THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

THIRTY-FOURTH MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 

Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health held telephonically on January 9, 

2006. 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

January 9, 2006 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIRMAN 

REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP ON 12 

BETHLEHEM STEEL SITE PROFILE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, GROUP CHAIR 

REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP ON 49 

BOARD REVIEW OF SEC PETITIONS 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, GROUP CHAIR 

REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP ON 85 

Y-12 SITE PROFILE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, GROUP CHAIR 

UPDATE ON SCIENCE ISSUE: LYMPHOMA DOSE 137 

RECONSTRUCTION TARGET ORGAN SELECTION 

DR. JIM NETON 

WRAP UP, DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 151 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 155 
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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 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D.

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

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

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 
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GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 

STAFF/VENDORS 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 
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IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE

CLAWSON, BRAD, INEL

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS

HENSHAW, RUSS, NIOSH/OCAS

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS

LOCKEY, JAMES, UNIV. OF CINCINNATI

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

POSTON, JOHN, TEXAS A&M

ULSH, BRANDT, NIOSH

WALKER, ED, BSAG 
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P R O C E E D I N G S 

(10:00 a.m.) 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. ZIEMER: Let’s take an official roll call again 

here. I’m going to call the meeting to order. 

This is Ziemer, and I’m in Cincinnati actually. 

We’re having an orientation session today for 

three new Board members who will be joining us 

after our January meeting, newly appointed by 

the White House. Let me pause here for a 

moment and make sure that Ray Green, Ray, are 

you on board and recording? 

COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

The new members that are here with us today in 

Cincinnati are Brad Clawson who’s from Idaho INEL, 

John Poston who’s from Texas A&M, and Jim Lockey 

who’s here locally at the University of Cincinnati 

Medical School, I believe it is. So we welcome 

them here. They’re basically observing today in 

part of their orientation. Also present here, 

Larry Elliott and Jim Neton are here and Lew Wade 

with us here in Cincinnati. So Lew, could you call 
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the roll, and we’ll see what we have in terms of a 

quorum. 

DR. WADE: Roy DeHart. 

DR. DeHART: Present. 

DR. WADE: Robert Presley. 

MR. PRESLEY: Here. 

DR. WADE: Paul Ziemer. 

DR. ZIEMER: Here. 

DR. WADE: Mike Gibson. 

MR. GIBSON: Here. 

DR. WADE: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: Here. 

DR. WADE: Wanda Munn. 

MS. MUNN: Here. 

DR. WADE: Henry Anderson. 

DR. ANDERSON: Here. 

DR. WADE: Jim Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Here. 

DR. WADE: Mark Griffon. 

MR. GRIFFON: Here. 

DR. WADE: Richard Espinosa. 
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DR. WADE: And Leon. 

DR. ZIEMER: Leon Owens is not on at the moment. 

DR. WADE: I make it that we have nine Board 

members present. We have a quorum. We can conduct 

business if we need to. 

DR. ZIEMER: Also, there are a number of members of 

the public that are on. We don’t need to take a 

roll, but I just make sure that everybody’s aware 

that this is an open meeting and members of the 

public are, have been invited to observe by phone 

as it were, and I believe there are a number of 

those aboard also this morning. We do ask that, we 

always have trouble with these telephone 

conferences in terms of background noise and so on. 

And in some cases if you’re simply listening, you 

may want to push the mute button on your phone to 

cut out background noises that would come in from 

your phone, particularly if there’s other 

conversations going on in your office or wherever 

you’re located. With that let me make sure that 

everybody has a copy of the agenda. Is there 

anyone that did not get a copy of the agenda? And 

for members of the public I alert you to the fact 
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that the agenda is on the website that’s available 

to you there. Dr. Wade is going to make a couple 

of remarks. I want to mention to you that this 

particular meeting of the Board was primarily 

intended to bring us up to speed on the actions of 

our working groups that have been working since the 

last meeting and in preparation for our full faceto-face meeting later this month. So we largely 

will be having discussions and hearing reports. 

The actual actions will probably be minimal though 

there are a couple of actions recommended by at 

least Mark’s working group. Lew, you have some 

introductory remarks. 

DR. WADE: Yeah, just a couple of things. First of 

all, let me thank you on behalf of the Secretary 

and the CDC Director and the NIOSH Director for 

making this time available. I would like to talk 

just a little bit about we are in transition on the 

Board and as Dr. Ziemer mentioned, we have three 

new members who are with us today formally involved 

in orientation and a transition onto the Board. 

The way we intend to work this is at this meeting 

we do have a quorum present of the former Board 

members, and we can conduct business. If there are 

votes, the new members will not be voting at this 
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meeting. There’s also our expectation they will 

not be voting at the end of January meeting in Oak 

Ridge. Any meetings after that the new members 

will be voting and the old, the members rotating 

off will be, will no longer be voting and not 

present as Board members. They can certainly be 

present as members of the public. Relative to 

conflict of interest, let me talk a little bit, on 

our agenda today as you would look at it, we will 

be talking about two site profiles, Bethlehem Steel 

and Y-12. I’ll remind you of the Board’s policy on 

conflict of interest. If a Board member is 

conflicted on either of those sites, since we are 

talking about site profile work, the Board member 

would be allowed to participate fully in the 

discussion. They can stay at the table, but they 

would not participate in any votes. They would 

have to recuse themselves from voting if they are 

conflicted. And again, at this meeting the only 

two we’ll be talking about are Bethlehem and Y-12. 

I would like to -- some thanks are in order. Two 

working groups have been working very hard, one 

chaired by Dr. Melius and one chaired by Mark 

Griffon. I thank all of the members of those 

working groups for what has been quality work. I 
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thank Dr. Melius for his leadership and the writing 

that he’s done. And you’ll be hearing his report 

today. But I would be remiss if I didn’t single 

out Mark Griffon for special thanks on the part of 

the government. Mark’s efforts have been 

considerable. The quality of his work has been 

worthy of note. In my time dealing with boards 

like this, I’ve never seen anyone make the 

contribution that Mark has made, so I think it’s 

important that for the record we thank Mark. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lew, and certainly Mark and 

Jim, on behalf of the Board we echo those same 

thoughts. We really appreciate the input and 

leadership that you both have provided in these 

areas. 

REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP ON 

BETHLEHEM STEEL SITE PROFILE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, GROUP CHAIR 

Let’s begin then with the work on the Bethlehem 

site profile, and I might also mention just so the 

members are aware also of Ed Walker who’s, I think 

all the Board members know from the Bethlehem site, 

is on the phone today as well, and we welcome Ed 

with us this morning. 

Mark, your group’s been working with the 

contractor and with NIOSH to address a number of 
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issues relative to the site profile, so why don’t 

you lead us through your report and your 

recommendations, and we’ll have an opportunity for 

any discussion that any of the Board members wish 

to have. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we, I want to start 

with making sure that people got the materials. 

mean, I sent a one-page document which is basically 

a recommendation from the work group for a full 

Board motion. So it’s --

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let’s make sure that everyone 

got that. That was -- it went out by e-mail. The 

e-mail was dated actually, Mark, I believe -- no -- 

MR. GRIFFON: The day before. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- yesterday or the day before. It 

went out over the weekend. And then a recommended 

action item, and then also a summary matrix was 

also sent out. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, and we’ve been, if you have 

those materials, we’ve been, the work group and the 

full Board have seen this matrix before. And we’ve 

been working on an ongoing basis with SC&A and 

NIOSH to come to resolution on these six findings. 

And I think the way it now stands as of the last 

I 
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phone call, November 28th, I believe that was. We 

had a phone call, and you can see the Board actions 

on the right-hand column of the matrix. I wasn’t 

planning on going through all of those, but 

basically the sense from our work group was that 

NIOSH’s responses to SC&A’s original six findings 

have now been met in terms of the Bethlehem Steel 

site profile. Based on information we’ve reviewed 

so far that’s what we’ve come to that conclusion. 

Now, it also should be pointed out that in some of 

the Board actions there’s an ongoing action 

recommended for NIOSH to work on a general policy 

in certain areas, such as, I believe, that comes up 

in the oronasal breathing issue, finding number 

three, and I think finding number four as well. 

You can look at, some of these issues we believe, 

finding three, four and five especially I’m looking 

at, several of these issues, as we were going 

through these we realized that these are going to 

be recurring issues on many sites potentially. And 

therefore, NIOSH certainly wants to handle these in 

a consistent manner; and therefore, should develop 

some more generic guidelines on how to handle these 

issues. And we should also review those. 

So those are sort of outstanding actions, but any 
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site-specific actions we feel have been addressed 

in the resolution process thus far. And therefore, 

we bring forward this motion which I wrote this as 

a recommendation to the full Board, but the motion 

is written in terms of of the Board. So I don’t 

know if we want to have a discussion before the 

motion or how --

DR. ZIEMER: If you are prepared to make this, 

actually, this comes as a product of the work group 

and constitutes a motion. It doesn’t require a 

second. So I’ll simply declare that the motion is 

open for discussion. In that context we can 

discuss the matrix or any related item. 

As you discuss this, identify who you are for Ray 

Green’s reporting purposes. 

MS. MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda. I haven’t had a 

chance to check my e-mail this morning so I don’t 

know whether you did put together your specific 

motion incorporating Bob’s comment or not. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I did. Mike also sent a 

response to that, Wanda, and the nature of Bob’s 

modifications for those on the call was to change 

the first part of the motion to read that it is the 

working group’s recommendation to the Board that 
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based on this information -- and I just thought if 

we’re going to -- I can go either way with this I 

guess. But I thought if it’s written in terms of a 

motion that the top of my letter that I sent out to 

everyone says that this is a motion from the 

working group for the entire Board to vote on is 

the way I was kind of writing it. So I wrote it in 

terms of the Board, where mine says it is the 

opinion of the Board. 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me simply make a ruling on this 

that will help move us along. Whatever is adopted 

would be the adopted as a motion of the Board. And 

Mark, I’m interpreting your group as recommending 

some wording for the Board to adopt. But we 

understand that this is the, the working group’s 

recommendation is that the following statement be 

adopted by the Board, and then your words would 

follow. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is that clear, Wanda? Then so we’re 

going with the first draft that I -- 

MS. MUNN: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: But whatever the, if the Board chooses 

to pass this motion, then it would read as an 

opinion of the Board. 
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DR. ANDERSON: It’s pretty short. If others don’t 

have it, maybe you could just read it. 

DR. ZIEMER: I will read it as it was distributed 

in case members of the public don’t have it or 

others. It’s, basically, it’s a single sentence 

and here’s how it reads: “It is the opinion of the 

Board and the Board’s contractor that based on the 

information available at this time, the Bethlehem 

Steel site profile as modified through the comment 

resolution process is acceptable for use in the 

NIOSH dose reconstruction program with the 

understanding that the action items listed in the 

attached matrix will be completed, and that NIOSH 

will track all ongoing action items and provide the 

Board with quarterly updates on each of the six 

items listed in the matrix.” 

And that is the motion. By implication the 

matrix becomes part of the motion ‘cause it’s 

referred to, and I’m not proposing to read the 

whole matrix here. But the matrix has six 

findings. It has the original, our contractor’s 

findings, NIOSH’s response, and the final 

resolution of those listed as what the Board agrees 

-– the Board’s actions. 

Is there further discussion on this motion? 
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DR. MELIUS: Yes, this is Jim Melius. What I’m a 

little confused about is what happens next. NIOSH 

will then revise the site profile further or what 

exactly will take place going forward? 

DR. ZIEMER: I’m going to let Larry or Jim respond 

to that, but let me point out that the generic 

items which are part of findings three, four and 

five which basically are anticipated to be items 

which will show up again in other sites, not 

necessarily the developing of generic guidance is 

for future applications I assume, but that, the 

Bethlehem site’s not dependent on that. I believe 

that’s correct, but let Jim and Larry... 

MR. ELLIOTT: There are some general, generally, 

general issues relevant to other sites, and what 

will happen next is we will revise the Bethlehem 

Steel exposure model and any other technical 

information bulletins that we, that are associated 

with these issues. We’ll bring those back to the 

Board to show them how we’ve made those revisions. 

We will proceed with doing dose reconstructions 

under the intent of these changes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask the question. These would 

be the sort of generic models which would then be 

used for both Bethlehem and other applications -- 
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MR. ELLIOTT: As appropriate. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- as appropriate. 

 Jim Melius, does that answer your question? 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that helps. Assuming -- maybe I 

shouldn’t assume -- any questions, sir, what’s 

roughly the time frame for this? 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim Neton’s going to answer. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, this is Jim Neton. Are you 

speaking relative to the specific changes we’re 

making at Bethlehem Steel or the more overarching 

issues raised in findings three, four and five? 

DR. MELIUS: I would think the, both information if 

you’ve thought about it. I don’t know. 

DR. NETON: I think that we’ve come to a pretty 

good agreement as to what the path forward is for 

the Bethlehem Steel issues, and I would hope that 

we could get these put to bed fairly quickly, 

probably not before the next Board meeting but 

shortly thereafter. 

I would like to be able to resolve those, you 

know, modify the site profile and incorporate the, 

our actions as we indicated here. But the longer 

lead-type issues for three, four and five might 
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take a little while. I think we’re on the order of 

months. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay, good. I was just, Mark’s motion 

that spoke to the idea of quarterly updates, and I 

was just trying to separate out -- 

MR. ELLIOTT: It would be our interest to bring 

these to closure as soon as possible and move on to 

other, other --

DR. MELIUS: And I understand, I’m just trying to 

understand what was happening. 

DR. NETON: I would hope that we would have the 

disposition well before the quarter is out. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other questions or comments? 

MR. WALKER: Yes, Dr. Neton, this is Eddie Walker. 

Am I allowed to comment on that? 

DR. ZIEMER: I think we’ll allow Ed to comment 

since he’s been involved in the process. 

Ed, please go ahead. 

MR. WALKER: I received a letter from Mr. Elliott 

on the 30th, 12/30/05, that was in response to a 

letter that I had faxed him or e-mailed him back in 

September 20th, 2005. I finally got my response. 

It was sent to me by mail. I understand it was 
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sent out by e-mail, but I didn’t get that. It 

didn’t come through. 

And it didn’t give me much time to prepare, but 

I do have a considerable amount of issues that I 

really think should be looked at. I think they’re 

important, and I think if we’re talking about 

having worker input, I think it’s very important 

that these be gone over before any final decision 

is made. 

DR. ZIEMER: Ed, can you transmit those to NIOSH or 

have you already or... 

MR. WALKER: Well, I was trying to but with the 

time that I had, I didn’t have quite enough time. 

I hope to have them finished within a day, possibly 

get them out tomorrow. There’s quite a few issues 

on the whole program as I see it from the worker 

input. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, if you would transmit those to 

Larry Elliott, and I think the Board would 

appreciate getting copies of those as well because 

if we had those, thank you, that would be useful. 

MR. WALKER: Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: I don’t know that that will affect 

this action per se since we’re, but you’re 
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suggesting it might, Ed? Is that --

MR. WALKER: I would certainly think so. From 

what, you know, from what I’ve put together. I’ve 

gone back over all the findings. A lot of the 

items are from the findings of the facts that 

conflict with some of the stuff that I’ve been told 

as we’ve been going along. And it’s just a blackand-white type thing. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me also comment to the Board 

that even if the Board passes this item, if there 

are issues that arise, I think if things are not, 

this is not the situation that closes the doors to 

future changes. I mean, the nature of how we do 

site profiles is with new information we always 

have the opportunity to go back and readjust if 

needed. So certainly that input can be looked at 

and it’s, if this impacts on this that can be 

handled. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We certainly welcome any comment, any 

input. We’ve welcomed it in the past. I think 

clearly one of these six issues that we have on, 

that have been presented in this matrix speaking to 

us following up with former workers about an issue 

on the cobbles, and we would certainly welcome any 

comment or constructive criticism that we can 
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follow up on. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Ed. 

Board members, any other comment or questions? 

MR. GRIFFON: Paul, one other thing. You forwarded 

a letter yesterday or the day before. It’s from 

Clinton’s staff, I believe. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think the letter I forwarded was the 

letter from Hillary Clinton. Is that the one? 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. Does that have any bearing on 

this discussion or --

DR. ZIEMER: Well, it deals with Bethlehem Steel, 

and I was going to handle that separately after we 

discussed this. I don’t know that it necessarily 

impacts on this action. Do you feel that it does? 

MR. GRIFFON: I’m not sure, and I just glanced at 

it. And I wasn’t sure if we ever received it 

before, but I didn’t remember receiving it before. 

DR. ZIEMER: No, I hadn’t distributed it. I got it 

after our last, you know, we had a number of 

letters from the New York delegation which we 

responded to after the last meeting. And then I 

got the Clinton letter, I thought that probably a 

similar response would be appropriate to describe 
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the Bethlehem Steel situation, but again, under the 

Board’s mandate. I have not responded to this 

until we had a face-to-face meeting. And in any 

event, it’s similar to letters we’ve received from 

the other members of the New York delegation, 

representatives and senators and -- 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I didn’t see any new 

items brought forward in Senator Clinton’s letter 

which would require any response other than the 

ones that we have already given. 

DR. ZIEMER: I was going to suggest that we take 

separate action. The Board needs to authorize the 

Chair to respond to the letter, but if you think 

there’s something in the letter that affects this 

motion, we certainly can deal with that. 

MS. MUNN: Mark, did you see anything other than 

what was --

MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to pause because I must 

admit I’ve been pretty busy with Y-12 this weekend 

so I just glanced at this. And I just wanted to 

make sure --

DR. ZIEMER: The content to me looks very similar 

to the other letters that we received from the New 

York delegation; and therefore, I thought a 
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response similar to the others but updated with a 

newer --

DR. WADE: Since it’s been raised -- this is Lew 

Wade, why don’t I just read the letter for the 

record? 

