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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

FERNALD WORK GROUP

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

AUGUST 11, 2011

+ + + + +

 

 The Work Group convened, in the 

Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, 

Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., Brad Clawson, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

BRAD CLAWSON, Chairman

MARK GRIFFON, Member

PHIL SCHOFIELD, Member*

PAUL ZIEMER, Member*
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

SANDRA BALDRIDGE

BOB BARTON, SC&A

ELIZABETH BRACKETT, NIOSH*

MEL CHEW, ORAU Team

CHRIS ELLISON, DCAS

SAM GLOVER, NIOSH

KAREN JESSEN, NIOSH*

TOM LaBONE, NIOSH*

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOYCE LIPSZTEIN, SC&A*

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

ROBERT MORRIS, NIOSH*

GENE POTTER, NIOSH*

BRYCE RICH, ORAU Team

MARK ROLFES, NIOSH

BILLY SMITH, NIOSH*

MATTHEW SMITH, NIOSH*

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

 

*Participating via telephone
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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Call to Order and Roll Call 5 

Issue #1: Coworker Model for Uranium 12

Internal Exposures

 Mark Rolfes 12

 NIOSH

 Questions and Comments 16

Issue #3: Recycled Uranium 22

 John Stiver 22

 SC&A

 Mark Rolfes 36

 NIOSH

 Bryce Rich 42

 ORAU Team

 Gene Potter 60

 NIOSH

 Questions and Comments 40, 55, 61

 Comments of Petitioner Baldridge 138
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 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S (CONTINUED)

Issue #6b: Use of Chest Counts to 146

Reconstruct Th-232 Exposures Post-1968

 John Stiver 146

 SC&A

 Joyce Lipsztein 148

 SC&A 

 Bob Barton 209

 SC&A

 Mark Rolfes 232

 NIOSH

 Robert Morris 233

 NIOSH

 Tom LaBone 253, 266, 296

 NIOSH

 Questions and Comments 181, 236, 270

Work Group Plans 297
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

2 9:02 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, everyone 

4 in the room and on the line.

5 This is the Advisory Board on 

6 Radiation and Worker Health, the Fernald Work 

7 Group. We are just getting started here.

8 (Roll call.)

9 MR. KATZ: Okay, we're back.

10 This is the Advisory Board on 

11 Radiation and Worker Health.

12 Sorry to everyone on the phone. 

13 We had a dysfunctional phone, but I think we 

14 are all set now. And we have finished roll 

15 call.

16 Let me just remind folks on the 

17 phone to mute your phone except when you're 

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

19 mute button, *6 again to unmute.

20 And it's your agenda, Brad.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. I guess, 

22 first of all, can everybody hear us okay, just 
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1 to check in?

2 DR. MAURO: I can. This is John.

3 MR. KATZ: Oh, great.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Thank you, 

5 John.

6 MR. KATZ: One last thing, Dr. 

7 Ziemer, you are on the line now? Are you on 

8 mute, Paul?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I was on 

10 mute. Sorry.

11 (Laughter.)

12 MR. KATZ: Okay. No, just glad to 

13 have you. I just wanted to make it official. 

14 Thank you.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you. I'm on 

16 the line.

17 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. To bring 

19 everybody up-to-speed a little bit, we're just 

20 finishing up the last parts of the Fernald 

21 Work Group. We've got an agenda that has been 

22 printed out on August 11th which I hope that 
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1 everybody has.

2 The first issue we are going to 

3 talk about was a NIOSH response that we need 

4 to find out where we're at. This is the 

5 coworker model for uranium exposure for 

6 Fernald construction workers. Do we have 

7 anything on that yet, Mark?

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes, Brad. Thanks. 

9 And, yes, we were trying to work as fast as we 

10 could and try to get a response in for this 

11 Work Group meeting. I have a draft report, 

12 and I can provide the update to you.

13 I am probably going to rely upon 

14 some help from Gene Potter possibly if there 

15 are questions. He is on the line, I believe.

16 Basically, what we have done, 

17 because prior to 1986 subcontractor uranium 

18 urinalysis data was not in the electronic 

19 database HIS-20 for Fernald, we went back and 

20 compared hard-copy subcontractor, construction 

21 subcontractor uranium urinalysis results. And 

22 there was a concern expressed, I think we 
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1 heard it back in January of 2010, I think was 

2 the timeframe that we had first heard this 

3 concern initially. So, this was something 

4 that we sort of looked into well into several 

5 years after the petition was initially 

6 received.

7 We have completed an analysis 

8 where we have compared that hard-copy uranium 

9 urinalysis data from the subcontractors at 

10 Fernald to the hard-copy urine samples for the 

11 full coworker population, the OTIB-78 

12 population. Well, I take that back.

13 The subcontractors were actually 

14 sampled, and there was a code of Type 50 which 

15 designated it as a special sample. Just about 

16 all of the subcontractor urine samples were 

17 designated as special samples. So, what we 

18 did, we went back and compared special samples 

19 from full-time Fernald employees to compare 

20 the excretion rates. We did this for years in 

21 the 1960s, seventies, and eighties to see if 

22 there was any difference in the subcontractor 
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1 excretion rates versus the full-time Fernald 

2 employee excretion rates. And it turns out 

3 there is a difference.

4 Based upon the year, we have gone 

5 through and analyzed the difference for each 

6 year, and NIOSH is proposing now, based upon 

7 our analysis of the comparisons of the data, 

8 we are proposing to assign intakes to the 

9 construction worker/subcontractor work group 

10 population. If they are unmonitored, we will 

11 assign an intake equal to two times the intake 

12 of the OTIB-78 values.

13 So, it turns out that there was a 

14 valid concern that the uranium urinalyses 

15 appeared to have higher excretion rates. 

16 There's many reasons behind this. It appears 

17 that subcontractors, when they were sampled, 

18 were sampled at the end of a short duration of 

19 work.

20 And so, there are some reasons 

21 that would explain the higher excretion rate, 

22 one of which is possibly contaminated samples. 
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1 However, we have no information -- if it is a 

2 contaminated sample and we are not sure about

3 it, we would use that to the benefit of the 

4 doubt for the claimant in the dose 

5 reconstruction process. So, that is one 

6 possible explanation for the higher excretion 

7 rate.

8 The other possibility is that some 

9 of these samples that we have, the person 

10 could have only been on-site for two weeks, 

11 for example, and might not ever come back to 

12 the site. So, Fernald health and safety 

13 people, in order to make sure that they could 

14 get a uranium urinalysis sample from the 

15 individual, they would get that sample 

16 whenever they could before the person left. 

17 So, they tried to collect as much data as they 

18 could while that person was on-site, so they 

19 could get something. And so, that is one of 

20 the possible explanations as well for the 

21 higher excretion rates as well.

22 You know, it could be, also, that 
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1 short-term subcontractors may have been 

2 brought in for a potentially dustier job and 

3 could have had a higher short-term duration 

4 exposure. So, it could have been a higher 

5 airborne concentration that they were working 

6 in over a much shorter duration.

7 So, that is our proposal that we 

8 have on the board. We have a draft report 

9 that I have had the opportunity to take a look 

10 at, and we can get that out to you as soon as 

11 we have it finalized.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Where is it at 

13 now, Mark?

14 MR. ROLFES: It is with DCAS in 

15 hard copy here. We have yet to finalize the 

16 report. I've got the majority of it. It 

17 should just be a matter of getting the report 

18 out in a matter of the next couple of weeks, I 

19 believe.

20 MEMBER GRIFFON: It is hard. I 

21 think we will wait for most of the discussion 

22 until we see a report, but I am trying to 
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1 figure this out. You said you compared Type 

2 50, the special sample, special out of the 

3 entire HIS-20 population, right, the non4 subcontractor data?

5 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Do you have any 

7 reason to believe that the specials were the 

8 same? I mean, did specials mean the same for 

9 subcontractors as they meant for the 

10 contractor personnel?

11 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: In other words,

13 usually "special" indicates there is some kind 

14 of incident; you might think an immediate one.

15 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: As opposed to 

17 subcontractor "specials" where they --

18 MR. ROLFES: The special scenario 

19 wouldn't have changed definitions based upon 

20 who was being sampled. So, the special 

21 sample, Type 50 sample, it was the code number 

22 of Type 50. That Type 50 wouldn't have 
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1 changed between the two populations.

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: But, I mean, the 

3 regular contract workers, a lot of their

4 samples were not Type 50. I mean I assume a 

5 small percentage of their samples were Type 

6 50, right?

7 MR. ROLFES: No, just about all of 

8 the subcontractor uranium urinalyses were 

9 reported as Type 50.

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: Let me try that 

11 again. The contractor -- I might have said 

12 "subcontractor" -- the contractor ones, what 

13 is the percentage of --

14 MR. ROLFES: The full-time 

15 employees that were on-site at Fernald, not 

16 all of their samples would be reported as Type 

17 50 samples.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: But I mean, a 

19 small percentage or was it a --

20 MR. ROLFES: I don't know.

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay.

22 MR. ROLFES: Gene, perhaps you 
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1 might have an answer? Out of the nearly 

2 400,000 uranium urinalyses in HIS-20, do you 

3 have a feeling for how many of those might be 

4 Type 50 samples from the full-time employees 

5 on-site?

6 MR. POTTER: Yes, we have got 

7 those exact numbers. I don't have them right 

8 in front of me. Perhaps I can get back to you 

9 in a little while.

10 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I know I put you 

11 on the spot, Gene, but -- 

12 MR. POTTER: Yes, the comparison, 

13 Mark, was we have the subs that we captured in 

14 hard copy that were not in HIS-20 and we had 

15 other Code 50s that were in HIS-20, and we did 

16 a comparison of that group combined with the 

17 results from the coworker study which came out 

18 of HIS-20.

19 And the biggest difference we saw 

20 was in one quarter for which almost all of the 

21 results were non-sub Code 50s, if that gives 

22 you any appreciation for what we did.
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Sort of, yes. 

2 We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: We are going to 

4 have to see it anyway.

5 So, what you are telling me is 

6 that the subcontractors that were there got 

7 twice the exposure of the full-time people 

8 that were there?

9 MR. ROLFES: That could be. 

10 That's very possible. Over short durations, 

11 because of the way they were sampled, that's 

12 very possible, yes.

13 We can't find any documents or 

14 reasons why the excretion rates could have 

15 been higher. So, if we have an unmonitored 

16 individual who is a subcontractor, we would 

17 basically double the intake rates that we 

18 would assign to them.

19 MR. STIVER: Mark, this is John 

20 Stiver.

21 Maybe it is a little premature to 

22 get into the details on this, but you said 
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1 that you looked at the sixties, seventies, and 

2 eighties. Did you see that kind of an offset 

3 or kind of a difference throughout all time 

4 periods or just in certain periods?

5 MR. ROLFES: I think the more 

6 significant difference was probably during the 

7 seventies. Let me see. Let's see. It 

8 appears that when you get up into the eighties 

9 that the difference between the two 

10 populations has decreased, the early 1980s. I 

11 would say, you know, well, late 1973 the 

12 difference between the two populations was 

13 about 1.2, a factor of 1.2 in difference. In 

14 1980, it was a factor of 2; `83, it was a 

15 factor of 2; `84, it was a factor of 1.2, and 

16 1985 was .99. So, the subcontractor 

17 population actually decreased below the 

18 routinely monitored.

19 MR. STIVER: It would be 

20 interesting to see the paper when it comes 

21 out.

22 MR. POTTER: This is Gene again.
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1 Mark, did you mention that, 

2 actually, starting in late `85 and from `86 

3 on, the construction subcontractors are in 

4 HIS-20, although if they had a code of Type 

5 50, they would have been excluded from the 

6 coworker study.

7 But what is also going on is that 

8 you have many more significant numbers of 

9 construction types, and the site exposure in 

10 general is going down. So, it doesn't look 

11 like including the Code 50s after 1986 would 

12 make a big difference.

13 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Gene.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. We look 

15 forward to seeing that report.

16 The next issue is recycled 

17 uranium, and this is SC&A needs to respond to 

18 the second White Paper on RU.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, this is John 

20 Stiver. I will go ahead and start on this.

21 The recycled uranium, as you 

22 recall, we had a pretty extensive discussion 
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1 at the April meeting. But this is all in 

2 relation at this point to the review of our 

3 second White Paper, which we were tasked to 

4 produce back at the November meeting.

5 I did, indeed, present to the 

6 Board in February. After those discussions, 

7 DCAS got tasked to respond to that second 

8 White Paper, which they did just before the 

9 April meeting. Because of the short lead time 

10 on that, we were not able to provide a formal 

11 response. However, we provided our initial 

12 impressions.

13 We, then, were not tasked to 

14 pursue this issue until the full Board meeting 

15 in May. At that meeting, we presented our 

16 preliminary observations. I believe it was 

17 shortly thereafter that DCAS provided a 

18 response, and they also posted some other 

19 references that had been uncovered, some 

20 spreadsheets, and so forth.

21 And, then, they provided a paper 

22 just this Friday, which is a position paper on 
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1 what they believe the appropriate contaminant 

2 defaults in recycled uranium should be for a 

3 different timeline.

4 Again, we have done a preliminary 

5 review of this second position paper. We 

6 haven't looked at -- there were approximately 

7 50 new citations presented there. We looked 

8 at some. There seemed to be a lot that we 

9 already had. There was some new information. 

10 But we certainly were not able to do a 

11 comprehensive analysis of that.

12 However, I think we are still in a 

13 position to be able to discuss that. I would 

14 like to go ahead and just kind of lay out 

15 where we are at this point.

16 I guess our second White Paper, we 

17 could really group our eight findings into 

18 about two different areas. One was our 

19 concerns about the quality of the program at 

20 Fernald prior to, you know, it was National 

21 Lead of Ohio's tenure before Westinghouse came 

22 in 1986.
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1 There are a lot of indications in 

2 the record that the program was really geared 

3 to more a heavy metals production capacity, 

4 that the radiological side of the shop was not 

5 really up to par. Now they do have good 

6 urinalysis of uranium or the metals work. In 

7 about the mid-1980s, about 1985, that all 

8 changed as a result of increasing awareness of 

9 the importance of recycled uranium, depleted 

10 uranium, and some of the other radionuclides.

11 So, we have some concerns about 

12 the adequacy of the program in that early 

13 period. We also questioned how DCAS had used 

14 the DOE mass-balance report data to set these 

15 defaults. I remember, originally, these were 

16 set as the basically arithmetic means of these 

17 19 subprocesses. We looked at the data, and 

18 we felt that they really were more well19 described by log-normal distributions, and in 

20 the interest of claimant-favorability and 

21 upper limit, that those distributions should 

22 be considered.
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1 And finally, we were concerned 

2 with the applicability of that data to 

3 different subgroups of workers. Which groups 

4 were really the most highly-exposed and over 

5 what period of time? And how was that data 

6 then applicable to those subgroups?

7 When DCAS came back with their 

8 response on April 17th, we were quite pleased 

9 to see that we had actually made some progress 

10 towards resolution on some of these issues. 

11 DCAS did acknowledge that the log-normal 

12 distribution was probably more appropriate in 

13 ascertaining these exposures. They 

14 acknowledged the concentration mechanism which 

15 was really one of the prime drivers of the 

16 second RU report.

17 We had looked at on-site dust data 

18 that demonstrated that in Plant 5, the metals 

19 production plant, there were significantly 

20 higher levels of plutonium and neptunium, and 

21 some of the fission products, than the earlier 

22 proposed defaults.
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1 And a lot of this had to do with 

2 magnesium fluoride, and we investigated this 

3 further. There really is kind of an 

4 interesting physical process going on where 

5 about half of the plutonium and neptunium, and 

6 presumably other fission products, a partition 

7 into the magnesium fluoride slag during the 

8 reduction process in metal production. About 

9 half of this material is reused from one cycle 

10 to the next, and is then sent back to be 

11 remilled in Plant 1.

12 And so, we are really kind of 

13 concentrating on those. We know that the 

14 metals production is one of the dirtiest jobs 

15 and you certainly have the highest dust 

16 concentrations. And it appears to also have 

17 the highest concentrations on a uranium mass 

18 basis of some of these constituents, too.

19 And so, we investigated this. It 

20 appears that, as far as the timeline is 

21 concerned, this mechanism would be in place 

22 pretty much from `61 on through. As soon as 
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1 metal production started, you're going to be 

2 getting -- the process didn't change over 

3 time. As soon as the recycled material 

4 started coming in, you started getting this 

5 concentration.

6 And so, we feel that that dataset 

7 for the magnesium fluoride is really 

8 applicable for the entire period of 

9 production. The reason we make that 

10 demarcation is because, in about 1973 to I 

11 guess in the mid-eighties, there were some of 

12 these tower ash and incinerator ash shipments 

13 from the gaseous diffusion plants which were 

14 considerably higher than the specifications 

15 for receipts in feedstocks.

16 DCAS's position on this was that, 

17 well, we're going to use that as kind of a 

18 cutoff date; we know that after that point why 

19 we have a lot more of this material coming 

20 into the plant.

21 Our position is really that, well, 

22 that may be true, but by the time you get to 
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1 this most highly-exposed group of workers, 

2 which are these metal production workers and 

3 millers, what they are seeing is this material 

4 that came in, it was more highly contaminated. 

5 It was down-blended on the front end of the 

6 process for the most part.

7 And so, the goal being to produce 

8 derbies that were within spec that could then 

9 be shipped offsite. So, the amount of 

10 materials that are experienced by these 

11 workers would really not be influenced much by 

12 the influx of these highly-contaminated 

13 materials and feedstocks on the front end.

14 And so, we feel that what we are 

15 seeing in this dataset -- and, granted, it is 

16 from `82 to `86, after the most highly17 contaminated materials arrived; we don't have 

18 any data before that -- but we are fairly 

19 confident, based on the information that we 

20 have read and the historic accounts, that this 

21 material was down-blended before it was ever 

22 reduced to metal.
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1 And so, we feel that the defaults, 

2 the new defaults that were proposed by NIOSH, 

3 this 400 parts per million of plutonium, which 

4 is really the driver here, and also the higher 

5 neptunium and technetium, should really apply 

6 throughout the entire period of production. 

7 And there shouldn't be an arbitrary cutoff in 

8 1973.

9 And I believe in the paper -- I 

10 think it is the second paper -- there was some 

11 kind of scoping calculation that was kind of 

12 predicated on the notion that there would be a 

13 proportionality in concentration relative to 

14 the feedstock. That might be true initially, 

15 but most of those types of mechanisms kind of 

16 follow the sigmoid curve and reach a 

17 saturation point at some point.

18 We don't know the dynamics of the 

19 particular physical and chemical processes 

20 that are going on. But I think to err on the 

21 side of claimant favorability, it would be a 

22 wise choice to do that.
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1 Now we have this other. And let 

2 me state that that 400 parts per billion is a 

3 reasonable bounding value for the most highly4 exposed group of production workers, which 

5 would be the metal workers and the millers.

6 However, we do have an issue with 

7 the personnel who handled these highly8 contaminated residues on the front end, what 

9 we call the down-blenders and bystanders. We 

10 feel that there has been a lot of discussion 

11 back and forth about the quality of the health 

12 physics controls that were in place. The 

13 problem is, though, that we feel that all 

14 these arguments are really subjective 

15 judgements.

16 I can understand from a health 

17 physics standpoint. I'm a health physicist. 

18 You know that you have got a competent HP in 

19 charge of the facility and you have procedures 

20 in place. You would assume -- it is kind of a 

21 tacit assumption -- that those procedures are 

22 going to be followed, the due diligence will 
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1 be done.

2 However, if you don't have that 

3 kind of culture in the facility, you don't 

4 necessarily have management support, and you 

5 don't necessarily have the resources to 

6 produce and maintain a good program in 

7 business-as-usual mode, you may still wind up 

8 with a lot of problems. We feel that NIOSH 

9 has not demonstrated quantitatively that this 

10 400-parts-per-billion value would be 

11 applicable to that subset of workers.

12 In the references that Mark did 

13 provide in the August 5th position paper, we 

14 found some additional information which was 

15 really quite nice and enlightening. Because, 

16 for the first time, we have actually have a 

17 historic record, not a complete record, but we 

18 can trace the history of at least part of 

19 those shipments of the most highly20 contaminated material that came in in 1980. 

21 This was five hoppers, approximately one-third 

22 of this material, that was repackaged in Plant 
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1 4 from April through May in approximately a 

2 three-week period in 1982.

3 During this time, there is a memo 

4 that describes what was done. There was air 

5 sampling going on. The two technicians who 

6 were doing the actual transfer from the 

7 hoppers to the drums did, indeed, wear air8 line respirators. So, we know that at that 

9 point, at the transfer point, that at least 

10 the workers that were actually involved in the 

11 actual transfer were wearing appropriate 

12 attire.

13 However, due to complaints or

14 concerns raised by other workers in the area, 

15 some of these millwrights and other people in 

16 Plant 4, and the fact that on a couple of 

17 occasions materials were dumped out onto a 

18 metal platform and broken up by hand, which 

19 resulted in pretty high airborne levels, they 

20 decided to go ahead and move the operation to 

21 Plant 1.

22 The trail kind of goes cold at 
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1 that point. We don't know what really became 

2 of that Plant 1 material. We weren't able to 

3 find any documentation of how that material 

4 was handled and processed.

5 The Joint Task Force report 

6 indicates that management claims that the same 

7 type of procedures were in place, but they 

8 didn't find any corroborating evidence that 

9 did take place.

10 Now we go on about three years 

11 later, 1985. This material, this original 

12 five hoppers, has been down-blended and 

13 processed into UO3, approximately 168 metric 

14 tons of it. We think this is probably the 

15 same batch of material based on the dilution 

16 factors from the contaminants and the amounts 

17 amassed that would have been produced versus -

18 - about a factor of 25 dilution really applies 

19 to both.

20 So, this material, the UO3, is 

21 about 40 parts per billion. The original 

22 material is about 1,000, give or take. So, 
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1 about a factor of 25.

2 And so, we are reasonably sure 

3 that this is the same material. So, we have 

4 this period of about three years, mid-`82 

5 through `84, where we really don't know. We 

6 know that the down-blending and processing and 

7 repackaging was going on during this period of 

8 time, but we don't know how it was done. We 

9 know that downstream of this repackaging that 

10 basically the standard respiratory protection 

11 requirements applied.

12 And now, pick up in 1985. There 

13 is a planning document that describes how this 

14 material was going to be handled. It shows 

15 that there is an awareness that, you know, 

16 there is going to be swipes taken, there's 

17 going to be air samples, breathing zone 

18 samples. Basically, a good program is in 

19 place to track this.

20 However, they say that they feel 

21 that no respiratory protection beyond what 

22 would normally apply in a dusty situation is 
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1 required. So, it kind of indicates to me that 

2 you have got this uncertainty here. You've 

3 got a situation where you don't have a 

4 quantified demonstration that this 400 parts 

5 per billion would apply.

6 Now you can make a common-sense 

7 kind of heuristic argument that, well, there 

8 is not that much of this stuff. It is going 

9 in in small batches, we believe. So, when you 

10 do an integrated, chronic dose reconstruction, 

11 400 parts per billion, it would probably wash 

12 out any of the spikes that came along.

13 We don't know that. We haven't 

14 seen a quantitative demonstration of that. 

15 So, we still have concerns regarding that. 

16 And for that reason, we feel that the issue is 

17 still open from the time this material arrived 

18 in 1973 until Westinghouse came in and took 

19 over and instituted a robust health physics 

20 program in 1986.

21 I don't know, Mark, if you would 

22 like to -- that's kind of my essential 
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1 presentation -- if you would like to say 

2 anything about the new paper you put out or 

3 something about that?

4 MR. ROLFES: Okay. Yes, I am 

5 probably going to just give a brief 

6 introduction and then turn it over to Bryce 

7 Rich for any detailed points.

8 Yes, I know this has been the hot 

9 topic lately. We have gone back, I guess as a 

10 result of the last Work Group meeting, you 

11 know, there were some things that were going 

12 on. We had previously been asked if we could 

13 find some of the raw data. NIOSH was able to 

14 locate a database containing 3800 raw results 

15 based upon the analyses conducted at the 

16 Fernald site for various transuranic 

17 contaminants, basically, over the history of 

18 the receipt of the materials.

19 We have also found I don't even 

20 know how many additional reports on just 

21 documentation and discussion between the 

22 Fernald site and places like NFS, you know, 
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1 just discussing that Fernald has established a 

2 maximum quantity of recycled uranium or a 

3 maximum quantity of plutonium at 10 parts per 

4 billion in the uranium that they received. 

5 They basically operated on that, basically, 

6 from the beginning of receipts of recycled 

7 uranium.

8 We have some responses from the 

9 Fernald site back to NFS saying that, if the 

10 material exceeds 10 parts per billion, do not 

11 send it to the Fernald site; we will not 

12 accept it.

13 We did find an interesting memo 

14 that Gene Potter had identified as well, which 

15 I sent out to the Work Group as well. This 

16 was from, it is in the Site Research Database. 

17 It was an extract of Reference 94117.

18 It was basically an evaluation of 

19 individual's uranium urinalyses looking at how 

20 much uranium would the person have to be 

21 exposed to. They basically were looking at 

22 excretion rates of uranium in urine and making 
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1 assumptions about how much plutonium could 

2 also be there, and whether or not that would 

3 be detectable with current bioassay.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: What is that 

5 reference number, Mark? I'm sorry.

6 MR. ROLFES: It was 94117.

7 So, it appears that the health and 

8 safety staff had considered the use of uranium 

9 urinalyses to evaluate whether or not somebody 

10 could have had a credible exposure to 

11 plutonium at the Fernald facility.

12 So, what we have done in our most 

13 recent response, we have taken that 

14 information and evaluated some of the uranium 

15 urinalyses, and took a look to see how much 

16 uranium one would have to inhale to produce 

17 this excretion rate for plutonium.

18 I am sort of jumping around a 

19 little, but I don't know if we want to --

20 Bryce, would you like to discuss some of these 

21 things and we can come back to this or --

22 MR. RICH: Why don't you go ahead?
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1 MR. ROLFES: Okay. I was just 

2 going to call on Gene.

3 This is the last few pages of our 

4 August response here.

5 Gene, to sort of put you on the 

6 spot, you have prepared some of the intake and 

7 dose estimates here in Table B-1 on page 29 of 

8 32 of our most recent recycled uranium White 

9 Paper response.

10 Could you please go through what I 

11 just briefly and quickly summarized a little 

12 bit better for me?

13 MR. POTTER: Give me a minute to 

14 get that document open. I have got about 15 

15 things open, and I don't think that is one of 

16 them.

17 (Laughter.)

18 MR. ROLFES: Okay. If this is a 

19 bad time, we can always come back to it as 

20 well.

21 MEMBER GRIFFON: While he is 

22 looking for that, Mark, on page 11 of your 
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1 report, at the very bottom, you mention the 

2 data from 1986 and the 10 samples out of 

3 nearly 500 were at the MDL level, although 

4 expected to be taken between two and sixty 

5 days after the intakes. Do you have a 

6 document number for that data as well?

7 MR. ROLFES: The data are in the 

8 Site Research Database. There were 500 

9 plutonium urinalyses that were collected.

10 MR. STIVER: So, they are in the 

11 SRDB?

12 MR. ROLFES: Yes, they are. I 

13 don't have the reference right off the top of 

14 my head.

15 MR. RICH: Yes, I can give that.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. That would 

17 be good.

18 Do you remember if that was raw 

19 data?

20 MR. ROLFES: Yes, they --

21 MR. RICH: Actually, it was 

22 summarized in the Bassett report.
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1 MR. STIVER: Yes, I read that 

2 report, the 1989 report.

3 MR. ROLFES: Five hundred 

4 plutonium urinalyses samples were collected 

5 from --

6 MR. RICH: From 441 people, 

7 workers, something like 600 urinalyses, 671, 

8 as a matter of fact.

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, I read that 

10 report.

11 Now this was actually during the 

12 campaign process, that 168 metric tons that we 

13 discussed earlier. That was material that was

14 at a level, an unblended level, of about 40 

15 parts per billion. I think it is right around 

16 35. It ranged from 20 to 40.

17 This was also during the period 

18 when Westinghouse had more robust processes in 

19 place. And so, there is a little bit of 

20 concern there that it is an apples-and-oranges 

21 type issue. Our main concern is from 1980, 

22 basically pre-1986, during a period.
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1 We can see, we agree with you guys 

2 that post-1986 you have a program in place 

3 that is adequate to control exposure.

4 MR. RICH: I may just make a 

5 comment here. That is that, during that 

6 period of time from the eighties, shortly 

7 after the eighties, there was a great deal of 

8 concern about how to process the high-level 

9 stuff. They knew that it was coming. As a 

10 matter of fact, they delayed receiving it 

11 until the bulk of it got there in 1980.

12 You mentioned the T-hoppers that 

13 came in that had the bulk of it. But I 

14 suspect they were cleaning out the bottoms in 

15 the D&D effort at the gaseous diffusion plant 

16 at Paducah, and it was unusually high and they 

17 knew it. It was a high-sensitivity receipt 

18 and process. And so, as a consequence, there 

19 is a number of documentation associated with 

20 the planning, associated with that activity.

21 As you indicate, they did 

22 repackage it, first of all, to get it in a 
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1 position where the barrels themselves could be 

2 handled semi-remotely instead of dumping the 

3 T-hoppers. And they did have some issues. 

4 They had a spill, I think, associated with 

5 that operation.

6 But the sensitivity of the program 

7 associated with handling that material was 

8 very high. And so, there is documentation 

9 associated with an indication that, No. 1, 

10 they were aware of it and they were sensitive 

11 to the issues.

12 The air samples that were taken 

13 associated with that one process -- for 

14 example, there is a report about the process 

15 in Plant 4, when they were changing, as you 

16 mentioned. It indicated that the air sampling 

17 results were relatively high. And so, they, 

18 of course, had stimulated some additional 

19 sampling.

20 And the down-blending from that,

21 of course, resulted in an increase. Well, it 

22 doubled the amount of plutonium in the whole 
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1 plant in that one shipment in 1980. It simply 

2 doubled. Twenty-five grams of plutonium came 

3 into the plant at that time. And we can go 

4 on. I have some other comments that, 

5 essentially, the plant levels raised across 

6 the board.

