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-FIFTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


DAY ONE 


ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Doubletree Oak Ridge, 


Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on January 24, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

January 24, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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Y-12 SITE PROFILE – DISCUSSION/PLAN OF ACTION 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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PROCEDURES FOR BOARD EVALUATION OF SEC PETITIONS 

DISCUSSION – PART I 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, ABRWH 

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INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEWS 

(SETS 1,2 AND 3) DISCUSSION/CLOSURE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH 

DR. HANS BEHLING AND MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 96 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 185 
3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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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
 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D. 


Chief Medical Officer 


Occupational and Environmental Health 


Wisconsin Division of Public Health 


Madison, Wisconsin 


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 

 

5 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


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 


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/VENDORS
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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OTHER PARTICIPANTS
 

(in order of appearance) 


MR. JOE FITZGERALD, SC&A 


DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH 


MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 


MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A 


DR. HANS BEHLING, SC&A 

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PUBLIC COMMENT
 

(in order of appearance) 


MR. LARRY JONES 


MS. BARBARA WALTON 


MS. KATHY BATES 


MS. JANET MICHELE 


MS. JONELL BARTON 


MS. DORIS HENLINE 


MS. R.L. AYERS 


MR. GEORGE ELDRIDGE 


MR. GARY FOSTER 


MR. FORREST JOHNSON 


MR. KENNY COOK 


MS. ELIZA ROBINSON 


MR. BOB WARREN 


MS. BEULAH LINDSEY 


MR. ALVIN LINDSEY 


MR. GLENN BELL 


MR. RICHARD MILLER 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(2:15 p.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the 


official opening of the 35th meeting of the 


Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. 


We're pleased to be back here in Oak Ridge, 


Tennessee for this meeting. 


It's perhaps of note that this Board began its 


series of meetings in January of '02, so we 


have just completed four years of meetings and 


are starting year five. And another 


significant thing about that is that most of 


the members of this Board have been members of 


the group since the beginning. I think most of 


those appointments were actually made late in 


the fall of 2001, with the Board convening its 


first meeting in January '02. 


 Actually a couple of members of this Board will 


be rotating off -- I don't know if rotating is 


the right word; I guess retiring. Rotating 


implies they might be coming back. But -- and 


we -- we will recognize them later in the 

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meeting, but we do have with us today three 


individuals who have been recently named by the 


White House as new appointees to this Board, 


and they are -- they will be seated at the 


table at our next meeting in April. Today they 


are still in the capacity of observers and 


learners and I guess members of the public, as 


well. Those individuals are Brad Clawson from 


Idaho National Laboratory -- here's Brad; Jim 


Lockey, Dr. Lockey's at the University of 


Cincinnati Medical Center; and John Poston, 


Professor Poston from Texas A&M University. So 


we're pleased to welcome those three 


individuals to the Board as they will be 


beginning their terms and -- well, one is never 


sure how long a term is. As I've indicated, 


it's been at least four years for those already 


here, but we welcome their participation. 


There also is another individual who has a 


significant position in the overall program, 


and that is a replacement for Dick Toohey. I'm 


going to ask Lew -- Lew, if you would introduce 


the new Project Director for ORAU. 


 DR. WADE: Yes. We do have a new Project 


Director for ORAU -- the principal ORAU 

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contract to NIOSH, and that's Kate Kimpan -- 


Kate is standing in the back of the room. We 


welcome Kate to our activities. We thank Dr. 


Toohey for his contribution, so Kate, we'll be 


calling upon you from time to time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now a few housekeeping items. 


Many of you were here at the earlier session of 


the subcommittee this morning, but in case you 


didn't get this announcement there is a 


registration book or a -- an attendance book 


out in the corridor. And if you haven't 


already done so, we'd like you to register your 


attendance with us here for this meeting. 


 Also, individuals who would like to address the 


assembly as part of the public comment period, 


there is a book out there, as well, for you to 


sign up. That public comment period will be 


late this afternoon after we finish the regular 


scheduled business of the Board. So if -- if 


you're in that category and have not already 


done so, please sign that book, as well. 


 Also I believe we have some NIOSH staff people 


in the hall to assist people who have claim 


issues -- is that correct? We do have some 


folks there. And if you have some specific 

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questions about an individual claim, the Board 


in the public meetings does not deal with the 


claim -- individual claims, but there are NIOSH 


staff people here that can assist you with 


questions that you may have. 


Also on the table near the rear here you'll see 


our many documents and copies of today's 


agenda, so please avail yourselves of those as 


you see fit. 


We have -- on our agenda, Board members, you'll 


notice the approval of the minutes. Without 


objection the Chair is going to defer the 


approval of the minutes until later in the 


meeting, primarily since you do not yet have 


the minutes. But they will be distributed to 


you I guess later this afternoon so that you 


have some -- some bedtime reading for the next 


couple of days, and we will take action on 


those minutes then probably on Thursday 


afternoon. 


 Now the important topic for us to deal with 


here at the beginning of our session today is 


the Y-12 site profile, particularly as it 


pertains to the SEC petition for the Y-12 


petitioners. And we had a discussion this 

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morning from the working group on the Y-12 site 


profile matrix. This afternoon we're going to 


hear in a more formal way from a representative 


of the Board's contractor, from SC&A, and that 


is Joe Fitzgerald. And Joe is going to give us 


an overview of the issue resolutions for the Y12 site profile. 


So Joe, we welcome you back to the mike. 


 DR. WADE: I might make some --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes --


 DR. WADE: -- opening comments on the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and before Joe presents, we do 


need to again clarify conflict of interest 


issues --


 DR. WADE: I'd like to --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on Y-12. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. I'd like to speak 


to two things, conflict of interest issues, and 


then I'd like to put sort of the Y-12 


discussions in sort of a context for you, as 


well, so that if you'd bear with me... 


First of all, on the conflict of interest -- 


you know, if Paul and I remember between the 


two of, at the start of each discussion that 


relates to a particular site, I think we should 

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remind everyone of conflicts that might exist 


on the Board. It's not surprising that a Board 


that is put together to deal with these diverse 


issues would come with some conflicts. As 


people have experience that makes them valuable 


members of the Board, it also presents 


potential conflicts. 


Y-12 SITE PROFILE – DISCUSSION/PLAN OF ACTION
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

We're now going to talk about the Y-12 site 


profile. We have conflicted Board members with 


regard to that topic. They are Roy DeHart, 


Robert Presley, Paul Ziemer and Mark Griffon -- 


Mark only when there are issues pertaining 


directly to the Atomic Trades and Labor 


Council. 


I'd remind you that our policy with regard to 


conflict of interest on site profiles is that 


when discussing a site profile Board members 


who have a conflict may participate in the 


discussion at the table, but cannot make 


motions or vote on motions. So again, everyone 


can remain at the table as we discuss the site 


profile. Should there be -- should we approach 


a motion, a Board member who's conflicted 


cannot make such a motion and a Board member 

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cannot vote -- those conflicted. So hopefully 


that's clear, and we'll -- you'll hear this 


little discourse from me fairly often. 


Let me try and clarify the Y-12 issue for you. 


We're going to talk about the review of the Y12 site profile. That's been an activity 


that's been underway for some time. The Board 


selected Y-12 as one of the first profiles to 


be reviewed by its contractor, SC&A, and we're 


aggressively involved in that review, the 


review of the site profile. 


I probably don't have to remind anyone in this 


room that at an early July meeting this Board 


approved an SEC petition for Y-12. That 


particular petition related to all employees 


that worked in uranium enrichment or other 


radiological activities from 3/43 to 12/47. 


The Secretary of HHS has subsequently acted 


positively on the Board's recommendation. 


There is still an SEC petition pending. That 


is the petition that deals with all 


steamfitters, pipe-fitters, plumbers that 


worked from 10/44 to 12/57. Obviously a 


subclass of that has been dealt with by the 


approved petition, but there is still a class 

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of workers that have not been dealt with in 


terms of the SEC process. It is our intention 


to try and resolve the outstanding technical 


issues regarding the site profile and to bring 


that portion of the SEC that has not been acted 


upon to a vote at the Board meeting scheduled 


for the end of April. 


So again, we're here now to talk about the site 


profile issues related to Y-12. It has a 


certain urgency because we have a pending SEC 


petition -- at least a portion of one -- that 


we would like to bring to a timely resolution. 


So I think that brings you up to speed on where 


we are, and Joe, sorry to take some of your 


time. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: No -- thank you, Lew. I think 


that gives a good background. Again, we're 


starting a process at the issue resolution 


stage. I think those who were at the Knoxville 


meeting may recall we did brief out on the site 


profile itself, but now we're trying to resolve 


the remaining issues that we need to provide 


guidance and technical support to the Board in 


terms of making a decision on SECs. 


I'm getting a flag here to raise this higher. 

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Is that better? Okay. 


Ask the Board's indulgence, I'm going to go 


through those sections we've already covered 


before lunch relatively quickly, not to dwell 


on the status of the matrix again. I'm sure 


you've gotten that. Right? 


 Certainly for the benefit of the audience, this 


is a chronology of the interactions that have ­

- has taken place between the Board, SC&A and 


NIOSH over the past three or four months -- 


frankly since the report was submitted -- and 


again trying to narrow issues, differences, and 


trying to come up with resolutions. We've been 


meeting or conferencing almost on a monthly 


basis, with quite a bit of analysis and data-


gathering in between. So it's been a -- I 


think a pretty robust process and I think the 


workgroup has been certainly highly responsible 


for keeping that thing moving on schedule. 


I'm not going to dwell on this. This is what 


we covered in the working group (sic) before 


lunch. I kind of framed them up a little 


differently, but essentially we've gone through 


the status on the matrix. I'll just skip 


through that, if you don't mind -- unless 

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there's some questions or issues on what I had 


put on those two pages. 


This is another -- what I did was highlighted 


the -- the key issues I thought were of 


importance, either from the SEC standpoint or 


from the site profile standpoint. I think 


clearly the first one is the one we talked 


about quite at length this morning, which is 


the data validity or, as we're characterizing, 


reliability. And again, the importance of this 


is to assure that in fact the information, the 


data that's being used for dose reconstruction, 


can be in fact validated as representative of 


the original data. In this case we spent I 


think some time talking about the various 


sources -- I call them compensatory, because 


essentially if -- I'm not sure -- and Mark, 


correct me -- I'm not sure we've given up the 


ghost, nor has NIOSH, on perhaps some data 


being available in the files, whether in 


Atlanta or someplace else, that might give us a 


better handle on this data. But assuming -- I 


think the guidance was that was proven to be 


not particularly fruitful or practical. 


Assuming that does not work, then certainly 

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from a compensatory standpoint these other 


sources of documentation can serve to provide 


some measure of consistency, some test of 


consistency. And I think that's what we were 


certainly covering this morning. 


And the importance from the SEC standpoint is 


pretty much what we're stating there, which is 


the reliability's essential -- a cornerstone in 


terms of dose reconstruction. 


A second issue, which again we touched on -- I 


kind of phrased it a little differently -- is ­

- certainly in our review of the site profile 


we were concerned that the -- the scope of 


review for the site didn't narrowly or perhaps 


inappropriately consider Y-12 to be a uranium 


plant. Certainly a lot of DOE sites have a 


pretty varied history -- diverse history, and 


in this particular case certainly we were 


cognizant of -- and those who have worked at Y12 certainly are aware of -- the fact that 


there's other activities going on at the plant 


during the history. And certainly on the Oak 


Ridge National Lab side, the X-10 side, there 


were a number of things going on with the 


Cyclotron and Calutron in terms of generating 

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different radioisotopes, handling plutonium. 


So in other words, a number of different 


sources of radiation other than uranium. 


And what we are trying to do there is to focus 


attention on how that may have contributed to 


the overall source term for the plant. And 


certainly the implications are pretty important 


because the -- in this case, since we're 


talking the SEC context, the class of workers 


we're talking about were workers that in fact 


may have traveled throughout the plant, had 


access to a number of different areas. And 


we've interviewed a number of workers and a lot 


of these plant-wide workers, monitored or 


unmonitored, pretty much had free access to 


different areas of the plant. So clearly these 


other sources, these non-uranium sources, 


certainly would play into this. 


I think we talked about the fact that -- you 


know, we were certainly concerned that there 


wasn't any real data -- a database that would 


help us in that regard, and I think NIOSH 


certainly has identified and is making 


available this week a number of pages -- 6,000 


pages, I understand -- of bioassay data coming 

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from this side of -- the X-10 side of the 


plant, which certainly can inform this 


analysis, provides an avenue hopefully where 


one can do some consideration of what coworker 


model might be appropriate. It -- I don't 


think it's a panacea, I guess that's the first 


thing I was going to say. It's not a panacea. 


I think I made the -- make it clear in the 


statement that I think it gets you a lot 


further than where we were before, assuming 


that the data itself is reliable -- that old 


word; you know, it's valid, it's a robust 


database and one that could be applied. 


As I was clarifying earlier, however, there's 


other bins of exposure to these other nuclides, 


and certainly we're concerned about uranium 233 


that might have been handled -- or produced 


elsewhere in the plant. We're concerned about 


recycled uranium that certainly we have 


evidence was handled at the plant. And 


certainly there's other sources of these so-


called other radioactive sources that we want 


to make sure are addressed. And again, the 


significance for a SEC consideration is that 


would enable us to be sure that all the sources 

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were accounted for for this class of worker 


that had free rein in the plant, which includes 


the pipe-fitters and the -- you know, the 


plumbers and what-have-you that we've been 


looking at. 


 We covered this. I'm not going to spend too 


much time on this, but again, I think the job 


functions information that -- that NIOSH has 


been providing has been immensely helpful to 


begin to get a handle on how the distri-- the 


dose distribution is by virtue of different job 


titles and categories. We're finding it 


difficult to accept that the population that's 


being considered is a homogenous population, 


that everybody's in this administrative area, 


that they're all sort of doing the same work 


and the exposure potential's roughly the same. 


Our concern is that certain job categories -- 


we think the exposure potential's actually 


higher than the average. It's sort of a broad 


mean and whether it's a 50th percentile or a 


95th percentile, we think that needs to be 


examined or continue to be examined. We have 


had I think pretty good discussions in the 


working group on this notion of where -- where 

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the data -- where the data itself is taking us. 


And I think that's been probably the most 


useful thing is to actually look at the data 


and determine whether or not the confidence 


level is such that the 50th percentile is 


appropriate or not, or would you want to be 


more conservative -- would you want to perhaps 


carve out certain job categories and handle 


them separate from the body of the workforce. 


That's certainly another possibility, if that's 


possible. 


And I think -- we're moving forward. I think 


it was mentioned before lunch if we can get 


information on departments and other means of 


sorting this out, I think we're going to be in 


better shape. 


You notice I don't talk about as much a SEC 


significance. I think this is a case of just 


trying to come up with the level of 


conservatism appropriate to dose 


reconstruction. So this may not be something 


that will be mainstream for the deliberations 


coming up, but certainly it's very important 


from the dose reconstruction standpoint. 


I want to move to something we didn't -- we 

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touched on but didn't spend very much time on, 


which are some of the actions that certainly 


SC&A came out of the workgroup meeting in the ­

- on the 5th of January on, and essentially 


three items. 


The first item was to go back and again review 


some of the factors that were used in the Table 


5-2 -- and also I guess 5-2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 


8 -- that deal with the parameters on recycled 


uranium. I'm talking about that in a minute. 


The second item was the 147 dose records which 


were used in the regressive analysis. It was a 


analysis done -- it was a statistical analysis. 


And I was just talking to this gentleman before 


-- before we started again, and the issue was, 


you know, if you don't have the records, how do 


you in fact fill in the gaps; how do you 


actually determine, you know, what -- what 


somebody might have gotten. And the process is 


you use a model where you look at coworker 


doses. You look at what -- if you didn't have 


a dose record, were there people that were 


doing the same kind of work in the same time 


period that in fact did have a record and could 


that apply to you as a worker. And so this 

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process of looking at the 147 monitored workers 


gives us a better handle on that particular 


model, whether in fact that model was 


representative. And it allows us to decide is 


that the right approach, the looking backward 


into the '50s where the data's pretty sparse 


using data and information from the '60s. Can 


you do that, is it sound, does the distribution 


work, and does it really apply to the whole 


worker population or not. Can you be that 


general. 


So we're looking at it from the standpoint does 


it -- does it work. Can you in fact use it, 


can you apply it, does the data in the early 


'60s -- is that representative enough of the 


kind of work that was done in the '50s so you 


could take that data and apply it to the '50s. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Joe, let me --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- let me interrupt you a moment 


here while you're on that point. I want to 


make sure that the Board members are aware that 


the comments on January 19th were distributed 


by e-mail to the Board members, so you should 


have those. 

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 MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I'm -- I'm pausing to 


determine whether or not those are available to 


the public, those comments. I think they can 


be made public if they haven't already been. 


Do you know if they have been? 


 MR. FITZGERALD: I certainly have copies and 


would be pleased to put them out. I --


 DR. ZIEMER: We can make them available -- 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I just wanted to make sure that 


we do, so --


 DR. WADE: I don't think so. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: We'll put them on the table. 


 MR. FITZGERALD: And again I would point out 


that we were -- we finished our analysis and 


provided these to NIOSH on Thursday, so clearly 


there hasn't been enough time to really react 


to them. Again, we wanted to get them to NIOSH 


as soon as possible, but not in enough time for 


this meeting. 


The third item was the OTIB-51, mentioned 


before lunch again, which was dealing with how 


the NTA film in the early years -- how it 

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responded to neutrons and how one comes up with 


correction factors so you in fact can come up 


with the dose estimates based on that and 


angular dependence as well. Those comments 


were provided on the 19th, and you have a copy 


of that set of comments. 


I'm not going to -- you -- you have the 


comments, so this is just a summary. Again, 


this is a recommendation -- actually I think 


was made as early as some of the past three 


reviews that Hans and Kathy worked on, so this 


is not a new issue but certainly an issue that 


has come up in this site profile. And again, 


having raised this issue on other site 


profiles, I think this is a very fundamental 


step forward to actually have this OTIB contain 


this information and provide these factors. 


The issues that we have, though, get down to -- 


the approach is sound, but we'd like to see 


this analysis run for energies beyond 700 keV. 


I think 700 keV certainly is one benchmark, but 


we think 800 and 900 offer other benchmarks, 


might be appropriate to have additional curves 


provided on that. 


Again, a sort of a -- I guess I would consider 

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this sort of a loose-end issue. We noticed the 


chem operators were very appropriately 


considered in the analysis but not cited in 


method two, which was another part of the 


analysis. I'm not sure this was an oversight 


or something that was intentional, but 


certainly would like to find out about that. 


And again, the OTIB did not necessarily address 


some of the issues that we had relative to 


neutron flux below the NTA threshold, that in 


fact in some parts of the plant we're concerned 


about whether those thermal neutrons -- 


energies that certainly ought to be addressed 


and considered and that was not necessarily 


addressed in the scope. Again, the site-wide 


worker who might have been exposed to the 


(unintelligible) neutron sources is another 


consideration that's specific to Y-12, 


actually. 


 Again, I think these were more or less very 


specific technical comments. I think 


generally, though, we're supportive of the 


approach that was provided in the OTIB. Again, 


you have those specific comments that were 


transmitted last week. 

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The second item was to revisit the tables in 


the Technical Basis Document for Y-12 that 


dealt with the recycled uranium. Our concern 


was really one of could you in fact come up 


with the facility-specific, time-specific, 


campaign-specific ratios that might provide a 


very representative way of calculating some of 


these ratios and conversion factors. And most 


of our comments really revolve around whether 


one can be very generic or is it possible, 


given the data you have, that you could 


actually be a little bit more specific. And --


and if somebody were involved in a particular 


operation at Y-12, whether the ratio for 


recycled uranium might be different for that 


individual versus the general population. 


So again, we're not sure about whether the data 


would support that, but we're just saying that 


certainly this question of, you know, can you 


be that generic over that length of time over 


this big a plant, or is there any way you can 


narrow that down to be a bit more tailored 


through operations and particular processes. 


