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-SECOND MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

DAY THREE 

MALLINCKRODT SEC PETITION 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held 

at the Westin Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri, on August 

26, 2005. 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

August 26, 2005 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

DR. LEW WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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PRESENTATION FROM NIOSH 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH 

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PRESENTATION FROM PETITIONERS 

MS. DENISE BROCK 

DR. DAN MCKEEL 

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PRESENTATION FROM SC&A 

DR. ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A 

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GENERAL DISCUSSION 26 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 69 
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. 

In the following transcript refers to microphone 

malfunction or speaker's neglect to depress "on" 

button. 
 

 

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.(not present)

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Espanola, New Mexico 
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GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 
 

 

6 

SPEAKERS 

(in order of appearance) 

MR. STUART HINNEFELD, NIOSH

MS. DENISE BROCK, MALLINCKRODT

DR. DAN MCKEEL, VILLAGE IMAGE NEWS

DR. ARJUN MAKHIJANI, SC&A 

STAFF/VENDORS 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 
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AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS 

BAUER, STANLEY

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A

BERRY, CHARLENE, MALLINCKRODT

BLOSSER, FRED, NIOSH

BROCK, DENISE, UNWW/MALLINCKRODT

CASE, DIANE L., DEPT. OF LABOR

CRABB, EDA, GENERAL STEEL IND

DOWNS, DEB, TITAN

DUNGAN, JUDITH, SENATOR BOND’S OFFICE

ESPY, RICHARD, MALLINCKRODT CLAIMANT

FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A

GENERI, MARY, MCW

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS

KOENIG, PHYLLIS, MCW

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCKEEL, DAN & LOUISE, VILLAGE IMAGE NEWS

MILLER, RICHARD, GAP

MITAS, JIM, OFFICE OF CONGRESSMAN AKIN

NUGENT, MARY, GAO

PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY

SCHWENNESEN, CLARENCE, UNWW

SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC

SCHNEIDER, MARILYN, UNWW

STRAPES, FLORENCE, MALLINCKRODT

TENFORDE, THOMAS, NCRP

TOOHEY, RICHARD, ORAU

WILDHABER, SANDRA, MALLINCKRODT

ZIEMER, MARILYN 
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P R O C E E D I N G S

 (8:40 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS

 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to reconvene our 

session here this morning. A couple of the 

normal housekeeping items. I remind you, 

again, to please register your attendance in 

the registration book if you've not already 

done that. 

 We welcome this morning to the assembly Judith 

Dungan. Did I pronounce that correctly, 

Judith? 

 MS. DUNGAN: That is correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Good. And Judith is with Senator 

Chris Bond's office and is with us here this 

morning, so we're pleased to have Judith here 

today. 

Lew Wade has a couple of items to bring to us. 

Lew? 

 DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. Yeah, today is the 

day that we -- we again take up the vote on the 

Mallinckrodt SEC petition, the latter years. 

And I just wanted to, as the Designated Federal 

Official, make some comments about that 

process. 

I talked to you the last time about 
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understanding the fact that there will always 

be tension between the passage of time, the 

need to be timely and the need to be complete 

in our scientific deliberations. That'll be a 

tension this Board faces in everything it does. 

We've certainly faced it as it relates to the 

Mallinckrodt SEC petition. 

I mean as the Designated Federal Official I 

don't think we can leave St. Louis without a 

decision on that petition this time. I 

appreciate the process we've gone through. I 

think it has certainly added value, but it also 

has been a very difficult process for 

petitioners and for claimants. And from my 

perspective as the Designated Federal Official 

I think we need to look at the material on hand 

today and move to making a decision. 

My agency values timeliness in what it does. 

It also values the need to be complete, and we 

understand that tension. We'll address it 

differently in different situations. I think 

the time has come now for us to -- this Board 

to make a recommendation on the Mallinckrodt 

SEC petition. 

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timely reminder. 

We're going to move directly into the issue of 

the Mallinckrodt SEC petition, and we have two, 

I think, semi-brief presentations, one from 

NIOSH and one from the petitioners. 

In the absence of Larry Elliott, who we 

indicated was facing some health problems this 

week, Stu Hinnefeld from NIOSH is going to make 

the presentation. And here's Stu approaching 

the mike. Stu, you can use either one, 

whatever is -- whatever you're com-- yeah, use 

this one so you're facing everybody. That will 

be fine. 

PRESENTATION FROM NIOSH

 MR. HINNEFELD: Good morning everyone. I'll be 

-- I'll be brief today. The -- we have -- we 

have not prepared an amendment -- an amended 

petition evaluation report or revised petition 

evaluation report, and so any presentation I 

would present would just be the presentation 

that's been presented to the Board in the past. 

So I don't have a slide show presentation. 

I would like to say that we have worked very 

hard within the framework established by the 

Board with our -- with the Board's contractor, 
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SC&A. A lot of people worked very hard on this 

to get the best science we can to resolve the 

questions that have been raised and that's been 

the question at hand. And so we have done that 

and that's what we expect to do, and I think 

that's what should be expected of us is to work 

hard to resolve the scientific questions in 

front of us. 

In this particular case, clearly it's made 

things very difficult and we understand that, 

and to engage in a process of SEC -- of 

petition site profile, site profile evaluation 

review while there is an SEC petition for that 

affected site being considered by the Board is 

clearly an extremely difficult circumstance and 

we certainly recognize that. And we would like 

to propose that for future actions I would like 

the -- I would think that NIOSH and the Board 

could perhaps work together for a set of 

procedures or processes just to make sure that 

we don't find ourselves in a similar situation 

on other petitions at other times. 

 That concludes my comments. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Stu. While you're at 

the podium let me ask if any of the Board 
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members have specific questions for you at this 

point. We may as we get into the debate 

shortly, but any -- any immediate questions for 

Stu Hinnefeld? 

 (No response.) 

Okay. Thank you very much, Stu. Then let's 

move to the petitioners and begin with Denise 

Brock, and then any others. Denise, do you 

have others also who will be making statements 

for the petitioners or --

 MS. BROCK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. All right, fine. 

PRESENTATION FROM PETITIONERS

 MS. BROCK: Good morning everybody. Before I 

begin today I would just like to point out that 

subsequent to the issuance of the NIOSH 

regulations and procedures in 2004, the FY '05 

Labor HHS Appropriations Act restated the need 

for both timely decisions and approval of SECs 

when records documenting internal or external 

dose were missing. 

The committee strongly encourages NIOSH to 

expedite decisions on petitions filed under the 

procedures for designated classes of employees 

as members of the Special Exposure Cohort, 42 
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CFR Part 83. It was Congress' intent in 

passing the EEOICPA -- or, I'm sorry, the 

Energy Employee's Compensation Act of 2000, to 

provide for timely, uniform, and adequate 

compensation for employees made ill from 

exposure to radiation, beryllium, and silica 

while employed at the Department of Energy 

nuclear facilities or while employed at 

beryllium vendors and atomic weapons employer 

facilities. 

The committee encourages the Department to 

recognize that in situations where records 

documenting internal or external radiation 

doses received by workers at the specific 

facility are of poor quality or do not exist, 

that workers should promptly be placed in a 

Special Exposure Cohort. 

