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 


THIRTY-EIGHTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. II 


DAY TWO 


ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Marriott Metro Center, 


Washington, D.C., on June 15, 2006. 

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C O N T E N T S
 

June 15, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 


DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 


AMES SEC PETITION: 10 


NIOSH PRESENTATION, DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH 11 


PETITIONER COMMENTS, DR. LARS FUORTES, 38 


UNIV. OF IOWA @ AMES 


WORKING GROUP REPORT, DR. JAMES MELIUS, 45 


WORKING GROUP CHAIR 


BOARD DISCUSSION 68 


SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON 100 


AMES (CONT’D) 108 


NIOSH PRESENTATION ON PARTIAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS 110 


FOR NON-PRESUMPTIVE CANCERS, MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 


(CONT’D) 133 

CONGRESSMAN TOM UDALL 125 


UPDATE ON ISSUES RELATED TO NTS & PPG SEC PETITIONS (250 


DAYS), DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH 148 


SENATOR REID’S MESSAGE, SANDI SCHUBERT 163 


ROCKY FLATS SEC UPDATE 199 


MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORKING GROUP CHAIR 


COMMENT BY MS. WANDA MUNN 250 


Y12 SEC UPDATE: 260 


NIOSH PRESENTATION, DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH 264 


WORKING GROUP REPORT 285 


MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORKING GROUP CHAIR 


BOARD DISCUSSION 
 293 
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SC&A INITIAL PRESENTATION ON 4TH ROUND OF DOSE 


RECONSTRUCTION CASES, MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A 299 


PUBLIC COMMENT 325 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 381 

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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. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H. 


Director 


The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental 


Medicine 


Professor of Medicine 


Nashville, Tennessee 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 

 

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GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D. 


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


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 


STAFF
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, NCRP 


BATT, TONY, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL 


BEARD, ADRIAN, DOC 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BISTLINE, ROBERT W., SC&A 


BOWE, DAVID, SPFPA LOCAL 66 PORTS 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


CHANG, C C, HHS 


CHANLOW, MICHAEL, WASHINGTON POST 


COHEN, SANFORD, SC&A 


COOPER, DEANNA, LANL 


DEHART, JULIA, OHA INC. 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


FUORTES, LAURENCE, UNIV OF IOWA 


GRANDE, JAMES, DOL 


HAUGHLY, MINDI, NIOSH 


HEARL, FRANK, NIOSH 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOLMES, CAROLYN 


HOSS, LARRY, DOL 


HOWARD, JOHN, NIOSH 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


ISHAK, LAURIE, NIOSH 


JARM, SHERLEY, DOL 


JOSEPH, TIMOTHY, ORAUT 


KENOYER, JUDSON, DADE MOELLER & ASSOCS. 


KIMPAN, KATE, ORAU 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LEWIS, JOHN, OMBUDSMAN 


LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCCOY, EILEEN, OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE 


MCDOUGALL, VERNON, ATL 


MCKEEL, DANIEL, MD, SO. IL NUCLEAR WORKERS 


MILLER, RELADE P., NIOSH 


MILLER, RICHARD, GAP 


MOSIER, ROBERTA, DOL 

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NESVET, JEFF, DOL 


PARKER, TREY, OMBUDSMAN 


PLATNER, JAMES, CPWR 


POTTER, HERMAN, USW 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY 


RAFKY, MICHAEL, CDC 


RAMSPOTT, JOHN, SO. IL NUCLEAR WORKERS 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SAMPSON, BOB, GAO 


SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC 


SCHAUER, DAVID A., NCRP 


STEPHENS, VICKIE, IAM CREST 


TENFORDE, THOMAS S., NCRP 


TURCIC, PETE, DOL 


TYNER, CHARLOTTE E. 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 


WALBURN, JEFF, SPFPA LOCAL 66 PORTS 


WALKER JOYCE, BSAG 


WING, JENNY, HARKIN 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(8:30 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. We begin our 


second day of the 38th meeting of the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health. Again I 


begin with my usual reminders, to ask you to 


register your attendance -- oh, that reminds 


me; I forgot to do that this morning -- 


register your attendance in the registration 


book out in the hall. 


Also, if you're a member of the public and wish 


to address the assembly during the public 


comment session later today, please sign up in 


the book in the hallway, as well. 


 Again I'll remind you that copies of the agenda 


and other pertinent documents are on the table 


in the back of the room. 


Let me stop a moment and ask Dr. Wade if he has 


any additional comments before we address the 


agenda items. 


 DR. WADE: Two briefly. One, welcome again, 


and I always thank the Board for its -- its 

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hard work. 


This morning we're going to start with the Ames 


SEC petition. What's interesting about that 


and worthy of note, I think, is this will be 


the first petition that will come before the 


Board where SC&A has been aggressively involved 


in terms of looking into the issues. And 


again, one of the things we've tried to do -- 


or this Board has tried to do is make all the 


processes open and -- and make the debate rich 


and full and open, so I think it's significant 


that now we've brought that to the SEC arena 


and this will really be the first formal one 


that will play out that way. 


AMES SEC PETITION:


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, and in 


connection with the Ames petition we're going 


to begin with the NIOSH presentation, then 


we'll go to comments from the petitioners. 


Then there will be a working group report and 


then we'll have open Board discussion. 


And let me also ask, before we get into the 


presentations, in addition to those here in the 


assembly representing Ames, are there any of 


the petitioners on the telephone or will there 

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be any additional ones on the telephone? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Not to my knowledge. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not to your knowledge. Okay. 


Thank you. 


NIOSH PRESENTATION, DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH


 Then let's begin with the NIOSH presentation. 


Dr. Neton from NIOSH will give us the NIOSH 


evaluation report of the Ames SEC petition. 


DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Good 


morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present, as 


Dr. Ziemer said, our -- NIOSH's evaluation of 


the petition SEC-00038, which was on behalf of 


-- a petition on behalf of Ames Laboratory. 


might say that in this role that NIOSH has in 


evaluating sufficient accuracy for the SEC 


process, oftentimes there's a lot of room for 


valid scientific debate as to whether we can do 


a dose reconstruction with sufficient accuracy. 


And I -- I hope that you mind find out before I 


finish my presentation that we have a pretty 


bright line here and a very compelling basis 


for our -- our decision that we made on this 


particular petition. 


Just a little bit about the background and 


petition-related activities, we received the 


I 
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petition on June 29th, 2005. It was qualified 


for -- as a petition on September 23rd, 2005. 


That is, it met the requirements that are -- 


are in the SEC rule, part 82.7 through 82.9. 


It had to meet certain criteria, like the 


petitioner had to be an eligible petitioner and 


there had to be some supporting basis -- 


supported by affidavits as to why we couldn't 


do dose reconstructions with sufficient 


accuracy, and that was met on the 23rd. 


NIOSH issued our evaluation report on April -- 


I think the report is dated April 9th, but it 


was distributed on April 10th, 2006. It was 


distributed to the Advisory Board and the 


petitioners, and also posted on our web site, 


as our normal practice. 


As Dr. Wade mentioned at the beginning of the 


session, SC&A was tasked with performing a 


review of this -- it really wasn't the 


petition, it was the evaluation report of the 


petition. In some sense that took them back 


through looking at the petition itself. 
I 


think it was originally scheduled to be a full 


review and -- and at the end it was transformed 


into a -- into a focused review by SC&A. 

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 The working group chaired by Dr. Melius held a 


teleconference on April 12th, 2006 to discuss 


the report. There's a detailed, 55-page 


transcript of this teleconference out -- posted 


on our web site. And SC&A at that time had not 


yet quite finished their evaluation of our 


petition. They had some initial input and some 


findings, and we discussed those. 


Subsequent to that meeting, on June 5th, SC&A 


issued their draft review of the evaluation 


report, and I believe that will be discussed by 


Dr. Melius later on in the session. 


I will say that there's quite a bit of 


documentation out there now. There's the 


evaluation report, plus SC&A's review. Those 


have been made available to the Board. They've 


been on our web site for a little while. So 


I'm really just going to try to hit the 


highlights, and then address any questions you 


might have on this -- on this petition. 


 The original proposed class, as indicated in 


the petition -- Petition 38 -- was sort of a 


broad -- a broad scope of work categories, 


there's seven work categories that were listed 


in the petition, that -- you know, we're clear 

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they were trying to attempt to capture all 


possible people who were involved in exposures 


in these operations, ranging from the academic 


types who were working on this, the production 


workers and down to the administrative support 


staff in a petition for people who worked at 


the Ames Laboratory, and they listed a few 


buildings. These were Annex 1, and the 


followed by the old women's gymnasium and -- 


I'm not sure how you pronounce this, but I'll 


pronounce it -- "Little Alkeny" (sic), I 


believe. 


 MS. MUNN: Ankeny. 


DR. NETON: Is that correct, Alkeny? 


 MS. MUNN: Ankeny. 


DR. NETON: Ankeny, I'm sorry. I was thinking 


of alchemy. 


 MS. MUNN: No, Ankeny. 


DR. NETON: Little Ankeny. This -- these are 


actually the same buildings. Annex 1 -- these 


are pseudonyms for Annex 1 -- the old women's 


gymnasium and Little Ankeny. Also the 


chemistry building and/or Wilhelm Hall, which 


is also known as the metallurgical building. 


And the petition asked for the class to be 

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added from January 1st, 1942 through December 


31st, 1955. So on that basis, we proceeded to 


do our evaluation. 


As usual, we took a look at our NIOSH OCAS 


Claims Tracking System to see what we had in 


our archives for cases that had been filed, and 


there were 36 cases in NOCTS. This is actually 


-- I should have a date on here. This is 


actually as of March when this was -- NOCTS was 


polled for this information, so -- I don't 


think it's substantially changed since then, 


but -- there were 36 cases that met the 


original class definition. That means people 


who had worked in that period at the Ames 


Laboratory. And NIOSH had indicated in the 


database that we completed two dose 


reconstructions. 


I looked through the individual dose 


reconstructions that were published in NOCTS -- 


in our database -- and actually one of the two 


dose reconstructions was compensable, but only 


based on employment at another facility. So in 


other words, the Ames exposure did not have to 


be considered to make a determination in that 


case. And the other case was compensable 

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solely based on a calculation of missed dose. 


That is, the person was monitored for external 


exposure, and the dose that could have been 


received and not recorded by the dosimeters 


themselves added up to a sufficient dose to 


make that case over 50 percent. I think in 


this particular case there may have been 


multiple cancers involved, which does lower the 


required dose for compensability. 


And these last two items, there's almost no 


monitoring data available in the NOCTS case 


files. We had two cases that had internal 


dosimetry -- that is bioassay monitoring 


records -- and there were four cases which 


contained some type of external monitoring 


results. Not much information in NOCTS. 


I'd just like to take a step back and talk a 


little bit about what -- what is Ames 


Laboratory, for some background reference 


information. It's really a what's been called 


in the past a GOCO, a Government-Owned 


Contractor-Operated, laboratory, started in 


1942 and exists today. It is still in 


existence as a DOE facility. In 1942 it 


started based on the need for the Atomic Energy 

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Commission to develop purified uranium metal. 


And as an academic institution that specialized 


in metallurgical processes, Ames was selected 


to do some of the initial work. 


And in fact Ames developed the initial process 


for purifying uranium metal that is still in 


existence today. That is, they would take 


uranium tetrafluoride and reduce it, in the 


presence of originally calcium -- it later 


turned into magnesium -- into uranium metal, 


and then you either get a calcium fluoride or 


magnesium fluoride slag. And uranium, being 


dense, would go to the bottom and you'd have 


this big chunk of uranium metal that one could 


-- could work with. 


They started very early on in '42, initially 


made a couple of pounds of material. By 1945 


when the process was completed, they had made 


over 2 million pounds of uranium metal, 1,000 


tons. This was all done in some fairly small 


facilities. So for all practical purposes, the 


Ames Laboratory was essentially a uranium 


foundry for a period of time. 


They were also involved not only in the uranium 


metal production but the casting of uranium. 

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That is, they took these what they called 


biscuits and melted them in a vacuum induction 


furnace to form them into various -- you know, 


to melt it and then form it into various 


compounds of uranium. 


And there were also scrap recovery operations. 


Uranium was a pretty valuable commodity back 


then, so the scrap uranium from the turnings 


and shavings and whatever were formed into 


little briquettes, like one inch by four inch 


briquettes, again put into the casting process, 


melted and formed into various shapes in the 


Laboratory. 


This was all done starting in the chemistry 


building. The need arose to have a bigger 


facility. It moved into this Little Ankeny, 


the Annex 1, which was a pretty modest-looking 


structure -- there's a picture of it in the 


SC&A report -- that was converted for this use. 


It was never intended for this thing to be a -- 


a production scale operation it ended up being, 


so there was very little ventilation 


(unintelligible) that type of thing. 


 Thorium metal production followed. It started 


in the 1943 time frame and continued on -- I 

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mentioned the uranium stopped in '45. The 


thorium production started in '43 and continued 


through 1954. The chemical process of making 


thorium is very similar to that of uranium. 


You start with uranium tetrafl-- thorium 


tetrafluoride and reduce it, in the presence of 


-- I think they were using calcium and then 


added some zinc later, but essentially you end 


up with purified uranium -- thorium metal in -- 


in sort of a slag, which is a calcium fluoride 


slag or a zinc calcium fluoride slag. So a lot 


of uranium -- thorium was made during this time 


period. I think at the end of the day 160,000 


pounds of -- or thorium were produced in this 


laboratory over -- over the operation of the 


facility. 


So essentially you have a metal and a thorium 


foundry going on here, with casting and scrap 


recovery operations. But then also Ames did a 


fair number of studies of the metallurgical 


properties of uranium, thorium and plutonium. 


This was an academic institution. They were 


evaluating the processes involved, the chemical 


separation techniques, all that sort of thing, 


as well as this plutonium operations, which we 

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don't have a lot of information on other than 


there was research done with plutonium. They 


had a hot canyon established in what was known 


as the research building at one point. They 


had up to five curies of fission products with 


plutonium contamination in one location and 


were doing some separation activities, but 


that's about all we know about the plutonium 


operations. 


And then there was a development of analytical 


procedures ongoing, which would develop new 


chemistry techniques, processes, a lot of 


fission -- fission product chemistry going on 


and -- you know, basic fundamental metallurgictype research practices. 


So essentially you have a large operation here 


with a potential for generating significant 


quantities of airborne thorium and uranium, and 


the concomitant exposure related to the 


external dosimetry from thorium, which does 


deliver a fairly high dose per unit mass of 


material. 


Okay. We looked at the available sources of 


information, as always, and I've listed on this 


slide the various types of information that 

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NIOSH had available to -- to try to flesh out 


what the exposures may have been at this 


facility during this time period. There is no 


site profile for Ames, so that wasn't available 


for us. But there are some Technical 


Information Bulletins that NIOSH has published 


that are sort of complex-wide documents that 


help to define plausible upper bounds for -- 


for uranium facilities, looking at things like 


alpha end reactions for uranium metal to see 


what the potential neutron exposures were. 


There were four Technical Information Bulletins 


that were reviewed to see if they were 


potentially applicable to dose reconstructions 


at this facility. 


Also there were interviews with Ames staff 


members. NIOSH interviewed a health physicist 


that was at the Ames facility, as well as a 


site visit discussing operations with nine 


employees at the facility. From those 


interviews NIOSH determined that there -- there 


obviously were significant exposures, and they 


were more confirmatory as to what we developed 


in -- what we learned from our site research 


database as to what the operations were, that 

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sort of thing. They did actually give us a 


trail on looking in a few locations for 


records, such as the Atlanta Records Centers 


where we did find some information. 


As I mentioned earlier, we looked at the case 


files in the database. That is, you know, what 


-- what information came over from Department 


of Labor that might help us do these dose 


reconstructions. And as I indicated 


previously, there's not much there, very 


limited dosimetry information that came in with 


the cases. 


Also the NIOSH site research database -- we've 


gone out, as you know, and do collections of 


data around the sites at various -- around the 


country at various records repositories, looked 


in site database, and I think we had 


collectively about 20 documents in the database 


that were relevant to Ames, ranging from, you 


know, journal article publications to a Ph.D. 


dissertation discussing Ames, those type of 


things. 


Ames Laboratory web site, there's a web site 


out there that has Ames Laboratory information 


from the former workers program, gives 

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histories and those type of things, and we did 


learn some information about processes. 


The ORISE Center for Epidemiological Research 


database, also known as the CER database, was 


looked -- was examined and I think we found 104 


medical records for folks who had been 


monitored for medical purposes at the Ames 


Laboratory. 


And last but not least, the documentation 


affidavits provided by the petitioners 


themselves. There were -- there was the 


petition, of course, followed -- I think there 


were three additional documents that were 


provided that we looked at, as well as an 


affidavit signed by -- signed by one of the 


petitioners that indicated that there was no 


monitoring records, or very spotty monitoring 


records, except for small subsets for a limited 


time period -- which essentially we were able 


to confirm, looking through the database. 


Okay, so what -- what type of dosimetry 


information do we have available here. Not a 


lot. The external dosimetry records -- prior 


to 1953 there's nothing, with the exception of 


two film badge results. And those two film 

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badge results are questionable in themselves. 


They are somewhat experimental in nature, 


extremely high readings, not really sure what 


process they were associated with, so not -- 


not useful. 


In '53 and '54 you start to see the rudiments 


of what we would consider to be a basic health 


physics monitoring program. You start to see a 


large number of workers being monitored -- 166 


in 1953, with over 3,000 readings available. 


In '54 again it increased, 190 workers with 


about 7,800 readings. So you know, we're 


starting to get a sense for what was going on 


here. Of course this is when thorium was -- 


was being processed, and as I'll discuss later, 


there were some real concerns by the Health and 


Safety Laboratory at that time that these 


practices were us-- the work practices for 


processing the thorium were less than -- 


certainly less than desirable, and that's a 


real understatement. 


For these two time periods we have a mixture of 


both beta and gamma results, and so we think in 


'53 and '56 time frame we have a pretty good 


handle on what the potential exposures were for 

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the workers. But prior to that, we really 


don't. 


There's minimal neutron monitoring. In '53 and 


'54 there were a few neutron measurements 


taken. I will say that the potential for 


neutron exposure is not that great from -- 


there's a potential, but the magnitude of the 


exposures from a uranium facility are not that 


large. You do get some -- some small neutrons. 


But again, they were working with plutonium at 


one point, and to what extent the plutonium's ­

- plutonium research was generating neutrons 


and exposing the workers is unknown to us at 


this time. So very little in the area of 


neutron -- or external dosimetry, with the 


exception of '53 and '54. 


The picture in the internal dosimetry arena is 


somewhat similar, not much going on. Before 


1946 there were blood chemistry measurements 


made, but they were really more to look for 


medical effects of exposures to uranium 


compounds. For example, I think they measured 


albumin in blood to -- to look for evidence of 


kidney damage. That's kind of a standard 


technique. But those are not useful for us in 

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reconstructing doses other than if -- if the 


kidney -- kidney function was impaired, we 


could certainly say that there were large 


exposures. 


 Thirty-four urine samples in 1944 were taken, I 


think by the Army Corps, so we have a few 


samples in here. And then there was a uranium 


excretion study in the AEC complex that looked 


at three different sites between 1943 and '45. 


Ames was one of those sites. And in fact 48 


Ames workers participated in this study where 


their exposures were grouped into one of four 


categories -- category 1, 2, 3, 4 -- category 1 


being the highest, and they were attempting to 


determine what the potential magnitude of these 


exposures were. My recollection is that they 


were -- there were some fairly large -- by 


today's standards, fairly large recorded 


results. You were talking maybe 200 to 300 


micrograms at the upper range -- micrograms per 


liter of uranium, which is pretty significant 


exposures at that time. And there's no thorium 


bioassay prior to 1952 at all. Again, they 


started working with thorium in '42. We have 


no indication of what these workers were 

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exposed to prior to '52. 


And no evidence of any routine air monitoring 


program. There are spotty indications of some 


monitoring. For example, there are 22 general 


area samples taken in 1943 for uranium 


operations. And not shown on this slide -- I 


inadvertently left it off -- was a 1952 


campaign to look at the thorium processes by 


the Health and Safety Laboratory, now called -- 


well, it was then called the Health and Safety 


Laboratory, became the Environmental 


Measurements Laboratory. It was an AEC 


laboratory that came out to the site and did a 


two or three-day sort of intensive 


investigation of what the exposures were in 


these thorium operations. And they documented 


some pretty significant exposures. I think the 


largest time-weighted air concentration was 


3,100 dpm per cubic meter. If one recognizes 


that the limit at that time was sort of de 


facto 70 dpm per cubic meter, you have some 


fairly significant exposures. 


But again, this was one campaign, a one-shot 


deal. How informative that is for all 


operations during this period is really not 

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clear to us. 


So, given all that information -- you know, 


we're tasked with doing an evaluation of can we 


do these dose reconstructions with sufficient 


accuracy, and so we have, as you've seen many 


times before, this two-pronged test. Can we do 


them with sufficient accuracy; and if not, is 


there reasonable likelihood that their health 


may have been endangered for members of this 


class. 


Well, we've come to the determination that the 


available monitoring records and process 


descriptions are insufficient to complete dose 


reconstructions. We just don't have enough 


data. The monitoring information are spotty. 


Source term information are not well known. So 


between those lacks of -- two -- two major 


classes of information are not available to us, 


particularly in the area of thorium exposures, 


'cause thorium exposures -- when thorium is 


present, there is also thoron gas present, 


radon 220 that was there in fairly significant 


quantities. That EML -- HASL measurements that 


I mentioned in '52 did some rudimentary thoron 


measurements. It's not clear to me how valid 

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they are based on the technique they used, but 


suffice it to say that there were indications 


of very large thoron exposures. And again, we 


really don't have any clue as to what was going 


on with these plutonium exposures. 


So it is our overall conclusion that we can't 


do dose reconstructions in this time period 


with sufficient accuracy. 


As far as the health endangerment issue goes, 


we -- we looked at the evidence and it 


indicates that workers in the class may have 


received episodic internal/external exposures 


from working with these compounds -- thorium, 


plutonium and -- and thoron. These exposures 


were -- were from internal exposures. That is, 


breathing the amount of thorium in the air. As 


such, these doses are delivered over a -- an 


integrated period of time. One will receive an 


exposure from thoron well over a 50-year period 


once you inhale it. So they did not meet the 


litmus test that's in our regulation, we 


believe, of an exposure that was equivalent to 


-- a discrete event equivalent to the exposure 


that would result -- result in a criticality 


accident. 

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So for that reason, the default 250-day 


requirement was selected -- or was used in this 


case for the employment duration required for 


the members of the class. And I've -- I've 


summarized here what the proposed class 


definition is now, based on our analysis. And 


rather than have the listing of the seven 


different categories of workers now, we're 


saying that employees of the DOE or DOE 


contractors who were monitored, or should have 


been monitored, at the Ames Laboratory. So 


this will be inclusive of anyone who was 


working in those buildings that we list 


following, and there's five separate buildings 


-- chemistry annex 1, chemistry annex 2, the 


chemistry building, research building and the 


metallurgical building. If they -- if you 


worked in any of those buildings for at least 


250 days from January 1st, '42 through December 


31st, '54, you're included in the class now in 


our proposed definition. 


I will say that this end date of December 31st, 


'54 is one year earlier than the proposed 


definition by the petitioner. And we based 


that on the fact that operations ceased in 1954 

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for both the uranium and the thorium 


activities. That is when the production 


quantities were no longer being -- being 


processed. And because we believe that we had 


a fair amount of monitoring data for the 


production operations in '54 -- we don't 


believe we can use it to -- to bound all 


exposures prior to '54, but certainly if 


production stopped and we have production 


numbers in '54, we believe that we can put 


plausible upper bounds for exposures in '55. 


And in fact we also have learned that there is 


some monitoring data available in '55 that we 


could use to bound exposures. So for those 


reasons, we believe that the '54 end date is -- 


at this point anyway -- is a reasonable end 


date for the SEC class. 


So in summary, I just have this table here 


which we tried to delineate what we can and 


cannot do in the various classes of exposures 


at the facilities and -- somehow this thing 


dropped down. This should be up above that 


line. 


As far as internal exposures go, we believe 


that dose reconstruction is feasible for 

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uranium. We have those limited -- albeit 


limited bioassay results, but uranium in urine 


is an integrator of exposure that occurred 


prior to that, so we believe that we can do 


something with the uranium intakes. But we 


really cannot reconstruct any doses for 


thorium, plutonium or thoron in the SEC period. 


 In the external dosimetry area, we believe that 


we can do -- we believe it's infeasible to do 


thorium/plutonium beta-gamma exposures, with 


the exception of '53 and '54 where we do have a 


fair number of monitoring records. We believe 


we can do something for the uranium exposures 


because we have a fair amount of -- of 


experience working with uranium. We know what 


the exposure rate per unit int-- per unit mass 


of uranium is and we believe we can put some 


plausible upper bounds on what external 


exposures may have been in that time frame. 


It's not feasible, we don't believe, to do 


neutron reconstructions. We do believe that we 


can do occupational medical X-rays. We have a 


fairly good indication of what type of X-rays 


were taken and when at this facility. And 


there's some good indications that, you know, 

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monthly X-rays were required for certain 


classes of workers. And there was also pelvic 


-- pelvic fluorimetry fluoroscopy done on 


workers. That was a technique that was used 


we've seen before to look at changes in the 


bone structure of workers that are exposed to 


large quantities of hydrofluoric acids -- or 


fluorene compounds in general. 


So that's the summary of where we are. I'd be 


happy to answer any questions if there -- if 


there are any. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Jim. 


As we get under way with the questioning, let 


me start by asking about the -- what you 


described as the episodic nature of some of the 


inhalations -- or -- I think the words you used 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'll look at it -- may have 


received episodic internal and external 


exposures. Are -- clearly these are not 


criticality level, but nonetheless if one 


looked at a worker -- and let's just pick out a 


number and say that a worker worked there 100 


days -- or pick your number, but less than 250 

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-- are you suggesting that, although these may 


be episodic, the intakes for any single event 


would not be sufficient to give doses that were 


extensive -- I'm trying to understand why we 


have episodic and yet we're using the 250-day 


limit. 


DR. NETON: Well, it's really a combination of 


a chronic exposure scenario to some -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it's clearly -- 


DR. NETON: -- discrete episodic events. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's clearly chronic -- 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- once it's ingested, but 


nonetheless, you've suggested it could be a 


sizeable intake. 


DR. NETON: There -- there -- I didn't mention 


this, but there was some evidence -- at many of 


these facilities where you have this exothermic 


reaction in making uranium metal, though, you 


can get some fires and some what we call 


blowouts of these vessels because there's a 


fairly violent reaction that occurs, so there 


could have been episodic exposures to that, in 


addition to this chronic exposure to thorium 


compounds over -- over an extended period of 

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time. But the -- the doses themselves are 


delivered, from an internal exposure, over a 


fairly protracted period of time. They're not 


-- they're not an instantaneous or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, understood -- yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- a fairly short duration dose. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Nonetheless, you end up with a 


lifetime dose at some later point. 


DR. NETON: You could end up with some fairly 


large doses, that's true. But the litmus test 


in the regulation is equivalent to a 


criticality event in that era -- in that -- you 


know, looking at it in those terms. They 


certainly don't meet that -- don't meet that 


requirement in our -- our estimation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We may want to pursue that 


some more. Let's hear from Gen Roessler and 


then Jim Melius. 


DR. ROESSLER: Jim, I'm interested in 1955. 


You said production stopped in -- at the end of 


'54, yet the petition went to the end of 1955. 


Were there workers still in the facilities 


during 1955 and -- you know, is there a 


potential for that year being in a different 


class, or what... 

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DR. NETON: Well, possibly. There were workers 


there, there still -- the Annex 1 building was 


torn down in 1954, but the Annex 2 building I 


think -- I'd have to refresh my memory, I think 


it was in the 1972 time frame when it -- you 


know, so it existed through the 1970s. So 


there certainly could have been potential for 


exposure to people in those buildings for the 


residual type contamination from those sort of 


activities. But we felt that given the level 


of monitoring data we had, starting in '53 and 


'54, and we knew production operations were 


going on at that point and they stopped, that 


any exposures from resuspension or other 


activities would certainly be bounded by what 


we knew in those end -- last couple of years. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I thought that's what you 


said. Okay. Thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. In following up on your 


question, Paul, the issue of the episodic 


exposures, I think one difference about Ames 


from some of the other situations where we've 


had to deal with the sort of similar incidents, 


explosions and fires and so forth, is given the 

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poor state of the monitoring program at the 


facility. We have almost no information -- 


internal dose monitoring or anything on these 


workers that -- in this situation, whereas in 


other facilities where we've had these 


situations we've had some other information 


that would at least allow us to bound or 


estimate what those exposures might have been. 


So I think this situation is -- is a little bit 


different. I think we have to sort of wrestle 


with how -- what's the right criteria for 


evaluating these situations in terms of 


endangerment and so forth, and it's not 


(unintelligible) straightforward to do, but -- 


but I do think it is different in this 


situation and -- and we do need to consider it 


and sort of figure out how we're going to 


handle these situations, particularly in faci-- 


facilities that had, you know, essentially no 


monitoring program during the time period in 


question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other questions for 

Dr. Neton? 

 (No responses) 
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PETITIONER COMMENTS, DR. LARS FUORTES,
 

UNIV. OF IOWA @ AMES
 

Okay. Thank you, Jim. Then we'll move on to 


the next presentation, which will be from the 


petitioner. Dr. Fuortes is here -- pleased to 


have you with us again -- and he will represent 


the petitioners today, and you can use either 


mike, Dr. Fuortes. 


 DR. FUORTES: Thank you very, very much. I 


think this has been a remarkable experience. 


The rapidity with which NIOSH, the Board and 


SC&A have responded to this I think is amazing 


and we're very grateful. 


I'm going to get a bit tangential, I'm sorry, 


but a number of you were involved in the Iowa 


Army Ammunition Plant and visited the town 


repeatedly and got to know the people who 


worked on Line 1 and just -- just in terms of ­

- history tends to repeat itself if you're not 


careful. The reason we're here is because of 


errors that were made in the past and a lack of 


attention to worker health and safety, and lack 


of attention from the very top. 


Three days ago two workers, two young men, died 


on Line 1 in an explosion, so Line 1 -- which 


was the atomic bomb site -- is now taken over 

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by Department of Defense. Two other young men 


are critically injured, and (unintelligible) 


just reminds us that we need to keep in the 


forefront, at the very top levels of 


administration, the importance of occupational 


health and safety. And I think that that's -- 


that's at risk. That was at risk 50 years ago 


and I think this -- this experience of the 


explosion shows that it's still at risk -- or 


may be getting -- getting worse. 


I have to thank a couple of people at NIOSH. 


Mark Rolfs* has always been really helpful, and 


Dave Sundin was remarkable in helping explain 


some of the things that we discussed or argued 


about or questioned at the last working group ­

- April 16th, I guess it was -- and so thank 


you very much for that. Also SC&A I think did 


a great job interviewing some of those former 


workers. 


But those former workers were pioneers in 


chemistry, who took the same sorts of risks 


that cowboys do at a rodeo, for the joy of 


their work and for the benefit of our -- our 


national security. And they were working long 


hours that they -- they really did take 

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tremendous risks, and the sorts of experiences 


that they described in terms of blowouts I 


think are more extreme than you'll see at 


production facilities subsequently 'cause these 


were the people who were developing those 


methods. 


 So I'm bringing this around to the semantics of 


what a discrete event is, equivalent to a 


criticality. I agree with what the philosophic 


undertone of the questions from the Board is, 


that I think the legislation's intent was to 


state if somebody was exposed at -- at a level 


comparable to a criticality, which would put 


them at risk greater than 50 percent 


probability of developing a cancer at less than 


250 days, that's the equivalent of a 


criticality. I think that the -- the issue of 


the chronicity of disease after uptake from one 


discrete event, one exposure, or a day of 


blowouts or a hundred days of blowouts, I think 


that that's a semantic issue that probably 


doesn't take into account the intention of this 


legislation and the intention of -- of this 


whole process of -- of trying to -- to make up 


for -- for past errors and putting people at 

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risk. So I -- I -- I would hope that the Board 


would take into consideration the difference in 


philosophy of the interpretation of a discrete 


incident akin to a criticality versus a 


discrete incident that puts people at risk at 


less than 250 days. I -- I think that's the -- 


that's really a significant issue. 


There are only two issues that -- that I should 


present in terms of -- of the petitioners' 


concerns where we differ from -- in terms of 


discussions, from what NIOSH has recommended 


for acceptance. The 250-day issue is one. The 


other is the date at which the petition's 


cohort is defined. I think it's fine at this 


point for the petitioners to say well, let's 


accept that end of 1954 at this time. 


However, with an attempt to address to the 


Board that we think there is a rational 


concern, as you brought up, of residual 


contamination at this site, and perhaps at 


other sites as well, I used one year, just 


assuming that the contamination of thorium from 


those very, very dusty processes would have had 


residual risk for at least something like a 


year. That building was not torn down. The 

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building at which the thorium processing was 


done was not torn down in 1954 or '55, that 


Wilhelm Hall, I believe it is, is still -- 


Gilman Hall, is still -- still in operation 50 


years later. They're still decontaminating 


that -- that room -- or that lab area from that 


thorium and thoron contamination. So 50 years 


later it's actually stripped. They -- they're 


taking skins off of -- of the cement, so it's ­

- it's an interesting history. 


 Two procedural issues separate from the SEC 


issue that I'd just like to bring up, if you 


don't mind. The transparency that we're seeing 


here I think is phenomenal. This is a 


wonderful thing. I don't know if -- if this is 


a venue and you guys have any ability to -- to 


argue for this, but we've had the benefit at 


Ames of having an ongoing administration -- a 


lab director -- who said help these petitioners 


out, help these former workers out. We had the 


-- the benefit of a Ph.D. historian's thesis 


that -- that helped us. However, all of these 


petitions, all of these work sites, are 


repeating each other's efforts. And it's a 


very piecemeal operation that we have in terms 

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of addressing workers' health and safety. It 


gets repeated at work site after work site. 


The Department of Energy hopefully has 


available to it some archives -- that we've 


asked for for at least five or six years -- 


that would be beneficial. Someone should be 


able to look through archives at headquarters 


or Albuquerque to find lists of workers, lists 


of exposure records, lists of -- of processes 


that might help in terms of -- of going through 


this process for other -- other work site. So 


I -- I'd -- I'd beg the Board to consider that 


as -- as an ongoing repeating problem. 


Another one is in terms of NIOSH transparency. 


I think you have been very transparent, but I'd 


ask for another issue to be addressed, if at 


all possible. I think the dose reconstructions 


are a simple algebraic process. And if you 


could put into a tabular format the assumptions 


that you use in any individual dose 


reconstruction so that we know, for example, an 


assumption -- did you assume that workers 


worked 40 hours a week, five days -- 40 hours a 


day (sic), five days a week? You came up -- if 


you came up with, as -- as a worker in Pantex 

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had, a 49 percent probability of causation. 


Was that on the basis of assumptions that might 


not have been as worker-friendly as might have 


come up with a 51 percent assumption in that 


case, and so I think that those assumptions 


should be documented in individual cases and in 


a boiler-- boilerplate fashion for sites. In 


addition to that, I think that -- that sources 


of data -- if it's possible that your sources 


of data, if not the data itself, redacted, is 


made available to petitioners. Petitioners are 


always acting out of ignorance, and that makes 


sense, I guess. If there isn't data, that's 


one of the criteria for the petition. But 


those data that are available, in terms of 


exposure and process, if those could be made 


available, as well, as I said, any assumptions 


that are made for extrapolations of those data 


to other situations. 


I want to thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Dr. Fuortes. 


Let me ask, Board members, do you have 


questions regarding this presentation? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, apparently not. Thank you. We 

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appreciate your being here -- oh, I'm sorry -- 


 DR. MELIUS: One comment. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- a comment here. 


 DR. MELIUS: Just in follow-up, I mean we'll -- 


we'll take some action on this petition today 


and -- and I would hope that, given, you know, 


your work out there and cooperation from the 


people at the laboratory and so forth that we'd 


be -- be able to work with the Department of 


Labor on some outreach to make sure that people 


that have worked there in the past -- and this 


is going back quite a ways -- would be able to 


-- to -- there'd be some outreach to them to 


let them know about the program and their 


eligibility for the -- the program and... 


 DR. FUORTES: We have begun that process, thank 

you. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, excellent. 

 DR. FUORTES: We need to do more, always, 

but... 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Other comments? 

 (No responses) 

WORKING GROUP REPORT, DR. JAMES MELIUS,
 

WORKING GROUP CHAIR
 

Okay. Next we will -- we actually have this on 

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the agenda as the report of the working group, 


but the working group also worked with SC&A on 


this, and Jim, as Chair, you wanted to have 


SC&A report their --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, let me --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- findings first? 

 DR. MELIUS: -- let me just give a brief -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- introduction. As was 

mentioned, we did have a conference call -- I 


believe it was sometime in April -- where we -- 


at the time the NIOSH evaluation report first 


came out and Laurence was on the call and we 


decided -- I believe he had seen the report at 


the time we had the call or it had just come 


out, but we had identified a couple of issues, 


and also felt that, particularly in the absence 


of a site profile review, it'd be helpful to 


have SC&A do some sort of a limited review of ­

- of the information and of the NIOSH 


evaluation report and of the petition in order 


to be able to move -- have -- at least address 


some of the issues and so forth. And we also 


had identified two issues that needed sort of 


further follow-up on. One was the residual 

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contamination issue and the other was this 


issue of episodic exposure. So SC&A has worked 


and -- and I think presented some information ­

- had some information and then sort of put it 


in the form of a report, which is I think 


helpful. I would note that their report has 


just been available in the last few days, and I 


don't believe NIOSH has had a chance to review 


or respond to that. I don't think that's a 


significant issue here, but just a note for the 


-- the record and I'll let -- I think Hans is 


going to present the SC&A report, so I think if 


-- just go ahead with that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Hans or Kathy -- Hans 


Behling? Okay. 


(Pause) 


 DR. BEHLING: I assume this mike is on. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. BEHLING: Okay. I was not initially 


scheduled to speak, at least on the agenda, but 


then as the meeting approached I was asked to 


at least make some science available, and I 


think I do have a handout back here that will 


go through a series of slides, but I will also 


ad lib here because I realize that some of my 

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slides will reproduce some of the information 


that was previously presented by Dr. Neton. So 


for the sake of brevity, I will skip over some 


of the slides and perhaps only highlight some 


of the issues that are outstanding issues, and 


issues that may be required for the Board to 


resolve. And so let me just briefly talk about 


our intent here. 


We issued a report -- that is at this point 


still a draft report -- that has been made 


available to both NIOSH and the Board, and that 


was issued in June 5th of this -- actually a 


couple of weeks ago, a week ago. Just to give 


an overview, we were asked to look at the SEC 


petition and there was actually four elements 


to that review: look at the SEC petition and 


identify the key elements that are -- is this 


unit working here? 


(Pause) 


Okay. There were four issues that we thought 


were essential components to our review 


process. That is, review the petition itself ­

- and I won't go into the detail. Obviously 


the petition critical elements here are the 


members of the class that define the -- the -- 

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the eligibility of those individuals, as well 


as the dates for the period of duration. 


The second element of review was to review 


available relevant documents. And again, I 


think Dr. Neton pointed out many of the 


documents that we also were able to access, 


with exception of those documents that are part 


of the Ames Laboratory web site, which I 


believe is a restricted web site and we did not 


have access to that particular -- 


We -- we did have it? At the time we tried and 


-- and -- I wasn't -- but anyway, we basically 


had the same information that NIOSH had used to 


come to their conclusions. 


And just to reiterate, we reviewed the 


information and pretty much we came to the 


similar conclusions as NIOSH did, that the 


information available for bioassay was very, 


very sparse for both uranium, although there 


was some data there for that 48-member cohort 


that was divided into four groups, as Dr. Neton 


had mentioned. But there was no thorium data 


for bioassay and we also looked at the external 


dosimetry data that was available and also 


realized that prior to 1953 there was 

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essentially no external dosimetry data that 


would involve an estimate of external exposure 


to protons, penetrating radiation, to betas for 


skin dose estimates, and for neutrons. So we 


came to the conclusion, as did NIOSH, that dose 


reconstructions (unintelligible) quite 


difficult in light of those deficiencies and 


gaps in information. 


For the -- and I will just (unintelligible) 


through those because, as I said, these are 


just, again, the time periods during which 


these various facilities were in operation. 


We've already heard those. We questioned some 


of these dates here because, like I said, we 


also found information that would essentially 


have you believe that thorium and uranium 


production ceased by 195-- no, actually 1946 


for uranium and about 1953, '54 time frame for 


thorium. 


However, obviously the question arises as to 


what constitutes the Ames project. Is it 


production or potential exposures that go 


beyond the production period also to be 


included as part of the SEC petition. One 


could certainly argue the issue, but in the 

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absence of information -- at least the 


information that I've found available -- shows 


that Little Ankeny, the area where most of the 


work -- production work -- took place was 


actually torn down prior to the beginning of 


1954, if I can trust some of the information, 


including a cartoon that I also included in my 


write-up. So there's precious little 


information to give precise dates of operation. 


