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 SUBCOMMITTEE FOR DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEW 

OF THE 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

 

The verbatim transcript of the 

Meeting of the Subcommittee for Dose Reconstruction 

Review of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held at the Marriott Airport, Hebron, 

Kentucky, on June 10, 2008. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTERS 

404/733-6070 
2

C O N T E N T S

June 10, 2008 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 6 

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

INTRODUCTION BY CHAIR 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, CHAIR 9 

SIXTH SET OF CASES WRAP-UP 11 

SEVENTH SET OF CASES MATRIX 75 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 297 

 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 

material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- ^/(inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
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 P A R T I C I P A N T S 

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

BRANCHE, Christine, Ph.D. 

Principal Associate Director 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

 

 

MEMBERSHIP

1 CLAWSON, Bradley 

2 

3 

Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 

Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

 
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ANNOUNCED PARTICIPANTS

ADAMS, NANCY, NIOSH 

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 

BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAU 

BURGOS, ZAIDA, NIOSH 

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 

FARVER, DOUG, SC&A 

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 

SIEBERT, SCOTT, ORAU 
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P R O C E E D I N G S

(9:30 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

DR. CHRISTINE BRANCHE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL

 DR. BRANCHE: Good morning. I’m Dr. 

Christine Branche, and we’re finally ready to 

start. Could someone who’s on the phone 

please let me know that you can hear me? 

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 MR. GIBSON (by Telephone): Yeah, I hear 

you, Christine. 

DR. BRANCHE: Thank you, Mike. 

 This is the meeting of the 

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction. I thank 

you for your patience. We had some airport 

delays and now we’re all ready to go. Would 

the Board members who are here in the room 

please state your names? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Robert Presley. 

MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon. 

MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Brad Clawson. 

DR. BRANCHE: Board members participating by 

phone would you please state your names? 

 MR. GIBSON (by Telephone): Mike Gibson. 
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DR. BRANCHE: Are there any other Board 

members? 

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DR. BRANCHE: We do not have a quorum of the 

Board so we can proceed. 

 NIOSH staff in the room please state 

your names? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Larry Elliott, NIOSH. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Stu Hinnefeld. 

MS. ADAMS: Nancy Adams. 

DR. BRANCHE: NIOSH staff participating by 

phone would you please state your names? 

MS. BURGOS(by Telephone): Zaida Burgos. 

DR. BRANCHE: ORAU staff in the room please 

state your names. 

MS. BRACKETT: Liz Brackett. 

MR. SIEBERT: Scott Siebert. 

DR. BRANCHE: ORAU staff by phone please 

state your names. 

 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: SC&A staff in the room, please 

state your names. 

DR. MAURO: John Mauro. 

MR. FARVER: Doug Farver. 

DR. BRANCHE: SC&A staff by phone, please 
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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Kathy Behling. 

DR. BRANCHE: Other federal agency staff in 

the room, please state your names. 

MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell, HHS. 

DR. BRANCHE: Other federal staff by phone, 

please state your names. 

MR. KOTSCH (by Telephone): Jeff Kotsch with 

Labor. 

DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

 Petitioners or their representatives, 

would you please state your names? 

 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: Workers or their reps please 

state your names. 

 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: Members of Congress or their 

representatives please state your names. 

 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: Any others who would like to 

mention their names please do so now. 

 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: Thank you. 

 Before turning it over I’d just ask 

very strenuously that those of you 
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participating by phone please mute your 

phones. We’ve come to understand quite 

clearly that if you don’t mute your phones, 

then other people participating by phone 

cannot hear. If you do not have a mute 

button, then please use star six to mute your 

phones. And be warned, we really can tell if 

you haven’t muted your phones. So thank you 

very much. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Thanks, Christine. 

 The agenda’s pretty simple for today. 

We’re going to discuss the sixth set of cases 

which we have had initial discussions about. 

And I think we’re close to completing the 

sixth set, actually, of discussions. And then 

we haven’t done the seventh set at all yet, so 

we’re going to initiate discussions on that. 

We have NIOSH’s responses. I hope everyone 

got the seventh matrix. Stu sent that around 

to everyone, and we’ll start through that one. 

 The sixth set, as I said earlier, 

there’s a document, a 13-page Word document, 

that SC&A put out with the remaining issues on 
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the matrix. And in that document there’s also 

a couple that in a later e-mail SC&A sent a 

response for a couple items. And I inserted, 

I took them out of the e-mail and inserted 

them in the Word document. 

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 So you may not have that version, 

Doug. 

 But it’s Doug’s response in those 

sections like in 107.4 on page two you’ll see 

-- 

MR. HINNEFELD: When did you send this, 

Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: Wanda, when did I send it, 

yesterday? 

MS. MUNN: Yesterday. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yesterday morning. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Was I on it? 

DR. BRANCHE: I can forward it to you. 

MR. GRIFFON: Sorry, Stu, if I didn’t put 

you on there. 

 So, and then I would also refer back 

to the matrix from our last meeting which was 

in March, I think March 25th, 2008. And I 

think I forwarded that to the work group as 

well, the latest version that I had. 
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 So these responses in the Word 

document that we discuss I plan on updating 

the matrix with whatever we conclude from this 

set of discussions. And if anyone finds 

anything in the matrix as we go through that 

isn’t captured in this document, I think we, 

you know, we want to stop and grab that too if 

we need further discussion. 

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9 SIXTH SET OF CASES WRAP-UP

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 So I guess the best way to proceed -- 

I’m giving Stu a chance to look at that. I 

apologize. The best way to proceed probably 

is to turn the table over to SC&A, and let 

them start with 105.6, which is the top one on 

your document. 

MR. FARVER: I believe that was closed at 

the last Subcommittee meeting. 

MR. GRIFFON: It’s going to be a quick 

meeting. I’m just going to go along in the 

matrix, too, and if there are people have the 

matrix, you can review with me. If there’s 

any questions still remaining -- I do have a 

question on 103.2. Going back on the matrix 

there’s a -- and this is just editing my 

responses really. 
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 I have a note in there for people who 

have the matrix open, it says for this case 

they used 14 of 22 years of employment, not 

100 percent. It’s not clear why. And this 

is, I think, my note, maybe I should have 

edited these before I forwarded them to 

everybody. 

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 I guess that’s a placeholder for me. 

I wasn’t sure if we had resolution there on 

that one. So if everybody can look back at 

103.2. I’m looking at case 103, actually, 

because 103.1 also has the question that would 

be in my resolution column there. 

 Stu, do you have that? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I have our response. 

Was this a compensated case? 

MR. GRIFFON: 103.1 was a compensated case. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So we just used a partial 

and took as much dose as we needed. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s why, okay. 

MS. MUNN: Is that 103.2? 

MR. GRIFFON: And then on 104.6, just to 

catch us up to where this document starts, 

104.6. I have in the resolution that NIOSH is 

developing a white paper -- oh, okay. And it 
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says SC&A to check this, review this; I can 

edit later. But that’s that issue. 

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MS. MUNN: I’m sorry. That wasn’t clear to 

me. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, the resolution there is 

that NIOSH is developing the ingestion model, 

but it’s one of the generic models that 

they’re working on, and SC&A will review 

after, once we see that model. We haven’t 

seen the model yet. So that’s deferred to 

that generic white paper. 

DR. MAURO: Is that OTIB-0009, the generic 

ingestion model? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t recall. 

DR. MAURO: Okay, because we did look at 

that, and we do have a couple of things we’d 

like to talk about, but that may be with the 

Procedures meeting. 

MS. MUNN: That was going to be my question. 

Is this one of these things that -- 

MR. GRIFFON: No. 

MS. MUNN: -- that is going to be officially 

transferred? 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s a good question, Wanda, 

because now I read that closer it says 
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provided by NIOSH and reviewed and accepted by 

SC&A, and then SC&A to check this. 

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DR. MAURO: Yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: So I guess you still had some 

remaining questions -- 

DR. MAURO: I do. I have one -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and haven’t fully accepted 

-- 

DR. MAURO: -- but it’s probably more in the 

purview of Procedures because it’s OTIB -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Is that an OTIB or is, what is 

that? 

DR. MAURO: Well, yeah, OTIB-0009 addresses 

the ingestion pathway. And it’s applied 

universally now for all sites. And there’s 

still, Jim gave a presentation on it at one of 

the Board meetings if you recall, and he 

answered lots of our questions. It was a 

multi-layered concern, but there’s still one 

particular aspect, the bottom line. 

 The one aspect that we’re still a 

little concerned with is, the bottom line when 

you’re finished with that ingestion model, and 

you go through all the process, in effect, 

you’re saying that the worker is ingesting 0.5 
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milligrams per day of dust. When we look at 

the literature on that, that really is way 

down there in the literature. For example, 

NCRP recommends 100 milligrams per day. EPA 

recommends 50 milligrams per day. 

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 There is evidence that 0.5 is a good 

number, too, and there’s reasons to believe 

that the 100 number that has been adopted by 

NCRP might be too high. So, and Jim explains 

all this. Right now where we’re coming down 

is that given the fact of the 50 milligrams 

per day and the 100 milligrams per day, 

default ingestion rate recommended by NCRP and 

EPA, you’re two orders of magnitude lower than 

the 50. 

 And I’m pretty familiar with that 

literature, and it’s down at the bottom end of 

the edge of the experimental data. And I 

guess I’d like to talk -- and that might be 

the right number. Because Jim pointed out 

that most of the way in which they measure the 

amount of stuff -- it comes out in the feces 

basically from ingestion -- Jim makes a very 

good argument that probably most of that came 

from inhalation. You inhale; you swallow. 
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 And so what you’re really saying is 

not what was ingested; it was inhaled. And 

that might be the case, but I guess right now 

I guess I haven’t made that leap yet where I’m 

able to go from the 50 down to 0.5. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, I’ll try to convey 

that to Jim. 

MR. GRIFFON: But wouldn’t NCRP have known 

that as well? I think -- 

DR. MAURO: No, there’s a guy named 

Calabrese who did a lot of the research on it. 

He looked at all of his measurements, what he 

measured. He measured silicon in fecal 

material, and he said, okay, the only way that 

silicon could have gotten there is from the 

ingestion of soil. 

 It was soil, not radioactivity, the 

inadvertent ingestion of soil or soot. And he 

automatically assumed that when you see that 

it had to be due to ingestion. But he didn’t 

factor in the possibility that, wait a minute, 

a large fraction might have been from the 

material that was swallowed after it was first 

inhaled. And it’s in there. 

 And so Jim makes that point very well, 
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but it does bring us down a factor of 100. 

Now the funny thing about the whole thing it’s 

a little bit of a tempest in a teapot because 

you still don’t get very much of a dose anyway 

because the ingestion dose, no matter, even if 

you kick it up to 50 milligrams a day, it’s 

still going to be miniscule compared to the 

inhalation dose. And so that’s the story. 

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MR. GRIFFON: So do we want to, this is 

deferred to the Procedures work group then? 

Is that -- Wanda’s saying yes? 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s listed as a global 

issue in Procedures. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And so -- 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m not good at hand signals, 

but I think Wanda’s confirmed yes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: If I understand it, there 

will be a set of discussions on these global 

issues. I mean, we’ve identified various 

things as global, and there would have to be a 

separate discussion. Whether it occurs here, 

I think, at Procedures or wherever it occurs, 

to go through these global issues and clear 

them all out. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Because a lot of the cases 

have had those findings. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Right, and several, I think, 

in the seventh group -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, come up again and 

again. Resuspension is another one. All 

right, for now I’m putting it in the 

Procedures. 

 And then 104.7 it says OTIB-0053 is 

under final review. Does that mean this is 

also a Procedures question? Oh, this is the 

recycled uranium. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, what’s the content, 

what’s the transuranic content of recycled 

uranium? And it’s the recycled uranium TIB, 

which I think is still in review. And 

similarly, there are a number of findings in 

dose reconstructions that relate to this 

topic. So however we reconcile that when that 

OTIB is ready to be reviewed and discussed, 

whichever format is reconciled in it, will 

reconcile several findings from dose 

reconstructions. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess for consistency that 

is the procedure that will go to the 
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MS. MUNN: I’m sorry. I was writing. I 

missed that. What is Procedures taking now? 

MR. GRIFFON: The next one, 104.7 has OTIB0053, recycled uranium procedure. 

MS. MUNN: We have that. 

MR. GRIFFON: You have that already, right. 

 Now, I’m up to case 105, but for case 

105 -- I’m just trying to think how we’re 

handling this as far as closing out these 

cases. Just for a first resolution I say that 

the case is being reevaluated as part of the 

PER review. That’s fine, but where does that 

put it in terms of closing our matrix? I 

mean, do we wait until this is reevaluated? 

 I mean, that could take awhile, right, 

Stu? I don’t know what the schedule is. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, the schedule on 

reworks is fairly long because of the quantity 

and the competing priorities. I would suggest 

that this really speaks to the guidance, I 

believe, that was available to do this task as 

our response, I believe, says that -- unless 

I’m misunderstanding where we’re at. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, 105.1 is the one -- 
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MR. HINNEFELD: The guidance in OTIB-0012 

was published after this DR was completed. 

And so at least that portion of the finding, ^ 

may be more familiar with this than I. At 

least the view of the response is that this 

error or this deficiency in this dose 

reconstruction would not occur today because 

the technical guidance today would tell them 

to do something else. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so that part of the 

finding, I guess you’re right, that says NIOSH 

agrees. Workbook has been revised. And then 

but then overall the cases being reworked 

under PER review is the other part of that. 

So I guess the finding is closed, but the case 

is being reworked, right? 

DR. MAURO: This is like when the in 

abeyance problems we had on Task Three were. 

In other words when you get to the point where 

you agree the solution is in hand, but it 

hasn’t actually been put on the table. 

MS. MUNN: Exactly. And if we’re going to 

follow the same policies in this Subcommittee 

as we’ve established in Procedures, then this 

is the big handful that we’ve sort of dumped 
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on Nancy to get us squared away in terms of 

when closed is closed for the original group, 

and how we transfer that knowledge and 

tracking to another group. And do we even 

have a PER? 

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MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think it’s multiple 

PERs is probably right. I don’t know what 

PERs affect this case, but sometimes it’s -- 

MR. SIEBERT: It was returned to us in 

January under the insoluble plutonium PER. So 

it is being worked under that. 

MR. GRIFFON: But as Stu has pointed out 

before, if you rework it, you’re going to 

rework with all the current procedures, right? 

So then the question is, I mean, the problem 

is I think the finding, I don’t know what the 

status of this case was in terms of POC, but 

if it was a close one, that’s the issue. If 

it’s one of those that we, you know, the 

finding NIOSH agrees, but did it impact the 

case is still an open question. Then we have 

to kind of see -- 

MR. FARVER: The finding looks like it was 

more of a workbook issue. And it looks like 

they corrected the workbook. 
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MR. GRIFFON: But I’m asking if the PER, you 

know, if these multiple findings of case 105 

could have affected the outcome, the decision, 

basically. I guess that’s what we can’t 

answer right now until you rework the case, 

right? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Right now the 

Subcommittee has heretofore only dealt with 

closed cases that have been adjudicated. So 

now we have a situation where there is a case 

that came back from adjudication, has been 

reopened, and is now active. 

 So, I mean, the consideration of 

impact of these findings, they would be 

considered, I mean, these findings would, 

you’ll have the impact of all of the changes, 

these findings and any other changes that were 

applicable to that case will be reflected in 

the new adjudication, however it gets 

adjudicated next. 

 So it’s a little difficult probably to 

say these findings led to the change in the 

result for this claimant. Although 

theoretically you could say, well, the sum 

total of findings that have come out of the 
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technical review of the program have led to 

that. 

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 So at the time of comparison would 

really be an adjudication because even though 

we have a POC when we do the dose 

reconstruction, it’s not final until it’s 

adjudicated. And there could be things that 

don’t go the way we thought. 

MR. GRIFFON: So it could be extended even 

further. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So, I mean, that’s a long 

wait. That’ll be a long wait to hold this in 

some sort of category like abeyance with just, 

and you’re just waiting for resources to 

become available to finish the dose 

reconstructions that are going to rework dose 

reconstructions and then to work its way 

through the adjudication process. 

MR. GRIFFON: I don’t think, I mean, I think 

we can close out the individual findings. We 

just have to put some sort of tracking on the 

impact of the PER review on the final outcome 

of the case. I think we can handle that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think we should be able to 

find electronically cases that were reworked 
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for PER that were reviewed by the Subcommittee 

and the Board and match up those lists and say 

electronically these cases were reviewed and 

then subsequently gone through PER and the 

outcome changed or did not. I think we could 

probably do that electronically separate and 

apart from tracking it here. I think all 

those numbers are databased enough we can do 

that. 

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MS. MUNN: I think we’re going to be able to 

do it, too. But this raises a question in my 

mind as to how we in this Subcommittee handle 

our tracking of it. It would make sense to me 

when we have an issue like this one which 

essentially has gone as far as we can take it 

in the Subcommittee, it’s now a PER issue. 

And it seems to follow that we should identify 

in our activities PERS as a separate item 

other than the numbered item that they began 

with so that we can close this item since we 

can’t -- as Stu points out, holding it in 

abeyance is not really what we’re doing. It’s 

out of our hands now. It’s in the hands of 

the review process for PERs. Don’t we need a 

category that says transferred to PER 
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MR. GRIFFON: We don’t have a PER subgroup. 

MS. MUNN: And track it electronically in 

that way. It seems to follow to me. 

 Nancy, does that make sense to you? 

MS. ADAMS: Yeah, but there is no group. 

There is no entity. 

MS. MUNN: No, I know, that’s why I’m saying 

it might behoove us to consider the 

possibility of-- 

MR. GRIFFON: Having a PER subgroup. 

MS. MUNN: -- a subgroup of the 

Subcommittee. There aren’t that many PERs. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, but it impacts a lot of 

cases. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s a ton of cases. 

MS. MUNN: They do impact a ton of cases, 

but as Stu pointed out, there’s the time 

constraint involved here. 

DR. MAURO: In theory, really defining what 

the ultimate objective of this Subcommittee 

is, now, if the ultimate objective is to do a 

critical evaluation of some samplings of 

adjudicated cases, and the outcome of that 

sampling is, yes, we’ve identified certain 
26

cases where we all agree that there’s a 

technical problem that is being addressed 

under a new OTIB. 

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 Or, yes, we agree and there’s a 

strategy that’s in place to revisit it, the 

question then becomes do you want the 

Subcommittee then to reevaluate the new 

protocol, for example, the new procedure. 

Then in theory that would go to the Procedures 

group. And is it the objective of the 

Subcommittee to actually carry it to its very 

end to see what happened to that case. What 

did it reverse? Did it stay the same? 

 So I mean it’s almost really a 

definition of where the boundaries of, where 

you would like the boundaries of the 

Subcommittee’s objectives to be. It could be 

anywhere along this continuum. But I think we 

haven’t had this conversation before, and I 

think it’s important that at this point 

because we’re moving into that mode now. 

 We’re moving away from debating the 

technical merits. We’re moving more into, 

okay, we agree on the technical solution. Now 

the question is what does it do to the DR for 
27

that particular case and I don’t think we’ve 

had this, you know. 

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MS. MUNN: No, I don’t believe we have in 

this group. That’s why I’m raising the issue 

of a potential, either a subgroup or simply an 

electronic category. 

MR. HINNEFELD: This could be a periodic 

report. I mean, if you want to know about 

outcomes of reviewed cases that had been 

reworked, if you wanted to know outcomes of 

that piece of data, that could be a periodic 

report that we could with just a little work 

generate electronically. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, especially as long as the 

electronic listing of what’s precise about the 

source of the information from this 

Subcommittee. 

MR. GRIFFON: In other words it could link 

back to these particular ones that we reviewed 

as well as the global. And I’m sure they can 

make that, I mean, I’m sure we can figure that 

out. 

 So I think that’s a good idea. I 

mean, I don’t think it should hold up these 

individual findings for this case so it’s 
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going to be referred somewhere either into the 

report or we might want to have a work group 

established to sort of monitor that quarterly 

report or whatever kind of report that NIOSH 

would put out. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: Could that be something that 

Stu would report on at each of the full Board 

meetings, or Larry or whoever’s there? 

MS. MUNN: Or every other one. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Or every other one, yeah. 

MS. MUNN: Quarterly sounds like it will be 

fine. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, quarterly’s fine. 

 MR. PRESLEY: We don’t need kind of 

quarterlies. 

MS. MUNN: Well, there’s a great deal of 

effort that goes into those PERS. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Every other one maybe. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, yeah. Certainly, quarterly 

would be -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: Quarterly would be good. 

MS. MUNN: -- reasonable from my point of 

view. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We can do whatever you’d like, 

every Board meeting or -- 
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 MR. PRESLEY: No. Every other Board meeting 

I think would probably do it. Can’t really 

say quarterlies because we don’t have 

quarterlies. 

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MS. MUNN: No, so the real question here as 

I see it is will we establish an electronic 

corral for PERs where we can in our matrix 

indicate that it’s now become a PER, closed 

for our purposes, and -- 

MR. GRIFFON: And I think we’ve kind of done 

that. 

MS. MUNN: -- and have an electronic box for 

PERS that will be the source of Stu’s 

quarterly report. 

 What do you think, Nancy? 

MS. ADAMS: Well, the question comes is I’ve 

not seen the database that’s been under 

development for this group, and the question 

is where does that field generate from? Does 

it generate from this group’s database and 

link to Procedures? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Which field are you talking 

about? 

MS. ADAMS: A field that would be -- 

DR. MAURO: We haven’t talked about this 
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yet. In other words we’ve talked about 

creating the field in this database that would 

transfer over to Procedures. In other words 

we all agree that, yes, for example, the 

resuspension factor issue is a global issue. 

There are other places where it keys back to 

some procedure review, OTIB-0009, for example, 

on ingestion. 

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 So I think we carried the thought 

process to that point where we see linkages 

between what we’re doing here and what’s going 

on at the Procedures. What we haven’t really 

talked about is this new window which says, 

wait a minute, now we have a case where we 

agree that there’s a need for it to be 

reopened and revisited as part of the PER 

process. So that would be, if we were 

inventing the matrix for this system, just 

like we have a box in Task Three which has 

abeyance, there would have to be a box now in 

this thing, which might be a new kind of box, 

called reopened or reevaluated -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Or PER. 

DR. MAURO: --or PER. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we’ve said it already. 
31

DR. MAURO: If it says PER, I don’t know 

what happens though. In other words whenever, 

for example, the case we’re talking about now 

where I think because of OTIB-0012, I think 

you said, we’re going to have to revisit this 

particular case. Does that automatically mean 

that this case dropped into part of the PER 

process? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I know this case 

dropped into the PER process, and there were 

several. Like Scott mentioned it was actually 

returned to us for the Super-S Plutonium. So 

I believe our database will keep track though 

of the PERs. 

 There are -- somebody asked is this 

the only time when this would happen in case 

we get ^. A PER is not necessarily ^. 

Frequently, there’s new development on the 

case. The DOL will tell us about additional 

cancers or additional employment. And that 

kind of a change, which we had really nothing 

to do with, it was all done at DOL shop, would 

cause a compensation change. 

MR. GRIFFON: Would they distinguish between 

what -- 
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MR. HINNEFELD: I believe we can distinguish 

those. I believe we can keep track of that. 

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MR. GRIFFON: That’s all we need to know. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I believe we can keep track 

of that. I’ll have to check and make sure. 

MR. GRIFFON: If we can distinguish them 

then we’re all set. And the database we can 

develop here can have a field that says it’s a 

PER review. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think our ability to keep 

track of that started with our PER application 

which did not start at the beginning. It 

started a few months ago. 

DR. MAURO: So in theory we could run a 

sort. If we had the database in place we 

could run a sort that says, okay, please list 

all the cases that we designated as PER, and 

we’d have a list of cases. And then at that 

point a status report could be given. What’s 

being done with these? And some of them may 

fall into a real PER and some -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: From some date, not from the 

start of the program. From the date when we 

adopted our PER application which is, like I 

said, several months ago. From that date on 
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we can do that. I’m not sure about our plans 

to populate the older PERs into that system. 

I don’t know if that’s on the agenda or not. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Let me also say my hope is 

that on the agenda today would not be the 

database. I really do think, I think John 

said, we’re done with talking about the 

technical merits of the findings. I think 

that’s what this Subcommittee’s about, so I 

hope we’re not done with that or we can just 

turn this into a tracking work group. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Mark, this is 

Kathy Behling. Can I just add one thing 

before we get off the subject of the database 

is not to belabor this, but we are, in fact, 

we have a database just about complete. I’m 

in the process of testing that database. And 

this would be a perfect opportunity and time 

for us to add a field to capture that PER. 

 That would be very easy to do, and 

that would give NIOSH the opportunity to go in 

and sort on the PERs in order for them to make 

their presentation. So we’re, in fact, I 

haven’t shared this with Nancy yet because 

we’re still testing it, and I wanted to be in 
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fairly good shape for the database before I 

turned it over to her. 

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 But we’re very, very close to being 

done, and we can introduce that in any format 

that you want. But that’s very easy to do and 

we can provide that as a tool for NIOSH to use 

for their presentation to the Board. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Who would input that data then 

into the database? This is Bob Presley. 

MR. GRIFFON: Who would input what data? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Who would put that where she’s 

having that new field? Who’s going to 

populate that thing? Is that going to be 

something that NIOSH does or is that going to 

be something that SC&A does? 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think in our 

Subcommittee process, we’re telling them in 

our resolution column, we’re basically saying 

if it’s going to that area, like this one if 

it’s a PER review, it will be identified in 

this discussion. 

 And then the question of who edits, I 

think, is the same question that Wanda has 

brought up on her work. You know, who has 

access to changing fields in the database that 
35

I think that would be the same question we 

have in the Procedures work group. Who’s 

going to be editing when? 

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 So I think NIOSH will have to add 

responses in, and the same way we’re doing in 

the Procedures work group. Both teams will 

have access I imagine. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I would suspect we would 

inform the Subcommittee that this case is in 

the PER. And the Subcommittee would authorize 

that data entry. And whether we would put it 

in or SC&A ^. The Subcommittee, I believe, 

would authorize the status changes. 

MR. GRIFFON: You’ll identify, who 

physically, I’m not sure. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s fairly straightforward 

for us at that point. 

MS. MUNN: So, Kathy, this new field you’re 

talking about is in a database that you’re 

setting up for the Subcommittee or another -- 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): For the 

Subcommittee. 

MS. MUNN: Okay, just wanted to verify that. 

MR. GRIFFON: Hopefully, a very simple 

ACCESS database that we can -– invest a lot of 
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 Anyway, so we’re almost up to the 

first one that Doug identified. Back to the 

case 105, and I think I finally am up to 5.6. 

And you said that there’s agreement on that, 

and that’s what I have, too. 

 So then, Doug, take over the next one, 

107.4. 

MR. FARVER: Okay, 107.4, reviewer believes 

NIOSH’s assumptions regarding internal dose 

for uranium exposure are improper basically. 

And then NIOSH issued a response, and then we 

basically didn’t agree with NIOSH’s response. 

 And it really has to do with the type 

of intake, chronic or acute, and then the 

intake period, the time period. And we 

thought it was better to do an acute intake 

over a longer time period, which I believe was 

mid-point. I’m trying to find the ^. So what 

it comes down to it’s a difference of how do 

you choose the intake. 

 Complicating the factor is there’s 

only two bioassay samples. So you can look at 

it many ways. It’s not a big dose concern 

because dose-wise it really has little effect. 
37

I mean, it could triple the dose, but you’re 

tripling it from maybe six millirem to 20 

millirem. 

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 So it’s not a high dose factor. It’s 

more of a method. And I guess we’re to the 

point where we understand each other, but we 

just disagree with the approach. 

MS. MUNN: This is 107 what? 

MR. GRIFFON: 107.4, and I think I misstated 

it in my matrix. I said that we had 

agreement, but -- 

MS. MUNN: So that’s what was confusing me. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, so I’m reading 

that, too. 

MS. MUNN: So that statement in red is 

inaccurate. 

MR. GRIFFON: Apparently, yes. I think I 

assumed -- we’ve had this discussion on 

chronic versus acute so many times, I assumed 

the chronic was bounding. And I put the words 

in SC&A’s mouth here. 

MR. FARVER: Well, I think it comes down to 

the time period basically. Whereas we chose 

the mid-point between a start date and the 

employee’s first sample, NIOSH chose a start 
38

date of six months before the employee’s first 

sample, which is one factor that’s going to 

affect the dose. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, just as an aside 

because I have not actually seen your response 

until today. You assumed an acute intake six 

months before the first sample? 

MR. FARVER: That’s what you folks do. 

MR. HINNEFELD: How far before the first 

sample was that? How long? Do you know? 

MR. FARVER: It looks like two years. 

MR. HINNEFELD: What was the magnitude of 

the intake in order to yield that bioassay 

sample two years later? 

MR. FARVER: That I don’t know. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I would like us to 

take a look at it because it could very well 

have been right. And like you said, it’s a 

small dose, but as a general rule we feel like 

we are pretty favorable to the claimants in 

our dose reconstruction techniques. And so if 

this is a realistic scenario that we didn’t 

encounter, we may want to think about that. 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, what it comes down to if 

it’s more appropriate to choose six months, if 
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it’s appropriate to choose a mid-point, and 

how do you make that determination. 

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MS. BRACKETT: There was no explanation 

given in the dose reconstruction? 

MR. FARVER: About why it was chosen as six 

months? I don’t believe so. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think the one part we 

all agree on is it probably has little impact 

on this case because it’s a small magnitude of 

dose. But nonetheless, I think it’s in 

understanding how you’re doing DRs. 

MR. FARVER: And then the chronic intake 

stopped the day of the second bioassay sample, 

which I don’t know -- 

MR. GRIFFON: And then he continued to work 

after that, right? Or whatever, it wasn’t a -

- 

MR. FARVER: It wasn’t a termination sample, 

correct. It’s more method. 

MS. BRACKETT: Right, the magnitude is of 

some relevance though because if this were 

closer to 50 percent, then more would be done 

to look at what was favorable versus what 

wasn’t. You know, more effort would go into a 

case that’s going to be, where it’s going to 
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MR. GRIFFON: Was this a -- I don’t even 

know the POC on this case. 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, I guess I don’t know. 

MR. FARVER: I’m thinking it was about 35 

percent. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think you’re right. I 

saw that in the note. 

 MR. PRESLEY: That’s what you’ve got in your 

write-up here is it’s 30 –- POC it’s 35. 

MS. BRACKETT: And as we’re talking I was 

basing it on the six versus 20 millirem. That 

wouldn’t really impact much of anything. 

DR. MAURO: So what I’m hearing is that I 

guess at one point I felt that the way in 

which you come at these problems, you have 

bioassay data, a limited number of bioassay 

data. And then you have to make some 

assumptions regarding the intake regime that 

resulted in observing that result. 

 My understanding was that the approach 

that was the standard approach was to assume 

what continuous intake -- correct me if I’m 

wrong -- what continuous intake would result 

in your observing that level prior to the time 
41

in which the sample was taken. Or is it that 

you assume that the intake was an acute intake 

at one-half the time period between the two 

points? Or do you do both? I mean, do you 

check both? 

