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1 

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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

 CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

 + + + + +

 

 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR

 OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

 + + + + +

 ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND 

 WORKER HEALTH

 + + + + +

 78th MEETING

 + + + + +

 MONDAY,

 JULY 11, 2011

 + + + + +

 The Advisory Board convened via

teleconference at 11:00 a.m., James M. Melius,

Chairman, presiding.
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PRESENT:

JAMES M. MELIUS, Chairman

HENRY ANDERSON, Member

JOSIE BEACH, Member

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

R. WILLIAM FIELD, Member

JAMES E. LOCKEY, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

ROBERT W. PRESLEY, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member

GENEVIEVE S. ROESSLER, Member

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official
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REGISTERED AND/OR PUBLIC COMMENT PARTICIPANTS:

 

ADAMS, Nancy, NIOSH Contractor

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, DOE

BARRIE, TERRIE

HINNEFELD, STU, DCAS

KINMAN, JOSH, DCAS Contractor

KOTSCH, JEFFREY, DOL

LIN, JENNY, HHS

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

NETON, JIM, DCAS

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, DCAS

STIVER, JOHN, SC&A

WADE, LEW, NIOSH Contractor

 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

AGENDA ITEM PAGE

Roll Call - Mr. Katz, DFO 4

Welcome - Dr. Melius, Chair 4

Recording Absent Member Votes from May 4

Meeting - Mr. Katz, DFO 

HHS NPRM Amending 42 CFR Part 81 (CLL) - 6 

Dr. Ziemer, Science Issues WG 

Ames SEC Petition - 32

Mr. Rutherford, DCAS 

GE Evendale SEC Petition - 58

Mr. Rutherford, DCAS 

NIOSH 10-Year Program Review Update - 73

Dr. Wade, NIOSH 

Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) Petition 85

Status Update - Mr. Rutherford, DCAS 

Updates from Work Groups and 87

Subcommittees - WG/SC Chairs 

Future Plans/Suggestions for the August 93

2011 Board Meeting Agenda - All Members
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 10:58 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Let's get started with

4 roll call, beginning with Board Members, with

5 the Chair.

6 (Roll call.)

7 MR. KATZ: Okay, then. Let me give

8 this another go. This is Ted Katz, I am the

9 Designated Federal Official. This is the

10 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health;

11 we have a teleconference. We began roll call;

12 I have five Members who have already

13 registered, including the Chair, Dr. Melius. 

14 Any Board Members who have joined the call

15 since roll call, you want to let us know?

16 (Roll call.)

17 MR. KATZ: Okay, then. Let us

18 proceed to the agenda.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Welcome,

20 everybody. This is Jim Melius. And, again,

21 remind everybody when you are speaking to
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1 identify yourself for the Court Reporter.

2 And we'll start with -- Ted will

3 update us on absent Member votes from the May

4 meeting.

5 MR. KATZ: Yes. Thank you.

6 Just another reminder for

7 everyone. Please mute your phone except when

8 you are speaking to the group. And if you

9 don't have a mute button, use *6 and *6 to

10 take it off of mute.

11 So at the May meeting, we had two

12 Members absent: Mr. Gibson and Dr.

13 Richardson. So they missed the Sandia vote,

14 which was a vote in favor of adding a Class at

15 Sandia to the Special Exposure Cohort.

16 They have both voted since in the

17 affirmative: Mr. Gibson on June 2nd, Dr.

18 Richardson on July 7th. So it is unanimous in

19 favor with two Members recused. And that will

20 then go forward from the Board -- or actually,

21 already has.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Very

2 good. Anybody have questions on that?

3 (No response.)

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Moving

5 along, the next is we were reviewing the COL

6 proposed rulemaking. And Paul Ziemer, who is

7 acting as Chair of the Science Issues Work

8 Group, led the review of that.

9 So, Paul, do you want to present

10 your report?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Thank you,

12 Dr. Melius.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: The Science Issues

14 Work Group met a couple of weeks ago. I

15 forget the exact date, actually, but basically

16 what we did was to focus on the primary

17 questions that were given in the Federal

18 Register; that is, the questions that NIOSH

19 asked the commenters to address.

20 Those questions are given in the

21 Federal Register notice. And those were the
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1 basis for the comments that were generated by

2 the group. I might take a moment and just

3 tell you what those questions were. And

4 these, for the record, occur on page 152-68 of

5 the Federal Register, volume 76, number 54,

6 dated Monday, March 21st, 2011.

7 Question 1 was, does

8 epidemiological and other scientific research

9 support finding that CLL is caused by

10 radiation? And what are the major limitations

11 of the determination, whether affirmative or

12 negative?

13 The second question is, if CLL

14 were to be covered under EEOICPA, does the

15 risk model proposed by the National Institute

16 for Occupational Safety and Health use the

17 best available science and methodological

18 approaches to express the dose-response

19 relationship between radiation exposure and

20 CLL?

21 I might add there is some
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1 additional narration on those questions. 

2 Those are the two basic questions that we

3 tried to focus on in our drafting of comments

4 to send to the Secretary.

5 As a result of our discussions, we

6 generated a draft suggested letter for the

7 Chair to send to the Secretary. That draft

8 went through a couple of iterations after the

9 meeting, for both editorial comments as well

10 as substantive comments.

11 And we subsequently distributed

12 that draft to the full Board several days ago

13 and also indicated that on that draft, there

14 was one section, actually one sentence, that

15 was the cause of considerable discussion in

16 terms of wording. We all agreed on the sort

17 of concept of what the sentence was trying to

18 say, but we had differences in opinion as to

19 how to properly state it.

20 With those preliminary comments,

21 Mr. Chairman, I would offer that the draft be
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1 read into the record as a motion. And then

2 perhaps from there, you may wish to take

3 either amendment or discussion on the draft as

4 it was distributed.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank

6 you. Thank you, Paul. Thank you for doing

7 that work. I would just add that the one

8 sentence has also generated a fair amount of

9 correspondence trying to come up with

10 alternatives or understanding.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. And a

12 number of comments by Board Members have been

13 generated. And I think most of them have been

14 distributed to the other Board Members as

15 well, so I think the Board has a pretty good

16 feel for what the issue is.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Shall I proceed

19 and read the document? How do you want to

20 proceed or do we need to read it?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. I think we
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1 do need to read it into the record. So go

2 ahead, Paul.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. So the

4 motion is to present the following letter to

5 the Secretary as the comments of the Board. 

6 The letter would be to the Honorable Kathleen

7 Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human

8 Services.

9 "Dear Madam Secretary:

10 "The Advisory Board on Radiation

11 and Worker Health, ABRWH, is submitting

12 comments to you pertaining to docket number

13 NIOSH-209 (RIN 0920-AA39). These comments

14 were approved by the Board at its recent

15 meeting on July 11th, 2011. 

16 "One, the ABRWH offers the

17 following comments on the question 'Does

18 epidemiological and other scientific research

19 support finding that chronic lymphocytic

20 leukemia, CLL, is caused by radiation?'"

21 Bullet point one, "Although most
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1 Members of this Board do not have expertise in

2 epidemiological research, several do, and with

3 their expertise we were able as a Board to

4 assess the approach used by NIOSH to answer

5 this specific question. That approach has

6 been detailed in docket number NIOSH-209.

7 "Through the use of recognized

8 experts, NIOSH has been able to demonstrate

9 that the available epidemiological evidence is

10 insufficient to rule out an association

11 between ionizing radiation and CLL."

12 Bullet point two, "Including CLL

13 as radiogenic is appropriate in that it

14 follows NIOSH's approach of erring on the side

15 of the claimant when scientific knowledge is

16 lacking. 

17 "Two, ABRWH agrees with the NIOSH

18 position set forth in the docket as follows."

19 Bullet point, "Given that the law

20 requires the use of the upper 99 percent

21 credibility level in making compensation
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1 decisions, the inclusion of CLL, despite the

2 limited evidence of radiogenicity, is

3 considered appropriate by NIOSH.

4 "Three, the ABRWH offers the

5 following comments on the question 'If CLL

6 were to be covered under EEOICPA, does the

7 risk model proposed by the National Institute

8 for Occupational Safety and Health use the

9 best available scientific and methodological

10 approaches to express the dose-response

11 relationship between radiation and CLL?'"

12 Bullet point one, "We agree that

13 the use of the lymphoma and multiple myeloma

14 risk models as a starting point is

15 appropriate, given the fact that CLL is now

16 classified by the National Cancer Institute

17 and by the World Health Organization as a form

18 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."

19 Bullet point two, "The proposed

20 risk model makes use of the available

21 scientific literature concerning the latency
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1 period for CLL and selects a conservative

2 (claimant-favorable) value for the midpoint of

3 the latency period and is, therefore,

4 appropriate."

5 Bullet point three, "The proposed

6 uncertainty band for the midpoint of the

7 latency period is sufficiently large so as to

8 fairly reflect the spread seen in the

9 available studies."

