NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

1

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH 

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH 

+ + + + +

WORK GROUP ON FERNALD

+ + + + +

THURSDAY

FEBRUARY 9, 2012

+ + + + +

 The Work Group convened, in the 

Brussels Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, 

Kentucky, at 9:00 a.m., Bradley Clawson, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Chairman

JAMES M. MELIUS, Member *

PHILLIP SCHOFIELD, Member

PAUL L. ZIEMER, Member
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

2

ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

SANDRA BALDRIDGE 

BOB BARTON, SC&A

EVERETT "RAY" BEATTY, SR.

CAROL CAINE *

ALLEN CALLAWAY

MEL CHEW, ORAU *

HARRY CHMELYNSKI, SC&A *

CHRIS ELLISON, NIOSH

SAM GLOVER, NIOSH

KARIN JESSIN, ORAU *

TOM LaBONE, ORAU *

JOYCE LIPZSTEIN, SC&A *

JOHN MAURO, SC&A *

ROBERT MORRIS, ORAU *

GENE POTTER, ORAU *

MICHAEL RAFKY, HHS *

BRYCE RICH, ORAU *

MARK ROLFES, NIOSH

BILLY SMITH, ORAU *

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

*Participating via telephone
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

3

C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 

Call to Order 6 

 

Roll Call 6 

 

Work Group Discussion - Open SEC 12

Petition Issues

 

 Issue #1 12

 Coworker Model for Uranium Internal

 Exposures

 

 John Stiver 12, 17, 42

 SC&A

 Mark Rolfes 14, 31, 44

 NIOSH 47

 Bob Barton 20, 29, 40

 SC&A 50

 Harry Chmelynski 28

 SC&A

 Gene Potter 33, 46, 49

 ORAU 50

 Questions and Comments 47, 50

 Issue #3 162

 Recycled Uranium

 John Stiver 162

 SC&A

 Questions and Comments 178

 Closed and Moved to the TBD 182
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

4

 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S (CONTINUED)

 Issue #6b 182

 Use of Chest Counts to Reconstruct

 Thorium-232 Exposures Post-1968

 

 John Stiver 182, 222, 234

 SC&A 236, 243

 Questions and Comments 205, 241, 249

294, 305, 309

 Joyce Lipzstein 206, 222, 227

 SC&A 229, 233, 242

246, 300, 302

 Mark Rolfes 209, 227, 228

 NIOSH 235, 238, 244

247

 Sam Glover 232

 NIOSH

 Tom LaBone 291, 296, 301

 ORAU 302, 306

New Issue 352

Recycled Thorium

 John Stiver 352

 SC&A

 Mark Rolfes 363

 NIOSH

 Questions and Comments 363
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

5

1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 9:00 a.m.

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning, everyone 

4 in the room and on the line.

5 This is the Advisory Board on 

6 Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work 

7 Group.

8 We are just getting started, as 

9 usual, with roll call. We are speaking about 

10 a site, so please speak to conflict of 

11 interest when you say your name.

12 (Roll call.)

13 MR. KATZ: Okay. Then, let me 

14 note a number of things.

15 One, everyone on the line, please 

16 mute your phone except for when you are 

17 addressing the group. If you don't have a 

18 mute button on your phone, you can press *6. 

19 That will mute your phone. And then, if you 

20 want to come off of mute, just press * and 

21 then 6 again, and that will take you off of 

22 mute.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

6

1 And also for people on the phone, 

2 please do not at any point put the call on 

3 hold, but hang up and dial back in if you need 

4 to leave for a piece of time. That would be 

5 great.

6 A couple of other things to note: 

7 there is a long agenda for this meeting, and 

8 it is posted on the NIOSH website under the 

9 Board section.

10 Also, there are a good many 

11 documents that are being discussed here. This 

12 is a very heavy agenda today. Those documents 

13 are also posted on the Board website, all but 

14 one that was just recently delivered from SC&A 

15 and it hasn't been Privacy Act-cleared yet. 

16 But everything else, most of the documents 

17 being discussed today are PA-cleared, Privacy 

18 Act-cleared, and on the website, so you can 

19 follow along, if you want, with those 

20 documents.

21 And the last thing I would just 

22 note for everyone to keep in mind today, given 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

7

1 we have a lot of documents that we are going 

2 over, there has been a lot of good, hard work 

3 on all sides done, so please try to be 

4 efficient in your comments when you are 

5 commenting on your technical material, and so 

6 on, because we have a lot to do and it is only 

7 one day.

8 Thank you.

9 And, Brad, it's your meeting.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Thank you, 

11 everybody, for coming.

12 Like I said before, at Fernald we 

13 are kind of starting to wrap this up. We have 

14 brought it before the Advisory Board I believe 

15 twice now. We are kind of coming to the end.

16 I would like to tell everybody I 

17 appreciate the work that they have put into 

18 it. There has been a lot of time.

19 With that, I am going to turn it 

20 over to John Stiver and let him start.

21 MR. STIVER: Okay. This is John 

22 Stiver from SC&A.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

8

1 We have basically four major 

2 issues we are going to go through today. 

3 These are things that have been discussed, and 

4 we really are getting to a point on most of 

5 these where we are closing the loop on a lot 

6 of the issues.

7 The first issue, which is an open 

8 SEC issue, really it is not an SEC issue. 

9 That SEC issue has been resolved in terms of 

10 the uranium bioassay coworker model for 

11 Fernald. A data completeness and analysis 

12 report has been developed and analyzed in 

13 detail, I believe over the course of over a 

14 year ago.

15 What remained was really an 

16 analysis of whether subcontractors' 

17 construction workers were adequately 

18 represented in that uranium bioassay coworker 

19 model. NIOSH was supposed to provide that 

20 type of analysis, which they, indeed, did.

21 We have reviewed that. We are 

22 prepared to discuss that today.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

9

1 Mark, since you have presented 

2 your last paper and we are responding to that, 

3 if you could kind of give us the broad brush 

4 stroke view of where you guys stand? And 

5 then, we can respond.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Just a quick 

7 question procedurally. We have so many papers 

8 with this meeting. I think it would be 

9 helpful if each of you, when you discuss, like 

10 Mark now, identify which of the papers it is. 

11 Otherwise, I am shuffling through them like 

12 mad, and, likewise, on the responses.

13 MR. STIVER: Absolutely. Okay.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Which document are 

15 we using here?

16 MR. BARTON: I believe the title 

17 is "NIOSH Evaluation of Fernald's 

18 Subcontractor Bioassay Data".

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.

20 MR. ROLFES: That is correct, Bob. 

21 Thank you. That is correct. This was from 

22 October 7th, 2011.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

10 1 Basically, what was done, we had 

2 gone through the HIS-20 database and found 

3 that, prior to 1985, subcontractor bioassay 

4 data was not included in the electronic HIS-20 

5 database.

6 So, we had initially believed that 

7 several subcontractors were not monitored for 

8 uranium in urine during their employment or 

9 following their employment at Fernald. What 

10 we did to determine whether or not these 

11 individuals were monitored is went back to 

12 hard-copy records stored, I believe it was in 

13 Morgantown, West Virginia, under DOE's Legacy 

14 Management.

15 We had requested all records which 

16 might have uranalysis data in them for 

17 subcontractors. We went through several --

18 correct me if I'm wrong, Gene -- we went 

19 through several thousand pages of reference 

20 material to determine if there were additional 

21 bioassay data for subcontractors.

22 We found quite an extensive amount 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

11 1 of subcontractor bioassay data. So, what we 

2 had done, we had compared the subcontractor 

3 uranium urinalysis results, excretion results, 

4 to the HIS-20 data and the coworker intake 

5 model that we had developed. We did find that 

6 there were some higher concentrations of 

7 uranium in urine in some of the 

8 subcontractors' hard-copy records.

9 So, we went back and developed 

10 correction factors to adjust intakes based 

11 upon the differences between the hard-copy 

12 records and our coworker intake based upon 

13 HIS-20.

14 Now although the uranalyses for 

15 some subcontractors could have been higher, it 

16 appears that, based upon the sample type of 

17 these urine samples, most of these samples 

18 were labeled as they were spot-samples, 

19 basically, or special samples. They had a 

20 code of Code 50 or Code 59.

21 It turns out most of these samples 

22 were likely taken during the day or following 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

12 1 a short-duration exposure at the end of a job. 

2 And so, we believed that some of these 

3 results were higher because of the time period 

4 of the sampling. When you compare a spot5 sample to an annual sample or a Monday morning 

6 uranium urinalysis sample, you are typically 

7 going to find a higher result of excretion.

8 That could be because the person 

9 had just been exposed to uranium and just 

10 stepped off the job. It could also be because 

11 of sample contamination, for example.

12 So, although the uranium 

13 urinalysis excretion could be higher, that 

14 doesn't necessarily equate to a higher 

15 exposure because you have to consider the 

16 duration of that exposure.

17 Now, based upon information that 

18 we have for a limited number of 

19 subcontractors, it appears that you would have 

20 to look at the case details for a specific 

21 individual to determine what their actual dose

22 would be and whether or not their internal 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

13 1 dose would be higher or lower than the 

2 internal dose for another Fernald employee 

3 that wasn't a subcontractor. Just because the 

4 uranium urinalysis result is higher doesn't 

5 necessarily mean that their internal dose was 

6 higher.

7 So, that is the summarization of 

8 our work on this topic.

9 MR. STIVER: Okay. thank you, 

10 Mark.

11 This is John Stiver.

12 We had reviewed the NIOSH 

13 response, and we put together our report based 

14 on our analysis of the available data. This 

15 report is entitled, "SC&A Review of NIOSH 

16 Evaluation of Fernald Subcontractor Bioassay 

17 Data, Revision 1," by Bob Barton and Harry 

18 Chmelynski.

19 I am just going to give the 

20 10,000-foot view of what we did. Bob Barton, 

21 who is involved in the detailed analysis, is 

22 going to provide a more in-depth review.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

14 1 But, basically, what we did is we 

2 looked at the data in a couple of different 

3 ways. We did a side-by-side comparison as 

4 opposed to looking at the pooled data. What 

5 we looked at was just the raw data itself. 

6 There are approximately 10,000 of these Type 

7 50 urinalysis samples, and combined with about 

8 107,000 overall. So, you end up with about 

9 117,000. So, you are looking at about 10 

10 percent of the overall databases due to this 

11 Type 50 data.

12 We saw that, even at 10 percent, 

13 the effect is really quite remarkable, being 

14 anywhere, when they are pooled, from about 1.2 

15 up to 1.6, depending on whether you look at 

16 annual or quarterly data. And so, we looked 

17 at this side-by-side comparison both in terms 

18 of raw data and, also, looked at the log19 normal transforms of the data and did 

20 comparisons by year for select years, and 

21 tried to determine what is the real difference 

22 when you look at the data as a direct 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

15 1 comparison, as opposed to this pooled system.

2 We also had some questions 

3 regarding some of the assertions and 

4 assumptions that went into the NIOSH report, 

5 primarily because a lot of the analysis was 

6 not presented. This is part of the summary 

7 paper. Typically, NIOSH would provide us with 

8 statistical analysis, tables, and a 

9 description of what was done. In this case, 

10 we just had kind of a summary graph which 

11 showed those ratios over time. So, we had 

12 some outstanding questions regarding those 

13 comparisons.

14 Bob, if you would like to go ahead 

15 and fill in some of the details here?

16 MR. BARTON: Sure. Thanks, John.

17 This is Bob Barton with SC&A.

18 I guess, as John pointed out, our 

19 major concern here was a sort of lack of 

20 quantitative information, because, clearly, 

21 there was a lot of work that went into this, 

22 diving into hard-copy records. I mean, it is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

16 1 not easy to look at these handwritten things 

2 and try to form some conclusions about them.

3 It really comes down to the 

4 decision of whether you are going to pool the 

5 data. And when we say that, basically, taking 

6 these contractor records, putting them with 

7 everybody else, and then comparing them with 

8 the original model, which was what was done 

9 originally. The other option is you could 

10 just look at the contractor records as a 

11 separate worker population and then compare 

12 it.

13 Now the decision was made by NIOSH 

14 to do the pooled system. There was a couple 

15 of rationale given. But, like I said, we were 

16 a little concerned because we couldn't really 

17 see the underlying quantitative logic behind 

18 making that decision.

19 Here is just one example, and this 

20 is in NIOSH's paper that was just discussed. 

21 It is on page 4. It says, "In the majority of 

22 cases evaluated the work occurred over a few 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

17 1 weeks or a few months with a series of samples 

2 requested. In the data captured, the 

3 subcontractor results appear to represent a 

4 series of acute intakes over periods of a few 

5 weeks or a few months. The coworker study was 

6 developed by assuming multiple chronic intake 

7 periods. Thus, it is very likely that the 

8 data presented in the coworker study would 

9 bound to the doses to unmonitored 

10 subcontractors."

11 Basically, what that is saying is, 

12 listen, I mean, these guys were only doing 

13 this job for a short period of time in the 

14 year. If we give them the full year's worth 

15 of coworker doses, that will bound the 

16 exposure.

17 It is a sound rationale, but we 

18 didn't see the numbers, as to how many cases 

19 were actually evaluated and, honestly, how you 

20 could tell that it was just a short-duration 

21 job. Later in that same report, it says, "The 

22 actual length of subcontractor employment was 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

18 1 not available to assess the potential missed 

2 and unmonitored intake period."

3 So, we actually don't know how 

4 long these workers were actually doing their 

5 contractor work. So, that is the kind of 

6 thing. I mean, maybe that kind of information 

7 was gleaned from the hard-copy records, but it 

8 is not in the report. So, we really don't 

9 have a basis to determine whether that is a 

10 really sound assumption for choosing pooling 

11 of the data versus the side-by-side 

12 comparison.

13 One of the other rationales was 

14 that contractor samples might have been 

15 contaminated. On page 5 of the NIOSH report, 

16 it says, "There were a number of cases where 

17 the sample taken at the end of a shift was a 

18 factor of two greater than the one taken the 

19 following morning," which would indicate a 

20 possible sample contamination.

21 Once again, we didn't see how many 

22 cases were evaluated that showed this type of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

19 1 behavior, how many cases didn't show that type 

2 of behavior. Later in the report it says, 

3 "There were far more subcontractor samples 

4 designated 50 or start-of-shift sample than 

5 were 59, end-of-shift sample."

6 So, again, it is like, well, how 

7 many are we really looking here that were 

8 contaminated? We kind of build this weight9 of-evidence argument to say, listen, it 

10 doesn't really make sense to do the side-by11 side comparison because of these reasons. And 

12 the reasons are given, but we don't see any of 

13 the underlying work that went into it that 

14 would kind of quantitatively back that up.

15 And the reason we are concerned 

16 about the pooling versus the side-by-side 

17 comparison is you actually see quite different 

18 ratios develop when you do the side-by-side 

19 comparison, which you would imagine, if you 

20 are pooling the data together, you are kind of 

21 muddying the water a little bit. So, the 

22 comparison isn't going to show as great a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

20 1 ratio as if you actually took the 50 series 

2 and compared it to the regular coworker.

3 So, what we did is we went into 

4 the HIS-20 database and we pulled out all the 

5 50 series records. And then, we pulled out 

6 all the records that were originally used in 

7 the coworker model, excluding certain records 

8 like the first-day-of-employment sample or any 

9 sample that wasn't really used originally 

10 because it is not reflective of your normal, 

11 unmonitored exposure.

12 So, we did that and we actually, 

13 instead of pooling the data, like what was 

14 done, we did the side-by-side comparison. 

15 Here are the records for Type 50; here are the 

16 records for the rest of the coworkers.

17 We did a basic data analysis with 

18 the raw data. Depending on what basis you 

19 want to look at it, whether it is the 

20 arithmetic mean of the two groups, the 

21 geometric mean, or median, we find out that, 

22 if you are looking at the average, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

21 1 essentially, in 50 percent of the time, 50 

2 percent of the years, your ratio is going to 

3 be higher than that suggested value of two, 

4 which was in the NIOSH paper. Looking at the 

5 geometric mean, you are looking at 42 percent 

6 of the time above that value of two, and in 

7 the median it is 38 percent of the time.

8 So, when you do the side-by-side 

9 comparison, there is clearly a difference 

10 compared to the Type 50 records that appear to 

11 be significantly higher than the rest of the 

12 coworker models.

13 For those following along, I am 

14 looking at table 2 on page 8 of the SC&A 

15 paper. It actually shows sort of the raw data 

16 analysis. It has the values and the ratios in 

17 there, and they are also plotted in figures 1 

18 through 3, which show each year what the ratio 

19 was. And then, it has the line there of two. 

20 So, you can see how it fluctuates.

21 And if you look at table 2, you 

22 can see that the ratio of the Type 50 records 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

22 1 to the original coworker model could actually 

2 be as high as seven, if you are looking at the 

3 average results, a little less than five for 

4 the geometric mean, a little over six for the 

5 median. So, I mean, these are significantly 

6 higher values than the proposed number of two.

7 So, this is why we are certainly 

8 concerned, not being able to see the work that 

9 went into it and all those quantitative 

10 rationales for choosing pooling the data 

11 versus actually doing the side-by-side 

12 comparison.

13 It gets even crazier if you look 

14 at it on a quarterly basis. Obviously, you 

15 are going to have a smaller dataset for the 

16 Type 50s. So, those ratios can get very high. 

17 When you only have a few Type 50 records that 

18 are significantly higher than the coworker 

19 model, those ratios can get even higher than 

20 that.

21 Of course, this was just looking 

22 at the raw data. I mean, we don't construct 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

23 1 coworker models based on raw data. We 

2 actually fit it to a log-normal distribution 

3 and calculate the appropriate parameters for 

4 assigning doses.

5 So, what SC&A did is we selected 

6 four years, just to kind of perform that 

7 scoping. We are going to do the log-normal 

8 transformation and see what it would like. We 

9 were just going to do a coworker model. We 

10 chose 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1972.

11 If Harry Chmelynski is on the 

12 phone, I would like to turn it over to you to 

13 explain what we did here statistically.

14 DR. CHMELYNSKI: Hi. This is 

15 Harry Chmelynski from SC&A.

16 Basically, Bob told you what we 

17 did. We had the data for the Type 50s and we 

18 had them in a separate pile from the data that 

19 was originally used in the coworker model.

20 These records, by the way, were 

21 not included in the original coworker model 

22 because, on the surface, they were called 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

24 1 special type records. And these were 

2 eliminated because they would not be 

3 representative.

4 NIOSH, on later inspection, found 

5 that a lot of these Type 50s were, in fact, 

6 contractor records. Now we don't claim that 

7 they are all contractor records, but they do, 

8 as a pool, serve as a good surrogate for the 

9 collection of contractor workers.

10 We fit four years to the log11 normal distributions. In every case, the 

12 distributions for the Type 50 records lie 

13 substantially above -- well, in some cases 

14 more substantially than others -- above the 

15 typical coworker model records, which had been 

16 included in the original study.

17 From our purpose, this really 

18 brings up the question as to whether the 

19 coworker model is designed to cover the 

20 construction workers. That is really the 

21 issue here. We can give them a factor of two, 

22 and that gives everybody an extra dose to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

25 1 account for perhaps these Type 50 records that 

2 should have been in the model. However, that 

3 still may not be sufficient to account for the 

4 differences we see for the contractors.

5 I think that is about it.

6 MR. BARTON: Thanks, Harry.

7 The one thing that I neglected to 

8 mention, and it is another piece of 

9 information that will be very useful in 

10 evaluating this is we know that Type 50 didn't 

11 mean you were absolutely a contractor. They 

12 could be other people at the site. They were 

13 called special, so maybe they were involved in 

14 some special operation. But, again, that 

15 information wasn't in there as to how many 

16 were actually seen in the hard-copy records of 

17 these Type 50s that were contractors versus 

18 site personnel.

19 It would also be helpful to know, 

20 I mean, in the NIOSH report there is table 1, 

21 which shows all the references that were 

22 captured and approximate number of records 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

26 1 that were in each document. Except for the 

2 first seven or so, it just gives the number of 

3 results, and we really don't have an idea of 

4 how many of those were actual contractors 

5 versus site personnel.

6 For example, the eighth reference 

7 down covers 1969 all the way to 1984, and it 

8 is 5,000 results. Well, I mean, how many of 

9 those were contracts. It is important to know 

10 how many per year do we have that we can look 

11 at and say these are contractors, because that 

12 could have a profound effect on it. I mean, 

13 you might have these really high values 

14 because you are looking at people who were 

15 involved in special projects on the site. Or 

16 these could really represent what the 

17 contractor intakes were.

18 So, again, what our concerns 

19 pretty much boil down to is we would really 

20 like to see the quantitative work and logic 

21 that went behind all these decisions and 

22 rationale. They are in here, but they are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

27 1 kind of more anecdotal and it is hard to make 

2 a judgment on them without seeing what was 

3 actually done.

4 MR. ROLFES: Okay. There is a 

5 couple of points that I want to consider, and 

6 then I will ask Gene Potter to maybe provide 

7 some additional details here.

8 Yes, in the initial couple of 

9 years back, when we started looking into this 

10 issue, we were under the assumption that there 

11 were a lot more unmonitored subcontractors, 

12 because we didn't have electronic bioassay 

13 data for them.

14 Now, going back into the hard-copy 

15 records and looking for their specific 

16 urinalysis results, we determined that there 

17 were actually a lot more subcontractors that 

18 were monitored rather than not monitored. 

19 When all is said and done, there is probably a 

20 handful of claimants that we have, 

21 approximately 10 or 12 I think, that were 

22 actually and truly unmonitored for uranium.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

28 1 In looking at some of their work 

2 history, I don't recall if any of those 

3 individuals had employment more than maybe a 

4 year or two in continuous duration. So, a lot 

5 of these employees might have come onsite to 

6 make a delivery or something or do a short job 

7 for a couple of weeks at a time possibly, and 

8 might have some intermittent exposure 

9 potential.

10 In order to get some understanding 

11 of what that person could have been exposed to 

12 on the site, they had to sample that employee, 

13 that subcontractor employee, while they were 

14 onsite, before they left, and Fernald didn't 

15 see them again possibly.

16 So, you have to take a look at the 

17 individual details within each individual 

18 claimant's case in order to determine what 

19 their true or more realistic internal dose 

20 would be.

21 There was one other point that I 

22 wanted to make, but I have forgotten what it 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

29 1 was.

2 Gene, could you possibly go 

3 through some additional details?

4 MR. POTTER: Yes, this is Gene 

5 Potter again.

6 I would like to refer the Working 

7 Group to the paper dated February 6th, 2012, 

8 "NIOSH Comments on the SC&A Review".

9 MR. ROLFES: Okay. This is 

10 something I just sent out. Unfortunately, I 

11 wasn't able to get it out earlier. I just 

12 sent it to everybody's email this morning and 

13 put it on the K: drive. It is approximately 

14 three pages, four pages long.

15 Gene, if you can just possibly go 

16 through that? I know some people might not be 

17 able to pull it up.

18 MR. POTTER: Sure. Anyway, I 

19 guess the first point to make is that NIOSH's 

20 discovery of the lack of subcontractor results 

21 in HIS-20 was the reason that this issue 

22 surfaced in the first place.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

30 1 What SC&A did was actually look at 

2 the data in HIS-20 and that did not include 

3 all of the data that we had entered from hard 

4 copy for subcontractors. But they did look at 

5 the Code 50s.

6 Now the subcontractors were in the 

7 HIS-20 database after 1985, I believe. So, 

8 any analysis for those years would include 

9 subcontractors as Code 50s.

10 As time went on after 1985, the 

11 subcontractors were more heavily sampled. 

12 They looked more like the general site 

13 population. So, it is really those earlier 

14 years that present this issue.

15 The Code 50 samples that SC&A did 

16 look at are similar to subcontractors in that 

17 they were special samples. I believe, from 

18 what I have read, these would be samples that 

19 were collected shortly after a potential 

20 intake. In other words, the site was 

21 interested in, if they changed a procedure or 

22 doing a new evolution of some type, they 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

31 1 wanted to sample that evolution or procedure 

2 change to see what the effect might have been 

3 on the intakes that people would have.

4 And so, what they have in common 

5 with subcontractors is that samples were taken 

6 relatively close to the potential intake. In 

7 that paper, if you are able to access it, I 

8 have plotted at the end a graph of just 

9 uranium urine excretion with time after an 

10 acute intake. You can see that, just within a 

11 period of like five days, the difference 

12 between sampling at day one and day five, the 

13 urine excretion drops by like an order of 

14 magnitude.

15 So, what we would really be 

16 interested in is the distribution of 

17 individual intakes for workers rather than 

18 just the distribution of bioassay results, 

19 because you can see that a bioassay result 

20 does not mean the same thing for two different 

21 intake times.

22 So, we actually investigated to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

32 1 see if we could do a distribution like this 

2 for the subcontractors. We found that there 

3 wasn't enough information on their exact 

4 employment periods, but you could see from the 

5 periods when they were sampled that it looks 

6 like, in general, the constructions types, in 

7 particular, came onsite, worked for a few 

8 weeks, a month or so, and they may have gone 

9 away and come back and worked again. But this 

10 was an intermittent exposure in general. Of 

11 course, you can probably find exceptions.

12 So, anyway, while SC&A didn't 

13 analyze the subcontractor data that we had, we 

14 don't dispute that this comparison, direct 

15 comparison between Code 50s and subcontractors 

16 to the remainder of the results, would produce 

17 a result similar to what SC&A has presented.

18 I don't think that Bob mentioned 

19 that they came up with a factor of five to 

20 eight, or something in that range, if you look 

21 at the direct comparison.

22 We originally proposed a factor of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

33 1 two as a claimant-favorable approach due to 

2 the fact that there is uncertainty in what the 

3 exact exposure periods would be, and it would 

4 be very difficult to quantitate this on an 

5 intake basis. If you look at the bioassay 

6 results of the two groups side-by-side, you 

7 see what SC&A has presented.

8 Another point is that, now that we 

9 have entered all this hard copy, have captured 

10 the records and entered the hard copy, we have 

11 the data for a bunch of the subcontractors. 

12 And so, we only have a need to use a coworker 

13 factor of two for unmonitored subcontractors. 

14 These are the folks that you are probably 

15 going to find were the delivery people, the 

16 people that were there for very short 

17 duration, and that sort of thing. Because it 

18 looks like from the hard-copy data, the people 

19 doing the heavy-duty rad work, we were able to 

20 find data on them.

21 Looking at some of SC&A's specific 

22 comments, we did present only minimal details 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

34 1 of our analysis. There was a spreadsheet, but 

2 I guess SC&A never received it.

3 SC&A's analysis did present a 

4 range of factors that they saw. It would 

5 probably be very similar if they had analyzed 

6 the subcontractor data. So, it appears that 

7 between the factor of two and what they have 

8 presented, there is some sort of technical 

9 agreement that could be reached on this in 

10 this area, and NIOSH could possibly address 

11 this by a modification to the TBD or the 

12 coworker study. One possibility would be to 

13 just include all of the results in the 

14 coworker study, the hard copy, and the Code 

15 50s, which would increase the intakes assigned 

16 to all workers, not just the subcontractors.

17 SC&A made a specific comment about 

18 they didn't have any Type 59s. That is 

19 another indication that they did not look at 

20 the hard copy. That was the samples taken at 

21 the end of the shifts, and they could not have 

22 seen the contamination, and so forth, effect 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

35 1 by looking at the 59 taken the previous day to 

2 the 50 taken the following day.

3 I guess that, again, we don't 

4 dispute that, if SC&A had looked at the actual 

5 subcontractor data, chances are before `85 

6 they looked at very few, if any, 

7 subcontractors. Mostly, the Type 50s for 

8 those years were site employees, and this 

9 could be verified by looking at the hard copy. 

10 There is no way of verifying it by just 

11 looking at HIS-20.

12 So, again, it looks like some 

13 agreement could be reached on a path forward 

14 on this issue. We have proposed a factor of 

15 two; SC&A has a higher number for the direct 

16 comparison, but that may not be appropriate 

17 for the time course of the urine samples 

18 compared to when the intakes occurred.

19 It looks like this is an issue 

20 which could be moved to the TBD/coworker 

21 arena, rather than the SEC.

22 Anything else I can present, Mark, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

36 1 that I have missed?

2 MR. ROLFES: No, thank you, Gene. 

3 I appreciate your summary response.

4 MR. BARTON: If I could comment 

5 here, Gene, we didn't want to give the 

6 impression that we were throwing out numbers 

7 that we believed to be more appropriate for 

8 use. The reason we did the side-by-side 

9 comparison is to show that, without the 

10 information to justify doing the pooled data, 

11 there are some concerns there.

12 Now rationale is given for why the 

13 pooled data might be more appropriate, but, 

14 again, quantitatively, we do not go and 

15 compile from the hard-copy record. Again, you 

16 are correct, we only looked at the HIS-20 from 

17 that 1960-to-1985 period. We didn't do any 

18 analysis past 1985 where it was apparent that 

19 the contractors were actually being recorded 

20 in the HIS-20 database.

21 So, I just wanted to make that 

22 clear. We are not proposing a number here. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

37 1 We are just stating our concern of why we 

2 would like more information on the subject.

3 For instance, you said that it 

4 appeared that most people were only working a 

5 few weeks to a few months, but, then, it also 

6 says in the paper you don't have sufficient 

7 information on employment period. So, I mean, 

8 it is those kinds of things where we were 

9 like, well, can we see what was actually done? 

10 You said there is a spreadsheet. That is 

11 something that would be very helpful in trying 

12 to sort this thing out.

13 Again, we looked at this paper and 

14 we saw what you did of the end results, but we 

15 didn't see all the steps in between to get 

16 there.

17 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

18 I would like to reiterate what Bob 

19 said, but also I agree with Gene that this is 

20 certainly a technical problem that is 

21 solvable. I believe it is a TBD issue at this 

22 point.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

38 1 I have a few problems. I wouldn't 

2 feel comfortable in buying off on things as 

3 they stand now without actually seeing the 

4 rest of the data. And this spreadsheet would 

5 be very helpful for us.

6 I also have some questions about 

7 post-`85 versus pre-`85, where you can see 

8 just the number of samples for the number of 

9 coworker or construction workers decreases in 

10 the later years, as presumably there is less 

11 of that activity going on. And so, one has to 

12 wonder about the exposure potential in the 

13 earlier years, say, compared to the later 

14 years and whether it would have been 

15 substantially higher.

16 The issue that really kind of 

17 stuck in my mind as being very important is 

18 this idea of intermittent exposures versus a 

19 chronic exposure. I fully understand that, if 

20 we are looking at the Type 50 records, which 

21 are spot-samples, certainly, if you get a 

22 preponderance of those, you are going to have 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

39 1 much higher urine excretion rates. So, to the 

2 extent that we could actually be looking at 

3 derived intakes, and maybe the assumptions 

4 that went into those intakes based on those 

5 records, and also it kind of troubles me that 

6 so many of these Type 50 records are really 

7 not necessarily for contractors, but a large 

8 proportion of them may be for onsite workers. 

9 There are all these uncertainties there that 

10 are kind of hard to unravel at this point.

11 So, I think at this point SC&A 

12 would be more comfortable if we could actually 

13 look at this spreadsheet and some of the data, 

14 and maybe some of the assumptions and bases 

15 for the determination that these samples 

16 really represent short-term intakes without 

17 any kind of corroborating evidence of 

18 employment period.

19 MR. ROLFES: John, this is Mark.

20 We can definitely get the 

21 spreadsheet to you. But I would also suggest 

22 taking a look at some of the hard-copy data 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

40 1 because --

2 MR. STIVER: Yes, absolutely.

3 MR. ROLFES: -- you would have to 

4 take a look through those special samples, the 

5 hard-copy data, because there are handwritten 

6 notes for identifying which person was a 

7 subcontractor. It will list usually in a 

8 handwritten or a typed line, you know, this 

9 individual worked for such-and-such company.

10 We had actually also looked back 

11 at some of the historical contracts. It 

12 appears in the earlier years there weren't 

13 many subcontractors employed by Fernald. It 

14 appears that -- now correct me if I am wrong, 

15 Gene -- from what I recall, it appears that 

16 most of the work that was done by 

17 subcontractors in the later years was actually 

18 done by type, NLO employees in the earlier 

19 years. So, we don't have the same issues. 

20 There weren't as many subcontracts in those 

21 earlier years.

22 And then, also, if you take a look 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

41 1 at the production history and changes at the 

2 Fernald site, and the need for uranium, there 

3 were periods when they thought that they were 

4 going to shut the Fernald site down. So, some 

5 of the work that was done by the 

6 subcontractors in the later years to maintain 

7 the facilities and build new buildings wasn't 

8 being done perhaps during the 1970s because of 

9 the lowering of the production rate and 

10 possibility of shutting the site down.

11 So, Gene, did I misstate anything 

12 there?

13 MR. POTTER: No, you are correct, 

14 we did look at the distribution, tried to look 

15 at the distribution of contracts, and guess 

16 which ones were construction subcontractors 

17 from the names of the companies, and so forth.

18 The other point, to go back a 

19 little bit earlier to what John was saying 

20 there, what you see when you look at the hard 

21 copy is that a company will come in, and half 

22 a dozen to a dozen folks will be sampled on a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

42 1 daily or every-other-day basis for some period 

2 of time, and they will go away.

3 What I looked at trying to do was 

4 do individual employees with bioassay data and 

5 determine what their intakes were. But when 

6 you look at an individual, you cannot say for 

7 sure exactly what day he started work. You 

8 can only say when he was bioassayed, and 

9 probably get a pretty good idea of the last 

10 day because, if it is at-the-end-of-a-shift 

11 sample, then he has no more samples. But you 

12 don't know if he came in the day before or two 

13 days before, or what. That is the type of 

14 uncertainty we are talking about on sort of an 

15 individual basis.

16 MR. ROLFES: Correct, Gene.

17 This is Mark again.

18 We don't have that information for 

19 people who are not claimants. We do have that 

20 information for claimants. That is the 

21 uncertainty in trying to develop a model for 

22 individuals who are not claimants. We are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

43 1 able to do this for individuals where we have 

2 the employment data.

3 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: May I just say 

4 something?

5 You mentioned earlier that there 

6 are 12 unmonitored workers. These would be 12 

7 claimants?

8 MR. ROLFES: Claimants, correct.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: And these hard10 copy records, they are available for us to 

11 review?

12 MR. ROLFES: Yes, they are in our 

13 report from October. On the third page, we 

14 have listed the --

15 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Okay. All 

16 right. Okay.

17 MR. ROLFES: -- database reference 

18 number.

19 MR. BARTON: This is Bob Barton.

20 We were talking about the 

21 spreadsheet. Presumably, that is a 

22 compilation of the hard-copy data, right?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

44 1 MR. ROLFES: Yes. It has been a 

2 while since I looked back at that.

3 Gene?

4 MR. POTTER: Yes?

5 MR. ROLFES: I think you had 

6 identified the urinalysis results and which 

7 subcontractor these employees had worked for 

8 in your spreadsheet? Was that correct?

9 MR. POTTER: Right. Yes, that is 

10 generally how you could identify them in the 

11 hard-copy records, were by the subcontractor 

12 name written on the card. In some cases, the 

13 names may not have been written on the card, 

14 but you recognize the person from working on 

15 the contract and he was sampled a couple of 

16 days before, and he did have that 

17 subcontractor. So, there were a few that I 

18 could add that way.

19 And so, I will have to go back and 

20 look. I think it should be obvious, when you 

21 look at the spreadsheet, who the Code 50 site 

22 employees were and who the subcontractors 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

45 1 were.

2 I just used Excel to do the log3 normal fits and stuff. So, some of them may 

4 be sorted. So, I will see what I can -- I may 

5 have to make a few changes to the spreadsheet, 

6 so it will be more obvious. I knew what was 

7 going on, but when another person looks at it 

8 and didn't generate it, it may be more 

9 difficult to understand all that. Maybe I 

10 should look at that.

11 MR. BARTON: Gene, just one more 

12 question. When you were giving your response, 

13 so we only took the contractor records out of 

14 the hard copy, and those were the ones that 

15 were added to the coworker model, except for 

16 years -- and it says here -- for years where 

17 there weren't any contractor records, we added 

18 some Type 50s.

19 But, other than that, if you had 

20 contractor records in the hard copy, those 

21 were the only ones that were added to the 

22 coworker model?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

46 1 MR. POTTER: No. I looked at 

2 adding, as you did, all the Code 50s and the 

3 subcontractors. So, even on the pooled data, 

4 as you noted, that can make quite a 

5 difference.

6 MR. BARTON: Thank you, Gene.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: This is Brad. I 

8 have got a question for Mark or you, Gene.

9 I am having a hard time 

10 understanding this 50 series because, on the 

11 one hand, you are telling me that you have got 

12 a construction worker bioassay, but, then, a 

13 majority of them are in, they are classified 

14 as a 50. I am having a hard time following 

15 here what --

16 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark.

17 The Type 50 sample was just a 

18 sample designation. It stood for a special 

19 sample, and those special samples were 

20 collected from both NLO employees as well as 

21 subcontractor employees. It just stood for 

22 like a spot-sample, like a sample in the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

47 1 middle of the day where they would go out to 

2 just see what these people are exposed to at 

3 that moment.