I would first like to thank the members of this 

Advisory Board for their continued efforts in 

this process. I want to thank you for 

exercising such patience, diligence, and 

integrity. I would also like to extend that 

same thanks to SC&A, as well as to NIOSH. And, 

again, before I begin with my statement, I 

would also like to say that Senator Kit Bond 
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has been in touch with me and sends his regrets 

that he is unable to attend this particular 

meeting. He's also asked me to state that he 

stands by his opinion that dose reconstruction 

cannot be done, and that it further supports 

the request to approve the Special Exposure 

Cohort petition for the Mallinckrodt workers. 

He wants it stated for the record that the 

former Mallinckrodt workers are part of an 

endless bureaucratic process. 

Senator Bond has a staff member here today, 

Judy Dungan. I believe that Dr. Ziemer or Dr. 

Wade had mentioned Judy, and I want to thank 

her personally as well for being here again, 

and I would like to recognize all of the 

Congressional delegation from Senator Talent's 

office, Congressman Akin and their staff, 

actually for their continued support in our 

plight. 

 Most recently, or at least at the last Board 

meeting, I've been able to listen to and/or 

participate in workgroup meetings, conference 

calls, et cetera, that were pertaining to 

Mallinckrodt and this SEC petition. I have 

seen and heard firsthand the amount of effort 
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and work that has been done by all entities and 

I would like to commend each and every one of 

you. There has been a tremendous amount of 

work all the way around this thing. This is a 

very difficult process. 

I understand that Mallinckrodt is actually the 

first SEC petition to actually been put in this 

way, and so maybe this was just a big learning 

process for all of us and I just appreciate all 

the work that was put into it. I think the 

work was -- was not for naught. I think that 

this could help future cohort petitions, and I 

greatly appreciate that. I think this was 

long, but at the end of this I think would be 

extremely helpful. 

Several days ago I prepared a statement and as 

you will see I've prepared something new, it's 

actually a notebook, it's not typed. Today I 

would like to start by giving some chronology. 

In July of 2004 I filed this SEC petition. It 

qualified on or about the 180-day mark. An SEC 

evaluation report came in. 

In February, 2005, we all met at the Adams Mark 

Hotel here in St. Louis, and as I'm sure you 

all remember, you voted to grant the SEC status 
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for my workers from 1942 to '48. I again want 

to thank you for that. I greatly appreciate 

that and I know the claimants do. 

But at that same meeting NIOSH, at the last 

minute, the 11th hour and without knowledge or 

review of the petition -- petitioner, myself, 

or the Board, stated that they had five or six 

boxes of data which had not been gone through 

and a 33-page memo which they claimed to have 

had a couple of months, all of which needed to 

be reviewed and all of which later failed to 

support what they had contended. 

 NIOSH also stated that although the SC&A review 

of Rev. 0 was complete, it was obsolete because 

Rev. 1 had already been started. NIOSH also 

stated that the TBD in place in February would 

allow them to do dose reconstructions based on 

uranium-driven models supplemented by radium 

dose. The Board voted to table the vote. 

Then in April we all went to Iowa, and due to 

reprioritization or due to some unforeseen 

things happening, the site profile review was 

still not complete and, again, this was through 

no fault of SC&A. This was just something that 

happened, but again, it was tabled. NIOSH 
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still contended that this model that was in 

place would allow them to do dose 

reconstruction. 

The next meeting moved to July, and I think you 

all remember that. We were at the Chase Hotel, 

again in St. Louis. Again, NIOSH claimed and 

stood firm in their ability to do these dose 

reconstructions with the present method. So 

sure they were that they claimed to be able to 

finish all of these Mallinckrodt cases within 

four months. Stanford Cohen and Associates had 

their review, and Dr. Makhijani asked how NIOSH 

was going to implement this toolbox. NIOSH was 

told to prove that they could do this. 

And here we are again in St. Louis August, 

2005. When the Board requested clarification 

they got an entirely new method from NIOSH. 

Now radionuclides which were once considered 

trace, like thorium, protactinium, and 

actinium, are now the dominant dose. 

SC&A gave a report August 16th to the Board. 

This outlined yet further improvements that 

were needed. And between August 16th and the 

23rd a vast amount of new data has been sprung 

on the Board, data that I as a petitioner and 
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you as a Board again have not reviewed, data 

that has not been analyzed. This is again and 

another -- I'm sorry, this is again another 

11th hour tactic, and whether intentional -- 

intentional or not, has become a pattern and 

practice. It's a technique. None of this was 

passed out to me, to the public, or to the 

Board. 

Some may call this real-time science. I call 

it sandbagging. This is becoming an open-ended 

process. This never has seemed like a level 

playing field. 

I, as well as the Board, are at a distinct 

disadvantage. I've mentioned this for the 

record before. These tactics of dumping new 

data and information, new methods, new memos, 

et cetera, all of which are never before seen 

by the petitioner or the Board, or analyzed for 

that matter, is very poor practice and 

procedure. It's setting a poor precedent. 

I'm not dealing with living documents. I'm 

dealing with a moving target. We are now at 

our fourth Board meeting regarding this 

petition. We've had four audit reports, Rev. 0 

and two or three supplements to Rev. 1, four 
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subgroup meetings and numerous teleconference. 

Should we have a fifth audit report, a fifth 

meeting? Should we expect that every time we 

turn around, at the 11th hour we have new 

discovery, new vast data, a new process; or 

should an SEC petition be denied when we have 

significant uncertainties, numbers that are 

just turned in, missing data, unanalyzed data, 

and a complete 180-degree turnaround from six 

months ago. 

 The SEC evaluation is still on the table today, 

or better or best yet, approve this SEC 

petition because there are significant 

uncertainties coupled with feasibility issues. 

SC&A and the Board have spoke to the scientific 

issues, I don't need to reiterate that, the 

record's been laid. But I will speak to the 

feasibility issues as I started this. 

There are three areas of feasibility. Number 

one would be technical, when relevant records 

may be lacking or not exist altogether. NIOSH 

does not have any dose on Plant 6 for 

raffinates. Some datapoints are missing, some 

data are not legible, et cetera. 

Costs. When you may be able to construct dose 
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but would be cost prohibitive to do so. It is 

costing $80-$100 per hour for contractors who 

have spent untold hours to develop and revise 

site profiles, and the auditor continues to 

find problems, problems that need to be 

corrected before this can be done. We now have 

people or NIOSH has staff in Germantown 

recapturing data. This list could go on and 

on. 

And, number three, the issue of time or 

timeliness. This might take so long to 

reconstruct dose for a group of workers that 

they would all be dead before we have an answer 

that could be used to determine eligibility. 

Many Mallinckrodt claimants are already 

survivors. The few living workers, 

Mallinckrodt workers, deserve an answer before 

they die. 

And after almost four years to finalize 

regulations for Special Exposure Cohorts and 

another 13 months to assess my petition filed 

in July of 2004, NIOSH has far exceeded time 

contemplated by Congress for Special Exposure 

Cohort petition processing. Any more time 

expended on this or to extend this any longer 
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would be to reconstruct Congressional intent. 