10 Bullet point four, "We concur with

11 the approach of using the weighted radiation

12 dose to the B lymphocytes based on the dose to

13 a given site and the probability that a B cell

14 precursor for CLL will occupy that site.

15 "The Advisory Board appreciates

16 the opportunity to comment on the proposed

17 revision of the Guidelines for Determining

18 Probability of Causation under the Federal

19 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation

20 Program Act of 2000.

21 "Sincerely, James M. Melius, MD,
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1 DPH, Chairman, Advisory Board on Radiation and

2 Worker Health."

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: I move the

5 adoption of this comment or these comments.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks. 

7 Thanks, Paul, for doing that.

8 As a place to start in this

9 process, I guess, do any Board Members have

10 any comments or concerns about the letter

11 other than that one sentence that has

12 generated so much discussion? I don't want to

13 lose track of other points. Yes? Go ahead. 

14 Somebody was going to say --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: I was going to say

16 that Dr. Lockey had proposed some alternate

17 wording.

18 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I know from

20 the discussion that a number of people seemed

21 to prefer that wording. I don't know if Dr.
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1 Lockey would like to move his wording as an

2 amendment.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: That's fine. I

4 was going to get there a little bit slower,

5 but that --

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, okay. It's

7 just a comment. You're in charge.

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no. That's

9 fine. Dr. Lockey, are you still on the line?

10 (No response.)

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Let me move back

12 a little bit. To clarify, any of the other

13 Board Members who weren't Members of the Work

14 Group, in particular haven't, had a chance to

15 discuss this. Do they have any concerns other

16 than that one particular sentence which has

17 come up?

18 (No response.)

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Assuming

20 not, then I think the issue is the --

21 MEMBER LOCKEY: Hey, Jim, I'm
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1 sorry. I cut myself off. Jim Lockey.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So, then, the

3 issue is, I guess, that one sentence. And I

4 believe during the Work Group that Jim Lockey

5 had offered some alternative wording. And I

6 don't know if you want to offer that as an

7 amendment would be the way to go now. Just as

8 a way to get us into conversation on this.

9 MEMBER LOCKEY: Right. I would

10 like to offer that as an alternative

11 amendment.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Can you

13 read that wording into the record?

14 MEMBER LOCKEY: You know, I don't

15 have it in front of me right now, Jim.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I do. 

17 The wording is "Through the use of recognized

18 experts, NIOSH has been able to demonstrate

19 that the available limited epidemiological

20 evidence is supportive of a possible

21 association between ionizing radiation and
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1 CLL."

2 So I'll take that as the wording

3 for the amendment. Do we have a second for

4 the amendment?

5 MEMBER MUNN: I second. This is

6 Wanda.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Now --

8 MEMBER MUNN: I also have a

9 question.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I'll open up

11 discussion. Yes?

12 MEMBER MUNN: And it doesn't have

13 anything to do with the issue. Was Paul's

14 phone cutting out from time to time or was it

15 my system that was breaking up as he was

16 reading the motion?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I could hear all

18 of it. There was occasionally a break, but I

19 didn't think it -- it didn't lose any of the

20 wording.

21 MEMBER MUNN: No.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we can make

2 sure that the Court Reporter has a copy of the

3 written motion.

4 MEMBER MUNN: I was aware of what

5 he was reading, but I was missing major words

6 from time to time.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Were you? Okay. 

8 Well --

9 MEMBER MUNN: But that's all

10 right.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: It could have been

12 my phone. I'm having to be on a cell phone

13 today, and cell phones are sort of notorious

14 for that.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, they are.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: So that may be the

17 problem.

18 MEMBER MUNN: I'm sure that

19 explains it. Thanks.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thanks for

21 bringing that up, Wanda.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could I make one

2 comment on the amendment? Paul Ziemer here. 

3 Can you hear me?

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Go ahead,

5 Paul.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. I was just

7 going to say that, actually, the proposed

8 amendment actually wasn't presented at the

9 Work Group meeting. Dr. Lockey provided it

10 afterwards because we knew we had some

11 differences on how to put that particular

12 sentence. And we asked him to give it some

13 thought and then give us some feedback.

14 And Dr. Lockey provided feedback a

15 day or two later, and I think it was the only

16 one who provided some alternate wording. And

17 then there was some discussion back and forth

18 on that.

19 I think Dr. Field, like the early

20 wording -- I might mention to you, in fact, in

21 case you are wondering where the early wording
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21 

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1 came from, since the early straw man document

2 was one that I had developed.

3 I actually used the wording of one

4 of the reviewers, Reviewer 1. And that

5 actually is a quote from Reviewer 1 that said

6 the "available evidence is insufficient to

7 rule out any association." And I kind of

8 adopted that ruling since I thought it

9 captured the idea. But, nonetheless, I

10 actually like Dr. Lockey's words there;

11 instead of a double negative there, more

12 positive.

13 And the only other thing I will

14 mention is that NIOSH's actual sort of bottom

15 line, which is on page 15-271 of the document,

16 says that: "NIOSH no longer believes it is

17 possible to state that the Probability of

18 Causation equals zero." All of those are the

19 same, different ways of saying the same thing.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: But certainly I am
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1 supportive of Dr. Lockey's proposed amendment,

2 personally.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

4 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen. 

5 You mentioned Dr. Field's comments. And I

6 actually liked -- he added a few words to it. 

7 I think I am looking up the right thing here. 

8 He added the words that "some of the available

9 limited epidemiological evidence" and so on

10 and so forth.

11 Are we going to discuss that at

12 all or am I misinterpreting what was said

13 here?

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, we can. I

15 am trying to figure out how we -- let's maybe

16 discuss it in terms of Dr. Lockey's amendment,

17 which we have out there with a second and so

18 forth to move forward.

19 My personal comment on Bill

20 Field's additional wording is that I did not

21 think that that was necessary; I thought it
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1 was already captured in Dr. Lockey's

2 amendment. It somewhat depends on whether you

3 view "evidence" as referring to specific

4 studies or how I would interpret it, referring

5 to the overall body of scientific study that's

6 reflected there.

7 MEMBER ANDERSON: It's kind of the

8 weight of the evidence.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. So you

10 think, at least in the epidemiological side of

11 the world, we tend to view it that way. So

12 it's already -- his wording is, I think,

13 redundant. It's already captured in that

14 sentence, at least in my interpretation of

15 that sentence.

16 MEMBER FIELD: Jim, this is Bill. 

17 My thinking is that if it is evidence that it

18 is supportive is how I am reading what is 

19 written. So if there is any evidence at all,

20 it is supportive.

21 But how I kind of look at evidence
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1 is I look at evidence as supporting evidence,

2 evidence to the contrary, or evidence that

3 does not support an association.

4 So if there is evidence that does

5 not support an association, I also consider

6 that evidence, but it is not positive

7 evidence. That's why I recommended that we

8 add that "demonstrate that some of the

9 available evidence is supportive."

10 So I guess it is just how you view

11 what you consider to be evidence because there

12 is obviously evidence to the contrary in some

13 cases if you don't find an association.

14 Now, does that mean there is lack

15 of power or does that mean no association

16 exists?

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, it may be

18 a combination of those. I think this is a

19 hard body of evidence to summarize in one

20 sentence.

21 MEMBER FIELD: I just didn't want
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1 to give the misimpression that the Board

2 thinks that, really, all of the evidence that

3 is out there is supportive.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Right.

5 MEMBER FIELD: From my view, there

6 is evidence that it is not supportive.

7 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And at

8 least my interpretation of it would be that

9 the weight of the evidence points to a

10 possible association.

11 MEMBER FIELD: Right, right, but

12 we're not saying that.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I would

14 say, again, my personal interpretation by the

15 word "limited" in there, that sort of also

16 captures that it's not, you know, all of the

17 evidence.

18 MEMBER FIELD: Yes. I can live

19 with it. I just wanted to bring up, you know,

20 my concern as far as interpretation.

21 David, if you are online, I would
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1 like to hear your opinion on this 

2 MR. KATZ: Actually, Bill, David

3 is recused from this.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

5 MEMBER FIELD: Oh, okay. Never

6 mind, then. Don't want to hear your opinion.

7 (Laughter.)

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. You'll

9 have to do it offline or whatever.

10 MEMBER FIELD: Okay. I see. All

11 right.

12 MEMBER LOCKEY: Jim Lockey. What

13 I adapted was -- I'm used to IARC and that --

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

15 MEMBER LOCKEY: And that is what

16 this is sort of paralleled on or it's -- from

17 an epi perspective, I agree with you, it's

18 sort of the weight of the evidence. And that

19 is their classification system. And I think

20 a lot of people on a national as well as an

21 international basis sort of recognize that.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. And saying

2 that it's under the IARC classification,

3 saying something is a possible association is

4 not a strong statement of association.