4 And some of those samples might 

5 have been collected in radiological areas. 

6 So, it is possible that they could have had 

7 some sample contamination or they could have 

8 just had an exposure to uranium.

9 So, those Type 50 samples could 

10 potentially be elevated due to a more recent 

11 uranium exposure, sample contamination. So, 

12 comparing something like that to a sample that 

13 is collected, you know, a few days after an 

14 exposure, you are likely going to get a higher 

15 result.

16 Now the internal dose isn't 

17 necessarily higher because you don't know the 

18 entire duration of intake. And some people 

19 could have had an intake that was two weeks 

20 long; some people could have been chronically 

21 exposed the entire year. So, that is where 

22 the uncertainty is coming in.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

48 1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, my one 

2 question, this is urinalysis, right?

3 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: You are not going 

5 to walk out to the floor and ask a guy to 

6 provide this much. I mean, when he would take 

7 a sample, it takes a little while to process 

8 enough for you to be able to do that.

9 So, I don't understand this spot10 sample because it usually takes a day or so to 

11 work up enough for them to be able to have 

12 that.

13 MR. ROLFES: These are spot14 samples, not 1500-milliliter daily. You know, 

15 these are like 100-millimeter samples. You 

16 get 100 millimeters of pee and that is what 

17 they test, rather than a full 24-hour 

18 excretion period of 1400 or 1500 milliliters.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: But, then, they 

20 normalize it.

21 MR. ROLFES: Correct, they 

22 normalize it.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

49 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: But could I 

2 interrupt there?

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Sure.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Could you clarify? 

5 It appears that you are saying that, to some 

6 extent, these Type 50s were event-driven 

7 rather than random?

8 MR. ROLFES: That's possible.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or both?

10 MR. ROLFES: That is possible. I 

11 think Gene could speak to that a little bit 

12 better.

13 MR. POTTER: Yes, I can try to 

14 respond. This is Gene Potter again.

15 There was a separate sample type 

16 for incidents. So, what I believe the bulk of 

17 these special samples that SC&A looked at were 

18 samples that were taken when a procedure was 

19 changed, when they were doing a new evolution 

20 of some sort, and that sort of thing, where 

21 they were wanting to check on a group's 

22 exposure immediately after some change or 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

50 1 there was some reason to collect a sample that 

2 was out of sequence from being a normal or a 

3 routine sample, and that was not considered an 

4 incident.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay, but it was 

6 event-driven in terms of, as you say, a new 

7 procedure or something like that. And you 

8 want to get an early indicator if there is 

9 going to be a problem with intakes. Is that 

10 what you are saying?

11 MR. POTTER: Yes, I believe that 

12 is so.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I've got you.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: And how do we know 

15 that? Because I am looking at a lot of these 

16 different samples, and we have got everything 

17 from construction workers to house ones. What 

18 is your basis for saying that this was part of 

19 a new process or this is why we were using 

20 these as a special sample?

21 Because, if it was a new process 

22 going on, to me, that would have been built 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

51 1 into the process going into it. I am just 

2 wondering, what do you have that tells you, 

3 oh, yeah, this is why they have these 50 

4 samples?

5 MR. POTTER: This is Gene Potter 

6 again.

7 I have reviewed, of course, 

8 thousands of documents in the course of this. 

9 I have read this somewhere, and I cannot give 

10 you a reference for it at this time. The 

11 title of this particular type of sample is a 

12 special sample. And I know I have read 

13 something that indicates what I just mentioned 

14 to Dr. Ziemer, that this was a sample taken 

15 when a procedure was changed or that sort of 

16 thing. But I don't know of a specific 

17 reference right now. We could work on getting 

18 you a reference for that.

19 MR. ROLFES: Brad, I can take a 

20 look during the meeting and see if I can pull 

21 that up.

22 If you take a look in some of the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

52 1 DOE response files that Fernald sends to us 

2 for each claimant, there are sample codes 

3 included with some of the urinalyses. For 

4 example, in the earlier years you might see a 

5 Code 2 or 3. That meant Plant 2/3. There is 

6 Code 49 and 50, 5. There's probably about 20-

7 something different codes. Some of them are 

8 defined and some of them are not, but there 

9 are different references. They changed a 

10 little bit over history, but there are some 

11 references that explain what those codes are.

12 As Gene said, we have seen that, 

13 and I will see if I can get that for you here 

14 sometime before the day is over.

15 MR. BARTON: This is Bob Barton.

16 If you are interested in all the 

17 different HIS-20 codes throughout the years, 

18 if you look at page 19 of SC&A's report, we 

19 pretty much break down what the codes mean, 

20 how many of them you will see in HIS-20, the 

21 first year of use, the last year of use. 

22 There is lots of information on that.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

53 1 One other question I had, and I 

2 address this to Gene, do we have a rough idea 

3 of how many of these Code 50s were contractors 

4 versus -- I mean, obviously, this is going to 

5 vary year-by-year, but your general sense of 

6 how many of them actually are contractors 

7 versus site personnel?

8 MR. POTTER: Well, the amounts 

9 vary quite a bit year-to-year. I am not 

10 looking at that, unfortunately, right at the 

11 moment. Maybe we could go on and I could pull 

12 those numbers for you.

13 MS. BALDRIDGE: This is Sandra. I 

14 have a question for Mark.

15 Would you explain what you mean 

16 when you said that you had only checked for 

17 the claimants, the contractors who had already 

18 filed claims? Where does that put the non19 claimants in the SEC if their data or 

20 information hasn't been factored in or isn't 

21 being considered in the SEC process?

22 MR. ROLFES: Well, one would first 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

54 1 have to look as to whether or not they were 

2 monitored. As far as an SEC, I mean, that 

3 would all depend on ultimately what was 

4 recommended, if an SEC Class was to be 

5 recommended for something. That would all 

6 depend on who was included in the Class. That 

7 is not something really that we are discussing 

8 today or something that I could answer for 

9 you.

10 At this time, NIOSH is not 

11 recommending an SEC for any Class of workers 

12 for the Fernald site. So, I couldn't really 

13 answer any better as to what would be done for 

14 construction workers who are not claimants.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: But let me clarify 

16 something. If I understand how -- this is 

17 Brad again -- how Sandra is thinking, we have 

18 taken all of the data that Fernald has and it 

19 is put into the spreadsheet. Any data that we 

20 have is in there.

21 MR. ROLFES: Yes, correct.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

55 1 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, what this is 

3 for is, if we have a non-monitored person, 

4 this would be the coworker data, that they 

5 would be used to be able to do it.

6 MR. ROLFES: That is correct.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Does that help 

8 you, Sandra?

9 MS. BALDRIDGE: Right.

10 MR. ROLFES: Yes, we had used non11 claimant data in our analysis to build a 

12 coworker intake and a coworker adjustment 

13 factor for subcontractors who were not 

14 monitored. So, we have considered non15 claimant data.

16 However, getting into the details 

17 of what a non-claimant's actual exposure was, 

18 there is uncertainty associated with that 

19 because we didn't go and get their employment 

20 information details that we would have for a 

21 claimant. So, that is where it comes down.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: I have got another 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

56 1 question here. Are we able to tell by the 

2 bioassay who is the subcontractor and who is a 

3 Fernald employee? Is it separated out that 

4 well? Because my understanding was that we 

5 really couldn't tell.

6 MR. ROLFES: In the hard-copy 

7 records you can. There are notes on the 

8 bioassay request cards indicating that this 

9 individual worked for Legge, like L-E-G-G-E 

10 was one of the subcontractors; another, a 

11 painting company like Stegeman Painters. 

12 Those notes are made on each of the hard-copy 

13 records that we reviewed.

14 The records that we reviewed are 

15 on page 3 of our October 7th, 2011 report. 

16 Where we have reported, this is page 3 of 7 

17 from the NIOSH Evaluation of Fernald 

18 Subcontractor Bioassay Data".

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So, back to 

20 my question, I guess it would be we are able 

21 to separate subcontractors out from the house?

22 MR. ROLFES: Yes, correct. We can 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

57 1 identify who was an unmonitored subcontractor 

2 versus who was an NLO employee, for example, 

3 or Westinghouse employees.

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. You made a 

5 statement earlier, too, about these Type 50 

6 samples were used for subcontractors who were 

7 there for a short period of time. I guess my 

8 question that I have is that, in having the 

9 meetings and stuff here, we have had -- a lot 

10 of the subcontractors were out there like for 

11 25 years. The only thing was, the name of the 

12 contractor just changed. We have numerous 

13 ones telling us that in a 25-year period they 

14 may have given four or five bioassays.

15 This is why, when you are telling 

16 me they have got a subcontractor in there for 

17 a short period of time and he has given five 

18 or six samples, daily, or whatever, I am 

19 wondering what the difference is. Because 

20 like Rust and all these that were out there, 

21 these people employed people for numerous 

22 years out there.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

58 1 MR. ROLFES: Yes, I have heard the 

2 same concern. And I have spoken with some 

3 individuals in the past who have believed that 

4 they have not been routinely bioassayed. I 

5 have encouraged those individuals to submit 

6 FOIA requests, either from NIOSH or from DOE. 

7 It would be directed ultimately to DOE 

8 because it is DOE's data.

9 But I have some spoken with some 

10 individuals in the past about these concerns. 

11 From everything I have seen, it has turned 

12 out that those individuals did have monitoring 

13 data, and some individuals were surprised 

14 about how much monitoring data they actually 

15 did have. It was typically more than they had 

16 believed they had.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, this has 

18 been the thing with Fernald, and especially 

19 with the coworker, well, with the 

20 subcontractors, is numerous ones of them have 

21 been out there for years.

22 Now let me ask you the question. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

59 1 If they are a claimant and they are a 

2 subcontractor, their data would be available 

3 to them, wouldn't it? Where you have done a 

4 dose reconstruction for them, that bioassay 

5 information would be available for them?

6 MR. ROLFES: That is correct. If 

7 they would submit a FOIA request to us for 

8 that data -- we might not discuss each 

9 individual bioassay sample in detail in the 

10 dose reconstruction, but that data is 

11 available to an individual, if they request it 

12 via the Freedom of Information Act.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

14 DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. 

15 Can I ask a question and maybe even make a 

16 suggestion?

17 MR. KATZ: Sure, John.

18 DR. MAURO: What I am hearing is, 

19 the way SC&A approached this evaluation was to 

20 use these Type 50 data, which I am hearing now 

21 is really the Type 50 data may not be a good 

22 representation of the data for contractors, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

60 1 and it may really be a sampling that is biased 

2 in an unusual way. As a result, we are seeing 

3 means of the bioassay data that are about 

4 eight times higher than the mean that is in a 

5 given set of coworker data.

6 The first question I have is, if 

7 you go to the coworker model as it currently 

8 is, and I believe you could get a given year, 

9 and you have lots and lots of bioassay data, 

10 you get a mean and a standard deviation on 

11 that.

12 What I heard Gene say is that, if 

13 you look at the bioassay data in the hard-copy 

14 records for the construction workers or 

15 contractors that were onsite, you actually 

16 have data. Have you plotted that for, let's 

17 say, a given year and compared it, the mean 

18 and the standard deviation, for that group, 

19 too?

20 Because I think, originally, this 

21 idea was to do that, the distribution for that 

22 year in your current coworker model, and has 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

61 1 that been done? It may very well have been in 

2 your report, but I didn't see it. If it has, 

3 do the means of the two different groups 

4 differ by a factor of two, three, four, eight, 

5 or are they the same?

6 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark.

7 John, yes, we have done that 

8 analysis. I can let Gene maybe elaborate on 

9 that a little bit further.

10 That was how we had derived -- we 

11 had actually compared the effect of adding in 

12 subcontractor data, and that is how we 

13 determined that the highest given year, the 

14 subcontractor data, the excretion rates were 

15 about a factor of 1.6 higher for the highest 

16 year that we had analyzed.

17 DR. MAURO: Yes, Mark, I 

18 understand what you are saying, but that would 

19 sort of blend in. I am interested in saying, 

20 listen, here is a group of a thousand 

21 construction workers for 1962 where we have 

22 bioassay data and make a distribution by 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

62 1 themselves, and here's the coworker model for 

2 1962, and here is what we would use as the 

3 full distribution for the coworker model, the 

4 mean and standard deviation for intakes or for 

5 whatever the bioassay results are, and here is 

6 what we actually are seeing in this group of a 

7 thousand workers in 1962 that we know are 

8 construction workers.

9 I would like to know what the 

10 difference in the mean between those two are, 

11 not after you blended them in. Because if you 

12 blend them in, they could disappear. You may 

13 be blending in a small number into a very 

14 large number. And the small number that is a 

15 unique population that has its own 

16 distribution could be substantially different 

17 than this greatly aggregated group.

18 So, do you have the number for the 

19 separated distribution? And is there a large 

20 difference between the two? If not, that is 

21 really what we need. And if we don't have it, 

22 it sounds like it is available by going into 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

63 1 the hard-copy data and doing one of those.

2 MR. ROLFES: I am going to defer 

3 to Gene. I believe we had started an analysis 

4 similar to this.

5 Gene, is that correct? We did go 

6 back, I believe, and compare Type 50 

7 subcontractor urinalysis results to the NLO 

8 employee Type 50 urinalysis results, is that 

9 correct?

10 MR. POTTER: Yes. Again, if you 

11 look at -- I think what I have at my 

12 fingertips here, anyway, is just all Type 50s. 

13 So, this includes your specials of site 

14 employees that SC&A did in their analysis, as 

15 well as our hard copy entered subcontractors.

16 As I said, if I am understanding 

17 John's question correctly, we see results very 

18 similar to what you have with the Type 50s 

19 alone that SC&A did. I am seeing a ratio of 

20 the geometric means for like 1970 is the 

21 maximum of 6.69, but that does include the 

22 specials and the subs, which I think is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

64 1 logical to include the specials because they 

2 were site employees. If one were to modify 

3 the coworker study, it would make sense that, 

4 since these are site employees, there would be 

5 really no reason to exclude them.

6 MR. STIVER: Gene, this is John 

7 Stiver. I have got a quick question.

8 It seems like we are trying to 

9 address this secondary confounding factor here 

10 of the Type 50 really being these spot-type 

11 samples. So, even if you look at those and 

12 compare the contractors versus the NLO 

13 employees, you are still not really looking at 

14 a true representation of what an intake may 

15 have been because of the fact of the type of 

16 sample we are looking at, unless there is some 

17 kind of adjustment made for that.

18 It seems like there is also a set 

19 of data for the contractors which would not be 

20 in this Type 50. So, we have kind of got this 

21 mixing.

22 DR. MAURO: Yes, John, I'm sorry 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

65 1 to jump in.

2 I think the Type 50, 

3 unfortunately, is leading us down a road that 

4 is not helping us answer this question.

5 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think it is 

6 actually confounding the --

7 DR. MAURO: Yes, and we have got 

8 to walk away from that.

9 MR. POTTER: Yes, well, it is 

10 unfortunate that Fernald did things the way 

11 they did in naming. They should have had 

12 another type for just subcontractors. But 

13 they were considered, I guess, to be somewhat 

14 similar in the fact that this was not a normal 

15 evolution when someone comes in and removes a 

16 plumbing line, for instance. This would not 

17 have been a routine operation. So, they are 

18 similar in that respect.

19 MR. BARTON: This is Bob Barton.

20 And it sounds like, from these 

21 hard-copy records, that we can tell in the 

22 Type 50s which ones were contractors and which 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

66 1 ones were onsite personnel. So, it seems like 

2 if we did compile that hard-copy data for just 

3 the contractors, we could make that more 

4 meaningful comparison to the actual coworker 

5 model.

6 MR. POTTER: Yes, the only thing I 

7 would say is that you are going to be dealing 

8 with some lower numbers, lower total numbers. 

9 Some years you just don't have very many 

10 subcontractors in.

11 And I was still looking for that 

12 while trying to listen in here.

13 DR. MAURO: Yes, what I hear --

14 this is John again -- the Type 50 is a subset, 

15 if it is a special set of samples that may 

16 have relatively-short time periods between 

17 intake and sampling, what you are doing is --

18 and then, compare construction workers to all 

19 workers or non-construction workers. We are 

20 looking in the wrong place. It is almost like 

21 an unusual set that is not really going to 

22 help us answer the question.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

67 1 If you could just go to the 

2 randomly-selected, a given year, from hard 

3 copy, people we know are construction workers, 

4 and we would do the same thing, and then we 

5 would put a distribution for that, not that 

6 they are Type 50, but just this is a random 

7 sample from a given year for people we know 

8 are construction workers. And just compare 

9 them to the same year that you are currently 

10 planning to use as your coworker model. If 

11 there is really the same distribution, we are 

12 done; the coworker model is fine. But if you 

13 do see a difference that could be a factor of 

14 two of three, well, there is your adjustment 

15 factor.

16 I guess am I asking something to 

17 be done that really can't be done? Because it 

18 seems to be pretty straightforward.

19 MR. ROLFES: John, this is Mark 

20 Rolfes.

21 This is something that can be 

22 done. However, keep in mind that our 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

68 1 coworker intake model is based upon a chronic 

2 routine exposure which we assume intakes are 

3 occurring chronically throughout a given year. 

4 Comparing that chronic intake to someone who 

5 worked a short duration and had one or two 

6 potential short-duration or acute intakes, 

7 typically, any chronic scenario, any chronic 

8 intake scenario is going to bound acute 

9 intake.

10 We encounter this uncertainty when 

11 we don't have a construction worker claimant's 

12 employment information. So, we don't 

13 necessarily know the intake duration. It 

14 could have only been a short-term, short15 duration, two-week exposure possibly on the 

16 site, which would be more related to an acute 

17 intake rather than a chronic intake 

18 experienced by someone who is doing the same 

19 job every day at NLO.

20 So, that is where we get this 

21 uncertainty for people who are not claimants. 

22 We don't know their exact intake duration. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

69 1 So, although they might have a higher bioassay 

2 result, a higher uranium excretion result, 

3 that doesn't necessarily equate to a higher 

4 total intake because --

5 DR. MAURO: I got you. Okay. 

6 That is a good point.

7 Let's operate on the premise that, 

8 in general, construction workers may not have 

9 had the same type of exposure scenario in a 

10 given year. It may have been over a few 

11 months. And therefore, the coworker model 

12 really wouldn't apply appropriately to them.

13 So, then, you go ahead and you 

14 pull your sample, and you see you would end 

15 up, you are saying, overestimating, if you 

16 were to do that. That is, you do expect to 

17 see this difference, and not because there is 

18 a real difference in intake in a given year. 

19 It is because they are only there for a few 

20 weeks, and you pull a bioassay sample right at 

21 the end of their shift, and it is due to some 

22 maybe short-term intake. And a sample is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

70 1 taken shortly thereafter. It would appear it 

2 would end up giving you a biased high 

3 estimate. So, I think I understand your 

4 dilemma.

5 But now when you are doing a real 

6 worker, if you have enough construction 

7 workers where you do have data, well, then, 

8 you are building a coworker model for 

9 construction workers from that. So, you are 

10 almost making a case why you need a separate 

11 coworker model for construction workers.

12 Does that make sense?

13 MR. POTTER: This is Gene Potter 

14 again.

15 As I mentioned, we actually tried 

16 to do that, but to model these as acute 

17 intakes, I could take a reasonable guess when 

18 the person first showed up onsite for this 

19 period of time, and maybe they showed up, you 

20 know, they came back a few months later. And 

21 I could make a reasonable guess.

22 But, depending on how conservative 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

71 1 you want to be with those guesses, you can 

2 come up with a whole range of answers. That 

3 is why we abandoned that.

4 DR. MAURO: One last suggestion or 

5 idea, and then I will step down from this. 

6 For those limited number of workers that do 

7 not have bioassay data, I realize that over 90 

8 percent of all the workers, I think 

9 construction workers and all the workers, have 

10 bioassay data, certainly beginning around 

11 1956. I remember the data. So, you have a 

12 very complete dataset.

13 We are really talking about along 

14 will come a claimant who you know is a 

15 construction worker, worked in a given time 

16 period, but he does not have any bioassay 

17 data. Historically, what is done on any of 

18 these coworker models is to decide, well, for 

19 this particular category of worker, are we 

20 going to assign the full distribution or the 

21 upper 95th percentile. Whether it is a 

22 construction worker or not, you always have 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

72 1 that question that you have to deal with.

2 It sounds to me that one of the 

3 simplifying approaches to dealing with this 

4 dilemma is for construction workers that come 

5 along, when you don't know the duration of 

6 exposure that he might have experienced, you 

7 don't have bioassay data for him, you want to 

8 assign a coworker intake to him, but you know 

9 the coworker model, if you used a full 

10 distribution, may or may not be appropriate. 

11 Why not apply the upper 95th percentile?

12 MEMBER MELIUS: This is Jim 

13 Melius. I would like to comment.

14 For the record, I am a Board 

15 Member. I am not conflicted.

16 You were doing well, John, until 

17 that last statement. But I think that you 

18 have to be able to have a coworker -- if you 

19 believe that the exposures or intake, whatever 

20 you want to call it, for construction workers 

21 has a different distribution than that for the 

22 production workers, and you have missing data 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

73 1 or unmonitored workers, whatever, I think you 

2 have to have a valid coworker model for them.

3 DR. MAURO: Jim, you are 

4 absolutely right.

5 MEMBER MELIUS: Judging that or 

6 showing that their distribution is similar to 

7 your other general production workers and they 

8 fit in, and so I think there is an obligation 

9 to demonstrate that. You may end up where 

10 John Mauro just suggested, but I think there 

11 has to be some sort of a statistical 

12 justification for that and ability to develop 

13 a coworker model to be able to evaluate that 

14 in some way.

15 DR. MAURO: Let me say I agree 

16 with that completely.

17 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes.

18 DR. MAURO: Because you can't just 

19 arbitrarily assume the 95th percentile will 

20 work for you, unless you have demonstrated 

21 that it will work for you.

22 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. There may be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

74 1 different ways of demonstrating that. I don't 

2 want to carry it too far.

3 DR. MAURO: Yes.

4 MEMBER MELIUS: But some of what I 

5 was hearing was, well, these data don't allow 

6 that. Then, I think you have got a problem.

7 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Dr. 

8 Melius. This is Mark Rolfes.

9 This is something that can be 

10 done, we believe, but in order to do this 

11 comparison, you would need details of an 

12 individual's actual employment and exposure 

13 potential. We don't have that information for 

14 non-claimants for this comparison. We can use 

15 a limited number of claimants to compare. 

16 Ultimately, what we would need to compare 

17 would be the total intake experienced by 

18 subcontractors versus regular employees and 

19 compare the difference in total intake.

20 For example, that short-term 

21 subcontractor could have been exposed for two 

22 weeks and could have had a higher bioassay 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

75 1 result versus an NLO employee who was 

2 chronically exposed the entire year and had a 

3 slightly lower bioassay result. You have to 

4 compare all the facts.

5 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. No, no, I 

6 understand that, Mark, and I don't disagree 

7 with that. But it seems to me that, and you 

8 are saying, well, you don't have their 

9 adequate work history records, and so forth, 

10 but you are going to have the first 

11 construction worker that comes along who 

12 wasn't monitored, or whatever, I mean, you 

13 have got to apply something there. I don't 

14 think you can do it arbitrarily.

15 Maybe eventually, after you have 

16 gotten enough information, then you will have 

17 a valid coworker model for them. That is 

18 prejudging what you have, and there may be 

19 other ways of approaching this. I don't want 

20 to jump too far ahead of you. But I think it 

21 is a significant issue you have got to address 

22 somehow.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

76 1 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark again.

2 Just to clarify, we would receive 

3 that information, the actual employment 

4 history information, for any claimant who 

5 applies for compensation with the Department 

6 of Labor and requires a dose reconstruction.

7 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes.

8 MR. ROLFES: We don't have that 

9 information for people who are not claimants. 

10 We don't have their actual employment 

11 information. So, we don't have information on 

12 employment and exposure duration for people 

13 who are not claimants.

14 MEMBER MELIUS: Then, I think you 

15 are telling me you are unable to develop a 

16 coworker model. I mean, think about that. 

17 Think about different approaches. Again, I 

18 don't want to jump ahead too far. Many of you 

19 are more familiar with what data is available 

20 than I am.

21 But I think there has to be some 

22 way of showing that for construction workers 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

77 1 or some of these other subcontractors that 

2 either the distribution of their intakes, 

3 whatever you want to call it, is similar to 

4 the production workers, and, therefore, a 

5 general model applies. If you can't show 

6 that, then you would have to develop a valid 

7 coworker model for those specific groups in 

8 order to be able to do dose reconstructions.

9 DR. GLOVER: So in general -- this 

10 is Sam Glover.

11 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes?

12 DR. GLOVER: We don't know when 

13 the relationship between any -- in a coworker 

14 model, all we have is the bioassay data for 

15 thousands of people.

16 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes.

17 DR. GLOVER: We don't know when an 

18 acute intake may have happened in relationship 

19 to their bioassay. And so, we are using this 

20 overall large mass of samples to evaluate what 

21 is the general output from the exposure 

22 potentials experienced at Fernald. And so, we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

78 1 don't know in general what this is.

2 Now we believe, if you have a 

3 short-term worker who maybe his employment and 

4 duration will be very closely tied to when 

5 that happened, you may bias high the results 

6 because you are closer to it, and I figure you 

7 are going to drive it high. So, if anything, 

8 you are being claimant-favorable, and the 

9 intake rate would be higher than what the 

10 normal population may be, if those assumptions 

11 hold true.

12 So, you know, you can still do the 

13 comparison. It doesn't invalidate all these 

14 things, but it is a potential reason why there 

15 may be a difference when you evaluate the 

16 results.

17 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. This is Jim 

18 Melius again.

19 I think you need to work through 

20 this and see, but everything I hear, it is a 

21 significant problem.

22 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark again.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

79 1 I think we can maybe prepare 

2 something, once again, to show, for example, a 

3 subcontractor who had a higher, say, 20 

4 microgram-per-liter excretion rate following a 

5 two-week exposure period. We can compare 

6 something along those lines to someone who is 

7 chronically exposed for the entire year, but 

8 only had perhaps a 10-microgram-per-liter 

9 excretion rate. You could compare the total 

10 intakes, and you would find that the total 

11 intake would be higher for the person who had 

12 the chronic intake rate for the entire year. 

13 So, you would have to compare the total intake 

14 to total intake. 

15 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes.

16 MR. ROLFES: At this point, we 

17 don't have any reason to believe that the 

18 subcontractor population is any different than 

19 the full NLO work population, just because 

20 this work done by subcontractors in the 

21 earlier years was actually done by NLO site 

22 employees. So, we have no reason to believe 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

80 1 that the employment duties or job duties 

2 changed over time between the two populations.

3 MEMBER MELIUS: Well, but my 

4 response to that, Mark, would be that I don't 

5 think you have demonstrated that they are the 

6 same. I think there needs to be some 

7 demonstration of that. Certainly, the SC&A 

8 report certainly suggests that there may be 

9 differences. I think, at least from my 

10 perspective, it behooves you, NIOSH, to 

11 address that issue. There may be different 

12 ways of addressing it. I don't know.

13 But I don't think you can just 

14 say, well, we have little differences in how 

15 they worked and how they were sampled, and so 

16 forth, and therefore, they are the same. You 

17 certainly haven't convinced me.

18 MR. ROLFES: Okay. We can do 

19 something along those lines, if the Work Group 

20 would like for us to do that or the Advisory 

21 Board.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: This is Brad 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

81 1 again.

2 We have had a lot of discussions 

3 around this. We have been discussing this for 

4 numerous Work Groups. What it is basically 

5 going to come down to at the end of this, we 

6 have got to decide a path forward.

7 Paul, I know that you want to 

8 speak.

9 But I have got one thing that 

10 keeps popping out here. You keep talking as 

11 if the subcontractors are always short-term 

12 for two weeks there, or whatever. And that is 

13 true in a case, but you have got a whole other 

14 section of subcontractors that have been out 

15 there for years. I don't think that you can 

16 classify -- my question is now, so are we 

17 going to divide the subcontractors into the 

18 short-term ones and the long-term ones?

19 We have had a gentleman here for 

20 the last few Work Group meetings who was out 

21 there for 25 years. So, to say this was just 

22 a short-term exposure, I beg to differ for 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

82 1 that on the contractor. I don't know how you 

2 are going to be able to determine this.

3 I know that it was said earlier 

4 that we have got 90 percent of all NLO 

5 employees' and subcontractors' bioassay 

6 records. We are building this coworker model 

7 to be able to take care of the other 10 

8 percent. Is that fairly correct?

9 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

11 MR. ROLFES: And to clarify, those 

12 long-term employees are typically not 

13 unmonitored employees. The longer the 

14 employee is there, the more likely it is that

15 they are monitored in just about every case we 

16 reviewed. There may be exceptions, but what 

17 we are talking about is the unmonitored 

18 subcontractors. Those are the ones that had 

19 the short duration of employment and didn't 

20 provide bioassay data. That is what we are 

21 trying to develop, the correction factor for 

22 these short-term employees.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

83 1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, and I 

2 understand that, but we have been to numerous 

3 ones of these meetings, and we have numerous 

4 subcontractors, especially that were there for 

5 years, and they say they weren't monitored. 

6 Now you say that they are. But I really 

7 haven't seen anything that ties down that they 

8 were, until we go through a FOIA request, and 

9 so forth.

10 So, when we build this model, this 

11 model is going to have to address everything 

12 on that. Because if they have been 

13 unmonitored, and maybe they were out there 

14 for, if they were out there a year, I classify 

15 them as a longer-term employee.

16 So, I am really having a hard time 

17 following what we have really got and what we 

18 don't. 

19 DR. MAURO: This is John.

20 I have an idea. Let's say you 

21 grab 100 random samples of claimants that you 

22 know to be contractors for a given year. I'm 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

84 1 not sure if you can do that, but you just grab 

2 them and you say, okay, let's compile all of 

3 their bioassay data. Don't even talk about 

4 intakes because we realize it is going to be 

5 hard to predict what that intake is because of 

6 the timing.

7 But let's just compile their 

8 bioassay data. Maybe they have two or three 

9 urine samples per person per year. And make a 

10 distribution of what the picocuries per liter 

11 are in that group of contractors.

12 For this same time period, grab 

13 another set from the workers, the employees, 

14 the Fernald employees, and make a similar 

15 plot. See if there is a difference in the 

16 distribution of the concentration. Stay with 

17 me for a minute.

18 According to your theory that we 

19 are postulating here, you are saying you do 

20 expect to see a difference. That might result 

21 in your concluding that there was a higher 

22 intake amongst the contractors, for the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

85 1 reasons we just discussed, that is not true. 

2 The higher bioassay that you might see may 

3 very well be a result of the patterns of 

4 exposure and how the samples are collected 

5 and, therefore, be a false difference. But 

6 that is what you are stuck with. Maybe you 

7 are stuck with that.

8 So, what happens, then, is if you 

9 get that mean of the construction workers, and 

10 you find that the mean in becquerels per liter 

11 in the urine is a factor of two higher, three 

12 higher, whatever, you are going to end up 

13 saying, well, lacking any other information, 

14 we are just going to assume that the intake 

15 for the construction workers in that year was 

16 a factor of two higher or three higher, or 

17 whatever it is, even though you recognize that 

18 it might be a false estimate because you 

19 really don't know what the pattern of intake 

20 was.

21 So, the worst thing you could do, 

22 the benefit of the doubt, would be, well, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

86 1 let's just assume that it is real and that the 

2 concentrations in the urine that we are seeing 

3 in the construction workers are, in fact, on 

4 the average a factor of two higher, at least 

5 in that year, as compared to all the other 

6 workers.

7 And you end up assigning a higher 

8 dose, but it seems to me that it would not be 

9 implausible, first of all, if it was a chronic 

10 exposure over a year. But since you don't 

11 know whether it was chronic or some short-term 

12 thing, you would be giving them the benefit of 

13 the doubt and assigning a higher dose that 

14 perhaps is not, in fact, higher. But since 

15 you don't know, you have no choice but to do 

16 that.

17 In other words, I am sort of 

18 offering -- I often do this -- offering up a 

19 strategy that might work that would be 

20 plausible, but also, at the same time, give 

21 the benefit of the doubt that the construction 

22 workers may very well have experienced higher 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

87 1 intakes in a given year.

2 That idea that I just threw out, 

3 is that something that rings true with the 

4 other technical folks around the table? Or do 

5 you think that maybe that is not the right way 

6 to go?

7 MR. STIVER: John, this is John 

8 Stiver. May I can get a word in here.

9 I understand where you are going 

10 with this. I am just looking at kind of a 

11 timeline here and what might be practical from 

12 a dose reconstruction standpoint.

13 From 1985 on, they have bioassay 

14 data for the construction workers and for the 

15 NLO employees. From what I am hearing, they 

16 are not really all that different during that 

17 timeframe.

18 During the pre-1985, what I am 

19 hearing is that we have got this Type 50 data 

20 for both construction workers and non21 construction workers, which represents this 

22 short-duration type of a sample where you are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

88 1 probably going to overexaggerate or you are 

2 going to overestimate any given intake unless 

3 you are able to adjust for the time of intake. 

4 That is the kind of information they don't 

5 have. They don't have the information on the 

6 start dates and the end dates. You just have 

7 these samples, and you can kind of make some 

8 inferences, but you just are left with this 

9 open-ended range of potential intakes based on 

10 that data.

11 Therefore, I am also hearing from 

12 earlier in the discussions there are data for 

13 these subcontractors in that early period that 

14 are not the Type 50. That goes to, in my 

15 mind, would it be possible to identify 

16 construction workers who may not have had just 

17 the Type 50 or may have had some of these 

18 longer-term monitoring results, which would 

19 then allow us to compare, given that you had 

20 an adequate sample size. At that point, you 

21 would have all the data you would need to do 

22 some kind of a side-by-side comparison.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

89 1 In this initial run that Harry and 

2 Bob did, we thought we were really looking at 

3 that very type of analysis. It turns out that 

4 we have kind of an apples-and-oranges thing 

5 here.

6 So, I don't know if it is 

7 intractable at this point in terms of doing a 

8 real comparison of like-type results that 

9 doesn't have this confounding factor of the 

10 short-term spot-intakes, or whether you are 

11 basically stuck with that. I guess that might 

12 be a question for Mark and Gene, if there are 

13 those types of data available that might fill 

14 in that gap for us.

15 MR. ROLFES: Before I respond, I 

16 wanted to offer Dr. Ziemer the opportunity to 

17 speak.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I am not 

19 even sure I remember my original question.

20 (Laughter.)

21 A lot of things have been mulling 

22 around in my mind.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

90 1 Just for clarity, NIOSH, what you 

2 guys are proposing now for your newest 

3 coworker model is to include the Type 50 

4 samples, which you didn't include before, 

5 which actually drives the value upward because 

6 you are assuming it is chronic rather than 

7 these short-term exposures.

8 We know, in the way you do 

9 chronic, you assume a long-term exposure that 

10 led to that urine sample. So, that drives the 

11 coworker model up. And you are saying it 

12 might be a factor of two.

13 As I understand it, depending on 

14 how you utilize that data, I think SC&A is 

15 saying it may be five to eight times higher.

16 MR. STIVER: It can be, yes.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: And my original 

18 question was, based on what you have heard 

19 today about the Type 50 samples, what would be 

20 needed? Because it is that factor of two 

21 versus five to eight is sort of the issue. 

22 Would what John Mauro is proposing answer the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

91 1 question?

2 The problem I am having is, one of 

3 the problems is, that NIOSH has indicated that 

4 it appears that most of those contractor 

5 samples in the HIS-20 database were the Code 

6 50 samples. I mean, there is a statement. 

7 NIOSH has concluded it meant -- well, this is 

8 actually your interpretation of NIOSH. This 

9 is SC&A's interpretation. "NIOSH has 

10 concluded that many of the contractor bioassay 

11 records in the HIS-20 database are denoted as 

12 sample Type 50."

13 That tells me that, even though 

14 you don't know all the jobs, you do know 

15 whether the samples are contractor or 

16 subcontractor versus what? When you say 

17 "contractor," what are you talking about here? 

18 You are not talking about construction 

19 necessarily.

20 MR. ROLFES: Correct me if I am 

21 wrong, Jim, but --

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: I mean the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

92 1 operator of the site is the contractor.

2 MR. ROLFES: Right, right. We 

3 would be referring to a subcontractor such as 

4 a construction subcontractor.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, your statement 

6 that many of the contractor records, are you 

7 really meaning subcontractors?

8 MR. STIVER: I meant subcontractor 

9 records.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

11 MR. STIVER: For these 

12 construction workers. I am trying to think, 

13 is there some, that missing piece of data 

14 there that might --

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, are you able 

16 to identify that much without knowing job 

17 categories?

18 MR. ROLFES: Yes, we can identify 

19 who the subcontractor employees were.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Without having a 

21 claim or anything?

22 MR. ROLFES: Correct, correct.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

93 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: That you can do?

