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 


MEETING 40 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


DAY ONE 


The verbatim transcript of the 40th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Westin Casuarina, Las 


Vegas, Nevada, on Sept. 19, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

Sept. 19, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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CHARTER FOR SUBCOMMITTEE 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH, OCAS 

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DOL PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. JEFFREY KOTSCH, DOL 

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SCIENCE ISSUES 

SCIENCE PLANNING COMMITTEE 

GENERAL CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES 

ORO-NASAL BREATHING 

INGESTION 

CO-WORKER MODELS 

CONSTRUCTION TRADES TIB 

DR. BRANT ULSH, NIOSH, OCAS 

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SC&A FUNDING AND ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT YEAR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, ABRWH, DFO 

MR. DAVID STAUDT, CDC 

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SC&A CONFLICT OF INTEREST RESOLUTION PLAN 

MR. DAVID STAUDT, CDC 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 150 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 210 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


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 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 

 

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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 


POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 


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
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

ANSPAUGH, LARISA 


ANSPAUGH, LYNN, SC&A 


BEATTY, EVERETT “RAY”, SR., FERNALD ATOMIC CO. 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


BUCHANAN, RON, SC&A 


CALLAWAY, ALLEN 


CARMOUCHE, ROBERT, NTS 


CHANG, C, NIOSH 


CHEW, MELTON, ORAU 


CLAYTON, DOROTHY 


COMBS-CROFTON, SYLVIA, OCHA NTS 


COOK, PATRICIA 


ELLENBERGER, JIM, ORAU 


ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH 


EVASKOVICH, ANDREW K., INTERNATIONAL GUARDS 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


FUNK, JOHN R., AVV NEVADA 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


HYATT, SALLY 


JACQUEZ-ORTIZ, MICHELE, CONG. TOM UDALL 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MARSHALL, KENNETH 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCGOLERICK, ROBERT, HHS 


MILLER, RICHARD, GAP 


MINGUS, RICHARD, FSI-LLNL WSI 


PAZ, DR. JACOB 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY 


RINGEN, KNUT, CPWR 


ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A 


ROGERS, KEITH, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL 


ROHRIG, NORMAN 


ROLFES, MARK, NIOSH OCAS 


ROZNER, KATHLEEN, SEN. REID 


RUIZ, HARRIET 


SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC 


SHELL, LULA, AVV NEVADA 

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SMITH, BILLY P., MH CHEW AND ASSOCS. 


STAUDT, DAVID, CDC 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 


ZACCHERS, MARY JO, ORAU 


ZIEMER, MARILYN 

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(1:15 p.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to 


call the meeting to order. This is the 40th 


meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health. We're pleased to be back in Las 


Vegas. This Board met here a little over two 


years ago, actually in this very hotel, 


although at that time we met in the -- what do 


I call it -- the theater, which I think was 


smaller than this room; I know you barely could 


squeeze in. But we're pleased to be back in 


Las Vegas. 


We have an opportunity in several places during 


this meeting for input from the public. And if 


you do wish to make comments to the Board, we'd 


like to ask that you sign up. There's a sign-


up booklet in the foyer, so please do that. 


Also, my usual reminder is -- to everyone, 


Board members, staffers, members of the public 


-- please register your attendance with us in 


the registration book which is also in the 

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foyer. 


On the tables over to my right are various 


documents, including today's or this week's 


agenda and various documents that the Board 


will be using as part of its deliberations this 


week, so please feel free to take copies of 


those as -- as they may be needed as you follow 


along with the deliberations of this body in 


the next two or three days. 


 Our Designated Federal Official is Dr. Lewis 


Wade, and he's going to make a couple of 


opening remarks, and then we will continue with 


the agenda. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Welcome, 


all. And I thank particularly the Board 


members for their service. 


Before I make a couple of opening comments I 


would like to try and deal with the issue of 


whether or not we're being heard by our friends 


and colleagues that are on the telephone. Is ­

- can you hear me if you are on the telephone? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe we should identify -- is 


Mike Gibson -- Board member Mike Gibson, Mike, 


are you on the phone? 

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 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I'm on the phone and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we can barely hear you, 


Mike, but I think I heard a response. 


 DR. WADE: Right, I've asked our sound people 


that if Mike Gibson wishes to speak -- he's a 


Board member -- he needs to be heard 


immediately, so if you could do what you need 


to do to -- to amplify his voice, we would 


appreciate that. They're trying to find a 


balance between the settings so that we can be 


heard and we can hear them. 


The Board, as currently constituted, is made up 


of people you see here plus Mike Gibson. I 


welcome Wanda Munn. Wanda is a long-time Board 


member. As you know, I announced that Wanda 


was not a member of the Board during our last 


call. Since then Wanda is back with the Board 


and we certainly welcome her back. As Dr. 


Ziemer mentioned this morning, I know of no one 


who can tell me whether she was actually off 


the Board. I only know now that she is on the 


Board, and that's more than enough for us to 


continue with our business. 


I bring you warm regards from the Secretary of 


HHS and from the Director of CDC, and certainly 

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from the Director of NIOSH, Dr. John Howard. 


And I welcome you again and I look forward to a 


most productive Board meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Dr. Wade. 


Also I do want to note and recognize Michele 


Jacquez-Ortiz, who's from Congressman Tom 


Udall's staff -- Congressman Tom Udall of New 


Mexico. Welcome, we're glad to have you here. 


We may have -- I know that Kathleen Rozner from 


Senator Reid's staff was here earlier. Maybe 


we'll recognize her when she returns, but we're 


-- we're pleased to have the representatives 


from various Congressional groups with us. 


 DR. WADE: Are there any Congressional 


representatives or staff members on the line 


who want to be identified? 


 (No responses) 


Okay. 


CHARTER FOR SUBCOMMITTEE


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Our first item for 


business this afternoon deals with our 


subcommittee. We have -- the Board has -- 


currently has one subcommittee that is 


chartered. It's called the Subcommittee on 


Dose Reconstruction and Site Profile Reviews. 

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That subcommittee, if action taken at our last 


phone meeting is finalized, will morph, as it 


were, into a Subcommittee on Dose 


Reconstruction Reviews and the responsibility 


for site profile reviews will no longer be part 


of that subcommittee's charter. 


This morning when the subcommittee met it 


approved for recommendation to the full Board a 


revision in the charter that would accomplish 


the change, mainly the change in reducing the 


responsibilities to focus completely on dose 


reconstructions. And the related change would 


be to specify a smaller subgroup of this full 


Board as the membership of the subcommittee. 


The document is -- Board members, is the first 


tab in your agenda book. There are copies of 


this document on the table for members of the 


public. It's called Draft Rev 1 and it has 


today's date on it, and it says -- it's 


Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, 


Establishment of Subcommittee. 


The establishment of the subcommittee actually 


is an action that would have to be taken by the 


Secretary of Health and Human Services, so if 


the Board does approve this proposed charter 

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today, it goes as a recommendation to the 


Secretary for his final action. 


Board members, we have then a recommendation, 


which constitutes a motion to approve the 


document. There are a couple of changes in the 


document that resulted from our meeting this 


morning. One is a typographical in the first 


paragraph -- first paragraph, line three in 


quotes where it currently says "very a 


reasonable sample" should say "verify a 


reasonable sample," so make that a pen and ink 


correction on that typo. 


And then on the attachment, page three, called 


Membership Roster, the list of proposed members 


now should read, as it comes from the 


subcommittee, Mark Griffon Chairman, Michael 


Gibson, John Poston, Wanda Munn as members, 


Robert Presley Alternate 1 and Brad Clawson as 


Alternate 2 members, Lewis Wade as the 


Designated Federal Official. 


So this recommendation from the subcommittee 


represents a motion before the Board. It is 


open for discussion. 


I might add one other thing, that if we approve 


this I believe -- and Dr. Wade, you can help me 

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in case I have this wrong, but it seems to me 


that we have to take action to terminate the 


other charter and therefore request that it be 


ended and that this replace it. Would that be 


your understanding? 


 DR. WADE: Yes, that could be part of your 


motion, although if you did not make that 


motion, I would take that sense and make that 


recommendation, but it would be better part of 


your motion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Poston? 


 DR. POSTON: Mr. Chairman, before we vote on 


this I'd like to tidy it up a little bit. 


Under --


 DR. ZIEMER: Motion to tighten things up. 


 DR. POSTON: Under Function, number 1, it says 


"review and recommended," I think that should 


be "review and recommend". 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, that's correct -- a 


friendly amendment. 


 DR. POSTON: And under number 4, I think we 


probably don't need the -- after "members'", 


which is possessive, it should be "conflicts of 


interest" and I propose we delete the next 


word, "standing". That seems to be 

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unnecessary. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I certainly agree with what you're 


saying. I'm not sure why it's there. It 


somehow got carried over, and perhaps 


incorrectly, from the original. 


Board members', it's a plural possessive, 


should be conflicts of interest, and then 


eliminate the word "standing". I'll take it 


without objection that we accept these as 


friendly clean-up amendments. 


 DR. POSTON: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Further comments or 

questions? 

 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer, this is Mike. Could 

you -- could I hear that repeated again? It's 


still kind of vague here and -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: What I'll do is have us act on 


this document and then I'll ask for a separate 


motion on the issue of terminating the other 


charter. 


Are you ready to vote on this document? 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 


 DR. ZIEMER: It appears that we're ready to 


vote. All in favor say aye. 


 (Affirmative responses) 

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 UNIDENTIFIED: Hold on, you've got a -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, hold on. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry. Mike, did you have a 


comment? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, could I hear --


 DR. ZIEMER: Speak real loud. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- the last clean-up motion by Mr. 


-- Dr. Poston again about the standing issue? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think --


 MR. GIBSON: (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Mike, what you're saying -- Dr. 


Poston asked -- suggested that the word 


"standing," after the word "interest," be 


deleted. It didn't seem to make sense there so 


-- so "conflicts of interest and ensuring a 


balance" and so on. Was -- does that clarify 


what you were asking? 


 MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer, this -- this 


connection for some reason this time is just 


really not working. I hear you a little -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're hearing you very well right 


now, Michael. 


 MR. GIBSON: I'm still missing parts of what 


people --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Could you repeat your comment? 


 (No response) 


 Michael, could you repeat your comment, please? 


 MR. GIBSON: I'm hearing everyone a little more 


-- with a little more volume this afternoon, 


but I still am missing words and bits and 


pieces, and I didn't hear exactly what Dr. 


Poston was proposing. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, let me repeat, Michael. 


Can you hear me? 


 MR. GIBSON: I can hear you, yeah. I heard 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Michael, I'm going to repeat if 

you can hear me. Can you hear me? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yes, I can. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Under item 1 of Functions, 


the word "recommended" should simply be 


"recommend" -- "review and recommend". The 


next is under item 4. On the second line 


instead of the word "conflict," it should say 


"conflicts" -– “Board members' conflicts of 


interest," and then delete the word "standing". 


Those were the changes. Michael, could -- 


could you hear those? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I heard that. Could some --

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could you -- could Dr. Poston please describe 


what he means by "standing"? Is that -- I mean 


standing conflict of interest or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, he didn't know what the word 


"standing" meant, either, and neither did the 


rest of us. We -- that's why we were asking 


that it be deleted. 


 MR. GIBSON: I just -- my concern is does that 


bring it into the future or -- is it a standing 


conflict of interest or something in the past I 


guess is what I'm asking. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I -- I don't think we -- I 


don't think we know why the word "standing" was 


in there in the first place, so we're not 


understanding ourselves why it was there, 


unless there should have been a comma there. 


Perhaps it has to do with the standing of the 


members in some sense with respect to a site. 


I don't know. I think the word was in the 


original document, but I don't know why. 


 DR. WADE: And I think currently, Michael, will 


just refer to a member's conflict of interest 


as they exist at that point in time. 


 MR. GIBSON: As they exist at that point or 


this point in time? 

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 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are we okay on that? 


 MR. GIBSON: Are -- is it as they exist at this 


point in time or at that point in time 


previously? 


 DR. WADE: At this point in time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: At the time that -- Mike, it's at 


the time the panels will be selected, so you 


know. Did you hear that? 


 MR. GIBSON: I heard at the time the panel will 


be selected. That's all I heard. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it's --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's all I said. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the -- the sense of the -- 


of the item, assign the cases, would simply 


take into account conflicts of interest. 


That's the thrust of it. And conflicts of 


interest as they currently are defined, that's 


-- some of that is present and some of that is 


past, so it's as conflicts of interest are -- 


are defined and the word "standing" is not 


really needed to -- for -- as a clarifier, 


therefore we're simply deleting it. Hopefully 


that clarifies that. 


 Any other questions or comments? 

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 (No responses) 


If not, I'm going to call for a vote. All 


those in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 And Michael, are you voting aye? 


 MR. GIBSON: With respect, Dr. Ziemer, and it's 


my apology I'm not there, I'll abstain from 


this vote. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Any nays? 


 (No responses) 


 And Michael is abstaining, we'll show that in 


the record as well. Thank you very much. The 


motion carries. 


While we're on the topic of then the -- this 


charter, I would entertain a motion that we 


recommend that the previous charter for the 


Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction and Site 


Profile Reviews be terminated. 


I guess nobody wants to make such a motion 


'cause you have such an attachment to the old ­

-


 MR. PRESLEY: So moved. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So moved, okay, then --


 MS. MUNN: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and seconded. Now for -- any 

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discussion? 


 (No responses) 


Call for the vote. All in favor, aye. 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 Any opposed, no. 


 (No responses) 


Abstentions? And Michael, I didn't hear, but 


we didn't take a nose count, did you vote -- 


 MR. GIBSON: I'll vote aye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Voting aye. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, the ayes have it. 


While we're on the topic then of the 


subcommittees, this also brings up the issue of 


working groups since the old charter included 


working group activities and we now are doing 


most of the workgroups -- or most of the site 


profile work by workgroups. I'd like to take a 


moment and review the workgroup assignments, 


keeping in mind that at our last meeting when 


we thought Wan-- our last meeting, which was 


the phone meeting August 8th, we thought that 


Wanda had finished her term on the Board and so 


we excluded her from the appointments. In 


fact, I think we actually replaced her on a 

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couple of cases or -- 


 DR. WADE: No, we did not replace her. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We didn't replace her, but we 


removed her -- she is irreplaceable, now I 


remember. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, pushed me off the edge. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Pushed you off the edge, Wanda. 


But let us review those working group 


memberships and, if the Board so pleases, we 


can restore those formally if the Board is 


inclined to do so and -- yeah, right, so let's 


-- Lew has -- has a list of the workgroups and 


let's review those, if you would, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Now I'm going to focus on 


current working groups of the Board. There is 


a working group on the Nevada Test Site site 


profile. It's chaired by Presley and membered 


by Roessler and Clawson. 


There is a workgroup on the Savannah River Site 


site profile chaired by Gibson and members 


Clawson, Griffon and Lockey. 


There is a workgroup on the Board topic of SEC 


petitions and petition reviews chaired by Dr. 


Melius, with members Griffon, Roessler and 


Lockey. 

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There is a workgroup on the Rocky Flats SEC and 


site profile review chaired by Griffon with 


members Gibson and Presley. 


There is a workgroup on the Hanford site site 


profile review chaired by Melius with members 


Clawson, Ziemer and Poston. 


The only changes in that roster that was made 


on the August 8th call was to remove Wanda Munn 


from the workgroup on the Nevada Test Site site 


profile and from the workgroup on the Rocky 


Flats SEC and site profile review. She was not 


replaced on either. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So it would be in order to have a 


motion to restore Wanda Munn's position on 


those two workgroups. 


 MR. PRESLEY: So moved. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Second. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Discussion? 


 (No responses) 


All in favor, aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 Opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


Abstentions? 


 (No responses) 

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 DR. WADE: Ask for Michael. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Michael? 

 MR. GIBSON: I vote aye. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And it is so ordered, the ayes 

have it. 

 DR. WADE: Just for the record, with the 


indulgence of the chairs of those working 


groups, Wanda was on the call for those -- all 


of the working group calls between August 8th 


and this point and is fully up to date on their 


deliberations. 


 MS. MUNN: That's correct. 


NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We now will 


hear from Larry Elliott, Director of the OCAS 


program, who's going to give us an update on 


the NIOSH program. And Larry, if you can also 


report on the status of Dr. Neton, that would 


be appreciated. 


 DR. WADE: And I invite Board members as 


appropriate to move their chairs or -- so they 


can have access to the screen. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, members of 


the Board and general public and colleagues. 


appreciate the opportunity to be here with you 


I 
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again today and give you a brief update on the 


dose reconstruction program, our 


accomplishments and status report on issues. 


Jim Neton sends his warm regards and his 


regrets that he can't join you here in Las 


Vegas at this meeting. He's recovering from 


surgery and we look forward to him rejoining 


the OCAS team very soon, probably about four to 


six weeks. And so I know that he's in many of 


your thoughts and he appreciates the kind cards 


and comments and gifts that have been sent to 


him. 


With regard to the claim status information for 


all of the cases that have been referred to 


NIOSH for dose reconstruction from the 


Department of Labor, we have received, as of 


August 31st of this year, 22,316 claims. Of 


those about 75 percent have been completed 


under a dose reconstruction and returned to the 


Department of Labor. 


As you can see from this slide, 14,731 of those 


claims have been submitted with a dose 


reconstruction report to DOL; 661 claims were 


pulled by the Department of Labor -- and when 


we say pulled, that means that Department of 

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Labor retrieved that claim from us and stopped 


any dose reconstruction activity on the claim. 


And this can be for various reasons. They sent 


us the claim inadvertently, it was not a cancer 


claim or it was a -- a claim that was in the 


SEC for one of the Congressionally-statuted 


classes, or a variety of other reasons, but at 


any rate, 661 claims have been pulled back by 


DOL. We currently have seen 1,255 claims 


pulled from the dose reconstruction process to 


be handled by the Department of Labor under a 


specific Special Exposure class eligibility 


situation. And 175 claims have been 


administratively closed at dose reconstruction 


for lack of a response to our request to the 


claimant as to whether or not they have any 


additional information to provide. 


We have about 5,500 claims still at NIOSH. 


You're going to see different numbers from my 


presentation from -- to that of Jeff Kotsch's, 


who'll talk later from DOL, and we can explain 


the difference in those numbers, I hope, but 


there's a reason for those differences -- 


different points of snapshot in time. The way 


we build the number and explain the number can 

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cause a difference in the reporting. But at 


any rate, we still have about 25 percent of the 


claims that have been sent to us in our hands 


for dose reconstruction to work on. 


Of those 14,731 claims that we have returned to 


the Department of Labor for a decision, we 


understand that about 27 percent, or 3,982, 


have had a POC or probability of causation 


greater than 50 percent, thus they were found 


to be compensable. Conversely about 73 percent 


of the cases had a POC or probability of 


causation less than 50 percent and were denied 


compensation. 


I think from the DC meeting it was of interest 


to learn about the different types of dose 


reconstruction that we do, essentially three 


main categories, if you will -- best estimate, 


overestimate, underestimate. And I've broken 


those out in this chart for the Board -- for 


the Board's consideration in going about doing 


your review work. 


As you can see here that the best estimates are 


the -- are the top -- top three here, full 


internal, full -- and external, full primary 


external and full primary internal. This -- as 

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you know, internal/external goes to the source 


of the dose, whether it's inside your body or 


outside your body. But these represent -- 


these three here represent those best estimate 


cases. 


Overestimates are where we complete a dose 


reconstruction to show that the most -- high -- 


highest plausible dose that could have been 


acquired by the Energy employee was not going 


to relate to causation of their cancer, and so 


we may not have to do a full-blown best 


estimate. We can show by overestimate that the 


case is non-compensable. And as you can see, 


about 67 percent of the cases fall into this 


category right here where overestimate on 


internal and external dose was done. 


And you can see the underestimate in these 


three numbers here, and this is where we use 


either the dose of record, the original badge 


results or the urine bioassay results, to show 


that the claim is compensable and we don't have 


to complete a dose reconstruction to the 


fullest extent. 


Of the 5,500 some-odd cases remaining at NIOSH 


for dose reconstruction we have about 1,230 

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that are currently assigned to a dose 


reconstructor, so they are working their way 


through that process; 622 initial draft dose 


reconstructions are sitting with claimants as 


of August 31st. That means that we have 


finished our work and the claimant has signed 


an OCAS-1 form stating that they have no 


additional information to provide us -- or 


that's what we're waiting for, we're waiting 


for that OCAS-1 to come back saying that they 


have no additional information to provide us. 


I might add here that this next six-month 


period is going to be a very interesting and 


critical period of time in our projection of 


how our work flows. Why do I say that? In the 


next six months we should see a full reduction 


of the backlog of claims. We should arrive at 


a steady state, and we define steady state as 


no claims in our hands for dose reconstruction 


that are over a year old. 


The ORAU team -- and why do I say this? The 


ORAU team has achieved a capacity of dose 


reconstruction production of about 160 cases or 


claims reconstructed in a -- in a -- per week, 


and we have seen them complete 3,736 claims in 

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the last six months. So they have this 


capacity, and if you can do the math, I think 


you can see in the -- in the algebra there that 


we're going to approach steady state very soon 


next year. 


 We're very much concerned and interested of 


course with our oldest claims. We're striving 


to finish those dose reconstructions up for 


those claimants who submitted their claims back 


in 2001 and we're still working on those. We 


track claims by giving -- assigning a tracking 


number, as you know, and so we look at the 


first 5,000 claims to see where -- how much we 


have achieved and -- and what is left to be 


done there. 4,837 of those first 5,000 claims 


have been completed with a dose reconstruction 


report to the claimant, that leaving 163 active 


cases among the first 5,000 claims; 24 of those 


have draft dose reconstructions with the 


claimants and so we're awaiting the OCAS-1; and 


139 claims below 5,000 in our tracking system 


are active with no DR yet -- dose 


reconstruction report -- and these are perhaps 


the most difficult claims that we face. They 


represent small -- represent small AWE sites 

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with only one or two claims. I'll talk about 


those in a moment while we're doing -- with 


regard to those claims in those situations. 


This graphic is a standard graphic, but it'll 


probably be the last time you see it. I'm 


going to change it, and I know that hurts some 


people maybe -- Wanda's saying don't do that, 


don't do that -- but you'll see it again but 


it'll be reconstituted and it'll be, I hope, 


providing some additional information. So what 


you see here are the cases that we have 


completed by 1,000 number tracking number. And 


the blue line indicates -- the blue part of the 


bar indicates those cases that have been 


completed, dose reconstructions have been 


returned to Department of Labor for decision. 


The red bar -- the part of the bar represents 


cases that have been pulled by the Department 


of Labor or administratively closed. And the 


green shows you the cases that are pended for a 


variety of reasons. We pend cases to make sure 


that we don't expend any unnecessary effort on 


those cases and we're working on some 


particular issue or obstacle that needs to be 


resolved before we advance the dose 

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reconstruction and unpend the cases. 