It's an open question but we thought, again, it 


would be important to raise that. 

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And again, it's -- those are the two action 


items. 


This is a wrap-up that we've already covered so 


I certainly don't want to put you through that. 


The only thing I would say, and I would -- 


again, it's this last item -- whether badging 


was based on maximum exposed workers. I 


mentioned earlier that we're beginning to go 


through the expanded CER database through '65. 


And again, we haven't seen the 147 dose 


records, but we -- we still think that the 


numbers -- not necessarily the very high 


numbers, above 1,000 millirem a year -- I mean, 


I'm -- 1,000 millirem per quarter, but some of 


the lower numbers just below that seem to 


suggest that, you know, we're dealing with some 


group of -- group of workers that could 


arguably not necessarily be maximally exposed 


in the early period. And the juncture point 


that we particularly focused on was the pre-


criticality/post-criticality, trying to see 


what the difference in the numbers would 


suggest, and we see some appreciable 


differences in those numbers. 


We don't think we settled on any conclusions. 

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We just are continually looking at this data 


and seeing what the data tells us. But 


certainly it raises some questions as to 


whether there might be some -- some worker 


group, sub-group, that might not be in fact the 


maximally exposed that were not badged, or in 


fact there was some cohort badging in certain 


activities. 


And this is not -- this is sort of a similar 


issue we went through and was mentioned by Mark 


this morning relative to this notion of 


bioassay -- I guess that's (unintelligible) 


interviewed Mr. Preston -- Presley, and the 


issue was, you know, can you in fact assure 


yourself that this is not a department-wide 


sampling, random sampling on a department-wide 


basis. Again, I think we're not convinced in 


some of these -- these areas. 


And we covered this and this is sort of a 


vantage -- from our vantage point, this is very 


consistent with I think what was mentioned 


today in terms of where we go from here. 


Again, I think we're -- our focus is pretty 


much going to be on the reliability, robustness 


and applicability of the 6,000 pages, the X-10 

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data. We're certainly going to be planning on 


plowing into that along with NIOSH and see what 


that data would tell us on this question of 


other nuclides; to look at the issue of in fact 


whether U-233, radon, some of these other 


nuclides elsewhere in the plant would be in 


fact significant to be able to answer that 


question; to in fact corroborate the 


reliability of the electronic database which 


was mentioned I think in detail a little 


earlier. And this issue of coworker models I 


think, again, we need to be very clear whether 


in fact the basis for those coworker models and 


the maximally exposed individuals can be 


established. 


Now everything else in our view I think is very 


clearly appropriate for a site profile. I 


think Dr. Ziemer mentioned that we had over 100 


findings in this review of the site profile, 


very detailed review. But a lot of these were 


technical issues, factual accuracy issues, ones 


that probably and most likely will not bear on 


the SEC determination, but nonetheless we're 


not going to lose them. We're going to be 


working on those, as well. But those will 

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certainly be a second priority compared with 


the others. 


I think that's it. Is there any further 


questions? That's probably fairly redundant, 


but nonetheless that's what we're looking at. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Joe, for that overview. 


Let me open the floor now, Board members. Any 


questions for Joe Fitzgerald or -- or for NIOSH 


in that regard? And Jim, I know that you 


probably covered a lot of -- most of your 


points this morning. Do you have any 


additional comments -- Jim Neton from NIOSH -- 


in response to what Joe has presented? 


DR. NETON: No, I think the status update that 


we did prior to lunch covers the waterfront of 


activities that we're engaging at this time. 


have nothing additional to add. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I -- Jim --


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to ask -- I meant 


to ask during the subcommittee meeting, but you 


mentioned that that disk was available and you 


mentioned --


DR. NETON: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it possibly being available to 


I 
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SC&A and the Board. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Have you... 


DR. NETON: I need to get with --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- come up with the answer to 


that before the end of the week or... 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I'll -- I'll have an answer 


maybe by the end of today if I can get together 


with the appropriate folks at a break and see 


what the issues may be about releasing that 


disk. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. And we will --


UNIDENTIFIED: Paul --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- make sure that the document is 


available to the public here before long. 


 Dr. Anderson. 


DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I -- I guess my question 


is just exactly what are you intending to do 


with the 6,000 records? I mean are some of 


them going to be abstracted? You know, what is 


going to happen and in a -- in a timely 


fashion? 


DR. NETON: Well, not having seen the 6,000 

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records, I don't know. 


DR. ANDERSON: Well, I mean they may not be 


even legible, you know. I --


DR. NETON: But -- but the concept was that 


these records include data for radionuclides 


other than uranium. I think more specifically 


plutonium and maybe some polonium. And so if 


we can identify who -- who was monitored, you 


know, for those nuclides and -- and have enough 


data to make a robust coworker matrix that 


could be used to apply to these workers at 


processes such as the Calutron and the 


Cyclotron and other operations that involve 


non-uranium activities, that would be our 


intent. 


 There's another piece of data in addition to 


these 6,000 records that are the Department 


4000 records at the -- from the X-10 facility. 


Those are people who worked on operations at Y12. They are also available and being looked 


at. So between those two datasets we hope to 


be able to put together some quality analyses 


that would allow us to do dose reconstructions 


for non-uranium radionuclides at Y-12. 


DR. ANDERSON: And is the plan to have that by 

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the March teleconference or -- 


DR. NETON: The plan is to determine -- 


DR. ANDERSON: -- are we talking April or -- 


you know. 


DR. NETON: Well, the plan is to determine -- 


DR. ANDERSON: I won't be here, but I just -- 


I'm querying on behalf of those that... 


DR. NETON: Well, right now ORAU is reviewing 


the data and we need to make a determination 


how long it's going to take to get that put in 


place, and we'll have to make a decision at 


that time if -- if the data can or cannot be 


used in a timely manner and move from there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments, 

questions? 

 (No responses) 

Board members, I want to remind you that we 


have on our schedule for March 14 -- and this 


may be a good time to double-check this and ask 


Lew to confirm -- we had scheduled a Board 


conference call for March 14th. And one of the 


items of course for that conference call then 


would be to get an update on the status of 


these issues for the Y-12 SEC and these issues 


that come out of the site profile, and 

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determine whether we are on track because we 


have schedule also for April 25th through 27th 


a full Board meeting at which, as Dr. Wade 


indicated this morning, it would be our intent 


to be ready to have a vote on the SEC petition 


from Y-12, if these issues are indeed resolved 


by that time. And we perhaps will have a 


better feel for that at the time of the March 


conference call, but we need to make sure that 


folks have that on their calendars and that we 


can try to hold to that schedule. Lew? 


 DR. WADE: And I would also like us to spend 


some time just looking at -- for some detailed 


planning in terms of interactions between NIOSH 


and SC&A with the Board present, working group 


meetings. We still have work left to do, 


obviously, on these open issues. And I don't 


think it would be appropriate for us to end 


this session without having a detailed plan of 


action in place. So while all the principals 


are here and these issues are fresh in our 


mind, I think we should lay out a strategy that 


will take us to the point that I assume the 


Board wants to be, and that is when you vote an 


SEC petition at the end of April that you have 

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the issues resolved in your mind that you need 


to have resolved. So I think we need to spend 


some time, Mr. Chairman, doing that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mr. Presley. 


 MR. PRESLEY: One of the issues I have is the 


SEC petition is only for pipe-fitters. Is that 


correct? 


 DR. WADE: The language is "steamfitters, pipe-


fitters, plumbers that worked..." -- is that 


correct? That's the language I have in front 


of me. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. That probably -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that exclus-- does that exclude 


some categories? Let me -- go ahead and ask 


your question, I'm... 


 MR. PRESLEY: Well, that probably only 


encompasses somewhere in the neighborhood of 


about five percent of the people that worked at 


Y-12 at that time. I have a real problem with 


this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mr. Elliott from NIOSH perhaps can 


address that. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The petition definition that you 


have before you is the one that the petitioner 


put forward to us. And as you've seen in our 

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evaluations of these petitions, we tend to 


expand -- in our understanding of what we can 


do or what we can't do -- and we include in our 


definition that's provided in our evaluation 


report to you a recommended definition that 


would cover additional employees or workers at 


the site who should be considered in that 


class. So I wouldn't use this definition as 


couched in this current petition as the 


limiting definition. It's the starting point. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. Because, you know, we've 


got the -- about that time was when Y-12 ramped 


up from a -- let's say a chemical operation 


into a production operation, and there are a 


tremendous amount of people that worked in 


other jobs that worked with uranium issues. 


You left out your machinists -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure, yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: -- you know, you left out all of 


your chemical workers, so there's a tremendous 


amount of people that, if we're going to 


discuss another SEC petition, I think ought to 


be included in this thing one way or the other. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, that's why we think it's so 


important to resolve these questions that have 

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been raised about the site profile, because it 


goes directly to the first prong of the two-


pronged test for considering to add a class: 


Can we reconstruct dose sufficiently for all 


those in that class. And so that's why we feel 


very strongly that we need to have these 


questions that have been raised about the site 


profile resolved to satisfaction. 


 DR. ZIEMER: While -- while we're on that 


topic, I would like to ask Mr. Presley or 


others who might know, how well do we know the 


job categories of individuals working at Y-12 


during that time period? Are these in -- are 


these job categories well established in the 


work records? I don't if any of the ORAU 


people who have examined those records, or Mr. 


Presley, can answer that for us. 


 DR. WADE: Just for the record, this is in the 


context of the site profile evaluation that 


we're having this discussion. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I know, as a person that's going 


back through these records, there's a 


tremendous amount of records that I've come 


across in the last four or five years that, 


yes, you know, does describe that. You know, 

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Jim's got some problems with this list that 


he's got. It's what, 30 -- 30 or 60 pages long 


where we need to sit down and probably do some 


work on the -- on categorizing the different 


job categories. But I think it's very much 


possible to go back through and say, you know, 


what these people did and where they worked and 


put them in a category of jobs. I really do. 


I think the information's there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mr. (sic) Neton? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I think we do have a lot of 


job title type information on these exposure 


records. The working group is aware that we 


have a title for almost every exposure 


measurement that's out there. The problem, as 


Bob alluded to, is that there wasn't a 


standardized title so you -- you have to make 


some judicious choices in collapsing these data 


down to meaningful categories. And ORAU has 


done that, the working group has that 


information. I think they collapsed hundreds 


of titles down to maybe 40 relevant job types, 


and they seem to make sense to us -- you know, 


these categories. And it also seems to make 


sense to us that the type of workers that were 

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monitored were the more highly exposed, but 


we're getting into more technical details here 


than we probably need to. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: My sense of some of the -- you 


know, what -- what did people do in different 


jobs is that -- we have job title information. 


I think what we haven't done -- you know, Bob 


said -- and we have job titles and where they 


worked. I don't know that we have that crosslink of where they worked. A machinist could 


have worked in several different areas in the 


plant with different potential exposures, so I 


don't know that we have that. We also have 


machinists that worked in different 


departments, which could, in my -- that's why I 


was asking about the department listing. It 


could denote different sorts of exposures, 


maybe that could still be covered in a blanket 


distribution type model. I'm not saying that 


they --


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- they couldn't, but we haven't 


really got that level of detail, I don't think. 


DR. NETON: That's correct. I think we need to 

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-- we're getting a little bit near the proof of 


principle that we can collapse these job 


categories and we know that there were some 


non-uranium operations that were there, and 


making of the decision as to who were 


potentially exposed to these non-uranium 


operations, such as Cyclotron and Calutron, is 


-- is going to be difficult. Of course if we 


can't, you know, bin these people into the 


right categories -- for instance, possibly 


machinists or maintenance folks -- then we 


would, as usual, make assumptions that, you 


know, they could have been exposed if we can't 


nail down, you know, their potential exposure. 


So I think -- I think we can do this, it's just 


now a matter of demonstrating how we're going 


to go about it. And you've seen a lot of that 


in the matrix -- comment resolution; how is 


NIOSH going to use the 95th percentile; which 


categories of workers are going to go in there, 


those sort of issues. So we're really getting 


down to some more of the nuts and bolts issues 


of how we're going to do this, I think. 


 DR. WADE: I do think it's important, though, 


that the Board sort of begin to frame those 

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nuts and bolts issues, as you categorize them, 


now because this will be the Board's last 


chance really to instruct the principles in 


terms of the degree of specificity you're 


looking for on these issues, so let's take the 


time and do that now if Board members have 


questions in their minds. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think one thing that -- that 


we've been discussing on the sidelines or in 


the workgroup is last -- and I forgot to 


mention this in the earlier presentation, but 


last workgroup we had we asked NIOSH to present 


some example cases of some dose 


reconstructions. And that sort of gets down to 


okay, you've got these models; now how are they 


applied to different situations. They did 


provide some example cases. I think that now 


we're learning -- what -- what we didn't have 


was a lot of the pieces yet, so we were -- it 


was a little ahead of ourselves. And now we've 


got more data about these other radionuclide 


issues and other things, and I think the next 


step is after we get these pieces together then 


we can say okay, you know, for these types of 

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situations how are you going to do a dose 


reconstruction. We'll have a better frame on a 


-- a better picture of the potential exposures 


that we need to address. So we do -- you know, 


I think we still want that that piece -- or at 


least a few more of those examples, how many we 


-- we yet to define, but we can't really do it 


today, I don't think, because we haven't seen 


these 6,000 pages and some other critical 


pieces, obviously. 


 DR. WADE: I think we --


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim --


 DR. WADE: -- can lay out the time line, 


though, and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 DR. WADE: -- the steps that need to happen for 


this to be fulfilled. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton. 


DR. NETON: I totally agree with Mark. I would 


like to point out a couple of things as -- you 


know, I think the Board and the working group 


in particular are well aware we have literally 


hundreds of thousands-plus records for uranium 


urinalyses at this facility, and tens and tens 

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of thousands of film badge results and TLDs. 


So you know, we still have to establish the 


credibility or what we're calling now the 


reliability of those datasets. That's key. 


But then the remaining issues of these what I 


call ancillary nuclide exposures is not a 


tremendously large percentage of the workforce, 


in my mind. I mean most in fact of the workers 


at Y-12 were working with uranium. There are 


these sort of -- other nuclides that are out 


there. We do need to nail those. But I don't 


want there to be -- you know, people to be 


misled thinking this is a huge issue with, you 


know, a major percentage of the workforce. 


These are somewhat, you know, miscellaneous 


exposures. I don't want to diminish the type 


of exposures, but they were not normal, routine 


operations, for the most part. 


Oh, one other things is I was reminded just a 


few minutes ago to point out not to focus the ­

- on what this 6,000-page set of information 


is. It's really 6,000 pages of bioassay data, 


some with a lot of data, some with maybe one or 


two. So it's not 6,000 full pages of records. 


I mean -- you know, for every person who was 

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exposed, there is a page possibly. But there 


may be redundant pages and such, so I don't 


want people's expectations to be too high. 
I 


mean they're certainly worthwhile to look at 


and very good new additional pieces of 


information, but this is not 6,000 times the 


number of lines on a page of bioassay data. 


That's not what we have here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Jim, I -- I did want to 


point -- you mentioned thousands of -- of 


urinalysis and other records. I think -- but 


you also -- we -- we had asked this question 


earlier, and just for the sake of the folks 


here, I mean -- you did do at least a cursory 


analysis of the claimants and determined that 


about ten to 12 percent have urinalysis recor-- 


they would rely on the records to do the dose 


reconstruction, as opposed to the other 88 


percent would end up relying, to some extent, 


at least, on the coworker models. Right? So 


that's why we're --


DR. NETON: That's correct. Yeah, prior to 


1961, and the further back you go, the more 


sparse the data are, but you're right, there 


are fewer and fewer samples and we would have 

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to use coworker data, which is why the issue of 


the -- what percentile we're using for the 


coworker data is important. You know, whether 


we use the 95th percentile or the 50th. 
I 


would suggest, though, that that is a matter of 


detail to be worked out for a dose 


reconstruction process, as opposed to something 


that would prevent us from doing a dose 


reconstruction at all. But that's something we 


can take up during the working group. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments? 


 (No responses) 


 Now the working group that had been involved 


with Y-12 was the one we identified earlier. 


We have to be a little careful on working 


groups, that their tasks do not stretch out for 


years and years and they no longer become ad 


hoc groups but become institutionalized as 


subcommittees. But is there any reason why we 


shouldn't ask the current working group to 


continue on this particular site profile and 


SEC? That is Mark, Mike, Wanda and Robert. 


Are the four of you willing to continue on this 


task? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

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 DR. WADE: And again, the task only relates to 


the site profile. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And working with our contractor 


and with NIOSH in the resolution of the 


identified issues. 


Then we will ask the working group to do that 


in preparation for both our conference call and 


the next meeting. 


Now I'm not sure it would be useful for us to 


use our time here to work out a schedule with 


the working group, NIOSH and SC&A, but perhaps 


Mark, you can get together with the principals 


and find suitable times for those meetings to 


occur. Lew, do you need that information yet 


today or --


 DR. WADE: No, I don't. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 (Whereupon, Dr. James Melius joins the members 


at the table.) 


 DR. WADE: I think, again, it's been sort of 


our method of operation that when the working 


group meets we would -- we could either have 


the meetings as public meetings or not, as is 

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the wish of the working group. Regardless of 


that, we would want to make them available to 


representatives of the petitioner and those 


people who have a particular interest in what's 


going on here. So I think the Board needs to 


decide whether it wants this particular suite 


of working group meetings to be open to the 


public or not. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Question. Do we want to look at 


this site profile from 1944 to 1957, or do we 


want to look at the site profile from 1943 


until 19-- or 2006? Or some time up to that? 


1957, to me, there are years that should be 


looked at beyond that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The petition as it currently 


stands is from the '44 to '57 period. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But --


 DR. WADE: The site profile. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the petition itself is from 


that period. Yes, Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: The site profile most certainly 


should, in my view, run from initial operations 


to the current date. With respect to the 

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immediate work that we're doing, I think we've 


all agreed and we've said here earlier we will 


focus, as a priority issue, on questions that 


affect that period of time covered by the SEC. 


But the site profile that we're working on as a 


working group should cover the entire period of 


operation. 


 DR. WADE: Again, I think it's important to 


point out that the working group will be 


looking at the site profile. As Wanda has 


mentioned, it's quite possible they'll focus 


more in one area than another for -- for 


reasons of an SEC petition. But this is not an 


SEC petition activity that they're involved in. 


It's a site profile review. If not, then we 


would have to reconstitute the working group. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Then we'll proceed on that basis. 


Any other comments or questions on this item? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Thank you very much. We are a little 


bit ahead of schedule, but we can proceed with 


the agenda as it's provided there and -- I 


thought I saw Dr. Melius come in -- where is 


he? 


 MR. PRESLEY: He's on the end. 

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 DR. MELIUS: I am here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, there he is. Yeah, he's 

hiding. 

 DR. MELIUS: I am going to need actually a 

short break 'cause I have my presentation which 


I need to get over to that computer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: And so however you want to handle 


it -- Jim Neton's or somebody or -- somebody's 


computer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We'll just -- we'll just 


pause for a minute. We won't take a full 


break. 


(Pause for equipment set-up.) 


PROCEDURES FOR BOARD EVALUATION OF SEC PETITIONS
 

DISCUSSION – PART I
 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, ABRWH


 DR. ZIEMER: At our January 9th conference call 


we had a report from the working group on SEC 


petition procedures. Actually it was called a 


working group on Special Exposure Cohort 


petition review. That workgroup was chaired by 


Dr. Melius. At that time there was a draft of 


a document presented to the Board, and 


subsequently Dr. Melius collected comments from 


the Board on that draft and now has a revised 


version. 

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 The plan is for him to present to the Board 


and to the public, really, the current draft on 


-- of the petition review process that the 


Board is looking at, and then to take action on 


that later in the meeting -- namely tomorrow. 


That will allow the opportunity for public 


comment on that document, if anyone so desires. 


