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 


THIRTY-FIFTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. IV 


DAY THREE 


ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Doubletree Oak Ridge, 


Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on January 26, 2006. 

2 

C O N T E N T S 

January 26, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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STATUS REPORTS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLANS 

FOR SITE PROFILE REVIEWS – NTS, SRS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCUSSIONS 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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TASK III REVIEW – DISCUSSION/CLOSURE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON/SC&A/NIOSH 

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INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEWS 

DISCUSSION/PLAN OF ACTION/CLOSURE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON/SC&A/NIOSH 

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REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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RECOGNITION OF DEPARTING MEMBERS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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SEC RULE REWRITE 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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BOARD WORKING TIME/DISCUSSION 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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PROGRAM UPDATES – NIOSH 

(INCLUDING UPDATE ON SCIENCE ISSUES) 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT 

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PROGRAM UPDATES – DOL 

DR. DIANE CASE 

238 

BOARD WORKING TIME, FUTURE MEETINGS AND PLANS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 

253 

261 
3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

4

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

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 

5 

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 


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 


STAFF/CONTRACTORS
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

6 

OTHER PARTICIPANTS
 

(in order of appearance) 


MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 


DR. ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A 


DR. JIM NETON, NIOSH 


MR. MIKE MOLINO 


DR. HANS BEHLING, SC&A 


DR. JOHN MAURO, SC&A 


DR. JAMES LOCKEY 


DR. JOHN POSTON 


MR. BRAD CLAWSON 


MR. RICHARD MILLER, GAP 


MS. KATE KIMPAN, ORAU 


MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 


MS. KATHY BEHLING, SC&A 


MR. TED KATZ, NIOSH 


MS. LIZ HOMOKI-TITUS, HHS 


DR. DIANE CASE, DOL 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(8:30 a.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. We're ready to 


begin our third day of sessions on the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health here at 


Oak Ridge. I'll begin with the usual reminder, 


and that is to register your attendance in the 


registration book in the hallway. 


Also again, a reminder that there are copies of 


the agenda and related documents on the tables 


to my far right, those -- particularly members 


of the public who have joined us today, if you 


have documents you need to get that we will be 


discussing, those are on the table. 


Dr. Lewis Wade, our Designated Federal 


Official, has some opening comments, as well. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, just a very brief comment. 


-- again, I would like to thank the Board. You 


know, last night was a long night and I think 


we all feel great sympathy and empathy for the 


people who come to speak to us and it makes the 


evening long and arduous. I'd like to, on the 


record, thank Dr. Ziemer for what I thought was 


I 
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an outstanding job of representing, with as 


much compassion as I could imagine, the issues 


that we're trying to deal with. So I would 


like to personally and on the record thank Dr. 


Ziemer for his work. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Also, one 


item that one of the attendees last night 


wished to have placed on the record and was 


unable to do so because we ran out of time, she 


left her statement with Larry Elliott and, 


without objection, I'm going to ask Larry to 


read that statement into the record this 


morning. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This was Ms. Lindsey -- Alvin N. 


Lindsey -- asked me to read this statement, and 


she and her brother spoke at public comment 


night before last and she could not be here -- 


if you recall, they were from Savannah River 


Site and they needed to get back home, but she 


asked me if I would see if we could enter this 


into the record. 


(Reading) On behalf of our father, Robert D. 


Lindsey, and other similarly situated claimants 


who have been denied under Part B, we request 


that the government look closely at other 

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chemical toxic exposures intended by the 


statute. Respectfully submitted, Beulah J. 


Lindsey, Alvin N. Lindsey. 


I explained to her that subtitle E covered 


those other toxic exposures and I asked her to 


touch base with her claims examiner at DOL. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Larry. 


STATUS REPORTS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLANS
 

FOR SITE PROFILE REVIEWS – NTS, SRS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

Now you have your agenda before you and we will 


try to follow it as closely as we're able to 


today. We're going to begin with two 


preliminary site profile reviews. One is the 


Nevada Test Site and the other is the Savannah 


River Site. Dr. Makhijani is prepared to give 


us an overview of the -- or basically a status 


report of the site profile reviews on those two 


which are underway. This basically is a status 


report, but we want -- keep in -- keep in mind 


we have a queue of site profiles under review 


and at various stages, and this is our first 


look at these two, and there will be more to 


come. But at least we'll get them under way, 


as it were, with this briefing this morning. 


 Dr. Makhijani. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 
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believe that you did get a briefing on Savannah 


River earlier from us, but there was no matrix. 


So we did submit matrices for the Nevada Test 


Site review and the Savannah River Review. 


They're back there. You -- the Board has 


copies of my slides, but I don't think there 


are enough there for the public. But we could 


get more later and put them out. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So let's -- we'll begin with the 


Nevada Test Site, and I believe the matrix may 


be in the book, I -- yes, make sure you have 


the matrix, as well, in its current form. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So just -- I -- when we 


prepared this matrix, John -- John Mauro -- and 


I thought it might be useful to list the -- 


even summarize the matrix even further, so you 


have a set of bullet points in the front of the 


matrix. And what my slides are basically is a 


-- is a reproduction of that. 


So just to follow along the categorization of 


issues of -- that is typical of site profiles 


but not in the same order, the major internal 


dose issues at Nevada Test Site that we 


identified in our review were that there's no 


internal dose monitoring data -- 

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Before -- before I go on, let me preface this 


that we reviewed Revision 0. We know that 


Revision 1 is in the works, and Revision 0 does 


have disclaimers that it doesn't cover the 


atmospheric testing period, although it has 


some conclusions about the atmospheric testing 


period. We did provide findings on the whole 


period of Nevada Test Site operations, so not 


necessarily meant as criticisms of the site 


profile, but to move the thing ahead and since 


we know Revision 1 is in the works. 


 There's no individual internal dose monitoring 


until late '55 or '56. The some plutonium 


bioassay was initiated then. Tritium bioassay 


was initiated I think in 1958, and a full array 


of radionuclide internal monitoring was not 


established until about the mid-'60s -- '67, I 


think. There was some fission product bioassay 


in the early '60s, so there -- there are very 


significant gaps in the internal dose record 


for which there's no method yet published by 


NIOSH as to how those doses would be estimated. 


That is for a difficult period in the time of 


atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. 


There are radionuclide lists that are very 

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substantial in the site profile, but they are 


not complete in some very important respects. 


Because it was a test site, they had very 


short-lived radionuclides deposited and so 


intakes -- and this comes up in external dose 


also -- are very time-dependent because of 


rapid decay of the short-lived radionuclides, 


and so it's very important that the early 


radionuclide lists be complete. 


The site profile recommends the use of 


Technical Information Bulletin 002 for post1971 tunnel re-entry workers. This was a 


little bit of a surprise because TIB-2 itself 


says that it is not to be used for this 


purpose, and so there's an inconsistency 


between the site profile and TIB-2. We don't 


think that it's appropriate to use TIB-2 -- for 


instance, because the radionuclides in TIB-2 


are not necessarily appropriate for the Nevada 


Test Site, partly because of the problem I just 


mentioned. 


Now there -- yes-- day before yesterday you 


considered the Pacific Proving Ground, and one 


of the issues is relevant here. Currently 


photon doses are used to estimate internal 

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doses, and there is the issue of hot particles, 


which I'll cover later. But in this context I 


just wanted to mention that there are two 


issues. There's a data integrity issue and a 


hot -- large hot particle issue that will 


complicate the estimation of internal dose from 


photon doses -- 'cause external dose monitoring 


is much more extensive than internal dose 


monitoring, at least in the early period. 


So there are some issues in regard to external 


dose. There are no beta dose until 1966, no 


neutron dose until 1966, and partial neutron 


dose data until 1979. 


Now there's a data integrity question, and then 


let me explain that to you a little bit in more 


detail. Nevada Test Site apparently had a 


policy that's documented in Dr. Barton Hacker's 


history of nuclear testing, that's the official 


history of nuclear testing, that people were 


likely to lose their privilege -- it was 


considered an economic privilege of working in 


forward areas, or be laid off, if they exceeded 


the quarterly dose limit. And so there was 


apparently a practice of removing the badges by 


some personnel, and the extent of this is not 

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documented. But the fact that it occurs seems 


-- seems to be pretty clear. This came up in 


our site expert interviews in two different and 


completely independent sets of site expert 


interviews, including the interview I did with 


William J. Brady, who retired as the principal 


health physicist, and he said he did it 


himself. And this was a very important 


economic loss to workers, as you might imagine, 


and so this -- the question of the integrity of 


the external dose record is very important. 


How long this -- Mr. Brady said that this 


lasted until the late '60s, if I remember, and 


in other site expert interviews it was said 


that it may have gone on into the 1970s. It's 


kind of murky, but this is obviously an 


important issue -- sort of similar to what Joe 


Fitzgerald mentioned in regard to Rocky Flats 


yesterday. 


There are obviously a lot of different type 


work situations and, as has come up in other 


contexts, there's a question of correction 


factors for external dose in regard to where 


the badge is located and where the job was. 


This won't apply to all situations, but there ­
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- there are likely -- the variety of jobs done 


at Nevada Test Site was pretty great and 


there's likely to be situations where this is 


important. 


There is an assumption in the site profile that 


atmospheric test workers were not exposed to 


neutrons. This is an unvalidated assumption 


and may not be correct for some workers. This 


-- this definitely needs to be documented. 


It's certainly true that for most workers they 


were not exposed to neutrons and they were well 


away from the tests. But there were -- there 


were pressures to put personnel in forward 


areas, and so this is -- this is not a given 


for all workers. 


Came up on the issue of large, non-respirable 


hot particles -- that is, particles greater 


than 10 microns. This issue was researched 


extensively at the time by the Naval 


Radiological Defense Laboratory. One of their 


reports is cited in the site profile, but 


there's no discussion of it. I looked into 


this issue in some detail. The Naval 


Laboratory concluded that there could be very 


significant -- if -- if large particles were 

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deposited on the skin or ingested via 


inhalation route, that's -- those are the two 


things that they considered because they're 


non-respirable; they would wind up in the GI 


tract -- that the doses could be very 


substantial, but very local. The doses 


estimated in the Naval Laboratory's documents 


are very high, and this is -- this is obviously 


an important problem that would also apply 


possibly to atmospheric testing workers or 


early re-entry -- atmospheric testing workers 


and early re-entry reactor workers. 


 This situation -- while this is not in the 


Naval documents, in our opinion this situation 


would be complicated by oronasal breathing of 


non-respirable particles, which would also wind 


up in the GI tract. So the large particle 


issue is -- is significant for some types of 


cancers and needs to be researched. Also 


whether it applies to early tunnel re-entry 


workers and workers exposed to venting of 


underground -- there's a mistake there. It 


should say "venting of underground tests", not 


venting of atmospheric tests. I'm sorry about 


that. Atmospheric tests automatically vented. 

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There are a significant number of issues in 


regard to environmental dose. We felt that in 


sum total the environmental dose methods and 


models could significantly underestimate the 


environmental dose by an order of magnitude or 


more. We didn't feel that the model -- 


resuspension model presented in the site 


profile was appropriate. It's -- the model -- 


the resuspension model is really more 


appropriate only for re-entry -- early reentry, within weeks or months, not for re-entry 


after years. 


 Fractionation of radionuclides, which also came 


up day before yesterday -- this is when the 


non-volatile radionuclides are deposited closer 


to the site of the test and the more volatile 


radionuclides travel farther. So for instance, 


strontium and plutonium would be deposited 


closer to the site of the test. This needs to 


be taken into account in the environmental dose 


calculations. There are some gaps in 


extrapolations in the environmental dose record 


that don't seem appropriate to us. 


There is a very important question of the 


review of records that there -- obviously 

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Nevada Test Site is a very complicated site and 


the site profile does contain quite an enormous 


review of the archives. But because the issue 


-- there are some very, very important issues, 


it does seem that in some essential respects 


the record review and interview process was not 


complete and has resulted in some gaps in the 


site profile. 


 Specifically, William J. Brady was there from 


1952 to 1990 and was in security and health 


physics, retired as principal health physicist. 


He was part -- he's been on National Academy 


panels on dose reconstruction, and he seems to 


have been only briefly contacted, and the 


record of that contact is -- is very sketchy. 


The documentation of other site expert 


interviews is better, but we found that -- we 


were told that NIOSH only records what is -- 


what they consider important. And the 


importance of what is said in an interview is 


not always evident at -- on the spot, so better 


documentation of site expert interview 


definitely required -- also felt that the 


reference to the official history and the 


underlying archive of Barton Hacker was 

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entirely missing from the site profile, which 


was a little bit of a surprise. Specifically, 


Barton Hacker's history contains references to 


archives that could be very important in 


investigating things such as data integrity. 


 Some other major issues -- there's some radon 


issues for G-tunnel workers. The status of the 


Gravel Gertie workers where weapons were put 


together is unclear whether they belong in the 


Nevada Test Site or belong in Livermore. I 


don't know where NIOSH is in resolving that 


issue. There's also, as a result, no 


discussion of radon dose issues. This came up 


in the Iowa -- this is similar to the Iowa 


case, as you might remember. 


So that's the review team. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: I need to interrupt briefly. I 


neglected to do my conflict of interest 


statement --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- and I'm sorry and I'll try not to 


forget again. For Nevada Test Site there were 


none. Only Mark Griffon when we're dealing 


with an action filed by building trades union. 

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And for Savannah River Site there are none. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's take a moment 


now for questions or comments. Gen Roessler. 


DR. ROESSLER: I agree with you, Arjun, on the 


point about Mr. Brady and some of these 


comments because that could be a very important 


issue. But I hope that there's a way of really 


validating what he has said. And you did give 


another -- you indicated there was another 


report, and I'm not familiar with it -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah --


DR. ROESSLER: -- back where the external dose 


measurements -- or they just didn't wear their 


badges, apparently. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, this -- this came up -- 


this came up in other site expert interviews 


that are -- that were done independently, so it 


came up in two different site expert 


interviews. And in regard to -- in regard to 


the employment conditions, this is documented 


in Barton Hacker's history, and there are a 


whole set of documents from the time that 


validate that there were these kinds of 


employment practices at the time. I don't know 


that -- I have not come across documents from 

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the time that say workers are not wearing their 


badges, we need to improve this. Obviously the 


situation appears to have been corrected, so 


there may be a document trail that says this is 


a problem, we need to fix this, but I have not 


come across such documents. Obviously in a 


review we did not try to be exhaustive but 


tried to highlight the issues. 


DR. ROESSLER: I think it's an important item 


to get more information on. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is obviously a central 


issue. Yes, I agree. 


 DR. ZIEMER: One of the problems in the earlier 


times, lifetime doses were not kept usually in 


-- I think before, what, late '50s actually. 


They simply had weekly limits, and it would be 


fairly easy for a worker to simply work up to 


the limit in a week. Once you had lifetime 


exposures, you could easily see from film badge 


patterns if someone, over a period of several 


weeks, got rapidly up to a limit and then 


nothing more occurred for a few weeks, those 


patterns would show up. And that may explain 


why they stopped -- the practice may have not 


been as easy to do later on. But the early 

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ones, it would be very difficult to de-- I'm 


just talking about going back to the data and 


sort of cross-validating. I think it would be 


difficult in the early days to validate it from 


the data, unless you had also some daily pocket 


dosimeter readings or something that you could 


compare with the film badges. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just to comment on that, Dr. 


Ziemer, apparently the introduction of the 


integrated -- integral identification and film 


badge in 1966 appears to have helped alleviate 


the situation. That's why Mr. Brady thought 


that maybe by the end of the '60s this problem 


essentially went away. But then other site 


experts said that it may have continued to the 


'70s, so this obviously --


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think it would be --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- needs to be researched. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- very difficult to conceal it, 


as it were, as -- because of the exposure 


patterns that would show up. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Roy DeHart. 


 DR. DEHART: Yes, two questions. Would you 


remind me what Gravel Gertie operations -- 

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 DR. MAKHIJANI: Gravel Gerties are the 


structures in which nuclear weapons were 


assembled. In case there were accidental 


detonations, it would collapse inward and not 


release vast amounts of radioactivity. 


 DR. DEHART: Thank you. And another question 


on the economic factor, was this a hazard pay 


issue? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, there were hazard pay 


issues in forward areas. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? Just for our 


benefit, the -- your original document was 


issued maybe a month ago -- right? And NIO--


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Maybe two months. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not the matrix, the review -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- about a month ago. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- the review, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then the matrix we just got -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- recently. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And just for the record, Jim, 


NIOSH has not had an opportunity, I don't 


think, to react to these comments in any 

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extent. 


DR. NETON: No, we haven't. We appreciate the 


fact that SC&A has consolidated the -- the 


report to some more manageable significant 


issues. 


I would point out on this monitoring issue, we 


have seen this where workers who were 


supposedly taken out of areas and not working 


and did not have external badge results, for 


some strange reason continued to have tritium 


being excreted in their urine. And so it's 


pretty obvious that they continued to work in 


the areas, and we -- we try to take this into 


account when we see situations like that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that would be another good 


way to cross-validate. 


DR. NETON: One other thing I'd just like to 


point out briefly is that, you know, for the 


reasons Dr. Makhijani mentioned, there are gaps 


in the site profiles and we recognize that. So 


for that reason we're moving very cautiously 


with dose reconstructions at Nevada Test Site, 


particularly during the atmospheric -- above-


ground, atmospheric testing era. So again, the 


site profile has been issued to allow there to 

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be information to be used when possible, but we 


certainly recognize the limitations and are 


not, you know, jumping ahead and using this 


document right now for -- for large amounts of 


dose reconstructions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: As I -- as I said, Dr. Ziemer 


and Dr. Neton, some -- a lot of the comments in 


regard to atmospheric testing are not meant as 


criticisms, but to obviate the need for more 


iterations when Revision 1 is published so as 


to minimize -- to be more efficient. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. Dr. Roessler again. 


DR. ROESSLER: I just wanted to pick up on 


Gravel Gertie, too, and you compared it to the 


Iowa situation. In Iowa we knew that the Iowa 


soils have a high radon potential. I don't 


know that that's necessarily true in the Nevada 


soils, but that's something that certainly 


should be -- should be looked at. I don't 


think we could just off-hand say it's like the 


Iowa situation. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, Dr. Roessler, I didn't 


mean to leave a mis-impression, and thank you 


for the correction that -- I wasn't comparing 

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it to the high radon levels in the natural 


environment in Iowa. I was comparing more the 


structural situation that -- that's an enclosed 


structure and radon would tend to accumulate 


inside, so definitely an issue that needs to be 


taken into account. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments or 


questions? Yes, Mr. Presley. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I could be wrong, and I've sure 


put a bunch of them together out there, but I 


don't remember a Gravel Gertie at NTS. The 


only Gravel Gerties I've worked in is at 


Pantex. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Pantex has many Gravel 


Gerties. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This was --


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe they have something 


equivalent to that? 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: This came up in our 


conversations with NIOSH and we had no 


indications that such a structure did not 


exist, so obviously this has to be open to 


correction. 


DR. NETON: We're going to have to go back and 


check on that. I'm not familiar with that 

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issue right now. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, so it's obviously -- I 


mean weapons were being put together there, but 


-- and you did it, so -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: That's not the issue. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So -- so whatever the structure 


was, I guess -- I'm not sure -- obviously this 


should be open for correction. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we can -- you can follow up 


on that. 


 DR. WADE: (Unintelligible) information 


(unintelligible)? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) There's -- 


there's one (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Come to the mike. You'll need to 


identify yourself. 


 MR. MOLINO: Mike Molino, I've been to the test 


site a number of times. There's one on 


Frenchman Flats right where the -- the balloon 


shots were done where they had created the 


artificial lake, so... 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


that was used in the early, early, early years. 


 MR. MOLINO: Yes, sir, very early. I think 


they only used it for seven shots. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: It was only used for cover. 


 MR. MOLINO: Yes, sir. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let's then proceed to the ­

- the next presentation, which is the Savannah 


River Site. 


 DR. WADE: We will come back and talk about our 


follow-up actions on both of them -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. WADE: -- I assume, at (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, uh-huh. 


(Pause) 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Savannah River Site, just a 


little review. This is -- there's some history 


to this. This -- we completed our review of 


Revision 2 of the site profile in October of 


2004. A new -- a new site profile Revision 3 


was published by NIOSH on April 5th, 2005. 


This is an integrated document, unlike -- 


unlike the others. It's still an integrated 


document, I think -- right, Jim? 


We have not reviewed Revision 3. The Board did 


not ask us to go back yet, so many of the 


issues have likely -- or at least some of the 


issues have likely been addressed, we don't 


know. And so -- so many of these issues may be 

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moot and it has to be essentially resolved 


which ones are still valid and which ones are 


moot in -- in the comment resolution process. 


And there was a presentation to the Board in 


October, 2005. 


The question of recycled uranium appeared in 


our review to be important at Savannah River 


Site. The radionuclides from the 


transplutonium program are -- the coverage of 


that needs to be fuller. The exposure to 


cobalt-60 needs to be considered. And so 


there's a -- there's a array of radionuclides 


that need to be considered that were not in 


Revision 2, and I don't know, as I said, what 


was the coverage in Revision 3. 


So this -- this is also a question that has 


come up several times. Dosimeter calibration 


is on normal incidence, and so the question of 


exposure angles needs to be considered. 


Dosimeter adjustment factors are not consistent 


in the Savannah River site profile with the DOE 


complex-wide recommended factors. 


Now Hans is here, so if there's amplification 


needed on this, I would call on him to clarify 


some of these points. 

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There are some familiar neutron-to-photon ratio 


questions and neutron dose questions. The 


geometric mean and standard deviation is not 


technically defensible or claimant-favorable. 


There are high uncertainties with both the 1971 


to 1975 (sic) TLND neutron doses and the pre1971 neutron doses. Obviously the NTA neutron 


doses would suffer from the same kind of 


problems that we've already discussed. 


Now there are some uncertainties that are not 


discussed in the site profile in relation to 


neutron-to-photon ratios. There are also 


variations in neutron-to-photon ratios within a 


given facility, such as the FB-line, that need 


to be taken into account. And SC&A recommended 


the use of the 95th percentile values for the 


period where there are TLND neutron dose data. 


Now there was an incomplete characterization of 


the Tank Farms. The Tank Farms in the F- and 


H-Areas, there are 51 high-level waste tanks 


there, and obviously there's a wide variety of 


radionuclides that was put into these tanks. 


In the early years, in the 1950s, there were a 


number of spills. I've looked at the Tank Farm 


databank quite a while back, in the 1980s, and 

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it was recorded in there that many of the 


incidents and spills, until 1965, were -- were 


at least not entered into a databank, so it's 


unclear how the incidents and especially the 


unmonitored workers for internal dose, as well 


as local hot-spot areas for external dose, 


would be dealt with. 


For instance, if there were a spill on the 


ground, then the question of the geometry of 


the exposure relative to the badge location 


could be important. The Tank Farm database -- 


databank does contain instances of external 


dose in the Tank Farm area, sometimes in the 


rems per hour, tens of rems per hour, and very 


occasionally even in the hundreds of rem per 


hour -- or rad, I should say, Roentgen per 


hour. 


So this -- these are pretty significant issues 


and it's very important to try to establish a 


complete list of incidents. I know that NIOSH 


relies on worker records for incidents, but 


since the databank itself said that incidents 


were not recorded, there's kind of an open 


question, especially in that regard. And the 


TBD guidance in regard to exposure needs to be 

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better validated for the databank. 


This is an issue for the -- did I skip a 


(unintelligible) -- sorry. 


There are inadequacies in the early internal 


and external monitoring programs that are 


detailed in our review. The personnel 


monitoring was determined by area-specific 


radiological field organizations. This is an 


issue that has also occurred in other places. 


Zeroes are recorded for unmonitored workers or 


due to missing records. Now this not only 


complicates the photon dose estimation, but 


obviously also complicates neutron dose 


estimate whenever you're relying on neutron-tophoton ratios. 


 Coworker models for early workers have not been 


developed. I don't know whether this situation 


has changed. I believe it might have. And 


there was a lack of neutron monitoring for some 


at-risk workers, which would lead to, you know, 


missed neutron dose. And I've already covered 


incident records. 


In the Savannah River site profile and 


associated technical guidance, there's the so-


called "high-five" approach where the highest 

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five intakes are attributed for unmonitored 


workers, and sometimes also for monitored 


workers who just -- for efficiency purposes. 


Am I right about that, Dr. Neton? 


DR. NETON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Only for unmonitored workers? 


DR. NETON: I think so. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. 


DR. NETON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


(On microphone) Some monitored workers I think, 


if we can demonstrate that the bioassay on 


those workers is below the level at which the 


high five approach would generate. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. So some -- for some 


monitored workers, but mostly unmonitored 


workers. We found instances in the record 


where there were intakes that were recorded 


that were higher than the high five, so it 


doesn't seem that the high five is in all cases 


an actual high five. 


There seemed to be an inconsistency with the 


regulation 42 CFR 82 because in going from the 


high five there's a use in estimating the dose. 


The first step is the use of the ICRP-30 model 


to estimate the intake. And so -- and there's 

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an assumption that the high five approach is 


necessarily the worst-case approach, and so in 


reviewing it, various factors led us to 


conclude that generally it may be a worst-case 


approach and obviously may result in very high 


overestimation of dose in most or even possibly 


all cases, but it's not clear that you could 


demonstrate this at the present time -- in the 


present state of documentation that we've 


reviewed. 


So there are some limitations associated with ­

- in the occupational environmental dose. If I 


might illustrate this, the occupational 


environmental dose is based on an off-site 


source term. We question the applicability of 


an off-site source term to on-site exposures. 


For instance, there was open-pan burning of 


plutonium-contaminated solvents in the burning 


ground. This is not a significant issue likely 


for off-site exposures, but obviously could be 


a pretty significant issue for on-site 


exposures. And so the use of the off-site 


source term may be appropriate in some 


situations, but -- but not in all situations 


and -- and needs further work. 

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There's the recurrent question of incidents and 


incident lists. There's a need to improve 


internal dosimetry with regard to radionuclide 


solubility. The oronasal breathing has since 


been addressed, and ingestion dose, and NIOSH 


is revising its approach, so -- and there is a 


question of organically-bound tritium and 


stable metal tritides. Perhaps these are small 


contributors to the dose, as NIOSH has said, 


but this is an issue that we had brought up and 


that perhaps could be resolved relatively 


rapidly. 


So there are sources of external dosimetry data 


that are not being used in the dose 


reconstruction process. I don't recall 


actually, honestly, what this refers to. Maybe 


Hans can amplify on that if you have a 


question. And there are special exposure 


circumstances for subcontractors and 


construction workers that need to be dealt 


with. 


 You already know the review team from the last 


briefing, I guess. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. Let's 


have discussion on this. Wanda? 

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 MS. MUNN: Arjun, could you please tell me what 


is the FB-line? I'm not familiar with the 


site. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: The FB-line is attached to the 


F canyon where the back end of the plutonium 


refinement is done, and plutonium oxide I 


believe is produced at the end of the FB-line. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: If I recall correctly. 


 MS. MUNN: And you indicated that there may be 


additional external dose dosimetry. What --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Now this I don't recall, Ms. 