DR. ZIEMER: Sure. And for the record I think this 

letter goes on the website so, but -- 

DR. WADE: But just since it’s been raised and the 

context of possibly this vote, let me read the 

letter. It’s addressed to Paul Ziemer, dated 

November 7th, 2005, from Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

“Dear Dr. Ziemer: I am writing in regards to 

your ongoing review of the site profile of the 

Bethlehem Steel facility in Lackawanna, New York. 

I understand that at the October meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health you 

discussed issues raised by Sanford Cohen and 

Associates about the site profile as well as new 

information introduced by Mr. Eddie Walker. I 

appreciate the Board’s consideration of this new 

information and the Board’s commitment to include 

Mr. Walker in future discussions about the site 

profile. 

“In my view, the new information presented by 
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Mr. Walker is further evidence that the Bethlehem 

Steel site profile is faulty and cannot form the 

basis for accurate dose reconstructions. It is now 

more than five years since the Energy Employees 

Occupational Illness Compensation Act (EEOICPA) was 

signed into law on October 30th, 2000. After 

passage of that act it took more than three years 

for the National Institute of Occupational Safety 

and Health (NIOSH) to issue the first site profile 

for a Bethlehem Steel facility. 

 “The original site profile was flawed, and it 

was subsequently revised in June of 2004, but only 

after an audit of the June 2004 site profile by 

Sanford Cohen & Associates did NIOSH take seriously 

the comments of former workers such as Mr. Walker. 

As a result, NIOSH has made corrections to the site 

profile in the last year. But as your recent Board 

meeting demonstrates, there are significant 

outstanding questions about the site profile. In 

addition, relevant information that is not 

reflected in the site profile continues to be 

brought forward. 

“For all of these reasons I strongly believe 

that the only fair course of action is to establish 

a special exposure cohort of the Bethlehem Steel 
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workers, and I have introduced legislation to 

accomplish this goal. The reason that a special 

exposure cohort is necessary is that the data we 

have at Bethlehem Steel is woefully inadequate. 

There is no personal monitoring information for 

Bethlehem Steel workers. The small amount of air 

monitoring data that does exist was taken far from 

the rollers where the uranium work took place, and 

the use of surrogate data from the Simonds Saw 

facility ignores important differences between the 

two facilities. 

“It is too late for the federal government to 

meet the promise of ‘timely’ compensation made by 

Congress when EEOICPA was passed in 2000, but there 

is still an opportunity to treat Bethlehem Steel 

workers and their families fairly. In light of the 

lack of exposure data, the outstanding questions 

about the site profile and the many years that 

claimants have been waiting, I urge you and the 

Advisory Board to act at your next meeting by 

recommending a special exposure cohort for the 

Bethlehem Steel facility. 

“I thank you for your consideration of my views 

on this important matter and look forward to your 

prompt reply. Sincerely yours, Hillary Rodham 
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Clinton.” 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lew. 

That is the letter and as I say, much of it is 

similar to letters that we’ve received from other 

members of the New York delegation. So I do need 

to respond to it in some manner, and we can 

actually discuss the response after we deal with 

the motion. I think the immediate question was 

does the letter itself impact on the motion? 

And Mark, I think that was basically the 

question you were asking. 

MR. BROEHM: Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. BROEHM: This is Jason Broehm in the CDC 

Washington office. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Jason. 

MR. BROEHM: I just wanted to make sure that you 

had also seen a November 14th letter from Senator 

Schumer. It was sent to your attention in 

Cincinnati. 

DR. ZIEMER: I --

DR. ROESSLER: The one that was sent out on 

November 28th, and I think we all have copies of it. 
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MR. BROEHM: It was forwarded by you to all Board 

members. 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, I don’t have that letter 

here, and so when you gave a date, I’ve received 

over this past year several letters from Senator 

Schumer so. I think it’s been distributed to the 

Board or was sent to all the Board members. 

Questions or comments now? We’re still dealing 

with the original motion. 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: I’m going to raise a sort of a 

parliamentary question here. The motion, I’ll ask 

Mark, it says it’s the opinion of the Board and the 

Board’s contractor. I’m wondering if the Board can 

take an action to express the opinion of our 

contractor. Might we -- and there are contractor 

representatives on the phone, and I don’t know if 

the contractor is authorized to include this. But 

I was going to suggest if we could say something 

like it is the opinion of the Board based on input 

from our contractor, but I -- Mark is that -- 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that might be better. That 

was, the intent was really just to indicate that, 

you know, the contractor was involved in this 
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resolution process. So I think you’re right. We 

can’t give their opinion, but based on input from 

the contractor. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I wonder if the working group 

would consider that to be a friendly -- well, the 

Chair shouldn’t be amending the -- does someone 

wish to propose that as a friendly amendment? 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I will, I had 

sent something in to leave that statement out of 

there, but I will be the person to offer that 

friendly amendment. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the friendly amendment, and I 

think we could put it parenthetically, it is the 

opinion of the Board, parenthesis, based on input 

from the Board’s contractor. Would that be 

satisfactory, Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

MR. PRESLEY: That’s satisfactory to me. This is 

Bob Presley. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that’s the friendly amendment 

from Bob Presley, agreed to by the mover of the 

motion. 

MS. MUNN: Well, Wanda has a little concern about ­

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DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Wanda. 

MS. MUNN: I believe our contractor has agreed to 

all of the items that are listed in the matrix. 

We’ve gone through them rather extensively. And in 

each case the contractor has agreed to all the 

items that were dropped off of the matrix because 

they were resolved, and has agreed to the 

stipulations that are shown on the matrix. 

This was not just input from the contractor 

that brought us to this point. It was a rather 

arduous effort with the contractor’s involvement. 

Therefore, I guess if we’re going to, if we’re 

going to say that we cannot speak for the 

contractor, then since the contractor is on record 

as having agreed to all the things that we have 

there, it’s my feeling we should either leave the 

wording that it is the opinion of both the Board 

and the contractor, or we should eliminate the 

contractor comment completely. Or we should expand 

it further more than just by input from the 

contractor. 

 They haven’t, this has not been casual input is 

the point I’m trying to make. And anyone who reads 

this statement I would like to have understand very 

clearly that the contractor has indeed agreed that 
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this is the circumstance now, and these have been, 

these actions have been agreed to. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for that input. 

What do the other Board members feel about it? 

Do you want to leave it as it was? 

In other words, Wanda, from what you said it 

sounds like actually the working group was somewhat 

intentional about including that statement, and it 

has a certain strength of its own. Unless the 

contractor objects, we could certainly leave it in. 

MS. MUNN: Well, let’s say that the working group 

has discussed this specific point. And if there is 

objection from the contractor, we have contractor 

personnel on the call here. Is there an objection? 

DR. WADE: Is John Mauro on the call? 

DR. MAURO: Yes, I am. Either way is certainly 

fine with us. 

DR. ZIEMER: You have no objection to having -- 

DR. MAURO: Whatever the decision is, whether to 

leave some language in there making reference to 

the contractor or not, that’s certainly, it’s 

appropriate from our perspective either way. 

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. I think we 
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should leave it as is. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess that was my original thought. 

I agree, Wanda. You’re correct on this. 

DR. ZIEMER: We’re hearing from Mark, Wanda and 

Mike who are all on the working group that it was 

their intent, the objector, or the contractor 

doesn’t object. 

So Robert, the friendly amendment was not 

sufficiently friendly, I guess. Do you object to 

withdrawing that? 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I had offered 

up something to the working group about leaving the 

wording totally out, prior. I can live with it 

either way. 

DR. ZIEMER: It seems like most of the working 

group thinks it should be in. Board members, any 

objection to leaving it in as original? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: There appears to be no objection so 

we’re back to the motion as originally presented. 

I noticed, Wanda, in the version you sent out, 

you had asked that it be in parentheses, however. 

MS. MUNN: Well, I had -- this is one of the 
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reasons why I said the working group has discussed 

this point. We’ve gone back and forth about it. 

And I am one of those who originally questioned 

whether we could speak for the working group. And 

then after discussion it was very clear to me the 

working group has been, that the contractor’s been 

part and parcel of everything we’ve done in the 

working group, and they have agreed to this. So 

there’s no reason why we shouldn’t state that, in 

my view now. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think most of the discussion we had 

was can we speak for the contractor, not how much 

they weighed in. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

Further discussion. We’re dealing with the 

motion as distributed by Mark. Board members are 

you ready and comfortable with taking action on 

this motion? 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

MS. MUNN: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we’re going to do it by roll 

call so if you’re in favor of the motion, say yes. 

If you’re opposed, say no. If you’re abstaining, 

say abstain. Lew will call the roll. 
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DR. WADE: Dr. DeHart. 

DR. DeHART: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Robert Presley. 

MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Mike Gibson. 

MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Wanda Munn. 

MS. MUNN: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Henry Anderson. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Jim Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Mark Griffon. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Leon Owens. 

 (no response) 

DR. WADE: Richard Espinosa. 

 (no response) 
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DR. ZIEMER: I vote, too. 

DR. WADE: Let the record show we have not heard 

from Leon Owens or Richard Espinosa. 

 Paul Ziemer. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

DR. WADE: The motion passes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

In connection with Bethlehem Steel, let me now 

raise the issue of responding to the Clinton 

letter. Does the Board wish to have me respond in 

a manner similar to the other letters to the New 

York delegation? If I did so, I would simply 

update the numbers to, say, the end of December 

rather than the end of October. But, or do you 

wish to propose that anything else be said? 

DR. DeHART: This is Roy. I think since the letter 

is very similar, if not identical, I would 

recommend that we respond in kind. 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I agree. 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I disagree. The 

reason -- I don’t have the other letters here, but 

I have the response to the other letters. And I 

think Senator Clinton raises some slightly 
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different issues, and I just think it would be more 

sort of polite to craft a letter that may have only 

a few changes in it. But I think the issue of the 

special exposure cohort status at least, was not 

addressed in our responses to the other letter. 

And I would just caution that we look and make sure 

that we’re responding to the points raised in the 

actual letter. 

DR. ZIEMER: I don’t recall actually whether that 

was or not, Jim. I’ll have to go back and look. 

What I’m going to suggest, if everyone’s agreeable, 

that I draft a letter and have it ready for you to 

review at our full meeting. I don’t think we want 

to wordsmith this now by phone. It would simply 

delay things by a couple of weeks. But I think 

rather than try to go back, I don’t have the other 

letters here with me in Cincinnati, but we could 

get them. But does anyone object to us using the, 

drafting a letter, and I would distribute it in 

advance of the meeting and then you’d have an 

opportunity to look at it? I’d take into 

consideration the comments on SEC and any other 

specific things, otherwise I think it probably is 

quite similar. 

DR. WADE: I think just to be clear on this, Jason 
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Broehm, are you with us? 

MR. BROEHM: I am. 

DR. WADE: Do you have the letter you referenced 

from Senator Schumer? 

MR. BROEHM: I do have it here. 

DR. WADE: Could you read that letter just so, I 

want to be sure that if that letter has been 

responded to, we acknowledge it. If it’s not, that 

Dr. Ziemer also draft a response to that. 

MR. BROEHM: It’s a letter from Senator Charles 

Schumer from New York dated November 14th, 2005, 

addressed to Board Chair, Dr. Ziemer. 

“Dear Dr. Ziemer: First of all, thank you for 

recommending to the Secretary of Health and Human 

Services that a special exposure cohort be granted 

to the former workers of Linde Ceramics. The 

Board’s decision to apply the special exposure 

cohort to long-suffering Linde Ceramics’ workers is 

just, enlightened and humane. 

“Prompt approval of this approach will provide 

former workers who were exposed to harmful and even 

lethal doses of radiation while they toiled in 

America’s nuclear weapons program long overdue 

access to justice. Today I wrote to Secretary 
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Leavitt, urging his final approval of this 

recommendation. 

 “However, the intelligence of the Linde 

decision only underscores the festering injustice 

that continues to be visited upon the former 

workers of Bethlehem Steel. Those workers have 

waited far too long for the opportunity to seek 

justice for the injuries they suffered while 

building the arsenal of weapons that underpinned 

our nation’s security during the Cold War and 

beyond. 

“Therefore, today I am also urging the Advisory 

Board on Radiation and Worker Health also grant a 

special exposure cohort to Bethlehem Steel workers. 

As you know the Linde decision was made using a 42 

CFR, Chapter 1, Subpart (c), Section 83.6 which 

allows NIOSH to grant a special exposure cohort to 

workers if there is ‘insufficient information to 

estimate the radiation doses of the claimant with 

sufficient accuracy.’ I believe that this clause 

is also applicable to the former workers at 

Bethlehem Steel. 

 “Currently, data from the era when Bethlehem 

Steel workers were exposed is incomplete. In an 

attempt to devise a dose reconstruction model, 
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NIOSH is using air sample data from Simonds Saw and 

Steel. It is very possible that an accurate dose 

reconstruction model cannot be formulated, a 

situation that will exacerbate delay. Simply put, 

further delay in granting compensation to former 

Bethlehem Steel workers is unconscionable. A 

better, simpler, faster and infinitely more just 

approach is to grant a special exposure cohort to 

these workers as soon as possible, perhaps at the 

next meeting of the Board. 

 “Secondly, I ask you to hold the next full 

meeting of the Board scheduled for January 25th 

through 27th, 2005 (sic), now scheduled to be held 

in Knoxville, Tennessee, in Buffalo, New York. I 

believe all of the former Cold War era nuclear 

workers have the right to witness actions taken on 

the site profile and to directly participate in the 

public comments session. 

“Despite having one of the greatest 

concentrations of facilities involved in nuclear 

weapons production and related activities, western 

New York continues to be severely underserved by 

the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program. During the Cold War, New 

York was home to 36 former atomic weapon employer 
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sites and DOE clean-up facilities. In the eight 

counties of western New York there are 14 

facilities that participated in the manufacture of 

America’s nuclear arsenal. The time is now to 

allow these beleaguered Cold War soldiers to 

directly participate in the program that was 

designed to provide the justice and compensation 

their sacrifice merits. 

“If you have any questions, please do not 

hesitate to contact me. I can be reached at 2-0-2­

2-2-4-6-5-4-2. Sincerely, Charles Schumer, United 

States Senator.” 

DR. WADE: Thank you. 

 For the record, I think that letter has been 

distributed to Board members. 

DR. ZIEMER: I believe that’s correct. So both of 

these letters will require a response, and both of 

them reference the issue of a special exposure 

cohort for Bethlehem Steel. So that would require 

a specific, or a somewhat different response than 

the original letters did. 

So what I will propose then is drafting both of 

these letters for Board review. Now, I don’t know, 

this issue of meeting in Buffalo, I’m not sure we 
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can do anything about that at this time since that 

Oak Ridge meeting’s been established for quite some 

period there, right, Lew? 

DR. WADE: Correct. I don’t think that’s an 

option. 

DR. ZIEMER: Any comments, Board members, on that 

Schumer letter? 

MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike Gibson. Since, as far as 

I know, we haven’t made our travel plans or 

anything else other than maybe booking the motel in 

Oak Ridge, or not -- yeah, Oak Ridge, and I 

understand that we’re not going to be able to 

deliberate the Oak Ridge or the Y-12 SEC petition, 

is it, in fact, too late to try to get a motel in 

Buffalo and change our meeting place? 

DR. WADE: This is Lew Wade. I think logistically, 

Mike, it could be done. I think that we will have 

substantial discussions in Oak Ridge on the Y-12 

site profile. Again, the issue of a special 

exposure cohort really needs to be sorted. There 

is no such proposal on our table; and therefore, it 

would be my sense that we would continue with our 
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plan to meet in Oak Ridge in the end of January. 

DR. ZIEMER: Both of these letters indicate that 

some legislation has been or is being introduced by 

both individuals to designate Bethlehem Steel as an 

SEC. We don’t have a petition I don’t believe. 

MR. ELLIOTT: No, sir. This is Larry Elliott. We 

do not have a petition. 

MR. GIBSON: I’m sorry; I misspoke. I meant the 

site profile was on the agenda I believe. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen Roessler. Paul, on the 

letter, I have one in my file that you responded to 

Senator Schumer on November 28th . Is that a 

different letter? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, there was an earlier letter that 

we had at our last meeting. There were several 

letters from different ones in the New York 

delegation, and we approved a response which 

basically provided them information on the awards 

already made at Bethlehem Steel and the status of 

the claims there at least through, I think, 

October. 

Basically, it was an information letter. And 

that was based on the fact that the earlier letters 
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seemed to imply that no one at Bethlehem Steel had 

been, no cases had been dealt with or something to 

that effect. And a large number have been already, 

doses have been reconstructed, and actually quite a 

large number of awards were actually made. But it 

was simply an information letter. 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay, I think I --

DR. ZIEMER: These two came in after our Board 

meeting, and therefore, have not been responded to. 

Yeah, go ahead. 

DR. ROESSLER: Thank you. 

DR. WADE: I just think I would -- this is Lew. 

I’d be pleased to hear from the Board as to its 

desires on the location of the next meeting. I 

just stated my view. 

DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments? 

MR. WALKER: Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. WALKER: Eddie Walker. I certainly obviously 

would like to see it in Buffalo being that I 

understand that Bethlehem Steel was the largest AWE 

facility in the country, and we’re the ones that we 

had the first dose reconstruction along with the 
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site profile and technical based document, that it 

would only be fair to the group up here that it be 

discussed and a settlement made up here of some 

sort or a decision made up here. So I think 

Senator Schumer asking for it to be held in Buffalo 

is certainly a reasonable request. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Other comments, Board members? 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. 

