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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

+ + + + +

MOUND PLANT WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

NOVEMBER 26, 2013

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened 

telephonically at 10:00 a.m., Eastern 

Standard Time, Josie Beach, Chair, 

presiding.

PRESENT:

JOSIE BEACH, Chair 

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

TERRIE BARRIE

JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A

DeKEELY HARTSFIELD, HHS

STU HINNEFELD, DCAS

DEB JERISON

JIM NETON, DCAS

DONALD STEWART, ORAU Team
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Welcome and Roll-Call/Introductions ....... 4

Work Group Discussion

Questions about monitoring logbooks ....... 4

Interpretation of the MESH database ...... 23
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

10:01 a.m.

MR. KATZ: Let’s just start with 

roll call, and we’ll talk about a site, so 

speak to conflict of interest while you are 

at it.

Let’s begin with the Board.

(Roll call.)

MR. KATZ: Okay, then. There’s 

an agenda, which is very simple. Under the 

meeting, and today’s date, we just have two 

items, and, Josie, it’s your agenda.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thank you, 

Ted, and thanks everybody for convening this 

short -- on such short notice, right before 

the holidays.

As you all know, we have heard 

from Mound SEC Petitioners over the last 

couple of years regarding issues concerning 

the use of tritium bioassay logbook-based 

list to support DOL’s administration of the 
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1959 to 1980 SEC Class for Radon Exposure.

And, this call is to provide an 

airing of those concerns before the Work 

Group, that pertain to the use of these 

logbooks as the sole basis of the SEC 

inclusion, and how NIOSH went about making 

that determination in compiling its list for 

worker names for DOL.

And then just to clarify, while 

we have other concerns, or SEC, excuse me, 

the Petitioners have other concerns 

surrounding the SEC that were raised, the 

Work Group is focused on the technical basis 

for how this logbook information was used. 

And, much of this was broached before the 

Work Group and the Board in 2011, but this 

would be helpful for us to revisit this 

discussion to focus attention on what seems 

to be recurring concerns that have been 

raised before the Board.

And, Joe, could you go into the 

specifics of this for us?
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MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. This is 

Joe Fitzgerald on the phone.

First off, you know, these 

issues certainly go back a couple years, and 

we’ve covered them in, not only Work Group 

discussions, but also in October, 2011 White 

Paper that Brant Ulsh provided the Work 

Group. This was the October, 2011 NIOSH 

evaluation of radon issues at the Mound 

Laboratory.

So again, there’s definitely 

some history of discussion on these.

Just for -- since it’s been a 

couple years and we do have, I guess, Terrie 

and not Deb on the phone, first, you know, 

the first issue is NIOSH, this comes from 

the October, 2011, so I’m quoting directly 

from that.

“NIOSH has performed analysis to 

tritium logbooks, and has identified every 

worker with one or more tritium bioassay 

results in the tritium logbooks during the 
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SEC time period.” Okay, that was the basis, 

again, for the logbooks themselves being 

applied.

This list has been provided to 

DOL, and is being used to support the 

administration of the SEC Class.

A third item, just to set the 

table, is the 0.00 issue, which came up in 

our discussions back in 2011. And, I think 

Brant pointed out at the time that the 

individual -- and this is an artifact of how 

Mound maintained its bioassay records in 

MESH, but, you know, MESH was a dose file, 

not a straightforward bioassay file.

And, in terms of reporting dose, 

they did combine the tritium bioassay 

results with the external dose results, and 

in September of each calendar year that 

combination was presented or identified as 

such.

And so, you would sometimes have 

a 0.0 for individuals, which did not in fact 
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signify any bioassay, they essentially had 

zero external dose. And, whether or not 

they had any bioassay results for tritium 

would not have been apparent from that 

particular file, or that particular report 

in September of that year.

I think there have been, I 

recall, five sample cases that were run 

through with the zero results, just to 

validate that assumption. And, in each and 

every one of the five cases it was 

determined that the primary record, primary 

record being the logbooks, did not contain 

those particular names, did not have those 

names listed for those dates, and so, 

therefore, that, again, did not carry 

forward as, necessarily, in fact, a tritium 

bioassay.

So, I don’t think there is any 

issue from our side from that, that was 

something that was addressed a couple years 

ago, and, in fact, there was a five sample 
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validation of that particular question along 

the way.

Beyond that, I think the 

question that we’ve been hearing, and this 

has come up, I think, Deb Jerison has 

mentioned this two or three times at Board 

meetings, but a concern over whether the 

logbooks would be complete enough, accurate 

enough, applicable enough, to be used as the 

sole source of the one tritium bioassay 

result, which is the trigger for inclusion 

in the SEC for 59 to 80.

