THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes the 


WORKING GROUP MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


The verbatim transcript of the Working Group 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held telephonically on June 8, 2006. 

 

2 

C O N T E N T S
 

June 8, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 6 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


CONFLICT OF INTEREST 8 


INTRODUCTION 10 

THORIUM WORKERS CLASS 15 


CYCLOTRON WORKERS 36 


PLUTONIUM EXPOSURE 50 


NEUTRON DOSE 54 


RECYCLED URANIUM 55 


DATA VALIDATION 63 


COWORKER MODEL 71 


COWORKER INTERNAL URANIUM 110 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 131 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

4

 P A R T I C I P A N T S 


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


STAFF
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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PARTICIPANTS
 

BRACKETT, LIZ, ORAU 


CHEW, MEL, CHEW AND ASSOCIATES 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


KATZ, TED, NIOSH 


KERR, GEORGE, KERR CONSULTING 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCFEE, MATT, ORAU 


NETON, JIM, NIOSH 


RICH, BRYCE, ORAU 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


STEMPFLEY, DAN, ORAU 


TANKERSLEY, BILL, ORAU 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(9:32 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO
 

DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade, the Designated 


Federal Official, but I’m not going to be on 


beyond much of the introductions and then 


Emily Howell will act in that capacity. If 


you need any grand decisions made, Emily will 


be available. So why don’t we identify Board 


members who are on? 


MR. GRIFFON: Mark Griffon. 


MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson. 


DR. WADE: Good morning, Mike. 


MR. PRESLEY: Bob Presley. 


DR. WADE: Good morning, Robert, how are you 


feeling? 


MR. PRESLEY: Very fine. 


DR. WADE: And is Wanda on with us yet? 


(no response) 


DR. WADE: Why don’t we identify then the 


NIOSH team that’s on the call? 


(no response) 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. That’ll take care of 

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that. 


MS. BRACKETT: If you include the ORAU team, 


this is Liz Brackett from ORAU team. 


DR. WADE: Okay. Good morning. 


MR. McFEE: Matt McFee from the ORAU team is 


here as well. 


MR. KERR: George Kerr, ORAU. 


MR. (UNINTELLIGIBLE): (Unintelligible), 


ORAU, Oak Ridge. 


MR. RICH: Bryce Rich. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Bill Tankerlsey, ORAU. 


DR. WADE: Good morning. 


Do we have NIOSH on that line yet? 


MS. HOWELL: This is Emily Howell. 


DR. WADE: Good morning, Emily. 


MR. KATZ: Ted Katz from Atlanta. 


DR. WADE: Well, we’re missing a key 


component here, but we’ll -- what about SC&A? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani. 


DR. WADE: Good morning, Arjun. 


DR. MAURO: John Mauro. 


DR. WADE: Anybody else on the line who 


wants to be identified? 


MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I’m on now. 


DR. WADE: Oh, good morning, Wanda. 

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DR. WADE: Anyone else? 


 (no response) 


DR. WADE: Emily, are you in a position 


where you could give Jim Neton a call? 


DR. NETON: Hello, this is Jim Neton. 


DR. WADE: Oh, good. Good morning, Jim. We 


were just --


DR. NETON: I apologize. I was in another 


meeting and had to run down the hall to get on 


this call. I’m here, and LaVon Rutherford is 


here with me. 


CONFLICT OF INTEREST
 

DR. WADE: Okay. Well, we just completed 


the introductions. What we want to do is do a 


little bit of conflict of interest discussion. 


I mean, there are four Board members on the 


call, not a quorum, so we’re good to go there. 


In terms of the Board members with conflicts, 


Robert is conflicted on Y-12 and SEC petition. 


Robert, I think you understand that if 


-- you know, you can listen if there are 


matters of fact that you feel need to be 


brought up, that you know, please feel free to 


suggest that, and then either Emily or Mark 


can make a decision. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Emily can make a decision. 


DR. WADE: We’re glad that you’re here to 


join us though and thank you for making the 


time available. 


Jim, could you see to the conflict of 


interest disclosures for members of the NIOSH 


or ORAU team? 


DR. NETON: Sure, yeah, this is Jim Neton of 


NIOSH and I’m not conflicted at Y-12. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: LaVon Rutherford, I am not 


conflicted at Y-12. 


DR. NETON: And members of the ORAU team 


that are on the call, please identify yourself 


and state your conflicts, if any. 


MS. BRACKETT: This is Liz Brackett and I do 


have a conflict with Y-12. 


MR. McFEE: This is Matt McFee. I do not 


have a conflict at Y-12. 


MR. STEMPFLEY: This is Dan Stempfley. I do 


not have a conflict at Y-12. 


MR. (UNINTELLIGIBLE): I do not have a 


conflict at Y-12. 


MR. KERR: George Kerr and I don’t have a 


conflict. 


MR. CHEW: This is Mel Chew and I do not 

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have a conflict. 


DR. WADE: And John, in terms of your team? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, John Mauro, I do not have a 


conflict. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani, I do not 


have a conflict. 


DR. WADE: Okay. I think that’s really the 


business of preparation. Mark, it’s up to 


you. Please take it from here. 


INTRODUCTION
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. I may be getting 


ahead of myself assuming this, but I’m hopeful 


that we won’t meet till 4:30 today. I think 


we’ve got a handful of issues that we have to 


go through, but I’m expecting two-and-a-half, 


three hours. I’m hoping we can wrap this up 


by lunch. 


I did e-mail an agenda. I hope people 


got that. What I’ve done this morning is I’ve 


went down my little e-mail agenda, and what 


I’ll do as we go through each item, I’ll kind 


of cross-reference. SC&A did send out a 


report. I don’t know if everybody received 


that. 


DR. MAURO: Mark, this is John Mauro. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: No. What we did is we had this 


internal draft --


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 DR. MAURO: -- that I did send to you and to 


Jim --


MR. GRIFFON: And to Jim, yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: -- factual, accuracy review. It 


is now -- you both have had an opportunity to 


look at it, but I did not distribute it widely 


since I didn’t feel it was an official report. 


I was mainly concerned that -- See, what I did 


in preparing this draft is read the minutes of 


the meeting from May 18th and did the best I 


could to capture that. And I wanted to make 


sure that in, I guess, conveying those, the 


status of each issue, that I did capture it 


correctly. So the only individuals that have 


seen this early draft have been Jim and you, 


Mark, and, of course, Arjun and myself. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, let me restate that 


then. I’ve gone through and I might, you 


know, your issue numbers track well with the 


agenda. There might be one item that I added 


which was -- which I’ll get to after number 

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five, which didn’t come up in my little agenda 


but was in your report. 


So the other thing that I’ll do is as 


we go down the agenda, I tried to crosswalk 


the NIOSH action items from the last meeting, 


and I’ll just mention those and NIOSH can give 


us an update of where they are. I think 


they’ve provided a lot of stuff last night. I 


haven’t actually seen the latest, but they 


have been adding stuff over the last week-anda-half into those action item folders. So 


we’ll just touch base on those I guess. 


MS. MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda. At the risk 


of sounding even more petulant than I actually 


am, it’s pretty difficult for us to evaluate 


what we’re doing this morning. We don’t have 


the material that the two primary parties are 


actually looking at. 


MR. GRIFFON: I agree. Well, --


MS. MUNN: It’s a point that might be kept 


in mind next time we have a group call-in 


meeting. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, this has been a little 


bit of a recurring theme. I mean, I think we 


-- everybody’s pressured to get -- to complete 

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action items and it ends up being down to the 


last few days when we get materials. 


DR. WADE: Wanda, this is Lew Wade. I do 


have an item on the agenda for the Board 


meeting next week to talk about, sort of work 


group processes. And I think we need to sort 


of address this reality that you raise. 


MS. MUNN: It really would be very nice. 


MR. GRIFFON: The only other thing I can say 


is that there is stuff posted right on the O 


drive in these action item folders. I don’t 


know if you have access to that during the 


call, Wanda, but -- and I know it’s far from 


ideal, but --


MS. MUNN: No, I don’t have access to it 


period. 


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


MS. MUNN: I’ve not been on through the 


process of being instructed on how to do that. 


And I guess if I’m the only Board member who 


isn’t doing that routinely, then I obviously 


need to go out of my way to do more. 


MR. PRESLEY: Hey, Wanda, you’re not the 


only one. 


MS. MUNN: Well, now as a matter of fact I 

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think there are far fewer who do not access 


that material and have not been instructed in 


how to do so. 


DR. WADE: I do think the reality -- this is 


Lew Wade again -- is that everyone involved is 


trying their most earnest to deal with issues 


as they come up in almost near real time and 


that results in this situation. And as Mark 


said, it’s far from ideal, and yet everyone is 


really trying to do their level best. 


MS. MUNN: I have no doubt of that. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, it might be helpful on 


the issues are exactly the same as in the 


April 24th report --


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- and there is the status 


of each issue. And if you’d like John or I 


could go through as you raise the issues in 


your agenda and provide a little statement of 


the status. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that would be 


valuable, you know, a brief statement of, you 


know, kind of where we are on that issue. I 


think that’s what we’re here for is to say, 


okay, each item and then -- and you can 

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probably -- that’s a good idea, Arjun, that’s 


that previous report that SC&A provided. It’s 


the same issues, right. There’s nothing 


different. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, there are no new issues. 


MR. GRIFFON: No new issues, it’s just that 


the status is different in several of them. 


Well, let’s just try to proceed and 


where we have to let’s describe as best we 


can, understanding that a lot of people don’t 


have all the materials in front of them. 


So the first item I have -- Wanda, you 


do have this agenda, right? 


MS. MUNN: Yes, I do. 


THORIUM WORKERS CLASS
 

MR. GRIFFON: At least, okay. The first 


item I have is the thorium workers class. And 


I guess there’s a few things there that we had 


a follow-up action item number six for NIOSH, 


which was to look into those additional 


buildings, I think. And then there’s the 


question of -- this question of how to 


determine whether people worked in those 


buildings. 


So -- and this falls under SC&A’s 

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report under issue number one, two, and eight. 


It sort of covers all three of those, I 


believe. 


John, if you’re following along will 


you --


DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. 


MR. GRIFFON: One, two, and eight. So maybe 


I’ll ask Jim to report first on your action, 


what you found out as far as the thorium 


buildings and the question of how this -- how 


to put people in -- how to identify where 


people worked. 


DR. NETON: Let me just get situated here. 


I’m pulling information together myself as we 


speak. I’m trying to think of which issue 


that was on our action item matrix so I can 


bring it up. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think it was six, Jim. 


MR. GRIFFON: I have action item six as far 


as what (unintelligible) yeah, yeah. 


DR. NETON: I was just going to say I did --


for those who do have the O drive, there are 


two attachments -- well, they’re labeled as 


two attachments. They’re tables that 


summarize what was learned from Mel Chew and 

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others’ review of the -- Mel Chew, Bryce Rich, 


Jack Beck, others -- review of the Mass 


Balance Ledgers. 


If you recall, they went in the 


classified space and were able to summarize 


what -- where thorium was moved about in the 


Y-12 complex during the SEC period. This list 


was, I think, available at the last meeting so 


there’s really nothing new here other than 


we’ve summarized buildings that did not appear 


in the proposed SEC class definitions that 


possessed thorium. 


That’s what’s listed as Attachment Two 


in this on the O drive under action item six, 


I think it is. And as at the last meeting, 


there is one building, 92-01 dash 3 that 


possessed what I would consider significant 


quantities of thorium in three account numbers 


during the SEC period. And they were listed 


variously as aircraft reactor experiments, 


reactor tech division control, SF control 


department, but they’re in the hundreds of 


kilograms, up to 7800 kilograms in that time 


period. 


So we’re looking very hard at this. 

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And as we indicated last time, we’re going to 


-- we’re preparing a supplement to the 


evaluation report to address some of these 


issues related to the other buildings, 


particularly this one 92-01 dash 3. There are 


three other buildings listed, and those are 


92-03, 92-13, and 99-95. They are essentially 


Assay Analytical Laboratory-type buildings. 


One is labeled Production Experiment, but they 


possessed what I would consider small 


quantities of thorium. One, the Assay Lab, 


had 11 grams, and the one labeled Production 


Experiment was 16 grams. 


MR. GRIFFON: Which is the one labeled 


Production Experiment? 


DR. NETON: 92-13. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I didn’t have that from the 


meeting, Jim. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that’s new from the 


meeting, and that’s in Attachment Two that 


I’ve summarized. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, okay. 


DR. NETON: So if you look on the O drive 


under action item six. And then 99-95 is the 

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Analytical Lab and that had less than 500 


grams between ’53 and ’57. 


There is also a building listed with 


no -- well, there’s no identified building 


with an account number ten, which is labeled 


Control. And Mel Chew could probably speak 


more to this, but it appears to be an 


inventory control account that summarized the 


existence of the thorium throughout all of the 


processes. It does not appear to be 


identified with any particular activity. 


And there’s one other account number 


listed, which is 97 and that was labeled 


Discarded Salvage Sent to the S-2 Pit. And 


that quantity was 16 grams in 1952. That is 


the extent of the Mass Balance Ledgers that 


were reviewed for all years in the SEC period. 


Based on this we don’t believe that 


there were any other activities since this is 


a fairly complete list that processed thorium. 


At this point we are working with the concept 


that these smaller amounts of thorium, that 


is, the 11 grams, the 16 grams, the less than 


500, in our opinion were not related to 


production activities, but they were 

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laboratory-type amounts that were used 


particularly in the Assay Analytical Lab, 


appear to have been used for calibration 


sources standards testing, that sort of thing. 