DR. ZIEMER: Bob. 

MR. PRESLEY: As I understand it right now, we do 

not have any action that can be taken in Buffalo 

until we get an SEC petition from them. Is that 

correct? 

DR. ZIEMER: I believe that’s the case. Is that --

let me defer here. 

MR. ELLIOTT: That’s correct. We have no petition 

on Buffalo on the Bethlehem Steel site and with the 

Board’s motion being passed just now , we will, you 

know, make revisions to the site profile, but I 

don’t believe that we have any business relevant to 

Bethlehem Steel for the -- 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think that Jim told us that 
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those revisions would not be ready for our next 

meeting anyway. Is that correct? 

DR. NETON: Right, the --

MS. MUNN: I think that’s correct. 

MR. PRESLEY: That’s what I heard him say. This is 

Bob Presley. I can see -- I hate to say that, but 

I can see no reason right now for changing this 

meeting, and then maybe down the road we schedule 

one for Bethlehem Steel when something comes up. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I understand the concern 

that everyone has for timeliness here, but I also 

understand the need for timeliness with respect to 

all of the other sites that are involved. And we 

do have a basketful of sites. We are currently 

working on several activities in the Oak Ridge 

area, and Y-12 is taking an incredible amount of 

time and an incredible amount of effort for all of 

the agencies and the contractors involved. We 

probably need to be at Y-12. 

MR. WALKER: That burden -- pardon me, Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. WALKER: That burden wasn’t caused by Bethlehem 
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Steel workers. I thought there was ample time that 

we could have come to a decision by now, but I 

can’t see where Bethlehem Steel, as far as having a 

meeting in Buffalo or down at Y-12, you know, it 

doesn’t make much difference to me except I don’t 

think any final decision should be made outside of 

Buffalo. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

MR. WALKER: And we have been working on it a 

considerable amount of time, and I know everybody’s 

put a lot of work into it. But I just feel that we 

should, it should be done up here being that other 

facilities are waiting on our decision on how you 

do your dose reconstruction program. And as far as 

not putting in a special exposure cohort, the 

reason that wasn’t done because our site profile 

was completed, and we were being denied in 2003. 

So what’s the sense of putting it in in 2004 

when you’ve already been denying our claimants and 

judging our claimants whether they get approved or 

disapproved? Why a year later would we put in a 

special exposure cohort when I was told by one of 

the executives that we wouldn’t get it anyway 

because of the dose reconstruction, that they can 

construct one at Bethlehem Steel? So what would be 
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the purpose of me going through that, of putting 

our group through going through all of that when we 

know we’re going to have a dose reconstruction? 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. 

 Board members, any further discussion on either 

the letters or the siting of the next meeting? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: Just let me make sure that I have some 

kind of consensus or at least agreement. Are you 

agreed that I should go ahead and develop a 

proposed response to these two letters for action 

at the January meeting? Any objections to that? 

MS. MUNN: No, this is Wanda. I think you should 

do that. My only concern is whether the senators 

will continue to think that this is an additional, 

unnecessary delay. They’re concerned with 

timeliness. But I see no other way that we can do 

it fairly. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think it’s quite possible, 

sort of off-line that NIOSH and maybe Lew is able 

to keep their staffs apprised of, I think they’re 

aware of our own internal limitations on responding 

to these letters. So they understand the situation 

and that the response will be shortcoming, and they 
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can be kept apprised of, you know, the situation in 

that regard. 

MS. MUNN: I would appreciate your drafting it for, 

on behalf of the Board. 

DR. ZIEMER: Unless I hear objections, I’ll plan to 

do that. 

At this point it doesn’t appear that we have 

any strong sentiment to move the meeting, so and 

that’s really not an agenda item, but unless the 

Board members wish to make specific motions, I’m 

going to proceed here with the agenda. 

REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP ON 

BOARD REVIEW OF SEC PETITIONS 

DR. JAMES MELIUS, GROUP CHAIR 

Our next item on the agenda is the report of 

the working group on SEC petitions, and Dr. Melius 

has chaired that working group, and Jim if you 

would -- let me make sure everybody has a copy of 

Jim’s draft document. It’s called “Report of the 

Working Group on Special Exposure Cohort Petition 

Review”. It’s a draft dated December 29th . Jim, 

thanks for putting the date on that. 

DR. MELIUS: I figured it would make it easier -- 

DR. ZIEMER: Right, we always have these problems 

with drafts, which one came first. So Jim, if 
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you’ll proceed and present, walk us through that 

and any comments you wish to make. 

DR. MELIUS: It just indicates that the draft dated 

12/29/05 does not incorporate all of the comments 

from other working numbers. Paul has actually sent 

me some comments, and Mark has, that are not yet 

incorporated into the draft. And Roy was also 

looking over it, and I think, will be sending some 

comments. So I think everything can be blamed on 

me and probably on the transcript because I did go 

over, try to reference some of the stuff back to 

the transcript at the time. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim, before you just take us through 

that, let me point out that I don’t think we need 

to necessarily take action on this today. This is 

basically an information report for the Board, 

solicitation of additional input perhaps with the 

opportunity to update the draft and maybe come to 

closure at the next meeting or later depending on 

how we progress. Is that, was that your 

understanding as well? 

DR. MELIUS: Correct, yeah. What I will just try 

to do is sort of walk through the process 

(inaudible) the report, but leave it open for 

comments. And then we’d also obviously be open to 
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raising comments from both Board members as well as 

others. And we can then incorporate and probably 

produce another draft in time for the next Board 

meeting in a few weeks. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thanks, proceed. 

DR. MELIUS: There was a meeting held in midNovember of the work group. We’ve had, at that one 

meeting, members of the work group were myself, Roy 

DeHart, Mark and Paul. Also attending the meeting 

in Cincinnati was Lew Wade, Larry Elliott, Jim 

Neton, Stu Hinnefeld and a number of other NIOSH 

staff members, and I believe Brad Clawson also sat 

in for much of the meeting. 

And the purpose as we discussed at our last 

meeting was sort of to try to develop a document 

and a procedure and some criteria that would help 

both NIOSH and the Board in evaluating special 

exposure cohort petitions. And in doing that we 

determined that we would not, we would use, develop 

this document in the context of the current 

regulations, and we would not try to question or 

change or propose changes to those regulations. 

So some of us would be, want to do that or 

certainly have concerns about the regulations. 
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This was developed within the context of the 

current regulations to that. And so really we’re 

focusing on, you know, is the criteria of 

sufficient accuracy and so forth and NIOSH’s 

current methods. 

We identified a number of key points or what we 

labeled there the second page of this is “Key 

Considerations for Board Review”. One was that 

these petitions needed to be reviewed and evaluated 

in a timely fashion. So what we, in that our 

Board’s evaluation of NIOSH’s evaluation or Board’s 

review of NIOSH’s evaluation of an SEC petition 

also needed to be able to be completed in a timely 

fashion. And so we needed to sort of stay focused 

and there’s a number of considerations that came up 

there. 

We obviously were concerned that the evaluation 

and our review of that evaluation should consider, 

you know, should the fairness of our actions. Was 

this consistent with what was being done at other 

sites, and were we treating everybody potentially 

within the cohort in the same manner. 

It also needed to be understandable or 

comprehensible to those involved. And that in 

itself can be quite challenging given how 
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complicated these sources of information can be and 

how much uncertainties there are. 

And then as I mentioned, they needed to be 

consistent, we need to be consistent both within 

sort of evaluating a petition from a site, and 

treat everybody at that site fairly, but also we 

need to maintain consistency from site to site in 

evaluating petitions. 

We also then focused on sort of the scope of 

the review recognizing that each petition was 

different, every site was different, and we could 

develop some general criteria, several steps for 

evaluation but again recognizing that these would 

have to be modified going from site to site, and 

even petition to petition within a site, so would 

do that. 

One of the key areas that we focused on because 

it had become a area of concern, and we’d spent a 

lot of time on it dealing with Iowa, Mallinckrodt 

and SEC evaluations was the credibility and 

validity of the datasets that were being under 

consideration. And so in our evaluation, NIOSH’s 

evaluation and our, the Board’s review of the 

evaluation, we thought that we needed to sort of 

try to pin down what were the key criteria that we 
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would, type of criteria that we would be looking at 

in evaluating the credibility and validity of the 

datasets. 

I think one key concept is that we wanted NIOSH 

to be able to hone in on what were the important or 

key datasets that in a sense would be key for 

making a determination of a special exposure 

cohort. If they weren’t, those sources were, the 

particular exposures were not going to make a 

significant contribution to a person’s overall 

exposure, you know, a person who worked at that 

site, their overall exposure, we didn’t need to 

spend as much time. 

But I think our experience has been in both 

Iowa and Mallinckrodt was that there are certain 

key sets of data that were going to be critical for 

evaluation of people’s exposure at that site, and 

those were the ones that we needed to focus on. 

And I think also as we found, I think, in 

Mallinckrodt that it may take some time for NIOSH 

to figure out what are the key, critical datasets. 

So I’ll describe a number of criteria or areas 

that need to be focused on in looking at the 

datasets. One was the pedigree of the data. 

Secondly, obviously, is the methodology that was 
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being used to monitor exposure. Whether it was 

either external or internal monitoring. What was 

the relation of that dataset or information in that 

dataset to other sources of information about the 

site, about the (inaudible) to other sources of 

exposure data from that site. And finally, NIOSH 

needs also to be looking at the internal 

consistency of that data. 

 And then another, I think, key concept was the 

representativeness of the data. What areas of the 

facility were represented in that dataset so that, 

did it include all the relevant areas where people 

were exposed? The time period of that dataset were 

critical. And particularly as we tended to look at 

particular time periods, sort of the border or the 

margins of those datasets, exposure datasets, 

become important where they shift to a more robust 

form of exposure monitoring. I think we spent a 

lot of time trying to figure out how do you 

extrapolate from one set to another, one time 

period to another. 

The types of workers in processes covered by 

the exposure dataset were important. And again, 

one concept here was making sure that all the key 

types of work or job titles, however we split up, 
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are well-covered by that exposure dataset. That we 

needed to, it may be very good for one group of 

workers, but could conceivably be a very poor 

characterization of the exposures for another set 

of workers. 

And I think that sort of flows into sort of 

datasets and subsets of that data in terms of what 

areas, geographic areas might be covered, what 

groups of workers are covered. And I think we’ve 

come up with sort of a set of key questions that 

need to be evaluated there. 

Then we also talked about ways that NIOSH can 

demonstrate the feasibility and sufficient accuracy 

of that. You know, what did the evaluation of a 

special exposure cohort, what information needed to 

be presented to the Board in a way that would help 

us come to a decision or come to making our 

recommendation. Some of that was what was feasible 

to do, plausible in terms of being able to do the 

evaluation, but the timeliness of the overall 

effort, NIOSH has a time period put on them for 

evaluating petitions. 

The Board needed to be responsive to that. We 

needed to be able to focus on the data at hand at 

that time, that while there may need to be further 
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work done on it in order to be able to do 

individual dose reconstructions, that needed to be 

able to be accomplished within a reasonable time 

period. We had to also void -- disburse the 

treatment of different groups of claimants to that. 

And finally, I think we agreed that in, similar 

to how we’ve done in the most recent petition 

evaluations, I believe at Mallinckrodt, that sample 

or representative dose reconstructions were a 

useful way of demonstrating, of NIOSH demonstrating 

to the Board that there are methods that might be 

proposed if they believe it’s feasible to do 

individual dose reconstruction, that that would be, 

that was a good way of demonstrating that to the 

Board, and the Board evaluating NIOSH’s plan. 

We also proposed, talked about some procedural 

changes to the way that throughout the process. 

One was that NIOSH in presenting to us their 

evaluation plan, that at some point this plan 

becomes a little bit more detailed than what’s 

being developed now. Right now, NIOSH because 

really puts out a plan before they really had much 

of an opportunity to explore the data and develop a 

specific and comprehensive plan for how they’re 

going to evaluate that data in relationship to the 
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petition. 

Like we were looking for a, it may be somewhat 

later in the process, a more detailed plan thinking 

that that would help the Board focus on how it 

would need to do to review this petition or this 

evaluation of the petition as well as NIOSH in 

going forward. And also, I think as we’ve 

discovered in doing the past few SEC petition 

evaluations was that the review of the site 

profile, or at least the parts of the site profile 

that are relevant to the petition were extremely 

useful in being able, the Board being able to 

evaluate and review NIOSH’s evaluation of that SEC 

petition. 

So that’s a thumbnail sketch of the summary of 

a three-hour meeting. I believe the transcript of 

our discussions and deliberations is found on the 

website that may contain more detail. There are 

certainly some things that I think that are left, 

that haven’t been sort of fleshed out in this. I 

think we were trying to give time for people to 

react. 

But it may very well be that either as part of 

this work group plan or as part of some later Board 

deliberations or the work groups that we may want 
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to more fully develop some of these criteria that, 

at least critical criteria that keep coming up over 

and over again in our SEC petition evaluations. 

What is, what do we mean by feasibility, 

representativeness and issues like that that we may 

want to spend more time on. 

I think it’s fair to say, and I’ll let Larry or 

Jim or Lew, whatever, that even though this was a 

work group of the Board, there was significant 

input from NIOSH at that, a really good exchange so 

I think we’re hoping that our final set of 

recommendations is something that will help NIOSH 

in terms of how it evaluates SEC petitions. And in 

turn, might just focus for the Board in our review 

of those evaluations. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim, thanks for leading us through 

that. There are some comments here from Larry 

Elliott first of all. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Jim, I think you did an excellent job 

of giving us an overview of the discussion that was 

held. I think it was a very valuable discussion. 

I certainly appreciated hearing the thoughts and 

comments of the working group, and we tried to be, 

from NIOSH’s side of the table, very contributory 

to the discussion as well. 
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I think it’s clear to us that while we may have 

been doing some of these things that are, that you 

identified in this document and from our 

discussion, we weren’t doing them as openly and as 

transparently as we should be. And we certainly 

take note of that and we’ll work and strive harder 

to show how we proceed with our evaluations of 

these petitions. 

I think it was very helpful to us to have the 

discussion about sufficient accuracy and 

feasibility and representativeness of data, and we 

look forward to continuing this discussion. I 

would offer that, you know, I think a lot of these 

considerations are being factored now into how we 

proceed in developing our evaluations of SEC 

petitions, how we proceed in our review of site 

profiles. And we’re taking this all to heart as we 

move forward. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Larry. 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim, go ahead. 

DR. MELIUS: I think it’s also important that I 

think also we as a Board, and I’ll speak for myself 

here, not necessarily for the whole Board, but I 
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don’t think we’re always being as consistent and 

careful in terms of how we were evaluating your 

evaluations or reviewing the evaluations produced 

at NIOSH. 

I think we’re all sort of searching and trying 

to find what would be the best way so we weren’t 

always asking the questions at the first meeting. 

And maybe the third meeting or whatever, the third 

time something came up that we’d say, no, let’s 

look at this. Or we’d have this question or that 

question. 

And I think what we’re both trying to look for 

is, both the Board and NIOSH, is a way, sort of a 

path forward that is more efficient so we don’t end 

up on some of these, spending a lot of time or a 

lot of meetings trying to go over territory that’s 

not really, turns out not to be very helpful, and 

so in the same time provides an overall a fair and 

sound review of these petitions. So hopefully what 

we’re trying to achieve here is something that 

would help and work for both of us in this process. 

So I don’t believe it’s trying to be critical of 

what NIOSH has done or not done. I think it’s been 

sort of a, whether it’s fault, it’s mutual. And I 

think we just needed to really sort of focus in now 
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that we’ve had some experience dealing with these 

evaluations. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Jim, I agree, and I think it’s going 

to lead us to a more efficient operation. We’re 

going to be able to handle these petitions more in 

their reviews, their evaluations and your review of 

that in a more efficient way than we have. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and Lew has some comments here 

as well. Lew, go ahead. 

DR. WADE: I have no comments about the excellent 

work product, but just to remind the Board of a 

conundrum that we face and will continue to face. 

That is, once a petition is qualified, NIOSH has 

180 days to put a petition evaluation report before 

the Board. As this piece of work points out in 

several locations, particularly the last two 

sections of petition evaluation and site profile 

review. 

Quite often during that period there is very 

active work going on in terms of site profile 

review and resolution. This creates a problem for 

all of us. I think what this document begins to 

ask NIOSH to do is to -- and I’ll read from it. 

“To extent that it is feasible for NIOSH to 
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delineate the planned scope of their evaluation 

including the actual steps they plan during the SEC 

evaluation, this will help to facilitate the 

planning and preparation to the necessary schedule 

of meetings, conference calls, et cetera.” 

So there is an understanding here that it’s 

quite possible that while NIOSH might put out an 

initial evaluation report, that evaluation report 

might have to delineate some specific actions that 

are planned and underway. I think it’s also 

important that the message of this report and it’s 

-- I read from the last element, number two site 

profile review. “Whenever possible the Board’s 

review of the site profile for the site where an 

SEC petition is being considered, should precede 

the SEC evaluation review.” It’s a lesson we 

learned at Mallinckrodt. I think it’s a lesson we 

need to take to heart. 

I would like to talk just a bit about Y-12. 

We’re actively involved in now discussions of the 

Y-12 site profile. It appears to us at NIOSH that 

we will not be prepared to discuss the SEC petition 

to closure at the meeting at the end of January 

because we haven’t completed the SEC evaluation 

review. 
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So, you might have heard it in other locations. 