And, just to reiterate, based on 

the record on that one, logbooks, and we’ve, 

you know, we’ve gone a number of different 

sites where, you know, certainly, we’ve 

question the electronic database for 

internal dosimetry. And, if nothing else, 

both NIOSH, SC&A, the workgroups, at these 

various sites have pushed to validate the 

electronic database against the primary 

source, which is, in fact, logbooks and 
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other, you know, means by which the 

dosimetrist first reports the individual and 

the date, and the bioassay procedure that’s 

given. So, that is the primary record.

And, in this particular case, 

the primary record is being used to provide 

a basis for the names, dates and, 

essentially, with the identity code, the 

identity code for workers who would have 

received tritium bioassay.

Though, certainly, we don’t have 

a question regarding that as the primary 

source, we do have some questions on 

implementation. One of the issues that 

first came up was the question of missing 

logbooks, and I think very early NIOSH 

identified two periods of time during which 

the logbook information was missing, 

September 1, ‘72, through December, 31, ‘72. 

And, of course, January 1, ‘75 through 

December 31, ‘76.

And, I think those issues were 
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settled without any real issue. I think it 

was acknowledged that without the logbook as 

a primary source, one could not, 

necessarily, demonstrate that certain 

individuals would have received a tritium 

bioassay per se, and I think an 83.14 was 

pursued by NIOSH to expand the coverage of 

the SEC to all employees for those periods.

So, there was no issue on that, 

but that was, certainly, an example where 

missing the primary data one had to expand 

the SEC Class.

The question I think that has 

been raised in some of the comments that 

have come before the Board is, what do you 

do if, for example, you are not missing 

whole logbooks, but you are missing, 

perhaps, pieces of the logbook, in terms of 

having pages illegible, or having names and 

HP numbers illegible, these would not be --

and I’ve looked at, just to refresh my 

memory, went back and looked at the logbook 
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pages, sampled them, in effect. And, you 

know, you are missing days, basically, as 

opposed to months, if not a year or so, 

which is the case for the other gaps. But, 

these are much smaller gaps.

But, I think the question of 

legibility, and what do you do when you are 

missing some of this data, has come up 

before the Board, and it may just be a 

useful thing to start with in terms of some 

clarification from NIOSH, since we didn’t 

really get into this, I think, in Work Group 

discussions, not so much the larger gaps, 

but how has NIOSH -- how did NIOSH handle 

the gaps that were, perhaps, days or half 

days, where you are missing, you know, 

because of legibility issues.

Now, legibility, from the 

standpoint of what I saw in the SRDB is not, 

necessarily legibility on the original 

documents. So, another question would be, 

was the original DOL list compiled from the 
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original sources, which, certainly, would be 

available, or did the SRDBs reflect the 

conditions of the original documents.

I mean, clearly, some of these 

names and HPID numbers were not identifiable 

on the screen, but maybe they were written 

in pencil or something, and may be legible 

with the hard copy. So, I’ll just leave it 

at that, and maybe that would be something 

we could start with.

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this is 

Stu, and I’ll offer some history here.

Initially, when we examined the 

images of the logbooks, there were, in fact, 

some sheets that were illegible. And, we 

went back to recover from that, went back to 

Legacy Management, had them pull the 

logbooks, the originals again and re-image a 

number of sheets to get what we believed to 

be legible copies.

I think handwriting being what 

it is, I believe there may have been some 
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questions about specific letters here and 

there on some names. And, as I recall, when 

we prepared the list, if there were two 

potential spellings for the name Meyer, for 

instance, I think with any given written, 

you couldn’t tell from the writing what 

letters they were, we would list each 

reading that it appeared to be, so that both 

names, both spellings, would appear on the 

list. 

And, then ORAU, or then DOL in 

the Administration Class, works from the 

list that ORAU, that we prepared. So, I 

believe that’s how it was dealt with. This 

goes back a couple years, and so I’m 

speaking from memory.

MR. STEWART: This is Don 

Stewart. I have something to add to that. 

And, first, I’d like to say that I’m not 

conflicted with Mound, I believe I forgot 

that earlier.

When we go back and look at 
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these logbooks, we don’t see a name come up 

one time and then disappear. Typically, 

what happens is, people work campaigns, or 

for very long periods of time, in fact, with 

weekly entries of their name in the 

logbooks. So, I mean, as we approach the 

date of interest, we’ll, typically, see 

their name recurring again, and again, and 

again.

I’m not saying that that has 

happened in 100 percent of cases, but that 

is what I recall happening on every claim 

that I’ve looked at, to go back and see, is 

this person, in fact, covered in the 

logbooks, their name is in the logbook week, 

after week, after week. It’s, typically, 

these assignments lasted for a long time at 

Mound.

MR. FITZGERALD: And, I would 

tend to agree with that. You know, I was 

trying to distinguish clearly three months, 

which is the first logbook gap which was in 
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‘72. I think it was ‘72, where an 83.14 was 

done. That’s, certainly, less than 250 

days, but the sense was it was long enough 

where that repetition you are talking about 

may have not been held as well.

