STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 

THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes 

MEETING FIFTY-SIX 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. I 

DAY ONE 

ABRWH BOARD MEETING

 

The verbatim transcript of the 

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held at the Millennium Hotel, 

St. Louis, Missouri, on June 24, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

June 24, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 8 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO 

Y-12 PLANT (OAK RIDGE, TN) SEC PETITION 14 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 

PETITIONERS 

NEVADA TEST SITE WORK GROUP SUMMARY 39 

MR. ROBERT PRESLEY 

NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 41 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

SPECIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL PUBLICATION 55 

DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH 

BOARD INTERACTIONS WITH CONGRESS 69 

MR. JASON BROEHM, CDC 

DEPARTMENT OF LABOR UPDATE 117 

MR. JEFFREY L. KOTSCH, DOL 

PUBLIC COMMENT 133 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 155 

 
3

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
4

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

BOARD MEMBERS

BEACH, Josie 

Nuclear Chemical Operator 

Hanford Reservation 

Richland, Washington 

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

3 Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 
5

1 LOCKEY, James, M.D. 

2 Professor, Department of Environmental Health 

3 College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 

Professor, Texas A&M University 

College Station, Texas 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

SCHOFIELD, Phillip 

Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
6

AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

BERRY, LYNN 

BIERI, LAWRENCE E., HONEYWELL 

BRAWLEY, EDDIE, GSL 

BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 

BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC 

CANO, REGINA, DOE 

CHEW, MELTON H., CHEW AND ASSOCS. 

DAVIS, GINGER, EECRC 

DEGARMO, DENISE, SIUE/DOW 

EATON, CLARISSA 

FARRELL, RICH 

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 

FREW, SUSAN 

HAHN, CLARENCE, ORAU 

HAHN, FREDA, ORAU 

HAHN, MARK, U.S. DOE 

HANSON, JOHN, SIUE/DOW 

HARRES, ALLEN V. 

HARRES, ARLEN R. 

HENSON, DAVID 

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

HOPPE, BILL 

HOWARD, STEVEN, SAIC 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

JOHNSON, KAREN 

KLEINSCHMIDT, WILLIAM 

KOESTER, CHRISTY 

KOTSCH, JEFF, U.S. DOL 

LEWIS, GREGORY, DOE 

LEWIS, MARK, ATL INTL 

LORD, DAN 

MAHATHY, MIKE, ORAU 

MARTINETTE, JANICE W., HONEYWELL 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAU 

MCGOLERICK, ROBERT, HHS 

MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW/VI NEWS 

MOLINO, MICHAEL, SAIC 

MONAHAN, JIM, EECRC 
7

PHILLIPS, CHICK, SC&A 

PRESLEY, LOUISE S., SPOUSE 

RAMSPOTT, JOHN, SINEW 

ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH 

RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 

SIMMONS, HOMER 

SMITH, BILLY P., CHEW AND ASSOCS. 

SWAGGERTY, EVELYN 

THOMPSON, DON 

VOLSCH, JOE, SIUE/DOW 

WILLIAMS, JOHN A., DOW CHEM 

YOUNG, DAWN, PETITIONER 

ZACCHERO, MARY, ORAU 

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
8

P R O C E E D I N G S

(1:00 p.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO

1 DR. BRANCHE: If someone on the phone could 

2 please let me know that you can hear me, I'd 

3 appreciate it. Could you let me know? 

4 UNIDENTIFIED: We hear you. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you so much. I am formally 

6 beginning the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

7 Worker Health. This is meeting number 56. We 

8 are meeting in the lovely St. Louis, Missouri. 

9 I'm Dr. Christine Branche and I have the great 

10 honor to serve as your Designated Federal 

11 Official, also known as Executive Secretary. 

12 For those of you in the room, the emergency 

13 exits are through this door to my left, and 

14 then straight out. Unfortunately, to exit to 

15 the street we would need to go up the 

16 staircase. We have some persons with 

17 disability in the room, which means that if the 

18 alarm were to sound we would need some 

19 assistance in helping the people with 

20 disability -- disabilities out of the room. I 
9

1 don't anticipate any problems, but you ought to 

2 know where the emergency exits are, should that 

3 arise. 

4 We do have a redaction policy. That policy is 

5 that if -- let me read it formally. 

6 If a person making a comment gives his or her 

7 name, no attempt will be made to redact your 

8 name from the meeting transcript. Understand 

9 that at a future date the meeting transcript 

10 will be posted on the public web site. 

11 NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational 

12 Safety and Health, will take reasonable steps 

13 to ensure that everyone who makes a public 

14 comment is aware of the fact that your comments 

15 will be included. Your name and what you said 

16 will appear in the transcript of the meeting 

17 and it will be posted. 

18 Including the reading of this statement to you 

19 today and at the beginning of each public 

20 comment period, that's our first attempt to let 

21 you know what will happen. This statement also 

22 appears at the table, and was posted with the 

23 agenda and the Federal Register announcement. 

24 If an individual, in making a statement, 

25 reveals personal information -- for example, 
10

1 medical information -- about themselves, that 

2 information will not usually be redacted. The 

3 NIOSH Freedom of Information Act coordinator 

4 will, however, review such revelations in 

5 accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 

6 and the Federal Advisory Committee Act and, if 

7 deemed appropriate, that information will be 

8 redacted. And by redacted, I mean removed from 

9 the record, blacked out. All disclosures of 

10 information concerning third parties will be 

11 redacted. 

12 And if it comes to my attention that an 

13 individual wishes to share information with the 

14 Board, but objects to doing so in this public 

15 forum, then I will work with you to be able to 

16 get the information to the Board without 

17 revealing your identity, but you would need to 

18 come to me personally. 

19 With that, I would announce the names of the 

20 Board members for our roll call, and then we'll 

21 get started. Dr. Ziemer? 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Beach? 

24 MS. BEACH: Yes. 

25 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Clawson? 
11

1 MR. CLAWSON: Yes. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Gibson? 

3 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Griffon is on his way. Dr. 

5 Lockey? 

6 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Melius had an emergency 

8 situation and will be unable to join us in 

9 person. He will try to meet with us by phone. 

10 Actually Dr. Melius, are you available by phone 

11 today -- or at this time? 

12 (No response) 

13 Okay. Ms. Munn? 

14 MS. MUNN: Here. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Presley? 

16 MR. PRESLEY: Here. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Poston? 

18 DR. POSTON: Here. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Roessler? 

20 DR. ROESSLER: Here. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Schofield? 

22 MR. SCHOFIELD: Here. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: We appreciate everyone's 

24 participation by phone today and through the 

25 duration of this meeting, as well as during the 
12

1 public comment periods. It is critical that 

2 all participants by phone mute their lines. If 

3 you do not have a mute button, then please use 

4 star-6 to mute your lines. You would then un5 mute, or use the star-6 to un-mute your lines 

6 when you are ready to speak. 

7 If you must temporarily leave the line, please 

8 do not put the phone on hold. We would then 

9 all be subjected to whatever sound your hold 

10 button would have us go through. 

11 Again, it is critical that every person 

12 participating by phone mutes their line. Even 

13 the slightest sound is picked up by the phone 

14 line and then interrupts the ability for all 

15 phone participants to hear what's going on in 

16 the meeting room. We very much appreciate your 

17 cooperation. Thank you so much. 

18 Dr. Ziemer? 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. It's my privilege to 

20 formally call to order the meeting of the 

21 Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 

22 We're pleased to be in St. Louis. We've been 

23 here several times before. And I want to go on 

24 record to tell you that the presence of Ted 

25 Drewe's frozen custard has nothing to do with 
13

1 the fact that the Board chooses St. Louis to 

2 meet from time to time. 

3 There are copies of the agenda and related 

4 written information on the tables in the back 

5 of the auditorium. Please make those available 

6 to you if you haven't already done so. Also, 

7 as Dr. Branche has indicated, we do ask you to 

8 register your attendance with us on the 

9 registration form or registration booklet 

10 that's out in the corridor. 

11 Also we will have an opportunity for public 

12 comment later this afternoon. If you wish to 

13 make public comment, please sign up in the 

14 public comment book. If you wish to do that 

15 and haven't done so already, you can do that 

16 during the break. We like to get some idea of 

17 how many individuals will be commenting so we 

18 can plan for the time accordingly. 

19 I believe that's all the housekeeping items 

20 that we have as we open our meeting today. We 

21 have a number of topics that we will be 

22 discussing, which involve a number of sites 

23 around the country, involving various aspects 

24 of the -- the compensation program that's 

25 operated by Department of Labor and by NIOSH 
14

1 and Health and Human Services. And we're going 

2 to begin -- we'll follow our agenda pretty much 

3 as it's indicated. The time's always 

4 approximate. If we go over, then we will 

5 adjust accordingly; or if we finish something 

6 sooner, we will move ahead. So the times are 

7 taken to be approximate. We always have to 

8 estimate how much time things will take, and 

9 sometimes we do that pretty well and sometimes 

10 not so well. 

11 Y-12 PLANT (OAK RIDGE, TN) SEC PETITION

12 In any event, we'll begin with the presentation 

13 on the Y-12 Plant from Oak Ridge. We have an 

14 SEC petition that will be reviewed by Stuart 

15 Hinnefeld from NIOSH, and then we'll have 

16 opportunity for the petitioners to comment as 

17 well. 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, members 

19 of the Board and members of the audience. This 

20 first petition evaluation report that I'm 

21 presenting pertains to the Y-12 Plant in Oak 

22 Ridge, Tennessee. I think it's familiar to 

23 everybody. We've done some other work on this 

24 site in other petitions. 

25 A little background behind this petition -- I 
15

1 just do two? Yeah. 

2 This petition was submitted by a petitioner for 

3 whom NIOSH determined we could not complete a 

4 sufficiently accurate dose reconstruction. The 

5 petition was submitted on September 20th. This 

6 is an 83.14 part of the SEC rule, meaning we 

7 identified the class and essentially recruited 

8 the petitioner to submit the petition. The 

9 petition was qualified for evaluation on 

10 September 24th, 2007 and we determined that we 

11 are unable to complete dose reconstruction with 

12 sufficient accuracy for this class of employees 

13 at the Y-12 Plant. 

14 Some background behind how we got to this 

15 point. You'll recall in July of 2005 the Board 

16 recommended the addition of an SEC class from 

17 the Y-12 Plant from March 1943 to December 

18 1947. That's the period we're talking about 

19 today. The class definition read "employees 

20 who worked" -- you know, in part. It was for 

21 "employees who worked in the uranium enrichment 

22 operations, or other radiological activities" 

23 during the specified period. At this time in 

24 the history of the program -- remember, this 

25 was pretty early on in the SEC process, and at 
16

1 this time we had not adopted the routine 

2 practice of having the Department of Labor 

3 review our class definitions for 

4 administerability. And so we published this, 

5 believing that we had described essentially the 

6 people who could be exposed to radiation. And 

7 -- but there are a number of ways to interpret 

8 these words and so this definition did not 

9 really provide for a sufficiently clear path 

10 for interpretation -- 

11 DR. BRANCHE: Excuse me, Mr. Hinnefeld. 

12 There's a participant by phone we need you to 

13 mute your li-- there's a participant by phone 

14 we need you to mute your line, please. If you 

15 do not have a mute button, then please use 

16 star-6. Thank you. 

17 So sorry, Stu. 

18 MR. HINNEFELD: That's okay. So the class 

19 definition that was selected didn't provide 

20 sufficient clarity or specificity to allow for 

21 everybody to agree on how the interpretation of 

22 class membership should be applied. So as a 

23 result, we saw decisions about membership in 

24 the class that we didn't understand, that we -- 

25 we'd see people who were, in particular, 
17

1 excluded from the class that we thought -- we 

2 didn't really feel like we could -- we could do 

3 much of a dose reconstruction for that person, 

4 either, so we didn't understand why they 

5 weren't included in the class. 

6 And this led to a series of discussions between 

7 NIOSH and the Department of Labor about what to 

8 do about this situation. And Department of 

9 Labor said we're interpreting the words on the 

10 page; you know, you wrote the words, we're 

11 doing what we can. And so after a series of 

12 discussions we determined that the best course 

13 of action would be to initiate a new class, add 

14 an additional class through 83.14 process, to 

15 get the class definition defined more in line 

16 with what we expected it to be -- what our 

17 interpretation -- we expected our 

18 interpretation to be. 

19 A little bit of reminder for the Board and 

20 maybe information for the audience for the 

21 radiological operations at the Y-12 Plant. 

22 This '43 to '47 period at the Y-12 Plant was 

23 when the Y-- where they operated the Calutron 

24 devices for electromagnetic separation and 

25 enrichment of uranium. These Calutron 
18

1 operations involved -- this was -- you know, 

2 the primary mission of them -- they're the ones 

3 who made the enriched uranium for the enriched 

4 uranium bomb at the end of the war. 

5 Calutron operations involved production of the 

6 feed material -- in other words, you had to 

7 prepare the uranium into the proper chemical 

8 form and get it so it could be fed to the 

9 Calutrons -- conversion of the enriched uranium 

10 into the final product. I believe it was 

11 enriched with uranium chloride, and then once 

12 you had it enriched up to the enrichment you 

13 wanted, you didn't want it in the chloride 

14 form. I think they probably converted it into 

15 an oxide, which then could be made into metal. 

16 And then they also had to clean the -- and 

17 reclaim uranium from the Calutron internal 

18 components, which was quite a large part of the 

19 operation because the Calutron didn't deliver 

20 all the product possible right to the target 

21 collection area and there was material that 

22 contaminated the inside of the equipment. 

23 Now there were a number of other radiological 

24 operations that occurred at the Y-12 Plant, and 

25 we -- we see references and some -- and some 
19

1 general description of that. But we don't 

2 really know exactly what buildings those 

3 operations occurred in. We don't have a lot of 

4 detail about source term and things like that. 

5 So after reviewing the information there, we 

6 determined that we were -- or we were unable to 

7 determine that -- if any specific group of 

8 employees was not potentially exposed. Since 

9 we didn't really know essentially the extent of 

10 the radiological operations, we couldn't really 

11 partition the workforce into exposed versus 

12 non-exposed. 

13 For available monitoring data that might allow 

14 us to do dose reconstructions for internal 

15 exposures, internal monitoring data, we have 

16 now found a limited number of individual 

17 uranium bioassay results from 1944/1945. I 

18 don't believe those were available in 2005, I'm 

19 not 100 percent sure of that, but it's a pretty 

20 limited set of data anyway. It only covers a 

21 fairly short period of the operation. We 

22 concluded that the available data was too 

23 limited to support internal dose 

24 reconstruction, but if -- in the event that we 

25 had a claimant with their own individual data -
20

1 - you know, one of the pieces of data we had 

2 pertained to a particular claimant -- we would 

3 attempt to utilize that in a -- in a partial 

4 dose reconstruction if it's a non-- a non-SEC 

5 cancer case where we have to do a -- 

6 reconstruct what we can reconstruct. 

7 For external monitoring data we have not found 

8 any individual external monitoring results. 

9 In terms of workplace monitoring data, which we 

10 sometimes utilize to inform us about radiation 

11 exposures to people, we do have some direct 

12 radiation readings and qualitative summaries of 

13 those readings, but they're mainly for around 

14 the Calutron operations and they -- and a lot 

15 of them focus on the X-ray emissions from the 

16 Calutron rectifiers, a certain electrical 

17 component of the Calutron which emitted its own 

18 X-rays. And so -- and there were -- and we 

19 know that there were some actions taken to I 

20 believe install some shielded glass or 

21 something to -- or leaded glass -- in order to 

22 worry about those particular X-ray emissions, 

23 but we don't really have much information about 

24 other potential exposures or kinds of 

25 exposures. 
21

1 There was an airborne monitoring program that 

2 was begun in 1945. There's a -- maybe a few 

3 samples here and there, some other times. We 

4 have some results. We have some summary 

5 descriptions of results. None of these samples 

6 appear to be breathing zone samples, however. 

7 They seem to be more concerned about production 

8 loss type of sampling. You know, where's -- 

9 where's material getting loose at as opposed to 

10 what are people being exposed to. And we've 

11 not found any radiological monitoring for any 

12 of the other activities -- radiological 

13 activities that were going on at Y-12 at the 

14 site. This monitoring program was just around 

15 the Calutron operation. 

16 We've not obtained sufficient bioassay 

17 information to support internal dose 

18 reconstruction for this class. This is our -- 

19 our determination of feasibility. The air 

20 monitoring data is -- some air monitoring data 

21 is available, but it's not known enough about 

22 the samples. For instance, sampling strategy 

23 frequency. We don't know if it was 

24 representative of low, average or high exposure 

25 or low, average or high production times, so we 
22

1 don't feel like that data is sufficient to 

2 support dose reconstruction for this class. 

3 We have no bioassay or air sampling results for 

4 other radiological operations, because they did 

5 do some things besides enriched uranium. 

6 And NIOSH has not obtained any individual 

7 external monitoring data -- well, this should 

8 actually be in a -- under a bullet called 

9 "external dose". 

10 But anyway, continuing on with feasibility of 

11 dose reconstruction, we have not obtained any 

12 individual external monitoring data during this 

13 class period, and we lack the source term 

14 information about the non-uranium radiological 

15 operations to build a source term model about 

16 what the external dose might have been. 

17 We do believe we can reconstruct doses from 

18 medical X-rays based on some existing technical 

19 -- project technical documents. 

20 The table that we generally provide with these, 

21 the summary of feasibility -- again, this is 

22 for March 1st, 1943 through December 31st, 1947 

23 -- shows that we believe that, of the possible 

24 categories of exposure, we believe we can only 

25 reconstruct the medical -- the medical X-ray 
23

1 exposures. At least, that's with consistency. 

2 As I said before, if we would -- if we have a 

3 claimant and that claimant happens to be one of 

4 the people who submitted a few of those bio-- 

5 you know, a bioassay sample or a few of the 

6 bioassay samples, we'll make some attempt to 

7 assign a dose based on that -- on that 

8 sampling. But certainly that would only be a -

9 - we would believe only a portion of the -- of 

10 the dose a person might have received, even 

11 from that -- even from that mode. 

12 With respect to the health endangerment 

13 determination -- recall, for a SEC petition we 

14 have to -- we must determine first of all is 

15 dose reconstruction feasible; and if it's not 

16 feasible, then we are to opine on whether there 

17 was a health endangerment at the -- to the 

18 exposed workers. In -- we did not -- have not 

19 found any evidence of a discrete incident that 

20 could have resulted in extremely high doses 

21 similar to a criticality incident. Recall, 

22 this only goes up through 1947. And evidence 

23 indicates that workers in a class may have 

24 accumulated chronic radiation exposures that we 

25 are unable to estimate, so those -- those -- so 
24

1 -- and they could have occurred through intakes 

2 of radioactive material, or direct exposure to 

3 radioactive material. And so consequently we 

4 have concluded that the health may have been 

5 endangered for those workers covered by this 

6 evaluation who were employed for a number of 

7 work days aggregating at least 250 work days 

8 within the parameters established for this 

9 class, or in combination with work days within 

10 the parameters established for one or more 

11 other classes of employees in the SEC. I think 

12 everybody's familiar -- that's kind of our -- 

13 our boilerplate language about aggregating 

14 classes. The rule provides us leeway to either 

15 say that the criteria for health endangerment 

16 is either presence or 250 days. In this case 

17 it looks like presence is not sufficient, so 

18 250 days would be the criterion. 