It is, therefore, our position that we will not 

take up the SEC petition for Y-12 at the end of 

January meeting. We will delay it as we continue 

to work on the petition evaluation issues. 

MR. ELLIOTT: And I would offer that have treated, 

there were three petitions on Y-12, all three were 

merged together. And we treated two of the three 

fully and one of the three partially. And we have 

the remainder years that were proposed in that 

petition, 1948 to 1957, under current evaluation. 

That’s why it’s critical in our minds for us to 

resolve the issues around a site profile and answer 

those questions on those years. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for those comments. 

 Board members now a couple items here. I think 

Jim is really soliciting your comments on the 

draft, correct, Jim, so that before our next 

meeting we can consider and include the appropriate 

comments. 

And then the other thing that we would like to 

do today, the Chair would like to do is, if any 

Board members believe that there are major concepts 

or considerations that have been missed or 
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overlooked by this work group, we need to identify 

what those are or if there’s any significant flaws 

in this approach in your mind identify what those 

are so that we can be sure to address those as the 

revisions are made. 

So let me just call on Board members. Is there 

anyone who wishes to point out some what you think 

is a concept or area that needs to be added or 

significant changes? I’m not looking for wordsmithing right now. 

MR. GRIFFON: Paul, before we move on to that, can 

I just ask Lew or Larry a question about the Y-12 

petition? 

DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

MR. GRIFFON: Is there a calendar issue here? When 

did the clock start ticking, and when is the 

deadline for this evaluation report? Are we --

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, the clock started ticking when 

the petition became qualified, and we met the 180 

day deadline and provided an evaluation report to 

the Board that spoke to the early years of Y-12. 

And we are still pursuing the remainder years for 

that one petition. 

MR. GRIFFON: The clock for the rest of the 
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remaining years? I don’t understand it, but it’s 

not an issue any more or... 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I don’t believe we see it as an 

issue, that we met the 180-day mark by providing a 

recommendation to the Board, an evaluation report 

on the early years, and we have provided a 

recommendation essentially to the Board that we’re 

continuing our evaluation on the remainder of that 

petition pending the resolution of the site profile 

issues. 

DR. ZIEMER: We’ve also, those initial deadlines 

have been met. Now action is with the Board and 

there’s, the clock doesn’t really run for now. Is 

that correct? 

MR. ELLIOTT: I believe that’s the way we would see 

it. 

Mark, does that answer your question? 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, it’s an answer, yeah. I just, 

I thought that the entire, that an SEC petition had 

to have an evaluation report for all members of a 

class by that given deadline. I know this is a 

little different because it’s been sort of merged, 

it merges three different petitions, but I’m a 

little unclear, but --
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MR. ELLIOTT: I think it’s a matter of how one 

interprets the amendment language, and I don’t 

believe the merger contributes to the issue here, 

the merger of three petitions. It’s actually one 

petition that we haven’t provided a complete 

resolution for the petition. We’ve provided a 

recommendation in the evaluation report that 

resolved the early years and recommended a class. 

And we stated therein that we were pursuing the 

evaluation for the latter years. And now we feel 

that we need to hold on coming forward with any 

recommendation on those latter years until we have 

resolved the site profile questions. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

Let me return to my previous remark now Board 

members. On the work group product any comments or 

recommendations for Jim before we leave this 

subject? 

MR. GIBSON: Paul, this is Mike. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: I just have a little bit of, I’d like 

to ask Jim maybe if he could comment for me. The 

difference in feasibility and plausibility seems to 

be kind of just intermingled. To me there seems to 
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be a difference between feasible and plausible. 

Plausible to me means something that it’s just, 

it’s seemingly or apparently that you could or 

could not do something as opposed to feasible. 

I mean there seems to be a distinct difference, 

but yet these words seem to be used 

interchangeably, and I just wondered if Jim could 

comment on that or if they feel the same way, or 

they might consider changing that language a little 

bit. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, Mike, this is Jim Melius. As I 

indicated while I was presenting this, that is a 

little bit confusing and it has something to do 

with sort of the outline that we wrote this from. 

And we were using them somewhat interchangeably 

when we were talking in the work group meeting in 

Cincinnati. And I think they just need to be 

separated out a little bit. And that may be the 

easiest way of doing it. 

DR. ZIEMER: But perhaps some clarification of the 

use of those terms in the document. Okay, thank 

you, Mike. That’s a good point. 

DR. DeHART: Roy DeHart. 

MR. ELLIOTT: If I might, Roy, I’d just jump in on 
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top here and say that we certainly agree from the 

NIOSH side that we need to be clear on what 

plausibility and feasibility mean. But in a, after 

number one, plausibility and feasibility, at the 

end of that passage there it speaks about the upper 

bound estimates must be plausible. I think that is 

appropriate use of that word in that context. And 

when we were talking about feasibility, we were 

talking about the feasibility of doing dose 

reconstruction. And then when you start applying 

the different methods (inaudible) data you bring in 

plausibility. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, there is a distinct difference 

and we need to clarify that. I think the point’s 

well made. 

Jim, we need to make sure that that’s clear in 

the document. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I’m sorry, Roy. 

DR. DeHART: Not a problem. It was simply a 

comment that addresses both issues. And that is in 

the discussion that was held, it became very clear 

that evidence based is one of the major decisions 

on what NIOSH is doing as it applies (inaudible) 

and technology against the petition. And I think 
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that the fact that evidence based is so critical 

that in the information section where we’re trying 

to explain to the world what’s happening, there 

needs to be an incorporation of the phrase and an 

explanation of what is meant by evidence based. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Roy. Where would that be 

in the document? 

DR. DeHART: I don’t think it’s in the document per 

se that you have, you’ve been reviewing. It’s in 

the discussion that occurred in Cincinnati. 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay, but where would it be 

incorporated in the --

DR. DeHART: In the early section, Section Three, 

Understandable. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, this is Jim. I agree with that. 

I was a little hesitant to use the term since it’s 

so widely used now in the medical world, but I 

think it is a good concept, and I’ll add it in 

there. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thanks, other comments? 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes, this is Gen. 

DR. ZIEMER: Gen. 
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DR. ROESSLER: Under the section 

representativeness, for example, number four where 

it talks about sufficient data, i.e., is it 

statistically robust. And then there’s another 

area where something with regard to statistics is 

mentioned. I think I’d like a little clarification 

as to what do we mean by, in that case, 

statistically robust? How would that be identified 

or, you know, what would the test be? 

DR. ZIEMER: Actually, and Jim, I guess this is 

considered you have to determine whether that’s 

something that has to be in the document or whether 

the burden is simply on NIOSH in each case to 

demonstrate that something is statistically robust. 

I don’t know whether a definition is called for 

here or not. Maybe that should be considered, but 

the point is made. 

And Jim, I assume you’re taking notes on these? 

DR. MELIUS: I am. 

MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again. Is this just an 

internal Board deliberation or is the public going 

to have, once we get this policy -- 
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DR. ZIEMER: Well, the document will certainly be 

made public. I’m not sure it’s on the website yet, 

but it’ll be part of our deliberations for the next 

meeting so it’s going to be a public document. 

MR. GIBSON: I’m just saying at that point is the 

public going to have input on what determines the 

approach for an SEC petition as far as our 

criteria? 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think let me answer that in 

part and maybe NIOSH can also. I think on any 

petition the public has opportunity in the public 

comment period to comment on any issue in the 

petition. Members of the public could, for 

example, try to make the case for why something 

isn’t statistically robust for example or whatever 

issue they have with, relative to our procedures. 

So I think that, I believe that opportunity exists, 

and I’ll call on Larry if you want to comment 

further on that. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think you’re absolutely 

right. It does exist at that point. There’s 

opportunity for public comment also when the Board 

takes up this document for further deliberation at 

your next meeting. There’ll be a public comment 

period, and this document I’m sure will be at the 
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public table. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mike may be asking for its application 

in particular, Mike you can speak for yourself, in 

particular cases will the public have an 

opportunity to, for example, indicate that they 

think that the procedure is not being followed in 

some way or was that the issue you were raising? 

MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I’m discussing this house in 

particular. When we deliberate this, will the 

public have input? 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yes. 

MR. GIBSON: Okay, thank you. 

DR. WADE: I think -- this is Lew Wade -- I think 

another strength to this document once it’s been 

vetted and exists, is that it could be read by 

people who were contemplating preparing a petition, 

and they could use this document to frame their 

argument given the fact that this is the Board’s 

sense of how it would be evaluated. I think that’s 

providing really a great service. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 Other comments or issues? 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. 
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DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, go ahead. 

MS. MUNN: I have a little bit of a problem with 

this robust, too. I always have. I think it goes 

back to the nebulous nature of, or perhaps I should 

say the individually interpreted nature of what a 

term might mean. As I’m sure all of you are aware, 

prior to the last decade the term robust was 

usually applied to a person’s health. And suddenly 

it became a very popular term in term, in the 

business and academic world. And I’ve never been 

able personally to identify when something becomes 

robust and when it does not. I think it may 

depend, like beauty, on the eye of the beholder. 

DR. ZIEMER: I can’t define robust, but I know it 

when I see it. Is that right? 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, that’s exactly -- 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think perhaps in the document 

we might have, we might be able to discuss it in a 

little more definitive way, and then as I say in 

particular cases it may be up to NIOSH to show that 

statistically something is strong. And obviously 

there’s a continuum. 

MS. MUNN: It would be helpful I think, even Mr. 

Webster doesn’t help. I’m staring at him right 
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now, and he’s talking about things that exhibit 

strength or vigorous health and it’s... 

The one other thing, a completely overarching 

concept which may or may not be appropriate for 

this document, but it’s one that concerns us 

continually and comes up time and time again, is 

the issue of timeliness. We have concerns 

ourselves about, very strong concerns about the 

timeliness of what we do, and how we can do it. 

And certainly, every single one of the claimant 

population regardless of whether or not they’re in 

a special exposure cohort, are very concerned with 

the timeliness of our activities. It is, when we 

issue documents like this, it would seem judicious 

for us to consider the possibility of phrasing our 

timeliness issues in such a way that we incorporate 

something about the limits of resources that are 

available to accomplish these things. I know we’re 

trying to outline here how we feel things can be 

most expediently done, but realistically, if we do 

not help identify for the public that there are 

limits to the resources involved in producing these 

documents and doing dose reconstructions, then I 

don’t think anyone else is going to make that 

obvious. It would, in my view, be very helpful if 
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we at least make reference when we talked about 

timeliness to the fact that all of the things we do 

are of necessity. 

DR. ZIEMER: Certainly a good point. You may want 

to provide some suggested wording that Jim might be 

able to incorporate into that part of the document, 

if you would please. 

MS. MUNN: I didn’t say a thing. Yes, I’ll try to 

do that. 

DR. MELIUS: Well, even if you don’t -- this is 

Jim, Wanda, I will. I’ve made notes here so I will 

try. 

MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

DR. ROESSLER: Paul, this is Gen. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Gen. 

DR. ROESSLER: In offering our critique, I didn’t 

mean to overlook the fact that I wanted to comment 

on the overall document. I think this group has 

done an excellent job. And I agree with Wade that, 

or Lew Wade, that I think by doing this, this helps 

everybody and it helps possible petitioners and so 

on. And in particular I think they’ve done a good 

job of identifying the four key principles. Thanks 

to all the participants that we’ve got it in 
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writing now. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 

MR. GIBSON: Paul, this is Mike again. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: I think what Wanda was pointing out, I 

think may have just kind of alluded better to what 

I was saying about feasibility and plausibility. 

There is a limit on technical information and time 

and money and et cetera. And is it feasible to do 

an accurate dose reconstruction as opposed to using 

the word plausible? I think that further -– 

DR. ZIEMER: Right, I think you’re right, Mike, and 

that in some cases has to do with resources 

available and even some of the other parameters 

that were identified. The point is appropriate, 

yes. 

 Other comments? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: If not, this does not require action 

today, but we will look for a revised copy to come 

before the Board hopefully at our next face-to-face 

meeting later this month. Again, thank you, Jim, 

and work group, and for all the work done on this 
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document. Another comment? 

MR. GIBSON: Yeah, this is Mike again. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: So if I understood NIOSH correctly, 

just let me clarify this, we’re going to deliberate 

this draft at the next meeting, and there will be 

room for the public comment -- 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that’s correct. 

MR. GIBSON: -- before it’s adopted? Is that true, 

Lew? 

DR. WADE: Correct. 

MR. GIBSON: Okay, thank you. 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I will try to get 

a copy to Lew after I get comments in from people 

and the comments have been raised so far, get a 

copy over to Lew, say ten days or a week or so 

before the next meeting so they can post the draft 

we will be discussing on the website. That would 

be helpful. 

DR. ZIEMER: And perhaps at least to address Mike’s 

concern about public input, we need to make sure 

that we schedule this on the agenda for a time 

which is perhaps after the regular public comment 
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period so that those, we might alert the public to 

it. It’ll be available, and if people wish to 

comment on it, they could. Or we could have our 

discussion and defer action until after the public 

comment period. 

DR. WADE: Right, I think what we’ll do is we’ll 

schedule two public comment periods. At the first 

we’ll make sure that everyone is aware of this and 

the fact that it will be discussed. And then we 

can hear comment from them as we might like, then 

we would have a discussion of the issue. 

DR. ZIEMER: So we’ll try to make sure that happens 

that way, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: Okay, thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: And you make sure it does, too. 

DR. WADE: Let me be clear. I wasn’t clear on my 

words. There are two public comment periods. The 

first public comment period will alert people to 

this. Then we’ll have a second public comment 

period where they can come, and then after that 

second public comment period we’ll deliberate. So 

I think that meets your intention, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: Right, thank you. 

DR. WADE: I’d like to go back to the issue that 
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Mark raised because I don’t want to gloss over it. 

And that is that the 180 days and the issuance of 

an evaluation report that, it’s our interpretation, 

the interpretation at least how that speaks to me 

that that requirement only applies once to the 

issuance of the initial evaluation report. 

Once that requirement has been met, there could 

be long discussions with the Board as there was in 

Mallinckrodt. There could be iterations in the 

issuance of further evaluation reports. There is 

no clock running there, only the initial clock for 

the issuance of the initial evaluation report. 

So Mark, that’s in part an explanation to 

what’s going on here. Certainly NIOSH, if it was 

going to modify that report substantially, would 

have to do that before the Board was to take up the 

discussion of the SEC petition at a Board meeting. 

MR. GRIFFON: I mean, I guess I, you know, I just 

am, I was a little surprised, Lew, because I know 

there’s been a lot of push. Even at the last Board 

meeting you seemed to suggest that we really needed 

to move with the working group and move so that 

NIOSH could complete an evaluation report to 

present at the next Board meeting. I just had that 

like there was still some kind of time deadline in 
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mind. And I’m just a little concerned that now is 

a completely open-ended. I’m sure that all of us 

will be trying to close it out ASAP, but I guess 

that I just wanted a little more clarification on 

how this opinion was arrived at. 

DR. WADE: I think there’s always a timeliness 

pressure on the Board regardless of the 180 days. 

And I think it would have been ideal if we could 

have voted on the Y-12 later years SEC at the end 

of January. But what I hear from NIOSH is they are 

not in a position to issue an evaluation report 

substantially at this point; and therefore, I think 

the only prudent thing to do is to wait. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I don’t know if it’s of any 

consolation, but I have spoken with the petitioners 

and explained the current status and the decision 

that we have made regarding evaluating the 

remainder of their petition. They were certainly 

thrilled, of course, that we added a class for the 

early years, and they seemed very understanding and 

accepting of our need to resolve the issues around 

the site profile before we move forward with the 

remainder of their petition. 

DR. WADE: But the alternative we face, Mark -- and 

we can talk about this at the meeting -- would have 
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been to force NIOSH to issue an addendum to their 

evaluation report that would have been incomplete 

and likely changing. And we would have been down a 

Mallinckrodt path, and I don’t think we want to do 

that again either. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, yeah, I understand the 

technical constraints certainly, but -- 

DR. WADE: This is the conundrum I mentioned 

earlier. We’re going to have to deal with this in 

many shapes and sizes as we move forward because of 

the Board’s desire to be complete in its 

deliberations with the site profile before it takes 

up an SEC, and the fact that there are time 

pressures associated with an SEC. So this is 

something we’re going to have to get better at. 

MR. GIBSON: Paul, this is Mike. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: Does anyone have the exact language on 

the law for the SEC’s because it seems like I 

remember it -- I’m kind of like Mark. It seems 

like something to the effect that all the 

documentation must be ready within 180 days or 

something like that, not just parts and pieces or, 

you know, parcel it out. 
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MR. ELLIOTT: We don’t have it here in front of us 

but the language reads, “a recommendation”. 

DR. WADE: We will read the language either, right 

after lunch we’ll get the language, and we’ll read 

it. 

DR. ZIEMER: We can return to this -- can you have 

it now? 

Hold on just a minute here, we’re trying to get 

MR. ELLIOTT: The language that specifies -- 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, let’s, we’ll get the language 

and see what, and clarify it here in a little bit, 

Mike and Mark, and make sure. I think NIOSH 

believes that they have met the requirements -- 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I’m sorry. This is Liz HomokiTitus. I just joined the call. I have the 

language. “Deadlines, not later than 180 days 

after the date on which the President received the 

petition for designation as members of the special 

exposure cohort, the Director of NIOSH shall submit 

to the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 
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Health a recommendation on that petition including 

all supporting documentation.” 

DR. ZIEMER: We have received a recommendation. 

MR. GIBSON: But, this is Mike again. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: Including all supporting documentation 

would be provided within 180 days? 