When you are talking about a day 

or two, and this is something that I think 

is pretty apparent from the names that keep 

showing up, you are more likely not to have 

as much of an issue, because you are going 

to have those same individuals in the period 

right before that minor gap and right after 

that minor gap. It’s not 100 percent, you 

know, surety, but I think what you are 

saying is that the likelihood would be that 

you wouldn’t be missing anybody who would 

happen to be showing up in that one or twoday interval.

MR. STEWART: And, the other 

aspect of it is that, if we see a name that 

looks like it could be the name of the 

individual that we are looking for, and it’s 
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not quite legible, and I don’t recall this 

ever happening by the way, we would, 

typically -- you know, we are set up to 

default conservative, so we would assume 

that this scribble that started with a B 

was, in fact, the person named Benson that 

we were looking for. 

That’s how we approach every, 

you know, gap, everything that we can’t 

quite be certain of, we are going to fail on 

the conservative side, and that is claimant 

favorable side.

CHAIR BEACH: This is Josie. I 

have just a quick question on the logbooks.

When you guys created the list, 

did you do any kind of verification or QC of 

that list after it was created, to just 

assure yourself that you didn’t miss any 

potential people?

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this is 

Stu, and I’m not really in a position to say 

that –- anything about that today. This 
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list was generated at least two years ago 

and so we would have to go back to the 

actual mechanics of it to find out. I would 

suspect give what was at stake that there 

was some QC. Whether it was just a visual 

verification or what, I don’t know. We 

would have to go find out from the people 

who actually did it.

CHAIR BEACH: That is fair 

enough. This is Josie again, can I ask did 

Deb Jerison, did you join us by any chance.

MS. JERISON: Hi.

CHAIR BEACH: Oh, good, you are 

on. Thank you. Okay.

MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. Another 

question that has surfaced, I think, over 

the past year or so has been this question 

of re-use of the HP numbers.

Just to clarify, I think what 

Stuart was saying was something to the 

effect of, any means to identify a worker on 

the logbook, in the logbook, would have been 
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employed, meaning that, certainly, if the 

name wasn’t legible, but the HP ID number 

was, then that, certainly, would be used, or 

vice versa.

I guess so the case of any reuse of HP ID numbers would probably only 

into play when that was the -- maybe the 

name was not legible, and that was the only 

means to identify an entry, than, perhaps, 

some question about whether these numbers 

would have been duplicated or not.

Just a question of whether that 

was observed, whether, in fact, these ID 

numbers, in fact, were reused or recycled, 

that kind of thing, any observation on that?

MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu, and, 

again, I’m speaking from memory here, but I 

believe our expectation -- I believe when we 

prepared the list, we were under the 

impression that the numbers were reused, and 

that the ID number would not be a unique 

identifier.
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So, it would make sense, and I’m 

only speculating here, it would make sense 

that if you are reading a logbook, and the 

name isn’t exactly legible, but the ID 

number is, and a week earlier you had a 

sample from that ID number, and the name is 

legible, and it looks a lot like the one 

that you are trying to figure out now, it 

makes sense that people would conclude, 

well, that was this person who left a sample 

a week ago with the same number.

But, I don’t believe there was 

any expectation as we went through this that 

a number was a -- that the ID number was a 

unique identifier, because our understanding 

was that they were reissued.

So again --

MR. STEWART: I’m sorry, this is 

Don Stewart.

As I understand it, early on 

they did recycle them, and then they decided 

they wanted to use a unique number and they 
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stopped doing that.

But, as far as using the HP 

number goes, speaking as a dose 

reconstructor, it hasn’t come up that often. 

Typically, the names are legible.

The one case that I -- you know, 

a couple of times I remember I did use the 

HP number was when people had the same last 

name. In fact, you know, successive 

generations of people, had to use the HP 

number to distinguish the elder and the 

younger of those two people. It’s happened 

a couple of times.

MR. FITZGERALD: And, just to 

reaffirm that, having scanned the logbooks, 

yes, the ID number as being the only 

reference point is relatively rare. And, in 

fact, most of the logbooks are very neatly 

prepared so the names are very legible. 

It’s only a few places where, apparently, 

whoever was keeping the logbooks had 

terrible handwriting, or used a pencil that 
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it was kind of hard to see. 

But again, the question of the 

HP ID number being sort of the only go to 

identifier seemed to be very rare across 

those years of logbook entries.

So, I just wanted to mention 

that.

MR. STEWART: I would agree with 

that, as a dose reconstructor I would agree 

with that. Keep in mind, we come from an 

age where handwriting mattered, that’s no 

longer true, but certainly in those days it 

did, especially for log keepers.

And, we usually have pretty good 

results. There’s one person at SRS who was 

not very inspired in terms of handwriting 

ability, but everyone else has been pretty 

good.

MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. In terms 

of the logbooks, that was the -- that was 

kind of the clarifying issues that we heard, 

or the questions we had heard during some of 
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these discussions.

