This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

Work Group on Lawrence Berkeley National 

Laboratory

Monday, November 25, 2019 

The Work Group convened telephonically at 3:00 

p.m., Eastern Time, Paul L. Ziemer, Chair, presiding.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

2 

Present: 

Paul L. Ziemer, Chair

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

David B. Richardson, Member

Also Present: 

Ted Katz, Designated Federal Official

Bob Barton, SC&A 

Ron Buchanan, SC&A

Zaida Burgos, NIOSH

Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A

Megan Lobaugh, NIOSH

Jenny Naylor, HHS

Lavon Rutherford, DCAS

Mutty Sharfi, ORAU

Stephen Spanos, ORAU

Tim Taulbee, NIOSH
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

3

Contents

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health Work Group on 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Monday, 

November 25, 2019 1

Roll Call/Welcome 4

Opening Remarks, by Paul Ziemer, WG Chair 5

Discussion of any closed findings/observations, 

by Paul Ziemer, WG Chair 5

Presentation Summary of LBNL Site Profile 

Findings and Observations, by Megan Lobaugh, 

DCAS 7

Overview of current DCAS work underway, by 

Megan Lobaugh, DCAS 24

Summary/discussion of current responses to 

SC&A review of internal dose methods, by 

Megan Lobaugh, DCAS 28

Action items and plans for December Board 

meeting presentation, by Paul Ziemer, WG 

Chair 54

Adjourn 56
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

4 

Proceedings

(3:00 p.m.)

Roll Call/Welcome

Mr. Katz: So, welcome everyone. This is the Advisory 

Board on Radiation and Worker Health. It's the 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Work Group. 

And it has three members. It's chaired by Dr. Ziemer 

who's on the line. And Brad Clawson who is a 

member. And we're waiting for David Richardson.

And let's go on, well let me just -- other preliminaries. 

There aren't a lot of materials posted for this 

meeting. The agenda for this meeting is posted on 

the NIOSH website. And SC&A which is the contractor 

to the Board, did a review in 2018 I think, of the Site 

Profile issues. And that is posted.

There haven't been any recent papers from NIOSH 

posted yet, but those are in the works. And they will 

get posted. They won't get posted for this meeting, 

but they will be posted subsequently when they can, 

or if.

And what else do I have, that's really about it. So for 

roll call, we're speaking about a site, so conflict of 

interest and issues. And Board Members on the Work 

Group, by definition don't have a conflict, or they 

wouldn't be on the Work Group. So we don't have to 

address that, but please for the rest of the staff as 

we go through roll call, speak to conflict of interest. 

And we can get started with the NIOSH ORAU team.

(Roll Call)

Mr. Katz: David are you with us yet, David 

Richardson?

Member Richardson: Hello, this is David.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

5 

Mr. Katz: David, great. Glad you could join us, 

thanks.

Okay, and we haven't started yet. So we're ready to 

go now. Paul, it's your meeting.

Opening Remarks, by Paul Ziemer, WG Chair

Chair Ziemer: Okay, thank you very much, 

appreciate everybody being here on the line today. 

You should have at least three items before you. One 

is the agenda itself.

The second one is a transmission that Megan 

Lobaugh sent, I think to all the Work Group Members, 

and probably to others. Dated I believe the 18th of 

November which included several summary 

statements that'll be helpful for you in organizing 

things.

One was an update on the NIOSH October 2019 

update. There was an August 19th update. And a 

section on, let's see, internal dose methodology, just 

a number of bullet points that Megan sent out. And 

I'll refer to some of those as we go along.

And then the actual input that is in the master 

database dealing with Lawrence Berkeley, and 

particularly the internal dose reconstruction issues 

that we'll be dealing with today or at least discussing 

today. And that is Findings 1 and 2, and three 

observations.

Discussion of any closed findings/observations, by 

Paul Ziemer, WG Chair

Chair Ziemer: So the first actual item on the agenda 

is discussion (as needed) of any closed findings, 

observations. I'll just remind you that on the Site 

Profile, of which I think originally there were 13 

Findings, finding -- and most of those carried across 

to the various revisions. So I think the numbering 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

6 

remains largely the same.

We had closed Findings 3, and 9. I'm going to ask 

Megan to help me if I miss anything here. And I think 

on Finding 10, which dealt largely with data from pre1961, that basically was taken care of by the special, 

the SEC.

So although there were some uncertainty issues that 

are general and I think are handled by other findings 

anyway, so in essence I have marked Item 10, or 

Issue 10 as being closed as well.

And the point here in the agenda was, are there any 

questions on any of these at the moment, by the 

Work Group or even any of the staff, NIOSH or SC&A?

Are we good on that then? I'm taking the silence to 

mean that we're good on that.

Member Clawson: Paul, this is Brad. I'm good at this 

time.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, good, okay. Unless there's any 

questions or additional comments, we'll move right 

on to Item 3, which is an overview of the DCAS work 

that's underway. And I think Megan, you can lead us 

through this. Give us an overview.

And I wanted to point out, on these, we have I think 

17 pages of output from the database which presents 

all of the comments going back to, let's see, NIOSH 

responses going back to October 2018. And then 

Megan has provided us with the April 5th comments. 

That was our last Work Group meeting.

And then an update, dated October 2019, which is a 

current update of where they are. And Megan, I don't 

think you necessarily have to go through all the 

details on October 2018, but just to make sure that 

we have it in the record, maybe give us the April 5th 

update.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

7

So, I mean we have that before us, but I think to get 

it in the minutes would be useful. And then your 

current October update on each of these items and 

anything that's occurred since you sent this out. 

Would that we a workable way to do it?

Dr. Lobaugh: Sure I can do that.

Chair Ziemer: And also at each point, I think we'll 

take these one at a time. At each point, Joe or any of 

the SC&A colleagues, if you have any additional input 

or comments on each of these items although you 

don't have any written things at this point, because 

it's maybe too early for that.

But I know that you've seen the comments. And I 

think if you have any reactions to it, we'd be pleased 

to hear those as well. So Megan why don't you go 

ahead and proceed?

Presentation Summary of LBNL Site Profile Findings 

and Observations, by Megan Lobaugh, DCAS

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. So on Friday I shared a 

presentation. So I think that presentation will be the 

best way to kind of walk through. Because I walked 

through the Site Profile issues that are in progress. 

And then talk a little bit about the current work that 

we're doing to answer those Site Profile issues, as 

well as work that we're doing in support of answering 

the White Paper issues.

So I emailed that on Friday. If you're on Skype, I've 

also shared my screen so please let me know if you 

have issues seeing the presentation on Skype. And 

I'll try and say when I change to a different slide. So 

if you're following along on your own, you'll be able 

to follow that.

So, I'm going to start with an overview. So what I'm 

going to talk about, just kind of what I just said. A 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

8

summary of the LBNL Site Profile issues. And then 

we'll talk specifically about the issues that are still 

considered in progress. They're the ones that we're 

still working on.

And then I'll talk about the overview of what we're 

currently doing to answer the Site Profile issues as 

well as the White Paper issues. And then I'll talk even 

more specifically on our responses to the White Paper 

issues.

So I'm going to, you know, probably interchange 

White Paper internal dose methodology. When I say 

that what I mean is the White Paper we put out in 

the fall of 2017 in support of determining doses from, 

internal doses using the gross alpha, beta, and 

gamma bioassay and air sampling for LBNL.

Chair Ziemer: Let me interrupt Megan just a moment 

also. Are you comfortable with us after each of the 

items, to stop and have input?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, that would be great.

Chair Ziemer: Then after each of the findings and 

observations --

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: -- then, yes. And incidentally I'll add 

one other thing here. These finding numbers are 

specific to the White Paper. And I don't believe they 

correlate at all with the finding numbers in the Site 

Profile.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, exactly. So we'll have different 

numbers for the Site Profile versus the White Paper.

Chair Ziemer: Right, right, so it's the White Paper 

that we're looking at today. Okay. Proceed.

Dr. Lobaugh: So actually I'm going to start with the 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

9

Site Profile. Unless you would like me to skip over 

those altogether.

Chair Ziemer: Oh, no. No that's fine. Yes, because 

you have it. It's all right. I appreciate the slides you 

sent too. Yes, do those. And then we'll go back on the 

others. Thanks.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, so right now I am on, I'm going to 

Slide 3. So just talking in general about the Site 

Profile issues. There were 13 findings and eight 

observations. As Dr. Ziemer said, three of these 

findings are closed. It was Finding -- need to pull up 

the BRS -- Finding 3, Finding 9 and Finding 10 were 

closed.

And then we have two findings that are considered 

addressed in finding. What addressed in finding 

means it's a BRS status. And what that means is that 

the issue itself is being covered by another issue.