I think that Stu Hinnefeld had mentioned this, 

but I understand this SEC evaluation report 

that was given in February is what is on the 

table today. I ask the Board to please vote to 

approve my Special Exposure Cohort petition for 

this group of brave workers, my workers of 1949 

through 1957. Please give them the peace and 

the justice that they so deserve. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Denise. And before you 

leave the podium, let -- let me ask if any 

Board members have immediate questions for 

Denise? 

 (No response.) 

Okay. Thank you. Then Dan McKeel is --

 MS. BROCK: Dr. McKeel, I think, wanted to make 

a quick statement. 

 DR. MCKEEL: I'll be very brief. Thank you for 

letting me address you. Again, I'm Dan McKeel. 

I'm a retired pathologist and a physician. And 

today the Board has another opportunity to vote 

the Mallinckrodt 1949 to '57 SEC up or down. 

Wanda Munn's motion to deny the Brock petition 

is on the table. I believe the credibility of 

this Board will hinge on the vote. The 
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difficult decision is whether or not to accept 

NIOSH's claim it can reconstruct doses under 42 

CFR 83 guidance. For me, as a scientist who 

has been awarded many competitive federal 

grants, I do not believe the aggregated science 

proposed by NIOSH passes the 42 CFR test of 

being able to be accurate and to fairly 

reconstruct or even to accurately bound 

radiation doses for the Mallinckrodt '49-'57 

class of workers. 

This class of people have certainly had their 

health harmed at MCW, at the St. Louis Airport 

site and at the Latty Avenue work sites. Once 

again I urge the Board to vote for the MCW 

SEC0012.2. 

 My reasons for feeling the way I do have been 

given in detail before, but here is a summary 

of my reasoning. At least 107 Mallinckrodt 

1949 to '57 EEOICPA claims still await dose 

reconstructions. This is prima facie evidence 

that NIOSH cannot do what it must do, perform 

DRs in a timely manner. No best estimate MCR 

(sic) DRs have been done to date. 

The CER database is limited and biased and 

encompasses only white male workers, who are 
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only about 70 percent of the total Mallinckrodt 

workforce. Women and minorities are excluded. 

The HASL database, which Mr. (sic) Neton 

describes as the gold standard, is just being 

reconstructed. Mark Griffon has found 

discrepancies between the MCW raw data sheets 

and the HASL database. Why is such latebreaking news, why is this unfinished business 

just being taken care of? 

 NIOSH largely abandoned daily weighted averages 

to determine intakes and now relies on a 20 

percent sample of breath radon. This is too 

small a sample to provide valid bounding dose 

data and thus fails to meet the prime 42 CFR 83 

test. They have offered to the Board an 

approach to DR, not completed actual 

Mallinckrodt best-estimate dose 

reconstructions. 

The Weldon Spring 053 site profile was finally 

approved between June 24th and 26th of this 

year. It has not been presented to the Board 

or reviewed by SC&A. Data therein is crucial 

to performing Mallinckrodt dose reconstructions 

in settling claims. Why? Because the majority 

of Mallinckrodt workers were employed at both 
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the downtown and the St. Charles County sites. 

Final point. SC&A and NIOSH have not fully 

resolved their six points of issue between the 

last meeting of this Board and this meeting. 

Significant differences remain to be worked 

out. 

For all these reasons and many more, including 

adherence to fairness and due process, the 

Board should today recommend SEC status for the 

1949-1957 class of Mallinckrodt Uranium 

Division workers. Thank you very much. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dr. McKeel. And, 

again, let me ask if any Board members have 

immediate questions. 

 (No response.) 

Denise, yes, a follow-up? 

 MS. BROCK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure, that's fine. Dr. Makhijani 

has asked for an opportunity to address an 

issue that was before us on the floor yesterday 

and just one item, I think, either to correct 

or clarify. 

PRESENTATION FROM SC&A

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

Yesterday I -- and in my presentation I had 
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said that the calculated value for the AM-7 

area of air concentrations which NIOSH proposes 

to use as one of the bases for dose 

calculations in the thorium areas, was the 

average. And I misinterpreted the text that 

was sent to us by NIOSH in the pressure cooker. 

What NIOSH had said, on page 136 of your report 

at the top, in the first paragraph there, first 

full -- big paragraph, said, (reading) the area 

air concentrations used in this analysis are 

about a factor of 2 higher than the measured 

air concentrations exposures in areas 

associated with the AM-7 raffinate. 

 Now, I interpreted that phrase to -- to -- to 

mean average, but Jim Neton told me yesterday 

that it was the 95 percentile of the average 

daily weighted numbers that they had gathered. 

And he shared his spreadsheet with me last 

night, which I looked at very briefly with his 

assistance, and I agree that that's what 

they've done. There's a page in the report 

which will need to be corrected and we will 

send you a corrected page. 

My one observation from looking -- or two 

observations to share with you from looking at 
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it's a very quick look that I took. I don't 

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had recommended for 95 percentile air 

concentrations in our April report to you, and 

I did note that there were some years for which 

there was no data, which is why I think '50 to 

'57 has been aggregated. Dr. Neton told me 

that there are data for these years, it's -- 

there's just a methodological illustration that 

-- which was the reason for the gaps, it's not 

that the data may not exist. And obviously 

this is an issue that we have -- we have not 

reviewed because last night was the first time 

that I saw this. But I did want most 

importantly to put that correction into place 

and we will send you the corrected page. Thank 

you very much. Sorry about that. 

GENERAL DISCUSSION

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Uh-huh. Now Board 

members, we'll open the floor for general 

discussion. You have two options before you. 

One is to move immediately to the -- the 

action. The other is to deal with any 

questions or issues that you'd like to discuss 
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before we move to an action. And the action 

possibilities are, one, to remove from the 

table the previous motion. You also obviously 

have the option of not removing it from the 

table, which then would require a different 

motion. 

Any comments or questions in general? Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: I would like to make a motion, and 

I think this will also provide the basis for 

discussion of -- of the issue. So it doesn't 

necessarily expect quick resolution, but Mark 

Griffon and I have worked on a motion and I 

believe there are copies available. 

 DR. WADE: Would you like me --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. And this would be a motion 

for the Board to approve the SEC petition, and 

it's in the same format that we've done with 

our earlier letters. In fact, much of it is -- 

will be quite familiar to Board members since 

it's there. And I think it's easiest if we 

wait for the copies to be made available rather 

than for me to try to read it here. 

 DR. WADE: The copies are being made. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We probably need to have it read 

for the record in any event, so why don't you 
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for procedure read it, then we'll have -- by 

then we'll have the copies. 

 DR. MELIUS: I move the following (reading): 

The Board recommends that the following letter 

be transmitted to the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services within 21 days. Should the 

Chair become aware of any issue that in his 

judgment would preclude the transmittal of this 

letter within that time period, the Board 

requests that he promptly inform the Board of 

the delay and the reasons for this delay, and 

that he immediately works with NIOSH to 

schedule an emergency meeting of the Board to 

discuss this issue. 

