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 the 

WORKING GROUP MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

LINDE SITE PROFILE

 

The verbatim transcript of the Working 

Group Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held telephonically on June 6, 2008. 
2

C O N T E N T S

June 06, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 6 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO 

INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR 9 

BURLAP BAG ISSUE 12 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 36 
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) 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

 

 

MEMBERSHIP

BEACH, Josie 

Nuclear Chemical Operator 

Hanford Reservation 

Richland, Washington 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

1 LOCKEY, James, M.D. 

2 Professor, Department of Environmental Health 

3 College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 
5

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS

 ANIGSTEIN, BOB, SC&A 

 BONSIGNORE, ANTOINETTE, CLAIMANT 

 CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, NIOSH 

 CRAWFORD, CHRIS, NIOSH 

 ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 

 GUIDO, JOE, ORAU 

 HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

 KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 

 NETON, JIM, NIOSH 

 OSTROW, STEVE, SC&A 
6

P R O C E E D I N G S

1 (10:00 a.m.) 

2 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DFO

3 DR. BRANCHE: Welcome to the Linde Ceramic 

4 site profile working group. This is Friday, 

June 6th 5 . I’m Dr. Christine Branche. For the 

6 moment I’m going to be the DFO, and then Ms. 

7 Chia-Chia Chang will be the designated federal 

8 official from NIOSH. Would anyone who’s on 

9 the working group, please state your name? 

10 DR. ROESSLER: Gen Roessler. 

11 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson. 

12 MS. BEACH: Josie Beach. 

13 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Lockey, are you on the 

14 line? 

15 (no response) 

16 DR. BRANCHE: Are there any other Board 

17 members who are on the line? 

18 (no response) 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Okay, we do not have a quorum 

20 so we can proceed. 

21 Would the participants from NIOSH 
7

1 please state your name and say if you have a 

2 conflict with Linde? 

3 MR. CRAWFORD: Chris Crawford, no conflict. 

4 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you, Mr. Crawford. 

5 Any other NIOSH staff members on the 

6 line? 

7 DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton, no conflict. 

8 DR. BRANCHE: Would the staff from OCAS 

9 please state your name and say whether or not 

10 you have a conflict? 

11 (no response) 

12 DR. BRANCHE: Sorry for the background noise 

13 here. 

14 SC&A staff would you please state your 

15 name and say if you have a conflict for Linde? 

16 DR. OSTROW: This is Steve Ostrow, no 

17 conflict. 

18 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Bob Anigstein, no conflict. 

19 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

20 DR. LOCKEY: Jim Lockey, no conflict. 

21 DR. BRANCHE: Dr. Lockey, I’m glad you could 

22 join us. Thank you. 

23 DR. LOCKEY: Can I make one comment? One of 

24 my staff people unexpectedly passed on, and I 

25 have a funeral at 11 o’clock. So I’m driving 
8

1 on the way to that funeral -- 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Please be careful. 

3 DR. LOCKEY: I will. If I have to cut out, 

4 that’s the reason. 

5 DR. ROESSLER: Thank you for participating, 

6 Jim. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: And we’re sorry for your loss. 

8 Are there other federal agency staff who are 

9 on the line? 

10 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott joining 

11 the line. I have no conflict on Linde. 

12 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell with HHS. 

13 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch, Department of 

14 Labor. 

15 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

16 Are there petitioners or their 

17 representatives who are on the line? 

18 MS. BONSIGNORE: This is Antoinette 

19 Bonsignore. 

20 DR. BRANCHE: Are there workers or their 

21 representatives who are on the line? 

22 (no response)

23 DR. BRANCHE: Are there members of Congress 

24 or their representatives who are on the line, 

25 please? 
9

1 (no response) 

2 DR. BRANCHE: Are there any others on the 

3 line who would like to state their names? 