Munn. Hans, do you recall -- this is a little 


bit rusty with all of us because -- 


 MS. MUNN: I understand. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- we filed this review in 


October, 2004, so -- and -- 


 MS. MUNN: The same is true here. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: So could --


 DR. BEHLING: I'm drawing a blank. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could we get back to you -- 


 MS. MUNN: Sure. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- on that, Ms. Munn -- 


 MS. MUNN: Sure, it's not crucial. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- by e-mail and copy -- copy 

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the rest of the Board and NIOSH. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry about that. When I saw 


it when I was reading, I -- I thought to give 


you a disclaimer right away. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. BEHLING: I'm taking a guess here, but I 


think, if I recall, there was a period of time 


between the early '70s and the later '80s 


during which time certain data was not being 


recorded. Is that -- does that draw -- 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Let's just get back on the 


record with --


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, but I think that's 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- a more definite answer 


rather than -- I'm a little uncomfortable with 


-- this is an important issue and we should 


give you a correct answer. Sorry for the 


blank. 


 DR. ZIEMER: While you're pondering other 


questions, just for clarity of this review 


process, I'll remind the Board -- in fact it's 


in your October minutes that you read last 


night -- that the initial report from SC&A on 

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Savannah River was at the October meeting. And 


at that time in the minutes it was reported 


that NIOSH had made initial responses to seven 


findings and seven observations that -- that -- 


that's what the minutes says, I'm quoting from 


the minutes. (Reading) NIOSH has made initial 


responses to the seven findings and seven 


observations. 


But then it goes on to say that it was agreed 


that there would be face-to-face session where 


the parties would sit down and so on and the 


development of the matrix would occur, which is 


the point we're at. So I'm unclear about 


whether you had an initial response to some 


items or what this referred to, but -- 


DR. NETON: No, that doesn't sound correct to 


me. I don't -- I don't remember us doing that, 


although I wish we -- it'd be nice if we had. 


What we did at the October meeting was provide 


a brief summary of a reaction to a few of the 


issues that were raised in SC&A's findings. 


think in particular we talked about the high 


five approach a little bit and maybe our 


reaction to stable -- the organically-bound 


tritides. I'm drawing a blank. But we have 


I 
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not provided a detailed response -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe this is referring to some 


sort of preliminary reactions or comments -- 


DR. NETON: Possibly, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- as opposed to official 


(unintelligible) --


DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to me 'cause I hadn't seen 


anything in writing --


DR. NETON: Yeah, NIOSH has not --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to correspond to this, so -- 


DR. NETON: We have not officially responded to 


-- to these findings. And in fact, this is the 


first time, in mid-January, that we received 


the consolidated matrix that now has these six 


primary issues and ten secondary issues 


identified. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Again, the minutes refer to the 


fact that the matrix is to be developed and in 


fact there is a motion that occurred at that 


meeting instructing the contractor and NIOSH to 


proceed on the usual lines in the development 


of the matrix and going through the resolution 


process, so that action was actually taken. 


was a little puzzled by that statement, and if 


I 
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-- when we come to the minutes, if that needs 


some rewording, we need to do that, as well. 


John? 


DR. MAURO: Perhaps I can help you. I was at 


the working group meeting and that was on the 


agenda, but it turned out that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, this is main Board meeting. 


DR. MAURO: Oh, I th-- I mean -- okay, we did 


have a working group meeting with that on the 


agenda subsequent to that meeting, but we only 


-- if we spent a half-hour on it at the back 


end of the --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, maybe this was in the -- let 


me see what part of the minutes this is in. 


DR. MAURO: I remember because Joyce Lipsztein 


was on the line and we did have an opportunity 


to start to address some of these issues, but 


we really didn't go very far with it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This appears to be the main Board 


meeting, and -- when this item was discussed. 


 DR. WADE: Right, I think that probably refers 


to NIOSH's fairly spontaneous -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: -- response at the meeting 


(unintelligible). 

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41

 DR. ZIEMER: It probably needs to be reworded 


in a way to --


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- indicate it was not an official 


response. Okay. But I did want the Board to 


be aware that there was an action already in 


place in moving forward on the resolution 


process on this one, and the matrix is the 


first step of that. 


 Okay, further comments or questions? 


 DR. WADE: Lacking technical comment -- I mean 


this underscores the fact that the Board has an 


awful lot on its plate and -- and priorities 


are set by sometimes other things, particularly 


SEC petitions. And I think it's incumbent upon 


us to -- to keep the entire field of play in 


view and keep these things moving forward. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 


 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. WADE: I think now we need to talk about, I 


would suggest, what we do with regard to Nevada 


Test Site, and then if there's anything in 


addition we need to do with Savannah River. 


Arjun has raised the issue of now a Rev. 3 


that's there and not been reviewed, so I think 

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we need to spend a couple of minutes just 


deciding on a cour-- on courses of action. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The Nevada Test Site has already 


moved to the matrix format. Based on Board 


precedent I think the expectation is already 


there. We may not need formal action on each 


of these to move in that direction. The main ­

- the main item we would have to address is the 


workgroup that would work on each of these. 


I do want to check, did -- Mark, did your 


workgroup do anything on Savannah River 


already? 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm trying to --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm trying to determine whether 


you have any ownership that you don't want to 


relinquish on Savannah River. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think we -- if we did 


anything, it wasn't --


 DR. WADE: It was very --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it was very preliminary. 


 DR. WADE: -- very preliminary? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I have already heard from 

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some of the new incoming members that they are 


willing and interested to participate in some 


of these workgroups. 


 DR. WADE: Anxious, anxious. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Anxious? How naive they are. 


Right? Also I think for -- for distribution of 


workload, it would be appropriate to involve 


others in some of these site profile 


workgroups. Three or four individuals seems to 


work out pretty well, does it not? Get a 


little cross-section of individuals. The Chair 


would be interested in learning of interest -- 


actually we have Nevada Test Site, we have 


Savannah River Site, we also have Hanford 


working group, so actually there are three that 


we need to deal with. I know that Dr. Poston 


indicated an interest in Hanford. Is that 


still the case, Dr. Poston? Can -- can we put 


you on a Hanford workgroup? 


I think I would be interested in learning what 


workgroups people are interested in being 


involved in, and of course you have to avoid 


conflict of interest. Mr. Presley is 


interested in the Test Site, and we don't have 


any conflict of interest issues if experts are 

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on the workgroups, I don't believe. Is that 


correct, Lew? 


 DR. WADE: Correct, as long as we're dealing 


with site profile issues and we're not really 


voting. I mean I -- that's fine for them to be 


(unintelligible). 


DR. ROESSLER: I'd be interested in the Test 


Site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Nevada Test Site, Roessler, 


Presley -- any others on Nevada -- interested? 


Munn. We can take another if there's someone 


interested. That's a good start. Might be of 


interest -- okay, we've got Clawson, there's 


four. 


 Now Board members, I'm going to make these 


appointments, if there's no objection -- if 


some of you feel that you want to compete for 


these... 


 DR. WADE: Now just for your considera-- the 


new members, the conflict of interest issues 


will have to be worked through, but you can 


make tentative appointments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, right. Savannah River Site? 

Roy DeHart. 

 DR. MELIUS: Paul, I'll do Hanford. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll put Dr. Melius on 


Hanford. 


DR. ROESSLER: Do we need to volunteer for more 


than one? 


 DR. ZIEMER: You don't have to, you may -- you 


may. 


DR. ROESSLER: I would like to not volunteer 


for Savannah. If I need another assignment I'd 


prefer Hanford. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now --


DR. ROESSLER: And it's not -- no reflection on 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we have Mark and Presley and 


Gibson already on two, and -- oh, DeHart, 


you're also on those. Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And Wanda is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Wanda, right. Okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) Hanford (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. LOCKEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


Savannah River. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll put Lockey on Savannah 


River. Okay, let's see, I'm going to -- 


 MR. GIBSON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

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for Savannah River. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Savannah River, Gibson, okay. 


Then we lack one, I'll put myself on Hanford 


then --


 MS. MUNN: Good. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- unless someone else wishes. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: So and now --


 MR. GRIFFON: I'll take Savannah River. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You want Savannah River, too? 


Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: I'll be glad to be an alternate for 


Hanford, Dr. Ziemer, if you'd like. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We -- we have four on each of 


these. I'll assume if we need alternates we'll 


just call on people as needed, but -- we all 


need to be cognizant of all these site 


profiles, in any event, and if we have a case 


where one or two members cannot attend, we need 


to call on others to fill in as needed. 


So the teams now would be as follows: For the 


Nevada Test Site, Roessler, Presley, Clawson -- 


 DR. WADE: Munn. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and Munn. Okay. And we 

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probably -- we need a team leader for that, so 


Presley, if you would be the leader for that, 


please. 


And then for Savannah River Site we have 


Griffon, DeHart, Gibson -- who did I miss? 


 DR. WADE: Dr. Lockey. 


DR. ROESSLER: Lockey. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Lockey. Okay, and perhaps 


DeHart can be the team leader for that. 


 DR. WADE: Fine choice. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And then Hanford would be Poston, 


Melius, Clawson, Ziemer, and Melius, I'll ask 


you if you'll be the team leader. 


 DR. MELIUS: Fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And of course the -- on 


these newer ones, there will be a time period 


during which NIOSH will be involved in 


preparing their initial responses before 


workgroups ever get involved, so there will be 


a little breathing space -- probably on 


Savannah River and the Test Site and -- and 


actually on Hanford, as well, for those 


responses to be developed before we get into 


the workgroup mode. But at least we're ready 


to go then. 

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 DR. WADE: Right, I think we have an open issue 


on Y-- on -- excuse me, Savannah River, and 


that is the fact that Rev. 3 has not been 


reviewed by your contractor. I mean do you 


want to commission that? John, anything -- any 


input you have on this? I assume if we were to 


ask --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and maybe we can get some 


early determination of the major differences in 


Rev. 3 and Rev. 2. There -- I think Arjun 


suggested some of the issues may have already 


been resolved in the Rev. anyway, but -- 


DR. MAURO: I'd like to offer a yes, it'd be 


relatively easy to -- a read, a quick read, 


quickly identify areas that have changed and 


will be in a very good position in a short 


period of time to just let you know what the 


significances -- in other words, does the 


matrix narrow down -- you know, so maybe we 


could actually come up with, expeditiously, a 


revised matrix that reflects Rev. 3, and I 


don't see that as being a very significant 


level of effort. 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right. I was asking Lew if 


this required a formal Board motion to instruct 

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the contractor to so proceed. 


 DR. WADE: Well, maybe you could have a motion. 


Motions are nice. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or -- or I'll just ask, is there 


any objection on the Board if we ask the 


contractor to proceed along those lines? 


Without objection, it is so ordered. 


 DR. WADE: Just to bring sort of a temporal 


pressure to this, maybe -- now we have a Board 


call scheduled for March 14th. Maybe we can 


put on the agenda for that call sort of status 


reports on each of these actions, and this 


really can keep it in front of the Board and 


keep these things moving. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I got a note 


here -- I guess this is from you, Ray, that -- 


a reminder to Board members to use your mikes, 


get them perhaps a little closer than you are. 


After three days, Ray's hearing is depleted. 


Ray does a great job. We really appreciate the 


work he does, and we need to help out to the 


extent we can by using those mikes. 


CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCUSSIONS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

Now our next agenda item is conflict of 


interest discussions and Lew, you're going to 

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lead us in that. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, let me sort of outline what's 


brought us here and what I suggest happens over 


the next, you know, time we're going to spend 


on this. 


This issue is really initiated by a 


communication dated February 20th from Richard 


Miller to Jim Neton and Dick Toohey, and that 


material is in front of you. It's been in 


front of you before. This raised issues about 


the Paducah site profile conflict of interest 


issues and also technical issues. 


In response to that communication, there was a 


contract oversight team that was put together 


and a report that was issued, and you have that 


report, as well. It's dated 10/11/2005. This 


report was made available to you at the last 


Board meeting, it was not discussed. You have 


that report. 


In light of that report, Mr. Miller wrote to 


the NIOSH Director and Secretary Leavitt a 


letter dated December the 9th, also in your 


file. The NIOSH Director responded to Mr. 


Miller in a dated December 29th. What happened 


as a result of Richard's letter to the NIOSH 

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Director was the NIOSH Director, as Richard had 


asked, took a personal interest in this issue 


and has invested himself in the task of the 


conflict of interest policy, in this case as it 


relates to the ORAU contract. And you have in 


your package a draft of a recently-released 


conflict -- conflict of interest policy for 


ORAU. 


I should say that this task -- the leadership 


in that task was taken by John Howard. I 


should quickly point out that it was done 


cooperatively with our colleagues at ORAU and I 


thank them for their willingness to engage in 


this activity. I can only tell you that John 


Howard is committed to see that this issue is 


dealt with in the right way intellectually. 


And you'll notice in John's letter to Richard 


dated the end of December, he asked me to 


provide you with a copy of Richard's original 


letter and he also asked me to -- to ask you to 


provide input specifically to the scientific 


quality of the materials contained in the 


assessment report. 


So basically there are two issues here. There 


are the conflict of interest issues as 

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currently embodied in the draft policy for 


ORAU. And then there's a second set of issues 


that relate to the technical issues that were 


raised by Richard with regard to the Paducah 


site profile. And I think I'd like to deal 


with them separately. 


So what I would propose we do is Larry Elliott 


can come to the microphone and sort of walk us 


through the assessment report quite quickly, 


and then the draft conflict of interest policy. 


I would ask then -- Kate Kimpan might have a 


comment she would like to make as she's a coowner of that. 


At that point I would break from the normal 


rules and ask Richard Miller to -- to make any 


comments he would like. Richard is the driver 


of this, and I think it'd be appropriate for 


the Board to hear Richard's comment. 


Once that's completed, then I'd like to turn to 


the question of the technical issues and ask 


Stu Hinnefeld to come forward and briefly give 


us a status of the technical issues. And then 


the Board can deliberate as to what it might 


want to do relative to commenting on the 


conflict of interest policies and also 

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responding to John Howard's request to you to 


look at the scientific quality of the 


assessment report. 


So if that makes any sense to you, that's what 


I would propose. If there's no questions, we 


could ask (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's proceed on that basis, so we 


begin with Larry Elliott. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. As Dr. Wade 


indicated, we provided a copy of the assessment 


report to you back in October in advance of 


your Knoxville meeting. I commissioned this 


review by this assessment team. The members of 


the assessment team were Michael Rafky out of 


the Office of General Counsel on our NIOSH 


radiation legal team; Lauri Ishak, who's a 


Presidential management empl-- fellow at NIOSH; 


and Robert Daniels, who is a health physicist 


in another program area of NIOSH. 


The charge that I gave to this assessment team 


was to evaluate the concerns that were raised 


in the February 20th letter to Dr. Toohey and 


Dr. Neton, and specifically the purpose of this 


assessment was to determine whether a conflict 


of interest policy violation occurred during 

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the development of the Technical Basis Document 


for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, and 


whether or not, in addition to that, was there 


information, data or technical pieces that were 


not incorporated into that site profile that 


should have been. So the scope of this 


assessment focused on those two primary areas: 


was a violation of the conflict of interest 


policy committed, and whether or not there was 


technical information and data that was not 


included -- purposely not included in the site 


profile. 


You'll see here that the conclusions are 


presented as to each of those two primary 


questions. The findings are so stated. The 


conflict of interest policy that was employed 


during the approval of this site profile was 


found to be ambiguous. 


I would remind the Board that this particular 


request for a proposal for this contract called 


for a conflict of interest policy to be 


presented within each proposal for the 


contract, and that conflict of interest policy 


originally from the RFP was to speak to 


controlling conflicts on dose reconstruction 

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for claims. As time went on, this Board and -- 


through concerns raised we saw the need and 


ORAU complied with the need to include and make 


a change in their conflict of interest policy 


to address site profile development. That 


change was the current policy under effect when 


these concerns about the Paducah site profile 


were raised. And rightfully so, these new 


concerns that were raised about Paducah have 


been attempted to be addressed and reflected 


upon in the current revision of the conflict of 


interest policy that you have before you as a 


draft. 


 The conclusions with regard to the -- whether 


or not there was a violation of the current 


policy, as I said, the violation of the then-


current COI policy did not occur. That was a 


finding of this assessment team, although the 


language of the policy was ambiguous and the 


underlying intent of the policy, they felt, was 


followed. 


 However, they identified several problems with 


that policy besides the ambiguous language. 


There were -- there was no clear definition of 


roles and responsibilities. There was 

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confusion presented in the language of the 


policy with regard to what a subject expert 


could be in control of with regard to the 


development of a document. There was -- in 


addition to that, there was no clear 


understanding as to what a document owner was 


or what a primary author was. There was an 


interchanging and an intermixing of these kind 


of terms and roles and responsibilities. 


With regard to the technical basis of the 


Paducah site profile, there was concerns raised 


that the subject expert did not include a 


careful consideration and inclusion of all data 


into the text of -- and the presentation of 


information in the site profile. And you can 


read through these conclusions here. I think 


Stu will speak also to them in a moment. But 


basically this boils down to certain job 


categories and process areas -- ash -- ash 


recei-- ash and -- ash receivers in the 


pulverizer area where some data was not 


accounted for in the site profile, and I'll 


allow you to read through that. 


We took very seriously the comments and 


concerns that were raised in Mr. Miller's 

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letter to Dr. Howard, and we worked closely 


with the ORAU folks, and you can see -- I'll go 


now to the revised policy. And this revised 


policy as presented today provides, I think, a 


lot clearer explanation and definition of roles 


and responsibilities. It also inserts clearly 


a definition regarding what a conflict is, as 


well as what bias is. It prescribes who has a 


span of control and authority over a document, 


and it -- it identifies clearly what the review 


process is and what level of attribution and 


disclosure is required. So I think it's a much 


clearer, a much stronger policy and it is far 


more comprehensive than the two previous 


policies that have been -- ORAU has been 


operating under. 


And with that, I think I'll stop at that point. 


 DR. WADE: As I said, Kate is a co-owner of 


this, so I think it's appropriate she has an 


opportunity to make a comment. 


 MS. KIMPAN: A lot shorter than Larry. Hi, 


thank you very much for this opportunity. 
I 


want to start by thanking Dr. Howard and the 


staff at NIOSH and actually some of the folks 


from HHS for their excellent guidance and 

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leadership on the charge to our team to make 


this policy one that we can all embrace in its 


words and in its spirit. 


I'd like to start by saying how extremely proud 


I am of the work that our ORAU team has 


performed and is performing for NIOSH on behalf 


of sick workers all over the country. This is 


a very important issue to us. Our credibility, 


how we're viewed, the quality of our work is of 


primary import. This policy is our policy. It 


is important that we have full disclosure, that 


we're clear about who has contributed, in what 


way, the effects of that contribution. 


You heard Larry just make a very important 


distinction about the owner of a document and 


who that person might and should be. Even 


though this policy is in its draft form, we on 


the ORAU team embrace it fully. I've already 


directed a number of changes on documents that 


are currently in process and in review to 


assure that this policy, although it may 


change, we're embracing the spirit of this 


which is no one who is in a biased or 


conflicted or potentially biased or conflicted 


role will be a document owner for any part of 

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any of the work we do. We look forward to 


everyone involved in this project adhering to 


those same methods and rules. This is an 


extremely important policy to assure the good 


quality of the work that we're doing -- it is 


viewed as good quality and is assured as good 


quality. 


So we are proud to say that we're embracing 


this policy right now as it is. We look 


forward to changes that may occur, but as Larry 


pointed out, there was enough clarification 


that emerged in our charge from Dr. Howard and 


as we worked our way through this policy, we're 


clear enough about what we're going to need to 


do in terms of providing proper attribution, 


proper documentation of who the roles of 


different participants were, and proper 


documentation about who the right owner of a 


document ought to be. Whether it's a new 


document that hasn't been begun, whether it's a 


document that's in revision, we will assure 


that we have independent, non-biased, non-


conflicted individuals who own our findings, 


our conclusions in the synthesis of this 


important information. 

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60

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Kate. Larry? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'd like to add one more comment 


to that. We feel so strongly about this policy 


and its clarity and it's comprehensiveness 


that, once ORAU does finalize this, it will be 


placed on our web site and I will pick this 


policy up and modify it to become the OCAS 


policy. So we will change the -- whatever ORAU 


has presented, we will turn that into OCAS and 


we will live by this same policy. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, can you fill us in on the 


time table? The policy itself requires NIOSH 


to approve it, ultimately. Isn't that correct? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And you are soliciting input from 


the Board on this, as well? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We would welcome input. We'd 


welcome your comment. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know that Board members 


necessarily have had a chance to fully digest 


it, but I'm asking about the timetable. When 


are you expecting to finalize this -- your 


approval of this, or is there a time line? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We would put it up on our web 


site as a working document, as a draft -- a 

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provisional document, if you will, that we're 


working under. And as comment comes in, Kate 


and I will get together and make a decision on 


how to address the comments that are provided 


and we'll move forward that way. And once we 


make a change, we will so notice on the web 


site and notice this Board that we've made a 


change. 


 DR. WADE: We're certainly prepared not to 


finalize it if the Board wishes to make comment 


at its next meeting or whatever suits the 


convenience of the Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we can certainly ask for 


comment at this time, as well -- 


 DR. WADE: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if there's specific heartache 


or issues that need to be raised, this would be 


an appropriate time -- or questions. Maybe 


there are questions or comments right now that 


Board members wish to raise on this. Again, I 


don't know that they've had a chance to fully 


digest it, however. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sure you haven't, and I just 


want to note that on our web site right now we 


have the original -- the second revision of the 

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ORAU policy for comparison against this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We do not have the one that was 


provided with the assessment report. We've 


taken that down because we just -- we felt it 


did not meet the intent that we wanted it to. 


So you can go to the web site, you can see the 


original ORAU policy that was in effect at the 


time Mr. Miller raised concerns about Paducah. 


You can compare that to this new, and I think 


more in depth, clearer policy. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm wondering, Board members, 


would you like this to be on the agenda again 


for the next meeting? 


 MS. MUNN: It might be nice. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What's your pleasure? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, I'd like -- personally like to 


have an opportunity to absorb it a little 


better, and yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And so the opportunity both 


to comment and to learn if there are any 


modifications that have arisen between NIOSH 


and ORAU in the meantime. Roy DeHart. 


 DR. DEHART: I have one question and that 


addresses the issue of any problems with 

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management. When we have worked -- looked at 


conflict of interest before, the issues of 


availability of experts who would not be 


conflicted has come up, and I was just 


wondering if this is a concern on the part of 


management. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kate? 


 MS. KIMPAN: I'll answer and Larry can 


certainly come up. Dr. DeHart and others, we 


are absolutely clear that we need to use people 


who know the facilities, know the operations. 


There's no lack of clarity about that, I don't 


think, by any of us. What we need to assure on 


behalf of the ORAU team and the documents we're 


providing is that any bias or conflict that 


might be inherent in someone's prior role is 


not reflected in our findings and conclusions. 


So we intend to use site experts who have had 


experiences at DOE in these facilities on this 


program. They will not own the conclusions in 


a document. They'll be properly used as 


experts about that site or about operations. 


There'll be full attribution and declaration 


about the nature and content of their 


contribution, but they will not be -- if they 

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are so conflicted or potentially biased -- in a 


position to own the final conclusion. We'll 


assure that that's done by the right 


independent reviewer. 


And you're right, this creates challenges when 


some of the information in these documents is 


so incredibly detailed you must almost be an 


expert to be able to assess the assessments of 


an expert. That's an operational challenge 


that we will embrace as an operational 


challenge. Our feeling about this policy is 


it's the right policy, it's the right 


philosophy, it's the right way to be to assure 


good product, and I'll deal with the 


operational issues -- which are significant -- 


as we proceed. It might add additional burdens 


of difficulty for us in either time or 


expertise. We may have to look harder to make 


certain that we're staying on track with our 


schedule to produce. But this is so important 


that nothing else is more important than this, 


so we're going to make sure you know who has 


done what in a document, what that contribution 


was, and how an independent, unbiased, 


unconflicted reviewer has assured that the 

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conclusions or any conclusions that might be 


drawn are drawn in a proper way scientifically. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I hesitated on reading to the 


Board, but I think it might benefit the Board. 


It surely may benefit the audience. But to 


draw some distinctions here I'm going to read 


from this current policy, and I think it might 


help everyone's understanding and recognition 


of what we're trying to do here. And I'm 


looking at and I'm going to read from the 


document with regard to the responsibilities 


and restrictions on certain roles that are 


played here. 


(Reading) A site profile document owner is 


responsible for coordinating and documenting 


site profile documents, ensuring all pertinent 


information is captured in the document, 


evaluating the information, establishing or 


setting forth specific findings or conclusions. 


The site profile document owner shall 


objectively evaluate input, with no special 


consideration given -- given due to the source, 


whether it be a site expert or otherwise. A 


site document owner has an affirmative duty to 


seek out all pertinent data, and is required to 

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be the person who synthesizes all pertinent 


data into a single document or a set of 


documents, draws findings from the data and 


makes conclusions that will guide future 


actions arising from those findings or 


conclusions. And furthermore, a site document 


owner shall specifically evaluate the input of 


site and subject experts, in addition to all 


other data, for technical accuracy, for 


validity and to ensure both the sources of the 


document input and team members potential or 


actual biases/conflicts of interest are clearly 


identified within the body of the document. 


Then I want to take you to a subject expert. 


(Reading) A subject expert may be employed to 


advise on a site-specific issues and incidents 


as necessary for site profile documents and SEC 


petition evaluations. Subject experts are 


those individuals who have expertise in the 


subject matter of the activities performed at 


the site, but who do not have any current or 


prior work experience at or for the site 


itself. A subject expert may serve as a 


document owner due to the lack of potential or 


actual bias of (sic) conflict. 

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Now a site expert. (Reading) A site expert may 


be employed to advise on site-specific issues 


and incidents as necessary for the site profile 


documents and SEC petition evaluations. Site 


experts are those individuals who, because of 


current or prior work experience (including 


consulting) at or for the site, have personal 


experience of the radiation protection program 


at that site. 


Because a site expert is therefore potentially 


biased or conflicted when interpreting data 


from a site or at -- for which he or she 


worked, the site expert is not permitted to be 


a document owner. While the site expert may 


not draft a site profile or an SEC petition 


evaluation documents that are properly the 


responsibility of the document owner, she or he 


may provide input to the document owner 


regarding the site where the site expert is 


potentially or actually biased. This input is 


subject to detailed health physics and 


management review and approval by the document 


owner, the ORAU team members and the OCAS 


review staff. The important -- the input may 


be obtained from the document owner -- may be 

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obtained by the document owner in formats such 


as narratives, testimonials, oral or written 


interviews of the site expert, and/or current 


or former site workers by the document owner, 


and historical information about processes and 


exposures at the site, any quantitative data, 


tables or numerical or technical data gathered 


or previously generated by the site expert 


and/or others. 