 What's missing here and I will show in the next 


-- the next Board meeting are the number of SEC 


claims that have moved into a class. I think 


that's important. And that will leave only one 


other number to show in this bar besides the 


SEC claims, and those will be the reworks, the 


number of reworks in that particular section 


that are still open. So I'm just going to try 


to be more informative with this graph. You'll 


see it again, but in a reconstituted form. 


You've also seen this graph a number of 


meetings. This -- this graph shows the cases 


that we have received from the Department of 


Labor in the blue line -- over the course of 


time, by month or quarter, October through 


December '01. The green line reports the draft 


dose reconstruction reports to the claimants 


that we have submitted. And then, after we've 


gotten the OCAS-1 back from the claimant, the 


red line represents the final dose 


reconstruction reports that have been provided 


to the Department of Labor. 


There are some interesting artifacts in this 


graph. I spoke about them at the Washington, 

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DC meeting and I'll talk briefly about them 


here again. Of course we received claims 


starting in about the third week of October of 


'01. And as you can see, that's our -- that 


was what caused our backlog. And by the time 


we got up and running with the infrastructure 


and our rules in place, it wasn't until I 


believe -- let me make sure I get this right -- 


the first draft dose reconstruction report was 


produced somewhere around March of '03, and 


then you can see and follow how we've done 


since that point in time. So we are now 


working off this backlog and, as I said, hope 


to be done with that early next year. 


I spoke briefly about the administratively 


closed records. The dose reconstruction rule 


allows us to administratively close a dose 


reconstruction if we don't hear from the 


claimant as to whether or not they have 


additional information to provide on their dose 


reconstruction. If we don't get that OCAS-1 


form, we're required by the regulation to 


administratively close the claim. We can 


reopen at any point in time that the claimant 


so desires. They can either send us a 

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completed OCAS-1 form, or they can provide 


additional information that may inform the dose 


reconstruction. So this shows you the trends 


of those administratively-closed claims. 


I spoke a minute ago about reworks. Reworks 


come back to us from the Department of Labor. 


This slide shows you the trends in that regard. 


It shows you the numbers that we have received 


in the green side of the bars and the blue side 


shows you what we have returned to the 


Department of Labor. Overall this represents 


about 12 percent of our dose reconstructions 


that we have completed. I will say to you that 


the majority of the rework that we do on dose 


reconstructions is because the demographics of 


a claim have changed. 


What does that mean? Well, there -- the 


claimant has another cancer, the claimant found 


additional employment history or something -- 


or the -- a new survivor has appeared on the 


claim, which requires us to seek an interview 


from that survivor if they so choose and we 


have to reopen the dose reconstruction. So the 


minority of these reworks are on technical 


issues, and we've found that when we look at 

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those -- and we monitor those as close as we 


can -- we've found that some of those technical 


issues were like ingestion for Savannah River 


in the early cases that we reconstructed there, 


so very few of these reworks are -- are 


returned to us for technical issues. 


We approach the Department of Energy and we 


have points of contact at each Department of 


Energy facility that supplies us with 


information on the dose that has been recorded 


for Energy employees. Again, we do not accept 


cumulative dose reports. We only work with 


original data. We work with the original badge 


data, bioassay or urinalysis data. And you can 


see from this slide the number of outstanding 


requests that we have with DOE right now are 


242 individual claims, of which 83 have 


exceeded a 60-day time frame in trying to 


respond to us. We track these on a monthly 


basis and report back to Department of Energy 


on any of these delays, and we monitor those 


delays for certain trends -- whether or not 


they reflect a certain site not being 


responsive or if there's individual 


circumstances that appear in the delay of 

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response to our requests for information. We 


follow up on that with the Department of 


Energy. 


Going to the number of SEC classes that have 


been added to date, as of September 11 ten 


classes of workers have been added to the 


Special Exposure Cohort. You can see them 


listed in this slide and the next one -- 


Mallinckrodt Chemical, two classes; Iowa Army 


Ammunition Plant, two classes; Y-12 Plant, two 


classes; Linde Ceramics Plant, one class; Ames 


Laboratory, one class; Pacific Proving Ground, 


a class; Nevada Test Site, a class. 


One petition was approved but not added to the 


SEC and that was the National Bureau of 


Standards. As you recall, the Department of 


Labor and Department of Energy determined at 


the 11th hour that that facility was not a 


covered facility, after we had done our work 


recommending to add it as a class. 


Six petitions have been evaluated and provided 


to the Advisory Board for review and are 


currently under Board deliberation, and you see 


those listed here and they are on your agenda, 


I believe, for this meeting. 

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 DR. WADE: Well, four of them. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, four of them are, yes. Six 


petition evaluation reports are in development 


as we speak here in Las Vegas. Folks are back 


in Cincinnati and around the country working on 


evaluation reports for the Fernald plant; 


Monsanto Chemical, which is a precursor to 


Mound; General Atomics, Los Alamos National 


Lab, Bethlehem Steel and Harshaw Chemical. 


There have been 13 requests to add a class to 


the SEC that are currently in the qualification 


process. This means that we're working with 


the petitioners to establish the basis for the 


petition, and you see those listed there. 


 Twenty-four requests have been added -- to be 


added to the SEC have been administratively 


closed, and these submissions were closed for 


one of these following three reasons. The 


submissions did not meet the petition 


requirements as outlined in our rule 42 CFR 83 


under Section 83.9. If you look at that 


Section there's a nice little table in there. 


I would like to say, all the petitioner has to 


do is report in their petition those words that 


are found in that table and they will meet the 

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basis for the petition, and we will provide an 


evaluation that will provide an explanation as 


to whether or not we believe that we can do 


dose reconstructions. So just a word to the 


wise, use that table at Section 83.9 out of the 


rule. 


Another reason for a petition having been not 


qualified for evaluation would be that the 


submission is already a member of the SEC. 


Some classes were pre-established, as you know, 


through Congressional intent, and we have 


received a couple of those petitions. And once 


we explain to the petitioner, they've 


withdrawn. 


And likewise, some other petitioners withdrew 


their -- their interest in providing a 


petition. 


There've been 1,255 claims that are currently 


at the Department of Labor for class member 


status eligibility determination, and you see 


those listed here. I won't read through them, 


you have them in the presentation in your 


briefing manual. 


880 -- or 180 claims have been sent to the 


Department of Labor for the two classes that 

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were added just a couple of weeks ago on 


September 9th. The Ames Laboratory, we saw 21 


claims in our hands and we moved those back 


over to DOL to determine eligibility. And for 


the Y-12 1948 to 1957 class we had 159 claims 


in our hands that needed to be addressed by the 


Department of Labor in their process. 


Just to update you on the number of Technical 


Basis Documents and Technical Information 


Bulletins that are used currently within the 


dose reconstruction program to treat claims, to 


assist in doing dose reconstructions, we have 


140 of those Technical Basis Documents in use 


right now and 59 Technical Information 


Bulletins. 


There are a number of Technical Basis Documents 


that are currently under revision. These are 


living documents, as we have said in the past, 


and as we find new information, as we hear 


worker input, as we go around the country and 


we hold meetings, we gain input and information 


about our Technical Basis Documents, and so 


we're working through revising those. And you 


see those listed here. 


I'd also add that ORAU is working through a 

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review of all of their current Technical Basis 


Documents, looking specifically at the current 


draft conflict of interest policy and starting 


looking through those documents to make sure 


that they have document owners and site 


experts, technical experts all properly 


attributed and identified. So that is also 


going on in the Technical Basis Document and 


TIB review. 


There are currently -- I mentioned earlier that 


we have a large number of facilities where we 


have a small number of claims -- one, two, 


three, four, five claims for a large number of 


facilities. As you can see from this slide, we 


chose to task Battelle under an existing task 


order contract that NIOSH had. We gave them a 


specific task under an existing task order 


contract to address these particular Atomic 


Weapons Employer sites where we had a large 


number of sites involved for essentially 1,400 


claims. About 15 percent of the claims at the 


time we did this were represented by the -- 


this group, and they covered 85 percent of the 


sites. These 85 percent of the sites did not 


have a Technical Basis Document, so the first 

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order of business was for the Battelle folks to 


be assigned to develop a Technical Basis 


Document that addressed a group of facilities 


that had a common, shared experience, like 


uranium metal processing, uranium refining 


processing. And so they're working now on 


developing those Technical Basis Documents. We 


have them in our hands. They're going through 


our review and comment resolution process. 


Of the 1,400 claims that we have assigned to 


them, we've seen 80 dose reconstructions come 


forward for our technical review. And of 


those, we've passed on 37 of those to the 


claimants, and we expect to see these numbers 


increase considerably in the next few months. 


Battelle is also charged with identifying as 


they -- as they work through these set of 


claims in these facilities, is there a facility 


or a claim for which they cannot envision how 


dose reconstruction can be accomplished. And 


once we hear that from them, we take that site 


back from them and we start processing that 


particular site under what we call an 82.12, 


which is our dose reconstruction rule which 


determines that we cannot do dose 

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reconstruction, and we move into an 83.14 


process in our SEC rule whereby we work with 


that particular claimant and establish a class 


to be added for that site. So you see here 


with Dow Chemical out of Illinois is the first 


one that we have taken up from Battelle to add 


as a class. 


We go into a report on our construction 


workers. At your Denver meeting there was some 


misinformation given and I'm still working to 


give you a clarity and understanding about how 


we're working on these particular claims for 


this group of workers. I might say there's no 


disenfranchised group of workers in this 


program. We are focusing on all of the workers 


as best we possibly can with all our resources. 


So we have the number of cases for construction 


trades job titles listed here, about 4,140. 


This is a difficult number to get. It's not 


the number that's in our electronic database 


that's trackable. And that's unfortunate, but 


it's an artifact of -- of the variety of job 


titles that come out of the Department of 


Energy and the AWE work sites, and how those 


job titles are also reported to us in 

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interviews. And we have -- have wrestled with 


that trying to make -- trying to come up with a 


common list of job titles. We have developed 


that with the support and concerted effort from 


CPWR and others as -- and CPWR also worked with 


us and ORAU team on the development of a 


Technical Information Bulletin that could be 


used to develop dose for unmonitored 


construction trades workers. These would have 


been workers that had worked on a given site 


for a sub or a subcontractor and weren't part 


of the M&O prime contractor and did not have 


monitoring data for them. And so the Technical 


Information Bulletin 52 that we have developed 


in conjunction with support from CPWR and ORAU 


prescribes a way about going how -- how that -- 


how we go about doing dose reconstruction for 


that group of workers. 


To date we have submitted 3,234 cases to the 


Department of Labor with a dose reconstruction. 


And you can see the outcome of those cases here 


in this slide whereas about 24, 25 percent were 


found to be compensable, and again about 75 


percent were not compensable, with about 906 


cases for construction trades awaiting dose 

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reconstruction at this point in time. 


I might add here that as this TIB-52 goes into 


operation and we work through those dose 


reconstructions for those claimants, we will 


also be looking back at the completed dose 


reconstructions to determine, through a Program 


Evaluation Review -- you've heard this 


terminology I've used before. This is a 


process that we use to look back at completed 


cases that have been found to be noncompensable and we evaluate whether a 


modification or a change would affect the 


decision outcome on those claims. So we'll be 


going through a Program Evaluation Review on 


those. 


However, we purposely have pended cases 


awaiting this TIB-52, so the 906 that you see 


are the bulk of the cases that are going to be 


affected by this TIB-52. The ones that were 


completed that I show you on this slide -- we 


doubt if there's many at all that would be 


affected or should see a change, because those 


were done with the data at hand and they were 


typically monitored workers. So -- but at any 


rate we will do a Program Evaluation Review. 

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 DR. WADE: And Larry, TIB-52 is going to be 


presented later. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, yes, Brant Ulsh will talk in 


a little bit more detail about TIB-52, and we 


are very interested in comments and any review 


-- comments that we can receive about that. 


The Board has -- in your first 80 dose 


reconstruction reviews you've actually looked 


at seven of those 80 which were construction 


trades workers, so I'll just share that with 


you. 


We'll go to where we stand on Program 


Evaluation Review right now. Five have been 


completed. There's a -- one that's been 


completed for the Hanford bias factor. We've 


done one for a situation where we -- we 


misinterpreted dosimetry records at Savannah 


River and it underestimated some missed dose so 


we're -- we've finished that evaluation. We've 


done another Program Evaluation Review on the 


error in surrogate organ assignment resulting 


in an underestimate of X-ray dose at Savannah 


River. We've completed another one on the 


effect of adding ingestion intakes to Bethlehem 


Steel cases, and we've also finished one on the 

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type of X-ray medical monitoring that they did 


at Pinellas. 


We have three at least -- I think there are 


more being staged, but these three are under 


way. In fact, I think the prostate target 


organ one has already been reported to DOL or 


is about to be reported to DOL, and we're 


working on lung target organ and lymphoma 


target organ. These are a result of 


modifications that have been made within either 


our dose reconstruction process or the -- the 


POC rule. 


Let me take you into a little different area 


than we've -- we've talked about -- never 


talked about this area before. NIOSH has in 


its mission a responsibility to set a research 


agenda for occupational health and safety 


research, and they have called that NORA, 


National Occupational Research Agenda. If you 


go on the NIOSH web site, you'll be able to see 


all about NORA that you would like to see, I 


think. NIOSH and our partners are forming 


eight sector research councils. These include 


-- these partners include people from academia, 


industry, labor and government. Each council 

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will draft a sector-based research set of goals 


and objectives and action plans, and these 


agendas will provide guidance to the entire 


occupational safety and health research 


community. 


There are eight sectors, and I don't have them 


on this slide but they're on the web site. 


What I'm -- the purpose of introducing this -- 


this whole program to you in this particular 


set of three slides is to let you know that 


OCAS is also involved in NORA. Dose 


reconstruction is what's considered in NORA a 


cross-sector research area. It's not one of 


the eight sectors, but it's a cross-sector. 


And so we also have to have a committee develop 


objectives, goals and action plans to 


disseminate information about what we do, the 


science behind what we do, and to foster and 


stimulate additional research beyond just what 


we have done in dose reconstruction. 


Those are -- this -- dose reconstruction 


program at NIOSH is an applied science program. 


Our research is applied to the benefit, I hope, 


of claimants. I know that many claimants don't 


see it that way, but we try to do our best to 

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give our best service to the claimants. So we 


also have a role in NORA in serving in a cross-


sector program in dose reconstruction. 


So we have a -- a science planning committee 


that has been established. Dr. Howard asked 


that we establish a committee. It is a -- a -- 


this is not the complete roster of the 


committee. It will be growing, I think, but 


Dr. Neton will serve as the chair of this 


committee. Doug Daniels is a health physicist 


from a research part of the program in NIOSH 


and not part of our dose reconstruction effort 


in OCAS. And some of you may know Dade Moeller 


of Dade Moeller and Associates, who has a very 


strong interest in seeing the science of dose 


reconstruction advanced. Dr. Richard Toohey -- 


you perhaps remember him as being a program 


manager for the dose reconstruction project on 


the ORAU team, and he has -- he has returned to 


serve on this committee. 


The committee is -- well, all of our work at 


NIOSH is guided by the core values at NIOSH. 


And in those core values we are -- we are 


focused on providing the best science that we 


can possibly provide. That science is to be 

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supported by peer review to ensure that a 


sharing of thoughts of a wide range of highly 


qualified professionals is -- is garnered. We 


should also continue our awareness and be alert 


to identify and implement changes in a program, 


especially where advances need to be made. We 


are careful to use data of the highest quality, 


supported by cross-checks to ensure that those 


data are valid. And our work must be 


transparent and supported by peer reviews. 


The second value that we ascribe to at NIOSH is 


to seek opportunities to partner with industry 


and government agencies to establish contacts 


and -- at the proper level with the right 


people. 


Thirdly, we have a value that our program 


should exemplify diversity, especially in 


ensuring that our employees are representative, 


that the efforts that are made to solicit the 


best possible views and the best solutions are 


being sought and brought to bear on the 


problems that we face in occupational health 


and safety research. 


And our final value is that the product of our 


efforts should be made readily accessible to 

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those who are interested and are in need of the 


information. 


So with that in mind, the first task that the 


science planning committee has been given is to 


work with the Health Physics journal, who has 


asked us if we would be interested in putting 


forward a special edition of the journal that 


speaks just to dose reconstruction and the 


science that has been developed behind that. 


And so this is an opportunity to gain 


additional peer review 'cause these articles 


that will be published in this edition will 


have a technical peer review. It will be as 


transparent as we can make it with the journal. 


There will be a -- you know, it represents a 


diversity of views, we hope, and will make our 


work accessible through this particular edition 


of the journal. 


I'm going now to the last couple of slides on 


our communication initiatives. We have revised 


the notice that we give claimants about 


receiving their claim from the Department of 


Labor, and that acknowledgement packet, with a 


variety of materials, will be going out to the 


claimants in January. We have -- that whole 

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packet right now is in final review with -- 


with our -- the technical review and legal 


review with OGC. 


We've also been working, as you know, on 


revising the draft dose reconstruction report, 


the report that goes to claimants that attempts 


to explain how we did our work and what the 


outcome of our work is for that claimant. It's 


going through a second round of internal 


technical and peer review, and we hope that 


it'll be sent to members of this Board in 


October for your review and your comment on 


this. 


This has not been as easy as one might think. 


Everybody that looked picks up -- right now 


I've seen -- just lately I've seen three 


versions. Each version has a whole different 


set of messages and content, and everybody that 


you talk to has a whole different perspective 


on what should be or should not be in one of 


these reports. So we look forward to the 


Board's review on that and their assistance in 


helping us provide clearer communication. 


Lastly, I think we talked about this in DC a 


little bit, the dose reconstruction video 

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that's been created is in its final review. 


External peer review has been completed. The 


final edits are being made I guess and we hope 


to see that -- distribution of that video go 


out to the Resource Centers, go out to -- go on 


our web site, go into the District Offices of 


DOL. We'll use it -- upon request, we'll 


provide it to anybody who wants to see it and 


we hope it will inform and educate people about 


what we do with dose reconstruction in this 


program. 


I think that's the last slide I have to... 


 DR. ZIEMER: All right, thank you very much, 


Larry. Let's open the floor for questions from 


the Board members, or comments on your 


presentation. Dr. Melius? 


 DR. MELIUS: My first question, Larry, could 


you explain a little bit more about these 


Program Evaluation reports? I'm a little 


confused by the list, and also the -- who they 


report to. Were they reports to DOL? You -- I 


believe you stated that the prostate tar-- 


target organ report was a report being given to 


DOL. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We give these -- yes, Program 

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Evaluation Reviews result in a report, a report 


that speaks to all claims that have been 


reviewed because a modification has been made 


in an approach or a way we have completed the 


dose reconstruction for a given claim. We 


provide that report to the Department of Labor 


so that they can in turn refer cases back to us 


for rework that need to be reworked in case a 


modification results in a change in a decision. 


They will return those cases to us so that we 


can rework them. 


We don't have this on our web site at this 


point in time. We are working to put a notice 


on the web site that will list all of the 


Program Evaluation reports. We have a 


procedure that will also be shown on the web 


site. 


I don't know, does that answer your question? 


 DR. MELIUS: Could you share those reports with 


the Board? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Surely, we can share the reports 


with the Board if you'd like to see the copy of 


the reports. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'm just trying to 


understand them. I just don't -- 

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 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure, I can get you --


 DR. MELIUS: -- understand. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- a copy of the reports. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Can I just ask one quick 


follow-up? How do those relate to the -- I 


always refer to them as remands, but the -- how 


do they relate to the claims sent back to you 


by the Department of Labor? Or is that a 


separate --


 MR. ELLIOTT: No, that's not -- you may -- we 


may see in those reworks that I reported on 


that -- some of those earlier ones may -- may 


also be reflected in the number of reworks. 


 DR. MELIUS: So -- so an evaluation would be 


something that you would generate rather than ­

- that -- you, being NIOSH, rather than the 


Department of Labor. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. That helps. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We have to work with them, 


though, to handle the claims. In other words, 


they have the claim -- and we're really 


focusing here on the claims that have been 


completed and found to be non-compensable. 


We're not touching the compensable ones. We're 

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saying those are done and they're okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. So like a rework would be ­

- a technical rework --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, these --


 DR. MELIUS: -- to you whereas these evaluation 


reports are from you up to -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Right. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- sort of DOL -- you have self-


generated. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. I doubt seriously whether 


there's any -- I'd have to look, we'd have to 


look, but I don't believe those first five 


really show any reworks to us. I don't think 


there were any changes made in compensability 


based on those first five. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We'd have to look at that, 


though. 


 DR. WADE: Larry, I assume that as the Board 


goes through and reviews Technical Basis 


Documents or site profiles, if a change was to 


be in order based upon those reviews, that 


would trigger one of these reports. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. Yes, it does. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments, 

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questions for Larry? Yes, Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Larry, I -- I just -- this is 


actually something in response to the last 


face-to-face meeting we had when ORAU mentioned 


that they were going to go through all the site 


profiles regarding new conflict of interest 


concerns and -- and add I guess references or 


indications of if it was site experts that 


contributed, et cetera. Do you have a status 


on that or where -- where all that stands with 


that, is it... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have a status, and the 


reason why I don't want to report status is the 


conflict of interest policy is not final. And 


we really -- ORAU is doing this on their own at 


this point in time. They know as soon as that 


policy becomes final they're going to have to 


live with it so they've -- they've jumped in 


advanced trying to work through these, but I 


don't know how far through those reports they 


are -- through those TBDs they are. 


 DR. WADE: Right. I mean I think this is a 


terribly important issue. I will be sure that 


on our call on October 18th we schedule such a 


report and an update. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I guess that --


 DR. ZIEMER: A report from ORAU then? 


 DR. WADE: A report that would be initiated by 


ORAU. I don't know if it might be presented by 


NIOSH or ORAU. I will have to work through 


those details. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, we'll have to see what's -- 


what's best there. 


 MR. GIBSON: Larry, this is Mike. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike, go ahead. 

 MR. GIBSON: Can I ask a question? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: You know, I -- I know that you and 

the Department of Labor are doing, you know, 


the best you can with the data you have 


available. But you know, I think the reason 


for this legislation was that, you know, 


admittedly by the Department of Energy, they 


didn't adequately monitor their employees. So 


even if you go back to the raw data and give 


the employees the benefit of the doubt, how can 


we assure that employees were even monitored 


for some of the isotopes they were supposed to 


-- I mean, you know, there's just -- there's a 


lot of opportunity, being an ex-DOE employee, 

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or a contractor employee, there's just a lot of 


opportunity for data to just not be existent 


and, number two, the data you go back to, the 


raw data from DOE, how can we -- how can NIOSH 


assure that that data was probably -- 


properly... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Reported to us? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I mean, you know, as far as 


what's the minimum allowable of activity and 


everything else, you know. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, certainly, yes, good -- 


good question and I appreciate the interest 


behind the question, Mike. We -- we have 


cross-checks that we employ on the data that's 


provided to us. We -- we can -- the health 


physicists can look at the -- that's why site 


profiles are important to us for these large 


DOE sites where a large number of people were 


monitored so that we understand how those 


monitoring practices changed over time. And 


the health physicists are required to 


understand those changes and to identify any 


trends or pervasive problems that -- that may 


exist in the data that comes forward from the 


Department of Energy, so that's one mechanism. 