4 MR. GUIDO: This is Joe Guido with ORAU. 

5 DR. BRANCHE: Joe Guido? 

6 MR. GUIDO: Yes. 

7 DR. BRANCHE: Thank you so much. 

8 Dr. Roessler’s about to begin her 

9 meeting, and I think we ask that if you’re 

10 participating by phone it’s important that we 

11 mute our lines including me. If you would 

12 please mute your lines until you’re ready to 

13 speak. If you do not have a mute button, then 

14 use star six to mute your phone for everyone 

15 to be able to hear and so that for the call to 

16 proceed well it is important that everyone 

17 who’s not speaking mute their line. 

18 With that I hand it over to Dr. 

19 Roessler. And Dr. Roessler, Ms. Chia-Chia 

20 Chang will be the DFO. Thank you so much. 

21 INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR

22 DR. ROESSLER: Thank you, Dr. Branche. 

23 I want to remind everybody that we’re 

24 scheduled for one hour today. I think that 

25 will be ample, but we all need to keep our 
10

1 comments as brief as possible. 

2 The first thing I want to verify is 

3 that NIOSH has the report that was sent out 

4 earlier this week. It came out on Wednesday. 

5 This is Steve Ostrow’s and Bob Anigstein’s 

report. Now the report was dated March 29th 6 -- 

7 DR. OSTROW: This is Steve. I apologize 

8 humbly, and the pages are also numbered 

9 incorrectly. We just discovered that about 

10 ten minutes ago. I apologize. The correct 

date of the report should be June 4th 11 , and 

12 we’ll correct the report in a day or so and 

13 just make sure there are no more typos in it. 

14 DR. ROESSLER: Okay, I just wanted to make 

15 sure we have the right one, and I thought we 

16 did. 

DR. OSTROW: Yeah, it says June 4th 17 on the 

18 footer inside the report, but just the cover 

19 somehow got the wrong date. 

20 DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I see it on the footer 

that it’s June 4th 21 . 

22 DR. OSTROW: That should be the correct 

23 date. 

24 DR. ROESSLER: And I want to verify that 

25 Chris Crawford and Joe Guido have it and are 
11

1 prepared to respond a bit later. 

2 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes, I received it. This is 

3 Chris Crawford. 

4 MR. GUIDO: And this is Joe. We received 

5 it, and we’ve reviewed it. We can make 

6 comments in an in-depth analysis, and we just 

7 got it a couple days ago so I don’t think 

8 we’ll need any more time before we can talk 

9 about it. 

10 DR. ROESSLER: I want to remind everybody 

11 that the working group’s assignment here is a 

12 site profile review. And as Steve states in 

13 his report, and I’m going to read from it, 

14 this issue, popularly referred to as the 

15 burlap bag issue, is the last remaining Linde 

16 site profile review issue identified by SC&A 

17 requiring resolution. 

18 But my plan then today and since we 

19 have only an hour I asked Steve if he would, 

20 instead of going through the report 

21 thoroughly, to briefly summarize the pertinent 

22 points then we’ll have NIOSH respond. And if 

23 we need to go into more detail on the report 

24 we can do that then. But if it’s okay with 

25 everybody then I’d like to have Steve begin 
12

1 his summarization. 

2 BURLAP BAG ISSUE

3 DR. OSTROW: This is Steve. I’d be happy to 

4 do that. I’ll give it quickly. First of all, 

5 apologies for two things: One, getting the 

6 report out so late, as I mentioned. It’s one 

7 of those things we were going to issue like a 

8 week earlier. Every time we got the issue we 

9 found one more thing which took another day to 

10 resolve. It just kept going on. We just have 

11 to apologize for the typos. 

12 That said, I’ll just go through 

13 briefly what happened. We had our original 

14 site profile review back in July of ’06. We 

15 identified a bunch of issues. Subsequently, 

16 after meetings and so forth, we narrowed it 

17 down to just one issue. This was on the 

18 burlap bag issue, burlap bag issue. That’s 

19 what we’ve been focusing on. 

 We had a meeting on January 8th 20 of this 

21 year, a working group meeting in Las Vegas, 

22 where we all met together, and we couldn’t 

23 reach a consensus on how to treat this issue. 