2 MR. ROLFES: That comes from the 

3 hard-copy records which we analyzed separate 

4 from the HIS-20 database.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: And you have 

6 already identified that a large number of 

7 those are the Type 50 samples?

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Most of them or --

10 MR. ROLFES: I think, essentially, 

11 all of the subcontractor urinalysis results 

12 were either Type 59 or Type 50 samples.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Up to a year when 

14 they sort of stopped doing that in the 

15 eighties?

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: `85, roughly.

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

18 MR. ROLFES: But the Type 50 and 

19 59 sample is not exclusive to subcontractors.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. I 

21 understand that. I understand that. Right.

22 What you did is you re-analyzed 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

94 1 everything putting the Type 50s back in, and 

2 that raises your --

3 MR. ROLFES: That would raise the 

4 intake --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- your assigned 

6 coworker model data --

7 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- in your mind, 

9 about a factor of two?

10 MR. ROLFES: And SC&A's --

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: And SC&A's was 

12 about a factor of five to eight in certain 

13 cases.

14 I was trying to get a feel for 

15 what information was missing for you. Because 

16 early in the discussion today we talked about 

17 going back to some original records, the 

18 written records, that might help resolve that 

19 part of it. Is that something different than 

20 what John Mauro is suggesting?

21 MR. STIVER: It is a little 

22 different.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

95 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think what John 

2 is suggesting is a good idea, but I am not 

3 sure, because if you sample the claims, it 

4 looks like the construction worker or the 

5 subcontractor data is going to be largely Type 

6 50s anyway, and you are back to the original 

7 problem.

8 MR. STIVER: You are basically 

9 going to have what would be -- correct me if 

10 I'm wrong, John, or if I get this wrong --

11 but, yes, you would be able to look at 

12 strictly the subcontractors versus the NLO 

13 site employees.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

15 MR. STIVER: But you still have 

16 the confounding factor that you have got 

17 predominantly these Type 50s for the 

18 subcontractors. So, really, what John was 

19 saying, if you couldn't get any greater detail 

20 on the periods of employment for those 

21 workers, what you could do would be just say, 

22 okay, even though we realize this distribution 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

96 1 for the subcontractors is biased, we are going 

2 to go ahead and assign to them to be claimant3 favorable, to account for --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And you will 

5 assume that it is a chronic exposure?

6 MR. STIVER: And assume it would 

7 be a chronic exposure.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: And compare it to 

9 the others. But isn't that sort of what you 

10 did in a way?

11 MR. ROLFES: What John Mauro has 

12 suggested is what we have completed already 

13 and we have proposed.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Right. That 

15 is where they are a factor of two.

16 DR. MAURO: No, I'm sorry to 

17 interrupt, but, no, you blended them in first. 

18 I am saying, no, let's just look at the 

19 contractors by themselves before you blend 

20 them in and see if, in fact, there is a 

21 difference in the mean concentration in the 

22 urine in that population of contractors as 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

97 1 compared to the big population of, I guess, 

2 the current database.

3 So, I don't know if I have heard 

4 that yet, you know, that that, in fact, was 

5 done and what that difference is.

6 DR. GLOVER: From a programmatic 

7 standpoint, I just sat in on a very long, 

8 internal NIOSH SRS discussion regarding 

9 coworkers versus the general population. We 

10 are going to separately analyze the coworkers 

11 for SRS, or the construction workers, and 

12 compare that to the bulk. And the intake 

13 rates, they were going to determine what is 

14 the coworker model for this guy as you do 

15 these quarterly breakouts, and does the 

16 distribution look any different than that?

17 So, I think that is what John 

18 said.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Particularly at 

20 the upper tail.

21 DR. GLOVER: So, we look at the 

22 50th and 84th percentiles.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

98 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

2 DR. GLOVER: Just for internal. 

3 So, we are all going into different -- I know 

4 that is what SRS is going to put on. That is 

5 what the Board is going to see, and that is 

6 what SC&A is going to see from the SRS.

7 MR. STIVER: Okay. So, we kind of 

8 have a precedent established, then?

9 DR. MAURO: That is great. Then, 

10 this would be consistent with that.

11 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark again.

12 We have done this for Fernald. 

13 There are differences between the excretion 

14 rates of subcontractors versus non15 subcontractors, but you need to compare the 

16 total intake. That is the key, because a 

17 subcontractor could have a higher excretion 

18 rate than an NLO employee.

19 DR. MAURO: And, Mark, I am sorry 

20 to interrupt, but I agree with you. But I 

21 heard you say that you may not have enough 

22 information for you to convert the excretion 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

99 1 rate to intake. So, you really don't know, 

2 and you are not going to be able to come up 

3 with the intake.

4 All I am saying is, well, then, 

5 just assume that excretion rate is from 

6 chronic, which would be certainly conservative 

7 and claimant-favorable, and assume it occurred 

8 continuously over the course of a year.

9 I mean, if you can't get to the 

10 intake rates from that, it seems to me you 

11 have no choice but to do that or claim you 

12 can't build a coworker model.

13 MR. ROLFES: One could do that 

14 comparison, if it was a chronic annual intake. 

15 We do have information for subcontractors who 

16 are claimants, and that is the clarification. 

17 We do not have it at this time for people who 

18 are not claimants.

19 You know, a person would have to 

20 file a claim in the first place for us to 

21 receive their data to do that analysis. 

22 Because we have maybe 1400 claimants, I think, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

100 1 from the Fernald site. There were several 

2 more thousand individuals who worked at the 

3 site. So, it would take a lot of time, money, 

4 and effort to go and look for data on 

5 employment histories for people who are not 

6 claimants.

7 DR. GLOVER: Would it be a fair 

8 statement at this point to say that we could 

9 take what we have heard from the Board under 

10 advisement and respond back? I think I have 

11 heard from the Board something consistent with 

12 what we have heard at other sites.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: I just want us, 

14 when we walk away from here, that we have a 

15 path forward that we are going to be able to 

16 track, not just, yes, we want you to go out 

17 there and reevaluate this. Because this has 

18 been to the Board for quite a while, and I 

19 just want to make sure that we get to finish 

20 sure where are we going with this. Because we 

21 have kind of been back and forth.

22 I will be honest, my thing was 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

101 1 that, if we have got all this information and 

2 we can separate out the subcontractors from 

3 the contractor, well, why are we even having a 

4 coworker model, bottom line, except for that 

5 10 percent there?

6 So, I was under the impression 

7 that we couldn't really for sure separately 

8 out who was a subcontractor and who wasn't. 

9 And now, today, I am hearing that we can.

10 So, I just want to make sure that, 

11 when we leave from this discussion, that we 

12 have got a path forward. I understand what 

13 you are saying, Sam. So, my question is, from 

14 SC&A and NIOSH, what are we looking at for a 

15 path forward, to be able to bring this to an 

16 end?

17 MR. BARTON: This is Bob Barton 

18 with SC&A.

19 I think, through all these 

20 discussions, the major hurdle with all this is 

21 the information about the employment period. 

22 Because if these are acute intakes that we are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

102 1 seeing with these Type 50s or these contractor 

2 records, how do you take that result and make 

3 it an intake?

4 And it seems like, from the 

5 electronic records and even the hard-copy 

6 bioassay request forms that we have looked at, 

7 we really can't figure out when these people 

8 worked, for how long, to make it a meaningful 

9 intake.

10 Now, if you go to the claimant 

11 files themselves, then you get that 

12 information all of a sudden. So, it seems 

13 like, if you really wanted to compare the 

14 intakes of the two groups, you would have to 

15 go in and sample claimant records.

16 MR. ROLFES: Correct.

17 MR. STIVER: And, Mark, how many? 

18 Do you have a feel for the number of 

19 subcontractor claimant files that are 

20 currently available, without going and --

21 MR. ROLFES: We had gone through a 

22 spreadsheet a while back looking at exposure 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

103 1 information for each claim. At that time, we 

2 might have had only 1100 or 1200 claims, I 

3 think, from the Fernald site. We had gone 

4 through and identified how many of those 1100 

5 or 1200 claimants had no uranium urinalysis.

6 From my recollection, it was just 

7 under 100. So, it was a little less than the 

8 10 percent that have referred to.

9 I think we identified 

10 approximately 10 of those cases that appeared 

11 to be subcontractors. Now we have to update 

12 the analysis, if that is something that you 

13 would like.

14 MR. STIVER: Sorry to interrupt, 

15 but how about the subset that actually do have 

16 the bioassays? You have the bioassay and you 

17 have employment periods that you could --

18 MR. ROLFES: I don't have a number 

19 for you right now. That would be something 

20 that we can definitely get back to you with.

21 MR. STIVER: That might give that 

22 hook that we really need to get a handle on 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

104 1 what a reasonable employment period would be. 

2 Or at least you could get intakes for those 

3 people.

4 MR. ROLFES: Right.

5 MR. STIVER: Or you might not be 

6 able to bound it otherwise.

7 MR. ROLFES: Gene, this is Mark. 

8 Is that something that we might be able to 

9 pull together quickly?

10 MR. POTTER: The claimants --

11 MR. ROLFES: Yes, out of our 

12 claimant population, could we identify how 

13 many subcontractors and what employment 

14 duration they had, and whether or not they had 

15 bioassay data in their files or in the hard16 copy records that we've --

17 MR. POTTER: Yes, this is 

18 something we have done before, but have not 

19 updated recently.

20 MR. ROLFES: Correct. I think we 

21 might have done this maybe about two years 

22 back, when this initial issue was identified.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

105 1 MR. POTTER: This is Gene again.

2 If I could just maybe go back to 

3 one of my original points, John Mauro has 

4 presented an idea which certainly would seem 

5 to represent an upper end for subcontractor 

6 intake estimates. We have presented one. And 

7 I believe John Stiver at the beginning of this 

8 discussion seemed to agree that these are all 

9 issues that could be worked out.

10 I am not in a position to make up 

11 NIOSH policy, obviously. But this is a set of 

12 circumstances we have here that could come to 

13 some resolution in the technical basis or 

14 coworker arena rather than taking the Working 

15 Group's time up discussing this as an SEC 

16 issue.

17 DR. GLOVER: But that is your 

18 decision.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: That comes down to 

20 our decision. But I guess, as a Board Member, 

21 I want to be able to make sure that I can 

22 review this with scientific, sound 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

106 1 information. Because it could be an SEC if we 

2 can't get the information out there.

3 There gets to be a point to where, 

4 yes, this is bounding, but is it plausible, 

5 too? So, I want to make sure that we address 

6 this as clearly as we can.

7 And I understand what you are 

8 saying, but this, then, comes down to the 

9 Board's decision. I understand what you are 

10 saying, but we have also got to look at this 

11 from a plausibility standpoint. We just can't 

12 throw a number out there and say, "Well, yes, 

13 that's going to be bounding," because we have 

14 got to have some scientific validity to back 

15 that information.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: If there are two 

17 different distributions, but let's just 

18 suppose there are, one for these 

19 subcontractors and one for the other folks, 

20 would NIOSH then have two coworker models? Or 

21 would you take the upper of the two and say 

22 that's the coworker model for everybody? Or 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

107 1 is that a decision that would have to yet be 

2 made?

3 MR. ROLFES: That is a policy 

4 decision --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: A policy decision.

6 MR. ROLFES: -- that would have 

7 to be made. I mean, that is not a matter of 

8 the scientific ability to create the 

9 distribution.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right, right. It 

11 is a matter of, okay, now that we have done 

12 it, how do we apply it then?

13 MR. ROLFES: Right.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Because you might 

15 have cases where you -- well, maybe not --

16 where you can't really identify. I guess if 

17 you can't identify, then you always use the 

18 upper one anyway. But, okay, that is 

19 premature then. I just wondered if there was 

20 a --

21 MR. ROLFES: Trying to focus back 

22 on reality, the number of claimants that we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

108 1 complete dose reconstructions for for the 

2 Fernald site, in reality, there's very, very 

3 few that we actually need to apply --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

5 MR. ROLFES: -- a coworker intake 

6 model.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

8 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Mark, I have 

9 got a question for you. You know, you talk 

10 about the subcontractors, and maybe you have 

11 some of the subcontractors come in and they do 

12 things like fencing. Maybe they do some of 

13 the painting on the outside of the building 

14 and stuff.

15 But, then, you have these other 

16 contractors like ABC Destruction that comes in 

17 on a regular basis over a period of years, but 

18 maybe they only may be there for days, weeks, 

19 or just a few months. They rotated their 

20 people in and out there constantly because 

21 maybe they need the tenders for a few days to 

22 rip out a bunch of stuff before they have the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

109 1 heavy-equipment guys come in.

2 And now those types of jobs and 

3 positions, you would expect to see a greater 

4 chance of higher acute intakes than those 

5 people who are out there painting a post or 

6 mowing along fencelines, things like that.

7 Can you identify that difference 

8 or are you going to put them together?

9 MR. ROLFES: Yes, that is a good 

10 point. I mean, that is what our discussion is 

11 about.

12 You know, if we don't have the 

13 employment information for that claimant or 

14 for that person, we would have to have them 

15 file a claim to get their employment 

16 information. From there, we would be able to 

17 identify what their worst-case potential 

18 exposure could be.

19 In a case that we didn't know that 

20 a person only entered into a radiological area 

21 one time, but they provided a bioassay result, 

22 if we had their employment information saying 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

110 1 that they worked six months, we would assume 

2 for that entire six months that they were 

3 potentially exposed, and we use their bioassay 

4 result to assign an intake for that entire 

5 six-month period that they were employed.

6 DR. GLOVER: Oftentimes, these 

7 coworker models -- and I apologize, Brad. I 

8 saw you were about ready to speak.

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: No, no.

10 DR. GLOVER: We actually use --

11 and, Mark, you look at a lot of these -- but 

12 just because a guy works a few days, we take 

13 that six-month integrated exposure rate and 

14 multiply it. We give him that intake. This

15 is the intake. We don't use a two-day rate, 

16 because that two-day rate out here may have 

17 been what gave the guy the intake in general, 

18 because we don't know the intake rates when we 

19 do develop these coworker models.

20 And so, we don't say, okay, this 

21 is a micro-R per day and we are figuring out a 

22 very small intake rate, and that is what we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

111 1 assign. We actually still use these bigger 

2 intake rate sets or intakes.

3 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver. 

4 I have a question for Sam.

5 A while back, you mentioned 

6 Savannah River, that you are looking at these 

7 two different distributions. It sounds to me 

8 like you have got them pretty well 

9 characterized as far as intakes with the 

10 construction workers versus the site 

11 employees.

12 Now were you able to locate this 

13 kind of employment history data for the 

14 Savannah River construction workers, the 

15 subcontractors? Do you know?

16 DR. GLOVER: I don't believe that 

17 -- from a policy and from an analysis 

18 standpoint, NIOSH doesn't want to try to go in 

19 and dig out. I believe that if we can leave 

20 this at compare the two distributions without 

21 trying to micro -- because that becomes, if we 

22 start trying to do this at every site, that is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

112 1 going to be very difficult.

2 MR. STIVER: That's true.

3 DR. GLOVER: And if it is still a 

4 claimant-favorable number -- that is why I 

5 think it wouldn't be a bad thing to walk away 

6 with -- the decisions made here on the spur of 

7 what our final path forward is, it is hard to 

8 speak for NIOSH as to what the final number 

9 needs to be.

10 MR. STIVER: Yes, I was just 

11 trying to seek clarification of whether that 

12 type of data might have been available for 

13 some of the sites or if you just looked at the 

14 distributions and, like John Mauro had 

15 proposed, just take the two different 

16 distributions and just assume there are 

17 chronic intakes.

18 DR. GLOVER: Yes, depending on the 

19 site, they may be able, coupled with external 

20 dosimetry programs and what monitoring -- you 

21 know, so there is other practices that could 

22 perhaps be done.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

113 1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I want to 

2 caution us on one thing, too. I know that Sam 

3 kind of touched on this.

4 Being on the Savannah River Work 

5 Group, I realize what quality records that 

6 they do have. So, the way they were kind of 

7 split up is a little bit different than what 

8 Fernald was in the earlier years. I think we 

9 would have a much harder time separating these 

10 two groups out.

11 This is why we went to one-size12 fits-all. Because my understanding was -- and 

13 you can correct me if I'm wrong, Mark -- but 

14 up until `85 or so far, the Ohio Lead people 

15 were intermixed with the contractors. The 

16 issue gets into that is all well and fine; we 

17 can separate out who the subcontractors are 

18 when we have the hard-copy data. But if we 

19 have another 1,000 or 2,000 people that 

20 haven't filed a claim, we don't have their 

21 employment history.

22 This puts us right back to what 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

114 1 Sandra was saying earlier on this. This puts 

2 us into a situation of how do we go about 

3 this.

4 So, I suggest, looking at the time 

5 and the way everything is going on, I would 

6 like to take a comfort break right now. And 

7 then, we can come back and we can discuss a 

8 path forward that we want to be able to do, if 

9 this is all right with everybody.

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, that sounds good.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

12 MR. KATZ: Okay. By my clock, it 

13 is 10:50. So, 10 minutes you said? Fifteen 

14 minutes? How much?

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: Let's give them 15 

16 minutes.

17 MR. KATZ: Fifteen minutes. Okay. 

18 So, about five after, we will kick back in.

19 I am just putting the phone on 

20 mute.

21 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

22 went off the record at 10:51 a.m. and went 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

115 1 back on the record at 11:06 a.m.)

2 MR. KATZ: So, welcome back.

3 This is the Fernald Work Group. 

4 We just finished a break.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I guess what 

6 I am looking at is the other Board Members and 

7 SC&A and NIOSH to be able to determine a path 

8 forward, which way we want to go, what we have 

9 got to be able to go to, to come to a 

10 conclusion on this.

11 Because we have been dealing with 

12 this for quite a while. We need to come to a 

13 resolution.

14 Ray, you made a comment to me that 

15 still needs to go onto the record, but you 

16 spoke to me about it earlier, about the 

17 contractor jumping back and forth.

18 MR. BEATTY: Right. My name is 

19 Ray Beatty, a former worker. I served for 14 

20 years.

21 Having a lot of dealings with the 

22 union business and working on the Davis-Bacon 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

116 1 Committee, I had a lot of interaction with the 

2 building trades in that respect. It wasn't 

3 uncommon to see building trades guys come out 

4 of the hall and come and work in-house, 

5 whether it be as a Fernald Common Trade Labor 

6 Council Union represented or they might become 

7 a salaried person. And then, when that 

8 campaign was over, or whatever they were 

9 assigned to do, they would go back to the 

10 building trades. So, there was some back-and11 forth movement there.

12 And keeping that separation would 

13 be key on doing this two-times-a-dose thing. 

14 So, you would have to take it into 

15 consideration.

16 And another thing, I kind of 

17 detect something, too. There seemed to be a 

18 little bit of a problem possibly of 

19 identifying, but I have since learned that at 

20 Savannah River site they are trying to use 

21 badge numbers to segment or break apart the 

22 building trades or the subcontractors from the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

117 1 in-house.

2 That could very easily be done at 

3 Fernald, I think. Because of the uniqueness 

4 of badge number assignments, that might be an 

5 easy question to say, like DOE, as to what low 

6 number was assigned to NLO, say all the in7 house union-represented employees versus 

8 salaried. And then, there was a separation 

9 for the building trades.

10 I know that for a fact, that in11 house union employees were four-digit numbers; 

12 salaried had five, because I had that 

13 separation one time myself for a short period 

14 of time.

15 MR. ROLFES: You are right, Ray. 

16 This is Mark Rolfes.

17 When we had badge numbers 

18 available, there was typically a 5000 series. 

19 They were usually in a form of F-5000 

20 something or R-5000 and something.

21 MR. BEATTY: Okay.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, we have looked 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

118 1 at being able to separate them by badge 

2 number?

3 MR. ROLFES: Yes, but, once again, 

4 let me go back to the hard copies. The 

5 bioassay data for subcontractors is usually 

6 delineated. If there isn't a badge number, 

7 they are delineated by the subcontractor name.

8 MR. STIVER: So, what you are 

9 saying, then, is that the bioassay data 

10 provides a better identification than, say, 

11 the badges?

12 MR. ROLFES: It tells us which 

13 company they worked for and would give a 

14 better indicator as to whether they were 

15 involved in construction or something else.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I guess I am 

17 looking at suggestions to be able to move 

18 forward. Because, right now, we have not been 

19 able to come to a conclusion of what to be 

20 able to do with this.

21 On the one hand, we feel that it 

22 is able to be bounded. But, on the other 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

119 1 hand, I am having a hard time saying that we 

2 can justify it, too.

3 So, I guess I am looking to other 

4 Board Members, SC&A, and NIOSH, to be able to 

5 say which way we want to be able to proceed 

6 with this area. Because we've got to come to 

7 a conclusion with it.

8 So, Paul?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: I think I heard, 

10 Mark, one of your colleagues say that you had 

11 actually done a similar analysis before, 

12 similar to what John described.

13 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: And that perhaps 

15 that could be updated using some of the 

16 additional claims that have come along. If it 

17 is feasible to do that, and recognizing that 

18 even though we are talking about a coworker 

19 model that will probably only apply to less 

20 than 1 percent of the workers who made claims 

21 or something like that, a very small number, 

22 you still need to have it, right?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

120 1 MR. ROLFES: Yes, it wouldn't be 

2 10 percent. It would be about 10 claims that 

3 we would need to apply this to.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, there may be 

5 future claims.

6 MR. ROLFES: And there could be 

7 some, yes.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: But, in any event, 

9 you need to have some kind of a coworker 

10 model, apparently.

11 MR. ROLFES: Right.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: One gets a little 

13 concerned about we spend 90 percent of our 

14 effort trying to deal with those few claims. 

15 But, be that as it may, is it feasible to do 

16 something along the lines of what John 

17 described, to ascertain differences in these 

18 distributions, and then to be able to make a 

19 decision as to what you do with that 

20 information. Or does SC&A need to look at 

21 more finer detail than they were able to do 

22 from the HIS-20 database, and try to resolve 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

121 1 that five-to-eight factor versus the two 

2 factor? I am just asking what is feasible to 

3 do to bring that --

4 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

5 I think that we came very close, 

6 really, to what John Mauro had mentioned 

7 earlier in our original analysis here, or at 

8 least as the first step in that, in this 

9 comparison, this draft comparison.

10 The difference being that the Type 

11 50 data that we looked at was a mixture of 

12 both subcontractors and non-subcontractors. 

13 So, to the extent that we could narrow that 

14 down to only the subcontractors, I think we 

15 would have the basis for this side-by-side 

16 comparison, looking to two distributions, 

17 acknowledging that, yes, you are somewhat 

18 comparing apples and oranges here because you 

19 have some of these spot-samples and short20 duration samples, predominantly for the 

21 subcontractors, and there is not so much for 

22 the others. But we could certainly make those 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

122 1 kinds of comparisons if we had that kind of 

2 purified, if you will, dataset.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: It appears to me 

4 for the other side, the large group, that the 

5 inclusion of the Type 50s probably has very 

6 little impact on the distribution, since it is 

7 a very small part of the distribution. So, 

8 whether you left it in, blended or not, 

9 probably is not going to affect that, but it 

10 will definitely affect the other side.

11 MR. STIVER: Well, I think we have 

12 seen, if you leave it in, basically, you are 

13 seeing there is an increase to 1.2, 1.5.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: A little bit.

15 MR. STIVER: Right.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Is that what it 

17 is?

18 MR. ROLFES: It is just a small 

19 increase in comparison, yes.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, right.

21 MR. STIVER: Whereas, it is quite 

22 a large increase, a factor of four, from what 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

123 1 we have seen.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

3 MR. STIVER: The other thing that 

4 we would like to look into, if possible, if 

5 NIOSH could investigate the availability of 

6 the employee records for claimants, and to 

7 what extent that data is there and usable. I 

8 mean, it might be possible to at least get 

9 some sort of a handle on what the employment 

10 periods were, what the distribution of those 

11 periods might be.

12 That seems to be the real final 

13 problem here, that one missing piece of 

14 information that we would need to get a robust 

15 model put together.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: The way I am 

17 seeing this is we have actually, in my mind, 

18 we have got a path forward, but it is kind of 

19 two-pronged. NIOSH needs the raw data, the 

20 raw information, from NIOSH, correct.

21 I guess this is actually NIOSH --

22 we can give suggestions to NIOSH, but, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

124 1 actually, NIOSH has the responsibility to give 

2 us their path forward of what they want to do. 

3 We can evaluate it past then, but I just want 

4 to make sure that we are not sending NIOSH off 

5 in a direction that is not going to be usable 

6 for us. 

7 And you said that you have already 

8 got the raw data, that it just may need to be 

9 updated?

10 MR. ROLFES: Yes, correct. We 

11 previously went through and looked at how many 

12 people were unmonitored and whether or not 

13 they were subcontractors. That was done about 

14 two years ago. So, we had to go through any 

15 additional claims that had been received since 

16 then.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So, that 

18 would have to be updated. Do you feel that 

19 that is going to change NIOSH's response of 

20 the .2 being a bounding coworker model? Or 

21 what I am trying to get to here, Mark, is I 

22 want to be in unison when we get this product, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

125 1 to be able to have SC&A actually continue on 

2 and look forward.

3 Because, to tell you the truth, in 

4 listening to what John said, I think that we 

5 have basically already done this to a point on 

6 either side. I am trying to figure out how to 

7 be able to tie this together and put this to 

8 bed one way or another.

9 So, I guess, what do you need?

10 MR. BARTON: Well, if I can make a 

11 comment here, one more, too, when we talked 

12 about going in and looking at these claimant 

13 records, what we really meant was to go in and 

14 find a group of contractors or subcontractors 

15 who have monitoring records. We can evaluate 

16 those claimants, evaluate their actual 

17 intakes.

18 Now we have an intake value that 

19 we can reasonably go and compare with the 

20 coworker group. Because, right now, we are 

21 kind of almost comparing apples and oranges 

22 because you might have some acute intakes that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

126 1 you try to compare the urinalysis values with 

2 chronic intakes, and that is kind of the gist 

3 of where NIOSH is coming from by saying, well, 

4 we are going to have some chronic intakes. 

5 So, this is going to bound the acute intakes.

6 Well, you could find that out if 

7 you went in and you found a sample of 

8 subcontractor claimants, evaluated their 

9 intake, and actually compared intakes to 

10 intakes, because that is where the real meat 

11 and potatoes is.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. This 

13 coworker data, this coworker model is not just 

14 going to be for contractors. It is going to 

15 be used for everybody, if I am understanding 

16 this.

17 MR. ROLFES: We have developed a 

18 uranium intake distribution for all employees 

19 who were potentially unmonitored at the site. 

20 What we have proposed for subcontractors was 

21 to multiply the full distribution of all 

22 employees that we have available to us by a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

127 1 factor rounded up to two for subcontractors 

2 who were not monitored.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, the Fernald 

4 employees would be given one coworker model, 

5 and the contractors times by two?

6 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

7 DR. GLOVER: But that is 

8 consistent at Hanford.

9 MR. STIVER: We will use this 

10 pooled dataset, and then use it to apply 

11 different values to different subgroups.

12 DR. GLOVER: Yes.

13 MR. BEATTY: Could I interject 

14 something? I am sorry for interrupting.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: Could you state 

16 your name?

17 MR. BEATTY: Ray Beatty, and I am 

18 a former worker.

19 To try to rationalize what is 

20 being done here, it is difficult for me 

21 because of being a former worker, not in a 

22 production era, but in the cleanup. I can 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

128 1 only fathom what the production workers were 

2 exposed to versus building trades or subs, 

3 with the sub group coming in to maybe do a new 

4 facility or construct this thing. And there 

5 is no radiological hazards yet there, until 

6 the production people come in and put it 

7 there. But, yet, they are going to be 

8 assigned a higher number to do a dose 

9 reconstruction.

10 Do you see my point? Like if 

11 someone tried to file a claim in 1951 or 1952, 

12 prior to production even starting up -- and 

13 let's face it, construction built the site, 

14 but there was no constituents of concern at 

15 that time. So, there would really be no basis 

16 for a claim there. It would be easy to not 

17 even file a claim. Or you can talk to someone 

18 and say you can't claim something that wasn't 

19 there yet. That is kind of what I am saying 

20 with the building trades on doing certain 

21 campaigns.

22 Now, in the cleanup years, just 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

129 1 the opposite. They were exposed to a lot of 

2 mixed waste, gross contamination coming 

3 together with all this residue. So, it is 

4 just the opposite of what it was when they 

5 were building the new facilities.

6 MS. BALDRIDGE: Can I interject? 

7 This is Sandra.

8 Some of the documents in the 

9 petition state the dilapidated conditions and 

10 the need for repair and going in and changing 

11 from one operation to another. In those 

12 cases, the workers coming in at that level 

13 would be exposed to all the dust and all the 

14 contamination that was there in the tearing15 down and reconstruction. So, it would 

16 definitely have a bearing, whether it was new 

17 construction on a clean slate or replacing a 

18 facility or repairing a part of a dust 

19 collector or, you know, something that was 

20 already assessed.

21 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes.

22 I understand exactly. What we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

130 1 would do in a case where we had an individual 

2 who wasn't monitored, we would give the 

3 benefit of the doubt to the claimant and 

4 assign an unmonitored intake to that worker, 

5 if we had no information to contradict that.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: But if they were 

7 there before the sources were brought, I 

8 assume that you wouldn't do that.

9 MR. ROLFES: Correct. We would 

10 not assign an intake prior to the site being a 

11 covered facility with radioactive materials on 

12 that site.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, it comes 

14 back to this: basically, in my feeling, Mark, 

15 it comes back to, if what NIOSH's stand is on 

16 this coworker model, do they -- ultimately, it 

17 is up to you to tell us what you are going to 

18 try and SC&A to be able to review that. We 

19 can give suggestions, and so forth, but I 

20 guess after today's talk I am looking at you 

21 and Sam both of where do we want to go? Where 

22 do we want to head from this?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

131 1 We have heard what our issues are 

2 and our problems. I am looking for a path 

3 forward.

4 MR. ROLFES: Well, our opinion is 

5 that we can develop a correction factor based 

6 upon the data that we have available. And 

7 ultimately, I guess it is up to the Advisory 

8 Board to decide whether they feel that that 

9 approach, whether it is claimant-favorable, 

10 whether it is appropriate.

11 I have heard a lot of discussion 

12 of sufficient accuracy lately. And what a 

13 professional health physicist has as an 

14 opinion of sufficient accuracy in the 

15 completion of dose reconstructions might be 

16 different from the definition of sufficient 

17 accuracy for members of the public, for 

18 claims, for members of the Advisory Board, 

19 coming from different perspectives.

20 So, ultimately, at the end of the 

21 day, we can make scientific recommendations 

22 and provide scientific approaches, but it is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

132 1 ultimately up to the Advisory Board and their 

2 contractor to decide what they feel is the

3 appropriate path forward.

4 DR. GLOVER: Brad? I'm sorry.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I think the 

6 only question in my mind for you folks is 

7 whether or not that factor of two changes with 

8 the newer, the additional data that you have. 

9 Your analysis was based on claims up to what, 

10 2009 or something?

11 MR. ROLFES: The factor of two 

12 would not change. That would just be, unless 

13 we received -- well, I don't see that factor 

14 changing based upon additional claimant data. 

15 That would just give us indications of how 

16 many additional people might have been 

17 unmonitored or monitored.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, I am thinking 

19 probably the number of claims or -- the claims 

20 aren't going to be that different from what 

21 you have already looked at in terms of the 

22 distribution. So, I guess I would be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

133 1 surprised if your two changed based on that. 

2 So, that leads me to think that we need to 

3 finish up what you guys are thinking about and 

4 asking about that five-to-eight or whatever 

5 those numbers were, whether or not that 

6 changes for you after you look at the hard7 copy stuff.

8 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think we would 

9 want to look at the hard-copy stuff and, also, 

10 the report that Gene mentioned, where they 

11 looked at employment duration and bioassay for 

12 two years. We could see that.

13 MR. ROLFES: To clarify what I 

14 said, Dr. Ziemer, the factor of two shouldn't 

15 change because we built our coworker model, 

16 the adjustment factors for subcontractors, 

17 based upon all the data available to us.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

19 MR. ROLFES: So, we already have 

20 data for non-claimants, their bioassay data.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

22 MR. ROLFES: So, the only thing 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

134 1 that we wouldn't have would be, when we are 

2 comparing the total intake between two 

3 different populations or two potentially 

4 different populations of workers, the total 

5 intake could possibly be different.

6 Once we get the subcontractors' 

7 employment duration, we would know their 

8 potential total intake, which could be 

9 compared to an NLO employee's total intake. 

10 So, that would change a little bit in the 

11 actual application of the coworker model. But 

12 the factor of two, the bottom line wouldn't 

13 change, as we have already rounded it up from 

14 the actual factor that we calculated. The 

15 highest factor for any years was a factor of 

16 1.61, I think, and we rounded that up to two. 

17 So, I don't see it jumping up based upon the 

18 approach that we --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: A few more cases, 

20 right?

21 MR. KATZ: Can I just ask a 

22 question? It seems like there is some talking 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

135 1 past each other on this.

2 What we heard today was that, I 

3 mean, John Mauro and SC&A sort of proposed a 

4 pure comparison versus the mixed comparison 

5 that you have performed. And so, it seems 

6 like the question is, does DCAS want to do 

7 that pure comparison to sort of verify what 

8 the real factors should be versus this mixed 

9 comparison, to button up this difference? It 

10 was sort of a substantial difference that 

11 there may be.

12 Like John Mauro said, you can just 

13 assume, as you did when you pooled them, that 

14 you treat them all as chronic, despite the 

15 fact that there are these differences, or 

16 whatever.

17 But I think that is what is on the 

18 table. Does DCAS want to do that analysis and 

19 at least give a chance of reconsidering what 

20 that figure is? Or are you standing by what 

21 you have, despite the discussion that was had?

22 DR. GLOVER: I think we would be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

136 1 willing to do it. I think we want to do it, 

2 and I was going to offer, would it help to 

3 take a few example DRs and say this is how it 

4 would be applied?

5 MR. ROLFES: I mean, that is 

6 ultimately we are getting down -- we could 

7 just compare intake to intake.

8 DR. GLOVER: Take some of these 

9 guys who are -- we can't do it for everybody, 

10 but maybe we could say that this is some 

11 examples of how it would be applied for a guy 

12 who has data, but, you know, compare how those 

13 intakes would have been used if he didn't, but 

14 here's what his real intake was.

15 MR. STIVER: It would almost be 

16 sort of a pilot study comparison where you say 

17 here are the dose reconstructions for people 

18 we have the data for, and under these two 

19 conditions, here's what ultimately --

20 DR. GLOVER: This is what the 

21 thing generated as his intake, and here is 

22 what the intake would have been if we had used 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

137 1 his bioassay data to actually do a best 

2 estimate.

3 I don't know what the timeframe 

4 is. We don't want this to drag on forever. 

5 That is why, if we have our --

6 MR. STIVER: Go ahead, Brad.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, and this is 

8 kind of the dilemma I am in, because I really 

9 don't want to take this to the Board right now 

10 and tell them that we have got a difference of 

11 basically 6 percent on either side, because 

12 NIOSH is saying two and we are seeing anywhere 

13 from five to eight. Because, to me, it 

14 doesn't look like we have done due diligence 

15 on this. We have got a very large spread 

16 there.

17 I understand what Mark has said is 

18 that this is what DCAS's stand is, the .2. 

19 This is where I am really having a problem of 

20 which way to push forward, because that is a 

21 big difference there.

22 MR. KATZ: I think they haven't 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

138 1 made a stand yet, right?

2 MR. ROLFES: It is not .2, but a 

3 factor of two, a multiplier of two, rather 

4 than .2.

5 But we have done a direct 

6 comparison for clarification on an annual 

7 basis of the actual uranium urinalysis 

8 excretion rates. We got similar results to 

9 what SC&A has already gotten.

10 If you take a look at one 

11 particular year, the factor was about 1.6, 

12 1.7, 1.7, and then it went up to 2.2, 3.6, 

13 1.8, up to a factor of five and six, back down 

14 to three, 1.8, and less than one, which was .9 

15 factor.

16 MR. BARTON: Mark, what are you 

17 reading off of right now?

18 MR. ROLFES: This is something 

19 that we had previously done and sent out.

20 MR. BARTON: Okay.

21 MR. ROLFES: It was a direct 

22 comparison of the subcontractor urinalyses 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

139 1 plus all of the Code 50 compared to the 

2 coworkers on an annual basis.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, Mark, excuse 

4 me for interrupting.

5 But this is something that SC&A 

6 has not seen?

7 MR. BARTON: This is essentially 

8 the analysis that we presented in our --

9 MR. ROLFES: They did it as 

10 well --

11 DR. GLOVER: So, are we still 

12 talking excretion rates and excretion rates?

13 MR. ROLFES: No, no, no. This is 

14 just urine data. This is comparison of the 

15 Type 50 subcontractor urinalyses to the full 

16 distribution of urinalyses, comparing it to 

17 intake. What we had proposed, or what I had 

18 proposed, or we had been discussing, would be 

19 to compare the total intake for the two 

20 different populations of workers. That would 

21 give us the best indication. You know, is the 

22 subcontractor population different from the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

140 1 full distribution of workers?