With regard to narrative input the site expert 


may provide explanatory notes about information 


provided by the site expert and in cases where 


the site expert has previously provided or 


documented that information elsewhere. The 


site expert may also provide opinions to the 


document owner about the information that the 


site expert has reviewed and/or provided to the 


document owner. This is to ensure that all 


relevant information about the site located by 


the site expert is offered to the document 


owner to ensure the most comprehensive 


evaluation possible of those data and the site. 


Any data or opinions or other information 


provided by the site expert and used by the 


document owner in the final document must be 

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fully attributed to the site expert and other 


sources as warranted; independently analyzed by 


the document owner to determine its suitability 


for use; and accompanied by the document 


owner's explanation of why she or he believed 


the use of the information was both appropriate 


and correct. It is the responsibility of the 


document owner to determine the content of the 


documents, not the site expert. 


And I'll stop at that point. I -- there's 


other passages that I could read that speak to 


the review process, but I think those are the 


key distinctions we need to draw on now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We need to hear from --


 DR. WADE: Right, Richard Miller, if you would 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Richard. 


 DR. WADE: -- comment. While Richard comes to 


the microphone, I think we owe in the program a 


debt of gratitude to Richard for bringing up 


these issues and I'm very anxious to hear his 


comments. 


 MR. MILLER: Greetings. I can only say I am 


sobered by today's discussion because this 


isn't the first time it's come up. It's not 

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the second time it's come up. I can only 


recall -- just for those who are new to the 


Board and for those who've been on, very early 


on an ambitious conflict of interest policy was 


developed. ORAU proffered it forward. It did 


not cover site profiles, as we know. Eighteen 


months nearly elapsed between the request by 


this Board to include site profiles. Finally a 


site profile policy was incorporated into the 


ORAU conflict of interest policy. That 


conflict of interest policy permitted at least 


the following to occur. 


As Larry Elliott said, there may have been 


ambiguity in the previous conflict of interest 


policy, but let me just read you exactly what 


that conflict of interest policy said, because 


I don't think there's any question that, even 


under the old policy, there was a clear-cut 


violation. The old policy -- let me just pull 


up here -- says that no individual will perform 


a review or approve dose reconstructions, site 


profiles or determinations on adding SEC 


classes or for DOE facilities at which they 


were formerly employed or, for contractors, for 


whom they have been employed. Site experts 

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were limited to advising on site-specific 


issues and incidents as necessary. That was 


it. 


Now in the particular instance here, Carol 


Berger, working under IEM, her company, wrote 


the Technical Basis Document for internal dose 


at Paducah. Ms. Berger cut and pasted the work 


that she had done for Martin-Marietta and IT 


back in 1992, including tables, right into the 


NIOSH document. Those tables, which dealt with 


transuranium alpha activity levels in parts of 


the Paducah plant, were not cited, but what we 


have -- what we knew from subsequent literature 


that's posted on the DOE web site even today, 


is that it underestimated anywhere from four to 


seven-fold either the neptunium-237 or 


plutonium concentrations of alpha activity in 


the air. These were air samples that actually 


were taken in the '60s and '70s by Union 


Carbide at the plant, and would be very useful 


for dose reconstruction because you would 


basically have some way where, at a site where 


they didn't do isotope-specific bioassay 


monitoring, you would at least have some air 


data to try to work with. And the alpha 

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activity levels were as high as 90 percent 


neptunium-237, so we're dealing with a lot of 


alpha activity. And so when I use the number 


four-fold, what I'm referring to is that the 


highest level that Ms. Berger had cited was 22 


percent, and yet we found some up around 90 


percent and so that's where the four-fold came 


from. And so we're not just dealing with .4 


percent to 1.6 percent. 


Ms. Berger's work -- not only was it cut and 


pasted into the document, but it had been 


significantly criticized in a report that DOE 


had commissioned through the University of Utah 


and PACE doing an exposure assessment. This 


report had been subject to peer review, 


including by John Till. And this report found 


significant weaknesses in Ms. Berger's previous 


work, yet the site profile never identified the 


criticisms that were subsequently published and 


peer-reviewed, never identified the cited 


documents identifying that her work had 


dramatically understated the level of alpha 


activity. And so it went through four tiers of 


review and out the door. Dick Toohey, Judson 


Kenoyer; the primary author, Jay Mazler*, who 

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was Carol Berger's employee on this particular 


project, she -- Jay, although may have been the 


primary author of this document, he was a 


subordinate to Ms. Berger; and in the end, 


through Jim Neton's office. And so through 


four tiers of review the rubber stamp fell on 


this document, even though ORAU has an expert 


on their team, Cindy Bloom, who knows a lot 


about the Paducah site because she was involved 


in the University of Utah review. All of this 


managed to slide through. 


Now some might say well, look, Paducah's a 


Special Exposure Cohort site, what's the big 


deal, neptunium's mainly a bone and a lung-


seeker, what are we getting all worked up about 


here. Right? Let it go. 


I would respectfully disagree. I think that, 


although there will be not large numbers of 


claims impacted by this, as a practical matter 


multiple primaries could easily be affected. 


That's an obvious case. If CLL ever comes to 


the fore, I could see where this could become a 


very significant factor because neptunium is 


such a powerful bone-seeker. And there may be 


other cases that are affected that are at the 

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margins. 


But you know, that's a very significant 


underestimate. So the question was, how did 


this happen? How did somebody who had worked 


at the site, involved in an important health 


physics function assessing transuranics, get 


hired by NIOSH and allowed to cut and paste her 


own work, verbatim, into this document? 


Well, when the OCAS oversight team report came 


forward, they concluded no conflict of 


interest. And what they relied on was an 


ambiguous word, the word "preparing", that site 


experts and site -- site experts would not be 


permitted, as we discussed earlier, but -- to 


actually be the document owner, but they could 


be involved in preparing. And what we have 


seen in internal NIOSH communications that ran 


up through the General Counsel's office or the 


-- of HHS was that they intended to use the 


word "preparing" to be sufficiently ambiguous 


that one could use site experts any way we 


want. Which harkened me back -- and this chain 


of communications rose from Dick Toohey up 


through Larry Elliott, Jim Neton, Dave Mayman*, 


they all knew they were weasel-wording the 

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previous conflict of interest policy, and this 


was deeply disturbing to learn about after we 


had raised these concerns with NIOSH. 


Now Larry Elliott came before this Board. He 


asked -- the Board rejected a request he made 


to exempt site profiles from the conflict of 


interest restrictions for precisely the reason 


that Roy DeHart raised this morning, which was 


how are we going to manage the competing 


resource demands on the program and not have 


conflicts of interest. And the Board said no, 


that -- that -- that what -- that -- that the 


conflict of interest policy needed to include 


the site profiles to preserve the integrity of 


this program. And let's never forget why we're 


even here today. We're here with NIOSH in an 


Advisory Board doing this work because Congress 


found they couldn't rely on the Department of 


Energy to do the work, that NIOSH was supposed 


to bring a level of independence to this 


process. And NIOSH turns around and hires a 


DOE M&O contractor who has been doing much of 


this work, including litigation defense for the 


Department of Energy for many years. So the 


burden was on this system to have adequate 

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checks and balances due to the paucity of a 


pool of available experts to do this. In other 


words, it's a small world, it's an esoteric 


discipline, but -- involving health physics, 


but nevertheless there had to be some mechanism 


that, if you're going to rely on this small 


pool, to figure out how to effectively police 


it. 


The conflict of interest policy was supposed to 


be that tool and mechanism, but it was weasel-


worded. 


I have to just -- just take a very personal 


note aside, because I had written to the 


bidders when they were bidding on the -- when 


ORAU and the SAIC team were bidding, I wrote to 


NIOSH and said conflict of interest has to be a 


governing, organizational principle that has to 


be managed here and suggested criteria that 


would both be workable and functional. And so 


to come to this point today, four years later, 


and we're dealing with weasel-worded documents, 


let me now point you to the latest draft, which 


I find remarkable. 


If I could please draw your attention to page 


14, let us look at the definition of the word 

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"conflict of interest" -- a conflict between 


the obligations of a person as an ORAU team 


employee and a private interest. In most cases 


the private interest is a financial one. 


Now where I come from, conflict of interest is 


not merely financial, nor is it so recognized 


by the federal government in the Code of 


Federal Regulations. It involves 


organizational conflicts of interest, and it 


involves professional conflicts, the latter two 


of which are omitted from this policy. And I 


would respectfully suggest that this omission 


in the definitions section largely waters this 


document down, if not renders it meaningless. 


You must --


 DR. WADE: You just (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. MILLER: You must --

 DR. ZIEMER: Give us -- give us the section 

again. 

 MR. MILLER: Page 14, definitions -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

 MR. MILLER: -- 9.0, Conflict of Interest. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. MILLER: So I would suggest, respectfully, 

because I believe that Dr. Howard -- I had the 

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privilege of meeting with Dr. Howard about this 


matter a couple of weeks ago in his office in 


Washington, and I believe that he is genuinely 


sincere in addressing this problem. I don't 


know whether he reviewed this document before 


it was distributed. I received it on Monday 


and read it on the plane down here. But I 


would respectfully request that people take a 


hard look at this definition, that's my first 


suggestion, because I can't fathom how you 


could rely on the second part, which is the 


definition of bias. 


Now the definition of bias -- bias is a 


(unintelligible) here -- bias is as much 


subjective as it is objectively measured, and ­

- and bias is a -- is -- is a -- is -- 


anybody's evaluation of somebody else's bias is 


subject to bias. I mean the -- the notion of 


policing bias may be a salutary notion if it 


hangs out there as a red flag and would be 


worthy of addressing in a policy. But frankly, 


the person doing the assessment itself can be ­

- have their own biases about what that bias 


means to them. And so I would respectfully 


suggest that we need objective markers that can 

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be measured in terms of past work history, past 


publication history, in addition to the 


definition of bias here because I -- at least 


from my perspective, and I had cited this 


exhaustively in the 10-page white paper that I 


prepared for NIOSH, which I don't believe was 


distributed to the Board, which -- which lays 


out why reliance on bias is not an adequate 


policing mechanism. And so I would 


respectfully -- I -- I don't want to denigrate 


the notion that bias should be policed for, but 


it is -- it invites trouble. One person's bias 


is another person's objectivity. I mean it's a 


-- it's a very slippery slope on that 


subjective tier. 


The second suggestion that I would make with 


respect to this policy has to do with what it 


appears to me to be a multi-tiered approach to 


conflict of interest. Apparently this document 


sets up what are called those doing key project 


functions. I will draw your attention on page 


4 of this, under section 1.0, where the 


document here and elsewhere describes the 


restrictions that will apply to people that are 


document owners performing key project 

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functions. Well, key project functions is an 


important term of art, almost like a legal 


term, that finds its way through this document. 


And yet right below it on page 4 it talks about 


how this policy it then follows applies to 


everybody on the project. Well, if the entire 


policy applies to everyone on the project, you 


now then have this layered effect of what 


applies clearly to key project functions and 


what doesn't, and why don't you? Why wouldn't 


the same conflict of interest policy apply, for 


example, to a primary author as opposed to a 


document owner? Primary authors are people who 


actually put pen to paper. The document owner, 


as Larry mentioned, is merely responsible for 


synthesizing the information. But everybody 


knows those who control the pen ultimately 


shape the document. And I would argue that 


primary authors who have a conflict shouldn't 


be involved in key project functions either. 


In other words, what I'm getting at is we've 


got a -- a situation where I believe the way 


this is structured it is readily evaded. 


I'm concerned with the treatment of subject 


experts. As previously read, the -- there was 

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a distinction between a site expert and a 


subject expert. The site expert worked at a 


facility in health physics function, but a 


subject expert may have worked for that company 


-- let's just say, not to pick on anyone, say 


you have Martin Marietta at Oak Ridge running 


the gaseous diffusion operation and you've got 


Martin Marietta running the Paducah gaseous 


diffusion operation. If you worked at Oak 


Ridge, you could be a subject expert on gaseous 


diffusion 'cause you didn't work at Paducah, 


therefore wouldn't be conflicted as the 


document owner, yet you're busy reviewing your 


work or your colleagues' previous work because 


what is the -- what is it -- what is it that at 


least I'm trying to drive at here is that why ­

- why are we concerned with conflict? Because 


we're concerned whether it affects the quality 


of the science that comes out at the end, not 


whether somebody crossed some bright line or 


not. And you have to draw lines to prevent 


people from reviewing their or their 


colleagues' previous work and putting them in a 


position of contradicting previous positions. 


It's why, for example, I'm so troubled with the 

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provision dealing with previous expert witness 


work in litigation. There's an exemption for 


those people who engage in litigation if they 


were subpoenaed. Well, wait a minute, if 


you've already gone on the stand and you've 


sworn under oath that you believe X, Y and Z 


about a particular matter, does it matter 


whether or not you were subpoenaed for the 


particular proceeding? You've stated a public 


position on the record. You're now being 


tasked to review the same matter in this dose 


reconstruction program. You've got a conflict. 


It should be disqualifying, whether you're 


subpoenaed or not. I mean I think that -- that 


-- I don't know whether the subpoena issue has 


come up in a practical sense. I note that it 


was added in the revised conflict of interest 


policy a few months -- a couple of years ago, I 


think at the behest of the General Counsel's 


office. But I have to say, in terms of the 


policing of bias or policing of conflict, it 


shouldn't matter whether you're subpoenaed or 


not. 


I also believe that -- and as Dr. Howard 


committed in his letter, that it would be 

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useful to the Board, before making any 


recommendations, and I certainly would want to, 


see how this applies in the real world. What 


does it mean? Let's take a half a dozen site 


profile teams and let's just see how this 


policy applies. To whom does it apply in what 


respect? What restrictions apply to each of 


the titles, 'cause when you look at the site 


profile teams there could be a half a dozen, 


eight, ten people working on a big site. Well, 


how is this actually going to play out in the 


real rule? Let's get a snapshot to see what it 


looks like rather than deal with the 


theoretical words here because I -- I do better 


with Venn diagrams, I guess. The -- you know, 


words and pictures always describe more, as 


they say, I think. 


The other question that I would raise with 


respect to the disclosure provisions -- yes, we 


agree disclosure is a terrific disinfectant. 


In the Berger case, I would note, her conflict 


of interest disclosure was never posted on the 


ORAU web site. In fact, before I drove to 


Paducah a year ago from an Advisory Board 


meeting in St. Louis to go to a site profile 

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meeting, I looked on the web site and Ms. 


Berger's COI disclosure was not up there. 
I 


called Dick Toohey and said where is it? We'll 


get to it. For -- for NIOSH to conclude there 


was no COI violation, that's a simple paperwork 


violation, but it's an important part of 


disclosure that was clearly a violation of a 


conflict of interest policy, just as they had 


an internal process that if somebody had worked 


at a site, they had an internal database that 


was supposed to send up red flags that NIOSH 


management could then allocate the resources 


internally. We thought that was a constructive 


internal management approach. It doesn't 


appear that was followed, either. So I just 


would respectfully disagree that on three 


counts there were conflict of interest 


violations: the disclosure, the internal 


management controls and the specific words of 


the conflict of interest provisions of the old 


policy. 


But with respect to the new policy, I would 


also just raise the question of whether site 


profile revisions will be covered under the 


conflict of interest policy. Ninety-five 

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percent of the site profiles have been 


completed so far, and now we're in the revision 


phase. Dick Toohey told me conflict of 


interest policy does not apply to revisions to 


site profiles. Wow. So when I raised the 


question about Roger Falk* at Rocky Flats, who 


was a significant player in managing the health 


physics program there for decades, and I knew 


that NIOSH internally had concerns about his 


conflict of interest, I said well, now he's 


working on the revisions. Can we get someone 


with a fresh set of eyes so we don't have the 


Berger type problem? It's not covered. I 


don't know whether revisions to site profiles 


are covered under this or not. It's not clear. 


 And then finally I would like to just raise the 


question about the question of transparency and 


validation. I have had the privilege of 


printing out all of the conflict of interest 


disclosures that were posted at various points 


in time and have them in a three-ring binder at 


home, and had the chance to read some recent 


conflict of interest disclosures that were re-


posted by ORAU on their web site and found that 


conflicts that had been previously identified 

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magically disappeared for the same individuals. 


We find that remarkable, particularly with 


respect to participation in defense of 


litigation. I think those cases didn't go 


away, but the disclosure did. 


Finally -- so I think there needs to be some 


validation structure here. I'm not suggesting 


the Board does this, I'm just suggesting that 


there needs to be some mechanism -- I remember 


when Larry Elliott said he would like to 


commission -- in Los Alamos when we had a 


meeting there -- an internal review of all of 


the conflict of interest methods and procedures 


and committed to do so within six months or a 


year, and none of that audit ever took place, 


but it probably would have caught some of this. 


How extensive is the COI issue? Is this merely 


limited to Paducah? I had, again, only a 


cursory review because I don't necessarily know 


whether everything I'm reading on the conflict 


of interest disclosures is full and complete 


and accurate. But at least at five sites there 


are significant conflicts of interest where the 


-- where the team lead, whatever you want to 


call them, primary authors of the TBDs are -- 

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have the conflicts of interest under this new 


policy, and frankly had it under the old one, 


including Rocky Flats, Idaho, Hanford, Pantex, 


and of course Paducah. So I would just suggest 


we have a much larger set of questions. 


The question is what happens retrospectively, 


obviously this is a huge elephant in the room 


that hasn't been discussed, but it -- and let 


me just go finally to -- to my final personal 


comments on this. 


 I'm very disappointed that we're still 


discussing conflict of interest. I would have 


hoped this would have been a settled issue. 


would have hoped it would have been a settled 


issue before 95 percent of the site profiles 


were completed. I'm particularly disappointed 


that sleight of hand by senior management and 


the program found its way into affecting 


conflict of interest which then affected the 


quality of science that came out the door of 


this program. And it doesn't just taint 


Paducah, it taints the program. And I'm 


fearful for adverse impacts it has on an agency 


like NIOSH, which has a reputation for being 


above-board, a white hat agency, whose work 


I 
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should be beyond reproach. It has that 


reputation. 


For some -- question why we're a little 


skeptical, it explains at least for me why I've 


lost confidence in the leadership of OCAS. I 


don't like whitewashed reports like the OCAS 


report that came out in October, and I don't 


like seeing sleight of hand, and I don't like 


it when it affects the quality of the science 


coming out the door. 


So in conclusion, I would just offer that the 


draft be treated as a straw man, in that 


spirit. I heard Kate Kimpan offer that and I 


certainly appreciate and respect that comment 


from her. And in that spirit, you know, I 


would welcome working with you some more, and 


the Board, and would be glad to provide 


additional detailed comments. But you have a 


flavor that I think this document is still a 


work in progress. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Richard. Before you 


leave, you mentioned -- you mentioned a ten-


page white paper. 


 MR. MILLER: Yes. 


 DR. WADE: Could you provide that to me and I 

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would provide it to the Board? 


 MR. MILLER: I'd be happy to. It lays out in 


detail our critique of the October conflict of 


interest draft policy, as well, and I think 


provides guidance going forward on what the new 


policy ought to look like in a side-by-side 


analysis, so I'd be happy to do so. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Rich, if you'd stay there just 


a moment, let's see if the Board members have 


any questions to pose to you or additional 


items they want clarified. 


 (No responses) 


Okay, I guess you were --


 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- very articulate, as usual, and 


we thank you for your input. 


Okay, let's see --


 DR. WADE: All right, now there's the second 


issue -- excuse me, let me get my papers in 


front of me -- there's the second issue which 


is the technical issues that were raised, the 


scientific issues, and I believe Stu Hinnefeld 


is going to speak to us about that. Stu --


 DR. MELIUS: Are we going to have time to ask 


some questions of everyone involved later? 

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 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I wonder if we should take -- we 


don't have a break scheduled, but it's 10:30. 


I think maybe people are looking like they need 


a brief break --


 MR. HINNEFELD: I'll be very brief. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, let's -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I'll be very brief and I think 


this is kind of an adjunct to the discussion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's hear from Stu -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: The technical -- the technical 


issues raised originally about the Paducah site 


profile, there are quite a lot of things that 


do prompt and require additional investigation, 


and there's just recently been a significant 


data -- we call them data captures where we 


captured a fair number of documents -- or a 


large number of documents from the Paducah 


site, you know, some of them very early, that 


speak to this exact issue, the analysis and 


identification of non-uranium contaminants in 


the uranium materials in various places. And 


so we've told ORAU synthesize this, give us the 


best product available in light of this entire 

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discussion that's going on. So that's 


essentially where we are with the technical 


issue -- the specific technical issues that 


were raised with the Paducah site profile. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Let's go ahead 


and take a 15-minute break now and then we'll 


return to this as we come back. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:25 a.m. 


to 10:50 a.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're ready to reconvene. 


We had completed a number of presentations 


dealing with conflict of interest. I want to 


give the Board the opportunity now for further 


discussion or questions relating to the policy 


or related issues. Any particular items on 


that? We do have a request -- I believe from 


John Howard -- that we need to respond to, but 


before we do that let's see if there's 


additional comments -- Dr. Melius, do you have 


a comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have a few. As some of 


you may have noted from the -- Dr. Howard's 


letter back to Richard, I did attend a meeting 


with Richard Miller, Dr. Howard, actually Lew 


was there also, to discuss this issue and 

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actually helped to actually arrange the meeting 


and did so because I thought -- felt fairly 


strongly that we needed to take action and deal 


with this issue as -- some of you may know, 


even from the NIOSH report on the Paducah 


situation, used some of the transcripts where I 


had repeatedly raised the issue in -- in -- in 


previous meetings and so forth in trying to get 


a policy in place. And I think that -- very 


pleased that NIOSH is taking these steps, the ­

- that ORAU is also involved in this and so I'm 


hoping we can get this issue resolved and -- 


and dealt with because I think it's extremely 


important for the credibility of the program. 


And you know, this is not just a perception or 


concern of, you know, myself or Richard or 


others here, but -- but as we go from site to 


site, certainly the people working at the site, 


people have been involved historically at these 


sites and in the unions and other interested 


groups, they take very quick note of these -- 


these issues and -- and really become 


concerned, and I think it's having a 


significant impact and sort of undermining the 


credibility of -- of what may be very good -- 

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good work. But I think having a process in 


place that assures that these conflicts or 


potential conflicts don't undermine this 


credibility is -- is -- is extremely important. 


I would have two -- well, I guess one's a 


comment and one's actually a suggestion for -- 


for the Board. One is the comment that I would 


hope to see in place that NIOSH also develop a 


procedure for investigating any issues that 


arise about conflict of interest violations. 


think that the -- think the -- the report that 


Larry's staff did and -- they did was -- was 


good. I don't disagree with all the conclu-- I 


actually do disagree with some of -- a number 


of the conclusions there, but -- but I think it 


was a well-intentioned effort. However, I 


think it puts them in a very difficult position 


of -- of investigating themselves, to some 


extent -- particularly the approval of the 


technical document that -- and so forth. And I 


think there needs to be put in place a 


mechanism that -- at least in circumstances 


where certain types of conflict of interest 


violations are raised that there be some sort 


of an outside involvement in -- in evaluating 


I 
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these situations, at least the part of them 


that pertain to -- to NIOSH. I think NIOSH 


does have a responsibility for policing your 


own contractor and I don't think we can -- 


should deny them that, but I -- I think there 


does need to be a sort of -- another step there 


and that should be worked out. 


 The other proposal I would make, and I think 


this is really to the Board, is that -- in 


terms of the technical -- the revision of the 


technical document related to Paducah, I think 


it would be -- is absolutely necessary that we 


have our contractor review that document. I 


think -- think NIOSH is taking the right steps 


and ORAU to -- to look at that and make 


revisions, but I really think, given the 


concerns that have been raised, that it needs 


an extra review. My understanding is that we 


had not scheduled for a review of the Paducah 


site profile, but I think we need to undertake 


-- take that. I think it -- it really would 


help to clear the air and assure that whatever 


final technical document is -- site profile is 


put out and is being used in dose 


reconstructions is appropriate and -- in a 

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technical sense, given -- given the concerns 


that have been -- been raised. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, indeed, I believe John 


Howard's letter in fact does request that the 


Board undertake some sort of review of the 


technical quality of that document. The words 


are --


 DR. WADE: Let’s read that --


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't have the letter right now 


 DR. WADE: I'll read it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Here's the words. 


 DR. WADE: John says with regard to your 


request (2) -- if you have the letter, request 


(2) asks the Advisory Board to review the 


technical and policy issues contained in the 


assessment of potential conflict of interest. 


John says (reading) With regard to request (2), 


I have directed the Designated Federal 


Official, Lew Wade, to specifically ask the 


Board to evaluate the assessment report for 


scientific quality, leaving aside those 


conflict of interest issues that will be 


addressed -- and he goes on to refer to the new 


policy. So the NIOSH Director is asking the 

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Board to re-- to review the scientific quality 


of the assessment report. The assessment 


report speaks to issues in the site profile. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Could I add some information on 


that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, Dr. Howard's letter does say 


review the assessment report. I think what we 


would like for -- from the program perspective, 


the site profile is in revision. It has been 


revised and submitted to us for review. I 


think we're in the final comment resolution 


stage, and I would submit to you that we would 


like to have that whole document reviewed in -- 


in conjunction with the assessment report to 


make sure that the corrective action plan that 


the assessment report called for was attended 


to in the revision, and all technical 


information was provided in a new revised site 


profile. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Indeed, if we respond to Dr. 


Howard's request, and for example if we were to 


ask for the assistance of our contractor to 


carry out that review, it gets us into the site 


profile in any event. 

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 DR. WADE: Uh-huh, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And therefore if that's extended 


to now Larry's request, that makes it perhaps a 


somewhat bigger job, but it's so closely tied 


it may be hard to separate, in any event. 


Let me ask our Designated Federal Official, 


since this was not on our list, this would be 


an added -- amendment to the task, the site 


profile review task. Could either be a 


substitution or an add-on. If it's an add-on, 


obviously there are resource issues and we need 


some assurance that the resources would be 


available if the Board chooses to utilize the 


contractor to assist in this effort. 


 DR. WADE: Yes, the resources will be 


available, should the Board choose to use the 


contractor in this effort. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Henry Anderson. 


DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I just -- I just wanted to 


-- since I won't be around as you're going 


through this, I just wanted to remind everybody 


that when you look at the conflict of interest 


kind of things, as much of anything of whether 


there's a technical or a legal violation, it's 


perception that -- that really is the issue. 
I 
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mean there's no -- at least as far as I can see 


-- any jail time or financial penalties or 


anything like that associated with some of 


this, unless it was fraudulently done. But the 


main issue is identifying the issues and the 


perception that there may be a conflict is 


something -- I think is always a good way to 


look at it. And if there is the possibility of 


that, then address it in some way is -- is 


going to be really critical. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Other comments? 


Wanda Munn, and Jim, did you have an additional 


comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: I have some additional comments -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: Despite the assertion that there is 


-- is or is not some bright line somewhere, it 


behooves this Board, in my view, to be very 


conscious of the fact that we are often dealing 


with belief systems and, as Henry points out, 


perceptions, which may or may not be valid. 