On a subsequent technical call on February 13th 24 

25 with us and NIOSH and the Board and at that 
13

1 time the resolution -- and one of the former 

2 workers was on that call, too. They did have 

3 a recollection of what happened. 

4 NIOSH at that time was tasked to do a 

5 white paper basically to evaluate what the 

6 effect would be of a worker in the 1950s 

7 standing near -- a coffee break -- a pile of 

8 empty burlap bags every day for the year while 

9 he’s having lunch. What’s the dose effect of 

10 that. 

11 And NIOSH produced its report then on 

March 29th 12 . And the SC&A’s -- It was March 

18th, 13 the NIOSH report. And SC&A then went 

14 ahead and took a look at that. We assessed 

15 that. We did some more calculations, and we 

16 produced this report we were just talking 

17 about, the June 4th report. That’s our 

18 findings on the NIOSH report. That’s a very 

19 brief introduction. 

20 The NIOSH report basically looked at 

21 the dose to a person one foot away from the 

22 pile of African ore containing bags for one 

23 hour per day. This was supposedly on their 

24 lunch hour. And they relied primarily on a 

25 set of measurements that were made in 1944. 
14

1 So African ore bags, and this is referred to 

2 as ^. This reference is either in the NIOSH 

3 report or the SC&A report in the 1944 

4 timeframe. 

5 And just doing a little simple 

6 multiplication, dose rates times time, NIOSH 

7 came out with an annual exposure of 1.5 

8 Roentgens per year. That’s just the gamma 

9 exposure. And NIOSH concluded in this report 

10 that the, right now their current dose model 

11 is an assigned dose of 1.85 Roentgens per year 

12 for workers in this 1950 time period. 

13 So going back to NIOSH, the report 

14 concluded that right now they have an assigned 

15 dose rate of 1.85 Roentgens per year gamma 

16 with a geometric standard deviation of 4.04, 

and the 95th 17 percentile value then is 18.5 

18 Roentgens per year. So NIOSH concluded that 

19 their current assigned distribution 

20 encompasses the case if somebody were standing 

21 near the burlap bags on a lunch break. 

22 SC&A took the report and we extended a 

23 little bit. Based on the teleconference, so 

called, that we had on February 13th 24 , the 

25 particular worker had mentioned that he 
15

1 thought they might have been sitting on the 

2 bags, too. So we looked at the case what 

3 would happen if the worker instead of being a 

4 foot away, was actually sitting on the bags. 

5 And we went back. We looked at the 

6 Skinner* report again, which is a measurement, 

7 and we just did the simple multiplication also 

8 because they give contact doses based on top 

9 of the bag also, and we came up with 4.75 

10 Roentgens per year gamma exposure which is 

11 higher than the NIOSH assigned dose rate but 

within their 95th 12 percentile value. But so far 

13 we’re just using measurements. 

14 Then the other thought, well, if 

15 somebody is near the bags or sitting on the 

16 bags how about the beta exposure. So far 

17 they’ve just talked about gamma, but what 

18 happened to the beta exposure. And there was 

19 no measurements on that. We decided to do a 

20 calculation, and we used the MCNP Monte Carlo 

21 approach for both beta and gamma so we’d have 

22 a consistent calculation by using one code to 

23 calculate both of them. And the results 

24 appear in our report. 

25 Appendix A of our report has the 
16

1 average -- Bob Anigstein did -- has the actual 

2 calculation and the results of that. And the 

3 short of it is that we determined that the 

4 possible beta dose to a person, at least to 

5 his lower organs, could be significant. That 

6 it’s around the same order as the gamma dose 

7 which has a conversion factor. Anyway, we 

8 thought that it was something that should be 

9 taken into consideration, the beta dose. 

10 And the other thing is our calculated 

11 gamma dose rates came out significantly higher 

12 than the measured dose rates. And you might 

13 say offhand, well, a measurement is better 

14 than a calculation, but as our Appendix A 

15 discusses at the very end there are some 

16 reasons why we think the measurements might 

17 not have been that accurate. That’s the basic 

18 summary, and that’s where we are right now. 

