THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

THIRTIETH MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

DAY THREE 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held 

at the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel, Cedar 

Rapids, Iowa, on April 27, 2005. 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

April 27, 2005 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

BOARD DISCUSSION OF MALLINCKRODT SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT 

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

MALLINCKRODT SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT PETITION 12 

PRESENTATION BY NIOSH & PETITIONERS 13 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

BOARD DISCUSSION OF MALLINCKRODT SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT 

PETITION 33 

PETITIONERS 74 

PETITION 122 

NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 198 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

SEC PETITION REVIEW TASK ORDER 225 

DISCUSSION, LEGAL OPINION FROM DOJ 235 

FUTURE SCHEDULE 244 

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES 257 

DISCUSSION OF FIRST 20 DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEWS 263 

GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT 308 

SC&A, INC. CONTRACT UPDATE STATUS 317 

ADJOURN 323 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 324 

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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND 

The following transcript contains quoted material. 

Such material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

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

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

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

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

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

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

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

In the following transcript (off microphone) 

refers to microphone malfunction or speaker's neglect 

to depress "on" button. 
 

 

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS 

CHAIR 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University

Lafayette, Indiana 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D.

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

MEMBERSHIP 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D.

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H.

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Espanola, New Mexico 
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GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D.

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 
 

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AGENDA SPEAKERS 

(in order of appearance) 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

STAFF/VENDORS 

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 
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AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS 

AMENELL, MARY

AMENELL, PAUL

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A

BLOSSER, FRED, NIOSH

BRAND, ANSTICE, CDC

BROCK, DENISE, UNWW

BUXIN, AMY, CONGRESSMAN LEACH

CHANG, C., NIOSH

DEEP, HEIDI, NIOSH

DEHART, JULIA

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FLEMING, LEEANN

FUORTES, LAURENCE, UNIV. OF IOWA

GUNN, DENNIS

HALLMARK, SHELBY, LABOR

HEISTER, MELANIE, NCRP

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS

HORGAN, TOM, SEN. BOND

KATZ, TED, NIOSH

KOTSCH, JEFFREY L., DOL

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCKEEL, DAN, MD, WASHINGTON UNIV.

MCNEELY, MIKE, NIOSH

MILLER, RICHARD, GAP

MONTGOMERY, THEODORE W.

NESVET, JEFF, DOL

NETON, JIM, NIOSH

NICHOLSON, HOWARD

NUGENT, MARY, GAO

PIEPER, KAREN

PORTER, DIANE, NIOSH

PRESLEY, LOUISE S.

ROESSLER, CHARLES

RUBY, DOUG

SCHAUER, DAVID, NCRP

SMITH, ROSE

TAULBEE, TOM, NIOSH 
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TOOHEY, R.E., ORAU

VACEK, PENNY, SEN. GRASSLEY

WALKER, BONNIE

WILBURN-YOAKUM, LINDA ANNE

WING, JENNY, SEN. TOM HARKIN

ZIEMER, MARILYN

ZIMMERMAN, SUE, CONGRESSMAN LEACH 
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P R O C E E D I N G S

 (8:15 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to call the assembly to 

order. This is our third day. I think we all 

feel like we're sort of on the home stretch, as 

it were. We -- we are going to continue with 

our discussions on Mallinckrodt as soon as we 

clean up the coffee here at the front. 

(Pause) 

A couple of reminders -- again, as I always do 

-- to remind you to register your attendance in 

the registration book at the entryway. Again 

I'll remind everyone there are copies of the 

agenda and related materials on the table in 

the back. 

Let me give Lew Wade the mike a moment to see -

- Lew, do you have any additional comments this 

morning? 

 DR. WADE: Well, there was just one comment 

made by a Board member that a petitioner or two 

asked last night if we could just very briefly 

review what happens to a petition once it's 

been approved by the Board. And I thought I 

would just walk through that in the broadest 

possible terms and I would ask Liz to correct 
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the mistakes that I made, but as you know, when 

the Board takes an action there are 

requirements as to the materials it needs to 

submit to the Secretary. And by your 

procedures yesterday you've tasked your 

Chairman with submitting your recommendation 

within 21 days. 

Once that submission is made by the Board to 

the Secretary, it really goes to the NIOSH 

director, who prepares a proposed decision for 

the Secretary. And again I remind you that the 

NIOSH director, in preparation of that proposed 

decision, will consider the evaluations of 

NIOSH, the report and recommendations of the 

Board, the information presented or submitted 

to the Board and the deliberations of the 

Board. That package makes its way to the 

Secretary and the Secretary makes the final 

decision. 

A clock starts -- a 30-day clock starts on the 

day the Secretary receives your recommendation. 

He has to send a decision to Congress within 30 

days. So that clock starts and that will cause 

a great deal of action to take place within the 

Executive Branch to prepare the Secretary to 
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see that he makes his decision package 

available to Congress within 30 days. 

Liz, anything else that needs to be -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then what happens? 

 DR. WADE: And then Congress acts upon that 

package as it -- as it sees fit. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I believe Congress also is 

mandated to act within -- is it 30 days? 

 DR. WADE: Thirty days, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thirty days. 

 DR. WADE: And if they don't act, then the 

proposed decision becomes effective. 

 MS. MUNN: Thirty calendar days? 

 DR. WADE: Thirty calendar days? I assume. 

 MS. MUNN: If they're not in session, that 

could be an issue. 

 DR. ZIEMER: One other item I would add 

parenthetically, Board members, you are aware 

and we have the letter which we approved. 

Please understand that I will have to append to 

the letter an additional paragraph describing a 

number of attachments which are required, and 

you'll understand -- I assume you're 

comfortable with that. There will be a letter 

describing that we will attach the minutes of 
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our meeting, which include the testimony of the 

petitioners, the -- the documents that are 

delineated in the rule itself, so there will be 

that additional paragraph. 

 MALLINCKRODT SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT PETITION 

DR. ZIEMER: Now we're ready to proceed with 

our deliberations concerning the Mallinckrodt 

Special Exposure Cohort petition. We begin 

this morning with NIOSH presentation, and Larry 

Elliott is going to present that. 

And Larry, let me just also preface your 

remarks by reminding the assembly of the action 

that this Board took in -- at the St. Louis 

meeting, and I'm reading from the minutes 

relative to that petition -- (Reading) The 

Board reserves judgment with respect to 

Mallinckrodt workers employed during the 1949 

to 1957 time period until review of newlylocated raw data is complete. This material 

may provide additional pertinent information on 

monitoring programs and worker exposure for 

that potential cohort. 

And there was discussion on that motion and at 

the end of that discussion there is an 

indication -- I don't -- I'm looking for it 
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here now, but -- oh, here it is. A second 

motion made, seconded and approved -- (Reading) 

It is the intent of the Board to make a final 

determination on this potential cohort at the 

next full Advisory Board meeting. 

So that is the backdrop for where we are today. 

PRESENTATION BY NIOSH

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Good 

morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Board and 

the audience. I'm here again to shift your 

focus from the discussion you had yesterday 

afternoon on the site profile for Mallinckrodt 

chemical workers to again look at the Special 

Exposure Cohort petition and our evaluation 

report of that. 

As is becoming tradition within this kind of 

presentation, I will walk you through the 

petition evaluation process. I know this is 

probably becoming old hat by now, but I must do 

this for the record as well as for the benefit 

of the audience, who may not have heard this 

type of presentation before. I'll also give an 

overview and a timeline of this particular 

petition. 

I'll again remind the Board, probably 
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unnecessarily at this point, but I'll remind 

you of your responsibilities and your role 

within this part of the process. 

I present also a summary of the petition 

evaluation report, as well as go into the 

details of the supplement to that evaluation 

report that was prepared after the February 

meeting. And I'll conclude with the class 

definition and the summary findings. 

Again, the evaluation process is governed by 

the statute and by the regulation that's listed 

on this slide, 83.13(c)(1) and 42 CFR 

83.13(c)(3). Again, these are the two-pronged 

tests that must be addressed in evaluating a 

petition. 

As well the evaluation process must examine all 

available data and information obtained. That 

includes the site profile development, 

information that is pertinent to this facility 

that may have been addressed at related 

facilities, the dose reconstructions that may 

have been attempted or -- and/or completed with 

regard to the petition. We are also required 

by rule to determine the completeness of our 

data resear-- data search. We have to evaluate 
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the sufficiency of data according to the HP -- 

health physics hierarchy of data that's listed 

in our dose reconstruction rule. And we 

evaluate the issues of data reliability that's 

raised by the petition itself. 

As well, if we determine that we cannot 

reconstruct dose, we then have to address the 

second prong of the test and whether -- that 

includes whether health was endangered for this 

particular class. 

Let me speak for a moment here about -- a 

little bit about -- in reflection of the 

discussion on the site profile yesterday 

afternoon, and I'd like to point out that I 

think there may have -- may be some confusion 

about site profiles and their -- their content 

and context as a living document. And in that 

light, these documents, from their genesis, 

have been portrayed as living documents. When 

we -- it goes back to the need to be timely in 

our efforts for -- for the claimant population 

in doing dose reconstruction, as well as 

evaluating petitions here. And so once we feel 

that we have assembled enough information to 

process certain types of claims under our 
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efficiency process, we put that into play and 

start using those documents, fully recognizing 

and hopefully trying to make it clear to people 

that -- with an understanding that as new 

information comes to light that may inform and 

enable us to treat other types of cases, we 

modify those documents. 

A revision to a site profile we would consider 

as giving us the ability to move claims through 

the system. And as new information we make 

changes to those site profiles. Certainly we, 

again, appreciate our colleagues from Sanford 

Cohen & Associates who bring their perspective 

to this and call our attention to certain 

things that we feel and they feel we need to 

address. And once we address those things, we 

go back and we look at all claims that were 

processed under our previous site profile 

revision and evaluate whether the modifications 

to a newly-revised site profile would affect 

the outcome of those claims. 

This is a standard operating procedure within 

my office. It's called a performance 

evaluation report and any time that a change 

occurs in any of these documents we go back and 
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evaluate those claims. If there is a change to 

a claim, we notify the claimant, we notify the 

Department of Labor and we work together with 

both and work through all that. 

So I just offer that for the consideration of 

the Board, as well as the audience. 

Let me speak a little bit about the overview 

and a timeline for this particular petition. 

The Mallinckrodt Chemical Works for the 

Destrehan Street petition was submitted to us 

on July 21st last year, and the initial 

definition for that particular class, as we 

worked it out with the petitioners, were all 

employees that worked in the uranium division 

at the Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street facility 

in St. Louis, Missouri over the time period of 

1942 to 1957. 

The submission of this petition met the 

criteria as outlined in our rule under 42 CFR 

83.7 through 83.9, and it was qualified on 

November 24th, 2004. As I said yesterday, we -

- we work diligently with the petitioners to 

make sure that the basis of the petition 

addresses all of the requirements within our 

regulatory process. 
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 The petitioners were notified by letter, and a 

notice of that submission -- that it had 

qualified for evaluation -- was published in 

the Federal Register and put on our web site on 

December 20th in 2004. 

NIOSH evaluated this petition using the 

guidelines in 83.13, and we submitted a summary 

of findings and a petition evaluation report to 

the Board and to the petitioners on February 

2nd, 2005. A summary of the evaluation report 

and finding was then published in the Federal 

Register on February 3rd, 2005. 

At your February 8th meeting in St. Louis we 

presented the evaluation reports for 

Mallinckrodt. This eval-- the evaluation 

reports -- there were two, if you recall. One 

report spoke to all DOE, DOE contractors or 

subcontractors employed by the uranium division 

of Mallinckrodt during the period from 1942 

through 1945. The other report covered the 

same workers and employees for Mallinckrodt 

through the period of 1946 through 1948, and 

then the last part of that report covered 1949 

to 1957. We were, as you recall, seeking -- 

for the latter time period we were seeking 
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advice from the Board concerning the matter of 

data reliability. 

During that meeting a number of additional 

issues concerning access to data, their 

reliability and various technical matters that 

pertained to the time period of 1949 to 1957 

were identified during the presentation that we 

made to the Board. And in response to those 

issues and others, we submitted a -- or we 

developed and submitted a supplemental report 

to our evaluation report that addresses those 

issues. 

The Board sent a recommendation to the 

Secretary of HHS on March 11th, 2005 

recommending that a Special Exposure Cohort 

class be designated according to all -- 

accorded to all DOE contractors or 

subcontractors who worked at the uranium 

division at Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street 

during the period of 1942 to 1948. We -- the 

Board, based upon a recommendation that we 

made, combined the '42 to '48 period. It was 

broken down in '42 to '46, if you recall, and 

they -- or '42 to '45 and then '46 to '48. The 

Board reserved judgment with respect to workers 
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employed during the 1949 to 1957 time period 

until we -- NIOSH -- had completed its 

supplemental report. 

On April 6th of 2005 the Director of NIOSH sent 

a recommended decision to the Secretary of HHS 

that was consistent with the Board's 

recommendation. 

Based upon the considerations of the 

recommendations, the findings and the 

deliberations of the Board and the 

recommendations of the Director of NIOSH, and 

also the Director of Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention, the Secretary of HHS 

sent his decision to Congress on April 11th, 

2005 to add the -- this class to the Special 

Exposure Cohort. The class definition is 

(reading) The employees of the Department of 

Energy or DOE contractors or subcontractors 

employed by the uranium division of 

Mallinckrodt Chemical Works Destrehan Street 

facility during the period of 1942 through 

1948, and who were employed for a number of 

work days aggregating at least 250 work days, 

either solely under this employment or in 

combination with work days within the 
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parameters, excluding aggregate work day 

requirements, established by other classes or 

employees included in the Special Exposure 

Cohort. 

I'm not going to belabor the Board with this, 

your roles and responsibilities. I think 

you're very well familiar with them, but for 

the audience, the Board's responsibilities are 

governed by statute and by the Special Exposure 

Cohort rule that was promulgated last May. 

The main role of the Board is to consider and 

advise the Secretary of HHS on whether to add a 

class. Again, you are to consider the 

petition, the evaluation reports and all 

available information, and develop and transmit 

to the Secretary your recommendation. And in 

that recommendation, as you know, you must 

include all of the relevant petitions and any 

information that is pertinent to that. 

Lastly, we all are required to adhere to the 

Privacy Act and control information and prevent 

unwarranted disclosure of information about the 

petitioners. 

And now I'll go into the summary of the Special 

Exposure Cohort evaluation report that we 
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provided for the class with the time period of 

1949 to 1957. 

Beginning in 1949 Mallinckrodt had established 

an operational program of radiation monitoring 

of its employees and its work areas, and this 

was overseen and directed by the Atomic Energy 

Commission's Health and Safety Laboratory out 

of New York. Notwithstanding the data 

reliability concerns that have been raised, 

there is sufficient information from the 

various monitoring activities, together with 

the information on radiological sources and 

processes, to reconstruct and validate dose 

estimates. 

After 1949 there are multiple sources of 

exposure information, and through Dr. Neton's 

attempt to illustrate in his example yesterday, 

we feel that we can use the various data 

sources to complement each other and evaluate 

any deficiencies or data gaps that might exist 

in that dataset for Mallinckrodt. 

In the SEC petition evaluation report 00012-2, 

section 7.3, items 2, 3 and 4, you'll find that 

we address how we might go about doing this. 

For example, in item 2 we talk about breath 
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radon and the limited number of data and the 

use of that data with regard to the entry of 

zeroes in that data. We indicate that 

urinalysis results are the solution for 

evaluating that kind of a data gap or that type 

of limitation in the data. 

For item 3, lost medical records -- that is an 

issue that has been raised and one of concern -

- NIOSH is -- has documented in its search that 

it did not indicate any loss of medical 

records, and thus we cannot confirm that 

medical records were lost, in fact. 

With regard to item 4, altered records or 

conscious cover-up referencing a 1949 dust 

evaluation which was never finalized, our 

belief is that the cure for that particular 

situation is the availability of data from a 

fully operational health and safety health 

physics program from 1949 to 1957 that included 

the oversight of the AEC/HASL. 

I won't go over -- this is just another slide 

of some of the data that was presented in the 

evaluation report, and you saw this yesterday, 

as well. And Jim I think did a very good job 

of summarizing the wealth of information that 
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exists in the variety of monitoring data that 

we have. 

The purpose of the supplement report was to 

address a number of issues that were identified 

but not specifically addressed in the prior 

NIOSH petition evaluation report. The 

supplement identifies those issues that were 

raised at your Board meeting in February in St. 

Louis, and provides an evaluation of the effect 

that those issues might have -- might have on 

the proposed designation of this class from 

1949 to 1957. 

 I'll summarize the issues that were raised. 

There were five that are listed here. NIOSH's 

access to data and reports identified in the 

1972 Mason letter as being potentially lost or 

destroyed. Another issue, items raised in the 

1974 Mont Mason notes presented at the February 

Board meeting. And third, a summary of the 

content of the six boxes of the Mallinckrodt 

data that were unevaluated at the time of the 

February Board meeting. Four, there was 

concern as to how to calculate exposure from 

isotopes other than uranium if urine samples 

were only counted for uranium. And five, the 
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ability of NIOSH to estimate potential radon -- 

radiation exposures in doses associated with 

the blowouts that occurred at Mallinckrodt. 

With regard to issue number one, in the 

supplemental report we specify that NIOSH has 

recovered a record transmittal and receipt form 

from the Federal Records Center in St. Louis 

which identifies the 22 documents referred to 

in the Mont Mason letter, and these documents 

were identified as shelf V2161. In that NIOSH 

has obtained 21 of the 22 documents, which 

consist of reports associated with dust studies 

and other facility surveys. 

The only document that was not located was 

entitled "An Annual Report for the Fiscal Year 

1950 from the New York Operations Office of 

Health and Safety Division" which was dated 

November 13th, 1950. This missing document is 

an annual report and is -- these kinds of 

reports are very helpful to us in documenting 

the reason behind a particular action. But the 

environmental health and safety data that's 

summarized in these reports are usually found 

in other types of documents and other types of 

reports. So we don't feel that just because 
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this one report is missing that it leaves us 

with a huge data gap. We feel that we can -- 

we can use other information to cover the 

issues that might be raised from that lost 

document. 

 This slide explains the effects of the 

information that's compiled in the supplemental 

report, and the data that it's obtained from 

the documents would not increase the estimated 

doses calculated from the data that's already 

in the TBD. It probably, if we obtained 

additional information -- as I said yesterday 

for Iowa, additional information would tend to 

provide more precision in our dose estimates 

and perhaps even drive them down. The newlyobtained data will be fully analyzed and would 

-- will be included in the next revision. 

NIOSH has -- has -- does not find that the 

records have been lost or destroyed. We feel 

that most of the data from the documents was 

found in other sources and was already 

evaluated and -- and most of it is used in Rev. 

1 of the TBD. Those that are not used or not 

been incorporated will be incorporated. 

Item number 2 regarding the 1975 Mont Mason 
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notes as presented in the February Board 

meeting, and these notes were generated from a 

trip that Dr. Mason took in 1975 to gather data 

for an epidemiologic study for Thomas Mancuso. 

The funding ran out for that study, evidently -

- we understand that from other documents -- 

and it reflects -- this particular document 

reflects an evaluation in progress. It is not 

a completed evaluation of the data. 

Although the study was not finished, the site 

data have been evaluated and the issues that 

were identified were revisited by other studies 

and in other epidemiologic reports. These data 

were reviewed by NIOSH and ORAU for the 

development of the Mallinckrodt Technical Basis 

Document. 

Based on NIOSH's review of the data, NIOSH does 

not find any issues that would preclude an 

ability to reconstruct doses for compensation 

purposes under this program. 

With regard to item number 3, this issue being 

the summary of the content of the six boxes, 

there were six boxes and two of the boxes 

contained information from Weldon Spring, so 

they were collapsed into five total boxes. And 
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for box one, Weldon Springs, with == about 75 

percent of the contents of that box are film 

badges for 1945 to 1958 for Weldon Springs; 25 

percent of that are -- that are left are air 

sampling data, breath analysis and 

contamination survey results and radon 

monitoring for Weldon Springs. And I'm sure 

that our ORAU contractor will be incorporating 

that information into Weldon Spring's Technical 

-- site profile, which I hope we see this week, 

as Dr. Toohey mentioned last night. 

Box two also contained Weldon Springs 

information. About 75 percent of its contents 

are film badge reports for 1957 to 1961; 25 

percent are bioassay data from 1961 to '65. 

There is breathing zone air sampling data from 

'63 to '65, contamination survey reports for 

1959 and air sampling in the building 301. 

Box three again contains Weldon Spring's film 

badge information, and box four contained 

Mallinckrodt dust studies from plant 4, 6, 6E, 

7, shotgun lab and K-65. I would just mention 

that the distribution of the film badge reports 

from '57 to '61 have appeared -- appear to us 

to be pretty random in their order in our 
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evaluation of that particular box. 

 Box five, Mallinckrodt and Weldon Springs 

information. Approximately 25 percent are for 

the years of 1946 to '49 and they are film 

badge records for Mallinckrodt; 75 percent of 

the box is for Weldon Spring's badge records, 

and approximately half cover 1959 to 1965. The 

other half of that -- for Weldon Springs are 

bioassay data from '59 to '65 and area 

monitoring trends. 

 The initial review of these documents indicates 

that some of the data are duplicate data that 

we had previously accounted for and 

incorporated into our Technical Basis 

Documents. Some documents provide additional 

data that will also be addressed in a revision 

of the Technical Basis Document. 

With regard to item number 4, how will 

exposures for isotopes other than uranium be 

calculated if urine samples were counted for 

uranium only, the inclusion of other isotopes 

in claimant-favorable assumptions can be made. 

We can do this through a -- specifically for 

source materials in which uranium isotopes were 

predominant, for source materials in which 
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radium 226 was predominant, and for source 

material which concentrated thorium. For air 

samples which measured gross alpha only, there 

are also general instructions and assumptions 

to be followed for conducting dose 

reconstructions, and those are found in our 

Technical Basis Document. 

The last issue that's spoken to in the 

supplemental report, and that was raised at the 

February meeting, was can NIOSH estimate 

potential radiation exposures and doses 

associated with the blowouts. A blowout is an 

event that occurs during the reduction of 

uranium tetrafluoride to uranium metal. And 

the existence of a routine urinalysis program 

after 1948 allows NIOSH to put an upper limit 

on doses associated with blowouts or other 

incidences involving internal exposures. NIOSH 

can assume uranium excreted by workers on a 

routine monitoring program is a result of a 

blowout that occurred immediately after all the 

workers submitted their previous samples. The 

resultant dose calculation will provide a 

maximum plausible estimate of the exposure that 

was incurred. The calculated dose in -- in a -
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- all likelihood then would be an overestimate 

because the urine samples would also include 

uranium inhaled from routine operations during 

the work in that plant. 

To refine these values, NIOSH can also review 

information provided by Mallinckrodt workers 

during their interviews. When such incidents 

are identified, NIOSH would review the Energy 

employee's bioassay records for sample -- 

incident samples and also look at coworker data 

in that same regard. 

 The petition evaluation supplemental report 

addresses the petitioners' concerns regarding 

reliability and validity of the data. For the 

years 1949 to 1957, data reliability concerns 

notwithstanding, NIOSH finds that the radiation 

dose estimates can be reconstructed and 

validated for compensation purposes. 

NIOSH welcomes the advice of the Board on the 

weight of evidence determinations involving 

data reliability for this and future petitions. 

Specifically, we asked you to consider this in 

your February meeting and we're looking forward 

to hearing your deliberations on this point at 

this meeting. 
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In conclusion, the proposed class definition 

that we offer in our evaluation report is that 

all DOE, DOE contractors or subcontractors who 

worked at the uranium division at the 

Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street facility during 

the period from 1949 to 1957, we find that for 

that time period we can do dose reconstruction 

with sufficient accuracy to achieve either a 

maximum capping dose or a more precise dose 

estimate, and therefore we did not have to 

attend to health endangerment under the Special 

Exposure Cohort petition. But I would offer 

that -- and I think we are ready to say that 

health was certainly endangered to this work 

force by the type of work that they did and 

they exposures that they had. 

 Again, I'll remind the Board, for the other two 

classes which are shown here, '42 to '45, we 

found it was infeasible to do dose 

reconstruction with sufficient accuracy, we 

felt that health was endangered. And for the 

period of '46 to '48 we also felt it was 

infeasible -- not feasible to do dose 

reconstruction, and again that health was 

endangered for that particular time frame. 
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That concludes my presentation and I'll stand 

ready to entertain questions. 

BOARD DISCUSSION OF MALLINCKRODT SEC PETITION

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, thank you, Larry. Let's open 

the floor for questions. Dr. Melius? 

 DR. MELIUS: Got a couple of questions that 

came up last night that are sort of -- I think 

are -- think are relevant, though they're not 

directly related to your presentation. One, is 

there a petition -- I guess we know from your 

talk and from what was said last night that for 

Weldon Springs there's a -- a site profile 

that's about to go into review with -- at NIOSH 

coming in from your contractor. And is there 

also an active -- is there a petition for a 

Special Exposure Cohort relevant to Weldon 

Springs? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, I don't believe we have a 

Weldon Springs petition at this point in time. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. In terms of the work force 

there, I was a little confused by what was -- 

the interchange last night. To what extent is 

there an overlap between the two facilities? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, as you -- as you heard last 

night, and I think perhaps Denise or somebody 
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else is better able to speak to this, there has 

been a -- there was a large migration of 

workers from Destrehan Street to Weldon Springs 

as they ramped up. I don't know what the 

specific numbers are, but I think I heard from 

Denise last night probably 50 percent. I don't 

know if anybody else in the audience can help 

us here with that, but... 

 DR. MELIUS: So you've not analyzed that 

overlap or have information that would -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have it at -- at my 

disposal right now. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Another question -- this is 

related to more what you do with site profiles 

and -- and your -- your analysis of them. Are 

you -- when you're doing these site profiles 

and dealing with them in the context of a 

Special Exposure Cohort petition, do you go -- 

you're providing sort of a general evaluation. 

Do you evaluate subgroups at all within that -- 

within the work force in terms of your ability 

to do dose reconstruction? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. Yes, we do. In fact, I 

think it's apparent that we do that in this 

petition, as well as the Iowa petition that we 
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presented to the Board, where we have 

identified different classes based upon 

subgroupings -- or -- or events that occurred 

in that particular facility. 

 DR. MELIUS: I understand events. I don't see 

subgroupings necessarily in terms of -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, the radiographers -- the 

radiographic technicians for Iowa -- 

 DR. MELIUS: No, stay in Mallinckrodt, please. 

I don't --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Stay in Mallinckrodt -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We do evaluate the different 

process and the types of tasks that were 

employed in a process, the workers that moved 

through the process. We're very much 

interested in -- in not only the highest 

exposed workers, but those workers that were in 

a lower or moderate-exposed categories and 

whether or not we have enough data, enough 

information to evaluate their -- and 

reconstruct their exposure. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- but -- so -- but do 

you do any sort of a systematic analysis that's 

in a -- in the form of a report or... I mean -
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- I mean you're telling me you generally -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, yeah, the --

 DR. MELIUS: -- I mean --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- the analysis is systematic in 

the sense that we examine the process and all 

of the information and all the dose data, the -

- the programs that were put into effect to 

provide protection to the work force, who was 

monitored, who was not monitored. Do -- do we 

report that specifically in a separate report; 

no, it's all rolled up into our evaluation 

summaries. Could we do a better job of that; 

yes, I suppose we certainly could. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. That's all my... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other questions? Yes, Dr. 

Anderson. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, Larry, we saw yesterday 

the -- kind of the process you go through in 

the validation, comparing the different data 

sources to look for discrepancies or gaps or 

whatever. And my question is, have you done 

that -- can you say that -- after having done 

that, that you have validated the data, or are 

we still into you -- you believe you have the 

means to try to do that and you'll do that as 
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you move along, but it hasn't been done yet. 

Is that -- that's my question. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Jim, you want to come to the mike 

and speak to this specifically? This is down 

in the weeds for me, I'm... 

(Pause) 

DR. NETON: I think we need to be a little 

careful when we say "validated the data." I 

think -- it's our position, at least -- that 

the data that we have, the urine samples and 

air samples, are -- are -- were properly 

processed. Now to the extent of this data 

integrity issue and analyzing that for how we 

could use the data, we have qualitatively gone 

through and looked at the data, but we have not 

yet completed a detailed quantitative analysis 

to demonstrate that we have reached that 

conclusion. I think -- I tried to indicate 

that in my presentation yesterday by the 

hypothetical example that was discussed last 

night. 

DR. ANDERSON: 'Cause -- 'cause I was just 

looking at the one slide here, basically, 

saying that you believe you can reconstruct and 

validate the dose estimates. My question is 
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if, when you get into it, you can't, then where 

are we left? 

DR. NETON: Right. Well --

DR. ANDERSON: I mean you gave the -- 

DR. NETON: Yeah. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- the demonstration of when 

there is a discrepancy, then you're sort of 

left with well, you either have to believe one 

or the other, or say ever-- all of it's suspect 

and then --

DR. NETON: Yeah. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- then we're sort of into -- 

you go from a lot of data to very suspect data 

and that's --

DR. NETON: I think what we're trying to speak 

to here, though, is we have three -- three 

levels of data, the source term, the air -- the 

personal monitoring data and the air data. 

With those three pieces we can do a comparison, 

as I suggested. But what we're really saying 

here with this analysis is that, based on the 

site profile, we believe that not only can we 

cap the dose, but in almost all instances we 

can do much better than that. We believe we 

have sufficient data to do far better than just 
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capping. 

Now if the analysis indicates, for instance, 

that both air data and bioassay data are 

suspect -- which I -- I don't want to prejudge, 

but so far my qualitative analysis doesn't 

indicate that -- then we're left with source 

term, and certainly then we can use those data 

to cap, to put upper maximums, which is 

relevant for the SEC petition evaluation. 

I think you have to be careful not to confuse 

the profile that was designed to do better than 

maximum dose estimates, to do more detailed 

analyses, with the requirements of the SEC 

petition, which is can NIOSH cap the dose. And 

I think we would assert that given the quantity 

of the monitoring data we have, plus the 

knowledge of the source term and the detailed, 

hundreds of pages of descriptions of the 

processes, that we can certainly cap that dose. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: To add to that, I think there are 

various levels and ways of validation. And 

just the fact that in our site profile we 

identify issues relevant to data is calling 

recognition to that, and that, in and of 

itself, is some things that we use to look for 
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other data to determine whether or not we need 

to -- is the -- is the credibility or 

reliability of the data suitable or unsuitable 

for use in dose reconstruction, does it prevent 

us from doing a credible job of dose 

reconstruction. So we try to bring that to the 

fore. There are different ways of going 

through a validation process. Jim's example -- 

maybe it was poorly -- poorly presented or 

poorly designed yesterday, but it was just an 

example to illustrate one of those ways. The 

fact that we raised the blank issue in our 

report is another way. These things all have 

to be taken into consideration in validating 

data. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I was just trying to step 

through our task of, you know, how -- how much 

-- there seems to be a lot of data. The 

question is -- and that -- I'm not sure it's 

been resolved. I mean we have a method for -- 

or you presented a method to go through how you 

would go about validating, but one of the 

things we have to decide is -- is there valid 

data --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Is it feasible to even validate, 
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yeah. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- is it feasible to validate, 

and then when you think in terms of Iowa, if 

you're left with capping, then is the capping 

process giving you sufficient accuracy. I mean 

you've shown you can cap, but the question is 

how meaningful is that -- that cap, and that -- 

that's why I was trying to sort this out. I 

mean qualitatively it's -- it's good to hear 

you've looked at it and it -- it seems, but 

that's kind of where I'm at at this point. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to pose a question, 

Larry, or perhaps to Jim. This relates to the 

missing document from the Health and Safety 

Lab. I assume there are other annual reports 

of that type in your data bank or in your 

collection. Can you characterize the kind of 

information those reports typically contain? I 

assume they're not necessarily focused on 

Mallinckrodt. They would have some sort of 

summaries from across the complex, or what -- 

what can you tell us? I put you on the spot 

here, but -- but I -- there are -- there are 

other such annual reports that you've looked 

at? 
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DR. NETON: Yes, this -- this is the AEC annual 

report that you're referring to? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's the one -- the missing 

document that was in -- in the box that was -- 

DR. NETON: Right. I think we've summarized in 

our slide -- maybe Larry -- could you go back 

to that slide where we talk about what's in 

there? But in general, these are -- these are 

broad brush descriptions of the processes, the 

work force, the general issues that were 

identified, some summary air sample tables 

possibly --

 DR. ZIEMER: You would not expect them to 

contain raw data from Mallinckrodt, necessarily 

-- or even detailed data from Mallinckrodt. 

DR. NETON: That's correct, these would be 

upper-tier documents that would rely on more of 

the raw air sample data, which we believe we 

have in most cases. So I don't expect that 

there would be new information that -- that 

would not exist somewhere else, if that's what 

you're referring to. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that's -- I wanted to clarify 

that. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to 
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make a --

 MR. ELLIOTT: These kind of reports summari-- I 

believe you're right, Dr. Ziemer. These kind 

of reports summarize issues or activities or 

problems identified across -- across the 

complex. They're -- they're a roll-up 

document. There are several other supporting 

documents specific from a given site that gets 

rolled up into this general -- general report. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What I was kind of getting at, if 

you're familiar with other reports -- for 

example, would one expect to find a Mallickrodt 

section in such a report or would the 

Mallinckrodt data typically be rolled up 

statistically with other data, anyway? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I believe the answer to that is 

yes and no. I think it depends upon the type 

of incident or the type of issue that's being 

reported. And if it was critical enough to 

merit --

 DR. ZIEMER: Special attention. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- special attention, it would 

have said Mallinckrodt had this issue going on, 

be aware of it for the other sites. And in 

some cases -- and Jim or Stu can correct me if 
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I'm wrong -- there would even be listings of 

summary data where you may not be able to pick 

out the Mallinckrodt component of that data. 