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, I realize that, 

8 but to get back to the model you guys are 

9 producing here, this is a one-size-fits-all 

10 model. You don't have the granularity to 

11 assign -- you know, intakes by job category. 

12 So, the integrity of this model is really, in 

13 my view, completely dependent on the ability 

14 to capture, credibly capture, the highest15 exposed group of workers.

16 I think we have a fairly good 

17 handle on most of the process workers in the 

18 plant because we have the MgF2, the magnesium 

19 fluoride data, to really -- it kind of defines 

20 -- luckily, you have got a good dataset, it is 

21 fairly robust, and it follows a log-normal 

22 fairly well. I think when you take the 95th 
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1 percentile on that, you have got most of the 

2 production workers controlled.

3 However, you still have this other 

4 issue of peopling handling stuff on the front 

5 end. Now I realize that we have got a lot of 

6 qualitative judgments here and assumptions 

7 about what was done and how it was done. But 

8 we haven't seen, from a dose reconstruction 

9 standpoint, as required under Part 82.17, a 

10 quantitative demonstration that that 400 parts 

11 per billion would be bounding for that group 

12 of workers. That is really my main concern.

13 MR. RICH: John, I would just 

14 respond a little bit here, too.

15 The data per se are not used to 

16 deal with construction. The data are used to 

17 establish a default.

18 MR. STIVER: Yes. I know. I 

19 know.

20 MR. RICH: And the default, by the 

21 way, in my personal opinion, based on looking 

22 at the entire dataset and the circumstances, 
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1 is enormously conservative.

2 And let me talk just a little bit 

3 about the magnesium fluoride stream, that 8.

4 MR. STIVER: Subgroup 8?

5 MR. RICH: Subgroup 8.

6 You see the magnesium fluoride 

7 did, you know, as you indicate, 40 to 50 

8 percent of the plutonium --

9 MR. STIVER: Is what we are 

10 concerned with.

11 MR. RICH: The interesting isotope, 

12 although neptunium plays a role, too, of which 

13 we are aware.

14 In terms of just a simple question 

15 of a calculus problem, if you put in a certain 

16 amount in the front end, then the process was 

17 to take -- well, first of all, the process 

18 involved taking uranium tetrafluoride and 

19 mixing that with magnesium metal granules.

20 MR. STIVER: Right.

21 MR. RICH: And the desire was to 

22 mix those as homogeneously as possible. The 
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1 reaction that took place, as you incrementally 

2 raised the temperature -- and it had a thermal 

3 shield made out of magnesium fluoride. 

4 Initially, it was made out of dolomite, which 

5 is an ore, calcium and magnesium ore.

6 But, after that, once that thermal 

7 reaction happened -- and they call it a bomb 

8 because it happens rapidly, and the 

9 temperature went up to 3,000 degrees. The 

10 metal coalesced. The reaction is between 

11 magnesium and the fluorine in the uranium 

12 fluoride. And so, you have a metal coalesce 

13 and drop to the bottom of the pot. Then it 

14 was cooled in a way in which it was necessary 

15 to accomplish that.

16 The point I am trying to make is 

17 that they were producing magnesium fluoride. 

18 So, they wound up with a surplus of magnesium 

19 fluoride.

20 So, No. 1, and particularly in 

21 enriched uranium feed streams, then the 

22 material is extremely valuable. And the 
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1 uranium in the magnesium stream ranged from 

2 .05 percent up to 4 to 5 percent, and it 

3 averaged about 3.6 percent uranium. So, there 

4 is uranium in that magnesium stream.

5 And the reason you mention that, 

6 of course, is that all the documentation we 

7 have got, it ratios the plutonium to the 

8 uranium in parts per billion for uranium. 

9 Well, there is still uranium in it.

10 And the issue is, if you get a 

11 really good magnesium fluoride reaction 

12 complete, you have less uranium. The less 

13 uranium you have, the higher the ratio goes, 

14 not that there is so much more of the 

15 contaminants there, but the ratio goes up.

16 MR. STIVER: I think that is one 

17 of the problems with using the ratio method. 

18 I think that is kind of a shortcoming of it, 

19 but in the situation where it is going to 

20 default to that --

21 MR. RICH: And that is recognized. 

22 The only problem is, you're right, they 
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1 didn't take routine urinalysis for 

2 transuranics. The reason for that is -- and, 

3 by the way, there is lots of documentation 

4 that indicates that throughout the history of 

5 the plant from 1964 on through they did 

6 routine evaluations, including some feed 

7 sampling. They have had to send their unit 

8 sampling off-site because they didn't have the 

9 capability. You know, that is a detailed --

10 you have to do a plutonium separation.

11 MR. STIVER: Right.

12 MR. RICH: Gene hasn't had a 

13 chance to talk about his, and I would like him 

14 to do that because he developed a spreadsheet 

15 that is very instructional from the standpoint 

16 of looking at detectability of the uranium --

17 or the plutonium -- in the feed streams that 

18 we are talking about and at the exposures, 

19 uranium exposures.

20 And by the way, we keep referring, 

21 and I am probably digressing just a little 

22 bit, but we talk about in the uranium 
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1 facilities it is easier to do a fluorometric 

2 mass analysis for uranium in urine than it is 

3 to do a chemical analysis or an alpha spec 

4 analysis. And it's excellent, good 

5 sensitivity.

6 Indeed, the permissible 

7 concentration in people is, from a heavy-metal 

8 toxic limit for uranium, is higher than the 

9 radiological -- or is lower than the 

10 radiological limit up until you get to about 3 

11 to 5 percent enrichment.

12 And so, what we have decided, of 

13 course, is to use the ratio of the plutonium 

14 to the uranium. Since you don't have specific 

15 plutonium analysis, then one size fits all. 

16 Most of the plant processes are way below the 

17 magnesium fluoride, that process. And so, you 

18 are overestimating by at least an order of 

19 magnitude or more the exposure to other 

20 plants.

21 Now, back to 10A, this is a 

22 process. We had five T-hoppers that contained 
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1 the bulk of the material, the bulk of the 

2 contamination. They took it in, they 

3 repackaged it, and then waited until they had 

4 material that they could blend it. So, it 

5 took them a while. They didn't do it all 

6 overnight.

7 But when you process a barrel or 

8 two of that, that is a short-term process, it 

9 does not go on for 2,000 hours a year. As a 

10 consequence, even the down-blended material is 

11 going to be in the 40 to 80 parts per billion. 

12 Some of it went through the plant, and some 

13 of it, it got used as UO3 directly.

14 MR. STIVER: Yes, the data I saw 

15 had the UO3 at about 40 parts per billion. 

16 Then, they evidently did a 1-to-4 dilution 

17 with clean UF4 before they reduced it.

18 MR. RICH: Yes, but, you see, your 

19 point -- and this talks to one of your other 

20 points -- says that in the period of time from 

21 1961, we have got good data from the primary 

22 suppliers, Savannah River and Hanford 
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1 primarily, and from the gaseous diffusion 

2 plants, too. The material that came in for 

3 sweetener from the gaseous diffusion plant was 

4 in the parts per trillion. It was 

5 decontaminated. You know, the recycled 

6 uranium, once it hit the gaseous diffusion 

7 plant, that is a big problem for them because 

8 the UF6 process, the insertion into the 

9 gaseous diffusion plant dropped it out. It 

10 came out in the ash, about 94 percent of it, 

11 as a matter of fact, and neptunium a little 

12 bit less, and technetium went on, all the way 

13 through.

14 But we have got a lot of 

15 information and data reports associated with 

16 evaluating all of those contaminants in the 

17 plant, a big report on technetium, for 

18 example, in the Fernald plant. It was not a 

19 radiologically-archaic program. They were 

20 mindful of their needs. They did routine 

21 evaluations based on the levels that they were 

22 seeing.
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1 And by the way, in the plant they 

2 defaulted to 80 parts per billion in the plant 

3 in general. And in the magnesium fluoride 

4 stream we have data that indicates that on a 

5 95 percent log-normal distribution probably it 

6 would default, but that is enormously 

7 conservative on the basis of the people that 

8 were actually working at Plant 5. Because 

9 once you get through with the magnesium 

10 fluoride, you turn around and load uranium 

11 tetrafluoride. That is pure uranium.

12 Then, on the other side you have 

13 the breakout, and you are cleaning up. So, 

14 the U3O8. So, it is not just an exposure to 

15 the uranium fluoride stream itself.

16 MR. STIVER: No, we know that. I 

17 think we are in agreement on every one of 

18 these points.

19 The point being that you still 

20 have this group of guys, say in the breakout 

21 area or the pod cleaners, and so forth, who 

22 are getting, obviously, based on air sampling 
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1 data, you know these are the dirtiest jobs. 

2 You also know that you have got a lot of this 

3 material being concentrated with respect to 

4 magnesium fluoride. Sure, across the entire 

5 plant you say this has got to be bounding for

6 all these workers, but they never were even in 

7 here handling this stuff.

8 But you still have this other 

9 group, and it is just a matter of having a 

10 quantitative assessment, a demonstration that 

11 400 parts per billion is adequate. All these 

12 arguments, you know, they sound very good, but 

13 at the end of the day we are looking at 

14 qualitative assessments.

15 MR. ROLFES: That is a good point.

16 Bryce, excellent job. You 

17 couldn't have said it any better. I wasn't 

18 going to attempt that, and I am glad to have 

19 you here to set the record straight, to make 

20 sure that we are aware of the process, because 

21 you have brought a lot of valuable information 

22 and insight into this process. I do really 
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1 appreciate it.

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Mark, before 

3 you go on, you started out with something and 

4 I want to make sure. That is, you said that 

5 you had found so much data, and so forth, 

6 pertaining to this paperwork. Is this new 

7 data that we have not seen or is this just 

8 data that you have recovered? You are talking 

9 about surveys, and so forth. Is there 

10 anything new? That is my question.

11 MR. ROLFES: Yes. Yes, there is a 

12 combination of both new data and old data.

13 We were asked by SC&A to go back 

14 and get, as a result of our discussions, I 

15 think it was at the last Work Group, back to 

16 get some of the raw results. We were able to 

17 locate an electronic file that contained 3800 

18 analyses that were conducted at the Fernald 

19 site over the operating history.

20 We spoke with the statistician and 

21 one of the people that were responsible for 

22 compiling all that information in this 
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1 database.

2 We also found some additional 

3 results. We have just sampled those boxes of 

4 records a while back.

5 So, yes, there are both new and 

6 old records to give you --

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: When you say 

8 you sampled --

9 MR. RICH: When we talk about raw 

10 data, a good share of the data that is in the 

11 DOE 2000 report is from the 1980s, and early 

12 eighties. As a consequence, that data is 

13 high. It is high. That is the maximum levels 

14 that were received at the plant.

15 When we say "raw data," we found 

16 the working spreadsheets that were used by one 

17 of the team leads. We took the analytical 

18 data sheets that are in a file that exists 

19 that we had not been able to --

20 MR. STIVER: So, the actual raw 

21 data are available you're saying for some of 

22 the --
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1 MR. RICH: The raw data is 

2 available.

3 MR. STIVER: That comprised that 

4 spreadsheet?

5 MR. RICH: That comprised that 

6 spreadsheet. But it is in a file that is in 

7 the system someplace. We have not been able 

8 to retrieve that specific file that they used 

9 for the base.

10 MR. STIVER: I know I looked at 

11 the spreadsheet that Mark posted. It is 

12 basically the exact same information that is 

13 in Appendix C of the DOE report.

14 MR. RICH: Yes.

15 MR. STIVER: I know we have a lot 

16 more information. See, I was a little 

17 concerned about the magnesium fluoride. First 

18 of all, were we are dealing with Fernald and 

19 we were we dealing with the right types of 

20 material? It turns out, yes, we are.

21 MR. RICH: The other thing, they 

22 had magnesium fluoride from that, from other 
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1 plants, too.

2 MR. STIVER: Yes, although the 

3 data that went into that subgroup was only 

4 Fernald. And that is what I wanted to see.

5 MR. RICH: And the dates are 

6 there.

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, they have the 

8 dates. Yes, I charted it up.

9 MR. RICH: Yes.

10 MR. STIVER: So, I have got a 

11 pretty good handle on that.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So, really, 

13 this isn't new data? This is just --

14 MR. STIVER: It is just more 

15 information on what we have already --

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

17 MR. RICH: It is perspective, 

18 Brad.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, I just 

20 wanted to make sure that we didn't have 

21 something new that had come up.

22 MR. RICH: Now there is new data 
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1 in the system. One example that comes up, 

2 there is a 400- or a 500-page document, a 

3 compilation of a variety of things. It has a 

4 lot of good and new information.

5 MR. ROLFES: I was going to say, 

6 these are what I referred to earlier. From 

7 NFS, there is correspondence and analytical 

8 results discussing the recycled uranium limits 

9 in the Fernald site in the sixties, basically, 

10 correspondence of Fernald saying that they 

11 would not accept anything that had a 

12 concentration of plutonium in excess of 10 

13 parts per billion because that was their 

14 established level for control because of the 

15 radiological concerns about materials in 

16 excess of 10 parts per billion.

17 Gene, have you been able to open 

18 up -- this is, basically, when it comes down 

19 to it, you have asked for a quantitative 

20 assessment of the dosimetric impact to a 

21 Fernald worker.

22 What this Attachment B that I had 
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1 referred to earlier, it is basically four 

2 pages, which I would like Gene to just briefly 

3 explain. Basically, we have put together --

4 well, I will let Gene explain it.

5 Gene, have I allowed you enough 

6 time?

7 MR. POTTER: Yes.

8 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

9 MR. POTTER: I have got the 

10 information in front of me.

11 It is hard to talk about a table 

12 full of numbers, but maybe I can just sort of 

13 summarize what this is attempting to show.

14 The bottom line would be that the 

15 fact that they were not sampling for plutonium 

16 in the early days is not a technical problem 

17 because even the paper we referred to earlier 

18 in the eighties showed that uranium would be 

19 much more easily detectable.

20 For example, if you look at Tables 

21 B-3 and B-4, you see that it would take, in 

22 order for it to be detectable by the best, for 
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1 plutonium to be detectable by the best labs in 

2 the country, even sampling at day one after an 

3 intake, it would require RU with 400 parts per 

4 billion. Then, of course, it goes up if the 

5 parts per billion -- in the eighties, they 

6 actually referred to 80 as kind of their 

7 worst-case when the dosimetry folks looked at 

8 this issue.

9 So, as you go out farther from the 

10 intake or reduce the parts per billion you are 

11 assuming, then plutonium just becomes more and 

12 more difficult to detect. That is all those 

13 four tables were trying to show.

14 MR. STIVER: We understand that 

15 the uranium was the detectable isotope, and 

16 that they didn't necessarily make any attempts 

17 to do bioassays for plutonium in the early 

18 days. But that is really kind of not the real 

19 issue.

20 Our concern is more that there was 

21 kind of a lax standard for enforcement of the 

22 procedures that were in place, to where there 
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1 could have been exposures that would have been 

2 missed, whether or not plutonium was actually 

3 being sampled. So, it is not whether they had 

4 an adequate bioassay program in place early 

5 on, which would have been nice if they did, 

6 but if they had that, then we wouldn't have to 

7 have this model to begin with.

8 We have got a good set of uranium 

9 data, and we are making some assumptions that 

10 are supposed to be as claimant-favorable as 

11 possible, so that we can ensure that we have 

12 captured the most highly-exposed group.

13 Our concern was in this period 

14 during NLO's tenure, that it just didn't have 

15 the robust processes and procedures in place 

16 that were actually enforced to ensure that 

17 these exposures were not incurred. That is 

18 really our main concern here.

19 MR. RICH: John, can I make a 

20 comment now?

21 MR. STIVER: Yes.

22 MR. RICH: There were control 
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1 programs in place. They were placed upon 

2 uranium.

3 If you look at the uranium in 

4 urine results over the years, they decrease 

5 year by year by year. They were making 

6 progress in terms of increasing ventilation 

7 controls, which in many instances was based on 

8 the uranium urine results.

9 As a consequence, it is like 

10 looking, if you are monitoring in a reactor 

11 situation, you don't monitor the urine for 

12 every isotope that you could possibly be 

13 exposed to.

14 MR. STIVER: Yes, if you know the 

15 ratios, then you can make assumptions.

16 MR. RICH: Yes, and you take gross 

17 analysis or you look at strontium or cesium, 

18 some of the longer-lived --

19 MR. STIVER: Indicator 

20 radionuclides.

21 MR. RICH: Then you say we're 

22 controlling because everything else is going 
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1 to be so much less.

2 Now, again, through the years, 

3 there is documentation where they did hazards 

4 analysis and compared it to the maximum 

5 permissible -- well, based on the activity 

6 that they saw in the process streams. And 

7 like I say, they have generated what they were 

8 seeing in the plant. The maximum was 80 parts 

9 per billion.

10 So, that is what they used for a 

11 lot of the hazard analysis that said, 

12 fundamentally, that if you had that level, and 

13 compared to the maximum permissible 

14 concentration, which gives you CEDE, and a 

15 couple of them, where they actually looked at 

16 individual organ doses, in plutonium, when you 

17 get into that area, starts to control it.

18 What we are talking about here in 

19 terms of a default, quite frankly, my personal 

20 opinion is that 100 parts per billion 

21 adequately controls, but now we are set at 400 

22 for this later period of time when the maximum 
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1 contamination in the plant resulted in maximum 

2 contamination levels everywhere. Those levels 

3 will produce exposures. If you take the 

4 defaults and calculate the exposure compared 

5 to the kind of transuranic activity that they 

6 were seeing when they sampled the people in 

7 1955 -- `85 and `86, the results from the 

8 default are going to be higher than what you 

9 would get from the default in the transuranics 

10 in the air.

11 MR. STIVER: I can kind of see 

12 where there is a divergence here. Part of it 

13 is that we have got this idea of what the real 

14 exposure might have been, and then we have, 

15 for EEOICPA a high-sighted model that we are 

16 trying to generate. We have this set of data. 

17 We have got 19-some processes. And we are 

18 trying to say, okay, if we look at all this 

19 data, all these different processes, can we 

20 find a set that would definitely provide a 

21 plausible bound for everybody?

22 Now we are not even going to look 
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1 at what they really got. We are looking at 

2 what we are going to give them as part of the 

3 dose reconstruction compensation program.

4 Okay, we have got a set that is 

5 for magnesium fluoride. We know this probably 

6 represents for an ongoing, continuing process 

7 probably the highest ratios, not necessarily, 

8 as you mentioned before. Depending on the 

9 amount of uranium that is in the material, it 

10 can be all over the place. But we are using 

11 ratios as the method. So, is that really the 

12 highest plausible intake that somebody could 

13 get would be based on a particular dataset?

14 We also have Group 10A. We know 

15 that this is real data that came in during the 

16 1980s predominantly. We know that there were 

17 personnel who were potentially exposed to 

18 this. We don't know the frequency that they 

19 were exposed or what period of time they were 

20 exposed.

21 So, there needs to be some kind of 

22 an assessment in that range. Okay, say if you 
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1 had, I could kind of see this being -- I am 

2 not going to tell you how to do your job or 

3 anything like that. But, for conjecture, we 

4 could have a scenario where you have got 

5 Worker A is exposed to X hours per year of a 

6 down-blending operation in addition to the 

7 400, or various different combinations. You 

8 could do that.

9 Is there a net impact, significant 

10 impact, on the final bottom line? That is 

11 kind of what I am thinking of, when I think of 

12 the quantitative assessment, that this 400 

13 parts per billion is really bounding.

14 MR. RICH: Yes, the problem there, 

15 of course, is that it is very difficult 

16 administratively to count their location 

17 there --

18 MR. STIVER: Yes, well, you can't. 

19 So, you just have to make some assumptions.

20 MR. RICH: You simply can't do it.

21 MR. STIVER: Yes.

22 MR. RICH: So, it forces you into 
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1 a one-size-fits-all --

2 MR. STIVER: That would be a one3 size-fits-all --

4 MR. RICH: And in the case, in my 

5 personal logic and reasoning, based on 

6 probably 10 analyses, it is probably a factor 

7 of less than 10, but a factor in that range, 

8 higher for a short period of time in a 

9 campaign, and blending in 168 metric tons of 

10 that material into how many --

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, 168 is one-third 

12 of it. There's still two-thirds unaccounted 

13 for.

14 MR. RICH: Right. We included 

15 that for what appears to me the logical and 

16 reasonable and justified -- primarily because 

17 the people that would be working in Plant 4 in 

18 that operation were normally exposed to stuff 

19 that was a couple of orders of magnitude less 

20 than the 400.

21 MR. STIVER: Yes, there is also 

22 Plant 1, and a lot of this went on in Plant 1. 
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1 But there is this period from `82 to about 

2 `85, and you have got boundary data that show 

3 high levels, spiking from `82 up to `80, come 

4 back down at `85.

5 MR. RICH: When you say high 

6 levels, let me just modify that and say high 

7 ratios, if you will.

8 MR. STIVER: Yes, they are the 

9 ratios, high ratios.

10 MR. RICH: The levels were 

11 extremely low.

12 MR. STIVER: Yes, levels were low, 

13 but the ratios were high. This whole model is 

14 predicated on the ratios.

15 MR. RICH: And the Titan Mill in 

16 Plant 1 was the one that was used 

17 fundamentally to blend and to break up the 

18 magnesium fluoride, so that they could --

19 MR. STIVER: Right. That was one 

20 of our concerns of our paper.

21 MR. RICH: Yes. As a consequence, 

22 that particular mill showed a higher ratio 
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1 than normal.

2 MR. STIVER: Right.

3 MR. CHEW: We had the bioassays. 

4 Whether the process was effective or not isn't 

5 an issue here. It is most important that you 

6 have bioassays to do those reconstructions.

7 MR. STIVER: Well, we really are 

8 stuck with the uranium bioassay ratios based 

9 on --

10 MR. RICH: That's true, yes. 

11 Before 1986 --

12 MR. STIVER: I would like to ask, 

13 John Mauro, are you on? John, are you out 

14 there?

15 DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. I was on 

16 mute.

17 MR. STIVER: Okay. Did you have 

18 anything you wanted to add about this?

19 DR. MAURO: Yes. I am listening, 

20 and, of course, we have had our own internal 

21 discussions. My sense is we do not have any 

22 dispute on the facts, which is an interesting 
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1 place to be. In other words, I don't think we 

2 are disagreeing.

3 I think it is the interpretation 

4 of the facts and what they mean in terms of 

5 making judgments on what can and can't be 

6 done, you know, what can be done with 

7 sufficient accuracy, what can't.

8 Let me just ask a couple of 

9 questions and see if we agree on these facts. 

10 Is there general agreement that there might 

11 very well have been some workers at some point 

12 in time who were inhaling airborne uranium 

13 where the ratio of plutonium was 400 parts per 

14 billion? That is, these would be the people 

15 who were working with the bomb, with the 

16 dolomite, that may have gone through a few 

17 cycles where you did have an opportunity for 

18 the plutonium to be somewhat enriched, you 

19 know, richer in the dolomite. Do you believe 

20 that there were some people at some time that 

21 might have inhaled uranium that contained 400 

22 parts per billion?
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1 Is there general consensus that 

2 that is true? Because if there is not, then 

3 we do not agree on the facts.

4 MR. RICH: I don't disagree. For 

5 short periods of time, there could have been 

6 an operator that was exposed to air that had 

7 400 parts per billion.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay. Now, so that is 

9 a good start. Why would you say for short 

10 periods of time? Let's say his job was 

11 primarily to be involved in the bomb-reduction 

12 process and handling these bombs, breaking out 

13 the metal from the bomb, collecting the 

14 dolomite, and doing those things with the 

15 dolomite that you do to use it again in the 

16 next bomb.

17 And we are trying to find facts. 

18 Wouldn't a person who had a job like that 

19 possibly be exposed to dolomite for protracted 

20 periods of time?

21 MR. STIVER: I would have to say 

22 yes. You are looking at derby breakout 
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1 personnel and people in the dirtiest jobs. 

2 Those would be basically what they did eight 

3 hours a day or more.

4 DR. MAURO: Now is it possible 

5 that --

6 MR. KATZ: Hold on a minute.

7 DR. MAURO: All right. Keep 

8 going.

9 MR. STIVER: I am sorry, I'm 

10 jumping in there.

11 DR. MAURO: No, no, this is good 

12 because I was trying to find where it is that 

13 we disagree or agree on the facts of the 

14 matter. That is important.

15 MR. RICH: John, this is Bryce.

16 I would have to modify that again 

17 just slightly to say that any one individual 

18 that worked in Plant 5 in the thermite process 

19 would also be involved with handling another 

20 part of the dusty operation, which is handling 

21 and loading and blending the UF4, and, then, 

22 again, working with the derbies, which now are 
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1 uranium and other materials. I would have to 

2 say his exposure to the magnesium fluoride on 

3 a continuing basis should be modified by the 

4 fact that he gets exposed to other materials, 

5 which would reduce -- and we are saying 

6 average 400 parts per billion as the default. 

7 Well, that has probably got to be, well, it 

8 is way conservative, even for that --

9 DR. MAURO: Okay. You know what? 

10 I want to say that common sense would dictate 

11 that it is unlikely that there would be a 

12 person that would be handling dolomite for 

13 such a protracted period of time containing 

14 the upper-end concentration. We know it is at 

15 the highest, but it is sort of at the upper 

16 end -- I believe it is the 95th percentile --

17 for an entire year.

18 And one could argue that that 

19 would be certainly bounding, perhaps 

20 unrealistically bounding. It would be hard to 

21 find someone --

22 MR. RICH: That you had 
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1 unrealistic bounding, I will agree with you.

2 DR. MAURO: I said perhaps. I 

3 used the word "perhaps" because I don't know.

4 But, you see, we are zeroing-in on 

5 a place, and this is what I like to do, 

6 zeroing-in on a place where people can agree 

7 that, yes, you know, two things have to 

8 happen. One is you have to have the 400 parts 

9 per billion of your dolomite, which we know to 

10 be at sort of the upper end, and we have to 

11 have a person, a real person, that worked with 

12 that upper-end dolomite for a protracted 

13 period of time, perhaps the course of a year 

14 or two years. And put those two things 

15 together; one could argue, you know, that 

16 doesn't seem to be very plausible. In all 

17 likelihood, if you really were making the 

18 measurements, you would not expect to find 

19 such a person.

20 If that is your position, you 

21 know, it is one of degree. Our position is, 

22 well, if you are going to pick a number and 
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1 you want to be sure that you are not 

2 underestimating anyone's exposure that handled 

3 the dolomite, you pick 400. And everyone 

4 would agree, yes, we could all sit around the 

5 table and say, yes, there is no doubt it 

6 wasn't greater than that. And more likely 

7 than not, the highest guys are probably even 

8 less than that.

9 So, now it becomes a judgment 

10 call. This is where really it moves out of 

11 science, and it moves out of interpreting 

12 sufficient accuracy or degree of conservatism.

13 But I think we can agree that, 

14 yes, I would say 400 would certainly be 

15 bounding. I would not dispute that maybe it 

16 is overly-conservative, but certainly it is 

17 bounding. Where you really put the number, do 

18 you put it at 100? Do you put it at 200? In 

19 other words, you may find a different place 

20 that brings you comfort that, no, I think this 

21 is a better bounding number.

22 But I think we could all agree 
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1 that that particular practice is probably a 

2 practice that is a baseline, that extended 

3 over protracted periods of time throughout the 

4 operating history of Fernald, where dolomite 

5 was handled, and not withstanding we realize 

6 that metal, that UF4 they handled could have 

7 had varying levels of plutonium in it from a 

8 few to maybe tens of parts per billion. But 

9 the very process itself, the dolomite process, 

10 results in this enrichment of the dolomite.

11 And we also know that at the high 

12 end there were at least some samples of 

13 dolomite which actually reached the 400-parts14 per-billion level. Whether or not you could 

15 agree that, yes, 400 represents a bounding 

16 number that, if we applied it to everyone that 

17 might have worked at that facility, whether 

18 that is unrealistically-high or not, that 

19 becomes one of these judgment calls, and we 

20 have really left the realm of science and we 

21 have entered the realm of interpreting the 

22 intent of the regulation. And where are we 
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1 comfortable?

2 I could say right now that SC&A 

3 has gotten to the point where we are 

4 comfortable with having the 400, as opposed to 

5 the 100, as a baseline for exposure. If you 

6 know who the workers are, great. But if you 

7 don't know who the workers are, you are sort 

8 of in a tough spot.

9 We know that everyone didn't get 

10 that, but our sense is that perhaps some 

11 people got that. If you don't know who they 

12 are, you have got the situation.

13 And Paul Ziemer has mentioned this 

14 on a number of occasions. Certainly, everyone 

15 could not have gotten that, but on a person16 by-person basis you could ask the question, is 

17 it plausible that he might have gotten it? 

18 And the answer would be yes. The next person 

19 is yes.

20 What you end up with is a 

21 circumstance where you know everyone couldn't 

22 have gotten that, but you don't know which 
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1 ones didn't. So, you have very little choice 

2 but to pick that high-end value and assign it 

3 to everyone.

4 So, that is where SC&A is coming 

5 out. Now we would be the first to agree that 

6 maybe 400 is too high because it is the upper 

7 95th percentile of all that data. That is 400 

8 numbers you took. And to assume that a person 

9 is exposed to the upper 95th percentile week 

10 after week after week after week into years 

11 may be pushing the edge.

12 Here's where judgements are made. 

13 Quite frankly, it almost becomes more a 

14 judgment that is made by the Board. Are they 

15 comfortable? I mean, given that as the 

16 reality of the situation, and that a judgment 

17 has to be made, and I am not going to argue 

18 with you. I think we are in agreement.

19 The only one is a judgement call 

20 is, at what point are you at your tipping 

21 point where you say, "I think that is a little 

22 too high?" I think, for us, 400 is just the 
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1 right sweet spot where we are comfortable as 

2 your baseline, not the 100, but the 400.

3 And this is my understanding of 

4 the state of affairs with regard to this 

5 particular matter. A separate matter, which 

6 you will talk about momentarily, has to do 

7 with the down-blending, which is a separate 

8 story and a separate issue.