19 DR. ROESSLER: Thank you, Steve. That’s a 

20 very good summary, and I think it’s now 

21 appropriate for Chris or anyone at NIOSH to 

22 respond. 

23 MR. CRAWFORD: Again, we’ve only had about a 

24 day and a half to look this over. We noticed 

25 a few things. First of all I’d like to go 
17

1 back a little bit and remind everyone of the 

2 degrees of uncertainty we’re dealing with 

3 here. We have a witness, a credible witness 

4 I’d say, who saw some burlap bags in Building 

5 30, the warehouse, in August of 1951. 

6 He was told but didn’t know of his own 

7 knowledge that there was uranium ore in the 

8 bags. Now the last uranium ore received at 

9 Linde was 1946. They were through with 

10 uranium ore processing at approximately that 

11 time, and then they went into phase three 

12 which was uranium oxide processing. Uranium 

13 oxide was delivered in drums, but in different 

14 packaging. 

15 So one basic question we have is, was 

16 it really ore in Building 30 in 1951. One of 

17 the reasons we question that besides the fact 

18 that it would have to be five year old ore 

19 that somehow wasn’t processed at a time when 

20 the government was very interested in 

21 inventory control for uranium. Another factor 

22 is in 1950 there was a thorough, there was a 

23 report of an inventory of the building of 

24 sources. And Joe reviewed this in detail. 

25 MR. GUIDO: It was a thorough survey of the 
18

1 facilities of all the buildings, and it 

2 included that warehouse building. So I’ll let 

3 you continue. 

4 MR. CRAWFORD: And at that time in 1950 it’s 

5 not very credible that they would have 

6 surveyed the whole building and failed to 

7 survey an obvious source like a pallet of 

8 uranium ore bags. There was no entry at that 

9 time for this. So there’s a mystery of where 

10 the bags came from, what they contained and 

11 how long they were there. 

12 We know again from the witness that by 

13 the time he returned from his Army tour in 

14 1954 they were gone. So that’s just one 

15 source of uncertainty. What was in the bags? 

16 When were they there and so forth. 

17 And then we have the other questions 

18 of how many people actually sat on the bags 

19 for how long. The witness that we have wasn’t 

20 actually stationed in Building 30. He was 

21 there for an inventory at least on one 

22 occasion. He put his coffee on the bags. He 

23 said that he saw other people sit on the bags 

24 but not for long periods of time. It’s hard 

25 to quantify that. 
19

1 Then to turn to a more technical 

2 aspect, the one thing we did notice in the 

3 SC&A report is they assumed a 70 percent 

4 African ore, 70 percent uranium content. And 

5 we know that the highest African ore grade 

6 that was received at Linde was 17.7 percent. 

7 Even at that level only one-third of one 

8 percent of all the ore received at Linde was 

9 that high a grade. 

10 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob Anigstein. I 

11 got the 70 percent from the Mallinckrodt site 

12 profile, and it appeared that these were the 

13 same ores that were coming from the Belgian 

14 Congo. And they said that it was up to 70 

15 percent. That was a quotation I believe from 

16 Eisenbud in 1954. 

17 MR. GUIDO: This is Joe Guido. I believe 

18 there was a concerted effort to segregate 

19 where the very high grade ore went to because 

20 if you look at very early memos, I mean, they 

21 were very aware of the difference between an 

22 eight percent ore and a 70 percent ore as far 

23 as radiation exposure. And the TBD at the 

24 Mallinckrodt facility did handle that very 

25 high grade ore. So I guess I understand where 
20

1 you got that from, but I would question, you 

2 know, we have no record of any of the stuff at 

3 Linde approaching that high a concentration. 

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Okay, well that would 

5 certainly account for the difference. That 

6 would go a long way towards accounting for the 

7 difference between the calculated rates and 

8 the measured rates. I just went with the 

9 highest, to be claimant favorable, I just went 

10 with the highest rate that I had a record of. 

11 MR. GUIDO: I would say once you -- 

12 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I took the highest 

13 concentration. 

14 MR. GUIDO: Once you back that out, I would 

15 say that you basically have demonstrated that 

16 you can do a whole lot of sophisticated 

17 calculations to, you’re in the same ballpark 

18 now. 