2 DR. GLOVER: And that is 

3 consistent with what we are going to do at 

4 SRS. So, that is what I propose that we come 

5 back with.

6 MR. STIVER: Okay. That is 

7 exactly what I --

8 DR. GLOVER: We can look at the 

9 distributions of those and see, do they match 

10 up or not?

11 MR. STIVER: Look at the two 

12 distributions --

13 DR. GLOVER: Of the intakes.

14 MR. STIVER: -- of intakes. And 

15 then, from that, you can derive whatever 

16 adjustment to this factor.

17 DR. GLOVER: Yes, because that is 

18 the dosimetric unit of pertinence.

19 MR. ROLFES: It is the total 

20 intake that that individual experienced that 

21 needs to be compared.

22 DR. GLOVER: Does that seem 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

141 1 acceptable?

2 MEMBER MELIUS: This is Jim 

3 Melius.

4 I am a little confused because, 

5 Sam, you talked about this as doing example 

6 dose reconstructions. I think we need more 

7 than just a few examples. There needs to be 

8 some statistical basis to that.

9 I recognize that your available 

10 data may be small, but I think it needs to be 

11 more than just one or two cases.

12 DR. GLOVER: I apologize. I 

13 apologize, Jim. We would do a full 

14 analysis --

15 MEMBER MELIUS: Okay.

16 DR. GLOVER: -- and show you what 

17 the intakes were. And I thought it might be 

18 practical to follow that up with a few 

19 examples of how it was used.

20 MEMBER MELIUS: Okay.

21 DR. GLOVER: This certainly would 

22 not form the basis, right, Mark?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

142 1 MR. ROLFES: We can compare 

2 statistically the distribution differences or 

3 the total intake differences between the two 

4 populations, if that would give you more 

5 meaningful information.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Then, it is 

7 looking like we have got a path forward for 

8 Issue No. 1 here. I guess I will take it over 

9 to Sam and Mark of what your path forward is 

10 because, to tell you the truth, I don't 

11 understand it right now. You have explained 

12 it, but I just want to make sure that we are 

13 heading in the right direction and that 

14 everybody is clear on it.

15 What are you guys, what is your 

16 path forward?

17 MR. ROLFES: What we just proposed 

18 is to compare the total intake experienced by 

19 the subcontractor to the total intake 

20 experienced by our coworker intake model, 

21 basically.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: These are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

143 1 distributions, which would each have their own 

2 mean and their own variance.

3 MR. ROLFES: Right.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And then, you can 

5 statistically ask whether they are 

6 significantly the same or different.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

8 DR. MAURO: This is John.

9 Are you going to do that in the 

10 aggregate over time? Or are you going to pick 

11 different time segments to see if, in fact, it 

12 changes in the sixties as compared to the 

13 seventies, or something like that?

14 DR. GLOVER: It would sound like 

15 it is a coworker model. It is how you would 

16 do a coworker model for the 50th and 84th 

17 percentile, and you find where the breakpoints 

18 are.

19 MR. KATZ: Annually.

20 DR. GLOVER: Well, annually. It 

21 could be lumped differently, depending on how 

22 much data. But you would use --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

144 1 DR. MAURO: Okay. I hear you.

2 So, you are going to try to break 

3 it up into time segments, to the degree to 

4 which you have sufficient data. If you can do 

5 it annually, great. If you can't do it, if it 

6 has to be by decade in order to get enough 

7 data, I guess that is something you have to 

8 look at.

9 MR. ROLFES: Yes, and we discussed 

10 this earlier. In certain years, there weren't 

11 many subcontracts going on at the Fernald 

12 site. So, you can't really break it down by 

13 year.

14 What we have previously done for 

15 our direct comparison, we had captured three 

16 different decades. We had 1969, 1971, 1972, 

17 1973, 1981, 1983, 1984, and 1985. Those were 

18 the years that we looked at because those 

19 years were not in HIS-20. And also, those 

20 were the years that data was available to us.

21 DR. MAURO: Sure sounds good to 

22 me.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

145 1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So, we have 

2 got a path forward for DCAS.

3 Now, for SC&A to be able to 

4 continue on, you were talking about earlier 

5 the data that --

6 MR. STIVER: Yes. We would like 

7 to see, first of all, the spreadsheets and the 

8 hard-copy records talked about earlier today 

9 that would delineate the subcontractors from 

10 the other NLO workers.

11 And also, to the extent that we 

12 could find some data that evidently is 

13 available from those, two years out of date, 

14 that links -- that shows the comparison of 

15 bioassay and employment duration for the 

16 claimants that have been processed. We would 

17 like to have those pieces of information 

18 available to us.

19 MR. ROLFES: The bioassay and --

20 could you repeat that last part?

21 MR. STIVER: A few minutes ago, 

22 earlier on, Gene Potter had mentioned that you 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

146 1 guys have some information on employment 

2 duration and bioassay for these contract 

3 workers.

4 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

5 MR. STIVER: But it was two years 

6 out of date.

7 MR. ROLFES: We actually compiled 

8 it for everyone.

9 MR. STIVER: Is it possible, then, 

10 to tease out the construction workers from 

11 that?

12 MR. ROLFES: I think we can do 

13 something. It might take a little bit more 

14 effort because I think we lumped it all 

15 together as one initially, when we had 

16 completed it. It will take a little bit 

17 longer. We can certainly do that.

18 MR. STIVER: We would like to have 

19 that.

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Refresh me, 

21 Mark, on that very point there. When you were 

22 putting that together, just roughly -- I am 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

147 1 not asking you specific numbers -- did you see 

2 like there was much difference, much of a 

3 difference between, when you were putting that 

4 together, kind of a general feeling?

5 MR. ROLFES: Differences in what?

6 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: The 

7 subcontractors versus the regular contract 

8 employees.

9 MR. ROLFES: And differences in?

10 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: In the exposure 

11 rates, the intake rates.

12 MR. ROLFES: Well, based on our 

13 direct comparison that I had discussed before, 

14 we did see differences in the excretion rates 

15 for uranium, which varied from less than a 

16 factor of one. The coworker model was 

17 actually a higher intake rate than -- or 

18 excuse me -- a higher excretion rate than the 

19 subcontractor intake rate. But, then, in 

20 other comparisons, it was up to a factor of 

21 four, five, six. The highest one that we had 

22 was 6.6. This is similar to what SC&A had 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

148 1 identified as a range of five to eight, up to 

2 five to eight higher.

3 But that only considers short4 term. It only gets you a picture of the 

5 excretion rate. It doesn't necessarily tell 

6 you about how long that person had an intake 

7 which produced that excretion rate.

8 So, even though a bioassay result 

9 could have been higher, that doesn't always 

10 mean that the intake, the total intake rate 

11 was higher or the resulting internal dose.

12 DR. GLOVER: I just want to make 

13 sure, because SRS, the thing we are going to 

14 keep coming back to is we are going to compare 

15 intakes and intakes, and recognize that these 

16 things had a GSD of 5. They are big GSDs. 

17 They are a big distribution. These things 

18 aren't like a point estimate. There is a lot 

19 of variability in what the excretion rate, you 

20 know, these intake values come out to be.

21 So, when you lay them on top of 

22 each other, do they look the same? I mean, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

149 1 that is really the bottom line.

2 MR. STIVER: We are going to have 

3 to look at intakes and, yes, we understand 

4 that there is a huge amount of uncertainty 

5 involved.

6 DR. GLOVER: I think we are on the 

7 same --

8 MR. STIVER: Even when we have 

9 really good data, you still wind up with, 

10 based on the biogenetic models themselves, 

11 individual variability.

12 MR. KATZ: So, Brad, can we just 

13 get clarification now?

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.

15 MR. KATZ: SC&A is going to obtain 

16 these different materials from DCAS. But are 

17 you at this point just going to verify sort of 

18 what the discussion from today, on the basis 

19 of that, or are you going to produce some sort 

20 of new analysis?

21 MR. STIVER: I think what we would 

22 like to do is kind of take a look at the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

150 1 analysis that we have already done and make an 

2 adjustment to that, so that we can be 

3 comparing two separate populations.

4 MR. KATZ: It seems to me they are 

5 going to be producing a comparison that you 

6 are going to look at.

7 MR. STIVER: This will give us 

8 kind of a metric that we could then look back 

9 to compare the data.

10 MR. KATZ: Okay. Okay.

11 MR. STIVER: We will not be doing 

12 the things in parallel.

13 MR. KATZ: I just didn't want you 

14 to be duplicating each other.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: The way I 

16 understood is, in speaking with Gene, SC&A did 

17 not have this data. So, this is basically 

18 corroborating what you already put together a 

19 little bit.

20 But DCAS is going to -- and let me 

21 put this out to both sides, SC&A and DCAS. 

22 When we get done with this, we will have an 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

151 1 email sent to me and Ted to make sure that 

2 each side understands which path we are going 

3 down.

4 MR. KATZ: Action memos.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Action memos, yes.

6 MR. KATZ: Action item memos after 

7 the meeting, right. Right.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, I want to make 

9 sure that that is clear, too. So, does 

10 everybody understand which way we are going?

11 MS. BALDRIDGE: I have a question.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

13 MS. BALDRIDGE: Is there going to 

14 be any differentiation of whether the 

15 contractors were working in a uranium area or 

16 a thorium area? There were furnaces that were 

17 torn down and removed which would have 

18 provided thorium exposure back in the sixties 

19 that would be different.

20 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver. 

21 I might be able to answer that.

22 What we are looking at right now 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

152 1 is strictly the uranium bioassay and uranium 

2 analysis, dose assessment. Thorium is another 

3 issue altogether, and there are different 

4 approaches that are being used to get to 

5 thorium doses, quite different.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: We haven't even 

7 gotten to thorium yet.

8 So, if we both have a clear line 

9 of direction of which way we are going to go, 

10 then I want to make sure if there are any more 

11 questions of what is being required of DCAS or 

12 SC&A.

13 MR. STIVER: I think we are clear 

14 on our side.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: And, Mark and Sam, 

16 you understand what we are looking at?

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: Do you have a 

18 rough timetable for that? Are we talking 

19 about a month or two months, or a couple of 

20 days?

21 (Laughter.)

22 MR. ROLFES: You have asked for a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

153 1 lot of additional things.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I know.

3 MR. ROLFES: Try to keep in mind 

4 that we are working on many other sites.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. I 

6 understand that. I am just trying to get a 

7 feel for whether this is something that is 

8 down the road a ways.

9 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: We will give 

10 you 48 hours.

11 (Laughter.)

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, and I 

13 understand that DCAS is working on numerous 

14 other things, but I just also want to make 

15 sure that people understand Fernald has been 

16 on this table for over five years now. We are 

17 coming to the end.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: We have got some 

19 other sites that are like that, too.

20 (Laughter.)

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: And I realize 

22 that. I am on a few of those. So, I also 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

154 1 want to keep that in mind, too.

2 So, if there's not any further 

3 questions on this, the next one we are going 

4 to go -- oh, goodness gracious.

5 MR. KATZ: Goodness gracious?

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: It is 11:41.

7 I am going to ask a question of 

8 everybody here. Do we want to -- because the 

9 next one on there is recycled uranium -- if we 

10 want to start into this right before lunch 

11 here? I would offer up not to because we are 

12 going to get barely started into it, and we 

13 will probably be one o'clock getting out of 

14 here.

15 So, if there are no objections, I 

16 would suggest that we break for lunch now and 

17 start with recycled uranium right after lunch, 

18 if that is all right with everyone.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: What are our 

20 estimated times on each of these?

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I thought 

22 that Number 1 was not going to be that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

155 1 difficult. I thought it was going to be about 

2 an hour and 15 minutes, but I was wrong.

3 (Laughter.)

4 MR. STIVER: I probably shouldn't 

5 do this, but I will get out there. I would 

6 say it shouldn't take us more than an hour to 

7 go through recycled uranium.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. And what about 

9 the other issues? Are any of them shorter?

10 MR. STIVER: The other issue is 

11 probably a little more involved, the Issue 6b 

12 on the thorium chest count. That is going to 

13 take a lot longer.

14 So, if people want to break for 

15 lunch now, that's fine.

16 MR. KATZ: And then there is the 

17 recycled thorium.

18 MR. STIVER: The recycled thorium 

19 is kind of tied in with the chest count.

20 MR. KATZ: So, it sort of relies 

21 on the others? Okay.

22 It sounds like we need to do that, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

156 1 then. We need to break now.

2 MR. STIVER: Yes.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. We will 

4 break for lunch and we will be back --

5 MR. KATZ: So, for an hour?

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, let's be back 

7 here in --

8 MR. KATZ: So, let's try to get 

9 started, because it is a lot left, probably 

10 So let's try to get started at 12:45. Yes?

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: That would be 

12 fine.

13 MR. KATZ: All right.

14 Thank you, everyone on the line. 

15 We will be back online, we hope, at 12:45.

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

17 matter went off the record at 11:43 a.m. and 

18 resumed at 12:46 p.m.)

19

20

21

22

23
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

157 1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N 

2 12:46 p.m.

3 MR. KATZ: This is the Fernald 

4 Work Group hacking away. We are just 

5 reconvening after lunch.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. I would 

7 like to welcome everybody back.

8 We are going to turn this over to 

9 John Stiver. We are going to be talking about 

10 the recycled uranium.

11 MR. STIVER: Excuse me. My throat 

12 is a little dry here.

13 This is John Stiver from SC&A.

14 The next issue we are going to 

15 move on to here is that of recycled uranium. 

16 This was SEC Issue No. 3. It has been the 

17 topic of discussion, basically, since I took 

18 over on this particular site in January of 

19 2010. And so, we have been looking at it at 

20 just about six different meetings since that 

21 time.

22 Our initial concern, I will kind 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

158 1 of back up a little bit, and we will talk 

2 about what the original issue was. Recycled 

3 uranium is basically uranium that has already 

4 been through an irradiation cycle and it has 

5 been chemically purified for reuse. During 

6 the chemical purification process, inevitably, 

7 some of the contaminants, namely, plutonium, 

8 neptunium-237, fission products such as 

9 technetium-99, are carried through in the 

10 final product.

11 Because this material can pose a 

12 source of exposure to workers who handle it, 

13 and NIOSH really didn't have the bioassay or 

14 the monitoring data to ascertain intakes of 

15 these constituent radionuclides, as they are 

16 called, a strategy was set up whereby the 

17 uranium bioassay data could be used to derive 

18 an intake of uranium. When this is applied to 

19 recycled uranium, they set certain default 

20 values, default levels, on a parts-per-billion 

21 uranium mass basis for plutonium, neptunium, 

22 and technetium, the three big players, but 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

159 1 principally plutonium being the most important 

2 from a dosimetric standpoint. These values I 

3 believe were 100 parts per billion for 

4 plutonium, 3500 for neptunium, and 9,000 for 

5 technetium-99.

6 SC&A was tasked to review this 

7 model and make our observations. In doing so, 

8 we discovered that there were a certain types 

9 of workers for which we felt maybe have had 

10 higher exposure potential for which these 

11 default values might not be applicable.

12 Basically, it came out of a review 

13 of the original model, which you will recall 

14 was the NIOSH 2008 coworker model. In that 

15 was an appendix, B, which had dusthouse 

16 collection samples. We found that, for Plant 

17 5, which was the metal reduction plant, and 

18 also for Plant 1, where a lot of the material 

19 was milled, there were significantly higher 

20 values in these integrated samples than the 

21 NIOSH default.

22 So, we started looking into this, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

160 1 and we looked at the source documentation 

2 which comprised these DOE mass-balance reports 

3 that were put out around the turn of the 

4 millennium, right around the 2000-2001 

5 timeframe.

6 We started looking at this mass7 balance report and all this data that were 

8 collected, and how NIOSH had developed their 

9 values. We came back with some criticisms in 

10 our second White Paper review, which was 

11 produced about this time last year.

12 Basically, we felt that, because 

13 of chemical concentration processes that 

14 occurred during the metal reduction process 

15 and the magnesium fluoride pot liner, 

16 reduction pot liners, which was subsequently 

17 reused, and the fact that this material was 

18 recycled back through Plant 1 to be remilled, 

19 there was an elevated exposure potential for 

20 that group of workers. And we were able to 

21 see that that process differentiation and the 

22 potential actually reflected in the samples 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

161 1 that were collected for the timeframes of 

2 interest.

3 NIOSH came back with a revised 

4 coworker model based on our findings in our 

5 second report. What they proposed to do at 

6 that point was to really look at three 

7 different time periods. These time periods 

8 are very important in terms of the potential 

9 exposure to various workers in the plants.

10 To the best of our ability to 

11 discern it, recycled uranium first was 

12 delivered to the plant in 1953. However, it 

13 wasn't processed in the process stream until 

14 1961. 

15 During that interim period, I 

16 believe there were about 45 metric tons which 

17 were received, I think, from 1958 to 1960-1961 

18 timeframe. Before that, there were a couple 

19 of drums onsite, but it was really very low 

20 amounts. And also, the concentrations of 

21 these constituent radionuclides were quite low 

22 in this initial amount of material.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

162 1 From 1961, material was put into 

2 the process stream where it was converted to 

3 oxide, fluorinated and then reduced to metal, 

4 and fabricated into various shapes.

5 From about 1961 until the early 

6 1970s, about 1972, the materials that came in, 

7 principally from Hanford, were fairly low 

8 concentrations. I believe the plutonium was 

9 typically less than 10 parts per billion, 

10 which was kind of an agreed-upon value for 

11 production quality control purposes at 

12 Hanford.

13 And so, you had this concentration 

14 process using the magnesium fluoride in metal 

15 reduction that caused an elevation in this 

16 concentration, up to about a factor of four to 

17 ten, based on later data which we were looking 

18 at, which gave a better picture of what the 

19 real concentrations might have been.

20 In 1973, the Fernald site began 

21 receiving shipments of these highly 

22 contaminated materials, mainly tower ash and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

163 1 incinerator ash from the gaseous diffusion 

2 plants. These materials were shipped in in 

3 several different batches.

4 It wasn't really until 1980 that 

5 you got probably the most pivotal change in 

6 the environment for recycled uranium 

7 exposures, and plutonium exposures, in 

8 particular. This was when, in June of 1980, 

9 the plant received 16 hoppers containing about 

10 22.5 metric tons of recycled uranium that was 

11 very highly contaminated and consisted of 

12 tower ash materials that ranged anywhere from 

13 about 100, I think it was 67 parts per billion 

14 up to about 7500 parts per billion, with an 

15 average value of 1125, I believe.

16 So, this introduced, basically, 

17 about 25 grams of plutonium into the Fernald 

18 site, essentially doubling the inventory for 

19 the entire lifespan of the site. So, it was 

20 really a sea change in contamination control 

21 requirements that should have been put in 

22 place at that point.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

164 1 And so, what happened was that, 

2 when that material came in, it was stored for 

3 a period of about two years. After that time, 

4 these hoppers were taken and repackaged 

5 material was taken out of the hoppers and 

6 repackaged into these 55-gallon drums to 

7 facilitate semi-remote handling in the various 

8 process operations for which it would be used 

9 later on.

10 During this time, we have a 

11 certain amount of data which tells us 

12 approximately how many shifts it took to 

13 repackage this material, some information on 

14 the workers who were involved, number of 

15 workers, like I said, the shifts. And so, we 

16 have some information that gives you an idea 

17 of how long it took to handle this material.

18 But let me back up just a little 

19 bit. I was kind of getting offbase here.

20 To get back to the actual exposure 

21 potential during this timeframe, the mass22 balance reports show that this magnesium 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

165 1 fluoride had very high concentrations. It was 

2 about the second highest of all the source 

3 materials, except for this Type 10A material.

4 In looking at the source data, we 

5 were able to determine that these 400 samples 

6 of mag fluoride were actually, indeed, from 

7 Fernald from the various process steps that we 

8 were concerned with in metals reduction. And 

9 NIOSH's approach is to take these datasets 

10 that comprise this highly contaminated 

11 material, use a log-normal fit to the 

12 datasets, and then pick off the 95th 

13 percentile of that to get an upper-bound 

14 estimate of what these people could have 

15 possibly been exposed to.

16 And it turns out that, for the 

17 magnesium fluoride workers, that is a very 

18 appropriate dataset to use. It is a good 

19 dataset. That 400 parts per billion is fairly 

20 close to what we saw in some of the other 

21 samples, which, incidentally, are part of that 

22 dataset, were represented by the upper end, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

166 1 the ones that we were concerned with 

2 initially.

3 And so, we think that, to make a 

4 long story not quite so long, that that 

5 particular set of data and that approach from 

6 the 1973 period on, when this most highly 

7 contaminated material was handled, is probably 

8 adequate to bound the most highly exposed 

9 group of workers, that being these Plant 5 

10 metal reduction workers. These were the guys, 

11 not only did they have these metal reduction 

12 pots, this magnesium fluoride that was 

13 concentrated in this material, it was also one 

14 of the dustiest operations. So, they had the 

15 highest exposures to dust, and that dust also 

16 consisted of some of the highest 

17 concentrations of these constituents. So, we 

18 are pretty confident that that particular 

19 subgroup of workers was, indeed, bounded.

20 Our concern that we voiced in the 

21 August 2011, last summer, in the meeting 

22 there, it was not about that particular group. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

167 1 We were concerned about this other group of 

2 workers who can't be identified based on the 

3 records. These would be these people who 

4 might have handled the material on the front 

5 end, these guys who repackaged the materials, 

6 and then were involved in these down-blending 

7 steps. So, anybody who was handling this 

8 highly contaminated material before it had 

9 been down-blended with uncontaminated 

10 materials to achieve a particular goal in 

11 terms of contamination level.

12 And so, at that particular 

13 meeting, NIOSH was tasked to attempt to 

14 quantify the timeframe that might have been 

15 involved in actually handling this material. 

16 The way they went about that was to look at 

17 that data that I had described earlier for the 

18 repackaging operation. This was for five of 

19 the most highly contaminated hoppers of 

20 material.

21 There is a table in the reference 

22 which we have. Let's see if we can take a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

168 1 look at this paper. It is called SC&A's 

2 Response to NIOSH's Subgroup 10A Impact 

3 Analysis, dated November 1, 2011.

4 Go ahead and turn to Table 2 on 

5 page 8 of 13. This is the recycled feed 

6 material. This shows the 16 hoppers, the mass 

7 of uranium in kilograms for each of the 

8 hoppers, the concentration of plutonium on a 

9 uranium mass basis and, also, on a sample 

10 basis. So, you can see the broad distribution 

11 in that set of data.

12 If you move on to the next page, 

13 on page 9, you have the repackaging data. 

14 This came from this 1985 report, officially a 

15 four-page report, kind of an after-action 

16 report on what happened during this 

17 repackaging operation.

18 You can see here they identify the 

19 hoppers, the shifts, and the dates during 

20 which these operations took place, the 

21 plutonium mass -- the kilogram mass I have 

22 gone ahead and added in for each of these --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

169 1 and then, the number of shifts.

2 You can see there was a total of 

3 about almost 12,000 kilograms of material 

4 processed over the course of this period from 

5 April 19th to May 7th. Nineteen shifts were 

6 required.

7 And so, what NIOSH did was they 

8 said, okay, we know that this was probably the 

9 most problematic aspect of handling this 

10 material, was repackaging it, taking it out of 

11 these hoppers. Several problems were 

12 encountered during the repackaging operations.

13 So, they felt that, by looking at 

14 this particular set of data, it would provide 

15 a bounding time estimate on any subsequent 

16 steps. Because there really are no data that 

17 indicate what times were involved in, say, 

18 taking these barrels of material and down19 blending, say, in Plant 8 with other 

20 uncontaminated materials. I believe they used 

21 calcium uranate on some cake in Plant 8, and 

22 there were also other applications of blending 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

170 1 that took place, which were kind of semi2 remotely controlled and remotely handled.

3 And so, this hands-on set of data 

4 during the problematic timeframe, then, 

5 provided a time bound for the amount of time 

6 any given worker might have been exposed to 

7 this material.

8 Based on some, I believe, expert 

9 judgment on the part of the health physicists 

10 who were interviewed, they came up with an 

11 idea of about, or an estimate of about 8 

12 percent of the time over the course of a year

13 where a given worker could have been exposed 

14 to this material, if, indeed, they were 

15 involved in handling it full-time during that 

16 year.

17 This was based on them handling 

18 only the hoppers that were measured at greater 

19 than 400 parts per billion and, also, assuming 

20 a five-hour shift to provide some worker 

21 protection for the respiratory protection and 

22 other types of protective gear these guys were 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

171 1 wearing. They figured, instead of an eight2 hour shift, we can go ahead and just give them 

3 a reduction factor to a five-hour shift.

4 And so, we looked at that and we 

5 said that seems fairly reasonable. We don't 

6 necessarily agree with all of the assumptions 

7 that were made. So, we went ahead and did our 

8 own analysis, just assuming some slightly 

9 higher parameter values. We assumed we are 

10 just going to look at all this material. 

11 Let's look at all 16 hoppers, assume an eight12 hour shift without any protective values 

13 whatsoever.

14 And we looked at all the material 

15 that was processed through during those five 

16 hoppers and came up with about 675 kilograms 

17 per shift. Based on that, we figured, to 

18 process all the material, it would take about 

19 36 shifts. Eight hours per shift, you get 

20 about 288 hours or, roughly, about 14 percent 

21 of a year's hours, if a given worker were, 

22 indeed, involved in this process during the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

172 1 entire period of time.

2 To get a handle on what that 

3 person might have been exposed to, what we did 

4 was a weighted average concentration. We 

5 assumed a baseline of 100 parts per billion 

6 because we realized that the people who were 

7 doing this were probably not also Plant 5 

8 metal workers or millwrights in Plant 1. And 

9 so, they wouldn't be necessarily exposed to 

10 400 parts per billion continuously. In fact, 

11 they were probably exposed to less than 100 

12 during these times when they weren't handling 

13 this material.

14 And then, we gave them the full 

15 average value, the 1122, for the 288 hours 

16 where they were handling material. Then, 

17 doing a weighted-average, it came up to a 

18 value of about 240 parts per billion during 

19 that 14 percent of the year when they were 

20 handling the materials.

21 So, based on what we felt were 

22 some pretty conservative claimant-favorable 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

173 1 assumptions, we agreed with NIOSH that the 400 

2 parts per billion is, indeed, likely bounding 

3 for this group of workers, in addition to all 

4 of the workers for that period of time.

5 So, in summary, I could say that 

6 we feel that we have come to a consensus on 

7 this, and we feel that you could probably move 

8 this particular issue over to the Site Profile 

9 discussions to the extent that these 

10 discussions need to continue.

11 And so, that is really all I have 

12 to say about recycled uranium as it stands at 

13 this point.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, let me 

15 understand, and maybe this is for you, Mark. 

16 What we are looking at is a tiered step to be 

17 able to, when we do this dose -- I just want 

18 to make sure that I am clear that in the 

19 earlier years we are going to do, we will do 

20 the 100 parts per billion?

21 MR. ROLFES: Yes, for the years 

22 that particular uranium was processed at 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

174 1 Fernald, we are going to add in 800 parts per 

2 billion of plutonium on a uranium mass basis, 

3 as well as additional intake of 3500 parts per 

4 billion and 9,000 parts per billion of 

5 neptunium-237 -- excuse me -- 9,000 was 

6 neptunium-237; the 3500 is -- I got that 

7 backwards. Thirty-five hundred parts per 

8 billion of neptunium-237 and 9,000 parts per 

9 billion of technetium-99.

10 Then, beginning in, I believe it 

11 was 1976, I think was the date -- I will have 

12 to take a look back.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Seventy-three.

14 MR. STIVER: Seventy-three, I 

15 believe.

16 MR. ROLFES: Seventy-three, we 

17 would default the 400 parts per billion of 

18 plutonium on a uranium mass basis. So, we 

19 would be adding in the recycled uranium 

20 constituents based upon the reconstructed 

21 uranium intakes.

22 MR. STIVER: Assuming it was kind 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

175 1 of a three-tiered, stair-step function really, 

2 if we look at the time periods where these 

3 different activities took place.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: And SC&A's actual 

5 value for that 1973-on period was this 242 

6 value, using slightly different 

7 starting assumptions.

8 MR. STIVER: I should probably 

9 clarify that. That was basically just to look 

10 at this one subgroup of workers who, in 1982, 

11 from about 1982 to 1985, could have been 

12 involved in down-blending and handling this 

13 material on the front end, before it was 

14 processed into other materials.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

16 MR. STIVER: And so, it didn't 

17 take this, typically, and just run it right 

18 through the process. They tried to blend it 

19 down with uncontaminated materials.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: But they would 

21 still be covered by this?

22 MR. STIVER: Yes. So, the idea 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

176 1 was that was the only outstanding group that 

2 we weren't quite sure that might be covered by 

3 400.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

5 MR. STIVER: And this analysis 

6 demonstrates that they are, indeed, covered.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: Are there any 

9 other questions? Do you have any questions, 

10 Phil, or are you good with this?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I'm good with 

12 this.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: I will have to 

14 admit, I had to have John help me understand 

15 the stair steps. So, I have already been 

16 through this in detail.

17 So, if there isn't any other 

18 questions, we will accept that and move that 

19 to the TBD.

20 MR. KATZ: So, is the issue 

21 actually closed? Is there something to 

22 resolve at a TBD level?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

177 1 MR. STIVER: The only issue at the 

2 TBD level might be for this period from 1958 

3 to 1961, and NIOSH proposed zero defaults with 

4 that. But, certainly, it is a tractable 

5 problem, boundable. We had reservations about 

6 zero default for that period, just on the 

7 basis of claimant-favorability in the dose 

8 reconstruction process, although we realize 

9 they are very low levels. There could have 

10 been people handling that material that could 

11 have gotten some exposure. But we are 

12 perfectly fine with 1961 to 1989.

13 MR. ROLFES: Yes, that is 

14 something, I mean, we would be interested in 

15 hearing what the Work Group's opinion is.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: Right, but what we 

17 have proved is that we are able to bound it, 

18 and so forth. But the earlier years, we still 

19 have to -- so, that will be in the TBD.

20 So, with that said, and you got a 

21 drink of water, now you can go on to thorium.

22 (Laughter.)
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

178 1 MR. STIVER: I think I need 

2 another drink of water before that.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, we consider 

4 this issue closed then.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: It is closed and 

6 moved to the TBD. There is still one small 

7 portion that we have got a discrepancy on, but 

8 I think that we will be able to bound that. 

9 It is just in the earlier years where NIOSH 

10 claimed zero, but there was product there. I 

11 think we can come to a resolution on that, 

12 though.

13 It's yours.

14 MR. STIVER: Okay. The next issue 

15 is Issue 6b. This is the use of chest counts 

16 to reconstruct thorium-232 exposures in the 

17 post-1968 timeframe.

18 I will just kind of back off a 

19 little bit and talk about thorium in general. 

20 From 1953, when they first started receiving 

21 thorium onsite, until 1967, they really didn't 

22 have any bioassay thorium exposure. What they 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

179 1 did have were these daily weighted average air 

2 concentrations, which were really essentially 

3 based on, for the most part, the breathing 

4 zone air samples that were taken for workers 

5 at different times throughout their workday, 

6 the different operations that would be 

7 performed.

8 And then, weighted this 

9 concentration by the time it took to perform 

10 any given task. They came up with what they 

11 called a daily weighted exposure or daily 

12 weighted average. This approach had been 

13 remarkably consistent from the early 1940s all 

14 the way up through 1967.

15 A huge amount of data is available 

16 for different plants and different years and 

17 for different categories of workers. And so, 

18 we feel that that dataset is actually pretty 

19 -- the first part of our thorium discussions 

20 really focused on these DWEs.

21 We were concerned initially 

22 because these measurements were never taken 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

180 1 for dose calculations for determining body 

2 burden. They were really more of an 

3 industrial hygiene sampling process to improve 

4 the working conditions.

5 And so, as a result of that, they 

6 never do any uncertainty analysis on this. 

7 So, we have lots of numbers. We realize that 

8 these are snapshots in time, and that they may 

9 not represent the full range, the full 

10 distribution -- exposure that any given worker 

11 could have experienced during the course of 

12 his day.

13 So, Dan Strom up at PNNL, back in 

14 2008, and Adam Davis came up with an 

15 uncertainty analysis that looked exactly at 

16 this particular issue. They looked at about 

17 six different plants from the period 1948 to 

18 1955. They did some fairly sophisticated 

19 statistical analysis and came up with a robust 

20 uncertainty analysis to be applied to this 

21 site.

22 Over the course of our 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

181 1 discussions, we came to a consensus with NIOSH 

2 that, yes, the DWE data can be used in 

3 conjunction with this uncertainty analysis to 

4 bound workers for plants, various plants and 

5 various years, throughout that period of time.

6 In 1968, Fernald went away from 

7 doing the DWEs. They went from that to doing 

8 chest counts for thorium and also for uranium. 

9 But they still maintained uranium bioassay, 

10 but they also had these supplemental data, 

11 this chest count data.

12 And for this, they used what they 

13 called the mobile in vivo radiation monitoring 

14 laboratory. They would bring this in at 

15 various times throughout the year, and they'd 

16 collect the workers and they would run them 

17 through.

18 I believe they used an array of 

19 sodium iodide detectors. They would measure, 

20 I believe, thorium-234 to get a handle on 

21 uranium concentrations.

22 They also had the capacity to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

182 1 measure thorium, thorium-232. Now they 

2 couldn't measure it directly, obviously, 

3 because a lung burden of thorium-232 is not 

4 going to emit any detectable levels of 

5 radiation outside the body. But thorium-232 

6 has a very long decay chain associated with 

7 it. Several of those species are fairly high8 energy gamma emitters.

9 And so, what they would do is they 

10 would measure the regions of interest that 

11 corresponded to two of these daughter 

12 products, actinium-228 and lead-212. This was 

13 really the basis for this system. From that, 

14 you could get an idea of the age of the source 

15 and back-calculate to the thorium-232 intake.

16 However, there are some real 

17 problems with this technique. This is really 

18 where we have some issues with the approach 

19 that NIOSH has taken.

20 I want to say upfront that we 

21 certainly are not casting aspersions at the 

22 personnel who were conducting these 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

183 1 measurements or the DOE scientists who 

2 developed this method. We think they were 

3 fully aware of this, and they were fully aware 

4 of the limitations of this counting system at 

5 the time.

6 But, be that as it may, we still 

7 have considerable issues that we feel need to 

8 be redressed before this data can be used to 

9 accurately and sufficiently bound intakes 

10 during a certain period of time.

11 But let me back up again. I am 

12 kind of getting ahead.

13 I wanted to say that, from 1968 to 

14 1978, this data from the mobile laboratory was 

15 reported in units of milligrams thorium only. 

16 There was kind of an overlap period in 1978. 

17 I think there might even be some in 1977. We 

18 have milligrams thorium, and they also have, 

19 beyond that, they had data reported in 

20 nanocuries of the two isotopes, actinium-228 

21 and lead-212.

22 And so, from 1978 on, you have 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

184 1 this hook. You have this ability to get back 

2 to what the thorium source term age might have 

3 been.

4 And the reason that is important 

5 is because, when thorium was separated from 

6 the ore, it is essential broke in the decay 

7 chain. What you are left with are two 

8 isotopes of thorium. You have 232 and you 

9 have 228. Thorium-228 decays away with about 

10 a 1.9-year half-life. And so, it is an 

11 unsupported progeny, and it starts to drop off 

12 fairly quickly.

13 Lead-212 is one of the daughter 

14 products of thorium-228. Well, at the same 

15 time, the thorium-232 progeny are building in. 

16 They are building in at the half-life rate of 

17 radium-228, which is 5.75 years.

18 So, at the time that the 228 is 

19 dropping off, you have got this buildup of the 

20 daughter products, and the short-lived 

21 daughters -- excuse me. Let me back up.

22 Radium-228 decays to actinium-228, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

185 1 then to thorium-228. And so, then, you have 

2 the situation where the progeny from 

3 thorium-228 are all short-lived and they build 

4 into equilibrium fairly quickly.

5 And so, you have a buildup based 

6 on the radium half-life, radium-228 half-life. 

7 You have a dropoff of the thorium-228 that 

8 was in the sample to begin with. And so, if 

9 you are trying to measure these short-lived or 

10 these gamma-emitting progeny, you have to find 

11 out where on that decay curve you are relative 

12 to the initial separation time, in order to 

13 back-calculate to what the thorium intake 

14 could have been, based on that measurement.

15 From 1968 to 1978, we don't have 

16 that source data available. We don't know 

17 which isotope was measured, whether it was 

18 actinium or lead. We don't know what effort 

19 might have been made in order to calculate the 

20 value in milligrams of thorium.

21 If you are looking at --

22 MR. KATZ: One second.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

186 1 Someone on the line is not muted 

2 and we are hearing you are moving something 

3 around near your microphone or near your 

4 phone, and it is really distracting. So, 

5 everyone on the phone, would you please mute 

6 your phone? Use *6 if you don't have a mute 

7 button. Thank you.