19 The definition of the proposed class that we're 

20 proposing for this -- for this action or this 

21 evaluation is "employees of the Department of 

22 Energy, its predecessor agencies and DOE 

23 contractors and subcontractors who worked at 

24 the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during 

25 the period from March 1st, 1943 through 
25

1 December 31st, 1947 for a number of work days 

2 aggregating at least 250 work days, occurring 

3 either solely under this employment or in 

4 combination with work days within the 

5 parameters established for one or more other 

6 classes of employees in the SEC." 

7 Our recommendation to the Board is for the 

8 period of March 1st, 1943 through December 

9 31st, 1947 we find that radiation doses cannot 

10 be reconstructed for -- with sufficient 

11 accuracy for compensation purposes. Therefore 

12 -- here's our table of feasibility and health 

13 endangerment findings, our recommendation, and 

14 I believe that ends my presentation. 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Stu. For the 

16 record, I would like to note that Mr. Presley, 

17 Board member, is conflicted on Y-12 and 

18 therefore has removed himself from the table 

19 for these discussions. 

20 And Dr. Poston as well, I'm sorry, also 

21 conflicted on Y-12, so both of those Board 

22 members have removed themselves from the table 

23 for this discussion. 

24 Let me open the questions, Stu, with this one. 

25 Is my understanding that this new class does 
26

1 not necessarily replace the previous classes? 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it sort of -- it sort of 

3 subsumes -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: It's intended to be a 

5 clarification, but let me ask it a different 

6 way. The previous classes were administered in 

7 a certain way by Department of Labor. 

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Will those -- will continue to 

10 exist -- on paper, at least -- as classes, or 

11 do you see this as replacing the previous 

12 action? 

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we've had a situation 

14 like this before where a later class 

15 essentially subsumes the earlier class. I 

16 think it happened at Los Alamos with the 

17 radioactive lanthanum work, and then the later 

18 -- the later addition of a larger Los Alamos 

19 class. We didn't -- I don't think we actually 

20 made any action to terminate the other class, 

21 it still is out there, but the -- I think any 

22 claim coming in now and -- would probably be 

23 under -- administered under this class since 

24 it's broader and anyone who'd be included under 

25 the other class would also be included -- 
27

1 DR. ZIEMER: Would still be covered by this. 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, yes. 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So in essence this covers 

4 the previous actions and covers the issue of 

5 concern that NIOSH had -- 

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Other questions, 

8 Board members? 

9 MR. GRIFFON: This might be more -- 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Mark Griffon. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: -- more to you, Paul. Did we -- 

12 I mean we must have sent a letter regarding the 

13 '43 to '47 class, and do you have a -- a copy 

14 of that? I was wondering (electronic 

15 interference) -- 

16 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know what that -- we have 

17 some noise on the line again. We ask if you're 

18 not speaking -- and you shouldn't be, by phone, 

19 if you're on the line right now -- you should 

20 mute your phone. If you do not have a mute 

21 button, press star-6. 

22 Now in reply to your question, Mark, the 

23 wording of the recommendation to the Secretary 

24 -- hold on just a moment and I have the letter 

25 to the Secretary on Y-12, and with the speed of 
28

1 cyberspace it will finally appear. I'll blame 

2 it on the wireless network here, but it doesn't 

3 have to be hooked to that. Okay, let me read -

4 - I think you're asking me to read the previous 

5 class definition? 

6 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I guess. I'm assuming we -- 

7 we adopted the same class definition as NIOSH -

8 - 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Here it is. 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- but -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: (Reading) The Board recommends a 

12 Special Exposure Cohort status be accorded to 

13 all DOE contractors or subcontractors or AWE 

14 employees who worked in uranium enrichment 

15 operations, or other radiological activities, 

16 at the Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee 

17 from March '43 through December '47 and who 

18 were employed for a number of work days 

19 aggregating at least 250 days, occurring either 

20 solely under this employment or in combination 

21 with work days of other employment occurring 

22 with-- within the parameters -- dot, dot, dot -

23 - so it's -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Did we -- 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah -- 
29

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- the -- the -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: -- yeah, so the -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: -- part I'm asking about -- I 

4 guess I could pull this up to -- the part I'm 

5 asking about is did we put any provision in 

6 there to -- 'cause I notice that Stu had 

7 forwarded this to the 250-day review workgroup, 

8 so did we ask for some provision that -- I know 

9 there's one line that we've been adding to some 

10 of our recommendations saying that we will -- 

11 will further evaluate whether less than 250-day 

12 time frame is warranted -- you know what I'm 

13 talking about? 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I don't know if we 

16 included it in that or not, or if it is 

17 warranted, can't remember. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: That is not addressed in this -- 

19 MR. GRIFFON: No, it's not. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- petition. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: But that previous decision was 

22 from 2005. I think you've gotten a lot more 

23 sophisticated with your language since -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: No, I don't -- 

25 DR. BRANCHE: -- that was done. 
30

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- think that's -- that's an 

2 issue there, but I mean -- Stu, you did forward 

3 this to the -- or maybe you forwarded it to the 

4 SEC workgroup, maybe I'm confused. It was -- 

5 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't think I sent it to the 

6 -- 

7 MR. GRIFFON: It was sent to -- 

8 MR. HINNEFELD: -- 250-day -- 

9 MR. GRIFFON: -- to Jim Melius's group, and he 

10 has both of those, so I'm -- I just confused 

11 that issue, but... 

12 MR. RUTHERFORD: Mark, it was sent to Dr. 

13 Melius's SEC -- 

14 MR. GRIFFON: SEC workgroup, right. 

15 MR. RUTHERFORD: -- workgroup. We send all the 

16 83.14 -- 

17 MR. GRIFFON: I gotcha. I was thinking it was 

18 on the 250-day issue, but -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: No, that's simply because it was 

20 an 83.14 petition. 

21 So the description here is work-- employees who 

22 worked in uranium enrichment operations, or 

23 other radiological activities, that was the... 

24 MR. HINNEFELD: That was the original class 

25 description, yes. 
31

1 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Other comments or questions 

2 for Stu? Now I'm going to ask -- oh, Jim 

3 Lockey. 

4 DR. LOCKEY: Stu, does this -- does this cover 

5 everybody (electronic interference) at that 

6 site? 

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Again we're getting background 

9 noise by phone. If your -- 

10 UNIDENTIFIED: Somebody's put us on hold. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- if your phone is not -- if 

12 somebody put us on hold, they're not there to -

13 - to mute their phone. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: I mean -- 

15 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mr. Griffon? 

16 MR. GRIFFON: -- I think we're -- overall, you 

17 know, this -- this makes sense, the lan-- the 

18 proposed language. But one thing in your 

19 presentation, Stu, that I wondered about was 

20 the -- you said you had -- since we had last 

21 talked about this, you've found more urinalysis 

22 data? 

23 MR. HINNEFELD: A little bit -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: You -- you still -- 

25 MR. HINNEFELD: -- a little bit, found some. 
32

1 MR. GRIFFON: -- didn't think that was... 

2 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't think we had -- I'm not 

3 -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: When you say -- 

5 MR. HINNEFELD: -- I'm working from memory 

6 here. 

7 MR. GRIFFON: -- a little bit, I think -- just 

8 for consistency purposes, we have -- as Board 

9 members, have to sort of understand what a 

10 little bit means. I think at other sites I've 

11 deemed something to be a little bit and -- 

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: -- dose reconstructions were 

14 done, so -- 

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, in this -- in this case, 

16 I don't know -- LaVon, do you remember the 

17 number? I was thinking it was maybe 100 or 

18 150. 

19 MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, it was -- it was right 

20 around 100, but I want to point out, too, this 

21 -- the actual data was right at the end of the 

22 actual operational period of the Calutrons, and 

23 it did not address that period where they went 

24 through major cleanup and the dismantlement 

25 period of '45, '46 and '47. So it was one -- 
33

1 like one run period of -- that they had like 

2 100 urine samples in. 

3 MR. GRIFFON: But at the end of -- like 1947 it 

4 was done? 

5 MR. RUTHERFORD: No. 

6 MR. GRIFFON: No -- 

7 MR. RUTHERFORD: No, 1945 -- '44/'45. 

8 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it was done before the -- all 

9 the cleanup and -- 

10 MR. RUTHERFORD: Right, right, right. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: -- other -- okay, all right. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Okay? Other questions? Larry 

13 Elliott. 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Just for the Board's 

15 understanding I'd like to point out that this 

16 issue was really brought to everyone's 

17 attention by Denise Brock, who dealt with a 

18 series of claimants who were having trouble 

19 getting their claims determined for eligibility 

20 within this class. And I think our 

21 understanding is there's probably 24 or less 

22 claims that are so affected by this action, but 

23 those 24 certainly deserve all the attention 

24 that Denise has brought to this, so I want to 

25 thank her for that. 
34

1 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, very appropriate. 

2 There may be one of the petitioners on the 

3 line. Let me ask if -- if a Y-12 petitioner is 

4 on the line, and if so, do -- does that person 

5 wish to speak? 

6 (No response) 

7 I had an indication they may or may not be on 

8 the line. Apparently not. Thank you. 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Make certain you've un-muted your 

10 phone. We've given you so many admonishments 

11 to mute your phone -- 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, if you're trying to speak 

13 and not getting a response, maybe you are still 

14 muted, I guess. 

15 (No responses) 

16 Okay. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Before we go on, phone 

18 participants, I do ask again that if you -- two 

19 things. You've heard Dr. Ziemer and me both 

20 indicate that we need you to mute your line. I 

21 would also ask that you resist every notion to 

22 put us on hold, begin then the phone line is 

23 then obscured by whatever sound your hold 

24 system has and so we would have to cut your li25 - we have to go through a lot of labor to cut 
35

1 you off if you do that. So please, if you need 

2 to leave the line, it's better to hang up and 

3 dial back in than to put us on hold. Thank you 

4 so much for your cooperation. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other questions or 

6 comments for Mr. Hinnefeld? 

7 If not, Stu, we thank you very much. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Do we need to read this -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Board members -- 

10 DR. BRANCHE: What about this -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we -- we have received a -- 

12 I believe it was a FAX -- 

13 DR. BRANCHE: No, overnight mail. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Well, whatever -- yeah, FedEx mail 

15 -- from a petitioner, and this is -- this -- 

16 copies have been distributed, I understand, or 

17 have -- 

18 DR. BRANCHE: Only to the -- no, only to the -- 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: -- court reporter. If this -- 

21 it's fairly complicated. I don't think she's -

22 - the person is not disputing the idea of the 

23 class. I think that there was just additional 

24 information that the petitioner wanted to bring 

25 to light. And I think that the class 
36

1 definition takes care of this -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I believe that's -- 

3 DR. BRANCHE: -- person's issues. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- the case, and this is a very 

5 detailed description of an individual case. I 

6 don't think it would be appropriate for us to 

7 read this into the -- 

8 DR. BRANCHE: I agree. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- public record because we would 

10 have to redact all of the personal information. 

11 So let's simply make copies of this available 

12 to the Board members -- includes some pictures 

13 and so on of a particular case. My 

14 understanding, this case would then be covered, 

15 anyway, by -- 

16 DR. BRANCHE: It would. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: -- by this action, should the 

18 Board recommend it and should the Secretary of 

19 Health and Human Services so take the 

20 recommendation. 

21 Board members, it would be in order to have a 

22 motion concerning this recommendation from 

23 NIOSH. Let me advise you -- and the Chair's 

24 willing to hear the motion, if you're so 

25 inclined, in simple form rather than in the 
37

1 detailed language of the -- a memo that would 

2 go to the Secretary of Health and Human 

3 Services. But if -- if we have such a motion 

4 and it passes, then during our work session on 

5 Thursday we will provide you with the formal 

6 wording of what the action would be as it 

7 proceeded to the Secretary. 

8 Ms. Munn, do you wish to make a motion? 

9 MS. MUNN: Yes, I do. I'd like to move that we 

10 accept the recommendation that the SEC be 

11 accepted as proposed by NIOSH, and that we 

12 subsequently make that recommendation available 

13 to the Secretary. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you've heard the motion; is 

15 there a second? 

16 MR. CLAWSON: Seconded. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Motion is made and seconded. Is 

18 there any discussion on the motion? If you 

19 vote for the motion you are voting to recommend 

20 to the Secretary that this class of workers be 

21 added to the Special Exposure Cohort at Y-12. 

22 I add parenthetically it's our understanding 

23 from Mr. Hinnefeld that this would become, in 

24 effect, the working definition then to, in 

25 essence, replace the earlier designations of 
38

1 the classes at Y-12. 

2 We'll take a roll call vote, and I should also 

3 tell you that the Chair and the Designated 

4 Federal Official, under the rules of this 

5 Board, will also obtain the vote of Dr. Melius 

6 if he's not on the line now. Under our rules 

7 we are required to obtain the votes of members 

8 who are not present. Mr. Presley and Dr. 

9 Poston will be abstaining from voting, so let's 

10 proceed with the roll call. Please answer 

11 "yes" if you favor the motion or "no" if you're 

12 opposed. You may also abstain. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Ms. Beach? 

14 MS. BEACH: Yes. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Clawson? 

16 MR. CLAWSON: Yes. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Gibson? 

18 MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Griffon? 

20 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Lockey? 

22 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 

23 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Melius, are you on the line? 

24 (No response) 

25 Ms. Munn? 
39

1 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Roessler? 

3 DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Mr. Schofield? 

5 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Ziemer? 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. The motion carries. We will 

8 proceed to prepare the formal wording for the 

9 Board's perusal later in the meeting. Thank 

10 you very much. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: There's a participant by phone 

12 who would need to mute their line, please. 

13 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I was cut off my previous 

14 phone so I had to call back in. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Then we ask that you not put the 

16 phone on hold, please, when you have to leave 

17 the line. 

18 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you so much. If you do not 

20 have a mute button, then if you could please 

21 use star-6 to mute your line, we would very 

22 much appreciate that. 

23 NEVADA TEST SITE WORK GROUP SUMMARY

24 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's move on to the next 

25 item. We'll have Mr. Presley and Dr. Poston 
40

1 rejoin us, and the next item on our agenda is a 

2 report from the Nevada Test Site workgroup, Mr. 

3 Presley, chair. 

4 MR. PRESLEY: Well, we had hoped to come to 

5 this meeting and present a pretty set of slides 

6 that said that the working group accepts the 

7 site profile, as is. But we had a couple of 

8 issues come to light in a meeting we had 

9 yesterday morning, and that's not going to 

10 happen. We have asked that SC&A and NIOSH go 

11 back and look at these issues that have come to 

12 light. These are not new issues. They are 

13 issues that have been discussed in the past, 

14 but some people felt like that there was a 

15 little bit of difference there so they are 

16 going to be looked at, scrutinized and 

17 discussed. A recommendation is going to come 

18 back to the working group, and hopefully down 

19 the road we can make a recommendation on this 

20 site -- the NTS site profile. 

21 Anybody have any questions? 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Okay -- 

23 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: -- thank you, Mr. Presley. Board 

25 members, any questions? How -- how many issues 
41

1 were -- are we talking about here? Is it one 

2 or two, or ten or 20? 

3 MR. PRESLEY: No, we're talking about two or 

4 three. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Two or three issues that will be, 

6 hopefully, brought to closure by the next 

7 meeting -- 

8 MR. PRESLEY: I hope. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- or by our phone meeting. Thank 

10 you. 

11 NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE

12 Well, we're not ready for a break yet. I think 

13 we -- we're going to move ahead, Larry, if it's 

14 agreeable. Mr. Elliott will bring us the 

15 program update on the NIOSH program. 

16 (Pause) 

17 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, I -- I did want to note, I 

18 -- I have recused -- for Nevada Test Site, it 

19 was a shorter presentation than I was 

20 envisioning, but for the record, I don't know 

21 if you -- 

22 DR. BRANCHE: It was just a -- it was just an 

23 update. 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Well -- 

25 MR. GRIFFON: It was just an update. I don't 
42

1 know if I had to or (unintelligible) -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: No, we had no action before us -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, right, right, right -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- so you're okay, yeah. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Larry, proceed. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and 

8 members of the Board and members of the public. 

9 I certainly appreciate the opportunity to -- 

10 again to bring you a program update on where 

11 things stand with regard to NIOSH 

12 responsibilities under this compensation 

13 program. 

14 To date, as of June 16th, NIOSH has received 

15 27,367 cases from the Department of Labor for 

16 dose reconstruction. We have completed 74 

17 percent of those cases and returned 20,089 to 

18 the Department of Labor. We break those down 

19 into cases that have been submitted with a dose 

20 reconstruction report, and that represents 

21 17,630. There have been 724 cases that have 

22 been pulled from dose reconstruction by the 

23 Department of Labor, and this happens for 

24 various reasons, primarily the ineligibility of 

25 the claim. There have been 1,735 cases that 
43

1 are currently pulled from dose reconstruction 

2 for SEC class determination and eligibility. 

3 The 25 percent of cases that remain at NIOSH 

4 represent 6,898, and of those we have completed 

5 789 dose reconstruction reports and those are 

6 in the hands of the claimants awaiting return 

7 to us indicating that they have no further 

8 information to provide. So that's another -- 

9 of this 6,898, that's 11 percent that we feel 

10 we have finished our work on, awaiting the 

11 concurrence of the claimant. 

12 There have been another one percent, or 380 

13 cases, that have been administratively closed 

14 in dose reconstruction. And what this is is 

15 the fact that we have not received a indication 

16 from the claimant that they have no further 

17 information to provide and will allow us to 

18 move the case back to Department of Labor for a 

19 decision. So we're awaiting the return of what 

20 we call the OCAS-1, or a form that indicates 

21 they have no further information to provide. 

22 In this pie chart you can see graphically, I 

23 hope, the distribution of these cases that have 

24 been completed, pulled for eligibility 

25 determination or pulled for SEC class 
44

1 determination, those that have been 

2 administratively closed, as well as the active 

3 cases. And of those -- also those that are 

4 pended. When we say pended, there are a 

5 variety of reasons that we would put a case on 

6 hold at NIOSH. That primarily results from 

7 issues that regard technical approach or a 

8 particular site profile that is being held in 

9 review and we don't want to proceed on 

10 completing those dose reconstructions until we 

11 have that particular technical issue resolved, 

12 and so we would pend those cases until we see 

13 that resolution occur. 

