1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

7 PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

8 CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

9 NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND 

10 HEALTH 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 convenes the 

17 

18 

19 TWENTY-FIFTH MEETING 

20 

21 

22 ADVISORY BOARD ON 

23 

24 RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

25 

26 

27 

28 VOL. I 

29 

30 

31 The verbatim transcript of the 

32 Meeting of the Advisory Board on 

33 Radiation and Worker Health held at the 

34 Hyatt Regency Buffalo, Two Fountain 

35 Plaza, Buffalo, New York, on June 2, 

36 2004. 

37 

1 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

44 

C O N T E N T S 

June 2, 2004 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair. . . . . . . . . . . .9 

Mr. Larry Elliott, Executive Secretary . . . 12 

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES, MEETING 23

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair . . . . . . . . . . . 12 

PROGRAM STATUS REPORT 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH. . . . . . . . . . . . .15 

STATUS AND OUTREACH - DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Ms. Roberta Mosier, DOL . . . . . . . . . . . .60 

REPORT ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION FOR PERFORMANCE 

OF DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS: Mr. Grady Calhoun,

NIOSH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 

ANNUAL ETHICS TRAINING 

Mr. John Condray, OGC. . . . . . . . . . . .123 

REPORT ON QA/QC OF THE PHONE INTERVIEW PROCESS

Dr. Richard Toohey, ORAU . . . . . . . . . .167 

SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT RULE 

Mr. Ted Katz, NIOSH. . . . . . . . . . . . .222 

INTRODUCTION 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair. . . . . . . . . . . 318 

BETHLEHEM STEEL SITE UPDATE 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH. . . . .. . . . . . . 324 

PUBLIC COMMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 

ADJOURN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400 

COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE. . . . . . . . 401 

2 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

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. 

In the following transcript (sic) denotes an 

incorrect usage or pronunciation of a word which is 

transcribed in its original form as reported. 

In the following transcript (phonetically) 

indicates a phonetic spelling of the word if no 

confirmation of the correct spelling is available. 

In the following transcript "uh-huh" represents 

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

negative response. 

In the following transcript "*" denotes a 

spelling based on phonetics, without reference 

available. 

In the following transcript (inaudible) signifies 

speaker failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

In the following transcript (off microphone) 

refers to microphone malfunction or speaker's neglect 

to depress "on" button. 

3 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

44 

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 

ELLIOTT, Larry J.

Director, Office of Compensation Analysis and

Support

National Institute for Occupational Safety and

Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Cincinnati, Ohio 

MEMBERSHIP 

ANDRADE, Antonio, Ph.D.

Group Leader

Radiation Protection Services Group

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and

Environmental Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Espanola, New Mexico 

4 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy

Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust

Fund 

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy

Union 

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 

5 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

AGENDA SPEAKERS 

(in order of appearance) 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH 

Ms. Roberta Mosier, DOL 

Mr. Grady Calhoun, NIOSH 

Mr. John Condray, OGC 

Dr. Richard Toohey, ORAU 

Mr. Ted Katz, NIOSH 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair 

STAFF/VENDORS 

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist,

NIOSH 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

6 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

44 

45 

46 

47 

 AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS 

ALLEMAN, STEPHANIE

BARTOSYEK, J.

BURGESS, LINDA

BUSH, MAUREEN A.

COLVIN, KAREN

DEHART, JULIA

DIMITROFF, JOHN

DIRENZO, GAYLE

DOOLEY, DAVE

ESPINOSA, KEVIN

ESTOFF, C.W.

FIGIEL, J.

GIBSON, DYLAN

GIBSON, JILLIAN

HEISTER, MELANIE

HENSHAW, RUSS

KATZ, TED

KOCHANSKI, JOHN J.

KOCHANSKI, ROSE P.

KOCHER, DAVID C.

KOTSCH, JEFF

KRAWGGEL, WALTER & PATRICIA

LAWRENCE, DAVID

LIVINGSTON, CYNTHIA D.

LIVINGSTON, JEROME

MAURO, JOHN

MCCARTHY, MARY

MELLODY, CINDY

MORT, DOROTHEA I.

MORT, JANICE

MOSIER, ROBERTA

NAIMON, DAVID

OWENS, ELSIE

PANASUK, FRANK J.

PRINDLE, ANNETTE

ROBERTSON-DEMEIRS, KATHRYN

SCHRAEDER, JANE

SWEENEY, THERESA

TENFORDE, THOMAS S.

TITUS, LIZ

TOOHEY, DICK

VONDERALE, NANCY J.

WALKER, EDWIN C.

WALKER, JOYCE A.

WESNIEUSKI, THOMAS 

7
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

PUBLIC COMMENT
 

BARTOSYEK, JANICE

BURGESS, LINDA

ESPINOSA, KEVIN

KOCHANSKI, JOHN

KRIEGER, RALPH N.

LAWRENCE, DAVID

LIVINGSTON, JEROME

O'BRIEN, EUGENE J.

OWENS, ELSIE

STOCKWELL, FRED

WALKER, ED 

8 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

P R O C E E D I N G S

 (9:00 a.m.) 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. 

and welcome to the 25th meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health. My name is Paul Ziemer. I serve as 

Chair of this particular Board. The record 

will show that all of the Board members are 

present, with the exception of Dr. Henry 

Anderson, who is not able to be here today, 

and Wanda Munn, who will be joining us. She 

was delayed by weather en route, but 

hopefully will arrive here mid-morning. 

We remind you, and if you don't already 

know it, that we want you to register your 

attendance with us. This includes all 

present -- Board members, visitors, 

staffers. Register your attendance at the 

table near the entrance in the registration 

book. Also if you're a member of the public 

and wish to address the Board during the 

public participation period, we ask that you 

let us know that so that we can schedule the 

timing on those remarks, and there's a 

9 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

separate registration book for you to 

indicate your interest in making public 

comment. 

On the table -- where's the table? 

There's a table somewhere -- oh, way in the 

back -- with a lot of documents on it. That 

includes copies of today's agenda, copies of 

a variety of documents, some from previous 

meetings, things like minutes or summaries 

of various presentations. Those are on the 

-- are on that table in the back, as well as 

some presentations that will be made today. 

We have several special guests with us 

this morning that I would like to introduce 

-- in random order, not playing any 

favorites here. Jane Schraeder, who is here 

representing Congressman Slaughter's office 

-- Congressional office; Thomas Wesnieuski, 

who's here representing Congressman Jack 

Quinn's office -- indicate who you are; and 

also C.S. -- C. W. Estoff -- C. W. Estoff, 

also representing Congressman Quinn's 

office; and then Cecilia -- you know, I 

can't read my own writing -- is it Lerner? 

MS. LIMA: Lima. 

10 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: -- Lima, representing 

Senator Hillary Clinton's office. Thank you 

all for being with us today. We appreciate 

having you in attendance here. 

We have a very full agenda. That 

agenda includes a public session this 

evening, so I call that to your attention. 

If there are members of the public here who 

do wish to address the Board and find that 

you will not be able to be here this 

evening, we will try to make opportunity 

late in the afternoon for you to make 

remarks to the Board, but that will depend a 

bit on how the schedule goes. The agenda, 

as it's been distributed, is what we will 

follow. The times are not necessarily times 

certain. We may get ahead, we may get 

behind a little bit and may have to adjust. 

But the evening session of course is a timecertain session, so we hope many of you will 

be back here for that evening session and 

the public comment period. 

Now I also would like to introduce our 

representative from NIOSH who is our Federal 

officer on the Board, and that is Larry 

11 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Elliott. Larry, you may make a few remarks 

here, also. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

On behalf of Secretary Thompson from the 

Department of Health and Human Services and 

Dr. John Howard, the director of NIOSH, I'd 

like to welcome the Board to Buffalo. It's 

been a short month since myself and a few 

others were here last in May, and we look 

forward to a productive meeting. As Dr. 

Ziemer indicated, we do have a full agenda 

with a lot of information to exchange here 

today and tomorrow, and we hope that the 

public finds this Board meeting an 

informative and a beneficial experience. 

Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: And for Jane Schraeder, I 

had a senior moment and I realized that 

Congress -- Congressman is really 

Congresswoman Slaughter, so let the record 

show that the Chair finally woke up on that. 

MS. SCHRAEDER: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MS. SCHRAEDER: She thanks you. 

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF DRAFT MINUTES, MEETING 23 

12 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: The minutes for meeting 

23, which -- which meeting is dated April 

20/21, 2004, the meeting held in Richland, 

Washington -- the minutes are -- they take 

longer to read than the actual meeting took, 

but they -- there's 68 pages of minutes. I 

believe most of the Board members got these 

in advance, though, did you not? You did 

not? I thought these had been distributed 

by e-mail. 

MS. HOMER: They have. 

DR. ZIEMER: Most of them don't want to 

admit that they got them in advance. I do 

want to ask the Board if you are ready to 

act on the minutes, if you are -- if most of 

you are not, we can delay this till tomorrow 

so that you have an exciting evening ahead 

here in Buffalo. Are there Board members 

who wish to delay the action on the minutes? 

Apparently not -- oh, Roy DeHart. 

DR. DEHART: I would prefer if we did. 

I only saw these for the first time 

yesterday. 

DR. ZIEMER: Use your mike there, Roy. 

DR. DEHART: I only had the opportunity 

13 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to see these yesterday and I did not get 

through them all because there's some other 

materials I wanted to read in the book, as 

well. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is there any 

objection in delaying the action on the 

minutes? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: There appears to be no 

objection, so without objection we will 

delay action on those minutes until 

tomorrow's session. And I'll remind you 

again, if you have minor typos and 

grammatical errors and dangling participles, 

you can turn those in directly to me or to 

Cori, and we'll get those corrections made. 

We will be looking for substantive 

corrections in the minutes then tomorrow. 

Thank you very much. 

I also want to point out to the Board 

that the 24th meeting was the telephone 

meeting that we held -- I forget the exact 

dates, but it was just a couple of weeks 

ago. The minutes of that meeting simply 

consist of a statement that we met and what 

14 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the topic was, which was the -- I don't mean 

telephone meeting. I mean the Cincinnati 

meeting. I stand corrected. It was a faceto-face meeting in Cincinnati where we did 

the independent cost estimate for our 

contractor's task. And the minutes of that 

type of meeting simply state that we met and 

that we -- and what the topic was, which was 

the independent cost estimate, so it's a 

basically one-line minute and I have 

approved those on behalf of the Board. 

Without objection, we'll take it that those 

minutes are approved. 

Dr. Neton is going to bring the program 

status report to us this morning. Jim, we 

welcome you to the podium. 

PROGRAM STATUS REPORT 

DR. NETON: I don't know if it's -- I 

can't tell if it's working or not. Can 

everybody hear me all right? 

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

DR. NETON: All right, good. It's my 

pleasure to be here today to go over our 

progress and accomplishments since the last 

Board meeting we had in Richland, Washington 

15 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

I think on April 20th, was the last time we 

met. So I'm going to go over some of the 

basic statistics and accomplishments that 

we've performed since the last meeting. 

We continue to receive cases from the 

Department of Labor. As you can see from 

the slide, about two-thirds of our cases are 

still represented by the two district 

offices combined, from Seattle and 

Jacksonville. We're at about 16,500 cases 

in total received from the Department of 

Labor. That's not in our possession. 

That's the total number that we've received 

from the inception of the program. I think 

this represents about a 400 net -- a 400 

case increase since the last Board meeting. 

As you can see, as in the last Board 

meeting, the number of cases continues to 

come in at around 200, 250 per week -- or 

per month. This last quarter is missing 

June, so when that comes in I think we'll 

still be right around the 800 for the 

quarter coming in. 

We continue to send out requests to the 

Department of Energy for exposure 

16 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

information for the cases as they arrive at 

NIOSH. We've sent out requests for 14,000 -

- about 14,348 cases. That number is lower 

than the 16,000 cases we've received. I 

might remind you because we do not send 

exposure requests for claims from many of 

the Atomic Weapons Employer establishments. 

There is no clearinghouse for information at 

those sites. We rely on going to individual 

records repositories to try to retrieve 

information for those facilities. 

And we've received responses for 13,400 

cases from the Department of Energy. Now 

that means we've received a response. It 

doesn't mean that the response we received, 

again, is complete and sufficient to do a 

dose reconstruction. An adequate response 

or not -- a response from the Department of 

Labor could just -- or Department of Energy 

could be we have no information; we've 

looked through our files, we have no 

monitoring information for that individual. 

We keep track of the age of outstanding 

requests. The number is quite low 

considering that we've sent out 14,000 

17 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

requests. Nonetheless, we are working 

diligently to try to work with the 

Department of Energy to reduce that backlog 

of outstanding requests. And Grady Calhoun, 

later on in the session, is going to talk 

about what we've been doing in that area in 

regards to our report to Congress on our 

ability to information from the Department 

of Energy. 

Telephone interview statistics continue 

to increase, 14,400 cases for which one 

interview has been completed for each case. 

Again, I remind you that -- well, it's --

one interview has been completed so that 

there are multiple claimants per case, so 

oftenti-- so it's hard -- it's difficult to 

track completed interviews. We've done 

19,177 individual interviews, since there 

are multiple claimants per -- per case. The 

capacity still is in place to do 200 to 300 

interviews per week, and that's going along 

quite well. 

This graph shows the number of 

interviews conducted by month, and you can 

see they stabilize anywhere from 1,100 to 

18 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

1,200 interviews per month. This is not the 

rate-limiting step in this process. We feel 

this is going along fairly well. Dr. Toohey 

from Oak Ridge Associated Universities will 

talk later today about the interview process 

and in particular discuss some of the 

quality assurance/quality control issues 

related to the interviews. 

Cases staged for dose reconstruction is 

around 5,000 at this point. That means that 

we've received a response from the 

Department of Energy, we've looked at the 

Department of Labor referral, the 

information there appears to be correct and 

a profile is in place or some other 

mechanism is there for us to determine that 

the case could be ready to go for dose 

reconstruction. And in fact, this really 

represents the number of interview -- the 

number of dose reconstruction contact 

letters that have been sent out to 

claimants. That is, a claimant receives a 

letter that says we're ready to start; here 

are the potential individuals who could be 

doing your dose reconstruction; do you have 

19 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

any perceived or real conflict of interest 

with those people doing your dose 

reconstruction. 

1,082 have been assigned, that means 

are actively in the process. They're being 

worked by health physicists at this time. 

Right now -- this is not on here, but we 

have a -- an inventory right now seems to be 

stabilized at about 400 to 500 OCAS-1 forms 

in the hands of claimants. That's sort of 

our potential pool of claims that can be 

turned back to Department of Labor. Soon as 

the OCAS-1 form is signed, we turn those 

around and submit those to the Department of 

Labor. We have to get all the OCAS-1 forms 

for each case because each case could have 

multiple claimants. 

We've sent out over 3,000 -- 3,400 

draft reports to claimants. Those are 

individual dose reconstructions that have 

been completed, and we're very close to 

3,000 final dose reconstruction reports sent 

to the Department of Labor for final 

adjudication. I was hoping that this could 

get to 3,000. I just got an e-mail this 

20 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

morning that said we're very close, but 

we're not quite at 3,000. So as you might 

realize or recognize, the time to get to the 

next 1,000 block has substantially decreased 

in recent times. It took us quite a while 

to get to 1,000, less time to get to 2,000, 

and we'll get to 3,000 in fairly short 

order. 

This represents just the number of dose 

reconstruction reports by month that we've 

sent to claimants. We've had a record month 

in May where we've sent out 480 dose 

reconstruction reports, still short of the 

goal of 200 per week on average. I think 

last week we had a record week, as well, 

where we sent out 144 draft reports to 

claimants. So we are making a tremendous 

improvement in this area and we hope to get 

to our goal of 200 in short order. 

I might point out over the last three 

months we've done in excess of 400, and 

we're fairly optimistic this number will 

increase in the next several months. 

As I discussed last time, the dose 

reconstruction final reports to claimants 

21 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

tracks very closely the number of drafts we 

have, and this is really just the number of 

OCAS-1s that we've got from the drafts. In 

other words, has the person -- the claimant 

reviewed the dose reconstruction report, 

understood it and signed the OCAS-1 form 

indicating that they have no additional 

information to provide at this time. And so 

last month, again, we had a record shipment 

of final reports to Department of Labor at 

409. 

Last time -- the last Board meeting was 

the first time we'd presented this slide, 

which is the cases completed by tracking 

number. I'll remind you that this is the 

NIOSH tracking number that goes from zero to 

16,000. Each case that we receive from the 

Department of Labor is assigned a sequential 

number from one to over 16,000. So this is 

the number of cases that we've completed per 

block of 1,000 tracking numbers, these being 

the earliest cases that we have received, 

the idea being that we want to emphasize and 

process these cases quicker than these 

because these cases have been in-house much 

22 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

longer. In practicality that's not possible 

because many cases have complex twists and 

variations and different work histories so 

that some of these earlier cases can be 

processed much quicker -- people with very 

short employment duration, some -- some 

cancer types that are fairly non-radiogenic 

that we can be claimant-favorable with the 

dose reconstruction. So we do process 

these. If we can get an answer to the 

claimant in a fairly short order without 

doing additional research, we will do it. 

And that's what's represented by these 

claims in here. 

We are working on getting more emphasis 

placed on these cases. ORAU -- Oak Ridge 

Associated Universities -- has realigned 

their process, as we discussed last time, 

into two teams, Team A and B. Team B is 

targeted with doing the more difficult 

claims, claims that take more than a day or 

so, once all the information is in place. 

And the reality is that those represent more 

of the internal dosimetry -- the people 

would have more difficult or detailed 

23 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

internal dosimetry exposures that are more 

complicated to perform. I think as Team B 

ramps up and becomes more facile with what 

they're doing, we'll start to see a decrease 

in this area, and we're certainly targeting 

that process. 

Submittals versus production, again, 

we're putting out about 400 a month at this 

point. And so for the last three months or 

so we've outstripped the shipments from the 

Department of Labor. We're making a dent in 

the backlog, albeit it small. I think we've 

reduced it by a couple of hundred claims 

last month, but it's at least rewarding to 

get -- you know, to be more than treading 

water, starting to swim a little bit. And 

again, we hope that this line continues. We 

of course can't control the blue line, which 

is shipments from the Department of Labor. 

If there is a large spike, for whatever 

reason, in claims, you know, this will be 

more difficult to maintain. But 

nonetheless, we are starting to reduce the 

backlog. 

Administratively closed, the dose 

24 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

reconstructions -- our regulation allows us 

to close a dose reconstruction if we have 

not received an OCAS-1 form within 60 days 

of receipt -- within 60 days of the claimant 

receiving the dose reconstruction report and 

they have not provided any additional 

information. So out of the 3,000 or so 

cases that we've done, there's a few that 

have reached that stage and it's staying 

fairly consistent I think. This is 24 cases 

so far out of 3,400 that we've done where 

the claimants have not signed the OCAS-1 and 

we sent out a letter indicating that the 

dose reconstruction is closed. 

Now that doesn't mean the case is 

closed. We notify Department of Labor that 

we are administratively closing the dose 

reconstruction, and the Department of Labor 

has the option to administratively close the 

claim -- or the case. I'd like -- I might 

add here that when we close a dose 

reconstruction, I mean really it just gets 

suspended. It's taken off of our tracking 

list. If a claimant provides additional 

information or signs the OCAS-1, there is a 

25 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

mechanism for that case to be reopened. 

Amount of rework, this represents the 

number of claims -- of cases that have been 

returned to us from the Department of Labor 

for reanalysis. The number appears to be 

tracking up, but this basically represents 

the increase in our workload. It's staying 

fairly constant. It's somewhere -- it's 

difficult to track the exact rate, but I'd 

say it's somewhere in the six to eight 

percent range. There's always a lag time 

between when we send out the cases for final 

adjudication till when Labor goes through 

the final adjudication process and makes a 

determination we need to do more work. 

Oftentimes that involves additional 

communication with the claimant. Many --

many, if not most, of these reworks are due 

to additional information from the claimant 

after we've processed the dose 

reconstruction. That could be the addition 

of another cancer that wasn't claimed on the 

original claim, the work history, the work 

period had changed slightly or been verified 

since we received the claim, the date of 

26 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

cancer diagnosis oftentimes ends up moving a 

little bit so they'll come back to us, the 

Department of Labor, and we'll rework them. 

We have a goal of reworking these -- we did 

have -- early on a goal of turning these 

back around within 60 days. That was when 

the adjustments were fairly small. If they 

move the date of diagnosis of cancer a week 

or so, it was fairly simple for us to re-run 

the dose reconstruction to accommodate that. 

But when they come back with additional 

cancers -- for instance, if we've used the 

efficiency process and the primary cancer 

was prostate, we may take a whole different 

approach for that dose reconstruction than 

if it comes back and says the primary cancer 

was bladder or lung or liver cancer. That 

would almost require us -- not exactly back 

to square one, but to start very back in the 

process. And it's been difficult for us to 

move some of these through in that -- in 

those cases within a 60-day window. So we 

do our best to get these back, but you know, 

sometimes it's just not possible. 

The phone calls continue to increase. 

27 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Again, we've got over 30,000 phone calls in 

to OCAS. I think since the last Board 

meeting we've received 1,000 additional 

phone calls from this statistic. ORAU has 

gone from 84,000 to 94,000, so they've 

handled 10,000 phone calls since the last 

Board meeting. That includes all the 

scheduling and set-up that ORAU does, but 

it's still a large number of claimant 

contact going on with ORAU. And the number 

of e-mails has increased to 4,440, up 500 

since the last Board meeting. 

Recent accomplishments, published 42 

CFR 83, the SEC procedures that are out 

there as of last Friday. I know Ted Katz 

will be giving a presentation later today on 

that subject. 

Physicians panels continue. We've 

appointed over 200 physicians to the panels, 

working with the Congress of Occupational 

Environmental Medicine and other groups to 

identify additional candidates. I know in 

the next week or so we're planning on 

sending over 20 additional names to work on 

the panels. 

28 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

We've been doing a lot of worker 

outreach -- worker and claimant outreach. 

We had a dose reconstruction workshop in 

Cincinnati on the 25th and 26th where we 

invited -- I think I announced it at the 

last -- announced this at the last Board 

meeting. We invited health and safety labor 

representatives from around the country, as 

well as some special interest group people, 

to Cincinnati to go over the dose 

reconstruction process, sort of from soup to 

nuts, to go over the regulation, the 

probability of causation calculations and 

dose reconstruction. We ended up having 

about I think 34 people at this meeting, and 

I heard very good positive feedback from 

this. I think it went very well. We went a 

long way towards getting these folks 

understanding what we're doing. I don't 

know that everybody still agrees with what 

we're doing, but at least there's a mutual 

understanding of what we're doing and why. 

We may end up having additional workshops in 

the future as the need arises. 

We also had on May 4th a meeting out 

29 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

here in Buffalo with Bethlehem Steel 

stakeholders. We had two separate meetings, 

one with, again, some special interest 

groups in the afternoon, about a three-hour 

meeting. That went fairly well. And then 

we held an evening town hall session with a 

couple hundred attendees, and we think we 

did -- we did very well communicating with 

those folks as to what we've done, why the 

dose reconstructions are done the way they 

were and why the probability of causations 

were coming out the way they are. So I 

think these were two very successful 

claimant-contact sessions that we've had. 

Just recently, within -- I think 

yesterday -- the IMBA analysis request 

feature has been added to our web site. I 

call this Ask IMBA. That's not what it's 

officially called, but claimants, 

stakeholders, interested parties can send us 

an e-mail request or a request in writing to 

have an IMBA analysis done. For those of 

you who aren't aware, IMBA is our Integrated 

Modules for Bioassay Analysis program that 

does the internal dose calculations for our 

30 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

cases. So one can ask for an IMBA analysis 

for hypothetical exposure scenarios, 

scenarios that are outlined in our site 

profiles, so that one can get a feel for 

what the doses are for certain inhalation 

and ingestion exposures. 

One thing that's not on here that I'm 

going to talk about later on in the status 

is we have modified the Bethlehem Steel site 

profile to accommodate the ingestion 

pathway, and I'll be getting into that in 

some detail after lunch. 

I think with that, that finishes my 

formal remarks. I'd be happy to answer any 

questions, if there are any. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. Let's 

open the floor now for questions. Jim 

Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I got -- I have 

several questions. First, the -- the --

what is the backlog? I don't think you 

actually presented the number there. 

DR. NETON: The backlog of cases that 

we have that -- 16,400 is what we received. 

You're asking how many we have right now in 

31 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

our possession. 

DR. MELIUS: Right now. 

DR. NETON: I don't have that statistic 

available, but I would suspect it's 

somewhere in the high 15,000's, and we've 

been reducing the backlog -- again, it 

depends on what you mean by backlog, but of 

cases we've received from Department of 

Labor, we probably have about 15,600 or 700, 

I would guess. We're reducing it by a 

couple of hundred every -- every month. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that was the point I 

was trying to understand. I mean I'm trying 

to understand what your defin-- you kept 

referring to backlog and --

DR. NETON: Yeah. 

DR. MELIUS: -- trying to 'stand 'cause 

if I understand the numbers you were 

presenting, you're running about -- at the 

present rate, about 200 to 250 cases ahead -

- per month ahead of the number that you're 

receiving from the Department of Labor, so 

you know, that breaks out to, you know, 

3,000 per year, which tells me that it's 

another five years to get --

32 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- the backlog and that's 

making a lot of assumptions, but it's 

still... 

DR. NETON: Right. Well, again, we 

hope to get to 200, which would -- I think 

you'd get to somewhere around 7,200 -- you 

know, a net decrease in a year. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: But then you have to define 

what do you mean by a case that's in 

backlog, what -- you know, what is the --

where do we want to be -- what's -- where do 

we want to be with the average age of a 

claim in our possession or a case in our 

possession. I think it's unrealistic to 

assume that there will be a zero backlog. I 

mean there's going to be a certain period, 

and frankly we had not really defined that 

just yet as to what is the optimal, you 

know, age of a claim, I suppose, if you want 

to put it that way. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, well -- but it 

should be possible -- I mean should have 

enough information to be able to estimate 

33 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that. 

Then the other question I have is --

I'm just trying to get a better 

understanding of what you're doing. And 

with those early cases, the -- you know, the 

first 1,000 or whatever, you've done 300 of 

them, I think, roughly, was what you 

presented. 

DR. NETON: Well, out of the first --

yeah, the first 1,000, right. 

DR. MELIUS: First -- first 1,000. 

DR. NETON: That's right. 