8 Sorry, John.

9 MR. STIVER: So, actually, we can 

10 kind of group our concerns into three levels:

11 The first is these uncertainties. 

12 Let me say, right now, we are just looking at 

13 this period from 1968 to 1978. The data are 

14 reported in milligrams thorium.

15 We have concerns related to the 

16 inherent uncertainties in trying to get back 

17 to thorium-232 based on these progeny 

18 measurements. Especially considering that we 

19 don't have the source data, you are either 

20 forced to accept this value, just accept it at 

21 face value, or try to do some kind of analysis 

22 to see whether it makes any sense that those 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

187 1 are reasonable intakes to have.

2 So, there is the problem of which 

3 isotope was measured, when it was measured, 

4 when the intakes took place, over what period 

5 of time prior to the measurement. All these 

6 things kind of come together in a very complex 

7 way to generate these enormous uncertainties 

8 in what this measurement could have been.

9 In addition to that, we have 

10 translocation issues once the material is 

11 actually in the lung. Thorium, which is 

12 typically Type M, forms complex iron very 

13 quickly, and, basically, is retained in the 

14 lung; whereas, the progeny are much more 

15 mobile and can move out in systemic 

16 circulation or away from the source of the 

17 intake in the chest. So, we have that problem 

18 as well. We may not be measuring all of the 

19 daughter products in the location where we 

20 presume them to be.

21 Another issue has to do with the 

22 limitations of the counting system itself. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

188 1 Looking back at some of the historic 

2 documentation, one particular reference that 

3 comes to mind is this paper by Hap West that 

4 was put out in 1965. They used a similar 

5 system, used the same basic pathology. It 

6 wasn't mobile, but Y-12 had the same type 

7 approach.

8 What they did was they devised 

9 what essentially boils down to a triage-type 

10 measurement to determine whether a person did 

11 or did not have a thorium intake. They caveat 

12 this and very distinctly describe that, in 

13 order for this type of measurement to be 

14 quantitative, multiple measurements have to be 

15 taken to ascertain the age of this source. 

16 Either that or you have to have the process 

17 knowledge on hand. It is a fairly distinct 

18 process these people are being exposed to.

19 You have to talk to the product 

20 engineer or the process engineer or the health 

21 physics staff to get an idea of what the age 

22 of the source was. If you don't have that, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

189 1 you don't have that hook back to some 

2 reasonable measure.

3 In addition, the system had a very 

4 high detection. It is being reported as being 

5 6 milligrams of thorium. This has been kind 

6 of a point of contention with SC&A or really a 

7 point of discussion -- it is not contention 

8 really -- between us and NIOSH as to just what 

9 does this really mean if you have such a high 

10 MDA.

11 We only have about 3 percent of 

12 data above the MDA, and the rest, basically --

13 I will point out to NIOSH's paper here. This 

14 is called, Response to SC&A Response to NIOSH 

15 White Paper on FMPC MIVRML Calibration, by Bob 

16 Morris and Bill Smith and Tom LaBone.

17 Beginning, let's see, on page --

18 where is it here? -- on page 4, there is a 

19 series of normal probability plots here. What 

20 they are showing is two lines represent 6-

21 milligram MDA in the 95th percentile. These 

22 basically show that the data below the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

190 1 detection limit are pretty much normally 

2 distributed. This is what you would expect 

3 from 1978 data.

4 You are basically looking at some 

5 signal, but mixed in with a lot of electronic 

6 background noise. So, it can be a null 

7 distribution, I mean if you are really looking 

8 at zero analyte or it could just be a 

9 limitation of the detection system, the 

10 detector's ability to actually measure a 

11 dosimetrically significant quantity of 

12 material, which is what we believe we have 

13 here.

14 When you look above the 95th 

15 percentile, you see there's a sampling, in 

16 this particular case for 1968, you see there's 

17 about 14 or 15 values that clearly are up 

18 above the line. In our opinion, this 

19 represents real exposures, but in a 

20 categorical sense. Either they are or they 

21 are not.

22 Due to all the uncertainties in 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

191 1 the milligrams-of-thorium data, and also the 

2 replicate measurements that NIOSH shows in 

3 their graph No. 12, you can see that the high 

4 values, when there's multiple measurements 

5 here, you can see the two. This is on page 15 

6 of 27. You see the high measurements, those 

7 two values. You have got values of 17 and 2.3 

8 for multiple measurements over a short period 

9 of time. So, we have got tremendous 

10 uncertainties associated with measurements on 

11 a given individual over a given short period 

12 of time.

13 And so, this kind of dovetails 

14 with what we have been able to ascertain from 

15 reading the historic documentation. You know, 

16 this is a system that was acknowledged to be 

17 kind of a triage-type system. It could be 

18 used in that regard or it could be made to be 

19 quantitative, given the right precaution and 

20 the right careful measurements and replicates 

21 that were needed in order to do that.

22 And so, what we did after our last 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

192 1 meeting is we tried to look for evidence of 

2 people who had, workers who had lung burdens 

3 that were higher than 6 milligrams to see, 

4 were there follow-up measurements made, and 

5 was there some attempt to really get a better 

6 idea of what the intake might have been?

7 I don't remember the exact numbers 

8 offhand. I think we looked at about 70 

9 individuals. Of those --

10 MR. BARTON: Well, 50 individuals 

11 and 70 samples.

12 MR. STIVER: Yes, 50 individuals, 

13 70 samples. Of those, I believe none of them 

14 had a follow-up sample in six months.

15 Also, we were able to pick up 

16 about 15 or 20 claimant files which had the 

17 same type of characteristics. These were 

18 high-measured lung burden. We looked for 

19 evidence if there was any kind of a follow-on 

20 measurement or some attempt to determine lung 

21 burden.

22 In every case, what we saw was 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

193 1 there was no attempt -- the thorium values 

2 were reported. They weren't significant; 

3 there were no calculations to go along with 

4 them. However, the uranium values in all 

5 those cases were adjusted to try to calculate 

6 a percent of body burden for U-235.

7 This kind of gets us off into this 

8 area of, instead of adequacy, the completeness 

9 paper where we kind of looked at that sort of 

10 thing. And so, we come back to this point 

11 where it is getting to be pretty clear that 

12 the system was really in place to measure 

13 uranium. Thorium was kind of ancillary.

14 When there was an attempt to look 

15 at it, it was the very first year of 

16 operation, I believe, in 1968, where they 

17 tried to get together a group of thorium 

18 workers and measure them. We will talk about 

19 that in a little bit. I will let Bob kind of 

20 take that discussion since he basically headed 

21 it up.

22 But, getting back to the adequacy 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

194 1 issue, we have this situation where you have 

2 very high uncertainties going into these 

3 measurements. We have no source data. You 

4 have a system that is very insensitive to the 

5 levels that are of dosimetric significance.

6 If you take a look at our report, 

7 SC&A's Final Position on Thorium-232 In Vivo 

8 Data Quality and Adequacy for FMPC Workers, -- 

9 that is a mouthful -- if you take a look at 

10 our report, starting on page 4, what we did, 

11 what Joyce Lipzstein did, was to take a look 

12 at what potential intakes and doses would you 

13 get from a 6-milligram lung burden under 

14 different exposure scenario positions.

15 We have, basically, a set of 

16 different scenarios, the first one being 

17 worker exposed for 30 days to thorium Type M. 

18 In scenario two, they are exposed for 90 

19 days, and so forth, up to 180 days -- or 

20 excuse me -- up to the full year. There are 

21 four different scenarios.

22 The important thing to take away 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

195 1 from this is, depending on when the intakes 

2 take place relative to the monitoring period, 

3 you get big, big doses, big organ doses, bone 

4 surface doses that range from 1.3 sieverts up 

5 to almost 10 sieverts, a sievert being 100 

6 rem. So, we are talking really big doses. 

7 And lung doses are also quite high, 10 rem up 

8 to about 80 rem.

9 And so, the fact that you are 

10 looking at sub-MDL data doesn't mean that you 

11 are looking at actual background levels of 

12 lung burden. You have got dosimetrically 

13 highly significant data that the system is 

14 just incapable of measuring.

15 I believe Joyce did some research 

16 on the background levels of thorium in the 

17 lung, and it is on the order of about 3 or 4 

18 micrograms, which is about three orders of 

19 magnitude less than the situation here that we 

20 are looking at.

21 The final thing we looked at was, 

22 during this period of overlap, 1977 to 1978 --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

196 1 Bob went ahead and copied off this Table 1 

2 that we have back here. It is under Section 3 

3 of our report on page 10.

4 This is where --

5 MR. BARTON: It is in the actual 

6 report.

7 MR. STIVER: This is actually in 

8 the report. In case you don't have that 

9 available --

10 MR. BARTON: Does anybody not have 

11 the report?

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: What page is it 

13 on?

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Page 10.

15 MR. STIVER: It's on page 10.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

17 MR. STIVER: This is on page 10. 

18 Take a look at the data, the reported thorium 

19 results in milligrams. Look at those top 

20 three values. You have got 2.2, 4.3, and 5.10 

21 milligrams of thorium.

22 The next column, column two, is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

197 1 the reported lead-212 activity in nanocuries. 

2 Those top three values have negative lead-212 

3 activity measurements.

4 If you look at the range of these 

5 activities for lead-212 and actinium-228 

6 relative to the ranked thorium data, you see 

7 they are all over the map. And so, this 

8 really causes us concern because NIOSH kind of 

9 has this implicit assumption in their analysis 

10 that it was lead-212 that was measured, and 

11 that if lead-212 is the analyte being 

12 measured, why, you can certainly bound the 

13 disequilibrium ratio to about .42 or so, 

14 depending on whether you have a closed system 

15 and how many purification cycles the materials 

16 has gone through. But it becomes a tractable 

17 problem when you have those measurements.

18 Here this is evidence that we 

19 don't see that. We don't see any evidence 

20 that that was, indeed, the measurement.

21 We also have problems with the 

22 biokinetic realism of some of these 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

198 1 measurements. There are a couple of instances 

2 where we have values that are 10 and above, 10 

3 milligrams or more. And then, a measurement a 

4 couple of months later is down around .02, 

5 .03, when if you look at the clearance of 

6 thorium compounds that were present, you would 

7 expect maybe a 30 percent drop, from 10 down 

8 to 6 or 7 milligrams. And so, we are not 

9 seeing that.

10 And again, compare that back to 

11 the graph 12 in the NIOSH report. You see 

12 that you have got incredibly inconsistent, 

13 highly variable and highly uncertain data 

14 during this period of time. For that reason, 

15 we believe that this remains an open SEC 

16 issue.

17 For the period 1978 to 1988, the 

18 data are actually reported in nanocuries of 

19 lead and actinium. And so, that source data 

20 is available. So, we believe the source 

21 measurements are available. We have not yet 

22 seen that data. But if it is, indeed, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

199 1 available to review, we believe that during 

2 that time period that the intakes can probably 

3 be measured with reasonable accuracy. And so, 

4 we feel that, as far as an SEC is concerned, 

5 the real period of concern now is 1968 to 

6 1978.

7 Now let me back up just a minute. 

8 From 1978 to 1988, we are not saying that it 

9 can definitely be a calculated boundary. We 

10 just say we kind of put it in the parking lot 

11 while we looked at this other time period 

12 which we felt was much more significant.

13 So, while we feel that there is a 

14 much better likelihood that that later dataset 

15 can be used to do reconstructions, we haven't 

16 actually looked at the data in any kind of in17 depth manner to determine that.

18 We also noticed that in the latest 

19 files that Mark posted today, there is a 

20 slideshow in there that shows, basically, I 

21 believe you have three different scenarios, 

22 separation times, up to three separations, and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

200 1 how that would affect the lead-212 

2 disequilibrium ratio.

3 There are also some calculations I 

4 believe looking at intake retention fractions 

5 for shared versus independent kinetics. I 

6 guess that gets back to some of the concerns 

7 we had regarding translocation. But that is, 

8 again, something that we would have to look at 

9 in greater depth.

10 That is really what I have to say 

11 about that.

12 Joyce, is there anything you would 

13 like to add? Anything I missed or got wrong 

14 that you would like to clarify?

15 MR. KATZ: Before you go on, just 

16 can I clarify a date? Because you said 

17 earlier 1968 through 1977, and then just now 

18 1968 --

19 MR. STIVER: Oh, 1968 to 1978. 

20 There is an overlap period.

21 MR. KATZ: Ending at the end of 

22 1977 or ending at the end of 1978?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

201 1 MR. STIVER: Basically, any data 

2 that relies on milligrams of thorium, which 

3 there was an overlap period in 1977, mainly in 

4 1978, but there is a little bit in 1977. So, 

5 it would be up through the end of 1977.

6 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thanks.

7 DR. LIPZSTEIN: You asked me if I 

8 have something to add. I think I can't see 

9 what the results of milligrams of thorium 

10 really means. Depending on the scenario, we 

11 made calculations that they can give a very 

12 high dose to the organs.

13 Even, for example, if you take 

14 data that is below the detection limit of 6 

15 milligrams that were reported by NIOSH as 

16 being non-exposed people, 1 milligram, for 

17 example, can give, depending on the scenario, 

18 can give a dose to the bone surface higher 

19 than 1 sievert, which is a very high dose.

20 The 1 milligram, you know, it is 

21 impossible to be background because background 

22 volume is around 2 micrograms. I have many 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

202 1 experiences in measuring people that are 

2 exposed to thorium. If you really see some 

3 actinium or some lead, that person is highly 

4 exposed.

5 Then, if you look, as John has 

6 pointed out, if you look at Table 1 and you 

7 look for the people that had results reported 

8 in milligrams of thorium and in nanocuries of 

9 lead-212 and in nanocuries of actinium-228, 

10 you can't see any correlations between the 

11 milligram thorium results, the reported lead 

12 in nanocuries, or the reported actinium-228 in 

13 nanocuries.

14 You have, as John pointed out, the 

15 4.3-milligram result, which was done in 1971, 

16 which is in the period of time we are looking 

17 at. It has a minus .04 lead-212 result. And 

18 then, the 2.2 has negative results for 

19 lead-212 and for actinium-228. And then, you 

20 have the same result with positive actinium 

21 and lead-212.

22 So, there is no relation. We 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

203 1 don't know which nuclide they were measuring 

2 and what these milligrams really mean. The 

3 problem is that, if it has a real 

4 significance, it would give them very, very 

5 high doses. So, I think those results don't 

6 have any significance. I don't know what they 

7 mean.

8 And also, John has already pointed 

9 out, also, that we took some results that had 

10 follow-up. We had, for example, I think, 25 

11 milligrams of thorium lung burden result that 

12 were taken in March, and then in July it 

13 dropped to .03 milligrams, when you would 

14 expect in July 8 milligrams. So, we don't 

15 know.

16 I think the result in milligrams 

17 doesn't have any meaning that we know. We 

18 don't know. So, I think we have a bunch of 

19 numbers, a big bunch of numbers, that don't 

20 mean anything.

21 What we wanted to say is, also, 

22 that I don't know if people at Fernald took 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

204 1 these results as meaningful results in terms 

2 of looking at the workers' exposures because, 

3 even for the high milligrams result, there was 

4 no follow-up. So, we would expect if someone 

5 had a very high chest result, that would mean 

6 a dose much higher than sieverts, higher than 

7 10 sieverts, might be implied in this. Then, 

8 they would have a follow-up to see what this 

9 really means, but you don't see it. Instead, 

10 it is just see they are calculating what this 

11 means in terms of maximum permissible result 

12 for uranium, not thorium.

13 So, that's it. I do think that 

14 those numbers, we don't understand them. We 

15 don't know what they really mean.

16 MR. ROLFES: This is Mark Rolfes.

17 John and Joyce both covered a lot 

18 of various different topics about the 

19 uncertainties of thorium lung counting. 

20 Rather than trying to address each one of 

21 those, I would prefer to come back one at a 

22 time, so that we can provide our most recent 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

205 1 response to each of these issues that have 

2 been presented and each of these concerns.

3 We just recently received these 

4 new concerns. We have responded to many of 

5 these previously in earlier White Papers. 

6 Some of these we just disagree with SC&A on, 

7 and others we share the same findings, I 

8 guess, for example, or the same concerns. But 

9 most of those are related to the uncertainties 

10 associated with measurement.

11 It is NIOSH's opinion that we can 

12 provide a claimant-favorable method to 

13 interpret those uncertainties to give the 

14 benefit of the doubt in workers' dose 

15 reconstructions.

16 Regarding the high doses for 

17 thorium, you know, the dose to a given organ 

18 is all going to depend upon the solubility, 

19 the amount of exposure to thorium, the 

20 distance in time between the exposure and the 

21 measurement, the biokinetics of the body, and 

22 various biological systems.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

206 1 If you take a look at bone doses 

2 and lung doses, for example, those are going 

3 to be two of the higher-exposed organs for 

4 thorium, while other systemic organs are going 

5 to have doses on the orders of magnitude much 

6 lower than the reported bone surfaces.

7 The bone surfaces are a very, very 

8 small, thin layer of active dividing tissue. 

9 Because the active dividing tissue is so, so 

10 small, there is a lot of energy deposited in 

11 that tissue. That is why the doses are so 

12 high. This all depends, though, upon the 

13 solubilities of the thorium.

14 We have also worked on developing 

15 some new intake-retention fractions. I am 

16 jumping around, but I am trying to give you 

17 some updates as to what we have done, and then 

18 I would like to go back to discussing one 

19 issue at a time, to hopefully state where we 

20 share the same opinion or where we have our 

21 differences.

22 Before we get to that, though, we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

207 1 prepared a small presentation just to provide 

2 a written summarization of what we have tried 

3 to do in the past couple of weeks since we 

4 have received SC&A's reports. This is just a 

5 draft update presentation. It is not our 

6 formal response yet. We tried to prepare 

7 something, so that we had something to discuss 

8 at this meeting.

9 This is something that I sent out. 

10 It is a PowerPoint presentation. I will just 

11 briefly go through some of these points in 

12 here.

13 This was the NIOSH position on 

14 FMPC local in vivo radiation monitoring 

15 laboratory thorium chest counts. We went back 

16 and had NIOSH conduct a review of all the 

17 White Papers and exchanges. We had Don Beal 

18 go back to review the NIOSH White Papers. And 

19 then, he endorsed the current positions on the 

20 issues. Don Beal has experience in lung 

21 counting at Pacific Northwest National 

22 Laboratory.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

208 1 We also had Tom LaBone go back and 

2 revisit worst-case assumptions regarding the 

3 chemical separations and the intake retention 

4 fractions for thorium progeny. He has 

5 produced a new White Paper. I don't have the 

6 final White Paper yet. It is still in review 

7 in DOE as well as in DCAS. As soon as that is 

8 developed and our comments have been 

9 incorporated, that will be sent out to the 

10 Work Group.

11 It is our opinion, NIOSH's opinion 

12 right now, that plausible bounding dose 

13 calculations are feasible, and we have 

14 demonstrated them.

15 I have a couple of graphs in here 

16 of the thorium decay chain and, also, the 

17 activity of natural thorium following chemical 

18 removal of the impurities or the daughter 

19 progeny.

20 Don Beal's review confirmed 

21 previous positions that there is a wealth of 

22 good information and papers on the subject --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

209 1 MR. KATZ: Excuse me. Someone on 

2 the line, would you please mute your phone? 

3 Someone on the line, we can hear people 

4 talking in the background. Thank you.

5 No, we still hear it.

6 Joyce, is your phone muted? Is 

7 that coming from you?

8 DR. LIPZSTEIN: No, it is not 

9 coming from mine, no. There is nobody here.

10 (Laughter.)

11 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you. 

12 Thank you. You were the only one who was 

13 talking, so you were the only one I would --

14 but someone has joined the call, perhaps just 

15 joined the call and has not muted your phone. 

16 Please mute your phone. Press *6 

17 to mute your phone.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: There we go.

19 MR. KATZ: No, I still hear it. I 

20 heard someone say sorry in the background, for 

21 example. That phone is not muted.

22 Someone is on the call. They have 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

210 1 not muted their phone. Would you please mute 

2 your phone or hang up, either way. But we 

3 can't proceed with all this noise.

4 I can hear shuffling of paper. 

5 Please, everyone on the phone, please mute 

6 your phone. Press *6.

7 Okay. Thank you.

8 Proceed.

9 MR. ROLFES: So, the most recent 

10 review that was conducted by Don Beal, he felt 

11 that we have appropriate bioassay and that we 

12 can make bounding assumptions to reconstruct 

13 thorium intakes.

14 NIOSH has produced a demonstration 

15 of the dose calculation method. A new White 

16 Paper by Tom LaBone on the calculation of 

17 chronic intake retention fractions for 

18 thorium-232, assuming shared biokinetics.

19 Tom has produced some calculations 

20 which now show the worst-case scenario 

21 disequilibrium, which is a result of three 

22 sequential time separations. The timing of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

211 1 which -- the separations were conducted -- was 

2 done to generate the worst-case disequilibrium 

3 of thorium and progeny. So, this we feel will 

4 address the thorium mass-to-activity 

5 conversion issue.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Excuse me. Is 

7 that something that has occurred since the 

8 SC&A critique?

9 MR. ROLFES: Yes, it is.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: They have not seen 

11 that?

12 MR. ROLFES: That's correct.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Got you.

14 MR. ROLFES: This was just 

15 recently drafted. It is dated February -- 

16 well, I have seen bits and pieces of it from 

17 February 2nd, and I think I have, hopefully, a 

18 close to final --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: We have not seen 

20 that?

21 MR. ROLFES: No.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Thank you.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

212 1 MR. ROLFES: No, it has not yet 

2 been shared with the Advisory Board because it 

3 is still --

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: I have so many 

5 things, I am not sure what I have seen.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MR. ROLFES: We have done our best 

8 to respond.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: No, I appreciate 

10 that. Thanks.

11 MR. ROLFES: But, then, I mean, we 

12 have tried to have a week or two turnaround 

13 from the time we received some of this 

14 information.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

16 MR. ROLFES: So, we have scrambled 

17 to put as much as we could together in a short 

18 amount of time, so that we could basically 

19 have some responses to the most recent review.

20 So, NIOSH's opinion is that we can 

21 bound thorium intakes based upon the mobile in 

22 vivo radiation monitoring laboratory data. We 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

213 1 have ample measurement data, and we can make 

2 bounding assumptions which incorporate all the 

3 various uncertainties.

4 Our coworker model pools data, and 

5 it makes the worst-case scenario intakes 

6 unlikely. Correction factors can be applied 

7 to each worker from this coworker model. The 

8 in vivo coworker model will be modified to 

9 incorporate these worst-case correction 

10 factors when the TBD is revised.

11 The items that remain unresolved 

12 with Item 6b on thorium-232 lung counts by 

13 SC&A: we have six bullets, I think, that were 

14 presented to the Advisory Board at the 

15 December 2011 Board meeting in Tampa.

16 NIOSH and SC&A agree that 

17 appropriate bioassay samples were taken. The 

18 SC&A issue is with the ORAU team 

19 interpretation or the NIOSH team 

20 interpretation of those data.

21 NIOSH has completed a series of 

22 calculations which allow conservative bounding 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

214 1 estimates of the lung burdens to be made from 

2 the lead-212 in vivo measurements. These 

3 calculations account for the disequilibrium 

4 created by multiple chemical separations up to 

5 three, and we have developed intake retention 

6 fractions for each of these various scenarios.

7 These calculations adjust the 

8 thorium mass results to account for new, 

9 independent biokinetics of thorium and its 

10 progeny, and that the disequilibrium factors 

11 caused by the chemical separations that could 

12 have occurred during the processing of thorium 

13 at Fernald. This will change the original TBD 

14 disequilibrium factor of .42.

15 In summary, these worst-case 

16 bounding scenarios for thorium exposures, 

17 worker exposures to thorium-232 are extremely 

18 conservative and unlikely. In a worst-case 

19 scenario, a single lung burden measurement 

20 would be no more than 5.25 times the value 

21 determined by the protocols set forth in our 

22 Technical Basis Document. We feel that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

215 1 bounding estimates can be made for potential 

2 thorium intakes, and that this is primarily a 

3 TBD issue related to the interpretation of the 

4 data we have available.

5 We have included an intake 

6 retention fraction summary chart showing that, 

7 in order to get the worst-case disequilibrium 

8 of thorium-232 and progeny, one would have to 

9 complete chemical separations at a time 

10 interval of 4.5 years, a second chemical 

11 separation at 7.1 years, and then another 

12 chemical separation at 8.8 years in order to 

13 come up with a worst-case scenario factor of 

14 five.

15 Now whether this was actually done 

16 at Fernald, whether they had a schedule that 

17 separated thorium three times at these 

18 particular intervals, I highly doubt that it 

19 occurred, but this is the worst-case 

20 hypothetical, basically, a bounding correction 

21 factor as to what the worst-case 

22 disequilibrium could be.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

216 1 This would sort of be applied for 

2 one point in time, for one thorium lung 

3 burden, one measurement. But if you have more 

4 data, more thorium lung counts, the likelihood 

5 of encountering that worst-case scenario each 

6 and every time that person has lung count is 

7 impossible, essentially. So, this is a 

8 hypothetical upper-bound, worst-case 

9 correction factor of five, and, in reality, it 

10 is likely much lower than that.

11 It is very improbable that all 

12 workers could have chronically been exposed to 

13 the worst-case scenario thorium progeny 

14 distribution. Intakes that possibly occurred 

15 in reality would have been comprised of 

16 thorium progeny distributions with a 

17 correction factor much less than the 5.25 

18 bounding factor, due to the more realistic 

19 assumptions regarding thorium processing 

20 timelines.

21 The more measurements that exist 

22 that were given an individual or a group, the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

217 1 greater the precision and confidence of the 

2 total set of lung burden measurements and the 

3 smaller the chance of underestimating a 

4 worker's thorium intake. And for that reason, 

5 we previously committed to a worker who has 

6 some thorium lung counts, rather than using 

7 their individual thorium lung counts off the 

8 bat, we would default to the 50th percentile 

9 intake for thorium, unless that individual's 

10 own data resulted in a higher internal dose. 

11 So, right off the bat, anyone and everyone 

12 with thorium lung count data would receive the 

13 50th percentile intake.

14 That is our summary, and we can go 

15 through the specific issues, if you would 

16 like.

17 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

18 Speaking for SC&A, we have kind of 

19 laid out what we feel are the big issues here. 

20 Without having a chance to really read this 

21 paper, I don't think we would really be in a 

22 position to comment on it at this point.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

218 1 DR. LIPZSTEIN: John, may I put 

2 something?

3 MR. STIVER: Certainly, of course.

4 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Okay. If you go 

5 to slide 9 of the presentation, it says on the 

6 first bullet that NIOSH has completed a series 

7 of calculations which are low, conservative, 

8 bounding estimates of the lung burdens to be 

9 made from the lead-212 measurements.

10 We, SC&A, agree with it. I think 

11 that we didn't see it in the LaBone paper on 

12 the IRF for biokinetics from the daughters of 

13 thorium in the lung. But, anyway, all of 

14 these are very good for the data that we have 

15 on lead-212, which is after 1978. For the 

16 period of time between 1968 and 1978, when we 

17 have the data on milligrams of thorium, this 

18 doesn't help at all because we don't know what 

19 this data in milligrams of thorium means.

20 Again, if you look at our Table 1, 

21 it doesn't say anything. You can look at the 

22 data on the -- let me go to Table 1 again, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

219 1 where Table 1 states everything.

2 Because we can't say what was --

3 look at Table 1. You have, again, 4.3 

4 milligrams of thorium, and that is a negative 

5 lead-212 activity. So, certainly, it was not 

6 calculated to lead-212, the 4.3.

7 Then, you look at a lot of results 

8 that were equal to 2.10. And I put on the 

9 table the results were taken from, the first 

10 one, two, three, four results were taken in 

11 the same month from people that were in the 

12 same pilot plant. And then, the other results 

13 were taken at Plant 4. The five results that 

14 had 2.10 milligrams of thorium results were 

15 taken from Plant 4 at the same time, in 

16 October 1979. And you look at the different 

17 results that they have for actinium and the 

18 lead, and you can't make a relationship 

19 between having the same 2.10-milligram 

20 results. And then, you have the three other 

21 results with negative lead-212 that we have 

22 pointed out. So, what I mean is that we don't 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

220 1 know what the result in milligrams is.

2 If you look also -- again, I am 

3 repeating myself again. It is just to say 

4 that those results don't have a meaning in 

5 terms of intake. We can't relate it to intake 

6 so we can't relate it to dose.

7 And this is not something that you 

8 can just say, oh, these are background 

9 numbers. They are not background numbers. 

10 They are thousands of times higher than 

11 background. Background is on the order of 3 

12 micrograms, and here we are looking at 2 

13 milligrams, at 1 milligram, at 4.3 milligrams, 

14 5.1 milligrams, and we are saying, oh, they 

15 are less than the detection limit of 6 

16 milligrams. But I don't know what is this 

17 detection limit. I don't know what it is 

18 because we have thousands of times higher than

19 the natural background.

20 And they can imply in very high 

21 doses, okay, it is for Type M thorium. But we 

22 had exposure to thorium nitrate. We know we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

221 1 had exposure to thorium nitrate, and it gives 

2 very high doses to the bone.

3 And we didn't make implausible 

4 scenarios, no, when we made it. Because the 

5 thorium workers, they didn't work for the 

6 whole year. We know they have worked for a 

7 certain amount of time, and then they were 

8 measured sometimes after their exposures.

9 If you look at them, all the 

10 scenarios give very high doses. So, I don't 

11 know if those doses are real or not. We just 

12 know we don't understand what those numbers 

13 mean.

14 And if they were measured through 

15 actinium and not through lead-212, then we 

16 would have an uncertainty of more than 100. 

17 We can see this by your slide here. In that 

18 presentation, you have the slides, one of your 

19 first slides, slide 4, and we can see that, if 

20 those measurements were done through actinium 

21 and not lead-212, we could have 100 times 

22 uncertainty here.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

222 1 So, I don't know. I think these 

2 results in milligrams of thorium, it doesn't 

3 have any significance in terms of intake or 

4 dose, or at least we don't know how to relate 

5 them to intake and dose, whatever calculations 

6 we do.

7 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is Mark 

8 Rolfes.

9 The magnitude of the dose that you 

10 are reporting, to say that these are high 

11 doses is sort of subjective because you are 

12 identifying, essentially, one of the highest13 exposed organs, the bone surfaces. And it is 

14 not true for all organs that these doses are 

15 so high.

16 And also, it is reported, you are 

17 reporting 50-year committed effective dose 

18 equivalence. The dose to the bone --

19 DR. LIPZSTEIN: For 30 days' 

20 exposure. You know, just for 30 days' 

21 exposure. Imagine someone that was exposed, 

22 you know, many times.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

223 1 Even if you go to the 1 

2 millisievert, which you see on your graphs on 

3 the response to SC&A and the response which 

4 replaced this document, you will see that 

5 there were many people that were exposed, you 

6 know, that have data between 1 milligram and 6 

7 milligrams, and these are sieverts also.

8 So, I mean, I don't know. And 

9 then, you look at the people that had results 

10 of lead measurements, actinium measurements, 

11 and have milligrams of thorium, and you can't 

12 make any sense of how they calculated it.

13 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, I am trying to 

14 address the magnitude of the doses.

15 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Maybe they didn't 

16 calculate it to actinium or lead.

17 MR. ROLFES: I can't really --

18 DR. LIPZSTEIN: That is what our 

19 Table 1 shows. They didn't calculate it to 

20 actinium or lead.

21 MR. KATZ: Okay, Joyce, let's let 

22 Mark respond.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

224 1 MR. ROLFES: To finish what I had 

2 started saying before Joyce -- you are 

3 presenting these doses as very high doses. 

4 And from a regulatory standpoint nowadays, 

5 that may be true. We are not trying to get 

6 the best estimate of a person's dose 

7 necessarily in this compensation program. We 

8 are trying to calculate a claimant-favorable 

9 dose. We make a lot of assumptions in doing 

10 that, but, ultimately, the dose could be very 

11 high.

12 But, still, to get back to what 

13 you are saying, the high doses is a subjective 

14 thing. If you are talking a bone surface dose 

15 of 10 sieverts over 50 years, that really 

16 doesn't amount to much per year. I mean, you 

17 are talking, if you have, for example, 100 rem 

18 over 50 years, when you divide that 100 by 50, 

19 you get down to much more representative 

20 doses.

21 In this program, we are using 

22 annual doses. Doses of 10 rem to an organ per 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

225 1 year are not unreasonable. And in fact, you 

2 would need doses of that magnitude in order to 

3 receive of Probability of Causation greater 

4 than 50 percent.

5 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Can I? Well, this 

6 would be doses for someone, for example, that 

7 was exposed for 30 days. Imagine that this 

8 worker came back and was exposed the other 

9 year.

10 But I am not talking about that. 

11 What I wanted to point out is not that. What 

12 I wanted to point out is that we don't know 

13 what the milligrams results indicate. Because 

14 in the paper that was presented to us, the 

15 last paper that NIOSH presented to us, it was 

16 said that most of the workers had very low 

17 intakes, very low doses of thorium, and that 

18 they had exposures near the natural exposures. 

19 And I am saying that this is not true.

20 What is reported as very low 

21 background, it is not background. It is a 

22 thousand times background. A thousand times 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

226 1 background means really high doses.

2 So, what I mean is that I don't 

3 know if this milligrams volume results, what 

4 they mean in terms of intake and in terms of 

5 dose, because we cannot relate them with the 

6 real measurement that was taken.

7 So, if you look at Table 1 again, 

8 I am sorry to be repeating myself, but if you 

9 look at Table 1 again, there is no --

10 MR. STIVER: Correlation.

11 DR. LIPZSTEIN: -- correlation 

12 between lead-212 or actinium-228 and the 

13 reported thorium results in milligrams. So, 

14 if you used shared semantics, if you used non15 shared semantics, if you use daughter, if you 

16 use a -- I don't know what conservative 

17 assumption about it could lead them to use 

18 this. It is impossible to correlate what was 

19 seen in the measurements of lead-212 and 

20 actinium-212 and correlate it with milligrams 

21 of thorium.

22 So, if they were not measured 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

227 1 through lead-12 or actinium-228, it doesn't 

2 mean there weren't assumptions you make. 

3 Understand? You don't know what those 

4 measurements mean. That is my point.

5 MR. STIVER: Joyce, this is John 

6 Stiver. Could I just step in for just a 

7 second?

8 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes, please.

9 MR. KATZ: Sam?

10 DR. GLOVER: Just as a matter of 

11 perspective, historically, as a chemist, 

12 thorium is talked about as 100 percent natural 

13 thorium-232. And so, when they talk about 

14 milligrams of thorium, that was a natural 

15 consequence. I realize we are talking progeny 

16 and how to relate that back.

17 I did want to relate one thing, 

18 though. Dirt is about, you know, it is on a 

19 micrograms-per-gram basis. Thorium does 

20 accumulate, as an hypothesis in autopsy data. 

21 And so, it is fairly measurable, even by 

22 alpha spectrometry.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

228 1 And so, it is not a microgram in 

2 the lung; it is more on the order of 100. I 

3 think, Joyce, probably it is maybe 100 

4 micrograms, several hundred micrograms of 

5 thorium are probably present as an adult ages 

6 with insoluble thorium.

7 And so, it is not just a single 

8 microgram, a couple of dpm or tenths of a dpm. 

9 It does accumulate in your thoracic lymph 

10 nodes.

11 So, just as a point of 

12 perspective.

13 DR. LIPZSTEIN: The 3 micrograms 

14 is for an adult. It is the background for 

15 people that live in the United States. That 

16 was the measurement that was done by Shawki 

17 Ibraham and Wrenn, Singh and Wrenn. They made 

18 measurements in Washington, D.C., and they 

19 made measurements in Denver, Colorado. The 

20 range for the adults was between 3 and 6 

21 micrograms of thorium total.

22 MR. KATZ: Before anyone speaks 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

229 1 anymore again, we have someone on the line who 

2 hasn't muted their phone or has come back on 

3 the line without muting their phone. Please 

4 press *6 to mute your phone.

5 I'm still hearing, there's 

6 conversation. Someone has an open phone line. 

7 Please mute your phone. Press *6 to mute 

8 your phone.

9 We are still listening to you. 

10 Hello?

11 Excuse me. There is someone on 

12 the line who has an open line. Would you 

13 please mute your phone? You are disrupting 

14 the call.

15 I'm sorry. I can call the number 

16 and get them disconnected, which I will do.

17 Try to go ahead.

18 MR. STIVER: Okay. This is John 

19 Stiver.

20 I just wanted to kind of step back 

21 and look at this in the broader perspective 

22 rather than debate whether the natural 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

230 1 background is 5 milligrams or 100 milligrams.

2 The reason we did this comparison 

3 was really because, in the NIOSH paper, there 

4 was a statement that a high preponderance of 

5 sub-MDL measurements really indicated that we 

6 were looking at background-level exposures. 

7 We kind of believe that that was not quite the 

8 entire story because in this situation that we 

9 are dealing with, it is a counting system that 

10 is just not sensitive enough to measure the 

11 intakes that would still result in significant 

12 doses.