14 Of the 17,630 dose reconstructions that we've 

15 returned to Department of Labor for 

16 adjudication or for a recommended decision, 34 

17 percent, or 5,959, have had a probability of 

18 causation of greater than 50 percent. That 

19 leaves 66 percent, or 11,671 cases, that were 

20 deemed to have a probability of causation less 

21 than 50 percent and found to be non22 compensable. 

23 Just for a point of reference, the early -- 

24 start of this program there were projections 

25 made within the government by different 
45

1 agencies or different entities within the 

2 government that dose reconstructed cases would 

3 be less than ten percent compensable, so we 

4 have considerably moved that bar, as you see in 

5 this slide. 

6 This particular graphic, this bar chart, gives 

7 you a sense of the distribution of probability 

8 of causation across those claims that we have 

9 returned to Department of Labor. It's broken 

10 out into deciles or zero to ten percent and on 

11 up until you get to the 49 percent bar, and 

12 then you see that -- those that are greater 

13 than 50 percent on the far right bar. 

14 Again, of the 6,898 cases that are still at 

15 NIOSH, 2,997 are currently assigned to a health 

16 physicist. They're in some state of process of 

17 dose reconstruction, with a goal to achieve 

18 finality in that part of the process. Again, I 

19 mentioned this earlier, 789 initial draft dose 

20 reconstructions have been provided to the 

21 claimants and we're awaiting the return of the 

22 OCAS-1; 3,112 cases are not assigned to a 

23 health physicist for dose reconstruction. 

24 These are probably the ones that are pended, as 

25 well as new ones that have arrived and we're 
46

1 working to develop what background we need to 

2 continue with a dose reconstruction on those 

3 claims. 

4 Of particular note, we now have 4,396 cases, 64 

5 percent of those that we have in an active 

6 status, that are older than one year. And we 

7 track that very cautiously and carefully with a 

8 lot of attention. If we look at the oldest 

9 cases that we have, the first 5,000 that we 

10 have received, we continue to monitor our 

11 progress on those, and you'll see this broken 

12 down -- I think I'll just go to the bottom line 

13 here. The most important numbers are shown to 

14 you in red. We've had 794 of these first 

15 5,000 cases come back to us, and this is for a 

16 variety of rework purposes under our Program 

17 Evaluation Reviews, or because the eligibility 

18 of the claim or the demographics of the claim 

19 changed, which requires us to rework that given 

20 claim. The bottom line here is that 37 claims 

21 are still awaiting a dose reconstruction. That 

22 earlier number, 794, has had a dose 

23 reconstruction but they've come back. These 37 

24 have never had a dose reconstruction, and we 

25 pay particular attention to those because we 
47

1 want to get those people, those claimants, a 

2 decision as soon as we possibly can. Of these 

3 37 cases -- I'll break them down for you. 

4 There are -- they represent multiple individual 

5 sites. There are several that are reinstated 

6 Y-12 SEC cases, those that you've -- that class 

7 that you just took action on are represented in 

8 some of these. There are also cases from NUMEC 

9 that have come back to us. NUMEC is another 

10 class that you've added recently, but we're 

11 seeing those come back as not eligible. And 

12 then we've had -- or NUMEC is -- is a class 

13 that was added, but we've not completed our 

14 partial dose reconstructions for these -- these 

15 particular cases in this 37 that are 

16 represented by NUMEC. There's also some Kellex 

17 claims here; MIT, which is another class you've 

18 added but we are doing partial dose 

19 reconstructions on MIT so they're represented 

20 here; and Norton. Some are active in this 37 

21 and some are pended -- pended awaiting either a 

22 technical approach that we need in order to 

23 complete the dose reconstruction or pended 

24 because Department of Labor has some action 

25 that we're awaiting them to take. 
48

1 In this line graph you'll see in blue the cases 

2 that have been received from the Department of 

3 Labor over the history of this program. In 

4 green you see the draft dose reconstruction 

5 reports that have been provided to claimants, 

6 and in red you'll see the final dose 

7 reconstruction reports that have been provided 

8 to Department of Labor. This is broken out in 

9 quarters, and I think we've finally got this 

10 abscissa correct, Dr. Poston, so thank you for 

11 that correction from last meeting. 

12 In this bar chart we show you the cases that 

13 have been completed, by NIOSH tracking number 

14 in 1,000 increments. And we break those 1,000 

15 increments down into those that have been 

16 completed, by the color blue; those that have 

17 been pulled, in the color red; cases that are 

18 active are in -- I guess it's mustard; and SEC 

19 cases are in light green; cases that are pended 

20 are in yellow; and then the admin closed cases 

21 are in purple, or lavender. 

22 I mentioned reworks earlier in this 

23 presentation, and this slide shows you in trend 

24 -- a trend analysis, if you will, the number of 

25 reworks that we have been -- we have received 
49

1 from the Department of Labor. And particularly 

2 I'd point out for you this series of spikes 

3 later on, starting in the third quarter of 

4 2007. As you know, and I'll talk about in a 

5 moment, we have a number of Program Evaluation 

6 Reviews that were initiated and these red 

7 spikes that you see from third quarter of 2007 

8 up to second quarter of 2008 are a result of 

9 those Program Evaluation Review reworks. I 

10 point out that we have received a total of 

11 7,977 and we've returned 4,583 to the 

12 Department of Labor. 

13 As you know, we -- our first step in -- once we 

14 receive a claim from the Department of Labor is 

15 we turn to the Department of Energy and seek 

16 exposure monitoring information relevant to 

17 that claim so that we can proceed with dose 

18 reconstruction. We monitor the progress of 

19 Department of Energy on their provision of this 

20 important information, and we track it. Every 

21 30 days we pulse them and find out where 

22 they're at on a given set of requests, and here 

23 you see that there are 365 requests that are 

24 outstanding, and 96 of those are outstanding 

25 greater than 60 days. 
50

1 In the procedures working group this morning we 

2 talked a little bit about the site profiles for 

3 Atomic Weapons Employers that worked with 

4 specific types of radionuclides, and in this 

5 one, TBD-6000, Technical Basis Document 6000, 

6 there are a number of site-specific appendices 

7 that were required to be completed. These 

8 appendices speak about unique exposure 

9 scenarios that are not typical to either 

10 uranium or thorium, and in this case metals 

11 that were worked with, and so we had to come up 

12 with a technical approach that spoke to these 

13 kinds of unique exposure scenarios. Fifteen of 

14 these site-specific appendices have been 

15 completed. There are none in review at this 

16 time, and one is in -- in development, but that 

17 may be -- that may -- appendices may go away. 

18 We may find ourselves recommending an 83.14 for 

19 that particular site because we've not been 

20 able to find any information for that site, so 

21 we'll keep you posted as we proceed on that 

22 point. 

23 The other Technical Basis Document for Atomic 

24 Weapons Employers that dealt with refining 

25 uranium and thorium is TBD, or Technical Basis 
51

1 Document, 6001. And in the same situation 

2 here, we've found some exposure scenarios that 

3 needed to be addressed under an appendices, and 

4 we have completed six of those appendices and 

5 we don't envision any more that will need to be 

6 worked up. 

7 Now the Program Evaluation Reports or Reviews. 

8 We have had 32 Program Evaluation Reviews that 

9 have been issued. You can find these on our 

10 web site. These different changes that have 

11 been made to our dose reconstruction approaches 

12 have resulted from our -- our own efforts to 

13 identify a better way to do things, as well as 

14 efforts of the -- of the Advisory Board and its 

15 contractor in finding issues and resolving 

16 issues with us to lead to a better dose 

17 reconstruction approach. So you see here 

18 14,217 claims that have been affected across 

19 these 32 Program Evaluation Reviews. I would 

20 note for you, however, that that's not -- many 

21 of these claims may be duplicated. In other 

22 words, a claim may find itself affected by more 

23 than one of these PERs, so you can't just rely 

24 on the 14,217 and say my goodness, that's a 

25 lot. It is a lot, but it's not that total 
52

1 number. They're counted twice, maybe three 

2 times, in this number. 

3 So what has happened here, we -- once we rework 

4 a claim against these Program Evaluation 

5 Reviews, we see whether or not -- and we do 

6 this because there's a potential chance that 

7 the dose might increase for a given claim, and 

8 so we look at a lot of these claims and we're -

9 - we're thankful when we see one that does 

10 increase in dose, and we're very thankful when 

11 we see one that crosses the compensation bar 

12 and goes to a 50 percent or greater probability 

13 of causation. Here you see 249 have switched 

14 from non-compensable to compensable. 

15 Now for background, you heard me in -- in the 

16 last several meetings I have reported to you 

17 that there were 154 that had switched, so now 

18 we see an increase here of 92 claims that have 

19 been found to be compensable under our Program 

20 Evaluation Review. And of those 92, 77 are due 

21 to super S; five are due to our Paducah Program 

22 Evaluation Review; one is for our LANL Program 

23 Evaluation Review; eight are on Blockson and 

24 one is on Rocky Flats. Again, I would caution 

25 you about the super S because there may be more 
53

1 Rocky Flats in that than the one I'm talking 

2 about for Rocky Flats. So the numbers are what 

3 they are, but they affect claims differently, 

4 so just a caution. 

5 That's the -- that's the good news. The bad 

6 news is we've done 7,943 in an effort to try to 

7 determine whether or not they would be so 

8 affected, and there was no change in the 

9 compensability of those claims. We have still 

10 6,025 that we are working on as we speak. And 

11 again, that number may represent, and probably 

12 does represent, a lot fewer cases, but many of 

13 those cases may be affected by more than one 

14 Program Evaluation Review. Hard to get my mind 

15 wrapped around it; I'm sure it's difficult to -

16 - for me to express so that you all understand. 

17 You're going to hear from LaVon Rutherford 

18 later in your agenda on a Special Exposure 

19 Cohort class update, but this is just a 

20 summary. He will get into more -- greater 

21 detail than I'm allowed to here. But to date, 

22 as of June 16th, 28 SEC classes have been added 

23 since May of 2005. Seventeen of those, or 61 

24 percent, have been -- done so through the 83.13 

25 process or where a petitioner comes forward and 
54

1 petitions for that class. Eleven, or 39 

2 percent, have been accomplished through the 

3 83.14 process, and that's an instance where we 

4 at NIOSH have determined that we cannot 

5 reconstruct the dose for a given claim for a 

6 site and we establish a class around that 

7 claim. This represents classes from 22 sites. 

8 It represents 1,735 potential claims. Just so 

9 you know, there's -- this also represents an 

10 increase of three classes, three sites and 170 

11 claims from your last meeting that you held. 

12 And I think that's it, and with that, I'll take 

13 questions. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Larry. Let's 

15 open the floor, Board members, for questions. 

16 John Poston. 

17 DR. POSTON: Larry, could you say just a little 

18 bit more about the cases that were reworked, 

19 those high peaks that you pointed out. Is that 

20 because of the health physicists or because of 

21 changes in procedures or what? 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Program Evaluation Reviews are 

23 accommodated in our dose reconstruction 

24 regulation, and we are required -- when we make 

25 a technical change in our dose reconstruction 
55

1 approach that might lead to an increase in dose 

2 estimates, we're required to go back and look 

3 at all of those non-compensable claims that 

4 might be so affected. And the -- the red bars 

5 that you saw on the right-hand side of that 

6 chart are really representative of super S, the 

7 LANL, the Paducah, the Bethlehem Steel, the 

8 lymphoma -- these are just to name a few. I 

9 can give you the whole list if you want me to 

10 run down the list, but there are -- I think I 

11 said 32 of those. 

12 DR. POSTON: I just want to make sure you're 

13 getting quality work from the HPs, that's a -- 

14 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir, I think we're -- we're 

15 squeezing every bit of sweat they have to get 

16 these things done, so... 

17 DR. POSTON: Okay. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 

19 (No response) 

20 Larry, we always appreciate your updates, and 

21 it's -- it's good to see them tracking along 

22 and the progress that has been achieved, so we 

23 again thank you very much. 

24 SPECIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL PUBLICATION

25 I'm going to take the Chair's prerogative and 
56

1 jump ahead here a bit in the agenda, and I'm 

2 going to pull an item from tomorrow morning's 

3 agenda -- some of the items we're going to try 

4 to keep pretty fixed where they involve SEC 

5 petitions and people who may be on line, so I'm 

6 not going to move those. But we have scheduled 

7 tomorrow morning a report on a special edition 

8 of the Health Physics Journal that has come out 

9 within the last week or so, and Jim Neton and 

10 others at NIOSH had a big hand in the 

11 development of the technical papers in this and 

12 he's going to give us an update. Board 

13 members, I think you may have copies of this 

14 edition of the Health Physics Journal at your 

15 places -- courtesy of NIOSH, I believe. 

16 DR. NETON: Yes. Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

17 You'll have to bear with me a little bit. I 

18 really did think I was giving this presentation 

19 tomorrow so, being the procrastinator that I 

20 am, I am -- I guess I'm somewhat prepared but I 

21 may -- I may stumble a little bit as I go 

22 along, so again I ask your indulgence. 

23 I'm here to talk about something that we've 

24 been working on for -- oh, probably the last 

25 year and a half or so, and that is the special 
57

1 edition -- special issue of the Health Physics 

2 Journal that is entirely devoted to the NIOSH 

3 radiation dose reconstruction program. 

4 You know, over the last five or six years we've 

5 developed a lot of scientific documents to 

6 establish the manner and the methods that we 

7 produce these dose reconstructions. And we 

8 felt that it was time to put it out into the 

9 open literature. NIOSH has formed, a while 

10 ago, a scientific steering committee whose 

11 mission is to review the state of our science 

12 and to figure out what direction we need to go. 

13 And it was the consensus of the committee at 

14 our first meeting that this was probably the 

15 best thing we could do right now, to -- for our 

16 program, to get some of our information out 

17 into the open literature. 

18 So an overview of the issue -- it's -- it just 

19 came out in July, for the July issue. Those of 

20 you who are members of the Society would have 

21 received their Journal a week or so ago. And 

22 as Dr. Ziemer pointed out, we provided a copy 

23 to each of the Board members for their use and 

24 review. I know some of the Board members who 

25 are members of the Health Physics Society have 
58

1 already received a copy, so just consider that 

2 a second copy that you can -- you can put on 

3 your nightstand. 

4 The issue has 15 original articles that cover 

5 the science behind the program, and we spent a 

6 lot of time looking at what we really wanted to 

7 put out there. If you remember, we had, you 

8 know, implementation guides for the internal 

9 dosimetry, the external dosimetry, those type 

10 of documents. And so we tried to -- to capture 

11 in this issue those concepts that we thought 

12 were key to our program, the efficiency 

13 process, those type of things. 

14 It highlights the unique nature of the dose 

15 reconstruction for compensation programs, so 

16 that's one reason we wanted to get it out 

17 there. As you -- as you probably know, dose 

18 reconstruction under this program is somewhat 

19 different than what you would see for a 

20 radiation protection program and also for a -- 

21 even a radiological epidemiological study. 

22 There are a lot of unique aspects of this 

23 program that are driven by the way the law is 

24 written. 

25 I would be remiss if I didn't point out that 
59

1 this was a joint effort with the ORAU team. I 

2 commend all the authors who devoted much of 

3 their time -- their own time -- to putting 

4 these articles together. In particular I'd 

5 like to highlight the contribution of Dr. Dade 

6 Moeller, who really helped in shepherding this 

7 -- this through the process of getting an issue 

8 of this magnitude put together. Those of you 

9 who've published articles know it's an arduous 

10 process to get them published, a lot of back11 and-forth getting things through the editorial 

12 process, and -- and this was sort of magnified 

13 by 15 times. We were trying to get these all 

14 out at the same time and get people's time 

15 commitments organized and on target, and we 

16 came pretty close to our target date of getting 

17 this out, so I'm pretty proud of what this team 

18 has accomplished. 

19 Just for your reference -- now that you have 

20 it, this is sort of redundant -- but this is a 

21 copy of the cover that came out. I was worried 

22 it might not be out in time for the meeting so 

23 I just gave you a snapshot of the cover. 

24 You'll see that we chose to put the flow 

25 diagram of the efficiency process on there 
60

1 because we think this is part and parcel of our 

2 program, how it's -- how it's operated and how 

3 it's actually gained us the efficiencies to be 

4 able to process the number of cases that -- 

5 that Larry Elliott just mentioned. We couldn't 

6 have done the 20-something -- or almost 20,000 

7 dose reconstructions without having this 

8 process in place. And it's somewhat unique to 

9 the NIOSH program where we have a binary 

10 decision, 50 percent or greater or less than 50 

11 percent, unlike some other programs on a global 

12 basis that have a sort of a sliding scale that 

13 require full-blown dose reconstructions for 

14 each -- each case. 

15 The issue is broken into four major sections, 

16 as you'll see if you get to look at a copy of 

17 it. There's a program background; as you can 

18 imagine, it provides the overview of the 

19 program, the management issues associated with 

20 such a large undertaking. There's an issue of 

21 -- it deals with the Advisory Board, authored 

22 by Dr. Ziemer. And there's a paper on the 

23 scientific issues that we had to deal with in 

24 the dose reconstruction program, the large 

25 number of issues related to the demographics 
61

1 and the biokinetic models and the 

2 Hiroshima/Nagasaki survivors in relationship to 

3 occupational exposures -- those sort of things. 

4 Data collection supporting studies are in 

5 there. We felt it was important to talk about 

6 the collection and validation of the data that 

7 we've done, and also what the role of site 

8 profiles was, how they were envisioned and what 

9 they ended up being and how we've actually 

10 developed some of those. 

11 And then in the third section you see dose 

12 reconstruction. That's sort of the nuts and 

13 bolts of the issues, which you can imagine -- 

14 we talk about the internal/external dosimetry 

15 reconstruction, environmental, medical. And 

16 there's a paper in there that deals with 

17 bounding analyses in the efficiency process, 

18 how we use that to our advantage, and I think 

19 that particular example is related to the 

20 thorium work at Rocky Flats. 

21 And finally there's a section devoted to the 

22 probability of causation model IREP that, to my 

23 knowledge or my thinking, is probably the best 

24 -- the best peer-reviewed publication on IREP 

25 to date that's out there. It goes into -- it's 
62

1 fairly extensive. It takes up a good chunk of 

2 the Journal, but it's the only place that I'm 

3 aware of that presents all of the nuances and 

4 ins and outs of what IREP is about, not only 

5 the National Institute of Health version of 

6 IREP but the NIOSH version of IREP and how 

7 there are differences. 

8 I've kind of gone over this, but this just 

9 highlights some of the specific issues that we 

10 felt were important to include in this issue -- 

11 the efficiency process, data hierarchy -- all 

12 of these things are included -- either 

13 specifically addressed in our regulations on 

14 how we do dose reconstructions, or covered in 

15 some way, shape or form in the Implementation 

16 Guides. So these are all in some way discussed 

17 in some detail in the -- in the special 

18 edition. 

19 One thing I did fail to mention -- well, let's 

20 see, maybe -- oh, no, I didn't, it's coming up. 