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MS. BRACKETT: No, it depends on generally 

whether the results are positive or not. I 

mean, standard approach is if nothing is 

positive, you’d assume a chronic intake over 

the time in which the person had a potential 

for intakes, for exposure. And that would be 

case-dependent. 

 The DR should look at location of 

employment, job title, things like that. If 

nothing changes throughout the employment 

history, then it should be assumed that it was 

chronic throughout the entire claimant 

history. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess that’s the question 

here. Why wasn’t it over the entire period? 

MS. BRACKETT: Right, and that’s why I was 

asking if there was any rationale given. If 

you look, sometimes if external dose changes 

significantly, then you can say, well, it 

doesn’t look like there was a potential. But 
42

there should be some discussion as to why 

particular dates were selected. 

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DR. MAURO: This description you just 

provided, is that written up in one of these 

procedures? 

MS. BRACKETT: I think it’s in OTIB-0060. 

There is some general discussion in that. 

That’s internal dosimetry, and it’s just a lot 

of guidance points for the dose reconstructor. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think it is worth, I 

mean, even though it’s a small, minute dose I 

think I’d like to give Stu a chance to follow 

up and see if on this case just why. Because 

the fact that it is a low POC, you’d think 

that you’d be overly, usually you’re overly 

claimant favorable. I would expect to see the 

chronic over the entire job period unless 

there’s good reason not to. And then, so 

maybe we should track that and understand that 

basis a little better. 

MS. MUNN: Well, I’m making a note there 

that says it’s an incorrect assumption here. 

That SC&A does not agree, and although this 

does not change the compensability of the 

claim, Stu will look at this again to verify 
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MR. HINNEFELD: ^ OCAS ^. 

MS. MUNN: I made these notes for myself. I 

want to make sure I had it right. 

MR. GRIFFON: So then we have 107.6, if we 

can move on to that. 

MR. FARVER: I believe we are waiting for a 

response from NIOSH. We’ve got a second 

response. They issued a response. We 

responded, and then they were going to -- a 

brief discussion is what it amounts to is why 

PU-238 was not included in the calculation 

from environmental doses, internal doses. The 

initial response was, well, it was less than a 

millirem, and they didn’t need to include it. 

And we came back with, well, you don’t know 

it’s less than a millirem unless you do the 

calculation, and there were no calculations 

included. 

MR. GRIFFON: Let me give Stu a chance to 

think about that. I’m going to ask if we 

could take a ten-minute break. We’re having 

trouble with Ray’s equipment. He’s getting 

really bad feedback. I’m hearing it, so I 

know he’s hearing it. So we’re going to try 
44

1 to straighten out that. 

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phone -- 

DR. BRANCHE: Sure. We’re going to take a 

ten-minute break. It’s now 10:17, and we’ll 

get back at 10:27. 

MR. GRIFFON: Sounds good. 

 (Whereupon, a break was taken from 10:17 

a.m. until 10:27 a.m.) 

DR. BRANCHE: Hello, everyone, we’re going 

to start again. Could someone who’s 

participating by phone please unmute and let 

me know that you can hear me? 

 MR. GIBSON (by Telephone): I hear you fine, 

Christine. 

DR. BRANCHE: Thanks. 

 Okay, Mark. 

MR. GRIFFON: So 107.6, Stu, I’m putting 

that on hold unless you have a response now. 

I apologize -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I can tell you, 

Scott’s refreshed my memory a little bit here. 

Scott has actually provided me some additional 

information on this, so I haven’t gotten to 

the Board yet, or to the Subcommittee yet. 
45

And I will provide that. He provided a file 

with the calculation that shows the dose is 

less than one millirem. We talked to the dose 

reconstructor. The dose reconstructor says I 

think I must have done that calculation in 

order to say that. I just didn’t include the 

file or say that in the dose reconstruction. 

So we can, it is, in fact, less than one 

millirem. We can provide the file that shows 

that -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: Just to close it out we’ll -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- and we all agree it 

should have been commented in some fashion in 

the dose reconstruction report. 

MR. FARVER: Either that or the file 

included. One or the other. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

MR. FARVER: Or both. 

MR. GRIFFON: But we’ll take a look at that, 

but essentially I think it’s going to show if 

we’re going to -- 

MR. FARVER: Well, it wasn’t a question of, 

we were aware that it was a question of 

millirem, it’s just it should have been 

included, something, some mention of it or the 
46

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MR. GRIFFON: I’m going down, the next one I 

have in the matrix is 110.1 and then 110.2, 

and they both indicate that NIOSH will provide 

additional follow up. But I have that for 

110.1 as well. And my note says inconsistent 

treatment of blank data fields in dose 

records. One is unmonitored versus when is 

zero. And then it says NIOSH will provide 

additional follow up on this. 

MR. SIEBERT: You’re talking about the 

neutron response, right? 

MR. GRIFFON: I have 110.1, which looks 

likes the photon, and then also 110.2. Is 

that the neutron? 

MR. FARVER: Yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: My note said to follow up on 

110.1 as well. Maybe I misunderstood that in 

my -- 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, I thought 110.1 had been 

resolved because based on their response, they 

went back and recalculated? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. But it looks like we 

just said, look, you’re right. It should have 

been 15 additional zeros added to the 499 that 
47

we already assigned. So it’s a fairly small 

change. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so that one’s resolved. 

And then I have 110.2 is the neutron one. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And 110.2 again is in the 

category where ORAU had provided a response 

that I’ve not submitted to the, have not 

evaluated so that’s in a subcommittee. So I 

guess if I can, I think if, yeah, we do agree 

that it should have been assigned, the 

unmonitored neutron dose should have been 

assigned from ’46 to ’49, ’51, ’52 and ’57. 

So during these years we know this person may 

have worked as a rover in the 100 Area. 

 So adding the neutron dose doesn’t 

change the compensability because when you 

start taking out some of the favorability, for 

instance, there was ambient was added during 

the years when it really didn’t need to be, 

and so if you start taking the things out, 

actually the POC over all doesn’t change much 

at all. But that’s just ^ response. I still 

owe you. I’ll provide that to the 

Subcommittee. 

DR. MAURO: What site is this? 
48

1 MR. GRIFFON: Hanford. 

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DR. MAURO: If I recall though there is some 

question, the approach used for doing -- 

 And you can please correct me if I’m 

wrong, Doug. 

 --That’s an issue on the site profile 

regarding neutron dose. So if you have, not a 

missed neutron dose, but a person who wasn’t 

monitored but should have been monitored, then 

you’re going to be filling in that neutron 

dose using some type of coworker model for 

neutron exposure. One that may be based on 

some neutron-to-photon ratios or some other 

factors. And I think that’s an issue that’s 

very much on the table. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s a site profile issue. 

DR. MAURO: But I mean, -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Which one is this? We’ve got 

to find out if this is a missed or unmonitored 

situation. 

DR. MAURO: I think he said it’s an 

unmonitored -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I believe it’s an 

unmonitored. 

DR. MAURO: -- this is just one-half the 
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1 MDL, but unmonitored is coworker model. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Right, and the neutron-tophoton ratio is being addressed, and I believe 

that’s -- 

MR. GRIFFON: In the site profile. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I know it’s in the 

site profile, but it’s more than just the 

Savannah River site profile. It’s also being 

addressed at Hanford. It’s site-wide. 

DR. MAURO: This is Hanford. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, this is Hanford? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, it is being addressed 

there. 

MR. GRIFFON: But I mean it’s in the site 

profile in SEC review. They’re discussing it 

there, right? So we can, yeah. 

DR. MAURO: The only reason why I bring it 

up is because though you represent it as being 

relatively modest because you can offset it by 

reducing some other conservatism elsewhere, 

our understanding is that depending on how the 

neutron issue is resolved at Hanford, it may 

not be so modest. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, overall. 
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1 DR. MAURO: Right, right. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: But again, if the Hanford 

neutron approach is changed, then there’ll be 

a PER to address all those. 

DR. MAURO: We’ve got some layering going 

on. 

MR. SIEBERT: But as per the processes that 

were in place at the time the dose 

reconstruction was done, we agree they 

probably should have counted him as an 

unmonitored worker during some other years and 

added the neutron dose. But per the timeframe 

if we had done that, it would have no change 

to compensability. 

DR. MAURO: At that time -- interesting, how 

do you, okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: Just to go back to 110.1 for a 

second, I was looking at the bottom of your 

response, Stu, and it says that it should be 

noted that they expect this claim to be 

returned for Super-S. So I was wondering for 

tracking purposes, am I going to put this as 

one of these that’s under PER review, likely 

under PER review? Is this definitely under 

PER review or -- 
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: We’re finding out. 

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MR. GRIFFON: All right. You can go ahead 

and look at that while we move ahead. 

 What’s our next one? 110.2 is 

completed, right? Or we’re waiting for their 

response. Then we’re up to 114 in your 

document. I’m just going to scan through the 

matrix and make sure that I don’t have 

anything else that... 

 110.3, just stop at 110.3 for a 

second, Stu. I have a question on the matrix. 

First of all, I don’t have an initial NIOSH 

response on that one, but then I have a note 

that OTIB-0054 has been developed. NIOSH will 

compare this case with OTIB-, or I guess using 

OTIB-0054. I’m not sure what OTIB-0054 is. 

DR. MAURO: Fission products. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it’s fission products, 

yeah. So this is a fission product, so I 

mean, that TIB-0054 is being reviewed in 

Wanda’s work group, right? 

DR. MAURO: We did. We found favorably 

except that our problem is knowing when and 

who should be assigned those -- think of it 

like this. When you know, once you say, yes, 
52

we’re going to assign an OTIB-0054 fission 

product dose to this person, the protocol 

that’s been adopted to do that based on, say, 

gross beta analysis of the urine sample, that, 

you know, we found favorably, and it’s in our 

report which we haven’t reviewed yet but a 

preview. One of our concerns though is that 

how do you know whether you’re going to, when 

do you use it. How do you find the people? 

How do you know you didn’t miss some people 

that you should have given it to that either 

weren’t, didn’t receive -- you’ve got the 

idea. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: So then with respect to have 

we actually redone this with -0054, I don’t 

know that we have. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s why I have that 

note in there for this case, NIOSH will 

compare this case using, you know, that’s the 

question. Is this case, is TIB-0054 

appropriate? So it does go back to this case. 

So I think I’ll leave that as an action then, 

Stu, for you on that. 

 Then I’m up to 114. And 114.2, 

actually, I have no indication at all here. 
53

Maybe I just missed it, but I also have no 

NIOSH initial response on that one. 

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MR. FARVER: Where? 

MR. GRIFFON: 114.2. Maybe that’s why we’re 

-- 

MR. FARVER: We haven’t received an initial 

response. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that’s in your list. 

I’m sorry. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t have it. I haven’t 

been able to provide it yet, but I will. 

MR. GRIFFON: And then 114.3 is a neutron 

thing again, right? Yes, and this is 

basically location stuff I think. 

MR. FARVER: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: In other words 114.3 for Y-12 

I think it’s determining if a person was in 

neutron areas and when to assign neutron 

doses, right? 

MR. FARVER: Right, and as I recall the 

discussion, what it finally came down to was 

you had a few different tables of listing 

neutron areas at Y-12, and they weren’t 

consistent. But I believe they represented 

different timeframes, but it wasn’t clear. So 
54

depending on what document the dose 

reconstructor went to, they would say neutrons 

were available at this building or facility. 

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 Now, I think our recommendation was 

just put together one big table that has 

timeframes on it and buildings so it’s all in 

one spot. And I believe that’s been referred 

to, under Task One site profile reviews. So 

really there’s no further action here. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I did have, my first 

note says NIOSH to further evaluate this case. 

But I think we’ve gone as far as we can here. 

Is that what we’re saying? 

MR. FARVER: Right, we’ve had some 

discussions on it. 

MR. GRIFFON: I mean, is there agreement 

that it was done correctly? It’s just a 

question of how the site profile is -- I mean, 

that they’re contradicting documents but the 

bottom line is they got it correct or we’re 

not sure? I don’t -- 

MR. FARVER: It’s another one of those iffy 

situations, and I think really the important 

part of this is that you come up with a 

coherent table that lists the items correctly, 
55

1 those facilities. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, this looks very similar 

to, I think there’s one in the seventh set 

that’s very similar to this. Maybe that’s 

where I’m remembering it from reviewing it on 

the plane. 

 I mean, we definitely agree to defer 

part of it to the site profile review process, 

the neutron locations, looking at that 

documentation and whether it’s appropriate, 

contradicting, whatever, review it there. Is 

there any further work on this case? I guess 

that’s the question. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I would guess that once we 

decide what the correct listing of neutrons 

is, then you’d see if this dose reconstruction 

complied with the correct listing. So there 

would be that still to check on once that’s 

done. 

MR. GRIFFON: But theoretically, that should 

be trackable if we’re saying this is deferred 

to the site profile review, then we track it 

that way. And once we find the outcome in the 

site profile review, we go back to those and 

check, right? So, theoretically. So I’m 
56

going to leave it as concluded then for site 

profile review, right? 

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MR. FARVER: Yes. 

DR. MAURO: In this assignment, like for 

example previously we -- I hate to go back to 

this, but I’m thinking about Kathy on the line 

listening to building this machine -- so it 

would be designated as transferred to site 

profile? 

MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. I mean, I think we 

have, you know, three now obvious ones 

transferred to Procedures work group, 

transferred to site profile, and transferred 

to PER review. Those are three obvious ones. 

MR. FARVER: Now, if this new list of 

locations and years comes up with maybe some 

new facilities or dates when this employee was 

working at a facility, well then it would 

impact this case. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and then that’s when 

we’d have to look at how the site profile 

review team assessed that. What makes me 

nervous on these is that that site profile 

review team, I know it well because I think I 

chair that work group. And we haven’t met 
57

since the SEC was over. So it’s hard to get, 

you know. 

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DR. MAURO: And we’re not going to get the 

records sold up with the classification so... 

It’s amazing how they all confound and come 

together. 

MR. GRIFFON: We’re not going to solve that 

here. Let’s just move on. 

 And I have 114.5. Did you have that 

one as your next one or no? 

MR. FARVER: We had 114.4, but we agreed to 

their response. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay, that’s good. 

Agreement on that one. 

 And 114.5. This is more substance 

here. 

DR. BRANCHE: We closed 114.4 at the last 

meeting. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. FARVER: 114.5, they issued a response, 

and then we issued a response. And we had 

talked about it, and I believe we’re waiting 

for something from NIOSH. 

MR. GRIFFON: And that’s what I have. I had 

SC&A provided a follow-up response on, I left 
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1 out the date. 

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MR. FARVER: And it has to, just to 

summarize it, the employee submitted 50 urine 

samples over a certain time period, but when 

they assessed the dose, they used coworker 

data. Didn’t feel it was very appropriate to 

use coworker data when you have actual data. 

MR. GRIFFON: And it looks like a fair 

amount of actual data, yeah. 

MR. FARVER: Well, 50 samples. 

MR. SIEBERT: Is that 114.5? 

MR. FARVER: 114.5. 

MR. SIEBERT: I see CATI information 

considering X-rays and incidence -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, we have the wrong number. 

MR. SIEBERT: -- 114.5. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Well, you go down into this in 

this SC&A response, and it picks that up. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s right because in the 

top of yours, you indicated we agree with the 

X-ray part; however, the other part is the 

question. 

MR. FARVER: I think when I started going 

back and looking at your response, that’s when 

I found out they were using coworker data. 
59

MR. HINNEFELD: I think we should have 

another response coming that I haven’t sent to 

the Subcommittee yet. 

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DR. MAURO: Was this denied? Using coworker 

data when there were zeros. My assumption is 

you would probably overestimate it. 

MS. BRACKETT: Is that the case? Was it all 

zeros? 

MR. SIEBERT: No. 

MS. BRACKETT: I wouldn’t have thought it 

was. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Every now and then you’re 

going to get something like this. 

MR. GRIFFON: On page 11 you show some of 

the data anyway, right? You’ve got excerpts 

of part of the data. Anyway, okay, so I’ll 

highlight that one for further follow up. 

DR. MAURO: Just for my own edification, 

when it’s convenient to automatically, let’s 

say, trigger a workbook that assigns coworker 

automatically, and you know that by doing that 

you’re going to overestimate the intake for a 

person who may have had a few, or in this case 

not so few, urine samples. Would you do that 

as an efficiency method when you know that the 
60

person’s going to be denied anyway? What I’m 

asking is, is it possible that this happened 

because it was an efficiency method. 

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MR. SIEBERT: It may have. 

MS. BRACKETT: Right, that’s what I was 

wondering because this is something that we’ve 

discussed a few times that we have talked 

about, although in the case of people with all 

negative results that you could assign 

coworker in place of them. Because I looked 

at the coworker results versus the MDAs. But 

it kind of jumps around for different sites, 

so we kind of rescinded that as a blanket. 

 It could be done on an individual site 

basis if the DR looked at what the MDA for the 

method is versus what the coworker results 

are. So it’s not a generic, blanket 

efficiency method, but it could be used if 

that comparison were done and that would be 

claimant favorable. 

DR. MAURO: And that would be a judgment 

made by the dose reconstructor at the time. I 

guess he would just have to explain that in 

the dose reconstruction how he did that. 

MS. BRACKETT: Yes, it’s probably something 
61

that I should do on the generic, on a site-bysite basis, and issue guidance to the DRs. 

But right now it would have to be on an 

individual dose reconstructor basis. And for 

Y-12 I think that we probably are above the 

MDA for the coworkers. So in general it would 

be claimant favorable. 

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DR. MAURO: Sure, without a doubt. 

MS. BRACKETT: Of course, that’s depending 

on, well, if the person’s results were all 

listed in ^. 

DR. MAURO: All what his results are, of 

course. 

MR. GRIFFON: So we’re on to our next one. 

117.1 is the next one, and I’m just going to 

check through the matrix. If anyone sees 

anything else before that, let me know. 

 (no response) 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, then, 117.1 it is. And 

basically, I think NIOSH is supposed to 

provide a follow-up response on this one. 

MR. FARVER: This one? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

MR. FARVER: No, this was one that we 

responded back to and this is one -- where are 
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MR. GRIFFON: 117.1. 

MR. FARVER: I’m sorry. I’m ahead of you. 

No, I believe we talked about this and concur 

with their response. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: Really what it comes down to is 

they were told to get it done and follow their 

directive. 

MR. GRIFFON: Explain that to me. I have a 

little note here that I don’t understand, 

truncated it to 25 percent. I’m not sure. 

I’ll take that out, but I want to understand 

why I put it. 

MR. FARVER: I don’t know what that note 

means. Response was about, should have been 

referenced, and an OTIB should have been 

referenced. And NIOSH comes back with they 

were issued a letter, oh, OTIB-0033 was 

published, completed in May and published in 

April. Dose reconstructions done in May and 

OTIB-0033 was published in April. So it’s 

closed. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I believe this was 

when, you know, prior, this was about the time 
63

we issued our ^ the DRs that are two years old 

^ using the techniques available. And so 

acting in accordance with that instruction 

there were some, they essentially pulled this 

OTIB-0033 approach which they’d been kicking 

around, but maybe the dose reconstructor you 

know with the time he originally drafted it 

didn’t know if it was going to be available or 

not, so he just went ahead and used the 

approach without referencing the OTIB. And so 

the timely proximity thing and was related to 

our direction to go do these cases now. 

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MR. SIEBERT: And it’s a comp case. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And it is a comp case. 

MR. GRIFFON: It is a comp. I think my 

reference was, it says something here that a 

smaller fraction of the TIB-0018 intakes were 

applied than recommended by TIB-0033. 

DR. MAURO: You used 0.25 as your adjustment 

factor? I heard 25 percent. So you applied 

the 25 percent to the MPCs. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And it’s still compensable. 

DR. MAURO: And it’s still compensable. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, that why I knew it made 

sense at one point. 
64

 Moving on I have 118.1 as unresolved. 

Is that -- 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I have received those 

initial responses from the contractor, but I 

haven’t reviewed them. 

MR. GRIFFON: All of 118, actually, right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: So they’re on hold still. 

 Then 119.1. 

MR. FARVER: 119.1 basically, well, there 

was a little concern regarding, I guess, work 

location and how that affects the photon 

energy distribution and things like that. And 

NIOSH went back and recalculated, and even 

though it did increase slightly, it was 

already a compensated case. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: And I think this goes back to 

the question of if it’s a compensated case, 

how much detail do you go into in a worker’s 

location. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, so we have SC&A 

agrees on that one. And let’s just look at 

the rest of the matrix and make sure there’s 

no other ones. I have this, and I remember 
65

Larry did this at the last Board meeting, but 

I have this note about NIOSH will present on 

the QA program. And I know you gave us an 

initial presentation. I’m not sure if I need 

to keep that in this matrix or it doesn’t make 

sense to hold it there necessarily unless it’s 

going to be, were we intending on something 

happening in looking at the -- I don’t know. 

It made sense for the one meeting. 

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MR. ELLIOTT: We presented our Q and A a 

number of times but in great depth and detail 

at the last Board meeting, and until we have 

either some new information, trends to report 

or some new QA/QC things that we’re thinking 

of implementing, I don’t know that I have 

plans to speak about QA/QC until that happens. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think I’m going to delete 

those as outstanding actions. I don’t think 

they belong there anymore so I’ll just get 

them out of the matrix. 

 And 119.3 I think it refers back to 

119.1, right? 

MR. FARVER: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: There’s agreement on that, 

too. 
66

 And 120.1 I did have NIOSH agreement, 

but you would review the language in the DR 

report. I guess that’s sort of standing out 

there as an outstanding action, and should it 

be is my question. 

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MR. FARVER: 120.1? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, 120.1. 

MR. FARVER: Oh, I see. And I think this 

goes back just to their template they use in 

the wording of that. They have a dose 

conversion factor effective, and it kind of 

implies if their effective dose conversion 

factor is the one they actually used to 

multiply by, but it’s not actually true 

especially when they do these Monte Carlo 

calculations. So that’s where they were going 

to look at the wording. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I think when I say that, 

NIOSH will review language in the DR report, I 

think it means DR report template, right? 

Like not this specific DR report, but the DR 

report template. Now is that something we are 

going to follow up on in the Procedures work 

group? Got to keep Wanda out of trouble, you 

know? I’m clear on my findings, Wanda. I 
67

don’t know what you’re doing over there in the 

Procedures work group. 

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MS. MUNN: Is there any reason to transfer 

this to Procedures? 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, that’s what I’m asking. 

The DR report -- 

 Stu, this has come up as early as the 

first set of cases I think, and you said 

there’s been some changes to the DR report, 

but you haven’t incorporated all of them I 

don’t think, or it’s been kind of an evolving 

thing, right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Right, we’re back on that. 

We’re getting close to having a new template 

for dose reconstruction. 

MR. GRIFFON: But the template is not 

necessarily the -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: But the language -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- it’s not a procedure. 

MS. MUNN: It’s not a procedure. Remember, 

in Procedures we look at procedures that have 

been given to SC&A for review, and this is 

not, in my view, a procedure that’s been given 

to SC&A for review. Therefore, it’s not 

appropriately transferred to Procedures. 
68

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MS. MUNN: This is the place to track it. 

MR. GRIFFON: You’re off the hook, but now I 

need a home for it. That’s what I’m asking. 

Where, you know, I don’t want to lose it 

because I think it was, it’s come up in a 

number of cases that we’ve looked at. And we 

want to make sure that we go back and say, 

okay, if the changes they made reconcile what 

we brought up in our initial findings, so 

where do we, it’s not a site profile. It’s 

not a procedure. 

MR. ELLIOTT: And the issues brought up in 

the findings have been lack of clarity -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I’m trying to make sure I’ve 

got this one clearly. This has to do with the 

nature in which the dose is reported to the 

claimant, correct? 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And actual number that’s 

reported in versus the actual number that 

shows up in the dose reconstruction. 

MR. GRIFFON: Correct, yes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I believe this will be 

fixed by the new template because we 
69

essentially avoid all that in the section 

that’s intended for the claimant. You just 

tell the number without any of those DCF 

values and ICRP adjustment values or any of 

that stuff. They just tell them the number. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Well, there’s a number, you 

know what I’m saying, there’s a number of 

these that have come up like the -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I know this goes back -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, there’s incidents 

listed in the CATI report. You didn’t 

acknowledge it in the DR report. I know 

you’ve taken care of those. Now you do 

acknowledge it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: There are some -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, we’ve never looked back 

at the revised template. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I don’t think we’ve given you 

one to look at. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s close to being done. 

We’ve got a couple questions to resolve with 

ourselves about -- see, we’re going to have to 

send the claimant a package that we think will 

be informative that responds to a number of 

things and some of which came up in Procedures 
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review when they were talking about CATI and 

the kinds of information that’s available to 

the claimant. And so as I recall -- 

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MR. ELLIOTT: And informative to various 

audiences, not only the claimant. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- and so we’re trying to 

write a section that will be informative to 

the claimant in essentially layman’s language, 

and then a different section for technical 

reviewers. Now, whether we actually, you 

know, the question, the most recent question 

that we haven’t really resolved is does the 

technical section really need to go to the 

claimant or can it just ride along to the end 

person of the administrative record or the 

analysis record for the case so it’s available 

for all the reviewers and people like that. 

 But do you really want to send 

something that’s going to be an Excel 

spreadsheet probably that’s multiple pages 

long -- 

MR. ELLIOTT: And we could notify the 

claimant, and they could ask for this. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, we would certainly tell 

them that. 
71

DR. MAURO: We talked about this during the 

OTIB-0090 or -0097 review which had to do with 

first it was the CATI, and the other was close 

out. And it was agreed at that time around 

the table I recall, no, you don’t want to send 

this stuff that makes it worse. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: So we have to ensure what 

we, you know, what we send, there are certain 

things in the regulation that the dose 

reconstruction has to contain. The regulation 

lists certain things that will be in the dose 

reconstruction. So we need to make sure that 

we’ve included that in what we send to the 

claimant. But other than that I think most of 

the technical information we think we would 

prefer to exclude. It makes a more manageable 

package for the claimant, and it eases some of 

the minutia of building the package on our 

side as well. 

DR. MAURO: And I think the Procedures work 

group came to that same conclusion. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I mean, I don’t mind 

actually since this is the DR Subcommittee, it 

may make sense to just have this subcommittee 

review the final template and keep that here 
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as opposed to transferring it to Wanda. I 

mean, I think we can keep that here and not 

have, I was really just looking for a home 

because that’s come up a number of times. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I’d say it’s good as most. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, so we’ll do that. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Just a little more background 

though. We’ve been talking about revising the 

dose reconstruction report that claimants get 

for about two-plus years now, and we’ve put a 

lot of effort into that revision, probably 18 

months ago. But then because of resource 

constraints that we have faced for the last 

year and a half, that has been a low priority. 

It’s also a big retooling, big retooling 

effort because a lot of the report itself is 

in -- 

 I don’t know how you say it, Scott. 

 -- but it’s electronically developed 

and to revise the whole structure of the 

report requires a retooling of that whole 

process. And so when we flip the switch on 

this, we’ve got to have the retooling effort 

behind us so that it will all work fine. And 

we’re struggling to get there. So as soon as 
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we get there, we’ll give you, give this 

Subcommittee the format, and you can tell us 

what you think. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I’m just making a note for 

myself for Kathy on the phone and John, this 

item will stay with this Subcommittee. 

 Kathy, did you get that? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, I did, and 

I think that’s a good idea. Let’s leave it 

with the DR Subcommittee. 

MR. GRIFFON: And if you’re looking through, 

Kathy, if you see things here that you don’t 

think have a home right now in terms of the 

way you’re looking at designing this database, 

I really don’t want to go down the database 

discussion, but bring those up if you see 

something like where’s this going to go. Let 

us know. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I will, and I 

have not come across any of those yet. I 

think we have the database pretty well 

organized. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, good. 

 120.5, we’re almost done with the 

sixth set here. 120.5 I have NIOSH to provide 
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 But you didn’t have that, right? So 

just checking that. Maybe I’m wrong on that. 

Yeah, I think it carries through to the next 

couple, too, yeah. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is Kathy 

Behling. I have also in my notes that we’ve 

questioned whether we got those IMBA runs, but 

I believe we did get those. In fact, I have 

written down here back in September of ’07 we 

received those. And I think we looked at 

them, and we agree with NIOSH’s response. 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m going to put NIOSH 

provided IMBA runs and SC&A -- you reviewed 

them already? Because I don’t -- 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I believe we 

did, but we should go back and look. 

 Doug, am I jogging your memory? 

MR. FARVER: I’m sure I reviewed them, but 

they were sent. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yeah, they were 

definitely sent. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I’ll put a placeholder 

on it for now. You don’t have to guess that 

you did or not. 
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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): We’ll look at 

those again. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Okay, and that carries through 

the next couple as well or the next one. And 

I think that’s it for the sixth set unless 

anybody has anything else. 

 (no response) 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. I got a little 

note from Ray which I think is a good idea for 

lunch at 11:45. He’s running the show here, 

so I’m fine with that. 

12 SEVENTH SET OF CASES MATRIX

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I think we can at least get a start on the 

seventh set and work for about a half hour. 

Let’s get a start on the seventh set. And did 

everybody get this matrix, or most people? 

 Now this one, again, this is our first 

-- 

DR. BRANCHE: A couple people didn’t get the 

matrix. 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m sorry. 

DR. BRANCHE: When did it from Kathy? 

MR. GRIFFON: This came from Stu actually. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I sent it on June 2nd. 

DR. BRANCHE: I’ve got it. Who needs it 
76

because I think I have it. Nancy needs it. 

Who else needs it electronically? 

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 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: Is it just Nancy who needs it? 

 (no response) 

DR. BRANCHE: Here it comes, Nancy. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I recently sent 

out the eighth set. We’re not quite there 

yet. 

DR. BRANCHE: Okay, Kathy, I did not get 

your copy of the eighth set. I don’t have an 

e-mail message from you. 

MR. GRIFFON: I don’t think we’re going to 

get to that today anyway. 

DR. BRANCHE: Well, I’m just saying, I 

understand that. 

 But, Kathy, I should be getting a copy 

of what you have, and I don’t have one. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yeah, I think 

John had forwarded, but I’ll send it again. 

DR. BRANCHE: I have it then, excuse me. I 

have it. Yeah, he noticed that I was left 

off. I got it. Thank you. 

MR. GRIFFON: This starts off as 121.1, and 

the first couple we actually don’t have NIOSH 
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1 responses, right, Stu? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Correct. The first two 

cases -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Or at least pending. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- one’s Aliquippa Forge, 

and one’s Simonds Saw and Steel. Several of 

the comments address essentially the site 

profile. The site profile is ^. And so those 

I did not respond on because we have some 

initial responses, but we still need to work 

them internally to make sure those are the 

responses we want. 

 So some of these I believe I put down 

what I believe are global issues that have 

been previously identified that we could just 

transfer, put on the global issue list 

enclosed in that format. I mean, there’s 

ingestion, visual -- 

MR. GRIFFON: And I see those coming up down 

there in 121.4, .5, .6, good time to global 

issues. 

MR. HINNEFELD: To the best of my 

recollection. If I am wrong, I’ll be glad 

to... 