 So Dr. Melius, if you'll proceed and give us an 


overview of the contents of the proposed 


procedure. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. The -- I've listed the 


members of the workgroup up there. They share 


the credit and the blame, I guess, for what 


we've produced. It's myself, Roy DeHart, Mark 


and Paul. We're all members of that. 


The main work of the workgroup was a meeting in 


Cincinnati, I believe in November. We had 


about a half-day meeting involving the 


workgroup. Several members of NIOSH staff 


attended that meeting also. There were some 


other observers there, I think -- I believe 


Brad, you were there as an observer, getting 


your orientation, so he also sat in on that 


meeting. And based on the meeting and 


discussion we had, then actually Lew produced 

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an outline and then I basically turned that 


outline into a report of the working group. 


We talked about it in our last phone call Board 


meeting, as Paul has mentioned. And then I 


have received some comments before and after 


that meeting which have been incorporated into 


the draft report. But I think we -- it's fair 


to say we still see it as a sort of a working 


draft report and are -- obviously welcome 


comments of the other Board members, as well as 


members of the public that would have some, you 


know, views to share with us on -- on this 


approach. 


(Pause) 


I think it's important in looking at this that 


-- this is sort -- sort of a -- I will say a 


simplified schematic of the steps involved in 


the petition process. You know, the SEC 


petition gets sent to NIOSH. The petition -- 


there's a review process for the petition 


itself, basically does it qualify and so forth. 


And after that then, once that step is -- the 


petition has been accepted, viewed as 


appropriate for follow-up, then NIOSH does an 


evaluation of that petition -- does it meet the 

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requirements for an SEC -- you know, to be a 


member of the cohort for that. And that NIOSH 


evaluation report is then transmitted to the 


Board and the Board reviews that NIOSH 


evaluation. And then -- and there's some 


permutations of this, so this is, again, 


simplifying it. But then the Board -- based on 


the Board's review of the NIOSH evaluation 


report, then the Board makes a recommendation 


to the Secretary on, you know, accepting or not 


accepting the -- that group as a class into the 


Special Exposure -- Exposure Cohort. 


What we were focusing on in our workgroup was 


really the sort of steps number three and four 


there, the evaluation of the petition -- once 


it's been accepted by NIOSH, the evaluation, 


how NIOSH goes through the evaluation; and 


secondly, how does the Board review that 


evaluation. And our idea was to -- one, is to 


clarify some of those steps, try to be -- make 


it more efficient because in the past it's 


taken us several meetings's worth of 


deliberations and a lot of work in between 


meetings in order to come to some sort of 


conclusion on some of these petitions and our 

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review of the evaluations. And we needed to 


try to make that process more efficient and -- 


which was really the -- I think the main goal 


of our workgroup. 


So what we did was, again, as I said, focus on 


the steps from evaluation to recommendation. 


We made the assumption that for the purposes of 


this draft of our workgroup report that we'd 


assume that the current regulations in 


relationship to the SEC qualifications were -- 


stayed in -- were in place. I think, you know, 


some of us may question those criteria and so 


forth, but we made a decision that at least for 


the purposes of this report that we'd assume 


and work within the current regulations rather 


than trying to look at alternative to those or 


whatever. 


And that we really -- the main task we thought 


that we needed to do was to clarify the 


criteria that the Board would be using in 


reviewing the NIOSH SEC evaluation report. So 


NIOSH would be presenting it -- the evaluation 


report -- to us and how would the Board review 


that, what criteria would the Board be using in 


making that review. And again, the idea, if we 

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could clarify those criteria both in terms of ­

- and to some extent the procedures involved, 


then we thought that NIOSH would be able to 


improve the evaluation reports and at the same 


time we'd have a more efficient process that 


would be more efficient for the Board to review 


those, we could get it done quicker, and at the 


same time, you know, give them their just due 


in terms of being -- of a scientific review and 


so forth. 


Let me just go through these. We can skip 


these 'cause they're -- the -- I think the key 


considerations we had in sort of an overview 


perspective of these was -- were four. One, we 


needed to have, as I said, timeliness. We need 


to be able to get this process done in a timely 


fashion so that the people petitioning wouldn't 


be waiting for too long to get a review of 


their petition. It would also, in terms of the 


amount of time and effort on the part of the 


Board and time of NIOSH in addressing these 


(sic). 


Obviously we also need to be, you know, fair in 


terms of how much attention we pay to each 


petition, how much effort was put into the 

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evaluation and review for each petition. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, is there a different slide? 


 DR. MELIUS: There's a different slide, yeah. 


I skipped over it and -- unless -- put -- give 


Jim some exercise. 


 DR. ZIEMER: There it is. 


 DR. MELIUS: There we go. Okay. Thanks, Jim. 


Third, it needed to be understandable or 


comprehensible. We needed to be able to have 


whatever criteria we developed, whatever steps 


involved to be so that the public, everyone 


involved, understood those -- those criteria. 


And finally, we also needed to have some 


consistency in this, that we needed to be 


treating everyone the same. We needed to be 


making -- applying the same criteria, as 


appropriate, to each petition that we received 


so that, you know, a petition from Oak Ridge 


would be treated the same -- by the same 


criteria as a petition from Savannah River or 


whatever other site may be involved. And 


actually in the workgroup we spent some time 


sort of fleshing those out a little bit in 


terms of making sure that whatever criteria we 


developed and so forth would address those 

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points and keep those points in mind. 


One of the key points is that these evaluations 


focus on datasets, sets of exposure data that 


we're reviewing. They may be various kinds of 


biological testing, may be external radiation 


measurements, lots of different sources. But 


usually we're viewing some collection of this 


exposure data over some period of time. And so 


a lot of the time -- and those of you that have 


-- us, I guess I should say, those of us who 


have worked through these process (sic) with 


some of these evaluations, we really -- it's 


really delving into these -- very specifically 


into these datasets trying to understand them 


and so forth and do that. So the main criteria 


we're try to -- what we're -- how do we 


evaluate the credibility and the validity of 


each dataset that we're looking at. 


So we're interested in questions like the 


pedigree of the data, how good is it, where 


does it come from, how is it generated -- that. 


The methodology, is that methodology up-todate, how does it compare to maybe -- what -- 


we may have better methods now. You know, very 


often we're going back 40, 50 years. How does 

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the methods used then compared to how we use 


now. How well -- good was the quality control 


and so forth on it at that point in time. In 


many cases we're dealing with datasets -- the 


monitoring methods are really under development 


and the -- so we need to pay a lot of attention 


to sort of the methods used and in making sure 


that those are consistent with what is done 


now, at least to the extent that -- in terms of 


how we intend to use the data. 


Also very important that we look at the 


relationship of the data that we're looking at 


to other sources of information, other sources 


of exposure data about the facility or about 


the people working in the facility. So to some 


extent we want -- now some of those other data 


sources may not be as comprehensive as the set 


we intend to use for individual dose 


reconstruction, but it's very important that 


they sort of tell us the same thing, even 


though they aren't as comprehensive. So again, 


a lot of effort into sort of evaluating -- you 


know, if one looks at two different sources of 


information or exposure, do they tell you the 


same thing about that, are the people that are 

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high in one dataset, would they -- do they show 


high exposures in the other dataset -- that. 


And we're also interested in internal 


consistency there. Are we seeing the same 


internal patterns within the dataset. You 


know, does the basic dataset make sense based 


on what we know about what was happening in 


that facility as well as the methods that were 


used there for the monitoring. 


A key concept in looking at any dataset is the 


representativeness of the data. And by 


representativeness we're looking at lots of 


different aspects of that data. We want to 


know does the -- this set of exposure data, 


these monitoring data, do they cover all areas 


of the facility that we're interested in. You 


know, if the monitoring's only done in one 


building or one part of the facility and we're 


trying to evaluate exposures in, you know, six 


other parts, then that may not be a very -- 


very helpful to us. 


 We're also interested in the temporal area, 


what time periods are covered. Does it 


adequately cover all the time periods that 


we're interested in. We may have a petition 

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that covers from, you know, say '54 to '60. 


Well, do -- does this dataset we're looking at 


-- can we utilize that in a way that provides 


us a good -- that we can, you know, calculate 


the individual doses for that period of time -- 


that entire period of time or are there, you 


know, gaps in data. And oftentimes we found in 


the past that we're spending a lot of time 


trying to figure out well, for how many years 


can we really trust this data or be able to 


fairly utilize a particular dataset. 


 We're also interested in the types of workers 


that are covered and the processes within the 


facility. Again, this relates back both to the 


areas covered and the time periods. But also 


we know that there are certain groups of 


workers that move around the facility, may have 


different tasks. And it's important that we -- 


when looking at a dataset, we look at how well 


all the different groups of workers are 


addressed. Are there exposures addressed by 


that particular dataset so that if we're making 


some, you know, general -- trying to reach a 


general conclusion about that yes, you know, 


this dataset would provide exposure data on a 

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group of -- this group of workers, everybody 


that worked in plant one or two or whatever, 


that it really does cover everybody, all 


different types of work there. 


 And then obviously if it doesn't, then we have 


options in terms of how we split up the Special 


Exposure Cohort or reach -- can reach different 


conclusions. Or there may be other datasets 


that more adequately cover those -- those types 


of workers. 


And then finally we also get into issues of 


different, you know, subsets of the data, how 


well can we use those. And if -- as we're 


starting to break down the data into sort of 


smaller and smaller subsets, using Wanda's 


favorite word now, we have to look at how 


robust the data is in terms of providing 


information -- adequate information to be able 


to evaluate the exposures of that and agree -- 


it's an abused word, but it does capture some 


of what we're trying to get at. 


Now in talking about data, we may be talking 


about several different sets of data. It's 


usually not simple. What we want to be able to 


do are focus on what are the key sets of data 

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that are going to be critical for assessing 


whether or not individual dose reconstruction 


can be conducted. And we also want to be able 


to evaluate whether it's really, you know, 


feasible and possible to do the individual dose 


reconstructions in some way that would be, you 


know -- again, those issues of timeliness, 


fairness and so forth for the people involved 


who were exposed at that facility. 


So in addition to evaluating the datasets and 


looking at the criteria we talked about before, 


we also want to actually try to look at is it 


going to be feasible to apply that and can it 


meet the criteria necessary for sufficient 


accuracy under this program. So feasibility 


takes into account, you know, how available -- 


is the data readily available. The next 


criteria there, timeliness; can the individual 


dose reconstructions -- can -- can access to 


the data and whatever manipulations or 


calculations are necessary to be able to 


utilize the dataset, can that be done in a 


timely fashion. If it's something that's, you 


know, going to take years or whatever, that may 


not make much sense in terms of actually being 

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able to do individual dose reconstructions. 


We also want to try to avoid -- this word -- 


treatment -- this is unfair or uneven treatment 


of different groups of workers there, so it -- 


what we're asking NIOSH to do is to, you know, 


demonstrate to us that everybody -- that all 


the different groups that are covered under the 


Special Exposure Cohort petition or the 


evaluation that's being done will be able to be 


-- you know, have their doses reconstructed in 


appropriately -- an appropriate manner, meeting 


the criteria necessary for that dose 


reconstruction. So again, it -- we're not 


asking not only just to be able to, you know, 


do and show that they can do dose 


reconstructions, but that it can be done over a 


-- different groups of workers within the 


facility so that we have some assurances that 


everyone will be treated appropriately. 


 And finally, something we started to do with 


some of our more recent evaluations of Special 


Exposure Cohort reports from NIOSH is asking 


NIOSH to do some sample dose reconstructions. 


Now these aren't taking actual individuals from 


within the group that's being evaluated, but 

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taking, you know, some representative data -- 


actual data from the data-- the exposure 


datasets that are going to be used and actually 


demonstrating, going through the actual dose 


reconstruction steps to show that it will be 


possible to do that for the various -- to 


actually do dose reconstructions for the 


various groups involved -- do that. And so in 


-- in our report we have some further 


discussion of this to try to sort of set out 


the criteria. So again, if the petition covers 


several thousand people, we're not saying you 


have to -- that NIOSH should be expected to do 


sample dose reconstructions on every person 


there, but some representative types of workers 


or -- and so forth. Again, not doing full -- 


not necessarily individuals per se, but things 


that would represent the types of calculations 


and so forth that would -- needed to be done -- 


done for those individ-- similar individuals or 


individuals with those say sort of general 


characteristics. 


Finally, the report recommends a couple of 


procedural changes in the process so far. One 


is the area of evaluating the petition. And 

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again, this is the evaluation that's done after 


the petition has been certified. And currently 


NIOSH prepares for us a report that, in very 


general terms -- as soon as they've qualified, 


a petition's qualified, then they prepare 


what's been a very general report on what their 


plans are for doing the evaluation. And 


because this is done so early, this is a very 


general report. It doesn't -- the NIOSH staff 


hasn't really often had time to, you know, 


evaluate what they're going to do, look at the 


different datasets and so forth there, the -- 


so they tell very much in general what they're 


going to be doing, but it's not very specific 


to that -- nor can it be expected to be, I 


think, at the point in time that they're 


writing this evaluation plan. 


But we think it may be helpful, both for NIOSH 


but also for the Board in reviewing the 


evaluation, that it -- at some, you know, 


midpoint when -- after NIOSH has had -- staff 


has had or their contractor staff has had 


opportunity to think about and evaluate some of 


the datasets and recognize what are going to be 


the most critical parts of that evaluation, to 

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either inform the Board in some way or produce 


maybe anoth-- another, more detailed evaluation 


plan that would at least be a little bit more 


specific about what would -- what would be 


involved, what datasets, what types of 


information were going to be critical to 


assessing whether or not individual dose 


reconstruction would be possible or whether the 


group would qualify for -- to be part of the 


Special Exposure Cohort. 


So that's one recommendation, and again, this 


is sort of a general recommendation. We really 


haven't sat down -- figured out exactly what -- 


made a recommendation in terms of what 


specifically would be involved here. 


The second point is I think we've discovered in 


doing some of these site profile reviews -- or 


excuse me, these SEC reviews, that we often -- 


because of timing issues, because of where we 


are or our contractor is in terms of -- the 


Board's contractor in terms of reviewing the 


site profiles -- that a review of the site 


profile is very, very helpful in terms of 


resolving a lot of the issues about the SEC 


evaluation; that if we've at least started or 

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hopefully completed a site profile review -- a 


review of, you know, the NIOSH site profile on 


a particular site, it's really very helpful in 


terms of addressing a lot of the same issues 


that will come up with -- with an SEC 


evaluation. So to the extent possible, we need 


to work out a process where either that site 


profile review gets done entirely before the 


SEC evaluation or, where that may not be 


possible -- and there's lots of reasons where 


it may not be possible, both in -- again, we 


don't want to delay the review of the petition, 


you know, for a number of years simply to do a 


site profile review. But where that's not 


possible, then we need to think about maybe 


parts of the site profile need to be reviewed, 


the parts that are going to be particularly 


relevant. You know, for example, if the SEC 


petition covers -- again, I'll use the example 


1954 to '60, well, then -- you know, that part 


of the site profile or that particular part of 


the facility, that site profile review needs to 


be done at least for those parts that are 


relevant to that petition. And again, that's a 


sort of a general recommendation we've talked 

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about. We still need to I think make that more 


specific and I think we all recognize that it's 


going to be done on a case-by-case basis as we 


go through these 'cause we can't predict every 


SEC petition that's going to come in, nor can 


we always predict what parts of the site 


profile may turn out to be more or less 


important for the -- or the site profile review 


will be more or less important for an SEC 


evaluation. Do that. 


I should also add on the procedural issues that 


we're also -- I think we're taking into account 


recognizing that the Board's contractor would 


also be involved in -- or could be involved in 


the SEC evaluation that we had -- you know, 


already really started the -- our con-- SC&A 


working on that and that we would hopefully 


sort of meld these two processes, that what we 


ask the -- our contractor to do should follow 


what we believe now to be the -- be an approach 


that's appropriate for the Board's review of 


the SEC petitions. And again, that should 


hopefully make all this a much more efficient 


and fair process. 


So let me stop there to answer any general 

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questions. Again, the idea is, you know, to 


present this in a very general fashion and then 


we can talk at a later point in time about the 


-- some specifics related to this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Jim, for that 


excellent review of the document. 


Board members, do you have any specific 


questions for Jim at this time, or any comments 


or major concerns about the document that you 


want to raise at this point? 


 Roy DeHart. 


 DR. DEHART: I just want to have an expanding 


comment, Jim. I think it's important -- the 


Board understands but I'm not sure that the 


public understands that the SEC petition really 


could be divided and sub-grouped so that one 


group would be certified and another group it 


would be determined that one could do a 


calculation of dose. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments? 

 DR. MELIUS: I would just add that it's also 

possible that even within the SEC they could -- 


the groups could be sub-grouped. There may be 


one group for which certain types of exposure 

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data apply 'cause it's in one part of the 


facility and we'd approach that in one way, and 


there'd be another group that would be treated 


differently. And we've already in some sense 


done that in terms of the years of exposure 


within a facility and so forth. NIOSH does 


that to some extent themselves in terms of 


their -- their thinking about this, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. We're 


going to return to this topic tomorrow. And 


also in that connection we also have some SC&A 


documents that pertain to this that we'll be 


looking at. 


 DR. WADE: Right. If I could make a -- maybe 


three or four comments. The Chair is correct. 


I mean SC&A will be presenting tomorrow on 


performance on their contract two things. 


They'll talk about recommended procedures they 


have for the Board to follow. This will mesh 


very well with what you're discussing here, and 


I think it's important to hear that as you have 


a full discussion. SC&A will also be reporting 


on its initial review of NIOSH's procedures in 


terms of reviewing SEC petitions, so I think 


that will inform the discussion. 

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You know, you're an advisory committee to the 


Secretary of HHS. I took the opportunity, as I 


often do, to brief the Secretary's advisors on 


the agenda for this meeting, and the 


Secretary's people were very interested in this 


item in particular and they shared some 


thoughts with me that I'll share with you. 


They do want to see you give this -- this issue 


a full vetting. I think it's important that 


we'll hear public comment here. I think 


they're -- they're very interested in seeing 


that this most important issue be given a full 


vetting. They're particularly interested in 


being sure that the incoming Board members had 


an opportunity to participate in this process, 


as they'll be governed by the process. So they 


thought that was an important issue. 


I also, as I listened to Dr. Melius' comments, 


think it might be appropriate if tomorrow when 


we have the discussion I could ask counsel to 


give us just some discussion of what timeliness 


means in the context of the Rule and the 


context of the law. I think it would be good 


to have that as background for the discussion. 


I think this is a very important issue. 
I 

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applaud the subcommittee's -- the working 


group's willingness to work on it, and I think 


it devotes our time and attention. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Now the Chair is aware 


that this morning, due to the press of issues 


in the subcommittee session, we did have to 


omit the discussion of the individual dose 


reconstruction reviews. And since we now are a 


little bit ahead of schedule, I think we can do 


that. We will take a brief break, a ten-minute 


break, and then resume and maybe have about 45 


minutes to work on that -- and we have some 


time tomorrow, too, so we don't have to 


necessarily get through it, but that would give 


us a head start on reviewing the first three 


sets of dose reconstruction reviews and perhaps 


coming to closure on some of those, as well. 


So let's take a ten-minute break and then we'll 


work on through to maybe just a few minutes 


past 4:30, so come back in ten minutes if you 


could and we'll resume from there. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:40 p.m. 


to 3:52 p.m.) 


INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEWS
 

(SETS 1,2 AND 3) DISCUSSION/CLOSURE
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, ABRWH
 

DR. HANS BEHLING AND MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A
 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH
 
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74

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let us proceed. Board 


members, in your -- in your agenda book you'll 


find a tab called individual DR. There is a 


document in your notebook with the matrices. 


There's a matrix for cases one through 20. 


There's a matrix for cases 21 through 38 and 


then a matrix for cases 39 through 60. What 


I'm going to do is ask Kathy and Hans from our 


contractors to give us a review, status report 


and update on where we are on all of these. 


I can tell you that the matrix that you have 


for cases 21 to 30 (sic) at the present time 


does not have too much information. 