So when we have this addressed in finding status, we 

put an entry in the BRS that discusses how these 

other issues are covering the current issue. So when 

I get to that, I'll point that out in the presentation. 

How these two addressed in findings are being 

addressed in other findings, fall out of addressed in 

finding.

And then we had eight issues that are considered in 

progress. And then for the observations, we have 

three addressed in findings and five in progress. So 

that's just kind of an overview of the numbers and 

what we're talking about in terms of issues for the 

site, for the Site Profile itself.

I want to also mention that the BRS is up to date with 

all the information from the April 5th Work Group 

meeting. As we discuss, you know, action items, 

they're in there. And I'll go through those in this little 

step through.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

10

The reason why I wanted to do this quickly, like step 

through these in progress Site Profile issues is so that 

you're familiar when I get to the discussions of our 

data capture that we're currently working on, and the 

interviews that we did. How those correlate to the 

issues.

Slide 4 is Finding 1. Finding 1 on the Site Profile is 

inadequate documentation of historical operations 

and sources of radiological exposures. So how I have 

each of these slides set up is the title, is the finding 

title. The first bullet is typically just general 

information about what the finding is on.

So in this case, facility information. And then if there 

are related issues, so if there are other findings or 

issues that are addressed by this finding, I put them 

under related issue.

So for this case here, for Finding 1, the Observation 

5, lack of information on isotopes facilities and 

handling methods. The specific information about 

additional facility information on that observation, is 

going to be covered by Finding 1.

And then the action items that are currently on the 

table is for NIOSH to update the Site Profile with 

additional information that has been captured since 

the last revision.

That's my quick overview. If anyone has any 

comments or questions on Finding 1?

Chair Ziemer: Do either of the Work Group Members, 

either us three, or SC&A? Okay, proceed then.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. Next Slide 5 is on Finding 2. And 

this is titled insufficient information for internal dose 

reconstruction especially during the early years. So 

the first bullet is that general information, it's 

covering internal dose. We have two related issues.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

11

So Finding 4, bioassay data completeness and 

adequacy of -- have not been verified. In Finding 11, 

inadequacy of bioassay analysis presentation. So 

these two findings gave been marked addressed in 

Finding 2.

The action items at this time are for NIOSH, for us to 

respond to the SC&A February 2014 memo with 

specific references to where we have provided this 

information in the past, as well as how the recent 

internal dose methodology would affect answers to 

the questions put forward in the memo.

So, I have a sub-bullet there saying, interviews and 

data captures. So this is one of the things we're 

targeting in the interviews and data capture that I'll 

talk more specifically about later.

So if anyone has any questions or comments on 

Finding 2?

Chair Ziemer: Let me just remind the group about 

these before. And we had already identified the fact 

that Findings 4 and 11 are related, and would 

basically be covered by resolution of this one.

But we would continue to carry the other two findings 

in the database so that we don't lose track of that 

relationship. So they will still be carried, but I think 

we're expecting resolution on Finding 2 to take care 

of 4 and 11 as well.

Any other comments? If not, let's proceed.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay, so Slide 6 is covering Finding 5. 

So Finding 5 is insufficient justification for selection 

of IREP energy range fractions for photo exposures, 

or photon, I should say photon exposures.

This is covering external dose. And again we have a 

related issue. And that would be Observation 8. And 

Observation 8 has a few different things that it was 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

12

targeting. So the specific part of Observation 8 on the 

overuse of generalizations and assumptions is that 

the IREP photon energy fractions that were discussed 

in Observation 8 will be covered by Finding 5.

So one thing I want to point out here is that when I 

put parentheses at the end of this related issue. That 

means that issue, that related issue that addressed 

in finding issue is being covered by several different 

findings. If that makes sense.

So here there were several things discussed in 

Observation 8. The specific one that's going to be 

covered by Finding 5 is IREP photon energy fractions.

Then the action item for this finding are for NIOSH to 

update Table 6-5 for all years and all major 

accelerator operations. Again this is one of the things 

that we're targeting with our current data capture 

and interview efforts. Again I'll speak about that 

more specifically later.

So any questions on Finding 5?

Chair Ziemer: Apparently not, and all of the, and the 

previous thing, will also occur in this case. It's an 

observation that presumably will be taken care of by 

resolution of this finding. Okay, proceed.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. The next is Slide 7 and that is 

covering Finding 6 insufficiency of neutron dosimetry 

treatment. So again, this is covering external dose.

Our related issue again is Observation 8 the overuse 

of generalizations and assumptions. But the specific 

part of Observation 8 would be the neutron to gamma 

dose ratios that are discussed in the observation will 

be covered by Finding 6.

The action items that we have are NIOSH to revise 

the external dose discussion. To direct the uses on 

neutron photon ratio. And determine if NTA 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

13

correction factors, meaning energy response, 

angular dependence, and fading correction factors 

are required. Clarify low-energy NTA correction factor 

discussion. And clarify the uncertainties listed in 

Table 6-11.

Again, this is one of the focuses of our data capture 

and interviews. Any questions on Finding 6?

Member Clawson: This is Brad, no.

Chair Ziemer: Okay. Again, the same comments that 

I made on the previous slide would apply here. The 

observation would be handled with the resolution of 

Finding 6.

Okay, thank you, let's proceed.

Dr. Lobaugh: Great. The next slide covers Finding 7. 

And this is the failure to justify the shallow dose to 

deep dose assumption. Again, we're talking about 

external dose. And we have three related issues here. 

Observation 5 which discusses the lack of information 

on isotopes facilities and handling methods.

The specific area of Observation 5 to be covered 

would be additional information on specific, specific 

to shallow and extremity doses. Then we have 

Observation 6 which is extremity dosimetry needs 

revisiting.

And Observation 8 again, that overuse of 

generalizations and assumptions. The discussion in 

there is specific to shallow to deep dose ratios.

So I'm going to go on to the next slide because that's 

where the action items are. So our action items for 

this are for NIOSH to review NOCTS claim data to 

determine if it supports the shallow to deep dose 

ratios and extremity dose ratios.

NIOSH to compile list of pure beta emitters in use. 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

14

NIOSH also to research whether there is area 

monitoring available for pure beta emitters in use.

NIOSH to determine if unmonitored approach is 

needed for pure beta emitters. And NIOSH to review 

the extremity dose ratio and provide specific 

response to SC&A's comment on three versus five 

times assumption.

Again, we're targeting our data capture and 

interviews to help answer this question. So any 

questions on Finding 7?

Chair Ziemer: Okay, a lot of work on this one to do. 

But this again will if resolved, will also take care of 

several, well 5, 6 and 8 Observations. SC&A any 

questions, Board Work Group Members, questions?

I hear none, let's proceed.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. So the next slide covers Finding 

8 which is the uncertainty in beta-gamma dosimeter 

response to radiation types and energies.

So again focusing on external dose. Our action items, 

what I'll say here is there is no bullet for related 

issues because we have no related issues that are 

being addressed by this finding.

So the action items are NIOSH to update the external 

dose discussion in the Site Profile, with specific 

direction regarding not using electroscope data after 

1948. Because there is film and other dosimetry data 

available.

And also for NIOSH to review Attachment A of the 

Site Profile and provide a summary of what is 

included to address the specific information 

requested in the SC&A review.

So that's it for Finding 8, if there's any questions?
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

15

Chair Ziemer: No questions? Okay, continue.

Dr. Lobaugh: Great. So the next slide covers Finding 

12. Finding 12 is failure to provide sufficient guidance 

for unmonitored workers. This was specific to internal 

dose. And again, there's no specifically related issues 

that are going to be covered by Finding 12.

So the action items are for NIOSH to respond to the 

SC&A, February 2014 memo with specific references 

to where we have provided information in the past, 

as well as how the recent internal dose methodology 

would affect the answers to the questions put forward 

in that memo.

So again, this is one of our areas that we're targeting 

with the data capture and interviews. Are there any 

questions on Finding 12?

Chair Ziemer: And let me insert here, not on Finding 

12 per se, but just to alert folks that remember 

finding, the previous slide was Finding 8. Finding 9 

had been closed. Finding 10 was closed.

Finding 11 I think we had decided was also covered 

by Finding 2 and 4. So that would be the reason it 

wouldn't appear here. Does that coincide with what 

you have, Megan?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, that's correct. So Finding 11 will 

be covered in Finding 2.

Chair Ziemer: In case anybody wondered where it 

was, yes. Okay, I think we're good. Okay, let's go 

ahead.

Dr. Lobaugh: Great. So the next slide covers Finding 

13 which would be inadequate coverage of 

occupational environmental dose. So here the focus 

is the environment dose that we're assigning.

And the action items would be for NIOSH to add 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

16

information on the Site Profile about the cobalt-60 

accelerator. Flush out accelerator background. So 

environmental exposures. And change guidance for 

radionuclide assignments for internal dose from beta 

contributors.

