NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

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Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction Reviews

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

The Subcommittee convened via teleconference, at 

10:30 a.m., Eastern Time, David Kotelchuck, 

Chairperson, presiding.
2

Members Present:

David Kotelchuck, Chairperson

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

James E. Lockey, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Also Present:

Ted Katz, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH Contractor

Dave Allen, DCAS

Bob Anigstein, SC&A

Bob Barton, SC&A

Kathy Behling, SC&A

Liz Brackett, ORAU Team

Ron Buchanan, SC&A

Grady Calhoun, DCAS

Doug Farver, SC&A

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A

Jenny Lin, HHS

John Mauro, SC&A

Beth Rolfes, DCAS

Mutty Sharfi, ORAU Team

Scott Siebert, ORAU Team

Matt Smith, ORAU Team

John Stiver, SC&A
3 

Contents

Centers for Disease Control, National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health, Subcommittee on 

Dose Reconstruction Reviews. Tuesday, July 24, 

2018 1

Roll Call/Welcome 4

Opening RemarksError! Bookmark not 

defined.

Review Set 24 Blind Dose Reconstruction 

Cases 7

Review Cases from Sets 14-18 40

Review Cases from Sets 19-21 655

Administrative Matters 116

Adjourn 120

 
4 

Proceedings

(10:31 a.m.) 

Roll Call/Welcome

Mr. Katz: So, it's 10:30; let's get rolling.

First of all, welcome, everyone, to the Advisory Board 

on Radiation and Worker Health. It's the 

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction Reviews.

For roll call, I have a quorum here. I have Dr. 

Kotelchuck, Chair of the Subcommittee, and along 

with him I have Josie Beach as a Member, Brad 

Clawson, Loretta Valerio, and Jim Lockey. The other 

Member, David Richardson, is absent.

And Loretta and Jim Lockey are new to this 

Subcommittee. So, welcome to them. We'll be glad 

to have their help here.

Conflicts of interest. I'm not sure that we're dealing 

with any cases that raise conflicts for any of the 

Members. I haven't cross-checked them, but I'll just 

cover all the Members' conflicts. That way, we know, 

and those conflicted Members, of course, will not 

engage in discussions for sites for which they have a 

conflict.

So, for Josie Beach, it's Hanford.

For Brad Clawson, it's INL.

None for Dr. Kotelchuck.

For Jim Lockey, it's Fernald, Portsmouth, Mound, K25, X-10, Y-12, and W.R. Grace.

And lastly, for Loretta, it is the DOE sites in New 

Mexico?

Member Valerio: Yes.

Mr. Katz: All of them?

Member Valerio: Yes.
5 

Mr. Katz: Yes, and it's Pantex. And I think that 

covers it for Loretta right now.

Opening Remarks

Having taken care of that, then, just let me also note 

the agenda. Today's meeting is on the Board website 

for the schedule of meetings section of that site. You 

can go there and pull up the agenda. There's not 

materials really associated with the agenda because 

most of the materials this Subcommittee deals with 

are Privacy Act protected. So, we don't post those. 

So you can go there for the agenda, but that's about 

it.

And I think that takes care of preliminaries, other 

than advising folks who don't normally attend to 

please keep your phones on mute while you're 

listening. That's *6 to mute your phone, *6 to take 

your phone off of mute.

(Roll call)

Mr. Katz: Okay. Then, Dave, it's your meeting.

Chair Kotelchuck: Very good. Okay.

Well, I, too, would like to welcome our two new 

Members, Loretta Valerio and Jim Lockey. And 

please feel free to ask any questions about 

procedure, whatever, as we go on. Every group has 

its own customs and typical procedures, and we may 

not realize that we're doing something that -- you 

know, this Subcommittee always does it a certain 

way, and you might do it other ways in other 

subcommittees.

Today, we start off with our blind dose 

reconstructions. I actually have a slight question for 

the old-timers on the committee, that is Josie, Brad, 

and myself David isn't here -- about what order we 

want to discuss the blinds.

Also, I realize that a number of you from NIOSH and 
6

SC&A also have other meetings and obligations. So, 

you think you're scheduled for a certain time [today]. 

Whatever we decide, we have to coordinate with you.

But we have a single blind left over from the 

discussion at our last Board meeting on the W.R. 

Grace [case] where, for the first time, we have 

initially a difference in decision by the NIOSH and 

SC&A folks. And then we have three more which will, 

by the way, be the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd blinds that 

we're looking at. We have two, Fernald, or FMPC; 

one, NTS, and, of course, the W.R. Grace.

The question I'm asking for, if you will, for the folks 

who have been on here on the Subcommittee before, 

is: Do you think we should start with W.R. Grace that 

we discussed last time or, given the complications, 

perhaps we should start for the new Members with 

some more traditional ones that don't happen to have 

a disagreement. We don't know whether we will 

approve or not, but they don't seem to present the 

same kind of problem. On the schedule we have 

Fernald, two cases, NTS, W.R. Grace. And Grace 

would go last.

First, Brad and Josie, what do you think in terms of 

the order that we would like to do it? And, Ted, if 

you would like to, feed in? Do you have a particular 

preference? Implicitly, I assumed we would talk 

about W.R. Grace first, but I admit it's a complicated 

case.

Member Clawson: I would rather start with that one 

first. That's a little more fresh on our minds.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: This is just Brad.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, that's why I'm asking.

Josie?

Member Beach: Dave, either one would be fine. I'm 

fine with starting with W.R. Grace or going on to a 
7

new one.

Chair Kotelchuck: How about others, staff folks, W.R. 

Grace, will we start with that?

Ms. Gogliotti: Dave, I think that should be fine. 

We've really cleared up most of the issues. It's just 

a quick report I have on that.

Review Set 24 Blind Dose Reconstruction Cases

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. That would sound fine. I 

would suggest perhaps going a little bit more into 

detail than you might otherwise for a continuation 

discussion because two of the folks are new and 

weren't in the earlier discussion. That being said, 

let's go ahead.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Well, for the benefit of our new 

Board Members, our Committee is a little bit different 

than some of the other Work Groups and 

Subcommittees in that we do deal with individual 

claimant data. So we have to be very cognizant that 

we're not inadvertently revealing information about a 

claimant that could be used to identify them. Our 

report, of course, removes all names and contact 

information, but when we're referring to them, since 

this is an open line, we're very vague. We don't 

typically give the type of cancer or employment 

dates, gender, things that could be used to 

eventually identify the claimant. But I do have it up 

on the screen here, so you can see what we're talking 

about, and I did provide you with those files. If you 

would like me to scroll down or up, just let me know, 

and I can certainly do that for you.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Thank you for saying that. 

That's an important thing, and it's very easy to slip

up. So we all try to be careful. Once in a while, we 

slip and we try not to do it again. But it takes a while 

to get used to because we're talking about a 

particular case with a particular type or types of 

cancers, and it's hard sometimes not to talk about it, 

but we try.
8

Do go ahead.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Well, this cancer or this case 

was particularly interesting for Subcommittee 

Members when we discussed it last week because 

this is the first time that SC&A and NIOSH have been 

on different compensation decisions. NIOSH came 

up with a PoC of 51.14 percent, while SC&A was at 

49.5 percent. So, NIOSH was at compensation level 

and SC&A was slightly below.

Member Lockey: I'm having a little trouble hearing 

you. If you could speak up a little bit?

Ms. Gogliotti: Oh, I'm sorry. I tend to be a little softspoken. Just let me know.

So what made it a little bit more interesting was that 

SC&A actually assigned slightly higher doses than 

NIOSH. It came out to be roughly 300 millirems for 

each of the multiple cancer locations. And what that 

came down to was really how uranium internal dose 

was assigned, which was a difference in why SC&A 

had a higher dose.

What it came down to was really two separate issues. 

The first one was that SC&A was using the standard 

IREP Edition, which was the only version that we had 

available to us at the time, while NIOSH was using 

IREP Enterprise Edition, which is a special version of 

IREP that does multiple iterations for higher PoC 

cases, so between 45 and, I believe, 53-54 percent. 

And that's just for statistical precision.

But, again, SC&A did not have access to it at the 

time. So we were not able to run it and we just did 

the standard run. We now have been provided 

access to the Enterprise Edition. I do have all the 

passwords. I did some test runs on it, and we're 

comfortable using the new Enterprise Edition. So I 

think that resolves that first concern.

Chair Kotelchuck: Excuse me. I missed your last 

comment about using the Enterprise Edition. You do 

have access? SC&A does have access to the 
9

Enterprise Edition?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, I was provided with the password 

to use that system.

Chair Kotelchuck: Aha.

Ms. Gogliotti: It runs almost identically to the normal 

IREP. It just does multiple iterations.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: So it's very easy for us to use.

Chair Kotelchuck: Very good. 

Ms. Gogliotti: It is somewhat time-consuming 

because it does take a lot longer to run.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure.

Ms. Gogliotti: But we do now have that access.

Chair Kotelchuck: Have you run that? Because, as I 

understood it, since your earlier discussion, you had 

not had access to it and you didn't run it. And is this 

report that we're looking at, one that includes 

running on the Enterprise Edition?

Ms. Gogliotti: No. This is report was generated last 

Fall, and we didn't receive access until maybe April of 

this one.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay, okay. Fine.

Ms. Gogliotti: But I believe Scott at the last meeting 

said that he had run all of our IREP input files on the 

new version, and we did come up above 50 percent 

when it was run in IREP Enterprise Edition.

Chair Kotelchuck: Aha. Okay, good. Thank you.

Mr. Siebert: And this is Scott. I can verify that is 

true.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Very good. Because that 

was a concern I had, or will have as we discuss.
10

Sorry to interrupt you.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, that's absolutely fine.

Chair Kotelchuck: Do go ahead.

Ms. Gogliotti: So, I think that resolves our Enterprise 

Edition. And I would like clarification if the Board 

would like SC&A running Enterprise Edition from now 

on when we're doing our blinds.

Chair Kotelchuck: It seems to me we should. In fact, 

that was the main concern I had with the report, that 

you're running different versions. So, obviously, 

we're really not comparing apples and apples. So, I 

think we should. I don't think there's any question 

that we should run, each should run the same 

version. Isn't that correct?

Mr. Katz: Well, Dave, the one caveat on that I would 

put, if it's not close, it doesn't matter. So I mean, 

it's only really, that level of precision only matters if 

the values are very close in the first place. And that's 

why this hasn't been a problem in the past, right?

Ms. Gogliotti: And we don't know that they're close 

until we're doing our comparison reports.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Because we do these completely blind.

Mr. Katz: Right, right.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right, right. That's correct. That's 

correct.

Mr. Katz: So, I guess you have to do it, then, 

because you won't know.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: So, that's the point Rose was making, I 

guess.

Mr. Siebert: This is Scott.
11

Just for clarification, that version is only run when the

final PoC from the normal version comes out between 

45 and 52 percent.

Chair Kotelchuck: Correct.

Mr. Siebert: So, I think if they followed our same 

directions, as soon as you fell into that, then you 

would run IREP EE and get the final answer.

Mr. Katz: Right. Scott, that makes good sense. 

Thanks.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right. No, that's correct. 

That's certainly what I meant. I mean, when it's only 

in the range 45 to 55.

Ms. Gogliotti: The selection criteria for the blinds are 

above 45 to like 54 percent, I think.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: So, that's pretty much automatic.

Mr. Katz: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right. So you run it all the 

time for this case.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. I will let my team know.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

And, Committee Members, you're comfortable with 

that? You agree?

Member Beach: I agree.

Member Clawson: I agree.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay, good. Good. Okay. Very 

good. Thank you.

Do go ahead.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. There was also a concern that 

was raised by David Richardson that a report was put 
12

out, but since David's not on the line, I don't know if 

we want to get into that at all anyway.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's an important question. 

That was the request for a report from 2002, and 

then, Dr. Hornung reported on that. The issue was 

that where -- if you can scroll down to Table 3.2 --

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Getting there. Here we 

are. Right.

The issue is, when you're looking at under NIOSH, 

the average PoCs for the 30 runs, and the question 

was, for the new folks, whether you want to use the 

average, the geometric mean, whatever, median, 

whatever. To choose the average is to assume that 

there is a normal distribution of those values, and in 

the range of the PoC values, that that's a normal 

distribution.

And the Hornung report certainly says unequivocally 

that it is normal. When you read through the report, 

Jim highlighted that in yellow, that that was his 

report. My feeling is he is the professional 

statistician, and I don't have competence -- I would 

accept his results -- I don't have competence to 

disagree, and therefore, I accept his answer.

I'm sorry that David Richardson isn't here since he 

raised the initial question on this.

Member Clawson: Why don't we wait until Dave is 

here? He's still going to have the question, or 

whatever. We'll just proceed on.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, the question is--

Member Clawson: Could we do that?

Chair Kotelchuck: Uh-hum, and then, we wait until 

the next meeting when he's here?

Member Clawson: Well--
13

Ms. Gogliotti: I think that we might be able to close 

out the issue or close out the case, but have this 

remaining issue, if you wanted to.

Member Clawson: He was going to clarify a question 

that he wanted answered.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Clawson: So I think that we can still close. 

I think we can still take care of it. But David's the 

one that's got it, and I don't want him to also feel 

that we're discarding what he had first up. So, let's 

just take it--

Member Lockey: Dave, that would be a generic 

question for all the cases, not just this one, right?

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right, Jim.

Member Lockey: Yes. So, you can close out this case 

and just hold that open as a generic question.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. And let's just say subject 

to his -- if he has an objection, we'll reopen. I would 

like to do this because this is our second meeting 

discussing this issue, and the concern that he had 

was addressed.

I will say that David's statistical insights are valuable 

and far exceed certainly my own. And so, I would 

certainly be glad to reopen it if he had any problem. 

But Hornung certainly addresses the issue and says 

it's a normal distribution. And I'm willing to accept 

that.

Member Beach: Dave, is that something you can do 

via email also with Dave Richardson? So we don't 

have to wait the three months or [more]?

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure. Sure. Why don't we do 

that? Well, Ted, do you want to? Can you do it by 

email?

Mr. Katz: Yes, I will take care of that.
14

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. We'll just say that we 

accepted the Hornung analysis that there is a normal 

distribution. And if he is concerned, based on having 

read the request for the report and the report, he can 

just raise it. And if not, get back to us.

And then, if you would just send out an email to the 

Committee, hopefully that there's no problem?

Mr. Katz: Yes. I'll take care of that, Dave. I'm happy 

to.

Chair Kotelchuck: Thank you very much. That's fine.

Okay. Well--

Ms. Gogliotti: Just to clarify for our new Members, 

that information was provided with all the case 

materials. So if you're interested in reading that 

report, it is provided in the case materials.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, absolutely, yes. It was, and I 

certainly at least read it with interest and careful 

attention.

Okay. Well, are there other questions that we need 

to discuss about this particular blind? This would be 

the first blind, if we accept this, this will be the first 

blind in which we do have a disagreement. And that 

would mean, roughly, that would represent 3 percent 

of the blinds that we've looked at so far.

Mr. Calhoun: Except we put that disagreement to 

bed, didn't we?

Mr. Katz: Yes. It doesn't stand as a disagreement.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I mean, no, 

the question for us is, we are going to vote to accept 

this and we're going to vote to accept the fact that in 

this case the decision is different between the two 

groups, right?

Mr. Calhoun: No. We agreed that it was --

Mr. Katz: No.
15

Chair Kotelchuck: Pardon?

Mr. Calhoun: No. This is Grady. Once you guys ran 

the Enterprise Edition, we were in agreement that 

NIOSH was right.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, then, let me see. I thought 

you just said -- did I misunderstand you, that when 

you reran it with the Enterprise Edition, the SC&A 

with the Enterprise Edition, that the results were the 

same? That is, the PoC was still above 50 percent? 

Did you just --

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, yes. Yes, but NIOSH's was above 

50 percent, and SC&A was below 50 percent initially.

Chair Kotelchuck: I'm sorry. Okay. I think I read 

visually, and I didn't have it in front of me. So, there 

is not a disagreement? Okay. Well, that's quite 

significant in terms of we are hoping that the 

decisions by NIOSH and SC&A are the same, and they 

have been for the previous 30. Well, good. I'm glad 

we clarified that. I did not understand that. We don't 

have text that talks to that. So, I misheard you on 

the phone or wasn't able to check back and see that 

there is no disagreement. Okay.

By the way, just to say, I would have liked to have 

had some notification of that before the meeting, not 

just something verbal here. And it could have been 

a little note. Or, in the future, if there's anything like 

this, don't hesitate to send a note out beforehand, so 

we can look and check on the numbers.

Ms. Gogliotti: All right, Dave. I apologize. That was 

discussed at the last meeting, actually. The only 

thing that occurred was we got access to Enterprise 

Edition.

Chair Kotelchuck: But I understood you didn't have 

access to the Enterprise Edition at the last meeting?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, correct. I'm sorry. We will do 

that--
16

Chair Kotelchuck: And so, this has happened after 

the last meeting, which is fine. I was just not aware. 

So, I would have liked something in writing that I 

could look at.

Okay. Well, are there any other questions about this 

blind then?

(No response.)

Now I don't know, both Loretta and Jim, since you're 

new, I'm not sure how you feel in terms of voting on 

it. You've come in on the last part of the discussion. 

And certainly, for those of us who were on the first 

part -- or I should not say -- for myself, the 

discussion, I was there on the first part. It seems to 

me the questions are resolved and there is 

agreement. I will leave for the vote or for any input.

Member Lockey: David?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes?

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey.

I can't vote on this because I have a conflict anyway.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, okay. Okay. That's helpful.

And, Loretta, I don't know if you feel comfortable. 

You may wish to abstain. You may wish to vote. 

That's up to you.

Having said that, would we want to vote on it now, 

on whether we accept this blind?

Member Clawson: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Good.

Member Beach: Yes. And this is Josie. I agree to 

accept also.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. And I agree to accept.

Member Valerio: So, Dave, this is Loretta.
17

Chair Kotelchuck: Uh-hum?

Member Valerio: Having read the entire transcript 

and listening to the explanation now, having SC&A 

use the Enterprise Edition, I'm comfortable voting as 

well.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay, good. Good. So, the four 

of us who are eligible to vote will vote yes, and that 

is agreed upon. Okay.

Member Clawson: That means you, Lockey, just wait 

in the truck; we'll catch up here in a little while.

(Laughter.)

Member Lockey: Was that Brad?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, it was Brad.

Okay. What next one should we do? What is the 

next blind?

Ms. Behling: Dr. Kotelchuck, this is Kathy Behling.

One other comment that I would make, when we do 

our summary table, summary comparison table, 

perhaps when we put in our summary statement, 

that would be a good place to identify the fact that 

SC&A did run the Enterprise Edition of IREP and that 

that's when the PoC changed. And so that will 

document the ultimate outcome of this, because we 

typically don't go in and change our reports. But, if 

we do it in that summary table, then it will be 

captured in that document, if you're in agreement 

with that.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's sounds okay to me. Other 

Committee Members, who does that sound?