5 MEMBER LOCKEY: No, it's not.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

7 MEMBER MUNN: No, but -- this is

8 Wanda.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes?

10 MEMBER MUNN: The reason I

11 supported the original language and would

12 support the proposed amendment is a very

13 simple one. I would not anticipate most of

14 the people who would be reading this, assuming

15 that it's going to be a public document since

16 it's going to the Secretary. Most are

17 unfamiliar with epidemiological studies and

18 the language that is associated with them.

19 Any language that attempts to show

20 that you can't disprove a negative is

21 difficult to formulate. I think the efforts
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1 that we have made here have been precisely

2 struggling with that exact concept. We don't

3 have a sure-fire thing, neither do we have --

4 either in the positive or the negative.

5 And the original wording, even

6 though it was considered by some of the

7 readers to be a double negative, was, in fact,

8 saying we can't prove a negative.

9 In addition, the alternative that

10 has been proposed makes a point that not all

11 of the evidence can support what we are

12 attempting to relay here. So if we do not

13 accept the original wording, then I would

14 certainly support a proposed alternative.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer

16 again. I think it is important to recognize

17 that, in essence, what we are saying is that

18 we agree with NIOSH's approach to this. And

19 it all goes back to what they have put in the

20 public record.

21 So the details on what is meant
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1 here, really, the basis is what is in that

2 record. And that is pretty clearly outlined

3 in terms of those studies, those individuals

4 who assessed it and what they did and why

5 NIOSH reached the conclusion it did.

6 And I might point out,

7 incidentally, in my mind NIOSH's conclusion is

8 also a double negative conclusion. It's not

9 zero, so it's sort of a double negative

10 conclusion.

11 But, in any event, I don't think

12 we have to detail fully what is meant by this

13 other than, in essence, we are saying we are

14 agreeing with how NIOSH went about reaching

15 its conclusion here and that basically we

16 believe that they have reached the right

17 conclusion based on what the assessments were.

18 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen. I

19 wanted to bring up Dr. Field's wording so we

20 would put it on the table and discuss it, but,

21 actually, I think any one of the three
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1 approaches is fine. Perhaps if I were voting,

2 I would take Dr. Field's first and Dr.

3 Lockey's second, but I have really no

4 objection to moving on and accepting Dr.

5 Lockey's.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Would

7 anybody else like to speak?

8 (No response.)

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I would just

10 concur with Gen. I think any of the three we

11 could live with and, as Dr. Ziemer said, it's

12 sort of in the context, I think.

13 In fact, the latter parts, our

14 other recommendations, I think, were support

15 for NIOSH's moving forward in terms of the

16 risk model and so forth are probably more

17 important and more associated with sort of the

18 usual part of the mandate of the Board and

19 what we have been providing input on.

20 So why don't we just call a vote

21 on Dr. Lockey's amendment? And I'll let Ted
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1 just read the roll call. And then we'll move

2 from there.

3 MR. KATZ: Okay. Dr. Anderson?

4 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

6 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

10 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: I'm going to check. He

12 hasn't checked in, but, Mr. Gibson, are you on

13 the line?

14 (No response.)

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. He's still

16 absent. And Mr. Griffon, I assume, is still

17 absent. Okay. And then Lemen is absent. Dr.

18 Lockey?

19 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

2 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Dr. Poston, I believe,

4 is absent. But Dr. Poston, are you with us?

5 (No response.)

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. Absent. Mr.

7 Presley?

8 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: And then Dr. Richardson

10 is recused. Dr. Roessler?

11 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

12 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

14 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: So it is unanimous. We

17 have a couple of Members' vote who are absent,

18 but it is unanimous among -- and there is a

19 quorum. So it passes.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. And then

21 are there any other further comments on the
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1 letter? Because we need to go back to the

2 original motion, which was Dr. Ziemer's, as it

3 is now amended. So, Ted, do it again.

4 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. So I

5 thought that vote included the amendment.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No. The vote

7 was just --

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: No. We were

9 voting on the amendment.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. I'm sorry. I

11 thought we were voting that as the first

12 option.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: No, no. We have

14 to vote again now on the whole motion --

15 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- as amended.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Very good. Dr.

18 Anderson?

19 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Beach?

21 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

2 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

4 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Dr. Lockey?

6 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

7 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

10 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Mr. Presley?

12 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield?

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes.

17 MR. KATZ: And Dr. Ziemer?

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

19 MR. KATZ: So it remains unanimous

20 and passes.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Very
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1 good. Thanks. And thanks, Paul and the

2 Science Issues Work Group, for putting

3 together the letter and the comments and

4 discussing this.

5 The next item on our agenda is the

6 Ames SEC petition and LaVon?

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. This is

8 LaVon Rutherford. I am on. And I have

9 provided the Board a presentation. And that

10 presentation has also been put on our website. 

11 It's under the Advisory Board section under

12 meetings, 2011 meetings, and for this date. 

13 And you can find that presentation. There is

14 also a printer-friendly version there as well.

15 I am going to discuss the Ames

16 Laboratory SEC petition. This is an 83.14. 

17 If you go to slide 2, on March 31st, we

18 informed an Ames Laboratory claimant that we

19 were unable to reconstruct the radiation dose

20 for the claim. On April 7th of this year, we

21 received an 83.14 SEC petition. And then on
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1 April 13, we qualified that petition for

2 evaluation, and we issued our Evaluation

3 Report on June 9th.

4 Next slide. We are proposing a

5 Class under this 83.14 of all Department of

6 Energy employees, its predecessor agencies,

7 its contractors and subcontractors who worked

8 in any area of the Ames Laboratory at Iowa

9 State University during the period from

10 January 1, 1942 through December 31st, 1970. 

11 And there is standard language after that.

12 Next slide. A little background

13 information on Ames. Ames Laboratory is

14 located at Iowa State University in Ames,

15 Iowa. It is a DOE facility, with operations

16 beginning in 1942 and continuing to the

17 present day.

18 During the World War II years and

19 shortly thereafter, their primary mission at

20 the Ames Laboratory was the process

21 development and production of uranium and
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1 thorium metal in support of the war effort. 

2 After the war, the mission -- really,

3 actually, early 1950s, it really shifted, but

4 after the war, the mission of the Ames

5 Laboratory shifted to mainly research and

6 development.

7 Next slide. Currently we have

8 three SEC Classes associated with the Ames

9 Laboratory. And that's ultimately going to go

10 through. And I'll explain why we're getting

11 to this one.

12 The first Class Definition was an

13 early Class, SEC-38. And we were in the

14 infancy stages of the SEC program. It was a

15 facility-specific Class Definition: all DOE

16 employees or contractors who worked at one of

17 the following facilities. So it was very

18 facility-specific. However, it covers all of

19 the buildings at Ames Laboratory. And it's

20 from January 1, 1942 through December 31st,

21 1954.
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1 The second Class is a very

2 job-specific Class Definition. And it's sheet

3 metal workers, physical plant maintenance

4 workers, and associated support staff, and

5 supervisory staff who were monitored or should

6 have been monitored for potential internal

7 radiation exposures associated with the

8 maintenance and renovation activities of the

9 thorium production areas in Wilhelm Hall. So

10 we have a job-specific Class Definition. It's

11 monitored or should have been monitored for

12 thorium exposures and at Wilhelm Hall or

13 Metallurgy Lab from 1955 through 1970. So

14 SEC-38 and SEC-75, you combine them together,

15 you cover a period of 1942 up through 1970.

16 Then we have a very recent Class

17 Definition from last year for all employees of

18 the Department of Energy, its predecessor

19 agencies, and its contractors and

20 subcontractors who worked in any area from

21 January 1, 1955 through December 31st, 1960. 
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1 And that's for SEC-166. SEC-166 is a more --

2 I mean, it's obviously closer to how we would

3 define Classes, have been defining Classes

4 today.

5 Next slide. Those of you who will

6 remember that in November of last year, we did

7 a review. Actually, we issued a report in

8 November of last year, but last year we

9 actually went back, we reviewed all of our

10 existing SEC Class Definitions, you know, from

11 the first ones, like Mallinckrodt in Y-12,

12 early years, all the way up to our present

13 Class Definitions. And we reviewed the Class

14 Definitions.

15 Basically, we were looking at the

16 criteria that was used in development. So we

17 were looking for our consistency, our

18 applicability, and whether we needed to take

19 any actions to correct any of the existing

20 Class Definitions because of possible problems

21 with implementation of the Class Definition
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1 and so on.

2 The review was specific to the

3 criteria used in the SEC Evaluation Report to

4 develop the Class Definition. So what we were

5 looking at was did we base our time periods on

6 the feasibility time period, our access

7 controls, our DOL implementation?

8 Okay. Next slide. Our findings

9 from that were: most of the issues and

10 discrepancies identified in the report were

11 associated with the evolution of the process

12 of defining a Class.

13 Early Classes, we tended to try to

14 use a lot of the language that was in the

15 proposed Class Definition by the petitioners. 