DR. MELIUS: Of those that are left, 

this -- the 700 that are left, how many of 

those aren't completed because the -- a site 

profile's not completed yet and how many of 

them are, you know, difficult cases in the -

-

DR. NETON: I can't speak to that 

specifically, but I think a large number of 

those are due to site profiles. I'll be 

talking about where we are with site 

profiles later. I think we have about --

site profiles that cover about 50 percent of 

the claimant population that we have in34 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

house. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

DR. NETON: And if one makes the 

assumption that the mix in that first 1,000 

is representative of all sites, then it 

would be about half of those don't have a 

site profile. That -- that would probably 

be fairly accurate. 

But the other issue is the site 

profiles right now do not really adequately 

address unmonitored workers, and that's 

something that we're working on very 

diligently right now. How do you address --

you can have a site profile that interprets 

all the bioassay and the TLD measurements 

and talks about the source term, but when 

you have a worker who was unmonitored at 

all, you have to make some distinctions of 

whether they should have been monitored; 

didn't need to be monitored; and if they 

weren't, what those exposure situations 

were. And we're working very -- very hard 

right now on establishing the coworker 

database that will help move those forward. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay, but -- but then --

35 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

so you have like three categories in -- in 

that 700 cases, you're telling me. You have 

site profiles haven't been completed. You 

have some that have complicated exposure 

histories 'cause, you know, internal doses 

and -- and so forth, but you have a site 

profile. It's --

DR. NETON: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- just a question of the 

amount of effort it may take. And third, 

you have these difficult cases because 

there's not personal information on -- on 

their exposure so they take more -- do it, 

and I guess what I keep getting concerned is 

that as you, you know, sort of -- you're 

doing the -- and I -- well, first of all, I 

think you're taking some good steps. This A 

and B team I think -- think makes sense, but 

you're still leaving a lot of people, you 

know, who've been waiting around for what, 

three years or whatever it is, in that group 

that -- I'm not sure they'll ev-- you know, 

you'll ever get to them or when you'll get 

to them, I guess is a better -- I'm sure 

you'll get to them, but -- and you know, is 

36 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

there a process to sort of go through and 

sort of figure out, among those early cases, 

what -- where you need to put resources 

'cause at some point -- I mean if those 

people stay in the backlog forever, you 

know, that's obviously not what you want or 

anybody wants and -- and it's a question of 

resources or -- or a question of -- I mean 

are these people for a Special Exposure 

Cohorts, where -- how does that all -- you 

know, how are we going to handle all those 

cases? 

DR. NETON: Okay. Those are some very 

good questions, and I don't have a really 

good answer -- you know, an answer to, but 

at some point you're right, our regulation 

allows us to say we can't do a dose 

reconstruction, and at some point we may get 

there. 

DR. ZIEMER: Larry Elliott. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I would add also there --

I think there are many flavors in that first 

1,000 block and the second 1,000 block, 

perhaps even in the third 1,000 block. One 

of those flavors is AWEs and -- and some of 

37 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

those cases in that first 1,000 block that 

are representative in an AWE we don't have a 

site profile or exposure model, or maybe we 

haven't even found whether or not there's 

any information for that particular AWE, 

we're still searching. 

Secondly, I would add as a point of 

clarification that we are concentrating our 

efforts on looking at those first 1,000 

block cases, the second 1,000 block cases, 

and we are concerned about moving them 

through the system as quickly as possible, 

realizing that they've been there for three 

years. And so there's a screening process 

that ORAU applies to that. 

There's also within OCAS the public 

health advisors who are the champions of the 

claimants, have been going through and 

identifying claims which have an Energy 

employee still alive associated with it. We 

think that's another targeted area that we 

need to concentrate on. If the Energy 

employee is still alive, we're making sure 

that we capture their interview before 

they're lost to us, at the very least. And 

38 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

then we're having health physicists look at 

the case to see if they can move it in any 

way, shape or form under the many tools that 

are available to us. 

So there's a concerted effort, I think, 

looking at these in that light and trying to 

move them through. 

Additionally, now that we have our SEC 

rule, we've added emphasis to looking for 

cases that can't be reconstructed. 

DR. MELIUS: I just think it might be 

helpful to do some analysis of that and 

actually put some numbers -- you know, in 

sort of figuring out where your priorities 

need to be and how -- how to handle those 

cases. That's, I think -- I think the 

point. I think you're probably moving in 

the right direction. It's just a question 

of what's the right mix of resources to 

apply for that -- apply to those cases. 

DR. NETON: You're exactly right. Some 

of the site profiles we're working on have 

some problematic areas that we need to look 

at. And if we can't do the site profile, 

then almost by definition we're not going to 

39 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

be able to do certain pieces. 

DR. MELIUS: So then the question is 

then -- you know, you put those on hold, go 

and improve the site profile, if that's 

possible -- I mean for that area or 

something we need to do... 

DR. ZIEMER: Thanks. Other questions 

or comments? 

DR. MELIUS: I have some more --

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, well, let --

DR. MELIUS: -- if nobody else does. I 

don't... 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask one at this 

point. On your reference to the e-mail 

inquiries, can you characterize those -- are 

they in any way different than the phone 

inquiries, or is there -- what -- these 

4,440 claimant e-mails, how would you 

characterize what -- what's the nature, or 

is there a pattern to those? 

DR. NETON: Well, it may be better or -

- Chris Ellison, who --

MR. ELLIOTT: I think if Chris would 

come to the mike, she can speak more 

competently about the variety of requests we 

40 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

get by e-mail. Chris Ellison is our health 

communications specialist in OCAS and many 

of the people in the public here may have 

interacted with her or one of our public 

health advisors. 

MS. ELLISON: Good morning. Most of 

the e-mails follow the phone conversations. 

A lot of the e-mails come in inquiring about 

the status of a case. At times they're a 

program question. It's a wide variety, and 

at times there are FOIA requests that come 

via the e-mail. It's a general nature of 

that sort. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Congressionals? 

MS. ELLISON: Congressionals, we do get 

Congressionals through the -- the e-mail 

system, and -- I'm trying to think if there 

were any other -- it's primarily the status, 

from the Congressionals and from the 

claimants, and then of course the FOIA 

requests for records. You see a lot of 

those come through. And even -- we get --

receive the CVs from the physicians to be 

nominated for the physician panels come 

through the OCAS inbox. 

41 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I was only talking 

about the claimant e-mails, however. 

MS. ELLISON: Right. And when we count 

those, a lot of that comes in -- it's a 

miscellaneous category -- that gets counted. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thanks. 

MS. ELLISON: Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: Others? Okay, Leon and 

then back to Jim. 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Neton, in regard to the 

administratively closed records, I realize 

there's a very small number of cases there, 

but is there a letter that accompanies, once 

the record is closed? 

DR. NETON: Yes. Yeah, the claimant is 

sent a letter saying that we're 

administratively closing the dose 

reconstruction and notifying the Department 

of Labor as such. 

MR. OWENS: Is there a -- can you give 

us, again, a flavor from the standpoint of -

- of these cases? I mean are we talking 

about elderly people who may not fully 

understand the process or is there 

information that is not adequate from the 

42 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

standpoint of their records? 

DR. NETON: It's not an adequacy of the 

records issue. I mean we -- you know, we've 

done the dose reconstruction. We believe 

we've done a fair estimate of their dose. 

Why people don't sign the OCAS-1, I really 

can't -- I can't speak to. You know, we 

have several points of contact with the 

claimant. We call them. Oak Ridge 

Associated Universities closes out the dose 

reconstruction, contacts them, asks them if 

they have any questions about the dose 

reconstruction, do they have any additional 

information to provide. For whatever 

reason, certain people just are reluctant to 

sign the form. 

MR. ELLIOTT: If I might add to this, 

the 24 that you saw there I think are 

representative of cases that would have 

received a denial from the Department of 

Labor. There were two cases that were 

presented in that slide I think in an 

earlier session of the Board that 

represented compensable cases and we've 

cleaned those up. We've got back to the 

43 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

claimant and explained what was going on 

with their particular situation and 

encouraged them to complete the process, and 

they did. So to further provide some 

clarification here, the -- once the draft 

dose reconstruction report, along with the 

OCAS-1 form, is mailed to the claimant, 

there is a follow-up closeout interview that 

is done. And that interview is offered to 

hear any concerns or complaints the claimant 

might have, also to help them understand the 

content of the dose reconstruction report, 

to answer any questions they may have in 

that regard, and to determine if they have 

any further information to provide or not, 

and then to encourage them if they don't to 

sign the OCAS-1 form. So each claimant gets 

a closeout interview, and we have seen some 

claimants that don't want to -- to avail 

themselves of that and we just -- from that 

point on, we seem to lose their interest, I 

guess. And so in this instance, we have 24. 

Now at the 60-day mark, we're trying to 

be as compassionate as possible, and so we 

don't close it out immediately on the 60-day 

44 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

mark, 60 days from the day we think they 

received it. We actually -- at that point 

we send another letter that we call the 74-

day letter and we give them another two 

weeks' worth of time to consider this. We -

- in some cases they follow up with another 

phone call to see if -- if there are any 

questions or issues that can be resolved 

over the phone. After the 74-day mark, then 

there's -- if there's no further contact, no 

indication that they have additional 

information that they're searching for, we 

administratively close the dose 

reconstruction. 

If, however, they say well, I'm 

pursuing a line of inquiry. I think I can 

find more information or I'm looking for --

I think there was an additional diagnosis 

that wasn't accounted for in my original 

claim, then we allow them that time, whether 

-- we ask them what time do they think they 

need, and we keep it open. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, two questions. This 

is actually from prior meetings, status of 

45 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

IMBA access for -- you know. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we are -- we're 

pleased that we get a help desk up on our 

web site. Your particular question I think 

is asking about IMBA for the Advisory Board 

and IMBA for your contractor, Sanford Cohen 

& Associates, and we are still working on 

the user's -- end user's license for both of 

those participants, the Board and your 

contractor, to get access to IMBA. We're 

still working with the vendor to put that 

into place. 

DR. MELIUS: Any idea of when this will 

take place? I mean I don't -- I don't need 

to remind you, but --

MR. ELLIOTT: It's --

DR. MELIUS: -- this is sort of a ratelimiting step because of... 

MR. ELLIOTT: You need it -- I 

understand you need it. We're working as 

hard as we can. I think it's imminent, but 

I can't promise that it's going to be here -

- I won't promise it's here today or 

tomorrow. As soon as we can put it 

together. 

46 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

I'm sure your next question is conflict 

of interest. 

DR. MELIUS: No, I was going to save 

that for later, but if you want to answer 

that now, you're welcome to --

MR. ELLIOTT: I will, I'll just jump 

out here and do this because I know your --

your line of questioning. The conflict of 

interest on -- on site profile development 

and that policy is -- is still in review and 

being evaluated, and we hope to have it put 

together and done soon. 

DR. MELIUS: But --

MR. ELLIOTT: That's all I can say on 

that. We're working diligently about that, 

as well. 

DR. MELIUS: But you've already awarded 

more contracts. Is that true? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Pardon me? 

DR. MELIUS: You've already awarded 

more contracts or subcon-- whatever they are 

for doing more site profiles. Is that --

that's what I thought... 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, do we have more 

site profiles under development? Yes. 

47 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

There is a policy that is being adhered to 

right now at ORAU that we agree with and we 

-- and has been articulated in previous 

Board meetings, and that is that -- and it's 

very similar to the conflict of interest 

policy for dose reconstructors, that they --

a person working on a site profile cannot be 

the principal author if they've had 

expertise in management of a dose reconst--

of a dose monitoring program at a -- at a 

given site -- at -- for the site where the 

site profile's being developed from. 

DR. NETON: There are also provisions 

for organizational conflict of interest, as 

well. If the company --

MR. ELLIOTT: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- had done a substantial -

- any work at all related to dose 

reconstruction, dosimetry, radiation 

protection programs practices, they could 

not be working on that profile. 

DR. MELIUS: I mean just -- needless to 

say, it's sort of absurd to have -- not have 

a policy and yet follow a policy and award 

contracts under it and -- does not generate 

48 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

a lot of confidence in the process. 

I have two questions that arise out of 

the minutes. One --

DR. ZIEMER: Would you like Larry to 

ask these next two questions? 

DR. MELIUS: No, no, I don't think 

that's -- he's welcome to. 

The -- one is, did we ever get the --

the memo we sent up to -- through Secretary 

Thompson to Department of Energy, I don't 

ever remember -- recall receiving a final 

copy of that. 

DR. ZIEMER: That --

DR. MELIUS: I may have. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- was sent and it may be 

in this -- is it in this packet? 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: It is there. 

DR. MELIUS: And it has gone over to 

the Department of Energy? 

MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know that it has 

made its way to the Department of Energy. 

It's on its way --

DR. ZIEMER: It had to go to Secretary 

Thompson's office. 

49 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. ELLIOTT: It's on its -- it had to 

go through Secretary Thompson's office. He 

had to sign off on it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Let's make sure it's --

MR. ELLIOTT: I believe it is in here. 

DR. MELIUS: The draft of it's in the 

minutes. I mean I saw it there as we 

adopted it. I didn't see it in that second 

package, but I just glanced through, so... 

DR. ZIEMER: I believe it came out or 

was distributed in a FedEx package, Cori, 

was it not? 

MS. HOMER: I didn't distribute that 

one -- not the one that went to Secretary 

Thompson. 

MR. ELLIOTT: It has been signed and it 

has been submitted. Now where it's at in 

its wending its way to the Secretary of 

Energy, I'm not clear on, but we'll make 

sure that y'all get a copy --

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- of what was sent. And 

I'll let you know when it reaches DOE. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. And 

then the other issue that came up at the 

50 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 -- 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

last meeting was regarding the Congressional 

responses that -- I'm just asking for 

clarification. There was an issue as to 

whether Paul could share the drafts with the 

committee members prior to -- to sending the 

draft, and since you didn't, Paul, I assume 

that there was a --

DR. ZIEMER: No, I think -- I think we 

decided before we left the meeting that we 

wouldn't be able to do that and therefore we 

agreed on the content of that letter. We 

can double-check in the minutes exactly how 

DR. MELIUS: I don't think the minutes 

reflect that -- reflected that -- originally 

there -- as I recall was that we were going 

to check as to whether we could do that or 

not, and I think that's the way it says in 

the minutes, but I'm -- if someone -- I --

that's not an immediate -- there's no 

immediate need to clarify it. I'm just 

trying to follow-up and understand what we 

can and can't do. And I've no -- and I've 

no problem with the letters, but... 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. The letter to -- or 

51 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

memo, it really was a memo to Spencer 

Abraham, Secretary of the Department of 

Energy, through Tommy Thompson, I signed 

that on May 4th. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

DR. ZIEMER: And that -- the 

distribution list shows the Advisory Board 

on the distribution list, so --

DR. ROESSLER: It's in the minutes 

packet. 

DR. MELIUS: I just don't recall ever -

- I'm just --

MR. ELLIOTT: We'll make sure you get 

that. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, just get it, it's 

not a big deal to me. The other one we can 

deal with in terms of when we do the 

minutes, but I just would like some 

clarification. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mark Griffon. 

MR. GRIFFON: I just have a question 

back to the presentation, Jim. On your dose 

reconstruction statistics you mentioned 

final DR reports, 2,940. How many of those 

are available for the Board review, final 

52 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

from DOL? Maybe that's a DOL question, 

but... 

DR. NETON: That's a good question that 

I'm really not prepared to answer. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. NETON: I would say it's at a 

minimum the number of cases that Russ 

Henshaw presented last Board meeting where 

he went over the individual cancer 

statistics, 'cause I think that presentation 

was based on ones that the Department of 

Labor has adjudicated. So --

MR. GRIFFON: And then your --

DR. NETON: -- it's at least half, but 

I can't give you a number. 

MR. GRIFFON: And then much like Larry, 

you're reading my mind for my next question, 

which was I asked last meeting if Russ could 

provide a breakout of all the cases by 

cancer type by site, and I don't know if 

that information's available in any way for 

the Board. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, we're still working 

on that. I know Russ has been working on 

that issue, but I don't know that we're 

53 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

prepared to share it with the Board at this 

meeting. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We recog-- if I could, we 

recognize that -- that you need that latter, 

I think, to make -- have an understanding of 

what type of cancers are available in the 

system -- would be available at some point 

in time for your review. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. ELLIOTT: It's also something that 

we need to get from DOL as to how many cases 

have passed the final adjudication mark and 

would be --

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- available for your 

review. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, two -- two-fold. I 

mean one is our general selection criteria, 

but the other -- for those immediate -- the 

subset that are ready, I was hoping at this 

meeting that we could make some progress in 

actually maybe selecting some cases just to 

initiate our review process, so -- but it 

sounds like --

54 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. ELLIOTT: I think we'd have to know 

how many from DOL have passed that -- that 

threshold --

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- and which ones they 

are so that we could give you a listing of 

those tracking numbers, those case numbers 

and other -- whatever other demographic you 

want about a given case for your selection. 

DR. NETON: And if I recall, this was 

by site, not just general numbers. Right? 

By the sites that you are --

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I was --

DR. NETON: -- targeting. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- hoping to have by 

site, by cancer type by site, yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that request is in 

the minutes --

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- in that discussion. 

Jim? 

DR. MELIUS: Can I just go back to my 

question on the Congressional letters? On 

page 61 and 62 of the minutes there's 

reference to that and it really doesn't 

55 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

clarify it -- said you were going to check 

with FACA as to what the procedure would be, 

so... 

MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, what page 

again? 

DR. MELIUS: 61 and 62. We -- we 

passed a motion and then Larry, according to 

the minutes, you raised the issue of whether 

or not it was appropriate for the committee 

members to review the letter, and you were 

going to check with FACA. I mean that's the 

way it's -- the way I read it. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we'll --

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and I would -- I 

guess I would like FACA clarification 'cause 

there's a -- states in the minutes that 

other -- similar committees I've served on, 

we've routinely reviewed letters that the 

chair has -- you know, drafted and I --

again, I don't object to the letter, I'm 

just trying to understand the procedure, and 

it's certainly possible, those other 

committees, we could have been operating 

incorrectly, but --

MR. ELLIOTT: I've let this one slip 

56 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

through the cracks and I'll have to get a 

reading on it -- on the FACA-related aspect 

of it. And I'm sorry, I haven't done that 

yet. The issue, as I see it, is, you know, 

the public transparency process of coming to 

a decision and how that's done. 

DR. MELIUS: I understand. 

MR. ELLIOTT: So if -- if we can do it 

by e-mail and discuss it at a meeting and --

you know, we'll just have to look into that. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, okay. 

MR. ELLIOTT: So let me get back to 

you. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think I left the meeting 

under the impression that we could not do 

that --

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- it clearly wasn't 

resolved at the meeting, yes, thanks. In 

any event --

DR. MELIUS: Again, I'm not objecting 

to the letter or anything. I'm just trying 

to understand for future reference. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. Other 

questions for Jim Neton? Comments? Input? 

57 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very 

much, Jim. We're now scheduled for a brief 

break, so we'll recess for 15 minutes. 

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.) 

DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to call us back 

to order, please. 

Before I introduce our next speaker, 

let me request that if you have a cell phone 

that you put it on the silence or buzzer 

mode -- appreciate if you would do that, 

please. 

Also before the next speaker, I think 

Larry Elliott has some information on this 

FACA issue as far as circulating the letters 

in advance. 

MR. ELLIOTT: My apologies on the 

sidebar here. Cori has quickly gotten me an 

answer on this FACA-related question about 

generating correspondence, and the answer as 

I understand it is as long as the Board 

decides that a correspondence letter needs 

to be generated, let's say, and determines 

the purpose for that and the focus in a 

public setting, you can -- and that decision 

58
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

is on the table in front of the public, you 

can then draft your letter outside the 

public forum, share it by e-mail or however 

you wish, get input back from the individual 

Board members and finalize the letter 

without doing so in front of the public, as 

long as you don't stray from the agreed-upon 

purpose, intent and focus of the letter. 

Okay? 

DR. ZIEMER: And may make the final 

copy available at the next --

MR. ELLIOTT: And I believe that's what 

happened at the last meeting on these -- on 

the letter in question right now. I think -

-

DR. ZIEMER: Well --

MR. ELLIOTT: -- there was discussion 

about doing the letter and what you wanted 

to see in the letter, but you didn't see the 

final. 

DR. ZIEMER: Didn't circulate it before 

it was sent out, right. 

DR. MELIUS: In fact our motion says 

that it was going to circulate and that's 

why --

59 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: My apologies. 

DR. MELIUS: No, that -- again, I --

again, I've no objection to the letter. I 

was just trying to --

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

DR. MELIUS: -- unders... 

STATUS AND OUTREACH -- DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

DR. ZIEMER: Next we'll have a status 

report from Department of Labor, and the 

presenter today is Roberta Mosier. Roberta 

is here -- there she is, thank you, Roberta. 

Roberta's the deputy director of that 

part of the program. Thank you. 

MS. MOSIER: Good morning, everyone. 

This is my first Advisory Board meeting and 

so this is a new experience for me. I'm 

thank-- appreciate the opportunity to come 

here today. 

I have an update on our program. Some 

of the statistics will look very familiar to 

you. They're similar to what we have 

presented in the past. 

To date we've received over 54,000 

claims and of those over 38,000 were cancer 

claims, which represents about 70 percent of 

60 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the total claims that we have received. And 

you can see there also the numbers for some 

of the other categories. Beryllium 

sensitivity is about 4.4 percent, chronic 

beryllium disease claims is about 6.1 

percent. Two percent of the claims are for 

silicosis, 11 percent of the claims are the 

Radiation Exposure Compensation Act claims 

on which we pay a supplemental benefit. And 

then we have a very large category of other. 

These are mostly non-covered conditions. 

It's 49 percent. And some of these 

categories overlap, so it adds up to more 

than 100 percent overall. Some people claim 

cancer and they claim heart disease, so you 

have some overlap there. 

This slide represents the overall case 

status of -- and this is cases, as opposed 

to claims. You've probably heard this spiel 

before, but let me just say some of these 

statistics are presented in terms of claims, 

where it makes sense. Some are presented in 

terms of cases. And the difference is that 

you only have one case per covered employee. 

But if an employee is -- has died and they 

61 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

have more than one survivor, you may have 

several claims because there are several 

survivors, so we have -- the claims numbers 

are always going to be higher than the case 

numbers. 

But here you see the overall case 

status, the total number of cases -- the 

first slide was claims, which was 54,000. 

Total number of cases is over 40,000 cases. 

And of those, 23,000 have had a final 

decision issued. There are approximately 

13,000-plus cases currently pending with 

NIOSH for dose reconstruction. I think that 

was something that came up earlier, how many 

-- how many are still at NIOSH. According 

to our calculations, that's just over 

13,000. 

We have about -- almost 2,000 that are 

pending action in our Department of Labor 

district offices. And those are cases in 

which they are developing the claims, 

they're obtaining employment information. 

They may be obtaining medical information or 

information on survivors, so they're in 

development, in process. 

62 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

There are just over 2,000 that are 

currently pending a final decision with our 

final adjudication branch. We have a twopart adjudication process. The first step 

is the recommended decision which is made by 

our district office. The second step is the 

final decision which is made by our final 

adjudication branch. So that 2,000 that you 

see there, the cases have already received a 

recommended decision in our district office 

and are now at the final adjudication branch 

for a final decision. 

And the amount of time that takes 

varies depending on what action is being 

taken. If an individual requests a hearing, 

that takes a little longer than if it's just 

a routine case that goes straight through 

and gets done within 75 days. So the time 

frames vary, but they do move those fairly 

quickly. 

There you see some more statistics. 

This is -- these are at the claim level 

again. We jump back to the claim level. 

This is as of May 20th. Recommended 

decisions, there were 13,000 approved, 

63 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

almost 20,000 denied. I have a slide later 

that shows the breakdown on the denials. 

For final decisions, over 12,000 approved, 

over 16,000 denied. And we've issued nearly 

11,000 payments. This is compensation 

payments. 

Now the reason why you'll see over 

12,000 final decisions for approval and only 

10,000 -- or almost 11,000 payments issued 

is some of those are -- were approved for 

beryllium sensitivity only and they do not 

receive a compensation payment. And then 

there are -- it takes a little bit of time 

from the final decision to when the actual 

payment is made, so it's -- the difference 

is a combination of those two things. 

To date we've paid over $820 million in 

compensation to the claimants and over $33 

million in medical benefits. And that has 

picked up, by the way, the medical benefits. 

We've already paid as much during this 

fiscal year as we paid in the entire last 

fiscal year, so that increases over time. 

Here's a breakdown on the initial 

decisions. Again, our total number of 

64 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

claims and total cases, and this also 

includes the number pending at NIOSH -- and 

that's at the case level. This basically is 

showing that we have taken initial --

completed our initial action, and we include 

a referral to NIOSH as a completion of our 

initial action -- for 95 percent of the 

cases that we've received. So we have a 

fairly small working inventory at this 

point. 

Here are the final decisions. We've 

reached final decisions in 57 percent of the 

cases that we've received. 

Now this gives you a little idea on the 

breakdown on the final decisions, the 

reasons for the denials. As you can see, 

over 12,000 final decisions to approve, over 

16,000 final decisions to deny -- to deny. 

And of those 16,000, almost 10,000 were for 

non-covered conditions. That is 58.3 

percent of the total denied claims were for 

non-covered conditions. So I think a lot of 

those were early claims where people were 

somewhat confused about the Part B program 

and the Part D program, and they went ahead 

65 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

and made applications under both programs, 

even though they had conditions that were 

not covered under the Part D -- part B 

program. So that's a lot of what you're 

seeing there. 

There are also some claims that have 

been denied because the employee was not 

covered. That's about 15 percent. Those 

are primarily people who worked outside of 

the time frames that are covered for the 

particular covered facility. They may have 

worked for Bethlehem Steel, for example. 

The covered period is during the early 

1950's. They may have worked in later years 

and so they're not considered to be a 

covered employee for purposes of our 

program. 

We have had some claims from 

individuals claiming survivor benefits who 

are not eligible survivors, so there's been 

a small percentage of those denied. And to 

date just a little over 1,200 have been 

denied because the cancer was not related to 

the work and/or the probability of causation 

was calculated as being less than 50 

66 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

percent. 

The next slide gives you some 

information on the status of the cases that 

we have referred to NIOSH to date. We've 

referred over 16,000. We've received back 

2,940. Some of those were returned for 

reasons other than the dose reconstruction 

being completed. Of the ones that have been 

returned, 603 were accepted with recommended 

decisions, 1,747 were denied. And those 

have moved on to the final decision process 

and of those, 538 have been accepted and 931 

have been denied. One thing we're seeing 

with the dose reconstruction cases is that 

we get a much higher rate of requests for 

hearings. That's why there is -- the 

acceptances go through very quickly. The 

denials go through a little less quickly 

because we have to take the time to -- to 

hold the hearing and consider all the 

arguments. 