DR. NETON: Right, it could be both ways, 

that's correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Roy DeHart? 

 DR. DEHART: In February and again last night 

and today, the issue of quality and validation 

of the data has been brought up and discussed. 

Is there evidence, or perhaps even a 

suggestion, of issues tied to the quality of 

the data? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Is there evidence or issues tied 

to the quality of the data? 

 DR. DEHART: Correct. Is -- is the data 

questioned because of -- of something you have 

found or something that -- that is missing that 

would question the quality of that data that 

you -- you're using. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's a matter of perspective, 

of course, but --

DR. NETON: I think -- could I maybe chime in? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Go ahead. 

DR. NETON: I think you'll find in the 248-page 

document there's going to be sections that 
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discuss some of the issues that arose over the 

monitoring practices. I mean this is a 

standard -- things that happen when you measure 

samples. I -- I don't believe, I don't think 

OCAS believes -- I know OCAS does not believe 

that these issues that are raised rise to the 

level that would question the ability to use 

the data for dose reconstructions. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: For example, I'd like to -- this is 

a good opportunity possibly for me to address 

an issue that was brought up last night related 

to the blank samples. There was a -- it was 

brought up in the Board discussion and also at 

the evening session that there was some 

indication in our profile that blank samples 

were contaminated, and that's true, and I'd 

just like to read the relevant two sentences, 

if I may, that are in that profile that were 

refer-- being referred to. 

And I quote (reading) An undated, untitled 

urinalysis listing found in dose reconstruction 

project files indicates that closed blank 

samples were found to have significant levels 

of uranium in them, indicating contamination in 
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the laboratory. It was suggested that this 

might explain the high levels of some of the 

non-blank, parentheses, worker samples. Thus 

at least some of the early urinalysis samples 

must be considered to have been potentially 

contaminated; i.e., some of the uranium content 

may have come from the laboratory analyzing 

them. 

So the issue here is that -- this speaks to the 

quality control, actually, that they were 

running what I would call in current parlance a 

method blank. You run a blank with a -- every 

so many samples and you want to make sure that 

you're not reporting erroneously positive 

results because you may have contamination in 

the lab. And that appear -- that seems to be 

what's happened here. So if anything, those 

blank samples would have -- if there was 

contamination in the laboratory, would have 

biased the results for the workers high, not 

low. 

So you'll see things like this in here, but 

again, I've looked through these and I don't 

believe that any of these rise to the level of 

really making them unusable for dose 
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reconstruction. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can I just -- Jim, while you're 

at the mike --

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: While you're at the mike -- I 

mean I -- I agr-- I -- I misread that 

yesterday, and so -- so this may be the case of 

contaminated equipment in this case on a closed 

blank. This comes -- from what I understand, 

this is from one -- one memo -- 

DR. NETON: Right, correct. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- and -- and this does speak to 

my question of feasible to vali-- sort of 

feasibility, too, feasible to validate. This 

is one memo about one time period in the lab 

when they had some high blanks, and -- and they 

say in that case it would lead to higher -- 

abnormally high -- it almost might be a memo -- 

you know, if you want to be a complete cynic 

about this, it might be a memo sort of 

explaining away high results. But anyway, 

aside from that, it's one memo and -- and my 

question is do you -- do -- do you have a 

series of quality control reports from those 

early lab -- I mean this speaks to being able 
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to go back to the raw data -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- and say okay -- oh, here we 

have a bunch of low spikes. You know, you 

might have a situation where all of a sudden 

for several months they were running spike 

samples and they were all low, and that would 

throw your data the other way. So this speaks 

to my question of the reliability of the data. 

In this ca-- in this one situation, I agree -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- it would tend to raise your 

samples higher, but it speaks to the whole 

question of the reliability and the ability to 

go back to that source term data, and that's -- 

that's my question, is that feasible in a -- in 

a timely fashion? 

DR. NETON: Well, if the standard is that for -

- 50 years ago we had every sample with every 

blank and every calibration curve, the answer's 

no, we're not going to have that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not saying that --

DR. NETON: But -- but that's what you're 

suggesting that we need to have, and that's the 

gold standard. We're not going to be able to 
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produce that. We may have some of it. But I 

would -- I would suggest that in looking 

through these records, and having run bioassay 

laboratories and analyzed tens of thousands of 

samples in accredited laboratories, the 

methodology employed here is consistent with 

good laboratory practice of running blanks, 

pursuing erroneously high values based on 

precipitation and -- and calibration standards 

that you'll see in here. So it gives a good 

sense that this laboratory was indeed 

practicing good laboratory practices for what 

is actually a fairly standard technique. It's 

been in use for over 50 years for metric 

analysis of uranium in urine. 

So I have a comfort level, OCAS has a comfort 

level with this. We cannot produce every 

calibration curve in every anal-- you know, 

reproduce every single result from first 

principles. That's not going to be possible. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, I -- I'm -- and -- and you're 

-- you're --

DR. NETON: And where do you draw the line -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- you're right -- you're right 

on that. The flip side of that I guess is this 
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paragraph sort of relies on one memo and one 

instance, and it draws that general conclusion 

that therefore all results, if they were 

biased, they could be biased high. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I think that might be stepping 

the other way. You're relying on one memo -- I 

-- and I -- I'm wrong -- if I suggested that, 

I'm wrong. I don't suggest that you could, you 

know, find all the source data, but I'm saying 

that that -- maybe more than one quality 

control report might be useful to get a sense 

of the -- and maybe you have more, I don't 

know, but one's referenced here. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, we -- yeah, exactly. We 

referenced the ones here that appeared 

relevant. I mean we try to produce these warts 

and all so that the Board can look at them and 

eval-- make their own independent evaluation. 

From my -- from my experience in running 

laboratories such as this, it's -- it's -- 

contamination's almost always a problem and, if 

anything, you end up biasing the results high. 

But that's just been my experience. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think what we are learning here 
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is that we need to speak to the other source 

documents as well in the same series, how many 

did we look at, perhaps. And if this is the 

only one that raised our awareness and our 

atten-- draw our attention, that's important 

for -- for the public and important for this 

Board to understand, that it's not just one 

document with this one issue that's brought -- 

and, you know, been brought to attention, that 

there's a series of documents that we looked 

at. Maybe we didn't see the whole universe, 

but what I'm learning from this dialogue is 

that we need to be a little more comprehensive 

in our reporting about -- about this kind of an 

issue. I do know that we looked at more than 

just this one quality control document. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. First of all I just would 

concur with Larry's conclusion. Based on that 

I think it really would be helpful for us to 

get a better sense of, you know, what's your 

overall, you know, support for a particular 

statement or for a particular process or, you 

know, whatever it may be -- some sort of 

exposure monitoring system so -- so we 
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understand the depth of that and so forth. 

My ques-- follow-up question has to do -- sort 

of a follow-up with what I asked earlier and 

what Henry -- Henry asked about, and maybe I 

can ask it more clearly, but as we discovered 

with Iowa yesterday, there are -- questions 

come up about sub-- saying -- called subgroups 

within the cohort or within the -- in the work 

site based on department, building or job title 

or whatever, and as to the quality of the data 

for -- availability of monitoring data for 

them. And I guess my question specifically for 

Mallinckrodt is have you gone through a 

systematic effort to look -- look at the 

population there and determine whether you have 

adequate data for, you know, sig-- significant 

subgroups within the -- the population in order 

to be able to complete dose reconstructions. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, personally I have not gone 

through the data, Dr. Melius, but -- 

 DR. MELIUS: No -- no, I'm not asking you -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but I -- I believe -- I do 

believe that -- that the ORAU team and my staff 

have gone through the Mallinckrodt data to the 

point that they understand the different job 
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categories, the different tasks that were 

involved there, and the data that speaks to not 

only a department but also to those different 

jobs and tasks and job categories. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton -- add to this. 

DR. NETON: Maybe I can amplify a little bit on 

that. We -- we have, as we discussed yesterday 

and as Larry presented today, monitoring data 

on the majority of the workers after 1948, so 

in case -- almost all workers in the later 

years, so we have that to start with. Now that 

doesn't mean that that -- those data themselves 

are going to be able to reconstruct doses for 

some of the processes such as the filter cake 

operators and that sort of thing. But we do 

have air monitoring data to supplement that in 

many buildings -- in most of the buildings 

during those time periods. And Dr. Melius, you 

pointed out yesterday, some of the data the 

end/N* may be small. That may be true and I've 

asked for that answer. I'm still waiting -- 

hopefully I'll have that sometime later this 

morning. 

But what happens when you do a dose 

reconstruction is you -- you look at the case 
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under evaluation, and we say is this -- where 

did this person work, what did they do. You 

look at -- do they have urine sample data, do 

you have air monitoring data, and then you -- 

you try to make a determination -- for 

instance, if the air monitoring data we have -- 

admittedly, if it's sparse -- but if it's 

enough for that particular case to put that 

case over 50 percent, then that is sufficient 

to do a dose reconstruction. 

Now on the other hand, that end/N* may be 

small, but at the same time you may say well, 

let me not just use that one building. Let me 

take the maximum value in all the buildings in 

that year and assume the worker inhaled that, 

and if that value comes out very small, low PC, 

we have some pretty good confidence that we're 

forwarding the Department of Labor a dose 

reconstruction that is useful to them. 

So you have to take this in context of how the 

dose reconstruction process works. In that 

context, though, we have looked at all classes 

of workers around the building -- around the 

site and made a determination that as far as we 

could tell, looking through all these 
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individual scenarios, we can do a dose 

reconstruction for the workers at Mallinckrodt 

in this time period. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and -- and just to follow 

up, is that available in a report? Is that --

DR. NETON: Well, I think it's -- in general 

terms, it's in the SEC evaluation report where 

we -- where we speak to -- we have the process 

knowledge, we have air monitoring, we have all 

those pieces of data that allow us to do that 

type of analysis when we do a dose 

reconstruction. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but the problem, Jim, and 

some of it has to do with we're marrying one 

process that's the site profile -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- the individual dose 

reconstruction process with an SEC, so not sort 

of faulting you personally or the -- 

DR. NETON: No, I understand. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- the organization, but the 

problems -- you make very general statements 

about this in -- when it's presented, either an 

overview of the site profile or in the SEC 

evaluation, and -- and we're trying to look 
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behind that a little bit for the SEC evaluation 

process and -- and it's hard to do when all we 

get are general statements. I mean they may be 

true and they may be fine, but it would be nice 

to have some document or some documentation 

that backs that up that's specifically relevant 

to an SEC evaluation as opposed to the ongoing 

-- going -- going process, and maybe that's 

asking too much. But -- but I think it would 

be -- it would be nice to have and -- and -- 

and the problem is that when we probe behind 

it, you -- you -- and it may --it may be 

correct in terms of the site profile process. 

You know, you -- don't have an answer to that 

because you've looked at it generally. May--

maybe somebody at ORAU has, you know, looked at 

that who's -- who's done the document and 

under-- understands the details better, but 

it's not something that -- that we can see and 

readily reach conclusions on. It's much the 

same problem we had with Iowa, though -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- fortunately Iowa was, I think, 

a simpler situation to deal with. 

DR. NETON: Right, but short of having done all 
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the dose reconstructions and demonstrated that 

we can do every single one, I'm not sure how we 

could demonstrate that to you other than to 

provide you these analyses that talk about the 

quantity of the monitoring data, the quality of 

it and -- and the process knowledge and source 

term knowledge that all speak to doing a dose 

reconstruction with sufficient accuracy. We're 

trying to flesh out the picture, and I think 

we've made a very good case that we know the 

picture very well. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I --

DR. NETON: And outside of --

 DR. MELIUS: -- I disagree with that in the 

sense that -- and I'll give you a specific 

example, and I know you've already been 

criticized for this, but the -- this 

hypothetical example you present isn't helpful. 

It would have been a lot more helpful -- I'd 

rather have seen five slides showing specific 

examples where one would expect or reasonably 

expect there might be difficulty, you know, 

because of missing data or the years involved 

or the department or, you know, sparse data, 

whatever, that you -- this is how you would -- 
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would have done it in those -- in those cases 

and -- do that, and I don't -- you know, 

something like that, rather than hypothetical 

this is how we're going to -- going to do it. 

And again, that's not sort of appropriate for 

the site profile, but it is appropriate for SEC 

evaluation. 

DR. NETON: I don't disagree with you. It 

would have been better to have that. But 

again, short of doing that for all 311 cases -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, but --

DR. NETON: -- it can't be done. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- I gave -- tried to give a 

reasonable number, five, so... 

 MR. ELLIOTT: But with -- with that said -- 

with that said, we have the data that we could 

use to do that. 

DR. NETON: That was the point --

 MR. ELLIOTT: The data exists. 

DR. NETON: -- I was getting at. The data --

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's the point --

DR. NETON: -- do exist. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- of the illustration. 

DR. NETON: I agree it would be better to have 

it done up front. I mean we're not --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Let me offer, also, that another 

report, for example, if it's sorted by job 

title or whatever, would still be a general 

report. It's simply another way of crosscutting what we already have. So aside from 

individual discrete examples which certainly 

were helpful when we went through the original 

process of describing the efficiency process 

and so on where you took specific cases, that's 

helpful for illustrating. But whether that -- 

a specific case necessarily says you can do it 

for all cases, that question is always out 

there. 

It seems to me that the information that we're 

talking about for all these jobs is already 

contained in what material we have. If -- if -

- yes, perhaps if you wanted to look at it a 

different way and cross-cut it differently, 

you'd do a different sort on this. But in my 

mind, the information at least is there. 

Mike, I think you're next. 

 MR. GIBSON: With respect to this information 

you've found that showed that there was a -- a 

blank sample with contamination at a -- was 

there additional information that told you what 
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they did to correct the problem? 

DR. NETON: I have not personally reviewed that 

memo, so I can't tell you that. But again, if 

there were -- it was a problem, the indications 

are that the worker results would have been 

biased high, so --

 MR. GIBSON: Well --

DR. NETON: -- I mean that --

 MR. GIBSON: -- I think that depends on what 

they did with the lab. They also could have 

very well have increased the minimum detectable 

activity of the units that read the bioassay 

samples, which would have masked exposures to 

employees. 

DR. NETON: But in the way we --

 MR. GIBSON: Is that true? 

DR. NETON: Yeah, a contaminated laboratory 

would increase the MDA, you're absolutely 

correct. But in the way we do our work, if -- 

an increased minimum detectable activity would 

have increased the missed dose that we use for 

the calculation purposes. The higher -- the 

higher the minimum detectable activity, the 

more the missed dose calculation using the 

internal dose models will be in our -- in our 
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analytical process. But I have not read the 

memo so I can't speculate as to what they did 

to correct it is the direct answer to your 

question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Henry, did you have 

another comment? 

DR. ANDERSON: Just more of a general -- I -- I 

guess I'm looking as we move forward on these 

and we look at others that the issue of data 

validation I think is something you need to 

think about. And there may be -- you know, you 

can't do it today, but as you look at others to 

bring forward to us, I think -- and that's sort 

of what I think you were referring to. I think 

there are some issues that are separate from 

looking at the site profiles that in the SEC 

petitions it would just give us more to point 

to if we had that -- some examples or what has 

been done -- to detail that, I think that'd be 

helpful. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I agree, I think there are many 

lessons learned here in these first two SEC 

efforts that we've brought to you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I saw Dr. Toohey approaching -- 

approaching the mike. Perhaps you have some 
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additional comments on this issue. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Well, I have the answer to a 

question that was asked. We have in the files 

316 Mallinckrodt cases, 200 Weldon Spring 

cases. Of those, 110 claimed employment at 

both sites. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, 110 employed both 

Mallinckrodt and Weldon Springs. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's our case population now. 

That doesn't speak to the overall employee 

population for Mallinckrodt and Weldon Spring. 

That's just our case population. Right, Dick? 

 DR. TOOHEY: That -- that is correct, that's 

just pulled out of NOCTS, and it's all claims, 

so it would include some that have already been 

completed. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I hate to ask another question, 

but just so we're all clear, we -- you know, 

the follow-up question to that would be how 

many of the Mallinckrodt cases worked at other 

sites besides Weldon Springs, because we 

probably have a few of those -- a minority, I'm 

sure, but --

 DR. TOOHEY: Give me about ten minutes and I'll 

let you know. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Well, while you're at it, can -- 

just someone tell how many of the Mallinckrodt 

have been processed already, how many are 

outstanding? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll -- we'll get that 

information. I think Mark is next and then -- 

 DR. MELIUS: And of those -- of those -- excuse 

me, of those, how -- how many -- what's the 

overlap? I mean 'cause I assume there's some -

- some of the --

 DR. TOOHEY: Overlap on the sites? 

 DR. MELIUS: No, in terms of being processed 

through the sys-- I assume the 110 haven't been 

because Mallinckrodt -- 'cause Weldon Springs -

- well, I guess you have done some Weldon 

Springs, so yeah, we'd want to know the 

overlap, also. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark Griffon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah -- yeah, not to be a broken 

record on this issue, but I -- I think the -- 

the question of the data's there, that -- that 

raises questions with me and -- and harping on 

the validation issue, I know I'm harping on it 

probably, but I -- I -- I think it's important 

to remember -- you know, one reason NIOSH is 
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involved in all this is that a lot of people in 

the public, a lot of claimants right now, have 

concerns or issues with DOE's data, with 

database data that's been used for previous 

studies, and -- and you know, one of my fears 

coming through this whole process has been that 

we don't want to just regurgitate the same data 

without independently -- and this is this NIOSH 

independence -- independently going in and 

validating it. 

Now I -- I know that -- that, you know, Jim and 

Larry indicated it was more than one memo 

regarding quality. I have to trust them -- you 

know, 'cause we -- we just haven't had any more 

depth on that issue, but I think that is -- 

that -- that's why I raise it so often, because 

this is database data from the CER database 

used for epidemiological studies. Without 

going back one step, you know -- you know, it 

may be very -- it may be perfectly valid, but 

we -- you know, I think that was one reason 

that NIOSH was put in this role as -- to sort 

of have that independent look back to the raw 

data, at least -- and I'm not saying all raw 

data, but at least to the extent that you can 
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validate those database data that you're using. 

The second thing I wanted to point out that -- 

that I -- I am very happy, actually, in this 

profile and Jim's discussion of -- of -- of -- 

'cause I pushed for this often, this concept of 

using air sampling and the urinalysis data to 

sort of check and see if urine intakes sort of 

are in the same ball park. That kind of a 

process is a good one, so I do appreciate that 

effort and there's a lot of data there. I 

guess the -- the time -- the problem that I'm 

having is that, you know, where we're at today 

is, you know, can we -- can -- can I make a 

judgment on -- on the validity of -- of the 

data being used, and that's -- that's where I'm 

sitting here today and it's -- it's different 

than reviewing the site profile, that we're in 

a petition evaluation process, so that's what 

I'm stuck on and I don't know that I have all 

the facts to answer that, which is making it 

difficult. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Can I make a comment on Mark's 

first point? We -- we do take that very 

seriously, that -- that -- we see that as a -- 

not only a responsibility but an obligation to 
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provide an independent review. And I'd just 

offer this, Mark, as you -- as I think the 

Board knows you know, we're not just relying on 

CER data. Each case that comes in, we go back 

to DOE and we ask for the original badge or 

urinalysis data. We don't accept annual 

summary data. We don't accept roll-up data. 

We want to see the original badge and 

urinalysis or whatever source readings that we 

can get, and we use those. We do not -- you 

know, we don't trust the -- the roll-up, the 

cumulative summary, the annual reporting data. 

That's -- just so you know. 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Yeah, and Dick 

mentioned (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton? 

DR. NETON: Well, I wasn't going to address 

what Larry was, but I was going to say that on 

top of that, though, we have -- we're 

developing -- you know, we're doing a couple 

hundred sites at the same time, and -- and it 

turns out that the Health and Safety Laboratory 

was -- was intimately involved in many of the 

AWE or DOE type early operations, and so we are 

developing some knowledge base about the 
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processes and methodologies that were used. 

And I can speak directly to the air sampling 

analysis. That was questioned early on in the 

Mallinckrodt review. We have gone back and 

done some very extensive digging into that. 

AEC -- HASL -- was involved in the air sampling 

program there, so we're -- we're developing a 

comfort level with the techniques, the Whatman 

41 filtration, the correction for selfabsorption, the -- you know, the quantity of 

the air samples through the filters, breathing 

zone versus general area, so we're developing a 

very good picture of what was done in those 

areas. So we have the air sampling data. We 

believe we have a very good picture of how some 

of the samples were analyzed. 

Now -- I see Mark is thumbing through the 

profile -- I'm sure there's some early 

indications in the '40's of some ion plate 

measurements that may or may not be valid, but 

once you get to the '49 time frame, you're 

really talking about typical scintillation-type 

counter measurements, a HASL counter, Cassidy 

counter some of you may know it by, so we have 

those data. So again, we can bracket that, 
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bounce that up against the urine data that we 

have, and even the fluorometric methods were 

done at some time periods in the '50's at HASL 

and so we -- we can have some comfort that they 

were providing guidance from the University of 

Rochester as well as the Barnes Hospital data. 

And so, yeah, we're trying to do that to the -- 

as best extent we can. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I was scolded so I didn't 

get to the table I wanted to -- 

DR. NETON: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to censor 

your -- censor --

 MR. GRIFFON: That's okay, I won't -- I won't 

(unintelligible). This is more of a follow-up 

'cause -- 'cause Dick Toohey did mention 

yesterday that a lot of the individual DRs you 

have their individual data. Do you have any -- 

and probably not at your fingertips, I -- I 

understand -- any idea of the percentage -- and 

I guess for '49 to '57 is our time period of 

interest -- how much of that raw -- the raw 

records are you getting in these -- in your 

requests 'cause I think that's important to 

us... 

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head, I do not know the answer to that 

question. What our procedure is, when we get 

the DOE submittal and it appears to be 

incomplete -- which may be all the way from 

monitoring for a lot of years but not for a 

couple, or no data at all -- then we go to the 

CER database and search on name, Social 

Security number, whatever, for data that's in 

our database to see if the previous 

epidemiology study captured that data and we 

can plug it in. But what --

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that -- that was sort of 

 DR. TOOHEY: -- what fraction of those that 

represents, I don't know. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. TOOHEY: My -- my -- I -- I know in general 

terms what it is, and it's about 20 percent or 

so where we need to go into another source of 

monitoring data and attempt to capture it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's general terms for 

Mallinckrodt or... 

 DR. TOOHEY: No, general terms for -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay --

 DR. TOOHEY: -- the small -- I'll say the, 
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quote, smaller sites. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Does that include AWEs? 

 DR. TOOHEY: Yes. Well --

 MR. ELLIOTT: See, AWEs are a --

 DR. TOOHEY: -- generally AWEs --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- whole different bag of worms. 

 DR. TOOHEY: -- we get no data. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You get no data for AWEs -- 

 DR. TOOHEY: Exactly. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- by and large. 

 DR. TOOHEY: But what we've then been able to 

do in data capture trips where we've gone to a 

health and safety lab or records repositor and 

found some of this data, we've now scanned that 

in and entered it and linked it to the 

claimant. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me be clear on what I just 

said. For AWEs, DOE doesn't help us out. We 

get no feedback for AWEs from DOE, so we're 

left on our own devices and the data that we do 

get for AWEs is, as Dick says, through our own 

capture efforts, through our own search and 

retrieval efforts. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I guess that's -- 

that's sort of an important question in my 
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mind. If you had, you know, 80 percent of -- 

of the people for this '49 to '55 time period 

had individual -- along with the CE-- you know, 

you could -- you could mostly rely on the 

individual data, and only 20 percent you had to 

go ba-- you know, that -- I think that would 

play an important role in this -- in our 

discussions -- deliberations. I know that -- I 

know you don't have that answer, but... 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We don't stop when we don't get a 

response from DO-- or when we -- DOE says we 

don't have it, we go back and we push them 

again until we are satisfied they can't find 

it, they don't have it or it's lost. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Well, again with the caution, to 

the best of my knowledge and belief at this 

point in time, I don't think we have any cases 

of claim files missing data where we did not 

have something on that file in the CER 

database. The CER database I think is more 

complete than the DOE submittals we're getting, 

claim by claim. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Gen Roessler? 

DR. ROESSLER: You've mentioned the HASL 

laboratories, not only the importance in this 
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project but -- or this site but others, have 

you had -- I'm trying to do a little mental 

arithmetic here to think of how old these 

people would be now who were responsible back 

at that time, and I think they probably are 

still around. Have you had access to any of 

the people who were setting up the procedures? 

Have you been able to talk to them and ask them 

any questions with regard to their goals and -- 

DR. NETON: Yes, we've -- we attempt, where we 

can, to do that. And I think I presented some 

indication at the Bethlehem Steel presentation 

that we discussed this with Naomi Harley, Dr. 

Harley, who was -- must have started when she 

was five years old there because she's still 

very much young, but she has provided us some -

- some input. She actually measured the -- the 

air samples at many of these early facilities 

and gave us a pretty good description of the 

quality control practices of those 

measurements. 

We're trying to contact Al Breslin, who some of 

you may know. He's still living in New Jersey 

somewhere, but we've not been able to contact -

- he was the architect of the early AEC/HASL 
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air sampling program. We have indications of 

write-ups by him in the '60's speaking to what 

the process was early on, but we felt it would 

be better to get it directly from his mouth. 

Some of you may know Sue Pazanne*. She was not 

there directly in those time periods, but she 

is a well-respected radiochemist who has quite 

a bit of institutional knowledge about past 

activities at HASL. 

We have been there. We visited the laboratory. 

I have sort of a unique situation that when I 

was at New York University obtaining my 

doctorate, there was a very excellent 

collaboration between New York University and 

the Health and Safety Laboratory in lower 

Manhattan, so we -- we communicate fairly 

regularly with those folks. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We actually had Naomi write up a 

description of the procedures and the practices 

as she could recall and we presented that doc-- 

I think that's -- that was for Bethlehem Steel, 

but it's applicable for this situation. 

DR. NETON: Right, and we've also been to the 

HASL facility twice now for -- for data capture 

efforts, to collect records and also to look 
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for procedures. Some of the early procedures 

are actually still available, but not many. 

DR. ROESSLER: I think from my perspective in 

health physics, HASL has been around for a long 

time, has a very, very good reputation. I 

can't say specifically on this site, but a very 

good reputation for running reputable, credible 

laboratories. 

DR. NETON: I will have to qualify that, 

though, and say that HASL does have that 

reputation, but they did not do all the 

analyses at Mallinckrodt, just to be -- to be -

- let the record show that. But I would say 

that one reason we have some comfort is after 

'49 much of the health physics work at 

Mallinckrodt was done under the tutelage of the 

HASL folks, which gives us a little more 

comfort there. 

PETITIONERS

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we perhaps are ready to 

move on and hear from the petitioners, and I'd 

like to thank you, Larry, for your 

presentation. I'd like to turn the podium over 

to Denise Brock at this time, representing the 

petitioners. 
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MS. BROCK: I would like to thank the Advisory 

Board for again affording me time on another 

busy agenda, and I'd also like to commend the 

Board on their decision and expeditious 

recommendations to the Honorable Secretary 

Leavitt on the SEC petition regarding 

Mallinckrodt years of 1942 to '48. 

I'd also like to thank Dr. Lew Wade, Dr. John 

Howard, the OCAS staff, NIOSH staff, Department 

of Labor, as well as Senators Bond, Talent, 

Harkin and Grassley, along with all the members 

of the Missouri and Iowa Congressional 

delegation who have been so helpful in this SEC 

process. 

I'd also like to state that I wrote this 

statement a few days before I even came here, 

and since we were here and we've heard 

statements from other people in the audience 

and myself, a lot of this is going to be 

repetitious, so please excuse me for that, but 

it's going to be too hard for me to kind of 

pick and choose through it. 

I've also interjected some notes, even on 

notebook paper, so kind of bear with me with 

some of this. 
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I 

 Twenty-seven years ago yesterday while I was at 

school, my father died in my brother's arms. 

remember waiting for the school bus that 

morning. I yelled goodbye, but my dad didn't 

answer. And I decided, for whatever reason, I 

was going to wake him up so I walked back to 

his room. I didn't really care if I missed the 

school bus. I was probably actually hoping I 

would, and I -- I walked back to his room. His 

oxygen mask was on and the room was cold and 

kind of damp. It always felt like that, even 

if the sun would come in through the windows. 

I always remember that feeling. So I said 

goodbye to him again out loud and I still 

didn't get any response. So I leaned down and 

I shook him and he woke up, startled. And I 

said bye, Dad, I love you. And for the last 

time in my life my father looked me in the eyes 

and said goodbye, my girl, I love you. Several 

hours later, while I was at school, my brother 

came to my classroom and told me that my father 

had died. Sorry. 

I find it so ironic standing here before you 

today so many years later asking for justice 

for my father's coworkers. I've heard that we 
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are all put on this earth for a reason. I 

don't think I'm here by coincidence. I don't 

think it was just happenstance that in 2001 I 

heard about this program. I was blessed. I 

feel like, for whatever reason, God let this be 

my purpose, and I just hope my dad can see me 

and I hope that he's proud. 

As I stated in my previous statement in St. 

Louis, my father worked at Mallinckrodt from 

1945 until 1958. He died at age 52, but not 

before years of pain and suffering from his 

radiation-induced cancer. My mother, 

thankfully, has been compensated under this 

program. And I'm here today, as I was in St. 

Louis, not asking you for compensation for my 

family or for myself, but for those workers and 

survivors who cannot, for reasons of health or 

finances or who I've stated before cannot begin 

to fathom the complexity of this program. 

I'm here to honor the memory of my father and 

the coworkers who will unfortunately never see 

or hear an admission of guilt, nor receive an 

apology or payment. I'm here to ask the Board 

to consider my statements, my findings and my 

pleas in the decision that they must render 
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regarding the remaining years of 1949 to 1957 

requested in my SEC petition, 00012. 

And I'm not here to deny that NIOSH has a 

collection of Mallinckrodt data. I am here to 

state that what data exists possibly has major 

credibility issues. I'm also here to say that 

quantity of data does not necessarily mean 

quality of data. 

Mallinckrodt was the first U.S. feed material 

processor for the United States atomic weapons 

program for World War II. Their work began in 

1942 by producing a ton of pure uranium a day. 

Mallinckrodt remained a prime contractor for 

processing until 1957 when the last 

Mallinckrodt plant closed and the last of its 

employees in those operations were terminated. 

Mallinckrodt hired at least 3,500 employees, 

and they were assigned to these secretive 

operations for a varying length of time, having 

multiple job titles and descriptions during 

this time period. The workers at Mallinckrodt 

who helped build this atomic pile helped win 

the cold war, and they gave their lives for 

their country, and they're known to be among 

the most highly exposed workers to internal and 
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external radiation in the entire history of the 

United States Atomic Energy Commission. 

 By NIOSH's admission, many of these workers 

worked long enough at appalling concentrations 

of alpha-emitting dust to accumulate more than 

a permissible lifetime inhalation exposure. I 

would like to restate again for the record that 

I respectfully disagree with the NIOSH 

conclusion that it is feasible to estimate dose 

for this time period. 

NIOSH's position is that HASL did its own 

monitoring, and this means that there is 

verification on the Mallinckrodt data that was 

not in place prior to 1949. Again I'm 

unpersuaded that the post-1949 data is any more 

credible than that of Mallinckrodt's. 

 SC&A's audit report for Rev. 0 notes that there 

were dramatically different results for 

monitoring by Mallinckrodt and HASL of the same 

exposures. HASL data is higher in 15 cases and 

lower than Mallinckrodt in 12 cases. This is 

according to the chart in the SC&A audit report 

Rev. 0. If I understood correctly, NIOSH is 

actually using the lower on HASL than -- than 

the higher ones on Mallinckrodt, if I 
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understood that correctly. And on page 77 of 

Rev. 1 on the TBD, '50 to '54 it says it's 

unclear who actually did the urinalysis, 

whether it was Barnes or the AEC. So we cannot 

answer the question on who has reliable data or 

whether it's reliable at all. And this does 

not change the fact that there is evidence to 

doubt the credibility of any of this data due 

to the huge liability concerns of all involved. 

I'd also like to restate from the February 

meeting that there is no isotope-specific 

monitoring for raffinates. There was frequent 

exposure in plant six to these raffinates whose 

pathways for uptakes are not well understood. 

And I don't want to go into again -- Richard 

Miller touched on that yesterday about the lime 

and the exothermic reaction that happened, so I 

think you've all heard that I just don't feel 

the need to go back into all that. 

But I do think that because of this reason and 

being no isotopic-specific urinalysis to 

quantify any raffinate uptakes, and the burden 

of proof on NIOSH is so high to establish 

internal dose, that this is the circumstances 

that Congress created the SEC, at least part of 
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it. 

As noted above, the TBD does not address 

internal and external radiation dose from open 

wounds and burns, which I stated in the past 

workers have testified to and stated that it 

was quite prevalent. I was present at an SC&A 

interview with workers and I did videotape 

that. The workers discussed these burns, these 

acid burns and the open wounds, as well as 

numerous other things and -- I mean it wasn't 

limited to incidents or occurrences. They 

talked about a lot of things. I actually have 

a lot of these tapes and have offered those to 

NIOSH to share with their staff and the Board. 

In the SEC petition evaluation report, SEC 

00012-2, page 3, NIOSH is seeking the advice of 

the Board for the time period of 1949 to 1957. 

It also states that any documentation that 

raises questions concerning the integrity of 

data management or reporting at Mallinckrodt 

helps sustain the lack of credibility accorded 

by the Mallinckrodt claimant population to the 

government concerning the employees' 

radiological exposures at Mallinckrodt and 

concerning the dose reconstruction program 
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under the EEOICPA. 

One of the issues brought to the Board's 

attention by NIOSH at the St. Louis meeting was 

an August 1975 memo titled "Notes and Summary 

of Visit by M.E. Mason, August 1975." This, 

according to NIOSH, disputed a 1972 memo from 

Mont Mason to Dr. Thomas Mancuso in where Mason 

states his concerns about the possible 

destruction of records identified as shelf list 

V2161. NIOSH further believed that the August 

1975 memo confirmed the conclusion that these 

records were not only found, but complete. And 

even if NIOSH would be in possession of these 

records, it still does not speak to the 

credibility nor the completeness. 