Certainly, the logbooks are the 

primary source, from which the other 

databases are drawn downstream. So, as long 

as that information is useable, and that’s 

the question we’ve been sort of grappling 

with over the last five or ten minutes, then 

there’s no better source for the identity of 

individuals who received tritium bioassay at 

Mound during those years.

So again, we wanted to go 

through those logbooks one more time, just 

to reaffirm that the information there was 

sufficiently legible and useable. And, I 

think we were able to see that pretty 

clearly.

I’ll mention this question of 

the MESH database, and this was addressed 

pretty thoroughly a couple years ago. And, 

I know it’s been raised a couple times in 

some of the discussions, as far as getting a 

suitable response. And, this is the 
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question of some of the claimants having 

MESH results that show a zero entry that 

includes the tritium dose, when, in fact, 

there’s a bit of an artifact that’s built 

into the MESH system that reports the 

internal plus external, in this case 

tritium, once a year, as I recall, and also 

that similar process is used at other sites.

The one question I had on that, 

just to clarify, and I don’t know if Stu or 

Jim can answer this, because this is as much 

DOL, but some of the issues that had come 

back from people self-identifying as 

receiving tritium bioassay, a number of 

those, I think you ran some sample claims 

where, in fact, it turned out they did have 

that zero entry for the tritium plus 

external.

Was there any other instances, 

to your knowledge, where a MESH result, or 

any other result, may have come up that did 

not include that zero artifact, was 
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something other than that, for which there 

was no entry in the logbook? In other words 

were there any other instances where that 

cannot -- where it couldn’t be rationalized 

why one had a tritium bioassay result, but 

not be in the logbook, assuming the logbook 

again is the primary source?

MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu.

I can’t -- I don’t know of any 

other indications or any other records like 

the MESH tritium report that seem to give 

conflicting information from the logbook. 

So, I can’t recall any.

MR. FITZGERALD: Because it’s 

understandable how common that entry would 

be, considering that anybody who was a 

tritium worker would have had an entry, I 

would assume, if they were being externally 

monitored, would have that annual entry. 

Am I interpreting that right, 

they would have that entry?

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, if they 
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were externally monitored, the MESH tritium 

report would list a zero in the tritium dose 

number for that year.

If, in fact, they had either no 

tritium bioassay or if they had given 

tritium bioassay that was all non-detect.

MR. FITZGERALD: Right.

MR. HINNEFELD: So, and if they 

were not externally monitored, and did not 

get any tritium bioassay, then the MESH 

tritium report does not print that year in 

the report. So, you have, you know, there 

are years missing in the MESH tritium 

report.

And so, in the years missing, 

that means that the person was not monitored 

for external exposure and that they had no 

tritium bioassay in that year.

CHAIR BEACH: So Jim, this is 

Josie, there was one entry, one of the 

claims on the second page of the report that 

you sent out last week, and there’s one 
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confusing entry to me on the year 1969, 

external monitoring, yes, zero on the 

report, but it did show that there was a 

result in the logbook. I think that was the 

only one I saw, and it was just -- it was a 

little different from any of the other 

reports. So, I was curious about the 

difference there.

MR. HINNEFELD: I’m looking 

through the report.

CHAIR BEACH: It’s claim 

[identifying information redacted].

MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, I got it. 

In 1969, yes, the person was monitored for 

external exposure, and they did have a 

tritium result in the logbook. 

MR. STEWART: Excuse me, what are 

we looking at?

MR. HINNEFELD: I’m not sure I 

can see the claim number on it.

CHAIR BEACH: Yes, it’s the 

second page.
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MR. HINNEFELD: The report that 

was sent out, if you start counting on the 

pages that includes the claim and the actual 

analyses year by year, the claims, it’s page 

three --

MR. STEWART: OK.

MR. HINNEFELD: 1969, the person 

was monitored for external exposure. So, 

that is the only criteria really needed to 

get -- to mean that there is going to be a 

number in the tritium report, in the H3 

report there’s going to be a tritium dose 

number in the tritium dose report.

The fact that they were 

monitored for external exposure means there 

is going to be an entry, a numerical entry 

on the tritium -- MESH tritium report for 

that year.

Now, in this case, in 1969, this 

person had bioassay, tritium bioassay in the 

logbook in 1969, but their tritium dose is 

zero, and so I would conclude from that that 
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their tritium bioassay result had a nondetectable result, because, you know, when I 

ran bioassay programs if the tritium -- if 

the bioassay was non-detectable, the 

person’s dose was zero.

So, that is one of the possible 

explanations.

Now, on the same claim in the 

next year, 1970, the person was monitored 

for external exposure, and that, again, is 

the only criterion needed to put a number in 

the tritium dose report, in the tritium dose 

report field. So, a number goes in, in this 

case it’s zero, and the person did not have 

any tritium result in the logbook. And so, 

that also is consistent with what we’ve been 

saying. 

What you would see in some of 

these cases, I believe, is that the number 

in the tritium report won’t be zero. For 

instance, if you go back one page, one page 

earlier I mean, one page earlier --
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CHAIR BEACH: Right.