I thought you might be interested in 

some Bethlehem Steel statistics. We had a 

public meeting just a few weeks ago here in 

Buffalo concerning the Bethlehem Steel site 

67 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

profile and dose reconstructions, so we had 

some information from that meeting that we 

have updated that I thought you would be 

interested in seeing. 

We had a total of just over 1,000 cases 

filed from individuals or workers or 

survivors from Bethlehem Steel facility, and 

we've issued recommended decisions in most 

of those. There were 196 with approvals, 

724 with denials. And final decisions, you 

can see the numbers there yourself. We've 

issued 186 payments on behalf of Bethlehem 

Steel workers, and we've paid out over $27 

million in compensation. 

Now not every case that we got in from 

Bethlehem Steel people went to NIOSH. A 

large proportion of them were for noncovered conditions, and we don't send those 

to NIOSH. So here you see we have sent 528 

cases to NIOSH. Of those we've received 477 

back, and you can see what the recommended 

decision and final decision breakdown is. 

And so -- I didn't do the percentage on 

this, but it looks to be about two-fifths 

accepted, three-fifths denied at the final 

68 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

decision level on the Bethlehem Steel cases. 

Now I want to give you a little caveat 

on these numbers. I had these slides 

prepared for me and I was looking them over 

and I realized that these POC ranges were 

very, very high for some of these cancers 

because -- due to the type of exposure there 

was at Bethlehem Steel, only certain cancers 

are going to end up being compensable at 

that facility. And what these POC ranges 

actually represent are combined values for 

some of these cancers, such as the bladder, 

the pancreas and the colon. These are 

combined values, the person had more than 

one primary cancer and that's why they're 

falling into the compensable range. So they 

did not -- the individuals whose POC range 

is represented here did not only have colon 

cancer or only pancreatic cancer or only 

bladder cancer, they had more than one 

primary cancer. But you can see, you know, 

there's quite a range on these. 

You see prostate there. You know, 

normally if they -- somebody just had 

prostate cancer, they probably are not going 

69 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to be compensable. I have some later slides 

that give you a little bit more of an idea 

of what the POC range is for an individual 

primary cancer. 

There've been a total of 628 cases 

denied from the Bethlehem Steel facility, 

and 225 of those were cases in which the 

probability of causation was less than 50 

percent. And as you can see, condition not 

covered was a high number of the denials, as 

was employee not covered. And those were 

primarily, as I said before, people who were 

outside of the covered time frame for 

Bethlehem Steel. 

We have a very active final 

adjudication branch and, you know, we're 

really just getting into the probability of 

causation cases. We've had a number of 

remands from Bethlehem Steel cases, a total 

of 42 to date. And one of those was a 

recommended decision to accept that was 

remanded and was eventually approved. And 

then the others, the other 41, were 

recommended decisions to deny. And of 

those, three of them were approved 

70 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

ultimately, 20 of them did get a final 

denial, and there are a number of them that 

are still pending, and some were closed or 

withdrawn. And the ones that were closed or 

withdrawn, some of those may be the 

survivors are now -- or the employee is 

deceased or the survivor is deceased so we 

closed the case on those. 

Here are the denied Bethlehem Steel 

cancer claims with the accompanying POC 

ranges, and I would say that these are 

probably more representative of a single 

cancer probability of causation ranges. And 

you have a copy of this in your folder of 

this -- you have a handout that contains 

these numbers if you can't see. 

And then we looked at other New York 

State cases. We have over 1,000 other New 

York cases. These are people who worked at 

New York facilities. Now we haven't gotten 

too many dose reconstructions back on those 

yet, so that's why the numbers of approvals 

are so low on this. We do -- the number of 

denials is fairly high, but again, these are 

probably the non-covered conditions and 

71 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

people who didn't work during the covered 

time frames. We sent 577 of these cases to 

NIOSH and have gotten 42 back. 

We're doing a fair amount of outreach. 

I wanted to give you an idea of some things 

that have been developed and that we're 

working on since the last Advisory Board 

meeting. 

We're going to be doing a traveling 

resource center for the Ames Laboratory in 

Iowa, and that will be the week of June 21st 

and we're working with DOE to advertise and 

coordinate. And this will provide face-toface opportunity for claimants to come in 

and get assistance filling out claim forms, 

and they will also be prepared to address 

issues with claims that are currently 

pending with the Department of Labor. 

And the reason we decided to go to Ames 

is that it was a large worker population at 

that site. It was in operation for a long 

time -- is in operation -- and we haven't 

gotten that many claims from Ames, so we 

were rather surprised with the small number 

of claims. So we -- in conjunction with the 

72 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Department of Energy -- decided that that 

would be a good place to go to. 

Another project that our Cleveland 

district office is working on is working 

with an organization called Children of the 

Manhattan Project. And they will be 

attending a convention in Elmira, New York -

- not too far away from here, a little 

distance -- during the week of June 24th. 

And we'll have an exhibit there and we'll do 

a presentation there to try to reach out to 

some of the people who are part of that 

organization and who are there attending 

that convention. 

We also will be participating, along 

with NIOSH, in a panel discussion in 

Burlington, Iowa. This is I believe June 

14th, and it will be similar to the meeting 

that we held a couple of weeks ago here in 

Buffalo, explaining the dose reconstruction 

process, the site profile and so on. And 

we'll have a -- it's a public meeting, so 

people will have the opportunity to ask 

questions. 

Another recent outreach effort that 

73 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

we've made is we attended a meeting with the 

Cancer Treatment Center of America, who have 

facilities throughout the country. This is 

more of a provider outreach opportunity, 

make sure that they know about the program, 

make sure that they have protocols in place 

to determine if someone who comes to them 

for treatment may be eligible for benefits 

under this program. And we've identified a 

lot of contacts through them for additional 

outreach. 

And then another meeting that we're 

planning on attending June 27th through July 

2nd is the meeting of the North American 

Pipe Trades, its conference that they're 

having. And we will have a booth at their 

conference and claim packages, and we'll 

provide assistance to people with questions. 

So that's it in a nutshell. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We'll open the 

floor now for questions or discussion. 

While others are thinking of questions, let 

me pose one. Have you compared the -- well, 

I'm going to call this success rate of 

claims for the NIOSH portion of the program 

74 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

with the success rate of claims overall? 

Are they similar, very different, or maybe 

you haven't. 

MS. MOSIER: It's -- really varies a 

lot according to the type of condition. For 

example, the chronic beryllium success rate 

is much higher. I don't have that 

statistic. We have looked at that 

periodically, but I don't have that 

statistic with me. I think currently it's 

running about 25, 30 percent on the cases 

that are returned from NIOSH. In other 

words, 25, 30 percent are found to be 

compensable. But that's not necessarily 

representative of what the rate is going to 

be eventually, so --

DR. ZIEMER: Right. Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'll just --

DR. ZIEMER: Mark Griffon. 

MR. GRIFFON: I'll follow up on my same 

question that I asked of NIOSH. It seems 

like you have some pretty good statistics 

here, especially for Bethlehem. I wondered 

if you had similar statistics for all the 

NIOSH cases that have gone through for 

75 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

approval or denial -- not only the range of 

POCs, but I'd like to see the number of 

cases in that range. 

MS. MOSIER: Yeah, I mean we have -- we 

have the ability to produce that 

information. I don't have it with me, but 

we can -- that's something that we've -- we 

should be able to work with NIOSH on and 

come up with some... 

DR. ZIEMER: That's by site and by type 

of cancer, apparently. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other... 

DR. MELIUS: I apologize, I may have 

missed it, but on the other New York State 

cases referred to NIOSH --

MS. MOSIER: Uh-huh. 

DR. MELIUS: -- what are the sites 

involved with those? 

MS. MOSIER: I didn't get that 

information. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

MS. MOSIER: But just guessing, you 

know -- looking at the approvals, I'm not 

sure what sites those are and I need to make 

76 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

a phone call and find that out, but you 

know, it's all the -- all the sites in New 

York State, like Linde and Simonds Saw and 

Steel, and there's a whole -- whole gamut of 

them. We have -- there's a few sites in New 

York State that we don't have claims from, 

but we've got at least a few -- and several 

hundred, in some cases -- from all the New 

York State sites. 

DR. ZIEMER: How about Brookhaven, do 

they have many cases? 

MS. MOSIER: We've gotten some from 

them, but not a large number. 

DR. MELIUS: They're small, I thought -

-

MS. MOSIER: Yeah, that actually --

DR. MELIUS: That may come up during 

Jim Neton's presentation later in the --

'cause I -- I'm just trying to get a handle 

like, you know, Linde and Simonds Saw I 

would think would be the bigger ones, but... 

MS. MOSIER: Yeah, and that 

information's available on our web site, 

too. If you go to the state statistics and 

you click on the state, first it lists 

77 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

statistics in terms of residents of a state, 

but then below that it will show for each 

facility within that state how many claims 

we've received, how many have been approved 

and denied and so on, so that is broken out 

on our web site. And we update that every 

week. It's usually a couple of weeks 

behind, but it's fairly current. 

DR. MELIUS: One other issue that came 

up at the meeting up here last month was 

some problems people were having -- and I 

think it's not just for the Department of 

Labor, but it came up in terms of some of 

the -- after their claim's been usually 

denied, there's a issue of whether they're 

going to appeal the claim and so forth, and 

I think it's a real difficulty people have 

and Jim and Larry referred to it earlier as 

to -- you know, they somehow feel that 

there's not complete information there or 

something's missing. 

MS. MOSIER: Uh-huh. 

DR. MELIUS: But they sort of don't 

know what steps -- they don't know what's 

missing or how -- how do you move something 

78 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

forward, and it's a very awkward spot for 

people to be in and now, for example, with 

Bethlehem -- we're going to hear later from 

Jim Neton now -- they're now making some 

changes to the site profile which may or may 

not, you know, affect some of the claims and 

so forth. And is there a way of assuring 

that that information gets communicated to 

people? I mean it seems to me that they're 

reaching out -- I mean both DOL and NIOSH 

are making efforts to, you know, help --

help the claimants and so forth, but are 

there ways of assuring that -- that --

particularly for the NIOSH process, which is 

in progress and things are -- are changing 

and can be changing (Inaudible) not all the 

site profiles are complete and so forth, of 

assuring that that information gets to 

people and -- in a way 'cause I think it's 

very frustrating for the claimants and 

they're not quite sure what they should be 

asking for, but at the same time NIOSH has 

already acknowledged there's an issue and --

that they're trying to address and, you 

know, does DOL know that, and is DOL -- is 

79 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

there a way of communicating that to the 

claimants in terms of their -- you know, 

what's -- you know, at the time of appeal or 

time of decision or -- or whatever. It 

seems to me there's some overlap that would 

be -- be helpful to make sure people know. 

I know some in Congress have talked about 

having an ombudsperson or ombuds office that 

would -- would provide sort of, you know, 

neutral assistance and I think that -- that 

might be helpful, but I think both agencies 

are also really trying to -- to do outreach 

and to be responsive, but --

MS. MOSIER: We really have made an 

effort to be responsive. I think -- there 

are a number of ways that we can do that. 

One is to make our decisions as transparent 

as possible and as plainly stated as 

possible so that the individuals who receive 

them understand what it is we're saying. 

And then through the recommended 

decision and final decision process, they 

have the opportunity to come in and raise 

objections. I mean if they want a face-toface meeting, they can have that face-to80 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

face meeting. 

We've also been going out and doing 

these public meetings -- we've done a couple 

of them -- which I think has gone a long 

way, at least in this area, to help the 

individuals in that area understand more 

about the process. 

Another thing that we've done is we've 

provided training for our resource centers 

on the dose reconstruction process so that 

the people who are working there have a 

clear understanding of it and they can meet 

with claimants and explain the process. If 

they get a letter from NIOSH and they don't 

understand what the letter's about, they can 

take their letter in there and they'll sit 

with them and explain what it means. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MS. MOSIER: Those are some of the 

things that we've --

DR. MELIUS: But then does the people 

in your resource center contact NIOSH to get 

an update on where things stand with that 

part of the program? I mean that may not be 

with the individual claim as much as with 

81 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that -- you know, with what's happening with 

that site, for example, something that... 

MS. MOSIER: They're -- they're pretty 

in tune with that, I think. I mean we -- we 

put that information out to them and NIOSH 

keeps us advised, too. I mean we knew 

obviously about the change in Bethlehem 

Steel with the ingestion model and, you 

know, we -- it's hard to find the right 

balance at times because we don't want to 

get people unnecessarily excited about 

something that may not have an effect on the 

outcome eventually. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MS. MOSIER: So you know, we'll look at 

it and -- I guess you all are going to be 

talking about it a little bit later 

specifically, the Bethlehem Steel. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I was just going to say 

that I think there's opportunity, though, 

for us -- I think your questions are very 

well-placed, Dr. Melius, and I think there's 

opportunity for us to be better coordinated, 

especially as we -- as we see these changes 

come about in site profiles. And as 

82 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Roberta's mentioned, you know, we notified 

their Cleveland district office that we were 

going to add ingestion to the Bethlehem 

Steel site profile and that we were going to 

re-evaluate all the denied claims that had 

been processed under the previous site 

profile without ingestion. And then we --

the plan would be that if we identified a 

particular case that was -- that ingestion 

had an influence on, we'd go back to the DOL 

district office, Cleveland, and talk to them 

about how to communicate this to the 

claimant and as we proceeded with, you know, 

revising the dose reconstruction. So I 

think, you know, it's timely that we look at 

new ways and better ways to communicate 

what's going on with these changes as they 

occur. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any additional 

comments or questions? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you, Roberta. 

Appreciate your input. Oh, hang on, Richard 

Espinosa has a comment. 

MR. ESPINOSA: I'm just kind of 

83 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

wondering if -- was there minutes taken on 

the meeting --

DR. ZIEMER: Use the mike, please. Use 

the mike, Rich. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Was there minutes taken 

on the May 4th meeting? And if there is, 

can the Board get a copy of them? 

MS. MOSIER: I'm not sure if there were 

-- I wasn't at --

MR. ELLIOTT: There were no minutes. 

There were no minutes taken. We did -- from 

NIOSH's perspective, we took notes 

ourselves. We made ourselves available 

after the second meeting at the -- in the 

evening meeting, the town hall meeting, we 

made ourselves available to individuals and 

-- because we can't talk about a claim in a 

public setting. People can talk about their 

claim, but we can't engage in that 

conversation in a public setting. We made 

ourselves available afterward on an 

individual basis. We took notes from that 

and we've made follow-up contact, and that's 

what we would intend to do at each one of 

these kinds of meetings. But there are no 

84 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

minutes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Again, thank you, Roberta, 

for your input to -- to the Board. 

REPORT ON ACCESS TO INFORMATION 

FOR PERFORMANCE OF DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS 

Next we have a report on access to 

information. This is going to be presented 

by Grady Calhoun of the NIOSH staff, and you 

should have a packet I guess was just 

distributed. 

MR. CALHOUN: All right. Can you hear 

me? I can't hear me. 

All right. I'm here to give you an 

update or at least a synopsis of a report 

that we were requested to provide. This 

report is in response to National Defense 

Authorization Act for FY 2004, and the 

request was for NIOSH to report on the 

ability for us to obtain -- in a timely, 

accurate and complete manner -- information 

necessary to complete dose reconstructions. 

Part of that was to identify any matters 

that prevent us from the timely completion, 

list the number of claims affected by these 

matters, and also list the number of claims 

85 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that have not been able to be completed 

within 150 days of the time of receipt from 

Department of Labor. 

One thing that we had to do here, since 

this is a fairly dynamic set of information, 

is we had to take a snapshot in order to 

come up with this report. We took a 

snapshot from what we had available as of 

January 15th, 2004. 

First I'll go over what information is 

required for us to do a dose reconstruction. 

We need information from the Department of 

Labor, we need information from the 

Department of Energy and AWEs, and we need 

information from claimants. 

What we get from the Department of 

Labor is personal information on the covered 

employee, date of birth, contact information 

so that we can make contact with them both 

in writing and by telephone. We need to 

know which facilities that they worked at, 

type of cancer that they had including the 

ICD-9 code -- and that's how the types of 

cancers are identified. Date of cancer 

diagnosis, ethnicity of the employee if the 

86 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

primary cancer is a type of skin cancer. We 

need smoking history if the primary cancer 

is lung cancer or if the primary cancer is 

not identified or is of unknown origin, or 

if it's just a secondary cancer we need 

smoking history 'cause a lot of times we'll 

refer -- we end up calculating dose to the 

lung in that case. If the claimant is not 

the employee, if it's a survivor or 

representative, we need information on them, 

as well, for the same purposes, so that we 

can make -- contact information primarily so 

that we can make contact with them, both by 

telephone and in writing. 

From the Department of Energy, as far 

as case-specific information, we request 

individual monitoring data for the people 

who worked at the sites, any diagnostic Xrays that they may have and any records of 

incident investigations that may have taken 

place throughout the history. 

We also make batch data requests, and 

this is typically done at AWE facilities, 

but if we can't get individual monitoring 

data on, you know, John Doe, there may be a 

87 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

batch of data out there covering many or 

most individuals that worked at a facility, 

and we'll make a request for that. Or 

sometimes we'll even go out and get that. 

AWE, I mentioned that. 

Okay, information requested from DOE 

relative to site profile data. As we've 

touched on here, you know, we're doing the 

site profiles which play an important role 

in completing our dose reconstructions. And 

some of the things that we request from the 

Department of Energy are a detailed 

description of the radiation control 

program. We would like to know throughout 

the history of the sites what type of 

radiation dosimeters were used, how often 

were they read -- because that helps us 

determine what the missed dose would be --

and what kind of bioassay did they use. Did 

they use urinalysis, fecal analysis, were 

there whole body counts done, and what type 

of techniques were used. What type of 

bioassay and what were the limitations of 

those. 

(Whereupon, Ms. Munn arrived and 

88 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

assumed her place on the Board.) 

MR. CALHOUN: We also ask for facility 

operations and radiological conditions. 

Through some contracts that we have, 

especially with some of the AWE facilities, 

we know what the types and amounts of 

radioactive material were that were 

processed through there, but we also will 

make that request from the Department of 

Energy, as well. Look for area radiological 

monitoring results, which play an important 

role, especially if individual monitoring 

results are not available for the employees. 

We look for environmental radiation levels 

in and around the facility. Many times 

these are in the form of environmental 

radiation reports that the sites publish. 

We also request information from the 

claimants. One of the first contacts that 

we make is through the Computer Assisted 

Telephone Interview, the CATI, and we send 

the claimants the questions ahead of time, 

and then we contact them and try to get 

information on -- as much information as we 

can relative to where they worked and what 

89 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

kind of protective measures were in place, 

what kind of things they worked with, if 

there were any incidents that they may have 

been involved in. 

When we complete that we send it back 

to them as a draft, and we allow them to 

make comments on that. And if they have 

comments on that CATI, we'll fix that, add 

those changes, typically, and send it back 

to them. And sometimes that's an iterative 

process. I know that there's cases that 

we've had that have gone back two or three 

times until the claimant is satisfied with 

how it is written. 

We also send them a completed draft 

dose reconstruction, and as was mentioned in 

here earlier, we do a closeout interview 

where we contact the claimant. We discuss 

the approaches that were taken for the dose 

reconstruction. And if they have comments 

on that, we may end up changing that dose 

reconstruction. And again, that can also be 

an iterative process that could possibly go 

back and forth a couple of times. 

Signed OCAS-1 form. We touched on that 

90 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

earlier today, as well. This is something 

that we really need. This is an important 

piece of information from the claimants. 

And as we talked about, what that -- what 

that indicates is that the claimants is done 

giving us information relative to their dose 

reconstruction. It's not an indication that 

they agree or disagree with the dose 

reconstruction. We get into some 

difficulties here, especially when there's 

multiple claimants, because we'd like to get 

an OCAS-1 back from all of the claimants, if 

they're survivors -- if there's multiple 

claimants on a single case. And we send 

them out a reminder at 60 days and at 74 

days that if we don't receive that back, we 

may -- we can administratively close the 

case. 

One of the next things that -- topics 

is what -- what's out there that potentially 

causes delays in us getting the dose 

reconstructions completed in a timely 

manner. And what we'll talk about is, 

again, from each of those entities, the 

information from Department of Labor, 

91 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

information from DOE and information from 

the claimants that can cause delays. 

Matters concerning information from 

DOL. Sometimes we get information that's 

not -- not complete, and examples of that 

would be incomplete employment period, 

incomplete cancer diagnosis information, 

ICD-9 codes may be incorrect. Typically we 

identify this through the dose 

reconstruction process, but we do have some 

-- data evaluation is done up front to see 

if there's any glaring errors that we can --

we can see to send that back and ask for 

clarification. When we do identify 

problems, or even potential problems, we'll 

ask the Department of Labor to send 

supplemental records, and they are more than 

glad to do that for us and it seems to be a 

very smooth process. 

Another one that happens that's 

seemingly out of everybody's control is 

additional cancer diagnosis during case 

processing. Sometimes individuals will be 

diagnosed with additional cancers between 

the time that the case was submitted and the 

92 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

draft dose reconstruction was completed. 

Matters concerning information for 

DOE's data sources. Data does not exist in 

a readily-retrievable format. What we 

found, especially in the beginning of the 

program, is that some facilities had not 

established -- some DOE facilities had not 

established a program conducive to 

retrieving data on John Doe, for example. 

Some of the sites actually were filing data 

by year, so everybody's information as in 

each year, so to find information on John 

Doe, you had to know how many years he 

worked and go through, in some case, 

hundreds of boxes to find that information. 

So that -- that presented some problems 

early on. 

Individual exposure records not 

located. In the case where we can't 

identify or find an individual's exposure 

records, we can resort to coworker data, and 

in those cases, too, we may have to rely 

quite heavily on site profile information. 

Some dosimetry data was being supplied 

in summary form. For example, they would 

93 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

give us annual doses. And what we ideally 

need is information on a per TLD or film 

badge read or urinalysis results basis. The 

individual numbers makes it much more easy 

for us to do a dose reconstruction. So in 

those cases we've gone back to the 

facilities and requested more detailed 

information. 

Limitations concerning AWEs. Sometimes 

the AWEs are no longer in existence, they're 

not associated with the Department of Energy 

in many or most cases, and there's little 

incentive for them to respond to us in a 

timely manner. 

Administrative matters affecting 

information from DOE. Again, I'll say 

initially, in the beginning of the program, 

we had some issues where the resources may 

or may not have been available. For 

example, when I listed the data does not 

exist in a readily-retrievable format, there 

was a significant undertaking by the 

Department of Energy at INEEL to get 

computer equipment in, extra staff and 

scanners to try to get that information out 

94 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

of those boxes. They didn't stop at the 

cases that we requested. They continued to 

do that, so now it's much easier to get the 

information that we request. So DOE has 

been working to try to remedy those problems 

and have been successful in many of those 

areas. 

Information from the claimants. 

Claimants may inadvertently provide 

inaccurate information. A lot of the 

claimants that we have are quite elderly and 

they may have a hard time remembering. They 

may not have been aware of the hazards that 

they were exposed to. Survivors -- it was a 

secret, lot of the things that people did 

was a secret, so the survivors know very, 

very little about what the individuals did. 

Claimants may provide additional 

information after dose reconstruction is 

drafted. They may come back and say, you 

know, I forgot to write that I actually 

worked in another facility. And in that 

case, we'll have to go back and look for --

make a request to another DOE facility, and 

that has happened, so that could cause a bit 

95 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

of a delay. 

And we talked about that they may not 

return the OCAS-1 form within 60 days. 

Matters concerning development of dose 

reconstruction program by NIOSH. We didn't 

have the infrastructure in place right away 

when we started receiving claims. We had 

probably thousands of claims in place before 

we had the infrastructure in place to deal 

with it, and we were doing them on a very 

small scale individually. In September of 

2002 we did award a large support contract, 

which we needed drastically at that time. 

We're also in the process of developing 

the site profiles, which we talked about 

today, and those are very, very important in 

getting the claims going and getting them 

out the door. 

This is a little busy. I'm sorry 

about that, but what I wanted to try to show 

you -- I'll try to point this out a little 

bit to you 'cause not only is it hard to 

read here, it's hard to read in your 

handouts. But what this is is this is the -

- this is the timeline of what it takes to 

96 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

get a dose reconstruction done from start to 

finish. And that's receipt from DOL and 

sent the final back to DOL. This doesn't 

count the time that DOL takes going through 

final adjudication. 

And I'm not going to go over all of 

these, but what I'll talk about -- we get 

the case -- as soon as we get the case, 

within a day or so, we'll request 

information from the Department of Energy. 

That's a fairly automated process. And 

we'll ask for the dosimetry information and 

what-not that I talked about a little 

earlier. We allow DOE 60 days to provide 

that information to us. Once we get that 

information, we review it for readability 

and also to make sure that it is of 

sufficient quality to do a dose 

reconstruction. We typically will -- we 

allow ourself seven days to get that done. 

During that seven-day period, we send 

out interview communication letter to the 

claimant telling them hey, we're going to 

send you a -- conduct a computerized -- a 

Computer Assisted Telephone Interview, and 

97 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

we send them the script to do that. 

We allow ourselves -- the claimant is 

provided 14 days to review those questions 

that we give them. During that 14 days 

we'll call them to schedule an interview --

say hey, did you receive this information, 

when is a time that's convenient for us to 

talk to you, and we'll conduct that 

interview. 

We allow a seven-day window to conduct 

the interview and during that time we'll 

send a -- after that's completed we'll send 

the draft interview report to the claimant, 

and as I mentioned earlier, they'll comment 

-- they have an opportunity to comment on 

that and we will send that back and -- with 

modifications. 

We also will send a dose reconstruction 

introduction letter that says we have -- the 

following six, eight, ten people may be 

assigned to your dose reconstruction to 

complete it. Do you think that any of these 

people have a conflict of interest. They're 

allowed 14 days to respond to that, saying 

yeah, I don't want this person to do my dose 

98 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

reconstruction. 

So after that's all done, and we allow 

them 14 days to do that, we begin the dose 

reconstruction and we allot 60 days to 

complete that. When that's completed, we 

send that to the claimant. 

The claimant has 60 days to comment, 

look at it, send the OCAS-1 back. During 

that time we'll call them and -- for a 

closeout interview and try to explain the 

processes that we've used, the approach that 

we used, and explain to them why they need 

to send back the OCAS-1 form. 