The letter reads as follows (reading): The 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

(the Board) has evaluated SEC Petition 00012-2 

concerning workers at the Uranium Division of 

the Mallinckrodt facility under the statutory 

requirements established by EEOICPA and 

incorporated into 42 CFR Sec. 83.13(c)(1) and 

42 CFR Sec. 83.13(c)(3). 

 The Board respectfully recommends a Special 

Exposure Cohort be accorded to all Department 

of Energy employees or its contractor or 
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subcontractor employees who worked at the 

Uranium Division of the Mallinckrodt Destrehan 

facility from 1949 to 1957 and whom were 

employed for a number of work days aggregating 

at least 250 work days occurring under this 

employment, in combination with work days of 

employment occurring within the parameters 

(excluding aggregate work day requirements) 

established for other classes of employees 

included in the SEC. 

(Reading) This recommendation is based on the 

following factors: Number one, these workers 

were employed at a facility that processed 

materials during the early time period for the 

production of nuclear weapons. Radiation 

monitoring methods for all isotopes were under 

development at that time leading to significant 

gaps in the monitoring of these workers in 

comparison to current monitoring programs. 

 Number two, while there are ample monitor data 

for some exposures, such as uranium and radium, 

data on exposures critical for accurate 

individual dose reconstruction are sparse. For 

important exposures such as thorium, actinium, 

and protactinium, there's relatively little 
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information available. The evaluation of these 

exposures -- of these isotopes is critical in 

reconstructing the organ doses for individual 

workers due to their substantial contribution 

to those doses. NIOSH has not yet demonstrated 

that the sparse information currently available 

are adequate to conduct individual dose 

reconstructions with sufficient accuracy. 

Number three, the available monitoring do not 

adequately characterize high exposure areas in 

the facility, leading NIOSH to attempt to 

extrapolate exposures using data from other 

areas. For example, there's not been an 

adequate assessment of the use of the daily 

weighted average -- excuse me, let me -- I'm 

actually reading from the wrong version of 

this. I apologize. Let me go back. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Are they copying the right 

version? 

 DR. WADE: They are copying it right now. 

 DR. MELIUS: They are copying the right one, 

yeah. I apologize to everybody. 

 DR. WADE: Just give me one minute and I'll get 

the copies. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay, point number two. Point 
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number three -- let me go through -- start with 

the second point. Point number two, (reading) 

There is relatively little information 

available for estimating thorium, actinium, and 

protactinium. NIOSH's approach to dose 

reconstruction no longer relies on individual 

monitoring, but rather plant-wide air 

monitoring data, which is itself not even 

isotope specific. These data have to be 

converted into isotope-specific activity using 

residue fraction points which have not been 

validated. As such, NIOSH has not demonstrated 

that it can conduct individual dose 

reconstruction with sufficient accuracy. 

Point number three, while there are many 

internal exposure monitoring records for 

uranium and some for radium, there are no 

individual bioassay records for Plant 6 workers 

for high consequence isotopes extracted from 

the pitchblende ores and contained in the AM-7 

and Sperry cake residues (thorium 230, actinium 

231, and protactinium 227). There are only 

bioassay data for two months in March and April 

1955 for the Plant 7E workers (thorium recovery 

operations) although operations continued in 
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1956 and 1957. 

Next point, there are serious concerns about 

the lack of a method to adjust for the angle of 

incidents of external dose monitoring. This 

adjustment has a significant impact on the 

interpretation of the monitoring data and a 

final method needed for individual dose 

reconstruction is not yet available. 

Next point. There are concerns about the 

validity of the radon breath data being used 

for dose reconstruction. Radium intakes based 

on radon breath data were taken from a 

secondary data source, and they have not been 

validated against source data. In response to 

questions about the validity of the data, NIOSH 

has just started an effort to obtain the data 

from the original records. This effort has not 

been completed and the Board has not been able 

to evaluate -- valuate the results of this 

effort. 

Next point. The Board has reviewed data which 

confirms that radiation exposures of the 

Mallinckrodt facility during the time period in 

question could have been endangered the health 

of members of this class. 
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The Board has been deliberating for over six 

months on the Mallinckrodt SEC petition for the 

period 1949 to 1957. There have been four 

separate audit reports, four board meetings, 

four subcommittee or working group meetings, 

and countless conference calls and memos. 

NIOSH staff, the staff of their contractor, and 

the contractor for the Advisory Board have 

spent hundreds of hours working on this effort. 

Despite many meetings and two years of work on 

the site profile for the site, new data 

continues to emerge on the site including some 

first revealed to the Board during this most 

recent meeting. Efforts to find new data on 

the site could continue for years. 

However, the Board also recognizes the need to 

make timely decisions. EEIOCPA requires that 

this program should produce a defensible 

radiation dose reconstruction in a reasonable 

period of time, and Congress has recently 

reinforced this objective in the FY '05 Defense 

Authorization Act and the Labor HHS 

Appropriations Act. 

Based on these considerations, the Board 

recommends that this Special Exposure Cohort 
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petition be granted. It should be noted the 

Board believes that the exposure information 

available is adequate for the reconstruction of 

external exposures, and where appropriate for 

specific types of cancer, for example, skin, 

these -- those individual doses can be 

reconstructed. 

And then final paragraph, enclosed is 

supporting documentation from the Advisory 

Board meeting held August 24-26, 2005 in St. 

Louis. This documentation includes transcripts 

of public comments on the petition, copies of 

the petition, the NIOSH review thereof, and 

related documents distributed by NIOSH and the 

petitioners. 

And that's it. 

 DR. WADE: Just a minute. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You've heard the motion. Let me 

ask if -- before you get the printed copy, does 

anyone wish to second the motion? 

 MR. OWENS: I'll second the motion, Dr. Ziemer. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Leon has seconded the motion. We 

will pause just a minute till we -- 

 DR. WADE: I also want to make sure Mike Gibson 

is at the table, so let me... 
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 (Pause) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, are there copies -- there 

are copies being run for the members of the 

public as well? 

 DR. WADE: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, this motion is now open for 

discussion. I'd like to -- just procedurally 

like to -- whoever -- okay, Gen Roessler will 

be first, and we will alternate. If someone 

speaks for the petition, then I will ask if 

there's any that wish to speak against and then 

we'll alternate. Dr. Roessler, you want to -- 

 DR. ROESSLER: I'm not going to speak either 

for or against the motion at this -- at this 

time. I would just like to make a few 

comments. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I think that Jim's motion is 

very compassionate and very persuasive. The 

thing I think we should keep in mind, though, 

is that we've been definitely on a learning 

curve. I think the Board has been at a 

disadvantage in not really having a clear 

definition on what we mean by "adequate 

information to do sufficient dose 
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reconstruction." That's -- that's been my 

problem is where do we draw the line, and I'm 

not sure that it's clear in my mind yet. Maybe 

it has to be done on an individual basis, but I 

think we would -- in the future we really need 

to address that. 