Member Clawson: That sounds great like usual, 

Kathy. Thank you.

Member Beach: Sounds like a great plan. Thank 

you.
18

Ms. Behling: Okay.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good. Thank you.

Okay. Which blind would we like to do next or would 

you folks like to do next, SC&A?

Ms. Gogliotti: Do you want to just go in order?

Chair Kotelchuck: That's fine.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. That would be B30, which is a 

Fernald case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: I believe Ron [Buchanan] is going to 

handle this one.

Dr. Buchanan: Yes, this is Ron with SC&A.

This case, B30 is for an Energy employee who worked 

at a DOE site for many years and had cancer. We 

see in Table 1-1, on page 8, that comparison doses 

are assigned by NIOSH and SC&A. We see that the 

external doses are very similar, a few minor 

differences, but not a lot. The internal dose was 

about 2 rems higher by SC&A than NIOSH, and that 

was because SC&A used the Revision 3 of the TBD 

and NIOSH used an earlier revision that was current 

at the time that the DR was made.

And we see that [for] the total doses, SC&A's was 

about 2 rem higher. However, the PoCs were close, 

but reversed, in that NIOSH had a higher PoC than 

SC&A. And again, this comes from exactly what we 

have been talking about. SC&A did this blind; we did 

not have the Extended Edition of IREP. And so, we 

just ran the standard edition, and our PoC came out 

a little lower. However, NIOSH has used the 

Extended Edition, and many iterations, and came out 

with a higher PoC, both below 50 percent.

Now, if we look at Table 2-1, on page 9, we see the 

comparison of the data and assumptions made by 

NIOSH and SC&A, and I'll mainly cover those that 
19

were different. We had very similar -- we did use the 

same methods for recording photon dose and most 

of the external doses. And we see that we had a 

slight difference in the number of zeroes, simply 

because one year the TBD changed. The previous 

year it was weekly, and then the next year it was 

biweekly. And that year was either weekly or 

biweekly, and SC&A counted it as weekly, instead of 

biweekly, and came up with six more missed doses.

We see that the onsite ambient was slightly different 

in that NIOSH pro-rated it for partial-year 

employment. Initially DOL said the worker was 

employed through the full year [during] his last year 

of employment. And so did the CATI. However, 

apparently, there were some follow-on documents, 

and NIOSH found the last year was partial-year 

employment and not a full year. It was a slight 

difference in the onsite ambient external dose 

assigned.

Medical dose, they came up with the same values 

there, the same parameters. On page 11, we see the 

internal dose. Now this is the main difference in the 

dose assignments, in that NIOSH used the earlier 

revision, the TBD. Like I say, it was applicable when 

they did the DR. We used the later edition, which 

was applicable when we did the DR. And the later 

edition spells out in more detail the enriched uranium 

and the recycled uranium and the periods they were 

used and when they used a combination of those. 

And so, while we did similar dose reconstruction 

methods, we came out slightly higher internal dose 

because of this.

And then, we see that for the environmental internal 

we were slightly lower because you don't count the 

radionuclides twice. If you counted them in recycled 

uranium, in the enriched uranium, you don't count 

them in the environmental for that period that was 

monitored. And so, that gave our results slightly 

lower on the environmental than NIOSH's.

So that's essentially what the whole DR comparison 
20

consisted of, and we can go through some of the 

details here. We see on that same page, we start out 

with recorded photon dose. The worker was 

monitored for most of the long period of employment. 

There were a few gaps, a few badge exchanges that 

there were gaps, and you could either assign an 

adjacent --

Chair Kotelchuck: Pardon me, Ron. I'm having 

trouble. I'm not seeing it on the monitor. Are other 

people having trouble?

Member Beach: No, I've got it up.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, I can see it.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Well, then, it must be 

something local with me. Hopefully, it will come 

back.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. We're on page 11 under 

external dose calculations.

Chair Kotelchuck: You go ahead, yes.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. So the worker dose 

monitoring, a few gaps. We used either adjacent 

quarters or assigned missed dose. We see that 

performing this operation we used the same energy 

range and that sort of thing. We see that NIOSH 

assigned about 2-3 rem, and so did SC&A. And we 

had about 8 millirems difference. That was because 

for one gap we used adjacent, whereas NIOSH 

assigned it as a missed dose. And so the dose is 

accounted for. It just depends on whether you used 

average of adjacent or as a missed dose. So it came 

out about 8 millirems difference.

And so we go to the missed dose, and that's on the 

next page, 12. We see that it had a lot of missed 

doses over a long period of time. Counted those up. 

SC&A had six more than NIOSH, and that was due to 

the one year when the TBD said you could have it 

either weekly or biweekly. SC&A used weekly 

because the year had weekly. NIOSH used biweekly. 
21

And so that gave a few less missed doses. And so 

the total doses were very close because there was a 

lot of missed dose, but that was the reason there was 

a slight difference. In the long run, the doses were 

accounted for.

Is there a question?

Chair Kotelchuck: Am I on? Ron?

Dr. Buchanan: Yes?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I am having trouble, and I 

seem to have been cut off. I'm trying to get back on.

Brad, would you like to just, if you will, take over 

while I play games with my computer and try to get 

back on?

Member Clawson: I would love to, Dave.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Very good. Thank you.

You go ahead, Ron.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So, this brings us up to the shallow dose. Both 

SC&A and NIOSH assigned the same shallow dose, 

about 16 rem. And so, that was in agreement.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, Brad, back again. Okay. 

Thank you. I've been off for a while. Thank you. 

Sorry.

Member Clawson: No problem.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. We're good to go?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So, that brings us to page 15, onsite ambient 

dose. We both used Procedure 60 to assign ambient 
22

dose when it was appropriate. And we assigned the 

same, very similar ambient dose, except as I 

previously say, the initial DOL case showed that the 

worker worked to the end of the year; whereas, 

NIOSH assigned it for partial year, and claimant, 

apparently, because of data that had come in later 

after the CATI and the initial DOL had been filed.

Then, just medical dose. We see that we used --

there's several exams recorded, and some were 

injury-related, which isn't included. And we both 

sorted those out the same and came up with the 

same dose there, about a half a rem. And so, that 

concludes the external dose.

Any questions before I go on to the internal dose?

Chair Kotelchuck: No.

Dr. Buchanan: Okay. Thank you.

We'll go on to internal dose, which starts on page 15, 

Section 2.2. We see that there was an SEC for this 

facility. And so, considering that, this would be 

considered a partial internal dose reconstruction. 

However, there was bioassay data. And so both 

NIOSH and SC&A used the bioassay data to 

determine the uranium intake and recycled uranium.

And so both NIOSH and SC&A used the same 

methodology, in that we looked at the missed dose 

using the last MDA values of the bioassays. We 

looked at the fitted dose. It was about five periods

of positive. And so, we looked at those fitted doses 

and calculated the intake and dose resulting each 

year from those and, then, assigned the highest of 

the missed or fitted dose for each year, and came out 

using the same method. However, we see that 

NIOSH used Revision 0 and SC&A used Revision 3, 

which resulted in the tables there show that SC&A 

comes out with more details on page 17.

It shows the specific activity increased when we went 

to the new revision to .9 picocuries per microgram; 

whereas, before it was around .6. And so, factoring 
23

that in, it resulted in the dose being up 2 rems 

greater for internal dose assignment. Now, of 

course, there is a PER issue to correct this. And so, 

any cases that was involved in this calculation and 

had a change in it. Of course, it was recalculated, 

not only this one, but others. And so, this resulted 

in SC&A assigning about 2 rems greater than NIOSH. 

However, we both agree with the methodology.

And we see that, on page 18, we have the reasons 

that ours was about 2 rems higher. The first was the 

difference in revisions of the TBD. Secondly, it was 

the slight difference that would occur into the intake, 

by SC&A using the total last year of employment; 

whereas, NIOSH used a partial year.

And lastly is that, when we did the fitting routine, 

NIOSH used some more data input into some of the 

previous inputs in bioassays; whereas, SC&A used 

mainly the peak. And so it gives a slightly different 

fitting routine, but very similar.

Okay. So that leads us to the environmental intake, 

[for] which both SC&A and NIOSH assigned the 

environmental intake using the same methodology. 

However, that is spelled out on page 19. We see that 

NIOSH assigned an intake and resulting dose slightly 

higher than, or quite a bit higher, but relatively low, 

compared to SC&A. And the reason for that is that, 

when SC&A used the later revision of TBD-5, it 

included some of the radioisotopes that were 

included in the environmental program. So, you spec 

those out. Plus, you don't assign those during the 

year that they were monitored. Whereas, for NIOSH, 

they weren't monitored for those years. So they 

assigned the full employment period. And so that 

gave a slightly greater environmental dose for NIOSH 

compared to SC&A.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Buchanan: That brings us to the summary on 

page 20. And we have Table 3-1, comparison of the 

total dose estimated by NIOSH and SC&A. See the 

external dose is very similar. Internal dose, again, 2 
24

rems higher. And that brings us to the PoC -- I mean 

total dose, and a rem higher. And then, the PoC, 

NIOSH got just below 50 percent; whereas, SC&A got 

a few percent below 50 percent.

And the reason for that, like we were just discussing, 

is the iterations, using IREP Extended compared to 

IREP standard, which SC&A used. And this is before 

we had access to the Extended version. So, I 

understand now that we will use that on blinds now 

that it's available.

So, that's the summary of that dose reconstruction. 

Any questions?

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright.

Ron? Ron?

Dr. Buchanan: Yes?

Chair Kotelchuck: So you've completed your report.

I'm not quite sure what was going on with the land 

line. Is that straightened out, whatever?

Member Clawson: That wasn't Ron.

Dr. Buchanan: Yes, that wasn't me. I don't know 

who that was.

Member Clawson: That was somebody else that 

hasn't muted. Remember, everybody, *6.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. That's right. Very good. 

Okay.

So are there questions?

Dr. Buchanan: Do you want me to give you 

estimates by issue number?

Chair Kotelchuck: It has quieted down.

Are there questions?

(No response.)
25

I don't have any questions for you, Ron, about the 

report.

Do other folks have questions or clarifications that 

they wish?

Member Valerio: None here. This is Loretta.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Beach: I don't have any, either.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Lockey: No questions. Jim Lockey.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Brad?

Member Clawson: I have no questions. I'm sorry, I 

was on mute when I said that.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, that's okay.

So I gather that we are agreed that we accept this 

report and are ready to move on to the next blind. 

Okay. Good. 

Which one should we do next? Do you want the next 

Fernald or do you want to do the NTS?

Ms. Gogliotti: I've got the NTS pulled up here, but if 

you want to do Fernald, we can certainly continue 

with that.

Member Clawson: Well, let's just continue on the 

way that it rolls. It's fine. We'll get to them.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. The next one up here is a 

Nevada Test Site case. And I believe Kathy is going 

to handle that.

Ms. Behling: Yes. Yes, this is Kathy.

We're going to start on page 6. As we already know, 

this is a Nevada Test Site case. If we look at Table 

1-1, we see a summary of the cancers diagnosed for 

this Energy employee.
26

And if we move on to Table 1-2, this shows the 

comparison between doses calculated by NIOSH and 

SC&A. As you can see from this table, the missed 

photon doses are very similar. Environmental 

external doses are identical, and the occupational 

medical doses are similar also. In the internal, the 

only dose that was calculated was the environmental 

dose, and those were also identical as well.

And so, if we move on to -- it's a two-page table here. 

Both SC&A and NIOSH calculations resulted in PoCs 

greater than 50 percent. SC&A's calculation was 

51.61 percent, and NIOSH was just over 50 percent. 

And again, as has been mentioning, this was using 

just the regular version of IREP or of -- yes, IREP.

If we move on to Section 2, it is a summary of this 

particular case. The first paragraph provides the 

employment periods. Both SC&A and NIOSH 

calculated doses, as we can see, that are very similar, 

and they used the same key documents, which are 

the NTS Technical Basis Documents; the OTIB-17, 

which is Interpretation of Dosimetry Data for 

Assignment of Shallow Doses. And they also 

considered Super S plutonium, which didn't really 

have an influence on this case.

If we move on to Table 2-1 on page 10, what we do 

in this table is, if the SC&A parameters are the same 

as NIOSH, we have started to enter a dash. And so 

the only thing you will see when there's a difference 

is we only put numbers in or information in when 

there's a difference in S&CA's calculation.

As you can see, there is a dosimeter correction factor 

added to the photon doses, and NIOSH used 1.1 and 

SC&A used 1.11, and that resulted in the minor 

differences in the photon doses.

For the medical dose, also -- and we'll talk about this 

a little bit later -- but NIOSH assigned PA exams for 

three years, and SC&A assigned the LAT and the PA 

for the first year of employment, and then, PA for two 

additional years.
27

Internal dose, we both calculated just the 

environmental dose. It was calculated for a few 

different years, but it resulted in the same doses. 

Those doses were entered into IREP. NIOSH entered 

them as a normal distribution with a geometric 

standard deviation of 3, and SC&A entered it as a log 

normal distribution with a geometric standard 

deviation of 1.5. But, again, that had so little impact 

because the doses were so small.

I will go through a few details. As we go down here, 

the individual was monitored throughout most of his 

employment, and except for the varying last quarter 

of the last year of employment. However, all of the 

doses were reported as zero. And so, then, they were 

treated as missed dose.

And if we move on to page 11, the individual was 

monitored both on a monthly and quarterly badge 

exchange. And both NIOSH and SC&A counted 134 

zero exchanges. As you can see in Table 2-2, both 

assumed an LOD value of 30 millirems. So, 15 

millirem was the LOD over 2 value. And the only 

difference is that, as I indicated earlier, NIOSH 

applied a dosimeter correction factor of 1.1 and SC&A 

assigned a correction factor of 1.11. This resulted in 

a slight difference in dose. SC&A's dose was 2.073 

rem, and NIOSH's dose was 2.067 rem.

If we move on, then, to --

Chair Kotelchuck: Could you scroll up a little bit, 

please? There we go. Okay. Right. Thank you.

Ms. Behling: Okay. I'm sorry, I should slow down

and let her catch up with me.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Behling: Alright. For the one quarter where the 

individual was not monitored, both NIOSH and SC&A 

assumed onsite ambient dose for that one quarter. 

They both used the NTS TBD, and they both identified 

or calculated identical onsite ambient doses of 9 

millirem.
28

And then, if we move on to occupational medical 

dose, we can actually go down to page 13, and then, 

it shows a little bit of difference between what NIOSH 

did and what SC&A did. NIOSH assigned, as I said, 

a PA exam for three years of employment. And for 

their doses, they also used the NTS Occupational 

Medical TBD, and their doses ranged from 2 millirem 

to 8 millirem. Now SC&A looked at the data and at 

the TBD, and assigned a PA chest and a LAT on the 

first year of employment, and then, just a PA chest 

exam for two additional years.

There were several exams, x-ray exams in the 

records that indicated that the individual had injuries, 

and those do not get included in this exposure. We 

interpreted for the one year that it was an injury, 

where NIOSH assigned a PA for one of the years that 

we felt the exam was actually done for, I think a 

thumb injury or something. And so, because of us 

assuming an LAT and a PA for the first year of 

employment, SC&A's doses were slightly higher and 

ranged from 18 millirem to 26 millirem.

So, if we move on to internal -- and I will go through 

this because it's a very simple internal -- because 

there is an SEC at the NTS site, if the individual does 

not have bioassay records, the only dose that you can 

assign is an environmental intake. And that was the 

case for this individual. There were no bioassay 

records. And so, both NIOSH and SC&A used the 

CADW tool and calculated doses based on that tool. 

And the only thing that SC&A did a little bit different 

is we didn't include the earlier -- NIOSH did not 

include the earlier years. They did not calculate dose 

for the earlier partial years of employment, where 

SC&A did, but that did not result in any difference in 

the dose. Both methods came up with a dose of 1 

millirem. And as I said earlier, NIOSH entered that 

into the IREP as a log normal with a GSD of 3, and 

SC&A used a GSD of 1.52.

So if we go to page 14 under our summary, you can 

see Table 3-1 compares doses, external and internal 

doses, for all of the various cancers. As you can see, 
29

they were very, very similar and resulted in PoCs that 

were similar.

So does anyone have any questions?

Chair Kotelchuck: No, I don't. Straightforward.

Others?

Member Clawson: This is Brad. No.

Member Lockey: No. I think, no, I'm good.

Member Valerio: This is Loretta. No, no questions.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Okay. Actually, I wish I 

had a few questions for you, but I don't. As I said, 

it's straightforward--

Ms. Behling: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: -- and well-done. Thank you.

Ms. Behling: Very good. Thank you.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. So we're in agreement on 

this, and unless I hear objection, let's move on to the 

last Fernald.

Ms. Gogliotti: While I get this pulled up here, Dave, 

as a matter of scheduling, do you think your intent is 

to go through this case, and then, break for lunch, or 

do you want to go directly into the issue resolution 

process?

Chair Kotelchuck: I think we'll do this, and then, 

break for lunch. It may be a little early, but it will be 

a few minutes of 12:00. And that's when we typically 

break.

Ms. Gogliotti: That's fine. I just wanted to confirm, 

so I get the right people on the line.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure, sure. Thank you.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. And the last one is B32, which 

is also a Fernald case. And Doug is going to handle 
30

this one.

Mr. Farver: Okay, Rose.

If you go to page 8, we can start with Table 1-1. This 

is, like Rose says, for a Fernald worker. And Table 1-

1 shows the doses calculated by NIOSH and SC&A, 

and they're all pretty similar until you get down to 

the environmental alpha dose. And that's where we 

see the big differences. As a result of these 

differences, you will see a slight difference in the PoC. 

So that's kind of an outline of where we're going with 

this.

If you go to the next page, we'll look at Table 2-1. 

So we can see some of the differences. For the 

missed photon dose, there's not a lot of difference, 

only until you get down to where it was geometric 

standard deviation, there is a slight difference. But 

the doses we're looking at were just a few millirems. 

It's probably not going to matter that much.

The missed neutron dose, we look at the differences 

in those two and we see that there's some differences 

between the neutron-to-photon dose ratio that was 

used by both groups. NIOSH chose the 95th 

percentile, and SC&A used the geometric mean. And 

we see a difference of [a factor of] about 2; and it 

was the difference between a millirem and a half a 

millirem. And that's about it for the neutron doses, 

not much difference between the two and the dose 

was not very significant in any case.

Okay. The next page --

Member Clawson: Hey, I don't know about other 

people, but I'm having a little bit of a hard time 

hearing over somebody that's --

Member Lockey: Brad, me, too. I can't hear.

Mr. Farver: Can you hear me or is it the background 

noise?