So it wouldn’t really fall in the production 


category and we are developing approaches --


we think we can develop approaches to bound 


exposure so these small quantities. 


There are a number of ways to go with 


this. One approach is to use something like 


New Reg 1400 that, for those of you who aren’t 


familiar with it, is a document that talks 


about air sampling in the work place. It was 


issued in 1993 and it had some -- actually, 


bounding analyses one can do based on the 


quantity of source that are present and what 


fraction becomes re-suspended from the air, 


and then you could modify the amount in the 


air based on certain prophecies and 


confinement practices, that sort of thing; 


identify the nature of the material, whether 


it was liquid, solid, gas. 


We think that we can put a bound on 


exposures in these laboratory-type buildings. 


That, coupled with the fact that we do have a 

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large amount of air sample data after the SEC 


period when large quantities of thorium were 


being processed, there’s both air sample and 


fecal data that one could use to bound 


exposures from what we would consider to be a 


-- certainly a less error-intensive 


environment, you know. There wouldn’t be 


generated as much airborne activity as a 


laboratory process. So that’s where we stand 


with this right now. 


MR. GRIFFON: Can -- just one question, and 


you probably Mel is the one to answer this, 


that item -- that account number ten, it does 


have a wide range of (unintelligible) 


kilograms to 9,682 kilograms. I mean, can you 


enlighten us a little more on that, Mel? 


MR. CHEW: I’d be glad to, Mark. Good 


morning. That is basically control of value 


as established in the ledgers that say if 


someone asks you how much material of thorium 


was present in total -- totality at Y-12 at 


any one time that is the number basically 


starts at the top of the ledger here. And 


then when we go through the ledger it breaks 


it down to where those particular materials 

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went to a specific materials, balances, or 


facilities here. 


So basically to answer the question if 


someone asked if there was how much material 


was there in total at Y-12, that is the number 


under Control Ten, and that’s why we’ve no 


building listed here. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And that’s pretty clear 


from the ledgers. 


MR. CHEW: Yes, it is. 


MR. GRIFFON: Good. 


MR. CHEW: And if you add up the numbers for 


all the other materials that’s sprinkled out, 


it comes up to the total. 


MR. GRIFFON: It does come up to the total, 


yeah. It looks -- just quickly scanning it 


looks like it would. Okay. Great. 


MR. CHEW: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I’ve got a 


question that sort of just jumped in my mind. 


If New Reg 1400 provides some generic 


methodologies for placing upper bounds on 


let’s say airborne exposures, and in theory 


that methodology could be applied as a way of 


bounding the doses to these buildings that 

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handle relatively small quantities of thorium, 


is there any reason why those very same 


methodologies couldn’t be applied to buildings 


that handle large quantities of thorium? 


DR. NETON: That’s a real good question, 


John. The thought had crossed my mind. I 


don’t think so. I mean I wouldn’t be 


comfortable at this point doing that. I think 


that the (unintelligible) one can make to say 


that you’ve got a small quantity and you can 


model it based on confinement and what process 


there is. I feel comfortable with that. When 


you start getting into hundreds of kilograms 


of materials with various work activities 


being conducted on them, I’m not sure. 


DR. MAURO: I think this is an important 


issue because in effect it represents a place 


where, let’s say, these generic methods break 


down. That is, they’re useful but only --


like 1400 -- but only to a certain degree. 


And that divide becomes important because I 


think in future situations we may encounter 


similar types of problems. 


So I think the rationale for making a 


distinction between those situations where 

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1400 will serve you well and when it may not 


is going to be important and needs to be aired 


out a little bit. 


DR. NETON: I agree, and to my knowledge 


this will be the first time we’ve applied 


1400, but I thought it was a very good 


potentially useful document because of the 


small quantities involved. Fourteen hundred 


was really written in a lot of ways around 


sort of confined quantities that were, you 


know, had single processes. When you start 


having arc furnaces and those type of things, 


I don’t think the selection, particularly for 


your various confinement factors and your 


mechanical agitation factors, fit in as 


nicely. I agree with you. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, Jim, that’s exactly 


correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s a good point 


though, John. In going forward we should 


think about where it can apply and when it, 


you know, when it... We’re sort of setting a 


precedent here if you use that, so good point. 


DR. NETON: The other thing that I felt 


comfortable with is that if we have a lot of 

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air sampling and some -- and a fair amount of 


thorium fecal samples later on that can also 


be used as sort of sanity bounding checks. So 


I think that the comparison of a major 


production process in a laboratory environment 


is a fairly obvious, you know, over-bounding 


analysis and we could use that to also check 


on the upper limits of our --


MR. CHEW: Jim this is Mel. Only add where 


there was a significant amount of lung 


counting that was done, too, in the process 


(unintelligible). 


DR. NETON: I’m not -- I don’t mean to imply 


that we would use the production numbers, but 


it certainly gives us another (unintelligible) 


to look at. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I ask a question about 


there was S-3 ponds and the 97-20 dash 5 


storage building issue that came up in the May 


18th meeting. Where are we with those? 


DR. NETON: The S-2 pit, which I believe is 


the same as the S-2 --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, is it the same as the S3 pit? 


DR. NETON: I mean, I’m not sure of that. 

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Mel, do you know any more on the S --


MR. CHEW: Yes, let me -- Arjun, I’m hoping 


this is an answer to your question. This is 


account number 97. The S-2 pits stopped 


operating, and we have it documented, in 1952. 


The S-2 ponds were closed, neutralized and 


filled. At the same time they were actually 


started to put in the S-3 pits. But during 


that particular time after 1962 the thorium 


did not go to the ponds from Y-12. They were 


actually disposed of at the X-10 burial 


ground, and we have documentation to that 


effect here, the quantities and during that 


period. 


DR. NETON: That’s right. Thanks, Mel, I 


forgot about that other document. 


MR. CHEW: And that’s actually documented in 


the historical history of material account. 


And so it’s clearly stated in after the 1952 


period the thorium went to the X-10 burial 


grounds. That’s why it does not show up in 


the ledgers here any more after 1952 or the S2 pits. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: So I guess, Jim, you would 


cover the S-3 pond in X-10? 

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DR. NETON: It would be evaluated under an 


X-10 analysis, yes. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Fine, so that resolves that. 


And then just the one question about 97-20 


dash 5 storage building. 


DR. NETON: Right, well, it’s certainly not 


on a ledger, but I thought, Mel, we had 


interviewed some people and indicated that 


there may have been storage there. 


MR. CHEW: That’s right, and I think that’s 


about -- we know it is not indicated in the 


ledger that we know of here. 


Arjun? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah? 


MR. CHEW: Making sure we were going to be 


addressing the question. 


Say that again or ask the question 


again about the building? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, in the site profile, 


97 -- if I remember correctly -- 97-20 dash 5 


is indicated as a storage building for thorium 


and so we raised the issue in the April 24th 


report, and it came up in May 18th. So I just 


wondered what was the status of investigating 


that, whether it should or should not be 

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added. 


DR. NETON: Well, we certainly see no 


evidence in the ledgers in the SEC period. 


MR. CHEW: That’s correct. Arjun, we looked 


through ledgers very carefully and we did not 


see the indication of that particular building 


in the ledgers for the SEC period here. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I guess some documentation 


of that since it has come up over the last 


month maybe a one-page finding with a couple 


of references might be useful so that then we 


can refer to it in our report and say that 


this is what NIOSH did and there is or is not 


any -- try to put it to bed. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: This is Bill Tankersley. 


You do need to remember that mention 97-20 


dash five is undocumented. It was originally 


mentioned in the TBD, which came from the Chem 


Risk, but there’s actually no citation for 


that. 


MR. CHEW: Arjun, we agree to put together a 


paragraph to address what you just suggested. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, thanks. 


 DR. NETON: We’ll do that. 


MR. GRIFFON: Anything else on thorium at 

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this point? I guess the other side of this is 


a Department question, Jim. If we’re done 


with the buildings, the question came up last 


phone call as to how are we going to be able 


to -- or how is the Department of Labor going 


to be able to identify who worked in these 


particular buildings for 250 days or whatever. 


You know, how are they going to identify the 


class that way? 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: And we raised the question 


that often Department numbers do not reflect 


what buildings people worked in, though, and 


that’s often the only information they’ll 


have. They’ll have job title and department 


probably, and you’ve got survivors in many 


cases who won’t necessarily know where people 


worked. So I talked to you a littler earlier. 


I mean, I don’t know if you’ve got any more to 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I’ve actually asked this 


of the Department of Labor this morning and 


they really can’t get much more, you know, 


much more specific other than that they 


believe that they can -- they have methods to 

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be able to qualify people, you know, based on 


the -- which buildings they may have worked in 


for which lengths of time. They do this 


fairly routinely as part of this program. 


Unfortunately, it’s not something that we can 


control, so I really can’t say anything more 


specifically than that. 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess we’ve already -- I 


don’t know if Lew’s on the call anymore, but 


we have committed to getting Pete Turcic at 


the meeting; is that correct? Is Lew -- Lew 


might have hung up. But I know this last call 


and I’m pretty sure we’ve -- and if not, I’ll 


follow up on that to make sure that Lew -- or 


Pete Turcic from the Department of Labor is 


available for the next meeting. 


DR. NETON: Pete will definitely be at the 


meeting. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so we can question him 


directly on -- I mean, I guess one of the 


biggest concerns is we don’t want to put the 


onus on the -- especially a survivor to prove 


that their spouse was -- or, well, the 


claimant was in the building for 250 days. We 


would hope that the burden was on the 

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plaintiff. 


MS. MUNN: I thought we were pretty clear 


about that. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think he was, too. He 


was very clear about if they ever worked in 


that building, but nobody ever really explored 


it any further. I think we should follow up 


and make sure they have a sound method for 


figuring out who was in each building. I 


mean, Y-12 is one of the more secretive 


facilities in the nation, and I know that 


spouses would unlikely know where their 


significant other was working during that time 


period or what they were doing. 


MS. MUNN: I meant I thought we’d made it 


eminently clear several times in open Board 


meetings that that was not the case. And I 


also thought that we had made it clear in our 


own Board meetings that Turcic was going to 


(unintelligible). 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we did, Wanda. 


MS. MUNN: Certainly all the parties 


involved ought to understand by now what 


Labor’s role is and -- what the Department of 


Labor’s role is and how they address it. I 

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don’t think there’s a site anywhere we’re 


going to be able to say Joe Blow spent 24 


hours in this building and 48 hours in this 


building. That’s not going to happen 


anywhere. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, I know, right, right. I 


guess from my standpoint I just want to 


understand a little better of how they’re 


going to make that decision, and it sounds 


that they’re going to be very claimant-


favorable in their process, but they’ll be 


there again. There’s no sense going over that 


ground again, but --


MS. MUNN: I can’t imagine they’ve changed 


their position, which is (unintelligible). 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, I’m not disagreeing 


with you Wanda. I’m just saying that I don’t 


-- I want to make sure they understand the 


difficulties and they may not be different for 


other. It may be very similar to other sites. 


You’re right. So I think we’re just going to 


follow up with them at that meeting and that’s 


where that -- or just to get them on the 


record again or clarify. And I think that’s 


all for that side of the issue, too. 

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Is there anything else there from SC&A 


or others? 


MS. MUNN: Does that leave any really 


outstanding question that has to be hashed 


over at the Board meeting with respect to 


thorium? Are we all happy? 


MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re all happy. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Ms. Munn, from the SC&A 


side, I don’t know, maybe John -- I don’t know 


if I’m speaking out of turn, but it seems that 


this last issue is something not reviewed by 


us and for the Board and Department of Labor 


to handle, and so other than that the issues 


appear to be resolved. I mean, we haven’t --


the only comment I would make is that Jim has 


proposed a method for the small sources, which 


we have not reviewed, and, of course, we don’t 


have to review that. It’s just that it will 


be developed, I guess, or published between 


now and the meeting. 


DR. NETON: I’m not sure we’re going to have 


this published before the meeting. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, okay, right. So that 


will be the one item that I would say is --


remains to be on the table, a proposed method. 

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I mean, I understand what the method is that’s 


being proposed. 


DR. NETON: I think we just need to maybe 


come to a conclusion because -- come to a 


conclusion maybe that this method would 


provide for a bounding analysis. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it’s appropriate. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m not disputing that at 


all. I mean, I have looked at New Reg 1400, 


if I remember correctly in the distant past, 


but --


DR. NETON: There’s application conservative 


assumptions in there. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, right, I’m not 


arguing with that. I’m just saying that this 


is the one technical item that has come up new 


in this meeting. 


DR. NETON: And that’s for these three very 


small source quantities of thorium that --


DR. MAKHIJANI: That’s correct. I’m not 


raising a particular concern about it. I’m 


just flagging. 


DR. MAURO: Mark and Wanda, this is John 


Mauro. One of the dilemmas that SC&A has is 


that in effect we will move on and look into 

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any issues that the working group deems 


necessary. So I don’t automatically assume 


that when, for example, let’s say, this New 


Reg 1400 strategy emerges that necessarily 


SC&A will look at that. We will only look at 


those items that the working group feels needs 


to be followed up on. 


So right now the issues that we have 


addressed and have tried to write up in our 


April 14th report, and in the latest version 


of that report that only some of you have seen 


in draft form, you know, the reality is that I 


don’t see it as our mandate to automatically 


move forward on these unless we are directed 


to do so. 