9 But I think that there is a 

10 platform that we are all trying to build that 

11 we could say we could stand on and agree on. 

12 It sounds like we are not quite there yet.

13 You folks are uncomfortable with 

14 using 400 as your baseline. You would be more 

15 comfortable --

16 MR. STIVER: Actually, John, this 

17 is John Stiver.

18 Actually, they have accepted 400 

19 as the baseline.

20 DR. MAURO: Well, I mean, if we 

21 have got that -- and that would be for all 

22 locations at all times?
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1 MR. STIVER: No, they are not 

2 accepting it pre-`73. From `61 to `73 -- I 

3 probably should have given Mark a chance to 

4 describe it. From `61 to `73 -- go ahead, 

5 Bryce -- they are going to use 100. 

6 Basically, it would be the old default.

7 DR. MAURO: Okay. Now good. 

8 That's good.

9 Now do we have data or reasons to 

10 believe that the `73, somehow before `73, 

11 things were different in a way that it is 

12 virtually impossible to have generated 

13 dolomite at 400 parts per billion?

14 MR. STIVER: We don't know if it 

15 is virtually impossible, but it would depend 

16 on the concentration dynamics, the physics 

17 involved and the amount of times, how many 

18 times the material was reused, and the amounts 

19 in the feed. And all these factors would come 

20 together. The rate at which it builds up 

21 would all come into play.

22 It is basically a first-order 
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1 linear differential equation. You have got a 

2 rate in, and you have got a rate out, and you 

3 have got a concentrating mechanism.

4 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes. 

5 I just wanted to address what you had said, 

6 John.

7 Basically, you have come to 

8 agreement with us that we are able to bound 

9 doses to the workers who were potentially 

10 exposed.

11 MR. STIVER: No.

12 DR. MAURO: Could I qualify that? 

13 I think if you folks have picked 400, let's 

14 say for the time being, from `73 to what, `86, 

15 as being your baseline default for the 

16 workers, I would agree, with the proviso we 

17 still have to have a little conversation 

18 regarding the down-blenders because they sort 

19 of fall outside that envelope.

20 So, I would like to put that in 

21 the parking lot for a minute. Maybe if we 

22 could solve the 400/100 number and agree on a 
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1 baseline, and then superimpose on this 

2 baseline, that really is where I believe the 

3 action is, once we resolve this, is going to 

4 be the down-blending perturbations.

5 But I am more than open-minded 

6 regarding arguments that could be made 

7 regarding why it is that 1973 is an elbow when 

8 it comes to the 400. I haven't really heard 

9 the arguments, but I believe you. I believe 

10 that, for some reason, you feel that something 

11 changed going from `72 to `73, where the 400 

12 is now just implausible if you are pre-1973. 

13 Is there a 30-second sound bite 

14 that could explain why that change occurred?

15 MR. RICH: Yes. This is Bryce 

16 now.

17 In 1973, the AEC made a decision 

18 that they were going to assign the recovery of 

19 uranium from the scrap materials, ash, et 

20 cetera, fundamentally, to Fernald. They sent 

21 some to Y-12, and they never touched it. They 

22 did the right thing, disposed of it or sent it 
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1 back.

2 In `73, we have data to indicate 

3 that the levels in the waste coming in 1973 

4 were lower, but it was higher. Enough POOS 

5 material was chosen, that time period, when 

6 they started to receive the waste from the 

7 gaseous diffusion plants.

8 In 1980, it was another story. 

9 They got to the bottom of the barrel, and they 

10 got a big charge in on that year. As a 

11 consequence, we are saying we have applied 400 

12 parts per billion to the time when we started 

13 to receive the material from the gaseous 

14 diffusion plant waste and CIP/CUP material and 

15 everything else.

16 Before that, I think we have 

17 enough evidence to indicate that the levels 

18 were a couple of orders of magnitude less 

19 parts per billion --

20 DR. MAURO: So, Bryce, help me a 

21 little bit with this. You are producing UF4, 

22 so that you could go put that in your bomb. 
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1 What you are saying is the UF4 contains, you 

2 know, it could be material that does not have 

3 any recycled uranium; probably most of it 

4 didn't. And it could contain some material 

5 that does have recycled uranium.

6 And there was a spec that says, 

7 "We're going to control the amount of RU that 

8 is going to go into our UF4." Whatever the 

9 material coming, we are going to blend it 

10 down, get it to a place where we are 

11 comfortable, and then that is the material, 

12 the UF4 that is going to go into my bomb, 

13 along with my magnesium.

14 Then, of course, the bomb, the 

15 reduction process takes place. Whatever 

16 plutonium that is in the UF4 that was fed into 

17 the bomb, it finds its way into the dolomite. 

18 Then, of course, that is redone over and over 

19 and over again, and you enrich, enrich, enrich 

20 your dolomite. And here we are at some time 

21 later on; you run into the 400 parts per 

22 billion.
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1 Now are you saying that in the 

2 earlier years it was such that the down3 blended -- we know that recycled uranium was 

4 showing up there, I guess, for quite some 

5 time. I am not sure when it started, maybe 

6 even in the fifties.

7 MR. RICH: 1961.

8 DR. MAURO: `61. So, really, what 

9 you are saying is, from 1961 to 1973, the 

10 amount of plutonium that was in the recycled 

11 uranium or the amount of recycled uranium that 

12 was arriving was such that it really did not 

13 create a circumstance where it was plausible 

14 for you to produce dolomite of 400 parts per 

15 billion, but it was possible after `72?

16 MR. RICH: After what?

17 DR. MAURO: After 1972. Before 

18 1972, in your mind, it was just not possible 

19 to produce high-end concentrations of 

20 plutonium in the dolomite that was 400 parts 

21 per billion, but it is possible after 1972?

22 MR. RICH: Yes.
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1 DR. MAURO: That is effectively 

2 what you are saying? And I presume it has 

3 something to do with the fact that the uranium 

4 that was showing up before 1972 generally had 

5 lower levels of plutonium in it than the 

6 material that showed up after 1972?

7 MR. STIVER: Can I say one thing, 

8 John?

9 I think one of the issues here, 

10 John, is that post-`73 we have got a down11 blending process that essentially results in 

12 material that is getting ready, that is put in 

13 the bombs, that is close to the spec, from 10 

14 up to about 30 parts per billion.

15 DR. MAURO: Okay.

16 MR. STIVER: Before that, the feed 

17 material that is coming in isn't down-blended, 

18 and it is pretty much below 10. So, there is 

19 a bit of a differential there.

20 MR. RICH: It must have been 05.

21 MR. STIVER: Yes, and so, there is 

22 going to be concentrating. We are saying even 
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1 though we know the 400 may account for some 

2 material that is not completely blended-down 

3 below 10 parts per billion, still, the fact 

4 that you go from that level up to 400, as the 

5 95th percentile, and even up into the 

6 thousands, indicates that the concentration 

7 mechanism combined with the variability in the 

8 uranium content is driving this ratio up.

9 And so, we are saying, is there 

10 sufficient evidence to indicate that in the 

11 earlier periods that same type of process 

12 would not have resulted in a 95th percentile 

13 that was near 400?

14 I believe Bryce's position is that 

15 that would not have happened, that 100 would 

16 be probably bounding.

17 DR. MAURO: John, I know you have 

18 been looking at this closer than anyone. Do 

19 you feel that is a reasonable place to be?

20 MR. STIVER: Well, unfortunately, 

21 we only have data for magnesium fluoride from 

22 1982 to 1987.
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1 DR. MAURO: I got you.

2 MR. STIVER: We don't have earlier 

3 data.

4 DR. MAURO: So, right now, you are 

5 using intuitive process knowledge that says, 

6 based on looking at the data, their position 

7 is not unreasonable. It very well could have 

8 been a sea change that started, more or less, 

9 in the seventies.

10 MR. STIVER: I wouldn't know if 

11 you would call it a sea change from the 

12 perspective of what is actually being reduced 

13 would be more like maybe a factor of two on 

14 average, two or three.

15 DR. MAURO: Okay, but a concept, 

16 the idea that for some reason pre-`73 the 

17 dolomite probably was even -- you know, we are 

18 already being conservative when we are going 

19 to 400. I would be the first to admit that, 

20 even in the eighties.

21 MR. STIVER: Pre-`73, it is an 

22 open issue. I think that it could certainly 
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1 be bounded.

2 MR. RICH: John, we do have a 

3 little information, but it is not in the level 

4 of numbers, pure numbers, that we did have in 

5 the eighties. In the 1980s, they did a 

6 massive process analysis. And in the 

7 seventies, some of it came from other plants, 

8 some of the magnesium fluoride. Fernald is 

9 not the only one that uses that process.

10 MR. STIVER: Right now, I am only 

11 talking about what is in the Subgroup 8 

12 dataset. There is a little bit of --

13 MR. RICH: Right. In the before 

14 seventies time period.

15 MR. STIVER: There is some data in 

16 there with no --

17 MR. RICH: There is some data.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, this is a 

19 good discussion going on, but I think we do 

20 need to take a comfort break at this time.

21 (Laughter.)

22 So, I want everybody to keep in 
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1 mind where we were at. We are going to mute 

2 the phone, and we will come back in at a 

3 little after 11:00.

4 MR. KATZ: At 11:00.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Sound good?

7 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

8 went off the record at 10:47 a.m. and went 

9 back on the record at 11:03 a.m.)

10 MR. KATZ: Okay, we are re11 collected after a short break, the Fernald 

12 Work Group.

13 Let me just check to see. We have 

14 -- Dr. Ziemer, are you on the line still with 

15 us?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: I am on the line, 

17 Ted.

18 MR. KATZ: Great. Thanks.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. I guess 

20 we will pick where we did. But, you know, 

21 this discussion, as the Work Group Chair, part 

22 of the thing is we have been going back and 
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1 forth about this for numerous years.

2 John, I appreciate your trying to 

3 put forth the effort to be able to figure out 

4 where we are at.

5 But there were some statements 

6 that somewhat kind of bothered me, and that 

7 was that earlier, as Bryce said, this was 

8 going beyond science, and so forth, like that.

9 But, also, John, you made some 

10 comments.

11 I want everybody to realize that, 

12 basically, SC&A and NIOSH are presenting to 

13 the Work Group. It basically comes down to 

14 the Work Group to be able to express or send 

15 something to the Secretary to be able to do 

16 it. So, yes, it does come down to us, to the 

17 Board. As a Work Group, we take it to the 

18 Board, and it is the full Board that makes 

19 this decision based on the information that we 

20 have.

21 But one of the things was that 

22 policy plays into this, too. And these are 
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1 the cards that we have been dealt, and this is 

2 what we have to be able to deal with.

3 You know, part of the problem with 

4 Fernald is, on one hand, it has got some good 

5 urinalysis data, in my personal opinion, but, 

6 also, too, it lacks an awful lot of 

7 information. It is true that this plant was 

8 run like a heavy metals plant. It was 

9 National Lead of Ohio. They had dealt with 

10 this kind of stuff. Uranium was a little bit 

11 new.

12 But the bottom line is we can't 

13 separate people out from one area to the 

14 other. We don't have that kind of data. So, 

15 we are trying to find a point that is going to 

16 be able to cover everybody. And we do have 

17 options in this. This is where the SEC comes 

18 into play. We do have different options than 

19 going so high, and so on.

20 But we are trying to reach a point 

21 that we have been trying to go to for years. 

22 And so, as we go into this discussion more, I 
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1 just want you to remember, yes, sometimes 

2 science, it goes against our grain sometimes, 

3 but what we have got to remember is this is 

4 for the petitioners. This isn't for proving 

5 that we can do reconstruction, or whatever. 

6 This is set up for the petitioners to be able 

7 to give them compensation.

8 Go ahead, Mark.

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, let me just 

10 pick up on one thing that Brad said, and this 

11 came up in the earlier discussion, the idea 

12 that -- I forget who said it; I think Bryce 

13 said it -- we were kind of forced into a one14 size-fits-all model. My sense is that -- not 

15 really. I mean NIOSH did have a choice. 

16 NIOSH could have said, well, we have to give 

17 the SEC for this particular subclass of 

18 workers.

19 I think the problem from NIOSH's 

20 standpoint that you run into is that, if you 

21 would even consider that in the situation, it 

22 would probably be for this blending operation, 
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1 which probably is a small subset of workers, 

2 but you can't identify who they are. So, 

3 then, if you establish a Class, it is the 

4 broader, you know, it is all workers, 

5 essentially. I am sympathetic to that.

6 On the other hand, when we look at 

7 SEC petitions, our charge is to look at 

8 whether we can bound under plausible 

9 circumstances for all workers on all time 

10 periods. That plausible is another thing that 

11 came up in our earlier discussion, which was 

12 that I think we had agreement with Mauro on 

13 the phone and Bryce that, at least for the mag 

14 fluoride side of things, that this number was 

15 unrealistically-bounding -- sort of a new term 

16 that Bryce fashioned, I think.

17 (Laughter.)

18 But that begs to question that 

19 policy side of things, again, the 

20 plausibility. So, are we just increasing the 

21 number until everybody kind of says, "Oh, 

22 there's no way any of the workers could be 
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1 higher than that." That raises some questions 

2 about how we interpret it from the policy side 

3 on the SEC decisions.

4 So, I just wanted to give some 

5 context as to where we are going.

6 DR. MAURO: Mark, this is John.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Aren't you on 

8 mute? This is usually where I need to mute 

9 you.

10 (Laughter.)

11 DR. MAURO: If I have had enough, 

12 I will stop.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, no, no, 

14 John. We're just kidding with you.

15 DR. MAURO: I think right now, 

16 Mark, you are absolutely right. We are only 

17 talking about this baseline. We haven't 

18 talked about the down-blending. I think that 

19 is going to be where the action is.

20 I could say that, right now, you 

21 have the hardest job. The Board, the Work 

22 Group has the hardest job.
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1 I think the facts of the matter 

2 have taken form, and I don't think we have any 

3 disagreement with NIOSH, at least from `73 to 

4 -- what is it? -- `84. I think, to try to put 

5 it, again, into a 30-second sound bite, 400 

6 parts per billion is certainly a high-end 

7 number to assign to everyone, perhaps 

8 plausibly unrealistic, but using what I call 

9 the Paul Ziemer rule -- and I have learned 

10 that well -- you know, if you pick one person 

11 at a time and you really can't say whether he 

12 got that or not, but you could say it is very, 

13 very unlikely that he could have gotten that 

14 exposure for a protracted period of time, that 

15 places you in a place that says, well, it

16 might be a little bit unrealistic, but it is 

17 where we are in terms of the definition of 

18 bounding, in my mind.

19 And I would say SC&A's position --

20 because we have had a chance to talk about it, 

21 so I am not just speaking for myself -- SC&A's 

22 position is that, at least from `73 to, I 
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1 believe it's `86, a baseline for all workers 

2 or most buildings -- and John could clarify 

3 that -- but I think it is just about all 

4 workers, 400 parts per billion, as opposed to 

5 the original 100 parts per billion, seems to 

6 be in the right place. Whether or not NIOSH 

7 agrees with that, whether the Board agrees 

8 with that certainly, but, I mean, you could 

9 understand our sensibility about why we would 

10 come to that place.

11 I think we are at a point now, and 

12 there is really nothing more SC&A can say or 

13 there are any more facts of the matter that 

14 need to be aired. We are at that judgment 

15 point. Whether or not it meets your threshold 

16 of sufficient accuracy, plausibility, that 

17 sort of thing, that is where the judgment 

18 comes in. That is why you guys have the hard 

19 job.

20 The other half that we didn't talk 

21 about is the pre-1973. Right now, I can't 

22 speak to it, but it sounds like there is good 
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1 reason why the 400 may be a little bit too 

2 high for pre-1973, and maybe a good case could 

3 be made for some lower number, perhaps 100. 

4 But I can't speak to that.

5 I can speak to the 400. And 

6 maybe, John, we certainly would say, well, if 

7 you were to extend the 400 to pre-`73, that is 

8 certainly bounding. But, at the same time, I 

9 don't want to be unreasonable because Bryce 

10 just pointed out, well, you know, there was 

11 enough of an elbow in `73 where, boy, you are 

12 really pushing it if you want to hold it at 

13 400 to pre-`73.

14 MR. STIVER: John, I think the 

15 point there for pre-`73 is that we feel that 

16 it is boundable.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes.

18 MR. STIVER: Now whether you 

19 choose 100, 150, 400, it is a judgement call 

20 there. But I believe that that is boundable.

21 DR. MAURO: Okay.

22 MR. STIVER: What we are concerned 
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1 with is the `73-to-`85 period.

2 DR. MAURO: Right. Okay. Well, 

3 that is a good way to say it.

4 MR. STIVER: I think the 400 is 

5 boundable for all but this Class of workers, 

6 these down-blenders as well.

7 DR. MAURO: Right.

8 MR. STIVER: I think we have got 

9 agreement on that part. So, it is really the 

10 down-blender issue now.

11 DR. MAURO: But, in effect, what 

12 we are doing is we are saying we believe a 

13 plausible upper bound could be placed on pre14 `73 also. We are not going to say what that 

15 number is. It might be 400. It might be 

16 something lower. And I know how much Mark 

17 hates this word, but, in theory, it's 

18 tractable.

19 I think that is as far as SC&A can 

20 go with this. Really, for this aspect of the 

21 discussion we are having, the ball is now 

22 really in the hands of the Work Group. That 
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1 is, do they have a degree of comfort with 

2 these numbers?

3 SC&A is comfortable with the 400. 

4 For pre-`73, we think you could bound it. 

5 What that number would be, it is hard to say 

6 right now.

7 MR. STIVER: John, could I step in 

8 here? Something you said there kind of 

9 worried me just a little bit.

10 DR. MAURO: Okay. Sure.

11 MR. STIVER: The 400 isn't for all 

12 workers.

13 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay.

14 MR. STIVER: Remember, we are 

15 concerned with this subset, the problem being 

16 that they can't be identified.

17 DR. MAURO: Well, that's what I'm 

18 saying --

19 MR. STIVER: So, that is why you 

20 wind up in a situation where you have got to 

21 have the one-size-fits-all.

22 DR. MAURO: I mean, we've been 
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1 there before.

2 MR. STIVER: You need the right 

3 terminology there.

4 DR. MAURO: If you don't know who 

5 they are, you are left with no choice.

6 MR. STIVER: Yes.

7 DR. MAURO: And that, again, 

8 becomes not a scientific question anymore; 

9 it's a policy question. What do you do when 

10 you don't know who they are? You are sort of 

11 left in this uncomfortable position, well, if 

12 you don't know who they are, you have got to 

13 give it to everybody. Now does that meet the 

14 letter and intent of the statute?

15 MR. KATZ: That is something that 

16 we deal with all the time. It has been 

17 applied in many, many places. It is not 

18 really breaking new ground.

19 But it seems like this discussion 

20 needs to move on and put to bed what you have 

21 been trying to wrestle with, which is the 

22 down-blenders question.
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes, I would like to 

2 move on to that, yes.

3 MR. ROLFES: I would also like to 

4 make one point. Basically, I just wanted to 

5 reiterate what John Mauro is saying on the 

6 phone.

7 This is Mark Rolfes.

8 What I am hearing is that the 

9 science demonstrates that we have the ability 

10 to bound dose. So, this effectively removes 

11 this issue from the Special Exposure Cohort.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, no.

13 MR. ROLFES: It turns it into a 

14 Site Profile realm because we are just trying 

15 to decide which level of contaminated material 

16 that we are going to assign in the dose 

17 reconstruction process, whether it is 100 

18 parts per billion or 400 parts per billion.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And the time.

20 DR. MAURO: And this is John 

21 speaking for SC&A.

22 I would agree that that is the 
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1 question, but that doesn't mean that the Board 

2 or the Work Group could say, listen, that 

3 choice or that judgement does bring us into 

4 the world of SEC and sufficient accuracy. And 

5 therein lies the job of the Work Group and the 

6 Board.

7 You know, understanding the facts, 

8 as we understand them, and I think they have 

9 been communicated very well, and the judgement 

10 needs to be made whether this, in fact, leads 

11 you to the degree of comfort that, yes, we 

12 could place a plausible upper bound and a 

13 place that everyone could agree upon. If the 

14 uncertainties, the extrapolations, et cetera, 

15 are to such a degree that you are 

16 uncomfortable with it, that is your call. 

17 But, I mean, I think that we don't make that 

18 call.

19 MR. STIVER: Hey, John, this is 

20 John Stiver again. Can I say something?

21 DR. MAURO: Sure.

22 MR. STIVER: I think we are 
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1 getting a little off-track here. Remember, 

2 this 400, we are only considering the workers 

3 who are not within this cohort of down4 blenders.

5 DR. MAURO: Oh, yes, I am trying 

6 to move off this.

7 MR. STIVER: Okay.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: But when you say 

9 all workers --

10 MR. STIVER: When you say all 

11 workers, it kind of implies that they are all 

12 lumped together here.

13 So, there is this issue of, is the 

14 400 parts per billion bounding for the down15 blenders? Or could it be higher?

16 DR. MAURO: Yes, I wanted to get 

17 this behind us before we talked about it 

18 because the down-blenders is the next tier.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, because you 

20 can't separate out the down-blenders, it does 

21 become --

22 DR. MAURO: Exactly. Exactly.
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1 MR. STIVER: -- an issue of all 

2 workers from `73 on.

3 DR. MAURO: Right. But, I mean, 

4 if we can't resolve this aspect of the 

5 conversation, we are almost done; we are 

6 really done. But if everyone feels, okay, I 

7 think we have aired this out adequately, we 

8 understand the issues, we have to make our 

9 judgements, now we get to the tough problem.

10 The tough problem is the down11 blending because the down-blending represents, 

12 if you accept that, let's say just for the 

13 sake of this conversation, you accept the `73-

14 to-`86 400 as the baseline. Then, you say, 

15 but we've got a problem; there are spikes that 

16 come in from time to time where there are 

17 going to be some workers -- we don't know who 

18 they are -- that have worked with material, 

19 down-blending it, that could have been on the 

20 order of thousands of parts per billion for 

21 short periods of time and for a handful of 

22 people. We don't know how long it is, and we 
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1 don't know who those people are. What do you 

2 do with that? To me, there's your 

3 showstopper.

4 Now NIOSH could make a case -- and 

5 I am not going to say that they would be wrong 

6 -- they could make a case, say, listen, 

7 there's enough conservatism built into the 400 

8 that it covers all ills. That is, those 

9 little spikes that occur from time to time, 

10 they are not there for long periods of time. 

11 So, therefore, the 400 has enough fluff in it 

12 to cover it.

13 I have to say, until I see that 

14 done quantitatively, I am not comfortable 

15 buying off on that technically. I understand 

16 intuitively why one would make that argument, 

17 but I think we all have an obligation to the 

18 Work Group to be a little bit more 

19 quantitative on why we feel those spikes are 

20 not of such an extent that they upset the 

21 apple cart for at least some workers. And so, 

22 right now, I think therein lies the SEC issue.
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1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I understand 

2 what you are saying, yes. That is also why 

3 this is coming before the Board, too. It is 

4 because we have come to this point and, 

5 basically, we are at a point right now that 

6 neither side really agrees. It basically 

7 comes down to the Board's decision now.

8 DR. MAURO: Yes. Now the only 

9 thing I will ask of NIOSH is, do they feel --

10 I know your position, and I respect your 

11 position -- that those spikes are something 

12 that should not upset the apple cart. But I 

13 think you haven't really made your case why 

14 they don't upset the apple cart. You don't 

15 leave us with enough information, analysis, 

16 quantitative or semi-quantitative analysis, 

17 that shows why the 400 will cover that 

18 problem. And without that, you know, me at 

19 least, I think the SC&A team is at a place 

20 where we can't say, yes, that does the trick.

21 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes, 

22 and I was just speaking off to the side with 
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1 Bryce Rich.

2 Speaking with him, these down3 blending operations truly only occurred 

4 probably for about maybe two weeks per year, 

5 if that. So, essentially, we are talking 

6 about a very short-duration exposure potential 

7 during the down-blending operation, say up to 

8 two weeks. I don't know the exact.

9 But these were something that 

10 occurred over a very short amount of time in 

11 any given year. It was a campaign-based type 

12 of operation to down-blend the materials.

13 Keep in mind, I think the recycled 

14 uranium materials being processed at the 

15 Fernald site were a small fraction of the 

16 total quantity of uranium being processed over

17 the history of the site. I don't know the 

18 exact percentage right off the top of my head, 

19 but maybe Bryce might or might have some 

20 additional insights into the potential.

21 There could be an exposure 

22 potential during the down-blending. However, 
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1 this is going to be a very short duration, 

2 possibly one or two days in any given year, 

3 possibly two weeks.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Bryce, it was 

5 more than just the ash that we are talking 

6 about, right? It was the decom from the 

7 CIP/CUP?

8 MR. RICH: CIP/CUP was really 

9 relatively low in ratio. The CIP/CUP came 

10 primarily from the cascade internal. So, this 

11 is stuff had already been decontaminated, but 

12 was in all the uranium that came out on the 

13 front end. And so, when you run it through 

14 the cascades, it is lesser than certainly in 

15 the ash.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: There's some 

17 really high ratios in the CIP/CUP central, 

18 but --

19 MR. RICH: On some isotopes.

20 MEMBER GRIFFON: Neptunium 

21 especially.

22 MR. RICH: Yes, neptunium.
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: Not as much 

2 plutonium, I agree, right.

3 MR. STIVER: That is captured in 

4 the group.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: So, I guess what 

6 I am getting at is that it was more than just 

7 like seven or eight drums of ash. It was 

8 other stuff, too.

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, there were 

10 hundreds of metric tons. And you know, Mark 

11 brings up from the dose reconstructor's 

12 standpoint, this is a small amount of 

13 material, but in this program you have got to 

14 understand the issue here isn't how big the 

15 dose is necessarily or how small one subgroup 

16 is. It is, can the doses be reconstructed 

17 with sufficient accuracy?

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: That is really 

19 where we are at.

20 DR. MAURO: You know how I think 

21 about it, too? Let's say material comes in 

22 from time to time, and there is a two-week 
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1 period where you are down-blending. So, it 

2 really isn't -- in terms of the broad sweep of 

3 decades. Two weeks it comes in, I don't know, 

4 once a year. I don't know how often this 

5 happens and when it happened.

6 But I put myself in the position, 

7 well, there may be a guy or a group of people 

8 that, when that stuff comes in, that is what 

9 they do. Okay? So, I asked myself, well, if 

10 that is possible, and I say, okay, well, this 

11 guy has got his baseline of 400, which clearly 

12 we all agree is very bounding in itself. 

13 Then, we are saying, of course, along comes 

14 this tower ash one week in 1982, and he works 

15 with that. And he gets his inhalation.

16 Does the 400 cover him, if he is 

17 the guy or that group of people who from time 

18 to time do that job? You know, the answer is 

19 I don't know. What do you do in a situation 

20 like that?

21 One side of me says, you know, 

22 that 400 has got to do it because there is so 
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1 much fluff built into it already, but the 

2 other side of me says, well, listen, we are 

3 working with a very unusual regulatory 

4 framework that imposes a threshold that is 

5 pretty tough. I could see someone arguing, 

6 "No, you really haven't placed a plausible 

7 upper bound on everyone here."

8 That particular guy, if he did 

9 exist, you may not be giving him the benefit 

10 of the doubt. And I will be the first to say 

11 I don't know what you do at this point. But I 

12 think we are reflecting the facts on the 

13 ground as best we see them.

14 MR. ROLFES: So, I guess what it 

15 comes down to, would the exposures that were 

16 incurred, you know, those other 51 weeks out 

17 of the year or 50 weeks out of the year, while 

18 that specific operator was not involved in 

19 down-blending operations, would the 

20 application of the 400 parts per billion to 

21 the uranium intakes that we'd assign for the 

22 entire year --
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1 DR. MAURO: Yes.

2 MR. ROLFES: Would those intakes 

3 account for any potential exposures that 

4 occurred during the one-week period of down5 blending?

6 DR. MAURO: Exactly. That is the 

7 perfect question.

8 MR. RICH: This is Bryce.

9 Process Subgroup 10A, which is the 

10 materials that are coming in directly from the 

11 gaseous diffusion plants, even though the 

12 number of data is not large -- it is only 39 

13 data pieces -- the 95 percentile default on 

14 that one would be 1732 as compared to 400. 

15 And so, it is a factor of four and a half 

16 higher than the 400. Whereas, the normal 

17 exposure of the people that did the down18 blending would not be 400. It would be in the 

19 eighties probably maximum. And so, if you 

20 take time of exposure versus the normal 1700 

21 to 80, I just feel that this is adequately 

22 bounding for even those down-blenders.
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1 MR. MORRIS: Ted, this is Bob 

2 Morris.

3 MR. KATZ: Bob, go ahead.

4 MR. MORRIS: I just wanted to 

5 point out that we have an interview with a 

6 Process Engineer, a former Fernald employee, 

7 dated September 11th, 2007. In that 

8 interview, the controls and the approach for 

9 the blending operations is described in some 

10 detail.

11 I think it is important to note 

12 that he says the material was not just dumped 

13 in; it was actually -- there was a careful 

14 process that it was done with because of the 

15 value of this material.

16 And so, I think that this down17 blending question needs to be considered in 

18 light of our documented interview about how 

19 that process was done.

20 DR. MAURO: This is John.

21 I think the two statements that 

22 were made by Bryce and Bob just now are 
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1 exactly where this conversation should be. 

2 What I mean by that is a weight of evidence is 

3 being put forth now that takes us the next 

4 step. Whether it is too little too late, that 

5 is your call on the Board.

6 But, basically, what the argument 

7 I am hearing is, if we accept the 400 as a 

8 baseline, and then you listen to the argument 

9 Bryce just made and the information that Bob 

10 just brought to the table, in effect, they are 

11 trying to put factual information on the table 

12 that says, you know, I think one could argue 

13 convincingly that the 400 that you apply for 

14 the entire year is going to account for this 

15 blip that might come in every two weeks for 

16 this particular worker.