19 DR. ROESSLER: Is that Joe speaking? 

20 MR. GUIDO: Yeah, I’m sorry. I have to 

21 identify myself. I’m sorry. 

22 DR. ROESSLER: Okay, thanks, Joe. 

23 MR. GUIDO: Yeah, once you account for the 

24 change in the concentration I think we’re 

25 basically talking now about the same thing. 
21

1 DR. ANIGSTEIN: I agree. 

2 MR. GUIDO: And as far as the beta dose 

3 rates get, we don’t have the measurements, but 

4 those would scale down. But I think the 

5 important factor there is that the beta 

6 exposure rate is lower than the gamma. And 

7 the same methodology that we proposed to 

8 account for this scenario which is the GSC 

9 assigned in the Linde TBD, the same thing 

10 would go to cover any beta exposure for that 

11 point. Because the beta assignment is more 

12 than the gamma assignment, like 2.5. I’d have 

13 to look at the TBD. And it has the same GSC, 

14 so I’ll let Chris proceed. 

15 MR. CRAWFORD: Right, well, that comes close 

16 to wrapping it up. So our position basically 

17 is if there was ore present in those bags, if 

18 people sat on the bags, and if it was the 

19 most, the richest African ore that was 

20 actually at the Linde site, we still believe 

21 that the allowance that we’ve already made in 

22 the TBD more than covers the possible dose 

23 from this source. 

24 DR. ROESSLER: Would that include then the 

25 beta dose that SC&A is discussing? 
22

1 MR. CRAWFORD: As Joe has just said, yes, it 

2 would include the beta dose. 

3 DR. ROESSLER: Are you redoing your 

4 calculations to include the beta dose or you 

5 feel that what you had before is a wide enough 

6 range to include it? 

7 MR. CRAWFORD: We basically think we had a 

8 wide enough range with the geometric standard 

9 deviation as large as it was. That made sure 

10 that in the IREP calculations it would be 

taken into account at the 95th 11 percentile 

12 level. 

13 DR. ROESSLER: And, Steve and Bob, how do 

14 you feel about that? 

15 DR. OSTROW: Bob, do you have some comments 

16 on this? 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob. I would go 

18 along, I would probably, I haven’t actually 

19 dug up that particular reference on the Linde 

20 ore concentrations, but I have to admit it is 

21 substantiated because there was something else 

22 about the yield in one of the reports I did 

23 look at. I think about the yield and the 

24 yield from the ore was certainly much lower 

25 than 70 percent. 
23

1 As far as the IREP input, SC&A -- and 

2 I shouldn’t really speak for SC&A, but my 

3 understanding is our position was that it is 

more claimant favorable usually to use the 95th 4 

5 percentile value as a fixed IREP input rather 

6 than putting in the entire distribution. 

7 Because for any given worker, we don’t know 

8 that he could be at the, near the top. I know 

9 we’d raised this issue some years ago, and I 

10 thought that that was a common practice now to 

use the 95th 11 percentile as a fixed value. 

12 DR. ROESSLER: Maybe Jim can answer that. 

DR. NETON: Bob’s right. I mean, the 95th 13 

14 percentile given the known, given that there’s 

15 a known exposure scenario. But I think as 

16 Chris has pointed out here these are sort of 

17 ifs on top of ifs on top of ifs. So no one is 

18 really certain at all that these exposures 

19 actually even occurred. But I think to sort 

20 of assume that they occurred in the absence of 

21 any positive evidence, I think it’s 

22 sufficiently favorable to use the distribution 

23 in this case. 

24 DR. ROESSLER: Well, I guess it’s at the 

25 plan then in doing the dosimetry is that for 
24

1 any worker who was present during that time 

2 that you assume a certain time sitting on the 

bags and do the calculations then as the 95th 3 

4 percentile? 

5 DR. NETON: Well, I think that would be 

6 SC&A’s opinion. But I think -- correct me if 

7 I’m wrong, Chris -- but I think that’s not 

8 what we’re suggesting. 