21 Why did we want to publish this; what were the 

22 perceived benefits of getting this out into the 

23 open literature? And one thing we felt was 

24 extremely important was that these articles 

25 would get an independent review of the science 
63

1 behind the dose reconstructions. That is, we 

2 didn't ask any special favors of the Health 

3 Physics Journal. We submitted these and they 

4 were subjected to the standard blind review 

5 process where the Journal would select blind 

6 reviewers, they would comment, and then we'd 

7 have to negotiate those comments back and forth 

8 until there was general agreement among the 

9 parties. So an independent review of the 

10 science gave us a good feeling that these were 

11 not just NIOSH home-brewed science -- science 

12 concepts and methods, but they were -- also had 

13 some acceptance, at least in the general 

14 scientific population. 

15 It also helped us to provide citable references 

16 that could be used by others for our 

17 approaches. It's not uncommon that I get phone 

18 calls and e-mails from colleagues who say "I 

19 really like what you've done with the medical 

20 X-ray stuff, and yeah, you can find it on the 

21 web, but how are you going to find it down the 

22 line; how can I cite this in my publication?" 

23 Well, now it's out there. You know, the 

24 medical X-ray -- there's a paper on medical X25 rays that's out there. I get a lot of phone 
64

1 calls on IREP, so that's citable now. And even 

2 some of the other issues about data capture and 

3 development of site profiles, that sort of 

4 thing. So it's citable references that can be 

5 used by the general public. 

6 This is somewhat redundant to the previous 

7 bullet I just talked about, but we believe that 

8 it adds to the global scientific body of 

9 information on dose reconstruction. We've done 

10 a lot of work here. We've published thousands 

11 of pages of technical documents. It's out 

12 there now for -- for historical purposes and 

13 there are a number of other programs worldwide 

14 -- there's global programs on dose 

15 reconstructions that are being formed every day 

16 -- not every day; routinely. I mean I was just 

17 at a conference out in Colorado where there's a 

18 number of countries that are interested in 

19 looking at what we've done and adapting it for 

20 their specific uses. So we feel it's good to 

21 have it out there for their use in the open 

22 literature. 

23 And lastly, I think it's important that it 

24 assists with communication to the stakeholders 

25 on the scientific issues. It would be directly 
65

1 relevant to those stakeholders who are 

2 scientifically oriented, but even for those who 

3 aren't, I think -- we hope that it would convey 

4 a general sense that these things have been 

5 peer reviewed and it's not just, again, NIOSH 

6 home-brewed science, scientific concepts, but 

7 it is -- has been at least accepted by some 

8 peer reviewers that are colleagues of ours in 

9 the scientific arena. 

10 We didn't want to hide this publication when it 

11 came out. We thought it would be important to 

12 let the world know a little bit about it, so 

13 prior to the release we had developed a 

14 communication strategy. We have purchased 500 

15 copies for distribution, of course 12 of which 

16 have been distributed to the Advisory Board. 

17 But we intended to provide them to Board 

18 members, we have a lot of interest from various 

19 Congressional offices who might have some 

20 interest in looking at what we've done, 

21 stakeholder requests, those sort of things. So 

22 we have copies available for distribution for 

23 those who -- who would like some. 

24 We've also developed talking points for our 

25 staff, particularly our Public Health Advisors 
66

1 who may get phone calls. Word does get around 

2 in this compensation program and we prepared 

3 our -- we prepared for our Public Health 

4 Advisors to be able to discuss -- you know, 

5 what does this really mean, what is -- why is 

6 NIOSH putting this out, what does it mean to my 

7 case specifically, that sort of thing. 

8 We're also in the process of issuing a press 

9 release to notify folks that it's there so they 

10 can find it. And we are going to put it on our 

11 web site -- not -- we can't put the 

12 publication, for copyright reasons, on the web 

13 site. But we're going to notice that it has 

14 been published. It's on our web site with a 

15 summary of the contents and where one might be 

16 able to get additional information, reprints or 

17 entire copies of Journal. 

18 So that's it in a nutshell. I'd be happy to 

19 answer any questions, if there are any. Thank 

20 you. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much, Jim. 

22 We appreciate that summary. Larry, you have a 

23 comment here? 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: I just want to emphasize for the 

25 audience and for anybody listening -- anybody 
67

1 that reads this transcript -- Jim mentioned 

2 this but I want to highlight it. The 

3 contributing authors to this journal worked on 

4 their articles on their own time. They did not 

5 take time away from dose reconstruction efforts 

6 or site profile development, Advisory Board 

7 support, and I commend them for that. But that 

8 was one of the ground rules that we set at the 

9 very start of this, that we will not sacrifice 

10 our work for the claimants just to get this 

11 thing out. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, good point. John 

13 Poston? 

14 DR. POSTON: Well, I'd like to stick my oar in. 

15 I think this is a great thing and I commend 

16 NIOSH and ORAU for doing this 'cause, as Jim 

17 said, it's nice to have this in the citable 

18 literature so that scientists can use it all 

19 around the world. I think it's a great thing. 

20 DR. ZIEMER: I think one good example of how 

21 some of the work is beginning to get noticed is 

22 -- and maybe, Larry, you can comment on this -- 

23 but my understanding is now that ICRP is 

24 looking at formally modeling the class -- or 

25 the super S plutonium modeling. 
68

1 DR. BRANCHE: What is ICRP? 

2 DR. ZIEMER: International Commission on 

3 Radiological Protection. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, they are, and they are also 

6 engaged in several committee work on this -- 

7 relative to aspects of this program. Jim, as 

8 associate director for science in OCAS, serves 

9 on -- to advise on one of those committees and 

10 your work is on -- remind me, Jim, it's on -- 

11 DR. NETON: I'm on an NCRP committee. 

12 MR. ELLIOTT: NCRP, I'm sorry, that's NCRP, but 

13 -- 

14 DR. NETON: I'd like to be on the ICRP, but 

15 NCRP is fine. 

16 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, we also -- we're also 

17 working with -- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: NCRP, for the record -- 

19 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that's what I meant to -- 

20 DR. ZIEMER: -- is National Council on 

21 Radiation Protection and Measurements. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, we're working with the NCRP 

23 on several committee efforts. Jim's on one, 

24 but we're also just about ready to commission 

25 the NCRP to establish a committee that will 
69

1 evaluate the IREP in great detail. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Any additional comments or 

3 questions for Jim? 

4 (No responses) 

5 Thank you. 

6 (Pause) 

7 BOARD INTERACTIONS WITH CONGRESS

8 Okay. Again I -- I'm pulling another item from 

9 tomorrow's agenda, and that has to do with 

10 Board interactions with Congress. And Jason 

11 Broehm is here and he's -- he's our subject 

12 expert on interactions with Congress. Jason, 

13 welcome. Thank you for being willing to jump 

14 ahead. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Actually if I can embellish, Mr. 

16 Broehm is -- works in the CDC Washington 

17 office, which he'll explain in a moment, and 

18 he's an attorney working with our Congressional 

19 liaisons and we work primarily with him in that 

20 regard. 

21 MR. BROEHM: I'm -- I'm not an IT expert so I 

22 might need some help here getting my 

23 presentation loaded onto the laptop here. 

24 (Pause) 

25 DR. BRANCHE: No, you don't -- there is no 
70

1 PowerPoint in your -- in your group from this -

2 - for this next group. 

3 (Pause) 

4 MR. BROEHM: Okay. Like Jim Neton, I was 

5 expecting to give this presentation tomorrow, 

6 so thank you for your patience as I loaded my 

7 presentation here. Most of you know me on the 

8 Board. I'm Jason Broehm. I work in the CDC 

9 Washington office, which does Congressional 

10 relations for all of CDC -- I handle NIOSH. In 

11 my -- I think now about three years of working 

12 on this program, I know that periodically we've 

13 had Congressional requests. Many of you have 

14 interacted in various ways with Congressional 

15 staff, and we just thought it would be helpful 

16 to sort of provide the overall -- some 

17 background, some framework for, you know, what 

18 is -- what is Congress, what does it do, what 

19 does it need from you. And then -- I don't 

20 think a presentation like this has been given 

21 before, so... 

22 Anyways, as a -- as an overview just quickly, 

23 I'd like to -- in this presentation provide you 

24 with some background on Congress, tell you a 

25 little bit about my role as CDC Washington 
71

1 office representative to -- to NIOSH and to the 

2 Board, and then discuss the policies governing 

3 the Advisory Board and SC&A interactions with 

4 Congress. 

5 So I'd like to start off with a quick civics 

6 lesson -- not to insult anyone's intelligence 

7 here, but just to sort of provide the framework 

8 for where I'm going. As we all know, and I 

9 think learned in elementary school, we have 

10 three branches of government: The Executive 

11 Branch, for which we work; the Legislative 

12 Branch, which is obviously Congress; and then 

13 the Judicial Branch, the Supreme Court and the 

14 court system, which I'm not going to talk about 

15 today but it certainly is an important part of 

16 our government. These are three co-equal 

17 branches that were set up in our Constitution, 

18 and each one was supposed to provide some 

19 checks and balances on the others. 

20 So in our case, working in the Legisla-- or I'm 

21 sorry, in the Executive Branch, we're the 

22 federal agencies that are implementing the 

23 programs that the government runs and 

24 administering programs like EEOICPA. And then 

25 Congress and the Legislative Branch is 
72

1 providing a number of important roles that 

2 interact with the -- with the Executive Branch 

3 agencies like HHS. 

4 So quickly, the roles of Congress in this 

5 program are -- first of all, Congress passed 

6 the legislation that authorized this program to 

7 exist. That happened back in 2000. Several 

8 years later it was amended to tweak the law a 

9 little bit, add some new requirements. 

10 The other role that Congress has is annually 

11 they appropriate the funds that pay for this 

12 Advisory Board, for NIOSH to administer the 

13 program, for the Department of Labor to do 

14 their work, and obviously for the contractors 

15 who do their work in this program as well. It 

16 comes through that stream, so Congress does 

17 have that very fundamental and important role 

18 in this program. 

19 And very closely related to that, they conduct 

20 oversight of this program, and other programs 

21 across the government. The goal in that is to 

22 ensure efficiency, make sure things are running 

23 the way that they were established to run. And 

24 where necessary, to identify the problems that 

25 may exist and correct them based on sort of 
73

1 spotlighting or highlighting the issues and -- 

2 and in many cases putting the people who 

3 execute the program on the spot and making them 

4 motivated to -- to improve the program. 

5 So the -- the fourth function the Congress 

6 serves then I think a very, very important 

7 role, that we certainly can't underestimate, is 

8 the assistance they provide in helping our 

9 constituents who are claimants in this program 

10 or are otherwise interested in navigating this 

11 program, and advocating on their behalf. I 

12 know we have a number of people in that 

13 situation here today. I know some of -- some 

14 of -- certainly interacted with their members 

15 of Congress or their Senators or U.S. 

16 Representatives, and it's an important role. 

17 These claimants are voters. They elect the 

18 Senators and Representatives to -- to do this 

19 for them, so -- and these elected officials 

20 serve at their pleasure. If they don't do 

21 their job, then they may not be re-elected. So 

22 this is of the utmost importance in -- in their 

23 -- their role in helping the people who -- who 

24 they serve. 

25 You know, I know that you as Advisory Board 
74

1 members hear from unhappy claimants every 

2 several months when you have public comment 

3 session at one of your meetings. But just to 

4 help you understand where Congressional staff 

5 are coming from, they're probably hearing from 

6 these people on a daily basis, maybe weekly, 

7 but it's their job to intervene and do what 

8 they can to try to help the process along. 

9 So let me run through what Congress needs from 

10 -- from NIOSH, from the Advisory Board, really 

11 from any program that's run across this 

12 government. First and foremost is for the 

13 program to be well-run, make -- like I said 

14 earlier, to make thing-- make sure that things 

15 are working as they were designed to work; and 

16 where there are problems, to try to fix those. 

17 Next, and very important, is that Congress gets 

18 timely information and that that information is 

19 responsive to -- to what they've requested, as 

20 much as possible. Congress really operates on 

21 a different time horizon than -- than most 

22 bureaucracies do. Congress really works at a 

23 fast pace. Often if you don't get them the 

24 information within a few days or, you know, a 

25 week, they get impatient. They -- they need 
75

1 the information more quickly. So bureaucracies 

2 don't often respond at this -- at this fast 

3 pace, but certainly in my office our job is to 

4 try to help that to happen as -- as quickly as 

5 possible so that they can get the information 

6 they need and proceed with their jobs. 

7 So, you know, basically in preparation for 

8 these meetings I notify Congressional staff of 

9 the Board meetings, workgroup meetings, let 

10 them know, you know, when things are going to 

11 come up approximately. Obviously things move 

12 around, but try to keep them as informed as 

13 possible, share appropriate documents that come 

14 from the Advisory Board and SC&A, their 

15 contractor. 

16 And then, you know, to the extent that it's 

17 possible, one of the things that I'd like you 

18 to consider -- as workgroup chairs, in 

19 particular -- is when meetings are coming up it 

20 is helpful for them to have agendas. I know 

21 that that doesn't always happen with every 

22 workgroup meeting, but to the extent that you 

23 can have an agenda that's -- that's up on the 

24 web site in advance or even sent around a day 

25 or so in advance, I think that's helpful just 
76

1 so that staff who are very -- you know, keep 

2 very busy schedules can log onto the call, call 

3 in when -- when they have the time and sort of 

4 can plan their schedule accordingly. 

5 And then the documents that are related to 

6 their -- to the sites in question, obviously 

7 there are issues here with having to -- to do a 

8 lot of work, sort of a lot of this I know 

9 happens sort of at the last minute, then it has 

10 to go through a Privacy Act review which, you 

11 know, we all understand and have to work with. 

12 But to the extent that you can sort of plan 

13 backward, whether it's, you know, the Board, 

14 SC&A, NIOSH, their contractors, and build in 

15 the time for the review before the meeting, 

16 it's helpful to have those things in -- in 

17 their hands. In particular I think for a lot 

18 of these workgroup meetings the matrices, these 

19 documents sort of lay out the issues that will 

20 be discussed in the call. I for one, you know, 

21 have been listening to these calls for several 

22 years now and -- and still a lot of this just 

23 flies right over my head. But if you can 

24 imagine a Congressional staff person, many of 

25 whom are -- are young and don't have a 
77

1 technical background, it's helpful to sort of 

2 walk through the issues and at least have 

3 something on paper to guide where the Board is 

4 going. So I would just say that, as much as 

5 possible, please take that into consideration 

6 and help them go through this process with you. 

7 So my office, the CDC Washington office, as I 

8 mentioned earlier, provides Congressional 

9 relations support for the whole CDC. What we 

10 really do is sort of a -- sort of a liaison 

11 role across CDC with those in the Department of 

12 Health and Human Services who we need to 

13 coordinate with, and then with Congress. Our 

14 job really is to inform Congress of CDC 

15 programs and activities, answer questions as 

16 they come up. We coordinate any requests for 

17 information from Congress. That could take the 

18 form of a very simple question that comes up 

19 and -- or helping provide information or a 

20 status report on a claim for one of their 

21 constituents, or it could involve coordinating 

22 a briefing to provide information at the staff 

23 level, or a -- preparing a witness to testify 

24 before Congress at a formal hearing. 

25 So I, along with Christine Branche as the 
78

1 Designated Federal Official, we're here to -- 

2 to serve as a resource to help answer questions 

3 as they come up and to advise you on how to 

4 interact successfully with Congress. And my 

5 contact information will be at the end, and 

6 certainly you know very well Christine's 

7 contact information, but any time you have 

8 questions I would encourage you to reach out to 

9 her and to me and -- and we can help. 

10 So as a preface to this next section which is 

11 talking about the policies and guidelines that 

12 we operate under, I just wanted to say that 

13 Congress serves a very important role in this 

14 program and should have access to the Advisory 

15 Board members and to the Board's technical 

16 support contractor, Sanford Cohen & Associates. 

17 So there are sort of two paths that we can go 

18 down, in particular for Board members, for how 

19 those interactions occur. I would just sort of 

20 say, as a starting point, the presumption is 

21 that federal employees who speak with Congress 

22 do so in their official capacity. You know, if 

23 -- if an agency official is asked to provide a 

24 briefing on something, we have to go through 

25 certain channels of just informing the right 
79

1 people, letting them know -- in some cases, you 

2 know, tweaks are made, additional people are 

3 asked to -- to sit in. But the Advisory Board 

4 really is sort of a special case and you are 

5 special government employees so you are part6 time or not -- not full-time employees in the 

7 sense of working 40 hours a week but I know you 

8 do put in long hours. But the role of the 

9 Board to provide sort of a -- an outside 

10 independent voice and -- and review to -- to 

11 NIOSH's science is something that, you know, 

12 certainly in some cases it may -- may serve 

13 Congress better to -- to have those discussions 

14 without HHS administration officials present, 

15 except for the Board members. And so that -- 

16 that can happen, but basically in order for an 

17 Advisory Board member to speak with Congress in 

18 -- in your official capacity as a member of the 

19 Advisory Board and a special government 

20 employee, you need to follow certain HHS 

21 procedures for agency communications with 

22 Congress. 

23 Having said that, though, of course Advisory 

24 Board members may speak with Congress as a 

25 private citizen, providing a different -- 
80

1 perhaps different inputs and -- and voice, but 

2 as I said earlier, the Designated Federal 

3 Official and I and my office stand ready to 

4 advise and assist you as Congressional requests 

5 are received and -- and each one is treated 

6 somewhat differently. 

7 So first for appearing as an Advisory Board 

8 member, you -- you may speak with Congress in 

9 your official capacity following the following 

10 rules. When an Advisory Board member receives 

11 a request to speak with Congress, he or she 

12 should alert the Designated Federal Official, 

13 who will familiarize you with the process and 

14 coordinate with me in my office and make the 

15 necessary arrangements to -- to move forward 

16 with -- with whatever's needed. Any written 

17 document, whether it's, you know, a single page 

18 briefing document that you plan to hand out, or 

19 something that's longer and -- and more 

20 involved, like hearing testimony, an advisory 

21 member needs to share that in advance, and it 

22 has to go through a certain clearance process 

23 within CDC -- well, NIOSH, CDC and HHS. In 

24 particular with -- with a hearing, these are 

25 more involved and more formalized. Those types 
81

1 of statements, if you're appearing as an 

2 Advisory Board member in that capacity, 

3 typically what happens is those are cleared at 

4 several levels, including -- starting at the 

5 NIOSH and -- and/or CDC level. Then it has to 

6 go through an HHS clearance process which goes 

7 across the various policy offices of HHS. 

8 People have a chance to review and comment and 

9 suggest changes. And then the Office of 

10 Management and Budget serves a coordinating 

11 role across the whole of the federal 

12 government, so testimony in those cases would 

13 be circulated to our counterparts in the 

14 Department of Labor. They would have a chance 

15 to comment and -- and provide input on that 

16 testimony as well. 