So really I would look to Mark and 


Wanda and the rest of the working group to 


give, for example, at the end of this 


conference call it would be very helpful to me 


if you folks would provide direction regarding 


which areas you would like us to look into and 


whether or not you would like a work product 


related to those matters to be delivered as 


soon as possible, et cetera. So that would be 


very helpful to us in this situation. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I agree, John, and I 


think at this point I don’t see any further 


action for thorium, but I think at the end of 


this call we might say we want SC&A to review 


the supplement and be prepared to discuss at 


the next Board meeting. But beyond that, 


we’ll wait till the end, but I think that’s 


probably where we’re going to stand. 


DR. MAURO: I’ll keep that in mind. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay. All right. 


Moving on to number two if that’s okay. 


MS. MUNN: It is. 


CYCLOTRON WORKERS
 

MR. GRIFFON: Number two, cyclotron workers, 


and I put this -- this should cover issues 


number 10 and 12 from the SC&A report which 


are the polonium and the exotics, I believe. 


DR. NETON: That’s correct. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I didn’t have any 


particular action for NIOSH on this, but I 


think the general action was that Jim had 


stated that you were going to follow up on 


just how to handle the cyclotron workers and 


whether you needed a supplement or how this is 


going to proceed. 

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DR. NETON: We’re working on a supplement 


for that issue and hopefully after we conclude 


this call we’ll be able to wrap up our 


supplement and issue it hopefully tomorrow. 


MR. GRIFFON: But can you give us some sense 


of the direction? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, we have not been able to 


locate any additional information for the 


cyclotron workers whether it’s polonium or the 


exotic radionuclides. So I think we’re in 


agreement that it would be very difficult for 


us to do a dose reconstruction. 


MR. GRIFFON: And then the same question, 


how are you going to define who worked --


UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Hello? 


MR. GRIFFON: -- at the cyclotron? 

Hello. Hello. 

MR. GRIFFON: Everybody there? 

UNIDENTIFIED: We’re all here. 


DR. NETON: I don’t know what you heard, but 


we definitely, I think, are of the opinion 


that we would have difficulty doing these dose 


reconstructions with sufficient accuracy. 


MR. GRIFFON: But then in follow up was how 


are you going to define who worked in those 

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areas? And the reason I raise this is not to 


broaden but really to narrow. I hope that we 


DR. NETON: I think that the definition, if 


we come to that, will be very similar to the 


thorium workers, which is we’ll cite the 


building number and list those workers who 


were monitored or should have been monitored 


for work activities related to the cyclotron. 


And then that would be again a Department of 


Labor determination as to how to --


MR. GRIFFON: And we hope that there’s 


information because everything we’ve heard is 


that there wasn’t a lot of people in those 


areas. So we hope that there’s something 


available that can help DOL to narrow that --


DR. NETON: Exactly. 


MR. GRIFFON: All right. I guess we wait 


for the supplement on that. 


Is there any other follow up on that 


issue? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, but just for the 


information in the draft report that John 


talked about that is the thrust of the 


conclusion that we’ve made also in reviewing 

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the data so there is essentially full 


agreement on this question. 


MS. MUNN: Have I been misleading to think 


that (telephonic interference) that it appears 


there seems to be no real evidence that 


anything transpired that would cause either 


the polonium or other exotic radionuclides to 


be significant issues (unintelligible). 


That’s been the general feel of what I have 


seen. Am I incorrect in that? 


DR. NETON: Wanda, you were breaking up a 


little bit so I couldn’t get your whole -- I 


think I got the gist of what you were saying 


and I’ll try to respond. 


For polonium there’s definitely 


evidence that there were fairly large airborne 


releases into the environment, but because the 


polonium targets were not clad, and they were 


bare targets, and this was the first activity 


they undertook in the cyclotrons and they had 


a persistent alpha contamination problem for 


quite a period of time. We have no bioassay 


data for that. We do have an indication of 


the relative levels that they measured, but as 


we discussed at the last meeting whether or 

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not or that we could extrapolate accurate 


exposures from the limited air monitoring data 


we have. 


For the exotic radionuclides it’s true 


that these were clad and the only time 


exposures possible is when there’s a failure 


of the cladding. We’ve not seen any evidence 


of that in this period. We do have outside 


the SEC period in reports that indicate fairly 


large breaches of things like gallium-67 and 


such, which led us down this path thinking 


that these were going to be well documented 


through the entire operating period of the 


cyclotron. We have not come up with those. 


And we just really don’t know what the ambient 


levels of internal exposure may have been 


during the SEC period for the cyclotrons. 


MS. MUNN: Well, I guess what I’m really 


pushing for here is are we going to be in the 


position with not just this site but all sites 


that if in the absence of documentation of 


incidents we’re going to assume nevertheless 


that they occurred? Because that’s -- I’m 


having a little trouble accepting that as 


being a reasonable approach. 

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DR. NETON: I agree with you, Wanda. I 


think in this particular case we do have 


evidence that there were ruptures of the 


(unintelligible) and also the polonium issue 


persisted for several years. It’s not that 


there’s no indication; it’s just that we have 


an indication, but we don’t have good follow-


up data. 


MS. MUNN: So do we -- We don’t really have 


closure here, do we, or are we just still 


hanging where we were? 


MR. GRIFFON: We’re waiting on a supplement 


for the report, I guess, is where we’re --


MS. MUNN: Yeah, but my question is, and 


this supplement, is it going to put any of 


this to bed? Are we still going to be exactly 


MR. GRIFFON: I think they’re going to 


propose some of these people being in an SEC 


class. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s the -- putting it to 


bed I guess. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, it is. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I mean, maybe I’m reading 

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between the lines, but I think you have 


external monitoring data from most of these 


people, but the internal would be the 


question. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I had thought we had --


DR. NETON: That’s correct. We do have 


external monitoring data for most. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Regarding 


the polonium-208 question, I wasn’t quite sure 


how you would come out on that in light of the 


fact that you do have, I guess, 60 airborne 


measurements and you do have some language 


that says no one would enter an area where the 


airborne concentrations were in excess of -- I 


believe it was 70 dpm per cubic meter. I get 


the sense that that alone -- this again 


becomes a precedent that might be important. 


That alone is not adequate for you to feel 


that you could put in place a plausible upper 


bound on what these workers may have 


experienced. 


DR. NETON: That’s correct. The use of 


respiratory protection we’ve never taken 


credit for, and you’d have to get into the 


whole issue of the documentation and the FIT 

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programs and portions of the usage so we don’t 


take credit for that. Plus the fact that we 


don’t have any indication of what types of air 


samples these were. They could have -- you 


know, where they were in time and space 


related to what was going on and that sort of 


thing. 


MS. MUNN: But isn’t it reasonable if the 


practice was to avoid entry to take the 


position that that would be a bounding dose? 


What am I missing here? 


DR. NETON: Wanda, I think what they stated 


in their health physics program was that they 


did not -- workers were entering the areas, 


but were required to wear respiratory 


protection when they believed that the 


exposures were over 70 dpm per cubic meter 


which is, I think, roughly equivalent to the 


maximum allowable air concentration for 


polonium-208. 


MS. MUNN: No, what we’re saying is even 


though we have indication of what standard 


practice was and what’s the expectations of 


management was for the workers, we won’t 


accept that because somebody might not have 

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done what they were expected to do? Is that 


going to be our position at all these sites? 


If it is, we’re just setting ourselves up for 


an impossible situation. 


DR. NETON: Well, again, if they were 


required to wear a respirator, we don’t know 


anything about their FIT test program, the 


adequacy of that, and how do you put a cap on 


that then? Is a respiratory-protection factor 


of ten appropriate? Is it not? 


MS. MUNN: But that still begs the question 


of whether we’re going to accept that any of 


the management practices that were established 


for any of these sites can be accepted as 


having any value at all. There’s always going 


to be a yes/but, that we can throw in on the 


basis of the assumption that someone may not 


have done what they were supposed to do, and 


therefore we can pursue that endlessly. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think in this case, Wanda, 


it’s a combination of you have that statement 


but you don’t have other data. There’s a lack 


of other information to sort of corroborate 


that. And that’s where, I think, that’s why 


NIOSH is coming down this way. I mean, if you 

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had that statement and other data to support 


that or more information about that other data 


you don’t even know what kinds of sampling, et 


cetera. You have one line in one health 


physics report that says they -- that was 


normal practice. But I don’t -- you know, I 


think that’s why NIOSH is going down this 


path. And additionally, you only have this 


for polonium, not for the other nuclides which 


were also in the cyclotron area. 


MS. MUNN: Well, you understand I’m not 


trying to be argumentative. I’m just trying 


to establish are we ever going to accept the 


documentation that we have with respect to 


standard operating procedures or is this going 


to be -- is this the precedent that we’ve 


already set? That we don’t believe anything 


unless we have what someone else considers to 


be what someone in this -- even in this group, 


considers to be adequate documentation? Is 


that what we’re -- are we saying we have to 


have multiple sources of information to verify 


that --


MR. GRIFFON: Well, it depends on the one 


source I suppose. But if I have one statement 

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that says we always were within the regulatory 


limits, I’m not sure that’s as convincing as, 


you know, one source of urinalysis data for 


everybody. I mean, I get the --


MS. MUNN: Or is multiple report showing as 


much? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, I mean, I understand 


what you’re saying. I don’t think we 


disregard what standard practices were, you 


know. 


DR. MAURO: Jim, this is John. Would I be 


correct in assuming that this would be -- this 


situation where you have a respiratory-


protection program but no bioassay program is 


unusual? That is, in general they sort of go 


hand-in-hand? 


DR. NETON: That’s pretty much, yes. 


DR. MAURO: So it’s probably one of the rare 


times when we’ve encountered, or so far, a 


situation where a claim for a respiratory-


protection program is put in place, but they 


didn’t have a commensurate bioassay program to 


confirm the effectiveness of the respiratory 


protection program? 


DR. NETON: Actually, there may be bioassay. 

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This is part of the issue. We just can’t find 


it. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, I see, okay. 


DR. NETON: I don’t know there is or not. 


We’re just -- have not been able to locate it, 


but our well has run dry here in several 


attempts. 


DR. MAURO: So that would be the lynch pin 


here. If you were able to uncover bioassay 


data confirming, that would really change the 


landscape of this problem considerably? 


DR. NETON: I think so. I think we sort of 


adopted a weight-of-the-evidence approach 


here, and there isn’t a lot of weight of the 


evidence here. We do have statements saying 


they were trying to follow some good 


practices, but they, in fact, have produced 


thousands of curies of material over this 


timeframe and we don’t have one shred of 


bioassay to document what type of exposure 


these workers may have encountered. 


MR. GRIFFON: The other important point that 


I’m weighing in this equation, Wanda, is --


and this is why I keep asking about the people 


involved because I’m getting the clear 

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impression that there weren’t many people 


involved in these operations so that we have a 


limited number, and, in fact, I recall maybe 


two of the claimants. So the question is do 


we -- does NIOSH continue to unearth the 


vaults down at Y-12 and look for more data or 


at some point you’ve got to just say, you know 


what, it’s a very limited number of possible 


claimants. At this point we don’t have 


enough. Let’s just concede that we can’t do 


it with -- if there was a bigger population, 


I’d say, you know what, we really have to dig 


a little more and get our hands on this 


because we can’t just assume that all of these 


people -- I guess that’s what I’m weighing 


into it, too, is the number involved. And I 


would hope that we can keep this population 


narrow by the way we define this class. 


MS. MUNN: Well, I hope so, too. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don’t disagree with 


you there. 


MS. MUNN: I’m really concerned that we fall 


into a trap if we begin to broaden our scope 


of what the SEC should and should not cover. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I don’t think we’re 

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setting any sort of broad precedence. I think 


we’ve got to be very careful that, you know, 


there are certain circumstances here that are 


leading up to this or leading NIOSH to this 


conclusion. 


MS. MUNN: Well, we don’t need to continue 


berating this subject for my benefit. 


MR. GRIFFON: No, it was worth discussing. 


I appreciate that. 


Jim, did you have anything else to add 


to that? 


DR. NETON: No. 


MR. GRIFFON: I didn’t misspeak, did I? 


DR. NETON: Oh, no. 


MR. GRIFFON: The number of claimants is 


very small for these, I believe. That was 


something you guys had said before that --


DR. NETON: There’s a small number of 


workers involved. And this is -- the pattern 


that I see, if any emerging here, is that many 


of the sites did a fairly credible job 


monitoring the big ticket items that was their 


bread and butter. For example, I think we 


have some very good evidence for backing 


uranium exposures both internal and external. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: But then there’s always these 


sort of small pockets of activity relative to 


the whole site that just for some reason don’t 


appear to have as robust data available. And 


this is one of those situations where when you 


pull the thread, it just doesn’t end on the 


side of plausible upper bounding. 


MS. MUNN: Well, yes, I guess my fear is 


when I look at something like the list of 


annual cyclotron and calutron products that 


was printed up for us. I look at that and 


think, boy, this is true at many sites. So 


are we going to continue to have these kinds 


of issues about each of these potential 


products or by-products arise every time you 


look at an SEC? Because this is -- well, 


we’re just going over the same material again. 


We can move on. 


MR. GRIFFON: You’re right to raise the 


issue though because we want to keep an eye 


out for that in the future. 


PLUTONIUM EXPOSURE
 

If it’s okay, let’s move on to 


plutonium, number three, plutonium exposure. 

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And this is the -- I think this is a case 


where you have a model that you propose and 


it’s issue 11 in the SC&A report. Maybe we 


can just get an update of where we stand on 


this? I get a sense that you have a proposed 


model and SC&A is in agreement that it is 


bounding. Am I overstating this? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is the plutonium 


question? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


MS. MUNN: Yes, your item 11. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Were you asking us for 


comments? 