When they send that OCAS-1 form back, 

we give ourselves two days to generate a 

final report and send that on to the 

Department of Labor, and at the same time we 

send that to Department -- Department of 

Labor and to the claimant, we send the final 

dose reconstruction report. 

So if everybody takes the allotted 

time, it takes 228 days to get a dose 

reconstruction done from start to finish. 

Does it get done sooner than that? 

Sometimes it does. Sometimes it takes 

99 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

longer, too. 

Data quality review, I covered that. 

That's when we get the data in from the 

Department of Energy, we review that to 

ensure that it's what we asked for and that 

it's sufficient to complete the dose 

reconstruction. 

One of the things we were asked to do 

is give a listing of the sites that were 

providing adequate information, as we have 

requested. And by looking at nearly all of 

the cases, all of the submittals from these 

facilities, these sites -- Savannah River, 

Hanford, Y-12, X-10, Rocky, K-26 and PNNL --

have requested well. This represents, by 

the way, approximately 50 percent of all the 

claims. 

Sites providing adequate response to 

data, basically the same thing. However, we 

haven't had a chance to look at all of the 

submittals, but just looking at a random 

sample of them, it appears to us that all of 

these facilities are providing data that's 

sufficient for us to complete a dose 

reconstruction. And I won't go over all of 

100 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

those. They're in your handout. 

Site with special consideration, 

Mallinckrodt. The data for Mallinckrodt was 

available through EML, Environmental 

Management -- Measurements Laboratory in a 

stash that we have gone out and done a data 

capture for. 

Iowa Ordnance Plant was -- the data was 

available at University of Iowa, Department 

of Defense and ORAU. And Shippingport, the 

data -- data source was Atlanta National 

Archives. So in these cases we make 

requests and/or actually go out and do data 

capture and get as much information as we 

can. 

One site, Trinity Nuclear Explosion 

Site, had one request for information and no 

DOE submittals have been received. I tried 

to get an update for this presentation, and 

we still have not received it and I have no 

reason as to why we haven't received it. 

Sites not consistently providing 

adequate response to -- for requests, Los 

Alamos, Los Alamos Medical Center, Pantex, 

Brookhaven National Lab, Stanford Linear 

101 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Accelerator Facility and Oak Ridge Hospital. 

Some of the specific deficiencies are that 

we have had some difficulty with Los Alamos 

not providing individual bioassay data. I 

know that there's been a lot of discussion 

between that point -- between the point of 

this report and today with Los Alamos to try 

to get that, and I believe that we've at 

least got a path forward. But I don't think 

that it's still where we need it to be. 

Medical Center, that's kind of an 

interesting situation because they're no 

longer associated with the Department of 

Energy. I have actually personally 

contacted them and have gotten some 

information on a claimant, but it took a 

long, long time, but they do have some 

information. 

Pantex Plant, Pantex in general 

provides pretty good information, but they 

are also responsible for the Medina facility 

and their Clarksville facility, so they kind 

of get dinged for that. But it seems that 

the stuff directly from Pantex is pretty 

good. 

102 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Brookhaven has not submitted raw 

bioassay data or detailed external dosimetry 

data. 

Stanford Linear Accelerator Facility 

has only provided summary data, such as 

annual summaries. The individual reads that 

we would like has not been provided. 

Oak Ridge Hospital's pretty much the 

same as Los Alamos Medical Center, they're 

no longer associated with the Department of 

Energy, so it's a little bit more difficult 

to get information from them. 

DOE support of development of site 

profiles. We are working for the 

development of 15 profiles for some of the 

bigger DOE sites. DOE has been supportive 

in assisting us to locate and find the 

characterization information, although it is 

sometimes difficult to get. Some of the 

delays that we have had have -- have to do 

with security issues. You know, in some 

cases the information is there. We have 

several people -- many people that are --

have the clearances to get it. It's just a 

matter of getting it and how do we use it in 

103 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

a way that still maintains the security that 

is necessary. 

Number of claims requiring dose 

reconstruction. As of January the 15th, the 

time of this report, a little over 15,000 

cases we had received from the Department of 

Labor. As of May 26th we'd received 

approximately 16,400 cases for dose 

reconstruction. 

One of the final things asked for in 

this report was how many -- how many dose 

reconstructions have been affected by this, 

and almost -- almost all of them have been 

affected in some way or another. And the 

question was, how many have been affected by 

-- by any of these matters that could affect 

them and how many cases have required more 

than 150 days for completion. Well, as I 

showed in that very busy slide, if people 

take all of the time -- or just the amount 

of time that's allotted to them, it's going 

to take more than 150 days, so a big portion 

of the cases are likely to require more than 

150 days because of the time that we've 

built in for the claimants to review, 

104 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

respond, and for us to get back to them. 

Conclusion, you know, we're continuing 

to -- to complete more dose reconstructions. 

Our rate is increasing. It's been a painful 

process sometimes, but we are getting good 

cooperation from the Department of Labor and 

Department of Energy, and always working to 

try to increase that capacity so we get dose 

reconstructions completed. But ultimately 

it's not been as rapid as we would all have 

liked to have seen it. But like I said, 

we're -- we're pretty hopeful that things 

are -- we're seeing things going up and 

we're hoping to see that trend increase. 

Any questions? That's the last slide, 

I believe. Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Grady, one of the themes 

that emerged over the months from public 

comments was the idea that many of the 

claimants seem to think there was a great 

burden on them to provide information in 

this telephone interview, that somehow the 

burden of doing a dose reconstruction was 

very dependent on them providing detailed 

information on dose or locations and so on. 

105 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Are we doing a better job at making clear 

that dose reconstruction's not so dependent 

on them coming up with all the answers? And 

not only claimants, but survivors, who knew 

even less, as you indicated. 

MR. CALHOUN: You know, I don't --

DR. ZIEMER: Is that still an issue 

with claimants that --

MR. CALHOUN: I don't know, I have -- I 

don't know if -- if we're getting a lot of 

complaints about that. I know that that was 

an issue because certainly you look at that 

-- just a part of that script, if you will, 

and you have all the radioisotopes listed 

down there and a lot of times we're getting 

no, but it looks like I'm going to get saved 

here by Dr. Toohey --

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, maybe Dick Toohey 

can answer that, but there -- we seem to get 

that a lot from individuals who commented, 

concerns that we were depending on them 

somehow to come up with all the answers. 

DR. TOOHEY: Well, in fact it was 

something I was planning on discussing in my 

presentation on the CATI process. And of 

106 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the complaints we do get in about the CATI 

process now, which aren't many, but most of 

them do fall into that category. I don't 

have the information you're requesting in 

this questionnaire. We -- if it comes in 

up front, we try to contact the claimant and 

as part of the interview scheduling process 

say no, that's okay. This is just -- let --

let us know whatever you've got, and if you 

don't have anything, you know, that's fine. 

It's not going to hurt your dose 

reconstruction. We're just trying to get 

from you any information you may have that 

we didn't get from DOE or other sources. 

And also in the case of survivors, that 

group specifically, requests for information 

on coworkers that we might be able to 

contact to help out. 

What I've also noticed is that groups 

of claimants who have an advocate -- I'll 

use Mallinckrodt with Denise Brock and her 

United Nuclear Weapon Worker organization --

Denise has done an excellent job educating 

the claimants about what it's all about and 

what we try to capture in this. So the 

107 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

number of those complaints has dropped off. 

It's still an issue, but it's not as great 

as it was say a year ago. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, Rich, 

and then we'll go right around the circle. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Go ahead. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Gen? 

DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, Grady, your busy 

slide was busy, but it's particularly 

informative, I think. And I want to just 

have you go back to that one, if you would -

-

MR. CALHOUN: I think I can do that. 

DR. ROESSLER: -- dose reconstruction 

timeline. 

MR. CALHOUN: All right. 

DR. ROESSLER: I think this was helpful 

not only to us on the Board, but it should 

be very helpful to claimants and members of 

the public when we talk about this whole 

process. And the bottom line, and I think 

you implied this, really in most cases it 

does take 240 days or almost that long to do 

it. Two of these big chunks are 25 percent 

-- I mean two of them are half of that time, 

108 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 -- 

24 

25 

but apparently there's nothing you can do to 

control it. Twenty-five percent of the time 

is with the claimant themselves, and I think 

you probably don't want to -- wouldn't --

you can't change that. Twenty-five percent 

of the time is with DOE. I guess that's 

built in, that's --

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. 

DR. ROESSLER: -- allowed for DOE. 

Another 25 percent is to do the dose 

reconstruction. I suppose that's the only 

part that really could be substantially 

shortened. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah, and the way this 

works is when we -- we'll send out a batch 

of letters and it -- to inform people that 

we're going to start their dose 

reconstruction, and you know, some dose 

reconstructions can be done -- once all the 

information is there -- in a day, and some 

of them take much, much longer to do, 

depending on what kinds of information that 

DR. ROESSLER: But even if you shorten 

that to half the time or whatever, it still 

109 
1 

2 

3 -- 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

doesn't --

MR. CALHOUN: It still gets us down to 

DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, it's still --

MR. CALHOUN: -- 200 days. 

DR. ROESSLER: Realistically, the way 

it's set up, allowing time for the claimant 

and allowing time for DOE, there's not much 

that can be done to shorten the time. I 

think -- I mean I didn't realize this and I 

appreciate this slide -- and my eyes are 

pretty good so I can see it, but... 

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah, and that is in the 

report. That was an attachment from the 

report. It's easier to read there, I think. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. In fact, if you can 

read what's in your booklet, you're much too 

young to be on this Board. 

DR. ROESSLER: Thank you, Paul. 

DR. ZIEMER: Leon. Oh, no, okay, Ray -

- Roy. 

DR. DEHART: Thank you. A point of 

clarification. In one of the earlier slides 

you had indicated that one of the bits of 

information you're wanting is the records of 

110 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

any diagnostic X-rays. 

MR. CALHOUN: Correct. 

DR. DEHART: Point of clarification 

would be isn't what you're really asking for 

those employee-req-- employer-required --

MR. CALHOUN: Yes, sir. 

DR. DEHART: -- surveillance films. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yes, sir. 

DR. DEHART: Not diagnostic X-rays. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yes. That's correct. 

Now we don't -- we actually will make that 

distinction, but a lot of times we'll get it 

-- we'll get it all, and that's okay. As 

long as we're getting something, that's 

good. But we also established a mechanism 

for them to provide -- them being DOE sites 

-- to provide to us a history of the 

required X-rays that were done throughout 

the time, and some of those that we're 

getting are very detailed. They give us the 

type of machine, the exposure -- all the 

exposure parameters, how often they may have 

had these examinations. So in those cases 

we don't even need the records from the DOE 

on that individual because we've got the 

111 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

program laid out. 

DR. DEHART: But you're not using 

diagnostic X-ray data that is clinical based 

and not work based. 

MR. CALHOUN: Correct. That's a true 

statement. Even if they break a leg on the 

job or get injured and an X-ray's performed, 

that is not part of it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, got three questions. 

First one is related to these timeline goals 

and so forth is -- and I think with the new 

way that you're reporting on your web site 

progress that I think you capture some of 

this, but -- but have you analyzed how long 

it's taking -- actually taking for each 

step? And I also think you have some delay 

steps that aren't up there. I mean these 

are sort of ideal, but what hap-- you know, 

you're waiting -- you don't have enough 

health physicists to do the dose 

reconstruction so there's a queue waiting --

MR. CALHOUN: That's true --

DR. MELIUS: -- to get --

MR. CALHOUN: -- that is, that is. 

112 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. But is there an 

analysis of how long each of these steps are 

actually taking? 

MR. CALHOUN: I won't say that there's 

an analysis per se, but these are all 

tracked. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

MR. CALHOUN: And we can go in, for 

example, and find out that we submit -- we 

sent a draft dose reconstruction on April 

1st and it's getting close to the time for 

us to send him a reminder letter. We also 

track when we perform the closeout 

interview, so we -- we know -- really that's 

a tool so nothing falls through the cracks, 

so that we continue to communicate with the 

-- with the claimant. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but it's also a 

resource management --

MR. CALHOUN: Yes. 

DR. MELIUS: -- to all the -- second 

comment is regarding your -- you don't need 

to put the slide back up -- is -- is you 

titled matters concerning information from 

claimants --

113 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. CALHOUN: Uh-huh. 

DR. MELIUS: -- about the interview 

process. 

MR. CALHOUN: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: I think you're being a 

little disingenuous and sort of not -- I 

mean one of the possible problems certainly 

may be that you're trying -- not trying to 

elicit the correct information or the 

complete information, the nature of your 

interview is not adequate to address and 

pick up this information. I know you don't 

like to admit that, but I think it's 

becoming more and more of an issue I think 

as we start to see some of the reasons for 

the delay. 

Now we'll discuss this I think later 

when Dick Toohey is going to present on the 

QA/QC aspects of this, but it's another --

your slide there implies that it's all the 

claimant's fault --

MR. CALHOUN: No. 

DR. MELIUS: -- and I think that's --

you know, they may not be really being asked 

the right --

114 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. CALHOUN: Uh-huh. 

DR. MELIUS: -- to provide the right 

information or give them the -- that. And 

then I think there's another part of that 

that is very problematic. And again Dick 

really brought it up in terms of -- of 

people -- to some extent a lot of this 

information is really relying on what other 

claimants or other informants can provide, 

and that's a very difficult part of that 

process 'cause --

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. 

DR. MELIUS: -- you don't know who 

those people are ahead of time and --

MR. CALHOUN: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- so forth. My final 

question is -- concerns the specific 

deficiencies and I'd like to hear what is 

being done to resolve the issue with Los 

Alamos. 

MR. CALHOUN: I believe -- I don't know 

if Jim has any more information on that, but 

I know that we've been in contact with Los 

Alamos and are in the process of getting 

their bioassay database, but go ahead. 

115 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Right, the 

Los Alamos situation I think is on the right 

track and (Inaudible) forward. The issue 

there was with the bioassay database. (On 

microphone) They were in multiple versions. 

There were multiple databases one had to 

search, and the pedigree of the information 

in the database was -- was somewhat suspect. 

So we've worked very closely with them to 

the point where we've actually provided a 

contract support person to work with Los 

Alamos to re-engineer their database into 

one consolidated system. We've met several 

times with them and that's moving forward, 

and we hope to start getting those dose 

reconstructions -- the information for the 

internal dose reconstructions fairly 

shortly. It's been a really good experience 

on our part, once we all identified what the 

problem was and got some resources allocated 

to the right issues. 

DR. MELIUS: What about the detailed 

external dosimetry data? 

DR. NETON: That's at Los Alamos? 

DR. MELIUS: That's what it says. 

116 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: Yeah, the detailed external 

dosimetry data is not as big a problem. For 

the most part we are getting detailed 

dosimetry data. There are some issues that 

we're working through with them. Most of 

the issues related to lower-level exposures 

and we've increased that threshold. In the 

early days we requested individual dosimetry 

data for any dosimeter that was -- any 

person that had less -- more than 100 

millirem annual exposure, the idea being 

that with that low level of an exposure, we 

could substitute missed dose and -- and you 

know, assume that the 100 millirem occurred 

in one monitoring period, and then 

substitute missed dose for the rest of the 

year. It's been our experience that we --

you know, we can get by with a higher 

threshold if we move that up to 500 millirem 

now. That's alleviating some of the issues. 

The problem with low-level exposures is 

oftentimes these weren't recorded. If it's 

less than a certain level, it just wasn't 

put in the database. So we're working 

around that. I don't think that this is a 

117 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

big issue at Los Alamos at this point. 

Remember, this was taken back in -- the 

snapshot back in January and I think we've 

worked through that issue. 

DR. MELIUS: And what verification is 

there for things that are going into the 

database if you're not working -- not 

accessing primary data? 

DR. NETON: Right. We're working 

closely with the site, you know, the folks 

that are very familiar with the databases 

themselves. I mean we are assisting. We're 

providing the pair of hands that do the 

programming, but we're working with the 

folks like Guthrie Miller and those people 

at Los Alamos to verify the individual --

the individual urinalysis sample results. I 

mean that's what we're looking to get, and 

what the detection limits were, those sort 

of things, and -- you know, frankly, it's 

sort of a painstaking process, but we're --

we're working with them. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Just a comment, not 

that you are taking shortcuts and now that -

- not that you don't need to be -- have some 

118 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

efficiency in the process, but I think it's 

very important for the credibility of the 

program that there not be a mistake here. 

We don't want to have to go back and -- I 

mean and find out that you were using 

incomplete or incorrect data 'cause it --

you know, and have processed a bunch of 

claims. I think it's -- some cases much 

worse than an issue with, you know, a site 

profile or something like that. 

DR. NETON: Absolutely. I don't want 

to leave the impression that it's all -- all 

internal bioassay results for Los Alamos. 

It really applied -- I think we have 

something on the order of 400 claims --

cases from Los Alamos. This may affect 

about 200, and it primarily affects the 

uranium bioassay program that we're focusing 

on, has to do with the degree of enrichment 

and that sort of thing. But yeah, we're 

aware of those issues and taking them very 

seriously. 

DR. MELIUS: 'Cause as you describe it 

in the report, it seemed more serious and it 

may have improved since then somewhat. 

119 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: Yeah. 

DR. MELIUS: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: For my own information, 

Grady, I'll ask -- and maybe Roy or Robert 

can answer, but what is the Oak Ridge 

Hospital? That is -- was it part of the 

Laboratory at one time or... 

MR. CALHOUN: Good, I'm getting saved 

again. 

MR. PRESLEY: Oak Ridge Hospital was 

part of --

DR. ZIEMER: Use the mike. 

MR. PRESLEY: All right. Oak Ridge 

Hospital in its early years was part of the 

Federal government, and then it was turned 

over to the Methodist Church. 

DR. ZIEMER: So that's what I call 

Methodist Hospital? 

MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. I know 

what that is. In fact, my first daughter 

was born there. I wasn't sure if that was 

one time what this referred to. Thank you. 

Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: This -- really I had a 

120 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

question on the coworker database and I 

think that's probably better saved for 

later. I don't know if it's under Jim 

Neton's presentation or what, but I think 

just to get it out here, I'd like a 

description of how that's being put 

together, how coworker is being defined and 

what kind of data you're collecting in that 

database, so I don't think you --

MR. CALHOUN: I think that would 

probably be better for Jim or Dr. Toohey. 

DR. NETON: We can talk about that. 

MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Richard? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, well, same as Dr. 

Ziemer's question with Los Alamos Medical 

Center, are you talking about the hospital 

or... 

MR. CALHOUN: It's actually listed as 

the Los Alamos Medical Center, and it is --

it is the hospital. I've actually -- you 

know, the one time that I was -- that I had 

to contact them and I was successful, I went 

through one of the resource center people 

and talked to them, and it was associated 

121 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 -- 

24 

25 

with the Department of Energy at one time. 

And when I -- the time frame that I was 

looking at was in the early '50's and they 

are no longer associated with Department of 

Energy at all anymore. I don't know who 

owns them, but it's -- it's pri--

MR. ESPINOSA: (Inaudible) it's 

Lovelace* now? 

MR. CALHOUN: I'm not that familiar 

with that out there. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Further 

questions or comments? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Grady, we thank you 

for a very informative presentation. 

We're now at the noon hour, at least 

for those on east coast time. We're glad to 

have Wanda join us. It's early morning 

there in Richland. 

There's a restaurant guide. Is there 

just the one restaurant guide? 

MS. HOMER: No, I have a number of them 

DR. ZIEMER: There's a number of 

restaurant guides that give you lots of 

122 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

options here. Avail yourselves of those, if 

you wish. We'll recess till 1:30. (12:00 

p.m.) 

(Whereupon, a luncheon recess was 

taken.) 

(1:30 p.m.) 

ANNUAL ETHICS TRAINING 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to begin 

this afternoon by introducing David 

Naimon. David is a member of the legal 

staff for Department of Health and 

Human Services, and David's going to 

introduce to us our speaker for the 

next topic, which is our annual ethics 

training. 

MR. NAIMON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. As 

the Board members know, we have an annual 

requirement for ethics training, and on 

behalf of the HHS Office of General Counsel 

I wanted to welcome and thank John Condray, 

who is coming today to give you your -- your 

ethics training. John is not only one of 

HHS's top ethics experts, but really one of 

the top ethics experts in the Federal 

government. 

123 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

He has been working in the field of 

government ethics for more than 16 years, 

first with two years at the Internal Revenue 

Service, then with ten years at the U.S. 

Office of Government Ethics, which is the 

office that coordinates all the ethicsrelated activities for the Federal 

government, and then three years at the 

National Institutes of Health. And then 

since last year he's been in the ethics 

division of the Office of General Counsel 

where his primary client is the Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention, which of 

course includes NIOSH. 

John got his bachelor's degree from the 

University of Maryland and his law degree 

from the Georgetown Law Center, so we're --

we feel very lucky that he agreed to travel 

here today in order to discuss these very 

important issues with all of you. Thank 

you. 

MR. CONDRAY: Thank you, David. I must 

say I -- I've been introduced before, but 

I've never had my -- the person doing my 

introduction be introduced before, so I come 

124 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to you this afternoon as the third domino in 

the list. 

I saw several eyes light up at the 

entertaining prospect of an ethics lawyer 

who is working for the Internal Revenue 

Service, and I -- and I can tell you that 

one of the great things about coming to the 

Department of Health and Human Services, 

after working for two years as an ethics 

lawyer for the IRS and then ten years an 

attorney at the Office of Government Ethics, 

I was glad to have a job that was not in 

fact in itself a punch line. 

And the -- the -- and that's well and 

good, because the ethics considerations are 

issues that -- although we can be flip about 

them -- and believe me, if you work for ten 

years at the Office of Government Ethics, 

you hear every single joke about government 

ethics that are in the lexicon -- the 

important -- the thing is that these issues 

do matter because they can -- they can trap 

the unwary and they can open up what --

valuable government work to collateral 

attack on ethics grounds. And that's 

125 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

unfortunately been something that's becoming 

more and more prevalent, and so that's one 

of the reasons that the Office of Government 

Ethics has mandated the annual ethics 

training requirement for many -- many 

categories of senior government employees, 

including special government employees who 

are serving on advisory committees. 

My objectives this afternoon -- in a 

one-hour presentation I am going to make 

absolutely none of you a subject matter 

expert in the field of government ethics, 

and I realize this. What I'm really 

shooting for is that you obtain a general 

familiarity with the conflict of interest 

rules that are applicable to special 

government employees and also to create what 

a former colleague of mine used to refer to 

as the wart on the edge of the nose. You 

may not necessarily know the ins and outs of 

government ethics, but hopefully it'll give 

you an idea of where these issues come up. 

And you think, like a wart on the end of a 

nose, you kind of look and say I wonder if I 

should get somebody to look at that, and 

126 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that's what this lecture is this morning, to 

try to get you guys to -- to recognize when 

it is that you want to consult with somebody 

about these issues, and also knowing where 

to go when and if you do have a question. 

After the introduction, the -- I'm 

going to spend the time outlining the key 

ethics rules. After you leave today, you 

hopefully all have this publication, which 

was done by my office, the ethics division 

of the Office of General Counsel. It's a 

part of your materials for the course today 

-- for the meeting today. And that has, in 

much greater detail, information on 

everything that I'm going to talk about this 

afternoon. So if there's a particular 

question or an area that you think might be 

particularly pertinent to your situation, I 

would recommend that you consult also with 

that particular handout before -- to sort of 

educate you on how to phrase a question that 

you might bring to the committee management. 

And hopefully we'll have a chance to look at 

-- to do some brief Q and A, depending on 

the time after my presentation winds up. 

127 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

The ethics program in the government, 

particularly for advisory committee members, 

the first line of review that you see is 

financial disclosure. All committee members 

are required to file financial disclosure, 

and these forms are then reviewed and 

potential conflicts are identified. Once a 

conflict is identified, then the conflict is 

resolved through a number of methods. The 

primary methods are recusal or 

disqualification. That's merely stepping 

out an involvement in a matter where a 

committee member would have an interest. Or 

where appropriate, sometimes waivers are 

issued. And even -- and during the course 

of service on the committee there are 

conduct rules that apply and because it's a 

-- we can reach you even after you leave the 

committee, there are a few restrictions that 

apply even after you have -- a committee 

member has left government service. 

We'll start with the financial 

disclosure. As I said, all committee 

members who are appointed as special 

government employees are required under the 

128 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Ethics in Government Act to file a financial 

disclosure report. This is an OGE-450. The 

information that's on the report is used to 

do an initial conflicts check and determine 

whether a waiver is necessary or 

appropriate. I want to add one point to 

that aspect of financial disclosure, which 

is that although the agency will review a 

financial disclosure report and -- and that 

will enable the agency to have an idea of 

when there might be a situation that would 

present a conflict of interest, merely 

filing a financial disclosure report does 

not place the onus for main-- for following 

the financial disclosure statutes on the 

agency. The onus is on the individual 

employee, as it is for all Executive Branch 

employees, to stay in compliance with the 

conflict of interest statutes and 

regulations. 

I use -- a quick example of this. It 

can trip up even people in very senior 

positions. At the -- some of you may be 

familiar with the case of Marvin Runyon, 

who's the former Postmaster General of the 

129 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

United States. He filed a financial 

disclosure report which indicated that he 

had large holdings in Coca-Cola stock and he 

agreed to divest himself of those interests. 

Unfortunately through a -- some sort of 

communication error with his broker, the 

Coca-Cola stock was never divested, a fact 

which turned up on a number of statements 

that he received throughout following years. 

Fast forward a couple of years and Marvin 

Runyon decides it's a great idea for the 

Postal Service to put Coke machines in Post 

Offices. 

Well, someone -- some sharp-eyed person 

noticed that Marvin Runyon was still listed 

on his financial disclosure reports as 

having Coca-Cola stock, and that -- that 

fact came up and Marvin Runyon was not only 

forced to resign as Postmaster General, but 

was actually prosecuted by the Department of 

Justice. And he attempted to use the 

defense to the prosecution that the -- the 

agency knew or should have been aware of the 

fact that he had these holdings because of 

the financial disclosure reports. And the 

130 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Department of Justice was unmoved by this 

defense and ultimately he settled for the 

largest criminal penalty -- or criminal fine 

that was ever placed on a conflict of 

interest case. 

And unfortunately, stigma of that sort 

of thing can last into your professional 

career. Mr. Runyon died within the past few 

months and I could not help but notice that 

as a part of his obituary a prominent 

mention was made of the fact that he had 

been the Postmaster General of the United 

States but had been forced to resign due to 

conflict of interest problems. And so I 

would counsel all committee members, the 

same way I counsel all Federal employees, be 

aware of what you have. Know what you have. 