17 So, if you could bring it there 

18 and make that case quantitatively, along with 

19 the other information of Bob, you are 

20 addressing the problem at least. What I am 

21 getting at is, rather than arguing, what we 

22 are doing is we are almost like taking our 
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1 hats off and looking at it, and trying to 

2 think about, does their position give enough 

3 weight of evidence that says, yes, I think it 

4 meets my test. But, in the end, it has got to 

5 meet the Board's test. But I think the kinds 

6 of things that are being said really are of 

7 great value to inform the decisionmaking 

8 process.

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: Are there any 

10 other documents in your references, Mark, that 

11 speak to the campaigns, the timing, how 

12 frequently? Because I have heard two weeks, 

13 one week, one day per year.

14 MR. RICH: There are a couple of 

15 documents that talk about the fact that the 

16 material that came in, they sometimes had to 

17 wait until they had material with which they 

18 could blend it. And so, it was not done all 

19 at once. It went over a year or so.

20 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. Because 

21 that is the most --

22 MR. RICH: Yes.
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1 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean I think 

2 Bryce's argument with the 1700 and the timing 

3 is the most convincing to me, if we can piece 

4 together that timing. Because I don't know 

5 enough about how many campaigns.

6 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

7 I found one reference related to

8 the Plant 4 repackaging. It is not really 

9 exactly the down-blending, but it does give an 

10 idea of how long it took to reprocess these 

11 five or to repackage these five hoppers. It 

12 was about a three-week period. And so, you 

13 extrapolate that to the full batch of about 10 

14 weeks just to do the repackaging.

15 MR. RICH: And any one hopper did 

16 not take --

17 MR. STIVER: Yes, they have it. 

18 There is a table in the reference that shows 

19 which days which hoppers were done. It is 

20 about three or four days per hopper.

21 MR. RICH: Right.

22 MR. STIVER: And so, that at least 
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1 gives you kind of an idea of what it would 

2 take to --

3 MR. RICH: That was not a 

4 continuous operation.

5 MR. STIVER: Yes.

6 MR. RICH: A hopper contains about 

7 -- I forget what it is --

8 MR. STIVER: A couple of tons.

9 MR. RICH: -- but major large 

10 barrels. So, it is a matter of simply 

11 repackaging; the barrels could be handled 

12 remotely.

13 MR. STIVER: Evidently, there is 

14 quite a bit of hand work involved in breaking 

15 up bigger chunks in order to get it into the 

16 barrels and that kind of thing. So, that at 

17 least gives you a little bit of a baseline on 

18 what it would take to do one part, one portion 

19 of the job.

20 As far as the actual down-blending 

21 in --

22 MR. RICH: And by the way, those 
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1 hoppers accounted for a major share of what 

2 came in in the 1980s.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Since I 

5 absolutely have no time to go through all 

6 those references, can you narrow that down for 

7 me, that reference or the Site Research 

8 Database number for those?

9 MR. RICH: If John's got it, 

10 that's fine.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay.

12 MR. RICH: Otherwise, I can get it 

13 to you.

14 MEMBER GRIFFON: All right. 

15 Thanks.

16 And that earlier one I talked 

17 about, Bryce, if you have it, which gives the 

18 data for the 600 samples or whatever.

19 MR. RICH: I think you have got 

20 that also. John said that he --

21 MR. STIVER: This is SRDB 33730, 

22 sampling of Plant 4 packaging. That is the 
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1 one that talks about, has the table that shows 

2 it.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: 3373?

4 MR. STIVER: 33730. I could just 

5 send it to you. I've got it here.

6 MR. RICH: John, you said you had 

7 the Bassett report for him also?

8 MR. STIVER: Yes, I have got the 

9 Bassett report, yes.

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: That is the one 

11 that has some samples and --

12 MR. RICH: Right.

13 MR. STIVER: I only have the 

14 report. I don't have the actual raw data to 

15 go with it, though.

16 MR. RICH: No, no, the Bassett 

17 report did not have the raw data.

18 MR. STIVER: Yes, it didn't have 

19 the raw data.

20 MR. RICH: It has a summary. Gene 

21 has it, though.

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Oh, you have the 
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1 raw data?

2 MR. RICH: Yes.

3 MR. STIVER: The data is 

4 available.

5 MR. RICH: Yes, we have the raw 

6 data.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: And is that in 

8 the Site Research Database anywhere?

9 MR. RICH: No. Well, no, it's --

10 ask Gene.

11 MR. ROLFES: Are you referring to 

12 the spreadsheet?

13 MR. RICH: No, the urine and fecal 

14 sampling data is in the Site Research 

15 Database, and Gene knows where it is.

16 MR. ROLFES: Yes, correct. The 

17 plutonium urinalyses that were taken from

18 Fernald employees, and, then, I believe also, 

19 you know, of those 500 samples that were 

20 taken, there were 10 which were approaching 

21 the minimum detectable amount. So, those 10 

22 people actually were lung-counted to look for 
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1 any kind of long-lived transuranic materials 

2 in their lungs.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: Can you just give 

4 us that number?

5 MR. ROLFES: I don't have the Site 

6 Research Database number.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Gene has that 

8 number?

9 MR. ROLFES: I can definitely 

10 identify it for you. If Gene has it on the 

11 phone, definitely please go ahead and provide 

12 the number. I just don't want to put you on 

13 the spot if you don't have it, though.

14 MEMBER GRIFFON: I mean I think we 

15 have got the arguments, right? I think we 

16 have just got to kind of consider this 

17 further. I am not ready to --

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I just have --

19 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. I just was 

20 going to check. Gene, are you on the line?

21 MR. POTTER: Yes, I am.

22 MR. KATZ: Did you hear that 
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1 question about whether you have the Site 

2 Database reference?

3 MR. POTTER: This is for the 10 

4 whatever they were, higher employees?

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, the 10 or 

6 that whole set, yes.

7 MR. ROLFES: The entire 500 

8 bioassay samples for plutonium conducted on 

9 Fernald workers in the 1980s is what we are 

10 asking about.

11 MR. POTTER: Yes, I think I can 

12 come up with that in a minute or two here.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. Great.

14 MR. ROLFES: If you don't have it, 

15 I can come back to it after lunch as well.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: That's fine.

17 But one person just left.

18 Let me ask Mark then, so you are 

19 saying that this down-blending and stuff only 

20 happened two weeks out of the year?

21 MR. ROLFES: Yes, up to right now, 

22 basically, everything that we have seen could 
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1 have been a one-day-type operation. It was a 

2 small campaign blending materials that we can 

3 say we can conservatively put an upper bound 

4 on the quantity of time that it took to down5 blend the materials. But based on everything 

6 that we have seen, it is a pretty short 

7 duration.

8 I don't know if Bryce has anything 

9 to add about the duration, you know, how many 

10 weeks, up to how many weeks per year could 

11 this have been done on any given year, the 

12 down-blending operation?

13 MR. RICH: We haven't looked in 

14 that much detail. But we do know it took a 

15 couple of years to finish it all up.

16 MR. ROLFES: So, it was over a 

17 couple-of-year process, but it was campaigns 

18 that lasted, you know, it is a matter of short 

19 campaigns.

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So do we have 

21 something --

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, I would like 
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1 to know whether it is one day a year or a week 

2 a year.

3 MR. ROLFES: Sure.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Because then we 

5 can put that in perspective. If it is half a 

6 year, it makes a difference.

7 MR. ROLFES: Sure.

8 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

9 The way I envision this is we have 

10 a couple of different scenarios that are more 

11 claimant-favorable-based, but you have to have 

12 some baseline to at least get some reasonable 

13 value of what that time period was.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I want to see 

15 some kind of data that says, oh, yes, it was 

16 only this --

17 MR. STIVER: The only definitive 

18 data that I have seen is for the repackaging. 

19 I think you actually have the exact point in 

20 time it took, and that is in this reference I 

21 am sending you.

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Can I ask one 
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1 more question? I think we are kind of winding 

2 down as much as we can say on this topic 

3 today.

4 MR. RICH: And by the way, this is 

5 Bryce again.

6 As John I think alluded to, that 

7 is not the blending operation. That is just 

8 the repackaging operation.

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, right.

10 MR. ROLFES: You said it was three 

11 weeks, correct?

12 MR. STIVER: It was three weeks 

13 for five hoppers.

14 MR. ROLFES: And that was the 

15 worst-case material, right? That was the 

16 Paducah tower ash --

17 MR. STIVER: I don't know whether 

18 it was the worst case. It was what was 

19 processed, the 168 metric tons that were done.

20 MR. ROLFES: Okay. So, that was 

21 the Paducah tower ash that came --

22 MR. STIVER: It was one-third of 
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1 the tower ash. We don't know which of those 

2 hoppers were --

3 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

4 MR. STIVER: Actually, we do know. 

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Actually, it is 

6 one of the worst cases.

7 MR. ROLFES: So, it was in the 

8 1980s, is what I was getting to.

9 MR. STIVER: From 1982.

10 MR. ROLFES: Was it that shipment, 

11 those T-hoppers?

12 MR. STIVER: It was in the 

13 T-hoppers, yes.

14 MEMBER GRIFFON: And this is a 

15 little tangential, but if we are winding down 

16 this topic, on the top of page 12 this is back 

17 to that same Bassett study. And I understand 

18 your argument that you are making relative to 

19 the uranium measures that were found in this 

20 for these 10 individuals' bioassays, that they 

21 ranged from 2 to 5 micrograms. So, therefore, 

22 how could you possibly have -- you know, it 
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1 doesn't support having that much plutonium of 

2 an intake.

3 My question is, at that time 

4 period was the MDL for uranium that low? In 

5 other words, you are below 7 micrograms now. 

6 You are reporting a range of 2 to 5. It 

7 wasn't fluorometric? Or this may have been a 

8 later period.

9 MR. RICH: I think it was 

10 fluorometric.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: It was 

12 fluorometric? And the MDA, I mean these are 

13 below the MDAs that I have seen. I don't know 

14 in the later time period. I mean 7 micrograms 

15 is normally the value I have seen.

16 MR. ROLFES: Yes, it changed over 

17 time. That time period was right around the 

18 same time period where they had dropped from 

19 about a less than 10, is the way they would 

20 report things. Right around 10 over the 

21 operating history was the detection 

22 sensitivity, the fluorometry.
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1 And, then, right in that time 

2 period, it dropped down. I would have to look 

3 specifically at the year because in some years 

4 it was less than 5; in other years it was less 

5 than 3. And so, yes, this is basically less 

6 than detectable.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Near MDL levels. 

8 Okay. All right.

9 And I will see this when I get 

10 this part that Gene is looking for, but I mean 

11 the data that you have, the raw data we are 

12 calling it, it is not something that you took 

13 out or extracted from a database or anything?

14 MR. ROLFES: This is the raw data, 

15 correct, yes.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: It is actually 

17 urine cards or whatever?

18 MR. RICH: No, no. No, no. That 

19 is in the database.

20 MR. ROLFES: These data do also 

21 appear in HIS-20 as well, in the electronic --

22 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay. Well, 
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1 then, okay, I think we need to see that 

2 because, I mean, something I ran across was 

3 some of this stuff at Paducah. We actually 

4 found a couple -- it wasn't a lot -- but a 

5 couple of cases where, because the database at 

6 Paducah was built many years later, that this 

7 2 to 5 micrograms could actually be 2 to 5 

8 milligram.

9 The people that were entering the 

10 data in later years, when they saw these 

11 values, they just assumed micrograms. When 

12 you went back to the cards, you said, oh, my 

13 God, this is the earlier year stuff and they 

14 really had milligrams of uranium exposure, you 

15 know. So, that is why I asked about the raw 

16 data.

17 The 2 to 5, if you actually look 

18 on your Table B-1, it would actually predict 

19 plutonium levels that were near MDL.

20 MR. ROLFES: I understand what you 

21 are asking, yes. I wasn't sure if you were 

22 asking about the plutonium raw data or the 
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1 uranium raw data.

2 I just wanted to reiterate, we did 

3 do an analysis, a comparison of the accuracy 

4 and completeness of the HIS-20 database. We 

5 did compare hard-copy results. 

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: Well, you did a 

7 statistical analysis.

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

9 MEMBER GRIFFON: That doesn't 

10 necessarily speak to these 10 samples.

11 MR. ROLFES: The plutonium 

12 samples, no, but the 2-to-5-microgram range 

13 would be the uranium values, not the 

14 plutonium.

15 (Simultaneous speaking.)

16 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think it was 

17 safe to say --

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: People that were 

19 exposed during the mid-eighties, right, 

20 because you are talking about that campaign.

21 MR. RICH: They took these samples 

22 in 1986. That was the 440 people that they 
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1 selected from most-likely-exposed, and that is 

2 the data we are talking about.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: Okay.

4 MR. RICH: So it's later.

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Do we 

7 need to discuss down-blend duration more?

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: The only actions, 

9 I think in terms of actions, it's just the 

10 supporting documents that can help us to 

11 understand the campaigns. How long? You 

12 know, what was involved?

13 MR. STIVER: Really what we need 

14 to do is --

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: If you have some 

16 documentation to that effect that we can, 

17 then, tie the year for that subset, you know, 

18 the 1750, or whatever it was, 1732 parts per 

19 billion, I think that would give us some idea. 

20 That is sort of the strongest argument that I 

21 heard in terms of being --

22 MR. STIVER: That is really what I 
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1 would like to see. That would give us an idea 

2 of whether the 400, really, you know, those 

3 spikes are washed out.

4 MEMBER GRIFFON: Right, right.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I just want to 

6 check with Paul and Phil, make sure that if 

7 you have any questions -- understand, this is 

8 coming before the Board in basically two 

9 weeks. So, this is kind of at the end of 

10 things to be able to catch up all of our loose 

11 ends that we had hanging out there because we 

12 had some papers that hadn't been reviewed, and 

13 so forth, like that.

14 And I just want to make sure that 

15 Paul and Phil, or, Bob, even if you are on 

16 there, do you have any questions or comments?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer. I 

18 would be glad to make a couple of comments.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: A 30-second 

20 sound bite?

21 (Laughter.)

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. Or more.
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1 Well, first of all, I really felt 

2 that the NIOSH analysis, the August 5th 

3 analysis, was very well-reasoned. And I agree 

4 with John Mauro's comments in how he was 

5 evaluating it in terms of the idea that there 

6 is every reason to think that the 400 parts 

7 per billion default would certainly be 

8 bounding for the normal operations.

9 To me, on this down-blending 

10 issue, the only thing that would convince me 

11 that the 400 was still not bounding would be 

12 if someone were able to show that the down13 blending operations extended beyond the couple 

14 of weeks that it seems to be what they were. 

15 There would have to be clear evidence that 

16 these were extensive and more regular.

17 And keep in mind that the concept 

18 of bounding, as NIOSH has used it in the 

19 past -- and I know John Mauro and I have had a 

20 lot of discussions on this, as to whether it 

21 is reasonable. Sometimes we bound too high. 

22 I think one could argue that perhaps 400 is 
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1 almost close to too high in terms of being 

2 someone actually getting that, but it is not 

3 perhaps unreasonable. But in any event, I 

4 don't see any way that the 400 would not be 

5 bounding unless one were able to show that 

6 these down-blending operations were very 

7 extensive.

8 And, then, the final comment is 

9 that, as bounding is used, I don't believe it 

10 always guarantees that there might not be one 

11 person on a site that would exceed it. You 

12 know, we are trying to sort of hit it at the 

13 high probability that we have covered 

14 everybody, but you can never show that there 

15 might not be one person that exceeded some 

16 bound conceptually.

17 But the 400, to me, is not only 

18 reasonable, but extremely generous, unless, as 

19 I have said, one could document that there was 

20 extensive down-blending in terms of the time 

21 and the operations. Otherwise, I agree with 

22 John that this 400 would make a lot of sense. 
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1 And I think, again, to me, the 100 is also 

2 reasonable for the earlier time period, when 

3 you look at the data.

4 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. 

5 Appreciate that.

6 Phil?

7 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: The only 

8 question I have is, in the use of this 

9 magnesium fluoride, how much of the 

10 concentrations, what levels actually increased 

11 in there? So, the exposure potentials for 

12 those people working with it is -- I don't 

13 know if that is a real serious problem or not. 

14 I really don't know, but that is something I 

15 was wondering about.

16 As they recycled this material, 

17 are they getting these lighter elements in 

18 there where they might have more of a neutron 

19 factor in there?

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This was with 

21 the bombs, reusing the --

22 MR. STIVER: I am not quite sure 
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1 what you are getting at.

2 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Phil, could you 

3 clarify at what point you were --

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes. On those 

5 bombs, when they recycled the recycled 

6 materials back through the process, when they 

7 were doing these reductions, I was wondering 

8 if there are contaminants picked up in this 

9 that start getting concentrated. And are 

10 those a real concern from the standpoint of 

11 exposure?

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Is that the 

13 dolomite?

14 MR. STIVER: That is the issue 

15 that we are discussing here, was the 

16 concentration of plutonium and neptunium and 

17 fission products in the dolomite through 

18 reuse.

19 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: How high do 

20 those concentrations get, ultimately?

21 MR. STIVER: The dataset that we 

22 have, of course, remember, it is on a part-
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1 per-billion uranium basis. I think the 

2 highest was about 8,000, but the 95th 

3 percentile was around 400 parts per billion.

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: One last 

5 question. Was there administrative guidelines 

6 that said, when these concentrations got to 

7 certain levels, the dolomite was not recycled 

8 through the process?

9 MR. STIVER: I haven't seen 

10 anything to that effect.

11 Bryce?

12 MR. RICH: No.

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. That's 

14 the only questions I had.

15 (Off record comments.)

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Sandra, I 

17 apologize, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I 

18 was just trying to stay on track.

19 MS. BALDRIDGE: That's fine.

20 You know, as I am listening to all 

21 this, and even what was discussed at the 

22 previous meetings, it is almost like there is 
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1 an attitude that, if we can get the bounding 

2 levels high enough so that it is all3 inclusive, then we don't have to deal with the 

4 sufficient accuracy requirement of the SEC 

5 because you don't know who was exposed, what 

6 they were exposed to, where they were exposed 

7 to it, or when they were exposed to it.

8 And if you get the level high 

9 enough and you get them under there, then it 

10 kind of is giving the impression that it is an 

11 attempt to blanket and cover the fact that 

12 they don't know who, what, when, and where 

13 these people were.

14 MR. KATZ: Sandra, the rules, 

15 actually, that is, having a single bound in 

16 certain circumstances is fine under the rule. 

17 And that is actually an appropriate approach 

18 for an SEC question, provided that the 

19 bounding is based in material fact and is 

20 reasonable, and so on.

21 MS. BALDRIDGE: That's the point. 

22 Is it fact or is it logic?
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1 MR. KATZ: Right.

2 MS. BALDRIDGE: Because the 

3 plausibility issue gets into the subjectivity 

4 of the individual who is evaluating the 

5 information. And everybody's thought 

6 processes are different.

7 One of the problems with the 

8 worst-case scenario is one dose reconstructor 

9 was looking at a file and, based on their 

10 interpretation of the plausibility that they 

11 had sufficient exposure, determined whether 

12 the dose reconstruction was done using the 

13 OTIBs available or they actually looked into 

14 the data and the possible situations 

15 concerning exposure.

16 MR. KATZ: But individual dose 

17 reconstruction, what gets done there is really 

18 a separate matter. And here, the judgement is 

19 being applied, there are judgements being 

20 applied to facts. But, I mean, you don't have 

21 it -- you are not relying on one person. You 

22 are relying on two organizations providing 
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1 input to then a Work Group, which is providing 

2 its consideration of those judgements, and 

3 then, ultimately, the entire Board providing 

4 its considerations to judgements.

5 So, there are judgements involved 

6 as well as data.

7 MS. BALDRIDGE: Right.

8 MR. KATZ: There always would be. 

9 But those are sort of highly-deliberated on 

10 and, then, will reflect the perspectives of 

11 all these different parties.

12 MS. BALDRIDGE: Right. I 

13 appreciate the process, and I know there has 

14 to be consistency across the board for all the 

15 SECs, that each one is dealt with in the same 

16 way, because that is the only way it is fair.

17 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And, Sandra, I 

19 will be honest, this has been, what you just 

20 said is something that the Board deals with 

21 continuously. It is very difficult for many 

22 of us to -- it goes against us sometimes. I 
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1 will be very honest.

2 But these are what we have been 

3 given and how we have to be able to deal with 

4 it. We earnestly -- I can say that all sides 

5 try to do the best that we can.

6 MS. BALDRIDGE: I realize that.

7 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: And we have 

8 further claimants in mind. Sometimes it is 

9 very difficult, and Fernald is a difficult 

10 site. From the outlook of it looking in, I 

11 can tell you truthfully it looked like a very 

12 easy site until we got into it. And the 

13 information, and the lack of information, and 

14 the ability -- it is very hard, and we try to 

15 deal with the facts that we do have and how we 

16 can do it.

17 But I understand your point and I 

18 appreciate that.

19 MR. STIVER: How are we doing? It 

20 is right around noon.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right around 

22 noon.
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1 Before we go into something else, 

2 I think I would say we could go to lunch 

3 because I don't want to open up something and 

4 leave in the middle of it, if that would be 

5 all right with everybody.

6 MR. ROLFES: Brad, if it is okay, 

7 if I could just identify the files for Mark?

8 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes.

9 MR. ROLFES: There are multiple 

10 ways of querying our Site Research Database, 

11 and that is what I have done here just while 

12 we are sitting here.

13 MEMBER GRIFFON: Oh, okay.

14 MR. ROLFES: I searched for 

15 "plutonium urine" for the first set, these 

16 first three references. I don't know if I 

17 need to read it for the record. And, then, I 

18 searched for "plutonium bioassay" for the 

19 second set.

20 So, the first search resulted in 

21 three files. The second search resulted in 

22 one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 
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1 eight, nine, ten, eleven files.

2 Let's see.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: But if Gene knows 

4 the specific one that goes to this, that would 

5 be great.

6 MR. ROLFES: Okay. The specific 

7 urinalysis data I believe are in the first 

8 one, 4158.

9 And if Gene has something 

10 different, he can clarify it now or --

11 MR. POTTER: It's 94117.

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: 94117?

13 MR. POTTER: Page 69 to 76.

14 MR. KATZ: Sixty-nine to 76, 

15 pages.

16 Okay. Thank you, Gene. Right.

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. With 

18 that, I would suggest that we break for lunch, 

19 come back about one o'clock.

20 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Brad.

21 Thank you, everyone on the line. 

22 We will be back with you at 1:00.
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1 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

2 went off the record for lunch at 11:53 a.m. 

3 and went back on the record at 1:03 p.m.)

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 

2 1:03 p.m.

3 MR. KATZ: So, good afternoon.

4 We are back from lunch break, and 

5 we are about to get started on thorium issues, 

6 I think.

7 Let me just check on the line and 

8 see if we have our Board Members.

9 Dr. Ziemer and Mr. Schofield?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Ziemer here.

11 MR. KATZ: Thanks, Paul.

12 How about you, Phil?

13 (No response.)

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Mute?

15 MR. KATZ: Phil, are you on the 

16 line?

17 (No response.)

18 Okay, not at this moment.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. This is 

20 Brad.

21 We are going to continue on. I 

22 don't think we have really come to a 
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1 resolution on the uranium. I think we have 

2 all voiced our concerns. We have got a little 

3 bit of information that we need to review, and 

4 so forth.

5 But we are going to continue on to 

6 the thorium-232 post-`68 era. And, SC&A, I 

7 believe the ball is in your court to respond.

8 MR. STIVER: Yes. This is John 

9 Stiver.

10 We produced two responses to NIOSH 

11 regarding the thorium chest count data which 

12 was used to assess thorium-232 intakes from 

13 1968 to when they stopped using the other 

14 data, up until the closure of the facility in 

15 1989. And we really looked at it from two 

16 perspectives.

17 One was the adequacy of the data. 

18 Basically, is the pedigree of the data good 

19 enough to use in dose reconstruction?

20 And, then, kind of separately, we 

21 looked at, assuming that the pedigree was 

22 acceptable, were the data sufficient in 
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1 numbers and types to be useful in creating a 

2 distribution which would capture all subgroups 

3 of concern?

4 Joyce, are you on the line?

5 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, I am.

6 MR. STIVER: Okay. Joyce produced

7 a -- let me back up just a minute. At the 

8 April meeting we were discussing this issue. 

9 I believe it was Bob Morris had mentioned and 

10 Mark had mentioned there was some information 

11 on calibration for the Y-12 mobile in vivo 

12 system from about 1965, which is very similar, 

13 if not identical, to what was used at Fernald.

14 And we had had questions regarding 

15 the calibration methods, particularly for the 

16 data that was reported 1968 to 1978 in units 

17 of milligram for thorium. From 1978 on, it 

18 was reported in nanocuries and there were 

19 actual measurements available of lead-212 and 

20 actinium-228, which allowed then a 

21 reconstructor or other interested party to 

22 assess or at least estimate the age of the 
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1 thorium source term.

2 So, Joyce, if you would like to 

3 present your paper and give some highlights 

4 there?

5 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. Can I just 

6 make a very small introduction to the problems 

7 of measuring thorium? I think we have been 

8 through this a lot of times, but it is always 

9 good to repeat.

10 It is very difficult to interpret 

11 the data from thorium monitoring in lungs 

12 because you don't measure thorium itself. 

13 Thorium decays, thorium-232 decays to 

14 radium-228, which decays to actinium-228, 

15 which in turn decays to thorium-228 and 

16 radium-224, then radon-220 and polonium-216,

17 and then lead-212.

18 So, in order to calculate the lung 

19 burden due to thorium-232, you either have to 

20 rely on measurements of actinium-228 or 

21 lead-212. And what's the problem with that?

22 The problem is that you have to 
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1 make a lot of assumptions to interpret the 

2 data that you measure in the lung. So, the 

3 first thing that you have to make is an 

4 assumption about the source. You have a 

5 thorium-232 source that was separated from the 

6 daughters. So, you only had thorium-232 and 

7 thorium-228.

8 Depending on the age of the 

9 source, the daughters would start to build, 

10 and thorium-228 decays in a different rate 

11 than thorium-232 because it has a much shorter 

12 half-life. But, on the other hand, it starts 

13 to build from radium-228 also. So, when you 

14 measure lead-212 and actinium-228, you have to 

15 relate to the age of the source

16 The second thing is in the lung 

17 itself. You have the lung, and you have to 

18 know how much time. Once you have established 

19 what was the equilibrium of the source, what 

20 was the age of the source, then you have to 

21 know how much did daughters and the thorium 

22 have decayed in the lung itself. So, you have 
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1 to know the time after exposures that a worker 

2 was measured, and you have to know if it was a 

3 chronic exposure, if it was an intermittent 

4 exposure. Like you measure, and then after 

5 some time, the worker is exposed again and he 

6 is measured again. So that the daughters that 

7 you are measuring in the lung, they come from 

8 two different equations, from how much was in 

9 the source at the various times of exposure 

10 and how much it decayed on the lung, because 

11 you didn't measure just after exposure.

12 And there is a third thing that 

13 complicates this thing. It is that the test 

14 location rates for the daughters is not the 

15 same as for the parent. For example, there 

16 are many studies showing that radium-228 goes 

17 out from the lung, translocates from the lung 

18 at a faster rate than thorium.

19 So, if you imagine you had a 

20 thorium source that was Type M and you had 

21 radium Type M, but even radium and thorium 

22 Type M, the radium will translocate faster. 
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1 But if you had a thorium source that was Type 

2 S, then radium can only be Type M. So, 

3 depending on where the radium was produced in 

4 the lung, it would come in a faster or not 

5 rate from the thorium-232. But if the person 

6 had inhaled also radium-228 from the source, 

7 then this radium certainly would have a faster 

8 translocation than the thorium-232. So, when 

9 you measure the lead-212 that comes after or 

10 the actinium that comes after the radium, you 

11 have to know this. You have to interpret what 

12 was the ratio of the thorium-232 to the 

13 radium.

14 So, I want to make sure that 

15 everybody knows that it is very complicated. 

16 It is not just a question of this problem 

17 here, but it is very complicated to interpret 

18 in vivo measurements of thorium in lungs 

19 through the daughters. Okay?

20 So, let's come to what was done. 

21 Is that okay?

22 DR. GLOVER: Joyce, this is Sam 
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1 Glover. I would take a little exception to 

2 the radium-228. I completely agree that they 

3 were separate source terms; they will dissolve 

4 at their own rate.

5 And I have made the oxalates from 

6 aged thorium and watched the solubility 

7 characteristics of radium-228 compared to 

8 thorium-232. Thorium-232 crystalline 

9 structure prevents radium from leaving except 

10 at the surface. It is a surface-area11 dominated effect. It is just like plutonium 

12 and americium. It can't dissolve faster than 

13 the thorium dioxide crystal.

14 So if it is an aged material that 

15 was born in that oxide, it is not going to 

16 change that. It is going to dissolve like the 

17 thorium does.

18 It is a complicated measurement. 

19 It is hard to do, especially --

20 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, that is what 

21 I was telling.

22 Now there are also some studies 
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1 where, even if you have the thorium in the 

2 lung which is insoluble, radium can dissolve, 

3 translocate faster sometimes. There are some 

4 studies in the literature about that.

5 But the other thing is that you 

6 have to know how much radium came from the 

7 source itself, which depends on the age of the 

8 source. So, this radium certainly has a 

9 translocation rate differently.

10 And you are measuring the 

11 actinium. So you have three things at the 

12 same time that you have to interpret with just 

13 one measurement. So that is what makes it 

14 very complicated. It is not only here. 

15 Right?

16 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is Mark 

17 Rolfes.

18 Yes, we do understand it is 

19 complicated. However, we don't believe it is 

20 an issue that cannot be resolved by making 

21 claimant-favorable assumptions of the age of 

22 the material --
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1 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. Okay. I 

2 don't agree with you, but let's go on. I just 

3 wanted everybody to understand that it is 

4 complicated, that you have three things to 

5 know at the same time.

6 And I wanted to make sure, also, 

7 that we will see in the other paper that is 

8 probably going to be presented by Bob and 

9 Harry that you also have to know the time 

10 after exposure that workers were measured and 

11 how they were measured. And you will see that 

12 probably the thorium measurements were, you 

13 know, the in vivo -- I'm sorry, the in vivo 

14 measurements were not geared to thorium 

15 workers. So you don't know exactly how much 

16 after exposure they were -- how long after 

17 exposure they were measured.