MR. ELLIOTT: On the recommendation. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, it’s all supporting 

documentation on the recommendation. 

DR. ZIEMER: I believe Larry had told us that the 

one part of the recommendation was that additional 

work be done, and the basis for that was 

documented. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, in the evaluation report we said 

specifically that we would continue the evaluation 

for the latter years. 

DR. ZIEMER: That was the recommendation. 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I have a 

question. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Bob. 

MR. PRESLEY: If you get another petition of 
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similar action, and we roll it, or you all decide 

to roll it into the SEC, does the clock start all 

over again or is it still a 180-day clock? 

MR. ELLIOTT: The clock starts all over again on 

that petition when it becomes qualified. 

MR. PRESLEY: Okay, all righty. 

MR. ELLIOTT: But if it is qualified, the 180-day 

clock for that petition starts. 

MR. PRESLEY: That’s what I thought. Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Any further comments on that? 

 (no response) 

REPORT FROM WORKING GROUP ON 

Y-12 SITE PROFILE 

MR. MARK GRIFFON, GROUP CHAIR 

DR. ZIEMER: I think we can move ahead on our next 

agenda item, which is a report from the working 

group on the Y-12 site profile. You should have 

Mark’s report which is a draft report. I believe 

he sent it out over the weekend, maybe the seventh. 

Mark’s group, the working group just met last 

Thursday so he had to scramble to get this report 

out. 

But anyway, there’s a working group report, 

which is -- I’m looking for page numbers to see how 

long it is. But is there anyone that didn’t get 
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Mark’s report that was e-mailed out over the 

weekend? It’s called “Summary of Work Group 

Meeting Discussion and Action Items”. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Dr. Ziemer? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I didn’t get it. I don’t know 

if LaShawn didn’t get it or didn’t have the 

opportunity to send it out to us. So if somebody 

has it by e-mail, that would be great, otherwise 

I’ll just look at a copy of it later. 

DR. ZIEMER: Can somebody e-mail it to Liz right 

quick? Or can we get it out to Liz? 

MR. GRIFFON: The same with the matrix. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I didn’t get any of these 

documents so Emily can just fax them to me at 

lunch. That’s fine. 

DR. ZIEMER: One way or the other we’ll get them to 

you. 

MR. GRIFFON: Are we going to start these after 

lunch, Paul, or do you want to move into them now 

or? 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me ask what the Board would 

like to do. Do you want to take a break now, or do 
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you want to --

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There is no matrix with 

this. 

DR. ZIEMER: No, the matrix was sent out in, I have 

the matrix as dated at November 12th . 

DR. NETON: That November 5th matrix will -- I don’t 

want to speak for Mark, but a matrix will be coming 

out of the product of the working group, I think. 

DR. ZIEMER: An updated matrix. 

DR. NETON: An updated matrix which will be a 

summarized version of -- 

DR. ZIEMER: The original matrix was a 50-page 

document. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I sent an updated matrix -- 

DR. ZIEMER: -- that Mark distributed that last 

November. 

MR. GRIFFON: Did I not distribute the updated 

matrix? It should be a shorter matrix. 

MR. ELLIOTT: All we got was the summary notes and 

action items. 

DR. ZIEMER: Do we need the matrix for the 

discussion, Mark? 
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MR. GRIFFON: Not really. I have a five-page 

matrix which sort of puts in matrix form what’s in 

the summary notes so it’s really just maybe an 

easier way to look at it. But I can also try to email that at lunch. I, myself, I would like to 

take a lunch since I’ve scheduled a phone call for 

that time. 

MS. MUNN: I don’t think the shorter matrix may 

have gotten --

DR. ZIEMER: I didn’t get a shorter matrix and 

NIOSH doesn’t appear to have it here either, Mark. 

Would you e-mail that out? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes, I will. I think I e-mailed it 

to Joe Fitzgerald for his quick review from SC&A’s 

standpoint. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, I think that may have been the 

case because --

MR. GRIFFON: I probably didn’t distribute it to 

everyone. I’m sorry. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, I still have that monster with 135 

items on it. 

MR. GRIFFON: I’ll e-mail that right now, and then 

people over lunch can read it or whatever. 
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DR. NETON: Mark, who are you going to send it to? 

Will you send it to me, maybe? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, can I send it just to Jim and 

John --

DR. ZIEMER: Well, the Board members will need it, 

too. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and then the entire Board I’ll 

send it to. 

DR. NETON: I can print out my copy here and -- 

DR. ZIEMER: Liz, do you need a copy? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I would like to get one, but I’m 

sure that somebody who gets it can just forward it 

to me. 

MR. GRIFFON: And Lew, you’re on my mailing list. 

Can you forward it to others that need it? 

DR. WADE: Yes, I will. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then we’ll take a recess for, 

till one o’clock. And just for housekeeping, does 

everybody call back in on this number? Is that how 

that works? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, you call back in and use your 

pass code. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any questions on that? If 
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you’ll call back in in one hour, one o’clock 

eastern time, 12 o’clock central and so on, early 

morning out there in Hanford. 

MS. MUNN: And waking up time for Wanda. 

DR. ZIEMER: You can go get breakfast now, Wanda, 

and then come back. Okay, we’re recessed till one 

o’clock. 

(Whereupon, a lunch break was taken at 11:52 a.m., 

and the meeting reconvened at 1:00 p.m.) 
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AFTERNOON SESSION 1:00 P.M. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think we can go ahead and get 

underway. During the lunch hour we had a request 

that the motion that was approved this morning on 

Bethlehem Steel be reread into the record, and Lew, 

do you have that -- yes, I have it here. Let me read 

that motion again. It’s the motion that was approved 

by Board vote this morning relative to Bethlehem 

Steel. Here it is. 

“It is the opinion of the Board and the Board’s 

contractor that, based on the information available at 

this time, the Bethlehem Steel site profile as modified 

through the comment resolution process is acceptable for 

use in the NIOSH Dose Reconstruction Program with the 

understanding that the action items listed in the 

attached matrix will be completed and that NIOSH will 

track all ongoing action items and provide the Board with 

quarterly updates on each of the six items listed in the 

matrix.” 

And that is the action that was taken this morning. 

DR. WADE: Thank you, Paul. 

This is Lew Wade. I -- again, evolving our technique in 

terms of holding these kinds of conference calls so if at 

any point there’s someone on the call who feels compelled 

to ask that a bit of information be shared or read, 
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please don’t be shy. Whether we’re, we’ll be able to do 

that or not, I don’t know. But don’t be shy in terms of 

making a request. We really want not only transparency 

but enlightened transparency so people can understand 

what we’re talking about. 

DR. ZIEMER: In some cases such as the matrix, we can 

make it available by e-mail. 

Hang on, we’ve got an extraneous phone going off. The 

Chairman forgot to turn his phone off. I think that was 

a call to order exactly what it was. 

MS. MUNN: The Chairman is to be complimented on his 

choice of musical --

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, in place of a gavel we have to use 

that. 

I already took a roll call. The only one that was 

missing from this morning is Anderson. Did Dr. Anderson 

come online yet? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: Still not back. Well, we’ll proceed. 

DR. WADE: We have a quorum and --

DR. ZIEMER: We have a quorum and perhaps he’ll be 

joining us shortly. 

The item that’s before us now is the report from the 

working group on the Y-12 site profile. We have two 

documents done. We have the narrative report that Mark 
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had distributed over the weekend, and now we’ve added to 

that the five-page matrix to support that document. 

So Mark, with that, do you want to --

DR. WADE: Might I -- just before Mark begins, this is on 

the altar of conflict of interest. We’re going to be 

talking about the Y-12 site profile. There are three 

members of the Board who are currently identified as 

conflicted on Y-12: Dr. Ziemer, Mr. Presley, Dr. DeHart. 

Again, our procedures on a site profile are that those 

individuals can be involved fully in the discussion. 

They can stay at the table. They can contribute as they 

would. If there was to be a vote, they would recuse 

themselves. We don’t anticipate a vote on this issue, 

but just again to be transparent, that’s the situation. 

MR. PRESLEY: Understood. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

Okay, Mark, let me turn the mike over to you, and you can 

proceed. 

MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to make sure that there’s a 

narrative and the matrix, and the other thing I should 

say right up front is that the both of those refer back 

to a December 19th report put together by SC&A, I believe, 

and edited by NIOSH, which was the conference call notes 

from the December 19th, 2005 meeting. 

And the reason I say that is because in some cases 
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in this draft you’ll see like Issue 1-A and Items 1, 2 

and 3. Items 1, 2 and 3 are laid out explicitly in the 

previous set of notes. So you might have to do a little 

bit of cross-walking to completely follow these 

documents. 

And then one other bit of information for this is that, 

and we tried to highlight this in the summary notes, that 

these items, while this is a site profile review, the 

focus clearly has been on the issues which the work group 

and which SC&A actually identified them out of their 

overall findings. 

And they basically looked at the overall findings 

and said, of these, which ones are likely to affect or 

may affect the SEC petition before us. So we clearly 

focused on sort of these major items that could likely 

affect, and it doesn’t necessarily reflect all the 

findings in the original Y-12 review that SC&A did. As 

an additional homework assignment this weekend, I did 

take these and sort of cross-walk back to the original 

findings. 

And it’s not always that straightforward. There was 

a very lengthy matrix that NIOSH put together, and if you 

look back at SC&A’s original report, there’s eight basic 

findings but under each one of those findings there’s 

several items, many items actually in some cases. I just 
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want to be clear that this is not necessarily the 

universe of findings in the original SC&A report, but 

rather the work group’s evolved to these sort of findings 

that we believe are the major items of interest or of 

concern with regard to the SEC petition before us. 

And then just walking through them, the format, there’s 

internal dose is divided up or is up front, and each, 

under each issue there might be some items listed within 

a certain issue. And then for each, there’s sort of a 

discussion of each, of what went on at the work group 

session. And then below that there’s the actions 

related, or actions that came out of the discussions. 

And we felt like, I mean, it’s actually good that we did 

this quickly from the Thursday meeting because we want to 

make sure we stay on top of these actions as we move 

forward. As you can see -- well, let’s walk through the 

pages. 

Issue 1-A, validity of data, items 1, 2, and 3, I 

rolled those together because in our discussion of this 

topic, items 1, 2 and 3 sort of overlap a bit and we sort 

of discussed all three at one time. Basically, there has 

been progress from the last meeting. NIOSH has made some 

data, some data available on the website, on the server 

actually, on the O drive so that SC&A and the Board have 

had access to an Access database for both uranium 
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urinalysis records from ’50 to ’57 and external 

monitoring records. But there remains to be quite a bit 

of work done in terms of validity of, and verification of 

that data. 

Is somebody going to ask a question or... 

DR. ANDERSON: This is Andy. I just came on. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thanks, Andy. 

Go ahead, Mark. 

MR. GRIFFON: Let’s see. 

MS. MUNN: Reliability. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes, and Wanda, I hear Wanda’s comment. We 

did have a discussion during this, and it’s captured in 

the discussion topic here, of as we were talking about 

validity, validation of the data, there were some 

concerns about that term being used for this process and 

people interpreting it differently. It has a certain 

relevance in the research arena, and, you know, we’re in 

a compensation program. 

So I think we’re trying to clarify through the work 

group process what exactly we, we’re, you know, what 

exactly they need to do to prove or to demonstrate, I 

guess, that this is reliable is the new term that we 

threw around at the work group sessions, that the data’s 

reliable to use for dose reconstructions. 

And with that in mind we, I think where the 
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discussion sort of ended up was that more needs to be, 

there is going to, I think that NIOSH raised some 

concerns about the fact that it’s going to be likely very 

difficult to uncover raw records, raw laboratory logbooks 

or data cards, et cetera, associated with this data. So, 

you know, how can they demonstrate the reliability of the 

data? 

And we’ve discussed other possible means such as 

cross-walking with health and safety reports such as 

looking for quality control reports, past quality control 

reports from the time period, other items like that which 

are, some of which are outlined in the action items. So 

I don’t think, I think we’re still asking NIOSH to pursue 

whether there exists raw data, but I think they might 

report back to us, you know, how easily or not so easily 

accessible that data is. So I think that’s the crux. 

The other --

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, can I interrupt --

MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- just for clarification? And in this case 

by reliability, you’re asking how well the secondary set 

of information represents the original dataset? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And this has nothing to do with how 

good the data is, but whether it’s a fair representation 
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of what is actually in the record. What you have is on a 

disk did you say? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. So we have a database, electronic 

database. 

DR. ZIEMER: Electronic database. 

MR. GRIFFON: And also the other part of --

DR. ZIEMER: But that was generated by who? By DOE? 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, this was by, yes, apparently this was 

Y-12 data transferred directly to the Center for 

Epidemiological Research, CER, because I use that acronym 

in here. 

DR. ZIEMER: Not associated necessarily with this program 

but sometime in the past? 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. My understanding, Jim, Jim Neton, 

correct me if I’m wrong on that. 

DR. NETON: Right, this is an exact, we believe, a copy 

of the database that Y-12 uses for their radiation 

protection program. 

DR. ZIEMER: So if there were some way to even sample 

selected pieces of this against an original, that would 

be a validation procedure, but that’s the issue then. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s the issue, right. 

DR. NETON: We believe that these records may be in the 

Atlanta Records Center or some place like that which 

could take quite awhile to retrieve. Then the question 
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arose as to what, when you have hundreds of thousands of 

records, what’s a representative, you’re going to say 

it’s verification or validation, then you get into the 

scientific issue --

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, well, you need a robust sample is what 

you need. 

DR. NETON: We did spend some time debating what that 

really meant. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thanks. 

 Mark, proceed. 

MR. GRIFFON: Jim, I could hardly hear you on that last 

comment, but --

DR. NETON: I think Paul’s paper may be covering up the ­

-

MR. GRIFFON: Anyway, the other part of the database is 

the, one other factor in there was in the urinalysis 

database I believe there is this question of a lot of the 

values say calculated values, and they’re dpm for 24-hour 

period I believe. And a question was raised as to how, 

you know, how these were calculated. 

And we received some information on that from an 

annual report of 1965. We asked for some more follow up 

on that, just how were raw data values converted to dpm 

per 24-hour period as entered in the database? So that’s 

the other, the other side, they’re sort of tied together, 
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but they’re a little different. 

And I think that covers, I mean, I’m not going to 

read through every action item, Paul, unless --

DR. ZIEMER: No, actually these action items are fairly 

recent, right? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: So these are things that NIOSH will be 

working on --

MR. GRIFFON: Yes, and I --

DR. ZIEMER: Lew, for clarification, are these things 

NIOSH has already agreed to? 

MR. GRIFFON: As of an e-mail this morning, I think, Jim. 

DR. NETON: By eight o’clock, I got the e-mail over the 

weekend, but I wasn’t aware that --

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I wasn’t clear whether you’d agreed to 

this in the working group and Mark is just recording it 

or --

DR. NETON: No, actually as of about, that’s right, about 

eight o’clock this morning I reviewed this document, and 

we have nothing of substance to add or --

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: I would also note to all, you know, SC&A 

and NIOSH and work group members, I think these are still 

draft and I can still make edits to these after this 

meeting I believe. 
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DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and keep in mind this is just a status 

report here. We’re not taking action on this today. 

You’re just giving the Board a status report. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- giving the Board a status report. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I should note, if you look in the 

matrix, I don’t know if it came across in the summary 

notes as well, but in the matrix these pretty much 

tracked one to one, they should anyway. But in my third 

column I say outstanding action items, and the reason I 

put it that way is because the last conference call notes 

that you have, December 19th, there are other actions in 

here which, you know, I want to give NIOSH credit on 

progress they have made. 

And I started to go back to the original findings 

and make the matrix, but it was just becoming too 

confusing over the weekend for me to pull all that 

together because the number schemes are different and 

everything. But they have, all these actions that we 

have now are outstanding ones, but that doesn’t mean that 

in between December 19th and last week’s meeting there 

wasn’t any progress. 

There was some progress. We have access to some 

databases and things like that, and they have responded 

to questions in other documents that we’ve received. So 
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I just want to make that point that these are now new 

action items. They might have been carried over, but 

they’re essentially the outstanding action items. 

MS. MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda. I made very few notes 

during our meeting. I was relying on other people to be 

my memory for me. But I did have three comments down 

here, and one of them is clearly covered in the 

compressed, the matrix that we have here. 

But a couple of them I’m not sure whether they were 

covered. And actually the first one I am not certain 

whose action it was and precisely what we were talking 

about. But I made a note, “will track through manuals to 

find out where the conversion numbers came from.” Was 

that covered in this last item you were just discussing? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the conversion factor. That should 

be item 4, item number four, yeah. 

MS. MUNN: Right, just wanted to make sure that was 

covered. And item 1, back on the third page, 1-c-1 under 

Action Item 2, when you were talking about NIOSH was 

sending a copy of the spreadsheet, I had noted “action 

NIOSH get to SC&A the key for collapsing the data into 

these larger categories.” Was that captured? 

MR. GRIFFON: I think that is the spreadsheet. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, there were two spreadsheets, Wanda, and 

actually, I sent those Friday. 
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MR. GRIFFON: It might be spreadsheets, yeah. 

MS. MUNN: Okay, I had thought somehow that there was 

another step in there somewhere that was necessary to 

make that conversion clear, but if this spreadsheet does 

it, great. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think it does it, yeah. And as Jim 

mentioned, this is real time. And I saw Jim Neton’s email come across that said that they’ve updated one of 

the external, I think the external monitoring database. 

