second bullet is "What criteria are used to 

21 identify comments that deserve consideration 

22 or responses, or for a response or action by 
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1 NIOSH? Are appropriate personnel evaluating 

2 the comments received," that's the third 

3 bullet. Now we added, we moved the bullet 

4 just now which is now the fourth bullet, "Were 

5 follow-up discussions held with participants 

6 providing substantive comments as necessary?" 

7 Then, "What processes and procedures are in 

8 place to ensure that NIOSH is following up on 

9 response and action items?" "How is feedback 

10 provided to workers in response to their 

11 comment?" And then the two bullets that were 

12 moved from the next list up, "Did OCAS conduct 

13 research to determine the impact of 

14 substantive comments on the dose 

15 reconstruction process?" "When substantive 

16 comments were provided was supporting 

17 documentation obtained to validate the 

18 statements by participants?" So that's the 

19 list that I have under worker input.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Read Bullet 

21 Number 5 that you have now.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Current Bullet 
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1 Number 5 is "What processes and procedures are 

2 in place to ensure that NIOSH is following up 

3 on the response and action items?"

4 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And now 

5 we're asking are the action items appropriate. 

6 It's a different question.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, isn't that in 

8 the one bullet that now remains which is 

9 sample selection, determine and document 

10 whether or not worker input has been 

11 considered and improved and evaluate if 

12 exclusion were appropriate.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: No.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: No. So you want 

15 to add a bullet there? 

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We had talked 

17 about under the section "Examine the process 

18 by which OCAS has contractors evaluate worker 

19 input." The original fourth bullet originally 

20 read "What procedures are in place to 

21 determine input for action items in OTS."

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that was the 
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1 original.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And when we 

3 started assessing that question I thought we 

4 had broken it down into two. One was 

5 basically a procedure process question and the 

6 other, the tail end of it was more of a 

7 practical to where -- to look at some of the 

8 actions that are entered in OTS."

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm very sorry. I 

10 entirely missed that. So we need to add that 

11 in the next list. So what were the action 

12 items determined appropriate or how did you 

13 want?

14 MR. KATZ: Handled appropriately 

15 in a sense is what he's saying.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Are 

18 appropriate to the comments provided.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Were the action 

20 items --

21 MR. KATZ: It's really not the 

22 items. It's were the actions appropriate to 
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1 the comments is what you're saying, right? In 

2 OTS, is that right?

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Kathy, didn't 

4 you say they're entered as action items?

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes, 

6 they're entered as action items.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: That's why they 

8 were called that. So once the procedure and 

9 process is taken, it walks people to that 

10 database and the other one is actually going 

11 to the database and just. We talked about 

12 that tail end coming down.

13 MR. KATZ: So, were the action 

14 items appropriate to the comments received. 

15 Is that what you want to say?

16 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: In OTS.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. So that makes 

18 sense because you have one going at it by 

19 looking at site profiles and SEC evaluation 

20 reports, and you have another going at it by 

21 looking at OTS, right? That's sort of two 

22 different approaches to looking at how 
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1 comments are actually handled. Is that good?

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Now, can I 

3 throw a monkey wrench in here?

4 MR. KATZ: We love monkey 

5 wrenches.

6 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: They're not 

7 called action items in WISPR. 

8 MR. KATZ: Well, that doesn't 

9 matter.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So if we're 

11 doing anything from a historical, if we're 

12 pulling data from that and evaluating their 

13 response, that's not going to be covered.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, then we can 

15 add that.

16 MR. KATZ: What is it called in 

17 WISPR?

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: They have a 

19 comment and then they have a response.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Were action items 

21 and response appropriate to the comment?

22 MR. KATZ: Or you can say -- put 
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1 in parentheses, "or were responses in WISPR," 

2 whatever. If you need to outline them on 

3 each, and if you really want to go back into -

4 - that's fine. You can say, you know, "or 

5 responses in WISPR" in parentheses. If you 

6 just do that then that explains what you mean. 

7 However it's framed you're still asking the 

8 same question, is the action appropriate to 

9 the comment.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So what I 

11 have now is "Were the action items in OTS or 

12 responses in WISPR appropriate to the comments 

13 received."

14 MR. KATZ: That sounds good.

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

16 TopHat's was the same way as WISPR. 

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: TopHat is no 

18 longer -

19 MR. KATZ: TopHat, I gather 

20 there's not much there. 

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We have a 

22 hard copy.
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1 MR. KATZ: I have a comment then 

2 for the other bullet. The bullet that has 

3 about validating statements, wherever that's 

4 been moved. Where are we? The bullet as it 

5 read was "When substantive comments were 

6 provided" --

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

8 MR. KATZ: -- "was supporting 

9 documentation obtained." I mean, one, I think 

10 you need to ask the question to determine did 

11 OCAS attempt to obtain supporting 

12 documentation because there wouldn't 

13 necessarily be supporting documentation. And 

14 then the question is to verify statements, not 

15 necessarily validate because you don't --

16 you're not -- a priori you're not trying to 

17 validate their statement, you're trying to 

18 verify it. 

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Maybe we 

20 should rephrase it "Did NIOSH verify the 

21 comments through either additional document 

22 research or further interview with the comment 
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1 provider?"

2 MR. KATZ: Yes. But again --

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: We did that. 

4 Going back to the worker is a separate thing 

5 we already did. 

6 MEMBER BEACH: That's the one we 

7 moved down.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. And now 

9 we're talking just -- when substantive 

10 comments were provided was supporting document 

11 -- how is that different than, "OCAS conducts 

12 research to determine the impact of 

13 substantive comments on the dose 

14 reconstruction process?" I don't know. I 

15 think we've got a lot of overlapping questions 

16 that can be put into a more general question, 

17 Kathy.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, I 

19 just have written up here about, so.

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, it's the same 

21 -- the question that you asked before -- they 

22 are just being moved, they're not being 
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1 changed. Yes, I'm just struggling. 

2 MR. KATZ: I think these questions 

3 are more or less the same. 

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: How do you want 

5 them rephrased, if you want them rephrased? 

6 Because I'm not -- and I'm a little bit in 

7 deep water. I just want to write down 

8 whatever is appropriate so people have a good 

9 text.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: We can 

11 combine them because the purpose of that is to 

12 follow through on the comment.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. "Did OCAS 

14 conduct research to verify substantive 

15 comment?"

16 MEMBER MUNN: Just statements I 

17 thought we said.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Statements?

19 MEMBER MUNN: That's what we had 

20 said originally when we were talking about it 

21 earlier.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. To verify 
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1 substantive statements.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Made by 

3 participants.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: By participants 

5 and assess their impact on the dose 

6 reconstruction process. That's how those two 

7 ideas would be combined as I read them.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's the 

9 general --

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, and I guess --

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: -- area 

12 where we're trying to go.

13 MR. KATZ: I would then even just 

14 say "evaluate," and I'm not sure how we got 

15 this "statement" because everything else is 

16 "comments" everywhere. There's not any 

17 "statements" written anywhere in these 

18 bullets. It's sort of confusing to switch to 

19 "statements."

20 MEMBER MUNN: Go back to 

21 "comments" then. Easy enough.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Your word is my 
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1 command here, literally.

2 MR. KATZ: "Evaluate" and 

3 "comment." 

4 MEMBER MUNN: "Evaluate" instead 

5 of "verify?"

6 MR. KATZ: Yes, "evaluate" because 

7 --

8 MEMBER MUNN: I thought I was 

9 using your term when I said "verify."

10 MR. KATZ: You did, you did. I 

11 said "verify" based on the original statement, 

12 but now that we have this sort of wholly 

13 reformulated it reads, "Did OCAS conduct 

14 research to evaluate substantive comments by 

15 participants and assess their" -- you're 

16 missing a word -- "impact on the dose 

17 reconstruction process." Their impact on --

18 but it's not just dose reconstruction. We 

19 need something more general because it's their 

20 impact on procedures because it could be dose 

21 reconstruction, it could be SEC, what have 

22 you, evaluation. 
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: So their impact on 

2 NIOSH --

3 MEMBER MUNN: "Processes," isn't 

4 it?

5 MR. KATZ: Yes, processes, 

6 procedures, documents. It could be any of 

7 those I suppose.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 

9 MR. KATZ: Does that make sense, 

10 Wanda?

11 MEMBER MUNN: I think so. I can't 

12 tell from what I have written here.

13 MR. KATZ: Let me read it again. 

14 "Did OCAS conduct research to evaluate 

15 substantive comments by participants and 

16 assess their impact on NIOSH documents, 

17 processes and procedures?"

18 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

19 MR. KATZ: Does that sound good? 

20 Okay.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, now under 

22 the section "Conduct a systematic review of 
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1 worker outreach" yada, yada, we still have the 

2 original first bullet and we've added a second 

3 at the tail end of the question from above. 

