STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS

404/733-6070

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH

convenes

WORKING GROUP

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH

PROCEDURES REVIEW

The verbatim transcript of the Working Group

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 

March 13, 2008.
2

C O N T E N T S

March 13, 2008

OPENING REMARKS 6

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO

INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR 9

MS. WANDA MUNN

SC&A: NEW MATRIX FORMAT 10

MS. KATHY BEHLING

NIOSH: RESPONSE TO OTIB-0017 SC&A WHITE PAPER 116

NIOSH: OTIB 0019-10 131

NIOSH: REVIEW OF OTIB-0012 134

NIOSH: PROC-0092 135

NIOSH: PROC-0090 MATRIX ITEMS 143

NIOSH: TIB-011-01 AND -02 153

SC&A: REVIEW OF PER-9 161

CALENDAR ITEMS 198

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 207
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken.

In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 

or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 

word(s) when reading written material.

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported.

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available.

-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 

"uh-uh" represents a negative response.

 -- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 

without reference available.

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone.

-- “^” denotes telephonic failure.
4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order)

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D.

Principal Associate Director

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Washington, D.C.

 

MEMBERSHIP

GIBSON, Michael H.

President

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200

Miamisburg, Ohio

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

School of Health Sciences

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 
5

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH

ANIGSTEIN, BOB, SC&A

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH

CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, NIOSH

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

LOOMIS, DON, SC&A

MARSCHKE, STEVE, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

THOMAS, ELYSE, ORAU

1
6

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

2 MARCH 13, 2008

3 (9:30 a.m.)

4 OPENING REMARKS

5 DR. BRANCHE: Good morning. This is Dr. 

6 Christine Branche, and we’re starting the 

7 worker group, worker Procedures meeting this 

8 morning from the Advisory Board on Radiation 

9 and Worker Health. And I’d like to start with 

10 the Board members announcing their names 

11 please.

12 DR. ZIEMER: Paul Ziemer, Board member.

13 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn, Chair of this group.

14 MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon, Board member.

15 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson.

16 DR. BRANCHE: Are there any other Board 

17 members on the line?

18 (no response)

19 DR. BRANCHE: So we don’t have a quorum so 

20 we can proceed. NIOSH staff with us in the 

21 room, please.

22 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott, 

23 Director of OCAS.

24 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld, Technical 

25 Program Manager for OCAS.
7

1 MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams, Office of the 

2 Director, NIOSH.

3 DR. BRANCHE: Christine Branche, Principal 

4 Associate Director and Designated Federal 

5 Official at NIOSH.

6 NIOSH staff on the phone please?

7 MS. BURGOS (by Telephone): Zaida Burgos.

8 DR. BRANCHE: ORAU staff in the room please.

9 MS. THOMAS: Elyse Thomas.

10 DR. BRANCHE: ORAU staff by phone.

11 (no response)

12 DR. BRANCHE: SC&A staff in the room.

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

14 MR. MARSCHKE: Steve Marschke.

15 DR. BRANCHE: SC&A staff by phone please?

16 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Kathy Behling.

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Bob 

18 Anigstein.

19 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Don Loomis.

20 DR. BRANCHE: Other federal agencies’ staff 

21 in the room please.

22 MS. HOWELL: This is Emily Howell with 

23 Health and Human Services.

24 DR. BRANCHE: Other federal agency staff by 

25 phone please.
8

1 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): Liz 

2 Homoki-Titus with HHS.

3 MS. CHANG (by Telephone): Chia-Chia Chang 

4 with NIOSH.

5 MR. KOTSCH (by Telephone): Jeff Kotsch with 

6 Labor.

7 DR. BRANCHE: Are there any petitioners or 

8 their representatives who would like to 

9 introduce themselves on the phone?

10 (no response)

11 DR. BRANCHE: Any workers or their 

12 representatives on the phone please?

13 (no response)

14 DR. BRANCHE: Any members of Congress or 

15 their representatives on the phone, please?

16 (no response)

17 DR. BRANCHE: Anyone else who would like to 

18 mention their names?

19 (no response)

20 DR. BRANCHE: Before we get started I would

21 like to ask those of you who are in the room 

22 please to mute your phones. And for those of 

23 you who are participating by phone if you 

24 would be so kind as to mute your phone when 

25 you are not speaking. If you do not have a 
9

1 mute button, then please use star six so that 

2 we can have silence on the line. And when you 

3 are ready to speak, then please use star six. 

4 Thanks so much. 

5 Ms. Munn.

6 INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR

7 MS. MUNN: Good morning. Those of you who 

8 have our agenda know that we’re going to spend 

9 most of the morning taking a look at our new 

10 and vastly improved matrix system which Kathy 

11 Behling and Steve have been working together 

12 on for just about the last six months.

13 Isn’t it about right, Kathy?

14 And I hope that those of you who need 

15 the information already have the material that 

16 was sent to you by e-mail. Kathy’s going to 

17 give us her presentation with the expectation 

18 that we’re going to talk about this probably a 

19 lot. And we will have one or two other items 

20 with respect to this matrix that we need to 

21 discuss while we’re here. 

22 One of the things that we’ll need to 

23 discuss is how extensive the report on this 

24 matrix and how it’s going to operate needs to 

25 be when the Board’s letter goes to the 
10

1 Secretary. That turns out to be a thornier 

2 question than it sounds like easily. I 

3 recognized when I had an opportunity to see 

4 the draft that SC&A has put together what the 

5 real problem is. 

6 The real problem is that this is an 

7 extremely complex system. Describing it in a 

8 simplistic way briefly is a major issue. So 

9 at the same time we’re going through these 

10 things I would like for all of us to have in 

11 the back of our minds is the serious problem 

12 of how to be concise and at and at the same 

13 time fulfill the need for full information 

14 that we need when we’re going to be 

15 communicating with the Secretary.

16 That being said, Kathy, do you want to 

17 begin?

18 SC&A: NEW MATRIX FORMAT

19 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’m ready to 

20 begin, Wanda.

21 Can everybody hear me?

22 MS. MUNN: We can.

23 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, and as 

24 Wanda said, I hope that everyone received the 

25 information that first of all Wanda sent out 
11

1 of my initial presentation. And then I 

2 followed that up with another one-page PDF. 

3 It’s the term-server logon screen, and I hope 

4 everyone has that also. I did ask Steve 

5 Marschke to bring along hard copies for those 

6 in the room, maybe if you were unable to make 

7 a hard copy of that before you got to the 

8 meeting. So I assume you have all of that 

9 material.

10 MR. GRIFFON: Kathy, I don’t have either one 

11 of those. When were those sent?

12 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’ll send them 

13 to you now.

14 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, thank you.

15 DR. ZIEMER: Those were sent the day before 

16 yesterday I believe.

17 MR. MARSCHKE: Some of them came yesterday.

18 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Wanda made sure 

19 she sent them. She sent about four different 

20 e-mails and some of them, the presentation was 

21 not in a zipped format. It was actually PDF 

22 format, and it says Kathy’s past three matrix 

23 presentations.

24 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I got nothing from Wanda 

25 in the last couple days anyway.
12

1 MS. MUNN: You didn’t?

2 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): I don’t know.

3 DR. BRANCHE: I’ll send everything to you 

4 now.

5 MR. GRIFFON: Thanks.

6 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): What I’d like 

7 to do, first of all, let me explain why I

8 asked Wanda if we could have an opportunity to 

9 walk through this Procedures matrix. I guess 

10 first of all I wanted to show you the changes 

11 that we’ve incorporated into the matrix for 

12 the purpose of making the data entry process a 

13 little more efficient for us. And then 

14 secondly, and I guess most importantly, I 

15 wanted to ensure that we’ve captured all of 

16 the relevant data and are developing reports 

17 from that data that serve the needs of our 

18 work group.

19 So whenever we go through this process 

20 again, and I know in some cases you’ve heard 

21 some of this before, and you’ll be a little 

22 more familiar with it, but let’s make this 

23 interactive and ask questions along the way. 

24 Don Loomis is on the phone also, and he’s the 

25 developer of the database so when I can’t 
13

1 answer your questions, I’m sure he can. The 

2 only thing I would ask is how many cups of 

3 coffee John Mauro has had.

4 I think we can start with the one-page 

5 file that I, titled Term-Server Logon Screen. 

6 Does everyone have it available?

7 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, thank you.

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): What that shows 

9 you is obviously when you get onto the term10 server on the left-hand side and you can see 

11 where you’re looking at the O drive. And 

12 underneath the O drive is the folder, the AB 

13 document review folder where we place a lot of 

14 documents for the Board. 

15 In this particular case, NIOSH and 

16 ORAU have developed another folder underneath 

17 that specific for this database, for this 

18 tracking system, called Advisory Board-dash19 SC&A. And underneath that folder is a 

20 tracking system folder, and, in fact, when ^ 

21 we will change ^ because I anticipate this is 

22 going to obviously be the Procedures tracking 

23 system, and I anticipate that possibly by even 

24 the end of the month when we have the Dose 

25 Reconstruction Subcommittee meeting we will be 
14

1 in a position to have a draft of a Dose 

2 Reconstruction tracking system which I hope to 

3 make a presentation on or at least give you a 

4 draft of what that might look like at the end 

5 of this month.

6 And then what you’ll see inside this 

7 current tracking system that exists on the 

8 folder that exists there, and that will be 

9 changed to probably Procedures Tracking 

10 System, that name. The first thing you see in 

11 the main portion of the screen, in the center, 

12 is called a folder called Reference Documents.

13 And that’s going to hold all of our 

14 white papers and those documents that we’re 

15 going to, in the actual database and in the 

16 findings. We’re going to link our white 

17 papers and any records information into that 

18 folder. And so when you’re actually in the 

19 database, and if you want to, you have 

20 findings that where there was a white paper 

21 identified, all the white papers written, 

22 you’ll be able to click in that finding, and 

23 you will open up a PDF file and that’ll come 

24 from this particular folder that will actually 

25 show you the white paper.
15

1 Underneath there you see three folders 

2 or actually three files, and these are your 

3 active database files with the first one being 

4 the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

5 Health Procedures Issues Tracking and no 

6 extension behind that. And the other two 

7 folders, the other two files have a data and a 

8 local extension behind them. 

9 So when you open up the database that 

10 you’re going to be working with, you want to 

11 use that first file, the one that does not 

12 have data or local behind it. In fact I have 

13 a box around that one. It’s the very first 

14 file there. And when you select it, let me 

15 also talk a little bit about the logon 

16 procedure, and then at the end of this 

17 discussion we’ll have a little bit longer talk 

18 about log in and how we’re going to handle 

19 this and what kind of access we’re going to 

20 give to people.

21 But when you log onto the term-server, 

22 the database will know, based on your user ID, 

23 whether you are a person who will have read24 only access or if you will have full access 

25 meaning you can make changes to the database. 
16

1 That will be identified just by you logging 

2 in, and we’ll talk about that a little bit 

3 later.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: All right, let me interrupt 

5 you. You’re saying when you log onto the O 

6 drive?

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes.

8 MS. HOWELL: I had a question, Kathy. This 

9 is Emily Howell. I know we had mentioned this 

10 when we had our meeting in Las Vegas, and we 

11 had a Procedures work group there. What are 

12 our plans in terms of marking the document 

13 such as the white papers as having been or not 

14 yet been Privacy Act reviewed? Are we going 

15 to ensure -- I just want to ensure that there 

16 still is a header or footer on all of these 

17 documents that are coming up stating where 

18 they are in the process of being Privacy Act 

19 reviewed, whether they’re publicly releasable 

20 or not. 

21 Because I wouldn’t want someone to 

22 print something off that they’ve accessed from 

23 the database and then disseminate it not 

24 realizing that it’s, you know, the Privacy, it 

25 has not gone through Privacy Act review, and 
17

1 that you’re being able to see it because 

2 you’re a government employee or contractor.

3 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s a very 

4 good point, and we will certainly make sure 

5 that any information that gets into the 

6 reference document has gone through the 

7 Privacy Act and through you and through the 

8 Privacy Act process.

9 MS. HOWELL: I mean, it’s okay with us. I 

10 mean, this is for, my understanding of this 

11 whole ACCESS database is that it’s internal, 

12 and because it’s internal it may be of use to 

13 SC&A and the Board members for these to be un14 redacted, non-reviewed copies which is fine. 

15 But if that’s the case, they just need to be 

16 clearly marked as such. 

17 And I also wouldn’t mind having some 

18 sort of system message that comes on when you 

19 log in stating once again these are government 

20 documents. Do not print them and make them 

21 available to others or something along those 

22 lines. I’d be happy to work with you on that 

23 language. I know you have some language that 

24 is typically put on documents that haven’t 

25 been reviewed. So it’s okay that they’re not 
18

1 reviewed. I don’t think we’re looking to 

2 review everything that goes on this, but we 

3 need some sort of message.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: I would like to expand upon 

5 that. This is Larry Elliott. I think it’s 

6 come to our attention that it’s very important 

7 that we identify when one of these documents, 

8 a matrix or a white paper or working document 

9 of the work group, is in its final form. It 

10 becomes finalized. We have many versions. 

11 You know, these are working documents. 

12 They’re drafts. They’re labeled in many 

13 different ways. I think we need to come up 

14 with a standardization of labeling and make 

15 sure that we know when we have arrived at a 

16 final version.

17 MS. HOWELL: So that we know what to review 

18 and make available if it is necessary.

19 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, see, I think it’s 

20 complicated because as we work with these 

21 different work products of the working group, 

22 we may find ourselves being requested to 

23 release them. So you’re asked to do a Privacy 

24 Act review under a FOIA request, and so now we 

25 have a version that’s not a final version. 
19

1 It’s a draft. It’s preliminary, and it’s been 

2 reviewed and redacted. 

3 And then we go a period of time, a 

4 month, two months, a quarter, half a year, and 

5 all of a sudden we have a different version 

6 than what was previously made available, and 

7 yet it’s not final. So you see where I’m 

8 coming from? At some point in time we’ve got 

9 to -- and I’m not trying to push to closure 

10 here. I’m trying to push to the ability that 

11 you’re setting a record, a record of your 

12 deliberations, and you want to be able to show 

13 that this was the final version.

14 MS. HOWELL: And when that happens, I’m 

15 still not clear on exactly who’s going to have 

16 the ability to edit these documents -- and 

17 maybe we can go over that one more time -- but 

18 when that happens maybe if there’s some way to 

19 close the document on the system so that it 

20 can’t be -- I mean, we certainly need to have 

21 a really clear record of the edits that are 

22 made so that we can keep track of versions. I 

23 mean, that’s going to be a concern with us 

24 because of the likelihood of the need to 

25 release interim documents to claimants and 
20

1 petitioners.

2 MR. ELLIOTT: Would it be good if I go over 

3 our practice or process, the policy at this 

4 point in distributing these documents? I 

5 mean, would that be helpful?

6 MS. HOWELL: Yes.

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay.

8 DR. ZIEMER: Well, could I ask you a 

9 question first? This is Ziemer. Are you only 

10 referring to the documents in that reference 

11 document file or to this whole tracking 

12 system?

13 DR. BRANCHE: Everything.

14 DR. ZIEMER: Everything, because we’ve 

15 already agreed for the most part most folks 

16 will not have the ability, just speaking sort 

17 of generically, the ability to change these 

18 documents except for a designated person from 

19 SC&A and a designated person from NIOSH, and 

20 that may be it, or a couple people.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Perhaps the working group 

22 Chair.

23 DR. ZIEMER: Or perhaps the working group 

24 Chair, but in general, let’s keep it -- and 

25 most people accessing this will not have the 
21

1 ability to change anything.

2 MS. HOWELL: So can you, will you be able to 

3 set it up so that for a specific matrix, say 

4 the Mound matrices, Josie Beach is the working 

5 group Chair, and she would only have access to 

6 just that one matrix? Do you see what I mean? 

7 Because this whole working group Chair thing 

8 you have to be specific about what they can 

9 access and what they can’t.

10 DR. BRANCHE: Well, she was using an example 

11 of Mound, but for this working group it would 

12 just be Ms. Munn.

13 MR. ELLIOTT: The editor and writer writes 

14 to this, you know, that’s one thing. But 

15 maybe the way to control it is when the 

16 document authors or owners make a change to 

17 it, they submit it to somebody who can then 

18 replace the version. Maybe that’s the way or 

19 add the version. I don’t know.

20 DR. MAURO: I’ve been thinking about this 

21 dilemma and I’ve come, at least in my mind 

22 there’s a bright line. From SC&A’s 

23 perspective all of our work products, whether 

24 it’s a matrix or a formal deliverable, is 

25 something that we deliver to the full Board, 
22

1 NIOSH or the working group. And this is a 

2 product for NIOSH and the working group or the 

3 full Board. 

4 The fact that some of that material, 

5 all of that material may or may not be of 

6 interest to folks outside of the working

7 group, the Board, NIOSH, and want to 

8 participate, I see that as something separate. 

9 In other words from SC&A’s perspective our 

10 obligation is to deliver as complete and clear 

11 a work product to the working group and Board. 

12 Very often we include deliberately information 

13 that’s Privacy Act. 

14 In fact, I have a report in my lap 

15 right now that I’m reading that has a dozen 

16 names in there. And they’re important to have 

17 those names. We need to know who they are, 

18 and why their information is valuable. In 

19 fact, the instruction says do not redact. 

20 This is going to go to the Board, and you’re 

21 going to need to see it. And what I’m saying 

22 now also applies to matrices.

23 In other words so then the question 

24 becomes, okay, SC&A has fulfilled its 

25 obligations in delivering the work product 
23

1 that we’re committed to to the Board, NIOSH 

2 and the working group. Now, fine, the other 

3 side of the line. Okay, we’re about to have a 

4 working group meeting. We’re NIOSH and let’s 

5 put this work product on the web. That’s on 

6 the other side of the line. And at that point 

7 in the process a decision -- and I’m not quite 

8 sure how this decision is made. 

9 I mean, this is really a question. 

10 Yes, this work product needs to go through PA 

11 review so it’s available to anyone who might 

12 be interested in looking at it. So in a funny 

13 sort of way SC&A is almost isolated from this 

14 problem because we deliver our product, and as 

15 far as I’m concerned, we’re done.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: If I may, that segues into my 

17 explanation of our process and our policy on 

18 handling these kind of things. You’re right. 

19 When you produce a product or when an OCAS 

20 author produces a product for the working 

21 group deliberations it’s been a practice more 

22 tried than true upon this practice under our 

23 value of being as transparent as possible to 

24 reach out to the petitioner and explain to the 

25 petitioner that the working group is going to 
24

1 meet. They’re going to be talking about these 

2 documents. 

3 And if we have them in our hands at 

4 that point in time, we can give them an 

5 understanding. If they want to request it, 

6 we’ll get a redacted version available to 

7 them, but it will be redacted perhaps. It may 

8 not be a complete version. And then if 

9 anybody else is interested in seeing the 

10 document, they must provide a FOIA request. 

11 We take those verbally. We take them in 

12 writing. We take them by e-mail. 

13 And our intent is to try to turn this 

14 around as quickly as possible, but you and I 

15 both know that we tend to turn things in at 

16 the eleventh hour, and you bring things in the 

17 day before. And so in many cases we’re not 

18 going to be able to have a redacted version 

19 ready for the petitioner or an interested 

20 outside stakeholder until perhaps after the 

21 meeting has occurred. 

22 So that’s our dilemma. That’s 

23 something we’re talking about internally at 

24 NIOSH about how we can be more transparent and 

25 yet follow the protections given to the 
25

1 program under the FOIA Act. Does that help? 

2 Any questions about that?

3 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I have a 

4 question or a comment. I believe that NIOSH 

5 already has the ability, even on the O drive, 

6 to restrict who sees what files. For example, 

7 Mark Griffon, I tried to look at the Mark 

8 Griffon files on the O drive the other day, 

9 and it wouldn’t let me. But your own set of 

10 files are there, right, Mark? The system has 

11 the ability to restrict who can go into 

12 particular files even within, and none of the 

13 members of the public as far as I understand -

14 -

15 MR. ELLIOTT: That’s right.

16 DR. ZIEMER: -- have access to the O drive. 

17 So this is Board members, and it’s on the O 

18 drive. It’s protected and it’s only when it 

19 moves out into the website, and that doesn’t 

20 happen unless you guys have --

21 MR. ELLIOTT: It’s our policy that we don’t 

22 post these works in progress, the working 

23 documents, on the website. It’s just too 

24 difficult to manage the version control.

25 DR. ZIEMER: And then the only issue is if 
26

1 it is on the O drive, do I have the ability, 

2 for example, to download it, print it and 

3 suddenly make it available to somebody else. 

4 And that’s what --

5 MS. HOWELL: Right, and that’s my concern. 

6 I just want it properly labeled.

7 DR. ZIEMER: And I think there’s where you 

8 need a caution on individual documents so that 

9 if they’re still on the O drive to remind us 

10 that this is restricted. Or if it’s not, but 

11 it’s still on the O drive, that it’s okay to 

12 make that public, right?

13 MS. HOWELL: And also --

14 MR. ELLIOTT: The first assumption should be 

15 everything that you touch in the O drive or in 

16 NOCTS is Privacy Act controlled, and before 

17 you could release it to some other party, you 

18 have to get an authority to --

19 MS. HOWELL: My concern is more that 

20 someone, a Board member, will print out 

21 multiple copies of something to have with them 

22 and then not realizing which version they have 

23 and just to say, oh, well, here, thinking that 

24 it, you know --

25 DR. ZIEMER: Or throw it in the wastebasket.
27

1 MS. HOWELL: -- right, and so I just say 

2 it’s important for them to be properly marked. 

3 And also, if there were some -- and I think we 

4 talked about this in Las Vegas as well -- a 

5 mechanism to show that somehow the notes, what 

6 version has been printed. I thought this 

7 would be helpful not only from this 

8 perspective of controlling things that you’ve 

9 printed out, but also for Board members to 

10 show what it is they’re looking at. 

11 If they have a printed copy, is it an 

12 old copy? Which version is it? What date was 

13 it printed, and who was it printed by? And if 

14 there’s a way to make that a default footer or 

15 something on the documents when they print, I 

16 think that that would be helpful.

17 DR. BRANCHE: You asked for that actually --

18 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yeah, I agree 

19 with everything you’re saying, and as you 

20 indicated, we know there are going to be Board 

21 members and those people who have access to 

22 the O drive that can actually get these 

23 documents. And I think for Nancy Johnson at 

24 SC&A we have established working with HHS in 

25 clearly marking all of our documents as to 
28

1 where they are in the process. 

2 And we can, we will work with you in 

3 any way we need to to have appropriate headers 

4 and footers and make sure it’s very clear to 

5 all the Board members as to what version of 

6 the documents that we’re looking at. And I 

7 think we already have a lot of that in place, 

8 and we’ll continue to work with you through 

9 Nancy Johnson. We’ve sort of established one 

10 person at SC&A that can do this. And we will 

11 be very careful about the information that is 

12 put into this reference document folder.

13 But I’m certainly glad that you 

14 brought it to our attention, you know, the 

15 sensitivity of this because I have to admit my 

16 feeling was it is going to be Board members 

17 that are going to be generally looking at 

18 this, that this wouldn’t be a problem. 

19 However, you are correct. I’m sure they will 

20 be able to have the ability to print these 

21 documents. In fact, I will show you a little 

22 bit later how to do that.

23 DR. BRANCHE: Steve wanted to raise a 

24 question.

25 MR. MARSCHKE: I was saying that as far as 
29

1 the tracking system goes, I mean, controlling 

2 these documents, we could put a key in the 

3 name of the document whether it’s been Privacy 

4 Act cleared or not. And then basically, based 

5 upon that key that’s in the name of the 

6 document, we can either put a footer on it or 

7 totally restrict the ability to print that 

8 particular document. That would solve the 

9 problem from the tracking system’s point of 

10 view and the document’s point of view. 

11 Obviously, if somebody were to come to 

12 this point on the O drive and instead of 

13 clicking on the tracking system, they were to 

14 go down into the reference documents and get 

15 to the documents themselves and do it that 

16 way, then that would not work for that. But 

17 to go, you know the way the document works we 

18 could put a key in the name of the document, 

19 whether it’s been cleared or not, and based on 

20 that key then, you know, either add a footer 

21 or restrict the ability to print or do 

22 something along those lines.

23 DR. BRANCHE: This is Christine Branche. I 

24 just wondered if I could step back because we 

25 are talking about the ability of people to see 
30

1 these documents, who sees these documents. 

2 And I just want to go back to something, 

3 Wanda, you said about preparing a letter to 

4 the Secretary. 