Any questions on Finding 13?

Chair Ziemer: Apparently not, okay. Now 

Observations.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, so now we'll go into observations. 

So Observation 1 is the Site Profile does not address 

LBNL staff assigned to the Nevada test site, or the 

significance of its employees working at other 

DOE/AWE sites.

So this one we actually discussed at the April 5th, 

2019 Work Group meeting. And at that time we 

explained that the LBNL Site Profile would not have 

information about assigning dose from exposures at 

other sites.

So the Site Profile would be specific to LBNL 

exposures only. During the dose reconstruction 

process however, when an EE has been identified as 

visiting or working at other sites, the records would 

be requested from those other sites.

And then we would use the Site Profiles or dose 

reconstruction methodologies we have for the other 

sites, would be used to actually assess dose from 

those records.

So here what I have down for an action item is really

asking for a Work Group or SC&A response as to 

whether additional information is needed to respond 

to this observation. Or if there's specific requests for 

something that you guys would like to see in the Site 

Profile to kind of address this?

So I'm not expecting any answer right now, but this 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

17

is the one item that is not, I guess, on NIOSH's plate. 

You can see everything else is kind of on our plate.

So if there are any questions on that or discussion?

Chair Ziemer: Right and I was checking my notes and 

I don't have any notes that we'd actually taken any 

action on that one way or the other before. Did, SC&A 

had you commented on this before?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Paul, this is Joe. Yes, this was a fairly 

vintage comment that we've made at a lot of the 

sites. You know, on the earliest Site Profile reviews. 

And I think we've grown to be more comfortable with 

the approach that NIOSH has taken site by site.

Certainly, initially that was a big question we had at 

most of the sites. How one would address these 

extramural exposures? But I don't think that's an 

issue any longer.

So this may just, you know, be a very old comment 

that was made some years ago that I would say 

we're, you know, we're pretty -- we're okay with the 

answer now.

Dr. Buchanan: Yes, this is Ron Buchanan SC&A, 

that's true. We see that in reviewing the dose 

reconstructions that other sites are queried, so I 

don't feel that we have any further issue with this.

Chair Ziemer: All right, and let me ask the Work 

Group Members, I think we're certainly clear on this. 

My question is one of process.

Do we need anything, or I'll ask Ted this too, do we 

need anything written from SC&A on this site? Or are 

the minutes of this meeting sufficient to simply close 

this?

Mr. Katz: The minutes are fine. This is not a technical 

matter. And you can just close it.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

18

Chair Ziemer: Yes, we don't a formal written 

response.

Mr. Katz: No.

Chair Ziemer: As far as I'm concerned. Yes, Work 

Group Members are you comfortable with closing this 

on that basis?

Member Richardson: Yes.

Member Clawson: This is Brad.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, Dave and both, okay. Then I'll 

take it by consent that we will close Observation 1. 

Thank you. Next.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. So next slide covers Observation 

2 which is more information is needed for internal 

dose assignment for short-lived radionuclides. So this 

again is focusing on internal dose.

And I just wanted to remind everyone that the NIOSH 

White Paper that we're going to discuss, that internal 

dose methodology as I refer to it. The White Paper 

itself was called "Method to Assess Internal Dose 

Using Gross Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Bioassay and 

Air Sampling at the Lawrence Berkeley National 

Laboratory".

This paper provides a method for assigning internal 

dose from short-lived radionuclides. So while that 

paper was written to address several issues 

regarding internal dose, again that paper would cover 

this observation as well.

So the action items would be for NIOSH and the Work 

Group, SC&A to continue to work to resolve the 

issues on the methodology.

So any questions on Observation 2?
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

19

Chair Ziemer: On this one the work is continuing. And 

again I'll ask Ted, I think just for record keeping, we 

simply keep this as ongoing, do we not?

Mr. Katz: I'm not sure --

Chair Ziemer: We don't close it.

Mr. Katz: I'm not sure what value it has, because it's 

just a general matter that's being dealt with 

specifically with specific findings now.

Chair Ziemer: Well, remind me. We're putting the 

observations in the BRS, are we?

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Katz: Yes --

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, I'm entering them in the BRS.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, so I suppose there's two options 

then. We can close it because we're doing it. Or we 

can close it after it's done. Yes.

Mr. Katz: I just think it's redundant in a sense. You 

do whatever you prefer. I think it's redundant but if 

you want to hold it open that's fine, whichever.

Chair Ziemer: Well, if we close it, we can say why 

we're closing, since the work is underway or?

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Chair Ziemer: And then we don't have to deal with it 

every time.

Mr. Katz: Right, that's why I like closing it.

Chair Ziemer: Other Work Group Members you want 

to weigh in on that? I think it will, if the BRS indicates 

the reason we're closing it is because it is being taken 

care of. What do you think, Brad, David, both of you?
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

20

Member Clawson: What was that? This is Brad, what 

was the question again?

Chair Ziemer: Since this is being done and it's 

covered in one of the issues, and this is just an 

observation since it's being taken care of. I think both 

Ted and SC&A are comfortable with closing this 

observation because it's being handled already.

Member Clawson: Yes, I'm good with it, thank you.

Chair Ziemer: Thanks. David?

Member Richardson: That sounds reasonable, yes.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, okay I take it by consent that we'll 

close this one. Thank you.

Dr. Lobaugh: Great. So the next slide is Observation 

3 which is a lack of discussion of radiological 

incidents. The action items here are for NIOSH to 

identify and research major radiological incidents at 

LBNL. Then revise Site Profile to incorporate a 

summary of these incidents.

Any questions on Observation 3?

Chair Ziemer: Now on this one it seems to me, this 

hasn't shown up in the most recent rev has it? The 

summary of the incidents?

Dr. Lobaugh: No, this is something that still needs to 

be incorporated.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, so it seems to me that we keep 

this open then.

Mr. Katz: Right, it stays in progress, in progress.

Chair Ziemer: In progress, right.

Mr. Katz: Yes.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

21

Chair Ziemer: Any questions? This is a matter of, it's 

simply a matter of identifying these, that's what's to 

be done.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: Is that correct?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: So really there is no technical issue 

beyond identification then.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, as far as I understand it, it would 

just be us identifying and incorporating that 

information into the Site Profile.

Chair Ziemer: Joe, was that your understanding? 

Does that satisfy SC&A technically?

Mr. Fitzgerald: I believe so. I don't know, Bob and 

Ron what do you think too?

Mr. Barton: This is Bob Barton. I guess my only 

comment would be then part of the response was 

when we identify these major radiological incidents, 

what it says in here that, it appears that those 

records appear in the claimant monitoring files that 

are available to dose reconstruction.

So in so far as when we sort of gather information on 

these incidents, that we can identify who among 

them are in the claimant population. And then just 

get a better sense that yes, all these incidents are 

now documented in the Site Profile.

And to what extent follow-up, radiological 

monitoring, and things like that are being correctly 

included. Because those will sometimes have 

relevance to an individual's dose reconstruction.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, and I think that probably was the
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

22

basis of the original point. And as long as we continue 

this, you will have a chance to see the final product. 

And could comment on it at that time if it somehow 

seemed insufficient or otherwise inadequate.

So I don't think there's any action needed other than 

we're going to continue it, or keep it open. Is that 

okay with everybody? Any objection to that?

Member Clawson: This is Brad. I'm good with that.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, good. Let's continue then 

Observation 4.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. So Observation 4 is the need to 

provide information on metallurgical lab. And this I 

put in parentheses (dosimetry services). So specific 

to the fact that met lab provided dosimetry services 

for LBNL during that time period, early on in the 

history of the site.

So again, this is focusing on external dose. And then 

the action items would be that NIOSH will perform 

additional research for information on the met lab 

dosimetry services and include any additional 

information in the Site Profile.

So again, just like with the previous one, this is 

something that would remain in progress. We'd 

provide additional information as we find it. Just a 

reminder of what Observation 4 is covering and what 

action items have to be taken.

So any questions on that?

Chair Ziemer: And that has yet to be done so I think 

that would have to continue as well. Is this the first 

time we've had this as an action item, this particular 

statement? Or was that, did that --

Dr. Lobaugh: We discussed this, yes we discussed 

this in the April 5th Work Group Meeting, so that's 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

23

where the action item came from.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, but that was just verbal. Now it's 

in the, I guess it's in the BR --

Dr. Lobaugh: In the BRS.

Chair Ziemer: Right, yes.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, exactly.

Chair Ziemer: Any further comment on that from 

SC&A? Would that meet the needs of the observation 

if that's carried out?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yes, I believe so.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, then we continue that.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. Next is Observation 7. 

Observation 5 and 6, let me scroll down, just so I'm 

not speaking out of turn, are addressed in other 

findings and we discussed them earlier.