And of course one can look at that and -- and 


say well, who might have been exposed 


thereafter if any decommissioning of Little 


Ankeny took place prior to '54. What were the 


exposures (unintelligible) after if the 


building doesn't exist. Clearly there were 


continuing exposures in the other buildings, 


the metallurgical and the chemistry building, 


but to what extent -- where do you stop. 


Because as already mentioned by Dr. Neton, a 


couple of those buildings are still in 


operation today, and I looked at some of the 


data from DOE. They in fact have 


decontaminated even into (unintelligible) 


certain select (unintelligible). So the 


question arises, where do you draw the line 

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that says this is (unintelligible) where 


contamination could potentially continue to 


expose people and therefore include them in the 


actual class of the petitioners. 


So that's an open question that I think needs 


to be looked at carefully and it may be a very 


arbitrary decision to say well, '54 clearly 


marks the end of production, but there may have 


been some contamination in some of the other 


(unintelligible) buildings and exclude the 


metallurgy and chemistry building. That could 


have continued exposure of people. In fact we 


did find external dosimetry data that are 


clearly in the time frame of '55 and later. 


Now to what extent they involve researchers who 


may have been still engaged in work for years 


afterwards is something that we don't really 


know. 


I did do some cross reference in looking at 


specific names for people who were monitored in 


the 1955 time frame, and I came across a lot of 


names that I know for a fact were the Ph.D. 


types who were clearly there to do research or 


as opposed to anything else, and so we know 


that their exposures continued. Whether or not 

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that can be assigned to the Ames project is 


really an issue that has to be resolved. 


Again, this is just a review of the external 


dosimetry data, as Dr. Neton had already point 


out. There's really no data prior to '53, and 


that's a critical point and I made an issue out 


of that in our write-up. And what prompted the 


introduction of what Dr. Neton has referred to 


as a -- something of a bona fide health physics 


program is really a 1952 AEC survey conducted 


at the Ames Laboratory facility, and that was 


done in March of 1952, I believe 18 through 21 


of March. And they in essence identified a 


series of -- of issues that they were 


uncomfortable with and I will read to you -- 


this (unintelligible) a slide and I do 


apologize that this slide is obviously not 


readable, but I -- I left it, instead of 


retyping it, in its original form. You see the 


word "secret" written over the top, and I will 


read it for those people who are obviously not 


in a position to read it from the back of the 


room here. 


Under the scope, this particular survey was, as 


I said, written in behalf of the survey 

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conducted over a 3-day period in March of 1952, 


and under "scope" this is what the report 


states. (Reading) This is a report of a 


preliminary survey performed during the period 


of March 18 through 21, 1952 at the Ames 


Metallurgical Laboratory, Iowa State College. 


This survey was made in response to a request 


from the Chicago Operation Office covered by 


the health and safety problems existing during 


the refining and thorium metal production. 


Then it goes on under "purpose," the second 


heading that I underlined. There were two 


issues that defined the purpose, (reading) to 


gather data from which estimation of the daily 


weighted average exposure can be determined 


from the personal working at the AEC project. 


And let me just briefly identify what daily 


weighted average means. It is really an issue 


-- if a person shows up for work and he's 


assigned to a particular location, he may not 


necessary spend 100 percent either -- and I 


believe the assumption was that the worker 


spent about nine hours on the job, but it 


didn't mean that he was there (unintelligible) 


at a facility at a trade or doing anything 

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else, and so they actually conducted this 


particular survey by following 22 people, key 


people, who were engaged in -- in the 


production of thorium metal around and actually 


using stop watches (unintelligible) they did a 


time -- a motion study. And on that basis they 


came up with time weighted average. 


In essence, this is not a -- an upper bound 


value but it reflects a realistic assessment of 


what these people were exposed to in the course 


of an 8-hour day. 


The second purpose stated in this particular 


report states as follows: (reading) to suggest 


the physical and procedural changes which 


should be made in order to correct excessive 


exposures. 


And I underlined "excessive exposures" because 


this was recognized as a result of the survey 


measurements. And this survey measurements was 


a fairly comprehensive, given the time frame in 


question, 1952. The survey included such 


things as area air sampling -- in other words, 


general area air sampling that would 


essentially provide you with an understanding 


of what is in the air in a room. And then they 

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also did air sampling (unintelligible) called 


personnel or lapel air sampling, meaning that 


they sampled the air close to the breathing 


area of an individual at discrete locations, 


which would then give you an understanding of 


what this person was exposed to on a daily 


basis if he was standing there breathing the 


air that contained this radioactivity. 


In addition to air monitoring, they also 


conducted contamination surveys where they took 


swipes of the area where an individual was 


working. They would take a swipe, rub it, and 


then bring it back to a laboratory to count how 


much activity was on the surface where this 


individual was working, smearable as well as 


fixed contamination. And that's very critical, 


for instance, in understanding issues such as 


what might a person have ingested working in 


that area if in fact he was careless in 


handling things, touching his mouth and 


transferring radioactivity from -- from a 


contaminated surface to the mouth. 


 Lastly, there were also measurements involving 


air -- external ambient air dose rates. And 


again, these would be the external exposures 

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that a person would receive from radiation that 


is penetrating his body or potentially at least 


pene-- exposing his skin, and some of the 


measurements -- the highest measurement in that 


survey indicated 22 millirem per hour. So you 


can look at this and say in a given year's 


time, if we're talking about 2,000 hours or 


possibly more than 2,000 hours, how much that 


exposure would contribute to that individual 


where the ambient doses might be 22 millirem 


per hour. It would be a substantial dose. 


 Anyway, so these are the measurements here, and 


these are the issues that we looked at and -- 


and said okay, 1952 turned -- is a turning 


point, and so we do look at these numbers and 


then say okay, what did we look at in terms of 


dose rates and -- and -- and additional data 


that followed. This particular -- that survey 


was a wake-up call for the Ames Laboratory 


because it identified serious deficiencies. 


And this report identified 36 discrete 


recommendations for improvement. Most of those 


recommendations were aimed at reducing air 


concentration, and in my report I've written to 


-- written about -- a lot of the documentation 

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that -- that were only indirectly referenced in 


the Dr. Payne Ph.D. thesis, but it creates an 


understanding of the circumstances in which 


these people were trying to do a heroic job in 


a very minimal period of time with equipment, 


with facilities, that were never intended to be 


used for this kind of production. Little 


Ankeny, and I included a picture, was an old 


wooden building, a small building that didn't 


even have a concrete floor. It had to be added 


after the fact. These buildings were not air 


conditioned, and in the heat of the summer the 


intent was to reduce the -- the temperature 


inside the building by bringing in huge fans, 


and of course they created a huge problem in 


resuspension of contaminants that people were 


breathing. So in addition to the lackadaisical 


standards for radiation protection, including 


things such as -- people were not necessarily 


forced to wear respirators, but the building 


itself lacked what in today's terms we call 


engineering design. We would design a building 


today very differently from what this building 


was during the time that thorium production was 


-- was taking place. We would make sure that 

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the flow of air would always go from a 


contaminated area into a hood or some place 


where it wouldn't necessary (sic) expose 


workers. So in combination we know that pre­

'52 worker conditions were very different from 


post-'52 because as a result of this particular 


(unintelligible) survey many changes occurred 


so that when you look at '53 data we have to 


acknowledge the fact that the -- the -- the 


dose rates that we observed now from -- from 


(unintelligible) dosimetry data cannot be 


extrapolated backwards in time because here the 


AEC forced a large number of changes. And 


reluctantly, on the part of Dr. 


(unintelligible), who was director and as you 


can see from the dialogue that I included as 


part of the exhibits. 


 But anyway, let me go back and now talk about 


the issue that is very critical here. There 

were three issues that we identified. The 

first one was clearly one in which we 

questioned whether or not the '54, '55 time 


frame should be considered as the prime period 


for the SEC. And again, I don't have an answer 


to that. It becomes an issue of can we look at 

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the residual contamination. Clearly Ankeny -- 


Little Ankeny was gone, and so that is 


obviously the most likely source term for 


residual contamination that would have exposed 


people after '54. 


 But there were other buildings, as I said, that 


they were -- simply used and -- and -- and 


series of decontamination steps were taken up 


until the '90s and possibly still today. So I 


don't have an answer to what constitutes this 


particular time frame based on things such as 


residual contamination. 


The second one was the class of workers, and 


again, the class of workers as defined by the 


petition and by NIOSH makes certain references 


which I'm not sure can be interpreted in -- in 


-- in certain ways. One of the groups of 


people that I identified that were clearly also 


acknowledged in Dr. Payne's Ph.D. thesis were 


guards. Now whether or not guards can be 


classified as support staff, I don't know. 


But guards were clearly present because of the 


fact that this was a highly secret process and 


required obviously oversight by somebody to 


make sure that there was a controlled access to 

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the facility. And in one of the cartoons that 


I included that also comes out of Dr. Payne's 


thesis were the -- the firemen who were 


routinely called to respond to fires that -- 


and explosions, but were not allowed to come 


into the building to put out the fire. So 


clearly there was a controlled access, and 


access control was obviously exercised by 


guards, and guards clearly would have been 


exposed. And to what extent, again, current 


definition as defined by the petitioners and by 


NIOSH would include guards, I again -- that's 


the subject for discussion, but I would say 


that if the guards are not included, they 


should be included. 


 And thirdly, the most important thing is the 


issue of what were the episodic doses that 


could have contributed to an exposure that 


might have them eligible for the exposure 


period that is not necessary defined by 250-day 


workday aggregate. As has already been pointed 


out by Dr. Fuortes and by Dr. Ziemer, I -- my 


interpretation is that when a person is exposed 


during an acute or episodic or even for a few 


days in exposure that, as Dr. Neton correctly 

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points out, will continue to expose because 


it's an internal exposure. But realize that if 


I come to a workplace and I spend one day there 


and I'm exposed to a whopping internal exposure 


that will continue to expose my lung, my bone, 


my liver, my kidneys, my lymph nodes for 


perhaps years to come, does that constitute an 


acute exposure? In my mind, it does. And --


and if it -- it constitutes that exposure 


because I don't have to work for 250 days to 


end up with a cumulative dose that would 


potentially bring me over a probability of 


causation that exceeds 50 percent. 


The second criteria that involves a potential 


look at the 250-day period is -- is -- is this 


definition that defined under paragraph 83.13, 


and it says other events involving similar high 


level exposure resulting from the failure of 


radiation protection controls. And I think the 


(unintelligible) survey clearly points to a 


failure of radiological controls. Everyone 


admits to the fact that there were people there 


who should have been wearing respirators who 


(unintelligible) not -- were not forced to wear 


respirators, that conditions were high for 

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exposures involving airborne surface 


contamination and exposures. And so from --


from that point of view, in addition to the 


episodic events which we clearly know happened 


but were not documented, along with everything 


else, these (unintelligible) these episodic 


events clearly involved fires, explosions, as 


well as fires from the grinding of -- of 


uranium and others, and they -- none of these 


were documented, so we have no clue. But as 


Dr. Melius and -- and Dr. Ziemer have pointed 


out, when -- in other locations we do not 


necessary have documentation that involves 


specific assessments for individuals who may 


have exposed to a -- an exposure that involved 


an episodic one, we almost really don't care 


because, as Dr. Neton pointed out, the body is 


an integrator. In other words, if I am being 


monitored on a monthly, or even yearly, basis 


for an excretion or by chest counting, it 


doesn't really matter whether or not that 


exposure occurred as a -- as a matter of 


routine work or as an episodic one, as long as 


there is some data. We do not have data here, 


so that the issue of an episodic event takes 

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special meaning here that is very different 


from places like Mallinckrodt where perhaps we 


didn't monitor in the aftermath of a 


(unintelligible) event and explosion, but 


because we did in fact monitor (unintelligible) 


on a monthly or semi-yearly basis, we could at 


least look back and say well, does it really 


matter if there's (unintelligible) difference 


between a routine exposure and episodic 


exposure. In this case we do not have any kind 


of data, so it makes this particular issue a 


very special one. 


On the issue of exposures from routine 


exposures, I do have a couple of calculations 


that I pointed out. Here you see -- again, 


these are taken directly out of the survey, and 


the -- I'd like to be able to point to the 


numbers here, if I knew how. How does this -- 


how does the pointer work? 


(Pause) 


Here it is. Okay. The number I wanted to 


point to is the following here. It says 


(unintelligible). These are the people who did 


chlorination of the thorium, and this again is 


a time-weighted concentration to find 

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disintegrations per minute per cubic meter, and 


3,100 dpm per cubic meter was the time-weighted 


average of thorium exposures. Also you need to 


-- to understand is that you have, in addition 


to thorium, thoron, which is a daughter 


product. Thoron is radon 220. And you see 


there in that line, 30,000 dpm per cubic meter 


(unintelligible) as to what this really means. 


These are time-weighted, as I said. If you 


look at the actual spot samples, you see 


measurements here -- again, this is defined 


here in thorium concentrations, again, the same 


(unintelligible) dpm per cubic meter. But when 


you take a sample -- spot sample, you see 


activity levels that in some cases -- this is 


the highest one, 60,800 dpm per cubic meter. 


So clearly there -- there are instances of 


measurements here that involve thorium levels 


that are several times higher than the time-


weighted average. The same thing with thoron 


levels when you look at values such as 120,000 


dpm per cubic meter as a single spot sample. 


 But anyway, using that data, what I did was -- 


and this is strictly for illustration. This is 


not intended to do -- be a dose reconstruction, 

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but strictly for illustration. I looked at the 


3,100 dpm per cubic meter and assuming that we 


-- we used type F here for the lung -- 


calculated the lung dose. And again, this is a 


50-year committed dose, but realizing it's not 


a venue of function. Realize if I inhale 


something today, it's not going to be -- if -- 


let's assume over 50 years the dose would be 50 


rem, it's not one rem per year. 


Based on the -- the movement and by kinetics of 


the thorium, my lung dose would be very heavily 


weighted towards the first few years as opposed 


to latter years. But you see from a single 


day's exposure, using 3,100 dpm per cubic meter 


of air concentrations and assuming that the 


person was inhaling on average 1.2 cubic meters 


per hour and that there was a 12-- a 9-hour 


time period for a work day, this is what he 


would end up as a dose to the lungs, 10.4 rem 


in a single day. 


Also when we do this with the red marrow for 


(unintelligible) an assigned solubility value 


of type M, you end up with a bone marrow dose 


of 5.7. And of course the largest one would be 


in the bone surface type M at 145 rem from a 

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single day's worth of exposure. 


Not included here are potential other tissues 


that would also suffer serious high doses from 


such an exposure, and that includes the liver 


and of course the lymph nodes, thoracic lymph 


nodes. 


I'm sure that -- and Dr. Neton and I have 


spoken in private -- that he contests some of 


the assumptions that went into the analysis 


done by the AEC. I don't know -- I think I've 


exhausted my time for my stay up here so I will 


forfeit that, but I think this requires some 


additional discussion between us and NIOSH in 


trying to resolve what these numbers really 


mean. 


Mind you that this is only for thorium 232. It 


does not include ingestion of thorium. It does 


not include the in-- exposure to ambient dose 


rates, external dose rates, and 


(unintelligible) does not involve all of the 


other radionuclides that are part of the chain. 


And I just wanted to briefly identify this 


without going through them. 


We're facing looking at thorium 232, and that 


is your first alpha, and you realize thorium 

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232 -- and ends up ultimately as stable lead 


208. And if you subtract 208 from 232, you end 


up with 24 daltons. An alpha particle has 4 


daltons. That means there's six alpha 


particles as part of this cascade of 


radionuclides. And many of these things will 


be inhaled in constant with the thorium 232. 


So we're not talking about a single species or 


two, just thorium 232 and thoron 220. We're 


talking about a large number of other 


radionuclides that would also contribute to 


these doses and we can discuss in detail what 


the implications are, as Dr. Neton had pointed 


out to me, that perhaps some of the information 


that's in -- in the survey report may require 


some adjustment. But this is strictly for 


illustration and the illustration 


(unintelligible) one routine exposure in one 


day would constitute a significant health risk 


and exposure to an individual working at this 


facility. 


So with that, I will (unintelligible). 


BOARD DISCUSSION


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Hans. Let me ask you a 


question on the issue of determining when a -- 

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when one should end the time period for the 


class. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You talked about the presence of 


residual contamination and so on on -- in 


subsequent years. Now it would seem to me that 


the decision on whether to end the class time 


period would be based more on your ability to 


do dose reconstruction, regardless of whether 


the facility continued in its previous form or 


whether there was residual contamination. Why 


wouldn't the criteria simply be -- have to do 


with their monitoring program, as opposed to 


what the source of the activity was that -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, that's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Or are you impl-- maybe I 


misunderstood. I thought you were implying 


that if there was residual contamination, that 


therefore the class should continue. My 


understanding is that the monitoring program 


changed quite significantly and abruptly. Now 


we haven't necessarily examined what it looked 


like in those later years, so maybe that's open 


to question. But it seemed to me it's fairly 


clear in the early years there's very little 

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monitoring. There's kind of a transition 


period somewhere around '54. But you're not -- 


you're not asserting that the presence of the 


residual contamination is -- is a case for -- 


itself, of continuing the class, are you -- or 


are you? 


 DR. BEHLING: Well, half and half. I would say 


obviously the -- the absence of data -- when -- 


this particular survey that was done in '52 was 


really confined to Little Ankeny, which is 


obviously the most contaminated facility among 


the buildings used. But since that was 


decontaminated, there's obviously no -- no need 


to worry about residual contamination for a 


building that no longer exists. The question 


is to what extent is -- are there data out 


there that would at least allow us to give -- 


to get some insight into what contamination 


that was -- existed in the other three 


buildings, which we don't have any data at all 


for. One of the key things that was pointed 


out in -- amongst the memos that was dated in 


1951 -- again, it was (unintelligible) by an 


AEC individual who said you guys are not 


keeping any records here. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'm -- I think we're -- 


 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- okay here on '51 and '52 


certainly, and maybe 3. Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. MELIUS: 

--

(Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: 

Jim? 

Do you want to follow up on that, 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, just -- just -- Arjun 

Makhijani and I had a discussion on -- on this 


issue as they were finalizing their report, and 


it was sort of a difficult situation, the fact 


that the petition covered a certain time 


period, but that was limited. The NIOSH 


evaluation had only covered a certain time 


period where we had data. There was no site 


profile to work from and I sort of question 


whether we really -- it was appropriate for the 


SC&A review to sort of go beyond the scope of 


what they were asked to review with what NIOSH 


had already worked on. However, it was 


appropriate to raise it as an issue and I think 


-- for determination both by NIOSH as well as ­

- the Board may want to consider, you know, 


does that issue need further exploration. But 

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it would be in some ways separate from what 


we've done so far and... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Neton, did you have an 


additional comment on that issue? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I have a couple of 


observations, if I might -- not in the spirit 


of argumentation, but just -- just some 


observations. 


One, I think -- I've looked at the original 


report that Hans was just discussing and that 


survey was of the metallurgical building, not 


Little Ankeny, so we do have data for the 


thorium operations that persisted. So -- and I 


think we have a fairly good handle on that, 


which leads to my first point, which is I think 


what doc-- what you were getting at, Dr. 


Ziemer, is the question is not whether, you 


know, there was contamination that persisted in 


these buildings, but can NIOSH put plausible 


upper bounds on the exposures in those 


buildings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's right. 


DR. NETON: And as I indicated, we -- and Hans 


made very good -- made my point very well, I 


think we have a lot of data in that building. 

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And once op-- production operations stopped, we 


have at least maximum bounding surface 


contamination levels, that sort of thing, that 


we can use. So I think -- I think we could do 


something there, but we certainly need to look 


at it a little more closely. 


The second observation I'd like to make is on 


this internal dose area. I do -- Hans and I 


have discussed this. NIOSH has come to 


somewhat -- there was very limited time to look 


at it, but the internal dose calculations, by 


our estimation, are much lower than what Dr. 


Behling has presented. The first year dose for 


-- for these activities were certainly less 


than 2 rem for lung, a couple hundred millirem 


for bone mar-- bone red marrow and about 300 


millirem for bone surfaces. That's accepting 


the data at face value. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are you using the same -- 


DR. NETON: I'm not talking -- the first year 


dose versus the 50-year dose. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, well, I think he's -- 


DR. NETON: And he did do 50-year doses. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible) per day here, 


which is --

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DR. NETON: No, no -- no, I'm sorry, he -- what 


he did was -- it's a 50-year dose from a one-


day exposure at the facility. And what we're 


saying is if you had one day exposure at the 


facility, the first year dose is -- is 


substantially lower than what is presented. 


And so then that brings in the question of the 


risk models and what is the accrued risk over 


time from a protracted exposure versus an acute 


exposure that might occur for an incident like 


a criticality. This is all tied up in the 


deliberations we had with the SEC rule related 


to specific -- you know, having specific 


cancers added to the SEC. This is the path 


that SC&A is going down which we tried and 


failed miserably at, so I think there's -- 


there's some discussion that needs to occur 


here is what I'm saying. 


 The other issue I'll bring up is there are six 


alphas -- it's not clear to me that all six of 


those alphas weren't included in the dpm per 


cubic meter calculation, so in fact it may be 


up to six times more -- six times less thorium 


per unit intake than was indicated by the HASL 


survey. So there's some issues out here that 

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we just need to address. That's all I really 


wanted to point out. 


 DR. BEHLING: Can I just make a comment on that 


issue? Yes, there are six alphas, but you have 


to understand what was done here. The 


measurements were done by air sampling that 


used filters. And so what you do at time zero 


or when you walk into a place and you're taking 


the air measurements, you only do 


(unintelligible) particulates mature, which 


among the six alphas excludes radon 220, which 


is a gas. And of course what they did was they 


waited for a period of one to three days for 


the very first sample, and of course that 


eliminates the short-lived product from thoron 


that has only 55 seconds. So now you're left 


with four alpha -- in fact, if I have a chance 


I can go back to the last slide just to point 


out that. And then they would take a second 


count, which was seven days later, meaning 


eight to 10 days after the initial sample was 


taken, and of course that (unintelligible) the 


case of the lead 212 which is the indicator 


radionuclide for thoron. And unlike 


(unintelligible) when we look today at a radon 

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level, we usually look at radon that is trapped 


in a matrix of carbon material and then you 


allow it to decay and at the point of 


equilibrium assess the gamma component. This 


is all based on an assumption about 


(unintelligible) equilibrium (unintelligible) 


equilibrium we then determine what the radon 


level in that room was that we were trying to 


measure. Here we actually measured the lead 


212, which makes no difference what the 


equilibrium fractions and what -- what the 


ventilation rate was. If you measure lead 212 


you know for a fact this is what the 


radionuclide daughters were of thoron 220. 


I see (unintelligible) shaking his head. 


DR. NETON: It's in the interest of technical 


accuracy. I don't think they measured the lead 


212. What they did was they measured all the 


long-lived and then decayed it, and then what 


was left was still the long-lived, not the lead 


212. 


 DR. BEHLING: But what they did was they 


measured --


DR. NETON: Well --


 DR. BEHLING: -- two -- they had two sets, one 

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after the first to three days, and then a week 


later, and then they subtracted the -- 


DR. NETON: No, there --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, this obviously is going to 


be a --


DR. NETON: We need to have a sidebar 


discussion on this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- discussion --


 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) It's clearly 


(unintelligible) on page 52 and 53 in the 


report, for anyone who understands 


(unintelligible), and you will get a 


clarification as to why lead 212 truly is the 


indicator radionuclide for thoron 220. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We have a question from Dr. 


Lockey -- or Dr. Roessler. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Was there -- in relationship to 


1955, were there exceptional high exposure 


ratios in that time frame, in the '55 year time 


frame, as there were previously? 


DR. NETON: That really is unknown to us at 


this point. I mean clearly -- I mean we know 


that production stopped and we believe we can 


bracket it with the production exposure period, 


but we don't know exactly how high they were. 

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78 

We just know that we believe we can put a 


plausible upper bound on it at this point, and 


that's really all we've -- we did up till now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Fuortes. 


 DR. FUORTES: Jim, I'd just ask you if you 


could put that upper bound on it now, if you 


have that, or if you could share it with us so 


it'd make it public. 


DR. NETON: Well, we haven't calculated it, but 


what I'm suggesting is if you have 1952 and '53 


monitoring data to show surface contamination 


which was in the metallurgical building that 


did persist and the contamination, as you 


suggested, is still there today, we know -- 


based on the contamination levels -- we can 


develop models that would resuspend that 


material in the air and develop some bounding 


values for the exposures. I don't -- we don't 


have the model developed at this point, but we 


believe that we could do that, and that's -- 


that's the basis for our opinion of putting 


plausible upper bounds for the 1955 period. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Poston has a comment -- 


or a question. 


 DR. POSTON: Hans, providing example 

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79 

calculations is always dangerous, as is 


focusing too much on them. I want to make sure 


I understand what you're telling me here. The 


last line in your slide says 50-year committed 


organ dose, and I would have expected units of 


dose equivalent or effective dose or something, 


but I would not expect it as a rate. Could you 


explain so I understand exactly what you mean 


by that? 


 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: It says rem per day, but 


apparently I misunder-- misinterpreted that, as 


well. 


 DR. POSTON: Is that for a one-day intake? 


 DR. ZIEMER: He's saying it's rem per day of 


exposure, apparently. 


 DR. POSTON: When you -- it doesn't make any -- 


 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. POSTON: It doesn't make any sense, because 


if you do the integration over 50 years, it 


should be rem, not rem per day. 


 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, no, Dr. Poston, it's per 


day of intake. It's a 50-year -- 


 DR. POSTON: Well, that's why I asked -- 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- so if you have two days of 


intake, the 50-year exposure would double. 


 DR. POSTON: Still -- okay, I understand, -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: It's a little misleading. 


 DR. POSTON: -- but it's still incorrect. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let me see, Dr. 


Lockey, did you have another comment or... 


 DR. LOCKEY: I was trying to get a handle on 


the 1954 to 1955 time frame. How many new --


new workers were at the facility who started in 


1950 time frame -- 1955 time frame; do we know 


that? 


DR. NETON: No -- no, I don't. I will say that 


I -- we've looked at the database and as far as 


workers affected by this 250-day requirement, 


there is one worker currently in our -- in our 


data files who has an exposure period less than 


250 days, but I don't know the answer to who 


started in '55. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Further comments or questions? 


Yes. 


 MR. CLAWSON: When -- when do we actually have 


data? What year does the data really start 


that we can actually believe in or that you 


have a good handle on? Is that -- is that 

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after '53 or what? 


DR. NETON: Not -- we think that we have a 


handle on '52 and '53 for external dosimetry, 


and we believe we can do dose reconstructions 


for that. And we know that those were the 


period of active production -- periods of 


active production for thorium. And then we 


know that the active production stopped in '54, 


and so therefore it -- it seems to stand to 


reason that the exposures would be no higher 


than when the material was actively being 


produced in the 1955 time frame. We have some 


-- we have indications that there are limited 


external dosimetry results for '55 and beyond, 


but to be honest, we have not pursued those and 


developed any coworker models or anything like 


that at this time. Again, this is a situation 


where the SEC -- we believe we need to make a 


determination can we do plausible upper bounds, 


and we have not refined and developed the 


models to -- to pursue the -- you know, in the 


'55 and onward period. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Was there -- was there operations 


going on aft-- you say that production stopped 


in '53? 

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DR. NETON: '54 for thorium. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Was -- were there operations 


continued on through that facility? 


DR. NETON: Yes, it exists today. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 'Cause -- 'cause I'll tell 


you, I'm personally amazed at how much thorium 


was produced. I'm classified as a production 


facility out there, and I'm looking at the 


uranium that was processed through these 


facilities and it's just astronomical to me. 


It's -- it's unbelievable. I -- and the 


thorium on that. But part of the thing, too, 


is a little bit of the history of the fires and 


stuff, do we -- do we actually have accounts of 


how many explosions were out there, how many 


fires where the people were involved with 


those? 


DR. NETON: No --


 MR. CLAWSON: Some of the issues --


DR. NETON: -- very limited information, that's 


part of the rationale and basis for adding, you 


know, this -- this -- this time period to the 


class. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Hans. 


 DR. BEHLING: Perhaps the only reference was in 

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83 

the Ph.D. thesis, and I think it's documented 


elsewhere, that in a single day there were six 


explosions. And again, the cartoon shows Dr. 


(unintelligible) pleading with the secretaries 


to stay on in their job. Again, this is the 


kind of data we would normally choose not to 


make use of, but in the absence of data, you do 


what you can to try to get an understanding of 


the conditions under which people were working. 


And clearly my inclusion of a photograph of 


Little Ankeny as a building and the add-ons and 


the anecdotal stories are strictly there 


because we're not in a position to make use of 


legitimate data that we would normally want to 


make use of. But it does add at least some 


understanding of the questionable circumstances 


under which people were expected to work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Other comments 


or questions? Yes, Dr. Fuortes. 


 DR. FUORTES: I hope you have time for a joke, 


too. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 DR. FUORTES: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We may need one here. 


 DR. FUORTES: The -- the explosions and fires, 

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th-- they were experimenting with methods, 


initially with calcium, subsequently magnesium, 


and they were experimenting with methods of 


making these retorts or these bombs. And so 


they -- they had some days when they had 


multiple and some weeks when they might go two 


weeks without problems. But they had big and 


little explosions. Fires they had on a regular 


basis because they were machining uranium. So 


that was actually one of their training tricks 


was they took a young machinist and they'd tell 


him you go lathe that, and they'd watch how he 


lathed it, and this poor machinist would end up 


with a fire in front of his face. That was 


actually one of their -- their training 


exercises was to -- to teach them that uranium 


can ex-- you know, can explode on you. 


The joke about the guards, you brought up the 


guards. They -- they had -- they collected 


their tailings from the -- from the milling, 


they -- you know, 600,000 pounds of -- of 


recycled uranium. They stuck those in these 


oak whiskey barrels. If you get a chance to 


read that history of -- Dr. Payne's history, it 


is stunning. This isn't in the history, it's 

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just from some of these old guys telling the 


tales of what fun people they were to work 


around. 


They would tell the guards that -- that uranium 


could spontaneously ignite, and so the guards 


had to go feel the barrels. And so one day 


some idiot filled one of the barrels with 


boiling water, and so a guard came running out 


during a late night experiment saying oh, my 


God; oh, my God, this -- that's the joke. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Hang on, I think Larry -- Larry 


has a comment here, and then we'll come back -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: If I may, I want to make one 


thing clear that I heard from Dr. Behling, and 


I -- and I want to make sure that we have an 


understanding about this. The way that the 


proposed class definition is couched at this 


time, guards and/or firemen would be covered. 


And I didn't -- I thought I heard Dr. Behling 


imply that there was a question in your mind, 


and I just want to make sure that we're all on 


the same page here. Guards, firemen and those 


-- it's captured in the phrase "should have 


been monitored", so if they were in an exposed 


situation, they should have been monitored, 

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they should be covered under this class. 


 DR. MELIUS: And what about the secretaries in 


the building, also? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I think they should have 


been monitored, and I would argue that they 


should be covered. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for that clarification 


then. Brad Clawson again. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I'm just wondering, what -- what 


kind of storage facility -- we -- I'm trying to 


figure out what kind of storage facility did 


they have for the uranium products that the 


produced? Was it stored right there in the 


facilities? 


 MS. MUNN: Brad, talk into your mike. Talk 


into your mike and not them. 


 MR. CLAWSON: (Off microphone) Sorry, I'll get 


(unintelligible). Anyway, I'm -- I'm just 


wondering about the storage facility 


(unintelligible) 'cause they were producing 


quite a bit and I was wondering if they had the 


time frames of how long it was to stay in there 


and so forth, and was this --


 DR. BEHLING: Well, some of this stuff was 

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obviously not stored for any length of time 


because it was clearly needed to do -- support 


the graphite pile in Chicago, so some of the 


uranium was probably shipped as soon as it was 


available. For this thorium, I believe there 


may have been a storage facility or shed that 


was used to store on site within the perimeter 


of the college, but I'm not sure there's much 


discussion about how that was done and the 


security surrounding it. But clearly there 


must have been a storage facility in addition 


to the four buildings. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, the only thing I can remember 


about storage was some of the surveys that were 


made that the highest -- one of the highest 


ambient exposures were like 22 millirem per 


hour near one of the storage areas, I think 


that's what it was called. But to what extent 


and how long the material stayed there, I 


really -- really don't know. 


 MR. CLAWSON: But that is taken into 


consideration of their dose and so forth. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. If we're ready, I would 


like to offer a motion to -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: That's certainly in order. Let me 


ask -- Board members, do you have any other 


questions of the presenters before Dr. Melius 


presents a motion on behalf of the working 


group? 


 (No responses) 


If not, we'll recognize Dr. Melius for purposes 


of making a motion, and copies of his motion 


are being distributed. 


 DR. MELIUS: And I will, as per past practice, 


read the motion into the record here. 


(Reading) The Board recommends that the 


following letter be transmitted to the 


Secretary of Health and Human Services within 


21 days. Should the Chair become aware of any 


issue that in his judgment would preclude the 


transmittal of this letter within that time 


period, the Board requests that he promptly 


informs the Board of the delay and the reasons 


for this delay, that he immediately works with 


NIOSH to schedule emergency meeting of the 


Board to discuss this issue. 


The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 


Health (the Board) has evaluated SEC Petition 


00038 concerning workers at the Ames Laboratory 

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under the statutory requirements established by 


EEOICPA incorporated into 42 CFR Section 83.13. 


The Board respectfully recommends a Special 


Exposure Cohort be accorded to all Department 


of Energy employees or its contractor or 


subcontractor employees who were monitored or 


should have been monitored while working at the 


Ames Laboratory in one or more of the following 


facilities/locations: Chemistry Annex 1 (also 


known as the "old women's gymnasium" and 


"Little Ankeny"), Chemistry Annex 2, Chemistry 


Building (also known as "Gilman Hall"), 


Research Building or the Metallurgical Building 


(also known as Harley Wilhelm Hall) for a 


number of work days aggregating at least 250 


work days during the period from January 1st, 


1942 through December 31st, 1954, or in 


combination with the work days within the 


parameters established for one or more other 


classes of employees in the SEC. 


 These workers were employed during the early 


years of the nuclear weapon production. There 


are very little monitoring data available for 


the Ames Laboratory during the years in 


question. NIOSH concluded that the available 

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monitoring and source term information is not 


sufficient to document or estimate the 


potential maximum radiation exposures for 


workers at the Ames Laboratory under plausible 


circumstances during the time period in 


question. The Board concurs with this 


conclusion. 


NIOSH has reviewed information which confirms 


that radiation exposures at the Ames Laboratory 


during the time period in question could have 


endangered the health of members of this class. 


The Board concurs with this conclusion. 


The Board is still evaluating issues related to 


people who may have been exposed to radiation 


during discrete incidents that could have 


involved exceptionally high exposures to 


radiation while working at the Ames Laboratory. 


For example, those who were present during the 


explosions or fires -- and fires in some of the 


buildings, close parentheses, and who may not 


meet the 250-workday requirement described 


above. The Board will continue to review this 


matter and may make additional future 


recommendations regarding this group. 


Enclosing (sic) is supporting documentation 

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from the recent Advisory Board meeting held in 


Washington, D.C. where the Special Exposure 


Cohort petition was discussed. This 


documentation includes transcripts of public 


comments on the petition, copies of the 


petition, the NIOSH review thereof, and related 


documents distributed by NIOSH and the 


petitioners. If any of these items are 


unavailable, they will follow shortly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You've heard the motion. Is there 

a second? 

 MR. GIBSON: I second that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded by Mike Gibson. The 

Chair wishes to ask the mover of the motion if 


the 21 days in sentence one is a new time 


table. I think we've had 31 days on past 


motions, did we not -- has it been 21? 


 DR. MELIUS: Twenty-one days. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 


 DR. MELIUS: It's subject to change. I'm not 


even sure where we came up with -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I thought we were using 31 in 


order to get the transcripts in time -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, actually --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but if you tell me it's 21, 

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I'll take that, but --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I think our limit was getting 


the transcripts. Has it been 21? 


 DR. MELIUS: It's 21. I think it was actually 


based on Ray telling us that that's when -- the 


first time we inserted this -- he would have it 


available within 21 days, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- but... 

 DR. ZIEMER: The other comment, if I might 

suggest -- and this would be in the form of a 


friendly amendment -- to add where it says 


Advisory -- in the last paragraph, "Advisory 


Board meeting held in Washington," we might add 


the date, held on June -- what -- what is the 


date? 


 DR. MELIUS: June 15th. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that agreeable as a friendly 


amendment, for specificity on the -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And keep in mind now that 


this motion includes the possibility of some 


ongoing discussions on the issue of the 


episodic exposures, but does allow one to come 

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to closure -- I guess on most of the 


petitioners, from what we heard there, that the 


250-day issue affects a very small number, 


maybe one person. 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct, and this language on the 


250 days is similar to the language we put in 


the Pacific Proving Ground and Nevada Test Site 


letters that we did to prov-- Special Exposure 


Cohorts at that last meeting. We also set up a 


workgroup and I would propose that we continue. 


We -- we actually will have a presentation on 


some of these issues later this morning or this 


afternoon, and that we have a workgroup 


established and that we sort of include 


consideration of this in the context of the 


workgroup. That would also give time for NIOSH 


and SC&A to resolve some of those technical 


issues that we -- we've heard about -- about 


this morning. 


The -- in regard to the issue of -- of the 


continuation of the time frame, I did not 


include that in the -- the letter, though I -- 


I would propose that we -- there needs to be 


some action I think to explore this -- this -- 


some closure to this issue of for how long 

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should this -- what happened in '55 and '56, is 


the data from that time period adequate -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And this can -- this does not need 


to be as part of this motion now, you're 


exactly right. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right, yeah. Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Fuortes has a question. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Dr. Fuortes. 


 DR. FUORTES: I don't know if this has bearing 


in your consideration in the future, but -- but 


that's one filer, one person who has filed in a 


new program. To our knowledge, we think that 


it's on the order of 100 people, at least, that 


-- that would have worked less than a year. 


mean that's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and this is not limited 


simply based on that number. I was just 


pointing out that it does allow NIOSH to move 


ahead at least on -- on those who would be 


eligible under this, and leaves the door open 


for addressing that other issue. 


I -- I want -- the Chair wants to be assured 


that we have the right dates here now. It 


turns out inadvertently -- I don't know, Board 


members, if you went back and looked at the -- 


I 
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the copies of the last two letters that we sent 


to the Secretary. We had actually, in our 


formal motion, approved the wrong dates for -- 


for one of our previous petitions, and that had 


to be explained to the Secretary of Health and 


Human Services as to why our motion didn't 


match up with the recommended petition. And it 


was explained to the Secretary that -- at least 


that the Chair thought this was an inadvertent 


error. But in any event, I'm -- 


 DR. WADE: For the record, that error has been 


rectified (unintelligible) Secretary's action. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and I'm -- I want to make 


sure that these dates match up with -- if 


anyone -- January 1st, '42 through December 


31st, '54, okay. We're okay on that. 


 Any further discussion on the motion? 


 (No responses) 


Does anyone wish to speak against the motion or 


other questions? Yes, Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: I'm not clear what change might 


occur as a result of our discussions with 


reference to the 250-workday requirement, 


especially in light of the information that's 


already available to us relative to episodic 

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events that have long-term effect. It seems to 


me that this is an issue which might vary from 


site to site, depending on what type of 


episodic event was occurring, so that in this 


case if we feel that the episodes which were 


likely and which we know did occur would have 


the effect of providing a chronic dose that we 


could eliminate that from this particular 


letter, simply on the basis of accepting the 


fact that the 250-day workday requirement 


stipulated in the original law didn't -- was 


not reason for exclusion here. I think we've 


heard information clearly showing that the 


wording in the law would allow for this 


particular type of exposure to be considered as 


an unusual event that creates chronic dose. 


Therefore, my question is, could we not 


eliminate this paragraph indicating that we're 


going to continue discussion on it, even though 


we will in fact do so, since it will be an 


issue for every site that we have a similar 


kind of situation. But in this particular 


case, are we likely to change our minds from -- 


my personal perspective, this is a case where 


the length of -- of ex-- of employment is not 

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the question. The question is whether episodic 


exposure occurred. And apparently episodic 


exposure occurred for all people who were 


employed there at that time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me respond to that partially, 


and others may, as well. I think certainly the 


regulation itself does specify that individuals 


exposed to episodic events are qualified. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's true in all cases, is it 


not? 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I mean just as a generic -- I'm 


sort of looking at Larry and he's nodding his 


head yes. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, given the quote from -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I believe it probably holds, 


regardless of what we say here. This -- if --


if NIOSH or -- in the process of examining 


claims it was found that there were episodic 


event exposures, they would qualify. I guess 


the question here is are these actually 


episodic events. There's been a little debate 


on this. I think that, Jim, you've described 


some of them as episodic. 