There is a belief system which relies on the 


assumption that the individuals who know most 


about a topic are the ones who are least to be 


trusted. And if that is the concern and the 

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perception, then regardless of how many layers 


of oversight we place upon this issue, we are 


probably unlikely to get to a level where there 


is no conflict of interest that can be 


perceived by some individual or some group of 


individuals. Therefore, perhaps the most 


difficult decision of all for this Board may be 


where do we, as an organization, draw the line 


with respect to conflict of interest? Are we 


going to take the position that individuals who 


most about a given site are the individuals who 


are least qualified to take part in what 


transpires with respect to that site? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know if that's a 


rhetorical question or not, Wanda, but I 


believe it's the case that most of us 


recognize, that site experts do need to be 


used. But we need to have in place certain 


safeguards to assure that there is both an 


openness and an independence that does not 


allow -- I don't know if I should use the word 


"bias", but at least allow certain aspects of 


self-interest to come into play. This may not 


be perfect, but at least -- we need to make 


sure that protections are in place and are 

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obvious to those who view this that proper 


precautions have been taken to assure the 


independence of the final product. 


But I think you're suggesting it's not easy to 


do, and that's certainly the case, yeah. 


I think Jim was next, and then Henry. 


 DR. MELIUS: Henry, were you going to answer 


that? If you -- comment on that, you're 


welcome to go ahead. 


DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I --


 DR. MELIUS: Then I'll go --


DR. ANDERSON: I was going to say that one -- 


the critical thing is to recognize that there 


may be a conflict of interest, and then the 


management structure can -- can put in place 


and state it and put it out front and say that 


we recognize this -- such as this case, and we 


looked at that and we specifically reviewed X, 


Y, Z to be sure. So you can have these 


secondary guards in place, but the key is 


saying that we think this could be perceived 


and therefore this is how we addressed the 


issue and we had external reviewers or 


whatever. So I -- I mean there's ways to have 


the -- the experts involved and it's simply a 

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recognition that somebody would perceive that 


if you quote your own articles, that could be 


viewed by somebody as being a conflict. So --


I mean there's a variety of different things 


like that that you can put in place that will 


recognize how to deal with this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, just to -- and now I think I 


will elaborate on that, and I have some other 


comments. One, I think it's also the 


importance of transparency, and the thing that 


disturbs me about some of the points that -- 


what Richard Miller made was the fact that 


these conflict of interest statements have not 


been consistently, you know, made available. 


They haven't -- for anybody wanting to evaluate 


them. And secondly, this issue of them 


changing over time. Now one would expect 


things maybe to be added to them. I don't 


quite understand how what were perceived to be 


conflicts or -- conflicts that needed to be 


reported can somehow disappear. Now there may 


be an explanation for that and -- albeit, but I 


think -- the more that can be done with 


transparency, I think the better we'll have a ­
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- a workable system. And we do recognize the 


need to have something that gets the products 


that we need or work done that we -- that we 


need. 


In regards to the proposed policy, the draft 


policy that we've seen, I do have concerns 


about the limit-- the apparent limitation in 


terms of the definition of conflict of interest 


only applied to financial interest. You can 


read that -- those statements, I think it's on 


page 14, in other ways, I know just -- but 


that's certainly the way I read it that it was 


-- only applied to financial interests. I'm 


not sure that bias is a way of dealing with 


some of the organizational -- and other types 


of conflict beyond -- that are normally 


considered beyond financial conflict of 


interest, and I really -- and also have 


concerns about how you actually evaluate bias 


and -- often transparency is a better way of 


dealing with some of the -- the bias issue. 


But I really think that needs to be re-looked 


at. 


And the other problem I have also is this -- is 


understanding the policy. It's written to -- 

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to fit how ORAU works and, you know, there's 


task five managers and different layers of 


management and so forth that I -- I'm not 


certainly familiar with what this means, and 


this key document issue, I really think we 


really need to spell -- spell out what kind of 


documents are we -- we talking about. Is it 


the initial site profile, is it a site profile 


revision, is it some of these workbook 


documents and so forth that are prepared in 


addition to -- or -- to, you know, assist in 


dose reconstruction based on a site profile? 


And I'd much rather see that spelled out in a 


way that we can, you know, understand it -- 


understand it better now. 


And I guess I'm also a little confused, maybe I 


-- I think I -- on one level I understand that 


-- that this -- because it is -- the issue came 


up regarding ORAU, that it's their con-- and 


it's the contract, it's their conflict of 


interest policy, but in some ways it might have 


been better to sort of -- and we're working 


backwards to what NIOSH will implement. 
I 


might have been more comfortable with starting 


with what is -- what does NIOSH want in the 

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policy and then, you know -- and then have ORAU 


implement that. But if -- I think we can work 


this way through ORAU, but I think it may have 


to provide some better understanding or be 


written in a way that other -- those of us on 


the -- who aren't part of ORAU and don't 


understand how you operate and so forth or how 


ORAU operates can understand the document, and 


so I would hope that that would get addressed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. I might observe 


that much of the conflict of interest focus of 


federal agencies, including our own conflict of 


interest training, tends to focus on the 


financial, when in fact the concern that most 


of us have in this program is indeed not the 


financial so much as it is the programmatic and 


related issues. So we need to make sure that 


the document does address that. 


 Yes, Kate. 

 MS. KIMPAN: Can I respond to the part of Dr. 

Melius's --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 MS. KIMPAN: -- comment that was a question? 

This is regarding what aspects of our 


operations this policy applies to. Everything 

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we do. Yes, every revision. Yes, every look-


back at documents that have already been 


created, through an independent lens to assure 


the products were right. As was pointed out by 


several Board members, it is essential for us 


to continue to use the contributions of people 


who understand what occurred. But we are 


absolutely dedicated to what I said earlier 


about who owns conclusions and owns what we 


will use, along with the fact that we will 


participate using full disclosure and 


attribution. So when you look at a document 


you will know what part Kate Kimpan suggested, 


wrote, endorsed, and then an independent 


document owner will accept, not accept, will 


synthesize and write that. This will apply to 


every aspect of our operation, whether it is 


task three, five, whatever. Those are our 


designations for the large teams we have 


working on site profiles or Technical Basis 


Documents, working on dose reconstructions and 


working on SEC petitions. 


Any lack of clarity you're finding in the 


language, let me be very clear, this will apply 


to every aspect of our operations, 

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retrospectively, prospectively, documents that 


are in revision, yet to be done or have been 


done. This policy will apply rigorously, in 


its spirit, not just its words. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, and 


perhaps it would be helpful to make sure that 


that itself is clear in the document. 


 Board members, we do need to respond to John 


Howard's request with respect to the 


independent review that was done, and perhaps 


enlarging that to the full site profile. And 


it would be appropriate to have a motion to 


that effect that would, in a sense, spell out 


what task we will undertake in response to 


that. 


 DR. WADE: Could I make a conflict of interest 


report before the motion? The only member 


conflicted is Charles Owens. Charles is not 


with us today, so there is really no limitation 


on him as he's not here to vote on a motion, 


but there would be a limitation if he was here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Does anyone wish to 


propose a motion to respond to Dr. Howard's 


request? We can postpone action till after 


lunch if that's something you wish to consider. 

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 (No responses) 


I hear no motion. 


 DR. MELIUS: But I'll make -- hear a motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, I didn't see your flag 


up here, Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, it hasn't been up; I just 


put it up. And I was actually trying to 


quickly pull up the part of what Dr. Howard's 


request was. What -- I would move that we task 


our contractor with a review of the revised 


site profile, with particular attention to the 


issues that were raised in really Richard 


Miller's communi-- initial communication to 


NIOSH about this, as well as in NIOSH's review 


of -- of the conflict of interest issue related 


to the original site profile. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You've heard the motion. Is there 


a second? 


MR. ESPINOSA: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded. Discussion? 


Robert. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I just need a clarification. Jim 


said revised, and Larry said that it was being 


-- it was in the process of being revised right 


now -- is that not correct, sir? 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that's correct, the site 


profile is -- has been revised. It's in 


comment resolution. We're going back and forth 


right now to make sure that ORAU addresses the 


comments that we had on that revision, and I 


believe we will finish that up very soon. I 


can't say this week or next week, but it's 


going to be very, very soon, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have some additional -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, Stu's going to correct 


me. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: If I could -- the data capture 


I referred to earlier has occurred relatively 


recently, and so while we did have a draft to 


comment on, and made comments, part of our 


comments was you have captured these documents; 


make sure you incorporate all these into the 


revision. So it's going to be more than a 


week. It's probably going to be more like the 


end of March before we have a product from the 


contractor that would be back into what we 


would normally consider comment resolution 


period. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Nonetheless, in the meantime at 


least part of this could get underway because 

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we do have the product which is the review of 


the -- what is it called, the assessment done 


by the independent reviewers. That has to be 


looked at, and in part that's done in the 


framework of what exists already, I believe. 


Is that not correct? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Correct. 


 MR. PRESLEY: My comment was, I -- I don't want 


to slow down what we're doing, our -- we've got 


a tremendous amount on our plate right now. 


don't want to stop what we're doing on some of 


these other sites so that they can get 


compensated in their -- in a timely manner. 


That's the name of the game. Paducah is an 


SEC, and I don't believe by holding this thing 


up that we're going to slow down any 


compensation work. Is that correct? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That is if there was some delay in 


actually doing this assessment? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Right, if we delayed this 


assessment that we --


 MR. ELLIOTT: We are using the currently-


approved site profile for non-presumptive 


cancer dose reconstructions. The technical 


issues that have been raised go to internal 


I 
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dose, and primarily the doses that we're 


reconstructing are skin doses using external 


dose. And I certainly don't mean that to 


belittle the other types of organ-related 


cancers where we would need this internal dose 


to be as tight and as complete as possible. 


And I'm sorry I misunderstood where we were at 


on the status of that, but as soon as it's -- 


as soon as the site profile has been fully 


revised and approved, we would put it before 


the Board. It sounds to me like it's later 


than March now, so it's not as soon as I was 


hoping it would be, but -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: I just want to make sure that if 


we vote to do this, that we're not going to end 


up doing it twice and that we're not going to 


hold up some of these other petitions down -- 


or not petitions, but site profiles down the 


road. That -- you talk about perception, that 


would be bad. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Good comment. Jim, 


another comment? 


 DR. MELIUS: I mean I would stand by the 


original motion. I'm -- meaning that I'm 


comfortable waiting until this -- it's my -- my 

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understanding is the revision actually -- some 


of what is going back and forth actually deals 


with some of these very issues, and so it 


doesn't make sense for -- you know, it-- and 


since that's what's driving the need for the 


SC&A review, let's let them -- NIOSH finish its 


work. And when there is a revised site 


profile, then let's have SC&A review it. And I 


think that -- and that -- and then it -- you 


know --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So the sense of the motion 


is this work would get underway at such time 


that the materials were available, and we could 


simply as that as we go forward that the status 


-- we'd be kept apprised of the status as to 


when this might be ready for the contractor to 


get underway. Would that be accept-- as the 


sense of the motion? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. So that there's not a -- a 


press to drop what's being done to do this, but 


to do it in a holistic manner, even if there's 


a delay of a couple of months to get it under 


way. 


 Further discussion on the motion, pro or con? 

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 (No responses) 


Are you ready to vote on the motion? 


THE COURT REPORTER: Dr. Ziemer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes? 

THE COURT REPORTER: Who seconded? I didn't 

catch who seconded. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Rich Espinosa was the seconder. 


MR. ESPINOSA: I got -- I got a question, Paul. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A question -- Rich. 


MR. ESPINOSA: You or Lew had mentioned before 


whether this would go under a separate task or 


replace one of the other ones that we got? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think we concluded that this 


would actually be additional work, and we were 


assured by Lew that the resources would be made 


available. So this would not replace one of 


the site profiles on the priority list. That 


was my understanding. Is that --


 DR. WADE: Right --


 DR. ZIEMER: Unless the Board --


 DR. WADE: -- (unintelligible) go under the 


site profile (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- wishes to make such a 


designation that something else be dropped. 


MR. ESPINOSA: I'm just wanting to make sure -- 

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I'm wanting to make sure that there's no need 


for something like that within the motion, so ­

- you answered my question. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Again, within the sense of 


the motion, this becomes additional work that 


we would be tasking. 


 Are you ready then to vote? 


All in favor of the motion, say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Those opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


 Any abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


Motion carries. Thank you very much. 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: That would be fine. 


 DR. WADE: Sort of breaking also with normal 


rules of order, but since the new members will 


be living under this topic, I didn't know if 


any of the new members would like to make a 


comment. You certainly have the opportunity to 


comment when you come to the table, but -- 


anything? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Not at this time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

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 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: They are -- they are wisely 


refraining from commenting. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Could I offer another --


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, please. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I hope this wasn't missed in my ­

- my remarks, but as an individual on this 


Board, I welcome your comments on the content 


of this revised policy. I don't -- we're not 


asking you to come to consensus on any 


comments, but as an individual member, anybody 


that wants to send me or Kate -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- written comments on the 


language in this rule -- or in this proposed 


policy, we would appreciate those. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Mark, did 


you have an additional comment on this? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to ask Kate, you 


know, you -- you mentioned that it covers 


everything -- all documents, all whatever in 


the program. Is there any intent to -- to 


apply this policy retrospectively, to go back 


to site profiles, especially those which might 


have raised some concern already? 

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 MS. KIMPAN: Absolutely, and let me break it 


into two different areas, Mark, and that is 


something that's totally completed and is not 


considered actively in the review process, 


distinct from those -- and there are many -- 


that are in the formal review process. For 


those in the formal review process, including 


the revisions that Richard identified by site, 


I've already directed document owners to be in 


compliance with this policy. So we've already 


made those changes. Most of those are large 


site profile documents that are still in the 


formal review process. 


 For any document going forward that hasn't been 


begun yet, hasn't been started, there is no 


lack of clarity. For documents that have been 


already produced, in use, and are not 


considered actively in a review process, where 


there was a possible or perceived conflict or 


bias on the part of the document owner in any 


part of the document -- which is a different 


role than the team lead at times -- we will 


have an independent review by an unbiased, 


independent individual or group of individuals 


review the conclusions and everything else 

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about that document that ended up 


operationalizing those opinions. In addition, 


we will go back and do a full disclosure and 


attribution. So even if a document sustains 


independent review with no problem at all, you 


will be able to see -- the exact form of that 


is unclear until we've completed it with OCAS, 


whether it's in every document, on a web site, 


in what form. But we will go back and apply 


the policy of full disclosure and full 


attribution to that which has gone before. 


Let me be clear. I'm not saying we're going to 


do over every document that has been done. But 


every document or product that has been 


completed will sustain an independent review 


and will be subject to the full attribution and 


full disclosure of who contributed, what that 


contribution was, and why we believe that the 


conclusions that we've arrived at are the right 


conclusions. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess there's a -- you know, 


I'm -- I'm just looking at one of these of 4.1. 


-- 4.133 (sic) requires that the document owner 


has an affirmative duty to seek out all 


pertinent data. And I -- I applaud that. 
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think that -- I -- I want to see that 


operationalized. That's a difficult challenge, 


I think --


 MS. KIMPAN: It is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- for the document owner. I 


think -- I guess one of my concerns in the past 


 MS. KIMPAN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- or thus far has been that 


there -- there are site experts that -- and in 


many cases I think people tend to just maybe 


not go any further than asking that site expert 


how do we handle this subject. Well, this is 


it, this is the end of the game, this is the 


best data source we have for this. And I think 


the document owner -- you're challenging them 


to maybe -- you know, you take that 


information, certainly, but you have to do some 


level of -- further check or validate. 


 MS. KIMPAN: Absolutely. One of the which 


interweaves with comments I made yesterday is 


we see very valuable sources of information 


coming forward in a number of other arenas, and 


part of what we're endeavoring to do is to 


assure that additional information that might 

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be from someone other than that site or subject 


expert are reviewed, are considered, and are 


included. And we'll endeavor to do that. If 


you or others have suggestions on how we can 


assure that our work is thorough, as it's very 


difficult to prove a negative -- as you can 


see, we can be quite far down a pike and 


someone can say I've got a box of information 


on my desk that's extremely important. If --


you know, six years kicking around the DOE 


complex, I've seen that happen a lot. If folks 


have suggestions on how we can assure 


thoroughness and completeness, we welcome any ­

- any suggestions we can to improve the quality 


of our products. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, any other 


comments? Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Just a procedural comment and 


follow-up to Larry's request for comment. I 


would also hope that we could put this on the 


agenda for our March conference call -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- because I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Just a status report on -- 

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action, depending on comments and where things 


stand. I mean it -- I don't think we should 


prolong the -- the process unnecessarily now, 


so if there are comments in, then -- and 


there's a revision and a revision can get out 


to us that -- I think that may -- I'd like to 


get -- if we can, get closure on it, rather 


than wait till April or, you know, put it off 


another six weeks or -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'd like to get to the point -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good point. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I'd like to get to the point we 


have a static document. Right now we -- what 


we consider this to be is a dynamic document. 


We're working with it, we're looking for your 


comment, we're looking to improve it. But at 


some point in time we want to say here's where 


we're at, this is --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- policy and this is how we're 


going to live. Currently we are trying to live 


under this policy and do the best 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let us put it on the agenda, and 


then if they are at that point, we can take 

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action. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that -- that's --


 DR. WADE: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, very good. Further 


comments? Yes, Mr. Clawson is going to be the 


first new member to officially speak. You'll 


have to go to the mike. 


 DR. WADE: You'll have to go to the mike. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I guess my -- you want this one? 


 DR. WADE: You'll come to learn 


(unintelligible). 


 MR. CLAWSON: I guess my question is -- and I 


applaud Kate and what she's done on this, but 


as a new Board member coming in and they're 


going back and looking at cases, is -- are we 


going to be notified, as Board members, of any 


conflicts and what has happened on that, 


because I don't want to be blind-sided by 


something. I want to be -- you know, you're 


talking about going back and looking at these 


things, and I want to be able to have a process 


that will make sure that we're -- that we're 


aware of that and that --


 DR. ZIEMER: We certainly can get status 


reports on what has happened, but let's hear 

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from --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I think -- I think that's 


part of the responsibility and obligation we 


have to all Board members and to the general 


public is when we make a change in a site 


profile, we need to notice that. And how we do 


that is in a variety of ways. We do it at 


these kind of meetings. We get it out in e-


mail distributions to you. We go into our web 


site and make those kind of notices happen. 


And we need to be very clear as to what 


constituted the change, and you'll see that 


documented in -- we have a document control 


system in place that ORAU uses, and the front 


piece of that -- each document speaks to the 


number of changes that has occurred. So we'll 


try to educate you on that as we go forward, 


but that serves as a record of change that has 


occurred in any given document. And that is 


our obligation to follow up on that. 


I think we also have an obligation to follow up 


on some of the remarks that Mr. Miller made 


with regard to the disclosure statements and 


how they have changed over time, and I'm very 


concerned and interested about that, and Kate 

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and I will be talking about that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Kate, an additional comment? 


 MS. KIMPAN: Yeah, I'd also like to say -- very 


good question, and working closely with our 


colleagues at OCAS, we're also comfortable 


providing to the Board, to the public, to 


everyone else what we're doing in process 


terms. Larry's talking about the very 


important possibility that the document might 


change and how we document that that's 


occurred. We also welcome the sunshine and be 


glad to share with you, as we operationalize 


our plans for prior documents and upcoming 


documents and revisions, be glad to share with 


OCAS and them with you the status of where we 


are, how we're endeavoring to do it. We intend 


to do this the very best that we can to get the 


best product that we can which is credible, 


passes the scrutiny of the people this program 


is really for, the workers that this is all 


about. So anything we can do to show the good 


faith of our work and what we intend to do, we 


welcome doing. And I can provide routine 


statuses to OCAS as we operationalize this, 


that they're welcome to share with you as to 

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what we're doing, who we're doing it with and 


why we're doing it at every site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. Thank you very 


much, excellent discussion and I think we're 


moving well on this. 


TASK III REVIEW – DISCUSSION/CLOSURE
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON/SC&A/NIOSH
 

We're going to now call on Mark Griffon to give 


us a quick update on Task III, which is -- 


that's the review of procedures task. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This should be a brief update. We 


took the procedures review, Task III, up in 


subcommittee on Tuesday, and focused mainly on 


the -- we had previously done most of the 


external radiation dose findings, and -- I'm 


sorry, the procedures related to external dose, 


and we focused Tuesday on the procedures -- 


mainly focused on internal dose, and the CATI 


interview procedures. And basically -- this is 


still -- we -- we had NIOSH's response and most 


of these -- if the comments were not agreed 


upon in the NIOSH response column of this 


matrix, we -- we sort of have pushed them along 


to the workgroup process. We have more 


dialogue before we can close on these. So most 


-- you know, all the ones that were not agreed 

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upon were basically pushed along back to the 


workgroup for more in-depth discussion, which 


we weren't -- I don't think SC&A or NIOSH were 


really prepared for that in-depth discussion at 


this meeting, so we -- we pushed it along. 


We do want to close this out. This procedures 


review has been open for a while. One thing 


that I did want to note in some of the actions, 


and this is part of the problem of pushing this 


along, some of the responses have been that 


there's a new procedure that has replaced -- 


and we -- we have not reviewed that, so we have 


to make sure we capture that and -- in our -- 


in our next round of procedures review. We had 


asked SC&A to review additional procedures, and 


some of the ones that were in the NIOSH 


response weren't necessarily on that list, so 


we want to cross-walk those and make sure that 


we don't lose any of these -- any of these 


NIOSH actions which were a new procedure, in 


essence. 


 DR. WADE: Mark, if I could, just a status on 


that -- at least my notes show that the Board 


would like me to amend the contract to see that 


OTIB-4, the latest release, is added to the 

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list; ORAU-0097, Rev. 00; and ORAU-0031. Now 


again, I think your -- your -- it's appropriate 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: And there are some other -- 


 DR. WADE: -- (unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- there are some other new ones I 


think that Kathy already had on the list, is 


that correct? In addition to the ones Lew just 


read. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I thought it was actually 0090, 


not 97, was it? 


 MS. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

97. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it was 97? Okay, sorry. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Now -- now the contractor has a list 


of new procedures to review already in place. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, that's what -- 


 DR. WADE: These will be added to this -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Added to that list. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I did ask -- I don't know if 


Kathy has this, but I -- I was wondering, for 

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the Board's sake and for everyone's sake, it'd 


be nice to have a listing of those procedures 


that you intend to review, and -- and it might 


be useful for all of --


 DR. ZIEMER: If you don't have it today, it 


could be distributed, but -- 


 MS. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MS. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

(on microphone) I am in the process of putting 


together that list, and I've kept notes along 


the way here. I am not prepared to give that 


to you yet because, in some cases -- I'm also 


trying to include on that list where there are 


workbooks associated with the various 


documents, and that's a little bit more 


challenging to do. There's no complete list 


out there as I've found yet that lists all the 


different workbooks, so I want to make it 


complete and I want to ensure also -- because 


my list ended actually, I believe, with TIB-93. 


And as you heard, we're already up to TIB-97, 


and by the time I get home it may be into the 


hundreds. 


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an additional comment? 


 MR. GRIFFON: If I can just ask Kathy if you 


can maybe provide that to -- once you complete 


it, maybe e-mail it around to the Board, would 


that be --

 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MS. BEHLING: That's going to be the first task 

I'll do when I get home. 


DR. MAURO: In organizing ourselves to do the 


next round, there were 33 procedures that were 


originally authorized, and then -- and as work 


proceeded -- that goes back a ways. That was ­

- goes back to August. Work has begun. And 


the first step in the process is to get your 


arms around those procedures and start making 


assignments, which has been done. 


Now in the process of going through the set of 


33, we found -- I found that some of those 


probably don't need to be reviewed. Some of 


them have already been reviewed. And what I'm 


about to do -- haven't done it yet -- is to 


transmit to you a recommendation for 


replacements, saying that well, you know, this 


is the reason we really don't need to review 

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this. We would recommend we delete that and 


replace it with this one, which was not on the 


original August list. So at -- one of the 


action items that I will be taking is to send a 


letter to you all making my recommendations on 


replacements and additions that would be 


contained within our -- our mandate. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good, thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) That sounds 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay. Mark, is there any 


action we need to take today? The resolution 


process is also ongoing, so I think -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and I'm hopeful that at the 


next workgroup meeting we can finalize these 


internal dose and CATI interview -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Stu? 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- resolutions. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: What is the schedule for the 


next workgroup meeting? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, we haven't talked about a 


date. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Oh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we -- tell us. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Part of the reason I didn't want 

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to talk about a date yet is I think we should 


get a sense of the scope, between this and the 


dose reviews and site profiles, what we need to 


do and how fast we can accomplish it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The workgroup will need to work 


with you on that in establishing -- the 


workgroup, you're talking about the workgroup ­

- yeah. 


Okay, anything else on Task III, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's it on Task III. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I think on the individual 


dose reconstructions, Mark, I don't believe we 


need an hour on that. Is that correct? Maybe 


we can move ahead on the agenda. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, no --


 DR. ZIEMER: Can you give us a report on -- 


this is the first item showing at the -- after 


lunch period, but I -- I don't believe we 


require an hour on that, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: Kathy might want to say something 


on this topic, or on the last topic, I'm not 


sure. 


 MS. BEHLING: I'm not trying to suggest what 


you should do here, but I was hoping that we 


could still make assignments of the incoming 

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Board members with regard to -- because we're 


getting ready to have our conference calls, and 


so (unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, let -- let me indicate what 


we'll need to do on that, Kathy. We have Dr. 


Anderson's team and Mr. Espinosa's team, each 


of which will require at least one replacement. 


Those teams have already been identified, but 


until we have the conflict of interest 


information from -- from legal counsel, we will 


need to await putting the replacement name in 


there. So at such time as you're ready to 


schedule those interactive things, you'll need 


to -- I will make the appointments based on 


what conflict of interest we have. We know, 


for example -- I think the Anderson team is 


mainly looking at Savannah River cases, for 


example, so it will be easy to do. There are 


just -- I think each of those teams -- 


DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) I just turned 


in my disk, so getting that (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, but we will --


DR. ANDERSON: -- (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: We will make the appropriate 


assignments as soon as we get through the 

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conflict of interest issues on these. And 


again -- the other teams will continue -- those 


assignments were already made, so... 


 MS. BEHLING: Thank you. 


INDIVIDUAL DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEWS
 

DISCUSSION/PLAN OF ACTION/CLOSURE
 

MR. MARK GRIFFON/SC&A/NIOSH


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay, Mark, why don't we 


proceed on -- this is individual dose 


reconstruction reviews -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess we -- I guess just as a ­

- just to summarize where we're at on all of 


them, and again, we need to talk about timing 


and schedules certainly, but the case -- this 


first set of 20 cases -- and -- and we're 


actually going to check into this. We -- I 


know we finalized the letter. I assumed it 


went to the Secretary, but now -- now I'm not 


quite sure about that after talking with Paul a 


little bit, so we -- we have to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we think it has gone, but 


we're going to have to go back and make sure it 


actually arrived there, but there was a letter 


drafted and it -- the first set of 20 basically 


this Board closed out on. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, a final draft accepted by 


the --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the Board, right. The second 


set of cases might not be 20, is it 18? 