5 Let me just make sure I understand 

6 this. Are you trying to make clarifications 

7 as to how you and Kathy were planning to make 

8 your presentation to the Board and how that 

9 information would be then conveyed to the 

10 Secretary or were you planning to write a 

11 letter to the Secretary? If it’s the latter, 

12 why would you want to do that?

13 MS. MUNN: No, the former.

14 DR. BRANCHE: All right.

15 MS. MUNN: Not until John and the SC&A team 

16 began to try to pull together how we were 

17 going to report this significant change in the 

18 way we do business did we recognize this 

19 dichotomy that we had, how to convey adequate 

20 information without sending such a large 

21 document that would be unreadable.

22 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you very much. I think 

23 that was the last time -- this is Christine --

24 I think the idea of using the very liberal 

25 space that can be used to name a document, it 
31

1 would be very helpful if you all would come up 

2 with a sort of a naming convention for 

3 documents I think you can settle a lot of 

4 issues about what’s final, what’s interim, 

5 what draft, what version, what date, and I 

6 would just suggest that you adopt a convention 

7 for all the documents coming from SC&A and 

8 frankly from NIOSH as well.

9 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, it’s both, yes.

10 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you.

11 MS. MUNN: The nomenclature needs to be 

12 crystal clear to anyone, even the casual 

13 observer.

14 DR. BRANCHE: I will note that this is now 

15 the third time Emily’s request for the 

16 printing issue come up because it was at a 

17 previous Procedures meeting.

18 MS. HOWELL: I have no problem, I mean, I 

19 would assume that pretty much everything on 

20 this database would not be Privacy Act 

21 reviewed because it wouldn’t be helpful to the 

22 Board or contractors to have that, and that’s 

23 fine. And with the printing I have no problem 

24 with people being able to print things. 

25 I would just like for there to be some 
32

1 sort of notations that is unchangeable that is 

2 printed with it showing the version, who 

3 printed it and all of that. So that if 

4 something inadvertently gets made public, we 

5 can at least figure out where the problem 

6 arose. And I think that would be helpful to 

7 Board members as well to know which version 

8 they’re looking at because it seems like you 

9 could have a matrix that changes frequently. 

10 And we’ve had that issue in working group 

11 meetings before where people are looking at 

12 two different versions, so thank you.

13 DR. ZIEMER: Emily mentioned the knowledge 

14 of who printed it. Do we have the ability in 

15 the system if I went on the O drive and 

16 decided to print out something, do you know 

17 that, does the O drive know who’s printing out 

18 something?

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, yes.

20 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, it does? And so you could 

21 go back and track --

22 MR. MARSCHKE: We can put the name of the, 

23 basically the name of whoever is logged into 

24 the tracking system. We know that person, who 

25 that person is by, we get that information 
33

1 from the O drive, and we can add that as a 

2 footer if you want. We can add that as a 

3 footer to any printouts that are made.

4 DR. ZIEMER: Other than just the print out, 

5 is there a log that somebody can go to and 

6 say, ah, Ziemer printed that out on that date?

7 MR. HINNEFELD: There’s a log for the user, 

8 and I suspect that they could determine each 

9 activity of that user as they were logged in. 

10 I don’t know that for sure. 

11 MR. MARSCHKE: I think we have to check on 

12 that.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: They can certainly detect 

14 whether they’ve logged in.

15 MR. ELLIOTT: They know when he’s logged in. 

16 They know when he’s logged off.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: But I don’t know --

18 DR. ZIEMER: ^ printed out.

19 MS. HOWELL: I think that’s most important. 

20 I’m more concerned with the actual printed 

21 document having stuff on it so that if I 

22 randomly found a copy of something that 

23 somebody accidentally left on a Board table, I 

24 could say oh, this was so-and-so’s. They 

25 printed it.
34

1 DR. ZIEMER: And it would have my name on 

2 it?

3 MS. HOWELL: And this is the version they --

4 right. And so it would have --

5 MR. MARSCHKE: It would have initials or --

6 MS. HOWELL: Right, some sort of login name 

7 that we could tell who it was, the Privacy Act 

8 warning, and what version of the document.

9 MR. MARSCHKE: Right now we just put the 

10 version of the document, we do put the version 

11 of the document on the printouts. I guess we 

12 could, --

13 You know, Don Loomis, if I’m saying 

14 something that’s not doable, let me know, but 

15 --

16 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Let me jump in 

17 at this point then. This is Don Loomis. 

18 There are two different ways that things are 

19 getting printed or can be printed. One is 

20 from when you’re within the database itself. 

21 We have complete control. We know who’s 

22 logged in. We can control what is printed and 

23 how it is printed, and we can change it on the 

24 way out. 

25 The second way is people are logged 
35

1 into the O drive, and it’s just like sitting 

2 at your computer at home and looking at your C 

3 drive. You can print something and using the 

4 print command through the Windows operating 

5 system, but we have no control over that. So 

6 in the case of the white papers and supporting 

7 documents, reference materials, if it’s 

8 printed directly, we can’t touch it. We can’t 

9 tag it. We can’t change the headers or 

10 footers. If it’s a report that we are 

11 printing within our system, then we can change 

12 it. 

13 So I think that’s the, if it’s our 

14 material that we’re managing directly, then we 

15 can control what’s going on. If it’s files 

16 sitting out there, PDF files or Word files 

17 that are being printed, we cannot manage 

18 what’s going on. ^ in Windows. ^ that’s 

19 going to involve the, how the term server

20 itself is set up, and I’m not sure we want to 

21 get into the system at that level. 

22 MR. MARSCHKE: If we can restrict access to 

23 the reference documents subfolder can be 

24 restricted to a very few number of users who 

25 basically, I mean, the same number, anybody 
36

1 who has, you know, we could ask that NIOSH 

2 shut off the O drive so that that access is 

3 restricted so that people, you know, only a 

4 very few number of users can really get in 

5 there and have the ability to print those PDF 

6 files.

7 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): That would work 

8 in that case, but if you brought it up, for 

9 instance, where linking to these files from 

10 the database, it’s just like on your web 

11 browser when you see a link, and you click it, 

12 and it brings up a PDF document. Now, we’re 

13 doing the same thing. When you bring up a PDF 

14 document what you’re bringing up is, Adobe 

15 Acrobat. And even now outside of our system, 

16 some call it the Adobe Acrobat Reader. And 

17 it’s got control, and we cannot direct it. 

18 And you can create the PDF document to

19 not be printed, but then no one would be able 

20 to print them, so it would be viewable only 

21 online. But if they can be printed, then they 

22 can be printed, and we can’t get involved in 

23 that process.

24 DR. MAURO: Let me jump in for a second. 

25 We’re talking about there’s work products that 
37

1 are put out by NIOSH, the contractors and 

2 SC&A. We have an obligation if they have not 

3 been PA reviewed, they have to have a footer 

4 that says this has been PA reviewed. 

5 Whoever’s looking at this, first of all 

6 whoever receives it, only can receive it if 

7 they’re within that envelope. 

8 This document right now that was 

9 printed out doesn’t have the footer. We have 

10 to fix that so the footer’s on. But I think 

11 once the footer is there and all of the folks 

12 within that envelope who have access and the 

13 correct right to look at, just like any other 

14 work product SC&A puts out whether it’s a hard 

15 copy, and we send it to you by mail, or we 

16 send it to you electronically, it will have 

17 the footer. 

18 And at that point, whether it’s a 

19 Board member or someone from NIOSH or OCAS, 

20 they’re going to physically have that document 

21 whether it’s electronic or hard. And they 

22 have the obligation not to make a copy of that 

23 and send it off to the newspaper. They can’t 

24 do that. That’s what the footer tells them 

25 not to do. 
38

1 So in my mind the controls we’re 

2 talking about who went in, I mean, to me the 

3 most important thing is everyone that’s using 

4 this, first of all, any product that comes off 

5 the O drive that contains one of these, 

6 whether it’s a white paper that’s linked to 

7 one of these spreadsheets, or it’s a 

8 spreadsheet itself, whatever that material, 

9 unless it’s been PA reviewed initially, goes 

10 on, is PA reviewed. And everyone has to be 

11 responsible for not, for controlling it as 

12 such. 

13 And I think that’s where we always 

14 have been except now we have this system. So 

15 I guess I don’t understand why would we be 

16 concerned. People are not, you know, everyone 

17 has to be responsible and not leave copies 

18 out, un-PA cleared documents and send it out. 

19 You can’t do that.

20 DR. ZIEMER: I think John’s right because we 

21 get all kinds of documents. Larry sends them 

22 out now, the latest one we got this week, and 

23 it’s unredacted, and it says on it that we’re 

24 not to make it available. So this would be no 

25 different. So we have to rely on the 
39

1 integrity of the recipients at that point.

2 MS. HOWELL: And that’s fine. My concern 

3 with the who printed it was more for not so 

4 much controlling who might release it but 

5 because the version, you know, I can, that’s 

6 not like a legal concern. It’s more just for 

7 you guys internally to know which versions 

8 you’re printing, and if the version is written 

9 on there then that’s good.

10 DR. MAURO: The version control is 

11 essential.

12 MR. ELLIOTT: If it’s a physical safeguard 

13 that the Board feels is necessary and 

14 appropriate, we can put it in place. If you 

15 feel it’s restricting and obstructive, then we 

16 --

17 DR. ZIEMER: It’s no different than your 

18 other products I don’t think at that point. I 

19 don’t see that we would see any, right, we 

20 shouldn’t treat it any different just because 

21 it’s on the O drive.

22 DR. MAURO: And your configuration control 

23 point of view I think you’ve already got it. 

24 In other words when you print out one of these 

25 on the lower right-hand corner it tells you 
40

1 what version you’re looking at. And so we can 

2 be sitting around the table and say, well, 

3 listen, we’re all looking at 3/7/2008. And 

4 the answer is, yes, that means we’re all in 

5 sync because we have had problems in the past 

6 with the other matrix when we, I was looking 

7 at last month’s version, but now I think that 

8 problem’s been solved by having that date. 

9 And the only thing I think right now 

10 is missing is we don’t have the footer on here 

11 that says this has not been cleared. And the 

12 question becomes though, this is a question I 

13 guess how best mechanics. At some point it 

14 may be necessary to clear because there might 

15 be a working group meeting where members of 

16 the public do want to sit in, and they do want 

17 to see this.

18 MS. HOWELL: But is there any need to 

19 actually have the cleared versions on this 

20 database? I guess, I mean, it’s typically 

21 when they’re cleared. I mean, OCAS has 

22 control of them, and at some point when it’s 

23 the final version, it may go on their website 

24 cleared. They may control a cleared version 

25 that’s an interim version that may go to a 
41

1 petitioner.

2 But is there any need for there to be 

3 a cleared version on this because if a working 

4 group chair wants something to go to a 

5 petitioner, they should be operating through 

6 OCAS. They shouldn’t be sending the cleared 

7 version themselves. So it may be kind of a 

8 moot point for your database. Just, you know, 

9 everything on it is restricted. Everything on 

10 it is not, has Privacy Act information 

11 included. And if you need a cleared version, 

12 then you go through OCAS.

13 MR. MARSCHKE: But the database is something 

14 we could continuously, or supposedly 

15 continuously, update it. And so to have it 

16 continuously, it would have to be continuously 

17 cleared because --

18 MS. HOWELL: Right, and that’s not possible.

19 MR. MARSCHKE: -- every day we could go in 

20 and make changes to it in theory. And so 

21 every day we’d have to have it cleared. So 

22 that really doesn’t, I think the best thing to 

23 do is like John says, maybe put a little thing 

24 in the footer saying any outputs from this 

25 database have not been Privacy Act cleared and 
42

1 to handle them as such even though I don’t 

2 know that there’d be any Privacy Act 

3 information in it, but we still have nothing 

4 cleared.

5 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Let me ask a 

6 question here. I thought initially we were 

7 talking about just the supporting documents 

8 and the white papers. It sounds to me though 

9 we’re also talking about the matrix itself at 

10 this point now. It would be my understanding 

11 that the Procedures tracking database and the 

12 matrix that’s developed from that database 

13 would not contain any Privacy Act information. 

14 Now potentially when we get into developing 

15 databases for the other type of work such as 

16 our dose reconstruction work, that may be 

17 certainly different. But am I understanding 

18 correctly that we’re now talking also about 

19 having this type of footer on the matrix 

20 itself?

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Kathy, this is Stu 

22 Hinnefeld. I’d like to comment. I tend to 

23 agree with your opinion that it’s unlikely 

24 that there’ll be Privacy Act information in 

25 the Procedures tracking system. But on the 
43

1 other hand since, you know, if this material 

2 is to be made public, it needs to be reviewed.

3 I think it’s probably needed to have 

4 some sort of system in place to ensure that 

5 things like this are not released and there is 

6 a PA review of it before it is released. I 

7 kind of agree with your opinion, but I don’t 

8 think we can just automatically assume that 

9 there’ll never be any Privacy Act information 

10 in here.

11 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, all 

12 right, I just wanted to clarify we were 

13 talking about for this database, if it was 

14 going to be just the white papers and 

15 supporting documents or were we also talking 

16 about the matrix. But we might as well be 

17 consistent and also do the PA-cleared issue on 

18 the matrix itself.

19 The only other comment that I would 

20 have with regard to incorporating ultimately 

21 cleared white papers into this database is 

22 it’s my understanding that we want this to be 

23 a complete picture from the initiation of a 

24 finding ‘til it’s resolution and to what has 

25 happened with that particular finding. And 
44

1 this is supposed to be an archive. And I 

2 would imagine that we will really want to 

3 include the various maybe versions of the 

4 white paper and then ultimately the final 

5 version and the cleared version just so that 

6 we have a complete understanding of a 

7 particular finding, of what happened with a 

8 particular procedure. I don’t know if others 

9 agree with that or not, but I felt --

10 DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I would offer 

11 the opinion that the cleared version actually 

12 is less informative than the uncleared. So if 

13 you want something that you would call final, 

14 it would be the original, uncleared version. 

15 And this database is to help the Board track 

16 issues. I’m not sure if there’s any necessity 

17 that it be made public. Is that a 

18 transparency issue do you think?

19 MR. HINNEFELD: It’s hard for me to predict.

20 DR. ZIEMER: I mean, if we’re going to 

21 discuss it at an open meeting, and when we 

22 need printed copies of some version of it, 

23 obviously we’d have to have somebody take a 

24 look at that, I guess.

25 Right, Emily?
45

1 MS. HOWELL: Yeah.

2 DR. ZIEMER: Otherwise, as was pointed out, 

3 this could be in principle changing their 

4 release for every few days or whatever it may 

5 be.

6 MS. HOWELL: I’m sorry to interrupt. There 

7 is a chance that in the course of an 

8 administrative review or in litigation that 

9 there would have to be kind of a freeze and 

10 that the information un-Privacy Act reviewed 

11 would have to be made available. Also, I 

12 think that could come up during a 

13 Congressional request for documents.

14 DR. ZIEMER: That could be done as needed I 

15 suppose --

16 MS. HOWELL: Right, that but that’s a 

17 completely separate issue.

18 DR. ZIEMER: -- on this certain date. 

19 Here’s the --

20 MS. HOWELL: Exactly. So I don’t see, I 

21 think we had discussed previously the whole 

22 making public transparency thing. And I think 

23 it’s not, I think we decided, and Larry has 

24 left and maybe Stu remembers that the database 

25 itself is kind of like the O drive. The 
46

1 database itself is not public. 

2 The documents that are on it can be 

3 made public, but in order for them to be made 

4 public, it’s like a case-by-case, document-by5 document basis where the review occurs. And 

6 the only situation that I could envision where 

7 a document that had not been reviewed for 

8 Privacy Act concerns would be made public 

9 without some sort of, like where some of the 

10 information that would otherwise be redacted 

11 might be included would be in the situation of 

12 administrative review litigation or a 

13 Congressional request. 

14 So I think we need to look at the 

15 documents as potentially being made public, 

16 but we don’t as a matter of course make them 

17 public because they are by their nature draft, 

18 pre-decisional documents and anything being 

19 made public would go through additional steps 

20 of review.

21 MS. MUNN: Let’s think for just a moment 

22 with respect to white papers and what Paul 

23 just stated regarding each of the various 

24 drafts that come through. Is this likely to 

25 involve more than one or two versions? My 
47

1 concern is, again, one of volume.

2 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I believe based 

3 on what we’ve seen so far -- and others can 

4 correct me -- it seems to me that when a white 

5 paper is generated, we don’t go through 

6 various versions of it or revise it very much. 

7 It’s simply a document that is generated 

8 sometimes by SC&A, given to NIOSH so that we 

9 can better explain our position on things. 

10 It’s not something that goes through a lot of 

11 renditions. I don’t view it as that formal.

12 DR. MAURO: I think Wanda brings up a 

13 question that we didn’t talk about before, and 

14 this has nothing to do with the PA part of it 

15 now. I think the PA part is clear. The 

16 question becomes white paper. Let’s say the 

17 Board directs NIOSH to prepare a white paper 

18 in response to some issue, and they do. It 

19 goes up on the O drive. And at some point in 

20 the process revisions are made to the white 

21 paper that was dated this date. And now we 

22 have a revised white paper. Do we need to 

23 keep track of each revision? 

24 And this can be very much a living 

25 process because, if you recall, the intent was 
48

1 that the white paper is a tool that will allow 

2 SC&A and NIOSH to iteratively come to 

3 resolution whereby a white paper is put out, 

4 and there’s commentary. And because that 

5 could turn into a living document, the white 

6 paper itself, because it’s a work product 

7 that’s going to mature right up to the day of 

8 the next working group meeting. 

9 See, I guess that’s what I had in my 

10 head. This was the tool that was going to 

11 allow NIOSH and SC&A to address an issue that 

12 was raised by the working group, put it on the 

13 record, and it might actually iteratively 

14 change right up until the date of the next 

15 working group meeting where that white paper 

16 would be discussed. 

17 Now, the problem I’ve been seeing, I 

18 mean, now to get into document configuration 

19 control and the record. We do lose this 

20 iterative process if we -- in other words, 

21 this white paper may go through iterations. 

22 It may go through iterations during one cycle, 

23 you know, prior to the next meeting, or it 

24 might go through a cycle for this meeting. 

25 Then you may say, well, listen, we 
49

1 made a lot of progress with this white paper 

2 but I think we need to do this, this and this, 

3 and then another version, a revised version, 

4 of that white paper might be worked on in the 

5 next meeting. Do we want to keep track of 

6 every iteration? That would be, I have to 

7 say, extremely cumbersome and burdening to the 

8 process.

9 MS. MUNN: That’s why I bring the question 

10 because --

11 DR. MAURO: It’s a legitimate question, 

12 absolutely.

13 MS. MUNN: -- I was interpreting what Paul 

14 had suggested earlier.

15 MS. HOWELL: Can I, if I could interject for 

16 a minute, and if Liz is on the line, she might 

17 want to chime in. I think that if what you’re 

18 talking about is revisions to a white paper 

19 between presentations to a Board working 

20 group, say you have a white paper, and OCAS 

21 and SC&A discuss, and then it goes to a 

22 working group meeting. Then they take it 

23 back, and they make some more revisions. It 

24 goes back to a working group meeting. I think 

25 you have to keep copies of the white paper as 
50

1 it is presented to the working group. 

2 Now, if there are iterations where 

3 it’s just OCAS and SC&A making changes, and 

4 then there’s ultimately only one version that 

5 ever makes it to the working group, that may 

6 be a situation where you only need to keep one 

7 copy. But if different versions are given to 

8 the working group, we have to have copies of 

9 those available for administrative review 

10 purposes.

11 DR. MAURO: So the trigger is each working 

12 group meeting. That is, whatever is issued 

13 and used at a working group meeting, that 

14 becomes an official document. Then if it 

15 changes again for the next working group 

16 meeting, that’s rev. two.

17 MS. HOWELL: Right, and if there are 

18 versions --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Wouldn’t that be a 

20 distribution to the working group? Because, I 

21 mean, we overtly, you need to overtly send 

22 things to the working group, before we overtly 

23 send things to the working group or Board, 

24 each time we would do that on a particular 

25 document, that’s the next ^.
51

1 MR. MARSCHKE: My question is do you do that 

2 in this issues tracking and part of this 

3 issues tracking matrix or does the white paper 

4 have its own separate folder on the O drive 

5 some place where the history of that white 

6 paper is tracked and maintained separately? I 

7 mean, I don’t think this issues tracking 

8 matrix was set up initially to track the 

9 evolution of white papers. 

10 And the question becomes then what 

11 version of the white paper -- at some point 

12 we’re going to say, okay, the version of the 

13 white paper addresses the problem that it was 

14 initially designed to address. We bring that 

15 version into the reference document file here 

16 and then we have the tracking system reference 

17 that final version or whatever. 

18 But it doesn’t really necessarily have 

19 to track the whole history in this tracking 

20 system. I think that would be done some 

21 place, you know, all the evolutionary versions 

22 would be maintained and filed wherever they’re 

23 being maintained and filed now.

24 MS. MUNN: Paul, these are the questions 

25 that were coming to mind.
52

1 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, but let me respond to 

2 that in part I think. If your tracking system 

3 follows, you have a series of discussions and 

4 back and forth. And if the only reference 

5 document in the document files is the latest 

6 version, the earlier discussions may make no 

7 sense. Do you know what I’m saying? 

8 In other words someone would say, 

9 well, the white paper doesn’t say this. Why 

10 did they discuss it? It seems to me it would 

11 be very easy to have in the document thing 

12 rev. one, rev. two, rev. three, and in the 

13 discussion if it says we’re discussing rev. 

14 one, someone could go say, oh, that’s what the 

15 issue was. And now that’s been resolved and 

16 then as you track along any discussion on a 

17 particular paper you will see where the 

18 changes are made. And someone could go back 

19 and look at an earlier rev. if they wanted. 

20 But once it’s in the system as an 

21 official document, it seems to me it sort of 

22 is there. I don’t think we have to track it 

23 so much as to keep, you do have to keep track 

24 of what version you’re discussing, it seems to 

25 me, as you move along through the regular 
53

1 tracking system. If we’re discussing a 

2 thorium issue, we want to know that the 

3 current discussion is based on rev. three of 

4 the thorium paper, whatever it may be. Do you 

5 follow what I’m saying?

6 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is Kathy 

7 Behling. I actually agree with you. And 

8 let’s remember this is a database. That’s 

9 what databases do. They collect all the 

10 information in them. And I don’t think there 

11 will be any difficulty in having a folder, and 

12 we can make subfolders, or however we want to, 

13 separate this data out. 

14 But under this reference document, we 

15 have a discussion white paper that’s 

16 discussing a certain topic. And as you said, 

17 we have rev. zero, rev. one, rev. two, and we 

18 can follow the correction. My feeling was 

19 that this database was to get an archive of 

20 what has happened from cradle to grave with 

21 all of these issues that we’re discussing. 

22 And I don’t think that that’s a problem at 

23 all. And maybe Don Loomis can weigh in.

24 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): I agree 

25 completely.
54

1 DR. MAURO: But let me go back because I 

2 thought there was general agreement that it’s 

3 the trigger for making it a rev. one, a rev. 

4 two, a rev. three is the working group 

5 meeting. That is, there’s going to be a lot 

6 of give-and-take prior to a given working 

7 group meeting relating to an issue. White 

8 paper may very -- now here’s mechanistically a 

9 white paper is produced. 

10 Let’s say it’s produced early in the 

11 cycle before the next meeting. The next 

12 meeting is out here. Here’s the meeting over 

13 here, okay? You say SC&A and NIOSH, please 

14 look at this issue. And we start looking at 

15 this issue and material is exchanged, or let’s 

16 say conference calls are held, these technical 

17 conference calls. But some place along the 

18 way we agree. SC&A says, okay, here’s the 

19 white paper we’re putting out. Or NIOSH says 

20 here’s the white paper we’re putting out. 

21 It gets into the system and becomes 

22 just like the matrix, it becomes the white 

23 paper that goes with this matrix that’s part 

24 of the package. It’s going to be discussed at 

25 that meeting. Now, if it turns out at the 
55

1 next meeting more work needs to be done on the 

2 very same white paper because we discuss it, 

3 and there’s a need for more work to be done.

4 What I heard is that then a rev. to 

5 that white paper would be put into the system, 

6 so in the system you have rev. zero. You have 

7 rev. one, but they all would be keyed to a 

8 working group. Now in between the meetings 

9 there’s an awful lot of stuff going on. And I 

10 don’t think we’re going to track that stuff.

11 MR. ELLIOTT: I don’t think we’re asking you 

12 to. You wouldn’t see that on our site except 

13 for the individual authors, and they keep 

14 track of the revisions they go through. But 

15 once a document is put into discussion that is 

16 the trigger.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes.