MR. HINNEFELD: -- 1965 and 

1966, there are numbers in the tritium --

the MESH tritium dose report for those 

years, they are not zero. And, those are 

the dose numbers that result from the 

tritium bioassay that the person left in 

those years, and you can see there are yeses 

in the logbook column, that they did leave 

tritium bioassay samples in those years.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, can we 

assume the report with the numbers indicate 

that that was internal or external, that 

field?

MR. HINNEFELD: Looking at the 

MESH, what’s called the MESH tritium report.

CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

MR. HINNEFELD: And, there is a 

number for particular year. And, up and 

through about 19 -- what was it, ‘77 or 

something, they only printed years. There 

was one number per year in that report.
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So, on that report, if there is 

a number for a given year, that means that 

the person was -- it probably means the 

person was monitored for external exposure. 

It could mean the person, even though they 

weren’t monitored for external exposure, had 

tritium bioassay samples with no detectable 

results.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay, Jim, or, Stu, 

excuse me, thank you. That is a bit 

helpful.

MR. FITZGERALD: And, there would 

not be any issues with having a blank entry. 

I think that has been mentioned in some of 

the comments I’ve seen.

Certainly, a zero entry might be 

plausible, but would have to be confirmed by 

the logbooks. But, it wouldn’t be a blank 

or a non --

MR. HINNEFELD: From the MESH 

tritium report?

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
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MR. HINNEFELD: If the person was 

not monitored for external exposure, and did 

not leave any tritium bioassay samples in 

that year, then that line will be blank. 

There will be a line, it doesn’t even get a 

line, it doesn’t get printed for the report. 

There is not a print, there’s not a line for 

that year in the report. I believe that’s 

how it is formatted.

MR. STEWART: Yes, that’s my 

experience as well.

MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. 

And so, if it says that there is a tritium 

result, it can still be 0.00 though, that’s 

correct?

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

MEMBER ZIEMER: For example, the 

first claim in your example for ‘79, it says 

there is a result, and there are two of 

them, and there’s two yeses for tritium, one 

has an actual value, the other is zero.

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.
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So, in that case, in 1974, there 

was bioassay that was detectable, and so a 

dose assessment was done on the tritium 

bioassay, arriving at a dose number.

MEMBER ZIEMER: That’s right.

MR. HINNEFELD: And, in ‘79 there 

was not any detectable tritium bioassay.

MEMBER ZIEMER: But there was a 

bioassay. Right, got you.

MR. STEWART: And, just the other 

thing that I’ll point out as well is, you 

may see a positive result in the logbook 

that will still end up being a 0.00 because 

it ends up being less than one millirem.

MEMBER ZIEMER: So, anything less 

than 1 millirem report --

MR. STEWART: Yes, I actually 

forget how many digits that measure fork 

goes out, but you may have, we can see the 

tritium down really low, below the levels 

that we will report.

CHAIR BEACH: Yes, there’s one on 
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the first page of the claim that was 0.05, 

0.412, so --

MR. STEWART: Well, that’s in 

rem.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, that’s in 

rem, 50 millirem or 12 --

CHAIR BEACH: Yes.

MEMBER ZIEMER: 50 millirem, 

right?

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

It appears to me that they wrote 

that tritium dose number, the mass tritium 

dose, whatever field from the database that 

they drew from when they put that tritium 

dose number on the MESH tritium report was a 

field that they then would add to the 

external photon plus external neutron, to 

get the total full body dose. 

And, if they didn’t have to do 

that, they didn’t have to sum those, because 

they didn’t have any external monitoring, 

then there was no numerical number generated 
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for that field.

MR. STEWART: Several other sites 

do that as well, that is, report the tritium 

dose on the external database.

MR. FITZGERALD: Josie, that’s 

all I have.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay, thanks.

Anybody else, Brad, Paul?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, this is 

Brad.

I guess I’m still a little bit 

confused, but the problem that I saw is, in 

this last year, two years, Brant was 

bringing us some stuff, but then he left and 

it kind of fell into limbo.

Has SC&A even looked at -- have 

they looked into the logbook part of this, 

validating this, at this time?

MR. FITZGERALD: We didn’t 

validate the logbooks as much as dealt with 

the issues that were raised in this –-

mentioned in this White Paper in 2011. And, 
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we dealt with some of the issues that were 

rising out of gaps in the logbooks, as well 

as this question of the 0.0.

At that time, I think the 

implementation was ongoing, as far as 

compiling a list, providing that to Labor 

and what have you. And, I’m not sure of the 

exact timing, but I think that was 

proceeding about that time, and these issues 

were surfacing and being brought back to the 

Work Group. And, there were discussions 

again, I think, it was in November, 2011, a 

Mound Work Group meeting, at which we were 

all in attendance, where these issues were 

discussed as implementation questions, using 

the logbooks.

But, we have not gone back and 

done any validation per se on the logbooks. 