They’ve added job titles now, and that’s what the action, 

so they’ve already partially completed some, you know, 

they’re working on these. It’s real time. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, my sense is they’re moving quickly on 

this. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark, proceed. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, I guess we can then go to page 

three which is item 4. We’re under -- this is not my 

numbering system by the way. Issue I-a, item 4 is what 

we’re kind of looking at, and intake of insoluble uranium 

and there is an action item. There’s one action item for 

this, which is basically to, that NIOSH agreed to further 

look. I think this is a carryover action to further look 

at this question of high-fired uranium oxide. And I 

think we did, well, I guess that’s just a carryover item, 

right, Jim? 
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DR. NETON: Yes, we discussed this and I think we stated 

our position, but we need to follow up with the 

references that SC&A provided us to verify that what we 

think is the case --

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- fleshed out a little bit. SC&A has 

posited that there may be super Class F uranium at Y-12 

and these two references that are listed here are offered 

in support of that position. And we need to look at that 

and see if they really do (inaudible) to it or whether it 

speaks really more to the type F. 

MR. GRIFFON: But we did have a discussion on the effect 

on the dose reconstruction, and I think for the most 

part, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, Jim, but for 

cancers of interest here, lung cancers primarily, you 

would assume Class S, and they would likely be 

compensated under the current model anyway. Is that --

DR. NETON: That’s right, anyone who had any, anyone who 

was on a monitoring program, for example, missed dose 

alone for lung under solubility Type S which would be 

over the 50th percent mark or PC. Then you’re left with 

systemic organs, and if you assume that the materials 

were very insoluble in the lung, that would tend to 

reduce the doses to the systemic organs. So we believe 

in using Type M, it would tend to maximize the non-lung 
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doses. 

It doesn’t, in our opinion, it does not have a real 

practical significance on dose reconstruction outcomes 

for the --

MR. GRIFFON: It may be less of a issue in terms of this 

SEC evaluation than was originally thought, but that 

action’s still on the table for this one. 

DR. NETON: We did agree that it is a generic issue 

related to, it particularly affects a large number of 

uranium (inaudible) to address it in some way. 

MS. MUNN: It would be a good thing to put to bed. 

MR. GRIFFON: Moving on unless there’s any other 

comments, Item 5, In Vivo Results and Coworker Models, 

and the real question that was raised was why there 

weren’t in vivo results used in any way in the coworker 

models. And I guess the primary point for our discussion 

here is in the oldest part of my text. That, you know, 

that there’s no data prior to 1960, and therefore the 

issue does not really affect the ’50 to ’57 petition at 

hand. 

And then from the other respect, I guess, the, 

generally speaking, we had a discussion on the detection 

limits of the in vivo versus urinalysis and the fact that 

in most cases the in vivo will be used to sort of, maybe 

to corroborate the dose, the intake applied but not 
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really used in terms of calculating the actual intake. 

Is that correct, Jim? 

DR. NETON: That’s correct. 

DR. ZIEMER: But there’s no action item --

MR. GRIFFON: No actions under that because of the 

highlighted section. That’s why the action, it doesn’t 

mean that it’s not still an entry --

Section 1-b then moves into the question of other 

radionuclides, and the primary discussion here at Y-12, 

well, there’s several twists and turns to this discussion 

actually. But the question of how the site profile 

addresses exposures to other radionuclides other than 

uranium and these include, but not, but I’m not going to 

state that they’re limited to, polonium, plutonium, 

thorium, gallium, the transuranics from the recycled 

uranium. I think that’s some of the primary ones. And I 

think -- oh, Uranium-233 also and possibly this radium 

improgeny (phonetically) associated with radium and 

radon, et cetera. 

And then, I guess, this, you know, we had some 

discussions about several things here. One is just, 

apparently one of the big things that came out of this 

meeting was that they have recovered a, ORAU, I guess, 

has recovered or identified a CD or a set of data that’s 

been scanned onto a CD which has approximately 6,000 
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images, and it’s a little unclear how much data that 

actually is. 

There might be some repetitious pages in there I 

guess, but it does have some thorium, some of this data: 

plutonium, thorium. I’m not exactly sure what isotopes 

of interest might be on there, but it seems to be stuff 

that might be related to the cyclotron, calutron 

operations. Is that accurate, Jim? Maybe you can 

describe that better. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I guess that’s the best we can say 

because neither of us has seen it. It’s hard to say. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, so which leads us to one of the 

action items which is that they need to follow up on 

this, Action Item 2 actually, “Follow up on additional 

data currently under classification review.” And that’s 

something for us also to keep in mind is that this CD 

rests down there at Y-12 under classification review. 

And it’s unclear, at least to me from our meeting, how 

long that might take to be declassified, or if it can be 

all declassified. So it’s just something to keep in 

mind. 

MR. GIBSON: Jim, Mark? This is Mike. 

DR. ZIEMER: Who’s speaking? 

MR. GIBSON: Mike. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mike, go ahead. 
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MR. GIBSON: If this new data involving the plut (sic) 

and the thorium if it cannot be declassified, obviously 

it would require Q-clearance. How’s this going to affect 

the impact on the SEC evaluation? 

MR. GRIFFON: I’ll defer that question. 

DR. ZIEMER: I don’t know if Jim or Larry can answer 

that. And also while they’re thinking about that, in 

declassification, does anyone know if things can be sort 

of partially declassified? For example, can we learn the 

identity of nuclides even though they may not be able to 

tell us quantities? 

DR. NETON: Yes, I think that’s true. 

DR. ZIEMER: So we can get at least partial information. 

DR. NETON: Right, and maybe, like I say, it might not be 

possible to get the job and the department codes for the 

different bioassay results, that sort of thing, job 

titles. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think that’s going to be the biggest, 

knowing a little bit about Y-12, I think the biggest 

concern is going to be linking those isotopes to certain 

areas, the buildings or --

MR. GIBSON: Doesn’t it -- this is Mike. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I think you’ve already said enough on that, 

but yes, the way we would proceed on this would be that 

we’d have our Q cleared folks here look at it as well as 
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ORAU’s Q cleared folks. We’d understand at that point 

what is being held still as classified information after 

the classifiers review. 

We would make some decisions on whether or not we’d 

be able to move forward in our SEC evaluation report or 

would we need to call the Board’s attention to what was 

being held back. And perhaps you would have your 

contractor or your classified or your cleared Board 

members peruse this as we did for Iowa. 

MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I guess the question I’m getting back 

to is how do the petitioners, how are they going to have 

basically due process? They’re trying to get information 

to prove their point on their SEC petition, if they, you 

know, they obviously don’t have a Q clearance. 

MR. ELLIOTT: That certainly would be taken into 

consideration as to whatever is being held back, and we’d 

have to see what information is being retained as 

classified and make a determination as to whether it 

prohibits us from making a clear evaluation publicly 

about the petition or not. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I guess we’ve got to take this a step 

at a time. 

DR. NETON: I think it’s a little premature to judge 

because what Mark hasn’t talked about yet is the CER or 

X-10 database that has similar bioassay results in it to 
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the extent that that is a subset maybe or part of the 

6,000, you know, pages. We don’t know. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. ELLIOTT: But just to be clear on Mike’s question, we 

have to (inaudible) counsel’s advice and led to 

understand that there’s no requirement on presenting an 

evaluation report that all information that supports that 

evaluation report has to be out in the open. We would 

like it to be. We want it to be. We want to be as 

transparent as possible. And then too, if it were to be 

a finding and determination that we would, say, deny the 

class, and by the way, there’s information that is of a 

classified nature that we can’t speak about that enables 

us to provide this recommendation and say that we can do 

dose reconstructions, I think that’s the worst case 

scenario that we’d have to think about, and think about 

how we could do that in as transparent as possible format 

without divulging national security information. 

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike again. I just want to get it 

on the table. I know it may be, may or may not be an 

issue in the future, but it’s still something that I 

think we need to keep that a consideration so we won’t 

possibly have a train wreck down the road. 

DR. WADE: Certainly, certainly, Mike, you’re correct. 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. Just to remind 
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everyone. I believe that we’re owed an explanation of 

that policy that came up at a, several meetings ago, and 

the Board had requested further information and also a 

briefing on that, and had suggested a discussion of how 

we would implement that. And to date we’ve received 

absolutely nothing. 

DR. ZIEMER: You’ll get a follow up on that. 

DR. MELIUS: If it’s basically going to become an issue 

with this particular site, it’s all the more reason that 

we need to move ahead and have some discussion of this. 

DR. ZIEMER: So noted, thanks. 

Mark, you want to proceed? 

MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 

MR. GIBSON: Mark, one more thing. This is Mike. Is 

there, the advice from counsel that you mentioned, will 

that be made available to the Board? 

MR. ELLIOTT: It has been made available to the Board. I 

believe Liz Homoki spoke to this on the record at 

previous meetings. There’s nothing in the act and 

nothing in our rules that prevent us from using 

classified information to do dose reconstructions. 

DR. MELIUS: Again, Jim Melius, a reminder, I don’t 

believe we’ve ever received the decision. All we’ve had 

is your transmittal of that information to us through you 

and through you, Larry, and through the counsel. We 
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asked for and have never received a copy of that --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: That’s because there was no written 

decision. 

DR. MELIUS: Well, then we, all the more reason we need 

more explanation and more time for discussion of this. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, so noted. 

Mark, you want to proceed? 

MR. GRIFFON: Sure, we all done with that? 

DR. WADE: We’re not all done with it, but --

MR. GRIFFON: We’re not all done with it obviously. 

DR. ZIEMER: But the issue’s been noted. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

And Jim is right in pointing out the fourth action 

item on that was that there’s an X-10 Department 4,000 

data and Department 4,000 is basically departments that 

were X-10 operations that were housed in Y-12 facilities, 

so it was X-10 work being done at the Y-12 facility. 

And anybody, I guess the understanding is anybody 

that was doing that kind of work was assigned to the 

Department 4,000 series in the department number codes. 

And they’re going to look at this data as well to see 

what kind of information is available there regarding 

these other radionuclide exposures. 

And I think that’s, one, I guess the fifth item also 

is, it was a little discussion on the recycled uranium 
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issue, and I think that currently the internal dose 

section of the site profile uses a, basically a, the same 

ratios used throughout for the transuranic (inaudible) or 

(inaudible) exposure to the transuranics. 

And there was some questions about whether the 

material in any of the operations at Y-12 could the 

transuranic materials concentrate in any form whereby 

causing for greater ratios in some operations than in 

other areas. And the feeling from NIOSH and ORAU, I 

believe, is that it wasn’t likely that there were any 

operations, but they were going to follow up on that. 

DR. NETON: Mark, I thought also that SC&A was going to 

review the relevant section of the internal dosimetry 

document. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, this --

MR. GRIFFON: I think you’re right, yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- is going to review --

MR. GRIFFON: That’s right, I did say SC&A, okay. 

DR. NETON: (Inaudible) had a version that had the 

recycled uranium addressed. And we agreed at the working 

group meeting that they would go back and look at it and 

comment. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s correct, it was a later version, 

that’s right. I’m sorry. 

DR. ZIEMER: So John Mauro, you’re still on? 
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DR. MAURO: Yes, I am, and I agree with that. 

DR. ZIEMER: I’m not sure it’s your understanding, too, 

that, have you guys been made aware of this? 

DR. MAURO: We are very much aware of it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

Okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: Thanks for that correction, sorry. 

Then Issue 1-c, let’s see, this is the, I think this 

relates to the -- I’m having trouble cross-walking myself 

so I can only imagine others. Oh, this relates to the 

choice of the 50th percentile intake rates, and there’s 

some discussion on how, when workers didn’t have 

monitoring, what distribution would be assigned. Would 

it be the entire distribution, the mean of the 

distribution, the 95th percentile? 

And I think it varies depending on information about 

the individual claimant. You know, what type of job, 

what areas, et cetera. And I think that SC&A was just 

looking for clarification on how that coworker model was 

going to be used to assign individual doses. And some 

action items out of that are listed one through four 

there mostly which I believe is to clarify the department 

and the job function, the job titles and job functions 

listed in the databases that we received. 

There also was a question raised during this, or a 
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comment came up during the discussion as to whether the 

sampling involved the, the database covered the monitored 

people likely to be most exposed. And I think there was 

some discussion as to whether it was the most exposed 

individuals or more likely it seems like it might have 

been the most exposed departments were sampled from. 

There’s a comment that random sampling was sort of 

done at departments of highest exposure potential. Bob 

Presley actually as a site expert I think may have a 

comment for us, and I think we just need to, I think that 

needs to be better understood, in my opinion anyway. I 

think that was one of our actions. 

I think that’s it. Any comments on those action --

DR. ZIEMER: I have one question. Is it, do we know at 

this point how the monitored people were selected? Were 

they selected at random from the highest exposed groups 

as opposed to identifying the highest exposed 

individuals? Is that what you’re saying? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that’s what we, I think that’s what 

we need to follow up on. 

DR. ZIEMER: Because a priori they wouldn’t know who the 

highest exposed individual was going to be; and 

therefore, took the randomly assigned monitoring? 

DR. NETON: That’s action item number three under 1-c. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we just need a little more 
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resolve. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- how that was done. 

DR. NETON: We thought we understood it pretty well, but 

Bob Presley provided more information that indicated that 

it might not have been quite on the mark. So we just 

need to go back and see exactly what that --

DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead. 

MR. GRIFFON: Items 1-d/e, I think they kind of got 

merged together, in the last report. And this involves 

the, I think it’s the Type F uranium. Let me find it. 

Yeah, Type F uranium exposures and the 48 hour delay in 

sampling. And really the, I guess the two questions that 

are outstanding is just if, there is apparently a policy 

for a 48-hour delay in sampling after the exposure, sort 

of the Monday morning policy, although it might have not 

been a Monday morning all the time depending on what 

shift people worked. If this 48-hour delay was in 

practice, SC&A pointed out that the results could be 

underestimating when you use, the coworker models could 

be underestimating the intakes by a factor of, what, two 

to four? Is that --

DR. NETON: Yeah, I think we decided a maximum of three 

at this point. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, maximum of three, yeah. So I think 

that Dave Allen and Joyce Lipsztein, Joyce Lipsztein from 
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SC&A and Dave Allen from NIOSH are walking through this 

issue to try to determine whether in fact that this is 

the predominant pattern in the database, whether there 

was usually 48-hour delays in the sampling. And if that 

was the case, they’re going to agree upon a method for 

correcting the data that way. 

Is that accurate, Jim? 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I think so. I think I’d like to say 

also if we can generally agree that this is not 

necessarily an SEC showstopper, it really would result in 

a, some sort of correction factor being applied to the 

bioassay coworker model. But it is important to get this 

issue ironed out and do an accurate dose reconstruction. 

MR. GRIFFON: And the other thing, I guess, is the 

question of Type F uranium exposures and whether there 

were, I think in the current -- I might be wrong on this, 

but there’s just a question of whether Type F assumptions 

are used in doing dose reconstructions for any, any 

organs or if the worst case, non-metabolic always use 

Type M. 

DR. NETON: Mark, I think what happens here, and we 

didn’t talk about this last week, or is it this week? 

Last week, was that if the 48-hour sampling issue can be 

shown not to be a problem, in other words, if they did, 

if we have enough data to demonstrate that there were 
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other sampling periods we could use, then the Type F 

issue goes away because then I think what happens is Type 

M and F become the bounding dose reconstructions. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I did, yeah. 

DR. NETON: Under the, if they exactly followed 48-hour 

delays then Type F becomes a player. If we can show that 

that’s not really the case then the Type F issue kind of 

goes away, but we’re not there yet. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, but we’re not there yet so that 

action, I left that for that reason. Because one sort of 

depends on the other; they’re intertwined. 

And Issue 1-f is the job descriptions of unmonitored 

workers lacking is what the original issue is described 

as. And mainly I believe this focused on the unmonitored 

workers that SC&A had interviewed that didn’t appear to 

be, to fall into other job categories or departments. 

And therefore, it was a question of how they were going 

to be assigned from the coworker model I guess. I might 

have this wrong. SC&A or NIOSH can clarify that issue. 

DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I’ll take a shot at it. 

When, my understanding was when we run into those 

circumstances where you’re not quite sure whether the 

person is unmonitored and you’re having difficulty 

judging what his responsibilities might have been, you 

resort to the 95th percentile value for the distribution 
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for that particular internal emitter. So there is a 

fallback position to deal with when you’re confronted 

with these types of uncertainties with regard to the job 

responsibilities. 

And I’d kick this over to Jim or to Joe if he’s on 

the line and see if I correctly characterized that. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I think you got it, John. This is Jim. 

I think there’s one additional issue here and that was 

the exposure to the roving workers to the non-routine 

isotopes like plutonium and such. How would you handle 

that? And I think we discussed that if we did have 

access to a sufficiently, I use the term robust, database 

for plutonium and polonium and thorium, this issue would 

tend to go away. 

And as John characterized then it becomes the 

decision do we use the 50th percentile or the 95th 

percentile on those distributions for the, what we would 

call, the roving worker? So this is some way tied in 

with the answers to the other action items. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, that’s why, and if you look at my 

matrix, I tied it back to C actions and 1-b items one and 

two and 1-c-1. I think they are overlapped in the 95th 

percentile. You know, the how is the coworker dose 

assigned question, and the other radionuclides question, 

yes. 
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DR. NETON: I agree. 

MR. GRIFFON: But there’s no actions actually listed 

under 1-f that are covered by the (inaudible). 

DR. NETON: For a second there I thought we had it all 

put to bed, but --

MR. GIBSON: Mike. I have a question here. We had, I 

think, talked something about on these roving workers 

that, you know, they may have been employed by Y-12 or to 

X-10 or vice versa and stuff. And we’d talked about 

trying to resolve whether or not they were going to be 

included in the Y-12 site profile or SEC or the X-10 site 

profile or if there would be an SEC. Did that, did I 

miss that or did that get resolved? 