MR. GRIFFON: In these kind of cases my 
78

sense is that these are what I’ve termed sort 

of mini-profile reviews, mini-site profile 

reviews. But I think they probably stay here 

unless they -- I don’t know. I guess we could 

make a judgment with the Subcommittee members. 

If they become too large, maybe then we 

recommend to the Board that we establish a 

work group to look at it, you know. But at 

this point I think we’re trying to handle 

those sort of in this Subcommittee. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, certainly since there 

are no work groups assembled for Simonds Saw 

and Steel and Aliquippa Forge. 

MR. GRIFFON: In other words what I’m saying 

is we’re not just going to transfer them to 

site profile review issues. 

DR. MAURO: It doesn’t exist. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because there’s no where to go 

with it, right. It’s here. The buck stops 

here. 

 So for the first couple, Stu, you’re 

still reviewing those, right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: We’ve done some work. We’ve 

got the initial responses. I just want to 

make sure we’re happy with where we’re going 
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MR. GRIFFON: And then the 121.4, .5 and .6. 

The only difference here is that you’ve really 

put a resolution in the response column, 

right? I mean, essentially you’re saying this 

is going to that global issue. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It could be, could be. 

DR. MAURO: The only -- 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s fine. We understand. 

DR. MAURO: There are some places -- I went 

through, and when you get to 121.4 certainly 

this business of breathing rate is a global 

issue. But I’d like to just point out that 

the reason we brought this up was I guess this 

person was a furnace operator, and based on 

the information provided. 

 And under those circumstances, and 

whether you call this a global issue or not, 

when a person has a job category that would 

appear to be of a unique nature where the 

generic assumptions such as the ones in the 

ICRP, the 1.2 cubic meters per hour, may not 

apply. When I see furnace operator, it 

automatically triggers in my mind that’s a 

pretty, that’s a job category that has a lot 
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of exceptions to it in terms of the potential 

for being exposed to airborne dust loading, 

the breathing rates. 

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 What happens is the site profile, 

which is really universal, all of a sudden you 

guys are, hold the presses a little bit. This 

guy might require a little special treatment. 

And I think when all is said and done that’s 

what’s really the recurring theme in many of 

the comments related to this Aliquippa Forge 

person, in that being the furnace operator and 

doing the things that he did. I guess I 

paused a bit and said, listen, is there any 

aspect to the site profile where I felt maybe 

was a little too general when applied to this 

person. 

MR. GRIFFON: It seems like this case might 

be that individual that, that hypothetical 

individual that we often talk about when we’re 

looking at the 95th percentile saying, if you 

had that guy that had the real dirty job. 

Maybe this is that example, and you’re saying 

you want to make sure to -- 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, I want to make sure. And 

I’d like to also point out one of the 
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recurring themes again -- because we can go 

through this quickly, but it’s important -- is 

the site profile itself draws heavily from 

data gathered in the 1970s, 1978 basically, 

whether it’s residual radioactivity on 

surfaces or is external exposure, but you’re 

applying that data to a person that worked 

there in the 1950s. 

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 And so again, it’s one of these 

recurring comments. Can you really do that 20 

years earlier and whether or not, especially 

if you don’t use the 95th percentile. I 

noticed that you went with the median for the 

measurements made in 1978 and applied it to 

this person who was a furnace operator, which 

right off the top, you sort of push him at the 

high end plus 20 years earlier. So we had 

some significant concerns in the way in which 

you developed Aliquippa Forge. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And like I said, we’re 

trying to develop responses. We want to make 

sure we get technical response, and it may 

involve providing the site profile in some 

fashion. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s good to have on the 
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record. I mean, we want to understand the 

nature of the finding though, so thank you. 

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DR. MAURO: There is no sound bite on this 

one. 

MR. GRIFFON: It’s not simply those same 

generic issues we’ve always had. It’s a 

little more to it. 

DR. MAURO: There’s more to it, yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: So then are we, now 121.7 is 

kind of a unique one, but I haven’t seen much 

of the four, I mean basically -- 

DR. MAURO: They addressed it though. In 

the response they re-did it, took out the 

smoking and it still didn’t change much. 

MR. HINNEFELD: We put it in the most 

favorable category, and it didn’t change the 

outcome. This will happen on occasion when we 

get conflicting information from DOL on 

smoking, and there’s usually some 

communication between our staff and DOL to 

say, hey, you got to tell us, one. Which one 

is it? 

 And so I don’t know if that occurred 

in this case, and the DOL said, okay, this is 

really it. I didn’t look to that 
83

communication stream to see if that was done 

or not or whether it was just our staff that 

saw a designation and put that one in without 

realizing there was conflicting information. 

I don’t really know what the case was on that. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I’m tempted to say here that 

SC&A’s in agreement, but I think it sort of 

depends on those other findings, right? 

DR. MAURO: Yes, that’s -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, because it doesn’t 

impact the case, but if everything else 

changes, yeah. 

DR. MAURO: But then that maybe will trip 

it. Because I want to point out, we did walk 

away from this saying that he could easily 

have come up with a dose a hundred times 

higher for this guy. And then maybe all of a 

sudden the smoking does make a difference. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, okay, so I think we 

need to wait on all the responses then. And 

just to look at the last one, oh, that’s kind 

of a summary. That’s your point. 

DR. MAURO: That’s what I just said. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, let’s go on to 122 then. 

DR. BRANCHE: Point one? 
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1 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, 122.1. 

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DR. MAURO: This is Simonds Saw. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, this is Simonds Saw. 

DR. MAURO: Your first response, let’s get 

to conceptually, in effect, at Simonds Saw the 

external exposure from airborne dust and stuff 

that’s on the ground the way in which the 

doses are determined, it turns out they were 

hanging 20 film badges, which is good, to get 

an external radiation field. And I think you 

used the full distribution, the median. 

 This guy again, I think he was a 

furnace operator also. My only comment was 

given that he was a furnace operator, from 

previous experience, these people usually are 

handling a lot more contamination. They’re 

shoveling this stuff into the furnace, this 

scrap of the uranium. So I guess my reaction 

was maybe you should have used the 95th

percentile for this guy as opposed to the mean 

or the full distribution that you got from the 

hanging film badges. That was a suggestion. 

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER (by Telephone): Hello? 

DR. BRANCHE: Hello. This is the 

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction. 
85

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DR. BRANCHE: Michael Gibson, can you hear 

us? 

 MR. GIBSON (by Telephone): Yeah, I can 

still hear you, Christine. 

DR. BRANCHE: Okay, good. I just wanted to 

be sure we didn’t lose, perhaps it was a wrong 

number. Sorry for that. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Saved a lot on my insurance 

though. 

DR. BRANCHE: But we don’t have a little 

gecko walking across the table here. 

MR. GRIFFON: So I don’t know who was 

speaking. 

DR. MAURO: Again, because he’s a furnace 

operator, would you want to go with a more, a 

higher end external submersion dose. Even 

though, by the way, it’s not an important 

contributor compared to the other -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Right, there’s another dose 

component in here working in proximity -- 

DR. MAURO: Without a doubt, and that 

dominates. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- and that dominates it. 

So we felt like this was an appropriate 
86

approach. I understand where you’re coming 

from on, does one size fit all work or some of 

these guys, really the 95

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th percentile guys, 

yeah, we try to build these models so they’re 

favorable for the 95th percentile guy. And so 

overall we felt like this was appropriate and 

the overall dose assigned is favorable for the 

95th percentile guy so that he’s covered by 

that. 

 So that’s kind of our approach on 

building these models. Now whether you take a 

particular data set which, as you say, is not 

an important contributor anyway, and you apply 

this distribution, that seems to me to be a 

relatively unimportant thing to try to sort 

out. I think overall we’re favorable to the 

person anyway. 

DR. MAURO: Well, I don’t know if I would 

entirely agree with that because, well, we can 

get to the other issues where I believe he 

was, if I remember, he was the person that was 

being -- the generic approach is the rods and 

the billets, right? He was a furnace operator 

where they loaded basically billets. 

 I don’t know if you want to -- see, 
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, we can move on. I 

mean, I think this first one is, I think we 

have to still answer this and look at this 

model as a mini-site profile review now, I 

mean, in this group still. So we’ll leave it 

there for now. 

DR. MAURO: That’s what it is. That’s what 

it is. That’s what we’re really doing. 

 I mean, Simonds Saw is in excellent 

shape in terms of having lots of data, lots of 

very good data. Now the question is applying 

that data to this particular worker and is 

there anything about this worker that really 

maybe you want to tweak it a bit. And the 

first place comes in with this submersion 

exposure whereby you use the full distribution 

for a furnace operator. 

 As I said, that’s not going to really 

change the dose very much for the reasons 

we’ll talk about in a minute. There are other 

sources of external exposure that dominate. 

But nevertheless that’s a comment. That would 

be number 122.1. So I’ll leave that with you. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, then you’re moving on. 
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DR. MAURO: Let’s move on now, yeah. I want 

to move on. 

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 Now, 122.2, I want to withdraw that. 

It had to do -- I don’t think that was a good 

comment on SC&A’s part. It had to do -- I 

don’t know if you all recall OCAS one, 

Appendix B, there’s a dose conversion factor 

problem that’s sort of a chronic problem. But 

that really only applies when a person’s 

wearing a badge. But if you have film badges 

suspended, and it’s not on a person’s body, 

the problem goes away. So I’d like to 

withdraw 122.2 for that reason. 

 122.3, here we have a situation where 

I would consider the approach that is used in 

the site profile for determining external 

exposure to a worker, what was done is they 

said here we have a worker, every worker is 

assigned this. And he spends three and a half 

hours per day up close and personal to a 

billet and another three and a half hours per 

day up close and personal to a rod. And it’s 

a single billet and a single rod, three and a 

half hours each. 

 Now I said, okay, that’s certainly I 
89

think one foot away, so as far as I’m 

concerned that is very conservative, very much 

a bounding scenario except maybe for the 

furnace operator. Because, see, what happens 

is the furnace operator’s probably up close 

and personal only to billets. The billets are 

the things that come in that you have to heat 

up. Then after you heat them up they go off 

and they get rolled, and then you get rods. 

He’s not up close and personal to the rods. 

He’s up close and personal to the billets. 

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 Now, the billets are bigger than rods, 

and the doses from the billets -- so in 

reality, this guy probably really wound up one 

foot away for seven hours a day to billets as 

opposed to half and half between billets and 

rods. And that does jack up the exposures a 

little bit, 25 percent, not a lot. 

 But then another thing, now I’m not 

too sure how this works though. I think he 

would be up close and personal to more than 

just one billet at any given point in time. 

In other words the process of putting these 

things in the furnaces as I understand -- I 

was talking to a guy who’s familiar with this 
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-- that there may be multiple billets that 

he’s up close and personal to. 

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 So where I’m going is that I could see 

if you were going to tailor your analysis to 

this guy. Again, I’ll say it again. This 

approach certainly is claimant favorable for 

the vast majority of workers. But maybe for a 

person who worked with the furnace operator 

now we’re talking external exposure. I would 

have considered possibly him being spending 

most of his time close to more than one billet 

and in effect going the route of the approach 

taken in Bethlehem Steel where what was done 

there is they used a semi-infinite slab. 

 In other words you could almost see 

the difference. In one case you have this guy 

that’s standing next to a billet. In 

Bethlehem Steel they’ve got him standing next 

to basically an infinite, semi-infinite slab 

of uranium. And I think it has a maybe factor 

of two effect on the dose. 

 I don’t know if that’s important, but 

I think that it seems that there’s a breakdown 

in parity between the way in which you 

approach the problem for Bethlehem Steel, and 
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the way you approach the problem for Simonds 

Saw. And it’s of particular relevance here 

because the guy’s a furnace operator, and I 

think in his case the Bethlehem Steel strategy 

might have been a little bit more claimant 

favorable. And we’re talking about on the 

order of a factor of two in the dose, external 

dose. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: John, can I say something 

about your hypothesis? 

DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 

 MR. PRESLEY: A billet of uranium is rolled 

about 800 degrees C. And there is nobody 

going to stay very close to a billet, a foot 

away from an 800 degree C billet. I mean, he 

may go in with something and check it and back 

off. Nobody. 

DR. MAURO: So you mean after the heating 

process is over, see, I was envisioning racks 

of billets that he’s putting into the furnace. 

 MR. PRESLEY: You put them in, but there’s 

no way in the world you’re going to stay that 

close. 

DR. MAURO: Going to stay there after they 

come out, yeah. I may have, I created a 
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little picture in my head of what I think it 

might look like. I’m envisioning the billets 

show up for a rolling, and they show up and 

one of the first steps is you get them, you 

want to heat them. 

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 And so I’m picturing a room where 

billets are stored for being put through the 

furnace. And when they come out of the 

furnace, they go off to the rolling operation. 

So I had a -- now I might be wrong. I had a 

picture that there may be open billets sitting 

in the room where this guy is before they went 

in -- I agree. Once it comes out, the 

temperature of this thing is off the charts, 

and they handle them with prongs at a 

distance. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I guess our general view on 

the uranium dose model, and it probably has 

recurred in a number of ways in a number of 

manifestations, is that we are quite generous 

with our modeled time and the proximity, how 

long they spend, how close they spend, which 

to us provides a high estimate on doses in our 

dose model. We believe we are consistently 

assigning high doses for uranium dose modeling 
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because largely because of the proximity 

assumption. 

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 So rather than to debate a lot of 

times what is the particular dose rate and 

what dose rate, you know, should you be at the 

95th percentile or 50th percentile, and what 

exactly are the components of the radioactive 

material that contribute to the dose rate, and 

the impurities in the uranium that would 

contribute. We feel like that’s all 

essentially dealt with by the proximity and 

the favorableness of the proximity and the 

time. 

 And that’s kind of a theme. I think 

you’ll see that over and over. And if you 

would look at dose rates assigned from our 

uranium dose models versus doses measured, you 

know, historically at the Y-12 plant where it 

was full of uranium, or at Fernald that was 

full of uranium -- 

DR. MAURO: You don’t see that, yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- you don’t see measured 

doses where they were monitoring people who 

worked around a lot of uranium all day long 

that even approached what we assign on these 
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DR. MAURO: See, one of the things that 

happens to me is I see all these AWE 

calculations, so I’m very familiar with them. 

Now, right here you’re assigning 0.7 MR 

millirad per hour and 0.285 for the one for 

the 0.7 is for the billet. 0.285 is for the 

rod. However, in Bethlehem Steel you assigned 

2 millirad per hour, ten times higher than a 

rod. 

 Now I say to myself, is there any 

reason why you would assign workers at 

Bethlehem Steel an external dose rate that’s 

ten times higher than what you’re assigning at 

-- and I can’t, and to me I say there’s a 

breakdown in parity here. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Now let’s also be a little 

careful on parity because we have, our 

technical understanding and our technical 

approaches do evolve over time. And so I 

don’t know that it’s true that every case is 

going to be performed the same way in 

perpetuity. There may be new information 

becomes available, new ^ become available, and 

so there are changes to technical approaches. 
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And when the technical change approach changes 

doses up, we’ve got a PER and we go back we 

consider claims. But when that technical 

approach more fine tunes a dose, and it goes 

down, then we don’t back to PER. We don’t go 

try to take money away from anybody. We don’t 

do anything like that. We just say, okay, we 

feel like we have a better technical, more 

defensible technical approach now. We’re 

going to use that from now on. Versus this is 

really favorable than we used earlier on, but 

we didn’t have as much information as we have 

now. So certainly I’m sensitive to parity for 

this program, but I think when you’re thinking 

of what has to happen, what happens temporally 

through this program, it’s really careful. 

Otherwise you’re tied to the first approach 

you ever got. 

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DR. MAURO: I understand. I understand. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Anyway, that’s just where we 

come from. And also, because there is some 

big GSDs on these dose numbers. These GSD 

numbers, you know, the 95th percentile goes 

well above 2 millirad per hourly. 

DR. MAURO: Yes, it does. Yes, it does. 
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MR. GRIFFON: But I think we can, I mean, I 

think the model, we need to re-examine a 

little more closely and make sure, I guess, 

for the question of this particular worker, is 

everybody satisfied that it’s bounding for 

this situation. I’m curious about the 

proximity question that Bob raised, and you 

raised. So I think we want to look at that on 

the mini-site profile side of this. But I 

mean, this is really getting issues on the 

table more than resolving at this point. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, in fact, I didn’t 

really expect to resolve very much here. I 

just kind of thought I’d just put out a 

response. 

DR. MAURO: Well, this is the first time 

we’re engaging a site profile as part of our 

DR review process. I don’t think we’ve done 

that before. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. That, too, 

yeah. 

MS. MUNN: So this case is going to be 

revisited? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we have some things 

to, I think there’s some stuff that we need to 
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concern ourselves with about the two site 

profiles we’re talking about, Aliquippa Forge 

and Simonds Saw and Steel. And so we need to 

look at these as site profile-type comments, 

and there may be additional responses. 

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DR. MAURO: Yeah, I would say that in 

looking at it, too -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: We may need some more 

information from you as well. 

DR. MAURO: -- Aliquippa, I have some 

problems, what I call more fundamental 

problems where you use the 1980 data, ’70 

data. I mean, that really goes to, I would 

say not that the doses are very high, but that 

whole strategy is very questionable, and it 

comes up many times. In this case I think the 

Simonds Saw site profile is very good. What I 

started to question as -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: That’s what we’re saying, 

Super-S operator -- so is one-size-fits-all 

really appropriate? And is it sufficiently, 

is our one-size-fits-all sufficiently 

favorable that it covers the 95th percentile? 

DR. MAURO: Yes, exactly. 

MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on 122 that is 
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1 new to bring up, John? 

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DR. MAURO: 22.4, that’s, I agree, that’s a 

global issue. This has to do with a 

resuspended issue, ten to the minus six 

resuspension factor. We’re back there again. 

MR. GRIFFON: So there’s no -- 

DR. MAURO: Well, especially applicable. I 

mean, picture this guy shoveling this stuff. 

A resuspension factor of ten to the minus six 

you see in relatively quiet settings indoors. 

Now I’m picturing this guy, now, as a furnace 

operator, I know he’s loading billets. 

Whether or not he’s loading residue, because I 

know one of the things you do is you roast 

some of the cuttings that come off the, when 

you cut the processes away to avoid fires. 

 You know, we ran into this when we 

talked about Bethlehem Steel. You got 

residue. So if he’s not only loading billets 

and heating them up, but he’s also shoveling 

residue of uranium that is being oxidized so 

that you don’t have a fire, then all of a 

sudden I’m picturing a pretty, an environment 

where there’s a very great potential for dust 

generation. And a ten to the minus six 
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1 resuspension factor is not going to -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: But this seems like this is -- 

correct me if I’m wrong. This seems like this 

finding is related to the residual time 

period, right? After the work would have been 

done, and the guy would have been still 

working there, but it was a residual exposure? 

Am I wrong? 

DR. MAURO: I think that was Aliquippa, not 

Simonds Saw. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, on 122.4 I’m asking 

because the -- 

DR. MAURO: No, I think -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- it says resuspended 

residual uranium. 

DR. MAURO: No, residual uranium doesn’t, 

there’s the residual time period, but there is 

-- 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m trying to understand what 

you meant by residual uranium. 

DR. MAURO: I’d have to go look at it, but 

there is a distinction. In other words, 

there’s the uranium that’s airborne during 

operations because you’re rolling it. It’s 

flaking. It’s becoming airborne. Then there 
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is, at the same time, there’s also uranium 

that’s on the ground that falls down, and 

that’s residue, but it’s during operations. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I understand your distinction. 

I just don’t understand what you meant in this 

finding. 

DR. MAURO: And I’ve got to check myself. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because usually when we say 

residual, we’re talking residual time period 

or we often have, so -- 

DR. MAURO: If it’s, you know, nevertheless 

-- stay with me for a minute. 

MR. GRIFFON: My question would be on this, 

do you have the same concern that you did in 

the Aliquippa? 

DR. MAURO: Yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: Did they use monitoring from a 

later time period to back calculate or is it 

current information or what data was used? 

DR. MAURO: The activity on surfaces here 

I’d have to go check. I’d have to check. 

Remember, you did have data from -- 

MR. GRIFFON: From the time period. 

DR. MAURO: -- from the time period at the 

time. 
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1 MR. GRIFFON: Not 20 years later. 

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DR. MAURO: Yeah, and my concern was that 

the resuspension factor was not the one I 

would have expected to see. But you’re right, 

I’d have to go back and look at the ^ 

structure. It’s in the write up. In other 

words one of the problems is that you have the 

summary here. I’d have to go back to my write 

up and see exactly where I was coming from 

here. 

MR. GRIFFON: Like we’ve said, this is our 

first cut through, so this is really just 

defining the issues more than we may not 

resolve many, but we’ll define them. 

 So the 122.5 and six. Five we just 

did. Six is recycled uranium -- 

DR. MAURO: Which is again generic. 

MR. GRIFFON: It’s generic, but it’s also 

the response here I see is sort of a site 

profile issue. Do you agree that, the 

response says these are ^ Fernald/Hanford are 

consistent with those ratios. 

DR. MAURO: But then it says once completed 

more -- in other words you’re talking about 

122.6 right now. 
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1 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

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DR. MAURO: If you read it says basically 

once the recycled uranium analysis is 

completed, a more authoritative analysis will 

be available and revisions will be made. So 

it’s like the other one we talked about. It’s 

just like the one we talked about before 

related to recycled uranium. 

MR. HINNEFELD: This is a kind of a global 

issue. 

DR. MAURO: It is a global issue, and I 

checked it off saying it’s a global issue. I 

agree. 

 The next one, 122.7, I had a, I’ll 

tell you conceptually what the concern is. I 

know you folks didn’t respond, but the thorium 

inhalation question. It turns out that you 

have a lot of information on thorium throughput, lots of good data, and uranium throughput. But for the purpose of doing the 

inhalation from the thorium, I think you only 

had a single thorium measurement that was 

made. 

 And on the basis of that measurement, 

the inhalation dose was calculated. In other 
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AWE sites where you had good information on 

through-put, you did it prorated. You said, 

listen, if I know that this was the amount of 

uranium that went through, and I could 

estimate the inhalation of uranium for workers 

that were there, the amount of inhalation of 

thorium is going to be directly proportional 

to the through-put. Because they’re both 

really moving through except one, you have a 

much smaller volume. The thorium’s always a 

much smaller volume. 

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 So my reaction to this was rather than 

basing the inhalation of thorium dose on a 

single airborne sample measurement, which is 

really very questionable, it would be better 

to perhaps use the prorating approach as you 

have done in many other site profiles for 

AWEs. That would be a suggestion. 

MS. MUNN: So the action is going to be 

what? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we haven’t provided 

the response yet. 

DR. MAURO: But that was my thinking, and 

it’s in the write up in my report. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Which just helps clarify so 
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MR. GRIFFON: 122.8 and nine are those 

global issues. 

DR. MAURO: Global, global. 

 And ten I checked off as okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the only thing I 

question on ten is it clearly would be a DOL 

issue. 

 Is there any mechanism, Larry, for us 

to, I mean, is this worthy that we should 

forward this to DOL? I know they’re 

participating by phone anyway, but we don’t 

advise them necessarily. 

DR. MAURO: During the CATI -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: There is a close-out 

interview -- or someone interviews the 

claimant alluded to an additional cancer. And 

we may have checked, you know, we may have 

asked DOL, and they may have come back and 

said, well, they’re talking about a secondary 

cancer, a metastasis. Or they may have 

already been investigated. It may not have 

been. 

MR. ELLIOTT: When we hear the claimant say 

I have another cancer, we say to them you need 
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to go to DOL, and they determine eligibility 

in that regard for your claim. It’ll be up to 

them. And once we hear from them that you 

have an additional cancer, we’ll rework the 

dose reconstruction to that. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I understand that, but I’m 

just wondering from our standpoint here to 

close this. I mean, we can just drop it or we 

can say we found this in our audit, DOL, maybe 

you should look at it. Maybe you already 

have. And just FYI kind of, I don’t know if 

it’s -- 

MR. SIEBERT: We did just get this claim 

back for an additional cancer. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Sometimes it takes a long 

time. Sometimes it doesn’t. 

MR. SIEBERT: Yeah, there’s the initial 

153.6. 

MR. GRIFFON: So there was an additional 

cancer so -- 

MR. SIEBERT: So the DOL did add an 

additional cancer. 

MS. MUNN: So it’s still under review 

essentially. 

MR. SIEBERT: Well, we rework it. 
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: We’ll rework it. 

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MR. SIEBERT: In March of this year they 

assigned a new cancer. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I think for purposes of your 

working group matrix though this is probably 

closed. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. That certainly closes 

it because we know. 

 Next, 123, John, what site is this? 

DR. MAURO: I’m shifting off to Doug now. 

 Doug, we just left the AWEs. 

MR. FARVER: You’re off the hook now, John. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, actually, you know what? 

Before we get into a new site, this might be a 

good time to break. No, actually, there’s 

only one finding. Why don’t we try to get 

through this one, then break. 

MR. FARVER: It should be pretty simple 

because this is one of these fission product 

findings. 

DR. BRANCHE: We’re at 123.1? 

MR. GRIFFON: 123.1, yeah. 

MR. SIEBERT: Which site is this from? 

MR. GRIFFON: Hanford. It is Hanford? 

MR. FARVER: So this finding you’ll see pop 
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up in several of these cases coming. We also 

have one from the sixth set, didn’t we? 

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MR. GRIFFON: I think so. 

MR. FARVER: That had to do with fission 

products. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. FARVER: And what I’ll defer, I’ll ask 

Kathy. She’s had time to look at this one 

because she’s the one that clued me into the 

fission product issue. It actually predates 

me. 

 So, Kathy, have you looked at this 

one, this finding? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, I have. 

I’ve briefly looked at it, and I guess if I 

recall correctly, in this case they missed 

fission product dose calculated, and I believe 

they calculated actual fission product dose 

after 1970. And this goes back to a previous 

finding for the portion of the missed fission 

product. We, you always go into a 

radionuclide selection process for identifying 

what would be the most claimant favorable 

radionuclide for fission products. 

 And I think in this case it was like 
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Cerium-144. But we’ve questioned what about 

all of the other radionuclides that may have 

been missed. And I know at one point in time 

NIOSH indicated that they were possibly 

developing a workbook. And I think this 

finding goes back to those previous questions 

regarding is there a workbook being developed 

where you’re going to be looking at all of the 

various radionuclides associated with missed 

fission products or are you continuing to look 

at just the radionuclides that will contribute 

the largest dose? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: You guys have anything on 

that? 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, it sounds like OTIB0054. 

DR. MAURO: I was just going to say that. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s what I thought. 

MR. SIEBERT: And we’re looking at the 

application of OTIB-0054 to whole body count. 

MS. BRACKETT: Oh, right, right, because it 

wasn’t written specifically -- 

MR. SIEBERT: It’s written for urinalysis. 

MS. BRACKETT: And we have been looking at 

comparisons, but it’s very complicated, and we 
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MR. SIEBERT: And it falls into the other 

issues. 

MS. BRACKETT: We have started developing 

some comparisons and trying to come up with a 

method for applying it whole body counts. 

MR. SIEBERT: And we’re starting off with 

the cases where this has been brought up in 

these matrices and doing those comparisons 

first. 

MS. BRACKETT: You finished one of them, 

right? We have -- 

MR. SIEBERT: Almost finished with one. 

It’s pretty clear at least for the first one 

that we’ve done that the overestimating use 

and the most claimant favorable was very 

claimant favorable even though we compared to 

the whole body counts in ’54. But we are 

still working that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So in other words we then 

will, we are going to provide additional 

analysis of these cases. 

MS. BRACKETT: What we had hoped to do is 

show that it’s claimant favorable to do what 

we’ve been doing rather than having to change. 
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1 MR. SIEBERT: That’s very complicated. 

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MS. BRACKETT: Right. So that will depend 

on the outcome of the -- 

MR. GRIFFON: So this isn’t really OTIB0054. It’s a comparison against OTIB-0054, 

right? 

MS. BRACKETT: Yes, right. 

MR. SIEBERT: Fifty-four doesn’t apply to 

whole body counts. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, right -- 

MR. GRIFFON: And I’m not sure where to send 

this. 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, that’s true because the 

outcome will be either we will demonstrate 

that what we’re doing is claimant favorable or 

we’ll have to modify OTIB-0054 to incorporate 

whole body counts in there. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Basically it’s going to have 

to stay here until they determine -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Probably. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay, this might be a 

good point to break for lunch. 

DR. BRANCHE: We’re going to get together at 

12:45 or at one? 
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1 MR. GRIFFON: I think 12:45. 

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DR. BRANCHE: We’ll reconvene at 12:45, and 

so I’ll turn the line off, and we’ll open the 

phones back up and see you soon. 

 (Whereupon, a break for lunch was taken from 

11:45 a.m. until 12:45 p.m.) 

DR. BRANCHE: If someone is on the line, 

please let me know if you can hear me. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is Kathy 

Behling. I can hear you. 

DR. BRANCHE: Thanks, Kathy, I appreciate 

it. 

 Okay, Mark, it’s all yours. 

MR. GRIFFON: Back on the seventh set, try 

to liven it up after lunch. Somebody help me 

out. Where did we stop off? 

MR. FARVER: 24.1. 

MR. HINNEFELD: 24.1. 

MR. GRIFFON: We’re on 124.1. And so I’ll 

turn it over to SC&A I guess. I’m not sure 

which site this is. 

MR. FARVER: I believe this is Hanford. 

Yeah, Hanford. And the finding was about 

inappropriate method to calculate missed 

photon dose, and it has to do with the 
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counting of the zeros. The workbook, the 

equation used in the workbook to count the 

zeros was the, well, it worked okay, but the 

headings of the different dosimeter parameters 

changed, but the equation stayed the same. 

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 In other words sometimes you’d be 

adding up a shielded zero and the next time 

it’d be a gamma, and sometimes it’s 

penetrating or sometimes it’s low neutron and 

change over the years, but the equation would 

still be the same. So NIOSH apparently went 

back in and changed the workbook, and I have 

not checked the new DR report yet, so it’s my 

action. And this also goes for 124.2 and 

124.3. 

MR. GRIFFON: Any follow up on that, Stu? 

Any clarification? Is that about right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think what we said is they 

were right, and that tool’s been corrected. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, continuing on to 

124.4. 

MR. FARVER: All right, 124.4. 

MS. MUNN: Is this still open? Because -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, SC&A’s going to look at 

the tool. 
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MR. FARVER: Has to do with the failure to 

identify an incident in the DOE records. What 

it comes down to is NIOSH agrees there should 

have been more clearly explained in the DR 

report, which is we agree. So we’re okay with 

that finding and their response. 

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MS. MUNN: 124.3? So both two and three, 

right? 

MR. GRIFFON: So we’ve got agreement on that 

one. That’s 124.4, right? 

MR. FARVER: That was 124.4. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, 124.1, 2 and 3 are all 

fall into that first, the tool, reviewing the 

Excel tool. 

 Okay, now we’re on to case 125. 

MR. FARVER: Case 125 is another Hanford 

site. 125.1, the DR does not properly account 

for all the photon dose. Apparently, a couple 

doses were not, for years in 1952 and ’82, 

were not entered into the IREP. But they say 

regarding the ’84 dose, they say it’s in the 

IREP, but I still couldn’t find it. So I’ll 

still come back to them and say I could not 

find a 1984 dose in the final IREP file. The 

IREP entry that they referred to is for 1948. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Give him a chance to find 

that. 