18 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Exactly. And 

19 then it would all be captured in the actual 

20 database and in the record for that finding is 

21 the fact that the Board will direct either 

22 NIOSH or SC&A to reevaluate this white paper 

23 or for SC&A to evaluate a white paper that 

24 NIOSH has just submitted. And so that in 

25 itself will, the next time there’s a work 
56

1 group meeting, it will indicate that there 

2 should be another white paper or a revised 

3 white paper out there or a response to a white 

4 paper. 

5 Also, any directives that the Board 

6 gives us will be captured in the database, but 

7 we don’t want to get too carried away with how 

8 much data we’re collecting here. Obviously, 

9 there are things going on in between working 

10 group meetings, but as long as we can do a 

11 trail, look at a trail, I think that’s 

12 adequate.

13 MS. MUNN: Paul?

14 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): The database 

15 will do that for us.

16 DR. ZIEMER: One other observation, I think 

17 in many cases the issue is not to revise the 

18 white paper. It’s to resolve an issue.

19 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s right.

20 DR. ZIEMER: And so unless there’s some 

21 reason to go back and say the original white 

22 paper is somehow deficient, it seems to me you 

23 could take an issue out of the white paper and 

24 an issue itself could be subject to 

25 discussion. We say, well, we have to resolve 
57

1 this. We’re going to carry it to the next 

2 meeting. But we don’t necessarily have to go 

3 back and say let’s revise the white paper 

4 because the white paper was simply something 

5 to initiate a discussion.

6 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s right. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: In many cases --

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): -- by saying I 

9 don’t anticipate a lot of versions of a white 

10 paper. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- unless there’s some reason 

12 to feel the white paper is so defective it has 

13 to be either NIOSH or SC&A says I don’t want 

14 this to be the final version of a white paper.

15 DR. MAURO: I’ve got a great example. On 

16 Nevada Test Site we had at least three or four 

17 sequential work group meetings dealing with 

18 resuspension factors, and each time our 

19 thinking matured. And we started off with one 

20 approach that was offered up by NIOSH. At a 

21 meeting SC&A came back. We actually issued, 

22 Lynn Anspaugh issued a white paper. It 

23 became, and it went off. 

24 And then what happened next step is a 

25 new white paper was issued by NIOSH which came 
58

1 up with a new approach. So the white papers 

2 were, at least that’s like a perfect example, 

3 a series of SC&A and NIOSH white papers. 

4 Eventually this process came to a resolution. 

5 Yes, we like the new resuspension model.

6 DR. ZIEMER: But you didn’t have to review 

7 the white paper.

8 DR. MAURO: We didn’t review any, that’s 

9 right. We didn’t review the white paper. 

10 What happened on the end is there’s going to 

11 be a revision to one of the site profiles that 

12 deal with resuspension factors that’s going to 

13 reflect this.

14 DR. ZIEMER: Right, the white papers were 

15 just a vehicle to start to focus your thinking 

16 in some direction, and they stay as they were.

17 DR. MAURO: They did stay as they were.

18 DR. ZIEMER: Not that they were defective 

19 per se, they were vehicles to initiate a 

20 discussion.

21 DR. MAKHIJANI (by Telephone): Could I say 

22 something here in regard to the site profile? 

23 This is Arjun. What happened, if I remember 

24 correctly, with these white papers is after 

25 NIOSH issued its white paper, we didn’t 
59

1 actually write another review document. But 

2 there was a lot of discussion about that 

3 review document. So not everything in it, 

4 while we felt the NIOSH white paper went some 

5 lengths to address the issues that we had 

6 discussed and so on, it came up with a new 

7 approach. 

8 Not everything in the new approach, 

9 there wasn’t a full resolution if you just 

10 looked at the papers, and there was further 

11 information in the actual working group 

12 meeting that took place that Kathy reflected 

13 in the kind of record that we’re talking 

14 about. That would be a very difficult kind of 

15 --

16 DR. MAURO: Arjun, in the end it’s the 

17 transcript that’s the final word. In other 

18 words I think that what we’re doing is we had 

19 a transcript. Everything is captured there. 

20 In a way what we’re saying now is that we’re 

21 trying to somehow create a tracking system 

22 that captures the essence of what transpires 

23 at every working group meeting where issues 

24 are being addressed. And sometimes white 

25 papers are a very convenient tool. 
60

1 But the reality is if somebody really 

2 wants to go back and recreate an entire 

3 sequence, I mean, I think that even our 

4 tracking system is not going to be as complete 

5 as the transcript. That’s our final safety 

6 net that we made sure we’ve got it all right. 

7 So I think we can’t make our tracking system 

8 as complete as the transcript ever.

9 DR. MAKHIJANI (by Telephone): No, I agree 

10 with that. I just wanted to throw out the 

11 caution that somehow if there is an idea, I 

12 think the Task Three thing is a little bit 

13 different because in Procedures there is, you 

14 know, generally a more clear resolution at 

15 least as I follow those discussions. In site 

16 profiles it’s often not so clear, and so the 

17 idea that white papers somehow this tracking 

18 system would reflect that resolution is less 

19 convincing to me, I think, as we are actually 

20 doing things that would ^. I just want to 

21 throw out that caution.

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think you really have 

23 a matrix and the issues from the site profile 

24 review and white papers that address some of 

25 those issues, the resolution or the progress 
61

1 is captured in the matrix. Is it not, Arjun?

2 DR. MAKHIJANI (by Telephone): Yeah, no, 

3 that -- is that Larry?

4 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes.

5 DR. MAKHIJANI (by Telephone): Yeah, exactly 

6 right, and I think maybe I’m just growing old. 

7 I think that for site profile that thing is 

8 working, and we’re introducing it into the SEC 

9 framework now in a slightly modified form. 

10 And yeah, so, I agree with you then that seems 

11 to work.

12 DR. MAURO: So going back to the original 

13 rationale, Wanda, during the meeting, at the 

14 end of the meeting, you make a list of action 

15 items.

16 MS. MUNN: Yes.

17 DR. MAURO: And you say, okay, you do this. 

18 You do that. And one of the things is we 

19 write a report for NIOSH on this subject which 

20 simply says that between now and the next 

21 meeting you’d like NIOSH to put out a piece of 

22 paper that would address this issue. But to 

23 me now, how they get there, whether or not 

24 there’s some dialogue going on prior to them 

25 putting that piece of paper out, it’s almost 
62

1 like transparent to your request. 

2 MS. MUNN: Yes.

3 DR. MAURO: Your request is very simple. 

4 You want a piece of paper distributed and part 

5 of the record, and that’s what triggered it. 

6 So as far as I’m concerned at the next meeting 

7 it’s there, and it stays there because that’s 

8 what you asked for, and it’s there. And it’s 

9 going to be there on the record. Now what 

10 happens after that, happens after that, and 

11 you will give direction. 

12 Now, that direction might be issue 

13 another white paper to supplement this, and 

14 that would be your direction. At that point 

15 in time it seems to me you may say, listen, 

16 I’d like you to revise that white paper, a 

17 revision of it, well, the first version is 

18 still there. It never goes away. The next 

19 one that comes out whether it’s a new one or 

20 it’s a revision of that one, that’s in there 

21 and stands on its own for the purpose of the 

22 next meeting. I think it’s simple.

23 MS. MUNN: I think so. If nobody minds, at 

24 this moment I’d like to back up just a little 

25 bit. It seems to me that we’ve gone a little 
63

1 far afield, and there are two --

2 MR. ELLIOTT: We apologize to the Chair for 

3 taking you there.

4 MS. MUNN: That’s all right. There are two 

5 things I want to verify. First of all, Mark, 

6 are you still there?

7 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yeah, I’m here.

8 MS. MUNN: Did you get the material that 

9 Christine sent you?

10 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): It came 

11 through, yeah, thanks, Wanda.

12 MS. MUNN: Okay, so now you know essentially 

13 our agenda, and you have Kathy’s material, 

14 right?

15 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yes. Thank 

16 you.

17 MS. MUNN: Very good. I need to verify with 

18 you after this is all over with why my 

19 messages do not get to you because you should 

20 have at least five, possibly six, from me. Is 

21 it the right e-mail address?

22 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): I’m not sure. 

23 We can clear that up, yeah.

24 DR. BRANCHE: We just found out that she had 

25 the wrong e-mail address so we’ll correct 
64

1 that.

2 MS. MUNN: All right, we’ll take care of 

3 that.

4 And now, Kathy?

5 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes.

6 MS. MUNN: Where were we?

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I don’t know.

8 DR. BRANCHE: We were at the very beginning 

9 actually. You can begin again.

10 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I guess we’re a 

11 little bit -- I don’t want to say sidetracked 

12 here because these are very good discussions, 

13 and I know that they need to take place. I 

14 think quite honestly I look at this in a much 

15 more simplistic format. I think sometimes we 

16 lose track of where we’re going here. 

17 We’ve been having these types of 

18 meetings, and we’ve been dealing with these 

19 procedures in dose reconstructions and site 

20 profiles for some time now. All we’re trying 

21 to do at this point is capture the most 

22 important data. And as I started out saying 

23 the goal today is to ensure that we are 

24 capturing the relevant data, and that we’re 

25 producing reports that will serve the needs of 
65

1 the working group. 

2 But while we’re on this discussion of 

3 accessing this information, I was going to 

4 wait until the end to maybe have a little bit 

5 of this discussion, but while we’re discussing 

6 this, it might be appropriate. One of the 

7 things that I wanted to discuss with NIOSH, 

8 and I assume ORAU and Kay or whoever, is the 

9 fact that this is the term-server and this is 

10 honestly ORAU’s database and their server. 

11 And so I wanted to be sure that we, 

12 SC&A, just a select number of individuals 

13 again, would be in the position to load the 

14 information ourselves into the thing such as 

15 the reference document folder. And I feel 

16 that this is appropriate because, as I said, 

17 we already have something in place to ensure 

18 when things are not PA reviewed. We have a 

19 footer on there, and when things are PA 

20 reviewed, we can load that information. 

21 But is it appropriate for SC&A 

22 individuals such as myself or Steve Marschke 

23 here or Don Loomis to load documents onto this 

24 database under a folder such as the reference 

25 documents? I’m just thinking about the 
66

1 mechanics of this. We have the ability to do 

2 that. We can do that through the secure FX; 

3 however, I want to be sure that we do have 

4 permission to do that. 

5 And we can also set up some type of 

6 protocol that once that’s done, we inform 

7 either up front, we’re about to load this 

8 data, or that’s different than making changes 

9 to the database. Obviously, I think we’ve 

10 already gotten permission to have someone like 

11 myself or Steve Marschke go into the database 

12 and update that information. But I’m talking 

13 about loading new information such as these 

14 white papers onto the, or is that something we 

15 need to send to NIOSH and ORAU and they need 

16 to update?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: No one is saying anything. 

18 This is Stu Hinnefeld. I don’t see any reason 

19 why SC&A shouldn’t load those directly.

20 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay.

21 DR. ZIEMER: You mean just notify you or how 

22 does that work?

23 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think it would be a 

24 notification probably to the working group and 

25 to us just like when we put anything up we 
67

1 notify the working group and SC&A that a new 

2 file is out there. Now actually for us to 

3 load, I may have to have offline discussions 

4 with Don and Kathy about how this ACCESS 

5 database will work if we’re going to have 

6 users on our side.

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, in fact, I 

8 was anticipating that you would have an 

9 opportunity to call Don yesterday and that we 

10 could --

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I’m sorry. I got tied 

12 up. Between being out of the office for five 

13 hours and then having three hours to prepare 

14 from all my messages from the night before, 

15 I’m sorry I did not call Don.

16 I apologize, Don. I completely 

17 forgot.

18 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s not a 

19 problem at all. I just had to tease you a 

20 little.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Tease Wanda a little bit, 

22 too.

23 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I guess then 

24 let me take it one step further. Don and I 

25 are already thinking ahead to our Task Four 
68

1 tracking system to our dose reconstruction 

2 tracking system. And as I indicated, if we 

3 look -- we’re still on this first screen --

4 if we look on the left side underneath is 

5 Advisory Board-SC&A there’ll be, the current 

6 tracking system will say maybe Procedures 

7 Tracking System. 

8 The new Task Four tracking system may 

9 say DR Review Tracking System. It would be 

10 nice also if Don or Steve or Steve or Don 

11 would be more qualified to do it, loading, 

12 once this database is available, loading that 

13 information onto the database. 

14 And one of the things that we’ve 

15 talked about ostensibly is linking findings, 

16 and Don is also working on that. And I’m 

17 envisioning something, and I’m just talking 

18 off the cuff here because Don and I haven’t 

19 explored this, if there was a finding in the 

20 dose reconstruction review that we decided 

21 needs to be placed in the Procedures review, 

22 that link would be made in this area. 

23 And it would show up, that finding 

24 would show up on the tracking system maybe 

25 with a status of open-imported or something 
69

1 along those lines. And there would also be a 

2 trace from the Dose Reconstruction Tracking 

3 System that said this particular finding was 

4 transferred to Finding such-and-such or in 

5 Procedure number on such-and-such a date. So 

6 you would have a link between the two, and it 

7 would be a clear understanding of where that 

8 finding went so that as we’ve talked about 

9 nothing falls through the cracks.

10 MS. MUNN: I really like that open-imported 

11 concept, and that’s been bothering me a lot.

12 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It came to me 

13 during the night.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Kathy, Stu Hinnefeld here, 

15 one question. Well, in looking at the 

16 Procedures Review database then, at a, say 

17 it’s a detailed finding or whatever, will we 

18 be able to look at that and know which DR 

19 findings have been linked to it, if any?

20 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes. Yes, and 

21 we’ll get there.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Because, I mean, it could 

23 very well influence what you write in response 

24 to the finding if you know there are other 

25 findings that that response needs to address 
70

1 as well.

2 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Again, I 

3 believe I can say yes to that. And when we 

4 get into our detail screen a little bit 

5 further down the road here, remind me of that 

6 again and be sure that I’ve properly answered 

7 that question.

8 DR. MAURO: Hold it. I heard something that 

9 I don’t know if I agree with. If we’re in the 

10 matrix dealing with procedures, we’re dealing 

11 with a procedure that applies to every site 

12 profile -- I’m sorry, every dose 

13 reconstruction and could influence all of 

14 these. I’m assuming you just didn’t say you 

15 want to we want to send out a link back that 

16 way.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: No, no.

18 DR. MAURO: It would go the other way, the 

19 other way.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: In dose reconstruction 

21 review there are many findings that has been

22 deferred to this working group because there 

23 is a procedure we will review that will 

24 address it, and it’s only those decisions.

25 DR. MAURO: So it’s in the DR review matrix 
71

1 that links you back that says see Procedure 

2 so-and-so which, okay, I was afraid I heard 

3 the other direction. You can’t have the other 

4 direction.

5 MS. MUNN: Mark is very happily closing out 

6 his items by sending them to us.

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And, John, 

8 again, am I speaking out of line?

9 DR. MAURO: You’re doing fine. Kathy, I’m 

10 getting another cup of coffee.

11 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, should we 

12 continue here?

13 MS. MUNN: Yes, please.

14 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay. Let me 

15 go on a little bit more about access, about 

16 getting access to the database. One of the 

17 things that we at SC&A were doing yesterday is 

18 I, as I said, currently, Steve Marschke and 

19 myself have full access to the database 

20 meaning we can write to that database. John, 

21 I did not give John full access yet. He has 

22 read-only access so that we could test for 

23 things.

24 And when Steve was out on the 

25 database, and I tried to log into the 
72

1 database, as of yesterday I am getting an 

2 error, and it will not allow more than one 

3 user whether that user, I thought initially 

4 that it might be because we both had full 

5 access, and so the database would not allow us 

6 both to be on at the same time so that there 

7 couldn’t be a change in records without one or 

8 the other knowing about that. But it is also

9 happening when John was on who has read-only 

10 access, and I tried to log on. I’m getting 

11 the same error. 

12 We have sent an e-mail to the 

13 technical person at ORAU, and I believe Don 

14 indicates that there should be no problem, he 

15 thinks, resolving this because ACCESS itself 

16 is set up that you can have multiple users. 

17 In fact, you should be able to have multiple 

18 users. If Stu, even if Stu Hinnefeld who will 

19 have access to write to the database, and I 

20 were both on that at the same time, and we 

21 were making changes to the database, there 

22 would not be a problem with that. 

23 It would only create a problem, and 

24 again, the system would stop us from doing 

25 this, is if we both tried to make a change to 
73

1 the same record. It wouldn’t allow us to do 

2 that.

3 Am I correct, Don?

4 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Yes, that is 

5 correct.

6 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): So one nice 

7 feature about ACCESS about using the system is 

8 that ultimately we should all be able to get 

9 on, and we can very well track who gets what 

10 kind of access. And it should not create any 

11 problems in ACCESS when there are changes or 

12 updates being made to this database.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: And this would apply to ORAU 

14 as well. If we had an ORAU person authorized 

15 to write to the database. When they would try 

16 it, it would have the same protections because 

17 they would be logging into the O drive 

18 version, the same version of the database you 

19 are. Is that correct?

20 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Don, yes?

21 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Yes, as far as I 

22 know. We have to find out the specifics of 

23 how you connect through.

24 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, well, I can talk to 

25 you offline. I don’t connect. The things on 
74

1 the ORAU O side that we see are replicated to 

2 our side. So I cannot deal in the normal 

3 fashion with this database, so we’ll have an 

4 offline discussion. It may have to be ORAU 

5 would update it each time.

6 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Okay.

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Let’s see if 

8 there’s anything else on this first page that 

9 I wanted to mention. I don’t believe so.

10 So now we can go over to this separate 

11 file that was sent to you by Wanda, and it’s 

12 actually page one of what I have marked on the 

13 footer as March 13, 2008 Presentation. And 

14 once you get past this initial screen -- and 

15 let me go through it one more time. 

16 You log on to the term server. You 

17 get onto the O drive. You get into the 

18 Advisory Board-dash-SC&A folder. You open up 

19 the Tracking System folder, and then you open 

20 up the ABRWH Procedures Issues Tracking file 

21 without the data or logo behind it. When you 

22 select that file, you will see page one of my 

23 presentation, which is your summary screen. 

24 Does everyone have that before I start?

25 MS. MUNN: Page one of 472, right?
75

1 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s right. 

2 And in fact, that 472 let’s you know how many 

3 findings have been entered into the database 

4 at this point in time. Between Steve and I, 

5 we’ve hopefully, I’m not saying it’s a hundred 

6 percent correct yet, but hopefully we have 

7 entered everything from the first, second and 

8 third set of procedure reviews as well as the 

9 supplemental procedures that we had been asked 

10 to look at such as PROC-0092, PROC-0097 and 

11 OTIB-0052. So that should all be, all of 

12 those findings should be identified in the 

13 database at this point in time.

14 And on this summary screen, and the 

15 way you know you’re looking at the summary 

16 screen, if you look at the top left the tab 

17 that says summary shows it’s white as opposed 

18 to being gray. And that shows you you are on 

19 the summary screen. Now one of the changes 

20 that we’ve made to this summary screen -- and 

21 again, these are changes that we felt would 

22 help the data entry process and be a little 

23 bit more efficient in entering the data and be 

24 helpful to the data entry person. 

25 It’s not going to affect necessarily 
76

1 the reports that you’re going to be printing 

2 from here. One of the things that I wanted to 

3 be sensitive about is that we did not change 

4 anything that ultimately would be printed 

5 unless the Board approved that change. And 

6 we’ll get to that a little later.

7 But on this summary screen the first 

8 thing we did was expand the Procedures ^ 

9 column a bit because we do have in there the 

10 rev. numbers, and at times, if you were to 

11 scroll down you’ll even see whether it was 

12 just a page change one. And so we need to 

13 expand our column so we could see completely 

14 what we were dealing with and what revision we 

15 were dealing with on these findings.

16 The other thing that has changed here 

17 is in the previous version under the column 

18 that is now marked SC&A Findings, that used to 

19 be our Procedures title. And so you would see 

20 the same title down there. In fact, the page 

21 that I printed out here would show you that 

22 this is the external dose implementation 

23 guideline, and that would be repeated all the 

24 way down through.

25 We felt that it may be more beneficial 
77

1 for us to have actually the findings listed 

2 there. And so we changed that field. But 

3 again, if you want to hit the print summary 

4 screen at this point, it would not print that 

5 finding. It would print actually the 

6 Procedures title as it has in the past.

7 MS. MUNN: Oh, how interesting.

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And we can talk 

9 about that when we get to the print screen 

10 because if you’d like to see something 

11 different in on the print, we can make that 

12 change. I just decided not to make any 

13 changes to the print screen until we have the 

14 approval of the work group.

15 And there’s also -- and I won’t get 

16 into the status on this particular screen. 

17 We’ll talk about that later. But again, when 

18 the summary screen, we’re just seeing a roll19 up of everything in the database. And 

20 currently the screen that you’re looking at, I 

21 have not filtered any of the data. This is a 

22 complete listing, and as you see at the 

23 bottom, we’re looking, I have my cursor in the 

24 first row of 472 records.

25 Now if we go onto the second page, 
78

1 I’ll also tell you some additional information 

2 that was added. And again, this is in order 

3 to help us when we add the data. If you put 

4 your cursor into the second column under the 

5 procedure number, and you hold it in that 

6 column, a pop-up box comes up. And as you can 

7 see it tells you what procedure you’re dealing 

8 with if it’s your external dose reconstruction 

9 implementation guideline that was on earlier.

10 And I’m showing you on page two that 

11 pop-up so that you’re able when you’re in the 

12 database you will hold your cursor over there 

13 and actually see the name of that procedure if 

14 you took it out of the other column.

15 MS. MUNN: Okay, so you went to a whole 

16 other procedure though other than the ones we 

17 were looking at on page one.

18 MR. ELLIOTT: No, same procedure, just put 

19 your cursor on the first one --

20 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): The same 

21 screen, all I did was put my cursor in the 

22 second column, first line and what popped up 

23 was external dose reconstruction 

24 implementation guide.

25 MS. MUNN: Right. Sorry, Kathy, I’m several 
79

1 screens ahead of you.

2 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s okay. 

3 I’m taking too much time.

4 MS. MUNN: No, you’re not. No, you’re not.

5 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, and if we 

6 go on to page three, again here is a second 

7 pop-up box that Don has incorporated, and 

8 that’s the finding itself. Under the SC&A 

9 finding, obviously, these can sometimes be 

10 lengthy. And so I again put my cursor in that 

11 first finding and it brings up a pop-up box 

12 that gives you the entire, spells out the 

13 entire finding for you so you can see what the 

14 entire finding is when you’re still in the 

15 summary portion of the screen.

16 MS. MUNN: Just a moment, Kathy. Paul has a 

17 question.

18 DR. ZIEMER: This is trivial actually, but 

19 why do you change fonts from your main page to 

20 the other pages? I just happened to notice 

21 you go from Tahoma to Times New Roman. Is 

22 there some significance to that or did it just 

23 turn out that way?

24 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Don?

25 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): It just turned 
80

1 out that way. I’ve been using Tahoma for the, 

2 I actually used two different fonts regularly, 

3 one for data and one for titles.

4 MR. ELLIOTT: We’re having trouble hearing 

5 you, Don.

6 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Don, can you 

7 speak up and repeat your --

8 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Yes, I’m sorry. 

9 I do usually use two fonts, but it’s to 

10 distinguish titles from data. I usually use 

11 Arial for titles and Tahoma for data so Times 

12 New Roman is the one. There’s no other 

13 significance. I usually use Tahoma for all of 

14 the data.

15 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay.

16 MS. MUNN: Makes sense.

17 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Now if we move 

18 on to page four, we’re looking at our detail 

19 screen, and again, we know we’re on the detail 

20 screen because if you look at the upper left21 hand corner of the screen, detail is now in 

22 white and obviously we see a change in the 

23 screen. One of the things that we added to 

24 the screen at the bottom is when we were 

25 loading this data, Steve made mention,
81

1 wouldn’t it be nice if we could just go from 

2 one detail screen to the next detail screen 

3 without going back to our summary to pull up 

4 that detail. 

5 So Don has added the next issue button 

6 and the previous issue button at the bottom, 

7 which allows us to go back and forth on the 

8 detail screen without going back to the 

9 summary.

10 MS. MUNN: That’s a very nice addition. 

11 Thank you, Don.

12 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And Steve 

13 recommended that. He was loading a lot of 

14 this data.

15 Also, the color-coding changed a 

16 little bit. We were not happy with that 

17 color-coding, and we named that lower portion 

18 where we’re actually putting in the workers’ 

19 information a little bit smaller. And here 

20 again we have to remember when we’re in the 

21 database, this is just our tool. I don’t 

22 necessarily anticipate -- and I may be wrong 

23 here and the Board may become quite 

24 comfortable with the database -- I expect most 

25 of the time you will want to generate a report 
82

1 from this database. 