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DR. NETON: Well, it's not that episodic events 


qualify, in and of themselves. It has to be 


this exposure to an exceptionally high level of 


radiation --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- which is defined as being 


equivalent to a criticality. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


DR. NETON: And I think if one examines some of 


the language in the preamble, you might get a 


better sense for that because it does compare 


it to the original SEC class, 250 days at the 


gaseous diffusion plants, and asserting that it 


needs to be -- I forget the exact words, but 


demonstrably higher than those levels of 


exposures that occurred there, that sort of 


thing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. And Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- we actually had this 


same discussion I believe last time when we're 


talking about the letters for Nevada Test Site 


and Pacific Proving Ground, and I think -- in 


this case I think there's also the question 


well, if it's not 250 days, what is it? Is it 


a week of exposures, a single exposure there. 

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And secondly is -- there's the issue of 


documenting the episodic exposure. Was it 


everybody at the facility or does the person 


have to demonstrate that they were in some way 


exposed to some -- an episodic exposure. And I 


th-- the last time we discussed it in respect 


to the above-ground atomic bomb testing and I 


would just think that we need to think about 


what our criteria will be and sort of develop 


the criteria to determine if -- some way to -- 


operationally we can go forward and address 


these and under what circumstances should 


episodic exposures qualify for -- when there's 


less than 250 days of employment. And I think 


that -- that's all I -- I think -- in my mind, 


this would qualify, but I would rather make 


sure we're on solid ground in terms of what 


we're recommending in the case here where NIOSH 


has not recommended that these -- these qualify 


and that we have some discussion, develop some 


criteria for how to go forward, deal with these 


and -- so that we're not, you know, postponing 


or procrastinating forever on these but that we 


would hopefully, by our next meeting in 


September, be able to address this issue. 

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100 

SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I'm going to interrupt the 


process here. I understand that Senator 


Clinton has just arrived. Welcome, Madame -- 


SENATOR CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you very 


much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we're pleased to have you 


here. Senator Clinton has shown an ongoing 


interest to -- with respect to the workers in 


New York, particularly those at Bethlehem 


Steel, and we've had correspondence with you 


before on that issue. This is the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health. We're 


pleased that you've taken time to come, and if 


you wish to address the Board -- we actually 


have many microphones. There's one right here, 


or you may use the podium, whichever you feel 


more comfortable, but welcome to our meeting. 


SENATOR CLINTON: Thank you very much, Dr. 


Ziemer, and really to the entire Board, I 


really appreciate Dr. Ziemer, Dr. Wade, all of 


you, for the time that you're putting into this 


really important issue, which to me is a matter 


of national obligation. And I'm grateful to 


you for taking it so seriously. 

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I'm here today because this body, the 


President's Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health, has the authority and 


responsibility to oversee the work of the 


agencies that implement the Energy Employees 


Occupational Illness Compensation Program. One 


of the Board's specific responsibilities is to 


make recommendations to the Secretary of the 


Department of Health and Human Services about 


whether to approve Special Exposure Cohort 


petitions that have been referred by NIOSH. 


While it is not on your agenda this week, you 


may soon have the responsibility to make such a 


recommendation on a petition that Bethlehem 


Steel workers have submitted to NIOSH. So I 


come today with a simple message. 


Bethlehem Steel workers deserve a Special 


Exposure Cohort, and I urge you to recommend 


one when the petition comes before you. This 


is one of the most heart-rending issues that 


I've worked on in my time in the Senate. Like 


workers at many other sites around New York and 


our country, Bethlehem Steel employees were 


essential to our Cold War effort. These people 


literally built our nuclear arsenal in the 

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102 

decades after World War II, and helped us 


eventually to win the Cold War. 


In the late '40s and early '50s the government 


contracted with Bethlehem Steel, which is in 


Buffalo, to roll uranium at their plant. But 


the workers weren't told what they were working 


with. They weren't provided with safety 


equipment to shield them from radiation. They 


weren't monitored to determine how much 


radiation they were being exposed to. But if 


you talk to Ed Walker, who's here somewhere -- 


Ed's back there -- and to the other workers who 


I have spent time talking to, or to their 


spouses or their children of workers who have 


passed on, you know that this was hot, dirty 


work. 


Uranium dust was thick in the air. They 


breathed it. They coated their hands with it. 


They would sit on areas in the plant to eat 


lunch and put their lunch down and the uranium 


dust would be on their sandwiches. They 


ingested it. It covered their work clothes. 


So it's not surprising that many of them got 


cancer. 


 And for decades they petitioned their 

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103 

government for help and have been denied. 


Congress finally did the right thing in 2000 


with the Act that you are part of 


administering. This was a landmark law, and it 


was such in the tradition of our country to 


acknowledge the wrong that the government had 


done, and promised timely compensation to 


workers and their survivors. We have yet to 


realize the full promise of that legislation. 


Since 2001 I've been pushing NIOSH and HHS to 


speed up and improve the program. Initially I 


urged NIOSH to make improvements to the 


Bethlehem Steel site profile, and make it 


better reflect the conditions at Bethlehem 


Steel. As you know, the original site profile 


was developed without even a visit to the 


Bethlehem Steel plant. In the last several 


years NIOSH has made improvements to the site 


profile, and I thank NIOSH for that. 


But the more I looked at the situation and the 


more information that workers and their 


survivors brought forward to me, it became 


clear that there were great disparities between 


the site profile and actual conditions at the 


site. And so I became even more convinced that 

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reconstructing doses for Bethlehem Steel 


workers is an impossible task. It shouldn't be 


surprising -- after all, we're talking about 


work that occurred in secret 50 years ago, and 


before modern radiation monitoring and safety 


practices had been developed. As a result, the 


inability to estimate Bethlehem Steel workers' 


doses is not a failure. It can't be done. The 


failure would be if we don't recognize a 


special cohort that will give them the 


recognition, the justice that they deserve. 


 When Congress passed the law in 2000 it 


recognized that reconstructing doses would be 


impossible in many cases, and that's why the 


special cohort process was included in the law. 


The statute, to my reading, is pretty clear. 


It says that if the government doesn't have the 


information needed to reconstruct doses, then 


workers should be given the benefit of the 


doubt and their claims should be paid. More 


precisely, it provides for classes of workers 


to be added to a Special Exposure Cohort if 


it's not feasible to estimate their radiation 


doses with sufficient accuracy, and there is 


reasonable likelihood that the radiation dose 

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may have endangered their health. 


I don't think we could have a clearer case than 


Bethlehem Steel, where not a single worker wore 


a radiation badge, where the only radiation 


measurements we have are a handful of air 


samples, where the workers rolled uranium and 


many of them contracted radiation-related 


cancers. So I'm appealing to you to help us 


bring this process to a conclusion. 


It has been six years since Congress passed the 


law. I've had meetings with the survivors and 


with the workers themselves, but there are not 


many workers left. I think they deserve to be 


compensated, and really given justice for what 


they did for our country. 


I understand the site profile is under final 


revisions, but I just don't see there's any way 


that it can be a fair rendition of what the men 


who worked in that plant were exposed to. 


I urge NIOSH to move swiftly to qualify 


Bethlehem Steel's petition. I urge this Board 


to forward it to Secretary Leavitt with a 


favorable recommendation. And I appreciate 


very greatly the advocacy and the effort that 


you've undertaken, because when a document 

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surfaced earlier this year that showed OMB was 


looking for ways to limit the designation of 


Special Exposure Cohorts as a cost-cutting 


measure, that was a real slap in the face to 


these nuclear workers. And it was a slap in 


the face to Congress, as well. I think the law 


is clear and I'm pleased that it looks as 


though OMB is backing off of that position. 


But we don't want to give them a back door to 


realize cost-cutting at the detriment of the 


workers who deserve this compensation. So I 


thank you for your consideration of this. 


 It's a hugely important -- not just for 


Bethlehem Steel workers, but for workers and 


survivors at other sites throughout New York 


and across our country. We think justice is 


long overdue. I'm grateful for what you're 


doing, and I hope that we'll be able to 


continue in the spirit that this legislation 


was passed to do what is right by the men and 


women who did so much for us. 


Thank you very much, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Senator Clinton, we thank you 


for being with us today very much. 


SENATOR CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you very 

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much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to recess for about 20 


minutes, so we can relax a minute, folks. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:30 a.m. 


to 10:50 a.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's reconvene. There's a number 


of items before us on the agenda. 


Before we return to the agenda, just some 


comments from Dr. Wade. 


 DR. WADE: I just -- to pick up on the 


discussion that you were having before the 


visit by Senator Clinton, Wanda was suggesting 


that possibly we had enough information to move 


forward. You know, representing the Secretary 


and also the NIOSH Director, I think right now 


there is a conflicted record. There's a NIOSH 


recommendation. There was a series of 


technical discussions that I don't think have 


been closed. I think for the Board to make 


that change at this point, without future 


discussion, would put the Secretary in a very 


difficult position. So I would say that 


further airing of the issue does make sense to 


me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Board members, 

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any further discussion? 


 AMES (CONT’D)
 

We have before us the motion on the Ames 


facility that you have at hand. I want to ask 


 DR. WADE: Where's Mark? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're -- we're going to have a 


quorum call or something here. 


 MS. MUNN: He's just going for the podium, I 


think. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, you have an additional 


comment for us? 


 MS. MUNN: Are we going to leave the 21 days at 


21, or are we going to (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I've been assured that that's 


been our customary time period and the Chair -- 


I'm fine with it if Ray is, and so that's fine. 


I -- I just had it in my mind that it was 31 


days and --


 MS. MUNN: So did I. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I thought it was 30. 


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm willing to go to 30. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: To complete the -- the truth, it's 


21 days. And because of the typo the last 

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time, it wound up being like 23 days, but we 


thought that that qualified as to the wording 


in here, that there was a reason, and it was 


getting that issue resolved. So we were a 


little bit late the last time, but generally 


Dr. Ziemer does make it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Further discussion? Are 


you ready then to vote on the motion? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It appears that we're ready to 


vote. 


All in favor of the motion signify by saying 


"aye". 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 Those opposed say "no". 


 (No responses) 


 Are there any abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


Then I declare that the motion has carried. 


Thank you very much. 


Now I want to alert the assembly that we are 


expecting Congressman Tom Udall at 


approximately 11:00 o'clock -- no -- 


 DR. WADE: Stu --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) is showing up 

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at 11:00. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, it's been changed. I'm sorry? 


11:15 I'm told. Okay. Thank you very much, 


just for that update. So in the meantime we -- 


we will proceed with our agenda. 


NIOSH PRESENTATION ON PARTIAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS
 

FOR NON-PRESUMPTIVE CANCERS, MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH
 

The agenda item that's before us next is a 


presentation from NIOSH by Stu Hinnefeld, and 


this is the issue of partial dose 


reconstructions for non-presumptive cancers. 


And you do have a copy of the slides in your 


packet. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Good morning, everybody, and I 


guess thanks for having me on the agenda. 


We've been asked to present for this meeting 


our approach to what we term a partial dose 


reconstruction for claims where the claimant is 


included in the Special Exposure Cohort class, 


but is not compensated via the Special Exposure 


Cohort. Not every cancer is compensated in the 


Special Exposure Cohort, and so you have these 


claims remaining that are not compensated, and 


what can you do about -- about those -- those 


claims. 


A little background information here is the 

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additional classes -- the process we just went 


through with Ames Laboratory -- the additional 


classes of the SEC are not completely done, but 


it was a -- a petition was filed. We evaluated 


the petition. We determined that it wasn't 


feasible to reconstruct all the dose, and so 


we've recommended and the Board has now 


recommended the addition of Ames as a class of 


the Special Exposure Cohort. 


Well, the addition of that class provides for 


compensation, without a dose reconstruction, 


for claimants who have one of the 22 listed 


cancers and provided that other conditions were 


met, and -- such as some of them have minimum 


latency periods, and then having worked 


sufficient time to have a potential for harm, 


which is of course in our discussion. So 


provided these other conditions are met, then 


those -- that set of people are -- are 


compensated. And the reason why classes are 


added in this method is because it's determined 


that it's not feasible to reconstruct the 


radiation doses with sufficient accuracy for 


all members of the class. 


So once you've reached that determination that 

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you can't do that -- you know, it's not 


feasible to reconstruct all the components of 


the dose, then this -- the SEC class is added, 


and -- but the members of the class who either 


don't have one of the listed cancers or don't 


meet the other criteria are not compensated in 


that way. So they are -- they may still have 


an opportunity for compensation if we can 


achieve a -- perform a dose reconstruction and 


obtain a probability of causation above 50 


percent with those components of the dose which 


are feasible to reconstruct. And so that's -- 


that's the end of the process I'm talking about 


here is the -- the claimants who are in the SEC 


class who are not compensated via the SEC 


class, and what happens in that situation. 


Just so -- if everybody wants to know, this is 


in my handout so you have it. It's -- I think 


there copies of my handout on the back page 


(sic). These are the 22 listed -- these are 


the listed cancers. As you'll see about halfway down the left-hand side where I started 


putting the word "primary" after each one, 


that's because the list of the cancers after -- 


after you read "lymphoma, other than Hodgkin's 

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disease," the next line of the list actually 


says "and primary cancers of:" and it lists all 


these other tissues and organs, so that's why I 


put that word "primary" after that, to -- just 


to kind of have a constant representation of 


the items. 


 Now what NIOSH expected to do and has always 


expected to do on these cases was described in 


the preamble to the -- to the Special Exposure 


Cohort rule, 42 CFR 83, and in the summary of 


public comments part of that preamble. We 


wrote it there because we received questions 


during the -- after the publication of the 


proposed rule about what will happen to these 


people who are not compensated via the SEC 


since not every claim will be compensated. And 


in that we said that under -- under current 


dose reconstruction procedures, NIOSH would 


estimate all the radiation doses of such 


employees that can be estimated. In other 


words, we're going to reconstruct those 


components where it is feasible, where we 


haven't determined that it's infeasible or it 


hasn't been determined it's infeasible to do 


dose reconstructions. 

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And so I've listed up here the -- the SEC 


classes that have been added on through the -- 


the Secretary's designation letter. There are 


some additional classes that the Board has 


recommended that have not yet received the 


designation letter, so this is the population. 


I've only listed Iowa Ordnance Plant once. 


There are actually two designations for Iowa 


Ordnance, if you remember. There was a second 


designation for the radiographers that 


incorporated a few years, but the situation for 


the radiographers is the same in terms of what 


we -- I'm talking about today as the remainder 


of Iowa, so I didn't call them out separately. 


So I've summarized here from the various 


designation letters, the NIOSH Director's 


letter to the Secretary, the Board's 


recommendation of language, and in some cases 


in the NIOSH evaluation report language, what 


were the key elements that led to a decision 


that it's infeasible to reconstruct dose. What 


were -- what was the reasons why the 


determination was made that doses are -- are 


not feasible to reconstruct if we reconstructed 


these doses, and -- and then what's the impact 

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of -- of those findings. So for the early 


Mallinckrodt period, '42 to '48, as we 


colloquially call "early Mallinckrodt" -- from 


'42 to '45 there was a statement of 


insufficient information to estimate intakes 


for internal exposure, and from '46 to '48 we 


were unable to estimate intakes because of 


technical unreliability, questionable data 


integrity and lack of validation of data, and 


from '42 through '48 there were inadequate 


radiation monitoring data that pertains to 


external radiation exposure. So you follow 


over to the right-hand column and you can 


understand -- and we follow along then what 


component of dose that we would normally 


reconstruct has been eliminated by this -- this 


finding of infeasibility, and so in two chunks 


then we are not able to reconstruct the 


internal doses or the external doses from this 


'42 to '48 period. And that leaves behind the 


occupational medical exposure, which it does 


appear it would be feasible to reconstruct for 


those claims. 


 For the second Mallinckrodt segment, the '49 to 


'57, which we call late Mallinckrodt, the 

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reasons for the infeasibility on -- again, on 


the left side, are during this period there 


were intakes of uranium decay chain decay 


product items which could not be estimated with 


sufficient accuracy, the thorium-230, 


protactinium-231 and actinium-227. Those are 


uranium decay chain products that would -- 


certainly were present, but not specifically 


monitored for. And from '49 through '47 (sic) 


there were concerns about the validity of the 


radon breath data for estimating radium 


intakes. And at the time of consideration, 


that data hadn't been validated as to whether 


we felt like we could use that radon breath 


data. Radon breath data is a bioassay taking 


(unintelligible) for radium body burden. 


So the impact of the infeasibility then is we 


are unable to reconstruct internal doses from 


these decay chain radionuclides, and it's a -- 


if we're unable to validate the radon breath 


data, then we would be unable to reconstruct 


the radium body burden, as well. 


So what that leaves behind for the late 


Mallinckrodt period is that we feel like we can 


ex-- we can reconstruct the external doses for 

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that period. During this period we feel like 


internal doses from uranium and radon can be 


reconstructed as we have uranium bioassay and 


we have radon concentrations in the plant. And 


if we can validate the radon breath data, and 


we think we have a technique for doing that, so 


if it turns out that the data do validate and 


it is valid, we may be able to use the radon 


breath data for radium body burden estimates, 


as well. And we also, again, feel like we can 


do the occupational medical X-ray exposure 


during this period. 


For the Iowa Ordnance Plant from -- for -- this 


is essentially for the entire period. For 1963 


to 1974 -- as you recall, there is some 


monitoring data, so there is some external 


monitoring data for '63 to '74, but the 


determination was made that this collection of 


data was not perhaps collected from the most 


highly exposed people, or maybe it wasn't even 


collected in a way that provides you much 


information about the entire exposed population 


at all. So it was not -- you could not really 


utilize this data as was originally proposed to 


form coworker datasets for all of the workers 

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during this period so that the -- so since we ­

- and it's not representative of the 


population, it's really only representative of 


the wearer then. 


Prior to that period that we have was 


originally proposed that there may be an 


extrapolation technique that we could use to 


extrapolate back from later monitor data which, 


you know, it was originally believed to be a 


coworker set, extrapolate back based upon a 


hypothetical -- if you remember, hypothetical 


plutonium pit, what would the dose rate be from 


that, what could those doses be, and that 


technique also was determined to be not 


appropriate and not provide feasible doses, and 


so that was eliminated as well. 


The radon data that was available that was 


being talked about for use was not site-


specific, and air monitoring and other source 


term data for other radionuclides like tritium 


and uranium were not sufficient for estimating 


intakes. 


So what has that -- what -- the items or the 


impact of those findings on feasibility over on 


the right side are that the -- the coworker 

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approach, or using coworker datasets to assign 


external doses then can't be done, that -- and 


we -- and unable to reconstruct any external 


doses before 1962, which is the period before 


there was really any particular monitoring data 


and -- and it also rules out then the internal 


doses from radon or from other radionuclides as 


well. 


So what that remains then is for the period 


when there is some monitoring data, '63 to '74, 


if we have a monitoring person -- monitoring 


data for the claimant, his monitoring record, 


we will utilize that monitoring record and our 


understanding of how well the technology was. 


That would include, you know, adding in missed 


dose and -- from -- based on MDLs and things 


like that for the period when that person was 


monitored and had -- we can reconstruct that 


dose. And we also believe we can reconstruct 


the occupational medical during that period. 


 Y-12 facility from '43 to '47, again, from '43 


to '47 we have an absence of monitoring data, 


source term data and sufficient process to 


estimate either internal or external doses, so 


it takes out both internal and external doses 

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from the -- from the equation and leaves just 


the occupational medical. 


And for Linde Ceramics -- '43 to '47 period for 


Linde Ceramics, we have insufficient biological 


monitoring, which would be bioassay, air 


monitoring, source term and process information 


to estimate airborne concentrations and 


therefore intakes and therefore internal doses 


for that period. So we'd remove internal -- 


so internal doses then can't be reconstructed 


for that period from the Linde plant. And that 


leaves behind then external doses, which we 


believe can be reconstructed because there is 


some available workplace survey information, 


and we have source term information -- source 


term information for a uranium plant is a 


little better for external dose than it is for 


internal dose, so we feel like with -- with the 


survey information and what's available, we 


feel like we can probably do external doses, 


and we feel like we can do the occupational 


medical as well. 


Now when we prepare these dose reconstruction 


reports, when we have -- when some component of 


the dose is not feasible to reconstruct, we -- 

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we add language to the dose reconstruction 


report in a couple of points to point out the 


fact that we haven't included all the 


components we would normally include. And so 


early on in the report we include this 


paragraph up here which describes that there's 


been a finding that certain things are -- 


cannot be reconstructed, it's not feasible to 


reconstruct something, or in this case it's 


only occupational medical exposures can be 


reconstructed. That was the finding for this -- 


this period. This is the Y-12 example. 


Consequently, these other exposures are not 


reconstructed. 


And then in the summary of the report we also 


describe that the -- similar type language, 


there's been this finding of unfeasibility and 


only medical exposures can be reconstructed, 


and estimated dose was such-and-such to the 


target organ through this reconstruction. So 


in order to describe in that context that this 


-- we have only re-- we have only included some 


portion of the components we would normally 


include because the other components have been 


determined not to be feasible to reconstruct. 

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So just in conclusion, we've -- we -- we arrive 


at this, we do this process because the SEC 


class -- addition of SEC class does not provide 


a remedy for all claims in that class. And our 


historical statistic -- I mean it's probably 


been a while since we verified that this is 


actually the statistic, but historically what 


we saw was about 40 percent of the claims we 


receive for dose reconstruction do not have one 


of the SEC listed cancers, so that's a fairly 


big chunk of the claims that are not remedied 


by the SEC finding. And so this provides --


using information available, it is sometimes 


possible to provide the remedy -- compensation 


remedy for some portion of those remaining 


classes through -- by the partial dose 


reconstructions. 


That's the end of my prepared remarks. If 


there are any questions, I'll be glad to take 


questions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Stu. It's a 


very helpful, concise summary of the 


implications of the SEC outcomes. Let's see if 


we have questions or comments from the Board. 


Dr. Melius. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, several questions. Have you 


ever done a breakdown on what types of cancers 


tend to get compensated under sort of post-SEC 


 MR. HINNEFELD: The non-presumptives? 


 DR. MELIUS: The non-- among the non-


presumptive. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Far and away the most likely 


one is basal cell carcinoma. Melanoma is not 


out of the question, but basal cell carcinoma, 


and particularly because it frequently occurs 


in multiple -- you know, multiple cancers are 


basal cell. So far and away it's the most 


common. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. So -- so the -- that and 


some of that's because at least in many of the 


recent cases it's been internal exposures that 


have been infeasible and external's -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- there's usually monitoring -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, you're -- you're right. 


The internal is often the more difficult and 


there's a good (unintelligible). Occupational 


medical is an external exposure if BCC is in 


the beam of the X-ray. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: If the person worked for 


several years, has multiple BCCs, you can 


receive -- you can have a compensation even on 


occupational medical. 


 DR. MELIUS: Really? Okay, that -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, if -- I mean the right 


set of conditions. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Another question then is -- 


if I understand you correctly, once the Board 


has -- through your report and then the Board, 


I'm not sure which -- what you base is on -- 


has determined that it's infeasible -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- and this calls for an SEC, then 


you no longer consider that exposure in any of 


your dose reconstructions -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, that --


 DR. MELIUS: -- going -- that -- that sort -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- is correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- of -- from -- from that -- that 


point forward in time. The Board, in our 


reports, our recommendation, only speak to 


infeasibility. We never really speak to 


feasibility. 

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 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MELIUS: So you're basing the feasibility 


on either your site profile or your evaluation 


report for your own -- the NIOSH evaluation 


report for the SEC. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, if we feel like -- we feel 


like we have information that -- sufficient 


information to make it feasible -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- then we will -- and there's 


not discussion and -- and finding a 


recommendation to the contrary -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- I mean that's happened, 


there's not a recommendation to the contrary, 


then – 


CONGRESSMAN TOM UDALL


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let me interrupt you, Stu, 


just a moment. Congressman Udall has just 


joined us. I think he has a vote coming up, so 


we -- we want to expedite his time here. 


 Welcome, sir, we're pleased to have you here. 


Tom Udall has asked to speak to the Board and 


here we are, sir. And actually there's a mike 


next to you, or you may use the podium, 

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whichever is most comfortable. We welcome you 


here. 


CONGRESSMAN UDALL: Thank you very much, Mr. 


Chairman. It's a pleasure to be with you 


today. I'm sorry to -- sorry to interrupt you. 


(Pause) 


 Great, thank you very much. Thank you, very 


much appreciate you accommodating my -- my 


schedule here today. 


 Members of the Advisory Board, witnesses and 


colleagues, it's a pleasure to be with you here 


today and to thank you for the opportunity to ­

- to offer remarks. As many of you know, the 


Los Alamos National Laboratory is located in 


the district that I represent in New Mexico. 


Many former LANL workers are sick and have died 


as a result of being exposed to harmful doses 


of radiation while working at LANL. These men 


and women are and have been awaiting 


compensation. 


One of my constituents, who you will hear from 


today during the public comment period, is New 


Mexico State Representative Harriet Ruiz. 


Harriet comes to you today in part to fulfill a 


dying promise she made to her late husband, Ray 

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Ruiz. Ray was an employee at LANL who was 


exposed to harmful doses of radiation, 


diagnosed with lung cancer and sadly died from 


the disease in 2004. 


From the time he was diagnosed to the time of 


his passing, then-Representative Ruiz worked 


tirelessly for justice for these LANL workers. 


Unfortunately, I'm in front of you today 


because that work continues. Mr. Ruiz's dying 


wish was for Mrs. Ruiz to continue the work 


that he started and that -- and she has done so 


vigilantly. 


Ms. Ruiz filed a SEC petition in January, 2006 


for LANL that is pending before NIOSH. 


Obtaining a qualification for that Special 


Exposure Cohort has proven cumbersome and has 


left many victims like Harriet Ruiz in search 


of closure. Harriet's SEC covers a whole group 


of workers in which there was a lack of 


monitoring, or a question of data integrity. 


The current NIOSH request for an SEC is much 


more narrow and covers only those workers 


exposed for radioactive lanthium (sic). It is 


disappointing, if not puzzling, how it is that 


NIOSH cannot manage to qualify an SEC petition 

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which covers lanthium and other LANL workers 


under such an 83 period 13, but somehow can't 


manage a much narrower SEC qualification under 


83 period 14 at the same time. 


 Another concern I would like to share with the 


Board deals with the adequacy of the LANL site 


profile on which NIOSH is premising its dose 


reconstruction for LANL claimants. Probing 


questions have been raised. One of these is 


about the failure to fully use the voluminous 


incident databases and the 1991 tiger team 


report. 


Further, the preliminary historical data which 


underpins the LANL bioassay database, also 


information on which NIOSH is basing its dose 


reconstructions, is not complete. This 


bioassay database needs to be carefully 


audited, and I would respectfully ask the Board 


to have its audit contractor, SC&A, undertake 


this mission. I have reviewed individual 


claimant files and found that the primary 


historical data is missing, or the paper record 


inaccurate. 


I would also like to respectfully urge the 


Advisory Board to examine NIOSH's role in 

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stalling out petitions in the qualification 


phase so that they never get an audience with 


the Advisory Board. Since Harriet Ruiz filed 


the SEC in January, NIOSH has responded with 


several letters and no phone calls. Rather she 


has received correspondence in an extremely 


bureaucratic and legalistic tone challenging 


whether she checked the right box on the SEC 


petition form to demonstrate that radiation 


monitoring was inadequate at LANL, or whether 


the attachments submitted -- such as the 1991 


tiger team report -- has the proper label 


showing which regulatory criteria is met in 


establishing the deficiencies in radiation dose 


practices. 


NIOSH needs to find ways to cooperate with 


petitioners so that filing a petition is not 


burdensome and does not take on the character 


of litigation. From a claimant's perspective, 


NIOSH's approach in the qualification process 


is problematic for several reasons. 


Number one, NIOSH's continued requests for 


additional information becomes a moving and 


confusing target for the petitioner. 


 Number two, without a health physics 

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background, the petitioner is outweighed and 


outnumbered by NIOSH. 


Number three, NIOSH's ability to quash 


petitions before they get a foot in the door 


runs counter to Congressional intent. 


Four, and lastly, it appears as though NIOSH is 


cherry-picking SEC classes through the 83 


period 4 rather than evaluating the entire time 


frame and scope of the class under petition. 


 I respectfully request that you review the Ruiz 


petition to understand exactly why petitioners 


find this process daunting and burdensome. It 


is my understanding that NIOSH has already 


disqualified nearly 30 SEC petitions. In light 


of the first-hand knowledge I've had with the 


Ruiz petition, it may be worth considering 


whether this Board may want to undertake, as a 


part of its responsibilities under the Act, an 


audit of selected SEC petitions which are not 


qualified. 


 Members of the Board, we know SEC petitions 


face an uphill battle, and this should not be 


the case. I'm eager to work with my colleagues 


in Congress to address these and other glaring 


deficiencies in the implementation of the 

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EEOICPA. In the meantime I ask you to look 


into some of the issues raised today. Please 


let me know if there is anything my office can 


do to provide or clarify these remarks or 


support your work on behalf of the sick heroes 


of the Cold War. 


And thank you again for allowing me to testify 


today, and I very much appreciate you taking me 


out of order because of our pending vote, Mr. 


Chairman. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And thank you very much, Mr. 


Udall. We appreciate your being here today. 


You're -- you're welcome to stay as long as 


you're able. I know you have pressing 


business. 


If I might just ask whether any of the Board 


members have any questions that they might wish 


to pose, I think all of -- 


CONGRESSMAN UDALL: Please, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the material you referred to of 


course will go on the record, and as you know, 


we -- we will very shortly, on today's agenda, 


at least get underway with the -- the status of 


the evaluation report and we'll hear from NIOSH 


as to where we're going, and we appreciate the 

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input you've given us and stimulate some of the 


thought processes as we go forward. Thank you. 


 Board members, any particular questions at this 


time? The Los Alamos picture will certainly be 


unfolding before us, so thank you again for 


that input very much. 


CONGRESSMAN UDALL: Well, thank -- thank you 


very much, Mr. Chairman, and I'm very pleased 


that this very distinguished Board does not 


have any questions because they probably might 


have stumped me, so I'm --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, they may -- they may ­

- they're a very discreet group, so they -- 


CONGRESSMAN UDALL: And with that, I would like 


to submit my statement, also, for the record to 


you --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, appreciate it --


CONGRESSMAN UDALL: -- Mr. Chairman. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- thank you. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you, Congressman. 


CONGRESSMAN UDALL: I'm sorry I'm going to have 


to -- going to have to run. Thank you very 


much. We really appreciate all of your work, 


we really do. Thank you very much. 

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NIOSH PRESENTATION ON PARTIAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS
 

FOR NON-PRESUMPTIVE CANCERS, MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH
 

(CONT’D)
 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. We'll 


return now to the discussion of the non-


presumptive cancers. I think, Stu, you had 


been answering Dr. Melius's question. I'm not 


sure if you had finished that answer, but -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: The last question I think was 


when there's a finding of infeasibility for a 


particular component --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- that we consider that then 


as removed then. If it's not feasible, then we 


can't reconstruct it and we don't include it in 


the dose reconstruction, but other components, 


where there is no finding of infeasibility, if 


our research would indicate to us that we feel 


like we have enough data to do that 


reconstruction, then we would include that -- 


without any specific comment in -- from like a 


Board recommendation or a Secretarial letter or 


something like that. 


 DR. WADE: I'd just like to clarify, Jim, in 


his opening to the question, talked about the 


Board's recommendation. It's really the 

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Secretary's determination that triggers -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: It's the Secretary's 


designation letter, sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Additional questions? 
I 


think Roy --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I actually --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Roy DeHart and then -- 


 DR. MELIUS: I actually had some follow-up, but 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let's have Roy and then 


we'll come back. 


 DR. DEHART: Stu, prostate cancer in males is 


very common as one ages, and I'm sure this is a 


common cancer that you're looking at. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it is. 


 DR. DEHART: As I recall, it's somewhat 


resistant to radiation, so one would anticipate 


rather high doses in order to qualify, and yet 


we're limiting so many ways of determining 


radiation exposure because the data just isn't 


there. Is there an alternative here, or are we 


-- we're dealing with a very common affliction, 


obviously, among males. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I -- I don't know. I don't 


think in the current legal and regulatory 

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structure there's a particular alternative to 


what we're doing. Clearly -- I mean if -- when 


you reconstruct all the components of the dose, 


it's difficult to show causation -- a POC above 


50 percent with a -- with a prostate cancer, so 


that condition exists because -- you know, I 


guess that's the way things are, but I -- I 


don't know of any alternative with the 


structure we have now. 


 DR. WADE: I mean I'd speak to it briefly. I 


mean it does appear to me that there is a -- is 


a -- a hole been left in people's coverage, and 


you know, I think the fix probably needs to be 


legislative, it seems to me, and I think all 


need to hear that and consider that. But you 


know, I applaud NIOSH for trying to do what 


they're doing, but it's a -- it's a makeshift 


attempt to fill a hole that really needs to be 


filled more systemically, I think. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think one of the other 


anomalies in this process is that, if I 


understand what happens correctly, is that 


prior to an SEC petition being qualified or it 


some way -- you may very well have done some 

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dose reconstructions -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, that's correct. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- already using some of these -- 


these data and -- that -- that are then 


declared to be infeasible or -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- so to -- so to speak, so we may 


very well have someone who -- who's applied 


with a non-SEC cancer who may very well have 


someone they worked with with the same cancer 


having had a full dose reconstruction. They're 


then told that well, only certain parts of 


their dose will be considered, you know, after 


the SEC petition's qualified -- a 


determination's been made. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: So it can be quite confusing to -- 


to the claimants and so forth, I -- on that. 


Or may also have -- even though it may be -- 


we'll make a determination of infeasibility for 


a class and that class is usually fairly broad, 


but there may be actual individuals within that 


class for which there may be monitoring data 


available which, at least in some cases, would 


qualify them because of the amount of 

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(unintelligible). How do you handle that 


situation where there's individual data on a 


individ-- for a person, but that the class has 


been -- you know, as a class, we've said that 


that data is not sufficient for making a 


determination. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: It would be I guess the nature 


of the finding, the infeasibilty finding. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: If the infeasibility finding 


was the data that is available is not good data 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- meaning it was lied about, 


it's not good, they didn't know what they were 


doing, the data is no good -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- then there is -- there's -- 


I don't think there's anything we can do. We 


cannot use that data for dose reconstruction. 


 If the finding is that you have a few people 


who are monitored, but you really can't do -- 


you can't extrapolate their exposures to the 


rest of the population and you can't use this 


as coworker data --

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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- in that case, the few 


monitored people would be reconstructed. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. I -- I would agree with 


Lew's comment. I mean this is a -- something 


that's probably best dealt with through the 


legislation. It's just hard -- hard to deal 


with otherwise, but -- but I think one thing 


that's important, and it's come up at a number 


of our public meetings, is there's a great deal 


of confusion on the part of the claimants about 


this -- I mean first there's the feeling that 


they're being treated unfairly because people 


with the SEC cancers qualified. Secondly, the 


-- having a partial dose reconstruction is not 


always very satisfactory because they'll say 


well, what happened to all my other 


information, all my other records and so forth. 


And I think the more effort you can make to 


communicate that appropriately and completely 


to that -- I mean you have excerpts of your 


communication --


 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- in your slides. I think it --


and I assume it is much more complete than 

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that, and particularly up front, understanding 


that -- look, this is not going to be maybe a 


satisfactory process, but -- you know, so you 


can do the best you can with what you're 


allowed to deal with. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: And preparing for this, it 


occurred to me that in this situation the 


partial dose reconstruction is really only 


sufficiently accurate if it -- the POC goes 


above 50 percent. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: And so I think maybe some 


language to that extent to the claimant, you 


know, who gets a partial dose reconstruction 


less than 50 percent --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- that we were not able to do 


a dose reconstruction with sufficient accuracy 


-- I think we have to do the partial anyway in 


order to know answer. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: But that may -- that kind of 


language may -- it may be something we would 


pursue. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and even something up front 

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that -- especially if all you're allowed to 


work with is that -- is the occupational 


medical dose or something like that, which is ­

- you know, most cases would not qualify -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: In most cases it would not be 


successful. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, some communication up front 


explaining that so the expectations are -- are 


realistic, but you-- you're right, it's for 


those under 50 percent, and -- and there's 


reasons for that, and an explanation of that's 


part of the legislation I think is helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right. Mr. -- Dr. Wade. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, an observation. I mean 


towards the -- the purpose of always making 


this program better, it occurs to me that we 


should realize now that when the Board makes a 


recommendation on an SEC and it makes its way 


through to a Secretarial determination, there's 


a lot that flows below that that happens as a 


result of the particular words of that. I 


think it's well for the Board to understand 


that as it makes its recommendations, and I 


think what we've learned is that having DOL as 


part of that discussion, having DOL here with 

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the Board and talking about some of these 


issues I think just improves the process. 
I 


think we've learned that the last time in our 


discussions of Y-12, so I would ask the Board 


to consider making that a regular part of their 


deliberations as they look at an SEC petition 


to try and understand the downstream 


ramifications so you -- so you're sure that the 


recommendation is what you truly want it to be. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Generated another question then. 


Is there -- and part of my thought, I think, 


when I suggested that we -- we have this 


discussion, is there a better way that we -- I 


mean this question would be for I guess you and 


Larry and for Pete Turcic -- is there sort of a 


better way that we should communicate in our 


letters that -- and our deliberations about 


these issues when -- as I said, we only have 


tended to focus on what's infeasible, what you 


can't do, not what you can do. And I think in 


only one case -- I believe it was one of the 


Mallinckrodt -- where we specifically addressed 


external exposures. I'm not sure that we did 


it very satisfactorily and may have caused more 

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confusion than -- than good with that, but I 


mean I think that'd be helpful. We sort of 


have a boilerplate we've been using for quite a 


while now, and should we try to establish more 


of a record in other areas, I guess. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It's an important point you 


raise, and I think collectively we have to work 


to provide a full understanding of what dose 


reconstruction is feasible and what dose 


reconstruction is not feasible, and the reasons 


why on both sides. And you're seeing changes, 


I hope you're seeing changes, in our delivery 


of our evaluations toward that end. You saw on 


Jim Neton's presentation on Ames this morning 


that concluding slide, and I would -- you know, 


I'm going to challenge him even more in the 


future to be more descriptive on where we say 


we can reconstruct dose, why we feel that way 


and more descriptive on -- even more 


descriptive on why we say we can't. So that's 


my answer to your question. I think -- I think 


the more that we work together and the more we 


can develop the record on what's feasible and 


what's infeasible, the more comprehensible this 


is all going to be for those people who are 

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going to find themselves with a partial dose 


reconstruction. 


Also, we are looking hard at the language that 


we use in our communications to this particular 


group of claimants. When we send out partial 


dose reconstructions -- you saw some language 


that Stu showed you, but we're continuing to 


evaluate our communication messages about this. 


We'll be meeting with DOL in the near future to 


go over some proposed language in that regard, 


as well, so -- and ways that we can get this 


message across. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Pete Turcic. 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah, to answer your question, 


Jim, I think it'd be very useful in the 


adjudication process for some statement by the 


Board of what is feasible from -- from two 


perspectives. One that starts, you know, 


letting claimants have a better understanding 


of, you know, what can be done and -- and why 


it's only that. But then from the other 


standpoint, start making feasibility -- what is 


feasible if -- you know, without any -- without 


any discussion of it or statement of it, that 


becomes -- starts becoming a precedent, you 

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know, is this number of external samples for 


one year, if -- if that's feasible, then you 


know, that has to be feasible at other 


locations or else you won't have a uniform 


application. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, just one -- one comment on 


that is that we -- we tend to focus in our 


workgroups and deliberations on what can't be 


done, so we tend to explore that and often not 


-- okay, the external -- yeah, it may be okay, 


but there's no discussion of it, or there's no 


-- that, and again, not questioning NIOSH's 


judgment, but -- but it's just the nature of 


the process tends to focus on the, you know, 


negative, what can't be done. And I think 


maybe exploring what -- you know, at least 


documenting the concurrence with what can be 


done would be helpful. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It would be great if we can 


achieve what Pete just outlined, where what we 


do for one circumstance at one site is 


transmitted and con-- you know, provides 


continuity in treatment at another site. But 


I'm going to say that I doubt that seriously 

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can be the case in all situations, and you're 


going to see -- I think you've already seen in 


the number of classes that we've added and in 


our -- the evolution of our understanding about 


feasibility and non-feasibility, and our 


explanation of each, as -- as we mature in our 


ability to communicate that and our -- mature 


in our understanding of the data, I don't -- I 


doubt seriously that we're going to find 


ourselves where we can take what -- what we 


know about Ames and the data that we have for 


Ames and transmit to that -- that to another 


facility that did a similar operation. I --


you know, I just think the circumstances are 


going to set the stage for what we say about 


feasibility and infeasibility. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You know, we -- we continue to 


hear from claimants and those that publicly 


testify that it appears that there still is 


difficulty in understanding what they are being 


told, whether it's that they're being told the 


dose cannot be reconstructed or can only be 


partially reconstructed. I'm wondering -- 


well, it appears what tends to happen is they 


get an official letter -- I suppose the 

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Department of Labor, for example, the final 


letter -- but many times these sort of final 


letters that one gets from agencies tend to be 


very legalese type of letters. They have the 


right words and so on, and we understand what 


they mean, but they're not necessarily so 


enlightening to the people who receive them. 


