NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 

US Department of Health and Human Services

Centers for Disease Control

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

139th Meeting

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

The meeting convened at 1:00 p.m., Eastern Time, 

via Videoconference, Rashaun Roberts, presiding.
2 

Members Present: 

Henry Anderson, Member

Josie Beach, Member

Bradley P. Clawson, Member

R. William Field, Member

David Kotelchuck, Member

James E. Lockey, Member

David B. Richardson, Member

Genevieve S. Roessler, Member

Loretta R. Valerio, Member

Paul L. Ziemer, Member

Also Present: 

Rashaun Roberts, Designated Federal Official

Nancy Adams, NIOSH Contractor

Bob Barton, SC&A

Kathy Behling, SC&A

Zaida Burgos, NIOSH Contractor

Grady Calhoun, DCAS

John Cardarelli, DCAS

Chris Crawford, DOL

Josh Fester, on Behalf of Petitioner

Joe Fitzgerald, SC&A

Rose Gogliotti, SC&A

Donna Hand

Greg Lewis, DOE

Jenny Naylor, HHS

Chuck Nelson, DCAS

Knut Ringen

Lavon Rutherford, DCAS

Tim Taulbee, DCAS
3 

Contents

US Department of Health and Human Services 

Centers for Disease Control National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health 139th Meeting 

Wednesday, April 14, 2021 1

Welcome 4

NIOSH Program Update 6

DOL Program Update 10

DOE Program Update 15

Procedures Review Finalization/Approval 

Process 22

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction 

Reviews Update 57

Break 88

Adjourn 117
4

Proceedings

(1:00 p.m.)

Welcome

Dr. Roberts: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm 

Rashaun Roberts. I'm the Designated Federal 

Official for the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health, and I'd like to welcome you all to 

this Board meeting, and this is number 139. 

Let me just get through a few preliminaries for the 

meeting. 

Today is the first half day of this meeting, and 

tomorrow's session, like today, is scheduled to start 

promptly at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. All of the materials 

for both days -- the meeting agenda, the 

presentations, background documents, et cetera, 

have been posted on the NIOSH website under the 

schedule of meetings for April 2021. 

If you will be participating both days by telephone 

only, you can go to the website to access all the 

materials, and you can follow along with the 

presentations. 

And just as an FYI, all of the materials were 

provided to Board members and to other staff prior 

to this meeting. If you look at the agenda on the 

website, there is a Zoom link, which would enable 

you to hear and watch the presentations online 

through Zoom. 

But if you're participating only by telephone or if 

you're using Zoom and for some reason using the 

telephone only, in addition to the Zoom, in order to 

have everything run smoothly, and so that 

everybody that is speaking can be understood, I do 

ask that each of you mute your phone, unless of 

course you need to speak. The mute button on 

Zoom is located in the lower left-hand corner of the 
5

screen. On your telephone if you don't have a mute 

button, you can press *6 to mute, *6 to unmute.

And because we're unable to see you if you're on 

telephone only, please identify yourself before your 

comments or question. 

I also want to mention that we have a public 

comment session scheduled for today that comes at 

the end of the day, and will occur between 5:15 to 

6:15 p.m. Eastern Time. 

I would encourage everyone looking to comment to 

be ready right at 5:15 p.m. Eastern Time because 

at that time we will go right into the public 

comment, and if we run through all the public 

comments at that time, we will conclude. We won't 

conclude before 5:15 p.m., but we can conclude at 

any point after that once everyone in the public who 

would like to comment has done so. 

So again, please join at the beginning of the public 

comment session at 5:15 so that you can be 

assured that you will have your opportunity. 

And also, so that you're aware, comments during 

the public comment session, speakers are generally 

limited to about five minutes, and I will remind you 

of all of these things later in the afternoon. 

Before we move into roll call, we do need to address 

conflict of interest for the Board for today and 

tomorrow, and there appear to be no conflicts to 

address for today or tomorrow's agenda. 

So with that said, let's go ahead and move into roll 

call now. 

I'll start with the Board members in alphabetical 

order, starting with Anderson.

(Roll call.)
6

So let's go ahead and move further into the agenda. 

Again, please periodically check either Zoom or your 

telephone to ensure that you're on mute 

throughout, unless you're of course speaking. 

Again, the mute button is on the lower left-hand 

corner of your screen if you are on Zoom. 

Press *6 to mute if you're participating by 

telephone, and *6 again to unmute, to take yourself 

off mute. 

So with that, let's go ahead and move into the first 

agenda item, and let's have the NIOSH program 

update from Grady.

NIOSH Program Update

Mr. Calhoun: Okay, can everybody see that and 

hear me?

Dr. Roberts: Yep.

Dr. Taulbee: Yeah.

Mr. Calhoun: Okay, great, thank you so much. 

Alright, thanks, everybody. I'm glad to be here 

today. 

I'm going to run through just the normal slides that 

I do. 

As you can imagine, we have had some delays in 

what we're doing due to the COVID pandemic, so I'll 

start. 

As far as contracts and staffing, we don't have any 

new contracts we need to put in place right now. 

Those are well into their periods that have been 

established, so renewals aren't up for a while. 

We are in the process of hiring a new health 
7

physicist due to a retirement. 

This is one of the things that kind of got us due to 

COVID. 

The workshop townhall meetings and outreach, we 

don't have any new events such as these finalized 

at this point since the last December meeting. 

Record requests of the Department of Energy. We 

have 160 outstanding. That doesn't mean that 

that's bad, that just means that we have made 

requests for records. 

Only 16 of those have not been responded to in 60 

days. 

This is our normal case status report as of March 

30, 2020. We have 53,281 cases referred to us from 

Department of Labor. 

We've returned 51,540 of those to Department of 

Labor. 

We still have 779 with us for dose reconstruction. 

Nine hundred and sixty two of those were 

administratively closed. 

Of the cases that we submitted to the Department 

of Labor, 46,288 had dose reconstructions, 1,686 

were pulled for some reason by Department of 

Labor, and 3,566 were pulled specifically for Special 

Exposure Cohort considerations. 

Probability of Causation of the 46,288 cases: 12,534 

are greater than 50 percent. That's about 27 

percent of the cases, and the remainder were less 

than 50 percent Probability of Causation. 

As mentioned before, we have 779 cases active in 

our queues for dose reconstruction. Two hundred 

sixty one of those are actually in the dose 

reconstruction process. One hundred seventy six of 
8

those, we sent the initial draft of dose 

reconstruction report to the claimants, and they're 

in the process of reviewing those. And then the 

remainder of those 342, we are preparing for dose 

reconstruction by gathering the information to put 

them together. This is just a little slide for history. It 

just kind of shows back from September of 2003 

where we've been. It doesn't go back any further 

than that because we didn't keep records back then 

of what was coming in. 

So you can see the most notable thing is at the very 

end there on the far right is initial cases from 

Department of Labor have gone down, but that is 

also because of the COVID pandemic and the 

inability for some people not to get to the doctors 

and get records and referrals and verification of 

their illnesses to the Department of Labor for the 

Department of Labor to forward to us. 

This is another one I started showing a couple 

meetings ago, and basically this is, we keep track of 

the age of the cases, and our goal is always to get 

the cases out of our queue to the claimants as soon 

as we can. 

We had a bit of a spike in the cases that were six to 

nine months back at the end of last year, but those 

are going down steadily primarily just because of a 

renewed focus on working the older cases sooner. 

And when I say older, I mean those that have been 

in our queue to work. 

And that's basically the end of my presentation. Any 

questions?

(No audible response.)

Mr. Calhoun: Alright. Hearing none, I can call up the 

program for the Department of Labor here.

Dr. Roberts: You know what? Grady, you know what 
9

I --

Mr. Calhoun: Yes?

Dr. Roberts: There was an oversight that I'd like to 

just circle back around to. I totally forgot to ask for 

attendance from SC&A. So, if we could circle back 

around and do that before? 

Mr. Calhoun: Alright. Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Sorry about that, SC&A colleagues.

Mr. Barton: That's quite all right, Dr. Roberts. Just 

happy to be here.

(Roll call.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay, I do want to circle back around 

and see if Phil has joined us, Phil Schofield?

Member Ziemer: Rashaun, this is Ziemer. Could I 

raise one question with Grady before you move on?

Dr. Roberts: Sure. Absolutely. Go right ahead.

Member Ziemer: Yeah. Grady, I know you've done 

some new hiring, but what's the overall status of 

your staffing in the group there? 

Mr. Calhoun: Good question. Actually, since we've 

had such the big turnover lately, we're only down by 

one. 

So, we've managed to backfill all the positions that 

have left us through retirement, so we only have 

the one position left to fill at this point.

Member Ziemer: Does that include both professional 

and support staff?

Mr. Calhoun: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Any other questions for Grady before 

we move on?
10

(No audible response.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay, well next step we have the DOL 

program update by Mr. Crawford.

DOL Program Update

Mr. Crawford: Hi, this is Chris Crawford. 

And thanks to Grady for putting my slides up for 

me. He's always done that. Grady, we might as well 

start with the second slide. That's it. 

In terms of compensation paid, we see that Part B 

compensation is now 7.2 billion, Part E 

compensation 5.4 billion, medical bills 6.7 billion, 

and total compensation plus medical bills paid 19.3 

billion, and that's with 218,170 cases filed. 

Next slide. Here we go. 

We put out 1.68 billion on the dose reconstruction 

cases, having 15,774 payees. 

Now, this is a new figure below us, and it's so small 

that I have to believe it's only recently added SEC 

cases -- have added 175 million, with 1343 payees.

We see that 54,138 cases were referred to NIOSH 

for dose reconstruction, of which 52,746 cases were 

returned to DOL from NIOSH. 

Forty six thousand one hundred eighty two were the 

dose reconstruction, 6564 were withdrawn from 

NIOSH with no dose reconstruction. We also see 

that 1392 cases are currently at NIOSH, according 

to our figures -- Grady's was less -- and that 880 

are initial or original referrals to NIOSH, and 512 

are reworks or returns to NIOSH. 

Our usual graphic, you see Part B cases with dose 

reconstruction and final decision. So these do not 

include SEC cases. 
11

We have 36,634 cases with the dose reconstruction 

and a final decision. Final approval is 12,554, final 

denial is 24,080. 

Now this is all cases, Part B cases filed, and the 

largest category, as you see under other, are 

beryllium sensitivity, chronic beryllium disease, 

chronic silicosis. 

After that we have NIOSH referrals, and then we 

have 31 percent, I should say -- we have SEC cases 

referred to NIOSH 11 percent, and then we have 

SEC cases not referred to NIOSH 13 percent, and 

finally, seven percent are RECA cases. 

Part B cases with a final decision, this does include 

SEC cases. 

So we see cases with a Part B final decision are 

107,821. Part B approvals 57,440. Part B denials 

50,381. 

So we now have 53 percent approvals, 47 percent 

denials with the SEC and the normal Part B DR 

cases.

Our top four work sites, old familiar ones, Nevada 

Test Site, Hanford, Savannah River Site, and the Y12 Plant, and this is for the first quarter of 2021. 

Now, Savannah will be discussed tomorrow I 

understand, and we see that Savannah so far has 

20,604 cases, somewhat more than that in terms of 

claimants, for Parts B and E. 

Now cases returned by NIOSH with a dose 

reconstruction, we have 6,272, and final decisions, 

we have 8,774. 

Going on with Savannah River Site, Part B approvals 

are 3,752, Part E approvals 4,465, and total 

compensation and medical bills paid, 1.6 billion.
12

Member Lockey: Chris, this is Jim Lockey. Can I ask 

a question on this slide?

Mr. Crawford: Yes. 

Member Lockey: What's the denominator for 3,752? 

Mr. Crawford: I believe that's back on the first slide, 

which is 20,000-some cases. Now, part of those are 

maybe Part E only cases, so we can't tell from 

looking here what proportion of the Part B only 

cases have been approved. 

As we saw in previous slides, it's usually about twothirds denial, one-third approved in the first goround outside of SEC.

Member Lockey: Okay, so if we went to the previous 

slide, there were 6,272 returned to NIOSH with 

dose reconstruction. 

That would not be the denominator then, right? 

Mr. Crawford: It might be. In other words, the 

implication with that, if it has a DR, I just can't 

answer definitively because of the possibility of SEC, 

and Part E cases are not as clear with the number 

on slide 10. 

If these were all Part B with DRs, this would imply 

about a 50 percent approval rate, which seems a 

little high to me. Historically.

Member Lockey: Thank you.

Mr. Crawford: I wish I could do better. I'll try to get 

some detail on that.

Member Lockey: I'd appreciate it. Just it wasn't 

clear to me. 

I couldn't tell what percentage was being approved 

and disapproved from dose reconstruction from your 

slides.
13

Mr. Crawford: Right. We don't usually give that 

information on the site-specific slides, which is one 

of the reasons you can't easily compute it, but I'll 

look into that for Savannah River.

To go on then with the outreach events, these are 

now virtual because of the COVID, of course. 

Let's go on to 12. We have seen this many times. 

These are various members of the Joint Outreach 

Task Group. I assume the monthly conference calls 

are still going on. 

Here we go. Now, we do have the virtual webinars. 

We had one April 21 on medical benefits coverage. 

I don't know the number of participants here; it's 

not shown. 

We have one coming up on policy directives on May 

19, and that's what's on the schedule here. 

Let's look at the next slide, Grady, to see if there's 

something else. 

Well, we had one on the Final Adjudication Branch 

roles and responsibilities in March. I remember that. 

We also had one on district office roles and 

responsibilities in February. 

And finally, we had an establishing survivorship 

under Part B and Part E in January. And these are 

boilerplate slides that are the same in every 

presentation, so we won't continue. 

Are there any questions up to this point, besides the 

one already asked? 

Member Ziemer: Frank, Paul Ziemer here. What's 

been the participation level in the webinars?

Mr. Crawford: I'll have to find that out. 
14

Our last meeting, we actually got numbers on that 

and I think they were pretty reasonable numbers, 

but I don't see them this time, so I'll see if they're 

available. 

And I'll send something to Rashaun to post on those 

numbers.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Any other questions?

Member Ziemer: Maybe in addition to the numbers, 

if it's possible, if we could have some idea of the 

nature of the participants. 

Are they claimants or potential claimants, are they 

representatives of claimants, are they other staff 

people that have some interest in the program, or? 

If that information's available, I'd be interested to 

know who's attending.

Member Anderson: How many are family members? 

Things like that.

Member Ziemer: Exactly. Yeah, what type of 

participation are we getting -- are you getting? It's 

your program.

Mr. Crawford: I'll ask for that information too, to the 

extent it's available.

I'm not sure how formal the sign-up process is, 

which would help identify who is who, but I'll find 

that out.

Member Anderson: And the other would be, are 

they repeaters? 

Is there a group of them that sign on to listen and 

ask questions every time? How many are new 

participants?

Mr. Crawford: Will do.
15

Member Ziemer: Yeah and, you know, I might add, 

I think part of that analyzing who's attending might 

give us some idea or give you some idea the 

effectiveness -- are those accomplishing what we --

what you want them to accomplish, you know? 

Mr. Crawford: Right. Of course. Alright, I have all 

that to do, and I will get back to you. This shouldn't 

take long. Within a few days, I hope.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, Chris, and so you will send me 

the responses, and I will disseminate that to the 

Board.

Mr. Crawford: Absolutely.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, great. Any other questions for 

Chris?

Mr. Calhoun: This is Grady Calhoun, and I looked 

real quick into NOCTS for Dr. Lockey, and roughly 

what we have put out is approximately 31 percent 

of the claims from Savannah River. Now, that's if 

they worked even one day at Savannah River, and 

possibly somebody else. Thirty-one percent of those 

are compensated and 69 percent are not.

Member Ziemer: Thanks, Grady; that's helpful.

Mr. Crawford: NOCTS can produce that information 

much more easily I think than we can, so that's 

great.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Any other questions? 

(No audible response.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay, well thank you, Chris. Next on 

the agenda is DOE, so Greg, welcome.

DOE Program Update

Mr. Lewis: Hi, thanks, Rashaun. And would Grady or 

somebody be able to do my slides? I've got the 
16

presentation up on my iPad and I'm not able to take 

control and run through the slides while I'm doing 

the presentation.

Dr. Roberts: Grady, would you mind?

(No audible response.)

Mr. Lewis: And if not, I saw that my presentation is 

posted. The slides aren't actually all that --

Mr. Crawford: Can you see it there, Greg? Is that it?

Mr. Lewis: Yep, I sure can.

Mr. Crawford: Alright.

Mr. Lewis: I guess, okay, well, you might as well go 

ahead to the next slide. 

And again, I'm Greg Lewis with the Department of 

Energy, the Office of Worker Screening and 

Compensation Support, and you know, we manage 

the Department's role in responding to the records 

requests from DOL and NIOSH, and supporting the 

EEOICPA program. 

And it's going to be a short presentation, but I'll 

spend most of my time on our COVID-19 update. 

During the last meeting, the update was more 

detailed because, quite honestly, we had much 

more significant impacts from the pandemic. You 

know, during the start of the pandemic back in the 

spring of last year, we were pretty much fully shut 

down, everyone was teleworking, and we were 

trying to figure out how and what we could provide 

virtually, what systems we could access remotely, 

and how we could respond to the records requests 

from DOL and NIOSH. 

