Miller, Diane M.

From:

Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 4:11 PM

To: NIOSH Docket Office

Cc:

Subject: Interium Final Rule Request for Comment

NIOSH Docket Officer. Via e-mail: NOCINDOCKET@ecdc.gov
Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Subject: Interim final rule request for comments

Amending procedures to consider designating classes of employees to be added to the Special Exposure Cohort
under the Energy Employees Occupational lliness Compensation Program Act of 2000. EEOICP, 42 U.S.C. 7384-
7385

Author:
e-mail:

Forward: | am one of three surviving children of (EEOICP Claim number : NIOSH
Tacking Number —_*) a now deceased employee of the Hanford Project. The survivors have an active claim

under the EEOICP and are presently waiting an appeal decision. NIOSH has accepted the following:
1. My Father was employed at the Hanford Project

2. He had met the 250-day employment requirement

3. He was exposed to certain levels of radiation during his employment.

4. Dose Reconstruction has concluded the he had a 36.26% probability of causation of cancer.

5. My fathers’ cause of death was Cancer.

My comments are as follows. | request that amendments to the Special Cohort Classes be approved by the
Department of Heath and Human Services that would include (A) The Hanford Project to the Special Exposure
Cohort list and (B) a change be made in the Specific Cancers listing found in Section 3621(17) of EEOICP
(42U.S.C. 73841(17) and the DOE regulation implementing EEOICP (20 CFR 30.5(dd)).

(A) Granting the Hanford Project Special Cohort Status. In light of the "new" science revisited in the S. Cohen
Audit currently in the news, the use of Dose Reconstruction process by NIOSH is highly suspect as the decision
base for denial of compensation. It is unfortunate that NIOSH and the Final Adjudication Branch has ignored their
own statement “The Dose Reconstruction in not the final determination of a claim, but rather an interim product
that is used by the Department of Labor in making its final decision”. Through the history of the EEOICP itis well
documented that the data available for Dose Reconstruction and employee monitoring is of questionable value.

1/23/2006



Our family is one of many that has been denied just compensation due to the arbitrary threshold of the Dose
Reconstruction process, The threshold established by the "Probability of Causation Guidelines in 42 CFR Part 81
is being used as the one and only consideration in claim acceptance or refusal. In light of "New Science”,
especially that revealed in the audit by S. Cohen and Associates, it is apparent to me that the Board Comment #3
page 22307 should be enacted. “The Board also agrees the proposed NIOSH procedures appropriately allow for
the incorporation of new scientific information into the compensation procedures as this new information becomes
available.” However, | concur with Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) that the chances that the NIOSH
Board will in any expeditious manner come forth with a revision of the threshold problem is bureaucratically
improbable. In her press releases she has mentioned the simple way to proceed with current claims is to grant
Special Cohort Status to Hanford Employees. This will eliminate the highly controversial arbitrary threshold
problem. In that case the five points mentioned in my forward would be deemed sufficient for compensation, with
one exception.

(8) 42 CFRR Part 83.5(m) lists "Specified Cancer". As with the threshold problem | also request that the Board
consider removing the restriction on the type and location of cancers. The list is unfairly restrictive to victims of
radiation exposure during their employment. Case in point is that (k) Urinary Bladder Cancer is one of the
accepted cancers under the Special Cohort Regulations. My Father died of “Cancer, a cancer not on the
list. In the Dose Reconstruction Process the Urinary Bladder was used as the model for the Cancer
Analysis as NIOSH claims there is no known model for the I question the rationale of using the Urinary
Bladder as a model for the while the Cancer is not on the specific Cancer List and cancer of
the Urinary Bladder is. Current research indicates that exposure to radiation is a cause of cancer and cancer to
more organs than those listed in the regulations.

In summary | would gladly share with the committee the volumes of research | have complied on this subject. |
believed that it was the intent of Congress to fairly compensate employees and their survivors for the unfortunate
experience of suffering from cancer as a result of radiation exposure during their employment. The existing rules

conflict with current science and both the use of Dose Reconstruction and the Special Cohort Program need to be
revised, as they result in decisions of denial of claims scientifically and morally unfair to claimants.

Sincerely

January 12, 2006

1/23/2006