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 Another mechanism is where we -- we look at the 


distributions of data for a given site to 


examine whether or not over a particular period 


of time there looks like there's something 


unusual that has gone on and we pursue that 


with points of contact at the site. But also 


remark to you that the EEOICPA law recognizes 


that many people were not monitored, that 


monitoring records were lost, and that dose 


reconstruction has been brought to bear for 


those particular situations. And in that, 


NIOSH has consistently dealt with unmonitored 


dose, missed dose and dose that was never 


recorded for a variety of reasons. And so you 


can -- I'm sure you've seen that in our -- in 


the reviews of dose reconstructions that you've 


conducted. 


But your point is very well taken with us and 


we -- we take it very seriously. 


 MR. GIBSON: But if I can just follow up, I 


mean do you guys consider looking at like Price 


Anderson reports and, you know, things like 


that that the DOE has -- the DOE contractors 


have to report regarding flaws in their 


bioassay and other monitoring data, the 

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radiation protection program? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, those reports are looked at 


as -- as the dose reconstructor views the need 


to look at those reports. If something looks 


amiss, something looks out of -- out of -- out 


of kilter, then they'll go and look and examine 


those particular reports. They look at monthly 


and quarterly summaries, incident reports, et 


cetera. There's discretion to apply here where 


it's -- you know, where it's necessary to do so 


because a given claim would benefit from that, 


they certainly do pursue that level of -- of 


detailed investigation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other comments or 


questions? 


 DR. WADE: I mean if I could, I'd like to 


follow up on Mike's question and point because 


I think it's so terribly important. This Board 


in its review function, be it a review of site 


profiles or the review of petition evaluation 


reports, is grappling with those very issues 


that -- that Mike mentions. It's a terribly 


vexing problem. And again, at times it's taken 


the Board's working groups literally months to 


try and grapple with these issues. They are 

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not trivial issues and Mike makes an 


outstanding point. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. GIBSON: Lew, if I could follow up -- and 


again, I just -- you know, I don't want to get 


on my soap box again, but you know, the site 


profiles were, for the most part -- and I've 


still never heard from my question from months 


ago, how many were generated by hourly or 


salaried workers in the field that were not 


management or in charge of the radiation 


protection program in some form or manner. 


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


rhetorical question or an actual question, but 


 MR. GIBSON: That's an actual question and it's 


a -- I guess it's a repeated request to get an 


answer to that question. You know, people -- 


people that had their -- their nose out there 


in the field, why aren't they site experts? 


Why are the site experts only the people that 


were in the radiation -- radiation protection 


programs? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, Mike, everybody that worked 


at a site we consider to be a site expert. 

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That's why we felt it important to capture in 


an interview what experiences that Energy 


employee had. And I recognize that survivors 


are at a great disadvantage, but you know, I 


would answer your question that everybody who 


worked at a site we view as a site expert. As 


an industrial hygienist, I believe that the 


best story I can hear is the one from the guy 


who's working on a shop floor. He can tell me 


whether or not the procedures that were written 


for him are really workable and followable or 


not, does he have ways that he gets his job 


done without those procedures. And so that's 


why we felt it very important to use interviews 


to capture that on an individual basis. 


I don't know, quite frankly, to answer your 


question, how many site profiles or Technical 


Basis Documents have been developed and drafted 


in the ORAU team by people who served as 


experts --


 MR. GIBSON: Actual (unintelligible) -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- site experts or managers at a 


given site. We will see what happens as this 


conflict of interest policy is -- is -- will be 


applied and we'll see what changes result from 

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that. 


 DR. WADE: I mean Mike has asked this question 


repeatedly and -- Mike, this is Lew Wade. If 


you will work with me off-line, I think we need 


to put your question in writing and have it 


submitted. It's not an easy question to frame. 


I understand. I think many of us who hear your 


question understand the spirit in which it's 


being offered, but I think we need to put it in 


writing and then see to the best possible -- 


the best people's capabilities that we get you 


an answer to your question. I think it's best 


rendered in writing, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: Okay. Thanks, Lew. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other questions 

for Larry? 

 (No responses) 

Okay, it appears not. Thank you again, Larry, 


for that report. 


DOL PROGRAM UPDATE
 

Let's move on to the next program update which 


is from the Department of Labor, and Jeff 


Kotsch is here today and, Jeff, I'll turn the 


podium over to you. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Good afternoon, all and -- good 

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afternoon, all, and I'd like to thank the Board 


for the opportunity for DOL to give an update. 


Pete Turcic, our Director, is tied up in a DOL 


management meeting in Philadelphia so he's -- 


so I'm here instead. 


And just a quick overview of what Labor does as 


far as cases that involved the Energy Employees 


Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. 


The part the we're interested in here comes 


from Part B, which became effective in July of 


2001, and to date -- and most of these slides 


are dated -- or have information as of 


September 11th, and unfortunately a lot of our 


numbers -- you'll see discrepancies, or at 


least differences with NIOSH's numbers, 


partially due to the time we take the snapshot 


of the data, partially due to the -- the 


tracking mechanisms that are inherent in both 


the system that NIOSH uses and the system that 


Labor uses. We've had continuing efforts to 


try to match -- or better integrate these 


numbers and coordinate the numbers, but 


unfortunately we're not always successful or at 


least -- in trying to keep them in the same -- 


same step. 

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 To date we've had 53,583 cases from -- which 


involve 76,540 claims. Just again, there are 


always more claims than cases because cases 


involving survivors, such as children, will 


always generate a -- or may have more than -- 


two or more children. We've had 34,346 cancer 


cases and have referred 22,260 cases to NIOSH. 


Now on the Part E side, this is the program we 


inherited through an amendment to the Act which 


was enacted in October of 2004, this is part of 


the program, Part D -- I mean Part E, which is 


the Part D from the Department of Energy and on 


that side, and this is the toxic chemical side 


of the program. B is primarily cancers, 


silicosis claims for the miners and the tunnel 


workers at Amchitka and Nevada Test Site, the 


beryllium -- chronic beryllium and beryllium 


sensitivity; and the RECA program, the 


Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which 


comes out of Department of Justice that we 


augment based on the Act. 


Getting back to Part E for October of 41,474 


cases, there are the number of claims, we 


carried over from the DOE program -- or they 


provided to us 26,547 cases, basically on the 

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effective date, which was June 2005. And since 


then we've pretty much gone through -- we had a 


target to try to get -- sift through at least 


75 percent of those cases as far as initial 


work getting those process -- in process and 


reached that goal a few weeks ago. 


To date -- again, September 11th -- Department 


of Labor has provided $2.1 billion from total 


compensation. The Part B program is $1.7 


billion of that, the Part E program is $456 


million and you see the other breakdowns. The 


other portion of that are the medical benefits 


that we provide to the living employees and 


that's, to date, $122 million. 


As far as the payees go, total has been about 


24,500 for total payees under the Act. The 


bulk of those, 20,800, are Part B payees for -- 


mostly for cancers -- cases, but also included 


in there but not shown specifically are the 


beryllium diseases -- or chronic beryllium 


disease and beryllium sensitivity and silicosis 


claims. The distri-- and again, in there are 


the RECA and the cancer cases. And the Part E 


payees were 3,700. 


As far as --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Jeff --

 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- excuse me, could you speak a 

little louder? I think some in the audience 


are having difficulty. Maybe -- I don't know 


if you can get that mike up to you or -- do we 


have a lavaliere mike available? 


 MR. KOTSCH: I'll just -- I'll just get closer. 


Part B cancer case status, to date 52,154 


claims have been filed on 34,346 cases. I was 


-- I was going to work this from the bottom up, 


just to -- and provide a brief overview of the 


way the program works. If you look at the 


bottom, we've got about 2,900 cases that are 


pending DOL initial action, so these are cases 


that come into the program, into the District 


Offices -- the four District Offices scattered 


around the country -- and have to have initial 


development. They have to determine -- the 


claims examiners have to determine whether 


there is a -- in the case of a cancer, whether 


there is medical evidence to support the 


cancer, whether there's employment to a -- to a 


covered facility, whether it be a DOE or an AWE 


facility, whether there is the appropriate 

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survivor information if it's a survivor claim. 


When we send the claims to NIOSH, and currently 


we've got about 6,300 claims at NIOSH -- or 


cases at NIOSH, then NIOSH does the dose 


reconstructions and the next level there is 


2,436 cases with recommended but no final 


decisions. These are cases that dose 


reconstruction has been returned, the claimant 


has it in their hands, the District Office has 


rendered a recommended decision. At this point 


the claimant has the opportunity generally, if 


it's a denied case, to appeal the process -- 


the first appeal in the process where they can 


object to the recommended decision and either 


ask for a review of the written record by the 


FAB, which is the Final Adjudication Branch, 


which is separate from the District Offices, or 


ask for a hearing to present additional 


information that they feel is necessary that 


Labor hear to decide whether they -- sub-- 


submit that information in -- as an objection 


to the case. That information is incorporated 


in the final decision that's rendered by the 


Final Adjudication Branch and results in the 


final decision, which -- which we have 22 

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thousand and about 800 of those cases to date. 


And the way that they -- the cases distribute 


that average final decision, there is 8,297 


acceptances and 14,503 denials. And the 


breakdown next to that primarily shows -- the 


biggest component of the denials are POCs 


generated by the dose reconstructions of less 


than 50 percent. Other categories are non-


covered employment -- they're not a -- we 


couldn't verify employment at a DOE or an AWE 


facility; insufficient medical evidence to 


support the cancer claim -- these are all the 


cancer cases; and ineligible survivor is a 


minor component; and other, which is primarily 


still the fact that they have -- do not have a 


covered cancer. They may have had another 


medical condition which initially in the 


program wasn't addressed by the program but now 


under Part E can be addressed -- a non-- a non-


cancer condition. 


 We're showing -- well, again, based on our 


statistics from our program -- that we've 


referred 22,260 cases to NIOSH. We've had --


we're showing 16,480 returned. A number of 


those have -- were withdrawn, like -- like 

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Larry mentioned, for different reasons. 


Sometimes we continue to review -- District 


Offices continue to review. They find that the 


case is no longer supportable. Maybe an 


employee died, there's no more survivors, maybe 


the cancer condition that was there was -- for 


some reason additional development continued 


and they could no longer support that, or 


employment issues were raised, for whatever 


reasons. So we're down to 15,128 dose 


reconstructions which have been returned. This 


rework number is different, radically lower 


than the NIOSH numbers. And since I'm one of 


the two people that basically send the reworks 


to NIOSH, that -- our number looks lower than 


what it seems like I do -- that we do every 


week. And we still have, at least in our 


records, showing about 5,800 referrals at 


NIOSH. So with number 14,377 with dose 


reconstructions, 11,000 -- about 11,700 have 


resulted in final decisions and 1,783 have 


resulted in --


 DR. WADE: You're going to have to hold the 


mike closer and speak more clearly, or maybe 


even a bit slower, if you don't mind. 

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 MR. KOTSCH: All right. 


 DR. WADE: We're having trouble. Just hold it 


real -- maybe an inch or so from your mouth. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Is that better now? 


 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Sorry, I should have done that -- 


sorry, I should have done that earlier. So 


anyway, we're showing 14,377 cases with dose 


reconstructions, of which about 11,700 have 


resulted in final decisions; 1,783 are at the 


recommended, but no final decision stage; and 


we're pending about 900 cases in the process of 


a recommended decision. 


And this slide is just a breakdown of those 


11,582 final decisions as far as the approvals, 


which are about 3,371 and the denials about 


8,200, and a distribution also of whether 


they're specified or non-specified cancers. 


The general number -- it seems across the board 


that both NIOSH and we have found is split -- 


generally is specified cancers -- those in that 


category run about 60 percent of all cancers, 


you know, of that type. 


Now under the new SEC related cases, here again 


this number's different. We're showing 884 

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withdrawn for SEC reviews. This is -- these 


are just on basically the first six SEC 


classes, the two Mallinckrodt classes, the two 


Iowa Ordnance classes, the early Y-12 -- the 


1943 to '47 SEC class; and the Linde Ceramics 


class. From these we're -- we've had 690 final 


decisions, of which 592 have been approvals. 


I'm not sure of all the basis for the denials 


that are there, but probably a number of them 


are related to the fact that they probably did 


not have 250 day-- or did not meet the 250-day 


requirement and then went back -- or remained 


in the -- the dose reconstruction process; 171 


cases are in the recommended but no final 


decision process, and 23 are pending -- have 


been received by the District Office and are 


pending the writing of the recommended 


decision. 


I forgot to mention before, it's at that stage 


where we are pending -- you know, as the 


recommended decision is written, that's where 


the bulk of the reworks come, when they come, 


and go back to NIOSH. And again, as Larry 


mentioned, the bulk of them are because of -- 


at that point in time as the -- as the claims 

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examiners are reviewing the case, they find -- 


they may find evidence of additional cancers, 


and they find evidence of additional employment 


for -- these are for non-compensable cases -- 


or other additional survivors, which really 


doesn't impact the dose reconstruction as much 


as just providing the opportunity for those 


survivors to have a -- have an interview and 


determine whether there will be anything 


significant to affect the dose reconstruction. 


NIOSH cases related to compensation, we have 


paid $572 million out to 5,420 payees in, 


again, 3,825 cases. From dose reconstruction 


cases, that's $487 million to about 4,500 


payees and another $85 million for the new SEC 


classes. These are the non-statutory ones 


after the Act, in 571 cases. 


 These last couple of slides are just 


information on three of the SECs that are going 


to be discussed this week. They're not --


Larry, in his slides, had the actual number of 


cases that are affected. These are cases that 


to date have been -- been through the process 


and resulted in final decisions in -- in some 


of the cases. ORINS is the Oak Ridge Institute 

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for Nuclear Studies, 59 cases. NIOSH has 


worked 21 to DR. We've gotten final decisions 


on the Part B side for 24, approvals for eight 


on the B, six separately on the Part E side, 


and then a total compensation of $1.4 million. 


 For LANL, that's whole -- 20,077 (sic) cases, 


388 dose reconstructions by NIOSH, 1,490 


roughly final decisions under Part B, 183 Part 


B approvals, separately 161 Part E, and about 


$24 million in compensation there. 


And then the S-50 thermal diffusion plant, 23 


cases, five dose reconstructions, eight finals 


on the B side, three approvals on the B side, 


three on the E side, and then $700,000. 


And then the last slide is Nevada Test Site and 


Pacific Proving Ground -- and again, those are 


just the numbers of cases that have been done 


through, in this case, September 9th. So 241 


cases from Pacific Proving Grounds, 12 were 


worked -- 12 dose reconstructions were worked 


by NIOSH, 143 decisions for Part B -- primarily 


a lot of them on I think on employment or 


(unintelligible) kinds of things, covered 


facility type of thing; Part B approvals, 13; 


separately ten for Part E to -- to result in 

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$2.6 million in compensation. 


And then at the Test Site, 2,442 cases, 672 


DRs, final Part B decisions of 1,577, 749 B -- 


B approvals, another 160 Part E approvals for 


$38 million. 


And -- that -- that's blank. Anyway, that's 


it. Any questions? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jeff. Let's open this 


for questions. First Mark Griffon. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Jeff, going back to the question 


on the reworks, I was -- I was wondering if you 


can tell us, from DOL's perspective, what -- 


what are some of the scientific or technical 


reasons that you've had in mind when you asked 


NIOSH to do reworks. I'm not talking about an 


additional cancer, but some of the scientific 


or technical reasons. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Well, early on we were saying we 


would see some objections -- I think Larry 


mentioned it -- as far as say Bethlehem Steel 


where we're getting ingestion questions on them 


-- on that before we -- the site profile was 


redone. We had similar questions as Savannah 


River Site on ingestion I think before that -- 


well, I guess that one's still in the process, 

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but early on for that. I think we had a couple 


at Iowa Ordnance, ingestion or on-site 


consumption of water. The -- you know, the 


objection was made that, you know, exposure 


pathways were -- were present for those -- for 


those people and we -- we considered that 


reasonable as far as a technical objection goes 


from -- from the claimants. 


We have other ones where occasionally we -- we 


-- and I'm trying to just think specifically, 


but where we -- oh, we look at the procedures, 


the TIBs that drive their dose reconstructions 


and we don't -- we -- we're not -- sometimes 


we're not sure exactly how they arrived at the 


calculation and we just go back for 


clarification. 


What I need to do is maybe next time put 


together a list of some of those things. We've 


done that informally, not just -- and I'm 


drawing a blank as far as reasons, and there 


are not that many total technical ones that 


drive us towards reworks as much as, like I 


said, the other types of things that drive us 


towards rework. But we can put that together 


'cause that -- we informally exchange that with 

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NIOSH anyway. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that would be helpful if you 


could bring that back to this next meeting. 


 The other issue that came up -- and again, I'm 


not sure you're ready to answer, but we'd asked 


Pete Turcic I think at the last meeting if he 


would -- some of the issues that came up with 


defining the classes within the SEC and -- you 


know, sort of employment classification issues 


and so forth, and we were looking for feedback 


on that also and --


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I --

 DR. MELIUS: -- it might be too early. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Let me remind Pete. We'll work on 

that one, too, for the next meeting. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it would be helpful. 


Thanks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any other questions -- 


 MR. GIBSON: (Unintelligible) question, too. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- comments? Dr. Wade? 


 DR. WADE: I'd like to make a -- just a general 


comment. 


 MR. CLAWSON: It sounded like Mike had one. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Hang on, Mike, just a second. 

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78

 DR. WADE: Just following up on Mark's 


question, I think it might be very appropriate 


when the subcommittee on dose reconstruction 


meets next to ask DOL to come in with those 


numbers 'cause I think that's very valuable 


information for the subcommittee to consider in 


terms of the overall quality of the program. 


So I think we should try and schedule that as 


part of the agenda. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mike, did you have a 

question? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yes, Paul. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 

 MR. GIBSON: For Mr. Kotsch, also, you know, 

just as a follow-up, under subpart E when they 


make their determinations, they're still basing 


them on DOE records, I guess, you know, and 


that's the whole point of this program. The 


Department of Energy, whether it's radiation 


exposure or toxic exposures, you know, then-


Secretary Richardson admitted they had not 


properly monitored workers. So how -- how are 


they making determinations under even subpart E 


when there's obviously -- it seems to be 


obviously -- a lack in full and -- and -- full 

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records. 


 MR. KOTSCH: For the -- for the Part E program 


we're -- we're doing a number of things to 


determine what toxic materials were present at 


the sites, including creating what we call site 


exposure matrices which are kind of clo-- 


somewhat like site profiles that NIOSH uses. 


We have a contractor that goes out with us to 


the different sites. We have tabletop meetings 


with the workers that -- we obviously start 


with (unintelligible) available from DOE or if 


there's decommissioning or other kinds of work 


that was done at the sites, we pick up that 


information, too, but we get information from 


the workers as far as what they think they were 


exposed to. We get the -- the MSDS sheets. 


know they're more recent, but they do project 


backwards somewhat as far as what materials 


were present at the sites. We often assume 


that a number of materials were present at most 


of the DOE sites, and of course Part E is 


applicable only to DOE sites, you know, and so 


we consider things like asbestos to be 


ubiquitous to all -- all sites, basically, as 


well as a number of the normal -- what you 


I 
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might consider the normal range of chemicals, 


the (unintelligible) series, the other solvents 


that were used, things like that. So there's a 


number of inputs that are being assembled as -- 


and we're not done with all the sites by any 


means and will continue to update the databases 


on the toxic materials that are present at 


those sites. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It appears that Mike may be asking 


also, in the absence of either any exposure 


information or questionable exposure 


information, do you assume that a given worker 


therefore was exposed to those things that were 


on site? Do you make a -- something equivalent 


to the claimant-favorable assumptions that 


NIOSH does in --


 MR. KOTSCH: Yeah, I -- it's not me, but we do 


have industrial hygienists and toxicologists on 


staff, and then (unintelligible) who look at 


all these things, and it's a little more 


subjective than the B side, it's not quite as 


quantitative, but yeah, I think they're leaning 


us towards assuming that the materials are 


present and then determining, if they can or as 


best they can, whether there's potential -- 

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 MR. GIBSON: I guess --

 MR. KOTSCH: -- for causation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike, go ahead. 

 MR. GIBSON: I guess I'm asking and -- and Dr. 

Ziemer I think tried to get a -- an answer, but 


I didn't really hear a positive answer. Is it 


claimant favorable that if those substances 


were at the site, how do you determine or are 


you claimant favorable that those employees 


were exposed to that substance? 


 MR. KOTSCH: Again, we can probably speak to 


this better at a next meeting if -- some of you 


-- I'm not as conversant on Part E, but -- as 


far as how we're actually implementing the 


program, but I think it -- it is tending to be 


claimant favorable if they are -- you know, if 


it's determined that -- you know, if there's -- 


if there's some evidence that the material was 


on that site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And perhaps that could be followed 


up, but it, in a sense, is outside of our 


jurisdiction but it does relate I think, 


philosophically at least, to how programs are 


administered. 


 DR. WADE: While it's outside our jurisdiction, 

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I -- I mean I think an answer at the next 


meeting would be appropriate. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Further comments or questions? 


 (No responses) 


Thank you, Jeff, for that update. We 


appreciate it. 


 DR. WADE: You want a break? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We will take a 15-minute break. 


want to remind folks if -- there -- there is a 


public comment session today at 5:00 o'clock. 


If you would like to participate in that, 


please be sure to sign up on the sign-up sheet 


in the foyer. We'll reconvene at 3:15. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:00 p.m. 


to 3:20 p.m.) 


SCIENCE ISSUES


 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready to reconvene our 


session. If you would take your seats, we will 


proceed. 


(Pause) 


Thanks, Joe; thanks, Mike; thanks, Richard for 


sitting down rapidly. 


We're now going to consider a number of issues 


under the category of science issues, and Brant 


Ulsh from NIOSH is going to make the 


I 
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presentation. Brant, thank you. You may 


proceed. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer and members of 


the Advisory Board. Do I need to hold the 


microphone in my hand or can you all hear me 


clearly? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe -- maybe bring it up a 


little bit. 


 DR. ULSH: Looks like I'm going to have to walk 


and chew gum at the same time. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, hold it real close. Hold it 

close. 