2 I’m not sure if you’re going to spend 

3 a lot of time going in and looking at the 

4 details, but that’s certainly an option. But 

5 that’s why we made this lower portion a little 

6 bit smaller, and when you put your cursor in 

7 here, you can see the entire discussion. But 

8 obviously, when you print it out, everything 

9 will be printed on one page for this 

10 particular finding, and everything will, 

11 obviously, you’ll be able to see it clearly. 

12 So nothing else has really changed here, it’s 

13 just that we did add the previous and the next 

14 and did a little bit of color-coding.

15 The next page, page five of the 

16 presentation, shows another feature that we 

17 added. And again, this is Steve Marschke’s 

18 recommendation, which I thought was a very 

19 good one. The status, we wanted to make sure 

20 that you couldn’t put just anything into the 

21 status. We’ve obviously come up with a select 

22 number of things that we feel are appropriate 

23 to put in that status box. 

24 So Steve said why don’t we have a 

25 drop-down box so that we can select that. The 
83

1 only concern that I have about that is because 

2 as we know for issues such as transferred, you 

3 have to have a secondary drop-down box so that 

4 you can type in where did they transfer to, 

5 and right now it’s typically a global issue, 

6 and we’ll see that in the next screen.

7 But I wanted to point out on page five 

8 that this is our drop-down box, and these 

9 currently are the status that you can choose 

10 from: addressed in findings, closed, in 

11 abeyance, open, open-in progress, and 

12 transferred. As the other databases, as I 

13 indicated, as we develop other databases 

14 another status in here may be open-imported so 

15 that we can sort on anything, any finding that 

16 may have come in from another group. It’s 

17 just something we can speculate and think 

18 ahead about.

19 DR. MAURO: Kathy, what does “addressed in 

20 finding” mean?

21 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, I have a, 

22 I show that in detail on, let’s just move on 

23 and then I’ll discuss that.

24 On page six I gave you again, now once 

25 you put in transfer, this sub-box comes up, 
84

1 and you -- right now it says global issues 

2 because that’s the only thing we’re 

3 transferring to and so that’s available. And 

4 you type in global issues. Now when you print 

5 this it will still show as transferred and 

6 then global issues behind it in parentheses.

7 Now on page seven I can answer your 

8 question, John.

9 DR. MAURO: Okay.

10 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Page seven, 

11 addressed in, and this is where a lot of times 

12 we have a finding that this particular finding 

13 was initially a finding under OTIB-0004, but 

14 it’s going to be addressed under a procedure 

15 now, which is PROC-0061. And we direct you to 

16 where that finding will be addressed. And 

17 that’s what that status means. And so again 

18 we need a secondary drop-down box so that we 

19 can actually type in where that finding is 

20 addressed. 

21 I used a somewhat unique example here 

22 because typically what we’ve been doing, I 

23 think it was in PROC-0092 discussion, we said 

24 there was so much substance to be answered in 

25 Finding Number 1, we said once we answer 
85

1 Finding 1, we have answered Finding 2, Finding 

2 3 and Finding 4. So a lot of times it will 

3 just say go back to a previous finding within 

4 this, the finding that we’re currently in, the 

5 procedure that we’re currently in.

6 All this is doing is directing you as 

7 to where this particular finding is going to 

8 be answered. Does that make sense?

9 MS. MUNN: Yes.

10 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, I didn’t 

11 mean to make a long story out of that.

12 MS. MUNN: That’s quite all right.

13 Before we go any further though, we 

14 tripped merrily over page five when we were 

15 discussing again the possibility of adding one 

16 more status possibility. I would prefer not 

17 to defer that. I would like very much for the 

18 work group to make their decision about that 

19 and a recommendation. And my recommendation 

20 would be that we accept your suggestion of 

21 open-imported. Does anyone have any problem 

22 with that? 

23 Mark, does that do what you and I have 

24 been concerned about with respect to tracking 

25 from your sub-group to here?
86

1 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yes, I think 

2 that will work, Wanda.

3 MS. MUNN: Do you have any grief with that? 

4 Any comment to make?

5 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): No, not at all. 

6 No, I like that idea.

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, I’ll mark 

8 it down and Don will work on that.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: This is Stu Hinnefeld. Just 

10 remind me real quickly what would that pertain 

11 to?

12 MS. MUNN: We’re specifically concerned with 

13 issues that are transferred into this work 

14 group, into our purview, from other 

15 subcommittees or other work groups who are 

16 dealing with specific issues, and they say, 

17 no, we don’t need to deal with them here 

18 because Procedure xxxx deals with that. 

19 DR. MAURO: That would be in the other one, 

20 not in this one.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: This would be findings that 

22 were not made in a review of the procedure at 

23 all.

24 MS. MUNN: Correct.

25 MR. HINNEFELD: There’s no particular 
87

1 findings in the procedure review that 

2 specifically ties to the DR issue.

3 MS. MUNN: Correct.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: But the DR work group thinks 

5 it’s best addressed by, it’s a procedure issue 

6 and so that, okay.

7 MS. MUNN: The subcommittee is saying this 

8 is no longer going to be an issue for us to be 

9 concerned with because it’s being dealt with 

10 in this procedure.

11 DR. MAURO: Does that affect this stuff? In 

12 other words the mechanics, it seems to me that 

13 would, you just described will affect the Dose 

14 Reconstruction matrix where you would click 

15 and then come here.

16 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It will. 

17 There’ll be a link.

18 MR. MARSCHKE: If we had a finding, if we 

19 already had an existing finding in the 

20 procedures that they’re specifically 

21 transferring it to, then it would not affect

22 it. However, if they basically in the other 

23 work group they say this has not been a 

24 finding in the procedures, but it should be a 

25 finding in the procedures, then this would be 
88

1 a new finding in the Procedures working group 

2 or in the Procedures database that is coming 

3 from outside of our review of that, of the 

4 SC&A review of that procedure. So that’s what 

5 I interpret this to mean.

6 DR. MAURO: This is a new nuance though that 

7 we didn’t talk about before. So when during 

8 the dialogue at the DR under Mark, Dose 

9 Reconstruction, if something emerges during 

10 the review of a particular case that says, 

11 gee, this sounds like a pretty generic issue 

12 and needs to be addressed in a procedure 

13 because it’s cross-cutting, that might open up 

14 a new finding you’re saying that would have 

15 to, even though it may not be a finding in 

16 whatever the procedure is right now. That 

17 would actually create a new finding.

18 MS. MUNN: It could create a new finding. 

19 Traditionally what we have found --

20 Correct me if I’m wrong, Mark.

21 -- what we have found in the past is 

22 you encounter issues that already exist as 

23 findings in the procedures that are being 

24 addressed here. Traditionally that’s what 

25 we’ve encountered. But it’s very easy for me 
89

1 to foresee the possibility of an issue arising 

2 when we’re discussing a DR which would require 

3 a new finding under an existing procedure 

4 here.

5 Am I right, Mark?

6 (no response)

7 MS. MUNN: We lost Mark. I therefore assume 

8 that I’m right.

9 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I do think 

10 you’re right, Wanda. I agree with you.

11 MS. MUNN: Very good.

12 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That was my 

13 intent here. There would be, in fact, I 

14 believe there are quite a few issues. And 

15 there would also be quite a few issues that 

16 again we’re projecting ahead. We haven’t gone 

17 down this path or even discussed whether the 

18 Site Profile work group would want to do this. 

19 But if they determine they want a database 

20 also, there would be a lot of linkage in 

21 between all of these databases. 

22 And there are oftentimes, you know, on 

23 dose reconstruction reviews that we say this 

24 is an issue that really needs to be discussed 

25 in the site profile. I can think of several 
90

1 issues like at Y-12 and identification of 

2 buildings and what buildings that we have 

3 neutron exposures and that type of thing. 

4 But we will create a new finding in 

5 whatever database is appropriate, and it would 

6 initially get this open-imported, and then it 

7 would be ultimately when we have several 

8 tracking databases out there, it just might 

9 say open-imported from the DR review process 

10 or from the site profile review process, that 

11 type of thing, so we could track it back to 

12 that database. 

13 And if you went to it, there would 

14 also be a finding in that database that sends 

15 it here. So there will be this linkage, and 

16 you’ll be able to go back and forth and 

17 recreate how this came into this system and 

18 where it was generated from.

19 MS. MUNN: I would foresee that you would 

20 have a drop-down window the way you do on page 

21 seven with the address in finding which would 

22 clearly point to where it came from or where 

23 it went to.

24 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Exactly, that’s 

25 what I envision also.
91

1 MS. MUNN: This is no small matter, and as a 

2 matter of fact, it has loomed heavily in my 

3 consciousness for a number of months as to how 

4 we’re going to maintain any sense of what 

5 happened to that issue if it goes away from 

6 the original group that’s working on it. 

7 Further, I anticipate that this process is 

8 going to be so effective that ultimately I 

9 would anticipate we will have multiple 

10 matrices.

11 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s what I 

12 would anticipate also.

13 And, Don, again, have I said anything 

14 that you don’t think is doable?

15 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Oh, no, this is 

16 all doable.

17 MS. MUNN: Very good. A great relief, thank 

18 you so much.

19 Now we’re back to your presentation, 

20 Kathy.

21 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, I think 

22 are we ready to move on to page eight?

23 MS. MUNN: Yes.

24 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And page eight 

25 is a sort/filter screen, and we’ve discussed 
92

1 this before. We really have not made any 

2 changes here, but let me just explain what is 

3 going on on this particular screen because 

4 this will be important to you.

5 On the left-hand side of the screen is 

6 your source level, and first, second and third 

7 are simply sorting tiers. It has nothing to 

8 do with our first set, or second set or third 

9 set or anything like that. These are tiers of 

10 sorting. You have a radial button -- and this 

11 is not a good example. Let’s assume that I’m 

12 working with the entire database, and I want 

13 to produce a report, a summary report, that 

14 where the procedure number, it’s sorted first 

15 by the procedure number. That’s why there’s a 

16 black dot inside that radial button under 

17 First. 

18 A second tier sort would be the 

19 finding dates because that will tell me did it 

20 come from the first set, the second set, the 

21 third set. And then lastly, it would be 

22 sorted by are they open issues. All the open 

23 issues would be grouped together. All the 

24 closed issues would be grouped together. So 

25 the left side of this screen is simply how 
93

1 you’re going to sort the results.

2 The right side of the screen is a 

3 filter. If we don’t want to look at all 472 

4 records that are in there, and we simply want 

5 to look at, as in the example I provided, just 

6 the findings associated with ORAU PROC-0092,

7 that’s what this sort will do for you based on 

8 what I have in here. It’s going to show you 

9 all of the findings because I have a checkmark 

10 in each one of the status boxes. So it will 

11 show you all the findings associated with 

12 PROC-0092.

13 Now if I uncheck all the boxes and 

14 only obviously put a checkmark in the open 

15 items, the filter would look at only PROC-0092 

16 and open items associated with PROC-0092. It 

17 would first give us a summary report of how 

18 many findings those were, and then you could 

19 generate a detailed list behind that.

20 The one thing I did skip is the first 

21 line. That was the request that we are able 

22 to go into the various fields and sort by a 

23 word or by a specific word or a phrase. We’ve 

24 had several types of findings that may have to 

25 do with inhalation and particle size or 
94

1 whatever. We can put in a specific word or 

2 phrase in here, and it will go into the 

3 details list and look at all of the fields and 

4 pull those particular findings where the word 

5 exists, or phrase.

6 And again, if we go down, you see 

7 underneath the procedure number you can select 

8 by finding date. The finding date, again, the 

9 reason I chose finding date is because it 

10 groups all of our findings together by when we 

submitted our report such as January 17th 11 , 

12 2005. All of our findings that were submitted 

13 for the first set of procedure reviews are 

14 dated 1/17/2005. So therefore, if I will put 

15 in that date and filter the database on just 

16 that date, I would get only those findings 

17 associated with the first set of, from our 

18 first set of procedure reviews.

19 MS. MUNN: Excellent.

20 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And again is a 

21 weighting again based on how we rate a 

22 particular item, you know, a five being a good 

23 rating, a one being a not very good rating. 

24 And if we want to either look at just those 

25 findings or sort when we go to do a matrix, if 
95

1 we want to sort on that rating, we can say, 

2 okay, let’s address the most critical items or 

3 those items that have the worst rating first. 

4 And so that gives us that option.

5 MS. MUNN: We had in the past. That’s a 

6 logical thing for us to assume would occur 

7 again in the future.

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Right. And 

9 then lastly, it’s just Don added this updated 

10 on or after to say that if you want to see 

11 just information that was updated in the 

12 database because of something that Steve or I 

13 did as of a certain date and say, okay, here 

14 are the updates that you made to the database 

15 as of this date. This particular filter gives 

16 you that option to do that.

17 Now, as you look at the screen, and 

18 you’ve seen all of this before. Does anyone 

19 have anything else that they can think of? 

20 And again, what will happen maybe as you start 

21 working with the database more, and I know 

22 from myself, that when you start adding 

23 filters, and you start looking at things and 

24 playing with them a little bit more, you say, 

25 oh, I wish I could do this. I wish I could do 
96

1 that. I don’t know that anyone has any ideas 

2 right now. Is there anything else that you 

3 feel would, that you’d like to see that is not 

4 here? 

5 We can modify this particular screen 

6 and modify these filters. And again, I would 

7 suggest, I’m hoping that this is pretty close 

8 to a final version of this database, but as 

9 you work with the database if there are any 

10 suggestions, maybe it’s something that the 

11 work group can discuss. And we can certainly 

12 incorporate them in as you feel is necessary.

13 MS. MUNN: If it develops that we have an 

14 overwhelming number of imported items, there’s 

15 a possibility that we might want to add that 

16 to the filter, but I wouldn’t at this point. 

17 Open would appear to be adequate right now.

18 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, I agree 

19 with you. I think that’s a very good idea. 

20 We may want to add an imported.

21 MS. MUNN: But that will take us a year to 

22 figure that out. Not this month.

23 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Do you have any 

24 questions on the sort/filter screen?

25 MS. MUNN: Paul has a question.
97

1 DR. ZIEMER: I agree with Wanda there 

2 because we’ve covered, you’re filtering for 

3 everything else that’s on that box, and you’re 

4 going to add the filter, so you might as well 

5 --

6 MR. MARSCHKE: Yeah, that makes good sense 

7 to add into it --

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes.

9 DR. ZIEMER: The other way to do it is you 

10 leave these here and you filter them out, and 

11 what’s left is what’s ^ which accomplishes the 

12 same thing.

13 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I agree. I 

14 think that we should add the imported.

15 MR. MARSCHKE: If we’re going to add another 

16 status, we should be able to sort on that or 

17 filter on the statuses we have.

18 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, and as 

19 you can see on the screen that we’re looking 

20 at currently on page eight, I am filtering on 

21 PROC-0092, and so page nine gives you the 

22 results of that filter. And it shows you that 

23 within PROC-0092 there were eight findings. 

24 And it identifies they did a finding that 

25 tells you the current status of the findings.
98

1 You can also see here on the top in 

2 red “filter is on”. And this indicates that 

3 you’re not looking at the complete database, 

4 and you have obviously filtered. You’re 

5 looking at a select portion of the database. 

6 Now we select at this point the print 

7 summary that’s up on the top right-hand 

8 portion of the screen. What we’ll get is what 

9 you see printed here on page ten of my 

10 handout.

11 DR. ZIEMER: How do we know you’re filtering 

12 on PROC-0092? I know they’re all 92s, but how 

13 do we know you’re not filtering on the date 

14 which is all 9/20? Where does it identify the 

15 specific filter? Did I miss?

16 MR. MARSCHKE: This screen does not I don’t 

17 believe.

18 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): If you read --

19 this is Don -- if you read at the filter/sort 

20 data, it shows you --

21 MR. MARSCHKE: The previous screen pops back 

22 up?

23 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Yes.

24 MS. MUNN: I just need the previous screen 

25 to verify.
99

1 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): But you are 

2 correct. This particular filter could have 

3 been done in one of two ways. We could have 

4 selected the finding date. And again, I was 

5 apologizing to Wanda because of just the 

6 amount of data that I sent to her in 

7 preparation for this meeting. And I don’t 

8 anticipate it being this overwhelming in the 

9 future because now -- and one of the things I 

10 wanted to hand out was the third set findings. 

11 So we will be looking at an entire huge group 

12 of findings as opposed to -- hold on one 

13 second and let me grab my other phone.

14 Am I still on?

15 MS. MUNN: Yes, you are. We’re on page 

16 nine. We’re talking about filters.

17 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This became a 

18 bit cumbersome just because of the fact that 

19 we were authorized to review some other 

20 procedures and independent. And so we had 

21 these individual procedures out there like 

22 PROC-0092 and PROC-0097 and OTIB-0052 that 

23 have, we submitted a separate report and you 

24 have separate dates. 

25 So in this particular case when you 
100

1 can sort either by the procedure number or by 

2 the finding date, and so it is a little bit 

3 confusing to determine what you’re sorting on. 

4 But as Don indicated, if you select the sort 

5 button you can go back and determine what this 

6 filter represents.

7 MR. MARSCHKE: Kathy, I have a question.

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, we were -

9 -

10 DR. BRANCHE: Kathy, you have a question.

11 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): -- we were on 

12 page ten --

13 MS. MUNN: Hold on just a moment.

14 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay.

15 MR. MARSCHKE: Kathy, I have a question. On 

16 page eight you basically have a sort on, 

17 you’re sorting on a status, the third level of 

18 your sort is on the status. On page nine it 

19 doesn’t appear that the status has been sorted 

20 correctly. You have in abeyance, and then you 

21 open, and then you have in abeyance.

22 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): This is Don. 

23 The filter and sort actually only, the sorting 

24 portion is only being applied to the printout, 

25 if you hit the print summary or print detail. 
101

1 On the screen it’s always by procedure number 

2 and finding number and date.

3 MR. MARSCHKE: Okay, so the screen does not, 

4 the summary screen does not effectively 

5 reflect the sort.

6 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): We can make that 

7 clear on the filter/sort screen that we’re 

8 only applying that to the printout.

9 MR. MARSCHKE: It only applies to the 

10 printout.

11 MR. LOOMIS (by Telephone): Yes.

12 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Does everyone 

13 understand what the question was and what’s 

14 Don answer was? Because our second -- and 

15 again, correct me if I’m wrong here -- but 

16 because our second level sort is finding --

17 no, I’m wrong here, finding date. I was 

18 thinking it was finding number. But what Don 

19 is saying is, and I felt, too, it was 

20 important that we keep our finding numbers 

21 sequential.

22 MS. MUNN: Yes, it is.

23 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Go ahead, Don.

24 MS. MUNN: No, I was just commenting. This 

25 is Wanda. I was saying, yes, it is important 
102

1 that we keep them numerically.

2 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yeah, I felt 

3 that was more important than changing the 

4 status.

5 Okay, are we all right with that then? 

6 Do we need to make any change there?

7 MS. MUNN: I think we’re okay.

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, 

9 everybody’s satisfied with that. Again, page 

10 ten is just our summary results. This is page 

11 one of two pages. And again, as I indicated 

12 earlier, the last column here is still 

13 procedure title. We did not put in this 

14 summary the name it shows on the summary 

15 screen in the database the finding 

16 description. We placed the procedure title 

17 listed in here along with the procedure number 

18 and the finding number. 

19 So this is considered what we 

20 initially developed ^ report. And then behind 

21 this report would be each individual page for 

22 these -- did we say how many findings there 

23 were here? Forty-eight findings associated 

24 with PROC-0092.

25 Now in going on to page 11 what I 
103

1 wanted to show you here is this is how you 

2 will actually generate a document to print 

3 while you’re on the term server. And what you 

4 do on this particular screen, you go to the 

5 far left-hand corner where you see file, and 

6 you’ll select file. And that will produce a 

7 drop-down box, and you’ll select print. And 

8 when you do that it opens up this print screen 

9 that you see in the middle of page 11. 

10 And you will select under the name the 

11 Adobe PDF File. It will now allow you to save

12 that file, and I assume everybody has a U 

13 drive. And just as you would do it in your 

14 document, you could save this particular 

15 output to, you would name it and save it to 

16 your U drive. And you could then download it 

17 with your secure FX and print it from your 

18 computer.

19 Everybody okay with that?

20 MS. MUNN: Yeah, good.

21 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And then 

22 finally, I guess once again shows you the 

23 results of the very first page of your detail 

24 screen. And as you can see, this was the 

25 lengthy one where you, both the findings, and 
104

1 NIOSH responded to each one of these findings 

2 so try to keep everything for one ^ for each 

3 detail or each finding on one page. That’s 

4 how we designed the database.

5 So that’s it in a nutshell, and if you 

6 have any questions or comments or changes, let 

7 us know.

8 MS. MUNN: Kathy, I thank all of you who had 

9 anything to do with this. You just really and 

10 truly need to be applauded for an excellent 

11 job. The amount of detail is overwhelming, 

12 and to have gotten this far with having the

13 entire database populated is from my point of 

14 view extraordinary, and we thank you.

15 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Thank you. I 

16 think this is going to be a very useful 

17 database and especially as we talk so often, 

18 there was always a question in everyone’s mind 

19 how are we going to ensure the findings don’t 

20 fall through the crack, and that we can link 

21 what’s happening in one work group to another 

22 work group and not lose track of a specific 

23 finding. And I think this gives us the means 

24 of doing that. 

25 But as we’ve always talked about 
105

1 having an archive of each and every finding 

2 from cradle-to-grave, from initiation-to3 resolution. So hopefully, and as I said if 

4 after you work with the database we find that 

5 there’s a more efficient way to do it or 

6 something you want added or some report or 

7 results screen that you would like to see, I’m 

8 sure that we can do that.

9 MS. MUNN: Certainly with the addition that 

10 we’ve discussed making today, what I see at 

11 this juncture covers all of the major issues 

12 that were of serious concern to me as to how 

13 we were going to address this. And I think 

14 this is true of the other members of the work 

15 group as well.

16 Thank you again, I don’t think there’s 

17 any need for us to go through any of the other 

18 additional materials that you sent unless 

19 someone specifically wants to discuss one or 

20 more of those. I’m a little concerned that as 

21 a work group we’ve had to focus so strongly on 

22 what’s happening here that many of the issues 

23 themselves are getting short shrift. 

24 But I don’t think there’s any way we 

25 could avoid that in order to shift gears as 
106

1 seriously as we are here and cover all the 

2 bases as you have done. It required all of 

3 our efforts to see that that happens first 

4 before we can get back to the serious issue of 

5 addressing each of the issues other than the 

6 ones that I have incorporated on the agenda.

7 Thank you very much, Kathy, and all of 

8 you.

9 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Oh, you’re 

10 welcome.

11 MS. MUNN: In view of the fact that it is 

12 11:30, and we have not bothered to take a 

13 coffee break even, much less a comfort break, 

14 it seems to me that this would be an 

15 appropriate time for us to break for a 45-

16 minute or an hour lunch rather than starting 

17 some other items and coming back. What’s the 

18 feeling of the group? Is this a good time for 

19 the break?

20 DR. ZIEMER: One question before the break, 

21 I’ll ask Madame Chairman and also ask Dr. 

22 Branche, are we on schedule to have Kathy 

23 present a summary of this at our next Board 

24 meeting?

25 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, actually the first day of 
107

1 the Board.

2 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, and Kathy, you’re aware 

3 of that?

4 DR. BRANCHE: She knows that.

5 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, I am. And 

6 what I want to do during the presentation is 

7 actually do a hands-on type of thing. I will 

8 generate something like you’re looking at

9 today so that we could go through page-by10 page. It would be nice if I could actually 

11 have the database online and something that I 

12 can click on. When we’re on the summary 

13 screen I could click on a field and have data

14 open up at the detail page and show you a 

15 hands-on version of the database. I’m hoping 

16 that we’ll have the, be ready to do that. If 

17 not, we’ll go through something very similar 

18 to what --

19 DR. ZIEMER: An interactive presentation.

20 DR. BRANCHE: Kathy, this is Christine. I 

21 think you’re having backup, being prepared for 

22 a backup presentation as you just expressed is 

23 appropriate. But based on everything you’ve 

24 told me, my coordination with Zaida Burgos is 

25 that we’ve coordinated with the hotel that 
108

1 will allow you to be able to in real-time give 

2 a presentation from your laptop and via the 

3 large screen provided in the room.

4 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, very 

5 good.

6 DR. BRANCHE: So if there are any 

7 particulars, any specifics that you need that 

8 you think you can send us in advance that will 

9 allow us to expedite your access to it, please 

10 send that ahead of time, but based on 

11 everything you’ve told me, I think we’re set. 

12 It’s just a matter of the hotel holding up 

13 their end of the deal so pretty much.