You know, we did that to the extent possible 

virtually, and then since then, restrictions have 

eased up, so for the most part, I believe we're 
17

successfully responding particularly to the NIOSH 

requests. 

We're having a bit tougher time with some of the 

DOL records requests for the DARs because the 

medical records and some of the other different 

types of records are more hard copy, and it's a little 

bit difficult. 

But right now, there are 18 individuals with NIOSH 

requests that are over 60 days, and that's actually, 

you know, significantly more than we usually have, 

but all of those are because of COVID and the 

different challenges that we're facing. 

They're spread between a number of different sites, 

and I have on here on my slide the Nevada National 

Security Site and the Y-12 National Security 

Complex are experiencing the greatest difficulties 

with COVID, and that is true, but actually with our 

NIOSH requests, I think there three for Y-12 that 

are over 60 days, and two for Nevada, because for 

the most part, we're able to get those radiological 

monitoring data remotely. 

Either they're online, they're in databases, so it's 

not something that we're struggling to get during 

the pandemic, but just for reference, both Nevada 

and Y-12 do have a large number of outstanding 

requests for the DOL DARs, and that's for a few 

different reasons. 

You know, obviously the maximum telework 

situation makes things more challenging to get hard 

copy records. 

We are able to send in people, you know, in a more 

limited basis to physically pull records. You can go 

to the next slide, Grady. And the big issue with Y-12 

is the federal record centers, which are I believe still 

closed, although they may have opened up. 

Throughout the pandemic, they were closed. They 
18

opened briefly, some of them closed again, some of 

them opened, so they've kind of been hit or miss as 

to whether they were open or closed, and then of 

course, since they've been closed, they have a large 

backlog of requests so it's been difficult to get 

records even when they are open. 

So with Y-12 in particular, a huge percentage of the 

records that we use for Y-12 are at a federal records 

center, so we're struggling to get those. 

And then for Nevada, because of their systems, 

their workers were not able to access the records 

remotely, even when there were electronic records 

and databases and things because of the security 

requirements and their set-up on site, they were not 

able to access them.

So, those records, they were down for about four to 

five months at the beginning, and then there's also 

been some staff turnover, so they're really 

struggling to catch up, but again, that's more for 

the Department of Labor DARs and not so much for 

the NIOSH request for radiological monitoring 

information. 

And then I will just mention that classification 

reviews, because of the sensitivity of the 

information, it obviously cannot be done remotely or 

from home, it has to be done on site, so depending 

on, you know, how much sites have telework 

restrictions, that has been an issue.

Not so much for the individual records requests, but 

for the different research requests we get from DOL 

and NIOSH. 

That's had some impact at certain sites. Next slide, 

please. 

I'll probably skip right past this one, if you could, 

Grady, because these are sort of my boilerplate 

slides. 
19

Just as a reminder for folks, what DOE does is 

essentially provide records. We do this in three 

ways. 

For individual records request for claimants -- these 

are both from DOL and NIOSH --also for large-scale 

site characterization projects like the Site Exposure 

Matrix for DOL or the Special Exposure Cohorts and 

requests for NIOSH, SC&A, the Board, et cetera, 

and then our third role, which is much smaller but 

also important, is to do research on covered 

facilities. 

And we're actually in the middle of recommending a 

few changes there, which I'll talk about probably 

next meeting because those are not final. 

So if you could skip on to the next slide, Grady? And 

skip right past this one. 

You know, again, we are continuing to support 

NIOSH, ORAU, SC&A, the Board, and the various 

larger-scale site characterization projects, the 

research projects. 

Of course, because of the pandemic, it's been a little 

bit more challenging and we have not been able to 

support, you know, on-site actual data capture 

visits, but we still have been trying to provide what 

we can electronically. 

We've been particularly active at Fermilab. 

We've had a recent request for some historical 

records from DOE Legacy Management, as well as 

Los Alamos and K-25, the Oak Ridge GDP. So we 

have still been supporting those research requests 

as best as we can, and I think in many cases we 

have been able to provide what, you know, NIOSH 

or the Board needed, but there have been some 

challenges, particularly with respect to on-site 

visits, of course, and whenever it's deemed safe to 

do so, we'll be happy to start supporting those 
20

again. 

And if you'd go to the next slide, we are still doing 

document reviews. In fact, we've had quite a bit of 

document reviews recently. 

DOE Headquarters in Washington is largely at a 

maximum telework profile right now. I'm at home, 

for those of you who aren't looking at the video --

but I'm clearly at home, and most DOE workers are 

at home, but some of the few workers that are 

actually on site are the classification reviewers, and 

they have been on site all but at the very beginning 

of the pandemic, and continuing to review the 

NIOSH reports and documents that they need.

Particularly gearing up for this Board meeting, there 

was a large volume of requests that came into our 

reviewers, and I believe we got those all back in the 

requested time frame, so we are certainly 

continuing to do the document reviews in spite of 

the challenges posed by the pandemic. 

Next slide. I already mentioned facility research. 

You can go to the next slide. And I always mention 

for those workers or worker advocates or 

representatives that might be on the call, my office 

also manages the DOE Former Worker Medical 

Screening Program, which provides free medical 

screenings to all former workers from all DOE sites. 

Not AWEs, but all DOE sites. We're able to typically 

provide those screens close to where the person 

lives. 

We had suspended screenings due to the pandemic, 

but have restarted in most places. 

We may have a backlog that we have to get 

through, but we're still offering these screenings, 

and I encourage all of you that are workers or 

interact with workers to mention this. This is 

something -- it certainly is not a requirement to 
21

participate in the screening program to then file a 

compensation claim, but, you know, we do provide 

results letters that can help tie the condition to their 

work or to the exposures, and we certainly -- the 

biggest thing is we try to identify conditions early, 

when they're more treatable, and lead to a better 

medical outcome for the individual, so I encourage 

you all to look into that if you haven't already. 

And next slide. Here's the links and more 

information on the Former Worker Program, and 

then next slide. 

I believe that's the end of the presentation. Yep, are 

there any questions?

Member Clawson: Yeah, Greg. This is Brad. It looks 

like the COVID-19's taken a little toll on your 

appearance there.

Mr. Lewis: Well, I don't know if that's COVID-19 or 

a third child into the mix, but something's took a toll 

on something. I'll agree with that. 

Member Clawson: I'd like to thank you for really 

helping us with our classification and everything 

else like that. 

I really appreciate DOE's persistence in that, and 

also your personal work into it, too. 

Just wanted to tell you we appreciated it.

Mr. Lewis: Well, and I'll mention, actually, Allen 

Hinners is the gentleman in classification who does 

the lion's share of the work, and he has been really 

phenomenal for us. So I will give all credit to him. 

He's been really great. 

He's been in the office and pumping out a lot of 

reviews, so we appreciate his work, and I will 

mention, you know, that the Board has recognized 

that.
22

Member Clawson: I appreciate it, Greg.

Dr. Roberts: Any other questions?

Mr. Lewis: And I --

Dr. Roberts: I'm sorry, Greg. I cut you off. Were 

you going to say something?

Mr. Lewis: No, actually I was going to say, if there 

are any other questions, happy to answer them.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. I don't hear any, so thank you 

so much for your presentation.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you.

Procedures Review Finalization/Approval Process

Dr. Roberts: Next up on the agenda, we have an 

item for the Subcommittee on Procedures Review, 

an item on the finalization and approval process, 

and that will be presented by Josie.

Member Beach: Hi, Rashaun. 

Actually, I'm going to do a very brief presentation --

or not a presentation, but just a little bit of 

information about our last Subcommittee meeting, 

and then Kathy, I believe, will be sharing the slides. 

Is that correct, Kathy?

Ms. Behling: Yes, that's correct.

Member Beach: Okay. So I'll go ahead and just give 

a brief presentation and Kathy can load her slides, 

and then I'll be turning it over to Kathy to actually 

give the presentation that she put together. 

So Kathy, if you can share those at any time, I'll 

just briefly talk about -- the last Subcommittee 

meeting we had was held on February 18. 

It was two years before we had -- or prior to that, 
23

we had our last meeting. We had a productive 

meeting. 

We tasked SC&A to review four documents during 

that meeting, and we also tasked them with six 

subtask 4 reviews, which is the closeout of our 

process.

We sent those selection criteria to NIOSH and we 

expect to hear from NIOSH with those cases 

probably in the next several months. Additionally, 

we tasked at a little lower priority four other 

documents. 

And I know this was all sent out in the executive 

format, so I wasn't going to go through and name 

each one of them. Those are available for the Board 

members. 

In your installment 1 that Rashaun sent out, you'll 

find the presentation that Kathy just put on, and 

also a presentation handout which covers the 

procedures that we're going to be talking about in 

this slide presentation. 

We've approved through the Subcommittee about 

35 documents that you'll see in that presentation 

handout. Those are from early 2000 through 2019.

SC&A presented a method, a matrix method, to the 

Subcommittee at our last meeting. The 

Subcommittee approved and wanted to go forward 

with this process -- which Kathy will explain here in 

just a moment -- and for a possible closeout of 

those 35 procedures, and it will be up to the Board 

to look at this matrix idea and decide what their 

thought process is on it, and if it's something that 

will work for closing out some of the backlog on our 

procedures. 

Okay, so with that, I'm going to turn it over to 

Kathy, and thank you, Kathy, for agreeing to do this 

presentation. 
24

Ms. Behling: Okay. Bear with me, this is my first 

Zoom meeting, so I hope I'm hitting all the right 

buttons. Can you hear me?

Member Beach: Yes.

Ms. Behling: Okay. Very good. 

And I hope I'm not going to repeat a lot of things 

here, but I do have some things in the presentation 

that Josie has already mentioned. Our discussion 

today will focus, as Josie mentioned, on the 

procedures and technical document review 

finalization and approval process. 

And as Josie also mentioned, currently there are 35, 

I'll call them active technical guidance documents, 

and these were documents throughout the years 

that have been reviewed by SC&A, and that were 

discussed at various Subcommittee meetings, and 

findings and observations were resolved and closed 

by the Subcommittee. 

Now, as Josie also mentioned, those 35 documents 

are listed, along with the findings and observations, 

the finding dates, and the date of the document 

reviews and when that was closed out by the 

Subcommittee. 

That is listed in a handout that was provided to the 

Board. 

Now, what's not included in that 35 active 

documents -- and throughout these years we've 

done a lot more of these than 35 -- but some of the 

documents have been canceled. 

There are reviews that are completed, however, 

there are revisions in the works, and that these 

reviews may need an additional evaluation, and so 

they were not included in these 35 documents. 

And also, documents that have been reviewed 
25

where SC&A did not have any findings, they were 

not included. 

Now, at the April 11, 2018 Subcommittee 

procedures review meeting, there was a discussion 

that was held regarding whether the Subcommittee 

was given the authorization to closeout these 

procedure reviews, or if it was the responsibility of 

the Board to approve the document reviews, and at 

that meeting, Ted indicated that this does require a 

full Board approval for all of these document 

reviews. 

That discussion during that meeting also prompted 

changes to our Board Review System, our BRS 

system, and that system was updated to include 

columns for the Board once they review these 

documents. They can add new findings, and then 

ultimately, there was a column to indicate when all 

of those findings have been closed, and the 

document is closed out or finalized. 

Now, the current approach to doing this full Board 

review in the past has been that a Subcommittee 

member or someone from SC&A makes a 

presentation to the Board. 

During their presentation, we talk about the findings 

and the observations, the Subcommittee discussions 

that were held, and then the final resolution of 

issues that were raised during the document review.

So, in order to expedite, perhaps expedite the 

Board's review and closeout process, the 

Subcommittee is proposing an alternative approach 

to finalizing these document reviews. 

And the idea is that we will, the Subcommittee will 

prepare an issues resolution matrix package, I'll call 

it, which is similar to those that are used by other 

Board workgroups, and so, most of you are familiar 

-- I think all of you are familiar with previous issues 
26

resolution matrices. 

This matrix package, we envision it to include a 

cover page that will provide summary information 

about the document that was reviewed, a 

description of all the findings and/or observations, 

and a chronology.

There'll be a table listing the chronology of 

discussions that were held at the Subcommittee 

meetings between NIOSH, SC&A, and the 

Subcommittee to resolve these issues, and finally, 

the summary of the final findings and observation 

resolution. 

Now, I'm thinking that this matrix would only be 

used for less complicated documents, less complex 

documents, with maybe fewer findings and 

observations. 

I actually took the time -- I evaluated 35 documents 

that are on that handout, and, based on my review 

of those documents, I concluded that, in addition to 

the two document reviews that we're going to be 

talking about today in our presentation, there are 

about 20 documents of that 35 that appear to be 

candidates for using this issue matrix approach, if it 

is accepted by the Board. 

Okay. So, slide 5, it shows the matrix cover page, 

which is in example, one, of what we assume will be 

a cover page that is a brief summary of the 

document reviewed, as well as document revisions.

Now, this cover page will include all relevant 

information regarding the document. 

In this particular case, it's a PROC. That is an 

administrative procedure, so there was not a lot of 

upfront information that I felt we needed to provide. 

This first example is looking at our review of the 

ORAU PROC 22, and that is a supplemental request 
27

for DOE information. 

And the procedure actually outlines for the dose 

reconstructors methods for requesting additional 

information, when necessary, about the Energy 

employee from the Department of Energy sites. 

Rev 1 was issued in March 2005, and -- I'm sorry, 

Rev 0 was issued in March 2005, and this document 

was revised in August of 2017. 

Now, the matrix table that we're looking at, you can 

see that this document was reviewed back in 2006, 

and SC&A's first finding identified incorrect and 

inconsistent references to the title and procedure 

numbers for the Privacy Act procedure. 

And as shown in column 3, at the August 24, 2007 

Subcommittee on Procedures Review meeting, 

NIOSH agreed with the finding and indicated that 

they would correct this Privacy Act reference in their 

next revision to the document. And that change was 

made in Rev 1 of the document. 

As I indicated in 2017, we went in and reviewed 

that revised procedure to ensure that the correction 

was made, and as a result of that, the 

Subcommittee found that NIOSH's actions were 

appropriate and they closed the finding at the 

November 20, 2017 meeting. 

The second finding associated with PROC 22 is the 

procedure stated that information should be 

requested from NIOSH project tasks 2, 4, and 5, 

and it assumes that the reader is familiar with each 

of these project tasks without really providing any 

information on the task function or description. 

Again, at the August 2007 meeting, NIOSH agreed 

with the finding and again stated that it would be 

revised in pursuit in a form of -- or a subsequent 

revision to that procedure. And Rev 1 of the 

procedure did remove all references to these project 
28

tasks, since any of the NIOSH or ORAU groups can 

identify claims that need additional information. 

And SC&A reviewed that change to the procedure, 

and the Subcommittee agreed to close this finding, 

again, at the November 20, 2017 meeting. 

Okay. Our second example is a PER, a Program 

Evaluation Report. This is PER-081, which has to do 

with the Hooker Electrochemical facility. 

The PER evaluated the effects and changes 

introduced by revision 3 of the Hooker TBD. Since 

SC&A had previously completed a full review of the 

Rev 3 of the Hooker TBD separately, this PER review 

only involved reviewing of selected dose 

reconstruction case files that were reworked due to 

the TBD changes.

This satisfies under SC&A's PER protocols what we 

consider subtask 4. 

And I didn't put it in this slide, but it is something 

that I would include in a package that would be sent 

to the Board.

I didn't include all of the changes, you know, in the 

Hooker TBD just because we're dealing with 

PowerPoint and I wanted to keep it less detailed, 

but in this particular case, the TBD, there was an 

increase in production rate of uranium which 

resulted in an increase in the external doses. 

There was also an SEC that was issued and some 

other minor changes, but all of the changes did 

increase some doses in both the operational and 

residual periods. 

So, the cover page of anything that would be sent 

out would include more detail than what you're 

seeing on this particular slide. Okay. 

And SC&A's review of PER-081 case files identified 
29

two observations, and I'm showing you on this slide 

Observation 1, and this observation had to do with 

skin cancer dose conversion factors. 

We questioned -- typically when we're dealing with 

skin cancers, we use OTIB-0017.

They offer a DCF of 1.000, which is more claimantfavorable than the DCFs that are identified in the 

external dose reconstruction implementation guide, 

IG-001. 

And so, we questioned why that was done. 

And at the February 2019 meeting, NIOSH 

explained that Hooker's external doses were based 

on MCNP model calculations, and therefore the IG001 DCFs were appropriate. 

Now, at other sites where the external doses are 

based on film badge data, which can include beta 

and very low-energy photons, you don't always 

know the mix, and so, NIOSH typically uses OTIB0017 in those particular cases. 

So, that was explained to the Subcommittee, and it 

clarified SC&A's concern, and the Subcommittee 

closed this observation.

And there was a second observation on this PER081. Here, internal dose in the reworked case 

increased for the lymphatic tissue cancer, as we 

expected, but the doses for the skin cancers for this 

case decreased, and so we questioned why that was 

the case.