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MS. MUNN: Nineteen eighty-four. So nothing 

has happened. 

MR. GRIFFON: Stu, any follow up? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I’m not sure how much 

of this I can reconstruct right now. I’ll see 

what I can get to. 

MR. GRIFFON: I was just pausing to give you 

a chance to find it or whatever. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Scott is doing some 

scrambling over here. I don’t know if he’s 

going to find anything or not. 

MR. GRIFFON: So the follow-up question 

again just so I can -- 

MR. FARVER: Oh, the follow up question was 

the 1984 dose that they referenced for an IREP 

entry turns out to be a 1948 dose. So I still 

can’t find the 1984 dose. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I guess we’ll just have to 

go back. Also, I think I’d like to know when 

all these are added, ’52, ’82 and ’84, just to 

make sure that the case comes out the same 

way. 

MR. FARVER: Well, what I try to go by is 
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what believe is the final IREP file, which 

would start with S-E such-and-such. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, it will start with the 

two letter designation which is the DOL 

office, and then -- 

MR. FARVER: Well, I’m not saying that that 

IREP dose isn’t contained in one of the 

working files. It may be. But the final 

file, it was not contained. 

MR. HINNEFELD: We’ll have to go back and 

look again. 

MR. GRIFFON: That was for 125.1, right? 

MR. FARVER: 125.1. 

 125.2 is, does not properly account 

for all the neutron dose. And then NIOSH 

gives their response and I agree with their 

response. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so we have agreement on 

that one? 

MR. FARVER: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: So 125.3, I think. 

MR. FARVER: 125.3. 

MR. GRIFFON: See if there’s any comments on 

that. 

MR. FARVER: DR does not properly account 
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for variation in bioassay MDA. This has to do 

with over the years the MDAs on the bioassay 

analysis has changed, and we do not feel that 

they accounted for that. And I still disagree 

with them. 

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using half the MDAs, you won’t exceed the MDA 

values for 1964, which is what they claim. In 

other words they’re claiming if you went back 

and used the half the MDA values, you would 

exceed your MDAs for later years, and 

therefore, it’s not likely to be possible. 

And I’m saying that, yes, you can do that, and 

it won’t exceed your MDAs for 1964. And I can 

e-mail them to you, the IMBA file if you wish. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we should do that, 

yeah, that would make it clearer so everybody 

can look at the data. 

MR. FARVER: Right, so that’s my action. 

MR. GRIFFON: I mean, they’re saying that by 

using half the MDA earlier on you would have 

anticipated levels later that would have been 

over the MDA. You would have seen it. You 

would have had positive results, just because 

I saw a lot of people looking a little 
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MR. SIEBERT: Were you comparing against 

half the MDA or the MDA? Were you using half 

the MDA across the board? 

MR. FARVER: I was using half the MDA just 

to calculate the intake, but it would not 

exceed the MDA of later years. 

MR. SIEBERT: There’s the rub. That needs 

to be compared to half the MDA. Projections 

out from half the MDA need to be compared 

against half the MDA. Because when we’re 

calculating versus half the MDA, what we’re 

doing is we’re calculating the mode of the 

triangular distribution, which means the top 

end is actually at the MDA. If you project 

out what the MDA intake would be, it would 

have exceeded the MDA. That sounded circular. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that did. Why don’t we 

share the IMBA file? 

 MR. CLAWSON: That was clear as mud. 

MR. GRIFFON: I’d like to see the number. 

It’s always easier to see the numbers. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, it’s easier to see the 

number. 

MR. FARVER: But really I’m just saying I’m 
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sure that’s the difference. I am not 

comparing it to half the MDAs for 1960 later 

years because I don’t think that’s what your 

response said. 

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see the numbers, but are you saying the 

difference between the MDA and the DL -- I 

mean, that’s your distinction, right? 

MR. SIEBERT: If you calculate the intake 

based on the MDA over two, your projections 

need to be compared to the MDA over two -- 

MS. MUNN: Correct. 

MR. SIEBERT: -- for consistency purposes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it may depend on the 

reporting mechanism for the site, too. For 

instance, if they report the result regardless 

of what the result was, and if so, then the 

result would be, then you would expect some of 

those results to exceed the DL. Well, they 

wouldn’t exceed the MDA, they would exceed the 

DL -- 

MR. FARVER: Correct. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- if the higher intake rate 

had been used earlier. So a little bit 

depends here on how that site reported its 
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bioassay results. If they would just report 

less than MDA for a bioassay result, then as 

you say, there’s no way to tell because those 

data points could, in fact, have been less 

than MDA. 

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for instance, they would just, say, report 

less than DL or the number. Or if they just 

reported the value that popped out no matter 

what it was, and those still were all below 

the ^ of the DL, then you would have, then 

what the dose reconstruction done would have 

been correct. Isn’t that right? Isn’t there 

a reporting thing here as well? 

MR. FARVER: Right, I don’t remember how 

they reported it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t either. 

MR. SIEBERT: It’s Hanford I believe -- 

MS. MUNN: It is Hanford. 

MR. SIEBERT: -- MDAs if I remember 

correctly -- 

MR. FARVER: I don’t know. 

MR. SIEBERT: -- for plutonium. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It was less than 0.05 then? 

Is that ^? 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, well, we don’t -- 

MR. SIEBERT: We’ll look at it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- necessarily need to 

belabor it here. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, let’s look at the IMBA 

file and make it a lot easier, yeah. 

 Okay, 125.4. 

MR. FARVER: 125.4, DR does not properly 

account for whole body counts. DR did not 

account for positive whole body count results 

from cesium and Zinc-65. Had they been 

evaluated it still would have been small 

doses. That was pretty much summing up 

NIOSH’s response. They were not accounted 

for, but had they been accounted for the doses 

would have been small. And our contention is 

he still should have accounted for them. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I guess less than a 

0.02 we should have. As a standard approach 

we don’t enter doses less than a millirem. 

But it should have, the DR could have said 

that. And he could have put in the two 

millirem doses for the ^. 

MR. GRIFFON: I mean, is this done, I’m 
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assuming it’s in a workbook. Why wouldn’t it 

have been -- 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know. Scott, can 

you answer that one? 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess that’s the question I 

would have. It doesn’t seem, if it’s all done 

in a workbook, it would just be there. You’d 

just put it in. 

MR. HINNEFELD: We’ll provide more 

information about how those doses are 

accounted for. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 125.5, failure to account for 

internal doses from all fission products. And 

really if you look back at the case, the 

report that we issued, it really has to do 

with more that, well, it’s two points. 

 One is the other radionuclides which 

is the ongoing OTIB-0054. And the second 

point is a QA concern where it was done with 

Type S ruthenium. And really Type F will give 

you much higher kidney dose, and really is 

what they used in their calculation. So the 

DR report said Type S and it wasn’t. It was 

really Type F which is QA concern. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Is there any follow up on the 

second part of that, Stu? I think the first 

part we have is the procedure in question. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: It’s just, I guess, a 

typographical that made it through. 

MR. GRIFFON: Just a typo. So there’s 

agreement on that part, yeah. How does that 

get corrected? Or does it affect this case? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I mean, it was just a 

misstatement. I mean, the case was done, and 

we’re using more favorable -- 

MR. GRIFFON: The correct thing was used. 

It was just a typographical error. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It was reported incorrectly 

in the dose reconstruction. I don’t think 

there’s anything to do on this case. 

MR. FARVER: Isn’t that something that 

should be caught in the peer review? 

MR. HINNEFELD: It should have been caught 

in the peer review and the tech review or the 

technical editing and theoretically, maybe 

not, and then in our review. So, yeah, it 

should have been caught in the review. I 

don’t know why it wasn’t. 

MR. FARVER: Is that part of the peer review 
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checklist to check the intake types and 

quantities and nuclides? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t remember the peer 

review checklist. 

MR. SIEBERT: But typically -- I mean, once 

again, human error all with checklists. 

You’re still going to get -- 

MR. FARVER: At least if it’s in a checklist 

someone’s going to say, yes, I looked at it. 

I checked it off as correct. 

MS. MUNN: They did have a checklist? 

MR. GRIFFON: I think this is why we brought 

up the quality control idea before was that 

how do we, okay, we have this. Standing alone 

it’s probably not that big of an issue 

certainly. But then if we have questions 

related to quality that come up over and over, 

is there any way for our Board to review the 

peer review process, the quality control 

process, you know, that aspect. And I don’t 

know, I think we reviewed some of the 

procedures in the procedures review, haven’t 

we? Yeah. But I don’t know that we’ve looked 

at -- 

DR. MAURO: The only thing we did in the 
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procedures review was to, the overarching 

finding was that there are lots of QA 

procedures, and it’s not, there really is no 

place where they integrated the whole process, 

where you actually see cradle to grave the QA 

process. See, on one level is, is the QA 

program coherent and well communicated so that 

a person could see, understand it. There’s 

another question of is it being implemented. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Or is it being implemented 

effectively. 

DR. MAURO: Implemented effectively. We 

didn’t do that. In effect we’re doing that. 

I mean, that’s what we’re doing. By checking 

the numbers if we do find places where there’s 

a problem, it means that, well, it might be 

implemented but on occasion, we’d have 

something that should have been caught during 

the ^ process. 

MR. GRIFFON: But I guess from my standpoint 

what we have to -- and I’m not sure we can do 

it here and now, but something we might want 

to think about, other Subcommittee members or 

the Board, is that certainly, as Scott said, 

human error. I mean, you’re going to have 
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some of these. Now do we at some point want 

to look at this systematically and say are 

there too many. Is this happening too 

frequently or are they of a severity that 

concerns the Board? You know, that kind of 

thing. We haven’t done that yet. 

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DR. MAURO: In principle, it is in fact 

imbedded in all of our audits. In other words 

in theory we have thousands perhaps of 

findings, some of which are in fact, like this 

one, okay, here’s a place where something can 

slip through. So in theory one could argue 

that we could actually sort on that, and say, 

okay, how many of the findings are, would be 

defined as a place where the Quality Assurance 

program missed it, and it got through, got 

through the gate so to speak. So in theory it 

still is already done or being done as part of 

this process. 

 And then it really doesn’t matter how 

do we sort from our dataset and what does it 

mean. And let’s say we report back, okay, out 

of reviewing -- I forget -- 240 cases, how 

many QA findings did we have, you know, not 

technical arguments or debates or discussions, 
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but something that where -- this is a perfect 

example where maybe something got through that 

shouldn’t have gotten through. 

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 That is something that we didn’t talk 

about on how to use our database. In theory 

we could use our database for that. I’m not 

sure how easy that would be, but it could be 

done. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, we’ve already used it to 

some extent in our reports to the Secretary. 

I mean, we’ve used the spreadsheets which have 

some, I mean all that information you talked 

about. 

DR. MAURO: We do sort a lot of categories. 

I don’t know. 

 Kathy, are you on the line, Kathy? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’m here. 

DR. MAURO: This conversation goes toward 

questions that out of, you know, the various 

findings that we have, some of them fall into 

this category called, well, I mean, I guess we 

would define this -- and I guess everyone 

agrees -- this would be an example of a 

quality assurance -- 

MR. GRIFFON: And I have a category. I’ve 
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DR. MAURO: And we do have that, okay, then 

it’s already -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Because if you remember, I 

have these other three columns that are blank 

through this matrix. Before we submit these 

final reports, we always fill those in, the 

program site ranking, the section and the 

grouping. 

DR. MAURO: So that is something to sort on. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): And that will 

be captured in the database. And even if it 

wouldn’t be captured on a column like that, 

when we populate the database, and we put in a 

description, if we use a description such as 

this is a QA concern, the database can go in 

and sort on any term that’s in there. That 

was something we built into the Procedures 

Review database, and it’s also built into the 

Dose Reconstruction database. 

MR. SIEBERT: To answer a question that was 

asked about the peer review checklist. In the 

peer review checklist it has the question is, 

is correct inhalation absorption types used. 

Which used was correct. Yes, there was just a 
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typographical error in the dose reconstruction 

report. We don’t specifically have a separate 

line saying that. 

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MS. MUNN: That’s good to know. 

DR. MAURO: I mean, it’s a matter of degree. 

Now there are QA errors whereby let’s say the 

wrong absorption or wrong class was used. 

That would also be QA, but that would be a 

little more serious. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s right, there’s 

different tiers of it, too. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think certainly a large 

amount of the review that these cases get 

speak to the number in the dose 

reconstruction, and this is the number ^. And 

it was probably certainly a number of years 

ago far less attention to the words in the 

dose report before. So that could be -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Which might be something we 

need to -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: And it’s something to think 

about. And I hate to make the new DR report 

sound like a panacea for this because people 

are still going to say things, use the wrong 

words to say things. I don’t know that we 
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would even describe to the claimant the 

solubility class because that’s probably going 

to be in the technical section of the report 

that they can get if they want. 

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MS. MUNN: Stu, it can be a very confusing 

factor. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Scott has to keep explaining 

it to me. I cannot keep it straight. 

MR. SIEBERT: And so I ask Liz. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, let’s move on. I think 

we beat that one around enough. 125.6. 

MR. FARVER: 125.6, does not properly 

account for unmonitored internal dose, two 

time periods of concern, 1947 to ’48 and ’63 

to ’84. And NIOSH’s response, for years ’63 

to ’84, during that time the employee had some 

whole body counts which were used to calculate 

fission product dose. So that’s, I believe 

that’s acceptable. Although I still didn’t 

find any unmonitored fission products dose for 

’47 to ’48. I mean, I believe from your 

response isn’t that that it should be 

calculated for ’47 to ’48? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I believe what our response 

says is that the intake rate for ’44 to ’46 
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MR. FARVER: Correct. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So yeah. 

MR. FARVER: But in the files as it stands 

there’s still, there was not an unmonitored 

dose for that time period. And I believe this 

case is being returned for rework -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s what I was just 

writing. 

MR. FARVER: -- for Super-S. So really when 

a case gets reworked you just have to make 

sure you get that extra year in. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, it’ll all be covered 

in the rework. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 125.7, IMBA intake rate 

incorrectly entered into the chronic annual 

dose workbook. It was either entered as an 

acute. It should be a chronic or just the 

opposite in this finding here. 

MR. SIEBERT: Which one are you talking 

about? 

MR. GRIFFON: 125.7, right? 

MR. FARVER: Yes. It looks like it was a 

typographical error. It should have been 
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884.1 dpm per day. It was 844.1. So I mean, 

it was a typo. Once again the concern here is 

just a QA concern. Should that have been 

caught? 

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MS. MUNN: In the typos in terms of ^. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think as John said 

earlier, I think there’s different levels of 

quality concerns obviously. 

DR. MAURO: Like in this case if the actual 

dose was calculated with the wrong number, 

even though it would be different than, the 

typing said this number, but they actually 

used the right number. And I don’t know the 

facts of the matter. Is this just a matter 

of, this particular issue we’re looking at 

now, the number that was in there was that 

just a typo, and someone typed in the wrong 

number, or when you go into the spreadsheets 

or the analysis they used the correct number 

or did they use the incorrect number? 

MR. FARVER: They used the correct number. 

The report contains the typo. 

DR. MAURO: So it’s the lesser of the -- 

MR. GRIFFON: The lesser of the two, right. 

MR. FARVER: It’s a matter of if someone’s 
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comparing intakes, they should have caught 

that. 

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DR. MAURO: Sure, sure, I understand. 

MR. FARVER: Go on to eight? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, 125.8. 

MR. FARVER: 125.8, NIOSH may not have 

requested all the exposure records. This has 

to do with the employee was at Hanford and 

then at NTS. And NIOSH’s response says it 

should have been requested but -- 

MR. GRIFFON: It’s going to be reworked 

anyway, right? 

MR. FARVER: Claim has been returned for 

rework for other reasons. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And I would think today if 

we had had this kind of situation, we would 

have asked DOL about the NTS employment. If 

there’s indication there’s NTS employment 

where the person said I was also employed at 

such-and-such, we try to wait on those, you 

know, put those on ^ until we get with DOL and 

say here’s this evidence of this other 

employment. Can you add that to the claim? 

MR. FARVER: This just goes back to where 

it’s in the CATI report. After carefully 
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reviewing the CATI report, they should have 

caught this. 

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MR. ELLIOTT: They should have caught this 

but done what? I mean, if the CATI interview 

indicates additional employment, we can’t 

verify the eligibility of the employment for 

the claim. We have to turn it back to DOL. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, turn it back to DOL. 

MR. ELLIOTT: So that’s the only action on 

our part. 

MR. GRIFFON: You should have probably 

kicked it back though, right? 

MR. ELLIOTT: In some cases the interview 

may indicate that they thought they had 

employment at another site but DOL has already 

heard that and has deemed it not eligible. So 

you have to really follow the thread of the 

eligibility determination. And I don’t know 

if this particular claim has that thread in it 

or not. 

MS. MUNN: I guess we have to assume that 

this was a non-compensated case. Otherwise, 

it wouldn’t -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: It wouldn’t have been 

returned for rework. 
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MS. MUNN: This would not be a significant -

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not likely to get returned for rework. 

MR. GRIFFON: 125.9. 

MR. FARVER: 125.9, NIOSH did not properly 

address radiological incidence and potential 

missing bioassay data. There were four or so 

incidents mentioned in the DOE files where 

bioassay was requested in three out of the 

four, and it gives specific dates in our 

report. I guess our concern with the NIOSH 

response is, okay, where are the missing 

bioassay results. I mean, there are specific 

dates the incidents happened -- 

MR. SIEBERT: Can I back up to the previous 

one? I’m sorry. I was just messing around. 

The previous one with the NTS, the initial 

application to DOL does have NTS listed as 

they said they worked at NTS. So that 

information was to DOL prior to us getting 

that information. So we pretty much made the 

assumption DOL already ruled on that. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Moved on that and said no 

then. 
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MR. ELLIOTT: So in that case we have no 

action to take. 

MR. FARVER: In other words we couldn’t find 

bioassay data to even come close to the three 

1957 incidents. And the incidents are 

elevated airborne, elevated airborne, 

potential fission product U/Pu inhalations 

with positive nasal smears. But the bioassay 

results don’t correspond to the dates. 

 So without the data you could at least 

assess the intakes from alternate means such 

as workplace data. Maybe there’s some 

incident reports or coworker data, but there’s 

documented incidents right there, positive 

nasal smears. 

MR. HINNEFELD: How was the internal dose 

assessed for this person? 

MR. SIEBERT: Later data was used for 

limitation. 

MR. HINNEFELD: A chronic exposure? 

MR. SIEBERT: Probably. 

MR. GRIFFON: So you used a later, 

apparently you used a urinalysis data point 

after all the claimed incidents or documented 
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incidents. I don’t know which they are. And 

then you would assume chronic I guess. 

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MR. FARVER: Which may or may not be 

appropriate. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean, there could be 

a comparison of acute intakes on the dates of 

the incidents described on the earliest date 

that would match the bioassay, the first 

bioassay date. See how that would compare to 

the chronic intake. 

 That’s a thought that, you know, the 

general rule, a long chronic intake usually is 

a bigger intake than acute in order to match a 

bioassay result on a particular date. It 

really depends on when the chronic intake 

started. 

MR. FARVER: I guess if you have 

documentation that intake happened on a 

certain date, then I would use that date and 

say there was an intake and try to model the 

data around the documented intakes because 

that’s what you know for documented incidents 

-- 

MR. SIEBERT: Well, if you have positive 

bioassay. 
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MR. FARVER: But we don’t have the bioassay 

results. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: No, we don’t have anything 

from those incidents. We have bioassay years 

later. 

MR. FARVER: Right, it says bioassay was 

requested, but we don’t have the results. So 

we really are claiming saying is missing 

bioassay data. 

MR. GRIFFON: And that data point years 

later, is that a real value or is that less 

than MDA or something like that? 

MR. SIEBERT: It’s less than. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Less than, so how big an 

intake could you have on that intake date? So 

the question is, well, I don’t know the 

specific case like how long did the person 

work before the incident, for instance. 

Because presumably the chronic intake would 

have started with their employment, and so 

you’d have that much. 

 And then if you have acute intake on 

the date of the incident, that just misses the 

bioassay date just below the detection level 

on the first bioassay sample, you’d compare 
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it, that would be one intake regime. And then 

compare that intake regime to the longer 

chronic intake rates. 

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MR. FARVER: Oh, I agree. You could compare 

them, but there was no indication that any 

comparison was done. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so I think you’re saying 

you’re probably going to need to do that as a 

follow up? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Right, I would suggest that. 

MR. GRIFFON: Although this is a whole PER 

review anyway, so I don’t know. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it’s back, right? 

It’s back for being reworked. But I mean, the 

approach -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Liz, you wanted to talk? 

MS. BRACKETT: Yeah, I was just thinking 

this is plutonium, right, that we’re talking 

about? The method published in, what, I guess 

it wasn’t in the Health Physics Journal. 

Maybe it was in the Internal Dosimetry summer 

school, but there’s a method where if you’ve 

got exposure far in the past, and you have a 

bioassay, a contemporary bioassay result, it 

doesn’t matter what intake routine you assign. 

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You can assign one acute intake, five acute 

intakes, a chronic intake, you get the same 

result for the dose based on the later 

bioassay results. And personally I didn’t 

believe it when I saw this, and I did a bunch 

of calculations and demonstrated to myself 

that it really does work. But that does have 

the caveat that, because it was based on 

operationals generally assuming acute intakes 

rather than much in the way of chronic, but 

you’re not supposed to have had any intakes 

for five or six years just prior to the result 

that you use. I don’t know how it’s impacted 

if you -- one of the scenarios is a chronic 

all the way up -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: There’s a buffer between -- 

this is for -- I remember this publication, 

yeah. Looking at retirees coming back from 

medical surveillance tests. 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, we used it quite a bit 

when we did the Mound dose reconstruction 

because we were looking at historical intakes. 

But you generally do get the same intakes. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, if you can provide, I 

think you need to provide us an IMBA 
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comparison, and then if you want to reference 

this, that’d be good to know, too. 

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MR. FARVER: The point here is there’s 

bioassay data that was documented as being 

taken on certain dates that do not correspond 

with the bioassay data that was received. 

Someone should have recognized that. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s the data question, too. 

MR. FARVER: I mean, that’s the key right 

there. 

MR. GRIFFON: And the quality question. I 

mean, that’s a question of did you get all the 

person’s records, and then the other part of 

that is why wasn’t this picked up in review. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. 

MR. GRIFFON: And then finally, Stu, the 

final question, I guess, is what you’re 

proposing. Does this bound, is the chronic 

approach that you described bound this 

situation. So sort of three parts to that. 

MR. FARVER: Okay, 126.1, is that where 

we’re at? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yup. 

MR. FARVER: It’s a Hanford and INEL person, 

recorded photon dose uncertainty not assigned, 
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and I believe this has been brought up before 

in case 69. I agree with their response. I 

mean, their response is fine. They used a 

maximizing DCF value of one, so that one’s 

okay. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And there’s no further 

action on this. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 126.2, improper hypothetical 

intake dose model used for calculating 

internal dose. And this has to do with the 

workbook that was used, the OTIB-0002 workbook 

where you can put in if it’s a uranium site, 

reactor site, non-uranium site and so forth. 

And our belief was it should have been a 

uranium site-slash-reactor site. And NIOSH 

gives a description of why they don’t feel 

that way. 

MR. GRIFFON: What is the facility on this 

case? 

MR. FARVER: Hanford and INEL. 

MR. GRIFFON: Hanford and INEL, yeah, that’s 

right. 

MR. FARVER: I’m okay with that. I didn’t 
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find any indication of uranium work in the 

employee’s records when I went through. 

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MR. GRIFFON: So you had, even in Idaho you 

didn’t have any indication of -- 

MR. FARVER: I couldn’t find anything in the 

records. 

 MR. CLAWSON: What did they call out his 

facilities? I guess I’m sitting here looking 

at Hanford and they’ve got about everything 

that there is and in Idaho, too. 

MR. FARVER: Well, I understand that. 

MR. SIEBERT: We’re not saying he didn’t 

have potential for uranium. We’re saying that 

it’s not a uranium -- Hanford and INEL are not 

uranium facilities as pertaining to the 

overestimating assumptions in the method that 

we use. The methods that we use in a uranium 

facility is something where the limits were 

based on the higher limits for uranium 

facilities, and Hanford was not a facility 

like that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: OTIB-0002 has, there is a 

uranium intake, right, Scott? In OTIB-0002? 

MR. SIEBERT: Yes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: For the non-uranium 
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facilities there is uranium intake. It’s just 

the uranium facilities because of the controls 

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as after the dissolving the fuel, you’ve got 

everything right there, repackaging the raw 

uranium and so forth. And I’m just wondering 

-- maybe I’m getting off -- 

MR. FARVER: I think it has to do with their 

definition of uranium facilities. 

MR. HINNEFELD: The uranium facility is 

defined in -- stop me if I say something wrong 

-- OTIB-0002 describes, gives a basis for how 

those intake levels were arrived at. And 

because the uranium facility would attempt to 

control intakes at the higher intake, activity 

intake rates associated with uranium limits 

versus plutonium limits or those other limits, 

that you have for a facility that’s, a uranium 

facility and controls based on uranium, you’re 

going to have these higher intake rates. 

 And so you have a bigger uranium 

intake, TIB-0002 uranium intake, at a uranium 

facility. Now in a non-uranium facility 

there’s still a uranium intake, but it’s not 
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MR. GRIFFON: And TIB-0002 for Hanford-Idaho 

situation, was this done earlier on? 

MR. HINNEFELD: This must have been an early 

one to do to have done TIB-0002, because 

currently they have bioassay. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because you probably use site 

models now, right for Hanford-Idaho? Or would 

it depend if it was overestimating would you 

still use a generic? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, TIB-0002 was a quick 

way to do a lot of dose reconstructions, so I 

don’t know if we use TIB-0002 very much 

anymore, do we? 

MS. BRACKETT: Yes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Do we? 

MS. BRACKETT: Because it’s built into some 

of the external dose tools, so it’s very 

convenient for the dose reconstructors to use. 

So they do. 

DR. MAURO: Denial. 

MS. BRACKETT: Yeah, denials. 

MR. GRIFFON: But overestimating even for a 

place like Hanford-Idaho where you have site 

models, you’d still use TIB-0002. 
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MS. BRACKETT: I’m not 100 percent certain, 

but it’s my understanding that dose 

reconstructors still would tend to use it. I 

don’t know for specific sites, but I think 

that it is still used even at sites where 

coworker models are available. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I guess someone’s compared 

TIB-0002 to any coworker facility model and 

made sure that they’re bounding of those I 

assume. 

MS. BRACKETT: There’s been no generic 

comparison done. 

DR. MAURO: There have been a couple of 

circumstances I recall where TIB-0002 was not 

limiting, but those are very special 

circumstances. 

MR. GRIFFON: It would be unlikely. The 

other concern you get into is the claimant’s 

side of this when they say you didn’t even use 

my site data. 

MS. BRACKETT: If there’s site data, well, 

if the individual -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, individual data, that’s 

different. So I don’t know what the 
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circumstances here, I mean, this was probably 

an early case I’m guessing. 

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DR. MAURO: Yeah, let me ask you this in 

terms of the hierarchy philosophy requirement. 

Let’s say you do have bioassay data, but it’s 

self evident that even using TIB-0002, which 

would be off the charts, would apply to this 

person, but he’s not going to be compensated. 

Would you use TIB-0002? 

MR. HINNEFELD: It has been done on 

occasion. 

MR. SIEBERT: And this one was done in 2004. 

So, yes, it is definitely an early one. 

MS. BRACKETT: There is a hierarchy that the 

dose reconstructors are given, that’s also in 

OTIB-0060, the hierarchy of data to be used. 

But like I said, OTIB-0002 is built into the 

external tool, so it is still used in some 

cases. 

DR. MAURO: So you did have this tension, as 

Louie used to say, between the hierarchy of 

data requirement and the efficiency 

requirement where they sort of play off each 

other a bit, and I guess some judgment is 

used. Is that still being done or -- 
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DR. MAURO: -- did you abandon the TIB-0002 

approach when you do have real data for real 

people? 

MS. BRACKETT: I can’t -- Scott would know 

better than I because I -- 

MR. SIEBERT: You’re right. There’s a 

tension because efficiency and the actual 

data, I mean, I’m not going to sit here and 

say TIB-0002 is not used now because I know it 

is. But it’s pretty much a judgment on the 

dose reconstruction part that, yes, it is an 

overestimate. If they have any positive 

bioassay, there have to be comparisons to 

ensure that it’s limited by. 

DR. MAURO: In the end this person would be 

denied no matter which way you went. 

MR. SIEBERT: Oh, yes. If we use the actual 

data, it would be much less than it was. 

DR. MAURO: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I’m not sure if we need 

any follow up on that, but I don’t think 

there’s any follow up. 

MR. FARVER: No, no, I was okay once I read 

how they determine uranium facility. 
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that, but I’ll do at the site. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Go ahead. 

MR. FARVER: 127.1, it’s a Hanford-NNL case. 

The first finding NIOSH failed to properly 

address all work locations documented in the 

DOE records. So there’s just some dispute 

over did they get the proper buildings and 

facilities right, and we’ve not received a 

response yet. So continue on with that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think I got a response to 

that just recently, but it was too close to 

this meeting to try to get it out. 

MR. FARVER: 127.2, failure to account for 

recorded photon dose uncertainty, and 

apparently the doses were entered as 

constants, and without an uncertainty we felt 

that there should have been as either a normal 

or non-normal with an appropriate uncertainty. 

And I guess the response was, well, they 

probably should have been done with the Monte 

Carlo combination of doses and DCFs, but -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: We put this comparison in 

there because it’s easier than actually 
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running the Monte Carlo and seeing how the 

Monte Carlo would have turned out. We said 

that even if we used one as a DCF as a 

constant versus the most likely, it just 

wouldn’t -- 

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MR. FARVER: And I think the POC on this was 

somewhere around 40-some percent, 45. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It could very well be. I 

know we were ^ in that range at this time. 

That’s still, it’s only what, ten percent or 

so additional risk. Even at 45 percent you 

need, I think it’s more like 12 percent, you 

need like 12 percent additional risk even at 

45 percent in order to get to 50 percent. 

DR. MAURO: Dose. 

MS. MUNN: ^ one millirem for that? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, dose, quality factors 

and all that stuff added in. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Depending on the cancer, too, 

I don’t know which cancer this is. That’s not 

the rule for all cancers. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that value going to 45 

percent, 50 percent is pretty fixed because 

that’s just the geometry of the POC calculus 

or the algebra of the POC calculation. It’s 
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going 45 percent, you know, you’re talking 

about risk. That’s not exactly dose depending 

upon the dose, you know, whether it’s alpha 

particle versus a photon and things like that. 

So it’s -- and to that extent it also depends 

on the cancer and how risky is it. But it’s, 

you know, the combination of dose and an 

effectiveness factor, you actually need to be 

at 12 percent more to go from 45 to 50 

percent. 

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MR. SIEBERT: And it was originally 23.8 rem 

and adding 0.3, 0.4 rem is definitely not 

going to rise to that level. 