16 And our limitations that we put on our Classes

17 were sometimes perceived limitations. And we

18 also did not get -- on some of the early Class

19 Definitions, we did not get Department of

20 Labor's review on those to ensure that they

21 could be implemented as written.
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1 So over time, the need to expand

2 and/or adjust the proposed Class to address

3 DOL Class implementation issues was recognized

4 to ensure claimants were not inadvertently

5 excluded.

6 Next slide. With the Ames, the

7 report identified a couple of issues

8 associated with the Classes at Ames

9 Laboratory. Again, SEC-38 is a

10 facility-specific Class Definition. It does

11 list all of the facilities that would be part

12 of the Ames Laboratory from 1942 through 1954.

13 And when we actually reviewed this

14 Class Definition and looked at DOL's

15 implementation, we recognized that DOL

16 implements this Class as if it were all

17 employees. So although the language is not

18 language we would use today for that SEC-38,

19 it does identify facility-specific language. 

20 And it seems that DOL implements this as all

21 employees.
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1 Now, SEC-75, it, as I mentioned,

2 included job-specific requirements and

3 monitored or should have been monitored. That

4 language, "monitored or should have been

5 monitored," we stopped using that language

6 because of issues with DOL. And it had

7 criteria from 1955 through 1970.

8 We went back, and we looked at the

9 -- yes, we identified job-specific and

10 area-specific, facility-specific. However, we

11 looked at the access control issues and such

12 associated with that Class Definition, and we

13 would have not defined that Class that way

14 today.

15 All right. Next slide. The third

16 issue that kind of rolls into this Evaluation

17 Report is SEC-166. That's the third Class

18 Definition, the one that's more of a standard

19 Class Definition that we would use today.

20 When we presented that report at

21 the August Board meeting in 2010, we
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1 identified the Class Period of 1955 through

2 1960. The 1960 end date was a date proposed

3 by the petitioner. Those of you who may

4 remember that Board meeting, we identified at

5 that time we were going to continue our

6 evaluation of that end date of 1960 and

7 provide a proper end date. If the 1960 date

8 was not proper, we would come back with an

9 83.14 to modify that end date to a better end

10 date associated with our feasibility

11 determination.

12 Our next slide. So, again, this

13 Evaluation Report actually resolves a couple

14 of issues. It resolves the issues of the

15 Class Definitions of SEC-38 and SEC-75. And

16 it also establishes a proper -- it works to

17 close out the issues associated with SEC-166

18 of a proper end date.

19 Next slide. As for the

20 feasibility of dose reconstruction, again SEC21 38 and 75 encompassed that 1942 to 1970
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1 period. And SEC-166 was kind of in the middle

2 of that.

3 SEC-38 infeasibility was driven by

4 our inability to bound internal exposures from

5 thorium operations. SEC-75 -- this was after

6 thorium operations stopped, beginning in 1955. 

7 It focused on our inability to bound thorium

8 exposures during routine maintenance and

9 renovation activities at Wilhelm Hall. And

10 those were associated with thorium exposures

11 from that.

12 And then SEC-166, our infusibility

13 centered around the inability to bound

14 internal exposures from other radionuclides in

15 the Research Building hot cave. The hot cave,

16 there was a lot of work, hot cell work and

17 stuff that was going on.

18 We could not bound our internal

19 exposures. We had identified 1960 as our end

20 date during that. After review of --

21 continued evaluation of that 1960 end date, we
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1 found that the hot cave continued operations

2 up until around the middle of 1960, '65-'66

3 period, and then was used for mainly tours and

4 such afterwards. So the actual end date for

5 the hot cave operations should have probably

6 been around the mid '60s.

7 Our next slide, please. So our

8 feasibility findings for SEC-185 is: internal

9 exposures cannot be reconstructed for the 1942

10 to 1970 period, and external exposures can,

11 including medical X-rays.

12 Our next slide is our standard

13 health endangerment. The evidence reviewed in

14 the evaluation indicates that some workers in

15 the Class may have accumulated chronic

16 radiation exposures through intake of

17 radionuclides and direct exposure to

18 radioactive material. And, consequently, we

19 find that health may have been endangered.

20 Next slide. So, again, our

21 proposed Class is all Department of Energy
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1 employees, its predecessor agencies, and its

2 contractors and subcontractors who worked in

3 any area of the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State

4 University during the period of January 1,

5 1942 through December 31st of 1970 and then

6 the standard language that follows.

7 And the next slide is our final,

8 our recommendation again. And the feasibility

9 is a no. Our health endangerment is yes for

10 1942 through 1970 period. And that's it.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Thank you,

12 LaVon.

13 Just to inform the Board, SEC

14 Review Work Group had a conference call

15 meeting on Friday, mostly to talk about the

16 General Electric petition, which is coming up

17 next, but we also added on a brief discussion

18 of this just to help clarify this sort of 

19 combination of three SECs and to make sure we

20 understood, the Work Group understood, what

21 changes were being made in the Class
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1 Definitions.

2 We did not take any action one way

3 or the other on it, partly because it was

4 added to the agenda just a few days earlier. 

5 Not everybody had had a chance to review all

6 of the materials, but we certainly found the

7 information helpful. And we also asked for

8 some further clarification on the issues

9 related to why -- what was happening with the

10 implementation of the Class Definitions. I

11 think LaVon has outlined those. He basically

12 went through the same presentation with us,

13 and the Work Group asked questions.

14 So, with that, any of the Board

15 Members have questions on this?

16 (No response.)

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Hearing no

18 questions, do I hear a motion?

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Jim, this is

20 Brad. I make a motion to accept as LaVon

21 portrayed.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: This is Josie. 

2 I'll second that.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: So that would be

4 a motion to approve the recommendation from

5 NIOSH for their recommendation, including the

6 Class Definition -- proposed Class Definition,

7 that NIOSH laid out in their report. Any

8 further --

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Could I ask

10 LaVon to just talk for a second about -- there

11 was a period at Ames where there was

12 production going on. For uranium, it ended

13 very early, right, like '45 or something. 

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Actually,

15 the uranium production period -- and I can't

16 remember the exact date, but it was shifted to

17 industry around '45 time period roughly, 1945

18 time period. And thorium work continued up

19 until actually 1952-53, the renovation

20 activities and tear-down of equipment in that

21 time period.
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1 And then '54, I mean, the actual

2 stop of the work, '54 time frame, was there. 

3 And then the '55 through '70 period was purely

4 renovation activities and maintenance

5 activities.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. So this

7 Class, then, for those people in '55 through

8 '70, after the thorium work has stopped and

9 the uranium work has stopped probably almost

10 a decade earlier, is people who were involved

11 in -- not in research activities anymore at

12 Ames but in the decontamination and --

13 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Part of

14 that was, yes. '55 through '70 was the

15 renovation and decontamination. However,

16 recognize there was another Class that was

17 added thereafter. That included all

18 employees, '55 through '60. And then

19 ultimately we're expanding that because of the

20 hot cave work. And that is more associated

21 with the research activities within the hot
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1 cave.

2 So you had kind of two different

3 Classes there, but the one Class, actually,

4 the most recent one, encompassed all of them.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And, Dave, I

6 think one of the issues is that the records

7 also don't support separating out people by

8 job task or location or --

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. And that

10 brings up another good point that I forgot to

11 mention. I apologize. In our process of

12 doing the Class Definition last year for SEC13 166, Department of Labor, we sent them a

14 proposed Class Definition. And in their

15 response to us in that Class Definition, they

16 -- and I'll read some of the language directly

17 from it. It says, "We contacted staff at the

18 Ames Laboratory to discuss employment

19 information and whether it contains specific

20 information on buildings. They indicated that

21 the employment data rarely contain information
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1 on room or building location. Consequently,

2 we would be unable to place employees in the

3 research building, as indicated in the first

4 proposed SEC Class Definition."

5 So we had actually looked at

6 limiting it to the research building. And

7 based on DOL's response that they could not

8 identify specific locations and work locations

9 for workers, we expanded that.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. I mean,

11 that's what I was thinking about. So I'm

12 looking at this campus map. And, you know,

13 nothing like that could happen at North

14 Carolina either. You've hired people. And

15 then you've got chemistry next to agriculture

16 next to the science hall and not very far away

17 from the library.

18 What does it mean to be an

19 employee or a subcontractor employee or

20 anything like that in, let's say, 1969-1970 on

21 this campus? How is this going to be
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1 implemented?

2 MR. RUTHERFORD: Well, I think the

3 way I understand it -- and this is pretty much

4 the same discussions we have had in the past

5 on this subject -- is if a claim is submitted

6 to the Department of Labor and the Department

7 of Labor accepts that claim, then it would be

8 administered as long as they had one of the 22

9 specified cancers that would be accepted.