 The other thing that's on my mind right now, 

and Denise mentioned this and I think this was 

the Congressional intent, that as we go through 

this process we have to remember that it's 

uniformity. We have to be uniform in our 

decisions. I think we need to think about 

equity for the claimants, the claimants on the 

SEC petitions and also the claimants who don't 

go through that process. I think in fairness 

to these claimants, that's what we really need 

to think about right now is what we do here -- 

we have to think of equity. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Dr. Melius? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'd like to respond, and I 

would agree with Gen's comments, that we've 

been approaching this without very tight 

criteria because we've not been provided with 

that, and I think NIOSH has also been 

struggling with sort of what is the best 
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approach for evaluating SEC petitions, what 

kind of information and how to, you know, 

formulate and present that information to us in 

order for us to make a recommendation. And I 

would agree with you that I think we've been 

doing sort of a case law approach where we deal 

with each one as, you know, best we can. I 

think we've handled them fairly so far, but the 

delays in this one I think illustrate some of 

the problems with that approach, for both of us 

and for NIOSH in evaluating these. 

And I would certainly think that we should -- I 

think we need to deal with this petition and I 

think we need to deal with it today; however, I 

think we also -- it would be helpful if we have 

time today, or if certainly not today at our 

next meeting, that we discuss how to better 

handle these in the future. We've talked about 

that in the past. Stu mentioned in his talk. 

I mean, we've made a recommendation to -- or I 

shouldn't say "we." I made a recommendation in 

discussion with Larry a long time ago how the 

need for an SEC site profile and site profile 

review was really necessary before we could 

adequately handle these petitions. 
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I think there's issues we've raised, you know, 

repeatedly about defining sufficient accuracy, 

and this all comes back to this particular 

instance we're dealing with today, but we 

obviously don't have time today to sort of 

reformulate the policy. We need to deal with 

this petition first. But I would certainly 

urge us to -- and NIOSH to consider sort of the 

future and how we can better handle these 

situations, what procedures we need to put in 

place, do we need to develop better criteria, 

et cetera, because what you said about equity I 

think is also important. But when we're sort 

of going along from case to case, we have to 

sort of do as best we can. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, other comments or does 

anyone wish to speak for or against the 

petition -- for the motion, rather? Wanda 

Munn. 

 MS. MUNN: I just -- I also am not speaking 

specifically to the petition. We've heard 

already this morning many issues that have -- 

that we faced and some of the stumbling blocks 

that we've had to try to crawl our way over. 

Not very much has been said about those 
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stumbling blocks and how they have been 

addressed. It might be wise for us to recall 

that at our last meeting we specifically 

outlined for NIOSH information that we wanted 

from them, in effect proving that they could do 

what we had asked to do; which is, give us 

prove that you can do the reconstructions that 

need to be done with the information that you 

have at hand. 

They did that, and to all appearances did that 

very well. The fact that information can -- 

continues to develop does not change the fact 

that they have in fact shown they can do that; 

that is to say, they have shown that they can 

do dose reconstructions on this group of 

workers given the information that they have, a 

fact I think we should bear in mind. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Let me give 

others a chance to talk. Mark Griffon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess I -- just going back to 

Gen's comment about sufficient accuracy -- and 

I've been grappling with this as I've gone 

through this, too, but I mean part of where 

I've seen this evolve is that it's really 

apparent to me now that when it comes down to 
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being able to calculate dosage for individual 

claimants, we're -- instead of having this 

massive amount of data that we're relying upon, 

we're down to smaller sets of data with very 

limited information on how that's distributed 

from an isotope standpoint. So we've got this 

air data, together with the residue information 

on the fractions from the residues, and that's 

driving a lot of the dose. There's other 

factors in here, obviously, but when you look 

at some of the cases, a lot of these things are 

now being driven by that. 

So all of this information on uranium 

urinalysis, to some extent the individual radon 

breath data, we're not relying on that anymore. 

So now we're -- and as we've gone through this, 

at least my feeling, my sense has been that 

each time we've asked for a refinement -- 

there's been a massive amount of work that's 

gone into this, but where there's a -- where 

there's a problem it's ended up that certain 

critical information is not available so that 

they're defaulting to -- it's not just a 

claimant favorable approach, it's that there's 

certain information critical to the first 
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method that wasn't available that limited them. 

And I'm saying that that is my reason for 

saying, you know, at some point you've got to 

say there's just not sufficient data and it's 

not -- you can't make an accurate estimate on -

- for all the claimants on their dose systems 

in this site. You can't just come back with a 

higher number and say, well, we're being 

claimant favorable because critical information 

was missing to support your first sort of 

method. 

I guess what I -- what I -- where that really 

came true was, you know, we rolled around to 

using this linchpin sort of -- of a method 

became the radon breath data. So we all spent 

a lot of time going into that and looking at 

that and listening to the method description, 

and then we had a discussion of the residues 

and the fact that they weren't all K-65, but 

there was this AM-7 and how would that -- you 

know, that's got a different ratio of thorium 

to uranium -- could potentially affect things. 

The real answer is yes, you get higher numbers 

when you use the thorium error combined with 

this thorium residue fraction, but the reason 
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they went in that direction was they couldn't 

tell which -- what people were dealing with AM7 or K-65 or a mixture of regular uranium. So 

they had to default -- you know. So at some 

point you've got to say that there's critical 

elements that are missing that are making this 

impossible for us to do an estimate with 

sufficient accuracy. 

I know that I'm grappling with how we define 

that, too, but that's what I've kind of -- I've 

felt like this has evolved with -- with these -

- with these patches to sort of -- okay, this 

method didn't -- we're missing a critical 

element in this method so let's go on to this 

one, and we can argue that it's -- you know, 

they're higher doses, so it's more claimant 

favorable. But I think -- and now we're down 

to -- the first presentation we saw we had 

great amounts of information on urinalysis 

data, we had air sampling data which could help 

us as a reality check to bound these doses, all 

this urinalysis data -- I mean, it might 

contribute a little dose for the uranium, but 

to much extent it's gone as far as the critical 

dose consequence elements in this equation. 
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So you no longer have all this individual data 

that you're going to reconstruct doses with. 

You're back to gross air -- gross alpha air 

sampling, multiplying by a fraction, and from 

what I see from a spreadsheet I got yesterday, 

you know, some of these -- I'm not -- we 

haven't had a chance to review how these 

fractions were developed, but I mean, there's 

not a ton of data. Certainly these fractions 

were not -- were not based on isotope analysis 

done in the plant. They were -- they were sort 

of after the fact from the residue material. 

So, you know, you're down to a few. You know, 

you've got gross air alpha sampling and 

fractions which we've got a couple of values 

for, that's hinging the whole -- that's driving 

the whole -- at least a majority of the dose 

consequence, I would say. 

So I think that's what I'm saying that we've 

lost our ability to be sufficient and accurate 

on all the dose reconstructions for this 

cohort. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me make an observation here 

because there's been an implied criticism of 

the change in methodology by NIOSH. But let me 
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point out that that change in methodology was 

largely driven by the recommendations of our 

contractor to consider some other issues. And 

in fact had they been responsive to that, I 

think we would be criticizing them for, for 

example, digging in their heels and sticking 

with the original data. 