Since that February meeting, after NIOSH told 

the Board and the petitioners and the public 

that this particular memo was referencing to 

the records with the shelf list of V2161 and 

that they were in possession of such, they've 

now stated that their initial beliefs were 

wrong. This information can be found in the 

supplement to Mallinckrodt SEC Petition 

Evaluation Reports. 

This obviously raised another red flag with me. 
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The memo was withheld until NIOSH was compelled 

at the February meeting to produce it. There 

was so much commotion over this revelation over 

this particular memo, and it was trying to 

discredit the memo that was in my petition. 

The initial findings of NIOSH were obviously an 

assumption and have now been changed. NIOSH 

now claims to have since recovered a records 

transmittal and receipt form from the Federal 

Records Center which appears to identify the 

contents of shelf list V2161. It actually says 

"appears". What does appears mean, exactly? 

Is this V2161? I've noticed it says 21, 22, 

23, 24. I mean if it is, how do we know it's 

complete? How do I know? How does NIOSH know? 

How do we know it hasn't been altered or 

tampered with? And how do we know that NIOSH 

is not going to come back in a month from now 

and state that this wasn't it or that there's 

extra -- extra information or extra data? 

NIOSH also states in the supplement that 

because this records inventory form did not 

include actual exposure or process information 

of possible relevance to the development of the 

Mallinckrodt site profile, it was not grouped 
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with other records that were identified as 

relevant for that purpose. NIOSH also claimed 

that this memo somehow proves that the latter 

years of the record/data keeping at 

Mallinckrodt are above reproach because HASL or 

the AEC was involved. 

This document, in my mind, does just the 

opposite. It confirms my views that there are 

numerous problems and inconsistencies. It also 

confirms that there remains much uncertainty 

about the validity and completeness of data for 

not just the '42 to '48 time frame, but the 

remaining years. And as far as the AEC, as I 

stated at the February meeting, they allowed 

this operation to continue with unacceptablyhigh levels and saw it as an opportunity to 

experiment on worker population and not as a 

moral outrage. 

My first thought on this memo is that it's not 

authored by just one person. The first page 

speaks about Mason in the third party in three 

separate statements. The first statements 

says, and I quote, I can make a study without 

the AEC NYO documents but they are authentic 

references above the level of contractor bias 
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or Mason shortcomings, end quote. Number two, 

I quote, Becher-Mason conflict about usefulness 

of Mallinckrodt U.U. shortcomings, unquote -- 

I'm sorry, numbers as an indicator of body 

burden, end quote. Number three, Becher argues 

that I am contradicting myself in that at 

Weldon Spring Mason used U.U. values to report 

exposure to AEC in compliance with regulations 

of 100 CFR 20. 

This not only shows that Mason clearly is not 

the author at the beginning of this memo, but 

clearly speaks to the contractor bias. 

NIOSH again is assuming that Mason authored 

these notes. NIOSH also states in their 

supplemental issue response that Dr. Mancuso 

ran out of funding and his study for the 

Mallinckrodt populations workers (sic) was not 

completed or released. 

Dr. Mancuso was terminated. He was 

blackballed. His findings or conclusions on 

the studies he did were inconvenient for the 

AEC. When they hired him I understand that 

they were so sure that he was going to come 

back and be government-friendly, they actually 

referred to it as Mancuso's Folly. When his 
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conclusions were not as they wished, Mason 

actually had to take his findings and move 

those to other places. Many years later I 

believe he was exonerated, but I believe that 

he had years of problems with the Atomic Energy 

Commission, and that was due to, again, the 

conclusions that he had that were inconvenient 

or not AEC-acceptable. 

NIOSH states that based on their review of the 

1975 Mont Mason notes, the context of those 

notes and the review of the data, NIOSH found 

no issues that would prevent dose 

reconstruction. I wonder if I'm reading the 

same notes, because this memo solidifies and 

confirms the many uncertainties that exist 

regarding the Mallinckrodt population and any 

data which exists. 

On the first page of the August 1975 memo there 

are several different opinions on what numbers 

or data are even useful. On the second page 

the author states that the broad subject of 

measurement of internal depositions, the value 

of urine bioassay in assessing body burden, the 

relative worth of body gamma counts versus 

urine and fecal bioassay is as old as the art 
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of health physics, and older in industrial 

hygiene. 

On page 77 of Rev. 1, the top paragraph again 

states it's even unclear who did the urinalysis 

on Barnes and Mallinckrodt. I also have a 1951 

memo that was attached in my petition that 

actually tells Mallinckrodt to stop sending 

urine samples for a certain time period because 

the lab was overworked. 

The 1975 memo also indicates that there are 

large numbers of these employees whose records 

did not list them by Social Security number and 

then later had to be manually cross-matched, 

still leaving some out. One must account for 

human error. We have no assurance that there 

is complete or accurate data for any individual 

Mallinckrodt employee, and neither does NIOSH. 

There is serious question as to the credibility 

and completeness of this entire Mallinckrodt 

data. 

My daughter had a call from a worker who told 

her he was having a difficult time getting his 

records from Mallinckrodt or the Department of 

Energy, wanting to see individual records or 

whatever he had. Come to find out, he found an 
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old badge that he had been assigned, and the 

badge had his Social Security number on it, but 

actually had the wrong middle initial. So he 

remembered talking to his supervisor at 

Mallinckrodt and they had actually discussed 

some of his records being mixed up with either 

his brother's or somebody else's. And we've 

noticed through other workers a lot of times 

their records would say, for example, R. Jones 

-- and maybe that would be Ralph, and then 

you'd have a Richard Jones. And when you have 

to cross-match these things, there was concern 

that perhaps people's Social Security numbers 

with the name, with the data, were all being 

confused. And if anybody's interested, my 

daughter had written something up, has a copy 

of that gentleman's badge and all the 

information that was needed and it's actually 

been notarized. 

NIOSH provided a summary of what was in the 

five boxes that they have retrieved. Box one 

is approximately 75 percent film badge 

readings, many of which -- according to NIOSH -

- are duplicative and already have been 

addressed in the TBD. Data from '46 to '49 has 
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already been incorporated. They state that 

some additional documents that support dose 

reconstruction can be incorporated into the TBD 

-- can be incorporated -- but that '53 to '58 

time period is not yet incorporated, which this 

information is largely specific to particular 

operations. It can be incorporated into the 

next revision of the TBD. How many times are 

we going to revise this? Again, I understand 

it's a living document, but these workers are 

dying. They don't have years to wait for this. 

The remaining 25 percent is air sampling data, 

breath analysis, et cetera -- but for what 

years and for whom, and is this already 

incorporated? 

Box two and three are insignificant to this 

petition because it retains Weldon Spring 

information. 

Box four is Mallinckrodt dust studies and 

annual uranium urine results for '48 to '58. 

To that I must again state garbage in is 

garbage out. How do we know the credibility of 

this data? We already know that zeroes were 

recorded for dust and urine when no tests were 

even taken. And checking for uranium in the 
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urine does not account for other things such as 

thorium or plutonium. 

And as far as the plutonium -- I'm actually 

looking for something; give me a minute here. 

(Pause) 

In Rev. -- it looks like Rev. 0, page 23 of 32, 

and I'll just take a part of this out of here -

- there may have also been trace radiological 

impurities supplied, uranyl nitrate, 

hexahydrate, recovered from separations 

operations at Hanford and sent to either -- to 

K-65 or Mallinckrodt for processing. SC&A 

review of Rev. 0, pages 43 to 44. NIOSH has 

not found any data on these operations. Page 

29. And I'm wondering if NIOSH has actually 

investigated that to see if in fact there was 

plutonium. 

As I stated, I have several workers that feel 

that there was plutonium at the Destrehan 

Street site. 

Box five is 75 percent Weldon Spring film badge 

and the remaining 25 percent is film badge for 

Destrehan during '46 to '49. This is largely 

not applicable. I already have a cohort from 

'42 to '48. 
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I'm curious if there's been any detailed 

discussion or explanation on what is in these 

boxes. Does NIOSH findings -- are they the 

same as with the TBD. And I -- I don't know if 

it's been assessed -- I think Larry may have 

just discussed this -- and by who or if there's 

been any individual assessing of this -- 

independent. 

Back to the August 1974 memo, page 6 continues 

to talk about disagreements and information not 

matching. Page 8 of this memo refers to the J 

factor. In the same paragraph it states, and I 

quote, other adjusting factors were used in 

calculations to produce an I index value for 

each person where I equals 100 was presumed to 

equate to a potential lung dose of 600 rem from 

alpha dust. 

Well, no wonder the company and the AEC had 

liability concerns. In my petition there is 

substantiating documentation as to these 

concerns and in graphic explanation as to 

allowing these employees to get to levels 

sometimes in excess of 1,000 rem to the lung. 

I understand that the annual limit at the time 

was 15 rem, a standard set by the AEC. But yet 
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by their own admission they allowed these 

workers to be exposed to over 40 times the set 

amount before even addressing the problem. 

In my SEC petition I submitted a memo dated 

10/3/1972 to Dr. Mancuso from Mont Mason. The 

third paragraph reads both Mallinckrodt and the 

AEC were mindful of the sensitive human 

relation problems and the health department 

bent over backwards to gain and hold the 

confidence of rank and file, as well as union 

representatives. 

It goes on to refer to a 1949 dust study and 

subsequent removal of a number of over-exposed 

workers, and it then reads, and I quote, every 

action, every statement by management was 

carefully thought through. Carefully drafted 

explanations and responses were prepared in 

advance of announcing the transfer of people. 

Managers, supervisors, medical staff and health 

department staff were all coached and 

coordinated. As part of caution and on the 

advice of attorney, a formal report was never 

prepared on this study. Thus there is no 

document to subpoena, only a list of names and 

numbers and work sheets. There was no lengthy 
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description of the basis for calculations to be 

pulled apart by the scientific community, with 

the possibility that such controversy would 

undermine confident -- employee confidence in 

the company's safety measure, end quote. 

Is not NIOSH and ORAU a scientific community? 

And are we to believe that after all of the 

lies, the cover-up, the mishandling of data, 

the liability concerns, that just because HASL 

has oversight that the surge of conscience and 

transparency and honesty just happened all of a 

sudden for these latter years? This was a 

joint effort to keep these workers in the dark 

and to quell any liability issues at that time 

or in the future. The mind-set of Mallinckrodt 

and the AEC was horrific. 

As one reads through the remaining pages of the 

August 1975 memo that NIOSH has found, it 

appears repeatedly that the data are much in 

question. It seems as though the data has been 

reworked consistently. On page 23 there's 

reference to either Becher or Mason authoring 

at least this and the following pages, but I've 

yet to ascertain which one of those gentlemen 

actually did that. This entire document 
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illustrates the multi-faceted problems in 

collecting data, recording it at different 

times in different ways using different 

practices, and then trying to keep it all 

together. It confirms that there are multiple 

opinions as to the quality and completeness of 

any of this. 

I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence 

by reading aloud from that or to con-- and 

continue quoting from the memo. I know that 

you've all probably had an opportunity to read 

it, and I'm quite sure that everyone has taken 

note of the numerous issues that I have. 

I would, though, like to call your attention to 

a memo of January 31st, 1951 from Eisenbud to 

W.E. Kelley -- or from Eisenbud to W.E. Kelley 

states about a year ago you asked if we -- if 

it would be possible for us to estimate our 

potential liability among the long-term 

Mallinckrodt employees. As I explained at that 

time, you presented a rather knotty problem, 

one which, in the present state of knowledge, 

would not be answered even to a first 

approximation. This memo again was a 1951 

memo. 
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I understand that SC&A have only been able to 

do a partial review for Rev. 1, so it's 

impossible for me as a petitioner to prepare my 

case and have further quality arguments and 

reference to a site profile when our auditors 

haven't been given a chance to complete the 

work. 

It puts me at a distinct advantage (sic). I 

can't not (sic) argue or comment without 

reading and reviewing these TBD shortcomings. 

I realize that SC&A did the best they could, 

but because of this revelation of Iowa's cohort 

being withdrawn from them and it had to be 

reviewed again, it put me and my claimants at a 

disadvantage, as well. It was kind of put on a 

back burner, and SC&A were -- were trying to 

look at these at the same time, so it was 

rather difficult. It put us all kind of under 

the gun, so it made it really difficult for me. 

I was finally able to take a look, obviously, 

at the partial report. But I actually have a 

to-do list that I want to talk about in a 

little bit that NIOSH has. 

 I have another concern about the sperry cake 

and the issue of the dermal contact. I believe 
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that there were no specific numbers in 

reference to that. We know that dose 

consequences from exposure raffinates are 

significant. Routine inhalation of even a 

milligram quantity of sperry cake, one 

milligram per month over a few years, has a 

potential for significant internal radiation 

dose, notably to the bone surfaces and the 

lungs. Thorium 227, the main decay product of 

actinium 227, is a potential concern for the 

lung dose, as well. 

Dose from the radionuclides has not been 

evaluated in any of the documents I've seen, 

and I don't see anything in Rev. 0 to help 

answer that, nor -- I don't think there's 

anything in Rev. 1. 

I don't really understand a lot about the 95 

percent confidence level, but I want to know if 

I understood correctly that workers who were 

marginally exposed were averaged down. It 

looked like the time-weighted averages 

discriminated against them, and that's a 

concern for me, as well. 

And I obviously have no background in health 

physics, but I can read. And I know that Janet 
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Westbrook from the beginning has stated that 

NIOSH could dose reconstruct the entire 

population of Mallinckrodt workers. She's 

opposed this SEC from the beginning. I also 

know that in Rev. 1 from the beginning she's 

stating that dose can be performed from '42 to 

'48, and I guess I just didn't understand that. 

I understand now that it's been addressed. 

But something as simple as work hours is 

incorrect, at least the way I look at it in 

Rev. 1, it looks as though these workers were 

working maybe five days a week, maybe six days 

a week at -- at 40 hours or 44 hours. That is 

incorrect. My workers have told or the 

survivors' workers basically state that they 

worked seven days a week, 40 plus hours. That 

might be one of the few things that survivors 

know, but one of the few things. And the 

workers that are living always state to that 

fact. 

I'd like to talk about the splitting of this 

petition again. I know we brought this up or I 

brought it up in February, but by breaking this 

up into these subclasses has serious equity 

issues. For example, if I have a worker that 
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worked in 1947 and worked his 250 days and he 

has one of the 22 SEC cancers, he has a 

coworker that started in 1948, but he's missing 

that 250-day mark, I would have to go back to 

these workers and try to explain to them how 

their coworker was able to have that same 

cancer and job and be compensated in an 

expeditious manner, and they're not covered. 

There just -- it does not seem equitable to me 

and it's very difficult to have to try to 

explain it. I don't think there is an 

explanation. 

 For the record, I would also like to talk about 

coworker data and survivor claims. I also 

wanted to state, in reference to that, that 

when I sent in the original claim for my 

mother's claim I happened upon something called 

a Leo Goodman incident report. It's been so 

long I don't remember exactly what was in that, 

but there was some information, probably two or 

three things, in reference to incidents or 

occurrences at the Mallinckrodt site. I 

noticed when I was reading through NIOSH's 

things that they had never heard or found 

anything in reference to any incident at 
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Mallinckrodt, and I just don't think that's 

accurate. 

I've sat through telephone interviews with 

these survivors -- and granted, they don't know 

much. You're talking about people that are in 

their seventies or eighties who have years and 

years ago heard from a spouse that they were 

involved in some sort of accident, and that's 

usually how they refer to it, an accident. So 

during this telephone interview the NIOSH CATI 

question is raised to the survivor and claim -- 

you know, claimants in reference to this 

accident or occurrence. And if by some stroke 

of luck a survivor can remember their spouse 

telling them about a situation, they're asked 

specifics. This is a monumental task for a 

spouse or a child or even sometimes a 

grandchild to hurdle. They're asked if the 

worker ever had chelation therapy. Every 

claimant I've had asked me what is chelation 

ther-- I don't know what chelation therapy is. 

They're expected to know details that they 

received second or third-hand, or maybe not at 

all, and sometimes as back (sic) as the 1940's. 

They were also required to have two witnesses 
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to this accident. 

Well, you know what, my dad was involved in an 

accident. He worked there before I was born. 

My mom was 78 when we filed her claim. She 

hadn't really remembered the accident, but my 

sister did. So we had to rely on that memory 

of -- of my sister triggering my mom. 

My uncle was also involved in an accident 

there, and I -- I think I've brought this up 

before. When my aunt went through her 

telephone interview, I was with her like I'm 

with any of the claimants that ask for my help, 

and I was on the -- the phone, the extension, 

and she was going through the questions through 

the interview. Typically everybody we have 

from NIOSH or ORAU are very polite. They're 

helpful. They're empathetic. But every once 

in a while -- you know, when you get that 

volume of people, you get somebody that's maybe 

not so nice or has had a bad day. 

This was horrible, because this woman began to 

ask my aunt questions about this accident, and 

she wanted to know if my uncle would -- had 

chelation therapy and my aunt didn't know what 

that was. She then asked her about being 
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hospitalized. He was. My aunt didn't have any 

specifics other than he was -- he was hurt and 

he was hurt badly, and that he was in a 

hospital for several days. 

The lady actually was acting like she was 

deposing her. This is embarrassing. It's 

humiliating and my aunt began to cry. She also 

said well, I don't know -- she tried to finish 

a statement saying something about I was 

pregnant at my Grandma's house, and this woman 

actually said to her oh, let me get this 

straight, being pregnant somehow affects your 

memory. This is not -- this is inexcusable. 

You do not talk to anybody like that, but the-- 

they are -- they're acting like they're 

deposing these people or like these people are 

lying. 

I did make a phone call to Dick Toohey and he's 

wonderful. He addressed it and took care of 

it, but I can't be with every one of these 

survivor claimants. There's lots of them that 

I'm not able to -- to get with and help. I'm 

one person, and I can't always do that, and 

they do become very stressed out. They have no 

way of knowing these things. 
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And when you talk about coworker data or 

wanting to talk to coworkers, there haven't 

been hardly any coworkers in my group that have 

been talked -- first of all, biggest part of 

them are deceased. And when you have a 

situation where all the coworkers are gone, how 

in God's name are you going to do a dose 

reconstruction when you have absolutely nothing 

to go by with a coworker? There's nothing. 

These survivors don't know that type of 

information. And if your individual records 

are missing or not complete, this creates a 

huge, insurmountable problem. It -- it's 

unbelievable to me. I -- I think there's all 

sorts of issues with that. 

I have some things in my possession -- I 

actually had my husband make copies of it that 

he can hand out at -- will hand out at the end 

of this, and it's just some interesting things 

that I ended up getting ahold of I'd like to 

talk to you a little bit about. 

The first one is an office memorandum from the 

U.S. government dated 4/12/1956 from W.B. 

Harris, chief industrial hygiene branch HASL, 

and I won't go into it word for word, but this 
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memo talks about laundry being a very hot item. 

And they have hot in parentheses (sic). It's 

very disturbing to me, talks about the 

contamination via the laundry and how it was 

transferred back and forth and -- and different 

things to that effect. 

The second one is a letter to Mr. K.J. Caplan, 

Mallinckrodt, from W.B. Harris, HASL, dated 

01/12/1951 thanking Mallinckrodt for supplying 

breath radon levels, but questioning why 

Mallinckrodt has not started using the 

respirators. 

Number three, an October 16, 1951 memo, W.E. 

Kelley, New York Operation Office, C.L. Karl, 

area manager, St. Louis, area request for 

capital improvement project. Plant 7 has 

incomplete air supply, not properly ventilated, 

causing health hazards and poor operating 

conditions, requires air changes within all 

areas of the plant, but the funds were not even 

available and didn't know if they would even be 

able to get that. 

The fourth, March 28, 1952 to Dr. C.D. 

Harrington from Mont Mason, health group 

monthly report. No engineering improvements of 
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any consequence completed during February. 

Plant 6 showing upward trend, but neither know 

the cause nor the cure. 

 January 21st, 1954, operations give rise to 

excessive dust exposures influenced by 

negligent housekeeping. This was R. Kirk, 

director production division to W.B. Harris, 

HASL. 

May 23rd to Mont Mason from HASL, toxicity of 

thorium indicative of substantially more 

thorium in the body than ever reported. 

May 27th, 1952 to Merril Eisenbud, Health and 

Safety Lab, from Ed Kehoe, chief fire and 

accident branch. I was going to try quoting 

this. I will have to find it. This has got to 

do with the ether house and the detached prose 

in this thing are unbelievable to me. They're 

actually discussing whether or not this ether 

house is going to blow up, and if it blows up, 

this guy's right; if it doesn't blow up, this 

guy's right. That is the mind-set of these 

monsters. They're talking about human life. 

They're talking about somebody's father inside 

of this building and they could give -- they 

don't care. I mean it was -- it was a joke. 
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You know, if it blows up, that guy dies, I 

guess you were right; if it doesn't, oh, well, 

you know, I lost $10 bucks. I mean that's -- 

that's the mind-set of these animals. 

June 3rd, 1954, director C. -- D. -- I'm sorry, 

D.C. Moore, director of engineering and 

construction division, W.B. Harris, ether house 

again, modification, Mallinckrodt indicative of 

still a hazardous condition in the ether house 

that if not corrected will result in serious 

loss. 

February 27th, 1953, Dr. D.C. Harrington from 

Mont Mason, dust control for maintenance work 

in plant 7, still and conclusively a serious 

dust problem in plant 7, completely closed 

system for handling dry powders, stating that 

it is logical that any opening of any part of 

this system could result in gross spillage. No 

attempts yet made to convert concentrations to 

an integrated exposure picture, but obvious 

additional dust control is needed. 

The 1951 memo I referred to, W.B. Harris to 

C.L. Karl, urine samples, requesting that due 

to unusual workload Mallinckrodt discontinue 

sending these urine samples until after January 
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1st. 

And number 11, January 30th, 1951, W.B. Harris 

from Knowlton Caplan, Mallinckrodt, tributyl 

phosphate toxicity and hazards more than 

realized. And I'm sure that obviously doesn't 

have anything to do with radiation, but I found 

that interesting. 

I'd also like to talk about some things that 

are sort of promissory notes or IOUs. I 

understand that the TBD has been revised and 

that it's partially audited by SC&A, and SC&A 

found some weaknesses or some things that 

needed to be corrected. Well, again, in 

February we had this revelation of this 1975 

memo. We had six boxes that turned into five. 

My claimants, my workers -- living workers, 

what are left -- and the survivors were put on 

hold because there was a possibility that there 

was going to be some -- something in these 

boxes or something in this memo that was going 

to change or be able to help dose 

reconstruction. There was no thing in there 

that was going to help. Nothing's changed. 

There is still assumptions, still -- still 

guessing. And I don't mean to be mean to 
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anybody at NIOSH or to be pointing a finger at 

anybody, but I'm looking at this from the side 

of the workers. 

Congressional intent was not to do this forever 

and ever and ever. This SEC -- the petition 

was put in in July. It's been almost a year. 

There's something about the 180-day time frame, 

and I -- I haven't looked into that completely, 

but I understand that we need to look at what 

we have already. Nothing's changed since 

February. Credibility issue is still there. 

We have no assurance that any of this is 

complete. We have no independent review or 

independent assessment of -- of NIOSH's 

findings or any of this data. It's all 

guesswork. 

And we also have this list of things that still 

need to be done. Number one, need to estimate 

the 95 percent values for intakes, for air 

intakes. Number two, you have to deal with the 

oro-nasal breathing. Three, you have to 

complete development of surrogate -- surrogate 

coworker data for external doses. You need to 

review the boxes of data, '53 to '58. That 

hasn't been incorporated yet. How to deal with 
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the integrity of this data that's not 

incorporated but made up by a set of numbers. 

You have to acknowledge that people had -- had 

zero entries, no measurements with film badges. 

We need to revamp and revise all radon data, 

with that statement in mind, not -- not average 

doses with uncertainties. You need to put on 

the table the quality of the data and -- that 

ha-- has to be fixed. The urinalysis until 

1954 pertaining to the urinalysis or the 

methodology. They need to address large 

particle ingestion. It still hasn't been done. 

Questions on the specific area of cuts and 

burns and sperry cake. Film badge still needs 

to be -- film badge data still needs to be 

adjusted. A question of geometry, like where 

the badges are in reference to where the worker 

is working. I mean this is -- this is a pretty 

large list, to me. We need -- they need to fix 

the interview process for the survivors and the 

coworkers. There needs to be a comparison 

between the Mallinckrodt and the AEC data and 

why that Mallinckrodt sometimes is -- if it's 

higher, why is AC -- AEC being picked. That --

that needs to complete the accident 
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methodology. There's just this huge to-do list 

or promissory notes or things that need to be 

revised. 

There's talk about revising an already-revised 

site profile. The constant revisions are 

great, I guess, if you're trying to perfect 

something and you have years. And as Dr. 

Ziemer stated the other day -- or yesterday, 

you know, if we had a decade. These workers 

don't have a decade, you know. They have now. 

 In conclusion, Congress emphasized the need of 

SECs in the FY 2006 Omnibus Appropriations 

Report when it urged NIOSH to grant SECs when 

individual monitoring was not performed, states 

radiation exposure. The committee strongly 

encourages NIOSH to expedite decisions on 

petitions filed under the procedure for 

designating classes of employees as members of 

the Special Exposure Cohort, 42 CFR Part 83. 

It was Congress's intent in passing the EEOICPA 

of 2000 to provide for timely, uniform and 

adequate compensation for employees made ill 

from exposure to radiation, beryllium and 

silica while employed at DOE nuclear facilities 

or while employed at beryllium vendors and 
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atomic weapons facilities. The committee urges 

the Department to recognize that in situations 

where records documenting internal or external 

radiation doses received by workers at the 

specific facility are of poor quality or do not 

exist that workers should promptly be placed in 

a Special Exposure Cohort. 

I ask the Board to consider the amount of 

uncertainties regarding the integrity of the 

Mallinckrodt data. I ask you to emphasize 

(sic) with these ailing workers and survivors, 

who many have had claims waiting dose 

reconstruction for years. I ask you to 

consider the fact that Rev. 1 has not been 

completely reviewed by the audit board, nor has 

NIOSH assessed the credibility of the data or 

independently had that assessed. 

The August 1975 memo that was brought out at 

the last minute of the February meetings, and 

NIOSH's initial findings then, have now been 

retracted. The six boxes that were brought up 

at that same meeting are now five boxes which 

primarily are data that is already in the TBD, 

or not even pertaining to these years or the 

facility. 
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 These workers were poisoned. They were lied 

to, experimented on, defeated physically, 

emotionally and financially, and we're allowing 

this abuse to continue. I have read the 

criteria one must meet to have inclusion in the 

SEC. I've spent years digging up records and 

memos. I've interviewed and taped numerous 

workers. I've even tried doing this 

legislatively. I have jumped through every 

hoop put in front of me. I feel it's certain 

that there are issues -- enough credibility 

issues to state that NIOSH cannot do internal 

dose reconstruction with sufficient accuracy. 

 I respectfully state that what seems to be 

getting reconstructed is Congressional intent. 

There is no scientific evidence that NIOSH can 

do this dose reconstruction. They haven't 

assessed the credibility of the data. There 

are all sorts of issues with needing to do 

things to correct that TBD. 

A procedure was set yesterday. The Board voted 

on the case or data before them, not promises 

to come up with something better later. Dr. 

Ziemer again stated yesterday that he wished we 

had a decade to find this information. Again, 
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I need to restate these workers are dying. The 

survivors are dying. We need to look at what's 

already in front of us, not the promises that 

NIOSH or anybody makes to revise and fulfill 

the things that they need to do on this list. 

 These workers deserve closure. They deserve 

acknowledgement and they deserve to be in the 

Special Exposure Cohort. For the sake of 

timeliness and equity, I urge the Board to 

approve my SEC petition for the years of 1949 

to 1957. I thank you again for your due 

diligence and your kind attentiveness. 

I just want to state again that I understand 

NIOSH feels that they have enough information 

to do this. I understand that they are willing 

to correct things or take care of things like 

maybe the external dose. I think it was like 

chapter seven, if I remember yesterday, is on 

hold. I'm urging you to take a look at what we 

have in front of us now and to see that we have 

no assurance. When the AEC had these liability 

concerns and Mallinckrodt had these liability 

concerns, they did things to protect theirself 

(sic), not these workers. Their fate lays in 

my hands and in your hands. They can't 
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continue to go on like this. The emotional 

roller coaster, besides their limited life 

span, is just -- it's at its limit. So I thank 

you again and I hope and pray that you will 

grant them their SEC. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Denise. Denise, do you 

have additional individuals that you wish to 

have speak in behalf of your petition today? 

know you had a number of folks last night, but 

you do have an opportunity, if you have 

additional --

MS. BROCK: I do. I know Dr. Dan McKeel wanted 

to say something and possibly Tom Horgan. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And I think you have something to 

distribute. Your husband is making some... 

I want to ask, if I could -- Dan, do we need to 

take a break or are you wanting to be fairly 

brief or --

 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

very brief. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're brief. Please proceed. 

Thank you. 

 DR. MCKEEL: (Off microphone) I appreciate 

that. 

So again good morning to the Board, and it 

I 
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seems to me that we have the core issues welldefined for the Mallinckrodt 1949 to 1957 

class, and they are data timeliness, 

sufficiency and accuracy. 

As was true yesterday for the IAAP, NIOSH holds 

that they can perform adequate dose 

reconstructions. Testimony you just heard by 

Denise Brock and Sanford Cohen Association 

(sic) have provided to the Board evidence that 

suggests otherwise, that this is not feasible. 

With respect to timeliness, I think we -- we 

have to pay attention to Congressional intent. 

And we have already heard very strong 

statements, the strongest possible, from four 

Senators, Harkin, Grassley, Bond and Talent, 

and also from two Congressmen, Leach and Akin, 

that the -- both the Mallinckrodt and the Iowa 

Ammunition Plant worker claims have not been 

handled in a manner consistent with 

Congressional intent. 

I would note that we've also heard that claims 

have been submitted by 400 individuals who 

represent both the Destrehan Street and Weldon 

Spring facilities manned by Mallinckrodt. But 

there are also 3,200 to 3,600 total workers, so 
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we can also figure then that only ten to 15 

percent of those people have even filed claims. 

And I think it's fair to say Denise has put 

forth heroic efforts on their behalf to do so. 

One reason I think is undoubtedly that the 

daunting nature of the claims processing and 

numerous bureaucratic snafus that have been 

well documented by the claimants and survivors 

themselves. 

So I think on the timeliness issue it's time to 

vote this morning. 

Is there sufficient and accurate data to do 

dose reconstructions, that's the key question. 

The class clearly passes the health 

endangerment test, so we don't have to worry 

about that. However -- and I think it's clear 

that they were harmed, and NIOSH acknowledges 

that. 

As I mention on page 8 in paragraph G of my 

written comments, there are many instances -- 

some of them noted in Rev. 1 -- where the 

safety procedures were violated, even though 

it's fair to stress that on paper, as of 1948, 

a much stronger safety program appears to have 

been instituted at Mallinckrodt Destrehan 
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Street. However, those safety procedures were 

violated in many different ways. 

Rev. 1 notes that a room door to the ore room 

was left open for convenience or negligence, so 

there was excess dust exposure to the men from 

that. Conveyor belts stuck and ore still had 

to be hand-scooped, even in this late period 

of, quote, automation. We also find out that 

the Atomic Energy Commission rejected extra 

shielding around the K-65 raffinates, and these 

are the ones that resulted from the very 

enriched K -- the Belgian core (sic) 

pitchblende. 

All of those events -- to me, at least -- seem 

impossible to quantify with the data that's on 

hand, and I need you to bear that in mind, 

please. 

NIOSH claims that they have voluminous data. 

But the key question is, can they do the 

reconstructions with what they have given us 

now. And I think the focus is now. 

We heard that the CER database data, for 

example, which is the fall-back reference 

database if DOE or ORAU does not have data for 

these people, and we find out that the CER 
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database has not been validated independently 

by the contractors or by -- by NIOSH. 

SC&A has listed many to-dos that Denise has 

well gone through. Some of those involve steps 

that have to be taken to validate the data. 

And as stressed by Denise, these are things in 

the future. They're not here today. 

 Dr. Neton's slide yesterday depicting 

theoretical ways the air, urine and source 

radioactivity I'm sure was interesting to all 

of us as a possible way that these kind of 

various data could be cross-validated, and I 

think that's true. However, what the slide 

showed me was -- and -- and graphically 

highlighted, I think -- is that he used data 

that had to be just made up. This has not been 

done yet with real data, and it needs to be. 

If I may point out that another major departure 

occurred that's been brought before you on how 

NIOSH and SC&A viewed the material in those 

boxes. NIOSH examined them and they decided 

that there was nothing in the boxes that should 

in any way change their ability to do dose 

reconstructions, and they said the data 

basically was already captured and so no 
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problem. However, you heard also yesterday 

that Arjun Makhijani from SC&A showed his slide 

13 that reported many different things that 

they felt needed to still be done to even 

validate the content of those boxes, 1953 to 

'58 data was not captured. 

 There were other bullet points indicating that 

further data analysis of job categories, radon 

assessment and air concentration still needed 

to be done. 

So it brings me to my final point. If your 

mandate, which I think it is, is to be sure 

that the law is complied with in a timely way 

and with Congressional intent, which I'm sure 

we do indeed need to do, I urge the Board to 

weigh the many data flaws the petitioners have 

documented and recommend that the MCW 1949 to 

1957 class be approved as a Special Exposure 

Cohort. Thank you very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Dan. Denise, 

did you have any others that you wished to have 

address the assembly on behalf of the 

petitioners? 

MS. BROCK: I don't think so. This is weird 

for me 'cause I'm used to about 1,000 people, 
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so this is a little odd. 