4 Is there any other questions or bullets that 

5 we want to put in this section? If not, then 

6 we can move on to the next section of bullets 

7 under Objective 3 which is "Evaluate OCAS 

8 tracking system for identifying trends in 

9 worker comments." First bullet, "Has OCAS 

10 documented repetitive or reoccurring issues on 

11 a site-wide or program-wide basis?" 

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I think 

13 maybe I'll just put this into context. If you 

14 have a hundred CATI interviews and an issue 

15 comes up like we worked with curium in such 

16 and such a place and it keeps coming up, that 

17 recurring issue is a generic issue and needs 

18 to be captured and responded to. And we're a 

19 little bit outside of what J.J. says is in 

20 OTS.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And by that you 

22 mean?
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, on 

2 Page 3 on the original we have a statement 

3 that we kept that OCAS have a particular 

4 document reoccurring that is associated with 

5 forms of worker communication and then there 

6 were examples there. And these recurring 

7 issues would actually come out of those other 

8 venues. So this is the -- the first question 

9 is asking, okay, have you been tracking all 

10 those recurring issues.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: And one of which 

12 would have been this bullet that's up on Page 

13 3, correct? 

14 MR. KATZ: So Page 3 is do you 

15 have a process and over here is, is it 

16 happening, are they doing it, right Kathy?

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Right.

18 MR. KATZ: So just, is OCAS 

19 documenting recurring issues on a site-wide or 

20 program-wide basis. 

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: The reason 

22 we added "site-wide or program-wide" was to 
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1 delineate comments that individuals provided 

2 on their own claim versus generic comments 

3 that are applicable to the site profile review 

4 or a site profile.

5 MR. KATZ: Can I just say, I know 

6 this is under something called "Evaluate 

7 OCAS's tracking system to identify trends," 

8 but it seems like the important question you 

9 want to ask that you don't get to then -- you 

10 have is there a procedure, and then you ask 

11 here is OCAS doing it in effect, is it 

12 tracking these, but really the important 

13 question you want to ask is: how is OCAS 

14 responding to these recurring issues which is 

15 -- it's sort of lost, it doesn't show up. 

16 Right?

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: There is 

18 that question. However, we need to ask these 

19 first questions because we don't know if the 

20 answer to them is yes.

21 MR. KATZ: No, that's fine. I 

22 mean, it's fine to have this question is OCAS 
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1 documenting these, but then you still need --

2 you're missing the follow-up question which is 

3 the most important question is how is OCAS 

4 responding to these recurring issues. Yes, so 

5 I think that's something that you need to add. 

6 It doesn't really fall under, you know, the 

7 way this is framed, the section "Evaluate 

8 OCAS's tracking system for identifying 

9 trends," this goes beyond evaluating the 

10 tracking system. You want to know -- either 

11 the whole purpose of tracking these is being 

12 able to identify these trends so that you're 

13 acting on them when there's a wealth of 

14 information indicating there may be an issue. 

15 So it seems to me this is another -- it's 

16 sort of out of place I think, this "Evaluate 

17 the tracking system," because it's coming --

18 here it's coming in the document after the 

19 impact evaluation which is above it. Once 

20 you've evaluated impact you're done with the 

21 evaluation. So it seems like you need to move 

22 this "Evaluate the OCAS tracking system" above 
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1 this whole section, "Conduct a systematic 

2 review." And then you can have under 

3 "Evaluate the tracking system," these two 

4 questions, "Has OCAS documented repetitive or 

5 recurring issues," or just that one question.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: We have at the end 

7 of Objective 2, "and evaluate the completeness 

8 and adequacy of the outreach tracking system."

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, and this is --

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry?

11 MR. KATZ: Yes. This is an 

12 element of that.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: So should this be 

14 moved over there, is that what you're saying?

15 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, let 

16 me give you an example, okay? When you 

17 collect an air sample you compare it against 

18 the requirement, okay? And it's either above 

19 that level or below that level. So that's the 

20 first step, but over a period of time you 

21 tracked that same air sample position and 

22 you're seeing a trend then an action needs to 
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1 be taken if you want to discontinue that trend 

2 and prevent it.

3 MEMBER BEACH: So I wonder if you 

4 put it -- because this is tracking system 

5 underneath that but trending. Because you're 

6 already asking some of those questions in the 

7 tracking on Page 4 and then you want to trend 

8 what you're tracking, correct? I mean, is 

9 that the more logical way to put it?

10 MR. KATZ: I thought Arjun had a 

11 solution for this that he mentioned earlier? 

12 Should we move it up and see how it works?

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: At the bottom of 

14 2, Mike?

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Tell us what 

16 you've got, what you're suggesting.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, what I 

18 noticed was that at the bottom of 2, just 

19 above Objective 3 we have an item that says 

20 "Evaluate the completeness and adequacy of the 

21 outreach tracking system" you've got bullets 

22 under there that in my notes at least were not 
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1 modified. And it must have been immediately 

2 after lunch I think. Sorry. 

3 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. Does 

4 it specify OTS in there?

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: It does, yes. And 

6 then what I'm suggesting is that the existing 

7 section that we're discussing be transferred 

8 whole, including the preamble sentence, 

9 "Evaluate OCAS's tracking system for 

10 identifying trends in worker comments," under 

11 the set of bullets and now you have a new set 

12 of bullets. So you transfer the whole thing 

13 there.

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And then 

15 you add the "Is NIOSH responding to those 

16 trends" under the last one.

17 MR. KATZ: The responding to the 

18 trends is -- we have already two bullets. 

19 This would be a third bullet.

20 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: So yes. Does that make 

22 sense to you? Okay.
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: The three bullets 

2 you have would be put under a new preamble 

3 sentence. I just moved the whole thing 

4 physically, I lifted both the sentence and the 

5 three bullets under it and put it at the 

6 bottom of Objective 2.

7 MR. KATZ: But we haven't actually 

8 talked about Bullet 2 and Bullet 3.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, now you can 

10 edit. If you want it there then we can edit 

11 those and leave it there.

12 MEMBER BEACH: And then before you 

13 go too far, does it fit under Objective 3, the 

14 definition of Objective 3 -- 2, I mean?

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think it 

16 does.

17 MEMBER BEACH: Obtaining and 

18 implementing input from workers.

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes.

20 MEMBER BEACH: Okay.

21 MR. KATZ: So Bullet 2, Bullet 2, 

22 "Are recurring comments provided from worker 
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1 input and nontraditional worker and 

2 representative methods of communication 

3 tracked and trended?" That's hard to get your 

4 mind around that statement, but seems like the 

5 first bullet says all you need to say. "Is 

6 OCAS documenting repetitive and recurring 

7 issues on a site-wide and program-wide basis?" 

8 but Kathy, is something missed that's captured 

9 in the second bullet?

10 MEMBER MUNN: It sounds redundant.

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. One 

12 of the questions we might have, and maybe we 

13 don't, is are they tracking and trending 

14 comments.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's the first 

16 one, right? Is OCAS documenting repetitive 

17 and recurring issues on a site-wide basis, 

18 right?

19 MR. KATZ: Site-wide or program20 wide. 

21 DR. MAKHIJANI: And the whole 

22 thing involves evaluate OCAS's tracking system 
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1 for identifying trends in worker comments. 

2 That's the whole thing, right?

3 MEMBER BEACH: Nontraditional 

4 worker. Was there something else?

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: CATIs, 

6 PHAs, comments provided like from, for 

7 example, the individual at Nevada.

8 MR. KATZ: That's --

9 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay. One 

10 question is are you documenting, and then the 

11 other question is are you evaluating the 

12 trends. If a hundred workers say "I don't 

13 understand the dose reconstruction report," 

14 then maybe something should be done.

15 MR. KATZ: That gets the impact. 

16 Again, we're going to have another bullet 

17 under Impact about evaluating how NIOSH 

18 handles then these trends.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Then we 

20 would have a total of two bullets.

21 MR. KATZ: But that comes under 

22 the Impact, not under this section which is --
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1 that comes under -- we have two bullets under 

2 Impact later and that would come down there. 

3 That's an impact evaluation when you're saying 

4 what is -- but that doesn't come up here. 

5 This is process questions. So we have the 

6 process question of whether OCAS is 

7 documenting repetitive and recurring issues, 

8 and that seems like that's it. The next one 

9 just in effect repeats that.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Well, do 

11 they have to observe the trends? Do they have 

12 to --

13 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean if you're 

14 documenting the trend, I mean in effect, 

15 that's what you are. If you're not 

16 recognizing a trend, then you haven't -- if 

17 you don't recognize a trend then there's 

18 nothing documented. You would only -- I mean, 

19 it's sort of inherent. If you've documented a 

20 trend you've recognized it. So then the 

21 question is if you appropriately respond to 

22 that trend.
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1 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: You're 

2 documenting the recurring issues, okay, so I 

3 don't know. 

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Ted, you had 

5 mentioned earlier something I believe about 

6 adding a second question, something to the 

7 effect how is OCAS responding to the 

8 repetitive --

9 MR. KATZ: Yes. And that would go 

10 down to the Impact section. That just 

11 wouldn't come here, but absolutely.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: But wouldn't 

13 that answer what the concern is in Bullet 3 

14 would it not?