MR. GRIFFON: I was asking SC&A if --


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, we -- I think for the 


cyclotron workers there’s no issue there. I 


think there’s quite a lot of plutonium data, 


and then we said that last time and --


MR. GRIFFON: That’s for the calutron; am I 


correct? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, and so in that 


cyclotron/calutron area where they were doing 


the separation research, I think NIOSH has put 


a lot of data on the table. And I think that 


-- we said, I think, last time that this 

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didn’t seem to be an SEC issue. 


MR. GRIFFON: And I’m responsible for that 


next item there, Building 92-05, and I know 


that SC&A and NIOSH have asked me where these 


reports are, and I’m working on locating them. 


They were sort of health physics report 


excerpts. So I’m not exactly -- I printed 


them off and I don’t know where I got them 


from, but it’s difficult to crosswalk them 


with the database sometimes. 


But anyway let me just say the bottom 


line on this, at least from my standpoint, is 


that this was clearly a laboratory. It seems 


to be done in the same time period as the 


other plutonium discussion of the calutron 


work, and it gives a summary table of a number 


of samples and then a number exceeding the 


maximum permissible limit. And in most cases 


the percent that exceeds the MPL in, I think, 


all but one of the reports is zero. 


So I don’t think that this is a case 


that can be bounded. All I would ask is that 


if NIOSH can follow up then, and just make a 


statement to the effect of whether, you know, 


are these laboratory workers going to be 

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treated with that same sort of coworker model. 


But I don’t think that this is a new issue or 


any expansion on this current issue. I think 


that I believe the proposed model will bound 


those workers, if they’re different workers, 


you know, but I think it’s just the laboratory 


operation that supported that production 


operation probably. 


If you can just follow up on the 


history there, and then maybe give us a brief 


statement as to, yes, this occurred and we 


believe the proposed model will bound those 


workers as well then I think I would be 


satisfied. And I will also try to get those 


references to you so you, you know, we’re 


speaking from the same document. 


Is that okay, Jim? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, that’s fine. We need to 


get the documents though so we can figure out 


what we’re dealing with. 


MR. GRIFFON: As far as I’m concerned this 


issue is satisfactorily addressed now and I 


think SC&A is in agreement with that, too. 


MS. MUNN: You just want something saying 


so? 

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MR. GRIFFON: I just want something saying 


that these workers in 92-05 will fall in that 


same category. People, you know, that worked 


in that building would also be covered by that 


coworker model. And I’ll get those even if I 


have to fax those. They’re just one-sheet 


summary tables so worst case I can fax those 


documents to you, Jim, and go from there. 


Anything else on that one? 


DR. NETON: I’m good. 


MS. MUNN: Sounds like it’s your issue. 


MR. GRIFFON: Can we -- let me just, if I 


could, can I skip ahead to agenda item six and 


seven? Because I think those are going to be 


fairly quick and then we can spend the bulk or 


the rest of the time on four and five. Four 


and five are going to be a little lengthier 


discussions maybe. 


NEUTRON DOSE
 

But number six was the neutron dose, 


and I think the only thing here was that Arjun 


was looking for action item eight I believe it 


is. Arjun was looking for some documentation 


that would support that the highest-exposed 


workers were monitored, and I think that’s 

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addressed; am I correct? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, that’s done. I think 


NIOSH has put up a document and that’s 


settled. And they actually have documentation 


to that. 


MR. GRIFFON: And that’s settled and you’re 


okay with that? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay, so that’s off the table. 


Everybody agree with that? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


RECYCLED URANIUM
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. And item seven is 


recycled uranium, and the question here was 


the example case, I think, where the -- there 


was a factor of one over ten. I guess the 


intakes were divided by ten I believe is what 


was the question and why was that done or 


something to that effect. 


DR. NETON: Right, it turns out that I think 


one of the examples was divided by ten and one 


wasn’t. I might have to rely on -- is Liz 


Brackett still on the phone? 


MS. BRACKETT: Yes, I’m here. 


DR. NETON: I’ll take a quick shot and maybe 

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Liz, you can chime in. There’s been a change 


in the site profile, and the logic was just to 


reflect the recent changes which was --


MR. GRIFFON: Jim? Hello, Jim, you cut off 


there. There’s still a loud buzz, but we can 


hear you. 


MS. MUNN: You sound like you’re in a 


machine shop. 


DR. NETON: It’s not in this room, but the 


factor of ten was put on those -- the upper 


bound of the range of recycled material -- the 


range of the recycled contaminant, and it was 


in the site profile now I believe it reads 


that if you’re doing a -- what we would 


consider a best estimate, a reasonable dose to 


assign would be to divide those by ten and use 


that value. 


Liz, you can put a little more on the 


rationale behind that if you could? 


MS. BRACKETT: Well, I mean the rationale of 


that factor of ten would be from kind of a TBD 


Office. (Unintelligible) TBD that says the 


best estimate would be to take those values in 


Table 5-8 and divide it by ten, and so best 


estimate is best estimate. It means that it’s 

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applicable to anybody, and that’s the current 


interpretation of the TBD. It may be that we 


need to revisit that, but that’s what it 


currently says; and so that’s what’s being 


applied in some cases. 


It’s my understanding that 


(unintelligible) do that regularly, but they 


do apply the full Table 5-8 for a number of 


them. But the tool that was developed to run 


that for coworker has that factor of ten built 


into it, the reduction by a factor of ten. 


We’re actually in the process of modifying 


that right now to give the option of both of 


them. I think maybe we need to discuss this 


as to whether that factor of ten is 


appropriate or not. 


DR. NETON: So you can see that this is 


rethinking on our part down this path. If I 


might say that it’s not necessarily an SEC 


issue --


MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to say that, 


yeah. 


DR. NETON: -- it’s a matter of whether it’s 


reasonable to divide by ten or not. 


MS. BRACKETT: Right. 

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DR. NETON: I think the logic path behind 


this is that we really don’t encourage us to 


put out overestimates for best estimates. You 


try to give it the best shot you can and I 


think that’s part of that spirit, but in my 


mind I’m not a hundred percent convinced yet 


that this -- we can reduce that by a factor of 


ten, but that may be our best estimate. So I 


think at this point we sort of got caught in 


the transition on the approach. 


MR. RICH: Jim, this is Bryce. Could I just 


add a note or two of philosophy? When these 


numbers were put together, you know, the 


estimates and looked at the fundamentally the 


maximum results that were reported, if you 


look at a historical average for workers that 


worked in a wide variety of facilities over a 


long period of time, the average numbers 


really do mean something. And they 


functionally come out about a factor of ten 


lower than the maximum values that were 


reported. 


And so as a consequence that fact was 


demonstrated in the tables and clearly 


indicated in the technical-basis document with 

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an option available to the dose reconstruction 


folks that if you want the best estimate, the 


most likely dose, then you would use something 


less than the maximum values which were really 


a bounding estimate. With that in mind, 


that’s just an additional comment, Jim. 


MR. GRIFFON: This is a broader discussion, 


but I think you’ve got to be careful with that 


because I think a best estimate for the 


average worker, yes, I would agree with that 


analysis, Bryce, but then you get into the 


situation of who was more likely exposed to 


the recycled uranium and would they be more 


towards the high end than an average. So 


that’s -- I guess, I agree with Jim. I don’t 


think this is an SEC issue because I think 


you’ve demonstrated that you can bound, but 


the question of how it’s applied might need to 


still be pursued a little. 


MR. RICH: Yes, you know, the data reported 


over long periods of time, obviously, anyone 


given process would vary somewhat. And so 


what we have done is gone through and looked 


at the reasonable upper bounds and recorded 


those as a default, which would indicate if 

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60 

you applied a default to everybody you would 


have a high degree of assurance that you did 


not miss any dose at all. 


MS. MUNN: But you also have a high 


assurance that --


MR. RICH: But it also -- logic would tell 


you that it would result in exposures that 


were unrealistically high for --


MR. GRIFFON: For many of them or a lot. 


MR. RICH: -- for most of the -- and so, you 


know. 


MR. GRIFFON: I know. There’s the dilemma 


right there. 


MR. RICH: Yeah. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


MR. RICH: But it does come out of a factor 


of ten from the average to the reasonable 


upper bound for plutonium and neptunium, a 


little bit different for thorium and 


technetium, but that’s recorded in the 


technical basis. 


MS. BRACKETT: I don’t know that these doses 


are really significant at these levels. 


MR. RICH: That’s true. 


MS. BRACKETT: So it might just be that we 

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61 

could apply the upper bounds to everybody and 


not have a significant impact on the outcome 


of (unintelligible). 


MR. RICH: It is primarily -- conceptually 


the conceptual issue that --


MS. BRACKETT: Right. 


MR. RICH: -- that we’re actually dealing 


with, and in some cases we’ve already dealt 


with the issue of the raffinates and in some 


parts of some plants, particularly in the 


gaseous diffusion plants, the recycled uranium 


can be controlling. And so you really do have 


to Mark, you have to be careful that you don’t 


underestimate some classes of workers. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. But I think we can --


is everyone in agreement that this is not an 


SEC issue necessarily? We want to follow this 


for purposes of how it’s going to be applied, 


but I don’t think it’s an SEC issue. Is that 


the general consensus here? 


SC&A, I haven’t heard from you. 


DR. MAURO: Yes, that is -- our concern that 


we originally raised went more toward the 


raffinates and slag where there was a re-


concentration possibility of the transuranics, 

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et cetera, during the process. And we were 


convinced based on the latest information 


provided that under those circumstances there 


are two factors that are working to allow a 


bounding analysis. 


One is you go to the factor of ten 


number, I guess the values that are in Table 


5.8. And there’s evidence that those 


concentrations are, in fact, even higher than 


those in the raffinate and the slag. And 


second, when you factor in the fact that 


people handling the raffinates and slag only 


handling it for relatively a small percentage 


of their time. So you put those all together, 


our concerns regarding RU are no longer there. 


We’re satisfied that this is very much a 


tractable issue. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, basically the question 


is as Jim has been saying, you know, what’s 


the appropriate approach and factor, but that 


is not an SEC issue. 


MR. RICH: Okay. 


DR. NETON: Just for the record, we did put 


our response to that item in the folder for 


issue number nine. 

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63 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we’re on to item -- go 


back to item four. I’m just looking at the 


time. All right, item four. 


MR. KERR: Can I say something? This is 


George Kerr. 


MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 


MR. KERR: Jim, like I told you, I’ve got to 


cut out of here. I’ve got a dental 


appointment coming up. 


MR. GRIFFON: I can relate to that. I was 


in the dentist the last couple of days. 


MR. KERR: So I’m going to have to hang up, 


okay? 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I should have done your 


item earlier. I’m sorry. I apologize. 


DR. NETON: I knew that and it slipped my 


mind as well. 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, Jim, I’m sure you can 


handle it fine on your team. 


DR. NETON: We can work through this. 


DATA VALIDATION
 

MR. GRIFFON: So number four is data 


validation, and I think it overlaps. Now, 


four and five there’s some overlap, but I 


would line this up with issue number three and 

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64 

four in SC&A’s report and NIOSH action items 


number one, four, and five. 


And I guess I can start off with data 


validation since the last meeting. Action 


item number four is that NIOSH will provide 


the identified databases for external and 


internal, and those have been posted for 


several days now. I can’t remember the exact 


date, but probably over a week at this point. 


And given that, I was able to look at some of 


the previously provided reports and crosswalk 


them with the identifiers. 


And so that was part of what I was 


doing with the -- for both external and 


internal -- some of the reports provided on 5­

18 that had names of people, I think, lists of 


people with their cumulative exposures and 


also some excerpts showing bioassay averages 


and things like that. 


And then additionally, I think action 


item one, NIOSH provided additional 


information for the time period that seemed to 


be a little bit of -- well, I think it was 


sort of an additional request that we have 


more information for the ’57 to ’65 time 

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periods, since the coworker model was going to 


be relying on that data to back extrapolate. 


And you have posted items under action item 


one, and maybe you can summarize that for us, 


Jim or LaVon. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, LaVon’s here, and I think 


he’s prepared to give a brief summary of what 


we’ve done in that area. 


MR. GRIFFON: It’s mostly health physics 


report reviews, I think, again, right? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: And I think Bill Tankersley 


Bill, are you all online? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Yes. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Bill will -- I will do this 


briefly, and Bill can get into the detail 


because Bill was actually the one that did 


this. 


There were actually multiple 


comparisons that took place. If you look in 


the folder under issue one there was a 


document that kind of outlined the 


comparisons, inter-company correspondence that 


identified some exposure readings and compared 


that to an electronic database and for 1958 or 

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actually summarizes ’57 monitoring results. 


He also took some quarterly readings 


from a quarterly health physics report in ‘62 


and compared skin doses and the penetrating 


doses against the database. He did that as 


well for the third and fourth quarter of ’62 


and then he did virtually the same thing for 


the -- a report for the third and fourth 


quarter of 1963, or the fourth quarter of 1963 


and the fourth quarter of 1964, and did some 


comparisons of the number of employees and the 


skin dose readings. And I’ll let Bill go into 


more detail on that. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Well, I’m glad to, but I 


guess I’d rather respond to any questions. 


DR. NETON: That’s certainly fine. 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Mark, have you guys had a 


chance to take a look at that? 


MR. GRIFFON: Well, I have not looked at the 


new stuff as much as the older stuff because 


I’ve had that for a little longer. But I do 


have a general request on some of the reports 


previous than the current ones that compare 


that data, and I know that we’re interrupting 


Bill’s vacation, too, so I apologize for that, 

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but one thing that I had difficulty -- for 


instance, I’m looking at the ’57 to ’65 


external data validation. It’s hard -- some 


of these titles look very similar on some of 


the documents, but I think that’s the name of 


the file itself. And I actually made attempts 


to compare -- I think this is the one, compare 


department averages. 