10 I can't speak for Labor on how

11 Labor defines who is accepted or not.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. I mean,

13 again, it's just kind of difficult for me to

14 imagine. Anybody at housekeeping on the

15 campus, for example, has the potential that

16 they went through these buildings. I mean,

17 that's how it would be at our campus. You

18 know, whoever the supervisor says, you know,

19 one day may go in and clean chemistry, I would

20 suspect.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I think, given
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1 the nature of this site, it's hard to -- and

2 the nature of how the university kept records

3 and so forth, which is probably the same as

4 other universities, it would be hard to -- you

5 know, it does tend to be broad in that way.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, the

7 individuals involved have to be on the

8 contract, though, right, or is the university

9 itself considered a subcontractor?

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You know, I

11 can't answer that. Again, I would have to

12 defer back to the Department of Labor.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: I mean, there is a

14 defined group of people who were on the

15 project. They get paid. I mean, you can

16 identify people who get paid by the contract.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right, Paul. 

18 I guess that is what I was getting at. I

19 mean, that's a small list of people in the

20 1970s. But if we're talking about -- what

21 we're saying is we're covering basically
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1 anybody in the campus who has got any of these

2 vast number of jobs that you're not going to

3 be able to place in these buildings,

4 secretaries, housekeeping, I mean, anybody in

5 the physics department, then it's huge.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, they still

7 have to be a subcontractor or a contractor of

8 the project.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, but what

10 does that mean, I guess, is the question? 

11 Does it mean they're a state employee on the

12 campus at that time?

13 MEMBER MUNN: Once again, this is

14 one more instance of the how can you prove a

15 negative. And, in any case, this is a

16 headache that DOL has to face. Their

17 interpretation of what does and does not

18 constitute the subcontractor is hopefully

19 outside our purview. I hope we don't have to

20 address that.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I think it
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1 would be fairly easy to show that a lot of

2 people on the campus are not paid out of that

3 contract.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But is the

5 university the contractor maybe? They're not

6 even a subcontractor. The university between

7 --

8 MEMBER MUNN: Well, again, that's

9 the Department of Labor's definitions.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well, I guess

11 I would like just a clear idea of what we are

12 saying this Class is. I mean, we can punt it,

13 but --

14 MR. RUTHERFORD: The only thing I

15 can say, I mean, from our perspective is that

16 we are defining the Class based on the

17 facility database, covered facility

18 description, as all employees under that

19 covered facility. 

20 And, again, that becomes a Labor

21 issue beyond that. And I'm not sure if you
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1 want to get Labor involved or not. But I will

2 say that this is consistent with how we have

3 been defining Classes over the last few years.

4 MEMBER MUNN: I think it's the way

5 we must define Classes.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, this

7 doesn't necessarily help, but I have actually

8 looked at the copy of the letter from DOL. 

9 It's referenced in the report. It's dated

10 July 2010. And it really doesn't address the

11 question that Dave raised.

12 My recollection is that we did

13 discuss this with the Department of Labor at

14 some point as to how this was being done. 

15 Maybe it's a different university I'm thinking

16 of, but I thought we had discussed this.

17 And I think if Board Members are

18 not comfortable, would like to have more

19 information, I think that's appropriate. And

20 we can ask DOL to address it at the August

21 meeting.
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1 I believe that it's late in the

2 schedule to be there. So we can ask her to

3 address it before we take action.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I

5 would like some degree of assurance that we're

6 not saying that, okay, if the head of the

7 English Department in Ames, Iowa gets cancer,

8 that he is eligible or that she is eligible.

9 It's not that difficult for a

10 university to tell you exactly who got paid by

11 what funds and who, therefore, was on a

12 contract. I mean, I think all universities

13 have the records of who was on what contract

14 over what time period.

15 And so, I mean, if a university

16 itself and any of their employees are

17 considered subcontractors of this activity,

18 then we have got the wrong definition. It's

19 got to be people who are on the payroll where

20 the funds are these project funds.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. This is
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1 David Richardson. But I think the university

2 -- let's say they take 50 to 70 percent

3 indirect and they use that for all the

4 facility support that support those

5 activities. And that's where you get the

6 librarians, the housekeepers, the secretarial

7 staff. They're not paid directly off funds,

8 but they may or may not be in those buildings. 

9 And that's an enormous sort of number of

10 people on a campus like that.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: This is Jim

12 Melius. There may be some of them that could

13 be involved because housekeeping --

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: -- and so forth,

16 you know, could be working and could be

17 working fairly full-time in those buildings. 

18 So it's difficult.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right. You

20 know, I just started from the position of

21 thinking, "Well, okay. Production activities
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1 stopped in the 1950s. Are we then kind of

2 considering this Class as basically almost all

3 the support staff at this university up

4 through the 1970s because we can't do better?"

5 I mean, I guess that could be, and

6 we may say that is fine. It's just not clear

7 to me what the Class actually is at this

8 point.

9 MR. RUTHERFORD: This is LaVon

10 again. I mean, the only question, really, is

11 how DOL can administer the Class because what

12 happens is -- and we have been through this

13 battle with GE, and we can go through the

14 battle with this one as well. But we are

15 going to go down. And we are going to look at

16 access controls into areas.

17 We're going to look at trying to

18 see what workforce we can break it down to,

19 what the data will allow us to do. And the

20 problem is unless you've got good access

21 controls, unless you've got really good data
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1 that tells who worked in what building and

2 that type of information, we at NIOSH can do

3 nothing else. We've got to define it as all

4 employees. And then DOL will have to

5 implement it.

6 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, I think

7 it's a bigger issue. And you're asking the

8 Board to make the recommendation regarding

9 this. And it's difficult because the Board is

10 not implementing the Class Definition. We try

11 to recommend a Class Definition to DOL, as

12 does NIOSH, that can be implemented, but we

13 also have to take other issues into account in

14 making our recommendation to the Secretary. 

15 So I think this issue deserves follow-up, and

16 I think we should continue that.

17 So is there any objection to

18 asking for a clarification from Department of

19 Labor as part of our discussions at the next

20 Board meeting and that we add this to the

21 agenda for the next Board meeting in August?
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1 MEMBER PRESLEY: Hey, Jim. This

2 is Bob Presley. I think that's a good idea.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: I agree.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I don't

6 think we need a vote on that. Well, I guess

7 we do. We have a motion. I take that back. 

8 We do have a motion. It's been seconded. And

9 I guess we are asking for a motion to postpone

10 consideration of this, of that motion until

11 the August meeting, when we have had a chance

12 to discuss this issue with Department of

13 Labor.

14 MEMBER PRESLEY: This is Bob

15 Presley. I'll make that motion.

16 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Do I hear a

17 second?

18 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, can we just

19 vote to table the motion that's currently on

20 --

21 MEMBER PRESLEY: There you go.
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Postpone or

2 table is the same.

3 MEMBER BEACH: Okay. I'll second

4 it.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Okay. All

6 in favor, say aye.

7 (Chorus of ayes.)

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody opposed?

9 (No response.)

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 

11 Okay. LaVon, General Electric Evendale.

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Okay. Refocus

13 here. All right. I'm going to kind of go

14 over the work activities. I'm going to try to

15 get everybody back up to speed as much as

16 possible on this one and then ultimately get

17 down to where we have defined the Class and

18 why.

19 Work activities during the 1961 to

20 1970 period. Again, GE is covered from

21 January 1, 1961 through 1970. At the time in
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1 that period, the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion

2 Project stopped in 1961. And then the

3 activity shifted to other AEC programs. They

4 were testing fuel element materials and

5 high-temperature reactor materials, testing

6 the effects of radiation on refractory

7 materials and alloys, examining radiation

8 effects in beryllium oxide, examining fission

9 product transport processes in reactor fuels. 

10 They were testing the effects of clad uranium

11 oxide fuels and meltdown environments and

12 developing a densification process for thoria. 

13 And they were calcining thorium in

14 high-temperature furnaces. So they were doing

15 a broad array of activities at the time.

16 The monitoring data. I'm going to

17 talk mainly about the internal monitoring data

18 for that period. Personal monitoring data, we

19 have no internal bioassay data from 1961 to

20 1964. We have some thorium urine samples from

21 1964 through 1967. We have approximately --
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1 over 400 urine samples for uranium for 1965

2 through 1967. And we have no internal

3 monitoring, personal monitoring, from 1968 and

4 '69 and two uranium urine samples in 1970.

5 We talked to the health and safety

6 manager. He indicated that bioassay samples

7 were taken when workers were exposed. This

8 kind of implies to us this is more an

9 incident-driven program.

10 Area monitoring data. We have

11 some air sample data for the first part of

12 1961. We believe that is part of the Aircraft

13 Nuclear Propulsion Program, which is not

14 covered under this program. The reason we

15 believe that is part of that Aircraft Nuclear

16 Propulsion Program is because the data

17 actually started in 1956, when the Aircraft

18 Nuclear Propulsion Program was kind of at its

19 peak. And it stopped in the early '60s, when

20 the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Program

21 stopped.
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1 So we have no air sample data for

2 the second half of 1961 through 1970. And the

3 health and safety manager for that period 

4 indicated that air sampling was performed, but

5 no data has been found to date.