MR. FARVER: For my clarification is it okay 

to enter recorded photon doses as constants 

without uncertainties? 

MR. HINNEFELD: If we felt, and I believe we 

have a resolution in one of the early 

findings, 69, finding 69, that if the DCF 

range is below one, you know, that triangular 

DCF range is below one, it’s okay to submit 

the recorded photon dose as a constant and a 

DCF of one as an overestimate for that photon 

dose. 

MR. FARVER: But not to record a dose in DCF 
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MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t believe that should 

be done. 

MR. FARVER: Okay. 

MR. HINNEFELD: A recorded dose with a 

constant with a DCF of less than one, if 

you’re picking like the most likely, well, a 

measured dose times a DCF where you use the 

most likely value of the DCF, not the whole 

range but the most likely value, and enter 

that product as a constant, I don’t believe 

it’s acceptable. 

 I believe it’s okay if the DCF range 

is below one to take the measured dose times 

one and enter that as a constant. But other 

than that, it’s I think what you do is you 

take the measured dose because a normal 

distribution typically combined with the DCF’s 

triangular distribution, and you get the 

result. And sometimes it’s normal, and 

sometimes it’s lognormal. And it may change 

year to year. 

MR. FARVER: Just for my clarification 

because I get confused. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I believe that’s the 
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MR. SIEBERT: That’s correct. 

MR. FARVER: So I guess that finding’s okay, 

or that resolution’s okay. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That position 

has not been proceduralized, has it? 

MR. HINNEFELD: What position is that? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Because I 

believe that -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: As much trouble as I had 

saying it, you want me to proceduralize it? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): No, I believe 

we had started identifying that as a finding 

because according to the procedure it 

indicated that the recorded dose should be 

entered with the uncertainty. But I think 

you’re correct. We’ve agreed that that 

doesn’t, that we didn’t need to do that. 

 Although I have seen I know in 

previous cases, I think there was a thyroid 

cancer where you used the one, and it was 

actually supposed to be a greater than one. 

And so that didn’t apply in that particular 

case, but I assume that there have been no 

procedural changes to indicate that that is an 
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appropriate approach, using a constant and the 

DCF of one if the actual DCF is less than one. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, no one here can think 

of one of the top of their head. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, just 

checking. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is there one in the plans or 

no, not necessarily? I mean, should there be 

one? That’s the question. 

MR. HINNEFELD: As a general rule we don’t 

proceduralize every potential overestimating 

approach. As a general rule, we don’t do 

that. If someone can take an expedient 

approach that will be a, provide a, for 

instance, in a non-compensable case will 

provide a higher dose than what following the 

technique would, we’ve just generally allowed 

-- I don’t know of each example that’s been 

proceduralized. 

DR. MAURO: What would be helpful though is 

when that dose reconstructor decides to do 

that, he should mention, by the way, I’m doing 

it this way so that, in other words 

recognizing that this is not standard 

procedure, but I’m doing it this way because 
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it’s an efficiency method and still comes up 

with -- 

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opportunity to do that if you’re just writing 

a technical report for technical reviewers, 

you can make a shorthand note in your 

technical section about what you did there 

without having to explain it very well. 

DR. MAURO: From our perspective we 

basically check your numbers against your 

procedures, and if it’s not there, and we get 

this, we say, we don’t know what to say about 

this. But explained the way you just 

explained it, you know, from our perspective 

it would satisfy us. It’s been explained, and 

it makes sense, and we can move on. Even 

though it may not have been contained in some 

official procedure, that helps. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And also, I think the 

technical section of the DR gives a lot of 

opportunity to make those kinds of brief 

technical descriptions that are really hard to 

explain in something that you want the 

claimant to read and understand. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, I understand. That’s 
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again one of those dilemmas. You want to keep 

your report, your DR report, coherent and easy 

to understand by the claimant, but you also at 

the same time you are reading it and we’re 

looking for the, you know, and we have this 

tension. How do you satisfy both? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: You give it a lot of credit 

and say we want to keep it understandable, but 

you kind of like to get it there. 

MR. GRIFFON: Does any of this go back to 

the DR instructions that we’ve talked about? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know that anything’s 

been set out like that either. I think we 

can’t go up and look through them and see, 

nothing comes to mind of the people most 

familiar with what’s out there. So I don’t 

know. It would be a way to do it. But on the 

other hand, we’ve not generally tried to in 

every case write down even as an instruction 

all of the possible ways that it might be 

quicker to take a short cut. 

MR. GRIFFON: The reason I brought that up 

awhile ago was that I thought that was one way 

to get at this question that John’s raising 

because that sort of has some technical notes 
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that you give to the DR instructor at the time 

they were doing the DR because that’s always 

the dilemma we have in looking back is that we 

don’t know exactly what they were following 

then. 

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don’t think you have them for all sites, but 

you do have them for some, DR instructions or 

notes or whatever they are. And I hope those 

have started to be included in the DR files. 

I think we said we were going to do that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I think we said, now 

that you mention that I think we did say that. 

I can’t remember for sure. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think several times NIOSH 

committed to it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Did we commit to it? 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, Stu, I thought you said 

definitely going forward retrospective would 

be very hard. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I remember that part 

now. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I thought that was, I 

didn’t know we needed a Board action to make 

that happen. I thought that was -- 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, you shouldn’t need a 

Board action. I think the issue might be for 

me to sit in this room and make that 

commitment to do that, see, I don’t know what 

I’m committing in terms of resources to. I 

don’t know how much work that is or how hard 

that would be to do. 

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DR. MAURO: In a way you almost can’t be 

proscriptive about this. What you’re really 

saying is, listen, you have to give enough 

information that, in the supporting notes, 

that anyone auditing your work, whether it’s 

being audited within NIOSH or it’s being 

audited -- 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m not asking for anything 

that’s not being done already. Don’t get me 

wrong. You know that, Stu. I mean, I’m not 

asking necessarily for what John’s talking 

about. I’m asking for these DR notes that 

already exist, that you’re already using, that 

they be included in, I mean, we asked for this 

a couple years ago, and I thought it was going 

to, I mean, I thought the big push back on me 

was that we can’t go backwards and try to do 

this. It’s impossible. 
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MR. GRIFFON: But going forward it wasn’t 

going to be that impossible. I thought it 

was, I thought you did commit to it, and I 

wish you had told me the caveat. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t remember. I very 

well could have. It’s not like me to say 

that, to say something like that in these 

meetings. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, but I thought we talked 

about it on the Board, too. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It might be. It might be. 

I’d have to go back and check, and I’ll have 

to check with the contractor about anything 

I’ve sent to them about it, because normally I 

send that over pretty quick. But, and I’m 

just really drawing a blank on what happened 

after that. 

MR. SIEBERT: I’m pretty sure I’d remember a 

direction to do that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, and so to me that 

sounds like something that may not be as easy 

as it seems to get that information into the 

DR supporting documents folder. 

DR. MAURO: But doesn’t that leave you in a 
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QA dilemma? That is, after your dose 

reconstructor -- 

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it was brought up. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, doesn’t that leave, and 

the work is being checked, and the person was 

creative. What you’re really saying is, 

listen, you’ve got to leave a certain amount 

of creativity to your dose reconstructor to 

use common sense or what he thinks make sense 

to get through this process efficiently. And 

that’s reasonable. But at the same time that 

sort of leaves you in a place where, wait a 

minute. What did he do, and how come he did 

this? It’s not in accordance with this 

procedure. And a footnote or something, it’s 

not even SC&A any more. It’s really internal 

to NIOSH. It seems to be something that you 

would need. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I’ll have to go back 

and be able to talk to some more staff about 

it. I’m not opposed to doing it unless it 

would be very difficult. I don’t know how 

hard it would be. I don’t know if these 

instructions are readily attainable and 
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clipable. Is there a convenient place for a 

dose reconstructor to go and get a copy of the 

instructions they’re applying and put it in 

there. Or was it something that was put out 

in a note in a staff meeting or something like 

that. So it’s a little hard for me to 

understand exactly what I’d be asking for when 

I ask for this. And so from that standpoint 

I’d like to have -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: I think from what, the 

sampling I saw it varies -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I do remember a 

conversation, and you -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- the sample I saw varies 

from site to site. I mean, some sites have a 

lot more instruction, but I’m sure I haven’t 

seen the universe, and I’m sure you’re right 

that there’s notes from meetings. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don’t see any dose 

reconstructors any more so I’m at a little bit 

of a disadvantage. So I don’t see that many 

of them. But there’ll be occasions where 

there’ll just be an explanatory paragraph ^. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, if you can follow up on 

this because I really did think that was in 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Well now we’re having this 

conversation, I have to go back because I 

remember the conversation, and I remember 

exactly what you said, but we just thought it 

would be very difficult to do it 

retrospectively -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I knew that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- but it might be doable. 

And so I absolutely do not recall what 

happened after that. Sorry. 

DR. BRANCHE: How are you going to follow up 

with Mark and the work group? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I can send a message 

to the work group or to the Subcommittee when 

I figure out what happened and what might be 

possible here. I really want to understand 

what I’m asking for because it’s not real 

clear to me what I would be asking the 

contractor to do if I told him to do this. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean, Scott, you can 

probably answer better than anyone. I mean, 

these -- and I’ve seen different names for 

them that’s why I’m not trying to be coy here 

or anything, but I’ve seen DR instructions and 
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, things like that, 

different titles, and there’s no standardized 

name for these things. But different sites, 

especially Rocky Flats, had a couple sets for 

external and internal. 

MR. SIEBERT: The complicated sites. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, some of the more 

complicated sites had, and it makes sense, it 

had an almost sort of like a triage approach, 

if-thens, you know. If you had this 

situation, use this or else use this or 

whatever. And I was told they modified over 

time so, and nobody necessarily kept archived 

versions of them. So to place them in time 

would be difficult. 

MR. SIEBERT: It’s something we had to deal 

with that wasn’t a TBD but we knew there was 

an issue, we might deal with it there and try 

to look up the TBD. But since they were 

trackable documents, it did change over time. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Like procedures and things 

like that that would be used would be 

referenced in the DR. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the procedures is no 

issue. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: So that would be the issue. 

It would be the more informal instructions. 

MR. GRIFFON: But these notes get into the, 

you know, if I remember them right, some of 

them get into the selection of solubility 

classes and different decisions that the DR 

individual has to make when they’re looking at 

data for specific sites. And the questions 

that we sort of raise in the audit function, 

how did they decide on this. Well, some of 

that -- I’m not saying all of it, but some of 

it is proscribed in some of these notes, you 

know? So anyway, I guess as long as you have 

a clear action that you can check on, do you 

think we can have an answer for the Board 

meeting? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think so. That’s what, 

two weeks away? 

DR. BRANCHE: Yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because I know we’ve discussed 

this on the Board before. So I’ll raise it as 

part of the Subcommittee section, you know, 

report. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Let’s finish case 127 

then, and then we’ll maybe take a break I 

think. A couple more findings here. 

MR. FARVER: We’re on the third finding? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

MR. FARVER: 127.3, recorded shallow dose is 

inappropriately entered into IREP as electrons 

greater than 15 keV. NIOSH calculated shallow 

dose and assigned it as electrons greater than 

15 keV. The reviewer felt that it should have 

been less than 30 keV photon since the 

employee worked near plutonium as a claimant 

favorable measure. 

 NIOSH gives their response as to why 

they did what they did. And I’m going to have 

to go back and review OTIB-0017. So that’s my 

action. For some reason I left this one 

blank, and I don’t know if I just passed on it 

and didn’t get back to it or got confused by 

it. 

DR. MAURO: I seem to recall the low energy 

photons of the same. In other words you have 

the assumption of betas versus photons for 

shallow doses, the photons that have the 
165

higher risk. I remember that one of your 

procedures, when you’re doing a shallow dose, 

and you’re dealing with low energy photons and 

low energy beta, both of which might be 

recorded in an open window. The assumption I 

believe you use automatically is the low 

energy photon, and that gives you the higher 

risk. I may have it backwards. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I think there’s a site 

specificity to it. I don’t know that we have 

a general direction to it because I believe 

there would be some site specific criteria 

that would enter into the decision of what is 

this open window likely to be. And within 

certain sites it would be work location 

specific. So I don’t know that we have a 

general direction out there about it because 

there’s site specific information in most 

cases that would lead you one way or the other 

in many cases. The magnitude of the risk may 

depend upon the radiated organ. 

MR. FARVER: The organ in this case is the 

breast. I know the special section in the 

OTIB-0017, and that’s why I have to go back 

and just make sure what it says. 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, and then and our 

initial response was we felt that this doesn’t 

seem to have been a work location really that 

would be particular external plutonium photon 

dose associated with it. 

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MR. FARVER: I think it’s going to come down 

to claimant favorability, because I think that 

one of the statements in the DR report is the 

shallow dose was attributed to electrons 

greater than 15 keV as a claimant favorable 

assumption. So let’s see if that’s true or 

not. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Will that really be 

favorable in other words. It may actually be 

the wording in the dose reconstruction. 

DR. MAURO: I’ve seen this before. I just 

don’t remember how it goes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And I think it might be an 

organ specific. 

MR. FARVER: 127.4, failed to properly 

account for all the missed electron dose. And 

NIOSH gives a very good explanation of 

Attachment C of OTIB-0017, and it’s very 

proscriptive. It tells what to subtract from 

what, and if this is zero and this is zero, 
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then you assign this. So it’s, I’m okay with 

their resolution. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 127.5, failed to assign missed 

neutron dose. And I thought this was a 

particularly good response by NIOSH. In the 

first statement they say for reasons stated in 

the response to findings 127.1 B1 -- 

MR. GRIFFON: And there’s nothing there. 

MR. FARVER: -- and there’s no response, so 

I like that. 

MR. GRIFFON: Just kind of keeping us on our 

toes, right? 

MR. FARVER: And this has to go with 

location. So I imagine when they reply, 

respond to finding number one, we’ll be able 

to look at both -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I actually have 127.1, 

the original response that came on 127.1 I had 

questions about. And so I didn’t include it. 

My questions have now been answered, but I 

just got the answer, and I didn’t get it out 

to the Subcommittee. 

MR. GRIFFON: There’s location on this, but 

there’s also the activation question, right, 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- activation question, and 

whether that is a viable -- 

MR. FARVER: I figured you had a response on 

there then took it out. 

MR. GRIFFON: So we’re waiting on NIOSH’s 

127.1 for this one. 

MR. FARVER: Right, and then we’ll just 

evaluate them all. I just thought it was a 

chance to take a shot at Stu. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Why would you think that I 

would want to respond clearly to these? 

MR. GRIFFON: You know what? I said take a 

break after this case, but there’s about ten 

more findings. So why don’t we just, this is 

a good on a laughing note, let’s take a break. 

Ten minutes, is that all right? Ten minutes 

for people. 

DR. BRANCHE: We’ll put on hold for ten 

minutes. (Whereupon, a break was taken 

from 2:00 p.m. until 2:15 p.m.) 

MR. GRIFFON: We’re on, I think we left off 

on 127.6. 

MS. MUNN: Oh, did we do five? 
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MR. GRIFFON: We did five, yeah, we have 

sort of a dual follow up on 127.5. NIOSH is 

going to look into their response to 127.1 is 

missing, and SC&A will review it. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Just as a point to be made, 

it relates to 127.5. In this case the two in 

vivo counts for Zinc-65 and Sodium-24 are, in 

fact, non-detects. The original dose 

reconstruction that was done for this, when 

that dose reconstruction was done, we had a 

table of whole body count values that we 

thought were MDAs. So you compare essentially 

to an MDA over two to see if you’re 

detectable. 

 Am I doing okay here? 

DR. MAURO: You’re good. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So we felt, so we originally 

thought they were detectable. Subsequently, 

we learned that that table was actually a 

critical level for LDs so that a value below 

the LD values is, in fact, non-detectable even 

if it’s greater than half of it. But lower 

than the LD it’s not detectable. So those 

are, in fact, non-detectable bioassay samples. 

This case was then reworked for whatever 
170

reason, additional employment or cancer or 

something like that, and was done as a rework. 

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reconstruction a second time that, oh, forget 

it, those really weren’t positive bioassays, 

the dose reconstructor continued to call them 

positive bioassays so as to not introduce that 

confusion in it, and just was going to add in 

the dose. And so that’s why there appears to 

be -- the question that gave rise to this was 

I asked how come we’re seeing these things 

well after the single pass reactor shut down. 

How come we’re seeing Sodium-24 if it’s really 

an ingestion intake from the water supply. 

Well, the fact is they really weren’t positive 

samples. We weren’t seeing it. 

DR. MAURO: I mean, this goes way back. I 

remember the meeting we had three years ago 

when this came up. And this is how it all 

ends, interesting. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Certainly for this case. 

MR. GRIFFON: So when this says further on 

5/1/sometime, he had a positive whole body 

count indicating 660 picocuries of Sodium-24? 

It’s not a positive. 
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MR. GRIFFON: You think you should modify 

this response in any way, Stu? Because I’m 

afraid that if this goes into a public record, 

you know, this is going to be really confusing 

to people. I think you might want to consider 

modifying that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I believe we can. I think 

’79 is one of those dates where we would, of 

those bioassays when we would say, yeah. In 

fact, we may just take that whole portion, 

that last portion out. 

MR. GRIFFON: I have you both down as an 

action to follow up on this anyway. But given 

what you said, I think I’d appreciate it if it 

was modified. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, 127.6. 

MR. FARVER: 127.6, reviewer unable to 

reproduce onsite ambient dose as described in 

the DR report. And NIOSH’s clarifies on how 

the doses were calculated. And I accept their 

description on their ambient doses. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

MR. FARVER: 127.7, inappropriate onsite 
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ambient dose uncertainty, and they also 

explained the uncertainty in their previous 

response, so that’s fine, too. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 127.8, failure to account for 

internal doses for all fission products. We 

don’t have a response from NIOSH. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, this is a -- 

 Stu, I guess this is still on your -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yep. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 127.9 is reviewer questions the 

appropriateness of attributing the Zinc-65 and 

Sodium-64 doses to ingestion. 

MR. GRIFFON: Does that go back to what we 

were just discussing? 

MR. FARVER: This goes back to the positive, 

not positive whole body counts, so we’re okay 

with their explanation other than they 

probably should put -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: We may want to put a little 

different wording in there. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, this wording here doesn’t 

say -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it has to do with, I 
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mean, there seems to be in this finding, and I 

think maybe we’ve seen it before, this 

intimation that the fact that these people if 

they had had a positive bioassay for these 

activation products, that maybe that was an 

indication of a neutron ^ that they were 

exposed to. Our view in most of the response 

in 127.5 we plan to take out, kind of talks 

about this doesn’t seem to be likely -- 

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DR. MAURO: Be the case. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- even given the amount of 

other dose that would have to go with it. You 

know, external dose that would be associated 

with that kind of activation. 

DR. MAURO: I recall when this issue emerged 

a couple of years ago. And the argument was 

made, no, it’s from drinking the water in the 

Columbia River. I guess, we found, I guess, 

later that the water, that would have been 

upstream. In other words, the only way you 

would get the Sodium-24 from discharges from 

the Columbia River was from the water being 

acquired downstream from the discharges from 

the reactors. 

 But the water supply was coming from 
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upstream, and that was like subsequent to that 

discussion. So we found it hard to believe 

that the Sodium-24 was from discharges. Now 

if the real answer is that there is no Sodium24, that’s the answer, and that puts the whole 

thing to bed if that’s the case. Just a 

point. 

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MR. SIEBERT: From an ingestion/inhalation 

point of view the dose reconstructor ran them 

both ways and assigned ingestion because it 

was the larger dose. 

MR. HINNEFELD: When he thought it was 

positive. 

DR. MAURO: When he thought it was positive. 

MR. SIEBERT: When he was considering it a 

positive. He did it both ways to be on the 

safe side. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but that doesn’t account 

for the neutrons. 

DR. MAURO: I have to say I think it’s 

important that we put the Sodium-24, and it 

really isn’t there because that’s, that’s a 

killer. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because quite frankly, a lot 

of people didn’t buy this water ingestion 
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MR. FARVER: 127.10. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yep. 

MR. FARVER: Failed to assign missed dose 

for several unmonitored radionuclides. Still 

waiting for a response. 

 127.11, NIOSH failed to address the 

breath sample monitoring reported in the CATI 

report. 

MR. GRIFFON: Can you just stop at ten? 

What, the unmonitored neutrons is that? Do 

you recall? This is not fission product stuff 

obviously, is it? It’s something else, right? 

MR. FARVER: Such as Strontium-90, C-14, P32, says radon gas and other nuclides. Looks 

like the reviewer mentions radon generator 

used for animal studies in the 1008-F 

Building. So anyway, that was ten. 

 And 11 is kind of related where we say 

they failed to address breath sampling 

monitoring. In the CATI report the EE stated 

that he was sure that he provided breath 

samples, especially when he was working in the 

300 Area. And the records did not include any 

breath sampling results. 
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 Then NIOSH gives their response that 

basically if the breath monitoring had been 

performed, records would have been included in 

the DOE response. Breath monitorings are not 

utilized to monitor radon, but rather measure 

radium body burden. Which would lead to the 

question, well, and then finally they say 

radon exposure would not contribute, would 

contribute almost no dose to the breast. If 

they did do breath monitoring for radium, that 

would contribute to the breast. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I was a little confused by 

that response. Yeah, I was a little confused 

by that response. You might want to re-look 

at that because you’re saying the breath 

monitoring’s done for radium not radon. But 

then at the end you say and radon wouldn’t 

contribute to the dose. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the finding was about 

radon. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know. I think the 

CATI implied radon, right? Is that -- I think 

the CATI -- 

MR. FARVER: Well, and also in that previous 

finding, number ten, I believe the reviewer 
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MR. GRIFFON: Right, okay. 

MR. FARVER: -- and things like that. 

MR. GRIFFON: So yeah, yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I thought the finding was 

about radon so that’s why we commented on 

that. 

MR. FARVER: Well, it was really just breath 

sampling, you know, are there results, and if 

they’re not, what are you going to do? And if 

it was for radium, could that contribute to 

the breast? 

MR. GRIFFON: Has any of this come out in 

the site profile review for Hanford, 300 Area, 

would they be, would they have done breath 

sampling? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know. Well, radon 

generator theoretically would have some radium 

there. It wouldn’t be very much. I’m not 

aware of it. I don’t know the site profile 

well enough to know. 

MR. FARVER: I mean it’s probably something 

the employee’s not going to forget, giving 

breath samples. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it could be in a 
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MS. MUNN: And that was very common in the 

300 Area, very common. Practically everybody 

had it at one time. 

MR. FARVER: Well, so did I, but I think the 

employees were aware enough that that was not 

a breath sample. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think it’s worth pulling the 

string. I do. 

MR. FARVER: They knew that was for a 

respirator fit. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think so, too. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, they should have known 

it was a respirator fit. 

MS. MUNN: Well, even so -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: But it seems like they were 

taking my breath sample. I blew through a 

tube into a box. Sounds like they’re taking a 

breath, it looks like they’re taking a breath 

sample. 

MR. FARVER: I don’t know. How did they 

take a breath sample? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, first of all the 

technique I don’t think is used very much. It 

hasn’t been used for a long time I don’t 
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think. But normally what they would do is 

they would have a person breathe bottled air, 

aged bottled air, so that there’s essentially 

no radon in the air they’re breathing. And 

then exhale -- I don’t even know how it’s 

captured, how they captured the exhalant. 

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DR. MAURO: There is a procedure. 

MR. HINNEFELD: There is a procedure 

somewhere. 

DR. MAURO: We have a procedure on it, yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: There’s a procedure for 

interpreting it. 

DR. MAURO: And how it’s done, and how to 

interpret it. We reviewed it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So I’m not exactly sure how 

they captured the air. I would assume they 

count it in chelation bottles or chelation 

chambers of some sort. I don’t know. 

MR. FARVER: But I would think an employee 

would remember that as being unusual as 

opposed to the annual respirator -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Spirometry test. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it might be. My view 

is I think a spirometry test could easily be 

thought of as a breath sample, well, I left 
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MR. FARVER: I just don’t remember seeing in 

the CATI reports that I reviewed people coming 

up and writing in there that they gave breath 

samples. And most of them I’m sure had 

respirator tests. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, most of them had 

respirator tests. 

DR. MAURO: Did they do at Hanford -- I know 

there was an awful lot going on, basically 

you’d worry about this if you were doing 

chemical separations of ore. And that’s with 

Mallinckrodt, these other sites -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: That’s where you’d have a 

fairly good amount of radium. 

DR. MAURO: -- you had radium separated, and 

there was a very real possibility, especially 

when they saved it -- 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I was wondering. 

What’s the source term here? 

DR. MAURO: Right, there would have to be 

because they were separating, they were 

processing ore, and they were chemically 

separating out the uranium. I think that was 

done sometime at Hanford. 
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MS. MUNN: No, it -- just a minute. 

Processing ore is not the same as dealing with 

powdery substances, and there was a great deal 

of centering that went on there. So powder 

was common, especially in 308 and 306. There 

would have been, it would not have been 

unusual for some of the health physicists to 

have suggested breath samples from time to 

time. It would make commonsense. 

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MR. GRIFFON: So that’s consistent with the 

CATI so that’s all the more reason to follow 

up on it I would think. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. Well, I’ll have to go 

see what else we have. 

MR. GRIFFON: And you might want to ask the 

site profile people, too, what they found out 

about, because they’ve looked at the aggregate 

data I’m sure. 

MS. MUNN: It would not be a common, it 

would not be too common simply because most of 

that work was done in gloveboxes, but the mere 

fact that you occasionally get a rupture in a 

glovebox would be an adequate reason for 

breath sampling. 

MR. GRIFFON: To do the test. So I mean I 
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guess is there an action there? That’s the 

question. I would say I think NIOSH should 

follow up on -- 

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MR. HINNEFELD: We’ll have to go back and 

look. 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, I don’t know, might want 

to chalk it up to a radium source term? 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, but it sounds 

like -- can that be a NIOSH action to follow 

up on that, Stu? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, well, certainly we may 

want to modify our response somewhat. 

MR. FARVER: Then really this goes in with 

the number 12 finding, 127.12. NIOSH: Failed 

to properly address incident in the two CATI 

reports. In the CATI reports the employee 

gives a pretty good description about working 

in the lab. There was an incident, and his 

hair color changed for a few months. Does not 

appear to be addressed in the DR report. 

 And then NIOSH’s response is if they 

existed, it would have been included. If the 

incident reports existed, then they would have 

been included in the record. I look at that, 

and I still say, well, you didn’t request 
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additional information, and maybe this is 

something where they need to go back to DOE 

now and look for additional information such 

as incident reports, superintendent logbooks. 

I’m not sure we had a specific date on this 

incident or not. I don’t believe so. 

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MS. MUNN: One would think you could at 

least get in the ballpark for the date in an 

incident of that magnitude. 

MR. FARVER: Right. I would say it’s pretty 

severe if it’s changing an employee’s hair 

color. Of course, that probably could be 

chemical. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Sounds chemical to me. 

MR. FARVER: Right, but -- 

MR. GRIFFON: It could be associated -- 

MR. FARVER: -- both. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- radiation exposure. You 

usually don’t have one without the other. 

MR. FARVER: But it might be able to put it 

into a certain area, facility, building, 

something like that. 

MS. MUNN: I’ve not heard of such a thing 

personally. But that would -- 

MR. FARVER: The concern was the NIOSH 
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response was that they, we felt they should go 

look for additional reports. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I mean, I’m a little perplexed 

by that last part of the response, too, Stu, 

that you assume since some other investigation 

reports were there that these would have been 

in there if they happened. I mean, are there 

ever -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Maybe just that they were 

available. I mean, one thing to ask, one 

thing to consider about making additional 

requests back to a site on new, different 

kinds of information. 

MR. GRIFFON: They may not find them anyway, 

right? They can look again, but -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, they may just find 

what they found -- 

MR. GRIFFON: If they look in the same spot, 

they’re not going to find it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Chances are that’s what 

generally happens when you go back. 

MR. GRIFFON: And the other, I guess, you 

have a question of incomplete records, but 

also a question of would there be any 

classified records. I don’t know about 
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Hanford’s, you know, if there were incidents 

that had parts of the documents, the write 

ups, were classified. Would they have not 

been included in the individual’s records? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Good question. I don’t 

know. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don’t even know if -- 

MR. FARVER: And you may be able to place it 

to an area, facility, and request incident 

reports for that facility for a timeframe 

instead of requesting bioassay data. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, these were all 

survivor CATIs though. I mean the EE didn’t, 

the actual employee would have passed away. 

So there’s no firsthand account. This wasn’t 

the employee giving this. These were the 

survivors giving these. 

MR. FARVER: I understand, but you may be 

able to -- like there’s a week in the 300 

Area. If you could in a lab in the 300 Area, 

if you could pin that down to a timeframe, 

says it occurred in the ‘80s, and then what 

type incidents did you have in the ‘80s. 

MR. HINNEFELD: There might be a way. Might 

be a way to find some more. I don’t know. 
186

And another thing is, are you going to get 

enough stuff to help you with a dose 

reconstruction above what you already have, 

and I don’t really know what we have in this 

case. 

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MR. FARVER: But those two tie together, 11 

and 12. 

MS. MUNN: If you can tie it to an 

approximate timeframe, and by approximate I 

mean a couple of years, then the number of 

incident reports for the 300 Area shouldn’t be 

that staggering. 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m going to lump that action 

in with number 11. 

 All right, then we’re on to -- that 

was a long case, 128.1. 

MR. FARVER: 128.1, this I believe is a 

Savannah River case, and the first finding is 

NIOSH failed to properly address -- oh, no. 

Improperly converted recorded photon doses to 

organ doses, and we discussed this before 

about the range of dose conversion factors. 

You know, using just the AP geometry or using 

the range overall geometries. And this is one 

of those findings. They used the range over 
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all the geometries instead of just the AP. 

Like I say, it’s been corrected. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s right, and it’s 

a compensable claim. 

MR. SIEBERT: The tool’s been corrected. 

MR. FARVER: the tool’s been corrected. 

MR. SIEBERT: But it’s a compensable claim. 

MR. FARVER: It was a workbook situation. 

So this finding’s okay as is 128.2 which was 

the same thing only it was improperly 

converted missed photon doses to organ dose. 

We’ll see this one quite a bit from here on 

out. 

MR. GRIFFON: 128.3 then. 

MR. FARVER: 128.3, the intake mode listed 

in the IREP is not consistent with the DR. 

The IREP sheet lists the employee’s intake as 

a chronic intake; however, it should be acute. 

MR. SIEBERT: It’s the other way around. It 

was listed in IREP as acute. It should have 

been chronic. 

MR. HINNEFELD: These are internal dose 

numbers, right? 

MR. FARVER: Yes, internal doses. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, internal doses are 
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always chronic. And in terms of the IREP 

input sheet the dose rate is always chronic. 

It’s the dose rate on the IREP input sheet 

that’s the dose rate that’s always chronic on 

the IREP input sheet for an internal dose. 

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MR. GRIFFON: So it was calculated correctly 

but the IREP, was the IREP -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: No, the IREP dose rate was 

run incorrectly. It was listed as acute 

instead of chronic. 