 DR. WADE: It has NIOSH's comments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It has NIOSH's comments. It does 


not have anything on resolution or that kind of 


thing, but Kathy can give us an update on where 


we are on these various things. 


I also know that, Board members, you just 


received -- I think maybe in the past week -- 


the matrix for cases 39 through 60, and I 


believe within the last couple of days there 


were some additional modifications of that 


report, so we'll get updated on that. 


So I think today will pretty much just be 

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status report on these, and then we'll come 


back to these tomorrow, see what particular 


actions may be needed. 


So Kathy, if you're ready to go or -- not quite 


ready? Okay. 


 MS. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Hang on. Stand by. 

(Pause) 

 MS. BEHLING: Is it on? Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Lower it a little bit. It's a 

boom type. 

 MS. BEHLING: Okay, that's good. Okay. 

All right. I'm Kathy Behling. I wasn't sure I 


was going to give this presentation so I hope 


you'll bear with me. 


First of all I'll just give you a status as to 


where we are with regard to the dose 


reconstruction reviews that we've reviewed so 


far. We've had three sets of cases over the 


past year. The first set of 20 cases that have 


been reviewed and have been through the full 


resolution process, and I believe the Board has 


discussed all those issues and I don't know if 


there's any final issues that you need. 
I 


believe there was a discussion point on 

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possibly a letter that needs to go to HHS, and 


that may be the final resolution item for our 


first set of 20 cases. 


The second set of 18 cases we have also 


submitted our report. We've held Board 


meetings on those reports. We've submitted the 


matrix to NIOSH and to the Board, and we've 


also had a working group meeting with NIOSH and 


-- to discuss the findings associated with the 


second set of cases. We were awaiting 


hopefully -- hoping that we would get the 


responses -- the written responses from NIOSH 


prior to this meeting, and I think Stu has put 


on the table those responses, but we really 


haven't had an opportunity to review those at 


this point in time. 


The third set of cases we have submitted a 


draft -- the third set was a set of 22 cases, 


and that's what I'll give you a brief overview 


today on. Those cases, we've submitted a draft 


report, then we held our conference call 


meetings with the assigned Board members. 


We've made changes to that report based on 


those comments, and just as of the end of last 


week we submitted our matrix to the Board and 

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to NIOSH regarding the findings associated with 


those 22 cases. I'm sure that NIOSH has not 


had an opportunity to spend any time looking at 


those findings at this point. 


 And finally, we're currently working on the 


fourth set of 20 cases and we are nearing 


completion on that. In fact, one of the items 


that we're hoping that we will accomplish 


during this meeting is -- prior to us sending 


out the draft report on the fourth set, we 


thought it would be a more efficient process to 


send out individual reports to the assigned 


Board members, have our discussion with those 


Board members, and then publish our report. 


We're going to need to know at some point in 


time because we would like -- I think we'll 


possibly be in a position to attempt to set up 


those meetings maybe the fir-- the second week 


in February, so we'll need to know, with the 


new Board members, whose position they will be 


filling so that we know what cases they should 


be assigned. 


Let's see here -- okay. With regard to -- I'm 


going to give you a little bit of an overview 


on the third set. I'm going to repeat some 

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things that you've heard before. This is for 


the benefit of the new Board members and also 


it's just a good reminder to let everyone know 


what we do when we go through this dose 


reconstruction process. 


First of all, we look at all the data that 


NIOSH looks at, and the ORAU people look at. 


We get all the files. We look at all the same 


data. We take the IREP input sheets and up to 


this point in time, and you'll hear a little 


bit more about this later, we attempt to 


reproduce most of the doses or all the doses. 


If we can't reproduce all the doses, we do a 


spot check or a selection and we're -- like I 


say, we'll get into that a little bit furth-- 


more detail later on. When we look at did the 


dose reconstructor -- not only do we reproduce 


the dose, but we look at did the dose 


reconstructor use the appropriate procedure and 


did he understand and apply that procedure 


correctly. And then finally we obviously try 


to ensure that the regulations -- that they 


accomplish the regulations and that the 


assumptions used in the dose reconstructions 


are fair, consistent and well-grounded and best 

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available science. And the lastly we look at 


the CATI report and we look at all the data 


that was received by NIOSH and we try to assure 


that everything that was identified on that 


CATI was also looked at by NIOSH, that NIOSH 


received DOE records associated with everything 


that the -- the claimant states they were 


involved in at that facility or while they were 


working there -- if they were monitored, if 


they had bioass-- gave bioassay samples, all 


those types of things. We try to verify that 


that was looked into. 


And in fact, for this particular set of cases, 


20 of the 22 cases were considered advanced 


reviews. And in these cases -- this is where 


that last issue of the CATI report -- we were 


able to at least suggest in these, this third 


set of cases, that there may be some areas 


where NIOSH or SC&A can expand on the 


information that was available to us and by 


looking at these CATI reports we often see -- 


or we have seen in some of these cases where 


some of the data is not always available, and 


this has been the one area that we were able to 


expand upon in the advanced reviews. 

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Okay, here's something that we've talked a lot 


about, but it warrants repeating because it's 


so important to this process. And listening 


today I still hear that there's confusion over 


this issue. There's confusion over which 


procedures are being used and how the whole 


dose reconstruction process is going forward. 


The first thing that happens with a dose 


reconstruction is it is looked at by a group at 


ORAU that makes a determination based on the 


cancer and based on the preliminary look at the 


dose as to does it appear that this case is 


going to fall into one of these three 


categories, and the first category being a 


minimized dose reconstruction where dose 


reconstruction, for the sake of efficiency, 


does not have to calculate all the dose because 


it becomes apparent that there is sufficient 


dose to put that individual over the 50 percent 


POC. So for efficiency purposes, they do not 


need to calculate all the dose, even though 


they realize that there's more dose there that 


could have been added to that case. 


The second category is the one we see the most 


of or that we've seen the most of in these 60 

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cases, and that's the maximizing approach. In 


this case the dose reconstructor, when he's 


given a dose reconstruction that he knows is 


going to be a maximizing dose, or he assumes 


that it's going to be a maximizing dose, he's 


using a set of procedures -- he can use, he 


should use a set of procedures that are 


specific to that case and to that situation -- 


there are procedures such as the maximum 


internal dose for complex-wide cases, TIB 2; 


TIB 8 and 10 that look at the external 


dosimetry records -- that he will use will use 


specifically and only when he is -- when he 


knows he's dealing with a maximizing dose 


reconstruction because in that case the dose 


reconstructor is attempting to show that even 


if we give all the benefit of the doubt to this 


claimant, he still does not go over that 50 


percent. 


And then the last case, which Hans will discuss 


a little bit at the end -- as our final slide. 


On our fourth set of cases now we are seeing 


some true best-estimate cases where both the 


internal and external have been -- were 


assessed in a very detailed approach. Here's 

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where NIOSH sharpens their pencil. They cross 


every T and dot every I and look at all of the 


records and try to get a more realistic 


assessment of the dose. And I can assure you, 


they put a lot of effort into these dose -- 


best-estimate approach cases. In fact that's 


why, when I said earlier up to this point in 


time we've been able to go through the IREP 


summary sheets and reproduce most of the doses, 


when we get into these best-estimates, just 


because of the level of effort that has to go 


into reproducing all of these doses and because 


of the computer programs and the workbooks that 


are being used, that's become a much more 


tedious task for us. 


Oops, I went too far there. How do I back this 


up? 


(Pause) 


On this slide I'm giving you just an overview 


of the 22 cases that we've reviewed in this 


third set. As you can see, we designated case 


39 and 40 as basic reviews. They were 


considered underestimates and they were 


compensated and so didn't really require that 


extra level of review that we wanted to look at 

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in the advanced cases, and cases 41 through 60 


were advanced. But as you can see in my DR 


type column, all of these cases were, again, 


either maximized or in the one case of tab 47 


was minimized. And so when you have these 


maximizing cases, as I said, there is a lot of 


conservatism built in, a lot of fat built in. 


So even when we have a finding where we might 


say that they didn't consider all the dose, 


because of the excess that's built into these 


cases it doesn't always have the impact that 


you might imagine it to have. 


Okay. In this -- in this slide I just wanted 


to break down for you -- this is the breakdown 


that we use in our checklist, and these are the 


categories of types of information that we look 


at. First of all, the data collection issues, 


did NIOSH get all the data that they requested 


from DOE and did they get enough data to 


actually complete this dose reconstruction 


adequately. External dose issues, internal 


dose we look at, and also again the CATI 


information. And I've identified here each of 


our cases and where our findings fall under 


those various categories. And as you can see, 

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the majority of findings do fall under the 


external dose -- external dose issues. 


Okay. Here -- this gives you a basic breakdown 


of root cause of a lot of the findings that 


we've had up to this point in time. And as you 


can see, the misinterpretation of procedures is 


a 30 percent -- it's 30 percent of the 


findings. As we've alluded to, at this point 


in time the -- ORAU is using these dose 


reconstruction tools, or what we refer to as 


workbooks. They've had these workbooks for a 


long time. They haven't always been used. I 


sat through a portion of the training portion-- 


of a program, the dose -- that the dose 


reconstructors sit through to train them on how 


to be -- to do dose reconstructions and the use 


of the workbooks. And it was very clear that 


they are definitely pushing the dose 


reconstructor into using the workbooks much -- 


you know, it's a much more efficient process. 


It makes things more consistent, and it's a 


much easier approach for the dose 


reconstructor. So the findings -- a lot of the 


types of findings that you see on this pie 


chart will possibly go away, or at least be 

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reduced, when the dose reconstructors are using 


these workbooks almost exclusively. And as I 


mentioned, under Task III we have started to 


look at -- I think it's going to be very 


critical in the future for us to evaluate the 


workbooks and to ensure that the workbooks are 


using -- are appropriately using the 


information in the procedures and are 


appropriately using the information in the 


Technical Basis Documents. 


I'm not going to go through all of the 


different findings. If anyone has any 


questions I can point to you which tabs -- give 


you examples for each of those different groups 


of findings as to which tab you can see an 


example of that particular finding. 


And then -- at least lastly for me -- I've 


collated all 60 cases. And this time -- as 


opposed to last time -- I got the color coding 


correct on my pie chart. And you can see 


again, the statistics haven't changed much. 


When we add in the 60, there's a few additional 


pieces of the pie, such as the calcu-- early on 


there were some minor calculational errors, 


procedures that were not referenced and that 

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type of thing that you'll see on this pie chart 


that were not on the third set of 20 cases -- 


22 cases. But by and large the statistics here 


stay the same. 


The only thing that you may notice that's 


changed quite a bit is where we could not, as a 


reviewer, reproduce the dose. I believe in our 


22 findings that number was two percent, and 


here you'll see 14. The reason for that 


difference in -- between two and 14 percent is 


during that second set of cases was the first 


time that we encountered where the dose 


reconstructor had done a best-estimate for the 


external dose and we were not aware that this 


workbook was being used and it raised a lot of 


questions. We could not reproduce a lot of 


information there, and so that's what increased 


that particular statistic, but we did not see 


quite as much of that. 


And I believe that summarizes the third set, 


and I'll just let Hans give you the final 


overview and a little bit of a discussion as to 


what we're finding on this fourth set of 20 


cases. 


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set, I want to ask a question that probably the 


Board members know the answer to, but it's 


important to get it on the public record. Of 


all of these findings, how many of them, if 


any, would have resulted in a change in the 


compensation to a worker? 


 DR. BEHLING: This is exactly --


 MS. BEHLING: That's what Hans is going to 


cover at this point and I will tell you that 


the answer -- I'll give you the last slide 


here. At this point in time, as Hans will 


discuss with you, we've been dealing -- and 


this was the point -- strong point I was trying 


to make is that we've been dealing with minimum 


and maximum dose reconstructions, and there was 


a lot of fat built into these maximum dose 


reconstructions. And even in cases where we 


can determine that they may not have included 


what we -- that -- all of the neutron doses, 


which you'll see in some of these cases, if 


they go back and reassess those cases they're 


going to reassess that based on best-estimate 


procedures now, and they will no longer use 


ORAU TIB 2 and 8 and 10. I'm probably giving 


half of your --

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 DR. BEHLING: Stepping on my toes. 


 MS. BEHLING: Okay, but I do want to make one 


point, that the benefit of these 60 cases has 


been that the dose reconstructor in some cases 


does have the option, if they want to, of going 


to those procedures and manually going through 


this dose reconstruction. It's not going to be 


something that they're going to necessarily 


want to do because the workbooks is going to 


make it so convenient for them not to do that. 


But one thing that we have accomplished in 


these 60 cases, and it's also part of our Task 


III, is I think we've pointed out to NIOSH that 


there is -- these procedures are complex and 


they're not clear. And as you heard earlier, 


NIOSH has conceded that they are going to try 


to introduce more clarity into the procedures, 


and so that has been a benefit. As you see, 


our primary finding -- findings for 30 percent 


was misinterpretation of procedures, and those 


procedures still do need to be clarified and to 


make it easier for the dose reconstructor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Hans. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, she took most of my points 


away from me. I was just going to summarize 

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it, and I think the question really is what 


have we learned to date. And as you've just 


heard, we've had the opportunity now to review 


a total of three sets and we're well on our way 


to completing our fourth set, and at this point 


in time we can draw certain conclusions. Most 


of the audits that we've performed were 


essentially a few minimized dose 


reconstructions where a partial dose 


reconstruction was only necessary to get you 


over the 50 percent mark. But the most of -- 


the bulk of the audits were in fact maximized. 


And as Kathy clearly pointed out, these dose 


reconstructions involve an awful lot of gifts, 


that I -- you could call, gifts in the sense 


where the assigned doses far exceed what is 


reasonably, logically the dose that the person 


really received. 


And when you find faults with -- or when you 


have findings with those, the impact, as you 


alluded to, is questionable because, as Kathy 


had pointed out, too, when you have a TIB 2 


dose reconstruction that involves a 


hypothetical either high five or the 12/28 


radionuclides, frequently the person who was 

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never even monitored for internal exposure was 


given a give of 16, 18 rem to an organ, which 


of course is probably a vast dose that didn't ­

- never existed. And so when you find a fault, 


as she pointed out, where there was a 


deficiency where perhaps a few missed doses 


were not properly calculated is -- is 


overshadowed by this huge dose that has been 


given. And of course if it comes down to the 


point where, in context with those errors, you 


are now actually approaching or exceeding 50 


percent, the recourse for NIOSH is to say well, 


that gift is coming back. And so the answer to 


your question, Dr. Ziemer, is that to date, of 


all the 60 cases we have had, I would venture 


to say, and with a high degree of certainty, 


not one of them would be changed in context 


with the findings that we have identified. 


 Nevertheless, these findings do point to 


certain things that I think for the sake of 


process credibility needs to be looked at. I 


don't think you can afford to continue to 


ignore even marginal errors that have no 


impact. It just doesn't look right when you 


commit certain errors, even if they have no 

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impact. 


And having said that, our checklist has 


obviously made that very clear. If you look at 


each of the sets of audits you will see in each 


one in the executive summary there's a 


checklist, and you will always see that the 


impact has very -- it is a very low impact. In 


other words, we don't anticipate anything that 


would potentially have converted a noncompensable to a compensable case. 


And at this point we are now in a fourth set, 


and for the first time we have encountered the 


best-estimate methodology, and I have to say 


I'm impressed. It's detailed, it's very 


complex, and it is extremely tedious. It's, 


I'm sure, very tedious for the dose 


reconstructors who've had to go through that 


exercise when you talk about somebody who has 


served 30 years at a facility, who has hundreds 


of urinalysis, dozens and dozens of chest 


counts, whole body counts, neutron exposures, 


photons exposures, and their records are just 


unbelievable in terms of the volume of records 


that now have to be assessed -- not in some 


blanket fashion, but actually modeled. And so 

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when I realize we're now at a new era, we're 


talking about a dose reconstruction that has 


probably cost an awful lot of time for the 


people who are doing it, and it's going to cost 


us a lot of time to review it. 


And of course here now we're dealing with a 


situation where best estimates are usually 


invoked in situations where the potential 


exposures will lead to a POC somewhere between 


45 and 50 percent. Now here's where you have 


to be very careful in looking at every aspect 


of the dose reconstruction process because at 


that point there is no buffer to work with. In 


other words, they're not going -- if I find a 


serious error here, there is no compensation 


that says well, then I'll take away my 


hypothetical internal and that amounts to 16 


rem and you're only talking about one or two 


rem, and so of course we're back to square one. 


In the best estimate that will not be the case, 


and we will probably have situations where we 


will be looking at these findings. We will not 


do the POC calculation. That will go back to 


NIOSH. But I can assure you that there will be 


some instances where you are at 48 percent POC 

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and the findings that I've identified will 


certainly bring you dangerously close, if not 


over that limit. We will not proceed beyond 


the point of identifying these findings for 


you. 


So all in all, we are now at a new position in 


our dose audits because we are now going to 


probably looking at more and more best 


estimates, and of course they will require a 


lot more detailed scrutiny on our part to 


assess. 


As Kathy also mentioned, the use of workbooks 


have all but eliminated many of the errors we 


found under the min/max approach. We find them 


to be extremely useful. They're relatively 


easily audited. They make use of computer 


codes, Crystal Ball, where certain things, for 


instance, in the past where uncertainty was a 


key issue. We had identified early on many of 


the dose reconstructions when there was a dose 


of record; that is, we had deep dose recorded. 


But few people knew or could understand the 


procedures for determining what is the 


uncertainty in behalf. They either defaulted 


to a maximized approach by multiplying all 

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recorded dose and assuming that's the 95th 


percentile, which exempted them from the use of 


a parameter two introduction, or they simply 


ignored it. Now I look at Crystal Ball and 


there are methodologies that are built into the 


system that make use of Crystal Ball that 


calculate all those things for them. So the 


use of workbooks have certainly eliminated many 


of the concerns we found in the first 60. And 


unless we get additional audits that go back or 


were performed prior to the introduction of 


workbooks, I don't expect to see too many of 


these problems arise in the future. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. Thank you, Hans, very 


much -- and Kathy very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Board members, do you have 


any questions for Hans or Kathy today? 


I'd like to ask if -- will we have, by the end 


of this meeting this week, any updates on cases 


21 through 38? Do we have -- 


 DR. WADE: I think we --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we have the NIOSH responses -- 


 DR. WADE: We have the NIOSH response. I think 


now the workgroup needs to get together and 


begin to work to closure -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- on those issues. So I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so we don't have anything 


beyond those responses. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so we do need workgroup -- 


 DR. WADE: I think the work of the Board on the 


hour we have subsequent to this is to put into 


place a course of action for each of the 20 


sets. I think it's a different course of 


action for each of the 20 sets. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. We will have an opportunity tomorrow to 


detail further a plan for bringing these to 


resolution and closure. 


We are scheduled to have a public comment 


period at 5:30, which shows an hour break. I'm 


wondering if those members of the public who 


did wish to comment would -- would just as soon 


we proceeded and not keep you cooling your 


heels for an hour. I think if that's agreeable 


we will do that. 


We'll take a brief break. I need to get the 


list of those who are commenting and give you a 

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chance to -- to have a comfort break. But 


we'll then begin, if that's agreeable, at 4:30 


and proceed with the public comment period 


right away so people don't have to just wait 


around for an hour. 


 DR. WADE: For the record, we'll still be in 


public comment period come 5:30 so if there's 


someone who's coming back at 5:30, we would 


accommodate them, as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: This way everyone can be 


accommodated. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's recess briefly and 


then we'll begin -- in about five minutes begin 


the public comment period. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:25 p.m. 


to 4:35 p.m.) 


PUBLIC COMMENT


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, as we begin our public 


comment session, let me make just a few remarks 


and maybe talk about some ground rules here for 


us. We do have around 20 people that have 


asked to speak. You can do the math and you 


see that if we have just an hour, that doesn't 


give anybody very much time. We can -- we can 

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go over a little bit. We also have some 


members of the public who wish to comment from 


afar and will be calling in at 5:30, and we 


need to accommodate them, as well. 