 MS. MUNN: And maybe dance. 

 DR. ULSH: I'm going to talk about a number of 


issues that fall under the umbrella of science 


issues today. Ordinarily you might hear this 


presentation from Dr. Neton, and as Larry 


mentioned earlier, we certainly all wish him a 


speedy recovery. I would like to echo that. 


Dr. Neton is -- you know, I consider him a 


friend, and so I send out thoughts of him on 


that basis, but I also have a lot of purely 


selfish reasons to wish him a speedy recovery. 


I'm finding out over the past couple of weeks 


just how much of a load Dr. Neton normally 

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carries on his shoulders, so I wish him a 


speedy recovery. 


So there are three primary topics that I'm 


going to cover today, the first of which is a 


general coworker methodology and how NIOSH 


applies that methodology. The second is 


related, and that is the construction/trade 


worker TIB. And finally I'll give just a brief 


update on a couple of items of scientific 


interest, oro-nasal breathing and ingestion. 


All right. First of all, the general coworker 


methodology. One of the other things that I've 


been involved with lately is the Rocky Flats 


SEC petition, and this issue has come up in 


that context, but it's not only limited to that 


context. And the reason that I want to give 


just some general words on this, I think the 


concerns that we've heard expressed in the 


context of the Rocky Flats situation are also 


concerns that we see from workers at other 


sites about how do we go about applying 


coworker data to unmonitored individuals. 


So first of all I want to tell you when we 


might apply coworker data. First of all, the 


first two bullets here show situations where 

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workers are either unmonitored, they have no 


monitoring data at all; or monitoring is 


incomplete, there are gaps in their monitoring 


records. And in those situations we might 


consider coworker data. 


That's not necessarily a given because we have 


other strategies -- dose reconstruction 


strategies that we can employ. We have some 


overestimating approaches we can use, and we 


also have underestimating approaches that we 


can use. 


 The situations where we would resort to 


coworker methodologies are when the 


overestimating techniques and underestimating 


techniques that we have are not appropriate. 


And an example might be we typically apply 


overestimating approaches when the claim does 


not look like it's going to achieve a 


probability of causation of 50 percent or 


greater. If we overestimate it and the 


probability of causation is still less than 50 


percent, then we can consider that claim 


complete. On the other hand, if we apply those 


overestimating approaches and it results in a 


probability of causation above 50 percent, 

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well, then that approach is not appropriate and 


we might have to resort to coworker data in 


that situation. 


And of course all of this is predicated on the 


existence of suitable coworker data for a site. 


All right, I want to spend a little bit of time 


on this first bullet because I think this is 


one of the biggest misconceptions about what we 


do when we apply coworker data in dose 


reconstructions. And first I want to talk 


about what we do not do. 


We do not take data from a monitored worker, an 


individual monitored worker, and apply it to an 


individual unmonitored worker. That has to be 


done very, very carefully. You have to be 


comfortable that those two workers did similar 


duties and received similar doses, and we don't 


normally have the degree of comfort that would 


let us do that. So I -- I know that some 


people think that that -- that that might be 


what we would do, that we would take monitored 


data -- data from a monitored person and apply 


it to an unmonitored person. We do not. 


To make sure that we are being claimant 


favorable in applying coworker approaches, 

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instead we look at the distribution of 


monitoring data that exists from all workers at 


a particular site for that particular time 


period. 


So to put this into more concrete -- concrete 


terms, if you think of a site like perhaps 


Hanford where you have a number of people who 


are monitored, thousands of people who are 


monitored in a particular year, say -- I don't 


know, 1966. If you have an unmonitored worker 


in 1966, a person who was not monitored, and on 


DOE sites these tend to be people who had lower 


exposure potentials. Now I don't want to over-


generalize that statement. But in general, at 


least at the DOE sites they made an attempt to 


capture the most exposed people in their 


monitoring programs. 


So we look at the distribution of everyone who 


was monitored for a particular period, and we 


pick a claimant-favorable percentile value. 


And what I mean when I say that, usually we use 


the 95th percentile unless we have some pretty 


solid evidence to use another value. So in 


true scientific fashion you might ask well, 


okay, now we've got a situation, we've got a 

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technique set up; let's try to poke some holes 


in it, so where would this be inappropriate to 


apply coworker data with this methodology? 


Well, first of all, the unmonitored worker 


would not only have to have received a 


significant dose, but he would have had to 


receive a dose that was higher than 95 percent 


of the monitored population. And that's why we 


pick that 95 percent because that's really not 


a very credible scenario, in most cases. The 


monitored people tend to be the process 


operator types, and so they've received the 


highest doses at the sites and we further 


ensure that by using the 95th percentile. 


Okay, now to a more specific example of this. 


I've been talking in generalities. This is a 


topic of great interest to certainly a subset 


of our claimants, and this is the construction 


trade workers, and we have just issued -- just 


finalized TIB-52, and so this is a subset of 


unmonitored workers that we're attempting to 


come up with some methodologies that would let 


us perform their dose reconstructions. 


Now the purpose of this TIB is to -- I'm sorry, 


TIB, Technical Information Bulletin. The 

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purpose of this TIB is to allow us to perform 


dose reconstructions for unmonitored 


construction and trade workers, and I'm going 


to talk to you right now about who that 


includes. Here's a list of about a dozen job 


titles that characterize the construction trade 


workers. (Unintelligible) from laborers, 


mechanics, pipe fitters -- I'm not going to 


read through the whole list, but there are 


about a dozen there. And as Larry told you 


before the break, we have about 4,120 claims 


from construction trade workers. We've 


completed dose reconstructions on about 3,200 


of those, and about 900 are still awaiting a 


dose reconstruction. So this is a sizeable 


group of our claimants. 


 Construction trade workers could have worked on 


a DOE site at any time period. We haven't 


limited this to any particular years. And they 


could have been employed by an M&O or by prime 


contractors or even subcontractors, and they 


may or may not have been monitored. 


We have several sources of data available to us 


to come up with the methodologies that we're 


going to use to do dose reconstructions for 

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these folks. At Rocky Flats we had electronic 


databases for both internal and external. And 


similarly at Savannah River, we also had that 


data; the three sites in Oak Ridge, and also at 


Hanford. And for the Idaho National Laboratory 


we had external data. And when I say this, I'm 


not saying that there aren't data for other 


sites. I'm only saying that this data was 


available to us in readily-retrievable time 


frame to allow us to conduct -- or to construct 


this coworker TIB. 


Okay, first of all, external data. I know most 


of the Board members and -- this might be new 


to you. When we talk about external data, 


we're talking about radiation that you receive 


from sources outside of your body. We looked 


at data for the construction -- the subset of 


workers who are construction trade workers, and 


we also looked at the external data for all 


monitored workers. That includes the 


construction trade workers and others. And we 


took the ratio of the construction trade 


workers, the CTWs, and compared those to the 


all monitored workers, AMWs, at the 95th 


percentile because that's going to be at the 

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most relevant metric for this TIB and we wanted 


to ensure we were being claimant-favorable to 


the CTWs. And we plotted this ratio on an 


irregular basis. 


 Well, that didn't turn out too bad. Okay, 


there's a lot of things on this slide that I 


want to make sure and point out to you. First 


of all, this is dose that is aggregated over 


five different sites. Those five sites are the 


three sites in Oak Ridge -- X-10, K-25 and Y-12 


-- and also the Savannah River Site and the 


Rocky Flats Plant. And this shows the external 


dose at the 95th percentile across the years of 


operation of those sites. And if I don't push 


the wrong button -- here we go. This curve on 


top with the circles represents all monitored 


workers. The curve on the bottom with the Xs 


represents the construction trade workers. 


And one thing that I want to point out to you 


is this line right here (indicating). We had a 


lot of data available, 200,000-plus dosimetry 


histories for construction trade workers and 


over a million for all monitored workers. So 


we had extensive data available to us. 


Another trend that I want to point out to you 

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is in the early years there's some bouncing 


around, but you see a general decline in 


external dose as we approach the present day. 


And also, at least for this aggregate data, you 


can see that in general -- and there are a few 


years that are exceptions -- but in general the 


all monitored workers are above the 


construction trade workers. Now there are 


certainly a few years here that that is not 


true, and that's what we were concerned about. 


We want to make sure that we are claimant-


favorable to the construction trade workers, so 


we were particularly interested in those 


particular years where the all monitored 


workers did not bound the construction trade 


workers. 


Oops -- uh-oh, I'm going to have to put this 


down and go back. 


(Pause) 


Okay. We used this data, the data that I just 


showed you in the previous slide, to determine 


an adjustment factor. And this is a factor 


that we're going to apply to the all monitored 


worker data to ensure that we're being claimant 


favorable to the construction trade workers. 

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And we looked at those few DOE sites where that 


ratio of construction trade workers to all 


monitored workers was greater than one, and 


those represent the situations where the 


construction trade workers had higher dose than 


the all monitored workers. And we looked at 


that prior to 1961 because, as I showed you on 


a previous slide, that was the years of highest 


exposure for the worker populations. During 


the later years the doses were actually 


significantly lower. 


 Now the maximum value that we observed for that 


ratio in those years was approximately 1.4, and 


what we propose to do is to apply that 1.4 


adjustment factor to the all monitored workers 


at a particular site. Now this I -- this I 


want to emphasize. If you -- if we have an 


unmonitored construction trade worker from say 


Fernald, we are going to take the coworker data 


from Fernald and apply this 1.4 adjustment 


factor, just to make sure that we're being 


claimant favorable to the construction trade 


workers. 


 Now the internal dose side. This is from 


material that has gotten into your body, either 

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ingested, inhaled or injected through wounds. 


What we found here is that the construction 


trade workers and the all monitored workers 


were very similar in almost all cases; similar 


enough that we were comfortable using all 


monitored workers to apply to the construction 


trade workers. 


Now the exception is Hanford. I see Wanda's 


ears perking up already. At Hanford the 


construction trade workers seldom were included 


in the routine bioassay program. More 


frequently the construction trade workers 


received bioassays in special situations where 


an intake was suspected. And so that -- that 


fact led us to conclude that using the 


construction trade worker -- the construction 


trade worker data at Hanford would be biased 


high. So we wanted, again, to ensure that we 


were being favorable to the construction trade 


workers, we proposed to -- at Hanford -- 


multiply the coworker data by a factor of two 


to make sure that that adequately bounds the 


construction trade workers. 


Okay. So the guidelines that OTIB-52 provides 


for conducting dose reconstructions for these 

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individuals is to apply an adjustment factor of 


1.4 for the -- for the external data, and to 


use -- also we're going to use the 95th 


percentile unless there's very compelling 


reason to use something different. And again, 


that is going to be applied to the site-


specific coworker data. 


We're going to use the all monitored worker 


internal data to apply that to the construction 


trade workers, and for Hanford we're going to 


double the results of the internal coworker 


data. 


So to summarize, we now have this -- this 


table's been finalized and issued, and so we're 


going to begin to process cases using this TIB 


for those approximately 906 construction trade 


workers who are awaiting dose reconstruction. 


 Okay, just very briefly in these last few 


slides I'm going to tell you about a topic -- a 


few topics that we are currently investigating. 


So I don't have results to tell you about, I 


just have a status report for you. 


Okay, I guess the first, most obvious, question 


is what in the world is oro-nasal breathing. 


These are two topics that came up in the 

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context of the Bethlehem Steel site profile 


review, and oro-nasal breathing -- well, I'll 


get to that on the next slide. I'm getting a 


little ahead of myself. 


We came up with a temporary -- I don't want to 


call it a temporary, but a limited solution for 


these issues at Bethlehem Steel, but we 


recognized that this is an issue that's not 


limited to Bethlehem Steel. And so we have 


been working on a resolution for those other 


sites other than Bethlehem Steel. 


So first of all, oro-nasal breathing. The 


ICRP, which is the expert -- international 


expert body dealing with radiation protection, 


they describe about 85 percent of the 


population as nasal augmenters. And what that 


means is that 85 percent of us breathe mostly 


through our mouth -- most of us are mouth 


breathers, but especially when activity levels 


increase we start to supplement our breathing 


through our nose, so this is what oro-nasal 


breathing is. Fifteen percent of us are pure 


mouth breathers. So ICRP has issued a lung 


model, ICRP-66, and those parameters in that 


model are affected by such factors as the 

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breathing rate, the breathing mode, and 


particle size -- particle characteristics. 


When we look at standard-setting bodies, bodies 


that set dose limits, they typically do not 


consider mouth breathers because they're a 


small percentage of the population. Well, 


again, we want to make sure that we are 


adequately capturing the uncertainty in 


internal doses, so we are certainly interested 


in the impact of oro-nasal breathing on our 


internal dose reconstructions. 


Now just to give you an example -- I know you 


probably can't see the details here, but just 


to give you an example why we might be 


interested in this, this left panel shows nasal 


augmenters -- that's 85 percent of us -- and 


you can see that for the pure mouth breathers 


it's a little bit higher in some situations. 


So again, we do have reason to want to make 


sure that we are not underestimating anyone's 


internal dose. 


Okay, the next topic -- the last topic -- is 


ingestion. Now this is one of three modes of 


intake. In other words, how can I get 


radioactive material inside my body. Well, 

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one, I can inhale it. If it's a dusty 


environment like a uranium -- where they're 


machining uranium metal, it generates dust; I 


can inhale that. That's one method. 


I might be unfortunate enough to get a splinter 


of radioactive material in say my finger. 


That's injection. That's the second method. 


This is the third method. If I get dust on my 


hands and I rub my lips and then I lick it, 


swallow that, that's ingestion. I might eat 


contaminated foodstuffs. My lunch was sitting 


out and the dust -- radioactive material 


settled on my sandwich and I ate it. This is 


ingestion. 


So this is the next issue that also surfaced 


during the Bethlehem Steel site profile review 


that we are interested in. Now typically in a 


laboratory setting this is not a large source 


of intake, but the same cannot necessarily be 


said of AWE employers because there were far 


less rigorous controls at the AWE employers, so 


we're very interested in this issue in 


particular for those types of operations. And 


we have addressed this ingestion issue on 


specific case by case bases in our TIBs and our 

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TBDs, but we recognize that we need to come up 


with a more cross-cutting approach to this 


issue. 


So for both of these issues we are evaluating 


their impact on our dose reconstructions. We 


are working with our contractors at EG&G to 


look at both of these issues, to conduct 


comprehensive literature reviews -- and that'll 


be one product, is the literature review. I 


think we anticipate completing that by the 


middle of October. And then hopefully by the 


end of this year we'll follow on with technical 


reports that deal with both of these issues. 


And that is the end of what I have, so I'll be 


happy to entertain questions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Brant. Let's 


open the floor for questions. John Poston. 


 DR. POSTON: Brant, there's -- I see another 


reason that Jim Neton should hurry back. 


 DR. ULSH: Uh-oh. 


 DR. POSTON: Nice presentation. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you. 


 DR. POSTON: It seems to me that, even though 


you tried to separate these into several 


different categories, that your ingestion and 

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your mouth breathing are really two horses in 


the same garage, as my advisor used to say -- I 


had not a clue what that meant, but anyway -- 


because if you breathe through your mouth, the 


most likely pathway is ingestion, not 


inhalation, for the materials that you take 


into your -- into your mouth. So have you 


given some thought or -- to that or are you 


really going to try to separate these into two 


-- two issues? 


 DR. ULSH: We certainly have given that some 


thought; thank you, Dr. Poston. I certainly 


don't have the internal dosimetry expertise of 


Dr. Neton, but I -- I do understand that the 


ICRP-66 model does also include for the 


mechanism of ingestion. When materials are 


inhaled, some of that, especially the larger 


particles, are -- they come back up through the 


tracheal bronchial pathways and they are 


swallowed and ingested, so that is certainly a 


consideration that we are keeping in mind as we 


approach these issues. 


 DR. POSTON: And this can be a yes or no 


question. My recollection was that ICRP-66 


included considerations for things like mouth 

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breathers, pregnant women, those kinds of 


things -- people that didn't breathe normally, 


let's say -- as their reference person. Is 


that correct? 


 DR. ULSH: I think that is correct. Perhaps it 


wasn't -- it was a little less clear than it 


should have been on my slide. ICRP-66 does 


include those kinds of parameters. However, in 


standard-setting bodies, as I understand it, 


don't typically explicitly consider mouth 


breathers. 


 DR. POSTON: Do you anticipate any change in 


the particle size considerations, because that 


was one thing that the ICRP did, they went from 


one micron to five microns in their new model, 


and that certainly impacts the distribution of 


the particles that one would inhale and the -- 


the whole respiratory system. 


 DR. ULSH: I think that is certainly an issue 


that we're going to consider in our evaluation. 


We tend -- we tend to be very careful about 


crossing ICRP. If we depart from ICRP guidance 


we certainly want to have a good basis for 


doing that, so we're going to approach that 


issue very carefully. 

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 DR. POSTON: And one final comment that doesn't 


require a response. It seems to me with these 


adjustment factors that you're proposing, 


you're bending over backwards to make it 


compensable, and so that seems to me you're 


really trying to work hard to -- to make the 


doses perhaps very fair and reasonable to the ­

- for the construction workers. Thank you. 


 DR. ULSH: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Dr. Melius and then Dr. 


Lockey. 


 DR. WADE: Let Jim go first. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Dr. Lockey will go first. 


 DR. LOCKEY: I have a couple of questions. 


One, when you look at inhalation, in the nose 


two-thirds back it goes to the (unintelligible) 


pharynx and is swallowed -- in the mouth is 


swallowed and any large particles 


(unintelligible) permanently deposited and 


eventually are swallowed, too, through the 


endobronchial tree through mucociliary 


transmechanism, so the swallowing mechanism is 


going to take place nasal breathing, oral 


breathing and from the lower respiratory tract, 


so how do you take that in your model? 

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 DR. ULSH: I don't know. You've just gotten so 


far down the route that I can't answer that. 


Sam Glover is our NIOSH internal dosimetry 


expert, and I would have to go back to Sam and 


get some clarification on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Probably John can answer this, but 


the lung models do assume a certain percent of 


clearance by swallowing and it's -- it's 


particle-size dependent. Those big particles 


come up the -- what's it called, the tracheal 


bronchial (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. LOCKEY: Mucociliary, right. Well, the 


models include the consideration of the 


mucociliary escalator. They also include the 


macrophages and -- what about the upper airway, 


what about the two-thirds -- back two-thirds of 


the upper level goes back (unintelligible) 


pharynx. 


 DR. POSTON: That typically is -- would -- in 


the model, if it's particulates, then it would 


actually be inhaled, but some of it would be 


cleared to the -- to the gastrointestinal 


tract. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Well, the upper level clears your 


large particulates, so the large ones are going 

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to go to the GI tract. 


 DR. POSTON: Now the model that they use now in 


the ICRP-66 model is pretty complex. I'm not 


sure it's any better than the old model, but 


it's -- they do try to take all that into 


account. 


 DR. LOCKEY: I have one other question. On --


on the slide it looks at external dose aggre-- 


aggregated over five major sites. Can you pull 


that slide up for me? 


 DR. ULSH: Yes, sir. This one? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Correct. As I understand it -- I 


mean I looked at approximately 1960 and the 


construction worker estimates there really 


dropped down in 1960. Are you going to apply 


the 1.4 factor -- how are you going to apply 


that (unintelligible) 1960? 


 DR. ZIEMER: We are going to apply the 1.4 


factor across all years. Now one thing that I 


want to point out here, Dr. Lockey, is that 


this is aggregated data. And the reason that 


we are applying that 1.4 factor across all 


years is that if you look at the specific 


sites, the individual sites in individual 


years, that is the maximum -- that will ensure 

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that we capture -- bound the construction trade 


workers for those years. So in effect, this 


graph is -- it's aggregated the sites, but you 


do see individual years at individual sites 


where all monitored workers are not bound -- 


that they don't bound the construction trade 


workers. That's why we're going to apply that. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Well, nevertheless, if I was a AMW 


-- okay? 


 DR. ULSH: Uh-huh. 


 DR. LOCKEY: And from this graph, they have -- 


it would appear to me -- a significant greater 


exposure than the construction workers after 


1960, how is that going to be taken by that -- 


the AMW workers? Because in fact what you're 


doing is assigning a higher dose to that period 


of time -- substantially higher dose based on 


what this graph shows -- in comparison to the 


regular workers on the plant site five seven -- 


five days a week. 


 DR. ULSH: So you're approaching this from the 


standpoint of a non-CTW saying how am I going 


to get -- how is that fair to me when -- 


 DR. LOCKEY: Correct. I understand before 1960 


because the data supports that. 

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 DR. ULSH: Sure. 


 DR. LOCKEY: But after 1960, I just want to 


know how you're going to approach that 


question. 


 DR. ULSH: I understand. I'm fortunate enough 


to have Mel Chew, who is a subject expert on 


this particular TIB, and I'm going to ask Mel 


to field that question. 


 MR. CHEW: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


try and understand the question again. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) the mike, Mel. 


 MR. CHEW: Thank you. Please ask the question 


again so I make sure I understand your 


question, Dr. Lockey. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Looking at this graph -- I mean I 


understand the rationale for the 1.4 1960 and 


before. 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, sir. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Okay? After 1960, at least based 


on this data, it would indicate to me that 


construction workers, based on available data, 


have substantially lower exposure than the 


other workers. If you're going to apply the 


1.4 figure to the construction workers after 


1960, if I was a AMW worker I would like some 

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explanation about that because what you're 


doing is then over-- you're saying the 


construction workers have substantially higher 


exposure than the workers at the plant site on 


a regular, ongoing, daily basis after 1960. 


 MR. CHEW: Okay, let me -- let me try to answer 


your question here. I think --


 DR. WADE: Stick close to the microphone and 


keep it close to your mouth, please. 


 MR. CHEW: Maybe we should look at the graph. 


Brant very clearly said that this is a 


composite of -- of many sites here, and so in 


the first place, none of these particular 


values are not the real exposures for that 


particular site, but a composite of the sites. 


Huh? But it does show what you're -- you're 


asking about. 


In the early -- prior to -- in the 1960 time 


period there was considerable amount of work 


with construction workers on those particular 


sites, like Hanford, Savannah -- and ORNL that 


basically the construction worker was working 


on those particular sites and did receive, you 


know, doses very similar to your unmonitored 


worker. Okay? And that's very clear. 

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One of the things that show that the 


construction workers came down very quickly and 


right after 1960 is a very interesting 


artifact, and we lis-- we studied that very 


carefully and it's -- at some of the sites in 


the early days they com-- they basically took 


some of the people -- they monitored the people 


who had the highest potential for exposure. 


Okay? So not everyone necessarily was badged 


in that particular time. For that -- tho-- 


1960 period, many of the dosimeters were 


incorporated in the security badge, and so a 


lot of people were monitored. Right? 