MR. FARVER: Oh, it was split into two 

timeframes, that’s what it was. So half of it 

from ’54 to ’80 in IREP was listed as chronic. 

And from ’81 to ’95 it was listed as acute 

when it all should have been chronic. 

MS. MUNN: So you rewrite it and it didn’t 

change it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Didn’t change. 

MS. MUNN: No change. 

MR. FARVER: No, and this is not so much a 

dose concern as it is a QA concern. 

MR. GRIFFON: No change or insignificant? 

It had to change something. 

MR. HINNEFELD: No, it doesn’t have to 

change. That DVREF only comes in at fairly 
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high dose rates. So until you get to a 

relatively high dose rate, acute and chronic 

will give you the same number. 

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MR. FARVER: 128.4, intake mode listed in 

the IREP is not consistent with the dose 

reconstruction report, and this is for 

plutonium, and it’s the same situation. The 

previous one was for uranium, I believe. 

MR. GRIFFON: 128.4, I’m sorry, I missed 

that. 

MR. FARVER: It’s the same as 128.3, and 

it’s for plutonium. 

MR. GRIFFON: 129.1. 

MR. FARVER: 129.1, we’ll group that with 

129.2, and this has to do with the range of 

dose conversion factors. Again, it’s a 

Savannah River EDCW tool. 

MR. GRIFFON: So the same thing we had -- 

MR. FARVER: Same thing as the previous 

case. So both these findings, 129.1 and 

129.2, have been corrected, and they’re okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: I assume had no effect on the 

case, right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: This one’s back for rework 

anyway. You’re down to 129. Our response was 
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129.3, and this came back for rework. So 

it’ll be done using the correct techniques. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Is it after rework under a PER 

review? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. It’s a Super-S 

Plutonium PER. 

MR. FARVER: 129.3, failed to properly 

account for all the missed doses, missed 

photon doses. 

MR. SIEBERT: Was an LOD over two issue. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we’ve had that a few 

times. 

MR. FARVER: Yes, the LOD over two issue. 

That’s been corrected, so that’s okay on that 

finding. 

MR. GRIFFON: That was 129.3. And this has 

been corrected in PROC-6, right? 

MR. FARVER: Yes. Where has the LOD over 

two been corrected? PROC-6? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Actually, the correction 

looks like it’s in -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Is it in the IG-001? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Rev. 2 of the IG. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I believe 

they’re also trying to make a correction to 
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the workbook so this is done automatically, 

and the dose reconstructor doesn’t have to 

look at this issue. 

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MR. SIEBERT: Yeah, that has long since been 

changed. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 129.4, NIOSH did not properly 

account for all the assigned neutron dose. 

This goes back to the photon dose to organ 

dose findings because they used a different 

range of DCF values, and to do neutron doses 

you do a neutron-to-photon ratio. It would 

affect the neutron doses. So that’s being 

corrected. 

MR. SIEBERT: In other words the neutron 

dose was done correctly at the time with what 

it was based upon. It’s just what it was 

based upon changed. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. 

 129.5, failure to account for internal 

doses from all fission products. I believe 

this takes us back to OTIB-0054. 

 Kathy, do you have any input on this 

one? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): This is the 
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same issue that we discussed before, the fact 

that they selected the highest, the 

radionuclide that gave the highest dose for, 

rather than looking at all of the fission 

products and the contribution from all missed 

radionuclides. So this is what we discussed 

before. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Is this particular one based 

on urinalysis or based on whole body? It 

looks like urinalysis. 

MR. SIEBERT: Sure, it’s whole body count. 

I have to look for sure, but -- 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It’s whole body 

count -- 

MR. SIEBERT: -- based on the highest. Yes, 

it’s whole body count. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It’s whole body 

count, and this is the issue that they 

indicated they may add something to OTIB-0054 

regarding whole body counts. 

DR. MAURO: And this was a denial. Is that 

correct? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, yeah, it came back for 

PER, so it must have been. 

DR. MAURO: So it’s not -- 
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MR. HINNEFELD: It’s not compensable. If it 

were to come back under a PER, we’re only 

looking non-compensables. 

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DR. MAURO: No, the only reason I brought it 

up is because it looks like you overestimated, 

used the worst radionuclide rather than some 

appropriate mix. And now it’s coming back for 

PER, certainly not true for this but for some 

other reason. 

MR. HINNEFELD: This is Super-S. Our 

response on 129.3 is we list what the reason 

is it’s coming back, Super-S. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

MR. FARVER: 130.1, we’ll do 130.2, and it’s 

the range of dose conversion factors again, 

improperly converted -- 

MR. GRIFFON: They’re both the same -- 

MR. FARVER: -- dose to organ dose. And 

it’s been resolved. 

 130.3 is the missed photon doses, LOD 

over two issue. So that’s been corrected. 

And this claim has also been reworked to 

evaluate the Super-S Plutonium. 

 130.4, failed to properly account for 

all missed neutron doses. Basically, NIOSH 
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could not assign any neutron exposure, and the 

employee worked in the 400-D Area reactor 

facilities of Savannah River Site. We thought 

they should have some missed neutron doses for 

the years the EE worked at the reactor 

facilities. 

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approximately five times the photon dose. 

Since they were either low or no photon doses 

in the years he was at the reactor, it’s not 

likely there should be a neutron dose. And my 

only question is -- and I’ll just kind of go 

to John -- I guess we’re okay on the neutronto-photon ratios with Savannah River? 

DR. MAURO: Well, I don’t know about 

Savannah River, whether or not that is on the 

front burner. I don’t recall that being 

something -- 

MR. FARVER: I know we were questioning some 

of the Hanford -- 

DR. MAURO: At Hanford, yeah, but I don’t 

know about Savannah River. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think there’s additional 

investigation going at Savannah River as well 
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MR. SIEBERT: It’s on the table after -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: After Hanford, after the 

Hanford investigation, I think they’re going 

to -- 

MR. FARVER: Since their response is based 

on the neutron-to-photon ratio being correct -

- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think there might have 

been another possible avenue of response here. 

I believe our Savannah River guidance has 

certain job titles in the reactor areas where 

you would consider them neutron exposed. Not 

everybody in the reactor areas is considered 

neutron exposed, but there are certain job 

titles that are. So our response may, we may 

be able to speak to that. I don’t know what 

this guy’s job title is. 

MR. FARVER: Operator, foreman and 

supervisor in heavy water operations. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Heavy water operations 

wouldn’t be the issue. It would be to do with 

the reactor. 

MR. FARVER: No, but I’m sure that was 

leading up to he was operator or foreman of 
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but there are certain job titles which are 

specified as potentially neutron exposed in 

the reactor area. Reactor operator, I think, 

was one, but I don’t remember. I’m not sure, 

maybe not. 

MR. FARVER: The only concern there was if 

the NP ratios were correct. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Maybe not. 

DR. MAURO: Are you saying in here that you 

were using -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, but I mean the photon 

should be an indication. If it’s a photon-toneutron ratio’s okay, there should be a 

concomitant photon along with it. 

DR. MAURO: I see according to the responses 

that you have five-to-one ratio neutron-tophoton, that’s pretty high. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Photon ratio. 

DR. MAURO: Unless I’m reading this 

incorrectly. Neutron would have been 

accompanied by approximately five times. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Five times as much. 

DR. MAURO: Oh, okay, I didn’t -- 
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MR. HINNEFELD: It should read five times as 

much photon. 

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MR. FARVER: Okay, are we ready for 130.5? 

MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh, yep. 

MR. FARVER: Prior TBD revision used to 

determine medical doses. Basically the 

medical dose TBD that’s referenced in the DR 

report is not the one that was used to 

calculate the doses is what it comes down to. 

And dose reconstructor consciously chose to 

leave the X-ray doses as is due to the newer 

values being lower. Although this is claimant 

favorable, NIOSH agrees that the latest 

version of the TBD should have been used. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s closed. I mean, we’ve 

got NIOSH agrees. 

MR. FARVER: 130.6, calculational method 

underestimates fission product dose. I’ve 

read NIOSH’s response, and I agree with their 

response. We agree with 130.6. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, and they did give a good, 

thorough response. 

DR. MAURO: Would this go in our database as 
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a QA concern in the box? See, you have an 

okay, the answer is the response to your 

question but is there something that would go 

into the little scorecard as a QA concern? 

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MR. FARVER: Well, I put the QA concern 

because it was, they used a different version 

of the TBD than what was referenced. 

MR. GRIFFON: So I guess as we’ve seen often 

here, you responded to one but then you 

adjusted the tritium instead of being so 

claimant favorable, I mean, you’re doing this 

on the fly I’m thinking or did -- 

MR. FARVER: Oh, no, I went to look at this 

case. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, no, it’s okay, because my 

question is, is that appropriate, I mean, the 

first time through you assumed tritium 

exposure for a number of years. And then you 

went back and said, well, now we’re only going 

to assume it when he was monitored, right? Is 

that the essence of it? 

MR. FARVER: It goes into the next finding. 

The next finding has to do with the tritium 

dose. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so these two may 
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MR. FARVER: Well, you’re reading about how 

they changed the tritium dose, and that has to 

do with the next finding. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay, but I’m saying 

you’re about to close one out. That’s why I’m 

asking if they overlap or can we still close 

that one out. 

MR. FARVER: Yes, we can close it out. 

MR. GRIFFON: Let’s go on to the next one 

then, and I’ll listen and see if I agree with 

closing it out. 

MR. FARVER: Okay. 130.7, underestimates 

tritium dose. The tritium dose is from the -- 

MR. GRIFFON: I mean, here you’re saying 

they underestimated it, and in 130.6 they 

lowered it. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. The tritium dose is 

from the workbook used by NIOSH does not 

account for years when no tritium sample was 

submitted; and therefore, underestimates the 

tritium dose. That was our initial finding. 

And this goes back to the DR report that says, 

that has written in it, for years where no 

tritium samples were submitted, a dose equal 
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to the maximum tritium measured dose was 

assigned. And based on what we said, no, you 

didn’t do that. And NIOSH’s response is, 

well, the DR should have read where no tritium 

samples were submitted, no tritium dose was 

assigned, which is probably more correct. 

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MR. GRIFFON: And which was, I guess the 

assumption here is that any years in the 

tritium areas they would have definitely been 

monitored, right? 

MR. SIEBERT: Their tritium monitoring was 

simplistic enough to keep it up. They just 

did it. 

MR. GRIFFON: I mean, that seems to make 

sense. I just don’t know if anybody examined 

that issue. 

MR. FARVER: Yes, I believe that’s come up 

before. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: And then they went back -- 

okay, and this is where we talk about where 

they adjusted the tritium dose. Apparently, 

they were using the maximum values, and I 

believe that you change it from maximums to 

actuals or something. 
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MR. SIEBERT: Well, ^ for the unmonitored 

years, the 355 millirem should have went to 

zero because they weren’t being monitored. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. 

MR. SIEBERT: Rather than overestimating 

what the maximizing, we just went with more 

realistic. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess what I’m trying to 

understand is, is your initial finding, 130.7, 

said that the DR underestimated the tritium 

dose, and that was when they were including 

dose for unmonitored years. So I would have 

thought you would have concluded almost that 

they overestimated it. I don’t, I guess I’m 

trying to follow these two together. 

DR. MAURO: I mean, it sounds like there was 

a judgment made here that if the person wasn’t 

monitored for tritium, there was no need to 

monitor for tritium; therefore, we should not 

assign any tritium dose as opposed to what was 

done earlier where apparently you were, as a 

matter of routine, assigning some tritium dose 

perhaps if the person was in a reactor area -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Probably just as an 
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DR. MAURO: As an overestimating -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- as why not just give it 

to him as his whole career. There’s no ^ 

technique and get the case out of here. 

MR. GRIFFON: And as you give him the best 

estimate, you got a narrowing, right. 

DR. MAURO: But that’s a pretty important 

transition. In other words you’re confident 

then that if there was any potential at all 

that there was some tritium exposure, that 

there would have been a urine sample collected 

and an analysis done. And that’s really where 

you’re coming down as opposed to this earlier 

assumption where you -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: And the other note I had on my 

notes was does this jive with his work 

history, with the individual’s work history. 

In other words was he in those areas, in those 

buildings, in that job and for whatever reason 

got overlooked. 

DR. MAURO: The way I see it is there’s a 

way in which you could confirm that 

assumption. That is, normally you pull a 
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silicon gel air samples in an area that has 

airborne tritium samples. And if the area 

that he’s working in, dose samples were being 

pulled, but he was not getting a bioassay, 

then that would sort of belie the assumption 

you made. 

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 I don’t if -- see, I like the idea 

that if you do, if you are gonna go down the 

road you described, one way to confirm it is -

- in addition, we know, the weight of evidence 

is such that there likely was no tritium issue 

here because there was no tritium air sampling 

going on. 

 I’m just assuming that because I know 

way back when when I was at these sites, if 

there was always a -- if there was any 

possibility of tritium, you had silica gel 

pulling an air sample, and you collected it 

and monitored for it. So for this person, if 

there was none of that going on where he was 

working at that time, that would sort of 

confirm your assumption. 

MR. SIEBERT: Looking at the actual bioassay 

records, when he was in areas where tritium 

was needed, he’s leaving it every week or two. 
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: And there were locations ^. 

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MR. GRIFFON: And you’re saying his work 

history suggests that before he started 

leaving tritiums, he wasn’t in those areas. 

He was somewhere else. You have that 

documented? I mean, you can crosswalk that is 

what you’re saying. Because I, you know, 

we’re only talking, what, 300, I mean the 

maximum is 350 millirem a year. But 

obviously, this must be a close case or else 

you wouldn’t have stripped that away from this 

guy. 

MR. FARVER: Well, I mean, there are 

specific years when there were just no tritium 

results, ’64, ’73 and ’75 to ’81. So for 

those -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it’s a missing data 

question. 

MR. FARVER: -- and I’m kind of like Scott. 

If he would have been needing it, he would 

have had something that year. He would have 

submitted a sample. If he worked there for 

three months, he would have had three months 

worth of samples. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it seems like, I mean, I 
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MR. SIEBERT: I mean, it’s just generally 

one of those things we’ve seen at Savannah 

River, but there’s either a lot of tritium 

sampling when they’re working there or there’s 

not. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess I would just -- 

because it seems like it is a close case, 

otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered to 

reduce this little amount of tritium dose, so 

I think it would probably be worth -- I don’t 

know. If there was a way to at least check 

the work history and say, look, he was in this 

other area. That’s why you don’t see anything 

for these two prior years. And then he moves 

in here, and obviously, the tritium, every 

week we see it, you know? I guess I still 

have that question anyway. 

MR. FARVER: I’ll look into it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think it’s a NIOSH 

action probably. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I’ll see what we have. We 

might have some work assignment cards from 

Savannah River. 

 Is it Savannah River? 
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1 MR. FARVER: Yes. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: We might have some work 

assignment cards from Savannah River that 

would indicate the person’s work assignments. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: Case 131, 131 the finding, 

131.1, dot-2, dot-3, see if we can get rid of 

all of them. 

MR. GRIFFON: They’re the same DCF? 

MR. FARVER: I think so. The first finding, 

two findings are DCFs range that we’ve dealt 

with in the last two cases. And the third 

finding is LOD over two and the missed photon 

dose. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

MR. FARVER: Finding number four, improper 

method used to calculate electron doses. 

MS. CHANG (by Telephone): I think we could 

do a little bit of them -- 

DR. BRANCHE: Chia-Chia? 

MR. GRIFFON: No, really, we’re interested 

in what you have to say, Chia-Chia. 

MS. CHANG: Bye. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, 131.4 we’re on, 

right? 
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MR. FARVER: Yes. I’m trying to figure out 

what I wrote here. I think this is another 

one where I’m going to go back and review 

OTIB-0017. This also has to do with a breast 

dose and shallow dose. Because my notes say 

how were the doses calculated, single DCF or a 

range. And I want to go back and look at some 

of that. 

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MR. SIEBERT: Well, but the finding was that 

we didn’t do it per OTIB-0017. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. And that’s why I want 

to go back and look at that. 

MR. SIEBERT: OTIB-0017 wasn’t published for 

four months after this assessment was 

finished. 

DR. MAURO: And had you used it -- 

MR. SIEBERT: Had we used it, it would have 

gone down. 

MR. GRIFFON: And it would have been a 

lower, right. 

MS. MUNN: Okay, acceptable? 

MR. FARVER: I think it’ll be acceptable. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, what was the, what was 

in place prior to OTIB-0017? Was it just -- I 

guess that’s the question. 
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1 MR. FARVER: OCAS IG-001. 

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MR. SIEBERT: That was pretty much a 

straight interpretation of IG-001. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, so it was from IG-001. 

MR. SIEBERT: Which is why we wrote OTIB0017. 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, I’ll look at it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, you can follow up on it. 

 I mean, we understand your point 

though, Scott. TIB-0017 wasn’t in there. 

MR. FARVER: 131.5. 

MR. GRIFFON: You should have anticipated 

TIB-0017. 

MR. FARVER: The findings fail to properly 

account for all missed electron doses, and 

NIOSH gives an explanation of what they did. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is this another case that’s 

being reassessed in Super-S? 

MR. FARVER: Yes. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It is back. 

MS. MUNN: Another Super-S. 

MR. FARVER: I don’t have a concern with 

what they wrote in their response. And part 

of this does go back to the fact that OTIB0017 wasn’t in place at the time. 
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MR. GRIFFON: It is an LOD over two thing, 

yeah. So I think we’re okay there, right? 

MR. FARVER: Yes, we’re okay. 

 131.6, failure to account for internal 

doses from all fission products. We’ve had 

this a few times today. And OTIB-0054 

provides guidance for evaluating fission 

products, but this was also related to whole 

body counts. So this is where we’re going to 

be comparing OTIB-0054, but they don’t mention 

what they were currently using. 

 Now on to case 132. 

MR. GRIFFON: 132. 

MR. FARVER: Which is another Savannah River 

case so you can guess what the first three 

findings will be. 

DR. BRANCHE: You’re taking out all the 

mystery. 

MR. GRIFFON: We’ve got DCF, DCF and LOD. 

MR. FARVER: The first three findings once 

again have to do with, the first two are the 

range of DCFs. The third one is a little 

different. 

MR. GRIFFON: It’s not LOD over two. 
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MR. FARVER: It’s not LOD over two. It’s 

inappropriate exposure geometry, and it has to 

do with should you use AP or should you use 

rotational ^. 

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 So 132.3 and 132.4 are both dealing 

with the exposure geometries. And this case 

is going back for a rework under Super-S. 

 Now 132.5, there’s the LOD over two 

finding. I knew it would be there. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, 132.6. 

MR. FARVER: 132.6, improperly converted 

recorded shallow doses to organ dose, and it’s 

just the same as the previous. So 132.6 and 

132.7 have to do with -- oh, that’s the range 

of DCFs that we talked about earlier. And 

then the missed photon dose, the LOD over two. 

 Where are we at, eight? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I thought you were 132.6 

and .7 you just did, right? Now we’re up to 

eight, 132.8. I thought I lost you. You were 

just talking about LOD over two. 

MR. FARVER: That’s part of 132.7. It’s a 

missed shallow dose to organ dose I believe 

that was part of it. No, I must have had the 

wrong page. It is strictly the DCFs. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I didn’t think it had 

anything to do with LOD. Okay, 132.8. 

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MR. FARVER: Improperly converted neutron 

dose to organ dose. Sounds like DCFs. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, it’s just a three 

different, yeah. 

 132.9. 

MR. FARVER: Reviewer questions whether the 

EE was exposed to Type S-Super Plutonium. And 

since the case is -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Under PER review. 

MR. FARVER: It’s been returned for 

consideration. The question I had was does 

the NIOSH response, does that contradict the 

one up above it in 132.8. In other words the 

case has not been returned from DOL for Super 

S Plutonium evaluation. 

MR. SIEBERT: I think the “not” shouldn’t be 

there. I think it has been returned. 

 MR. PRESLEY: The same as 132.5 to say it’s 

been returned. 

MR. SIEBERT: It has. 

MR. FARVER: I thought it contradicted. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it has been, yeah. Get 

that out of there. 
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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Can we go back 

to findings 132.3 and 132.4? I would just 

like to ask a quick question. This had to do 

with a change that was made to the external 

implementation guide. And because of that 

change it has to do with the DCF values and 

whether to use an AP or in some cases for 

certain types of cancers whether they should 

apply a correction factor to that DCF value. 

Is this a PER issue? How do we identify 

whether there were other cases that may have 

been affected by this change to the 

implementation guide? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Are you talking about here 

the organs where -- 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes, for cases 

of -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- the AP is not the most, 

there are some organs where the AP is not the 

most favorable. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Correct, for 

certain types of cancers such as bone, 

esophagus, lung cancers -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Offhand I don’t know. I can 

find out. I know that in many cases, those 
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cases have come back for other reasons. For 

instance, very, very many cases came back or 

are coming back for Super-S Plutonium, very 

many. And it could be that these will all be 

addressed in that fashion, but I could take a 

look. 

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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Okay, I didn’t 

know if there would be a separate PER for this 

external implementation guide or not. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know for sure our 

plan on that. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we need maybe a tenminute break again. People are taking their 

own breaks, so I’m kind of taking the hint. 

People on the phone, I think it’s just Kathy, 

but there might be others. 

DR. BRANCHE: Well, Chia-Chia seems to be on 

the line. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, there’s a couple 

people out there. Ten minutes we’ll get back 

at 3:27 eastern, thanks. 

 (Whereupon, a break was taken from 3:16 p.m. 

until 3:30 p.m.) 

DR. BRANCHE: The Dose Reconstruction 

Subcommittee is starting again now. 
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MR. GRIFFON: We’re picking up on case 

133.1, which is which site? 

MR. FARVER: That’s a good question, Mound. 

MR. GRIFFON: Mound, yes. 

MR. FARVER: And 133.1, inappropriate method 

used for deriving missed photon doses, just 

LOD over two again. No, I think this is a 

little different. It has to do with using the 

minimum number of zeros or the median number 

of zeros. And I wasn’t real sure of the 

response from NIOSH. I mean, I didn’t really 

understand it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I think it was an 

oversight in a reworked case that they had -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think they’re agreeing 

with the finding. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- they stayed with the 

minimized. We essentially agreed with the 

finding and stayed with the minimized number 

as opposed to. 

MR. FARVER: Okay, that’s good. 

DR. MAURO: In the reanalysis, I see you, in 

fact, looked at this case again from two 

cancers to one cancer, and it was originally 
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compensable. Is it now not compensable? I 

haven’t seen that. In other words if it’s 

still compensable, the fact they minimized and 

used zeros wouldn’t really be problematic 

except it’s a QA issue. 

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MR. SIEBERT: No, it’s non-compensable with 

one cancer. 

DR. MAURO: Oh, it became non-compensable. 

So it went from compensable to noncompensable, but you kept the zeros in. That 

needs to be fixed. 

MR. GRIFFON: But did you assess that fix, 

and would it affect -- it would not affect -- 

MR. SIEBERT: It’s back for Super-S. 

DR. MAURO: Oh, it’s back for Super-S. 

MR. SIEBERT: We will be once we deal with 

the neutron issues. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Is it compensable or not? 

MR. GRIFFON: It’s non-compensable as it 

stands. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s not compensable the way 

this reviewed dose reconstruction is not 

compensable. Now, since this one has been 

done and reviewed by you guys, this case has 

been returned to us yet again, this time for 
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Super-S Plutonium. We also have a Mound 

technical issue that, neutron technical issue 

that we’re sorting out. So that has to get 

sorted out, and ^ Super-S Plutonium and the 

case will be reworked, and these things will 

be corrected in rework. 

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DR. MAURO: This one’s a laundry list of 

issues that you’re going to be dealing with, 

only one of which will be the zeros. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, yes. There are a 

number of things that will be done, changed 

when it’s done. 

 MR. PRESLEY: As it’s corrected. 

MR. HINNEFELD: The last time it went over 

it was non-compensable, and it’s back again 

with us to rework. 

MR. FARVER: 133.3, reviewer questions 

NIOSH’s -- no, 133.2, inappropriate method 

used for deriving missed neutron doses. And 

this is again the minimizing or median zeros. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, and so you have under 

the site profile review, you’re also reviewing 

the neutron issue as you say here, right, Stu? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, there’s a neutron 

issue at Mound that we need to sort out. 
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MR. FARVER: 133.3, reviewer questions the 

selection of dates of uptake for positive 

bioassay results. There’s a little bit of 

description here. Basically, on this one this 

is for plutonium. There were two chronic 

intakes assessed and one acute inhalation. 

And the reviewer questions the intake dates 

that were assigned. NIOSH’s response was 

intake dates should be moved forward as 

suggested. Moving it forward will result in a 

lower dose based on smaller chronic intake 

rate. 

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MS. MUNN: Is that an okay result? 

MR. FARVER: That’s an okay. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Except it’s got to be 

reworked. 

DR. MAURO: That’s one on the list that 

perhaps would bring the dose down. The others 

might bring the doses up. This one might 

bring the doses down. Got it. 

MS. MUNN: But for our purposes here -- 

MR. FARVER: It’s an okay. 

 133.4, reviewer questions whether 

additional radionuclides should have been 

assessed. The employee was monitored for PU-
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238 and -239, and referring to a table in the 

TBD he could have been exposed to secondary 

radionuclides. Since the bioassay program 

didn’t include monitoring for these nuclides, 

should you assess for these secondary 

radionuclides? And my only concern with 

NIOSH’s response is they just talk about 

plutonium, and they don’t address the 

americium or neptunium or thorium that are 

also mentioned in the Table 5.2. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this is Mound. You 

guys should know a lot about Mound. You guys 

must know something about Mound. 

DR. BRANCHE: We know it’s in Ohio. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I know you’re conflicted 

that’s why you know a lot about it. Do you 

have ^ anything about the non-plutonium 

isotopes? Americium -- 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, my guess -- I don’t 

know the details of this specific case, but 

americium was associated with a Plutonium-239 

mixture rather than -238, so that would be why 

that wasn’t included. But a separate process 

that would be worked on that’s not associated 

with the plutonium, I would have to look at 
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the details of this case to see ^. I don’t 

remember when thorium showed up on site. 

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MR. GRIFFON: I mean, I guess the question 

is -- I’d have to look back at the case, too. 

Where this guy worked and -- 

MR. FARVER: He worked in Buildings PP, SW, 

and R. 

MR. GRIFFON: PP, SW and R. 

MR. FARVER: And according to Table 5.2 of 

the TBD, there are, may have been exposed to 

secondary radionuclides such as, and it lists 

radionuclides. 

MR. GRIFFON: So you’re going by the TBD for 

these buildings. 

MR. FARVER: So if he worked in these areas, 

could he have been exposed to these nuclides, 

and if so, should they be assessed. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the case is being 

reworked, but it sounds like this needs to be 

addressed in some fashion. 

DR. MAURO: Isn’t Mound a, I guess, in an 

SEC mode right now? 

MS. BRACKETT: Yes, I was going to say the 

TBD is being reworked, and specifically these 

kinds of nuclides are being addressed in the 
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MR. GRIFFON: So this may also defer to site 

profile as well as the -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Rework of this. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- rework, yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: The rework of this case 

would probably have to wait until those 

questions are resolved in the SEC arena to 

determine where they’re going to end up before 

this case is actually done. 

MS. BRACKETT: Because there is a lot more 

research being done into these findings, 

program nuclides. 

MR. FARVER: 133.5, reviewer questions the 

solubility class of the plutonium, and this is 

where the reviewer just points out the 

possibility of Super-S. 

MS. BRACKETT: Right. If it was assessed as 

238 then we wouldn’t apply Super-S. 

DR. MAURO: I was on a conference call on 

Mound recently. We had one of these question 

and answer sessions with Joe Fitzgerald. He’s 

leading up the Mound evaluation report and 

Joyce was there, Joyce Lipsztein, and there 

was something about Plutonium-238 being high-
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fired pellets off of these what-do-you-call 

units, these -- 

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MS. BRACKETT: RTGs. 

DR. MAURO: -- yeah, RTGs, and that those 

pellets themselves have a very interesting 

unknown clearance. They go in, and they don’t 

clear immediately, but that they start to 

break up. 

MS. BRACKETT: Yes, they’re very insoluble 

to start with, and then it becomes more 

soluble over time. Actually, we’re in the 

process of evaluating that. There has been 

papers published on this material. There’s 

been one proposed model. We’ve gotten the 

data on that particular case and several other 

cases. The paper’s based on a Los Alamos 

incident. And we have the data from six of 

the cases there, and we’ve been trying to find 

Mound cases that look like that. We haven’t 

found that many that actually exhibit that 

behavior. We’ve plotted every single person 

at Mound who had plutonium bioassay results, 

and we’ve gone through all of the graphs to 

see if we could identify -- 

DR. MAURO: To see a pattern? 
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MS. BRACKETT: -- and it doesn’t, I thought 

that we had seen a few cases like that when we 

did the dose reconstruction, but we’re having 

a hard time identifying any. But we are 

working on a model for the Plutonium-238 of 

this particular behavior that’s actively -- 

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MR. HINNEFELD: This is this issue from the 

Mound SEC or assessment -- 

DR. MAURO: That’s center stage, center 

stage. And I only bring it up because then it 

almost begs the question can we address the 

issue for this particular person until these 

issues are discussed. 

MR. HINNEFELD: No, this case is back to us. 

It’ll wait. It won’t be reworked until these 

are resolved so that those answers can be put 

in place. 

MR. GRIFFON: You said this case is being 

reworked for Super-S issues, right? Under the 

Super-S PER review it’s being reworked, Stu? 

Or this first part says that this particular 

heat source plutonium is not Super-S. It’s a 

different kind of issue, right? 

MS. BRACKETT: Right. 

DR. MAURO: Ceramicized. It was ceramics. 
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MS. MUNN: Absolutely ceramic. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Our judgment, Mark, about 

PER evaluations doesn’t always match DOL’s, 

and sometimes they return cases to us for 

rework other than the ones we have identified. 

So this one’s back for that reason now. It’s 

back and these things will be taken care of. 

Once these things have been taken care of, 

anything that’s not returned by DOL would be 

addressed in the PER. Since we’ve changed the 

Mound approach, we have to have a PER for 

Mound. Anything that wouldn’t be brought back 

would be brought back in that fashion. 

MR. GRIFFON: I was just looking in terms of 

inconsistency in your responses, but really, 

it’s a DOL decision, right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: DOL returns what they want 

to return. 

MS. BRACKETT: So basically nothing will 

happen with this though, right? We’ll send it 

back and say Super-S doesn’t apply to this 

assessment. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, this case right now is 

going to be pending. This case is going to be 
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pended if no other reason than neutron issue 

as well as the various technical issues that 

are being debated in the SEC forum at Mound. 

And the resolution of those then will 

influence how this turns out. And chances are 

we’ll just hold this one here. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. FARVER: 133.6, reviewer questions 

whether all positive tritium results were 

accurately reported by the DOE. And I guess 

this just has to do with the reporting at 

Mound. They reported annual doses for tritium 

at Mound. 

 Is that correct, Scott? 

MR. SIEBERT: If I recall, correct. Once 

again since I’m conflicted, I don’t see Mound 

cases that frequently. But I believe that is 

correct, and we only get annual reporting for 

tritium. 