6 The health and safety manager also

7 indicated they rarely perform radiological

8 monitoring in non-radiological areas. And I

9 think this is important because if they had

10 good access controls to radiological areas, if

11 we had boundary air monitoring data, those

12 types of information are information that we

13 would use to limit the Class.

14 As for surface contamination, we

15 have a good survey that was taken, radiation

16 survey, in 1969. However, that survey was

17 mainly alpha/beta and was not

18 isotopic-specific.

19 Our feasibility determination was

20 that we could not draw conclusions about the

21 magnitude of internal dose from exposure to
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1 uranium, thorium, or fission products for the

2 entire period. If you looked at it, we had

3 gaps in monitoring data. The early years, '61

4 to '64, we had no internal monitoring data. 

5 And then the '64 to '67 period, we have a few

6 thorium -- some thorium bioassay samples. 

7 However, the majority of the thorium work

8 really didn't begin until '67.

9 So we have breaks in data over the

10 time period. The uranium and thorium bioassay

11 data do not represent potential exposures

12 during the entire operational period, as I had

13 mentioned. We have little to no air

14 monitoring data for the operational period. 

15 And we have a workplace survey. It's

16 comprehensive, but it's at the end of

17 operations or the end of the operational time

18 period. And we don't have, really, any

19 isotopic-specific data for that.

20 Our external exposure, we have a

21 lot of film badge data over the time period. 
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1 We do not feel that this film badge data can

2 be used to develop a coworker model. We have

3 evaluated the external data.

4 As I mentioned to the Work Group

5 yesterday, there's a broad exposure potential

6 between the various projects that GE was

7 involved with. There are significant exposure

8 differences between working with uranium and

9 doing high-intensity radiation studies on

10 materials. And it is also difficult to know

11 how many people were involved in each of these

12 operations and where the work occurred when 95

13 percent of the data does not indicate work

14 location or activities.

15 Adequate reconstruction of medical

16 dose is feasible.

17 Access controls. The majority of

18 the radiological work occurred in buildings C

19 and D. We know that there was a storage area

20 just north of D that stored drums and other

21 radioactive material.
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1 Air Force Plant 36 was not

2 physically separated from the rest of the

3 plant. There was no fence around it. There

4 was a guard that guarded the access gate to

5 the sites in that area, and we do have

6 indications that the hot cells were locked as

7 well.

8 The health and safety manager

9 indicated that non-radiological workers were

10 not permitted into radiological areas. This

11 was controlled by postings. And, again, as I

12 mentioned, hot cells were locked.

13 Worker interviews indicate that

14 there were no access control requirements for

15 entering the buildings. And they also pointed

16 out that the hot cells were locked.

17 I also want to point out

18 non-radiological workers worked in the same

19 area as radiological workers. Building C was

20 split into operations at one part of the

21 facility and administration activities in the
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1 other part of the facility, as well as we know

2 that there was a mezzanine that the health and

3 safety manager had indicated that

4 administrative support staff worked on the

5 mezzanine that were not radiological workers,

6 just above the work that was going on in the

7 operations area.

8 We went to the Department of Labor

9 in November of last year looking at ways to

10 implement this Class and ways to define this

11 Class. And in a letter dated November 12th,

12 2010, DOL indicated they were unaware of any

13 records in their possession or in the

14 possession of DOE that would allow them to

15 determine whether a worker at GE Evendale

16 worked specifically at Air Force Plant 36

17 versus other parts of the plant.

18 So there were no records that

19 actually came out and said, "Okay. You were

20 under the AEC contract for Air Force Plant 36

21 and we could identify you from that." So they
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1 don't have that information.

2 The last Work Group meeting, one

3 of the biggest things, prior to Friday's Work

4 Group meeting, one of the issues, action items

5 that came up was this POPSEE list. The POPSEE

6 list is an actual -- it's a name that was

7 derived from acronyms or other projects that

8 occurred under the AEC time period or the AEC

9 work. And this list was developed of workers

10 who were part of that, one of those programs

11 under that AEC contract.

12 And so what we were tasked to do

13 was to go back, interview personnel to

14 determine the purpose and how the personnel on

15 the POPSEE list were related to the covered

16 activities. And does the POPSEE list contain

17 everyone who was potentially exposed during

18 the period?

19 And the thought was, can we define

20 this Class around the POPSEE list? Ultimately

21 we interviewed, we only interviewed one
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1 person. That was the health and safety

2 manager at that time period. And the reason

3 why we only interviewed him was because he

4 gave us good information and we felt we really

5 didn't need any more.

6 The term "POPSEE" again is not an

7 acronym. It's a compilation of the letters

8 comprising the various programs, names during

9 GE, Nuclear Propulsion, AEC era. It's a

10 compilation with no real meaning. They had

11 ANPO, ENPO, all of these different acronyms of

12 programs that were occurring at that time.

13 The POPSEE organization was a

14 social organization that consisted of workers

15 over various years from various programs

16 listed in bullet 1 or listed above. POPSEE

17 included only those workers that wished to

18 participate in the organization.

19 So they went out. They talked to

20 workers and people, professionals and so on,

21 that were involved in the programs. They were
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1 gathering this, basically this reunion

2 organization, and putting names on this list. 

3 But if you did not want to be on the list, you

4 were not on the list.

5 So the POPSEE roster included

6 employees that never worked in buildings C and

7 D. So individuals, engineers and such that

8 weren't part of the production processes but

9 played a role in these various programs ended

10 up on that POPSEE list, even though they

11 didn't work in C and D. And, again, it would

12 not necessarily include all employees that did

13 work in C and D.

14 Also, what we did was we took that

15 POPSEE list, and we put it in an Excel

16 spreadsheet. We took our list of claims that

17 we had in NOCTS. And we laid them out. We

18 wanted to do a comparison, how many names of

19 the claims that we have are on the POPSEE

20 list.

21 And let's not limit it to that. 
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1 Let's take and list all our claims and list

2 whether they have internal or external

3 monitoring and then see how many of those

4 claimants, the ones with personal monitoring

5 data, actually show up on the POPSEE list.

6 That Excel spreadsheet is in the

7 Board's directory. And we did talk about it

8 a little bit on Friday.

9 We only found six names of the

10 claimants, of our existing claimants, that are

11 actually on the POPSEE list. And we have a

12 number of claimants with external monitoring

13 data that were not on the POPSEE list.

14 What we concluded from that was

15 the POPSEE list could not be used as a

16 mechanism for limiting our Class Definition. 

17 So ultimately, at the end of the day, we've

18 come back with the same Class Definition that

19 we had, which was all employees. And that's

20 pretty much it.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank
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1 you, LaVon.

2 I'll just add the SEC Review Work

3 Group met on Friday. We had been following

4 up on this. And it was our group that had

5 actually asked for some of the risk

6 comparisons that LaVon just went through.

7 And so the Work Group went through

8 this review of this information. At least I,

9 maybe other Members of the Work Group had also

10 looked at the O: drive information, where the

11 spreadsheets were set up to look at.

12 And I think we reached agreement

13 that there really was no list. Neither the

14 POPSEE list, nor list of monitored workers

15 would be satisfactory in terms of defining who

16 was at risk because of their work during this

17 time period.

18 So based on that review, our

19 previous work on this, the Work Group is

20 recommending that we accept the NIOSH

21 evaluation and that it be implemented through
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1 the Class Definition that is in the report. 

2 And so we'll enter that as a motion to the

3 Board.

4 Are there questions on the

5 information that LaVon provided or on the

6 overall evaluation?

7 (No response.)

8 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If not, I think

9 we need a vote on the motion.

10 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, I'll second

11 your motion.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I'm

13 sorry. I forgot the second. Thank you.

14 MR. KATZ: Very good. This is

15 Ted. I'll take a roll call vote. Dr.

16 Anderson?

17 MEMBER ANDERSON: Yes.

18 MR. KATZ: Ms. Beach?

19 MEMBER BEACH: Yes.

20 MR. KATZ: Mr. Clawson?

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.
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1 MR. KATZ: Dr. Field?

2 MEMBER FIELD: Yes.

3 MR. KATZ: I'm just going to check

4 again. I don't believe Mr. Gibson is here,

5 but Mr. Gibson?

6 (No response.) 

7 MR. KATZ: Okay. And Mr. Griffon?

8 (No response.)

9 MR. KATZ: No. Okay. Dr. Lockey?

10 MEMBER LOCKEY: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Dr. Melius?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

13 MR. KATZ: Ms. Munn?

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: I'll check again. Dr.

16 Poston, are you on the line?

17 (No response.)