Now, I don’t have a lot of the health 


physics reports and I would ask Jim to the 


extent that they’re now through classification 


if those can be posted; any ones that are 


through classification anyway. I know some 


still might be held up. 


But then taking the average, for 


instance on this one table, you have 


Department 2003, the average millirem per week 


from the report and then the average norm per 


week from the database, and for some 


departments I matched up very well. It was 


usually when the numbers of people were very 


low. For the departments like 2701 with a lot 


more people, my numbers dropped way off. And 


I’m assuming it’s something to do with how --


Bill, how you calculated the average from the 

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electronic database. It may be you didn’t use 


zeros when the zeros were there. I mean, all 


I was asking maybe in the next -- well, 


hopefully before the Board meeting, but I know 


you’re out of town, but I just want a 


clarification on the method of how you came up 


with these. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I cannot hear at all, excuse 


me. 


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, you cannot hear, Arjun? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: No, I cannot hear Bill at 


all. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I haven’t talked in the 


last while. I can respond a little bit to 


that. First off, I would always include the 


zeros if they are in the file. 


Now, Jim, was this the comparison of 


where they were, you know, many of which were 


really quite close but there were three or 


four that were quite different? Is this the 


comparison that Mark is talking about? 


MR. RUTHERFORD: Yeah, Bill, this is 


actually the first comparison is that used the 


inter-company correspondence against the 


electronic database. And the 2003 department 

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averages were right on; 2702 it was a little 


different, 98 to 83. And there were some 


differences as you go --


MR. GRIFFON: But they’re actually still 


very close compared to when I did these. I 


came up with numbers for those larger 


departments like 2701; I came up with much 


lower numbers. You have 67 reported and you 


calculated 61 millirem per week. I came up 


with values in the 20’s, I believe. I’m 


shuffling papers here, but I know my number 


was way lower. And I thought maybe you used 


MDL for the zeros, but that’s not the case. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: No, and I’m glad to discuss 


at any length, Mark, in respect for the 


meeting time maybe we ought to do this later. 


I’m a little bit out-of-pocket and I don’t 


have those in front of me. 


MR. GRIFFON: Maybe if it would be okay, 


I’ve got a few of these details, maybe I can 


contact you directly early next week. If we 


put these to bed in my mind, I don’t want to 


waste a lot of time on the call with details 


that we can’t really take to ground. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Can I suggest this? 

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MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I’m glad to talk to you by 


phone, but why don’t you send me the initial 


questions and you know, maybe data by e-mail 


and that way I can be preparing for the call. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I’ll do that. Yeah, 


I’ll do that. That sounds good. And I had --


like I said, a similar issue on another 


document with the bioassay averages. And 


again, it may be just the way that I’m either 


misinterpreting or miscalculating. And it may 


be just a matter of not having the details 


because it references a health physics report, 


which I don’t have; so I wasn’t sure if I was 


comparing apples to apples. You know what I 


mean? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Sure. Let me mention two 


or three quick things. As I said, I would 


always include all of the data, would not 


disregard any zeros in the database. 


Secondly, I would not translate the zeros into 


an MDL. Thirdly, Mark, it was a little bit 


squirrely there sometimes knowing exactly the 


quarter or the time period to which they were 


referring, because typically the report would 

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be a month or three months or sometimes six 


months after the time that they were reporting 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. TANKERSLEY: -- really careful that 


you’re looking at the period of time. 


MR. GRIFFON: And that is what I want to be 


clear on, too, that I’m comparing the right 


time period, you know. So I’ll e-mail you 


those specifics and you can correct me where I 


went wrong or whatever. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, would you copy me 


because I’m tracking that data? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes, I will. I’ll copy Arjun. 


MS. MUNN: Please copy me also, Mark, even 


though I won’t be a part of the discussion, 


I’d like to know -- I’d like to better 


understand exactly what your points are. 


MR. GRIFFON: Just making notes here. Then 


the other -- sticking with the data validation 


question, the other follow up I had was from 


the 5-18 -- material provided on 5-18 again. 


COWORKER MODEL
 

And this may actually go over into the 


coworker model a little bit. But the -- one 

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of the documents provided in that meeting was 


a report listing two-and-a-half pages of 


individuals and their cumulative exposures 


from, I think, ’52 through ’56. 


And then NIOSH/ORAU -- I believe this 


is probably Bill that did this analysis, 


tracked this against the database and looked 


at the sum of the S millirem versus the 


calculated value in the database, and plotted 


-- I think plotted out. There were some 


differences, but plotted those out. I crosschecked maybe a handful of those and I came up 


with the exact values this time that Bill 


reported in all cases. 


The thing that I noticed though was 


that -- and this, I think, was consistent with 


what George had said in the last meeting, was 


that for all these -- at least for the dozen 


or so that I looked at, they had no 


penetrating, no P millirem and no gamma dose 


data prior to 1956. They all had data in ’56. 


And so that raised the question to me -- and 


the people that had data in ’56, their annual 


doses ranged from maybe 500 millirem to 1500 


millirem, which is not astounding, but 

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generally speaking it was higher than that on 


some of the graphs provided. 


So my question was since these people 


clearly were not monitored for penetrating --


or maybe it’s rolled into one value. I guess 


that’s the question that George was saying was 


that for compliance purposes they would only 


report the S millirem value. But the question 


is ’52 to ’55 or even earlier than ’52 is the 


coworker model still well in excess of the 


actual values or at least comparable to the 


actual exposures in those years? And I guess 


that’s what I was having a little more trouble 


defending given that none of these people were 


-- had penetrating millirem doses in the 


database or gamma doses in the database. And 


maybe Jim wants to reply to that or --


DR. NETON: Yeah, I guess I don’t -- I can’t 


find the document you’re talking -- I know 


exactly which one you’re talking about. I 


can’t find it in my pile here, but we’re not ­

- I don’t think we’re saying -- are you saying 


that no one had penetrating doses in up to and 


before 1956? 


MR. GRIFFON: No, I’m saying no one on this 

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list and these are, I think, foundry workers. 


DR. NETON: Right. Those are cumulative 


exposures in that document, and they were --


but see, I think in that early period that --


remember, we talked about they didn’t 


differentiate between deep and shallow. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, so I think that’s the 


case that you have -- it’s kind of rolled into 


one, right? You said they wouldn’t have it in 


the database because --


DR. NETON: But, see, remember we talked 


about the fact that they went to great lengths 


after ’55 when they changed -- I think it was 


’55 -- when they changed the limits to try to 


make the electronic database right. And 


that’s what you see in some of those documents 


we handed out. Remember, you said, do this 


and record this here. And in a lot of senses 


the electronic database, which is what we 


indicated early on, which is closer to the 


dose of record than the original reports that 


you’re reading. 


There’s been a fair amount of -- I 


would hate to say manipulation, but movement 


of those data based on the reporting 

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requirements. I don’t know that you see that. 


We have a fair amount of penetrating doses, I 


think, after ’52, if I’m not mistaken. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, there is a fair amount. 


It seems --


DR. NETON: The question really is is the 


amount of penetrating we have in ’52 


reflective of the average or maximally-exposed 


workers? I mean, we have a fair amount of 


data so, you know, I think we acknowledge it ­

-


MR. GRIFFON: You’re saying for these 


foundry workers the push was compliance and 


their -- clearly their biggest exposure of 


concern would have been the beta exposures, 


right? 


DR. NETON: Exactly, because that would 


deliver --


MR. GRIFFON: So therefore they didn’t 


record both on those workers. 


DR. NETON: Right. That’s reflected in one 


of those memos that we handed out at the last 


meeting, but --


MR. GRIFFON: I mean, all I was looking at 


is this graph that’s figure 1 in one of the --

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and you can’t find the document. But it’s 


figure 1 in your -- well, all this was rolled 


together in one of your handouts that you gave 


us. 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: But this is the validation of 


backward extrapolation model for estimating 


doses on unmonitored workers by George Kerr. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I don’t remember exactly. 


MR. GRIFFON: And the figure 1 shows the 


annual gamma ray doses in millirem versus the 


backward extrapolation model. And clearly and 


before ‘57 there’s a big gap. It starts --


the coworker model starts to be far in excess 


of the mean from the CER database, and it is 


the mean; I should say that. 


 DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: But I’m looking at these mean 


values and they’re in the range of 3 to 400 


millirem. And it struck me that these foundry 


workers were -- even for ’56 were from 500 to 


1500. Now they could be at the high end of 


the exposed population, but then I said to 


myself, well then, why weren’t they monitored. 


But you’re saying for compliance purposes they 

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were monitored. They were just recorded in 


the beta, right? 


DR. NETON: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. But I mean the question 


then remains, you know, as long as we still 


believe this coworker model bounds even this 


sort of situation where the foundry workers 


seem to have had -- even their penetrating 


doses would have been higher than these means 


that are on your graph. 


DR. NETON: Right, if you recall starting in 


’53 -- this was sort of one of my comments on 


the draft that came through yesterday --


starting in ’53, it was their practice to 


record things at the detection limit that were 


not measurable. So you end up with this sort 


of -- as George Kerr said several times -- a 


bimodal distribution where there’s a lot of 


zeros. There’s a lot of 400 millirem 


exposures that are recorded that really are 


just a result of the using the LOD. In doing 


that you end up with essentially missed dose 


being recorded, but when you’re looking at 


these triangles, I’m saying that those 


triangles by and large represent a lot of 

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missed dose. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Just a procedural question, 


Mark. Are we now discussing issue seven, the 


coworker model? 


MR. GRIFFON: I guess we’re into the 


coworker model, yeah. This overlapped a 


little bit because I was looking at validating 


those data and it kind of leads into the 


coworker model, yeah, yeah. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I did see Jim’s comment and 


John and I talked about maybe John this is an 


appropriate time to -- John? 


DR. MAURO: I’m sorry. I had you on mute 


because I had a guy in the background doing 


some lawn work, very noisy, so I put you on 


mute. 


Yes, can everyone hear me okay now? 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: We’ve been working on putting 


together this revised report where we give a 


status report, and as you know we are still a 


bit struggling with the coworker model. But I 


think as everyone knows, we also are inclined 


to believe that it’s not an SEC issue. And 

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Jim did provide some information to us in 


commenting on one particular aspect of this 


issue, and I’d like to air it out a little 


bit. 


I’m thinking about this issue in a 


little bit different way than everyone has 


been discussing it and the kinds of data that 


George has been providing. And I know we’ve 


been zeroing in heavily on the 147 workers and 


the extrapolation method and comparing the 


extrapolation to earlier data. And I’m 


looking at this -- I think we’ve been -- I 


think SC&A and NIOSH have been looking at this 


in a way that has resulted in a lot of 


confusion and miscommunication. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: This is the pre-’56 period 


you’re talking about? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, let me make myself clear. 


We are convinced that the dataset from 1956 


forward, all of the validation work is solid, 


and it sounds like you’ve even added more of 


the data validation. So you’re standing on a 


really solid ground with the dataset ’56 


forward as your basis for building a coworker 


model. 

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And what we’ve been debating and 


discussing is the algorithm and how the 


extrapolations are being used, and as we all 


know it’s a sophisticated model. And we’ve 


been trying to work within that framework to 


convince ourselves that using that model to 


reconstruct doses to workers in the early ‘50s 


is, in fact, scientifically valid and claimant 


favorable. 


One of the original flies in the 


ointment was that, well, we know that there 


were lots of problems with the data in those 


early years. And one of our concerns, and 


this is sort of like how the story unfolds, 


was that, well, okay, during these early years 


we’re getting a lot of contradictory 


information in 1950, ’51. There was -- all of 


this business about the zero, you know, 


everyone was recording zeros and then they 


were recording lower limits of detection. And 


then they were recording things in the skin 


dose in the S but not the T. All of which 


left us in the situation where the concern 


was, well -- originally was, well, to what 


extent was that practice and the problems 

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there somehow influencing adversely the 


validity of the post-’56 database, and I think 


that issue has gone to bed. That was 


important because it meant that any -- the 


problems that were experienced in the early 


years are not in any way reflective of a 


continuation of those problems in the later 


years. 


So now we have a very nice clean 


break, which means that, okay, we really can’t 


do too much with the early year data. So we 


understand now the rationale why you need an 


extrapolation model. And so then the question 


becomes, okay, we’ve got an extrapolation 


model. Right now our ability to convince 


ourselves that the extrapolation model will 


serve the process well is still somewhat in 


question, okay, and we’re still looking at 


that. 


So I stepped back and asked myself a 


different question. I say, well, hold the 


presses. What do we have here? We’ve got 


about 2500 workers, only a very small fraction 


-- this is now the early years now -- only a 


small fraction of which were monitored. And 

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the monitored data that you look at you’re 


going to see a whole bunch of zeros in 1950 


and ’51. 


And then starting in 1952, you’re 


going to see a whole bunch of doses recorded 


at around 400, I believe, millirem per quarter 


because everyone was assigned the LOD. But 


then you will have a number of measurements 


that were relatively high, including that were 


on the high end of the distributions which 


were measurements that -- and it sounds to me 


that there might be a little bit of confusion 


as to whether those high readings are 


penetrating or skin in some cases. In other 


cases it’s clear. We know what they were. 


So you have this array of early data 


and the question now becomes, okay, given that 


we have all of this information that’s solid 


from ’56 forward, and let’s say we want to 


build a coworker model. Now, you folks have 


gone ahead and built a coworker model, and I 


know you’re very comfortable with it, and 


you’ve made many arguments that show how well 


it serves us. 