The public comment period is an opportunity for 


you to share your views and concerns with the 


Board. Let me tell you that -- or remind you 


that this Board is not the group that does the 


dose reconstructions, or makes the 


determinations of who is eligible for 


compensation, nor does this Board review -- 


we're not a review board for cases which are 


turned down. That is, we are not an appeals 


board. We are a Board that has very specific 


and somewhat -- and well-defined 


responsibilities in terms of overseeing, 


reviewing what the federal agencies are doing ­

- more specifically, NIOSH -- and you've seen ­

- those of you who've been here today recognize 


some of that. We do review a certain number of 


dose reconstructions from what you might call 


an audit point of view to determine if NIOSH is 


following the proper procedures -- its own 


procedures -- appropriately. And from that we 


make determinations as to whether there are 

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changes needed in the program and that sort of 


thing. But we do not handle the individual 


cases. 


 We are pleased to have you share concerns about 


your own case, but keep in mind as we hear that 


information we look at it from the point of 


view of what in the system isn't working well. 


We're -- if you have concerns about whether 


your information is being properly handled or 


listened to or whatever, that helps us to 


determine whether the system is working well 


and where fixes need to be made. 


If you have detailed concerns about your 


individual case, you need to work directly with 


the NIOSH people, and there are some of those 


here today. If they don't have the information 


you need or the answers, they will get them for 


you. So keep that in mind as we proceed. 


And again, be cognizant of the fact that there 


are other folks who also wish to be heard, so 


you need to be as concise as you can. We would 


ask you just to come -- you can use the mike in 


the aisle there or you're welcome to come to 


the mike in the front, whatever you're most 


comfortable with, and proceed from there. 

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And I'll just take these in the order that 


people signed up. And if some are not here 


because they thought that they would be 


starting at 5:30, we'll come back and catch 


them toward the end. First, Kenny Cook. Is 


Kenny here? 


UNIDENTIFIED: No. He -- he's expecting to be 


here by 5:30. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll catch Kenny then 


later. 


 Larry Jones? 


MR. JONES: Yes, I'm Larry Jones. I'm the ATLC 


health and safety rep at Y-12. I'm also a 


painter by trade. I'd like to read a little 


thing here. 


 (Reading) The workers and former workers at the 


Y-12 site need to be treated as an equal to the 


former workers and present workers of the K-25 


site. The K-25 site and others have a special 


cohort for a number of cancer, that number at 


this time is 22. If you worked at one of these 


sites for over 250 days and become sick with 


one of these approved cancers, you are put in 


the special cohort, which makes the cancers an 


occupational illness, which makes it possible 

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to receive a compensation. All the ATLC is 


asking is to be treated as equal to the past 


and present workers of the K-25 site. 


Remember, we, the past and present workers at 


the Y-12, helped to win the cold war. 


Okay, on another note, I filed under my father 


that passed away in '79, and I'd like to give 


just a little information -- a brief. The 


phone interviews that are -- you know, that 


they call and ask the wife, my mother -- I 


looked at what she give to the answers to the 


questions, and they was eight questions. I 


don't know, I don't know, he did not tell me, 


he was an engineer, he worked at X-10. Any 


other -- further comments, I have none. And 


that -- that was the extent of the phone 


conversation. 


Well, then the other thing, I was looking at 


the dose reconstruction. My father worked at 


X-10 -- I mean worked for X-10 at the Y-12 


plant. Well, the dose reconstruction was done 


for an employee that works at X-10. Well, you 


know, that's one valley over. There's no way 


that you could have a possible -- I mean high 


or low, it couldn't be right. I mean it just 

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couldn't be right. So I mean -- and this isn't 


something they did in the last -- three or four 


years ago. This has happened this past year. 


Something on this special cohorts that were 


working and -- and I see pipe-fitters only and 


stuff, I'd like to tell that every -- all the 


crafts out there worked in the machine shops, 


the chemical areas. It wasn't just a spot over 


here and just a few people worked. You know, 


you had a flow of all maintenance. You know, 


because you say maintenance, you're thinking 


maintenance on a machine. Well, that's not 


true. You've got the whole building that you 


do maintenance on. So you have groups of guys 


that come from east end to the west end, you 


know, that might have spent a year in a 


particular building. So that's -- that's the 


things that I don't think are really thought 


about. You know, you have people that traveled 


the whole plant. And then you have employees 


that's been out there 30 years, well, there's 


no doubt that in the maintenance departments 


they've worked in every building for a 


continued time. So that's something I'd like 


to -- to consider. That's my comment. 

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102

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. And with 


regard to your one comment on the working at Y12 even though assigned to X-10, and I know 


there are a number in that category, if in fact 


you believe there are factual errors in the 


record, please work with one of the NIOSH -- 


MR. JONES: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- people to --


MR. JONES: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to make sure that that 


correction is addressed. 


MR. JONES: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That will apply to anyone here if 


those kind of things arise. Thank you, Larry. 


MR. JONES: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Barbara Walton. 


 MS. WALTON: I want to start by thanking you 


for meeting here and for all the good work 


you're doing, and for helping me to understand 


the process better. 


I was born in Bethlehem and my -- I have three 


generations of family members who worked for 


Bethlehem Steel. However, I didn't find out 


till I got here today that -- is that you're 


only considering the Lackawanna and that wasn't 

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on your agenda because the Federal Register
 

notices leave something to be desired, which is 


not your fault. But if -- if you can get NIOSH 


to get you to review them, it might help. 


But I do want to point out that Bethlehem Steel 


went bankrupt and was later sold, and so there 


may be some critical -- criticality to 


timeliness of that because people lost their 


health benefits. At that time that they were 


sold, my father was deceased and he did have 


cancer, and my mother did, too, and there were 


exposures at Bethlehem plant, also, and I'll 


say a few words about that. I don't want to 


take up the time 'cause most -- you know, the 


Y-12 is the main thing here. 


But anyway, my mom lost her health insurance 


because of the sale. Now the pension money was 


put separately so -- you know. So anyway, 


timeliness may be a consideration when you get 


to the letters from the Congresspeople and all. 


 Now with regar-- I'm -- I think it's great that 


you have data for the people who worked here, 


because there are other occupations who also 


were involved in defense during World War II 


and my -- you know, I was born before -- before 

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the war started and my dad worked on defense in 


the steel industry at the Bethlehem plant. He 


worked in the coke division where he -- the 


high -- I think the exposures in -- at the 


Bethlehem plant were probably higher there 


because of coal with all the carcinogens and 


radiation, and the proximity that they would 


get to the -- you know, and this is over a long 


period of time. But not only was he exposed, 


my mother was also exposed because his dirty 


clothes came home. 


Now I think that probably that did not happen 


here -- I hope it didn't happen, I mean, 'cause 


I think they had safety clothes for people they 


thought would be exposed. But people didn't 


recognize how close coal, you know, was. And ­

- and it was closer proximity in a coke oven 


than it would be in a steam plant that 


generates electricity because there you have an 


automated process where people are further 


away. So I just wanted to bring that to your 


attention and I would hope that someday NIOSH 


might consider other types of -- other groups 


other than working with the actual nuclear 


materials. Thank you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Next we have 


Kathy Bates. 


MS. BATES: Do you mind if I stand at the 


lectern? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's fine. 


MS. BATES: Well, my name is Kathy Bates, and 


thank you for this opportunity to speak to you 


this evening. I'm reading a statement that I 


have prepared for the session, and I'm speaking 


on behalf of my mother, Mildred Gore. 


(Reading) My understanding is that the Advisory 


Board is charged with overseeing and giving 


advice on the dose reconstruction process, 


specifically advice to the program in terms of 


whether dose reconstructions are being done 


properly. You've talked a lot today about the 


procedural aspect of dose reconstruction. I'd 

like to make some comments on the actual 

execution of the process. 

 My father, James Gore, worked at the Y-12 

facility from August 1968 to October 1994. He 

was diagnosed with ocular melanoma in July 1977 


and died in April 2001 from the melanoma that 


had metastasized to the liver. My mother filed 


a claim under EEOICPA for my father in January 

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2003. We received the recommended decision 


dated November 17th, 2005 denying the claim. 


We filed an appeal on January 10th, 2006 and 


requested an oral hearing on our objections. 


To date we have not received a response from 


NIOSH regarding the appeal, but I recognize 


that this may take some time. 


My comments address the dose reconstruction 


process defined in 42 CFR 82, using our case to 


illustrate some issues. Specifically we stated 


three objections to the recommended decision. 


The objection letter to NIOSH totals 15 pages. 


If appropriate, I would be happy to provide you 


with copies of that. If I went through all of 


the issues in detail in our objection, I would 


consume this entire public comment session so I 


will try to briefly summarize key points. 


The first objection is with respect to 42 CFR 


Section 82.10 which outlines the requirements 


for a closing interview. My mother was not 


afforded the opportunity to review the draft 


dose reconstruction report for my father prior 


to the closing interview, and did not have the 


opportunity to provide additional relevant 


information that may affect the dose 

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reconstruction during the closing interview 


process. She was initially sent the wrong 


report. It was for a security guard in 


Paducah, Kentucky. Her closing interview was 


conducted even though she did not have the 


report for my father. 


The second objection is with respect to the 


dose reconstruction estimate for my father. 


The draft dose reconstruction report provided 


to my mother is very disconcerting. It is 


stated in the draft dose reconstruction report, 


quote, since no monitoring records were 


available, the maximum 50th percentile dose for 


each given year of employment from Oak Ridge 


National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Gaseous 


Diffusion Plant, Hanford Site, Paducah Gaseous 


Diffusion Plant, Savannah River Site, and 


Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant was assigned 


as an unmonitored dose for Mr. Gore. 


We object to NIOSH's assertion that my father 


was an unmonitored employee. Again, 42 CFR 


Section 82.10 provides an excellent high level 


of review of the steps NIOSH is supposed to 


take in developing a dose reconstruction 


estimate. It is not apparent in the dose 

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reconstruction report for my father that NIOSH 


obtained any information relating to my 


father's employment history at Y-12 for his 26­

year career, which according to 42 CFR Section 


82.14 should include, quote, job title held by 


year and work locations, including site names, 


building numbers, technical areas and duration 


of relevant employment or tasks, end quote. 


The section also includes numerous approaches 


to developing a dose reconstruction when 


information is missing or incomplete. If there 


was an attempt to create a reasonable estimate 


for radiation dose reconstruction following the 


procedures outlined in 42 CFR 82, it is not 


apparent from the information NIOSH provided in 


the report. 


 NIOSH asserts that no external or internal 


monitoring records were available from DOE for 


my father. My mother did provide information 


in the initial telephone interview that my 


father routinely wore a dosimetry badge, but 


apparently her information was not considered, 


quote, reasonable, supported by substantial 


evidence and is not refuted by other evidence, 


end quote, as required in 42 CFR 82.10(e). 

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However, NIOSH apparently felt that the 


information provided by my mother with respect 


to my father's job title was reasonable. In 


the initial telephone interview she stated he 


was a, quote, weapons production supervisor, 


end quote, and this is the job description 


NIOSH references throughout the report. They 


even acknowledge that this information came 


from her. 


Based upon this job description NIOSH makes 


numerous assumptions to support the dose 


reconstruction for my father as an unmonitored 


employee. The report states, quote, As a 


weapons production supervisor -- engineer, in 


parentheses -- Mr. Gore's work location is not 


known, end quote. And later in the same 


paragraph, quote, External electron radiation 


was not considered in this dose reconstruction 


because Mr. Gore did not work directly with 


radioactive materials, end quote. 


NIOSH apparently had no records indicating 


where my father worked. But going on my 


mother's statement that he was a, quote, 


weapons production supervisor, end quote, they 


made the assumption that he did not work 

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directly with radioactive materials. In the 


initial telephone interview my mother provided 


the name of at least one of my father's 


supervisors that she was aware of. It is not 


apparent in the report that NIOSH made any 


attempt to contact this individual to 


substantiate or refute information provided by 


my mother, as should have occurred per 42 CFR 


Section 82.10(e)(4). 


There are several other issues that are 


outlined in our appeal with respect to the 


specific objection. In the interest of time I 


will not go through them here. 


The third objection is to NIOSH's statement in 


the notice of recommended decision that the 


probability of causation for the primary colon 


cancer was determined to be 25.40 percent. My 


father did not have colon cancer, nor was he 


ever diagnosed with colon cancer. Obviously 


this is a form letter where Mr. Gore's 


information was input into the letter. This is 


an unacceptable error. This type of error 


causes grave concern regarding the quality 


control and quality assurance associated with 


this process. 

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 Lastly on the recommended decision, it looks 


like the file number is supposed to be my 


father's Social Security number. However, if 


this is what it is, it is incorrect. His 


Social Security number is recorded properly in 


the transcript of the initial telephone 


interview and on the draft dose reconstruction 


report. Is this error of any significance? 


In my father's case it appears that there was a 


significant failure of the process. My 


mother's information that my father routinely 


wore a dosimetry badge was not apparently 


considered reasonable, and was therefore not 


considered by NIOSH. How is this favorable to 


the claimant? Does the burden of proof lie 


with the claimant, who in this case is my 


mother? My father did not discuss his job with 


my mother, or with me, or with my brothers. 


What little information we know about his 


employment history my mother has provided to 


NIOSH. Unfortunately, my father is deceased 


and cannot recreate his job history for NIOSH. 


I do not believe that NIOSH had any employment 


records for my father based upon statements 


made in the draft dose reconstruction report. 

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Exactly what information did NIOSH base my 


father's dose reconstruction on, other than my 


mother's statement that he was a weapons 


production supervisor? If, as NIOSH asserts, 


there were no DOE records of monitoring, and 


apparently there was no information relating to 


his job history or where he worked, how could 


any type of assumptions be made that he was an 


unmonitored employee? It is conceivable that 


all of my father's records may be missing or 


lost. If this is in fact the case, how could 


NIOSH develop a reasonable dose reconstruction? 


 The probability of causation for the primary 


colon cancer statement in the recommended 


decision is the proverbial icing on the cake. 


I'm absolutely appalled that this type of error 


occurred. What are the procedures for quality 


control and quality assurance that govern this 


process? Is what we have experienced in our 


claim process an isolated event, or a systemic 


problem? Who is responsible for ensuring that, 


within reason, 42 CFR 82 is followed to the 


extent possible? 


As I stated earlier, we have filed an appeal to 


the denial of the claim and are presently 

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awaiting a response from NIOSH. In the 


meantime I have filed a request under the 


Freedom of Information Act to DOE, U.S. 


Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Operations, for 


all of my father's records, including medical, 


personnel, radiation exposure, chest X-rays, 


industrial hygiene, personal security file and 


OPM background investigation. I've also filed 


a FOIA request to NIOSH for all administrative 


records pertaining to this claim. 


Since filing the appeal I have also obtained 


more information, such as what building my 


father worked in for at least some part of his 


career, and the names of two more coworkers who 


are not deceased, to the best of my knowledge. 


I understand the Advisory Board does not advise 


on individual dose reconstructions. I am not 


asking the Advisory Board to intervene in the 


appeal process for this particular claim. What 


I am asking the Advisory Board is -- for is an 


accounting of how the execution of the process 


could so -- could have so apparently failed 


with respect to my father's claim. Thank you 


for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, and certainly 

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we'll be interested in learning how this works 


out with -- with the appeal process. We 


appreciate your pointing out those issues. 


 Janet Michael. Janet Michael? 


 MS. MICHELE*: Good afternoon. It's Janet 


Michele, but that's okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Michele, uh-huh. 


 MS. MICHELE: Everybody gets it wrong. Good 


evening, Dr. Ziemer and members of the Board 


and everyone in the audience. Thank you for 


allowing this time for public comments. 


I'm here on behalf of the Coalition for a 


Healthy Environment, and also the Alliance for 


Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups. CHE is an 11­

year Oak Ridge group -- 11-year-old Oak Ridge 


group, and we're probably the ones responsible 


for all of you all holding your positions and 


jobs here today, so... 


Anyway, we're -- and we're also one of the 


founding members of the Alliance for Nuclear 


Worker Advocacy Groups. Before I was a -- in 


my -- well, actually in my advocacy role and as 


my health has allowed, just to tell you a 


little bit about who I am, I've worked for many 


years on this -- on these issues. Recently 

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I've attended and participated, when my health 


has allowed and where appropriate, in many 


meetings and hearings in D.C., including 


meetings at the White House, the Voinovich-


Thompson hearing, the judiciary hearing, all in 


2000, and the EEOICPA reform hearings in '03 


and '04. 


But before my advocacy role I was a pollution 


prevention project manager, and I worked for 


two years at DOE headquarters helping to 


implement a Department-wide program and a 


strategic plan. I worked on audits and 


training programs and DOE-wide conferences, and 


I managed subcontractors, so I actually 


understand a lot of what you all are going 


through. I've worked on this side of the 


table, so I understand these -- a lot of the 


issues that you're going through. 


My comments have got rearranged a little bit. 


It's been -- it's been painful to see what I 


feel has been a somewhat wasteful spending of 


federal funds, and I'm referring in particular 


to the subject of the site profiles. It just 


seems like five years is an awfully long time 


to wait for these crucial -- these documents to 

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happen that help provide the foundation for 


doing these dose reconstructions. And in the 


short time that SCA has had to do the audits on 


these documents, there've been quite a few 


deficiencies found, as you well know, and these 


have been -- include but not -- are not limited 


to accounting for ingestion as a pathway for 


internal dose, questionable air sampling data, 


the presence of high fired oxides and the lack 


of worker input. 


And of course we've talked also about these 


6,000 pages of recently-classified dose records 


that have been released on the Calutrons and 


the Cyclotron. And you know, some people may 


be wondering, you know, why are these surfacing 


now? Well, because we've had an audit and this 


has forced a critical assessment, and this 


review process is very healthy. And it's 


really important because claimants lack the 


resources to bring this type of thing to light, 


and so this is really important and I applaud 


this audit and I'm glad it's happening. 


One of the things I think that's been important 


is that NIOSH has failed to validate and credit 


the workers' and survivors' assertions of the 

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working conditions at the site, and we've heard 


this already. It appears that it has relied 


solely on the ORAU personnel when developing 


the site profiles. May not be the case, but 


that's what it appears to be. And we've always 


thought there's been a possible conflict of 


interest with ORAU developing the site 


profiles. It seems that there have been five 


sites where the major contributor to the site 


profile was employed at the facility and 


responsible for the monitoring program. 


Instead of banning that person from 


participating for that site, it appears that 


NIOSH has simply changed the rules. 


Another area of major concern of course is the 


special cohort petitions, particularly the 


revised rules for evaluation. The EEOICPA 


reform bill of 2004 states that NIOSH has 180 


days to make a recommendation to the Advisory 


Board. Well, during the January 9th, 2006 


teleconference Mr. Larry Elliott was asked by a 


member of the Board about this time line and 


what constitutes a recommendation. And he 


responded by saying it all depends on who is 


interpreting it. 

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This appears to us that NIOSH is looking for 


ways to circumvent this time line. So we felt 


like this reform that was passed in 2004 was 


supposed to expedite the Special Exposure 


Cohort petition process. But it appears that a 


recommendation can also be a request for more 


time. This delaying tactic appears to be 


contrary to the law. 


 We've also learned that DOE and the contractors 


have been withholding records, specifically 


pathology reports and autopsies of the 


claimants or their deceased family members, and 


this does not allow for a complete evaluation. 


And I'm going to go into this in a little bit 


more detail. Claimant work histories have not 


been thoroughly investigators -- investigated. 


Many workers have spent time at multiple 


facilities and not just in multiple places 


within a site, but at multiple facilities. As 


an example, one worker was assigned to Oak 


Ridge, Los Alamos, Hanford and Lawrence 


Berkeley. And one worker worked at seven 


different reactors, but his dose reconstruction 


only covered one reactor. It only covered the 


graphite reactor. And another worker was in 

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Oak Ridge at all three sites and at the Nevada 


Test Site and at the test sites in the Pacific, 


but his dose reconstruction didn't cover all 


those sites. Why is this happening? This is 


something that really needs to be looked at. 