13 And so, whether it is sievert 

14 level or rem level, the point being these are 

15 significant intakes from a dosimetric 

16 standpoint. And that is really the point we 

17 wanted to make here.

18 We picked those numbers of bone 

19 dose because, you know, thorium is known to be 

20 a bone-seeker. That is one of the most 

21 significant organs from a dosimetric 

22 standpoint.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

231 1 We could very easily have added a 

2 table of other organs, but I think the point 

3 being that these are not background-level 

4 exposures. These are real exposures.

5 MR. ROLFES: We agree with that, 

6 and that is an important point. We are not 

7 saying that the Fernald workers had no 

8 exposure. What this translates into, since we 

9 have an MDA, a minimum detectable amount of 

10 thorium, since this is 6 milligrams, anything 

11 that is below that, if we don't have a good 

12 feel for what exactly the reported value, if 

13 we have a number below 6 milligrams, if it is 

14 a non-detectable amount of thorium, we still 

15 give credit to the claimant in the dose 

16 reconstruction process. We assign half of 

17 that minimum detectable amount and use that to 

18 assign an intake.

19 Now, in addition to that, the way 

20 coworker models are developed, the less than 

21 minimum detectable amount intake -- or excuse 

22 me -- lung burdens are also used in the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

232 1 coworker distribution to calculate a thorium 

2 intake.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes, I understand how 

4 you guys do your modeling process. Our real 

5 concern is that here we have a situation where 

6 what appears to be categorical data, you have 

7 some group of exposed personnel who we have 

8 shown in most cases can be identified as 

9 thorium workers. But there is such large 

10 uncertainties, there is such a lack of 

11 sensitivity in the measurements, that we can't 

12 see much more than you have got. You have got 

13 an exposure or you don't.

14 And once you start getting down 

15 into what is left of the detection limit, as 

16 table 1 shows, I mean, all these values are 

17 sub-MDL. So, it doesn't surprise me that you 

18 have got actinium and lead measurements that 

19 are all over the map.

20 Our concern really is that we 

21 don't have sufficient accuracy in this dataset 

22 for it to be adequate in terms of dose 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

233 1 reconstruction. I guess that is really the 

2 bottom line, when you kind of step back and 

3 look it from a conceptual standpoint.

4 I mean, we can certainly argue the 

5 details of certain parameter values and 

6 whether certain personnel might have been 

7 measured during a particular period of time or 

8 not. But when you get back to the bottom 

9 line, that is really it. We just don't have a 

10 sufficient accuracy in this dataset.

11 I mean, I think it is not because 

12 it was the fault of anybody or any technical 

13 staff. I just think this particular approach 

14 was never really intended to be quantitative 

15 analysis.

16 MR. ROLFES: I disagree with that 

17 last statement. I agree with you about what 

18 you had said up until that point.

19 This measurement technique was 

20 actually developed to become a quantitative 

21 approach to estimate thorium lung burden. 

22 SC&A stated in their report that it was more 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

234 1 of a qualitative report, but that is not true. 

2 The excerpt actually from the Hap West 

3 document that is cited by SC&A, where it said 

4 it was to be a qualitative approach, states 

5 the exact opposite.

6 On page 24 of the Hap West report, 

7 it says, in-vivo gamma spectrometry is a 

8 suitable method for detecting quantitatively 

9 certain thorium daughters, on page 24 of that 

10 reference from 1965.

11 And then, on page 27, it says, 

12 summary of personnel monitoring 

13 considerations. It says, in summary, for 

14 personnel, there is presently no developed 

15 technique for quantitatively estimating 

16 thorium lung burden by analysis. A body 

17 counter can be used to make this estimation, 

18 but has certain interpretational limitations, 

19 as we just described.

20 It is NIOSH's opinion that we have 

21 developed methods to address these 

22 uncertainties and these limitations. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

235 1 Definitely, the way that this program 

2 interprets the data that we have available to 

3 us, we feel that it is very claimant-favorable 

4 to apply these missed doses or doses below the 

5 minimum detectable amount of the system that 

6 was used. We feel that is claimant-favorable 

7 and appropriate for a compensation program.

8 It is my opinion that the 

9 sufficient accuracy definition is more 

10 important as to what type of cancer one has, 

11 rather than how high the dose values are 

12 sometimes. Those are equally important 

13 things, the high-dose values and which type of 

14 cancer. You can have a 100 rem in some 

15 scenarios and have brain cancer, and that 100 

16 rem isn't going to be enough to cause a brain 

17 cancer. But, on the other hand, if you have 

18 100 rem and have leukemia, that is typically 

19 going to be significant for a sufficient 

20 amount of radiation to cause leukemia.

21 So, I mean, sufficient accuracy is 

22 one of those things that is subjective. We 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

236 1 might have one opinion of what might be 

2 sufficiently accurate, and someone else might 

3 have a different opinion.

4 MR. STIVER: Sure.

5 DR. LIPZSTEIN: May I comment 

6 again to Table 1? I'm sorry.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Hold off, Joyce. 

8 You have had more time than anybody. Let's 

9 get some other comments in.

10 These are minimum detectable 

11 activities in the sense that we use it in 

12 counting. So, it is not surprising that they 

13 don't correlate with other things.

14 It is somewhat like in a film 

15 badge, let's say your minimum dose that you 

16 can measure is -- pick a number -- 10 

17 millirem, for example. NIOSH typically says, 

18 okay, if it is either a zero or an M or 

19 something under the 10, we don't know what it 

20 is. It is zero or it is not, and that looks 

21 really inaccurate, but it is only inaccurate 

22 right down here near your detection limit. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

237 1 So, you have been typically assigning half of 

2 that value because over a period of 

3 measurements they are going to probably 

4 cluster around that point.

5 This to me looks similar, if you 

6 did that with thorium results that are below 

7 6.

8 DR. LIPZSTEIN: May I?

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: The mistake, I 

10 think, is trying to correlate that with these 

11 other things, which also are hovering around 

12 zero. To take any individual ones and say, 

13 well, here's 2.10 and .25, that doesn't make 

14 sense if you compare it with 4.3 and 0.4. 

15 Well, of course not. You are way down here in 

16 the noise of the system.

17 It doesn't matter that it is way 

18 above the background level that people have in 

19 their lungs. It is the noise of the system 

20 that you are looking at.

21 DR. LIPZSTEIN: No, it's not.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, it is. It is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

238 1 the noise of the system.

2 DR. LIPZSTEIN: May I just one 

3 second?

4 If you look at Table 2 again, you 

5 have dose numbers, 2.10, right? That would 

6 supposedly be below detection limit. But if 

7 you look, for example, there is one that has 

8 lead-212 of .40 and actinium of .7. That is 

9 above the detection limit. The detection 

10 limit is .2, .23 I think. So, it is above 

11 detection limits, and the result is 2.10, 

12 which we are not considering below detection 

13 limit. So, we have many results here that are 

14 above .23, which would be the detection limit 

15 for lead-212 and actinium-228. And although 

16 that, we have a result that is 2.10.

17 So, it is not the question of --

18 you know, I think we don't understand what 

19 they did, how they calculated these results in 

20 milligrams.

21 MR. STIVER: I think, Joyce, you 

22 have a good point there. When you look at the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

239 1 data, there is greater than 6 milligrams that 

2 are reported in milligrams of thorium. You 

3 also see huge amounts of variability in 

4 numbers. And we really don't have any way to 

5 get back from those measurements what the real 

6 thorium intake may have been. 

7 If you accept this, you are 

8 accepting those numbers at face value, the 

9 very, very tiny number of them that are 

10 actually indicative of any kind of exposure. 

11 And even within that, there is huge amounts of 

12 variability.

13 So, you know, this idea of 

14 sufficient accuracy, it is subjective. The 

15 Board has to balance sufficient accuracy 

16 against claimant favorability.

17 We are in a position where I think 

18 we have done what we can do here. We have 

19 laid out our understanding and our concern. I 

20 haven't heard anything at this point that 

21 really causes me to change my mind on this.

22 MR. ROLFES: When you have a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

240 1 measurement around the MDA, there is going to 

2 be a lot of variability.

3 MR. STIVER: Even above the MDAs, 

4 you will have variability.

5 (Laughter.)

6 MR. ROLFES: Sure. I mean, well, 

7 keep in mind that the MDA is going to change 

8 based on the individual's own body type, the 

9 location of counter. So, there is a lot of 

10 uncertainties there that you can't just 

11 discount and say it is always 6 milligrams.

12 MR. STIVER: Oh, sure. But, Mark, 

13 when you see a value of 10 or 15 milligrams in 

14 one reading that six months later is .02, how 

15 can you possibly imply from that --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, that is a 

17 separate issue, I think.

18 MR. STIVER: That is a separate 

19 issue in a way, but it shows that there is 

20 just this huge amount of uncertainty, even at 

21 values that are supposedly above the stated 

22 MDA.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

241 1 MR. ROLFES: Let's talk about 

2 this, though. We have previously been -- this 

3 has been referenced by SC&A previously, the 10 

4 milligram which dropped down to a less-than5 detectable value in a matter of, I think, 40 

6 days, was what was previously cited.

7 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes.

8 MR. ROLFES: We had requested this 

9 information from SC&A. We wanted to take a 

10 look at this, so that we could investigate 

11 this on our own. We haven't received any 

12 scenario from SC&A where they have been able 

13 to reproduce what they have quoted as the 10 

14 milligrams dropping down to .2 milligrams.

15 Now keep in mind, though, if we 

16 had a 10-milligram measurement followed by a 

17 .2-milligram measurement 40 days down the 

18 road, we wouldn't treat that .2-milligram 

19 value at face value. We would treat it as 

20 one-half of the limit of detection of 6. So, 

21 we would actually assume that .3 was an order 

22 of magnitude of higher, at a value equal to 3 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

242 1 milligrams. So, we would use that value to 

2 reconstruct the person's intake.

3 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes, but the 10.2 

4 milligrams, if you make the calculation, you 

5 expect something around 6 milligrams. And 

6 then, we have another example where we had 25 

7 milligrams thorium lung burden in March 1976, 

8 and then in July 1976 it dropped to .03 

9 milligrams, when you would expect 8 

10 milligrams. So, you had from 8 milligrams to 

11 .03 milligrams. There is no uncertainty that 

12 would say, oh, this is correct.

13 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is Mark.

14 Once again, if you have a value of 

15 25 milligrams which dropped down below the 

16 limit of detection to .02 milligrams, we would 

17 use, for that less-than-MDA value of .02, we 

18 would actually bump that value up to a 3-

19 milligram value because --

20 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes, but you would 

21 expect 8 milligrams.

22 MR. ROLFES: That would also 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

243 1 depend upon the -- well, excuse me. That 

2 would depend upon the solubility of the 

3 thorium and several other factors involved in 

4 that count.

5 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes, but I am 

6 talking about Type M, which is the most 

7 soluble you can expect from thorium. If you 

8 think it is Type S, it would be a higher 

9 value.

10 DR. GLOVER: Except for 

11 contamination.

12 MR. ROLFES: Or large particle 

13 ingestion, are two other scenarios that could 

14 play into a more rapid decrease in a 

15 measurement.

16 DR. LIPZSTEIN: No, the .03, it 

17 would be below the detection limit. I think 

18 we really don't know what those results mean. 

19 Probably they are a mixture of measuring 

20 radium, thorium instead of measuring 

21 something, you know. That is why there is 

22 this big drop.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

244 1 MR. ROLFES: If you have an 

2 individual who was just walking out of the job 

3 and had just been exposed to thorium, if you 

4 took a lung count measurement from him, it is 

5 likely going to be higher for that immediate 

6 count. You would want to have a little bit of 

7 a separation in between the exposure and the 

8 measurement.

9 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes, because of 

10 the thorium, yes.

11 MR. ROLFES: In order to get the 

12 idea of how much thorium is remaining in the 

13 body and delivering the dose. That is the 

14 key. If it is cleared fast, it is not 

15 delivering dose. If it is remaining in the 

16 body, it is delivering dose. And you want to 

17 have that separation I time between the 

18 exposure and the measurement. That will give 

19 you a better idea of how much material resides 

20 within the lungs or in the body and how much 

21 dose the lungs and other organs of the body 

22 are receiving.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

245 1 MR. STIVER: Now that may be true. 

2 This is kind of a theoretical discussion 

3 here, if it was one day or it was ten days. 

4 We don't really know what the time period was. 

5 We could probably make a pretty reasonable 

6 assumption that it wouldn't be an immediate --

7 that particular intake might have happened, I 

8 don't know, a month ago.

9 DR. MAURO: This is John.

10 Let me ask a sufficient accuracy 

11 question. I am listening intently to this 

12 discussion.

13 What I am hearing is that, at 

14 least in one case, the low limit of detection 

15 was 6 milligrams of thorium-232, and Joyce 

16 explained that that must be associated with 

17 about 600 rem to the bone surface, and 

18 whatever the other values are to other organs.

19 So, what that really means is here 

20 we have a person. We don't know what his dose 

21 is. It could be zero, but it could be 600 

22 rem, someplace between there. We don't know 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

246 1 where it is.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Committed dose, 

3 John.

4 MR. STIVER: Yes, it is committed 

5 over 50 --

6 DR. MAURO: Oh, okay. Then, per 

7 year, we could divide that. But that is just 

8 one measurement. Of course, then, what I am 

9 getting at is, for that one -- let's work with 

10 that number, just because I am going to pose a 

11 very simple question.

12 The committed dose from that 

13 person could be, what I am hearing, if you 

14 accept that lower limit of detection, it could 

15 be anywhere from zero to 600 rem to the bone 

16 surface, 30-year committed dose. That kind of 

17 uncertainty, zero to 600 rem, committed dose, 

18 does that meet your criteria of sufficient 

19 accuracy?

20 That is what is happening here. 

21 We have got a person and we can say -- and I 

22 don't know if Joyce would agree. What I heard 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

247 1 is she may not believe that is 6 milligrams, 

2 either. I understand it could have been 

3 higher. But let's just assume that is the low 

4 limit of detection and we take that on face 

5 value.

6 I am going to make it really 

7 simple. You take that on face value that, 

8 yes, we believe that, in fact, the lower limit 

9 of detection was, in fact, 6 milligrams. That 

10 means all you can say is that the real, but 

11 unknown, dose commitment to this person's bone 

12 surface is anywhere between zero and 600 rem. 

13 Does that meet the test of sufficient 

14 accuracy?

15 MR. ROLFES: John, this is Mark 

16 Rolfes.

17 That is essentially asking if the 

18 way the body handles a particular material is 

19 sufficiently accurate.

20 DR. MAURO: Well, no, my problem 

21 is that we are not talking about zero to 10 

22 millirems, as we are with less than the lower 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

248 1 limit of detection for a TLD. We are talking 

2 about zero to 600 rem.

3 This implies that we cannot 

4 reconstruct the dose, in my opinion, to meet 

5 sufficient accuracy because the methodology 

6 does not allow for you to predict the dose 

7 with sufficient accuracy.

8 MR. MORRIS: Ted, this is Bob 

9 Morris. Please?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, Bob.

11 MR. MORRIS: I have an opinion 

12 about sufficient accuracy, too.

13 (Laughter.)

14 It is one that I actually 

15 developed from listening to Dr. Ziemer say 

16 this at some point in the past. The question 

17 about sufficient accuracy really focuses on, 

18 can we make an appropriate decision regarding 

19 compensation of the individual? Not can we 

20 get the dose right, but can we make the right 

21 decision in terms of the claimant-favorable 

22 compensation or not?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

249 1 And I would submit that we have 

2 shown you every reason to believe that we will 

3 be making these compensations in favor of the 

4 claimant.

5 MR. ROLFES: Good point, Bob. 

6 Thank you.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Very good point, 

8 Bob. So, we are going to give them all 600, 

9 anybody that is in there. I beg to differ 

10 with you on that being sufficient accuracy.

11 MR. ROLFES: That is exactly what 

12 we do. We give the benefit of the doubt. The 

13 way this program is designed, you give the 

14 benefit of the doubt to the claimant. It is 

15 within your purview. If you don't believe 

16 that our approach is accurate, so be it.

17 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Well, I have a 

18 question, going back to the calibration. I 

19 mean, obviously, in your instrumentation you 

20 are going to have to do some kind of 

21 calibration. Do we know what kind of 

22 procedures they used for their calibration, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

250 1 which would give you at least a good feeling 

2 about the accuracy of their measurements? Do 

3 we have that data?

4 MR. ROLFES: Yes, there is 

5 information. Since this is light bulb noble 

6 in-vivo counter, the calibration scenarios and 

7 background on the machine, there is a 

8 reference developed by Hap West in 1965. And 

9 then, there is also some calibration data that 

10 we have got on the K: drive as well, showing 

11 different calibration using different types of 

12 phantoms and different amounts of thorium of 

13 different ages. That has been out there for 

14 years, I think.

15 MR. STIVER: Yes, inherent in all 

16 those discussions of calibration is this 

17 caveat that the measurements have to be very 

18 careful. They have to be measurable, both the 

19 different isotopes, actinium and lead, in 

20 order to gauge the age of the source. There 

21 is a very inherently uncertain practice to do 

22 this.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

251 1 And so, I mean, John has a very 

2 good point. What are you going to reflect 

3 this to find what is sufficiently accurate? 

4 In this particular case, we are taking an MDL 

5 dose, which could range from zero to 600. Or 

6 if you look at a later time period, depending 

7 on the scenario, it could be higher than that. 

8 Is that really reasonable to use that as the 

9 basis for accuracy?

10 For a TLD, when you are looking at 

11 a dose of 10 to 20 millirem, perhaps. But 

12 this is the kind of decision that has got to 

13 be put before the Board. Is this really 

14 reasonable to make that kind of determination?

15 MR. ROLFES: It is a subjective 

16 call, I mean ultimately.

17 DR. GLOVER: I would just submit 

18 that it is for all plutonium, Super S. This 

19 is a multi-sitewide discussion that you are 

20 entering because it is saying, at what point 

21 does an MDA become non-sufficiently accurate?

22 DR. MAURO: I think that you have 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

252 1 just nailed it. This is a very fundamental 

2 discussion we are having here.

3 DR. GLOVER: It is.

4 DR. MAURO: We haven't had this 

5 conversation before. It is very important.

6 DR. GLOVER: In a multi-sitewide 

7 discussion, a generic analysis, I mean, I 

8 would definitely like to have senior NIOSH 

9 management, Neton and folks, weighing-in and 

10 providing discourse.

11 This isn't related to Fernald. I 

12 just want to make sure. We have some 

13 limitations on this. And so, I think if we 

14 want to get into this perspective, I would 

15 really appreciate that we put it into an arena 

16 where it is elevated at the right level.

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I am going 

18 to be right honest with you. We have been 

19 beating this around for long enough as a Work 

20 Group and stuff. And it appears to me that we 

21 are going to differ on our opinions. To me, 

22 this can go before the full Board. I am sure 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

253 1 that the full Board is going to weigh in on 

2 this issue.

3 Paul?

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, in one 

5 sense, it is not any different than what we do 

6 on all of our doses. You know, they all show 

7 up as a distribution in a sense. And so, a 

8 given worker whose most probable dose is here 

9 at the peak, who may have had no dose, we go 

10 up to the tail. If you had, let's say if all 

11 the exposures were below the 6-milligram 

12 value, yes, you would have a distribution of 

13 some sort around that. And you say, yes, but 

14 we are going to select -- we are not going to 

15 assign zero. We are going to say it is 

16 possible that that person -- we don't know for 

17 an individual where they are in that, but we 

18 are going to give them the upper end of that 

19 tail in order to make it claimant-favorable.

20 And if they have more than 6, 

21 always you go up in your detection system. 

22 You can become more accurate in terms of your 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

254 1 measurement. It is true of any system, like 

2 film badges or whatever, or any counting 

3 system. As you get higher, you get more 

4 accurate. As you get more accurate, the 

5 uncertainties -- and you can assign that dose 

6 more accurately.

7 So, the people for whom you don't 

8 know the dose very well get a much, much 

9 bigger break. I often tell people, if you 

10 want to press for accuracy of measurement, 

11 then the tail is going to come down, and your 

12 Probability of Causation is going to be much 

13 closer to your real value. It is sort of 

14 like, the less we know, the better off you 

15 are.

16 But, for those down in this tail, 

17 John, I don't think we are saying zero to 600. 

18 We are saying we can bound it at 600, or 

19 something like that. Do you see what I am 

20 saying?

21 DR. MAURO: Yes. No, remember, I 

22 can --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

255 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: And I don't care 

2 what the number is. I don't care if it is 600 

3 rem or if it is 60 millirem, because you still 

4 have that distribution. And conceptually, you 

5 are saying, can I bound it? Can I put a limit 

6 on it?

7 DR. MAURO: With sufficient 

8 accuracy. No, see, I just raised a very 

9 narrow question, and it really goes to, at 

10 what point is your lower limit of detection so 

11 poor that you cannot assign a dose with 

12 sufficient accuracy?

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, if all your 

14 readings are below --

15 DR. MAURO: Now you could place an 

16 upper bound --

17 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- that, yes.

18 DR. MAURO: I could take it a step 

19 further. If the person did not die of acute 

20 radiation syndrome, you could argue that you 

21 placed -- I mean, I am being a little 

22 facetious now; I realize that -- but you could 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

256 1 say, well, he didn't get more than 600 rem 

2 whole-body dose, because that is of the 

3 metric.

4 I have got to say, when I am 

5 hearing 600 rem as being a low level --

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: John, this is 600 

7 rem on 50 years. It is about 10-12 rem a 

8 year.

9 DR. MAURO: Twelve rem a year, 

10 yes.

11 MR. ROLFES: And this is for one 

12 of the highest-exposed organs. That is the 

13 most important point in there.

14 DR. MAURO: Right. I agree. But 

15 I think that the concept, this concept has not 

16 been discussed before. When we have a low 

17 limit of detection that is up in a range that 

18 is very high doses --

19 MR. ROLFES: These aren't that 

20 high of doses, John.

21 DR. MAURO: Let me just ask Joyce 

22 one question. Joyce, do you believe the 6-
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

257 1 milligram number is a number that is a 

2 reliable number. That is, that is, in fact, 

3 we can say with a degree of confidence that, 

4 when they say my lower limit of detection is 6 

5 milligram, do you feel that that is a number 

6 that you trust?

7 DR. LIPZSTEIN: No.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay. That is the 

9 second --

10 DR. LIPZSTEIN: It doesn't reflect 

11 Fernald. We have many other detection limits 

12 in other papers saying about 10. We don't 

13 know.

14 And I have another question, John. 

15 Suppose someone had a result -- you know, it 

16 is not a coworker model; I mean a worker. A 

17 worker had a result of 2.10 milligrams of 

18 thorium. It was positive, higher than the 

19 detection limit of lead, .40. It is higher 

20 than the detection limit of .65, actinium-228, 

21 which is also higher than the detection limit. 

22 So, you have a result of 2.10 that could be 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

258 1 measured through lead and actinium. And you 

2 calculated those on this 2.1 milligrams.

3 And then, you have another worker 

4 who had the double, 4.3 milligrams, and you 

5 calculated those for 4.3 milligrams. He will 

6 have the double of the dose of the guy that 

7 had 2.1. But, yet, he had lower than 

8 detection limits lead and actinium. So, what 

9 does this mean?

10 DR. MAURO: So, what I am hearing 

11 is there are two questions that I guess SC&A 

12 is putting on the table.

13 One is, the data itself, as it 

14 speaks to us, does not make sense. So, we 

15 don't believe the 6 number that we are looking 

16 at as being the low limit of detection.

17 And second, even if it is, we are 

18 raising a policy question, is it appropriate 

19 to move forward and make judgments on 

20 sufficient accuracy when the real, but 

21 unknown, dose could vary over such an 

22 incredible range?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

259 1 I guess those are two. That is 

2 what I am hearing this all boils down to.

3 In one case it is a technical 

4 issue where SC&A does not trust the numbers 

5 that we are looking at as being reliable, and 

6 that certainly is a very -- in other words, 

7 our position is we do not trust those numbers 

8 as measured between 1968 and 1978 and 

9 reported, for the reasons discussed.

10 And second, the other half of it 

11 is, even if we did, we are raising a policy 

12 question of whether or not that low limit of 

13 detection is compatible with the concept of 

14 sufficient accuracy.

15 MR. STIVER: John, you are kind of 

16 inheriting that. Really, it gets into the 

17 point, a particular detection system, when is 

18 it deemed not suitable for a particular 

19 application? That is really, I think, the 

20 question we are asking here.

21 MEMBER MELIUS: This is Jim 

22 Melius. If I can ask a more mundane, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

260 1 practical question?

2 It is my understanding NIOSH has 

3 two reports that are about to be -- I can't 

4 tell if they are in review or they are 

5 completed or not, but I am trying to get a 

6 sense of when they will be available.

7 MR. ROLFES: Dr. Melius, this is 

8 Mark.

9 We just received SC&A's two or 

10 three reports on thorium within the past week 

11 or two weeks. We just prepared some draft 

12 responses to those for discussion today. We 

13 should be able to get our more formal 

14 response, we hope to have it in time for the 

15 upcoming Advisory Board meeting, but it is 

16 going to be a very tight schedule at this 

17 point.

18 MEMBER MELIUS: I would strongly 

19 urge you to get it done by the Advisory Board 

20 meeting.

21 MR. ROLFES: We will definitely 

22 work to do that, sir. We have got many irons 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

261 1 in the fire. So, we will work to achieve 

2 that.

3 MEMBER MELIUS: I will email Stu 

4 to that effect also. You know, I understand 

5 what you are saying, and I don't expect you to 

6 commit to that. So, that's fine.

7 DR. GLOVER: There was a question 

8 I think Mark was asking earlier. I want to 

9 make sure. I know that Joyce has said that 

10 there are certain workers where we saw this 

11 large dropoff. Are we clear on who those 

12 workers are, Mark? Do we have that data?

13 MR. ROLFES: That information 

14 hasn't been provided to us.

15 DR. GLOVER: Can we get that? 

16 That's okay. Could we just get it? I just 

17 want to make sure we have it. Because being a 

18 whole-body counter, there's lots of reasons 

19 why things happen, why you can count people 

20 multiple times, and that is certainly 

21 appreciated. But I think it is good if we 

22 have that data, so we can address it.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

262 1 I would like to remind everybody 

2 that DOE orders, as they stand now, allow 50-

3 rem committed dose effective to an organ. 

4 That is, it is not 5 rem a year. It is 

5 actually organ dose is 50 rem over your 

6 lifetime, committed effective dose.

7 And so, the 500, while being high, 

8 sounds a lot higher when you talked about 5, 

9 but it is really 10 times the limit of what 

10 you have today. And so, you are talking about 

11 technology shortfalls. At what time does this 

12 technology shortfall become incompatible with 

13 this, I think is what you are meaning.

14 MR. STIVER: Yes, that is really 

15 what we are getting at here.

16 MR. ROLFES: Yes, that is a good 

17 point, Sam. That is what I wanted to say.

18 I'm sorry.

19 DR. GLOVER: No, that is okay.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: One other point on 

21 minimum detectable activity, and I don't know 

22 whether this 6, or whatever, number is right 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

263 1 or wrong, but the fact that some other counter 

2 or unit or facility gets 10 I think is 

3 immaterial.

4 You can improve your minimum 

5 detectable activity by counting longer. So, 

6 we can't intercompare the facilities like 

7 that. If 6 is what Hap West got with counting 

8 with a certain size crystal for a certain 

9 length of time, I am not concerned about that 

10 number per se. That is what they get.

11 They are saying, "We can't detect 

12 lower than that with any confidence." And 

13 some other counter or some other group may 

14 say, "Well, we can't do any better than 10." 

15 They probably have a different counting system 

16 and maybe they have a different period of 

17 time.

18 But, whatever it is, I think the 

19 issue is more the philosophical one that you 

20 are talking about. It is not the fact that it 

21 is 6, and that that results in a lifetime dose 

22 that is high when people get more than 6. If 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

264 1 it is 6, so be it. What do you with the 

2 values that are below that, because they are 

3 in the noise of the system, which was what I 

4 was trying to emphasize.

5 MR. STIVER: Yes, that was really 

6 our point in trying to illustrate this. We 

7 are kind of getting to that whole issue of, 

8 was this counting system really adequate for 

9 the task at hand? Again, it kind of 

10 transcends Fernald at this point.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. And I 

12 suppose at that time, where they are working 

13 under -- what years were these?

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: 1968 to 1978. 

15 That is under Ohio --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, 1968, they 

17 are already in the 5 rem per year. They were. 

18 But the lifetime limit, then, for a person --

19 MR. STIVER: So, you probably 

20 preferred something on one year which --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. I mean, a 

22 person for a 50-year working life could 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

265 1 technically get -- well, that is whole body. 

2 That is whole body. Now, if you use the 

3 correction factors, like if you are talking 

4 lung dose, for example, it is not 5 rems per 

5 year.

6 MR. STIVER: If you are looking at 

7 stochastic effects, yes, for that particular 

8 -- you know, you are going to have the 

9 weighting factor that goes along with that.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Well, I am 

11 just trying to say the number sounds big until 

12 you put it on an annual basis and put the 

13 organ weighting factors in, and it is not much 

14 different from other exposures then.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: But, Paul, 

16 wouldn't you also be able to take, if it is 

17 over the detectable limit, be able to back18 extrapolate it and come up fairly close to 

19 what they came up with? I have a hard time 

20 with --

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, when you get 

22 over -- I don't know. Are they detecting the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

266 1 actinium separately?

2 MR. STIVER: Part of the problem 

3 is this table shows during the period of 

4 overlap, when you actually have the actinium 

5 and lead measurements in milligram form. You 

6 only have during this short period of time 

7 here.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: 1968 to 1978.

9 MR. STIVER: We are trying to 

10 determine whether these measurements of 

11 lead-212 really match up to the milligrams-of12 thorium data. It is really inconclusive when 

13 you look at this, their comparison here.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, and if they 

15 are down in the detection limit on both of 

16 those, it is going to be hard to correlate 

17 that kind of data.

18 MR. STIVER: In this particular 

19 data, you have got one that is close to the 

20 detection limit, but you can see that these 

21 other values are way off.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, did we look at 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

267 1 anything over the detection limit?

2 MR. STIVER: Yes, we did. In the 

3 previous paragraphs, Joyce brings up under the 

4 issue of biokinetic realism these situations. 

5 There are two kind of anecdotal discussions 

6 here about, if you had measurement A at time 

7 period T, what would you expect subsequent to 

8 that? And the data that we see don't really 

9 seem to comport with known biokinetic 

10 properties. Granted, there are individual 

11 variations and the type of the particular 

12 characteristics of a given intake are going to 

13 have a big impact on that as well.

14 DR. GLOVER: Again, I would just, 

15 from a standpoint of does something make 

16 sense, often faced with contamination issues 

17 as a whole-body counter -- and I did actually 

18 misspeak. Fifty rem per year every year you 

19 have a plutonium intake, we do the committed 

20 effective dose, you know, that you are allowed 

21 to get 50 rem to the lung. The next year you 

22 have got to get the next 50.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

268 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: But that is a 

2 dose-weighted factor.

3 DR. GLOVER: No, so every year the 

4 lung gets 50 rems.

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, sure.

6 DR. GLOVER: And the next year, 

7 you get another. So, you can actually 

8 receive, even today under DOE rules, limits 

9 that the 12 rem is not outside of from an 

10 organ-specific dose. Those are allowable 

11 limits. Those are within the allowable limits 

12 today.

13 MR. STIVER: With your actinium 

14 and in your .12 factor for --

15 DR. GLOVER: But those are for 

16 whole body. This is for the lung.

17 MR. STIVER: Yes.

18 DR. GLOVER: Remember, that 12 rem 

19 was for the organ.

20 MR. STIVER: Oh, sure. Right.

21 DR. GLOVER: Remember, we talked 

22 about some organ-specific dose.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

269 1 MR. STIVER: Yes.

2 DR. GLOVER: And so, that is 

3 within the legal limit today. You could 

4 deliver 12 rem to the bone surfaces every 

5 year.

6 MR. STIVER: I guess the question 

7 is, do you want to have a counting system that 

8 is accurate enough to where you can get down 

9 to a much lower --

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh, yes, you 

11 always want to --

12 DR. GLOVER: I am just letting you 

13 know that today's list -- anyway, it is your 

14 all's --

15 MR. STIVER: So, these are high 

16 doses, and, granted, you are allowed high 

17 organ doses which would appear to be 

18 outrageous in some senses, but they are good, 

19 once you start factoring in the actual 

20 weighting factor for a given cancer.

21 MR. ROLFES: The high doses, what 

22 I had tried to say before, it is more how the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

270 1 body acts. I mean, what type of cancer you 

2 are reconstructing a dose for, it is the 

3 biokinetic models and the dose delivered to 

4 different organs depend more upon those organs 

5 and the processes going on within those 

6 organs.

7 The dose value or the intake or 

8 exposure amount is equally important, but so 

9 is the type of cancer, the organ. To say 600 

10 rem over 50 years, which is roughly, on 

11 average, 12 rem per year, you get more dose in 

12 the first few years and less towards the end 

13 of the 50, that same 600 rem to the bone 

14 surfaces is going to be less than 100 millirem 

15 to another organ over 50 years. So, it all 

16 depends on what organ it is. The bone surface 

17 is just that organ that is such a small mass 

18 where thorium progeny concentrate. That 

19 delivers all the dose.

20 The prostate, for example, or the 

21 bladder or your eyeball or your skin, thorium 

22 does not concentrate there. So, the doses 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

271 1 over 50 years or even annually, the doses are 

2 going to be orders of magnitude less.

3 MR. STIVER: Mark, I just want you 

4 to realize that we didn't put those in -- it 

5 was basically illustrative of the magnitude of 

6 doses which could accrue that would be 

7 relatively important for thorium exposure. 

8 That is why we included that.

9 MR. ROLFES: Sure.

10 MR. STIVER: Now the magnitude in 

11 a particular year, relative to certain limits, 

12 that is another issue altogether. We wanted 

13 to show that here we have a situation where we 

14 have data that are less than the detection 

15 limit that are still, nevertheless, able to 

16 result in a very high dose.

17 MR. ROLFES: Right.

18 DR. MAURO: This is John.

19 One more issue perspective related 

20 to what I call this policy question is, there 

21 was a time when very high doses would be 

22 assigned, and everyone agreed it really 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

272 1 couldn't be higher than this. I remember the 

2 OTIB-4 where you would assign 100 MAC as being 

3 a default high-end number, only to be used for 

4 the purpose of denial. That was the 

5 philosophy.

6 That is, yes, you may be at a 

7 place where, for the sake of expediency, you 

8 could assign a very, very high dose. But if 

9 you still deny, that is an acceptable method 

10 to go.

11 In a funny way, we are in that 

12 kind of situation here. What you are saying 

13 is we have a technology that will allow us --

14 by the way, I am not really saying we agree 

15 with this. But if we, in fact, said -- and we 

16 are not saying this -- but if we in fact said, 

17 yes, we believe that 6 milligrams is a 

18 reasonable upper bound and it can't really be 

19 higher than that, now, as we heard Joyce say, 

20 we don't believe that. But if we did, the 

21 question becomes, shouldn't a number like that 

22 be used only for the sake of denial, because 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

273 1 it represents an upper bound that is extremely 

2 high that may not be real?

3 So, that is another perspective to 

4 offer because we did encounter a similar 

5 situation with OTIB-4.

6 MR. ROLFES: John, I think you are 

7 referring to OTIB-2 on the 28 radionuclide 

8 worst-case --

9 DR. MAURO: No, no, this was an 

10 OTIB that was used as a default value for AWE 

11 facilities to place an upper bound on uranium 

12 exposures. It was being used solely for the 

13 purpose of denial, because that was the 

14 highest numbers ever experienced, 100 MAC. It 

15 was on that order.

16 And right in the beginning of the 

17 OTIB -- now it is no longer being used. You 

18 have since replaced that with TBD-6000. But 

19 the philosophy was, yes, there are times when 

20 we can default to some upper-end number. It 

21 is a number that we will assign for the sole 

22 purpose of denial, to get through the process 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

274 1 quickly.

2 I only bring it up because we 

3 might be in that territory right now, 

4 notwithstanding the fact that we don't even 

5 trust the 6-milligram number. But I am 

6 saying, even if we did, I think we are in an 

7 area where a conversation is needed when you 

8 have that much uncertainty in your ability to 

9 reconstruct a dose because of the methodology. 

10 Are we in the realm of we don't have 

11 sufficient accuracy? And now we are at a 

12 place where this is no longer a question for 

13 SC&A to address.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Thanks, John.

15 I have one question.

16 MR. KATZ: That's all right.

17 DR. GLOVER: I was going to defer 

18 to him.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: 1968 to 1978, the 

20 reason we are looking at this era is because 

21 this is when it was done in milli --

22 MR. STIVER: Milligrams, the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

275 1 source data.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: Right. What 

3 happened prior to this?

4 MR. STIVER: Prior to this was the 

5 DWE work.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

7 MR. STIVER: From 1953 to 1967.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: And then, after 

9 1978, we --

10 MR. STIVER: They were still using 

11 the same counting system, but they were 

12 actually reporting the results for the 

13 nanocuries of lead-212 and actinium-228. 