The defense of I never read my statements 

anyway doesn't really wash because the --

the -- after-the-fact as a justification, 

it's not very powerful and won't serve as a 

defense. 

The statute that tripped up Marvin 

Runyon, the conflict of interest statute --

this is the basic Federal conflict of 

131 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

interest statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 208(a). 

All Executive Branch employees are 

prohibited from participating in any matter 

that would -- particular matter that would 

affect their financial interests, including 

those that are attributed to the employee. 

The matters that -- the types of 

interests that are attributed to the 

employee, these include the interests of a 

spouse, of a dependent child, of an 

organization that the employee is serving as 

an officer or director or trustee or 

employee, and also any organization that the 

government employee is currently negotiating 

with for future employment. 

You'll hear me use the term "particular 

matter" and "particular matter involving 

specific parties", and also "broad policy 

matter". These are terms of art in the 

ethics area. And a way of thinking about 

them is to -- is who is being affected by 

the consideration -- by the -- by what is 

being -- the issue that's being treated by 

the committee. A recommendation, for 

example, on a methodology for making a 

132 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

dosage determination would be a particular 

matter affecting a discrete and identifiable 

class, in this case the nuclear industry 

and/or its employees. 

You'll also hear the term "specific 

party matter". A specific party matter is 

typically a proceeding that adjudicates the 

rights and responsibilities of individual 

parties, be they individuals or 

organizations. Typically these are grants 

or contracts or investigations or 

proceedings, the types of things that have 

specific individuals or companies attached 

to them. 

This committee is very unusual. Most 

advisory committees do not hear specific 

party matters. However, a Special Exposure 

Cohort for a specific location would be a 

specific party matter, so there's some 

matter -- so there will be some things which 

will be of particular interest for this 

committee as opposed to for most advisory 

committees as I go through my lecture this 

afternoon. 

When you have a financial interest or a 

133 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

conflict -- potentially a conflicting 

financial interest, the way -- the primary 

method for dealing with these is recusal or 

disqualification. You'll hear the two terms 

used interchangeably. The ethics laws --

because what's prohibited by 208 is an 

employee or SGE participating in a matter in 

which the employee has a financial interest, 

the remedy is not to participate. It's 

pretty straightforward when you think of it 

in that fashion. They -- basically the 

employee steps out of all con-- all 

considerations and proceedings that concerns 

the matter in which that they have a 

financial interest. 

Now the statute itself does not have a 

de minimis provision, so because of the 

potentially broad reach of the conflict of 

interest statute, Congress has designed both 

general and individual waivers, and these 

general and individual waivers have been 

further explained in regulations that are 

issued by the Office of Government Ethics. 

The -- you'll -- there are broad 

waivers, regulatory waivers, and these are 

134 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

determinations by the Office of Government 

Ethics that -- when you're talking about an 

area -- one of these areas, any sort of 

conflict that would arise out of these 

particular ties would be so remote or so 

insubstantial that it would not present a 

conflict of interest to a reasonable person. 

The -- for -- term of art that's used by OGE 

sometime is not so substantial as to affect 

the integrity of an employee's services. 

For example, there's a de minimis 

waiver for certain stock holdings in a 

publicly traded company that -- that de 

minimis amount is $15,000 for specific party 

matters or $25,000 for particular matters of 

general applicability. And I note that that 

would be for a -- a cautionary note is if 

you have an interest which is close to that 

amount, it -- that can be something that you 

might want to consider talking to the 

committee management about because you don't 

want to be in a situation where you're --

you think you're covered by a waiver, 

there's a spike in the stock price, suddenly 

your stock price is worth over the 

135 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

regulatory amount and you don't have a fallback position and therefore you are -- you 

are suddenly required to step out of a 

matter that you'd previously been involved 

with. 

There's also the -- that apply 

specifically for special government 

employees who are serving on advisory 

committees. There's a waiver saying that 

for particular matters of general 

applicability that arise out of the 

committee member's employment -- any 

interest that -- that -- financial interest 

that arises solely out of -- as a result of 

your employment is not considered to be a 

conflict of interest. 

Now if you have a stock holding -- this 

only applies to the straight employment 

relationship. If you also have stock 

holdings in a company that employs you, then 

this waiver would not apply to that. And I 

also note, very importantly, is that this 

waiver is for particular matters of general 

applicability only. It's not for specific 

party matters. Therefore if your employee -

136 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

- if your employer is a party to or going to 

be one of the affected entities in a 

specific party matter, then in that 

situation you would still be obligated to 

recuse yourself, notwithstanding the fact 

that this waiver exists. 

There are also individual waivers. In 

a specific situation the agency has the 

authority -- and this is authority that's 

been granted under the conflict of interest 

statute to the agency directly -- to grant 

individual waivers where the agenc-- the 

agency determines in writing that a 

financial interest is not so substantial as 

to affect the integrity of the -- of an 

employee's official duties. That's a very 

difficult standard to reach. They -- and --

and so waivers are actually very rare. But 

for special government employees the statute 

sets up a different status -- different 

standard, be-- that -- and that's because of 

the special role of advisory committees. 

Advisory committees, because of the 

requirement for -- under the Federal 

Advisory Committee Act for a balanced 

137 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

membership and all of those other -- those 

other provisions that acquire -- apply under 

the FACA, and also because of the fact that 

the advisory committee's determinations are 

advisory in nature and must be approved by 

the governing -- government authority, the -

- a special waiver standard was set up for 

advisory committee members. They -- an 

advi-- an advisory committee member may --

may receive a waiver if it's determined that 

the need for an employee's services 

outweighs the potential for a conflict of 

interest, and waivers therefore are fairly 

commonly issued for particular matters of 

general applicability. 

I would note that even for advisory 

committee members, they are -- I want to say 

never, but the lawyer in me shuns absolutes, 

but I'm not aware of a single situation 

where a -- a waiver was issued for a 

specific party matter. So in that 

situation, we would prefer to -- to deal 

with conflicts that arise through the method 

of recusal or disqualification. 

Another method for dealing with 

138 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

conflicts of interest, which I -- which I'd 

just like to mention, is divestiture. It's 

very rare that divesting an asset or a 

financial interest is done in the situation 

of an advisory committee because of the --

the -- the nature of the employment. You're 

only here for a few days out of a year. It 

seems rather draconian to require a member 

to eliminate a financial holding under the 

conflict of interest statute. That is, 

however, done fairly frequently for regular 

government employees, and there's even a 

particular provision within the tax code 

under certain circumstances where the -- the 

divesting of a conflicting asset will not be 

recognized for tax purposes. The -- I 

invariably get -- because one of the 

attributed interests under the conflict of 

interest statute is the financial interest 

of your spouse, it's not uncommon for me to 

-- people to ask if divorcing one's spouse 

is a means of getting rid of a financial 

conflict of interest. The answer is 

technically, yes. But we don't encourage 

that. 

139 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

There are a few other criminal statutes 

in addition to -- in addition to the -- the 

-- the 208, the financial conflict of 

interest statute. Now I just want to 

briefly touch on these statutes, as well. 

The basic one is 201 -- 18 U.S.C. 201, the 

bribery statute. As with all other Federal 

government employees, special government 

employees may not accept anything of value 

for being influenced in the performance of 

an official act. That means anything. 

There's no de minimis for this. Even if 

you're cheap, it's still a bribe, and 

therefore it's considered -- it'll violate 

the statute. And I'll notice that -- that -

- I mention that -- I also touch upon that 

'cause I -- later on I'll talk about gift 

exceptions, and there's a gift exception 

permitting the -- the extravagant de minimis 

value of $20 value in gift from -- from a 

person. However, if you can be bought for 

$15, even though it's a de minimis exception 

to the gift rule, it still violates a 

criminal statute and -- and you would be 

prosecuted for that, in addition to just --

140 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

if $15 buys a Federal government employee, 

we're all in very deep trouble. 

There are also representational 

restrictions. Sections 203 and 205 -- and I 

have to say that -- that if -- if you find 

some of these hard to conceptualize, I will 

rather blushingly admit that I was a 

conflict of interest lawyer for about two 

years before I could really articulate the 

difference between 203 and 205. Both of 

these statutes deal with making 

representational services to the -- back to 

the government during the tenure in wh--

that you are a special government employee. 

And I'll notice that these rules are much 

milder for special government employees than 

they are for regular employees. 

Under -- 203 is compensation-driven. 

Under Section 203, a special government 

employee may not receive compensation for 

representational services that it -- before 

an -- any -- any agency or court in 

connection with a specific party matter in 

which the SGE personally and substantially 

worked on. They -- there are a lot of terms 

141 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

of art in there. Specific party matter is 

one that we've already gone over. The --

the important thing to consider is that if 

you are -- have worked on, for example, a 

specific exposure cohort, then you cannot 

represent another party or receive 

compensation for representational services 

for -- in connection with filing -- with 

filing a claim against or challenging in --

in a -- an action that particular 

determination before a Federal agency or 

court. 

Now it only applies to -- to -- to 

testimony before an agency or court, and I 

will also note that -- that on the expansive 

end, if you are involved in -- and this is 

particularly applicable to lawyers, and 

hopefully there aren't terri-- a tremendous 

number of lawyers in the room, but also for 

any professional partnership. If you are 

receiving partnership income for -- and --

and your partnership is going to engage in 

representational activities, in that 

situation please contact us and we need to 

make sure if this -- if 203 is going to 

142 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

become an issue because -- and the reason 

that it would is because there -- it -- it 

bars -- prohib-- it prohibits compensation 

for representational services. You don't 

have to be the person who's making the 

representation. What's required for a 

violation of 203 is that compen-- that you 

be receiving compensation in connection with 

representational services rendered by 

someone. 

205 is both broader and more 

particular, in that 205 does not require 

compensation. The -- a special government 

employee may not act as agent or attorney 

for any other party before a Federal agency 

or court in connection with a specific party 

matter that the SGE worked personally and 

substantially on. It's broader because 

there's no compensation requirement. It's 

narrower because it only affects the actions 

of the special government employee. 

On the off chance that a special 

government employee works more than 60 days 

in a calendar year, the 203 and 205 

restrictions expand at that point to include 

143 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

any covered matters that are pending before 

the -- the Department of Health and Human 

Services through your agency, and that would 

be acting as an agent or attorney, with or 

without compensation, or receiving 

compensation for representational services 

for any matter that would be before the 

Department of Health and Human Services. 

However, for -- for -- that has a specific 

day -- days re-- number of days requirement, 

which is not typically triggered in an 

advisory committee setting. 

There are statutes that apply after you 

leave the government, as well. The primary 

post-employment statute, 18 U.S.C. 207 --

207(a)(1) is the -- the -- the most 

important restriction. That is a lifetime 

ban on a former special government employee 

from representing anyone else before a court 

or agency in a specific party matter that 

the SGE worked on while with the government. 

It's commonly referred to as switching 

sides, and people get very excited if people 

leave the government and go outside and 

represent other parties in connection with 

144 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

matters that the employee worked on while 

they were with the Federal government, and 

this applies for special government 

employees as well as for regular employees. 

The -- there are other restrictions for 

-- that apply to regular employees. You'll 

hear -- sometimes you'll hear of two-year --

a two-year cooling off period for government 

employees who have supervisory 

responsibility, or one-year cooling off 

period for senior employees. A one-- the --

the latter, 18 U.S.C. Section 207(c), oneyear -- prohibits senior employees from 

going back to the agency -- their former 

agency in connection with any matter in 

which they're offi-- seeking official action 

on behalf of another person. That is --

that restriction only applies to people who 

are, as I said, senior employees. Think SES 

or executive level salaries. 

And for SGEs, even if an SGE is paid 

over the -- the trigger amount for 

compensation, which is -- my recollection is 

an annual rate of approximately $136,000 a 

year -- only if the special government 

145 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

employee serves for more than 60 days in a 

calendar year. 

There are also restrictions on 

teaching, speaking and writing. What I want 

to say first of all, the most important 

point, is that nothing prevents either an 

SGE or a regular employee from receiving 

compensation related to teaching, speaking, 

writing that the employee does in a personal 

capacity. The tricky part is sometimes the 

line between the personal and the official 

capacity gets blurry. The regulation sets 

up a number of -- you'll hear the term 

"relates to official duties". No employee 

may receive compensation for teaching, 

speaking or writing that relates to the 

employee's official duties. That means if 

it's done as a part of your official duties, 

you can't receive compensation. 

Now I note that that means you can't 

receive compensation from anybody else. 

Obviously if you're on the clock, you can 

receive compensation from the government for 

the time that you're doing the public's 

business. 

146 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Also if the teaching, speaking or 

writing draws on non-public information that 

you acquired through your committee 

membership, or the invitation was based 

primarily upon your membership on the 

committee, the -- or where the invitation 

comes from a source that would be 

substantially affected by the performance or 

non-performance of your official duties as a 

member of the Advisory Board. 

There are also restrictions on gifts 

that I mentioned earlier in the context of 

the -- the bribery statute. You may receive 

gifts that are not offered as a result of 

your Board membership. However, if you do 

receive a gift that's given to a Board 

member because of your official position --

and I will say that in 16 years of Federal 

service I've never actually received a gift 

from someone because of my official 

position; I'm still waiting -- but the --

the -- if that -- if this happens to you, 

bless you, and -- however, after -- after 

crowing over your good fortune, you should 

please consult with the -- the OGC or the 

147 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Federal official responsible for the 

committee, should that situation arise. 

Now I want to draw a distinction here 

between gifts given to you because of your 

position or achievements in the -- the nongovernmental or private sector. Those are 

generally not problems, and there are a 

number of gift exceptions that also apply if 

your spouse has a business and you receive a 

gift in connection with that. Even -- even 

if a gift is from a source that would be 

affected, if it's clear -- for example, if 

you have a spouse that works for a company 

that would be affected by something that you 

do, if the company gives all of their memb--

their employees two tickets to the summer 

picnic, that's not going to be a problem 

because it's clear-- although it's from a 

source that would raise concerns, it's 

clearly not tied to your position on the 

com-- on the Advisory Board. It's clearly 

tied to your spouse's employment. Of course 

you would be recusing from any matter 

involving that company anyway, but -- I 

mention that as an aside -- but there are a 

148 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

number of exceptions that also apply. And 

also if there's a situation where you're 

interviewing for future employment, there 

are exceptions permitting you to accept 

travel and other traditional interviewrelated expenses or gi-- or -- or gi-- or 

per diems for -- that are offered in those 

situations. 

There are other situations, even --

that -- that are broadly categorized as 

misuse of position that -- that -- basically 

these are all derived from the principle 

that government -- that the public office 

should not be used for private gain, either 

on -- by the -- the employee of a special 

government employee or private gain on 

anybody else's part, as well. Even if the 

employee gets no direct benefit, if the 

employee uses their official position so 

that somebody else derives an improper 

benefit, then -- then that's a situation 

that would implicate the regulation. So 

there was nothing in it for me is not a 

defense in this situation. 

Basically an important consideration is 

149 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that you may not use your position on the 

Advisory Board to imply either that the 

Board or the Department endorses your 

private activities or those of another. You 

also cannot use your authority as a member 

of the Board to appear to give a 

governmental sanction or endorsement to a 

particular product or -- or company, unless 

there's specific authority to do so. And in 

those situations, that's a -- that's the 

over-arching pattern of my presentation this 

morning, which is in those situations 

consult with OGC first 'cause that way we 

can make sure that all -- that we make --

that -- cross all the t's and dot all the 

i's, that all the jots and tiddles* are 

taking place, and it's not going to be a 

situation that -- that's going to blow up 

after the fact. 

Fundraising restrictions, they --

there's -- again, I want to start out with 

the -- the broad principle that there's 

nothing that being a special government 

employee does that prevents you from doing 

fundraising for causes you believe in in 

150 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

your personal capacity. What you cannot do 

is personally solicit funds from someone 

who's doing business before the committee or 

the Advisory Board. And of course in any 

situation where you have access to nonpublic information, you cannot disclose that 

information. That's axiomatic to the term 

"non-public". 

And extension of the criminal statutes 

is the impartiality principle. And 

basically all -- all employees are required 

to -- to ensure that all government 

decisions and -- and projects and policies 

are undertaken for -- on an impartial basis, 

that the decision-makers were considering 

the -- the government's interests, and by 

extension, the public's interests in a 

matter and not personal private interests. 

And even when it doesn't rise to the level 

of a conflicting financial interest that 

would be implicated by 208, these issues 

still have to be paid attention to under the 

broad category of impartiality. That's why 

under the applicable Office of Government 

Ethics regulations all special government 

151 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

employees are prohibited from participating 

in specific party matters -- and the 

impartiality restrictions deal with specific 

party matters -- where a reasonable person 

would question the special government 

employee's impartiality. 

They -- this always leads to the 

question of whose reasonable person are we 

talking about. The standard is not welldefined in his con-- connection, except in a 

-- in a fairly circular fashion. A 

reasonable person is as a reasonable person 

does. 

They -- so my advice and counsel to the 

members of the Board are if you're not sure 

if there would be -- if you have any doubt 

whatsoever about a question of impartiality 

being raised, it's better to raise that 

question with the OGC and get that resolved 

before it becomes a problem rather than 

waiting until some stakeholder whose ox has 

been gored decides to -- to use that as a 

means of undermining the work of the 

Advisory Board. 

There are certain covered 

152 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

relationships. Although the principle is 

not well-defined, there are certain 

relationships which are set forth in the 

regulation which are specifically raised as 

being potentially problematic. These 

includes (sic) such categories as members of 

the employee's household, the -- the 

relatives with whom you have a close 

personal relationship, any person that the 

employee or a family member is serving --

your spouse, a parent or a dependent child 

is serving as an officer, director or 

employee or consultant, or any situation 

where a former employer of yours that --

that you served with in the past year, 

there's sort of a one-year cooling off 

period, and in that situation you would --

you would want to -- that -- that's a 

covered relationship. In addition to the 

employee being able to make a -- make an 

initial determination, the agency also has 

the authority to step in and -- and make a 

determination on whether a reasonable person 

would question the SGE's impartiality in 

that situation. 

153 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

And I'd like to also men-- to -- to 

specifically talk here about consultancies 

(sic). A consultant -- any organization 

that you're serving as a consultant, if that 

organization is a party or represents a 

party in connection with a matter, that's an 

impartiality concern. Please bring that to 

our attention so that we can get that 

resolved prior to any action being taken or 

prior -- prior to your participating in a --

in a specific party matter. 

There are also restrictions broadly 

that apply to all government employees, and 

these are extended through -- to SGEs, as 

well. And this is the -- the Constitutional 

prohibition against receiving emoluments. 

You hear it referred to as the emoluments 

clause. Under the Constitution, while 

holding a position of public off-- of profit 

or trust with the United States government, 

you may not have an employment relationship 

with a foreign government or receive 

emoluments. Bas-- think broadly in terms of 

compensation from a foreign government. 

Now sometimes the -- the -- this 

154 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

includes the -- the foreign government 

directly, and it's -- this is anything that 

you do in your private capacity. At the 

time of the drafting of the Constitution, 

the founding fathers were very concerned 

about government employees -- the interests 

of government employees being undermined or 

their loyalties divided by ties to foreign 

states and principalities, which is why this 

clause exists. 

A question comes up for public 

universities in -- in foreign states and --

and the -- the -- or government-controlled 

companies -- or government-owned companies, 

and those sometimes can be on a case-by-case 

basis, depending on the degree of ownership 

or control that's exercised by the foreign 

government. We may determine that it's not 

an emolument issue. But again that's 

something that would have to be brought to 

the attention of OGC so that we could 

resolve that. 

Congress has passed an exception to 

this under the Foreign Gifts and Decorations 

Act. Generally you can accept a -- gifts 

155 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

worth up to 200 -- approximately $285 from a 

foreign government without triggering the 

restrictions of the emoluments clause. And 

as part of your -- your packets you probably 

received a -- you should have received a 

questionnaire on foreign entanglements, and 

that's -- that was intended to address and -

- and -- I'm not sure of the exact name -- I 

see laughter in the committee. I'm not sure 

of the exact name of -- of -- of the form, 

but it -- it was designed to -- to determine 

whether committee members have ties to 

foreign governments so that we could resolve 

those in advance. 

I will say that this pres-- this 

restriction is -- although a longstanding 

one, is currently being re-examined by the 

Department of Justice. And it is possible -

- highlight the use of the term "possible" -

- that it may be determined by -- by the 

Department of Justice that the -- the -- an 

advisory committee membership is not 

considered an office of profit or trust with 

the United States and therefore the 

emoluments clause would not apply. I stress 

156 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that we're not there yet. They -- and 

that's the Department of Justice's call, but 

there may be some relief on the horizon from 

that particular restriction. 

Expert witnesses, serving as an expert 

witness, the -- and this is tied once again 

to matters -- to -- that you work on as a 

member of the Advisory Board. You may not 

participate as an expert witness in 

connection with a matter or proceeding that 

you work on as a government employee. It's 

-- I like to think of this as switching 

sides during the fact as opposed to after 

the fact. Like 207, it applies while you're 

still serving as a special government 

employee. There is a provision set forth in 

the regulation of getting -- basically you 

can do it if you get the government's 

permission to do it. 

They -- there are also restrictions 

that apply in the area of lobbying. And --

and I apologize for this particular slide 

which has a particularly large amount of 

text on it, but the -- the -- the 

information in there is important. 

157 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Committee members are prohibited from 

engaging in any activity which directly or 

indirectly encourages or directs a person or 

organization to lobby one or more members of 

Congress. That's in your official capacity 

as an Advisory Board, so what we don't want 

to see is the Advisory Board issuing 

leaflets to people in the community to go 

call their Congressman or representative to 

get a law changed or a particular -- or a 

particular policy overturned. The Congress 

doesn't like it when the Executive Branch 

does that. Congress doesn't really want to 

be -- want to have a -- see that -- the 

money that they've appropriated for the 

committee be used for a lo-- you'll hear the 

term grassroots lobbying, and that's what 

this restriction is designed for. 

I note that like the other statutes 

mentioned in Title 18, this is a criminal 

statute, so attention must be paid to the 

extent that the potential liabilities are 

fairly severe. When authorized, committee 

members may before -- appear before -- this 

does not prevent you from appearing before a 

158 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

group for the purpose of informing or 

educating the public about a particular 

policy or legislative proposal. If you're 

not sure in a particular situation, call OGC 

and make -- and that way they can vet the 

contents of the lecture and make sure that 

the Department -- the Advisory Board or you 

are going to get into hot water over -- over 

a statement made to an organization. 

However, what it does not prevent is 

you serving -- as private citizens, 

expressing your own personal views. You 

can't express the views of the committee as 

a whole or the views of the Department, but 

you can express your own private, personal 

views. In doing so you can state the fact 

that you're affiliated with the commit--

with the committee or the Advisory Board, 

and you can state the -- the Board's 

position -- the Advisory Board's official 

position on a matter, to the extent that you 

don't use non-public information. But you 

can't represent your views as those of the -

- the Advisory Board. You cannot take new 

positions or represent those views as the 

159 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

positions of the committee or the Advisory 

Board on the matter. The -- and I would 

also -- as with other sort of general 

restrictions, in presenting your own 

personal views, you can't use government 

computers, copiers, telephones, staffer 

resources or other -- letterhead or other 

appropriated fund-- matters that are paid 

for by the government. If it's a personal 

activity, that's fine, but it has to be done 

in off-duty time. They... 

In addition to lobbying, there are also 

restrictions on Hatch Act or political 

activity. Now these restrictions are 

actually -- in the 1990's they were loosened 

for most Federal employees. And for SGEs, 

as long as you're even remotely 

sophisticated, this will not be a problem. 

The Hatch Act restrictions apply only during 

the period of any day in which you're 

actually performing government business. 

They -- so -- and the example used is that 

if a special government employee attends a 

com-- advisory committee meeting in the 

morning -- from 8:00 in the morning till 

160 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

1:00 o'clock, and then travels up to -- to 

Capitol Hill, if the advisory committee were 

taking place in the Humphrey Building at 

HHS, it's two blocks to Capitol Hill. You 

go up the hill so you can attend a political 

fundraiser or even solicit political 

contributions from the attendees, that's 

fine. It's understood that as a special 

government employee your Federal role is a 

very limited one. 

I note that where -- where we would get 

into trouble is if you see a fellow Advisory 

Board member picking up their cell phone 

during the course of a meeting and starting 

to make political telephone calls, please 

discourage them from doing so. They -- and 

I will say that there are some Hatch Act 

restrictions that -- that will apply during 

-- at any time that you're -- that you are a 

special government employee. 

You cannot at any time use your 

government office or authority to affect an 

election or undert-- or as -- as a means of 

coercing a political response out of -- or 

funds out of an entity or organization. But 

161 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

so long as you're clearly not doing it in a 

way that's tied to the Advisory Board, then 

the -- the political activity restrictions 

will not apply in that situation. 

The -- I'll turn to the last slide, the 

-- the blessed last slide of our pres-- my 

presentation this -- this afternoon. I 

thank you for your time and attention. The 

most important message -- as I said at the 

very outset, you have -- all these 

restrictions I talked about are -- are --

are covered in more detail in the handout 

that you've received in connection with the 

meeting this afternoon. Also, if you're not 

sure about a situation, if there's a wart on 

the end of your nose, then please bring that 

to the attention at OGC through David 

Naimon's shop, and they will assist you in 

resolving a potential conflict before either 

another -- a stakeholder or another 

committee member or another -- an outside 

entity creates a problem for the Advisory 

Board and for the decisions and policies of 

the Advisory Board by launching an attack on 

you and on the Advisory Board and on the 

162 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

policy on ethics and conflicts of interest 

grounds. 

I do have a couple of minutes before I 

have to -- to run back and catch a flight, 

so if there are specific questions about the 

-- the areas -- now I will say I will not 

get into a particular member's situation 

while standing at the podium and being 

transcripted (sic) in connection with this 

meeting, but I will in -- deal with 

questions generally about the conflict of 

interest statutes or regulations if the --

the Board has them. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Let's open the 

floor for questions. 

 (No responses) 

MR. CONDRAY: I see you all spellbound 

by my eloquence and therefore I shall yield 

the podium. 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask --

MR. CONDRAY: Oh, we do have one 

question. 