Chair Ziemer: Right.

Dr. Lobaugh: As far as what findings are addressed 

in. So Observation 7 is the lack of sufficient 

information for external dose evaluation. So again, 

specific to external dose assignment. And the action 

items are for NIOSH to improve the discussion in the 

post-1947 external dosimetry program, including 

historical dosimeter information.

I didn't mark it here, but this again is one of the areas 

that we're focusing on in our current data capture. So 

any questions on that observation?

Chair Ziemer: And this is important mainly to have a 

complete record because I -- well I guess there could 

be some pre-'61 people who don't have the specified 

cancers for whom this could also be important, so this 

would still be appropriate.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

24

And SC&A that was still adequate for your 

observation?

Member Richardson: As far as the description there 

isn't much we can say at this point.

Chair Ziemer: No, no I wasn't asking you to evaluate.

Member Richardson: Right.

Chair Ziemer: A big space omitted in dealing with 

this. That was presumed upon I think.

I just wondered if you had any additional comments. 

Okay. I think we're good on seven. Now current work 

underway.

Overview of current DCAS work underway, by 

Megan Lobaugh, DCAS

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, so right now I'm going to get into 

Agenda Item 3. So all of that overview of the in 

progress Site Profile issues were just hopefully to 

give you a reminder of what issues we're talking 

about for the site. So that when I bring up what we're 

doing currently, how it fits in. You kind of have a 

quick idea of what those issues cover.

So in general I want to say that we're performing 

research basically at this point. And we're trying to 

formulate some responses to several of the Site 

Profile issues and the White Paper, internal dose 

methodology issues. So that's kind of the summary 

of where we're at is research stage.

So I wanted to give a quick timeline. So on Slide 19, 

if you're following along on your own is a timeline of 

what we've done so far. So on June 11th, 2019 we 

sent our initial data request to LBNL.

I'll talk next, on the next two slides specifically what 

we requested and how it fits with the findings. But 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

25

we made that initial request in June. And then we 

followed up in July with the request for interviews.

So part of our data requests were several questions 

that we had specific to questions from, you know, the 

issues that we're following up on. So we thought that 

the best approach would be to try and interview 

somebody about these specific questions.

So in August, we were actually able to start reaching 

out to potential interviewees. On September 3rd, we 

actually were able to do our first interview. And that 

interviewee provided several additional names. So 

we sent out four additional requests for interviews.

And we actually, unfortunately have not been able to 

interview anyone else, aside from the second 

interviewee that we interviewed on September 6th. 

So we got two interviews out of our first, that August 

15th reach for interviewees. We got two interviews 

out of that.

We reached out to several additional people from 

names that we were given during the first interview. 

Unfortunately, like I said, nothing panned out of 

those so far.

There is still potential that someone could get back 

to us, but we're a few months removed at this point. 

So what we've done then is come back and been in 

touch with the site. And kind of reformulated that 

initial data request we made.

So the data request we made has specific questions 

in it and specific, you know, things that we're looking 

at. But was a bit more general. So the interviews kind 

of helped us target a little bit better what we're 

looking for.

On November 15th, so not that long ago, we actually 

received some selected, what I'll call numbered 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

26

documents, or technical documents that LBNL has 

actually put out there. So and we reviewed a few 

more lists of those selected documents to try and 

request additional technical documents that they 

have. That are actually published, or you know, 

numbered documents.

And then right now, January 13th there's, January 

13th of 2020, there's an onsite data capture 

tentatively scheduled.

Go on to the next slide where I talk more specifically 

about what the data request was asking for. And this 

first slide is specific to Site Profile issues. So we asked 

for information on the whole-body counter, peak 

surges in calibration. This is going to help us with 

Findings 2, 4, and 11.

We also asked about neutron and other radiation 

energy spectra from cyclotrons and accelerators. This 

is going to help us with a lot of our external dose 

findings, so Findings 1, 5, 6, and 8.

And then extremity dosimetry, which is going to help 

us with Findings 7, Observations 5, 6, and 8. And 

neutron exposures measured by NTA film which will 

help us with Finding 6 and Finding 8.

And we asked, our fifth point was about shallow and 

beta dose which will help with Finding 7, and again, 

Observations 5, 6, and 8.

So those are the five things that were kind of very 

specific to the Site Profile issues. And these are 

basically the key words in everything that we geared 

for that data capture that's coming up.

So before I move onto the next section, are there any 

questions on the Site Profile issues and the data 

capture?

Chair Ziemer: Not a question, but it looks like a lot of 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

27

work to be done. Who will be going on the data 

capture activities with you?

Dr. Lobaugh: So, ORAU team will be doing the data 

capture. And I wanted to put this out for the Work 

Group. So if there is, you know, interest or the Work 

Group felt a need for SC&A to attend, they could get 

in touch with me. And we can, I can help set that up.

Chair Ziemer: Now SC&A I think you may want to 

discuss internally and determine whether you want 

to accompany NIOSH on that data capture.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yes, we just need to know, you know, 

timeframe. And, you know, make sure to weigh that 

against whatever else is going on.

Chair Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Fitzgerald: I think we'd be interested otherwise.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, Joe can you or one of the others, 

Bob Barton or Buchanan work with Megan on this? 

See if you can coordinate something.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Ron, are you available?

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Buchanan: Yes I'd have to see. We'll just need 

the schedule.

Mr. Fitzgerald: We'll work it out.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, just it out, just work it out, you 

know.

Dr. Buchanan: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, good. Any other questions on 

that?

Member Clawson: This is just Brad, I'm just looking 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

28

at what kind of timeframe are we looking at on this?

Chair Ziemer: Well, you're tentatively scheduled to 

go out in January. Is that a multi-day trip?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, that would be at least one week.

Chair Ziemer: Yes.

Dr. Lobaugh: And then just depending on how much 

information there is to capture it may end up, you 

know, extending beyond one week. But right now it's 

scheduled for one week.

Chair Ziemer: All right. And I assume that some of 

this at least is classified, would it not be?

Dr. Lobaugh: As far as I know --

Chair Ziemer: Or do you know at this point?

Dr. Lobaugh: As far as I know at this point, I don't 

believe there is classified information.

Chair Ziemer: Oh, okay.

Dr. Lobaugh: On data capture, yes.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, okay that makes it a little more 

flexible then for you.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, okay. Let's go ahead then.

Summary/discussion of current responses to SC&A 

review of internal dose methods, by Megan 

Lobaugh, DCAS

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. So the next slide covers the 

information that we requested for the data capture 

that's specific to the internal dose methodology 

issues.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

29

So as a reminder here, I put a little note that the 

internal dose methodology was written in response to 

the Site Profile Findings 2, 4, 11, and 12, and then 

Observation 2. So we kind of discussed that a little 

bit when we were going through everything.

But just as a reminder that's how this White Paper 

came about was responding to issues on the Site 

Profile.

So there were three areas that we were targeting in 

our data requests. And the first was gross alpha, 

gross beta, gross gamma bioassay in-house detector 

systems. So this would help us in response to Finding 

2 which we'll discuss in the next section. More specific 

on what Finding 2 is.

The same thing, we were requesting information on 

the breathing zone alpha and beta, gamma in-house 

detectors systems. Again in response to Finding 2 on 

the White Paper.

And the last thing that we are asking about was air 

sampling policies and procedures. We asked for 

photographs of air sampling set up in, you know, in 

the work areas. And asked specifically for more 

information about breathings and samples.

And so this would in response to Finding 1, which 

again I'll discuss more in detail next section. But 

Finding 1 I'll remind you is more about 

representativeness of the air sampling results 

themselves.

Whereas Finding 2 was about the in-house detectors 

systems and what kind of measurements we get off 

of those systems and how they can be interpreted.

So any questions on that?

Chair Ziemer: Well that's a good transition into your 

next section then. And I think we can go ahead and 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

30

proceed.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay, great. So the next section is our 

current responses to the actual issues on the White 

Paper, "Method to Assess Internal Dose Using Gross 

Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Bioassay and Air Sampling 

at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab."

So this is Agenda Item 4. So the next few slides that 

we go through after this summary of issues is our 

responses. And I'm going to try and -- if I don't say 

it, and you have a question about it, please ask -- I'm 

going to try and emphasize what we have already 

responded in our previous responses and what's new. 

And I'll try and point that out when we get there.

But right now, I'll just do a quick summary of the 

issues on this White Paper methodology. There are 

two findings and three observations. So now we'll go 

onto Slide 24.

So Slide 24 covers Finding 1 which is air samples may 

not represent concentrations breathed by workers. 

So what we had already, we had already provided a 

written response in the BRS about why we believed 

the air samples that we're using in this methodology 

do represent concentrations that would have been 

breathed by workers.