At least I think we hear that from people. And 


I'm wondering on the communication end, what 


efforts are made, either by Labor or by NIOSH, 


to make this really user-friendly in explaining 


exactly what the final meaning of things are? 


Do we have communications experts who -- who 


put this in language that becomes pretty 


understandable, or do we think we're doing it 


or... 


 MR. TURCIC: Paul, that's a very big problem 


right now that we're dealing with at our Final 


Adjudication Branch, and where the problem 


comes in, it's very difficult to tell the 


difference between a partial dose 


reconstruction report and a complete dose 


reconstruction report. You know, the body of 


it goes through and oftentimes explains, you 


know, the kind of efforts and kind of data 

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that's used, and then there's just one 


statement saying that, you know, in this 


situation, you know, because of the SEC, we 


can't do that. And that has caused tremendous 


problems in an understanding manner, you know, 


once -- then when we do the decision, we say 


based on the partial dose reconstruction. But 


you know, people don't understand that and the 


reports are very similar. You know, it may 


help if it's just a totally different report 


and, you know, I think another think would be 


the recommendation that Lars made earlier, you 


know, maybe a matrix that identifies this was 


done and this could not be done. 


 DR. WADE: Just for the record, Paul, Larry is 


due to talk to the Board tomorrow at 1:45 


about, amongst other things, a communication 


initiative to deal with just the issue that you 


mention. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments? 


 (No responses) 


 (Whereupon, Dr. Ziemer and Dr. Wade conferred 


off microphone.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we are at today's lunch hour 


because we -- we've moved it up, you notice, a 

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half hour. It's 11:30 to 12:30. So we will 


recess for lunch at this point, and then resume 


as quickly after 12:30 as we're able to, so 


make every effort to get back. We have people 


who will be on line -- that is on the telephone 


line -- to participate. So we'll recess for 


lunch. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:38 a.m. 


to 12:45 p.m.) 


UPDATE ON ISSUES RELATED TO NTS & PPG SEC PETITIONS (250 


DAYS), DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH


 DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to call the meeting back 


to order. We're -- we're scheduled to have a 


discussion on issues related to Nevada Test 


Site and the Pacific Proving Grounds, so we are 


temporarily skipping a little bit ahead on the 


agenda. We will do some reshuffling later to 


pick the previous item up, but we have some 


time-certain things here that we have to take 


care of. 


So we're going to begin with a presentation by 


Dr. Neton, which will be an update on issues 


related to Nevada Test Site and the Pacific 


Proving Ground SEC petitions, particularly 


relating to the 250-day issue that was 

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discussed before in the Board. And then also 


we should have on line, if not already, Lynn 


Anspaugh from the University of Utah. Lynn, 


are you on the line? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes, I'm here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Hello. Welcome, Lynn. We're glad 


to have you aboard. 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we will be hearing from Lynn a 


little bit later. And also we have with us 


today Sandi Schubert from Senator Reid's 


office. Sandi's over here and some of her 


colleagues, and we will hear from them, as 


well. 


So let's begin, Dr. Neton, welcome back. 


 DR. WADE: Just quickly before you begin, Dr. 


Neton, the Board does have a conflict of 


interest policy, and I've talked to many of you 


about it before. If a Board member is 


conflicted on a particular site, then that 


Board member doesn't sit at the table during 


substantive discussions about an SEC petition. 


One of our members, Mark Griffon, is conflicted 


at Nevada Test Site. So when Mark comes I'll 


meet him at the door and escort him to the 

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front row. So if you see me doing that, don't 


think it odd. 


 MS. MUNN: We're not going to kick him off yet. 


Maybe later. 


DR. NETON: Okay. Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I'm 


here to talk a little bit about the Nevada Test 


Site/Pacific Proving Grounds, provide an update 


as to the characteristics of the -- the covered 


class with exposures less than 250 days. 


If you recall at the Board meeting in Denver, 


the Board concurred with NIOSH's recommendation 


that Pacific Proving Grounds and Nevada Test 


Site be added as -- as -- to the Special 


Exposure Cohort, and the recommendation was 


that it be based on 250 days of covered 


exposure, although the Board did leave the 


option open that future investigations would be 


conducted in this area to help determine if -- 


if people with less than that time period of 


exposure should be -- should possibly be 


included. 


So what we've done is, we've taken and looked 


at the available case data that we have for 


both of these sites, and so in turn I'd like to 


go through and talk about the total number of 

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cases in the SEC that are covered -- currently 


covered by the -- by the Special Exposure 


Cohort, look at the number that have less than 


250 days, and I also took the opportunity to 


look at covered exposure less than 250 days at 


Pacific Proving Grounds because, if you recall 


our discussion at the last meeting, many of 


these workers were there 24 hours a day, seven 


days a week. So it would be somewhat less than 


that, and I essentially just divided 250 by 


three. That is, 250 days represents a 2,000­

hour work year. When you divide that by three, 


you end up with an -- 83 days worth of 


exposure. 


So we looked at the number less than 250 days 


that had presumptive cancers, those were the 


people, as Stu talked previously, that would be 


not -- would not have a remedy under the 


Special Exposure Cohort because they didn't 


meet the qualification criteria and we'd have 


to do something with them. We looked at the 


job categories and description of these cases 


and also tried to get some information from our 


database as to what the monitoring status of 


these workers -- workers was. 

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I just repeated here the Nevada Test Site SEC 


post-class definition and -- which is the 


employees of contractors who were monitored or 


should have been monitored at the Nevada Test 


Site for about a dozen-year period here 


starting in late January '51 through the end of 


December 1962. If you recall, that was the 


period where above-ground testing was conducted 


at Nevada Test Site. 


So with that, there were -- in our database 


there are 444 cases that -- that meet the class 


definition. That is, have exposure -- not the 


class definition, but had exposure at Nevada 


Test Site in between those two time periods. 


The number with less than 250 days, and had at 


least one presumptive cancer, is 61. So a 


fairly significant number of the -- of the 


cases would not be covered under the current 


definition of the Special Exposure Cohort. 


So we took a look to see what kind of dosimetry 


data did we have for these workers in our -- in 


our case files, and it turns out that about 90 


percent, 54 of those cases, had external 


monitoring data. In other words, they worked 


at the site for less than 250 days, but we do 

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have external data to assist on reconstruction 


of their exposures. Only six, about ten 


percent, had any internal monitoring data, and 


I'll talk a little bit about that as we go. If 


you recall, we had almost no internal data. 


There's a special reason why some of these six 


had monitoring data, and I'll talk about that a 


little later. 


Just for completeness, there were 17 additional 


cases in the database that had non-presumptive 


cancers with less than 250 days. 


Okay, what -- what type of job -- then we tried 


to go into the database and look through the 


Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviews and the 


data provided by the claimants and the 


Department of Labor as to what kind of job -- 


job were these people doing that had less than 


250 days exposure. And it kind of runs the 


waterfront of job categories if you look at the 


ones with external data -- you know, miners, 


assembly men, safety professionals, 


construction trades workers -- so you would 


expect you've got, you know, all the cases -- 


sort of all the job -- many of the job 


categories covered that you would expect to see 

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at a site such as Nevada Test Site. 


Of the ones without external data -- there were 


only six, remember -- so I've listed the 


individual titles for each of those here, and 


nothing remarkable stands out -- in my mind, at 


least -- among these other than they do tend to 


be the trades workers more, although there's 


one engineer here. But nothing -- nothing 


unusual about why those people might not have 


been monitored. 


Of the cases with bioassay, I mentioned there 


was something about them. There are three 


miners had bioassay in this -- in this time 


period, and it turns out that although above-


ground testing was the main bread and butter of 


the Nevada Test Site prior to 1963, there were 


some underground -- there was some underground 


testing going on, either through vented mine 


shafts or some deep tunnel testing to look at 


the explosive characteristics of weapons for 


Department of Defense, that type of thing. 


These miners oftentimes would have to go and do 


what they call drill-back, to go back and pull 


out instrument packages and such after a 


detonation. And there were some pretty -- from 

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my experience, looking at the data -- heavy 


exposures to tritium. And so of the bioassay 


data we have in this period, it's primarily 


tritium type data. In fact, I think one of the 


first cases that we ever evaluated in -- in 


OCAS was a -- a miner who had a fairly 


substantial tritium exposure and I believe 


ended up being compensated based on tritium 


exposure alone, which is pretty hard to do. 


There's a fairly low dose per unit intake of 


tritium. 


 So the bioassay data consists of the three 


miners, a hoe operator, a wireman and a 


driller. 


 Cases without bioassay data, since there's only 


six out of 61, you can imagine the other 90 


percent are very similar in make-up to what we 


see of the cases that have external. There's 


no rhyme or reason why those people didn't 


appear to be monitored. 


This is just sort of a quick bar histogram that 


just -- we tried to collapse these 61 job 


titles into some meaningful characteristics, 


and we came up with four categories. Twelve 


adminis-- there's administrative personnel, 

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construction worker/building trades personnel; 


and drillers, miners, re-entry, technical 


folks. You can see that the majority of the 


workers with less than 250 days do appear to be 


construction workers -- not the majority, but 


almost half. But again, there doesn't seem to 


be any reason for the -- for not monitoring 


them. It's kind of spread out among -- among 


the different categories. One case of the 


administrative area we don't have data yet. 


We're still awaiting a DOE response. 


Okay, a brief summary of the monitoring 


statistics that we had. Of the 61 workers who 


had less than 250 days, the 28 that were 


monitored had no recorded external dose. And 


by that I mean that all the results in the 


files were less than the detection limit of the 


monitoring program. So by all indications, 


based on their monitoring status, they did not 


receive any exposure -- externally, anyways -- 


or whatever we would impute based on less than, 


you know, the missed dose calculation we would 


normally use for our dose reconstruction 


program. 


 The collective dose for all the 61 workers that 

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were -- all the workers who have monitoring 


data was a total of 21 rem. That is, if you 


add up all the doses that were in the files, 


you get 21 total rem, which is not a 


particularly large number averaged over all 


those cases. Interestingly, 58 percent of that 


collective dose was received by five miners. 


Again, these were underground operations doing 


drill-backs, we suspect, that ended up giving 


them some fairly high doses. In fact, the 


highest recorded dose was a miner -- highest 


recorded annual dose in this time period was a 


miner who received 4.7 rem recorded external 


exposure. These are -- these are not 


significantly -- (unintelligible) high 


exposures, they're certainly not in the realm 


of what we'd consider to be an exposure related 


to a criticality accident, at least. 


If you add the internal plus the external, you 


can get the highest recorded exposure for a 


year up to about 7 -- 7 rem. 


Okay, let's switch gears here and move on to 


the Pacific Proving Grounds. I've -- we've 


produced the proposed class definition here, 


and that was subcontractors or workers who were 

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employed from -- PPG from '46 to '62 and who 


were present during this -- who were present at 


the Pacific Proving Grounds during those years 


and were monitored or should have been 


monitored. 


 The employment statistics, there were a total 


of 69 cases -- some of this I presented last 


time; I just include it to refresh folks' 


memory -- people's memories as to what we 


discussed. There were 69 total cases in our 


files that meet the criteria in the SEC class 


definition. The average length of exposure was 


393 days, but it ranged all over the map, from 


less than -- from one day to greater than 2,500 


days. And there were 31 cases in our files 


that had an exposure duration of less than -- 


or greater than 250 days. I would say that 


some cases have additional exposure at the 


Nevada Test Site during the Nevada Test Site 


SEC period, so as you -- as you might recall, 


the regulation allows one to aggregate 


exposures among different SEC classes. 


I'm sure I'm going to be asked the question -- 


I haven't addressed this yet -- as to how much 


is that and what does that do to the profile of 

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these cases. I don't have the answer to that 


at this time. 


And again, this is the histo-- the 


(unintelligible) frequency diagram I put 


together for the last meeting just to show that 


the exposure time, durations, fit -- fit nicely 


a lognormal probability distribution and to 


indicate where the 250-day mark is. 


 Interestingly enough, if we go down to the 83 


period, we get -- you know, there are many 


fewer workers that -- that -- many more workers 


qualify, and as I'll show you, this drops the 


number who would not qualify down to I think 19 


cases. 


 The job categories that we reviewed for the 


total cohort of 69 people were these, and they 


tended to be more heavily oriented towards the 


construction operator trades, the folks who 


were there for a long-haul duration, sort of 


maintaining the physical plant of the Pacific 


Proving Ground, building things, trenching, 


that sort of thing -- the infrastructure 


activities. And many of those people who were 


there comment -- you know, report combinations 


of work and recreation activities. I mean they 

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just lived there. This was their -- their 


residence for that period of time. 


And this is our collapsed make-up of the 


different job categories for PPG. This is all 


cases, all 69 cases. And again, fair -- fairly 


fair percentage of building trades, 


scientific/technical, administrative and -- and 


13 percent unknown. 


I talk a little, though, more about the cases 


less than 250 days. There's 38 cases of the 69 


less than 250-day exposure, and 19 cases less 


than this calculation I've done for 83 days. 


The job titles of those with exposures less 


than 83 days appears to be more heavily 


weighted -- at least in my mind -- toward the 


technical/professional folks. And it makes 


sense. Those are the ones who may have flown 


into the area and participated in the actual 


shots themselves somehow, whether they were 


involved in the detonations or monitoring or 


what-not, as opposed to the building trades 


people who may have been there for longer 


duration. And in fact, if you look at the work 


descriptions of some of these people who have 


job titles here -- we don't have full data on 

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all of these but I tried to pull out what we 


had -- you know, people were performing leak 


detection on devices, prepared the firing range 


detonation signals, took samples -- 


environmental type samples, tested bomb 


launches. So these were -- these were 


activities that you'd expect for people who 


were technical/professional types who were 


there to -- to assist in the detonations. 


It turns out that for these 19 cases, we have 


external dose measurements for -- for all of 


them. Every one has some type of external 


dosimetry. We are awaiting the response from 


one case -- of the ones we have, we have 


external data. Five of these cases have no 


recorded exposure -- that is, again, all their 


doses are below the detection limit. And I 


don't have the exact -- the statistics for the 


cumulative external dose for these -- these 


cases, but none of them exceeds what we would 


consider the regulatory limits in effect at the 


time that they were exposed, which in -- in -- 


which would then tend to indicate that these 


exposures were much less than what we'd expect 


from -- from being present at a criticality 

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incident, as opposed to participating in a 


controlled -- somewhat controlled detonation of 


a nuclear weapon. 


Did I skip one here or not? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) That's all I've 


got, Jim. 


DR. NETON: That's it? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Yeah, uh-huh. 


DR. NETON: Okay, that was it then. With that, 


I guess I'll -- I'll be happy to answer any 


questions if there -- if there are any. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Does the -- are the guards 


included in the NTS petition? 


DR. NETON: Are they included in the NTS -- if 


they were monitored or should have been 


monitored, that would be my opinion, yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Just make sure because, yeah, 


they were -- they were definitely part of it 


out there. And the other thing I have is on 


the 19 cases that were less than 83 days, were 


there any of these that were involved in both 


sites? 


DR. NETON: I don't -- I don't have that data. 


I didn't look at it that closely. There is 

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overlap among those cases, but I don't know if 


it was specific to those 19 or not. I can't 


answer that. We could certainly find that out 


for you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any others? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, apparently no more questions. Again, 


thank you, Jim. 


(Pause) 


SENATOR REID’S MESSAGE, SANDI SCHUBERT
 

Okay, now we'll hear from -- a message at least 


from Senator Reid -- or from Congressman Reid's 


-- Senator Reid's office. You have -- I 


believe, Sandi, you have an item you're going 


to read or enter into the record? Thank you. 


Sandi Schubert. 


MS. SCHUBERT: Hello -- hello, my name's Sandra 


Schubert and I'm with the staff of Senator 


Harry Reid, and I have a short statement to 


read on his behalf. 


(Reading) I am sorry that I cannot be with you 


today, but want to thank the Advisory Board for 


moving forward on the Special Exposure Cohort 


for some Nevada Test Site workers employed at 


the site from 1951 through 1962, and I want to 

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speak to the breadth of that compensation. As 


you are meeting here, I am addressing this 


issue on the floor of the Senate and urging my 


colleagues to support compensation for the test 


sites' atomic energy veterans who valiantly 


served their country during the above-ground 


tests. 


As you all know, I support a broader SEC than 


is going forward, including for below-ground 


workers. However, the discussion today is 


whether workers employed at the site less than 


250 days deserve compensation. Clearly they 


do. 


Five years ago I worked with then-President 


Bill Clinton to ensure that Department of 


Energy workers and contractors who were exposed 


to radiation, beryllium or silica received 


compensation. Unfortunately, five years later 


very few test site workers who have cancer have 


received compensation. As you know, test site 


workers are receiving compensation at a rate 


lower than the national average, and many who 


have waited decades are being told that they 


have to wait longer. Many have already died 


while waiting for their compensation, stuck in 

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the bureaucratic nightmare of obstruction and 


delay. 


Congress and NIOSH have already designated 


classes of atomic energy veterans at many sites 


as members of the Special Exposure Cohort under 


EEOICPA. They have even provided compensation 


for employees working on sites less than 250 


days. Nevada Test Site workers deserve the 


same designation. The contribution of the 


State of Nevada to the security of the United 


States throughout the Cold War and since is 


unparalleled. The United States conducted 100 


above-ground tests and 828 under-ground nuclear 


tests at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 through 


1992. That is 88 percent of the nuclear tests 


conducted in the United States. 


 Unfortunately, Nevada Test Site workers, 


despite performing this service for their 


country, having worked with significant amounts 


of radioactive materials and having known 


exposures leading to cancer, have been denied 


compensation under EEOICPA as a result of 


flawed calculations based on records that are 


incomplete or in error, as well as the use of 


faulty assumptions and incorrect models. NIOSH 

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itself acknowledges that it cannot estimate the 


internal radiation dose received by employees 


at the Nevada Test Site from 1951 through 1962, 


yet is arguing that many test site workers, 


including those present for the atmospheric 


tests, do not deserve compensation. 


There are many reasons that NIOSH cannot 


estimate dose, including inadequate monitoring, 


incomplete radionuclide lists, and DOE's 


ignoring significant data on the site and the 


tests. We also know that DOE and its 


contractors did not monitor for beta radiation 


before 1966; that there were significant 


efforts to prevent badges from registering 


dose; that DOE ignored -- that NIOSH ignored 


voluminous evidence and never even spoke with 


the lead health physicist at the site during 


both the above and below-ground tests, although 


the auditors did; that Nevada Test Site workers 


frequently worked greater than eight hours; and 


that DOE claims to have dosimeter readings for 


workers when they were no longer even employed 


at the site. 


In addition there's voluminous anecdotal 


information about the severe acute effects that 

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many workers present during the tests suffer, 


workers that would not be covered within this 


cohort. I cannot tell you the number of 


stories that my staff has been told outlining 


these effects, many of which have been 


transmitted to the agencies. Laurie Hunton*, 


whose father, Earl Triplett*, worked at the 


site is here to share some of these stories 


with you. 


 Further, under NIOSH's reasoning -- further, 


NIOSH's reasoning is in direct contravention of 


Congress's intention in passing the Energy 


Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 


Program Act of 2000. Under this rationale, 


someone who was present for all 100 above-


ground tests would be denied compensation, even 


if they were in the front lines. This is not 


what Congress intended, and it is unfair. 


These men and women, our atomic energy 


veterans, helped this country win the Cold War, 


sacrificing their personal health in the 


process. After decades of waiting and 


suffering, it is time that we honored these 


sacrifices. 


I urge the Advisory Board to do the right thing 

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and grant an SEC for workers employed at the 


site less than 250 days. All workers present 


at the atmospheric tests should be granted 


compensation. Please let me know how we can 


assist the Board in these efforts. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, and you have 


also one of your constituents, I believe, that 


has a statement for us? 


MS. SCHUBERT: Laurie Hunton, whose father 


worked at the test site, is going to read a 


statement on behalf of herself, and then some 


testimony -- testimonial excerpts from other 


workers and survivors. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Welcome, Laurie. 


 MS. HUNTON: Thank you very much. Hello, my 


name is Laurie Hunton, daughter of former 


Nevada Test Site worker Earl Triplett. Thank 


you for the opportunity to speak here today on 


behalf of my father and thousands of other 


Nevada Test Site workers that were Cold War 


veterans. 


I am here to ask you to ensure that all who 


were exposed to radiation at the Nevada Test 


Site are compensated for their cancers. My 


father was employed at the Nevada Test Site 

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from January 30th, 1962 through September 30th, 


1970, during the Cold War. My father was 


diagnosed with lung cancer on August 1st, 1975 


and he passed away November 20th, 1975. I was 


only 16 years old. My mother was a widow at 


the age of 44. My dad left behind three 


brothers and me. 


 During my father's employment in 1962 he was 


involved in numerous nuclear tests. These 


included blasts from Operation 


(unintelligible), PLOWSHARE -- also known as 


the Sedan series, and the DOMINIC II series. A 


number of these were above-ground detonations 


that released particles of radiation into the 


air. We all remember the mushroom clouds. I 


would like to be able to tell you exactly what 


my father's job duties were, but he was not 


allowed to talk about them, and I was a young 


child. 


 Unfortunately, the Department of Energy has not 


been helpful in getting any information to me 


and my family. I do remember one night my 


father came home from work. He had little red 


cheerios on the side of his face. My brothers 


and I were saying did you see Dad's face; he 

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has little red cherries on the side of his 


face. Wow. Do I remember how old I was when 


this happened? No. I was a very young child. 


And again, that information has not been given 


to me. Little did we know at the time that the 


cheerio-like marks were caused by deadly 


radiation. What we did know is that something 


happened to my father that night at work. 


My family has been seeking compensation for our 


loss for at least a -- for over 29 years, but 


to -- to no avail. In the beginning we would 


attend meetings at several of the different 


union halls. There was always so many people 


there was standing room only. Where there used 


to be numerous people, there was only a few 


left. The familiar faces were gone because 


they had passed away from their cancers, 


cancers due to the work that they did at the 


Nevada Test Site. 


I submitted papers of -- papers of employment 


for my father from January 30th, 1962 through 


September 30th, 1970. However, the Department 


of Energy has dosimeter readings for my father 


through 1975, even though he quit the Nevada 


Test Site on September 30th, 1970. He was not 

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employed at the Nevada Test Site for several 


years during which the Department of Energy 


says that they have dosimeter readings on him. 


This just goes to show how bad the Department 


of Energy's radiation exposure records are. 


During my father's employment he car-pooled 


with several men around the neighborhood who 


have passed away since. It was just not an 8­

hour day that they worked. He would be gone 


over 12 hours a day. They frequently worked 


long days, overtime and weekends. 


Radiation exposure is radiation exposure, very 


deadly and life-taking, even at the lowest 


levels, and all it takes is one exposure. It's 


my understanding if there are acute health 


effects, like the cheerios on my father's face, 


then that was a lot of radiation. Can you 


really tell me, coworkers, other survivors, 


that our loved ones' cancers weren't caused by 


this type of exposure? Could you tell your own 


loved ones the same thing? 


My father and other test site workers lost 


their lives working for their country. During 


the testing from 1951 to 1962 there were more 


than 100 above-ground tests. Our government 

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should compensate all of the workers who were 


there from 1951 to 1962. And if you need to 


contact me in the future, please call me at 


702/454-3666. 


And as you know, I am here today as a 


representative of other survivors, and as a 


representative of workers who are still living 


but who are too frail and sick with their 


cancer to travel to Washington, D.C. Several 


people have asked me to share their stories and 


to urge you to extend compensation to Cold War 


veterans. 


I'm going to read some of their statements. Is 


that okay? 


 Testimony (unintelligible) by Diane Milko*. 


(Reading) My father worked at the Nevada Test 


Site from October 5th, 1961 to -- to, I'm 


sorry, February 21st, 1962. He monitored the 


weather conditions at ground zero. He often 


told us how his badge did not detect any 


radiation, yet cows in the fields around him 


were dropping dead. He quit the test site 


because he believed he was in danger, and that 


the government was not doing enough to protect 


the workers. Unfortunately his fears became 

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reality when he was diagnosed with cancer of 


the stomach wall in 1972. My father died at 


the age of 43 and left behind eight children to 


grieve. 


And I have testimony prepared by seven 


surviving children of Archie Gilger*. 


 (Reading) Many times our dad was scheduled to 


be at the test site for an entire week because 


a test was being conducted. It was not 


unusual, however, to wake up in the morning to 


get ready for school and to find he was home 


instead. Why was he home in the middle of the 


week when he was not scheduled to be home? 


Because he came home he -- I'm sorry. Because 


he had come home so hot they sent him home. 


Our dad was 47 years old when he began working 


at the Nevada Test Site. He had -- he had all 


of his God-given teeth, not a single tooth 


missing from his head, but after a few years of 


working at the site his teeth started 


(unintelligible) one another. He would be fine 


one day and then the next he'd be having 


another teeth pulled -- I'm sorry, another 


tooth pulled. 


 His clothes were always washed separate from 

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the family in effort to keep any contaminated 


dirt away from us kids. He kept a black light 


in the living room so that he could check for 


radiation inside the house. He started showing 


up with cancers on his hands and on his face 


that had to be surgically removed. 


 Monitoring was not only unreliable, it was a 


standing joke with the men that worked out 


there. I remember Dad saying that they would 


set their lunch pails on 55-gallon drums and 


stand around those drums eating, as they had no 


other place to eat out in the middle of the 


desert. Those drums contained radioactive 


waste and material. No place to sit, no place 


to eat except around the drums of radioactive 


waste. 


 I have another testimonial letter from Shirley 


Breeden*. (Reading) My father was employed at 


the Nevada Test Site from September the 11th, 


1961 through January 15th, 1964 as a mechanic 


foreman over the drilling rigs. I remember 


Daddy undressing in the garage when he came 


home from work because he did not want his 


clothes in the house. I was in second grade. 


He would tell my brother and I don't touch 

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them, especially his boots. Why, we asked. He 


said because you would glow in the dark. What 


did that mean? Who really knew? Only my dad. 


My mother said that when she would ask him 


about his job, he would tell her he wasn't 


allowed to talk about it. Again, what did that 


mean and who really knew? Only my dad. 


Then I have another one from Otis Tyrone 


Thompson. (Reading) My dad served as a head 


custodian at the Nevada Test Site from 1960 to 


1969. Even though my dad was a quiet and 


reserved man, my father recalls times when he 


complained of substandard working conditions at 


the test site. She said Otis would let me know 


on numerous occasions while he worked at the 


test site that he would constantly have sharp 


headaches. He also mentioned problems 


breathing. What -- one day -- I'm sorry. One 


(sic) days of testing he would drive home with 


a powdery substance on his car. He forbidded 


(sic) me from driving the car until he washed 


it thoroughly. He felt that the dust on the 


car was a result of the fallout from the 


testing, which would have been unsafe for me to 


be exposed. 

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The area in which my dad worked was deemed top 


secret. Therefore we are unsure if we -- I'm 


sorry -- sure if we had -- if he had been 


issued appropriate equipment and attire to work 


in a radiation-free environment. 


My dad has a close coworker who also has a 


pending case with the Department of Labor. His 


name is Eddie Durer*, Sr. Mr. Durer worked at 


the Nevada Test Site from the period of 1960 to 


1963. During the early '60s he worked as an 


assistant custodial supervisor in the custodial 


services. He also recalls various challenges 


with his health while above-ground testing was 


done. He saw the mushroom clouds when they 


were above-ground testing. 


We had a careful watch on the clouds because 


they had shifted near the work areas. We would 


have to immediately evacuate through the back 


way, Glendale to I-15 to north Las Vegas, to go 


home. We had a medic on campus and he -- and 


we would go to him for minor problems such as 


burning and itching. Occasionally our skin 


would break out. We really didn't think much 


of it at the time. The medic would give us an 


ointment to make things better. 

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As I look back, the residue from the clouds 


would spread everywhere. The dust would cover 


my car. Sometimes the area of testing would 


actually be the same area in which I would have 


to travel home. 


I have one more testimonial letter from Irvin 


Formey -- Forman*, I'm sorry. (Reading) My 


first employment at the Nevada Test Site was in 


May of 1957 during the time frame beginning in 


1957 and continuing through the middle of 1971. 


I was employed at the Nevada Test Site for 


approximately 12 years. The remainder of the 


time during this period I worked in the Las 


Vegas area. My duties at the test site were 


those of heavy duty university -- universal 


equipment operator. I operated several 


different types of equipment, from truck cranes 


to earth-moving, loading and trenching 


machines. I also served as a worker -- working 


foreman at different times. 


In the early years pads and foundations were 


built for steel towers that were erected 500 


feet and 750 feet for above-ground testing. 


recall one 750 feet (sic) steel tower in area 


T2C where, after the detonation, the 


I 
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surrounding area was so hot and contaminated 


that it was necessary to water down and remove 


the soil with earth-movers and bulldozers 


before the users could recover their 


instruments and do further tests. I was part 


of the crew that did that work. 


Many times when we tested for exposure to 


radiation after working in a hot area, our 


clothes were confiscated and we were sent home 


in paper coveralls. 


I worked at the Gravel Gertie for several 


months and we were screen-- we screened the raw 


gravel in order to make material for roads. 


This caused a lot of dust and was possibly 


contaminated by fallout from the surrounding 


tests. It was next to impossible to keep from 


inhaling all the dust. 


Over the years cancer has become my constant 


companion. My first encounter with skin cancer 


was in late 1960. This has been an ongoing 


battle every (sic) since, with several surgical 


procedures from cardinomas (sic) on my face, 


hands and arms. The most recent was a surgical 


procedure done on my forehead this year that 


left a deep depression about two inches in 

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length. In April 1992 a malignant tumor was 


found in my right lung. This tumor and the 


entire lower lobe of my right lung was 


surgically removed. Again in 1999 and 2000 


tumors were found in my bladder. In 2001 


biopsies revealed prostate cancer. It was 


necessary to remove my prostate. After that 


operation, more bladder tumors were removed in 


April and in November of 2003. 


Many of the people I worked with at the Nevada 


Test Site have afflicted (sic) with cancers and 


have died. I believe I am entitled to a share 


of the available compensation. I only hope 


someone else concurs. I sure would help -- I 


sure would -- I'm sorry, it should would help 


to offset some of the mountain of medical 


expenses I have incurred over the years. 


Those are all the testimony letters that I do 


have. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Laurie. 


 MS. HUNTON: And thank you for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now I think we can hear from -- do 


you -- Sandi, do you have any additional 


comments from your group? I think we'll --


MS. SCHUBERT: We -- we may have some stuff to 

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submit to (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


MS. SCHUBERT: -- later. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. I think we'll hear now 


from Lynn Anspaugh. Dr. Anspaugh's on the 


phone, and wishes to add some comments to the 


record. Lynn? 


(NOTE: The telephone connection was inadequate 


to provide a clear and undistorted transmission 


of Dr. Anspaugh's statement. What follows is 


the best efforts of the Court Reporter to 


understand and transcribe what was said.) 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes, thank you very much, Dr. 


Ziemer. I'm a research professor of 


radiobiology at the University of Utah, and I 


spent 33 years working at Lawrence Livermore 


National Laboratory in California and the last 


nine and half years at the University of Utah 


where my main activity has been dose 


reconstructions, most often to members of the 


general public, but I also did some work for 


(unintelligible) at the Nevada Test Site. And 


during the 1960s and '70s I did spend quite 


some time at the Nevada Test Site and I also 


spent two weeks at Amchitka. 

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181 

Now let me reassure you that I am not a 


claimant and I (unintelligible) any claimant 


and in the interest of full disclosure 


(unintelligible) tell you that I have worked 


for lawyers representing (unintelligible) for 


some DOE facilities. 


So to get down to the topic of 


(unintelligible), it's my opinion that Congress 


did not have very good advice when they passed 


this Energy employees compensation bill, but 


(unintelligible) decision has to be to 


compensate and that (unintelligible) we do have 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lynn --


DR. ANSPAUGH: Yes? 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- could I interrupt just a 


moment. We're getting a lot of echo here. I 


don't know if it's your phone or our hookups 


here. I'm sort of looking over to the sound 


guy. Is there anything we can do to filter 


that any better? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, apparently not. Okay --


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


louder? 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe just -- we'll -- we'll try 


to amplify it a little bit, but go ahead, Lynn. 


Thanks. 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. I'd like to discuss three 


things with you. First is the 250-day 


requirement. The second is the time 


(unintelligible) workers, and the last is the 


definition of Nevada Test Site. My 


understanding is that the original intent of 


Congress was to compensate workers at the 


(unintelligible) diffusion plants. And looking 


at that legislation, it's a mystery to me why 


250 days was (unintelligible) threshold 


(unintelligible) period. (Unintelligible) that 


it takes 250 days (unintelligible) exposure to 


produce compensation. We know (unintelligible) 


Japanese atomic bomb survivors (unintelligible) 


certainly (unintelligible) sufficient dose. 


Now even for the (unintelligible) diffusion 


plant it's my opinion that any (unintelligible) 


exposures occurred from (unintelligible). So I 


think the first point is that there is no 


(unintelligible) to support this 250-day 


threshold for (unintelligible), and I've also 


(unintelligible) that the 250-day requirement 

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was not in the original petition but is 


something that was added by (unintelligible) 


regulation. 


 But another (unintelligible) point 


(unintelligible) related to Amchitka and 


(unintelligible) and I think (unintelligible) 


for Amchitka (unintelligible) to the 


(unintelligible) diffusion plants and I 


(unintelligible) Congressman from Alaska 


(unintelligible). But Amchitka only had 

(unintelligible). The last one was in 1971 

(unintelligible). They had (unintelligible) 

only with the first test in 1965 and these were 


relatively (unintelligible) and 


(unintelligible) were much more severe at 


Nevada Test Site than (unintelligible) 


Amchitka. (Unintelligible) as far as Amchitka 


(unintelligible) concerned, there is no 


(unintelligible) for 250 days exposure and the 


only requirement was that they worked there 


prior to 1974, and 1974 is three years after 


the last test at Amchitka. 


 Another important issue I think is what kinds 


of exposures actually occurred 


(unintelligible). It's often said 

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(unintelligible) but that of course is not 


true. There was about (unintelligible) in a 


criticality (unintelligible) experience 


(unintelligible) plant, but (unintelligible) 


must consider (unintelligible) criticalities. 


There were also (unintelligible) some of those 


that occurred at the Nevada Test Site. There 


were several (unintelligible) experiments and 


(unintelligible) hopefully there would not be 


(unintelligible). So there were several things 


(unintelligible) resulted in (unintelligible) 


criticality and I remember one case in 


particular that people (unintelligible) that 


they went off without the radiation monitors 


(unintelligible) monitor (unintelligible) 


concept there had been a criticality and that 


they were -- were exposed. (Unintelligible) 


opposite that situation there (unintelligible) 


what I call (unintelligible) Nevada Test Site 


(unintelligible) is the device that does not 


perform (unintelligible) criteria. And so I 


can (unintelligible) look at SC&A reports on 


Nevada Test Site (unintelligible) was that if 


the one (unintelligible) because the 


(unintelligible) he was talking about 

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(unintelligible) other device. And also 


(unintelligible) interest is this report SC&A 


(unintelligible) people that (unintelligible) 


and the comment (unintelligible) instead they 


received a (unintelligible) exposure, if 


anything at all. There (unintelligible) long-


term (unintelligible) so I think we 


(unintelligible) exposure (unintelligible) by 


scientists who perform (unintelligible) conduct 


the various (unintelligible) placed around the 


device and (unintelligible) things like 


(unintelligible) and they would 


(unintelligible) so that (unintelligible) 


person would go (unintelligible) so the people 


who were exposed (unintelligible) were the same 


people the scientists (unintelligible) people 


who were (unintelligible). Another 


(unintelligible) test site. I would 


(unintelligible) discrete incidents 


(unintelligible) 250-day rule (unintelligible) 


another problem that Dr. Neton (unintelligible) 


about people (unintelligible) not possible to 


do, so I think this is very (unintelligible) 


time period of (unintelligible) actually three 


years after the last test that was conducted 

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there (unintelligible) up through 1995, so 


(unintelligible) exposures (unintelligible) I 


think 250 days (unintelligible) is not 


(unintelligible) so I think it would be 


(unintelligible) definition of (unintelligible) 


time span (unintelligible) the last test 


(unintelligible). So thank you 


(unintelligible) questions (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lynn, do you have a copy of your 


testimony in writing that could be made 


available? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I don't have (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: The connection has been actually 


fairly bad. We're -- I think a number of 


things were garbled and also our reporter has 


some difficulty I think in picking up some of ­

- maybe a lot of what you said, and so it might 


be helpful if we could -- if you were able to 


provide a written version of that to make sure 


that our record is correct and -- and that 


Board -- that way Board members could also have 


a copy. I think there's a lot of points that 


perhaps were somewhat difficult to follow, 


simply because of the noise on the line. 


 DR. WADE: Lynn, are you on a speaker phone or 

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a cell phone? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I'm on a regular 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: Could you say that again? I can't ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: Line phone, regular --


DR. ANSPAUGH: I'm on a regular phone. 


 MS. MUNN: Is someone else on the line with a 


speaker phone? It sounds like two -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is anyone else on the line with 


you there or... 


DR. ANSPAUGH: No, not with me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


DR. ROESSLER: (Off microphone) Somebody's been 


on (unintelligible). 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: We're just having a very difficult 


time hearing you and we -- we want to get this 


on the record in as many ways as possible. 


Could I ask the audi-- is there someone else -- 


can you tell us how many people are on the 


line? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) I don't know 


(unintelligible). 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I don't (unintelligible) here. 

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 DR. WADE: Right, I understand that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're getting a lot of echo and 


kind of static as you speak, Lynn, so it's been 


very difficult to --


 DR. WADE: Could we ask you to --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: -- call back in? At least try that? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I can call back in but 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: Okay, why don't you -- we start by 


you calling back in and then we'll -- we'll 


take it from there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And see if that makes -- helps at 


all. 


DR. ANSPAUGH: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay? At which point we'll have 


some -- maybe some questions. It's very 


difficult --


DR. ROESSLER: That line's open. 


 MS. MUNN: The line's open. Someone else is on 


the line somewhere. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It may be the fact that there's -- 


it's an open line and others are on there 


that's causing additional interference. 
I 


really don't know. 

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189

 DR. WADE: Is there anyone else on the line 


now? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) The line's 


open. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) You can still 


hear (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now it's --


DR. ROESSLER: Ah, it's gone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Somebody may have been listening 


and just has bailed out. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) That would be 


helpful. They were on (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wait just a moment and see if Lynn 


is able to get back on. 


(Pause) 


Can you tell when -- will you be able to tell 


when he comes back on the line or -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Not unless he 


starts talking. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not unless he starts talking. 


Okay. Lynn, are you -- 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Hello, it's me again. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That seems a little clearer, and 


we think there may have been others on the line 


who now have left and could -- because the 

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background static also has cleared up. 


Lynn, would it be possible for you to kind of 


give us a quick overall summary of your key 


points, without repeating all the details, but 


the key points that you're making. 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. By the way, when I came 


back on I was told there were 12 people on the 


line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You were told there were 12 people 


on the line? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, somebody's still on. 


DR. ANSPAUGH: So --


 DR. ZIEMER: So just now --


DR. ANSPAUGH: -- anyway, I guess 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: We're still getting a fair amount 


of echo from you, as well. Go ahead. 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I guess a quick summary is, in 


relationship to the 250-day exposure 


requirement, I don't think there's any evidence 


to support that there's a 250-day threshold 


that's required to endanger health and that a 


microsecond is more than enough if you have the 


right kind of dose. And one of the other 

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situations is, in consideration of parity and 


fairness, that if you look at Amchitka -- which 


had only three tests, the last one in 1971, and 


they only had a problem with one test, which is 


a relatively minor issue with tritium -- but 


the definition of that cohort is anybody who 


worked there prior to 1974, and there's no 250­

day requirement. So you know, I don't think 


that makes any sense compared to the 250-day 


requirement for Nevada Test Site or Pacific 


Proving Ground. But my other opinion is that 


250 days doesn't make any sense anyway. 


The other thing I discussed was what kind of 


exposures occurred at Nevada Test Site. I 


believe that these were all episodic exposures 


that were what I would classify as due to 


discrete incidents. And I think that is borne 


out substantially if you look at the SC&A 


report on NTS, both the interview with Jay 


Brady and also the consensus document of what 


they were told by other people that they talked 


to at the Nevada Test Site. And the general 


conclusion was that the exposures that did 


occur were basically acute and were related to 


discrete events such as re-entries, either into 

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tunnels or even above-ground situations. And I 


mentioned there were some unplanned criticality 


events at the Nevada Test Site, and there were 


also a lot of duds. And the duds, according to 


Jay Brady, were the ones that really caused the 


problem in the sense that if they had a full 


yield, most of the radionuclides were contained 


in the molten glass, whereas if they had a dud 


they typically had radionuclides that were much 


more prone to migrate and cause problems. So a 


lot of the exposures that did occur at the 


Nevada Test Site were not chronic, they were 


event-related. They were related to 


diagnostics. There were lots of detectors that 


were placed around devices, both above-ground 


and later on below-ground, either through pipes 


or so forth. And so there were rad-safe 


technicians who re-entered immediately after 


tests to establish exposure contours. There 


were scientists who went in to retrieve various 


kinds of detectors, and there were also guards 


that -- and crafts people who were exposed as a 


result of that. And I did mention that 


aircraft penetrations were common in the early 


days and that these aircraft landed at Indian 

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Springs Air Force Base where these filters, 


which were quite hot at the time, were removed. 