15 MEMBER BEACH: Bullet 2 is what we 

16 were talking about, wasn't it?

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Oh yes, Bullet 

18 2.

19 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: In Bullet 

20 2, between what's above and then the new 

21 statement. 

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, here's a 
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1 little suggestion to move us off the impasse 

2 here. I think I understand where Kathy is 

3 coming from. So the first question could be 

4 extended a little. Has OCAS documented 

5 repetitive or recurring issues on a site-wide 

6 or program-wide basis from various venues.

7 MEMBER MUNN: It doesn't matter 

8 where it comes from.

9 MR. KATZ: Doesn't matter where it 

10 comes from.

11 MEMBER MUNN: It really doesn't 

12 matter where it comes from. You don't have to 

13 say where it comes from. If you say 

14 documented, repetitive or recurring issues, 

15 that means repetitive and recurring issues 

16 regardless of their origin.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: We can say that. 

18 Brilliant. 

19 MR. KATZ: Wanda, Arjun is writing 

20 in the regardless comment you just made. But 

21 regardless of their origin. I don't think you 

22 need to say that, Arjun. I really think you 
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1 do fine --

2 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well --

3 MR. KATZ: I know, but I think 

4 it's fine that she said it. You can take out 

5 the regardless.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I think so.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Site-wide or 

8 program-wide covers it.

9 MR. KATZ: Yes, it covers the 

10 waterfront. And then we're going to get to 

11 the impact question.

12 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: As long as 

13 we have a mechanism in place where if a 

14 hundred times a person says I replace -- or 

15 this guy had me replace my badge with a pocket 

16 dosimeter, then that, you know, if you have a 

17 hundred of those comments then you really need 

18 to respond to it versus having --

19 MR. KATZ: So, again, you have the 

20 question. Is there in place. So you're going 

21 to look at, okay, you have this question now, 

22 are recurring issues being documented. So if 
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1 you go and look and you see that, one, you 

2 know that this issue has been raised 75 times 

3 and two, you go and you look at this and you 

4 see that OCAS, there's nowhere that's 

5 captured, you've answered that question, okay? 

6 Here was an issue where there were 75 of the 

7 same comments made, but nowhere in OCAS's 

8 processes and so on is that actually captured. 

9 Okay, so that answers that question. Then 

10 you have when you go and you look at the data 

11 OCAS has on repetitive comments, recurring 

12 themes, however you want to frame it, you go 

13 look and you say okay, here is one that's 

14 identified in the OCAS system, recurring 

15 theme. Now let's see what OCAS did about it. 

16 That's the next question. And that would 

17 come down under -- we have two questions 

18 already. Let me get to it. It's the one --

19 one has to do with Objective 4. Where is 

20 that? Oh yes. We have select a sample of 

21 site profiles, blah, blah, we have then the 

22 second bullet is were action items in OTS 
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1 appropriate to the comments received. So here 

2 would be a third bullet on recurrent themes, 

3 were recurrent themes appropriately responded 

4 to, recurrent whatever the phraseology is.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So what 

6 you're saying is the fact that they showed up 

7 75 times is the documentation? 

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, whether they 

9 have documented recurrent issues and then we 

10 see whether they've done something about it.

11 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: So it's 

12 happening before the documentation. 

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: No.

14 MR. KATZ: You're answering both 

15 questions. You're answering the question of 

16 whether it's being documented and you're 

17 answering the question for when it is 

18 documented is it being handled appropriately. 

19 And that seems like the whole waterfront of 

20 questions you could have about that. 

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Or if we put is 

22 it documented and trended? Is that?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: How is it responding 

2 to it? It either is or isn't documenting and 

3 trending it.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It just seems 

5 like there's something of a concern here and 

6 I'm just trying to get it on the table so we 

7 can.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, yes, yes. 

9 No, I think it is in here in what Kathy had 

10 written because we have a separate title for 

11 those two bullets that are there now we have 

12 discussed. The preamble sentence is clear 

13 that it's about trends. "Evaluate OCAS's 

14 tracking system for identifying trends and 

15 worker comments." And so now the first bullet 

16 is "Has OCAS documented repetitive or 

17 recurring issues" and so that clearly refers 

18 to trends. I don't think any -- because 

19 trends is the theme of the whole thing, I 

20 think. Right? No, it's the very first 

21 question that you had.

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: No, it's 
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1 under --

2 MEMBER BEACH: We moved it.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now moved under 

4 Objective 2.

5 MR. KATZ: Right.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: So it's at the 

7 very end of Objective 2. This thing about 

8 trends.

9 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so we didn't 

10 settle the last bullet.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, we have not 

12 talked about the last bullet. "Are comments 

13 applicable to the DOL portion?" That we have 

14 not discussed.

15 MR. KATZ: And I don't understand 

16 how that relates to trends for repetitive, 

17 recurring issues.

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Because 

19 they happen frequently.

20 MR. KATZ: No, but I mean are 

21 comments applicable to the DOL portion of the 

22 process -- but again, that seems like a 
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1 totally separate issue from recurring issues.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: It's one --

3 it can fall under the item under Number 2.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: You mean recurring 

5 comments about DOL? Then maybe we should just 

6 say this. "Are recurring comments applicable 

7 to DOL portion of the process forwarded to 

8 DOL?"

9 MR. KATZ: But I think you want to 

10 know that any comments that are applicable to 

11 DOL would be forwarded to DOL when they're the 

12 -- regardless of whether they're recurrent or 

13 they're made one time.

14 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: And I guess 

15 what I'm saying is it would fall under the 

16 item under Objective 2.

17 MR. KATZ: I see.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's already under 

19 Objective 2. It's a question of whether you 

20 want it under the --

21 (Simultaneous speakers.)

22 MR. KATZ: Right --
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1 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- or someplace 

2 else.

3 MR. KATZ: Someplace else.

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: So let's find 

5 another home for it. 

6 MR. KATZ: It's actually an 

7 action, so it goes beyond Number 2.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: It should be under 

9 Number 3.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: So is NIOSH 

12 forwarding --

13 MR. KATZ: This is the fourth 

14 bullet, actually. This is the fourth bullet 

15 under 3, the material that goes to DOL, does 

16 it get to DOL.

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Okay.

18 MR. KATZ: Because that's one of 

19 the actions, right? 

20 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Now I can 

21 tell you everything that I have. Under 

22 Objective 2 we now have this new item that has 
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1 only one bullet, "Evaluate OCAS's tracking 

2 system for identifying trends in worker 

3 comments," and the one bullet is "Has OCAS 

4 documented repetitive or recurring issues on a 

5 site-wide or program-wide basis?" That's 

6 what's there. And then there are two new 

7 bullets under -- at the bottom of Objective 3. 

8 The heading is "Conduct a systematic review 

9 of worker outreach databases at a point in 

10 time in relation to its impact on technical 

11 documents," and the two new bullets on that 

12 are, "Were recurrent issues appropriately 

13 responded to?" and "Are comments applicable to 

14 the DOL portion of the process forwarded to 

15 DOL for consideration?" Does that sound good?

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: Sounds good to me.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Ready to 

19 move to Objective 4. "OCAS effectively 

20 informs workers in relationship with various 

21 responsibilities related to EEOICPA including 

22 explaining dose reconstruction, the SEC 
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1 petition process," et cetera.

2 MEMBER BEACH: And Mike, just for 

3 the record we changed it to "determine whether 

4 OCAS is effectively."

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Thank you.

6 MEMBER BEACH: You're welcome.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. "Examine 

8 communication vehicles that OCAS has developed 

9 to communicate with claimants." One bullet. 

10 Are we happy with that?

11 MEMBER MUNN: Do we really want to 

12 know how to, or do we want to know whether 

13 they do so effectively, adequately?

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I think that 

15 sounds good. Instead of how do pamphlets, et 

16 cetera, do they adequately. Okay, let's make 

17 those changes.

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: So do pamphlets, 

19 et cetera, effectively inform the claimant 

20 population, et cetera? Is that how you want 

21 it?

22 MR. KATZ: The bullets further 
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1 down get to effectively really. Do 

2 participants understand, et cetera, all those 

3 are really effectiveness questions. So --

4 DR. MAKHIJANI: So one's opinion 

5 of how do --

6 MEMBER MUNN: Depends on how you 

7 respond to how to. They responded and they 

8 communicated in writing, they could 

9 communicate in photographs, they could 

10 communicate in graphs.

11 MR. KATZ: So Wanda, what I was 

12 going to suggest is the question we might be 

13 asking if we want to be parallel with the 

14 structure and everything else, all the other 

15 objectives, I mean first we ask about the 

16 processes and then we ask about effectiveness 

17 or impact. So the question you might ask up 

18 here is in effect are -- is -- let me just say 

19 this in a crude way first and then we can 

20 figure out how to say it if we want to say it, 

21 is sort of a universe of information that 

22 should be given to claimants in the dose 
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1 reconstruction process and SEC petitioners, 

2 it's not just claimants, but is that 

3 information covered by all these different 

4 venues? 