MR. FARVER: I believe that’s correct, too. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Do you mean the monitoring of 

the people was quarterly? 

MR. SIEBERT: Well, the monitoring was more 

frequently. The only records that we get are 

annual roll ups as to what the dose was for 
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MR. GRIFFON: So what’s the resolution here? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Which one are we on? 

MR. FARVER: The assigned missed doses. 

MR. GRIFFON: 133.6, so SC&A’s okay with the 

way they assigned the missed doses? 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, the question was did you 

get all the results from DOE, and I don’t 

believe there were any more results. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, case 134. 

MR. FARVER: 134.1, acute intake date does 

not correspond to incident date. 

MR. GRIFFON: What site is this? I’m sorry. 

MR. FARVER: This is another Mound site. 

The initial review found there was an incident 

date or an incident on a certain date that did 

not correspond to the acute intake date 

assigned by NIOSH. NIOSH’s response is that 

the intake, the incident did not have an 

internal uptake. It was a positive dose swipe 

from contaminated hands. 

MR. GRIFFON: A false positive. 

MR. FARVER: A false positive. It was from 

contaminated hands. As such, a subsequent 

chest count was negative. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Is that what the investigation 

concluded, Scott, that it was due to 

contaminated hands? 

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MR. SIEBERT: That appears to be what the 

DOE concluded. 

MR. FARVER: And I guess I, I don’t have a -

- 

MR. GRIFFON: Nothing new there. 

MR. FARVER: No, but somebody has a positive 

no swipe, I usually have a little concern with 

that, but -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, the other question I 

have, and not looking at the case, you know, 

right now it may be tough to remember this 

unless you guys ^ funny on it, but it says 

subsequent bioassay chest count. Was this 

chest count done close to that date of this 

incident or was it well after? 

MR. FARVER: That’s in the next finding. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 

MR. SIEBERT: Yeah, that’s what DOE said. 

MR. FARVER: 134.2, the chest count -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Not all my questions lead to 

your next finding. 

MR. FARVER: -- investigative incident 
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report was not included in the records. So 

even though they say in their documents that 

there was a chest count -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: Oh, so the investigation 

report said there was a chest count done, but 

it wasn’t in the records. 

MR. FARVER: It was not in the records, 

which leads you to wonder what other data and 

incident reports were also missing. And I 

don’t know how you resolve something like 

that. 

MS. MUNN: Did I miss it, Doug? 

MR. GRIFFON: It was a compensable claim, 

right? 

 MR. PRESLEY: That’s what I’m going to say. 

134.3 says it’s compensable. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so the bottom line at 

the end, right? 

MR. FARVER: Yeah, that makes it even more 

difficult. 

MS. MUNN: How far apart did you say the 

intake date and the incident, reported 

incident date were? 

MR. GRIFFON: I don’t know if, was it in the 

investigation report? You never found the 
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sample, but in the investigation report they 

must have said it. 

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MR. FARVER: Was involved in an incident in 

Building R-131 March of 1983 there was an 

incident. And in the documentation of the 

probably DOE investigation, it lists that 

there was a chest count taken, and that it was 

negative. 

MS. MUNN: They don’t say what date? 

MR. GRIFFON: Doug, don’t say what date? 

MR. FARVER: Oh, I’m sure there’s a date but 

it’s -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it’s in there, but we 

don’t have it. 

MR. FARVER: I don’t have it exactly. It’s 

March of 1983. 

MR. GRIFFON: But it was done right after 

the incident apparently, right? 

MR. FARVER: It doesn’t say what date the 

chest count was done. But it says in their 

report a chest count was done and was 

negative. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess if this was a noncompensable claim, I would be struggling here 

on what do you do. But it was a compensable, 
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right? I don’t think NIOSH had to resolve it 

because it was compensable. 

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MR. SIEBERT: We assigned it in April of ’83 

as opposed to March of ’83, and it’s 

compensable so it would have just been up. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. CLAWSON: That still falls under the 

information and integrity of the information. 

DR. MAURO: Unless they just said we’ve gone 

far -- very often they stop. In other words 

they’ll stop. We’re not going any farther, 

and then that’s not unreasonable. 

MR. GRIFFON: I can see the point here. Why 

pull the string if you don’t have to. 

MR. FARVER: You know, on one hand you’re 

wondering what happened to the lung count -- 

DR. MAURO: On the other hand, you don’t 

need it. 

 MR. CLAWSON: But where it is compensable, 

but the bottom line is it still gets back to, 

you know, they’re saying one thing. There’s 

no data there. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, if you’re looking in 

terms of the overall site -- 

 MR. CLAWSON: Right, that’s what I was 
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MR. GRIFFON: -- you’re wondering, right, 

where is the data, and does this happen often. 

Then you’d be really concerned. 

MR. FARVER: 134.3, do not properly address 

incidents in the CATI or DOE reports. And 

this is just, I know this is boilerplate from 

the template. It says right here in the CATI 

report section, no incidents were discussed in 

any interview or were found in the dosimetry 

records. Well, that’s just not true. There 

was a lot of records. And NIOSH’s response 

was, yes, they should have been included. So 

it’s okay, 134.3. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, but it does get back to 

that, and I think we’re going to bring that DR 

report template back to this group because, I 

mean, the benefits of a template are obvious 

because you want consistency. But the 

downside is that it is also obvious that you 

just fall into that trap of answering 

everybody the same way instead of really 

dealing with the question that’s raised in the 

CATI. You just kind of -- 

MR. FARVER: There were several instances in 
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the CATI report that were mentioned about the 

employee had to be scrubbed down, had to leave 

urine samples, restricted due to an injury, 

and was several, many pages in the DOE 

records. So I’m going to bring this back to 

another QA concern. It’s in the CATI. It’s 

in the records, but it doesn’t get caught in 

the DR. 

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DR. MAURO: Does the DR say something to the 

effect that though this was stated this was in 

the records, we did not pursue to get it 

because we didn’t need it? 

MR. FARVER: No incidents were discussed in 

the interview or were found in the dosimetry 

records. 

MR. SIEBERT: Well, in the next sentence 

there’s no information was raised in the 

interviews suggest the dose estimates in the 

dose reconstruction were not claimant 

favorable, which once you get the compensable 

part -- 

DR. MAURO: It’s over. 

MR. SIEBERT: -- it’s a decided point. But 

we agree that that should have stated that 

rather than putting that paragraph in, should 
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have said it was not needed because we’re 

already -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: It’s already compensable. 

DR. MAURO: Because I see that all the time. 

MR. FARVER: Now 135.1, a Y-12, K-25 case. 

The DR did not properly account for all 

potentially missed doses. 

MR. GRIFFON: This is Y-12, K-25, both 

sites? 

MR. FARVER: Yes. And I agree with NIOSH’s 

response. I guess I have a question probably 

more because I’m not familiar with the Y-12 

and K-25 cases. Was this a workbook error, 

and it was something that was corrected? 

MR. SIEBERT: Unfortunately, I can’t answer 

that because this is not my, Y-12’s not my 

site. 

MR. FARVER: The finding goes to missed 

photon dose should have included missing 

quarters of dosimetry data as well as zero 

entries. And I was just asking if this was a 

workbook error, you know, the counting of 

zeros so to speak. 

MR. GRIFFON: This one must have also been a 

close POC I’m assuming. I don’t know. 
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 Liz, do you have that list of the 

POCs? I’m wondering in that first part of -- 

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MR. SIEBERT: 46.77. 

MR. GRIFFON: The first part of 135.1 you, I 

mean, my question is, is this a missed dose or 

unmonitored, or did you use a coworker to 

substitute for those missing periods of time 

not having looked at the case. I was just 

looking at the matrix. I didn’t pull the case 

out. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It seems to me 

there was some missing quarters as well as 

some zero doses. I think there should have 

been some unmonitored dose. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I was asking, 

Kathy. 

MR. FARVER: I mean, and their response says 

missed photon dose should have included the 

missing quarters of data as well as the zero 

entries. The necessary corrections were made 

and the dose increased to the point that it 

was necessary to reexamine the other assigned 

doses. In other words it was -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Give some, take away some 

other parts. It was enough to fine tune the 
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other calculations. And I guess you looked at 

the ambient dose because it was almost like 

you were double assigning, I think, right? 

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MR. FARVER: Correct. And I believe there’s 

an -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Which makes sense. 

MR. FARVER: -- attachment or a table in 

that procedure that says if the employee’s 

monitored, you don’t assign ambient dose. And 

I’m assuming that’s probably what you went to 

and said, well, we don’t assign ambient dose. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, which is fine. My 

question is in those quarterly, missing 

quarters or whatever, how was that filled in 

with dose. Was it -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, your question is 

should the missing quarters, should they 

really have been missed or should they have 

been coworker -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Monitored. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- or monitored coworkers. 

Well, I don’t know. 

MR. FARVER: In other words how were the 

necessary corrections made? 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. So I think we’ll put a 
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 The 135.1, we’re still on it. That’s 

the one we’re on. We move slow. 

MR. FARVER: We’re not through beating it 

yet. 

 Okay, finding 135.2, EE should have 

been assigned missed neutron doses. 

MR. GRIFFON: This gets into the work 

location question for Y-12 I assume, right? 

MR. FARVER: Well, there’s a couple ways you 

could look at it from missed work location or 

this is what those NIOSH folks are hinging on, 

there’s a Part Two Neutron Radiation Report 

that basically says if you didn’t receive a 

dose in a certain timeframe, then you’re not 

likely to get a neutron dose. And therefore, 

they don’t assign neutron doses. Now I don’t 

necessarily agree with that document, but that 

document’s been approved, and that’s what it 

says. So I would have to stick by their 

response. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, at the bottom of that 

response I have a question. If a worker ^ in 

an area where the source of neutrons, the film 

was not processed and a zero was recorded for 
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the neutron dose for that monitoring period, 

my question was how do you distinguish if it 

was processed did they record a, say it was 

processed, and it was less than detectable, 

would they put less than detectable or would 

they put zero? And if they’re recording zeros 

in both instances, how do you distinguish? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I think probably the attempt 

to distinguish would be based on, in this case 

it was based on the person’s job title and the 

types of materials in 9212 that might give 

rise to neutron dose. If I’m not mistaken, 

the 9212, the potential neutron exposure in 

9212 was from enriched uranium, thorium. And 

if someone is a machinist, they’re going to be 

machining uranium or some other metal as 

opposed to -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I understand that 

rationale, but Doug was just describing the 

other protocol which I think you’re using 

which is this other thing described in the 

first paragraph. After what I just said you 

say, “Therefore, workers that had no positive 

neutron doses,” so I guess you’re saying -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think the first part of 
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this response explains why there would be a 

zero in the record, a neutron zero although 

there really was no potential exposure for 

neutrons. See, that’s what they’re saying is 

that the film included a neutron component. 

The badge included a neutron component. They 

wouldn’t necessarily read it if they felt like 

there was no -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but what I’m saying is 

how do you know if it was a real zero or if it 

was a zero meaning less than detectable. I 

mean, maybe they didn’t put down zero for less 

than detectable. 

MR. HINNEFELD: From looking at the record I 

don’t think there’s a way to determine whether 

it’s a we didn’t process or there’s no 

potential exposure, and we didn’t process the 

zero. Or if there was a potential exposure, 

we’d process it. If it’s less than limited 

detections you can put a zero down. From 

looking at the record I don’t think there’s 

any way to tell. I think the way to try to 

distinguish what it might be and what is the 

potential exposure to neutrons is from the 

person’s job title. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Going back to the job 

location. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: The job title and locations 

where he worked. So that’s how that 

determination was attempted to be made. 

 MR. CLAWSON: That’s correct. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So that was how. Now 

there’s an outstanding issue with this RPRT0033 and the site profile and what’s the 

correct list of neutron sources. Can that be 

explained better? And can that come up 

better? So that issue is out there already, 

which the resolution of that could, in fact, 

affect this. But as the information was 

provided, I think the determination or the 

decision that this person doesn’t appear to 

have been neutron exposed was based largely on 

their job title. 

 MR. PRESLEY: He worked in the machine shop. 

MR. FARVER: For a certain time period they 

were listing zeros, so you would think he’d 

assign -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. And that’s what 

I was getting at. You don’t, you can’t tell 

if it’s a zero or if it’s a zero meaning not 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Less than LOD or not 

processed. You can’t tell from looking at the 

record. 

MR. GRIFFON: So you’re deferring back to 

the process buildings for your determinant. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And job titles. 

MR. GRIFFON: So this is being discussed in 

the site profile. No, it’s not. I’m writing 

the site profile. 

MR. HINNEFELD: You’re writing the site 

profile. You can talk about whatever the heck 

you want. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, you said it had come up 

though. Where is it -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: In their dose reconstruction 

report. 

MR. GRIFFON: So I guess we’ll have to pull 

back into that site profile discussion though. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think we would not, I 

think we don’t want to lose it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, we don’t want to lose 

it. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And it would be we either 

need to resolve it here -- 
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MR. GRIFFON: It is a site profile-type 

issue. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: -- it is a site profile-type 

issue. 

MR. GRIFFON: And Jim Neton actually 

recently e-mailed me asking something about Y12 to close it out. 

MR. HINNEFELD: What’s the final list of 

items that were still on the table when the 

SEC decision was made? It doesn’t affect the 

site profile. 

MR. GRIFFON: So I think we might, that 

might be a good impetus to get that back on 

the table. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And like I say you could say 

and by the way this one is, there’s this issue 

that’s come over from DR review that we also 

need resolved with the Y-12 site profile. 

MR. GRIFFON: So I’m going to put we’re 

going to defer that one to the site profile. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Are you sure you don’t want to 

give it to Procedures to review? 

MR. GRIFFON: I’d love to give it to 

Procedures, but -- 

 MR. CLAWSON: I just thought we kind of 
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MS. MUNN: There is no opportunity that 

exists. Shall I read for you the charter of 

the Procedures work group? 

 MR. CLAWSON: No, thank you. 

MS. MUNN: Or do I need to hold up a big 

sign? 

MR. FARVER: Number three? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

MR. FARVER: 135.3, unable to reproduce the 

internal dose from missed thorium dose from in 

vivo analysis. Reviewed their files that they 

sent, and -- did you send those files? No, 

those were -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Were these files in the 

initial -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know if these files 

were included. 

MR. FARVER: Oh, those were the original 

files in the case because I know I’ve looked 

at them. I agree with their response. 

Basically, they used IMBA to calculate the 

intake rates, then you plug that into the CADW 

workbook. So it’s okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because of the limits of IMBA, 
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DR. MAURO: We’re on 135.3? 

MR. FARVER: Yes. 

DR. MAURO: I just read the response. A 

person inhales the Thorium-232, and we have a 

bioassay or some method of estimating the 

intake of Thorium-232. And what I’m reading 

here is, of course, you’ve got the Radium-228 

with its five year half-life rolling in. So 

he’s probably taking in some, he might be 

taking in some Radium-228 along with the 

Thorium-232 in his work setting depending on 

what he’s working with. But what I understand 

here is that, okay, now the Radium-228 is 

going in while the Thorium-232 is sort of 

stuck in his lungs. What do you do to account 

for that? I guess I didn’t follow from your 

answer. What do you do about that? 

MS. BRACKETT: We don’t need to do anything. 

In addition, the software takes that into 

account. The problem is the coding within 

IMBA doesn’t properly take it into account. 

It follows the previous ICRP-30 method where 

it assumes that all of the daughters stay with 

it, but there’s independent kinetics for the 
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progeny following their own models, the newer 

models. IMBA cannot handle that, and so IMBA 

does correctly calculate the intake since it’s 

based just on the parent. But the dose, we 

have recalculated the dose conversion factors 

based on -- well, Keith Eckerman actually 

helped us. 

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DR. MAURO: Keith put it together for you, 

okay. 

MS. BRACKETT: DCAL, now we actually have 

DCAL, and Tom LaBone runs that if we need to 

do something. So we just calculated it based 

on the current model. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, we have DCAL provided to 

us also. Okay, quite frankly I wasn’t aware -

- so all the progeny in IMBA are treated 

biokinetically as their parent then. 

MS. BRACKETT: And so there are several 

where IMBA is inaccurate, and in fact, we’ve 

gone through and where, they’ve all been 

updated in CAD-W. They’re currently, the 

thorium numbers are documented in OTIB-0028, 

and that’s in the process, it’s been updated, 

and it’s in review for other nuclides. The 

rest of them aren’t as seriously off as the 
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DR. MAURO: This could be a big one, yeah, 

because ^ coming in. 

MS. BRACKETT: Right. The numbers that you 

get in IMBA are generally, some of them are 

three-to-four times larger than they should be 

because of the way it -- 

DR. MAURO: Because of the biokinetic -- oh, 

yeah, the thorium is going to be in the body 

much longer than the radium would be I would 

imagine. As the radium’s going in it’s going 

to move out more quickly than the thorium’s 

going to move out. 

MS. BRACKETT: Right, and it goes to 

different organs. 

DR. MAURO: It can go different places. But 

you’re saying the wherewithal exists to be 

able to deal with all this. 

MS. BRACKETT: Yes, yes. 

MR. FARVER: 135.4, tritium exposure 

reported by the EE in the CATI not considered 

in the DR. In the CATI report there’s a 

section three on detailed work history. In 

that part the employee checked that he was 

exposed to tritium. There was no tritium 
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bioassay records and NIOSH did not assess a 

tritium dose. So our concern was since the 

employee said he was exposed to tritium, 

should he be assessed a tritium dose. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, our response is 

oftentimes on CATI information where it’s 

check a box or something like that, that we 

will, we kind of weight heavily the site 

activities and what we know about what we’re 

getting from the records from the site and 

locations at the site where particular things 

might have been. 

 For instance, he may have known there 

was tritium at Y-12 so felt like he was 

exposed to it and checked that box, when, in 

fact, he perhaps wasn’t particularly in a 

location to be exposed to tritium to any 

degree. He just knew it was there so he 

checked the box. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is this a survivor claim, do 

you know? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know. I guess Scott 

could find out. 

MR. GRIFFON: If it wasn’t, was there any 

attempt to follow up with the individual? 
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MR. FARVER: Are there other tritium results 

for K-25 and for Y-12? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t recall. I haven’t 

seen any doses reconstructed for a long time. 

I don’t remember seeing any tritium -- 

MR. FARVER: I mean, if there were other 

tritium results and none for him, then I might 

say, well, maybe he wasn’t monitored. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

MR. SIEBERT: They were doing them. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, at Y-12 I would imagine 

there were at least some, weren’t there? 

MS. MUNN: Personnel engaged in processing 

materials with potential were required to 

submit three urine samples a month for 

analysis. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know enough about 

where tritium might have been used at Y-12 to 

really have an opinion. 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m just pausing for a second 

to see if you know if it was a survivor claim 

or a -- 

MR. SIEBERT: No, it’s the EE. 

MR. GRIFFON: The claimant? 
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MR. GRIFFON: And no attempt was made to 

contact them about the CATI or any -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: He was a machinist -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- that seems like an obvious 

thing to me if you’re not sure. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Our earlier responses say he 

was a machinist. 

MS. MUNN: Based on the workbook. 

MR. GRIFFON: And to me sometimes a simple 

phone call can clarify these things, too. And 

again, that may or may not be warranted in 

this case. I don’t even -- if it was a close 

case. I guess I would think it would have to 

be a close case if you’re worried about 

tritium dose. I don’t know what the POC was 

on this one. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Forty-six 

percent. 

MR. GRIFFON: Forty-six percent, so you’re 

getting up there. 

MS. BRACKETT: I didn’t think there was much 

potential for tritium. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, I don’t remember. We had 
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the Y-12 site profile review, and I know we 

spent a lot of time worrying about uranium -- 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Thorium. 

DR. MAURO: -- thorium. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Cyclotron products. 

DR. MAURO: -- yeah, but I don’t remember 

talking about tritium, but it could be in 

there. I’d have to go check. 

MR. FARVER: It’s in the technical basis 

document. 

DR. MAURO: It is in the TBD. 

MR. FARVER: Yes, however, the internal 

dosimetry program has included limited 

monitoring -- 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m definitely sure there was 

some. 

MR. FARVER: -- cesium, technicium, thorium, 

plutonium, actinium and tritium among other 

radionuclides. 

MS. BRACKETT: I remember in the ‘90s there 

was an incident there with tritium, but it 

involved gun sites. There was some leaking on 

them. There was some tritium, but that’s 

pretty minor, and that’s not a machinist 

working with... 
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MR. FARVER: And that’s just why I ask has 

anyone seen other tritium data from Y-12. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I’ve very rarely seen cases 

anymore. I don’t remember seeing any. 

Normally, the Y-12 bioassay is uranium, either 

mass or activity units. Oftentimes there’ll 

be whole body results, or ^ tell you that. 

MS. BRACKETT: Or Doug. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Or Doug. 

MR. GRIFFON: To me, I guess, it’s just the 

utility of the CATI. I mean, if an individual 

checks the box, we can sit around the table 

and say, oh, we probably assume he checked the 

wrong box or heard the word tritium once and 

checked it. On the other hand I can look at, 

I have a lot of questionnaires, and I see 

those on questionnaires. 

 Sometimes with chemical and radiation 

they check every box, and then I, you know, 

you sort of say, what’s the use of this one. 

But then you see some that very carefully 

checked only like three items, and then I 

think, well, this person at least took the 

time to consider all these things. They 

didn’t just check them all. So I would think 
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follow up with this person, maybe they were 

involved in something -- 

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MR. FARVER: And at least -- 

MR. GRIFFON: -- special project or 

whatever. 

MR. FARVER: -- something in the DR that 

says we reviewed the CATI report. Although 

the EE says they were exposed to tritium, we 

could find nothing to support this claim; and 

therefore, it wasn’t assessed. That way it 

looks like you’ve considered it but couldn’t 

find anything to support it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean my point is I 

don’t want it look like we considered it. I 

want it to be considered. 

MR. FARVER: But I mean if you look -- 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s the problem that a lot 

of people in the program have is that they 

feel like their interview information is being 

given lip service, not being treated as -- 

MR. FARVER: -- I mean, if you look into 

this, and you don’t have any data, you don’t 

have any information that he was exposed, at 

least put something in there saying that you 

looked at it. 
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MR. GRIFFON: And like I said, if it wasn’t, 

you know, this is a pretty close one, and 

tritium dose, if it was there, is not going to 

amount to much. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, we can go back and see 

what we know enough about Y-12 and potential 

tritium exposures to make a better case for 

saying that. I think the point, if it 

strictly comes down to he said it in the CATI, 

and so we should have at least followed up 

with him, that’s sort of a problematic for 

this case if this is the only thing. If 

that’s the only thing, because this has been 

adjudicated for years. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, it’s been adjudicated 

for years. 

MR. HINNEFELD: And so we really don’t have 

a good way -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, I’m not saying to go 

back now. I’m just saying -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: But it may be at this point 

forward take a careful look at this CATI, 

checked boxes and things like that, and if 

there’s information in there that doesn’t 

match up with the kind of exposure records you 
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get, maybe make that follow-up call and say, 

okay, when you checked this box on what basis 

did you do that. You know, that kind of thing 

might be something that may be, enable us to 

get into the CATI for future portion of 

things. 

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MR. GRIFFON: It is the CATI procedure. 

We’ve had this discussion before in different 

forums, but I mean, I want to even turn this 

around, and it’s probably good that this comes 

up when Larry’s left, but turn it around and 

ask the question how many times has NIOSH 

called and asked about a CATI’s information. 

And even better than that, how many times, you 

know, you ask them to list coworkers, how many 

times have they followed up on coworkers? I’m 

not sure it’s a lot. I mean -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: I’m sure it’s not a lot. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- right, I’m guessing that 

it’s not many at all, and you’ve done 

thousands of CATIs, so anyway, but I wouldn’t 

say for this case, I wasn’t implying that you 

should go back now and ask this -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Right, but it would be, for 

instance, it would be a way to behave from 
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MR. GRIFFON: But I would appreciate at 

least checking to see if this has any 

potential validity at all, the tritium 

exposures during the timeframes that this 

person worked there, and et cetera. 

 I think we can move on to 136. 

MR. FARVER: 136.1. 

MR. GRIFFON: We’ve got about a little over 

half hour by my clock. I mean, I think we can 

only do so much of this. I’m not just cutting 

it off arbitrarily, but I kind of am sticking 

with the five o’clock because I think that’s 

enough. We’re going to burn out. We’re 

getting there. 

MR. FARVER: 136.1, photon dosimeter 

correction factors in the DR are incorrect and 

not properly referenced. The first part would 

be incorrect. It looks like it was a typo in 

the table. The second part has to do with 

whether OTIB-0027 should be referenced or not. 

 NIOSH believes it does not need to be 

referenced since it is in the references of 

the TBD, I believe, yes, since the TBD 

references OTIB-0027. So there is a typo, so 
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that’s one concern, and it went through 

unchecked or not caught. The other question 

that comes up is what are the practices of 

referencing OTIBs? Because sometimes they’re 

referenced; sometimes they’re not. And to say 

that this didn’t need to be referenced, well, 

how do you know? 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know if we even have 

a standard practice for referencing. 

MR. FARVER: I don’t think so. 

DR. MAURO: We had this conversation when we 

discussed site profiles, and one of the 

criticisms we had of one of the site profiles 

was there’s an awful lot of other documents 

that need to be referenced in your site 

profile to make a complete story, but they’re 

not here. And the answer was you never 

intended the site profile to be the 

encyclopedia. 

 The way you accommodate all the new 

information is the ongoing training programs, 

the fact that you’ve got a cadre of people 

that work this particular site, and they’re 

exchanging notes. In other words there’s a 

philosophy. It’s important that it be 
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communicated to us. That is that the site 

profile was never intended to be a complete 

encyclopedic knowledge of a site and cover 

every possible situation that might arise. 

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 Now, what I’m hearing is in a similar 

way when you do your dose reconstructions, 

there’s a collective body of knowledge that 

you draw upon some of which is in the site 

profile; some of which is in OTIBs. Now, what 

I’m seeing here is that the site profile 

apparently references the OTIB? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Apparently. 

DR. MAURO: I guess where I come out is if 

that’s cited in the site profile it 

effectively captures that, doesn’t it? I 

mean, if the site profile has it, is it 

necessary for the dose reconstruction to break 

out the OTIB-0027 separately? 

MR. FARVER: Where it becomes a concern is 

when you try to review these cases and 

determine how the numbers were calculated -- 

DR. MAURO: It’s a struggle. 

MR. FARVER: -- and you just refer to the 

site profile -- 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, it’s a struggle. 
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MR. FARVER: -- it’s not going to tell you 

sometimes. 

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DR. MAURO: I have to say we run into this a 

lot. 

MR. HINNEFELD: In this case though our 

response seems to say that the same correction 

factors that are in OTIB-0027 were in this 

particular site profile. So if someone is 

looking for those correction factors, they can 

find them in this particular site profile. 

That’s what this -- 

MR. FARVER: I agree with that, but -- okay, 

I realize my question was what’s the practice 

on referencing OTIBs. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I would say the 

practice on referencing in general is 

reference the document that provides the 

information you utilized at that point. And 

so in this case if you’re listing correction 

factors and provide a reference for that 

information for the correction factors, you 

could reference either OTIB-0027 or the 

specific site profile since they both contain 

that information. 

MR. FARVER: Well, for example, OTIB-0017, 
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how do you do shallow doses, now I assume if 

you have a case that has shallow doses, you 

would reference OTIB-0017. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I believe we would. 

MR. FARVER: I mean, that’s my opinion. 

MR. SIEBERT: The difference in this one is 

Rocky Flats-specific. The OTIB was written 

for that, and then the information for it got 

folded into the next generation of the TBD. 

But rather than fold all of the OTIB into the 

TBD, they just changed the numbers in the TBD 

and referenced OTIB-0027 in the TBD. And then 

the TBD becomes more one-stop-shopping for 

that type of thing. Yes, that’s what we 

referenced in ^. So something like OTIB-0017, 

it’s across the complex and a very different 

comparison than something that’s very sitespecific that we’ve rolled into the TBD. 

MR. FARVER: That’s partly for my education, 

too, so I know when to write up the findings. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I would say if the reference 

points you, if the DR gives a reference, and 

that reference contains the information that 

DR relied on, then that would be a suitable, 

that’s a suitable reference. And whether it’s 
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the TF or the site profile or whatever, as 

long as it provides the information, then it’s 

being utilized at that point in the dose 

reconstruction. 

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MR. FARVER: Now, are these references, is 

this part of the template that is 

automatically created? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know. I think so. 

MR. SIEBERT: Yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I think so. 

MR. FARVER: And then they would, then the 

dose reconstructor would add references to it 

or -- 

MR. SIEBERT: If needed, or templates are 

really written with almost all the references 

you need at that site, and they would delete 

the ones that they don’t use pretty much. 

MR. FARVER: So it’s not really tied to the 

workbook where if the workbook calculates a 

shallow dose, and then they’re going to go 

pull that reference. 

MR. SIEBERT: No. 

MR. FARVER: Okay, because I have seen cases 

where there were references in the report that 

were not needed. 
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MR. SIEBERT: Right, and it’s up to the dose 

reconstructor to make sure that the references 

tie across. 

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MR. FARVER: I’m trying to figure out how it 

works. 

MS. MUNN: So the bottom line on this one is 

that we have essentially a QA issue with 

respect to ^, right? 

MR. FARVER: Correct, and that’s the same 

one for 136.2. It has to do with the neutron 

dosimeter correction factor. It’s a typo. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yep. 

MR. FARVER: 136.3, medical X-ray frequency 

is not consistent with the CATI report for 

technical basis. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, yeah, this is -- 

despite the fact that I sent this initial 

response, I still asked a question about it, 

and we’re still checking on this. It could 

very well be that the file we had was the 

medical file, and which the site profile says 

for this period can’t count on the medical 

file being complete in terms of the number of 

X-rays. 

MR. FARVER: What this stems from is in the 
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CATI report the employee indicated that there 

was an annual frequency on X-rays. The table 

out of the technical basis document listed the 

examination frequency as being annual, but 

doses were only assessed for years when there 

were medical records, actual records. And we 

kind of felt that you have three pieces of 

information and two of them say it’s annual, 

that you should assess it annually. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, and in this particular 

case, as you quote in your finding, the site 

profile itself says that you can’t count on 

certain, up until like ’85 or something, you 

can’t count on the medical file being complete 

-- 

MR. FARVER: You’re right. 

MR. HINNEFELD: -- in terms of including all 

the dose. So, yeah, we’re dealing with this 

now. So we do owe additional information 

despite the fact that we’ve given this initial 

response. We do need to provide updated 

information based on what we learn. 

MR. FARVER: 136.4, uranium material-type is 

not claimant favorable or consistent with 

technical basis. This has to do with uranium, 
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MR. GRIFFON: Has this case been returned by 

DOL for rework, Super-S question? I mean, it 

seems like it would not be an issue, but... 

MR. SIEBERT: Well, PER-21, which is Rocky 

Flats DR method modifications, a different 

PER, but, yes, it has been returned. 

MR. GRIFFON: So that’s for both neutron and 

-- PER-21, what does that mean? What does 

that cover? Just Rocky Flats overall? 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s the cover all the 

changes in Rocky Flats that occurred as the 

SEC process was going along. 