So I guess my -- my two major points are that 


250 days I don't think makes any sense, either 


from a scientific standpoint or from the 


standpoint that relates to exposures at -- the 


way they actually occurred at the Nevada Test 


Site. 


And my final point was how do you intend to 


define the Nevada Test Site? There were at 


least five tests that were on the Air Force 


bombing and gunnery range, but not in 


(unintelligible) test site proper. There were 


additional tests in Nevada. There were two 


sites in Colorado, three in New Mexico and one 


in Mississippi. So I was suggesting that you 


do the following: One is to remove the 250-day 


requirement and acknowledge that these were 


discrete incidents. The third one was to 


extend the time period to make it consistent 


with Amchitka, which for NTS would actually 


require that somebody work there prior to 1995, 


and then be more careful about how you define a 


test site in the sense that there were nine 


other sites in the U.S. where testing was 

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conducted in addition to the Nevada Test Site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Ask -- if you'll stand by here, 


we'll see if any of the Board members have 


questions to pose to you relative to your own 


comments. Board members, any questions or 


points of clarification that you would like to 


raise? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, it appears not. That -- that was a very 


good summary and we could hear it quite well, 


Lynn. We appreciate that. If you do have the 


opportunity to provide the more detailed 


testimony, if I can call it that, that would be 


good for our record, as well. 


 DR. WADE: And since the line is so good, Lynn, 


is there anything else that you recall that you 


-- you said through that first discussion that 


you -- you thinks bear -- bears repeating now? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: Well, I guess one other thing 


that I didn't mention the second time was what 


called -- what Dr. Neton called inconsistent 


logic, and that is if somebody didn't work 250 


days, then the requirement is that you do a 


dose reconstruction, but you've already come to 


the conclusion that you can't do it. So this 

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is a major intellectual discontinuity that 


would be removed if you got rid of the 250-day 


requirement. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. Anything else, Lynn? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Lynn. Roy 


DeHart has a comment or question here. 


 DR. DEHART: You had mentioned that one could ­

- could consider each event an acute exposure. 


What about contaminated dust re-- and re-


exposure to that sort of thing, are you 


excluding that, or would that be considered a 


chronic exposure on any acute exposure? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I think the issue here really 


relates to resuspension by the shock wave, 


which Mr. Brady discussed in his interview. 


And typically this was something that might 


have lasted for a few days, and I don't believe 


I -- you would consider that to be a chronic 


exposure. But again, it's -- it's more of a 


discrete incident where the shock wave throws 


this stuff up into the air and it stays in the 


air for a few days. But also I want to make 


sure that I remind you that when you have a 


nuclear explosion you have a very large number 


of very short-lived radionuclides, and this 

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field decays very, very rapidly. And so the 


amount of material -- long-lived material 


that's on the test site is not all that large 


because it's not a nuclear reactor where you 


build up this material, but it's something that 


happens in less than a second and you -- you 


really are dominated by very short-lived 


activity that decays rapidly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other questions or 


comments? 


 DR. WADE: Lynn, this is Lew Wade. I don't 


want to get in -- in front of the Board's 


deliberations, but it's entirely possible that 


the Board will have a working group that looks 


into this issue. Would you be willing to 


accept a call from them and interact with them 


as they continue their deliberations? 


DR. ANSPAUGH: I would -- I would be happy to 


do that, yes. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Okay, then 


we'll proceed. Lynn, you're welcome to stay on 


the line if you wish to listen, or -- or not, 


as you see fit. But again, I thank you for 


participating in our deliberations here today. 

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DR. ANSPAUGH: Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. 


Ziemer. 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


issue of what the Board does, so we need to 


talk about process (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Yes, Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Just to follow-up on Lew's 


comment, but we actually have a working group 


and I think the issue is just to -- we need to 


activate that working group. We'd asked NIOSH 


to get some more information, which I think 


we've heard that from Jim today. I don't know 


if there's more information you're gathering at 


the moment, but I -- what I would do is suggest 


that we try to hold a -- at least a conference 


call of that working group with NIOSH, perhaps 


with SC&A, to try to work out what our process 


would be and a timetable in terms of being able 


to gather any additional information. 


We also need to coordinate that activity with 


the working group that's looking at the Nevada 


Test Site review and -- get that. And you 


know, plan to try to -- try to bring some 


closure to this issue at the September meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments, or reactions? 

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 DR. WADE: Just a -- a technical issue. When 


last we met we talked about a situation with 


SC&A where there were concerns over some work 


that they had taken on for DTRA and how that 


affected their ability to be available to the 


Board in an unlimited, unfettered kind of a 


way. That issue has not been completely 


resolved at this point, but I am operating on 


the assumption that it will be resolved in a 


reasonable amount of time. So I don't think 


the Board should be concerned about that as it 


does its planning. You certainly will have to 


check with me before the workgroup meets and 


invites SC&A to join to make sure that the 


issue is cleared, but I think we should proceed 


on the assumption that it would be cleared. 


don't know if anybody from SC&A wants to 


comment. 


 (No responses) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any further discussion on this 


then? 


 (No responses) 


Now I just want to point out, and Mark Griffon 


alerted me to the fact that -- with respect to 


another item on our agenda, the Rocky Flats 


I 
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update -- that one of the presenters is pushing 


against a flight that'll be leaving in a little 


bit, so Mark is -- huh? 


 DR. WADE: You want to do Rocky Flats? 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I think Mark is asking if 


we can do the Rocky Flats -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


ROCKY FLATS SEC UPDATE
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, WORKING GROUP CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: We can return to this, certainly, 


but if -- if there's no objection, we'll skip 


ahead momentarily to the Rocky Flats SEC 


update. 


 DR. WADE: Right. Now on Rocky Flats, Dr. 


Poston, you have a conflict, so I would have to 


ask you to join us in the front row, if you 


wouldn't mind. 


(Whereupon, Dr. Poston left the table and 


joined the audience.) 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Do I still have 


one? 


 DR. ZIEMER: No. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So Mark, you want to kick 


this off and we'll proceed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it really -- this is a 

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update from the workgroup on -- just sort -- 


basically a status report on where we are with 


the Rocky Flats SEC petition review, and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, and before we do Rocky Flats 


review, I want -- we do have a party that 


wanted to be on the line from the petitioners 


on Rocky Flats. Let's see, Larry, it was -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Kay Barker and Terrie -- Terrie ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Kay --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- Barrie. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and Terrie Barrie. Do we know 

if either of them are on the line? Kay or 

Terrie? 

 MS. BARKER: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, this is Kay 


Barker. I am on the line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, good. Is Terrie Barrie on the 


line, as well? 


 MS. BARKER: No, she is not. She's in 


Washington, D.C. and she should be arriving 


there now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Well, we'll watch for 


her here, but -- then -- I wanted to make sure 


you were on the line, so we'll go ahead and 


proceed then. Thank you. 

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 MS. BARKER: Okay. I do have a comment to 


make, once it's done. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we'll be pleased to hear from 


you. 


 MS. BARKER: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm wondering if we should 


proceed if someone's on the way just to see 


that one section of the meeting. 


 MS. BARKER: Dr. Ziemer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Ter-- yes, Kay? 

 MS. BARKER: No, she is not on the way. She 

had another meeting so that's why I am on the 


line. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then we will proceed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MS. BARKER: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so -- so the main reason we 


asked to -- to put this earlier on the agenda 


is that I wanted -- Brant Ulsh from NIOSH 


actually has the conflict with the flights, but 


-- and isn't scheduled to present, but I might 


call on him for clarification when we review 


the workgroup status, so we moved it up on the 


agenda. 


Basically where we are in the petition review 

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is we've been going through some -- some 


issues. We -- we started with a site profile 


review, actually, and -- oh, good, Joyce made 


it back. We started with a site profile review 


matrix and then, once the petition was put 


before us, we -- we sort of evolved into a 


petition review process and -- and have a 


matrix which -- which has been delivered at 


previous meetings. It hasn't been modified 


since the last Denver meeting. We can 


certainly make it available for people here if 


-- if some people don't have copies, we can get 


printouts of that. But that tracks the primary 


issues that are of relevance to the SEC 


petition, so we -- we sort of went through this 


process of narrowing down the issues of the 


overall site -- site profile concern versus 


those issues which we felt could impact a 


decision on the SEC petition. 


And at this point, since the meeting in Denver, 


we've had at least one workgroup meeting, and 


maybe one other call -- I can't recall exactly. 


But we've had ongoing work on the workgroup and 


also directly between NIOSH and -- and SC&A. 


And we -- we have -- I'll just go through some 

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of the remaining -- the status on some of the 


remaining issues and -- and I might call on 


some -- either Joyce Lipzstein or Joe 


Fitzgerald or possibly Brant to clarify -- the 


first item actually is the high-fired plutonium 


oxide was a -- it's been an issue that we've 


been -- and NIOSH has put a lot of effort into 


sort of designing an approach to deal with how 


to do dose reconstructions for high-fired 


plutonium oxides at Rocky Flats, and I guess 


it's extending into a broader effort at -- at 


some other sites in the program as well. 


At -- at the last status we had asked SC&A -- 


Dr. Lipsztein and Dr. Bistline to do a further 


review of some of the design cases that were 


used to support a technical information 


bulletin that -- that describes the 


methodology. And since then I think they -- 


they've done quite a bit of work on that -- 


that review and I would say that we -- we have 


also asked for the identifiers of the cases and 


-- and identified databases, which is a 


separate issue, but I think there might be some 


final small pieces to -- to -- of clarification 


or completion for that review, but basically I 

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think SC&A has -- is -- is almost at the end of 


that review of the methodology. And I think at 


this point maybe I'll give Joyce ten or 15 


minutes. She's put out a paper on her review 


or -- or her and -- and Dr. Bistline's review 


of the high-fired oxide issue and I think I'll 


-- I'll let her speak to that and give a status 


of where they're at on -- on that review. 


(Pause) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe I should call to the Board 


members' attention, there's a -- there is a 


document in your folder under the Rocky Flats 


tab that is really a progress report from SC&A. 


It has Joe Fitzgerald's name on it. And 


basically this is what Mark is covering is this 


material, so -- and you'll notice there the 


first issue is the super S plutonium issue. 


You can have that material handy as reference, 


as well. 


Thank you. Go ahead, Joyce. Are you miked up? 


(Pause) 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Off microphone) So we have 


reviewed the NIOSH approach for plutonium 


oxides -- the oxides, what's called high-fired 


plutonium. So the Pu-239 and then making sure 

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it's 239 because 238 has a different behavior 


when it's formed by the oxidization of the 


metal or salt at temperature greater than 2,000 


centigrades, then it has been demonstrated that 


it has a longer retention in the lung than 


currently predicted using default type S 


parameters from the ICRP. And this causes a 


problem. There is no model from the ICRP 


addressing till now the high-fired plutonium. 


In the literature there is consensus on how to 


address how particles are handled within the 


lungs and how to address the dose and the cells 


at risk in the lung. So it's not only 


modifying the retention in the lung. You 


should put another compartment in the lung for 


taking into account this longer retention. 


Then you've got the problem of how to calculate 


the dose because we tried the cells on this 


lung compartment that's taking it. So it's not 


just a mathematical problem but also it has to 


be a biological problem also on how to handle 


the doses, the cells that are at risk. 


So NIOSH came with a different approach which I 


personally -- we have had review at SC&A and we 


think it's a (unintelligible) approach on how 

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to -- to handle this and how to go around the 


problem of modeling. So what NIOSH has 


proposed in this method and in what is the 


(unintelligible) of the (unintelligible) system 


but an alternate shift approach for modeling, 


what they call the dose adjustment factors. 


And then they gave us two papers. One is OTIB0049 and the other is a draft on how to 


calculate the systemic GI and extra-thoracic 


doses for -- for type -- what they call type 


SS, which is super type S or the plutonium with 


a longer retention time. While OTIB-0049 is 


very well written and the author of the draft 


material sometimes has to get around to know 


what they wanted to say about it, but I guess 


it's a draft so probably going to be better in 


time, I hope. 


So what did SC&A do. First we reviewed and 


have produced all the lung adjustment factors 


that NIOSH has produced. It's okay. And what 


the parameters used to derive empirical lung 


contents and urinary excretions were not used 


by NIOSH to calculate equivalent doses to the 


lung. And that's completely right, because on 


this alternative approach NIOSH derived an 

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empirical model that fitted mathematically the 


data. So they (unintelligible) say that they 


don't calculate the dose using this empirical 


model, but the calculate the dose using the 


type S model and then they multiply by an 


adjustment factor, and that's correct. So 


that's the way to go around the problem of you 


don't know where biologically it's located so 


we'll treat it like type S that this 


(unintelligible) and multiply it by an 


adjustment factor. So SC&A considered this 


really a way to go around that is very 


acceptable and -- and very proper. 


Now another thing that SC&A was worried about 


is the effect of smoking, because we know that 


smoking affects the way the particle behaves 


and we know that it affects the transfer rate 


from the lung, and we know (unintelligible) 


here that most of the workers -- many of the 


workers were heavy smoker at Rocky Flats. And 


then we looked at the lung adjustment factors 


and they way they treated the transport 


parameters and this is (unintelligible) covered 


by NIOSH approach, so because the transport 


rates from the lung are much -- they reduce the 

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transport rate so much that it covers the 


(unintelligible) of smoking. 


Then we considered also the adjustment factors 


for the extra-thoracic region and GI tract 


appropriate. We looked at the reasoning and 


everything is -- we think it's correct and it's 


appropriate. 


Now -- and we considered that the lung 


adjustment factor's also theoretically correct 


and I put the (unintelligible) in red because I 


want to explain it later. We have a practical 


problem there, but theoretically it is correct. 


And also we considered the adjustment factors 


suggested for using AMAD -- the particle size 


(unintelligible) correct. 


Okay. Now there are some autopsy data for 90 


workers that worked at Rocky Flats. We have 


independently reviewed the autopsy and bioassay 


data from the U.S. Transuranium Registry for 


eight Rocky Flat workers with confirmed uranium 


intakes. The records contained many data for 


many workers, but those eight were the ones 


that really had quantities in the lung that 


were worthwhile reviewing it because we 


recognized the lung activities and the organ 

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activities, mainly bone and liver, with 


bioassay data so we only wanted to review the 


cases that had lung activity -- activities in 


lung that would -- that could be measured. 


Otherwise we cannot compare (unintelligible). 


So we saw that the lung activities were 


overestimated by NIOSH approach when all 


corrections for high-fired are used, including 


the correction for particle size. Skeleton and 


liver dose were overestimated when they were 


calculated from urine bioassay, but they may be 


underestimated if you calculate it coming from 


lung results, from lung counting. But that's 


expected because many of the workers had burns 


and had cuts and -- and so the lung would -- 


the lung (unintelligible) would never be able 


to catch this. 


Now, the -- the empirical model was derived 


from some design cases. One of the problems 


that we have with this is that NIOSH did not 


explain fully how the design cases were 


selected to derive the adjustment factors. We 


know that more than 400 people were exposed and 


many of them were followed for a long time, and 


we did not have access to all the data so we 

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believe those were the worst cases, but we 


didn't have access to that. And another thing 


that we didn't have access was to the data from 


Hanford 1, the so-called HAN-1, that was used 


to derive the empirical model. 


So what -- the empirical model was based on 


those two cases. Hanford 1 and Rocky Flat 872 


were the most conservative ones to derive the 


empirical model, but as we didn't see any of 


the others so we don't know if they really were 


the worst ones 'cause we don't -- okay. One of 


the thing is that, for example, case 872 was 


not the person that was the most exposed in the 


fire, so you cannot base your conclusion that 


this person was -- this were the people that 


were most exposed, and actually Hanford 1 was 


not the one from the fire. So 


(unintelligible). 


 Another thing is that we wanted to see how good 


-- well were the -- the empirical model, so in 


order to see if the urine data and the lung 


data fitted well the model, one of the things 


that you do is that you back-calculate the 


intake from the lung data and from the urine 


data. And if both of them give the same 

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intake, then that's because the model is well 


fitted to the urine and to the lung data. And 


you can see that in many of the cases, 


including the one from case 872 that was used 


in the design case, the urine data don't fit 


exactly the lung data. And in this case at 872 


NIOSH used only the red -- the red dots. The 


yellow dots were not used by NIOSH, which is -- 


okay. We -- we need -- we need an explanation 


from NIOSH. It's okay because actually they -- 


they used the -- the red -- the red dots, let's 


say, the urine data, after 15 years and ignored 


the -- the beginning of it. But when they 


(unintelligible) the design case, Hanford was 


used for the first 15 years and 872 was used 


for the last 15 years. What I -- what I'm 


saying is I'm guessing those things and I would 


NIOSH to explain is it really this -- is this 


really why this were used. 


 Another thing that we did was to compare with a 


recent paper in the literature some workers at 


the Mayak plant in the ex-Soviet Union. There 


they -- they made a model that they called ICRP 


66-A, but it's not an ICRP-approved model. 


They just named it ICRP 66-A. And they derived 

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a model, a (unintelligible) plausible model to 


explain the high-fired -- the -- the behavior 


of the high-fired oxides at Mayak. So we 


compared the results from this model with NIOSH 


results. 


So NIOSH approach was found more conservative 


when applied to bioassay urine results. NIOSH 


approach was more conservative when applied to 


calculate lung doses from lung counts. But the 


ICRP 66-A model was more conservative when 


applied to calculate dose to systemic organs 


from lung count. 


The reason for that is that they use a behavior 


for the plutonium, a short-term behavior for 


the plutonium that is more soluble than type S, 


so that's why they get a higher dose to the 


systemic organs from lung count. 


Okay. Now doses to the systemic organs. When 


calculating systemic organ doses derived from 


lung count, NIOSH states that no correction is 


necessary without really providing a clear 


basis for this approach. Because the empirical 


model is -- it's not a real model and the 


design cases at the early times, in the first 


years, the intakes calculated using the lung do 

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not match urine intakes. And also as far as 


entrance through wounds are not accounted for 


from lung counts. 


So the only thing is that doses to the systemic 


organs can be underestimated when calculated 


from lung measurements. And we know first 


comparing with 66-A they are underestimate. 


When comparing with autopsy results, some 


autopsy results are underestimates. But that's 


-- I don't think this is a real problem because 


in generally you don't expect people to 


calculate systemic doses from lung counts. You 


generally expect people to calculate systemic 


doses from urine bioassay. So what we would 


like to see is that NIOSH would provide 


explicit guidance to the DR to use urine 


bioassay data when calculating doses to 


systemic organs and also how it should be used 


because NIOSH says on the draft paper that it 


should be used type S, but what do you do when 


you have several (unintelligible) and it 


doesn't fit a type S. So that's some things 


that needs to be worked more on that draft 


paper. 


Now one problem that we had when we were 

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looking at the autopsy results is that 


sometimes the autopsy lung burden was higher 


than that obtained from lung counting. And you 


can see here this -- where the lung counts for 


one of the cases and you have the autopsy 


result there in pink, so you see you cannot 


invent activity so it -- it couldn't go up. So 


the problem is -- I was talking to Dr. Bistline 


and he said that until the '70s the counting 


were not as good as it is today, not as 


sensitive as it is today. So they had a lot of 


(unintelligible), they did the -- they had the 


best (unintelligible) that they -- that was 


available in the rest of that time, but it was 


just the start of whole body counters and lung 


counters for -- especially for plutonium, which 


is very difficult to measure. 


And so our problem is that when the adjustment 


factors are to be used, they should be adjusted 


downward by the adjustment factor for the year 


of the chest count used to determine the 


intake. This is theoretically correct except 


you have to go back there. You have to start 


there. But this should be evaluated to account 


for this inconsistencies between in vivo lung 

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burden and autopsy results for the lung 


countings that were done before the '70s. 


So in conclusion, SC&A is in agreement with the 


NIOSH approach for estimating annual doses from 


intake of plutonium 239 that are retained in 


the lung longer than predicted by the normal 


absorption type S model, based on the 


applicability of the empirically-derived 


adjustment factors for the lung, systemic 


organs, GI tract organs and tissues and extra-


thoracic regions also. However, NIOSH still 


needs to demonstrate that the approach bounds 


the uncertainties associated with all the case-


based measured values and analysis, and that 


case selection itself -- that they were 


conservative. 


So that -- is that okay, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you, Joyce. You might want 


to stay for a second in case -- I mean if 


there's anybody wants to ask a question on 


that. We've actually come a long way on this 


issue, so we are close to closure, I think, but 


-- yeah, Gen, go --


DR. ROESSLER: My -- I have a comment and then 


a question. The comment is that it's good to 

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know those autopsy results are being used in a 


very important way. My question is on the 


Mayak paper where they generated the ICRP 66-A 


information. Is that published and where is -- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: Yeah, Health Physics. 


DR. ROESSLER: And who are the authors? 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Off microphone) It's a Russian 


scientist and (unintelligible). 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Okay, thank you. Can I 


ask one more question, or make one more -- no, 


question. You talked about the overestimate of 


the lung dose using this method, but perhaps an 


underestimate in the systemic organs. But it ­

- it would seem like the dose in the systemic 


organs would be so much lower than the dose to 


the lung that maybe it -- maybe the dose is 


just really very low, that that's not a real 


big problem. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: They're two separate things. 


First of all, the doses to systemic organs are 


only underestimated when you start with lung 


count, not -- not when you start with urine. 


If you start with urine bioassay measurement, 


it's not underestimated. 


DR. ROESSLER: So it's not a problem. 

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 DR. LIPSZTEIN: If you start with urine, no. 


This -- and you can expect that. There is a 


problem with plutonium. Plutonium is a 


(unintelligible) oxides. They are very -- a 


very difficult compound because it actually 


behaves -- when it's not high-fired, it 


actually behaves a little more soluble than a 


type S, so what you -- when you treat it as 


type S, there's a part of it that you -- when 


you had the high-fired, part of it was not 


completely let's say oxidized, and will come 


out as plutonium oxide and then would be 


somewhat more soluble that moves back with type 


S. So first of all, if you come just with 


inhalation and they guy didn't have any wound, 


nothing, if a (unintelligible) -- if you take 


the lung count and then you treat it as type S 


like NIOSH is proposing, then you come with a 


little underestimate. 


 Second, it doesn't account for other entrance 


like wound, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Go ahead, Jim, yeah. 


DR. NETON: I'd just like to maybe clarify 


things. Maybe it wasn't clear in our papers, 


but we would certainly always start with the 

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urine measurement for -- for estimation -- 


estimation of systemic burden because, as we've 


said all along, we believe that the integrated 


urine is a very good indicator of the systemic 


exposure, and I can't imagine a scenario where 


we'd use the lung measurement to -- as a 


starting point. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- Paul. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I wanted to ask Joyce if you could 


clarify -- now as I understand it on the -- on 


the correction -- is it called a correction 


factor or adjustment factor -- so you're in 


agreement with the approach or the methodology. 


The question that you raised had to do with the 


validation of the actual samples that were used 


by NIOSH to get that factor. Were these groups 


of samples? You talked about the Hanford and ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, they --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Rocky, were they groups of -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: There were eight design cases -- 


DR. NETON: We actually started with eight 


design cases that were available that -- the 


main reason, and I need to go back to the folks 


who developed this, but the main reason was 

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these were the cases where we had sufficient 


data that we could follow and develop models. 


You need to have some fairly robust -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- measurement datasets to do this, 


and these were the cases. But --


 MR. GRIFFON: And als--


DR. NETON: -- they did represent the spectrum, 


and I would say that the two design cases that 


were selected were -- were far and away much 


more insoluble than the -- than the other six 


cases that were there, and that's all -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Joyce --


DR. NETON: -- in the report. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- all you're saying is you didn't 


actually -- you're just telling us you didn't 


actually see the cases, but if -- if -- 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: We saw seven of -- the Rocky 


Flat cases we saw the data, but part of the 


data, and then we -- we could find in the ORAU 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, well, I can -- I mean -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can you clarify --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- part of the question -- I 


guess, you know, where we're at -- if I can 

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summarize, where we're at I think is that 


there's a couple of I's to dot and T's to cross 


as far as our -- maybe it's -- it's SC&A and 


the workgroup's understanding of -- of -- of 


the model, but also there's this question -- 


the design cases -- there's eight cases. It --


as we've pursued this further, talked to -- 


Bistline got involved in this last round of 


reviews so he's been helpful in helping us 


understand the history of the cases, and we -- 


we've been trying to understand -- I think I 


raised this early on in the workgroup meeting 


how -- how were the eight cases selected and, 


you know, one response we have, which makes a 


lot of sense, is that these -- some of the fire 


cases that were selected in -- in this TIB-49 ­

- and correct me if I'm wrong, Jim -- but one 


of the bases was that they were, quote/unquote, 


clean cases. They didn't have prior uptakes of 


plutonium that would have interfered sort of 


with the analysis from this particular incident 


and from the super S, so that was one criteria. 


And then I guess -- you know, it -- it was just 


unclear 'cause we -- we'd also heard that there 


were some 400 people involved and probably 25 

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with very significant lung burdens from the 


fire. So we -- we just wanted to be able to -- 


to walk that back and understand how did you go 


from these 25 to these eight. And part of the 


process on the workgroup level has been well, 


can you give us the identifiers for these 


cases, can we also have the identified database 


so that we can sort of merge the two and 


understand just how this -- and -- and again, 


independently assess it and say yes, it looks 


like it was a sound selection process as well 


as a sound model. So I think that's where 


we're at with it, yeah. 


 DR. LIPSZTEIN: And also the Hanford model that 


we didn't have access to the data. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and the HAN -- there's HAN 


1 on the graph is the Hanford model, and -- and 


I don't think we've seen that, so -- but it, 


you know -- I think overall the methodology is 


looking like a fairly conservative approach. 


We just want to finalize this by walking -- 


checking it back. 


The other -- the other thing I had that I think 


is -- sort of needs to be understood as the 


workgroup finishes its work on this issue is 

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the implementation. And -- and some of that 


may be just my incomplete understanding of the 


-- of the TIB -- there's a TIB-49, but there's 


also another paper that was sort of distributed 


to the workgroup. I don't -- that's not a TIB, 


Jim, is it? This super S document? 


DR. NETON: No. No, that was a supplement to 


the --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- TIB and it --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- it is a draft, it's in draft 


form at this point --


 MR. GRIFFON: So --


DR. NETON: -- but it will be added to TIB-49 


to qualify how we do predominantly the systemic 


organs --


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and I think --


DR. NETON: -- in the manner Joyce -- Joyce 


described. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I think there is a -- 


there's section 6 in TIB-49 that describes the 


-- and I don't have it in front of me, but the 


-- I think it's application of -- when -- when 


it applies, when it doesn't apply, right, and ­
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-


DR. NETON: That needs to be changed, that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: We've come up with -- we realized, 


after we developed TIB-49 and I reviewed it, 


that there was some inconsistencies in how it 


would be applied to systemic organs. Therefore 


we developed this supplement. You know, a lot 


of this comes out in real time, and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim -- we've worked together a 


lot and Jim anticipates my questions now, so... 


DR. NETON: But yeah, we're getting there. In 


fact, we hope to have that all consolidated 


fairly quickly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I agree, I think the 


workgroup is -- you know, we -- we've -- we've 


evolved a long way on this issue and -- and 


everything is -- you know, we just have to 


finalize this process, but we've come a long 


way on cross-walking this with SC&A and the 


workgroup. 


And I could take a few minutes and go through ­

- this was the biggest -- most -- clearly the 


most technical issue that we're going to go 


over, but I would like to run through the other 

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issues that the workgroup has been covering, if 


-- if we have time. 


 DR. WADE: Surely, go... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's see, the -- the second item 


that we've been addressing on the workgroup 


level is the approach for dose reconstruction 


for what we're calling other radionuclides. 


And you know, this seems to be a recurring 


theme on some of these SEC reviews, but we do 


have questions on -- and the other 


radionuclides consist of -- and I'm not sure I 


have an exhaustive list here, but americium, 


neptunium; uranium 233, 235, 234, 238; curium 


and thorium. And several of these we believe 


are sort of tracer quantities. They were used 


in the weapons, but they were tracer 


quantities, which may not be significant dose 


contributors. But others I don't think fall 


into that category so we need to do some more 


work on that. I think we need to do some 


follow-up on that. One -- one concern in that 


area is that one of the earlier responses that 


we -- we received with regard to this issue was 


well, we have -- and I forget the time periods, 


but we have gross alpha sampling data, and in 

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that situation we would just use the worst-case 


radionuclide. But in -- in fact it -- it seems 


like -- we're -- we're not completely clear on 


this, but it seems like gross alpha data wasn't 


available for all areas where these isotopes 


might have been present for all time periods, 


so we -- we want to close the loop on that. 


Brant might want to clarify right now. 


 DR. ULSH: We're still checking on that. We 


know that gross alpha was the default method 


for the uranium areas. SC&A has recently asked 


the question --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: -- was that technique available in 


the plutonium areas, and that's the part that 


we're checking on. We don't know that it's 


not, but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and particularly for that 


americium separation process, right? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, exactly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's one -- one where it came 


up. Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, and that's -- that's pre-'63. 


In '63 they implemented widespread americium-


specific bioassay. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. ULSH: Before that, we have the gross alpha 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- yeah. So we have -- you 


know, we're -- we're in the process of a lot of 


these. It's not that they haven't done any 


work on them. Certainly I'm not suggesting 


that. 


So the next item is the methods for -- for 


reconstructing neutron doses, neutron 


exposures, and I think -- I presented this at 


the Denver meeting. Since then SC&A has -- has 


put together a more complete review of this 


issue and still -- we still have some 


outstanding questions on -- on that front. 


Mainly it's I think a question of the data 


itself -- a data validity question comes up in 


here, I think, as well as the different methods 


for different time periods. I think there's 


different approaches that are used over 


different time periods, and we just want to 


make sure that -- that those approaches are 


sound and -- and have a good scientific basis 


for the different time periods. In some cases 


they're using direct measurement -- in the 

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later time periods they have direct measurement 


data. In the earlier time periods they're 


using neutron/photon correction factors and so 


we're in the process of this but SC&A -- since 


the last meeting SC&A has put together a review 


of this issue and so we're -- we've pushed the 


ball down the road a little bit on that issue 


and we're making good progress, I think. 


Joe, did you have any update on that item? Oh, 


I thought you were leaning -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the -- we have actually 


a pretty good write-up on that, but it wasn't 


quite ready for this meeting. It'll be ready 


for next workgroup. But just two -- I would 


almost consider them loose ends, questions of 


data validity on neutron and the '69/'70 


anomaly. I --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- think that that's an issue 


we need to address. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, the data validity and 


the '69/'70 issue is there seems to be a gap in 


-- in data in that time period, is that -- or ­

- or --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think the issue there 

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is we're seeing more anomalies, more zeroes, 


for a two-year period. Now that's not to -- 


that's not to say that you don't see increased 


zeroes later on in time, but you know, that -- 


those two years you do see that, and we're also 


picking up some questions coming out of the 


data integrity review that we're doing in 


parallel you'll talk about in a second -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- to also raise questions 


about missing records for '69 and '70, which of 


course is the time frame of the fire, so we're 


trying to pin that down from two directions, 


one from looking at the records and data on the 


external dosimetry side, and also looking at it 


from the question of this -- the data 


reliability probe that we're doing with NIOSH 


as well. So we're just trying to pin down what 


happened in '69/'70, why are certain records 


apparently not available and what does that 


mean. We don't have any conclusions yet, 


though. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Okay. The next item or ­

- I'm not sure it follows with the handouts 


there, but there's a question on -- on -- and 

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this was kind of a new item that was raised at 


the Denver meeting and we pursued it on the 


workgroup level. It's the decontamination and 


decommissioning workers -- yeah -- and the -- 


the particular concern here, and NIOSH has just 


begun -- you know, just to give us some initial 


responses on this, but the issue raised I guess 


is that during those late -- that later time 


period, the -- the program -- it see-- it 


appears, anyway, that the approach to internal 


dose measurements was mo-- was -- was changed, 


and it seemed that they went away from 


bioassay, at least to some extent, and -- let 


me finish, Brant -- and -- and had a much more 


-- an increased reliance on BZA, breathing zone 


air sampling. And at the last workgroup 


meeting NIOSH reported back to us that -- that 


they in fact did still have a routine bioassay 


component, but -- and they had BZA sampling as 


well, and the BZAs would trigger a special 


bioassay. Now when we questioned further on 


this, it was unclear -- at least to me and from 


my notes -- as to whether this program applied 


to everyone. It seemed like it definitely 


applied to the contractor, but subcontractors 

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were a question that I thought was still open-


ended. So I -- I think we -- you know, this 


one might be something that we can close out 


easily. The -- the question -- it -- still at 


the end of the day if it turns out that there's 


a gap in -- in bioassay, urinalysis type 


records, we're not necessarily saying at this 


point that doses can't be reconstructed 'cause 


they still may have air sampling data, but -- 


but they may need to present a different 


approach is what -- what our position is right 


now. But at this point, what we know is that 


there was at least some bioassay sampling done 


during that period, and it -- it appears that 


at least the contract workers were on some -- 


some sort of routine bioassay program, so that 


would -- would, you know, probably minimize 


that concern. Still an outstanding question I 


think -- at least in my mind -- on 


subcontractors and if this program filtered 


down to everyone. 


Anything to add, Brant, or did I... 


 DR. ULSH: I think in general you adequately -- 


or you accurately summarized what we talked 


about in the last workgroup meeting. At the 

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last workgroup meeting we had some site experts 


on the line to answer some questions, have some 


dialogue about the D&D era, and what we heard 


was that this was, you know, in the '90s and 


the 2000s. And the philosophy was that anyone 


who would have had the potential to receive 


greater than 100 millirem was monitored. And 


certainly during the D&D era the philosophy was 


that access to radiation areas was controlled 


based on rad worker training. You had to have 


rad worker 2 training to be allowed to go into 


these areas. 


And you're correct, Mark, that SC&A asked some 


questions about the BZ samples and the results 


of our discussion at the last workgroup meeting 


clarified that indeed BZs were used not as a 


substitute for bioassays but rather as a 


trigger for special bioassays. So that was on 


top of the routine bioassay program. 


 And yes, some questions did come up about 


whether or not the subs -- subcontractors were 


included in the bioassay program, and the site 


experts confirmed that yes, indeed, they were. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't -- I don't quite remember 


it that -- my notes are a little different than 

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that, but I'm not going to -- I mean we -- we 


can figure --


 DR. ULSH: It sounds like we need to -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that out as we go -- 


 DR. ULSH: -- talk about it some more -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: -- at the next workgroup meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ULSH: But in general, those are the -- the 


high points of the D&D concerns. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I think also we just want to 


-- want to run back -- I mean I understand 


philo-- philosophies on this, but I think we 


need to check reality, too, and just make sure 


that -- that the program as described was 


implemented -- you know, as it's being 


described and I -- I think that, you know, the 


-- well, the basis of -- of the monitoring 


program, if it was triggered based on surveys 


as in the rad worker approach or RWP approach, 


then -- then we've seen flaws in this in other 


sites, so we -- you know, we just want to take 


this to an end and make sure that -- that at 


least large groups of subcontractors weren't 


being missed in this sort of approach. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Right, and just -- just 


quickly, another thing that gave us some pause 


was some contemporary defense (unintelligible) 


and other audits at that time, early '90s, that 


raised some questions about whether in fact the 


second, third tier subcontractors were 


receiving this bioassay program and their 


records were being in fact centralized in this 


database. So I think just to cross that T, to 


compare the records --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- with the data would give us 


some assurance that that was happening because 


of some of those doubts. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Okay. Yeah, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


recall correctly (unintelligible) there was the 


issue of -- well, it was called the routine 


bioassay sampling program during the production 


years and how that same acronym or same name 


was used, but it was transferred to a once 


yearly bioassay sampling once the D&D work 


started. And so it seems like a similar path 


at other sites and so that's an issue that -- 


where workers may not be as closely monitored 

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(unintelligible) you know, yearly as opposed to 


quarterly. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, there -- there is some -- 


there's some things we just have to finalize in 


this and there -- there was a little bit of 


clarification needed on some -- you know, it -- 


we had some statements that indicated that 


everybody got a closeout lung count or 


urinalysis, and then there was some 


contradiction to that, that -- so I just think 


we need to -- to ver-- to, you know, walk this 


through a little further. But we -- we've had 


some dialogue on it and we're -- and we're 


making some progress on that. 


And then -- let's see where I am here. The --


the last item and probably the item which 


requi-- is still the most work for us to do I 


think is under the big heading of data 


reliability. And I -- a -- a couple of items 


under there. One, the database validation and 


NIOSH's continuing efforts to check the data 


reliability for the database. And again, it's 


-- in the past meeting I think we'd talked 


about the fact that they don't use -- at least 


with the current claimants that they have, they 

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don't expect a reliance on coworker models. 


Nonetheless, we -- we wanted -- check this 


electronic database because I think a lot of 


the hard copy records that are in claimants' 


files are actually printouts from the database 


itself. I don't think they're original raw -- 


what I would consider, you know, original 


records. So we want to check to make sure that 


this data is in fact reliable. And to the 


extent we can go back to -- as I always say, go 


back to the laboratory counts if you can, but 


we want to get back to origi-- more original 


sources and confirm that this electronic 


database is -- is reliable and accurate and can 


be used in the dose reconstruction program. 


And recently, in one of the last workgroup 


meetings actually, this item has been expanded 


a little bit to include -- we -- we discussed 


that there were urine log books, as identified 


in -- in the -- in the tech basis document 


itself, the internal dosimetry tech basis 


document at the end -- one of the attachments 


notes the use of urinalysis log books. And 


NIOSH has indicated that they will make efforts 


to -- to retrieve these and -- and again, we're 

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talking about retrieving a sampling of these 


log books and comparing to the electronic data. 


 The other thing that NIOSH is -- has indicated 


they will do for the workgroup is -- and I 


think it's under way -- they're going to 


provide the databases in an identified form 


with identifiers, and this -- this has come up 


in both the Y-12 workgroup and -- and this 


Rocky Flats workgroup, that oftentimes, 


especially with several of the things we're 


going to discuss in a minute, there's specific 


cases -- specific allegations by individuals, 


and NIOSH has had access to the individual's 


record, but we have de-identified data, as SC&A 


and the workgroup. So it would expedite 


matters if we were both looking at a identified 


version of the data and we could cross-walk 


this together and -- and, you know, take this 


to an end. So they are providing that 


identified database. 


The third item is what I'm terming 


investigation and follow-up on data validity 


questions raised by the petitioners. And it's 


not only raised by the petitioners, but also as 


a result of SC&A's interviews with some of the 

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petitioners, and I think as a result of -- of 


NIOSH's interviews with the petitioners, so 


it's kind of a combination -- but these are 


basically inve-- basically, to use Jim's 


terminology, pulling the thread on some of 


these specific allegations to see if -- and -- 


and some of the claims that were raised in the 


petition involve allegations that people were 


working in high exposure areas for a couple of 


quarters, and for those quarters their records 


said no data available. And so we want to -- 


and we are in the process of walking some of 


these back and checking them. And I think the 


bigger question is was there any kind of 


systemic problem of that nature. So along 


those lines, Joe -- Joe, did you hand that -- 


was that a draft that you gave me or was that 


available for... 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No, that --


 MR. GRIFFON: This -- this update --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- that was actually -- that 


was actually Kathy DeMers' status as of a 


couple of days ago -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- you know, accounting for 

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where things stood on the different tasks, but 


that wasn't circul-- I can certainly -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: This is still --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- circulate that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- an internal --


 MR. FITZGERALD: That's internal to just what 


we're doing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: But in a sense, we're still 


going through the log books and I think 


reviewing what safety concerns that NIOSH has 


given. It turns out we're pretty much in 


agreement with NIOSH on safety concerns, so -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm --


 MR. FITZGERALD: -- things are -- things are 


moving ahead. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm -- I'm just going to go 


down these items --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- from this dra-- this internal 


report on the -- and -- and I'm basically 


taking Joe's language on the status of some of 


these items. It's really been NIOSH and SC&A 


working together on checking some of this and ­

- and they're -- they will report back to the 

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workgroup, but we've kind of let them work 


together on these issues to bring these to -- 


to a conclusion. 


The -- the first item in -- in this -- it's 


sort of a report on all of these investigations 


of various subgroups involving data 


reliability, but one is under safety concern 


reports, and these are reports that were -- 


over the years I guess any employee could issue 


a safety concern and there'd be a follow-up by 


the safety office at the site. And some of 


these were noted by the petitioners and they 


were -- NIOSH reviewed -- I think there were -- 


I'm guessing around eight or -- eight or ten of 


them, or was it that many? I don't know. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Roughly that number. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, roughly eight to ten of 


these. And NIOSH reviewed and determined that 


-- that these -- ones cited in the original 


list were not pertinent really to data 


integrity issues and one of the problems here 


is that the title often looks like it will be 


something that's related to dosimetry issue, 


and then you actually find the report and it's 


not quite the -- what you thought it was. So 

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most of those were not pertinent to the data 


integrity issue. SCA -- SC&A had a question on 


one of them that might -- they feel might still 


be pertinent so we're -- we're -- we're going 


to continue on this path with the workgroup. 