The way I look at it is, well, do I 

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believe given all of the data that we have in 


front of us that a coworker model can be 


built, and that using the early data we can 


actually use the coworker model to convince 


ourselves that when you use the coworker 


model, whatever form it takes, we will be able 


to develop an extrapolation methodology that 


will be able to be used. 


And when we’re done we can convince 


ourselves by looking at the available early 


data that, in fact, by and large the 


extrapolation model will place us in a place 


where we’re comfortable that we’re giving the 


benefit of the doubt to the vast majority of 


the workers that were working in the earlier 


years. Certainly, the vast majority of those 


2500 workers that were working in the early 


years were probably going to be assigning 


doses that were well above exposures that they 


may have experienced. 


So and then we will also probably find 


that the extrapolation model, there were for 


those workers where we have some high-end 


numbers, that the extrapolation model may have 


been coming in a little low. There may be 

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real measurements made back in the early years 


where the extrapolation model was coming in 


below that value for some real measurements. 


Now, I have to say that when I step 


back and look at that picture I feel as if it 


is possible to build a scientifically sound 


coworker model that can be verified with the 


available data for the early years and 


demonstrate that by and large we’re going to 


be predicting doses that the vast majority of 


the workers are, in fact, conservative, and in 


some cases very conservative. 


But there may very well be a handful 


of workers where -- that are going to be 


difficult to identify that may have gotten --


experienced exposures that were, in fact, 


somewhat higher, but perhaps not very much 


higher than what is developed by a coworker 


model whatever that model is; even whether you 


use extrapolation using the full distribution 


with the adjustment factors or you extrapolate 


going with the 95th percentile. 


But where I walk away from is a sense 


that you have a functional coworker model can 


be developed even though there might be 

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certain individuals that cannot be identified 


at this time that could theoretically have 


gotten higher exposures than what the --


whatever the coworker model is might have 


predicted. The question becomes is that good 


enough in terms of a coworker model? 


In my mind it is. In my mind that tool that 


would be developed will always have certain 


limitations. And it’s not going to guarantee 


that each and every person will be, you know ­

- that there’s a guarantee that there’s no one 


that could have gotten a dose greater than 


what the extrapolation model predicts. And in 


my mind you can’t place that demand on any 


coworker model; that it will serve us 


perfectly for every single individual. 


So I walk away from this accepting 


that as meeting the intent of the rule and 


what the coworker model should try to 


accomplish for us. So right now where I’m 


coming out of this is that though I am 


troubled with the 147 people -- the model that 


has been developed -- the specific model that 


you’re using. I am not troubled with the fact 


that I believe a -- if I -- that a coworker 

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model can, in fact, be developed that would be 


claimant favorable and meet what I would 


consider to be the intent of the rule. And so 


that’s how I’m sitting and looking at this 


right now. And Arjun and I, of course, we 


have been struggling with this together for 


quite some time. 


Arjun, I’d like to give you an 


opportunity for you to communicate your 


sensibilities regarding the -- what I would 


call the plausibility of building a coworker 


model that is both scientifically sound and 


claimant favorable for those workers in the 


early years where we really have questionable 


data and very, very limited data. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, let me first just more 


simply address the later ’56 to ’60 period, 


and we’ve done some more analysis on that. 


And that analysis indicates that a coworker 


model can be built, but the one that was built 


doesn’t appear to be claimant favorable for 


the workers that were at higher risk in the 


departments with the higher mean doses or the 


highest mean doses for the unmonitored workers 


there. But there’s no -- there doesn’t appear 

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to be any question now of residual after the 


analysis that we did and the departmental data 


that NIOSH provided that a good model can be 


built for those years if you take into account 


the departmental data properly. So we’ve 


concluded that for the ’56 to ’60 period that 


there’s not an SEC issue there even though we 


don’t agree with the model that is being used. 


But for the later period basically the way 


John and I were discussing this is that --


MR. GRIFFON: You mean for the earlier 


period, Arjun? 


DR. MAKHIJANI: The earlier period, ’48 to 


’55. We’ve had these problems with data 


validation and so this is in a way part of our 


hesitation has been this is kind of precedent 


setting and that we’ve found some systemic 


problems with the data. At the same time 


there are no problems with the idea that there 


were film badges, and the film badge readings 


are not in question that the -- you know, that 


there was something wrong with the badges or, 


you know, the badges were deteriorated or you 


can’t interpret. 


The question of interpreting the 

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measurements were they shallow or were they 


penetrating and so on, and NIOSH has provided 


quite a bit of information about that. 


The big question is how do you 


interpret the higher doses, which could be 


quite high given that the beta doses were 


quite high. And then how do you construct a 


model that will properly envelope those for 


groups of workers that were at high risk? 


In terms of -- at least in terms of 


external exposures, it’s going to be hard to 


define what those external exposures were 


unless you go to some theoretical 


considerations like what’s the maximum 


possible exposure that could have occurred 


with uranium and so on. 


So it’s probably possible to do a 


bounding analysis, but it will require 


considerable data interpretation as John was 


indicating, and the earlier period will be 


more difficult. It seems that in principle 


you could do it, but it will be a much more 


difficult job because the data validation 


question is an important question and will be 


precedent setting. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Well, I guess let me say where 


I stand on this, which is that I think in the 


back of my mind I keep -- I sort of have this 


notion that, well, worst case I think you can 


do sort of a source term, you know, the slab 


source kind of scenario and give an upper 


bound on anyone. And then so then I’ve sort 


of been going down from there, you know, can 


we get the -- and what I get, in general, I 


can give specifics on this. 


I mean, instead of speaking in 


generalities, I did do 11 of those foundry 


workers and I pretty much selected them. They 


weren’t the highest exposed on the beta side. 


They were just part of that listing that you 


guys provided in that report. And looking at 


those 11 the average of those 11 is like 650 


per year, and as I said before a lot of them 


only had two or three quarters of monitoring 


so it wasn’t even a full year. 


And compared to your coworker model 


that average was slightly above, and one 


individual was as high as 1450 for the year 


which is well above that coworker curve. So 


this group -- and then you have nothing for 

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them prior to ’56 going back to ’52 as far as 


penetrating so I think that is an important 


consideration. 


Having said that -- so I’ve got some 


concerns whether this coworker back 


extrapolation model is going to bound some of 


those people, but having said that I think we 


could get an upper, upper bound just by using 


some sort of a source-term scenario. And 


therefore, I don’t think this falls into an 


SEC category. That’s the bottom line on that 


for me. I don’t know how other -- if other 


people want to weigh in or if Jim wants to 


respond to any of that. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I’d like to say a couple 


things I guess. I’m encouraged to hear that 


at least people believe that given the 2000 


measurements that something -- some sense can 


be made of them because I do believe that 


we’ve gone a long way, as Arjun indicated, 


towards explaining -- or at least 


understanding the issues with the data. 


Yes, there are discrepancies, but 


we’ve identified a lot of source documents 


indicate why they exist the way they do. 

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Given that I think that we can definitely 


demonstrate that we’ve got some sort of 


bounding analysis understanding what was done. 


For example, when they were assigning 


missed dose to workers, we could use that. I 


mean, missed dose -- we do this all the time 


is assigning missed dose to people based on 


the monitoring program’s technical shortfalls 


and stuff. 


So if we know in ’53, for instance, 


’54 that there are missed dose calculations, I 


think we could do that. The rub, I think, is 


in ’51, ’52, but even then we know if they’re 


zeros we could assign missed dose based on the 


monitoring status. So I’m fairly comfortable 


with the fact that we can do this. 


I still believe in my heart that the 


extrapolation model is -- does provide 


bounding considering that we are overarching 


on top of a missed dose calculation to begin 


with. But I do agree that we have not 


essentially proven that to any large extent. 


DR. MAURO: Jim, in a way I guess it becomes 


a simple -- I look at it like this. There are 


probably some departments that we can identify 

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right now and workers in those departments 


that were working in 1949, 1950, 1951 that 


were the departments that we all know probably 


the ones that had the highest exposures. And, 


in fact, you probably have data for a number 


of the workers in those departments, but it 


would only be a small fraction of the workers 


that were in those departments, okay. 


Then we’re in a situation where, okay, 


we want to predict the doses to all those 


workers that are in those departments where 


they did not monitor them, where we don’t have 


those zeros or we don’t have a real value, and 


we’re going to use your extrapolation method. 


And the extrapolation method will bring you to 


a place where you say, okay, for this person 


who worked in this department we come up with 


this dose using the extrapolation model. 


But our concern is that, well, right 


now we are in this uncomfortable position that 


-- see, we know that department probably got 


hit the hardest and that for this person who 


was unmonitored, and we don’t have any data 


for at any time, perhaps not until -- he may 


have only worked a few years. We may have no 

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data for him at all, but we want to predict 


what his dose is in that year. 


And it seems to me that using the 


extrapolation model that you have will put you 


in a place where there’s a reasonable 


likelihood at least for the people in that 


department you may not be giving the benefit 


of the doubt because your extrapolation model 


includes data from all departments in its 


construct and so may not really be -- and it 


certainly would be applicable when you look at 


the aggregate for all departments. But when 


you look at the people in that department, we 


may not be doing -- giving them as much of the 


benefit of the doubt as we should. 


But I’m not troubled by that because I 


believe that when you are in the circumstance, 


you don’t have to use the full distribution or 


the methodologies you provided. There are 


probably other ways in which of doing the 


extrapolation for people in that department 


that would give a stronger sense that we’re 


being fair-minded for those individuals. 


For other departments the method that 


you propose where you come out with a method 

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where we have plenty of evidence that, gee, 


people in those department for the place where 


we do have data both pre-’56 and post-’56 


there’s plenty of evidence that the exposures 


there were relatively low. And so it’s those 


departments that we know were the ones at 


where the exposures may have occurred where we 


feel that the current method that’s being 


proposed may not be claimant favorable. 


But there are ways in which 


extrapolations can be done that not only are 


claimant favorable but can be shown to be 


claimant favorable by comparing the 


extrapolations to the actual data that we do 


have, very limited data that we do have for 


those departments. 


So on that commonsense approach that I 


-- and I’m not even talking about the 147 


measurements or the extrapolation model that’s 


used and the sophisticated statistical 


treatment that has been developed. I’m just 


talking about it simply from a commonsense 


argument. There doesn’t seem to be any reason 


why we cannot place plausible upper bounds on 


those people who worked in those departments 

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during the early years that probably 


experienced higher exposures than most of the 


workers -- of those 2500 workers that were 


working in that facility at that time. 


So on that basis I’m prepared to say 


that I think that an extrapolation coworker 


model can be developed that will be fair-


minded for those workers. Now, even though we 


are at disagreement regarding your particular 


coworker model, I feel confident that there is 


a coworker model that can be developed that 


can deal with the concerns that I just 


described. 


DR. NETON: Well, I’m glad to hear that. I 


would point out that this model that we have 


in front of us was developed with the idea 


that the highest exposed workers were 


monitored; and therefore, this represents the 


50 percentile back extrapolation. We can 


certainly make accommodations for other, you 


know, for those foundry workers or whatever 


that really --


MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s what we’re 


saying. 


DR. MAURO: That’s all we’re saying. 

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DR. NETON: And that’s not inconsistent with 


what we’ve got elsewhere where you have a 


worker who wasn’t monitored that we believe 


should have been, we provide him a higher 


exposure, like the 95th percentile, versus a 


worker who didn’t need to be monitored and 


wasn’t, and maybe this is appropriate for 


that. I don’t know, but --


DR. MAURO: You just said it a lot more 


briefly than I did. That’s exactly what I’m 


talking about. 


MR. GRIFFON: That was my only point of 


doing the calculation, Jim, was instead of 


speaking in the theoretical or hypothetical, 


you know, there could be a department out 


there that has higher. I think this a 


department that does have higher than the 


average coworker model so I think those, you 


know -- but having said that I think the 


bottom line is I think there are ways that you 


can get to a maximum plausible for all 


workers, and that’s part of my question for 


the SEC. 


Is everybody in agreement on that 


final point? 

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DR. MAURO: I am. 


MR. GRIFFON: If that’s the case, then we 


can --


DR. MAURO: Arjun, I’d like to hear --


DR. MAKHIJANI: I think so. I think the 


words have to be carefully chosen in regard to 


the earlier period, but yeah, I’m in agreement 


in principle. I haven’t -- I just had a long 


conversation with John about this this morning 


and I haven’t had time to think about it. But 


yeah, I think I’m with the rest on the same 


page. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: This is Bill Tankersley. 


I’d like to respond to just a couple things, 


please. First of all, we believe that the 


regression model that we developed is fair-


minded and we think it is claimant favorable, 


and not only that, we have demonstrated that. 


I think it would be only fair -- or say the 


SC&A team to generate some doses using the 


model that would show that it is not Claimant 


favorable. 


But the second comment is --


MR. GRIFFON: Well, Bill, can I stop at that 


one? Didn’t -- these foundry workers, I can 

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give you the numbers and the case number, and 


I’d like you to compare that to -- because 


they have data for ’56, but they would need 


coworker data ’52 through ’55. And I can 


demonstrate in ’56 that it is above the 


coworker model. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Okay. Mark, keep in mind 


that this is a gamma regression model and the 


numbers that you’re talking about I’m 


thinking, you know, might --


MR. GRIFFON: No, I’m talking gamma. 


DR. NETON: Mark, I don’t want to throw a 


fly in the ointment because I think we’re kind 


of coming to agreement here, but if you have 


data after ’56, the coworker model allows for 


-- remember those scaling factors. 


MR. GRIFFON: Correct. 


DR. NETON: In other words if your value was 


x in ’56, you scale it upwards --


MR. GRIFFON: So they (inaudible) with the 


model. They may account for it. You’re 


right. 