And NIOSH again indicated that the original dose 

reconstruction used overestimating assumptions, 

and specifically they used type S solubility for the 

lymphatic cancer, and they used type M solubility 

for the skin cancer. 
30

But when they did the rework in behalf of this PER, 

they used best estimate assumptions, which 

resulted in using type S solubility for all of the 

cancers, and that's the reason that the skin cancer 

doses decreased just slightly in this particular case. 

That's why we made it an observation. 

Again, at the November 2017 Subcommittee 

meeting, SC&A agreed with NIOSH's explanation 

and the Subcommittee closed this observation. 

Okay. Now, the Subcommittee envisions that this 

alternative closeout process will include the 

following. We will put together this issues resolution 

matrix, which will consist of a cover page and a 

table with the details of the documents and the 

findings and the observations, and how they were 

closed out.

The other thing we will do is put into the BRS 

system all relevant documents: SC&A's review 

report, any White Papers, any technical discussions, 

whatever is relevant for this particular document 

process closeout. 

That may be included and attached in the BRS 

system.

And then at a subsequent Board meeting, the Board 

members will have an opportunity to, you know, 

discuss the closure of the technical document 

included in the matrix.

You may request additional information or even 

open up additional findings, which will ultimately be 

closed and discussed by the Board. Okay. 

And I also want to make mention, prior to 2018, 

we, Rhonda and Josie and myself made 

presentations to the Board, as you can see in this 

slide in various full Board meetings, but I didn't see 

anything in the transcripts that would indicate that 

there was a formal motion to actually close out 
31

these reviews. 

And so, if it's decided that we're going to go with 

this approach, or even if we don't go with this 

approach, we are going to need to go back and 

determine how to formally close out these previous 

presentations.

We did, at the April 11, 2018 meeting -- there was 

several presentations, but two of them, as you see 

on this list, OTIB-0017 and a NIOSH overarching 

guidance review, the Board had some questions, 

and NIOSH was going to follow up on those, so 

those have not been closed out either, and I don't 

know that we have set aside the time for NIOSH to 

be able to even respond to some of the questions 

that were asked at that particular meeting. 

So, and I'll just interject this at this point, but my 

feeling is perhaps we could go in and do just a 

summary of the discussion. I could go into the 

transcripts to maybe a summary of the discussions 

that were held to close out these or to discuss these 

document reviews, and I could summarize any 

questions that were asked, if it seems as if the 

Board members were in agreement with the 

presentation, and then have some process in the 

future that we can formally close these and add that 

information to our BRS system. 

Okay. Now for the quiz. 

I think we have to engage, or we should engage in 

some discussion here regarding does the Board 

agree with this matrix approach for closing some of 

the technical documents, and is the matrix 

information that we provided to you today, is it 

adequate, do we need to add things, do we need to 

provide more information?

Also, as I just discussed, how do we handle closing 

those documents that were previously presented to 
32

the Board? 

And the other question I included here is for those 

documents that SC&A didn't have any findings, 

there was only one of those documents that I did 

give a presentation on, and that was the CLL, the 

chronic lymphocytic lymphoma procedure, just 

because of the complexity of that procedure, and 

there's still also some outstanding questions. 

We closed that, but there's still some outstanding 

questions that Dr. Richardson had asked that need 

to be followed up on. 

But does the Board also need to see, or have a list, 

or have some understanding of the documents that 

have been reviewed where there were no findings 

identified?

I don't know if that's necessary or not. 

Those are the questions that we're posing, and I'll 

turn it over to the Board and Josie.

Member Clawson: Kathy and Josie, this is Brad.

Ms. Behling: Hi, Brad.

Member Clawson: I like the matrix of it so we can 

keep track of what has been and what the issues 

were with them. I find that helpful for me. 

And as you were saying down in the bottom there, 

we do need to have access to be able to know which 

ones have been approved.

Even though there were no findings on them or 

anything else like that, I think that we still as a 

board need to address and make sure that we have 

a process in place to be able to see that these have 

been reviewed because there's been aspects that 

we've been going through with these, and we've 

never even reviewed the process, I guess I'd say. 
33

That's my feelings on it, anyway.

Ms. Behling: I agree, but Josie, I'll --

Member Beach: Yeah, no. Thank you for that, Brad. 

I also agree with that, and I don't know if it's a 

decision that we can take up in the full Board, or if 

it's something we should take back to our 

Subcommittee and decide a path forward on how to 

document those.

And I'll ask other Subcommittee members, if they 

have any input, to please jump in.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: Josie, this is Paul. I have a few 

ideas, and first I thank Kathy for the work she's 

done on this on behalf of the Subcommittee. It's 

been very helpful.

I think if I'm a Board member -- I'm on the 

Subcommittee, so I've been able to review all of 

these documents, as have the other Subcommittee 

members, and the matrices, and we've seen all the 

detail, but if I were a Board member who had not 

seen any of these and the findings and the 

resolution of findings, and someone comes to me 

with a list of 35 documents, plus another dozen that 

were identified -- so we have close to 50 documents 

here, and each of these has multiple findings, and 

there's a matrix for each of these findings -- it 

becomes too much to handle directly item by item 

in a Board meeting. 

So, we would want the Board to be able to approve 

groups of documents, and the only way they can do 

that is if they have available all of the details if they 

want to see them. 

Now, there's two parts to this. 
34

One is, if you assign a group, say a Subcommittee, 

to do a task -- and I don't want the idea that this is 

rubber-stamping, but the Board places a certain 

amount of confidence in the Subcommittee for 

having looked at the details, and if the Board is 

comfortable that the Subcommittee has done their 

job, then they can approve a document based on 

their confidence in the work of the Subcommittee 

and knowing that the process has been carried out. 

However, any particular Board member should have 

the opportunity to look at any of the documents and 

see all of the backup information. I like the idea of 

having a matrix, and if you had a chart, I don't 

know if this is -- well, it wasn't shown, but the 

presentation handout that listed all the documents, 

all of the Board got this in one of the handouts. This 

lists all of the 35 documents. 

And if the Board had this electronically and had a 

link on each one where they could see the details on 

the matrix for every item, so ahead of a Board 

meeting, a Board member could say, well -- and I 

don't think any Board member's going to want to 

look at all 50 documents in the details that the 

Subcommittee has, but they might spot check and 

say, oh okay, I'm interested in seeing this item from 

Hooker Electrochemical, or this one from Blockson, 

or, you know, look at whatever ones they want, or 

all of them if they want, and that could be done with 

a general table like this presentation handout with 

added links for the Board members, but they would 

have to do that prior to the meeting so that at a 

meeting, we didn't have them going through the 

findings. 

And Kathy did a couple examples, but we can't do 

that for 50 items in a Board meeting, or 50 issues --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: No. Paul, yeah, this is Josie. 
35

Yeah, I agree with that, and I think we needed to 

determine how many items we would present at 

each of the Board meetings. Not, of course, all of 

them at one time. 

And I guess that would be up to the Board's 

discretion, and the complexity of each one of the 

various procedures.

Member Ziemer: Yeah. But we have at least 35 right 

now that we have completed, and --

Member Beach: Correct.

Member Ziemer: And the --

Member Beach: And then --

Member Ziemer: And the --

Member Beach: And then several -- I don't know. 

Kathy, were those on the list, the ones that you've 

given presentations for that we never officially 

closed out? 

Were those part of that 35 list? I didn't fact check.

Member Ziemer: I don't think they were.

Ms. Behling: No, they were not.

Member Beach: Okay, that's kind of what I thought.

Member Ziemer: Yeah. But --

Member Beach: I have a couple of comments, but I 

thought --

Member Ziemer: But if you started with the 35, 

Josie, if you started with that, said okay, what else 

does the Board need to approve these 35?

Member Beach: Right.
36

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: Yeah, and we only presented the 

two today, so we aren't even trying to present the 

35. One of the things --

Member Ziemer: And I think that's for examples, 

right, of how the matrix would work? 

Member Beach: Correct.

Member Ziemer: Yeah.

Member Beach: Correct. So, Kathy, I do have a 

question for you, and forgive me if you already 

talked about this.

You mentioned that there were 20 procedures 

within the 35 that would qualify for a matrix type 

inclusion for reporting. 

Ms. Behling: Yes.

Member Beach: Can you give me the example of the 

ones that didn't qualify, in your mind, those 20, 

what the criteria of those other ones would be? 

Ms. Behling: Yes. In fact, I wanted to point that out 

also. 

There are some, in fact, the very first one on our list 

is Linde Ceramics, and there were only three 

findings, but it became a very complex issues 

resolution process, and so I feel that there are 

several on here.

Some just have, to me -- one of them is the 

computer assisted -- the CATI process, there are 29 

findings, and I just think that lends itself more to 

having a discussion at a full Board -- a presentation, 

but the 20 that I previously picked out were maybe 

-- there's not a lot of administrative procedures on 

here. 
37

They're more technical procedures, but some of 

them are straightforward, and in some cases, I 

picked out ones that had five or six findings, but the 

resolution was NIOSH said they were going to make 

changes to the procedure, and the change was 

made, and we verified that change, and everything 

went as planned. 

And so, those are the types of things that I felt 

would serve for this matrix, but the more complex 

ones, let's say -- in fact, there's one for the fission 

and activation product.

We reviewed two or three written revisions of that 

OTIB-0054 and there was a total of 36 findings, and 

suggesting to me that that would be a little labor 

intensive for Board members to sit and have to pore 

through all of that. 

It would be easier to make a presentation to resolve 

those, to bring that to the Board.

Member Beach: Okay. That makes sense. 

So it sounds like we have three different avenues, 

but I don't want to get to that yet, and I want to 

keep this open for discussion, other Board 

members, comments?

Member Ziemer: This is Ziemer again, but let me 

sort of ask this question because the fission and 

activation one is a good example. That had 36 

findings. 

But the fact that it did, does that imply that it has to 

go to the Board? 

It's no different than 18 procedures with two 

findings each. 

It's got a lot of findings, but if the Subcommittee's 

done its job, and we provide the information about 

those were resolved, any Board member could look 
38

at those and satisfy themselves that they have been 

handled. 

Member Beach: Yeah. 

Member Ziemer: And if a Board member had a 

question, then we could say if there's any that you 

have concerns about, we'll bring them to the Board. 

Member Beach: Yeah, that's a good point, Paul. 

Thank you for bringing that up.

Ms. Behling: Okay.

Member Beach: I wonder --

Member Anderson: I -- yeah.

Member Beach: Oh, go ahead, Andy. 

Member Anderson: Yeah, I would think as much as 

the workgroup can kind of whittle it down, I mean, 

their findings -- some of which are easily resolved 

because it's a clarity issue of well, what do you 

really mean there, and things like that -- and then 

it's fairly easy to agree to closing them out, or 

NIOSH improves the wording so it's more 

understandable. 

I think it would be helpful to come back to the 

Board with some of the more consequential ones, or 

ones where there was some adjustments that need 

to be made. 

Member Beach: Yes.

Member Anderson: Something like that, and then 

my second, probably the last question is, did the 

Work Group -- it goes back so far -- go through a 

priority setting process that the ones that were first 

looked at are the ones that are more consequential, 

more widely used, and therefore, we're sort of 

working our way down to some which need to be 

reviewed, but are perhaps a little less 
39

consequential? And the --

Member Beach: You know --

Member Anderson: I mean, the CATI thing is a 

really important process that goes for absolutely 

every one of the cases, and I think that's important 

to be sure we've reviewed the effectiveness of 

those, as well as on an ongoing basis, actually, 

because the clientele does change over time. 

Member Beach: Yeah, and for these, Andy, the 

Subcommittee has reviewed all the documents on 

that list, and additionally on the slides number 12.

Member Anderson: Okay.

Member Beach: Those have all been presented, we 

just didn't do the formal closeout, and Kathy has 

said she -- and we'll get to tasking later on those --

the 35 other, those have already been changed, and 

they date back to 2005, so these are moving 

forward. 

We're trying to expedite, and not going quickly, but, 

so we can close them out formally and start moving 

down that task. 

And just to Paul's point, if there is a document that 

has 35 findings, that may be the only one we bring 

to the Board's attention at a meeting because it will 

take more discussion. Maybe there's more questions 

associated with it.

If there's one that has, say, two observations, like 

for example, today, we may bring two or three of 

those to a Board meeting to close out. 

So, we have some different avenues. 

I think we're looking for, right now, does the Board 

agree with a matrix approach, and if they do not, 

then we need to go back to the formal presentation 
40

and so many per meeting as we've done in the past. 

And correct me, Kathy, if I've missed anything 

there.

Ms. Behling: No, I don't think you missed anything. 

The only thing I do want to make mention of, just to 

remind some Board members and to inform maybe 

other Board members, back in 2005 and 2006 when 

we initially started this process, the Board would 

assign us, I think under code -- it was our Task 3 --

they would assign us a group of procedures.

And there was times they assigned us 25 

procedures and they got reviewed all at once, and 

we put out one major document. 

In fact, I was going to show you. 

I'm doing this just because I'm thinking ahead that 

there have been a lot of documents reviewed, and 

then if there are revisions that come out, we try to 

capture those and then re-review it, and 

sometimes, as I showed today, the resolution for 

the finding or observation is that NIOSH is going to 

make a change to a procedure, and that takes some 

time, and we would need to go back and ensure 

that that gets done appropriately before we can 

close out.

So, that's why there's some length of time that goes 

on here -- and like I mentioned, I'm not extremely 

versed in -- I wanted to pull just for your 

information -- oh boy, let's see here. 

Let's see if I can find it. Here. Our initial review 

process included tables that you're looking at. 

Can you all see that, the Procedure?

Member Beach: No.

Member Ziemer: No.
41

Member Beach: No, we can't.

Ms. Behling: Okay, wait, let me see here. 

Let me stop and let me go here, and let me see if I 

can share now. Okay. No, that's not it either.

Member Anderson: There we are.

Ms. Behling: That's a presentation handout, correct? 

Is that what we're --

Member Beach: Yes, that is correct. Alright, hold on. 

Let me see if I can find this.

Ms. Behling: Yeah, well --

Member Ziemer: That was the one I was referring to 

earlier.

Member Beach: Okay, yes.

Ms. Behling: Oh boy, let's see here. Okay. This is it. 

Now, do you see --

Member Beach: Yes.

Ms. Behling: Table 2.1-1?

Member Beach: Yes. 

Ms. Behling: Yeah, I'm just --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Ms. Behling: I'm just taking the opportunity since I 

have, you know, an audience here to just show you 

this was our old checklist. And so, if we do go this 

route with this matrix and attaching things to the 

BRS system, we're going to have to cut out -- this 

was our review of OTIB-0010, and we had a check, 

like for our dose reconstruction reviews, at that 

time. 

If it got a rating of 5, you didn't assign a finding to 
42

it, but once we developed the BRS system and we 

wanted to put this checklist information into that 

BRS, anything that was less than a 5 typically got a 

discussion further, and we made it a finding in the 

BRS system. 

So, I just wanted to point this out to you that if we 

do this and you see an attachment that looks like 

this, this comes from -- and there's always, you 

know, comments associated with it, and back years 

ago, Steve Marschke took all this and put it into the 

BRS system as a finding or observation -- so I just 

wanted to make you aware of that if you see 

something along these lines. But there have been a 

lot of procedures that have been reviewed over the 

years, and as I said, what isn't included are those

that have been canceled along the way or there 

were no findings, but if we do this, you may see 

some documentation that looks like this, and I 

didn't want anybody to question what this is all 

about.

Member Anderson: That's good, and I just want to 

go back to square one, and I do like the matrix. I 

think that really helps.

It's easier for a quick review. 

Now, as it's written, you may have a question about 

it, but I think it really helps.

Member Beach: Kathy, is it possible to put your 

slides back up? 

Ms. Behling: Yes, I'll give it a try.

Member Beach: Okay. And so, if you go back to the 

last slide, and we go through the summary 

discussions, I would like to get the Board's input on 

each one of the bullet points. Some of, you know, 

the intricate details, we're going to have to meet in 

the Subcommittee and make decisions, but overall, 

first bullet, does the Board agree with the matrix 
43

approach for closing out the approved technical 

documents?

And so, Rashaun, you might have to help us. 

Do we need a vote on this, or if we have general 

agreement, is that okay?

Dr. Roberts: Yeah, we probably want to do a 

motion, and then do a quick vote for it.

Member Beach: Okay. So, on that first bullet, 

agreement?

(Chorus of aye.)

Member Beach: Okay, so I'm assuming I'm making 

the motion then?

Dr. Roberts: Right.

Member Beach: And then, any seconds?

Member Roessler: Second.

Member Valerio: I'll second. And Josie, this is 

Loretta.

Member Beach: Hi, Loretta. Thank you. So then, 

that is open for discussion. 

Member Kotelchuck: I was going to say -- it's David 

Kotelchuck -- it makes sense, so I certainly agree 

with that switch.

Member Beach: Okay, thank you.

Member Kotelchuck: Going forward.

Member Beach: Other Board members?

Member Lockey: It's Jim Lockey --(Simultaneous 

speaking.)

Member Anderson: Does anybody disagree?
44

Member Beach: Yeah, I guess that's a good 

question. Does anybody disagree and have 

questions or comments? 

(No audible response.)

Member Beach: Alright, Rashaun, can you hold the 

vote then? Is that an aye or a roll call?