So the current response is what I have here on the 

slide, which is that we performed two interviews. And 

I gave the SRDB reference, IDBs for those interviews. 

And sent a data capture request to the site regarding 

finding more additional information about the airsampling program, policies and procedures that 

would help us better respond to Finding 1.

So any questions on that? Right now again, like I 

said, we're kind of in the research phase. And we're 

trying to capture additional data to support our 

previous responses. And support the response to this 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

31

issue. So any questions on Finding 1?

Chair Ziemer: And Work Group Members on this 

particular item the summary is on your BRS 

document, the 17 page document. It's on Page 5 

which summarizes the April 5th meeting response. 

And then the current response that's basically on this 

slide, October response.

And again, this is basically simply describes what's 

going on. It doesn't answer the question, the 

resolution of the issue, but what is being done to be 

able to respond to the issue.

And I think, Joe, when I emailed you I just indicated 

that you hadn't input on these particular items. If you 

had particular suggestions or reactions, please feel 

free to comment.

Mr. Fitzgerald: No, I went --

Chair Ziemer: You looked then? 

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yes, I went through the interview 

notes, just the first two. And I think, you know, I 

think this is probably moving in the right direction. 

It's hard to know because it's just two out of 12.

Chair Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Thirteen total interviews, but I think 

this kind of information is the right information.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, very good. And Work Group 

Members if you have any additional comments or 

suggestions on any of these, please speak up as well. 

Let's go ahead then.

Oh, go ahead.

Mr. Barton: If you're looking for information about 

policies and procedures, I know a lot of the 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

32

discussions back in April centered around whether 

simply having a policy or procedure really answers 

the question. And the real question is were those 

policies and procedures really implemented 

correctly?

And the whole issue is obviously whether these air 

sampling data that we have really represents either 

a breathing zone, such as the lapel or something 

even more claimant favorable such as, you know, an 

air sampler between the worker and the actual source 

that they're working with. Such as on a hood or 

something like that.

So in so far as it's possible, you know, trying to figure 

out where these air samplers physically were beyond 

just the room they were stationed in. I think it's really 

where we want to be, to sort of answer this question. 

Now whether that data is out there, I don't know.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, well I think it's a good point. It's 

basically the overarching question we have on many 

of these things. Do the practices actually follow the 

procedures? So to the extent that we can match or 

effectively not match those up, I think those are 

important.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yes, I think -- this is Joe again. I think 

the interview questions I was reading seem to 

indicate that that was kind of the, part of what was 

being sought was more specific facility information 

that these individuals might be aware of that would 

answer the question of how were these samplers 

positioned?

And what was the practical experience in the past? I 

don't if there's going to be a good answer to those 

questions. But that was the line of inquiry which I 

think is the only way you're going to get to it.

I mean I don't know how else you would find where 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

33

this information may reside.

Chair Ziemer: Well, right. And what you're really 

looking for is something that pops out that says this 

doesn't match at all what they're supposed to be 

doing. So in so far as it looks to be in, it looks to be 

consistent with policies. That gives you some degree 

of assurance at least to the extinct possible, a match.

Sometimes you can find things that are very 

obviously out of kilter. But it's a limited group that 

you can interview and you know, it's always, it's not 

an absolute certainty that you get a -- it's like a 

review in the sports game. You know, you do your 

best to confirm or not confirm what's really 

happened.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yes, I think if you get a diversity of 

interviewees, if you talk to the HPs, but also talk to 

maybe some of the old time HP techs.

Chair Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Fitzgerald: The techs may actually get --

Chair Ziemer: People out in the field, yes.

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yes, may be a better source. Just 

they're the ones that would be maybe doing the 

monitoring, going out and checking the air samplers. 

They would have a better idea I think than maybe 

even the HPs.

Chair Ziemer: Right, good point. Okay, any other 

comments? Okay let's go ahead.

Dr. Lobaugh: This is Megan. I wanted to also put a 

little plug for the tour that we're going to do at LBNL 

before the Board meeting. I've tried to target or 

request some areas where we could see, hopefully, 

some of the air sampling that's currently in use there. 

So if you're signed up for the tour currently, the 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

34

Board Members, I know you guys are, you'll get to 

hopefully see some of this firsthand.

Chair Ziemer: Very good, very good. Appreciate that. 

Okay, let's go to Finding 2.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. So Finding 2 is that the technical 

issues and uncertainties with gross counting data 

conversion to concentration/intake for use in dose 

reconstruction.

So just as a quick reminder, this is focusing on the 

fact that there can be, with these gross counting 

techniques, what we typically do, we being HP world, 

typically do, is calibrate its vector with maybe one 

radionuclide or, you know, a few radionuclides, 

maybe three radionuclides, in a calibration standard 

for -- when we make the measurements of an air 

sample data.

So we have typically kind of a limited scope in 

converting those counts that you get from a 

measurement to activity of a radionuclide. So that 

was kind of basically the main, one of the main 

concerns of Finding 2 was using a gross counting 

technique that's not radionuclide-specific and 

assigning dose to another radionuclide using those 

results. 

So this finding kind of deals with energy and 

efficiency calibrations, or efficiency changes with 

energy, more the technical aspects of counting that 

could be affecting that assignment of dose in the end. 

So we provided just a quick written response back in 

October of 2018, that basically we'll look into this and 

account for it if we can. 

Our current response is really, again, just about the 

research that we've done, the same interviews where 

we're targeting specific information to help in 

responding to this finding and the data requests for 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

35

more specific information on these in-house detector 

systems.

So we targeted that data capture to ask for 

calibrations, to ask for systems, detector system 

specs if we can get those, so that we can look at how 

this could potentially affect our conversion of counts 

to activity and then that activity is used to assign 

dose.

So again, kind of our quick response for October of 

this year is that we're working on it and this is part 

of our data capture request. So any questions on 

that?

Chair Ziemer: Maybe not a question so much as a 

comment. In the BRS for both of these first two 

observations or first two findings, your response is 

identical, not on the slides, but in the BRS, and I'm 

wondering if it would be helpful to add an additional 

phrase or two in each of these that you show on the 

slides. 

Like in this one, specific information on the in-house 

detector systems, on the other one, regarding 

additional air sampling program policies and 

procedures. Do you see what I'm looking at in the 

BRS document itself? 

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: On page 5 and page 6, those 

responses are both identical. Maybe you can add 

some specificity to each of them by adding just an 

initial phrase or so, as you've done in --

Dr. Lobaugh: I can definitely do that.

Chair Ziemer: I think it would be helpful.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. Yes. Dr. Buchanan: Yes, I had a 

question. This is Ron with SC&A. Megan, are you 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

36

planning on finding a binding -- if you do find 

calibration efficiencies and such, are you looking to 

find a binding radionuclide or are you looking to do 

specific radionuclides as a function of facility and 

period, you know, year?

Dr. Lobaugh: So how the methodology actually 

currently works is, it reviews all radionuclides for the 

site in general. So I mean, until we kind of see what 

kind of additional information we receive on the 

detector systems, I'm going to just kind of talk 

generally, I guess.

And so how I imagine, if we do find this information, 

we would kind of bin those radionuclides into 

different energy bands and determine, based on their 

emissions, right, so the radionuclide emissions, into 

energy bands and then determine if in that energy 

band there would be a significant difference based 

on, you know, the detector system, how it's 

measuring that energy band, if that makes sense.

Because how the methodology is set up is that we're 

actually reviewing all radionuclides that are on site to 

assign dose from the highest radionuclide to the 

person, so we're not really breaking it down into 

facility-specific, we're doing a review of any potential 

radionuclide on site. 

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Lobaugh: You're welcome.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, any other questions or 

comments? Let's go ahead with Observation 1.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. The observations are where 

you're going to actually see a bit more work was done 

aside from just research. So Observation 1 is specific 

to some potentially missed radionuclides. So there 

were lists of several radionuclides that either weren't 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

37

included in the methodology and were in the Site 

Profiles. And, you know, the question kind of was, 

why is that?

What you'll see here is that I have some blue writing 

and some red writing. And the blue writing is our past 

responses, the red writing is our current response. 

The red type is our current response. So I'll just go 

through everything together.

So one of the -- well, this is a set of radionuclides, it 

would be the radioiodines, and the question was, why 

aren't they included? And they were not included 

because at LBNL they were measured on separate 

charcoal samples, so it wouldn't have been a very

efficient method to capture some of the radioiodines 

on normal air filters. So they actually made separate 

measurements specific to radioiodines. 

That's why they're not included in the method, 

because the samples that we're using on this method 

wouldn't have been the samples that the site would 

have used to measure radioiodines in the first place.

For the next one, it's erbium-165, this wasn't 

included because it's below the short half-life cutoff. 

We have a cutoff at the lower end of the half-lives 

that we aren't assigning dose from those short halflife radionuclides, so that's how that one was 

excluded.