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: This was 

6 not my comment. It came out at the last 

7 meeting.

8 MR. KATZ: No, but all I'm saying 

9 is you could ask the question does OCAS in 

10 effect have vehicles for communicating all the 

11 breadth of matters that it should be 

12 communicating and then you ask the question 

13 how effective is that, right? So the front 

14 end process question, does OCAS. You know, 

15 you might find a gap well OCAS doesn't even 

16 tell anybody about too many of these venues, 

17 about X, Y, or Z. So you may want to know 

18 does OCAS have a means for communicating 

19 appropriately, and appropriate means for 

20 communicating its claimant information and its 

21 SEC information.

22 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So are we asking 
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1 are the types of media they're using covering 

2 the whole gamut? Or are we asking does the 

3 media that's out there have all the 

4 information in it. I mean, that's kind of to 

5 your question, so.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes. I guess you might 

7 ask -- again, I'm just posing this to try to -

8 - but you might ask, you know, are the issues 

9 completely covered by the different media and 

10 are these media appropriate for the content 

11 that they're delivering? So you might do 

12 that. Those would be the process questions up 

13 front.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: That's good.

15 MR. KATZ: And then down below we 

16 get into the effectiveness questions. So 

17 Arjun has written here, "Are the various 

18 instruments of communication, such as" blah, 

19 blah, blah, to say that, "suitable for 

20 informing the claimant population about dose 

21 reconstruction, SEC petition processes," and I 

22 would say all that sounds good to me, I just 
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1 would say it's not just claimant population 

2 because.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

4 MR. KATZ: Because it -- SEC 

5 petitions could be submitted by others than 

6 claimants too.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: You had something 

8 else?

9 MR. KATZ: Claimant and 

10 petitioning populations you could say. But 

11 yes, we do have this other -- we can go back 

12 and look at how we had it. So does that?

13 MEMBER MUNN: I think you said it 

14 more clearly earlier, before you got to that 

15 tail end part. When we were considering it as 

16 two separate questions really, two separate, 

17 more simple questions. One, does OCAS 

18 currently have the material and information 

19 publicly available to properly cover the facts 

20 that need to be disseminated. And the second 

21 question then is are these materials in the 

22 proper format to meet the needs of the 
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1 population covered.

2 MR. KATZ: Let me try to simplify, 

3 Wanda, that. What you said is difficult to 

4 grasp.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it is.

6 MR. KATZ: Does OCAS communicate 

7 the information needed by claimants and 

8 petitioners, and that covers, you know, 

9 through all these means. So, does it 

10 communicate and then the second question is 

11 are the means of -- are the instruments or 

12 whatever, means of communication for this 

13 information appropriate. Does that make 

14 sense?

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. One is are 

16 they the right things, and the second is are 

17 they in the right format.

18 MR. KATZ: So, the first is does 

19 OCAS communicate the right information. Does 

20 OCAS communicate the information that 

21 claimants and petitioners need.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: And then second, is 

2 this information communicated appropriately.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Is it available and 

4 communicated appropriately.

5 MR. KATZ: That's down. That's 

6 simple.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: We have currently 

8 some in the reverse order. The first thing is 

9 examine the communication means is one bullet.

10 MR. KATZ: So just get rid of that 

11 bullet and I'll say it again. Does OCAS 

12 communicate the information needed by 

13 claimants and petitioners. And then the 

14 second question is, is this information 

15 communicated through appropriate means. 

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: And this is to go 

17 under what heading?

18 MR. KATZ: And this is under --

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Examine the 

20 communication vehicles that OCAS has developed 

21 and their effectiveness?

22 MR. KATZ: Right. No, no, no. 
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1 For the effectiveness we get to down here. So 

2 this is just process at this point we're 

3 examining. So that covers process, and then 

4 down here now we get to effectiveness issues. 

5 You have, "Evaluate whether OCAS 

6 communications result in understanding," you 

7 know. That's the effectiveness question.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: Shall I read out 

9 what Ted has been doing here? 

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: That sounds 

11 good.

12 DR. MAKHIJANI: I don't need to 

13 read it?

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Go ahead.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: "Examine the 

16 communication vehicles that OCAS has developed 

17 to communicate with claimants," so that was 

18 the original heading. And now we have two new 

19 bullets to replace whatever was there. I 

20 think it was just one bullet. "Does OCAS 

21 communicate the information needed by 

22 claimants and petitioners?" And second 
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1 bullet, "Is this information communicated 

2 through appropriate means?" 

3 MEMBER MUNN: I would suggest that 

4 in the heading we add the word "potential" 

5 before "claimants."

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: "Potential 

7 claimants." We have been using "claimants" 

8 throughout.

9 MR. KATZ: We have. And it's 

10 claimants and petitioners though. I think 

11 it's important.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, but when we're 

13 in the process here of asking the question 

14 whether the information is available, is the 

15 information good, we want to make sure that we 

16 do cover those that are potentials, not just -

17 - we want the general public to have their 

18 bite of this. The other material we're 

19 talking about once claims and SEC petitions 

20 are made, how we go about dealing with them. 

21 Here we're asking whether the material that 

22 has been produced specifically to elucidate 
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1 for everyone what's transpiring, whether or 

2 not that material is what we want it to be. 

3 Is that not correct?

4 DR. MAURO: I have a question. 

5 This is John. So is Objective 4 focused on 

6 workers, claimants, or all interested parties?

7 MR. KATZ: It's the same, you 

8 know, we've corrected this elsewhere. It's 

9 whatever we said earlier today in the several 

10 places. I forget exactly how we framed it, 

11 but I think we said workers, claimants, what 

12 did we say? Claimants, petitioners, workers. 

13 Workers, claimants and their representatives. 

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, so are we 

15 good on that one? We can jump down to the 

16 second set of bullets. "Evaluate whether 

17 OCAS's communications result in an 

18 understanding among claimants for their rights 

19 in the process such as their right to file a 

20 petition, how it might be done, etc." 

21 MR. KATZ: I would just amend. I 

22 mean, it's not just about rights, right? I 
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1 mean that makes it sound like it's just a 

2 legalistic thing. But they need to 

3 understand, "rights in the process, such as 

4 right to file a petition, etc." Okay.

5 MEMBER BEACH: That whole sentence 

6 is kind of wordy. 

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: "Are there 

8 results and an understanding among claimants 

9 and the reps," yada, yada, "of EEOICPA the 

10 process?"

11 MEMBER BEACH: Well, their rights 

12 in the process probably can go away, can't 

13 they? Because we want to evaluate whether 

14 OCAS is communicating and that the claimants 

15 understand.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: They understand 

17 the whole program, right?

18 MEMBER BEACH: Right.

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So just put like 

20 a PR or something and just take out the rights 

21 in the process, rights to file.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes, to understand -- I 
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1 mean, it's not the whole program. It's

2 really, we want -- I mean, the objective is 

3 for them to understand dose reconstruction and 

4 SEC petitioning processes, right?

5 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Claims and SECs, 

6 yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes.

8 DR. MAURO: And it's to their 

9 satisfaction, not in other words -- this is 

10 John. In other words, is our goal here to 

11 make sure that when you walk away from these 

12 communications that the claimants and workers 

13 feel that they understand the material to 

14 their own personal satisfaction? Yes, I'm 

15 walking away from this feeling I do understand 

16 this as opposed to let's say, making sure they 

17 understand all the different elements and 

18 aspects of the program. It's really more that 

19 they walk away with a sense of satisfaction.

20 MR. KATZ: I think John, I think 

21 you want an objective, not a subjective. I 

22 mean, for any number of reasons, people may 
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1 not feel satisfied, I think you want an 

2 objective evaluation of whether people 

3 understand what they need to understand at the 

4 end of the communications with OCAS. 

5 DR. MAURO: Okay. So I just want 

6 to make sure I understand. So really, OCAS is 

7 the agency that determines what is the 

8 information that these people need to 

9 understand and make sure that they understand 

10 it.

11 MR. KATZ: For the dose 

12 reconstruction and the SEC petitioning 

13 process.

14 DR. MAURO: And that's important, 

15 as opposed to, you know, I guess in a way I 

16 flipped it. Okay, that's helpful.

17 MR. KATZ: That's my take. 

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: I haven't written 

19 anything. I'm not quite clear on what to 

20 write.

21 MR. KATZ: So what I was 

22 suggesting is that "Evaluate whether OCAS's 
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1 communications result in adequate 

2 understanding of" -- well, skip that for a 

3 second -- "adequate understanding of the dose 

4 reconstruction and SEC petitioning processes." 

5 And then when you get into that you're going 

6 to get into do they understand their rights in 

7 the system, do they understand how to do what 

8 they need to do, do they understand enough 

9 about how NIOSH will be responding to what 

10 they do, all that.

11 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's already 

12 there in the question.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, right.