17 Now not every document is that sort of reaching 

18 in scope in terms of the review. Most -- in 

19 most cases a simple one- or two-page document 

20 will go through a fairly abbreviated clearance, 

21 but it is important to have that reviewed in 

22 advance. 

23 And then if you appear in this capacity, an HHS 

24 representative -- myself, perhaps others -- 

25 would -- would appear with you and -- and 
82

1 accompany you and get you to the right place at 

2 the right time. Then any -- any follow-up 

3 information that's requested during the meeting 

4 would have to go through the same -- the same 

5 clearance and review process as that that was 

6 prepared in advance. 

7 So then the other path is appearing as a 

8 private citizen. And when speaking with 

9 Congress as a private citizen an Advisory Board 

10 member really needs to make clear, whether it's 

11 in written or oral communications, that he or 

12 she -- that you are speaking on your own behalf 

13 and not in your capacity as an Advisory Board 

14 member, just need to -- need to make that 

15 clear. 

16 And then Advisory Board members need to be 

17 aware that in this capacity as a private 

18 citizen you shouldn't be offering information 

19 or opinions about the Advisory Board or other 

20 government actions, particularly those that are 

21 not public information. Advisory Board members 

22 of course I know are constantly reminded by Dr. 

23 Branche and others that no information should 

24 be released, no documents should be released 

25 before consulting with her to be sure that it's 
83

1 gone through the Privacy Act review that's -- 

2 that's necessary to protect individuals' 

3 information that shouldn't be shared publicly. 

4 And then finally, Advisory Board members should 

5 not speak to an opinion or position of the 

6 Board unless the Advisory Board has taken a 

7 formal and publicly-approved position in 

8 accordance with your procedures. 

9 So sort of related to this then is meetings 

10 that Congress has typically or periodically 

11 requested of your contractor, Sanford Cohen & 

12 Associates. As we know, they do much of the 

13 technical work that supports -- supports your 

14 function, and this work and these -- these work 

15 products are of keen interest to members of 

16 Congress and their staff. And so under the 

17 Board's procedures that have been discussed at 

18 previous meetings, Congressional offices may 

19 speak with SC&A, with or without members of the 

20 Advisory Board present. We basically leave 

21 that up to the Congressional offices. If they 

22 wish to have the meeting with -- with SC&A 

23 representatives and not invite a Board member, 

24 that is -- is their prerogative. We in the 

25 Executive Branch sometimes do have 
84

1 disagreements with Congress, but we generally 

2 try to provide information that they need to -- 

3 to serve their role in this process. And so 

4 we've -- we've generally provided that access 

5 when it's been requested. 

6 So as with an Advisory Board member appearing 

7 in -- in their private citizen capacity, SC&A 

8 representatives need to speak in that same role 

9 and not provide opinions about what the Board 

10 is doing or might do or should do. And then 

11 the SC&A representatives need to make clear to 

12 all parties that they are appearing as 

13 employees of a private company, that they are 

14 providing their own private opinion and don't 

15 represent the positions of the Advisory Board 

16 or the -- or of HHS. 

17 And then of course the same proviso, any 

18 documents need to be pre-cleared and make sure 

19 that -- that they've checked with -- with Dr. 

20 Branche to make sure that the Privacy Act 

21 review has been done and that those documents 

22 are cleared for release before they're shared. 

23 And then I would just add -- you know, 

24 typically government contractors don't do 

25 briefings for Congress. They're sort of 
85

1 providing a support role to the government, and 

2 the government officials would do the briefing, 

3 occasionally would have a contractor with them 

4 to provide a supporting role. But again, as 

5 sort of the special case that -- that the 

6 Advisory Board has here in terms of providing a 

7 -- an independent outside review on NIOSH's 

8 science, the -- that's -- the role of SC&A in 

9 this process also is to provide that outside 

10 scientific voice and we don't want to get in 

11 the way in terms of even just providing the 

12 appearance of somehow influencing what they -- 

13 what they say, just by virtue of being in the 

14 room. And so it has been the policy to treat 

15 SC&A as a special case and unique and different 

16 from -- from most other government contractors. 

17 So that completes what I -- what I had to say 

18 to you. I'd be happy to take any questions you 

19 may have and -- 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Before you do, I -- 

21 MR. BROEHM: Yes? 

22 DR. BRANCHE: -- have a couple of -- a proviso 

23 and some additional information for you, and 

24 then please ask -- this is a good opportunity 

25 for you to ask as many questions as you wish of 
86

1 Jason and me and -- as our -- as Jason has 

2 explained this information. 

3 As it concerns the written documents and so 

4 forth if you were to appear before Congress -- 

5 if you were to be asked to appear before 

6 Congress in your capacity as an Advisory Board 

7 member, understand you're representing the 

8 Executive Branch then speaking to the 

9 Legislative Branch of government. You can't 

10 ask for forgiveness. There are -- this is your 

11 -- this is your chance to know that this is the 

12 way the procedure is. So to ask for 

13 forgiveness later because you did something in 

14 a completely -- it would be considered 

15 completely inappropriate. You must have all 

16 part of your testimony -- proposed testimony 

17 cleared by all the levels that Jason just 

18 explained. 

19 And Jason, if you can put your slide back up 

20 about appearing as a private citizen -- and I 

21 will ask Jason to send this PowerPoint slide to 

22 me so that we can get this to you. Actually -- 

23 MR. BROEHM: And I would just say that Zaida 

24 was -- does have the slides on paper and was 

25 preparing to copy them for tomorrow, but -- 
87

1 DR. BRANCHE: Okay. 

2 MR. BROEHM: -- we got -- got ahead of her. 

3 DR. BRANCHE: But I think it's fine for them to 

4 have them electronically. 

5 MR. BROEHM: Yes, we'll get it to -- 

6 DR. BRANCHE: I think it'll be more helpful to 

7 you. There's some provisos here that I think 

8 are important and I would substitute the word 

9 "Congress" with "the press." When you -- many 

10 of you interact with the press as it concerns 

11 spe-- specifically as it concerns certain sites 

12 for which you serve as a workgroup chair. You 

13 would be speaking as a private citizen to the 

14 press. You'd ha-- I -- I would ask that you 

15 make it very clear that you are speaking as a 

16 private citizen. You would not be speaking on 

17 behalf of the Board. Anything that you would 

18 say to the press on behalf of the Board would 

19 then have to follow the information that's in 

20 Jason's fourth bullet, information that has 

21 been formally and publicly approved by the 

22 entire Board. 

23 I have personally been misquoted by the press. 

24 It is possible to be misquoted by the press, 

25 but I'm not saying that they purposefully do 
88

1 anything wrong, but I think it's always 

2 important that you do your part to make certain 

3 that they understand that you're speaking as a 

4 private citizen and not as a Board member. 

5 And with those provisos, I turn it back to 

6 Jason to be able to put your last slide back 

7 up, and I know that you have several questions. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the last slide asks for 

9 questions, so if Board members have questions 

10 for Mr. Broehm, this is the time. I think John 

11 Poston was first, and then we'll go to Mark. 

12 DR. POSTON: I don't have a question for Jason. 

13 I do have a comment. We've talked about this 

14 before. It -- you know, SCA is a contractor 

15 who works under the direction of the Board -- 

16 this Advisory Board. We establish the tasks 

17 that they're going to work on and so forth. 

18 And I just want to say that I find the 

19 differences between the rules for the Board and 

20 the rules for SCA not only ludicrous but 

21 hilarious. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

23 MR. GRIFFON: I was -- I was waiting for maybe 

24 a response about that, I don't know if there is 

25 any response. 
89

1 DR. ZIEMER: Jason -- 

2 MR. GRIFFON: I know it wasn't really a 

3 question, but -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: -- were you planning to respond to 

5 that? 

6 MR. BROEHM: Well, I know that the Board has 

7 debated this in the past, and I believe has a 

8 written policy that's -- that's been passed, 

9 and so I guess that's what I would say to that. 

10 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that -- that was my 

12 question, and maybe we do, but you -- you 

13 mentioned that this has been procedure, and we 

14 do have an internal procedure on this that 

15 covers those bullets? 'Cause I was trying to 

16 follow your -- all those bullets and -- 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Well, basically -- 

18 MR. GRIFFON: I was also comparing SC&A versus 

19 the Board in my head, but I don't have -- you 

20 know, I wondered if we have -- 

21 DR. BRANCHE: It was news to me -- 

22 MR. GRIFFON: -- a written policy or -- 

23 DR. BRANCHE: I was told that -- 

24 DR. ZIEMER: Well, early on -- 

25 DR. BRANCHE: -- there was policy -- 
90

1 DR. ZIEMER: -- we had a policy written that 

2 said that the Board -- the Board preferred to 

3 be present at meetings where Congress called on 

4 our contractor to give them information. 

5 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: But we also recognized, based on 

7 advice from perhaps your office or at least 

8 from the Secretary's office, that we can't 

9 dictate -- Congressional offices can call on 

10 whoever they want to get information and you 

11 cannot invite yourself into their office, so -- 

12 MR. BROEHM: Right, and that's -- yeah, so I'll 

13 clarify that a little bit. The -- when a 

14 request comes for a briefing by SC&A, as I 

15 understand it, they are then supposed to report 

16 that to Dr. Branche and to you, Dr. Ziemer, I 

17 believe. That then gets -- sort of makes its 

18 rounds to the rest of the Board members. If 

19 there is one, or maybe there are more Board 

20 members, who would like to participate, that 

21 offer may be transmitted to the Congressional 

22 office that's requesting the briefing. They 

23 may say fine, any and all comers, we'd be happy 

24 to have them. They may not. And just getting 

25 back to the sort of Government 101 slide in the 
91

1 beginning of my presentation, we are two 

2 different branches of government with two 

3 different needs, and Congress does serve an 

4 important role in this program. If they want 

5 to invite certain people and not other people, 

6 we -- we don't want to get in the way and so 

7 that's -- that's the procedure we've been 

8 proceeding under. 

9 DR. BRANCHE: If I can just for -- just for -- 

10 in my very short experience, every time SC&A 

11 has been asked to respond to a Congressional 

12 inquiry or participate in a meeting, we've 

13 asked if the Board member -- if a Board member 

14 can be present, and that has always been 

15 honored. And they've even gone to the bother 

16 of setting up a conference line so that you can 

17 participate by phone. So Jason, my question 

18 is, in your experience has there ever been a 

19 circumstance where the Congressional member did 

20 not wish to have a Board member participate? 

21 Okay, I'm being told oh, yes, okay. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Early on there were a number -- 

23 MR. BROEHM: I believe there may be one or two 

24 cases, but I think it's probably more the 

25 exception than the rule. I think generally the 
92

1 Congressional staff would be happy to hear from 

2 the different voices who -- both from the Board 

3 and from SC&A in such a briefing. 

4 DR. POSTON: Dr. Ziemer, I would request -- 

5 since there are at least five new members of 

6 the Board and a new Designated Federal Official 

7 -- that if there is such a policy that it be 

8 distributed to us so we can understand it. I'm 

9 -- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I agree. 

11 DR. POSTON: -- I've taken a poll of the folks 

12 that are here that I can speak to and I know 

13 that none of us have seen such a policy, or 

14 none of us was aware of such a policy. 

15 MR. GRIFFON: Well, and speaking as an older 

16 member of the Board, I -- I don't -- I remember 

17 the discussion about the one issue there, you 

18 know, as far as attending meetings with 

19 Congress. But I don't remember this being 

20 detailed in a policy -- 

21 MR. PRESLEY: -- this detailed. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: -- information about when you can 

23 provide -- and I've had these discussions with 

24 several -- I've had them with Christine, I've 

25 had them with Lew Wade about providing opinion, 
93

1 especially as it related to the press, but I've 

2 never seen, you know, these detailed bullet 

3 points laid out this way and I -- I think, if 

4 it is proceduralized, I'd -- I'd like to see it 

5 as well. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm not talking about these 

7 bullet points. I'm only talking about -- 

8 MR. GRIFFON: The one -- 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- the presence of the Board in a 

10 -- 

11 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: -- Congressional request to SC&A. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: But I mean -- then all this other 

14 stuff -- 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Right, but as far as the -- 

16 MR. GRIFFON: -- is this a non-- is this a 

17 proc-- 

18 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that one issue. 

19 MR. GRIFFON: -- this a policy being -- 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Well, there's several people 

21 speaking at once, I'm -- 

22 MR. GRIFFON: Sorry. I'm asking it -- if all 

23 these things in -- are they a policy from the 

24 agency? 

25 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, the other -- 
94

1 MR. GRIFFON: And is there -- and is there a 

2 policy document -- other than just overheads 

3 with bullet points? 

4 MR. BROEHM: Yeah, I don't think that -- 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Yes. 

6 MR. BROEHM: -- there is a policy document that 

7 states all of this, that I've ever seen. But 

8 it's the operating procedures that we as a 

9 federal agency, and I think most other federal 

10 agencies, follow as parts of the 

11 administration, that you go through these 

12 clearance processes if you are a federal 

13 employee. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: Well -- 

15 MR. GRIFFON: So when we -- when we -- as Board 

16 members, if we act -- and I've always -- in my 

17 communications I always say I'm -- I'm speaking 

18 to you as a member -- as a -- as a member of 

19 the public, not for the Advisory Board, not for 

20 the working group, but -- but would -- would 

21 SC&A and the Board members be treated the same 

22 under your policy in that regard? Like if you 

23 speak to Congress or the press as a member of 

24 the public, same rules apply kind of thing, or 

25 -- or not? 
95

1 MR. BROEHM: Yes, if you're speaking as a 

2 private citizen, I think basically the same 

3 rules apply. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: As far as the policy issues, I 

5 can't speak for any other Department, but let's 

6 go back to the clearance issues if you're 

7 speaking as a member of the Board and were 

8 asked specifically in that capacity, all of the 

9 things that Jason explained as far as procedure 

10 -- I can't speak for any other Department. I 

11 do know that the levels of clearance and so 

12 forth apply to the Department of Health and 

13 Human Services. I'm not aware that those are 

14 written, but those are the procedures that 

15 every employee is expected to do. And again, 

16 this distinction between the role as a private 

17 citizen and that as a member officially of the 

18 Board, that's the distinction that I think is 

19 important. And I know that, as I said, many of 

20 you have been I know interacting with the 

21 press. You've made a point to say that you're 

22 speaking as a private citizen. My suggestion 

23 is that you can't over-emphasize that point, 

24 because some of you have been misquoted as 

25 having spoken on behalf of the Board when you 
96

1 did not. 

2 MR. GRIFFON: But -- but even -- even with that 

3 said, I -- I mean I would really like a hard 

4 copy, and I know you were preparing for 

5 tomorrow, but -- because I think there -- there 

6 was one bullet point up there that said as a 

7 private citizen you couldn't given an opinion 

8 on -- 

9 DR. BRANCHE: Can you put that back up? 

10 MR. GRIFFON: -- a Board matter or -- and -- 

11 and I don't know, there's some nuance in there 

12 that I want to understand. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Yes, it's the -- it's the -- 

14 MR. GRIFFON: So -- 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Is it the second or the third 

16 bullet to which you're referring? 

17 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) one, but that 

18 means as in a -- as a Board member, not as a 

19 private citizen. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, this -- 

21 MR. GRIFFON: All right. And where -- where 

22 does it talk about us speaking as a private 

23 citizen? Is that on the next slide? 

24 DR. BRANCHE: All of that applies to you 

25 speaking as a private citizen. 
97

1 MR. GRIFFON: So that second bullet applies 

2 speaking as a private citizen? I can't offer 

3 information or opinions about the Board or -- 

4 or government actions? I mean why do they want 

5 to talk to me as a -- as a private citizen if 

6 they don't want some information? I think -- 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Well, you have expertise that -- 

8 that brings you to a mem-- as a member of the 

9 Board. You have experti-- 

10 MR. GRIFFON: Well -- well, then -- then 

11 compare that to the SC&A bullet on private 

12 citizen. It said that Congress may seek them 

13 out for their opinion. I don't know, I just 

14 want to understand this better, I guess, before 

15 I speak to other people. 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Yeah, we -- that -- this is your 

17 opportunity to clarify that. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: I believe what this is saying is 

19 if they ask you what the Board's position is on 

20 something -- for example, what's the Board's 

21 position on -- I don't know, let's pick one out 

22 -- Dow Chemical, Madison. Until the Board 

23 takes such a position, you cannot -- 

24 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I agree. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 
98

1 MR. GRIFFON: But it wasn't -- 

2 DR. ZIEMER: They could -- they could ask what 

3 a -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: -- Board's position. It says -- 

5 if you can read that again -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm -- 

7 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just worried about the words, 

8 you see what I'm saying? If this is a policy 

9 document, these overheads are now a policy, I 

10 want to understand them. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: It was on the other -- 

12 MR. GRIFFON: Back to SC&A, yeah. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: -- on the other slide. 

14 DR. BRANCHE: It was the one appearing as a 

15 private citizen. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: The private citizen slide. 

17 MR. GRIFFON: About -- about Advisory Board or 

18 other government actions. 

19 MR. BROEHM: That are -- that are not public 

20 information. 

21 MR. GRIFFON: That are not public informa-- 

22 okay, so it's -- okay. 

23 MS. MUNN: If they're already public 

24 information, if they're already out there, then 

25 it does not appear that there's any caveat 
99

1 other than that we make certain we're quoted as 

2 private citizens and not -- 

3 MR. GRIFFON: I'm reading through it, that's 

4 why I wanted a hard copy, that's -- 

5 DR. ZIEMER: No, you could say that the Board 

6 has taken -- 

7 MR. BROEHM: Yeah, and I'm sorry you don't have 

8 that in your hands. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- this position on something 

10 where -- where the action is public. 

11 MS. MUNN: And can even say you disagree with 

12 it, as a private citizen. 

13 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, I can say -- yeah. 

14 MS. MUNN: But -- yeah. 

15 MR. BROEHM: Are there other questions? 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Brad has a question. 

17 MR. CLAWSON: You were mentioning that if we're 

18 called in there to talk to Congress, that we're 

19 supposed to submit to you what we're going to 

20 say. And any time in the past that I've ever 

21 talked to them, I don't know what they're going 

22 to ask so how am I supposed to submit what I 

23 don't know? 

24 DR. BRANCHE: He's talking about panel 

25 presentations if you were being asked to 
100

1 testify. 

2 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. Now -- 

3 MR. BROEHM: If -- if you are speaking from 

4 notes that you're not handing out, you don't 

5 need to clear that, although you should -- if 

6 you're speaking in your capacity as a Board 

7 member -- review that with -- with Christine 

8 Branche and go through -- go through those 

9 points in advance. But if you're not handing 

10 those out as -- as PowerPoint slides or a one11 page handout to leave behind, you don't need to 

12 go through the whole clearance process that I 

13 described. It's a little bit more formalized. 