So we would also like to know what NIOSH's 


plans are -- this is not the Board, this is 


NIOSH -- what their plans are for complying 


with the six-months requirement for adding 


cancers, and this comes from the Labor/HHS 


appropriations bill. 


Now I was told by the ladies out front that I 


would be given the opportunity to sort of 


switch gears here. There's a woman that I went 


to high school with who lives in California now 


and she is working on her father's claim. Her 


mother lives here in Oak Ridge, but she's very 


ill and is not able to be here today to speak 


for herself. And if you'll allow me, I'll just 


read a little bit of what she would say if she 


were here today. She's -- and this is a little 


bit of what I referred to. 


(Reading) My dad worked on seven reactors at 


ORNL and other sites, and the dose 


reconstruction only used the graphite reactor. 

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None of his colleagues whose names were given 


were interviewed, and two have since died. And 


while the judges were asked for development of 


all the other sites where Dad did experiments ­

- Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley and Hanford -- 


for the purpose of possible new dose 


reconstruction, the claims examiner says she 


has nothing to do with that -- separate 


department, not even a discussion. But here's 


what the judge agreed with me on. 


This was during their appeal, at a hearing. 


 (Reading) While we cannot discuss or challenge 


NIOSH methodology or calculation for risk, et 


cetera, we can absolutely question its 


information-gathering. 


One other thing that that's pretty creepy -- 


these are her words -- in our claim is that 


this examiner revealed there is medical 


evidence in the file that we have never seen, a 


pathology report and an autopsy. 


 So apparently when her father died, his body 


was taken from the morgue and an autopsy was 


done and pathology, labs were done, without the 


family's knowledge or consent. This is major. 


Her dad worked at ORNL from 1954 to 1976. Dr. 

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Eugene Eichler was a pioneer in the field of 


nuclear chemistry. He did experiments on every 


reactor at Oak Ridge, often sleeping at the 


test site. 


One of the fundamental and flagrant problems is 


that while this very statute was enacted 


because employees were denied access to 


information about the potential for exposure 


and their actual exposure and, as the statute 


admits, because no oversight existed 


whatsoever, claimants cannot challenge, 


question or even learn what the methodology and 


basis for calculation has been. 


I have since sent her some information on this. 


 No outside agency can check, test, critique or 


evaluate fairness and/or corruption of the 


process. This boggles the mind and is an 


affront to justice. Rather than providing a 


remedy in the law, a claimant-friendly process 


has become a punitive one. 


As you can see, she's quite upset. I'm sorry. 


Let's see. 


Given the sketchy nature of ORNL records and 


that only minimal interviewing was conducted -- 


this is when her mother gave the names of other 

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of her father's colleagues to contact -- while 


contact information was provided for three of 


my father's closest colleagues, they were never 


interviewed. The interview was only of my 


mother, who knew very little about my father's 


circumst-- sometimes secret work. 


Understandably the process of revisiting the 


circumstances of my father's illnesses and 


premature death have been traumatic for her, 


and possibly limiting her recollections even 


more. 


Her father died at age 46 and he had two 


different cancers. Let's see. 


My father's dosimetry records are a textbook in 


what shouldn't happen -- lost, not kept, badge 


left somewhere, et cetera -- and once he 


started work at the Cyclotron, he wasn't 


monitored, which didn't make sense for someone 


who had a prior cancer. 


He'd already had a cancer before that happened. 


I'm really skipping around here and I'll go 


ahead and stop because she has loads and loads 


of notes, so I hope I've left you with a couple 


of questions and comments here, and I really 


appreciate the time. Thank you. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Janet. Next, 


Robert Pidgeon -- is it Robert Pidgeon? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Gertrude Timmons? 


 (No responses) 


Doris Henline, or -- H-e-n-l-i-n-e, it looks 


like. Okay, we'll skip ahead. Janell -- oh is 


this Doris? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, that's fine. You can 


distribute those, sure. 


 MS. BARTON: We are here to request that 


Building 1916 (sic) T-1, now known as the 


Office of Science and Technical Information, 


OSTI, at 175 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, 


Tennessee, be added to the DOE covered 


facilities list under the EEOICPA. This 


building was built as a warehouse in 1945 


during the Manhattan Project era. However, the 


Technical Information Center, TIC, now known as 


OSTI, did not take occupancy of the facility 


until 1957. Although the use and contents of 

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this building between '45 and '57 years is 


unknown to us, we do know that the use of 


chemicals in the printing plant, microfiche 


production area, and the photo lab were 


prevalent in the building from 1957 until the 


mid-'90s. The technical documents which were 


processed through TIC came from all over the 


country, from testing sites, labs and so forth, 


and possibly carried hazardous contaminants 


from these areas. Although the 1961 (sic) T-1 


building was supposedly built as a warehouse, 


it contains three vault areas with one-footthick concrete walls. We do not know what 


these vaults were used for prior to TIC's 


occupancy. We have heard that this building 


was a staging area for receiving and 


distribution of railroad shipments sent to and 


from Y-12, X-10 and K-25, but we have not yet 


been able to prove it. 


When we learned of the EEOICPA program we began 


to investigate the illnesses of DOE and 


contractor employees who worked in 1916 (sic) 


T-1, both living and deceased. We have 


identified 75 out of approximately 150 federal 


workers who have had catastrophic illnesses. 

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Fifty-six have had cancer and 14 have had 


neurological illnesses, eight of whom worked in 


the same area of the building. Thirty of these 


75 workers are now deceased. We know there are 


a number of other sick workers who have not yet 


been identified. This is an extraordinarily 


high incidence of illnesses for this small 


number of workers. We do not believe this is a 


coincidence, but was caused by working in the 


1961 T (sic) building. 


We are two of the surviving employees who had 


cancer. I am JoNell Barton and was employed by 


the Atomic Energy Commission at the Technical 


Information Center from January of '57 until 


July of '59. In September 1960 at the age of 


22 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had 


a total thyroidectomy. My son was nine months 


old at the time of my surgery, and I was never 


able to conceive again. This surgery was less 


than a year and a half after leaving TIC. 


I was again employed by TIC from February '63 


to December, 1965. In November 1985 I was 


diagnosed with breast cancer and had a total 


mastectomy. 


 MS. HENLINE: I am Doris Henline and worked in 

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1916 T-1 from February '61 to December 1995. 
I 

was diagnosed with breast cancer in May of 1991 


and had a total mastectomy of my left breast. 


The cancer had metastasized to my lymph glands 


and I underwent chemotherapy and took 


tamoxyphen for five years. 


 MS. BARTON: We met with Congressman John 


Duncan in September 2005, asking his support in 


getting 1916 (sic) T-1, OSTI, added to the 


EEOICPA list of covered facilities. He 


contacted DOE and DOL October the 13 of 2005 on 


our behalf, and he received a reply from DOL on 


December the 14th and another reply from DOL on 


January the 3rd, 2006, which he provided to us. 


Both letters were signed by Mr. Peter M. 


Turcic, Director, Division of Energy Employees 


Occupational Illness Compensation. Mr. Turcic 


indicated that the Department of Labor was 


aware of the issue of whether or not 1916 T-1 


OSTI could be considered a covered facility, 


and that DOL would investigate this matter. Is 


an investigation of this facility currently 


being conducted? If not, we are petitioning 


you to begin an investigation as soon as 


possible. 

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Thank you for your time and the opportunity to 


present our case. 


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


the Board doesn't know the answer to your 


question. But I should point out to you, Mr. 


Turcic is somewhere in the audience today and 


you can corner him and maybe follow up. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Put Mr. Turcic on the spot. Pete, 


maybe you can make yourself known to the ladies 


here. 


R. L. Ayers, Mr. Ayers? 


 (No responses) 


Let me skip ahead then. Would it be Alissa 


Robinson? Yes. Do I pronounce that correctly? 


Is it Alissa, Aliza? 


MS. AYERS: My name is R.L., initials 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, we've got R.L. Ayers, I'm -- I 


got too fast here for you. Go ahead. 


MS. AYERS: Okay then. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's Ms. Ayers. 


MS. AYERS: My name is R.L. Ayers. My husband 


was Leroy Ayers. I came here in 1943. My 

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husband came in '42. And I don't know whether 


I have a comment or a complaint -- all of mine 


is complaints. I have a question that I want 


NIOSH or somebody to answer for me. And it's 


why that I have not -- my husband died in 2002. 


Why that I have not been able to draw his 


money. Each time that I contact Jacksonville, 


Florida, the headquarters, they ask me for this 


and ask me for that. I have sent them 


everything that they asked me for, and I have 


had three different case workers -- three of 


them, 'cause when I call down there and talk to 


one, when I call back again I have another one, 


I don't have that same one anymore. And why do 


they keep switching me from here, there and 


yonder? I don't understand that. 


And my husband died of silicosis. They told me 


-- Ms. Yvette Waters told me that they didn't 


pay for silicosis in the state of Tennessee, 


said it was Nevada or Alaska. So -- but they 


are paying for silicosis in Tennessee because I 


have a friend who lives up at -- up here in 


Tennessee that received this money, and he had 


silicosis. Now what is wrong? I would like to 


know. 

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When -- each time I call down to Jacksonville, 


they will refer me to Paducah, Kentucky. My 


husband has never even been in Paducah, 


Kentucky. Why do they tell me about Paducah, 


Kentucky? They gave me the address and all of 


that stuff to contact them in Paducah, 


Kentucky. I don't understand any of this, 


because I have given them everything that they 


asked me for. 


I wrote to Mr. George Bush. I think that's one 


reason they keep on changing me from this one 


to that one. But -- and here's the letter. 


Here's the answer that I got back from him. 


got an answer from him. And he told me that 


somebody was going to contact me, and they 


would contact me within the next -- he said 


three or four weeks. But somebody contacted me 


within the next three or four days. They did. 


And they blessed me out that since I went to 


the trouble to write to the President. I 


couldn't get any answers from anybody else. 


And I still don't understand. I still want an 


answer. 


 My husband had silicosis, so -- and on his 


death certificate they put pneumonia on there. 


I 
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Of course that is a lung disease. Silicosis is 


a lung disease. Tuberculosis is a lung 


disease, but he didn't have any of those. He 


had silicosis. Once those lungs fill up, no 


air go through, then you are gone. And that's 


what happened to him. But still they're saying 


that they're not paying for silicosis in the 


state of Tennessee. Isn't that discrimination, 


or what is that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We need to find out. This Board 


is not going to be able to answer your 


questions since we're dealing with cancers. 


But I'm wondering if some of the NIOSH staff 


can help Ms. Ayers get in contact with the 


right person. It may be Department of Labor. 


I'm not really certain. But we do have some 


folks here and -- can some of the NIOSH staff 


help direct her? Just go back there to Mr. 


Hinnefeld in the back and he's going to try to 


get you with --


MS. AYERS: All right. I have a stack of 


letters from the Department of Labor this 


thick, out of Washington. I still --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, Stu's going to try to help 


you here, so --

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MS. AYERS: All right, then. Thank you very 


much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Silicosis is out of this Board's 


purview, but we do want to try to get you with 


the right person, so -- I know these 


bureaucratic runarounds are very, very 


frustrating. I don't know if we can solve your 


problem, but we'll try to help you. 


MS. AYERS: Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now Ms. Robinson, is she here? 


believe it's Robinson. 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Let's see, okay, let's skip ahead. 


George Eldridge -- George? Please. 


MR. ELDRIDGE: First of all I'd like to thank 


you for the opportunity to comment. I'm not 


here to criticize. I'm here to tell a story in 


hopes that NIOSH and any other stakeholder 


agencies involved in this process might learn 


something from my story and might make this 


process a little easier on all of us. 


My father was Dr. James S. Eldridge. He 


graduated the University of Tennessee with a 


P.H. degree in analytical chemistry and went to 


work immediately from U.T. for the Oak Ridge 


I 
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Institute of Nuclear Studies here at Oak Ridge. 


This was during the time period of 1950 to 


1956. In 1956 he moved subsequently to Oak 


Ridge National Laboratory to the analytical 


chemistry division where he stayed until his 


passing in 1990. 


Mr. Eldridge died of complications arising from 


a diagnosed metastatic esophageal cancer, which 


of course was one of the qualifying cancers 


under this program. The -- we filed a claim 


for Mr. Eldridge in December of 2001, and in 


the fall of 2005 we received our first OCAS 


recommendation letter, which stated basically 


that the total estimated rem to the esophagus 


was beneath the causation level to recommend 


payment under this claim. 


Subsequently it talked about signing a letter 


just testifying to the fact that we had 


received the recommendation letter -- this is 


not a denial, just a recommendation. And we 


were also set up with a telephone interview. 


So the first incident was during the telephone 


interview. We had a series of questions, and 


the letter that had come referred to my 


father's first employment at Oak Ridge 

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Hospital. So my first question to the health 


physicist who performed the telephone interview 


was why are you stating that he worked for Oak 


Ridge Hospital? And the conversation was well, 


that's what our records indicate. And we 


talked about the Oak Ridge Institute for 


Nuclear Studies whom this employee had never 


heard of, and I had to go through and describe 


the history of ORAU and ORISE and ORINS. And 


during the course of this conversation he 


explained to me -- he talked about claimant-


favorable procedures, how they used an X-10 


site profile for workers at Oak Ridge Hospital. 


And the conversation he and I had turned to why 


would you use an X-10 site profile for Oak 


Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies? They're 


separate physical locations, total separate 


functions. What's the technical basis for 


that? 


Again the response at this time was that X-10 


was the dirtiest place to work in Oak Ridge, 


and any time there was not a site profile to 


work from that the policy of NIOSH was to apply 


the X-10 site profile. 


I began to question, if that were true, why did 

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we have the SEC petitions, special exemption 


(sic) cohort classes. Why didn't we just apply 


the X-10 site profile to anyone who was 


unmonitored or if it worked at a facility that 


went unmonitored and so forth. 


At this time the person I was talking to said I 


tell you what, we probably need to investigate 


this further. Don't sign the letter and send 


it back in. We'll -- we're going to redo the 


dose construction and we'll get back with you. 


Keep in mind this was in the spring of 2005. 


Now it had taken from December of 2001 to get 


us to the dose reconstruction and the 


notification in early 2005. 


In the late summer of 2005 we were -- received 


our second OCAS recommendation report. And 


oddly, the total rem calculation to the 


esophagus had gone down, was even lower, so we 


were once again scheduled for a conference call 


with the HP involved. And during the course of 


my conversation with this gentleman -- his name 


was Chris and when I asked for his last name I 


was informed that they weren't allowed to give 


out last names, so all I know this person as is 


Chris. 

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 Once again the letter stated the employment at 


Oak Ridge Hospital, so that was our first 


conversation point. So I asked Chris what it 


was going to take to get the record changed to 


indicate this was the Oak Ridge Institute of 


Nuclear Studies. And the reply that I got was 


that "I researched, and your father worked at 


Oak Ridge Hospital and all he did was take X-


rays." 


Now that -- that's not something to tell 


someone. My father was a Ph.D. He worked 


under Dr. Marshall Brucer. I have many 


documented examples of his research papers 


where he worked with gallium and other medical 


radioisotopes. He did not take X-rays and was 


not an X-ray technician at Oak Ridge Hospital. 


We went further into the conversation, again 


talking about in all cases where we do not have 


a site profile to use in this process, we apply 


the X-10 site profile because it's the most 


claimant-favorable. Once again, I asked Chris, 


if that were the case, why aren't you doing 


this for Y-12 workers, K-25 workers? Well, the 


K-25 workers fall into the gaseous diffusion 


plants, they're automatically exempt. He could 

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not answer a why for certain other classes -- 


Bethlehem Steel, why certain groups at Y-12. 


At this point Chris and I mutually agreed that 


there's nothing more I could do. This OCAS 


recommendation was going to move forward to the 


Department of Labor for their final 


recommendation. 


 Immediately following that, my sister, who's 


also part of the claimant package, had her 


telephone interview. And during her course of 


the conversation with the HP they had stopped 


the process a second time. The reason being 


this time during their conversations, while my 


father was employed at Oak Ridge National 


Laboratory, he went to many different sites 


nationally and internationally. He was in 


Yugoslavia for symposiums. He visited some 


sites over there that dealt with uranium 


processing. He was at Three Mile Island, 


called there when that incident occurred. He 


was two weeks at the Nevada Test Site for a 


major exercise in 1983. He's been at Lawrence 


Livermore, many other national laboratories. 


So during the course of her conversation, Chris 


-- again -- wanted to know why these weren't 

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documented, why we had not researched and 


provided the, you know, exits and entries to 


all these different facilities that he's been 


to. 


Well, no one in this process ever told us that 


it's up to us to provide this data during the 


claimant process, so we're on hold for that 


now. 


The second part of this process involved the 


application for a facility or an area where 


someone worked to become part of the SEC class. 


We've filed a petition to have anyone who 


worked at ORINS from the period of 1950 to 1956 


to become part of an SEC class. And the reason 


for that is because we have affidavits that no 


internal monitoring was performed at these 


facilities, as well as no air monitoring. 


During the course of conversations in this 


arena, we were informed -- once again the 


comparison that even though there was no 


monitoring done at the Oak Ridge Institute for 


Nuclear Studies, that nothing dangerous 


occurred there. We have many documents, 


printed right off the Department of Energy's -- 


what used to be known as the H-rex or Human 

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Radiation Experimentation web site is now the 


ACHRE web site, maintained by ORISE. We have 


all kind of quotations, and I'd like to read to 


you one, if I may. This involves an experiment 


that was done at ORINS involving radioactive 


gallium. I'm sorry, I should have been better 


prepared here. 


(Pause) 


The title of this report from this web site is 


"An Example of Hopes Unfulfilled, the Gallium 


72 Experiments." (Reading) Human experience -- 


experiments with gallium 72, as discussed in 


the section titled "General Benefits of 


Radioisotope Research", were conducted at Oak 


Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies in the early 


1950s. The experiments used gallium 72 because 


of its short half-life, 14.3 hours. 


Now one thing I'd like to point out at this 


juncture, many medical radioisotopes have 


extremely short -- or short half-lives. During 


our OCAS recommendation interviews, on two 


occasions, we were told there was no need for 


internal monitoring because when my father went 


to ORNL in 1957, had he received any internal 


dose, it would have shown up at that time. And 

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I question the validity of that statement, 


given the half-lives of -- you know, in hours 


in some of these isotopes. 


 (Reading) The experiments used gallium 72 


because of its short half-life, 14.3 hours, and 


because an earlier animal study indicated it 


concentrated in new bone, making it useful as a 


tumor marker and possibly for therapy. 


It goes on and describes the experiments, and 


then I've highlighted another paragraph. 


(Reading) A major difficulty was lack of 


knowledge about both the chemical toxicity of 


stable -- that is non-radioactive gallium -- 


and radiation toxicity of gallium 72. 


Calculations in small animal studies indicated 


that dosimetry techniques used for other 


radioisotopes would be of little value. 


I find that an important statement regarding 


conditions at the time. This was a research 


facility. It implies what it implies. They 


were doing things at Oak Ridge Institute for 


Nuclear Studies to find out the effects of some 


of these radionuclides. Therefore I question 


whether proper safety methods were in place, 


were they known to be in place. 

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140 

And with that I reference a picture that's also 


posted on the ACHRE web site, managed by ORISE. 


And this is of an ORINS syringe shield, early 


1950s. And I'd like to quote from this 


document. The problem -- and this is Dr. 


Marshall Brucer speaking. (Reading) The 


problem with this device is that its large size 


and weight led to poor, and occasionally 


dangerous, injections. Dr. Marshall Brucer, 


the acerbic head of the ORINS medical division, 


described this particular instrument as a 


three-bladed advertisement for health physics 


wrapped around a piece of junk. 