14 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Larry, is there 

15 anything else in OCAS's communications? We 

16 had mentioned the dose reconstruction, SEC 

17 filings. Is there other big items that you 

18 try to get across in communications? I mean, 

19 I know you educate a lot of things, but just 

20 for this particular objective.

21 MR. LEWIS: So this is the 

22 resource center? That may be explained there, 
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1 but we always explain to them where the 

2 closest Department of Labor Resource Center is 

3 to them. That goes in the file of the claim, 

4 but you don't have to file a claim through 

5 your local Resource Center, but we always have 

6 that information with us so that they can see 

7 where the DOL Resource Center is closest to 

8 their location for people that can help them 

9 through the process with that. So it's a 

10 little different --

11 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, I can't 

12 identify anything else right off.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: So Mark, are you 

14 saying understanding of the claims, dose 

15 reconstruction and SEC petitioning processes?

16 MR. LEWIS: No, I'm saying if we 

17 wanted to file a claim. Like let's say we're 

18 someplace and we're talking to somebody and he 

19 says oh yes, my dad worked there, or somebody 

20 worked there and I had to file a claim, we 

21 always have an information -- Mary put 

22 together a few handouts which is on the 
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1 website and through the DOL the closest 

2 Resource Center. We go to the DOL website and 

3 give their contact information and stuff to 

4 them. So we're in near Kentucky, we make sure 

5 they've got the Paducah Resource Center, you 

6 know? We're in Portsmouth, we make sure 

7 they've got the Portsmouth or the closest one 

8 to the site. If we're in Sandia we make sure 

9 they know about the one up north, you know, 

10 where they go.

11 MR. KATZ: There are lots of bits 

12 and pieces that sort of exceed the boundaries 

13 of just the dose reconstruction, SEC process, 

14 because I could tell you that Denise Brock 

15 gives a lot of help out that's really related 

16 to Part E, but she makes a real difference for 

17 people for that. But that's not really the 

18 core function. The core functions are to make 

19 sure that folks -- OCAS's core function is to 

20 make sure that people understand the dose 

21 reconstruction and SEC processes. You know, 

22 these other things of helping people find 
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1 their way through the DOL labyrinth and so on 

2 is sort of additional work that gets done 

3 that's good, important work, but it's not 

4 core.

5 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can I ask a 

6 question? At a workshop you cover IREP. 

7 Would that fall under the dose reconstruction 

8 process?

9 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. Well, it's 

10 applicable. It is something that the dose 

11 reconstruction reports feed into the IREP. We 

12 take it on as a responsibility to explain to 

13 users of the IREP, either casual or repeated 

14 users how to use IREP. So we have a user's 

15 guide on the website, we welcome calls, we

16 have staff who walk people through how to do 

17 inputs into IREP. Does that answer your 

18 question? I mean, I don't know that I 

19 consider that outreach as much as I consider 

20 it just a resource to those folks who may want 

21 to avail themselves of the free IREP online.

22 MEMBER MUNN: But that's internal 
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1 technical information, not outreach.

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Wanda, what 

3 I'm talking about is they had a presentation 

4 at the workshop on the IREP code.

5 MEMBER MUNN: But those are not 

6 presentations that you make to workers and 

7 claimants and their families.

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: In this 

9 case yes, they made a presentation on IREP.

10 MR. ELLIOTT: We find that these 

11 people who serve to help folks in the claimant 

12 population struggle with the back end of the 

13 dose reconstruction reports and the IREP input 

14 sheets, and you know, many people go online 

15 because our website says you can use IREP 

16 online and so many people try it and then come 

17 back to us and say we don't understand how to 

18 do this, how to put the inputs in. So we have 

19 chosen to include IREP in our workshops so 

20 that we can explain how IREP functions and how 

21 one may interact with that software.

22 DR. MAURO: This is John. I have 
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1 an observation. I would say of all of the 

2 things that the public at large needs to 

3 appreciate and understand in order to feel a 

4 degree of comfort that the process is working 

5 for them, the biggest challenge is the 

6 probability of causation. I think that 

7 explaining dose reconstruction but the problem 

8 I believe you probably have encountered and 

9 will encounter is understanding the 

probability of causation and the 99th 10

11 percentile because in the end it's the PoC 

12 that people complain about. That is, you 

13 know, and understanding why -- I mean, we know 

14 why they're really given a tremendous benefit 

of the doubt by building in the 99th 15

16 percentile that takes into consideration 

17 individual variability. In other words, so I 

18 would say that there are scientific elements 

19 to the probability of causation and how it's 

20 implemented that are going to be extremely 

21 difficult to communicate, and my guess is 

22 that's your most challenging communication 
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1 part. I don't know if you've seen that.

2 MR. ELLIOTT: We have seen that, 

3 John. I don't think it's our most 

4 challenging, I think it's in the top one or 

5 two.

6 DR. MAURO: Okay.

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Of the hundred that 

8 we have. Certainly dose reconstruction is 

9 hard to get across. It's difficult to explain 

10 to laypeople, but you're right, when we talk 

11 about the probability of causation as Kathy 

12 and Arjun can attest to and Josie can attest 

13 to, you know, we tried our level best I think 

14 to provide real-time examples. And they 

15 didn't come from our presenter, they came from 

16 one of our contractors in the room and I 

17 jumped up and tried to give some help too. 

18 It's a difficult concept to explain, a 

19 difficult concept to grasp as to what we're 

talking about when we say the 50th 20 percent of 

21 the 99 percent credibility limit. Everyone 

22 just glazes over at that point.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, it's over. Once 

2 you go there. Arjun and I were talking a bit 

3 about this the other day and he had some ideas 

4 because I was thinking about how would I 

5 explain -- I try to explain this to my wife 

6 and I can't.

7 MEMBER BEACH: John, can we not go 

8 there now?

9 DR. MAURO: Okay.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: I think -- the 

11 substantive part of this meeting.

12 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. This is 

13 important. Anyway, I'll stop, I'm sorry.

14 MR. ELLIOTT: This is a subject 

15 for another meeting. 

16 MR. KATZ: So we could say dose 

17 reconstruction, SEC petitions, IREP and 

18 related DOL processes or something. No? 

19 That's fine.

20 MR. ELLIOTT: We're reluctant to 

21 talk about DOL processes other than the use of 

22 IREP because --
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1 MR. KATZ: Okay. The use of IREP, 

2 that's good.

3 MR. ELLIOTT: Sounds good. I've 

4 got enough on my plate to try to explain that, 

5 try to explain why DOL does something or 

6 doesn't do something.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, okay, that's fine.

8 MR. ELLIOTT: How they do 

9 something.

10 MEMBER MUNN: You don't feel that 

11 that -- well, never mind.

12 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, read what 

13 you've got, Arjun.

14 DR. MAKHIJANI: Evaluate whether 

15 OCAS's communications result in adequate 

16 understanding of the dose reconstructions, the 

17 use of IREP and SEC petitioning process.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. Is 

19 everyone good with that?

20 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

21 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We'll get into 

22 the details of that another day. Okay, the 
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1 bullets under that. "Do the participants 

2 understand how to file a claim and what to 

3 expect in the process?"

4 MR. KATZ: To file a claim is a 

5 DOL business.

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you want to 

7 delete that?

8 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: How about 

9 what to explain in the dose reconstruction 

10 process?

11 MEMBER BEACH: I didn't catch 

12 that, Kathy.

13 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Do 

14 participants understand what to expect in the 

15 dose reconstruction process. Or petition 

16 process.

17 MR. KATZ: Right. I mean, this is 

18 just then repeating the general sentence, 

19 breaking it up into its constituent parts, 

20 really. That's good.

21 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: There might 

22 be some overlap with the item at the bottom of 
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1 the page in the next section.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. Why don't we 

3 just go down these in order.

4 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, the second 

5 bullet. We're done with the first one, 

6 correct? "Do the participants understand the 

7 requirements for submitting a qualifying SEC 

8 petition?" Okay with that? Third bullet. 

9 "Do the participants understand the time 

10 requirements for qualifying and evaluating a 

11 petition, i.e., the 180-day petition 

12 evaluation requirement." 

13 MR. KATZ: I would just -- I think 

14 this needs to be broadened because that's just 

15 one tiny thing, the time element. But I think 

16 you want just to know that do the participants 

17 understand the process for qualifying -- well, 

18 you already have qualifying above, for 

19 evaluating an SEC petition, and that's the 

20 whole process. That includes the deadlines, 

21 but it includes everything else, their 

22 involvement in the Board meetings, you know, 
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1 all of the opportunities for their involvement 

2 all the way through the point where they may 

3 appeal a decision and so on, and Congress acts 

4 on a decision.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, so "Do 

6 participants understand the process for 

7 evaluating an SEC petition and how it may be 

8 approved or denied?"

9 MEMBER MUNN: I swore I wasn't 

10 going to say anything else, but so help me I 

11 have to say this. How is anyone of you going 

12 to identify whether someone understands 

13 something? What criterion are you going to 

14 use for that, any more than the criterion you 

15 can use to determine how someone feels about 

16 something?