 DR. ZIEMER: It was 18. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Eighteen, yeah. The second set, 


we -- as of I think last Friday or -- or early 


this week, we -- we had NIOSH's response in the 


matrix completed, so in the subcommittee we 


just briefly went over -- we didn't even 


discuss NIOSH's responses really because we 


weren't at a place where we could, so that's 


got to be item one on our next workgroup 


meeting as far as the case reviews go. I think 


we need to have the discussion between SC&A and 


NIOSH about NIOSH's response to the findings, 


and so we're in the resolution process on that 


one. 


The third set of cases, and I'm -- I'm looking 


to Hans and Kathy if I get this wrong, but I 


think you've issued the final report, final 


matrix, but -- but NIOSH just received this, so 


now we need to give NIOSH some time to get a 


response to those findings, and then bump that 


into the same process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: And then as you -- as we 


indicated, the fourth set is -- SC&A has -- has 


pretty much completed their reviews and they're 


ready to do the team conference calls with the 


-- the groups, as we just previously mentioned, 


and we'll make new assignments based on the new 


members. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) I think that's ­

- that's (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: So basically that's a status 


report. There's no actions actually needed. 


Kathy, if you want to add to that... 


 MS. BEHLING: Not that I have anything to add, 


I just have a question. Is the letter that was 


sent to HHS -- is that going to be posted on 


the internet? I haven't seen -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: It will be posted, if it's not 


already. We're --


 MS. BEHLING: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we're having to go back and 


determine whether -- whether the Chairman had a 


senior moment and didn't send the letter or 


where it is, but --


 MS. BEHLING: Okay. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- we will find it. Thank you. 


Okay, is there anything further on -- on 


individual dose reconstruction reviews then? 


Questions by Board members? 


 (No responses) 


Thank you very much. We have a little time. 


REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

This would be a good time to talk about the 


minutes. 


 DR. WADE: There's never a bad time to talk 


about the minutes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: First of all, I would call 


attention to the minutes of the August meeting. 


There's two parts, there's an executive summary 


and then the full minutes. The Chair would 


like to call for any corrections or additions 


to the minutes, and particularly look for those 


items that are attributed to you. 


I'm going to call attention to one item, and 


this -- this may turn out to be -- have broader 


implications than just these minutes. On page 


32 of the minutes, this is the motion on the 


Special Exposure Cohort for Mallinckrodt 


Destrehan, if I'm not mistaken -- and Dr. 


Melius, you can help me 'cause I think you may 

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have made the motion -- I believe the motion 


was much more extensive than what is shown in 


our minutes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Point me to the page again, I'm 

sorry. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Page 32. Our typical motion 

includes instructions to the Chairman on a time 


line of action. It usually includes reasons 


for the recommendation. 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: This may be an abbreviated version 


of the motion, but it occurs to me that, 


although the minutes are abbreviated from the 


transcripts, the motions themselves should be 


full and complete. That would be my 


observation. But I'm asking the question 


'cause -- I didn't compare this against the 


transcripts, but my impression was that this is 


not the full motion. Would -- would you agree 


that that's the case? 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct, yeah, I agree. 


 DR. WADE: And in fact the mention of Destrehan 


Street is not correct. We need to correct this 


motion. We need to include the motion as it 


was made. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: So I will ask -- and let's see, 


Ray, do you do this or does staff -- we'll need 


to go back to the transcript and insert the 


full motion as it appears in the transcript on 


page 32. So without objection, we will make 


that change in the minutes. 


I also note on page 28, it refers to a motion ­

- it says Dr. Ziemer read the formal motion 


into the record, but the motion does not appear 


here in our minutes. Again, it would seem to 


me that we do need to include the motion 


itself. Any objection -- without objection, 


we'll add the motion on page 28 -- it's about 


the middle of the page. 


Then on page 29 where there's a break in the 


action, and you'll notice that nothing -- if 


you'll read through that, you'll notice that 


nothing happens on the motion, and so I think 


just before the stars on page 29 we will need 


to insert a statement, such as the action on 


the motion was postponed until tomorrow, 


because if you read in the minutes, we -- we 


did pick up action on the motion, but 


otherwise, as you read this, it looks like 


nothing happens, so we need to call attention 

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to the fact that the action actually shows up 


the next day, so we'll simply insert, I think, 


a statement -- action on the motion was 


postponed until tomorrow. So without 


objection, we'll make that change. 


Any other changes anyone wishes to make? You 


may have some minor typos or things like that. 


I notice in the -- well, I'll -- I'll simply 


pass my -- mine along to Ray. If others of you 


have minor wording, things that don't affect 


the -- really the meaning or content, we'll 


simply pass those along, we'll get those 


corrections done. 


Is there a motion to accept the minutes with 


these changes? 


 MR. PRESLEY: So moved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: A second? 

 MR. GIBSON: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded. Further discussion? 

All in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Those opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


 And abstentions? 


 (No responses) 

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Those minutes then are approved, as -- as 


amended. 


 Then let's turn to the minutes for October 17th 


through 19th. Again I'd like to ask for any 


corrections or additions to these motions, and 


while -- while I'm awaiting those, I notice 


that -- is this the minutes that had the -- the 


competing motions, the Munn and -- 


 MS. MUNN: It was the August meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Was it the August meeting? Then ­

- okay, then -- then -- I'm going to exercise 


the prerogative of going back -- now wait a 


minute, where's -- where's the -- 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) It's toward the 


back (unintelligible) pages 33, 34 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is the Munn motion in here, 


that's what I'm asking. I didn't think I saw 


it. We had -- we had a motion -- we have the 


Melius motion that was substituted for the Munn 


motion. 


(Pause) 


The Melius motion is provided and it became a 


substitute for the Munn motion, but it seems to 


me, again, it may be important to include that 

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original motion so --


THE COURT REPORTER: I'm not sure where you 


are, Dr. Ziemer, where -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's apparently on -- the Melius 


motion is on --


 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) 33. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- 33. That's the Melius motion, 


and you notice on page 34 -- motion was made 


and seconded that -- what happened was that -- 


I think Dr. Melius indicated that he was 


prepared to propose a different motion should 


the Munn motion fail. 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) Yes, that was what 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: This gets a little complex. 


Having told the Board what his motion was, 


there was then a motion to substitute the 


proposed Melius motion for the Munn motion, and 


that occurred. But the Munn motion never 


appears. I'm simply suggesting let's -- let's 


insert it so we know what happened. So I 


think, Ray, what we will need to do there -- I 


guess it's on Capitol Hill policy -- 


 DR. MELIUS: It goes back to page 27 is the -- 


where there's reference to Wanda's written 

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motion, but it's not -- 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) It's not stated 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so -- well, is that the 


motion I already --


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- asked that we put in? Okay, 


that was --


 MS. MUNN: It was -- was not --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the Munn motion. I knew there 


 MS. MUNN: It was not --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- was a motion --


 MS. MUNN: -- stated verbatim, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: In here. It just simply -- the 


sense of the motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I figured it out, okay. 


 MS. MUNN: The sense of the motion was 


captured. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's the missing motion. We've 


already taken care of the missing motion. 


Thank you. 


 Okay, then let's return to the October minutes, 


so no further action is needed on that if it 

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was already taken care of by the previous 


actions. Sorry, Ray, for all that confusion. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: We'll see what -- we'll see what 


the next minutes show up. Henry? 


DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) Yeah, Leon -- 


Leon was there. He's not listed as 


(unintelligible). At least he's quoted as -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: For the October minutes? 


DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, has his name been omitted? 


And Leon wasn't there by phone, was he? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Wasn't he there? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think he was there in person. 


 DR. WADE: I think so. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay, so let us add Leon's 


name to the list of attendees. Any other 


corrections or additions to these minutes? 


 (No responses) 


I do not hear any. I'll ask for a motion to 


approve. 


 MS. MUNN: So moved. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Second? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded by Presley. Discussion? 

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 (No responses) 


Okay, all in favor of approving these minutes, 


say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 Any opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


 Motion carries. 


THE COURT REPORTER: So the only thing to 


change is adding Owens as an attendee. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that's correct. 

 DR. MELIUS: Dr. Ziemer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, sir. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- just one sort of minute-related 

-- minutes-related observation. The web site 


does not contain minutes for our April meeting. 


They have transcripts but not minutes. I 


believe we approved those, but I -- you know, I 


don't recall specifically. I (unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sure we approved them, and so 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it just needs -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the NIOSH people will make note 


of that and --


 DR. MELIUS: I discovered -- I was trying to 

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find our letter about the secrecy issue, and I 


had to end up going to the transcript so I 


could find... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, that's the reason, the minutes 

are secret. 

 DR. MELIUS: I guess so, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) Part of the secret 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. MELIUS: It's not that I pore through the 


web site at all hours trying to find something 


that's not there. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm looking to see if there's any 


-- are there any other brief items we need to 


handle before lunch, Lew? 


 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) go 


to lunch. (Unintelligible) lunch, if we have 


some time (unintelligible) do it between 


(unintelligible) this afternoon. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we will recess for lunch and 


return for business at 1:30. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 11:50 a.m. 


to 1:30 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think we're ready to reconvene. 


I'm going to start the afternoon session from 

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here, soon as everybody's assembled. 


 MS. MUNN: Or seated, as the case may be. 


They're assembled, but they're not 


(unintelligible) assembled. 


RECOGNITION OF DEPARTING MEMBERS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: We have two of our Board members 


for whom this is the last meeting, and we want 


to take a little time and recognize them and 


their contributions. Those two individuals are 


Richard Espinosa and Henry Anderson, so let me 


say a little about each, and to do that I'm 


going to need the slides, so I need to be able 


to get -- the thing is loaded, but I need the 


projector to be on. 


(Pause) 


 MS. MUNN: I hope you haven't been secretly 


taking pictures of us while we didn't know it. 


DR. ROESSLER: But we'll behave from now on, 


we'll know what not to do. 


(Pause) 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, what a wonderful thing to do. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We'll start with Rich since this 


slide is up first, and maybe -- this is just 


coincidental that the picture I had of Rich was 


with Tony, who is the other member of the Board 

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who, in a sense, is being replaced as well now 


by -- by one of the three new people. But this 


was at our last visit to Oak Ridge, so let me 


say a few things about Rich. 


Rich Espinosa's been a sheet metal journeyman 


and metal shop steward at Johnson Controls at 


Los Alamos National Lab since 1994. He's a 


member of Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 49. 


He completed the chapter's apprentice program 


in 1998. In addition, Rich served for two 


years in the U.S. Navy from 1990 to '92. He 


was assigned to the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt's 


sheet metal shop. Rich is one of our original 


Board members, having been appointed by 


President Bush in November of 2001 to serve on 


this Board. 


Now Rich may strike you as being one of the 


more quiet Board members, but when he does have 


something to say, you can count on it as being 


important and worthy of consideration. He's 


been an excellent representative on this Board 


for the skilled trades, and we will miss his 


contributions to the ongoing work of the Board. 


And so, Rich, on behalf of all of your 


colleagues on the Board, I thank you for your 

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years -- your four years of dedicated service 


and participation. I wish you well as you 


continue in your other responsibilities and 


activities. 


Now on behalf of the agencies that we're 


representing here, if you'd come forward, we 


have a certificate of recognition from 


Department of Health and Human Services. It 


says (reading) This certificate presented to 


Richard Lee Espinosa in recognition and 


appreciation for service on the Advisory Board 


on Radiation and Worker Health as a member 


August 2001 through January 2006. 


It's signed by Julie Gerberding, who's the 


Director of Centers for Disease Control, and by 


John Howard from NIOSH. And if -- Lew, if you 


and Larry would join us here, there also is a 


letter from Julie Gerberding also 


congratulating you. Just join us here for a 


minute as we congratulate Rich, we'll get our 


photographer to -- can we get away from this 


mike a minute here? 


 MS. MUNN: It would be nice. Move it over so 


it hits Roy. 


(Pause) 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's all thank Rich. 


(Applause) 


MR. ESPINOSA: First of all, I want to say that 


I do miss my friend Tony. That's an amazing 


picture and I'd like to have it. Even though 


me and Tony didn't agree on a lot of things, we 


still became good friends. 


 I consider all of you friends. I'm going to 


miss you all. But as doors close, other doors 


open, so this is just going to allow me to 


spend a little bit more time with my son, and 


also be a little bit more of an activist for my 


local union in regard to this program, as well 


as other areas that my union represents, such 


as Sandia, Los Alamos and Pantex. 


I want to thank all the contributes that 


everybody does to this Board and to the 


workers. I want to send a special thanks to a 


person that's not a part of this Board but is 


very well active, and that's Richard Miller. 


want to thank you for all the work that you've 


done and that it's appreciative. That's all I 


have to say. 


(Applause) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now you notice I don't take any 


I 
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credit for this photograph. It turned out that 


what I -- what I had in my camera, Henry, was 


even worse that this. 


 DR. MELIUS: He had a rough night. 


DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) Before my phone 


started (unintelligible) you really can't 


identify me very well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is that really him? Henry 


Anderson has served as Chief Medical Officer 


for Occupational and Environmental Health at 


the Wisconsin Division of Public Health in 


Madison, Wisconsin since 1991. Other current 


appointments that Henry holds and other 


activities he is involved in include serving as 


State Epidemiologist for Occupational and 


Environmental Disease for the Wisconsin 


Division of Public Health, Adjunct Professor 


for the Epi Institute for Environmental Studies 


at the University of Wisconsin, Adjunct 


Professor of Preventive Medicine at the 


University of Wisconsin Medical School, and 


lecturer in the Department of Community 


Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. 


Henry, incidentally, has published over 160 


scientific articles which cover a broad 

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spectrum of environmental and occupational and 


public health topics. He was a founding member 


of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease 


Registry. He's served on the National Academy 


of Sciences Institutes of Medicine committees, 


which includes activities that involve 


developing reports on injury in America and 


nursing, health and environment. 


Henry is Chair of the Environmental Health 


Committee of the U.S. EPA Science Advisory 


Board. He also is on the Director's Advisory 


Committee for the National Center for 


Environmental Health. Henry, too, is one of 


our original Board members and thus is 


completing four years of distinguished service 


on this Board. 


Henry is an individual we can always count on 


to provide thoughtful and insightful input in 


our deliberations, and we'll surely miss his 


pleasant and congenial approach to carrying out 


the work of this Board. 


And so, Henry, on behalf of your colleagues 


here today on the Board, I thank you for your 


four years of dedicated service, and I wish you 


continued success in your ongoing 

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responsibilities and activities. 


And if you'll join me here, again, we have the 


certificate of recognition and a letter. 


(Reading) This certificate presented to Henry 


Anderson, M.D. in recognition and appreciation 


for service on the Advisory Board on Radiation 


and Worker Health as a member August 2001 


through January 2006. 


Congratulations. 


(Applause) 


 DR. ZIEMER: (Off microphone) Henry, 


(unintelligible) say something to 


(unintelligible). 


DR. ANDERSON: Sure, I -- it's -- it has been a 


pleasure to be at the founding of this 


committee and help the program, as well as this 


committee, begin to work its way through the 


issues. And I think, while there's been a lot 


of bumps in the road -- and there probably are 


many yet to come, as we heard a few today -- I 


think there have been some advances and I think 


as we -- as you begin to develop more policies, 


the Board will be in a better position to act 


on things in a -- in a timely fashion with not 


quite always being at the end of the program. 

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Just remembering while I'm going off the Board, 


I do have a FedEx package with the Proving 


Grounds latest review that I -- as I was at the 


airport I was notified by my office that I had 


received another FedEx. And I have to say that 


that probably sets the record for being sent 


information that we're supposed to deliberate 


on with as short a period as possible. 


So I wish you all well. It's -- it's really 


more of a graduation than it is a retirement. 


Just want to know that there's now a alumni 


lobbying group of two, that we're no longer 


constrained because of being on the Board and 


the potential for bias or conflicts of 


interest. So now as the e-mails flow and the 


freedom of information of internal e-mail 


communication on how well we're doing and 


information sent to the White House and things 


like that, we're now open and free to, like 


Richard, speak out to more accurately reflect 


our views on a lot of these issues. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Henry. Oh, and 


incidentally, Henry, like you, one of my best 


friends in LaFayette now is the FedEx man. 


SEC RULE REWRITE
 

25 DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 
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Okay, now we'll go back to our regular agenda 


item, and what we have on the agenda now is -- 


the topic is SEC rule rewrite. We were made 


aware earlier today that the SEC rule is being 


rewritten -- did I miss something? 


 DR. WADE: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MS. KIMPAN: I had a response from something 


that was brought up actually this morning, so ­

-


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we'll catch you in just a 


moment, Kate. Thanks. 


-- so we will have an opportunity to discuss a 


strategy relating to the revision of the SEC 


rule, and I'll -- I'm going to ask Lew in a 


moment to give us some counsel on how we might 


proceed on that. 


 But let's hear from Kate. You had a remark 


dealing with this morning's (unintelligible). 


 MS. KIMPAN: It was -- it was actually a 


response to a substantive concern that was 


raised, which was there was a person with a new 


disclosure form that had less information than 


the prior disclosure form. During the break I 


tasked my people to look at all of the forms to 

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make certain that the first form and the second 


form are consistent. The individual who was 


being alleged to have a problem, I've already 


had that reviewed and we're correcting the 


information on the web site. We're going to do 


that for everyone and for all forms to assure 


accuracy and completeness of the information 


we're providing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for that update. Okay, 


thunderous applause breaks out from -- from 


part of the crowd. Let the record show that 


Mr. Miller was unable to contain himself. 


Okay. Lew, give us some advice on how we might 


proceed here as far as the SEC rule update. 


 DR. WADE: Well, in terms of this session, I'd 


ask Ted Katz to -- to just stand up and walk 


you through the rule rewrite. Not to engage in 


debate or discussion with you, but just to 


expose the rule to you. 


Then -- the rule comment period closes on 


February 21st, so we have a number of options 


open to us. Certainly a Board member, as an 


individual, can comment at any point they would 


like. If there is a strong sense that the 


Board would like to comment as a group, as a 

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Board, formally, then we have two options. We 


could try and have a Board call that would 


allow for some discussion before the 21st, or 


we could ask the agency to extend the comment 


period out beyond our March meeting -- and I 


think the agency would be responsive -- and in 


this way we could allow for the regularly 


scheduled call of the Board to take place, at 


which time the Board could formulate its 


comments, and then submit them to the still-


opened record. So I think those are two 


options. 


 You know, once we hear from Ted, then you can 


decide if it's likely you'd want to comment as 


a Board. And if you would, then we could 


choose one of the two options that I've laid 


out. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Ted Katz. 


 MR. KATZ: (Off microphone) Well, Henry, I 


don't have a PowerPoint, so (unintelligible). 


 (On microphone) So -- so HHS published 


amendments to its Special Exposure Cohort rule, 


as you know, in December. And just to make a 


note on that for -- particularly for the 


public, the rule is -- as Lew just said -- is 

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open to public comment through February 21st at 


this point. So the rule is published as an 


interim final rule, which means it's effective 


immediately, but sort of a -- like we've talked 


about with a number of documents over the last 


couple of days, it's in effect provisional 


because we can make whatever changes are needed 


on the basis of public comment before it's 


finalized in reality. 


So I thought I -- what I'd do is -- is use the 


statutory changes and pair those up with the 


amendments we've made to the rule, just so that 


we can be completely clear and it'll be helpful 


to you to hear the actual statutory language 


when I run through those. I was intending, Lew 


-- I was intending to respond to some of the 


questions that Richard Miller raised in the 


public comment session on Tuesday, as long as 


I'm gong through this, even though those 


aren't, you know, specifically in the preamble 


and so on, but I thought it'd be useful to 


elucidate on those matters. 


So there are not that many changes, really -- 


statutory that we had to respond to, and the 


first -- the first of these is -- and it's 

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under Section 73.84(q) of the statute, subpart 


(c), deadlines. And the first is that not 


later than -- and you're -- I realize you're 


familiar with these, but -- but let me just 


read them verbatim. 


 (Reading) Not later than 120 days after the 


date on which the President receives a petition 


for designation as a member of the Special 


Exposure Cohort, the Director of the National 


Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


shall submit to the Advisory Board on Radiation 


and Worker Health a recommendation on that 


petition, including all supporting 


documentation. 


So that's what the statute says, and -- and we 


made two -- two changes to the rule to make it 


consistent, compliant with these new statutory 


requirements. The first change we made was, as 


has been mentioned, to change -- to actually 


establish, 'cause there was no definition 


previously of a petition, to establish such a 


definition in the rule. And the reason we did 


that is because there's this process, as -- as 


SC&A discussed yesterday, there's this process 


that NIOSH goes through with the petitioners to 

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aid them and guide them in producing a petition 


that's -- that's qualified, that actually meets 


the requirements to serve as the petition, and 


that occurs up front and -- and our early 


experience, before we had to revise this rule, 


was that -- that process takes a bit of time 


and can take a bit of time. So as a result, we 


defined -- let me just go ahead and read the -- 


the definition that we gave for -- for our 


rule, and that is -- one second, I'm sorry. 


(Pause) 


Yes, sorry, petition means a submission under 


83.8 of this part that meets all the 


requirements of 83.7 through 8 and 9 of this 


part and has incorporated any revisions made by 


the petitioner under 83 through 7 -- 7 through 


83.9 or 83.11 of this part. So in effect that 


they've made whatever revisions and added 


whatever material they needed to for the 


petition to qualify. 


The second change, which was also mentioned in 


Richard's comments, to enable us to meet the 


180-day deadline --


 DR. WADE: Can I just interrupt you briefly? 


mean I think it's very important that we 


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describe what we've done, but we shouldn't be 


addressing anyone's comments. 


 MR. KATZ: Oh, okay. 


 DR. WADE: We don't want to get involved in an 


ex parte communication, so -- 


 MR. KATZ: Well -- okay, this is -- the second 


change we made was to -- was to reduce the -- 


the period for -- for a petitioner -- a 


petitioner has a right, after they work with us 


and submit a petition and make whatever 


revisions, at the end of that process if the 


petition still doesn't qualify, then NIOSH 


notifies them that it doesn't qualify and they 


have the right to request a review of that 


decision. And there was a 30-day period for 


them to request that review, and we reduced 


that 30-day period to a 7-day period for that 


review. The reason for reducing for seven days 


is because the 180-day counting is based on 


when that petition met the requirements that I 


just read to you, the parts I just read to you, 


and so when it actually became a proper 


petition. Well, if we, in error, had reported 


that it didn't meet the qualifications to the 


petitioner and they appealed, and then after 

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this review it's determined that -- that in 


fact it did meet the requirements, that period 


in which the petitioner brought that issue, 


made that request for review, and the period 


for which we were doing that review is part of 


that 180 days. So if -- if the petitioner had 


30 days to do it, that would be even longer 


period out of the 180 days for which we 


wouldn't be proceeding with the petition 


evaluation and our window would be even shorter 


in this -- you know, as Lew has talked about 


yesterday, you know, the demands on us to 


complete a petition evaluation within 180 days 


already is pretty substantial. And you know, 


given the deliberations of the Board and their 


-- the new requir-- the new, you know, 


procedures we're going to have for petition 


evaluations, you know, demands are going to be 


even greater. So that -- that addresses the 


180 days. 


 The next provision is -- reads as follows. 


(Reading) Upon receipt by the President of a 


recommendation of the Advisory Board on 


Radiation and Worker Health that the President 


should determine in the affirmative that 

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Paragraphs 1 and 2 of this subsection (b) apply 


to a class, the President shall have a period 


of 30 days in which to determine whether such 


paragraphs apply to the class and to submit 


that determination, whether affirmative or 


negative, to Congress. 


So there's actually a lot in there. The 


Paragraphs 1 and 2 are the finding of 


feasibility and health endangerment. The most 


major change we made in response to this 


requirement was to move -- as you know, after a 


petition is evaluated and the Board's made a 


recommendation and -- and there's been a 


proposed decision by -- by the NIOSH Director 


in the previous rule, the petitioner had an 


opportunity to seek a review of that -- of that 


proposed decision by the Director of NIOSH. 


But 30 days wouldn't allow for the petitioner 


even to bring that request, let alone to -- to 


deal with it, to -- to do the review and come 


to a final decision. So we moved that all to 


the end of the process and the Secretary will 


make final decisions, but those final decisions 


will have the same review rights that the 


proposed decision had before. That's the most 

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major change we made. 


We also had to -- as you'll note in here, 


Congress is requiring, through this statute, 


for us to report to Congress both affirmative 


and negative decisions or determinations, and 


that wasn't a requirement before. So we had to 


redo this aspect of the rule to capture that, 


to have a provision for reporting to Congress, 


even -- even if the Secretary decides in the 


negative that -- not to follow the Board's 


recommendation. 


Then let me read -- the next provision -- I 


think that covers that. 


(Reading) If the determination submitted by the 


President under subparagraph (a) is in the 


affirmative, the President shall also submit a 


report meeting the requirements of Section 


73.84(L) et cetera. 


 The main thing we did there is we, in effect, 


combined the determination with the report that 


was already required in the prior statute. 


This is the -- this is the -- you've seen these 


now because the Secretaries had transmitted 


these to Congress, but these are these 


determinations, the designations. 

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And then it reads (reading) If the President 


does not submit a determination required by 


subparagraph (a) within the period required by 


subparagraph (a), then upon the day following 


the expiration of that period it shall be 


deemed, for the purposes of 


73.84(L)(14)(c)(ii), that the President 


submitted the report under that provision on 


that day. 


And we then amended the rule in a minor way 


with language to recognize that there's this -- 


there's this provision and that it would be so 


deemed that we'd submitted such a report if we 


do not come to a determination in a timely 


fashion as this is required here. 


The other -- the final change is just a change 


that Congress made. They had a 180-day review 


period previously for the designations of the 


Secretary adding new classes, proposing to add 


new classes. In effect Congress had a chance 


to review that for 180 days and they changed 


that to 30 days, so we made that change. 


 And that covers the waterfront. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Ted. Perhaps there are 


questions that Board members have relating to 

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these changes, or related comments. Henry? 


DR. ANDERSON: I'm just curious as to how you 


determine that the seven days for the 


petitioner was -- was sufficient. I mean you 


say you've determined that it's sufficient. It 


just seems to me, you know, you reduced their 


appeals process to -- they had to appeal within 


seven days and provide all of the rationale 


when they haven't seen your document. And you 


could send it out on a Friday and somebody may 


be on vacation for two weeks and -- are you 


going to alert them that it's coming and -- so 


they can prepare (unintelligible)? 


 MR. KATZ: Yes, what -- I mean if -- if you -- 


if you remember, the process we have is to 


actually work with the petitioners to guide 


them in developing the petition, so we would 


have been -- and have been, I think, with all 


petitioners -- been in dialogue all the way up 


to that point. It would -- it would not be a 


surprise to the petitioners at that point if 


they haven't -- if -- if we've raised issues 


that they have not addressed and will not 


address, you know, they'll know that they're 


sort of out of compliance and that they're -- 

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there's going to be this sort of decision 


rendered. 


DR. ANDERSON: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) it isn't going to be a 


surprise. 


 MR. KATZ: Yes. No, I -- I don't expect that 


that would be a surprise. 