14 And then when speaking of testimony, that sort 

15 of takes it to the next level. That's -- 

16 that's where you go through a long -- weeks17 long process, in some cases, of reviewing at 

18 the varied levels and having comments 

19 submitted. 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: But I -- 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Larry Elliott. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I think it's well-advised that 

23 if you walk in with notes, you better expect 

24 that they're going to want a copy. At least 

25 that's been my experience. 
101

1 MR. CLAWSON: So -- 

2 MR. BROEHM: It depends -- it depends what 

3 those notes look like. If you have just 

4 handwritten notes, it's one thing. If you go 

5 in with a full PowerPoint presentation that 

6 you're just using on -- for yourself, they may 

7 say "Oh, can I have a copy of that?" 

8 MR. CLAWSON: So you're telling me just -- 

9 MR. BROEHM: So you need to be prepared for 

10 that. 

11 DR. BRANCHE: And then it needs to have been 

12 cleared. 

13 DR. ZIEMER: Brad? 

14 MR. CLAWSON: So you're -- you're telling me 

15 just shoot from the hip and enjoy it, 

16 basically, huh? You know, it's very, very 

17 interesting to me that we have so many 

18 different policies for so many different 

19 groups. I understand the importance of not 

20 representing the Board or anything else like 

21 that, but why -- why would a member of the 

22 Congress or whatever else want to talk to us 

23 but to be able to gain our opinion? And it -- 

24 it's interesting to me and I realize that 

25 they're calling SC&A in to talk to them about 
102

1 the Board, but they have a totally different -- 

2 a totally different process to be able to go 

3 through. It's -- it's -- well, it's -- it's 

4 the government, I guess. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Phil? 

6 MR. SCHOFIELD: I've got one concern, and 

7 that's where some Congressional office contacts 

8 you out of the blue and has particular 

9 questions, maybe about a certain workgroup or 

10 issue that's coming up, and wants to know where 

11 you're headed on that where -- you know, I'd 

12 like a little more clarification on that. Do 

13 we stall for time or... 

14 MR. BROEHM: Well, you know, that's something 

15 that happens to people in HHS, too. And 

16 sometimes it's by design, sometime it's just 

17 because they see that as the most direct route 

18 or don't know that my office even exists. But 

19 if you're caught on the phone and they're 

20 asking for information, you could say "Could I 

21 call you back?" and alert Christine and -- 

22 and/or myself, and we can facilitate that 

23 conversation at greater length. If they have 

24 very simple questions just about, you know, 

25 when's the next workgroup meeting going to be, 
103

1 you don't need to go through that whole 

2 process, I would say. But it -- it does happen 

3 and, you know, I wouldn't be overly worried 

4 about that. But as a general rule I would try 

5 to include the two of us. 

6 DR. BRANCHE: And if it does -- if it does 

7 happen, something that simple, then -- and 

8 someone just asks you when the next workgroup 

9 meeting is, then you could -- I would encourage 

10 you to send a courtesy message to me to let me 

11 know that that contact has happened. 

12 DR. ZIEMER: But there's a lot of information 

13 like that you can answer very simply, and it's 

14 public information anyway. People may not have 

15 known where to find it on the web site or 

16 something like that. 

17 But on the other hand, and I'll just mention 

18 this and then we'll call on a couple more folks 

19 here, but a couple of weeks ago I got an 

20 extensive inquiry from a Senator's office 

21 asking the amount of money spent by this panel 

22 to investigate issues at certain sites in the 

23 country and wondering how that compared with 

24 other sites in the country, I think trying to 

25 determine whether this particular Congressional 
104

1 district was getting their fair share of 

2 attention -- or whatever. But -- and the 

3 office asked for that information back from me 

4 in 30 days. 

5 Well, number one, we have a rule that says you 

6 -- we cannot respond to Congressional inquiries 

7 -- the Chair can, nor can the members -- 

8 without clearing it first with the Board 

9 anyway, so we don't have a way to do that in 30 

10 days. Further, the information was not 

11 information that I could readily get my hands 

12 on. So I turned it over to Christine and -- 

13 and through their office, maybe working with 

14 Jason, I don't know, was able to get the letter 

15 redone and redirected so the Congressional 

16 office made the inquiry of NIOSH to get the 

17 information. But some of the -- some of the 

18 inquiries are done in good faith, but they are 

19 things we should not get involved in. 

20 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: Now, Wanda, then Michael. 

22 MS. MUNN: One of the things that continues to 

23 be of concern with respect to interactions with 

24 Congress is the persistent view that our 

25 contractor is not our contractor but rather our 
105

1 auditor. In almost every case when I've had 

2 occasion to interact, either here in this 

3 setting or elsewhere, with Congressional staff, 

4 the approach has always been that of "Your 

5 auditor has said -- has these findings." It is 

6 a concern to -- I -- certainly to me, and I 

7 think to others, that that misunderstanding 

8 applies. But it certainly seems to be the 

9 primary reason -- there are two primary 

10 reasons, apparently, why Congressional staff 

11 are so eager to speak with SC&A. One is they 

12 view them as auditors, and two, they are 

13 accessible. They have people available in 

14 Washington, D.C. to be able to go to their 

15 offices easily. So I rely on you, Jason, to 

16 help supply staff with that revised, correct 

17 view of what the association is and what 

18 findings are being brought to them without 

19 having been vetted in this -- in this forum as 

20 being preliminary findings, always. It's -- 

21 there are several things that -- that we look 

22 to you as a person to do, and I hope -- we have 

23 no way of knowing that you are in fact doing 

24 that, so it would be helpful, for me, to hear 

25 from you that you do in fact make that effort 
106

1 because it seems to be such a consistent 

2 misunderstanding that we encounter. 

3 MR. BROEHM: In every communication I have with 

4 a Congressional staff person working on this 

5 issue -- and in many cases, especially for 

6 staff who have worked on this and continue to 

7 work on this -- it's a continued conversation 

8 over many e-mails and phone calls to continue 

9 to explain and re-explain this program. It's 

10 very complex and it's not always intuitive to -

11 - to staff who are coming to it new. I always 

12 do my best to explain to them what the Board is 

13 and what SC&A's role for the Board is. 

14 Now to the extent that there may be 

15 misconceptions of what SC&A's role is out 

16 there, and I don't hear from those staff, I may 

17 not even know that, what their -- what their 

18 idea is of SC&A's role. But certainly in phone 

19 conversations and e-mails that I have, I put 

20 out the information in terms of what -- what 

21 role they provide and support they provide to 

22 the Board is -- is really what it is. I 

23 continue to hear the word "auditor" and I don't 

24 really know where that came from, but it sort 

25 of has caught hold and, you know, I'll just -- 
107

1 all I can say is I'll continue, as I have 

2 conversations with staff, to -- to explain what 

3 SC&A's role is. 

4 MS. MUNN: That's appreciated. Thank you. 

5 MR. BROEHM: Thank you for the question. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Brad? Oh, Mike -- Mike was first 

7 -- 

8 MR. CLAWSON: Go on, Mike. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: -- and then Brad. 

10 MR. GIBSON: As far as the proposed testimony, 

11 PowerPoint presentations, whatever, what 

12 exactly are they going to be reviewed for? 

13 DR. BRANCHE: You would be speaking on behalf 

14 of the administration, essentially, 'cause you 

15 repre-- in this capacity, you represent the 

16 Executive Branch of government in your special 

17 -- as a special government employee. 

18 MR. GIBSON: And in my role as a government 

19 employee, it's my duty to monitor how HH-- HHS 

20 is implementing this legislation. So if I give 

21 draft testimony that I'm asked to give for your 

22 review, doesn't that kind of -- the fox 

23 watching the hen house? 

24 DR. BRANCHE: When you -- 

25 MR. BROEHM: You -- I mean you're appointed by 
108

1 the President of the United States. 

2 MR. GIBSON: Correct. 

3 MR. BROEHM: You are a government employee. 

4 You work for him. So I'm in the same position. 

5 I can't just go up to Congress in my role as a 

6 CDC employee and say whatever I want. Usually 

7 government employees who do that are considered 

8 whistleblowers. You -- again, I explained that 

9 you, as Board members, are in a little bit of a 

10 special case here and that's why we have the 

11 two paths available to you. One is to speak in 

12 your role as a Board member. The other is to 

13 speak as a private citizen, where perhaps you 

14 can be more frank and critical of the program. 

15 You know, I don't think in terms of going 

16 through the administration review process that 

17 if you had something that was critical of -- of 

18 NIOSH, or you had recommendations that -- that 

19 you thought -- some changes that could be made 

20 to improve the program, those would necessarily 

21 be taken out. But there are things -- if you 

22 put in your testimony, for instance, that the 

23 Advisory Board needed $10 million next year, 

24 those are the kinds of things that we can't put 

25 in our testimony if it's not in the 
109

1 administration budget. So it's -- it's making 

2 sure that -- that administration policy is 

3 followed, making sure that you're not asking 

4 Congress for vast new resources that aren't in 

5 the administration's budget. It's -- 

6 MR. GIBSON: And actually -- 

7 MR. BROEHM: It's again why we have the two 

8 paths open to you. And when -- you know, when 

9 -- I know an Advisory Board member has spoken 

10 in the past and testified to Congress, that it 

11 was in that private citizen role and -- that -- 

12 that was one option. 

13 MR. GIBSON: But -- 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Was that Dr. Melius? 

15 MR. BROEHM: Yes. 

16 MR. GRIFFON: He was -- role as a private citi17 - okay. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: And his testimony -- 

19 MR. BROEHM: And he -- he worked -- 

20 DR. BRANCHE: -- was cleared. 

21 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

22 MR. BROEHM: He wor-- he coordinated very 

23 closely with the former Designated Federal 

24 Official, Dr. Wade. 

25 MR. GRIFFON: That was (unintelligible). 
110

1 MR. BROEHM: Yeah. So again, it's just an 

2 example of whenever this -- this comes up and 

3 there's a need for a briefing, a hearing, 

4 whatever, it's important just I think to get in 

5 touch with Christine very early in the process 

6 and then, you know, we can work through the 

7 proc-- through what the next steps are from 

8 there and what your options are. 

9 MR. GIBSON: But -- well, my options are 

10 limited as a private citizen. I can't use 

11 information or opinions about Board activities. 

12 But if I'm questioned -- asked to give 

13 testimony or whatever as a Board member, then I 

14 have to have this thing scrubbed, not knowing 

15 what'll come out of it. That just doesn't 

16 seem... 

17 DR. BRANCHE: Let me just make a distinction, 

18 and as -- I think the operative part of that 

19 clause is "that are not public information." 

20 As a private citizen, you can speak about Board 

21 policy, about Board information that's made 

22 public. You can -- you can do that, and you 

23 can offer an opinion on that as a private 

24 citizen. 

25 MR. GIBSON: Okay. 
111

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Brad. 

2 MR. CLAWSON: I just wanted to make sure as 

3 we're -- as we're discussing this and stuff and 

4 we've brought up SC&A, that -- that people 

5 understand and realize that John Mauro and the 

6 rest of SC&A staff have gone to great lengths 

7 to be able to try to involve us in it, and have 

8 done an excellent job and we're not -- we're 

9 not in any way, shape or form criticizing that. 

10 I just wanted to make that distinction. 

11 MR. BROEHM: And as I understand it, when they 

12 have a meeting that they then do inform the 

13 Board of -- sort of a summary of what happened 

14 at the meeting, so from summaries that I've 

15 seen, those seem to be fairly detailed and -- 

16 and accurate -- not having been in the room, 

17 but I mean they seem to not -- not to be too 

18 abbreviated or -- or leave things out. 

19 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark, another comment? 

20 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the only -- I -- I -- and 

21 I'm going back to Christine's reference there 

22 that -- that are not public information, and 

23 that is reassuring in some ways. The only 

24 concern I have with that is in -- in a role of 

25 a work -- workgroup chair, if -- and that's 
112

1 when you -- you typ-- I've typically run into 

2 staffers is the -- the SEC process or whatever. 

3 As we all know, things are -- are often real 

4 time, so you know, we always -- this goes back 

5 to this review process and the ability to have 

6 documents that are public. If something's 

7 discussed on the -- on a workgroup phone call, 

8 I would assume that's public information, even 

9 if the transcript's not ready yet. Right? 

10 DR. BRANCHE: We make -- we make -- 

11 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: -- the workgroup meetings 

13 available for the public -- 

14 MR. GRIFFON: So they -- right. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: -- to participate, and 

16 Congressional members are often -- 

17 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

18 DR. BRANCHE: -- on the phone for those. 

19 MR. GRIFFON: So to the ext-- I mean this 

20 information was discussed publicly -- 

21 DR. BRANCHE: That's right. 

22 MR. GRIFFON: -- so if someone calls me to 

23 follow up on that, I can give my opinion -- 

24 DR. BRANCHE: As a private citizen. 

25 MR. GRIFFON: -- on that as a private citizen, 
113

1 right. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: There could be some details in the 

3 -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

5 DR. ZIEMER: -- paperwork that the Board is 

6 discussing that's redacted -- 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Right. 

8 DR. ZIEMER: -- information for the public, so 

9 -- 

10 DR. BRANCHE: And then that's not -- 

11 DR. ZIEMER: -- so that part could still not be 

12 disclosed. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Excellent. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

15 MR. BROEHM: But I -- I would say, Mark, in 

16 response to your question, it probably is 

17 fairly typical of the Congressional staff, 

18 having sat through a whole, you know, hours or 

19 three-hours-long call, may come out of that 

20 with some questions and -- 

21 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

22 MR. BROEHM: -- I think it's -- it's likely you 

23 are going to get that kind of question as a 

24 workgroup chair. 

25 MR. GRIFFON: As what? 
114

1 MR. BROEHM: It is likely that you are going to 

2 get that kind of question as a workgroup chair 

3 -- 

4 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

5 MR. BROEHM: -- of, you know, what -- what -- 

6 MR. GRIFFON: And then it's okay -- 

7 MR. BROEHM: -- what just happened, and 

8 explain. 

9 MR. GRIFFON: As long as it's okay as a -- 

10 DR. BRANCHE: Right. 

11 MR. GRIFFON: -- not representing the 

12 workgroup, I always say that -- 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Right. 

14 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, but it's okay to -- 

15 to offer my opinion on where -- usually they 

16 want to know well, what's the next steps, did I 

17 miss, you know, something here, you know, or 

18 when's the next meeting, sometime -- you know, 

19 how's this going to be -- you know. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: And the only thing I would offer, 

21 again, Jason said to you, it has been helpful -

22 - and this really is a protection to you -- to 

23 the degree that Jason and/or I can be on the 

24 line with you when you speak to that member of 

25 Congress so that we can explain that divide to 
115

1 kind of keep -- it's meant to keep you out of 

2 trouble in that regard. And there's always a 

3 tension -- I just mention this again because we 

4 have a lot of people in the audience who've 

5 also participated in the -- in some of the 

6 workgroup calls -- the Board has put a value on 

7 having information as close to real time as 

8 possible, which means that you're often 

9 discussing documents that have not been Privacy 

10 Act reviewed, and there's always going to be 

11 that tension of having the latest information 

12 that SC&A or NIOSH has provided and you'll end 

13 up discussing it without it being yet made 

14 available for the public. If you have set your 

15 information up in such a way that you have your 

16 information available, we can -- and it has 

17 been Privacy Act cleared, we do try to get that 

18 information on the web site in advance of your 

19 meeting. But many of you are presiding over 

20 issues where people are working up to the last 

21 minute, and you're always going to have to 

22 fight that tension, and that's cover that Jason 

23 and I can provide for you in your interactions 

24 with members of Congress and the public -- and 

25 the press. 
116

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Jason, thank 

2 you again very much. 

3 MR. BROEHM: Sure, thank you. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: It's been a very fruitful 

5 discussion. We're going to take our break now. 

6 It's five after 3:00. We actually will -- yes, 

7 let's reconvene in 20 minutes. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Twenty minutes? 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

10 DR. BRANCHE: So at 25 after the hour. 

11 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

12 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, we'll put the phone on 

13 mute. 

14 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:05 p.m. 

15 to 3:25 p.m.) 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Everyone please take your seat, 

17 we're about to -- we're going to start right 

18 now. 

19 (Pause) 

20 We are restarting the meeting after the break. 

21 Could someone on the line please let me know 

22 that you can hear me? 

23 UNIDENTIFIED: We can hear you. 

24 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you very much. I 

25 appreciate that. Now if you could please mute 
117

1 your phones, I would appreciate it. If you do 

2 not have a mute button, then please use star-6; 

3 and when you're ready to speak, please un-mute 

4 your phone with the same star-6. And again I 

5 ask that if you are participating by phone, it 

6 is critical that you mute your lines. Also do 

7 not put us on hold. If you feel like you have 

8 to leave the line, then please hang up and dial 

9 back in, but do not put us on hold. Thank you 

10 so much. 

11 Dr. Ziemer? 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Don't you wish you could say that 

13 when you call your service provider for help -- 

14 do not put me on hold. 

15 DEPARTMENT OF LABOR UPDATE

16 We're going to jump ahead again on the agenda 

17 for a brief time and pull in a presentation 

18 that was originally scheduled for tomorrow 

19 afternoon, and that is the Department of Labor 

20 update. And it's probably good we do that this 

21 morning -- this afternoon. Jeff Kotsch from 

22 Labor is here and we earlier this afternoon had 

23 the update from the -- from NIOSH, so -- and 

24 usually we have those kind of next to each 

25 other, so it's good we'll get the NIOSH and 
118

1 Labor people a little closer together again. 

2 Jeff, welcome back to the podium. We're 

3 pleased to have your report. 

4 MR. KOTSCH: Thank you. Good afternoon. I 

5 have to apologize. First of all, I'm wading 

6 through the back end of a cold and I'm -- so my 

7 voice is a little rough. Also since -- I'll -- 

8 I'll at least take time to put in the caveat 

9 that since I was supposed to be up tomorrow, 

10 and since I've been kind of under the weather, 

11 I haven't really been looking at the 

12 presentation that much so we'll work through 

13 that, too. And then also I should just say 

14 that some of the stuff is -- or the information 

15 is redundant, Board meeting to Board meeting. 

16 Some of it's background information and that's 

17 primarily for the members of the audience that, 

18 you know, might be new to the meeting rather 

19 than the Board, who constantly gets inundated 

20 with this presentation, which is updated 

21 number-wise, but -- every -- every couple of 

22 months. 

23 And the other caveat I always make is with 

24 respect to Larry's numbers and our numbers, we 

25 -- we don't agree normally anyway, so as far as 
119

1 numbers go and some other things -- 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: Mine are right. 

3 MR. CLAWSON: Now, kids. 

4 MR. KOTSCH: -- it's all a matter of 

5 perspective. But no, the numbers -- we do take 

6 snapshots at different points in time, plus -- 

7 of our cases and claims. And also obviously 

8 things are moving back and forth, it's a 

9 dynamic situation between NIOSH and Labor as 

10 far as the caseloads go, so it's -- I don't 

11 know that we could ever match the numbers, even 

12 on a specific day. 