Member Clawson: It's the background. This is Brad.
31

(Off the record comments.)

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Let's go ahead.

Mr. Farver: Onsite ambient dose. We can see that 

defined in the revision that was used from Revision 3 

to Revision 4. I don't believe that made any 

difference. No, that really didn't make any difference 

in the doses.

And the other difference is there was a Weibull 

distribution used by NIOSH, and SC&A used the 

normal dose distribution. And I believe that, for the 

dose conversion factors that were used, SC&A used 

the low value for the CCFs and NIOSH used a MonteCarlo-type calculation of the DCF distribution. So you 

get a slight difference in the two doses for that 

reason.

Medical dose. The difference you see here is the 

number of exams. The individual had several exams, 

most of which were for injuries and were not included 

by either side. And the exam chosen by NIOSH was 

for a date, single date, and on that same date SC&A 

chose two exams, or two x-rays, I should say. And I 

can get into why I think what that difference is later 

on, but that's the difference. So it's a difference 

between one exam and two exams.

Environmental internal. Once again we see there's a 

difference in revisions from Revision 3 to Revision 4, 

and that is the primary difference. That is the 

difference between these two values. And I'll explain 

that as we go on.

So we move on to 2.11, Recorded Photon Dose. It 

was only a very limited time that the employee was 

monitored and that was less than the limit of 

detection. So doses were assigned as missed photon 

doses, and both SC&A and NIOSH used the same 

energy distribution for the photons. Like I said 

before, the only real difference is the geometric 

standard deviation used by both sides. Not much 

difference.
32

And then the unmonitored neutron dose. This is 

where NIOSH chose to use the 95th percentile 

neutron-to-photon ratio, and so, .23. And SC&A 

chose to use the geometric mean from the same 

table, which was .1. And so, that results in a smaller 

dose, by about half. So that was the reason for the 

neutron dose difference.

Onsite ambient dose. Both SC&A and NIOSH 

calculated using the same values from Table 4-3. 

They came up with different total doses, primarily 

because of the way the dose conversion factors were 

calculated by NIOSH and by SC&A. One used the 

distribution of dose conversion factors, and SC&A 

used the mode of factors. And then, NIOSH entered 

it as a Weibull dose distribution, their doses, and 

then, SC&A entered their doses as a log normal 

distribution, normal distribution -- excuse me -- with 

a standard deviation equal to the mean. And you get 

a slight difference of 40 millirem or so.

Next, the medical dose. This is probably where 

there's the biggest difference because one is twice 

the other. They both use the same technical 

documents, the same tables. The difference is one 

assigned one dose or one PA exam, and SC&A 

assigned two PA exams. In looking at the employee's 

records for this, there is an x-ray requisition form 

from Fernald that just shows the date and it was an 

exam.

And the page prior to that in the employee's records 

shows a table -- it looks like an Excel-type 

spreadsheet table of the employee's x-ray exams, 

including ones that were not occupational. And it 

lists, for that same date, it lists two exams or two xrays, quantity of x-rays. So I believe that's why 

SC&A chose to use quantity of two instead of quantity 

of one, which would explain the difference between 

why the SC&A dose is twice that of the NIOSH dose. 

Both values were entered at normal dose 

distributions with the 30-percent uncertainty.

Now, next to the internal dose. The employee was 
33

monitored for internal exposure, basically, for a 

baseline. And the baseline was less than the 

detection limit. So, both SC&A and NIOSH assigned 

environmental intakes. NIOSH used Revision 3 to the 

environmental TBD, Table 4-2. SC&A used Revision 

4 to the same document, Table 4-2.

The short story is that there was a change to the 

table from Revision 3 to Revision 4. The dose factor 

of about a thousand; the dose is decreased in that 

table, which is the reason for the decrease of about 

a thousand in the values calculated by SC&A and 

NIOSH.

Member Beach: Doug, this is Josie.

That's simply the timing, isn't it, when you guys did 

the blind review and when NIOSH did the actual 

reconstruction?

Mr. Farver: Yes.

Member Beach: Yes. Okay.

Mr. Farver: Based on the date of when the dose 

reconstruction was completed, they used the correct 

revision. The Revision 4 did not come out until after 

that dose reconstruction was completed. We got it 

later on. So, we used the most current document 

that was available. So that's the result. That's why 

those are different.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. That's clear.

Mr. Farver: Yes.

Okay. Moving on, next page. So we can summarize 

it. We can see that there's not a lot of difference in 

the external dose, and much of that is probably going 

to be from the differences in the x-ray doses.

The differences in the environmental dose, the 

internal dose, we've talked about. That's a difference 

of a thousand between the Technical Documents.

And then, we go down through the specific instances 
34

for our differences. So the neutron doses, it's the 

neutron-photon ratio for the neutrons. It's the 

assumption of two x-rays to one x-ray for the medical 

dose. The ambient dose, it's very similar. It has to 

go with just the same, primarily the DCF. The way 

that was determined by SC&A and NIOSH results in 

a slight difference.

And then, on to the external dose -- or internal doses. 

And we talked about that, where the primary 

difference there is the thousand-fold difference in the 

updated table. And even so, the PoCs are not that 

different. And I believe, in general, the doses were -

- the doses were fairly similar, I mean overall, except 

for the environmental. But you still had a similar PoC 

value, and both PoC values were less than the 50 

percent, and therefore, there was no change in that.

Any questions?

Member Clawson: This is Brad. I don't have any.

Chair Kotelchuck: The medical, the occupational 

medical dose, is it that they were x-rays taken from 

two different positions, the PA and the LAT, and it 

was not included in one of the reviews? Is that what 

happened there?

Mr. Farver: I am not clear on that. All I know is, 

from the records, if you look on one page, it shows 

the actual form, the request form for the x-ray, and 

it has the date and, you know, normal chest x-ray.

Chair Kotelchuck: Uh-hum.

Mr. Farver: And if you go to the page before that in 

the employee records, there's kind of like a little table 

that has a summary of the employee's x-rays, x-ray 

type, x-ray size, and quantity of x-rays. And that 

says two, quantity of x-rays two for that same day. 

So, to me, it's not clear which, if there were two or if 

there were one.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right, right. Well, it does not 

make a great difference, but I guess it's really 
35

essentially the date itself is unclear. I mean, what 

was done is actually unclear. Okay.

Other folks have questions? Concerns?

(No response.)

All right. Did I hear someone?

Member Clawson: No. This is Brad. Like you said, 

I'm good with it.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I certainly am.

Are we all okay here?

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey. Good.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Beach: Josie. Good, too.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good.

Loretta?

Member Valerio: I'm good.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good, good. Alright. That's fine.

So now, this completes all of the blinds for Set 24. 

We have a total, as I said, of 33 blinds.

Ms. Gogliotti: Thirty-two.

Chair Kotelchuck: Thirty-two? Okay. I thought I 

counted -- yes, yes, that is right because one is being 

under evaluation, right?

So for the 32 -- thank you -- so for the 32, we have 

agreements for the decision in all of them, which is 

excellent, which says that we may not be accurate, 

but we're certainly precise, in that NIOSH and SC&A, 

two independent groups reviewing the exposures, 

come to the same conclusions. And that is important 

and satisfying.

And I guess I'm trying to remember. Did we just set 
36

a Set 26 for blinds?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Good, good. So, folks are 

working on, NIOSH is working on Set 25 with SC&A.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, no.

Chair Kotelchuck: We haven't gotten there yet?

Ms. Gogliotti: Set 25 we just submitted to the Board 

last week. We still have to carry out our one-on-one 

calls.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: And then, once those are completed, 

we'll revise the cases however the Board Members 

ask us to resubmit those, and then, NIOSH can 

comment on our findings.

Chair Kotelchuck: Very good. Very good. Okay.

So now, it's about a quarter of 12:00, which is a little 

early, but we don't have enough time to do 

substantial work between now and noon. Could I 

suggest that we take a slightly longer lunch -- it's 

11:40-something, 41 -- and come back at one o'clock 

Eastern daylight time? Okay, an hour and a quarter 

for lunch? And then, we'll come back at 1:00. How 

does that sound, folks?

Member Clawson: That's fine.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Very good. It's actually 

those of us on the East Coast will have lunch and 

those of us on the West Coast will have breakfast 

maybe.

Mr. Katz: Brunch.

Chair Kotelchuck: We'll have brunch, right.

Okay. Very good. We'll come back, then, at one 

o'clock, and we'll go off now and eat a little. See you 

later.
37

Mr. Katz: Thanks, everyone.

Chair Kotelchuck: Bye-bye.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 11:44 a.m. and resumed at 1:01 p.m.)

Review Cases from Sets 14-18

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Very good.

So we're set now to begin going back to the last 

remaining cases for Sets 14 through 18, and let's see 

what we can do with them. Let's do the Brookhaven 

National Lab first.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Let me just get that pulled up.

Chair Kotelchuck: Let's see, and that's Case No. --

Ms. Gogliotti: That is 435.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, 435. Good, good.

Ms. Gogliotti: If you'll just bear with me, this is 

particularly slow today.

Mr. Katz: Someone has an open line. We're getting 

an echo.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Well, while we're waiting on 

this-- this one is actually pretty simple. I think we 

can close it even without seeing it.

This particular case is a Brookhaven National Lab 

case. Here we go. And our initial observation, 

Observation 1, was--

Mr. Katz: Can I just suggest before, because we still 

have an echo, someone may have accidentally joined 

the audio on the Skype. And if you did that, then 

you're going to get feedback because you have both 

a phone line and an audio line. So please, everyone 

check, make sure you didn't join the audio on Skype 

or rejoin Skype, in other words. Otherwise, everyone 

would mute their phones. Thanks.
38

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Hopefully, that resolved it. Still 

get an echo, but I'm going to keep going, I guess.

Okay. Observation 1 had to do with the fact that this 

particular case needed tech-99m dose assigned to it. 

And NIOSH did that modeling in IMBA.

Mr. Katz: Rose, Rose, this isn't going to work.

Again, either someone joined Skype, joined the audio 

on Skype, in which case you have to get out of Skype 

and rejoin without joining the audio, or someone has 

a line open. But we're getting feedback, and it 

doesn't work. Okay. It seems like it's gone now. 

Alright.

Ms. Gogliotti: Alright. I'll try that again.

So, for this particular case, NIOSH assigned tech99m dose, which is kind of an unusual radionuclide, 

and SC&A did not have the ability to verify the dose 

that was assigned. NIOSH had done it in IMBA, but 

with the plug-in that SC&A did not have.

And just prior to the last meeting -- I think we have 

a little echo again, but -- NIOSH was able to provide 

us with that plug-in, but it was soon enough where 

we didn't have the ability to go in and verify the doses 

that were assigned. So SC&A was tasked with just 

going in to confirm the doses that were assigned, 

now that we did have the plug-in available to us. And 

I was able to verify that we can now run tech-99 and 

tech-99m in IMBA, and all concerns we had regarding 

this issue have been resolved. So I recommend 

closure.

Chair Kotelchuck: I was listening in on that. I'm not 

quite connected up with actually seeing it on my 

screen. But it sounds like that's settled. Is that 

correct? All agree?

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey. Agree.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Okay.

Member Clawson: This is Brad. I agree.
39

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright.

Member Clawson: It looks like we've got our echo 

back, Dave, as soon as you came on.

Chair Kotelchuck: When I went -- when I went --

certainly I'm not part of the echo because when I 

went off it still echoed.

And I'm going to try to get back on the -- main line 

while we're going ahead, so I'm on audio.

Mr. Katz: Are you on a speakerphone, Dave?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, I am.

Mr. Katz: Maybe that's the problem.

Chair Kotelchuck: No, because when -- I'll show you. 

I'll put mute on.

Mr. Katz: Give it a shot.

(Off the record comments)

Ms. Gogliotti: So do we want to vote to accept this 

one?

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. I'm still getting that echo, 

but we did 435, Observation 1. What next?

Member Beach: I was going to say, Rose just asked 

us if we wanted to vote to accept this or not, or if we 

needed to.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, I thought -- okay. We should 

vote. I was tied up on the phone or the screen. Let's 

accept, right, folks?

Member Lockey: Yes, I move we accept it.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Right. Good. Sure.

Member Beach: Agreed.

Member Clawson: Agreed.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.
40

Ms. Gogliotti: The only other one in this matrix we 

are still waiting on is NIOSH exploring coworker dose 

for W.R. Grace. So we'll move to the AWE matrix.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Was there a Ventron?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, that is in AWE.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: And that is tab 433, and it's Findings 

2 and 3, and they're both related.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Let's get that on the 

screen, right?

Ms. Gogliotti: I'm pulling it up here, but this is taking 

a while.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure. Well, take your time. 

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. And, actually, I believe all the 

discussion is in Finding 3 here. The initial finding had 

to do with TBD-6000 and surrogate external dose for 

uranium reduction operations that took place in the 

1940s at Ventron.

And, John, I will turn it over to you.

DR. MAURO: Okay. Yes, I will take it from here.

I'm holding in my hand a report that Bob Anigstein 

and I prepared and submitted to you all after the 

March 13, 2018 meeting that addresses this issue. I 

don't know if you folks have had a chance to read it. 

It's about four pages. If you like, I could give you a 

very brief overview of the issue, or if you folks have 

already read it, I could certainly field any questions 

that you might have on it.

Chair Kotelchuck: While I've read it, with new people

here, why don't you go over it fresh even though 

some of us have seen it.

DR. MAURO: Okay. I'll make it very brief.

Ventron Corporation was an AWE facility that 
41

operated in 1942 to about 1948 doing uranium 

conversion, did some uranium chemistry work, which 

makes it different than a uranium metal facility, and 

that's an important point. So keep that in mind.

The worker himself, the person that we dealt with, 

was an individual with a particular cancer, and the 

dose reconstruction was performed for him, but for 

the residual period, which began sometime in the 

early 1950s.

Now the method that NIOSH employed to reconstruct 

the dose to this worker was basically based out of 

TBD-6000. As you folks may know, that really is 

intended for use for metal-working facilities, not for 

conversion facilities. So we felt that that was the first 

concern. That is, really, if you could avoid it, and you 

have other sources of data that are really more 

relevant to a uranium conversion facility, you might 

be better off.

Now NIOSH took the position that, well, since we're 

dealing with a residual period, that's not so essential. 

We believe it is. And we looked carefully at the 

available data, airborne dust-loading data during 

operations, which is always your starting point for 

estimating what might be present in the residual 

period. And we saw that there were two sources of 

airborne data that, in theory, could have represented 

a better starting point and more consistent with the 

surrogate data criteria that we all are familiar with.

The data that was available were a number of 

measurements made, airborne samples taken at 

Ventron during the AWE period, which included up to 

about 1948. In addition, there is a set of airborne 

measurement data in a publication called Cristofano 

and Harris, which is one of the what I would call 

bedrock AWE reports related to uranium conversion 

that we have used widely in the past as a surrogate 

for uranium conversion facilities when we did not 

have site-specific data.

So when SC&A looked at this, we do have some 

airborne data from Ventron in the late 1940s and in 
42

the early 1940s, and we do have the Cristofano and 

Harris data, which represents a broad range of 

different types of activities that take place at 

conversion facilities.

And the two numbers, the two separate sources of 

airborne dust-loadings we felt were compatible and 

probably represent a better starting point for 

reconstructing doses during the residual period. As 

you're aware, you start with knowledge of the 

airborne dust-loading. It settles onto the surfaces. 

And then when the -- you're probably all familiar with 

the history of how you use that information in TBD6000 and OTIB-70. But, in any event, we thought 

that would be a better approach than using the TBD6000 as your what I would call surrogate approach to 

this problem.

Then, what we usually do is say, well, does it really 

make a big difference if you would use that approach. 

So Bob and I actually went through the standard 

approach that's laid out in OTIB-70 to say, okay, 

what doses would we get if we used that approach?

And we only looked at the inhalation dose because of 

the type of cancer that we were concerned with was 

the type of cancer that is driven primarily by 

inhalation, and for uranium we came up with doses 

that are about twice as high -- these are the internal 

doses -- that were about twice as high as the doses 

that NIOSH came up with, which isn't -- and you 

would say, well, it's not that much different.

But it turns out in this case that's not insignificant 

because the PoC for this fellow was pretty high, and 

doubling the internal dose is of concern because --

we didn't do the numbers, but it's close enough that 

it's possible you could actually flip. By the way, this 

fellow was denied with a fairly high PoC. If you were 

to do it the way we think it should have been done, 

the internal dose would have doubled. It could very 

well have resulted in compensation.

So that's our four-page writeup in a nutshell.
43

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Folks, what do folks from 

NIOSH, what are your thoughts on this?

Mr. Allen: Okay. This is Dave Allen.

I just wanted to mention that -- well, I think John will 

be aware of this, that we've had a similar 

conversation at other sites in the past, that the 95th 

percentile for the airborne, it might be something 

that should be used during operations for airborne 

contamination, but we've had agreement in the past 

that that would not really be what you would base 

surface contamination on.

Normally, you're going to get one high area where 

you're generating airborne. But, from there, it's 

going to diffuse through the area. It is going to be 

laying on the surfaces, and from there, it's going to 

be tracked around and spread out, and it's going to 

even out quite a bit more.

In the past, we've had agreement that the geometric 

mean would be the more appropriate value to use to 

calculate a surface contamination value. Do you 

remember having those conversations, John?

DR. MAURO: Oh, yes, I absolutely do, and I hear 

what you're saying. What you're saying, that is 

perhaps a third approach might be better; namely, 

take a look at the -- the way I guess I would see it, I 

mean, when we did the calculation, by the way, keep 

in mind we did it as an example to see if it might be 

important. And we said, well, we do have these two 

other sources, Cristofano and Harris and, of course, 

the air-sampling data that we did have. And we ran 

those numbers, and we came up with what we came 

up with.

What you're saying is, well -- I guess the first step is, 

would you agree that perhaps that would be a better 

strategy than using the TBD-6000 approach?

Mr. Allen: Yeah, I would agree using air samples 

from the site is definitely a better strategy. I'm not 

positive if those were available when we did the DR. 
44

I didn't get a chance to look for that.

DR. MAURO: Sure. And what I'm hearing is that, 

well, okay, let's go with that, but your inclination 

would be to look at that data and maybe use 

something different than we used in our example. 

And I have absolutely no problem with that. That is, 

my main concern is that when you do have either 

site-specific data or you have good surrogate data 

like Cristofano and Harris, you use an informed 

judgment, what air concentration should you use, 

and use that. And so, I mean, I'm fully supportive of 

that strategy. I just don't believe the approach that 

was used, this TBD-6000, is the right strategy.

Mr. Allen: Well, I mean, you have our responses in 

the BRS. We don't necessarily agree on that part, 

but we do agree that, if the air sample data for the 

site is available, that is the better information.