DR. MAURO: Are we on 136.4? 

MR. HINNEFELD: We’re actually getting 

there. We were about to get to that one. 

DR. BRANCHE: But you interrupted. 

MR. HINNEFELD: We got to that one, and then 

we asked the question has this one been 

returned. 

DR. MAURO: Okay, because I was reading here 

while you were talking about the X-rays. Are 

we on number four now? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Now we’re ready for 136.4. 

MR. FARVER: Okay, 134.4 (sic) has to do 
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with Type S Uranium. When NIOSH did the 

calculations, they assumed Type... 

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MR. GRIFFON: Type M, yeah. 

MR. FARVER: I lost my spot. 

DR. MAURO: You could have a lung dose 

that’s higher by assuming it’s Type M. That’s 

a surprise to me. 

MR. SIEBERT: Latency period. 

DR. MAURO: Sure, has to do with the latency 

period. Oh, between the time of the exposure 

and the diagnosis? 

MR. SIEBERT: Right. 

DR. MAURO: Oh, how do you like that? 

MR. SIEBERT: If diagnosis had been a lot 

further in the future, Type S probably would 

have been -- 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s why it said Super S is 

probably not going to be an issue. But I just 

was curious whether it got sent back. 

MS. BRACKETT: This stuff is not intuitive. 

MR. SIEBERT: Whatever you think it is, 

maybe it isn’t either. 

DR. MAURO: You can’t make any assumptions. 

MR. SIEBERT: But they were run side-byside. 
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MR. FARVER: Okay, let me get my, everything 

in a row. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Are those two of the IMBA runs 

that have been provided? You said side-byside they’d been run? Were those -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I believe those are the 

zip files I sent, I believe. 

MR. GRIFFON: Those are the ones you sent, 

right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, there are two of them 

are IMBA files. There was one Excel file that 

showed a comparison of the doses. 

DR. MAURO: So did you know this when you 

got into this or you just made up a number of 

-- see, I would have just jumped right to the 

Type S and made that error. But did you 

suspect this might be, or did you just get 

lucky and try a couple of them and see what... 

MR. SIEBERT: Well, we don’t get lucky. We 

try them all. No, we learned early on in the 

project that it’s not intuitive so that’s why 

we have the dose reconstructors run them, run 

all the possible and go with claimant 

favorable. 

MR. FARVER: Here’s the catch. If you’re 
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just using an intake period from 1969 to 1977 

using Type S, it does fit. It also does give 

you a larger dose. I can e-mail you -- 

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MS. BRACKETT: As opposed to what? 

MR. FARVER: As opposed to Type M for the 

entire employment period. 

MS. BRACKETT: Well, why would you stop it, 

I mean, why would you choose that other one? 

MR. FARVER: That I would have to go back 

and look to see if he actually had any 

positive results in that second -- I thought 

what you did you divided it into two periods. 

MS. BRACKETT: Did the MDA change over time? 

MR. FARVER: That’s what I was trying to 

read. I’m pretty much just going by what was 

written in the report. It says fitting the 

uranium lung count and urine data to Type S U234 yields a chronic intake of 233 dpm per day 

from 1969 to 1997, NIOSH’s first intake 

period. 

MR. GRIFFON: ‘Sixty-nine to ’97? 

MR. FARVER: To ’77. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, ’77. 

MR. FARVER: So that’s why I was assuming 

that NIOSH broke it down into two intake 
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periods. And when I did run that for that 

time period and fit the data, the urine and 

lung data, it did produce that 233.3 and did 

come up with a larger dose. 

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MR. SIEBERT: But you’re saying just fitting 

the first portion. 

MR. FARVER: I believe it also fits the 

remaining data. I’m not sure there was 

positive data. 

MR. GRIFFON: What’s the entire work period? 

Is it, it goes beyond that I’m assuming? 

MR. FARVER: And I can e-mail you the IMBA 

run. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, maybe we should see 

that. Let’s just share IMBA files and look at 

this. You’ll e-mail that to the work group 

and NIOSH. 

MS. MUNN: Change in job title, John. 

There’s a place to account for that, too. 

MR. SIEBERT: And this is based on MDA 

changes. 

MS. MUNN: Okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we can table that one, 

right? 

MS. MUNN: Yes. 
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MR. FARVER: Yes. 136.5, failure to 

properly apply CATI information to uranium 

assessment. 

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MR. GRIFFON: And what did the CATI, what 

light did the CATI shed on this? I’m just 

curious. 

MR. FARVER: Umm. 

MR. GRIFFON: So there was no work in 776. 

It was 444. Is that part of it? 

MR. FARVER: The CATI says the main fires at 

the Rocky Flats plant occurred before the EE’s 

Rocky Flats plant employment. However, to 

account for any small fires he may have been 

involved in, the assumption of insoluble 

material was assumed. I assume they were 

referring to plutonium in that statement. 

That was from the DR report. 

 From the CATI the employee worked in 

the building that caught fire, 444. The 

technical basis lists Building 444 as depleted 

uranium and beryllium. So the assumption of 

insoluble material referred to in the DR 

report should be also referred to the uranium 

one where they use class M instead of class S. 

MR. SIEBERT: But which once again goes back 
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to point four that if we thought M was more 

claimant favorable -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: You’d stick with M. 

MR. HINNEFELD: We’d use that M. 

MR. SIEBERT: Even if insoluble was -- 

MR. FARVER: So there are, those two 

findings are really kind of connected. 

MR. SIEBERT: Right. 

MR. FARVER: So I imagine once we resolve 

four, five will go away. 

MR. GRIFFON: 137.1. I think we’re not 

going to get through the entire matrix today, 

but we’re getting close. You know, we’re 

getting close. We have about a half hour 

left. 

MR. FARVER: On 137.1, unable to reproduce 

missed photon dose for years 1977 to 1980. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is this Paducah, this site? 

MR. FARVER: This is, yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: A lengthy response. 

MR. FARVER: What it comes down to is, they 

did follow OTIB-0017. So because the reviewer 

was unable to figure it out -- I mean, they 

did follow what they were supposed to do in 

OTIB-0017 so that’s okay. 
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MR. FARVER: 137.2, inappropriate LOD used 

for missed photon dose. Is there some debate 

going on about the proper LOD for Paducah, 

Portsmouth for the photon doses that I’m not 

aware of? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I can’t think of any. 

MR. FARVER: Okay. As near as I could tell 

everything was done according to OTIB-0017, so 

I’m not going to say that the OTIB was 

incorrect or correct. I’m saying they 

followed the LOD that was in the OTIB. So 

really, that one’s okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well -- 

MR. FARVER: In other words if you’re 

agreeing that the LODs are, there’s no 

question that those are correct, then I’m 

fine. They followed the OTIB procedure, the 

OTIB-0017 guidelines. 

MR. GRIFFON: But how did you come to the 

conclusion that it was an inappropriate LOD? 

MR. FARVER: I didn’t. 

MR. GRIFFON: I thought it said 

inappropriate LOD used for missed photon dose. 

MR. FARVER: Yes, the reviewer did. 
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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It wasn’t me. 

It wasn’t me. 

MR. GRIFFON: Hans? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): That’s it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Get him on the phone. 

MR. FARVER: That’s why I said I went back 

to the OTIB to see if they followed what they 

should have been done, and they did. Now the 

reviewer just didn’t figure that out that they 

followed OTIB-0017. And that’s why I asked if 

there was a question about LOD. 

MR. GRIFFON: But I mean, is there a root 

concern that the LOD in TIB-0017 is 

inappropriate. I mean, that’s what I’m trying 

to understand. 

MR. FARVER: Not that I know of. The reason 

I bring that up is I believe it’s been brought 

to my attention like for the shallow doses at 

Portsmouth there’s a question about what LOD 

to use for shallow doses. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I think we 

actually have quite a few questions on the 

shallow dose and the use of the film badges 
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and whether they properly accounted for the 

shallow dose at Portsmouth and Paducah. But 

those are site profile issues, and I don’t 

think they were incorporated into this dose 

reconstruction. 

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MR. FARVER: Okay, because the way I was 

reading this report the wording was it was 

kind of strange, and it led me to believe that 

maybe there was a question about the LOD being 

incorrect, not using the printed number that, 

they used the correct number, it’s just 

there’s a question about the number being 

correct. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yeah, I don’t 

believe that’s the case in either issue. 

We’re really questioning the recorded doses, 

shallow doses, for both those sites. I think 

initially to be honest, OTIB-0017, when you 

first read through it, is fairly complex, and 

it is somewhat confusing until you get a 

better understanding of what’s being done. 

MR. GRIFFON: So you think there is 

agreement then? 

MR. FARVER: Yes. 

DR. MAURO: I’ve got a question though. Now 
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here we have a case where, let’s say, they’re 

following correctly their procedures. But 

let’s say we’ve got a serious problem with the 

site profile for the OTIB-0017. What do we do 

-- and I know that’s going to be addressed. 

There’s probably a procedure review group and 

also, of course -- 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but we’re not just doing 

a procedures review and so -- 

DR. MAURO: -- but I’m saying you will, so -

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MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah, and I think I know 

where you’re going. 

DR. MAURO: -- so what do you do about this? 

What do you do about this? The fact is I have 

a problem with the way in which shallow dose 

is calculated at these enrichment facilities. 

But right now we’re accepting this dose 

reconstruction as if it’s, we can believe it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I would defer -- if this 

is a -- yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, 

I would tend to defer that to the site profile 

discussion. 

DR. MAURO: Oh, all right. 

MR. GRIFFON: I wouldn’t want to lose it. 
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MR. SIEBERT: He followed the steps and 

procedures in place at the time. 

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MR. FARVER: John, what we’re starting to do 

is -- 

MR. GRIFFON: But that’s sort of a 

procedures review approach. We’re saying did 

you get it right? 

DR. MAURO: I mean, this has come up time 

and again. 

MR. FARVER: That’s been an issue at 

Portsmouth, I know, correct? 

DR. MAURO: Yes, correct. 

MR. FARVER: And what we’ve started to do in 

our reports is add findings from the site 

profiles, which I believe that is one. 

DR. MAURO: Yes, it is. 

MR. FARVER: So it would fall under and be 

in the report, but now how we handle those 

findings is another question. 

DR. MAURO: Well, that’s for the tracking 

system. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, that’s why I asked if 

you were worried about the root number, the 

root LOD in this situation. Is there still 

concerns about that for Paducah? 
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DR. MAURO: No, but my concern is not with 

the LOD. It has to do with just the way in 

which you -- in other words is it possible 

that this person could have had ^ dose or 

breast dose but that was not captured by the 

film badge because of geometry issues, because 

of the positive material. 

 We talked about this material. You 

had mentioned to me. We talked about it 

before. Not uncommon for especially these 

sites for uranium to deposit on a person’s 

neck and there’s sweat, and it goes right down 

the collar and accumulates in the axilla. In 

other words there are all these ways in which 

you can get localized, relatively high 

exposures. 

 But that’s not -- right now, I guess, 

we’re in a discussion with NIOSH on this 

matter in how to deal with that scenario. And 

now given that, eventually we’ll resolve that, 

but I think it goes toward this case. What do 

we do about this case? In other words, or 

this issue for this particular case. How do 

we track that? Do we track it? 
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MR. GRIFFON: But I’m asking does it or does 

it not go toward this finding? Is it linked 

to this particular finding? 

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DR. MAURO: I don’t think you would even 

have this finding in here. I mean, it should 

be. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I’m saying, it’s 

not related to this finding necessarily. 

DR. MAURO: No. 

MR. GRIFFON: If it were I’d say you have to 

track it and transfer it to a site profile 

review, and until it’s resolved there, you 

can’t resolve -- yeah, that’s how we’ve been 

handling it. 

 Is that right, Stu? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I would just say that 

it would be resolved, I think, presumably it 

will eventually be resolved, whatever that 

resolution is. If that’s different than what 

has been done up to that time, then the cases 

would have to be pulled out and reconsidered 

at that time. As I understand it, that’s not 

this issue here. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s not this issue. That’s 

what I’m trying to get at. I don’t think -- 
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DR. MAURO: It’s important that what I’m 

hearing is let’s say we have a case in front 

of us that’s four or five, six, seven issues, 

and we’re going through them, but some of the 

issues that are in the site profile review 

don’t make it here, just don’t make it here 

for whatever reason. That’s okay because we 

will catch it anyway. And if we do catch it 

over there, it will find its way back here 

through a PER process. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, and if you try to drag 

those in that sort of muddies the dose 

reconstruction. 

DR. MAURO: That helps me out. 

MR. FARVER: 137.3, NIOSH failed to consider 

missed neutron dose. Apparently, the employee 

was sandblasted cylinders in the cylinder 

yard, and there is a Section 6.5.3 of the 

technical basis that says dose reconstructors 

should add a neutron component to annual dose 

of individuals who worked in the cylinder yard 

before 1998. However, careful consideration 

should be given to work history. In general, 

only workers who were near cylinders for 

extended periods have the potential for 
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 So the question becomes how long did 

this guy work in the cylinder yard, how many 

cylinders did he blast, and should we assess a 

neutron dose? And as NIOSH points out, the 

application is based on the judgment of the 

dose reconstructor, and it’s not clear how 

much time was spent in the cylinder yard. And 

due to the uncertainty, that uncertainty and 

the fact that the neutron dose will not likely 

affect the claim, neutron dose should not be 

included. 

 I guess I feel the other way around, 

that you should go ahead and include it even 

though it’s not going to affect the claim. If 

there’s a possibility that, well, it’s 

documented he worked in the cylinder yard, and 

your technical basis says if people worked in 

the cylinder yard you should consider this. I 

would add neutron dose. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So you say it should be 

included. 

MR. FARVER: I do. I think it should. 

MR. HINNEFELD: So do we. 

MR. SIEBERT: There’s no “not” there. 
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there. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, it’s as it should be. 

MR. FARVER: Oh, well, I’ll find something 

else to argue with you about. Never mind. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Just a personality trait. 

MR. FARVER: Come on, I’m going to argue. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I mean, ultimately we 

probably owe, if we can get a resolution of 

all these things, just go ahead and put it in 

there and demonstrate what the change in the 

case is. I mean, that would be -- 

MR. FARVER: Never mind, I’ll get you on the 

next one. 

 137.4, NIOSH failed to assess shallow 

dose from potential exposure to thorium and TC 

scanned clothing contamination events. The 

employee worked in C-400 Building where TC-99 

recovery operations were performed as well as 

a couple other buildings, C-340, C-410 and C420, which had greatest potential for things 

like thorium. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is this your shallow dose? 

DR. MAURO: Yes, it is. 
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MR. GRIFFON: It sure is. So here we go. 

What if we transferred this to the site 

profile review team? 

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DR. MAURO: That’s where you’re going to go. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is there a site profile review 

work group for Paducah? 

MS. BRACKETT: For Paducah? No. 

DR. MAURO: We haven’t opened one up yet. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, so we can’t defer it to 

that work group. 

DR. MAURO: But there is a review of OTIB0017, which is silent on this, and it’s on the 

list. 

MR. GRIFFON: What is it? 

DR. MAURO: OTIB-0017 is on the list which 

deals with this issue. 

MS. MUNN: Yes, it is on the list. 

DR. MAURO: It’s on the list, so we’ll get 

to it some way or the other. 

MR. FARVER: Well, I have this listed as 

open. I really didn’t -- 

MR. GRIFFON: But is OTIB-0017 used -- all 

kidding aside, is OTIB-0017 -- I mean, because 

in this it references the Paducah site profile 

section. It doesn’t really reference TIB-
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0017. Is OTIB-0017 used across different 

sites to assess this issue or is it a sitespecific kind of... 

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MR. FARVER: No, I think this finding has 

more to do with the work location and the 

nuclides, and OTIB-0017 was how you deal with 

shallow dose readings on the dosimeter. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. But even the shallow 

dose readings on the dosimeter -- 

DR. MAURO: Yes, it’s silent on this other 

matter. 

MR. FARVER: Correct. 

DR. MAURO: That’s the problem with -0017; 

it’s silent on contamination problems. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So we have to deal with 

it somewhere, either here or -- it’s not going 

to be picked up in TIB-0017 necessarily, the 

issue you’re talking about. 

DR. MAURO: Well, I’ve already raised it. 

When I did my review of TIB-0017, I put that 

in. It was more of a question. Did you 

deliberately not address this. In other words 

have you deliberately constrained TIB-0017 to 

only deal with beta exposure at a distance and 

not consider... 
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but it’s at least being 

partially addressed in TIB-0017 in the 

Procedures work group. I’m not sure what else 

to say here. 

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DR. MAURO: And it’s definitely in the site 

profile but you haven’t opened it up yet. 

MR. GRIFFON: The site profile work group, 

right. We’ll leave it open on this 

Subcommittee as well for now, but -- 

DR. MAURO: It’s also being addressed at the 

Nevada Test Site. 

MR. FARVER: 137.5, inappropriate surrogate 

organ used for the skin of the left forearm, 

and this has to do with X-rays, medical Xrays. So there really is no organ for the 

skin of the left forearm, the surrogate organ, 

the breast, was used, and SC&A believes a more 

appropriate surrogate organ for the left 

forearm is the stomach which is more claimant 

favorable. 

 NIOSH responds either the breast or 

the stomach could be considered an appropriate 

surrogate organ. Surrogate organ selection 

for calculating dose for medical X-ray exams 

is not prescribed by available guidance. It 
281

is left to the dose reconstructor’s judgment. 

I’d suggest developing some guidance on how to 

select surrogate organs. 

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MS. MUNN: Why did the reviewer feel that 

the stomach was more appropriate than the 

breast? 

MR. FARVER: Probably because it’s down like 

this, and if you’re on the left forearm, it’s 

probably more in line than up here. That’d be 

my guess. 

MS. MUNN: I guess I could make some 

arguments in -- 

DR. MAURO: -- facing the film, right? 

MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

MR. FARVER: And it gives a slightly higher 

organ dose. In other words if you used the 

breast it’s 14 millirem. If you use the 

stomach, it’s 20 millirem. 

MR. GRIFFON: So it’s more -- 

MR. FARVER: Well, actually 200 millirem to 

140 millirem. So it’s more claimant favorable 

to use the stomach than it is breast. 

MS. MUNN: It really sounds like a judgment 

call to me. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I guess if you have -- 
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what was the basis of the breast being chosen, 

Stu? Do you have any -- 

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MR. HINNEFELD: No, I don’t know. 

 MR. CLAWSON: That comes up that’s the 

choice of the -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: You want something in 

proximity to the beam similar to your target 

like the stomach is, too. So you want -- 

MR. GRIFFON: But they could be working -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: There’s something to be said 

for everybody doing it the same, and the 

guidance, and saying here you go. This is 

what you do. If it’s here, if it’s in your 

upper arm, you know, use the breast. If it’s 

your lower arm, use the stomach or whatever. 

They even talk about maybe other organs 

outside the beam as what’s the appropriate 

surrogate. 

DR. BRANCHE: Are you saying that there’s no 

algorithm? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I’m saying that it may not 

be right. Maybe there should be a 

specifically prescribed surrogate -- 

MR. FARVER: This comes up on a lot of skin 

cancers where you’ll see skin cancers on the 
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neck, back, shoulder, and they just 

approximate it. 

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MS. MUNN: We’re talking X-ray exams here, 

right? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 

MS. MUNN: So where was the primary beam? 

MR. HINNEFELD: It was PHF so it would have 

been from behind the shield. 

MS. MUNN: The chest, and therefore, 

wouldn’t the breast have been closer 

regardless of -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don’t know what the 

DCFs are. Theoretically, it would seem to me 

it would be, too, but you have the ribs back 

there so you may have been shielded, the 

breasts may have be shielded and so that might 

be why the DCF was lower. I mean, there’s a 

table of DCFs. There’s one for the breast. 

There’s one for the stomach. Apparently, the 

stomach is not -- 

MR. GRIFFON: The stomach is higher, yeah, 

obviously. 

MR. HINNEFELD: The stomach is higher. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Now, I don’t know why that 
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is unless maybe the breast is shielded by the 

ribs or something. 

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MR. SIEBERT: This might be addressed in 

Attachment C in the update to Procedure-61. 

MR. HINNEFELD: We may have some now. 

MR. SIEBERT: Which was just January of this 

year. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is that PROC-61? 

MR. SIEBERT: Procedure 61. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I put a note down to 

check that. Do you think that’s the right 

one, Scott? 

MR. HINNEFELD: There’s some guidance here. 

I think maybe there may need to be some more. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, maybe you can look at 

that and I put down NIOSH is considering 

developing of guidance and then see PROC-61, 

Attachment C, as a starting point or maybe 

that says it all. 

MR. FARVER: 137.6, reviewer questions 

appropriateness of solubility assumptions. 

This has to do with the solubility of uranium. 

Dose reconstructor could have selected Type F 

or Type M. Based on the work locations they 

chose Type F, and this is not the most 
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by ^ the bioassay data or to be claimant 

favorable, and the basis should be provided in 

the report and the appropriate file should be 

maintained to demonstrate the decision. Well, 

basis wasn’t in the DR and the files were not 

included. I couldn’t find them. 

DR. MAURO: And you’re saying your 

calculations, it is not correct. 

MR. FARVER: Well, there’s, when the 

reviewer looked at this they determined that 

Type M would have been more claimant 

favorable. And what I’m saying is you can’t 

tell from the files because the files weren’t 

included, and there was no basis described in 

the dose report. 

MS. MUNN: Now, was this done prior to the 

time that we began routinely running all 

potential solubility tests? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I don’t know. We’ve been 

doing that for awhile. 

DR. MAURO: According to your answer it 

looks like you looked at the bioassay data to 
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see which chemical form best fit the bioassay 

data, not so much what would give you the 

highest dose. In other words, am I correct? 

The way I read these words that, no, you 

aren’t looking for the chemical form that 

would give you the highest dose, you were 

looking at chemical forms that best fit the 

bioassay data and then use that chemical form 

to do the dose reconstruction. 

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MS. BRACKETT: But it says, or to be 

claimant favorable. 

DR. MAURO: Or to be claimant favorable. 

MS. BRACKETT: It looks like somebody just 

wrote a generic answer. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, I don’t know that 

we’ve got a real specific answer here. 

DR. MAURO: That’s sort of like -- 

MR. GRIFFON: So NIOSH can follow up on this 

one. Was this a POC on this? Do you have a 

POC on this? 

MS. MUNN: It’s hard for me to tell reading 

the response whether you’re saying as best we 

know, we looked at everything. Or whether 

you’re saying it should have been done, and we 

don’t know whether it was done or not. We 
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MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): POC is 43 

percent. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we got it, thanks, 

Kathy. 

MR. FARVER: Three skins. 

MR. GRIFFON: Three skin cancers. 

MS. MUNN: Thanks, Kathy. Sounds like we 

need a more descriptive response from NIOSH. 

MR. GRIFFON: That action’s going back to 

NIOSH. 

 137.7, we’re almost done here. We’ll 

finish up 137, then we’re going to cut it off. 

MR. FARVER: NIOSH failed to calculate 

internal doses from fission products. This 

has to do with the fact the employee was 

monitored for fission products as shown in the 

records, but they did not assess doses for 

fission products. And you can read NIOSH’s 

response. And in this case the employee was 

monitored for Strontium-90, tritium, Tech-99 -

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MR. GRIFFON: Cesium. 

MR. FARVER: -- I think a few other things, 

cesium. 
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MR. FARVER: If you look at the bioassay 

data, those were his results there. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I can’t talk to the in 

vitro results because I don’t know about that. 

But you refer to an in vivo result, ^ on the 

cesium printout ^. 

MR. FARVER: Actually, I was looking at the 

doc-bio file for this which lists their 

bioassay data, in vitro, in vivo and 

everything, incidents. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the in vivo data that 

they listed Cesium-137 or something, but he 

said listed both? 

MR. FARVER: Well, I know he was monitored 

for in vitro for Strontium-90, tritium and 

Tech-99. 

MR. HINNEFELD: I understand those. I don’t 

know why it would have been monitored either. 

MR. FARVER: If I had to guess, it looks 

like it was some experimental program that was 

done in 2000, like maybe they were just 

sampling people and then analyzing for 

everything. I don’t know. 

MR. GRIFFON: This is current, 2000. 
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for this claimant? 

MR. SIEBERT: ‘Seventy-four to present. 

MS. MUNN: ‘Seventy-four to what? 

MR. SIEBERT: Present. If it’s in 2000, all 

cancers were diagnosed by ’98. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It’s an issue of whether he 

was exposed or not. Do you suppose they did a 

series of sampling in response to the issue of 

recycled uranium at Paducah? That you would 

think would have occurred before 2000, 

wouldn’t it? 

MS. BRACKETT: I know it was before 2000. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I don’t know. 

MR. FARVER: But if he was monitored, it 

should be considered, and your consideration 

might be, well, it falls outside the diagnosis 

date or something like that. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it would be nice to 

know a little bit more about it, that series 

of in vitro sampling. What I was going to say 

about in vivo data -- now, did Paducah use the 

portable counter or not? 

MS. BRACKETT: I thought they used a Y-12. 
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they also had the portable up there sometimes. 

MS. BRACKETT: Was the portable Helgeson or 

which -- 

MR. FARVER: I think it was just a sodium 

iodide, wasn’t it? 

MR. HINNEFELD: I think it was the Y-12 

mobile. I think that went to Paducah. I 

think that went to Paducah and Fernald and 

Portsmouth. 

MR. GRIFFON: I know I saw the Y-12 mobile. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the Y-12 mobile 

printed out a cesium result and printed out 

results of several photon-emitting nuclides, 

not because of exposure. 

MS. BRACKETT: Right, it doesn’t explain the 

^ and tritium though. 

MR. HINNEFELD: It doesn’t explain those at 

all. I was just talking about that. And if 

there was an in vitro for cesium, I certainly 

can’t explain that. But when you see an in 

vivo for some of these oddball photonemitters, the mobile printer just printed 

those out. It doesn’t mean that anybody was 
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MR. FARVER: Well, I mean, if the results 

are there. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Well, the in vitro results 

are very puzzling, and so I think it deserves 

a little better understanding of why the 

results -- 

MR. FARVER: And in general, I mean, if the 

results are there, I think it should be 

assessed or acknowledged anyway. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. 

MS. BRACKETT: We could contact the site and 

ask them -- 

MR. HINNEFELD: Might need to. What were 

you guys doing? 

MS. BRACKETT: I think Kenny Duncan’s still 

there, isn’t he? 

MR. FARVER: As I said, I don’t know. I 

didn’t hear anything different. Just give 

Kenny a call. He’ll remember. 

 137.8, NIOSH failed -- 

DR. BRANCHE: I thought we were just talking 

at 137, what we just did. 

MR. GRIFFON: No, we’re stopping at the end 

of 137, Christine. 
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MR. FARVER: 137.8, NIOSH failed to properly 

address potential radiological incidents. 

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MR. GRIFFON: So in the second paragraph 

there you say that an evaluation of potential 

skin contamination incidents should have been 

included. Did you do any assessment of that? 

I mean, this is not real close, but 43 

percent, you know, and it is skin cancers. 

MR. FARVER: Yes, and then what this comes 

down to is in the CATI report the employee 

indicated he was exposed to TC-99 and in vitro 

monitoring was conducted for TC-99 so there 

was some potential. And also, the technical 

basis document says some skin contamination 

events involving TC-99 could have occurred 

without being detected at the time. That’s 

what the basis for the finding is. 

MR. GRIFFON: I have no doubt about that, 

especially if he goes back to ’74. 

MR. HINNEFELD: There’s a whole series of 

137. There’s a whole series of these 137 

findings where ^ is not complete. And so we 

need to go back and provide a more complete 

answer. 

DR. BRANCHE: Are we done? 
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MR. HINNEFELD: Well, just in 137 in 

general, NIOSH is to provide better, more 

complete response to several of the 137 files. 

MR. GRIFFON: Since we didn’t finish, we’re 

going to need time on the agenda in St. Louis 

-- no, just kidding. There is no time on the 

agenda in St. Louis. Wanda’s taking it all. 

Any time we have for R and R, Wanda’s filled 

it with a work group meeting. 

DR. BRANCHE: The public comment section is 

very important so I wouldn’t joke about that. 

MR. GRIFFON: I know. 

MS. MUNN: We can always slide over into 

Friday. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re going to call it 

quits today. I’m not going to miss this 

flight tonight. 

DR. BRANCHE: But do you want to go ahead 

and schedule when you want this group to meet 

next? 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we’ll do that in St. 

Louis if that’s okay. 

DR. BRANCHE: That’s up to you. 

MR. GRIFFON: We’ll figure out, yeah, I’ll 
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do a report in St. Louis and update on where 

we’re at, and then we can look at our 

calendars and figure out when best it makes 

sense to meet again. But this format’s best, 

I think, for everybody. It’s better than 

doing it in front of the Board meeting because 

we get more of the detailed stuff done this 

way. 

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DR. BRANCHE: I think you cover a lot more 

territory. 

MR. GRIFFON: Exactly, yeah. 

DR. BRANCHE: Painful though it is I will 

admit, but you cover a lot more territory. 

MR. GRIFFON: Enlightening is what we call 

it, not painful. Okay, having said that I 

think we’re meeting adjourned, right? 

Anything else? 

MR. HINNEFELD: Oh, I have one thing to add. 

The eighth set report is out. So it’s either 

time for an eighth set matrix or a database. 

Are we going to go with a matrix, a course 

file matrix? 

DR. MAURO: Kathy, you still with us? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’m still here. 

Yeah, I did put out a matrix, but I just sent 
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it to the Subcommittee at the moment. But it 

seems to me that we should have the database 

in place, and we could probably start on the 

database with the eighth set. 

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MR. HINNEFELD: I’m only asking whether, if 

there’s a matrix, we’ll work from the matrix. 

DR. MAURO: Both, yeah, both, that’s what 

she said. 

MS. MUNN: The matrix is out. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, you have your choice. 

MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, could you send us the 

matrix, too? Send it to me? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, send the matrix -- 

DR. BRANCHE: And me, too, please. 

 MS. ADAMS: Hey, Kathy? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): Yes. 

MS. ADAMS: This is Nancy. When is a good 

opportunity for us to get together and talk 

about the database for this in St. Louis? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I am having, 

I’ve done some testing, and I’m having Don 

make just a few changes. And I will also 

incorporate this PER issue we talked about 

today. And as soon as he’s able to do that, I 
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1 will give you a call. Is that okay? 

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MS. ADAMS: That’s great. 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): It should be a 

few days. 

MR. GRIFFON: Kathy, are you going to be in 

St. Louis? 

MS. BEHLING (by Telephone): I’m not 

planning on it. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. BRANCHE: So that answers my question to 

Wanda then. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because I was thinking the 

three of us could meet there, but -- 

DR. BRANCHE: Well, Wanda wants her there, 

too, so you might be able to convince her in 

another separate forum. We’re going to 

adjourn this call. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, thanks everyone. 

DR. BRANCHE: Thanks all of you. 

 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 

5:15 p.m.) 
297

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of June 10, 

2008; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

18th day of March, 2009. 

___________________________________ 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR, CVR-CM, PNSC 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102