Including construction workers who came onto 


the site and all monitored worker. Right? And 


so we do a composite of the data that -- it 


looks like the construction workers drop, but 


that possibly is -- that is due to the larger 


number of construction worker monitored which 


had very little (unintelligible) doses, and 


that explains the composite of the -- of the 


exposures here and so maybe I'm -- I hope I'm 


answering your question here. 


 DR. WADE: I'm not sure. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: If I could help you, if I could, 

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this graph a cumulative of all the dose for 


construction trade workers and all monitored 


workers across the DOE complex for those sites 


that we had readily-available data for. 


Correct? 


 MR. CHEW: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: This graph is not going to be 


used to assign dose to unmonitored construction 


trade workers for a given site. We'll use the 


individual data from that site. And your 


question is still pertinent, I believe, because 


at some site-specific instances the all 


monitored worker data will be lower than what 


we would assign under a factor of 1.4, and so 


that I think is the root of your question -- 


the thrust of your question. Does that help? 


 MR. CHEW: Can I --


 DR. LOCKEY: Yes. 


 MR. CHEW: And I think when you see the 


individual sites in the OTIB, when you get a 


chance to look at it, then I think that makes 


more sense because, as I said, this is a 


composite of... 


 DR. ZIEMER: But what Dr. Lockey appears to be 


asking is if I'm an unmonitored worker who is 

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not a construction worker and I get the -- do I 


then get an assigned dose that is less than a 


construction worker very clearly for -- if -- 


if there's a construction worker that same year 


at the site and his dose now is assigned at 


some value, say it's 150, and do I get assigned 


100, even though looking at the data it says it 


ought to be the other way around is what you're 


saying. 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, I think -- I think --


 DR. LOCKEY: That's correct --


 MR. CHEW: Oh, that's --


 DR. LOCKEY: -- that didn't -- doesn't seem to 

be... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or why don't I get a higher dose 

assigned since my construction worker colleague 


got a certain value. 


 MR. CHEW: I think, Dr. Ziemer, 


(unintelligible) asking you, this is a good 


comment. The previous scenario that the 


unmonitored construction worker could -- 


because of the artifact that we're applying the 


1.4 -- get a higher exposure assigned to him or 


her over the all monitored worker. I think 


that's your particular point. Yes, again, that 

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is true and -- and that -- that's something I 


think NIOSH is prepared to accept, right? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me add to that comment. 


I -- I believe that under the NIOSH approach, 


both workers get an exceedingly generous 


assignment of dose. 


 MR. CHEW: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: One appears to be more generous 


than the other, but nonetheless -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It is something we are aware of 


where we -- we've recognized this anomaly, 


we're not sure -- as we apply this we'll be 


monitoring when and where this particular 


scenario presents itself. We're going to have 


to look at that in greater detail. But in 


order -- the tension here is trying to treat a 


number of claims where we have no data, and do 


so as expeditiously as possible. And as we 


proceed with this, we're going to have to 


examine that closer. 


 DR. ULSH: One more point, one more perspective 


perhaps, that comes to bear on this is that 


it's certainly true that there are individual 


situations where we will be giving a higher 


dose to the CTWs than the all monitored 

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workers. But we felt that we had to do that to 


ensure that there was no case where we were 


shortchanging the CTW, so that was -- that was 


why we concluded that we really needed to do 


that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And Dr. Melius, did you have a 

follow-up? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, have a number of questions. 

This exercise you went through, this TIB is 


based on I believe six sites where you had 


data. True? 


 DR. ULSH: We actually had seven sites. This 


particular graph shows five sites. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay, and so forth. And what is 


the problem at the other sites? 


 DR. ULSH: I'm glad I've got Mel standing 


beside me because I'm going to let him -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Either one of you can answer, I 


don't (unintelligible). 


 DR. ULSH: Okay. These -- these seven sites, 


five on this graph, were the sites where we had 


the data in a form that -- that was readily 


retrievable. And also these sites represent a 


wide spectrum of activities across the DOE 


spectrum, so they represent production sites -- 

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like, for instance, Rocky Flats and Hanford. 


They also represent national labs, like for 


instance ORNL. So we wanted to capture the 


sites that represented the range of activities 


across the DOE complex. 


Mel, do you have anything to add to that? 


 MR. CHEW: Yeah, I'd like to (unintelligible) 


that was a very good question. These sites 


were selected, in addition to what Brant is 


saying, they have available information that we 


can pull construction worker out of the -- the 


general data point. But they were also -- you 


look at -- these are the big sites that major 


activity -- you know, Hanford clearly with the 


reactors and separation, Savannah River, INEL 


is in there, Y-12 and K-25. And those we felt 


-- we went after that particular data because 


there was a lot of construction work being done 


in those early years and represented what we 


felt was (unintelligible) -- or represented at 


least to do the comparison, and I think 


(unintelligible) real point to Larry, when it 


really comes down to actually doing the dose 


reconstruction for an individual site not on 


the list, that particular information available 

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for that site will be used. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, okay. Did -- as part of 


this effort did you make any -- try to do any 


comparison or look at the type of job duties or 


work that was done by the monitored versus the 


unmonitored workers -- construction workers, 


and did you do any breakdown by type of work, 


or is everything just lumped and you're just 


using what -- it just purely, you know, an 


exercise based on what monitoring data's 


available? 


 MR. CHEW: I think there was a slide that we 


were pulling out information with who people 


were construction trade workers, clearly. And 


I think even in some of our early presenta-- 


well, not this presentation -- we can even go 


down to the subset like, you know, looking at 


laborers, pipe fitters and painters here. So 


construction workers were -- clearly tried to 


be identified, not only if they had worked for 


a subcontractor that came into the site -- you 


know, it was contracted -- but they could have 


been working for the prime or M&O contractor 


doing construction work. And so going back to 


the dataset to identify categories of people, 

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department and job descriptions was all part of 


this data analysis. 


 DR. MELIUS: But aren't you making an 


assumption that to some extent the monitored 


are the same -- and the unmonitored workers are 


-- fall into the same general type of work as 


the monitored? 


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


 DR. MELIUS: And did you do any sort of 


analysis to try to -- did you look at the type 


of work that they did, the -- the contractor 


that they worked for, any... 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, to -- you know, to some 


qualitative level here, especially at those 


particular sites where we saw high exposures to 


con-- to construction workers we tried to 


identify what activity caused that. And so to 


-- I'm trying to answer that question, example 


like at Hanford, I think Wanda can attest to 


that in the early years when the -- both the 


reactors and the separation facilities were 


going on, there was a considerable amount of 


construction because of the changing processes 


at Hanford while construction workers were 


still doing that particular work, the 

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processors were operating. So we try to 


identify when we see certain types of -- the 


doses when we see by construction worker, we 


went down to the next level to try to identify 


what happened at Oak Ridge, ORNL and what 


happened at Hanford or what happened at 


Savannah River to that level. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but you really have no 


information on the unmonitored workers. 


 MR. CHEW: Well, I think that's an assumption. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I mean --


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- what's the assumption? Tell me 


the assumption 'cause that's... 


 DR. ULSH: To answer your question about 


whether or not we observed any difference 


between the unmonitored CTW and the monitored 


CTW, I don't know that we've looked at that 


quantitatively to determine whether there were 


more pipe fitters in the unmonitored and more 


painters in the monitored. However, to the 


extent that one can accept the assumption that 


monitored workers were selected based on their 


exposure potential, that would also apply to 


CTWs. I know that that is a -- that is a point 

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of some contention, but -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but have you done anything 


to verify that assumption? I mean that's 


the... Seems to me that you'd be able to look 


at job histories and so forth and type of work 


that people did and if people were doing, you 


know, landscaping outside the facility, that 


would be -- I'd say less potential for 


exposures, maybe not requiring monitoring, as 


opposed to someone doing a high-exposure job in 


the facility. 


 MR. CHEW: Sure. I think the -- one of the 


data we pulled for the construction trade 


workers were the one who were monitored. Okay? 


And these were the one that had -- wore the 


badge with -- and so, you know, we -- and that 


basically applies that certainly the programs 


would say these are the construction workers 


that needed to be monitored and therefore they 


were monitored. That's where the data was 


pulled from. We would probably again, you 


know, skew it to the high side if you look at 


the general construction worker. The person 


who's doing, you know, landscaping would be -- 


may not necessarily have been monitored. 

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 DR. MELIUS: Right, and I'm just trying to get 


the sense of did you actually look at that 


'cause --


 MR. CHEW: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- where you have such a large 


number of people that weren't monitored, which 


is I think true for the construction workers, 


we're trying to get a sense of how 


representative this is, you know, sample that 


you've drawn from -- from the monitoring data. 


It doesn't include a lot of sites, it -- you 


know, limited number of sites 'cause it's what 


was readily available, and I think there are 


questions on, you know, all sides from the 


question of is -- is applying a single 


adjustment factor the appropriate approach. 


And -- and you know, I think you need to go a 


little bit, you know, deeper into your 


justification for that. Should there be an 


adjustment factor based on the site, should 


there be -- by the type of work. And this is 


supposed to be individual dose reconstructions. 


It's not supposed to be, you know, a single 


value fits everybody. And I think we're trying 


to -- trying to get at how much work you've 

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done to try to really validate this approach. 


 MR. CHEW: I understand your point. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Brad, you have a comment? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, this is going to be an easy 


one. I just wanted to get back to the coworker 


model that you were talking about on that a 


little earlier 'cause I'm not quite clear on 


that. Say we've got a group of say operators 


that you -- you only have doses for half of 


them and the other half you have nothing for. 


You're going to take that half and you're going 


to take the 95 percentile of that, or -- I -- I 


guess that's where I got misunderstood. 


 DR. ULSH: No, what we're going to do is take 


the entire monitored population and look at the 


95th percentile -- in general the 95th 


percentile -- and apply that to the unmonitored 


worker. So we don't do it by specific job 


title -- like for instance the process 


operators or for, you know, fuel handlers or 


brushers or anything like that. Does that 


answer your question? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I was just wondering 


because I thought that you mentioned with the 


same job category, that you were -- you were 

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going to use the same job category and take the 


95 percentile of that because -- 


 DR. ULSH: In general we're going to look at 


the entire monitored population, not just -- 


not by job title. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Not just one group, because -- 


 DR. ULSH: Not just one group, right. 


 MR. CLAWSON: 'Cause I can tell you in my group 


right now we've got people that are maxed and 


people that are zero, and that was just kind of 


an issue. 


Another question I had was with the 


construction workers, are they falling into 


this 250-day period, too? 


 DR. ULSH: Are you talking about in terms of 


eligibility for SEC? 


 MR. CLAWSON: Right. 


 DR. ULSH: Sure -- yes, they would also -- 


 MR. CLAWSON: Even -- even if they -- 250 days 


total throughout the sites? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: No, no, no, no, no, this is -- 


this is dose reconstruction. You're talking 

SEC. We're not talking SEC. Okay? 

 MR. CLAWSON: Okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: If a construction trades worker 

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fits into one of the SEC classes, they have to 


meet that class definition. If the class 


definition requires 250 days for health 


endangerment, they would have to meet that. 


But this construction TIB doesn't deal with the 


SEC issue. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Doesn't deal with the SECs, okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Lockey, you had an additional 


comment or question? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Yeah. What would be helpful to 


understand that one particular graph is the 


denominator across the years. How many -- how 


many annual dose reconstruction for 


construction workers were done per year based 


on how many were available, or how many 


actually worked? So we can see how you -- how 


this data -- what -- what -- how's -- what are 


the -- the data that this graph is based on. 


can't tell from this. I can't tell if -- if 


the majority of the doses that were used are in 


the later years or in the earlier years. What 


percentage -- how would you divide this out 


percentage-wise? 


 DR. ULSH: Okay, let me -- let me make sure 


that I understand your question. So what 


I 
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you're asking is for a particular year, say 


1970, how many actual CTW histories did we look 


at in that year, and the same question for all 


monitored workers in that year. Is that --


 DR. LOCKEY: Based on how many CTW workers 


there were. I mean --


 DR. ULSH: Ah, I see, okay. So --


DR. LOCKEY: -- a denominator. 


 DR. ULSH: Yeah, I understand what you're 


saying. 


 DR. LOCKEY: So I can know -- I know how robust 


your data is to generate this -- this graph. 


can't tell from this -- this graph how robust 


your data is. 


 DR. ULSH: So in other words, what percentage 


of the CTW population was actually monitored, 


and the same for all monitored workers, is that 


 DR. LOCKEY: Correct. 


 DR. ULSH: -- sort of what you're asking? 


 DR. LOCKEY: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The numbers at the top are sort of 


the integrated values for the whole curve. Is 


that correct? That is, the 216,000 histories, 


that's the integral of those individual points, 


I 
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I guess. 


 MR. CHEW: There is now being worked a -- what 


I consider an appendix to this part-- to the 


OTIB-52 to give the supporting information that 


generated all the graphs that you have seen 


here from the OTIB, including this particular 


one here. And at that time those particular 


back-up information will give the number of CTW 


that were monitored and the number that receive 


exposures and also the number of AMWs for any ­

- for each year. Okay? It will be backup 


information here. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Does it give you the denominator, 


too? 


 MR. CHEW: I'm sorry, say it --


 DR. LOCKEY: How many construction workers were 


on site versus how many were monitored in any 


one particular year. 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, it will give the number of 


construction workers that were there identified 


and the number who were monitored. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Okay. 


 MR. CHEW: Yes, it will do that. All right? 


And it'll be for each particular site. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: If you go through the OTIB-52, 

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which I have right here, you will see by site 


tables that list the observed ratios -- in 


other words, the all monitored versus the 


construction trade workers who were monitored, 


the number that were monitored and number with 


measurable dose. That doesn't give you all 


that you're asking for, and that's the addendum 


that I think Mel's talking about that we will 


add to this. But if you have a chance to look 


at this TIB-52, I think you'll get a better 


explanation. Unfortunately, I think this slide 


has presented more confusion than it has 


clarity, so I'd encourage you all to look at 


this TIB. 


 DR. ZIEMER: OTIB-52 is now on the web site, by 


the way. It went on within the last couple of 


weeks. The date on that TIB is August 31st, so 


it is on there so Board members, it probably 


would be worthwhile going through that TIB and 


see if there are further questions. 


Also I would mention to you in connection with 


this, and we will have further opportunity to 


discuss these issues, but we still have to 


consider -- as a carryover from our August 8th 


meeting -- the response to a letter that came 

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to us -- I'm looking for my copy, but anyway, 


it's a letter from -- from Pete -- 


 DR. WADE: Stafford. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Stafford with a number of 


issues raised relative to construction workers 


and also relates to some comments we received 


from Knut Ringen I believe last time or our 


last meeting and perhaps trying to deal 


effectively with this issue of -- of the 


unmonitored construction workers. So this is 


kind of a first step is this TIB, and I think ­

- to the extent that it can be refined or 


improved -- that would be good then. 


 DR. WADE: If I might, just sort of from a 


procedural point of view, to offer a potential 


path forward for the kinds of questions raised 


by Drs. Lockey and Melius, SC&A -- we will be 


considering asking them to review additional 


procedures. And I don't think, John, that TIB52 is on the list. I think it should be added 


to the list, but I think later in this meeting 


we'll have an opportunity to discuss whether or 


not the Board wants to form a working group to 


look at this or have SC&A review it, or both. 


But I think certainly we want to see OTIB-52 as 

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a consideration for something to be reviewed by 


the Board's contractor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's see, additional 


comments, Dr. Melius or -- thank you. Dr. 


Lockey, you have any follow-up? Brad, any 


follow-up? 


Thank you very much. 


 DR. WADE: While they're walking away, another 


sort of procedural issue for later on the 


agenda, the ingestion and the oro-nasal 


breathing. These are issues that have come up 


through site profile reviews, and I think the 


Board needs to decide how it wants to track 


progress on these issues when they sort of 


leave the orbit of a particular working group 


and are out there. So that's an agenda item on 


Thursday where the Board is going to decide how 


it wants to track cross-cutting issues, and 


this would be a good example of what those 


cross-cutting issues are. 


SC&A FUNDING AND ACTIVITIES FOR NEXT YEAR


 DR. ZIEMER: Our next item is a -- deals with 


funding for the Board's contractor, SC&A, and 


the upcoming activities for this -- this coming 


year. And let's see, Lew and -- are you going 

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to kick this off? 


 DR. WADE: I'll just make very brief -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: And David Staudt is here, who's 


our contracting person. 


 DR. WADE: Right, David Staudt is the 


contracting officer on the SC&A contract. He's 


really the person with the wallet and the 


person with the authority, and I asked David to 


come and brief you on two issues. But first 


he'll give you an update on where we stand in 


terms of the funding for SC&A next year. 


That'll be dollars and tasks. 


 What David will also remind us of is that we 


need to be assigning SC&A specific work, such 


as specific procedures to review or such as 


specific site profiles to review. And once 


David's finished, I can set the stage for you 


as to how we might go about making those 


decisions, give you information, and I think we 


have that later on our agenda on Wednesday and 


Thursday in Board working time to talk about 


that more specifically. But I thought it'd be 


well to start with David going through where we 


stand on the SC&A contract based upon the 


instructions they were given by the Board. 

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 And then David's second contribution is going 


to be to look at the conflict of interest 


issues that have arisen relative to SC&A and to 


report how those issues have been resolved. 


David. 


 MR. STAUDT: Good afternoon. Just as a follow-


up to the meeting in August, I just want to let 


you know that all the task order modifications 


are in place so that the -- that the SC&A is 


fully authorized to proceed as needed. And 


just to quickly go over these, Task Order I, I 


authorized for six site profile reviews for 


next year. 


 DR. WADE: David, maybe if I could just point 


people to -- there's a tab in their book, SC&A, 


and if you flip through that tab you will find 


this sheet that David is speaking to that 


speaks to the individual tasks and the funding, 


so -- sorry, David. 


 MR. STAUDT: That's okay. Yeah, there's five 


active tasks, and continuing Task I there are 


six new -- profile reviews, five are new ones 


and also we had the Savannah River profile is 


revised. Also included in this task is the 


continuation of the closeout process for 

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existing site profiles. 


Task Order II is complete, so we'll move on to 


Task Order III. SC&A is going to review up to 


30 new procedures and review the generic 


workbooks and also we assume that you will -- 


the Board's going to follow the six-step 


process in moving towards the finalization of 


this task. 


Task Order IV, SC&A will assume another full 


round of dose reconstruction reviews will be 


done next year, and this is going to include 60 


dose reconstruction reviews. And I think as 


you remember during our August 8th discussion, 


we spent quite a bit of time, and we finished 


with a revised Option 2B, and these had to do 


with more discretionary audits were being 


proposed. 


Task Order V relates to the SEC work, and five 


SEC reviews will be completed with Technical 


Basis Documents and one without, and we assume 


that SC&A is going to attend four full Board 


meetings and four subcommittee meetings. 


And Task Order VI is simply related to SC&A's 


program management cost. 


One of the things I just want to let you know, 

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this is good until October 1st, 2007, so SC&A's 


ready to go. And to follow along with what Dr. 


Wade spoke about, I think it would be very 


beneficial to have John Mauro just quickly go 


down each one of these tasks and let you know 


where in the pipeline that -- that they need 


approval. And he did speak very briefly this 


morning related to Task Order IV, but I think 


clearly he -- they are waiting for some 


direction and it's holding them up. 


So I don't know, Lew, if you want to think 


about addressing that now or -- 


 DR. WADE: I'd like to set the stage on that. 


Let's -- let's turn our attention to Task Order 


1. You have at your place a list of all of the 


site profiles that NIOSH has done -- that's 


this piece of paper. John Mauro has also 


forwarded to you a list of all of the reviews 


that SC&A has done or has underway. I think 


the task for the Board is to decide what 


additional five site profiles you would like 


SC&A to begin to look at. And again, that's a 


discussion we can have Wednesday or Thursday. 


What I would like to have just a brief 


discussion on now is what information would you 

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like staff to prepare for you when -- to have 


before you when you undertake the discussion of 


the additional five site profiles. You 


remember we've asked SC&A to do six. One is a 


revisit of Savannah River, and five additional. 


In anticipation of this discussion I asked 


NIOSH to list the total number of cases that 


are currently in the system related to the site 


profiles. And if you would like additional 


information to that, then we can certainly 


prepare that leading up to your discussions on 


Thursday. 


If you have that piece of paper in front of 


you, I could just very quickly identify for you 


the site profiles that SC&A has reviewed or is 


in the process of reviewing. Starting at the 


top of that list, Bethlehem Steel, the Savannah 


River Site, Mallinckrodt Chemical Company, the 


Hanford site, INEEL, Nevada Test Site, LANL, 


Rocky Flats, X-10, Y-12, Mound, Fernald, 


Paducah, Linde Ceramic, the Pinellas Plant and 


Iowa Ordnance Plant at the very bottom. Of the 


universe of site profiles, those are the site 


profiles that have been or are under review. 


Obviously what's left is the candidate 

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population for you to consider to select the 


next five. And I think what David is telling 


us in his gentlemanly but strong terms is that 


we really need to leave this meeting giving 


SC&A work to do under this task. 


 Any additional comments on one, or any 


additional information the Board might like? 


Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just curious -- maybe I 


missed this -- how is this list formulated, 


Lew? Is this... 


 DR. WADE: This is a list of all the site 


profiles --


 MR. GRIFFON: All the site --


 DR. WADE: -- on the web site. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All the site profiles on the web 


site, okay. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and then the ones I mentioned 


to you are the ones that have already been or 


are under review, so you could assume what's 


left are candidates for you to -- to ask SC&A 


to review on your behalf. And -- and --


 MR. GRIFFON: I think at least one bit of 


information that might be helpful, I think I 


could pick off a couple of them, but it might 

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be useful to know which ones have qualified SEC 


petitions --


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- how many of these sites that 


are -- the site profiles that aren't reviewed 


have qualified SEC petitions. That might be 


good to know. 


 DR. WADE: That's something we will give you by 


tomorrow. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: And I just want -- this -- purpose 


of this is just to make sure the Board has what 


it wants to do its deliberations. Anything 


else? Anything, John, that you would like to 


add? 


DR. MAURO: Just to point out that we are -- we 


have the capacity to handle the new work as 


soon as it's authorized. We talked about that 


a little it this morning, so whenever you're 


ready to direct us to do some additional work 


on this, we can begin immediately. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So the task at hand is five 


additional site profiles for the Board to 


identify by the end of the meeting for SC&A to 


work on. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Let me also if I -- would it be of 


value to know -- these are the total cases that 


have been submitted to NIOSH? 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Would it be of -- would the Board 


be interested in knowing how many of those 


total cases have actually been already 


processed as far as dose reconstruction? 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so --


 DR. ZIEMER: Seems to me --


 DR. WADE: -- cases done. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Cases -- dose reconstructions 


completed. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So we're going to add two 


columns, qualified SEC petition and cases 


completed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Any other information? Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just thinking, can -- I think 


this is a pretty easy request, a separate 


listing maybe of the qualified SEC petition 


sites. And the reason I -- I guess the reason 


I'm asking that is I -- I note a few SECs that 


are out there, qualified SEC petitions -- like 


for Harshaw and Monsanto. I don't -- the site 


profiles don't exist, but I think they might be 

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in the hopper. I think NIOSH may be working on 


site profiles for those sites, so just a 


listing maybe of the SEC -- qualified SEC 


petitions. 