I did forget to mention something, and I just -

- I just want it for the record. I ended up 

getting ahold of a -- the -- what is it called, 

the professional judgment review, Ken Fleming -

- I don't even know who that is, but I -- there 

was something in here so disturbing -- probably 

numerous things that were so disturbing to me 

and I just want it for the record, and I'd like 

to state something that I -- that I saw in 

here. The supporting documents provided by the 

petitioners were attached to the Special 

Exposure Cohort petition form B received via 

FAX on July 15th, 2004 and a supplemental FAX 

that was received later on September 30th. In 

short, the supporting documents provided for 

the SEC petition 12 neither, one, support the 

feasibility of conducting dose reconstruction 

using maximized exposure assumptions present in 

the existing TBD, nor do they provide 

information that indicates that there is a 

reasonable likelihood that such radiation dose 

may have endangered the health of members of 

this proposed class. 

That is -- that's unbelievable to me. How 
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could anybody -- and they call it a 

professional judgment -- I don't know who that 

is. That's unbelievable to me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Denise, perhaps you could identify 

what -- what is it you're reading from? 

MS. BROCK: It's a profes-- it's professional 

judgment -- professional judgment. It's a memo 

and attachment describing professional judgment 

review of the supporting documents that were 

submitted by the petitioners of SEC petition 

00012, and --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we did --

MS. BROCK: -- it's signed by a Ken Fleming. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we did receive that. That was 

MS. BROCK: And a Dan Stempfley? 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Board received a copy of that. 

I recall it from our last meeting. It was a 

review by somebody. 

MS. BROCK: This was -- this thing was dripping 

with contempt and disdain for me -- I mean it 

was targeted at me. There's a lot of other 

things in here. To me, I found it offensive, 

though. I can handle that, but to say these 

workers were not endangered. I hope that 
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you're not using this person for a professional 

judgment because I think he even stated that 

'42 to '48 could be dose reconstructed goes 

against NIOSH's own findings. I -- that's -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Richard, can you identify for us? 

 DR. TOOHEY: I would just say that document was 

part of the petition evaluation process that 

was prepared by a member of my staff who is a 

certified health physicist working on the 

petition evaluation --

 DR. ZIEMER: This is an opinion from someone 

who reviewed the petition -- 

 DR. TOOHEY: That is --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- on behalf of ORAU or NIOSH? 

 DR. TOOHEY: Well, both. ORAU does a petition 

review which we then provide to NIOSH for their 

review and approval. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. TOOHEY: I have lots more numbers, if you 

want them. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If you have a lot of them, I think 

we're going to get them after the break. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's take a break. Thank 

you. 
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 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:35 a.m. 

to 11:00 a.m.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're ready to call the 

session back to order. 

(Pause) 

We're ready to proceed. Leon I think will be 

back with us momentarily. 

BOARD DISCUSSION OF MALLINCKRODT SEC PETITION 

Board members, I want to ask if any of you have 

any questions that you particularly want to 

address to the petitioners who've just made 

their presentations. I give you that 

opportunity at this point. Is there any 

specific questions for the petitioners? Yes, 

Rich Espinosa. 

MR. ESPINOSA: On the professional judgment, 

this is directed toward Denise -- on the 

professional judgment letter that you received, 

I'm wondering about the dates that it was 

issued and the date that it was received. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And while she's coming up there, 

Rich, I believe that was attached to the ma-- 

to our materials when we received from NIOSH 

their review of the petition. Denise --

MS. BROCK: I have it here. I need to look 
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through it but I believe that is right. It was 

attached, so I can look --

 DR. ZIEMER: So as --

MS. BROCK: -- (unintelligible) copy. 

 DR. ZIEMER: As Rich Toohey indicated, that was 

part of their process where they send out the 

petition for some independent reviews or 

review, and that was an opinion that came back, 

and then was entered into the record on their 

behalf. Is that correct, Richard? 

 DR. TOOHEY: Yes, that is correct. I would 

also comment that one person's opinion on 

whether or not health was endangered is totally 

irrelevant because the definition of health 

endangerment is 250 days or a major accident. 

So... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. But that -- that document I 

believe was part of the record that was 

provided to us because it was part of their 

review process and -- yes, Tom, did you wish to 

 MR. HORGAN: Yeah, I'd like to address that 

last comment. I appreciate his candor on that, 

but when you have a professional judgment on 

this particular issue, and he is on -- paid 
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member on the staff of ORAU and they're -- and 

-- you know, how can you say that that is 

irrelevant? How can you say that one document 

-- it's just one document and the personal 

opinion of one of my staffers and it's a 

professional judgment document? How do we know 

it's really irrelevant? I mean what if you -- 

is it irrelevant if you're taking a lot of the 

guidance and recommendations from that opinion? 

I -- I -- you know, it may be one person, but 

it is not irrelevant. It is simply not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think he was talking about the 

use of the time period -- was it, Rich, the -- 

 DR. TOOHEY: Well, what I said was irrelevant 

was in the opinion of anyone on my staff as to 

whether health was endangered, because that's 

essentially been defined. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so that --

 DR. TOOHEY: Now, let me --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the fact that he had made a 

statement in there was --

 DR. TOOHEY: Where I assume Mr. Horgan is 

coming from, and I understand, he is concerned 

that because this person thinks health was not 

endangered, that will color his analysis of the 
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data and his opinion on what exposures might 

have been, and I can understand that viewpoint. 

I would also add that we, as health physicists, 

do have codes of ethics and our personal 

opinions do not come into play on this. We 

have to be objective with where the data leads 

us. And I would also add, as both you and Dr. 

Roessler know, there are many health physicists 

really don't subscribe to the linear nothreshold model --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 DR. TOOHEY: -- and (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: And this is one person's opinion. 

 DR. TOOHEY: -- any dose is carcinogenic. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And obviously this Board is 

considering many people's -- 

 MR. HORGAN: And I appreciate that 

clarification. But then again, you know, it 

calls into a question, we don't know. What if 

this one person's opinion -- opinion, you know, 

that -- it may already be defined that the 

health is endangered. It could be defined. 

But what if this person who says -- this person 

on the ORAU staff gives his opinion and ORAU, 

in the decision-making, takes some of those 
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recommendations? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, Tom, the determination has 

already been made by NIOSH -- 

 MR. HORGAN: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- regardless of this opinion. 

NIOSH has made that determination already and 

that's what carries weight -- 

 MR. HORGAN: I will -- I will let it go, but 

I'm just telling you, on Capitol Hill, it 

raises some --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. HORGAN: -- more questions and red flags. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- fortunately we're not on 

Capitol Hill today. 

 MR. HORGAN: No, but you may be shortly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We may be shortly, yes. Okay, 

we'll join you there. Thank you. Denise, did 

you have any --

MS. BROCK: I don't have a date on it and I 

probably -- the only reason I brought it up was 

because I look at it, not being professional or 

a scientist or health physicist -- so maybe his 

-- I -- I -- when I read it, I took it as I 

read it, that the health was not endangered, 

and it was offensive to me. If it wasn't meant 
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with that intention, I understand what Dr. 

Toohey's saying. But if a worker would read 

that -- and I don't if they could -- they would 

be crushed. It would just be a horrible thing 

and it kind of lesses -- lessens their comfort 

zone or their trust factor with, you know, ORAU 

or anybody because they're reading it like I 

did and thinking oh, my God, you know, I have 

four cancers -- four separate primaries, how 

can they say that my health was not endangered. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, understood. 

MS. BROCK: And -- so that -- you know, that's 

-- could create a problem, but I understand 

maybe he could just word it differently. I 

won't have to kick him now or anything, I 

guess. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Rich, did you have a follow-up on 

that? 

 DR. TOOHEY: Well, let me just reply. I 

understand completely and I -- there's no place 

for personal opinions in what we're doing and I 

will definitely counsel this person. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. TOOHEY: But you know, where we're going on 

that, I also want to say that this is not the 
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only person involved in the petition review. 

So it's one of a number of opinions, and then 

what we come up with is thoroughly reviewed by 

NIOSH staff before you ever see it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. Rich, did you have a followup on that? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, my next question may be a 

little bit out of order, but -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Use the -- get a little closer to 

the mike. 

MR. ESPINOSA: And it's probably a Department 

of Labor question as well as ORAU/NIOSH 

question, but with the val-- with the 

validations of the documents and using coworker 

data and stuff like that, I'm just wondering 

how many of the claimants are actually survivor 

claimants. 

 DR. TOOHEY: I don't know the answer to that 

question for any specific site, but I do know 

for the whole population of claimants, about 

half are survivors and half are still-living 

Energy employees. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Toohey, while you're at the 

mike, you want to give us the other numbers 

that you agreed to provide to the Board earlier 
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today? 

 DR. TOOHEY: Okay, I hope Ray's ready to copy 

on these, here we go. Okay, of the 

Mallinckrodt cases, 316 total, 188 worked only 

at Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street; 103 worked at 

Mallinckrodt and Weldon Spring only. That 

leaves us with 24 who also worked other sites 

in addition to Mallinckrodt, of which 20 worked 

at United Nuclear Corp., which I believe was a 

fuel fabrication plant in Metropolis, Illinois. 

Is that right? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. TOOHEY: No. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. TOOHEY: Oh, the Hematite plant, right. 

Thank you. Okay. And then there's -- there is 

just a scattering of a few worked another site 

or two. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Okay, next set of numbers. Okay, 

of cases that worked only at Mallinckrodt, of 

the 188, 40 final dose reconstructions have 

been submitted to DOL. Three have been pulled 
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and there's 145 active cases awaiting dose 

reconstruction. 

For Weldon Spring employment only, there are 86 

cases, of which 26 final DRs have been 

submitted to DOL, and there are 60 active cases 

awaiting dose reconstruction. 

 Now this affects something -- I replied to Mr. 

Horgan last night when he asked what was the 

basis on which the -- I believe the 147 Weldon 

Spring claims were denied. Well, we've only 

submitted 26 final dose reconstructions to DOL, 

of which some would have been denied, as I 

said, on the maximum dose assignment and not 

getting a probability over 50 percent, some of 

which have probably been compensated with a 

minimum dose assignment and becoming 

compensable, so I would have to hypothesize 

that the remaining cases that have been denied 

must have been -- come -- included cases 

submitted under Subtitle D and now E, and may 

well also have been denied on the basis of no 

verification of employment or no verification 

of medical diagnosis or the other criteria that 

DOL uses to accept the case for evaluation. 

Again, that's speculation on my part. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, Michael. 

 MR. GIBSON: To follow up a little bit on 

Rich's question, does -- does ORAU or NIOSH 

know at least maybe a rough percentage of how 

many of this class from '49 to '57 are 

survivors as opposed to claimants, just a 

percentage? 

 DR. TOOHEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

can find out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: He -- he can find out, but 

apparently does not have that at the 

fingertips. 

 MR. GIBSON: I guess --

 DR. ZIEMER: Would you like that information? 

 MR. GIBSON: Well, it is a follow-up to that. 

I guess I'd just like to -- well -- ask -- and 

maybe I'd like to ask our contractor their 

opinion on it, since we've heard from NIOSH and 

everyone else. On survivor claims -- and this 

is an aging population -- if they've got to go 

to coworkers to get interviews and what they've 

done and stuff, how many of those coworkers are 

still alive and what are the probabilities that 

they can get any data to do dose 

reconstruction? Maybe --
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 DR. ZIEMER: I suspect our co-- or our 

contractor may not know those figures of how 

many survivors there are. 

 MR. GIBSON: I'm just saying an idea of how 

they would go --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, how would they do -- 

 MR. GIBSON: -- could accu-- accurately... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Repeat the question, maybe Arjun 

can answer it. 

 MR. GIBSON: I was just wondering -- if the 

survivor didn't know what their spouse did as 

employment so ORAU and NIOSH would have to go 

to coworkers to find out where they worked so 

they could try to adequately determine what 

their dose may have been, most of these 

coworkers could very well be deceased, too, so 

what -- how would they go about getting a -- an 

adequate representation of what they did so 

they could reconstruct the dose and what do you 

think about that? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, as I understand it, you 

know, the first -- the first basis of dose 

reconstruction is the individual's dose record, 

and so if the -- if the dose record is 

substantially complete, then -- then the 
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coworker issue doesn't arise. But if there's 

any need to supplement -- and that's what all 

the surrogate information is about, a lot of 

the TBD is about that -- because there are gaps 

in the data, the bioassay monitoring wasn't 

frequent enough and so on, or the record may 

not be complete, then you need to identify 

coworkers. And I think -- I've looked at the 

interview process in some detail and, as I 

mentioned yesterday, I think coworker 

interviews would be essential -- and close 

coworkers. That is, people who did work -- 

know the employee and their work history in 

some detail, because I have some doubts as to 

whether a lot of the family members, from -- 

from what has been said by the petitioner, by 

Denise and others, would be able to identify 

the series of jobs that were held, given the 

secrecy and lapse of time and so on. So I -- I 

think -- I think whenever surrogate data is -- 

is needed, either in external or internal, it -

- it would be rather difficult to -- to get the 

data to reconstruct without coworkers. And 

even with coworkers, if they were identified, 

it would be rather difficult. 
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Now this is a little bit speculative because we 

haven't actually audited any coworker 

interviews. Very, very few have actually been 

done. We know that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, if the actual coworkers can 

be identified, however, there may be data in 

the database that -- perhaps Jim could address 

that, but it seems to me that one might be able 

to get the coworker data without necessarily 

interviewing the coworker. 

DR. NETON: That -- that's true, we would 

certainly attempt that as a first pass, and I 

agree with Dr. Makhijani that the urinalysis 

and the TLD moni-- film badge monitoring data 

is the most appropriate. We -- as we discussed 

several times now, we have monitoring data for 

the majority of the workers and job titles for 

most workers. 

However, if we find ourselves -- and also 

Mallinckrodt has pretty much stated that they 

have monitored people with their security 

credential using film badges, so anyone who was 

working in the Manhattan Engineering District 

area who had a potential for exposure was -- 

was monitored in these years that we're 
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investigating now. 

However, if we did find ourselves in the 

situation where we knew nothing, we have the 

ability to use these 95th percentile 

distribution values, just as we've done at many 

other sites, and that would work very much to 

the advantage of the claimant. We would take -

- if we could determine that the person was 

indeed a process area worker, generate the 

surrogate exposure distributions for the 95th 

percentile, select that, assume that they were 

in the heaviest exposed category and use those 

data. So in no way would -- we feel in that 

way we would capture the -- the upper bound of 

the worker's exposures without having to -- if 

we -- if we could not rely on any coworker data 

at all. In fact, that's a -- that's a much 

quicker process for the claimant to get an 

answer than to -- you know, the long process of 

calling six or seven people and -- and 

following that trail. 

 MR. GIBSON: If I could --

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike, follow up? 

 MR. GIBSON: -- follow up on that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 
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 MR. GIBSON: Let's say I'm a deceased person 

and I have a spouse that's making a claim. My 

title's an electrician. What coworker data are 

you going to get? 

DR. NETON: Well, certainly if we have 

electrician coworker data we're going to use 

that, and if we have no idea where you worked, 

we would use the 95th percentile of the 

electrician data that were badged and working 

in the facility. 

 MR. GIBSON: Well --

DR. NETON: And this speaks to the issue of 

timeliness. I mean it provides -- 

 MR. GIBSON: I guess --

DR. NETON: -- the claimant a much more timely 

 MR. GIBSON: My point is, let's say where I 

worked there -- there was 30 electricians, and 

it was typically one or two electricians and a 

couple of pipe fitters and a couple of 

mechanics working on a job on this end of the 

line and there may be an electrician or two and 

a pipe fitter and mechanic working on that end 

of the line. So if you take -- and then 

there's 26 other electricians working different 
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areas of the plant, I don't see how you could 

just group electricians in and say I -- we can 

take the aggregate data from them and find out 

what my dose was. 

DR. NETON: Well, we've been doing that. I 

mean this -- this fits -- typically, worker 

data fits a distribution -- the [law of 

transformed distribution]* fits a fairly good 

straight line, and we go up to the upper end of 

that line and say we don't know what you were 

exposed, but we believe that if you were at the 

highest exposure category, this was your dose, 

and we would assume that. So we would not 

assume that you were at the low end of the 

line, the middle end of the line. You were at 

the highest end of the line for your entire 

period -- the period of time where we had no 

data. We've been doing that fairly 

consistently for many of these things, and I 

believe that SC&A has indicated that's an 

appropriate way to do this when you have no 

data. 

We could go to the extent of calling people and 

trying to find out to potentially lower the 

dose, 'cause in most cases the interviews with 
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coworkers would -- would more than likely lower 

the dose because we're already at the upper 

end, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Arjun, you want to add to... 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: If I could supple-- complement 

that a little bit, the -- you know, the whole 

95 percentile issue initially came up in the -- 

in the very specific context of Bethlehem 

Steel, and then we brought it up here also in a 

very specific context of how you actually do 

time-weighting. We've actually not audited the 

more general question that Dr. Neton has 

raised, you know, when -- when is it 

appropriate in terms of job categories to do it 

one way or another. And the reason I bring it 

up here is, in contrast to Bethlehem Steel, 

which was a one -- one type of operation. They 

were rolling uranium and you knew what the 

process was and there was one area, one type of 

material, no complications. Here you have -- 

at Mallinckrodt you have a considerable number 

of complications in that not only do you have 

many processes and many forms of uranium, 

you've got the radionuclides, you know, like 

radium and thorium, and in various different 
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types of areas you've got raffinate processing. 

And so I think, especially as we have evidence 

that workers were moving from one job to 

another and there are questions -- in a way not 

that different than Iowa in that what does a 

job title mean if people are going from one job 

to the next or -- or doing a variety of things 

or in particularly hazardous environments. I 

mean in a place like Mallinckrodt, to -- I'm -- 

I'm not confident and I'd be -- if I remember 

correctly, we did raise this in -- in our 

review of Revision 0, although didn't repeat it 

again here, that -- that the question of -- of 

job titles and the relation to the real work 

needs to be investigated at Mallinckrodt 

because -- because of the complexity of the 

operation, external dose radiation fields and 

the materials inhaled and ingested. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton? 

DR. NETON: I would certainly agree that it 

needs to be evaluated in the context of the 

exposure environments, and I assumed that I 

implied in my response that that was true. We 

need to take the context of the -- of the 

picture and how many -- you know, how many 
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samples we have and that sort of thing. But I 

still maintain that the use of a distribution 

at the 95th percentile is appropriate. Whether 

or not it's electricians or ends up, if we have 

a small number of samples, the entire facility, 

but it still can be done. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Board members, any -- oh, 

Richard Toohey, add to that? 

 DR. TOOHEY: Yes, I do want to add to that. 

The other solution to that problem, and I would 

agree with Mike Gibson, 30 electricians isn't a 

very large size population to do statistical 

analysis on. But then what you do is pool all 

the worker data. And an electrician could 

receive the 95th percentile dose that all 

workers receive, including the most highly 

exposed process workers. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Richard? 

MR. ESPINOSA: You know, with what Mike's 

saying and with what I'm hearing is job titles 

are one thing and the task that a worker's 

assigned is another. And eventually it just 

creates different exposures. One of the things 

that I'm concerned about on this is the -- I 

believe there was a statement made from Denise 
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of 150, 151 being moved from one plant to the 

other and the use of the coworker data being 

done on that. I -- I can see somebody that 

only worked three years -- I could see a -- the 

-- like, for example, the use of a -- an 

employee working three years and them using 

that coworker data when in actuality the people 

that's filing -- the person that's filing the 

claim may have worked there 15 years. You 

know, it's just a concern of mine and I'm 

wondering how it's being addressed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

DR. NETON: These coworker data analyses, the 

surrogate analyses, are time -- time-dependent. 

I mean they are by year, so -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: So you would take it year by year 

DR. NETON: Year by year --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- for all of the years that the 

person worked. 

DR. NETON: Or if there's insufficient data, 

aggregate and use the higher value for several 

years, but it would be, to the extent possible, 

year by year analysis. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other questions? Yes, 
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Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: What... Most of this population 

or if a majority of this population is deceased 

and it's -- and a lot of the coworkers are 

deceased, what would be the possibility of 

creating like a survivor's cohort? If you 

can't get re-- if you can't get an adequate 

dose reconstruction done on these people, 

rather than depending on -- like this 95 

percentile when --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think you're asking a 

legal question, but it seems to me, by default, 

if you define the cohort and the person's 

deceased, the survivor is -- becomes the -- the 

claimant. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the 

question. 

 MR. GIBSON: I guess I'm just suggesting 

perhaps a -- a lesser cohort that just involves 

survivors that you cannot get good data on -- 

adequate data. 

 DR. TOOHEY: I'm sorry, did you mean -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, I -- oh -- oh, I see what he's 

saying, yeah. 

 DR. TOOHEY: I'm -- I'm afraid I don't. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If you identify -- it sounds like 
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if you identify a subset for which there is 

insufficient data, could that be a cohort -- or 

a class --

 MR. GIBSON: Class in itself. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Actually, and maybe someone from 

NIOSH could answer that. I suspect that 

technically if one were to find that -- let -- 

let's suppose that you have a facility where 

there is no Special Exposure Cohort, but in the 

process of dose reconstruction you find that 

there's a group -- let's say of electricians -- 

for whom you are unable to reconstruct dose, do 

you not sort of automatically then say that 

this would now be identified as a potential 

Special Exposure Cohort? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that's exactly right, and 

that's what -- it goes back to the question 

that was raised earlier or during my 

presentation about how diligent are we at 

looking at different jobs and how do we define 

the class. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Even if someone hadn't petitioned 

for some group and you found in your process -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- you could not reconstruct dose, 
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you are obligated --

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's true, we are obligated -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to identify that to the Board 

and to the Secretary and that -- and -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That is correct, that is how -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to initiate the process. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That is how we would go about 

identifying a class. I would just add that 

this presumes that we don't have data for the 

deceased person. And in this case, for 

Mallinckrodt, we have a large amount of 

information and data for -- for the workers, by 

comparison to the -- to Iowa, where we had, you 

know, a small amount of the work force 

monitored. This work force for Mallinckrodt 

has had a majority of the work force monitored, 

in one way or another. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius, a question or comment? 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I just want to point out, 

and I don't think we -- necessarily get us off 

on a separate track here, but we -- for some 

time we've expressed concerns about the -- the 

CATI interview and the fact that it's a very 

general interview and doesn't provide a lot of 

specific information. And this issue came up 
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again with Iowa where I think, at least to some 

extent, our decision was based on the 

information that our contractor had obtained 

from meeting with and interviewing the workers 

and -- and this cast questions about some of 

the approaches that NIOSH was using. And I 

just think in a general way this issue still 

needs to be addressed in a better fashion, much 

as the example Mike brought up that -- as to 

how do we approach this -- how -- is there a 

way of improving the data-gathering in a way 

that -- I mean 'cause it could work in some 

sense the opposite way, that there may be 

better information obtained from surviving 

workers that can be used to obtain, you know, 

better information that can be used where the 

workers don't survive and could add to the 

detail and the ability to do a -- a sound dose 

reconstruction. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now I want to move us along in the 

process here, unless there are further 

questions or discussions of a sort of a general 

nature. Let me remind you of what sort of our 

options are here, if we're ready for that -- 

proceed to that point. 
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We basically have before us a recommendation 

from NIOSH on the handling of this particular 

petition. The Board could go on record as 

agreeing with and supporting that position. 

The Board could go on record as not agreeing or 

supporting that position. I suppose a third 

option would be that the Board could in fact 

instruct NIOSH and our contractor to get yet 

more information and defer a decision, although 

you recall that we did indicate our intent to 

reach closure today, if possible. 

I -- I probably should also remark, since my 

casual tenure statement now has become 

memorialized several times, that it was 

intended to make a kind of point. I certainly 

didn't imply that it would necessarily take ten 

years for the Iowa group, nor -- nor had I 

intended it to apply to Mallinckrodt. The 

point was there is a timeliness factor. But I 

certainly don't want to imply at all that I 

believe that it will take ten years for us to 

reach that point for Mallinckrodt. In fact, 

it's my opinion that we have in fact a very 

solid dataset, a very extensive amount of data 

for Mallinckrodt and we have to deal with that 
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and where we are, and if there's any additional 

information that we need to come to closure on 

what we have before us. 

So now Wanda Munn and then Jim. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: Rather than make a direct motion one 

way or the other, there are several things that 

need to be said, I believe, not only to this 

Board, but to the claimants and to the public 

generally. I attempted to say some of this 

yesterday, but in the rush following our 

decision with respect to the Iowa petitioners, 

it was impossible to say that. So this is 

going to be longer than a casual comment. My 

apologies. 

 Yesterday's vote, for which I gave an 

affirmative vote, was based -- from my chair -- 

on one factor and one factor alone, and that 

was common sense. Despite all of the other 

reasons that were given, it appeared unfair to 

me that a higher dose assessment -- under the 

process that was going to have to be used -- 

would be given to early workers, who probably 

had lower exposure, than to later workers who 

probably had higher exposure but had badge 

readings. That was the single item on which my 
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positive vote went forward. 

In looking at this particular cohort class, as 

in most others, I believe, NIOSH has made it 

clear that they can, they will, and they have 

completed dose reconstructions appropriately 

for other groups, as well as for this group. 

We have, over the period of the last couple of 

years, heard repeated insults to the integrity 

of individuals, agencies, data reliability, and 

we probably will continue to hear them. We are 

dealing in an emotional, dramatic area. That's 

understandable because we're talking about 

people's lives, a great deal of pain, a great 

deal of illness. Nobody can be totally 

unemotional when you're approaching that kind 

of situation. 

But we have also heard repeatedly from 

petitioners, from elected officials, from 

staff, enormous misconceptions and incorrect 

positions with respect to radiation and 

radiation-induced illnesses. The media has 

routinely repeated, as have many others at the 

microphone here, that there are hundreds of 

workers who were made ill by reason of their 

work at one facility or another. There is no 
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doubt that there are individuals who have been 

made ill as a result of their work. A large 

number of them have actually already been 

compensated, as we have heard here even this 

morning, when the argument is being made that 

inadequate information exists and yet 

compensation has been given to some of these 

workers, and fairly so. 

But for us to say, that in a case where dose 

reconstruction can be done and we do not allow 

that to happen, that we are doing the right 

thing is incorrect. There is no reliable data, 

to the best of my knowledge, that supports the 

assertion that the workers at this plant or any 

other plant have a higher rate of these dreaded 

diseases than the general population. There is 

no evidence to that effect. So when we say 

therefore all people will have to be included -

- now it's not completely true, but for the 

most part it is true. I said reliable studies. 

When we are placed in the position of saying 

all the elderly people who, in the general 

population, are going to have one out of two 

suffer some type of cancer, and one out of four 

or five, depending on what year you look at, 
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are going to die from these diseases, then what 

that tells us is that many of the individuals 

who have worked on sites who have these types 

of cancers would have developed them even had 

they never been on any such site. 

So to ignore our ability to do dose 

reconstruction and choose an SEC which 

incorporates all claimants is saying that we 

are not being good stewards and we are not 

following good science. It's only when we 

cannot have the science that we must do so. 

When we hear the arguments with respect to 

these SECs, if you take away all of the chaff 

and leave only the wheat, there are two points 

that are made that we are asked to consider. 

They are dressed up in many different ways, but 

those two points are always the same. The 

point is, someone does not believe that we have 

reliable data because they know someone who 

lied about something that was related in some 

way in the past. The other point is that you 

can't possibly do a dose reconstruction for me 

because you don't know every place I've been 

and all I've done. 

I believe that the process that's been 
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explained to us is very clear. We are never 

going to have perfect data. No one is ever 

able to make decisions that are 100 percent 

accurate in all cases because we will never 

have perfect data. Even if we have perfect 

data, we will not always have a body of 

individuals who will agree that the data is 

perfect. And so we are called upon to use our 

judgment, based on imperfect data, to resolve 

issues that are dramatic, that are 

heartbreaking, and that are going to be 

emotional regardless of whether we say yes or 

no. 

 The experienced professionals who work with us 

have stated that they have adequate data to 

perform appropriate worker-favorable dose 

reconstructions for this site. Remember, we 

will never have perfect data. Good science, 

good stewardship, fairness and personal 

integrity requires us in -- to reject this 

particular SEC. The claims for that class 

should be submitted for the standard review and 

process as dose evaluations are possible, 

they're feasible, and they'll be heavily based 

in favor of any claimant from this facility. 
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 So I'm prepared, when this Board is ready to 

accept it, to make a motion that this SEC be 

rejected. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Wanda. I interpret 

that as not being a motion, at least at this 

time. Dr. Melius? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, first to address Wanda's 

statement, I just would point out that if we 

reject this petition we will end up with a 

situation where -- because we've already 

approved a petition covering earlier years 

where people working in 1948, for example, for 

250 days will -- would be compensated, where 

someone working in 1949 -- starting January 

1st, 1949 -- again, depending on their 

individual dose reconstruction, may very well 

not be. And I think we have to recognize that 

the way the law's constructed that that 

situation's bound to occur and one can argue 

about its fairness and so forth, but I think 

it's something that we -- we have to address 

and I don't think it should be something that 

should necessarily affect our decisions on -- 

on the SEC petitions. 

Secondly, I don't think Congress ever intended 
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that there be an epidemiological risk 

evaluation applied to this. We're not asking 

that the petitioners or NIOSH to prove that 

there's an excess cancer risk at every one of 

these facilities. There's lots of reasons 

that's difficult to do, particularly when it 

gets down to smaller groups and so forth and I 

don't think that's a fair way of -- of 

assessing that -- that. That's not the test 

that we apply. 

When I look at this situation, the three 

possible decisions that Paul outlined, I 

personally feel uncomfortable with all three. 

I don't think that NIOSH has necessarily proved 

its case, that it can conduct dose 

reconstructions with sufficient accuracy. 

There's more information I'd like to obtain 

from them, some more issues I'd like them to 

address. At the same time I think there are -- 

they have provided a lot of information and 

there is a lot of data there and it makes it 

difficult, based on what we have now, to 

approve the -- approve the petition. The third 

option of procrastination or delay is also 

uncomfortable, realizing that the claimants and 
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their survivors have already waited a long 

time, there's been significant delays. 

I also feel it's very important, in terms of 

making a recommendation, in terms of what the 

Board has already essentially promised to these 

petitioners. One is that we said we would try 

to reach a decision at this meeting. At the 

same time, we said that we would try to reach 

that decision based on having our contractor do 

a review of a site profile. For various 

reasons that were out of the control of the 

contractor and to some extent out of our 

control, the contractor was unable to do that. 

There was not sufficient resources nor time to 

complete a review of Revision 1 of the site 

profile, so we're left with an incomplete 

review. And in fact in the report from the 

contractor dated April 18th, there's a table in 

there indicating what they were able to do and 

what they were not able to complete in time. 

And I guess my feeling is that -- belief is 

that the best course for us to take would be to 

complete that review so that we can fairly and 

completely address many of the concerns that 

have been raised by the petitioners, that we 
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can fairly and more completely address our 

charge in terms of evaluating this petition and 

evaluating what NIOSH says that it is capable 

of doing; that we also ask NIOSH to provide us 

with some further information in this regard, 

that there's some -- I think particular things 

that they could do that would help us to reach 

a decision. 

And as uncomfortable as that approach may be in 

terms of further delay, I think it would be the 

best approach and I'd be intending to offer a 

motion to that effect. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Again, for the moment 

I'm not going to interpret that as a motion. 

We're getting some sort of intents out of here. 

Let me go and get a couple of other comments, 

then we'll come --

 MS. MUNN: I was just going to respond to Jim -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Just a response? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead and respond. 

 MS. MUNN: Just a very quick one. I agree with 

him, this was not intended to be an 

epidemiological study. The only reason I 
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brought the point up is because it's so clearly 

a misconception in the minds of the public and 

the media. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Richard and then Mike. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Me personally, I'm standing on 

the fence over this issue, also. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Get closer to the mike there. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Oh, I'm kind of standing on the 

fence over this issue, also, and personally I'd 

kind of rather stand on the fence until we get 

more information. 

Also, and in terms of SC&A on the site profile 

and stuff, it'd be nice to see in our next 20 

cases of the dose reconstruction that we also 

have some Mallinckrodt studies. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't recall if the second 18 

included Mallinckrodt. We had some in the 

first 20. I -- I don't recall in the second 18 

what was on the list, but that list has already 

been established, Rich, so we -- we can't 

change what was there. 

Mike, why don't you go ahead with your comment. 

 MR. GIBSON: With all due respect to my 

colleague, Ms. Munn, I would like to just make 

the following response, that you know, there is 
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such a thing called the healthy worker syndrome 

and -- that's -- needs to be thought about. 

Also, you know, when I went to work at Mound, I 

was asked if I minded working in radioactive 

areas, and they said they would take every 

effort to protect my health and safety. I said 

I would accept that. And I'm not trying to 

suggest any class of professionals is without -

- without good character, but just like some 

laborers are without good work ethics, there's 

some professionals that are without good 

ethics. And coming from a plant that's had a -

- at least four or five Price Anderson fines 

totaling over a half a million dollars for 

violations of health and safety practices, 

specifically bioassay -- falsifying bioassay 

data, it just makes me want to make sure that 

the data that's being interpreted for dose 

reconstruction is good data and it's -- and 

that's -- a lot of -- some of the folks who 

worked at that site are now the ones doing 

these dose reconstructions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see, let's take Leon next. 

MR. OWENS: I don't want this to appear that -- 

that I'm ganging up, either, on colleague, Ms. 
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Munn, but coming from a site where the United 

States Secretary of Energy admitted, in a 

public forum such as this, that the government 

had put workers in harm's way, it's somewhat 

difficult for me to not understand the workers' 

point of view. 

Some of us that sit on this Board have also had 

the occasion to talk with workers on their 

deathbed. Some of us also have had the 

occasion to talk with surviving spouses who are 

at a loss as to where their husband worked, 

what their husband did, because of the cloak of 

secrecy that surrounded that work. I think 

that the Board owes due diligence to those 

workers from the standpoint of evaluating the 

petitions, using the statutory requirements 

that Congress enacted, to ensure that we 

provide timely deliberations. 