DR. NETON: That may account for that 


difference. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: But it doesn’t solve your 

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problem for before ’56 because the same worker 


in ’55 who did the same thing and therefore 


would have gotten the --


MR. GRIFFON: No, but it would allow you to 


scale it based on the real data. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: I don’t think scaling 


factors are proposed for before ’56. 


DR. NETON: Yes, yes, they are. 


MR. GRIFFON: They are. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, they are for the whole 


period? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, we have been talking in 


the construct that there’s zero monitoring 


data for people in this class, but the model 


itself does say if you have data after ’56, 


you take your values and scale them. 


Essentially, you draw parallel lines to that 


back extrapolation model and just use the same 


slope. 


MR. GRIFFON: Thank you for that reminder, 


and I -- that’s a real case anyway that might 


be worth --


DR. NETON: I really don’t want to spend --


maybe so we can come to, we agree, I think, 


that --

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MR. GRIFFON: We agree, yeah. 


DR. MAURO: We agree. I think that half of 


the problem, Jim, and I have to admit, is 


probably we don’t really appreciate the power 


of the model, and may very well get into that 


during the site profile part. But I really 


would like to propose that from an SEC point 


of view, you know, I think that we are in 


agreement that a coworker model either has 


been or can be developed that will meet the 


intent of the rule and reserve, I guess, for 


some future debate, you know, maybe we need to 


learn a little bit more about the power of the 


model and that, in fact, it will serve us 


well. 


MR. GRIFFON: Let me -- since I cut Bill 


off. I apologize, and it’s a good reminder, 


Jim, to me about the scaling factor and that 


could well account for the foundry worker 


difference there. And, Bill, you were making 


a second point there. I apologize for cutting 


you off. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: That’s okay, just one quick 


thing. 


A number of times they’ve used about 

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exposures in a department, departmental 


exposures. I think it’s really, really 


obvious that the departments were not the 


basis upon which exposures were based. Keep 


in mind we’re talking about three to five 


thousand people most every year during those 


earlier years and throughout the history. 


But only really a small number of the 


population were judged to be at risk, and I 


think, you know, subsequently shown to have 


significant exposures. So it’s really not 


applicable or not logical to talk about 


departmental exposures. 


We really believe and I think the 


documents show that persons were judged to 


have certain exposures, not departments. Even 


in those departments, Mark, that you looked 


at, that’s only a small fraction of the people 


who are in those departments, the people who 


were monitored. So we need to think about 


individuals rather than departments. 


MR. GRIFFON: Good point, and that 


reinforces my earlier concern about finding 


the right people for the thorium work, but 


that’s a good point. It’s not departments; 

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it’s individuals, right. 


Is there anything -- I think we’ve 


hashed over that coworker model pretty well, 


and the bottom line, which I think is the most 


important, is that none of us here now think 


that it’s an SEC issue; is that correct? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I don’t know about anyone 


else. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m sure Jim’s in agreement 


with that. 


DR. NETON: Yes, I am. 


MS. MUNN: I certainly hope so, but I also 


certainly hope that we’re not going to have 


this kind of -- this depth and breadth of 


concern about this issue when we get back to 


site profile discussions. 


My ears really perked up when I heard 


someone say, yes/but because we hear so many 


yes/buts. Are we really agreeing to anything 


here in this discussion? Or are we just 


saying, no, we’re going to postpone this 


because it really is not -- I hope that’s not 


what we’re saying. 


MR. GRIFFON: I don’t think we’re simply 


postponing it. I think we all agree. I think 

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that we just have to, you know, the question 


is are -- is this -- I guess there’s some 


nuances of the model that it could be maybe 


more -- looked at a little more, but I think 


we’ve analyzed this up and down and around. 


And maybe just the way in which it’s 


going to be applied can be considered by SC&A 


and explained by NIOSH a little better. And 


whether in certain circumstances -- and I must 


admit I forgot about that adjustment factor 


and when it was used and when it was not used, 


but that’s probably an important consideration 


in this thing and that may let all discussions 


go away, or NIOSH may say for certain workers 


we’re going to apply the 95th rather than the 


full distribution, and so I think it’s more 


application now, down to the application which 


gets into the individual dose reconstruction 


part of it. 


So I don’t think -- I don’t think 


we’re just pushing it down the road, Wanda, I 


hope not. I don’t want to retread over all 


this ground again either. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, I hope not, too. From the 


point of view of an individual who does not do 

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dose reconstructions on a regular basis, and 


as a matter of fact hasn’t done one for years, 


frankly, what our whole discussion sounds like 


is the kind of discussion that has gone on in 


health physics circles for years and years 


especially in communications with the public 


where the charge comes back at you. 


You can’t say whether this exposure 


did or did not cause this disease simply 


because you cannot say whether this neutron 


struck this particular cell or not or whether 


this penetrating dose penetrated something 


that you aren’t taking into consideration. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s a little different 


topic, but --


MS. MUNN: Well, it is a different topic, 


but it’s the same kind of argument. If you 


can’t prove this, then you can’t make any 


assertions with respect to the reasonable 


accuracy of what you’re doing. And it’s, 


again, from the point of view of a person who 


does not do this all of the time, the fact 


that this model looks to be as reasonable as 


you can get seems to me to fit the requirement 


of the pool. 

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And I hope that we can -- I hope what 


I’m hearing as agreement here is going to be 


the same kind of agreement that we come to if 


we have to revisit this in site profile. 


MR. GRIFFON: I have to agree. I think 


we’ve made excellent headway on this. I do. 


It won’t be days and days of discussion on the 


site profile review. If I’m still chairing 


that session I won’t let that happen. We 


can’t do that, you know, to that extent. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I’d like to 


say one more thing, and I think it’s 


important. Because what we have just done is 


we have been confronted with what I consider 


to be some of the most challenging issues. 


We’re talking about thousands of workers who 


worked from 1948 up to, I guess, 1955 or maybe 


up to even ’60. Thousands of workers that 


were not monitored, and in many cases prior to 


’55, I guess, the data that’s out there is 


highly questionable and how to use it. 


So we are dealing with what I would 


consider to be perhaps one of the most 


important cases and issues that this program 


is going to be tested by. In other words, can 

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you somehow reconstruct the doses to thousands 


of workers who worked during the early years 


where we have very little data and the little 


data we have in terms of the percentage of 


workers that were monitored does have some 


internal inconsistencies that leave us a 


little uncomfortable. 


So in my mind this particular issue is 


as powerful and difficult an issue to engage 


and that we’ve seen to date. And I think that 


we’ve come through -- after a lot of struggle, 


though we have not come to complete resolution 


on the best way to do it, I think that the 


fact that we’ve come to the place where we all 


agree that it can be done is a very important 


milestone. That you can bring to ground and 


you can reconstruct doses for very large 


numbers of people in the very early years of 


the program even though there was very limited 


data for those individuals at that time. 


So I mean I guess I know it’s painful. 


It has been painful, and it may still be 


painful in the future when we move forward, 


but I also think that this is about as big an 


issue as we’re going to have to deal with. 

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MS. MUNN: I think that’s probably true, 


John, and I appreciate every word you’ve said. 


The thing that bothers me is the large 


picture. And the large picture tells me that 


you speak of these thousands and thousands of 


workers, but the truth is I do believe that 


everyone on this call recognizes that the vast 


majority of those workers were not harmed by 


the work they did or by the exposure that they 


had. 


And the work we do here and the 


conclusions that we come to leave a great many 


people, including people who are going to 


influence the future of this country, to 


believe that more harm was done than was. And 


in our efforts to be fair to the worker we 


continue to mislead the public and many of the 


workers themselves in my view. 


I think that’s as large a concern and 


one that we lose track of when we take the 


positions that we’ve taken with respect to the 


validity of the data and with respect to 


whether or not the information that we have 


can be used to adequately cover the question, 


were you harmed. 

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Because that’s the bottom line 


question; were you harmed? And we all know 


that there is no -- there is no data that 


shows us that excess numbers of folks were 


harmed. We all know someone was, but for how 


far we go with that is, I think, not just 


important in this arena that we’re working in 


now. It’s important in a much, much larger 


arena. 


So for us to lose track of the fact 


that the vast majority of workers were not 


harmed by this work is, I think, perhaps 


failure to meet our responsibilities to the 


larger technology and science that we serve. 


MR. GRIFFON: I think you’re on a broader 


topic than the work group is here today, but I 


appreciate that. And I mean -- the only thing 


I would say is I don’t disagree that -- I 


think part of it is how this program 


communicates to the public, too, because 


clearly NIOSH is using overestimating 


techniques and things like that. 


And I think that the public sometimes 


interprets what they get out of their dose and 


clearly it was of that overestimate of their 

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dose. So I think some of that, you know, I 


think we have to improve on how we communicate 


the doses, and therefore, potentially in 


people’s minds, the risk, you know, that was 


involved in past operations. But the other 


think I’ll say is that I’m going to go where 


the data takes us, and I think sometimes we 


find that some of the devils are in the 


details. 


I’m not going to stop at, you know, 


this whole question of overall this population 


at this given place probably got very little 


exposure. There’s two sides of it. One, I 


think sometimes when we start making these 


claimant favorable assumptions, we push people 


that likely had little or no exposure way up. 


But if we use coworker models that are average 


coworker models then we potentially bring some 


of the highest exposed people back down, you 


know. 


So I guess we’re looking on both ends 


of that and we’re all considering that. But I 


think part of what we do is we have to go 


where the data takes us, too. So if you don’t 


have the data to prove something that you 

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might feel in your gut is the truth, at some 


point you have to say this is what we have and 


this is what we have today. That’s kind of 


the way I’m thinking of it, but I think we’re 


a little far afield of this work group 


discussion. 


If I can bring us back in; is that 


okay? 


 (no response) 


COWORKER INTERNAL URANIUM
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Not hearing anyone, I 


guess, unless everyone hung up I’ll move on to 


more data -- the only other question is on 


data validation. Actually, the only other 


thing I had was something that’s not on the 


agenda is item 5.5 I’ve penciled in something 


on coworker internal uranium, and this is 


issue five in the SC&A report. And this is 


the question really it comes down to this 


question of these salvage workers and whether 


the model proposed by NIOSH, which I think 


we’ve been through four or five times now, 


would bound these earlier salvage workers, and 


NIOSH provided a number of people. 


The real question was were there still 

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salvage workers that were working in the later 


years when there was uranium urinalysis data. 


And, in fact, they’ve now provided nine IDs. 


I just got those. And my question was looking 


at the ACCESS database, only one of those 


individuals has a job title that suggests 


salvage work. But I think it’s clear that 


there’s nine IDs that were provided. All were 


still being monitored for uranium in 1952. 


So even though I can’t show that there 


were salvage workers earlier on, Bill 


Tankersley has looked at that database from 


the earlier time period and has found job 


titles consistent with salvage work, which he 


forwarded to me and others I presume. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: I’ll go ahead and respond 


to that, please. Those nine people did have 


salvage-related job titles during the pre-1950 


time period, and they also -- analysis in the 


later period. 


You said that only one had a salvage-


related job title? 


MR. GRIFFON: After 1950, yes, that’s 


correct. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: After 1950. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Right, pre-1950 I don’t have 


any data, so I’m taking your word for the fact 


that they had those salvage job titles in the 


earlier period. 


DR. NETON: Right, but I think, Mark, we 


agreed that it’s not necessary for them to 


have salvage worker job titles after ’50, only 


that they had worked as salvage workers prior 


to ’50. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. NETON: That’s the key because then 


we’re saying that anything that’s coming out 


in their urine would have been a residual from 


working in that job. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right, and I guess part of 


what threw me off in reviewing this issue was 


I looked at the text you provided and it said 


that of 393 IDs with urinalysis data in ’52, 


nine had salvage-related job titles. This is 


true for 1952 and for pre-1950. And I guess I 


would edit that because it’s not true for 


1952. It’s probably true for pre-1950 that 


they have the job titles. I agree they still 


exist now. 


So I think given that they were 

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salvage workers in the earlier time period, 


and that they still have uranium data, I’m 


satisfied that this model will work for 


bounding their exposures given that the model 


that Jim has explained several times the 


approach and if SC&A has any other input into 


that. I think I’m satisfied at this point 


that it will work for these workers as well. 


DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Yes, we’ve 


come to the same place as you have on this, 


and we are comfortable with the coworker 


approach that’s being proposed by NIOSH. 


MR. GRIFFON: And the only other thing, and 


I’ll e-mail some of these things directly to 


Bill maybe, but I think as a matter of the 


record going forward it might help for others 


that end up looking at this eventually that we 


explain some of these things. How the 


averages were calculated, how the -- you know, 


a little more detail. 


And I understand this is all done real 


time so we’ve got the answers we need. But 


I’ll e-mail to Bill on that and maybe just so 


when somebody looks back at this in the future 


they see the rationale and see how we came to 

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the conclusion we did. So having said that I 


think that’s the end of that issue. 


(telephone static interference) 


DR. MAURO: We’ve got a lot of static on the 


line. I can’t hear anyone. Okay, that’s it. 


I think it cleared up. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, whatever that was. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I’m okay. Is everyone 


else okay now? 


 MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I’m 


listening. 


MS. MUNN: We did cover this with one of the 


dose reconstructions, didn’t we? Didn’t we 


have --


DR. NETON: Are you talking about the 


salvage worker issue, Wanda? 


MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, the salvage worker issue. 


Didn’t we have --


DR. NETON: Yeah, we had a dose 


reconstruction where we applied the coworker 


model back to ’48 and ’49, but the issue arose 


as to was there a population of salvage 


workers that could have been more highly 


exposed. Our model was biased low. 