 The other question we asked NIOSH if they -- 


and I believe I made this request of NIOSH -- 


was to see if there was any listing of the 


safety concern reports over time and if they 


could -- because the ones that were listed here 


were primarily from the petitioners and they -- 


their work experience was primarily from the 


'80s and '90s and therefore most of the safety 


concern reports were dated '90 and after, with 


one exception in the '70s, and I thought it 


might be useful to -- if there was a -- again, 


a simple listing, not to go back and find all 


these reports, but if there's a listing and try 


to identify again by title if there were 


anything of interest here, and NIOSH has agreed 


to do that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And if I could insert at this 


point --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that one would wonder what the 

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impact of the FBI -- shall I call it invasion 


of Rocky had on those kinds of reports 


surfacing, so it would be of interest to know 


what -- what occurred prior to -- the FBI visit 


I think was actually in '89, as I recall -- 


early '89, so -- and then you're -- you're 


looking at things that occurred after that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's true. That's true. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. The second item is under 


external dose procedures. I wasn't quite clear 


on that title, but basically NIOSH is in the 


process of reviewing the records of specific 


individuals in this case, so we have identified 


-- I think went through the process of -- of 


identifying people that had allegations, and 


they're in the process of -- of going back to 


their original records to see if in fact -- I 


think these were one of -- some of the people 


that -- that claimed that either they had no 


data available in their record or that their -- 


their badge or -- or -- you know, their TLD or 


badge was in some way mishandled or 


misrepresented their workplace exposure, and it 


-- this is a listing of individuals that NIOSH 

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I think is going back to their case data and 


saying okay, you know, we do or don't see 


anything here related to the allegation. 


And then the third item is -- a question was 


raised on -- on some of the log books, whether 


there -- the -- at least the petition said that 


there were log books that would confirm some of 


this information, that in fact they worked in a 


-- a hot area and there -- they had some 


dosimetry-related information that would 


basically prove that when they had a zero in 


their record and -- and there were very high 


exposures in the workplace, and they pointed to 


the rad con -- radiation contamination log 


books and other log books, and I think where we 


stand with that is NIOSH and SC&A have been to 


Rocky or are -- worked with the Rocky records 


people. They've identified some of these log 


books. They've scanned them and they've 


initiated reviews -- is that accurate? -- and ­

- and they are going to provide the scanned 


versions of these log books for the O drive so 


that the workbook and other SC&A members have 


access to those, as well. So that -- that is 


beginning. 

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Then the fourth item -- we're almost done here, 


two more items. Fourth item is a question of 


destroyed records. There was an allegation 


that a bunch of records were taken to a trailer 


of some sort when there was some sort of 


inspection taking place at the site, and after 


the inspection was over the allegation is that 


these records were then disposed -- destroyed 


or -- or -- you know, destroyed. And I don't 


think we have any status on this. NIOSH is 


attempting to -- to track this down, but no 


status at this point. 


 And then finally, along the same lines, missing 


records, and I think this -- this might be 


related to the one Joe was discussing earlier. 


NIOSH is tracking at least two individuals that 


claim that their records were missing after the 


fire. So this is related to that '69/'70 time 


period, isn't it, Joe? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. So -- and that's -- that's 


-- I think that's where we are with -- with the 


workgroup. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Before we have additional 


discussion, we do have on the line -- Kay, are 

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you still there? 


 MS. BARKER: Yes, I am, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You wanted to make a statement. 


Why don't you go ahead and do that now -- 


 MS. BARKER: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and then we'll proceed. 

 MS. BARKER: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Ziemer 

and Board members, for letting me take a few 


moments of your valuable time. I just have one 


question that I would like to ask the Board and 


that is, since there is a conflict of interest 


with the Rocky Flats site profile and 


evaluation report on the petition, what if 


anything are you going to do about this 


conflict? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You can ask her. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are you -- you're talking about 


the conflict of one of the authors, I believe, 


of the --


 MS. BARKER: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the site profile. And I'm --


I'm not sure the Board can answer that today. 


I -- is this -- is it Roger Falk? 


 MS. BARKER: Yes, it is, sir. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, yeah. We want to make sure 


we're on the same page here. Well, let -- let 


me start generically. I think on conflict of 


interest issues, certainly ORAU and -- and 


NIOSH are looking at those issues. I don't 


know -- Lew, on this particular one, can you 


enlighten us further on the status or where 


that one stands? 


 DR. WADE: I can try. I'm going to be speaking 


for ORAU, and I don't see ORAU represented, so 


let me speak for them. My understanding of the 


ORAU process is that ORAU would go through each 


of the documents that had been prepared prior 


to the new conflict of interest policy and 


would produce an annotated document that would 


show the contribution of all individuals to 


that document. 


 Following that, that document would be reviewed 


by an independent group within ORAU to 


determine if the contribution of those 


individuals that were conflicted in any way 


substantially changed the document. If the 


conclusion of that group was that that was the 


case, then they would commission that document 


to be rewritten. 

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All of this will be under the review also of 


NIOSH and then the review of the Board. 


 MS. BARKER: Okay. 


 MS. KIMPAN: Lew, this is Kate -- Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, say it again? 


 MS. KIMPAN: This is Kate Kimpan. I --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 MS. KIMPAN: I actually had to leave for a 


brief meeting and just came on the 800 a little 


bit ago. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. Did you hear the 


question, Kate? 


 MS. KIMPAN: I did, and I -- I (unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have Kay and we have Kate, and 


Kate is the ORAU person, so she's going to 


answer as well. 


 MS. KIMPAN: -- exactly what Lew said, Kay, and 


that is that we're right now in the process of 


doing a full annotation and attribution of the 


Rocky Flats site profile. And what that means 


is all of the findings and conclusions and 


components of all parts of that site profile, 


all the component documents, will -- will 


identify where the findings are from, where 

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conclusions are from. And as Lew said, where a 


document owner had a conflict, if that occurs 


as the policy is finalized, we will verify by 


reviewing again -- even though these documents 


have sustained many reviews on the ORAU side 


and many on the NIOSH side, many via other 


arenas, we will again review all findings and 


conclusions that were contributed by, developed 


by or added by someone who, under our new 


policy, is viewed as conflicted. We will 


assure that all of those conclusions are sound 


scientifically. If there was a need to revise 


or renew any findings or conclusions, we will 


absolutely do so. 


 MS. BARKER: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right --


 DR. WADE: I'd like to add one follow-up to 


that, as well, and -- and another level of 


review is the SC&A review that we're going 


through now. We -- we are having the document 


-- the site profile and then anything that 


relates to the SEC petition rigorously reviewed 


in public by the Board and its contractor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that will give an additional 


layer of -- of -- of review to the document. 

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 MS. BARKER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kay, did you have any other 


comments for us at this time? 


 MS. BARKER: No, Dr. Ziemer, other than I still 


am waiting for the information that you had 


asked NIOSH and SC&A to provide to me on the 


Rocky Flats workgroup that was on May 30th. 


 DR. ZIEMER: To -- I'm sorry, provide -- oh, 


the transcripts. 


 MS. BARKER: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, yes, and we ourselves don't 


have those transcripts yet, but -- 


 MS. BARKER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- hopefully those'll be ready -- 


I'm looking -- I'm sitting here looking at our 


court reporter who we're overwhelming with 


various transcripts in the last few months, but 


he -- he is working feverishly to get all of 


those caught up. So --


 MS. BARKER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- as soon as we have them, we 


will get those to you. 


 MS. BARKER: Thank you so much and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, you bet. 

 MS. BARKER: -- thank you for letting me speak 
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today. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. Thank you. Okay, is 


there -- Board members, do you have comments or 


questions on the Rocky Flats report that Mark 


has given, or related comments? Yes, Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: It's not with respect to Mark's 


report necessarily, but I would like to make a 


comment or two about SC&A's draft attachment to 


the SCA task 10008 which was provided to us 


back in May, on May 9. I could very easily 


wait until after the break to make that 


comment, if it's all right with everyone here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In fact, you would like to wait 


until after --


 MS. MUNN: I would like to, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We will break and then -- then 


learn what your comment is. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 2:55 p.m. 


to 3:20 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're ready to resume our 


deliberations. I'll begin with a comment from 


Dr. Wade. 


 DR. WADE: Yes. Even if we continue our 


deliberations with a comment on Rocky Flats, 


apparently I spoke in error when I asked Dr. 

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Poston to leave the table and that, based upon 


the information I've been given now, he is not 


conflicted so he's welcome to join us for Rocky 


Flats, and I apologize for that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: He just wanted to leave the table. 


 DR. WADE: No, I don't think he did. I don't 


think he did. But yeah, these are complex and 


ever-evolving issues, and with my apologies. 


COMMENT BY MS. WANDA MUNN


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Well, we were ­

- we were about to hear some comments from 


Wanda Munn, and so now the Chair recognizes 


Wanda for the purpose of presenting those 


comments. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. With 


respect, as I noted earlier, to the draft of 


attachment 2 to SCA -- to your Task I-008, 


which was submitted to us by SCA on May 9th, 


this Board chose SC&A as our technical advisor 


because they had so many qualified individuals 


available to them and our -- their primary task 


was to provide us with technical information 


that might not be obvious to some of us who do 


not work with this material on a daily basis. 


This particular attachment 2, site expert 

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interview summary, that we received was 


intended to be added to a document which has 


already been provided to us earlier, but in 


which this particular discussion was reserved. 


When I began to read it, I recognized that 


although the preliminary paragraphs do point 


out that these are pieces of information that 


have been derived from interviews with 


individuals on site, when one takes the various 


headings of this document and begins to read 


them without having paid close attention to the 


preliminaries, one finds a great many extreme 


allegations that are made by the individuals 


who have been interviewed. And it's not clear 


to the casual reader that these are concerns 


that have been raised by workers. They are 


presented rather as matter of fact -- again, to 


the casual reader. 


If, for example, I began to read -- under the 


general information category -- the first thing 


I see is that the primary goal of the RFP was 


to meet the commitment made to the government 


to make a pre-established number of pits. 


There was less concern with safety in the 


production years than later. In the '50s and 

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'60s there was a bull of the woods on the 


operations floor who would intimidate 


individuals into completing work, regardless of 


safety considerations. The safety statistics 


did not reflect reality. 


Now these -- these types of statements, 


presented as fact, are of concern if they are 


not re-identified as having been concerns 


expressed by workers. Of particular concern to 


me was a statement made under the security 


heading where it's stated that a storage area 


in building 707 is pictured on the cover of -- 


and the title that's given is an extremely 


inflammatory title. It's a book written by a 


journalist/historian whose intent, of course, 


was to sell books. The storage area is not 


covered, nor is it pictured. This is not 


information that's helpful to us, nor is it 


information that would be helpful to the 


general reader who is expecting this 


information to be technical information. 


I would request that SC&A reread this 


particular document and perhaps revise it in 


such a way -- not that any of this material is 


necessarily changed or revised, but in such a 

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way that it is very clear and repeatedly 


referred to as being unconfirmed allegations 


made by individuals who were interviewed for a 


site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for that comment. 


Any other Board members -- this was a document 


I think we received very recently -- what's the 


date on that document? 


 MS. MUNN: It was dated May 9. We received it 


in mid-May. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, it's a few weeks old. Okay, 


Mike Gibson. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah. I guess my only comment to 


that would be -- would get back to the point I 


made yesterday, that there's a lot of 


information been taken by site experts and used 


by NIOSH that I'm sure they've done some 


investigation into it and I would imagine that 


SC&A has probably done some investigation into 


these -- these worker allegations, and so, you 


know, it gets back to my point. Are we going 


to take people who's ran programs, site 


managers, rad detection managers and use that 


as gospel, or are we going to take, you know -- 


again, how many -- how many workers, both 

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hourly and salaried, that's been out in the 


field for years and actually had their hands on 


the stuff doing the work, how many of them are 


going to write -- are going to be considered 


site experts and write -- help write site 


profiles, et cetera. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Wanda, do you have 


another comment? 


 MS. MUNN: And to SC&A's credit, they were 


cautious to identify the job titles of the 


types of individuals that they did interview. 


They didn't make it very clear that these were 


the only individuals, so that it was not 


imminently clear that -- that out of 12 


individuals, all of this information was 


obtained. But nevertheless, they -- they did 


do an excellent job of covering, in my personal 


view, the types of individuals who would have 


been actually involved in the work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So the concern here is the 


possibility that these are allegations which 


have not necessarily been confirmed, but may 


sound as if they had been. Mike's point is it 


cuts both ways. We need to assure that 


whatever is used to characterize the site has 

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been confirmed as being factual. Yeah. 


Other comments on this point? And this -- this 


you hear as a request from a Board member. 


Generally if we are tasking our contractor to 


do something, we -- we like to at least have 


some level of -- of consensus so that the -- 


the contractor's not taking orders from 


individual Board members. But maybe others can 


weigh in in terms of -- pro or con as to this 


point that Wanda's made. And again, keep in 


mind the related point that Mike has made. 


Others -- Roy. 


 DR. DEHART: I haven't had the opportunity to 


review that particular document that's being 


referred to, but I do think that we need to be 


clear on any document that we're putting out as 


to source and reliability. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And Brad. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I -- I read that article and 


actually I was quite interested by it. One of 


the things that I did find out, and I thought 


that they spelled out that these were workers 


making these accusations, and maybe from my 


knowledge in the workforce I was taking it as 


that, but both sides have a very valid point. 

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Mike's point -- you know, this is a double-


edged sword, and I think SC&A, in my eyes, did 


a good job. I -- I enjoyed this report. 
I 


enjoyed the information. But -- but you are 


correct that we need to be very careful. But I 


-- I personally felt that they had called out 


that this was workers that made these 


accusations. Now you're right, it -- a casual 


reader just browsing through it, that'd be 


correct. It could be misconstrued. But I felt 


that it was -- I thought it was well put 


together. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so your -- you have less 


concern on that point, it appears. Others, pro 


or con on this? I'm not necessarily looking 


for a motion, but I want to get kind of the 


sense of the Board before we ask a contractor 


to spend a lot of time, although it may be an 


easy fix, with a page or something, and maybe 


even a paragraph that maybe Wanda could help 


provide if -- if necessary. I don't know. I'm 


just -- this is top of the head for me, but -- 


what would the fix be, in your mind, Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: There's only one item which I would 


request be removed entirely, or changed in such 

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a way so that it has some relevance, and that's 


one with the reference to the inflammatory 


title on the -- on the book, without any 


further reference to it or without the picture 


that it refers to as being there. 


Other than that, my only suggestion would be an 


occasional reminder, underneath the various 


topic headings, that among the allegations from 


the 12 members -- the 12 workers interviewed, 


were these comments. If that were inserted 


occasionally, I think it would resolve the 


primary concern. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other Board members have any -- 


yes, Mike, another comment. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I guess I would say that, 


you know, again, on the other side of the coin, 


if there's any of these site experts that's 


written up parts of these reports, they've been 


in any -- any incidents where they've been in a 


supervisor position or in charge in any event 


and there's been an -- an occurrence or Price 


Anderson violation or anything else, then I 


think that should be also referenced. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And perhaps that is the case. I ­

- I get the idea that the annotation approach 

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that ORAU is going to use may in part help to 


address that. At least it will identify who 


the information is from, and that helps the 


individual reading it to weigh its value. 
I 


guess we also will know not only who that 


individual is, but there will be on file the 


conflict of interest information on each of 


those. 


 Other comments on this? 


 (No responses) 


I don't know, John, if -- if you -- if you want 


to react to this at all. I don't want to put 


you on the spot, necessarily -- well, maybe I 


do. 


DR. MAURO: That -- that's fine. We're --


we're -- we're very much aware of the concern 


and we have spoken about it before. We agree 


that we do need to do some editing to make it 


clear who's saying what and that's very minor 


effort. It'll take just some paragraphs to be 


rewritten, some proper attribution, who's 


saying what -- easy fix. And we apologize for 


the concerns that were raised here and we will 


in future certainly make it very clear who is 


saying what and it's -- it's done. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. It appears then that 


we need to take no further action. The concern 


has been noted both ways and it's an ongoing 


concern that the Board will need to keep in 


mind as we look at future documents, both of 


our contractor and of NIOSH's contractor. 


 DR. WADE: And for the record, I was there when 


this issue was raised and John's reaction was 


immediate and -- and very positive, and I think 


it's a problem that's really behind us, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: -- I appreciate their 


professionalism. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) Y12. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'm -- I'm looking at the 


schedule here because we also have -- we have 


an SCA report on the fourth round of cases that 


we also --


 DR. WADE: There are three agenda items we've 


skipped over. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That we need -- yeah. 


 DR. WADE: The status of the SECs, the fourth 


round report from SC&A, and then the Board's 

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discussion of its -- its working groups. I've 


been completely unable to predict the time it 


would take to do an agenda item, but I'm 


operating on the assumption that Rocky -- that, 


excuse me, Y-12 might not take as long. If we 


have time after Y-12, then we'll hear from SC&A 


on the fourth round. If we have time then, 


we'll hear from LaVon on the SEC petitions. 


And if we have time then, we'll deal with the 


Board's discussion. But more likely the 


Board's discussion will go to tomorrow. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Will go to tomorrow, and on the 


fourth round, the point is that I think Kathy 


and Hans will be leaving this evening -- 


 DR. WADE: No, no, they've made adjustments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, they have. Oh, okay. Okay, 


good. 


Y12 SEC UPDATE:


 DR. WADE: And -- but we would like to 


accommodate them if at all possible, so let's ­

- let's take the step off the pier on Y-12 and 


see where we wind up. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The first one to step off the pier 


will be Jim Neton. 

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 DR. WADE: I've got the list -- there are many 


conflicts on Y-12. Unfortunately I have to ask 


Drs. DeHart, Presley and Ziemer to leave the 


table, and I hope I got that right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) If not, we'll 


let you know. 


 DR. WADE: I have no doubt. I do think that 


there's -- in keeping with the venue and our 


political bent, I think there is a letter from 


the Senators from the great state of Tennessee 


to be read. Jason, are you going to do that? 


Could we have the lights up a bit, please? I 


don't know who I'm calling to, but -- to a 


higher power -- let there be light. 


 MR. BROEHM: Hi, Jason Broehm from the CDC 


Washington office, and I have a letter here 


from Senators Bill Frist and Lamar Alexander of 


Tennessee related to the Y-12 site, and neither 


-- none of their staff were able to be here 


today so they asked me to read this into the 


transcript. 


(Reading) Dear Chairman Ziemer, we are writing 


to express our support for adding workers who 


were engaged in uranium enrichment and other 

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radiological activities at the Y-12 national 


security complex in Oak Ridge between 1948 and 


1957 to the Special Exposure Cohort. 


On July 26th, 2005 the Board recommended 


granting SEC status to workers employed at Y-12 


between 1943 and 1947 in response to the first 


part of the petition submitted on behalf of Y12 workers. The designation became effective 


on September 24th, 2005, and we commend the 


Board for thoroughly and expeditiously 


reviewing the petition. It is our 


understanding that more than 800 cases would be 


affected by the Board's recommendation on part 


two of the petition, years 1948 through 1957, 


which is of utmost importance to us and our 


constituents. 


Y-12 was among our nation's first nuclear 


production facilities, and began operating at a 


time when there was very limited knowledge 


about the effects of radiation exposure, and 


little or no monitoring of workers. Congress 


enacted the Energy Employees Occupational 


Illness Compensation Program Act to ensure that 


workers who were harmed by their service would 


receive compensation, and specifically created 

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the SEC to grant presumption of causation when 


there is incomplete information regarding 


radiation exposures and it is reasonable to 


believe that such exposures may have endangered 


the health of workers. 


The men and women who worked at Y-12 between 


1948 and 1957, and their families, should be 


awarded the same benefits and compensation as 


those who worked at the facility between 1943 


and 1947 if it is determined that health of 


employees may have been endangered and there is 


insufficient information to accurately 


determine the level of radiation exposure. 


Thank you for your attention to this matter, 


and your continued efforts to ensure that our 


nation's atomic workers and their families 


received the benefits they deserve. 


 Sincerely, William H. Frist, M.D., Majority 


Leader, United States Senate, and Lamar 


Alexander, United States Senator. 


 Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Jason. I know that that 


letter was electronically sent to Board 


members. We'll have hard copies put in front 


of Board members now, and there'll be copies on 

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the back table as well. LaShawn, if you could 


see that Board members get hard copies of that 


letter, I'd appreciate it. 


Okay, now we're on to the presentation by 


NIOSH. Dr. Neton. 


NIOSH PRESENTATION, DR. JAMES NETON, NIOSH
 

DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Wade. Before I take 


a step off this pier, I'd just make sure the 


Board's aware that I'm not a particularly 


strong swimmer, so with that... 


I'm here to talk about an update to the SEC 


evaluation report for the Y-12 SEC class. And 


in particular I'm here to talk about an update 


that we issued to the SEC evaluation report 


that was sent -- it was published on June 9th, 


and I believe it was put out on our web site, 


sent to the petitioners and members of the 


Board as well. 


But before I get into the contents of the 


supplement to the petition, I'd like to take a 


step back and just sort of refresh your memory 


as to what -- what transpired at the Board 


meeting in Denver related to SEC petition 28. 


That is we had a petition submitted under 


Paragraph 83.13 with an initial class 

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definition that you see here, which was all 


steam fitters, pipe fitters and plumbers who 


worked from October '44 through '57. As you 


recall, we expanded our evaluation to include a 


review of all workers who were at the site 


between 1948 and '57. And the reason that we 


started in '48 was because there were several 


other petitions -- that is, petition 18 and 26 


-- that had already been reviewed and a class 


was added for all workers prior to 1948. So 


the bottom line was that the period left to 


evaluate was '48 to '57 at Y-12. 


And of course, you've heard this many times, 


there's a two-pronged test. We evaluated 


whether we could estimate the doses with 


sufficient accuracy; and if we could not, then 


was there a reasonable likelihood that the dose 


may have endangered the -- the health of the 


members of the class. 


Based on our analysis, we reported in our 


evaluation report that the sources of internal 


exposures were there in five different 


buildings -- which are listed here -- and that 


we lacked sufficient accuracy to estimate the 


internal dose for exposures in those buildings, 

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and particularly the exposures for thorium. 


And as I just said, that we believed that we 


could not reconstruct -- that health was 


endangered from this exposure. And our 


evaluation was that the exposures that were 


incurred in these buildings were the result of 


episodic exposures, chronic and episodic 


exposures to thorium where we had little to no 


monitoring data. And we recommended a proposed 


class -- if I can get this thing to move -- as 


you see on the screen here, which was five 


buildings, Building 9202, 9204-1, 9204-3, 9206 


and 9212. So anyone who worked in those 


buildings for at least 250 days between 


December -- January '48 and 1957 were 


recommended to be members of the -- of the 


class. 


That's the background. Now let's talk about 


what happened with the supplement. 


After the Board meeting we had a working group 


meeting in Cincinnati that I thought was pretty 


productive, and we've had these ongoing 


meetings and I've lost count now how many, but 


they've always been pretty productive. And in 


our minds, two particular issues came up that 

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really merited further research on our part, 


after a fairly good, robust discussion of all 


topics. And those two issues I've listed here. 


One is that -- has NIOSH really identified all 


buildings that were involved in thorium 


production. How confident were we that we've 


covered the waterfront on all the buildings, 


how do we know where this thorium was. Our 


initial five buildings were based on reported 


incidents in buildings and health physics 


reports where there may have been some surveys 


done. But we really didn't have a 


comprehensive listing that we could hang our 


hat on for those buildings. 


And the second issue was can the incident 


reports for Cyclotron operations that we 


portrayed in our evaluation report, could they 


really adequately bound the internal exposures 


for -- for workers during that period. 


So we set out to do some research, and I want 


to report on those two specific issues today. 


The first -- the first issue with the thorium 


operations, I think the Board members are aware 


that we had access to these records which were 


called material balance ledgers. Some of our 

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information came from those ledgers, but at the 


point that we issued our evaluation report, we 


had not tracked down all these ledgers. These 


are still classified documents that one has to 


have a Q clearance to read and -- and observe ­

- or, you know, to read and digest, and there 


were still a few missing. 


Well, subsequent to the Board meeting, we had a 


couple of people with the appropriate 


clearances go and review these material mass 


balance ledgers, and in fact they found a mass 


balance ledger for every year of the SEC 


period. And in a review of those ledgers we 


discovered an additional building, 9201-3, 


where there appeared -- or there was, according 


to the ledger, a very large quantity of thorium 


that was handled. It was in the range of 


thousands of kilograms. We really don't know 


exactly what happened in this building. It 


seems to have been tied to some type of reactor 


experimentation. But we have no process 


knowledge, no source term -- well, we knew the 


source term, we know how much was -- 


approximately how much was there -- or any 


indication of what type of monitoring was done 

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to evaluate exposures. So this gave us some --


some reason for pause. 


 There were other buildings, three listed here ­

- 9203, 9213 and 9995 -- that also were 


indicated to have thorium during the SEC 


period, but they were much smaller quantities. 


I mean much, much, much less than a kilogram of 


material, on the order of grams of material. 


And they were clearly associated with buildings 


that appeared to be related to laboratory 


assays, that type of -- of operation where one 


might have calibration source quantities. 


Although I will say that one building I think 


was listed -- it was abbreviated, but I think 


we can interpret it to mean production 


experimentation, but it was, again, a very 


small quantity of grams of material. And there 


were such discrete amounts that, based on our 


opinion, our looking at these values, that we 


believe that we could use a source term model 


to reconstruct internal exposures for these 


buildings. And in fact, we have proposed to 


use something akin to the logic that's 


contained in new Reg. 1400, which is a document 


written -- it talks about how -- when -- when 

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there's a need for air sampling in the 


workplace. And in fact, we would do a 


backwards calculation and say what would be the 


projected exposure from this source term in the 


air -- air -- in the work environment, and 


using some conservative factors that would be 


claimant-favorable, we believe we could bound 


the exposures to workers in these three 


buildings. 


So as such, based on this, this is the -- then 


this is the only building, 9201-3, that was not 


in the original list, those five buildings that 


I mentioned, that we're proposing now to add to 


the proposed class definition for thorium 


exposures, which would bring the total number 


up to six buildings now. Okay. And that's 


defined or outlined in the -- it's a fairly 


brief supplement, I think it's four or five 


pages, but we have a page or two that discusses 


the issues behind that. 


Okay, let's turn now to the second issue, which 


is the Cyclotron dose reconstructions. NIOSH, 


in our evaluation report in Denver, proposed an 


approach to reconstruct doses to Cyclotron 


workers during the period using what we believe 

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to be a large cadre of incident reports. Now 


this goes under the paraphrase you can't judge 


an incident report by its cover or its title, 


because we had access to -- we had indications 


-- several indicators that there were a large 


number of incident reports available, and the 


titles appeared to indicate that they were 


fairly good treatments of what happened with 


incidents at these Cyclotrons. And in fact, 


there's a database that we talked about before 


called the Delta View database that had an 


indication that there were around 800 reports 


that were on file that we could use to look and 


figure out exactly what the nature of the 


exposures were during these incidents. 


 'Cause if you remember, at the Cyclotrons -- 


with the exception of the polonium 208 


production -- the sources are sealed sources. 


They're sealed in -- in a -- some -- some sort 


of a container during irradiation, and only 


when they're opened -- which they're opened in 


the X-10 facility -- would there be any 


potential for exposure. We do know, though, 


based on some incident reports in the 1960s, 


that sometimes these -- cladding, containers 

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around the sources, ruptured and did release 


significant quantities of -- of material, 


airborne activity to the workplace. 


At any rate, we looked through this -- ORAU 


looked through this database of the 800 


incident reports and, to our surprise, we could 


not find any useful incident reports for 


reconstructing internal exposures during the 


SEC period. There were a lot of incident 


reports, but they did not deal with internal 


exposures. And that, coupled with the fact 


that we know incidents -- incident reports 


existed in the '60s that documented some fairly 


large internal exposures, we knew there -- they 


probably existed, we just -- we just don't have 


the thread as to where they are. They must be 


somewhere -- they're certainly not where we've 


been looking, and in fact, we've sort of run 


out of avenues at this point and don't believe 


that we're going to be able to find any of 


these reports in a timely manner. 


So because of this, we've looked at the 


definition and -- or looked at the evaluation 


report and decided to revise our class 


definition to include Cyclotron workers who 

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worked -- this is the Cyclotron building, 9201­

2. So that's our -- that's the gist of what's 


in our supplement that we -- we sent out and -- 


there should be one more slide there, isn't 


there? 


(Pause) 


Okay. So this is the revised class definition 


that you'll see in our -- in our supplement, 


which is now a two-prong -- well, not two-


pronged, a two-part definition. One is the 


original thorium definition that was updated to 


include the additional building, so you'll see 


it now reads all thor-- thorium exposures while 


working in buildings 9201-3, 9202, 9204-1, 


9204-3, 9206 or 9212 at Y-12 for at least 250 


work days for the ten-year period that's listed 


here on the screen, 1948 through '57. 


And then the additional part now is 


radionuclide exposures associated with 


Cyclotron operations in building 9201, again 


for 250 days during the period from January '48 


through '57. 


So that's the quick story of our -- of 


supplement. I'll be happy to answer any 


questions. 

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 DR. WADE: Board members, any questions for Dr. 


Neton? Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I don't know if this is a 


question for you or for Pete Turcic from 


Department of Labor, but last time we had a 


discussion at this meeting of this issue of 


monitored or should have been monitored for 


thorium exposures, and I -- I think it's really 


the issue of how to best define the class in a 


way that they'll be sort of appropriately 


identified and readily identified by the 


Department of Labor. And I guess I would ask 


you -- first of all you, Jim, and then maybe 


Pete, if you want to add to that, as to where 


are we in terms of those discussions and -- and 


so forth as -- sort of how do we make this 


definition operational? 


DR. NETON: I think Pete did such an excellent 


job at the last meeting describing how they're 


going to do it that I'd refer that -- I'd 


prefer that he answer that question. 


 MR. TURCIC: Again, we would look at 


individuals that were in those buildings, and 


the issue as far as monitoring would be, again, 


based on today's standards, should they have 

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been monitored for internal monitoring, and 


that's how we would evaluate whether they were 


in the class. 


Now in order to do that, we really look at 


three different groups. Normally what we would 


-- what we would do is we would look at 


occupations, where we know -- it's obvious were 


associated with those functions in those 


buildings. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. TURCIC: Then there's -- there's the other 


group that may -- probably were not -- you 


know, we could get things like cafeteria 


worker. Then in the middle group of -- there 


are a large number of occupations where maybe 


they weren't in those buildings continuously, 


things like electricians, maintenance people, 


that would routinely be, you know, assigned to 


those buildings. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. TURCIC: And the way we work those three 


different groups would be the first group, we 


would just make a determination based on that 


occupation and not require any further 


development work. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 MR. TURCIC: The other group, the -- the middle 


group, what we would attempt to do there would 


be we would do some development work, you know, 


if it was a -- an electrician or something like 


that, and we would accept that they were in 


there if there was no contrary evidence in the 


file. You know, if we had evidence in the file 


that they were assigned somewhere else and they 


were not routinely assigned to those buildings, 


then they would have to show 250 days in those 


buildings. 


And then the third group, we would need 


positive evidence to show that they were in -- 


in one of those buildings for 250 days during 


that time period. 


 DR. MELIUS: One of the issue that at least I 


recall from that meeting was the -- was it 


should have -- were monitored or should have 


been monitored for thorium, or was it for 


radiation exposures, because -- 


DR. NETON: The original definition was 


thorium. 


 DR. MELIUS: I know, but when we had discussion 


whether radiation exposure since that's sort of 

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the -- the threshold for monitoring is not just 


a single exposure, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Single isotope. 


 DR. MELIUS: Single isotope. 


DR. NETON: Right, I -- I think it was -- it 


was described that if -- if a person was in the 


building, then thorium exposure was assumed to 


have occurred if you couldn't prove otherwise. 


 DR. MELIUS: Right. 


DR. NETON: Or couldn't demonstrate otherwise. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: So in other words, you didn't have 


to prove that you were exposed to thorium. If 


you were in the building and we couldn't 


restrict the exposure to one very narrow 


segment of a building, I think working in that 


building would constitute exposure to thorium. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Yeah. No, I just want to 


clarify that -- that whatever we -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


clarified on the record --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, well (unintelligible) -- 


DR. NETON: I don't want to speak for 


Department of Labor so maybe Pete -- 


 DR. MELIUS: -- if we do leave it at thorium, 

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'cause there was some disagreement on that last 


time or uncertainty about that, that -- that 


we're making it a definition that's usable by 


the -- appropriately, you know, operational and 


usable by the Department of Labor. I mean --


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah, I mean, but you could -- you 


could have some -- you could have some 


occupations where people may have gone in there 


-- once a week or something like that -- and 


they wouldn't be required to be monitored for a 


short period of time and they would not be in 


that class --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. TURCIC: -- unless they can show 250 days. 

 DR. MELIUS: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Any other questions for Jim? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. This is the part of the agenda now -- 


oh, I'm sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I got a -- I got a follow-up for 


Pete, maybe. Might as well do it now instead 


of waiting till... 


Along those same lines, as far as implementing 


that, I'm trying to understand 'cause 


oftentimes we've got survivor claims and we've 

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got department information and job title 


information, and specifically -- I mean we know 


from our workgroup efforts and from, you know, 


some site experts that have contributed that 


these departments are -- are not linked 


specifically to one building. Oftentimes, 


anyway. I don't know if there's some times 


when they are. But how -- you know, from an 


implementation standpoint, again, how are you 


going to --


 MR. TURCIC: Okay, if I --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- identify from someone's 


records, especially when the spouse often would 


say all I know is he worked at Y-12 -- 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- everything else was secretive 


and -- you know. 


 MR. TURCIC: One thing that we do when -- since 


DOE employees are also covered by Part E, we 


ask -- we get from DOE what we call our -- the 


DAR reports, and that has a lot more 


information. It may have occupational 


information. If -- again, it depends in which 


of those groups. You know, if -- if the 


occupation was something that you normally 

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wouldn't associate that they were in those 


buildings, then we would need positive evidence 


that -- you know, some positive evidence that 


they were routinely assigned to those 


buildings. 


In that middle group, again, without contrary 


evidence, we would accept and put them in 


there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, and one final 


clarification. You said monitored or should 


have been monitored for internal radiation 


exposures this time. I think in --


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- in Denver you said for 


radiation exposures. 


 MR. TURCIC: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) the difference? 


 MR. TURCIC: Internal, because you're saying 


monitored for thorium. How would you monitor 


for thorium? It would be an internal 

measurement. Right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and how do -- how -- how 

are you -- I mean from an implementation 


standpoint, how are you going to 


retrospectively determine who was -- should 

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have been monitored for internal exposures? 


 MR. TURCIC: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm assuming you're basing it on 


current standards, which are 100 millirem from 


 MR. TURCIC: (Unintelligible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) radionuclides 


for, you know, 50 -- 50-year (unintelligible) ­

-


 MR. TURCIC: Current --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah. 


 MR. TURCIC: -- current standards. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. TURCIC: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: By -- by current standards, but 


how -- how do you determine, if --


 MR. TURCIC: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- someone goes in and out of 


buildings, how often do they have to -- 


 MR. TURCIC: We would then start looking and -- 


and again, all this stuff -- you're going to 


find every possible combination you could think 


of of situation. We would have to start 


looking at occupations and weigh in the 


evidence -- you know, if all we have is an 

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occupation, and you weigh the evidence of what 


would currently be done with that occupation 


today, you know, and in other cases you may 


have affidavits to support it. So it's really 


a case-by-case adjudication based on the 


evidence with the general principles being that 


-- you know, how do you fall into those three 


groups. 


 DR. WADE: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah -- yeah, I -- I just think we 


need to try to make sure -- we just want to 


make sure that we're being as clear as we can 


be in our recommendation so that, you know, it 


doesn't -- makes it easier for you and -- and 


more straightforward, that's all. 


I have a question for Jim. Sorry, don't --


 DR. WADE: He tried to --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, he tried to get off -- 


DR. NETON: I tried to sneak away. 


 DR. MELIUS: Can you speak a little bit about 


the end point for these operations and so 


forth, particularly the Cyclotron? I --


DR. NETON: Yeah, that's a good question. 
I 


probably should have given that a little better 


treatment. In the Cyclotron arena or area -- 

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it didn't stop in 1957. It continued on. So 


in some sense, our evaluation -- we -- we 


included Cyclotron workers in the original SEC 


period, through '57, that was proposed, but we 


have not continued to evaluate beyond that 


where there were exposures. We do know we have 


incident reports in the '60s that we might be 


able to use, but -- but we're silent on that at 


this point. It doesn't preclude us using the 


83.14 process, for example, of adding Cyclotron 


workers after 1957. But at this point, this is 


as far as we've been able to take our analysis. 


Good -- very good question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Are you planning on continuing 


your investigation --


DR. NETON: Yes --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- into those (unintelligible)? 


DR. NETON: -- we will continue to look through 


the Cyclotron operations, but you know, the 


Cyclotron area came up at -- at sort of the 


11th hour, so to speak, and we just didn't have 


a complete picture after that, so you know, for 


-- for speed purposes, we -- we've gone forward 


with what we've got available. 


 DR. WADE: So the Board can expect to hear back 

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from NIOSH on the issue post-'57 then. 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: Good. Other questions? 


 (No responses) 


All right. AT this point now we would hear 


from petitioners, but I don't believe there's 


any petitioners or their representatives on the 


line -- but I'll ask. Any petitioners or 


representatives to make a comment? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. WADE: Absent that, I'll turn it over to 


the chair of the working group who can decide 


how best to proceed with information. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 28's on the 


line --


 DR. WADE: Mark. 


UNIDENTIFIED: -- but we have no comment. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You have someone on --


 DR. WADE: I'm sorry, could you repeat? 


 MR. DUVALL: Twenty-eight, James Duvall. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Is that a petitioner? 


 DR. WADE: Are you a petitioner? That's --


please make a statement, sir. 


 MR. DUVALL: Oh, we have no statement. 

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 DR. WADE: Okay. Thank you for being here, and 


please -- if at any point in the deliberations 


something occurs to you that's important for us 


to hear, please raise it. 


 MR. DUVALL: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


WORKING GROUP REPORT


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I was -- I think I'll 


-- you know, I will try to be brief -- briefer 


than the Rocky Flats report, but I would like 


to give just a -- a workgroup update and I 


won't be re-- Jim's covered a lot of it, so 


I'll go through -- the last workgroup 


conference ca-- as Jim said, we've had -- I 


can't even count how many workgroup meetings, 


but you know, I think we -- we've proven that 


this process works. It might be a little slow 


at times, but it does work and we've gotten a 


lot out of this. The last one was June 8th, I 


think -- June 8th, and on the list at the time 


we talked about the thorium exposures was one 


of the primary things, and Jim outlined that 


very well and I don't think we have anything to 


add. 


The one -- I -- I guess one thing, and this 

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comes up a few times in the process -- and -- 


and this is one thing that sort of maybe 


lengthened our review process in this whole 


effort is that, as Jim pointed out, these 


ledgers are classified. So NIOSH reviewed and 


provided us reports on this. SC&A and the -- 


and the workgroup have not seen these, but -- 


and -- and that's true of some bits and pieces 


of -- of the review, but overall we -- we were 


very happy with the effort they made to track 


down this information and find out exactly 


where additional thorium was and -- so -- so we 


were able to close out on that item pretty 


well. 


And you know, with regard to the laboratories, 


they -- I -- you know, I think the workgroup 


was in agreement, I think SC&A was in 


agreement. We -- we just -- you know, this was 


June 8th I think. An outline of a model has 


been provided. I don't even think I've opened 


the document on this one, but it's pretty clear 


there were small laboratory quantities and 


there should be methods by which they can bound 


these exposures for those -- for those workers 


in those buildings -- those laboratories in 

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those buildings. And if any workgroup members 


disagree with me, please point this out. 


The second issue on the agenda was the 


Cyclotron work and, as Jim pointed out, 


polonium and these other exotic radionuclides 


were the principal item. And I was going to 


mention the extended time period, I think we 


just brought that up so I won't go into that 


any further. I think it -- it was important 


for the record that some of the discussions on 


the workgroup level was well, you know, most of 


these exotic radionuclides wouldn't have 


contributed very significantly, if at all, to 


internal exposures. But Jim pointed out in the 


workgroup deliberations that in fact some of 


the early polonium runs extensively 


contaminated the areas and -- and there was 


residual -- potential exposures to residual 


contamination during subsequent runs, I guess, 


so there was -- there was sort -- there was an 


unknown and significant internal dose component 


and I think that was important to justifying 


the addition of -- of -- of this group of 


workers to an SEC. 


The next item we talked about was plutonium 

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exposures, and this is along the lines, as we 


were discussing earlier, of what exposures or 


what doses we can reconstruct as opposed to the 


groups we cannot reconstruct. I think we 


should point this out. There were some 


Calutron runs in the late '50s I think -- mid 


to late '50s -- within the time frame still, 


'54, 5, 6, something like that -- and -- but 


they do have -- and they've presented a model 


to us. SC&A and the workgroup are in agreement 


that they can bound -- they can determine upper 


estimates with this model. 