18 And you will see, also, that some 

19 people that had positive measurements of 

20 thorium were not working in the areas where, 

21 for example, the Technical Basis Document on 

22 internal dosimetry defined as a thorium 
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1 working area. So, because of that, you also 

2 don't know how much time after exposure these 

3 workers were measured. You know, you have a 

4 mixture of everything and, also, the problems 

5 of measurement.

6 But, okay, the second thing is 

7 there was a period of time from `68 to `78 

8 where the thorium results were given in 

9 milligrams. And from `78 to `88, the thorium 

10 results were not given in milligrams of 

11 thorium, but they were given in nanocuries of 

12 actinium-228 and nanocuries of lead-212.

13 So at least during this period 

14 after `79 you have the raw data with which to 

15 work. But for the period of `68 to `78, you 

16 don't even have the raw data; you just have 

17 milligrams of thorium.

18 MR. ROLFES: However, Joyce, 

19 though, we do have information on how much 

20 material was in the lung. We know how much 

21 thorium-232 was in the lung. And once again, 

22 you can make assumptions about the age of the 
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1 material that will allow you to get the 

2 activity results.

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, you can't 

4 because you don't know how they were done, and 

5 there are too many uncertainties.

6 I will start going now one problem 

7 over the other, so that I can explain myself 

8 because I don't think you can make such 

9 assumptions and you cannot make what you call 

10 the favorable assumptions for the client 

11 because you don't know many things. You don't 

12 know three different things: the age of the 

13 source, how long had passed when people were 

14 measured and what material was measured, and 

15 the translocation rate.

16 So, okay, let's start from the 

17 beginning. The first thing is we want to 

18 know, do we know the sensitivity of thorium 

19 measurements in milligrams? I don't think we 

20 even know that.

21 In the paper, in the White Paper, 

22 it was stated that the lower limit of 
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1 detection was 6 milligrams. Okay, the lower 

2 limit of detection can't be milligrams, the 

3 first thing, it can't be milligrams of thorium 

4 because it will depend on how much lead was 

5 measured or how much actinium was measured. 

6 So you have a minimum detection level that 

7 would be in nanocuries of lead-212 and in 

8 nanocuries of actinium-228. Okay, that is the 

9 minimum detection level.

10 So when you transform it, you have 

11 to know the two things. You have to know the 

12 age of the source and you have to know the 

13 time after exposure that workers were 

14 measured. So, without knowing -- I am just 

15 ignoring for now the different translocation 

16 rate. I am just talking about the physical 

17 decay now.

18 So even if the translocation rate 

19 was the same, you would have different 

20 sensitivity limits, depending on the age of 

21 the source and on the time after exposure that 

22 the workers were measured.
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1 The second thing is that we have a 

2 paper, NIOSH cites a paper by Scott from 1966, 

3 from where this reference comes of a lower

4 detection limit of 6 milligrams. But on this 

5 paper, the source that they were measuring 

6 probably was not a pure thorium source that 

7 was separated from all the daughters. It 

8 probably had some radium because it says that 

9 the calibration standard for this 6 milligrams 

10 was a thorium source that had a ratio of 

11 thorium-232 to thorium-228 of 1.27 and of 

12 thorium-232 to radium-228 of 1.67. And this 

13 cannot be; this is not possible.

14 So it probably had an excess of 

15 radium-228 on the thorium source. And even 

16 Scott in this paper, he indicates that this 

17 rate of exposure would be distinguished from 

18 thorium by repeating measurements over a long 

19 period of time and observing the decay and the 

20 growth pattern.

21 So that this minimum sensitivity 

22 doesn't refer to the same source that was in 
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1 Fernald, and this is 6 milligrams in the Y-12, 

2 for which you made the calibration for the --

3 whole body counter.

4 And also, there was a document 

5 from NLO from 1966 which contains a letter 

6 from 1966 commenting on differences between 

7 measurements of a worker who did in vivo 

8 monitoring at Y-12 and at the Wright-Patterson 

9 Air Force. And in this document, it states 

10 that the minimum detection at Y-12 at that Y11 12 model in vivo laboratory that was used at 

12 Fernald, the detection level was 9.8 

13 milligrams of thorium-232.

14 So I think that, in summary, we 

15 don't have too much. We don't have precise 

16 information on the sensitivity of the lung 

17 counting results reported in milligrams of 

18 thorium-232 material that was handled at 

19 Fernald.

20 The other thing is that we wanted 

21 to know how was the calibration of the 

22 countings done. And, then, NIOSH has posted 
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1 to us a description of three phantoms that 

2 were used for calibration of activities. And 

3 it cites a paper by King and Barkley from 1983 

4 describing the derivation of the conversion 

5 factors and three phantoms that were used.

6 So there was a phantom that was --

7 they describe a REMAB phantom which is a 

8 torso-shaped plastic shell that contains a 

9 human skeleton and was filled with tissue10 equivalent organic fluids, and sponge material 

11 was used in the lung cavity to simulate lung 

12 tissue. And the small sources were inserted 

13 into holes in the sponge material. Okay. 

14 This REMAB phantom was used from the early 

15 `70s until `83.

16 This paper says that past studies 

17 have shown that monitoring results can vary by 

18 a factor of three or more with source 

19 positioning inside the lung cavity.

20 So, before the REMAB phantom, we 

21 don't know anything about the uncertainties on 

22 calibration, but we know from this paper that 
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1 was used to describe the calibration better. 

2 Before `83, you could be erroneous by a factor 

3 of three or more due to calibration problems.

4 Okay. Then NIOSH describes how 

5 the thorium mass from chest count was 

6 calculated. It comes from a paper that was 

7 proposed by West in 1965 where they compute 

8 how much counting there is in the actinium 

9 region and how much counting there is in the 

10 lung -- 212 region.

11 But West's paper does not advocate 

12 to dismantle the monitoring for quantitative 

13 assessment of thorium burden in the lung, but 

14 there is a screening method to distinguish 

15 exposed from non-exposed workers. It even 

16 says that there are problems associated with 

17 monitoring of personnel exposed to thorium, 

18 such as the knowledge of the ratio of 

19 thorium-232 to thorium-228, since this ratio 

20 changes with time after separation of thorium 

21 from its daughters, and the fact that the 

22 interpretation of monitoring results depends 
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1 on the metabolic or physical translocation of 

2 daughters away from the location of the parent 

3 stored in the body. Such translocation can 

4 affect the reliability and the sensitivity of 

5 in vivo interpretation if the gamma is 

6 measured at dose from daughters subject to 

7 translocation.

8 So, this paper, it says that this 

9 method that was used should only be used 

10 qualitatively.

11 And there is also posted on the O: 

12 drive by NIOSH a paper called FMPC Mobile In 

13 Vivo Radiation Monitoring Laboratory 

14 Calibration and Data Interpretation, Draft 01, 

15 by Robert Morris from May 6, 2011. So, we ran 

16 through the examples that they give.

17 They show, for example, that there 

18 was a measurement of lead-212 that had two 

19 results, 2.85 nanocuries and 3.15 nanocuries, 

20 with an average of 3 nanocuries. And, then, 

21 they had actinium-228 results of 2.75 and 2.8 

22 nanocuries, with an average of 2.78 
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1 nanocuries.

2 So, they make the ratio from 

3 lead-212 to actinium-228 to decide what was 

4 the age of the thorium source. So, they 

5 showed that, for these results, this was shown 

6 in the paper. It is not an invention of 

7 results from myself. This is specifically

8 shown in that paper from `76 that we had 

9 lead-212 to actinium-228 ratio equal to 1.08, 

10 which leads to the conclusion that the age of 

11 the source was 4.3 years.

12 And they note that the exposure 

13 source could also be in equilibrium, which 

14 would better agree with knowledge of the case 

15 history. So, they show that if they assumed 

16 equilibrium, they would calculate 27.6 

17 milligrams of thorium-232. But if they 

18 assumed 43 years after prolification, they 

19 would have 56 milligrams.

20 If you were reading the paper that

21 we wrote, I made an error here. I say, based 

22 on this example, a factor of 19 -- it is 1.9. 
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1 It is an error of two.

2 But, anyway, you see, the 

3 difference between a ratio of 1.08 to 1.0 to 

4 determine the age of the thorium, you know, it 

5 is very uncertain, and you can make a 

6 difference of two on what you are reporting in 

7 milligrams.

8 MR. STIVER: Joyce, this is John 

9 Stiver.

10 The last uncertainty, that last 

11 little example, is really just the impact of 

12 measurement uncertainty, isn't it? It is not 

13 even related to the actual age. This is just 

14 an uncertainty --

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, no, because if 

16 you had 1.08, the ratio of the lead-212 --

17 MR. STIVER: I understand that.

18 DR. LIPSZTEIN: -- to 

19 actinium-228, and you put in the equation, you 

20 would think that the age of the source was 4.3 

21 years.

22 MR. STIVER: I know --
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1 DR. LIPSZTEIN: But if you had a 

2 ratio of 1, you would assume equilibrium. 

3 Now, if you assume equilibrium, you have a 27-

4 milligram source. If you assume 4.3 years 

5 prolification, you have 56 milligrams.

6 MR. STIVER: I believe, though, 

7 that the problem here is the uncertainty in 

8 that 1.08 ratio, based on the measurement 

9 uncertainty of the lead and actinium. So you 

10 could have an uncertainty just in that 

11 measurement of a factor of two --

12 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

13 MR. STIVER: -- regardless of what 

14 the real age is.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. Yes, 

16 exactly.

17 MR. STIVER: And you also have 

18 uncertainty in the age of the material based 

19 on the actual age which range by a factor of 

20 two as well.

21 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

22 MR. STIVER: So you have two kind 
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1 of independent sources of uncertainty there.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, yes.

3 MR. STIVER: In addition to the 

4 factor of three -- up to `83 at least, when 

5 they were using the REMAB phantom.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, yes, exactly.

7 MR. STIVER: So, anyway, go ahead. 

8 Continue.

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And, also, in this 

10 same paper, there is a note stating that there 

11 were new calibration coefficients that cause a 

12 4 percent difference in the lead-212 to 

13 actinium-228 ratio, which translates into a 16 

14 percent difference in the equilibrium 

15 assumption.

16 In this paper, there is no precise 

17 information on when the new calibration 

18 precision started to be used, but the dates of 

19 the notes in this document indicate that it 

20 was near the end of `77. But we don't have 

21 any information from NIOSH on the changing of 

22 calibration coefficient so we don't know.
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1 So, in summary, the method used to 

2 estimate thorium burdens in milligrams has too 

3 many uncertainties and probably should only be 

4 used for qualitative assumptions about thorium 

5 burden, as indicated in West, `65, in the 

6 paper of West from 1965, which is the paper 

7 that was cited as the basis document for the 

8 calculation of thorium mass from chest count 

9 data.

10 DR. MAURO: Joyce, I see where you 

11 are rolling up nicely our concerns regarding 

12 the milligram data.

13 I would just let everyone know on 

14 the phone -- again, you know, we did have a 

15 dress rehearsal the other day to talk about 

16 all of this.

17 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

18 DR. MAURO: And I played devil's 

19 advocate. I put on my NIOSH hat. Okay? I 

20 said, "Okay, Joyce, all right, we understand 

21 that this is strewn with many, many complex, 

22 interrelated factors that will lead you to 
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1 say, you know, you really can't trust these 

2 numbers because they could really be off by a 

3 lot."

4 And I asked the question I always 

5 ask. Could they have underestimated by a 

6 factor of two? Absolutely. How about a 

7 factor of 10? How about a factor of 100?

8 And Joyce gave me an answer that 

9 left me in a place where I said she's 

10 uncomfortable even saying what that upper end 

11 could be. In other words, how wrong could 

12 they have been? Am I correct in summarizing 

13 that conversation we had the other day?

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

15 DR. MAURO: That is, if someone 

16 were to say, "Okay, Joyce, in light of all 

17 this, and looking at those numbers, how much 

18 higher could they have been," and I got the 

19 sense that you were not in a position to say, 

20 "I don't think I can answer that question." 

21 Is that a fair statement?

22 DR. LIPSZTEIN: That is a fair 
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1 statement. That is very true.

2 We don't know exactly what 

3 parameters they used to give those results. 

4 There are many complicated parameters. And we 

5 don't have the raw data. We just have the 

6 transformed data, what they had in 

7 actinium-228 and lead-212, and they 

8 transformed it into milligrams. So, we don't 

9 know. We don't know what these numbers mean.

10 DR. MAURO: And the information 

11 that Joyce has summarized leads you to the 

12 impression, you say, well, listen, why do we 

13 distrust the people who did this work? In 

14 other words, they reported those milligrams. 

15 Didn't they know about all this stuff that 

16 Joyce just summarized?

17 And clearly, the concerns that 

18 Joyce mentioned regarding the minimum 

19 detectable concentration, the calibration 

20 issues, these things are a window that perhaps 

21 they did make some of these 

22 misrepresentations, and not deliberately. So, 
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1 it is not that we could just say, well, 

2 everything about the analysis, why do we 

3 distrust the numbers? They were good 

4 radiochemists.

5 But the reality is there are these 

6 other matters that Joyce summarized that says 

7 but there is too much information here that 

8 says these numbers are very soft. So it 

9 leaves us in a very uncomfortable place.

10 And the irony of all of this is 

11 that, when they started the chest count work 

12 -- I believe it was `69 -- they thought that 

13 was going to be an improvement over basing 

14 their analysis of thorium body burdens when 

15 previously they used the air sampling, the 

16 breathing zone data, and the DWE.

17 Interestingly enough, they were 

18 much better off with the DWE data, as we have 

19 covered previously. So it is ironic that here 

20 we have a later time period, starting, I 

21 believe, in `69, when in theory an improvement 

22 was made by bringing in the chest count 
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1 technique. But, lo and behold, we find that 

2 they would have been, in terms of dose 

3 reconstruction, they would have probably been 

4 better off sticking with the breathing zone 

5 approach.

6 DR. LIPSZTEIN: But I don't know 

7 what they wanted with those in vivo 

8 monitoring, but if you read the papers, they 

9 would say that those were for qualitative 

10 assessment of who was exposed and who was not 

11 exposed.

12 DR. MAURO: As opposed to an 

13 attempt to be quantitative in terms of what 

14 the exposures were.

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. Yes, 

16 exactly, yes.

17 So, qualitatively, if you measure 

18 something in the lung, it is because someone 

19 was exposed. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there. 

20 But what, quantitatively, this means, that is 

21 the problem.

22 DR. MAURO: And as I understand, 
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1 Joyce, from yesterday, I think it was 

2 yesterday or the day before yesterday when we 

3 talked, superimposed on all this is that the 

4 measurements that were made for the people 

5 that we have data for were not necessarily the 

6 limiting group. Is that correct?

7 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, exactly.

8 DR. MAURO: I know Bob Barton did 

9 some work on that.

10 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

11 DR. MAURO: And so, I mean, on top 

12 of it all, we have this concern that the 

13 people that were measured may not have been 

14 the people that represent the people with the 

15 potential for the highest exposures.

16 DR. LIPSZTEIN: For example, I 

17 have one interesting example that is in Bob's 

18 paper, not on this White Paper that I wrote, 

19 but the one that Harry and Bob wrote. He has 

20 an interesting table showing that most of the 

21 positive measurements were from `69 to `71.

22 So if you look at `69 to `71, if 
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1 you look at the Technical Basis Document, you 

2 will see that from `69 to `71 what is cited 

3 there is that most of the thorium that was 

4 possessed was Type S material, which is 

5 logical to have more positive samples when you 

6 have insoluble material in your lung.

7 But, then, when you look at the 

8 workers that had those positive samples, they 

9 were from a building, they were working in a 

10 building where there was no thorium process 

11 that went on in that building. So we don't 

12 know from where those numbers come. But, of 

13 course, if they had positive measurements in 

14 the lung, that is because they were exposed. 

15 But how, why, why these workers were listed in 

16 a plant that was not listed as processing 

17 thorium? If they took those workers to other 

18 plants, nobody knows.

19 MR. STIVER: But, Joyce, before 

20 you get into the data completeness issue, 

21 would you talk a little bit about the data 

22 from `78 to `89?
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1 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, yes. Okay.

2 MR. STIVER: Nanocurie data?

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, yes.

4 DR. MAURO: I am sorry to 

5 interrupt, but I think what we have just done 

6 is look at a time period from, I believe, `68 

7 to `78, which says that we think you have a 

8 very serious problem in reconstructing doses 

9 from thorium during that time period when they 

10 are reported in milligrams, very serious.

11 And now, Joyce, I think you are 

12 going to go on to talk about the post-`78 time 

13 period, when the measurements were -- there is 

14 an improvement, but they also have some 

15 problems.

16 I just want to make a very clean 

17 break between what we just talked about, which 

18 I think is one of the single-most problems, 

19 greatest problems that we have encountered.

20 But I will let you go and continue 

21 with the post-`78.

22 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. The first 
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1 thing about the post-`78 that we already know, 

2 that until `83, when they -- the phantom from 

3 the Lawrence Livermore phantom, we had a 

4 factor of three or more on calibration 

5 problems.

6 Then we also -- let me go here to 

7 `78. And then, we have the same, well, not

8 the same problem, because we have the raw 

9 data. Okay? But we have the problems of 

10 having actinium-228 and having two 

11 measurements, and we have lead-212 

12 measurements.

13 Now we have to establish three 

14 things. We have to establish, number one, 

15 what was the source age? Second, we have to 

16 know how long after exposure workers were 

17 measured. And we have to know if they were 

18 exposed more than once and when. And we have 

19 to know if the workers were like exposed, 

20 measured every year. It doesn't seem like it. 

21 And who were those thorium workers?

22 Because if you have actinium-228 
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1 and lead-212 and you need to go from those 

2 data, go back to the thorium, how much thorium 

3 was in the lungs, with those data, you know, 

4 you can't have -- if you have two, X and Y, 

5 okay, so you have to have more -- you can't 

6 have more equations than you have data. 

7 Otherwise, you can't go back.

8 So you have a calibration problem 

9 that you don't know how to solve until `83. 

10 Then you have to determine the age of the 

11 source, how long after exposure people were 

12 measured, and how frequently they were exposed 

13 to the source before they were measured. And 

14 if it was more than one source, thorium 

15 source, that they were exposed before they 

16 were measured.

17 So all this -- will end up in just 

18 one measurement of actinium and of lead. And 

19 you know, it is just very hard to go back.

20 MR. STIVER: Joyce, for this later 

21 period -- John had kind of asked you if you 

22 felt that the earlier data could be resolved, 
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1 and you were kind of hesitant about the 

2 possibility of that. For this later data set, 

3 do you feel that these types of issues are 

4 tractable, that it is possible to get at least 

5 a reasonable estimate of the age of the source 

6 term based on --

7 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Unless you 

8 identify who were the thorium workers and how 

9 long after exposure they were measured, and 

10 how they were exposed. I mean how means the 

11 time pattern of exposure. Would they be 

12 exposed for two weeks, then be out, then be 

13 exposed three months later? Or would they 

14 just be exposed for one day and not exposed 

15 anymore? Or would they be exposed for a 

16 whole year and then be measured after that 

17 year? Without those considerations, it is 

18 very hard to go back to the thorium.

19 MR. STIVER: It would probably be 

20 hard to get a real accurate quantitative 

21 estimate. But if you knew what the impact of 

22 those uncertainties might be on the result, 
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1 would it be, then, possible to factor in those 

2 uncertainties and at least get a bounding 

3 value?

4 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I think it is very 

5 difficult. Nobody has demonstrated to me that 

6 it can, but --

7 MR. STIVER: It seems like here 

8 you have at least got an anchor point. You 

9 have got two different measurements. You have 

10 got lead-212 and you have got actinium-228. 

11 From that, you can at least get an estimate of 

12 the age of the source.

13 And, then, from that --

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Of the age of the 

15 source? No, you don't, because you don't know 

16 how much time has passed between the exposure 

17 to the source and the measurement on the lung. 

18 Don't forget that you have the age of the 

19 source, but the age of the source after it was 

20 inhaled in the lung also.

21 MR. STIVER: What I am trying to 

22 do is just kind of take each of these 
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1 variables separately and kind of look at them.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay.

3 MR. STIVER: For the moment, let's 

4 say you knew the time since exposure or say 

5 you had enough bioassay samples that you can 

6 kind of figure that out. Let's just take a 

7 look at just the age.

8 What I am trying to see, is there 

9 a way you can get an anchor point? So, you 

10 can at least have something you could hang 

11 your hat on here as a starting point. And, 

12 then, do an uncertainty analysis of these 

13 other variables to where you could at least 

14 come up with some kind of a bounding value you 

15 would have some confidence in, that wouldn't 

16 be some physiological limit of intake which 

17 would leave you with essentially no model.

18 And so, that is kind of where I am 

19 going with it. Do you feel that, given that 

20 you have more, the raw data, and it seems to 

21 be a little bit more robust, do you think that 

22 it is possible to derive a bounding intake 
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1 from that dataset?

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Comment, Brad? 

3 Brad?

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, Paul?

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, just a 

6 question and a comment. If we are talking 

7 about bounding rather than individual dose 

8 reconstructions, the issue of not knowing when 

9 the exposure occurred is very common on 

10 internal dose reconstruction. NIOSH has a 

11 methodology where, if you don't know when 

12 exposure occurred, you can develop the worst 

13 case. When would the exposure have to have 

14 occurred to give you the worst dose from the 

15 data that you have measured?

16 So if we are trying to find the 

17 bounding issue, you can look at that for all 

18 the data points. You can take, in principle 

19 at least, when would the exposure have had to 

20 have occurred, either chronically or acutely. 

21 And, also, you could take various ratios and 

22 get a worst case. What would the maximum dose 
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1 have to be if you had this final measurement? 

2 And you could do that with all the data 

3 points, in principle, and find the bounding 

4 value.

5 So if we are talking about sort of 

6 like a coworker bounding value, it seems to me 

7 you could do that. In fact, if you were doing 

8 individual dose reconstructions and you had 

9 just the value, you could do the same thing. 

10 Say, okay, when would the exposure or the 

11 intake have to have occurred to give you the 

12 worst, the highest dose, given these results, 

13 both in terms of when it occurred, whether it 

14 was chronic or acute, and what the isotopic 

15 ratios would be?

16 So I don't see how this is 

17 different from other cases where we have dealt 

18 with internal exposures for bounding.

19 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I think the 

20 problem is that we are relating on the ratio 

21 of actinium to lead-212. As the material was 

22 separated, the actinium doesn't give a good 
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1 measurement of the thorium that is in the 

2 lung. For a small variation of the ratio of 

3 actinium to lead-212, you have a very high 

4 difference of how much was the activity of 

5 thorium in the lung.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: But couldn't you 

7 do a sensitivity analysis and see what those 

8 extremes were?

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Maybe. Maybe. I 

10 didn't see, look, I didn't see --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: I don't know 

12 whether it has been done, but I am asking in 

13 principle. I think we have done this before 

14 in other cases. I don't know if Bob Morris or 

15 Mark, or one of you, can comment on that, or 

16 even John Mauro for other situations.

17 MR. ROLFES: Dr. Ziemer, this is 

18 Mark Rolfes.

19 DR. MAURO: Even John Mauro?

20 (Laughter.)

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Even John Mauro.

22 DR. MAURO: Even John Mauro.
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1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I was hoping 

2 NIOSH would.

3 DR. MAURO: I want to sit out a 

4 little longer and listen to this.

5 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Everybody, we 

6 need to be very careful, especially on the 

7 phone, not to talk over one another because 

8 the court reporter is having a real hard time.

9 Mark had wanted to make a comment 

10 here.

11 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Brad.

12 Thank you, Dr. Ziemer.

13 Yes, I think we have been 

14 discussing these issues. We put this White 

15 Paper out, just so everyone is aware, we put 

16 out this proposed model, I believe it was

17 three years ago. We put out this model in 

18 2008. I believe it was in May.

19 This is something that I think 

20 probably didn't really get discussed until 

21 about a year ago, it was first taken up and 

22 discussed in detail. We have had previous 
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1 back-and-forths.

2 And based on what I am hearing, we 

3 are talking about a factor of two, a factor of 

4 three. There are many uncertainties involved. 

5 We acknowledge those uncertainties.

6 We have the data available to us, 

7 and we can make reasonable assumptions about 

8 those uncertainties, so that we can use those 

9 uncertainties to the benefit of the doubt of 

10 the claimant for whose dose we are 

11 reconstructing, based upon the facts, based 

12 upon, you know, everything that we know about 

13 that particular claim.

14 And I have some individuals on the 

15 phone, including Bob Morris, Liz Brackett, and 

16 Tom LaBone, who I don't know if we want to 

17 listen to the remaining issues from SC&A and 

18 then go back to the beginning and respond on 

19 those on a point-by-point basis. It is 

20 whatever the Work Group would prefer.

21 But, yes, we can make assumptions 

22 about the time of exposure to interpret the 
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1 data that we have available to us. One can 

2 make claimant-favorable assumptions about the 

3 time of exposure, about the time in between 

4 the exposure and the lung count. One can also 

5 use, instead of using just one lung count for 

6 that individual, you can use two lung counts. 

7 So, that will give you additional data to 

8 allow you to understand the lung burden of 

9 thorium and the quantity in the body.

10 We acknowledge there are lots of 

11 uncertainties, and those uncertainties are 

12 built into the biokinetic models that we use 

13 in dose reconstruction. They are built into 

14 the integrated modules for bioassay analysis.

15 We rely upon the most up-to-date 

16 scientific information available concerning 

17 the biokinetics of thorium and thorium 

18 progeny. So, we are using respiratory tract 

19 models and biokinetic models from the ICRP 66 

20 and 68.

21 Yes, we do agree there are 

22 uncertainties. However, we disagree that one 
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1 cannot bound the potential intakes. We 

2 believe that the data are available to us that 

3 will allow us to bound in a claimant-favorable 

4 manner the potential exposures incurred by 

5 workers using the lung counting data.

6 I don't know if Bob Morris is out 

7 there possibly or Liz or Tom, if any of you 

8 might have anything to add or to go back and 

9 elaborate on what I have just briefly 

10 summarized here.

11 MR. MORRIS: Mark, I think you 

12 have said it pretty well in summary.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Who is that?

14 MR. ROLFES: Bob Morris.

15 MR. MORRIS: This is Bob Morris.

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: Come on, Tom.

17 MR. MORRIS: It's Robert.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: No, I am waiting 

19 for Tom. I want some meat. Come on.

20 (Laughter.)

21 DR. MAURO: This is John.

22 A quick perspective. When I think 
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1 about the decay scheme for thorium, one of the 

2 things I would like to say -- and I want to 

3 make sure I am thinking right, and this goes 

4 to everyone involved in the internal dosimetry 

5 -- if I have just inhaled some separated 

6 thorium, that would mean, if it has been 

7 chemically-separated, it is fresh. All I am 

8 going to inhale is thorium-232 and one of its 

9 daughters, thorium-228.

10 And if I did a chest count at that 

11 moment, I will not see anything because there 

12 are no daughters there yet. Nothing has had a 

13 chance to grow in yet.

14 But, as time goes on, you will 

15 start to see the actinium and you will start 

16 to see the lead-212. Now I believe if you 

17 wait long enough, eventually, the ratio of the 

18 actinium to the lead-212, if you wait long 

19 enough, will be one.

20 So, what happens is, what helps me 

21 to think about it is, if it is really, really 

22 fresh, you won't see anything and you will 
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1 report zero when, in fact, there is something 

2 there. If it is really, really old, you are 

3 going to see a ratio of lead-212 to actinium 

4 which should be one, unless I am wrong.

5 And so, in the end, what the 

6 question is, if you see anything at some 

7 detection level and then you start looking at 

8 it, how high, given that spread, because I 

9 would like to put a bag around this thing, you 

10 know, how wrong could you be if you don't know 

11 the age of the material that was inhaled and 

12 you don't know the time between when it was 

13 inhaled and when the chest count was taken?

14 And you go ahead with that. You 

15 have your measurement. Let's say it is just 

16 one measurement. How wrong could you be in 

17 predicting the amount of thorium that was 

18 inhaled? I mean that is the essence of this 

19 question.

20 If you could be wrong by orders of 

21 magnitude, I think we're finished. But if it 

22 turns out there is a way to say, well, listen, 
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1 we could be wrong, but only by a factor of two 

2 or three, then, I think we are tractable.

3 This is how I think about it. I 

4 think that when we go forward now, I would 

5 like to hear the answer in those terms. That 

6 would help me a lot.

7 MR. MORRIS: This is Bob Morris.

8 You mentioned the possibility that 

9 for one measurement we could be infinitely 

10 wrong.

11 DR. MAURO: Yes.

12 MR. MORRIS: Okay, I am not going 

13 to argue with that. But we produced a 

14 coworker model which was based on many, many 

15 different measurements that were collected 

16 over a period of 20 years and produced into a 

17 coworker model. We don't have the extreme 

18 case that dominates your scenario as you just 

19 described it.

20 DR. MAURO: Good. I mean that is 

21 the first step. So, what you are saying is 

22 you -- 
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1 DR. LIPSZTEIN: May I intervene? 

2 Maybe there is the scenario that John Mauro is 

3 talking about. We just don't know. Because 

4 if it was freshly-separated and the person was 

5 measured immediately, you probably would be 

6 below the detection limit of the daughters, 

7 and you even wouldn't know that there was the 

8 same thorium there if you measured one year 

9 after or 180 years after. So sometimes you 

10 would have below detection limits, but that is 

11 only because it was freshly-separated.

12 MR. MORRIS: I agree you can 

13 invent a scenario where it happens 

14 occasionally, but not on every --

15 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I don't know how 

16 occasionally it is. I never saw a study done 

17 like that. I didn't see anything saying, oh, 

18 look, let's see how much we would have below 

19 detection limit, how much do we miss because 

20 they were below the detection limit but 

21 probably there was thorium inhalation. What 

22 happened after the person inhaled thorium, 
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1 about the time that it is in the lung, I 

2 didn't see anything until now.