14 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Very good. One 

15 other question now that I do have with regard 

16 to everything that you’ve seen today, Liz and 

17 Emily and Larry. Would there be any problem 

18 with me making this presentation at the 

19 meeting?

20 MS. HOWELL: I mean, I’ll go through the 

21 slides again. I didn’t see any personal 

22 identifiers on the ones.

23 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): I was 

24 going to say I think Nancy sent me this 

25 presentation to look through. And I looked 
109

1 through it the same as Emily did. It’s a 

2 little tough to see some of the information on

3 the screen. I don’t know, maybe it’s bigger 

4 there looking at it. I would agree with 

5 Emily. I don’t think there’s any personal 

6 identifiers that would need to come out. And 

7 I think I’ve already cleared this with Nancy.

8 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay. And if 

9 you’d like I can certainly send my 

10 presentation for the Board meeting to you 

11 prior to that Board meeting.

12 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): That would 

13 be great. All we would be looking for is if 

14 you accidentally had somebody’s name or 

15 something.

16 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay.

17 MS. HOWELL: And since it’s procedures, it’s 

18 unlikely, I mean, if you could, please do send 

19 us your presentation, but I’d be more 

20 concerned if this presentation was for another 

21 working group.

22 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): If it was 

23 from a subcommittee or something where there 

24 might be a claimant’s claim number again in 

25 the name of a document, then it might be a 
110

1 problem.

2 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, very 

3 good. Thank you.

4 MS. MUNN: That being the case one last 

5 thing before we break for lunch, does anyone 

6 have any additional items that they wish to 

7 add, change or delete from the agenda?

8 DR. BRANCHE: Today’s agenda.

9 MS. MUNN: Today’s agenda?

10 (no response)

11 MS. MUNN: If not, we’ll assume we will try 

12 to cover the items mentioned.

13 MR. MARSCHKE: Do you want to talk about 

14 this draft letter to HHS?

15 MS. MUNN: We do want to talk about the 

16 draft letter to HHS, and I don’t know whether 

17 everyone has that or not. We may need to send 

18 that to everybody on their e-mail so you’ll 

19 have it on your screen at least.

20 MR. ELLIOTT: Was it in one of the files 

21 that you’ve sent yesterday?

22 MS. MUNN: Yes, yes.

23 DR. BRANCHE: I thought we established that 

24 there wasn’t going to be a draft letter to HHS 

25 when I asked you about that. Let’s ask this 
111

1 again.

2 MS. MUNN: All right.

3 DR. BRANCHE: This is a letter you’re 

4 suggesting is going to go to HHS.

5 MR. ELLIOTT: This isn’t a letter.

6 DR. BRANCHE: But it isn’t a letter.

7 MS. MUNN: No, no. This is the draft report 

8 that SC&A has put together which the 

9 discussion needs to be is this the kind of 

10 report that needs to go to the letter to the 

11 Secretary explaining to him what this change 

12 in the database is and how it now is going to 

13 affect us. That’s the question.

14 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, well, I’m --

15 DR. MAURO: Let me help out a little bit. I 

16 believe the intent of this draft report was it 

17 was our understanding that periodically you 

18 report back to HHS on the various tasks such 

19 as we do with Task Four where the dose 

20 reconstruction part is summarized, and I know 

21 that Mark is looking at it. 

22 The intent of this was to be the 

23 equivalent of that to report to HHS on the 

24 status of close out of the various issues in 

25 the first set of 30 procedures that we 
112

1 reviewed or we basically opened up for 

2 consideration by the working group because 

3 this would be something they want to look at 

4 as one way to communicate to HHS how we manage 

5 to complete our work, the Board has managed to 

6 complete its work regarding the review of the 

7 first set of 30 procedures that were reviewed. 

8 And so that was the intent. That is, this is 

9 the kind of information we wanted to report to 

10 HHS on that.

11 MS. MUNN: And it’s difficult to convey that 

12 significant information being provided.

13 DR. BRANCHE: What I’ll do is at the lunch 

14 break I’ll confer with the attorneys to make 

15 certain that given what your intention is, is 

16 it appropriate that this report go to the 

17 Board Chair, the Board and the Board Chair. 

18 And then they make that a part of their report 

19 overall. So let me just get that information, 

20 and when we open up our discussion after 

21 lunch, I’ll get back to you on that.

22 MS. MUNN: It was my expectation that this 

23 go to the full Board with a recommendation 

24 from the group.

25 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, thank you. Thank you.
113

1 MS. MUNN: We are in abeyance until 12:40.

2 DR. BRANCHE: Twelve-forty eastern daylight 

3 time, and I’m closing off the line, and I’ll 

4 reopen in one hour.

5 MS. MUNN: Thank you all. See you in an 

6 hour.

7 (Whereupon, a lunch break was taken from 

8 11:40 p.m. until 12:40 p.m.)

9 DR. BRANCHE: This is Dr. Christine Branche 

10 from NIOSH, and we’re going to start again on 

11 the Procedures work group meeting with Ms. 

12 Munn as the Chair. And again, I ask if anyone 

13 who’s participating by phone, if you would 

14 please mute your phone during our 

15 deliberations. And if you do not have a mute 

16 button, then please use star six. And then 

17 you can use that same star six to unmute when 

18 you are ready to speak. Thank you so much.

19 Ms. Munn.

20 MS. MUNN: If you have your agenda in front 

21 of you, I think what we’d like to do if it’s 

22 agreeable with all concerned, is to go ahead 

23 and go down that agenda in order that we have 

24 it and postpone our discussion with respect to 

25 our conversation earlier about the SC&A paper 
114

1 on whether or not that’s going to be too much 

2 information to be transmitting to the 

3 Secretary until toward the end of the session 

4 when we’re going to have John Mauro holding 

5 forth on another issue. We’ll just try to 

6 pull that in at the same time. 

7 I gather from your comment, Christine, 

8 that you had had some conversation about that 

9 over the lunch hour that would it be better to 

10 address now?

11 DR. BRANCHE: As you wish, we can do it 

12 later as you requested.

13 MS. MUNN: Well, if you’ve had some 

14 discussion about it, let’s go ahead and 

15 discuss it now.

16 DR. BRANCHE: Given that the Procedures work 

17 group is working under the banner of the 

18 Advisory Committee, I think it would be most 

19 prudent for this work group to provide their 

20 report to the Board. And if there’s consensus 

21 on what you all have put in your presentation 

22 to the Board, then they’ll be part of the 

23 transcripts from that meeting. 

24 And then when Dr. Ziemer does a write25 up of that meeting or any of the information 
115

1 that comes from this Procedures work group, 

2 then he can include that and as always is at 

3 liberty to include a copy of the report or 

4 elements of that report to the Secretary. But 

5 I think an outright letter or cover note or 

6 information directly to the Secretary from 

7 this work group would not be appropriate. I 

8 think it would need to go to the Advisory 

9 Board, and then you could -- Dr. Ziemer, 

10 include comments as you see fit.

11 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that’s correct. Nothing 

12 goes to the Secretary unless the Board 

13 approves it anyway.

14 MS. MUNN: We had never anticipated that 

15 that would be the case.

16 DR. BRANCHE: And I even think that even the 

17 report as SC&A has drafted it and you and the 

18 work group amend it, it would only be 

19 appropriate for the Secretary to see portions 

20 or specific comments that you think are 

21 germane for other deliberations that the Board 

22 would want to have as messages to the 

23 Secretary.

24 DR. ZIEMER: As I said, whatever goes to the 

25 Secretary has to be approved by the full Board 
116

1 as an official transmittal and an official 

2 recommendation.

3 MS. MUNN: And as always our intent, at 

4 least it was always my intent, and I think, 

5 SC&A’s, to have us debate the issue of how 

6 much is too much to submit to the Board more 

7 than anything else. And that’s going to be a 

8 bit of a thorny issue I think, but we will 

9 address it later once we get to John’s

10 presentation probably about two o’clock.

11 NIOSH: RESPONSE TO OTIB-0017 SC&A WHITE PAPER

12 First item on the agenda, NIOSH 

13 response to OTIB-0017, SC&A’s white paper.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld, we have some 

15 draft responses which I’ve not distributed to

16 the Board or SC&A. I think we want to have a 

17 little editing on our side before we provide 

18 them and also, well, certainly we want to do 

19 that. And we’ll provide them to the entire 

20 working group and to SC&A well in advance of a 

21 meeting.

22 I would like to go through kind of the 

23 basics of the SC&A report and make sure I have 

24 a good understanding of the point that’s being 

25 made so our response hits on that issue.
117

1 The first, well, we’ve just kind of 

2 broken it into a few topics, the first having 

3 to do, I believe, with essentially a geometry 

4 question. Now, to refresh everybody’s memory, 

5 OTIB-0017 relates to the interpretation of 

6 dosimetry data for assignment of shallow dose. 

7 So it’s a shallow dose OTIB. The first 

8 comment from SC&A --

9 MS. MUNN: Excuse me. Would it be helpful 

10 for us to have the white paper up as it’s 

11 being discussed?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, if you have the SC&A

13 white paper. I did not bring it. If you have 

14 it, it might be --

15 DR. ZIEMER: What’s the title and date of 

16 the paper?

17 MS. MUNN: I think the date is probably 

18 11/12/07.

19 DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): This is Bob 

20 Anigstein. The paper, in the heading it says 

prepared by SC&A, November 9th 21 , 2007.

22 MS. MUNN: And so it says OTIB-0017 --

23 DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): I would say, 

24 I don’t know if it would be practical to, I 

25 could e-mail it right now, but I don’t know if 
118

1 that would do any good.

2 MS. MUNN: No, I don’t think that’s 

3 necessary, Bob. It was just an idle thought 

4 on my part. I always like to see what I’m, 

5 what is being responded to.

6 DR. ZIEMER: Well, what’s the exact title of 

7 the file?

8 DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): Good 

9 question.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: On my document on my system 

11 it’s stored as OTIB-0017 Issues-dot-doc.

12 DR. ZIEMER: Is it a Word document?

13 MR. HINNEFELD: It’s a Word document and 

14 starts with OTIB-0017.

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): That is 

16 correct. That is exactly what I have.

17 MS. MUNN: And here’s the title of it.

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN (by Telephone): The actual 

19 title of the printed title is “Open Issues 

20 Regarding-quote-Interpretation of Dosimetry 

21 Data for Assignment of Shallow Dose-unquote, 

22 ORAU OTIB-0017, Revision 01.” 

23 MS. MUNN: Go ahead, Stu. I’m sorry. I 

24 didn’t mean to --

25 MR. HINNEFELD: I will essentially 
119

1 paraphrase in broad terms the various issues 

2 raised in the white paper and then maybe have 

3 a brief discussion about it. 

4 The first issue as I read it or as we 

5 interpret it is a comment on geometry 

6 dependence and how it may be, I think, more 

7 acute with a shallow dosimeter than with a 

8 photon dosimeter and our procedure for the 

9 OTIB not being sufficiently expansive in 

10 addressing that characteristic of shallow dose 

11 and shallow dose dosimetry. 

12 And I guess in our position as we made 

13 it as our response in a number of these 

14 findings in this venue and others, the areas, 

15 looking at a procedure by itself will not 

16 necessarily capture all the information 

17 provided to dose reconstructors on a 

18 particular aspect, in this case concerns about 

19 the geometry of shallow dose. 

20 And so we will provide a formal 

21 response, a more fleshed-out response, but I 

22 think that one thing to remember here is that 

23 while a specific procedure may be, it may not 

24 describe all the things you have to worry 

25 about in a particular issue, there’s other 
120

1 guidance that the dose reconstructors use 

2 every day and consult and are briefed on at 

3 staff meetings to discuss all those issues 

4 that go into this. 

5 And certainly when there’s a geometry 

6 concern with a particular job title or work 

7 environment, we do expect our dose 

8 reconstructions to reflect those kinds of 

9 aspects as well in this extent and to the 

10 extent that if there were a situation where 

11 you would have a significant geometry concern 

12 about a person’s exposure orientation versus 

13 how the badge was, how the badge would be 

14 irradiated in the exposure location, then we 

15 would expect adjustment appropriate to that.

16 So like I said we don’t deny that 

17 there is a particular geometry dependence in 

18 this case, but we’re not so confident that we 

19 can address everything in one procedure and 

20 that this procedure should be taken in the 

21 context of all the other guidances provided to 

22 the dose reconstructor.

23 MS. MUNN: So that essentially will be your 

24 response to --

25 MR. HINNEFELD: Something like that at 
121

1 least. See, I can always be overruled. I’m 

2 the guy who shuffles the paper, and Jim does 

3 the heavy lifting so I can always be 

4 overruled.

5 Now the second issue as I interpreted 

6 is essentially a hot particle issue. And how 

7 to address a case where -- I understand the 

8 point that’s being made. If a person were in 

9 an environment where hot particles were a 

10 potential -- and I think we can probably reach 

11 some agreement on what those environments 

12 would be. I don’t plan to do it today, but I 

13 don’t think there’d be a lot of disagreement 

14 on the kind of environments where there might 

15 actually be a hot particle -- and then 

16 develops a skin cancer and claims for a skin 

17 cancer, how do you account for this potential 

18 for hot particle exposure in a skin cancer?

19 And so in thinking about that, and I 

20 believe the suggestion is that in those 

21 situations if a person felt a skin cancer on 

22 an exposed part of their skin should be, I 

23 guess, face, neck, and maybe arms although I 

24 would argue arms. I might argue that in terms 

25 of whether that’s really allowed to be exposed 
122

1 in that kind of environment. So someone who 

2 develops a skin cancer shouldn’t be just 

3 assumed that there’s a hot particle exposure 

4 at the site of that skin cancer and proceed 

5 accordingly. 

6 And we have not done that to date. 

7 Whenever we have evidence of a skin 

8 contamination of any sort, hot particle or 

9 other, we do, in fact, do dosimetry for that 

10 skin contamination if it’s a, it’s only 

11 relevant, if it’s a skin cancer. But absent 

12 evidence of a contamination event, in 

13 particular a hot particle contamination event 

14 which is where there might be a really 

15 official^ skin dose, we don’t. We don’t 

16 necessarily assume that that spot where that 

17 skin cancer developed was contaminated by a 

18 hot particle. 

19 If you start down that path, I don’t 

20 know where you stop in terms of from the 

21 dosimetry standpoint. For instance, if you’re 

22 going to assume a hot particle contamination 

23 at that site, why only one? Why not? If one 

24 hot particle scenario that you put together 

25 doesn’t arrive at a POC above 50 percent, then 
123

1 why not assume another? Because you have just 

2 as much evidence for the second as you have 

3 for the first.

4 And then the second element about the 

5 dosimetry in this is what kind of assumptions 

6 do you make about residence time of the hot 

7 particle, you know, just based on, and do you 

8 base it on personal hygiene? Because 

9 eventually they’ll take a shower, he or she 

10 will take a shower, and there will at least be 

11 some removal during that time. And do you 

12 base it upon, you know, what do you base it 

13 on?

14 And so our approach has been absent, 

15 you know, the absent evidence of some sort of 

16 skin contamination event, we don’t necessarily 

17 assume that the site of the skin cancer was 

18 contaminated in part because I don’t know how 

19 to quantify, if you made that assumption, how 

20 do you quantify it? So that, our response, I 

21 think, will be along those lines. But like I 

22 said, we’ll have a more developed response 

23 later on and probably any kind of additional 

24 discussion might be better served at that 

25 time.
124

1 MS. MUNN: Probably. I see they recommended 

2 a course on statistics should be utilized to 

3 calculate the probability of occurrences in 

4 their opinion. But we’ll look forward to your 

5 addressing that in the response.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: And then the --

7 DR. MAURO: I just wanted to --

8 coincidentally, we’re in the process of doing 

9 blind dose reconstruction right now. And 

10 coincidentally, it turns out the person that 

11 worked at Portsmouth, and he had five 

12 independent cancers, skin cancers on his ear, 

13 neck and ^, and we’re reconstructing, doing a 

14 blind dose reconstruction. 

15 And what we have, and I think it plays 

16 toward this -- it’s something to think about

17 as a real problem. And this person always 

18 wore a film badge. So there’s certainly 

19 plenty of data on what the exposure to open 

20 window was in distance. So this person was in 

21 a beta field of any sort, close to, say, a 

22 uranium source. And one of the things we’re 

23 concerned about is did he have a hands-on role 

24 in this. We’re talking about UF-6, and he was 

25 out there. He worked with these gloves, but 
125

1 he didn’t have a hood on. So I’m envisioning, 

2 you know, ^ dust ^. And I could see this guy 

3 scratching his neck. And so I’m in a dilemma. 

4 Here I am doing a blind dose reconstruction, 

5 and I realize you can’t say anything about it, 

6 because maybe they did calculate it and maybe 

7 they didn’t. 

8 But I asked myself -- I’m doing the 

9 work --, I said, well, what am I going to do? 

10 Here’s a guy that’s got five independent skin 

11 cancers on his neck and his jaw. And if I go 

12 ahead and just reconstruct his dose based on a 

13 film badge ^ anything. But then I said, but I 

14 could see the crease of your neck, we know he 

15 did a lot of work in the Marshall Islands ^.

16 DR. ZIEMER: Who was he working with?

17 DR. MAURO: USFC^.

18 DR. ZIEMER: Natural uranium?

19 DR. MAURO: It turns out, well, he, it’s 

20 natural uranium except we have data on the, 

21 bioassay data, also because he also had an 

22 internal cancer. The data, both fluorometric 

23 and alpha, and the concentrations, and it 

24 appears that it’s really close to natural. 

25 Even though he worked in one of the buildings, 
126

1 but he did work with enriched uranium, so we 

2 get into his job description said he very well 

3 could have been exposed to some intermediate 

4 level enrichment, but his bioassay data says 

5 no.

6 So what we did was say, okay, what 

7 would be the dose rate if we had some data on 

8 -- strangely enough, EPA has a whole report on 

9 milligrams per centimeter squared. If you’re 

10 in a dusty environment, how much soot 

11 accumulates on your skin? It turns out it’s 

12 0.05 milligrams per centimeter squared. It’s 

13 a good number. 

14 And so what we did is we said, okay, 

15 let’s assume that this guy had 0.05 milligrams 

16 per centimeter squared of natural uranium on 

17 his skin. What would his millirem per hour be 

18 to his skin? And it turns out, and here’s the 

19 whole problem. Okay, we can give you the 

20 millirem per hour but how many hours? 

21 I mean, so we’re struggling with this 

22 same problem on a blind dose reconstruction, 

23 but I think it’s a real problem. Because I 

24 think, I don’t think it’s so absurd to think 

25 there’s a scenario where a person working in 
127

1 at Portsmouth could very well have gotten some 

2 uranium contamination on his face and neck 

3 especially if he wasn’t wearing, he had no 

4 respiratory protection. He’s not wearing a 

5 hood. But he did shower every day.

6 DR. ZIEMER: But, you know, the hot particle 

7 problem is ^.

8 DR. MAURO: I understand that.

9 DR. ZIEMER: It’s very high specific 

10 activity, discrete particles. You’re talking 

11 about skin contamination --

12 DR. MAURO: The dose rate is 20 millirem per 

13 hour.

14 DR. ZIEMER: That’s low compared to a hot 

15 particle.

16 DR. MAURO: Oh, I agree with you. I agree 

17 with you. But even under the circumstances I 

18 just described, I think it’s an issue. Now 

19 the hot particle kicks it up even more because 

20 the dose rates can be very high.

21 MS. MUNN: Both interesting and maybe 

22 serendipitous for us that the two are taking 

23 place at the same time. It might be helpful 

24 for the two of you to talk about offline.

25 DR. ZIEMER: But don’t help him with the 
128

1 blind --

2 MS. MUNN: No, no, no, but talk about the 

3 best, real-world, claimant-favorable approach 

4 to how to do this and that’s --

5 DR. ZIEMER: See, a true hot particle thing 

6 you can get really high doses in a time that 

7 would be less than between showers.

8 MS. MUNN: In a very short time.

9 DR. ZIEMER: Right, but the likelihood of 

10 getting that with natural uranium between

11 showers is, I can tell you intuitively, it’s 

12 got to be awfully low.

13 DR. MAURO: It turns out it’s a lot more 

14 than what you get from reconstructing his dose 

15 from his film badge.

16 DR. ZIEMER: Right. But put in the context 

17 of dose limits to skin which are much higher 

18 than anybody --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: We have a response that we 

20 owe that’s not been provided. I’m talking 

21 here in generalities from drafts. So we owe a 

22 response, and so after that response is shared 

23 with the working group and SC&A, if you would 

24 like, we could have that discussion at that 

25 point about this finding. We won’t talk about 
129

1 the --

2 MS. MUNN: No, I’m thinking it might be 

3 helpful for your purposes to have your 

4 response in hand and share it with SC&A. But 

5 then we’ll look forward to next where we, 

6 right now we don’t have another meeting 

7 scheduled until after -- at the end of the day 

8 we’re going to schedule a meeting for this 

9 work group after Tampa. 

10 And I’m assuming that anything we’re 

11 talking about here is not going to be resolved 

12 prior to the Tampa meeting anyway because 

13 we’re not going to meet again. So can we say 

14 at our next meeting that we can expect, we 

15 carried this one forward, I think, from our 

16 preceding --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I think so.

18 MS. MUNN: -- meeting with the expectation 

19 we’d have that ready by now. But we know how 

20 things go, so at our next meeting we’ll have 

21 all of these OTIB-0017 issue responses in 

22 hand? Okay?

23 MR. HINNEFELD: It’s my expectation that 

24 we’ll have our response to this white paper 

25 available probably before the Tampa meeting so 
130

1 people have it in time to work with it before.

2 MS. MUNN: All right.

3 DR. MAURO: Another facet to this is this 

4 issue has come up at the Nevada Test Site, and 

5 it’s an important issue. And the position 

6 that you folks take, at least in the case of 

7 some of the workers at the Nevada Test Site, 

8 is before they would enter a forward area. 

9 And there’s very strict controls. A person 

10 would completely suit up and be protected. 

11 And in those, a position, I believe, was taken 

12 from one of our meetings was that that 

13 scenario ^. 

14 That is, this person is, he can know 

15 that the airborne contaminants were there and 

16 the potential for that kind of contamination 

17 was there; therefore, in that scenario, he 

18 could have a ^. So there may turn out there 

19 may be certain sites and certain settings 

20 where it is a real issue and places where it’s 

21 precluded.

22 MS. MUNN: It’s just simply not feasible 

23 which is true.

24 MR. HINNEFELD: And then a final topic that 

25 really warrants a response, I mean, there was 
131

1 a discussion here where there was sort of

2 agreement with our position and state their 

3 place having to do with thicknesses of 

4 covering materials and how much a beta dose 

5 would be attenuated by clothing, for instance, 

6 that people wore, had some responses there as 

7 well. I won’t get into those, but there are 

8 various references and various sources that 

9 can be cited for thicknesses of coveralls and 

10 cotton, et cetera, et cetera. So I guess 

11 there’ll be additional discussion in our 

12 response paper.

13 MS. MUNN: And you’ll have specific 

14 responses to the characteristics that were 

15 given in the report?

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct.

17 MS. MUNN: We will say on the next agenda 

18 that we see for this group that we’ll have 

19 full responses to all of the issues raised on 

20 OTIB-0017.

21 DR. MAURO: Wanda, is it correct to say that 

22 no action items at this time for SC&A?

23 MS. MUNN: No, no action items for SC&A. 

24 NIOSH: OTIB 0019-10

25 NIOSH will verify the page change to 
132

1 OTIB-0019, comparing parametric and nonparametric 95th 2 percentile data effects. That 

3 page change has been made?

4 MR. HINNEFELD: No. We’ve had a, well, 

5 we’ve ^ and the problem is we turned this over 

6 to a statistician. So we’re analyzing the 

7 existing datasets, you know, the datasets that 

8 we’ve used for these various coworker -- this 

9 came out of coworker studies. And when we use 

10 coworker distribution, our approach has been 

11 to use a parametric description of that 

12 distribution in order to establish essentially 

13 a geometric mean and standard deviation and so 

14 to define that sort of distribution. 

15 The comment was that a non-parametric, 

16 in other words, rank-ordered distribution, to 

define the 95th 17 percentile may, in fact, be 

18 more favorable in certain instances than 

parametric 95th 19 percentile. And so in trying 

20 to deal with the actual implementation of that 

21 step, there was some discussion about, well, 

22 but is that really an appropriate thing. I 

mean, how can you use a non-parametric 95th 23

24 percentile and then use a missed dose for a 

25 dose calculation that essentially assumes a 
133

1 parametric distribution of the data? 