Also, coming from a site that is an SEC site, 

it's a lot different for those individuals at 

Paducah and at Portsmouth and at Oak Ridge that 

have one of the 22 specified cancers, they 

receive an automatic payment. They do not have 

to go through this process. And so that is a 

measuring stick, I feel, as we view these other 
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petitions. 

I think that NIOSH has done a commendable job. 

They continue to do a commendable job. But at 

the same time, I feel that our contractor, 

SC&A, does a very commendable job in reviewing. 

And I think that the information that's brought 

back to us by both of these groups needs to be 

considered. 

And yes, emotion is always tied into anything, 

but I think that the Board has, in the last two 

decisions that were made, tried to not allow 

the emotion of the moment to dictate the way 

that the votes are made. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Leon. Henry Anderson? 

DR. ANDERSON: It's always easy to look forward 

and look back, and in my experience when one 

makes a hasty judgment, it's always potentially 

at risk. And as you move forward, you know, 

the timeliness of that decision becomes less 

important. So I guess I would agree. I think 

we've started a process with the review -- site 

profile review. I'm assuming whether we act 

today on the SEC petition or not, we're going 

to finish that site profile review. There may 

be things in that that'll be helpful or not. 
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I'm also very intrigued by the ability in this 

process to look at the various databases and 

see how well they correlate and use that as a 

validity of the data assessment. And we heard 

NIOSH was rushed and I'm sure Jim is regretting 

that he used a hypothetical rather than the 

other -- and I think that I would be very 

interested in, you know, not an exhaustive 

review of all the cases, but to pick some just 

to see that in fact the assumption that this 

will work, does. And you know, I think it 

probably will, but I think just for 

completeness' sake, I'd like to have the 

process work itself out and I think it would be 

a disservice to the applicants to not go that 

extra mile to get that added data, even though 

right now it would look like there's plenty of 

data and NIOSH has a process in place. So I 

guess I would -- I would like to see that 

additional information before we actually do a 

final judgment on it and -- and there -- at 

that point there won't be any new information 

coming in. I think on all of these, the 

process of getting it to us when things were 

under rush -- be it Iowa or Mallinckrodt at the 
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last meeting -- is just a warning. We need to 

be sure that when we get these there is a point 

in time that stands alone rather than on a 

rapid process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Chair is going to add some 

observations to the discussion before I call 

for a motion. 

It appears to me that there indeed is a very 

extensive amount of data available. And in 

spite of concerns that -- and certain 

allegations made, there's no clear evidence 

that the dataset has been in any substantial 

way -- or in any way -- doctored or otherwise 

made invalid. In fact, the -- the magnitude of 

the data is such that there is that ability to 

do cross-validation. 

 Our contractor's review has focused on issues 

which -- which are admittedly unresolved, but 

do not have to do with the quality of the data 

as far as its ability to be used for dose 

reconstruction. It has more to do with how 

assumptions are made and used and how the 

validation process might occur. I see nothing 

from our contractor that would suggest that in 

fact proper and reliable dose reconstruction 
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cannot be done with the material that we have. 

 There clearly in the past were a number of poor 

practices at Mallinckrodt, either with or 

without the consent of management, perhaps with 

a work force which had not been fully informed 

of the risks involved -- and certainly we all 

agree that there are risks. In fact, such poor 

practices do in fact get reflected in the 

dataset so that we have the ability to in fact 

show that workers got such high doses because 

of these poor practices. So I'm simply saying 

that in my mind we have a cohort for which 

valid dose reconstruction can be done. 

 Admittedly there are some open questions, and 

I'm certainly, as a first step if -- if the 

assembly here wishes to delay a decision, I 

think that would be the prior motion to hear if 

there -- if there's a motion to delay or defer. 

I don't want to call it to delay. It's to 

defer for the reasons mentioned. Then if such 

a motion failed, then we would return to the 

issue of -- of making the -- making the 

decision today. 

So Henry, did you have an additional comment on 

this? 
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DR. ANDERSON: Oh, I'm sorry, no. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MS. BROCK: Dr. Ziemer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MS. BROCK: I would like to -- Denise Brock, 

for the record. I would like to ask that if 

there is a delay -- due to the delay itself, I 

would like to know if it would be possible to 

expedite that. I'd like to know from SC&A how 

long it would actually take to review this 

information and I'd like to ask for an 

emergency meeting to be called and see if we 

can't do this within 30 days in St. Louis. 

This is obviously better than a "no", but it's 

still a delay, so I would like to see if we 

could expedite this and do this as quickly as 

possible. I know that SC&A had no opportunity 

or had little opportunity to look through all 

this, but I want to know if it's possible that 

we could do this in a quick manner. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me address that in somewhat 

general terms, because John Mauro, who leads 

the team and who would have to make that 

decision, I think, Arjun, that would probably 

be John's call, unless you feel like you're 
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authorized to speak in his behalf on that issue 

as to what turnaround time might be. But we're 

talking about a process where there's some 

interchanges involving the contractor and 

NIOSH, as well as participation by Board 

members and so on. It certainly would be the 

intent -- if there is such a delay, certainly 

it would be the intent I think of this Board to 

move forward with -- as expeditiously as 

possible. Whether or not we can commit to a 

time today, I do not know. Arjun, do you --

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Do you have a question for me, 

Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the question is what -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, right --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the turnaround time for -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: John did authorize me to speak 

on Mallinckrodt issues, and I believe 

communicated that to Dr. Wade -- 

 DR. WADE: Correct. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- before he left. Joe 

Fitzgerald, deputy director, is here. I think 

-- you know, I'm -- I'm pretty familiar with 

Mallinckrodt by now, but I'd like a -- it would 

depend on the scale of the tasks. If I might 
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suggest --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're talking about 

resolution of the issues --

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that have been raised. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right. And if -- if I might 

have a minute or two to caucus with -- with Mr. 

Fitzgerald and get back to you on that, I'd 

appreciate that. 

 DR. WADE: Certainly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, did you have a comment or a 

motion? 

 DR. MELIUS: My only comment was I -- I think 

we all agree and would like -- like -- it would 

be good to be expeditious on this, but I think 

in some ways we're better off -- you know, 

let's deal with a motion and see where the 

Board wants to go with this before we try to 

get, you know, too specific. Is it 30 days, 45 

days or --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're suggesting separating this. 

If we decide to defer the action, then deal 

with how soon we can do it. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, did you have a comment 
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first on this? 

 MS. MUNN: I just was going to observe that if 

postponing this decision until such time as the 

ability of NIOSH to correlate the data will be 

instrumental in making the Board more convinced 

that that can be done adequately, then I'm 

prepared to move that we make such a delay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think we know a priori 

that NIOSH will be able to do that. I think 

the intent is to ask that there be a 

demonstration of whether or not that can be 

done and the resolution of the issues that were 

raised by our contractor. Joe Fitzgerald is 

approaching the mike. Joe? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, to answer the question, 

certainly we could accelerate a review and not 

necessarily do a checklist of all the loose 

ends that -- you know, that were identified in 

the report, but with a very clear focus on the 

implementation question, which I think the 

Board is wrestling with here, and that would 

inform I think the kind of decision-making you 

have to do. So it would be with a very clear 

focus that we would certainly want to give you 

ahead of time, but with the recognition that, 
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you know, we would hone in on just those issues 

that we feel would be important and necessary 

to finish what we started, but also to be 

specific to what I think this Board's been 

discussing certainly over the day. And that 

would probably, again -- it will take us 

definitely to probably the first part of June 

to do a credible job of that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I wonder if NIOSH has any input on 

this issue, too, before we have a formal 

motion. Let Larry Elliott speak and then -- 

Larry, go ahead. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm not prepared today to commit 

to any time frame for you. I think you said it 

best earlier, Dr. Ziemer, that we came to the 

table with everything that we could at this 

point in time. We feel that we have adequate 

information to sufficiently provide a maximum 

dose reconstruction --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're on--

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- or a more precise dose 

reconstruction. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, I think we're only talking 

about the resolution of the issues with our 

contractor, 'cause that process involves 
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NIOSH's --

 MR. ELLIOTT: We certainly would work with them 

and we will do our level best to -- to 

accommodate this process, but I'm not -- not at 

a point where I can commit to a time frame in 

that -- in that regard. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Could we have Joe come back to the 

microphone? Joe? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Joe or Arjun. 

 DR. WADE: I mean I appreciate your thoughtful 

response. Am I to assume that at that point in 

early June you would begin to engage in a 

dialogue with NIOSH on the materials you 

prepared, or would that include time for such a 

dialogue to have taken place? 

 MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think that's something 

that we would have to discuss 'cause there's a 

lot of logistical issues as to -- one, what 

endpoint are we aiming toward? There's a 

question before the Board as to whether to be 

another session sort of on this issue, and that 

would give us a ultimate endpoint which we 

would back-engineer in terms of what necessary 

discussions would take place. 
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Now what we did with Iowa I thought was 

instructive in the sense that, rather than do 

this thing serially, we had discussions along 

the way so that, you know, we weren't waiting 

till the very end to start that process. And I 

think that served to accelerate what we did for 

Iowa. So you know, there's a certain method 

that might help that. 

But again, I think there's a couple of issues 

that make a difference. One is scoping this 

thing so it's very, very clearly focused only 

on those issues which will certainly arm the 

Board with information and perspectives it 

needs, and also a process where, you know, we 

would accelerate the kind of interaction that 

would normally take place maybe over months, 

but try to do that, you know, within a shorter 

period of time. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Denise? 

MS. BROCK: And I hope you'll excuse me but I'm 

just really confused. I'm curious, and this is 

probably a question for SC&A and NIOSH and the 

Board. Is SC&A going to work with NIOSH and 

assess the credibility of this data or -- I 
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guess I'm perplexed, and is this possible? 

Because my concern here, too, is that -- if I'm 

understanding correctly -- many of the Board 

members that I've spoke with and know this case 

could be gone by the time this actually comes 

up again. And new people will not 

automatically know the history of this without 

having to look at transcripts or what have you. 

That makes me uncomfortable. And I know it was 

done for Iowa and I've been put at a distinct 

disadvantage and my claimants have been put at 

a distinct advantage (sic) by no fault of their 

own, and this was because of this automatic 

thing that popped up at the last minute with 

Iowa. They were given an SEC, then it was 

taken away, and then we had to have this reevaluation of it. I was told in February that 

this was all going to be addressed by SC&A. We 

figured the TBD would be -- would be done and 

be assessed and the comments would have been 

made, and now this -- we were put on the back 

burner. And so it's doing an injustice and a 

disadvantage to my claimants and to me as a 

petitioner -- SC&A wasn't even able to finish 

their -- their audit. And so I'm curious as to 
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the length of time -- I mean that they would 

need to actually -- and I guess maybe Joe 

answered that -- to look at this data. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. In fact, Denise, that's 

exactly what we're talking about is to finish 

the process that they started roughly a month 

ago, maybe a little longer than that. They --

and you've -- you've indicated previously in 

your comments and in your comments just now 

that in fact they had not finished that 

process. You noted it in your comments earlier 

that it was incomplete. They had a list of -- 

of items in their report that had not been 

finished, and that is what we're referring to 

in our discussion. We're not talking about a 

new process where they are going to validate 

something. 

MS. BROCK: I see. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're talking about -- 

MS. BROCK: Then --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- them completing their review of 

the document. I think we also talked about 

perhaps some specific examples as to how 

validation could in fact be done by NIOSH. 

That would be my understanding. 
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MS. BROCK: Okay, so I guess my confusion here 

is then why -- respectfully, to Larry, why is 

there not a -- how do you have to interact if 

you -- your Rev. 1's already done. I'm not 

trying to be smart, I really don't know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No --

MS. BROCK: Rev. 1's done --

 DR. ZIEMER: No, let me answer that -- 

MS. BROCK: -- what is it that you need to do? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me answer that. Our -- the 

Board's process requires an interaction by our 

contractor with NIOSH because there are open 

questions, and these interactions are done with 

Board members present so that if -- if in fact 

there's factual accuracy issues or sort of 

miscommunications, or if our contractor is 

making assumptions that are not the ones that 

NIOSH made, we're trying to make sure that 

we're doing those things -- we're interacting 

properly. So -- and this is the process we've 

used on other site profiles, on our dose 

reconstructions, so we're talking about 

completing that normal process. 

MS. BROCK: Correct me if I'm wrong, but that 

process should have already been done -- 
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correct? -- if -- if that was what was supposed 

to have been done, but because Iowa took 

precedence over Mallinckrodt, that's been put 

on the back burner. So however much time frame 

was left here between me getting here and this 

should have been going on, whenever -- whenever 

Mallinckrodt got put on the back burner, 

whenever SC&A started the two of these 

parallel, I'm not understanding why it's going 

to take a huge length of time -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

MS. BROCK: -- to do what should have already 

been done. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. We did not specifically put 

things on the back burner. I think this Board 

moved as rapidly as it was --

MS. BROCK: I don't mean the Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- what was able and with the 

material we had, and you know, but it's the 

Board's -- it's the Board's work that we're 

talking about here. NIOSH obviously had their 

platter full, too. I --

MS. BROCK: I'm not referring to the Board, Dr. 

Ziemer. I'm referring to something that should 

have been done that wasn't, through no fault of 
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my claimants and through no fault of the Board, 

and through no fault of SC&A. For whatever 

reason, this situation with Iowa arose, and 

what I'm saying is that due to that situation, 

the work on Rev. 1 for Mallinckrodt has not 

been completed. So what I'm asking is I think 

the delay is great. That's fine. But what I'd 

like to have done is have it immediately taken 

care of. It shouldn't take very long. I don't 

understand what the hold-up is because what I'd 

like to have done, if it's at all possible, to 

have this done by June to see if we could get a 

meeting -- an emergency meeting in St. Louis 

that would make it comfortable for my claimants 

again and get this done as expeditiously as 

possible without removal of certain Board 

members. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we can commit to moving as 

rapidly as we're able to on this. I don't know 

what you're referring to by removal of Board 

members. I'm not aware of any Board members 

being removed. But in any event, I certainly 

want to commit this Board to trying to move 

ahead as rapidly as we're able to. Dr. Toohey? 

 DR. TOOHEY: I have more answers to previous 
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questions. Of the 188 Mallinckrodt-only cases, 

131 were submitted by survivors and 57 by the 

Energy employees, so that's about 70 percent 

survivor claims. However, I want -- do want to 

point out that the age of the worker would be 

correlated with working only at Mallinckrodt. 

Consequently that's why I think the survivor 

percentage is higher. The workers who started 

in the early '50's and were younger would have 

been the ones who moved on to Weldon Springs. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Okay. That being said, also Mr. 

Espinosa asked the question about dose 

reconstruction reviews under that task for 

Mallinckrodt cases. I guess from what I know 

that's probably not going to answer your 

question, because the completed dose 

reconstructions for Mallinckrodt will have been 

one end or the other, minimum dose estimates 

for compensable answers and maximum dose 

estimates for non-compensables. So it's not 

really going to give you a feeling for how we 

can do best estimates. 

 Going from there, I would also like to mention 

that there are two different questions involved 
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here in the Board's oversight contractor review 

of the site profile document. One question is, 

and it's the typical review of the site profile 

document, is that site profile adequate to do 

best-estimate dose reconstructions for the 

cases who are in the middle of those two 

extremes. The question for an SEC petition is 

is that site profile or data adequate to put an 

upper limit on doses for everyone. And most of 

what I've seen and heard on the issues that 

Cohen & Associates have raised address the 

first question, more best estimates, than the 

second question of being able to cap the doses. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Tom, did you 

have a question? 

 MR. HORGAN: Yeah, thanks. I guess I'm -- I'm 

kind of confused right now, as well, and I'm 

sorry about that. I think the one issue that 

seems to be looming from listening to the 

dialogue among Board members is this either -- 

whatever term you use, credibility of the data, 

integrity of the data and -- and quality of the 

data. That seems to be an issue that -- where 

a lot of question is. You know, we hear we 

have a lot of data. The question -- is it 
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accurate, is it reliable, valid. 

I'm a little -- let me ask a question 'cause I 

don't know the details of the SC&A contract and 

everything. Are the contractors allowed -- or 

have they been tasked, I guess, or asked to 

examine this integrity of the data issue -- I 

mean this issue -- or have they been allowed to 

focus in on that, and have they been asked to 

examine the integrity of the data issue? Can 

somebody answer that for me? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'll answer that. 

 MR. HORGAN: Arjun, do you know? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'll answer that for you. The 

task doesn't specifically call for that. It's 

inherent in what they do. 

 MR. HORGAN: Could you elaborate on that for 

me? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Dr. Ziemer, as -- as we 

understood it, the falsification question -- if 

I might use the more blunt term that was used 

earlier in the petition and in our last review 

-- was an SEC question and we noted simply in 

this context that it was not covered in the 

revision, and even that mention aroused some 

comments from the Board as to why was it a 
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bullet point in our review. So we -- we didn't 

feel that we were asked really to investigate 

the falsification question. 

Of course there the quality of data question 

that are more normal that are covered in the 

TBD on which we have commented, but at least I 

have felt in looking at this and in the 

comments that I've heard since it -- since we 

don't have a task for SEC petitions, that we 

would need somewhat of a more explicit 

authorization from you. And in that same 

context, I'm a little bit un-- if I might 

express a little uneasiness, and some 

confusion, also. The thing that we are doing 

currently is a TBD review. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: And the thing that you are 

discussing currently is an SEC petition, and 

the questions that those two things seek to 

answer is quite different. I think Dr. Toohey 

put it very well in that a TBD review doesn't 

necessarily seek to focus on the question that 

you are seeking to answer, which is is it 

possible to use the data to do a maximum. So -

- so I would -- I would just suggest that as we 
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-- as we proceed, if SC&A is to be asked to do 

something with-- within a short period of time 

or whatever period of time, that there be some 

clarity in the forum with -- with the 

petitioner present that -- as to what will be 

delivered and what it will mean. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right now the review of the TBD 

has built into it inherently some issues 

relating to the quality of the information. 

It's not directly answering the site profile 

thing. 

Tom, this is not a public comment period, I -- 

 MR. HORGAN: Dr. Ziemer, hold on a second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to return to the Board 

here, if you would have a seat. 

 Mark Griffon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I just -- I just have to raise a 

question -- I mean we've heard -- correc-- and 

I agree that there's a lot of data at this 

site, lot of information, and -- and the next 

step is, there-- some people conclude, 

therefore, that you can do a bounding estimate. 

I -- I have to -- and I brought this up on the 

subcommittee phone call, so this is no 

surprise, but I have to ask a question on page 
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64 of the Rev. 1 it basically says that the 

site profile authors conclude that the 1948 

data -- I'm paraphrasing here -- did bound or 

were representative of the figures of the 

earlier years. That means '42 through '48, if 

I'm interpreting this right. There were three 

new pages added in this section on this whole 

topic. 

To me -- and -- and Jim, I know -- I know 

they've disagreed with me on the subcommittee 

meeting, but maybe -- maybe I need better 

clarification on this. To me, that seems to be 

an inconsistency. On the one hand we have an 

evaluation report that says NIOSH recommends 

those -- that class be included, and this says 

that they can bound. 

Now we're in a situation where NIOSH is not 

recommending and I'd like to know what's the -- 

what's the difference in this situation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

DR. NETON: I -- I mentioned yesterday that we 

are going to issue a page change notice to the 

profile that discusses that issue about 

bounding, and what that really means in the 

context of -- of the -- of the SEC cohort 
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moving forward is that that is really a lower 

bound dose. We -- we acknowledge that we 

cannot put an upper bound. This is a lower 

limit that we can place so that we can move 

dose reconstructions forward for nonpresumptive cancers. That's -- that's the 

intent of that -- that -- we will clarify that 

with a page change notice. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Jim Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: Larry's got --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Larry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I guess I'm compelled to add to 

that, because I want to recognize that -- that 

-- here's another lesson learned for us at 

NIOSH. When we're advancing two documents, one 

a site profile revision and another an 

evaluation report for a Special Exposure Cohort 

petition, we've got to make sure that -- that 

at some point, before they're presented, that 

they marry up and they're coordinated. In this 

instance, that did not happen, and I regret 

that. And Jim's absolutely right, the 

intention behind that set of passages on page 

65 is to try to do our level best to attend to 

non-presumptive cancers for the -- for the 
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class, for '42 to '48, and that's what we 

intend there. And I apologize for the 

confusion that it's presented and this is 

another lesson learned that we will take full 

stock of. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Jim Melius. 

 DR. MELIUS: And can I just add to that? I 

think it would be helpful if guidelines were 

developed, some sort of public document that 

sort of addresses this in a general sense 

'cause I think we have to wrestle with it, but 

that's probably for another discussion, though. 

 I'd like to offer a motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You may proceed. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I've written this out and I 

think it's pretty straightforward, and I think 

it addresses a number of the issues that have 

been raised so far, including some of the 

questions from members of the public. 

The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health has evaluated SEC Petition 00012 

concerning the Mallinckrodt Destrehan Street 

facility for the years 1949 to 1957 under the 

statutory requirements established by EEOICPA. 

Based on the information available to us at 
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this meeting, the Board is unable to reach a 

decision at this time. Rather, the Board is 

seeking further information in order to reach a 

final determination on this petition. 

 The Board has instructed our review contractor 

to complete their review of Revision 1 of the 

site profile, with particular attention to 

issues relevant to this petition. The Board 

has also asked NIOSH to prepare further 

analyses relative to their capability to 

complete dose reconstructions with sufficient 

accuracy, based on the information currently 

available to them. 

As soon as this additional information is 

available, the Board will meet to complete our 

review of this petition. 

 The Board recognizes that this action will 

further delay an already lengthy process, and 

that this delay poses significant difficulties 

for the claimants or their survivors. However, 

the Board must also address the need to have 

adequate information in order to make a fair 

and complete evaluation of this petition. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That is your motion. Is there a 

second? 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Motion is seconded. I'd like to 

ask the Board members if they would like to 

have this motion in writing and delay 

discussion until after lunch. Is that the 

desire, or would you wish to proceed and have 

the discussion now? It's -- we are past our 

lunch hour. 

 MS. MUNN: My preference would be for us to 

discuss it now. I think the discussion that 

has already foregone this motion is probably 

adequate for most of us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if -- if everybody's 

comfortable in discussing and acting with only 

the verbal material, you understand the motion? 

Okay, are there any who wish to speak to or 

against the motion? Dr. Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: I would like to go on record as 

saying that I'm going to vote for the motion, 

but it's not because I have any questions about 

the data. I personally think that at this 

point in time NIOSH could do a very valid dose 

reconstruction for this site. However, I would 

like to see the Board get the information -- 

each member get the information they need so 
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that we can proceed as a body. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others wish to 

speak for or against the motion? Yes, Leon. 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, I speak in favor of the 

motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others? Are you 

ready to vote? 

 It appears that we're ready to vote. All in 

favor of this motion, please say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 Any opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

The motion carries. We will dismiss for lunch. 

After lunch, if needed, we can entertain 

specific motions on implementation, although 

there was a caveat in the end -- or one of the 

provisions indicated that we would proceed as 

soon as the material is available, which could 

include an emergency meeting, if necessary, and 

-- and I would hope that in fact we could have 

such a meeting in -- in St. Louis, subject to 

availability of hotels and so on on fairly 

short notice. 
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 DR. MELIUS: When we come back from lunch I 

think it would be helpful to try to specify 

certainly what we would be requesting that 

NIOSH do. I've had some brief discussions with 

Jim Neton, but I think we need to sort of scope 

that out a little bit in order to -- at least 

for NIOSH to be able to reach a timetable on 

that, be fair to them and make something that's 

reasonable, and there may be some further 

information that our contractor may want, 

though I think that's a little bit more 

straightforward. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Chair will also -- Tom, I 

certainly will recognize you now, if you have 

some comments. Promise that it won't go into 

our lunch hour too long. 

 MR. HORGAN: Let's see, where am I here -- can 

everybody hear me? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry to cut you off earlier, 

but we had to get to the Board's deliberations. 

 MR. HORGAN: Sure. Sure, no problem. What I 

was going to say during the dialogue with the 

contractor and the Board was the cred-- going 

back to the credibility of the data issue and 

whatever term you want to use, like I said. I 
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asked if the contractor had been examined -- 

been tasked or -- to examine the credibility of 

the data. You asked -- answered for them that 

it's inherent, or somewhere along those lines 

in there. I heard from Arjun that that's -- 

they were not specifically tasked to examine -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct. 

 MR. HORGAN: -- the credibility of the data, 

and they were specifically not asked to address 

the -- whatever term you use for falsification, 

erroneous recording, whatever. 

All I can say is that's the -- after listening 

to this dialogue to members of the Board, and 

it's been great, it's really been informative, 

that seems to be the over-- a big overriding 

question, one of -- I think there's two or 

three issues -- you know, timeliness, this 

toolbox thing, which I don't understand, and 

the -- the credibility of the data. I -- I was 

wondering, has the Board -- I mean as long as 

this issue is not addressed and as long as the 

contractor doesn't have a right to address 

this, rightly or wrongly or whatever, there's 

going to be a cloud over this process. And I 

was wondering, has the Board considered giving 
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I 

SC&A a task order to address the falsification 

or erroneous credibility of the data issue? 

think -- I think -- you can have another 

meeting in a month or another meeting in two, 

as long as that issue is not addressed I don't 

think you're going to have any type of closure 

on this and I would hope you would consider 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. So noted. Let us 

recess for lunch. And again, I urge you to 

come back as rapidly as you can. We'll try to 

reconvene around 1:30. We do have the ability 

to compress some of our things this afternoon. 

They are perhaps less controversial, so -- oh, 

a comment --

 MR. GRIFFON: Remember to read your matrixes 

over lunch. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, a word from Mark Griffon, read 

your matrix. 

 DR. WADE: You all got your matrix. Thank you. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 12:25 p.m. 

to 1:40 p.m.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to call the session back 

to order. We're a little bit pressed for time, 

but in fairly good shape. We have a couple of 
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presentations this afternoon. We have on the 

schedule NIOSH program update and DOL program 

update. And I think since Jeff Kotsch is here 

and ready to go, we're -- can we start with 

Department of Labor and then -- and then we'll 

catch NIOSH when Larry gets back, so -- 

 MS. MUNN: Mr. Chairman? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: I'd like to request that if it's at 

all possible we try to keep all of the 

Mallinckrodt information, all of the activities 

that we have related to Mallinckrodt on the 

agenda early rather than leave them till the 

very tail end. We have several people who 

might be leaving early and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, do we have some additional 

Mallinckrodt items? 

 DR. MELIUS: I would just like to try to talk 

to NIOSH a little bit -- I think we need to 

wait for Larry to come back -- about what 

specifically we would like them to do in 

preparation for (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we can do that. We can delay 

this just a moment and Larry is now coming in, 

so --
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 DR. MELIUS: I also have --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Jeff, we'll just hold off just 

a second. 

 DR. MELIUS: I also have an issue related to 

transparency and classification that I'd like 

to get addressed --

 DR. ZIEMER: We don't need to do that before 

the Mallinckrodt --

 DR. MELIUS: No, I'm just saying before we lose 

too many Board members -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- I think it'd be better if we 

did it --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. Proceed, Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: About -- oh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You wanted to raise the -- or you 

were going to suggest an approach here for -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Larry, this is --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- a timetable. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- directed at you and Jim Neton 

and so forth, but in terms of dealing with the 

Mallinckrodt petition, at least what I'd like 

to see you do for the next time is, rather than 

sort of a hypothetical example but with that 

same approach, look at a number of different 
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groups. And I don't -- it's feasible to do ten 

or whatever, but try to take a look at -- at 

what -- how well that approach is going to 

work, how comprehensive and, you know, will it 

be -- I guess will it be sufficient for dealing 

with what may be some of the more difficult 

groups to deal with in -- among the 

Mallinckrodt, whether it's some of the earlier 

years right after '49 or some of the groups for 

which there's a -- the data is not quite as 

complete or comprehensive. Again, I think we 

have to recognize that it's not going to be 

comprehensive for everybody and there are 

provisions for dealing with that within the 

approach you use and so forth, but that we have 

some examples to present that -- that would 

look at that, whether it's by department or job 

title -- some of the ideas that Richard and 

Mike brought up this morning. And again, we're 

not looking for you to do the dose 

reconstructions on everybody, per se, but just 

sort of be a little bit more convincing that 

that approach is going to really fill in the 

gaps and that you will be able to address the 

sufficient accuracy. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. What I'd like to 

do, and we don't have to do this in a formal 

motion, but this is an idea that Jim has 

expressed. But before we sort of mandate this 

to NIOSH, I want to make sure it's the sense of 

the Board that this is what you would like. 

Does anyone else wish to speak to that or 

indicate general agreement or ascent to that 

idea that addresses the issue that we had 

discussed. Wanda, did you wish to? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. Generally I agree with what 

Jim had to request. My personal feeling is 

that the number he suggested may be 

unnecessarily large. From my point of view, 

four or five such examples certainly should 

serve. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure you were mandating 

exactly ten. It's sort of, you know, enough to 

convince but not so many as to use all the time 

between now and then. 

 DR. MELIUS: 

 DR. ZIEMER: 

Exactly, yeah. 

A reasonable number, is that what 

--

 DR. MELIUS: A reasonable number, and I think -

-
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 DR. ZIEMER: Using judgment on that, perhaps. 

 DR. MELIUS: And some care going into the 

selection so that it's -- you know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask for others -- general 

consent that you're agreeable? 

Let the record show that there is general 

agreement on the part of the Board for that 

approach and we look forward to getting that 

information. 

I've had a chance to talk a little bit with Lew 

over the break about the schedule and so on, 

and Lew, in term-- you have a better feel now 

for turnaround time for addressing the St. 

Louis issue in the -- in the next meeting and 

so on? 

 DR. WADE: Yes. I mean I -- I think we all 

understand the need to proceed with dispatch on 

this issue, but I also think we understand the 

need to do this right. Given Joe Fitzgerald's 

considered comments about the need for SC&A to 

-- to really be tasked clearly and to look into 

the issues to depth, and I've talked to Jim 

Neton over the break about his needs to do what 

Dr. Melius just asked, it would occur to me 

that the timing will probably take us to our 
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next regularly-scheduled Board meeting. And I 

apologize for that, but I think, again, if 

we've learned any lesson here today it's to do 

the right things right, but to give us time to 

do them right. So I think that's probably what 

it will take us to. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All right. We're almost to the 

end of April here now and our next meeting is 

in July, so --

 DR. MELIUS: Actually early July, if I remember 

right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

DR. ROESSLER: Could we meet in St. Louis then 

instead of... 

 DR. WADE: I think we -- I mean there's a 

sentiment to that. Why don't you leave it to 

us to see about hotels and availability and -- 

before we commit to anything. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Our hope is to be able to do that, 

but we do need to make sure that we're able to. 

Okay. Thank you --

 DR. MELIUS: Can I just add to that? I mean if 

I -- this tentative Board agenda that someone 

passed out --

 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to come back to that, 
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by the way, but --

 DR. MELIUS: Well, but just in terms of 

location, it also mentions Y-12 and I just 

think --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and there's another -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- we need to account --

 DR. ZIEMER: There are other petitions coming 

down the line --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is the issue, right. Right. 

 DR. WADE: So with the wisdom of Solomon, we'll 

sort that out. 

 DR. MELIUS: Helluva bus ride. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. Let me ask now, do we have 

any other issues particularly pertaining to the 

Mallinckrodt site that we need to address here, 

for efficiency, so that we don't drag that 

topic out further? 

 (No responses) 

Okay. Then I think we're ready to proceed, and 

maybe we can go back to our original order 

then. Jeff, with your agreement, we'll let 

Larry proceed on his report. We had Jeff up at 

the mike and then we pushed him back down, but 

Larry, we're I think ready to hear the re-- the 
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NIOSH report. 

(Pause) 

Is Larry -- you have a question for Larry, 

Denise, before he begins his formal 

presentation? 

MS. BROCK: Not really. I was just curious if 

-- is there anything else that I need to be 

here for? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's why I asked the question. 

I think we have completed our discussions on 

the Mallinckrodt issue today. I'll kind of 

promise we won't bring up anything once you 

have left --

MS. BROCK: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- some major issue that could -- 

MS. BROCK: Okay, great. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll -- yes, I --

 DR. WADE: But if one comes up, we will inform 

you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think we have completed today. 

MS. BROCK: All right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We thank you for being here. 

MS. BROCK: Well, I wanted to thank everybody 

on the Board. I appreciate everybody's 

comments and your time in doing this. I know 
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it was a difficult decision and I greatly 

appreciate all you've done. Thank you very 

much. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, one more thing having to do 

with Mallinckrodt, Rich Espinosa. 

MR. ESPINOSA: One of the things that I would 

like to see happen, and I'm asking that the 

subcommittee of dose reconstruction look into 

this, is a blind review happen on some 

Mallinckrodt cases. It's just a suggestion for 

now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We do have some blind reviews to 

be scheduled. We have not selected the cases 

yet, and that certainly can be done. Whether 

or not that could be done before the next 

meeting is problematical. That -- is that what 

you're requesting? It may be that we could. 

MR. ESPINOSA: I'm not too -- I'm not too sure 

that it would have to be done before the next 

meeting, but as the next subcommittee meeting 

adjourns, I'm requesting that the subcommittee 

look into it and suggest -- and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Select? 

MR. ESPINOSA: -- select some cases -- 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MR. ESPINOSA: -- for a blind review. I just 

see a lot of good things coming out of a blind 

review, such as validation of the documents and 

stuff like that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, okay. Very good. So noted, 

and if Dr. Wade will help me remember that, 

we'll make sure that gets on the agenda. 

 DR. WADE: I think we both need help in that 

regard. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We both need help. 

 DR. WADE: We'll work on it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Now Larry will 

proceed. 

 NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. It's been 

a while since I gave you a program status 

report, but I'm here today to do that and I 

intend to give you as informative and an 

illustrative report as some of my staff have in 

the past, and I hope I can measure up in that 

regard. 

With regard to submittals from the Department 

of Labor for dose reconstruction to NIOSH, you 

can find that on this slide. I would note for 
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you that this data is current as of the end of 

March of this year and it's -- this slide 

shows, in red, those -- excuse me, those cases 

in blue that we have received from the 

Department of Labor; cases in green that have 

been sent out to claimants with their draft 

dose reconstruction report for their review and 

sign-off of the OCAS-1 form; and then those 

cases in red that have then made their way on 

to the Department of Labor for final 

adjudication. 

Things to point out on this slide, we still see 

a trend of incoming cases from DOL around the 

200 level mark -- 200 per month. There's a 

spike there you see in the January time frame, 

but it averages about 200 a month right now, 

between 200 and 300. 

We're somewhat consistent right now in our 

cases that we're sending out to claimants at 

about 500 per month, and then those that we 

send on to DOL range from 475 to 500 a month, 

as well. 

 This slide gives you a little information about 

the -- where the cases come from, from which 

district office, and reflects the larger sites 
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that you might expect. For Jacksonville's 

district office, Oak Ridge, Savannah River. 

You can see the Cleveland office handles a lot 

of AWE sites. It's coming in at about 21 

percent of the pie chart here, and Seattle next 

and then Denver bringing up the trail. I think 

when you see Jeff Kotsch's presentation from 

Labor, they'll be talking a little bit about a 

shift that they've made in their district 

office handling of certain cases for Missouri 

and -- I'm not sure which other state, but they 

have made a shift and I'll let Jeff speak to 

that -- that go to the Denver office from the 

Seattle office, so there's been a shift in that 

and he'll speak to that. 

The cases that we receive from the Department 

of Labor by quarter are depicted in this 

particular slide, and as you note -- I hope you 

note -- this is as of April 18th, last week. 

And I note for you that in the fifth (sic) 

quarter of this year, that only reflects cases 

received up through part of April. 

This graphic presents -- again, in a different 

way, portrays the draft dose reconstruction 

reports that have been sent to claimants. It 
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shows it on a monthly basis. As of April 18th 

-- again, last week -- we had sent -- or week 

before last, I guess -- we had sent out 8,537 

cases. Again, the month of April not being 

completed yet, that number of 193 doesn't 

reflect the full month. 

Draft modifications is portrayed here. And 

just so you know, draft modifications refer to 

the changes that occur in a draft dose 

reconstruction report while it's in the hands 

of the claimants, before that report has been 

sent on to the Department of Labor. A DR draft 

is considered modified when DOL provides NIOSH 

with new information that would affect the 

case, such as a new cancer, new employment 

information or something of that sort, or a 

change in the survivorship. Modified dose 

reconstructions are illustrated in blue and 

represent the draft dose reconstruction reports 

that have been modified due to the receipt of 

the new information from Labor. And the 

modified DRs that are sent back to Labor after 

they've been changed are shown in red. 

 The final dose reconstruction reports that have 

been sent to DOL are depicted in this slide on 
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a monthly basis. I'd be pleased to note for 

you that as of Monday this week, we went over 

the 8,000 mark. This slide was prepared last 

week, as of April 18th, and at that point there 

was 7,851. We have now gone over the 8,000 

mark back to DOL. 

With regard to our request for exposure 

information from the Department of Energy, we 

have sent 18,543 requests. We have received 

18,053 responses to those requests. The age of 

the outstanding requests are shown, those 

greater than 60 days being 74; 18 for greater 

than 90 days; 30 requests we've been waiting on 

for 120 days; and 50 requests we have been 

waiting on for over 150 days. I can speak -- I 

know this question's going to come from Dr. 

Melius, so I'm going to speak to it before he 

has to ask it. I'm going to save him a little 

time and it'll save us all a little -- little 

energy and just give you a quick summary. 

 Albuquerque operations office, particularly 

with regard to the site for Lawrence Livermore, 

we have seven requests that are over 60 days 

past due, and we have one request that's over 

120 days past due. 
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Amarillo operations office, Pantex being the 

site, three requests over 60 days. 

Chicago operations office, that would include 

Argonne East and Argonne West as the sites in 

question, five requests over 60 days, two 

requests over 90 days and four requests over 

120 days. 

 The General Electric facility in Vallecitos, 

California, we have 12 requests over 150 days 

and two that are over 120 days. 

Let me just run -- Richland operations office -

- this is Hanford and PNNL -- we have 29 

requests over 60, 13 over 90, 20 over 120, and 

25 over 150. 

The remainder are from Savannah River, Fernald, 

Nevada, Honeywell, and they vary in the dates. 

We follow up on these on a monthly basis. The 

numbers do change and we are digging into 

specifically now what's holding up any case 

beyond 90 days, and we will be making some 

determinations as to whether or not there is 

ever any information that's going to be 

forthcoming. So we have renewed our vigor in 

following up on those cases, besides just a 30-

day follow-up period. 
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Cases here that are shown are telephone 

interview statistics. These are the CATIs, the 

Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews. Cases 

for which at least one interview has been 

completed, 18,130. This is -- these numbers 

are, as you -- as you recall, a case can have 

more than one survivor and so we interview 

everybody associated with a case. So these 

numbers represent actual interviews beyond the 

-- just the single cases that we have. 

 Interview summary reports that have been sent 

to claimants, around 24,000 -- or 20 -- close 

to 25,000, and the number of interviews that 

have yet to be conducted for the claimants 

right now, or as of April 18th, were 270. 

Since January 1st of 2005 we have been 

conducting between 300 to 400 interviews per 

month, and you can see that on this slide -- 

shows how -- how the CATI process has -- has, I 

think, been a very successful aspect of our 

program, at least in showing some completion 

here. And these folks that do the Computer 

Assisted Telephone Interviews are also tasked 

with doing what is called the closeout 

interview, and that's not captured in this kind 
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of -- in this slide. These are only the 

interviews for the dose reconstruction that are 

shown here. Any closeout interviews -- 

everybody gets a closeout interview to make 

sure that they understand the report and we can 

answer any questions that they might have, or 

encourage them to sign the OCAS-1 or to provide 

additional information that might better inform 

the dose reconstruction on their claim. 

We have -- these statistics are -- basically 

can be found on our web site in the claim 

information page and shows the process of 

handling a claim. And as of April 18th, 2005 

we had 8,952 cases that were in a pre-dose 

reconstruction assignment development part of 

the process where information is being 

collected, interviews had been done, reports 

were being exchanged on those interviews with 

claimants, et cetera. 

Cases that have been assigned to a DR-ist 

(sic), a dose reconstructionist, 1,197. We 

have 477 draft dose reconstruction reports that 

had been sent to the claimants, were in the 

hands of the claimants. Again, this is as of 

April 18th. And we had sent, as of that date, 
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7,851 cases -- completed cases to Department of 

Labor. 

This graphic illustrates a cumulative figure of 

cases received by NIOSH in 1,000-block 

intervals or increments, with a breakdown of 

the overall cases by tracking number that have 

been completed. That's the number indicated on 

the top. And represented in red, the cases by 

tracking number that have been completed prior 

to January 1, 2005 -- that would be these 

(indicating), and then those that are 

represented in blue are the cases by tracking 

number that have been completed since January 

of 2005. This graphic's intended to give you a 

perspective on how we're doing with regard to 

the oldest cases, how we're doing within each 

one of these 1,000 incremental blocks, how 

we've done since January 1st of this year. 

There are pulled cases that are accounted for 

in these figures. A pulled case has been a 

case that DOL has retrieved from us for many 

reasons, perhaps -- the most -- it could be 

that -- that -- there have been cases sent to 

us that were CLL, and at this point in time 

we're -- CLL's the only cancer that's not 
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adjudicated under this program. It could be 

that -- the most unfortunate and most 

disturbing, to me, reason would be that the 

Energy employee or the only survivor of that 

Energy employee has deceased, and those are not 

-- those are very few, but I do watch those on 

a -- on a close -- very close basis. They have 

my attention. 

As mentioned at the previous Board meeting, we 

are focusing on completion of the first 5,000 

claims. We have been somewhat successful at 

reaching this goal. Since January 1st, 2005 

we've completed 120 cases in the 1,000 block, 

117 cases in the 2,000 block, 81 cases in the 

3,000 block, 87 cases in the 4,000 block, and 

103 cases in the 5,000 block. 

It's our -- we have a concerted effort underway 

and have set a goal that by June 30th of this 

year we will have attended to all of the 

remaining cases in that first 5,000, either 

through dose reconstruction or assignment to a 

Special Exposure Cohort class or a -- by 

completed dose reconstruction it could be 

actually a dose reconstruction sent to the 

Department of Labor or one that has been 
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drafted and placed in the hands of the 

claimants. So ORAU has some incentives to do 

this and we're working very closely with them 

to make sure that this goal is achieved. I 

think it's very important that we attend to 

this. This is part of our timeliness concern 

that we're facing. 

 Administratively closed records are shown in 

this graphic by month, since we first started 

tracking these. And what happens here is where 

we have a situation where, for whatever reason, 

the claimant decides not to sign the OCAS-1 

form, not to return it to us, has perhaps got 

to the point of a height of frustration with 

the program or with us or whatever and they -- 

they've just shut off communications with us. 

We do go back to them. We try to talk them 

through the process, try to encourage them to 

file the OCAS-1. We encourage them to do that. 

We explain to them that if they have another 

cancer, if they have additional employment, we 

could follow up on that together. We explain 

that the signing of the OCAS-1 is not an 

agreement that they sign saying they are in 

full agreement with our dose reconstruction, 
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but it is simply that they have no further 

information to provide and it allows the case 

to move forward so that a decision can be 

proffered from DOL. And as you can see, we're 

dealing with a few of these but not very many. 

Reworks. I talked about modifications earlier. 

Well, reworks are a little bit different breed 

here. A rework refers to a process that occurs 

at the final dose reconstruction report stage, 

meaning that the case has been in the hands of 

the Department of Labor. And in this 

situation, something has been identified by the 

Department of Labor or by the claimant that 

would require us to go back and revise our dose 

reconstruction report, redo the reconstruction 

or add new -- because of new information, add 

to that report. These -- these revisions can 

be initiated because of additional employment, 

additional cancer, new information that the 

claimant identified after they had signed the 

OCAS-1 and sent it on to -- and we had sent it 

on to DOL. So there's a variety of reasons as 

to why these are -- are kicked back to us from 

the Department of Labor. 

We maintain a high level of contact with the 
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claimant population through phone calls and 

correspondence and e-mails, and that's shown on 

this slide. Our contractor receives the bulk 

of the phone calls, and I believe this also 

includes the CATIs, as well as the -- this 

150,000 number of phone calls to ORAU includes 

CATIs and closeout interviews. 

 Pardon me? 

 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

finish up (unintelligible). 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. Pick it up -- pick it up, 

he says. 

Last time we had some interest in hearing more 

about the compensation rates by cancer model, 

and this slide presents some of the caveats 

associated with the slides that I'm going to 

show after this. These results that I'm about 

to present to you are through April 20th of 

this year. They're based on claims which NIOSH 

received notice from the Department of Labor of 

a compensation decision, so there's a number of 

claims that won't be included in this that are 

still at -- are at DOL, but we haven't learned 

from DOL what the final decision was. These 

rates may be skewed by the DR efficiency 
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process. The rates may not be predictive of 

any future results. And unless otherwise 

noted, the rates reflect claims with only one 

reported primary cancer. Does not include 

secondaries or multiples, unless so indicated. 

As you might expect, lung tops the list here at 

almost 70 percent. Leukemia's a close second 

at 67 and 61 and 56, then we see liver and 

other types of leukemia, endocrine gland and 

other respiratory. 

 DR. MELIUS: Lew, if you and Paul could try not 

to get your heads together because -- 

 DR. WADE: We will not get our heads together 

again. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. I thought that was 

just a bump in the road trying to get me to 

hurry up. 

 But non-melanoma skin is shown here, and 

several other cancers. I'm not going to go 

through this. You have it -- have these 

slides, as well, in your briefing packet and 

they're on the table for the public. But I 

think it's indicative of the radiogenicity of 

the cancer, as we suspected, based upon the 

scientific knowledge and understanding of 
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cancer causation. 

Nothing much here I want to say about this 

slide. You can peruse the numbers as you can. 

 Trying to pick up the pace here, this is -- 

this is where I need to make notice for you 

that at least one secondary cancer, primary 

cancer unknown, we see about a 71 percent 

compensation rate. For cases where we have 

multiple primary cancers, we show about 42 

percent. 

The percent of -- there are -- for those 

cancers where we have 30 or more claims and we 

have not seen anything -- any -- any of those 

claims compensated are listed at the bottom of 

this slide. I do know that there is one female 

genitalia that I think Labor has in their hands 

right now that may be compensable. We have to 

wait and see what happens with that one, a very 

high dose. 

Petitions received, we're moving on to a 

different topic here, but petitions that we 

have received, 26 total. We have 20 active in 

our hands. HHS decision has been made on one, 

that would be Mallinckrodt for the years '42 

through '48, as you know. There have been six 
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petitions administratively closed for lack of 

basis. 

Our -- briefly, our accomplishments since the 

last Board meeting, we have exceeded sending 

8,000 dose reconstruction reports to DOL. 

We've seen Secretary Leavitt's final decision 

to add a class of workers for Mallinckrodt. 

That was sent to Congress on April 11, 2005. 

We have participated in 33 meetings at 13 sites 

since March 1st. This is a huge commitment of 

staff effort. We send not one, but we send 

several people -- PHA, a public health -- or a 

health physicist, public health analyst, a 

communications specialist -- typically to these 

meetings, and it's been a very resourceintensive effort. But I think it's been very 

beneficial to us and to the people who show up 

at those meetings. We can answer questions. 

You may have seen a different presence here at 

this meeting for NIOSH. We've had public 

availability sessions at this meeting where 

we've asked claimants -- we noticed all of the 

Iowa claimants that we would be here. I've had 

mixed results on this -- from why'd you tell me 

that you were going to be here when you can't 
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tell me that anything's changed, to hey, it's 

good to see a face associated with my claim. 

So we're evaluating our presence and our -- how 

we represent ourselves at these meetings, and I 

would appreciate hearing any thoughts or 

comments that the Board members have, on an 

individual basis, about that. 

Finally, we would lay claim that 12 Technical 

Basis Documents have been approved since 

January, and seven Technical Information 

Bulletins have been approved. 

I think that will conclude mine and I'll gladly 

answer questions, and I'm sorry if I was too 

quick and I glossed over things that you wanted 

to hear more about. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll have time for a couple of 

questions, and I should tell you why Lew and I 

had our heads together. We are eliminating 

Jeff from the program. He's aware of it. You 

have the Labor report in your document, so that 

will help us with the time a little bit. 

Jim, and then Leon. 

 DR. MELIUS: Larry, I thought you --

 DR. ZIEMER: Larry already answered your 

question, Jim. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Yes, I know, and I was saying he 

stymied me, but I've got to come up with some 

new questions or a new way of asking 'cause 

I'll give you credit, the cases completed by 

tracking number -- my usual question is how 

many have you -- what have you done for me 

lately, and you know, you've got that on there, 

so that's -- that is helpful. 

I have a comment and a question. My comment is 

sort of the half-full, half-empty sort of 

argument, but if my calculations are right -- 

and they're certainly at least ballpark -- it 

still leaves you within the first 5,000 with 

about 2,400 of those first 5,000 to be 

completed; 3,200 of the next 5,000 to be 

completed, and so on. And at the completion 

rate that you're going at now, assuming even no 

new cases, I believe that's at least two years 

to catch up with the backlog and presumably 

with the current rate of increase -- of claims 

coming in, I think that stretches it out to 

about three to four years to -- or closer to 

four years to catch up with the backlog. Now 

that's assuming no SECs and making lots of 

other assumptions. So I guess I'd like to have 
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a little bit more information. One, on what 

you're doing with the backlog to catch up, and 

secondly, how we're dealing with -- who is that 

backlog? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Who is that backlog? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, what kinds of ca-- I believe 

in the past I've asked for information on -- 

can you tell us the -- why -- why are we having 

problems with these? Is it -- what --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, since there's two -- over 

200 sites represented in our caseload, as you 

know. Several of those are AWE sites. Several 

-- we have several individual cases where just 

one or two cases from a given site. We won't 

have a site profile for those. We're looking 

at what we can do for those on an individual 

basis. We have employed an overestimation 

approach, a new Technical Information Bulletin 

that provides an overestimation approach, and 

if the case is compensable, we move it on. If 

it's not and we have to refine our dose 

reconstruction or find information to process 

that case, we do so. 

I think you're going to -- from this meeting to 

the next meeting you're going to see a dramatic 
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increase in our rate of production, given some 

of the things you just alluded to, that SEC 

classes are going to help us out with reducing 

our backlog. This overestimation approach that 

we've approved for the ORAU folks to use is 

going to help. We're -- we've talked to them 

about adding staff where we need to add staff 

to get this work done. There's a variety of 

efforts underway. Now without, you know, going 

into greater detail -- that I don't have at my 

fingertips right now -- I can't -- I can't add 

any more. 

 DR. MELIUS: My recollection is that ORAU was 

working on some evaluations or reports related 

to some of this -- these backlog issues -- 

again, specifying who was rep-- who was 

included in that backlog by type of case or 

site or something. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's right. 

 DR. MELIUS: Could those be made available to 

the Board, at least, if you don't have time 

to... 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, I don't think they're -- 

they're in a shape or form that I'm happy with 

yet. We're working with the contract-- our 
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contractor to get to a point of understanding 

on how we're approaching our backlog issue in a 

variety of ways, and I'm not at a juncture 

where I'm ready to commit publicly to how -- 

the different approaches that we're applying. 

We're working on that, and as soon as we have 

something that I can make publicly available, I 

will. 

 DR. MELIUS: Is there a time frame on that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I hope we'll be able to say more 

about that at the next meeting in July. 

 DR. MELIUS: I mean I'd just point out -- I 

mean this -- there's a lot of frustration which 

we've heard today from Mallinckrodt, and we 

heard yesterday with Iowa, about the length of 

time it's taking for cases to be processed 

through this program. And I mean I think a 

much more -- I mean I think a plan needs to be 

developed and it needs to be shared with the 

public --

 MR. ELLIOTT: I agree --

 DR. MELIUS: -- as soon as possible. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I agree 100 percent. But 

let's keep things in perspective here. Iowa, 

we -- we sent letters out to the Iowa claimants 
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once we were dealing with the revision to their 

site profile and indicated that we were no 

longer processing dose reconstructions until we 

had a revised site profile. Now that we have a 

decision -- a recommendation for a class, we're 

watching what's going to happen with that 

decision on that class. 

 Mallinckrodt, we have a revised site profile. 

We are dealing with a petition. We have --

have no recommendation. We will go back and 

start processing claims under Mallinckrodt Rev. 

1 site profile immediately, and we're going to 

start moving those claims through as we await 

this Board's deliberation on -- on 

Mallinckrodt, and then finally a decision on 

Mallinckrodt as an SEC, so I'd just offer that. 

I agree with you 100 percent. We need a cogent 

plan and we're working toward that end. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I think we need to reevaluate the approach entirely. I find it 

increasingly unacceptable that people are 

having to wait this long. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Leon Owens. 

MR. OWENS: Larry, I had an opportunity to 

attend three of the DOL outreach meetings in 
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Paducah, and I would like to compliment Mr. Stu 

Hinnefeld and Ms. Heidi Deep. Particularly -- 

Stu fielded some very tough questions. We had 

a large -- large group of workers in 

attendance, and so I do think it adds a lot of 

benefit, a lot of value to have NIOSH 

representatives present at those meetings. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I thank you for that, Leon, and 

it's kind words like that that keep us going 

with these difficult challenges. I would like 

to add, though, that the 33 and the 13, the 

statistics in those outreach meetings, do not 

include our worker outreach, our worker input. 

Those are just the town hall meetings that DOL 

has sponsored. So while we're doing that, 

we're also going out and doing our own worker 

outreach. As you know, we spent a session down 

in Paducah during this time period since the 

last meeting, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Henry and then Mark. 

DR. ANDERSON: Just quickly, you mentioned the 

-- we're now going to be getting into some of 

the site profile updates. What -- what's the 

process? I think you mentioned you would 

potentially go back through those that have 
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already been adjudicated to see if it'd make a 

change? How -- how's that happen? I mean --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we do that --

DR. ANDERSON: -- that could get to be very 

onerous. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, it is resource-intensive, as 

everything we do here in this program. It 

consumes us. But we have a standard operating 

procedure, one of those procedures which has 

been reviewed in task three, which is called 

program evaluation reporting where if a change 

is made -- and we've made numerous changes, 

numerous revisions in site profiles, as you may 

know. And each time one of those is -- is 

completed, one of those revisions is completed, 

we look back through the cases that were dose 

reconstructed under that particular version, 

and the evaluation must include whether or not 

the modification that was made or a change in 

the site profile that was made would affect the 

compensability outcome of the case. So if the 

case was already found compensable, we 

disregard it. 

If it's found non-compensable under the prior 

version, we evaluate the change and whether it 
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would make a difference in the compensability. 

If it does, we reprocess that dose 

reconstruction, notify the Department of Labor 

and the claimant that we're doing so and we 

send that revised dose reconstruction back. 

To date, I do not believe -- Jim could correct 

me if I'm wrong, if he's still in the room, but 

I do not believe that we have made any changes 

-- we've not seen any non-compensables turn 

into compensables based upon revisions that 

we've made. 

DR. ANDERSON: That was my next question, yeah. 

Thanks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just a quick one, Larry. 

I -- I think it might have been last meeting 

you mentioned that -- or it was -- I think the 

question was raised and you had mentioned that 

ORAU was doing a report for you on selfidentified SEC classes, and I wondered if that 

was completed yet. And if it is, if the Board 

can get a --

 MR. ELLIOTT: We -- we -- it's not -- I've sent 

it back because I wasn't -- I wasn't fully 

satisfied in how that was developed. I want to 
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see more detail in it and more effort put 

toward that end, and we're awaiting a revision 

of that report. I can tell you that some of 

the -- some of the sites that involve early 

years we're really focusing our attention on 

that. I've asked specifically, because I know 

-- we've got Linde site profile in our hands, 

and if you've looked at it, you know that it is 

reserved for the early years, and I'm saying 

that right there, in my opinion, is a potential 

class and so we should look at that. We are 

looking at Linde, we're looking at NUMEC, 

there's a variety of those sites that have -- 

in the early years where their data is nonexistent to very minimal, or the monitoring 

program was not what we would hope it should 

have been, we would like to have seen it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That can be -- when it -- when 

it's completed, it can be provided to the 

Board? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yep. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. Thank you very 

much, Larry, for the update. I think we're 

ready to move on. We have one item on our 

afternoon agenda that may have some substantial 
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discussion, and that's the first 20 dose 

reconstruction case wrap-up, and we have -- the 

subcommittee met earlier this week -- was that 

this week? Monday -- Monday morning, and most 

of you were actually here for that, but we have 

the materials that come to us as a 

recommendation from the subcommittee. I think 

it would be helpful if the Chair identified to 

you again what those materials are. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, can you help us? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- I was just going to ask, does 

it make sense -- I know Jim said he had a 

motion, and then we have a task order for SEC 

task to consider. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We have --

 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- this is going to be a 

lengthy process, so I'm just afraid that we 

might lose --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's an issue of what should 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) numbers -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- go first. Actually the --

 MR. GRIFFON: I know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the task order for SEC was -- 
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we had a draft of that, I think, in our 

telephone --

 DR. MELIUS: And we said we would take 

action... 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we would act on it here. 

Perhaps --

 DR. MELIUS: I have a copy if we need --

 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps we can act on that quickly 

since --

 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

have it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that was developed. We've had 

that for a month or so. Would you like to do 

that next? It is the next item. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think tho-- yeah, those two. 

 DR. MELIUS: And with -- with the Chair's 

permission, can I hand out the issue related to 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- transparen-- so these people 

can glance at it. 

 SEC PETITION REVIEW TASK ORDER

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's -- let's get the 

document before us. It's called Special 

Exposure Cohort petition review task order. 
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The draft does not have a date on it. I guess, 

for convenience, put today's date on it. 

(Pause) 

This would be task five for our contractor. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And we --

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim -- Jim is passing out an item 

which is a different issue, so that doesn't -- 

this is not part of the item before us here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We had a -- I mean we had a 

fairly lengthy discussion on this on the 

previous Advisory Board phone call meeting, and 

I -- I think -- well, I think we just need to 

consider it now, and there might be -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- possible amendments to it that 

we want to consider, I don't know, but... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Does everybody have a copy? I'm 

actually trying to recall whether this came out 

of the subcommittee. Lew, can you help me -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: It was --

 DR. WADE: Yes, it was prepared in -- really 

during and after our subcommittee meeting in 

Cincinnati, and then it was placed before the 

Board on its phone call on -- I think it was 

April 11th, and there was discussion of the 
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full Board, reserving for this meeting action 

on the -- on the task. 

I think there's also the possibility that if 

this task document is agreeable to the -- to 

the Board, the Board might instruct me to 

undertake the independent government cost 

estimate, which would expedite the matter. But 

I think first there needs to be an intellectual 

agreement on this document. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'll interpret the document as 

coming from the subcommittee. It constitutes a 

motion, does not require a second. It's open 

for discussion. Basically what we have before 

us is a motion to approve a task concerning 

Special Exposure Cohort petition reviews. 

Wanda Munn. 

 MS. MUNN: I don't know whether my note on this 

-- the copy that I have -- is something that I 

made during the time we were discussing it and 

whether it was something we agreed to, or 

whether it's just a note that I've made to 

myself. 

Item number three, (reading) the contractor 

will be required to review -- I have inserted 

"up to" --
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 DR. ZIEMER: That's correct, we -- 

 MS. MUNN: That was a part of our discussion, 

wasn't it? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We basically agreed that we 

weren't guaranteeing that there would be eight, 

so the scope would be up to eight. I think we 

had agreed on that. I don't see that in this, 

but in paragraph three, without objection, add 

the words "up to" eight SEC petitions. That 

scopes an upper limit for purposes of the cost 

estimate, not guaranteeing to the contractor 

that there would necessarily be this many 

petitions. We don't know how many we would 

need reviewed. Thank you. 

 MS. MUNN: And I have --

 DR. ZIEMER: Another? 

 MS. MUNN: -- one other issue. Although there 

is nothing in this particular item which would 

point to my concern, nevertheless it's a 

concern I want to raise. 

When we first began looking at task orders for 

our contractor, we -- I was under the 

impression that the contractor was going to be 

providing -- specifically -- technical, 

scientific expertise that we were not able to 
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provide here in our own group. And I -- I had 

no -- at that time, we reviewed some of the 

credentials of virtually all of the people that 

was my understanding would be the primary 

actors in what SC&A would be doing for us. 

On our last telephone call we had a 

considerable amount of input from a policy 

individual that I questioned afterwards and was 

told that that individual had become a part of 

our -- our SC&A task force. I was a little 

taken aback by that because I did not -- I was 

unaware of the fact that -- that we were 

providing our -- our contractor with 

instructions to follow our -- our directive by 

way of inviting policy makers on the team. I 

guess -- because we're now in the process of 

putting together another task, I guess -- 

although I don't see that it's the Board's 

requirement to review the credentials of every 

person that our contractor chooses to -- to 

take on, I do have to question that particular 

item as -- with respect to credentials. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. This may be an issue 

we would have to discuss with the contractor in 

that particular case. Lew, do you have any 
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comments on that or can you shed any light on 

that? 

 DR. MELIUS: I have some comments when -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I was not on the phone call. To 

address this? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, my recollection is that -- 

if I'm guessing right at the individual you're 

referring to -- is that he was listed as a 

member of the team when we approved the initial 

contract, and so it was not a surprise to me to 

see him and hear that he was involved in -- in 

doing this and was listed in a -- I thought at 

the time when we approved it -- in an 

appropriate fashion and in an appropriate role, 

and -- again, if I'm guessing right at who 

you're referring to 'cause I was not part of 

this more recent phone call -- was that he was 

also -- has a considerable knowledge about the 

DOE complex and I believe has been -- if he's -

- to the extent that he's played a role, and I 

don't think it's been a major one, has been 

based on his historical knowledge of 

information throughout the -- the complex, 

particularly on specific sites. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Not necessarily technical, but 
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information on or knowledge of -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Availability of technical 

information. I mean --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- availability of technical 

information. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- the particular individual is 

fairly knowledgeable technically, but -- again, 

my sense is he's -- and recollection at the 

time is he's being used -- was to be used and 

involved in an appropriate way, given his 

knowledge and background. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: If that is in fact the case, then I 

must have been completely blind at the time 

that we were -- time I thought I was paying 

attention. I am not comfortable with that. 

am not at all comfortable with individuals 

other than the technical expertise I clearly 

understood we were seeking from our contractor. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And again, that may be 

an issue we would explore, perhaps with our -- 

with our contractor. Whether or not that 

impacts directly on this motion, I'm not sure. 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I just -- I would hope, given 

some of our past history, that if we're going 

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to try to deal with issues like that, that we 

would do it with full involvement of the Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other comments on 

-- on this particular document? 

 DR. WADE: Could I ask a clarifying question, 

Mark, since -- I assume that you're listing 

here a number of tasks, any or all of which 

could be engaged, depending upon the Board's 

wishes. So it's not that all of these things 

will be done, it's up to the Board as to what 

would be done. Is that correct? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I guess we -- I mean we had 

-- you mentioned on the conference call that we 

had, and I don't know if we want to amend this 

to give an option at the discretion of the 

Board to make a decision as to whether we want 

a more limited scope for certain reviews or the 

full scope. And that mi-- you know, that might 

be something we want to consider. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It would seem to me that if we had 

a task that was sort of encompassing, then we 

could use that for a particular issue, or 

portions of the task, could we not? Is it not 

better to have a broad task under which work 

can be done rather than a very narrow one that 
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confines you so you cannot do certain things? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, my sense was also that 

number two here would be developing the 

procedures that were going to be used and very 

well that one of those procedures would be the 

option to sort of focus on different -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Procedures would --

 DR. MELIUS: -- evaluations as we --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- spell that out. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- go --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- along, and -- and again, I 

don't know if we need to include it here, but 

certainly as we operationalize this that we 

should take that into account 'cause it may 

very well be appropriate, and to make these 

more timely, also, I think. 

 DR. WADE: I am comfortable with that. I just 

wanted to make sure that was the sense of -- of 

the Board. I think this gives me that 

flexibility, but I wanted to clarify that 

sense. 

 DR. MELIUS: And as I said on the conference 

call, I am uncomfortable with trying to do this 

piecemeal, one question at a time, or two 
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questions, 'cause I think it's just going to 

tie us up and we're going to lose consistency 

over time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments? 

 (No responses) 

Okay. Are you ready to vote on this document 

then? Let us vote. 

All in favor will say aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 Any opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 Motion carries. Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: And then a clarification. Do I have 

the permission of the Board to undertake 

developing an independent government cost 

estimate to this task? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any objections to have our... 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Our official will proceed 

with that. 

 DR. MELIUS: I actually think the sooner we can 

get this in place, the better -- given the 

numbers Larry just showed. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Just a logistic question. I 

think you have the most electronic version, 

minus the "up to" eight ca-- so if you can just 

-- I don't need to send any revised versions -- 

 DR. WADE: No, I'm fine with that. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We have a proposed motion 

from Jim Melius. We also have -- which may or 

may not be a long issue, but I believe the -- 

the case report -- the 20-case wrap-up is 

really the important issue that we need to 

address before we lose a quorum. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know, I think if we want 

to -- you want to -- I would -- I would defer 

to this motion first and then -- I think that 

makes more sense. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. The Chair will recognize 

Jim for the purpose of making a motion. 

 DISCUSSION, LEGAL OPINION FROM DOJ

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. This motion cames out (sic) 

-- (unintelligible) from our discussions 

yesterday and -- or maybe it's out lack of 

discussions or ability to discuss the reported 

legal opinion from the Department of Justice. 

And I'm not sure whether we want to task NIOSH 

with this or whether it would be better to be a 
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letter to the Secretary asking -- 'cause this 

is a response 'cause at least it's implied to 

us that the Office of General Counsel for the 

Department is where -- at least this was 

communicated for -- this opinion was 

communicated from, so let -- why don't I read 

the motion into the record. 

The Board has serious concerns about the 

reported Department of Justice legal opinion 

regarding the handling of classified 

information as the basis for decisions within 

the Special Exposure Cohort program. While 

fully supporting the need for preventing the 

release of classified information, the Board 

also recognizes the importance of transparency 

to the EEOICPA program. Due to the long 

history of secrecy at DOE nuclear facilities, 

former workers are very suspicious of secrecy 

related to any health-related information used 

as the basis for their claims. 

 The Board respectfully requests the following 

information: One, who requested this legal 

opinion and what was the rationale for the 

request; number two, what agencies were 

involved in the discussion of this legal 
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opinion and to what extent does this opinion 

apply to programs in those agencies; number 

three, requesting a copy of the legal opinion 

and a presentation by an attorney familiar with 

the basis for the opinion at our next meeting. 

 The Board believes this information is critical 

for the Board to properly and fully carry out 

our responsibilities under EEOICPA. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You've heard the motion. Is there 

a second? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The motion has been seconded. 

It's open for discussion. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: I feel I have to repeat the question 

that I asked yesterday. I don't understand why 

bullets one and two are of any consequence. 

Who requested it, why it was requested, doesn't 

seem to be an issue. The Department of Justice 

is within its prerogative to do that. Asking 

for a copy of the legal opinion and an attorney 

familiar with the basis is, in my view, 

certainly within our prerogative and we made 

the statement in the first paragraph that 

workers are suspicious and that concerns us. 

really do not see that bullets one and two are, 

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frankly, germane. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you making a formal motion to 

exclude them or are you just raising the 

question? 