Dr. Roberts: So, all in favor?

(Chorus of aye.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay. All opposed?

(No audible response.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay. So it sounds like the matrix 

approach it is.

Member Beach: Okay, great. Thank you everyone. 

And the second bullet, you got two matrix 

examples. 

Did anybody see anything or have any objection to 

that, or do you need more information?

(No audible response.)

Member Beach: Moving forward, of course, we can 

change as we go, or we can add as we move 

through this at the next Board meeting.

Ms. Behling: And as I said, there will be 

documentation. 

I plan on attaching any relevant documentation to 

the BRS so that if there are questions after you 

review the matrix, you can dig deep into that 

information that will be available. 

Member Beach: Okay. And then, Henry, you did 

bring up a point about higher priority procedures. 

That is something we can take into account when 
45

we have our next Subcommittee meeting and 

discuss which ones will maybe go forward on closing 

out, if that seems reasonable to the Board. 

Okay. Hearing no comments, the next is how do we 

handle closures of those documents previously 

presented?

I proposed that we do task SC&A to pull up the 

transcripts on when those were actually presented, 

review questions that were asked, and then we'll 

have to work with NIOSH to get resolutions to those 

questions, and then re-present those, I would say, 

in a bundle based on their complexity, either half of 

them or all of them. 

And that's open for discussion, also. 

Member Lockey: Josie, do you know how many 

there are?

Member Beach: It's on slide number 12 --

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Member Ziemer: I believe there were 12 on the 

slide. There are 12 there. 

Member Beach: Yeah, so slide 12 shows those. 

Now remember, those have been presented, we just 

didn't formally close them out, which we need to do.

Member Ziemer: And the Subcommittee I believe 

had closed them all. 

Wasn't that your recollection? Kathy, can you 

confirm that? 

Ms. Behling: Yes, that is correct.

Member Ziemer: Yeah.

Ms. Behling: Yes, definitely.
46

Member Ziemer: Yeah.

Member Beach: But like Kathy said, there may have 

been some follow up, at least on one of them. So --

Member Lockey: So Josie, do you think SC&A needs 

to review them all, or specific ones?

Member Beach: I think it needs to be reviewed if 

there's any follow up, and I think, Kathy, you've 

already done that on all of these, or just the one 

that showed that there was some NIOSH follow up 

we are waiting for?

Ms. Behling: There are actually three from the April 

2018 meeting. Because as I said, I also presented 

that CLL --

Member Beach: Correct.

Ms. Behling: Document, and you closed that -- the 

Board closed that because we were formally closing 

these at that meeting. 

And we attempted to close OTIB-0017 and the 

overarching 9, but the Board members had 

questions that NIOSH was going to follow up on, 

and we never got NIOSH's follow up. 

I don't know that we ever set up a meeting or an 

agenda to do that at some point, so but I think --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: Yeah. I don't think --

Ms. Behling: Right. 

But these previous ones, in order for recollection 

purposes, I mean, we are going back to 2013 here 

for some of the original presentations, and I just 

thought it would be useful for the Board to have. 

I could put together a very brief summary. 
47

This is what OTIB-0052 is about, this is what we 

explained, this number of findings, this is the 

discussion held afterwards. 

Maybe no one had any questions, everybody 

agreed, type of thing, but I think it probably would 

be useful for the Board just to refamiliarize yourself.

Member Lockey: That'd be helpful.

Member Clawson: Kathy, this is Brad. I agree with 

you on that, I just want to make sure that, as Josie 

said, that we review the transcripts because, you 

know, you already said we're clear back into 2013. 

Just make sure that we address what the concerns 

were because we have Board members that have 

left since then, and they may have been the ones 

that had the concerns and issues, and we want to 

make sure that they were addressed. 

Ms. Behling: Okay, very good.

Member Clawson: My personal feeling.

Ms. Behling: Yes, will do.

Member Ziemer: Related to that, this might've been 

an occasion where you'll have to look and see 

whether the Chair actually asked for a motion 

versus taking the position that if no one objects, 

they are approved. 

And so, I think when you say review, you're going 

to review the minutes, right, of the meetings?

Ms. Behling: Yes. And Paul, you're absolutely 

correct. 

In the meetings previous to 2018, I didn't go 

through all of these transcripts, but I did not see 

where there was any motion to say we're going to 

close this out, and that's what concerned me about 

these previous presentations.
48

In the April 2018 Board meeting, you attempted to 

file a motion to close these out, and we decided 

because of the conversations that were going on 

between Board members and NIOSH, that there 

needed a follow up, and so those were not closed 

out.

Member Ziemer: Yeah. Well, I think April 2018, 

probably the Chair was Jim Melius still. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. 

Member Ziemer: I don't -- Jim --

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, correct. You're correct.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: In 2019, so. 

Ms. Behling: Okay. I thought I saw on the 

transcripts that you were trying to file a motion. I 

could be --

Member Ziemer: Oh, I may have been trying to 

make a motion, yeah.

Member Beach: As a Subcommittee member, yes.

Member Ziemer: Yeah, right.

Member Beach: Yeah.

Member Ziemer: Right.

Ms. Behling: Okay. But I can certainly go back to 

summarize all of these.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: Yeah. Just to confirm, if it was 

presented to the Board for action, why didn't we 

have action on any of these?
49

Member Beach: Good question.

Member Ziemer: Or was it just presented for 

information? 

So yeah, it'll be good to have some clarity from 

what the minutes really said. Thanks.

Member Beach: Okay, yeah, and I think we're trying 

to formalize and close out items such as these also 

on the BRS as we go through it, trying to formally 

show where we closed and took the vote. 

So, we're going to clean up some of this stuff, as 

well. 

Rashaun, is there a tasking? 

Can we formally task SC&A to go back and look at 

those, and present at the next Board meeting on 

these previous procedures that haven't been 

formally closed? Is that ---

Dr. Roberts: Yes. I think that's a tasking that can be 

made.

Member Beach: Okay, so we formally have tasked 

that at this meeting. And it'll come up at our 

Subcommittee. 

We don't have a Subcommittee meeting scheduled, 

but we will before the next Board meeting. Okay, 

and so the last --

Dr. Roberts: Okay --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: Oh, go ahead.

Dr. Roberts: I'm sorry, I'll make a note of that then, 

okay, that we need to set up another Subcommittee 

meeting for Procedures.
50

Member Beach: Okay. And this would be the main 

topic, I would assume, because this will take some 

discussion. 

And then the last bullet, does the Board need to be 

provided with an overview of documents reviewed 

by the Subcommittee with no findings identified? 

And Brad mentioned that yes, we need to show 

what we have reviewed, and I agree with that. 

Is there a proposed method that we do that? 

I know it's in the BRS, and it shows no findings, and 

you can look at it in the BRS. 

What are some other ideas of how you would like to 

see that? 

Member Clawson: Kathy, you know, well, I guess 

what I'm kind of looking at is, all these other ones 

have a matrix set up with them because there was 

the issues, and so forth like that. 

What I'm kind of looking at is if I had a question on 

one of these, I could go back to that procedure and 

the review, and if there was just a matrix sheet or 

whatever else that said that there was no findings 

with this, on this such and such a date, so we went 

with it, that was kind of what I was looking at. 

I just want something that I can go back and 

pinpoint that even if there wasn't any findings to 

this, that this was reviewed and that it was 

accepted by the Board, and go on, and I'm 

wondering if the matrix system could do something 

like that? 

You know, if there's no findings, okay, but that it 

was reviewed on this date, it was brought before 

the Board, it was accepted, and go on. 

Ms. Behling: Okay. --
51

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Clawson: -- be accepted by us. 

Ms. Behling: Yes. I agree with that approach. 

I could modify that matrix table to provide you with 

that. 

And the reason that I really agree with you that we 

need to have this type of list is because one of the 

things that is difficult -- and it's just because -- I'm 

not being critical, I'm simply going to state, the BRS 

system is set up to identify findings -- and this is a 

discussion that I think Josie and I have talked 

about, and that we will probably have at the next 

Subcommittee meeting -- when SC&A reviews a 

document and there are no findings, we put in a 

finding of no findings because we don't have any 

other avenue of doing that right now. 

It would be nice if the BRS system had something 

that would say, reviewed on this date, but no 

findings. 

So, a lot of times you can go into the BRS system, 

and I can pull out a report, and that report is going 

to tell me something that I may misinterpret 

because I'm going to say oh, there was a finding 

here, and when I go into the BRS and specifically 

look at what was that finding -- because quite 

honestly, your handout list of 35 documents, that 

started out as 45 documents based on my review --

the report that I pulled off of the BRS system, and 

then when I went in individual by individual, I said 

this isn't a finding, this is just a statement that we 

reviewed it and there are no findings. 

So, I do absolutely agree you need a separate 

document saying, these were reviewed, this is when 

they were reviewed, and it was presented to the 

Subcommittee, and we did not have any findings.
52

Member Clawson: And that's what I'm looking for. 

Let me ask you something else, too, with this 

matrix system like this because sometimes we may 

review this document and everything's good on it, 

but as we go through the process we find an issue, 

and NIOSH has to revise this document. 

I want to be able to also see when it was revised, 

what portion was revised, and why. Would we be 

able to do that with the matrix?

Member Beach: Yeah. That will definitely be part of 

that, while we're at it.

Ms. Behling: Yes.

Member Clawson: Okay, that's what I'm looking for.

Ms. Behling: Okay.

Member Beach: Can I circle back to your first 

question? 

And Kathy, for you -- and as well as the other Board 

members -- the presentation handout that you sent 

out, is that something that can be updated at each 

meeting, and could we put reports of documents 

that we've reviewed, the finding date, or the date it 

was reviewed, at least, and have that added on to 

that presentation handout?

Ms. Behling: And you're talking about the 

presentation handout that I've provided today?

Member Beach: Yes. 

Ms. Behling: Make a living document and add to it? 

Yes. 

Member Beach: It seems to me that would be a 

great place to have those documents, all of them. 

I mean, this could be 45 documents, and ten of 
53

them were no findings, and that's the conclusion, 

but at least the Board would have that in hand.

Ms. Behling: Okay. That can be done.

Member Beach: And any other comments or 

agreement, disagreement with that? This --

Member Ziemer: I agree with that, Josie, and let me 

also add I don't recall -- and maybe you do --

whether or not the Subcommittee ever actually 

approved the ones that had no findings. 

It seems like the documentation needs another 

column, and any additional findings, but aside from 

that, I agree with Brad. 

I think the Board needs to in a sense approve the 

documents, whether or not there were findings, 

number one.

Member Beach: Agreed. And the Board may not --

Member Ziemer: And number two -- yeah, number 

two --

Member Beach: Yeah, the Board may not agree 

there's no findings.

Member Ziemer: Right, number --

Member Beach: So, good point, yes, that's an 

excellent --

Member Ziemer: And number two, a document is 

not necessarily approved simply because SC&A has 

no findings. 

Subcommittee members might have issues that 

they raise separately from SC&A, and I don't recall 

if we have or haven't, but ask NIOSH to go back 

and clarify one thing or another, or consider 

something in that procedure. 
54

So, whether or not it's an SC&A finding, at some 

point, we need to finalize it with both the 

Subcommittee action and the full Board approval. 

Member Beach: Yes. I agree with you 

wholeheartedly, and we may need to modify this 

document, and again, it's a good question when we 

get our Subcommittee together next to review that, 

as well. 

So good comment, thank you. Other comments? 

Member Valerio: This is Loretta. I have a question.

Member Beach: Go ahead, yeah.

Member Valerio: Would the matrix identify when the 

Subcommittee recommended or voted on closure of 

a finding, and then also document the date that the 

full Board would also, you know, be in agreement 

that it was in a position for closure?

Member Beach: Yeah, good question. 

If you look back at the slide presentation, there 

were two matrix -- and I'm on page 10, the Hooker 

-- it shows the observation date, and then it shows 

the NIOSH response date, and then the observation 

resolution date. 

So, if there's more dates that need to be added, 

does that cover it, Loretta, or?

Ms. Behling: Excuse me, this is Kathy. 

Member Beach: Oh, go ahead, Kathy.

Ms. Behling: Just want to add something. And I 

briefly mentioned this early on in the presentation, 

Loretta. 

Because of discussions that we had at the 2018 

Board meeting -- and that, you know, that was, 

yeah, a Board meeting -- the BRS was updated, was 
55

modified after that, that we can now -- it will show 

you if there were any findings that were added by 

the full Board review, when those findings were 

closed, and the date of closure.

So that is currently part of our BRS system, that 

just got added to the system. We can pull a report 

on that now back in like 2018.

Member Valerio: Okay. Okay, that helps.

Ms. Behling: Okay.

Member Valerio: Okay. If I have another question, 

I'll let you know. Thank you.

Member Beach: Thanks, Loretta. Any other 

comments? We still have plenty of time. Any other 

items to be discussed on this?

Member Kotelchuck: So, Dave Kotelchuck.

Member Beach: Yep, hi.

Member Kotelchuck: So the last two items are really 

going back to the Subcommittee for reporting back, 

right?

Member Beach: Correct.

Member Kotelchuck: But we've approved the first 

two, which is fine, and the other two, so that's fine. 

I think we made real progress, and I ---

Member Ziemer: I think the answer to the last one 

was a yes, wasn't it, or a go back? I think we 

already heard the answer to that, didn't we?

Member Beach: Yes, correct. I think we answered 

all of them, so I'm just wanting any last comments, 

questions. 

I haven't heard anything from NIOSH, if there's any 

concerns or questions or comments.
56

Member Kotelchuck: Dave again. I mean, I do 

appreciate that you're bringing this up and we're 

regularizing the process. 

I mean, I didn't say that in the beginning, but as a 

Board member, I think we're following through on 

what we are supposed to be doing, and functioning 

like a Board, an Advisory Board, so I'm very glad 

you brought it up. 

I know it's a lot of work, but it's good work.

Member Anderson: And it allows us to track these 

procedures and activities very easily, and I think the 

matrix will really help that as well. 

So, you know, you're looking at here going back to 

2005, well, that's a long time ago, so being able to 

quickly pull these things out to answer questions, I 

think that'll really give us a much stronger 

structure.

Ms. Behling: And this is Kathy again. And I also 

envision that once the matrix is provided to you, 

there's been discussions, everyone is in agreement, 

that matrix package will also be attached to the 

BRS?

Member Anderson: Yeah.

Member Beach: Good. Yeah, I was going to mention 

that, if you pull up the BRS, we work really hard to 

try to put any documents in the appropriate spots 

on the BRS. 

NIOSH has been doing a good job, and SC&A. 

Any time we come up to an item in the BRS that 

isn't formally closed or doesn't have really good 

information, we are trying to research. 

I know Kathy spends a lot of time looking at 

transcripts to make sure we capture exactly what 
57

was said and done, and that in ten years from now, 

you can go back to those items and understand 

what and why we did things, so we are definitely 

moving forward in that direction. 

Alright, Kathy, good work. Thank you. Any other 

comments before I turn this back over to Rashaun? 

I think we have the tasking, and Rashaun will send 

out information for a Subcommittee meeting. 

And then at that point, we'll decide what to bring to 

the next Board meeting. 

(No audible response.)

Ms. Behling: Thank you.

Member Beach: Yeah, thanks. Rashaun, it's back to 

you. 

Dr. Roberts: Okay, thank you. Very good discussion. 

So, we are a little bit early in the agenda, but next 

up we've got a presentation from Dave Kotelchuck 

from the Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction 

Reviews, an update. Dave?

Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction Reviews 

Update

Member Kotelchuck: Good. Okay, thank you. And 

Rose is going to help me with the slides.

I mean, basically today what I'm going to do is an 

update on the Dose Reconstruction Review 

Subcommittee, and I thought I would talk about two 

topics. 

One is updating our blind reviews process -- and 

there we are -- and the second topic is talking about 

tracking on professional judgment.

You'll remember that Mark Griffon released a report 
58

now a few years ago. 

If we go back a few years ago and suggested that 

we look at professional judgment more closely, and 

perhaps that will allow us to give some 

recommendations or some advice to our dose 

reconstructors so that we can be more consistent in 

our decisions that relate to professional judgment. 

So, let's go to the first slide, and let's see, even the 

title slide -- because I really want to -- I'd like 

people to spend a moment and look at the names of 

all the people who are working on our committee. 

It is an active committee. Folks are committed and 

all of them put in a lot of work on it, and we are 

finally, for example, up to date in terms of being 

able to do our dose reconstruction reviews. 

When I came in, we were still trying to catch up all 

the time. 

Also, in addition to the Board members, I'd like to 

also give credit to Rose Gogliotti for her work as the 

SC&A liaison to our Subcommittee. 

A lot of the work that I'm going to be presenting 

today she has helped out on and helped us design. 

So, next slide. Now, on the blind reviews, blind 

cases, so far we've done 44 blinds.

That is cases that are dose reconstructed by NIOSH, 

and then the SC&A is doing a totally independent 

review of that. 

Now, the 44 blinds, I just wanted to give you a 

notion of how many, and we are doing it in each 

facility. 

As you see, there are 28 facilities listed. If you do 

the arithmetic, you'll also see that we have 63 cases 

that are covered. 
59

And of course, that's due to the fact that some 

people worked in several different facilities.