Additionally there was another building 


identified, building 9205, which seems to be 


one of these support laboratories that had fair 


-- a fair amount of plutonium air sampling and 


they have just provided us with some 


documentation that basically says the previous 


model provided more than bounds those 


identified air sampling measures within that 


laboratory. So I think we're confident that, 


for those two groups of plutonium exposed 


workers, those doses can be reconstructed. 


The fourth item we discussed was data 


validation, and this was both on external 

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radiation do-- data and internal bioassay data. 


And for Y-12 it was -- for those of -- who 


haven't heard this before, for Y-12 it was much 


more important to us because a large 


percentage, I think it was 75 percent or 80 


percent, of the claimants were in some way 


going to rely on a coworker model to 


reconstruct their -- their doses, coworker 


model being that they were going to use this 


electronic database data to develop a 


distribution and then assign intakes based on 


that or -- or external exposure databased on 


that. And so therefore we -- we felt it 


important, especially on this site, to validate 


the data. 


The second very important reason for validation 


in this case is that in fact this -- this data 


-- it was the Y-12 database, but it -- it was 


currently I guess owned, for lack of a better 


word, by ORAU research branch. And ORAU being 


the contractor on this project, we felt it very 


important to do independent validation of this 


data. And it was not as easy as asking for all 


the urine log books and doing a statistical 


sampling and matching up with the database 

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data. It would have been nice if that was the 


case. But it might have been a little 


patchwork at times, but I think at the end of 


the day SC&A felt comfortable with both the 


external data and the internal data. And we 


did this through a combination of looking at 


health physics reports. They had summary 


statistics within those health physics reports. 


This did get cumbersome right down to the end 


and -- and I've -- but -- but I appreciate 


Larry Elliott's involvement at the end, along 


with DOE. Libby White was helpful. We -- we 


asked for identified data and we went through 


various iterations of getting identified data 


and -- but at the end of the day, within the 


last couple of weeks we have a database with 


all the identifiers. And the reason it was 


important on this aspect, and I'm bringing this 


up because I think it's going to come up again 


-- Rocky Flats is one example -- but the reason 


it was important in this especially was that we 


were getting reports back from NIOSH from these 


health physics reports. The health physics 


reports are still classified, so we didn't have 


direct access to those. We got summary notes 

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saying here's five individuals who their 


average dose for this year or this quarter was 


this within the health physics report. We 


compared it to the database and it was the same 


in many -- you know. So they -- they presented 


a fair argument there that the data was valid. 


Unfortunately, we didn't have a database that 


had any names in it and we didn't have the 


health physics reports, so we were kind of at a 


-- at a loss for just accepting this on -- on 


its face. And we -- we asked to pull that 


thread a little further and NIOSH did help us 


out. And since then actually I've -- I've got 


responses from Bill Tankersley on some of my 


questions that I -- I couldn't get certain 


values to -- to match his calculated values, 


and I think we -- I'm -- I'm comfortable with 


his responses on those items. So at the end of 


the day I think we met, you know, our -- our 


enough is enough question on the data 


validation for this -- for this topic. 


 MS. MUNN: Let's hope. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It might have felt like it took a 


long time, but we got there. 


The fifth item that we discussed was the 

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follow-up on the coworker models on the gamma 


and beta exposure models. And this was really 


ba-- based -- in part it was a data validation 


question, but also in part it was this -- the 


method by which they were back-extrapolating 


exposures. And I think, again, at the end of 


the day where we left this was even though we 


have some outstanding questions on this -- the 


methodology, it was clear to all involved that 


-- that a plausible upper-bound dose could be 


calculated. So we're comfortable that it's not 


an SEC issue. There may remain some 


outstanding questions on -- in terms of the 


site profile review, but we're comfortable it's 


not an SEC issue. 


The coworker -- there was a coworker model for 


internal uranium exposures which was also 


discussed, and this was the coworker model used 


to back-extrapolate for early uranium workers 


where they had no data. I think it's '47/'48 ­

- '48/'49 -- '48/'49. And basically -- really 


that was a matter of just verifying that we 


actually had later data for those individuals 


and we could use that later data to back-


extrapolate and it would be -- it would be 

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applicable to those -- that -- that group of 


workers, it would be representative, and we did 


close out that item at the last workgroup 


meeting, as well. Everybody was comfortable 


with that model, that approach. 


And the neutron -- we discussed neutron dose 


reconstruction very briefly. I think at -- the 


only remaining item at that point was -- was we 


wanted a -- to have some follow-up references 


provided, and those were provided. SC&A 


reviewed those and -- and was satisfied to 


close that item out. 


And then the question of recycled uranium and 


the -- the approach that was going to be used, 


and I think this also was a -- a question of -- 


it -- it's -- we're comfortable with it from an 


SEC standpoint. There's some remaining 


questions on implementation and -- but -- but 


it's not that dose can't be bounded. We're 


comfortable that they can get a plausible upper 


bound for doses and so that item was closed out 


from an SEC standpoint. 


And -- and that's basically where we -- where 


we concluded with the workgroup. 


BOARD DISCUSSION
 
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 DR. WADE: Thank you. Other workgroup -- now 


the workgroup also consisted of Mike and Wanda 


and Robert, although Robert is conflicted on Y12. Wanda or Mike, any comments you would like 


to make from a workgroup perspective for the 


record? 


 MS. MUNN: No, other than this has been a very 


arduous task, and I individually am very 


appreciative of the efforts that have gone into 


it, and thanks to Mark for continuing to try to 


keep this matrix as current as possible. It's 


a difficult task and both our NIOSH and ORAU 


and SC&A teams have spent a great deal of time. 


My concern continues to be that we work in such 


real time that it's really hard for us to give 


extended thought to some of these last-minute 


things that occur. So if we're brief or if 


Mark seems to be long-winded sometime, it's 


because we haven't had an -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm rarely accused of that. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- we rarely have an opportunity to 


concentrate our thoughts into the kind of 


presentation we'd like to have. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 

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 MR. GIBSON: You think he's brief -- or long-


winded here, you ought to be on the conference 


calls. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, you're right. 


 DR. WADE: I mean I'd offer an observation, 


particularly on this case. I mean if -- if 


you're looking for an example of where SC&A's 


involvement has brought value to the process, 


this is a very clear example. If you're 


looking for an example where NIOSH has 


demonstrated an ability to listen and to adjust 


and to modify based upon what's discussed, this 


is an example. If you're looking for a 


positive example of how the workgroup process 


can work, this is an example. 


Now it doesn't say that it's been efficient, 


but it has -- the process has worked and I 


think all are to be complimented. 


Other questions for the workgroup by the Board? 


 (No responses) 


I will point out that there's an SC&A 


presentation in your book. I don't think it 


needs to be made, but I would -- since they 


took the effort of putting it together, I'd 


suggest you do take a look at it. 

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Now it's for Board deliberation as we look at 


the Board's action on Y-12, so I open it up for 


discussion. Comment. Motions. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we -- we -- I -- I think 


the whole workgroup is pretty comfortable with 


the -- you know, we -- we've had a lot of last-


minute stuff. The -- coming into this meeting 


I guess my -- my one final sort of desire was 


to close out this question of how -- you know, 


how -- how do we craft a recommendation to -- 


that -- that Labor can implement, you know, 


effectively, and that we understand sort of how 


it's going to be implemented. So I think Pete 


was helpful in clarifying that, but -- Jim, I 


don't know if you have any... 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, let me explain where we are, 


then I think we can decide how to go forward. 


Mark and I have worked on a draft, mostly -- 


again -- Mark providing the technical input, 


and he and I went over it some at breakfast 


this morning. But there were still some 


issues, like significant questions that were 


related to -- to how to describe the cohort, 


and then I think also frank-- the issue about ­

- that we talked about here this morning or 

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early this afternoon about the non-SEC cancers 


and what to -- what we should be communicating 


here in terms of not only what can't be done, 


but what can be suitably dose-reconstructed. 


So we have a draft. It's not quite ready for 


prime time yet. I think it could easily be put 


together and prepared for consideration first 


thing tomorrow morning by that. It -- it --


 MS. MUNN: Please. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think -- I think --


 DR. MELIUS: And I think it -- you know, 


basically what would be recommended would -- 


would basically be the -- the definition that ­

- that NIOSH put forward there and I -- I think 


I'm assuming there's -- there's good 


concurrence among the Board that that's the 


general way we want to go. I think we need to, 


you know, just tighten up some of the arguments 


and so forth to -- to have a -- an actual 


motion and letter that would be ready to go to 


the Secretary. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just to explain a little, 


I -- Jim had the skeleton letter, which we all 


know Jim has been doing for a lot of these SEC 


reports that we've been -- put out, and I -- I 

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tried to draft some -- some of the bullet items 


that were in there, and they -- they -- it 


tracked pretty well along what I just gave as a 


workgroup update, the -- the fact that we can 


reconstruct the uranium exposures, I think we 


want to point that out very -- it's very 


important because a lot of those thorium 


buildings had uranium exposures, so -- and -- 


and the fact that we can do these plutonium -- 


this -- this subset of plutonium workers, and 


the fact that we can do ex-- we have external 


dose information that we can reconstruct, so -- 


and then the -- the cannots are obviously the 


thorium and the Cyclotron related to those 


specific buildings. So that's generally what 


it looks like, but it's real -- it's very rough 


at this point, so... 


 DR. WADE: I think it's quite reasonable that 


the -- the Board has learned today how 


important these motion -- these -- these drafts 


need to be in terms of not only what can't be 


done but what could be done, so I think we 


would applaud the time being spent this evening 


to bring back the motion to the Board in the 


morning. But I would ask if there's anyone on 

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the Board who would like to offer a contrary 


opinion to these fine gentlemen moving forward 


with drafting such a motion. 


 MS. MUNN: No, but I would like to offer all 


the encouragement I can. Please do. 


 DR. WADE: So noted. So only encouragement. 


So I think we can close this discussion then 


and -- and again, I would suggest we take this 


up first thing in the morning if -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, we'll --


 DR. WADE: -- what we hope to happen happens, 


and then we can entertain the motion and do 


what the Board needs to do with it. So at that 


point I will close our discussion on Y-12 and 


desperately ask Dr. Ziemer to come back to the 


desk. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. You made excellent 


progress and worked well -- 


 DR. WADE: Where've you been? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I should be away more often. 


 DR. WADE: SC&A. 


SC&A INITIAL PRESENTATION ON 4TH ROUND OF DOSE 


RECONSTRUCTION CASES, MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's do that. I think if Hans 


and Kathy, on behalf of SC&A -- this is the 

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swap item from Friday. You recall we were 


swapping two SC&A items so it would be what 


originally was a Friday morning item, SC&A 


initial presentation on fourth round of dose 


reconstruction cases. And Hans and Kathy, we 


do have a public comment period at 5:00, so are 


we okay on -- as far as your -- 


 MS. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's push ahead. 


(Pause) 


 MS. BEHLING: My slides are in the back, Ray. 


THE COURT REPORTER: We don't have them? 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes, they're in the back. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'm not -- this was not in 


our packet, I guess. Is that correct? 


 MS. BEHLING: It should have been; I had sent 


it. It is in the back. You don't have it. 


This is for -- it was scheduled for tomorrow 


and it is the summary of the fourth set of 


cases, if y'all need it. 


Tell me when you're ready to proceed. 


(Pause) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. BEHLING: Okay. I'm Kathy Behling with 


SC&A, and I appreciate having the opportunity 

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to present our summary of the fourth set of 


cases -- case reviews. I know at this time of 


the day it's easy to start to fade, but I also 


know Dr. Ziemer has faith in the fact that I 


have a very exciting presentation to give you. 


 Our draft report was published in April -- on 


April 7th, 2006, and at this point in time it's 


still considered a draft. And prior to 


publishing this report we met with the two-


member Advisory Board team members and 


discussed their cases and the findings 


associated with those cases. Today I have 


generated a matrix that has just been forwarded 


to the Board and to NIOSH, but we have not 


started our issues resolution process. So 


everything that I'm going to discuss today with 


regard to our findings is still preliminary 


findings. 


I went too far, sorry. Let me go back here. 


Okay, I'm going to begin by starting back in 


the very beginning of this project to serve as 


a reminder and to refresh everyone's memory as 


to what SC&A's initial charter was under our 


statement of work. And you'll see four items 


here. 

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First of all, we were asked to determine if 


dose estimates are reasonable. And NIOSH can ­

- has three different approaches to determining 


estimates of dose. They were -- they can 


estimate dose using maximizing assumptions in 


which they intentionally are overestimating 


doses when they know that the case is likely 


not going to be compensable or close to 50 


percent. 


The second approach, which is also an 


efficiency approach, is a minimized approach to 


dose reconstruction where it becomes apparent 


that, even by doing only a partial dose 


reconstruction, the individual will be 


compensated. And so for efficiency purposes 


the -- NIOSH concludes their dose after they 


have determined that this individual is most 


likely going to be -- or is going to be 


compensated and just based on let's say 


external dose alone and that may be sufficient 


for -- for the case to be a compensable case. 


 And finally, and these are the -- the cases 


that we've seen the least amount of and the 


cases that NIOSH doesn't have quite as many of, 


and those are the best-estimate cases. In this 

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particular set, as -- as I'll talk about a 


little later, there ha-- there are several 


best-estimate cases. And these are cases where 


when they calculate the dose the probability of 


causation is very close to that critical 50 


percent POC. 


Now I go on to bullet two. One of the things 


we were also asked to look for is assumpt-- the 


assumptions that are being used. Often there 


are gaps in this data, and so we look very 


closely at the assumptions, and these 


assumptions will differ based on the type of 


dose reconstruction that's being done. If it's 


a minimized or max-- well, if it's a maximized 


dose reconstruction, the assumptions will be 


overestimating and claimant-favorable. If it's 


a best-estimate dose reconstruction we look for 


ensuring that the assumptions are 


scientifically sound. 


The third item -- also we look at the 


sufficiency and the completeness of the data 


that the -- that NIOSH is getting from the DOE 


or whatever source they're using for that data. 


We look for completeness and readability and 


ensure that they can adequately use the data 

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that's available. You hear that a lot in the 


discussions that are going on with the site 


profiles. 


 And lastly, our statement of work indicates 


that we look at the cases and ensure that these 


dose reconstructions are being done in 


compliance with the written procedures, and 


they are being conducted in a consistent manner 


and consistent between cases. 


I'm going to expand a little bit more on this 


issue of the details provided in the statement 


of work, and this also is -- has become the 


basis of SC&A's audit process. 


There are three primary areas that we look at, 


and that, first of all, is we do a review of 


the data collection. Now data collection -- 


we, again, ensure that all the data NIOSH has 


requested -- that they did receive it and that 


this data is sufficient to calculate a 


reasonable estimate of the dose. 


We also look very closely at the interview 


information, the CATI report, and any 


documentation that's provided by the claimant. 


We ensure that NIOSH uses that appropriately 


and if they don't use that data we ensure that 

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the -- that if there's a good reason for them 


not to use that data or they have other 


information that's consistent with the data 


that they're using for the dose -- is more 


compelling for their dose estimates. 


And then finally we look at the internal and 


external dose estimates, and here's where we 


also spend a great deal of time. And as you 


can see, statement of work indicates that we 


look at all assumptions and that we ensure that 


those assumptions -- appropriate and give the 


benefit of the doubt to the claimant. And also 


that we look at issues such as -- we -- we look 


at all the dose calculations and re-- and try 


to recalculate those dose calculations. We 


look at issues such as obviously the treatment 


of missed dose and unmonitored dose. 


Now you -- we talked about this earlier. 


Missed dose is that dose where the individual 


has actually been monitored, but the monitoring 


results indicate that, for the external dose, 


the individual had values less than the limits 


of detection. In that case the dose 


reconstructor had the opportunity to either use 


a conservative approach to assigning this dose, 

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which would be number of monitoring periods -- 


N times LOD where -- and it's number of 


monitoring periods times that LOD. Often 


they'll use a little bit less conservative 


approach, but consistent with their procedures, 


of N times LOD over two. In other words, the 


number of monitoring periods times the LOD 


divided by two. 


That differs from the unmonitored dose in which 


NIOSH must use a different approach, such as 


cohort -- coworker modeling, as we've been 


talking about earlier. 


Also we look at -- for each dose reconstruction 


we look at the methods that were used and we 


ensure that they were interpreted properly and 


that the appropriate methods were -- were used 


by NIOSH, as specified in the NIOSH procedures. 


Okay. Okay, this slide gives you an overview 


of the fourth set of cases. The first column 


is our tab number, and that's just our 


separator in our report and our sequential 


numbering so that you can see we've now done 80 


cases to date with the completion of this 


report. In this -- these 20 cases, six 


represent AWE facilities and 14 are DOE 

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facilities. These cases also had -- we -- 


we've looked at 14 different types of cancer, 


and we've looked -- six out of the 20 were 


compensable cases, and obviously 14 were noncompensable. 


Let me explain the last column again a little 


bit. The maximized doses -- as you can see, in 


-- in some cases -- in fact, from -- well, from 


-- some of the -- some of the Hanford cases and 


the cases that are less than the 50 percent 


where you see it maximized external and 


internal doses, those are what we have seen in 


many of the previous cases. We -- where 


there's been many overestimating assumptions 


used, and a lot of the findings that we have 


identified in those cases are similar to what 


we've seen in the previous 60 cases. 


Of the AWE facilities, the first six listed 


there, three of the AWE facilities were 


compensable cases and three were noncompensable cases. And in each of these -- at 


each of these facilities and each of these 


cases, NIOSH used the same guidance document, 


which was OTIB-0004, which is a complex-wide 


generic procedure that, to this point in time, 

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SC&A has interpreted that procedure to be a 


maximizing procedure, and therefore we are 


questioning the appropriateness of using that 


procedure for the first three cases that were 


compensated. And so many of our findings 


associated with those first three cases have to 


do with that issue and questioning whether 


OTIB-4 was the appropriate procedure to be 


used. 


You'll also see tabs 67 and 68 are identified 


as best estimates, and tab 69 -- I have a 


question mark behind maximized and I have best 


estimate listed there because NIOSH identified 


that as a maximizing procedure -- approach to 


dose reconstruction. However, when I looked at 


that case and I looked at the POC value, it 


became apparent that that really should have 


been classified as a best estimate and we 


viewed it as a best estimate case. Best 


estimates are typically done for external dose. 


They use a workbook that incorporates Crystal 


Ball and -- that uses a Monte Carlo procedure 


to input uncertainty associated with the DCFs 


and the uncertainty associated with the 


dosimeter. And they also ran IMBA for the 

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internal dose. They did a full internal and 


external evaluation of this case number -- tab 


69, and so we're classifying that also as a 


best estimate. 


 These best estimate doses -- we found in these 


particular cases of best estimates, we've seen 


two best estimates I believe previous to this, 


and I guess I was somewhat surprised at just 


the level of detail and the amount of 


complexity and the time-consuming nature that 


went into estimating doses for these particular 


best estimates. In fact, in one of these cases 


there were -- there was an individual who 


worked there for 30 years and had around -- 


about 648 tritium bioassay results. And 


although NIOSH could have used a site-specific 


procedure or a Technical Basis Document for 


assessing that internal dose, they went through 


a painstaking approach of identifying each and 


every one of those 640 bioassays and inputting 


all of that into IREP and really scrutinized 


over this data and refined the data quite a 


bit. And most of our findings associated with 


these best estimates have to do with 


assumptions used by NIOSH in -- in making some 

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of their determinations. 


Okay, on this slide I'm tr-- I broke down the 


findings for you based on the initial 


categories as stated on this statement of work 


that I discussed in a previous slide. As you 


can see, data collection, external dose, 


internal dose, and then the CATI information. 


And because we have a total of 100 findings, 


you can see the total by the bottom by the per­

- percentage of findings that fall under each 


of those categories. As you can see at least 


from this small selection of data, these 20 


cases, it appears and -- and you'll see later 


that it is consistent with what we had for all 


80 cases, the data collection process does not 


seem to be something that is -- has been a 


problem for NIOSH. We don't see a lot of 


incidences where DOE or AW-- AWEs don't' really 


have that much data, but DOE is -- is not 


giving them the data that they've been asking 


for. 


 Obviously you'll see a lot more findings under 


the external and the internal dose. We have 40 


categories of -- of -- on our checklist that we 


look at under the external, and I believe eight 

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or so categories under the internal. And 


that's where we see most of -- of our 


deficiencies or findings. 


And then the last category, again, is the CATI 


information. And here again we're looking at 


what the -- what the interview -- interviewer 


stated in his interview process, and we compare 


that to what NIOSH actually used in their dose 


reconstruction report. 


Okay. Okay, I -- here I broke down the 


findings related to how they impact dose, and 


this is something that you will see on our 


checklist that's included with each of the 


individual reports. And under "low", that 


indicates that the deficiency has a marginal 


impact on dose, and obviously "medium" and 


"high" mean -- higher impact on dose under 


"high". "Under review" is that category where 


obviously everything under the data collection 


process is under review because we feel that 


NIOSH did not receive all the data that they 


should have, and so we're making a 


recommendation that they contact DOE and, you 


know, review that or -- or try to determine if 


there's more information for that. So that's 

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why certain fall -- certain of these findings 


fall under the category of "under review". 


Okay. Now here I've broken down these 100 


findings and I've tried to compress them into 


areas where we find discrepancies. And as you 


can see, the largest percentage, 38 percent, of 


the findings associated with these 20 cases, 


these 100 findings, fell under the incorrect 


procedure, method or assumption used. And as I 


stated previously, a lot of the findings had to 


do with we felt that OTIB-4 was not a correct 


procedure to be used for compensating the -- 


the AWE facilities, and so there's a lot of 


findings from those cases. And also the best 


estimate cases we're questioning some of the 


assumptions associated with that very detailed, 


refined assessment that NIOSH has done. 


I'll just pick out a few of these categories to 


give you examples. Model/assumption -- 


model/assumption selection not scientifically 


sound. Now this is a category that is an ef-- 


it's a built-in efficiency process that NIOSH 


uses in cases such as -- which you've heard 


before -- when they know that it's going to be 


a compensable case they will select the colon 

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as the highest non-metabolic organ for the 


hypothetical internal intake, and it does give 


the highest dose and it is considered, quote, 


claimant-favorable. However, it -- obviously, 


as you hear during public comment sessions so 


often, I think it tends to confuse the claimant 


and it's an identification of often a cancer 


that's not even related to -- to their cancer. 


And so in this case it's something that we 


pointed out. And from SC&A's point of view, it 


is -- we recognize that we're making this -- 


we're stating a finding that NIOSH is 


overestimating the dose, excessively 


overestimating dose, and that's where most of 


the findings fall into that category. 


 The dose reconstructions -- another set of 


findings is dose reconstructions did not 


consider all potential sources or those sources 


are not properly accounted for, and that was 23 


percent of these case. Many of the findings 


here -- a lot of the cases were cases where the 


individual worked in the early years, and so 


there were times, like for the occupational 


medical exposure, some -- a lot of our findings 


indicated that possibly NIOSH did not consider 

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photofluorography X-ray exams back in the early 


days, and it's that type of finding that falls 


under that category. 


And I'll go up to the top left where 


misinterpretation of procedures or procedural 


non-compliance, and here again -- I guess we've 


discussed this so many times before, but we 


have identified certain procedures such as this 


OTIB-8 and OTIB-10 which is a means of 


estimating and determining missed dose for film 


badge and TLDs, and it's those procedures that 


are not as clearly written as they could be and 


they are routinely misinterpreted. But as you 


also heard yesterday, I believe that NIOSH has 


corrected those. And it's that type of finding 


that falls under that category. 


And I did the same type of breakdown for all 80 


cases. The fourth set of cases is -- falls 


under -- all of the percentages are pretty 


close to what we find here. The only thing -- 


there were two sets of findings, a very small 


set of findings, for calculational errors and 


procedures not being referenced that we did not 


identify in the previous -- in the most recent 


set of cases. And again, as I mentioned 

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earlier, I think this does indicate that data 


collection issues do not seem to be a problem 


that we're identifying very often, certainly 


not calculational errors. 


I will point out that we do have a category of 


reviewer could not reproduce dose that you see 


on the bottom here, 13 percent. In some cases, 


but ver-- very few, it may ultimately result 


that that is a calculational error, but -- 


however, typically that's not the case because 


a lot of findings that fall under that 


particular category have to do with the fact 


that when a best estimate is used or when a 


workbook is used, that uses the Crystal Ball 


Monte Carlo technique. It's sometimes 


difficult for us to sit down and reproduce all 


of those doses. Other times the -- the dose 


reconstruction report is not always as clear as 


it could be and when we sit down with our 


guidance -- with the guidance that should have 


been used and the guidance that they supposedly 


stated was used and apply that guidance, we 


cannot reproduce the values that are in the 


dose reconstruction report. 


Okay. With all that said -- so we can ask what 

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-- what has been the impact of -- of SC&A's 


audit process and all of the identification of 


findings. And I think to date, and we've 


confirmed this, we have identified to NIOSH 


procedures that are routinely misinterpreted, 


and that is being corrected. We have also 


identified procedures that have some 


inconsistencies, there's inconsistencies 


between one Technical Basis Document and 


another or a Technical Basis Document and a 


Technical Information Bulletin, and often some 


excessive complexity is built into some of 


these TIBs, as you can see in some of the 


previous slides. And I -- I will take the 


opportunity here to state that based on 


everything that we're -- we've heard about so 


far that's going on right now with the site 


profile work, I can only expect that that 


particular category of excessive complexity is 


-- is going to increase. We're going to see 


more findings associated with that because of 


the complexity of the TIBs, the complexity of 


the cases. And I would only hope -- I'm 


getting off on a side issue here a little bit, 


but I would only hope that for -- that for 

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NIOSH's sake and for the auditor's sake, some 


of the complexity of those is being built into 


facilities such as the Y-12 -- I would hope 


that there are certain dose reconstructors that 


are assigned to just doing Y-12 cases and can 


become very familiar with those types of 


guidance documents so that it makes it a little 


it easier on everyone. 


Also this next one is interesting. If you go 


back to your first set of 20 cases, tab number 


7, when we were working through that tab Hans 


identified this issue of looking at lymphatic 


cancers and reassessing the dose 


reconstructions in behalf of that. And I can 


only assume that it was because of that 


identification of that finding that NIOSH did 


go forward, make that change -- which has 


affected about 1,000 cases, I guess, at this 


point. 


 The other thing we've done, as I've alluded to 


before, is recommend that NIOSH avoid this 


excessive overestimation, which just is not 


scientifically sound. It adds confusion. It's 


difficult for the claimant to understand. And 


I think when claimants, as -- as we hear, they 

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compare notes, and it -- it's a confusing 


issue. We should try to be as consistent and 


as scientifically sound as possible, especially 


in cases like this hypothetical internal 


intake. Selecting the colon over the breast or 


some other cancer is -- it's just as easy to 


select one -- one cancer -- the correct cancer 


as opposed to the colon or something else. 


You're not compromising efficiency. 


 And then lastly, and I think we -- we've talked 


about this also today. From the very beginning 


I think one of the most difficult items that we 


had, as auditors, was trying to get a full 


understanding of what the dose reconstructor 


did. The dose reconstruction report has not 


always been as clear as it could be, and I 


think NIOSH has also recognized that and 


they're working on -- on changing the wording 


associated with that. But that doesn't only 


benefit us as auditors. It obviously benefits 


the claimants, and it benefits, hopefully, 


NIOSH's internal QA process. We heard earlier 


today about including a matrix for assumptions. 


SC&A has also recommended we put into our 


report -- in the summary we identify the doses, 

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all the external dose, internal dose, identify 


it on the IREP sheet, and I think that would 


also be beneficial for NIOSH's internal 


auditing process and -- and the claimant 


themselves. 


And then my last slide, and I guess I have to 


correct my number here. My first -- I guess I 


pulled this number off the internet, and I 


believe we had a correction to that number, but 


NIOSH has completed somewhere around 12,000 


cases or over 12,000 cases that have been sent 


up to DOL. And obviously, as you've seen 


through my presentation, SC&A has only audited 


80 cases of that more than 12,000. 


So it's clear that 80 cases represent only a 


small percentage of the dose reconstructions, 


and therefore any discrepancies that we find -- 


the -- the value of this audit has to be to 


improve, like I said, future dose 


reconstructions by amending procedures when 


appropriate. I think that's -- that's been a 


helpful item that we've added, that we are -- 


something that SC&A has benefited the program. 


Also if we can lay -- the second item, reevaluate or revise completed dose 

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reconstructions, such as the lymphoma cancers 


that I mentioned earlier, that have already -- 


that have impacted cases that have been 


adjudicated. 


And lastly, if we can -- if -- if these 


findings can assist NIOSH in improving their 


internal QA program, I think SC&A has -- has 


had benefit in that, even in these few -- 80 


cases. 


So I believe that's my last slide and -- Hans, 


did you have anything else you wanted to say? 


 DR. BEHLING: I think you said it all. 

 MS. BEHLING: Okay. At least I gave you a 

chance here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: He knows the right answer to that 


question. 


Thank you very much, Kathy. Let me ask Board 


members -- Roy, it looks like you have a 


question here. 


 DR. DEHART: Kathy, it's been a pleasure 


working with you and Hans as we work on these 


cases, and I've found it informative and 


helpful. I don't want to be prescriptive in 


this, but I would suggest that when you have 


the high significant findings -- we have three 

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in this -- this set, and we've run about that 


same number, as I recall, in the earlier sets ­

- it would be helpful if you could identify 


those specifically, with -- with the concern 


that you have, so that we can go back and look 


in the book ourselves -- 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. DEHART: -- because we're only dealing with 


about 20 percent of the cases, at most. 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes, that's a very good idea, and 


I apologize for not doing that. The other 


thing I will point out that, you just jogged my 


memory on that particular slide, the fact that 


we have a lot of low impact findings in -- in 


most of the cases, because now we're starting 


to see the best estimate cases. In fact, I 


should have also pointed out -- and it was on 


one of my previous slides -- the three best 


estimate cases, they have the most findings, I 


think -- nine, 11, and so on -- so if you have 


even -- if we confirm that these truly are 


deficiencies and you have several low impact 


dose deficiencies, in those cases -- that one 


case I believe was 48 per-- over 48 percent, so 


we'll see how that plays itself out, but I do 

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agree with you with regard to the high -- high 


dose. That's a very good suggestion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: I noticed in the pie chart of the 


breakdown for the fourth set, as opposed to the 


breakdown of findings for all 80 cases, the 


segment that reports the irreproduceable 


results dropped from 13 for the overall down to 


eight. I'm assuming that in those cases where 


you were unable to reproduce the exact result ­

- I'd gotten the impression from what you said 


in the past that the impact of that was 


relatively low and that it didn't make a major 


difference in most of the cases, but can we 


also assume from this that that's becoming less 


of an issue as we get more familiar with the 


cases and the workbooks get used more 


thoroughly? 


 MS. BEHLING: I think that is correct. As I 


said, I believe it was during our prev-- our 


third set of cases where we first started to 


become aware -- or maybe the second set of 


cases -- of the workbooks that exist out there, 


and we were not familiar with how to even 


interpret the data in those workbooks. So yes, 

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you do see a decline in that -- SC&A's ability 


(sic) to reproduce the dose, and often that is 


because in -- in -- I think in some cases 


they're -- they're attempting to also include 


all of their references -- in some cases I do 


see things such as where they -- they break up 


the -- the -- I can't think of the word right 


now, but they're a little bit more descriptive 


in their dose reconstructions, and so that does 


help us. And we are becoming more familiar 


with interpreting the workbooks and going into 


those workbooks and seeing what information is 


being used, and so it's a little bit easier for 


us to reproduce. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments? Kathy, I 


guess -- and again, this will lead to a matrix, 


a resolution matrix, as we have for the others. 


 MS. BEHLING: In fact I have generated a 


matrix, but you may not have even -- I just 


generated the matrix probably earlier this week 


when you -- you probably didn't even get it 


before you left, so it is --


 DR. ZIEMER: No, but -- yeah, the Board -- the 


Board will have that expectation, if they 


haven't already got it. The matrix is --

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 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- follows, and we're -- 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we're under way then with -- 


 MS. BEHLING: With the issue --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the process. 


 MS. BEHLING: That's right, we will -- we'll 


begin that. 


 DR. WADE: And for the record to be clear, at 


this point NIOSH hasn't had a chance to respond 


 MS. BEHLING: Exactly. 


 DR. WADE: -- and, you know, we'll follow that 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- process that's been so productive 


as we continue, but NIOSH has not had a chance 


to react to this as of yet. 


 MS. BEHLING: Of course. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Let's take 


about a five-minute break. I need to get the 


list of -- of speakers, and so we will have the 


public comment period in five minutes. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 5:00 p.m. 


to 5:07 p.m.) 

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 PUBLIC COMMENT


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're going to begin the 


public comment session. First we'll call on 


Harriet -- is it pronounced Ruiz, Harriet? Is 


Harriet here? I understand she -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: What -- what's the correct 


pronunciation? 


 MS. RUIZ: It's Harriet Ruiz. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Ruiz. 


 MS. RUIZ: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Welcome. 


 MS. RUIZ: I thought you were asking for 


(unintelligible) there for a minute. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, no. Good. 


 MS. RUIZ: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and 


members of the committee, and I really 


appreciate you letting me speak to you today. 


I appreciate all the hard work you do. I know 


how hard it is to sit in a committee meeting 


all day, I am a state representative. And I am 


going to read a little bit and then kind of 


talk briefly. 

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First of all, my name is Harriet Ruiz, it's R-


u-i-z, and my phone number is 505-771-3059, and 


I'd like that in the record. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It has been recorded. Thank you. 


 MS. RUIZ: Thank you. Since I filed the SEC 


petition in January of '06 I have received 


several requests for more information in a 


differently-formatted -- in a differently-


formatted letter. The burdens placed on 


petitioners are time-consuming. Records are 


not readily available and -- to build a case 


for the SEC. You know, we're just lay people 


out here, and it is -- it's -- it's a -- it's a 


very hard thing. 


 MS. RUIZ: And Harriet, just for the Board's 


benefit, in case there's any question, you 


haven't mentioned the state, but I think maybe 


they've all figured it out. It's --


 MS. RUIZ: I'm sorry, I'm from New Mexico. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- New Mexico. 


 MS. RUIZ: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MS. RUIZ: Where am I? Yesterday -- well -- 


well, let's see, build a case -- NIOSH Director 


Howard and yesterday Larry Elliott stated to 

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the Board that they do assist SEC petitioners, 


but I have not seen evidence of this to this 


date. The scope of the LANL petition, which I 


filed with several other state legislators -- 


and I'm going to mention their names; it's the 


Speaker of the House Ben Lujan, he also worked 


in Los Alamos I believe from 1956 through 


possibly '68, '70, somewhere in that area, I'm 


-- I'm guessing on that; and also 


Representative Jeannette Wallace, she 


represents Los Alamos, so her constituents -- 


so we figured we would invite Jeannette to be 


on this because it's of big concern to her and 


her constituency, so -- the other legislators. 


And how I did this is in -- I want to cover all 


the workers in the production areas from 1943 


through 1975. 


 The initial NIOSH response on February of '06 


requested that I submit additional -- added 


information to demonstrate the infeasibility of 


reconstructing dose -- I'm sorry, it's late. 


have not had access to health physicists, and 


NIOSH has not assisted me in securing 


historical records to help meet the information 


requirements which are required under the rule. 


I 
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I received a second letter from NIOSH on May 


26th, '06 asserting deficiencies in my 


submissions regarding insufficient dose data on 


the grounds the documents were not categorized 


according to boxes in the SEC forms used by 


NIOSH, even though the records are from DOE's 


1991 tiger team reports and NIOSH's own site 


profile presentations -- it's in their own 


PowerPoints. 


I don't think I need to read these unless you 


would like me to. I have several here that 


were submitted. If you would like me to, I 


can, but the -- I -- I'm very aware of the 


time. Would you like me to, or just go on? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know that it's necessary, 


but you --


 MS. RUIZ: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- could at least provide them to 


us for the record. 


 MS. RUIZ: Well, if I have a clean copy, I 


will. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right. 


 MS. RUIZ: I'm now in the process of making my 


third submission, which is due next week, for 


the time frame of the last letter. This last 

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letter was -- if I don't do it by June 24th I 


believe it will be disqualified, and the reason 


they said that it was not was because my 


attachments and stuff weren't in the right 


boxes. And I just don't think this is a 


friendly way to ask petitioners, especially lay 


people, to submit petitions. There have been 


no phone conversations back and forth. I think 


a phone conversation would have been really 


nice saying you didn't check the right boxes 


and we need maybe a more definite explanation 


to what really was needed. I kind of have an 


idea now so I'll go home and -- and work. 


I was a little bit upset while they were 


identify-- busy identifying the deficiencies in 


my SEC petitions and requiring repeated 


submissions, I understand that NIOSH has, on 


its own motion, qualified a subset of SEC class 


covering the workers exposed to radioactive 


lathium (sic), while my SEC petition lags in 


bureaucratic purgatory and the likelihood of 


its ultimate qualification remains uncertain. 


NIOSH I believe is cherry-picking pieces of a 


class out and I want to know is that fair. 


My husband, Ray Ruiz, who was also a state 

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representative, and before he passed away he 


asked me to finish the job. He was approached 


when he was a state legislator because he 


worked in Los Alamos, died from exposure out 


there, by several people who were sick and came 


to him because they knew he worked there -- at 


that time he wasn't sick -- and asked him to 


champion. He carried two memorials in the 


House to promote getting compensation for the 


workers. The job that he asked me to do is 


this job, to be the voice for the 


disenfranchised workers. They don't have a 


voice. I still have people calling me saying 


I'm disqualified; I don't understand. My 


husband worked in all the sites. He had a Q 


clearance. He had cancer. She had cancer. 


 After hearing testimony for the last two days 


and hearing of all the sites and the 


inadequacies of the record-keeping, the trouble 


finding the correct documentation to qualify 


these people for fair compensation, I'm 


shocked. I -- I guess I just figured it was in 


Los Alamos, and it's -- it's prevalent. 


I -- I think why I'm -- I -- I know I filed an 


SEC simply because of them not paying the 

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claims in New Mexico compared to other states. 


Last May I came to Washington with Jeannette 


Wallace and other people and spoke to the 


Congressional -- all the Congressional people 


from New Mexico, just to see if we could speed 


things along. At that time New Mexico was 


paying the claims at 19 percent. Hanford, 


Washington -- which is the same standard as New 


Mexico -- were paying at 49 percent. That's a 


30 percent disparity for my constituents in the 


state of New Mexico, the injured workers who 


during the Cold War gave of their time -- 


unknowing, none of them knew. And I have --


now I do have some affidavits. I do -- I'm -- 


I'm out there searching. It is a very arduous 


task and I just thank you for your time. I 


know how hard it is to sit there, and if at all 


we could correct any of the oversights, 


possibly, with NIOSH or even speeding up the 


SECs to get compensation to these people 


faster. You know they're dying. The widows ­

- it's usually a widow left -- are dying. The 


children aren't going to pursue this because 


they're raising families. I can feel the pulse 


of the families. I've been there. I've 

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watched the suffering, the pain, the medical 


bills. A lot of these people don't have the 


wherewithal to pay all these medical bills. 


But they're not being compensated in a fairly ­

- a timely manner and I think, knowing my 


husband and the group of workers that he worked 


with, and I would have to say as a whole they 


probably had the same feeling in their hearts 


that maybe I'll get this compensation and my 


family, my wife will be taken care of before I 


pass. And then they pass. Nothing's happened, 


and the wife is left thinking well, what am I 


supposed to do now. So that's why I'm here, 


and I know you hate to hear these sob stories, 


but I am not a health physicist. I am having a 


very hard time digesting all of this stuff. 


But what I'm hearing is -- is prevalent and 


something needs to be speeded up to get the 


claims to the people. And thank you for your 


time. I appreciate it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Harriet. 


Appreciate your being with us today. 


Yesterday we had with us Robert Steffan* 


representing Senator Obama's office, Illinois. 


He could not be with us today, but has asked 

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Dan McKeel if he would read that statement into 


the record. And Dan, if you'd do that at this 

time. 

 DR. MCKEEL: Thank you very much, Chairman 

Ziemer. I -- I should just preface that I'm 


Dan McKeel. I'm a physician. I will be 


talking about the same two sites that Dr. -- 


that Senator Obama's referring to, and I just 


want you to know that he asked me to preface 


this remark by saying that -- and noting that 


yesterday we had two excellent meetings with 


Department of Labor staff and Peter Turcic, and 


also with Larry Elliott from NIOSH and his 


staff, and we are highly encouraging and -- and 


really hopeful that many of the things that the 


Senator remarks about, and ourselves, are being 


addressed. So I -- I want to put that into a 


very positive perspective. 


With that I'll read you a -- a statement from 


U.S. Senator from Illinois Barack Obama. 