 DR. MELIUS: I'm not sure you can answer this, 


but is it sort of common practice to have a 


regulation that is inconsistent with the 


preamble in terms of certain dates and so 


forth? This is -- there's a bit of confusion 


in what's actually written here versus what you 


have -- how it's been described. 


 MR. KATZ: What's -- well, can you explain that 


-- the inconsistency? 


 DR. MELIUS: We will when we submit comments, 


but there's some issues about the 30 and the 7­

day and how -- how you've written that out, but 


-- never mind. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments right now? Or 


questions or clarity? 


 (No responses) 


Thank you, Ted. Oh, I'm sorry, Rich. 


MR. ESPINOSA: A little bit back on Henry's 

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question. If I remember right, during the 


Mallinckrodt petition I believe that Denise 


Brock was told pretty much the day of the next 


Advisory Board meeting, so I mean how are -- 


how do we know or how are we guaranteed that 


the petitioners are going to be given 


sufficient notice? 


 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry, can you explain -- Denise 


Brock was told what the date of an Advisory 


Board meeting? 


MR. ESPINOSA: I don't remember -- do you 


remember what the petition was? For some 


reason, I remember that one of the issues that 


Denise Brock had on -- on the Mallinckrodt 


issue, it was basically told to her basically 


the day of the Advisory Board meeting when 


we're supposed to be voting on it, so 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think -- I think that was 


the new data or --


 MR. KATZ: New data. 

 DR. WADE: Petition evaluation report? 

 MR. KATZ: Yeah, I mean she may have gotten new 

data very late, that's absolutely possible, but 


not --

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MR. ESPINOSA: (Off microphone) Oh, I 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. KATZ: -- the qualification of her 


petition. Her petition actually qualified. 


MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, there was new information 


that came out pretty much (unintelligible)... 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess just to follow up on 


Henry's comment, I mean if you're working with 


the petitioner all along, this is a good thing. 


But if -- if -- then if they still get 


disqualified, that tells me that there's some 


serious deficiencies and you couldn't work it 


out with the -- with the petitioners. So then 


you're still only giving them seven days to -- 


to make amendments or cha-- or appeal it. I 


think at that point they would have to make 


some more serious changes to it to -- to the -- 


you know, to a resubmission or to appeal, and 


it might take more research on their part, and 


it seems like you're cutting them down to -- 


 MR. KATZ: But --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I understand your 180 days, 


but I'm thinking of the petitioners, too, here, 


you know. 


 MR. KATZ: I absolutely agree. You keep in 

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mind that the petitioner can resubmit with new 


information at any time, so this doesn't 


preclude them from submitting a petition that 


has new information. This is for --


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


it certainly --


 MR. KATZ: -- you know, rendering a judgment 


based on the decision -- information that's 


there, because in fact the review doesn't allow 


the consideration of new information. I mean 


it's the information upon which the decision 


was made that this is decided upon. Right? 


The review. And that's -- that's in the rules, 


it's been in the rule and it's the -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


can't -- can't be based on new information 


(unintelligible) --


 MR. KATZ: Well, they need to have a new 


submission. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


be a new submission? 


 MR. KATZ: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, as long as that's 


communicated clearly -- 


 MR. KATZ: Right. 

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168

 MR. GRIFFON: -- to (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. But in -- the case you're 


describing is a non-- non-qualifying petition ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- but did the clock still start 


when you've got that non-qualifying petition? 


 MR. KATZ: So the clock started as soon as -- 


as -- at the point we render the decision that 


it doesn't qualify, that clock still starts 


then. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's when it starts. 


 MR. KATZ: If it's -- appeals, right -- if it's 


appealed, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so that -- that starts the 


clock, even if you've said it -- 


 MR. KATZ: Even if we said no. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we have a non-qualifying 


petition, why is there a clock going at that 


time? 


UNIDENTIFIED: It's not a petition. 


 MR. KATZ: Well, it's -- I mean it's not a 


petition at that time, but if -- if then it's 


reversed, if that decision's reversed, then in 


fact they had the information they needed for a 

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petition and --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm -- I'm kind of asking 


why the clock is going when there really is no 


qualifying petition in place. That's all I'm 


asking. 


 MR. KATZ: Because if the decision is rendered 


in error, in effect, if NIOSH then comes back ­

- if there's a review conducted and it's 


decided that in fact it did -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, the --


 MR. KATZ: -- meet the requirements -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: It wouldn't necessarily be based 


on new information (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. KATZ: No, it wouldn't be based on new 


information. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, you want to speak to that? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


the question as I heard it --


 (On microphone) The question as I heard it was 


is the clock ticking while we're trying to 


qualify the petition. It's not ticking. What 


we do is we contact the petitioner once we 


receive the petition. We schedule a phone 


interview with them, a phone consult -- not an 


interview, a consultation with them, and we 

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cover the information in that consultation that 


they've provided, they've submitted with their 


petition. And we note any issues or 


deficiencies with regard to the criteria that's 


outlined in the reg. We provide them a summary 


letter of that consultation and the summary 


letter, where there are deficiencies noted, 


provides them 30 days of time to respond to 


those deficiencies. At that point in time, if 


they have responded, then we again talk to them 


about does the new information that you've 


provided to cure a deficiency really cure the 


deficiency. If not, we give them another 30 


days. If it does, however, cure the deficiency 


-- well, if it doesn't cure the deficiency and 


they say well, I have no other information to 


give, then the petition is disqualified and 


they're told at that point in time it 


disqualifies. They're also given another 


letter to say why it disqualifies. If it's --


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I'm still not clear if the 


clock is going or not going. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The clock is not going until they 


-- until we tell them the petition is now 


qualified. All of the submittal information 

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meets the criteria in the regulation. We give 


them a letter to that effect, as well. That's 


when --


 DR. ZIEMER: This appears to say that during 


the 7-day period the clock is already going and 


it has been -- not -- it's not a qualified 


petition. 


 MR. KATZ: Larry, you're -- I think -- I mean 


this is -- you -- I think this is confusing it 


because all of what you said is true up to the 


point -- when you say it doesn't qualify, then 


they have their seven days to submit a 


petition. Now if NIOSH conducts and review and 


says nay, you know, not right, OCAS -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's right, we --


 MR. KATZ: -- it does qualify, then it 


qualified at the time you said it didn't, in 


effect, because it should have. It should 


have, is the point. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That clearly is confusing. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Let's go back. There's two 


statements that can be made -- 


 MR. KATZ: It should have. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- with regard to qualification. 


One, it doesn't qualify and here are the 

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I 

reasons and the deficiencies, and we give them 


30 days to try to cure those deficiencies. If 


we say -- the other statement is it does 


qualify. And where am I losing it, though? 


mean --


 MR. KATZ: Because the -- because the decision 


is reviewed. When you say yes -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The decision gets -- if they 


challenge it -- oh, yeah --


 MR. KATZ: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- if they say --


 MR. KATZ: This is what we're talking about. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I missed that point. If they say 


look, I don't have any other information, this 


needs to qualify. We tell them you have seven 


days to go through the appeal here. 


 MR. KATZ: You have seven days to submit an 


appeal. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Submit an appeal. 

 DR. MELIUS: And then how long does the appeal 

take? 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the clock is going during 


those seven days? 


 MR. KATZ: The clock is going -- yes. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: The clock is going from that 

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point where we say --


 MR. KATZ: So then it may take -- it may take a 


couple more weeks for -- for -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Even though --


 MR. KATZ: -- the review to be conducted -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- they're not qualified still? 


 MR. KATZ: It still hasn't qualified. The 


review is being conducted, and then the 


review's completed, and if the review finds 


that indeed this petition should have 


qualified, then the reason for the -- the 


reason for the dates -- whether it's clear or 


not, the reason for the date in here, the 


explanation for that, is that that clock was 


ticking on NIOSH that whole time because in 


reality they had met the requirements, as it 


says in here. What this says -- it doesn't say 


in here the time of qualification, it says when 


it meets the requirements of Sections -- 


whatever they are, 1 through -- 7 through 9. 


So it would have met the requirements, even 


though NIOSH hadn't found it so until later on. 


That -- that's what's intended anyway. 


Obviously it's not clear. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I understand -- I understand what 

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you're saying, I think. 


Okay. Other comments? 


 DR. MELIUS: I have --


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- another question. Where is the 


180 days incorporated into the regulation? 


 MR. KATZ: The 180 days is not incorporated -- 


that was not a provision that needed any -- the 


evaluation sections of the report, which are 


83.13 and 14, didn't need any changes so we 


didn't insert anything there. There's nothing 


conflicting with that requirement, which is 


statutory and overrides anything in the rule 


anyway. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments or 


questions? 


 (No responses) 


Thank you. What do we need to do? 


 DR. WADE: Well, now you need to decide how you 


want to respond as a Board, if you want to 


respond as a Board, and by what mechanism and 


time line you wish to do so. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We've already been told that Board 


members of course are free, as individuals, to 


make comments, and you can certainly do that. 

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If -- if -- and I suspect that the Board is not 


prepared at this time -- 


 DR. WADE: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to develop any comments on 


this. If in fact you have comments that you 


think are significant enough that it would be 


important for them to be, as it were, endorsed 


by the full Board, then we would need to either 


have a full conference call to attain a Board 


position, or this could be done at our 


scheduled conference call if NIOSH were willing 


to extend the comment deadline. So those are 


some options, I would guess. 


 Jim Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- I would suggest three 


areas for potential comment. I'm going to 


identify the areas and sort of the nature of 


the type of comments. I'm not looking for 


agreement or disagreement with those, but just 


-- just sort of to posit out how we might do 


this. 


The first area is I -- I personally think it 


would be helpful if we commented on the efforts 


that the Board are making to address the 


timeliness issue, that the rationale for this 

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change in the law was to promote better 


timeliness in terms of the dealing with SEC 


petitions. I think with our evaluation plan, 


the workgroup, what we adopted the other day, 


some other steps that we've talked about, that 


we are -- are taking steps to work with NIOSH 


to make this process more -- more timely. And 


so I think -- you know, we agree with the 


intent and -- and are taking steps to be 


supportive. 


The second area is the seven-day issue. I mean 


I, again, personally think that's too short a 


time for an ap-- a meaningful appeal. I mean 


it just -- I understand the clock is ticking 


issue. However, I think that the seven days is 


not fair to a petitioner to ask them to respond 


to what can be a difficult process. I don't 


believe it's occurred to date, and it may be 


moot and -- and so forth and, you know, 


something along, you know, 21 days or something 


like that I think is -- is fairer to the 


petitioners in terms of deciding and keeping 


the process going. It's just -- it's just too 


confusing to ask people well, just -- if you 


can't do it in seven days, you can resubmit 

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after that and I -- I don't think that's a -- a 


fair process. And I don't think it burdens NI­

- overly burdens NIOSH by reducing that because 


frankly I think they left themselves enough of 


a loophole at the end of the 180 days in order 


to be able to keep -- keep going or stretch 


that -- that time period out. 


 And that would be the third area I think we 


should focus some comments on is the -- is the 


interpretation of the 180-day -- 180-day limit. 


I -- again, it may be consistent with the law. 


In fact they're saying -- they aren't' really 


trying to interpret, they're just saying that 


they're accepting it statutorily so forth, but 


I think there's a variety of comments we may 


want to consider to make on that aspect of it. 


So those would be the three areas I see as -- 


would suggest that we consider. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Let me ask if 


there are reactions to that from other Board 


members or other areas that you think might 


deserve some attention. 


 MS. MUNN: Do I hear ten days? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or you might feel that these are 


not of interest to you and you just don't think 

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the Board should address them. Rich. 


MR. ESPINOSA: The se-- the seven days also has 


me concerned, and I'm just kind of wondering 


what would constitute as basically an approved 


appeal for the review. You know, could the 


petitioner just basically write, you know, I'm 


appealing your decision and quote a certain 


amount of time to -- to do his research -- his 


or her research? Or -- or, you know, are they 


just bound by the seven days to provide the 


documentation? 


 DR. ZIEMER: So you're asking whether they 


simply have to assert that they're appealing 


within seven days --


MR. ESPINOSA: Yes, that --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- or do they --


MR. ESPINOSA: -- that (unintelligible) my -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- have to provide all the -- 


MR. ESPINOSA: -- question, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I -- I don't know if we know 


the answer to that at the moment, but that's an 


issue perhaps. Liz, are -- are you going to 


speak to that or you --


MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) I was 


actually going to talk to Ted about 

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(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, just don't get too close to 


the mike when you -- when you talk to Ted. 


Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: Next time crawl along the floor. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, do you have any other 

comments? 

 DR. MELIUS: Do that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Do you want to defend your -- your 

suggestion? 

 DR. MELIUS: Actually Liz distracted me, now I 

can't remember what I was going to -- I was 


going to --


 DR. ZIEMER: We'll hear from Henry and then you 


might --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, then. I actually remember. 


Go ahead (unintelligible). 


DR. ANDERSON: Just as gratuitive advice to the 


-- gratuitous advice to the Board, you ought to 


be sure you're notified when the 180 days 


starts, 'cause my assumption's going to be most 


of the deliveries will be at 180, and if that's 


two days before a Board meeting, then the Board 


is going to be in a position of not having had 


time and so the delay will then be on the Board 

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side. So I think it's -- behooves the Board to 


look at when the 180 days will run up -- run 


out for some of these so you can plan in 


advance for how soon after that do you want to 


have a Board meeting to address whatever the 


conclusion is so you don't get caught three 


months waiting after something has been sent 


out or comes just days before. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I think one -- one of 


my areas which I think we need to comment on -- 


I think it falls under Jim's first section of 


timeliness, but the question of the timeliness 


of qualifying the petition. I guess that's 


undefined at this point, that you could go on 


as long as you -- as NIOSH needs to qualify a 


petition, and I think that is a fairly 


administrative task. I don't know that that's 


taken a long time in -- in past petitions, but 


I -- there's no time frame on it so that might 


be something we'd want to discuss in our 


comments. 


 And the second thing is just a -- I guess at 


the end of the 180 days, the recommendation. 


think maybe a better discussion of the 


I 
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definition of a recommendation, whether it's a 


-- you know, it doesn't appear that it has to 


be an up or down recommendation on the petition 


now, so we might want to comment on that as to 


whether -- what -- just what is a 


recommendation or how is it defined. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that's a fourth item, really, 


what constitutes a recommendation; is it an 


up/down versus --


 MR. GRIFFON: Versus ongoing like research or ­

- yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 


 DR. WADE: I also think Mark's first point 


should be captured as a separate issue. I mean 


this issue of the time frame to qualify, I 


think it would be worth capturing that as a 


separate issue. I think it's different than 


Jim's number one. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it --

 DR. MELIUS: It is. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- actually sort of crosses 

between some of the -- one and two, probably, 


maybe even three. 


 DR. MELIUS: I have some -- I actually 


remembered my earlier -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- thought. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: It -- it came back, and -- do 

that. But just to comment on that last point, 


I -- I think what -- my interpretation of 


Congress's intent here is to try to make the 


whole process more timely, and so, you know, I 


think, again, to -- in support of what Mark was 


saying about petition qualification is to try 


to keep it in -- within some time frame. We 


recognize that it's not always in NIOSH's hands 


in terms of getting information provided by the 


petitioners and so forth, but I think the 


overall intent ought to be to try to keep the 


overall process timely. 


Again, going back to the issue of the -- a 


seven-day appeal, I would think that would come 


up where the -- NIOSH has had some time to work 


with the petitioner, they -- they've asked for 


more information to be submitted, and then 


there's a disagreement between NIOSH and the 


petitioner as to whether this is sufficient 


information to -- has been provided to qualify. 


Again, I don't believe it's happened so far, 

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and -- and when it did come up, I -- I think -- 


I would like to leave enough time for the 


petitioner to have a -- you know, some 


reasonable amount of time to gather a little 


bit more information to buttress their -- their 


submission and to -- to make their argument. 


And I -- I just think, given how complicated 


this program is, that -- that seven days just 


isn't enough, and I think that -- that's where 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, and to discuss this fully, 


we may need an -- you know, what would the 


alternate proposal be, so -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: Are we simply discussing what was 


placed before us, or are we now discussing the 


content of a proposed Board letter? One --


 DR. ZIEMER: What we're doing, we trying to 


identify --


 MS. MUNN: -- gets the feel--


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if there are enough issues of 


concern that in fact the Board should try to 


develop a formal submission. 


 MS. MUNN: That's what I --

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 DR. ZIEMER: We are not actually developing 


such a submission here today, but trying to 


identify whether or not there are areas of 


concern. I think we've identified that indeed 


there are a number of areas, and if there's 


sufficient concern -- I really have five now 


that have been identified, and if there's a 


consensus that these are -- these rise to a 


level of concern amongst the full Board, then 


we will establish these as the topic for a 


Board meeting by phone. 


Is there a -- let me ask if there's a kind of a 


general consensus that we need to develop some 


responses relating to these issues, or others. 


Robert, you have a comment? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Number one, I think we ought to 


issue some comments. On that seven-day issue, 


are they just sent a letter, or is it a return 


receipt type of a deal or -- or is it just a 


letter that goes out and... 


 DR. ZIEMER: How do they know? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: They will be notified by word of 


mouth and then by letter, and I believe that -- 


all our letters go out FedEx, and so we know 


when they receive it. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Pretty certain of that point. 


I'd also remark about Mark's comment about the 


time to qualify. The information I gave you 


yesterday on -- that lists the petitions that 


have qualified, you can see the time frame from 


the date the petition was received to when it 


was qualified. It ranges from three to five 


months. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Further comments on this? Yes, 

Roy. 

 DR. DEHART: Certainly I'm hearing enough 

concern here that I think the Board is going to 


be interested in pursuing this. Could we 


suggest that a lead be appointed to begin to 


put things together so we're not trying to do 


it all on the telephone? 


 DR. ZIEMER: What -- what would need to happen 


would be that we would have to have someone 


gather all the proposed comments and -- and put 


them together in some form. We -- we -- this 


could be done either by a working group or by 


an individual. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would volunteer to do either or 

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both or whatever, but others (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We are hesitant to pass up 


volunteers. I didn't hear any of the new 


people volunteering yet, but if it's agreeable, 


we'll ask Board members to propose comments to 


Dr. Melius. If you will collate them into some 


kind of a coherent response -- I know it will 


be coherent. Why do I have to even say that? 


I don't know. 


DR. ANDERSON: Let's don't get carried away. 


 MS. MUNN: Just because you're leaving. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm more intending it to mean a 


categorized response, perhaps along the lines 


of the categories that you suggested already. 


And then make sure that that is distributed to 


Board members in advance of such a phone call 


so that we have a basis for considering that in 


advance of such a call. The -- if that's -- 


any objection? Without objection, we'll follow 


that pattern with Dr. Melius having the lead. 


Now if -- if the Board wishes to do this simply 


for our next phone call meeting, we would have 


to request an extension of the comment period. 


Otherwise, if we could do it in a more timely 


fashion, the comment period ends February 21. 

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That would mean that we have only three weeks ­

- basically three weeks to get our suggestions 


in to Dr. Melius, have them collated, made 


coherent and distributed back to you for review 


perhaps no later than roughly -- I would say 


the 18th at the latest. Well, we need to be -- 


we need more time than that if we're going to ­

- what would happen is the Chair would have to 


transmit the comments, so I guess they -- we 


could push pretty close to the 21st, but you 


know, I would say more like the 15th to have a 


phone meeting if we want to do that. About 


mid-February would be about -- yeah, about 


three weeks off. 


 Any preferences there? Lew, any advice to us 


on that? Is there a -- 


 DR. WADE: I mean I'm --


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure how -- what kind of 


difficulties are presented in asking the time 


period to be extended --


 DR. WADE: I think --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- versus moving ahead -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and pushing it here. 


 DR. WADE: Well, I mean I think this is 

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important enough, obviously, by the level of 


discussion, that we want to do this right. So 


I would suggest that -- that we seek, as 


quickly as possible, to have the time period 


extended. If that request is met, then we 


could use our meeting on the 14th. If it's 


not, then I'd get back to you immediately and 


schedule something maybe for the middle of 


February. But I would think we'd rather take ­

- you would rather take the time to do it 


right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: And if I recall, that's been done 


in the past, also, so (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Larry's shaking his head that 


that appears to be doable and be a brief 


extension of a few weeks on the comment period. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that would be our 


preference, too, to just go forward with a 


Federal Register notice announcing that the 


public comment period has been extended, and we 


can put that into effect right away. And we 


extend it out through -- past the March 14th 


date. 


 DR. MELIUS: And it is an interim final rule, 

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so --


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- things are in place. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

 DR. MELIUS: It's not like we're holding up -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, exactly. So if that's 

agreeable, we'll proceed on that basis, and 


this will be one of the items for the 


regularly-scheduled Board phone call. 


 DR. WADE: On March 14th. 


 DR. ZIEMER: On March 14th. Thank you very 


much. Does that complete this item? 


UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 


BOARD WORKING TIME/DISCUSSION
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: Are we ready for the updates then? 


 DR. MELIUS: We have some --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we have some -- 


 DR. MELIUS: -- the Department of Justice 


letter. I also have some -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes --


 DR. MELIUS: -- scheduling issues --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- regarding -- and assignment 


issues regarding the SEC reviews that we need 


to --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's do the Department of 


Justice letter. Jim, you were tasked to draft 


that and I guess that's been distributed? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yes, it has, and I'd actually 


start off by pointing out one error in it. It 


was actually our meeting in April 2005 that we 


were made aware of this issue. I was actually 


searching the web site through -- that's how I 


discovered our minutes were missing. I finally 


found this in the transcript of that -- that 


meeting where we -- that letter. And then I 


also -- this letter is, to a large extent, 


based on the initial -- the earlier letter that 


we had sent to the Secretary, so the language 


is -- is similar. Let me read it and enter it 


into the record. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 DR. MELIUS: (Reading) The Advisory Board on 


Radiation and Worker Health continues to have 


concerns about the legal advice from the 


Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel 


regarding the procedures for the utilization of 


classified or restricted information for the 


qualification of claimants for the Special 


Exposure Cohort under the EEOICPA program. 

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The Board was first made aware of this ruling 


in April 2005, and at that time we wrote you a 


letter expressing our concerns and requesting 


additional information and clarification on 


this matter. At our Board meeting on January 


25th, 2006 we were again briefed about this 


issue. 


The Board is concerned about the possible 


implications of this legal advice on our 


ability to review SEC petitions in a matter 


(sic) compatible with the original legislation 


and the ensuing regulations governing this 


program. While the Board is fully supportive 


of the need for preventing the release of 


classified or restricted information, the Board 


also recognizes the critical 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. 


Although having Board members with appropriate 


security clearances review any classified or 


restricted material necessary for SEC 


evaluation may allow the Board to utilize such 

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information in our deliberations, that use 


would not be transparent to the petitioners and 


other interested parties. The Board is 


concerned that such procedures could undermine 


the credibility of our recommendations. 


 The Board respectively (sic) requests a copy of 


any written legal advice specific to this 


matter, and a briefing by someone knowledgeable 


about the basis for this determination. This 


would assist the Board in attempting to address 


this legal advice while maintaining a process 


that is consistent with the original intent of 


the EEOICPA legislation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And you are moving this as 


 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- a letter to be sent to the 


Secretary of Health --


 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and Human Services? 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is there a second? 


MR. ESPINOSA: Second. 


 MR. GIBSON: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And it's open for discussion -- 

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seconded by Gibson. Open for discussion. 


Comments on wording, on content? Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: There is some concern that the issue 


of classified information is perhaps not 


acceptable for what we are trying to do here. 


And I'm not at all sure -- actually, the only 


sentence that -- that seems to imply that is 


the first sentence of the second paragraph. 


Even though this may be true, I don't believe 


we can turn our backs on the fact that 


classified information is going to be a reality 


and that we will have to deal with it. 


Implying to the Secretary that we need to find 


some way to get around that may simply be 


muddying the water. It would be unfortunate if 


we -- in an attempt to clarify what we wanted 


to do and to expedite what we wanted to do, it 


would be unfortunate if we made things more 


difficult. Certainly there's -- there's no 


question that better legal advice about the 


briefing, and a briefing would be more than 


welcome, but there is I think a legitimate 


concern about where to draw the line as to what 


we request and what we infer in our... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, do you have a change -- a 

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suggested change that would clarify that in 


some way, or were you just simply raising the 


concern? 


 MS. MUNN: I'm just simply raising the concern. 


There's -- the remainder of that paragraph I 


think is quite clear and doesn't create the 


same kind of conflicts that the first sentence 


seems to. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 


 DR. MELIUS: Two things. One is the first 


sentence is largely drawn from our initial 


letter (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: That is already sent. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- and I understand the concern, 


and in the last paragraph is where I try to say 


that -- that look, we're -- we -- you know, 


again, we respect the need for classification, 


we recognize that we -- that it has to be -- 


you know, it's a fact of life in this program, 


and we're simply saying we want to be able to 


address -- you know, this legal advice has gone 


from -- the way it's been portrayed to us from 


a policy to advice and I'm not sure exactly all 


-- what the right terms are and whether they're 


-- they're meaningful, but -- but just saying 

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that we want to be able to incorporate it. 


We're affirmatively saying we want to be able 


to incorporate what's appropriate to -- do 


that, while also maintaining what's important ­

- you know, the transparency of this program 


and procedures that we've set up in an attempt 


to be transparent. 


 MS. MUNN: I agree very strongly with what 


you've just said. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: I am not at all sure that this 


letter conveys that in quite that way. That's 


what I'm saying. If, as you said, we recognize 


that this is a fact of life and we have -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: -- to deal with it, but the letter 


hasn't really --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: -- said that. It's implied that it 


may be a fact of life, but we don't like it and 


we'd like to try to find a way around it, is... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. While you're thinking about 


that, let's get some other comments. Michael? 


 MR. GIBSON: I do also agree that, you know, 


there's the issue of classification and we're 

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concerned about that, that's -- I also believe, 


and I don't know if any of the other Board 


members do, but I believe the public does, that 


just because some lawyer sitting somewhere says 


this is not a violation of due process, I 


believe the petitioners believe it is and I 


believe it's their Constitutional right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Other comments? 


(Pause) 


I sense that Dr. Melius is trying to do some -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- some wordsmithing there for the 


moment to -- it also appears that the -- the 


Board agrees with the general thrust of the 


letter, and the concern is perhaps on polishing 


the wording. 


 DR. MELIUS: (Unintelligible) make actually one 


comment to both what Mike and Wanda said. You 


may not remember, but it's actually posted on 


the web site under -- under our -- the 


miscellaneous Advisory Board items was -- this 


letter wasn't there, but there was a letter 


written around the same time from Congressman 


Sensenbrenner and Senator Bond raising a number 


of concerns about the reported policy -- this 

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goes back to roughly May or June of last year ­

- and raising some of these issues about due 


process, and even -- frankly, as people that 


were involved in -- key people involved in 


passing the legislation, pointing out that in 


their mind this was not consistent with the 


original intent of the legislation, at least 


the full implications of -- of the policy as -- 


as reported at -- at that time. So -- as a 


piece of information. 