And the number of the blinds, the largest numbers 

are at Oak Ridge and Hanford, as you might expect, 

and some of the others, as we go down, are 

facilities that have fewer claimants. 

So, now let's go to the next slide. 

The years employed in the blinds cases of the 44 

who -- of blinds, you'll see that basically we have a 

flat distribution between ten and 40 years, which is 

fine, and then fewer less than ten years, of course, 

and only four with more than 40 years due to 

retirements and deaths.

Okay. Let's go to the next one. Gender of the blinds 

cases. 

Of the 44 cases reviewed, 11, 25 percent, were 

female, but the percentage of female claimants, as 

of our secretary support in 2019, was only 13 

percent. 

So, you might ask why there's such a discrepancy, 

and the answer is, I think our first 11 or 12 cases 

after -- blinds cases that we reviewed -- we 

suddenly realized they were all men, and so at that 

point, I and the rest of the folks said look, we want 

a representative sample.

And there aren't any women in this sample. 

So, we started making sure that we were selecting 

women as well as men for our blind cases, and of 

course what happened was we've been paying 

attention to it and we've overshot, so from now on 

we will be, you know, reviewing, and there will be 

men and women, but perhaps we will not pay 

attention -- let's make sure that we do this right. 

And so, that was an overshooting in a correction of 
60

our initial cases.

Okay, the next one. Now, I have the Sets 24, 26, 

and 28, blinds groups of six blinds. By the way, 

there are only five blinds in this slide, and that's 

because I tried to put it all on one slide initially, and 

so I couldn't quite fit everything in, so I dropped an 

early slide.

But as you see, you remember that NIOSH has 

already done the dose reconstruction for all of these 

cases long before SC&A reviewed them. 

Let me see. 

Let's just say in general on the blinds, they've first 

been done by NIOSH, those that are official, and the 

ones that have been reported back, and then we're 

looking at them later through SC&A.

What we're then checking is basically that our dose 

reconstructions are precise, if you will, rather than 

accurate, and that distinction between precision and 

accuracy, we don't know what accurate is. 

That is, we don't know what, quote, the truth is or 

what the actual dose reconstruction, so we are 

looking at both of those and we're trying to look for 

consistency, and to see that the instructions that we 

are giving to the dose reconstructors are sufficiently 

consistent so that the results are similar. 

Now, in the early blinds, we normally of course 

choose blinds where we've done best estimate dose 

reconstructions, so we go between 45 and 52 

percent POCs.

In the early days before Set 24, we had a full 

breadth of POCs. 

And we had really a consistent agreement, or put it 

this way, there was consistency in the 

recommendation. 
61

There was consistency in the decision on the 

claimant. 

As we've gone farther along, we've started 

choosing, if you will, more complex situations where 

the person worked in many different facilities, the 

numbers are quite close to 50 percent, the point at 

which the decision would change, and so, not 

surprisingly, we have occasionally now results 

where the NIOSH and SC&A results are different, 

and number 28, that is exactly what happened. 

We reviewed both of the dose reconstructions, and 

they were done in our judgment professionally and 

correctly, but they were professional judgments that 

were involved, and allowance for slightly different 

decisions. And so, in that case, in the first case, 

there was a difference in the overall decision. Then, 

the rest of them, as you can see, are really quite 

close. And let's go to the next slide. 

And again, we have really quite good consistency 

and some fairly complex cases. 

In this case, by the way, you will notice that 34 and 

35, the decision would be different depending on 

which SC&A and NIOSH -- and again, both dose 

reconstructions were reviewed and done properly. 

So, and of course, the only one of these is -- a 35 is 

one in which NIOSH decided that this was not 

compensable, and the SC&A said that their dose 

reconstruction would have made this compensable. 

That is one that, if you will, you would say was not 

claimant-favorable, or put it this way, there was a 

difference in the decision.

Okay, 28. And again, really quite good agreement 

here. 

The 43 and 44, as we went over this, the 

Subcommittee worked on these recently. 
62

There is quite a discrepancy, of course, in the POCs, 

both making the same decision that these were not 

compensable cases. 

Even though there was a large difference in the POC 

values, there was no reason to say that the ones 

that were done by SC&A, which were much lower, 

were. 

They were not done incorrectly, they were done 

correctly. 

Okay, well, so, that's where we are with our 44 

cases, and now let's go on to the next one with 

professional judgment. 

We've just started going ahead and trying to do 

tracking on professional judgments. What we're 

doing is starting out with the blinds because we're 

already reviewing the blinds, we don't have to go 

back and review them fresh. 

We're doing them now, and so Rose is setting aside 

the places where there is professional judgment 

being used, and she helped us put together an Excel 

file. 

Basically, we have, as you see here, broad topic, 

the column, and we have probably rows -- what I 

think eight blinds now that we've started reviewing 

-- eight or ten, and the broad topic, the professional 

judgment, the entries include, you know, shallow 

dose, medical dose, bioassay. 

These are the broad areas, and then we're 

narrowing down in the Excel file for the more 

specific topic related to professional judgment. 

And now we'll go to the last one. And I've taken out 

all the personal information. Obviously it is there for 

the review and when we do it, but removing the 

personal information, basically we have a broad 

topic, a specific topic, documents that relate to it, 
63

and then additional information. 

So, we had issues on the shallow, looking at them. 

So, these are not all of them that we have, we just 

took a small group of them so that we could, if you 

will, put this on a slide, with large enough type that 

we could read it. 

So, basically, we had modeling choices, a shallow 

dose, modeling choices because there were 

difference in judgments about the areas usually 

covered by the clothing.

I believe there were issues of the sleeves, where 

people wear sleeveless or with sleeves. 

And in ambient exposure, we discussed employment 

hours and working hours per year when the 

employee reported no overtime, so there was a 

question about that as to how many hours she 

report. 

There were issues on the next one about 

unmonitored short periods where the employee was 

not monitored, and then the question is, what did 

we do, you know, how did we handle the exposure 

in that period?

So this was kind of the model that we have, and if 

people have thoughts about this in terms of if this is 

-- if you will show this to the Board, this is what 

we've done -- and the Subcommittee, what we're 

trying to track, what we are tracking.

And then as we develop a database from the blinds 

that we go over, at some point, we may want to 

consider looking at that as we do cases going 

forward, that we're reviewing in the Subcommittee. 

But for the moment, we're just looking at our blinds 

and developing the database. 
64

Okay. I'd appreciate if there are questions or 

comments from the Board. 

Also, particularly on the way that we're doing 

professional judgment tracking, and if there are any 

suggestions people have of ways to present this, 

modifying this a bit to perhaps clarify or improve it. 

So, with that, I think I'm finished, and we are open 

to questions, either on the blinds or the professional 

judgment. 

Any questions or comments? 

Member Anderson: Just a question on the 

professional judgment issues. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah? 

Member Anderson: Do you have any assessment of 

what a difference it makes? 

I mean, you can have some professional judgment 

where it is a professional judgment, but it isn't do 

they have two heads or one head?

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Actually, we are not 

tracking that. 

The blinds basically ask, you know, what impacts 

the different ways of reviewing? 

I mean, a lot of the differences in the blinds are in 

fact professional judgments. 

Member Anderson: Okay, well that was my next 

question, was to say, does that explain some of 

those?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Anderson: And therefore, the greater 

differences in some are because there was an area 

of professional judgment where it could make, you 
65

know, one percent its difference? 

Member Kotelchuck: Well, I --

Member Anderson: That's not a lot of exposure.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, that's a good question, 

and we haven't tried so far to sort of compare the 

blinds and the professional judgments and see how 

much they're entering in. 

I would say we've just looked at the dose 

reconstruction itself. I think that's a good point. 

I mean, some of these may well be quite important, 

and other ones not very important, and we have in 

the past talked about findings and, if you will, that 

were consequential or not. 

I think that's something that we need to look at. 

I'm not quite sure how to do it, but I think it's 

important to think about the impact of those, 

whether it's, you know, high impact, moderate, low 

impact, the difference. 

That's a good point. 

Member Anderson: And employment hours would be 

one of those that would be important, if somebody's 

worked 25 years versus just enough time to qualify.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. Or working hours per 

year. 

There are often differences at the beginning and at 

the end of the person's employment, right? 

Member Anderson: Yes.

Member Kotelchuck: When exactly did they start? 

And, you know, you try to follow the record of the 

employment record. 
66

No, I think that's good, and I think that's something 

we need to look at and think more about. Well 

taken. Other?

(No audible response.) 

Member Kotelchuck: Jim?

(No audible response.)

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Alright. So, we're 

moving right along in the Subcommittee. But if 

there's no further questions or comments, again, I 

know we started early, and we're ending early as 

well, so --

Member Clawson: Hey, Dave?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes?

Member Clawson: This is Brad. One of the things is, 

is if you remember, when we first started modeling 

this, this is kind of evolving as we go through the 

process. 

This is just kind of our rough beginning of where 

we're at. We may find professional judgments and 

other things a little bit different. 

This tracking and so forth like that is to help us 

understand where it's coming in at, and so forth. 

And this will evolve over time. I just want to make 

sure the people are aware of that.

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, yes.

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Member Clawson: -- bit more.

Member Kotelchuck: Absolutely. Really, we didn't 

start doing blinds consistently until six or seven 

years ago, and now we're doing them regularly, and 
67

once we get the database on this and start seeing 

patterns develop, patterns where there are 

professional judgments, and the differences are 

consequential than -- well, I think we'll be able to 

move further. 

But it may take a few years now. 

Member Clawson: It will, and that's why I'm saying 

that this is a ever-growing thing, and I appreciate 

Rose's input into this, and she's done a great job, 

and I really appreciate being able to see what she 

really looks like. So.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Clawson: But, I just want to make sure 

that everybody understands this is growing, this is 

trying to help us understand where this is being 

used at, and as Henry already said -- and also what 

some of the impact on this is at. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Member Clawson: It's something that comes up 

quite often. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Member Anderson: I mean, I would just add like, 

the shirts, that's sort of a thing one could then 

establish in a given area or whatever, a percentage 

of short sleeve versus not. 

I mean, you're not going to have people not 

wearing shirts at all, and things like that. 

So I think one thing would be to look at, well, there 

may be professional judgment being used.

When you look at a lot of cases, you can then come 

to, well, we can reduce the professional judgment 

and say in these areas when the temperature is 

above X, Y, Z or whatever, then we're going to 
68

assume that the workers are wearing this kinds of 

clothing, or --

Member Kotelchuck: Oh yes.

Member Anderson: Again, it's are they wearing 

protective clothing or not? That makes a big 

difference, too. 

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. Well, I mean, if we're 

talking more broadly, there are so many areas in so 

many different facilities where we really don't have 

full records. 

The professional judgment also is trying to 

compensate in the long-term for the fact that we 

really often don't have the kind of records we really 

would like to have. And --

Member Anderson: I mean, if you want to go 

against what the true measure is, versus is there a 

consistency? 

And when there's missing information, like you 

discussed a little bit on some of the blind cases, it 

turned out to be claimant-favorable, as opposed to 

is it randomly favorable on some, and others not? 

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Member Anderson: I'd like to see some consistency, 

and not use -- as the absolute measure of accuracy 

is not what we're after. We're after consistency of 

approach.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. 

And I mean, given the state of the records and the 

decisions that dose reconstructors have to make, I 

have been consistently impressed how close the 

POCs are for the blind reviews, and the fact that the 

decisions are consistent among different dose 

reconstructors.
69

Member Lockey:ER LOCKEY: David, Jim Lockey. If I 

recall correctly, I think one of the biggest areas was 

employment hours, whether you consider weekends 

--

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Lockey: -- I don't know employment 

duration over a year was calculated, and that could 

make a big difference in the dose reconstructions.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. 

Member Lockey: That's an area, Henry, where we 

found discrepancy as to how judgment was used in 

regard to the actual number of hours per year a 

person worked.

Member Anderson: Yeah. 

I mean, and it's the same thing on the records, that 

if you're going to add extra hours, that there's a 

document in their employment record of overtime 

when it pays because sometimes they'll work 

overtime, but it doesn't necessarily get recorded. 

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Member Anderson: That becomes the systematic, 

you know, professional judgment. I could say, well, 

there's some indication this happened.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. Well, the hours are really 

something that can have a pretty dramatic 

difference over many years of work.

Member Lockey: David, Jim Lockey again. I don't 

remember when on those last two cases where 

SC&A had a POC that was ---

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Lockey: -- different from NIOSH. 
70

Rose, did you go back and list them as observations 

or findings, or how was that handled? Do you 

remember?

Ms. Gogliotti: Well, you're talking about these ones 

that I have up, 43 and 44?

Member Lockey: Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: We don't typically have findings or 

observations with a blind case. I can tell you 43, the 

difference there was the difference of an 

employment location. 

NIOSH had selected one area, and the SC&A 

reviewer had selected another, and that was the 

main difference in that case, and that's how big of 

an impact. 44 is a little bit different. This case, we 

still haven't officially concluded the discussions. 

NIOSH inadvertently had included six additional 

cancers.

Member Lockey: That's right, I remember that, 

yeah.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. 

Member Lockey: Right. And we haven't figured out -

-

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: And yes, I remember that. I 

remember that.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Lockey: Thanks for bringing this up today, 

Rose. It's hard to remember everything.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.
71

Member Kotelchuck: Indeed. Indeed.

Member Ziemer: Dave, I have a comment and a 

question.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Member Ziemer: And my comment -- basically I'm 

agreeing. I think there's remarkable consistency 

between the SC&A and the NIOSH values. 

And in fact, if we weren't doing what I've always 

objected to in calculating to four significant figures 

when at best it's two, 39 is 50 and 50, and 40 is 51 

and 51, and 41 is 49 and 49, except for those last 

two, and the other chart was the same, you got 

basically the same results by both, in SC&A and 

NIOSH. 

So I think that's great.

Member Kotelchuck: Absolutely.

Member Ziemer: My question is -- and it doesn't 

have to do with what you showed here today, but 

just looking down the road, what are your thoughts 

on when we -- should next be reporting to the 

Secretary on the scientific validity of dose 

reconstructions? 

Member Kotelchuck: There are technical decisions 

and political decisions.

Member Ziemer: Yes. We got to give the new 

Secretary time to get broken in. 

Member Kotelchuck: Oh. Well --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: I wonder down the road if we have 

any sort of long-term plans on when we should be 

preparing for the next official report?
72

Member Kotelchuck: Well, I continue to await the 

appointment of a new Chairperson for our Advisory 

Board. 

And I've always -- I've happened to have written 

the reports at the direction of the Chair, and so I 

would say when the next Chair comes in and 

decides, I really don't have a judgment on that, 

other than our last one was turned in in 2019, so I 

suspect we will be doing one in the next year or so. 

But again, I really do hope that the administration 

appoints someone to be Chair.

Member Ziemer: No, and I don't think there's a big 

rush. I think there was a bigger gap between 2019 

and the previous one, so I think we're in good 

shape.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. Good.

Member Anderson: I would just have this -- not that 

I'm proposing you do this, but it's very useful the 

way we have. We've had a totally outside group, 

SC&A, do that, and then we compare it to the 

NIOSH. 

I would also be interested, is what kind of 

consistency is there between NIOSH staff who are 

doing this on a regular basis?

Does NIOSH ever do any blinds where multiple staff 

individuals review the same record start to finish? 

Now, I don't want to -- not that I'm doing that at 

the exclusion, and well, we're not going to process 

some very rapidly, but I think the consistency within 

the program is almost as important from a -- that 

it's not a matter of which of the reviewers you get, 

NIOSH reviewers you get makes a difference, that 

some of them are more claimant-favorable than 

others. 
73

I think that would be somewhat problematic. But if 

they're all consistent, then the fairness to 

individuals going through the system, they're all 

getting it pretty much the same.

Member Kotelchuck: And I know that NIOSH and 

ORAU do do internal consistency checks, and maybe 

somebody from ORAU or NIOSH would like to speak

to that? 

Because they --

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Mr. Calhoun: Yeah, this is Grady.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah?

Mr. Calhoun: We actually add a level, another level 

of peer review on any of the best estimates that are 

45 to 52 percent. 

And that's one thing that should be mentioned here, 

is we're looking at the claims which are close to only 

one percent of the total number of claims that fall 

into that Probability of Causation range, and 

actually, the Subcommittee has reviewed virtually 

every one of those to this point. 

Sometimes we have to go beyond that range to try 

to get additional cases for them to review. 

So these are the cases where the smallest mistake 

could result in a change in compensation decision, 

and that's only happened once. 

Now, I'm checking into that one that showed up 

here, Dr. Kotelchuck, number 35, because I don't 

recall that happening that way, that there was 

actually a true mistake that we ended up at a noncomp decision. 

I think that you ultimately agreed that we are 

correct on that.
74

Member Kotelchuck: Oh.

Mr. Calhoun: But anyway, we've got to think about 

that when we're looking at these cases, that these 

are the ones that are most susceptible to a flip in 

compensation with a smallest deviation from 

procedure. 

Member Kotelchuck: Absolutely, and I'm so glad 

that you raised that, that this is a very small slice of 

the cases that are reviewed in the first place, and 

we are challenging ourselves by trying to go up 

right to the area in which the compensation 

decision, if you will, can vary with small things. 