 MS. MUNN: I would move that we exclude bullets 

one and two. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. There's a motion to exclude 

bullets one and two. Is there a second? 

 DR. DEHART: I second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. Now what is open 

for discussion is the removal of bullets one 

and two. You may speak in favor of the motion, 

you may speak in opposition to the motion. 

Indicate what your -- Roy. 

 DR. DEHART: I'm speaking in favor of the 

motion. I'm not certain that that information 

has any bearing on the action of the Board. 

The impact of the legal opinion does, but who 

may have instituted the inquiry or whether or 

not it was done solely from the Department of 

Justice I think is immaterial. 

I would also ask the question, have we seen the 

full opinion, so I think that needs to be put 

in the motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The motion asks for a copy of the 
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opinion, I believe, yeah. 

 DR. DEHART: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Bullet three --

 DR. DEHART: Well, how can we have a concern 

when we haven't seen the full opinion? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We've seen a slide depicting the 

opinion. 

 DR. DEHART: I would put that in there, we have 

not seen the opinion. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I tried to address that by 

saying the reported Department of Justice legal 

opinion, in the first sentence. That was what 

I was trying to get at. 

To speak --

 MS. MUNN: Alleged. 

 DR. MELIUS: To speak against the motion to 

remove --

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- I'd like to explain -- was -- I 

thought it would be helpful to understand the 

context for this opinion, and that would be 

knowing who requested it, what was the 

rationale for that request, as well as in 

bullet two, what other agencies were involved. 

 For example -- and I guess we didn't get to 
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hear this presentation today, but I'm aware 

that the Department of Labor is developing 

their regulations regarding Subtitle E, and so 

issues of classification versus due process and 

so forth may be something they're wrestling 

with at the time. That would sort of put this 

in context and I think help to -- help us to 

understand what was involved. Also to know how 

this was being applied, was there a related 

opinion that was being developed for Department 

of Labor's program or for some other part of 

this program, and it would just, I think, more 

fully inform us about this opinion and be able 

to understand it better. And that was the 

rationale for bullets one and two. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I guess I'm speaking 

against. I -- I would agree, I -- I guess what 

I'd like to know is was this done specifically, 

narrowly and for our program or what's often -- 

it could be that this is a general opinion 

related to classified information that then 

sweeps us up in the late notification as 

somebody looked at this and said this may 

impact you, when in fact it was developed for 
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other programs. And that places our issues in 

context and might then result of a need for a 

more detailed review or comment on specifically 

our program. It's for -- if it's for our 

program and it was apparent nobody here knew 

about it, that is also important to know. So 

you know, I think it would be -- the context of 

it and how broad-sweeping it is -- we may learn 

that when we get a copy of it, and it may all 

be in that copy as to who it's being sent to, 

but I just think it would be helpful to know 

how specific is it to they reviewed our program 

versus other issues. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Wanda, do you wish to speak 

for your motion? 

 MS. MUNN: It still doesn't matter whether it's 

just our program or whether it's the whole wide 

world. The Department of Justice is within 

their prerogative to do that. As a matter of 

fact, it's their responsibility to do that. 

And so since they're doing it, from our 

perspective our only concern needs to be how it 

affects our program. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Others who wish to speak in 

-- okay, Michael? 
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 MR. GIBSON: I think it's important to leave 

the first two bullets in there only because 

we've tried to -- been open and honest and work 

in good faith with NIOSH and Department of 

Labor and everyone else in this program. I 

think it's just -- it'd be a good road map and 

a good history to determine how this was -- was 

-- what the genesis was for this, since no one 

seemed to be able to tell us earlier. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Henry, did you have 

another comment? 

DR. ANDERSON: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Anyone else wish to speak for or 

against the motion? 

 (No responses) 

Are you ready to vote? This is a motion to 

delete bullets one and two. If you vote yes, 

you are voting to delete those two bullets. A 

no vote is a vote to retain them. Okay? 

Those who favor deleting bullets one and two, 

raise your hand, we'll get a count here -- one, 

two, three and the Chair will vote, four. 

And those who oppose deleting the bullets -- 

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, so the 

bullet -- the motion loses and the bullets will 
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remain in. 

We are now back to the original motion with all 

bullets in place. Now this may pose a dilemma 

for those who voted against the bullets because 

they may favor the main motion but be concerned 

about the bullets. That's the nature of what 

happens when things are amended or not amended. 

Sometimes you take the good with the bad. 

But let me ask if there's any further 

discussion, in which case we will vote for the 

main motion as unamended. Are you ready to 

vote? 

Okay. All who favor the motion, say aye -- or 

let me ask for a show of hands. Okay, one, 

two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 

nine, ten. 

Opposing? One. And no abstentions? And the 

motion thereby carries. 

It appears to the Chair that this should be a 

request to the Secretary. 

 DR. MELIUS: I believe so, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And if that's the case -- and I 

may need some help here. 

Our normal role is to advise the Chair -- or to 

advise the Secretary. Lew, is there any 
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problem if we simply -- we are asking the 

Secretary if this -- if this information can be 

provided. Is that appropriate or should -- 

should we go through NIOSH on this. 

 DR. WADE: I don't think there's any problem 

with it, in my opinion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. With that added comment, 

then, the Chair will proceed -- do I have to do 

this in 21 days? We will -- we will send this 

forth as soon as possible. Thank you. Mark. 

 DR. WADE: Could I take up an issue before 

Mark, just -- the future schedule? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to run out of time. 

 FUTURE SCHEDULE

 DR. WADE: It'll take two minutes. But would 

someone get Cori in the room as I start to do 

this? I would refer you to this piece of paper 

you have, a future schedule. The only reason I 

do it, there is a key decision that needs to be 

made, triggered by this piece of paper. Very 

briefly, all I'm trying to do with this is at 

every meeting to look two meetings out and give 

you a sense of what might be coming downstream. 

I think it is terribly important that we 

coordinate, for example, comments back from 
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your contractor on the TBD as we might be 

contemplating an SEC petition, for example. 

And I think there are many things that will 

come from this. 

If you'll look at the July meeting, there are 

some changes already. You've asked that we 

take some of the task three work and move it 

from the October meeting to the July meeting, 

and I'll take that as an instruction from the 

Board. We need to add the Mallinckrodt SEC 

work now to the July meeting. You have just 

asked in your letter to the Secretary for a 

transparency issue briefing at the July 

meeting. I am operating on the assumption -- 

Larry, correct me if I'm wrong -- that the IAAP 

-- IAAP SEC rad workers issue might not have to 

be worked, given the action with regard to the 

SEC, or does it still need to be worked? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it still needs to be 

worked up and given to the Board as an 

evaluation report because the Board took 

separate action on that. They're awaiting our 

evaluation report. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Thank you. The only issue 

that requires work is you'll notice that we 
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would expect to discuss a Y-12 SEC petition in 

July. The Y-12 site profile review is on your 

contractor's list. Right now it's late in 

their scheduling. I would like you to consider 

elevating it in the scheduling so that they can 

begin to work on it now, so you would have as 

much possible benefit of their review as 

possible when we come together in July. So I 

ask for the sense of the Board that that would 

be acceptable to you. If it is -- I've already 

discussed this with Joe and I think he's ready 

to proceed. I didn't want to take that action 

without consulting with the Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any -- any comments by the Board 

members or --

 DR. MELIUS: I think that'd be good. 

Can I have one other comment -- agenda comment, 

though? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. The Bethlehem TBD or the 

review of it and so forth, I believe -- well, I 

actually know, because of -- I was copied on 

some correspondence. The Congressional 

delegation in western New York and our two 

senators had -- had requested clarification 
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from DOL. I think it's -- the issue is were 

there additional runs at the -- Bethlehem 

Steel. And last I heard, which was a couple of 

weeks ago, was that there had been no response 

from Department of Labor on that issue. I just 

think it'd be worth exploring on the part of 

NIOSH to -- just as a scheduling issue, 'cause 

potentially the DOL response could change the 

site profile one way or the other, and I'd hate 

to have us deal with it, particularly given the 

long history there, and then have -- suddenly 

have a -- some change come down from DOL. It 

may very well be that it doesn't affect it, but 

 DR. WADE: Okay, I understand, and I will take 

on that action. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: Now we have a Board meeting 

scheduled in early July. Cori, the tentative 

dates are? 

 MR. GIBSON: Sixth, 7th and 8th. 

 MS. MUNN: Sixth, 7th and 8th. 

 DR. WADE: The 6th, 7th and 8th? We were 

contemplating meeting in Oak Ridge. We now 

have this competing need for a St. Louis 
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meeting. I don't know that we can resolve that 

today. I know, Mr. Presley, you had comments 

you wanted to --

 DR. MELIUS: Paducah, half way. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I've got a real concern. If we 

meet in Oak Ridge July -- or anywhere else, 

especially Oak Ridge -- Oak Ridge has -- for 

the last 20 years we in Oak Ridge, including 

myself, we get two days holiday. This year it 

lie-- it goes for a Monday and Tuesday. A lot 

of people in Oak Ridge are off and take 

vacation that whole total week, 'cause that 

gives them nine days. I do not feel like that 

that would be fair to the people in Oak Ridge 

if we have a meeting on a holiday weekend. 

I also do not feel like that it would be fair 

to people in -- anywhere else if we have a 

meeting on a holiday weekend. We get enough 

concerns and bounce-backs about some of the 

other things that we do, without having 

meetings on holiday weekends and have to travel 

on weekends ourselves and things like this. 

That's my concern. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. I don't know that we're 

going to be able to work through this right 
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now. I think I -- I understand that concern. 

If you would leave it to myself and staff to 

try to work through these issues, realize that 

there are -- there are definitely competing 

demands on us and we will try again with the 

wisdom of Solomon to work through this. 

 MR. PRESLEY: With the wisdom of Solomon, if we 

can work through this, can you do it as early 

as possible? I hate to get down a week or two 

before a meeting and then have to start making 

arrangements. I think that goes for all of us. 

 DR. WADE: Understood. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lew. Yes, Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just one question along 

the lines of our future agenda here, and this 

is a -- we spoke -- or we questioned Larry 

earlier on his backlog. This is quickly 

becoming our backlog. I'm looking at the 

Savannah River profile on there. We've had 

that for a while. The task three procedures 

review, we've had that for a while. And I 

wonder if we -- I think we committed in -- in 

the subcommittee meeting to working on the 

procedures review in between these next two 
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meetings via workgroup, subcommittee, I'm not 

sure what that process is going to be. But I 

wonder if we can do the same thing for the 

Savannah River -- my concern is -- I mean, 

quite frankly, this week has been a challenge 

for everyone to get through. And if we load up 

this meeting again with five -- four or five 

major items like this, we're not -- it's not 

going to work, and --

 DR. WADE: Understood. The Sava-- for the 

record, the Savannah River profile I think 

we've just received or are about to receive? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) It's been 

submitted. 

 DR. WADE: It's been -- okay. But your --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 DR. WADE: Okay, your point is well made. 

Thank you. 

(Whereupon, several Board members commented, 

off microphone and simultaneously.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: We have it. Yeah, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: It seemed, you know, here a few 

months back, a year ago, we met more often than 

four times a year. And it just seems to me, 
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with -- with the addition of the SEC process, 

the dose reconstructions and everything else 

that four times a year is not enough for this 

Board to meet, and I just wonder why we can't 

pick up the pace and go back to maybe every six 

weeks or so like we did before. 

 DR. WADE: Certainly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we -- actually -- you have 

four meetings here. We had a meeting in 

February, and we had one or two telephone 

meetings plus the subcommittee meeting, so we 

actually have ended up having about six or more 

meetings a year right now. A few -- a couple 

of those didn't involve everybody, but it 

actually has -- it has seemed to me to be a 

fairly rigorous pace, but -- 

 MR. GIBSON: I guess --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- but if we have business we need 

to conduct, we'll -- we can do that. 

 MR. GIBSON: I'm just -- I was just agreeing 

with Mark that, you know, the pace is picking 

up and even if we have six a year and it's not 

enough, you know -- I mean I think it's our 

duty, that's what we were appointed to do is to 

do this business. And so, you know, this has 
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been a pretty taxing week... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I was going to say that's 

one thing we may be able to do is the 

subcommittee meetings, maybe those could be 

done by phone, and that would give us an extra 

half-- I mean we've already started -- they 

were two-day meetings. It's fairly easy to 

find two days together, but when you move that 

out to find three days, and then a travel day 

as well, it starts to get problematic. So I 

think a two-day is a lot easier to find, and if 

we're going to do three days, I would rather 

pick up an extra half-day by doing the 

subcommittee on an alternative maybe phone 

schedule issues, and deal with the -- these 

issues in a close -- by the -- the number two 

is -- is -- I'd like to get October dates as 

soon as possible 'cause there's a number of key 

meetings that are in October already, so before 

we start to try to get three days and not have 

them be a Friday, Monday and Tuesday. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Right. 

MR. ESPINOSA: I'm in the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Rich. 
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MR. ESPINOSA: I'm in the same lines with 

Henry, just a little bit different. I schedule 

my agenda -- I schedule my schedule around 

these meetings, so if I don't know in advance 

and the meeting changes, like we talked about 

the July meeting changing, you know, if I have 

the notification now, I might be able to 

address it. But if I don't have the 

information till later, I'm looking at missing 

a meeting or days of that meeting. 

 DR. WADE: I'll commit to trying to put out 

dates for the July and October meeting the next 

week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I suggest since we're relooking at this issue that we also re-look at 

this issue of the subcommittee as a whole, that 

-- that we may really have to split up into -- 

have more than one subcommittee, and that way 

it spreads the work out a little bit more 

clearly and it would also I think make the 

scheduling of some of these meetings -- 

subcommittee meetings easier -- easier to do. 

And I don't know whether something -- whether 

you want to work on, Paul, or whether you want 
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to work on it with a workgroup, but -- but I 

think for our July meeting I think we should -- 

I think we have a -- we have a sense of what -- 

well, SEC petition reviews are very hard to do 

other than as a committee, so those are going 

to have to be (unintelligible). Site profile, 

dealing with dose reconstruction, some of these 

other issues, I think that we can -- dose 

reconstruction reviews, I think we can do 

better as subcommittees. Again reporting back 

to the Board, but I think it may be a more 

efficient process and -- 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Workgroups. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can do workgroups, but remember 

that if it's a sort of regular process, then we 

get into the subcommittee type action. 

 DR. MELIUS: Our charter is up the end of 

August, and so a July -- make a decision on 

this at our July meeting and it would be 

appropriate 'cause we could then amend the 

charter to deal with the subcommittees, and I -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the subcommittee does not 

have to meet as a committee of the whole, 

obviously. For example, there could be a 
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subcommittee meeting between April and July if 

-- for a group of four or five is all that we 

need, actually. In fact, that was the original 

intent. We named everybody to the subcommittee 

in order that we could choose any four or five 

who were available at a given time. 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- but as you pointed out, you 

-- you were -- it seems like you feel like 

you're meeting all the time, and that's because 

you chair the subcommittee and therefore at 

every meeting you have to be at. And again, I 

-- maybe that's not practical and -- not taking 

away from the amount of effort you're putting 

into it or anything, but -- but again, let's 

just --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I was --

 DR. MELIUS: -- let's just --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I was a little protective of 

the -- of the subcommittee's work during the 

early days, but they've matured and actually 

they get along better without me sometimes, but 

we can certainly do that and -- and think 

about, for example, having a separate 

subcommittee for dose reconstruction and a 

separate one for the site profiles, for 
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example. Right now it's a combined thing, but 

-- understood. And if necessary, Lew, we 

certainly can -- I think the ones who are sort 

of the main ones on that initial subcommittee 

could meet, with or without the existing Chair, 

in between our next -- or before our next 

meeting. 

 DR. WADE: Right, I think -- I think we'll push 

to see a subcommittee meeting before our next 

meeting, with the task three issues on it at a 

minimum. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now we've just been avoiding 

getting to these final 20 cases, Mark, but -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I got to do it now? 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the time has come. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All the crowd's gone, it wor-- 

no. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's make sure that we all have 

the documents. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I was going to ask, 

can we take like a 10-minute -- and I can hand 

out --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, Mark, you -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: One more delay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we will take a 10-minute 
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break and then reconvene. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:05 p.m. 

to 3:15 p.m.) 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready to resume 

deliberations. We have already lost one person 

-- we didn't lose him; he had to leave. Rich 

Espinosa had to leave. We still have a quorum. 

Mark is all set to go, but the Chair discovered 

that there is yet another item, Mark. 

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES 

We actually did not approve the minutes. We 

have two sets of minutes. The first, the 

minutes of the subcommittee, of our last 

meeting. I'd like to ask if there are any 

additions or corrections to the minutes of the 

subcommittee. 

 Motion to approve the minutes? 

 MR. PRESLEY: So moved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Second? 

MR. OWENS: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 Opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

Minutes are approved for the subcommittee. 
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Now the minutes of the Board itself, this is 

the February meeting in St. Louis. I'm going 

to first point out a couple of changes. In the 

Executive Summary, page 6 -- Executive 

Summaries don't have to have a lot of detail. 

I'm going to ask that the sentence under 

Tuesday, February 8th, where Ziemer announces 

to members of the public to utilize the 

microphones and so on, I don't think that needs 

to be in there. If there's no objection, we'll 

delete that from the Executive Summary. 

I assume that you all have looked at your 

places. There's one place where we talk about 

Mark Griffon's motion, and I'm -- I have a 

feeling it was a motion, not notion. Mark, you 

didn't discover that? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I have no notion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You have no notions. 

 MS. MUNN: Sometimes it's right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: On -- there are actually several 

versions. I'm looking -- in my version it's 

page 15. It's probably 15 on yours -- broad 

heading: Site Profile Modifications and 

Schedule, Status Report. Is that on page 15 

for you? Go down under Mr. Kenoyer, second 
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paragraph, the 19 site profile cases, last 

sentence, minor change but change it to read 

"teams remain intact and are moving ahead" -- 

teams remain intact and are moving ahead -- 

minor grammatical change. 

On page 16 -- and I need some help on this. 

This was the issue of holding the vote open. 

The last sentence is fairly -- that whole 

paragraph, which is one sentence, is long and 

convoluted. I would like the Board's 

permission to break it into pieces and to 

explain -- by adding some words such as "the 

vote was held open so that the votes of Dr. 

Anderson and Dr. Andrade could be obtained," 

and then in parentheses -- and here's where I 

need help -- I was going to add "Dr. Anderson 

voted for the motion" as we have the vote but 

then we don't indicate -- the vote was held 

open, but then what, so we would indicate Dr. 

Anderson voted for the motion. And then we've 

got to say something about Dr. Andrade. I was 

going to say Dr. Andrade -- Andrade's untimely 

death on February 10th precluded his 

participation. Does that sound too crass or -- 

 MS. MUNN: No. No, that's appropriate. That's 
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to clarify. 

 DR. ZIEMER: He was unavailable? 

 MS. MUNN: No. Demise. Demise, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is untimely death okay? 

 MS. MUNN: Untimely death or demise. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

DR. ROESSLER: No, untimely death. It's 

factual and --

 DR. ZIEMER: So I will give Cori words to that 

effect, but that's agreeable. I want to be 

sure to show the open vote and close that loop 

on that one. Okay. Thank you. 

Without objection, I'll make that change. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) No objections. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) give all these to Cori? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I will. On page 17, Board 

Working -- Board Discussion/Working Sessions. 

It starts out (reading) Returning to the issue 

of the SEC evaluation. Dr. Melius, I didn't 

understand that at all, and I wondered if you 

did. (Reading) Dr. Melius offered he didn't 

feel it would have been more helpful than 

having the site --

 DR. MELIUS: I was just noticing the same 
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thing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Could you help us -- if it's 

agreeable with the group, we'll ask Dr. Melius 

to tell us what that means. No, maybe we can 

work on this afterwards. I don't think the 

sentence makes much sense, as written. It's 

not clear to me, at all. 

 DR. MELIUS: I'll give you a change. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. On page 20, Board 

Discussion, where it says (reading) Dr. Ziemer 

cited the Board -- I'm suggesting we just omit 

the words "the Board to" and just say Dr. 

Ziemer cited the section. It's the section 

being cited. 

There's a spot that -- oh, here it is, page 38. 

Mr. Griffon, his motion was -- is this a motion 

or a notion? This is what I was asking about, 

Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think it is notion, right? 

Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I wasn't sure whether that was 

referring to a previous motion that you had 

made --

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So it is notion then? 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Very good. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Great notion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the notion will remain. On 

page 55, the second paragraph from the end, it 

says (reading) An unidentified member of the 

audience indicated Congress had been aware dose 

reconstruction wouldn't happen overnight. 

I remember that particular part of our meeting 

and in fact the unidentified member was Tom 

Horgan, and I think the minutes should so note 

that, and in fact I pointed that out to Tom and 

he indeed would like that statement to be 

attributed to him. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Where is that? 

UNIDENTIFIED: Which one? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's on page 55, at least in the 

copy I'm looking at. Second to the last 

paragraph where it refers to an unidentified 

member of the audience. The unidentified 

member has now been identified. 

 MS. MUNN: Who was it? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tom Horgan from Senator Bond's 

staff. 

Are there any other corrections or additions to 
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the minutes? 

 (No responses) 

Then with those changes, I can have a motion 

for approval, as amended. 

 MS. MUNN: So moved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Second? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 Opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

Thank you very much, the minutes are approved. 

Now we're ready -- does anyone else have 

anything that we can put in here before we get 

to Mark? 

The documents that you need now -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Quit stalling, Mark, let's get 

going. 

DISCUSSION OF FIRST 20 DOSE RECONSTRUCTION 

REVIEWS

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the latest version -- 

there should be an April 27th draft. It's a --

it's a mark-up draft called individual dose 

reconstruction case review progress report, 

first 20 cases. You should also have a summary 
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of findings matrix, cases 1 through 20. And do 

we need to have the SC&A checklist? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, they -- they actually just 

gave me a -- a revised checklist, so I don't 

have copies of that and I should have -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps everybody --

 MR. GRIFFON: It's only two pages. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Everyone has their original 

checklist. You can -- are there many changes 

in it? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, it's -- it's kind of 

different. Number one they -- they -- they did 

totals on those deficiencies now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And the second thing, they made a 

new column for unknown or uncertain, so it 

looks a little cleaner. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Are you able to proceed, 

though, Mark, with what we have at hand and -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah --

 DR. ZIEMER: So let's proceed with -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- let's try this then. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- what we have here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I guess it makes sense to 

start off with the text. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The summary report that we 

discussed in the subcommittee meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and incidentally, the 

subcommittee approved this document 

conceptually for the full Board, so this 

constitutes a motion. It is before us for 

action. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: There were some places that needed 

to be filled in, some numbers and other things 

like that, but this is for formal action, and 

most of you have already seen it in 

subcommittee session. Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and -- and there still are 

some places where numbers need to be filled in, 

but we've made a lot of progress these last 

couple of days, and I thank Kathy and Hans 

Behling from SC&A. They helped me pull some 

pieces together. 

The third paragraph -- let's see, actually -- I 

guess the -- the first changes that really take 

place in this draft are -- don't occur until 

the second page, the second paragraph. 

 MS. MUNN: The aforementioned SCA? 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and it says (reading) The 

aforementioned SCA report includes a summary 

checklist -- I identified that as a checklist 

now -- with findings in behalf of -- that's the 

way it reads on -- in the report -- 20 case 

reviews, instead of the 15. And then I left --

I left the numbers in here. I know we had had 

some discussion about not reporting the 

numbers, but I -- I tried to include their 

summary numbers from their checklist, which 

we're getting copies of right now, and it 

indicates that a total of 69 identified in the 

20 cases -- SCA considered the majority of 

deficiencies, 49 out of 69, to be low level 

deficiencies, with four scored as medium level 

deficiencies. The question here is, someone's 

going to add that up and see that it doesn't 

equal 69. The rest are unknown, and I wasn't 

sure exactly how to integrate that into -- into 

this summary report. I also feel a little 

uneasy submitting a report to the Secretary 

where we have 16 unknown that we can't -- you 

know, unknown ranked findings. That's a little 

interesting position. 

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bit about what that means -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- in terms of unknown. Can you 

describe that --

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, yeah --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- whole thing? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- if -- I think for the most 

part, if we look at the matrix, it -- it -- it 

-- most of these unknowns come on on the AWE 

cases and -- which are the first one through 

five in our listing, and the -- if you notice 

in the last column, the Board action, number 

six, that means -- and NIOSH's resolution 

actually is written there so you can see it. 

These have been deferred to site profile 

reviews, so you know, SC&A basically said well, 

since we've deferred discussion on these issues 

and resolution of these issues, we don't know 

how significantly it could affect the case at 

hand, and that -- that's sort of why they 

ranked it as unknown, I guess. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I wonder if -- terminology-wise, 

if we used words such as "the impact of which 

has not yet been determined" or something, so 

that it's clear that it has -- it is yet to be 
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resolved, as opposed to we just don't know. 

What we need is some wording to that effect, I 

suppose. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, "yet unresolved" or 

something to that ef-- I agree with your notion 

-- notion. 

 MS. MUNN: Could that be incorporated in the -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Should I make my notion into a 

motion? 

What -- do you want to suggest particular words 

right now or do you just want to ponder that? 

Maybe -- maybe we can try to solve that. I 

mean we need something here to act on. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, I mean if someone can come 

up with -- we can insert a sentence right after 

that, where we talk about the numbers, saying 

that 16 deficiencies are -- are -- they're -- 

the potential -- the potential significance of 

16 deficiencies remains to be determined, or -- 

or is -- is as yet undetermined. Or has yet to 

be resolved, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The potential impact of the other 

16 deficiencies --

 MS. MUNN: Why don't you just say the remaining 

deficiencies? 
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- has not yet been resolved or -- 

or determined? 

 MS. MUNN: Or still in resolution. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Potential impact of the remaining 

deficiencies --

 DR. ZIEMER: Of the remaining 16 -- is it 16? 

 MR. GRIFFON: If you want to put -- yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: Of the remaining deficiencies. 

 DR. ZIEMER: How many is it? 

 MR. GRIFFON: It is 16, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We have 40 --

 MR. GRIFFON: It is 16. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Of the remaining 16 deficiencies -

-

 MR. GRIFFON: Is yet --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- is yet or remains to be resol-- 

is yet -- has not yet been resolved? Or not 

yet been determined? 

 MS. MUNN: I would say are still in resolution. 

 DR. DEHART: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

which implies --

 DR. ZIEMER: Or is -- is --

 MR. GRIFFON: Still in resolution? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, are still under review? 
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 DR. DEHART: (Off microphone) Under review, 

something sounds (unintelligible) -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's see, potential impact is 

singular -- is still under review. Right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is still under review, okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Potential impact of the remaining 

16 deficiencies is still under review. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Potential -- I said potential 

significance, otherwise, the same thing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Significance. 

 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause that's the way the 

checklist is labeled, potential significance. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, thank you. Of the remaining 

-- is still under review. So that will take 

care of the ambiguity of the unknown. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Okay, thank you. Yeah. 

And then the last sentence, (reading) It is 

noted by the -- by SC&A that the sum -- and 

this is an addition in the bottom of the 

checklist which has just been handed out to -- 

this is just a clarification of how to 

interpret these numbers, which we discussed in 

the subcommittee. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Reading) It is noted by SCA that 
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the sum of the deficiencies for these 20 cases 

should not be used to gauge the impact on 

individual cases since several low level 

deficiencies for one individual case may raise 

the potential significance of (sic) that case. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's ask if that is agreeable. 

Conceptually we agreed that that sentence 

should be added. Is everybody comfortable with 

that? 

Appears to be, okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The next paragraph, the only -- I 

just added parenthetically case ranking and 

site/program-wide ranking in there to better 

define -- as Wanda pointed out, this -- this -- 

you know, we have SC&A's checklist, then we 

have our matrix, and it's still going to be a -

- may be a bit difficult to walk through, but I 

tried to better define the Board's names for 

these things, case ranking and site/programwide ranking. 

And then the next paragraph, toward the bottom 
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I -- I did some editing to say (reading) case 

rankings are the same as those listed in the 

aforementioned SCA summary checklist. 

This -- we spent quite a bit of time -- I spent 

quite a bit of time with Kathy Behling and she 

really did the grunt (sic) of this work trying 

to match up the checklist against the matrix. 

In the future I think -- the -- the good part 

of this was in the future we're going to have 

SC&A develop the checklist and matrix so that 

we won't have this -- this merge issue. 

Right now, as it stands -- and this -- I don't 

know if this is going to create confusion, but 

right now, as it stands, the number of items on 

the matrix does not equal the 69 mentioned in 

the checklist, but that's because Kathy pointed 

out -- and -- and where in the matrix -- like 

under 1.1 we put in parentheses that G.2 refers 

-- in the summary of the findings, G.2 refers 

back to that checklist. We wanted to have some 

way to tie them together. And what -- what 

happened here is that in the discussions -- my 

matrix was developed from the early discussions 

of all the findings, and I think that when they 

did the checklist they sometimes rolled two of 
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these findings into one deficiency, so there -- 

there's more of -- more of these in the matrix 

than there are in the checklist. I think it's 

like 80 to 69 -- you know, it's slightly 

different. 

 That won't happen the next time. I think that 

would be a lot better if it just matches up 

neatly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Anyway, moving on to that 

sentence, (reading) Case rankings are the same 

as those listed in the aforementioned SCA 

summary matrix -- summary checklist. The 

site/program-wide ranking considered the 

broader potential impacts of the findings and 

resulted in 49 -- I don't know if I need 

parentheses there -- 49 low level deficiencies, 

35 -- that number is actually wrong. I just --

and this is -- this is what we really have to 

go through the matrix and -- and discuss these, 

the site/program rank, low level, medium and 

high level findings -- 49, 35 and three high 

level deficiencies. And that -- that number, 

35, actually has gone down by -- just looking 

through as I'm editing. Not making apologies, 
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but doing this at 5:30 in the morning, you 

know, I made some mistakes, so we -- we should 

go through these and make sure that -- I think 

it's more like 32 now, something around 32, but 

I'll -- I'll sum those up again after we go 

through our discussions of the individual 

findings, anyway, so... 

 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) So this is the same 

49 (unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have a question, Wanda? 

-- we -- need to use the mike there. 

 MS. MUNN: I don't really know what I'm asking. 

Is that the same 49 where -- I'm -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, yeah, it -- this --

 MS. MUNN: A different 49. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. It's a different 49 'cause 

the total number of findings on our matrix -- 

it doesn't match up, so to make that happen 

we'd have to -- we'd have to go back and -- and 

it might be worth it, just for clarity, 

although I don't look forward to the -- to the 

task. It doesn't match up one-to-one, so 

that's -- might be confusing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, as long as we know what -- 

we're using it -- I suppose you're concerned 

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about if it goes forward in some form to the 

Secretary, that that may raise confusion. We 

could add a sentence to explain that, I 

suppose. I'm not sure which would be the 

better route. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: To try to match it up one-to-one 

or simply indicate that there was this -- would 

you call it an overlap or something of that 

sort? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah, I -- you know, I 

think it's -- it's -- it's an over-- they 

rolled -- they rolled some of the findings 

under discussion into one -- one deficiency in 

their checklist, so that was -- that's how that 

hap-- that's how it happened. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But there's no -- there's no 

different findings. I should say that. You 

know, they're all the same set of findings, 

it's just that sometimes they rolled them into 

one finding as opposed to keeping them 

separated out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway, I'm -- I'm willing to do 
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it either way you want there, if we want to add 

some clarification or if we want to go back and 

make it match, either way. I can work with 

SC&A on that and -- if we need to. 

 DR. DEHART: Mark, I hate to suggest it, but I 

think -- for clarification for ourself -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know, I know. 

 DR. DEHART: -- that it's -- that you'll 

probably need to do that -- or somebody do 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wouldn't a single sentence, 

though, rather than have him go back and try to 

re-do that whole matrix -- you're talking about 

re-doing the matrix otherwise, are you not? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think I'd have to re -- re-do 

the matrix anyway. 

 DR. DEHART: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So that -- that -- but that's 

fine. I think we need to. And like I said, 

this next -- the next round, with SC&A 

developing the matrix as they go, this won't 

happen. You know --

 DR. ZIEMER: It won't happen --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- we won't have this match-up 

issue, right. So I -- I will -- I will do 
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that. I still think we -- we could step 

through --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, let's --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- do that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The next paragraph was also 

modified. (Reading) SC&A concluded that 19 of 

20 dose reconstructions reviewed during this 

initial basic audit were considered to be 

sufficient for the purposes of determining 

probability of causation -- parentheses, case 6 

DR may be -- may not be sufficient -- for the 

specific cases reviewed; however, concerns were 

identified which could have a broader impact on 

the overall dose reconstruction program. 

 That's a little -- that might still need some 

editing 'cause it's not really a "however" 

anymore. 

 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) That 

(unintelligible) be taken out (unintelligible). 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there -- it's not clear to me 

why that one sentence -- Case 6 DR may not be 

sufficient -- is in parentheses. Isn't that 

simply the next statement? 
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 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: It's a stand-alone sentence. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In fact, you might say "However, 

case 6 -- the case 6 dose reconstruction may 

not be sufficient." Is that what -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- basically what is being said? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay. 

 DR. WADE: Is there any chance of that being 

resolved? I mean it would seem to me if -- if 

we knew that issue, it would be more complete, 

or will we not know that issue? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think that goes back to -- we 

may not even need to know that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That -- that becomes a NIOSH 

issue, I believe. This is -- this is simply a 

finding. There's one case where the DR may not 

have been sufficient. We're not asking that 

that -- that that be resolved for this report. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're simply reporting it -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think that --
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 DR. ZIEMER: It seems to me it goes back to 

NIOSH. Right here it's just one de-identified 

case. NIOSH will know what case it is. It's -

- the burden on them would be to take action. 

I don't think the purpose of this is for us to 

resolve issues on cases individually. 

Is that the understanding of the group? Yes. 