17 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: Can we 

18 reword it something along the lines of --

19 MEMBER MUNN: Have they been 

20 informed how to file a claim. Have they been 

21 informed of the requirements. Unless --

22 MR. KATZ: Wanda, that's process 
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1 questions, has someone been informed, but if 

2 you actually want to get at effectiveness you 

3 want to know, well, the ways you're informing 

4 them, are they working? And as to how you get 

5 that information, the only way you get that 

6 information is by actually somehow surveying, 

7 interviewing people to gather what they 

8 actually understand at the end of the process.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Are we going to have 

10 a test on this.

11 MR. ELLIOTT: A test.

12 MR. KATZ: So I'm not even raising 

13 the question of can we do this, can we 

14 actually do this evaluation, but that again, 

15 if you want to get at effectiveness for any 

16 kind of training or informational work you 

17 have to go back to the people who were trained 

18 and informed and figure out whether they 

19 understood. 

20 MEMBER BEACH: Okay, so you talked 

21 about rewording, Kathy? What were you 

22 thinking of rewording? Which bullet? Were 
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1 you back up to the top?

2 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: I'm trying 

3 to find a way to phrase it so that we're 

4 evaluating what they understand. And us 

5 asking it.

6 MR. KATZ: Well above, in the two 

7 bullets process questions you have already, 

8 you have, you know, is the right information 

9 being communicated and is it being 

10 communicated through the right means. So 

11 you've already asked those questions, those 

12 are process questions. Now, I mean you could 

13 decide as a Work Group that you really can't 

14 get at effectiveness because the only way to 

15 do that is to actually interview people and 

16 make an assessment of their knowledge based on 

17 this training that they've received and 

18 communications they've received. That's -- I 

19 mean, you have to wrestle with that 

20 feasibility question, but if you're going to 

21 get at effectiveness that's the only way you 

22 can do it. Otherwise, you're just evaluating 
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1 processes. You can make judgments as to how 

2 good the OCAS materials are and so on, but 

3 then it's just -- that's just your judgment as 

4 to whether -- how well they communicate versus 

5 how effective they actually are. I mean, you 

6 can't make that judgment as an expert.

7 MR. ELLIOTT: There's permutations 

8 to that. You could sit down with a focus 

9 group and lay out the written communication 

10 materials that we use which are on our website 

11 and determine whether or not those 

12 communication materials are effective in 

13 informing that focus group. That's another 

14 way of going about it.

15 MR. KATZ: That's like 

16 interviewing. I mean, whether you do a big 

17 survey, whether you do focus groups, I mean 

18 there are a whole number of ways, but they all 

19 -- you have to speak to the people who were 

20 supposedly educated, informed to get at that. 

21 So I mean, you have to at some point wrestle 

22 with is it feasible to get at that information 
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1 or not. I don't think you need to decide that 

2 today. So I think you can have this on your 

3 plate as an evaluation objective and down the 

4 road if you decide you don't have the 

5 resources or you can't get at that, then you 

6 can re-frame and just stick with process 

7 questions. But I think it's a good place to 

8 start to have that on your plate and worry 

9 about how you're going to implement it. 

10 Again, all of these, if you go through 

11 everything we've done today there's lots of 

12 how do you actually do that. All that has to 

13 be worked out still. We've just laid out a 

14 framework for what kind of questions we want 

15 to ask, not how do you get the good answers to 

16 the questions. 

17 MR. ELLIOTT: We heard last week 

18 in the workshop that many of the people that 

19 these folks were dealing with didn't read 

20 through all the material that they were given. 

21 You heard that, you heard that, right? You 

22 heard that? They did not read through 
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1 everything. So we took that back and I talked 

2 to my health communications specialist, I 

3 said, here's a comment for you to try to dig 

4 into. They're telling me that all the stuff 

5 we send out, half the folks or about half the 

6 time many of the folks don't even read through 

7 it. They get to the first paragraph or they 

8 try to find the bottom line and they don't 

9 understand it, or they just -- they don't want 

10 to understand it. So there's your challenge. 

11 We've got to come up with something that is 

12 readable and understandable.

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, just from my 

14 experience outside of this framework, you know 

15 we've done for 15 years lots and lots of work 

16 outside this context obviously. And you can't 

17 actually get even the most motivated people to 

18 read material beforehand. Some of them will 

19 read it and some of them will not read it. 

20 And it's also true of me. You know, you go to 

21 a meeting, you get materials, you're busy and 

22 you're on a plane and you know, you get 
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1 through what you get through and sometimes you 

2 know if it's important you get through 

3 everything. 

4 MR. ELLIOTT: I offer that as a 

5 practice for your understanding. How would 

6 you even evaluate that now? Because you know, 

7 I took back, I have one of the letters that I 

8 spoke about which gives us some input on how 

9 to reword, re-frame our documents on this kind 

10 of a concern that was raised, you know, make 

11 them more readable. Well that's good, so I've 

12 tasked -- given that to my health 

13 communications specialist. But other than 

14 that, you know, I think you guys are hard 

15 pressed to come in and point to these kind of 

16 sentinel events that happen like that and be 

17 able to track them. You know, we don't have -

18 - we can make a full bureaucracy around what 

19 you guys have discussed today. We could make 

20 a very costly set of research projects on 

21 effectiveness on what guys have talked about 

22 today and what we've thought about with regard 
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1 to how we're doing in our communication 

2 efforts.

3 MEMBER BEACH: And I kind of 

4 thought about part of what we wanted to do and 

5 maybe I missed it, was we were going to 

6 actually look at the material that NIOSH is 

7 sending out and evaluating the material as 

8 opposed to did the participants understand it. 

9 So I guess that piece is kind of missing.

10 MR. KATZ: That's already covered. 

11 I mean, the process questions.

12 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, but the 

13 effectiveness part of it I guess.

14 MR. KATZ: Well, that's my point. 

15 You can look at materials and say you like 

16 them or you don't, but you cannot judge their 

17 effectiveness because you read them and have 

18 an opinion about that.

19 MEMBER BEACH: That's true.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Given the hour, 

21 let's just get back to the plan and we'll 

22 leave the evaluation steps in there. Once we 
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1 get this done and we go try to figure out how 

2 we're going to do it we may figure out we 

3 can't do it. But for now let's, for today 

4 let's concentrate on getting this finished up. 

5 Is that all right? 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. So we are 

8 at the fourth bullet. "Are claimants notified 

9 that an Ombudsman's Office exists and what 

10 services it provides?" I think that's 

11 straightforward enough. Did you have a 

12 comment, Arjun?

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I had some 

14 notes on the third bullet and I'm wondering 

15 whether they were appropriately put in there 

16 now.

17 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Oh okay, so we 

18 just left --

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think we 

20 left the third bullet then. What I have is 

21 "Do the participants understand the process 

22 for evaluating an SEC petition and how it may 
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1 be approved or denied," and I don't know 

2 whether that was what you wanted, or the --

3 the original words were thought to be too 

4 narrow, the 180 days. Is this okay? That's 

5 what I have.

6 MEMBER BEACH: That's what we 

7 said.

8 DR. MAKHIJANI: All right. I just 

9 wasn't sure.

10 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We'll be looking 

11 to OCAS's documents ourselves up above so all 

12 these things down here under the evaluation, 

13 it's just, you know, we're going to have to 

14 see how that works.

15 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

16 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, so is 

17 there anything else under the third bullet, 

18 Arjun?

19 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, I just 

20 want to make sure that I add the notes as 

21 people wanted them. I'm going to send them 

22 around.
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1 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So we read the 

2 fourth bullet. Is there anything that needs 

3 to be changed in that? And associated with 

4 that fifth one. "Is the Ombudsman's Office 

5 responding to worker communications and 

6 forwarding the comments received to 

7 appropriate subgroups of OCAS and its 

8 contractors?" 

9 DR. MAKHIJANI: Does Ombudsman's 

10 Office communicate with contractors or only 

11 with NIOSH?

12 MR. KATZ: Well actually, you 

13 know, Denise communicates with everybody.

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Whoever she needs to 

15 touch, she touches.

16 MR. KATZ: Beyond NIOSH too. She 

17 does a lot with DOL and she does a lot with 

18 the regional offices of DOL and so on. 

19 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. I think 

20 those five bullets are going to give us enough 

21 to try to figure out what to evaluate or how 

22 to evaluate when we get to it. Is there 
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1 anything else we want to add to that section, 

2 or? Probably going to be difficult.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Did you want to 

4 add an item along the lines of what Josie was 

5 talking about which would be the working 

6 group's evaluation of the material independent 

7 of whether anybody learned anything from it or 

8 not?

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Wasn't that in 

10 our --

11 MR. KATZ: I thought the first two 

12 bullets --

13 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, fine. 

14 Sorry.

15 MR. KATZ: Working group and 

16 whatever help it needs from SC&A will be 

17 addressing --

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry, sorry. 