And I'd like to -- If I gave the impression that there 

was -- if we'll go back to that one, Rose, set 26, I 

believe -- excuse me, 24.

Member Richardson: Okay. Before we do that -- this 

is David Richardson.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Member Richardson: Grady, how long have you 

been doing like a second round of -- or a greater 

round of peer review on those that are in the range 

45 to 52, or whatever the range was that you 

described?

Mr. Calhoun: I don't recall when it was actually 

started. It's been several years.

Member Kotelchuck: It's more than five years, I'll 

assure that, because that was a question that we 

asked from the Subcommittee years ago, and I was 

very pleased to find out that NIOSH does its own 

internal reviews of those. 

And then we go over them.

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Member Richardson: Yeah, well -- Dave, I 
75

remember that we've discussed that issue, I'm just 

thinking about our sampling strategy. That is, you 

know, we think that we're targeting in on those that 

have the greatest possibility of being flipped. 

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Member Richardson: But if those are the ones which 

are under the greatest level of scrutiny, then kind of 

randomly distributed errors around, you know, in 

those that are outside that bounds, you know, could 

have more errors than the ones we're finding 

because the ones that we are targeting as assessing 

are the ones that have already gone under double 

scrutiny behind NIOSH, and then we go and say do 

those look good? 

Member Kotelchuck: Well, that's ---

Member Richardson: Does that make sense? 

Member Kotelchuck: Yes, I understand what you're 

saying, but it runs into different problem --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Richardson: It's like if you came into my 

house and looked for dirt, and, you know, you didn't 

look under the chairs because, you know, I just 

vacuum around the places that you're going to --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: Right, right. But at the minute 

we go -- when we start to go, for example, to 

compensation decisions for POCs greater than 50, 

we find that the actual reviews, the reconstructions, 

people stop at a certain point, and instead of 

completing the dose reconstruction, they just stop 

because the person's made 50 percent, they're 

going to be compensated. 

Whether it's 53 or 57, it doesn't matter. Similarly, 
76

for under-estimates, right, or for actually -- for 

below for the smaller POCs, the overestimates, we 

have the same thing, people stop. 

So people -- there's -- people don't stop at the 

same point for issues -- for numbers that are less 

than 45 and over 52. 

It is possible that we look at them, but we would 

have to then do a new review in which we set a 

standard and said you have to go through, for these 

cases that are not compensated, you have to go 

through the whole thing, otherwise you don't have a 

basis for comparison.

Member Richardson: Okay, thanks.

Member Clawson: Dave? Let me --

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah? 

Member Clawson: Remind me of something about 

this. 

Here a few years ago, as a Board, we had a certain 

amount of dose reconstructions we were to review, 

and we have never come close to that. 

Now, five to six years ago, we started going through 

this information too, and come to find out that we 

were supposed to do blinds, so we started doing 

more blinds. 

If I remember right, we kind of backed off on the 

amount of dose reconstructions we were reviewing 

because we were so far behind.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. 

Member Clawson: So I'm wondering if now because 

we have caught up and we've got to this point, that 

we need to take a look at trying to accomplish the 

requirement that was originally set on us, which I 

believe was two percent?
77

Member Kotelchuck: Yes. 

Member Clawson: We were never able to do this 

because we were so far behind, we had so many 

other different things, but I think maybe now is the 

time that we start to look at trying to accomplish 

what our charter had set forth for us.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, you're right that the 

earliest decision -- and I must say, I don't 

remember right now whether it was two or three 

percent --

Ms. Gogliotti: Two and a half.

Member Kotelchuck: Two and a half? Okay. 

But it was obvious that in the early days, we didn't 

have all our procedures set up, so it took longer. 

And I would say I would be open, in a nonpandemic year, to considering whether we might 

want to try to increase. We set one percent as the 

goal. 

After the first report, we had hit one percent. The 

Board had approved one percent, and we have 

stuck with that. 

We could do that. I mean, I still don't know --

Member Clawson: Dave, what I'm trying to say is 

we have been, you know, as an Advisory Board, we 

were given this, but we were not able to do it. 

Now that we've got our procedures in place, now 

that we've got a better program going together, 

now that we're actually even doing blind reviews, 

which is even showing better, I think that it would 

take care of what Dave Richardson also said, too, 

because right now, we have funneled our inspection 

right to a very narrow window. 

Where I think now we need to start opening up this 
78

window a little bit, and just taking periodic shots at 

different areas, and try to at least meet that 2.5 

percent. 

You know, even if we had two, I think would be 

fabulous, because if you look back ten to 12 years, 

when we were going through dose reconstructions 

and stuff, everything, we still had procedures out 

there, we still had all of these things. 

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Member Clawson: We got a lot of Q&A issues that 

NIOSH have to address and that ORAU have to 

address, and also ourselves. 

I think that this is a time that we need to start 

looking at increasing these somewhat. 

I know that the pandemic era is a bad -- but it's 

going to be over. We're not going to be able to just 

turn a switch and all of a sudden start increasing 

these. 

We're going to have to start going into this, and I 

see this as taking a couple, two to three years to 

get everything in motion, and feeling out these 

other areas to see where we can make the best 

decisions in the criteria to look for.

Member Kotelchuck: Well, I'm open. I will agree 

with you, I mean, a little bit.

This has been a very difficult year all around for all 

of us, and not the least of which is meeting by 

Zoom, if I may say so. 

I do not -- I miss the discussions that Board 

members have had, and Board and staff people 

have had in our earlier meetings. 

You do find it's, I must say, not unlike schools, kids 

learn a lot more in a classroom than they do 
79

watching their television screens, but I agree with 

you that we are at a point where I think we can 

consider moving ahead and trying to increase the 

percentages. 

I think, though, that also involves a discussion by 

Rashaun with SC&A as a whole because the 

question is they're being compensated for what they 

do. They're not sitting on their hands, I know that, 

and they're working hard, and therefore, you know, 

we may need more resources to do that, or we may 

not, but I would say I'm open to that exploration as 

one Board member. 

Member Clawson: Well, and this is why I'm saying, 

Dave, this time, because like I said, this does not 

turn a switch on, and all of a sudden we're going to 

do X amount more, because this also comes into 

SC&A, this also comes into NIOSH, ORAU. 

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Member Clawson: It comes into everybody in this 

process, but I think that we really ought to be 

looking at trying to accomplish what the charter set 

forth for us at this time. 

Now, we have not been able to do this because of a 

lot of things, but I think that we're getting to the 

point that we ought to be looking --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: Okay?

Member Kotelchuck: Duly noted. Duly noted.

Member Clawson: Because I think Rose needs a lot 

more to do, she looks too --

(Laughter.)
80

Member Anderson: Well, I think, I mean, part of the 

issue, what is the purpose, I mean what are we 

trying to accomplish? 

I mean, I remember in the very, very first years, I 

don't know but I think the charter said we're 

supposed to review cases. 

I didn't -- I thought we were the ones that made 

the decision on the percentage point that we 

wanted review to give us confidence in the ability to 

identify a certain percentage of systematic errors 

kind of a thing, so we had a lot more kind of 

statistical discussions and reviews very early on.

And then I think when that -- really applying that 

equally to random selection of any case, it then 

became more, and we got way behind, that, well, 

we ought to target this, so now we've really been 

targeting, which got away from the overall 

adequacy of all of the reviews. 

So it may be that we've had enough experience that 

we don't need to do more, but I think it's worth 

discussing.

I mean, if it says in the charter that's what we got 

to do, then we should do that, but I'm not sure. We 

don't want to just make work. I mean, there's --

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Member Beach: Yeah, Dave, this is Josie. 

I was going to suggest right before Andy did that 

we maybe have this as an agenda item and discuss 

it within the Subcommittee also moving forward. 

Member Kotelchuck: I think that's an excellent idea.

Member Lockey: David, we probably should go back 

and look at the charter and see if it specifies a 

percentage, or that. I think --
81

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Member Lockey: I don't remember if that was a 

charter statement or what we decided to do 

internally.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. I wasn't here, of course 

in the charter -- but I always thought that we set 

our own standard.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Kotelchuck: But let's discuss it. Let's 

discuss it in the Subcommittee.

Member Beach: I bet Rose knows.

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Ms. Gogliotti: I believe that was a Board criteria that 

you set yourself.

Member Kotelchuck: Right.

Ms. Gogliotti: You did form the methods workgroup 

thing to evaluate any changes you wanted to make 

in dose reconstruction procedures.

Maybe that would be a good place to bring that up. 

It's been several years since we've met.

Member Kotelchuck: It has been. I've always 

considered that as we're developing professional 

judgment data, that I would go back to the Method 

Subcommittee to talk about then if we wanted to 

change procedures or methods. 

Yeah. But I agree that we should talk about it in the 

Subcommittee. 

Oh, I know. I wanted to say to Brad, if we decide to

increase -- if we want to consider increasing the 

percentage of cases that we review, the burden is 

on SC&A and the Subcommittee because NIOSH 
82

doesn't have any more work to do than it's doing 

now, which is plenty, right? 

That is, the impact of reviewing goes to the Dose 

Reconstruction Committee and its consultant -- and 

our consultant.

Member Clawson: And that's true, but when we 

discuss them, we're going to have to have NIOSH 

and ORAU there to be able to go through each one 

of these. 

That's what I was looking at. It's going to be all of 

us. The majority of it is going to fall on SC&A. 

I agree with that, and the Subcommittee on Dose 

Reconstruction, but overall, it's going to take all of 

us because we would have more meetings, and so 

then, NIOSH would have to set up, same with 

ORAU, to be able to discuss these findings, evaluate 

them, and this also puts a little burden on them 

because sometimes when we bring these forth to 

them, they have to go in and evaluate what we 

found. 

Member Kotelchuck: That's true.

Member Clawson: So this is why I say this is not a 

turnkey thing. This is --I think that we ought to be 

ramping up because really, one percent is -- I 

question if we're really doing a good evaluation of it. 

But when we originally came up with that 

percentage, we had a lot of problems to overcome 

because we were still evaluating procedures, we 

were still, you know, but look at what we found 

because of these reviews.

We have changed a lot of procedures. We have a lot 

of OTIBs that we now work with. We have work 

books, we have been able to clean up these work 

books, and everything else like this. I believe that 

the Board and the Subcommittee on Dose 
83

Reconstruction, NIOSH, everybody, I think we're all 

doing great, good. I'm just saying that I think we 

need to look at maybe increasing a little bit, maybe 

like in the real world where we just randomly check 

ten or 15, just to see where we're at.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: You've got to understand my 

background, too. I come from the Quality Assurance 

departments.

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: This is what I'm kind of looking 

at, but we have not been able to catch up with what 

we have been doing. 

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. Although --

Member Clawson: And now we have, and I think in 

the future, we can bring this before the Board, we 

can bring this before everybody because I think 

really it would affect all groups, mainly SC&A and 

the dose reconstruction group, but that we look at 

this, and --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay.

Member Clawson: -- proceed forward.

Member Kotelchuck: I'm going to say when we get 

to the Subcommittee, however, that the one 

percent that we're reviewing, we try very hard to 

make sure that is a representative sample for the 

one percent. 

We're not -- unlike the blinds, where we're trying to 

push right around the compensation dividing line, 

we worry about making sure that we have the right 

percentage of small facilities, that we have gender 

and age and facility representation. 

So I agree with you, but I also think we try, our one 
84

percent is a pretty representative one percent, as 

best we can --

Member Clawson: Dave, I'm not saying that we 

haven't. We are trying to give the best bang for our 

buck out of all of this. And we always have. I'm just 

saying I think that we need to --

Member Kotelchuck: Okay. 

Member Clawson: We need to do more. Okay?

Member Kotelchuck: Good, good.

Member Lockey: And. David, Jim Lockey. You know, 

I was thinking back about the female, and I think 

one of the reasons we also focused on that is we 

wanted to look at breast and ovarian cancers, you 

know, and they were --

Member Kotelchuck: Well, that'-- and that will --

that's definitely an issue. 

Member Lockey: Yeah, because it's not that often 

that we had them, and there weren't that many 

female, and so we wanted to make sure that they 

were being done correctly also.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, good point. 

Okay.

Mr. Calhoun: And this is Grady. I want to just shoot 

one more point in here.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Mr. Calhoun: This chart here, I think that this is 

basically a pre-discussion chart, so this is what 

SC&A came with, and this is what NIOSH came up 

with before we had our discussion. I've had time to 

look at two of these real quickly, and I know that in 

site 28 and site 35, we came to the decision that 

NIOSH was -- we did ours correctly. 
85

So most concerned about number 35 because this 

looks like we sent out a non-comp case when it was 

really comp. But there were some employment 

issues on this and some neutron dose issues, and 

you agreed that we were correct on that, I believe.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Mr. Calhoun: So I just don't want this to be in the 

record that we sent something out as non-comp 

when you believed it was comp.

Member Kotelchuck: And I actually started saying a 

while ago, as we went into other issues, that in no 

way did the Subcommittee think that this was an 

incorrect determination, and that that is not the --

there was one once, of all the cases that we've 

reviewed, the one percent of cases, where the issue 

of a change in compensation came up, and this is 

not one of them. 

Both of these were professionally done, and for the 

record, we are not examining that an error was 

made. 

Since we function in a claimant-favorable 

environment, the fact that in 34, NIOSH 

compensated and SC&A would not have, doesn't --

you know, that's not an error. 

If there was a close decision, the claimant-favorable 

decision was made. But --

Member Clawson: Dave?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes?

Member Clawson: I'd like to also say, you know, 

being on this Work Group for as many years as I 

have, I've been very, very amazed at how close 

we've came, especially with the blinds.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.
86

Member Clawson: I think that SC&A, ORAU, NIOSH, 

all of us working together, I think that we've made 

this a much better program. I think that we've 

made things more transparent to the people and the 

better understandings of it. And you know, always 

looking at a set of numbers, it's very difficult. I 

understand what you're saying, Grady, but in no 

way, shape, or form would I ever say that you guys 

sent out, you know, something wrong like that. I 

think we've only had one case. 

Member Kotelchuck: That's right.

Member Clawson: That we had an issue with, and --

(Simultaneous speaking.) 

Member Beach: Well, and I might add that for the 

sake of a presentation, maybe having an 

explanation as to why those numbers vary. 

I know we do that when we do the Secretary report, 

but maybe just even like for today's presentation, 

have that added information so that we understand 

what that was, and nobody's going back and saying 

they think or that might have, or thought there was 

agreement. 

Let's just add that in the future so we know what 

the difference was and why, maybe, just a bullet 

point.

Member Kotelchuck: Good. Yes.

Ms. Gogliotti: And we do do summary charts that 

we can provide the full Board, if you'd like.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Member Beach: I think it's important to NIOSH to 

have that, and the information here when we're 

presenting for the record.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. 
87

The only time that, in all the reviews that we've 

done, and certainly while I've been here -- or 

actually, truthfully since I've seen the record of all 

that has been done, there was only one case that 

would have been changed, and that was a -- came 

because information came in on the record that --

and so the record changed after a decision was 

made to compensate. And so, and our policy is, of 

course, if there is -- if we were to, if you will, 

accidentally compensate, then we're not asking the 

people for the money back, just that that was a 

policy that was made long ago, that if it was our 

error.

And that is the only time, and even that was only an 

error because information came in later that 

corrected the -- that would have changed the 

decision, had the decision not been made 

previously. 

Anyhow. We're actually I think moving into our 

break period, so, Rashaun, let me give it back to 

you.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, thank you, Dave. Great 

discussion. 

And I did want to note that the Subcommittee for 

Dose Reconstruction Reviews does have a meeting. 

I believe it's scheduled for June 16, so that's 

already something that's on the books. 

At any rate, I'm wondering if we can go ahead and 

take a comfort break? And when we resume, we're 

scheduled to start the Board work session. 

I'm wondering if we could cut into that session a 

little bit by about 15 minutes. I don't think that 

session's going to run the whole hour and 15 

minutes, with the idea of taking a break now and 

resuming at about 4:15. 

If that's okay? 
88

Member Beach: Sounds great.

Member Kotelchuck: Great. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. That way we get a little bit of a 

longer break.

Member Kotelchuck: Good.

Dr. Roberts: Okay? Alright, so 4:15 we will resume.

Member Kotelchuck: Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you.

Break

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 3:47 p.m. and resumed at 4:18 p.m.)

Dr. Roberts: We do have a quorum, and this is the 

Board Work session so I think we can go ahead and 

proceed if that's okay with everybody?

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Well, thanks so much. First of 

all, I wanted to go over our calendar of meetings 

that we have scheduled and just make sure that 

everybody's on the same page with what has 

already been scheduled and to talk a little bit about 

a couple of meetings that should be scheduled in 

the year 2022.

So as far as full Board meetings, I have a 

teleconference of the full Board on the calendar for 

June 23rd, which I think we had all agreed was an 

okay time to be able to do that. And if anything has 

changed for anyone, please let me know, otherwise 

I assume that that's an okay date.

Then we have what would technically be a face-toface Board meeting August 18th and 19th, which I 

should advise you will need to be done virtually 
89

again. Basically there are travel restrictions in place 

for this rest of this fiscal year which ends at the end 

of September.