Again, I'm not criticizing. I'm bringing up 


these facts to document something that was 


real, that occurred here. There was no 


monitoring records. I don't find it very 


reassuring when an HP tells me your father did 


nothing but take X-rays. It's a person who's 


younger than I am, has no idea what took place 


here. That's not the way to communicate this 


process. Let's do the research. If we need 


scientific justification for why an X-10 site 


profile is sufficient to perform a proper dose 


reconstruction when no monitoring records were 

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available for this time period, then let's 


document that. Let's get something scientific 


into the hands of people like me and my sister, 


who don't understand this process. 


My father dedicated his life, his studies at 


the University of Tennessee, his work at Oak 


Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies, and his 


subsequent 25 some-odd years at Oak Ridge 


National Laboratory. We at least owe him a 


proper dose reconstruction. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Gary Faster 

-- Gary? 

 MR. FOSTER: That's Gary Foster. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Foster, okay. 

 MR. FOSTER: It's all right. I've been called 

a lot worse. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- it's just my -- my 

reading isn't so good. I was just reading too 


fast. 


 MR. FOSTER: I'm speaking in behalf of my 


father, who worked at Y-12 for 35 years, from 


1954 to 1989. My dad is currently in dose 


reconstruction for both lymphoma and bladder 


cancer, and he's not in the appeal process yet 


because NIOSH can't seem to get the facts 

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correct on his dose reconstruction. Each time 


it comes back for him to sign this OCAS-1 form, 


we can't sign it because -- or he can't sign it 


because it's -- the building numbers are not 


correct, the dates are not correct, and I think 


we're finding that out here from -- from 


several of the other people. They're having 


difficulty getting the NIOSH dose 


reconstruction to accept further information as 


fact and things like that. 


And basically we are the people who actually 


know what we worked with at Y-12. We know what 


buildings we worked in, we know what areas we 


worked in. And I am a current employee at Y12, I'm a stationary engineer. I worked all 


over the plant there in many of the areas in 


question. You know, I -- I can picture them in 


my mind. You walk across the -- walk across 


the hall in some of these buildings and you've 


got a different process -- or at least you did 


when we were in full production. And it's 


really difficult, especially in this day and 


time, because of the secrecy issues and things 


like that, the classification issues, for my 


dad to actually present really good information 

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to these dose reconstructionists because he -- 


he doesn't know what he can say to these 


people, and he knows that they don't know, you 


know, what -- what we were exposed to at Y-12. 


We have a really good -- you know, a pretty 


good idea of what we were exposed to, and the 


Y-12 site profile is not -- not accurate, by 


any means, as to buildings and -- and what the 


-- what the radiological hazards are in those 


buildings. It's -- in fact, it doesn't look 


familiar to me at all. I mean I can see one 


little process in each one of the buildings, 


and that's -- that's all I recognize. And my 


dad was a lab technician in the metallurgical 


lab for most of his career there, and he didn't 


do anything like what they did in the buildings 


that -- that they have him down as working in. 


He worked with all the radionuclides and did 


destructive and non-destructive testing on 


them, out in the wide open in his street 


clothes. And it's -- it's just evident to me 


that -- that -- I -- I just don't see how you 


can do an accurate dose reconstruction process. 


Like I said, NIOSH did not cap-- the dose 


reconstruction process did not capture nearly 

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all the buildings at Y-12 where my dad worked. 


And when my dad hired into Y-12 in 1954, he 


worked in a very contaminated -- in the very 


contaminated foundries at Y-12 -- and I'm not 


going to say where they were. He then moved to 


the rolling mill, another highly contaminated 


area, and then he moved to the salvage yard 


where he handled all the salvage equipment that 


was highly contaminated. And none of that 


appears to be captured in the dose 


reconstruction. We keep trying to get it 


across to them, but we can't seem to get across 


to them. 


He then moved to the plant lab where he handled 


all the samples of many of the radionuclides 


at, you know, Y-12. He also handled samples 


from X-10 and K-25, so handles samples from all 


the plants. 


And then he went the met labs, as I mentioned a 


minute ago, where destructive and nondestructive testing was performed, and was 


exposed to everything Y-12 produced, nearly. 


And yet his dose reconstruction keeps coming 


back that -- that he's not -- doesn't meet the 


50 percent or whatev-- you know, whatever it 

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is. 


He had a -- with his lymphoma, he was diagnosed 


first in 2002, I believe. And when the dose 


reconstruction was completed on it, it took it 


about two years to be completed, and they came 


back that his whole body dose was 36.something 


rems. Well, about the same week he was 


diagnosed with bladder cancer and so we called 


NIOSH up and said hey, wait a minute, he's got 


another cancer here. They said okay, we got to 


go back and redo this. They went back and 


redid it and gave him another -- a second dose 


reconstruction, and it only took three months 


to do it. And what they did, they took 36 and 


divided it in half, 18 to the lymphatic system 


and 18 to the bladder. It doesn't sound too 


scientific to me. I mean I -- I have no idea 


what the scientific principles are here in dose 


reconstruction. I've learned a lot today, I 


believe, but that just doesn't sound too 


scientific to me, that you just divide it in 


half and assign half of it to -- to the 


lymphatic system and half of it to the bladder. 


One other thing is that I don't see how -- why 


they can do an accurate dose reconstruction is 

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that at Y-12, during his last year there before 


he retired in 1989, he had a body count, a full 


body count, and they found -- it came back as 


105 micrograms body burden in that body count. 


Now I may -- I may be mis-stating that, but 


it's 105 micrograms of U-235. When it got to 


his supervision, health physics determined that 


that couldn't be U-235, even though he was 


working with enriched uranium. It had to be 


cesium 137 because he ate garden vegetables and 


deer meat. And that is -- that is what is on 


his body count report, and they closed it out. 


They said no problem because it's cesium 137 


because he ate garden vegetables and deer meat. 


And that's the type of stuff -- that's the type 


of data that's being entered into some of these 


dose reconstructions, and that's why people are 


upset is because they know what they did out 


there. They know what they worked with. But 


NIOSH cannot seem to capture that in their dose 


reconstructions, so -- and I appreciate you 


letting me get up here and spout off, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. FOSTER: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All right. Next we have Forrest 
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147 

Johnson. Forrest? 


 MR. JOHNSON: I'm not a public speaker, but 


there's two or three things I want to bring to 


the attention of the Board. 


First, I went to work at Y-12 in June of '50. 


On my rejection where I filed, they said that I 


had a film badge. Well, the film badges didn't 


come out till '57, the way I remember it. 


'Course I'm probably the oldest man in this 


room. In fact, I couldn't buy it when I got 


that statement. Then I got -- tried to get my 


records from Amy (unintelligible) or whatever 


her name is. Couldn't get no records. 


Last year I decided I'd find out what Jimmy 


Duncan could do, so I went to Jimmy Duncan's 


office and his office manager, Jennifer -- was 


here a while, I don't know if she's still here 


or not -- so she -- they couldn't get them to 


start with. Finally I got a record from the 


health department where I had -- I think it was 


seven or eight splinters in my finger. Well, I 


never -- I never thought of a uranium chip of 


being -- or a piece of being a splinter. Only 


splinter I remember having while I was out 


there was when I was building my house, and I 

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did get a oak splinter in my finger when I was 


laying my hardwood floors. 


 So another thing they said in there, everything 


was hypothetical. Now I don't buy hypothetical 


for nothing. Just like the first atomic bomb. 


They said it killed -- hypothetically, it 


killed 70,000. Then they said hypothetically, 


it killed another 70,000 within five years. 


Well, if they -- one flash will kill 70,000 


people within five years, you can't tell me 


working uranium 235, 238 and all that doesn't 


add up to about the same thing. That's the way 


I think. I'll make it short and sweet and 


thank you so much for your time. And I know 


you fellers are getting tired of sitting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. With that I'm going to 


introduce Kenny Cook, who was first on the 


list, and I'm getting tired of sitting, Kenny, 


but I'll be back before you're finished. 


You can just go ahead. 


 MR. COOK: All right. Good afternoon. Thank 


you for allowing me to speak here today. 
I 


want to welcome our visitors to Oak Ridge on 


behalf of the Atomic Trade and Labor Council. 


The Atomic Trade and Labor Council represents 

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approximately 2,100 (unintelligible) workers at 


both the Y-12 national security complex and Oak 


Ridge National Laboratory. The ATLC has been 


the negotiating body at the two sites since 


September of 1946. That's significant, in that 


the special cohort status we are talking about 


today is from 1947 to 1957. That allows us to 


give a somewhat historical view of the working 


conditions at Y-12 and also at ORNL, or X-10 as 


it was known then. 


First we must understand that Oak Ridge was 


known as the secret city. The work done here 


was not -- never to be discussed with 


outsiders, or even coworkers, under penalty of 


prosecution. It's important to understand that 


outsiders included spouses and family members. 


Workers were told to talk to no one about what 


they did on the job. The spouses we have 


talked to have told us time after time, they 


never told us what they did at the plants. 


That in itself is very important when NIOSH 


uses the testimony of spouses to determine 


incidents these former workers were involved in 


or their work history. 


The city of Oak Ridge opened its doors to the 

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public in 1949. The city of Oak Ridge was 


opened, but Y-12 and X-10 remained a mystery, 


even to those working there. The type of work 


being done, the materials being used -- 


including radioactive materials -- we new and 


unheard of to most people back then. It was 


not a question of how to protect these workers, 


but one of do they need even protection -- do 


they even need protecting. 


I can -- I can't tell you how many times in my 


career I've heard the words "Don't worry, this 


stuff won't hurt you." Remember, it wasn't 


until 1970 that OSHA came here to -- came to 


be, so there was nothing driving the protection 


of workers at that time. And even then it did 


not apply to the federal sites here in Oak 


Ridge where dosimetry's required, where 


radiation work permit's required. Dosimeters 


were crude and unreliable, if they were used at 


all, and RWPs were unheard of. Exposures that 


were accepted as everyday business would be 


occurrences today. 


In today's DOE world we all have stop-work 


authority. If we don't believe a job is safe, 


we are told to speak up and stop the job. 

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Imagine for yourself what the working 


conditions were back then, or for that matter, 


the recent past. The war had just ended and 


jobs were scarce. If you were fortunate to 


have a good job in Oak Ridge, you sure wouldn't 


do anything to jeopardize it. There was an 


attitude of do your job and don't ask 


questions. If you don't want to do the work, 


we'll get someone else to do it. 


As a representative of workers at both Y-12 and 


ORNL, I can't tell you that attitude is not 


comple-- that attitude is not completely gone 


even today. Health and safety took a back seat 


to getting the job done. Those workers had 


exposures that were never documented. We know 


this, and it can't be ignored. 


So where does this leave us today? I know that 


NIOSH is trying to do dose reconstruction. I 


don't envy you on that task. But let me ask 


you, how do you reconstruct doses that were 


never recorded? How do you assign doses for a 


career when the work history is missing or 


incomplete? The answer is, you can't. That is 


why we need a special cohort status. 
I 


understand that NIOSH is reconstructing doses 

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and erring on the employee's side, but it is 


this really -- but is this really enough? Can 


we honestly say these assignment dose -- these 


assigned doses are fair when we suspect how 


much missing information is not being taken 


into consideration? 


These sites were secret then, more so than 


today. More importantly, secret with no 


meaningful oversight. If something happened 


that wasn't meant to be known, it simply wasn't 


documented. As I'm sure you heard before, if 


it's not documented, it never happened. And 


remember, we're not just talking about 


incidents. We're talking about everyday 


working conditions. 


Think about that, everyday working conditions. 


These working conditions made people sick, made 


them sick when they didn't know why. What a 


terrible thing for them and their families to 


go through. These men and women gave their 


lives, and some are still giving their life to 


this country by the work they did here in Oak 


Ridge. 


Is a special cohort status needed for Y-12 from 


1947 to 1957? Absolutely. But ladies and 

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gentlemen, another question needs to be asked 


here today. Should the broader special cohort 


status be expanded to cover both Y-12 and X-10, 


as it does for K-25? Without question. The 


hazards in the workplace at Y-12 and X-10 were 


just as dangerous, and in some instances more 


so. 


We talk to the workers, and the documentation 


is missing on exposure at Y-12 and ORNL. When 


we did the risk assessment for our medical 


screening program, we talked to these past 


workers and heard the stories of their working 


conditions, they exposures with no dosimetry, 


nothing to document the job ever took place. 


urge you to look at that document, if you 


haven't already. 


Speaking for the workers at Y-12 and ORNL, the 


pain and suffering of these people was and is 


just as severe, and the lives of these brave 


workers just as important as any other in Oak 


Ridge. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Kenny. I'm 


going to call now on Elisa Robinson. I think 


she's out in the hall waiting -- oh, here she 


is, she came on in. Okay. 


I 
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MS. ROBINSON: Good afternoon, and my name is 


Eliza Robinson, and I worked at K-25 for 18 


years. I worked in the mailroom and drove the 


taxi. And when I went in one of the buildings, 


which was 1420, I almost passed out. I got 


where I couldn't breathe. Dr. Fortney* was the 


head doctor out at K-25. They carried me to 


medical in there to Oak Ridge Hospital and I 


stayed there almost two weeks. So when I came 


out, they sent me home for a week. I couldn't 


breathe and my throat was sore, and I thought I 


just had a sore throat. So they told me that 


was thyroid, the doctor that I went to here in 


Oak Ridge. So then they kept saying well, you 


know, you can't go to another doctor. And I 


said yes, I can, because I'm free. So I went 


to another doctor and this is my problem now. 


So finally they took my thyroids out, and I'm 


still having problems. I get where I can't 


breathe and I can't talk. It was me sitting 


here coughing and going on when I get to 


talking. And this is my problem what I'm 


having now. And you see, I can't walk without 


this stick because I cannot pick this leg up 


without picking it up like this. And I went 

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back out there and I been going to the union 


hall taking the X-rays, and they said that I 


had a -- still have that spot on my lung. And 


I was in Oak Ridge Hospital two weeks ago and I 


was in 'tensive care for five days. I got 


where I couldn't talk and breathe. And I was 


talking and breathing and doing everything I 


wanted to when I went out to K-25, because I 


worked for the school system. I drove the 


school bus. 


But the good thing about it, it's one man that 


always have the last say-so and that's Jesus 


Christ, and I want to thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Eliza. Jump back now, 


did Robert Pidgeon come in yet, Robert Pidgeon? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, let's go on -- Bob Warren? 


 MR. WARREN: Hi, I'm Bob Warren, a lawyer from 


Black Mountain, North Carolina. I wanted to 


bring to your attention -- at a previous 


meeting, one of your meetings and I don't have 


which one it was, but Advisory Board members 


were asking questions of the NIOSH 


representative at that point about using the 


data generated by the applicants in the dose 

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reconstruction process. And I think the NIOSH 


representative said -- his response was that 


when the collected data contained sufficient 


numbers, that NIOSH expected to factor that 


into the dose reconstruction process at -- 


because of the different numbers of the cancers 


at each site. And my question is is what is 


the status of using the number of cancers for 


each site as some part of the dose 


reconstruction process? I -- it seems like it 


would be important to identify if stomach 


cancers are in excess at the Y-12 site of what 


would be the expected level of stomach cancers 


in the general population. If it's greater, 


just from voluntary filing of claims, then -- 


and the dose reconstruction doesn't show a 50 


percent probability -- it seems like NIOSH 


would then say what's wrong, why do -- what's 


happening with our dose reconstruction and why 


couldn't we add things on there. 


I think it wouldn't be that difficult to get a 


printout of cancers -- each cancer at each 


site, and then you could very quickly decide 


whether or not the expected number of level -- 


expected level of cancer at that site was 

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exceeded or not. 


 The other thing I wanted to draw to the Board's 


attention if you could, maybe NIOSH needs some 


kind of triage process. I had a 93-year-old 


client that worked at K-25 who died last week, 


and we had a doctor submit a letter saying we'd 


like you to process his application, expedite 


it, and that did allow for an immediate 


telephone interview. But if NIOSH could look 


at a situation where the workers and their 


spouses might be able to receive the awards 


before they die, if they are in a situation 


where there is -- their health or their age is 


meaning that. And it would -- it seems like it 


wouldn't be -- it wouldn't be the same process 


of minimizing and maximizing process you talked 


about earlier. This would just be a situation 


-- in this case, my client had numerous skin 


cancers and -- in addition to other cancers, 


but it would have been a situation where NIOSH 


could have looked at that and said okay, it's 


probably going to be and we'll take him out of 


line and do that. But there doesn't seem to be 


any process other than getting the telephone 


interview, and that was important. But if 

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y'all could try to work and see if there would 


be some way to expedite this process because as 


the population of workers are getting older, 


you're going to have more and more people dying 


before they get word, so -- thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let me see if Gertrude 


Timmons has come in. Did Gertrude come back? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Beulah Lindsey? Looks like Lindsey. 


Beulah? 


 MS. LINDSEY: It is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. LINDSEY: I'm Alvin Lindsey, I'm next on 


the list. Could I just go at --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, sure, go --


 MR. LINDSEY: -- at the same time and try to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- go ahead. 


 MS. LINDSEY: He happens to be my brother. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. LINDSEY: See the resemblance, I guess. 


 MS. LINDSEY: You know when I came here I 


actually thought that our situation was a bit 


unique, but in listening to everyone else, I 


see that we're all in the same boat here. It 


seems like if someone doesn't really listen to 

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us, we're going down like the Titanic. 


It's obvious to me from what I have heard so 


far that this system is indeed flawed, and I am 


not certain -- I hope and pray that it's not by 


design. We know for a fact, my brother and I 


and my other -- the other siblings. We know 


that our father died of exposure to radiation 


at the Savannah River Plant. There's no doubt 


in my mind about that. I was indeed, as we all 


were, the -- I have six other siblings who are 


-- who are still living. There were ten of us. 


My mother was widowed at the age of 39. My 


father died at the age of 53, having worked at 


the Savannah River Plant for about 12 years. 


We know that he died as a result of radiation ­

- exposure to radiation and working at that 


plant. We know that from the people we've 


talked with who worked there, and I know that 


from hearing that as a child. I was ten years 


old when he passed, and -- and I'm just -- I 


was just amazed when we got the report back and 


it said that there was less than 50 percent 


chance that -- that my father's cancer was the 


result of the radiation that he received at the 


Savannah River Plant. We were all just in 

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shock. 


I guess I live in a world that I think that 


people really just do what's right. But that 


doesn't always happen. So we have traveled 


here... 


 MR. LINDSEY: We traveled -- actually we -- oh, 


boy, two of us. We got the results on the 


report I think about three, four weeks ago. My 


mother passed in December a year -- December 


19th a year ago. We was letting it happen 


through my mother, and we -- we became involved 


as a result of her demise. And we got the 


results. As my sister said, we thought well, 


you know, the process is going to do. And also 


-- and it's going to work itself out. And also 


we was following procedures. And that's all 


well and good, you know. 


But then, you know, we get the results and 


results were wrong. And so we get this letter. 


Her thing where -- where I'm getting on is the 


credibility and -- of -- of the procedures. 


Right? For example, you read this last thing 


that you sign off with after you get the 


result. (Reading) I am not aware of any 


additional information available to me that may 

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be relevant to NIOSH in completing a dose 


reconstruction. 


Well -- and I offered some information. 
I 


offered something about the -- perhaps since he 


worked on the outside, he could have eaten 


berries, could have eaten food, could have 


fished in the pond or something like that 


around there. And I offered to the -- about 


the fact that, you know, my father commute -- 


it's like eight to 12 people over the period of 


time, that it was -- you know, that of the 12, 


that only one came out, kind of like the West 


Virginia mining thing. Right? And to me, 


that, you know, came out that all of them -- 


deceased now. Right? And for cancer, the same 


thing. 


So it -- that information, they said well, we 


don't want it. Right? We don't need that, or 


you should have given it at the beginning, 


that's not what we want now. Right? And so 


I'm finding out (unintelligible) you read the 


report. Okay? And you guys really must be 


real smart 'cause I mean I read that report and 


you cannot -- after you get past that second 


page of that summary part, you cannot -- I 

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could not follow it. It takes an expert three 


times over in that particular field to be able 


to follow it. Right? 