2 And so we are comparing actually, for 

3 the, so far we’ve gone through the internal 

4 dosimetry dataset, coworker dataset, and we 

5 are doing a comparison non-parametric to 

6 parametric. According to Jim, he’s of the 

7 opinion that what we’re doing in using 

8 parametric distribution is either neutral or 

9 favorable. I don’t know if it’s in every 

10 case, but certainly overwhelmingly. 

11 We’ve not yet applied this to the 

12 external dosimetry distributions and so 

13 there’s more to be done with the statistician 

14 there. And we may yet get out a page change 

15 in 0019-10 to address things, or we may come 

16 back to the work group with some other 

17 approach or some other reason why we believe 

18 what we’re doing is either neutral or 

19 favorable.

20 MS. MUNN: Is it likely that my statement 

21 here with respect to the review and report 

22 being ready before the St. Louis Board meeting 

23 feasible?

24 MR. HINNEFELD: That’s June or July?

25 MS. MUNN: The St. Louis meeting is in June.
134

1 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, right now I think that 

2 still might be feasible. I think we’ll know, 

3 if we’re going to schedule another meeting of 

4 this work group after Tampa --

5 MS. MUNN: We will.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: -- we’ll have a better idea 

7 at that point.

8 MS. MUNN: I had anticipated, we’ll discuss 

9 it, of course, later, but I had anticipated 

10 near the end of May possibly?

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. I think I don’t see 

12 any particular problem.

13 NIOSH: REVIEW OF OTIB-0012

14 MS. MUNN: Report on review of OTIB-0012.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: This is actually a DCF 

16 finding that came under review of OTIB-0012, 

17 but it actually speaks to the dose conversion 

18 factors for external doses that are published 

19 in our IG-0001, Implementation Guide-0001. We 

20 have done some preliminary analysis of the 

21 information that SC&A’s provided. I think 

22 there’s certainly support for all points in 

23 their analysis that require a pretty careful 

24 response. We’ve developed a list of potential 

25 courses of action in order to respond.
135

1 One of the courses of action is no 

2 change with sufficient justification on why 

3 that’s okay. And then there are other courses 

4 of action about what might be the appropriate 

5 way to adjust dose conversion factors with 

6 dose conversion factor tables if, in fact, no 

7 action cannot be sufficiently justified. So 

8 we are continuing to develop that and to try 

9 to work up our preferred position on what 

10 action is best for the program and is 

11 technically justifiable.

12 MS. MUNN: And timeline’s near the end of 

13 May still feasible with that one?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: I think that should be okay 

15 as well. There’s been a fair amount of work 

16 done on that already, and there’s still some 

17 work to do. So I think that we’re hopeful we 

18 can have something to your work group in 

19 advance of the May work group meeting.

20 NIOSH: PROC-0092

21 MS. MUNN: Good. Report on procedure 

22 language for PROC-0092.

23 MR. HINNEFELD: This is an ORAU procedure 

24 that is on conducting close-out interviews. 

25 We have the ORAU task manager who was 
136

1 responsible for that activity has marked up 

2 PROC-0092 and has distributed it within ORAU 

3 for review, part of their internal process, 

4 and is now resolving internal ORAU. So we at 

5 OCAS have not yet seen the revised version. 

6 We may, in fact, have comments as well when we 

7 see it. 

8 But I think late May would be, is a 

9 reasonable target for having a revision or 

10 some, I guess we may want to talk about how we 

11 may want to do this. We could revise PROC12 0020 and issue it. We could revise PROC-0020, 

13 have a draft revision -- I’m sorry, PROC-0092 

14 -- PROC-0092, we could prepare what we feel 

15 would be our preferred draft version of PROC16 0092 and have additional discussion here at 

17 the work group about if there are 

18 recommendations we feel like we don’t believe 

19 this warrants a change in the procedure and 

20 have discussions about that before we publish 

21 PROC-0092. 

22 I don’t know what the preference of 

23 the work group is in terms of that particular 

24 step. Or it could be that our revision 

25 incorporates every recommendation from the 
137

1 Board, and there wouldn’t be any need for that 

2 kind of step.

3 MS. MUNN: Memory fails me. I can’t 

4 remember exactly how many outstanding items we 

5 had from one of the groups that she sent, and 

6 I am looking for it now. Do we have eight out 

7 there?

8 DR. ZIEMER: Some of them are kind of lumped 

together. I’m looking at the December 7th 9

10 summary and there are really just two items 

11 showing. One lumped together Findings 4, 5, 

12 16, 17 and 21 through 30. The other lumps 

13 together five, 17 through 19 and 30 through 

14 35.

15 MS. MUNN: So that leaves us actually with 

16 only --

17 DR. ZIEMER: There’s an initial response 

18 from NIOSH in both of those dated November 

14th 19 .

20 MS. MUNN: Yeah, that leaves us with --

21 DR. ZIEMER: And then what happens after 

22 that?

23 MS. MUNN: Well, we’re looking at the new 

24 matrix gives us Procedures tracking system 

25 open items, leaves us with six after having 
138

1 combined certain issues and resolved others.

2 DR. ZIEMER: Well, they’re both showing as 

3 open.

4 MS. MUNN: My immediate response would be 

5 I’d like to see these open items closed before

6 then we consider the possibility of re-issuing 

7 another --

8 DR. ZIEMER: It looks like there is a NIOSH 

9 response that we, we actually have that’s 

dated November 14th 10 ?

11 MS. MUNN: It says, “All efforts are made 

12 during the final closing interviews to explain 

13 the dose reconstruction report and answer 

14 questions the claimant may have. OCAS 

15 believes this balance is currently being 

16 maintained and is appropriate, will be 

17 evaluated during the revision of the closing 

18 interview.” So the question then becomes 

19 whether this is an acceptable response from 

20 SC&A.

21 MR. ELLIOTT: If you’re looking at the 

22 version that was dated 3/6/2008, is that what 

23 we’re looking at here? The open issues on 

24 PROC-0092?

25 MS. MUNN: I have 3/7/08.
139

1 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, yeah, at the top it says 

2 3/7/08. At the bottom of mine it says 3/6. 

3 So the way I see this organized is it 

4 introduces SC&A’s finding, and then it 

5 introduces NIOSH initial response. And then 

6 you have work group discussion on 11/7/2007. 

7 And those are the, I guess, summary outcomes 

8 of that discussion.

9 MS. MUNN: The final outcome is NIOSH needs 

10 to discuss appropriate wording with legal 

11 counsel regarding understanding DR and SC&A 

12 should revisit the issue and come back to 

13 NIOSH with suggestions of personalized 

14 wording.

15 DR. MAURO: I don’t think we knew that.

16 DR. ZIEMER: So each page has another issue 

17 presented.

18 MS. MUNN: May I make a suggestion that both 

19 NIOSH and SC&A now work from the new matrix 

20 open issues which we believe -- I have not had 

21 an opportunity to cross-check whether the 

22 minutes of the meeting agree with what has 

23 been used to people by matrix, but let’s work 

24 on the assumption that our comments were 

25 correctly captured and that these six open 
140

1 items that are shown on the tracking system 

2 page are, in fact, appropriately recorded on 

3 the detail sheets and that the detail sheets 

4 will show you what we anticipate the next 

5 actions need to be. Is that acceptable to 

6 both --

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah.

8 MS. MUNN: -- SC&A and NIOSH? Let’s work 

9 from this and we will anticipate responses 

10 from both of you then at our next meeting. 

11 Acceptable?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

13 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I think this captures the 

14 action items we both need to follow up.

15 DR. MAURO: I guess that would give us an 

16 opportunity to implement on this particular 

17 machine that we built.

18 MS. MUNN: It will also give us an 

19 opportunity to individually check what’s on 

20 this document with our memory and our notes 

21 from the last meeting so that we can identify 

22 whether we are, in fact, on the right track. 

23 This will be our first test.

24 MR. MARSCHKE: Can I make note, with the 

25 open items that we set out, that we sent out 
141

1 are, in fact, only the open items. There are 

2 two other items that are in abeyance that 

3 basically you should also probably be taking a 

4 look at. In Finding Number 1 and Finding 

5 Number 3 are in abeyance. Because if you look 

6 at Finding Number 5, it refers to be addressed 

7 in number one which is not included in this 

8 little packet that was sent out. 

9 And Finding Number 6 refers to Finding 

10 Number 3 it says will be addressed in Finding 

11 Number 3 and that also was not included in the 

12 packet that was sent out. So you have to, 

13 this should be augmented with two additional.

14 DR. MAURO: If I recall, in abeyance means 

15 that a change in a document is in progress.

16 MS. MUNN: It’s in progress.

17 DR. MAURO: That if that change is made in 

18 accordance with what we’ve already discussed 

19 and agreed to, will resolve the issue.

20 MS. MUNN: Correct, right.

21 DR. MAURO: So in effect, whenever there is 

22 a cross-reference back, for example in the 

23 guidance that Steve just described, they’re 

24 effectively in abeyance waiting for numbers 

25 one and three --
142

1 MR. MARSCHKE: Correct. 

2 DR. MAURO: -- to be taken care of. So in a 

3 way we really need to look at those packets. 

4 And right now this is only two. In other 

5 words when we look at what’s in front of us 

6 right now, only issue number two is what I 

7 would say, yeah, we need to take some action 

8 at this time in terms of filling out this form 

9 because everything else there is in abeyance. 

10 So there really is no, I don’t think there’s 

11 any addition to be made other than trying to 

12 be responsive to the two directives that we’ve 

13 been given by you.

14 MS. MUNN: I think that’s true and in 

15 abeyance items, if I remember, are in NIOSH’s 

16 hands.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, yeah, it’s our PROC18 0092, and that’s what we’re going to revise, 

19 and we agreed that there are revisions in 

20 process. So with respect to personalizing the 

21 interviews which is where we ^ .

22 DR. MAURO: And we didn’t give that to you. 

23 We owe it to you.

24 MR. HINNEFELD: -- I don’t believe we have 

25 that yet so we can still work that into a 
143

1 revision.

2 DR. MAURO: I guess an important point, and 

3 I think we’ve addressed this before, is that 

4 when an item is in abeyance, which means we’re 

5 all in agreement and it’s just a matter of it 

6 being implemented in the procedure, I guess 

7 from the point of view of this working group, 

8 does that make the item in effect closed or 

9 does that mean that, no, it doesn’t really 

10 close until the change is made and the Board 

11 and the working group feels comfortable that, 

12 yes, the change that was made to the PROC 

13 does, in fact, meet the letter and intent of 

14 what we agreed to during the working group?

15 MS. MUNN: Originally, our agreement was the 

16 latter. That in abeyance means we’ve agreed 

17 what needs to go there. It hasn’t gone there 

18 yet. So it does not close for us until it 

19 does go there. When it does go there, then it 

20 meets the criteria we’ve agreed to earlier, 

21 and then it becomes a closed item, hopefully. 

22 So that means we do need to keep track of our 

23 in abeyance items as well as our open items.

24 NIOSH: PROC-0090 MATRIX ITEMS

25 PROC-0090 matrix issues, provide a 
144

1 summary for each box. We didn’t get that I 

2 don’t believe. If we did, I didn’t see it.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this is taking the 

4 findings from the CATI interview process. Is 

5 that what we’re talking about? I think PROC6 0090 is the CATI interview. And those 

7 findings originally were on three other 

8 procedures, you know, numbered differently. 

9 Those three procedures were then consolidated 

10 in PROC-0090, but that consolidation didn’t 

11 address the findings under procedures, and so 

12 our action was to essentially complete the 

13 findings matrix for PROC-0090 by copying those 

14 findings of those earlier procedures into 

15 PROC-0090. 

16 And quite frankly, I haven’t done that 

17 because I expected a new version of the ACCESS 

18 database. I thought why don’t I just work 

19 from the new version because we’re already 

20 going to have enough additional coordination 

21 time or making sure, you know, that I am not 

22 trying to write to it the same time somebody 

23 who uses ORAU is trying to write to it. 

24 So I was anticipating getting a new 

25 matrix which is now up on, you know, the 
145

1 ACCESS database which is now up on the O drive 

2 and running. But now, we’ll go ahead and 

3 we’ll do it. So we haven’t done it now 

4 because we were waiting for the issue -- to 

5 essentially for it to be operating on the O 

6 drive.

7 MS. MUNN: I guess we’ll have to rely on 

8 your discretion to identify whether the data 

9 that’s being used for people, the matrix, is, 

10 in fact, what needs to be there.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I had just intended to 

12 copy the existing findings. 

13 MR. MARSCHKE: I think we’ve already done 

14 that because SC&A’s already taken from PROC15 0004, -0005 and 0017, I believe it is, yeah, 

16 and taken all those findings and turned them 

17 into PROC-0090. So all those have been, so 

18 that part has already been done. In this 472 

19 findings that was shown on Kathy’s database 

20 includes not only the original findings in 

21 PROC-0004, 0005 and -0017, but also their 

22 mirror images in PROC-0090.

23 MS. MUNN: So those are transcribed 

24 verbatim.

25 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s correct. 
146

1 Excuse me, this is Kathy. Yes, I did try and 

2 do that in the database. I created a new 

3 PROC-0090 findings, and I added in the NIOSH 

4 follow up, the information that Stu had 

5 forwarded to all of us on, I think the date is 

December 11th 6 , 2007. I incorporated his 

7 comments into the database. So as long as 

8 Stu, Stu can go in there and just verify that 

9 the information that I entered is appropriate, 

10 I think this has been completed.

11 DR. MAURO: Are these then items which we 

12 agree in principle here is the solution? Are 

13 these then sitting in the database as in 

14 abeyance?

15 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I have these 

16 right now as open items on PROC-0090 because 

17 none of the issues were resolved under PROC18 0004, -0005 and -0017. So everything was 

19 transferred, all of the findings were 

20 transferred over to PROC-0090, and I actually 

21 have them classified as open because nothing 

22 was resolved. I know we’ve asked this 

23 question every time we have a meeting, but 

24 have we been authorized to review PROC-0090?

25 MS. MUNN: I didn’t think so.
147

1 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, then 

2 that’s why they’re open. And again, open 

3 means there’s been no further discussion on 

4 these items under the PROC-0090 procedure, 

5 which I don’t think there has. And if it’s 

6 open-in progress that would mean that we have 

7 been given authorization to review that 

8 procedure, and we’ve started the issues 

9 resolution process. But that I didn’t believe 

10 had happened yet for PROC-0090 so that’s why 

11 the status in PROC-0090 says open only meaning 

12 it’s on the database, but there’s not been 

13 anything, we’ve had no discussion on these 

14 topics.

15 MS. MUNN: So what we’re expecting at our 

16 next meeting is that all of these items will 

17 have been reviewed on the new matrix and from 

18 that we are likely to have discussion taking 

19 place in the work group as to whether or not 

20 these are adequate responses or whether 

21 additional action is necessary, right?

22 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s what I 

23 would anticipate.

24 MS. MUNN: All right. Is this going to be 

25 at this obviously long work group meeting that 
148

1 we’re going to have in May?

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean, it’s going to 

3 be a discussion of information that’s in place 

4 now. So we can certainly do this. And I 

5 think our practice has been, I think, to do 

6 that in the work group’s fashion.

7 MS. MUNN: Right.

8 DR. MAURO: So really, let me just make sure 

9 what I’m hearing exactly. There are really 

10 two steps to the process. One is to move the 

11 issues out of the old place where it was, 

12 four, five and 17, move those issues into 

13 PROC-0090 where they should be, and that’s 

14 where they now sit.

15 MS. MUNN: That’s correct.

16 DR. MAURO: And the issues themselves as a 

17 substantive issue need to be addressed.

18 MS. MUNN: Correct.

19 DR. MAURO: And so the next step in the 

20 process is no action at SC&A’s, but you folks 

21 have, what, put out a white paper or put out a 

22 --

23 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, there are responses. 

24 I guess to be honest, I need to go back and 

25 refresh my memory on the various responses and 
149

1 things of that sort. I know there, it seems 

2 like there may be some actions we suggested 

3 we’d like to look into or certainly as that is 

4 feasible, those sort of things.

5 DR. MAURO: You’re doing --

6 MR. MARSCHKE: We had some representative, 

7 on this report thing that we’ve put together, 

8 we had some representative findings in one of 

9 the appendices. And if you look at page, if 

10 you happen to have that document, if you look 

11 at page 17, there are two representative 

12 findings on there which kind of meet this.

13 One was a finding on PROC-0004 which 

14 is Finding 2 from PROC-0004, which now becomes 

15 Finding 2 of PROC-0090. And we show what the 

16 SC&A initial finding was, and we show what the 

17 NIOSH initial response was. And so below that 

18 is another example from PROC-0005 that went 

19 over into PROC-0090. And again, it has the 

20 SC&A finding and the NIOSH initial response.

21 But as far as I know, as Kathy 

22 indicated, there has been really no working 

23 group discussion as to the adequacy of the 

24 response or does SC&A buy in with the response 

25 and so on and so forth. Does the working 
150

1 group buy in with, you know, where do we stand 

2 with these things? So that’s kind of, I 

3 guess, and to tell you the truth I really 

4 don’t know.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: I would propose that 

6 certainly from our side we go back and look at 

7 findings and responses. Did we look into 

8 feasibility? Did we do that? Did we make 

9 revisions to the procedure because of this ^

10 where we are. And I can provide a report back 

11 to the working group well in advance of a late 

12 May meeting that would either say here’s some 

13 additional things to consider on these 

14 responses or we believe our response 

15 adequately addresses it and for whatever 

16 reason we don’t, you know, won’t address this 

17 finding change or as we said in our response, 

18 we have now done this change or consider this 

19 modification and actually made it. So I would 

20 think that we could come back with some 

21 refreshment of our collective memory about 

22 where we are on this.

23 MS. MUNN: That would be very helpful. It’s 

24 been many months since we addressed some of 

25 these items individually, and this will be the 
151

1 first time that we will have seen them in 

2 their new, improved format. 

3 DR. MAURO: What we’re saying right now the 

4 way in which this machine which we’ve built, 

5 the database we built, in effect what we would 

6 have, as I understand it, there’s going to be 

7 a date that says this working group meeting. 

8 And in that there’s going to be a place that 

9 says this issue, this item number, PROC-0090, 

10 number two -- that’s what we’re talking about 

11 -- was discussed. Those are sections that, 

12 okay, what do we do during the working group 

13 meeting with regard to this? It was 

14 discussed. 

15 And then we have to have something, an 

16 action item. It sounds like there was an 

17 action item that’s coming out of this that you 

18 have directed NIOSH to prepare. Now is that 

19 material, the material that you’re going to be 

20 in a position at the next meeting to discuss 

21 this?

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I’ll distribute it 

23 before the next meeting.

24 DR. MAURO: Now does that become a white 

25 paper? What does that become?
152

1 MR. HINNEFELD: If we made that entry in the 

2 database that you just suggested, it can be 

3 the next response or ^.

4 DR. MAURO: So it’s if it’s new, it’s 

5 something that goes in here. If it’s ^, then 

6 it becomes a white paper.

7 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Excuse me, 

8 Wanda. This is Kathy again. Just to add to 

9 this particular discussion I handled this 

10 particular procedure on actually Procedures 4, 

11 5 and 17 a little bit different than I’ve done 

12 with some other procedures that were not 

13 replaced but just where we were looking at a 

14 revised document. But let me explain.

15 If you go into the database right now, 

16 and you go to ORAU PROC-0004, which was an 

17 initial scheduling of the telephone 

18 interviews, you’ll see under the details list 

19 that we initially identified this finding in 

our first set on January 17th 20 , 2005. There’s a 

21 NIOSH response in there on October where there 

22 is a working group discussion that had been 

23 put in there on 7/26/2006. 

24 And then we clearly state in there 

25 that this issue has been moved now to PROC-
153

1 0090. And we closed this item under PROC-0004 

2 because I just thought that was a cleaner way 

3 of handling it because we’re picking it up 

4 anew under PROC-0090. And so under PROC-0090, 

5 you know, same issue, same finding, but you 

6 can trace back. 

7 And Stu should be able to go back into 

8 the database. I don’t know that there’ll be 

9 as much detail as he’d like, but you can go 

10 back into the details and see where, how this 

11 finding initially was identified and where it 

12 is now. But I did close it under PROC-0004.

13 MS. MUNN: That’s what we had agreed we 

14 would do earlier, yes.

15 MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay.

16 MS. MUNN: Yeah, that’s good.

17 All right, I think we all know what 

18 we’re all doing and what we anticipate. With 

19 any luck at all we can get through this 

20 without a white paper. Hopefully, we can just 

21 address these issues on the matrix itself.

22 NIOSH: TIB-011-01 AND -02

23 Review of any new response items for 

24 the matrix in addition to what Stu sent us 

25 just last week on TIB-0011, items one and two.
154

1 MR. HINNEFELD: I can give a little bit of 

2 status on this. We have, TIB-0011 was dose 

3 for respiratory tract components. I think 

4 that was the one from radon progeny ^ Joyce 

5 commented on. We provided the revised. There 

6 were, in fact, some errors in the TIB-0011 

7 that was out there to the claimant favorable 

8 side. So an erroneously high dose was being 

9 calculated. We provided revised numbers. 

10 Joyce wrote and said that, hey, I’m 

11 still having trouble reproducing these. Can 

12 you show the calculations? We can do that. 

13 We’ll do that. The calculations are, these 

14 calculations are actually done three different 

15 ways. We did them on an Excel spreadsheet. 

16 Dave Allen put that together and that 

17 spreadsheet has a variety of calculations that 

18 aren’t related, you know, unrelated. 

19 And there’s also, as you can imagine, 

20 you get a whole big spreadsheet, a workbook of 

21 Excel calculations, you’ve got to figure out 

22 exactly where you are so you just kind of put 

23 together sort of a Rosetta Stone to understand 

24 what’s being done on the spreadsheet. In 

25 addition, our contractor did the same 
155

1 calculations using IMBA Expert, which is a 

2 version of IMBA that we actually don’t utilize 

3 at OCAS that our contractor has. And it has 

4 at least some portion of these radionuclides 

5 available, and so it goes through calculations 

6 and does it. 

7 And they also did another application. 

8 I believe they used Math CAD and then just 

9 powered through the differential equations for 

10 each part of the bioassay model, the metabolic 

11 model. I would guess what he did was give the 

12 definite intervals for each year of those 

13 differential equations, and then you get total 

14 residence in the organ and then used specific 

15 effective energies from the ICRP publication,

16 combined with the residence time. 

17 Now you’ve got to be an internal 

18 dosimetry geek to worry about this stuff, 

19 which is what I am, unfortunately. And so he 

20 just powered through it that way. And the 

21 three techniques came, you know, we said there 

22 were three. Now there’s some decimal changes 

23 in fractions, a percentage or two change 

24 differences amongst the three or maybe more 

25 than four percent, but just a few percent 
156

1 differences among the three techniques. But 

2 with the three different calculational inputs 

3 we thought that this ^.

4 MS. MUNN: But they’re not really 

5 significant.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: But it’s fairly clear that 

7 when you start to do this depending on how you 

8 solve it and what you do, and what assumptions 

9 you make, you can be different. So it’s 

10 important for us to make sure we could provide 

11 SC&A this is exactly what was done. And then 

12 they can either critique that or say, okay, I 

13 understand ^. So that’s what we did.

14 We will provide those calculations, at 

15 least the Excel calculations. You know, we 

16 could provide the results from that and the 

17 results from IMBA Expert, but we couldn’t 

18 really provide, I don’t know that we could 

19 provide the code. I don’t know if you guys 

20 use those or not, those applications. Anyway

21 --

22 MR. MARSCHKE: It would be Joyce who would 

23 be looking at it.

24 MR. HINNEFELD: -- Joyce probably has her 

25 own way to do it.
157

1 DR. MAURO: Yeah, I think she has it, yeah.

2 MR. MARSCHKE: That’s why I think she wants 

3 to basically compare the way you did it to 

4 what she’s doing because whatever she’s doing, 

5 you know, implied from the e-mail it doesn’t -

6 -

7 MR. HINNEFELD: She’ll get the same answer 

8 and so it may be, I’m thinking it’s probably 

9 some sort of assumptions that go into doing 

10 the calculation versus the actual calculation 

11 answer.

12 DR. MAURO: What I hear is two action items. 

13 NIOSH to provide SC&A with a spreadsheet as 

14 you see appropriate that we will need. And 

15 that SC&A, once we receive that material, we 

16 will review it and check the numbers. Because 

17 right now we were unable to confirm the 

18 numbers that have been provided.

19 MS. MUNN: I’m glad you articulated that for 

20 me because my next question was going to be, 

21 all right, what do we do next.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Other things that I can 

23 report on real quickly, we have a series of 

24 findings on our, you know, OCAS Procedure 5, 

25 which is our conduct of assessment procedure. 
158

1 Since we do have some responses, and, in fact, 

2 have made a series of revisions to PROC-0005, 

3 draft revisions, in response to that. So I 

4 could provide that to the work group 

5 forthwith.