And so, you know, even though people are getting 

vaccines and the picture may be looking a lot better 

with regard to COVID, we will not be able to do that 

in person. So we would need to do that either on 

Skype or Zoom. But, again, August 18th through 

19th.

Then there is a teleconference on the books for 

October 20th, is the date that I have. And, again, 

that's just a teleconference where we will be 

planning for the December Board meeting.

And then I'm anticipating that for our December 8th 

and 9th meeting, that we probably will be able to do 

that in person. That does still remain to be seen,

but right now I am not anticipating that we will have 

the travel restrictions that we have in place for this 

fiscal year in place then and we should be able to do 

that meeting face-to-face.

You know, we will though probably need to have, if 

it looks clear, that we can meet in person, we 

probably need to have a conversation, a fuller 

conversation about where sometime in August to --

so that Zaida can start planning to do something 

face-to-face for December and we can start getting 

arrangements done as soon as the new fiscal year 

starts.

So are there any questions about that, and are 

these dates consistent with what you guys have on 

your calendar so far?

Member Clawson: Rashaun, this is Brad. What was 

the last teleconference? Was that in October?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. October 20th is what I have.

Member Beach: And I was going to say it's 
90

consistent with what I have.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, great. Because sometimes I've 

gotten a couple of dates mixed up so that's good to 

know.

Okay. Any other questions? 

Alright. Now I believe that technically speaking we 

do need to plan out these teleconferences and 

meetings about a year in advance. So that would 

mean that we need to identify a date for a 

teleconference in February of 2022.

So let's see. If you open up your calendars, at this 

juncture I think the calendar is pretty much wide 

open on this end.

So I'm thinking, you know, we could schedule it for 

any time. Early February might be a possibility. I 

know we like Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Member Beach: Rashaun, I'm not available the first 

two weeks of February.

Dr. Roberts: Okay, great, then --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Well, then 

that would put us in the third week of February, and 

if we're going for a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, 

you know, one of those days, it would be the 15th, 

16th, or 17th. And, again, this is just a 

teleconference.

Member Beach: I'm good for the 16th.

Dr. Roberts: The 16th?

Member Beach: Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Does anyone have an issue with 

the 16th?
91

Member Anderson: In the morning?

Member Beach: In all likelihood probably. We've 

been doing 11:00 --

Member Anderson: Yeah, okay.

Dr. Roberts: -- a.m. Does that work for people?

Member Beach: Yes.

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Let me just quickly, if I can get 

back to my notes, make a note of that. Okay. So 

we're looking at April 16, 20 --

Member Beach: February 16.

Dr. Roberts: Oh, sorry. Yes. February 16th, 2022, 

11:00 a.m. Eastern. Okay. So we'll put that on the 

books.

And the next face-to-face meeting that would occur 

in 2022, actually it would be our first face-to-face, 

would be in April. So there are -- are there any 

dates that we need to rule out for that?

Member Anderson: First week is bad for me.

Dr. Roberts: First week of April?

Member Anderson: The week of the 4th.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Any other weeks not particularly 

good for people?

Member Beach: Easter week is the 18th so that 

might be a consideration to avoid.

Member Kotelchuck: Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.
92

Member Kotelchuck: Which means the 15th is Good 

Friday.

Member Beach: So maybe the last week of the 

month? The 26th, 27th, or 27th, 28th?

Dr. Roberts: 27th or 28th? Okay.

Member Anderson: Yeah.

Dr. Roberts: That's good from my standpoint, 27th 

and 28th. And presumably we would be traveling at 

that point as well.

So does anyone have any issues with tentatively 

setting that up for April 27th and the 28th?

Member Beach: None here.

Participant: I'm fine.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Okay, great. Well, it sounds like 

we've got our dates set. So with that done, I 

wanted to go ahead and move into the Work Group 

reports and see if anyone in particular wanted to 

kick us off on that?

Member Beach: I'll kick us off with Metals and 

Control. I know we're going to hear a report later on 

that.

So our last meeting was held in March. We had a 

last minute scheduling conflict, so the meeting was 

cut short and we were unable to complete our 

agenda items.

However, we asked, or excuse me, the Work Group 

decided the best path moving forward was to task 

SC&A to review NIOSH's six primary exposure 

pathway scenarios and the proposed Mound data 

dust loading exposure model.

So NIOSH has prepared, or excuse me, anyway the 

dust model that they have proposed.
93

The next Work Group meeting is not determined at 

this point. It looks like we're looking at I think it 

was late May or early June. Sometime in June. We 

need to get SC&A's reports out in time for the Work 

Group to review.

So anyway, we do have some -- we're not decided 

on our SEC issues at this point, and that's where 

we're at.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. I just wanted to get some clarity 

there. I know there have been some email 

exchanges about when to time that part two of the 

M&C meeting, and I thought that the projection was 

July in order to get a report from SC&A, is that 

correct?

Member Beach: Yeah, I think you're actually 

correct. I know we have a reenactment of an 

interview that has not been scheduled yet, and I 

don't think we've even heard from all of the Work 

Group members on that.

But I believe we've decided to go forward with that 

Mound data re-interview. So, yeah, I think you're 

absolutely right, July is more likely.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Excellent. Okay, great.

Who would like to go next?

Member Kotelchuck: One second.

Dr. Roberts: Dave, did you say something? Dave K?

Member Kotelchuck: Oh, no, No. I'm just putting 

things in. I'm putting the schedule in. Sorry.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Great, great.

Well, while people gather their thoughts, I actually 

did want to ask about how people found the new 

format for the SC&A Board coordination report and 

just get some feedback from you guys about, you 
94

know, whether the new format was helpful or not.

You remember they did an executive summary this 

time around so that the, you know, things are not 

as dense.

Member Beach: Yeah, I definitely appreciated the 

new format. It was straight. I mean, you didn't have 

to weed through a lot of stuff but if you wanted 

clarification the other report was available to go 

back and look at.

So I'm very -- found it very favorable.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Anybody else?

Member Kotelchuck: I agree. It was useful.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Did anyone find it not 

particularly useful?

Well, hearing none, it sounds like perhaps we 

should keep this format for future meetings, if that's 

agreeable to people?

Member Kotelchuck: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Member Beach: I guess I have one question on 

that. So the executive summary gets the most upto-date happenings and at the same time, it's 

filtering over into the long more cumbersome 

document, is that correct? I think Bob did that one.

Mr. Barton: Yes. Hi, Josie. That was really the 

intent. The Board coordination document had gotten 

to be about 60 pages or so, and there was a lot of 

information that is very full. It shows the entire 

history of discussions for the various sites.

What we were trying to do is, like you said, just 

condense it down into the, you know, recent 

developments, essentially, the work that is currently 
95

active and ongoing, while also giving some sort of a 

snapshot of the other sites in a very brief manner, 

and as you also said, and we it would continue to 

keep the full document so that if there are questions 

that arise you can go to the longer version of the 

document.

And the executive summary was really intended for 

those Board members who may not necessarily be 

active in that Work Group and but still need to know 

what's going on, what's happening so that when we 

get to these meetings discussions are just more 

productive.

So really, they're companion documents. The 

executive summary's intended to really highlight 

what's happening with these various sites and 

discussions, sort of in the current frame, you know, 

between the last Board meeting and the current 

one. And then the fuller document again will be the 

updated per usual, so.

Member Beach: Okay. And then I guess one last 

question. So the executive summary, you wouldn't 

necessarily keep carrying things forward if let's say 

and Metals and Control didn't have a meeting, then 

you would just, you wouldn't simply add more stuff 

to that executive document, it would be just current 

events basically in a like a three, four month time 

frame so that that document doesn't become 

cumbersome also?

Mr. Barton: Right. Yes, I don't want to reinvent the 

wheel there.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Barton: But it would be a, you know, even if 

there wasn't a meeting but if there was an 

exchange of White Papers or any sort of I guess call 

it movement between the past Advisory Board 

meeting and what we're discussing today, that 
96

would be the subject of the -- in the executive 

summary, and then the full Board review document 

would really reflect everything.

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Barton: Just --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: I guess that was my concern is that 

that executive summary didn't just keep growing 

also so sounds like it won't.

Mr. Barton: No, I don't --

Member Beach: Okay.

Mr. Barton: -- intend it being so, no.

Member Beach: Thanks.

Dr. Roberts: Great. Any other comments or 

questions about the SC&A Board coordination 

report?

Okay. Well, thank you very much for the feedback, 

and many thanks to Bob and his team at SC&A for 

proposing that new format. It does seem like it's a 

better tool for people. So appreciate the suggestion 

and the change.

So let's go back to the Work Group reports, and I 

see that Dr. Ziemer, Paul, has rejoined us and just 

kind of asking people to volunteer to speak out on 

behalf of their Work Groups or Subcommittees and 

give the group an update. So whomever would like 

to go next? Josie did it for M&C.

Member Kotelchuck: And I basically gave the DRR 

SC report.

Dr. Roberts: Right.
97

Member Kotelchuck: And we're meeting on the 16th 

as you noted.

Dr. Roberts: Excellent.

Member Kotelchuck: On the 16th of June, of course.

Dr. Roberts: Correct.

So, Paul, would you like to go at this point? I know 

you've had a few sites that you were going to cover.

Member Ziemer: Right. I can, let me start with TBD6000. First of all, I'll just mention that on the 

NIOSH side they've had a staff change on this one 

in terms of the support staff.

Previously, Megan Lobaugh was our NIOSH support 

person, and I just learned within the last day that 

we have a new support person, Angelica, and I 

don't know if I've pronounced Angelica's name 

correctly. Her last name I think is Gheen. It's G-HE-E-N.

Angelica, are you on the line today?

I don't know if she's on the line, but in any event, 

she's the new support person for Megan. Actually, 

this --

Mr. Nelson: Dr. Ziemer --

Member Ziemer: Yes, that's for Berkeley, Lawrence 

Berkeley.

Mr. Nelson: Thank you.

Member Ziemer: Yeah. I get my --

Mr. Nelson: Also the pronunciation of her last name 

is Gheen, Gheen.

Member Ziemer: Say it again?

Mr. Nelson: Gheen, G-H-E-E-N, Gheen.
98

Member Ziemer: Okay. It was the first time I had 

seen it, so I wasn't sure exactly how to pronounce 

it. G-H-E-E-N.

So she'll be assuming the lead role on Lawrence 

Berkeley, and so let me report on that first. And I'm 

just going to read to you a quick update that she 

provided to me actually yesterday and that was this.

NIOSH is moving forward with additional data 

requests and continuing interviews to develop 

robust responses to the SC&A issues on the TBD, as 

well as the SC&A issues on the NIOSH White Paper 

called Methods to Assess Internal Dose using Gross 

Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Bioassay and Air Sampling 

at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Progress is 

expected to continue as more data is collected, and 

we will be sure to update you accordingly.

So we're basically sitting tight until we get the 

update from Angelica on Berkeley and, Lawrence 

Berkeley, and determine when to -- our next Work 

Group meeting.

Shall I go ahead with TBD-6000 as well? I'll do that 

as long as I've got the mic here.

So TBD-6000 just met this past month, and our 

focus was on Superior Steel. And there was one 

issue left in the SEC issues matrix for Superior 

Steel. That was Issue 1, and it had to do, well, let 

me tell you first, all the other issues had been 

closed and we had Issue 1 still remaining.

And the issue, Issue 1 had to do initially with the 

use of billing rates to establish work times for rolling 

uranium slab. Originally, NIOSH had proposed using 

billing rates from other institutions that were doing 

similar things and using billing rates from others in 

what you might call surrogate billing rates. They use 

those billing rates and the amount of uranium that 

was being rolled at Superior to establish working 
99

times for the Superior Steel workforce.

Well, one of the issues that arose was do we really 

use surrogate billing rates to establish worker times. 

That's kind of a new concept.

In the meantime, NIOSH went back and they found 

that they actually had billing rates or were able to 

find actual billing rates for Superior Steel. But 

Superior, we had billing rates and those were 

dollars per pound of uranium slabs that were rolled. 

There were some source terms.

We actually had the total amount of uranium rolled 

in terms of pounds, and we had numbers of slabs 

although we didn't always know the weight of each 

slab.

In any event, the -- NIOSH was able to come up 

with a proposed method using the actual billing 

rate, the -- assuming ten hours per day of rolling 

which is very claimant favorable, using the smallest 

slab weights which gives you the most number of 

slabs used, and calculating what you would consider 

to be a claimant favorable bounding number of work 

hours.

And this was, this varied from year to year that the 

total amounts on the contracts that were paid and 

so on, but they developed what appeared to be a 

plausible upper bound for rolling.

And this was then reviewed by SC&A, and SC&A 

agreed with the approach. This was reviewed by our 

Work Group this past, just a few weeks ago.

And based on the recommendation, NIOSH, the 

review by SC&A agreeing to the recommendation, 

the Work Group closed the final issue on Superior 

Steel.

So that's what I have to report to you today, that all 

the issues were closed and as a result of all issues 
100

being closed, it was already agreed that dose can be 

reconstructed at Superior Steel, and so we have 

completed our work on that site.

Dr. Roberts: Great. Any questions for Paul?

Thank you for that very thorough report. Would 

anyone else, any of the other Chairs like to provide 

an update on your Work Group or Subcommittee at 

this point?

Member Anderson: Yes, Rashaun, I can. I don't 

know if you want to say anything about charging 

SC&A, but tomorrow there's going to be some 

discussion on the SRS and there's a number of 

procedures and coworker issues related to the use 

of NACS database as well as the bootstrap or more 

broader, the need to utilize uncertainty analysis in 

decision making that looked, that have been used or 

have been proposed to be used in the SRS analysis.

But during those discussions I believe NIOSH 

mentioned that they're thinking of adopting these 

for a broader use at multiple sites, and they really 

have not been reviewed at this point.

So maybe after tomorrow, but, Rashaun, we had 

talked briefly about do we need -- does our -- those 

fall into the broader SEC issues, then would go to 

the SEC Work Group.

And then is this something that we want to charge 

or put a charge question to SC&A to begin analyzing 

and put together a report for us if in fact NIOSH is 

intending to utilize these approaches at other sites 

as well to kind of get ahead of the curve on not 

having things like happened with SRS just pop up as 

proposals but they really have not been vetted fully 

by SC&A or the committee.

So anything else, Rashaun, if I jumped the gun on 

our brief discussions?
101

Dr. Roberts: Yes. I think you had recommended 

also consulting Josie and Brad on that question as 

well.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: Which I will also do.

Member Anderson: Well, it may come, the 

discussion may come up tomorrow.

Dr. Roberts: Yes, yes.

Member Anderson: Because really it's coming out of 

both the SRS analyses that have been done and 

proposed as well as Metals and Control.

So those two and then really the question to those 

groups would be is this something that the SEC 

committee should look into in greater depth.

Dr. Roberts: Thanks for getting that on the radar.

Any additional reports?

Member Kotelchuck: Dave K., on the Ames Work 

Group, we get, they had an extended -- its SEC in 

December of 2017. And people were, I guess Tom 

Tomes was developing material for updating their 

Site Profile.

I haven't heard from him, but I wonder given the 

couple of years that have passed, has, is there an 

updated Site Profile because obviously we would 

meet when that's done or when the new information 

is in.

Mr. Rutherford: Dr. Kotelchuck, I can address that.

Member Kotelchuck: Thank you.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes, actually we are still under 

development with -- we are still under development 

with that.
102

We had went back to the site for additional data. 

We did get some of that data, and we still have a 

number of questions that need to be addressed for 

that period so the Site Profile has not been updated 

yet.

As soon as we have a good date, I will make sure 

that I get you that date.

Member Kotelchuck: Right. And absolutely and as 

soon as we get a date we'll meet, you know, we'll 

plan a meeting. Okay. Good, thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you.

Anyone else care to report out?

Mr. Barton: This is Bob. On the Y-12 front for Dr. 

Field, we have finalized the interviews that took 

place in the fall with former workers regarding to 

that SEC, and NIOSH is continuing to develop their 

responses.

I'm not sure if Laura, Dr. Hughes, Laura Hughes 

was able to join us as the emails were kind of flying 

during this. But I believe they're still developing 

responses so that work is ongoing.

Mr. Rutherford: I can address that, Bob.

Mr. Barton: Thanks, LaVon.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes. We actually, the responses 

have been developed, and we have went through 

internal review once. They're going to go back. We 

have some additional work to do on those, but we 

are moving forward with those.

We do expect it by the end of I think May. It's in 

that Work Group coordination document which I for 

some reason don't have in front of me.

But I believe it says it's roughly the end of May that 

we're looking at getting that response paper out. So 
103

once the response paper is out, shortly thereafter 

when we'll get the addendum as well done.

Member Field: Thanks, Bob and LaVon. This is Bill. 

Yes, I just talked to Laura. She was trying to call in.

Mr. Barton: Oh.

Member Field: But for some reason there's no one 

on the line that she called into so she was having 

problems.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Well, thanks for that report on Y-12.

Member Beach: I have a question. My other work 

sites, there's nothing new to report, but I have a 

question on Oak Ridge. Is there anything in the 

works for Oak Ridge at this time?