DR. MAURO: Yes, but --I'm sorry to interrupt -- but 

I would say, if I were going to say, well, we didn't

have that data, I would sooner default to Cristofano 

and Harris and take some appropriate value from 

that, which is there specifically as useful for -- now 

what you would use, amongst a full range of air 

sample information from Cristofano and Harris, 

representing a lot of different conversion types of 

operations, that would be a judgment call. I would 

fall back to that.

But I've got to say, going to the TBD-6000 approach 

is so far removed from the surrogate data approach 

that I think that that really doesn't work.

Mr. Allen: Well, I don't know if we have to settle that 

one for this particular case or not, John, since we're 

agreeing that the site data would be better, and you 

seem to agree that the geometric mean would be the 

better number than the 95th when you're talking 

contamination.

DR. MAURO: Yes. Yes. Well, I would say I would go 

with -- since there was limited amount of data that 

we worked with from site-specific, and then we have 
45

-- I would sort of -- my suggestion is take a look at 

both the Cristofano and Harris and look at the site 

data. See if they sort of ring true. And then, within 

that collection of data, a judgment is made whether 

you go with the 50th percentile of the site data, 

whether you pick some other value, given the 

limitations of that data, or you go with some 

appropriate value from Cristofano and Harris -- would 

be my suggestion. And it certainly could be 

something different than the one we used, but I think 

that would be the way to go that would be more 

compatible with the precedent established in the 

past.

Chair Kotelchuck: I'm not clear what -- you seem to 

be agreeing but not agreeing, and I'm not clear.

DR. MAURO: I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying that 

the idea of using the 50th percentile, if you have good 

site-specific data toward, let's say, the end of 

operations at a facility, I agree that you go with the 

average airborne dust-loading. And that data was 

somewhat limited. I think that was one of the 

reasons why, this might have been one of the 

reasons -- I'm not sure of the reasons why the site 

was granted an SEC. But, in any event, I agree that 

if you have good site-specific data during the end of 

operations at an AWE facility, and you want to predict 

what might be on the surface, deposited on the 

surface during the residual period, I agree I would go 

with the 50th percentile.

Chair Kotelchuck: And the residual period is -- the 

operations were taking place in the '40s?

DR. MAURO: Yes, they ended in '48, I believe.

Chair Kotelchuck: And when was the residual period?

DR. MAURO: I think this guy started exposure, well, 

it started right after that, but his exposure I believe 

started in '51. So there's a bit of a decline. You know, 

you have--

Chair Kotelchuck: The years, yes.
46

DR. MAURO: And you go with the classic natural 

attenuation rate laid out in OTIB-70.

So that's the fundamental. But I agree with Scott. 

That is, if you're going to go with airborne sampling 

data and you feel comfortable with it, and it does 

capture the -- sort of a pretty good measure of what 

was going on at the facility in the late 1940s, I agree 

geometric mean is a better value than 95th 

percentile, for the reasons Scott mentioned.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. And so you are in 

agreement now, the two of you?

DR. MAURO: Well, we're in agreement on Scott's 

strategy, as qualified-- remember, what we're really 

agreeing to is that we really do have to abandon the 

TBD-6000 approach, and we go to the air, we go to 

some type of combination of consideration of the air 

sampling data that you do have, to the extent that 

you feel like it's fairly representative, and also take 

into consideration Cristofano and Harris data, and 

then use that as your starting point to derive the 

approach.

Chair Kotelchuck: Got it. Okay.

Mr. Siebert: Just a heads-up. This is Scott. I just 

want to clarify, it was Dave Allen from NIOSH who 

was actually doing the answering, not me.

DR. MAURO: Dave originally did, yes. I think Dave 

was the original person that we spoke to previously. 

I don't know, was that Scott? I'm not sure who I 

heard.

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, that was his voice.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Allen: This is Dave on the phone.

DR. MAURO: Oh, Dave, I'm sorry. I thought I was 

talking to Scott Siebert.

Mr. Allen: That's alright. I love to blame it on Scott.
47

(Laughter.)

Chair Kotelchuck: I'm comfortable with not using 

TBD-6000, which is for a different work situation, and 

using the actual data.

I don't know if other people have questions or 

concerns. It's still a little, the whole discussion is a 

little muddy to me. Maybe some further discussion 

would be helpful, if others have questions.

Mr. Allen: This is Dave Allen. Could I muddy the 

waters one more time here?

(Laughter.)

Chair Kotelchuck: Surely.

Mr. Allen: I mean, the part I never got a chance to 

weigh-in on is John was mentioning using like a 

combination of the site data and Cristofano and 

Harris.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Allen: If I recall right, the basis for the SEC that 

you mentioned was because the determination was 

we couldn't use Cristofano and Harris to say what was 

happening during that operational time because 

Cristofano and Harris data came after that. And it 

kind of makes it difficult to use that --

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Allen: -- to estimate what the operational 

airborne was.

DR. MAURO: Yes, the Cristofano and Harris I 

remember was collected -- I'm not sure about that. 

I remember it being late '40s/early '50s. That was 

the time when they did all that work, when the 

Environmental Measurements Laboratory triggered 

all--

Mr. Allen: Right.
48

DR. MAURO: -- not only uranium conversion 

facilities, but also uranium metal facilities.

So you raise a good question. What you're saying is, 

perhaps Cristofano and Harris is not the best 

surrogate data. I think the problem with Cristofano 

-- maybe I could help a little. I think what we have 

here is there was -- I'm speculating a little bit, but I 

believe -- there was an SEC granted. And one of the 

reasons might be that the Cristofano and Harris data 

was in the late 1940s, maybe early 1950s.

Dr. Anigstein: Hi. This is Bob Anigstein.

DR. MAURO: Yes, Bob.

Dr. Anigstein: Cristofano started -- the figure in that, 

the memo that we sent, it starts in '48.

DR. MAURO: That's what I thought. And now the 

issue might be related to the actual exposures, the 

AWE period started in '42. So maybe the point we're 

making goes more toward the reason why an SEC 

was granted, but it may turn out that, as applied to 

the residual period, which is after '48, I think this 

might be Cristofano and Harris looking pretty good.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, but Cristofano and Harris is not 

for residual. It's for operations.

DR. MAURO: No, no, but, I mean, you have to start 

with the residual--

Dr. Anigstein: No, no, I know, but the Cristofano and 

Harris is a good starting point if the operations took 

place during the time they collected their data, and 

then, you assume deposition and attenuation.

DR. MAURO: Right, and that's what we did.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, I know, but, I mean, the fact that 

the residual period starts in '48 does not justify the 

use of Cristofano and Harris for the operations 

period.

DR. MAURO: Yes.
49

Dr. Anigstein: And the point we make here --

DR. MAURO: Yes.

Dr. Anigstein: -- in our memo is that -- I showed the 

graph -- there's a rapid decline, '48, the pre-'40 --

there is a line. I drew a line on this thing separating 

'48 and '49, and just prior to the end of '48 the 

concentrations are much higher. And then there's a 

dramatic falloff, right after '48, there's a dramatic 

falloff for the succeeding years. So they -- in other 

words the safety procedures must have improved.

DR. MAURO: I don't know if everyone followed 

conceptually, the point being that you really can't use 

Cristofano and Harris and the data to represent the 

early 1940s.

Dr. Anigstein: You can't. I agree.

DR. MAURO: Yes. Yes. But that's not the issue we 

have before us. What we're really dealing with is: Is

Cristofano and Harris a good surrogate for the late 

1940s and maybe--

Dr. Anigstein: No, it's not. No, it's not because at 

Ventron there's no operations after '48.

DR. MAURO: Well, that's what I'm saying, but --

Dr. Anigstein: No, you can't -- it's irrelevant. The 

operating facilities in, let's say, from '49 into the '50s, 

visited by Cristofano and Harris, are irrelevant to the 

residual period at Ventron.

DR. MAURO: I guess my experience is when you 

have some kind of surrogate data that represents the 

end of an operations period, that's a pretty good 

place to start to say what you might have at the 

beginning of the residual period.

Dr. Anigstein: I agree.

DR. MAURO: I mean, that's the classic approach.

Dr. Anigstein: I agree with that.
50

DR. MAURO: Yes, that's all I was saying, though, 

Bob.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Perhaps I misunderstood.

DR. MAURO: Yes. Okay.

Chair Kotelchuck: This falloff on the figure 1, so the 

falloff is because the operational period ended

between--

Dr. Anigstein: No, no, the falloff for the Cristofano 

and Harris data is of many facilities that they visited, 

starting in '48.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, I see. I see. This is the raw 

data at different facilities. Oh, okay.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, exactly.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Dr. Anigstein: And there's a dramatic change. 

There's a very good, if one were to do--

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: -- a statistical correlation, you would 

get a very good fit to a steady decline--

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: -- from '48 to about '54, when the 

data ends.

Chair Kotelchuck: And how -- I feel -- I'm not 

hearing other folks from our Committee, but I -- I'm 

-- so how does this fit in to the decision that we need 

to make about the acceptance or not on Ventron?

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, it sounds like NIOSH agrees that 

their approach might not be the best approach. So, 

at a minimum, they're going to need to look at that, 

and maybe we could have a technical call offline to 

discuss the specifics.

DR. MAURO: I agree with that, Rose.
51

Chair Kotelchuck: That would be fine. I don't feel in 

a position to make a decision at this point. I would 

also --

Member Clawson: No, I'm totally confused as it is 

now.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

DR. MAURO: Dr. Kotelchuck and Brad, maybe I could 

help a little bit. This is really simple. I think we're 

making -- unfortunately, it might be my fault --

making it a little more complicated than necessary.

All we're saying is you really shouldn't be using TBD6000 as your starting point. There are other starting 

points that we represent here that look a lot better, 

and that includes the actual data you have for the 

facility itself and also Cristofano and Harris, which is 

more of a surrogate source of data, that represents 

better data as your starting point.

And then all we really did is say, well, just to give it 

a little bit more punch to our story, we did an 

example calculation saying, for example, you could 

do this and you would come up with these doses. And 

in our example, it turns out the doses were higher 

than the approach used by TBD. We're not saying 

that the approach we used may be the best, but we're 

saying that I think there's a better strategy.

And so I agree with Rose's point that I think we're at 

the point where NIOSH may want to revisit this, take 

a look at not only the real data measured at Ventron 

in the late, I think, 1940s, late '40s, but also the 

Cristofano and Harris, and use a judgment. This is 

where the discretion comes in on how best to use the 

available data to reconstruct the doses. And then 

they'll come in where they come in. It may be a little 

bit higher, or it may be lower than the doses that we 

calculated.

Chair Kotelchuck: That sounds good, and it will also 

allow us on the Committee some more time to -- we'll 

get some more materials and a little more time to 
52

think through, to understand better the approach.

Mr. Katz: And, Dave?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes?

Mr. Katz: Dave, this is Ted.

So the bottom line here -- thanks, John, that was a 

nice, little summary. The bottom line here is that 

NIOSH agrees, Dave Allen agrees that there's better 

source data to start from, whether it's from the site 

or whatever.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: He agreed with that point. So the finding 

stands. The finding, SC&A's finding, is a positive 

finding. It's a good finding. But SC&A wasn't making 

a finding that the doses are double, or whatever. 

Whatever they come out, they come out to, but that 

wasn't really integral to resolving the case.

So I don't think the Subcommittee needs to do any 

more or wait any more to close the case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Because the approach is agreed 

upon?

Mr. Katz: Yes, the approach is agreed upon. NIOSH 

agrees that there was a mistake made in terms of --

there's better source data. Let's put it that way.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So there's nothing left to do with the case 

except when NIOSH follows up on its own, obviously, 

if it follows up and finds that it needs to fix something 

with that case, they'll do that, but that's part of their 

process for dealing with cases--

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Katz: -- that may need to change.

Chair Kotelchuck: We're approving the process, not-

-
53

Mr. Katz: Exactly.

Chair Kotelchuck: Not the resulting data?

Mr. Katz: Right.

Chair Kotelchuck: And the resulting PoC?

Mr. Katz: Right.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's helpful.

Other Committee Members, is that helpful to you?

Member Beach: This is Josie.

And, yes, that's much more clear. Thank you.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Good. Good.

Member Clawson: It is, but the one thing, Ted, is 

when they come to a decision on this, I would like 

somehow to be able to know what they did.

Mr. Katz: Yes, and that's fine. NIOSH can report 

back and say what was the final result.

Chair Kotelchuck: That sounds good. So you'll 

inform us then, that that doesn't require -- that can 

be just a memo sometime between now and the next 

meeting.

Mr. Katz: Yes, and it could just -- send me an email 

for that, let you know what happened.

Chair Kotelchuck: That would be good. Okay. In 

which case -- thank you, Ted.

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Then that would allow us to, in 

fact, close this.

Okay. Jim and Loretta?

Member Lockey: Yes, I'm fine with that.

Member Valerio: I'm fine with that as well.
54

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Well, then, I think that 

sounds good. And we will close on that.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay, and this is actually two findings 

that are related.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. That's 433 point, what, 2or 

3?

Ms. Gogliotti: Correct.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Good.

All right. Let's see what our next --

Ms. Gogliotti: And I have to apologize. 432.4, we 

were awaiting on TIB-11 to be issued. And when I 

checked for the meeting agenda materials, it was not 

posted, but it looks like it has posted between now 

and then. So I did not look at it, but we can save 

that for the next meeting.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. So we will carry over to the 

next meeting 433.4.

Ms. Gogliotti: 432.4.

Chair Kotelchuck: 432 --

Ms. Gogliotti: Point 4. Correct.

Chair Kotelchuck: 433, I thought.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, we were just talking about 433, 

but the TIB-11 issue is 432.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright. Fine. So it's 

something that we skipped? Let me get it. I'm in 

DRS. I'm looking around.

Mr. Katz: Yes, Rose, what is that site? What site is 

that for?

Ms. Gogliotti: That's the uranium mill in Monticello.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Thanks.
55

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Oh, yes, okay, uranium. 

Okay. And I missed that. Okay. Uranium, 432. 

Okay, we'll do that at the next meeting.

Now do we have any other -- I don't think we have 

anything else from 14 and 18.

Ms. Gogliotti: That's correct. Everything else is 

waiting on -- actions.

Review Cases from Sets 19-21

Chair Kotelchuck: So now we're going into Sets 19 

and 21. And I have the Bethlehem Steel cases and 

BWXT.

For other folks, now for Sets 19 and 21, we've been 

through the Category 1s, correct?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: And that's something to say to Jim 

and Loretta, that we normally, when we're coming 

into a new set, which we now have -- we're now 

functioning in terms of doing Category 1 and 

Category 2. The Category 1s are ones that really can 

be resolved quite quickly and there's agreement. The 

Category 2, which we're on now, are ones where 

there's some substantial disagreement or an 

agreement has not been made yet. And so it takes -

- we're a little slower on that, but we're going through 

them.

So would you like to do the AWE, the Bethlehem 

Steel, first?

Ms. Gogliotti: Why don't we --

Chair Kotelchuck: Or what would you like to deal 

with?

Ms. Gogliotti: I have SRS pulled up now, and there's 

only one case in here.

Chair Kotelchuck: Pardon?
56

Ms. Gogliotti: I have SRS pulled up now, and there's 

only one case in this matrix that we have open.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: So if we can go over that and then 

jump to the AWEs?

Chair Kotelchuck: That sounds good. Let me see.

Ms. Gogliotti: That's 465.1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright.

Ms. Gogliotti: And this one we've been carrying for a 

while. It's an SRS case. The finding had to do with 

whether or not missed photon dose should have been 

or was assigned. Missed photon was assigned and 

whether or not coworker dose should have been 

assigned instead of missed photon dose.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Go ahead.

Ms. Gogliotti: What it comes down to, basically, is 

professional judgment, in my opinion. The guidance 

document in TIB-6 is cited here, and it basically tells 

dose reconstructors to consider [the] information 

before they make their decision.

Based on that information, SC&A feels that coworker 

dose should have been assigned, which would be 

significantly higher than missed dose. The EE was 

unmonitored for the beginning of their employment, 

and then, the end of their employment they were 

completely monitored for external dose.

During the unmonitored period for external dose, 

there was monitoring and a positive PU bioassay. So, 

based on that, we feel that there was risk of external 

exposure that wasn't or isn't adequately accounted 

for by using missed dose.

NIOSH has agreed with us because these jobs which 

I have highlighted here we don't believe--

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, okay, the occupation, I see 
57

that.

Ms. Gogliotti: We have discussed this at multiple 

meetings now. And as of the June 27th meeting, we 

decided that we were going to leave it until after the 

Board meeting at Santa Fe, which happened, but I 

don't believe they discussed this in enough detail--

Chair Kotelchuck: Could you speak just a little 

louder? I'm still having an echo. I have an echo the 

whole time.

Ms. Gogliotti: So do I. It's very annoying and hard 

to focus.

Chair Kotelchuck: It is, but what it does also is it 

obscures when one is speaking. It is loud enough 

normally, but --

Mr. Katz: So if we want to try to resolve this --

Chair Kotelchuck: I'd love to.

Mr. Katz: Yes, one way to test it would be for 

everyone to get out of Skype for a moment and see 

if it goes away. If it does, then it's because someone 

has audio on in Skype.

Chair Kotelchuck: Got it.

Mr. Katz: If it doesn't, then I'm at a loss.

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright. Would folks like to do 

that?

Ms. Gogliotti: There is not anybody that has it on, 

though.

Mr. Katz: No one is on Skype right now?

Chair Kotelchuck: You mean no one is on Skype 

audio?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes.

Member Beach: Maybe we should disconnect the 

phone lines and call back in.
58

Mr. Katz: Okay. We could try that, I mean. But the 

only other thing that normally does this is if someone 

is using a speaker phone, because then they're 

getting feedback right through their speaker phone.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right, right.

Mr. Katz: I don't know what other solution there is.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, in which case let's just 

soldier on.

Member Clawson: Let's call back in. Let's just call 

back in.

Mr. Katz: Yes, give it a shot. Why not?

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. We'll all get off and then 

get back in, and make sure that we don't put audio 

on for the Skype. Okay. Let's do it. We'll be back 

on in a few moments, folks.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 1:41 p.m. and resumed at 1:46 p.m.)

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. I'm on. Can we get the 

screen working again, then, without the echo?

Ms. Gogliotti: One second.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure.

Ms. Gogliotti: I got cut off from that meeting.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure.

And then we're going -- we've just said we're going 

to hold SRS for the next time, correct, the 465?

Ms. Gogliotti: We can certainly hold it, but I don't 

think that the issue is going to change.

Chair Kotelchuck: Then let me just clarify. You are 

waiting for the TIB-11?

Ms. Gogliotti: No. We are holding that one, but we're 

talking about--
59

Chair Kotelchuck: And that is for the Ventron case?

Ms. Gogliotti: No. That one was the uranium mill in 

Monticello.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: But we are currently talking about --

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, ma'am, that's my notes.