6 MS. MUNN: Good.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: And we do have a draft 

8 internal of some responses to Findings OTIB9 0018-hyphen-0005 and -0006 that we’ll provide 

10 forthwith in our ^.

11 MS. MUNN: So we’ll expect two additional 

12 items from you.

13 DR. MAURO: Wanda, as this new material 

14 comes in and it’s loaded up into the database 

15 by NIOSH, I guess there’s some question of 

16 whether or not we look at it and review it or 

17 do we wait to get direction for us to do it? 

18 Right now we did get direction when we 

19 received the spreadsheet related to this ^ 

20 respiratory tract, we have been authorized to 

21 look at.

22 MS. MUNN: Yes.

23 DR. MAURO: We will. But now there are a 

24 number of other places where material 

25 apparently is going to be loaded up into the 
159

1 database which may or may not. Should we wait 

2 until you have a chance to look it and we 

3 regroup, and then you can decide whether or 

4 not you’d like for us to look at it? Or do we 

5 automatically look at new material as it comes 

6 in?

7 MS. MUNN: I would like to say go off and 

8 look at all new material as it comes in, but I 

9 don’t think that’s practicable, at least not 

10 immediately. I don’t think that’s practical. 

11 It appears to me -- and please other work 

12 group members stop me if I’m incorrect -- it 

13 appears to me that we are going to need to use 

14 the new matrix for a couple of work group 

15 meetings to get familiar with my proposed 

16 process of simply printing out the open and in 

17 abeyance summaries as our marching orders and 

18 identifying our priorities from those at each 

19 meeting.

20 Does anyone have any other feelings 

21 about that? It just seems precipitous to me 

22 for us to say, no, as things show up, go look 

23 at them. I think the work group needs --

24 MR. HINNEFELD: There will be an opportunity 

25 to decide as I provide, if I provide 
160

1 something, I’ll provide it to the work group, 

2 and I’ll provide it to SC&A, I mean, just for 

3 ease. And at that point you can have a 

4 discussion about which of these, you know, you 

5 might be able to read from the initial read of 

6 our response whether you think it warrants ^ 

7 evaluation, additional follow on or whether, 

8 for instance, if we say we agreed we would 

9 provide PROC-0092 to address this, and we send 

10 you some words, you know, the draft words in 

11 draft PROC-0092 are this. And you say, okay, 

12 that’s what we wanted, well, you know, that’s 

13 ^. So it can be decided at the time the 

14 information is provided rather than decided in 

15 advance.

16 MS. MUNN: It seems to me that if we don’t 

17 work out the mechanics of exactly how this is 

18 going to go, and it will take us, I think, a 

19 couple of meetings to work out the kinks, that 

20 we may not only miss some of the open items, 

21 but we also may get at cross purposes and have 

22 people working on something that’s less 

23 pressing than perhaps other things that the 

24 work group would wish to address. We’ll work 

25 on the assumption that that’s ^ for the next 
161

1 couple of meetings anyway.

2 DR. ZIEMER: I agree. I think that’s 

3 appropriate.

4 MS. MUNN: SC&A, are you ready, John? There 

5 are a couple of things. Do we want to address 

6 the question of the overview and summary 

7 results for the first set and what our 

8 feelings are with respect to bringing this as 

9 it is to the Board or making any suggestions? 

10 Or do we want to go to the review of PER-9? 

11 Which would you prefer?

12 SC&A: REVIEW OF PER-9

13 DR. MAURO: I would say since this is on the 

14 agenda, I know Hans, I believe Hans is on the 

15 line, and he’s actively involved in PER-9, 

16 maybe we can get a briefing on where that 

17 stands, and that shouldn’t take too long.

18 MS. MUNN: Very good. Are you with us Hans?

19 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, I am.

20 MS. MUNN: Excellent. It sounds like you’re 

21 on stage.

22 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Do I have the 

23 approximately the half hour that’s on the 

24 agenda for discussing this issue?

25 MS. MUNN: Correct.
162

1 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Well, let me 

2 just refresh everyone’s mind as to what this 

3 is about. We’re talking about under Task 

4 Three we were asked to look at some PERs. And 

5 the one that is probably foremost in terms of 

6 importance is PER-9, Program Evaluation Number 

7 9 Report. And that particular PER centers 

8 around the selection of target organs that 

9 involve lymphatic and hemopoietic cancers. 

10 And let me just give an overview as to why 

11 that is important.

12 To go back to the understanding of how 

13 certain types of lymphoid tissues are 

14 affected, we have to go back to ICRP-66 report 

15 which talks about the pass-through blow model 

16 and how when you inhale certain radio 

17 particulates into the lung, that they are also 

18 transferred. One of the major clearance 

19 mechanisms for the clearing of the lung of 

20 radio particulates, is by way of alveolar 

21 macrophages which takes, phagocytizes these 

22 micro particulates and transfer them to the 

23 lymph nodes.

24 And at that point through ^cytosis and 

25 use of various enzymes, these materials are 
163

1 basically regurgitated by macrophages and are 

2 now in the proximity of lymphoid tissue. And 

3 what has happened therefore, is that we have a 

4 potential for concentrating radioactivity in 

5 small volumes of lymphoid tissue that will 

6 ultimately give rise to doses that can be much 

7 higher than you get in the lung tissue. 

8 In fact, if you’re talking about the 

9 radionuclides that are of particular concerns 

10 we’re talking about, alpha emitting particles 

11 or isotopes that obviously include plutonium, 

12 uranium, americium and thorium, and, of 

13 course, when you have an alpha emitter in 

14 close proximity to cells, you get a very, very 

15 high dose.

16 And just for a sense of getting an 

17 understanding, if you look at the dose on a 

18 relative scale for an isotope that is an alpha 

19 emitter, and you compare the dose to the lung 

20 versus to lymph nodes of the thoracic area, 

21 you will possibly get doses that are a couple 

22 of orders of magnitude higher. And, of 

23 course, that’s even further emphasized when we 

24 talk about in days past when lymph nodes or 

25 lymphomas were reconstructed using the highest 
164

1 non-metabolic organ, which in most instances 

2 was then the colon. 

3 So you can understand the impact of 

4 this particular revision that defines PER-9. 

5 That is, using target organ that in days past, 

prior to February 10th 6 , 2006, were dose 

7 reconstructed using non-metabolic organs, when 

8 in fact they should have used lymph nodes. 

9 And as I said, you can be talking 

10 about differences now in days past versus 

11 under the new regimes of dose reconstruction 

12 we can talk about differences up to three 

13 orders of magnitude in doses. So we’re not 

14 talking about percentage values by orders of 

15 magnitude that might impact previous dose 

16 reconstructions done under the original method 

17 versus the revised method.

18 Anyway, just to bring you up to date, 

19 as a result of this issue for PER-9, NIOSH has 

20 revised two major documents. One of these is 

21 OCAS TIB-012 or 12, and the other one is ORAU 

22 OTIB-0005. And these are now going to reflect 

23 the revision in organs that will be selected 

24 for dose reconstruction. 

25 And there are two types as I’ve 
165

1 already mentioned. The internal organ target 

2 organ will frequently now involve for many 

3 lymphomas the thoracic lymph nodes or the 

4 extrathoracic lymph nodes as opposed to in 

5 days past, the highest non-metabolic organ. 

6 In addition to that which is really the major 

7 driver to that, external organs have also been 

8 revised. So these two documents, OCAS TIB9 0012 and ORAU OTIB-0005, have revised in some 

10 instances external as well as internal target 

11 organs for various lymphomas.

12 And just to bring you up to date as 

13 part of the PER, NIOSH went back and looked at 

14 the universe of lymphomas that have been 

15 reconstructed under the old method and which 

16 resulted in a POC of less than 50 percent. 

17 Those are the ones that obviously were of 

18 concern. And they identified at total of 528 

19 cases. There were a total of 28 cases that 

20 for some reason or other were not, they were 

21 affected by other issues, and so we were left 

22 with 500 cases.

23 And so NIOSH reevaluated these 500 

24 cases in the current or revised TIB and OTIB 

25 as I’ve just mentioned, and on the basis of 
166

1 that reevaluation a total of 152 cases that 

2 were formerly defined by POC values of less 

3 than 50 percent, have now exceeded the 50 

4 percent value and have been compensated. And, 

5 of course, that leaves a total of 348 of the 

6 500 cases that were reevaluated but under the 

7 new guidance documents still had POC levels of 

8 less than 50 percent; and therefore, they 

9 still remain as denied claims.

10 Anyway, I have begun to review what we 

11 were asked to do in terms of evaluating PER-9, 

12 and if you recall, we had submitted the 

13 protocol for doing so. And in the protocol we 

14 had just briefly identified five subtasks in 

15 behalf of each of these reviews. And at this 

16 point in time I have completed subtasks one 

17 through four, and I’ve yet to start in subtask 

18 five. 

19 And subtask five I’ll just postpone 

20 it, but I’ll mention briefly, is really the 

21 nuts and bolts of this issue, at least it 

22 would appear. Because under subtask five we 

23 were supposed to conduct audits of dose 

24 reconstructions that were affected by the PER 

25 under review. So that at this point we have 
167

1 yet to review a particular dose reconstruction 

2 that has been reevaluated under PER-9. And 

3 the reason we haven’t done so is because the 

4 work group has not at this point made its 

5 selection of the particular DRs that we are to 

6 review. 

7 And I think in part I want to talk 

8 about and talk to you, Wanda, and the other 

9 members of the work group in trying to figure 

10 out how to go about making a selection of the 

11 particular DRs that we are to review. And 

12 it’s not just a random selection of the 348 

13 cases that are likely to be the universe of 

14 cases, but I think we may want to have a more 

15 focused selection, and I’ll discuss that 

16 later.

17 But let me briefly talk about where we 

18 are today with regard to the first four tasks. 

19 In reviewing the basis -- and under subtask 

20 three let me briefly talk what subtask three 

21 was looking for us to do. 

22 And under subtask three -- and I’ll 

23 quote from our proposal -- we were to assess 

24 NIOSH’s specific method for corrective 

25 actions. In an instance where the PER 
168

1 involves a technical issue, SC&A will review 

2 the scientific basis and/or sources of 

3 information to ensure the credibility of the 

4 corrective action and the consistency with 

5 current and consensus science.

6 Anyway, what it means is that I went 

7 over, and I looked at the revisions to OCAS 

8 TIB-0012 and OTIB-0005, and with that NIOSH 

9 consulted with two outside experts, one of 

10 whom is a medical doctor who is certified in 

11 internal medicine as well as in hematology. 

12 And the other outside expert that NIOSH used 

13 is Dr. Keith Eckerman who is well known in the 

14 circles of Health Physics. ^ of internal 

15 dosimetry and familiarity with ICRP-66 and so 

16 on. 

17 And then looking at these revisions, 

18 as I said, many, many of the lymphomas have 

19 been revised in terms of their ICD-9 codes and 

20 with the selected internal and external target 

21 organs are now reconstruction doses. Also, in 

22 looking at that data, and there have been 

23 many, many changes, I also came to some 

24 concerns about whether or not there are some 

25 issues that have yet to be resolved. 
169

1 And let me just briefly talk about 

2 what my concerns are. When we look at the 

3 ICD-9 codes, we realize there are somewhat 

4 contemporary segregation of lymphomas that 

5 reflect on the current day methods for 

6 oncologists and pathologists who are in a 

7 position to look at a biopsy and determine 

8 what is the cell line from which this 

9 particular neoplasm was derived, and that is 

10 not a hard science. 

11 It has certainly changed over the 

12 years and has improved, but looking at Dr. 

13 Carlton’s report that he submitted to NIOSH --

14 he was asked to sort of look at this and come 

15 to some conclusions as to how to go about 

16 making these changes and also in behalf of Dr. 

17 Eckerman’s report. It certainly raised a 

18 number of issues in my mind. 

19 And those issues center around how 

20 accurate can we at this point in time look at 

21 a particular lymphoma and somehow or other 

22 determine on the basis of existing pathology 

23 reports and pigeonhole that into an ICD-9 code 

24 that now determines which external or internal 

25 target organ should be used for dose 
170

1 reconstruction? 

2 And it’s clear that there are very, 

3 very definite questions about the ability to 

4 do so. And I know from my own pathology 

5 books, and when I went in graduate school I 

6 took a course in pathology, and the textbook 

7 we used, and I reference this in my write up 

8 is Cecil, which had a publication date of 

9 1979. And I reviewed some of this 

10 documentation that involves lymphoreticular 

11 neoplasms, and they are not an easy bunch to 

12 diagnose, specifically, the non-Hodgkin’s 

13 lymphoma because it really represents a fairly 

14 heterogeneous group of neoplasms.

15 Heterogeneous meaning that it 

16 represents a host of lymphoid tissues from 

17 bone marrow-derived lymphocytes, thymus18 derived lymphocytes, macrophages and 

19 mononuclear cells. And, of course, like all 

20 cancers we’re not dealing with mature cells, 

21 but we’re dealing with a whole spectrum of 

22 cells that range from the very, very primitive 

23 stem cells from which all of these cells are 

24 derived, but intermediate cells in various 

25 stages of cell differentiation. 
171

1 And where I, in terms of going over my 

2 pathology book, and I looked at it again the 

3 various diagnostic tools that are used to 

4 establish what is the cell of origin because 

5 it’s very critical to identify the cell of 

6 origin in the treatment of these cells. Some 

7 of these lymphomas are extremely 

8 radiosensitive; some are more sensitive to 

9 chemotherapy. So it’s imperative that the 

10 oncologist and pathologist get to understand 

11 what is the cell of origin in giving the 

12 patient his best chance of treating that 

13 particular cancer. 

14 And what you repeatedly find as of 

15 1979 in my text is that there was a tremendous 

16 amount of uncertainty with regard to how to 

17 classify the particular neoplasms, 

18 specifically those that are of non-Hodgkin’s 

19 types. The Hodgkin’s lymphoma is fairly 

20 easily because it’s a single cell. It’s 

21 called the Reed Sternberg cell, and it is 

22 clearly a cell that is readily recognizable 

23 even under light microscope. The other cells 

24 of non-Hodgkin’s type lymphoma are very 

25 complex and sometimes the oncologist is forced 
172

1 to say I really don’t know where this came 

2 from.

3 And we don’t ^ neoplastic cell really 

4 reflect its origin or identifies its origin. 

5 And what it really comes down to is this. We 

6 may have some very good idea today in 

7 contemporary science because our clinical 

8 methods for distinguishing these various 

9 neoplasms have certainly improved, mostly in 

10 the field of immunology. Immunology took a 

11 great leap forward in the 1980s and 1990s. 

12 And what really concerns me today is 

13 that when we have a claimant whose lymphoma 

14 was diagnosed 20, 30 years ago, well before 

15 these very, very definitive and more 

16 sophisticated methods came about in defining 

17 the cell of origin, what do we do in terms of 

18 looking at a reference for that claimant, his 

19 medical records, and in today’s world decide 

20 which ICD-9 code does this particular cancer 

21 really fit into? 

22 Because it’s extremely critical when 

23 you have certain types of cancer that will 

24 determine whether or not the internal target 

25 organ is the lymph node thoracic or is it the 
173

1 extrathoracic lymph node or it may be the 

2 spleen or it may be the bone marrow. And 

3 depending on which ICD-9 code is assigned to

4 these particular lymphomas, you’re going to 

5 see potential dose reconstructions suddenly 

6 vary by orders of magnitude and determine 

7 whether or not a claimant will have a 

8 favorable dose reconstruction that will be 

9 compensated or denied. 

10 And I have to be honest with you. In 

11 looking at the information, I believe it’s 

12 still premature for us to go to the next 

13 subtask five and say we’re ready to do an 

14 audit and close the book on this. I believe 

15 that it’s important for us to review what has 

16 been done to PER-9, which target organs have 

17 been selected and where are there still 

18 tremendous uncertainties. 

19 And I believe even NIOSH in looking at 

20 the revised TIB and OTIB has come to the 

21 conclusion that, yes, with these types of 

22 cancers including leukemias which are

23 generally thought to be of bone marrow origin. 

24 There’s tremendous uncertainties in the 

25 literature in the text as I’ve uncovered among 
174

1 the specialists in oncology, there’s still 

2 uncertainty whether or not you classify a 

3 leukemia as leukemia or if there is

4 uncertainty as to whether or not it’s a 

5 lymphoma.

6 And as I said, it would make a 

7 tremendous difference in terms of how you 

8 reconstruct doses. I believe we may want to 

9 have another sit down session and perhaps 

10 engage people who are clinically skilled and 

11 experienced in giving us some kind of an 

12 understanding as where is the uncertainty in 

13 defining certain types of cancers and are we 

14 necessarily claimant favorable in saying, 

15 well, it’s most likely the tissue that was 

16 derived from the bone marrow. But would it 

17 what they most likely mean is that if it is 

the 90th percentile, 95th 18 percentile, and at 

19 what point do we violate the uncertainty issue 

20 in being claimant favorable and when we don’t 

21 really have a definitive answer. 

22 And as I said, I’m going to be writing 

23 something up here, and I will want to forward 

24 this to the working group and let the working 

25 group make its decision as to whether or not 
175

1 it warrants some additional discussion as to 

2 how sure are we when we say, no, it’s not the 

3 lymph nodes of the thoracic region or the 

4 extrathoracic region, but it is, in fact, the 

5 spleen or the marrow or some other higher non6 metabolic organ which will certainly make a 

7 big, big difference to the claimant in terms 

8 of whether or not he will have a POC that 

exceeds the 50th 9 percentile. 

10 So I just wanted to make that as an 

11 issue. I think I will write this up, and 

12 hopefully have it in the working group’s hands 

13 in a matter of a week or so when I finalize my 

14 statements. And then I think the working 

15 group may have to have a teleconference call 

16 and discuss whether or not an additional 

17 discussion is necessary that may bring 

18 together perhaps an expert in the field of 

19 oncology and perhaps in the fields where the 

20 specialist dealing with the various types of 

21 lymphoma, Burkitt’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s 

22 lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and 

23 hemopoietic cancers generally speaking.

24 So I think having said that I also 

25 want to go back and perhaps we can add the 
176

1 final touch to the issue, and I mentioned that 

2 we have not yet done subtask five and that is 

3 the selection of the types of dose 

4 reconstructions that the working group will 

5 have to select for us to do an audit on. 

6 And the reason I say this is that I 

7 mentioned to you up front the universe of 

8 lymphomas that were initially evaluated were 

9 500. One fifty-two were compensated now, so 

10 that leaves 348, and that is basically now the 

11 universe from which the working group may have 

12 to select a group of DRs that we will now 

13 audit.

14 But I think not all DRs under that 348 

15 group is necessarily of equal value, and let 

16 me explain why. What NIOSH did, and 

17 graciously so, they said we are going to look 

18 at all lymphomas that were less than 50 

19 percent regardless of whether or not the POC, 

20 the original POC, was zero or approaching zero 

21 or up to 49.9 percent. 

22 So at this point the 348 cases that 

23 represent the universe for the working group 

24 to select from represented a very, very broad 

25 spectrum of a value the DRs. And what I would 
177

1 like to do is sort of focus on perhaps those 

2 DRs where an audit could potentially uncover 

3 an issue that may require some additional 

4 assessment, and let me briefly point out what 

5 they may be.

6 I think it is worthwhile to have a 

7 spreadsheet of the 348 cases -- and I think 

8 NIOSH could readily do this without a lot of 

9 work -- that would identify these DRs, one 

10 through 348, and then identify certain 

11 characteristics of that reevaluation. 

12 Determine whether or not, for instance, the 

13 original DR for those 348 was a maximized dose 

14 or a best estimate dose, and that’s going to 

15 be a big difference. 

16 If we are going to review a previous 

17 maximized dose, that would mean we would not 

18 only evaluate this particular case in the 

19 context of PER-9, but clearly with the likely 

20 higher doses that might be assigned as a 

21 result of PER-9, they may take away again 

22 other doses that under the maximized dose 

23 reconstruction will no longer be handed to 

24 this particular claimant. So our dose 

25 reevaluation for that case would be a 
178

1 comprehensive one. 

2 On a contrary, if the original dose 

3 reconstruction for a case was as a starting 

4 point a best estimate, then we’re only going 

5 to be looking at the issues that are addressed 

6 under PER-9. So it would be very important 

7 for us to identify up front the 348 cases 

8 where the original DR was a maximized dose or 

9 a best estimate.

10 The other thing I’d like to see is 

11 what is the new or revised POC that obviously 

12 all of the 348 are still below 50 percent. 

13 Wouldn’t it be nice to know whether or not we 

14 have in some cases a revised POC that is the 

15 40s, 40 percent or higher? It would be nice 

16 to know that. 

17 It would be nice to know why this 

18 particular dose reconstruction was devalued. 

19 Was it due to the fact that under the revised 

20 OTIB-0012 and -0005, was it due to a revision 

21 to the internal target organ or the external 

22 target organ or the internal and external? I 

23 would be very definitely interested in 

24 focusing on the, principally, the revision to 

25 the internal target organ and perhaps the 
179

1 internal and external. If it’s strictly 

2 external chances are it wouldn’t really matter 

3 a whole much anyway.

4 The other thing that I would like to 

5 see is what is the type of lymphoma? What 

6 were the classification? Under what 

7 classification was this, this reevaluation was 

8 made? So it would be nice to understand for 

9 the 348 DRs what was the assigned ICD-9 codes.

10 And let me see here. I had a couple 

11 of other issues that I wanted to look at. 

12 I’ve lost it, but I will provide the working 

13 group with a spreadsheet-type of format that 

14 will identify the things that we may want to 

15 look at in saying this is very important and 

16 for the work group to consider so that we’re 

17 only going to be looking at, I believe, three 

18 or four or five DRs as part of this PER-9 

19 evaluation.

20 So it would be very wise to make a 

21 selection of those cases where we get the most

22 bang for the buck, and looking at those cases 

23 where we really have a vested interest in 

24 determining whether or not the PER-9 did what 

25 we expected it to do. So I think I will leave 
180

1 or open up the door for questions here if 

2 anybody has any questions that involve any of 

3 the stuff that I just talked about.

4 MS. MUNN: Hans, your suggestion with 

5 respect to our focusing our specific attention 

6 is certainly well taken. I’ll have to admit 

7 you covered so much material in such depth, 

8 and I don’t know about the other folks around 

9 the table, I’m overwhelmed and probably will 

10 not be able to fully grasp what you’ve had to 

11 say until I see your written report. It will 

12 be very helpful for me to be able to think 

13 about the issues with the information clearly 

14 in front of me.

15 I believe Larry has a comment.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, this is Larry Elliott. 

17 I wanted to interject a comment at this point. 

18 Excellent summation, Hans, of the science 

19 behind this change. NIOSH would agree with I 

20 think all of the comments that you have made 

21 about ICD-9 codes changing over time, the 

22 difficulty in diagnostic techniques as they 

23 developed over time, the application in dose 

24 reconstruction in our decision-making process. 

25 One thing I think, however, that I 
181

1 didn’t hear in your report, and I think this 

2 goes really to the end game here, what NIOSH 

3 does with these particular types of dose 

4 reconstructions for lymphoma is we run a 

5 series against different target organs, and we 

6 take the most claimant, the highest POC that 

7 makes the --

8 Am I correct in this, my thinking 

9 here, Stu?

10 MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t believe so. I 

11 believe TIB-0005 specifies a specific target 

12 organ for internal and external, but now -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: I thought on the change that 

14 you were going to do what you described. 

15 Maybe that hasn’t been initiated yet.

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, it’s been initiated, and I 

17 believe Jim Neton would be the expert to talk 

18 and speak about this. But I believe based 

19 upon the information within a particular 

20 claim, the ICD-9 code that is reported and the 

21 site of the cancer or the cell --

22 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, the site of the cancer 

23 becomes the driver.

24 MR. ELLIOTT: It becomes the driver. And we 

25 select different --
182

1 DR. ZIEMER: I mean, it doesn’t matter what 

2 the dose is to the other sites if there’s no 

3 cancer there, does it?

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the issue with 

5 lymphoma is that the lymphoma tissue 

6 circulates, and so if you find a lymphoma in 

7 your armpit, for instance, it develops in your 

8 armpit. It does not mean that your armpit was 

9 the origin for the cancer. And so there are a 

10 lot of specific descriptions of cancer, 

11 whether you go by the written description or 

12 ICD-9 code, where I think it’s TIB-0005 

13 addressed the dose reconstructor to use, for 

14 this ICD-9 code use this internal target organ 

15 if any of those say thoracic lymph nodes.