18 MR. KATZ: Okay. No. Mr.

19 Presley?

20 MEMBER PRESLEY: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Dr. Richardson?
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

2 MR. KATZ: Dr. Roessler?

3 MEMBER ROESSLER: Yes.

4 MR. KATZ: Mr. Schofield? Mr.

5 Schofield? No? You might be on mute.

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. Sorry. I

7 had it on mute.

8 MR. KATZ: Thank you.

9 Dr. Ziemer?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

11 MR. KATZ: Okay. Then it's

12 unanimous. I have four Board Members, though,

13 who are absent. I'll need to collect their

14 votes after this.

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: The motion passes.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. Okay. 

18 Thank you.

19 The next item on our agenda is the

20 NIOSH ten-year program review.

21 DR. WADE: Yes. This is Lew Wade. 
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1 I trust you can hear me.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes.

3 DR. WADE: The program review

4 continues to move along. My purpose today is

5 to continue the practice of updating the Board

6 at each of the Board's meetings as to the

7 progress being made and, as always, give Board

8 Members or the Board as an entity an

9 opportunity to provide input.

10 As you remember, the program

11 review really was divided into two phases: 

12 the first phase, data-driven look at aspects

13 of NIOSH's performance, looking at science,

14 timing, dose reconstructions, SEC petitions,

15 customer service, and the like. You have

16 reviewed those reports.

17 At the last meeting of the

18 Advisory Board, I shared with you the

19 recommendations from those five reports and

20 gave you a sense of the priority

21 recommendations that were being looked at by
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1 NIOSH.

2 What happened subsequent to that

3 last Board meeting is the NIOSH Director

4 convened a meeting of NIOSH leaders and DCAS

5 staff and looked at those high-priority

6 recommendations, debated what should be added

7 to them or what should stand from them, and

8 then began to look at the development of an

9 action plan for each of the high-priority

10 recommendations.

11 On Friday, I asked Zaida to share

12 with you all the report that resulted from the

13 NIOSH Director's meeting on high-priority

14 recommendation and action items. And I trust

15 all of you have received that e-mail.

16 I won't go through all of the

17 action plans. Again, it is a draft list. I

18 will just walk you through some of them to

19 give you the flavor of it.

20 If you look at the first page,

21 where we are looking at dose reconstruction,
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1 one of the high-priority recommendations was

2 to look at the QA/QC efforts. This is driven

3 by the fact that the Board finds issues when

4 it reviews NIOSH work. And the question is,

5 what does this speak to in terms of NIOSH's

6 internal QA/QC program? And you can see the

7 actions that result from that, the use of

8 efficiency measures and the actions that

9 result from that.

10 The quality of service, a number

11 of recommendations. One I will highlight to

12 you is to see that prior to Board meeting and

13 Work Group meetings, that work products are

14 posted so that members of the public can have

15 access to the same material, assuming that the

16 Privacy Act doesn't intervene as those are

17 discussing it. And you can read the others.

18 With regard to timing, the

19 aggressive limits on DR. Stu talks to you

20 often about that. More aggressive limits on

21 SEC petitions. There Ted and Stu really need
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1 to start to interact with the Board Chair and

2 the Board to decide how we can together work

3 on that issue. Again, the Board is a partner

4 with us in terms of that effort.

5 When you look at the SEC petition

6 recommendations, those were the most

7 interesting to discuss, I believe. The first

8 one really speaks to the fact that if you look

9 at a Petition Evaluation Report, there is a

10 blurring between policy issues and science

11 issues. And John Howard felt particularly

12 that the distinction needs to be clearly laid

13 out.

14 So he did ask that Petition

15 Evaluation Report, we pick one and we

16 deconstruct it looking at key decision points

17 that are spoken to in that report and that we

18 clearly identify those that are policy and

19 those that are science. And then we see that

20 the right level of NIOSH is weighing in on the

21 policy decisions.
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1 You can look at surrogate data and

2 aspects of it really represent the policy

3 judgment on the part of the agency, and others

4 represent the scientific determination. 

5 Having the differences between policy and

6 science clearly identified, was thought to be

7 an important step forward.

8 With regard to sufficient

9 accuracy, the second there, we have all lived

10 in a world that has long debated what does

11 sufficient accuracy mean? And there are

12 action items developed to try and hone in on

13 that, at least within NIOSH's own discussion. 

14 I am sure the Board would take great interest

15 in what NIOSH prepared there.

16 There was this issue of health

17 physicists' bias. And attempts are made in

18 the action items to try and bring in voices of

19 other than health physicists to comment upon

20 various work products being developed, both

21 here in number 3 on SEC petitions. It also
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1 comes up again in the quality of science

2 debates.

3 Relative to quality of science,

4 this issue of indirect exposure assessment and

5 trying to ground truth NIOSH's indirect

6 exposure assessments in ways that will allow

7 for those to be carefully and critically

8 looked at.

9 If we remember, the quality of

10 science report attempted to do that for the

11 Savannah River Site. The action item really

12 suggests that we do that more frequently and

13 then apply the lessons learned towards NIOSH's

14 indirect exposure assessment activities.

15 So you can read it in detail. As

16 always, individual Board Members' comments are

17 welcome, better made to the docket, which will

18 remain open.

19 What will happen now is that Stu

20 and his staff will put together a detailed

21 timeline for each of the action items
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1 specified here. And on a weekly basis, we

2 will start to report progress to the NIOSH

3 leadership.

4 At the August meeting, we will be

5 before the Board again to present progress and

6 also engage in any interactive dialogue the

7 Board would like to have on any part of this,

8 the nature of the high-priority

9 recommendations, the action items that are

10 laid out, the progress on those action items.

11 So that's where we are. And,

12 again, the Board's views are always valued in

13 this process. So thank you for your time.

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thank

15 you, Lew.

16 I might have missed it, but is

17 this document going to be posted on the

18 website, too, or what is the plan?

19 DR. WADE: It is all right to do

20 that, yes.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: You might have
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1 said it. I might have --

2 DR. WADE: I don't think I did, as

3 a matter of fact.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Any Board

5 Members have questions or comments?

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes. This is Wanda. 

7 Lew, thank you for all the work that is going

8 into this. This is very interesting work. 

9 And I personally am appalled that I have not

10 had more of an opportunity to devote my time

11 to getting into the real detail of what you

12 have been doing and what you have been

13 writing.

14 I certainly applaud your concept

15 of strengthening the idea of peer review

16 inside the agency. That is always a good

17 idea, I think, for any group that deals with

18 scientific material and with the kind of

19 technical mechanics that are involved in what

20 the agency has to do.

21 I wondered a couple of things. 
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1 When you are talking about involving more

2 people who are not health physicists in what

3 you are doing, could you be a little more

4 clear? I don't know whether the material that

5 you have given us recently that I have not

6 read might be more prescriptive in that, but

7 I wasn't sure exactly what sort of people,

8 what sort of expertise, what broad scope you

9 had in mind when you were talking about

10 additional involvement in these -- what to me

11 are very specific and very limited kinds of

12 calculations.

13 DR. WADE: Wanda, I think we would

14 point to epidemiologists. And we're really

15 not trying to limit ourselves only to that but

16 to take our documents and show them to a 

17 variety of people starting across NIOSH,

18 people involved in modeling and a variety of

19 health assessments, and trying to get a very

20 diverse reaction to what we are doing.

21 So I would offer epidemiologists
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1 as an illustrative example, but I wouldn't

2 want to limit it only to that.

3 MEMBER MUNN: But you are talking

4 about people inside the HHS framework.

5 DR. WADE: Only as a starting

6 point. I think, you know, that the early

7 attempts I think we would attempt internally,

8 but once we understood the breadth and the way

9 to engage the tasks, I think we would quickly

10 try and move outside of the agency.

11 MEMBER MUNN: I am a little

12 concerned about how one identifies bias, both

13 inside and outside the agency. There are

14 times when it is obvious, other times when

15 it's not so.

16 I understand, as I think we all

17 do, how those biases affect everything that we

18 do in one way or another. But dealing with it

19 is a difficult subject. And that is why I

20 think it is important if we are going to be

21 choosing individuals outside of our already
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1 familiar and prescribed boundaries, that we

2 have a decent idea, that the Board have a

3 decent idea, of where we are going with that.

4 DR. WADE: That's reasonable. I

5 would commit to, really, not taking this

6 outside the boundaries of HHS without coming

7 back to the Board and sharing a more detailed

8 plan with you. We might do some

9 experimentation inside those boundaries as we

10 decide ourselves on an action plan, but I will

11 come back to the Board before we leave the

12 boundaries of HHS.

13 MEMBER MUNN: That would be

14 helpful. I'm sure several of us would be very

15 interested in being updated on a regular basis

16 on that particular aspect of your efforts.

17 One last question. The final

18 statement that you had in your material that

19 you gave us was an action relative to

20 surrogate data. You indicated you had

21 undertaken a detailed review of the EPA
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1 methodology. And EPA was not spelled out in

2 my mind.