Ms. Gogliotti: -- 465.1, which is an SRS case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Okay. Fine. Charge this to 

my poor notetaking.

Ms. Gogliotti: One moment. Let me get back into 

the Skype thing. For whatever reason, it won't let 

me present.

(Pause.)

Mr. Katz: So while Rose is getting that back online, I 

think the situation here is we have a difference in 

judgment and no resolution to that.

Mr. Siebert: Well, this is Scott.

If you would like, I can probably explain a little bit 

more clearly or in a little bit more depth why we 

believe the person was actually being monitored, and 

that the records just don't demonstrate that.

Mr. Katz: Yes, by all means, Scott.

Chair Kotelchuck: Wait a minute. Let me -- what 

case are we on? Where I'm (telephonic interference) 

with this.

Mr. Katz: We're on SRS, 465.1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Good. Thank you.

Mr. Katz: Sure.

Mr. Siebert: Okay. This is Scott.

The issue really comes down to the Savannah River 
60

Site didn't record zeroes during the timeframe of 

1972 through 1988. So there are times where a year 

appears to either have a zero or appears to be 

missing, and it's not clear whether the individual was 

not monitored or if they were monitored and it was 

all zeroes. And that's where it brings in TIB-6 that 

we discussed a couple of minutes ago, which says to 

look at additional data such as internal and other 

external monitoring and so on.

So the additional things that we looked at in this case 

indicate that we believe the individual was actually 

monitored with external dosimetry badging. First of 

all, in the CATI the individual indicated that they were 

always wearing a dosimeter badge, and they also 

indicated that it was a monthly -- a routine badge, so 

not monthly. I apologize. It is a routine badge. So 

that indicated to us that at least most of the time 

they seem to be saying that they wore dosimetry, 

and they did say always. So we took that into 

account.

Also, the HPAREH results, it had years of '84 and '95 

with no results. The years are listed with no results. 

Generally, that demonstrates that the annual doses, 

they're not -- they're blank; they're just not there 

and missing, which generally indicates to us that the 

individual was being monitored but they were all 

zero.

So we really didn't have an indication, especially in 

'84 and '85, to believe the person wasn't being 

monitored, and we did have indications to believe 

that they were being monitored. That left 1983, the 

earlier timeframe, which really became a discussion 

of basically extending the '84 and '85 thought 

process back, and there was no indication they 

changed their type of work.

As was mentioned earlier, they had -- it's highlighted 

on the screen right now actually -- the individual did 

the same work the whole time they were employed. 

And if you look at the monitoring results, there's 

sporadic positives that indicate that the person was 
61

being monitored at times. And it really seemed to 

indicate to us that they were always being 

monitored; it's just the Savannah River Site was not 

reporting the zeroes.

So that's the general thought process as to why we 

did missed, per TIB-6, rather than determining it was 

coworker and believing the person was actually 

unmonitored.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. That's a clear argument.

Response?

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, in this case the PoC was quite 

low, not anywhere near 50 percent. So in either 

case, this didn't make a compensation decision.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: Which, in that case, you generally 

would go more claimant-favorable.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right, right. Which would be the 

NIOSH approach.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, that would be the SC&A approach.

Chair Kotelchuck: SC&A?

Ms. Gogliotti: Which would be assigning the 

coworker dose.

Mr. Siebert: But that doesn't make it wrong that we 

didn't go more claimant-favorable because it was a 

low PoC, if we believe that he was monitored and 

they were zeroes.

Ms. Gogliotti: No, but when there is some amount of 

uncertainty, it would be the more claimant-favorable 

approach.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, but they make an argument 

why in terms of -- I assume they've been looking at 

plenty of other SRS cases and that this seems to be 

a pattern that fits, as opposed to looking at an 
62

individual case.

I am somewhat persuaded by the NIOSH argument, 

and the argument that if we do it another way, it's 

more claimant-favorable. But the question is does 

this appear to be the way people were monitored and 

then recorded? And it seems to me the argument, 

NIOSH argument, is sound. I don't know.

What do other folks think on the Subcommittee?

Member Beach: I tend to think we always follow the 

most claimant-favorable approach, which I would 

assume NIOSH would want to do also, unless there 

was some real specific reason not to in this case.

Member Clawson: This is Brad.

The only thing I heard as to the reason why they did 

this was because in the CATI report said that he 

always wore his dosimeter.

Mr. Calhoun: That and the fact that we have 

knowledge of how data was recorded, what Scott 

went over before, is that during a certain period, 

there were many times when we would have blanks, 

when that indicated that there was no positive 

reading because that's just how they did it during 

those times. And that's when we did it that way, was 

during those periods.

Member Clawson: And that period is when?

Mr. Siebert: That's 1972 through 1988. And this 

claim starts in '88 and expands to the 1988 

timeframe. That's the timeframe that we apply this 

(telephonic interference) TIB-6.

Mr. Calhoun: That's really important, too, is that once 

the practice is changed, the person's job didn't 

change, but we did have more information that he 

was being monitored, just like we assumed prior to, 

I think the date was '88.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I mean, this is a case where 

the person says that they had been monitored. 
63

There's a pattern that they have seen with the SRS 

site and are pretty confident that that's the proper 

interpretation of the way things were done there. I 

don't -- admittedly, the other choice would be more 

claimant-favorable, but I don't -- if you're really quite 

confident that this pattern exists and you've seen it, 

and you've seen a lot of cases for SRS because it's a 

big site -- so, I'm a little bit, I don't know, I'm still 

somewhat persuaded that NIOSH ought to go 

through and do it as they believe that the evidence 

indicates is done. I mean, I think they're basing it on 

evidence, and the pattern is part of the evidence.

But other or further discussion? I don't know, Jim or 

Loretta, you may feel a little -- toe in the water. I 

don't know.

Mr. Katz: Dave, just to amplify that point you just 

made, I mean, the claimant-favorable policy, that 

gets applied whenever you can't choose between two 

alternatives.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right.

Mr. Katz: The data doesn't weigh one way or the 

other.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Katz: If you have a weight-of-the-evidence 

judgment on one side or the other, you go with the 

weight of the evidence, not the claimant-favorable.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Mr. Katz: But, anyway, that's just the general policy 

for how you apply claimant-favorable--

Chair Kotelchuck: And I think that seems to me 

what's fitting here, that there's evidence --

Member Lockey: David, Jim Lockey. I think we 

should just -- we've always followed that general 

policy. I think we should continue.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I would agree.
64

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, I don't think the Board is being 

asked to make any decisions about how NIOSH does 

things. We're looking at this individual case. And it 

seems to be a different professional judgment, in my 

opinion.

Member Clawson: Rose, I couldn't hear you. I'm 

sorry. What did you say?

Ms. Gogliotti: This seems to be more of a 

professional judgment issue pertaining to just this 

case.

Member Clawson: I agree with that, yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Josie, you were concerned about, 

I mean--

Member Beach: Well, I agree that it is based on 

professional judgment, and I don't really have any 

more to add than that.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I think we ought to close it 

on the professional judgment then.

Mr. Katz: Yes. I mean, I think, then, it's not an error.

Chair Kotelchuck: It's not.

Mr. Katz: It's professional judgment, and that's the 

result. You can close it, yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: And they're persuaded that there's 

enough evidence to make a professional judgment 

the way NIOSH did.

Mr. Katz: Right, right.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Well, then, I think that. --

Loretta, do you concur?

Member Valerio: I do.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. So let's close this now and 

move on.

And let's see, I'm just looking at times. We 
65

reconvened at 1:00. Typically, sometime around 

2:30 or 3:00 we'll take one more break, but we 

should go on now to which cases?

Ms. Gogliotti: The next one is 477.3.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: And that's a Bethlehem Steel case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Bethlehem Steel, sure, the AWE

[file]. Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: And in this particular case, this is the 

EE's cancer diagnosis. As we know, these particular 

claims are --

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Yes, yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: -- especially complicated for a number 

of reasons.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: With this case, NIOSH did their runs 

and provided us with CADW files for the case, but 

they did not provide any IMBA files. So our dose 

reconstructor went through and did IMBA runs just to 

confirm the results of the CADW. And normally, we 

don't do IMBA runs. We just do confirmations of 

IMBA files. But since we didn't have them, we had to 

reconvert it.

And it looks like when we did that run, it didn't match 

up. We did some investigation, and it looks like one 

of the intake regimes had a wrong starting date. So 

SC&A was incorrect with this finding, which we 

wouldn't have had if the IMBA files were provided.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. What do NIOSH folks think?

Member Clawson: Okay. Well, let's discuss this. 

SC&A had already said that they made a mistake on 

this one. So there really isn't an issue, correct, Rose?

Member Beach: Well, wait a minute. They didn't 
66

make a mistake. They didn't get the data in order to 

do it correctly, right?

Ms. Gogliotti: We didn't get the initial data. So we 

had to make our own run.

Member Beach: Alright.

Ms. Gogliotti: And our own run was found to have an 

error in it.

Chair Kotelchuck: Your own run?

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, yes, because NIOSH did not 

provide us with their IMBA files.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, oh, I see. It's not that you 

were detecting that they hadn't. It's that you did not 

have the data. So your run was compromised?

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, our run had inadvertently 

changed one of the intake regimes slightly.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: So our dose did not match up with 

NIOSH's --

Chair Kotelchuck: Got it.

Ms. Gogliotti: -- and we weren't sure why. But it 

was our error.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. And so you're 

recommending to close it?

Ms. Gogliotti: Correct.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, that sounds fine.

Member Clawson: I agree. This is Brad.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. That was something 

straightforward. Good.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. The next one is 472, and this 

is a Carborundum case.
67

Bob, are you still on the line?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, I'm here.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. I just wanted to confirm.

Dr. Anigstein: Can you hear me?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, we can.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. I wasn't sure if it was on mute 

or not.

Okay. Shall I go ahead and summarize the 

Carborundum case?

Ms. Gogliotti: Just the findings and observations, 

yes.

Dr. Anigstein: Well, this hasn't really been discussed 

by the -- -- okay. I'll have to do it slightly differently.

The basis of the Carborundum case is this case was 

done four years ago, and NIOSH has since responded 

to an SEC petition which actually arose from this 

case. And they have proposed a radically new, 

radically different dose reconstruction methodology 

than the one that was used here, and we had a 

Carborundum Work Group formed. There were 

meetings. It came before the full Board on two 

occasions.

So there was a whole -- the way this case was done 

has been completely superseded by a new approach. 

So I don't know how profitable it is to go into the 

details of these findings because NIOSH has 

essentially agreed to change the methodology in the 

future. So I'm not quite -- perhaps I need some 

guidance on how to proceed, given that.

Chair Kotelchuck: So if that was proper methodology 

at the time, and now it's been superseded, and they 

will use the superseding process?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes. Well they have proposed a 

superseding process, but it has not actually been 
68

adopted to any actual case, any real cases. They 

created two hypothetical cases which were reviewed 

by SC&A and critiqued and found to be mostly 

acceptable because it was based on a lot of 

exchanges of discussions.

Chair Kotelchuck: And we have -- there's no -- is 

there a Carborundum Working Group?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, there is.

Chair Kotelchuck: Is there not?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, there is.

Chair Kotelchuck: Is that something that they should 

be inputting on?

Mr. Katz: Dave?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes?

Mr. Katz: So if I can make a suggestion? On this, 

NIOSH may have to help answer this question. But 

if it's the case that the methodology used for this had 

problems, was incorrect, SC&A had findings that 

were not correct. And that much is already 

determined because NIOSH has gone on and 

changed its methodology or is in the process of 

changing its methodology to deal with those defects. 

That's all you really need to know to close this case.

I mean, the new approach will get reviewed by 

another dose reconstruction case review. But if 

that's the situation, then -- and I guess NIOSH can 

confirm it or say it's wrong -- but if that's the case, 

then you can close this and wait until your next 

Carborundum case.

Dr. Anigstein: However, there are a couple of -- let 

me give you a brief -- there are some findings that 

are very specific to this case which are not addressed 

by the other things. At least I'm not sure they are.

And the first one was that this individual was 

classified as a clerical worker, and we find that that 
69

is incorrect.

Carborundum had two operating periods. The first 

one was a brief period in 1943, which lasted about 

three months, where they were performing tests of 

various abrasive wheels for centerless grinding of 

uranium rods. And such wheels would have been 

produced in the molded abrasives department, and 

that happened to correspond to this EE's job 

designation. But we feel that it's very likely that he 

would have participated in these tests because they

were using the things that he made. So who would 

be more logical to bring in? And NIOSH denied that 

he had any connection with that operation. That's 

one principal disagreement.

And the other disagreement is that there was a 

second operational period, which consisted of 

uranium and plutonium being handled in glove boxes. 

And initially, NIOSH used an erroneous MCNP model. 

There was just a coding error which made the doses 

almost nonexistent. In reality, they're substantial. 

And they have since performed a new MCNP analysis 

which is much closer to the mark (telephonic 

interference) because of the model of the glove box 

they used was an outdated model that was part of 

the evaluation of TIB-10 for glove box workers. And 

subsequently, that model, that design of the glove 

box, was withdrawn by NIOSH, but --

Chair Kotelchuck: Bob?

Dr. Anigstein: Excuse me?

Chair Kotelchuck: Bob, it seems to me you're moving 

ahead on the other observations where there may be 

issues.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, I am. I'm sorry.

Chair Kotelchuck: No, that's okay, but just in terms 

of order and in terms of our thinking about it, the 

Observation 1 was what we were talking about 

initially, right, the Carborundum Observation 1? Let 

me see. I'm looking at my notes. I'm sorry.
70

And that was the one that was superseded, right?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, Observation 1 was responded to.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Can you hear me?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. The 472, Observation 1 we 

were starting with, and you said it was with respect 

to that that you were talking about there's a 

superseding process, am I correct?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. And so that doesn't -- - I 

mean that's something that I think we could close on, 

and then get to the other observations one by one.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes. Well the response, my response 

at the end to Observation 1, to NIOSH's response, 

Scott Siebert's response, was that assuming that 

NIOSH adopts the methodology proposed by Tom 

Tomes--

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Anigstein: -- and then we recommend closure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Right. And that sounds 

reasonable.

And I don't know, do others want to come back and 

talk about that? And then let's go on to the next 

observation. There are a total of six, seven 

observations that I had in my notes that we were 

holding on.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Observation 2 I just spoke 

about. That's about the workers, the job assignment.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Can we close Observation 

1, folks? Do I hear an objection?

Member Clawson: This is Brad. I agree, let's close 

it.
71

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. We closed Observation 1. 

Let's go on to Observation 2. You were addressing a 

number of them, and that's why I --

Dr. Anigstein: I guess I was going too fast.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I mean, we need to close 

them one-by-one, unfortunately -- or fortunately.

And this was the one where the question was whether 

the clerk/other category was appropriate. And you 

were saying that the person did work in that -- the 

person did work and get exposure in that period, is 

that correct, that he was--

Dr. Anigstein: Yes, he was employed during that 

period. Yes, his employment did include that period.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Anigstein: And the nature of his work --

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: -- was such that it was plausible and 

perhaps even likely that he was involved in that 

machining operation for the testing.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. And the question is you're 

saying that NIOSH should look into this?

Dr. Anigstein: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: And justify it?

Dr. Anigstein: Well, yes, they did respond, and we 

simply -- we don't agree with their response.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. How about, let me hear 

NIOSH's response? Looking on the materials that 

were given to us, my -- pardon me. I am off the grid. 

I'm just going back to the original materials that we 

sent and were reading for this meeting.

Am I the only one who's continuing something they 

call loading? I don't know. Okay.
72

Mr. Katz: Yes, that's just you, Dave.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, it's just me. Okay. Let's --

it is just me.

It's certainly reasonable to ask that NIOSH look into 

it.

Scott, could you talk about your response? And I'll 

be reading and looking at it again while you're 

talking.

Mr. Siebert: Sure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Scott, your response to that was?

Mr. Siebert: We agreed, earlier on, when we did this 

claim, we had the individual as clerk/other, which we 

agree is not probably the categorization we would use 

with the updated methodology, the new information 

that we have from Carborundum.

Now there's a lot of information in there that basically 

states that we had no specific information he worked 

with radioactive material. The individual was a mold 

operator starting in '35. So was doing mold operator 

work well before the period where radioactive 

materials were onsite, as well as after.

We did mention the fact that his obituary mentioned 

that he was there for that amount of time. Now in 

SC&A's response, they said that we wouldn't expect 

the obituary to mention that he worked with 

radioactive material for 119 days. I absolutely agree 

with that. However, we were just pointing out that it 

discussed that he did the same type of work the 

whole time he was working at Carborundum.

So it basically comes down to the fact that we agree 

that other/clerk, which is a very, very low exposure 

scenario, was not appropriate. We would suggest the 

individual actually is put in a supervisor/non-rad 

worker personnel, which is a higher category than 

was previously used. It's not an operator category.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.
73

Mr. Siebert: And our thought process is still the fact 

that, as a mold operator, it really didn't make sense 

to us that he would be in the area doing the grinding 

work. Now could he be in the same general 

production area when the grinding work was done? 

Yes, we agree with that, which is why we're talking 

about using the supervisor category. But actually 

being an operator and grinding, which is not the type 

of work this individual did, that didn't seem to make 

sense to us. So that's where we are right now.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright.

Dr. Anigstein: And can I respond to that?

Chair Kotelchuck: Please. Sure.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes. Okay. My response to that is 

this was a short time that they were doing-- the 

reason Carborundum was asked to do this work by 

AEC or the AEC contractor was that that was their 

product, was making grinding wheels. And so they 

said, why don't you test your grinding wheels to see 

which ones do the best job on uranium? And I'm just 

being very subjective now, and I'm simply saying I 

would imagine I would call in the person who made 

the grinding wheels to participate in those tests. 

Particularly, and it's not the changing of the whole 

job category, because this was a short-term, 

temporary work. And who would know grinding 

wheels better than somebody who made them? I 

mean, it's at least plausible that he would have had 

that assignment for a time.

And the fact that in that DOL initial case, there was a 

sworn statement by one of the survivors, one of his 

children, that he did work with radioactive materials, 

that he was exposed to radioactive materials. It was 

not the legal -- there was a legal representative 

whose name was listed, but that's not who signed the 

statement. The statement was signed by his 

survivor. So we have sworn testimony saying that 

he worked with radioactive materials. And unless 

we're going to impeach that testimony, I think it has 

to be honored.
74

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. How do we resolve this in 

an observation? I mean, I think it sounds like there's 

evidence that, in fact, the person was exposed to 

radiation. And now Scott said this is the way we 

would do it. You don't agree on how you would do it, 

what would be the better way to approach resolving 

it. But it's an observation. Are we -- you're not 

making a finding saying he ought to do it? You're 

making an observation that I wish you would have 

done it? And they say they don't want to do it, right, 

because they think they would do it differently? Also 

correctly, professional judgment again.