DR. ZIEMER: This has to do with 

recusal, and we generally -- we have an 

operating rule here that if we're voting on 

163 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

a matter that deals with a facility -- for 

example, one of the national labs, we had a 

vote earlier on -- this -- this is sort of 

specific for purposes of illustration, but 

we were trying to prioritize which -- I 

think it was which -- which site profiles we 

would review first, and individual --

individuals from particular sites then did 

not vote on their site or about their site 

or for their site or against their site, 

actually. 

Now where you talk about stepping out 

of all proceedings concerning a matter --

for example, we talked here this morning 

about a couple of sites that were not 

providing sufficient information, and we 

have individuals from those sites here. Now 

is -- is -- is the real rule only directed 

toward issues if that individual has 

financial interests or what does financial 

interest mean? I mean if they work there, 

they're getting paid. 

MR. CONDRAY: In a situation -- you 

remember the financial interests, it's the 

financial interests of employee, the 

164 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

financial interests of an -- the -- any 

attributed financial interests which 

include, generally speaking, employer's 

interests, those interests of a spouse or a 

dependent child, or an organization that 

you're serving as an officer, director or --

or consultant or -- or trustee. 

Now in a situation where you're talking 

about a particular facility, as a policy 

that makes a lot of sense because it would 

be very difficult for me to imagine a 

situation -- there are any number of ties 

that would be implicated in a situation 

where a member of the Advisory Board was 

associated -- was affiliated with a 

particular site. And where -- and in -- in 

that situation, the -- the recusal or 

disqualification would be a broad means of 

dealing with all of those conflict of 

interest concerns. 

Now where I thought you were going with 

this question had to do with what -- the 

requirements of recusal or disqualification, 

which would include -- and I will say that 

if the Board is in a public meeting, you 

165 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

don't actually have to leave the room in 

connection with that because the information 

that's being discussed is public. It's --

however, if the meeting is in closed 

session, then -- in order -- in order --

then in order to properly consider yourself 

recused or disqualified and to make sure 

that you weren't picking up -- didn't have 

access to information that you shouldn't 

have access to because of your -- the -- the 

conflict of interest concern, in that 

situation the -- the member should leave the 

room. But the -- the -- in a situation 

where you're talking about dealing with a 

specific location, there's so many different 

kinds of ties that would require recusal or 

disqualification that -- that -- that it's 

hard for me to -- to address a specific one 

other than to say that it would be hard for 

me to imagine a situation where a recusal or 

disqualification wouldn't be appropriate for 

-- for a Board member who is affiliated with 

a particular site. 

DR. ZIEMER: Does the reclu-- recusal -

-

166 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. CONDRAY: Say disqualification. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- part includes not only 

things like voting on some issue, but even 

the discussion of it. Is that correct? 

MR. CONDRAY: That's correct. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. CONDRAY: The -- the participation 

includes providing advice or 

recommendations, as well as having a part in 

the specific decision. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or 

questions? 

 (No responses) 

MR. CONDRAY: Thank you all very much. 

DR. ZIEMER: We thank you for being 

with us today, John, and appreciate your 

input. 

REPORT ON QA/QC OF THE PHONE INTERVIEW PROCESS 

Next on our agenda is a report on the 

QA/QC process for the phone interviews, and 

that will be presented by Richard Toohey 

from ORAU. 

DR. TOOHEY: Okay. Can you hear me 

okay? Let's go ahead with this. What I 

thought it would be good to do on this one -

167 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

- talk a little bit about our task four, 

which was originally called CATI, ComputerAssisted Telephone Interviewing. But we 

renamed it claimant contact, because it 

includes a lot more now than just the 

telephone interview process. So I'll go 

over the first bit fairly quickly. You're 

probably already familiar with it. And then 

get into the meat of what you wanted to hear 

about today which is the quality assurance 

and quality control we apply to this process 

to make sure we are capturing the data that 

the claimant provides in the interview, and 

then making sure those data are applied to 

the dose reconstruction. 

So we have numerous responsibilities, 

and like so much else of this project, they 

have increased as time has gone on. We 

essentially handle almost all the mailings 

to the claimants now except the initial 

acknowledgement of receipt of the claim. 

But the introduction letter introduces ORAU 

and tells them we will be contacting them to 

schedule the interview. 

We conduct the initial interview and 

168 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

technical review of that. A -- not a 

transcript, but a report of the interview is 

mailed to the claimant, and then the 

claimant's comments on that -- whether 

written on the report or provided 

telephonically -- are then captured. The 

report is updated as necessary. 

A lot of the information we capture 

from the claimant on the interview are 

simple demographic things -- addresses, 

phone numbers, things like that -- and we 

automatically get those into the NIOSH 

database system, so they are captured. In 

some cases where the claimant wants an 

authorized representative -- typically one 

of their children or in some cases an 

attorney -- to represent them in this 

process, we'll mail the forms out, get those 

back. If we're unable to contact the 

claimant to schedule the interview, a 

registered letter goes out that just says 

hey, we've tried to contact you, we've been 

unsuccessful. We'd like to have this 

interview. Please call our toll-free number 

to schedule it. 

169 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Also if the claimant declines the 

interview, there is a letter goes out to 

them confirming that they declined the 

interview, and that's again captured in the 

analysis record. 

As was mentioned, the dose 

reconstruction introduction letter goes out 

to the claimant, which primarily provides a 

list of possible dose reconstructors who 

will be working on their claim and asks the 

claimant do they object to any of these 

people on the basis of potential conflict of 

interest. And of the 6,000 or more of those 

that have gone out, we've only had two come 

back from the claimant saying no, I don't 

like this person. We've had many more --

well, many more; four or five -- come back 

from the claimant specifically requesting 

the conflict of interest rule be waived 

because they would prefer somebody from the 

site who knows something about the site to 

do their dose reconstruction. Again, we get 

back to them saying well, sorry, we're --

really it's better if we don't do that. But 

we do also say we do have people 

170 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

knowledgeable about the sites contributing 

to the site profile and the exposure 

conditions on the site, things like that. 

Any additional data or information the 

client sends in and anything they have that 

they want to send in and add to their file 

is fair game. We receive that and scan it 

in, make it -- sure it's part of their 

record. 

Something we just took over at the 

beginning of the year was conducting the 

closeout interview with the claimant, and 

this is after the claimant has received 

their dose reconstruction report and the 

OCAS-1 form. We simply call them and ask 

them do they have any questions about it. 

And if there's been a delay in 

returning that OCAS-1 form, we ask them if 

there's a problem, are you willing to send 

it back -- explain what it means. And the 

one problem we've seen -- and like many 

others, it -- as you know, this is a very 

complicated, involved process and can be 

confusing. The OCAS-1 form simply is the 

claimant's agreement that they have nothing 

171 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

more to add to their file, no other 

information, no other documents, at this 

time. It doesn't mean they agree with the 

conclusions of the dose reconstruction 

report, which many of them think it means. 

So again, in the closeout interview we try 

to make that clear, and sometimes we're 

successful and sometimes we're not. 

Any additional information provided by 

the claimant -- and that might be an 

incident report or something. There have 

been a number of cases in the interview 

process where the claimant has acknowledged 

involvement in an incident, and then we have 

gone back to get -- try to get the incident 

report, if any, from DOE, if it was not 

already in the claimant's data submittal. 

We of course do the scheduling of all 

interviews. Another point on that, one 

number -- one reason the number of phone 

calls you saw on Jim Neton's presentation 

was so high, it typically takes a couple of 

rounds of telephone tag to schedule the 

interview. We will call people. If we 

don't reach them, we'll leave a message. 

172 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

They call us back, so it takes about three 

or four calls before we're actually 

connected with the claimant to do the 

interview. A lot of times the -- many of 

our calls, of course, are requests for 

status of the claim -- from the claimant, as 

you might imagine. 

Our staffing in task four is 33 people. 

We have -- two of the interviewers are halftime, so we have a total of 32 FTE, so half 

of those are people -- well, more than half 

are actually doing the interviews, and we 

have a late shift. We have a couple of 

people work into the evening, 8:00 or 9:00 

p.m. eastern time, give us a better chance 

of catching people on the west coast. And a 

couple of 800 operators man the line, and 

then schedulers, reviewers, clerical staff 

handles the mailings, and some supervisors. 

So I'll go over these statistics fairly 

quickly. One reason -- I have to apologize, 

when I put these together, for once I put my 

slides together in advance of the meeting, 

so all I had were the April numbers and Jim 

Neton gave you the more updated ones, but 

173 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

just to synchronize things, as Jim showed, 

through the end of May we've done about 

14,400 interviews -- well, no, I'm sorry, 

14,400 claims have received at least one 

interview. And we've only got about right 

now 1,200, 1,300 claims awaiting interview. 

The one statistic is -- it's an average of 

about 1.33 interviews per claim or per 

Energy employee, because every claimant --

if there are multiple children with no 

surviving spouse, all the children are 

claimants, they each get an interview. So 

it's about one-third more interviews than 

there are actual claims in there, but we've 

knocked most of them out. As you've seen, 

we're averaging about 300 a week and our 

maximum was close to 500 one week, but there 

was a lot of overtime involved in that. 

The closeout interviews, as I 

mentioned, we took over in January and we've 

completed about 3,300 of those. Again, it's 

with every claimant, so again that's an 

average about 1.33 per dose reconstruction. 

OCAS was doing those initially, transferred 

them over to us beginning of the year. 

174 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

We've done about 2,000, and we're averaging 

about 105. And of course, as I hope is 

obvious, as we complete the backlog of 

initial interviews, the interviewers are 

transitioning over doing the closeout 

interviews, plus any interviewing or 

information-gathering that may be necessary 

for SEC petitions that come in. 

On the 800 operations, again, that's 

about 3,000, 4,000 calls a month come in. 

The vast majority of them are the status of 

the claim. You know, where is my claim in 

the process, how long is it going to take, 

that sort of thing. People do call in 

changes in addresses, phone numbers, things 

like that. Frequently, though, children 

will call in where the claimant has in fact 

passed away. And then unfortunately, that 

almost kicks them back to square one since 

then the survivors have to refile the claim 

with DOL. Any updates they have to their 

interview or -- or requests for information 

that we can give them. This has downtrended over the last year as more 

information's been put up on the NIOSH web 

175 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

page, so... But it's pretty steady. 

We send out a lot of mail, as you can 

see. And then a copy of every letter to a 

claimant is entered into their claim file in 

NOCTS, and we also have pretty automated 

capability now. If NIOSH needs to send out 

a mass mailing for some reason, we can 

generate that letter and get it out in the 

mail pretty quickly. 

Okay, let's get to the meat of things, 

QA on this process. One of the first things 

is training of the interviewers. The 

interviewers, the health physicists who 

review the interview reports and -- and the 

one -- they should really say -- it should 

probably be a QC person within the task. QA 

is the loftier organization who makes sure 

the QC people are doing their job. They get 

telephone skills training, how to talk to 

people on the telephone, and especially 

talking to elderly people, who form the 

majority of the claimants or may have 

hearing difficulties or the like. They get 

an overview of the Act and the DOE 

facilities and what went on at that. Many 

176 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

of the interviewers have worked at DOE 

facilities, particularly Mound and Fernald 

in the Cincinnati area. But some had not, 

so we got everybody up on what them and what 

the Act is about. 

We give them what is the equivalent of 

general employee radiation training under 

the DOE package, which is the introduction 

to radiation, protection concepts and all 

that, just to give them the basic vocabulary 

of the business so they know what the 

claimants are saying or referring to in 

that. And then before they actually get cut 

loose to do interviews, there's extensive 

on-the-job training. And they will do 

several interviews which are monitored by a 

supervisor, from which they get immediate 

feedback, before we certify them to cut them 

loose. 

The people who are not so much directly 

involved in doing the interviews themselves, 

of course, get the telephone skills training 

and on-the-job training. I should mention, 

it's not listed here, but everybody in -- on 

the ORAU team gets Privacy Act training, 

177 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

also, and it's one of my pet peeves. I keep 

emphasizing, you know, this is Privacy Act 

data. You can't leave it lying out on your 

desk. You can't take it home with you. You 

can't talk to your -- your spouse about that 

and everything else, so everybody gets that. 

Okay. We maintain a database on the 

telephone interviews, and these are 

basically QC things. There are automatic 

checks run on a daily basis on that to make 

sure we don't call a claimant to schedule an 

interview with them before that letter's 

gone out to them that says hey, we're going 

to call you to schedule your interview. We 

don't do an interview unless it's already 

been scheduled and -- and is on the 

calendar. We also check to see after the 

interview that the initial draft to the 

claimant is on its way back to the claimant 

within a week. The same thing on any 

updates that the claimant may provide on 

that draft for a revision. We also track 

that we haven't missed a scheduled 

interview. We won't do a closeout interview 

unless there was an initial interview done. 

178 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Obviously that would be cart-before-thehorse. And we also check to make sure we 

don't try to schedule a closeout interview 

unless the draft dose reconstruction report 

and OCAS-1 has actually been sent to the 

claimant. 

This is all automated and just pops up. 

We use Microsoft Outlook to schedule the 

interviewer's time, and whenever an 

interview is scheduled, there's an automatic 

check run against this thing and so on. 

The other automatic queries are to make 

sure that any correspondence that's mailed 

to the claimant is in fact automatically 

uploaded to that claim file, and that the 

dates on the correspondence match those in 

the database. And again, this is creating 

the -- what is now called the analysis 

record for the claim, which then accompanies 

that claim back to DOL when we've completed 

the dose reconstruction. 

General QA on this, we do silent 

monitoring of both initial and closeout 

interviews by supervisory staff. Generally 

it's performed randomly. The opening part 

179 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

of the interview -- the interviewer will 

tell the claimant that this telephone call 

may be monitored for quality assurance 

purposes. You know, same thing you hear 

when you call up Delta Air Lines. 

The interviewer can also request 

monitoring, and in fact on their computer 

screen in front of them while they're going 

through the CATI script and entering the 

claimant's data, they've got a little button 

they can hit which will signal a supervisor 

to get on the line. And basically if the 

claimant has raised some issue that the 

interviewer hasn't a clue what they are 

talking about or what it means or what's 

going on, they can get a health physicist on 

that line to help them with that, 

essentially instantaneously. The HP 

reviewers are assigned blocks of time when 

they have to be available for this. 

The comments that the monitor has are 

entered actually into a spreadsheet, so a 

poor man's database. There is immediate 

feedback to the interviewer via e-mail, what 

you did good, what you did bad, areas for 

180 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

improvement, whatever like that. Anything 

that would identify a group trend, some 

ongoing problem with that then gets 

addressed on a group basis in weekly staff 

meetings of task four. The -- of course the 

feedback to the interviewer is immediate and 

generations of lessons learned and, as I 

said, the interviewer can be assisted with 

difficult claimants or questions. And of 

course, as you can imagine, because the long 

time it's taken, many of the claimants are -

- are upset, why is it taking so long. And 

like most of us, they say let me talk to 

your supervisor. Push a button, the 

supervisor's on the line. 

Okay, there are the, as I said, weekly 

staff meetings and interview sessions to 

discuss how things are going, new 

approaches, issues that have come up, 

improvements in the software. We did roll 

out a new and improved version of the CATI 

software a few months ago. 

We have put together some quick 

reference guides for the interviewers, just 

kind of checklists to make sure they have 

181 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

covered all the bases in the interview 

process. And there's dual screens. Each 

interviewer has a dual computer screen and 

one has the CATI script on it, the other has 

sort of this checklist thing so they can 

keep track that they've covered all the 

bases. 

Another thing we do, any claimant who 

calls in saying they've had a problem or an 

interview with any of that, their calls are 

-- normally those calls come in to the 800 

number. They're logged in and then returned 

by a supervisor to find out what the issue 

is, and they get logged and tracked. And I 

should also say every call that comes in is 

logged in to the NOCTS database in the 

telephone conversation file in there. And 

then of course tracking these things gives 

us individual and group metrics on their 

performance. 

Some of the challenges we have 

encountered is contacting claimants. As we 

know, a number have passed away in the 

meantime. People leave the country on 

vacation. We've got a lot of snowbirds. 

182 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

You know, we try to call people from 

Hanford, and they're in Arizona, you know, 

gone to Florida. There've been a few we 

haven't been able to contact because they're 

in the slammer. It happens. 

The closeout interviews on a dose 

reconstruction where the probability of 

causation was less than 50 percent, by now 

people know what that means, that they're 

likely not to be compensable. So there are 

issues in there. And as I said, especially 

in those cases, there's difficulty in 

convincing the claimant to return the OCAS1. And again, we try to explain it in any 

number of ways we can. Now all -- it just 

says you don't have anything to add. If you 

do, put it on and send it back in; we'll 

capture it and start over. But there are a 

number just refuse to return it. And then 

as Jim Neton mentioned, after 60 days 

there's an administrative closeout in there. 

And of course ability to communicate 

with elderly or emotional claimants. 

Another small issue we have -- in a lot of 

cases a claimant would want a -- a son or 

183 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

daughter to assist in the interview, but we 

really can't do that unless they're 

designated as an authorized representative, 

so we have to send that form out and get it 

back in and all that sort of stuff. But it 

-- it's not a real big problem and we have a 

way to handle it. 

So we're -- OCAS is still mailing out 

the draft dose reconstruction reports. 

We'll probably be taking that over for them, 

and then getting ready to go on the Special 

Exposure Cohort process. And exactly what 

sort of workload that's going to be on us 

is, at this point, anyone's guess. 

I didn't mention -- perhaps I skipped a 

slide, but let me just go over a few things. 

On the draft DR report, it is reviewed by a 

health physicist reviewer. They have a 

checklist they work against for things like 

accuracy of terminology, issues, work 

processes and any of that thing, as well as 

spelling, grammar and everything else before 

that goes out. 

We get about one-quarter of the draft 

reports back with comments on them that --

184 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

and the vast majority of those are 

additions. Again, as you might expect with 

an elderly population -- oh, I forgot to 

mention that, and they write it down and --

you know, that's what the whole process is, 

then that is captured and added to the case 

file. And a lot of times I think, as was 

mentioned earlier by Jim, we get information 

on additional work history -- you know, I 

worked at site A plus site B. Well, it's 

not in their records and then that means we 

have to -- unless they were likely to be 

compensable on the data we already have from 

site A, we have to go get records from site 

B, and of course DOL has to verify that, 

additional cancer diagnosis, things like 

this. So there are a number of issues that 

can crop up in the interview process which 

move the process back to the verification of 

employment/diagnosis stage. But there's a 

process to handle that. 

So really the primary quality control 

on the draft DR report is by our reviewer, 

and then by the interviewee themselves. 

Then the other issue on using the 

185 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

information in the CATI report in dose 

reconstruction, that report is in the dose 

reconstruction file that the dose 

reconstructor references to use. They are 

required to review it. There are re-- there 

is required verbiage in the dose 

reconstruction report that says I have 

reviewed the information in the interview 

and however it was used. And as I said, a 

lot of times the -- the information that 

comes out in an interview is I was in an 

incident of some kind at some time. And 

then we have to go track that down, and 

hopefully we can find enough information and 

apply it in the dose reconstruction itself. 

And then of course the check that the 

interview information has been used in the 

dose reconstruction report is our own peer 

reviewer who reviews the DR report before it 

goes to OCAS, and the OCAS reviewer who 

approves it before it goes out to the 

claimant, and then the claimants' review of 

it themselves. 

And again, we found a feedback loop 

that once the final DR report has gone out, 

186 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

claimants will then add additional 

information to that, send it back in and, 

again, we fold that back in and redo the 

report as necessary. 

So let me just check here, I think 

that's all I had formally, so -- ah, one --

one more thing, just a -- the procedure 

list. We have three procedures in place. 

The fourth one is the checklists used by the 

reviewers. And the only reason that's still 

in draft is when it went through internal 

review, the QA people said oh, this is 

really a quality procedure and you should 

put other things in here to qualify it as 

such under some criteria they have, so we're 

putting that in. But that will be out 

fairly quickly and over to OCAS for their 

approval. 

Okay, so that is it. So I'll be glad 

to attempt to answer any questions you may 

have. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. First Roy and 

then Jim. 

DR. DEHART: I have two questions. 

First, we have talked in the past about the 

187 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

possibility of having assistance for some of 

the older people, and is there any attempt 

to encourage them to have coworkers or 

anyone there during the interview, sort of 

as a mind kick-off to help hit -- get the 

memory hooks going or anything of that sort? 

DR. TOOHEY: Gosh, I don't think there 

is on our end up front. If they bring it 

up, then yeah, they can have anybody they 

want there while we capture that data, but 

they can't have somebody actually do the 

interview for them, unless it's an 

authorized representative. 

DR. DEHART: I understand that, but I 

was --

DR. TOOHEY: Do we go out and actually 

tell them up front -- oh, you can bring 

people? I don't think so. Jim? 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) We don't 

do that, but we do send them a copy of the 

questions they're going to (Inaudible) in 

advance, so they have the opportunity to go 

over all the questions and talk to as many 

people as they need to (Inaudible) refresh 

their memory (Inaudible) answers 

188 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

(Inaudible). 

DR. TOOHEY: Actually where I mentioned 

that before, if there's a local advocacy 

group, they help this quite a lot. 

DR. DEHART: That's -- that's my point. 

I just wondered if we're encouraging them to 

take that step as we prepare them for 

interview. 

DR. TOOHEY: Not per se. And in fact 

the one problem -- most of -- we're getting 

very few complaints, but most of the ones we 

are, which you've heard before, primarily 

from survivors -- I don't know the answers 

to any of these questions. And again, they 

have the opinion that they have to provide 

the data and their inability to answer these 

questions will adversely affect the dose 

reconstruction. Again, we try to assure 

them no, that's not the case. We rely on 

DOE or other sources to get the data. This 

is just to help us capture anything you 

might have. 

DR. DEHART: It might be worthwhile 

taking the initiative to suggest that there 

-- if there are others -- advocacy groups, 

189 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

coworkers, whatever -- that your father used 

to work for -- work with, maybe you could 

help them -- have them help me go over these 

questions that I know I'm going to ask. 

DR. TOOHEY: Sure. I know there have 

been a number where that has been the case. 

DR. DEHART: I would think that that 

would --that would be helpful, as I think 

over my own past experience it would be 

helpful to have somebody remind me. 

The other question -- I'll wait to see 

if Jim hits it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

DR. MELIUS: The pressure's on. Well, 

I have three -- can I get three, just so I 

have three tries to get your question in. 

My first question is, how long for the 

interviewers -- you talked about their 

training. How long is the telephone skills 

training? 

DR. TOOHEY: You know, off the top of 

my head I don't know that. I'll take a 

whack and say it's at least one hour, maybe 

two. That does include some role-playing, 

practical, back and forth. 

190 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. MELIUS: And how about the DOE 

facilities training? 

DR. TOOHEY: That is, again, two to 

four hours. I can -- I'll find these out 

exactly and get it back to you because all 

these training packages are, you know, 

available. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that would --

DR. TOOHEY: In fact, if you want to 

see the training materials, I can shoot you 

a copy. 

DR. MELIUS: I'd like to see the 

(Inaudible), particularly the one that's 

under review, the process review of 

telephone, once -- I guess once OCAS -- once 

Larry's approved it or whoever has. 

My second question is what percentage 

of the interviews are you listening in on? 

DR. TOOHEY: It's not that high. It's 

only about one percent. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. And my third 

question -- or questions -- relate to how 

you're recording this information when 

there's a problem. You said you had sort of 

a -- fairly -- term used -- poor man's 

191 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

database or --

DR. TOOHEY: Oh, it's a -- it's an 

Excel spreadsheet --

DR. MELIUS: A spreadsheet. 

DR. TOOHEY: -- rather than calling it 

a database. 

DR. MELIUS: How is this dealt with 

systematically? And along with that, there 

seems to me -- and Tony, you may remember 

when we went through this process, there 

were some other points along the line where 

possible problems with the interview could 

be discovered. For example, when the health 

physicist was actually doing the --

DR. TOOHEY: Oh, yeah. 

DR. MELIUS: -- dose reconstruction. 

Well, if that occurs, is that recorded in 

any way --

DR. TOOHEY: Yes. 

DR. MELIUS: -- reviewed, and is there 

any systematic... 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah, that's actually 

captured in what we call our claims tracking 

to where the individual dose reconstructor, 

if they see an issue in the interview report 

192 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that they think they need more information, 

it can kick it back either to try to get 

more information from the claimant or what -

- also what the health physics review within 

task four tries to -- if it looks like it's 

a systemic issue, say an incident report --

do we have anything on this, do we know 

anything about -- they'll kick it over to 

task three, which is the dose reconstruction 

research group to see if there's anything on 

hand already on that or if we need to 

request it. And if it's say a site-wide 

issue, if it's -- needs to be addressed in 

the site profile, so there are feedback 

loops that'll --

DR. MELIUS: Are you -- are you 

capturing those when they occur so there's 

some sort of a review of the overall process 

and a determination that -- to what extent 

these problems might be due to an 

interviewer --

DR. TOOHEY: Uh-huh, yes. 

DR. MELIUS: -- not doing their job; 

secondly, the interview itself not being --

you know, asking the right questions or --

193 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. TOOHEY: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- asking -- being 

misunderstood, et cetera. 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah, so --

DR. MELIUS: And how many times is it, 

you know, due to the -- the -- you know, the 

claimant can't remember, you know, doesn't 

have the information, so forth. Seems to me 

that would be -- if we're ever going to, you 

know, improve and maintain this process 

properly that that kind of information and 

the feedback -- and I guess I was a little 

disturbed that all this was left out of your 

presentation today, if it is occurring. 

DR. TOOHEY: They are all captured. 

DR. MELIUS: And reviewed? Is there a 

report or some way that we -- something we 

could see that would illustrate that? 

DR. TOOHEY: I don't see why not. 

DR. ZIEMER: I guess that's a yes. 

DR. TOOHEY: Well, okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

DR. MELIUS: Well, since he doesn't --

since -- have any details, I'm not sure what 

I'm asking for, but whatever you have, I 

194 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

guess I'd like to look at. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Roy? 

DR. DEHART: Dr. Melius touched on what 

my second question, as I thought he might. 

I would broaden the question. You have QA 

throughout the whole process that you were 

describing, what you're looking for and 

checking. I think we would like to see the 

data dump on that. In other words, how many 

times are you checking QA item number one 

and what's the results of that. You 

indicated that you're looking at it, but you 

didn't mention that you're doing it 50 

percent, 100 percent, or there's a concern 

in management. 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure that was a 

specific question, but it was a 

clarification, certainly. Did you have --

DR. DEHART: The question would be to 

acquire the data so that we could see it. 

DR. TOOHEY: Basically you want some 

data mining --

DR. DEHART: Yes. 

DR. TOOHEY: -- out of that database. 