Let me try something -- a suggestion, which -- 


this may make it a little bit long, but in the 


second paragraph, (reading) While the Board is 


fully supportive of the need for preventing the 


release -- this would be the second sentence -- 


While the Board is fully supportive of the need 


for preventing the release of classified or 


restricted information, and recognize the 


necessary use of this -- such information, it ­

- within a DOE nuclear facility, the Board also 


recognizes the critical importance of -- I'm 


trying to capture your -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- your concept of yeah, it's not 


only -- not just an incidental issue, it's a -- 

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I think that's what you were saying. 


 MS. MUNN: I think that's fair. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So you're suggesting a friendly 


amendment, which would simply be the addition 


of the phrase in that second sentence, "and 


recognizes the necessary use of such 


information in the" -- was it in the DOE... 


 DR. MELIUS: In the DOE nuclear facilities. 


 DR. ZIEMER: DOE nuclear facilities or nuclear 


program, is there --


 DR. MELIUS: Nuclear program, yeah, that's 


better. Then a new sentence, The Board -- why 


don't we say they also --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that would just be inserted, 


would it not? 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Insert. Wanda, does that -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, it does. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- additional phrase --


 MS. MUNN: It -- that does. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- satisfy the concern -- 


 MS. MUNN: That does my -- satisfy my concern. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let me ask now, with that 


friendly amendment, is the Board ready to -- 


 DR. WADE: Can you read that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: The phrase that would be inserted 


-- it would say (reading) While the Board is 


fully supportive of the need for preventing the 


release of classified or restricted information 


-- that's the existing phrase; insert this 


phrase -- and recognizes the necessary use of 


such information in the DOE nuclear program, 


comma --


 MS. MUNN: No, period. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and then continue, the Board 


also --


 MS. MUNN: Period. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- recognizes... 


 MS. MUNN: Period, and then --


 DR. ZIEMER: What? 


 DR. MELIUS: Period, and then a new sentence. 


Then "The Board" --


 MS. MUNN: Then a new sentence, "The Board also 


recognizes". 


 DR. ZIEMER: That doesn't sound right then. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, it -- it's not a correct -- 

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it's "While the Board is supportive" dot, dot, 


dot "and recognizes the necessity 


(unintelligible) use", comma -- I think it's 


just inserted as a phrase. Correct? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that'll be fine, or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. With that change, let me 


ask if there are other modifications or 


comments, or are you ready to adopt this 


letter, and if so adopted, the Chair will 


transmit it to the Secretary of Health and 


Human Services. 


 (No responses) 


Okay, we're going to vote then -- or Jim, did 


you have an additional comment there? 


 DR. MELIUS: No, I'm -- I'm sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then all in favor, say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 And any opposed? 


 (No responses) 


 Any abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


 Motion carries and it will so be ordered. 


Okay, let's see, what was that other thing? 

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 DR. WADE: Jim had some discussion about timing 


of SEC tasks (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, the SEC tasks, Jim, what was 


the question on that? 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, we were going to try to 


reach a decision on what assignments to make to 


our contractor regarding -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- the SEC -- their SEC task, I 


guess -- or SEC evaluation task. And we had 


talked about their involvement in Y-12, Rocky 


Flats and then there was a question of three -- 


the three new -- newer petitions of Ames 


Laboratory, the laboratory down here, I forget 


the name of it now, and then the third was 


Chapman Valve. 


 MR. GRIFFON: ORNIS (sic)? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: O-R-N-I-S (sic)? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: ORINS. 


 MR. GRIFFON: ORINS, O-R-I-N-S. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Can I see the list there again? 

(Pause) 

 DR. MELIUS: And if I can --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, yes, continue. 


 DR. MELIUS: My suggestion and -- obviously -- 


is that I -- I do think it'd be helpful to have 


them involved in some way in the ongoing 


workgroups that are dealing with Y-12 and Rocky 


Flats because of the timing it's coming up. 


think there are some legitimate issues 


regarding the amount of time and effort that 


they have left on the site profile task to -- 


to deal with these, and I think it may actually 


facilitate being able to get a good review of 


NIOSH's evaluation of the SEC petition at both 


of those sites if we have them involved there. 


I would suggest that we do a separate one, and 


I would suggest Chapman Valve for that one, 


only because I'm a little bit more familiar 


with -- I really don't recall the other two new 


ones -- but as one where we'd actually go 


through the whole process 'cause -- where we 


would, you know, sort of -- do the initial 


stage, you know. I think it's early enough 


where we would have, you know, a workgroup get 


together with NIOSH and with SC&A at a -- you 


know, a time when NIOSH is ready for that, and 


then sort of map out what the process would -- 


I 
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would -- go from there. The one problem with 


all three of those, as I understand them, is 


that -- that the -- I don't believe site 


profile reviews have been done. Chapman Valve, 


as I recall, has a site profile, but I don't 


believe the review has been done. And then the 


other two I don't think either have -- don't 


even have site profiles, so again, other 


choices that could be made there, but... 


 DR. ZIEMER: John Mauro reported to us 


yesterday -- I think it was for Y-12 -- the 


fact that -- the resolution process on site 


profile, which we recognize is focusing on, in 


a sense, SEC issues, you're burning your -- 


your site profile hours, in a sense -- 


DR. MAURO: Yes -- yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and if we were to use Y-12 as a 


starting point and assign some of the SEC task 


to Y-12, that would certainly alleviate -- 


DR. MAURO: Absolutely. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that. So it seems to me 


there's a logic in -- in -- since, in a sense, 


you're already involved in Y-12, to -- 


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to flesh that out. 

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DR. MAURO: To date, the -- once we've 


delivered our draft report, any follow-up work 


we're involved in, whether it's a working group 


meeting, any direction we get up to this 


moment, has been billed against our Task I 


budget that we set aside for Y-12. And the --


we -- there really isn't very much been set 


aside because it was -- the expectation was 


we'd be able to move through the closeout 


process pretty expeditiously. I mean that's 


really it. 


Now if in fact you decide certain site profiles 


you'd like to have be reviewed under Task V, 


you have the option -- for example, you had 


mentioned you may want a full review. You may 


recall that we divided up our work for Task V 


into two really -- basically two categories. 


One where you request that we do a full review 


of -- of the site profile, or you may do -- 


we're calling ad hoc investigations where there 


may be a particular issue. So in effect, for 


the purpose of managing the Task V, it would be 


helpful to me if you could designate whether 


you're looking for a full review in accordance 


with the approved procedures or an ad hoc 

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review, which would -- we'd actually work with 


you to define exactly what aspect of the SEC 


issues you'd like us to look at. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think in the case of Y-12, 


we already know that -- 


DR. MAURO: Yes, we do. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- because we -- we know what the 


full review is and we also know which issues 


are the SEC issues, so --


DR. MAURO: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that one kind of takes care of 


itself. Let me ask here -- Robert, did you 


have a comment on that in -- in general, or -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: In general, which sites do we 


have -- of the three that we're talking about, 


Chapman Valve, Ames and ORINS, which one would 


encapsulate more people -- involvement there? 


Would there be -- one of those be more helpful 


if we took it on first over any of the others 


in reviewing the SEC petition? Or are all 


three --


 DR. ZIEMER: Do we know numbers of people 


involved, that's what you're asking? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Don't know -- yeah, uh-huh. 


Right. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Don't have that information right 


at hand. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: What about Rocky? 


 DR. MELIUS: Rocky I thought is -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you mention Rocky? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I was thinking Rocky the 


same as SEC, and I --


 DR. ZIEMER: Rocky --


 DR. MELIUS: We keep changing the terminology 


here. It's -- I thought -- it's gone from 


partial, ad hoc, we had focused, and I prefer 


focused 'cause I think we're trying to sort of 


-- as we -- as we are trying to do the same 


with our -- the Board's overall review of an 


SEC evaluation and in NIOSH's development of 


the information I'm trying to sort of focus on 


what are critical areas. I think we also want, 


you know, you, our contractor, to focus in on 


what are -- what are critical issues. And 


certainly for both Rocky Flats and Y-12, given 


the (unintelligible) that should be focused 


reviews. I would -- we --


 MR. GRIFFON: I was just going to add onto 


that, Jim. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: For Y-12 and Rocky we've already 


focused them through the resolution process, so 


we know -- we know where to focus now and just 


roll those -- those issues right into -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: What we need to do now -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the SEC process 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- is formally identify that the ­

- that that part of the focused review is the 


site profile task now. 


DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. 


 DR. ZIEMER: SEC task. 


 DR. MELIUS: And on the kinds of questions that 


are important for SEC 'cause -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- again, going back what we've 


done is we've sort of modified the site profile 


process to try to get information necessary for 


SEC evaluation, and it's not always as helpful 


as --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Jim? 


DR. NETON: I just have sort of a question or 


point of -- question for clarification. I'm 


not -- it's not clear in my mind what this -- 

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this review is when they're sort of prior to 


release of an SEC evaluation report or -- as 


such, say like Chapman Valve was -- the issue 


was raised. NIOSH is actively engaged in 


preparing draft reports that are responding to 


the petition. I'm not clear what SC&A's -- 


where SC&A's involvement would -- would become 


engaged with NIOSH. And in fact, in certain 


instances, the SEC petition themselves raises 


issues with the -- with the site profile 


report, and so we are actively evaluating that. 


And then if SC&A then is in parallel reviewing 


those -- the site profile -- it just sort of 


seems to me to be a -- a convoluted process. 


 DR. MELIUS: We're not talking about the site 


profile. We're talking about the SEC -- 


DR. NETON: Right, but that's part and parcel 


of the whole process. 


 DR. MELIUS: But we have to -- we have to 


address both there and -- and you know -- 


DR. NETON: Right, but I'm just -- it's -- can 


be very confusing because -- 


 DR. MELIUS: I understand. 


DR. NETON: -- we are currently reviewing the 


profile and responses to SEC petition questions 

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possibly, and then -- then we'll have SC&A 


going down a parallel path raising the same -- 


it just seems confusing to me. 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, potentially confusing -- I 


mean the alternative is to wait till you're 


done with everything and then start, which is ­

- hurts us in terms of timely -- I mean start ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: But --


 DR. ZIEMER: One could argue that until there's 


an SEC petition -- a qualified petition -- 


 DR. MELIUS: There is one. 


DR. NETON: There is a qualified petition for 


those three that were under discussion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is Chapman qualified, though? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


DR. NETON: Right. It just seems that then 


SC&A will be in process doing an SEC 


evaluation. I mean that's what I'm hearing, 

and --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, yeah, yeah --

DR. NETON: -- if that's the intent, that's 

fine. 
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 DR. MELIUS: -- yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think, Jim, this -- I mean just 


-- just to -- 'cause this is our -- our policy 


that we've approved provisionally, right? 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the question is -- the idea, 


the notion, was to sit down with SC&A, NIOSH 


and maybe a workgroup early on and -- and 


outline a path forward, so maybe at that point 


you say, you know, based on what we've got 


here, you know --


DR. NETON: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- don't waste your time on this 


part of the site profile 'cause we're going to 


-- you know, here are -- here are these results 


we see -- and you have a meeting where -- 


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you frame (unintelligible) 


issues and path forward. I mean 


(unintelligible) --


DR. NETON: Okay, yeah, yeah --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- this is the notion. I think 


we've got to work through this. 


DR. NETON: -- yeah, I'm just trying to get a 


little more clarity here because it's going to 

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be (unintelligible) --


 DR. WADE: I understand it well enough that I 


could try and explain it. 


DR. NETON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Now or later. Now -- I mean it -- 


there are two kinds of -- there'll be two kinds 


of SEC tasks that we might ask -- you might ask 


your contractor to undertake. One is the 


complete review and one is the focused review. 


Let's deal with the complete review first. 


I think, as Mark said, consistent with 


discussions we had yesterday, that the first 


step in the complete review would be a sit-down 


with SC&A and NIOSH and a working group of the 


Board, and that meeting would be to identify as 


clearly as possible those issues that would be 


critical for the successful resolution of the 


SEC issue. And I think NIOSH would have to be 


candid in saying, you know, these are the 


issues we see, or laying out background and 


having SC&A say these are issues we see. So 


this one meeting would begin to identify the 


critical issues. It would -- it would be the 


matrix that we would follow. And then we would 


ask SC&A to work those issues in parallel with 

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NIOSH working those issues towards hopefully a 


time when there's mutual resolution. 


Now again, that will have to be worked out a 


bit as we go, but that's what I see as the 


total package. 


 The focused review I think we already have, 


where based upon -- for Rocky Flats and Y-12, I 


think we have identified key issues in the 


matrix that we think are critical to the 


resolution of the SEC process. I think what we 


need to do is task SC&A with continue to work 


on those issues towards resolution with NIOSH. 


Only now you'll be working them within the 


confines of an SEC task, as opposed to a site 


profile task. 


Now if the Board is comfortable with the 


latter, then I could task the contractor to 


begin to work on two focused SEC tasks in Rocky 


Flats and Y-12, and the substance I would use 


to define them would be the open items in the 


high priority matrix that has been developed to 


this point. 


Now I admit that the complete review is fuzzier 


in terms of how it would play out. But I think 


the only thing we can do is to have people of 

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like good intentions sit down and meet, and I 


think something will evolve. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And those -- proceeding on those 


two is fairly clear because that's the 


direction we're already going, but then we need 


to ask what's next in the queue. Is it Rocky? 


Or -- not Rocky, I'm -- we've got Y-12 and 


Rocky. What's next in the queue after that? 


Even though we may not task them to start 


anything, do we want to prioritize this? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think we're closer on Ames than 


we are on Chapman or the Oak Ridge Institute. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Ames would kind of be on stand-by, 


though. Right? For us. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: For you, right, we're -- yeah, 


we're working all three of these, but I think 


we're farther along on the Ames effort. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Would it be helpful to do what 


Mark described in terms of even Ames at this 


point, sitting down and -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- mapping out (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- I think so. I think -- to 


operationalize what I'm understanding we need 


to do here and what I asked for yesterday to be 

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more coordinated, we need -- on our side, we 


need to come to grips with what are the issues 


we're wrestling with, how far along do we -- 


have we got, what data do we have, what data do 


we not have, and share that. So you know, 


we're going to have to identify a point in time 


here where we can --


 DR. ZIEMER: So at least --


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- sit down with --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we know what the road map is, 


even though the involvement at that point may 


not be very great. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right. 


DR. NETON: I would -- I would just like to 


offer that it's the same people that are trying 


to resolve the Y-12 and Rocky Flats SEC 


petitions by --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


DR. NETON: -- the next Board meeting that it 


would be working on these other three 


petitions. 


 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


absolutely, yeah, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And that's why I say we're just 


talking about what's in the queue and -- and we 

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-- we can, if necessary, go ahead and identify 


this but not expect that to occur right away -- 


just to know what's coming up. Right? 


 DR. WADE: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if -- can we take it by 


consent that that's how we should proceed and 


instruct Lew to make the appropriate tasking 


orders available to proceed with Y-12 and 


Rocky? And I don't know what would need to be 


done on Ames at this point -- 


 DR. MELIUS: I think --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- other than to identify it as -- 

 DR. MELIUS: I think we need a workgroup, 

though, on it. We're going to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) Whatever that 


(unintelligible) takes place, I think we need a 


workgroup on Ames. 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Or what -- yes, you need a 


workgroup. What I would take as the action in 


Ames is to talk to all the parties involved, 


understanding the pressures of schedule, and 


look at when it would be most appropriate to 

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schedule this initial meeting on the Ames SEC. 


And I would need to know what workgroup -- what 


Board members to include as a workgroup on 


that. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Do we -- do we have any clock 


ticking on any of these? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, all three of them. I mean you 


can see the qualified dates, and we have 180 


days from the qualified date. They're all 


roughly the same -- 10, 9 and 11. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would volunteer on Ames, 


probably just to get -- 'cause I think we -- we 


also want to be able to evaluate how our 


evaluation plan and how we sort of meld it in 


with what SEC (sic) proposed and so forth, 


so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, your -- your group's already 


heavily into Y-12, and also Rocky, so we would 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, we'd use -- I'd use 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Mark's --


 DR. WADE: -- workgroup on the other two. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We can set up a new workgroup to 


address Ames. Do we have any other volunteers 

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to work with Jim on Ames? 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: And the new people can -- okay, 


Dr. Lockey, also. 


 DR. WADE: And did Wanda raise her hand? 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Wanda. 


 DR. WADE: So Wanda, Dr. Lockey, Jim -- 


 DR. MELIUS: You're the tie-breaker. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we've got --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: We'll just send you to the 


meetings. 


 DR. WADE: So just in summary, I'll deal with 


the contracting officer to issue three tasks 


under the SEC task of the SC&A contract. One 


will be a complete review, a total review, of 


Ames. The specific action I'll take will be to 


schedule a meeting of NIOSH, SC&A and the 


workgroup consisting of the parties mentioned 


at a time that, in my judgment and in the 


judgment of the chair of the workgroup, makes 


sense. But again, I'll be respectful of the 


schedules of people as we try and move towards 


the Rocky Flats and Y-12 resolution. 

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 Then we'll issue two task orders for focused 


reviews, SEC reviews, for Y-12 and Rocky Flats, 


and the substance of those will be the opened 


issues in the high priority matrices that have 


been identified by the workgroup. 


Now who would -- who's leading that workgroup, 


just so I know who to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: The Ames one? It's the first 


volunteer that gets that job. 


 MS. MUNN: It's always the first volunteer that 


gets that job. The guy with his name up there. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, that's the plan. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we can take a break -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Can I just raise one --


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, sure, Mark, we -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think this is fine as a 


path forward. I just -- one question I -- and 


I haven't figured out how we deal with this, 


but it may be situa-- I mean we -- we said that 


we would have -- have the opportunity to use 


SC&A on certain SEC reviews. And it may be 


that, depending on the particular petition, we 

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don't need to task SC&A for a full review. So 


I don't know how we have a prior step to sort 


of get a handle on whether we do or do not need 


to include them early on -- something I think 


we need to think about, especially in the 


overall task order. I know there's a limited 


number of -- of full reviews that -- that -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I would think, Mark, on -- let's 


take Ames as an example. Suppose our 


workgroup, when this initial meeting occurs, 


looks at that and says you know, this is so 


straightforward even we can figure it out 


without help. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that's my point, maybe at 


that first meeting we can make a decision that 


says, you know, we don't really need your help, 


John -- you know, sorry. Yeah, right. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, especially on --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think at any time we can say 


thanks, but --


 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


SEC review (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- either we have sufficient 


expertise or the issues are such that they're 

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fairly straightforward and -- and -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- just a few more things 


before we break 'cause they're related to this, 


if -- if people could please -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Proceed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This question on Pacific Proving 


Ground, I mean I just don't want to leave that 


hanging out there. Are we going to have Board 


-- Board involvement with this path forward, 


are we going to have SC&-- are we going to ask 


SC&A to assist us? I at least think we 


committed to Board involvement in our -- in our 


original motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: On the Pacific Proving Grounds, 


the initial meeting with DTRA and -- and NIOSH, 


Mr. Presley has volunteered to represent the 


Board at that meeting, so as a minimum we will 


have that occur while that exchange of -- of 


information occurs. Other -- if there are 


others who want to participate in that, we can 


add to that, but at least we will have a Board 


presence there at that exchange. 


Then -- I'm trying to recall, what is the next 


step after that? 


 DR. MELIUS: I think the next --

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 MR. GRIFFON: Should we have a workgroup for 


that or just Bob at the -- I'm sure people have 


signed up for enough workgroups at this point. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would actually think the next 


step depends on what we find in the meeting 


with DTRA, so --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- you know, is there something to 


review or not? I mean (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


you want to appoint a workgroup at that point. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- and then I think -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) That sounds 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. MELIUS: -- I actually think if there's 


something substantial to review that it's going 


to take longer --


DR. NETON: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- to sort of resolve, so we're 


not talking about doing that at a -- wouldn't 


be doing that necessarily at our next meeting. 


DR. NETON: Right. I thought this was somewhat 


different because there were three very 


specific motions that were -- were enacted by 


the Board that we're going to track down. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


didn't bring it, yeah. 


DR. NETON: And so I don't know that it's the 


same type of framework. 


 DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) Yeah, and 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we have Board coverage of 


the interaction, so that's (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And --


 DR. ZIEMER: Did you have another item, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just on -- on the path 


forward on Y-12 under -- I just wanted to -- 


and I didn't get a chance -- I was going to ask 


Jim during break, but there -- there is this 


CD, I don't know if it's become available yet 


or --


DR. NETON: Yes, I don't have it myself yet, 


but as soon as I receive it I will get it -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Share that with 


(unintelligible) --


DR. NETON: -- copied and FedExed to the 


working group and SC&A. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) assigned. 


DR. NETON: Yeah, I hope to have it by the time 


I get back to Cincinnati, either tomorrow, or 

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maybe Monday at the latest. And there's --


there's no problem in sharing it under the 


provisions of the Privacy Act and all that type 


 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I guess --


DR. NETON: -- (unintelligible) requirements. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I guess the question is, under 


this new SEC task, I think we could ask that 


SC&A review that in -- sort of in parallel with 


NIOSH. I guess that's -- that's the question 


maybe to everyone. Do we want SC&A to review 


this data on this CD in parallel with NIOSH. 


NIO-- they're just -- we're both -- we're going 


to all have sets of raw data, so just in terms 


of dupli-- you know, duplication of efforts, it 


might be a little duplicative, but we're also 


up against a time -- a clock here, so the sense 


was that, you know, in order to have something 


really to discuss at the workgroup, we'd better 


let SC&A get this earlier rather than later or 


else they won't have much of a -- much of time 


to respond. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Why don't we -- can we just go 


ahead and make that available to them so they 


have it in advance, and then it would kind of 

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be your call as the workgroup goes forward -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to see what -- what they need 


to do. I don't think we want them to spend a 


lot of time on this till we get a look at it, 


though, and can evaluate it. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Which site are we discussing? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, the question is -- I guess 


the question is just whether they begin to look 


and assess that in -- it's -- it's this 


question of timing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If -- if they're not -- it's 


probably going to take NIOSH two or three weeks 


to look at this, and if our workgroup meeting ­

- I set a tentative date of February 27th, so 


if we don't get anything back to SC&A for three 


weeks, you know, then the clock's ticking on 


them and I -- you know, we want to have 


something -- I guess I'm trying to move this 


discussion forward so we're all on the same -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- page. It's a little bit 


unique, but I think we're going to face some of 


these kind of issues as we're against the clock 

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on -- on these petitions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mark, are you suggesting that we 


should have SC&A proceed to look at this -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's -- that's my --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- concurrently? 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's my suggestion, yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, does that make 


sense to you? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any objection? 


 MS. MUNN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. MELIUS: I would get them bo-- we need to 


get them going on both. Right? 


 DR. ZIEMER: John, is that doable -- and this 


would be done now under the SC&A -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: SEC task. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- task, so the --


DR. MAURO: See if I understand this -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Under the SEC task. 


 DR. MELIUS: My understanding of the way in 


which we're authorized to get the green light 


is -- for Task V is we do need, in effect, 


direction. If it can take this form -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


that, and this would then become part of the -- 

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DR. MAURO: Oh, so we -- we --


 DR. WADE: This would be part of the focused 


task we would give you on -- 


DR. MAURO: Fine. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Would it -- it would include the 


review of the items on that list. 


 DR. WADE: Now what I would tell you is please, 


if you need to start to work tomorrow, do so 


under the site profile task. And then when 


this task order comes into place, then we can ­

-


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- we can change over. I don't want 


you to wait for the paperwork, but -- 


DR. MAURO: Uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: -- I mean if it's the sense of the 


Board that you should do that, I would say 


start under the site profile task and then 


we'll work with dispatch to get you an SEC 


focused task for Y-12 that will then cover the 


continuation. 


DR. MAURO: I understand. One point -- comment 


I'd like to make is that during the 


presentations of Rocky and Y-12 it's not always 


apparent which of the 11 or 12 or 13 items 

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represent what we would call dose recons-- site 


profile issues. Now I tried, if you recall, 


out of the 21 issues that we discussed I 


believe dealing with Rocky, I took my best shot 


at that time to just communicate my feeling 


that well, there are at least, in my mind, 


three -- if you recall. I think one of the big 


challenges, in order to streamline the process 


and really expedite it, is to quickly come to a 


common mind regarding which issues are SEC 


issues so that we can design a very focused 


assault on those issues. And right now it's 


not -- I don't think it's that clear which ones 


fall -- and I don't know if there'd be 


universal agreement right now if we had a 


discussion on this matter. So I think one of 


the fir-- first and foremost, when we move 


forward with the scope of work, is to try to 


come to grips with which ones are the ones we 


really need to look at. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So for Rocky we're probably a 


little -- we're a step behind Y-12 


(unintelligible) --


DR. MAURO: No, the other way around. I think 


-- oh, yeah, I -- right now, at least in my 

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mind -- okay? -- I have a clearer picture of 


what I believe to be the SEC issues on Rocky 


than I do on Y-12. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 


 DR. WADE: But just for the Board's 


edification, I'll take my lead on that task 


order from the chair of the working group, and 


then I'll come to you with that, and then if 


there -- if you have input, then we can -- we 


can dialogue (unintelligible). 


DR. MAURO: Yeah, I -- I think -- in fact, once 


we move into the process, it's going to be a 


very -- a lot of iteration because we're going 


to reach a point where our investigations will 


take us to a place where we say well, we don't 


know how exactly you should do it, but I think 


it can be done. You see, so I think that this 


is -- we're -- we're entering a process now 


that's a little bit different than the process 


we've had before, and I think the degree to 


which we could clearly identify SEC issues and 


clearly identify what point we can say I -- at 


least as your contractor, say I think we have 


enough information where we believe it's 


possible to do this dose reconstruction. It's 

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just a matter of agreeing on how do -- what 


degree of conservatism you may want to use, but 


it's a tractable problem and I think -- and I 


think this will all unfold as we move through 


the process. 


 DR. WADE: And while we're entering into a 


difficult decision, we're entering into it 


after having sort of cut our teeth on other 


issues and we've developed a methodology and a 


trust that I think will serve us well as we 


work through this. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good, I think we'll -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Need a break. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- go ahead and take the break, 


and then after the break we're going to have a 


program update from NIOSH by Larry Elliott and 


a program update from DOL by Dr. Case, so we'll 


have both of those right after the break. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:05 p.m. 


to 3:25 p.m.) 


PROGRAM UPDATES – NIOSH
 

(INCLUDING UPDATE ON SCIENCE ISSUES)
 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we are ready to proceed with 


program updates. First we're going to have the 


NIOSH update and that'll be presented by Larry 


Elliott, and you have a copy of the slides in 

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your booklet. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, and I know 


the hour is getting late and everyone's tired 


and --


 MS. MUNN: This is good news. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we'll just keep this to -- as 


quick as we can, so --


 MS. MUNN: This is what we look forward to, 


Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This is what you look forward to, 


okay. Well, as of January 13th of this year we 


had completed 12,264 draft dose reconstruction 


reports which have been sent to the claimants. 


That number includes about 526 I guess drafts 


that were in the hands of the claimants. The 


number below that, 11,648, are those finals 


that have gone on over to Department of Labor 


for adjudication. So we -- you know, we're -- 


we're really I guess proud to say that we've 


completed that many cases in four years, and 


then I would also qualify that with saying I 


wish we had done more. But we're standing at 


that right now. 