Erbium-169 was mistakenly left out, so it will be 

included in the final DR methodology. And those 

three responses right there, we had already 

previously provided.

Erbium-237, this was an interesting one because we 

-- from what we could tell, it doesn't exist as an 

isotope. What we found was that this was likely a 

typo in SC&A's review, and that we think their intent 

was fermium-257. What we found is that fermium-
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

38

257 is listed in the LBNL Site Profile, and it wasn't 

included in our methodology.

So what we propose now is that fermium-257 will be 

added to the final DR methodology implementation. 

So maybe before I go on to the next slide I'll ask if 

there's any questions on that, those responses there.

Chair Ziemer: Well it seems to me that this may 

resolve the original observation. Let me ask the SC&A 

folks to respond.

Mr. Barton: Well this is Bob. I don't know if Ron had 

something to say about it, I mean it certainly does 

seem to directly get to the point. I did have one 

question, and it was about the erbium isotope that 

was below the half-life cutoff. That cutoff is simply 

there because it's no longer a radiologically 

significant, or never was a radiologically significant 

isotope, or what is the half-life cutoff for? 

And then the second question was, and I believe it's 

written in here, are methods going to be developed 

for iodine, obviously separate from this gross beta 

gamma counting methods for bioassay and air 

samples? Is there going to be a separate model for 

workers who don't have individual radioiodine 

monitoring results?

Dr. Lobaugh: So I'm going to answer the second one 

first, for the radioiodines I actually cannot speak off 

the top of my head as to whether we're going to be 

developing something for unmonitored workers. If 

the workers have bioassay, which is most likely the 

case if they're working with iodine, they would have 

some sort of bioassay monitoring just given the 

volatility of that, that we would be assigning dose 

specific to the bioassay samples.

But as far as the unmonitored worker, I'm not going 

to be able to answer that right now, that's something 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

39

I can get back to you on.

For the short half-life cutoff, I wanted to actually pull 

up the methodology quickly so that I can answer 

without screwing this up. Off the top of my head I 

would say that there's likely not actual dose 

conversion factors for those short half-life 

radionuclides, just because of just like you said, 

dosimetrically there wouldn't be -- they'd be too 

short to have any effect, right, to actually cause dose 

within the body. 

But I'm going to pull up the methodology and look 

and see if I can speak more specifically about that. 

One second. Or Stephen, I don't know if you can 

speak quickly on that one while I'm trying to open it.

Mr. Spanos: If you can bear with me for a moment, 

I just need to double-check something. This is 

Stephen Spanos, ORAU team. I seem to recall what 

we did in the methodology was, we took the group 

of, we call them the real shorter-lived radionuclides 

below a certain half-life. 

And what we did was, and one of the things we did 

in the methodology was we decay-corrected the 

samples because typically the air samples were 

allowed to decay for 48 to 72 hours, typically. So we 

back, you know, we decay-corrected the samples. 

And what we determined was some of the real 

shorter-lived half-lifes stopped around, I can't recall 

the cutoff, it's in the DR method, but when you 

decay-corrected them and came up with external 

doses based on submersion in a radioactive cloud, 

you'd get huge external doses. 

So these could not be present in the workplace 

without setting off some other indicators, and that's 

just not necessarily -- wasn't the case at Berkeley. 

That's why we dropped out a whole mess of them 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

40

below a certain half-life cutoff.

Mr. Barton: I see. Thank you.

Chair Ziemer: So maybe in the final response that 

sort of information could be added.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yeah. We can definitely do that. So I'm 

putting back up the slides, for anyone that's on 

Skype, it probably went away. Was somebody else 

going to speak?

Mr. Katz: I wasn't, but someone else seemed like 

they were going to start. But if they're not then just, 

my question, I guess, was Observation 1, is there 

anything left to do or can this be closed?

Dr. Lobaugh: There's actually one more slide on 

Observation 1 to cover.

Mr. Katz: Oh, okay. Sorry.

Dr. Lobaugh: That's okay. So I'll go on to that right 

now, before, hopefully -- it looks like I'm sharing, so 

if you're on Skype and can't see, please let me know. 

So Observation 1, there were two more radionuclides 

that were mentioned in the SC&A issue, and the next 

one was rhodium-102. This was, again, our response 

we already previously provided that will be added to 

the final DR methodology implementation. So it just 

happened to be left off.

The last one is scandium-93. What we found is that 

this is actually a typo, potentially a typo carried over 

from the site environmental report. So from the LBNL 

environmental release reports that we used for 

determining the lists of radionuclides for the site to 

use in this methodology.

During the interviews we actually asked if they had 

any -- if these interviewees had any additional 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

41

contacts who maybe worked in the environmental 

area at LBNL, and we actually did receive some 

names. So we're continuing to investigate this and 

we'll get back to you, but we were at least able, I 

want to reiterate, to find out that this was reported 

in the site environmental report. 

So as of now it does stand, but we need to figure out, 

because scandium-93 is not a radionuclide that we 

know about. So, that doesn't mean that LBNL didn't 

have it, given that they were creating things, but it 

doesn't look likely and we do believe it's a typo, so 

it's a matter of trying to figure out what isotope was 

meant instead.

So that would sum up, that would finalize 

Observation 1 right now, if there's any questions.

Mr. Barton: I would also point out that I'm not sure 

if I'm entirely comfortable closing it just because of 

the radioiodine issue. I know it's no longer really 

under the purview of this White Paper, but if it's not 

going to be addressed as far as the unmonitored 

worker, then I think we need to have some assurance 

that anyone who was actually handling that material 

was sufficiently monitored, those records are 

available, and thus we don't need an unmonitored 

coworker model. So I guess that's the only part that 

still gives me pause.

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay, since I'm not hearing anything 

else, I'll go on to Observation 2. 

Chair Ziemer: Sorry, I was talking and I was on mute 

all the time. So there's really three parts here. One 

is to clarify, and it could be done in words, that the 

iodine was handled separately, and what and why, 

the issue of clarification of the scandium, after that 

interview is done, to clarify that.

And then the third thing was on the half-life issue, if 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

42

we can clarify exactly what the cutoff is. So my 

suggestion is to just leave this observation open and 

we can get those questions all clarified. Let's see 

what the other Work Group Members want to do. 

SC&A, would you be comfortable if we just left that 

open and let these clarifications occur?

Mr. Fitzgerald: Yeah, I believe so.

Dr. Buchanan: This is Ron. I agree with Bob. The 

information on iodine needs to be a more definite, 

what's going to be done there. But other than that, I 

agree with everything.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, Work Group, are you okay just 

leaving this open until we get clarity on these?

Member Clawson: This is Brad. I'm good with it.

Chair Ziemer: Okay. David, okay?

Member Richardson: Yes.

Chair Ziemer: Okay. Let's go ahead. Observation 2? 

On Observation 2 and 3, we had identical responses 

in the Board, on the BRS, I think. But go ahead.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yeah. So, Observation 2 is on slide 28 

if you're following along on the presentation on your 

own. Observation 2 is that the bioassays and 

claimant DOE files may not be indicative of exposure 

potential, so Observations 2 and 3 are very similar in 

the sense that they're focusing on the records that 

we received from DOE, and Observation 2 has this 

exposure potential discussion, and Observation 3 is 

really just about the records themselves, as far as my 

understanding of the SC&A issue.

So Observation 2 and 3 are going to look very similar, 

because we did 1:1 basically approach to try and 

answer these questions. 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

43

I'll remind you that at the April 5 Work Group meeting 

we discussed that we had made a mass re-request of 

LBNL to send us all -- the entire medical file for any 

claim that we received prior to 2010.

In 2010 we actually started receiving the entire 

medical file as part of the DAR response that is done 

in support of Part E claims that are made under the 

program, so not specific to Part B, but we started 

receiving that entire medical file as part of that DOL 

package. So we were receiving -- that started in 

2010.

Prior to 2010, we were only receiving X-ray 

information from the medical file. So that's why, 

when we did this mass re-request to look at the files, 

we only focused on prior to 2010. Because prior to 

2010 we were not receiving that entire medical file.

The whole reason this came up initially was for X-ray 

information but what we also found in the process 

was that some bioassay information is saved in the 

medical file. And it seems to be especially at that 

early time period of the site, there would be bioassay 

data in the medical file. 

So that's kind of a little bit of a recap. So we made a 

mass re-request of data from DOE for those claims 

prior to 2010. Then what I list here in red at the 

bottom is the information about that mass rerequest. We asked for 168 claims. As they came back 

we reviewed those medical files, or lack of medical 

files, and kind of made a disposition here.