The logbooks are the primary record, though, 

you know, the dilemma is that there is no 

more primary -- you know, primary is 

primary, that is the primary record.
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When we validate the electronic 

databases, we will validate those databases 

against the primary record, the logbooks. 

But, in this case we are talking about the 

logbooks. So, the question that we have on 

that is simply, are they useable from the 

standpoint of can the information be 

identified and used in a way that is being 

proposed, and that’s what we’ve been 

discussing, making sure that the information 

is available, that it’s complete, that it’s 

legible, that there’s no evidence that it 

could not be used in that fashion.

And, I don’t think there’s 

anything that jumps out. And, there isn’t 

any more -- a more fundamental source of 

this information. This is the primary 

source. So, as long as it is completely 

legible, and there’s no major gaps, and the 

gaps have been identified, which is the 

source of 83.14 actions, then, again, I 

don’t think there’s any problem from that 
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standpoint. That’s what we are finding 

anyway.

MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Well, I 

just -- you know, this is kind of a 

difficult one, because losing Brant in the 

middle of this, and being so long, too, I 

just -- I remember we had a lot of questions 

on this in the implementation of it. And, I 

just want to make sure that we did due 

diligence on this, make sure that --

MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I do have one 

question.

Since we are missing the 

logbooks for ‘75, what is -- what do you 

consider the impact on personnel who may 

have only been -- had a sample in ‘75, and 

no other year? How are we going to look at 

-- to document those people?

MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, that would be 

addressed in the 83.14 SEC for that year, 

all employees are included in the Class.

CHAIR BEACH: This is Josie 
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again. So, I guess the question for the 

Work Group to NIOSH is, I think we need to 

look at the validation and verification 

possibly as a way forward of the list that 

was sent to DOL. Is that something that --

that you can do for the Work Group, so that 

we have something to --

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I can 

certainly ask.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

MR. HINNEFELD: I can certainly 

ask what was done, and see what we get back. 

We’ll get to the people who prepared the 

list, and see what they did in those steps.

And then, you know, I guess 

there’s always a random sampling approach, 

you could randomly sample some names on the 

logbooks and see if you find them on that 

list.

MR. FITZGERALD: I was going to 

say, the only -- and something as broad as 

this, and the fact that it is, you know, a 
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primary database, the real-time experience, 

meaning -- and I mentioned this earlier, you 

know, if there had been any instances 

outside of the 0.0 phenomena on MESH that 

has come forward in the DOL process, and 

DOL, I suspect, would come back to consult 

with NIOSH, any exceptions that would come 

up would also be an opportunity just to 

validate that logbook, in fact, is complete 

and accurate. And, you know, the question 

would be whether any instances outside the 

0.0, and there was a number of these 

instances that were, I guess, cited in 

commentary when Labor first started using 

the list.

And, I suspect that a lot of 

those questions coming back to Brant were 

involving the 0.0 in the MESH. Someone had 

a MESH record that had a tritium entry of 

zero, or whatever, plus the external, than 

clearly that would be something that would 

surface in the DOL process. But, I think it 
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sounds like those were all answered and 

satisfied.

So, that would be the only, 

certainly, addition would be experience that 

could be folded into validating, that the 

list has stood up, and proven to be quite 

adequate for the purpose.

COURT REPORTER: This is the 

court reporter. Could the last speaker 

please identify himself?

MR. FITZGERALD: I’m sorry, Joe 

Fitzgerald.

MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. 

It seems to me that that’s exactly the 

situation, that we don’t have a problem 

unless Labor has an issue in whether or not 

to put a person in the Class.

If you are taking care of the 

0.0s then we have covered everything that 

Labor has identified to date if there’s a 

minimum that comes up, we could handle it. 

Otherwise I don’t see the point of sampling 
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because they seem to be able to put the 

people in the Class without a problem. 

Am I understanding it correctly?

MR. HINNEFELD: That would be our 

interpretation.

MS. HARTSFIELD: This is DeKeely.

You know, from a legal 

perspective I do think there is an issue 

with going back and doing additional work, 

in terms of validation. But, if there is an 

issue with implementation from the Class 

that’s brought to NIOSH from DOL directly, 

then I think that’s something that we could 

discuss and, you know, Ted can consider what 

should be charged to the Board and what 

should be, you know, charged to the 

contractor, in terms of doing follow-up 

work.

I think, you know, doing 

additional work kind of exceeds the duties 

of the Work Group in terms of defining the 

Class, which has already been done, so 
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additional validation issues that are 

related to implementation needs to be --

this kind of task would need to be developed 

from communications with DOL.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay, so this is 

Josie.

So then, at this point we would 

-- would NIOSH look at any issues that have 

arisen since the 83.14 for those two years 

that have already been identified, or do we 

already know that there’s no issues in 

identifying people in that Class, that they 

-- other than the 0.0 we’ve already 

discussed?

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know of 

any. I don’t know exactly where I would 

look. I guess there might be some places we 

could look to see if we’ve gotten questions 

or inquiries about other things.