19 Okay.

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay. And then 

21 the final set of bullets. "Determine if the 

22 claimants understand the dose reconstruction 
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1 process, its results and the differences 

2 between the dose reconstruction and SEC 

3 processes."

4 MR. KATZ: Some of this is 

5 redundant because we've already asked do they 

6 understand dose reconstruction, do they 

7 understand the SEC processes. I don't know, 

8 the compare and contrast probably isn't 

9 needed.

10 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: That's what 

11 I was saying earlier.

12 MR. KATZ: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So you think we 

14 have all of these bullets adequately covered? 

15 Then we'll just delete them.

16 MR. KATZ: The end.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: The end. Well, 

18 there was -- Wanda, you were going to make a 

19 bullet out of one paragraph at the top.

20 MEMBER MUNN: I have not rewritten 

21 it. I will send it to you by mail.

22 DR. MAKHIJANI: So, okay. So I 
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1 just have that paragraph highlighted that 

2 Wanda will send sentence and Wanda will 

3 convert it.

4 MEMBER MUNN: That's correct. I 

5 have a note to that effect. I will rewrite 

6 that one paragraph up in Item Number 1.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So that's 

8 in my notes and I'll send that. 

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Now we'll move 

10 to the discussion --

11 (Laughter.)

12 MR. ELLIOTT: You're trying to get 

13 the Mark Griffon award for task master. The 

14 Wanda award.

15 MR. KATZ: Actually, I'm kind of 

16 impressed, Mike.

17 MR. ELLIOTT: You've done a very 

18 good job, Mike. So what is it that you want 

19 to discuss now?

20 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Action items and 

21 adjournment. Arjun, how long do you think it 

22 would take to give you adequate time to put 
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1 this in a finalized type form so you could 

2 mail it out?

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: I can give it to 

4 you right now.

5 MEMBER BEACH: Perfect, we can 

6 work another hour.

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Actually, I'm 

8 writing the email to send you the document. 

9 It's in edit mode. I should probably spell10 check it before sending it to you. But I'll 

11 send it before I leave.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Here's what I 

13 was thinking. If we get it out to the Work 

14 Group members and Ted and everyone and maybe 

15 give us two or three days to look it over. 

16 Would it be possible for us to have a 

17 conference call before the Board meeting to 

18 just finalize this? Because I'd like us to 

19 adopt something and have it ready, prepared to 

20 present to the Board. 

21 MR. KATZ: I'm just wondering if 

22 you can't do this by email without it. 
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1 Because everybody has sort of agreed on 

2 everything that we've talked about. Now all 

3 we're talking about probably is copy editing 

4 which is not substantive, you don't need a 

5 working meeting to do copy editing.

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: So then, like in 

7 the next few days if Arjun gave that to me, 

8 I'll look it over first and I'll send it out 

9 to the Work Group members and everyone. 

10 Unless there are any objections then we'll 

11 consider that our product. Sound good?

12 MR. KATZ: It doesn't have to be -

13 - I mean, really, I'm sure it will more than -

14 - represent the idea, the basic ideas for the 

15 Board to give it consideration. I mean, 

16 everything doesn't have to be perfect.

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mike, do you want 

18 me to go and everywhere where we have 

19 "workers" kind of fix? Because I haven't done 

20 that. I haven't gone and checked for 

21 consistency where we talk. I can send -- do 

22 you want me to fix that? If I send it now --
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1 MR. KATZ: No, don't send it out 

2 now. Give it a good read-through.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: I'll read through 

4 it.

5 MR. KATZ: You may find other 

6 gaps.

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes, we can get 

8 this the first of next week or so. We still 

9 have plenty of time to distribute it.

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Excuse me. This 

12 requires a vote by the Board, correct?

13 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: For them to 

14 adopt that.

15 MEMBER BEACH: And the new mission 

16 statement. So I'm wondering if you wouldn't 

17 want to send it out to the Board members ahead 

18 of the meeting also to give people a chance?

19 MR. KATZ: Can I just say, I mean 

20 the Board -- I mean, I think you want their

21 approval of the mission statement, but as far 

22 as the Work Plan, I mean I don't know whether 
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1 they have to actually vote on your Work Plan. 

2 You may want to change your Work Plan as you 

3 go along, you may find some things are not 

4 feasible to actually evaluate once you get 

5 into the nitty-gritty of it and so on. I 

6 think it's enough to provide it for their 

7 comment and so on, but I don't think the Board 

8 -- I just don't imagine the Board actually 

9 voting on -- putting a stamp on this is the 

10 plan.

11 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes. I didn't 

12 think -- I haven't talked to them, but okay.

13 MR. KATZ: Yes, yes. So then the 

14 Board can discuss and give any input it wants 

15 but without really.

16 MEMBER BEACH: So we just need to 

17 amend the statement.

18 MR. KATZ: The charge, yes. Now,

19 that part is a Board vote.

20 MEMBER BEACH: And then do we need 

21 to start thinking about how we're going to do 

22 this, or are we going to save that for another 
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1 day? Like for thinking about just how we're 

2 going to actually do this work. Because we've 

3 already started, I mean, we've already started 

4 attending meetings and so those things are 

5 kind of left hanging in a way, in a sense.

6 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: We need to do 

7 that and we need to think about another 

8 meeting to get back to these other issues that 

9 we didn't have time for today.

10 MR. KATZ: I think we need to 

11 schedule another meeting.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Do we want to 

13 look at some dates now, or do you want to 

14 wait?

15 MR. KATZ: Whatever your pleasure 

16 is. I can get my BlackBerry out and turn it 

17 on.

18 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Okay, let's do 

19 that.

20 MR. KATZ: If people have their 

21 calendars. We don't have Phil so we may have 

22 to just tentatively do something.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Phil told me he's 

2 always available. 

3 MR. JOHNSON: While we're 

4 pondering on that, what was the question that 

5 Antoinette had? Clarification of dose 

6 reconstructions?

7 MR. KATZ: Can I get that to you? 

8 I mean, I have it in my -- I wrote notes down.

9 MR. JOHNSON: Larry's here and you 

10 know he wanted to see if he could respond to.

11 MR. KATZ: Oh, I see what you're 

12 saying. Hold on.

13 MR. JOHNSON: I think it required 

14 an additional individual.

15 MR. KATZ: So Antoinette's 

16 question. Antoinette, if you're on the phone, 

17 I don't mean to ask a question that you can 

18 ask directly. Are you there? I don't think 

19 she is. But was what technical assistance --

20 well, her question was sort of should NIOSH be 

21 providing some sort of expert advisor to help 

22 claimants understand the dose reconstruction 
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1 report. I think that captures her question.

2 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Similar to some 

3 of the other --

4 MR. KATZ: How should OCAS be 

5 helping the claimants understand their dose 

6 reconstruction reports. That was her 

7 question.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: I just told her 

9 we would pass the question on to you.

10 MR. ELLIOTT: She knows how to get 

11 a hold of me and she can write me an email, 

12 but essentially you know we have discussed, 

13 debated and conferred about this issue over 

14 the course of time. You can go back and read 

15 the preamble of the regulation and see some of 

16 the thoughts that were offered there about 

17 providing assistance to claimants in 

18 understanding dose reconstruction. We have 

19 chosen to -- with the resources that we have 

20 to offer many ways for the claimants to 

21 contact us and many opportunities for 

22 claimants to ask us questions or to follow up 
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1 with us on whatever they might find confusing 

2 or poorly communicated. That's been our 

3 approach. Every piece of correspondence, 

4 every interaction we have with claimants or 

5 petitioners we offer our contact information. 

6 Our website provides the opportunity and the 

7 ability for claimants and petitioners to 

8 contact us through that mechanism. We have an 

9 800 number. We welcome comments on our 

10 technical documents through our docket or 

11 through our website. We stand ready and 

12 willing to help anybody who wants to ask us a 

13 question.

14 MR. JOHNSON: I'd like to add two 

15 other issues or elements to that. One is that 

16 we've added increased explanation in the dose 

17 reconstruction as to why it is the way it is 

18 and if it changed, why it changed. Secondly, 

19 we also have the closeout interview which we 

20 have experts that understand the dose 

21 reconstruction process, been involved in 

22 radiological situations and are able to 
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1 attempt to explain the issues that these folks 

2 have in the final closeout. So we have those 

3 two aspects, one we've improved on and the 

4 other one we've always had.

5 MR. ELLIOTT: And that's very 

6 good. Thank you for pointing that out, J.J. 