We found that there were 53 claims of 168 that had 

no medical records. So LBNL responded to us that 

these 53 claims had no medical records. One claim 

we accidentally submitted that actually had a PoC 

over 50 percent. So those 54 claims needed no more 

review from us.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

44

So there were 114 claims still left for us to look at. 

109 of those claims had no new bioassay information. 

That means that there were five claims left that 

provided new bioassay information in the mass rerequest. 

Of those five claims, three of them had new bioassay 

information from DOE, but we, NIOSH, had that 

information via other documents. 

So DOE does their review of their records, sends their 

response back to us, but we also search the SRDB 

and other -- basically the SRDB, so data-capture 

documents, to see if we find any information about 

the claimants. And that's probably how we have this 

information for these three claims where we actually 

already have the information.

And then there were two claims that had new 

bioassay information to us. So two out of the 168 

claims really had additional information in the 

medical file that we did not have access to previously.

Since this observation, Observation 2, was specific to 

the use of bioassay results being present as an 

indicator for exposure potential and then application 

of the internal dose methodology, I ended up 

reviewing these five claims to determine if the 

methodology would have been applied the same, or 

different, before and after the data we received in the 

mass re-request. And I really used a strict 

interpretation of the presence of bioassay data. So, 

that's what we're going to talk about next.

So on slide 29 is that review that I did of the bioassay 

data that we received, or the claim data that we had. 

So here's a table. On the lefthand side is the number 

of claims. The next column is bioassay results 

available at the time of the dose reconstruction. So I 

had to pick some point in time previously, because 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

45

sometimes when we receive these claims, we get 

returns several times when there's additional cancers 

or other reasons why DOL sends the claim back to us 

for additional dose reconstruction. So I chose the 

time of the last dose reconstruction as the time that 

I was comparing to.

And then the next column is the new bioassay results 

available after the mass re-request. So did we have 

new information about bioassay results after this 

mass re-request we did. 

And then the last column is that analysis I did. Was 

there an effect, or a potential effect, on the 

application of the internal dose methodology?

So the first row is two claims. There were no bioassay 

results available at the time of the DR, but there were 

bioassay results after the mass re-request. So 

because of that, there was enough potential effect on 

the application internal dose methodology if we take 

that strict interpretation of no bioassay results, it's 

not applied. So it wouldn't have been applied before, 

it would have been applied after the mass re-request. 

So there would have been an effect.

The second row is two claims that had bioassay 

results available at the time of the dosage 

reconstruction. There were new bioassay results after 

the mass re-request. So again, potential effect on 

applications of internal dose methodology was yes, 

because the new bioassay results could have either 

extended the time that the internal dose 

methodology would have been applied, or could have 

had some other effect, some potential effect on it.

The last row there is one claim that had bioassay 

results at the DR. There was no new information 

provided in the mass re-request, or new bioassay 

results. I think there was new information as far as 

maybe the bioassay card versus the summary of the 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

46

results, but there was no new actual results. And so 

the potential effect again would be no.

So what we see from this is there are really four 

claims that could have been affected by us not 

receiving that medical file. So I'm going to go on to 

the next slide.

One thing I want to note before I give my conclusion 

was that while, even SC&A pointed this out, we had 

this kind of more strict interpretation in the 

application of the internal dose methodology saying, 

if the bioassay results are there that means there's 

exposure potential, apply the methodology. 

But in our example methodology that we showed in 

there, we actually didn't stick with that and we 

applied the unmonitored approach even though the 

person did not have bioassay results for a certain 

period.

So, what I want to point out is that there's the 

bioassay approach that uses the bioassay results to 

assign the dose and then there's the unmonitored 

approach that uses air sampling results. And that 

unmonitored approach doesn't necessarily rely on the 

existence of bioassay data, as we demonstrated in 

our example of dose reconstructions within the 

methodology, and was pointed out by SC&A.

So while I used a strict approach here, that's not 

necessarily how a dose deconstructionist is going to 

do it. And our previous response, we actually 

provided saying that we are going to update the 

methodology to be more in line with what we actually 

do, which is not just review bioassay results at -- for 

exposure potential, but we also review job titles, we 

review the CATI, we review other claim information 

that tells us whether there was potential for exposure 

or not before we make that determination that would 

potentially apply this methodology.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

47

So, in conclusion, we had four of the 168 claims that 

could have potentially been affected by not receiving 

all the bioassay information. That was approximately 

2.4 percent of the claims that could have been 

affected by not having all the bioassay information, 

using that strict interpretation that bioassay had to 

be present. 

So that's my quick summary of Observation 2, if 

anyone has any questions.

Mr. Barton: This is Bob. And I was the one who did 

the original claim and comparison that kind of 

brought this issue to light. I did have a couple of 

questions. It sounds like the more complete records 

that we're receiving for these claims are actually 

maybe not coming from DOE, but they're actually in 

the medical files coming from the Department of 

Labor? Did I understand that correctly?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yeah, I believe so. The medical files are 

provided by the Department of Labor in that initial 

claim information.

Mr. Barton: And so where we were finding bioassay 

records that had been missing from the original DOE 

submission, those are pretty much all contained in 

these medical files. 

The other question was, I note a large portion of the 

records we request had no medical files. 

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes.

Mr. Barton: That's -- can you expand on that a little 

bit more? I mean, wouldn't that just be a standard 

yearly physical or something like that, that would 

apply to workers who were monitored? Or how would 

that work?

Dr. Lobaugh: No. So actually, most of those people 

that did not have medical record files were visitors. 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

48

So we did a re-request, it didn't matter if they were 

actual employees of LBNL or not. If they had down 

even one day of visiting LBNL we requested their 

information as well. So most of those are actual 

visitors. They didn't actually work at LBNL.

Mr. Barton: Okay.

Chair Ziemer: Do we now get all the medical records? 

In other words, is this just something that occurred 

in the past that has now been corrected?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yeah, we actually have been receiving 

the entire medical file since 2010.

Chair Ziemer: So it was just a correction of the earlier 

files, but I'm sort of trying to get at, it's not an issue 

going forward anymore?

Dr. Lobaugh: We don't think so, no.

Chair Ziemer: And it's been corrected for the past?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes. Exactly. So in 2010 we started 

receiving that entire medical file, and it just happens 

that what SC&A reviewed all happened to be claims 

prior to 2010. In the past we had tried to do this mass 

re-request at that time in 2010 when we recognized 

the issue with not receiving all the X-ray information, 

but there was a lot of resistance from the site. This 

time we were actually successful in working with 

them to get this done.

Chair Ziemer: Well the reason I asked that question, 

I'm asking whether we can now close this 

observation. It's been taken care of by these actions 

that you took to determine whether it was a problem. 

Is that correct?

Dr. Lobaugh: I would say that we feel that it could be 

closed. I know that SC&A had mentioned in the April 

5 Work Group meeting, they suggested that they 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

49

could review the data that we received in the mass 

re-request, so I'm not sure if maybe they can speak 

more about what they were intending to do with that.

Chair Ziemer: Well, I guess I'm asking SC&A as well. 

Are we ready to close this, or is there additional 

information needed?

Mr. Barton: Well, if I may offer up one not very 

onerous solution it would be simply, I can go back 

and, a dozen or couple dozen claims that I had 

identified with records missing, and just go and verify 

that all those bioassay are now correctly there.

One other aspect of this that was important, and that 

was really more for Observation 3, how complete are 

these records? We're really having this discussion 

because we don't necessarily think that the bioassay 

records alone are going to be adequate. That's why 

we have the air sampling approach. 

Chair Ziemer: Yes.

Mr. Barton: So in Observation 3, that would be a 

quick, I can just go back and look at these, I think 

there were maybe 15 or so claims, and see all right, 

look, here's the medical file, all those bioassay results 

I identified as being missing, they're all there, no 

problem.

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Chair Ziemer: I would be satisfied to have SC&A go 

ahead and quickly make that review. Ted, we 

wouldn't have to --

Mr. Katz: No, we don't have to -- but I just wanted 

clarification from Megan. Did Megan, did you folks 

already do that, already go through these?

Dr. Lobaugh: We went through the claims that we 

requested. We went through the 168 claims 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

50

themselves. We did not do a crosswalk with the ones 

that SC&A specifically requested.

Mr. Katz: No, but my question is, are the ones that 

SC&A, the 15, are they a subset of the ones you went 

through?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes. They would be a subset.

Mr. Katz: Oh. So Paul, my suggestion about this is, I 

mean we don't normally -- if NIOSH has already done 

that and these are the numbers, there's no reason 

for SC&A to confirm that NIOSH did proper 

accounting.

Chair Ziemer: Okay. So you had SC&A's list of 15? Or 

did you?

Dr. Lobaugh: We received that. In the issue itself 

there were the list of claims that they found that were 

not in agreement, right? 

Chair Ziemer: Okay.