Folks on the Subcommittee, what? I'm talking a lot 

and maybe not making much progress. Folks, what 

are you thinking?

Mr. Siebert: This is Scott.

I just want to point out that although this is an 

Observation No. 2, basically the same comment is 

made in Finding No. 6. And to be honest, if I 

remember correctly, our response is the same for 

Finding No. 6 as it is for Observation No. 2. So I 

wouldn't say focus on the fact that it's just an 

observation because it's also Finding No. 6.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright. I would like to hear 

input from others on the Subcommittee or you, Ted.

Mr. Katz: Yes, this is Ted here. But this is not really 

for me to address because this is about really all of 

your judgments as to what's appropriate here, not 

mine.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. No, I'm trying to think how 

to handle this and what our options as a 

Subcommittee are in trying to resolve this 

disagreement.

Mr. Katz: Right. Well, I mean if the Subcommittee 

Members are persuaded together in one direction or 

another, then you make that finding, whatever that 

is--
75

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Katz: -- to sort of break the stalemate here.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Let's put it this way. I'm 

sitting here speaking, and I'm the only Member of the 

Subcommittee opening my mouth on this.

Member Clawson: You're not the only one. I'm just 

waiting to get an opening.

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright. Please come on in.

Member Clawson: And Josie's trying to chime-in, 

too, but I haven't heard her.

So I guess, you know, I'm trying to figure out, too, 

what you want, what we should do with this? I don't 

think we're going to find anybody to interview in that 

time period, are we?

And I thought this came back to -- and correct me if 

I'm wrong, Scott -- that you guys used that he was 

not a part of the work out there, is that correct?

Mr. Siebert: Well, like you say, it is a while ago and 

you don't have a lot of good information as to how 

their areas were set up. By the way, everything I'm 

saying, I want to make sure -- Grady is listening 

carefully and can overstep me if I say anything that 

he's not comfortable with, but our basic thought 

process is the fact that I understand what Bob is 

saying, but I don't see that really the mold operator 

would be doing the grinding testing. That's just the 

thought process that was used that makes more 

sense to us, that, yes, the mold operators -- because 

we don't know the configuration of the facility. Mold 

operators could have been in the general vicinity 

where the grinding was done, but it doesn't really 

make sense to us that he was the individual doing 

the grinding, which is what the production category 

would apply to. And that's our general thought 

process on that.

Member Clawson: And I understand that, but one of 
76

the things, too, that I've seen is usually when people 

do this, they're also the ones that are out there 

testing that, too. And that's where I agree with Bob 

on this. I don't know how we're going to be able to 

bring them in, but my thought process is how better 

way to know your product than to go out there and 

actually use it and see what it's going to do?

Dr. Anigstein: Particularly since they were, 

presumably, day-by-day using different grinding 

wheels, see which one was -- you know, this one isn't 

so great; let's try something else. So it would be 

very important to know how to make or improve the 

grinding wheel to do a better job.

Member Clawson: Than to go out there and do it 

yourselves.

Dr. Anigstein: Yes.

Member Clawson: That I agree with you on. I'm just 

trying to see how we can proceed forward with this. 

Because I agree with you, Bob, wholeheartedly; I do. 

And I have never liked that a lot of times we 

categorize somebody in a certain position and say 

that they couldn't have ever done those things. I 

don't like that. But I'm just trying to figure a path 

forward to how we could bring this to a resolution.

Mr. Katz: Yes, so your options, Brad, are, one, like 

the case we dealt with earlier, you could say this is a 

matter of judgment, and judgment is reasonable on 

either side; there's nothing incorrect. So we just 

leave this at that as a matter of judgment. Or if you 

feel that the evidence is very compelling on one side 

or the other, then you say we think this is correct or 

we think that's correct. So here are, you know, three 

options: correct, incorrect, or just a matter of 

judgment, and close it.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Brad?

Member Clawson: Go ahead.
77

Chair Kotelchuck: Josie, were you trying to say 

something?

Member Beach: Can you hear me now?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, I can. We can.

Member Beach: Oh, wonderful. I was speaking and 

I ended up having to re-call back in.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Beach: I was going to ask Scott -- and I 

appreciated Brad's argument -- Scott, how much 

weight did you put on the survivor's statement that 

he worked with material, radioactive material? I 

know you commented on the legal representative, 

but I didn't hear anything about his survivor.

Dr. Anigstein: No, the form, I think it's called the 

DOL initial something. DOL Initial Case is the title of 

this form. And that's a big file which has xerox, which 

has copies of everything from people's birth 

certificates to everything else. But at the front are 

the forms filed as part of the claim.

And the form carried the name of the legal 

representative but was signed by the survivor. And 

therefore, it's the survivor that is responsible for 

making this statement that he was exposed to 

radioactive materials. And I believe that we need to 

give credence to it, and I think that was a 

misunderstanding that this was filled out by the legal 

representative. It's the person who signs it that's 

responsible. And the fact that -- anyway I just think 

-- but I think that's confirmatory evidence.

By the way, I do want to explain why there is both 

an observation and a finding on the same topic. 

Because as we went through it, as we were preparing 

the DR, we have a certain form that we follow -- or 

template that we follow. And so earlier in the DR, we 

commented on external exposure. Well, for external, 

the dose from the external, the external dose from 

uranium is on the small side, particularly in this 
78

respiratory organ cancer case.

And consequently, we said, yes, we disagree with 

this, but it's not going to make much difference. So, 

therefore, we made it an observation. Whether he 

gets this external exposure or that external 

exposure, it has a small impact on his overall dose.

But then, further on, when we did internal exposure, 

it made a tremendous difference because the internal 

-- the dust-loading and, therefore, the intake from 

the centerless grinding is extremely high from the --

again, we were talking before about Cristofano and 

Harris, but, no, actually it's the other one, Harris and 

Kingsley report. Those were some of the highest dust 

exposures.

So to whether he gets the full intake or 5 percent of 

that intake for internal makes a tremendous 

difference in the dose and the PoC. That's why it's 

an observation in one case because this is for

purposes of external, and a finding for purposes of 

internal.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Yes. Thanks on that.

But I'm thinking about the observation. It seems to 

me that the NIOSH people don't have any firm 

evidence that the person was not exposed. As they 

said, it's clear the person was exposed, and the 

question is, how do you handle it? And they would 

like to put it, rather than a clerk, into supervisor and 

non-radiological work, which is another category, but 

it's not compelling that the person didn't do that 

work. On the other hand, we have some evidence 

that the person did do the work, the signed 

statement by the wife. And we all agree that there 

was some exposure in this case then.

And we can't ascertain what really happened now 

because it's too late, right? This is the next century. 

So I'm impressed that since we know that uranium 

was only onsite for 119 days, I would say there's no 

compelling reason to say which was the better 

description of exposure, in which case we ought to be 
79

friendly, we ought to be worker-friendly and just say 

that the worker, for 119 days, that worker was doing 

the grinding, doing the radioactive work.

Dr. Anigstein: And also I would like to quote from 

TBD-6000, and this is a direct quote, where the 

claimant's job category is unknown or does not 

support, corresponds to a listed category, the 

maximum air-sampling data should be used.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. And I think that makes 

sense. So I'm persuaded that in this case we don't 

have strong evidence for either choice to determine 

how to handle it. And we know -- but we all agree 

that the person was exposed. Since we have a very 

limited amount, we actually know the time period in 

which the person could have been exposed, then why 

don't we say that we should -- one that was claimantfriendly for 119 days?

Member Clawson: I agree.

Chair Kotelchuck: In which case, yes, that makes it 

good.

Others?

Member Beach: I agree also. This is Josie.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Valerio: I agree also. This is Loretta.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Lockey: Yes, Jim Lockey. I agree, too.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Okay. So I think we can 

close it with the understanding that we would be 

claimant-friendly in this and would take the approach 

that SC&A suggested.

Mr. Katz: Okay. So you're closing actually Finding 

6, right? So that's the finding.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.
80

Mr. Katz: The observation really doesn't matter.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right, but the observation and the 

finding, yes. Yes.

Mr. Katz: Yes, it's the same result.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right. That's right.

Okay. Now let's see. Maybe we can -- I've been --

by the way, I have tried several times to get back 

onto Skype, and I haven't been able to. So I'm just 

using the materials and following through the 

materials that were sent to us.

Member Clawson: I noticed that you keep popping 

up, Dave, saying that you're waiting in the lobby.

Chair Kotelchuck: Really?

Member Beach: Dave, this is Josie.

Before you move on--

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes?

Member Beach: -- I want to be clear. So Observation 

2, and then Ted said observation -- or Finding 6, but 

--

Mr. Calhoun: Can anybody hear me?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Calhoun: Okay. I've been trying to speak for the 

last 10 minutes, and evidently, my phone wasn't 

working. So I had to hang up and--

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

Mr. Calhoun: No, it wasn't you. It was probably a 

problem here.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Mr. Calhoun: So I don't know what you jumped to 

while I hung up and called, but I just wanted to put 
81

my thoughts in here.

And I really kind of support Scott's approach in the 

way we did this. And I don't believe that a moldmaker would go out on the floor and do the grinding. 

I believe that in most union-type shops that I worked 

at, the mold-maker very well may go out on the floor 

and watch an operator do it. It's possible that they 

wouldn't even be allowed to do different jobs like 

that.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, while you were off the 

phone--

Mr. Calhoun: And the increased exposure that a 

supervisor would get over what we assigned seems 

much more plausible than assuming that a moldmaker, because he made the product, used the 

product. You can find a million different examples of 

someone who makes the product but not using the 

product on the operations floor. That's more of a 

leap, I think.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, in the -- while you--

Mr. Calhoun: That's where I stand, and I think we'll 

probably stick with that approach.

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, while you were on the 

phone, we were coming to a different conclusion as 

the Subcommittee. And I made the argument that 

we know there was exposure, but we don't know --

there's no proper categorization of what this person's 

job task was that caused the exposure.

Both of -- we're all -- we're speculating, and 

speculating reasonably in both cases, but it's 

speculation. And there is some evidence, and there's 

an agreement on all of our parts that there is some 

level of exposure, that the person was in the worksite 

during the 119 days that uranium was there. There 

is some evidence that he had exposure from the 

person's wife.

And so we were, then, in the process of deciding, just 
82

as you came back on the phone, that since neither 

side can really pin down a really appropriate 

exposure category, that we should, then, be 

claimant-friendly and just say the person was 

working with uranium exposure, as if they were 

working with the material, with the uranium, for 

those 119 days. It is a claimant-friendly thing.

And we sort of decided it. I didn't realize you were 

off the phone.

Mr. Calhoun: Yes, and I think that this really comes 

down to the whole professional judgment thing again. 

It's just one of the things that we've worked through 

dozens of times here in this Committee.

My kids would probably tell somebody that I worked 

with radioactive material because I was at Fernald for 

11 years, but I didn't touch any.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Calhoun: It's just, you know -- and I think I'd 

put a little bit more credence on the fact that he was 

a mold-maker, and I think that jumping to the thing 

that he tested his grinding wheel seems like more of 

a risk. Now we said that we probably believe he got 

more exposure than the clerical that we assigned 

initially. And now that the TBD has changed 

significantly, we would go with supervisory-type 

category. And I could see the mold-maker, best 

case, sitting there watching somebody else who was 

trained to work with these things do the work, and 

his exposure would be very similar to a supervisor, in 

my opinion.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Well, I don't agree with you 

that it's simply professional judgment in terms of 

there is not hard evidence of what -- where the 

person worked and what the nature of the person's 

exposure was.

Both groups are professional and sensible. But 

without evidence, I just feel as if, then, you just have 

to go with the claimant-friendly. And it's not a 
83

question of professional judgment.

What you and Scott are saying may actually be right 

if we could find the truth, but the truth escapes us. 

The truth is in the past that cannot be confirmed by, 

for example, speaking to survivors.

So I honestly don't -- I haven't changed my mind in 

this discussion.

Do other Committee Members, do you want to say 

something, or are you persuaded that maybe we 

were making a faulty judgment? Or should we stick 

to what we were saying?

And I am sorry, Grady, that you got cut off in the 

middle of an important conversation.

Member Clawson: This is Brad.

I still stand on where I --

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Clawson: -- because, you know, Grady, me 

and you have discussed this numerous times. We 

can go either way. But, also too, the weight of the 

evidence, too, and you guys I think on this side are 

a little bit short. So it is what it is.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Beach: Can you hear me, Dave?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Beach: I stand also. I think I agree with 

your argument.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. I think, Grady, unfortunately, 

I think we disagree, and I think the Subcommittee is 

affirming the Finding 6 and Observation 2. And I 

think it's worth moving on. We have discussed this 

for quite a while.

Mr. Calhoun: Okay.
84

Chair Kotelchuck: As two professionals, we have 

different judgments on this. Both are worthy of 

respect. Okay. Close.

And do we want to go -- it's 2:40. Maybe this is a 

good time to stop, it's 2:40, and take a 20-minute 

rest break, and then come back at 3:00 and go 

through 4:30, starting with Observation 3 on 

Carborundum.

Member Lockey: How long a break, David?

Chair Kotelchuck: Twenty minutes. Come back at 

3:00 Eastern daylight time. Okay. Speak to you all 

later.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Thanks.

Chair Kotelchuck: Bye-bye.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 2:39 p.m. and resumed at 3:04 p.m.)

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright, folks, so we're on 

Carborundum Case 472, Observation 3, and 

calculation of organ dose distributions in the IREP 

info.

Dr. Anigstein, do you want to --

Dr. Anigstein: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: And we'll do it observation by 

observation --

Dr. Anigstein: Okay.

Chair Kotelchuck: -- talk about it, resolve it one way 

or the other, and move on.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Shall I go ahead?

Chair Kotelchuck: Please, yes.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Well, Observation 3 is --- I was 

puzzled by the IREP input, the organ dose, the 

external organ dose distribution. And there was a 
85

correction in Table 4.1a of OCAS-IG-001. And there 

was an adjustment factor for rotational. Well, that's 

appropriate to apply when you're using film badge 

dosimeters and trying to relate the film badge 

reading, which is, of course, normally worn on the 

front, to a different exposure geometry, but the 

radiation is coming from different sides.

But that's not what was being used here. Here they 

were using simply the calculated, the modeled dose 

rates from TBD-6000, which were based on MCNP 

calculations done by Anderson and Hertel, and 

published in Health Physics -- not Health Physics, I 

don't remember the journal. And therefore, that kind 

of a correction was inappropriate, and that's what

we're referring to.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: I have to admit there's a slight error 

where I first attributed that table correctly to OCASIG-001, and then, I attributed it to Allen 2001, which 

is how I designate the TBD-6000. So, where it says 

Allen 2011, Table 4.1a, it should be OCAS-2007.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: Anyway, that's a trivial--

Chair Kotelchuck: And do NIOSH folks want to say 

something about it? Although there is a discussion 

about the Working Group adopting a different 

approach by Tomes, that Tomes suggested, Tom 

Tomes. But would you like to respond, NIOSH, Scott 

or whomever?

Mr. Siebert: This is Scott.

I know he's going to be mad at me, but I would defer 

to Dave Allen on these types of questions.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Siebert: Sorry, Dave.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Dave, right. I think I'm 
86

waiting for Dave Allen, right?

Ms. Gogliotti: I think he's having trouble connecting.

Chair Kotelchuck: I mean, partially, this is 

superseded by the fact that the Work Group recently 

met --- not recently, it was actually a year ago-- and 

adopted Tom Tomes' proposal, and they said they're 

comfortable with that. And if NIOSH is comfortable 

with that, using that, and, in fact, it should be using 

it if it's directed by the Work Group, then it seems to 

me there's nothing to resolve, that the case would be 

closed.

Member Clawson: I know, Dave, but you need to 

give Dave Allen an opportunity to chime in because 

this may be a little bit different than I thought what 

we agreed.

I also want to make sure that I'm on the same page 

as what I think I am.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Sure, sure. Okay. Good.

Member Clawson: I think we ought to just put Scott 

Siebert back on the hot seat and make him explain it 

real quick in 20 words or less.

Ms. Gogliotti: Ted, can I say something?

Chair Kotelchuck: Go ahead. Sure.

Ms. Gogliotti: Dave Allen is calling back in again.

Mr. Allen: Yes, this is Dave Allen. Can you hear me 

now?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, we can. Thank you.

Mr. Allen: Okay.

Chair Kotelchuck: We're waiting for you.

Mr. Allen: I think I had the same problem Grady had. 

I've got a mute button right in front of me. I pushed 

it on and off several times, and nobody could hear 

me.
87

Member Beach: You know, that happened to me, 

too, and I had to call back in. This is Josie. Weird.

Mr. Allen: Yes. I haven't seen that one before.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Allen: Anyway, I was starting to try to answer 

that. Well, first of all, I thought we were going to 

probably move all these Carborundum things that 

were not case-specific to the Carborundum Work 

Group. So, I wasn't really prepared to talk about 

many of these today.

I mean, we've talked about the case-specific one, 

which was that classification of that particular claim. 

And that, I agree, doesn't belong with the Work 

Group, but the rest of these, I don't think they're 

case-specific, unless I'm wrong here.

Member Clawson: So, what you're saying, Dave, is 

that these are kind of overarching for the 

Carborundum Work Group to evaluate, correct?

Mr. Allen: Yes, essentially. They're in the middle of 

an evaluation now, and I think even Bob's answers 

said, if we adopt another method that has already 

been presented to that Work Group, some of this 

would be moot.

Member Clawson: Right. Dave, help me out with this 

one. Because we took, and as a Work Group, we 

discussed a different methodology that we were 

going to do on that. And I don't think that these 

slides represent what the Work Group had agreed on. 

And I was just wondering if this was going to be 

covered by that or if this was completely different. 

Tom Tomes, I think? Is that who it was that we 

agreed with?

Mr. Allen: Yes, Tom Tomes, and that Work Group is 

still working.

Member Clawson: Tom Tomes.

Mr. Allen: We're finalizing some White Papers to go 
88

to that Work Group now. They're still working on it, 

which is why I think it might be kind of a bad idea for 

us to deal with some of the issues they might be 

dealing with at the same time.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, that's fine, yes.

Member Clawson: Well, Dave, this is an issue that 

maybe we ought to skip.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, I'd be more than open. I'd be 

more than open. There are so many different issues 

that are raised under this particular Carborundum 

case that if the -- I mean, the Working Group, if they 

are willing and able to take on some of these, and 

then, refer back to us, I would be delighted.

Member Clawson: Well, I think we would utilize our 

time a little bit better, where a lot of these, it looks 

like, are plant-specific instead of an individual.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes. That's fine.

Member Clawson: So, I think we ought to, then, skip 

this one and go to the next one.

Sorry, Rose, but --

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Agreed. Yes, I'm happy 

about that.