7 Let me take that one step further. In our 

8 effort to continuously improve our 

9 communication efforts we have changed -- we're 

10 in the process of changing our dose 

11 reconstruction report format to be more 

12 readable and more understandable to the 

13 claimant audience and not lose -- at the same 

14 time not lose the technical aspects and the 

15 nature that are relevant to the report and 

16 that could serve to inform an expert or a 

17 knowledgeable health physicist on how we did 

18 our work. So that is forthcoming, ORAU our 

19 contractor is tooling up to start delivering 

20 those modified, revised new dose 

21 reconstruction reports, and I'm anxious to see 

22 that happen soon.
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1 MR. KATZ: Just to do justice to 

2 the comment she made, I just recall sort of 

3 another aspect of it. What she said as 

4 preface to the comment was that DOL has some 

5 sort of experts on hand with respect to cancer 

6 diagnosis or something that when a claimant 

7 needs they can speak to some medical expert 

8 about their condition or something like that. 

9 So she had I think very specifically in mind, 

10 you know, whether OCAS would have some expert 

11 available and I think your answer just now was 

12 the person who does the closeout interview 

13 with the person is an expert to speak 

14 specifically to the -- what's in the dose 

15 reconstruction.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: And that's just one 

17 opportunity. The closeout interview is just 

18 one opportunity where an expert can be brought 

19 to bear on a question that's raised. And 

20 certainly we could point to other ample 

21 opportunities that are there. Any time a 

22 claimant calls us we can put them in touch 
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1 with somebody that has knowledge of the site 

2 and has the ability, we hope, to explain 

3 effectively what we've done in reconstructing 

4 their dose.

5 MR. KATZ: Thanks for bringing 

6 that back up.

7 MR. JOHNSON: I didn't want it 

8 hanging over my head.

9 MR. ELLIOTT: It's on the record, 

10 it's on the transcript now, so.

11 MR. KATZ: I've got my calendar 

12 up, but give me a scope for where we're 

13 thinking.

14 DR. MAURO: Ted, this is John. 

15 I'm sorry to interrupt, I know you're coming 

16 to closure. Could I get a quick feedback from 

17 the Work Group whether I or SC&A should 

18 continue to pursue the possibility of bringing 

19 the aboard this fellow David Bidwell to help 

20 us do the things that we've all been talking 

21 about today.

22 MR. KATZ: John, Mike had 
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1 suggested that that would be an item for the 

2 next time the Work Group meets.

3 DR. MAURO: That's fine.

4 MR. KATZ: I think we're out of 

5 gas.

6 DR. MAURO: I understand, I just 

7 wanted to make sure that I mentioned that.

8 MR. KATZ: Yes. So that's not 

9 forgotten, to be sure, but that -- we'll 

10 address that at the next Work Group meeting.

11 DR. MAURO: That's fine.

12 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: There's a Dose 

13 Reconstruction Subcommittee meeting the fifth.

14 MEMBER BEACH: There's a Linde on 

15 the fourth.

16 MR. KATZ: That week is 

slaughtered. That's November 3rd, 4th, 5th 17 .

18 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: If you want 

19 me to be able to attend you're going to be out 

20 to --

21 MR. KATZ: To what?

22 MS. ROBERTSON-DEMERS: If you want 
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1 Abe to attend, you're going to have to push it 

2 out to the second week.

3 MEMBER BEACH: I'm not available 

4 the second week. And did you say you were

5 not, Arjun?

6 DR. MAKHIJANI: I am not, but you 

7 know, I don't have to be here. There are two 

8 of us here. Unless you want me here.

9 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: What about the 

10 third week of November? Wanda's Procedures 

group is the 17th 11 , right?

12 MEMBER MUNN: Yes and INL is the 

16th. We could do it on the 18th 13 . 

14 MS. HOWELL: That's the week we're 

15 out.

16 MEMBER MUNN: I didn't hear that.

17 MR. KATZ: I think just people 

18 were talking about their own particular 

schedules. So the 16th and 17th 19 are booked, 

the 18th and 19th 20 are out of -- can't be done. 

21 So the only day that week, the remaining day 

that week would be the 20th 22 and that's the day 
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1 before Thanksgiving week. So that's the 

2 Friday before Thanksgiving week. 

3 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: It's up to all 

4 you guys who have to travel.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI: How about the 

6 second or third or something like that?

7 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: The third is 

8 selection day. 

9 MR. ELLIOTT: OCAS can't 

10 participate on the third. 

11 MR. KATZ: Can't do it on the 

12 third. Is that new, Larry?

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: I never saw it on my 

15 calendar.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Just here this 

17 morning.

18 MR. KATZ: Okay, but what is the 

19 second?

20 MEMBER BEACH: So I'm gone on the 

21 fifth. Well, the second we'd have to travel 

22 on Sunday. 
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1 MR. KATZ: No, we're talking about 

2 December now. December. I thought you 

3 suggested. So December, Wednesday the second. 

4 How would that work for people?

5 MEMBER BEACH: That's fine for me.

6 MR. KATZ: How is that for you 

7 Mike, Kathy?

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Okay here.

10 MR. KATZ: Does that work for you, 

11 Emily?

12 MS. HOWELL: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: So you want to --

14 should we do it? December 2?

15 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Yes. 

16 MR. KATZ: Great. December 2, 

17 Outreach Work Group. Done.

18 MEMBER BEACH: Ted, I've noticed 

19 that the Linde Work Group meeting hasn't gone 

20 out yet and it was going to go out this week, 

21 the notification. It hasn't come out.

22 MR. KATZ: Oh, I hadn't looked, 
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1 but I can check on that. Let me check on 

2 that. Linde notification. That's for 

3 November 4. Let me check, thank you.

4 MS. HOWELL: And the INL Work 

5 Group meeting is November 16.

6 MEMBER MUNN: What are you saying 

about the INL meeting? Cancelled on the 16th 7 ?

8 MEMBER BEACH: For Phil's Work 

9 Group?

10 MR. KATZ: Oh, right.

11 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I think there 

12 was an email that that wouldn't be ready until 

13 April. 

14 MR. KATZ: No, you're right. 

15 There was an email, I forgot. Larry sent out 

16 an email saying --

17 MR. ELLIOTT: I said that NIOSH 

18 wouldn't be able to, you know, have our

19 reactions, our position fully developed to the 

20 profile review.

21 MR. KATZ: Till the new year, you 

22 said, right? Not April.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Yes, I had heard 

2 after the first. Phil said today till April, 

3 so that's why I said April.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: There's a portion --

5 I proportioned out what we're targeting as --

6 there's the internal and external dose that 

7 should be done by the first of the year. Then 

8 the rest of the site profiles later in the 

9 year, like in April. That doesn't mean there 

10 couldn't be a meeting if you all have 

11 something to discuss, it's just that we're not 

12 going to be able to put on the table our 

13 reactions.

14 MR. KATZ: Well, yes. Okay, so 

15 INL, I need to get notice out that INL is off 

16 for that date. So then there's just the 

17 Procedures. Okay.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Well, now I know 

19 we've already established a date in December, 

20 but I was going to see if INL is not meeting 

on the 16th 21 could Worker Outreach meet on the 

16th 22 ? But that's not here nor there.
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1 MR. KATZ: No, I mean that's a 

2 reasonable question. November 16, does that 

3 work for people?

4 MEMBER BEACH: So what was wrong 

with the 17th 5 ?

MR. KATZ: The 17th 6 is Procedures.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Procedures.

8 MEMBER BEACH: Oh, okay. That's 

9 another weekend.

10 MR. KATZ: That would mean you 

11 traveling on Sunday, which is not great. So 

12 why don't we stick with December then. Stick 

13 with December. Josie doesn't need to lose a 

14 Sunday. 

15 MEMBER BEACH: Or Kathy.

16 MR. KATZ: Or Kathy. Or me. 

17 DR. MAKHIJANI: Can I follow up on 

18 something Josie said? She was, you know, we 

19 were talking about how to implement some of 

20 this stuff and the fact that we already have 

21 attended one meeting. Mike, I just wanted to 

22 look for some direction from you as to where 
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1 we go with that. You know, Kathy has her 

2 notes, I have my notes, Josie was there too. 

3 You know, there are some ideas about what we 

4 might do with that. You know, not the 

5 specific notes from that meeting because it 

6 might be premature to kind of send out reports 

7 without an agreed format, but we could think 

8 about that and maybe SC&A could, if you want, 

9 Kathy and I could put our heads together with 

10 Abe or John and suggest something to you at 

11 least so far as we have come in that meeting 

12 and the Weldon Spring meeting that Kathy went 

13 to, if you want, or not.

14 MEMBER BEACH: Well, Mike attended 

15 the meeting also.

16 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mike. Oh you were 

17 at Weldon Spring? Santa Susana? Between us 

18 all we've three different meetings so we could 

19 possibly begin the process -- because this is 

20 going to be pretty complicated. If you want 

21 we could.

22 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: If you want to 
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1 discuss some ideas to get at stuff we should 

2 have time on the next agenda.

3 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 

4 MR. KATZ: But think about a 

5 framework for reporting out this information, 

6 keeping in mind, you know, what its purpose 

7 is, to inform the evaluation project.

8 CHAIRMAN GIBSON: Right. Anything 

9 else? We're done. 

10 MR. KATZ: We're adjourned. Thank 

11 you everyone.

12 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

13 matter went off the record at 4:44 p.m.)

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