Oh, I ended up -- however, Mark -- with two 

"howevers". 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I was going to say we might 

want to have that sentence read, after the 

parentheses with POC -- finish it up to say 

"for the specific cases reviewed," period. 

Then say "However, case 6 dose reconstruction 

may not be sufficient," period. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Period. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And then "Additionally, concerns 

were identified which could have a broader 

impact on the overall dose reconstruction 

program." That's a little better. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Did everybody get that? Doesn't 

change the concept -- a little bit of 

wordsmithing. Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll agree that that's 
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acceptable. Proceed. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I actually don't think 

there were any other -- there was a -- an 

editorial change somewhere in the last 

paragraph, but that was -- that was it. Oh --

 DR. ZIEMER: The last paragraph on the 

conclusions, or that section? 

 MR. GRIFFON: The last paragraph on page four, 

there was just a change editorial to where -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Ongoing concerns? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Where -- yes, consistency of 

cases. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the change is just that 

deletion? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just there are -- "there are" 

instead of "you have" similar-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes, that was just an 

editorial --

 MR. GRIFFON: That's all -- yeah. That was 

the only other -- I believe the only other 

changes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any questions or comments on 

this -- this --

 MR. GRIFFON: I also -- one thing -- one other 

thing I should point out, on page two it says 
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insert table with one through 20 and sites, 

POC, et cetera. Stu Hinnefeld did provide 

this. I don't know if he handed or -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that was distributed and 

should be at your place. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So we'll probably just ask to get 

this in electronic form and insert it in there 

and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so this is Table 1. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Which lists the case number, using 

the pseudo-number 1 through 20, it gives the 

probability of causation, the IREP cancer 

model, the location, working years and work 

decade. Which is what we had when we did the 

selection, so that gets inserted. Okay? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then attached to this would be 

the scorecard and the matrix. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The checklist and the matrix. 

think we were -- did we refer to the Board -- 

or the Board methodology I think we referred 

to, also, did we not? 

 DR. DEHART: You intended to put that in there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know, may... 

I 
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 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) On -- on Table 

1, (unintelligible) get that? 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Third one down, you need to 

change that from 1040 to 1940. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that was one of our earliest 

-- earliest work decades. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. We refer to this -- the 

Board has developed a methodology, attachment 

2, so this would be this -- this other text. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Attachment 2 will be the 

methodology previously approved. Right? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Did we previously approve that? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Did we approve that? I thought we 

had -- or did we? 

 DR. DEHART: I don't think so. We talked about 

it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know, 'cause we added -- 

I added on these -- these ranking -- or not 

rankings, but these action -- action numbers, 

six different actions may be taken, and that's 

the last column in the matrix now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So we should look at that. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: So we do need to look at that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we can look at that 

along with the matrix. That would make sense. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now that document is entitled 

Methodology for Categorizing and Ranking DR 

Case Review Findings. That would be Attachment 

2. 

So Mark, are you ready for us to review that 

then? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Sure, yep. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. There's an introductory 

paragraph. Does anyone have any issues to 

raise with that? 

 (No responses) 

The rankings -- it simply describes a graded 

approach and gives the bullets -- criteria, 

basically. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the difference -- one 

difference from before is that we -- we had one 

-- I had one ranking before and now we've got 

these -- these case-specific and site/programwide rankings, so that paragraph on the ranking 

of findings changed a little bit. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, how --

 MR. GRIFFON: The bullets -- the criteria are 
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similar, though. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, how -- how have you 

changed? Do we have the latest copy? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Of the matrix? 

 DR. ZIEMER: My copy still says there's a 1 to 

5 ranking system. Do I have --

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, you have the right copy and I 

didn't cha-- I changed the matrix, but I didn't 

change the numbers on there. I have low, 

medium, high now on the... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so that first paragraph 

under Ranking the Findings, let's -- let's look 

at how that should be worded. 

 (Reading) The graded approach should be based 

on the importance of the identified finding, 

other cases at the facility or other cases 

program-wide. Two separate rankings will be 

assigned, case ranking and site profile -- 

site/program-wide ranking. 

And then we would say what, a low, medium, high 

ranking system? Or --

 MR. GRIFFON: Are based on a low, medium, high 

ranking system? To rank -- two separate 

rankings will be assigned based on a low, 

medium, high ranking system -- low, medium, 
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high qualitative ranking system? I don't know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So in parentheses, rather than a 1 

to 5 ranking system, we would say a low, 

medium, high ranking system. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We don't have to explain that; 

it's self-explanatory then. Is that agreeable? 

 (No responses) 

And then you would have your bullets saying 

what the rankings are based on. Any comments 

on those? They remain the same. 

 (No responses) 

Anything on the categorization? We have 

actually now the -- the six categories that 

Mark has suggested, I think these we need to 

agree on, that would be used in the summary ma-

- matrix. Those are on that second page, 

options for Board action, 1 through 6. 

Let me ask if there's any changes or 

modifications. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and number 4 and 5, I 

should just note that, you know, NIOSH 

disagreed; Board and NIOSH reach compromise. 

Sometimes in -- in the -- in the matrix notes 

you'll see, you know, SC&A and NIOSH are in 
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agreement. I think SC-- you know, it really is 

the Board -- SC&A on our behalf, I guess, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me make sure I understand 

number 5. This would be one where NIOSH says 

that they disagree, and basically the Board 

says okay, we're not going to do anything about 

that. In essence, we are accepting the 

disagreement if we do nothing. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's correct, yeah. Maybe I 

should say Board accept -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know, I'm asking -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That was the --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- how you wish to characterize -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That was the intent. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the -- I think the effect 

is, if we drop the matter, the Board is 

accepting NIOSH's --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- disagreement. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I apologize 'cause I haven't 

been involved in the subcommittee meetings so I 

may misunderstand, but the prior point that you 

brought up, Paul, regarding SCA and NIOSH -- 

excuse me, SCA and the Board being the same 
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entity, my understanding of the process is that 

there's a resolution process that goes on 

between SCA and NIOSH prior to our involvement, 

and so I guess I'm a little concerned that it 

sort of somehow implies that the Board has 

approved of whatever SCA's... 

 DR. ZIEMER: This is the final wrap-up -- 

 DR. MELIUS: So it just applies --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- where --

 DR. MELIUS: -- to the final. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the final thing that would go 

in the right-hand column after all of the backand-forth iterations have occurred, how the 

Board finally disposes of all issues. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: For example, if -- if -- where -- 

where it says NIOSH --

 DR. MELIUS: No, I -- I understand that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- NIOSH agrees, they'd be 

agreeing with SC&A and accept that that closes 

it. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, I may have misunderstood 

Mark then 'cause I thought he said -- Mark was 

saying that S-- was implying that the Board and 

SC&A were equivalent and -- 
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 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, I --

 DR. ZIEMER: No, the Board is ultimately taking 

an action. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I meant -- I meant as far 

as it applies to this --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I'm sorry. 

 DR. MELIUS: So -- so it should say the Board. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So number 5 would say, rather than 

the Board drops it, the Board accepts? But 

what -- what -- that's -- NIOSH disagrees; the 

Board accepts --

 DR. MELIUS: The Board concurs with NIOSH, I 

think. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Board concurs, 'cause that's the 

effect. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then -- any others? 

 (No responses) 

We may find as we proceed that some of these 

are not useful or we may need others, and of 

course the Board can change these at any time. 
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I think Mark is suggesting this may be a good 

starting point, and it enables us to come to 

closure, at least on this first set of 20. 

 MS. MUNN: Sorry. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm sorry, we had a sidebar. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm just saying, Mark, it seems to 

me that once we put these into use, if we find 

that some of these are not useful or we need 

others, we can always modify this, but -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: We can always revise that, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- as a start, this seemed -- 

based on your work on the matrix -- seemed to 

be a useful way to come to closure on the 

issues that have been identified. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I tried. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Do I take it by consent then that, 

with that minor change, these six categories 

are agreeable? 

 (No responses) 

Stu? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I didn't want to interrupt, but 

I was just curious who said -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, you did. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I have, okay, sure. Who should 

we send Table -- the electronic version of 
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Table 1 with the changed date in it? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think get it to Mark so he can 

insert it. He has the electronic -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) forward it to -- 

yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or Cori? Who? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: E-mail's easy, I can send it to 

everybody. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess send it to me first and 

then I'll send the dra-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: So he can incorporate it, yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'll make these changes and 

forward the draft to everyone. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Send it to Mark. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: That's fine. 

 DR. DEHART: Could I ask that the next time we 

see it -- it's been a while since I've seen a 

clean text -- if we could see one without 

lines. 

 MR. GRIFFON: This was for full transparency of 

the changes I was making along the way, so it 

makes for difficult reading, I agree. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Actually you could send bo-- you 

could send --
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- a red ver-- or a mark-out 

version plus a clean version. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Are we agreeable on this 

Attachment 2 then? 

Jim, another comment? 

 DR. MELIUS: Not yet. 

 MR. GRIFFON: He's thinking of one. 

 DR. MELIUS: No, I don't have any right now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All right --

 DR. MELIUS: Or I actually do have a comment. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: When I read this summary of 

findings and where this code is put as the 

Board action, I just -- the heading on the 

table that are NIOSH resolution, I'm -- I find 

it a little bit confusing 'cause sometimes it 

says NIOSH and SC&A agree and sometimes it 

doesn't, and it's -- it's unclear. I just 

think, for future -- not to make you go back 

through and change this -- that we ought to be 

-- some consistency in the language that we use 

'cause that's what confused me -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Actually I believe we may want 
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both. This -- this tells about the resolution 

going on with our contractor, but the final 

column is the Board's handling of everything up 

to that point. I believe that's the intent. 

Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: That is the intent, yeah. Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I believe -- I believe this is 

intentional that he --

 MR. GRIFFON: So it's probably --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- SC&A and NIO-- that -- that 

tracks what happens until we finally take a 

final action, which shows up in the last 

column. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But still there's probably 

inconsistencies, I would -- I would -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: But that intent is to have those 

two entities --

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, then label it more clearly -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: -- as you go across, and then the 

Board action. Okay? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Label them more clear-- yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: Since this final column is the 

most important one, I think a footnote on the 
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bottom of the page on this document would help 

to put down what number 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and 6 

mean. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I --

DR. ROESSLER: We could footnote everything, 

but I think it -- that one thing would help. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I would even suggest that 

we, where necessary, make that column a little 

bit wider so that if there's -- if we've gone 

beyond just a simple 1 through 6 in terms of 

what action the Board has taken, that we sort 

of write that out a little bit. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe I'll spread this onto legal 

paper and just write out that they -- yeah. We 

were trying to fit it on one page, too. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Roessler, did you get your 

comment in? 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are we ready to look at the matrix 

itself then? And do we have -- oh, we do have 

the -- we do have the checklist, and that would 

-- Mark, is there anything else we need to say 

on the checklist? You've already pretty well 

explained it. That would be inserted in the 
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packet, too. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the -- I don't think I got 

-- did I get... 

 DR. ZIEMER: It -- it now has the 69 --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- deficiencies, the 49 lows, the 

four mediums and the unknown -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Which we can label --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- which I think we probably are 

going to call that something else, SC&A folks, 

un-- not yet resolved or -- yeah. We 

understand what it is so we're -- we're okay on 

it. I think we're going to call it something 

else here. It's not as if we don't know what -

-

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the deficiencies are. They're 

going to be addressed in a different way. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The one thing I would ask, and I 

-- I told SC&A I would -- I would ask this of 

the Board, this has been revised to include 

some sections, especially -- I think Section G 

was revised -- to accommodate the use of the 

single checklist for DOE and AWE sites, so this 

is slightly different than the one you've seen 
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before, and they asked if we could review and 

approve this because they're planning on using 

it for the next 18 they're already -- you know, 

so they wanted us to take a close -- closer 

look --

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, you've already seen this, so 

what is your advice to us on that? 

 MR. GRIFFON: My -- my advice is -- is that 

they -- they made some changes to the 

footnotes, which I think were important, 

especially the one -- the sum of the 

deficiencies, which is similar to the language 

we put in the summary report, that you 

shouldn't pay attention to those percentages 

too much, too closely. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then Section G -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I think overall, Section 

G seemed -- seemed appropriate. I still -- you 

know, my generic concern -- and we'll get into 

that when we get into the matrix -- is this 

unknown column or yet-to-be-determined column. 

I -- I think -- I'm not sure how we can handle 

that. But as you'll notice when we look in the 

matrix, a lot of these key issues that we raise 

in this review have been deferred -- 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- to site profile reviews, and 

so how complete can our report be on -- you 

know, and I -- and I understand this is an 

ongoing --

 DR. ZIEMER: But -- but at the moment --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- you feel that it's appropriate 

that we have the contractor proceed with this 

new format? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think so, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is the -- is the committee -- or 

the Board agreeable to that? 

 (No responses) 

Appears to be no objections. Without 

objection, we'll consider that that has been 

approved for use in the next round. 

Now let's proceed to the matrix. We actually -

- Mark, I think you actually need to 

individually look at each of these items, do we 

not, and make a judgment on them? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And there --

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, and it -- to complicate 

this matter of one -- just a little bit, that 
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last column, which Jim rightly pointed out is -

- is not -- I guess it's really SC&A and 

NIOSH's resolution, but it was provided by 

NIOSH and SC&A hasn't reviewed that, I don't 

believe. So -- so I think --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're talking about -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- we're not clear if that's -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the column --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- a final resolution --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- called NIOSH resolution? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So SC&A has not yet seen that and 

agreed that -- particularly in those cases 

where it says that they both agree? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: Need to resolve the resolution. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We need to resolve the 

resolution. 

 DR. ZIEMER: As far as the -- this Board's 

action has to be with respect to the last 

column, and there are a number of items in the 

list -- for example, if -- if the last column 

is number 1 -- or is item 1, basically the 

Board really has to do nothing. I believe 

that's correct. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If the designation is 2, the Board 

really has to do nothing. I mean we can 

approve. If it's number 3, we would -- we 

would have to take a specific action. Likewise 

for 4. Likewise for 5. And 6, perhaps we 

would have to agree that that's what's going to 

happen. So there's a number of these where -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we would have to say yes, that 

is what --

 MR. GRIFFON: I should point out 3 actually -- 

you know, it says "unless the Board recommends 

action through..." so we may recommend, if it's 

a 3. I think that's a -- you know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, in the absence of action, 3 

remains, but we would have to look at 3s to 

determine whether we want to take action. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now my question is, does the Board 

-- does this require SC&A to actually review 

this before we take action? I mean we can -- 

we can approve -- we can approve these 

documents and the matrix as a -- as a -- as a 

document format-wise and content-wise, with the 
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exception of approving the last column in terms 

of the actions. Or -- particularly if it 

requires SC&A to do some review before we 

finalize. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I guess the -- the -- the 

question on the NIOSH resolution column is that 

-- and I've pointed out a few that they've -- 

as I was working with them, they found a few 

where they -- 10.1 is one example where they 

indicated that -- it says (reading) SC&A 

concurred with the assigned medical dose in the 

February, 2005 report. 

And they -- they indicated to me that they did 

not agree with that, so I don't want to have a 

misstatement of facts in this matrix as we move 

it forward, either, you know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it appears to me, although 

we're close to closure, there may be another 

small step --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that has to occur before we are 

ready to actually close on this. Is that -- am 

I correct on that? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think it's probably -- yes, 

yes. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Then what I'm going to suggest is 

a motion that we accept all of the documents 

and attachments, including the matrix, except 

for the Board -- well, except for the -- the 

rankings --

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know that we can -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: What -- what I'm trying to say is 

that we accept the matrix as a vehicle for 

doing this, but we're not yet agreeing to 

either the rankings or the Board actions until 

SC&A has an opportunity to review the NIOSH 

resolution column. That would be a motion that 

would seem to me to be in order, if someone 

would wish to make it. 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, I'll make a motion that 

the Board accept all the documents that we have 

reviewed and that we accept the matrix in 

principle, awaiting final resolution of a 

column -- I guess it's NIOSH resolution -- 

where SC&A would be involved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And our Board action, therefore. 

MR. OWENS: Yes. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I'll second that, but I'll ask a 

question, also. Do we want to make it the last 

two columns where --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it's the NIOSH resolution 

column which SC&A would review, plus the Board 

action column. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Right. 

 DR. DEHART: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now I'm going -- since officially 

this was on the floor as a motion from the 

subcommittee, I will regard the current motion 

as a substitute motion that replaced the 

original one if there's no objection. It's a 

similar motion, but it is more specific on what 

will happen here. 

 (No responses) 

Now, comments on that motion? Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: This is a question I think is 

relevant. In regard -- again, I was not at the 

subcommittee meetings or discussions of this, 

but in regard to the number 3s where -- has 

there been discussion among the subcommittee as 

to which ones we would want to move forward in 

some way? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 

 DR. MELIUS: No. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We didn't get that fa-- I don't 

think we had this form of the matrix available, 
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did we? In the subcommittee meeting? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Not -- not fully and --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and you can look down through 

here and there are some 3s in here currently, 

and you'll see the nature of them. They are --

they are valid cases where there's bona fide 

disagreements between NIOSH and our contractor 

as to how one might approach things. So --

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I would just -- if we're 

going to close this out, do we want to put out 

a -- a document that is sort of our final 

report where we haven't resolved those 3s? 

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, we're only approving this as a 

-- as an instrument that still remains to have 

that last step occur before it's closed out. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. And just --

 DR. ZIEMER: We're approving the text, the 

types of attachments that would go with this 

report, the matrix, the form of the matrix, the 

content --

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- with the exception of those 
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last two columns. 

 DR. MELIUS: And again, this is a question -- 

does this mean this Board action coding, are we 

really going to move toward something that 

would be a 3A and a 3B or something -- 3A where 

we've taken -- at some point taken a step and 

recommended to the Secretary that some change 

be made, or 3B where we did not, or does -- or 

are we intending to then change the code? I'm 

just confused by sort of the -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I don't know the answer to 

that. Mark, did -- I don't know if the 

subcommittee addressed that, per se. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We didn't get that far, no. I 

mean I'm fine with that. That seems like a 

reasonable approach, to me, that we need to 

know whether we did or did not send any 

recommendation to the Secretary on that certain 

finding, and 3A and 3B is just as good a system 

as -- you know, does that make sense? But --

but that -- but --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- that isn't done until we go 

through all the findings. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know, I -- I can't pre-
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judge what -- which of -- whether that would be 

better to break it out right now or just to go 

through it and if there's a specific action for 

a -- for a 3 item, we just act on it. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It definitely requires some 

action. 

 MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I believe 

you’re going to have to act on it and then the 

final -- you're going to have to change that 

code to something you can send to the 

Secretary. 

 DR. MELIUS: Exactly. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Or if not, you're -- you've still 

got an open-ended problem. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, the motion was just to 

accept the -- you know, the documents and -- 

and the matrix in principle, and whatever 

revisions or changes might need to be made 

before we finalize it, I think we could do 

that, hopefully. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Actually if -- if -- in case of a 

number 3 finding or closure on a report, there 

-- there will -- the Board would have to take 

an action. Whether we call it 3A and 3B or 

not, there would be an action sort of up or 

down as to whether you go forward. 

 MR. PRESLEY: You might want to call it 3-1 or 

3-6. I mean it's something you'd have to show 

closure on. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: Just a question that puzzles me a 

little, whether -- I assume we want to have as 

many of the last two columns complete as 

possible before we send this away. I'm 

wondering on 12.9 whether that can be one of 

those that can disappear by putting the 

response in the resolution column. I can 

understand not having anything when you have an 

item that hasn't --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: -- been discussed, but -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Here -- here's another -- another 

reason for -- that -- that we still need some 
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work on this table. The NIOSH resolution 

column came to me in one file and SC&A sent me 

another file that had additional findings that 

weren't in the matrix that NIOSH was reviewing, 

and I merged the two. So where you see blank 

on NIOSH resolution, it's often that they -- 

they hadn't considered that one at all, so they 

need to re-look at this, as well -- if that 

made any sense. So -- so this is still not a -

- quite ready for prime time, obviously. It 

needs -- needs to be edited. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The motion is not -- will not 

preclude doing that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In fact it would mandate following 

up and coming to closure. So there may be some 

of these that NIOSH also needs to look at. Is 

that what you're saying? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, yes, probably only -- 

probably only four or five that they hadn't -- 

that weren't in the version that they were 

reviewing. This was in real time, as we know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions or comments? 
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 (No responses) 

So we will vote on this, and if approved we 

recognize that we have not yet come to closure 

on the first 20 case. We're getting closer and 

closer. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Believe it or not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are we ready to vote? I do want 

to thank Mark especially for a lot of time and 

effort put into developing and filling out in 

the matrix, together with our contractors and -

- and NIOSH folks who helped pull this 

together. It's been a good process for us to 

develop a methodology for handling our -- our 

reviews. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The only thing I'm comforted by 

is that I think going forward we have a much 

cleaner system. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause I'm not looking forward to 

editing this matrix to make -- to making the 

numbers match up. We went through two days of 

this, Kathy Behling and I -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- and it -- but going forward, 

it'll be much cleaner with -- 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- SC&A filling in the matrix. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Are we ready to vote 

then? 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's vote. All in favor of 

accepting the document under the terms 

indicated, please say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 Any opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

Abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

Thank you very much. The motion carries and we 

are close to closure on the first 20 dose 

reconstruction reviews. 

PUBLIC COMMENT 

We have on our agenda at 4:15 a public comment 

period. I've received requests from a couple 

of individuals to address the assembly. First, 

Delbert Moore -- I believe from Iowa. Is 

Delbert in the assembly? 

 (No responses) 

Does not appear to be. Also -- well, this is 

Dan McKeel, it's -- but he's addressed us 
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already. It says after the -- after Denise and 

the SEC, which he's already done, so this -- 

this one's already been covered. 

 Were there any other members of the public who 

had a desire to address the assembly? Please 

approach the mike and you can identify 

yourself, please. 

 MR. RUBY: Hello, I'm Doug Ruby. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Doug. 

 MR. RUBY: I'm here representing my dad, John 

W. Ruby. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 MR. RUBY: I had a -- quite a lengthy little 

thing I was going to read, but I noticed in the 

paper articles that a lot has happened since we 

came up Sunday to meet with NIOSH, and that you 

guys apparently have come to some resolution on 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you -- are you from the Iowa 

group? 

 MR. RUBY: Yes, my father worked at IAAP. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, then you may be aware that 

the Board has -- has made a recommendation to 

the Secretary to approve -- 

 MR. RUBY: I just read --
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- Special Cohort status -- 

 MR. RUBY: -- that article two minutes ago, so 

I'd come up and I had a nice long spiel for 

y'all, and I would like to say that Silas Mason 

was the contractor my father worked for and 

that I don't think that -- we were pretty upset 

when NIOSH wanted to review the declassified 

DOE information they told us about Sunday. 

See, they originally denied my father, and I 

had to appeal it based on the ground water -- 

it was quite alarming a year ago to find out 

that NIOSH did not take ground water 

contamination into consideration on that first 

dose in construction (sic) at that meeting, and 

then subsequently they've done the right thing. 

I just want to thank you guys for, you know, 

being stand-up on this. You've got to realize 

that a contractor -- DOE may hire somebody to 

do something, but back then what did we know 

about these kind of hazards, you know. And 

second off, you know, contractors have been 

known to fudge on the rules, so to speak. And 

they have some -- some blame in this, but they 

also were ignorant, as the whole country was, 

as -- you know, the dangers of working with 
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this kind of stuff. But after eight years of 

frustration, I just want to thank every one of 

you guys for being stand-up and doing the right 

thing. 

To me, NIOSH was not our friend. But I -- you 

know, I just felt like they were working 

against us from the start, but you guys have 

pretty well shot my statement all to heck, so I 

guess that's all I wanted to say. Thank you --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank --

 MR. RUBY: -- very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- you for coming, in spite of the 

change in what you were going to say. I think 

probably you're more comfortable than you would 

otherwise have been, so -- but we're glad 

you're here. 

Are there any other folks -- yes, please 

approach the mike. 

 MS. WILBURN-YOAKUM: Yes, my name's Linda Anne 

Wilburn-Yoakum and my father died 29 years ago 

May 7th this year. This is my mother in the 

pink. She'll be 92. I've been five years 

fighting this and I -- I agree with the 

gentleman. It's been a bad fight. My father 

also worked for Silas Mason, and records is 
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something that just wasn't -- and the 

government, also. They just said no, we didn't 

do anything there. Oh, yes we did. And no, we 

don't have any records. 

I've got a couple of questions. I'm sure 

you've heard lots of crabbing from everybody. 

You basically approved the (unintelligible) 

variation on what the radiation levels were 

going to be. I was unable to make it here 

Monday and Tuesday. I'm sorry, I know I missed 

a lot. I did the St. Louis. I just couldn't 

get my mother and be here. 

My father's levels are unknown because of 

records. He was a steam-fitter and a pipe 

welder. He worked all over the plant. He 

didn't work on Line 1, he didn't work on Line 

6. He worked all over the place, and I guess 

I've -- I've got a couple of questions. Iowa 

City at the University Hospitals told him two 

weeks before his death that his death was due 

to his work, and that was what he did at 

Burlington in the Armory. It's -- it's -- it's 

known and accepted that my father had a rate of 

-- diagnosis of cancer during the period when 

they said it was. He had the thyroid cancer. 
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He had the bladder. It -- it's not a problem 

there, but the problem is they say he only had 

12 and a half percent. Well, who are they 

gauging these records against and where are 

they getting their records? What are they made 

from, other plants, other places? I mean I 

know you've heard it all. 

But my biggest question is, I pushed the button 

on everything I can. Deb McCurran*, 

Congressman Leach's associate in Ottumwa, has 

been wonderful the last two years, but it's 

been very flustrating (sic) for both of us. 

Now I have -- I have taken and filed, my 

mother's been denied. We appealed. I told 

them they had to come here. My mother wasn't 

well enough to go, so they came here and they 

said unless you've got new information, Ms. 

Hill said you're just going to be automatically 

denied, and we were. So I had to get a request 

in a certain amount of time to keep her case 

alive, so to speak. Now where does that put 

her since they only give him a 12 and a half 

percent? And I mean like he -- he told us all 

kinds of things before he died. That was a 

hush-hush secret you didn't talk about. Had he 
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not been dying, he wouldn't have told us 

nothing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Perhaps one of the NIOSH people 

can answer that, but if -- if in fact he was a 

member of IAAP during the designated time 

period and if in fact the action that this 

Board took yesterday proceeds through Congress 

-- which is the ultimate step -- then I would 

assume -- and NIOSH, you can help me out here -

- I would assume that all of these folks are 

part of that cohort, are they not? 

 MS. WILBURN-YOAKUM: Are they accepted in this 

even though they've been denied for like -- 

they told us she -- they told her she -- he had 

to have 50 percent to qualify. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I suspect we may have to have one 

of the individuals look at the dates and so on 

to confirm that the -- there are some criteria 

in terms of dates and numbers of working days, 

but --

 MS. WILBURN-YOAKUM: The dates coincided with 

the dates. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that -- I think we can have 

that done and should be done privately, not in 

open session, since there are privacy issues. 
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But please be aware that the action already 

taken earlier this week was to recommend 

Special Cohort status -- 

 MS. WILBURN-YOAKUM: I read that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- for the Iowa group, so that may 

indeed change your situation. 

 MS. WILBURN-YOAKUM: Okay. I thank you for 

your time. I know the Board has a lot to do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

 MS. WILBURN-YOAKUM: Appreciate it. 

 MR. RUBY: (Off microphone) Can I ask one more 

question? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, please. 

 MR. RUBY: This Special Cohort did pass. Okay, 

the articles in the paper -- my question is 

related to this. It says that it's going to 

Mike Leavitt next and they're actually -- the 

article says they are -- in 60 days they may be 

sending checks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. RUBY: Because in 2000 it already went to 

Congress. It still does have to go to Congress 

after Mike Leavitt? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Keep in mind that this Board is 

advisory. We -- we have -- we are advising the 
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Secretary of Health and Human Services that 

this class be added to the Special Exposure 

Cohort. 

 MR. RUBY: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That -- the Secretary of Health 

and Human Services has yet to take our advice 

and do something with it. 

 MR. RUBY: Right. Now, see, the paper says in 

2000, though, this -- that it wouldn't have to 

go to Congress this time because in 2000 they 

passed something it refers to in the newspaper. 

Are they incorrect? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the initial legislation of 

course is in place, but Congress has to approve 

addition of classes. Is that right, Jim -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, I think Congress -- be -- 

correct, Congress has a chance to turn down -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, if they don't act on it 

within 30 days to turn it down, it's -- 

automatically becomes part of the class, so in 

that sense --

 MR. RUBY: That's all they need. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- yes, they -- they can -- 

Congress can turn it down. If they do not, 

then it --
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 MR. RUBY: Okay. Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: Essentially the time frame would 

be 21 days our letter will get up to the 

Secretary. Secretary has 30 days then to make 

a recommendation. If the Secretary agrees with 

our recommendation, then Congress has 30 days 

to act. If Congress doesn't act to stop it, 

then DOL would be able to process the... 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're -- we're not in a position 

to say the check is in the mail, but -- other -

- other members of the public who wish to 

address the assembly? Thank you very much. 

If not, I just want to double-check. We may 

have some odds and ends here. Lew, help me 

out. What have we not yet covered? 

SC&A, INC. CONTRACT UPDATE STATUS

 DR. WADE: The only thing that we've not 

covered at this point, and I don't know that we 

would do it other than to make mention of it, 

is that -- you know, the SEC (sic) contract was 

originally awarded for $3 million for five 

years. That was two years ago. We're coming 

to the expenditure of that $3 million for the 

work that's currently on the books. This Board 

will need to make a decision as to what work it 
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wants SC&A to do next year and will need to 

build that into an estimate of cost, and then 

I'll need to proceed to try and secure that 

money. So at the July meeting we'll need to 

have a discussion of what you would like to see 

your contractor do next calendar year. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And that would involve identifying 

perhaps numbers of dose reconstruction cases, 

numbers of site profile reviews and any 

assistance with petitions that the Board may 

wish to identify. 

 DR. WADE: Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is that correct? We --

 MR. GRIFFON: Do we have to do a cost estimate 

at that meeting? 

 DR. WADE: No. We have -- we have cost 

figures. Now just for you to start to think 

about -- it costs approximately $200,000 for 

your contractor to review a site profile and 

approximately $350,000 to review 20 dose 

reconstructions. So with those kinds of 

multipliers, you can begin to estimate what you 

would like to see done. I have no figure to 

offer you in terms of the SEC task. 

Now it's well possible that these numbers will 
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be high estimates because we are developing -- 

SC&A is developing more efficient procedures, 

but I only have the numbers available that -- 

that are real at this point. Again, to 

complete the record on this, it -- those 

numbers are about twice what was originally 

estimated when you looked at this contract. 

But I must quickly point out that the Board has 

really more than doubled the work of the 

contractor through its six-step process. So I 

think all of this is in order. 

I think you need to think about what you would 

like to see done and then I have to try and 

secure the funding for that. That is not a 

given. I'm very supportive of the process and 

will work very hard to secure that funding. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Lew --

 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

 MR. PRESLEY: -- Robert Presley. Before our 

next meeting can you come up with a list of the 

task that are on the board -- I mean that would 

be on the books, the possible tasks for us so 

we will all be playing on a -- on a same sheet 

of music, and also the ones where you have an 

estimate for cost, could you please put that in 
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-- estimate for -- per job so that we can look 

at that before we go to our meetings so we've 

got some idea of what to talk to before we get 

there, please? 

 DR. WADE: I understand. What I'll try to do 

is -- I think it's appropriate that I would 

write to the Board and provide you with this 

information before the next meeting. That 

information would be public at the next 

meeting, obviously. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: That was the question I was going to 

ask, this will be a public meeting? 

 DR. WADE: Yes. I think when we discuss 

numbers at this level, without getting into the 

details of the labor rates of the contractor, I 

think we can have these deliberations in 

public. 

 MR. PRESLEY: We can have them. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think -- and -- and Lew is 

sensitive to -- to the level at which you can 

discuss the numbers. We can't discuss 

individual hourly rates and those kinds of 

things, but we can discuss costs of total 

contracts. 
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Yes, Arjun, did you have a -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I had a question --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- comment or question? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: For Dr. Wade or -- or you, Dr. 

Ziemer, I presume in view of the motion that 

was passed in regard to the SEC task order that 

you would be expecting a response from SCA in 

the form of a proposal and cost estimates by a 

certain date. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Lew is going to touch base with 

John on that --

 DR. WADE: I'll have to go to the contracting 

officer and then we'll approach SC&A. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay, fine. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You don't have to do anything at 

this point. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Right, I just -- I just -- 

since I'm not personally familiar with it, I 

just wanted to be clear about the process. 

Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: I think that's all, Paul. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if there are any other 

items to come before the Board today? 

 (No responses) 

Thank you very much. It seemed a little bit 
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like a marathon --

 MR. PRESLEY: Can I say -- can I say one thing 

before --

 DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Now that it's all over and 

deliberations are all over with, Mark and I 

went to Germantown last week and met with 

Sanford Cohen & Associates, went through a lot 

of -- tremendous amount of paperwork up there. 

I want to thank Sanford & Cohen (sic) for going 

up there with us, allowing us to look with 

them, and also thanking -- Larry Elliott's 

people did a fabulous job on getting that stuff 

ready for us to look at in a timely manner. 

They did a very, very good job. I want it on 

record that they did. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Mark, you 

want to add to that? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I would just add I was 

impressed that you got the clearances as 

quickly as you did, so that trip worked out 

pretty nicely. 

 DR. WADE: Yeah, I mean when we last met by 

phone, or even the last time the subcommittee 

met, I wasn't sure it would all come together, 
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but it did. And there are many, many people to 

be thanked for that, but I think good process 

was followed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We are 

adjourned. 

 (Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 4:35 p.m.) 
_____________________ 

324 

1 C E R T I F I C A T E OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of April 27, 

2005; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

27th day of May, 2005. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102