 DR. WADE: I do think Larry gave us that today, 


but --


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, he did? 


 DR. WADE: I believe he did, if my memory 


serves me --


 DR. ZIEMER: I think Larry gave us that. What 


about site profiles that are in process or 


fairly advanced but not necessarily out yet, is 


that a list that's readily available? 


 DR. WADE: Well, if it -- I will give you the 


best that we can. So it's in-progress site 


profiles and we'll repeat the list of qualified 


SEC petitions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other information? Other 


information? Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: This existing list, though, 


certainly appears to cover all the major sites, 


which really would seem to me to be our primary 


focus. 


 DR. WADE: Well, certainly -- again, given 


David's instruction -- we want to make sure 

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that SC&A leaves with work and not waiting for 


site profiles to be completed. But I could see 


how that information would allow the Board to 


consider possibly giving them three or four now 


and holding while a couple of other things are 


done. So I think it's valuable information. 


If we can get it, we'll get it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Moving on to Task Order III, this is 


the review of procedures. Now again, under 


your tab in your book that says "procedures 


review", you have John Mauro's work product 


that looks at the procedures that have yet to 


be reviewed, with a -- with a significant 


addition of TIB-52. This is what you have to 


consider instructing your contractor on the 


next 30 procedures. Is there anything else you 


would like to inform that discussion before you 


have it in earnest on Wednesday or Thursday? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, are there other TIBs -- I'm 


trying to recall on the web site 'cause I 


checked it recently. Is there another TIB 


that's -- that came out in July or August that 


wasn't on the list? Anybody remember? 


 MS. MUNN: I thought that was 52. 

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 DR. WADE: We'll double-check that. We'll have 


somebody in the room at the time who knows 


that. 


Okay, then we have Task Order IV. Here we have 


a little bit of leeway. We -- we have decided 


that at our December meeting -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not -- apparently not everybody 


has that list of (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: It's under your -- in your workbook 


under procedures review, way in the front. 


That's where it used to be, anyway. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, that's where it is. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's the original list. Yeah, 


we got (unintelligible). 


 DR. WADE: We got things out of places just to 


test -- we're constantly testing the 


intelligence of the Board. 


 MS. MUNN: And I'm consistently flunking. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, here we go. 


 DR. WADE: Task Order IV -- John's going to 


tell us something important. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, John. 


DR. MAURO: I just have a -- an observation 


that in going through the list of procedures 


that were originally prepared on June 9th, 

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please keep in mind that many of these 


procedures we have reviewed as part of the Y-12 


activities --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: -- as part of the current 


activities related to Rocky Flats, so there's 


another dimension to this. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


DR. MAURO: We certainly, if so requested, we 


could prepare a report on the ones we've all 


been very actively involved in reviewing as 


part of the -- the issues that are before us 


right now that -- that -- and so what I'm 


getting at is that the -- those procedures that 


we've already been very much engaged in, we -- 


if you're -- if you so require, we could very 


readily and quickly prepare a report regarding 


that procedure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: In fact that would be helpful to 


have the list of which of these procedures in 


essence have been reviewed anyway. 


DR. MAURO: And I'll -- I will get together 


with the rest of the SC&A team and we'll get 


back to you about it. 


 DR. WADE: So you'll be aiming to have that to 

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us tomorrow or the next day, John? 


DR. MAURO: That sounds perfectly doable. 


 DR. WADE: Good. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're a good man. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: Task Order IV, this is where we have 


some -- a little bit of breathing room. John 


has told us that they are working at capacity 


on Task IV. What he would like from us no 


later than the December face-to-face meeting, 


the definition of at least the subset seven, 


the cadre seven of dose reconstructions to be 


reviewed, so that's on our list. 


And then Task Order V is the SEC task. That's 


something that happens more in real time, and I 


-- and I want you to know that there's capacity 


in the contract. For example, now the Board's 


going to be reviewing four SEC petitions at 


this meeting. As an example, you'll have an 


SEC petition that relates to Chapman Valve. 


I'm sure there'll be discussion and debate. 


The contractor stands ready to -- to address 


issues as you assign them. I don't know if we 


want to use that capacity without watching 


these cases come to us so that there is 

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capacity to deal with the cases as necessary. 


I think that's one where we really have to let 


the world come to us. But I do think there are 


things that will come to us at this meeting and 


at subsequent meetings that we can assign to 


the subcontractor. 


DR. MAURO: I'd also like to point out that 


under the current what I call the fiscal year 


Task V, we have adequate budget and capacity 


not only to receive additional direction from 


the Board to do additional SEC work under the 


existing -- last year's -- scope of work and 


budget, now we also have the additional I 


believe five or six. So what I'm getting at is 


we have the resources to take on more than just 


the new set that might emerge, but we also have 


capacity to absorb some additional -- maybe 


three, I think as many as three -- from the 


existing budget 'cause we -- we're -- we're -- 


so we could prepa-- we're in a position to 


accept more than just the fiscal year 2007. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: So again, be ready to assign your 


contractor work under Task V as it becomes 


appropriate. 

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If I might combine two issues, the oro-nasal 


breathing discussion -- I'm informed that 


there's a heavy breather on the telephone line, 


so I'll ask everyone to sort of mute their -- 


their phone if at all possible. Background 


noise can be terribly confusing and distracting 


to people, so not pointing the heavy breather 


out, please, mute your phone if at all 


possible. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Speaking of the phones, though, we 


haven't really given Mike an opportunity to 


comment on this last topic. Mike, did you -- 


did you have any comments? Are you still there 


and are you breathing heavily? 


 (No response) 


Have we lost Mike? 


 DR. WADE: I don't hear him. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You hear --


 DR. WADE: No identification. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mike, if you hear us and 


have comments, let us know. 


 DR. WADE: So that completes my -- this issue 


for me. I mean we will take it up in Board 


working time. I think we'll be -- you'll be 


better informed if we can give you the material 

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you've requested --


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 


 DR. WADE: -- and we'll leave meeting Dave -- 


David's challenge of tasking his contractor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then we can move on to the 


conflict of interest? 


SC&A CONFLICT OF INTEREST RESOLUTION PLAN


 MR. STAUDT: Yes, and I think -- yes, we can 


move on pretty quickly. The final topic is 


related to SC&A's conflict of interest, and 


this was entitled the resolution plan. 


Basically what happened, in -- July 24th I sent 


an e-mail to the Board which basically said 


that SC&A had established a conflict of 


interest firewall, so I just want to quickly go 


over that if you have any questions related to 


it. But the background is that SC&A has a 


conflict of interest plan that was approved by 


you and is part of their contract. It 


basically said they could perform free of any 


conflict of interest and the plan itself 


describes the methods employed by SC&A to 


detect, avoid and mitigate any potential 


conflict of interest. 


 One interesting note is under Section 3 of the 

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plan -- and I'm not going to read it to you, 


but basically it -- it states where SC&A is not 


allowed to bid on certain work, primarily 


related to DOE and other work related to ORAU. 


But the interesting thing of that paragraph is 


it does not mention any work related to the 


Department of Defense. 


In late -- in late May I was contacted by Dr. 


Wade that basically he had some concerns with 


work that SC&A was performing, and I did send a 


letter to SC&A that we -- we had some concerns 


related to work under two subcontracts with the 


Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and that had 


to do with dose reconstruction for military 


personnel at the Nevada Test Site and the 


Pacific Proving Ground. As always, HHS is an ­

- and part of that is obligated to protecting 


integrity of this program, so in doing so I'm 


guided by Federal Acquisition Regulations 


Section 9.5, which addresses organizational and 


consultant conflicts of interest. 


Specifically, 9.504 requires that I, as the 


contracting officer, exercise common sense, 


good judgment and sound discretion on whether 


significant potential conflict exists; and if 

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it does, the development of an appropriate -- 


rules of resolving it. 


There was quite a bit of domino back and forth 


between NIOSH and SC&A on this topic, and on 


June 29th SC&A replied to -- to myself with 


some mitigation strategies. And after careful 


consideration, we chose the firewall strategy. 


 Basically that requires that SC&A provide nondisclosure agreements for the work and computer 


fire-- password protections, and I get to audit 


the NIOSH DTRA invoices to find out who's 


working on what. And I wanted to let the Board 


know that this -- this -- this plan, this 


strategy is not stagnant, the one that SC&A has 


in place, depending on the work that they're 


doing. And my main goal is to minimize any 


perceived or real conflicts of interest. 


So I just wanted to let you know that the 


firewall strategy was approved and that SC&A 


has been very quick with fully implementing the 


strategy. And I'm really relying upon the 


Board or anybody else in the general public 


that -- on any feedback related to conflict of 


interest so we can mitigate those. 


And the other thing I just want to just hit is 

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that the firewall has a lot of benefits to the 


Board. It allows you to still utilize SC&A to 


the maximum that you can, and it ultimately 


best serves the claimants and the taxpayers 


themselves. So this is just to -- basically 


segments -- or augments their original conflict 


of interest plan. It did not cover DoD 


activities. So if anybody had any questions on 

-- on that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: David, do we need to formally 

modify anything or ask them to modify their 


plan in a formal way to take this into 


consideration for the future? 


 MR. STAUDT: That certainly could be done. Or 


we could, if you want to, incorporate and 


reference the firewall plan that was accepted, 


if you -- if you would like me to do it, I can 


do it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. STAUDT: And then basically the only thing 


it would require is I could simply modify the 


base contract and that could be made a part of 


it, if you like. And that way they're 


contractually obligated to do that. 


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proceed, but it seems to me that it would make 


sense to somehow formalize in the conflict of 


interest plan -- does that appear on the web 


site now? 


 MR. STAUDT: Yes, it is. Their full plan is on 


the web site. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So that it covers this aspect as 


well -- in a general way. That is, DoD or 


other agencies where a firewall is needed. 


 MR. STAUDT: And I'm -- in my capacity I'm 


certainly interested -- and SC&A's a small 


business -- to make sure that we're not doing 


anything that would mitigate any opportunities 


to -- to bid on work and do other -- you know, 


to grow their business. But we have to protect 


this program, too, so that's -- that's -- it's 


that balance that we have to be careful -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Are we trying to keep them small? 


Is that --


Okay, so any action required I guess at this 


point? 

 MR. STAUDT: No, none is required. But I would 

--

 DR. ZIEMER: What can you do to -- to sort of 

institutionalize this or make sure it's 

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covered? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I think -- given the fact that 


the Board did an excellent job in the original 


policy that still exists, I would like to see 


the Board, either itself or instruct David to 


bring back a draft of a modified policy that 


would include the benefits of what we've 


learned here. So I think it is important that 


the SC&A policy be modified based upon this, 


and the Board can either do it itself, it can 


ask David and I to do it as a draft. We leave 


that to you, but I think it would be good to 


complete the record by doing that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'd like to suggest, if 


there's no objection from the Board, that we 


ask David to take the lead in this. He knows 


what kind of words are needed to put in -- is 


there any objection --


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if we ask David to prepare for 


us a document that we can adopt as an addendum 


to the SC&A COI policy? Any objections? 


 Without objection, I will so instruct you and 


appreciate at -- at your earliest convenience, 


perhaps by the time of our next meeting. 

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 MR. STAUDT: Certainly by then. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Lew will work with you then 


making sure that --


 DR. WADE: In spite of his young age, I work 


for him so I'll do what he tells me to do. 


I know there's also been some Board concerns 


raised about the Board keeping up with this and 


information, and is there anything the Board 


would like to see -- David talked about 


reviewing the materials he reviews. Is there 


anything periodically the Board would like to 


see on this or how would you like to handle -- 


us to handle the information that David reviews 


in terms of -- he reviews the different billing 


records for the two contracts and what would 


you like -- what would you like -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now we do -- I think all of us now 


are getting the monthly progress reports which 


include the costing and so on. 


 DR. WADE: But not on the DTRA contracts. 


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, on the DTRA, no --


 DR. WADE: Well, if you wanted -- David's doing 


a comparison. 


 MR. STAUDT: I can take care of it for the 

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Board. I'm not sure that, you know, you -- you 


want to even get into that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure we want the DTRA 


information. I don't. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, so we'll ask David to do that. 


 MR. STAUDT: I'd be happy to. 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


would be of -- I don't think it would 


(unintelligible) benefit. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any questions or 


comments for -- for David Staudt on this issue? 


 (No responses) 


Thank you very much. 


 MR. STAUDT: Thank you all. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you, David. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Do you have anything before we 


recess? 


 MR. PRESLEY: Let me ask David a question 


(unintelligible) one time. Will our next 


meeting in December be too late, or do you need 


this done before then, Board action? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's already in effect. 

 MR. STAUDT: Yeah, it's in effect. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I was simply saying we want to -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: Oh, okay. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: It's in effect sort of on an ad 


hoc basis. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think we want to formalize it so 


it's on the web site and part of the policy. 


 DR. WADE: Well, maybe for our October call. 


This is something we could easily do on a 


conference call. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We're going to have a 


public comment session beginning at 5:00. We 


have time for about a 15-minute break. We want 


to start promptly at 5:00 o'clock, so please 


keep note of the time and we'll see you back 


here. If you are planning -- or wish to 


comment and haven't already signed up, please 


do so. Thank you very much. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:40 p.m. 


to 5:00 p.m.) 


PUBLIC COMMENT


 DR. ZIEMER: We are ready to begin our public 


comment session. I first would like to 


determine whether or not Terrie Barrie is with 


us by telephone. Terrie, are you on the phone? 


 MS. BARRIE: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And is Kay Barker 

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present on the phone? 


 MS. BARKER: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I am. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Both Terrie 


Barrie and Kay Barker requested earlier in the 


week to address the assembly by telephone. 


They're representing the Rocky Flats site, 


actually, and let's -- we're going to begin 


with Terrie Barrie, if we can turn the volume 


up on her phone. Terrie, if you would, please 


proceed. 


 MS. BARRIE: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, and good 


evening -- and members of the Board. For the 


record, my name is Terrie Barrie. I'm with the 


Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Group. I 


would like to thank you, Dr. Ziemer, Dr. Wade 


and Mr. Elliott for arranging this call to 


present my public comments tonight. 


Dr. Ziemer, I'm still confused. I was so 


excited when, at the last working group 


meeting, Board member Mark Griffon and SC&A 


team member Kathy DeMers stated they found 


several entries in one log book confirming that 


badges were destroyed because they received too 


high a dose of radiation. Kathy also had 


previously uncovered a memo which directed the 

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health physics personnel to enter a zero in the 


dosimetry record if the film badge was 


blackened. Perhaps I'm naive, but I thought 


these findings were all (unintelligible) was to 


prove the assertions in the petition that 


records were destroyed and falsified. The 


petition form itself certainly implies this 


(unintelligible) proof of record manipulation 


and destruction. Is NIOSH still certain they 


can reconstruct dose when the data is suspect? 


Doesn't this amount to guesswork? 


At the April meeting in Denver three 


explanations were given by NIOSH to explain 


blackened badges. One reason was that they 


were overexposed by light, another was that the 


badges were contaminated with body oils, the 


third reason was that they were exposed to too 


much radiation. My logic dictates that if 


NIOSH truly intends this program to be 


claimant-friendly, they would use the 


assumption that blackened badges were 


overexposed due to radiation, and not to light 


or body oils. 


 One issue bothered me during the last working 


group meeting. There was a discussion on 

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whether the production stopped after the 1969 


fire or if (unintelligible) makeshift facility 


and that continued production during the 


cleanup of Building 776 and 777. It was 


decided that there was no makeshift facility. 


I confirmed this with a former worker, as well 


as the book "Making a Real Killing" -- great 


book if you want to know the history of Rocky 


Flats. 


I am under the impression that because there 


was no production after the fire, NIOSH assumes 


this explains the zero readings. No 


production, no exposure. Yet -- again 


according to the book "Making a Real Killing” ­

- AEC investigators estimated that less than 


ten percent of the 7,641 pounds of plutonium in 


Buildings 776 and 777 was damaged or burned to 


oxides, and that 99 percent of the Pu had been 


retrieved. That still leaves 76 pounds of 


plutonium unaccounted for. Wouldn't it be 


expected that the workers would have been 


exposed to the radiation during the cleanup and 


not just production? I personally question any 


document that shows a zero or lower radiation 


level for 1969. 

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(Unintelligible) at the last working group 


meeting about how much time was being spent on 


the Rocky Flats petition, and I agree. It must 


be noted, though, that it took NIOSH four 


months to qualify the petition and another ten 


months to submit the evaluation report to the 


Board after the qualification. They neglected 


to do a full search of documents that could 


substantiate the testimony of the workers 


(unintelligible) this past summer, a full year 


after they qualified the petition. Yet again 


it must be noted that NIOSH had years to 


provide the site profiles. One would have 


hoped that a comprehensive and thorough search 


of the Rocky Flats records would have been 


their first priority before issuing any 


technical documents. 


As I said, I agree that a lot of time has been 


expended on this petition. I do not agree with 


Ms. Munn's opinion that NIOSH can reconstruct 


dose with reasonable accuracy. We have 


conflicts of interest with the site profile. 


We have proof that badges were destroyed. We 


have proof that the NDRP is inaccurate in at 


least one instance. We have proof by the March 

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30th, 1978 AEC memo of 20 safety issues, 


including -- and I quote -- unnecessary 


radiation exposure to two operators, end quote. 


Dr. Ziemer, I'm not a scientist, but I don't 


see how dose can be reconstructed with any 


sense of accuracy using flawed data. It 


appears to me that it is more theoretical than 


sound science. I know there's an interest by 


some Board members to vote on this petition at 


this meeting, but many issues are not resolved 


and I feel they need to be before a full vote 


is taken. Moreover, I strongly feel that any 


vote on this petition should be made in Denver 


so the Rocky Flats workers who are affected by 


this decision can be present. 


Lastly, I understand that Part E of the program 


was discussed this afternoon. I'm sorry that I 


could not listen in at that time, but I do 


appreciate that this part was raised. 


(Unintelligible) aware of many problems with 


the implementation of Part E and they need to 


be remedied. It is most definitely not 


claimant friendly. I am happy that the Board 


issued an invitation to DOL to provide further 


explanations to the Board about this 

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implementation. 


Again, I thank you for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Terrie. Hang 


on, we'll make sure that Terrie can hear my 


comments. Thank you, Terrie, and I do want to 


alert you to the fact that we do have a session 


tomorrow morning at 10:30 on the Rocky Flats 


SEC. Hopefully you'll be able to join us by 


phone at that time and -- and Mark and other 


members of the working group will be reporting 


on some of these issues tomorrow to the Board, 


so --


 MS. BARRIE: Yes, I do plan on -- on listening 


in on that (unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Thank you for your 


comments. 


We also then want to hear from Kay Barker, and 


Kay is a claimant from Rocky Flats. Kay, if 

you will proceed. 

 MS. BARKER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Good 

evening, Dr. Ziemer and members of the Board. 


My name is Kay Barker, and I want to thank you 


for allowing me to phone in my public comments 


tonight on the Rocky Flats petition. 


 Transparency, I truly appreciate the Board's 

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insistence that this is being maintained. It 


is because of this transparency that I was able 


to locate some very disturbing facts related to 


NIOSH and the petition. A great emphasis has 


been placed by NIOSH on the neutron dose 


reconstruction project as a reason that they 


claim they can reconstruct dose. 


 You may remember that I pointed out that the 


NDRP was flawed in my husband's claim. I 


received a copy of the NDRP. I found that 


Roger Falk was listed as the author. You all 


know that there is a real problem with the 


claimants about his participation in the site 


profile and the petition review. 


Getting back to the transparency, NIOSH has a 


link on their web site for ORAU disclosure 


statements. I decided to check out the other 


five authors of the NDRP. Sure enough, two 


other people -- Jack Aldrich and Nancy 


Daugherty -- listed Rocky Flats as their 


previous employer. I knew Nancy back in the 


day, and ran into her at the April Board 


meeting. Joe Aldrich states that he has a 


conflict of interest with Rocky Flats. I would 


like to point out to you, the Board, and for 

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the record that Nancy Daugherty did not state 


that she has a conflict of interest with Rocky 


Flats, yet she worked there as a health 


physicist for 12 years. 


I then decided to check out Karin Jessen, 


author of the SEC evaluation report. Guess 


what? She lists that she has a conflict with 


Rocky Flats, too. The author of the document 


that says NIOSH can reconstruct dose has a 


conflict of interest with Rocky Flats? 


Conflicts of interest abound in the Rocky Flats 


petition, and nothing seems to be done about 


it. It amazes me that these documents are 


considered valid. If SC&A submitted documents 


with similar conflicts, would they be accepted? 


For some reason I think not. 


Dr. Ziemer, I urge you and the other Board 


members to seriously consider this problem 


before deciding on the petition. I feel that 


these conflicts alone cast doubt on NIOSH's 


ability to reconstruct dose in a sound, 


scientific manner that the claimants would 


accept as reasonable. And I agree with Terrie 


Barrie, the Rocky Flats claimants deserve the 


Board -- excuse me, deserve the vote to be held 

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in Denver, Colorado. 


 Again, thank you for letting me make this call 


possible. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much, Kay, 


for those comments. Again, the working group 


on Rocky Flats is here with us and have heard 


your comments, and we will be discussing this 


topic tomorrow. Again, I hope that you will be 


able to participate by phone as well. 


 MS. BARKER: Yes, Dr. Ziemer, I plan on it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Now we will 


proceed with comments from people who are here 


present with us. I have six additional people, 


so I'd simply request that you be cognizant 


that others wish to speak and adjust your times 


accordingly. 


 I'll begin with John Funk, who's listed as 


representing the Atomic Veterans and Victims of 


Nevada. And John, we're pleased to have you 


here. I think, John, we've already received -- 


I think the Board members have already received 


your comments by e-mail. We'd be pleased to 


hear from you at this time. 


 MR. FUNK: Thank you. My name is John R. Funk. 


I worked at Nevada Test Site and other 

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(unintelligible) locations off -- off and on 


for over seven years, starting in 1978 and 


ending in 1994. I've had four bouts of cancer, 


of three are the 22 accepted types -- or one of 


the 22 accepted types, and I am presently still 


battling bone marrow cancer. 