MS. MUNN: Right. 

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DR. NETON: And I think we’ve demonstrated 


that we have nine people in the current 


coworker model who were salvage workers prior 


to 1950, and that their bioassay data using 


our approach are bounded by the current 


coworker model. So I think we’re okay. 


MS. MUNN: Mark, that the paper’s on. I 


couldn’t find it. I thought we had talked 


about this. 


DR. NETON: We did the analysis. I think 


that’s what brought up this whole question is 


that’s really a valid approach and I think 


we’re okay now. 


MS. MUNN: Okay. 


DR. MAURO: And bear in mind that remember 


how this all began was, well, if for some 


reason we have some data that showed that the 


salvage workers may very well be at the high 


end of the distribution, we always had 


recourse to -- or NIOSH always had recourse to 


extrapolate using a 95th percentile 


extrapolation. But the data that has actually 


been revealed to us for those nine workers is 


that, if anything, they’re a little bit lower 


than the median dose, a little lower. 

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So I mean where we are in this in my 


mind is the method proposed by NIOSH certainly 


seems to be appropriate, and if push comes to 


shove, if you have to for whatever reason, the 


dose reconstructor could certainly use a more 


conservative extrapolation method to make sure 


that a particular worker is given fair 


treatment. So I think it’s a tractable 


problem. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, that was your conclusion in 


your April letter. 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


MS. MUNN: That as long as you use the 95 


percentile that you were happy, right? 


DR. MAURO: Right, if needed. If there was 


some question regarding that. But I think 


NIOSH wanted to give it a step further. 


Actually following these nine workers to show 


that reality is this, I guess, this perception 


that salvage workers for some reason might 


have experienced higher exposures than the 


rest of the workers. It does not appear to be 


the case. 


MS. MUNN: Yeah, which is (inaudible). 


MR. GRIFFON: I lost the call for a few 

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minutes, but I’m back on. Wanda, I apologize 


for not framing. I thought everyone 


remembered that description of how NIOSH was 


going to do that, the model. 


MS. MUNN: That’s okay. I was losing part 


of the conversation. I was speaking through ­

- digging through paper. 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I was also trying to get 


us through. I think we’re almost to the end 


here. 


Is there anything else? I think we’ve 


gone through all the issues that I have unless 


there’s something on data validation or 


coworker that I missed. 


DR. MAURO: The only item that we have in 


our purview was this that came up regarding 


this measurement with the cesium-137 and the 


potassium --


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, the issue 13. 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, that issue 13, but that 


has been fully resolved. That is, we 


interpreted the spectra in the urinalysis data 


for that particular worker that emerged during 


the Denver meeting as meaning one thing. And 


we sent in our memo to Jim and Jim had a 

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chance to look at it. He got back to us and 


he explained to us what was really going on 


and corrected us. 


We now understand exactly what that 


person’s records mean, and in fact, that NIOSH 


did, in fact, interpret his bioassay data and 


chest counts appropriately. So that problem’s 


gone away. 


MR. GRIFFON: I thought that was resolved at 


the last meeting. That’s why I didn’t include 


it. 


Is there anything else? Arjun, do you 


have anything that we --


DR. MAKHIJANI: I’m going through here just 


to see we didn’t miss anything. Yes, I think 


we’ve covered everything. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Mark, excuse me just a 


moment, this is Bill. While Dr. Makhijani’s 


thinking there let me mention I think the 


reason why it may appear that those people are 


no longer salvage workers in 1952 -- and I’m 


going to check, but I’m thinking that that job 


title went away. I know that I had been told 


a number of times that in general the chemical 


operation, -- that is what those people were. 

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There were two job titles and then a whole 


manner of misspellings and so forth, process 


operator and chemical operator. And I’m 


thinking that perhaps around 1951 or ’52 that 


that, quote, salvage-related job title -- that 


is with that kind of text string in it -- I 


had a little bit of an algorithm I used went 


away, and probably those people continued to 


do the same thing. 


MR. GRIFFON: It could have went away. I 


found the one that I’ll call Salua which I 


think meant it was S-a-l-u-a, Chemica Salua, 


(ph) which was probably was salvage, you know, 


salva truncated. The rest of them were -- I 


cross-walked every ID by those last two years. 


And I can send you that little spreadsheet 


that I put together. 


We can correspond offline here, but I 


don’t -- I was satisfied that they were in 


the database and had uranium data. That was 


the key I think. So I’m not troubled by the 


fact that their job title changed, you know, 


anyway. 


MS. MUNN: Now, having risen earlier than 


the rest of you today; I couldn’t pass that 

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up, could I? I haven’t been keeping track or 


writing down what we’ve said is still 


outstanding and what is not. What do we have 


unresolved at this issue in your list? 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. Well, I think the 


supplements are clearly -- supplements of 


thorium, supplements of cyclotron workers; 


nothing outstanding on plutonium. On the data 


validation the only thing I have requested is 


to do an offline exchange with Bill on 


clarification on some of the documents. But I 


don’t see any -- I think they’ve addressed all 


concerns on data validation. 


And the other action on that that I’ve 


asked Jim Neton if possible any of these 


health physics reports that are referenced in 


that process, any that were still under 


classification review, if there’s new 


documents available if they can be posted. 


But there’s no outstanding actions on data 


validation. I think they’ve addressed that. 


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


MR. GRIFFON: The coworker model, I think, 


for both external and internal we’ve come to a 


consensus that it’s not an SEC issue. Neutron 

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dose is done; addressed adequately by NIOSH 


and the recycled uranium. So I think we’re in 


good shape. 


DR. NETON: Mark, the only other issue that 


I would add is that we agreed to address this 


Building 97-20 dash --


MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yes, 97-20 dash 5; is that 


it? 


DR. NETON: We’ll put a paragraph out on 


that and send it around. 


MR. GRIFFON: I’m sorry. 


MS. MUNN: And the only reservation I would 


have with respect to the coworker model, 


whether it is or is not an SEC issue, is the 


question of the whole concept is the SEC being 


that you’re unable to adequately address 


potential doses for (inaudible) --


MR. GRIFFON: Well, it’s feasible to 


estimate a plausible -- a maximum plausible 


dose, right? So I think I’m satisfied that 


they can in all these instances for uranium 


and for external calculate maximum plausibles. 


MS. MUNN: So the NIOSH position will be 


that it is possible to do dose reconstructions 


for individuals that have definitive SEC or 

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not? 


MR. GRIFFON: That have -- I didn’t hear the 


last part of your sentence. That had what? 


For uranium and external I think that probably 


will be. I don’t want to put words in Jim’s 


mouth, but that will probably be their 


position, yes. 


MS. MUNN: Is that correct, Jim? 


 (no response) 


MS. MUNN: Jim’s not there anymore. 


MR. GRIFFON: Jim? 


DR. NETON: I’m sorry, was there a question 


for me? 


MR. GRIFFON: Wanda was saying is it going 


to be NIOSH’s position that you can with these 


coworker models calculate maximum plausible 


doses for all individuals in the SEC period? 


DR. NETON: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: And that would be for uranium 


and external I pointed out, not for --


obviously, not for the thorium and the --


DR. NETON: Right. There’s a separate 


exception of thorium buildings we identified 


in the cyclotron area. Those are internal 


exposures. 

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MR. GRIFFON: Right, so I think that is, 


yeah. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Mark? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: This is Bill Tankersley. 


One last time in the interests of perhaps 


closure let me tell you I have looked for, you 


know, salvage in job titles after 1949. 


There’s actually only 281 of them all of which 


resolved down to three, which are salvage 


handlers, salvage keeper, salvage foreman. 


And I’m pretty sure these are different type 


of people than what we’re talking about. 


They’re working in the salvage yard and that 


kind of thing. I’m pretty sure those other 


people are now chemical operators. So that 


ought to at least perhaps close that question. 


MR. GRIFFON: So that’s after ’49? 


MR. TANKERSLEY: 12, 31, 49. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Those should show up in 


the database that I have. 


MR. TANKERSLEY: Yes. 


MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Very good, that’s fine. 


And like I said, I think we’re satisfied with 


the assessment either way, you know, yeah. 

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Is that everything? 


 (no response) 


MR. GRIFFON: John? 


DR. MAURO: As far as marching orders go for 


SC&A, I presume that the draft report that you 


and Jim had a chance to look at, we will now 


proceed to finalize and distribute to 


everyone. 


MR. GRIFFON: That would be great. 


DR. MAURO: And we’ll do that. We’re going 


to do the best we can to do that by the end of 


the day tomorrow, but at worst it will be in 


everyone’s hands electronically on Monday. I 


think that should be -- you know, I know 


Tuesday’s a travel day so we should have it, 


and it’s not a big report; it’s only 16 pages. 


And hopefully we will be able to capture 


everything that’s been discussed here 


adequately. And, of course, we’ll be prepared 


for the Board meeting to give a brief overview 


of that report. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, John, my only concern 


would be typesetting because we haven’t yet 


told Nancy about the --


MR. GRIFFON: You can work that out, but 

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even if we get it back by then that’d be 


great. 


DR. MAKHIJANI: It will be out before 


Monday, certain. 


MR. GRIFFON: And the other follow up is, 


Jim, I assume these supplements, will they be 


provided before the Board meeting or at the 


Board meeting or how? 


DR. NETON: Oh, no, they’ll be provided in 


advance of the Board meeting. 


MR. GRIFFON: In advance of, okay. 


DR. NETON: It’s my intent to have this done 


by tomorrow, but they’re not going to last 


very long. There’s going to be a few pages to 


highlight the issue and what our action is. 


MR. GRIFFON: My only action for SC&A on 


that regard would be to review these 


supplements and be familiar with them and 


ready to discuss them, not necessarily to have 


any sort of written analysis. I don’t think 


that’s necessary at this time. 


 DR. MAURO: Our report will read as current 


as of today. 


MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: That is, any new material that 

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might come in after today will not be 


addressed in our report, but certainly we will 


look at all material that comes online between 


now and when we leave for D.C. 


MR. GRIFFON: That’s all -- that’s the only 


action I would think would be fair and 


necessary, yeah. 


 DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: It’s Bob Presley. How about 


bringing mine to the meeting? I’m leaving 


tomorrow. 


 DR. NETON: I will do that, Bob. We’ll have 


copies for everyone at the meeting. Once it’s 


the petitioners have it, then we’ll make it 


available to the public. 


MR. GRIFFON: Great. 


 DR. NETON: Not a problem. 


 MS. MUNN: And thank you John and Arjun for 


reducing 62 pages to 16. That’s much 


appreciated. 


MR. GRIFFON: But they reference back to the 


original. No, I’m just kidding. 


 MR. CHEW: Mark? 


MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. CHEW: This is Mel Chew. Jim, please 

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stop me if I’m going to be out of line. I’m 


going to keep it short. 


Wanda? 


MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 MR. CHEW: This is going back to something 


that you brought up earlier and I’ve been 


thinking about it very carefully, and this is 


what you consider the precedent setting about 


the -- how we’re addressing the polonium 


exposures and cyclotron, and I’m not going to 


go there. 


But I’ve been thinking throughout the 


complex we’re going to run into situations 


that are fairly similar to that, like going 


back into after we had a spill that people are 


going to be cleaning up and elevated the 


levels there where we cannot basically --


either there was no incident that occurred 


when they were doing that, like they didn’t 


tear off a suit, or they couldn’t find any 


confirmatory bioassay that showed that the 


protective clothing was defective. 


I can think of several situations 


already throughout the complex, you know, 


being in operational HP; you know, the size 

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reduction and why Rocky Flats spills that 


we’ve had in some other plutonium facilities. 


So I just want to make sure that your comments 


don’t fall through the crack is a very 


excellent thought that we need to think about 


how to address those kinds of situations where 


we don’t have either confirmatory bioassay or 


incident reports, okay? I just want to leave 


it that way. I think -- I wanted to make sure 


that your thought was outstanding there. 


MS. MUNN: I appreciate that. I really do. 


MR. CHEW: Anyway we can help to think about 


it, whether it’s the process that either 


working boards or the future board members to 


address that kind of situation because I’m 


sure we’re going to be seeing them in other 


sites here, Wanda. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Is there anything 


else to add? Somebody got a concert in the 


background? 


MR. STEMPFLEY: Hi, Mark, this is Dan 


Stempfley; can you hear me? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


 MR. STEMPFLEY: I had a quick question on 


the external discussion that at the very end 

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here we said that from the external 


perspective we can only reconstruct dose for 


uranium; is that the discussion that you and 


Jim had? We’re not including external dose 


reconstructions? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no. I said the 


coworker models for uranium internal or 


external, not uranium external, but external 


overall. I think, yeah. 


DR. NETON: External dosimetry is okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


MR. STEMPFLEY: But the coworker model does 


not apply to the thorium; is that what we’re 


saying? 


 DR. NETON: No. We can talk offline, Dan. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, you know what we’re 


saying. 


DR. NETON: I know where we’re at. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. And anything else? 


Any other issues? I think we’re ready to 


close, and way before 4:30, I might add. 


 DR. MAURO: Very good. 


 MR. GRIFFON: There was no way I was going 


to do this all day. 


 MS. MUNN: You wouldn’t get through the 

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first time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I know. All right. So we’ll 


look forward to the supplements and the final 


SC&A report, and see y’all next week. 


 DR. NETON: All right. Good enough. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Hey Wanda? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Bye, everyone. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Give me a call. 


 MS. MUNN: I certainly will do that. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you. Bye-bye. 


(Whereupon, the working group 


teleconference concluded at 12:10 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

131 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of June 8, 2006; 


and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 


testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


1st day of August, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102