 (Reading) Dear Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health. I regret that I am unable to 


appear before you in person today. However, I 


wanted to share with you a few thoughts about 


the former nuclear weapons worker compensation 

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program. I want to thank all of the Board 


members, as well as the good people at the 


various agencies who work every day to help 


former nuclear worker-- weapons workers receive 


the compensation they deserve. 


Having said this, I am concerned that these 


workers are not receiving the assistance they 


need from the government to file their claims. 


I first became aware of these problems when 


dozens of these workers contacted my office 


seeking assistance because they found the 


claims process to be frustrating, confusing and 


sometimes misleading. I know that many efforts 


have been made and continue to be made to 


address these frustrations, yet deep concerns 


remain. 


I am specifically interested in two aspects of 


EEOICPA. First, I am committed to ensuring 


that those Illinois residents who worked on the 


nuclear weapons program and are eligible for 


compensation receive a fair hearing about 


whether the cancer they have today is related 


to the work they did in support of the Cold 


War. My staff is working to help the workers 


from Dow Chemical and General Steel Industries 

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file special exposure SEC petitions. I will do 


whatever I can to ensure their petitions are 


evaluated fairly and through a process in which 


we can all have confidence. I am also working 


to support the Special Exposure Cohort petition 


filed by Blockson Chemical Company in Joliet, 


Illinois. 


Second, I am committed to ensuring that the 


entire program and the process by which former 


nuclear weapons workers are compensated is 


administered in a way that is consistent with 


the Congressional intent in passing EEOICPA. 


As so many of you know, our fellow Americans 


often do not have confidence that their 


government gets things right. Certainly our 


government did not get it right when it 


withheld information from the workers that 


their jobs might impact their health because of 


the lack of adequate safety measures. But our 


government helped right this wrong when it 


passed legislation to compensate these workers. 


Unfortunately the impact of this legislation 


has been minimized by the lack of cooperation 


that these workers have received from the 


government in filing their claims. Despite the 

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best efforts of the Advisory Board members, it 


seems to me that the jury is still out as to 


whether the government is doing everything it 


can to implement EEOICPA. Specifically, this 


lack of cooperation is exemplified by the 


following: The failure to release the ORAU 


report on self-identified SECs; the low number 


of site profiles completed, and the low number 


of worker outreach meetings conducted; the 


failure to even release the name of the 


contractor officer at Battelle in charge of 


conducting dose reconstructions and site 


profiles at the smaller sites; the failure to 


do dose reconstructions at the Dow and General 


Steel sites, relying instead on similar data 


from other sites. 


And I -- now I'm interjecting my own, just to 


put this in -- in perspective. Our sites, 


which have 833 total claims, only 2.99 percent 


and 3.66 percent of those claims have been 


completed at the two sites, so -- so we're 


talking about very low rates of claims 


processing. 


 (Reading) The failure of agencies to provide 


information that would be helpful in preparing 

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SEC petitions, and the failure to provide 


detailed information about the data they used 


to deny claims. 


 Despite my reservations about where we are now, 


I am more concerned with the future direction 


of this program. I'll look forward to working 


with all of you to make sure we're 


expeditiously moving toward a process in which 


all of us can have confidence. I am also open 


to any suggestions that you might have to 


improve this program. I trust that the 


Advisory Board will fairly evaluate the SEC 


petitions filed by the workers at Dow, General 


Steel and Blockson Chemical, and I'll look 


forward to working with you to ensure that 


eligible workers at other Illinois sites 


receive the compensation that they deserve 


under EEOICPA. 


Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Barach 


Obama, United States Senator. 


And if I may, can I give you a copy of this? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Certainly. 


 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) And if you'll be 


so kind as to make copies and distribute those 


(unintelligible). 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And Dan, I think maybe your 


-- some of your personal notes are in here, 


but... 


 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) That's probably a 


bad idea (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: I might withhold those, but -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


my speech (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and you have additional 


comments, I believe, do you? 


 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, sir. That would be fine. 


Okay, so that was from Senator Obama. This is 


-- this is mine. 


And so I'm going to be speaking to you this 


afternoon about these two particular sites in 


Illinois, and we've formed a workgroup to 


promote our SEC petitions which we're preparing 


for the two sites, and we call that the 


Southern Illinois Nuclear Workers. 


As some of you all may remember, I assisted 


with passing the Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street 


SEC petition, and so we're working on similar 


SECs for these two Illinois sites. 


Both of the sites we're interested in are 


currently classified as AWE-only sites, and 

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both -- we're -- we're very certain at this 


point have a paucity of personnel individual 


radiation monitoring data, neither has a site 


profile, and no former worker outreach meetings 


have been held. We've had some informational 


meetings, but no NIOSH-sponsored direct 


meetings. 


 Both sites held contracts with Mallinckrodt and 


the Atomic Energy Commission in the past. At 


GSI the contract was to X-ray uranium-238 


ingots, and at Dow it was to extrude uranium238 metal, really as developmental work for the 


-- for the program. Both sites were remediated 


for residual uranium contamination, and at 


General Steel that was in 1994 by the 


Department of Energy, and Dow was remediated in 


2000 when the Army Corps took over the FUSRAP 


program. 


 What's very interesting and unique and might be 


highly interesting to you folks is that General 


Steel -- and I should interject that the 


official name for this site is Granite City 


Steel, but General Steel was the name of the 


company when it actually did this work, so I'm 


going to -- I'm going to call it that. The 

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industrial radiography sources there included 


two Allis-Chalmers betatron particle 


accelerators which produced 24 to 25 million 


electron vote X-rays. They also had several 


cobalt-60, radium-192 gamma sources, and all of 


these were necessary there because they dealt 


with really massive castings for tanks, 


submarines, nuclear submarines and things like 


that, so they had to have a source that would 


penetrate 15 to 20 inches of steel. 


Dow proces-- and in addition at the Dow site, 


they processed large amounts of thorium and 


beryllium from 1951 probably through at least 


1998. Neither of those metals has been fully 


remediated, to our knowledge, up to this time. 


The uranium was; thorium and beryllium have not 


been. 


What I'm particularly interested in in 


addressing here is -- is timeliness in the 


program and I would say fairness and equity 


with the way it's being administered. John 


Ramspott, who's assisting with the Granite City 


Steel -- General Steel Industries SEC -- he's 


going to talk to you some more about that site, 


and so I'm addressing both sites as a general 

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topic. And I would say that as far as 


timeliness, I just need to point out several 


facts that we were addressing in our meetings 


yesterday. 


One is we sent out an informational letter to 


Mr. Elliott that OCAS received March 31st. We 


sent another letter to Peter Turcic, together 


with a cover letter that was signed by both 


Illinois Senators and by two Illinois 


Congressmen, and in -- both of those were 


letters asking for information we feel is 


absolutely vital to our SECs. And as I said, 


we had terrific meetings yesterday. I think a 


lot of our issues are on the way to being 


solved. But that's a fair statement of where 


we stood yesterday, at least. 


One of the key questions that we posed to NIOSH 


was that our sites, particularly at the -- at 


the General Steel site, out of 427 cases 


they've had 168 cases that have been forwarded 


to NIOSH for dose reconstruction. However --


and I -- of those -- and we're trying to find 


out why this is -- 42 of those have been sent 


to Battelle to be dose reconstructed. But in 


any case, there are four -- there are four 

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cases that have been dose reconstructed, and 


we're trying to find out how that could be in a 


-- in a site in which we have letters from Mr. 


Elliott -- two, in fact, from NIOSH, six months 


apart -- saying that they don't have any 


individual monitoring data. So we're -- we're 


trying to find out what happened with those 


four -- those four cases in particular one. 


 Another thing that I'll just note about the 


process that's disturbing to claimants in 


particular is we have two sources for accessing 


data about claims status. One is at DOL, of 


course, and one is at OCAS. And it's 


interesting that those General Steel cases, on 


the Department of Labor web site this morning, 


show that all four dose reconstructed cases 


have been denied. Whereas yesterday afternoon 


Larry Elliott mentioned to us that his records 


indicate that those four dose reconstructed 


cases have been approved and compensated. So 


it does seem that a fundamental statistic like 


that could be gotten straight between the two 


agencies. 


I will also mention that we have been trying to 


get information from the Department of Energy. 

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The most recent FOIA we submitted February the 


11th. To date we have an interim answer, but 


no final answer. And the next step for us is 


what we'll have to do, we'll have to go and 


file a motion to compel them to provide that -- 


that information in federal court, which I find 


extremely distressing. 


And then I would finally remind the Board that 


last August in St. Louis, my good wife Louise 


sent a letter to the Board and made a public 


comment where she asked for overall EEOICPA 


cost data, and -- and that data was promised to 


her with a comment that it probably may not be 


too hard to get that from public sources. But 


in any case, we are here in June in Washington. 


We still haven't gotten that information. And 


we're still interested in it. 


As far as fairness and equity, I -- I think I ­

- I need to talk about these two small sites 


and how they're being treated versus the large 


DOE sites that are the focus of the attention 


in the first five years of this program. As --


as you all probably well know, these are two -- 


two of the sites that are being handled by 


Battelle under a one-year contract with NIOSH 

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that began last October. I -- I would say that 


as a general thing, from what I know about the 


Battelle sites, that these are all sites that 


differ in the way they've been handled from the 


large sites. Very few have site profiles, 


Technical Information Bulletins. Very few have 


filed SECs and had them qualified, and they've 


had far fewer worker outreach meetings. Many 


of these sites that I know about probably have 


very little, if any, monitoring data and they ­

- they're therefore really prime candidates for 


becoming Special Exposure Cohort centers. 


 One example, for example, is the Texas City 


plant in -- in Texas, which is one of the 11 


sites that extracted uranium from phosphate 


rock, just like they did in -- at Blockson. 


And the AE-- under an AEC contract. And I was 


asked to go down there and to make an interview 


at KHOU-TV about the general program, but also 


to meet with these people. And that -- that's 


a center where I think they've had about 108 


claims by now, and all -- all of the claims 


that have been processed have been denied. But 


I was only there about an hour and a half 


visiting with them directly, and one of the 

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things I found that will absolutely impact that 


site is the -- the AEC, when they set up that 


operation, they built a building for them that 


the workers called the recovery building. And 


although the period that's covered under this 


Act for those workers is '52 to '56, every 


single person I talked to in that room said oh, 


yeah, the recovery building was there through 


at least 1977. And I said well, did -- did you 


use it? And they said oh, man, said yes, we -- 


you know, the active extraction was not used, 


but it was not remediated and it was used for 


storage and people were in and out of that 


building all the time. So here's a situation 


where the -- the -- the era of severe, 


probably, residual contamination -- it -- the 


building was in use. So that -- that's the 


kind of fact that needs to be added to the 


dossier of these two small sites. 


 Again, none of these men wore badges, so they 


couldn't have any individual radiation 


monitoring data. 


So one of the things that we took up at our 


meeting was who can actually change the dates 


of coverage under EEOICPA, and I think we did 

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find that out, that the Department of Labor can 


do that for us. 


But what I want to point out is, these -- these 


are sites that have -- have no data. They 


could be self-identified, you know, SEC sites. 


And -- and we're very interested in finding out 


will they be on tha-- on such a list. And I 


simply point out that, as Mr. Elliott said 


yesterday, there've been five sites now that 


have been identified, basically flagged by 


NIOSH and have had expedited SEC petitions 


under Section 83.14 of 42 CFR 83. 


I -- I would note that that -- the original 


Act, as I read it, really doesn't allow for 


this type of discriminatory treatment between 


the AWE and DOE small and large sites. In my 


opinion, every claimant from an AWE-only small 


site deserves to be treated the same as any 


claimant from a large DOE site, and I -- I 


would just say that although I found the idea 


initially attractive, this idea that the -- the 


position that the Board takes, and NIOSH I 


think, that they will address large site 


profiles -- site profiles first and SEC 


petitions from large DOE sites first is -- is 

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probably not -- not fair and it doesn't seem to 


be equal treatment of the sites. 


We have a site classification issue that's 


really related to the fate of claims from these 


two small sites. And as I said, although now 


both sites are classified as AWE-only, in the 


first two listings in the Federal Register from 


Department of Energy, they were both listed as 


-- and I'm quoting now -- AWE/DOE sites. So 


something's happened between then and now that 


their classification has been changed. Well, 


there is a slight window where the -- where the 


General Steel site might be classified as DOE 


during a five-day cleanup period in 1993. But 


with that exception, they -- they don't qualify 


as DOE sites. 


Well, is this important? Yes, it is because 


workers and -- and survivor claimants are not 


now eligible for Title E benefits since the DOE 


classification has been removed. 


Interestingly, however, there are 64 claims 


from Granite City Steel and 16 cases from Dow 


that have been -- have been or are being 


processed under Title E. So the workers are 


very confused by this. This action raises 

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unrealistic expectations among them. And to 


me, it's quite wasteful of agency and taxpayer 


resources. Beyond that, the lack of DOE site 


status deprives the former Dow workers of the 


DOE screening and medical treatment benefits 


for beryllium sensitivity and chronic beryllium 


lung disease. 


 The Madison site processed large quantities of 


both metals, beryllium and thorium, during the 


time that -- that Dow operated the plant in 


1951 to 1974. Thorium we know was processed 


thereafter by subsequent corporate owners, 


which were Consolidated Aluminum, Phelps Dodge 


and -- and more recently the Spectralite 


Consortium. And again, that was at least 


through 1998. 


 Dr. Laurence Fuortes, who presented the Ames 


petition today, has graciously examined six of 


our Madison site workers. They're all nonsmokers. They all have progressive 


interstitial lung disease, and he -- he's 


convinced that this is occupational exposure. 


It could be beryllium, it could be thorium, it 


could be something else that was used there. 


They used lots of metallic alloys. And as we 

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heard today, thoron gas from that thorium work 


could certainly have led to this chronic lung 


disease. So there -- the thorium also -- they 


worked with it, they extruded it, they ground 


it, they did a lot of things that released 


thorium dust into the air, so there were also 


particulate thorium. And right now they have 


to travel to Iowa, whereas if they were a DOE 


site they would of course be eligible for the 


DOE screening on-site programs. And we do have 


increasing evidence that supports the original 


site classification for both of those sites as 


DOE and AWE sites. 


We do need to find out, and that's our job and 


we can certainly use some help. We need to 


know whether the thorium work was an AEC effort 


that was connected with the nuclear weapons 


program, and so that's one of the things we're 


trying to find out from the Department of 


Energy. 


I would also note that I think Dow was 


certainly overlooked when the list of original 


beryllium vendor sites was made, and according 


to what I've learned, they used enormous 


quantities of beryllium. We cannot now get 

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them qualified as a site because the deadline's 


passed, and that's a place where probably there 


needs to be a legislative remedy to correct 


that -- that thing. 


And I've just got a little bit more and I 


appreciate your -- your -- your attention. I 


want to talk just for a moment about the claims 


denial issue, and I'd just point out that as a 


broad -- very broad generalization, more than 


half of all the claims submitted under Title B 


are denied, and it is crucial, I think, for the 


Department of Labor to start accounting in 


greater -- much greater detail for the 


underlying reasons behind denials on a regular 


basis. 


 I'm sorry. 


(Pause) 


I really don't -- I -- I think that's something 


that they could take as a step. I -- I do 


think the Act should certainly specify that 


that kind of detail breakdown of denials should 


be a -- a -- a required thing to be done. And 


this is one of the issues that we addressed 


with Pete Turcic, and I'm not sure whether 


we'll make progress on that one, but we made 

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351 

the request. 


And then finally, the last thing I wanted to 


say was just a couple of sentences because I 


was struck today -- there were at least two 


incidences where you all talked about needing, 


among the agencies, access to a database where 


-- where identi-- patient identifiers or worker 


identifiers needed to be coupled to a non-


identified database, and that this could -- 


with some great effort, I'm sure -- be 


accomplished under -- by and among yourselves. 


And that's noble. That's great. But going 


back to the theme of -- of access and equity 


and fairness, the petitioners do not have 


access to that data, and I've -- I've seen 


references and certainly hear many references 


to the information on the O drive. Now I 


understand that some of that is protected by 


the Privacy Act and -- but I also know that you 


all have ready access to all of that data. And 


in fact I'd note that the Department of Labor 


published a bulletin, 0218, so back in 2002, 


called "Use of the (unintelligible) Database", 


and I'm well aware that you all can sign into 


that over the internet and use that data. 

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However, I would point out -- I've done it 


before -- that the public really hasn't any 


access to that data. And in particular, SEC 


applicants have no access to that data. So my 


solution to that would be -- you know, I 


understand that some data is protected by the 


Private -- Privacy Act on the O drive, but it 


should be easy to -- not easy, but it should be 


possible to partition that away from the data 


on the O drive that is not classified, that 


does not fall under the Privacy Act, but 


basically is documents that you've captured and 


that -- I would say that the SEC petitioners 


need equal access to, as you all do. 


So anyway, I will -- I'll leave that as a 


future hope, and I thank you very much for all 


the hard work you've done. I'm always 


impressed at how methodical and systematic and 


careful this process is, and I -- I do want to 


end on a note that I'm extremely hopeful and 


look forward to addressing you as the SECs move 


along. So... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dan. While you're at 


the mike, I have a feeling that your wife's 


request may have fallen through the cracks, but 

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for clarity, was she requesting information 


about the cost of managing the program versus ­

-


 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, sir. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Not the awards --

 DR. MCKEEL: No -- well, she -- she -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: The awards information -- I guess 

we had an update yesterday. Maybe you --


 DR. MCKEEL: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- were there so you have an idea 


what that is. It's recently passed, for -- for 


both Part B and E, the Labor number I think was 


around $2 billion. 


 MS. MUNN: $2 billion. 


 DR. MCKEEL: Right, and I -- and I -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: But you're asking -- she was 


asking --


 DR. MCKEEL: What I -- what I --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the cost of operating the 


various aspects of the program, in effect? 


 DR. MCKEEL: That's correct, so her letter that 


-- that you all received really was to put all 


that together, so the contract for SC&A, your ­

- the -- the Board's data, but also including 


the cost that Department of Labor -- for 

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administering the program. In other words, the 


overall -- she -- she was interested in -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Do we know -

 DR. MCKEEL: -- what does this overall effort 

cost. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Was there an actual written 

request? 

 DR. MCKEEL: Yes, sir. Uh-huh, which she 

provided to the Board and that was in August of 


2000 -- we still have a copy back home. I 


don't know that I have one with -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Was that sent to me? I hope it 


was sent to (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: I think it was actually given, 


yes, sir, I think so. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MCKEEL: And as -- and as a follow-up, I -- 


you know, NIOSH -- we were contacted once by e-


mail and told by NIOSH that that -- some of 


that information was on the way. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. If that -- if it came to 


me, I dropped the ball on it. I -- I 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MCKEEL: Well, I'm not really trying to say 


it that --

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 DR. ZIEMER: No, no --


 DR. MCKEEL: -- but it was an honest --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- those were my words. I was --


 DR. MCKEEL: But you know Louise, she doesn't ­

- she speaks -- you know, it was a sincere 


request. She's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I understand, and -- 


 DR. MCKEEL: -- really interested in it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we want to try to accommodate 


that as -- Stu, did -- have you seen that 


letter? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) (on microphone) but we do have 


it. We do have it in writing and we know we 


resp-- I thought we had responded and so I'll 


have to find (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe you can track that down. 


don't know if we have access to the Labor part 


of this, but --


 MR. HINNEFELD: Our -- exactly, that -- I think 


our interim response was we can provide 


everything that's in our control. You know, 


the Board costs, SC&A costs, our costs, ORAU 


costs. I don't know that we can get Labor 


costs or DOE costs, which I think were also 


I 
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requested, but I'll find out. I'll find out 


what -- what -- the part we can provide 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's track it down. Thank you. 


We also have to be read into the record another 


statement, Congressional statement. Is -- is 


Jason -- are you still here? Yes. So he will 


identify this particular statement and -- and 


read it into the record, as well. 


 MR. BROEHM: Yes, I've been in touch this week 


with Bret Rumbeck* from Senator Schumer's 


office. He was very much trying to get the 


Senator here himself, but he had a very busy 


schedule and was unable to make it. Bret 


himself was unable to make it and asked me to 


read this statement -- written statement from 


Senator Charles Schumer from New York into the 


record. 


 (Reading) Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing 


me to submit testimony to the Board regarding 


Bethlehem Steel. Thousands of New Yorkers 


labored during the late 1940s and early 1950s 


in ultra-hazardous conditions at Department of 


Energy and contractor facilities, while being 


unaware of the health risks. Workers at these 

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facilities handled high levels of radioactive 


materials, and were responsible for helping to 


create the huge nuclear arsenal that served as 


a deterrent to the Soviet Union during the Cold 


War. 


Although government scientists knew of the 


dangers posed by the radiation, workers were 


given little or no protection, and today many 


have been diagnosed with diseases like cancer 


that are likely linked to the work they did at 


these nuclear facilities. Despite having one 


of the greatest concentrations of facilities 


involved in nuclear weapons production-related 


activities in the nation, western New York 


continues to be severely under-served by the 


Energy Employees Occupational Illness 


Compensation Program Act. 


As I stated to you in my letter on January 


19th, 2006, I was opposed to the Board's motion 


that, based on the current information on the 


Bethlehem Steel site profile, the profile was, 


quote, acceptable for use in the NIOSH dose 


reconstruction program, unquote. While I'm 


happy to hear that NIOSH and Sanford Cohen & 


Associates have come to agreement on five of 

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the six discrepancies, and continues to work 


with Ed Walker on the final outstanding issue, 


I'm still very concerned that the January 


decision denies compensation to the great 


majority of potentially-deserving former 


Bethlehem Steel workers. 42 CFR Chapter 1 


Subpart A Section 82.2 lays out the basic 


principles for dose reconstruction, stating, 


quote, dose reconstruction is to characterize 


the radiation environments to which workers 


were exposed, and then to place each worker in 


time and space within this exposure 


environment, unquote. However, the Board 


approved and NIOSH is currently using 


information which is not put -- does not put -- 


does not at all put the former Bethlehem works 


in their correct working environments, but an 


entirely different plant, with different data 


and information. 


When the Board recommended Linde Ceramics to be 


approved for a Special Exposure Cohort, the 


decision was based on the lack of sufficient 


information to estimate the radiation claimants 


may have been exposed -- may have been exposed 


while working in the plant, and the Board 

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specifically cited 42 CFR Chapter 1 Subpart C 


Section 83.6 to back up their decision. 
I 


encourage the Board to also use this section to 


grant a Special Exposure Cohort to the workers 


of Bethlehem Steel. 


Mr. Chairman, I ask you, can an accurate dose 


reconstruction model be built using only 


information and data from Bethlehem Steel? If 


not, then the Board and NIOSH need complete -- 


need completely overhaul the current Bethlehem 


Steel site profile using the existing Bethlehem 


Steel data and not records and data from 


another plant. 


I would also encourage the Board and NIOSH to 


work with Ed Walker and the Bethlehem Steel 


Action Group so they can apply for a Special 


Exposure Cohort. It is unconscionable to 


continue delaying compensation to these Cold 


War heroes and their survivors, and unfair to 


put the burden of proving a cancer-related 


illness on workers and their surviving 


families. 


On July 27th 2005 Senator Clinton and I, along 


with our colleagues in the House of 


Representatives, introduced S-1506, which would 

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amend the Employee -- the Energy Employees 


Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act 


of 2000 to include certain former nuclear 


weapons program workers in the Special Exposure 


Cohort under the Energy Employees Occupational 


Illness Compensation Program. Our bill would 


correct years of injustice for western New 


York's nuclear workers. After the sacrifice 


these Cold War heroes made for our country, 


they have waited far too long. Being added to 


a cohort means that these former employees do 


not have to go through a dose reconstruction 


process. Instead, if a person has an eligible 


cancer and worked at a facility when weapons 


work was performed, their cancer is presumed to 


have been caused by a workplace exposure and 


the person's claim is paid. This bill would 


finally put the former workers on the path to 


getting the recognition and compensation they 


deserve. And this is how we should correct 


this wrongdoing, not by endless bureaucratic 


red tape. 


Again, I thank the Chairman and the Board 


members for allowing me to submit testimony on 


behalf of the former nuclear workers in New 

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York. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We have someone here I 


believe still from Congressman Udall's staff -- 


Michelle -- is Michelle still here? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) I think he's 


going to go see. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure of her last name. 


I'm trying to read it and... Oh, Michelle is 


here, okay. Did -- did you have an additional 


comment, Michelle? 


UNIDENTIFIED: You know, I think that my boss, 


Congressman Udall, covered most of what I would 


have presented in his absence. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think that's a super comment to 


make. 


UNIDENTIFIED: I do want to say this. As 


Congressman Udall's state director who works 


face to face with a lot of these constituents, 


primarily the Los Alamos Lab claimants, we do 


have a family that -- a number of families that 


are trying to get their hands on the bioassay 


database information for their loved one. 


They've never seen it. It's information that 


was sent directly from the Lab to NIOSH. We 


were told that they needed FOIA requests to get 

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that information. I have a family that 


requested this I believe it was at the end of 


February. No response. So I'm just putting a 


bug in your ear that I think that we can do -- 


there's a real opportunity for improvement to 


get the information in their hands. It's 


information that belongs to them. It's the 


only thing I would add that he didn't cover. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. And thanks for your good 


work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Let's see, Dr. Fuortes, 


did you have additional comments? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) He's gone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, he -- he did speak to 


us yesterday and it wasn't clear to me if this 


was part of yesterday's list or if he signed up 


again. 


 John Ramspott -- John's the individual that Dr. 


McKeel referred to. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: Thank you very much. My name's 


John Ramspott. I'm helping the claimants, one 


of them happening to be my father-in-law, at 


the General Steel castings plant. I recently 


sent the Board and numerous others a 400-page 

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workbook -- and I promise I'm not going to 


review the whole book tonight. I'm going to 


let you guys get out of here. But -- and I am 


definitely open to any comments, criticisms, 


anything. 


The intent of that workbook was to fulfill a 


promise I had made last August to this same 


Board, obviously with new members which I 


haven't met yet but I look forward to, and that 


was to find out what actually went on at that 


plant and report back to you, as best I could, 


with a document that I could actually say came 


from the workers. I know in the cleanup report 


it said there's nobody left. I have a database 


of 250 people, who'd be glad to talk to anyone 


from any organization, that worked there. 


Many of them are ill. They're looking for 


hope. They still have faith that the program 


will work. And Dr. McKeel indicated yesterday 


we did have some great meetings with both NIOSH 


and with DOL. There's some things that are 


going to happen that really I think will help 


finding out about Battelle, which is looking at 


that site. Mr. Elliott has offered to let me 


get one of my workbooks sent to him and he'd 

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get it to Battelle, 'cause I went to pay them 


the same professional courtesy that I did 


everyone else. And if I missed anybody that 


really needed that information, I'd be glad to 


do it. All they have to do is contact me. 


I'll be here again tomorrow. 


But the whole idea was sincere in trying to 


help you folks. I've got 30 years experience 


in a business just like you guys have in this. 


It's not easy getting 40, 50-year-old 


information. Somebody had to do it so I 


decided to do it. A lot of the claimants that 


I'm helping, they have no idea how to get this 


stuff. So I'll give it to anybody that can use 


it to help these folks. 


There are just a couple of real quick things, 


if I may. In watching the program, I admire 


everyone that has been involved in doing their 


presentations because I've been following the 


program for about a year and a half now 'cause 


I started going to the Mallinckrodt meetings to 


watch and tried not to waste people's time and 


get them what I think they could really use. 


One of the things that's in the workbook that 


I'd like to just call special attention to were 

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various sources. 


 The federal documents all say uranium-238 and 


they did inspection on it with an X-ray. 


Wasn't just an X-ray. It was a betatron. It 


was a particle accelerator. And with the 


encouragement of a lot of people and with the 


help -- there -- there are a lot of documents 


on the internet that tell you what happens when 


a particle accelerator hits something with 24 


or 25 million volts. It gets real interesting. 


I've paid for documents. I've actually gotten 


information off the health physicists' question 


and answer web site, which is unbelievable. 


They -- you know, a common person like myself ­

- I know some people said they couldn't find 


information. They actually give it to you over 


the internet. It's unbelievable. There's 


people from Duke University that are quoted. 


You know, I went to the University of Missouri, 


majored in business. I don't know anything 


about physics. And you can open my book, I 


definitely have a disclaimer in there -- please 


add any information you can, ask me to delete 


anything that's wrong. So I appreciate that 


information that -- the sources that are there, 

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and one of them's a real bell-ringer. 


(Unintelligible) the easy ones. Cobalt, we 


knew about that, we mentioned that last August 


meeting. Iridium-192, we mentioned that. A 


KVP machine, that's a little machine. Three 


weeks ago I met a man got, you know, hit by it. 


He remembered the day. It was the day before 


John F. Kennedy was shot. He was home from the 


hospital. He's got a pretty good memory. He's 


going to help us. 


 Now the betatrons are a little different deal, 


though. When you take X-rays of ingots of 238 


-- I asked the question myself, wow, I wonder 


what the heck it does to that. Well, there's a 


term that came out -- and I really will need 


some help -- activation. I'd like to know 


exactly what happens to metal when it's hit 


with a 24, 25 million volt betatron. I've read 


what it says it does, and it came from good 


sources. Los Alamos -- they got a nice 200­

page book, it's on the web, that tells you 


exactly what happens when you do that, 


especially with something over 10 million 


volts. It gets real interesting, so I think 


that should be a source -- a whole new source. 

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 The other thing that gets interesting -- when 


you do this to uranium, now that's just regular 


metal. Activation apparently can happen on 


anything. I'd really like to know what it does 


to that uranium, though, because now I talked 


to a man that told me what they did with the 


uranium when it was at the plants. 


They put it in a metal car, they brought it in. 


They took the so-called picture, but they took 


four pictures of it. Apparently it won't 


penetrate on one shot. They had to rotate the 


ingot, shoot it a quarter, shoot it a quarter, 


go in -- everything's manual -- go in, rotate 


it, and then shoot the other quarters. And 


each time they shoot a quarter, they got to 


move the camera. That's what they call it in 


the report, camera -- that's definitely not a ­

- a little camera. 


 Now there's one little thing that's missing, 


though, and that's why I'm -- ask some people 


to review the site again, and that's why the 


site profile and outreach meeting was really 


important. It came in on a company-owned metal 


car. Railroad wasn't going to let them bring 


it in. They had to use their own company cars. 

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That's what they used in the steel plant. Any 


steel plant has them. They beat them up, they 


bang them up. 


Guess what was missing when they did the 


cleanup? The cars. Those cars went in every 


part of that plant. They used it for everyday 


work. Now they found residual in the tracks. 


U-238 residual was cleaned up in those railroad 


tracks. I wonder what was on the car. I think 


I can guess. 


So I really would appreciate your help, your 


consideration. There's new sources. I think 


claims have maybe been denied and maybe ought 


to get reopened. You know, this is an 


individual talking, but if they all got judged 


on one uranium ingot, and it wasn't just one -- 


you know, the web site from FUSRAP's great. It 


gives you a copy of the purchase orders. 


That's in that book I sent you. When you see a 


bill for $2,800 for X-rays and they cost a buck 


apiece, that's a lot of metal. 


So that's just part of my comments. I 


appreciate your help. Mr. Elliott's helping 


us. Mr. Turcic's helping us. We're even 


getting the names changed, I think. They're 

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going to call it the real thing, because that 


keeps people from even filing a claim. Most of 


these claimants -- they don't use the internet, 


and if they use the internet they have to hit 


four hyperlinks -- they'd have to look at 


Granite City Steel first, and Granite City 


Steel's like calling a -- I think I -- I was 


telling Mr. Elliott, it's like saying NIOSH is 


the post office. They're two totally different 


things. They're government agencies, but 


they're two totally different things. These 


two plants were two totally different places. 


So if you heard about a program like this -- 


and we had it happen at one meeting, it's a 


heartbreaker. A guy comes in and he's sick. 


He worked at Granite City Steel and you've got 


to tell him you're out of luck, this is for 


General Steel. I don't want to do that again, 


so I'm asking for your help. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good. Thank you. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: Thank you. Appreciate it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think all the Board members did 


receive the -- the volume. You certainly put a 


lot of work into that. We thank you for -- for 


what you've done. 

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MR. RAMSPOTT: You're welcome. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I have Christine Ramspott, 


also. Is Christine also speaking? 


MR. RAMSPOTT: Who? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Someone wrote Christine Ramspott, 


I --


MR. RAMSPOTT: (Off microphone) Oh, yeah 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: It sounds like a relative to me. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: (Off microphone) My wife asked 


me to read a letter for her (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, you'd better not forget 


that. 


MR. RAMSPOTT: And it was my wife's dad, so 


this -- this letter's from her. She addressed 


the Board last August, as well, and there's a 


couple of issues and one of them I think's 


being addressed now, but I'm going to read her 


letter. 


(Reading) Dear sirs and madams. On August 2005 


I made public comment before this Board 


regarding two main issues for my father's 


workplace, General Steel Industries, also known 


as Granite City Steel -- under the program -- 


one of the covered sites under the EEOICP Act. 

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These issues are still unresolved as far as I 


know, and I'm seeking guidance in these 


matters. Perhaps these are not the most 


pressing problems which face the Board, but 


these are issues which seem to me are 


administrative adjustments which could be made 


fairly easily, or perhaps not. 


As a teacher for over 33 years I have learned 


to become a problem-solver and helper for my 


students. In my current role as unofficial -- 


really unofficial assistant to some elderly 


claimants who don't have any knowledge 


whatsoever of computers, the internet, how to 


fill out forms properly or even where to begin 


when faced with the most minor obstacles, I 


find it frustrating to try to explain to them 


why the Social Security report which they 


receive states that their loved one didn't work 


in Granite City, Illinois, where they lived all 


their lives, but they worked in Pennsylvania. 


The issue concerns the fact that General Steel 


Industries and National Roll of Avimore*, 


Pennsylvania, a division of General Steel 


Industries, seem to both share the same EIN, 


Employee (sic) Identification Number. As I've 

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been told, both companies are now out of 


business -- actually one of them's had a name 


changed, actually bought by somebody else, and 


that's not unusual in the steel industry. Or 


to whom -- what government agency do I address 


this concern? It now delays claims greatly and 


confuses and frustrates the claimants, who 


sometimes stop at the application process. 


There's two parts of this. First off is we 


call them Granite City Steel, and it isn't. 


And then when your Social Security verification 


of employment comes back, it says you didn't 


work at either one of those, says you worked at 


National Roll. How two companies have the same 


EIN -- I'm not real sure how that happens. 


That -- somebody's got to fix that 'cause it 


confuses everybody. I mean not just the 


claimants, but anybody handling a claim. 


I might want to add, anybody that we've talked 


to that's handling claims, polite, nice, easy 


to deal with. Social Security people good to 


deal with. But it doesn't get changed. 


 Secondly, there's still a problem of letting 


the general public for this site know that a 


claim under this program might be their right. 

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I personally find it very sad and unfair when 


meeting a persons like Agnes. Agnes is a widow 


for over 25 years, her husband dying of cancer 


at a young age. Agnes was left to raise five 


children on her own. She did a fine job. 


She's still working at age 76. Her husband 


worked at General Steel Industries, and she has 


filed a claim. The receipt of this monies -- 


she says she's going to retire. She's 


deserving. It is only by happenstance that 


she's learned of the program and my husband 


shared the program information with her when he 


was doing research about the site. She would 


never have known that Granite City Steel, which 


was doing -- or which was a competing steel 


company just across town from General Steel 


Industries -- actually was the name under which 


former employees of GSI or their families must 


search to find information about the program. 


General Steel had more than 3,500 employees for 


many years. This highly confusing 


circumstance, the misnaming of companies, does 


not only affect GSI employees but the employees 


of many other approved sites throughout the 


country with multiple names. 

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It is shameful that many of these Cold War 


veterans don't even know the program exists. 


How can that be remedied? 


 In conclusion, I'd like to remind the Board 


that I asked a question last August, quote, 


What happened to my daddy? After more than a 


year's research with my husband and others, I 


feel that I know. I'm sure that you can see, 


too, from the 400-page book which was sent to 


you. I'm asking for your help in streamlining 


the program and aiding these most deserving 


families. 


Thank you. Any assistance would be 


appreciated. Sincerely, Christine Ramspott. 


So thank you very much for both of us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, next, Adrian 


Beard. Adrian. 


MR. BEARD: My name is Adrian Beard. I am a 


teacher of incarcerated youths in Prince 


Georges County in Maryland, and I'm not 


accustomed to being before a committee or 


commission like you. Give me a room full of 


carjackers and gang leaders, I'm okay. So --


 DR. ZIEMER: Close enough. Close enough. 


 MS. MUNN: You've come to the right place. 

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MR. BEARD: My father's Alec Owens. From 1953 


to 1980 he worked at the Nevada Test Site. He 


died in September of 2002. Before he died he 


filed a claim, and my sister, after his death, 


inquired about his claim. And we've been 


trying to get it resolved ever since then. 


July 22nd we received information from NIOSH 


and it indicated that they had verified his 


employment. They also indicated that they had 


also verified the ailment that he had died 


from, the particular cancer that would be -- 


and it was related to abnormal dose of 


radiation. They also indicated that they were 


now pushing it towards a health physicist who 


would proceed to resolve it at this last stage. 


Now that was in July of 2005. Right -- I 


received a communication in January 2006. It 


was identical to the letter that I got a year 


before. So I guess my family's concern, my 


concern, is since both letters validate that my 


father's employment was at the Nevada Test 


Site, the medical data in both of the documents 


indicate that the cancer that's responsible for 


his death was consistent with abnormal dose of 


radiation, and all the data that I've heard 

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here and the personal testimony that I've heard 


from other families and members of those 


families and the statements that I've heard 


from Congressional leaders and -- and I'm 


really getting educated here, more than I ever 


thought I would be -- indicates that this is a 


repeated problem. And I'm trying to bring the 


-- the real seriousness of our concern that we 


get some resolution and not have a whole year 


of -- of not knowing the status or any reply or 


any indication of what is going to happen or 


not going to happen. 


I notice that the Nevada Test Site has 


something like over a 62 percent completion 


rate, and that doesn't seem to jive with what 


has happened with me when I tried to 


communicate. 


I'm also very much impressed with the report of 


I think Mrs. -- is it Mrs. Behling -- relative 


to the discrepancies and the difficulty 


relative to information being transmitted to 


those claimants and their families. And I 


found that very interesting. 


I also was asked by a number of other families 


relative to the data of minority claimants, how 

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many had filed, how many have been processed, 


how many have been compensated, and I couldn't 


find any data relative to that. And I was 


wondering if that was available somewhere. 


The last thing I wanted to -- to give to you, 


and I'm not going to -- I know your time is 


valuable and I don't want to keep you -- is 


something that I received from my coach. This 


-- it's in the sense of a story or I guess a 


anecdote. He was telling me about a young man 


that he had on his team, and he wasn't a real 


good player, but he had a lot of spunk so he 


put him on there. And the time that -- the day 


that he made the team was the day that he -- 


the young man found out that his father was -- 


was diagnosed with cancer. And so the whole 


time that the young man was playing -- he ended 


up, because of his talent, basically sitting on 


the bench. And the day before the last game 


the young man's father died. And the coach 


really didn't expect to see him show up for the 


game, but he did. Not only did he show up, but 


the coach told me that he really kept begging 


him, intensely begging him to let him get in 


the game just for a few minutes. And the 

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coach, realizing that, you know, what the 


situation with the young man, it was the last 


game, he let him in and was going to take him 


out within a matter of minutes. But what 


happened was the first thing the young man did 


was cause a fumble and -- and captured the 


fumble for his team. Then the next thing he 


did, he intercepted a pass. And he just kept 


going like that. When the game was over with, 


the coach was like what got into you? He says, 


you know, I never seen you play like this. He 


said the young man looked him straight in the 


eye and said Coach, this is the first time that 


my dad will be able to see me play. 


We're kind of in that situation, you know. 


They're watching to see how we're going to play 


this. And I'm just asking you not to let it be 


so difficult for us. I thank you for your 


time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And we do have NIOSH 


case workers here today. I -- perhaps they're 


still there, but if there's information on this 


case, we'll get you to the right person. 


MR. BEARD: I had signed up to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you have an appointment -- 

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MR. BEARD: -- meet with someone tomorrow at 


2:30, but I can do it right now so you don't 


have a --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- no, if you're signed 


up, that's the main thing. We'll make sure 


that you get the information you need, so -- 


MR. BEARD: Okay. And again, I thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Veryl -- and I'm having a hard 


time reading the last name. Am I right -- is 


there a Veryl? Looks like V-e-r-y-l. 


 (No responses) 


No Veryls -- Veryl -- Veryl? Okay. 


Organization looks like it's -- may be DLT or 


DLF. No? 


Okay. I've got one that signed up as Fred, 


that's it. 


 (No responses) 


No one's admitting to being Fred. Okay, might 


have started to sign up and realized he was on 


the wrong sheet. Okay. 


That then completes our public comment session. 


Thank all of you for not only participating but 


being patient to -- to stick out -- stick it 


out to hear everyone. 


We will reconvene again tomorrow morning at 

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8:30, so thank you very much. Good night, and 


we'll see you then. 


 (Whereupon, the day's business was concluded at 


6:15 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

381 

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 15, 


2006; 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 


8th day of July, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102