I’m kind of at a loss right now 

as to what the assignment would be in that 

instance.
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MR. KATZ: Stu, it seems to me 

like these cases, were there such cases they 

would come to you, because they would end up 

as dose reconstruction cases, if DOL can’t 

settle them into the Class, right?

MR. HINNEFELD: If DOL doesn’t 

put them in the Class, they would send them 

to us as dose reconstruction cases. And, 

that goes -- and then what follows after 

that. I mean, we do the dose 

reconstruction.

I don’t quite understand --

MR. KATZ: So, what I’m saying, 

Stu, is that if this came to you in error 

from DOL, because they had a problem with 

the images on the log, and they came to you, 

you would have those same records. If you 

had them on the log, right, would you even 

look at the log for dose reconstruction 

cases?

MR. HINNEFELD: I’ll have to 

check with the dose reconstructors. I don’t 
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know if they would or not.

MR. KATZ: Okay.

MR. STEWART: Yes, the answer is 

yes.

MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

MR. STEWART: If we get a claim, 

we have, in the past, it doesn’t happen 

often, however, we have received cases that 

were not included in the SEC in error, in 

which case we would ask DOL to review the 

case based on the evidence, based on the 

specific evidence that we cited.

For instance, in a case like 

this we would say, it appears that this 

individual had tritium bioassay in 19, you 

know, whatever, and we’d like DOL to take a 

second look at the case, and we have done 

that in the past.

MR. KATZ: Okay.

MR. STEWART: So, that’s an 

additional measure there to cover anything 

that gets by.
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MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, just to 

clarify. I think along those lines, I think 

DOL has been fairly versed in the fact that 

the MESH -- the use of the MESH record for 

submission into the Class wouldn’t supersede 

the list that was based on the logbook that 

was provided by NIOSH would automatically, I 

guess, submit for dose reconstruction.

If there were any anomalies, 

where that MESH basis for their proposal for 

inclusion in the Class wasn’t a 0.0 

phenomena, in other words it was something 

else, that would be, you know, an 

opportunity to say, okay, there’s something 

more than the 0.0 that has been -- and I’m 

not sure there is, but has been the basis 

for their believing they were bioassaying 

looking at that record.

And, if it exists, and that 

would be something to review, if it doesn’t 

then I think it’s pretty clear that there 

isn’t any other record that would surface 
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that would support entry. And, the 

logbooks, I think, stand pretty much as 

we’ve already proposed as complete and 

accurate.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, Deb, do 

you have any comments that you’d like to 

make -- Jerison, or any concerns that were 

not addressed?

MS. JERISON: No. This has been 

very helpful, to hear how it was done and 

stuff. I wasn’t aware of how much had 

already been addressed. So, thank you.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, I guess 

moving forward, there’s nothing specific 

that needs to be done. Am I correct in that 

assumption?

MEMBER ZIEMER: Josie, this is 

Ziemer. 

I think I would agree with you. 

I don’t think we have to take any specific 

action, although, we may want to make a

record that the Work Group is satisfied with 
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how these have been handled to date.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. How do the 

other Work Group Members feel, satisfied 

with the discussion today?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Josie, this is 

Brad.

You know, I think NIOSH has done 

a good job. I don’t have any problem with 

that.

I’m still trying to catch up 

from when Brant left off, where we were at 

last time, because I thought that he was 

going to give to the Work Group a copy of 

this, so that we could see what process has 

been done. And, I’ve never seen that.

And, I realize that Stu has been 

put in a bad situation here, because it’s 

kind of in the middle of things, but I’m 

just -- I don’t know, I’m still wondering 

how they got to where they did, how did they 

check it out.

CHAIR BEACH: Yes.
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MEMBER CLAWSON: QA check.

MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So, a copy 

of what you said you thought Brant was going 

to give you a copy of this, a copy of what?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. He was 

going -- when they took it from the logbook, 

and they moved it over to the copy that they 

were going to give -- I believe it went on 

the MESH or whatever -- they were going to 

give to DOL. And, last time I remember it 

had not been completely finished at that 

time.

And, I thought that we were 

going to check that. I thought we were 

going to have an opportunity to validate 

what had been sent to DOL.

CHAIR BEACH: So Brad, sorry to 

interrupt. Let me -- is it possible, and 

I’m asking legal this also, to have NIOSH 

tell us what they did to verify or validate 

the list that went to DOL? Is that 

something that we can request? We discussed 
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it earlier.

MR. KATZ: I think Stu already --

Josie, you already offered to say you would 

check back with them.

CHAIR BEACH: Right. So, I just 

--

MR. KATZ: Just to make sure the 

list is complete.

CHAIR BEACH: -- sorry, I just 

wanted to make sure that it was okay on the 

legal standpoint that we could still have 

that come forward.