13 Just a little background on the Energy 

14 Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 

15 Program Act. Part B, which is the program -- 

16 part of the program that we talk about here in 

17 these meetings, became effective on July 31st, 

18 2001. We show 72,273 cases, which encompasses 

19 90,985 claims, have been filed as of June 16th. 

20 The number of claims is always -- I always 

21 mention this, too, then and Larry does, too -- 

22 the number of claims is always higher than the 

23 number of cases because cases often have more 

24 than one claimant, especially in the -- in the 

25 event of a survivor claim. 40,809 have been 
120

1 cancer cases and 27,289 cases have been 

2 referred to NIOSH. 

3 Part E, which is the other part of the program, 

4 that DOL administers became effective on 

5 October 28th, 2004. That was formerly the Part 

6 D program that was administered by DOE, and in 

7 that part of the program we have 52,458 cases 

8 for -- and that includes 72,972 claims. When 

9 we initiated that program we received from the 

10 Department of Energy about 25,000 cases. 

11 The -- as far as compensation for the program, 

12 as of -- again, I think the 16th is the 

13 operative date for most of these slides -- 

14 we've compensated a total of about $3.8 

15 billion. About 64 percent of that is Part B 

16 claims. That's about $2.5 billion; $1.9 

17 billion of that is cancer; 287 would be the 

18 RECA claims, the -- the miners, millers, ore 

19 transporters; and then the remainder of that is 

20 tied up with silicosis claims, the beryllium 

21 claims -- chronic beryllium disease and 

22 beryllium sensitivity type things. 

23 $1.1 billion is for Part E claims. Again, 

24 those are the -- Part E is -- in simple terms, 

25 is -- are the non-cancer carcin-- I mean 
121

1 chemical exposure, toxicity types exposures 

2 that early on in the program we couldn't deal 

3 with and now we can deal with on -- in that 

4 part of the program; exposures to asbestos, 

5 different chemical -- a lot of degreasers, 

6 things like that. And in complement to that, 

7 the $226 million in medical benefits that are 

8 paid along with the claims. 

9 As far as Part B benefit overviews -- this is 

10 just a quick one -- who's eligible, current and 

11 former employees of Department of Energy, it's 

12 contractors, subcontractors, Atomic Weapons 

13 Employers, beryllium vendors, uranium miners, 

14 millers, ore transporters who worked at the 

15 facilities covered under Section 5 of the RECA 

16 -- of RECA, which is administered by the 

17 Department of Justice, and certain family 

18 members of deceased workers. 

19 And then quickly again, claim-- claims for Part 

20 B can be -- primarily what we're dealing with 

21 here are the NIOSH -- the ones where NIOSH gets 

22 involved with, which involve primary cancers. 

23 There's also chronic beryllium disease, 

24 beryllium sensitivity, chronic silicosis and, 

25 again, the RECA Section 5 claims. 
122

1 The claims filed for cancer under Part B of the 

2 Act, potentially any cancers covered under Part 

3 B, if it is determined that the covered 

4 employee was a member of the SEC and was 

5 diagnosed with a specified cancer -- those are 

6 the listed cancers in the -- in the Act -- or 

7 if it is determined through a dose 

8 reconstruction conducted by NIOSH that the 

9 covered employee's cancer was at least as 

10 likely as not -- which is interpreted as 50 

11 percent or greater -- caused by radiation 

12 exposure. 

13 The Part B -- the status under the Act of the 

14 Part B cancer claims is 40,809 cases, having 

15 62,900 claims. That's -- have had -- okay, I'm 

16 sorry, let's start again. 40,809 cases, with 

17 62,900 claims, 33,118 of those have final 

18 decisions. Under the Department of Labor 

19 program the case comes in, is developed for 

20 medical and employment information. If it's a 

21 cancer claim, it goes to NIOSH. They continue 

22 to develop -- develop and produce the dose 

23 reconstruction report, comes back to us at 

24 Labor, and then a recommended decision is made. 

25 That's shared with the claimant. They have the 
123

1 opportunity to object, basically. Whether it's 

2 objected to or not, it goes then to the -- to 

3 what we call a Final Adjudication Branch, also 

4 inside the Department of Labor. They render a 

5 final decision, either to compensate or not to 

6 compensate, and that's what we're talking about 

7 here -- 33,118 cases have final decisions; 

8 1,814 cases have recommended but no final 

9 decisions, they're in the process where they're 

10 with the Final Adjudication Branch; we are 

11 showing 4,192 cases at NIOSH as of June 12th; 

12 and 1,685 cases are pending an initial 

13 decision, they're in the development process or 

14 they have a dose reconstruction but it hasn't 

15 been reviewed yet or incorporated into a 

16 recommended decision. 

17 This is the standard graphic we often show, the 

18 final decisions approved on the left, 13,176. 

19 On the right, the denied final decisions, 

20 19,942. That's the red bar. The other bars, 

21 going across, 32 -- I'm sorry, 3,425 for non22 covered employment at facilities that -- or 

23 locations that are not covered under the Act; 

24 11,963 that have probability of causation is -- 

25 POC's less than 50 percent; 3,074 with 
124

1 insufficient medical evidence of a -- of a 

2 cancer; 1,100 with non-covered conditions. In 

3 the early days -- I mean that's still Part B 

4 decisions. In the early days we couldn't do 

5 anything with those. Now we can refer those -- 

6 we work these cases as both Part B and E at the 

7 same time, so they would be hopefully covered 

8 under the Part E side if they weren't cancers -

9 - or at least if not -- I mean not covered, but 

10 at least be -- be looked at under the Part E 

11 side. And 380 cases were denied after 

12 determinations of ineligible survivors. 

13 And Special Exposure Cohorts -- Larry talked 

14 about this -- employment criteria -- the 

15 initial ones are in the Act, the three gaseous 

16 diffusion plants, certain nuclear tests -- 

17 prominently up in Alaska at Amchitka, and then 

18 of course the new SEC classes that are added -- 

19 that have been added by the Board. They 

20 include the specified cancers, the cancers that 

21 are listed on the specified cancer list. 

22 Causation is presumed, there's no dose 

23 reconstructions necessary for inclusion in the 

24 SEC. And the process is that HHS recommends 

25 SEC designation and if Congress -- the 
125

1 Secretary does, and if Congress does not object 

2 within 30 days, the facility becomes -- or it 

3 gets added as an SEC class. 

4 As of June 12th we're showing, as far as new 

5 SEC-related cases, 1,803 cases have been 

6 withdrawn from NIOSH for review. Often if 

7 they're -- if they're there for dose 

8 reconstruction, an SEC class is implemented, 

9 then we with-- we compare our lists with NIOSH 

10 lists and withdraw those cases to be reviewed 

11 as far as being considered under the SEC class. 

12 1,549 have final decisions issued; 128 have 

13 recommended but no final decisions; 52 are 

14 pending, probably for additional information; 

15 and 74 have been closed. So that's 92 percent 

16 have final decisions so far of all the cases 

17 that are affected by the SEC classes. 

18 As far as referral to NIOSH -- again, this is 

19 the 16th -- we show 27,264 cases have been 

20 referred to NIOSH; 19,618 have been returned 

21 from NIOSH. Of those, 17,373 have dose 

22 reconstructions. I'm not sure -- it's got to 

23 be a bigger number, but 23 being reworked for 

24 return to NIOSH -- oh, that's within -- within 

25 the Labor hierarchy -- and 2,222 are with -- 
126

1 have been withdrawn from NIOSH with no dose 

2 reconstruction. 

3 We're showing 7,646 cases currently at NIOSH, 

4 4,237 of those are initial or original 

5 referrals to NIOSH and 3,409 of those are 

6 reworks or returns to NIOSH, ones that had a -- 

7 had an initial dose reconstruction and then -- 

8 for a number of reasons, like Larry addressed, 

9 PERs or -- occasionally -- well, not 

10 occasionally, the primary driver other than 

11 PERs for -- Performance Evaluation Reports, for 

12 our returning cases to NIOSH or dose 

13 reconstructions to NIOSH is they're -- the 

14 determination that there may be a new cancer, 

15 there may be additional employment, things like 

16 that that drive us to want to send that -- 

17 return that case back to have the dose 

18 reconstruction looked at again to determine 

19 whether that denied case could move towards 

20 compensability. 

21 The dose reconstruction case status -- this 

22 slide's showing final decisions for 85 percent 

23 of the cases. 17,373 cases have dose 

24 reconstructions. I think the slide might be a 

25 little off. We corrected this number to match 
127

1 the previous slide. 14,745 dose reconstructed 

2 -- dose reconstructed cases have final 

3 decisions. 2,152 dose reconstructed cases have 

4 a recommended but no final decision -- that 

5 means they're somewhere in the -- in our FAB -- 

6 Final Adjudication process. And 476 dose 

7 reconstructed cases have a recommended 

8 decision. That's -- again, we have the dose 

9 reconstruction from NIOSH. We're just working 

10 through the -- the District Offices are just 

11 working through the process of creating the 

12 recommended decision, so that's... 

13 Again, NIOSH case-related compensation is -- is 

14 a piece of the larger total compensation. But 

15 even at that, we have $1 billion in 

16 compensation for NIOSH-related cases. 10,380 -

17 - I'm sorry, 10,338 payees in 6,722 cases. Of 

18 that total, $810 million have been based on 

19 dose-reconstructed cases. That's 7,656 payees 

20 covering 5,400 -- 5,420 cases. And another 

21 $193 million has been added due to the SEC 

22 classes. That's 2,682 payees in 1,302 cases. 

23 This slide is the paid cases under the Act, so 

24 there have been -- this is the -- yeah, these 

25 are the total numbers, 30,384 paid Part B and E 
128

1 cases. 20,521 of those have been Part B cases. 

2 That included 12,000 -- almost 13,000 cancer 

3 case payees, 5,755 RECA case payees. Again, 

4 the -- the uranium -- uranium miners, millers 

5 and ore transporters. And 1,788 other Part B 

6 case payees, primarily the beryllium and the 

7 silicosis. And 9,800-plus Part E cases. 

8 Again, the toxic exposure type cases. 

9 The last time, the Board asked -- and I -- I 

10 still want to have a -- or a more of a graph 

11 generated, like Larry generates, but I don't 

12 know how much that's going to add. But anyway, 

13 they had asked about the level of cases that 

14 we're getting in, and this still isn't quite 

15 what I think we -- you probably want to see, 

16 but it's a start anyway. The first -- the 

17 upper part is the new Part B cases received by 

18 Department of Labor monthly. Just starting 

19 recently, in March of this year, 2008, we had 

20 354 cases; then April, 398; May, 381; and 152 

21 in June. So those are Part B cases. I didn't 

22 bother with the Part E cases. Again, a lot of 

23 cases come in and -- or every case that comes 

24 in is considered both under Part B and Part E, 

25 but these would be specifically ones that had 
129

1 cancer -- or at least cancer's a part -- as 

2 part of the particular case. 

3 The Part B cases that were sent to NIOSH is, 

4 again, clouded by -- or shows -- it's -- it's 

5 not just strictly each month what we forwarded 

6 to NIOSH that was a new case. Unfortunately 

7 some of these numbers -- and I wasn't able to 

8 tickle it out of it yet -- you know, some -- it 

9 would include reworks for PERs, SEC things, but 

10 primarily the rework numbers so in March of 

11 2008 we sent 677 cases; April, 502; May, 358; 

12 and June, 119. So you would expect that number 

13 normally to be less than -- if you were just 

14 strictly looking at new Part B cases the 

15 Depart-- to the Department of Labor and cases 

16 that we then forward to NIOSH for dose 

17 reconstructions, you should expect those 

18 numbers to be smaller than the incoming because 

19 cases that come into Labor also are considered 

20 for, again, chronic beryllium disease, 

21 beryllium sensitivity, silicosis, that kind of 

22 stuff. So there would be cases coming in that 

23 would be not -- would be more than just cases 

24 that we for-- forward to NIOSH. So the 

25 beginnings of those ones are ones that are also 
130

1 including cases that we're sending back for 

2 reworks. But we'll -- we'll work at this. 

3 We're try-- I'm trying to get a better 

4 indication of what -- but that last number is 

5 actually probably not too bad, the 152 -- I 

6 always use the rule of thumb it's about 200 

7 cases a month that we've been getting in, been 

8 pretty steady as far as Part B cases. And 

9 we'll try to get a better -- I have to admit, I 

10 don't -- I'm not always sure how many cases 

11 just strictly go on to NIOSH and it -- there's 

12 also a lag there because it may come in one 

13 month and get sent to NIOSH the next month as 

14 we develop for the medical and employment that 

15 they need for -- for the -- for the -- to 

16 actually proceed with a dose reconstruction -- 

17 or for even us to proceed with determining 

18 whether that case is one that we can work to a 

19 decision. 

20 As is the case, we usually try to -- and there 

21 -- there don't -- don't appear to be too many 

22 new SEC presentations at this meeting. We 

23 usually try to provide some background 

24 information on -- on the -- the SEC classes 

25 that are up in front of the Board, just for -- 
131

1 for background. 

2 First there's the Y-12, what I call the early 

3 years, '43 to '47, which is a -- it's -- the Y4 12 Plant itself has -- has other SECs and it's 

5 -- it's been one of the major cl-- you know, 

6 sources of cases in the program. Cases, both 

7 Part B and E, we've had almost 12,000 from the 

8 Y-12 Plant. We've had -- we're indicating 

9 about 2,200 NIOSH dose reconstructions and a 

10 little over 4,300 Part B final decisions 

11 resulting in 2,736 Part B approvals, 2,354 Part 

12 E approvals, for a total compensation in both 

13 Part B and E of $50-- I'm sorry, $531 million. 

14 The Dow Madison site, we're showing both Part E 

15 and -- Part B and E cases, 357; 3 NIOSH dose 

16 reconstructions; 99 Part B decisions; 67 Part B 

17 approvals; zero -- it's not a -- it's an AWE 

18 site so that's not covered under Part E of the 

19 program; and $9 million in compensation. 

20 And at Spencer Chemical we're showing -- again, 

21 this slide's got a date of June 17th, we're 

22 showing 53 cases from Spencer -- I'm sorry, I 

23 guess -- you know, I'm sorry, Dow Madison is 

24 both Parts -- Part -- Spencer is both Parts B 

25 and E -- Spencer is Part B only. That means 
132

1 there's no Part E evaluation, 53 cases, two 

2 final decisions under Part B and we have not -- 

3 we have -- there's been no compensation at 

4 Spencer Chemical. 

5 And that's it. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Jeff. Phil, do 

7 you have a starting question? 

8 MR. SCHOFIELD: Do you have any statistics as 

9 to how many of the claimants or payees that 

10 there's been a final decision made, that they 

11 passed away before they were either notified or 

12 paid? 

13 MR. KOTSCH: I -- I have to admit, I don't have 

14 -- I know -- I know we have statistics on that. 

15 I don't have them with me and I -- and I know 

16 that unfortunately that's not an uncommon 

17 occurrence, but I don't know -- I don't have 

18 the actual numbers. I mean I -- I know that it 

19 happens with -- with -- with some frequency 

20 that's not, unfortunately, you know, a small 

21 frequency, but I don't know how -- how often. 

22 But I can -- I can check on that number for 

23 you. I know that happens a lot and then we 

24 have to -- to proceed with, you know, 

25 developing the survivors and then just 
133

1 processing that -- that, so unfortunately it 

2 takes a little bit longer, but those -- those 

3 do still get paid. 

4 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 

5 (No responses) 

6 Okay. Jeff, again, we thank you, as always, 

7 for a concise update on the -- the pool of data 

8 from Department of Labor, and we look forward 

9 to continued interactions with you. 

10 PUBLIC COMMENT

11 We're going to move in a moment to our public 

12 comment period. I'm going to take a brief 

13 break in order to get the list of those who 

14 wish to participate. If you wish to 

15 participate in the public comment session -- 

16 and there will be another one tomorrow as well 

17 -- but in today's session and have not already 

18 signed the paper, we'll give you a couple of 

19 minutes to get out there in the corridor and 

20 get your name on the list. And in just a 

21 moment the list will be brought in and we'll 

22 begin that session. So we're going to take 

23 about a five-minute brief break here and then 

24 we'll resume. 

25 DR. BRANCHE: We'll put the phone on mute. 
134

1 DR. ZIEMER: And the phone here will go on mute 

2 during that period. 

3 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:50 p.m. 

4 to 4:00 p.m.) 

5 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to begin the public 

6 comment session of the Board meeting. In just 

7 a moment I'm going to ask Dr. Branche to read 

8 the redaction policy. I also want to alert the 

9 speakers that the Board has a 10-minute time 

10 limit on public comments. Also that 10-minute 

11 is considered an upper limit, not a goal to be 

12 achieved. You can think of the difference 

13 there. 

14 We generally like to think of the public 

15 comment period as just that, comments. It is 

16 not generally a question/answer session, 

17 although sometimes we do provide -- or try to 

18 provide answers if you have certain questions. 

19 We try to avoid getting into details of 

20 individual cases. NIOSH does have caseworkers 

21 available if you have a particular question on 

22 a particular case that needs to be answered. 

23 So with that, I'm going to ask Dr. Branche to 

24 read the redaction policy in connection with 

25 the public comments. 
135

1 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. If a 

2 person making a comment gives his or her name, 

3 no attempt will be made to redact the name. If 

4 an individual, in making a statement, reveals 

5 personal information -- for example, medical 

6 information -- about themselves, that 

7 information will not usually be redacted. The 

8 NIOSH Freedom of Information coordinator will, 

9 however, review such revelations in accordance 

10 with the Freedom of Information Act and the 

11 Federal Advisory Committee Act and, if deemed 

12 appropriate, will redact such in-- redact or 

13 remove such information from the transcript 

14 that is posted on the public web site. 

15 All disclosures of information -- all 

16 disclosures of information concerning third 

17 parties will be redacted. And again, if you 

18 want to bring information, during this forum or 

19 in the next public comment period, to the Board 

20 but wish not to have your identity revealed, 

21 then please speak to me on a break. Thank you. 

22 DR. ZIEMER: Let me be-- I'm going to take 

23 these speakers in the order that they've signed 

24 up. Let me ask if any of the speakers do not 

25 wish to have their names identified in the 
136

1 public record. 

2 DR. BRANCHE: If they signed up, they're 

3 agreeing to -- 

4 DR. ZIEMER: If you've signed up -- 

5 DR. BRANCHE: -- they're agreeing to have their 

6 name said. 

7 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, by -- just so you know, by 

8 signing up here you agree that your name will 

9 be in the record, so -- giving you that 

10 opportunity if you change your mind on that. 

11 Okay, let's begin with John Ramspott. John, 

12 welcome, you may approach the mike. 

13 MR. RAMSPOTT: Testing. I'd like to thank the 

14 radiation board and the other organizations and 

15 agencies that are here today. The General 

16 Steel Industries plant has been near and dear 

17 to my heart for the last two and a half years 

18 and -- since I first asked the question that -- 

19 or made a statement that I'd like to find out 

20 what actually happened at that plant. I've 

21 done my best, and my wife of course has 

22 assisted me in gathering information, with the 

23 help of former site experts, family members -- 

24 everybody we could, includes a couple of 

25 physicists who have assisted us, and of course 
137

1 members of the Board. Just by giving me your -

2 - I think courtesy and attendance and really 

3 following what we were trying to do, I believe 

4 we've really come to the crux of what happened 

5 at General Steel. 