14 Before that, you don't have that.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, have we even 

16 looked at the information from 1978 on?

17 MR. STIVER: We kind of tabled 

18 that while we were looking at 1968 to 1978.

19 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

20 MR. STIVER: We acknowledge that 

21 there are advantages to using that data which 

22 would minimize the uncertainty. Namely, you 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

276 1 have the lead-212 values.

2 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I guess that 

3 is part of my question as the Work Group 

4 Chair, because I know that we have got big 

5 differences on this. I think it is going to 

6 go -- to tell you the truth, I would like to 

7 be able to bring this before the Board, the 

8 bottom line. We have been beating around this 

9 10 years for I don't know how long. I don't 

10 know how to bring it before them to get them 

11 involved in this. Because, personally, I 

12 don't think that, as a Work Group, we are 

13 going to come to a resolution on this. So, 

14 the bottom line is I think it falls onto the 

15 Board.

16 And so, I am looking at Phil and 

17 Paul. How do you feel that we should proceed 

18 with this, because we have been going at this 

19 one for a very long time? We are not anywhere 

20 closer, in my opinion, than we were before.

21 So, Paul, any suggestions?

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I guess we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

277 1 need to have SC&A look at what their responses 

2 are. Or do you think that is going to change 

3 anything?

4 MR. STIVER: Well, it is kind of 

5 hard to say without seeing the details of it. 

6 From what I see from the presentation, I 

7 can't say that there is anything in there that 

8 really seems to be a game-changer to me. You 

9 know, the devil is in the details on most of 

10 these things.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, and DCAS has 

12 said that they need the raw data or the 

13 individual files?

14 MR. BARTON: That is actually in 

15 the database that gets compiled. So, you have 

16 it.

17 MR. ROLFES: Yes, that was just 

18 one small portion of it.

19 MR. BARTON: Yes, that was an 

20 anecdotal --

21 MR. ROLFES: We can search for 

22 10.2 and look where it is in the hard copy and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

278 1 find it.

2 DR. GLOVER: I just wanted to make 

3 sure that what deliverables we walk away with. 

4 One of those, we have a higher-order thing 

5 about this technology shortfall in this dose. 

6 Is that something that you are asking us to 

7 address specifically? We could generically 

8 assume this -- because we have thrown a bunch 

9 of numbers around about whether it would be 

10 500 or 600 rem. We just took that at face 

11 value. We can do a couple of scenarios or how 

12 does that look compared to various things, and 

13 describe what that is.

14 But I certainly think it is a 

15 broader-term thing. I wouldn't want to 

16 resolve it at this level, at least us. We 

17 would want to talk to other folks. I want to 

18 make sure we get the right action items.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me ask 

20 this question: from SC&A's point of view, a 

21 priori, were you thinking that the lead-212 

22 and the actinium-228 and the thorium 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

279 1 activities would be relatable on a 

2 proportional basis?

3 MR. STIVER: At levels greater 

4 than the detection limit, we would expect to 

5 see some correlation in those values.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: And is that based 

7 on an assumption of the age of the thorium? I 

8 mean, if you don't know when the intakes 

9 occurred, there is obviously separations in 

10 the body metabolically between the three. You 

11 have some possibilities on the ages of the 

12 thorium.

13 So, I am wondering how useful that 

14 is. What if you simply said, look, here's the 

15 range of values that we get for these 

16 bioassays on each of these three nuclides? 

17 Let's take the group that is above minimum 

18 activity level, and here's the ranges.

19 We take all that data and you 

20 assign top of the range in the coworker model 

21 for all these three nuclides. That would be 

22 one way to do it, regardless of what the end 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

280 1 dose is.

2 MR. STIVER: Well, what you are 

3 proposing would be just like a bounding dose 

4 based on the highest values that were --

5 MEMBER ZIEMER: That is what I am 

6 saying, yes. Conceptually, is that an 

7 approach or are you saying that, unless these 

8 three correlate, we can't depend on --

9 MR. STIVER: Getting back to the 

10 milligrams of thorium without knowing what 

11 those numbers are, I mean, you could in theory 

12 be off by a factor of 100 on the final result 

13 if you are looking at actinium-228, for 

14 example.

15 DR. MAURO: Paul, this is John.

16 Post-1978, that is the reason we 

17 believe we do trust and do like those numbers. 

18 You do have the actinium and lead information 

19 that allows you to reconstruct the intake of 

20 thorium-232.

21 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. I am 

22 talking about pre-1978. I am trying to find 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

281 1 out what --

2 MR. STIVER: Pre-1978, we just 

3 don't have that type of data.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: If you don't have 

5 that, what do you do?

6 MR. STIVER: If you were to say we 

7 have got to use this data that we have 

8 available, you would have to look at that 

9 small subsample for each year of maybe 2 or 3 

10 percent. You would be essentially in a 

11 position of just taking, I don't know if we 

12 would call it an extreme upper bound, but a 

13 very high upper-bound value. And then, you 

14 would have a certain amount of, you would have 

15 a large amount of uncertainty that would have 

16 to be factored into that.

17 Even then, I mean, regardless 

18 of --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: But I am pointing 

20 out, when you do that, that actually helps you 

21 because it pushes the tail way out.

22 MR. STIVER: It does, but then it 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

282 1 comes down to a matter of plausibility and 

2 sufficient accuracy again.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, if you are 

4 using real numbers and you accept --

5 MR. STIVER: Well, you've got to 

6 accept them at face value.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: All right, yes, 

8 okay.

9 MR. STIVER: That is kind of the 

10 conundrum we are facing here.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay. So, is the 

12 concern, then, that even the real numbers are 

13 off so much that you don't --

14 MR. STIVER: When you do look at 

15 the few values, there aren't very many of 

16 them, yes. The ones that are available that 

17 are above the protection limit are highly 

18 variable as well. There is some aspect of 

19 individual variability that goes into that, 

20 but there is also just the innate difficulty 

21 of measuring thorium using this particular 

22 technique.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

283 1 So, without having those 

2 numbers -- you have post-1978 where you can 

3 actually go back. But, also, post-1978 is a 

4 period of thorium storage. So, you have more 

5 of a homogeneous source term than you would 

6 have had during the processing period. So, 

7 there is a lot less uncertainty there.

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, let me ask 

9 Mark this question then. If you were doing a 

10 coworker model for those early years, let's 

11 just take the thorium part. I mean, we have 

12 all these ones that are below detection limit, 

13 but you have some others, too.

14 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

15 MEMBER ZIEMER: In a coworker 

16 model, what would you do? Would you take 

17 everything or do you take these in the 

18 coworker model and assign them the midpoint 

19 before you put them into the mix?

20 MR. ROLFES: We would generate a 

21 50th and 84th percentile. We would basically 

22 use the data we have reported to us and do a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

284 1 log-normal distribution.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Of everything?

3 MR. STIVER: Uncensored.

4 MR. ROLFES: We would not censor 

5 the data, correct. So, we would include a 

6 reported value of 1 milligram, which was less 

7 than the minimum detectable amount at face 

8 value.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Got you.

10 MR. ROLFES: That is the way we 

11 complete our coworker intakes.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Okay.

13 MR. ROLFES: To get back, when 

14 SC&A had said that it was their opinion that 

15 the doses could be -- or excuse me -- that we 

16 could be off by a factor of 100 or more, 

17 NIOSH, we feel that the upper-bound worst-case 

18 correction factor would be a correction factor 

19 of five.

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: Based on?

21 MR. ROLFES: This is based upon on 

22 our draft new demonstration regarding the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

285 1 worst-case separations, chemical separations, 

2 of thorium from progeny.

3 MR. STIVER: Can I go ahead and 

4 make a statement? Oh, go ahead and finish, 

5 Mark, and then I will say something.

6 MR. ROLFES: This is something 

7 that we developed since we received SC&A's new 

8 report. This is new information that SC&A has 

9 not yet seen.

10 MR. STIVER: One thing about the 

11 separation, this is based on an assumption 

12 that lead-212 is the radionuclide being 

13 measured. And so, that is where this thrice14 purified material would have a ratio that 

15 would be -- you would have that factor of 

16 five.

17 Our concern is they may not have 

18 even used lead-212. They may have been using 

19 actinium-228, in which case, you know, because 

20 of the buildup of the radium, you could be off 

21 by huge amounts, depending on when actual 

22 separation and intake occurred.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

286 1 MR. ROLFES: We have addressed 

2 that in this paper, different scenarios which 

3 show -- maybe, Tom, I am not sure if you are 

4 on the phone. Maybe you might be able to 

5 speak to the different scenarios we have laid 

6 out on how we would handle calculating 

7 thorium-232 intakes chronically, and maybe 

8 give us a brief summary of what you have done 

9 in your chronic intake retention factors White 

10 Paper, if you out there?

11 MR. LaBONE: Yes. Yes, I can do 

12 that.

13 MR. KATZ: Thank you, Tom.

14 MR. LaBONE: There were two issues 

15 that I addressed in that White Paper. The 

16 first one was we have been discussing all of 

17 the problems of just trying to figure out, if 

18 you say you have thorium, just exactly what is 

19 it; what is the mixture?

20 And so, what we said was, well, 

21 let's just take a look at like how bad a 

22 mixture could it be. And so, this is where we 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

287 1 looked at it and said, okay, how many times 

2 did it go through a chemical separation? 

3 Because every time you go through the chemical 

4 separation, it will disrupt the equilibrium of 

5 it and the amount of thorium-228, which is 

6 really the parent of what we are looking for, 

7 which is the lead-212, will go down.

8 So, anyway, we said we will just 

9 run it through three separations at the worst 

10 time. And so, those times in Mark's slides 

11 are the times where there is a minimum -- let 

12 me go back to his slide No. 12. The time in 

13 years, those are the minima. So, for example, 

14 right at time zero, you do a separation, and 

15 then the minimum, which we have used in the 

16 past, is at about four-and-a-half years. 

17 Then, at that time, we did another separation, 

18 and the next minimum occurs at 7.1 years after 

19 time zero, and so forth.

20 So, anyway, we went through and 

21 said, after three separations, this is 

22 probably about as bad as it can get in 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

288 1 reality. And so, if you use basically the 

2 mixture about a month after 8.8 years, give 

3 the radium-224 time to grow in, and so forth, 

4 and then the lead-212 will grow in, that that 

5 would be the worst-case scenario mixture to 

6 use.

7 And so, it would be hard to come 

8 up with a mixture that would give a higher 

9 dose base for a unit lead-212 chest count. 

10 So, given nothing other than the fact that you 

11 have some thorium and it has gone through 

12 separations, that would be the worst case that 

13 I could think of, anyway.

14 And so, in the absence of any 

15 information about the source term, that is 

16 what I think we are proposing to use.

17 DR. LIPZSTEIN: But how do you 

18 know that it was measured to lead-212?

19 MR. LaBONE: I am not addressing 

20 the issue of the milligrams of thorium that 

21 you are talking about. The calculation was, 

22 given a lead-212 chest count -- I understand 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

289 1 your issues with how exactly did they come up 

2 with the milligrams of thorium, okay, but this 

3 is not related to that.

4 This was the question of, what 

5 mixture should we use, given a lead-212 chest 

6 count, and we don't know anything about the 

7 source term?

8 MR. STIVER: Okay. So, this is 

9 really applicable to the 1978-to-1988 time 

10 period.

11 MR. LaBONE: Or, if you could 

12 somehow relate the milligrams of thorium back 

13 to what is the lead-212 that would have been 

14 present from that, but to do that, as Joyce is 

15 pointing out, you need to know something about 

16 how did they calculate the milligrams of 

17 thorium.

18 So, you could, theoretically, if 

19 you came up with enough information about how 

20 they did the calibration, you could use that 

21 same ratio.

22 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Tom.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

290 1 Now, along the lines of a 

2 reference regarding whether or not lead-212 

3 was used as the photopeak to determine how 

4 much thorium-232 was ultimately present, Don 

5 or Bob, do we have a reference that says this 

6 is the photopeak that was used? If one of you 

7 two could possibly speak to that, please?

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: *6.

9 MR. ROLFES: If either of you are 

10 speaking, Don Buhler or Bob Morris, you might 

11 be on mute because we are not hearing 

12 anything.

13 MR. MORRIS: I am not ready to 

14 answer that question off the top of my head.

15 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

16 COURT REPORTER: Who was that?

17 MR. KATZ: That was Bob Morris.

18 MEMBER ZIEMER: That was Morris.

19 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

20 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver.

21 I can say that our investigations 

22 have not yielded that type of information.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

291 1 MR. ROLFES: Okay. We will 

2 definitely get back to you on that. We will 

3 take a look once again for any information.

4 DR. MAURO: This is John.

5 Tom LaBone, are you still on the 

6 line? Tom spoke before?

7 MR. LaBONE: Yes, I am.

8 DR. MAURO: Tom?

9 MR. LaBONE: Yes?

10 DR. MAURO: Yes, you heard Joyce's 

11 concerns, basically, and John Stiver with 

12 regard to the 1968-to-1978 data where we have 

13 these thorium-232 numbers that are reported 

14 for the chest count. When all is said and 

15 done -- and, Joyce, certainly correct me if I 

16 am misquoting you -- but she doesn't trust 

17 those numbers as being numbers that she 

18 believes are correct and can be relied upon 

19 for the purpose of dose reconstruction.

20 What do you feel?

21 MR. LaBONE: I have not looked at 

22 detail, at the thorium milligram numbers. I 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

292 1 have read Joyce's paper and I have listened to 

2 the conversations. I can make a couple of 

3 comments.

4 The one is the issue of basically 

5 the variability in the thorium chest counts. 

6 It was suspicious, the large amount of 

7 variability. To me, one of the best ways to 

8 look at that is to go back and look at the 

9 replicate counts that were done. So, somebody 

10 who was counted multiple times on one day. 

11 How did those results vary?

12 And I went back and looked at 

13 that. So, basically, it was kind of like a 

14 control chart. You should be able to get in 

15 one day some degree of reproducibility.

16 I thought, when I looked at that 

17 data, that it was fairly reasonable. The 

18 problem of comparing a count of, say, 10 

19 milligrams on one day with another count a 

20 month and a half later is some strange things 

21 happen with chest counting. You can get a 

22 positive result.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

293 1 Normally, what you would do if you 

2 had 10 milligrams is you would take the 

3 person, run through the shower, change 

4 clothes, and so forth, looking for external 

5 contamination. And then, you would count them 

6 again.

7 And so, if there was no duplicate 

8 count on that day, then it is hard to say 

9 that, well, according to such-and-such a 

10 model, this is implausible, but that happens. 

11 If you have done chest counting, I mean, I 

12 see results all the time that it is high one 

13 day, and then you bring the person back a week 

14 later and there is nothing there. I think 

15 that most people who have done chest counting 

16 would say, "I have seen things like that."

17 And I don't know if that is 

18 inherently evidence that the system is flawed. 

19 So, again, I don't know if the analysis of 

20 the duplicate, replicate counts, I should say, 

21 was ever sent out, but I think that is 

22 something to look at, is that.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

294 1 The other issue is the --

2 MR. STIVER: Tom, can I interrupt 

3 you for just one second?

4 MR. LaBONE: Absolutely.

5 MR. STIVER: Yes, this is John 

6 Stiver again.

7 You are talking about this 

8 replicate count. Now this is in data that are 

9 available during what timeframe? We certainly 

10 haven't seen that, any information to that 

11 effect for the milligrams-of-thorium data. Is 

12 this the post-1978 timeframe then, where you 

13 actually have the --

14 MR. LaBONE: Hold on just a 

15 second. I will tell you exactly when the 

16 timeframe was. I have like eight -- there are 

17 so many papers.

18 (Laughter.)

19 Okay. I have, from 1968, it is 

20 during the timeframe we are interested in. I 

21 mean, I can actually send this to Mark and he 

22 could show it or something. Or I don't know 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

295 1 if it needs to be cleared or what the protocol 

2 is.

3 But this was during the timeframe. 

4 It was from, I think, basically, the same 

5 Excel spreadsheet that all of us are working 

6 off of. I don't think I had access to 

7 anything special.

8 But, anyway, I mean, you haven't 

9 seen it. I guess you really can't comment on 

10 it. But the thing is that I would look at 

11 that to see and the reproducibility of that 

12 for multiple counts.

13 I mean, there was one person that 

14 had like five counts in one day, and they were 

15 fairly tight as far what the result was.

16 DR. LIPZSTEIN: I was looking at 

17 -- I am sorry to interrupt -- I looked at all 

18 the results that were above 6 milligrams. We 

19 had one result that was measured on the same 

20 day, and the first result was 17 milligrams 

21 and the second result was 2.3 milligrams. But 

22 they think the problem with the results is 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

296 1 because, when you measure thorium just after 

2 the worker has come out of the work, you have 

3 a lot of inference from the thorium, from the 

4 radium-220. So, if you count some hours 

5 later, you will get an amount that is smaller 

6 than the first one. So, that is probably why 

7 he had 17 and then 2.3 milligrams on the same 

8 day.

9 So, the problem with the same-day 

10 counting is the influence of radium-220 if 

11 lead-212 was measured. So, I don't know. The 

12 problem is that we don't know what they did. 

13 That is our biggest problem.

14 MR. LaBONE: I was looking at this 

15 basically -- the question was, do I have faith 

16 in the system? The thing I was looking at 

17 was, was the system reproducibility on any 

18 given day? And so, if they did five counts 

19 and it was plus or minus 30 percent for those 

20 five counts, that gives me some faith that 

21 they could at least reproduce that count that 

22 day.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

297 1 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes.

2 MR. LaBONE: Again, when you start 

3 comparing counts that are months apart, there 

4 are so many things that can be going on there, 

5 that it is difficult for me to decide, is this 

6 thing out of control or not?

7 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Tom, it is right, 

8 but what I am saying is that I saw -- I have 

9 discounted all of them that I looked above 6 

10 milligrams. I had one that was measured twice 

11 on the same day, and the first result was 17, 

12 the second was 2.3. This was in 1971. Oh, 

13 I'm sorry, 1976.

14 MR. LaBONE: 1976, yes. See, I 

15 had it -- most of these ones that had multiple 

16 counts, for some reason, were, it looks like, 

17 less than 6.

18 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes.

19 MR. LaBONE: There was another one 

20 similar to what you are talking about in 1969, 

21 where it looks like they counted, it is a 

22 large spread, and it looks like they counted 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

298 1 them and then recounted them, and it was 

2 nothing there.

3 MR. BARTON: Tom, this is Bob 

4 Barton.

5 On the spreadsheet you are looking 

6 at, all the way to the left it has Column A is 

7 file and Column B is page number. Do you 

8 happen to have those in front of you for the 

9 bio counts in one day?

10 MR. LaBONE: I don't. I don't 

11 have the spreadsheet open. This was a summary 

12 plot that I did.

13 I think the important thing is --

14 I don't know if we are going to resolve this 

15 thumbing through the Excel spreadsheet, but it 

16 was, again, I was asked, what did I think of 

17 the data? And I hadn't looked at it in 

18 detail, but these were things that I did look 

19 at.

20 I can point out, I can send the 

21 analysis to you, and you can look at it and 

22 see what you think. But, again, it was the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

299 1 concept of looking at the reproducibility on a 

2 given day. Could they reproduce counts? Or 

3 were they all over the board counting the same 

4 person within a day, because that is a bad 

5 indication that it is completely out of 

6 control? Statistical control is what I am 

7 talking about.

8 So, anyway, that was the one thing 

9 that I looked at. And then, the other is the 

10 issue of this is primarily analytical noise. 

11 This is a common problem. And I have pointed 

12 out before that today in 2012 we have the same 

13 issue, even with all of our technology, with 

14 things like weapons-grade plutonium. The 

15 noise in the system correlates to fairly high 

16 doses, to the point where it makes it of 

17 limited utility for occupational settings.

18 Because in an occupational 

19 setting, if it is below detection limit, we 

20 don't assign anything. But in a compensation 

21 program, we do. And so, that is a big 

22 difference I think we need to keep in mind of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

300 1 occupational versus compensation, that a high 

2 detection limit is not a good thing for 

3 occupational and it is not good for 

4 compensation. But, again, you can work around 

5 it if you just want to assign a conservative 

6 estimate of dose.

7 Again, the issue, I think it is a 

8 valid point about how was this, when you say 

9 milligrams of thorium, what exactly was there? 

10 How was it calibrated? And how do we 

11 interpret that in terms of the lead-212 I 

12 think is a valid point. I haven't looked at 

13 that data to see as much as you have.

14 Those were kind of my thoughts on 

15 the thorium chest counting.

16 MR. ROLFES: Thank you, Tom. Very 

17 good points. I appreciate your input.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So, I guess 

19 my question is -- Sam, did you want to say 

20 something?

21 DR. GLOVER: No, go ahead.

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: Where do we go 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

301 1 from here? Because, basically, we are at an 

2 impasse here. We have been on this for I 

3 can't remember how many Work Groups; well, at 

4 least the last couple of years.

5 MR. STIVER: Tom, could I ask you 

6 a question here about the replicate samples 

7 here?

8 MR. LaBONE: Yes.

9 MR. STIVER: When you are 

10 counting, when you are doing, basically, 

11 replicates of background noise, wouldn't you 

12 expect those to be more tightly centered than, 

13 say, if you were measuring an analyte? I 

14 mean, that is basically telling you that the 

15 electronics are stable.

16 MR. LaBONE: Oh, yes, I would 

17 expect it to be very good, and I think it is. 

18 But when you get a higher one, the points 

19 that Joyce is bringing up are that, again, if 

20 you bring a person in and you get a high count 

21 -- let's say you get 17 milligrams -- again, 

22 the standard protocol today, and as far as I 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

302 1 have been involved with this, is, again, you 

2 would take the person, you would shower them, 

3 change clothes, and so forth, and then recount 

4 them.

5 And so, typically, that second 

6 count comes down. And so, I wouldn't be 

7 surprised on a given day if you get a high 

8 count and then followed by -- you know, look 

9 at the time. If we have the times of them, 

10 look and see, is the high one first? I am 

11 assuming the high one would always be first, 

12 or else they wouldn't do the second one kind 

13 of thing.

14 So, no, I mean, that doesn't 

15 bother me. I mean, if you had somebody with 

16 an established long-term thorium burden, I 

17 would expect that could be pretty tight, too.

18 MR. STIVER: Yes, I was just 

19 wondering if you would expect an actual 

20 thorium burden measurement that is stable 

21 doesn't see the same kind of counter-precision 

22 that you would see based on just background 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

303 1 noise, I guess. There would be some 

2 difference that might --

3 MR. LaBONE: If it was really 

4 there, and it was reproducibility --

5 MR. STIVER: Yes, I guess the 

6 question would be, would it be as reproducible 

7 as just a null result? Just replicate 

8 backgrounds as opposed to --

9 MR. LaBONE: If it was like, I 

10 mean, what you are asking is, if I were to 

11 take a known standard of thorium and count it 

12 multiple times, would I expect the scatter of 

13 it, would it be tight?

14 MR. STIVER: Would you expect it 

15 to be on par with the null distribution 

16 scatter?

17 MR. LaBONE: The relative 

18 uncertainty should be lower, if it is higher. 

19 If it is really there, then the relative 

20 uncertainty, basically, looking at the scatter 

21 relative to the actual results, it should be 

22 tighter if it is a higher number.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

304 1 MR. STIVER: Okay. Thanks.

2 MR. LaBONE: Absolute-wise, I mean 

3 it will be bigger.

4 MR. STIVER: Yes, relative to 

5 the --

6 MR. LaBONE: Yes, to the amount 

7 you are actually measuring there. But, again, 

8 I think we would have to look. I don't know 

9 if there are records available as far as these 

10 actual counts, these ones that there is a lot 

11 of scatter on.

12 But I was not upset by a lot of 

13 these that I saw that were in the noise 

14 region, which, again, I think still has some 

15 useful information as far as the system, if 

16 you have questions about the reliability of 

17 the system.

18 DR. GLOVER: So, one thing I do 

19 hear, though, is that you guys continue to 

20 express concern that we don't understand how 

21 to get from, whether it is lead or actinium, 

22 or whatever -- that is still a major concern 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

305 1 about how to do that?

2 MR. STIVER: Yes.

3 DR. GLOVER: And should be 

4 addressed in whatever report we deliver?

5 MR. STIVER: Yes. When you are 

6 faced with just a milligram thorium datapoint 

7 without any background information, raw data, 

8 none of the analysis that went to that, then, 

9 how do you account for all the uncertainties 

10 that could go into that particular value, when 

11 you could be looking at not only lead-212, but 

12 also actinium? So, that is a major concern of 

13 ours.

14 The other issue, of course, being 

15 the technical shortfall, which is really kind 

16 of a more --

17 DR. GLOVER: I just wanted to make 

18 sure, if we wanted to address the 

19 technological shortfall, that is a generic 

20 thing that I need to make sure management 

21 starts dealing with in a not generic way, but 

22 it is a sidebar.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

306 1 MR. STIVER: It is going to be an 

2 overarching issue.

3 DR. GLOVER: Yes.

4 MR. STIVER: And, yes, I would 

5 certainly want to start investigating that. 

6 It is something I think is going to -- we have 

7 only seen it now in this particular example, 

8 but it may come into play again at some point.

9 DR. GLOVER: So, Brad, would it 

10 help you if our papers talked, I mean from a 

11 thorium perspective and why these things drop? 

12 We will have the values. There's lots of 

13 reasons when you count somebody, like Tom 

14 said, why they would drop. They did showers 

15 and there's different things. Is that the 

16 kind of perspective that you want to see, why 

17 we may see these kind of differences? Do you 

18 want to get into the noise like that? Is that 

19 helpful?

20 MEMBER ZIEMER: I am not concerned 

21 about that so much as I think it is two 

22 things, in my mind. One is the correlation 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

307 1 between these. I think that was part of your 

2 concern in the early years, isn't that 

3 correct, John?

4 MR. STIVER: It is the 

5 correlation, and I think you have the problem 

6 in the early years. You just don't have the 

7 data. So, you don't really know what was 

8 done.

9 In later years, you have that 

10 data, and we feel that it can be used in some 

11 way. Now I don't know if you can take that 

12 later data and then try to extrapolate to 

13 earlier years. You certainly can do it in 

14 terms of intakes.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: And looking at 

16 Fernald, I don't think there is any way 

17 because so much stuff changed with so much 

18 thorium coming onto the plant and a whole 

19 different process. This is part of the issue 

20 that we are getting into.

21 Paul, we have been going at this 

22 for two, two-and-a-half years, and we are 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

308 1 right back to the same spot.

2 One of the things that I am afraid 

3 of is that we will go through all this and a 

4 process that we think is the best, and then it 

5 is going to come before the Board and, 

6 basically, we are going to go back one way or 

7 the other.

8 I really feel, and I understand, 

9 if you were to do multiple counts, usually the 

10 second one, you're right, would go down 

11 because they have actually run you in, 

12 scrubbed you down. You come back in papers 

13 and you get counted. I would expect to be 

14 able to see that. That is just normal things.

15 Now, in the earlier years, were 

16 they doing that? Who knows? And this is part 

17 of the uncertainty that I am getting into. We 

18 really don't know, nor can we really 

19 reconstruct what we have got there, in my 

20 opinion.

21 And this is where I am coming to 

22 you guys. Myself, I feel it needs to go 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

309 1 before the Board. We have exhausted about as 

2 much as what we can.

3 As far as the hierarchy of NIOSH, 

4 you know, they are going to have to weigh in 

5 on that, too. I think this comes down to the 

6 Board as a whole, of how are we going to 

7 handle this. Because I don't think this will 

8 be the last time that we will see this.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: I guess my 

10 question on the early years is this: 

11 regardless of what the dose implications are, 

12 can they detect 6 milligrams? Is that a 

13 reliable value and can they do that?

14 MR. STIVER: We don't really know 

15 that value is reliable. I mean, it is 

16 reported for that system. Again, when you 

17 look at similar systems, they are going to be 

18 higher or lower. Is that a valid number? I 

19 guess you are asking, can that data that is 

20 above that be used to get some kind of a 

21 bounding?

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, usually, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

310 1 that is based on a calibration of some sort 

2 with a phantom.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: They must have 

5 something that tells you whether -- even if it 

6 is high, if you say, no, I wish it was 1 

7 milligram, or whatever, it is a separate 

8 question. If it is 6, then can we use the 

9 data? Can we use the data that is below the 6 

10 in a valid way? I mean, we have data. Can we 

11 use it? That is sort of my question.

12 And then, what about the other 

13 ones? How are each of these being determined?

14 MR. STIVER: Our position is 

15 really the values that are less than 6 are 

16 really meaningless from a dosimetric 

17 standpoint. I mean, you are basically dealing 

18 with noise. And so, you can look at, this 

19 might be real and it may not. You are going 

20 to take a midpoint of some distribution, and 

21 you fit to that and say, yes, we can assign 

22 that. Does that really have any meaning?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

311 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, it is noise 

2 in the sense of a counting system, but you are 

3 still assigning dose for it.

4 MR. ROLFES: That's exactly it. 

5 It is not meaningless.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: It is just like a 

7 minimum on a film badge; you are assigning 

8 dose. In this case, it may be fairly sizable.

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, and that brings 

10 us into the technological shortfall argument, 

11 so these are really kind of intertwined.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, it is 

13 sizable on committed dose. It is not 

14 unreasonable for annual doses.

15 MR. ROLFES: I mean, it may be 

16 that our missed doses that we assigned are of 

17 significant magnitude alone to generate the 

18 Probability of Causation greater than 50 

19 percent. That is the intent of this 

20 compensation program.

21 MR. STIVER: We don't even know 

22 that the 6 milligrams is a valid number. You 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

312 1 look at, even when you have data where you 

2 have replicate samples of both the actinium 

3 and lead, and you have got such a small 

4 differential in that equilibrium ratio, 

5 apparently so flat in certain points, that 

6 just the statistical variability within those 

7 numbers for a good measurement can put you off 

8 by a factor of two. Could it be 6? Could it 

9 be 12? Could it be something higher than 

10 that?

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, that is what 

12 I am sort of asking.

13 MR. STIVER: I don't have a lot of 

14 faith in that number. I know Joyce has a 

15 fairly strong opinion of that as well.

16 DR. LIPZSTEIN: I don't have faith 

17 in any of the numbers because, first, you have 

18 higher than detection limits lead and higher 

19 than detection limits actinium, and you have 

20 lower than the 6 milligrams in the reported 

21 result. And then, you have the opposite also. 

22 You have negative numbers, negative 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

313 1 measurements of lead, and have results in 

2 milligrams also.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: But, see, that 

4 makes the assumption that these have to 

5 correlate.

6 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Yes, that is my 

7 main point. I don't know how this result --

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: I would like 

9 somebody to show me that they have to 

10 correlate. They have to.

11 DR. LIPZSTEIN: I looked at the 

12 results of the order higher than 6 milligrams. 

13 For example, I have one person here. He had 

14 20.4 milligrams of thorium in 1969. So, what 

15 is reasonable? If it was 6 milligrams, the 

16 lower limit of detection, and in 1969 they had 

17 some feeling of what this represented. There 

18 was no follow-up for this 20.4 milligrams.

19 And many like those results, I 

20 like that also. I just took this now. 

21 Another one was 18 milligrams and no follow22 up. So, you have those high numbers that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

314 1 didn't have any follow-up. So, probably this 

2 didn't mean anything for them.

3 MR. ROLFES: Joyce, this is Mark.

4 DR. LIPZSTEIN: So, it is hard to 

5 believe that very high results didn't have any 

6 follow-up, if they believed these were real 

7 exposures.

8 DR. MAURO: Joyce, you bring up --

9 what I am hearing, though, is that you don't 

10 believe they were that high? Or do you 

11 believe they could have been higher?

12 DR. LIPZSTEIN: I don't know.

13 DR. MAURO: You don't know?

14 DR. LIPZSTEIN: I don't know. I 

15 just know that someone had a result of 20 

16 milligrams of thorium in 1969. There was no 

17 follow-up at all. So, nobody thought, oh, 

18 this is strange; someone was exposed, and 

19 maybe I should measure him again and see what 

20 is happening. No, no worry about it.

21 MR. BARTON: In addition to that, 

22 Joyce, the very highest example that we found 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

315 1 was 32.5, and that worker was there for 

2 another year and a half and he was never 

3 measured again.

4 MR. ROLFES: And in those cases --

5 I am glad you brought those up -- if we have a 

6 single point in time, and we have a 25-

7 milligram measurement, we would use that in 

8 dose reconstruction. We wouldn't say, "Oh, 

9 that's no good. That's too high." We don't 

10 do that. We give the benefit of the doubt to 

11 the claimant. If there wasn't a recount, we 

12 would assume that that was, in fact, a 

13 reliable and good measurement. We would use 

14 that to assign internal dose from thorium to 

15 that worker.

16 DR. LIPZSTEIN: Is that a reliable 

17 measurement? That's my question.

18 DR. MAURO: Yes, I think we have 

19 just nailed down the question. That is what 

20 you always have to do.

21 Let's talk a 35-milligram person. 

22 What I heard is that it is possible that that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

316 1 35-milligram number, which is very high, no 

2 follow-up. If there was follow-up, it may 

3 have come down because it was contamination or 

4 it could have come down because, I heard also 

5 that one of the confounding variables is the 

6 presence of radium progeny. I guess it 

7 somehow contributes in the follow-up degrees 

8 of interest. It could also give you a false9 positive.

10 So, if the issue is that we don't 

11 believe the numbers could have been that high, 

12 for a variety of reasons -- and NIOSH's 

13 position is, well, that's okay, we're going to 

14 give them that. It probably is too high or it 

15 might be too high; we don't know.

16 So, that puts us right back into 

17 that same arena. Now do you know this number 

18 with sufficient accuracy in order to --

19 granted, that you might be giving the person 

20 the benefit of the doubt, but is the 

21 uncertainty so great that, you know, can you 

22 make a compensation decision on that?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

317 1 For him, it certainly would be, 

2 one would argue that that is, in fact, an 

3 overestimate. It is certainly giving the 

4 person every benefit of the doubt. But can 

5 you make that decision for an SEC? In other 

6 words, say that we can calculate doses with 

7 sufficient accuracy?

8 I think that that is, as we heard 

9 from Sam, very much a policy and 

10 interpretation of the Part 83 that really goes 

11 to a bigger arena.

12 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: I have got a 

13 question. At what point do we decide we are 

14 going to give a person a dose from plutonium, 

15 thorium, whatever, because we know the stuff 

16 existed in a particular area? But what 

17 measurements were done on them were below MDA. 

18 So, are we going to give them all partial 

19 dose from these other things or not? I mean, 

20 you know, a person could be exposed to thorium 

21 and uranium and plutonium, all there.

22 MR. ROLFES: Right. In this 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

318 1 program, if a person is monitored and has 

2 bioassay data for any and all of the above 

3 radionuclides, if they are monitored for 

4 uranium, thorium, et cetera, unless we have 

5 information that the person definitively was 

6 not exposed, we would definitely assume that 

7 that person was exposed. If they were 

8 routinely monitored for those radionuclides, 

9 we would assign dose from all the 

10 radionuclides that they were monitored for.

11 Now, to clarify a little bit, you 

12 know, for fission products, we might not 

13 assign internal dose from all fission products 

14 at a reactor site, for example. We would make 

15 a judgment as to what fission products would 

16 give the highest dose, and we would assign 

17 dose from that particular fission product or 

18 mixed fission products.

19 But if an individual has 

20 monitoring, if they are positive results, we 

21 would definitely calculate an intake that 

22 explains those positive bioassay results. If 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

319 1 those bioassay results were less than the 

2 minimum detectable amount, we would assign 

3 missed dose.

4 What's the highest missed dose 

5 that we can assign that would result in a 

6 value, an excretion value, that was half of 

7 the minimum detectable amount, is essentially 

8 what we would do.

9 So, this is no different than 

10 assigning for external exposures for people 

11 who were monitored using film badges. If they 

12 had a zero on their badge and the limit of 

13 detection was 20, we would assume that they 

14 routinely received a median value of 10 

15 millirem per badge exchange. And that 10 

16 millirem could have been as low as zero 

17 millirem or up to 20 millirem for every badge 

18 cycle. So, we are doing the exact same thing 

19 with internal dose here.

20 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Are we going to 

21 assume only bone-seekers or a missed dose?

22 MR. ROLFES: No. No, the bone 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

320 1 cancer example, the bone surface example is 

2 the sample, it is one of the worst-case organs 

3 where thorium progeny concentrates.

4 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: Yes, but, I 

5 mean, if you have got plutonium, you know, 

6 some of that is bone-seeker, too.

7 MR. ROLFES: True. True, it is. 

8 The organ of concern is the organ where the 

9 cancer originates, that we are reconstructing 

10 the dose for.

11 If it is a prostate cancer, for 

12 example, we would calculate the dose to the 

13 prostate. There are very few radionuclides 

14 that significantly concentrate or impact the 

15 prostate tissue.

16 So, the sufficient accuracy, 

17 although dose is important, it is really the 

18 biological mechanisms and type of cancer that 

19 you have that also play a major contributor 

20 into a compensation decision.