What we've seen emerge is almost a kind of new 

methodology based on some considerations that 

SC&A has asked be looked at, and obviously they 

are considerations that have substantial 

implications on dose. In fact, although the 

estimations now that come out of that look like 

they're relying less on original data, I think 

the resultant doses, in most cases, maybe in 

all cases, are substantially higher than would 

come out of the original datasets. And in that 

respect there is certainly a much more 

claimant-favorable effect for the dose 

reconstruction. 

Okay, Jim, you have another comment? 

 DR. MELIUS: Again, I don't think there's any 

attempt here to downplay the efforts that NIOSH 

has made, and I think I, and I hope others 

would, appreciate the great amount of effort 
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they've put into it and their integrity in 

dealing with many of these issues. We -- in 

one sense, you know, us getting a spreadsheet 

last night, you know, finally to see some data 

is -- this makes it difficult. At the same 

time they have been honest enough to continue 

to make efforts and to work on this and to 

share that information the best we can. 

But I still think the bottom line comes down -- 

it's where I disagree with Wanda. I don't 

think that they've shown that they can do 

individual dose reconstruction with sufficient 

accuracy. They have addressed some of the 

points that we asked them, but we've only -- as 

Mark has just pointed out, we've only uncovered 

more issues, more things that need to be 

resolved. And I think we have to look at it at 

this point in time and I'm certainly not 

satisfied that they can, you know, do dose -- 

individual dose reconstruction with sufficient 

accuracy. And I think on that basis we need 

to, you know, pass and that -- this motion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Anyone? Robert Presley. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I agree that, yes, the people 

that work at Mallinckrodt were hurt, but some 
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of the things that have gone on about the 

concern of the angle of the instrument, of the 

badge. We have over 60 years of industrial 

hygiene data that has gone on, and today the 

best place to wear your badge is still upon the 

upper portion of the torso of the body because 

they feel like that that's where you get the 

average dose. And so I question this thing 

about the angle of the badge, but I feel like 

that -- under the law, that NIOSH has stated 

that they have enough information to do dose 

reconstruction. And under our charge, that is 

what the law says, that we -- if they say they 

have it, then we go back and accept that. 

Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Henry Anderson. 

 DR. ANDERSON: I mean I think there's been 

tremendous advances made since the last 

meeting, and I would just remind -- they told 

us they could do it using the old data and they 

could, and we raised -- I mean we were -- we 

were very close at the last meeting to saying 

they could do it using the methodology that's 

still on the table, and now in response to our 

concerns and our issues that weren't really 
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there in the first methodology, and we were 

told that they would very promptly be able to 

do all of these in a very short period of time, 

and they would not just -- I mean, my feeling 

is this probably would -- this issue would not 

have been raised, we would not have the 

modeling and the new methodologies that they 

developed if we had not have held our ground 

and said we want to -- you to show us that you 

can do that. 

And so I think we've had tremendous advances. 

Again, it's moved to a recognition or an 

appreciation that the thorium was more 

important than it was previously realized, and 

that is an advance and that will carry over 

into their evaluation and understanding of 

other circumstances elsewhere. So it's not as 

though this time, effort and resource has been 

needlessly expended. I think we've advanced 

it. I think the difficulty, to me, is -- for 

this particular one -- this has been a learning 

exercise and when we started it there was a 

great deal of information not available. It's 

now become available and, again, the kind of 

source that we saw in the cases appears in many 
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of these instances to be this thorium issue, 

and I think that's still very new and new data 

is coming and at some point I think it could -- 

given enough time and resource and effort, this 

could become a very real robust model if there 

was sufficient data available, but I think in 

this particular instance there I think still 

appears to be a paucity of what we need, and we 

need to move on. We can't expend all our 

resources. There's other issues that will come 

up and this will be of benefit to us in 

understanding what those exposures might be. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so you are speaking for the 

motion, I think. 

 DR. ANDERSON: I think we need to draw to a 

close --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, okay. 

 DR. ANDERSON: -- don't have a revised -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Is anyone speaking 

against the motion? 

 (No response.) 

Then the Chair will exercise his prerogative 

and speak against the motion. The -- and there 

are many things that are said here that I do 

agree with. However, I believe that the Agency 
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and our contractor have both demonstrated that 

dose reconstruction indeed can be done. 

Our contractor has agreed, at least in 

principle, that it can be done. They have 

cautioned on a selection of a number of 

parameters that go into this and how those are 

selected, such as the -- the DR factors and 

others. But nonetheless, the issue of can you 

dose -- do dose reconstruction, in my mind you 

can, based on what I've seen. The sufficient 

accuracy issue, of course, is a hard target. 

 The accuracy that's required is an accuracy for 

making a decision on compensation. In fact, in 

most cases we do not claim that the numbers are 

accurate. You could not do epidemiological 

studies from the numbers that come out of this 

program. I'm not just talking Mallinckrodt but 

in general, because there are -- in many cases 

are intentional overestimates because of 

claimant-favorable considerations. So in my 

mind we can do dose reconstruction with 

sufficient accuracy to make a fair decision for 

claimants in this case. 

Also, I'd simply point out, and this often will 

appear to be a discrepancy and we simply alert 
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you to the fact that -- and I think there's a 

statement in here that in essence suggests that 

those who -- if we go to Special Exposure 

Cohort, those that are not successful in that 

then move back to dose reconstruction, which we 

say earlier we really can't do very well, if we 

accept this. So there is a contradiction of 

sorts in the document that I would certainly be 

uncomfortable with. 

But my bottom line here is -- and I agree with 

everything on the timeliness. I think we have 

to make a decision and, you know, the Chair is 

-- I'm quite comfortable with moving ahead with 

whatever this Board decides, you know that. 

But I feel obligated to say that, in spite of 

the limitations that we see, there's a vast 

amount of data here and good dose 

reconstructors can, in my mind, reconstruct 

doses for purposes of making fair decisions for 

workers. And I -- I would judge that in 

probably almost every case, if we did have dose 

reconstruction, because of the parameters that 

have emerged out of this kind of new 

methodology which makes use of and takes into 

consideration particularly raffinates, that 
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these will be highly claimant favorable. 

 So I'm speaking against the motion, Dr. Melius. 

Now, you get a chance -- who's next here? 

 DR. MELIUS: Mark or Leon, I'm not... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark -- Leon, yes, you're next. 

Okay, Leon, please. 

 MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, I speak in favor of the 

motion, and not just because I seconded it. 

But I think that Dr. McKeel spoke of a segment 

of workers who have not been or who were not 

monitored, who are not represented based on any 

of the data that we are considering. And so in 

order to perform dose reconstruction, whether 

we rely on coworker data for this segment of 

workers who would be claimants, I'm very 

concerned -- troubled by that, for us to say 

that we can accurately perform dose 

reconstruction on this group of workers when in 

fact we have a sizable segment of those workers 

who were not even considered at all. 

I think also when we look at the timeliness 

issue that was brought up, the discrepancies in 

some of the studies, it lends itself toward 

granting a Special Exposure Cohort for these 

workers. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Is Mark -- are 

you next? 