When Secretary Richardson and members of 


Congress told my fellow Energy workers and me 


how abused and harmed we had been, I admit that 


I was a little surprised. But I believed the 


promise of compensation to follow, and I filed 


at claim. At this date I have not been 


compensated, and neither has the vast majority 


of the persons who have filed claims. Even 


with my percentage of well over 50 percent, 


NIOSH found a way to still deny me by using a 


wrong formula of their IREP using 2,000 rems 


instead of 10,000, as is the standard of their 


own formula. 


Either the government lied to us when they told 


us how abused and harmed we had been, or the 


government is lying to us now when they are 


denying our claims. In any event, we have been 


lied to and we're pretty angry. It seems we 


are nothing but pawns of the politicians, 

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maneuvering for advantage and attention. 


My purpose, however, is not to discuss the 


personal situation of the hundreds of persons I 


represent, but I provide you with some input on 


(unintelligible) radiation compensation process 


and the Technical Basis Document from Nevada 


Test Site. I find this document to be highly 


flawed, and I can't help but wonder if its 


authors were ever on the site during the days 


when nuclear weapons testing was being tested. 


As far as the overall compensation program is 


concerned, I think it's very unfair and flawed. 


I would like to discuss the issue of fairness 


and the issue of the 250-day requirement. 


The first issue of fairness is quite simple. 


Why was some sites grandfathered into 


legislation without regard to scientific 


evidence as to whether these sites were of 


maximum exposure? Or to me is why was workers 


on Amchitka Island written into the bill? We 


know that there was only three tests on 


Amchitka Island, none of which were above 


ground, and there was no significant problem 


with any of them. On the other hand, there 


were nearly 1,000 tests in Nevada, about 100 

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above ground, and there was several problems 


with many of the underground tests in Nevada. 


 The only logic that seemed to prevail, that one 


of Alaska's senators was an appropriations 


committee -- was on the appropriations 


committee when this bill came through. Is it 


fair to penalize the thousands of workers in 


Nevada just because a Congressperson was not on 


the right committee at the right time? 


 The other general issue is the one concerning 


the 250-day requirement. I have asked 


repeatedly for someone to explain the logic 


behind this one. The only answer I get is it 


came from Congress. Now I know that 


Congresspersons make a lot of foolish mistakes, 


but there's no reasons for such foolishness to 


prevail. My personal opinion is that Congress 


was misled into believing that a long period of 


-- of chronic exposure was required for health 


impairment, just as it is for silicosis. You 


all know better than I that it can take less 


than a microsecond for health impairment from 


radiation to occur. 


I have read some of the transcripts of past 


meetings that scientists from NIOSH believe no 

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criticality or episodic exposures occurred at 


Nevada Test Site. This is simply not true. 


Attachment 4 and 5 to the SC&A NTS report 


indicates clearly that doses were acute, if 


they occurred at all. Most of the acute 


exposures were associated with rapid re-entry 


to retrieve data from above-ground, vertical 


shaft or tunnel explosions. One particularly 


bad example was the Yuba test on June the 5th, 


1963. This was a small, 3.1 kiloton test. 


Nevertheless, seven miners were exposed upon 


re-entry and nine of them had doses to the 


thyroid in excess of 30 rads. How could anyone 


say that no criticality ever occurred at the 


NTS? I remind you that the very purpose of 


nuclear weapons is to achieve instantaneous 


criticality. 


There are also cases of so-called safety tests 


to achieve unplanned criticality, as mentioned 


in the NTS TBD, and we can safely assume that 


many low-yield tests were failures that 


resulted in partial criticality of unplanned 


criticalities. As Mr. Brady indicated in SC&A 


Attachment 5, the partial criticalities were 


worse than the complete criticalities because 

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the complete criticalities generally had their 


radioactivity in the molten rock. 


Finally we combine the fairness -- issue of 


fairness and the 250-day requirement for the 


workers on Amchitka Island where there is no 


250-day requirement in the legislation. Can 


anyone explain why those -- this is fair to 


Nevada workers? 


I understand the Special Exposure Cohort has 


been established for persons who worked 250 


days at the NTS from January of '51 through 


December of 1962. This is a great step forward 


and I thank the members of the Board for their 


support of this petition. However, the 


inclusion of the 250-day requirement for 


members of the SEC is still an unfair 


condition, and I trust the Board will continue 


to examine this issue. 


In addition to this very important to remember 


that hundreds of tests that occurred at the NTS 


post-1962, and that many of these workers post1962 received episodic exposures as well. And 


I've already mentioned the miners who inhaled 


(unintelligible) in 1963 which resulted in 


thyroid doses in excess of 30 rads. It did not 

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take 250 days for this to occur. The exposure 


occurred in one day. 


There is two erroneous opinions that seem to 


exist concerning the NTS in the post-1962 era. 


One is that tunneling is similar to other mines 


and hazards can be compared to other mines. 


This is far from the truth. 


 Another erroneous assumption is that job 


classification for some -- or time cards can be 


taken as descriptions to represent the workers 


at risk. It is important to remember that the 


primary purpose of the Test Site in later years 


was to serve as a underground laboratory for 


the testing of nuclear weapons, which is like 


shaking hands with the Devil underground. 


Explosion at the NTS was sufficient to destroy 


every major city in the U.S., yet we are -- yet 


we rapidly re-entered the tunnels, drilled into 


the cavities resulting (unintelligible) 


explosions of vertical shafts. The tunnels 


were instrumental -- were instrumented with 


extremely sophisticated measurement systems to 


monitor the performance and effects of these 


tremendous explosions, and especially during 


the early days. It was necessary to re-enter 

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the sometimes highly contaminated area in order 


to retrieve instruments and detectors. 


The construction of a tunnel laboratory and the 


building of the physical facilities to supply ­

- supply sophisticated electrical wiring, the 


insulation of complex closures and sealed 


devices involved many crafts that far transcend 


miners alone. 


 Job classifications are not well-identified in 


the NTS TB-- TS-- TBD. There are some peculiar 


statements made on page 17, NTS TBD document on 


internal dose. These give a very limited list 


of job classifications for persons that might 


have been exposed to tritium, and further the 


only persons with Q level clearance could have 


been exposed to tritium. 


As a carpenter/welder, neither job 


classification is mentioned on page 17, I was 


in the tunnels on many occasions before I had a 


Q clearance. And after I received my Q 


clearance I personally escorted many persons 


with red badges, non-Q, to work in the tunnels, 


right up to the day that we left and locked the 


door. Many of us carpenters who also welded 


were cutters and built many structures out of 

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wood, steel and concrete within the tunnel 


complexes. There were also many electricians 


and other job classifications not mentioned 


involved in bringing power to the sophisticated 


wiring equipment. In addition there were about 


nine other crafts also involved in underground 


laboratory work. In fact, the miners were less 


than eight percent of the -- of the workforce, 


yet there's -- they -- seems to be on the -- on 


the site profile they seem to be the only ones 


working. I guess the rest of us just were 


hiding out there somewhere in the bush. 


Also time cards are not a reliable indica-- of 


where a person might have been working. Time 


cards indicate only where the source of the 


money used to pay the salaries. There were 


many reasons for a person to work in one 


location but to be paid from another location. 


For example, people waiting for security 


clearances for Area 51 were often -- would work 


in Area 3 and Area 2 for a couple of months 


till their clearances to go in 51 would come 


through. I know that place is not supposed to 


exist, but it does, but that -- there was other 


cases where that -- my tunnels would go broke 

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and sometimes they'd send -- my primary area 


was Area 3. I was sent up to Area 12 on loan 


many times and my pay came from Area 3, but I 


was up in 12. 


Every person has a security badge 


(unintelligible) that he wore. Even a Q-


cleared person may not have been allowed inside 


a tunnel unless they had a need to know. The 


badges also had a clear marking of what areas a 


person was permitted to enter. In terms of 


identifying persons at risk, there'd be many 


reasons to look at the records concerning 


allowable entry into different areas. It 


should be kept in mind, however, that a person 


could roam all over the Test Site, and only a 


few secured areas required a badge check. Many 


a so-called rad safety areas were only marked 


with a tape or a one-wire fence. 


 Employees' evaluation cards, a type of very 


informative record that should be available is 


the employee's evaluation card. These periodic 


evaluations not only told how well it -- we 


performed our assignments, but they also 


indicated the nature of our assigned task. A 


large fraction of workers were non-productive, 

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in the sense they never left Mercury for the 


forward areas. Rather they offered life 


support activities, and many of these persons 


were Q-cleared. I mean a dishwasher at Mercury 


might have been Q-cleared, so you can't go by 


the badge. Whether they had permission to 


enter the forward areas beyond Gate 200 should 


be in their security records. 


I know this is not the Board's subject, but I'm 


going to bring it up anyway because it's part 


of it, chemicals. I also want to remind the 


members of the Advisory Board that a large 


number of chemicals were used at NTS. 


Beryllium was used in many applications. 


Mercuric chloride was used at -- to treat wood. 


Beryllium oxide, mercuric chloride were 


contained in fluorescent light tubes which were 


broken by the thousands. Acetone was used for 


cleaning as well as stabilizer in -- in 


acetylene fuel. Lithium was used for special 


purposes in the tunnel, and we were exposed to 


diesel exhaust, which did not pass through 


catalytic converters. Silica was also present 


in the tunnel. Perhaps the worst thing of all 


was the uncontrolled diesel exhaust, which I 

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understand contained benzene. 


One challenge I would leave the members of this 


Board, explain to us -- I hope I pronounce this 


right -- the synergetic effect of these 


chemicals and radiation together. 


Thank you for the opportunity to address you. 


I hope that you can influence the Congress to 


all -- this legislation to make it fair to all 


workers. The present favored treatment of 


workers on Amchitka makes no sense, and neither 


does the 250-day rule for NTS radiation 


workers. NTS TBD in my opinion contains some 


serious flaws. The idea a job classification 


alone can identify someone at risk is not true, 


and neither is the idea only Q-cleared persons 


could have been in the tunnels and exposed to 


tritium. I have made suggestions on how other 


records could be used to determine persons at 


risk, and I hope you will consider that and the 


systegenic (sic) effects of exposure to both 


radiation and chemicals. Thank you very much. 


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


John, for those pointed comments. 


Next we'll hear from Patty Cook -- Patty. 


 MS. COOK: Good evening, Dr. Ziemer and members 

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of the Board. My name is Patricia Cook and I 


am claimant 1,359 on behalf of my mother, Irene 


Cerboskas Halperson*, who passed away of 


multiple myeloma in June, 1997. She worked at 


the Test Site Nuclear Rocket Development 


Station at Jackass Flats from August 1963 


through December 1970. In fact, her last day 


was the day being buried* ended. 


She worked for the Pan American World Airways. 


Her office was housed in trailers next to the 


E-med and R-med buildings. She returned to 


work at the Nevada Test Site from 1980 to 1986 


working for Atlas Wire Line. 


My statement will relay my experience with 


NIOSH and the Department of Labor in regards to 


the Act. My claim was denied after five long, 


tedious years. My disagreements with the way 


dose reconstruction was administered fell upon 


deaf ears and total disregard. 


 The final adjudiation (sic) board granted me an 


oral hearing in January of this year. I was 


accompanied by a local newspaper, that was not 


allowed into the proceedings. Why? I thought 


there was freedom of the press. Explain to me 


where the government disallows the media to 

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participate. What did the Department of Labor 


have to hide? Maybe that the dose 


reconstruction was not a good example of 


scientific findings and based on minimal 


information. 


(NOTE: Another conversation was present during 


this speaker's comments. Every effort was made 


to isolate the speaker from that secondary 


conversation.) 


Explain to me why I had to take an oath at the 


hearing, and DOL did not. The burden of proof 


is my obligation. I proved that my mother had 


multiple myeloma, but how can I prove radiation 


and chemical exposure when there are no 


accurate records to help me? Pan American is 


no longer in business. I cannot get records 


from them. Plus the Nevada Test Site had 


multiple prime contractors during these years 


that my mom was there -- McGee, Wico, Benbecto* 


-- every time they changed prime contractors, 


records got lost, misplaced, buried in a 


landfill, falsified by DOE's own 


acknowledgement. 


There was no industrial hygiene prior to 1971, 


by Bechtel's own acknowledgement. Not only was 

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there radiation exposure, but there was 


chemical dose -- I'm sorry. Not only do we 


need radiation exposure, but we need chemical 


dose reconstruction also. Both cause cancer. 


I presented a copy of the discrepancies that 


Sanford and Cohen (sic) found in the site 


profile. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Can you please stop talking on 


the phone so we can hear (unintelligible) -- 


 MS. COOK: The bottom line is that the site 


profile is inadequate, and there's insufficient 


and incomplete data to do my mother's dose 


reconstruction. At best they did dose 


reconstruction that was calculated at a sample 


size of 2,000 instead of 10,000. 


Sadly, I'm not even sure what it means. The 


technical jargon and signs and symbols that are 


in the reports are not user friendly. They're 


designed to leave you dazed and confused after 


trying to read through them. 


I told Curtis Johnson, the hearing 


representative, that I have given all that I 


have. And the final letter I received stated 


that because they had not received any more 


information from me in 30 days that my claim 

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was denied. 


I also noted in the hearing all the mistakes 


that had been made by NIOSH, and he apologized 


profusely. But nonetheless, the first dose 


reconstruction was done on a secondary cancer. 


I had to call them on it. Then it had to be 


redone and I had to have another phone 


interview because there were no notes taken on 


my original phone interview. That was four 


years prior to that. I was told that this 


person that did the original phone interview 


had been fired for sloppy work. And needless 


to say, finding out four years later, I was 


very, very unhappy. 


I don't have confidence in the system. The 


oral hearing was a total waste of time, energy, 


my taxes and your taxes. 


I have a signed receipt from DOL requesting 


they keep my file open dated July 7th. It has 


not been acknowledged as yet. 


 The only legitimate records of exposure that I 


have is the material my mother saved and the 


stories that she told. During the large tests 


she said she would -- they would ship them off 


to Mercury for an hour, then bring them back to 

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Jackass Flats. She told me that while they 


were walking on the rocks in their shoes, the 


cleanup crews were out there in HazMat suits. 


The fact that they were testing nuclear 


reactors meant that there were accidents, also. 


And the reactors would blow up and sometimes 


come apart, exposing them to toxic substances 


and radiation. 


Projects NERVA, Rover, Thebes* and the 


extremely dirty Pluto were a common part of my 


vocabulary. 


This is proof. There's Jackass Flats. Proof 


is, my mom was there 'cause I've got pictures 


of nuclear reactors -- hot nuclear reactors. 


This poor guy, he's smiling. 


And finally, it touches my heart because this 


is a Rover reunion where the last people from 


her division had a little reunion party to 


celebrate Rover. Little did she know at the 


time what was going to happen. 


All this being said to the Board, I thank you 


and I hope that you will consider my claim in 


the future for special co-- Special Exposure 


Cohort. I also request the Board give Special 


-- SEC to Areas 25, 27, E-med, R-med and NRDS. 

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Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Patricia. 


It's often very difficult to even share those 


experiences. 


Dorothy Clayton, is Dorothy here? Dorothy. 


 MS. CLAYTON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 MS. CLAYTON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


I'd like -- (on microphone) I have some records 


to share with you. My husband worked at the 


Nevada Test Site for 29 and a half years, and I 


was able to get 1,370 pages of declassified 


records from the DOE, but I just chose about 


five years that I'd like to share with you of ­

- of the records that -- that I have gotten 


from him -- for him. 


I'll start with 1959 when the radiation 


exposure at the Test Site at that time was 


three rems per quarter and five rems per year. 


His radiation exposure history from the DOE 


shows that he got 12,130 millirems. That 


includes 10,100 in tritium. Also there's a -- 


there's a memo from -- it's for -- to the 


Nevada Operations Department, Division of the 


Atomic Energy Commission, asking that his 

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radiation exposure be raised to 12,000 


millirems a year. This memo is dated September 


the 4th. He was already up to 8.3 at that 


point, so he was well over the 5 -- 5,000 


millirems at that -- at that time. 


Then in October, October the 1st, his radiation 


exposure was 11.9. The radiation chief wrote a 


memo that said (reading) It would be my 


recommendation that Mr. Clayton be transferred 


from his present work assignment to an area 


where his exposure possibilities would be 


removed entirely. 


That didn't happen. There are urine samples 


done, nasal swabs done from October the 19th, 


1959 all the way through December of 1959. On 


the -- the year-end report it shows the 


radiation dosage that he received up through 


September. October, November and December are 


blank. They did not record any radiation at 


all that he had gotten because he was -- he was 


already over the 12,000 that they had given him 


-- had raised it to. That was 1959. 


1961, this is -- there was a teletype from 


Reynolds Electric to James B. (unintelligible) 


of the U.S. AEC. This is dated November the 

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28th, 1961 asking to raise my husband's 


radiation limit again to the 12,000 millirems 


per year. It says (reading) We urgently 


request that approximately 30 key personnel now 


working in B tunnel, all of whom have exceeded 


or are about to exceed three R for the quarter, 


be allowed to continue working in B tunnel. 


And this is considered necessary if we are to 


meet the test schedules, and it's highly 


desirable from an economic standpoint. 


They didn't want to bring in new hires and 


train them to do the job. They'd rather these 


men be over-exposed to radiation. That was in 


1961. 


In 1962 -- I have copies of his film badge 


cards, the original film badge cards. It shows 


-- on the radiation exposure history it shows 


that he had gotten 1,955 millirems for that 


year. However, on this film badge card right 


here, which is date-stamped November the 29th, 


1962, his radiation exposure was 3,113 -- a 


discrepancy there. There's log book entries. 


They blacked out some of the names to provec-- 


you know, to prevent other people's names from 


showing, but they made a notation of one of the 

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men having radiated hair, radiation in his 


hair. They also made a note in this log book 


regarding the lost film badges, that the men 


were requested -- if they had an abundance of 


radiation -- to lose their badges. Here -- it 


said there was a call from the lab and said we 


should get some lost film badge cards to 


provide for the men who were asked to lose 


their badges and replace them. There's another 


note in another log book that said the call -- 


they had received a call for information on one 


of the men who had lost his film badge. 


About eight months before my husband passed 


away he dictated a ten-page work history to me, 


and this was in 19-- this was October the 26th, 


1998. He passed away in 1999, June the 5th. 


He had been working on the mesa above the 


tunnels, and when the rad safe monitor came to 


-- back to him, he made a report to the net 


control, and as soon as the monitor told the 


people at the net control how much radiation my 


husband had at that time and how high the 


radiation was at that level, they told him to 


get him off of the mesa, then, and the rad safe 


supervisor recommended that my husband lose his 

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film badge, which he did, because at that time 


my husband -- his words, the miners were in 


fear of losing their jobs if they got too much 


radiation. 


They weren't aware of the consequences of overabundance of radiation. They knew it was bad ­

- the workers did, I'm sure -- but they didn't 


know the consequences of -- of losing a badge 


and not being able to count that radiation. 


Then in 19-- in 1963 the radiation exposure 


history shows 240 millirems of radiation. 


However, a film -- copy of a film badge card 


that I have dated 8/29/63 shows that he had 


4,611 millirems for the year. 


In 1964 the radiation exposure history shows 


zero. That was a year that -- where they had 


an abundance of heavy-duty tests. The -- one 


of his film badge cards which is date-stamped 


May the 2nd, 1964 shows 5,675 millirems. 


The last one I have to show you is 1965. The 


radiation exposure history shows 265 millirems. 


However, his film badge card shows 6,486 


millirems. And it's their -- it's a copy of 


the actual film badge cards. 


So I don't see how an accurate dose 

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reconstruction can happen when they were doing 


things like this. I don't see how a radiation 


exposure history can be determined when they 


have records like this, the film badge cards, 


to go by. 


I've already been paid for my claim, but 


there's many people who haven't. And -- and if 


they're going by the records provided by the 


DOE, they're incorrect -- very, very, very 


inaccurate. 


And I just -- there's only one more thing to 


share. They're asking the widows -- this is 


the letter from the Department of Labor. The 


very last paragraph says (reading) Remember, as 


the claimant it is ultimately your 


responsibility to submit the necessary 


information to substantiate your claims. 


How unfair can that be? That was a secured 


area, and there is no way the widows would know 


what their husbands were working in. We were 


told -- I worked out there for several years. 


We were told even if we saw anything in the 


newspaper, we could not talk about it. We 


couldn't, it -- so how in the world can these 


widows substantiate any kind of a claim? So 

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hopefully we'll get a good dose reconstruction 


program going. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for your comments. I'd 


like to insert at this point that NIOSH 


certainly doesn't operate in the spirit of that 


last paragraph. They don't rely on the widows 


to provide the information on dose 


reconstruction. I think the -- the claimants 


do have to provide something on medical, but 


that's not a NIOSH statement, I assume. I'll 


ask Larry Elliott, I don't believe that's a 


NIOSH statement. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: She was reading from a Department 


of Labor letter. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. And I might add also -- 


and you know, the Board doesn't deal with the 


individual cases, but in cases where there are 


these kind of discrepancies, NIOSH always goes 


in favor of the higher number, so you get the 


benefit of the doubt on those -- those kinds of 


claims if there's -- I believe that would be 


correct. 


I understand your claim has already been 


processed. I assume that the dose 


reconstructors had access to the information 

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183 

that you shared with the Board, so -- I don't 


know if you want to comment or -- Larry, but -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I don't -- I don't think we 


had all of this information, which I find very 


interesting. I'm going to see Ms. Clayton 


afterward and see if we can talk with Mark 


Rolfes, who's helping Bob Presley out on the 


working group for this site. But this -- this 


kind of information stimulates my interest 


considerably. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Next we'll 


hear from Dr. Jacob Paz, is Dr. Paz -- welcome. 


(NOTE: The position between the following 


speaker and the microphone created a 


reverberation so extreme it rendered words 


completely unintelligible. This transcription 


was developed using a microphone positioned a 


distance away from the speaker and represents 


the best efforts of the reporter, but some 


words remained unclear.) 


 DR. PAZ: Certainly. Good evening. My name is 


Dr. Jacob Paz. I have a Ph.D. in Environmental 


Health Science from Polytechnic University, New 


York. I worked at the Nevada Test Site from 


1989 to 1991 as an industrial hygienist. 
I 

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184 

also with Senator Reid on NTS employee exposure 


issues. In my professional opinion, NTS who 


work 250 days between the years of 1961 and 


1962 should be compensated and why due to 


recent advances in science. Number one, low 


level radiation and rec-- and radiation 


bystander effect. Recently the National 


Academy of Science completed a comprehensive 


evaluation of the literature relevant to the -- 


to the risk of radiation exposure, the 


committee concluding that since that radiation 


can cause other health cancer effects such as 


heart disease, strokes and further study is 


needed to predict the dose results in the known 


cancer health effect. The committee noted that 


it is -- that it is possible that children born 


of parents that have been exposed to radiation 


could be affected by those exposure. The 


committee concluded that the risks of low level 


radiation are equal but greater than previously 


thought. The bystander effect and the newly 


recognized method by which radiation produces 


changes in cell that were not directly hit but 


are in the vicinity of those that are change -- 


that were -- the changes include but not 

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limited to increases level of -- of repair 


proteins, increase -- increase apoptosis and 


increase damage. Some of these changes appear 


to constitute damage to the cell, while other 


probably reduce the damage or cause damage to 


the cell to disappear so that they do not -- so 


-- I'm sorry -- so that they cannot grow or 


become cancer. Genomic instability can occur 


in cell which survive exposure to low level 


radiation. According to the report, might 


contribute significantly to the radiation 


cancer risk. 