MR. GRIFFON: I think Jim -- that’s a good question 

actually. I mean I think currently the way we’ve been 

discussing is that for employees working in those Y-12 

operations, we’re covering them under this SEC petition 

evaluation. Is that --

DR. NETON: That’s correct. At one point NIOSH raised 

the issue of ownership -- and I use that term loosely --

that the calutrons and cyclotrons at Y-12 were 

transferred from Y-12 to X-10 in 1951, the question 

became under what facility should those dose 

reconstructions or those SEC petitions be evaluated. And 

I think the answer we have at this point is if the 
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activities occurred on the Y-12 site, we’re going to 

address them as a Y-12 issue. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. ZIEMER: Where are you working at? Who’s paying the 

bill? 

DR. NETON: Right, because there’s issue. Ownership is 

sort of a loose term when you talk about the fact it’s 

all owned by the Department of Energy. It’s really more, 

in my estimation, a bookkeeping function more than 

anything. 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. That is one hundred 

percent correct. 

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. If I’m hearing you right, it 

doesn’t, it’s not a matter of who they were employed by 

as far as a contractor; it’s where they were. 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. That’s correct. We 

were all Union Carbide employees, and you either worked 

at one of the three sites. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, okay, Mike? 

MR. GIBSON: Yes, so it doesn’t really matter who managed 

the operation. It was where they worked. 

DR. NETON: If the work was performed on the Y-12, within 

the confines of the Y-12 fence line, I guess is the way 

I’d put it, we’re going to consider that as a Y-12 

exposure for SEC petition evaluation purposes. 
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MR. ELLIOTT: (Inaudible) based, the petition (inaudible) 

DR. ZIEMER: And can I ask a related question? This is 

Ziemer. Do they show up in the Department of Labor 

records when the Department of Labor is determining 

eligibility? Do they show up as a Y-12 person even 

though they may have been an X-10 employee? Or is that 

an issue that is handled separately. I mean, we may be 

calling them that. I want to make sure Labor does when 

they --

DR. NETON: That’s a good question. I --

DR. ZIEMER: -- because Labor has to establish their 

eligibility for the class, does it not? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: And if they show up as being an X-10 

employee is Labor going to say, well, they weren’t? 

MR. ELLIOTT: They will have to verify the eligibility 

for each member of the class based upon the time they 

worked at that facility. 

DR. ZIEMER: At that facility. 

MR. ELLIOTT: They’re going to have to develop that 

aspect of a person’s claim. If you were employed at X10, but you say here you, in the interview with NIOSH 

that you worked at Y-12 on the calutron operation x 

number of days or months, they need to establish that. 

MR. GRIFFON: Sometimes it’s not that easy. You’re 
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right, Paul, good point there. 

DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Mark. 

MR. GRIFFON: External dose I think we’re up to. Yes, 

Issue 1, Data Validity and Coworker Models. Items 1, 2 

and 3 actually are very similar to what we discussed 

under internal dose which is the question of the validity 

or maybe now the reliability. I haven’t changed words 

because the titles were there before, but we did, as I 

said, we did discuss the difference. 

And this again is looking at the Y-12 external data 

which is also CER data which I also understand was 

directly taken from the Y-12, a direct copy of the Y-12 

database. So this question originally Item 3 in the 

December 19th report was questioning whether the CER or 

HERB electronic data files included all the Y-12 workers 

or a subset. And by subset there, we’re talking about 

like a subset for research purposes, like all white males 

before a certain time period or something like that. And 

it’s pretty clear it’s not. It’s just a direct copy of 

the Y-12 database. That’s our understanding now. 

Okay, and the action items listed, as I said, Jim 

has already responded I think to one of these. We asked 

for a larger query on the overall database to go up to 

1965. ‘Fifty to ’57 covers the petition at hand, but 

part of the coworker model relies on later data that back 
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extrapolate earlier exposures. So to evaluate this, we 

really need the later data as well. That’s one action 

item. 

We also asked for the, the second one’s very similar 

actually in my mind. That might be a duplicate. The 

third is a specific subset related to the coworker model. 

The 147 monitored workers had to be in a separate file 

for review. 

And then Item 4 goes back to this. We asked NIOSH 

to at least assess whether and how difficult it would be 

to compare the database against hard copy records, data 

cards, et cetera, to check the reliability of the data. 

And then Item 5 is very similar also to the internal 

dose section where we ask for, that they provide or 

review quality control reports or procedures from the 

early years as a reliability check. So I think that’s it 

for the --

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, go ahead, Mark. Something broke in 

there. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, Item 4 under this was going back 

to the original. On the December 19th report it says, 

“NIOSH to rationalize how a 90 percent match between the 

electronic record and the Y-12 monitoring records are 

sufficient for dose reconstruction purposes in contrast 

to an epidemiological purpose.” And this is provided in 
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ORAU report 22. And I think that still is an outstanding 

item that hasn’t, we didn’t get a report back from that 

so that was just a kind of a carryover action item. 

Is that correct, Jim? 

DR. NETON: That’s correct. 

MR. GRIFFON: And Item 6, I don’t even know if we 

discussed it, but there was a carryover action item I 

guess. Let’s see, oh, the coworker models, I think it 

actually came up in the earlier discussion and they, 

NIOSH did agree that they would make available the 

analytical files. These are Excel spreadsheets. I think 

at least one of them is a crystal ball analysis-type 

model for the coworker models versus any external dose. 

And to my knowledge, I don’t think SC&A had reviewed 

these. 

Is that correct, John? 

DR. MAURO: That’s correct. One of the decisions we came 

to at the meeting was the protocol where you use the 1961 

through ’65 data to go back to pre-’61 involved a set of 

data and also a set of statistical procedures in order to 

reconstruct the pre-’61 data. And during the meeting we 

agreed that SC&A would look at that protocol and those 

data. 

DR. ZIEMER: So there’s an SC&A action item. 

DR. MAURO: Yes, there is, and it’s not listed here. But 
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at the meeting we did agree that we would have our 

statistician take a look at that protocol. There was at 

one time, you may recall, we did review that procedure, 

and there was some discussion back and forth where there 

was some general agreement. Yes, this procedure is 

valid; we had certain questions regarding it. I don’t 

believe those issues yet have been engaged. So it’s a 

matter of having our statisticians talk to your 

statisticians along with the dataset that that 

statistical tool will be operating on. 

DR. NETON: That’s one good point you raised, John. I 

think we did agree at the working group meeting that it 

was appropriate for us to set up small technical 

discussions among our various parties to iron out these 

details and then report back with a, you know, transcript 

or a summary of the work that transpired. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, I think that that item is missing from 

the –- that we’re looking at it. I think that item is 

missing from the matrix, probably should --

DR. NETON: I think in some ways that’s sort of been our 

standard operating --

DR. ZIEMER: Right, it’s kind of built in here, but in 

some cases we may want to identify the specific SC&A 

actions. This is directed toward the NIOSH actions, but 

if we have a related SC&A action that we want to track, 
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we may want to make a note of it as well. 

Thanks. 

Okay, Mark. Still there? Mark? Hello. Anybody? 

 (no response) 

MS. MUNN: I don’t know that Mark is still there. 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I’m still here. 

DR. ZIEMER: We’re still on the phone call. We thought 

we lost everybody. 

DR. ANDERSON: Andy’s still here, too. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MS. MUNN: I have a question of John with respect to the 

SC&A item we were just identifying as being an action 

item. Where do you see that going on this compressed 

matrix that we --

MR. GRIFFON: Hi, I just got cut off. I’m sorry. 

DR. ZIEMER: We were just asking where the SC&A action 

would be in the matrix. Is it 1-a-6? 

DR. MAURO: It’s 1-a-6 in my mind, yes. 

MS. MUNN: Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: That’s where I put it. 

Okay, Mark, we’re ready. 

MR. GRIFFON: What was that SC&A action? 

DR. ZIEMER: One-a-6, we just talked, John Mauro had 

mentioned that they were doing following up on that as 

well. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Oh, going to review the spreadsheet? 

DR. ZIEMER: And we’re going to add that in our matrix to 

make sure we track it even though the focus is on the 

NIOSH actions. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

DR. ZIEMER: But there is an SC&A action involved there 

as well. 

MR. GRIFFON: Sure. I don’t know what happened. I got 

cut off there. 

MS. MUNN: We missed you. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think we’re ready for 2-a, Mark. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, Issue 2-a, Badging of Maximally 

Exposed -- I think again this is a question of a coworker 

model and how it’s going to be applied I think. Is that 

accurate? 

DR. ZIEMER: It overlaps to what we talked about before. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, except for the internal versus 

external. 

DR. NETON: It’s just the external dosimetry version of 

the internal --

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, right. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I don’t know if in this case --

DR. NETON: There was this criticality issue that Kathy 

DeMers raised, I remember, and we’ve gone back, I haven’t 
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written this up yet, but we determined that that area was 

actually clean before they went in there, and the uranium 

leaked by a valve that was supposed to be shut. 

DR. ZIEMER: Are you talking about the June ’58 

criticality? 

DR. NETON: Right. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, you know, there was an extensive 

mockup to assign dosimetry to those workers. 

DR. NETON: We have a dosimetry, and we’ve actually 

reconstructed some doses for those cases. But the issue 

raised by SC&A was that how could we argue that people 

were, the highest exposed individuals were badged when 

people that were working in the area where a criticality 

occurred did not have badges? 

And the answer, I think, is that that area was not 

supposed to be contaminated, that the tanks that they 

were working on had already been cleaned at one point. 

And unbeknownst to the workers the valve had been open 

that leaked enriched uranium into the tank. And then 

when they poured it in the drum, it became critical. 

So it doesn’t defend whether those workers should 

have been monitored or not, but it does not negate the 

policy we think was in place which was that people who 

were the highest exposed workers were thought to be the 

highest exposed workers were monitored. It’s something 
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we need to write up and demonstrate. 

DR. ZIEMER: They probably had blood sodium from them as 

well. 

DR. NETON: I think everyone that got a security badge 

had (unintelligible) --

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

DR. NETON: Which is, I think, how they triaged those 

workers. But I think Kathy agreed that it wasn’t the 

fact that a criticality occurred. It was that they were 

working with uranium-bearing materials, and they weren’t 

badged. And it’s up to NIOSH to demonstrate that we 

don’t believe at that time there was sufficient external 

exposure in that area to have been badged under their 

typical operating procedure. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s actually not why I paused, but 

that’s such a good point, Jim. The reason I paused was I 

was wondering whether a similar question that Bob raised 

on the internal monitoring, I don’t know if it is or is 

not applicable here. You know, was there a question as 

to whether there is, I think you, I don’t know if it’s 

been determined whether the maximally exposed, all 

maximally exposed individuals were monitored or there 

were, you know, you certainly have heard of cases where 

the monitor, certain individuals from work groups have 

assigned the dose to all of the work group. But I don’t 
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know if that --

DR. NETON: If you remember, Mark, ORAU’s done a lot more 

work in this area, and we’re much more comfortable saying 

that we believe the workers who should have been badged, 

who had the highest exposures, were, and we don’t believe 

that it was cohort badging at all. In the internal area 

I think we need to do a little bit more work. 

MR. GRIFFON: That’s what I thought. That’s the only 

reason I paused when I saw that badging of maximally 

exposed, and I wasn’t sure if that had been cleared up or 

not cleared up or --

DR. NETON: Well, in my mind it is, but then again, I 

can’t (unintelligible). 

MS. MUNN: This is another one of those instances in 

which the issue that Mike raised earlier comes up, 

whether it was plausible or whether it was feasible. It 

was probably feasible to have everybody monitored, but it 

wasn’t plausible to expect that these people would be 

exposed. There ought to be with any luck at all enough 

evidence from the post-accident scenario and information 

to be able to make that decision clear I would think. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, I’m not necessarily talking about 

that action anymore, but I was talking in general in the 

database. 

MS. MUNN: Yeah. 
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MR. GRIFFON: Anyhow, I think we’ll leave that, I mean, I 

think we can leave that with those two actions unless 

there’s any input on that. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, does that complete this? 

MR. GRIFFON: No, there’s a couple more in there. 

DR. ZIEMER: I’m sorry. We have 2-b. 

MR. GRIFFON: Two-b is Coworker Dose Assessment. The 

main discussion that we had here was about TIB-51 which I 

think is related to neutron exposures and whether the NTA 

film needs to be corrected or can monitor for neutron 

exposures of the lower neutron energy levels. And also, 

I guess, the characterization question. And I think this 

has been just recently provided to SC&A. So SC&A is 

going to review TIB-51, provide comments to NIOSH, and 

then have a discussion of that. And that can be prior to 

a work group meeting or a Board meeting, in between, 

whatever. 

And the second issue is more or less a carryover 

issue which is on the skin extremity dose reconstruction 

procedures which I don’t think were really addressed in 

the original site profile. 

Is that correct, Jim? 

DR. NETON: That’s correct. 

MR. GRIFFON: So those are under development, and I also 

would assume that once they are developed, SC&A will 
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review those. 

And finally, the last thing there, I just wanted to 

capture the fact, and it didn’t really, these notes are 

organized in the order that they were from the December 

19th meeting. These example cases were actually presented 

in the middle of the internal and external discussions in 

this meeting. But I just tore out the back of these 

notes. 

We did, Dave Allen primarily, although I don’t know 

if other NIOSH staff members were involved in the 

development of these cases, but Dave Allen presented 11 

cases. And these were adjudicated cases. 

Is that correct, Jim? 

DR. NETON: I believe so. 

MR. GRIFFON: Or are these completed DR cases? And they 

were for the most -- well, let’s see, six lung cancers. 

We didn’t go through every one of the lung cancers 

obviously. Dave did one or two of those to demonstrate 

sort of how the coworker model was used at least in a few 

of them. And I think the upshot of a lot of this was 

that I think we, as the work group moves ahead, and as we 

get more information back from NIOSH, I think we need to 

outline parameters for other cases that we’d like to see 

dose reconstructions performed on. 

And maybe not entire dose reconstructions, but sort 
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of proof of principle. How they’re going to go about a 

dose reconstruction for, you know, a person who worked in 

the calutron or, you know. I’m not sure what the 

parameters are yet, but these cases that we looked at 

looked fairly straightforward, and we may want to choose 

other cases that better demonstrate that they can do it 

for all members of the, they can complete dose 

reconstructions for all members of the class within the 

petition. 

DR. NETON: Mark, this is Jim. I think the intent of 

those cases was that we would demonstrate the application 

of the coworker data for uranium workers only. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: And we tried to throw in the recycled uranium 

component and demonstrate the plausibility of doing these 

dose reconstructions with either the full distribution or 

the 95th percentile. And I think the numbers look fairly 

reasonable, but I agree. There’s a lot of other examples 

that would be necessary to flesh out all the other subtle 

exposure types that may have occurred here. 

MR. GRIFFON: And at this point, I mean, it wasn’t 

criticism necessarily. Just where we are right now I 

think that we can’t really select other types of cases 

until we know a little more about these other 

radionuclides of interest and it’s a work in progress. 
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MS. MUNN: I think it’s also worthwhile to note -- this 

is Wanda -- that nine of those 11 cases were compensable. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark, thank you. 

Let me ask if there’s any further questions or 

comment on the report? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: We’ll then be expecting an update on this at 

our face to face meeting in a couple of weeks, and Lew 

wants to address this relative to the petition. 

Lew. 

DR. WADE: Let me just walk through this issue in some 

detail so that we’re all on the same page. And I 

apologize if I add confusion to an already confusing 

issue. It’s certainly not my purpose. 

About a month ago it would have been my hope that 

following the working group meetings that Mark chaired 

and then following this Board meeting, we would have 

reached resolution on the pertinent issues of the Y-12 

site profile that impacted the Y-12 SEC petition. This 

is for the years ’50 to ’57. 

After this meeting I was assuming that NIOSH would 

issue an addendum to its evaluation report, and then we 

would go to the meeting in Oak Ridge. And the Board 

would make a recommendation on that SEC petition. I 
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confess now that that was a naïve belief on my part. 

What we’ve now learned is that there is still more work 

to do to reach intellectual closure on the site profile 

as it impacts the SEC petition. 

So what I see happening now is that between now and 

the meeting at the end of January, NIOSH and SC&A will be 

working hard to advance according to this resolution 

matrix. At the meeting at the end of January in Oak 

Ridge, the Board will have a robust discussion of the 

technical issues related to the site profile. The Board 

will then have a robust discussion of Dr. Melius’ thought 

piece, “Report of the Working Group on Special Exposure 

Cohort Petition Review”, we’ll hear from the public on 

that. 

And then with these two discussions behind us, the 

Board will then discuss how it would like to proceed from 

a time point of view towards the issue of closing on the 

site profile and the SEC petition. And you’ll be seeing 

a modified “Federal Register” notice for the meeting at 

the end of January that will reflect the things that I’ve 

just talked about. 

I am sorry for the confusion that was brought about 

over this issue, but I do think it’s terribly important 

that we try and reach closure on the issues related to 

the site profile before the Board is presented with an 
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addended evaluation report by NIOSH. So that’s where we 

stand now. I see nothing but the highest quality work go 

into this. Sometimes that work takes time though. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thanks, Lew, and thanks to Mark and Wanda 

and Mike and Robert for all their work on this Y-12 site 

profile, and we will then take this up again at the next 

meeting. 

DR. WADE: And one final word to the new Board members, 

it looks like the Y-12 SEC petition will really happen on 

your watch. So I’m glad that you’re here hearing these 

discussions. 