3 Are you talking about the

4 Environmental Protection Agency?

5 DR. WADE: Yes. I'm sorry. It

6 was a specific report referred to in the

7 quality of science report, where the

8 recommendation was to look at a particular EPA

9 methodology. I'm sorry for the use of the

10 shorthand, but --

11 MEMBER MUNN: No, that's quite all

12 right. I just wanted to make very sure that

13 that was the reference and that it was not

14 something else.

15 DR. WADE: Sorry for not spelling

16 it out.

17 MEMBER MUNN: All right. Thank

18 you very much.

19 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Anybody else

20 have questions or comments?

21 (No response.)
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1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: If not, I again

2 would urge everyone, if you have comments, you

3 have time to review this document as well as

4 the other documents that are part of the

5 ten-year review with recommendations, I would

6 urge you to make them to the docket that's

7 still open. And we will have time to discuss

8 this more on the agenda for our August Board

9 meeting.

10 Thank you very much, Lew, for the

11 update.

12 DR. WADE: Yes. Thank you.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Now we'll hear

14 from someone we haven't heard from in a while,

15 about ten minutes, Special Exposure Cohort

16 Petition Status Update. LaVon?

17 MR. RUTHERFORD: Hopefully, this

18 one will be much shorter than the previous

19 two.

20 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Well, we'll see.

21 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yes. Actually, I
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1 am just going to talk about the petitions and

2 evaluations that we are going to present at

3 the August Board meeting.

4 We are going to present an 83.14

5 for Y-12. We have an 83.13, W. R. Grace in

6 Curtis Bay, Maryland, that we will be

7 presenting. We have an addendum for Vitro

8 Manufacturing.

9 If you might remember, we had

10 actually added a Class for Vitro some time

11 back. And at the time, we had reserved -- and

12 I believe it's the post-1960 period. We had

13 reserved that period because we were trying to

14 determine whether the Fort Hope piles that

15 were at Vitro were covered exposures under the

16 program. We have got that determination, and

17 they are. And so we have put together an

18 addendum for that, and we are going to present

19 that.

20 Savannah River Site. We plan to

21 present a second addendum for the thorium
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1 operations and, as well, as we are going to

2 follow up on hangar 481 and hopefully be able

3 to give the Board enough information to close

4 out that or make a recommendation one way or

5 the other on that one as well.

6 I know that there are a number of

7 Work Groups that may be presenting on top of

8 that, but those are the main SEC new stuff

9 that we will be bringing to the table.

10 That's it.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Thanks,

12 LaVon.

13 Questions for LaVon?

14 (No response.)

15 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Updates

16 from Work Groups and Subcommittees? I know

17 people have been busy meeting. And there are

18 several meetings, Work Group meetings,

19 scheduled between now and the Board meeting in

20 August. I don't know if anybody has anything

21 special to report.
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1 MEMBER BEACH: Jim, this is Josie. 

2 I have a quick update for Brookhaven.

3 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Go ahead.

4 MEMBER BEACH: We canceled our

5 July 7th meeting. NIOSH is in the process of

6 evaluating some significant information for

7 its impact on the currently proposed Class or

8 they're going to be writing an 83.14. So the

9 Work Group is waiting to hear from NIOSH on

10 that new development for Brookhaven.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay.

12 MEMBER ROESSLER: This is Gen.

13 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes?

14 MEMBER ROESSLER: We also canceled

15 our July meeting for the Linde Work Group. It

16 was the same day as the Brookhaven, canceled

17 for similar reasons, but we are now

18 rescheduled to meet August 15th at 9:00,

19 Cincinnati Airport Marriott. I was hoping

20 that this meeting will be over by 1:30 because

21 Josie and I both have asked for flights that
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1 leave later that afternoon.

2 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good

3 reminder, Gen.

4 Any other Work Group Chairs or

5 Subcommittee Chairs have updates?

6 MEMBER MUNN: This is Wanda. I

7 can give a brief report on where we are with

8 the Procedures Subcommittee. We have not met

9 since March, so we have had a long hiatus for

10 a number of reasons, not the least of which is

11 the other activities that were involving key

12 personnel that are involved.

13 We have a fairly packed schedule

14 ahead of us for our Work Group meeting, which

15 will occur on Thursday, the 14th, the agenda

16 for which will be posted today. Not having

17 had any additional information from others,

18 with a couple of exceptions, we will move

19 forward with that agenda.

20 We anticipate a full day of

21 activity. And, as usual, I urge the Members
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1 of the Subcommittee to plan on staying the

2 full day because we have a full day of work to

3 do.

4 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. Good. 

5 Any other Work Group or Subcommittee chairs?

6 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, Jim. This

7 is Brad. I just wanted to remind the Board

8 that we should be having something brought

9 before the Board on Fernald and also probably

10 Pantex at this next full Board meeting.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And I believe

12 there are Work Group meetings scheduled for

13 both of those.

14 MEMBER CLAWSON: Right. There is. 

15 August 10th and 11th, yes.

16 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Jim, this is

17 Phil. Just a quick, brief update. We met for

18 the INL Work Group in June. We got a number

19 of things accomplished.

20 Then on the 6th of July, we had

21 the Gaseous Diffusion Plants. And we made
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1 significant progress on the matrices, closed

2 out a number of items. And then we have some

3 other items that we still have to come back

4 and look at again. So that's where we stand.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. Anybody

6 else?

7 DR. MAKHIJANI: Jim, this is

8 Arjun.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, Arjun?

10 DR. MAKHIJANI: If it is

11 appropriate for me to say a word?

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes, maybe. One

13 word. One word at a time. No. Go ahead,

14 Arjun.

15 MEMBER MUNN: As long as it's not a

16 discouraging word.

17 (Laughter.)

18 DR. MAKHIJANI: You asked me to

19 prepare a matrix based on the review we have

20 done of NIOSH's updated TBD. The review, of

21 course, is finished. We have had a little bit
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1 of a logjam with typesetting. And it will go

2 to the DOE soon. Part of it has gone to the

3 DOE, the appendix.

4 As you asked me, I prepared the

5 matrix, updated matrix, based on our review. 

6 And that has just gone out to the Working

7 Group today. That is available for people who

8 want to look at it.

9 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: And we are going

10 to try to schedule a conference call of the

11 Work Group, Hanson Work Group, to review that

12 and talk about it.

13 MEMBER MUNN: I don't want to

14 surprise anybody, but, Josie, should there be

15 a brief report on the Worker Outreach meeting?

16 MEMBER BEACH: Oh. Well, there

17 should be, but I wasn't even thinking about

18 that. So go ahead.

19 MEMBER MUNN: Well, no. I'm sorry

20 about that.

21 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Since no one is
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1 ready and the Chair of the Work Group isn't

2 here, why don't we just hold that until

3 August?

4 MEMBER MUNN: All right.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I don't think

6 there is anything urgent. My understanding is

7 the group did meet.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it did, as

9 scheduled and was ably chaired by Ms. Beach.

10 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Yes. Thank you,

11 Josie.

12 Any other updates?

13 (No response.)

14 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. I don't

15 think we have any Board correspondence to deal

16 with.

17 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: August Board

18 meeting. Ted?

19 MR. KATZ: So no need to update it

20 now because we have another agenda item, but

21 I have sent everybody a draft annotated
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Teleconference Board Meeting, 

has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

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that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change. 

99 

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COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 version for your comment and ask for your

2 responses by next Monday.

3 It is full but not deadly. It's a

4 two and a half-day agenda starting on the

5 23rd. So you should all have it in your

6 emails. And you can email me back issues as

7 to whether there is anything else you want to

8 see on that agenda as well as whether I've

9 allotted the right times to some of these.

10 And the Ames, I probably can fit

11 that in on the third day.

12 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. So it is

13 full, and there are a number of things to do

14 there. So we will be busy out there.

15 Anybody have, any Board Members

16 have, questions or comments? We are planning

17 to try to finish up, though, before noon on

18 the Thursday, the 25th. So that helps people

19 with their travel plans.

20 MEMBER MUNN: Travel plans are

21 difficult, I hear.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Teleconference Board Meeting, 

has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

certified by the Chair of the Advisory Board for accuracy at this time. The reader should be cautioned 

that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change. 

100 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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

1 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: I know. You

2 just like us to stay.

3 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I know. 

4 There's always something fun to do.

5 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Good. And I

6 believe there is a tour of the facility

7 scheduled for Monday.July 29, 2011

8 MEMBER MUNN: Monday, as I

9 understand it. I think Brad is setting that

10 all up.

11 CHAIRMAN MELIUS: Okay. No

12 further questions or business. I believe we

13 can adjourn. Thank you.

14 MR. KATZ: Thank you, everyone.

15 (Whereupon, the above-entitled

16 matter was concluded at 12:40 p.m.)

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21 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Teleconference Board Meeting, 

has been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed and 

certified by the Chair of the Advisory Board for accuracy at this time. The reader should be cautioned 

that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change. 

101 

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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

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