Next, effect of this newly discovery had been 


reported in pages 553 to 571. 


Finally, NIOSH dose reconstruction project 


should also take into consideration the 


following: the effect of mixed radiation 


exposure, for example, alpha, beta and gamma, 


and the possible synergistic interaction 


exposure mode to low and high LET particles. 


 Number two, sorption of radon by silica and 


cancer. Recently there has been growing 


concern of sorption of radon by silica and the 


potential increasing -- increasing lung cancer. 


In 1997 IARC changed the classification of 

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silica dust from 2A to 1. Two, Goldsmith, 1997 


3 stated meaning the silica is a human 


carcinogens just like radon. All uranium miner 


are exposed to silica and, and he furthermore 


stated none of the epidemiologic studies that 


I'm aware of have data on silica dust. That 


mean that the EPA radon extrapolation should -- 


could be a flaw, resulting three possibility 


scenarios. One, silica may interact to 


increase cancer potency slope; two, silica and 


radon may not affect each other and the 


(unintelligible) slope; three, silica and radon 


may have an antagonistic effect. 


 The EPA extrapolation for public health, the 


radon/silica question must be addressed. In my 


opinion, the EPA claim that indoor radon is 


second leading cause of lung cancer after 


smoking remains only a claim, and should be 


examined critically. Lung cancer probably 


caused by combined action of radon and its 


offspring and silica dust. Exposure to zeolite 


fiber and eronite and mordenite and known to be 


a potent carcinogen and must be addressed and 


I'd like to address it. It was found in some 


vein in the Nevada Test Site. I test three 

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sample were negative. 


These report are extremely important since 


miner at the Nevada Test Site have been exposed 


to silica dust and radon and subsequent -- and 


subsequently could cause a synergistic 


interactions and the develop of elevated lung 


cancer. This need to be further investigated. 


Second -- second -- secondary, there is a 


possibility exposure of NTS worker to silica 


dust to radiation in both during tunnels 


operation and ground -- and -- and ground to 


nuclear detonation devices and the possible 


increase in cancer rate. I have conduct and if 


the committee want a very extensive physical 


and chemical testing for about a year and a 


half on silica and chemical agent and -- 


they're available. 


I'd just like to make also notes which is not, 


but it might also be very important is the 


direction between chemical and radiation and 


the report by Preston in 2003 and 2005 which is 


really stated that potential of interaction and 


-- and making recommendation of -- for 


additional research. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Dr. Paz. Also could I 

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ask you to clarify, the National Academy of -- 


the report to which you refer, is that -- 


 DR. PAZ: BEIR VII. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- BEIR VII report. Okay, I -- I 


just wanted to note that -- 


 DR. PAZ: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- the risk values from BEIR VII 


are essentially the risk values that are used 


by NIOSH --


 DR. PAZ: Yes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- in dose reconstruction. 


 DR. PAZ: Okay, I'm just making my -- that's my 


remark. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I just wanted to make sure -- 


yeah. Thank you. 


Next we'll hear from Knut Ringen -- Knut. 


 MR. RINGEN: Thank you very much for 


entertaining me again and -- first of all, I 


appreciate that you've finally gotten me some 


numbers on construction workers, and I 


apologize to you that you've been on the end of 


my belligerent statements in that regard, but 


of course that's why you get paid the big 


bucks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, right. 

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189

 MR. RINGEN: I want to make sure that Larry's 


comment earlier today did not -- was not 


interpreted to mean that CPWR in any way had 


any involvement in the drafting of OTIB-0052. 


We did not -- we did work with NIOSH leading up 


to it in various ways, but we had no knowledge 


of the content of that document till we 


received it two weeks ago, and we then put 


together a committee of internal and external 


scientific advisors to help us review it. And 


that group came up with a number of questions 


about it that we discussed with Larry in a 


conference call on Monday and that we sent him 


a subsequent five-page letter outlining the 


concerns that we think need to be addressed. 


These concerns include the underlying 


assumptions -- Jim Melius referred to one of 


them, we have identified five others that are 


very significant; the strengths and weaknesses 


of the datasets that are included, because all 


of them have significant problems in terms of 


both their coverage and in terms of their 


completeness, and they're all unaudited and 


they consist of simply annualized data for 


workers; the external validity of the findings 

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from the sets -- datasets that are available 


and to the extent to which you can extrapolate 


from that to other sites; the conclusions and 


guidance provided to dose reconstructors as a 


result of that analysis; and finally we wonder 


how do dose reconstructors decide when to use 


one of these OTIBs and not another, and what's 


the relationship between them because you get ­

- beginning to get quite a few of them. 


 It was unfortunate in the presentation that the 


focus was so much on that one composite dataset 


because that's not really meaningful in the 


end. If you look at the underlying datasets 


individually, there's huge variation between 


them so that some may have a dose for 


construction workers that's lower than for 


other workers, while others have cons-- have 


values that are significantly higher. And I 


don't want the discussion of the document to be 


held up on the basis of what was in that one 


slide that you had available to you. 


 We appreciate your decision to have a working 


group review this document, and we offer to 


participate in the working group as you see 


appropriate. Within this letter that we have 

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sent to Larry Elliott I think there's a fairly 


extensive agenda that ought to form a good 


basis for the deliberations of the committee, 


and I think we can provide the committee with 


expertise in terms of the construction -- 


industrial hygiene expertise that you need to 


review it properly. So thank you. And thank 


you for your service. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Knut, as a starting point, 


could you provide us with the list of five or 


whatever it is issues that were of concern to 


your group? You don't have to do it right now, 


but I --


 MR. ELLIOTT: We'll get you a copy of it. 


 MR. RINGEN: (Off microphone) Larry's 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Larry can get us a copy and -- 


we'll just make it available to the Board. 


 MR. RINGEN: Absolutely. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Obviously we've had some 


discussions today, even some members sort of 


off-line as we are looking at the document. 


And like any other of the TIBs, it's a -- it's 


a living document and we'll have opportunities 


-- I think NIOSH will welcome input from -- 

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from all of us to -- if we can refine it and 


improve it in any way, so -- 


 MR. RINGEN: We appreciate how difficult it is 


for NIOSH to try to do what it's trying to do 


with this, but there's still lots of work that 


needs to be done on it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I see Brian -- I didn't know Brian 


Dodd was with us. Brian Dodd is the President 


of the Health Physics Society. Brian, welcome. 


 MR. DODD: Thank you. Good evening. My name 


is Brian Dodd. I'm President of the Health 


Physics Society and a Las Vegas resident for 


three years now. I'd like to thank NIOSH and 


the Advisory Board for -- on Radiation and 


Worker Health for the opportunity to make some 


comments in this public meeting and for holding 


the meeting, and I'd like to make some comments 


on behalf of the Health Physics Society. 


For those not familiar with the Health Physics 


Society, it's an independent scientific 


organization whose members are professionals in 


the field of radiation safety. The Society's 


mission is excellence in the science and 


practice of radiation safety. HPS activities 


include encouraging research in radiation 

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science, developing standards and disseminating 


radiation safety information. 


By way of background on my comments today, I'd 


like to quickly review the Society's position 


statement on the subject entitled "Compensation 


for Diseases that Might be Caused by Radiation 


Must Consider the Dose." This is available on 


the Society's web site of hps.org in the 


documents section. This statement was first 


adopted in March of 2000 and states that the 


HPS believes that a person's radiation dose 


must be considered in determining whether to 


provide compensation for disease that could 


have been caused by radiation. It also states 


that there should be no compensation for 


persons whose lifetime doses are less than 


approximately .1 sieverts, ten rem, 10,000 


millirem. 


The Health Physics Society strongly supports 


compensation for workers who are likely to have 


been harmed by occupational radiation exposure 


-- strongly supports. Our knowledge about the 


potential health effects of ionizing radiation 


is extensive. It's known that radiation cannot 


cause all types of diseases. It's also known 

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that for those diseases observed to be caused 


by radiation, the likelihood that radiation 


will cause a disease increases as the dose 


increases. In other words, any particular 


disease's likelihood of having been caused by 


radiation is dependent on the dose to the 


individual. This relationship of increasing 


likelihood of disease with increasing dose has 


only been observed for doses greater than 


approximately .1 sieverts, the ten rem. 


The likelihood of radiation-induced disease 


below this level, if it exists at all, is so 


small that it's not measurable. It is not a 


matter of scientific fact, and it can only be 


established utilizing hypothetical mathematical 


dose response models. 


Presumption of causation has no scientific or 


medical basis without consideration of dose. 


That is, the simple fact that some radiation 


exposure occurred is not a measure of hazard. 


The amounts of exposure -- i.e., the dose -- is 


the only measure of the hazard, and the only 


measure of the likelihood of the disease or 


injury has been caused by the radiation. 


It's with this background that the HPS is 

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concerned with the pressure on the Board to 


make every facility and cohort a Special 


Exposure Cohort. The Society is concerned 


because of the presumption that a cancer in a 


member of a designated SEC is caused by 


radiation and is paid compensation without 


regard for the dose. The HPS would urge the 


Board to resist the pressure and to use dose 


reconstruction as the basis for compensation, 


except in very extraordinary situations where 


even broad ceilings on an individual's dose 


cannot be estimated. 


It is feared that there may be a tendency for 


the Board to take the easy path and perhaps 


save the money of a dose reconstruction by 


generously granting SEC status. However, the 


causation of a cancer by radiation is a 


question of science, and the science should be 


followed whenever possible. Abandoning science 


in a scientific issue can set a precedent that 


could result in a misappropriation of public 


money and could reinforce a common fear that 


any level of radiation will cause a cancer, 


thereby influencing society to abandon the 


beneficial uses of radiation technology. 

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I want to reiterate the statement right in the 


beginning, that the Health Physics Society's 


fundamental position is that it strongly 


supports compensation for any worker that is 


likely to have been harmed by occupational 


radiation exposure. However, it also strongly 


believes that such a determination should be 


informed by the science. 


 That concludes my comments for the day, and I 


thank you for the opportunity of sharing them 


with you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Brian. We 


appreciate the input to -- to the Board. 


Next I have Sandra Jackson. Is Sandra here? 


 MS. JACKSON: I appreciate this opportunity to 


present some information. I'm -- I'm standing 


up for my -- can you not hear me? 


 DR. WADE: Speak up just a little --


 DR. ZIEMER: Just a little -- little closer. 


 MS. JACKSON: Okay. Is that better? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's good. 


 DR. WADE: That's good. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That's good. 


 MS. JACKSON: Okay. I am representing my dad, 


who died of pancreatic and liver cancer in 

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1992. My dad, Donald Eugene Rauch, worked for 


Sandia National Labs from 1950 to 1981. During 


that time he worked at Nevada Test Site and 


Tonapah Test Site. He was a weapons handler 


and assembler, with training that started in 


1957, and all of this is verified by NIOSH. 


NIOSH reports only five years of dosimetry 


records for monitoring radiation during 1965, 


1966 at the Nevada Test Site, and during 1959, 


1972 and 1973 at Sandia National Laboratories 


in Albuquerque. The dosimetry records are few 


and far in between. NIOSH claims that this is 


due to the fact that he worked with non-nuclear 


weapons. 


From the research that my brother and I have 


done, and the knowledge given to us that was 


reported by my dad to us, we know that he 


worked with nuclear weapons far more 


extensively than is shown. My brother Don and 


I started with our claim in November 2001. His 


NIOSH record number was 2,076. We have fought 


to keep the case open, bringing new evidence of 


his exposure to radiation and the culmination 


of radiation that caused his death from 


pancreatic and liver cancer in 1992. Hints 

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from sympathetic caseworkers gave us directions 


to find certain health records to validate 


radiation exposure. We've gone to great 


expense and time to work on this for all of 


these years to get records, et cetera, only to 


find that NIOSH already had them and are still 


-- and we're still not any closer to 


resolution. We're now being pressured to close 


the case, even though I have an affidavit of a 


gentleman that worked with Williams Electric 


Engineering and remembers seeing my dad during 


the Sedan test in 1962 showing evidence that he 


was at the Nevada Test Site on multiple 


occasions, directly involved at the set-up and 


clean-up of test shots, which they have not yet 


recognized. 


In my packet I have a complete letter that my 


brother wrote to the DOL in January of this 


year concerning the extremely poor way this 


whole situation has been handled. I've 


requested this letter to be included and be 


read thoroughly so as not to take up too much 


time at this point. No response was made to 


this letter for two months, until we contacted 


Senator Reid's office and Kathleen Rozner sent 

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a fax to NIOSH demanding a response. One of 


the points that was brought out by this letter 


is the DOL did not comply with their own 


procedures in completing a dose reconstruction. 


Dose reconstruction was completed before a 


previously-assigned oral interview which left 


out important facts which should have been 


included in the reconstruction. Dose 


reconstruction was completed in 12/12/05, and 


the interview was done 12/13/05. 


Each time new material was found and a new dose 


reconstruction was completed, the dose levels 


were lowered from previous reports, keeping the 


level below the 50 percent needed to follow 


through with the compensation. How could rem 


to the pancreas in the report done on 12/12 of 


'05 be only 15.282, when in the previous report 


only seven months prior on 5/12/05 it was 


64.412, even though there were more dosimetry 


records found, more medical problems and 


evidence discovered. They called this 


efficiency. Efficiency seems to be another 


word for claimant elimination process. 


We have more than 16 caseworkers listed in my 


brother's letter over these five years that 

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we've been trying to work through this 


compensation process. Each new caseworker 


didn't know what had been done prior. We 


started each time from scratch, educating them 


and getting them up to speed, wasting even more 


time. 


As we went through the process we were 


constantly having to prove the facts of our 


dad's medical history, as well as his 


employment history. Example, I had school 


records from 1960 to 1962 that we lived in 


Tonapah, and that was where my dad, from 


Tonapah, went to the Tonapah Test Site. That 


was not sufficient. I was told we needed an 


affidavit of somebody who worked with him at 


the test site. When I found land records of a 


home that my dad purchased in Tonapah, 


miraculously his records of working in Tonapah 


at the test site showed up with medical records 


during this same time period. They already had 


the information that he worked there, and the 


medical records, before they asked us to prove 


that he had lived there. 


Prior to our family moving to Tonapah to live, 


my dad was flying out of Albuquerque on Monday 

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mornings for Las Vegas, where he was taken to 


the Nevada Test Site, and flying back home on 


Friday evenings. I remember my mom and I 


picking him up many Friday evenings. This must 


have been the time that he was being trained as 


a weapons handler and assembler. There's no 


record of this time spent at the Test Site. 


With the top secrecy of the Nevada Test Site, 


surely there was some sign-ins at the 


checkpoint for everybody in and out of that 


site. No one has made any efforts to find 


those sheets that would have given proof to so 


many people who were in and out of that 


facility. Have those sign-in sheets 


conveniently disappeared like the dosimetry 


records? 


NIOSH states that in their report the Tonapah 


Test Site was primary -- provided an isolated 


place to test ballistics and non-nuclear 


features of atomic weapons, and they explained 


it wasn't necessary for badge readings. When 


we lived in Tonapah from 1960 to '62 I remember 


my dad worked very late. He told me later in 


life that he would go to the Tonapah Test -- he 


would go from the Tonapah Test Site to the 

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Nevada Test Site to participate in test shots. 


I just by chance ran across a gentleman that 


worked for Reynolds Electric Engineering and he 


actually remembers my dad during the Sedan test 


shot. His affidavit is included in my complete 


notes and I will read a little bit about what 


he said in the affidavit. It asked work that 


the employee did, and this is by Horace Wiley. 


(Reading) Donald Rauch from Sandia National Lab 


duties. They brought in the nuclear device, 


set it in place, ran dry (unintelligible) from 


the diagnostic trailer 1,000 to 1,500 feet from 


the point of detonation, supervised correct 


placement, number and size of cables, and 


monitored the detonation from the control point 


hill one to two miles away. Sandia's crew went 


back in for cleanup after the Sedan shot the 


very next day. 


This is his knowledge of the employees worker 


relating to my dad. And this is -- he said 


(reading) I worked for Reynolds Electric 


Engineering. Our crew's duties were to set up 


the cable of power and hydrogen to the canister 


that held the nuclear device for the test. 


Donald Rauch and the Sandia crew ran diagnostic 

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tests to record the action and resistant, and 


told us how many cables, size, and their 


correct placement to make sure of the 


continuity of the test. The next day our crew 


went in to release the cables and clean up with 


the Sandia crew, including Donald Rauch, 


supervising us as to what needed to be done. 


Many times the tests were still flaring when we 


went in, and Sedan continued to flare for many 


weeks afterwards. I did see Donald Rauch at 


the Nevada Test Site many times over the course 


-- several times over the course of the time 


that I was working at the Nevada Test Site from 


the late '50s to the mid-'60s. I worked in 


areas eight, nine and ten and in the flats. 


Due to the amount of years that have passed and 


the large number of tests, I cannot be specific 


with the dates and test shots other than the 


Sedan test, which left a strong and clear 


impression in my mind. This information I've 


related to Sandy Jackson and she's compiled it 


for continuity and ease of reading. I have 


read through the information and 'firm what is 


provided here is accurate. As far as the Sedan 


nuclear test as just one of them, this took 

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place on July 6th of 1962 of -- of the 


Operation Plowshare program to investigate the 


use of nuclear weapons for mining, cratering 


and other civilian purposes. This blast 


yielded 104 kilotons. The only one larger than 


that was 105. It consisted of 12 million short 


tons of soil, resulted in a radioactive cloud 


that rose to an altitude of 12,000 feet. The 


dust plume headed northeast and then east 


towards the Mississippi River. It created a 


crater of 320 feet deep and has a diameter of 


about 1,280 feet. 


So it was a huge test and -- and exploded, and 


I have copies that will be included of all of 


the other tests, which were very low, less than 


20 KTs, 38 kilotons, 25 kilotons, so 104 was 


huge. 


On August -- let's see, I want to make sure -- 


NIOSH reports -- excuse me. Just that one shot 


could have had a very large impact on his 


health and certainly could have been 


contributory factor to all the cancer that he 


had over the years, culminating with his death. 


His affidavit shows that my dad was at the 


Nevada Test Site and involved in who knows how 

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many other tests. Where are those dosimetry 


records? 


On August 9th, 1963 after we returned to 


Albuquerque from Tonapah, Dad had to have a 


thyroidectomy due to growths on the thyroid. 


Because of the biopsy of the tumors came out 


non-malignant, NIOSH did not even recognize or 


include the surgery as definitive evidence of 


radiation exposure. There is a clear 


indication that the people near Chernobyl had 


the same growths on their thyroids due to 


radiation exposure. These growths generally 


led to cancer if left untreated. It seems the 


fact that the nodules were removed before 


becoming cancers negated the exposure. 


A few of the stories that Dad told us over the 


last several years of his life -- I myself 


received some of these stories. He was told to 


put his badge in the refrigerator and walk down 


to ground zero just days after they set off the 


test. At times he knew he had received high 


radiation. When he turned in his badge, the 


lab came back with inconclusive results due to 


a lab malfunction. 


In the early '70s Dad became very sick and the 

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doctors were unable to find the cause. He had 


a friend who recognized it as radiation 


sickness due to his friend being present at 


Hiroshima. The friend told him about the baths 


with iodine and salt and I can't remember what 


else were added into it that were used in 


Hiroshima on survivors of the nuclear bomb. He 


did the radiation cleansing baths for the 


specified time and the symptoms went away. 


He was in the test group right before his death 


in 1991. As I remember, it was Sandiaauthorized, consisted of five men that they 


were able to find still living in the 


Albuquerque area that had worked at the Test 


Site. Two had been diagnosed with cancer when 


Dad found out he had cancer. One died, the 


other one was critical, and before he died the 


fourth one was diagnosed with cancer. 


He related when he first started being exposed 


to radiation they were allowed 18 Rograms of 


exposure per year as being safe. Over the year 


that was low-- over the years that was lowered 


to eight Rograms of exposure per year, less 


than half. They realized that the dosages were 


too high and the exposure at higher dosage 

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would be detrimental to health. He was very 


concerned to what the higher dosage that were 


allowed in the early years would do to his 


health. 


 My sister-in-law, which is my brother's wife, 


was told of him being sick after working on the 


bombs and the badge that had been shown high 


radiation. One time he was told to take off 


and keep working because it showed such high 


radiation. They all got sick and Sandia denied 


that anything was wrong. He talked about 


canisters leaking and Sandia trying to cover it 


up, that they received too much radiation many 


times. Even when the badge registered high 


they would say it was okay. He would talk to 


me often about all of this, and was very 


worried that he would die from cancer from the 


radiation. He had many skin cancers received 


over the years, including melanoma. His head 


would break out with infections. 


Back to just my comments, my dad and thousand 


of other workers were dangerously exposed to 


radiation and other caustic elements. They 


suffered lingering health problems and much 


pain right up to their deaths. Maybe at first 

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the government didn't realize the seriousness 


of the radiation exposure, but as they studied 


and reviewed the results of this radiation and 


the devastation, they do know now and have 


known for many years. These workers trusted 


their employers and their government to do 


right by them. When they saw how they were 


being used and exposed and tried to speak out, 


they were told to shut up or lose their jobs. 


I see millions of dollars being wasted to pay 


caseworkers that don't have a clue. They 


shuffle paperwork from desk to desk. They keep 


those who deserve compensation from receiving 


it. Bureaucracy, red tape and cover-ups must 


be stopped here and now. These people are 


truly the unsung heroes of the Cold War. Their 


sacrifices allowed our country to gain world 


supremacy in nuclear atomic fission and -- and 


to be known as a country not to be contended 


with. They are just as important as those 


soldiers that fought and gave their lives to 


keep our country free. Recognition for these 


workers' sacrifices and due compensation which 


cannot begin to make up for the suffering, loss 


of life and the pain of those families who were 

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left behind needs to be given now or all of 


this suffering and loss of these lives will be 


in vain. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Sandra, for 


sharing that with us. 


This now concludes our public comment session 


for today. There will be another public 


comment session tomorrow at -- I'm looking for 


the time -- tomorrow at 7:30. 


We stand recessed until tomorrow morning at 


8:30. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 6:20 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

210 

1 

2 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 Sept. 19, 


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 


18th day of November, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102