UPDATE ON SCIENCE ISSUE: LYMPHOMA DOSE 

RECONSTRUCTION TARGET ORGAN SELECTION 

DR. JIM NETON 

DR. ZIEMER: We have another item now on our agenda, and 

that is an update on science issues and more specifically 

the issue of the lymphoma dose reconstruction target 

organ selection. And Board members, you should have 

received now -- well, we had a presentation actually in a 

meeting last year on this issue. 

And then you should have received recently from 

Larry the proposed change in the IREP program. Help me 

if I -- it is a proposed change in the IREP program. No, 

it’s not a change in the program. It doesn’t change the 

program per se. It does affect the outcome of the IREP 

calculations. 

And you have that together with an evaluation, I 
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think outside, independent evaluations that were provided 

by Dr. Crowther and Keith Eckerman. And make sure you 

have those, and then there’s the, just a summary -- I 

think this came from you, Larry -- called “Summary of 

NIOSH’s Re-examination of Lymphoma Target Organ 

Selection”. So those are the pieces of documentation 

that you should have. And Larry, he’s going to lead the 

discussion. I know Russ is here today, Russ Henshaw. 

DR. NETON: The record should show that we have Brandt 

Ulsh and Russ Henshaw joining us for this discussion, and 

they’re from NIOSH. 

DR. ZIEMER: And Brandt’s going to lead us or Russ. 

DR. NETON: I will --

DR. ZIEMER: Jim will kick it off and the others will 

support. 

DR. NETON: I think there’s not much more to add here 

other than to refresh Board members’ recollections of 

what we proposed at the Board meeting in Knoxville. 

And that was that we had come to conclusions looking 

at the scientific evidence related to lymphomas that our 

target organ selection for non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 

particular was not scientifically correct. We went to 

some lengths to get expert opinions from a Boardcertified hematologist as well as a expert health 

physicist in internal dosimetry to assist us. 
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The end result of that analysis revealed to us that 

for internal dose in particular, we were previously using 

what we would call the highest non-metabolic organ, that 

is, we would calculate the dose to all the organs and 

select the organ that had the highest dose among the ones 

that weren’t explicitly modeled for our metabolic model 

and assign that for lymphomas. 

We are proposing at this point to use, particularly 

for internal exposures, the tracheal-bronchial lymph 

nodes, thoracic lymph nodes, for reconstructing internal 

dose. This would in effect raise the internal doses to a 

large number of previously processed cases, with nonHodgkins lymphoma cases. 

And we propose to go back and re-evaluate those 500. 

In addition to that there are 500 cases being held 

pending until the decision is made so that we can finish 

and complete those dose reconstructions. In our mind the 

internal dose reconstruction is the big change here. I 

mean, we’re talking in the order of magnitude of more 

change in the internal dose for those organs, those 

lymphomas. 

The external part of the organ is changed slightly 

but is not significantly. We’re proposing to you the 

lung as a surrogate for dose to the lymphocytes for 

external dose reconstruction. And that’s not a huge 
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change. These are percentage-type changes as opposed to 

the order of magnitude changes that occurred in the major 

target organs for internal dose. 

If I haven’t confused anybody, I guess I can answer 

questions on that. 

DR. ZIEMER: This is a proposal that requires Board 

action. It is not mandatory that the action be taken 

here today, but if the Board is comfortable taking action 

today, we can certainly do that. 

Let me open the floor for discussion. Basically, 

this comes as a recommendation from staff asking for the 

Board to approve this change in the methodology. 

Board members, any questions or comments? 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. It appears to me that as 

thorough a job of garnering expert counsel as possible 

has been done, and the draft dated 1/6/06 that’s going to 

the “Congressional Record” appears to be very 

straightforward and comprehensive in my view. I’m 

willing to accept this as a reasonable and accurate 

motion, action for NIOSH to take. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

Other comments, pro or con? 

DR. DeHART: This is Roy. Returning back to when we had 

the presentation, I think there were a number of us that 

are somewhat familiar with the way pathological reporting 
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is done that we were assuming something that was entirely 

inappropriate for circulating lymphocyte cancers and so 

on that the biopsy site would be the site identified. 

And I think this makes total sense to return to what is 

physiological. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Roy. 

DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. I have a question. 

DR. ZIEMER: Gen, go ahead. 

DR. ROESSLER: A lot of this decision is based on the 

work of Dr. Mark Crowther. And I’ve looked at his 

credentials, and they look very good. But my question is 

when someone is selected to make an evaluation like this, 

who is involved in the decision making? And at this 

point does everyone pretty much agree that he is the 

expert in this area? 

DR. ZIEMER: Who can answer that for --

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I’ll take a stab at this, Gen, and 

ask Jim and Brandt to fill in the cracks that I might 

leave. 

Certainly, when there is a scientific element in 

dose reconstruction that’s being called to question, the 

staff bring that forward to Jim Neton’s attention and to 

my attention. We ask them who are the external experts 

that we could seek out for consultation on an issue. So 

we ask them to identify those folks. 
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Once we have a pool of viable experts assembled, we 

approach individuals in that pool and seek out their 

willingness to provide this type of consultation as you 

see from Dr. Eckerman and Dr. Crowther. It is not an 

exhaustive search for expertise, so I want to make that 

clear. And it is narrow in its –- it’s shallow in the 

pool as far as the folks that are known or recognized by 

internal staff or other people that we talk to about the 

issue. 

DR. ZIEMER: Gen, does that answer your question? 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes, I think so. I know the other expert, 

Keith Eckerman, is certainly as recognized by health 

physicists, and in my view everybody would agree that he 

is the expert there. I just wanted a little more 

discussion on the other to make sure there was total 

agreement. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I would also offer this, that we are 

publishing in the “Federal Register” a notice that we’re 

proposing this change. You see that in this 1/6/06 draft 

for the “Federal Register”. We hope that that will be 

presented in the “Federal Register” tomorrow. I’m 

awaiting a call to confirm its publication, but we 

believe it will be there tomorrow. 

It also calls for the public comment period will be 
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open for 15 days, and we would hope and welcome that the 

Board could make a, come to a decision on this today and 

then 15 days hence, the publication of the “Federal 

Register” notice, we would be prepared to consider any 

public comment and move forward in accordance. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

Okay, other comments or questions? 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I just am sort of 

trying to understand what we’re approving. What we’re 

really approving, if I understand it correctly, is the 

document called “Summary of NIOSH’s Re-examination 

Lymphoma Target Organ Selection” dated October 31st, 2005? 

That is the detail, I mean --

DR. NETON: What we’re asking for advice from the Board 

is the technical information bulletin that was issued is, 

in effect, is that is the change in our approach for 

target organ selection scientifically reasonable? 

MR. ELLIOTT: And so we’re asking the Board for 

consensus, comment or recommendation regarding that 

proposed change. And we’ve tried to spell out the 

proposed change and show you how it would look in our 

technical information bulletin on this topic as well as 

provide the Board with a summary statement of the issue 

along with outside expert consultation remarks, Jim 

Neton’s PowerPoint presentation that was given to the 
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Board back in October. I think that’s the extent of all 

the documentation we’ve provided. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think, Jim, the official document is OCAS 

TIB-012. 

DR. NETON: That would be revision one. 

DR. ZIEMER: Rev. 1. 

DR. NETON: It would help you garner what’s changing in 

there though. We’ve provided you a summary of what the 

relevant changes would be and a rationale for such 

changes. So they’re sort of two companion pieces, but 

ultimately the change would be reflected in this TIB-012 

as to how would we go about doing dose reconstructions 

and re-doing them as well. 

DR. ZIEMER: Procedurally, I’m going to ask the question, 

maybe I’ll address it to Lew, if the Board makes a 

recommendation, and this will be published in the 

“Federal Register”, and you’ll get comments, and you’ll 

have to take those into consideration as well, the Board 

would be another piece of that? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Does the Board’s recommendation in this case 

need to go to the Secretary or is it simply a piece of 

input basically to the program? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Your recommendation can come to the 

program. You should advise the Secretary though I think. 
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The (inaudible) calls for public comments to be sent to 

my attention. But you advise the Secretary so I think 

you’d want to --

DR. ZIEMER: We can at least inform him. 

DR. WADE: Yes, you can do both. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Board members, you have the materials; 

you’ve heard this discussion. Does anyone wish to make a 

motion? 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I’ll be glad to make the 

motion that the Board accept the proposed changes to OCAS 

TIB-012 as shown in rev. 1 and as condensed in the 

information being presented in the “Federal Register” 

during this coming week. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you’ve heard the motion. I think the 

initial wording was the Board accepts or –-

DR. WADE: The Board accepts the recommendation. 

MS. MUNN: Accepts the recommendation. 

DR. ZIEMER: I’m not sure it’s a recommendation to the 

Board per se. It may be that we support the proposal, 

Wanda, if that’s agreeable. 

MS. MUNN: Accept the proposed changes to OCAS --

DR. ZIEMER: Is there a second to that motion? 

MR. PRESLEY: Bob Presley, I’ll second it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I heard a couple seconds. Presley is 

identified. 
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 Discussion? 

MR. GIBSON: This is Mike. I have a couple of questions. 

DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

MR. GIBSON: NIOSH has said that if we adopt this they’re 

willing to go back and re-look at the claims that have 

been denied if I understand them right, correct? 

DR. ZIEMER: That’s correct. 

MR. ELLIOTT: That’s correct, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: Does DOE, does DOL also put on record as 

stating that they would re-adjudicate these claims or relook at these claims also? 

MR. ELLIOTT: So they’re aware of this proposed change 

and through the various program evaluation reviews that 

we do here. That’s a term that we use, program 

evaluation review. When we make a change in how we do 

dose reconstruction or in our site profile, a technical 

information bulletin, there is an effort to go back and 

look at all cases that have been done under the previous 

version of that document, whatever document it may have 

been, and examine whether or not that change would have 

resulted in the claim being compensable. So we always 

look at those claims that are not, that have been done 

and were found not to be compensable. 

DR. ZIEMER: In essence, you’re saying that Labor is 

obligated to --
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MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, they have an obligation. 

DR. NETON: This is provided for in our regulation for 

dose reconstruction that if we identify a case where we 

believe that the new information would change 

compensability, we notify both the claimant and the 

Department of Labor of that. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike does that answer the question? 

MR. GIBSON: I guess what I’m saying is if a claim was, 

maybe NIOSH recommended the claim be compensated and 

DOE/DOL denied this claim, and you go back and re-do this 

claim again, is DOE/DOL prepared to look at the claim 

again with an open mind? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I think there’s a little confusion in 

your statement, Mike. The claims that we have done thus 

far would be re-examined by us. And if we identify a 

dose reconstruction we’ve already done, and it was a noncompensable dose reconstruction, and this change made it 

cross the 50 percent line and become compensable, we 

would notify the claimant and we’d notify DOL. And DOL 

would pick up the revised dose reconstruction we’d 

provide to them and produce a probability of causation 

greater than 50 percent and pay the individual. 

DR. ZIEMER: And they would be obligated to do that? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mike? 
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 (no response) 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I have a sort of a 

procedural question. I mean, you have a very small 

amount of information on the medical condition of the 

claimants. Isn’t most of that information handled by the 

Department of Labor? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, it is. They’re the responsible party 

for determining eligibility of the claim, and that’s one 

of the eligibility points of determination that the 

person has cancer. And they base that determination on 

the, you know, some very sparse information such as a 

physician’s report of diagnosis to a death certificate. 

DR. MELIUS: Right, and I’m just saying that implementing 

this policy I think is going to be difficult without, I 

don’t know if we’re going to have adequate information 

for categorizing people here. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think that’s probably the case in some 

cases. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I think that’s the purpose of the change 

that we’re proposing. It’s going to make it easier. 

DR. NETON: It’s going to make it easier, and Brandt 

should speak to that. 

DR. ULSH: Yeah, Jim, in cases where we don’t have the 

ICD code down to the fifth digit, and that’s probably a 

large number of cases, we have in place in this revised 
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OTIB, I’m sorry, this revised OCAS TIB, procedures for 

handling that. And that is we default to the most 

claimant-favorable choice. 

DR. NETON: But also for non-Hodgkins lymphoma the fact 

of diagnosis no longer is relevant. They will 

automatically default for internal exposures to the lymph 

nodes of the thoracic lymph nodes. Prior to this we have 

been requiring the Department of Labor to provide us as 

definitively as possible the site of diagnosis of a nonHodgkins lymphoma which we now believe to be not relevant 

to the etiology of the illness. 

DR. MELIUS: Correct, okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: Because it should be an improvement if any. 

MR. ELLIOTT: This aids us in doing our work, and your 

point is well taken, Dr. Melius, that in many of these 

diagnoses of cancers do not come forward with a clinical 

pathology that would allow us to reconstruct right down 

to the cellular level, but this is an attempt to get 

around that and to be more, to acknowledge that and to 

be, give the benefit of the doubt to the claimant. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, additional comments or questions? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: Board members, are you ready to vote on this 

motion to, Lew Wade will read the motion back for you 

here. 
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 Lew. 

DR. WADE: The Board supports the NIOSH proposal 

contained in TIB-012, rev. 1 and summarized in the draft 

“Federal Register” notice dated 1/6/06, concerning a new 

process for selecting dose reconstruction target organs 

for energy employees with a lymphoma cancer. 

DR. ZIEMER: Are you ready to vote then on the motion? 

MS. MUNN: It sounds a lot better than what I --

DR. ZIEMER: I think he’s just quoting you there, Wanda. 

MS. MUNN: That’s good. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we’ll vote by roll call. 

Lew, if you’ll give us a roll call, we’ll vote. 

DR. WADE: Just give me a minute. Mr. Presley. 

MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Mr. Gibson. 

MR. GIBSON: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Dr. DeHart. 

DR. DeHART: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Wanda Munn. 

MS. MUNN: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Dr. Anderson. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Dr. Melius. 
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DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Mark Griffon. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 

DR. WADE: Dr. Ziemer. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

DR. WADE: And I assume that Leon Owens and Richard 

Espinosa are not with us? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: Apparently not. 

DR. WADE: Okay, then the motion is carried. 

DR. ZIEMER: Motion carries. Thank you very much. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. We appreciate this and the 

1,000 plus claimants that will benefit from this decision 

I think will be appreciative as well. 

WRAP UP, DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we’re ready to wrap up. I think that 

we’ve efficiently covered the business for the day. I 

thank everybody for their time and input. 

Lew, do you have any final instructions for us in 

preparation for our next meeting? 

DR. WADE: No, just rest, particularly Mark. But I think 

this worked well. I mean, I was worried about, you know, 

multiple issues, but I think we did our business well. 

We have to learn a little bit better how to practice the 

etiquette of discussing issues in a public forum and make 
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sure that other people have our materials. But I mean, I 

thank you for your preparation, and I thank you for your 

patience through this call. And I look forward to seeing 

you all in Oak Ridge. 

MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask one final thing, Paul? 

DR. ZIEMER: You bet. 

MR. GRIFFON: Do we have an agenda for the meeting yet? 

We might have one. I just might not have looked at it. 

DR. ZIEMER: The only thing you have is Lew sent us a 

kind of a narrative memo earlier which outlined the 

business that would come before us at the Oak Ridge 

meeting. You can use that as a starting point. We know 

now that we will not be acting specifically on the Oak 

Ridge SEC petition, but we’ll be focusing again on the 

site profile. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, we have an opportunity to weigh in on 

the agenda items before it’s published? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we can do that. 

And Lew, we can ask for input. 

DR. WADE: What I’ll try and do, Mark, is to draft an 

agenda based upon what’s happened here today and get it 

to the Board by the end of this week and wouldn’t 

finalize that probably until the end of the following 

week. 

MR. GRIFFON: Maybe also a subcommittee agenda because my 
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feeling is that if we’re not going to take up the Y-12 

SEC petition evaluation, we may want to focus on some of 

the remaining tasks, the case reviews, the procedures 

reviews, et cetera. 

MS. MUNN: Procedure reviews, I’m concerned about that 

one. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and also, Jim, depending on where we 

are on the SEC procedures document, you may want to have 

your subcommittee meet as well, but you can determine 

that after you see what input you get. 

DR. WADE: Yeah, Jim’s is a working group. 

DR. ZIEMER: Or working group I meant. 

DR. ANDERSON: And we need the travel information as 

well? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

DR. ANDERSON: Where to call for hotel and things like 

that? 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. WADE: Yes. 

DR. ROESSLER: I’d like to ask a question of Bob Presley. 

Is there transportation from the Knoxville airport to Oak 

Ridge? 

MR. PRESLEY: Yes, there is. It is hard to get. I would 

suggest --

DR. ZIEMER: Give us your phone number, Bob. 
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MR. PRESLEY: Yeah, that we can do. I would suggest that 

NIOSH let people try to come in, you know, when they can 

and pick some cars up because the one problem, too, that 

you’re going to have is once you get into Oak Ridge, is 

you’re going to just about have to go somewhere to eat. 

The restaurant in the hotel is all right. 

DR. ZIEMER: This is on the public record now, Bob. Your 

opportunity. 

DR. ROESSLER: What hotel are we at? 

MR. PRESLEY: You’re at the Doubletree which is the old 

Garden Plaza I understand. 

DR. ZIEMER: Some of you will need to rent cars probably. 

Is there any other thing that needs to come before us or 

anything for the good of the order? 

 (no response) 

DR. ZIEMER: If not, we stand adjourned. Thank you very 

much. 

 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 2:40 

p.m.) 
______________________________ 

155 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 

above and foregoing on the day of January 9, 

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 

9th day of February, 2006. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102