MR. KATZ: I mean, Josie, he was 

really addressing what we do with Board 

money and so on, but --

CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

MR. KATZ: -- but DCAS doesn’t 

have its hands tied about taking a look at 

the process there.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. So, I think 

before we close this totally out, if the 

rest of the Work Group agrees, I would like 
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to see, you know, what was done to verify 

the list, if at all possible, or if anything 

was done, how it was done.

MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. I will see 

what I can find out. You know, the list 

exists, so --

MEMBER CLAWSON: Stu, this is 

Brad again. I’m not saying that NIOSH 

hasn’t done it right. In this time frame, 

things kind of got dropped in a little way, 

and I just want to make sure that we covered 

what we originally started to.

I know that Brant says, well, we 

are in the process of getting this list 

finalized, and then we’ll -- then it will be 

able to be reviewed, or checked, or whatever 

you want to be able to do. Since that time 

Brant is gone, things have kind of dropped, 

and I just -- I feel that this is one check 

that we need to just kind of bring it to a 

close.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Anyone else?
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MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. 

Can you clarify, or maybe Stu clarify, what 

is it that you are going to actually do?

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, what I 

intended to do was to go to ORAU, the people 

who compiled the list, and say, what kind of 

quality assurance measures did you take when 

you compiled this list, to make sure you got 

all the names correctly onto the list.

So, that’s what I intend to ask.

Now, Brad seems to be asking 

about having the list, and as far as I know 

I can make that available to the Board 

Members, I mean, it’s Privacy Act 

information, but I --

CHAIR BEACH: Yes, I don’t think 

-- I, personally, don’t think that’s 

necessary.

MR. HINNEFELD: No, I don’t know 

why I would want the list.

CHAIR BEACH: No.

MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I don’t know, 
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if he’s asking about the quality of the 

list, I sort of felt that there is an 

inherent built in safeguard, that if 

somebody’s name is missing it’s going to pop 

back to you. 

And, at least -- I was just 

asking for assurance of how the list was 

compiled, or were you asking about some sort 

of a sampling procedure.

MEMBER CLAWSON: No, I wasn’t 

asking for a sampling procedure. I just --

I did not -- I am under the impression that 

-- I just want to make -- there’s got to be 

a QA check on this, what they did.

And, here’s my question for Joe. 

Have you guys ever been able to do any check 

on to this list that was sent?

MR. FITZGERALD: No, we have not 

seen the list per se. The only validation 

one could do is the validation we’ve been 

discussing, which is to compare it against 

the logbooks and see if, you know, you could 
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sample it that way.

But, quite frankly, I think Stu 

is going to answer that issue in terms of 

what QA was done when the list was prepared. 

So, that would be the only consideration on 

the list itself.

MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. This was 

one item that was left kind of in limbo, and 

I’m not asking for the whole list. I’m just 

wanting to make sure that we have done our 

checks and balances to makes sure that the 

claimant has been duly taken care of, and 

that we’ve -- because we’ve always checked 

out the process of how this has been done, I 

just want to check the checks and balances. 

And, if that brings assurance to SC&A then, 

you know, then we’ve done due diligence.

MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I’m fine 

with that, and it seems to me once Stu 

reports back to us, we can -- we can, if 

necessary, we can make an initial decision 

as to whether any further steps are needed.
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At this point, you are asking 

for clarification on exactly how that list 

was generated, and what they did to assure 

that it’s the right list.

I guess Stu is just going to 

report back on what he finds on that, right?

MEMBER CLAWSON: Right.

MEMBER ZIEMER: I’m comfortable 

with that, Josie.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay, great, I’m 

comfortable with that as well.

Stu, the age-old question, how 

long do you think?

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t think 

this should take very long, because it’s 

going to be, essentially, a description of 

what they did, but I hate to make too 

promises about our contractor, because they 

are -- the resources are all, you know, 

assigned to do stuff. And so, it’s not like 

they have any free time or free money 

sitting around.
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CHAIR BEACH: Okay.

MR. HINNEFELD: I wouldn’t think 

it would take too long.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. Maybe we can 

just do this through an email, maybe give us 

an idea or sense of how long, once you talk 

to ORAU.

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I’ll try to 

do that. I’ll try to let everybody know if 

this is going to take longer than I think, 

or whether it’s something that can be done 

before the end of the year.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay. And then, 

Ted, I’m not sure if that would warrant 

another call, or if we can look at it via 

email, and then go from there if we 

determine we need a call after that.

MR. KATZ: And, this is Ted. You 

can take it, depending on what he responds, 

but I can’t imagine there’s much to warrant 

a call and the expenses of the call.

CHAIR BEACH: Right.
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MR. KATZ: So, I think we 

probably could handle it with email, and you 

can report out at the January Board meeting.

CHAIR BEACH: Okay, that sounds 

fair enough.

Before we conclude this call, 

any other comments, questions, concerns?

Okay, Ted, I think we can close. 

Thank you, everyone.

MR. KATZ: Thank you very much, 

everyone.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled 

matter was concluded at 10:57 a.m.)
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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