3 MR. MORRIS: Well, the fact is 

4 that the mobile in vivo laboratory showed up 

5 onsite one time a year. So it cannot possibly 

6 be that everything was instantly freshly 

7 inhaled because --

8 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, you can't, 

9 but you don't know. You don't know. There is 

10 no data about it. I didn't see any data about 

11 it.

12 DR. MAURO: You know what? Joyce, 

13 what I like is this.

14 DR. GLOVER: Ted, could we -- we 

15 have a diatribe right now on the phone.

16 DR. MAURO: Let's say you have a 

17 population of workers.

18 I'll be quiet right after this 

19 little conceptual think piece.

20 You have got a population of 

21 workers, and once a year you measure, look for 

22 the actinium and the lead for a whole bunch of 
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1 workers. Some workers the data is going to 

2 come back for that measurement, and at that 

3 year you don't see anything. But, then, you 

4 are going to measure them a year later, and 

5 you will get something. Then, you are going 

6 to measure them a year after that, and you are 

7 going to get something.

8 So, in principle, what I am 

9 hearing from -- I think it was Bob; I'm not 

10 sure who mentioned it -- that what you are 

11 really saying is, well, listen, we have all 

12 these workers, but we have multiple 

13 measurements made year after year after year. 

14 And if you have enough of those, a picture 

15 emerges of the distributions that the intakes 

16 might have been for all of those workers, 

17 granted.

18 But if you don't have these 

19 multiple years following a person, a real 

20 person, for two-three years, you are going to 

21 have a problem. And I am anxious to hear that 

22 maybe it does become tractable if you have 
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1 these annual measurements of both the actinium 

2 and the lead for all the workers of interest, 

3 assuming that you have got the right 

4 population of workers that you are looking at.

5 So, I think, in principle, I hear 

6 what you are saying. I would like to hear a 

7 little bit more about how wrong you could be.

8 MR. MORRIS: This is Bob Morris.

9 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Let Mark speak, 

11 Bob.

12 MR. ROLFES: Yes, this is Mark 

13 Rolfes. I just wanted to point out that this 

14 would be an issue if you had one exposure and 

15 one measurement. That is not the case. The 

16 exposures at the Fernald site were pretty 

17 routine, pretty chronic exposures, and so were 

18 the measurements.

19 So it is much more difficult to 

20 understand how much uncertainty is involved 

21 when you only have one exposure and one 

22 measurement result. The more measurements and 
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1 the more routine the exposures, the more you 

2 can wrap your hands around this and come up 

3 with a good idea of what the overall potential 

4 exposure was and what the lung burden, to 

5 develop a coworker intake model.

6 There's a lot of uncertainties, as 

7 we said, but it is not an unusual -- we have 

8 methods to develop a final uncertainty factor 

9 in a coworker model. We can combine 

10 uncertainty from the age of the materials. We 

11 can combine uncertainty from the time of 

12 exposure to the time that the person is 

13 counted. There are ways of combining all 

14 these uncertainties to come up with a 

15 reasonable and worst-case-type scenario that 

16 will allow us to bound the doses from thorium 

17 to workers.

18 And that is what we have done in 

19 our coworker intake model. We have put 

20 together all of these factors, all of these 

21 uncertainties, to generate what the worst-case 

22 correction factor for thorium exposure could 
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1 be.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I am sorry, but I 

3 didn't see this on the coworker model. I saw 

4 you using lead-212 after `78, and I saw you 

5 only using a correction factor, a mean 

6 correction factor, or even one for the source, 

7 not for the lung. So, I didn't see how you 

8 did this. I didn't see you doing this. And I 

9 didn't see any proposal to do this until now.

10 I am certain that with the data in 

11 milligrams you cannot do it. I didn't see how 

12 you can do it with the raw data from lead-212 

13 to actinium-228, but I would wait to see what 

14 you can do with it.

15 But with the thorium in 

16 milligrams, it is impossible. You cannot go 

17 back. There is no way to go back with all 

18 those uncertainties on what they did to 

19 calculate those thorium in milligrams.

20 But if you are telling me you can 

21 do it with the later data, I didn't see it. I 

22 don't envision in principle how it can be 
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1 done. But if you say you can do it, I would 

2 like to see it, how you can do it.

3 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is Mark 

4 once again.

5 DR. LIPSZTEIN: I don't see it.

6 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is Mark 

7 once again. And I don't have the report here 

8 in front of me. However, in our previous 

9 report I believe we identified that there was 

10 an overlapping year before we changed from 

11 solely activity reporting, or excuse me --

12 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Oh, that data is 

13 completely out of any basis. It doesn't match 

14 anything. And then, on your White Paper, this 

15 last one, you modified all the assumptions 

16 again, and it doesn't overlap. And if you 

17 have calculated, we have shown this, that 

18 those data don't make any sense.

19 And it didn't take into 

20 consideration all those things. So, I didn't 

21 see anything that was satisfying.

22 DR. GLOVER: Ted, I would like to 
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1 officially just request that -- Ted?

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: -- see this next 

3 White Paper modifies all the assumptions.

4 DR. GLOVER: We certainly want to 

5 respond when we are given a chance. We let 

6 Joyce finish --

7 DR. LIPSZTEIN: No, I am finished. 

8 I'm sorry.

9 DR. GLOVER: We all have a level 

10 of excitement, but it makes it very hard for 

11 him to understand and it is not good 

12 communication if we are going to keep talking 

13 over the top of each other.

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Okay. Okay. 

15 Sorry.

16 MR. ROLFES: Thanks, Sam.

17 So to finish what I was saying, if 

18 you go back and look at the data, the 1968 

19 through -- I don't recall the specific year; 

20 was it `78, Bob, I believe? Anyway, at the 

21 time of the early years they were reporting 

22 thorium-232 mass in the lung. If you look at 
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1 the year that they switched over from thorium 

2 mass to the activity reporting, they were 

3 reporting in the more recent era activity of 

4 lead-212 and actinium-228 in nanocuries. The 

5 year that they changed over, they reported 

6 both mass values and the activity values. 

7 That can be used as a calibration factor to 

8 understand what the types of materials the 

9 person is exposed to.

10 So there is overlapping data for 

11 that one year that we can use to make 

12 assumptions, once again, in a claimant13 favorable manner, to understand how old the 

14 material could have been and what the 

15 potential exposures were.

16 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver. 

17 Could I step in for just a second here?

18 Bob, you took a look at the data 

19 in 1978, and I think you have got what is it, 

20 like 100-and-some milligram thorium 

21 measurements, and there is just a handful of 

22 the -- or was that the other way around?
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1 MR. BARTON: Let me see if I can 

2 pull that up.

3 I think in 1978 there is still 

4 mostly milligram thorium. I want to say, just 

5 shooting from the hip, maybe 30 percent --

6 MR. STIVER: About 30 percent --

7 MR. BARTON: -- yes, had the lead 

8 and --

9 MR. STIVER: Wasn't that also the 

10 time where there was a transfer -- actually, 

11 the thorium processing was essentially over by 

12 `79, and then, at a later date, it really 

13 became more of a -- it is during the period of 

14 thorium stewardship. And so, you don't have 

15 so many different disparate types of sources 

16 that could cause these uncertainties in age 

17 and that sort of thing.

18 So I guess the question, then, 

19 becomes, in `78, what are we really looking 

20 at? Is there still enough processing going on 

21 that it is kind of representative of what 

22 would be before, so you could make some kind 
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1 of a reasonable calibration factor that you 

2 could back-extrapolate with? Kind of in a 

3 constant transition time where you couldn't 

4 really --

5 MR. BARTON: There is a timeline 

6 of thorium production that Bob Morris put 

7 together. It is very nice. It actually maps 

8 out by plant and by year for really the period 

9 we are looking at.

10 And it looks like operations had 

11 started to tail off, at least qualitatively, 

12 based on the number of plants that were still 

13 operating in that later period. So, I don't 

14 know if you can really --

15 MR. STIVER: Is there still 

16 something going on? I think it was the Pilot 

17 Plant mainly.

18 MR. BARTON: Yes, you still have 

19 operations in Plant 1 and also in the Pilot 

20 Plant.

21 MR. STIVER: Joyce, you said that 

22 there are some real problems with that period 
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1 of overlap.

2 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

3 MR. STIVER: Could you kind of 

4 quantify what they are and kind of describe --

5 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. We have 

6 shown this in the previous paper, and we have 

7 shown graphs that they don't match.

8 MEMBER GRIFFON: When you say they 

9 don't match, what does that mean?

10 MR. STIVER: When you make the 

11 calibration change, was it .11 nanocuries per 

12 milligram?

13 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

14 MR. STIVER: That there is an 

15 offset in the data?

16 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. Yes. You 

17 can't really match them.

18 MR. STIVER: So it is not 

19 something you could actually -- there is not a 

20 bias. It is just all over the place?

21 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes.

22 MR. STIVER: It seems like if 
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1 there was some kind of a bias, you could make 

2 an adjustment for it.

3 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. I am looking 

4 for -- there was a table also showing this. 

5 There are some graphs that I already found on 

6 page 7 and 8 of our previous paper.

7 MR. STIVER: This is in the June 

8 2010 paper.

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes. And there 

10 was a table also showing that they are not 

11 compatible. So I don't think we can use those 

12 data to --

13 MR. STIVER: I think the other 

14 problem we have with the milligram data, which 

15 we haven't really gotten into, you know, you 

16 have indicated that you have all these 

17 uncertainties. There is an uncertainty with 

18 relation to calibration, uncertainty in the 

19 age of the source term, uncertainty in the 

20 time after exposure, and so forth. And there 

21 is also a lot of uncertainty in the 6-

22 milligram value for the MDA.
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1 When you factor these 

2 uncertainties into that particular value, you 

3 could be off -- I don't know. You assume they 

4 are all independent, and you will wind up with 

5 something about a factor of four or five 

6 maybe. So six times five; you are looking at 

7 30. The highest value we have got is 32.

8 So now you have a situation where, 

9 just based on the uncertainties alone, and 

10 applied to the MDA, you have got a situation 

11 where conceivably none of your data are even 

12 measurable. So you have that.

13 I think what we were getting at 

14 when we were having our earlier discussion is 

15 that there is really no way to bound that 

16 because there is no anchor point. So, really, 

17 the only bound is what could you conceivably 

18 physiologically tolerate in a dusty work 

19 environment, which kind of draws all the 

20 relevance of a coworker model into question 

21 during that period of time.

22 MR. MORRIS: This is Robert 
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1 Morris.

2 MR. KATZ: Go ahead, Robert.

3 MR. MORRIS: I just wanted to 

4 point out that there is a lot of inconsistency 

5 here in the SC&A position. If you look at the 

6 August 4th paper that we received last week, 

7 SC&A staff actually produced a quantitative 

8 assessment of the differences between thorium 

9 workers and other chemical operators in 

10 general, showing that there was a difference 

11 in the statistics of the population.

12 MR. STIVER: Bob, this is John 

13 Stiver. We haven't gotten into that yet. But 

14 this might be --

15 MR. MORRIS: -- to light. May I

16 continue to talk, Ted?

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, go ahead.

18 MR. MORRIS: Now I don't 

19 understand how you can say that the data are 

20 not usable when you, yourself, used them.

21 So, I am done, John. You can 

22 talk.
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1 MR. STIVER: Can I step in?

2 MR. KATZ: Yes.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes, Bob, this is 

4 John.

5 That analysis was really kind of, 

6 we are kind of looking at this issue from two 

7 perspectives. And that analysis was really 

8 predicated on, okay, let's just set this 

9 adequacy issue on the back burner for now, and 

10 let's just assume the 6 milligrams is for real 

11 and that the data are of a good pedigree.

12 Now let's take a look at the 

13 completeness of the data set. And that is 

14 what Bob Barton and Harry did with their 

15 statistical analysis. And maybe this would be 

16 a good time to talk about what he found.

17 MR. BARTON: Sure. We can get 

18 into that.

19 The report, as Bob mentioned, was 

20 sent out on August 4th. There's a couple of 

21 charts in there that might be useful to be 

22 able to look at. They kind of describe this. 
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1 So, if you all have the report that you can 

2 pull it out, that would probably help this 

3 thing along. In the meantime, it is probably 

4 instructive just to kind of give a quick 

5 summary of kind of the history and genesis of 

6 this whole issue.

7 As Mark said, the coworker model 

8 came out in 2008. SC&A was finally tasked 

9 with reviewing it in 2010. Some of the, I 

10 guess, findings from that report that are 

11 really going to be germane to the discussion 

12 today:

13 Except for 1968, which was the 

14 very first year of in vivo monitoring,

15 evidence suggests -- and these are the 

16 findings from the previous report; we expand 

17 on them in our newest analysis -- the evidence 

18 suggests that the program itself was not 

19 focused on the thorium workers. And that's 

20 for mainly two reasons.

21 Whenever you look at these data 

22 points, and we are focused on the milligrams 
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1 for thorium because that is what they were 

2 measuring during the production period, which 

3 was really when you want to look at the story 

4 on production workers to see if they are 

5 adequately represented, but when you look at 

6 these thorium data points, they are always 

7 accompanied by uranium measurements. Even if 

8 they were focusing on this thorium operation 

9 to see what these workers are doing, you see 

10 at least some measurements of just thorium; 

11 you see some measurements of just uranium, but 

12 you never see a thorium measurement not 

13 coupled with uranium.

14 Also, when you look at the actual 

15 buildings and years where these people worked, 

16 you see no increase in the number of samples 

17 in buildings where thorium was processed. 

18 And, you know, part of that might be because 

19 the in vivo laboratory was not there all year. 

20 So, perhaps these workers had moved to 

21 another building when they got measured. That 

22 may be one explanation. But it does raise 
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1 some flags.

2 In fact, there are some years 

3 where we have evidence there was thorium 

4 processing going on in a plant and there is 

5 not even a single in vivo data point for that. 

6 So this begs the question, are thorium 

7 workers adequately represented by this 

8 milligram thorium data, which pretty much 

9 covers the entire production period?

10 So let's talk about what we 

11 actually know about thorium workers, how can 

12 we identify them, what chance do we really 

13 have here. The first and, in my mind, the 

14 most useful piece of evidence is a memo by a 

15 gentleman named Bob Starkey. This actually 

16 listed out 51 thorium workers at the very end 

17 of 1967. We know from interviews that the 

18 purpose of this memo was specifically they 

19 wanted, when this mobile in vivo laboratory 

20 showed up, they wanted those workers to be 

21 counted. It turns out a little over half of 

22 those workers were actually counted in 1968.
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1 The second resource, because the 

2 Starkey memo was useful; it actually names 

3 workers and associates them with a specific 

4 year. So, in that year, we can be fairly 

5 confident we know who it was that was working 

6 with thorium.

7 Now, if we want to look at the 

8 rest of the production period, that is when we 

9 have to go to our only other resource, the in 

10 vivo logbooks themselves. The way these 

11 logbooks identify thorium workers is you have 

12 a list of all that worker's in vivo 

13 measurements. In the top right corner there 

14 would be a handwritten note that would say 

15 either "thorium worker" or "former thorium 

16 worker." Now we really don't have any idea 

17 when those labels were applied, what an actual 

18 former thorium worker entails. Furthermore, 

19 this label isn't exactly identified with any 

20 of the actual in vivo measurements. So we 

21 don't even know which measurements on that 

22 list actually are reflective of thorium work.
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1 It is unlikely, and I know it has 

2 been discussed in other Work Groups, that you 

3 probably wouldn't have a situation where you 

4 had a thorium worker and that is all they did 

5 for their entire career. So they probably 

6 moved among job categories. So it is probably 

7 unlikely that, even with this label attached 

8 -- and again, it either said "thorium worker" 

9 or "former thorium worker" -- even if it says 

10 "thorium worker," we don't really have good 

11 evidence to link that worker with a specific 

12 operation.

13 From the logbooks themselves, 

14 Starkey identified 51 thorium workers in 1968. 

15 The logbooks identified 26 workers, and there 

16 is some overlap there. It is actually pretty 

17 significant. If you pool both groups 

18 together, you end up with about 60 names.

19 But if you look at these 26 

20 workers who have this label on their in vivo 

21 log sheet, almost half of them, none of the 

22 samples that were taken were ever associated 
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1 with a production plant and year. So, again, 

2 there is that kind of uncertainty as to what 

3 were they actually focusing on with this in 

4 vivo program.

5 Furthermore, of those 26 workers, 

6 only about 20 percent or a fifth of the 

7 samples were actually associated with plants 

8 that handled thorium in specific years. So, 

9 again, all these things start to add up, and 

10 we are like, all right, we are trying to build 

11 a coworker model for thorium.

12 And eventually, bottom line, you 

13 are going to be using this coworker model on 

14 thorium workers. So we just want to make sure 

15 that whatever you are going to apply as a 

16 coworker surrogate goes, that you are not 

17 going to seriously underestimate this group.

18 So what we did is kind of made the 

19 overarching assumption with these 26 logbook 

20 workers and said, all right, we know it is not 

21 realistic, but let's just assume that all of 

22 their records during this production period 
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1 are associated with thorium work. That way, 

2 we can try to do some kind of comparison and 

3 say, all right, out of these 26 workers, how 

4 do their numbers compare with other groups?

5 And again, this is completely a 

6 different approach. We are not making any 

7 statements here about the milligrams thorium. 

8 In fact, the values that were listed in the 

9 6-milligram thorium we still assumed were a 

10 positive result for the purposes of this 

11 analysis.

12 So I just do the very -- I am a 

13 simple boy, do a simple rank-order chart, and 

14 I compared those 26 thorium workers with the 

15 all worker doses during that period. And you 

16 see a difference. And, again, this is all in 

17 our previous report.

18 We did the same thing with the 

19 workers who were monitored from the Starkey 

20 list. This time we only compared them with 

21 the 1968 data for all workers. Again, when 

22 you rank-ordered them, you see a difference in 
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1 the two distributions.

2 So that was kind of a summary of 

3 what our concerns were at the start. Now 

4 let's fast-forward to this past February. 

5 NIOSH released a series of responses in 

6 regards to this completeness issue.

7 We had a rather brief discussion 

8 during that February Work Group meeting and, 

9 in my mind, a much more productive discussion 

10 during April. And the two big things that 

11 came out of that:

12 All right, maybe thorium workers 

13 were not targeted specifically for this 

14 monitoring. But we know from looking at the 

15 job titles -- chemical operators were. So 

16 there could likely be a very good chance that 

17 you could use the chemical operators as a 

18 surrogate for thorium workers if they are, in 

19 fact, a bounding from a dose standpoint. So 

20 that was kind of the first major point.

21 And the second one, which kind of 

22 adds onto this notion, is that the workers who 
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1 were selected were selected based on their 

2 exposure potential. So, inherently, if you 

3 are going after the people with higher lung 

4 burdens or higher potential to have a thorium 

5 lung burden, you are already going to bias the 

6 distribution high, so to speak, very well for 

7 the coworker model.

8 So these two points are 

9 essentially the premises that SC&A went to 

10 investigate further in our most recent report. 

11 So let's take a look at that first one, and 

12 here is where it would be a good idea to have 

13 that report open so that we can look at some 

14 of these figures and such. But, if not, I 

15 will do my best to try to describe what is 

16 going on.

17 The first issue was whether 

18 chemical operators could be used as a 

19 sufficient surrogate for thorium workers. The 

20 first thing we did is, again, we looked at 

21 those Starkey workers from 1968 because, 

22 again, that is our only piece of evidence that 
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1 actually links names with thorium with the 

2 year.

3 So we take those and now we are 

4 going to pull up the chemical operators in 

5 1968 who weren't in the Starkey memo. Then we 

6 would have all sorts of double-counting. 

7 Again, simple rank-order. Again, you see the 

8 differences. Okay. All right, so that's 

9 1968. Kind of treated it differently there 

10 from the other years because, again, we have 

11 that piece of information from the Starkey 

12 memo.

13 All right, let's see what we can 

14 do about the rest of the production period. 

15 What we did is we took those Starkey workers, 

16 we combined them with the workers who were 

17 identified on their logbook sheets to come up 

18 with our expanded group of thorium workers. 

19 Again, there is about 60 of them. And we are 

20 going to assume that they handled thorium 

21 during the entire production period.

22 Again, simple rank-order. And, 
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1 again, in this case you are going to have some 

2 overlap between the thorium and the chemical 

3 operators because some of the chemical 

4 operators were also designated as a thorium 

5 worker or they are in the Starkey memo, or 

6 what have you.

7 So, again, you do a simple rank8 order. Again, you see the differences in the 

9 curves. These are what I have just discussed 

10 with the 1968 Starkey data and then the 

11 expanded groups, look at the rest of the 

12 years. These are Figures 1 and 2 in the 

13 report. Figure 1 is on page 11, for anyone 

14 who has it open, and Figure 2 appears on page 

15 12.

16 The next thing we did to try to 

17 get a grip on this issue whether we can use 

18 chemical operators is, all right, let's just 

19 compare chemical operators to the rest of the 

20 workers during that period. This is Figure 3. 

21 It is on page 13. When you look at that 

22 figure, I mean the curves overlap quite 
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1 nicely. What that would suggest to us is that 

2 chemical operators maybe aren't a bounding 

3 worker subgroup, but are actually more 

4 reflective of the overall worker exposure 

5 potential.

6 All right, so we do these simple 

7 rank-orders. It is barebones stuff. We still 

8 have some of these questions and things 

9 popping up which is suspect.

10 So we brought in our statistician, 

11 Harry Chmelynski, to say, all right, let's do 

12 a little more robust analytical approach and 

13 see what that tells us about it.

14 Can I ask, Harry, are you on the 

15 line?

16 (No response.)

17 Okay. That's okay. I can 

18 summarize basically what we did.

19 Again, we were looking at this 

20 group of 60. Basically, Harry went through 

21 and he performed a pretty robust statistical 

22 analysis on an annual basis where we can 
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1 actually look at each year.

2 And to summarize, when you have a 

3 calculated mean by year in 8 of the 11 years 

4 we looked at, again, the thorium worker 

5 subgroup was higher than the chemical 

6 operators. And when you look at the 

7 calculated 95th percentile, it is higher for 

8 thorium workers in 6 of the 11 years. One of 

9 those 11 years they are actually dead-on tied.

10 To look at it another way, at the 

11 mean level chemical operators were only

12 bounding in 3 of the 11 years, and in only 4 

13 of the 11 when looking at the 95th percentile.

14 But one other pretty interesting 

15 facet about this is Harry went in and 

16 calculated the 95th percent confidence 

17 interval for the 95th percentile value, if you 

18 can swallow all that.

19 (Laughter.)

20 And basically, what we found out 

21 there is, when you look at the confidence 

22 intervals, maybe not the specific calculated 
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1 numbers but the confidence intervals, there is 

2 almost no statistical difference by year at 

3 that 95th percentile confidence interval, 

4 except for, I believe, it was one year, 

5 1972 --

6 MR. STIVER: `71, I think.

7 MR. BARTON: -- `71 or `72, right 

8 around there.

9 So when you look at those top-tier 

10 numbers, you really can't see a difference 

11 between not only thorium and chemical 

12 operators, but even the all worker group as a 

13 whole. So at the highest numbers that we see, 

14 there doesn't appear to be a group that is far 

15 away above the other. So that was an 

16 important thing.

17 The last thing we did for this 

18 whole chemical operator versus thorium issue 

19 is let's just take a look at the records that 

20 are specifically above -- at or above that 60-

21 milligram number. So, in other words, based 

22 on the assumption that 60 milligrams is our 
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1 lower limit of detection, what does it look 

2 like when we only consider the positive doses?

3 Just to give you some idea, from 

4 1968 to 1978, there were over 2600 

5 measurements reported in milligrams thorium. 

6 Less than 3 percent, so about 76 measurements, 

7 covering 57 workers, were at or above 60 

8 milligrams. So, only 3 percent, less than 3 

9 percent of our data is actually positive, if 

10 we accept the 60 milligrams as the correct 

11 lower limit.

12 Now, when you look at this group 

13 of positive measurements, thorium workers 

14 actually become a lot more significantly15 represented. For example, we have 76 

16 measurements; about a third of them were 

17 associated with that group of people that we 

18 call thorium workers because there is 

19 indication they worked with thorium at some 

20 point. So 33 percent of them are for thorium 

21 workers.

22 Now, if you look at all the data, 
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1 including all the ones below, you know, 

2 negative, thorium workers only comprise about 

3 13 percent of the total measurements. So when 

4 you look at that positive data, again, this is 

5 another piece of evidence that says you have a 

6 group here who probably had a higher exposure 

7 potential, but evidence suggests they weren't 

8 concentrated on. And so, I guess, what do you 

9 do with that?

10 I mean, eventually, like I said, 

11 the bottom line, you are going to be using 

12 this coworker model to assign thorium intakes 

13 to thorium workers who weren't monitored, and 

14 evidence suggests that they had a higher 

15 exposure potential, which is fairly intuitive, 

16 I would think.

17 So that was that first issue of 

18 using chemical operators as a surrogate. The 

19 analysis that we did suggests that the actual 

20 numbers for chemical operators are closer more 

21 to the all worker average than this subgroup 

22 of thorium workers.
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1 The other issue -- and this one 

2 will go significantly more quickly -- was the 

3 workers with higher exposures were counted 

4 more frequently. We tried to get a handle 

5 around this. We did, again, another very 

6 simple thing. We are just going to go ahead, 

7 plot the number of times a worker was sampled 

8 against the relative magnitude of those 

9 numbers. And we did this for the average, the 

10 median, and the maximum values that we saw, 

11 and let's see if there is a positive linear 

12 correlation. That is, those workers who had 

13 more sampling done for them, did they have 

14 higher numbers than the people who only had a 

15 few?

16 Just a quick note on that one. 

17 Again, all positive values were assumed to 

18 represent a real counting result. We didn't 

19 adjust for any sort of MDA or anything. And 

20 we also took all the negative values and made 

21 them zero because, you know, if you have an 

22 extreme negative number, you don't want that 
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1 throwing off or negatively biasing anything.

2 Okay. So, basically, we did that. 

3 We compared the number of times a worker was 

4 monitored versus the relative magnitude for 

5 the milligrams thorium and, also, for the two 

6 types of uranium monitoring that was done 

7 during that period. One of them is labeled 

8 just as U. We are not sure what that actually 

9 represents. And the other one is labeled as 

10 U-235.

11 For those of you following along 

12 in the report, the summary of this second 

13 analysis is found on page 26 and kind of 

14 summarized in Table 15. And you can also look 

15 at the actual plotted median values in Figures 

16 6 through 8, just past that.

17 It turns out the monitoring for 

18 thorium in milligrams thorium actually showed 

19 a slight negative bias when you compared the 

20 frequency of monitoring to the workers' median 

21 and average results. So that actually says 

22 that, you know, not only does it not look like 
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1 the thorium or the workers who had higher 

2 thorium results were counted more frequently, 

3 and the correlations are not great, but it 

4 almost looks like there's a negative bias.

5 Now we move on to the uranium 

6 results and do the same thing, and the uranium 

7 all showed a positive correlation. The 

8 highest ones were actually for U-235.

9 So this type of thing may suggest 

10 that, while the in vivo program might have 

11 been focused on workers with higher exposure 

12 potential, it was that exposure potential to 

13 uranium, and not thorium, that drove the 

14 actual monitoring practices.

15 The fact that it's U-235, maybe 

16 they wanted to take an extra look at enriched 

17 uranium. I really don't know, but just from 

18 that we didn't find evidence that those 

19 workers with high thorium results were 

20 targeted more frequently.

21 So that pretty much wraps up the 

22 new material that we had. Are there any 
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1 questions?

2 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Bob. This 

3 is Mark with NIOSH.

4 We received this. I know we tried 

5 to prepare everything so that we had it 

6 available for discussion at this meeting 

7 today. We did our best to get a response out 

8 for recycled uranium. We haven't prepared a 

9 written response to this -- two new White 

10 Papers that we just received on August 5th 

11 here.

12 We do have some tentative 

13 analyses. I don't know if Tom LaBone has been 

14 able to join us. I know that he had prepared 

15 an analysis comparing basically the lung count 

16 results between thorium workers and non17 thorium workers.

18 Before we get into any response, 

19 though, is it okay if we might take a break?

20 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No.

21 (Laughter.)

22 That will be fine.
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1 MR. KATZ: So we will start back 

2 up at 2:45? Is that enough of a break? 

3 Fifteen minutes?

4 Thanks, folks on the line.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

6 matter went off the record at 2:28 p.m. and 

7 went back on the record at 2:45 p.m.) 

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. So, everybody is 

9 comfortable now. We are done with our comfort 

10 break.

11 And let me just check to see on 

12 the line. Do we have you, Dr. Ziemer? Phil?

13 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, I am on 

14 the line, Ted.

15 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. We have 

17 had some very rousing discussions here. But 

18 Sam brought up a very good issue, and that is 

19 I want everybody to keep in mind that this is 

20 coming before the Board in a couple of weeks 

21 here. I think that both sides need to sit 

22 down and really discuss the issues, where we 
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1 have got a problem and where NIOSH or SC&A, 

2 where we feel that we have got the issue that 

3 we can or can't do dose reconstruction on.

4 So, I am going to turn it over to 

5 Mark.

6 He -- we wanted to kind of go over 

7 this thorium issue a little bit more in detail 

8 and then have SC&A respond.

9 One thing I would like to say, and 

10 especially to the people on the phones, allow 

11 the person to be able to finish their 

12 conversation. I know that we want to keep 

13 track of it and everything else like that, but 

14 just so the court reporter can document this. 

15 Just have respect for the other 

16 people the way you would want them to respect 

17 you on the phone and here, too. Because we 

18 have a tendency to speak over one another that 

19 makes it very difficult for each side to be 

20 able to understand it.

21 So, Mark, did you want to start 

22 out then?
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1 MR. ROLFES: Yes. Thank you, 

2 Brad.

3 I think we have a couple of key 

4 players that had developed the original 

5 thorium coworker intake model back in 2008. I 

6 believe we have those individuals on the 

7 phone.

8 I would like to possibly have them 

9 go back to that original model and tell us 

10 some of the assumptions specific to the 

11 Fernald coworker intake model that we have 

12 built. How have we addressed the 

13 uncertainties associated with the age of the 

14 material, and any other uncertainties and 

15 interpretations of the data?