16 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Let me add to 

17 that, the point well taken, Stu. The issue of 

18 lymphomas is really driven by the stage in 

19 which the cancer’s detected. If it’s a very 

20 superficial primary lesion that is readily 

21 recognized such as in the groin, the inguinal 

22 glands or under the armpit, oftentimes that 

23 particular, initial awareness of the lymphoma 

24 is also one that allows you to make a very 

25 early diagnosis under Stage I. Stage I 
183

1 meaning that there is a single lesion, and at

2 that point you don’t worry about any other 

3 secondary cancers. 

4 On the contrary, when you have a 

5 lymphoma that has its origin deep in, let’s 

6 say, in the chest cavity, you may not be aware 

7 of it, and the only time you do become aware 

8 of it is when the lymphoma spreads to 

9 secondary lymph nodes that are now visible. 

10 Because oftentimes these lymphomas may exist 

11 for years, and they’re painless. They do not 

12 present a problem. And it’s only when 

13 something triggers their diagnosis that you 

14 may now be in Stage II, III or IV that you 

15 become aware of it.

16 Now the problem then is when a biopsy 

17 is taken, it’s usually not one that 

18 necessarily involves the primary lesion if it 

19 turns out that the primary lesion may have 

20 occurred in the chest because of the lack of ^ 

21 and the pain and all the other issues. So 

22 what’s happened is the physician will take a 

23 biopsy of the most readily available area of, 

24 or the lymph node that is most accessible; and 

25 therefore, that particular lymph node may not 
184

1 be the primary lesion at all. 

2 And so I think what you have to look 

3 at is what is the stage in which this 

4 particular lymphoma was diagnosed. And if 

5 you’re fortunate enough, your Stage I lymphoma 

6 is confined to a single lymph node. And, of 

7 course, then you’re correct, Dr. Ziemer, in 

8 saying that’s the area where it most likely 

9 would be the exposure took place, but that 

10 would only be confined to Stage I-type 

11 lymphomas.

12 DR. MAURO: Hans, would I be correct then in 

13 the selection process of which ones we’d look 

14 at, the place where the underestimate might 

15 lie are for those cases where the person was 

16 diagnosed with, let’s say, a Stage III, Stage 

17 IV. And it’s under those circumstances where 

18 you could misdiagnose the organ of origin and 

19 possibly underestimate the dose by quite a 

20 bit.

21 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes. In fact, 

22 and, of course, I would also focus on claims 

23 where the diagnosis occurred 20 years ago. As 

24 a former, I used to be very much involved in 

25 immunology before I went back to Health 
185

1 Physics. And I’m aware of the many 

2 immunological techniques, cell surface markers 

3 that differentiate the T-cells from D-cells

4 and the natural cure cells and all these 

5 things.

6 Those were these monoclonal antibodies 

7 that are used for ^ antibody techniques that 

8 we use so much today as diagnostic tools for 

9 establishing cell lines for cancerous cells. 

10 Those are things that didn’t exist before 1975 

11 or ’80. Those things came in more recent 

12 years. 

13 And I would be very interested in 

14 looking at some of the claimants’ cases where 

15 the lymphoma was diagnosed in the ‘50s and 

16 ‘60s and ‘70s or in the later years and 

17 understand where difficulties that may exist 

18 in trying to somehow or other, as I mentioned, 

19 pigeonhole a claim that’s involved in lymphoma 

20 that was diagnosed, let’s say, in the late 

21 ‘60s or early ‘70s, long before ICD-9 codes 

22 came in. 

23 In fact, one of the things that you 

24 will see in my write up, I went back to my own 

25 pathology textbook, and it gives you the 
186

1 nomenclature changes that occurred in medical 

2 text that even pre-date the ICD-9 codes. And 

3 so you have a real problem here in trying to 

4 figure out what to do in dose, particularly in 

5 lymphomas, that were diagnosed decades ago in 

6 trying to somehow or other pigeonhole them in 

7 today’s ICD-9 codes on the basis of which we 

8 now have to do dose reconstruction using 

9 internal and external target organs.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: If I could offer perhaps a 

11 pathway here based on something we’ve talked 

12 about. First of all, understand you’re going 

13 to deliver a report that at least includes the 

14 subtask three work that you’re describing.

15 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: And it may be appropriate at 

17 that time for NIOSH to prepare bases for 

18 selections of target organs and focus on the 

19 ones that did not select thoracic lymph 

20 because the thoracic lymph nodes for someone 

21 who’s exposed internally is the sweet spot 

22 essentially in these diagnoses. That gives 

23 you the largest, it’s the largest exposed 

24 tissue from an inhalation of an alpha emitter, 

25 if an alpha emitter has any kind of retention 
187

1 time in the lung at all, or a long retention 

2 time in the lung. So not since NIOSH made the 

3 decision, and I am really not the guy to carry 

4 this conversation, but since NIOSH made the 

5 decision that not every ICD-9 code will we 

6 consider the thoracic lymph the target organ, 

7 there must be a reason why certain ICD-9 codes 

8 were not included. 

9 So it would be at that point that 

10 NIOSH could provide a basis for the decision

11 making that selected other internal target 

12 organs for certain ICD-9 codes and based upon 

13 Hans’ write-up which focuses on history which 

14 as I understand it is exactly right on how 

15 these things, you know, they’re very difficult 

16 to diagnose today let alone long ago.

17 And so the justification for this 

18 selection should have some sort of temporal 

19 aspect to it. As you go back in history why 

20 you feel okay that this, and what do you know 

21 about the process and why you feel that this 

22 is okay to select this other target organ 

23 besides thoracic lymph. So that then can 

24 address that fundamental issue of why that 

25 rather than to try to select based on that 
188

1 kind of issue, you select cases based on that 

2 and try to solve it that way, let’s try to 

3 solve that question based on --

4 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): The issue is 

5 really one of time here and the date of 

6 diagnosis will be a pretty good variable. And 

7 while you were talking, I just thought about 

8 the one variable that I couldn’t recall off 

9 the top of my head. But it is also one that 

10 I’d be glad to include in the matrix, and that 

11 is one lymphoma case. 

12 This involves a person who had a known 

13 exposure to an alpha emitting radionuclide. I 

14 think that’s very important for us to know. 

15 Was there a reason to suspect that he was 

16 exposed to an airborne environment involving 

17 plutonium, americium, uranium and thorium? 

18 I think it’s very important because as 

19 you mentioned, this is the critical group of 

20 people because when you have an alpha emitter 

21 that’s in the lung, and it’s transported to 

22 the regional lymph nodes, this is where the 

23 big doses come into play. If the person was 

24 exposed to an excretion product involving beta 

25 and gammas, okay. It’ll make a difference, 
189

1 but the dramatic difference really comes into 

2 play when we deal with an airborne exposure 

3 that involves an alpha emitter.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: So we can, okay, Hans, you 

5 suggested that you would send essentially a 

6 format for this spreadsheet to show the 

7 various characteristics. If you would do 

8 that, I’m pretty confident we can sort these, 

9 put these 348-some-odd cases in the 

10 spreadsheet you request. I’m pretty sure we 

11 can do that.

12 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): I don’t think 

13 it will take you that long. I would think we 

14 obviously know the date of the diagnosis. You 

15 know the type of lymphoma, the ICD-9 code that 

16 was used. You know what the new POC was. You 

17 know whether or not the original dose 

18 reconstruction was either a best estimate or a 

19 maximized dose. So I don’t think it will take 

20 you that long to go through that, but it will 

21 certainly improve the likelihood of us doing a 

22 dose audit evaluation that says let’s focus on 

23 the ones where it really counts.

24 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, we can take care of 

25 that. I’m certain that these will be easy and 
190

1 others will take a little work, but it won’t, 

2 it shouldn’t take that much time.

3 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Let me also ask 

4 you something. I don’t want to speak 

5 cynically of Dr. Carlton, but he’s certified 

6 in internal medicine, and he’s a hematologist. 

7 And I did look, I Googled him and so forth, 

8 but I don’t think he really has the clinical 

9 expertise that you would like to have, and

10 that would involve a person who, let’s say he 

11 works for M.D. Anderson, who’s an oncologist 

12 who’s very, very much involved on a day-to-day 

13 basis with the clinical diagnostic methods 

14 used to establish these types of cancers, 

15 hopefully, lymphomas. 

16 Is there somebody else that NIOSH has 

17 looked at for perhaps serving in that 

18 capacity? Even if you’re looking at somebody 

19 who may not be an oncologist per se, but Dr. 

20 Neal Waldon was one of my former mentors when 

21 I was at the University of Pittsburgh. He’s 

22 extremely well versed obviously in the issue 

23 of hematology but also how it relates to 

24 cancer and how it relates to radiation issues 

25 because he was one of the key members early on 
191

1 involving the A-bomb survivor studies. 

2 Is there any other individual that you

3 might want to think about in terms of giving 

4 him an option to assess this whole issue of 

5 the PER-9?

6 MR. ELLIOTT: That’s up to the working 

7 group. That’s not up to NIOSH.

8 MS. MUNN: One of my questions was going to 

9 be who would be your dream team if you

10 actually had access to almost anyone that you 

11 knew of who might be expert in these 

12 particular matters, but my second question 

13 that comes to my mind is do we have the 

14 financial resources and the authority to go 

15 get that person? I have no feel at all 

16 whether there is authority vested in this 

17 group to suggest that such expertise be made 

18 available to us.

19 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Well, I am sure 

20 that you can probably go through the National 

21 Academy of Sciences with your people and come 

22 up with someone who is not only versed on the 

23 radiological issues and cancers but also has 

24 the clinical expertise. As I said, I don’t 

25 want to speak negatively about Dr. Carlton, 
192

1 but I don’t think he has the clinical 

2 experience. 

3 Although, as I said, when I read his 

4 report, he was not exactly shy about saying 

5 that there are a tremendous amount of 

6 uncertainties that you introduce in trying to 

7 make a diagnostic decision as to where this 

8 cancer came from. It’s clear. It’s a very 

9 short report he wrote, but you can certainly 

10 gather that he is not necessarily one that 

11 says the ICD-9 code is an easy code to use in 

12 labeling a lymphoma even by today’s standards.

13 MS. MUNN: I suspect that several of us know 

14 individuals who, if not adequate in specific 

15 expertise, are certainly well informed with 

16 respect to individuals who would fit that 

17 category and could probably provide the names 

18 of two or three individuals who would 

19 certainly be acceptable to almost anyone. But 

20 my question still remains as to whether or not 

21 we are authorized to do that, having no feel 

22 at all --

23 DR. BRANCHE: I can tell you.

24 MS. MUNN: Yes, good.

25 DR. BRANCHE: I think that the resources 
193

1 that we have set aside for the Board serve the 

2 needs of the Board given their current level 

3 of activity. I would hate to give you the 

4 impression that there are other resources 

5 available to contract with additional 

6 expertise. We can check into that further, 

7 but I would suspect that this is a very 

8 resource-poor period of time to bring in 

9 additional resources for this.

10 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Under that 

11 circumstance --

12 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Ziemer wants to say 

13 something.

14 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I’m just wondering if 

15 SC&A under their own contract couldn’t pull in 

16 someone like Neal Long as a consultant to them 

17 if you had specific issues that you wanted 

18 Neal to help with, Neal Long or Fred Mettler

19 would be another one.

20 DR. MAURO: I’m seeing this as a next step 

21 issue. There are going to be a collection of 

22 cases that were denied, that were old 

23 diagnosis some time and where the dose was not 

24 derived from a thoracic component. There will 

25 be a collection of them which we’ll zero in. 
194

1 And then we have a group of people sitting 

2 around a table talk about those cases and the 

3 diagnoses, and where in those cases, let’s 

4 say, they use the colon as your surrogate for 

5 the dose reconstruction. 

6 And we’re going to ask ourselves and 

7 Fred Mettler or Neal Long is it reasonable 

8 under these circumstances for this case, see, 

9 we’re looking for are there any cases where it 

10 would have been not unreasonable to say, well, 

11 no, no, no, we shouldn’t have got, if you 

12 wanted to really give the benefit of the doubt 

13 to this guy, we should have assumed not the 

14 colon, not the spleen. We should have assumed 

15 thoracic lymphoma. I think that kind of 

16 judgment could emerge from a meeting.

17 DR. ZIEMER: I don’t think it’s SC&A’s task 

18 to identify the cases. You might want to, if 

19 there’s one that sort of proves the principle, 

20 that makes a big difference, it seems to me 

21 that the burden is always on NIOSH to go back 

22 and say we’re going to review all the cases or 

23 cases that have these characteristics. 

24 Even if you bring on an example that 

25 shows that the dose is ten times different, 
195

1 but it didn’t change the outcome, as long as 

2 you prove the principle that this has an 

3 impact, it seems to me it’s NIOSH’s job. I 

4 would not like to see SC&A searching through 

5 to find all the cases that were missed or 

6 necessarily say we’re going to search till we 

7 find a case.

8 DR. MAURO: I agree with you.

9 DR. ZIEMER: It’s true that you want to find 

10 one that’s a good representative and say does 

11 it make much difference. What’s the best case 

12 to select? But to put a big kind of effort 

13 into this and bring in a blue ribbon committee 

14 of consultants to do it, I don’t think you 

15 need to do that. We’ll use our best judgment. 

16 If we need to consult with a couple 

17 people and pay them a few hours of time, I 

18 don’t think it’s a big deal, but I’m just 

19 concerned that there’s a tendency for the 

20 Board and its contractors to out-step our 

21 boundaries and say, well, we’re going to do 

22 this because it needs to be done. Now, if it 

23 needs to be done in a more inclusive way, then 

24 it becomes NIOSH’s task.

25 DR. BRANCHE: Well said. Well said.
196

1 DR. MAURO: Absolutely. What we were hoping 

2 to accomplish is to sensitize this working 

3 group and NIOSH with this concern. From here, 

4 really, the baton is now, this is our concern. 

5 We sort of passed on our concern, and I think 

6 you fully understand where our concern is 

7 coming from. And now it’s just really a 

8 matter of the degree to what does NIOSH think 

9 is the reasonable thing to do to deal with 

10 this concern. Quite frankly, I think we’re 

11 out of the picture now.

12 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Let me also 

13 make a comment in regard to our budget 

14 constraints and so forth. But I’m looking 

15 obviously at this work group that is this 

16 moment chairing this whole issue, and allow we 

17 have wonderful people with lots of 

18 qualifications, but I would as a minimum like 

19 to add perhaps to this work group for this 

20 particular issue the two medical doctors that 

21 we have on the Board, Lockey and Melius, and 

22 perhaps engage them in a minimum way to review 

23 this issue.

24 DR. ZIEMER: Again, and I’m looking at the 

25 wording of the subtask right now. The subtask 
197

1 shows up in the proposal to David Staudt dated 

June 22nd 2 . And it says, “Evaluate the P-E-R3 stated approach for identifying the universe 

4 of potentially affected DRs and assess the 

5 criteria by which a subset of affected DRs 

6 were selected.” And then, let’s see, well, 

7 that’s the focus.

8 DR. MAURO: To me it’s pretty 

9 straightforward. We owe the working group a 

10 report. Hans is basically close to finishing 

11 the report. We’re going to deliver it, and 

12 then after that the working group makes its 

13 decision on the next steps to take. I think 

14 what Hans did is basically give you the verbal 

15 of what that report’s going to look like.

16 DR. ZIEMER: But this doesn’t require that 

17 we even do a DR review.

18 DR. MAURO: I think case 0-5 --

19 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, 0-5 --

20 DR. MAURO: -- and we’re recommending not to 

21 do it. In effect what we’re saying is you may 

22 have an expectation because our proposal said 

23 we would do that. What we’re saying is no, it 

24 probably is premature for us to do it before 

25 you have a chance to look at this issue. And 
198

1 if you decide after looking at the material 

2 that Hans delivers, yes, it would be a good 

3 idea to pick a couple of cases, picking that 

4 case is going to be done by the working group 

5 with appropriate consultation. And only at 

6 that point do we come back in again.

7 DR. BRANCHE: Right.

8 MS. MUNN: I’m reluctant to leave this 

9 issue, but we don’t really and truly have any 

10 choice. We’re constrained by the fact that we 

11 have another work group that has to be on the 

12 line at three o’clock.

13 DR. ZIEMER: And we haven’t really got the 

14 official report from Hans yet either.

15 MS. MUNN: And we can’t leave this hanging 

16 until our next meeting. That just simply 

17 won’t do.

18 CALENDAR ITEMS

19 So, Hans, do you have a feel as to 

20 when we may have your report? It’s going to 

21 be my recommendation that once we know what 

22 that time is that we schedule a teleconference 

23 of this group for an hour or two hour 

24 conference, something of that sort, to pin 

25 down specifically who has what action and how 
199

1 we will proceed from there if that’s amenable 

2 with everybody. So the ball is in your court 

3 right now with respect to what’s the timing 

4 need to be.

5 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, I think I 

6 can probably have a draft report available to 

7 the working group probably within ten days.

8 MS. MUNN: That’s good. So that would be by 

9 the end of, that’s putting us close to the end 

10 of March. Could we take you at your word 

11 strongly enough to talk about the possibility 

of a teleconference on the 27th or 28th 12 of this 

13 month?

14 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): I think so. 

The 28th 15 is the, I hear Kathy, because she’s 

16 supporting me in this effort, she say’s the 

28th 17 . I always listen to the boss.

18 DR. BRANCHE: I’m not available that day, 

19 but I am working on a group of people to be a 

20 substitute DFO. But I have not confirmed 

21 that, so that day right now is not, neither of 

22 those two days are good for me.

23 MS. MUNN: Okay.

24 DR. BEHLING (by Telephone): There are work 

group meetings on the 25th and 26th 25 which I’m 
200

1 part of.

2 MS. MUNN: That’s correct. Yes, I’m aware 

of those, but apparently the 27th and 28th 3 are 

4 out as well which puts us into April.

DR. BRANCHE: Well, the 31st 5 of March, that 

6 Monday, is a possibility. There’s a Mound 

7 working group on the first, and if you want to 

8 do it by conference call, I would say the 

9 second or the third. I wouldn’t do the fourth 

10 simply because it’s the last working day 

before we meet in Tampa, if the 31st 11 or second 

12 are amenable to you, Wanda.

13 MS. MUNN: I’m already going to be in 

14 Florida that weekend, but we can’t move it 

15 earlier because he won’t have it ready.

16 MS. HOWELL: Are all of the working group 

17 meetings scheduled for full days? I mean, we 

18 couldn’t --

19 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, absolutely. The Fernald 

20 and the Subcommittee and Mound are all full 

21 day meetings.

22 MS. MUNN: They’ll be full days. We can’t 

23 get around them, no question about it. And so 

24 we can’t move them earlier than that. 

25 Tuesday, the first?
201

1 DR. BRANCHE: That’s Mound.

2 MS. MUNN: Wednesday, the second?

3 DR. BRANCHE: I could do that.

4 MS. MUNN: Is Wednesday, the second, 

5 amenable to everybody who’s on this call?

6 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): Yes, Dr. 

7 Branche, I just wanted to let you know the 

8 Office of General Counsel won’t be available 

9 until 11 o’clock that day.

10 MS. MUNN: Until 11 o’clock eastern?

11 MS. HOMOKI-TITUS (by Telephone): Yes.

12 MS. MUNN: That would just be delightful for 

13 me if we scheduled it for Wednesday afternoon, 

April 2nd 14 .

15 DR. BRANCHE: Would you want to do it at 11 

16 or at one, eastern time?

17 MS. MUNN: Let’s say one eastern time.

18 DR. BRANCHE: And that’s going to be a 

19 conference call?

20 MS. MUNN: Yeah, conference call 

21 specifically on review of Hans’ document which 

22 we will then have in hand.

23 DR. BRANCHE: And then you wanted to 

24 schedule another meeting face-to-face, did you 

25 not?
202

1 MS. MUNN: Yes, we do want to schedule 

2 another meeting face-to-face. I would suggest 

3 the third week in May.

DR. BRANCHE: The week of May 19th 4 ?

5 MS. MUNN: Yes, correct.

6 Mark and Mike, are you still on the 

7 line out there?

8 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): Yes.

9 MR. GIBSON (by Telephone): Yeah, I’m still 

10 here.

11 MS. MUNN: Are these dates sounding okay to 

12 you?

13 MR. GIBSON (by Telephone): What’s the one 

14 in May again?

15 MS. MUNN: We’re talking about the week of 

the 19th 16 . I would suggest probably Tuesday, 

the 20th 17 , face-to-face, Procedures, here.

18 DR. ZIEMER: I can’t be here, but I can 

19 probably call in.

20 MS. MUNN: How about later in that week?

21 DR. ZIEMER: I’m out all week.

22 MS. MUNN: The entire week is the same 

23 thing.

MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): May the 20th 24 is 

25 okay for me, Wanda.
203

1 MS. MUNN: Okay, let’s do May 20, 

2 Procedures, face-to-face, Cincinnati.

3 DR. BRANCHE: Do you want to start at nine 

4 or 9:30?

5 MS. MUNN: Prefer 9:30, but it will be all 

6 day. We will not shorten this at all.

7 DR. BRANCHE: Do you prefer to go until 

8 about four?

9 MS. MUNN: Probably five.

10 DR. BRANCHE: Five. Eastern time.

11 MS. MUNN: Correct.

12 Now, there’s one other item we still 

13 have not covered that I definitely wanted us 

14 to be able to talk about before the Pinellas 

15 meeting, and that’s the one that’s the 

16 overview and summary results for the first 

17 seven of 33 procedure reviews and what we are 

18 going to bring to the full Board at Pinellas. 

19 We need to have something on there in their 

20 hands before time so that this will not come 

21 as completely new information to them. 

22 If we’re going to do that, then we’re 

23 going to have to talk about it on the 

24 telephone beforehand. Since we already have 

25 that document in hand, and I shouldn’t think 
204

1 this will take us more than an hour or two 

2 hours at the most to discuss, I’d like for us 

3 to do this fairly early on here. Is there any 

4 possibility that we can do this for an hour 

next week? How about the 19th 5 , Wednesday the 

19th 6 , an hour early in the afternoon, one to 

7 three eastern time?

8 DR. ZIEMER: We’re going to discuss --

9 DR. BRANCHE: The presentation to the Board.

10 DR. ZIEMER: Kathy’s presentation?

11 MS. MUNN: No, we’re going to discuss this 

12 overview and summary which we haven’t had a 

13 chance to talk about.

14 DR. BRANCHE: You’re going to do that by 

15 conference call?

16 MS. MUNN: Yes, conference call.

17 DR. BRANCHE: Can you push that back to, can 

18 make it two to four?

19 MS. MUNN: No problem for me. Is two to 

20 four a problem for anyone --

21 DR. BRANCHE: There are a lot of people 

22 speaking. Wanda’s trying to speak here.

MS. MUNN: Is two to four on the 19th 23

24 adequate for everyone, two to four eastern 

25 time?
205

1 MR. GRIFFON (by Telephone): That will work 

2 for me, Wanda.

3 MS. MUNN: Okay. A single item, we’re just 

4 going to be talking about this overview and 

5 summary results that John’s provided to us. 

6 Whether that’s overkill. Whether it’s 

7 underkill. What do we want to take to the 

8 Board? All right?

9 DR. BRANCHE: One last question. Does 

10 anyone have any objection to our, we’re 

11 thinking about, because this information 

12 hinges on what other work groups will see and 

13 have access to, do you have any objection to 

14 our attorneys having access to see it? No 

15 write access, just to be able to see on the 

16 database that Kathy’s put together. They need 

17 to be given access. They don’t have it now.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: No, we can develop it and 

19 get it periodically and put it where they can 

20 see it.

21 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, let’s do that. So I’ll 

22 work with NIOSH to do that.

23 MR. HINNEFELD: We’ll just have to arrange 

24 with ORAU to get it periodically so they can 

25 see it as of such-and-such a date.
206

1 DR. BRANCHE: I’m trying to get us off the 

2 line. I didn’t mean to bring up a new issue, 

3 but I’m trying to clear the line for at least 

4 15 minutes so people can get a distinction

5 between these two meetings.

6 MS. MUNN: Any other very quick items for 

7 the good of the order?

8 (no response)

9 MS. MUNN: Otherwise, thank you very much. 

10 This has been a strenuous meeting, and we 

11 could have gone on here I know for another two 

12 hours, but we’ll try to take care of this by 

13 telephone. We’ll be on tap a week from 

14 yesterday. Thank you and thank you to all of 

15 you out there. We’ll talk to you as soon as 

16 we can get our act together.

17 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, signing off for the 

18 Procedures work group meeting.

19 (Whereupon, the working group meeting was 

20 adjourned at 2:42 p.m.)

21

22

23
207

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER

STATE OF GEORGIA

COUNTY OF FULTON

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of Mar. 13,

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein.

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein.

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

14th day of Dec., 2008.

___________________________________

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102