6 I know there's probably going to be some 

7 dispute and some questions and -- I understand 

8 that 'cause not everything's perfect in this 

9 world and this is a -- an older site with a 

10 unique situation. And being privy to some of 

11 the workgroup meetings via telephone conference 

12 and listening in and actually attending one 

13 today, I can see that this is definitely 

14 seriously being taken to heart and looked at. 

15 It's a very complex situation. 

16 There are a couple of reasons I'm going to ask 

17 for urgency, though, that I think warrant a 

18 little special attention. The recent SC&A 

19 report actually mentions there are three sites 

20 still using these devices today. Two of them 

21 happen to be government military sites. 

22 They're noted on the Internet. One's a public 

23 site, and I've actually visited that site, 

24 taken photographs. That's where the operator's 

25 manual came from. I don't think we can wait 
138

1 too long to tell these people what's going on 

2 with those machines. If we do, there's a 

3 problem with that. If there's a real hazard 

4 and they don't know it and we don't tell them -

5 - and I can tell you from the site I visited, 

6 they think that's like a jukebox, that's -- 

7 that's safe, walk in, no cooling period. It's 

8 like deja vu General Steel Industries all over. 

9 I have photographs. I've talked to the people. 

10 They're nice, good, solid people. I felt like 

11 I was right back at General Steel. And I 

12 visited that site, too. The new owner actually 

13 allowed us to go on site. We now have some 

14 video footage of it. And we've tried to share 

15 all that and we'll share anything else we have 

16 about that site. But that's a real concern. I 

17 think we need to move on this as soon as we 

18 can, as humanly possibly, complex as it is. I 

19 totally appreciate that, but if there've been 

20 changes and those people know about it, maybe 

21 they ought to share them with us 'cause we'll 

22 find out what they were afraid of and they 

23 changed. 

24 Now the other issue -- and this is -- I was 

25 listening today, and I'm not going to steal 
139

1 anybody's thunder, but there was talk about 

2 radiation badges and -- I didn't hear anything 

3 about neutrons. And at that site -- and now if 

4 you read the SC&A report, there's -- there's 

5 definitely neutrons at General Steel. And I 

6 think they're manufactured in four ways, and 

7 they're spelled out, and I've confirmed it. 

8 The Betatron makes neutrons when it hits the -- 

9 you're always trying to hit that little 

10 platinum target; it makes neutrons. And in the 

11 appendix we talk about a photoneutron 

12 activation of castings. When the big casting 

13 gets hit, that creates neutrons. When we hit 

14 the uranium with the 25-million volt Betatron 

15 beam, that makes neutrons. No one's denying 

16 that. And now one of the physicists is helping 

17 me, who is the -- actually it was [identifying 

18 information redacted] the gentleman -- the 

19 physicist who addressed this Board in 

20 Naperville via phone, his old boss, 35-year 

21 physicist, Milwaukee School of Engineering, 

22 explained to me how the fourth means of 

23 neutrons are created. When you make a neutron 

24 and that neutron impacts cement or concrete, 

25 now all of a sudden you start a chain reaction 
140

1 and you get a whole lot more neutrons. If I'm 

2 wrong, then there's a whole lot of articles 

3 I've been reading that are wrong, too. 

4 So these badges that we're talking about today, 

5 I don't think they measured neutrons. I don't 

6 think the survey meters, which we now have a 

7 photograph of and now have the man that 

8 calibrated the survey meters -- that man was 

9 actually at a worker meeting with SC&A, he'll 

10 talk to anybody, tell you the same thing he 

11 told me, he sent it to me in an e-mail, those 

12 survey meters didn't measure any neutrons. 

13 They measured -- and they did use cesium 

14 whatever to calibrate those survey meters -- 

15 they did beta and gamma above 50 keV to about 1 

16 million, or 1.3 million. They didn't do 

17 anything for 25 million-volt -- 25 million 

18 volts. So he said John, those survey meters 

19 were a waste of time for those guys. So when 

20 they say they walked in there and they used a 

21 survey meter and they checked the casting, 

22 yeah, I guess you wouldn't get a reading if you 

23 didn't have the right tool. So those castings 

24 are a lot hotter than those guys thought. 

25 So I hope those type of things, when we start 
141

1 talking about the -- the badges and -- even at 

2 lunch today I quizzed the guys that were there. 

3 The production dates, they only had badges for 

4 -- what did I hear, '64 to '66? Well, the 

5 uranium was gone in '66 -- after '66, and it 

6 was winding down to '66. So try and use any 

7 information after '66 is a waste of time. 

8 There was no uranium there, and that's where a 

9 lot of the readings on badges would have come. 

10 And then the other thing the guy shared with me 

11 at lunch, and I didn't realize it, but they 

12 only wore the badges half the time. They wore 

13 them when they were in the Betatron. They 

14 weren't Betatron workers, they were NDT 

15 workers, mostly in the Betatron, but then they 

16 stepped on the other side of a ribbon door when 

17 they were needed while somebody else kept using 

18 the Betatron and they're in there working, in 

19 Building No. 10 or No. 9. Their badge 

20 information, if we did have it, would only be 

21 half good. So that's another concern about 

22 badges. And if we try to get to the bottom of 

23 this based on badges, we're wasting a lot of 

24 time. 

25 Now the -- the history that I've put together -
142

1 - and I think it was valid, tried to build a 

2 good case for everybody to be able to study. 

3 We did a workbook on the site, we gave public 

4 comments, we had numerous conference calls, we 

5 did outreach meetings, we -- and I tell you 

6 what, I do salute Larry. When you said one 

7 time you were going to have the Appendix BB, it 

8 was almost like hanging a target on your back. 

9 Now we had something to shoot at. And we 

10 didn't agree with it at first 'cause we wanted 

11 all the information out, then let's do an 

12 appendix. No, it got it out in the forefront 

13 so we really have something to look at now, and 

14 we do, and I thank you for it. I thank NIOSH 

15 for it. I wrote a critique. I said I think 

16 you're wrong. I don't think you got all the 

17 information. I got a reply and we got a little 

18 differences in there and I think we can work 

19 through them. I think they're real. And based 

20 on that critique and a lot of other 

21 information, now we have an SC&A report. And 

22 I'll tell you what, Dr. Anigstein and SC&A 

23 putting that report together, I think they 

24 really brought it to the forefront what was 

25 going on over there, what really happened. And 
143

1 there's no sense in putting together a report 

2 like that unless you're going to do something 

3 with it. And I know there's some fine edges 

4 that'll be discussed, and NIOSH and SC&A'll go 

5 back and forth -- and I hope we're part of that 

6 'cause now we've found new information that we 

7 want to present. DOE has provided us with new 

8 photographs, big signs on the building which we 

9 read when we where there, said don't get within 

10 100 feet of this building. So what's that 

11 company do? They built another Betatron 

12 building, attached it to the main plant. 

13 That's within about 25 feet. So some new 

14 photographs actually came out of DOE. They 

15 have been helping as well, and we definitely 

16 thank them. 

17 Now, the SC&A report -- we have it, still 

18 trying to understand it all, but now we're 

19 going to wait for NIOSH's reply and hopefully 

20 we can be part of that review -- would -- I -- 

21 I know I'm not the Board, but I'd like to at 

22 least look at it, and if I see something and I 

23 can put together justifiable proof -- 

24 photographs, testimony, whatever, scientific 

25 data -- I'd like to share it. And if we can 
144

1 all come to an agreement, I think we can get 

2 some people taken care of. 

3 And I've had a lot of these workers die 

4 recently. You know, it doesn't -- that's -- I 

5 heard a question, how many people -- I think 

6 Phil asked it, how many people die before they 

7 get paid or in the process. And one lady's so 

8 close -- I mean her husband died a long time 

9 ago and she's so close, and she just died about 

10 a month ago. Her husband was only there about 

11 30 years, so he's probably one of the guys 

12 that's going to get compensated. So I hope we 

13 can wrap this up in a timely manner. I'll do 

14 anything I can to help. We've got workers 

15 that'll help. If we all head in the same 

16 direction, I think it could be done. 

17 So if there are any questions -- and again, the 

18 -- the neutrons -- I hope I got this right, and 

19 SC&A can correct me, neutrons come from 

20 Betatrons, they come from interaction with 

21 casting, they come from Betatrons hitting 

22 uranium and neutrons then hit concrete and more 

23 neutrons are made. So we better look at 

24 neutrons. I don't think there's any mention of 

25 that. 
145

1 I appreciate your time. If there are any 

2 questions, I've got a lot of data -- you guys 

3 know I'm a data guy. I've got manuals that's 

4 now being scanned. I'll have it for you in 

5 CD/DVD, we've got photographs -- I mean from 

6 when we visited. I'll give you anything I have 

7 that'll help you I hope make a comfortable 

8 decision. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, John. We appreciate 

10 all the input you've given to the Board and to 

11 NIOSH over this past year or two, so... 

12 Okay, let's proceed. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Clarissa. 

14 DR. ZIEMER: Clarissa Eaton, is Clarissa here? 

15 Okay. 

16 MS. EATON: I also just want to add an appre-- 

17 my appreciativeness of you guys's hard work, 

18 and I hope that you always make a conscious 

19 decision for our Cold War veterans. I think we 

20 owe them more than what is even offered to 

21 them, and we are severely in debt to them. I 

22 am not a claimant, nor am I a beneficiary, but 

23 I am a citizen and these people deserve a lot 

24 more than what's being offered. And I hope you 

25 will use your position to make all remedies 
146

1 available to them. And in any instance that 

2 you can expand the program and offer your 

3 expertise, because I know all of you are very 

4 educated and I'm thankful for that. And I 

5 would also like to add I -- I have recently 

6 submitted a petition for the Hematite site and 

7 that I hope you will give them the same 

8 consideration in the future. Thank you. 

9 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. 

10 Then John -- John Dusko (sic) I think is -- 

11 John, welcome. 

12 MR. DUTKO: If I use -- 

13 DR. ZIEMER: That's fine. I'll give you a hand 

14 here. 

15 (Pause) 

16 John, spell your last name -- is it D-u-s-k-o? 

17 MR. DUTKO: D-u-t-k-o. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: --t-k-o. 

19 MR. DUTKO: It's one of those. 

20 I thank you for letting me speak, sir. I am 

21 privileged -- or one of the guys privileged the 

22 last -- since last October to have been working 

23 with Dr. Bob Anigstein in researching and in 

24 presenting evidence to SC&A. There's three 

25 more fellas here -- Ralph Hersing*, George 
147

1 Luber*, Eddie Brawley -- all were operators, 

2 radiographers. They all knew their business. 

3 Of the nine guys that gave evidence, I'd like 

4 to point this out -- and I didn't run any in5 depth study -- seven of those fellas had cancer 

6 of some type or other, either skin cancer, 

7 prostate cancer, kidney cancer, yet we've been 

8 regularly refused. Now they say we could -- 

9 we can't get a in-depth body cancer from the 

10 radiation. 

11 Well, us fellows laid on those castings to 

12 place it on, stood on it, crawled on them. We 

13 did about everything in the world, not 

14 realizing at that time -- and had no 

15 information that they were activated, along 

16 with the donut tube of the machine -- of the 

17 compensator. 

18 I understand you're going to bring in the film 

19 badges. Please do. We didn't trust them then, 

20 sir, and we don't -- we won't trust them 

21 tomorrow. We wore dosimeters, pencil 

22 dosimeters as an instant reference, and trusted 

23 them quite a bit more. 

24 The biggest part of our time, if we wor-- if we 

25 -- let's say we worked a shift in the Betatron, 
148

1 we might work a second shift overtime in 

2 magnaflux. When we left -- when we left that 

3 Betatron, those film badges came off and went 

4 on the rack. Now what does that tell us about 

5 that beam coming down that railroad track 

6 through that ribbon door, and we're 20 feet 

7 away working on a tank all -- or a casting of 

8 some type, what does that tell us about our 

9 dosages from the film badges? 

10 Again, I'm not trying to be a smart guy, but I 

11 see too many of my fellow workers died, sir, 

12 and there's quite a few of them not around 

13 anymore. Quite a few. It's -- it's not a 

14 laughing matter to us at all. 

15 You know, last week one fella came down with 

16 prostate cancer and another fella I worked 

17 with, Tony Gast*, prostate cancer again. All 

18 these were Betatron operators and NDT people at 

19 GSI. Just in short -- in the last couple of 

20 weeks, and it seems to keep -- to keep going. 

21 And again, I have -- I apologize, I have run no 

22 in-depth study, but I think it's an indicator, 

23 sir -- it's an indicator. It should be looked 

24 into. I'm certainly not a doctor, nowhere near 

25 it. But too many of us people -- too many of 
149

1 us people have come down with the big C. 

2 Simply neutrons is a dose introduced by Dr. 

3 Anigstein, and rightfully so. We operators, 

4 for the first time -- although given bounding 

5 doses, your so-called bounding doses by NIOSH, 

6 were the first time we saw doses, sir, in 

7 roentgens. In two and a half, three years of a 

8 short window of time that we had -- for 

9 instance -- for instance, with -- with a 10-

10 roentgen dose that I had, in two and a half 

11 years window of time to three years, I wound up 

12 -- by my calculations, by his chart -- with 44-

13 roentgen doses. 

14 Now, sir, we fired shots three inches steel, 

15 nine feet double-A film, with 30 and 40 

16 roentgens. And experts tell me that we can't 

17 have a deep body cancer? I don't know, I'm not 

18 a doctor. I just want to point these things 

19 out. 

20 But for the first time in 50 years we're 

21 starting to find out the truth about these 

22 machines, and it's no wonder I see a lot of my 

23 fellow workingmen not here anymore. And I 

24 thank you very much, sir. 

25 DR. ZIEMER: John, thank you very much for your 
150

1 comments. 

2 Then we'll hear from Bill Hoppe -- Bill? And 

3 Bill is with Dow. Thank you, Bill. 

4 MR. HOPPE: I thank you. I was looking through 

5 this here questionnaire deal like, and you put 

6 a lot of emphasis on what [identifying 

7 information redacted] says to say in the pot 

8 room they said that they brought the thorium in 

9 and they had it under armed guard the whole 

10 time, and I can't find anybody that worked in 

11 there at that time -- that was a little bit 

12 before my time -- that could verify that. 

13 Also the way he's got the -- the pots and all 

14 that is completely wrong. The -- he said on 

15 the back wall there was a workbench. Where the 

16 workbench was supposed to be, that's where we 

17 had our instruments in that. He also said that 

18 they only -- you know, we was around the pots 

19 for a short period of time. They had to sit 

20 around the pots until they could alloy them. 

21 They might be around there for 15, 20, 30 

22 minutes at a time and couldn't get away from 

23 it, and all that fumes and that. 

24 They also just checked the area out around 

25 seven press in the extrusion department and 
151

1 they ran uranium on the seven press, which is 

2 the heavy press, and all around. They ran 

3 uranium in the rolling mill -- on the mills and 

4 everything else. You know, it's -- it's -- 

5 there's a lot of confliction (sic) here that we 

6 can come up with. 

7 I've been working on this for seven years, and 

8 we've been getting hold of the different 

9 people. And seems like every time someone else 

10 comes up with some other deal that puts 

11 different things together, and we've got a lot 

12 of things that comes -- you know, came together 

13 that Dow does not give out any information. So 

14 that's why I was wanting to make sure that that 

15 came up. 

16 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. I want to ask -- 

17 maybe I'll ask Larry. Do we have Bill's input 

18 on the Dow information or does someone have 

19 this information? Is it new information? 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: I think he's speaking about the 

21 evaluation report that's going to be presented 

22 at this meeting, are you not? 

23 MR. HOPPE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: And I don't know that we've had 

25 his particular input on that at this -- 
152

1 DR. ZIEMER: Okay -- 

2 MR. ELLIOTT: We're getting that now, so -- 

3 DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay. We -- we need to make 

4 sure that -- yeah. 

5 MR. ELLIOTT: So we have had it -- 

6 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: -- had some of this since June -- 

8 some of it since June. 

9 MR. HOPPE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

10 Silverstein's (unintelligible) came 

11 (unintelligible). 

12 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I just wanted to make sure 

13 that the information got inputted to the NIOSH 

14 folks. Thank you, Bill, for adding that. 

15 I need to check and see if there are any folks 

16 on the telephone lines that wish to make public 

17 comment. They would not of course had an 

18 opportunity to sign up. Anyone by phone that 

19 wishes to comment? 

20 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, I do. 

21 DR. ZIEMER: And identify yourself, please, and 

22 -- 

23 MS. KLEA: Yes, I'm Yvonne Klea. I'm the 

24 author of Petition No. 93 for E-Tech, which is 

25 the Santa Susana Field Laboratory out here in 
153

1 California. 

2 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Please proceed. 

3 MS. KLEA: I just kind of have a question 

4 comment. In our site profile it mentions that 

5 background dose was subtracted from our dose. 

6 Now there's no mention up there in the site 

7 profile of where they got the background doses, 

8 what study they used, and every study that has 

9 been written for the facility has been 

10 questionable on where they picked up their 

11 background dose. And the Department of Energy, 

12 right now at this time, is working with the EPA 

13 to figure out an accept-- acceptable background 

14 dose. So I have a question about using a 

15 background dose to subtract from our estimated 

16 doses. 

17 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I think we probably can't 

18 answer that question today, but the NIOSH 

19 people here are aware of your question and they 

20 can follow up on that with you. So thank you 

21 very much for that input. 

22 MS. KLEA: Yes, thank you. 

23 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Is there anyone else on 

24 the line that wishes to comment? 

25 (No response) 
154

1 Apparently not. The Chair's aware that Mr. 

2 Stephan has joined the assembly and I never 

3 want to pass up an opportunity to have you 

4 comment if you wish to. He doesn't wish to. 

5 MR. STEPHAN: Tomorrow. 

6 DR. ZIEMER: He's going to comment on not 

7 commenting, okay. Thank you. 

8 Let me ask if there's anyone else that didn't 

9 get a chance to sign up but now has the courage 

10 to -- I shouldn't put it that way. It's like, 

11 you know, eating powdered milk biscuits; it 

12 gives you the courage to get up and do what you 

13 need to do. Right. 

14 If not, we are recessed until tomorrow morning. 

15 Thank you very much for your participation 

16 today. 

17 DR. BRANCHE: At 8:30. 

18 DR. ZIEMER: 8:30 tomorrow morning. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: We will close the telephone line 

20 now, and at 4:45 reconvene for the Blockson -- 

21 for the Blockson workgroup meeting that will be 

22 in this room. Thank you. 

23 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m.) 

24 
155

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of June 24, 

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

24th day of July, 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102