16 And I don't know who would like to 

17 take the lead on that. I know we have both 

18 Bob, Liz, and Tom on the phone.

19 I guess, Bob, if you would like to 

20 start off or decide if it is appropriate for 

21 you to respond or Tom. I will let you take 

22 the reins, please.
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1 MR. MORRIS: Okay. Robert Morris 

2 here.

3 The coworker model inherently has 

4 uncertainties built in when it applies a GSD 

5 value, which was calculated for this effort, 

6 and the minimum GSD that was assumed is 3. 

7 That is a pretty wide spread of data, 

8 actually, when you put it into there.

9 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry, Bob. Bob, 

10 you're sort of fuzzy, your voice. Are you on 

11 a speaker phone?

12 MR. MORRIS: Is that better?

13 MR. KATZ: No. Actually, your 

14 phone has a lot of fuzz to it or static or 

15 something.

16 MR. MORRIS: Okay. Then, maybe I 

17 should just let Tom pick it up.

18 MR. KATZ: Well, no one else was 

19 that unclear. I mean, I had the volume 

20 cranked because of the fuzziness.

21 Tom LaBone, do you want to try to 

22 do this instead of Bob?
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1 MR. LaBONE: Well, I was more 

2 prepared to talk about the SC&A paper, the one 

3 that we just discussed. So, I don't know how 

4 we want to work that.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Well, I mean, 

6 Bob, we will just deal with the static. If 

7 you could just try to speak loudly and 

8 clearly, it will be okay. Bob?

9 MR. MORRIS: Okay. Is this any 

10 better at all?

11 MR. KATZ: Yes. Right now, we can 

12 hear you. Yes, thanks.

13 MR. MORRIS: Okay. The coworker 

14 modeling has inherent in it uncertainties 

15 built in to accommodate the biokinetic 

16 modeling and the other common factors. And it 

17 is constrained to have a GSD of 3 or higher.

18 We assumed a midpoint of the 

19 theoretical equilibrium curve between --

20 disequilibrium curve between the daughters of 

21 thorium, and put that at .71 in our original 

22 model.
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1 In the most recent paper that we 

2 did in May of 2011, we revisited that, at the 

3 urging of SC&A. We have reset that, so that 

4 it is at the theoretical minimum for a 

5 chemical separation. That is .42, if I recall 

6 the number correctly.

7 Now that has not been put into the 

8 modeling yet, but it is one of those factors 

9 that we agree could be more conservative. So, 

10 we have agreed to put it to that theoretical 

11 minimum for a single chemical extraction.

12 I think that we will also put in 

13 the factors in the coworker model, if it is 

14 ever revised, that will address the MDA 

15 issues. Because we had to go through and make 

16 an adjustment at SC&A's correct observation 

17 that there were too many negative values. And 

18 so, we have made a single-point adjustment, a 

19 bias adjustment. That will be recorded in the 

20 next iteration of the model.

21 And I think that is it.

22 Calibrations certainly will take 
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1 into account the factor of three that Joyce 

2 has identified with the phantom. But other 

3 than that, I think those will be the changes 

4 that will be reflected in the next iteration 

5 of the coworker model.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Bob, this is 

7 Brad Clawson speaking.

8 I am kind of at a loss here a 

9 little bit. So, you first made the comment 

10 that you had not put this factor of 11, or 

11 something like that, into it?

12 MR. MORRIS: I didn't say a factor 

13 of 11, Brad.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: What was it?

15 MR. MORRIS: It used to be .4 --

16 it used to be .71, and we are going to move it 

17 to .42 as the disequilibrium value between 

18 thorium daughters.

19 MEMBER GRIFFON: Yes, that was a 

20 result of SC&A's comment.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right.

22 MR. STIVER: Can I say something?
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1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, go ahead.

2 MR. STIVER: Bob, this is John 

3 Stiver.

4 You mentioned you are going to 

5 apply a geometric standard deviation of 3. Is 

6 this, then, considered to roll up all of the 

7 uncertainties associated with age of the 

8 source, uncertainties in the calculated lead 

9 and actinium values and that, and so forth? 

10 Basically, everything except the factor of 

11 three for the phantom that we brought up 

12 today?

13 MR. MORRIS: The GSDs of three or 

14 higher are based on the actual modeling from 

15 the lung --

16 MR. STIVER: Oh, it is based on 

17 the actual? Okay.

18 MR. MORRIS: And so, we will be 

19 going back in and making the adjustments to 

20 the data that will then get remodeled into a 

21 coworker model. I don't think the magnitude 

22 of the GSDs will be a bias factor from where 
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1 it is today.

2 MR. STIVER: Right. That bias is 

3 applied to that lead-210 data that was low, I 

4 believe?

5 MR. MORRIS: Yes.

6 MR. STIVER: And you guys have 

7 acknowledged that in the previous paper.

8 MR. MORRIS: Right.

9 MR. STIVER: I didn't see anything 

10 in your paper about an acknowledgment about 

11 what to do about the high MDA, the fact that 

12 there is only 3 percent of the data above, 

13 given that that MDA is even correct to begin 

14 with.

15 MR. MORRIS: The MDA really 

16 doesn't play a part in coworker modeling, 

17 since we don't censor the data.

18 MR. ROLFES: Correct. That is 

19 correct, Bob.

20 MR. MORRIS: And so, whether or 

21 not the MDA is right, we still take the 

22 dataset at face value, and the only ones we 
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1 adjust for are the ones that are zeroes or 

2 below zero.

3 MR. ROLFES: Right.

4 MR. STIVER: I guess that was one 

5 of the problems we had. That was one of our 

6 findings. I guess it is still not resolved 

7 then. And so, I think we still have something 

8 to talk about regarding the adequacy of the 

9 milligram data, as Joyce had described.

10 MR. MORRIS: As I see it, as long 

11 as we have got real-number values to put into 

12 the data-fitting algorithm, the MDA doesn't 

13 matter. We don't have a different treatment 

14 for the number, whether it is above or below 

15 the MDA.

16 MR. STIVER: I think it would 

17 matter from a practical standpoint, whether 

18 that was a believable number or not or it was 

19 just a noise term that is inherent in the 

20 counting system.

21 MR. MORRIS: Well, it is; yes, I 

22 agree at some point we are going to be 
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1 modeling noise, as you get close to zero. But 

2 it doesn't matter where that point is as long 

3 as we have some adjustment available for it, 

4 and it defines the shape of the curve.

5 MR. STIVER: I know in previous 

6 discussions Mark had mentioned that, if you 

7 are below the MDA, you would just use a missed 

8 dose calculation. But that wouldn't seem to 

9 apply in a coworker-model-type situation, 

10 though.

11 MR. MORRIS: I agree. For modeling 

12 the coworker population, you only make that 

13 correction if you are at zeroes or below 

14 zeroes. Otherwise, you use data at face value 

15 without regard to that. For an individual 

16 dose calculation, then you have to essentially 

17 that missed dose concept and apply it.

18 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I guess I wanted 

19 to clarify. This is Mark Rolfes.

20 We would only be assigning this 

21 coworker intake model to the individual who 

22 was not monitored --
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1 MR. MORRIS: Right.

2 MR. ROLFES: -- using in vivo 

3 technology. So, if we had an individual that 

4 had mobile in vivo data in their file, we 

5 would use their data. So, we are only talking 

6 about a small fraction of the population, 

7 possibly, who never had a thorium lung count 

8 done.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro.

10 Another question along those 

11 lines. So, when we are talking about the 

12 milligram or microgram, I guess it was 

13 milligram, of data from, I guess it was `68 to 

14 `78, you have a population of numbers. If you 

15 have a measurement for a real person or a 

16 number of measurements in units of milligram, 

17 you go ahead and use those numbers. If you 

18 don't, you use the coworker model if a person 

19 wasn't monitored or you don't have data for 

20 him.

21 You take the population of 

22 numbers. Let's say you have got 100 positive 
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1 readings that are clearly and unambiguously 

2 above the MDA, if I understood it. What do 

3 you use? So, you have those numbers which are 

4 basically chest count data, representing a 

5 body burden in milligrams. And now you want 

6 to assign that, some number, to a person. Do 

7 you take the geometric mean and the standard 

8 deviation of 3 or do you take the upper 95th 

9 percentile? How do you apply that coworker 

10 model?

11 MR. ROLFES: John, this is Mark 

12 Rolfes.

13 I would have to take a look back. 

14 It has been three years since we produced the 

15 original model. I don't know if Bob maybe --

16 you know, the ability to do one or the other 

17 exists. It is a matter of choice, based upon, 

18 essentially, exposure potential. I think we 

19 have previously sort of discussed exposure 

20 potentials.

21 You know, if it is a chemical 

22 operator, I would say the 95th percentile 
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1 would be applied to make sure that we are 

2 bounding the individual's unmonitored or 

3 potentially unmonitored thorium intakes. If 

4 it is someone who could have had occasional 

5 exposures but didn't appear to be one of the 

6 highest-exposed, you know, the application of 

7 the 50th percentile would be more likely.

8 However, it appears to us, based 

9 upon our review, that people with the highest 

10 potential for exposure were the ones that were 

11 counted most frequently.

12 DR. MAURO: Okay. Now I 

13 understand.

14 Now Joyce's commentary on the 

15 validity, whether or not you could actually 

16 use those milligram numbers, as you know from 

17 the presentation that Joyce made, whatever the 

18 number is, let's say it is 12 milligrams is 

19 recorded for a person, or a number of 

20 measurements are there for a person. But what 

21 I understood from Joyce's discussion is: you

22 really can't trust that number, and you don't 
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1 really know what it is. It could be 

2 substantially higher. From my discussions 

3 with Joyce, and Joyce is still on the line, we 

4 really couldn't say how much higher because we 

5 really don't know how that number was 

6 obtained. I think this goes to the heart of, 

7 you know, can you reconstruct doses with 

8 sufficient accuracy?

9 Do you agree that these problems 

10 that Joyce has raised are real and do 

11 represent an obstacle that is going to be 

12 difficult to deal with?

13 MR. ROLFES: John, this is Mark 

14 Rolfes.

15 I do agree that these 

16 uncertainties are real. However, they are 

17 just uncertainties, and we have methods to 

18 deal with the uncertainties to ensure that our 

19 dose that we are assigning to unmonitored 

20 thorium workers or people who were potentially 

21 exposed to thorium, we believe that we can 

22 bound those doses. We believe that we can 
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1 address those uncertainties to ensure that we 

2 are using a reasonable -- that based upon a 

3 reasonable exposure scenario, we believe that 

4 we can bound those doses using this coworker 

5 model, if we account for all the uncertainties 

6 appropriately.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Perhaps this is 

8 the time to have Tom LaBone weigh in on --

9 DR. LIPSZTEIN: May I step in?

10 MEMBER GRIFFON: -- addressing 

11 some of SC&A's comments. But after Joyce, I 

12 guess.

13 Go ahead. Go ahead, Joyce.

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yes, I think that 

15 the heart of the question is: can we test 

16 these numbers in milligrams? And I put out in 

17 our paper two different examples that were not 

18 made by me, but was in a paper.

19 One is from NLO, 1966, where it 

20 compares monitoring results for a worker that 

21 was monitored at Y-12 in this same mobile in 

22 vivo counter, and at the Wright-Patterson Air 
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1 Force.

2 And using different techniques and 

3 different calibration, they came to three 

4 different values for the same individual: 7 

5 milligrams using Y-12 calibration and Wright6 Patterson data; 3 milligrams using Y-12 

7 routine technique and Wright-Patterson data, 

8 and 1 milligram using Y-12 routine technique 

9 and Y-12 data. But we have a difference from 

10 1 to 7, just the same person that was 

11 monitored in two different places and using 

12 different calibration techniques.

13 Then, we have again the example 

14 that was put on the O: drive also. And we 

15 have the example of running, you know, showing 

16 that the same numbers could either mean 56 

17 milligrams or 27 milligrams of thorium.

18 So, we have a huge difference, and 

19 I am very uncertain of the meaning of the 

20 milligrams monitoring results for thorium. 

21 And I am not saying this for use in the 

22 coworker model. I mean for use on our worker 
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1 that has a result in milligrams of thorium.

2 MR. ROLFES: Okay, thank you, 

3 Joyce. This is Mark Rolfes.

4 A couple of things I want to ask 

5 about that. Are the detectors -- the types of 

6 lung counters that they are using, are they 

7 the same or different types of lung counters? 

8 Are they sodium iodide? And also, the dates 

9 of the analyses, was there a significant space 

10 in between the measurements? Were all the 

11 measurements done on the same day, within the 

12 same week, within the same year, or different 

13 years?

14 DR. LIPSZTEIN: You mean the 

15 Wright-Patterson data?

16 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

17 DR. LIPSZTEIN: You know, the 

18 person was measured at the Wright-Patterson 

19 Air Force using their counter, and the same 

20 person was monitored at Y-12. And so, they 

21 were discussing why there was a difference. 

22 This paper relates -- it is actually a 
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1 conversation, trying to find out why there was 

2 a different between the results from the Y-12 

3 to the Wright-Patterson.

4 And they come to the conclusion 

5 that it's everything. It is the technique 

6 that is used and the calibration also and the 

7 detector also. But it is a huge difference.

8 So, I think that, when you 

9 analyze, I am thinking more about the 

10 milligrams.

11 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is 

12 Mark --

13 DR. LIPSZTEIN: You don't know how 

14 they were measured and what they measured and 

15 what do they mean. And, then, there is this 

16 paper, these counts, running counts, that was 

17 put on the O: drive also, where the person 

18 that was doing the counts, he said -- he is 

19 saying, look, how difficult it is because if 

20 you assume that 1.08 is equal to 1, which 

21 really doesn't matter too much, you come out 

22 with a difference from 56 milligrams to 27 
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1 milligrams.

2 So, you know, the data in 

3 milligrams has too many uncertainties. You 

4 don't know they really mean. That is the 

5 problem.

6 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark.

7 Before I ask Tom to respond, I 

8 would like to have Tom LaBone maybe give us 

9 some additional insight.

10 But some of the things that we 

11 have to consider in having two different 

12 locations, we have a military facility doing a 

13 measurement versus a DOE facility doing a 

14 measurement. You have to know some 

15 information about the material, what you are 

16 looking for. You do need to know some 

17 information about the ages.

18 In order to compare two different 

19 facilities' detectors, we would have to take a 

20 look at the types of detectors. They could be 

21 two different types of lung-counting systems. 

22 They could be two different types of crystals 
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1 that are used, for example. There also could 

2 be different geometries in those counts. You 

3 know, they could have the detectors closer to 

4 the individual's lungs in one case, then 

5 farther away in the other.

6 And chest thickness calibration 

7 data, you can't just say one count at one site 

8 is higher and one site has a lower value 

9 without knowing all the details of how the 

10 counts were performed and the information that 

11 went into the final value.

12 So, if I could have Tom maybe 

13 provide any kind of additional insight on this 

14 issue possibly, if he has some information to 

15 provide?

16 MR. LaBONE: The question is about 

17 the calibration of the chest counters for 

18 thorium? The validity of that?

19 MR. ROLFES: Well, I think I 

20 addressed some possible explanations for the 

21 differences in two measurements, in addition 

22 to possibly a separation of the time that the 
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1 measurements were made.

2 MR. LaBONE: Okay. I'm sorry, I 

3 have not seen the calibration records for the 

4 chest counter. But what I am assuming they 

5 would have done, which is how you calibrate a 

6 chest counter, is that you have some thorium, 

7 and they would have had it analyzed. They 

8 would know how much thorium and how much of 

9 the daughters.

10 They would put it inside their 

11 phantom. I don't think the phantom is 

12 absolutely critical here because of the 

13 energies you are looking at; they are fairly 

14 high. They are not going to have a lot of 

15 self-absorption.

16 Then, they say, okay, we see this 

17 number of photons in an hour registered in the 

18 detector in this peak area. And so, they get 

19 milligrams per count in the detector.

20 So, I don't question the validity 

21 of the calibration. Now the issue that is 

22 being brought up is, how does that relate to 
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1 what the people were exposed to in the 

2 workplace? And that is a valid issue that you 

3 have to know something about what was the 

4 material in order to make this translation of 

5 you are counting the person with workplace 

6 material in him versus the phantom with a 

7 known mixture of thorium in him.

8 And so, I don't have an issue with 

9 the calibration in those days. But, again, 

10 the problem is, how do you apply that to the 

11 workers?

12 I don't know if that answers that 

13 question, but that is my opinion on it.

14 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Tom.

15 Okay. Then, the one other thing I 

16 did want to call on you, Tom, for was in 

17 response to Bob Barton's -- I know we heard 

18 Bob Barton present his analysis of the 

19 possible differences between the thorium 

20 worker dataset and the remainder of the 

21 chemical operators.

22 I know you produced a quick plot. 
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1 Could you possibly describe what you have 

2 done and explain the analysis that you 

3 completed?

4 MR. LaBONE: Okay. What I would 

5 like to do is in the report there is a nice 

6 summary of findings, Section 2, that goes 

7 through one, two, and three of the findings. 

8 So, what you have asked me to do is part of 

9 Finding One.

10 And so, when I read the report --

11 this is the August 4th report that was 

12 discussed earlier -- you come away with the 

13 impression after reading the summary that the 

14 curves in Figure 1 between the thorium workers 

15 and the chemical operators are different. So, 

16 that is basically the conclusion. Well, 

17 sometimes it is not explicitly stated, but 

18 that assumption is carried on through the rest 

19 of the paper.

20 But the thing that is missing here 

21 is that there is no test of these two curves. 

22 All there is is just basically you are 
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1 looking at it and saying, hey, they look kind 

2 of different.

3 And what I did was -- I don't have 

4 the data. So, I digitized the plots to get 

5 the data off as best I could. And I ran the 

6 test on it.

7 The conclusion I came up with is 

8 what Mark has, that little piece of paper. It 

9 is that these curves are not significantly 

10 different. That is, the thorium workers and 

11 the chemical operators.

12 Now this is a test that I think 

13 should be done and included in the paper 

14 because there can be errors in me trying to 

15 digitize the data, and so forth. But, again, 

16 that is the type of thing that I think needs 

17 to be here.

18 If you take away the fact, if you 

19 go ahead and say, okay, these things are not 

20 significantly different, then it changes 

21 basically the tone of the whole rest of the 

22 paper.
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1 The next assumption that is made 

2 is basically the thorium workers who were 

3 identified in 1968 existed as a group for 

4 about 10 years. And so, I mean, the question 

5 I throw out to everybody is -- because I don't 

6 really know the answer to this -- is it 

7 plausible that that group stayed together as 

8 thorium workers throughout that time period? 

9 Because what I was hearing was that these were 

10 chemical workers and they were assigned 

11 various jobs, depending upon what was in 

12 production at the time.

13 And so, those are two issues I 

14 have with Finding One. It is basically, did 

15 this group stay together through 10 years? 

16 And are they different in 1968, which was the 

17 one year that there was definitive data to 

18 identify a thorium worker versus a non-thorium 

19 worker?

20 So, I think that is probably a 

21 good place to stop for one. Does anybody have 

22 any comments on that?
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1 MR. BARTON: Tom, this is Bob 

2 Barton.

3 MR. LaBONE: Yes?

4 MR. BARTON: Just so I understand 

5 exactly what you are asking, are you asking if 

6 that group of thorium workers that we 

7 identified in these plots worked with thorium 

8 during the entire period in question?

9 MR. LaBONE: Yes.

10 MR. BARTON: Okay. I don't have 

11 an exact reference. But my impression, based 

12 on Work Group discussions on the site, is 

13 that, no, that was not the case.

14 So, you had overlap when looking 

15 at these different lung values that would 

16 probably reflect uranium work, even though 

17 they were only still labeled as a thorium 

18 worker. Aside from 1968, again, the evidence 

19 is very flimsy as to who we can identify as a 

20 thorium worker and to actually tie their 

21 specific in vivo results to thorium work.

22 If that helps clarify a little 
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1 bit.

2 MR. LaBONE: Yes. It is just that 

3 that assumption, I think, from what I read, is 

4 made throughout the paper, when the 

5 comparisons are made in subsequent years. And 

6 so, like everything depends upon that. If 

7 that is not the case, or if you cannot assume 

8 that as a first-order approximation, then a 

9 lot of the comparisons are tough to interpret.

10 MR. BARTON: Again, this is Bob 

11 Barton.

12 I clearly understand what you are 

13 saying. For us to do anything like the 

14 analysis that we present here, we sort of have 

15 to make that assumption because, otherwise, we 

16 have no way to tie any of these workers as a 

17 thorium worker aside, again, from 1968.

18 So, in my mind, when you make that 

19 assumption that they always worked with 

20 thorium, and then you compare them to chemical 

21 operators, you are really kind of almost 

22 muddying the water because a lot of those lung 
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1 counts aren't going to actually be 

2 representative of work being done with 

3 thorium.

4 So, if anything, that I think 

5 would bias the curves to be closer together 

6 than they might have been, had we known who 

7 actually worked with thorium on a yearly

8 basis.

9 MR. LaBONE: I don't know. The 

10 problem that I see is you are starting off 

11 with an assumption and it is almost circular. 

12 You could have just gotten lucky and gotten a 

13 stratum that happened to be higher. Again, if 

14 you go through and you test these things, and 

15 they all turn out to be higher, you can pick 

16 another stratum of workers that are completely 

17 at random and they may be higher all those 

18 years, too.

19 You need to nail down that these 

20 are indeed thorium workers, I can identify 

21 these, and these other workers are not thorium 

22 workers. I mean, you have to do that first, 
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1 and then the rest of this flows from that.

2 MR. BARTON: I really wish I 

3 could, Tom. We have not found any references 

4 or evidence aside from 1968 that allows us to 

5 identify who worked with thorium in those 

6 later years.

7 MR. LaBONE: Okay. I mean, I 

8 talked to Bob about this. What I was told 

9 -- and again, he can chime in here, if I am 

10 misquoting him -- is that there was reasonable 

11 evidence to conclude that the workers were 

12 basically not assigned as thorium workers per 

13 se, but they were chemical operators and then 

14 they took assignments that varied, depending 

15 upon, I guess, who was up for overtime that 

16 week and what needed to be done.

17 And again, he can chime in here 

18 that there was supposedly some sort of 

19 documentation from the site that supported 

20 that sort of scenario.

21 MR. MORRIS: This is Robert 

22 Morris.
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1 In fact, that is true. If you 

2 look into the interviews that we did in the 

3 2007 timeframe with the plant managers and the 

4 process engineers, you will see some evidence 

5 of that.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: This is Brad.

7 What evidence? Because my 

8 understanding is we can't tell who is thorium 

9 workers and really who the chemical --

10 MR. MORRIS: Well, that's right. 

11 The plant managers said the assignments were 

12 made based on who was available and the 

13 campaigns that were scheduled, and it was not 

14 a purposeful -- and those assignments came out 

15 of the chemical operator population. So, the 

16 people were assigned into these jobs based on 

17 their availability and based on the campaigns 

18 that were going on.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. So, I 

20 just want to be clear. So, we have no idea 

21 who was and who wasn't, period?

22 MR. MORRIS: Well, I agree, we 
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1 don't know who was and who was not, but we 

2 know that they were chemical operators.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay.

4 MR. LaBONE: For the purpose of 

5 the coworker model, I think the important 

6 thing is that if you counted, if you chest7 counted chemical workers, you captured the 

8 people who worked at the thorium processes. 

9 So, if we can make that assumption, then we 

10 can move forward to do something, ignoring 

11 everything else that went on in the discussion 

12 today.

13 But there would be people in there 

14 who didn't handle thorium, but, again, that 

15 can be handled as part of the process. But 

16 did you catch everybody? Did you capture 

17 everybody, count them, the ones that handled 

18 thorium? And so, again, that is just 

19 something that we need to decide and we 

20 support that.

21 Okay. Any other comments on One?

22 MR. BARTON: Just as a note, being 
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1 a thorium worker does not automatically mean 

2 you were a chemical operator. There were also 

3 machine tool operators. In Starkey's list, 

4 there's -- I mean, I will agree that they are 

5 probably mostly chemical operators, but you 

6 also have some other job titles in there. And 

7 even just looking at the Starkey memo, which 

8 is the only definitive piece that ties it to a 

9 year, you are going to see some other job 

10 titles in there as well.

11 MR. LaBONE: Okay. So, I think 

12 what we need to do is, again, how many of 

13 those and, again, do we capture the 

14 preponderance of these? And is it adequate 

15 for the thorium? I can't answer that right 

16 now, but just looking at the analysis here, 

17 that is what went through my head.

18 MR. BARTON: And, Tom, this is Bob 

19 Barton.

20 I completely agree. If we could 

21 have tied down who the actual thorium workers 

22 were, this analysis would be a whole lot 
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1 stronger than it is. But, as I said, with the 

2 difficulty we had identifying those people, we 

3 felt that this, the assumption that we made 

4 was essentially the best that we could do to 

5 try to get a handle on what we have here.

6 MR. LaBONE: Yes. What it comes 

7 down to is, it is very hard to look at just 

8 count data and decide, did you count the right 

9 people? You need ancillary information such 

10 as: how was the bioassay program designed? 

11 What were the procedures, and so forth?

12 It is real hard to just look at 

13 the data and say, did we count the people we 

14 should have counted? Those are the 

15 difficulties. I understand it is hard to do 

16 this. And sometimes I wish we could do this 

17 because it would help us a lot.

18 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: It would help 

19 us all. But this is part of our issue that we 

20 are into, is the data, just a lot of it isn't 

21 there. That what creates a lot of our 

22 problems.
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1 MR. LaBONE: Okay, the --

2 MR. MORRIS: But in this case --

3 MR. LaBONE: I'm sorry, go ahead.

4 MR. MORRIS: But in this case, I 

5 think we do have data. We have got a program, 

6 we have got bioassay programmatic description 

7 documents, and it said we get chemical 

8 operators and these sorts of people. It had a 

9 list of them on an annualized basis, when the 

10 whole body count or when the mobile in vivo 

11 lab shows up. Other people are on a less 

12 frequent basis, more or less, every two years, 

13 from what we can see.

14 But the assumption going farther, 

15 I think Tom is going to cover this in a 

16 moment, that there would be a correlation 

17 between the exposure and the number of times 

18 the person was counted, it doesn't make that 

19 much sense when the counter is only showing up 

20 one time a year for a routine, programmatic 

21 assessment.

22 If you identified somebody who was 
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1 involved in an incident and then counted them 

2 more than once a year, that would be 

3 understandable. But, for the routine program, 

4 why one would even think to test that exposure 

5 potential and number of counts is correlated, 

6 except to say that it happened one time a year 

7 when the machine was available? It sort of 

8 made me wonder why the test was going on at 

9 all.

10 MR. BARTON: Well, this is Bob 

11 Barton.

12 As you just said, Bob, everybody 

13 wasn't counted. It was a tiered approach, the 

14 chemical operators listed as the highest 

15 priority. But even they weren't all monitored 

16 year by year.

17 So, if you had somebody in one 

18 year with a high thorium exposure, and you 

19 were going after the people with the high 

20 values, chances are you probably would see 

21 that person counted again at the very least 

22 next year. And there are instances where you 
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1 see someone counted more than once in a year, 

2 and not just the next day, sometimes four 

3 months apart.

4 So, while some of this analysis --

5 I will absolutely concede the limitations need 

6 to be brought out, because it is a very 

7 important issue, but I think there is still 

8 some value to this as a weight of evidence 

9 argument.

10 MR. LaBONE: Okay. Should we move 

11 on?

12 MEMBER GRIFFON: Sure.

13 MR. LaBONE: I would like to talk 

14 about No. 3. Again, this is on page 9 and 

15 starts at the bottom.

16 Basically, if I were to summarize 

17 this, the conclusions were: there is a poor 

18 correlation between the number of thorium 

19 chest counts and the measured -- between, yes, 

20 the number of thorium chest counts and -- I am 

21 trying to read this off the paper, so I get it 

22 straight -- and measured thorium chest 
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1 burdens.

2 It was referred to as a frequency 

3 in the paper, but I think it was over the 10-

4 year time. It was the total number of counts 

5 in the time period, the 10 years. Is that 

6 correct?

7 MR. BARTON: That's correct.

8 MR. LaBONE: Okay. So, I just 

9 called it a number instead of a frequency. 

10 Well, I guess you could say it is the number 

11 for 10 years.

12 Now, that was a conclusion. Then, 

13 the next one was there is a better correlation 

14 between the number of uranium chest counts in 

15 that 10-year time period and the measured 

16 uranium chest burdens. And so, okay, we will 

17 talk about that in a second.

18 But just assuming that those are 

19 true, the conclusion was that, from those two 

20 statements, is that the monitoring programs, 

21 basically, who you decided to monitor, were 

22 based on the uranium work you were going to do 
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1 and not the thorium work. I guess that is one 

2 conclusion you could draw.

3 Another, I think perhaps more 

4 plausible conclusion, based upon the health 

5 physics of this, is that, basically, there 

6 were more positive uranium chest counts than 

7 there were positive thorium chest counts. And 

8 that, typically, a program will recount people 

9 when they are positive.

10 For example, there is a table, 

11 Table 1 in an SC&A document here. It was June 

12 2010. It was a review of thorium in vivo, 

13 coworker study, proposed attachment. 

14 Basically, SC&A reviewed the addendum that was 

15 going to go on the Technical Basis Document. 

16 And I don't expect everybody to have that 

17 there, but I just wanted to state the source.

18 There is Table 1 in here, and 

19 there is one, two, three, four, five, six, 

20 seven, there is eight of the highest thorium 

21 results are listed in here. It was to 

22 demonstrate the problems of trying to 
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1 interpret these thorium results. But all 

2 eight of those thorium chest counts were from 

3 the same person and split equally in June and 

4 October of 1979.

5 So, basically, in a health physics 

6 program, when you see something, a chest count 

7 that is positive, you typically will recount 

8 it if it looks unusual or whatever. And so, 

9 if you are going to try to do something like 

10 this, you have to try to account for how many 

11 of these were recounts that were triggered by 

12 an event where they determined it to be a 

13 positive result. And I think, if you look at 

14 the uranium chest counts and the thorium chest 

15 counts, there were a lot more positive uranium 

16 chest counts, which would be consistent with 

17 them recounting these people.