9 MR. CRAWFORD: That’s right. We believe 

10 that the existing TBD makes quite an adequate 

11 representation of the possible dose received 

12 by the workers during the latter period. 

13 MR. GUIDO: This is Joe Guido. I want to 

14 make one comment, too. There’s two issues 

15 here. One is what is the site profile 

16 guidance for dose reconstruction. And then 

17 the other issue is how is a dose 

18 reconstruction actually done by a DR. And one 

19 comment I want to make is if in a DR report 

20 there is evidence that exposure scenarios that 

21 were abnormal, were not in the upper tier of 

22 some kind of scenario, not just this one but 

23 any scenario, you know, that information is 

24 looked at by the dose reconstructor and is 

25 addressed in the report. 
25

1 So the technical basis document 

2 provides guidance and scenarios on the more 

3 general scenario and is geared towards being 

4 claimant favorable and covering in general. 

5 And then if there is specific information 

6 about a specific DR that’s being 

7 reconstructed, that information is considered. 

8 And so I guess what I say is we really 

9 wouldn’t want to treat every single Linde 

10 employee as if they spent their lunch hour in 

11 that building, which was a warehouse, sitting 

12 on that pallet of bags. But if there’s that 

13 information was specifically put forward, it 

14 would be addressed in the dose reconstruction 

15 report. 

16 And I have not seen a CATI that has 

17 said that, but I just want to make sure I 

18 remind everyone that that is a two-step 

19 process. This is really getting to very 

20 specific scenarios that should not be assigned 

21 to every worker, I would think. 

22 DR. ROESSLER: It seems where we’re at is 

23 that SC&A has made some suggestions which it 

24 appeared to me might ask NIOSH to revise the 

25 site profile. And I think what Chris and Joe 
26

1 are saying is that the site profile guidance 

2 and the language as to how the dose 

3 reconstruction would be done does cover all 

4 SC&A’s concerns. Am I getting that right? 

5 DR. OSTROW: This is Steve. It sounds like 

6 it. I don’t think we disagree now. We 

7 haven’t done the recalculations with rescaling 

8 of our calculations for lower concentrations 

9 of uranium which we could probably do fairly 

10 quickly. But assuming that we do the 

11 rescaling it sounds like we don’t disagree 

12 technically with NIOSH about the actual dose 

13 rates. We’re in the same ballpark on 

14 calculated values and their measured values. 

15 This turns out to be not so much a 

16 technical issue as a procedural issue. And 

17 this I don’t know if we make the call or NIOSH 

18 makes the call or the Board makes the call on 

19 this. Which scenario do we take? Do you 

20 consider that the situation is a hypothetical 

21 exposure from maybe sitting on top of the bags 

22 for a whole year? 

23 Is that credible enough that you would 

take the 95th 24 percentile value? Or is it 

25 incredible enough that you may just want to go 
27

1 with the mean. It’s not really that much of a 

2 scientific issue now. 

3 MR. GUIDO: Hey, Steve, this is Joe Guido. 

4 I want to just clarify because for the meeting 

5 notes here if we were to say that someone did 

6 spend an hour a day on those bags, when we 

talk about the 95th 7 percentile, what we’re 

8 talking about is the default. The technical 

9 basis document provides an external dose 

10 assignment of the 1.85 rem with a GSD of 4.04. 

11 That assignment covers all exposures at Linde. 

12 So if we say that input of that 

13 parameter into IREP as a distribution, which 

14 is currently a practice, does not cover this 

15 scenario, we would not, I don’t think we would 

want to assign the 95th 16 percentile of that 

17 distribution. What we would do is we would 

18 add on top of it an assignment just for the 

19 bags which would be -- and I’m not saying we 

20 should do that. 

21 I’m just saying, I just want to 

22 caution that what the alternatives here are 

not do what we’re doing now or assign the 95th 23 

24 percentile. It’s really do what we’re doing 

25 now and assign an additional exposure which 
28

1 NIOSH believes is already accounted for in the 

2 distribution. 