21 DR. GLOVER: I have one real 

22 quick. The factor of five or six that you 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

321 1 calculated regarding the disequilibrium 

2 factor, would that also affect the MDA 

3 calculation? Will we use that? Will we 

4 actually have to increase the MDA to deal with 

5 that?

6 MR. ROLFES: I'm trying to think 

7 here.

8 MR. BARTON: That is only for 

9 lead-212.

10 MR. STIVER: It is all based on 

11 lead-212 measurements.

12 DR. GLOVER: It wouldn't apply to 

13 the --

14 MR. STIVER: I would like to make 

15 a follow-up statement to what John was saying 

16 about this fictitious 35-milligram intake. 

17 And Mark has made some points about kind of 

18 whether you have to look at the individual and 

19 the cancer and the effect on the compensation 

20 decision.

21 But I think the sufficient 

22 accuracy becomes more and more important at 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

322 1 these situations where you have highly2 uncertain values that could take on very high 

3 doses, because it becomes a matter of fairness 

4 in compensation decisions, too.

5 This guy may end up with a 

6 whopping-big dose for his particular cancer 

7 where he would get compensated, and somebody 

8 else who has another measurement that came out 

9 may have the same intake, but because of the 

10 uncertainty in these values, is going to get a 

11 slightly lower one, is not going to be 

12 compensated.

13 And so, you get closer and closer 

14 to that POC that there is a payoff point. I 

15 think this sufficient accuracy becomes more 

16 and more important, just in terms from a 

17 policy standpoint; whereas, maybe down in the 

18 10-20 milligram range or some other lower 

19 value, it really doesn't impact, it doesn't 

20 get you close to that level. It doesn't seem 

21 to have as much importance. I just wanted to 

22 make that --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

323 1 DR. MAURO: And this goes to the 

2 coworker model because I could envision a 

3 coworker model for that time period where you 

4 collect all these milligram numbers. And 

5 let's say the highest one is that 35, or 

6 whatever. And you are using all of these 

7 numbers, most of which might be, many of which 

8 might be fictitious; I'm not sure. And you 

9 build a coworker model. Let's say the full 

10 distribution starts at 6 and goes to 35, 

11 whatever, or the 95th percentile is up around 

12 25 or 30, whatever.

13 Along comes a person that wasn't 

14 bioassayed or chest-counted for thorium, but 

15 you believe he might have been exposed to 

16 thorium in this time period, and you are going 

17 to assign to him this number, which is quite a 

18 high number that in itself is almost like a 

19 coworker model that is really based on -- it 

20 doesn't have a very good foundation. It is 

21 almost like you are building a house on a very 

22 poor foundation.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

324 1 And I think everyone agrees that 

2 these numbers are kind of soft that we are 

3 hearing. You know, the uncertainties in these 

4 numbers are very questionable and they are 

5 very large.

6 And then, to build a coworker 

7 model on top of that, and build your whole 

8 decisionmaking process on compensation on such 

9 a weak foundation troubles me.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: Thanks, John.

11 Sandra wanted to make a comment.

12 MS. BALDRIDGE: Mark was talking 

13 about information that is used to determine 

14 that they had no exposure. What kind of 

15 information?

16 MR. ROLFES: For example, in a 

17 hypothetical scenario, if an individual had 

18 some lung counts, but they wrote down that 

19 this employee worked offsite and was brought 

20 onsite to represent a control count, for 

21 example.

22 MS. BALDRIDGE: And that is the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

325 1 only --

2 MR. ROLFES: That is just a 

3 hypothetical thing. In just about all cases, 

4 we would assume that the person had exposure.

5 MS. BALDRIDGE: Okay.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

7 MR. KATZ: I was just going to 

8 suggest, I don't know -- do you know where you 

9 are going with this?

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: To tell you the 

11 truth, I am pretty well done with it because I 

12 haven't seen anything to be able to express to 

13 me that these are good. Myself, I would push 

14 right now to push it to the Board in the way 

15 of an SEC, is what I am going to do. So, the 

16 Board can then start to deal with it.

17 But we have been dealing with this 

18 for over two years, and I can honestly say 

19 that we are not any closer than when we 

20 started out two years ago.

21 So, I have got two other Board 

22 Members in here that need to weigh in on their 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

326 1 thoughts, but I would like to bring this 

2 before the Board because I am sure that they 

3 are going to have something else to come out 

4 of it. They are going to have their questions 

5 into it.

6 We are not getting any closer. 

7 And when we start getting into this sufficient 

8 accuracy, and so forth, that is above us.

9 So, Paul, I guess, and, Phil, I am 

10 wanting to know what you want to do?

11 MEMBER SCHOFIELD: It seems like 

12 to me we have come to a point where we have 

13 almost agreed to disagree.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: All right. And in 

15 that case, this is what I am saying: that I 

16 would bring it before the Board under an SEC. 

17 If they want to change it or they need more 

18 information, or the significant accuracy comes 

19 into this, this is for the whole Board to be 

20 able to decide. It is not for us to be able 

21 to decide this.

22 And, Paul?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

327 1 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I don't, in 

2 a sense, disagree with the fact that we 

3 haven't shown that we can reconstruct dose 

4 with sufficient accuracy on this case, but I 

5 don't think we have shown the opposite, 

6 either.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, Paul, that 

8 is where I'm at.

9 MEMBER ZIEMER: Because some 

10 issues have been raised here in the last 

11 couple of days that there are some strings 

12 left hanging that haven't really been pulled.

13 I am still struggling, as I study 

14 table 1, for example. Maybe I missed the 

15 point, but if the thorium is actually 

16 calculated from the lead-212 measurement, is 

17 that how it is done procedurally?

18 MR. ROLFES: Yes, from my 

19 recollection, we need to get a reference for 

20 that, but I do believe they had considered the 

21 actinium-228 photopeak to make an 

22 understanding of how old the thorium to which 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

328 1 the individual was exposed. I will have to go 

2 back out and pull --

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. And if that 

4 is the case, then, John, I am saying, yes, 

5 then, I ought to be able to see some 

6 correlation because the one value is based on 

7 the other one, with some kind of a scaling 

8 factor.

9 MR. STIVER: Well, I think Joyce 

10 brought up a good point. When you have 

11 actinium and lead values that are greater than 

12 detection limit, you should be seeing a 

13 correlation.

14 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, that is what 

15 I am saying.

16 DR. LIPZSTEIN: They could have 

17 measured the thorium-232, too. We don't know. 

18 That is another way to measure it.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, that was 

20 what wasn't clear to me, whether these are all 

21 done the same way that are in the table. Or 

22 is this a mixed --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

329 1 MR. STIVER: This is to show that 

2 the one year where you actually have two types 

3 of measurements combined, that is the only 

4 time where you actually have any way that you 

5 could possibly relate one to the other.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right. Right.

7 MR. STIVER: And even when you 

8 have data for the two progeny radionuclides, 

9 you still don't see a correlation to the 

10 thorium milligram value.

11 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Yes.

12 MR. STIVER: And so, to us, that 

13 calls into question whether lead-212 was, 

14 indeed, used to make that measurement in that 

15 earlier time period.

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Or how it was 

17 actually done.

18 MR. STIVER: Yes. I mean, we 

19 can't make much more of an inference beyond 

20 that, which is to show that this casts doubt 

21 on that assumption.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes. Do we know, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

330 1 Mark, in the earlier years how the thorium 

2 value was actually obtained?

3 MR. ROLFES: That is what I am 

4 going to have to get back to you on. Once 

5 again, we have previously looked at the Hap 

6 West document, which shows information on how 

7 to interpret thorium lung burden based upon 

8 the -- I can show you a little picture. It 

9 has information on the in-vivo screening 

10 techniques, and it shows both actinium-228 and 

11 lead-212 photopeaks.

12 But I believe the thorium, I think 

13 this was more towards quantifying how old the 

14 thorium to which the individual was exposed, 

15 and not necessarily --

16 MEMBER ZIEMER: Based on the size 

17 of the peaks?

18 MR. ROLFES: Correct, the ratios 

19 between the area under the peak.

20 MR. STIVER: See, that is how you 

21 would get back to the actual thorium intake.

22 Sorry.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

331 1 MR. ROLFES: But we have developed 

2 an alternate approach. If we are only using 

3 the lead-212 peak, we have developed an 

4 alternate approach to show the value of 5.25 

5 would be the worst-case scenario.

6 So, I have promised to get a 

7 reference. Let me see if I can look while we 

8 move on and see if there is anything.

9 MR. BARTON: While you are 

10 looking, that five measurements in one day, I 

11 tracked it down and that is transcription 

12 error in the original database. They are all 

13 different dates, different years even. So, 

14 there is no person with five measurements in 

15 one day.

16 CHAIR CLAWSON: This whole thing 

17 comes back to, you know what? We are dealing 

18 with so much data out there that we really 

19 can't represent. We can't go back and really 

20 pull up. Because my question would be right 

21 now, then, I want to know exactly did they use 

22 the 2.10 or what they did? And I don't think 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

332 1 we can really come to an answer with that.

2 MR. STIVER: We have certainly 

3 found no evidence to indicate that in our 

4 research, that the lead-212 was used in the 

5 earlier period. This is an assumption, in our 

6 minds, that NIOSH has used.

7 Well, when you have those data in 

8 later time periods, then, yes, you can use 

9 that to bound the uncertainty. But before 

10 that period where we just don't know what was 

11 done, we don't know which nuclide was entered 

12 -- in fact, we do have one example that was an 

13 actual calculation for a calibration that was 

14 using the actinium and not the lead. It 

15 doesn't provide any kind of definitive proof 

16 one way or the other, but it does cast doubt, 

17 additional doubt, in addition to what we have 

18 in table 1, that maybe that might be culpable.

19 Our real problem here is that are 

20 big, big uncertainties that just cannot be 

21 quantified.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I am not 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

333 1 prepared to sort of vote today on this, but I 

2 am hopeful, by the time of the meeting, maybe 

3 we will have at least some answer to how this 

4 was done, Mark. That would certainly help me 

5 to kind of critique --

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, let me ask 

7 you, then --

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Because it is 

9 going to come down to whether or not you can 

10 -- well, two things. One is, how are you 

11 handling the individual cases? And then, No. 

12 2, can you use this for coworker data or not?

13 I had it in my mind that you could 

14 just take three distributions of each one 

15 separately. But if they are not correlating, 

16 then it makes me a little nervous about how 

17 reliable those data are, if one is used to 

18 calculate the other.

19 MR. STIVER: Yes, for the method 

20 to work, they would have to be correlated 

21 instead of an a priori.

22 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, correlated 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

334 1 within the understanding that you have 

2 different aged thorium, that you have 

3 different --

4 MR. STIVER: Yes, that is another 

5 aspect.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: -- biological 

7 systems for the people that are handling the 

8 stuff because it redistributes in the body.

9 MR. STIVER: Right.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: But, 

11 nonetheless --

12 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think we did 

13 bring out that we thought, based on our 

14 analysis of one of the earlier reports -- it 

15 may have been the July 2010 report -- that we 

16 felt that the biological translocation 

17 aspects, there are enough studies that that 

18 could be quantified. But it is still going to 

19 be a large number. It is going to vary from 

20 one person to the next.

21 But the real kicker here, the real 

22 problem is you just don't have any anchor 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

335 1 point to get from what previous measurements 

2 were used to get to that milligrams-of-thorium 

3 value in an early time period.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes.

5 CHAIR CLAWSON: Where do we go 

6 from here?

7 (Laughter.)

8 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, I think you 

9 are going to make your recommendation to the 

10 Board and tell them what the dilemma is.

11 I think Mark is maybe going to 

12 give us any more recent information that 

13 will --

14 MR. ROLFES: Yes, we have 

15 committed to preparing a formal response to 

16 SC&A's paper that was just recently delivered 

17 to us. I mean, this is all draft information 

18 that has been developed within the past two 

19 weeks, but we are trying to respond.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: And then, SC&A is 

21 going to respond to what NIOSH has, that we 

22 just got today?
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

336 1 MR. STIVER: It depends on if Mark 

2 can give us --

3 MR. ROLFES: It is going to be a 

4 tight schedule. I mean, we only have three 

5 weeks until --

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Well, the other 

7 reality is that Board Members will end up 

8 getting a lot of this stuff at the last 

9 minute, and they are going to object to voting 

10 on anything on short notice. Because this 

11 whole site is hard enough for us.

12 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, I am 

13 throwing out this: what do we want to do? Do 

14 we want to just bring an update to the Board? 

15 But, you know, we have been at this for a 

16 long time.

17 MR. KATZ: Well, I mean, it is 

18 sort of before the Board already, I mean in 

19 general. Fernald has been before the Board 

20 for six months now. So, they have it.

21 I think you can bring, I think you 

22 can work together and bring them an update of 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

337 1 where you stand, where everyone stands on this 

2 issue, including the Board Members. And so, 

3 they will know exactly where SC&A stands, 

4 based on the information, and you will have at 

5 least seen everything that you have gotten 

6 from Mark, that you will have gotten from Mark 

7 in the next week, or whatever.

8 And vice versa, DCAS can lay out 

9 their current point of view on all of that and 

10 put it before the Board.

11 The Board can decide to move ahead 

12 without having more Work Group discussion, or 

13 what have you.

14 CHAIR CLAWSON: Well, part of my 

15 thing is, Paul, what I want to be able to do 

16 is, to me, we are really at an impasse here. 

17 But it is a much broader question than just 

18 this. It starts to get into -- and we always 

19 beat up on this, one side of plausible, and so 

20 forth. And I want them to understand what 

21 kind of an issue we are dealing with on this 

22 one.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

338 1 MEMBER MELIUS: This is Jim 

2 Melius.

3 I mean, somehow I am failing to 

4 see how this is such a huge issue because we 

5 have certainly dealt with it before. What I 

6 would suggest is that you lead the update on 

7 what the work that we are doing, it should 

8 lead with this issue. And let's focus on 

9 that. We can include, if we have time, an 

10 update on the other issues, but lead with this 

11 issue.

12 Get the SC&A report and whatever 

13 background with that out to the Board Members 

14 now with some note to the effect that this is 

15 going to be discussed at the meeting, and be 

16 ready.

17 When NIOSH has its response 

18 prepared, we can send that out. I sent an 

19 email to Stu and Jim Neton asking them to 

20 expedite the NIOSH response.

21 I think it is important that we 

22 get out something in writing because I think 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

339 1 it is helpful, rather than just a verbal 

2 report on what is happening. And then, they 

3 can elaborate on it in terms of presentation.

4 But I think it is manageable, and 

5 I don't see anything that would be gained by 

6 putting this off any further in terms of 

7 direction. Now maybe that is what the Board 

8 will decide, that they need more information. 

9 But let's identify that at a Board meeting 

10 rather than you --

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

12 MEMBER MELIUS: -- wrestling with 

13 trying to guess what that might be, and so 

14 forth.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: And that was what 

16 my issue was, Jim. How do I bring it before 

17 the Board and make sure that they are getting 

18 the information that they want now?

19 So, we will just plan on bringing 

20 this before the Board at the end of this month 

21 then.

22 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes. And you can 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

340 1 decide -- I don't think you have the 

2 information to make a recommendation at this 

3 point. If you want to hold another Work Group 

4 meeting before the Board meeting, I guess that 

5 is possible, but I am not sure that it is 

6 going to be possible to estimate with 

7 sufficient accuracy when NIOSH's report will 

8 be available to you.

9 (Laughter)

10 So, I am not sure you gain from 

11 that. But that is something that you, as a 

12 Work Group, need to consider.

13 MEMBER ZIEMER: Don't expand the 

14 use of "sufficient accuracy".

15 (Laughter.)

16 MEMBER MELIUS: But I couldn't 

17 resist, Paul, the discussion.

18 CHAIR CLAWSON: Because I was 

19 under the impression that I have to bring, the 

20 only way I could bring it before the Board and 

21 have the full Board discussion was in the 

22 context of an SEC. So, we can bring it up 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

341 1 there. And if they want to make a decision 

2 from there, then that comes down to the Board.

3 MEMBER MELIUS: Again, I could be 

4 wrong. I have been listening to 90 percent of 

5 what has been going on today. I am not sure I 

6 see -- I guess there are two options, and I 

7 think it is sort of what Mark was proposing in 

8 terms of some -- I don't want to exaggerate --

9 but some sort of arbitrary value that would 

10 deal with this thorium measurement issue for 

11 the non-detects. Or it is an SEC, because you 

12 can't measure with sufficient accuracy now.

13 I guess there may be other 

14 options. I may be missing something. But it 

15 seems to me it is one or the other.

16 But I think we should give NIOSH a 

17 chance to -- they already are in the process 

18 of responding certainly on the technical 

19 level. I think we need to look at that.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Thank you, 

21 Jim.

22 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

342 1 CHAIR CLAWSON: Go ahead.

2 MR. STIVER: This is John.

3 I just wanted to say that, from 

4 SC&A's standpoint, our position really can't 

5 change until we see Tom LaBone's White Paper. 

6 I think it is probably the next thing we need 

7 to look at. So, if we could get that before 

8 the meeting, it would help us to prepare.

9 MR. ROLFES: That one has been 

10 drafted and should be available in the near 

11 future. I mean, that should definitely be 

12 out. That should probably be the first thing 

13 that we have available.

14 MR. BARTON: Was there some 

15 confusion? I thought that we established that 

16 was about the lead-212 measurements and not 

17 the milligrams of thorium.

18 MR. STIVER: There are some 

19 aspects of that, but there is also some other 

20 components in that. I am just not 100 percent 

21 sure as to what it -- I think most of it is 

22 related to lead-212, but I would like to see 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

343 1 that before we can any pronouncement.

2 MR. ROLFES: He also tempered from 

3 that with the reference regarding the use of 

4 the --

5 MR. STIVER: Yes, if the are 

6 references that would indicate lead-212 was 

7 used in the early days, that would certainly 

8 be helpful.

9 MR. ROLFES: I think, basically, 

10 we had previously responded to this. I will 

11 have to dig back through my notes. But the 

12 limit of detection really didn't change from 

13 1968 up through 1987. It was still 6 

14 milligrams. I think the calibration 

15 methodologies essentially remain the same, 

16 too.

17 So, I will have to get back to 

18 that to pull out where we got that information 

19 from.

20 MR. KATZ: Okay. Brad, will we 

21 have John present at the Board?

22 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

344 1 MR. KATZ: This is awfully 

2 complex.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, it certainly 

4 is.

5 MR. STIVER: We will take the 

6 responsibility --

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Both he and Mark 

8 are going to explain that because, then, they 

9 can address it.

10 But, with that, I think we need to 

11 take a comfort break. We could go for 10 

12 minutes.

13 MR. KATZ: That would place it 

14 around 4:00 getting back together.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay.

16 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

17 went off the record at 3:50 p.m. and went back 

18 on the record at 4:01 p.m.)

19 MR. KATZ: Okay. We are back 

20 after a short break, the Fernald Work Group.

21 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. We have 

22 decided that SC&A is going to bring this 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

345 1 before the Board, and NIOSH is going to bring 

2 their part before the Board.

3 But I have one question that I 

4 need to get on the record. We have been 

5 focused on 1968 through 1978.

6 MR. KATZ: Through 1977.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Through 1977. My 

8 issue is, what have we done for 1978 on? Have 

9 we reviewed that?

10 MR. STIVER: We have not reviewed 

11 the data that are available as backup to the 

12 measurements of that particular point, no.

13 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. So, my 

14 question is, as the Work Group Chair, because 

15 I know that we got focused into this and we 

16 have been focusing just at that, I guess I 

17 would want to see --

18 MR. STIVER: If you would like us 

19 to do that, we certainly can.

20 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. I just want 

21 to make sure. And do we have to task or is 

22 that under their --
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

346 1 MR. KATZ: We just did.

2 (Laughter.)

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Okay, we've 

4 got that.

5 MR. STIVER: And that is going to 

6 dovetail well with Tom LaBone's information on 

7 lead-212.

8 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. That sounds 

9 good.

10 Then, we are going to move on to 

11 the next item, which is the recycled thorium.

12 MR. STIVER: Okay. This is John 

13 Stiver, and this is our last issue for the 

14 day.

15 This is a new issue that emerged. 

16 It is related to recycled thorium. It is 

17 kind of similar in a way to recycled uranium 

18 in that you have material, thorium, that was 

19 irradiated at Savannah River and at Hanford, 

20 chemically purified, and then sent back for 

21 reuse.

22 We weren't aware of this 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

347 1 particular issue until the Savannah River site 

2 teleconference last August. We discovered 

3 that a lot of this material had been shipped 

4 up to Fernald. And so, we thought, well, you 

5 know, we should probably take a look at this, 

6 although you are dealing with contaminants 

7 that are essentially isotopes of uranium as 

8 opposed to plutonium or some others. And you 

9 also have fission products there.

10 But the big players in recycled 

11 thorium are uranium-232 and uranium-233. And 

12 so, we wanted to investigate the extent to 

13 which the presence of these materials might 

14 require some changes -- first of all, whether 

15 it would be possible to reconstruct and, also, 

16 if so, what changes might be needed.

17 So, this is really kind of an 

18 interim report, as you will see. There are 

19 some recommendations that come out of this.

20 But what we did is we went through 

21 the SRDB and we pulled out, oh, gosh, upwards 

22 of 40 or 50 references related to this 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

348 1 particular topic, and sorted through all those 

2 and came to the conclusion that, during almost 

3 the same period of time where we are dealing 

4 with the milligrams-of-thorium data, from 

5 about 1968 on up to the late 1970s, we had 

6 these shipments of recycled thorium come in, 

7 which is the period of thorium processing. 

8 That is understandable.

9 So, any pronouncements on the 

10 usability or the ability to reconstruct, or 

11 even the need to reconstruct, recycled thorium 

12 is predicated on the ability to have a 

13 reliable, credible thorium intake estimate. 

14 So, this pretty much hinges on the 1968-to15 1978 issue with the chest counts.

16 Having said that, we determined 

17 that literally hundreds of metric tons of this 

18 material had been received at Fernald, like I 

19 said, from Savannah River and, also, from 

20 Hanford during this time period.

21 We were able to find a study. I 

22 will just direct your attention back to our 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

349 1 paper. It is called "The Evaluation of the 

2 Impact of Recycled Thorium on Potential Worker 

3 Exposure at Fernald, an Interim Report".

4 CHAIR CLAWSON: And this report 

5 is, as we speak, it came to us, right?

6 MR. STIVER: Yes, this is the 

7 report that you have, as of last night, and my 

8 apologies for the tidy arrival on this. We 

9 need to get better at time management.

10 As far as the source term goes, we 

11 found a very good reference. It was Quigley, 

12 1967. This is an ANL report where they were 

13 basically trying to determine whether they 

14 could process this material at Fernald without 

15 any changes to their system.

16 What they did is they had six tank 

17 cars of this recycled thorium that were 

18 brought in from Savannah River. They sampled 

19 all the different tank cars, because they were 

20 looking at whether this was a feasibility, it 

21 was kind of a feasibility study. And so, they 

22 wanted to get the highest values possible and 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

350 1 say, hey, in the worst-case scenario, are we 

2 going to be able to do this without having to 

3 change-up our processes?

4 What they came up with is, they 

5 were looking at primarily thorium nitrate 

6 tetrahydrate. That is basically an aqueous 

7 solution of thorium. This is how this 

8 material was received. And then, from that 

9 point, it would be processed through, as any 

10 other thorium shipment would be.

11 That is all laid out very well in 

12 several other documents. We won't go into 

13 that here.

14 So, this table 1 you see on page 5 

15 of 20 gives the constituent concentrations in 

16 the Savannah River site, thorium nitrate 

17 tetrahydrate, which we call TNt. That is our 

18 acronym for it.

19 And you see you have got 

20 thorium-232, -234. No tactiniums are coming 

21 in. Ruthenium, it should really be 

22 ruthenium-106, not ruthenium-108. I think 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

351 1 that was a typographical error. And then, 

2 U-233.

3 MEMBER ZIEMER: In the original 

4 report.

5 MR. STIVER: In the original 

6 report, yes. It is in the original report.

7 And so, we have activity ratios 

8 you see over in column 3 relative to the 

9 thorium-232. You do the ratios; you have 

10 activity ratio.

11 You can see that U-233 comes out 

12 to, on an activity basis, about 21 percent of 

13 the thorium concentration or the thorium 

14 activity, I should say.

15 This is probably a fairly recent 

16 sample because the short-lived progeny, the 

17 thorium-234 and tactinium decay away very 

18 quickly. We have a little excerpt that 

19 describes that.

20 What we didn't have here is 

21 measurements of the U-232. U-232 is important 

22 because it is a very high specific activity. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

352 1 Basically, it starts with thorium-228. And so 

2 from that point down, you have basically the 

3 same decay chaining as you have with the 

4 thorium-232 after it reaches equilibrium.

5 So, if you have a high 

6 concentration of this material, you can have 

7 very high external doses due to primarily 

8 thalium-208, .6 MEvs gamma. You have the same 

9 thing with 232, but because the parent 

10 radionuclide is such a low specific activity, 

11 the radiation hazard from the health 

12 protection standpoint would be lower for an 

13 equal amount.

14 But, anyway, we looked at the 

15 external dose potential and internal dose 

16 potential of this material. The external 

17 potential, given that -- well, let me back up 

18 a second.

19 We were actually able to find 

20 another document, several documents really, 

21 that discussed the production, how to control 

22 these undesirable side reactions that gave 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

353 1 rise to the uranium-232. What they did was, 

2 by a placement in the reactor lattice 

3 controlling the irradiation types, they were 

4 able to control the amount of this material 

5 that was produced.

6 Basically, they controlled it, 

7 depending on the AEC specifications, we found 

8 information that indicated anywhere from about 

9 7 up to 500 parts per million on a U-233 

10 basis.

11 So, based on that, we were able to 

12 go back here to table 2 on page 7, under the 

13 internal exposure potential, you see you have 

14 got three different concentrations, 500, 50, 

15 and 7 parts per million, and what the activity 

16 concentration ratios would be relative to 

17 thorium. 

18 And you see the worst case at 500 

19 parts per million, we are looking at actually 

20 about a .25 activity ratio. So, when you look 

21 at that and you consider the fact that 

22 thorium-232 basically is present in four times 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

354 1 the activity concentration, we went through 

2 and demonstrated here in the external exposure 

3 section that the external potential from 

4 thorium is going to vastly outweigh any hazard 

5 from U-232 and -233 that might be present in 

6 the material. And we reached the conclusion 

7 that really the presence of the recycled 

8 thorium at Fernald really didn't contribute 

9 appreciably to external dose potential.

10 We also looked at the external 

11 potential as well, using these activity 

12 concentrations, kind of a worst-case scenario. 

13 You look at table 3 here on page 8; you can 

14 see that we have activity-weighted ratios for 

15 Type M and Type S. The material received was 

16 predominantly Type M, the nitrate solution, 

17 but it was also processed in further steps to 

18 oxides, fluorides, and eventually to metal, in 

19 a similar process to what was done with 

20 uranium.

21 So, we include these values here 

22 just to show the ratio of U-232 and -233 to 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

355 1 thorium-232 for the range of organs of concern 

2 in the ICRP 68 dose factors. And you can see 

3 these very low values. The highest, again, is 

4 for lungs for about .42 and .48. But, for 

5 most of the organs, we are looking at about 3 

6 to 5 percent of the dose ratio. I mean, these 

7 are 50-year. We certainly kind of looked at 

8 it that way. Being an interim report, we 

9 thought we would just take a little broad10 brush-stroke here.

11 Table 3, that was just a 

12 carryover.

13 Table 4, what we did here is we 

14 took -- to get an idea of what the doses would 

15 be for a particular worker. Joyce located a 

16 particular worker who had two chest counts.

17 I will back up to say we did use 

18 the chest counts for this example without 

19 regard to the adequacy. I have made a 

20 statement, kind of a caveat, in here, that 

21 this doesn't imply any kind of acceptance of 

22 the values for use in DR. We just thought it 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

356 1 would be illustrative as a demonstration.

2 And so, we know that between April 

3 1968 and July 1969 this particular worker got 

4 an intake of thorium-232. His measure was 

5 zero. His second was 9.1 milligrams.

6 And so, in kind of a similar vein 

7 to what we did in looking at the in-vivo 

8 thorium, based on the 6-milligram intake or 

9 lung burden, we looked at what would be some 

10 exposure scenarios. What kind of doses would 

11 you expect from an intake that would give you 

12 a 9-milligram lung burden over that course of 

13 time?

14 And on page 10, you can see we 

15 have three different tables here that look at 

16 three different scenarios of when the intake 

17 may have occurred and when measurements were 

18 made. You can see, once again, we looked at 

19 high-dose organs, the bone surfaces, and we 

20 looked at lung as well.

21 You can see the thorium just far 

22 outstrips uranium, both isotopes of uranium, 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

357 1 in terms of dose. Here we are looking at 

2 sieverts.

3 Take a look at table 1a, where you 

4 have a July 1968 intake. Measurement was done 

5 235 days after last day of exposure. You have 

6 got about, to the bone surfaces, you are 

7 looking at 14.5 sieverts and you are looking 

8 at 9.8 rem from U-232, 5.7 rem to the lung. 

9 And you can kind of see you have got the same 

10 type of proportionality here.

11 So, our conclusion is really that 

12 thorium-232 internal doses far outstrip dose 

13 from 232 and 233. However, you do still find 

14 rem-level doses, possibly rem-level doses, to 

15 certain organs from the uranium contaminants.

16 So, our recommendation at this 

17 point is that NIOSH may want to further 

18 investigate this issue in assigning internal 

19 doses from thorium. If the in-vivo thorium 

20 issue becomes resolved, then this would be 

21 kind of a follow-on to that.

22 That is really kind of the 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

358 1 thumbnail sketch of this interim report.

2 MR. ROLFES: Thanks, John.

3 This was the first time I was able 

4 to look at the document, today.

5 (Laughter.)

6 So, I am looking at it, and the 

7 only thing, the one question that I had, in 

8 your dose calculations here, 1a, 1b, and 1c, 

9 the bone surface committed equivalent doses in 

10 sieverts for thorium, and then U-233 and 

11 U-232, were those doses calculated in IMBA?

12 MR. STIVER: They were done using 

13 aids.

14 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

15 MR. STIVER: Joyce could give you 

16 the details on that --

17 MR. ROLFES: Okay.

18 MR. STIVER: -- if you are 

19 interested.

20 MR. ROLFES: Thanks. No, that's 

21 all I need.

22 MR. STIVER: Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

359 1 MR. ROLFES: Thank you.

2 MR. STIVER: So, I have to say, on 

3 this particular issue, if anybody has some 

4 comments, why, I will entertain them at this 

5 point.

6 CHAIR CLAWSON: This is all 

7 hinging on the data we have already been 

8 looking at?

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, this is based on 

10 the 1968-to-1978 timeframe and process.

11 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, for you to do 

12 this, you actually used some of the 

13 information that was existing there or --

14 MR. STIVER: This is an 

15 illustrative example. This is not any kind of 

16 a calculation we would use in a dose 

17 reconstruction. This is just to get an idea 

18 of what the relative magnitudes --

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, but you are 

20 saying that, if you can quantitate the thorium 

21 to start with, then you should add this?

22 MR. STIVER: If you can quantitate 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

360 1 the thorium, then you might want to look at 

2 this because you conceivably have rem-level 

3 doses.

4 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

5 MR. STIVER: Remember, those are 

6 50-year increments.

7 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

8 MR. STIVER: It might be worth 

9 looking into as a TBD change.

10 CHAIR CLAWSON: So, this will go 

11 to DCAS?

12 I would say the other one was a 

13 priority over this, though, because this is 

14 all hinged on that data. So, I guess the Work 

15 Group will expect a response back from DCAS on 

16 that. But I want to put the emphasis on the 

17 other information, because this is what it all 

18 hinged on.

19 MEMBER ZIEMER: Yes, this would 

20 become a moot point if --

21 MR. STIVER: Yes, exactly, it 

22 would become a moot point if the fact is that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

361 1 the other data can be used.

2 MEMBER ZIEMER: Right.

3 CHAIR CLAWSON: Are there any 

4 questions on it or anything that needs to be 

5 brought up?

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: So, you have 

7 confirmed, though, that recycled thorium was

8 present on the site?

9 MR. STIVER: Yes.

10 MEMBER ZIEMER: That has been 

11 confirmed.

12 MR. STIVER: It was processed 

13 through Fernald, based on that study that they 

14 used to generate that table.

15 CHAIR CLAWSON: How many metric 

16 tons?

17 MR. STIVER: This is another issue 

18 that, if it becomes a TBD revision, then we 

19 know that hundreds of metric tons were 

20 processed. We don't have an exact value, but 

21 that would be incumbent on NIOSH to go back 

22 and get a better, more quantitative timeframe 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

362 1 and amount. I don't know if the timeframe or 

2 the amount would be so important. Once you 

3 have the thorium, then you have the 

4 proportionality. Basically, you have the 

5 default. So, you would use like you did in 

6 recycled uranium.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Because part of 

8 this came up when we were at Hanford and going 

9 through that paperwork. I saw railroad cars 

10 of thorium going out.

11 And so, I guess we really don't 

12 have a good gist on that, but that falls back 

13 to NIOSH or DCAS to go from there.

14 And that is all we have today.

15 If there are any questions on the 

16 phone of any clarification that we need or a 

17 path, I want to make sure that everybody is 

18 clear with the path forward, though. You have 

19 got your path forward.

20 I would like to be able to review, 

21 when you get back to your offices, to be able 

22 to send it to us, so that all of us know that 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

363 1 we are on the same field of which way we are 

2 going.

3 MR. ROLFES: If there is one issue 

4 I guess that you would like to have before the 

5 Work Group meeting, then my thoughts, from 

6 what I have heard today, it would be the 

7 thorium lung counting from the 1968-to-1977 

8 period?

9 CHAIR CLAWSON: Yes, that is first 

10 and foremost.

11 MR. ROLFES: We will focus our 

12 efforts on that, to get something put together 

13 before the Work Group, the full Board meeting. 

14 We will do our best to do that.

15 And then, second to that would be 

16 the subcontractor --

17 CHAIR CLAWSON: That is correct.

18 Both SC&A and DCAS have delivered 

19 papers fairly late that neither side has been 

20 able to really review. So, as usual, we still 

21 need to have a formal response on both of 

22 those, all the papers that have been put out 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

364 1 there.

2 But, as Mark stated, we want to go 

3 for, we are shooting for thorium and the 

4 coworker data first for the Board.

5 Is there anybody on the phone who 

6 has any questions or any clarification that we 

7 need?

8 (No response.)

9 MR. ROLFES: One other thing that 

10 I forgot to mention is we did do an analysis. 

11 We were asked, as a Site-Profile-type issue, 

12 to analyze the net effect of the blunders or 

13 the daily weighted-exposure results for 

14 thorium. We have completed an analysis. If 

15 you correct the blunders, the change in 

16 intake, I believe, is less than 1 percent.

17 MR. STIVER: So, it is 

18 considerably less than it was for Weldon 

19 Spring, then?

20 MR. ROLFES: Correct. Correct. 

21 Just because of the additional --

22 MR. STIVER: I haven't had a 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

365 1 chance to look at it yet.

2 MR. ROLFES: I sent it this 

3 morning. So, I didn't expect that anyone 

4 would, but that was completed. So, I just 

5 mention it.

6 MEMBER ZIEMER: Did we all get 

7 that?

8 MR. ROLFES: Yes.

9 MR. KATZ: Just today.

10 MR. ROLFES: It was just this 

11 morning.

12 MEMBER ZIEMER: Oh.

13 MR. ROLFES: I sent it probably a 

14 few minutes before our meeting started.

15 MEMBER MELIUS: Yes, this is Jim 

16 Melius.

17 Just one, I guess it is sort of an 

18 announcement, but at least the draft schedule 

19 for the Board meeting as this Fernald being 

20 discussed on Wednesday morning, February 29th, 

21 roughly at around 10:45. Now that could 

22 change as we sort of finalize the schedule. 
NEAL R. GROSS

COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 

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

This transcript of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, Fernald Work Group, has 

been reviewed for concerns under the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. § 552a) and personally identifiable 

information has been redacted as necessary. The transcript, however, has not been reviewed 

and certified by the Chair of the Fernald Work Group for accuracy at this time. The reader 

should be cautioned that this transcript is for information only and is subject to change.

366 1 But if it doesn't, at least people who are 

2 interested should know that.

3 MR. KATZ: Right. So, that is the 

4 second day.

5 MEMBER MELIUS: The second day of 

6 the meeting, midmorning.

7 CHAIR CLAWSON: Okay. Thank you, 

8 Jim. Appreciate that.

9 With nothing else, the Fernald 

10 Work Group will sign off then.

11 MR. KATZ: Very good. Thank you, 

12 everyone, for your hard work again leading up 

13 to this and through this, and for all of that 

14 to come to the Board meeting. It is much 

15 appreciated.

16 Take care, everyone on the phone.

17 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

18 matter went off the record at 4:22 p.m.)

19

20

21

22