18 So, again, I think you can argue 

19 which one of these is the proper 

20 interpretation of it, but I don't think that 

21 it proves the monitoring program was based 

22 upon uranium work as opposed to thorium work. 
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1 MR. BARTON: Yes, Tom, Bob Barton 

2 again.

3 I completely follow what you are 

4 saying. Again, it is important to point out 

5 the limitations here with what we are able to 

6 do and how strong a conclusion we can actually 

7 pull from something like this.

8 You know, maybe a more in-depth 

9 analysis goes to look at more of the people 

10 that you just pointed out, like this person in 

11 1979. An even better way, if we could do it, 

12 would be to take a look at -- I mean, one 

13 thing that could be messing this up is if the 

14 person wasn't even employed there anymore. 

15 Then, you wouldn't see repeated measurements 

16 at Fernald. So, I mean, these are all factors 

17 that certainly have to be taken into account.

18 What we tried to accomplish here 

19 was some statements were made that things are 

20 relatively okay because you are going to 

21 concentrate on the people with the highest 

22 exposure potential. And even just a scoping 
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1 calculation like the one we are referring to 

2 here, where we are doing the linear 

3 correlations, while limited, it gives you some 

4 weight of evidence to try to figure out if 

5 that statement is actually correct.

6 As you said, you could draw 

7 different conclusions from it. The one that 

8 we saw is like, you know, as a scoping 

9 calculation, we see that there is actually, 

10 based on the calculation, a negative 

11 correlation for thorium; whereas you have much 

12 better correlations for uranium. And that 

13 could be explained by more positive results or 

14 it could be because the program really wasn't 

15 focused on capturing the highest thorium 

16 results, but was more focused on uranium.

17 Two pieces of evidence that, 

18 again, might go to support that is: one, the 

19 samples we looked at are for buildings in 

20 years where thorium was processed. And two, 

21 you always have a uranium measurement with 

22 thorium. It could be argued that that is 
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1 incidental.

2 So, while I absolutely appreciate 

3 your point, and it is important to point out 

4 exactly how much of a conclusion we can draw 

5 from this, again, I still think it has some 

6 value for us to try to get a handle on it 

7 because it is a very complex and very 

8 difficult problem.

9 MR. LaBONE: Right. I agree with 

10 you. Data, you know, basically, exploration 

11 is good. It is just, again, it is important 

12 to point out to the people who will read this 

13 report that this is a correlation, which means 

14 these things you are seeing them trend 

15 together, it is not causation. So, causation, 

16 I mean, basically, you have to get some 

17 additional information. Again, it doesn't 

18 prove what is causing this. You can say, hey, 

19 that they are trending together, and this is 

20 one possible conclusion.

21 But, again, I think that needs to 

22 be clear because of basically who is going to 
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1 read it, that they don't walk away that, hey, 

2 this proves that this was true.

3 MEMBER GRIFFON: Hey, Tom?

4 MR. LaBONE: Yes?

5 MEMBER GRIFFON: This is Mark 

6 Griffon.

7 I was curious if you -- I don't 

8 know if this fell under your task -- but did 

9 you have any comments on Finding Two?

10 MR. LaBONE: Finding Two, what I 

11 saw it say is that, hey, the high thorium 

12 results, it kind of agreed. Is that what the 

13 conclusion was? If we just took the thorium 

14 results that we thought were truly above any 

15 sort of sensing or detection level, and we 

16 looked at it, that they tended to agree 

17 between the chemical workers and the thorium 

18 workers. Basically, there was no difference.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, that is kind of 

20 one aspect. This is John Stiver.

21 That was one aspect of it. That 

22 as you got to the higher end of the 
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1 distribution, there seems to be less of a 

2 differentiation among the different subgroups.

3 But the other issue is the fact 

4 that there were only about 75 data points that 

5 were above the presumed MDA of 6 milligrams, 

6 and whether that calls the utility of this 

7 coworker model into any question.

8 MR. LaBONE: Yes, again, I think 

9 this is valuable information, but it has to be 

10 combined with something outside of the count 

11 data, again, interviews from people who were 

12 running the program. How did you select 

13 people? What processes were being done, and 

14 things that I don't have to access to right 

15 this second.

16 But, again, I think it is valuable 

17 to do. It is just it needs to be combined 

18 with some outside information in order to draw 

19 stronger conclusions.

20 MR. STIVER: Okay.

21 MR. MORRIS: Ted, Robert Morris.

22 MR. KATZ: Yes, Robert?
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1 MR. MORRIS: Okay, I would like to 

2 ask a question about in this August 4th, 2011 

3 paper to Bob.

4 Could you refer to Figure 8, 

5 please? Ready?

6 MR. BARTON: Yes, Figure 8.

7 MR. MORRIS: Okay. This is, I 

8 think, the figure where you have defined that 

9 there is even a negative correlation between 

10 the number of samples per worker and the 

11 median thorium results.

12 MR. BARTON: Yes.

13 MR. MORRIS: If you would look at 

14 the fit of your line for that data, do you 

15 think that you got it right?

16 (Laughter.)

17 MR. BARTON: Again, I mean this is 

18 a scoping calculation. Are there more exact 

19 ways to do this? I'm sure there are. Again, 

20 we are just trying to get ahold of this thing 

21 and figure out just what we have here as far 

22 as thorium monitoring coverage. And this was 
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1 just one step in the process.

2 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

3 You can see the correlation 

4 coefficient is very low. It shows, if there 

5 is any correlation at all, it may be negative, 

6 but it doesn't really appear to be anything. 

7 It is hard to tell from that. But this wasn't 

8 designed to be a quantitative assessment. It 

9 is really just sort of a scope of, did there 

10 appear to be any kind of a trend that would 

11 indicate an increase in frequency with 

12 magnitude of result?

13 MR. MORRIS: I agree with you; it 

14 doesn't indicate anything, but it is one of 

15 the things that you highlighted as a negative 

16 correlation.

17 And I don't think your line 

18 supports the data, really. I don't think it 

19 accurately represents it and proves that there 

20 is a negative correlation.

21 MR. BARTON: Bob, I think that 

22 really -- and perhaps this was not stated 
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1 clearly enough in here -- we did not find any 

2 evidence to suggest that the thorium 

3 monitoring was directed at the higher-exposed 

4 individuals. I think that is really what we 

5 are trying to get across here.

6 We did some scoping calculations 

7 to see, all right, again, we are going to look 

8 at the trend. What does the trend tell us? 

9 Does the trend tend to support this or does it 

10 not support this?

11 And, based on what we saw from 

12 thorium, I mean, again, the correlations are 

13 low. So, the actual values of the numbers 

14 certainly have to be taken into account. But, 

15 again, we do not see evidence that the program 

16 was geared towards the higher-exposed thorium 

17 workers.

18 Now, I mean, further analysis, 

19 maybe a different approach, certainly might 

20 come to a different conclusion, and I would, 

21 obviously, always welcome the more information 

22 we have.
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1 MR. MORRIS: Okay. Then, one last 

2 question. I posed it earlier today. How is 

3 it that you can use this data to make the 

4 analysis and write the paper you just wrote, 

5 if the data are not usable?

6 MR. BARTON: Well, Bob, I think 

7 whenever you approach the review of a coworker 

8 model like this, it is important to look at it 

9 from different lights. I am certainly not 

10 going to sit here and pretend to have a real 

11 grasp like some of the other folks on the 

12 phone, and certainly Joyce Lipsztein, about 

13 the way these monitoring things work.

14 But, you know, if we come in with 

15 the problem that we don't like the MDA, we 

16 don't trust the numbers, that is one thing. 

17 If we can get over that hump, an analysis like 

18 this can then be very helpful in interpreting 

19 that data and deciding what you do going 

20 forward.

21 So, that is what I would say. I 

22 think it is important to look at something 
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1 like this from multiple angles. You know, we 

2 might have sat down today and having the 

3 issues over the milligrams thorium, you know, 

4 we came up with a satisfactory answer. And 

5 now everyone agrees that we can trust this 

6 data.

7 Now you want to take a look at 

8 something like this to see, again, are you 

9 capturing the correct workers? So, I guess 

10 that is the way I would put it.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, Bob, this is 

12 John Stiver.

13 What you need to understand is 

14 that these two issues were kind of explored in 

15 parallel, and it wasn't really a sequential 

16 thing at all. It turns out that this is just 

17 the way things kinds of fell out.

18 And so, there is not some cause 

19 and effect. It would make no sense that we 

20 had previously determined that the data were 

21 no good, but we are going to go ahead and 

22 analyze the distributions anyway. It just 
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1 sort of was done in parallel.

2 And if I could, Tom LaBone, if we 

3 could kind of get back, when you first 

4 started, when you first came online, we had 

5 been talking to Bob Morris a little bit about 

6 the overall distribution for the coworker 

7 model. And Bob indicated that there is a GSD 

8 of three that is presumably based on the 

9 several thousand data points and just the 

10 statistical parameters that would apply to 

11 that distribution.

12 And we briefly touched on the 

13 issue of the uncertainties that would cause a 

14 particular result to be suspect based on the 

15 age of the source term and some of these other 

16 factors that might affect it, and how those 

17 uncertainties were taken into account.

18 And this GSD of three is really 

19 just applied to the distribution. It is not 

20 looking at the within-measurement uncertainty.

21 I would just kind of like to get 

22 your take on how you might consider 
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1 approaching that aspect of it.

2 MR. LaBONE: The uncertainties in 

3 internal dose are a tough topic. I believe --

4 and Liz can correct me if I say this wrong 

5 about the coworker -- we can do an analysis 

6 and we fit basically the median bioassay data 

7 as if it came from one person. So, this is a 

8 group of people for each year, and we get 

9 their data and we find the median, the 50th 

10 percentile. And we will get that for each 

11 year. Then, we will fit it with a model for 

12 thorium, for example, as if it came from a 

13 single person.

14 And the GSD is going to be 

15 basically, I think it is determined from, you 

16 said the --

17 MS. BRACKETT: The intakes.

18 MR. LaBONE: Yes, the intakes, but 

19 for the GSD it is the 84th percentile. I'm 

20 sorry. That's it, right?

21 MS. BRACKETT: Yes.

22 MR. LaBONE: We fit the 84th 
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1 percentile intakes, and then the ratio of 

2 those two to the median will give us the GSD.

3 And if you have tight data, it 

4 will come and you can get a small GSD. I 

5 believe the minimum that is used is three. 

6 So, it can't go below that.

7 And a GSD, so say a 95 percent 

8 confidence interval for that is like times and 

9 divide a factor of nine, is what goes into 

10 IREP.

11 MR. STIVER: Okay. I understand 

12 how the GSD is determined from the 

13 distribution. I was just kind of curious 

14 about how you also factor in the within15 measurement uncertainty. We may say it might 

16 be a factor of four uncertainty within any 

17 given measurement, and that is not really 

18 captured in the overall GSD for the 

19 distribution.

20 MR. LaBONE: No, because it is 

21 being calculated from the scatter of the data 

22 points themselves.
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1 MR. STIVER: Then, you would make 

2 the assumption that that would be from an 

3 individual person. So, it would, therefore, 

4 account for these factors. So, I can't see 

5 where you are going with that.

6 MR. LaBONE: Well, again, I think 

7 the design, the original design of the factor, 

8 the GSD of three, a minimum, was to try to 

9 take into account all these things that are, I 

10 think, are very difficult to account for 

11 analytically.

12 You know, even today, if you had 

13 modern data from this year, it would be very 

14 difficult to go through and do a complete 

15 uncertainty analysis on that data. And that 

16 is if you had something that was easy to 

17 monitor, and we are not talking about thorium 

18 from 1971.

19 And so, I think that is what this 

20 factor, this GSD of three was for, was to try 

21 to accommodate those things that we are going 

22 to have a lot of difficulties trying to do 
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1 basically rigorously.

2 MR. STIVER: Okay.

3 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes.

4 I wanted to point out maybe one of 

5 the uncertainties -- now correct me if I am 

6 wrong, Tom or Bob -- one of the uncertainties 

7 earlier on that we had with our coworker 

8 modeling was the disequilibrium of the progeny 

9 of the thorium-232. We originally had an 

10 disequilibrium factor of .71. We have now 

11 gone to a theoretical minimum value for 

12 disequilibrium of .42. So, we have 

13 essentially eliminated the uncertainty of that 

14 particular piece of the puzzle, I guess.

15 MR. STIVER: Yes, Mark, this is 

16 John.

17 We would consider that .42 to be a 

18 claimant-favorable assumption, which I believe 

19 we put in our response. Still kind of a 

20 nagging issue for me is the .42 is a 

21 theoretical value for a closed system; 

22 whereas, we have this issue of potentially 
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1 translocation of radium. And even the 

2 radon-220, even though it is only a one-minute 

3 half-life, it could diffuse outside to another 

4 area. It may cause a translocation and the 

5 deposition of lead, and so forth, in a 

6 different part of the body.

7 I guess the uncertainty that goes 

8 along with that, I know Sam had brought up the 

9 fact that whatever is going to be in a 

10 particular type, it is going to stay within 

11 that matrix. It is probably not going to go 

12 very far.

13 But some of the studies we read, 

14 especially for more subtle forms of thorium, 

15 have indicated that you have some pretty 

16 significant deviations below the .42.

17 MR. ROLFES: There's really not 

18 that many types of soluble thorium out there, 

19 though.

20 MR. STIVER: Yes. Well, this 

21 particular study, they used hydroxides and 

22 nitrates.
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1 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

2 MR. STIVER: They were used in the 

3 chemical process.

4 MR. ROLFES: Those types of 

5 materials are still Type M materials. I am 

6 not aware of any Type F, fast soluble --

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, there was no 

8 Type F as far as I know. So, that is 

9 something that just, you know, I realize that 

10 -- I tend to agree that the .42 is claimant11 favorable, but I think there is still some 

12 uncertainty in whether the -- they kind of 

13 wrapped all that in.

14 MR. ROLFES: Sure, sure. I agree. 

15 I know. This is just our tentative response. 

16 This is what we have been able to do in the 

17 past couple of days.

18 MR. STIVER: Yes.

19 MR. ROLFES: Just seeing the paper. 

20 So, we owe you, we owe SC&A and the Work 

21 Group written responses on these papers. I 

22 don't know if there are any additional things 
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1 that we need to discuss really with this until 

2 we can get a written response back to the Work 

3 Group for your review.

4 But, like I said, we have only had 

5 -- I mean, there are some people, I'm sure, 

6 out there that have been working around the 

7 clock to respond, to prepare responses for 

8 this Work Group. So, I don't want that to go 

9 unnoticed. And I know SC&A has been looking 

10 at things as well. I don't want to 

11 shortchange the work that SC&A has done. We 

12 want to make sure that we take our time and 

13 look at it closely, and prepare a written 

14 response for the Work Group.

15 DR. MAURO: This is John.

16 I have a question that I am stuck 

17 on, and you have to help me with this. So, if 

18 I have a worker, and I do a chest count, and I 

19 come back and I say he has got 10 milligrams, 

20 that's the number, your numbers basically say 

21 it is 10, but there is a possibility, not an 

22 insignificant possibility, that the real but 
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1 unknown number could be 10 times higher. Is 

2 that true?

3 In other words, with a GSD of 

4 three, it means that one standard deviation 

5 would be a factor of three higher; two 

6 standard deviations would be a factor of nine 

7 higher.

8 So, what you are saying, if I have 

9 just a single number, measurement of a person, 

10 and it tells me it is 10 milligrams -- what I 

11 am hearing is now, if I had a number of 

12 measurements for this person, and each one of 

13 them, you said, had a GSD of three, then I 

14 would start to get a little more comfortable 

15 because they start to offset each other, if 

16 you see where I am headed.

17 In other words, I have got a 

18 series of numbers. Each one has a GSD of 

19 three. Then, what happens is, you know, you 

20 really are asking yourself, what is the 95 

21 percent confidence of the mean for this guy's 

22 body burden? And that narrows down greatly.
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1 If you just have a single 

2 measurement, and you run IREP with that -- and 

3 you back-calculate the dose, and then you run 

4 IREP, the dose that you are going to be 

5 putting in could have a spread that is 10 

6 times higher or 10 times lower.

7 And I am sorry I bring this up, 

8 but something about -- and it is only a single 

9 measurement -- something about that is 

10 disturbing to me. You know, you are giving 

11 this number, but you know and I know that 

12 there is a possibility, a 5 percent 

13 possibility, that that number, his true body 

14 burden, could very well be three, four, five, 

15 maybe ten times higher than that. But you are 

16 going to go with the number you are using as 

17 being the best estimate within that 

18 distribution.

19 What I just said, is that a fair 

20 representation of what will be done for a real 

21 person that only had one value in a chest 

22 count?
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1 MR. ROLFES: John, this is Mark 

2 Rolfes.

3 I think you are twisting some 

4 things around in there about where the 

5 uncertainty lies. And let me explain, 

6 basically, how we would interpret the data 

7 that we have available to us.

8 Obviously, there is going to be a 

9 lot more uncertainty involved with one measure 

10 versus two or ten measurements. The more 

11 measurements you have, the better you are able 

12 to refine your --

13 DR. MAURO: Yes, I agree with 

14 that. And so, I am not so much troubled when 

15 you have a number of measurements because they 

16 sort of work themselves out in the average. 

17 But if you have one or two, there is where I 

18 am troubled by the approach you are using.

19 I know this is a little offline of 

20 what we were talking about. If I am just off21 base on this, fine, we will just move on.

22 DR. GLOVER: Could I -- I'm sorry, 
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1 John.

2 DR. MAURO: Go ahead.

3 DR. GLOVER: One thing, you are 

4 saying that there is only one number in the 

5 guys chest that you are measuring as the send 

6 lever. And if you make a series of 

7 measurements on that, we may have a very 

8 precise series of measurements.

9 I think the GSD of three comes 

10 when we then extrapolate back to an intake. 

11 It is the biokinetics and all that fun stuff 

12 that goes in with what is the intake that gets 

13 a GSD of three. I mean, we can maybe

14 infinitely know, when I dissect, if the guy 

15 was an autopsy case, which they had a lot of 

16 autopsy cases, we know exactly what is in the 

17 lung within a couple percent.

18 DR. MAURO: Right. Right.

19 DR. GLOVER: But that doesn't mean 

20 I can go to intake with a couple percent 

21 precision. So what are the biokinetics --

22 anyway, I will leave it alone at that.
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1 MR. ROLFES: And this is Mark.

2 Basically, we would use that data 

3 to estimate the intake and basically make 

4 assumptions about the type of material and 

5 look at the case specifics for that case. We 

6 would assume a chronic intake assumption, 

7 basically, for that person, calculate the 

8 internal dose to the target organ or the 

9 cancer that was diagnosed, and then that dose 

10 value, if it is a best estimate of intake or a 

11 claimant-favorable estimate of intake, the 

12 uncertainty, the GSD of three would be applied 

13 on that dose estimate.

14 So, it is not on a measurement, 

15 the chest measurement. The uncertainty is 

16 later on in the dose reconstruction process. 

17 So, the GSD of three would be applied into 

18 IREP. We would use the -- if you look at the 

19 two parameters that are entered into IREP for 

20 internal dose for a best-estimate-type thing, 

21 the first parameter would be the dose value, 

22 and the second parameter would be the 
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1 uncertainty associated with that dose value.

2 DR. MAURO: Right, right. And it 

3 struck me that you will be putting into IREP a 

4 dose, a geometric mean, and a geometric 

5 standard deviation which is a factor of three 

6 higher than that, and then, of course, let 

7 IREP run.

8 In theory, what you are saying is, 

9 yes, there is a possibility this guy's dose is 

10 a factor of 10 higher, his real but unknown 

11 dose is a factor of 10 higher. And you let 

12 IREP run, and it picks off the one percentile 

13 or the 99th percentile.

14 Okay, I am sorry for the 

15 diversion. I just got sort of stuck in the 

16 mud on that one.

17 MR. ROLFES: That is an important 

18 point.

19 This is Mark Rolfes again.

20 Keep in mind that the calculated 

21 probability of causation at the 99th 

22 percentile essentially represents that there 
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1 is only a 1 percent chance that that 

2 individual's dose could have been higher or 

3 that individual's probability of causation.

4 DR. MAURO: Well, you see, I 

5 always thought the reason you operate at the 

6 99th percentile is to account for individual

7 variability in risk per rem. It seems that 

8 the uncertainty in the dose is also blurred 

9 into that. Do you see where I am headed with 

10 that?

11 I was always comforted by the idea 

12 that we all know that we don't really know 

13 what the risk coefficient is for a real 

14 person. We know what it is for a population 

15 as adjusted to the United States, et cetera, 

16 et cetera. But for a real single person, you 

17 really never know what their risk coefficient, 

18 risk per rem is. That is the reason you 

19 operate at the 99th percentile.

20 And I like that, and I think that 

21 is very claimant-favorable. It makes sure 

22 that you are giving the benefit of the doubt 
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1 to the person with the cancer.

2 But blurring in this big 

3 uncertainty in dose with that in your sampling 

4 seems to dilute out that benefit that you 

5 grant when you are operating at the 99th 

6 percentile level for the purpose of IREP. Do 

7 you see where I am headed with that?

8 I have definitely moved into a 

9 different realm here. I'm sorry. And this is 

10 something that I think I would like to pursue, 

11 I guess, in another venue.

12 MR. ROLFES: Yes, John, this is 

13 Mark, and I am not sure. We have sort of 

14 changed tracks, I think.

15 DR. MAURO: We certainly did, and 

16 I apologize for that.

17 MR. STIVER: John, we will have to 

18 talk about this sometime offline.

19 DR. MAURO: Yes.

20 MR. STIVER: It is an interesting 

21 topic.

22 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: So, where were 
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1 we?

2 MR. KATZ: Look what you did, 

3 John.

4 (Laughter.)

5 DR. MAURO: I'm sorry. My mind 

6 wanders at around four o'clock.

7 MR. LaBONE: Can I make just a 

8 quick summary then?

9 MR. KATZ: Please do.

10 MR. LaBONE: Just very briefly, I 

11 think it is valuable to do this sort of data 

12 exploration that was done here.

13 Two pure statistical comments are 

14 to perform a test on Figure 1 of your choice 

15 to see if those things, those two curves are 

16 different or the same.

17 And again, a statistical comment 

18 that Bob made is these figures, like Figure 8, 

19 you know, there are robust regression 

20 techniques that would, I think, better capture 

21 the trend and not be as distracted by that 

22 outlier out at like 33 milligrams on Figure 8. 
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1 Again, I think if you look at that, that will 

2 fix that right up.

3 The issue of the thorium workers, 

4 again, do they go through time as a group or 

5 do they rotate positions?

6 And, then, the question of 

7 causality has to have additional information. 

8 You know, what is the cause of what we are 

9 seeing versus just the pure correlation, to 

10 make that distinction clear in the conclusions 

11 of the report.

12 So, that pretty much wraps it up.

13 MR. STIVER: Thank you.

14 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Tom.

15 MEMBER GRIFFON: Those sound like 

16 SC&A actions.

17 MR. STIVER: Yes.

18 MEMBER GRIFFON: And I think I 

19 heard Mark volunteer that NIOSH has the action 

20 of putting these comments into writing.

21 MR. ROLFES: Yes. Yes,

22 absolutely. We will definitely prepare a 
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1 response to these two White Papers.

2 MR. STIVER: As kind of a prelude 

3 to what we --

4 DR. LIPSZTEIN: May I make one 

5 comment? This is Joyce.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Sure.

7 DR. LIPSZTEIN: On page 10 of the 

8 White Paper that we did on data quality, 

9 please be aware I put an example of some lung10 counter calibration rounds. I concluded late. 

11 So, in this example, a factor of 19 error. 

12 This is not 19; this is two. Okay? This is a 

13 typing mistake, please.

14 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I understand 

15 that. Thank you, Joyce.

16 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Thank you.

17 MR. STIVER: Mark, if I could just 

18 say one thing, it is important to address 

19 these issues in the completeness paper that 

20 Tom discussed. But I think it is more 

21 important to address the issues we have in the 

22 adequacy paper, too. So, we really look 
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1 forward to what you can provide us on that.

2 MR. ROLFES: Right. Right. We 

3 owe responses on both of these. We have not 

4 responded to either of these.

5 MR. STIVER: And I guess Bryce or 

6 you guys are going to try to get a handle on 

7 what the downblending time periods might be.

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes. Correct.

9 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes, the two 

10 weeks out of the year.

11 Okay. And these are all action 

12 items. Like Mark said, he is going to review 

13 the two papers and give a response back. I 

14 don't think that we will have them before the 

15 Board meeting, though. But what we can get 

16 would be greatly appreciated.

17 Also, we are going to have to give 

18 a response at this Board meeting of where our 

19 issues are and where we are going. We are 

20 trying to get this to be able to be brought 

21 before the Board because, I am going to be 

22 honest, especially after today, I don't know 
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1 that the Working Group is really going to come 

2 to a total conclusion on this. We are giving 

3 it our best effort, but I think, also, too, we 

4 need to get the Board involved. They may have 

5 some aspects of where they want us to look.

6 MEMBER GRIFFON: I may regret 

7 this, but other than recycled uranium and the 

8 thorium, are there other -- I am trying to 

9 remember where we stand on --

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No.

11 MEMBER GRIFFON: These seem to be 

12 the main ones, right? Okay.

13 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Yes. We could 

14 talk about K-65 silos, but --

15 (Simultaneous speakers.)

16 MEMBER GRIFFON: I know we didn't 

17 discuss it today, but I know SC&A has weighed18 in more favorably than I would on the daily 

19 weighted average model for the earlier period 

20 for the thorium work, right? Is it the 53 

21 to --

22 MR. STIVER: Yes, that would be 
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1 the 53 to 60 days.

2 MEMBER GRIFFON: Fifty-three, 

3 whatever, yes. I don't know. I know I missed 

4 the last Work Group meeting.

5 MR. STIVER: We talked about that 

6 at the full Board meeting.

7 MEMBER GRIFFON: Anyway, I will 

8 try to get my thoughts together before the 

9 Board meeting coming up.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Well, and I 

11 have got to give somewhat of a presentation, 

12 too. So, it will come after the full Work 

13 Group and to DCAS, and so forth.

14 But as far as SC&A, we have not --

15 well, we have got to get the construction 

16 coworker model to be able to review it. But 

17 that whole thing is going to have to be 

18 reviewed.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, that is on the 

20 way here.

21 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right.

22 MR. ROLFES: Yes, that is in our 
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1 shop, and we need to finalize it. We will get 

2 that out as soon as we can as well.

3 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right.

4 The response, and this was 

5 probably DCAS to SC&A on the thorium papers, 

6 and so forth --

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, I have got that 

8 one captured.

9 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. Now did 

10 we have other ones that SC&A owed DCAS?

11 MR. STIVER: I don't recall 

12 anything that came up. I mean, we certainly 

13 want to see this downblending time information 

14 to determine the feasibility of bounding that, 

15 the downblender class, for RU.

16 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Right.

17 MR. STIVER: And that is really 

18 the big issue.

19 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Did we miss 

20 anything owed to DCAS? Do you know any --

21 MR. ROLFES: I don't think so. I 

22 think we mentioned the statistical tests at 
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1 the end of our conversation there.

2 MR. STIVER: Yes. That will be 

3 after we get the formal response from you 

4 guys.

5 MR. ROLFES: Correct. Yes. I 

6 don't believe there is anything else that we 

7 have missed, not that I can think of.

8 Sam, did you catch anything else 

9 that --

10 MR. KATZ: So, John, will you work 

11 with Brad and Mark to pull together a 

12 presentation? We have a pretty big time slot 

13 for this. We don't need to use it all, 

14 though, but we will make do. I mean, you can 

15 use it all, but --

16 (Laughter.)

17 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: No, I am 

18 starting to have people asking several 

19 questions. I think a lot of this is going to 

20 come up, because we are trying to bring the 

21 Board up to speed of where we are at.

22 MR. KATZ: Right.
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1 MR. STIVER: Yes, last time we had 

2 a pretty quiet audience. I think there may be 

3 a lot more interplay this time.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes. No, my main 

5 concern is just I want to keep, since you have 

6 started sort of bringing the Board along, I 

7 want to keep them along. So, you maybe even 

8 want to be a little bit repetitive of what you 

9 have covered before. I want to keep them 

10 engaged, so that when they are ready to bite 

11 on this, they have all that background.

12 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Paul and Phil, 

13 do either one of you have anything that needs 

14 to be brought before the Work Group at this 

15 time?

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: This is Ziemer.

17 Yes. Well, I have appreciated the 

18 discussion this afternoon and the issues 

19 raised.

20 I think, John Mauro, your issue, 

21 your last one, we can send that to the 

22 Scientific Issues Committee, the Work Group.
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1 (Laughter.)

2 But, in any event, yes, I think 

3 the path forward here that has been outlined 

4 makes sense. We need to get the responses. 

5 So, I am comfortable with that.

6 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: I understand. 

7 It was good to hear your voice here.

8 I am not going to see you on 

9 YouTube or Funniest Videos, am I?

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I hope not.

11 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. I just 

12 wanted to make sure. I hope you are feeling 

13 better. I am sorry to hear about your little 

14 incident there.

15 Phil, is there anything that you 

16 wanted to bring?

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: No. I think it 

18 pretty well got covered today. And John 

19 totally confused everything before he was 

20 done.

21 DR. MAURO: That's my job.

22 (Laughter.)
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1 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Just a 30-

2 second soundbite, but we appreciate it.

3 With that, DCAS, is there anything 

4 that needs to be brought up before we adjourn? 

5 Or, SC&A?

6 MR. ROLFES: I don't think so, 

7 Brad.

8 MR. STIVER: I think we have 

9 covered pretty much all of it.

10 CHAIRMAN CLAWSON: Okay. With 

11 that, we will adjourn. We appreciate 

12 everybody. We will see you in a couple of 

13 weeks.

14 MR. KATZ: Thank you, everyone on 

15 the line.

16 (Whereupon, at 3:57 p.m., the 

17 meeting was adjourned.)

18 

19 

20 

21