Dr. Lobaugh: But what we did was more general than 

that, even. We just said, we know we had an issue 

prior to 2010, so we know we started receiving the 

entire medical file in 2010, so we made a larger 

request then.

Chair Ziemer: Yeah. But it included the 15, that's 

what we're asking.

Mr. Barton: Right, that's what Megan's saying.

Dr. Lobaugh: Yeah.

Chair Ziemer: Okay. I got you. Okay.

Dr. Buchanan: Just for clarification, it was 13.

(Simultaneous speaking.)
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

51

Mr. Barton: If NIOSH has gone through that list, and 

the dates and the type of bioassay, and we can say 

that all those are being provided now, then I agree. 

I don't think there's any reason to reinvent the wheel 

and go check it again.

Chair Ziemer: Then if that's the case, I would say 

we're ready to close it.

Mr. Barton: Right. And I think that's more directly 

appropriate to Observation 3. What I was going to 

say about Observation 2, our concern there was 

originally the White Paper message, as Megan 

indicated, sort of said that you could only be applied 

an occupational dose if you had a bioassay already 

and it was during a certain time frame, I think it was 

within a year, then you were considered to be 

occupationally exposed.

As she indicated, even in the examples in that White 

Paper, that's not really the case. There was 

hypothetical worker who was only monitored for 

partial employment, but they still got occupational 

throughout. 

So again, the only thing really open from Observation 

2 would be what guidance is actually going to appear 

in the TBD to instruct the dose constructor about 

when a worker really should be considered 

occupationally exposed. It doesn't sound like

bioassays can be the only marker anymore. 

But what other criteria? Is it going to be very general, 

as in any evidence that they might have entered a 

radiological area? Is it going to be more specific than 

that? I'm not sure if the specific language has been 

developed yet. And then again, how are we going to 

apply this to unmonitored or partially monitored 

workers?

Chair Ziemer: So in your mind that was the 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

52

underlying question in Observation 2, that that 

information by itself may not be indicative of 

exposure potential? Is that the underlying question?

Mr. Barton: You're right. If a method was going to 

require for someone to be assigned occupational 

internal dose, there was going to be a requirement of 

bioassay, that's why we went in. And then found out 

that well, you're not always getting all the bioassay, 

so is that an appropriate criteria by itself?

And as Megan was explaining, no, that's really not it. 

As written, it's really taking a full snapshot of the 

claim file, which would include statements made by 

the claimant, the claimant's survivors, or even just 

their job title. So I mean, I'm certainly satisfied with 

that approach but I haven't seen that actual language 

about what a dose reconstructor's going to be 

instructed to do for individual cases.

Chair Ziemer: So this goes a little bit beyond just the 

medical record, the exposure that shows up in the 

medical record itself. You're talking about some other 

parameters, then.

Mr. Barton: Yeah. This is, how are we going to take 

these methods involving air samples or bioassay, 

how are they going to be applied to individual 

workers. Prior, it seemed like they were going to have 

to have a bioassay sample already to be considered 

an occupational worker, and that's really not the case 

anymore. There's more information that can be used. 

I'm just curious to see what the actual guidance will 

be for the dose reconstructor beyond what was 

originally a required bioassay. 

Dr. Lobaugh: So what I'm hearing is, you want to see 

the specific language that we're going to include in 

the revision for when this is applied? Okay.

Chair Ziemer: Which goes beyond, I'm understanding 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

53

this observation a little differently that I thought it 

was written to start with. I see what you're asking. 

You're asking it remain open until you see sort of the 

final criteria statement?

Mr. Katz: That's right, Paul. It makes sense, because 

the tissue as bioassay don't -- may not be sufficient, 

and Megan has acknowledged they're not necessarily 

significant as a measure, so it still relates to what was 

-- where they started with Observation 2.

Chair Ziemer: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, in progress for Observation 2. Or even 

in abeyance until they see the, whatever, but either 

way.

Chair Ziemer: Yes, I guess it's more in abeyance until 

they see the final wording of it.

Mr. Katz: Yeah. And you can close Observation 3 if 

the other Work Group Members are comfortable with 

that.

Chair Ziemer: Let's take care of 2 first. I want to hear 

from the two Work Group Members, and I assume, 

SC&A, you'd be satisfied with 2 being in abeyance 

until we see the final wording, is that correct?

Mr. Barton: Yes. This is Bob. That's what I would 

suggest doing with Observation 2, and then if you all 

are comfortable with Observation 3, then I'm 

comfortable with closing that one as well. Closing 3, 

leaving 2 in abeyance.

Chair Ziemer: Let's do 2 first. Brad and David, are 

you comfortable with keeping 2 in abeyance, based 

on these discussions?

Member Clawson: Yeah, this is Brad, I'm good.

Member Richardson: Yes.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

54

Chair Ziemer: Okay, and then what about closing 3? 

I certainly am in favor of that. Ron, David?

Member Richardson: Okay, yeah.

Member Clawson: Fine.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, we have concurrence on that, 2 

in abeyance and 3 closed. Okay, good. Megan, I think 

we're at the end, aren't we?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, that was it.

Action items and plans for December Board meeting 

presentation, by Paul Ziemer, WG Chair

Chair Ziemer: Thank you. I appreciate your 

presentation and. all the work you did on preparing 

this. That brings us to the action item for 5, which is 

presentation at the Board meeting. I'm thinking, let 

me think out loud here, that a lot of what you 

presented to us today, Megan, could be used in the 

Board. And maybe a little more detail is needed on 

some of these, but I think basically you've captured 

a good overview of what needs to be done. I think 

you've pretty well, you've given a good summary of 

the actual findings from the Site Profile, it gives a 

good summary of what we're working on.

When I say a little less detail in some of these, 

particularly on the current work stuff starting with the 

overview of the current work, it may be that where 

we get into the detail on these findings and 

observations, well, they're pretty brief still, so --

there's quite a few slides here, but I think there's two 

questions I have. One is do we need an overview of 

the site? I'm going to ask Ted that.

Mr. Katz: I don't --(Simultaneous speaking.)

Mr. Katz: I mean I think it's helpful to have an 

overview of the review. I don't know how much needs 
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

55

to, I mean I think a little bit of narrative about the 

site, since this is a site that the whole Board really 

hasn't heard about in a very long time, and it's hard 

--

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Chair Ziemer: What do they do, and so on.

Mr. Katz: I think that would be helpful. 

Chair Ziemer: Can we get a summary slide, Megan, 

of just overview of the site?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes. I can put that together.

Chair Ziemer: And then maybe we can split this in 

two. Have an overview of the site, I would give a brief 

summary of what the Work Group, you know, when 

we met, who's on it, kind of a quick overview of --

well, let's see. I don't want to repeat all this. I'm 

trying to minimize my workload here. 

I thought originally I was going to give an overview 

of the findings, but I think you've done such a great 

job here on the findings that I would just let you 

proceed with that.

Mr. Katz: Paul, I think it's fine. You could just 

introduce the session, but she has done a really nice, 

fairly comprehensive job, and I think it would be fine 

if you want to let her just run with it. I think that's 

okay.

Chair Ziemer: Maybe I'll just kick it off and introduce 

the Work Group and when we met, and then have 

Megan introduce the site and go through the findings. 

How does that sound?

Mr. Katz: Sounds good to me. And Megan, you can 

update it to the extent that some things were put to 

bed. You can update it on those for the meeting, too.
This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Lawrence Berkeley Work 

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

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

reviewed and certified by the Chair of the Lawrence Berkeley Work Group for accuracy at this time. 

The reader should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change

56

Dr. Lobaugh: Okay. Great.

Chair Ziemer: Are you good with that, Megan?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yes, that's fine with me.

Chair Ziemer: Okay. That's why we're paying you the 

big bucks, right?

Dr. Lobaugh: Yeah, exactly.

Mr. Katz: I just wanted to thank Megan. I just think 

you did an extraordinarily good job with this 

mapping, and I think it's a really nice example for 

both teams, NIOSH and SC&A going forward with 

other sites where we have the same issue of we have 

a lot of things that, at this point in process, need this 

kind of mapping. I think you did a great job. It's a 

good model. Really helpful.

Chair Ziemer: Okay, we'll proceed on that basis. 

Megan, we put the burden on you, you do whatever 

revisions you feel are appropriate on these slides. I 

wouldn't think it would be very much, just update a 

little bit here and there, and add some introductory 

things and we'll be in great shape. And I'll prepare a 

few introductory slides about the Work Group. Ted, 

that sound okay to you?

Mr. Katz: That sounds super. I think that's great.

Adjourn

Chair Ziemer: Okay. Let me ask if there's any other 

comments or questions or anything for the good of 

the order? If not, we will stand adjourned. We'll see 

you all soon. Thank you, everybody.

(Whereupon the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 5:33 p.m.)