3 DR. OSTROW: Okay, thanks for the 

4 clarification. 

5 DR. ROESSLER: I’m a little bit unclear as 

6 to where we stand. I think what I’m hearing 

7 from Steve is that SC&A is accepting the site 

8 profile. 

9 DR. OSTROW: Subject to a little bit ^. 

10 We’re doing this sort of in our heads now. If 

11 we have the lower African ore concentrations, 

12 we think that we end up in the same ballpark, 

13 but that would require just a little bit using 

14 a calculator to make sure. 

15 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob Anigstein. 

16 Would the working group like us to reissue -- 

17 this would be a very small amount of work -- 

18 reissue this report correcting or scaling down 

19 the concentration? I see we also have a 

20 couple of typos that we wanted to fix anyway 

21 so while we’re at it we can scale down the 

22 concentration. And if Joe can give me, 

23 perhaps by e-mail, that exact location of the 

24 concentrations for Linde, I had missed that. 

25 Is that in the Linde site profile? 
29

1 MR. GUIDO: Table 20. 

2 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Pardon? 

3 MR. GUIDO: That’s Table 20. 

4 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Oh, okay, great. I will 

5 look at that and also take into account so if 

6 this is what the working group would like SC&A 

7 to do, I would say by tomorrow we could 

8 probably have a new revised report out for 

9 you. 

10 DR. ROESSLER: I think that would be the 

11 approach, and I’m going to ask for a response 

12 from the other members of the working group. 

13 But it would seem that this could be 

14 accomplished and we could have a resolution on 

15 it by the time the Board meets in St. Louis. 

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Excuse me, tomorrow, 

17 tomorrow’s Saturday. I meant Monday. 

18 DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, by Monday. I know 

19 Josie and Mike and I hope Jim are still on the 

20 line. Does any one of you have any reaction 

21 to this approach? 

22 DR. LOCKEY: Jim Lockey, I concur. It 

23 sounds like a reasonable approach to me. We 

24 can wrap this up. 

25 MS. BEACH: This is Josie. I also agree 
30

1 with that approach. 

2 MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. I agree. 

3 DR. ROESSLER: What about let’s hear a 

4 response from NIOSH as to what the timing and 

5 the approach on this. 

6 MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I 

7 think you’ve taken the right approach. We 

8 would appreciate seeing SC&A’s report revised 

9 to show their agreement or whatever aspect 

10 they disagree with us on and hopefully we’ll 

11 be all in one place. 

12 DR. ROESSLER: So on the timing if we all 

13 get the revised report on Monday -- I’m 

14 thinking ahead to the St. Louis meeting -- I 

15 would like to be able to bring a final 

16 conclusion to the Board at that time. 

17 Do we, Larry or Steve and Bob, do you 

18 think that we’re going to have to have the 

19 working group get together before that time? 

20 I’m not quite sure what the proper approach 

21 is. 

22 DR. OSTROW: I’m trying to think it through. 

23 Let’s assume that our report technically 

24 agrees with NIOSH’s measurements, and we’re in 

25 the same ballpark. Then we still have this 
31

1 little bit difference of opinion of exactly 

2 how to treat the potential exposures. 

3 I’m not quite sure how to resolve 

4 that, you know, for the bag scenario. Whether 

5 NIOSH’s approach as I understand it would be 

6 that let’s keep it the way it is now and any 

7 possible bag scenario would be subsumed in 

8 their current guidance. The other approach 

9 would be to have a special case for the bag 

10 exposure. 

11 Joe, did I state that right? 

12 MR. GUIDO: Yes, yes. I mean, if you make 

13 the opinion that the current distribution does 

14 not cover this event, then you would have a 

15 separate line item for that. 

16 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob. I think maybe 

17 that we need to confer internally in SC&A 

18 before we make a conclusion on this. 

19 MR. GUIDO: Hey, Gen, a point of order. 

20 When is the St. Louis meeting? I don’t keep 

21 track of those very closely, just for my own 

22 schedule. 

DR. ROESSLER: But I think it’s June 22nd 23 . 