Subcommittee and Rose, if you want to say 

something, don't hesitate, or other Subcommittee 

Members. I'm on board with asking the Work Group 

to look at it.

Member Beach: This is Josie. I agree with that also.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. A number of issues. Okay.

Rose, is that acceptable to you? You are prepared, 

I'm sure, to talk about these. And, Bob?

Mr. Katz: We seem to have lost Rose and Bob.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, we did? I'm so sorry.
89

Member Beach: I wonder if they're having the same 

problem with their phones.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

(Off the record comments)

Dr. Anigstein: So if I can speak for SC&A in Rose's 

absence?

Chair Kotelchuck: Please.

Dr. Anigstein: This is Bob Anigstein.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure.

Dr. Anigstein: I think that that would certainly be a 

desirable approach to put this off until the 

Carborundum Work Group meeting.

Mr. Katz: So, Bob, is there anything left that's just 

case-specific?

Chair Kotelchuck: Within that Carborundum?

Mr. Katz: Bob, did you hear me?

Dr. Anigstein: I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.

Mr. Katz: So is there anything left for this case that's 

case-specific and not a generic matter for 

Carborundum?

Ms. Gogliotti: Sorry about that. Now can you hear 

me?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Ah, Rose, you're back. Good.

(Off the record comments)

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, we're happy to forward these on 

to the Carborundum Work Group for any of these that 

are not case-specific.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, okay.

Member Clawson: That being said, Rose, do we have 

any of them are just case-specific, individual-specific 
90

that you know of?

Ms. Gogliotti: Let me look.

Member Clawson: For me looking at it, I saw these 

as all more of an area-specific.

Ms. Gogliotti: Just this Finding No. 4 --

Member Clawson: Where?

Ms. Gogliotti: -- where the finding stated that 

occupational medical doses were assigned prior to 

AWE operations.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: NIOSH agreed that that was incorrect.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. And recommended closure, 

and that certainly makes sense. NIOSH agrees.

Mr. Siebert: This is Scott.

I think another one is Observation 5.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Before we do it, let's agree.

The Subcommittee, we agree that 472.4 should be 

closed?

Member Clawson: That's correct.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: This is Brad.

Chair Kotelchuck: Moving on, let's go back to 

Observation 4.

Mr. Siebert: Observation 5.

Chair Kotelchuck: Five. Sorry.

Ms. Gogliotti: This one states that NIOSH should 

provide live spreadsheets. And I think there must 

have been some kind of miscommunication here 

because NIOSH said it was the CAB files that they 
91

were talking about, and that's not a live spreadsheet. 

It's more of a tool.

So, we agree that that's the case and we recommend 

closure.

Mr. Katz: Rose?

Ms. Gogliotti: Can you hear me? Not?

Chair Kotelchuck: I barely hear you.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Well, at least you can hear me 

somewhat.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: Observation 5, the observation states 

that NIOSH should provide live spreadsheets to 

facilitate our review. There must have been some 

kind of communication error because NIOSH said that 

the CAB tool was provided, and the CAB tool isn't a 

live spreadsheet. It's more of a workbook tool.

So, we understand that and we agree with that. So, 

we can recommend closure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: I agree.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good. Alright. Close that 

Observation 5 and Finding 4. Good.

And we'll then send the rest to the Working Group 

and ask them to advise us or settle it, actually. If 

they settle it, then we don't have to see it again.

Mr. Siebert: Wait, well, I'm sorry, Dr. Kotelchuck. I 

think Observation 6 also could probably be looked at.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Let's see. Observation 6.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. This one states that NIOSH 

should eliminate the inconsistencies in annual intakes 

listed in the CAB workbook.
92

Dr. Anigstein: Basically, we just recommend that we 

have more precise data. They use this -- they 

changed the formats. They use the ---

(Telephonic interference.)

--- there is no limit evaluated. Otherwise, when you 

have such formats, by the time you get to three 

decimal places, it is very hard to do a QA when you 

don't have the full -- see, NIOSH uses a full precision, 

but we don't get it.

So, it's just a suggestion that they -- it's not really 

our place to tell NIOSH how to do this, but we're 

suggesting that it would make it a lot easier to QA to 

go in and change the format to use the E format.

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright. That's an observation and 

a suggestion. We don't really have to pass on it, 

right?

Member Clawson: I guess, Dave, I'd just like to know 

Scott's take on this.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: Is it something --- I know that 

SC&A is just doing this as an observation, but I just 

wondered if it's something that you'll kind of look 

into.

Mr. Siebert: Yes, I have a note to myself to look at 

the consistency of how specifically that is being done 

and make sure we're doing it consistently.

Member Clawson: Okay. That sounds good, I just -

--

Chair Kotelchuck: Good. Thank you, Brad, for that.

Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, Rose, if you would bundle the findings, 

the outstanding findings that are appropriate for the 

Work Group to consider for their general 

methodology for Carborundum, if you would bundle 
93

those and send them to me, then I'll make sure they 

get to the Work Group, and when the Work Group 

meets, they can take these up along with the -- they 

probably in some degree overlap with other issues 

they have for the Carborundum Site Profile Review.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Mr. Katz: Okay, Rose?

Ms. Gogliotti: Not a problem, and I'll make sure to 

also include some of this discussion just to give them 

a leg up to what's already happened.

Chair Kotelchuck: And, Rose, could you cc me on 

that, just so I know what's being sent to the Work 

Group? Or Ted?

Mr. Katz: Yes. Yes, that's fine.

Chair Kotelchuck: That would be good.

Alright. Well, then, we are ready to move on to GE 

perhaps?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, 473.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. And this is GE and 473.1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Ms. Gogliotti: The finding has to do with requesting 

the methodology used for deriving onsite ambient 

dose. And there's been lots of discussions back and 

forth that have happened on this, but ultimately, we 

needed -- we had asked NIOSH to revise the 

template, or the template for this site. And NIOSH 

agreed. They provided us with the template. We 

verified that the template is consistent with what we 

were expecting and does include the necessary 

references that we can check the values that were 

put into it. So we recommend closure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Okay.
94

Mr. Calhoun: Does this go away as a finding, too?

Ms. Gogliotti: I would not say so. We made a change 

as a result of our review. Generally, that wouldn't be 

a finding.

Mr. Calhoun: Did the methodology change or was it 

just clarified?

Ms. Gogliotti: It was clarified because we didn't have 

enough information to do the review.

Mr. Katz: Okay. That's not a finding then. That's an 

observation.

Mr. Calhoun: Yes, dose reconstruction would be done 

the same way. It's not a finding, I don't think.

Mr. Katz: Right.

Chair Kotelchuck: I agree.

Mr. Katz: Right, it's an observation.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Okay. So, we'll move it to 

an observation and close. Okay.

Unless there's an objection, let’s move on.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. This one is related to the last 

one.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Ms. Gogliotti: And no response from NIOSH. Oh, we 

had requested some additional information from 

NIOSH on 473.2, and NIOSH hasn't responded yet. 

So we should probably leave this one open.

Mr. Siebert: For 473.2, from the last meeting, the 

note I have is John Mauro is going to give us an 

update clarifying the issue because it's not very clear 

to us what he's actually asking.

Ms. Gogliotti: I did not have that in my notes, but if 

we agreed to that, we can certainly do that.
95

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, and I'm on the BRS and I see 

it, yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: So that was from September. Our last 

response was from March. Maybe I'm confused. 

We'll add some additional clarification, and we can 

talk about it at the next meeting.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Why don't we do that? So 

473.2 will still be in progress.

Mr. Katz: Correct.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. The next one is 473.3, same 

case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: And the finding had to do with 

purported photon doses not appearing to be properly 

accounted for. And with this one, I think it comes 

down to: there are two records that are cited in the 

report that SC&A cannot locate. They're records from 

1964 and 1984 dosimetry. And this particular 

individual was monitored on and off, but they're very 

spotty dosimetry records, but they have lifetime 

records.

And NIOSH claims to have used these two, in addition 

to one that we did find, to assign the dose. If the 

results are what they state they are in the report, 

we're okay with it. We just can't find these results to 

verify their claim.

Mr. Siebert: Yes, and this is Scott.

Since that was floated last week, we haven't had a 

chance to look at it yet, but we will before the next 

meeting.

Ms. Gogliotti: Alright.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. And we will resolve that 

issue that you want this to be that this not be a 
96

finding, that the finding be withdrawn. And we'll 

discuss that, okay? At that time, at the next meeting.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. The next one is a Metals and 

Controls Corp case, I mean Tab 474, Observation 1.

NIOSH should take note of the abnormally high 

photon doses and beta doses for the three workers. 

They were omitted from the dose reconstruction, and 

we completely agree that they should have been 

omitted. NIOSH agrees that they were omitted and 

should have been, and they explain why they omitted 

these results. And we agree. So we recommend 

closure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Let's close that.

Folks from the Committee, anybody have any 

comments, any concern? Or let's just say, why don't 

I say it's closed unless I hear objection?

Member Clawson: Well, I'm good with it, Dave. This 

is Brad.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Let's go on then. Good.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Then, Case Observation 2. 

According to the CATI, the EE works in this specific 

location, even after AWE operations. However, doses 

assigned to certain years include dosimetry collected 

in other buildings.

And NIOSH responded, essentially saying that the EE 

did work in that location, but that he performed 

multiple different tasks, and they don't feel that a 

one-building location adequately captured the EE's 

exposure. And we accept their response and 

recommend closure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Again, let's close, unless I 

hear objection.

Member Clawson: No objection.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.
97

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. This next one, Observation 3, 

I'm actually going to recommend that we wait on the 

Subcommittee. There's currently an SEC petition 

being evaluated in Subcommittee.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right.

Ms. Gogliotti: And this one is an active observation -

- or finding -- that they're discussing.

Chair Kotelchuck: This is -- I'm at Observation 3. No, 

open. The Metals and Controls, 474, Observation 3. 

Okay. Yes.

And the Subcommittee, there will be a report at the 

next Board meeting, and I'm not quite sure if we're 

having any meetings before. I don't think so.

Mr. Katz: No, we're not, Dave.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. I didn't think so. Good. 

Okay. Observation 3, hold; in a sense, in progress, 

right?

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, it becomes in progress as soon 

we discuss it. So these haven't been discussed it yet. 

So they are still open. But now we have discussed it, 

so it will change to in progress.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright. Let's continue.

Ms. Gogliotti: Observation 4 from the same case. 

NIOSH should explain why a calculation of radon-222 

concentration is included in the dose reconstruction 

for this specific type of cancer. If there is a reason 

to retain the calculation, it should be corrected.

And NIOSH responded that professionally 

standardized language for the radium section of the 

report, it was listed, but it shows that the dose was 

zero, I believe -- yes, in the CAB report. And so we 

accept that response.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. So, we can close that, 

again, pending objection.
98

Go ahead.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. Same case, Finding No. 1. 

Reported overtime was not included in the dose 

reconstruction. And I believe we came -- yes, this 

one and, actually, Findings 2 and 3 also have to do 

with more Subcommittee issues.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: NIOSH recommended that we move 

these to those discussions, and I agree.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Okay.

Mr. Katz: I'm sorry, I didn't understand that, Rose. 

Are related to Subcommittee questions? What did 

you say?

Ms. Gogliotti: So, these have to do with the Metals 

and Controls Corp SEC--

Mr. Katz: Oh, okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: -- questions.

Mr. Katz: Yes. Okay, not Subcommittee, but SEC 

matters.

Member Beach: The Work Group matters.

Chair Kotelchuck: The Work Group. The Work Group 

is considering the SEC. Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: Actually -- Bob Anigstein -- I think the 

SEC is for the residual period.

Member Clawson: Hey, Bob, you're cutting out real 

bad. It's like your speaker phone is kicking in and 

out or something. I can't understand you. I'm sorry.

Dr. Anigstein: Hi. Okay. Is this better?

Member Clawson: Yes, much better.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Yes. Right.
99

This has to do with the operational period, exposure 

to the radium that was handled during the AWE 

period. And our point was that it is not fair to the 

workers who did overtime to have the overtime 

disregarded.

We're on Finding 1, am I--

Chair Kotelchuck: That is correct. That's correct.

But, if an SEC is granted, then this will not be an 

issue.

Dr. Anigstein: No, the SEC is for the residual period. 

This is a case of all of the --

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, okay.

Dr. Anigstein: All three of the Metals and Controls 

cases are skin.

Ms. Gogliotti: Bob, we cannot say the type of cancer.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Right.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. But we have to because it's a 

non-covered cancer.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. You have to say it. Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: So the organ is the skin.

So, the SEC is irrelevant here. And the overtime 

issue is that it's not fair to disregard the overtime. 

Regardless of how well the exposures are 

characterized, they should be adjusted for overtime. 

And the only time they wouldn't be, if they were 

based on film badge readings, then, of course, the 

overtime is already reflected in there, but that's not 

the case here. So we stand behind the fact that this 

should be included. All of the previous comments 

about the case, this case, also apply to the AWE 

period and the exposure to radium, I mean to skin, 

which is not the SEC.

Ms. Lin: Bob, you can use the term non-presumptive 
100

cancer, please.

Dr. Anigstein: Excuse me?

Ms. Lin: Use the term non-presumptive cancer. 

Thank you.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: I'm sorry, I'm just not getting you.

Mr. Katz: Bob, this is Ted.

We don't speak to specific cancers. So, if you need -

-

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. I know, but -- I hear you. I 

hear you, but, okay, so it's a non--

Mr. Katz: Bob, let's--

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. I will amend the record and I'll 

simply say it's a non-SEC cancer.

Mr. Katz: Exactly. Exactly.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Very good. I apologize.

Chair Kotelchuck: But let's go back to the 

substantive issue that the overtime is not recorded. 

The exposure due to the overtime is not.

Dr. Anigstein: No, I think the doses should be 

proportional to the hours worked.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dr. Anigstein: Eight hours a week is already 

significant.

Chair Kotelchuck: And, Scott, what were you saying?

Mr. Siebert: Once again, Metals and Controls, since 

it's in the SEC, I really can't speak to this. If DCAS 

and NIOSH would like to, that's obviously their 

choice, but I really can't.

Dr. Anigstein: Excuse me?
101

Mr. Siebert: I'm not in a position to speak on this 

issue. So I'll leave it up to NIOSH, if they so desire, 

to discuss that.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Bob is suggesting that this 

issue is not an SEC issue, that it's an issue during the 

working period, not the residual.

Dr. Anigstein: This is during the AWE period, but it's 

a non-SEC cancer. So, therefore, they need to do a 

dose reconstruction. But it's not affected by the 

Subcommittee--

Member Beach: But it will come into the Work 

Group's discussion, but probably not until we get to 

the Site Profile issue, correct?

Dr. Anigstein: Well, to my understanding, the Work 

Group, which you've been a part of, is addressing the 

SEC for the residual period. And this is not an issue 

of the residual period. I mean, for two reasons. It's 

not the residual period and it's not an SEC cancer. 

So, in either case--

Chair Kotelchuck: I'm not exactly sure, Scott, why 

you can't address this, but is there -- nobody who is 

responsible for addressing it who is available? Is that 

what you're saying?

Mr. Siebert: Well, yes, I'm not the expert on this, so 

I can't address it. However, Mutty is our AWE expert 

on our side. If he'd like to weigh-in on this, that 

would be great.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mutty? Mutty?

Mr. Sharfi: This is Mutty Sharfi. Can you hear me?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, we can. Thank you.

Mr. Sharfi: The big difference when it comes to in 

this particular situation, when you assess the 

exposure based on radiation fields, which is dose per 

unit of time, then we tend to take adjustments for 

overtime. So in this case the external dose is done

with really kind of a coworker assessment of external 
102

dosimetry, but no different than we applied to 

external coworker badge data. We don't apply 

overtime, but we're basing this kind of exposure 

based on coworker dosimetry data. Does that make 

sense? It's no different than if we base the internal 

based on bioassay data, we don't make adjustments 

to intake for overtime because those are kind of 

accounted for in the dosimetry. But, when they're 

using rad fields and those are time-based 

assessments, or air samples are time-based 

assessments, then we make adjustments to 

overtime.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. I'm not quite sure I follow, 

but others may. So, I'll just hang off for a moment.

Mr. Sharfi: The dosimetry is covering during the 

worker's entire period. It's not based on the 

quarterly badges or monthly. I think in this case for 

this site they're quarterly badges. So they're not 

based on a set hourly dose rate. They're based on a 

period dose rate.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Sharfi: Which is different than if you were taking 

rads, so many mR per hour, and then, you need to 

account for the amount of time that the person is in 

the field, which is different than taking the badge for 

the entire period.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Well, Bob was suggesting

that some people, that there are people who are not 

being badged, right, who are not badged?

Mr. Sharfi: Really, dose is being assigned based on 

a coworker assessment. So it's using other people's 

dosimetry to calculate an average dose per unit.

Chair Kotelchuck: Ah, aha.

Mr. Sharfi: And we're applying that to the 

unmonitored worker period, no different than any 

other coworker study.
103

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: In this instance, the exposure is based 

on a model. We know that this person was involved 

in handling radium, and we have a model exposure 

from the radium. So there is no bioassay data. There 

is no film data. The other workers had film badges, 

but not the workers handling radium. They were not 

badged. The exposure is based on 2,000 hours of 

exposure a year. If a person has overtime, they 

would work more than 2,000 a year.

Mr. Sharfi: Okay. This is the radium exposure 

scenario? I'm sorry. Okay. So in the radium 

exposure scenario, we have to look at -- if you 

remember, the way we assessed it is we assumed a 

2,000-hour exposure, but when you look at the 

workload, it's really almost impossible for someone 

to work that radium job 2,000 hours, given the 

production rate. So even if someone is working 

overtime, it's unlikely that you're working your time 

plus overtime all with the radium work.

Dr. Anigstein: Well, why make that distinction? Why 

is it that a 40-hour-a-week worker was exposed 40 

hours to radium and a 48-hour worker was not 

exposed for 48 hours? It's inconsistent.

Mr. Sharfi: Well, if you had that much work, then 

you would never have gotten the full time period 

worth of exposure. It's just the production rate 

doesn't match. So we're assuming the entire source 

term during the entire 2,000 hours, not a limited 

source term over an elongated period. So, you're 

already including the entire source term during the 

entire process.

Dr. Anigstein: I agree that it's conservative, and I've 

done some further analyses, so that we could do it -

- that is, a lower dose rate would be appropriate 

actually.

And we've got another issue which is further on, just 

jumping ahead, where the skin dose is vastly 

underestimated because of the neglect of the 
104

electrons, the beta dose and the -- well, mostly the 

beta dose. So, we're suggesting a whole different 

model. But, at the same time, that does not negate 

accounting for the overtime. Why should a person 

who worked more hours not get more exposure? It's 

just common sense.