 DR. MELIUS: I think Mark was next. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark and then Gen and then Jim. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just a couple of points to follow 

on what you said, Dr. Ziemer. I guess there is 

this procedural question, too, that we have. I 

don't think that we asked or that we could ask 

SC&A their opinion on this SEC because they are 

only doing a site profile review, and I think 

this was one of the problems that we've 

discussed on here and that's why we have a new 

task forthcoming. So I don't think they 

weighed in and actually kind of gave us -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: And you're correct with respect to 

the petition, they did not, yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm -- I'm characterizing their 

characterization of what NIOSH said it could do 

in terms of those items that we asked them to 

address, right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I guess -- I mean, I think 

some things we heard from them was that a lot -

- a significant amount of work and things like 

that, but --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm basically quoting from 

items in their report where they agreed with -- 

that in principle NIOSH could do what it said, 

and then they cautioned on a number of these 

things and -- I mean --

 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- the other point you made 

earlier, Paul, was that we had asked for -- 

actually, that the Board's questioning had 

resulted in some of these newer models, and I 

think I would disagree with that. I think, at 

least my -- and it's been -- I don't know how 

many meetings we've had on this so I might be a 

little confused on the timeline, but my 

remembering of this is that we asked for 

clarification of the approach, and then we got 

down to specifically saying, well, can we see a 

couple of examples in how you're going to apply 

this. 

And my sense, having put a lot of hours into 

this myself, is that when everybody went back 

and dug into the weeds -- which is where, by 

the way, from the beginning of this program 

I've said we might want to look on certain 
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sites -- they realized that there were some 

problems with their initial model. And I don't 

think we asked them to come back with a radon 

breath model, per se. We said consider people 

who have radon breath data, because they had 

talked about it as maybe a bounding condition, 

or maybe -- in earlier discussions I remember 

it being discussed as a way to identify who 

were residue workers and who to apply different 

fractions to than other people, non-equilibrium 

versus equilibrium. 

So I don't think we asked them for a new 

method. I think --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, no, we didn't ask them for 

that, no. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- after further examination we 

realized --

 DR. ZIEMER: I think it grew out of that, yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess my point is that after 

further examination they realized that the data 

wasn't sufficient to support their existing 

method and they went to another proposal. 

That's at least my feeling at this point. 

And I also -- and I do -- I do appreciate all 

the work. I've been doing a lot of work with 
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these guys and I appreciate the massive amount 

of time that's gone into this. And I also 

think at the end of the day here or in the next 

meeting -- real soon we have to work out the 

process stuff, the policy questions, and we 

have to have an evaluation process, I believe, 

for our Board so that NIOSH understands what 

they're going against. And I think that's -- 

that is an important step I think we need to 

take. 

But at this point, you know, that's my feeling, 

is that we didn't ask for a new model. I feel 

like there wasn't sufficient information on 

their initial evaluation report that was before 

the Board, that they couldn't support that in 

the depth that they first thought they could, 

and then they came up with a variation on the 

model. 

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I don't know that -- I mean 

it results in higher doses, and you could say 

well, that's claimant favorable. I see it as 

they didn't have sufficient data to support the 

first model so they default to a sort of -- a 

different approach in the higher -- and you 
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have higher -- higher doses at the end of the 

day. I'm not sure that answers that question 

of sufficient accuracy. That's my opinion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Gen Roessler. 

 DR. ROESSLER: I know you're looking for an 

indication of how we're going to come down on 

this, so I will say that I'm going to vote 

against the motion. On an emotional level I 

don't want to do that. I think these 

petitioners have been through a horrible 

situation because of our learning curve, the 

very first one. But I think on an actual 

basis, the things that bother me are the 

uniformity, how do we continue on in this 

process -- and I brought that up before -- so 

that every claimant is treated equally. 

And I think about the claimants who maybe can't 

go through the SEC process or the claimants who 

don't have the support group and the amount of 

effort that went into supporting them that 

these claimants have had. And so keeping that 

in mind, I just can't feel comfortable with 

voting for the motion on this particular 

petition. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Jim Melius. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'd like to make three 

points. One is, and I believe I said this at 

the last meeting also, that I think one of the 

things we need to be careful with if we try to 

guess at what we think -- whether or not we 

think NIOSH can meet the criteria and do 

appropriate dose -- individual dose 

reconstruction was that if we get to the point 

where we then -- I mean, our next sort of 

evaluation is when we would look at individual 

dose reconstructions. And after putting people 

through this process for over a year, if we got 

to the point and it turns out that we weren't 

satisfied with how NIOSH was doing those, I 

mean it would make us look pretty foolish and 

it would be, you know, grossly unfair to the 

claimants. And I think we tried to pursue that 

issue to some extent with the example cases and 

I think to some extent that that was helpful; 

though, given all the other changes that have 

taken place and sort of how we've approached 

this dose reconstruction, I'm not sure that we 

ever really were able to take full advantage of 

that. 

The second point, you mentioned about the 
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utilization of these data for epidemiological 

studies. Well, on one hand you're correct in 

terms of claimant favorableness would not make 

it appropriate for such use, but on the other 

hand the test for use in an epidemiological 

study is you're looking at group data. And our 

-- you care about whether one group of workers 

with a particular type of exposure and so forth 

had increased risk. You don't focus as much on 

the individual person; whereas, we are charged 

with evaluating -- this data is sufficient for 

individual dose reconstruction with sufficient 

accuracy. And I think that's some ways a 

different test. And so as the utility of this 

data for epidemiological studies or I just -- I 

don't think that's a relevant criteria. 

Finally, the section on the ability to do dose 

reconstruction with -- for external doses, I 

think it was an issue that the petitioner 

raised. I believe we've had some partial 

discussions of this before. I think we were 

actually scheduled to have a more complete 

discussion last meeting and ran out of time, 

'cause I think it's a -- it is a difficult 

issue on non-SEC cancers and what's done with 
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them. I was trying to construct something here 

that was narrow and that dealt with the 

particulars of this case and was a statement, 

not making -- not trying to make a broad 

statement about what should be done with -- 

about individual dose reconstruction for nonSEC cancers. I think that is something we need 

to take up as a policy issue of this Board in a 

more general sense, and that NIOSH and 

Department of Labor need to wrestle with in the 

context of the program and the law. 

But to me, I think that this narrowly-defined 

exception is appropriate and is helpful and it 

is -- again, this letter is designed to convey 

our understanding of the situation at this 

particular point in time. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Other comments, 

pro or con? Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: I also need to make one friendly 

amendment to my own motion --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, all right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- which is a correction in -- 

just for the record, in the second paragraph, 

the third line from the bottom -- this is the 

boilerplate language -- the -- after -- the 
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first two words on the third line from the 

bottom are "this employment" and there should 

be a --

 DR. ZIEMER: Comma? Oh, or --

 DR. MELIUS: -- "or in combination". 

 DR. ZIEMER: "Or in combination." Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: There's some other typos, too. 

 DR. MELIUS: I know there's some others. That 

one was, I think, the most legally important or 

whatever. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other -- yes, Dr. Roessler. 

 DR. ROESSLER: While Jim is looking at the 

wording -- I guess I'd better use the 

microphone. 