24 MR. ELLIOTT: The meeting in -- oh, go 

25 ahead, Chia-Chia. 
32

MS. CHANG: The meeting is on the 24th, 25th 1 

and 26th 2 of June. 

3 MR. ELLIOTT: As far as NIOSH is concerned, 

4 our position is that our site profile 

5 currently addresses this kind of special, 

6 unique exposure scenario. And so if SC&A 

7 comes forward with an alternative suggestion 

8 to that, we would consider it. But at this 

9 juncture we are not in a position to say we 

10 feel we should change our dose reconstruction 

11 approach. 

12 DR. ROESSLER: But it seems at this point 

13 then we need to allow Bob and Steve and SC&A 

14 to think about this a bit. And I think it 

15 would be appropriate to include your 

16 evaluation of it when you send in your revised 

17 report. 

18 DR. OSTROW: Okay, we can do that. We can 

19 do our revised report, the technical part and 

20 then we’ll have a recommendation at the end of 

21 it. We’ll recommend what we think what the 

22 course of action should be. 

23 DR. ROESSLER: Okay. It would seem that one 

24 approach that would be simple if you agree 

25 with it is that SC&A’s site profile and their 
33

1 approach to the dose reconstruction is 

2 acceptable. The other alternative would be, 

3 if not, what you would suggest, and then we’ll 

4 have to go back to NIOSH and get their 

5 response. 

6 DR. OSTROW: Okay, that sounds right. 

7 DR. ANIGSTEIN: This is Bob. I’m just 

8 looking at the calendar. I would just like to 

9 revise the commitment to having it by early 

10 Tuesday because this gives us time for 

11 internal review, if that’s okay. 

12 DR. ROESSLER: That sounds good because 

13 Tuesday is still, we still have quite a bit of 

14 time. So let’s take the next step, look for 

15 your report on Tuesday, and you’ll be sending 

16 it to NIOSH as well as to the working group. 

17 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Yes. 

18 DR. OSTROW: Right. 

19 DR. ROESSLER: And after that happens then I 

20 think we’ll have to decide where to go from 

21 there. If it looks like we need to have 

22 another meeting like this, we’ll have to call 

23 one at the soon as possible time. 

24 DR. OSTROW: Okay, if we decide that after 

25 our conclusion that NIOSH’s approach is 
34

1 acceptable, I think that closes the issue. 

2 DR. ROESSLER: Then it closes the issue. 

3 And then I’m assuming from what I’ve heard 

4 from the working group then they agree that 

5 everything is acceptable, and we’ll report 

6 that to the Board in St. Louis. 

7 DR. OSTROW: Right. 

8 DR. ROESSLER: Does anyone have any, have we 

9 missed anything here or does this plan look 

10 appropriate? 

11 DR. LOCKEY: Jim Lockey, I think it sounds 

12 very appropriate. 

13 DR. ROESSLER: Josie and Mike, any comments? 

14 MS. BEACH: I agree. 

15 DR. ROESSLER: Larry -- 

16 MR. GIBSON: That’s fine. 

17 DR. ROESSLER: -- NIOSH people, does this 

18 look like the right approach? 

19 DR. NETON: Sounds good to me. 

20 MR. ELLIOTT: Is it okay with you, Chris? 

21 MR. CRAWFORD: Yes, fine with me. 

22 MR. ELLIOTT: I think we’re fine with it, 

23 Madam Chair. 

24 DR. ROESSLER: So it looks like we have 

25 finished our meeting for today. Jim can now 
35

1 drive safely, and we’ll wait for the report to 

2 come through on Tuesday and decide where to go 

3 from there. 

4 DR. OSTROW: Okay, very good, SC&A is happy. 

5 DR. ROESSLER: Thank you for your good work, 

6 Steve and Bob -- 

7 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you all. 

8 DR. ROESSLER: -- and we’ll talk later then. 

9 (Whereupon, the working group meeting 

10 concluded at 10:40 a.m.) 

11 
36

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 06, 

2008; I, Steven Ray Green, then transcribed the 

proceedings, 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 

27th day of July, 2008. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102