 We've seen 1,110 claims affected by the Special 


Exposure Cohort additions which have -- classes 

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which have been added, and they're listed there 


as you see. Department of Labor is working on 


the eligibility of those cases and processing 


them. And in some instances we may find 


ourselves doing dose reconstructions for 


certain non-presumptive cases and with -- you 


know, for members of those classes. 


We've -- as I've reported to you before, we 


have a concerted effort underway to finish the 


oldest cases up, and we've targeted the first 


5,000. We've finished 3,944 of those, and then 


the numbers below this -- 88 claims below 5,000 


have drafts in the hands of claimants that 


we're awaiting the OCAS-1s to be signed on 


those; 436 of the claims below 5,000 have been 


pulled. And again, that -- what does that 


mean? That means Department of Labor has 


withdrawn them from our caseload file for a 


variety of reasons -- either they were CLL and 


they were sent to us in the early days and they 


shouldn't have been sent, or the other end of 


this spectrum is -- and the most unfortunate 


aspect of this -- is that a claimant may have 


died without any survivors left, awaiting their 


dose reconstruction to be done. I can assure 

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you that's been a handful only, not a -- not a 


large number, but we do take that very 


seriously and are concerned about that. 


Four hundred and -- 46 claims below 5,000 have 


been administratively closed, and this is where 


we await our 60-day time frame for the OCAS-1 


to be signed, and if we don't get that OCAS-1 


back, we allow another 14 days' grace and we 


try to contact the claims and get the OCAS-1 


signed, explain what -- why the importance of 


that. And so we've had 46 of those claims 


where we've not got the OCAS-1 back and we've 


had to administratively close. We will reopen 


those cases if they come back forward and want 


to submit additional information or if they 


want to provide an OCAS-1, and we'll move the 


claim on to Department of Labor. 


192 claims below 5,000 tracking number are 


currently pended, and these are pended for a 


variety of reasons. Some of these are pended 


because of the lymphoma change that we have 


proposed. Some of them have been pended 


because of technical issues like glovebox 


Technical Information Bulletin that we're 


waiting on to be completed, which was done so 

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last month, just a variety of issues. And 


there's not one central issue there that would 


represent a bulk of those claims. 


486 claims are active, and this number, since 


January 13th, is probably -- all these numbers 


have changed dramatically. This is a snapshot 


in time, of course, so these numbers do -- they 


are fluid and they do change, but 486 are 


active -- were active at this time and draft 


dose reconstructions were awaiting to be 


completed. 


With regard to the Special Exposure Cohort 


petitions, six of those have been evaluated and 


sent to the Board for review and they're listed 


here. Five petition evaluation reports are 


currently in the process of being completed. 


That consists of Y-12, Ames, the Oak Ridge 


Institute for Science and Education, Rocky 


Flats and Chapman Valve. Six current requests 


to add a class to the SEC are in the 


qualification process, and I believe as of -- I 


was told from staff at -- back in the office 


this morning we can add Hanford to that list 


now. We got one in yesterday for Hanford and 


it'll be going through the qualification 

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process. 


 Twenty-one requests to be added to the Special 


Exposure Cohort have been administratively 


closed; were found not to meet the petition 


requirements as outlined in 42 CFR 83; or the 


facility in the petition was already a member 


of the SEC; or, for whatever reason, the 


petitioner voluntarily withdrew the petition. 


As you know, we have made proposed changes to 


the target organ for reconstructing dose for 


lymphoma cases, and in your January 9th meeting 


you approved a draft of this OCAS Technical 


Information Bulletin and we now have a Federal 


Register notice open for public comment on this 


proposed change. I believe the comment period 


closes February 4th. Once we have those -- any 


comments that are provided on this, we'll 


address those comments and implement this 


change. We will notice the public and notice 


the Board, as well, through -- through an e-


mail to you all, but through a Federal Register
 

notice as to the fact that we are implementing 


this change. 


I might add that we have about 1,000 claims 


that are going to be affected one way or 

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another by this proposed change, 500 claims 


that have not been treated yet with a dose 


reconstruction and 500 claims -- approximately 


500 claims that were treated and dose 


reconstructed under the previous approaches. 


Just some graphics as we usually try to provide 


you on the number of claims received from DOL 


on the blue line, a line showing the draft dose 


reconstruction reports to the claimants in 


green, and a red line showing the finals that 


have gone to DOL, and this is an intent to show 


you that we're working off the backlog of 


claims. 


As you know, we approach the Department of 


Energy for dose-related information, and the 


number of outstanding requests that we have 


right now is 231, and the number of outstanding 


requests that are greater than 60 days are 124. 


I believe that number has dropped since -- 


since our last session together in October at 


Knoxville. That was up around 165. All I can 


say on this -- the greater than 60 days, we're 


still seeing the same sites, ETEC and -- I just 


blanked on the other site. Let me think about 


that and I'll come back to it. 

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Our telephone interview statistics are shown in 


this slide. We've conducted over 18,000 -- 


almost 19,000 interviews, and we've sent out 


over 28,000 summary reports of those interviews 


to the claimants. I'm working really closely 


with Kate on making sure that some of the 


comments we heard in public comment period this 


meeting are being attended to and addressed, 


and she's taking some action -- tomorrow, in 


fact -- on making sure we follow up on things 


we heard here in this meeting. We have about 


181 interviews, as of January 13th, to be 


conducted. 


We have about 5,600 cases that are in 


preparation for dose reconstruction, there's -- 


collecting data, screening the cases, trying to 


determine which process -- whether it's an 


efficiency approach that will be used to 


complete the case or a best-estimate approach; 


1,213 cases are in the dose reconstruction 


process. At this point in time we had 499 


drafts out to the claimants and the final DRs 


that are completed and sent on to Department of 


Labor, a little over 11,600. 


Just a graphic depiction of how we're working 

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the cases, broken down into 1,000-trackingnumber categories, and also to show you that 


we're trying to work off the oldest cases 


first. 


 Administratively closed cases that I spoke 


about earlier are shown by -- I guess month 


here, by two-months time frame, and shows you 


kind of how the distribution of those 


administratively closed cases are -- are 


trending. 


 We're running at about ten percent rework right 


now. These are the number of cases that are 


sent back to us for some type of rework from 


the Department of Labor, can be -- a rework can 


be justified because the claimant had another 


cancer that was not provided in their original 


submission, additional employment has now been 


developed -- identified and developed, or there 


has been -- in an appeal there's been a finding 


that we did not apply our methodology 


appropriately. 


Lastly, we do take a lot of -- still take a lot 


of claimant phone calls and a lot of 


stakeholder phone calls, and they're shown in 


this slide. We also respond to e-mails, as you 

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well know, and we try to do that within a 24­

hour period of time. 


I think that's it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're open for questions for 

Larry. 

 (No responses) 

If not, we thank you, Larry, for that 


presentation. 


PROGRAM UPDATES – DOL
 

DR. DIANE CASE


 Next we'll hear from Dr. Diane Case from the 


Department of Labor. Diane, welcome. We know 


that you're tired. 


 DR. CASE: Do you want to adjourn 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. ZIEMER: Does anyone have any questions for 


Diane? 


DR. ROESSLER: We want the slides. 


DR. ZIEMER: We do have copies in our book, if 


you... 


 (Simultaneous conversations ensued.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: She got a disk. 


 DR. CASE: I guess I forgot to ask which 


(unintelligible) -- all right. All right. 


Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Watch out, it's a trick. 

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 DR. CASE: Is it? Well, anyway, thank you so 


much and --


 DR. MELIUS: Jim Neton's revenge. 


 DR. CASE: -- once again, I'll be brief. It's 


just an update of some slides that we generally 


show. The first, number and types of claims 


received, this is specifically to Part B. 


Number of claims we received since January -- 


since the inception of the program, 71,000. 


think when we last reported in October it was 


69,000 or so, so another 2,000 after about 


three months. 


The number of claims is a term that -- as we 


see later, we're going to use the -- cases and 


claims sometimes, and claims can be any number 


of cancers that are claimed by any one person, 


but it can also be a claim from a survivor. 


So one case can have a couple of claims on it. 


In addition, the number of cancers that are -- 


or medical conditions that actually exist can 


be more than the number of claims received 


because each claim can have more than one 


cancer or more than one disease. 


By far you can see the -- of the -- of the 


claims we receive, the majority of them have 


I 
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been for non-covered (sic) conditions, so under 


Part B that would be due to radiation, 


beryllium sensitivity, beryllium illness or 


silicosis. The majority of claims we received 


have been for non-covered conditions. That 


would be medical illnesses, COPD, emphysema, 


you name it, things that may or may not be 


applicable under Part E. We'll talk about that 


later. 


But as far as cancers go, that's the next 


majority of the claims that we receive, 


beryllium sensitivity, chronic beryllium 


disease, silicosis and RECA-covered conditions. 


Now we talk about case status. A case is -- is 


sort of that individual employee's case. It 


can contain more than one medical condition and 


it can also have one or more claimants on that. 


It could be the individual himself or herself, 


or the claimants on that -- that will be the 


survivors. 


The total cases that we've received, almost 


51,000. Those that are in the district office 


right now, 20,810 cases have gone to NIOSH for 


a dose reconstruction. The majority of the 


cases in the district offices have recommended 

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decisions already, and those that are with the 


Final Adjudication Branch -- number of final 


decisions out of the 50,000-some-odd cases, 


about 35,000, 36,000 final decisions have been 


made; and those that are pending, about 2,500, 


2,600. 


 Final decisions, again based on claims, which 


could be more than one claimant, survivor. The 


number of decisions approved based on claims is 


almost 19,000, those that are denied, about 


27,700. Why those claims were denied, again, a 


lot has to do -- a majority, non-covered 


conditions, the employee's not covered or 


considered a covered employee, or survivors are 


not eligible, insufficient medical evidence is 


a small amount; and those that don't meet the 


POC criteria really is about 8,000, which is 


second in line to non-covered conditions. 


 For NIOSH referrals, those that are -- that 


we've sent to NIOSH and we've -- have been 


returned, about 11,000. Those that are pending 


at NIOSH, in the queue, about 8,900. We have 


had some that have gone to NIOSH that didn't 


actually require a dose reconstruction, it was 


not required for one reason or another, so 

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those have come back. And cases again, so that 


would individual employee's case, those with 


recommended decisions, about 2,500; those that 


are denied, about 7,400. And the most 


important, I think, figure would be the cases 


with final decisions, so accepted, about 2,000; 


denied, about 6,000. So I -- I guess you'd 


say it's about a 30 percent, 40 percent 


acceptance. 


 Information specific to Oak Ridge X-10, the 


number of cases we referred to NIOSH, 1,100 or 


so; the number we've received back with a dose 


reconstruction are about half of that, 558. 


I'm going to jump down to the cases with final 


decisions -- approved, 102; denied, 251 right 


now. And in total, the compensation paid out ­

- and that would be to claimants, meaning it 


could be more than one claimant -- it's, again, 


per case -- is on the order of $14 million. 


 I have another figure here -- did I just move 


this ahead by mistake? I did, okay. Let me 


just go back to X-10. I have a note here that 


even though we've paid out about $14 million in 


-- to 123 claimants, that's based on the dose 


reconstructions and the NIOSH intervention, but 

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in total at X-10 DOL has paid out nearly 


$61,000 to 529 claimants, so that would include 


things like beryllium disease, silicosis or 


medical conditions, as well. 


At K-25, these are cases and claimants, those 


referred -- cases referred to NIOSH, 1,300; 


those returned from NIOSH, 666 -- again, about 


half. Go down to the final decisions, those 


that have been approved, 76; those that have 


been denied, about 300. So once again is 


hovering around a 30 to 40 percent -- 30, 35 


percent acceptance rate, depending on which 


data you look at and which site you're looking 


at. So those that had anything to do with 


NIOSH as far as dose reconstruction were at $10 


million in compensation has been paid to 108 


claimants. And I have additional information 


on K-25, so this would include -- this doesn't 


include SEC payments, Special Exposure Cohort 


payments, but if you do include that, we've 


compensated about $271 million to about 2,700 


claimants at K-25 thus far. 


We'll go to Y-12 plant, cases referred to 


NIOSH, 2,400; those that have been returned 


from NIOSH, about 1,300. Again, that's just 

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about half again. Those with final decisions, 


321 were approved; denied, 528. And again, the 


bottom figure, $47 million paid to, so far, 467 


claimants. And I have an update to this 


number, as well, and that would be the total 


compensation paid for this site is $170 million 


to about 1, 500 claimants. And I believe that 


that number differs from the $47 million versus 


$170 million would include the other diseases ­

- beryllium, silicosis, as well as medical 


conditions. And quite frankly, I'm not so -- 


I'm not sure if this also includes money for 


SEC -- the most recent SEC cohort at Y-12. I 


don't know if that -- if that total amount, the 


$170 million that's been paid out, includes -- 


includes any payments that have gone so far out 


to people who meet the SEC criteria at Y-12. 


Next one, W. R. Grace, 22 cases to NIOSH. 


We've received four back, two have been 


approved. I guess the other two are waiting 


with -- going through our process. And a total 


of $300,000 has been paid to two -- two 


claimants. I have additional information. The 


total compensation paid at this site is 


$450,000 to five claimants. So again, you 

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know, each case or -- two cases will have more 


than one claimant on that, so a total of 


$450,000 to W. R. Grace employees. 


 Pacific Proving Ground, we've had 93 cases 


referred to NIOSH. We've had returned ten. 


Cases with final decisions, one have been 


approved and three have been denied and what 


we've paid out so far is compensation to one 


claimant, $150,000. And I have in my note here 


that in total to the Pacific Proving Ground 


we've paid out $1.2 million to ten claimants in 


total. So again, those people would include 


non-radiation-induced issues. It would be the 


beryllium or silicosis. 


This is a -- be getting to the -- the bottom 


line slides. Total compensation, the number of 


payments we've issued, 17,000. Of course they 


include multiple payments on a given claim, 


they could. In compensation alone, based on -- 


no, total compensation, sorry, we've got -- 


what is it, $1 billion, $1.3 billion, and then 


add on to that the medical benefits and that's 


an extra $83 -- where am I, where are my 


placeholders -- $83 million, so... 


So I said I know I have to give you all a lot 

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of kudos for still having the presence of your 


minds after so long. 


And then as far as the NIOSH cases go, and 


those would be the ones that have to meet the 


POC criteria, we've made 2,100 payments and 


total compensation of $314 million. 


 Some accomplishments that have been of -- of -- 


of late would be our new institution of the 


Part E from the Department of Energy. We've 


taken that over and it's gone on to the 

Department of Labor. Our interim final 

regulations were issued in May of 2005. We met 

the mandated deadline to get those out. We've 

added quite a number of staff to the district 


office and our resource centers, and there's 


another, I think, all in total, about 220 or 


250 new staff at the district offices. And I'm 


not sure if that includes about the 15 to 16 


new staff we have at the Washington, D.C. FAB 


office, as well. 


 We've also done a lot of Part E training for 


staff, new and old. Phase I is how to process 


Part E claims and Phase II was how to process 


complex issues in those claims, such as wage 


loss and impairment. 

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 Additional Part E accomplishments, we exceeded 


our goal of making 1,200 payments by the fiscal 


year of -- end of 2005, and we did that. In 


fact, we issued 1,535 payments. We've also 


done a lot of public outreach for Part E, and 


also residual contamination issues, associated 


with NIOSH. In November 2005 we'd done 82 town 


hall meetings associated with the Part E, as 


well as residual contamination. 


And for the Part E, our goal is to process -- 


majority of 25,000 Part -- what were Part D 


cases by the end of fiscal year of 2006, so 


we'd like to get through 25,000 now Part E 


cases and get those paid out by the end of 


2006. 


And I think one last slide here, Part E so far, 


we've -- the number of claims we have recorded, 


37,000 claims. So a lot of those claims came 


from Department of Energy. Some of them had 


physician panel reviews, some of them didn't, 


but in total 37,000 claims recorded. Those for 


which we've made recommended decisions, about 


3,000 or so. Those with final decisions to 


approve, 2,551. Those final decisions, some of 


them are based on a positive panel review 

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finding from DOE, plus DOL's review of the 


cases and moving them forward. And then some 


of them also include DOL processing and looking 


at the cases from the very beginning and moving 


up, so some of it is DOL alone and some of it 


is DOL using what -- some information was there 


from the Department of Energy. And in total, 


$274 million have been paid so far on 2,000­

plus cases. 


And I think that's about all I have to say 


right now. It's a lot of figures and dollar 


values, but I also have good knowledge of any 


other questions that you might have as far as 


Department of Labor goes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Dr. Case. 


Let's open the questions here, we've got Dr. 


DeHart and then Dr. Melius. 


 DR. DEHART: Thank you, Dr. Case. One of the 


points that I would find of interest, and I 


think you were here when we've had some public 


comment periods, and that is the five, six, 


seven types of medical problems that are being 


reimbursed under Part E, because we hear a lot 


of complaints about chemical exposure co-- with 


radiation and so forth, and knowing how that's 

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breaking out in terms of pure worker comp would 


be of interest. 


 DR. CASE: I'll take that, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have a comment, a question 


and a reminder to the Board. The comment was 


actually one that Mike brought up last time, 


and it came up again last night. It's just the 


difficulty of communicating these programs to 


the claimants. Like Mike had a letter last 


time that --it's quite confusing. People --


we've told them it's easy process, NIOSH will 


assist them. Then they get into the Subtitle E 


program and suddenly they have to produce a lot 


more information on disabilities as well as 


sometimes on medical and exposure and so forth. 


And anything we can do to facilitate that 


process -- I mean I know you're doing the town 


meetings and so forth, but -- and we had 


another -- one of the people speaking last 


night was clearly very befuddled, came to the 


NIOSH meeting, heard all this talk and NIOSH 


and really was dealing with -- 


 DR. CASE: Department of --


 DR. MELIUS: -- a DOL issue and a Subtitle E 

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issue, so --


 DR. CASE: Absolutely. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- do that. The reminder is 


something that -- reminded me of is something 


we've postponed doing and I would ask that it 


get back on the agenda, and that is the issue ­

- I believe it came up with one of the 


Mallinckrodt SEC petitions, and that's the 


issue of how to deal with the non-SEC cancers. 


And if you remember, in one of them we made a 


recommendation that -- that those could be 


dealt with in some way and -- and we struggled 


a little bit with the wording and so forth, but 


at the time we talked about the Board sitting 


down and talking about what's sort of an 


appropriate policy -- you know, what -- when is 


it going to be feasible to reconstruct, you 


know, certain types of cancer and certain 


exposures in the situation where we are also 


approving a Special Exposure Cohort. And I 


would just ask that that get on the agenda for 


the next meeting before we have to encounter it 


again 'cause I think it's a -- it's a tricky 


area. We could involve -- you know, could end 


up asking that a lot of work, needless work, 

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unnecessary work get done, I guess is what I'm 


saying, and I think we really need to think 


very carefully about how we -- how we sort of 


direct that -- that through our actions -- the 


Board as we go up to the Secretary and, you 


know, what -- what entails from that. 


My question is if you could -- can -- I don't 


think anybody (unintelligible) -- well, let me 


finish my question. 


 DR. CASE: Do you want to know the figure, 


another number? Or... 


 DR. MELIUS: No, no, my next question is 


actually -- you -- you have cases coming to 


NIOSH. I didn't see the cases coming back from 


Department of Labor to NIOSH, and that's one of 


the things we had inquired about in the past is 


 DR. CASE: Sure. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- sort of a better understanding 


of where -- where problems are being 


encountered. Did --


 DR. CASE: Could you -- where -- what -- 


anyplace in particular here that -- 


 DR. MELIUS: And I wasn't referring to any 


(unintelligible) in particular -- 

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 DR. CASE: Oh, okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- and maybe I missed it, but in 


the past, in previous presentations, we've had 


just a little bit of discussion about cases 


coming back from DOL to NIOSH -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: Reworks. 


 DR. CASE: Yeah, reworks. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- to just give us a little sense 


of where there are potential problems in the -- 


 DR. CASE: Sure. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- program that we need to 


address, and --


 DR. CASE: Absolutely. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- if you're not ready to comment 


on that, if you -- even if -- 


 DR. CASE: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- for sort of future 


presentations, I just thought it was helpful 


that -- for us and --


 DR. CASE: Sure. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- sort of improving this program. 


 DR. CASE: I can -- could just give you a very 


rough figure. I think since April 2005 I think 


the number of rework requests that we've sent 


back -- this is very rough -- 

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 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 


 DR. CASE: -- top of my head, is probably about 


450 or so. Now a good percentage of those, as 


Stu knows -- get his e-mails back -- there's a 


good -- small percentage that get through that 


never should have gotten through and they -- 


they were fine. But a majority of them have to 


do with the claimant not bringing information 


forward after the dose reconstruction's been 


performed. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 DR. CASE: So that's a good portion of that. 


But I'll definitely make sure that we include 


that information in the next one. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Further questions or comments? 

 (No responses) 

 Okay, thank you very much. 


 DR. CASE: Thank you. 


BOARD WORKING TIME, FUTURE MEETINGS AND PLANS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: And while we're talking about the 


programs, Lew, you had an issue -- or actually 


some information that needed to share with the 


Board. 


 DR. WADE: Right. Well, again, just -- you 

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know, we -- we've been espousing the virtue of 


transparency, and consistent with that virtue 


I've just come to understand that in the fourth 


round of reviews by SC&A, SC&A identified three 


cases where overestimating assumptions were 


used in error. It's possible that these errors 


could result in -- could impact compensation 


decisions, so the cases will be reopened and 


re-evaluated. We'll keep you posted. I thank 


SC&A for that effort. I think it sort of 


indicates the benefit of the audit program. 


There's not much more I can say about it now as 


these cases are being reopened and reevaluated, but I wanted to -- to make that 


statement as soon as I had come to understand 


that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think -- let me add to that. 


The important thrust of this is that although 


the audit is not intended for any kind of a 


process for reopening claims, insofar as 


something is identified that could have 


significant impact, it seemed prudent that the 


contractor at least alert NIOSH to this. It 


will be their determination, together with 


Labor, as to whether it's something 

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significant. But at least not to wait to let 


NIOSH know about this, not to wait till the -- 


the review process has been completed and then 


make this issue known. So it's basically an 


early alert to NIOSH that something might be 


amiss there and allow them to look at this 


early on, and therefore the Board needs to be 


aware of this. It's really nothing that we've 


covered in our procedures, per se, although it 


was clear that our intent was not to -- to do 


that sort of thing, it was -- the intent is to 


-- to identify systematic issues and process 


procedures and so on. But insofar as something 


like that occurs, I think it's -- we -- we 


assumed it would be the Board's intent that 


that not be kept from NIOSH for any length of 


time. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew, would you -- oh, you 


(unintelligible) --


 DR. WADE: -- about future meetings. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, exactly, and scheduling and 


going forward, we are scheduled for the phone 


call that's been identified. We're scheduled 


for the April meeting, which is expected to be 

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in Denver. What -- what can we expect beyond 


that? 


 DR. WADE: Okay. March 14th we have a call 


scheduled, I'd say 10:00 a.m. Eastern time? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that's on our schedules. 


 DR. WADE: Right, okay. On April 25th, 26th 


and 27th a face-to-face meeting. I propose we 


meet in Denver and, you know, more to be 


forthcoming. I would suggest an early July 


meeting. We'll get to you with dates and 


search your calendars. I'm proposing possibly 


Washington, D.C. I think we haven't been to 


Washington, D.C. in some time and I know that 


there are many people back there who have a 


great interest in the program, and I propose 


that we can talk about it at our next meeting. 


I would imagine then we would have a meeting in 


early October, a face-to-face meeting. Again, 


I'll get to you -- LaShawn will get to you with 


dates. The procedure I'm aiming for is in 


between each of those face-to-face meetings 


we'll have a phone call to try and deal with 


items that require our more immediate 


attention. And so that's really the plan of 


action. LaShawn will be searching your 

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calendars. The reason I didn't pass out 


calendars here is I want to make sure our new 


members are fully vested and through their 


clearances, and then we'll look at a firm 


schedule and the dates. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Lew, I have a comment. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, (unintelligible). 


 MR. PRESLEY: On the July meeting --


 DR. WADE: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: June or July? 


 DR. WADE: I'm talk-- thinking early July, but 


 MR. PRESLEY: Can you stay away from the July 


4th weekend this year? 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Please. 


 DR. WADE: Well, then maybe late June. 


 MS. MUNN: Late June would be a lot better for 


me. 


 DR. WADE: We'll aim at late June then. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew will contact us for calendar 


information, so... 


 DR. MELIUS: I'm a little confused, Lew, by one 


thing is are the new members -- be joining us 

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for the April meeting or are we going to be 


operating short? 


 DR. WADE: No, I -- they -- I expect they'll 


join us for the March phone call. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, good. I just... sort of 


implied otherwise when you talked about the 


July scheduling, that's why I was a little 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: The only thing lacking is what, 


conflict of interest information for -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so --


 DR. MELIUS: Mark has a question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Oh, it's not a 


question. I just (unintelligible) a couple of 


dates (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We -- we've -- I've met with most 


of the interested parties, I think, or the 


critical parties on the workgroup meetings for 


my workgroup, and we've got February 13th, 9:00 


to 4:00 I would assume -- approximately 9:00 


a.m. to 4:00 in Cincinnati. That's going to be 


the procedures review, the second set of cases 


and the third set of cases, and we may not get 

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to all of those items, but at least, you know, 


provisionally those will be on the agenda. 


 And then February 27th is -- is going to be 


9:00 a.m. to 4:00 also for Y-12 and Rocky Flats 


SEC -- or site profile review, and now I guess 


SEC, since they've been tasked for -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: What was your second date, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: February 27th. And I did want to 


mention these -- I assume these'll both be in 


Cincinnati in NIOSH's offices -- 


 DR. WADE: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- but they're open to the 


public, so it's (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: Right, so if they're going to be 


open to the public, they probably won't be in 


NIOSH's offices. I would ask the other chairs 


of the working groups to look at those dates 


and, if possible, sort of combining meetings 


might be a good thing in terms of our ability 


to accomplish logistics. 'Cause since we'll -- 


we'll have public meetings, we won't be going 


to NIOSH. We'll be, you know, securing the 


facility of a hotel, so -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Could you get an e-mail out in the 


next day or early next week with those -- those 

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dates, as well as a list of the different 


committees? 'Cause frankly, I paid attention 


to the ones I was assigned to and paid 


absolutely no attention to the ones I wasn't 


assigned to and --


 DR. WADE: I'll get something --


 DR. MELIUS: -- I don't remember, and where 


there's overlap it's also important -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: That'll be helpful. 


 DR. MELIUS: I think that would help us all -- 


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- navigate this process. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and it's going to be an 


interesting process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Do we have anything further 


to come before the group today? 


 (No responses) 


 Okay, anything else for the good of the order? 


 (No responses) 


If not, we stand adjourned. Thank you very 


much. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 4:05 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

261 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER
 

STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of January 26, 


2006; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


7th day of March, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102