Member Roessler: Hi, this is Gen. I have not heard 

anything, and I haven't gotten anything from Laura 

on this. She sent it to my CDC address, and I 

haven't gotten it.

But maybe Tim is on. Maybe he can, or LaVon can 

comment.

Member Beach: And, Gen, the reason I asked is that 

the write-up, and I don't remember if it was OCAS's 

write-up or SC&A's. It said that they were waiting 

for the Work Group to do something, and anyway, 

that's why I asked, so.

Mr. Rutherford: If you, I'll go ahead and address 

this. This is LaVon. In the Work Group coordination 

spreadsheet that we provided, there's a March 2021 

update, and it indicates NIOSH is receiving new 

response document from SC&A responding to the 

NIOSH White Paper responding to the issues related 

to Report 90.

Several issues remained open at this time. NIOSH is 
104

working on a path forward on revising Report 90.

And what she's asking is she would like to have the 

Work Group meet to weigh in on some of these 

issues.

Member Roessler: Okay, I missed that.

Mr. Rutherford: Yes.

Member Roessler: So we'll get on that.

Mr. Rutherford: Okay.

Dr. Roberts: Great. Anything else? Okay. In one of 

our previous meetings there was a presentation. I 

believe NIOSH made a presentation on the 

Reduction Pilot Plant.

And there was some discussion, you know, about 

whether or not it was necessary to add a Working 

Group on the Reduction Pilot Plant.

Some materials related to that were circulated for 

this meeting. So I do want to just check in and see 

what people's perspectives are at this point with 

adding a Work Group on RPP?

Mr. Rutherford: Rashaun, this is LaVon again. That's 

typically what would happen after we've done it. 

We've presented an Evaluation Report, SC&A's 

reviewed that report. We are actually preparing 

responses right now to SC&A's review.

So it's typically that when we'd have a Work Group 

that would be formed that we could bring those, 

bring that to them.

Dr. Roberts: Right. And I think there, but there was 

some question and I can't remember the entire 

conversation.

Mr. Rutherford: Was the question on maybe TBD6000 taking it on or?
105

Dr. Roberts: Yes, that perhaps an existing Work 

Group could take it on versus establishing a new 

Work Group.

Member Beach: I was going to say, TBD-6000 or 

6001 if it fell, I think that was our discussion if it fell 

within one of those.

And correct me if I'm not wrong, I think we're 

completed all our work for TBD-6000, is that 

correct, Paul?

Dr. Roberts: Paul, you're on mute.

Member Ziemer: Yes. As far as I know that is 

correct.

Mr. Barton: Yes, this is Bob, I believe --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Ziemer: Actually I thought we'd assigned it 

to 6001 last time but I'm not sure.

Dr. Roberts: 6000 --

Mr. Barton: I think it was URAWE Work Group that 

was discussed back in August when NIOSH 

presented the original ER Report. And SC&A has 

delivered its review of that and, you know, I 

personally don't think there's a need to have a full 

Work Group formed over this.

I believe, we don't even, there were no findings 

associated with the review. There were a couple of 

observations that really could be classified as really 

more TBD type issues. And I think the discussion 

back in August was that it might be handled, sorry, 

Dr. Anderson, I think it was going to be handled by 

your Work Group, possibly.

Member Anderson: That's okay.

Mr. Barton: Yes, but, you know, there's really not --
106

Member Ziemer: That was my recollection too.

Member Anderson: Yes. That's why I was keeping 

my head down here. But we got, we have another 

document.

Member Ziemer: I think it will be fairly 

straightforward as Bob said.

Member Anderson: We have another report.

Member Ziemer: It has to be handled in any event.

Member Anderson: Yes. I think we have another 

report due back from NIOSH before too long for our 

group, so we could potentially have a meeting that 

would discuss both of these.

Dr. Roberts: And that would be, I'm sorry, would 

that be the SEC Issues Work Group that would take 

this on?

Member Anderson: No, it would be the URAWE.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Member Kotelchuck:ER KOTELCHUCK: Are we at 

trivia at this point? That is, have we finished the 

Work Group reports?

Dr. Roberts: I think so. Did you have something 

additional to --

Member Kotelchuck: Well, it is a small, it is a trivial 

matter for correcting the record.

I happened to be looking the last few days about 

the transcript of our November Board meeting last 

year, and the transcript had the days as Thursday 

the -- November 17th, and Friday the 20th. So 

that's got me scratching my head a little bit.
107

There's an error on the date of the 1117 transcript. 

It's Tuesday not Thursday. Since it's on the record

and it's our transcript, we might as well get it 

straight.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: As I say, it is trivial.

Dr. Roberts: Great. Thank you. But thanks for 

pointing that out.

Member Kotelchuck: Sure.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Anything else on Work Groups or 

Subcommittees?

Okay. Well, I don't hear anything else. The only 

other thing, I did want to circle back around to the 

Pinellas Work Group.

And currently, and I may have mentioned this in our 

last meeting, currently the membership for that 

group, it's reestablished with Phil as the Chair, 

Josie, Brad, and Andy are on that Working Group 

and Bob Barton for SC&A and Lobaugh for DCAS.

So I just wanted to touch base about that and to 

see if we need to set up a Work Group meeting for 

that.

Member Beach: Did we assign SC&A to review that 

report that came out or, I'm not sure where we are 

with it. I know we got a --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

Member Beach: -- we got a presentation.

Mr. Rutherford: We haven't completed that. The 

Pinellas Evaluation Report has not been completed 

yet.

Member Beach: Okay.
108

Mr. Rutherford: It is actually scheduled to be 

completed I believe in July if I, June, or --

Mr. Nelson: Late June.

Mr. Rutherford: Late June, okay, yes. Thanks, 

Chuck.

And so we wouldn't, once it's completed in late June 

and we can get that to SC&A and the Work Group to 

look at, so I don't think we can schedule anything at 

this point.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Okay, great. Thanks for that.

Dr. Taulbee: This is Tim. If I could chime in here. 

Our normal process is that once we complete the 

Evaluation Report, then we present it to the full 

Board. At that point then it's passed to SC&A and 

the Work Group.

So preparing the Work Group's great, you know, 

from that standpoint, but we are a little bit 

premature here.

Member Beach: Right. I was going to say the same 

thing, Tim, thanks.

Dr. Roberts: Okay. Okay. So it sounds like it may be 

some time before it actually goes to the Work 

Group. Okay.

I think that's all I had on the Work Group front if no 

one has anything else. I can quickly just sort of talk 

about the public comments that were received in 

December.

So most of the comments that were made in the 

December 8th and 9th meeting last year, really a lot 

of the comments pertained to a specific SEC 

petition.

There were a couple of comments that pertained 

that were more generic in nature regarding SEC 
109

petitions or their consideration by DCAS, the Board, 

NIOSH, or HHS.

And then there was one comment that was really 

more relevant to DOE and DOL and kind of fell 

within their jurisdiction. But I just wanted to kind of 

provide that quick overview of those comments.

So we are a little bit early. The public comment 

session does not start until 5:15. So we do have to 

start at that time. So if there isn't anything else for 

the Board work session, we could take another 

quick break and come back a few minutes before 

5:15 so that we are, we start the 5:15 public 

comment session right on time. Okay. Will that 

work?

Member Anderson: Do you know how many people 

have signed up?

Dr. Roberts: Actually, no. There were some 

comments that were just -- that I disseminated to 

you all from Ms. Barrie.

Member Anderson: Yes.

Dr. Roberts: I also have a letter that I just received 

minutes ago that I'm going to read into the record.

And there may be an SRS petitioner that makes a 

comment. So those are all that I know about.

Member Anderson: Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Member Kotelchuck: Back at 5:15, right?

Dr. Roberts: Yes, maybe a couple of minutes before 

that so that we can get started right at 5:15.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 4:59 p.m. and resumed at 5:14 p.m.)
110

Dr. Roberts: Okay. It's about 5:14. As I did mention 

earlier and I assume everyone received the letter 

that we received from Terrie Barrie that was 

circulated in advance of this meeting.

There was also an exhibit from the SRS petitioner 

that I circulated today, and I have received it today 

and forwarded on to you all.

And as I mentioned as well, I received a letter from 

Representative Joe Wilson's office, and I will be, I 

have been asked to read that letter into the record.

So after folks are given an opportunity to make 

their public comment I will do that last, okay.

So I do have 5:15 Eastern Standard Time, so I 

would like to open it up to any member of the public 

who would like to make comments to the Board 

now.

And typically the comments during the public 

comment session are limited to five minutes. But 

with that, let me open the floor to anyone who 

would like to address the Board.

Mr. Fester: Yes, this is Josh Fester, attorney for the 

petitioner. Can you hear me?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. I can hear you. Welcome.

Mr. Fester: Okay. I wanted to thank you all for your 

work on this and Rashaun for circulating our 

exhibits.

[identifying information redacted] and I 

intend on presenting tomorrow and reserving any 

comment for then. So that being said, I'll leave it to 

other commenters.

Dr. Roberts: Great. Great, and we look forward to 

hearing from you tomorrow.

Any other members of the public who would like to 
111

address the Board at this time?

Mr. Ringen: Yes, my name is Knut Ringen.

Dr. Roberts: Okay.

Mr. Ringen: And I didn't sign up ahead of time. I 

didn't know how you could do that on your website. 

Didn't give instructions.

Dr. Roberts: That's quite all right.

Mr. Ringen: Okay. Many of you know me. Most of 

you know me, I think. But I'm talking on behalf of 

the Building Trades and Construction Trades Council 

in Augusta, Georgia, that represents workers on the 

Savannah River Site.

And I've been involved in this petition from the 

beginning, and the petitioners that I worked with 

from the beginning are unfortunately no longer alive 

so they cannot represent themselves and that's 

really why I'm talking.

We've asked for a long time for a timely resolution 

of the Savannah River Site SEC petition. The act 

that you operate under specifies that the objective 

of this program is to provide timely, uniform, and 

adequate compensation.

It's up to the Board to resolve these SEC petitions 

that come in, not NIOSH. NIOSH has 180 days from 

the filing of a petition to submit its recommendation 

to the Board.

The way that NIOSH has handled this SRS petition 

is that its recommendation has been for further 

research, and the Board has gone along with that 

time and again.

It's as though both Board members and NIOSH 

thinks it's interesting to pursue academic questions 

or even academic exercise questions which are 
112

interesting but are really not intended under the 

act. This act is supposed to provide an 

administrative program to provide compensation to 

workers who are entitled to it.

The Board, by going along with NIOSH in delaying, 

and delaying, and delaying a decision on this 

petition, are largely responsible for the delay in the 

decision that has -- in the delay of any decision that 

should have been made on the petition for now 

several years during which many, many petitioners 

have died.

Neither them nor their survivors are no longer 

eligible for compensation which they might have 

been had the Board acted in a responsible manner, 

but it hasn't.

Now we hope tomorrow you will finally have the 

backbone to make a decision one way or the other 

on this petition so that workers do not have to sit 

and wait and wonder what is going to happen to 

their claims or their fate.

No matter how this comes out, it's not going to be 

equitable. It's not going to be uniform to anything 

else that NIOSH has done in the past, and it really 

is way beyond what the act intended.

In one form or another, a number of workers are 

going to be denied compensation which they 

otherwise would be entitled to under an SEC 

petition if the kind of coworker wxtrapolation model 

is used as NIOSH has proposed, because that model 

which is now relying on a bootstrap statistical 

method which is entirely appropriate for the purpose 

of setting confidence limits or standard areas over 

samples in populations, but it's entirely 

inappropriate to use to extrapolate to individuals 

about their exposures.

So no matter how you do this, that extrapolation 
113

model isn't going to work. And you can spend -- the 

way that the act intended it is to work, and you can 

spend however many more years to try to figure 

that out, but you're never going to be able to do 

this in such a way that you can reliably extrapolate 

to the experience of one individual worker.

So instead of continuing that, I would hope 

tomorrow this Board will make a decision on this 

SEC petition and get it over with and not delay yet 

again.

SC&A has said it does not think -- that it thinks it's 

too many questions about the NIOSH extrapolation 

model that can be used reliably.

We agree, but it's up to you as the Board to decide 

if that's the case, and it's time to decide that. Thank 

you very much.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you very much. We appreciate 

it.

Anyone else from the public who would like to speak 

at this time?

Okay. What I'll do now is I will read the 

correspondence that I received today from the 

representative's office, and then I'll circle back 

around to see if anyone wants to offer a comment 

after that.

So this is a letter from Representative Joe Wilson's 

office of the 2nd District of South Carolina. It is 

addressed to me, and it is dated today, April 14th, 

2021.

And the letter reads: Dear Dr. Roberts, as you are 

aware, the purpose of the Energy Employees 

Occupational Illness Compensation Program, in 

parentheses, EEOICP, is to provide for timely, 

uniform, and adequate compensation of covered 

employees and, where applicable, survivors of such 
114

employees suffering from illnesses incurred by such 

employees in the performance of duty for the 

Department of Energy and certain of its contractors 

and subcontractors.

In November 2007, Petition 103 was filed to the 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and 

Health to include subcontract construction workers 

that work at the Savannah River Site, in 

parentheses, SRS, to be included in the Special 

Exposure Cohort, in parentheses, SEC.

Since the petition was filed, the original petitioner 

has passed away, the original authorized 

representative has passed away, many of the 

claimants have passed away, and almost 15 years 

later a decision has yet to be made on inclusion of 

this Class in the SEC.

The lack of timeliness from the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health has thwarted 

congressional intent and negatively impacted 

claimants.

I request you give whole and fair consideration to 

the claimants' petition and urge the Board to make 

a timely decision on Petition 103 in accordance with 

all applicable laws, rules, and regulations. Sincerely, 

Joe Wilson, member of Congress.

Okay. So that has now been read into the record as 

requested. And let me circle around a final time to 

see if there are any other members of the public 

who would like to comment at this time.

Ms. Hand:. HAND: This is Donna Hand.

Dr. Roberts: Hi. Welcome.

Ms. Hand: Can you hear me?

Dr. Roberts: Yes. Can you hear me?
115

Ms. Hand?

Okay. I can no longer hear you if you can hear me.

Ms. Hand: Can you hear me?

Dr. Roberts: Yes, I can hear you now.

Ms. Hand: Okay. I was asking the Board how 

they're going to accomplish their statutory duty.

Their statutory duty is to technically review the 

guideline which is 42 CFR 81, and that is to 

determine the upper 99 percent confidence level 

and everything and the guidelines shall incorporate 

the methods.

And the methods is 42 CFR 82 and that says in 

there that it's a regulations method for writing up 

reasonable estimates, not best estimates, but 

reasonable estimates, and this is our statutory duty.

Then when it comes to the SEC, they are 

responsible for recommending the SEC and 

determining the SEC.

And we have a disconnect because even though 

whenever the petition is received then you have 180 

days for a full evaluation. And that's what it says in 

42 CFR 83.10. It says the petition will receive a full 

evaluation by NIOSH, the Board, and HHS.

So why are we waiting for the Pinellas Plant 

Subcommittee, Work Group until NIOSH is to do 

their evaluation? Can't SC&A do their evaluation 

along with the Work Group and NIOSH all at the 

same time?

You know, it's -- the petition is there. And I would 

like to have whenever a petition is -- qualifies, I 

would like to have the NIOSH determine or they tell 

to the public on what issue it qualified for.

You know, was it because of an incident, did it 
116

qualify because of a report, you know, what made 

that issue qualify.

Because we have filed a lot of petitions for Pinellas 

Plant, and they didn't qualify when that same 

information that was before is now in that petition 

that qualified. In fact, the other petitions that did 

not qualify had more information than the ones that 

did qualify.

So will they be considered as well? You know, so 

again, that -- you're creating, you're going by policy 

and procedures. Policy and procedures are not 

binding, and that is federal court case law, you 

know, U.S. Supreme Court case law.

You have to go by your statutory and regulations. 

So within the framework or the four corners of the 

law, everything, that's what the Board has to go by, 

and the congressional intent is being restrictive, and 

this -- and you're undermining the congressional 

intent, that being timeliness.

And it is not only the scientific validity but the 

quality of these dose reconstructions that must be 

done and the scientific validity and the quality of the 

SEC petition.

And it is up to the discretion of the dose 

reconstruction director which is Grady Calhoun right 

now. If that information is not there in a timely 

manner he can certainly say, well, we can't do the 

dose reconstruction.

And, you know, after two years for, you know, 

Savannah River, you don't have that information, 

after how many years with Rocky Flats you don't 

have that information, don't you think that, you 

know, that's not a very timely manner according to 

the congressional intent. So an SEC should be given 

and everything because you are undermining the 

congressional intent of the actual statute. Thank 
117

you.

Dr. Roberts: Thank you, Ms. Hand. Appreciate your 

comments.

Okay. Any other members of the public who would 

like to speak at this time?

Okay. I don't hear anyone speaking at this time.

I do want to remind everyone that we have the 

second and final session of this Board meeting 

tomorrow starting at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard 

Time.

Adjourn

And if you've consulted the agenda for tomorrow, 

much of the agenda largely is devoted to the 

Savannah River Site SEC petition.

So looking forward to seeing you and speaking with 

you then. Have a good night.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the 

record at 5:30 p.m.)