DR. DEHART: Sure. 

195 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Dr. Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: In doing your QA and 

looking at consistency of interviews across 

the board, I could picture these people who 

are doing this day in and day out maybe 

getting kind of bored or tired at the end of 

the day or at the end of the week or at 3:00 

o'clock when you need a cup of coffee. Have 

you seen any kind of pattern and, if so, 

what -- what do you do about it? 

DR. TOOHEY: Actually we haven't. The 

pattern has evolved that some people have 

said I've had enough of this, I want to do 

closeout interviews. And other interviewers 

have said no, I really enjoy this, I want to 

keep doing this. And we've winnowed out the 

ineffective interviewers. Fortunately 

there's only been one or two on that since 

we started. I expected we would need a 

revolving door on the CATI facility when we 

built it. Nobody's -- two people out of the 

30-odd have quit in the almost -- well, year 

and a half we've been working this. So they 

enjoy what they're doing and the -- the 

review of the draft interview report, you 

196 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

know, the questions have been answered and 

filled in properly, the -- you know, 

checklists are -- have been used and marked 

off. It's there. So we haven't really 

noticed much slippage in quality, and I'm 

just as amazed as you are. 

DR. DOOLEY: Dick, I just wanted to add 

one thing to Dr. Melius's question. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, you'll need to 

identify for the --

DR. DOOLEY: Yes, Dave Dooley with the 

MJW Corporation. We actually take about 

three weeks to get a CATI interviewer up to 

speed. Yeah, there is formal training of an 

hour or two, but before they're up and on 

their own and on their own, it takes about 

three weeks to get them up and trained 

before they're doing interviews on their 

own, so it's not -- it's a little bit more 

than a one-hour process. 

DR. MELIUS: Thank you, that --

DR. TOOHEY: Well, the -- actually the 

formal training's about two days on 

everything, and then we'll give you that. 

But then the on-the-job training does extend 

197 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

over a couple of weeks before they're turned 

loose. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark and then Robert. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- a couple of 

questions, and the first one's a little 

broader. I was just curious how -- from the 

-- from the cases that you've completed, the 

dose reconstructions you've completed, have 

you found interview data generally to be 

useful, to be -- to influence the dose 

reconstructions? 

DR. TOOHEY: The -- we -- well, when we 

do a triage or maybe a biage (sic), if it's 

a survivor claim, generally you get very 

little, if anything, useful. When the 

interview is with the Energy employee 

themselves, what -- the primary thing that 

we've captured and have used in dose 

reconstruction have been incident reports. 

As -- a lot of times incident reports are 

not in the DOE submittal, even though 

they're requested, because at some sites 

they're filed separately. You have the 

workers' radiation monitoring data, which is 

sent in. But any incidents that worker was 

198 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

in, they're filed completely separately and 

they're not cross-indexed. And a lot of the 

reports aren't -- don't even have worker 

names. It's worker A, worker B, worker C in 

this incident report. So what we do from 

the worker is get, you know, date, location, 

type of incident as best we can, and then 

with as much information as we have, we send 

a supplemental request to the site for an 

incident report on that. Or in some cases 

we may already have it. We go through the 

database. Yeah, but there have been a 

number of those where incident reports have 

then been found and added into the dose 

reconstruction. I can't tell you what 

percentage off the top of my head, but that 

-- that's the primary thing we get that 

influences the dose reconstruction, aside 

from what I'll call DOL type data, which is 

employment history or cancer diagnosis. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And then have you 

-- I think I might have brought this up 

earlier. I probably did bring this up at 

another meeting, but have you developed any 

sort of templates for the interviewers that 

199 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

might assist them in site-specific 

terminology? I know we talked about a sitespecific addenda questionnaire which was out 

of the question because of OMB process --

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- but -- the reason I 

ask this is because these people don't know 

isotopes, generally speaking, but they do 

know trade names or -- or code names or 

things like that --

DR. TOOHEY: (Inaudible) 

MR. GRIFFON: -- right, exactly. 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah, we do have a 

glossary of that. It's not -- it's sort of 

complex-wide. It's not site-specific. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So they -- they do 

know those. 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah, it's basically the 

terminology --

MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 

DR. TOOHEY: -- familiarization for the 

interviewers. 

MR. GRIFFON: And that is not included 

in any way with the questionnaire to trigger 

their memories or anything like that --

200 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 -- 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

probably not. 

DR. TOOHEY: No. 

MR. GRIFFON: No. Okay. And I think 

this might be my final question. Are you 

looking at this data in aggregate in any 

way? Are you looking -- are you putting the 

questionnaires into any kind of database and 

looking -- by site? For instance if, you 

know, I'm -- I'm going to the coworkers 

step. I don't know --

DR. TOOHEY: Oh, for site trends. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- if this is being --

DR. TOOHEY: Not yet. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, for site trends or 

DR. TOOHEY: Not yet, but that's on the 

agenda. 

MR. GRIFFON: On the hor-- okay. 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah, because -- you know, 

when we discuss using coworker data, there's 

really two sets; these huge volumes of site 

data gathered for previous epidemiology 

studies, and then there's the dose 

reconstruction data for claimants from the 

site. We're building that -- I think now we 

201 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

call it the job exposure matrix off the 

completed dose reconstructions, which 

includes those interviews. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. TOOHEY: But you know, a couple of 

thousand finals on hand, we haven't really 

started mining that yet to look for site 

trends. 

MR. GRIFFON: All right. And one -- I 

think one final question. Do you do any 

kind of classification description at the 

front of your interview? 

DR. TOOHEY: We don't initiate it. 

Many times the worker will say well, I can't 

discuss this; it's classified. And we have 

a script for the interviewer to follow which 

is well, none of the questions we're going 

to be asking should involve classified data. 

If you feel the information you want to give 

us is classified, then we make arrangements 

for a face-to-face interview by a cleared 

person in a secure facility. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

DR. TOOHEY: We have done dozens of 

those. 

202 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. GRIFFON: The other -- the other 

thing, my experience is that it was helpful 

for us to have -- we actually had 

classification people from the sites come in 

and do this and tell group -- groups that we 

were interviewing that, you know, you worked 

here 30, 40 years ago. Classification rules 

have changed, a lot of things have been 

declassified, and you can talk about these. 

DR. TOOHEY: Well --

MR. GRIFFON: Otherwise they may never 

tell you on the interview --

DR. TOOHEY: Exactly. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- but they're storing 

this information and --

DR. TOOHEY: Well, and we found that in 

the supposedly classified interviews we've 

done that then those reports are reviewed by 

-- by an ADC on the site and there, to date, 

have not been any classified data actually 

provided by claimants. But as you say, in 

the intervening 30, 40 years, it's been 

declassified. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. My point is to --

to --

203 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- I guess in sort of a 

more proactive way to sort of say it's okay 

to talk about most of this stuff or -- or --

I don't know how --

DR. TOOHEY: I don't think I'm going to 

stick my neck out that way, but I'll be glad 

to, you know, let OCAS arrange it with DOE. 

See, the one problem with that --

MR. GRIFFON: I understand. 

DR. TOOHEY: -- yeah, and we have 

discussed this, is -- as you well know --

it's site-specific. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. TOOHEY: And then of course trying 

to do it generically just -- just doesn't 

work. 

DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

MR. PRESLEY: Dr. Toohey, when the 

OCAS-1 form goes out -- we've heard two or 

three people state today that the claimants 

or people that are filling in for the 

claimants don't understand what they're 

getting. Is there a letter that goes out, 

an explanation letter that goes out with 

204 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that that would explain to these people 

exactly what this is and what to do with it? 

DR. TOOHEY: I'm going to pass that one 

to my colleague, Dr. Neton. I think so, but 

I honestly don't remember. 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Yes, 

there's -- there's a letter that goes out 

that explains exactly that (Inaudible) --

UNIDENTIFIED: Jim, you're mike's not 

working. Turn the mike on. 

DR. NETON: Oh, I'm sorry. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 

DR. NETON: Yes, there is a letter that 

goes out with the -- with the OCAS-1 form 

and the draft dose reconstruction report 

that essentially says that they are not 

signing that they agree, that it is they are 

done providing us information, or something 

to that effect. It's in there. 

MR. PRESLEY: Okay. Thank you, Jim. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, two quick follow-up 

questions and one Jim Neton may talk about 

later, so it's not appropriate. That's this 

whole -- this incidents database which is 

not, as I understood from our last meeting, 

205 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

is not part of the site profiles but there's 

this series of documents -- database that 

you're keeping, so forth. I'm assuming that 

if during the interview you discover 

incidents that aren't part of the site 

profile or not recorded, that gets referred 

into this system? 

DR. TOOHEY: Yes. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

DR. TOOHEY: When we hear about an 

incident from a claimant, the first thing to 

do is we look and see if we've already got 

the report. If we don't, we go ask DOE for 

it. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

DR. TOOHEY: If they can't provide it, 

then we've -- you know, try to follow a 

thread, dig a little bit deeper to find out 

what -- what actually happened. And 

sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. 

DR. MELIUS: But is there any way of 

recording -- well, what if you can't find 

it? Is it still recorded in this incidents 

database in a way that -- what if, you know, 

another claimant mentions the same -- you 

206 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

know, you start to see a pattern or 

something? 

DR. TOOHEY: The fact that the claimant 

refers to it is captured. If it -- if it's 

not in the database, we know what we've 

asked for, so if we know we can't get it 

from DOE and it forms a pattern, yeah, that 

gets kicked back to dose reconstruction 

research, the people who do the site 

profiles. And say hey, look at this and 

come up with it. The problem is, most of 

what the workers could provide us would not 

be adequate data to support a dose 

reconstruction. They may be able to tell 

you the isotope, but not how much, the form 

-- you know, duration, things like that. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Don't forget we also have 

an affidavit approach that could be employed 

here. 

DR. TOOHEY: Yeah. 

MR. ELLIOTT: And once you have an 

affidavit and you verify the reasonability 

of it, then that I think is also added to 

the incident reporting. 

DR. TOOHEY: Yes. 

207 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

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

figure out what this -- this extra database 

is and how it fits with the site profile, so 

if Jim talks about it later or as you 

develop it, if you want to brief us on it at 

another meeting, that's the most efficient 

way, that's fine. 

My last -- just really a comment to 

follow up on Roy's first question, this idea 

of referring people to some of the advocacy 

or representational groups around, I think 

that would be particularly helpful for 

survivors beforehand because, you know, 

again, they don't all live in the area, you 

know, there or they may not have -- have the 

contacts and so forth. And I've certainly 

been impressed at -- both up here in Buffalo 

but many other sites that we've been at at 

how helpful and knowledgeable these people 

can be in helping, you know, determine what 

happened to people, where people worked and 

so forth. And I think having them referred 

to some of these groups prior to the 

interviews may actually help make those 

interviews more worthwhile and -- and 

208 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

helpful, you know. He wor-- you know, my 

father worked with this group or -- or 

whatever. It may be more useful. 

DR. TOOHEY: Let me add that we're 

starting to see some of that come back from 

the worker outreach program where we're 

presenting the site profiles to organized 

labor and -- and where there is no remaining 

organized labor entity, we can address 

assorted stakeholders. 

DR. MELIUS: And then I'm just thinking 

if there's the survivors living, you know, 

1,000 miles away, at least they could refer 

them -- they may not have direct access or 

hear -- read about it in the newspaper or 

whatever, but at least would be referred and 

could be helpful to them. 

DR. TOOHEY: Actually we've got kind of 

an initiative to work on that. Vern 

McDougal*, who's working with us and has 

good union representative -- a lot of the 

unions of course have their retiree 

organizations and mailing lists, and we're 

exploring ways to help that get some of the 

word out. 

209 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. MELIUS: Okay, good. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mike, you had a comment, 

question? 

MR. GIBSON: These incident reports 

that you go back to DOE or -- they're 

generated by the contractor, most of the 

time --

DR. TOOHEY: Yes. 

MR. GIBSON: -- and with the inception 

of Price Anderson -- I mean these fines and 

everything else -- these contractors 

vigorously try to downplay the incident and 

the extent of the incident, the isotopes 

involved, so how are you depending on that 

information that you may get from them as 

being -- trying to develop a worst-case dose 

estimate? 

DR. TOOHEY: Well, once I know the 

isotope and I know something about the 

characteristics of the incident and the 

process, I can start making some brackets 

for worst case. But I would also remind you 

that the worst-case situation is primarily 

applicable to a case that's likely to be 

non-compensable, so we're going to give them 

210 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

a maximum dose assessment. Other cases we 

want to actually give them the best estimate 

of the dose, and that takes more digging. 

And like every other part of this, the DOE 

submittal is only part of what we have to 

consider. There may be independent reviews 

of claimant input, coworker input and other 

things like that. And we just take 

everything into account and do the best we 

can. 

DR. ZIEMER: Rich, originally we --

when we learned that you were doing some 

sort of quality assurance on the telephone 

interviews -- because we've had an ongoing 

interest in exactly how those were 

progressing and so on -- I think that led to 

this presentation today. It's -- it's an 

evolving process, obviously, that you're 

developing the QA/QC parts of this. And we 

ourselves will probably end up doing some 

independent evaluations through our audit 

approach. But there's been several items 

that have sort of been asked for here. I'd 

like to -- rather than having many 

individuals on the Board ask you to provide 

211 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

different pieces of things, I'd like to try 

to pin down what it is the Board feels they 

need as we go forward, in terms of 

additional information. I think several 

things have been alluded to, and just so we 

have it in the record and agree to whatever 

that we can kind of pin that down and say 

okay, these things the Board needs or -- or 

if we don't think we need them, we can say 

so, but... 

DR. TOOHEY: I'm ready to copy. 

DR. ZIEMER: And -- yeah, I think Jim 

mentioned some things, maybe Roy did and 

maybe others. 

DR. MELIUS: I was just going to 

suggest maybe procedurally if we could 

reactivate that working group that met 

'cause I mean I have my notes from that that 

might help us -- I mean, Tony, you -- you --

DR. ZIEMER: Was that your working 

group on interviews? 

DR. MELIUS: On interviews, and if we 

interact with -- with whoever, Larry and 

(Inaudible), I think we could probably pull 

together a request and it just might be more 

212 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

efficient than trying to go through a list -

- list here, and I think -- certainly I --

I'd certainly be willing to do that if 

that's a -- would help move this along. 

DR. ZIEMER: We can certainly do that. 

I don't recall who was on that working 

group, actually. Tony was? 

DR. MELIUS: Tony and I, Richard I 

think --

MR. ESPINOSA: Don't volunteer me. I 

wasn't on that group. I don't believe I 

was. 

DR. ROESSLER: Was it Wanda? 

DR. MELIUS: I can't -- I don't --

we'll find it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, it does not 

necessarily have to be those same 

individuals if -- if two or three of you 

want to agree to go back and develop some 

items that you think we need to see. It'll 

be one thing to say, you know, out of 

general interest, but some specific things 

that would be helpful to us in evaluating or 

even just saying what might we suggest that 

they consider. We don't -- you know, I 

213 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

think we can talk about what they might 

consider as they go forward, also, that 

might be helpful to their QA/QC process. 

DR. MELIUS: The reason I think -- I 

suggested the working group is that we -- it 

went through and developed a sort of a list 

of steps in the process and -- and what the 

QA/QC procedures that were either in place 

or were planned for those different steps. 

And I think -- I think they made a 

significant amount of progress --

DR. ZIEMER: And perhaps just look at 

those and --

DR. MELIUS: Exactly --

DR. ZIEMER: -- sort of lay it side by 

side and --

DR. MELIUS: I don't think this has to 

be a very onerous or lengthy task, but I 

just think it would be more efficient than 

try -- 'cause I frankly can't remember all 

the things --

DR. ZIEMER: And I don't, either. 

Tony, did you want to comment on that? 

DR. ANDRADE: I just wanted to 

congratulate Richard and -- and the 

214 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Associated Universities with the work they 

have done in that I believe they've 

implemented just about every suggestion that 

we did come up with in the working group, 

and perhaps even more. 

However, now that this data collection 

process has really come together, I think in 

general what we would like to see are the 

trends, the issues and the things that come 

out from looking -- from analyzing the data, 

so that the data itself is probably 

meaningless if -- you know, if it's 

displayed on the screen, but those things 

that are -- that have been discovered and 

those things that have come to light as a 

result I think in general are what Jim and I 

would suggest for a future meeting. 

DR. TOOHEY: I think I probably have in 

my files what I think was a draft report of 

that working group that we started to work 

on, then that got dropped for some reason 

and very -- we went on to other things and -

-

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think it got 

dropped 'cause you were in -- we presented 

215 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

it at a meeting, discussed it and a lot of 

stuff was being implemented so it didn't 

make sense to --

DR. ZIEMER: Right, and the working 

group was ad hoc and in that sense this does 

not have to be the same identical group. 

Are the two of you volunteering to 

participate? 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: Let's get one more person 

-- Wanda? The three of you then constitute 

the working group. Who -- do you want to 

take the lead, Jim, and the three of you 

develop a report for us at the next meeting 

then and we'll --

DR. MELIUS: That would be --

DR. ZIEMER: And if you would -- now 

I'll simply ask you to review what we looked 

at before and review what ORAU has been 

doing, and kind of do a side-by-side and if 

there's some -- some gaps that we think 

would be helpful for them to address, that's 

fine, too. Again, I don't think we want to 

necessarily be in the business of laying out 

their QA/QC program, but we want to see what 

216 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

it is telling us. Okay. And if there's 

some things that could be mined from the 

data, that would be great. Okay. So that -

- those three will constitute a -- an ad hoc 

working group to address this issue. 

Are there any further comments for Dr. 

Toohey? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Richard, thank you 

very much. We appreciate --

DR. TOOHEY: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- as usual your good 

report to us. 

Now we're well past our break time but 

we will take our 15 minutes. 

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.) 

DR. ZIEMER: I'd like to call the 

meeting back to order. Before we take our 

next agenda item, we have with us today one 

individual member of the public who wishes 

to address the Board and who will not be 

able to be here this evening. That 

individual is Fred Stockwell. Fred is with 

a group called Steelworkers Organization of 

Active Retirees, or SOAR, and he's going to 

217 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

soar up to the microphone there. Would we 

be better to use a lapel mike for Fred? 

UNIDENTIFIED: I think we can do --

DR. ZIEMER: Can do it there, okay. 

Fred, welcome. 

MR. STOCKWELL: Thank you for this 

opportunity to speak today. I was a steel 

worker for 38 years at the Bethlehem Steel 

plant. I am presently the president of the 

Steelworkers Organization of Active 

Retirees, the acronym is SOAR. I understand 

that for some reason they discounted the 

South Buffalo Railroad and said -- oh, she's 

going to pass these out to you there, I 

hope. I don't have a lot of them. I didn't 

realize there were that many people here 

today, so if she will pass them to the Board 

members. 

My father-in-law worked for the South 

Buffalo Railroad. He went there in 1936 and 

died of cancer in 19-- in the early '60's. 

And I'm wondering what happened here, why 

did they discount him? He died of liver 

cancer. Now the South Buffalo Railroad is a 

wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bethlehem 

218 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Steel Corporation. It is not a contractor 

(Inaudible). Their property was on the 

Bethlehem Steel Property at the Lackawanna 

plant. No other railroad could come into 

the Bethlehem Steel plant, the Lackawanna 

plant. They brought everything in and they 

had no cabooses. 

Some people think conductors 

(Inaudible) have cabooses. Well, they don't 

have cabooses. They either rode the engine 

or they rode the car as they were bringing 

them in, and they brought all the steel up 

to the open (Inaudible) or the blast 

furnace, wherever it was coming -- going to, 

and that's what came in from the ra-- for 

the radiation with all the radiation on it. 

And so I'm not sure exactly why they 

discontinued that because there probably are 

other South Buffalo people that have been 

discontinued. And I know that there are 

other Bethlehem Steel workers that have just 

been -- not really discontinued, but we 

don't know too much about this. 

I have filed -- oh, three or four years 

ago when this came out, and I never heard 

219 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

anything from anybody about this at all. 

Nobody ever said Fred, you're rejected. And 

at that time I did mention my father-inlaw's name, and nobody ever said he was 

rejected. Well, the last meeting that I was 

out at in (Inaudible) Park, that's where I 

found out that they had literally discon--

this said that the South Buffalo Railroad is 

not part of -- was a contractor. They -- I 

don't have all the information with me 

because it is -- I'm getting more and more 

and I'm sending it to Annette and Annette is 

getting it, and I've talked to the union 

district four office and they have many 

cases of a thing that show that they were 

negotiating with them for the Bethlehem 

Steel or the pensions and everything else. 

I have one copy of the book, but I think 

it's important that we get -- why did they 

just not -- or why did they say that the 

South Buffalo Railroad was not part of the 

industry there. Their Buffalo tank was 

there, South Buffa-- now these are 

subsidiary -- wholly-owned subsidiaries, and 

I don't know what happened to all them 

220 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

books. 

Apparently -- I was hoping to give them 

to you people and I have one copy of that so 

unfortunately that's what happened. They 

were supposed to go up to the front table 

there. We can make more if you want them. 

If you let me know that you would like them, 

I certainly will get them for you. There's 

interesting part -- this is from the Courier 

Express, 1967 edition, and they did quite a 

number on the South Buffalo Railroad. I 

think that picture on the front page -- I 

think that's a posed picture. You'll never 

see an engine that close to that much fire. 

That's kind of a no-no, but anyhow, they are 

the people that moved the steel in and out 

of the plant. No other railroad could do 

anything in the plant, that was it. So that 

is what I came to speak about and we'll see 

where it goes from there. Thank you very 

much. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, and I 

-- am I correct in assuming that the -- at 

least the Department of Labor has this 

information or are looking into that? 

221 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Inaudible) 

MR. ELLIOTT: You need to come to the 

mike, please. 

DR. ZIEMER: Please use the mike. 

(Ina

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

udible) 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Turn it 

on. 

MS. PRINDLE: Annette Prindle, district 

director in the Cleveland district office. 

I have the information that Fred has 

submitted and I just got the last of it last 

week, so I will submit that to our national 

office. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. 

MS. PRINDLE: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: So there'll be some 

follow-up that will occur, Fred. Thank you. 

MR. STOCKWELL: Thank you very much. 

SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT RULE 

DR. ZIEMER: The next item on our 

agenda is the presentation on the Special 

Exposure Cohort rule, and Ted Katz is going 

222 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to lead us through that. Ted? 

MR. KATZ: Hello -- hello? Is this 

working? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members 

of the Board. I was speaking with Genevieve 

before this session and she suggested I 

raise for y'all a possibility which is --

this presentation is discuss-- focused on 

discussing changes from the last notice of 

proposed rulemaking that you reviewed to the 

final rule. I know it's been a while, 

though, since you reviewed the notice of 

proposed rulemaking and the previous -- even 

though you spent a lot of time on this rule 

over the last couple of years, it's been a 

while since you've been looking at this 

material. So if you'd like, I can sort of 

give you a thumbnail sketch of the overall 

rule, the requirements and so on before I go 

into the issues of what we changed and why, 

if -- if there are a number of you that 

think that that would be useful. If you 

don't want me to spend the time, though, 

I'll just launch right into the change 

issues as I've prepared. It's up to --

DR. ZIEMER: Any objection to the 

223 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

overview? 

MR. ESPINOSA: I was just kind of 

wondering if you have maybe a red-lined 

copy? 

MR. KATZ: No, I don't. 

DR. ZIEMER: Why don't you proceed --

any objection to having the overview and --

DR. MELIUS: This will still leave time 

for questions? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

MR. KATZ: I can -- but Rich, I can 

certainly -- I'm not -- I don't think we'll 

have time in this session. I can certainly 

-- at another time I can go through the rule 

at that level, if you'd like. I mean if --

if the Board would like --

DR. ZIEMER: But you're going to point 

out the differences --

MR. KATZ: Yeah, I'm going to point out 

the major differences here, but I understand 

what Rich is saying, and if -- if you'd like 

a more detailed treatment, you know, that's 

something I'd -- we won't have time to do in 

this session. 

Okay. So just one other thing to 

224 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

mention, which is this slide presentation is 

slightly different from the version that's 

handed out, if all of you have that. I've 

fussed with it a little bit just to pull 

things together and add some things that I 

had left out. 

So let me just then go about the basics 

of the rule and so on as it stands and the 

requirements for it. I'm going to add more 

to -- than what we have here, but EEOICPA 

has two basic requirements for HHS for us to 

add a class to the Special Exposure Cohort. 

One, we have to find -- this is a reminder, 

but we have to find that it's not feasible 

to estimate doses with sufficient accuracy 

and just -- in shorthand I talk about it's 

not feasible to do dose reconstructions in 

my presentations. And secondly, that 

there's a reasonable likelihood that the 

radiation dose is -- may have endangered the 

health of members of the class. So those 

are sort of substantive requirements in 

EEOICPA that we have to address to be able 

to add a class to the cohort. 

In addition there are sort of three 

225 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

important procedural requirements that we 

have to address, one being that to initiate 

the process of considering a class, we need 

a petition from that class. And the second 

being that the Board has an opportunity to 

provide advice on the addition or nonaddition of a class in response to a 

petition. And thirdly, that once a 

decision is made, if a decision is made by 

the Secretary of Health and Human Services 

to add a class to the cohort that Congress 

has a 180-day period to consider that 

decision, to expedite it within that period, 

to reverse it, what have you. And these are 

all -- again, these are all requirements of 

EEOICPA, not things that NIOSH formulated. 

So going from there then, you know, the 

NIOSH rule, just in an overview sense, does 

the following things. One, it -- it puts 

together procedures for implementing all the 

statutory requirements that I just 

described. It also establishes the 

requirements for who's an eligible 

petitioner and the contents of a petition. 

And I think the -- we've made the 

226 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

requirements of an eligible petitioner 

exceptionally broad, I think. It's hard to 

think of how anyone is left out, according 

to those requirements. In terms of contents 

of the petition, we've made, you know, the 

bar exceptionally I think low in the sense 

that -- that really what petitioners are 

doing is simply having sufficient 

information to indicate there might be a 

concern about a class, it should be 

considered to be added to the cohort. It is 

not the burden of the petitioners to make 

the case that a class should be added. 

That's really the burden of the whole 

evaluation process. All they're doing is 

bringing to the attention of NIOSH, this 

Board and the Secretary of Health and Human 

Services classes that need that 

consideration. And then it provides 

procedural -- sort of procedural rights to 

the petitioners throughout the process. 

Let me just then summarize the process 

as it is in the final rule very shortly, and 

then I'll get into what we've changed. 