So I get here today. Right? And talking about 


people getting fair treatment, I get here today 


and I talk to Mr. Warren, and he was talking 


about cancers. Right? The whole thing about 


my father started in the stomach. Right? And 


so that wasn't too good, even though it went 


over to every other part, to the lungs, liver 


and all that kind of stuff. That's not good 


'cause it started in the stomach, so that's not 


good. But I didn't even know about the -- he 


had several moles and skin lesions taken away 


from his skin, operations. Right? I didn't 


know about it until I got here today. How did 


I know what question to ask or the question to 


tell them on the beginning end if you are at 


the end? 


I -- and one other thing, too, 'cause there's a 


lot of other things but I don't want -- they 


don't know about -- in -- in Savannah right now 


they're concerned with where people have taken 


waste out and dumping it in cardboard boxes and 


buried out in water and stuff and it's seeping 

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into the water system. They don't even know 


where they are. How are they going to know how 


my father was monitored, anybody else was 


monitored when you've got boxes and cans of -- 


of real hot stuff that's out there? So how are 


you going to expect to -- that those people 


anywhere, how are you going to expect for them 


to -- to -- to accurate monitor anyone there. 


And another thing, too, in terms of 


(unintelligible), I'm just getting into it. 


Right? But I'm going to get into it from here 


on out. I'm really going to get into it 


because we owe it to our father and I'm sure 


everyone else here does, too. How is it that 


other plants, your St. Louis or your Ohio plant 


-- Right? -- they have the same problem, but 


they get past. How do they get past and we 


don't get past. Is there something about this 


marjural (sic) that show that people in 


Tennessee or people in South Carolina, they 


are, you know, more docile and they're not 


going to raise cain and they're -- so therefore 


we can do it to them a little more than we do 


it up here to Ohio or St. Louis where this 


senator is on this committee and that senator 

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is not on that committee going to have to sign 


this appropriation bill and that kind of stuff? 


I think all of you know and your auditors have 


shown that this thing cannot adequately 


accurately be reconstructed. And so I think 


we're just playing with some games like around 


with that thing 'cause I think we all know in 


our mind that it cannot be accurately 


reconstructed. And I know you can't do 


everyone, but percentage-wise you're going to 


have a overwhelming amount of people that will 


not get service about the marginal, and I 


appreciate the (unintelligible) and -- and that 


you put up. Right? Those PowerPoint 


presentations and all like that, the pies, the 


graphs and stuff like that. But how is that in 


terms of -- one thing is -- is it actuality 


putting it in reality is another thing. And 


the missing information, I don't think -- and 


I've heard some people -- I mean these people, 


they came prepared (unintelligible) some other 


line's going to come up to that, they are 


prepared. I -- we wasn't even prepared. We 


just came up here cold, just to -- just to 


holler or vent or whatever you want to do it 

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and just, you know, because we have to because 


that is -- it's our parents, it's our life and 


we just cannot stand by. But I do think that 


when y'all get behind y'all's -- I mean y'all's 


closed meetings that you be honest with this 


thing and -- and just tell it. You know, 


really, that -- I don't think it can be done. 


It cannot be done with all these people up here 


saying this. Something is wrong here, and I 


think you know that. And if you don't do 


something, if you accept this module as the way 


it is, you're going to -- you -- I mean really, 


just the number here shows, and just -- and the 


people that can't come, the lady that just 


left. You know, the people that can't come. 


 MS. LINDSEY: So I'd just like to say in 


closing that I -- I'm still of the -- the 


belief that, you know, we are bound to do what 


is right. Our -- our purpose -- I don't think 


that any of us are here because it's about the 


money. It certainly isn't our reason for being 


here. And from listening and feeling the pulse 


of the people here, that isn't even what it's 


about. We are educated, fortunately. My 


mother reared us in a way that we could still 

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become educated. We have doctors in the 


families, post -- people with postgraduate 


degrees. I am here not because of -- what is 


$150,000? I mean in the first place it's a 


darned insult, so it's not -- it's not even 


about the money. It's about we lost people who 


gave their lives, who were exposed to something 


without their knowing, and we have a right, and 


it's just -- it's just not right. So we're 


asking -- I know you say that you're not in a 


position, that you're simply to kind of hear us 


or you can't do anything. But I do not believe 


that you're not in a position. You're not in 


the position that you're in, you cannot hold a 


position without being able to make an impact. 


I do not believe that. It has to start from 


here. That is the reason we traveled from 


Atlanta. That is the reason that we're going 


to continue to do whatever it takes. I don't 


give a dog what it takes, even if it means 


writing George Bush. I don't care what it 


takes, because it isn't right. Our father died 


trying to make a better life for us. He was a 


teacher. He didn't have to go to the bomb 


plant. He did that so that he could make a 

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better life for us and provide. He was 


educated. So I'm saying I can't -- we just 


can't allow -- you cannot allow -- you can't 


sit back and just listen. You can't, because 


look at what was here, and some of these people 


here, they have already lost their loved ones, 


just as we have. And you owe it to them and 


their families, as you owe it to us. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Beulah and Alvin, 


particularly for driving all that way to 


present to us your story. We -- we hope this 


Board does have an impact. We thank you for 


your challenge. 


Okay, let's -- let me go back a moment. 


Gertrude Timmons, did Gertrude come in? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. Did Robert Pidgeon come in? 


 (No responses) 


Glenn -- is it an R, Glenn Real? Is there --


Glenn anybody? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Probably Glenn Bell? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dell, that -- it could be Dell. 


 MR. BELL: I didn't know my writing was that 


bad, sorry. 

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168

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, close enough. 


 MR. BELL: Thanks for that introduction. I'm 


Glenn Bell. I've been a machinist at Y-12 


since 1968. I'm also the chairman of Y-12's 


Chronic Beryllium Disease Support Group. I'm 


in favor of expanding Y-12's SE status for 


several reasons. I'm sure you're aware of -- 


that documentation wasn't there in a lot of 


cases. Records were -- I've heard incomplete, 


inconsistent or in the trash, as I've heard it 


called before. 


Over my years at Y-12 I have been in almost 


every building out there that a machinist or 


inspector could be assigned to, and I can tell 


you that job title or even the department or 


building assignment may not reflect the 


exposures because you could be assigned to one 


department and be on loan or work overtime in 


another department that may be more or less 


contaminated than the one that you're normally 


assigned to. 


In December of '03 I submitted two documents to 


NIOSH that are still listed -- were listed this 


morning as being under review for public 


release, even though I had the proper release 

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papers with those at the time I submitted 


those. It should have been just a matter of 


verifying that for public release. One was a 


1990 health physics report from the building 


that I was assigned to at the time. The other 


was an SAIC report from 1998 of Y-12 


contamination survey and a pretty good listing 


of maps. 


The SAIC report, that's Science Applications 


International Corporation, it was prepared for 


the Oak Ridge Reservation End-use Working 


Group, and it's 50 or 60 pages of maps, which 


were really well done. It showed outside 


contamination of the soil, rooftops. It gave 


some geological cross-sections, showed pathways 


of exposure. It was pretty -- pretty well-


written, I thought. 


The other was a health physics survey for 


uranium surface contamination, as I said, in 


the building I was assigned to at the time in 


1990. And I'm not very well versed on health 


physics, but when I see at the bottom of a page 


that the maximum is supposed to be 5,000 


disintegrations per minute, anything above that 


is considered contaminated, and I'm seeing a 

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report here that has 800,000, 255,000, 


2,400,000, 6,600,000 counts, that's 


contaminated. And you know, I haven't had an 


answer as to whether these documents are indeed 


being used in Y-12 site profile. I don't know. 


I've written at least on three occasions to try 


to get an update, and the only answer I've 


received is that the documents are still under 


review. So I don't know, based on what I've 


been told, are these documents being used in 


the site profile or are they not, and how many 


more documents like these are out there that we 


just haven't turned up. This health physics 


report was prepared in 1990 and we only found 


it in the -- about Thanksgiving of '03. 


If this data is inconsistent or incomplete, how 


can a credible dose reconstruction be done? 


That's why I think that, due to the lack of 


information and all the documents that -- like 


these that may be out there, that I think the 


SEC status should be extended to Y-12 and to X10, regardless of the years. You know, not -- 


not limit it to the -- to the early years. And 


I thank you for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Glenn, did you say you have 

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made those documents available to NIOSH? 
I 


missed --


 MR. BELL: (Off microphone) Yes, 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Do we have those documents? 


 MR. BELL: Yes, they were sent by -- by 


certified mail in December of '03, and I did 


get a return receipt that they had been 


received. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. BELL: But -- and it's posted on the web 


site that as -- that they have been received 


and are under review -- currently under review. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


 MR. BELL: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I want to determine -- we were 


told that there was a couple of people that 


wanted to comment publicly from Colorado by 


phone. Do we -- has anything come in? 


(Pause) 


 Okay, apparently not. Then I have Richard 


Miller from the Government Accountability 


Project. Richard's back here. 


 MR. MILLER: Well, good evening. My name's 


Richard Miller. I work for the Government 

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Accountability Project. I've met a number of 


you at previous Board meetings in hotel rooms 


that looked a lot like this. Good evening, 


everyone. 


I would like to touch on the Special Exposure 


Cohort proceedings that you're dealing with. 


There are really five separate areas that seem 


to be in play involving special cohorts that 


the Board has under consideration, or should. 


The first, which I see on the agenda, is the 


Special Exposure Cohort interim final rule, for 


which comments are due by February 21st of 


2006. And I don't know whether the Board 


intends to file comments on it, but I'm going 


to offer a couple of thoughts from my read of 


the rule that might inspire you all to bring it 


under at least discussion, if you choose to 


file comments. I know the Board has been very 


diligent in filing lots of comments on the SEC, 


as well as the dose reconstruction and this 


probability of causation rule. 


The second area has to do with the policy 


issues from Dr. Melius's presentation today. 


The third issue has to do with whether and how 


the Sanford Cohen & Associates procedures, 

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which were I think sent out sometime in 


December, dealing with how they will review 


Special Exposure Cohort petitions if they are 


so tasked to do so. And directly related to 


that would be the question of whether the Board 


intends at this meeting to assign any tasks for 


any SECs that are in the hopper for them to get 


started on, given that the task order I guess 


was finally issued in August of 2005, some one 


year after the Board had asked for it. 


And then the last issue really has to do with 


sort of a procedural question that I would just 


like to beg the lawyers to think about a little 


bit, which is we have Special Exposure Cohort 


proceedings going forward, and here in Oak 


Ridge there's an SEC pending. I don't know if 


the petitioners are here, or even who the 


petitioners are. We're told the petitioners 


are -- their identity's protected under the 


Privacy Act, but yet they represent a whole 


class of hundreds or more of individuals. And 


the question really becomes can they be an 


adequate representative for a whole class if 


they're operating just in anonymity, without 


communication with the balance of the class or 

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members of it. 


Let me just quickly get to the interim final 


rule. The Defense Authorization Act for FY 


2005 required that within 180 days from the 


date that an SEC petition is submitted to 


NIOSH, NIOSH should make a recommendation on 


such petition to the Advisory Board, including 


all supporting documentation. Now I had a 


chance to look at the interim final rule, and 


in section 83.5 and 83.11 never once is the 180 


days even mentioned. It's in the preamble, but 


not in the text of the rule. Hmm. 


 But the preamble says that the reason for this 


rule is to deal with the new deadline set forth 


in the Defense Authorization Act, and the rule 


does specify the 30-day deadline that the 


Secretary of Health and Human Services has to 


receive a recommendation from the Board and 


then take action, either to approve or deny. 


So I guess the question is why is the 30-day 


time frame in the rule, but the 180-day 


requirement for making this recommendation is 


not? 


 The other concern we have is -- is whether the 


definitions that are currently in place for 

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what a petition is have been stretched, as a 


practical matter, and ultimately result in 


NIOSH having a year or more to deliberate on 


SEC petitions. I only look at Rocky Flats 


where the petition was file in February, and it 


was one of the most detailed petitions I'd ever 


seen. It was exhaustive, well-documented, 


tabbed and organized. And after several months 


of qualification process, then the petitioners 


received their qualification and now 180 days 


have passed and of course there's no petition 


before the Board. 


 So the question really is are there any 


consequences for missing the 180-day deadline, 


and should there be? Is that a statutory 


question, or should that be in the rule? 


And I guess the other question that arises is 


what does it mean, as I've seen in the 


transcript and I think you, Dr. Ziemer, may 


have mentioned the concept of being frozen in 


time. You take the petition where it is, 


frozen in time. You take the data, frozen in 


time. This happened in Iowa, I think, that was 


-- was most profoundly that policy sure came to 


the fore, and I believe Dr. Melius in his 

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presentation today talked about a petition 


being frozen in time. 


Well, I guess the question is, how long do you 


let this deadline creep before something's not 


frozen in time, it's sort of sliding along, 


kind of like at a glacial pace? 


Now NIOSH created a definition for the term 


"petition" in this rule. When you submit a 


petition now, according to this rule, it's 


actually deemed a submission. And it doesn't 


become a petition until it's qualified. But 


there's no deadline on how long it takes to get 


qualified. And what the Defense Authorization 


Act actually says, if you look at the text, it 


says that the qualification process has to take 


place within the first 30 days of the 180 days. 


It doesn't say you can do it outside. And let 


me just read you very briefly what it says. 


It says -- and this is in House Report 108-767, 


it says (Reading) During the 180-day period 


when NIOSH is preparing the petition for review 


by the Advisory Board, NIOSH should identify 


all the deficiencies in the petition within the 


first 30 days. So the 30 days fits within the 


180-day window, not outside the 180-day window. 

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And there's not even a 30-day deadline for 


qualifying a petition. 


 The other concern was that NIOSH cut the time 


for a petitioner to appeal a rejection for the 


qualification of their petition to a mere seven 


days, seven days to put your appeal together. 


Now NIOSH says that the reason that they're 


doing this is -- is because it would give them 


-- it would chew up less of the 180-day time 


period. But if you're not qualifying a 


petition, the 180-day clock's not going to run 


anyhow under this rule. So there seem to be 


some points of confusion here and 


inconsistency. 


 And then finally the question which was also 


brought up by another commenter today, which 


was the term "recommendation", what is a 


recommendation. Is a recommendation a yes or 


no? Is it part of an SEC evaluation report, 


and then when the report comes to the Board 


y'all have a yes or a no? Or does a 


recommendation mean we need more time? 


 Now I happened to listen in to that conference 


call in early January, and what we learned was 


a recommendation could include a request for 

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more time. The example given was Y-12 here in 


Tennessee, that -- well, we've evaluated a part 


of the petition but we need more time for the 


rest of it so our recommendation is we need 


more time. 


Well, I don't know that that's what Congress 


intended by the word "recommendation". 


Recommendation meant yea or nay. So it seems 


to me the rule ought to have a definition of a 


recommendation. And I guess if all of this is 


about getting more time, then let's be up 


front. 


Now the preamble to the rule says the purpose 


of all these definitions is to, quote, enable 


NIOSH to work within the 180-day statute. It 


doesn't say to conform. And so it's revealing 


to use the word "enable" versus "conform", and 


I don't know quite exactly what's at issue 


here, but I would encourage you all to think 


about whether the Board should look carefully 


at this rule, since it's going to have to live 


with it as part of its guidelines. 


I went through the guidelines that Dr. Melius 


laid out, and I just had two or three brief 


questions, one of which is when can data from 

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another facility be used to establish dose? 


Now this came up obviously in the Iowa special 


cohort with whether or not you could use Pantex 


tritium data, or the neutron/photon ratios from 


-- from Pantex. But it seems to me that when 


you look at the special cohort procedures that 


NIOSH has published, they say, you know, it 


doesn't say how much data we can use from 


another facility. It doesn't say how little or 


how much, and so as long as there's at least a 


scintilla, we're conforming with the legal 


requirement to use data from the source of the 


site that's at issue, 'cause the statute says 


you have to use data from the site. It just 


doesn't say how much of that data you have to 


use. 


And so one of the questions about whether you 


can bound the dose, whether you can do a 


special cohort or whether you should approve or 


deny one is whether there's other data out 


there you can use. And I would ask this 


question: Should you define the parameters in 


your SEC guidelines on when you can use data 


from another source? 


I have some suggestions that should make it 

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fairly clear when you can and when you can't. 


It seems to me that if your conditions are 


fairly close to parallel -- I don't mean 


identical, but parallel and high degree of 


approximation, then perhaps you could use data 


from it, but it should cover the same time 


periods. It should be for the same processes. 


And -- but it shouldn't be for vastly different 


time periods and vastly different processes in 


an effort to try to come up with some kind of 


number you can throw at the wall. 


 The other question is, how little data can you 


get away with using from a specific site, and 


how much data can you borrow from another site 


and say it's feasible to estimate dose with 


sufficient accuracy? 


The other thing I would just like to suggest is 


a process matter, and it deals with the SECs 


directly, which is should -- wouldn't it make 


sense if NIOSH just, right up front in the site 


profile, if it self-identified classes of 


workers that would readily qualify for 


inclusion in an SEC, that they would just 


communicate this to the Board, that they would 


just make this public? Now, you know, back -- 

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over a year ago, almost 16 months ago, a task 


order was given to ORAU to precisely do that, 


to come up with a report. And Larry Elliott 


reported to this Board that they were working 


on a report of self-identified Special Exposure 


Cohorts. And it seems to me that report which 


was due December 1st, 2004 is at least 14 -- 


13, 14 months overdue, and it would seem to me 


if that report's in hand in whatever shape it's 


in, it ought to be made public. People 


shouldn't be kept in the dark if there's SECs 


hanging in sort of the closet, so to speak, of 


NIOSH or ORAU. 


 The other question I guess I would pose is what 


about site profiles? What happens if you have 


an SEC petition and the -- there's holes in the 


site profile? What you find out is maybe you 


can bound the upper dose -- end of the dose, 


but the site profile needs a lot of surgery. 


In other words, the site profile needs a long 


way to go. How long do you allow the process 


to go on and all -- on and on and on and on and 


on till you plug all those holes? In other 


words, do you -- I guess, put another way, is 


that an open-ended process? And how do we deal 

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with this frozen-in-time problem that was laid 


out really well I think in the dialogue on 


November 17th, and the transcript I think 


commends itself well to that discussion. But 


again, the draft guidelines as presented today 


don't ask or answer that question, and it would 


be -- it would be helpful I think for you guys 


to deal with the prescriptively. 


Finally, I'd just like to talk a little bit 


about the SC&A procedures. I mean I don't know 


if they're ready for prime time or not. I 


don't know whether the Board's going to take 


them up at this meeting. But one of the things 


that's really of concern to me is that, you 


know, site profile reviews are being used as 


sort of the proxy for SEC reviews, and it seems 


to me it would be very helpful if the SC&A 


procedures at least conditionally could be put 


in place so that you could then task them with 


a few sites to start getting going on SEC 


reviews. You know, I -- I have some 


suggestions on facilities that might benefit 


from an SEC review, but I'm sure you all know 


what the list is that's out there. 


So those are my thoughts. I thank you for your 

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time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Richard, for a 


number of stimulating questions for the Board 


to consider. And we do have, incidentally -- 


on the agenda tomorrow we will be looking at 


those SC&A procedures that have -- that were 


referred to. 


Let me check one more time. Do we have anyone 


on the phone? 


 (No responses) 


Apparently not. I want to again give one more 


opportunity -- did Robert Pidgeon return? 


 (No responses) 

Okay. Or Gertrude Timmons -- Timmer? 

 (No responses) 

Okay. If not, that completes our public 

comment period. I thank all of you for 


participating, those who came long distances, 


those who live close by, we're pleased that 


you're here to share with us. If you have 


additional comments that you'd rather give to 


Board members privately, you're welcome to do 


that, as well. 


Thank you. The Board will reconvene tomorrow 


morning. You're all welcome to join us at that 

184 

1 time. 

2 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m.) 
______________________________ 

185 

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 January 24, 


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 


7th day of March, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102