While Jim is looking at the wording, I have a 

question that -- some of the wording seems like 

a contradiction. In the second to last 

paragraph you say, second sentence, "It should 

be noted that the Board believes that the 

exposure information available was adequate for 

the reconstruction of external exposures." 

That seems to be a contradiction to your bullet 

on the first page, and that's the fourth bullet 

where you talk about -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 
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 DR. ROESSLER: I think I'd like that clarified. 

I don't know if anybody else -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I referred to that 

indirectly before, that there is a kind of 

built-in contradiction here that on the one 

hand we say you can't do them very well and on 

the other hand we're saying that they should be 

done in these cases. So it's a -- and I might 

suggest, while you're -- while we're talking 

about that -- again, I've indicated that I 

oppose the motion, but nonetheless let me try 

to help you improve it. 

In fact, although the angular thing has been 

brought up, it actually is not that difficult 

of an issue to deal with. I -- I mean, you've 

characterized it, but people have been dealing 

with that angular issue for decades and it 

actually is not hard to convert to organ dose, 

even in cases where you really don't know what 

the angles were a priori. 

So you might say that there are concerns about 

it; I don't know how serious they are at this 

point. I honestly -- certainly within -- 

within monitoring -- you know, personnel 

monitoring is not like measuring doses for 
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therapy where you have to know that dose within 

one percent. Most health physicists are happy 

if you're within, what, plus or minus 20 

percent, Mark, would you say? I mean, for 

field work. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Definitely, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. And within the 

uncertainties of what is present in many of the 

dose reconstructions anyway, I would offer that 

the angular incidence issue, if one were doing 

dose reconstruction, is much more readily 

handled than implied here. I'm not even sure 

that that particular bullet adds to the 

argument, the main argument, and it certainly 

contradicts or weakens the suggestion that you 

have later in the document. I simply offer 

that up as a friendly -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: I think Mark... 

 MR. GRIFFON: I tend to think that -- you know, 

we -- we felt -- I mean, the reason we have 

that -- I see it as -- how you could read it as 

contradictory, I guess -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I just don't think it's a 

showstopper. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right, it was a point that's not 

-- it was a point that's not resolved, but the 

reason we have that final paragraph in is, I 

felt, basically that it's pretty readily 

resolved and they're going to do it because 

it's a program-wide effect. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's not a showstopper and I think 

for those who support this motion, you are 

doing yourself a disservice to have both of 

those in there, I'll simply tell you that. 

 DR. MELIUS: I would point out that what 

disturbed me was -- you know, when this issue 

was raised, NIOSH's defense -- and not that 

this is inappropriate but it made it more 

difficult for us -- was well, it wasn't one of 

the six points so they weren't going to deal 

with it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, let me say that Jim indicated 

they would deal with it, but it was not one of 

the six things they asked us to come back with 

information on. 

 DR. MELIUS: Let me clarify, then. Jim's 

response was he wasn't going to deal with it in 

this meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah. 
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 DR. MELIUS: And so we're sort of left hanging 

with that, and then we hear that they haven't -

- they may or may not -- there's a technical 

bulletin of some sort that's still under review 

someplace or still being written. I have no --

 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe we would like to hear either 

from NIOSH or ORAU, but Dick Toohey or Jim 

Neton, do you agree that the angular incidence 

thing is not a showstopper for dose 

reconstruction or --

 DR. NETON: Yes, yes, I agree with that 

position. It's a matter of degree of what the 

collection factor is, but it's -- I think it 

can certainly be bracketed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But it's certainly much smaller 

than other uncertainties in this proposed dose 

reconstruction methodology. 

 DR. NETON: Yes, I agree with that. 

DR. ANDERSON: I mean, basically it's an 

uncertainty --

 DR. ZIEMER: But there's a lot of uncertainties 

that are much -- if you're going to start 

mentioning them, this is not one that should be 

highlighted. I'd simply offer that up. I mean 

you're welc-- the Board can do what it wishes 
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on this, but I believe that the contradiction 

is still built into the motion if... 

 Any other comments? Yes, Michael. 

 MR. GIBSON: I tend to disagree with that 

opinion only because on the few times that 

we've -- people were monitored, right, at least 

at the Mound facility, when they knew that 

there was going to be radiation built from 

different angles. They would strap a dosimeter 

on our forehead, they would strap dosimeter 

rings on our fingers, or our thighs and every 

part of our body. So if the angle of the 

dosimeter isn't important, why would they go 

the extra steps at times to add all these other 

dosimeters? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Other comments? 

 DR. MELIUS: I would just -- in response I 

think I would accept as a friendly amendment 

from an unfriendly source -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Hey, I'm always friendly. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- the -- let's take out "serious" 

and leave that. I would prefer to leave that 

in as an uncertainty, recognizing -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: "There are concerns"? 

 DR. MELIUS: "There are concerns." 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Is that -- the seconder agree to 

that change? 

 MR. OWENS: Yes, sir. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then without objection the motion 

is changed to take that into account. Any 

other comments, pro or con? 

 DR. MELIUS: And I would also offer -- in 

response to your comments, whether friendly or 

unfriendly here -- in the second to last 

paragraph I think it would be a little bit more 

clear, in the third sentence, it would be the 

third line, "information available to 

adequately (unintelligible) reconstruction of 

individual external exposures." 

 DR. ZIEMER: For the --

 DR. MELIUS: And where appropriate for -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yes. Of course, I think the 

"individual" actually is implied, but there's 

no reason not to add it, and without objection 

add the word "individual." 

Okay. Any -- it's second to last paragraph, 

third line would now read "adequate for the 

reconstruction of individual external 

exposures." 

 Any other comments, pro, con, or otherwise? 
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Friendly, unfriendly, nasty, really friendly? 

 (No responses) 

Then can I assume that the Board is ready to 

vote on this motion? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) I call for the 

question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the question is being called 

for. I'm going to ask for a show of hands. 

Those who favor the motion, please raise your 

right hand. Okay, we've got Owens, Melius, 

Espinosa, Griffon, Anderson, and Gibson. 

And those who oppose the motion, Roessler, 

Munn, Presley, Ziemer. 

The motion carries and the recommendation will 

be made to the Secretary to support the -- or 

to support the petitioners. I believe -- and 

let me -- and we will follow the regular 

procedure and generate the letter. 

And let me point out again to those here 

assembled that this is a recommendation that 

accompanies the NIOSH recommendation, the NIOSH 

recommendation is that dose reconstruction be 

done. So both recommendations now will go to 

the Secretary, and then the Secretary will take 

both into consideration. The Secretary of 
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Health and Human Services makes the decision. 

The Board does not make the decision, we make a 

recommendation. The recommendation of this 

Board then is to support the petitioners. It 

is so ordered. Standing ovation of one. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, could I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Comment, Mark. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to say I have a few 

typos which I'll just provide. They're not 

substantive. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We will take care of the typos. 

We will take a break now and then reconvene in 

about 15 minutes. 
______________________________ 

69 

1 C E R T I F I C A T E OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of August 26, 

2005; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

7th day of September, 2005. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102