Mr. Sharfi: There is, we've already built the 

conservatism into the model of the dose rate. Then 

we thought there was no need to add on top of it an 

additional conservatism for overtime when the model 

is already overestimating.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. So you're saying that 

nobody works 40 hours a week with the radium?

Mr. Sharfi: Not with the source term that we 

assumed, handling it the exact --- the amount of time 

per --

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: But whatever is assigned should be 

proportional. The person who works more hours is 

more exposed. Whatever the correct exposure rate, 

the person working more hours would have a higher 

exposure.

Mr. Sharfi: I would say, if you did a better estimate 

of the exposure rate, and then you adjust it for 

overtime, you would still end up with a lower dose 

than what we're assigning.

Dr. Anigstein: Well, this is not about maximizing the 

dose. This is about being scientifically accurate, or 

at least using the best estimate that we can make. I 

guess your argument is, since you already have an 

overestimate -- [This is how] I interpreted your 

argument.

Chair Kotelchuck: No, you're right. He's saying that 

he's doing an overestimate already, and that 40 

hours a week is an overestimate. Now I'm not sure 

where that data comes from, and I'll just assume that 

that is a correct statement. Then, it's not necessary 
105

to put in --

Mr. Sharfi: That is the argument.

Member Lockey: Jim Lockey. Let me ask a question.

So you're assuming that somebody who was exposed 

30 hours, they're going to be getting a 40-hour 

estimate, is that correct?

Mr. Sharfi: Correct.

Member Lockey: Okay. So that makes logical sense 

to me.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Lockey: You're adjusting your side. Let's 

move on.

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright. That's good. What do 

others think? I'm open to moving on.

And, NIOSH requests this finding be withdrawn or 

reduced to an observation. It sounds like we should 

reduce this to an observation and close it.

Member Lockey: I concur.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Others? Objection?

(No response.)

Okay. Observation and closed. Good.

Let's go on.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. The next one, 474.2.

Dr. Anigstein: Should I go on to Finding 2?

Ms. Gogliotti: Sure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Anigstein: In a nutshell --

(Telephonic interference.)
106

Member Beach: Bob, I think you're breaking up 

again if you're still talking.

Dr. Anigstein: Alright. I'll try this again.

This is that the scientific basis for the estimate of the 

radium on the bead is inaccurate. Because we went 

over -- I won't go into the details of the original 

report; it's in our DR report. But there were some 

errors in the nuclear physics involved. And there was 

also, they had a single switch that was taken from 

the ORISE collection, which is from an earlier time 

but not necessarily representative of this. And we 

have found other reports of higher activity on similar 

switches, significantly higher, a published paper 

where they found a surplus source, which is 

measurements that were made in California. And 

also--

Member Beach: Bob, can I ask you to hold up just 

for a second? This is Josie.

Dr. Anigstein: Excuse me?

Member Beach: Can I ask you to hold up? This is 

Josie.

Is this something that the Work Group should take 

up?

Dr. Anigstein: Oh, well, again, the Work Group is not 

involved with this period of time. I mean, I suppose 

they could be asked to.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: --- for this period.

Dr. Anigstein: I suppose they could be asked to. 

That's not my problem. That's not my --

Chair Kotelchuck: Well, no, you're right, and we are 

looking at the residual period. We are looking at that 

SEC claim.

Dr. Anigstein: Right.
107

Ms. Gogliotti: But these do come up into the SEC 

period.

Member Beach: They do, yes.

Dr. Anigstein: I agree. I agree that it's a very sitespecific issue, and if the Board Members --

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Anigstein: I certainly would not-- just speaking 

perhaps unofficially, my personal opinion as a 

participant would be, yes, it would make -- the Work 

Group would probably focus better on this than the 

DR Subcommittee.

Chair Kotelchuck: I think so. Yes, I agree with that.

Also, things that can be, since we're in the middle of 

active work around this, to be conservative, I would 

leave it to the Work Group.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. In that case, that would take 

care of Finding 3.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure.

Dr. Anigstein: The same thing would be Finding 3, 

would go in that same basket.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Dr. Anigstein: And Finding 4 is a generic one. Well, 

it's not generic, but it's a case-specific. It's not a 

site-specific; it's a case-specific. And that is, this is 

exposure -- they use an attenuation factor -- and this 

is exposure to a region of the body that in the case 

of this particular worker would not likely, would not 

necessarily be covered with clothing. I'm trying to 

be general. And consequently, given the identity of 

the worker and given the location, it would not 

necessarily be covered with clothing, and therefore, 

there should not be an attenuation factor for that 

particular dose assessment. I hope I'm being ---

Chair Kotelchuck: You're right, it's difficult to 
108

understand. It's difficult to speak about it.

But is there any evidence there about clothing one 

way or the other?

Dr. Anigstein: No. Just knowing clothing styles, if 

the Work Group --- if the Board Members have, can 

see the case, can see MCC 744.4, if you look at the 

last paragraph --

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm. Okay. Might have been 

uncovered during the -- my thought is that people 

that work where both hands are---

Member Beach: Not necessarily, depending on the 

time period.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes, yes.

Mr. Siebert: This is Scott.

We looked at this really closely as well. And it is a 

rather unusual situation based on the timeframe, the 

changing of work of the individual. And we agree that 

it's not unreasonable to make the assumption that 

attenuation -- that this location was uncovered, we

don't have a problem with that. And we actually ran 

the PoC to see if it had any impact, and it does not.

The follow-up question that came out of that was not 

necessarily this specific claim, but was it a wider issue 

for other claims, for skin attenuation that would fall 

into this kind of category? And we gave the 

additional response.

I think if you scroll down a little bit, we have a 

response in April on this, yes, that we looked at all 

the dose reconstructions done by this dose 

reconstructor. We looked at a whole bunch of them. 

We looked, basically, at a 10-percent sample of the 

533 they've done with shallow doses, and walked 

through every single one. And we did not run into 

this same issue with them not applying attenuation.

Chair Kotelchuck: Aha.
109

Mr. Siebert: I'm sorry, applying attenuation when 

attenuation is not applicable, with this thought 

process in mind. So, we're very comfortable this is 

not a systematic or even a dose reconstructor issue. 

It was just a decision that DR made on this specific 

claim that I can see it's reasonable to make the 

difference with this.

Chair Kotelchuck: You're right. And therefore, the

question would be, what is more claimant-friendly?

Mr. Siebert: Right. Which is assuming there's no 

attenuation.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Siebert: So we agree that it's not an 

unreasonable assumption to make. So we agree with 

the finding.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Then we can close it.

Mr. Katz: Correct. Correct.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: That's sweet, very sweet.

Chair Kotelchuck: Wonderful. And, by the way, 

Scott, that last paragraph, you did what you needed 

to do to check how common this issue is, and 

essentially resolved that it was one person, and 

you're claimant-friendly, and that's it.

Okay. Do we want to go to 475, Observation 1?

Dr. Anigstein: It's identical with 474, Observation 1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm. I'm generally negative 

about doing too much for Metals and Controls. 

Maybe it's because I'm in the Work Group, but I keep 

feeling like, you know, well, we're going to get to all 

these things, although not necessarily.

What's the case again, site-specific or case-specific,

475?
110

Ms. Gogliotti: This first one is identical to 

Observation 1 on the previous case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: It's a very similar case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: Except --- so if I can skip through, I 

can point out the differences.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: So the Observation 1 is identical to 

474.1, 474, Observation 1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Anigstein: Observation 2 is identical to 474, 

Observation 3 --

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Anigstein: -- about the resuspension factor.

Observation 3 is the same as 474, Observation 4, 

about radon. So that's been resolved.

However, a new issue comes up with 475.1, Finding 

1. And this is a philosophical difference that we have. 

And that is, NIOSH has information on external 

exposure, external exposures other than the radium 

during the AWE period. So even though there was 

an SEC granted, this is, again, a non-SEC cancer.

It should be reasonable to use whatever information 

they have. The basis of the SEC was that NIOSH 

could not reproduce exposure, could not evaluate 

exposure to thorium. However, since there is 

external exposure and external dosimetry data 

during the last two years of the AWE period, we feel 

it would be reasonable to assign these external doses 

to other times of the AWE period.

And this particular worker -- the previous one was 

employed during the time of the radium use radium 
111

was only used for about a couple of years. But this 

worker came earlier. He worked in the radium 

period, but he also had four years of employment 

prior to the radium period, and he was assigned zero 

external dose during that time.

And we feel -- and I'm echoing John Mauro, who isn't 

on the phone now-- that there should be an attempt 

made to use whatever data is available to estimate 

his external dose during 1960 to 1964.

Chair Kotelchuck: Scott?

Mr. Siebert: Well, if you look at our followup, 

basically, we're saying there's additional information 

that's coming out of the SEC. So we suggest that we 

just forward it to the Metals and Controls Work Group 

to deal with, along with everything else. And if they 

determine that there's enough information and a 

coworker model should be made, then obviously we'll 

move forward with that.

Dr. Anigstein: Alright.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Good. That sounds like a 

resolution, unless I hear objection.

(No audible response.)

Good.

Mr. Katz: So, that's not a resolution, but a punt to 

the other Work Group.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's right. That's right for this 

meeting, right, it gives this to the Work Group.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay. Finding 2, 475.2, is the same 

as 474.1, the overtime measure.

Chair Kotelchuck: Wait a minute. 475.2 is the 

overtime issue. Okay. So, it makes it an observation 

and close 475.2.

Dr. Anigstein: And 475.3 is the nature of the radium 

beads. So, that should be, that would be Finding --
112

one second.

Chair Kotelchuck: Sure.

Dr. Anigstein: That would also be one of the findings. 

That was previously discussed, and the 

recommendation was this goes to the M&C Work 

Group.

Member Beach: I agree with that.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Anigstein: Okay.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good.

Dr. Anigstein: And the same way with 475.4, where 

you need to include the electron dose from the 

radium beads. That's also under there.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Dr. Anigstein: And then, the final one -- and that's 

the end of 475. That's the end of 475.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. 475.4 is the final one.

Mr. Siebert: Well, this is Scott.

We kind of skipped over the observations relatively 

quickly, and I think we probably could close some, 

consistent with the previous case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. That would be good, and 

we should be closing soon. We're all, I think, getting 

a little tired. Oh, I do not speak for all. I guess I 

would have to say we're slowing down a bit.

Go ahead.

Mr. Siebert: Okay. Well, I mean, I can say that 

Observation 1 for 475 is the same as Observation 1 

for 474. It was the abnormal spikes, and we're going 

to update the methodology to reflect that when all 

the Working Group and SEC work is done.
113

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Siebert: We had closed that for the previous one.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: I think they decided to take the same 

action when they were identical.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Siebert: Okay. I didn't hear that specifically 

stated. And so I don't have it specifically in my notes.

Chair Kotelchuck: So, actually, 475.1 goes to the 

Working Group. The .2 is changed to observation and 

closed. .3 goes to the Working Group. .4 goes to the 

Working Group. That's what I have in my notes.

Is that correct, Rose?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes, I believe so.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. So, we actually have 

resolved -- and I was asking whether 475.4 is the 

final finding.

Mr. Siebert: This is still my point. There's 

observations on 475 that are identical to 474 that we 

closed on 474, and I want to make sure we're all on 

the same piece of music.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Yes. Okay.

Mr. Siebert: That's okay.

Chair Kotelchuck: I told you I'm slowing down, 

mentally.

Here we go. Okay. Let's do that. We can do that, 

and then we'll finish up. So, we're going to 475 

observations.

Hold on a second. I'm scrolling, and somebody else 

is scrolling, too. I've been off of Skype for hours.

Ms. Gogliotti: So, 475, Observation 1 --
114

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: -- is closed, which is the same as 474, 

Observation 1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Ms. Gogliotti: Observation 2, we are punting to the 

SEC Work Group.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right. Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: Which is the same as the previous 

observation.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: Observation 3, I believe we accepted 

this one. So, it would be closed.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: And those were the observations for 

this case.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright. Very good. There 

was an Observation 4 on 474, which we closed.

Mr. Siebert: Yes, there was an additional observation 

on the earlier one that didn't apply to this one.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Siebert: That's why there's one fewer 

observation.

Chair Kotelchuck: Very good. Okay.

Folks, I think we are finishing this up.

Yes, go ahead, Rose. Yes?

Member Beach: Dave, we do have Observation 476 

--

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Beach: -- and 476, Observation 1, and then, 
115

there's a finding.

Dr. Anigstein: 476, Observation 1, is, again, resolved 

under 474.

Member Beach: Yes, I just didn't want to miss that.

Chair Kotelchuck: No, I was thinking of closing shop 

for the afternoon.

Member Beach: Yes, I just thought we should finish 

this up before you did.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Well, if those are a few 

things we can do right now, I'm more than open to 

that. So you're talking about 476, Observation 1?

Ms. Gogliotti: Yes.

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright.

Ms. Gogliotti: Now this is identical to 474 and 475, 

Observation 1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. 476, Observation 1. Let 

me just -- 476. One second. Observation 1 to close. 

Okay. Fine. Agreed.

And then, next is 476.1.

Ms. Gogliotti: 476.1, this is, again, the same 

overtime issue.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Anigstein: The same as 474.1.

Chair Kotelchuck: Mm-hmm.

Ms. Gogliotti: So, presumably, we'll take the same 

action,

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Which was?

Mr. Katz: Observation--

Chair Kotelchuck: I'm just looking at my notes for a 

second. .1, right, yes. Yes, observation closed. 
116

Okay. Right.

Dr. Anigstein: And this one, the 476.1 deals with 

residual period. So that might very well be 

appropriate for the SEC Work Group.

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Yes, indeed, it would be.

Member Beach: I agree. I agree.

Chair Kotelchuck: Good. And that's it. Alright.

Member Beach: Well, the last one in this set is the 

Texas City, 442.

Chair Kotelchuck: Texas City Chemicals.

Member Beach: That's the last one in this set, and I 

was just going to ask Rose if they did anything with 

this. We left it in March that SC&A was going to 

further investigate.

Ms. Gogliotti: I would still like to do a little bit more 

investigation into this issue.

Member Beach: Okay. Yes, I didn't think you saw 

anything.

Chair Kotelchuck: Alright.

Member Clawson: Quit cracking the whip on us, 

Josie.

(Laughter.)

Member Beach: I'm trying to get ahead of Dave's 

closing us out.

(Laughter.)

Administrative Matters

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes. Well, I'm measuring by 

previous meetings. But that's fine. What I found in 

other meetings is sometimes we're scheduled to go 

to 4:30, and I find that, in my judgment, the quality 

of discussion and the rapidity of thinking declines 
117

badly in the last half an hour or so. And so I have 

felt like we'll get more quality time sometimes by 

closing a few minutes early.

Mr. Katz: That's fine, Dave.

Chair Kotelchuck: But I am more than open. I am 

more than open to being pushed, and happy some of 

you young folks have a lot of pep and energy, and we 

want to make the best use out of it.

Anyhow, we are now, I think, ready to finish up for 

the day and schedule another meeting.

Ms. Gogliotti: Dave?

Chair Kotelchuck: Yes?

Ms. Gogliotti: If I may? We are basically caught up 

on this. There's just a handful of findings that we 

couldn't resolve today, but that's everything that the 

Subcommittee has to do until we finish the one-onone calls that have not happened yet.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Wow. I have never lived 

through this, that we've caught up. I feel like I've 

been running to catch up for years.

Ms. Gogliotti: We have been.

Chair Kotelchuck: I am so happy to have made it.

Member Beach: I was going to say, Dave, it must be 

time to do another report.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, yes, sure, that's right. You 

can raise it at the Board meeting.

(Laughter.)

It is.

So, what would be an appropriate time that you will 

have done more work to be ready to have a full 

meeting? And it may just be quite a few months.

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, it's going to take some time. 
118

Usually, it takes three to four months to complete all 

of our one-on-one calls.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Ms. Gogliotti: I did forward the list of cases to Ted.

Ted, are you going to assign us, or Board Members, 

to one-on-one cases?

Mr. Katz: As a matter of fact, I'm going to do that 

today. I've already done the work for that. I just 

haven't sent it out yet.

Ms. Gogliotti: Okay. I just wanted to confirm 

because I know that, with Dr. Melius' passing, things 

have changed a bit.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Katz: Yes. So that's going to get done. That's 

going to go out to SC&A today, and then SC&A will 

get -- Dave, I don't think you've even done this 

before in your Board time, but maybe you have. But 

SC&A will get in touch with almost all the teams, the 

two-Member Board teams.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, yes.

Mr. Katz: And they'll schedule the meetings with 

them to discuss these 30 cases. And once you get 

through all of those, if there are cases to revise, they 

will revise them and get those back to everybody.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Katz: And then, they'll move on to the 

Subcommittee.

Chair Kotelchuck: Very good. Very good. Yes, 

indeed, I have experienced that before a few years 

ago.

Mr. Katz: Okay. Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: That will take three to four months, 

and then the cases need to go to NIOSH for 
119

responses.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: So, we might be six months out for the 

next meeting.

Chair Kotelchuck: That's okay. What I think we 

should do, then, is we're having the August Board 

meeting. We'll have another Board meeting, I 

assume, in March or April?

Mr. Katz: No, the next Board meeting after August, 

face-to-face, is in December.

Chair Kotelchuck: Oh, okay. Well, why don't we, as 

we gather in December, all of the Board Members will 

be either on the phone or there, and we'll set a date 

for a meeting. Does that make sense?

Ms. Gogliotti: That might be too long because we 

have three months' lead time.

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay.

Mr. Katz: So, Dave, I will, by email, arrange 

scheduling once SC&A has a good idea of when 

they're going to get through the, what she's calling 

the one-on-ones.

Chair Kotelchuck: Right.

Mr. Katz: So then we can project out a couple of 

months for NIOSH to respond to the case reviews, to 

get ready to respond, and then set a date. We can 

just do that by email.

Chair Kotelchuck: Very good. I generally have found 

that trying to schedule by email was a lot harder than 

scheduling when the people are all together. But, if 

you're open to doing that, I'm certainly open. And 

thank you for doing that.

Mr. Katz: Yes.
120

Adjourn

Chair Kotelchuck: Okay. Great.

Alright. Well, folks, you will have a well-deserved 

rest because we have been just setting meetings, 

meetings, meetings, as the older Subcommittee 

Members know. So, very good. We'll put our 

attention to other matters for our Advisory Board in 

that period.

Okay. Well, thank you all. Have a happy rest of the 

summer until August 22nd-23rd. Or is it the 23rd24th? It's in my calendar.

Mr. Katz: Yes, 22nd and 23rd. Thank you.

Chair Kotelchuck: It's the 22nd and 23rd. Good. We 

look forward to it, and have a good couple of weeks 

now.

Mr. Katz: Yes, thanks, everybody.

Chair Kotelchuck: Thank you. We're moving right 

along. Okay.

Bye, everybody. Bye-bye. Thank you.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 4:09 p.m.)