So the process begins -- the 

227 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

petitioning process begins with getting a 

petition from a class, and that's from any 

parties -- the eligible parties or either 

members of the class, employees themselves 

or their survivors, or unions that represent 

or represented members of that class, or a 

representative that members of the class or 

their survivors empower to represent them 

and submit a petition on the behalf of the 

class. Those are the sort of three 

categories of petitioners. 

They submit a petition. It comes to 

NIOSH, and the first thing NIOSH does is 

determine whether the petition meets the 

basic requirements -- again, the low bar I 

expressed -- for receiving full 

consideration of NIOSH, the Board and 

Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

That is a -- as it's laid out in the rule 

and in more detail in procedures that we've 

-- internal procedures that are available 

through our web site for how we're going to 

handle this. You know, that is a process 

that involves working with the petitioners -

- NIOSH working with the petitioners and 

228 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

helping them address those requirements. 

And then NIOSH makes a proposed finding 

as to whether the petition ultimately then 

meets those requirements for being 

considered. If it does, it goes on to the 

next step. If it doesn't, the petitioners 

have an opportunity to request an 

administrative review of that decision, that 

find-- proposed finding. And that review 

would be run by the director of NIOSH and it 

would involve individuals independent of the 

OCAS process of making the determination in 

the first place. 

Okay, so then on to the next step. So 

then NIOSH has decided now that a petition 

meets the requirements and deserves 

evaluation. The next step is for NIOSH to 

do its evaluation of the petition according 

to these two criteria -- address whether or 

not it's feasible; and if so, make 

determinations about health endangerment for 

that class. And just -- well, I'll get into 

details of that actually in doing the 

comparison, so I won't run through those 

now. 

229 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

At the end of that process, NIOSH 

produces an evaluation report that goes to 

the Board and the Board will hold a session 

or sessions to address that petition. The 

Board will -- the petitioners will be 

invited to present -- this is part of their 

petitioning rights -- to present their views 

to the Board on the NIOSH evaluation which 

they'll receive, as well as on their 

petition. The Board will do its 

deliberation, considering all this 

information and other information it deems 

appropriate and will make a recommendation, 

its advice, to the Secretary as to what 

should become of the petition. 

I need to step back a second. NIOSH --

in its evaluation, it could -- it could, as 

a result of one petition, advise that there 

be -- a class be added to the cohort, that 

there be a class not added to the cohort, or 

both. I mean 'cause there could be multiple 

decisions. We could have received a 

petition that in fact when you do the 

research, you find there may be some 

members, there may be some class for which 

230 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

you can't do dose reconstructions and other 

members for which there's sufficient 

information to do dose reconstructions, so 

there could be multiple decisions. 

The Board then gives its advice, and 

then the next step is to have a proposed HHS 

decision and the director of NIOSH would 

issue that proposed decision as to whether 

to add one or more classes, to not add 

classes, so on. 

Then the petitioners have the 

opportunity to seek an administrative review 

if we decide not to add a class to the 

cohort, or if we make a determination about 

health endangerment that would, in effect, 

potentially exclude someone from being a 

member of the class in either of those 

cases. So any sort of adverse -- adverse 

result, they would have the opportunity to 

seek administrative review. 

At the conclusion of that process, or 

if there is no request, you move straight to 

it, the Secretary makes a determination. If 

the Secretary decides to add classes as 

required by EEOICPA, that determination goes 

231 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

into a report to Congress and Congress then 

has its 180 days to review that decision or 

act on it beforehand what it may do. And 

then at the end of that whole process, NIOSH 

will report out the results. 

And there's actually reporting 

throughout the process to the petitioners 

and to the Board on the steps along the way. 

So that's just a short of nutshell of the 

rule. 

Now let me -- unless there are any 

questions about the general, let me get into 

what has -- what we've changed from the 

second notice of proposed rulemaking that 

you reviewed a year ago -- spring. 

Okay, so in the second notice of 

proposed rulemaking our feasibility test was 

that if we had sufficient -- access to 

sufficient information to estimate the 

maximum radiation doses that could have been 

incurred in plausible circumstances by any 

member of the class. That was the basic 

test for feasibility. In addition, we had 

provisions -- in some circumstances 

feasibility could be cancer site-specific 

232 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

and hence cancer-specific. We had 

provisions so that we could determine that 

it's not feasible to do dose reconstructions 

only for individuals with certain cancers 

and to hence add a class to the cohort that 

would be cancer-specific, limited to certain 

cancers. 

So the Board's advice in response to 

that proposal was to admit these provisions 

that would allow HHS to add a class limited 

to certain cancers -- the cancer-specific 

classes, as they've been referred to -- and 

also to develop guidelines on how NIOSH 

would determine feasibility, implementation 

guidelines. 

The public's comments on feasibility --

well, I mean, the popularity contest was won 

on this issue of omitting cancer-specific 

provisions. We -- we heard this from almost 

all commenters, and a lot of commenters felt 

that this was -- this is really sort of --

would be too much of an inequity that --

that classes that we add would be cancerspecific when the classes that were 

established by Congress aren't limited to 

233 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

particular cancers except for that they're 

limited to the 22 cancers that Congress 

specified under EEOICPA. 

They also recommended in public 

comments -- for example, a time limit on 

dose reconstructions as a feasibility test, 

a cost limit on dose reconstructions, 

deficiency or absence of records as a test, 

and they also -- public commenters asked for 

additional details in the rule or in 

guidelines regarding feasibility. 

The final rule on feasibility -- the 

changes from the second notice of proposed 

rulemaking, we accepted the comment to 

eliminate the cancer-specific provisions. 

They're gone and the rule is very clear that 

there is no cancer specificity in these 

determinations. 

We also made a lot of clarifications. 

Clarification about the -- clarify the 

feasibility determination for petitionerclaimants for whom NIOSH cannot complete a 

dose reconstruction. This is -- again, if 

NIOSH has attempted to do a dose 

reconstruction for someone and cannot 

234 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

complete it, the idea from the inception was 

that that would be a sufficient basis to 

determine it's not feasible to do dose 

reconstructions for a class involving that 

individual -- involving that individual --

you know, the circumstances of that 

individual. And there was some 

misunderstanding, though, particularly in 

public comments, about whether that really 

applied, so we made it very explicit in the 

rule that there's no further determination 

required with respect to feasibility. 

We also clarified the limited role of 

maximum dose determinations and the process 

information -- and clarified that process 

information may be necessary. What that's 

about is the rule, as it was written before, 

would have had us determining whether we 

could estimate maximum doses in every case. 

However, we certainly expect we'll get 

petitions in cases where we actually have 

loads of data, and we're not talking about 

doing maximum dose estimates but we're doing 

very specific, very precise dose 

reconstructions, relatively speaking. And 

235 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

in those cases, you know, there'd be no 

point in proving that you can do maximum 

doses. The point is to prove that you can 

do dose reconstructions, so... 

We also clarified that NIOSH must have 

some information from the site where the 

employees worked, and this relates to a 

statutory provision relating to probability 

of causation determinations that sort of --

in a -- in a sort of deductive sense 

requires that you have some information from 

the site to do a dose reconstruction. 

Now as I said, we have internal 

procedures, as well, to flesh out how we 

will actually go about the dose 

reconstruction process. There are step-bystep procedures that our folks inside will 

use to do these -- I mean -- I'm sorry, to 

do these evaluations of petitions, and as I 

explained, it's a very abbreviated process 

in a case where we've done -- attempted a 

dose reconstruction and couldn't do it. But 

for all other petitions -- I mean the place 

we will start, because we're trying to be 

very efficient in how we handle these 

236 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

petitions, considering that we may get many 

petitions and they're likely to require a 

lot of work in any event. But we'll first 

go to our dose reconstructions that are 

complete or ongoing to see if we have the 

evidence there to address the feasibility 

issues that are raised by the petition. 

And then the next step is if those 

existing dose reconstructions, if there are 

any, are not determinative on the issues, 

then we go according to the hierarchical 

approach that you use also for dose 

reconstructions, which gives preference to 

personal dosimetry information. And then 

the second order of information would be 

area monitoring and the third order would be 

source term process information. So we'll 

follow that same hierarchy in evaluating 

feasibility. 

Oh, we have also a number of provisions 

-- other provisions for timely consideration 

of petition. One -- and this is also in the 

rule, as well as the procedures -- the OCAS 

director may determine that 

records/information is not or will not be 

237 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

available on a timely basis. So even if the 

-- if records exist, if they can't be 

accessed in a timely basis, the director of 

OCAS could make a determination, and in 

effect you would treat it as if the records 

didn't exist. 

Second, we're -- the evaluations that 

NIOSH does will be limited to address the 

feasibility issues identified by the 

petition and those required to demonstrate 

feasibility. And what we're trying to say 

here is this -- this is not going to be --

can't be, for us to efficiently deal with 

petitions, a fishing expedition in terms of 

evaluating the petition. So the issues --

the feasibility issues that the petitioners 

raise will be addressed, but you know, just 

to give you an example, you know, if you 

have a petition covering an enormous time 

span, an enormous number of operations and 

so on, and the petition issues are specific 

and limited, we wouldn't be fishing for 

other issues there may be to feasibility 

that one wouldn't know, haven't been raised 

as suspect, and so on on our own. 

238 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

And the third is the petitioner issues 

that are not critical for determining 

feasibility may be addressed separately if 

they would substantially delay consideration 

of the petition. This is just to say that 

if -- if we can make determinations about 

feasibility but the petitioner raises some 

issues that don't impair our ability to do 

dose reconstruction but they are issues 

about, for example, the quality of 

monitoring or what have you, we will address 

those issues but, you know, we'll bifurcate 

that so the petition process can move on if 

-- if it would require a lot of time, if 

it's going to require months to address 

those issues and they're not determinative. 

So the second test -- again, if 

feasibility's the first, second is health 

endangerment. In the second NPRM we limited 

determination to an employment duration 

requirement for exposed employees. We used 

the same 250-day requirement that applies 

presently for the employees of the gaseous 

diffusion plants -- that's our default. But 

we also allowed for HHS to specify presence 

239 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

as sufficient in cases -- discrete incidents 

of exposure in which doses were likely to 

have been exceptionally high. 

The Board -- you -- advised us on 

health endangerment -- you recommended that 

employees be credited for days of employment 

within separate classes if necessary to meet 

the 250 work days criterion. In other 

words, if an employee worked 150 days in one 

class that's in the cohort and 100 days in 

another class, combine those days and that 

would still meet the health endangerment 

requirement. 

And the public comments on health 

endangerment, there weren't that many. One 

was to allow -- again, just as the Board 

recommended -- employees aggregate the days 

of employment within separate classes. And 

a second comment was to waive the 250-day 

requirement for operations that lasted fewer 

than 250 days. So this is what we did. 

We added a provision, as you 

recommended, to allow employees to qualify 

as a member of the class by aggregating 

employment among classes included in the 

240 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

cohort. This includes classes that we add, 

as well as the classes that exist already --

or the class that exists already -- classes. 

And we covered that second issue that I 

just raised. Operations that last fewer 

than 250 days would be covered by this same 

provision. It would give in effect equal 

treatment to all employees, so if someone is 

in a short-term operation, that class can 

still meet the requirements to be added to 

the cohort, and that employee had worked at 

another -- at another SEC site, that 

employee would -- would qualify. It puts 

everyone on the same level here. 

DR. ZIEMER: But not by itself. 

MR. KATZ: Not by itself, no. Not 

within -- they have to have worked 250 days, 

unless we find that there's exceptionally 

high exposure and simply presence would be 

sufficient, in which case it wouldn't matter 

what duration the operation was. It would 

have no effect on them. They would be 

covered. 

Other Board comments and HHS responses, 

the Board recommended we include a facility 

241 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

definition in the rule. However, EEOICPA, 

as the Board discussed -- EEOICPA already 

specifies facility definitions -- two 

different definitions, one for AWE 

facilities and one for DOE facilities. And 

we're -- though we're required to live by 

those definitions, we did add a footnote to 

the rule to explain this was a Board concern 

that multiple buildings on a site could be 

considered a single facility, but that --

but will be a case-by-case determination as 

to whether, you know, a petition is coming 

from a facility or not, based on those 

EEOICPA definitions. 

The Board also made recommendations 

about the petitioners' evidence regarding 

unrecorded exposure incidents. And you made 

really two recommendations. One, the rule -

- the proposed rule could have been 

interpreted to require three affidavits when 

you're down to a situation where you're 

relying on witness evidence that an incident 

occurred, and the Board recommended that it 

be two. And the other Board recommendation 

was that where there are no surviving -- or 

242 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

can be found -- eyewitnesses, that you be 

able to consider the evidence from noneyewitnesses, and we have changed the rule 

accordingly. We have actually eliminated --

there is no numerical requirement whatsoever 

for the number of affidavits, and we are 

allowing for people who have second-hand 

information to provide evidence. 

The Board also recommended that there 

be an administrative review of findings by 

NIOSH that a petition doesn't qualify for 

consideration -- that front end of the 

process that I explained -- and we have 

included the review process as I just 

described it, run by the director of NIOSH. 

Okay, other changes/clarifications in 

the final rule. We have -- and some of 

these arise from actually figuring out, sort 

of working through in the step-by-step 

process we had to to develop the 

implementation, internal procedures, what 

were going to be some implementation 

problems, and some of these relate to that. 

The first one on here is the number of 

petitioners per petition. We didn't have 

243 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

any cap on the number of petitioners. We 

didn't have any verbiage on the number of 

petitioners in the proposed rule. We have 

capped the number of petitioners per 

petition to three. It doesn't -- it doesn't 

limit the number of people covered by the 

class, but -- but it became apparent to us 

that it would be really unmanageable and --

and detrimental rather than helpful for the 

petitioners to have a large number of 

petitions. You know people, when they think 

of petitions, of course they think they get 

strength by numbers. In this case, our 

determinations are technical, not based on 

the number of petitioners signing. But the 

problem is if you have large number of 

petitioners signing, they gain all the 

rights of the petitioner -- rights, for 

example, to present to the Board. If you 

had 100 petitioners that you had to hear 

from before the Board could even begin 

deliberations, that might be an issue. But 

there are all sorts of -- I mean NIOSH has 

to first, on the front end, determine that 

the petitioners are all qualified 

244 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

petitioners, as well. It's an 

administrative process, but the more 

petitioners, the more work that would be. 

And the process, you know, runs through all 

the way to the time of appeals. 

And if you have differences, you know, 

between petitioners on issues -- on the 

front end, for example, of getting the 

petition in shape to meet requirements, if 

you have differences between them, the more 

petitioners there are, the harder it's going 

to be to get that petition past the starting 

block. You know, on the back end, on the 

appeals decision, if you have differences 

between petitioners you can have issues 

there, too. 

We also added a new information 

requirement. This is similarly related to 

sort of practical problems in 

implementation. Once we've considered a 

petition, if someone submits a petition 

after that, if they submit petitions -- let 

me back up -- conterminously. If we receive 

a bunch of petitions relating to the same 

class, on the front end we have provisions 

245 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to aggregate those, to combine them and 

treat them as -- in effect -- if they were 

one petition. You know, they'll do the 

process together. But if we've already done 

the work of evaluating a petition, you know, 

at that point forward, or if the Secretary's 

already decided on a petition, you get 

another petition in that's precisely the 

same as the petition that was already 

considered, there we have a requirement then 

that that petition, the new petition has to 

provide new information that hasn't been 

considered, to be considered. Otherwise, 

we'd end up in -- we could end up in an 

endless loop where we'd have to go through 

the whole process, despite the fact that 

we've already deliberated. It would still 

have to come before the Board. It would 

still have to go to the Secretary. This was 

a way to avoid that, which would get in the 

way of us dealing with other petitions that 

haven't been considered. 

Evidence requirements, we clarified 

that the evidence provided will be weighed, 

in effect, for adequacy and credibility. I 

246 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

mean that -- that should go without saying, 

but needs to be said and we added that 

clarification to the rule. 

We added a review -- we didn't add, we 

elaborated exactly how the review of 

proposed decisions would occur, and that is, 

again, to remind you, once NIOSH makes a 

recommendation on behalf of HHS, a proposed 

decision or decisions to add classes, not 

add classes, then we laid out elaborately 

what the process would be by which a 

petitioner would seek a review if it's a 

denial of a class or it's a health 

endangerment determination that might 

exclude individuals, and that process is run 

by HHS. They're independent -- a panel of 

independent -- three independent people from 

HHS personnel would -- would do that 

administrative review and that would be 

considered by the Secretary. And there are 

more details in the rule about how that's 

done. 

Finally, multiple -- multiple 

decisions. We also clarified -- as I said 

on the front end, when NIOSH evaluates a 

247 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

petition, it may find that there are 

actually a number of decisions that come out 

of the same petition, decisions to add or 

not to add both. And it wasn't -- the rule 

didn't clearly allow the Secretary to issue 

multiple decisions, which would have been 

held hostage, you know -- the decisions to 

add a class would be held hostage to 

decisions to deny one because people would 

want a review and so on, so we have 

clarified that. 

And we also clarified protection under 

the Privacy Act, that -- that the Board is 

going to be involved in a process of 

evaluating these petitions and NIOSH and the 

Board are going to have to work together 

carefully to ensure that privacy is 

maintained, very similarly to the issues 

you'll have in reviewing dose 

reconstructions, but to protect the privacy 

of individuals when we're dealing with a 

class. And not all members of the class are 

necessarily willingly sort of giving their 

data to the public. 

And that's the end of my prepared 

248 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

remarks, but... 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, we'll open 

the floor for questions then, Ted. Thank 

you very much. Who's first? Okay, Jim. 

DR. MELIUS: I'll go. What -- just 

review for me the length of time from --

roughly from the time a petition arrives at 

NIOSH to the time people would get 

compensated. 

MR. KATZ: Well, I mean -- I mean it 

depends, of course, but -- but starting from 

the back end and going forward, just 'cause 

it's easier, I mean there's 180 days that 

Congress has the opportunity to review a 

decision before it becomes effective. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. KATZ: So that's a given, 180 days, 

you know, unless Congress acts before then. 

Then you have -- let me just -- well, I'll 

just keep going from the back forward. Then 

you have the Secretary's determination, you 

know. I don't know what the length of that 

is, but in part there is -- if there is 

going to be an administrative review, the 

petitioner has 30 days to request such a 

249 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 -- 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

review, and then there's whatever time that 

review requires. You know, then moving 

forward from there, there is the -- NIOSH 

making the proposed determination, after the 

Board has given advice. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. KATZ: You know, there's the 

Board's deliberations. I think it's going 

to be pretty variable how long the Board 

requires to deliberate over a petition 

because these are going to be different 

scope petitions and so on. I think some, 

you know, are likely to be much easier than 

others, simpler and quicker. 

DR. ZIEMER: Excuse me, Ted. Does the 

NIOSH determination -- is that specified in 

MR. KATZ: In the rule, so it's --

DR. ZIEMER: -- the rules by how -- I 

mean in -- the number of days? 

MR. KATZ: No, there's -- there's no 

time requirement on it 'cause it'll depend -

- it'll be a case-by-case, but -- and then 

backing up from there, there's the NIOSH 

evaluation of the petition. You know, 

250 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

again, in some cases -- for example, the 

case where we've done a dose reconstruction 

and couldn't do it -- attempted a dose 

reconstruction and couldn't do it, that, you 

know, NIOSH evaluation is going to be pretty 

quick. In a case where it's a very narrow 

class, I think, and -- and there's very 

clear information, it's going to be much 

quicker. If it's an enormous class covering 

all sorts of operations over a long time 

period, you know -- I mean I think you would 

expect that evaluation would take a good bit 

of time. And it depends also on how many 

allegations -- you know, issues are raised 

by the petition itself, too. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. KATZ: So how much is documented 

there and how helpful that is to the 

petition process. 

DR. MELIUS: 'Cause I saw at least one 

Federal Register notice in there for --

MR. KATZ: Oh --

DR. MELIUS: -- for -- before the Board 

considers the -- so there's --

MR. KATZ: -- there's multiple Federal 

251 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Register notices. 

DR. MELIUS: Right, yeah, I -- okay. 

MR. KATZ: Those -- I mean we really 

don't think that that's -- those will really 

affect timing. I mean those will be worked 

on concurrently with doing NIOSH 

evaluations, with the Board doing its action 

and so on, and since those are just notices 

versus regulatory actions, which you're 

familiar with, you know, they should be, you 

know, relatively expedient. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I think they're less 

than four years or whatever. 

MR. KATZ: Less than four years. 

DR. MELIUS: Do that. But there's also 

provision in there that the Board can 

collect its own information, also? 

MR. KATZ: There is. I mean the Board 

has the right to determine -- it has two --

I mean it actually -- it can re-- you can 

request of NIOSH to go back and do more 

evaluation, after NIOSH produces a report, 

you know, but there's this open-ended catchall for... 

DR. MELIUS: So -- so what's a fair 

252 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 -- 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

assessment of the -- the process in a... 

MR. KATZ: The time? 

DR. MELIUS: The time, yeah. 

MR. KATZ: Well, I -- again, I think 

it's going to be all over the place. I 

think they're going to -- there will likely 

DR. ZIEMER: But you can --

MR. KATZ: -- be some cases that --

DR. ZIEMER: -- readily figure out a 

minimum pretty fast, and the minimum --

you're going to have to allow the Secretary 

of Health and Human Services 30 days plus 

the evaluation time, so call it 30 plus 30, 

minimum. We're going to probably have about 

a 30-day turnaround time, minimum. NIOSH 

will have another 30 day minimum. Right 

away you're up to ten months. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: If everything is smooth 

and straightforward. So it seems to me one 

could easily say roughly a year from the 

front end to the back. 

MR. KATZ: I think the exception might 

be -- might be -- those cases where we've 

253 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

already found we couldn't do a dose 

reconstruction. But otherwise, yes, I think 

-- you know, at -- at minimum --

DR. ZIEMER: Even there, but you have 

the six months to start out with for 

Congress to look at it. 

DR. MELIUS: You have the class 

definition issue that --

MR. KATZ: You do have the class 

definition issue. 

DR. MELIUS: -- you know, which I 

think, you know --

MR. KATZ: Yes. 

DR. MELIUS: -- is going to take as 

much time as -- I'm not sure that's very 

different from doing -- you know, a de novo 

petition coming in. 

MR. KATZ: I mean I guess that -- we'll 

leave that to be seen --

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

MR. KATZ: -- but --

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. What is it in this 

rule that took so long? What was the 

stumbling point? I don't --

MR. KATZ: I'm really slow. 

254 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. MELIUS: Well, we noticed that. 

MR. KATZ: There is -- actually I 

worked really hard on this rule. 

DR. MELIUS: No, and I'm sort of asking 

what --

MR. KATZ: There's -- HHS is a very big 

department with -- and there are a lot of 

people involved, and every person has to 

come up to speed. And then there, you know, 

three other departments involved. And --

and this rule is -- is -- you know, is -- in 

a way, it's very complex, even though it 

seems like it would be simple. But it's 

not. I mean the dose reconstruction rule, I 

would say, in a -- is really a much -- was a 

much simpler job than this --

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. KATZ: -- because it's dealing with 

a situation that, you know -- you know, 

people don't -- we don't deal with it. 

There's no path, nobody's done this before, 

so --

DR. MELIUS: And so people should be 

happy that it took another year to... 

MR. KATZ: They should be ecstatic --

255 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. MELIUS: Because the --

MR. KATZ: -- yes. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

MR. KATZ: Because it should have taken 

five. No, I'm not -- we -- no, we were --

we pushed very hard, and I think all the 

people involved pushed very hard to make 

this rule happen as soon as it could. But 

it was a difficult job. 

DR. MELIUS: What about these 

guidelines on feasibility and so forth that 

you refer to in the rule? Are those 

available yet? 

MR. KATZ: Yes, they're -- absolutely, 

they're -- I believe they're on our -- the 

OCAS web site and we should be providing 

them directly to all the members of the 

Board --

DR. MELIUS: Have you? 

MR. KATZ: -- but I don't know that we 

have provided them to members of the Board 

yet, but --

DR. MELIUS: (Inaudible) not to the 

Board. 

MR. KATZ: -- but they just hit the web 

256 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

site on Friday with the rule. 

DR. MELIUS: The petitions and 

everything. 

MR. KATZ: Right, as well as the 

petition forms are on the web site, as well 

as the instructions, which will be very 

useful whether you use the forms or not, and 

so on -- which provide more sort of advice 

to petitioners on how to go about dealing 

with the questions. 

DR. NETON: I'm getting some feedback 

that the guidelines -- I'm getting some 

feedback that the guidelines may not be on 

our web site just yet. I know the petitions 

are out there --

MR. KATZ: Is that --

DR. NETON: We'll make sure they get 

there --

DR. ZIEMER: Is Chris here? Does Chris 

know? 

DR. NETON: Chris, do you? 

MS. ELLISON: I'm sorry? 

DR. ZIEMER: Do you know if the 

guidelines are on the web site yet, Chris? 

MS. ELLISON: To my knowledge, the rule 

257 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 -- 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

is out there. There is information -- the 

forms are out there on the web site. I 

don't know anything about any guidelines. I 

do not recall --

DR. NETON: The guidelines --

MS. ELLISON: -- receiving any 

guidelines. 

DR. NETON: -- will be out there as 

soon as possible, they're just not up there 

yet. The rule was just issued on Friday, so 

MS. ELLISON: Right. 

MR. KATZ: The guidelines are completed 

and... 

DR. MELIUS: What's in them, then? Can 

someone explain to us what's in them? 

MR. KATZ: So that -- the guidelines 

are -- I mean I -- yes, I can. I mean it --

again, it's -- I just touched on it a little 

bit, but they're a step-by-step -- you know, 

to me they're kind of boring reading, but 

they're a step-by-step how we go about 

dealing with the entire process, from 

determining that they're qualified 

petitioners to helping the petitioners with 

258 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

their submittal and meeting the requirements 

of a petition to -- I'm sorry, there's 

someone --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Inaudible) copy of a petition if anybody 

wants to see it right now, the form? 

MR. KATZ: Yeah, that's the pet--

DR. ZIEMER: That's the petition --

MR. KATZ: But that's the petition. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- and not the guidelines. 

MR. KATZ: Right, right, but these are 

-- we're talking about the internal 

procedures for how we deal with the 

petitions. They go through step-by-step the 

entire process of NIOSH preparing the evalu-

- doing the evaluation --

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. KATZ: -- and how it would go about 

addressing feasibility and health 

endangerment and so on. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, could we simply ask 

that, as soon as those are on, to --

MR. KATZ: We can provide these to the 

Board --

DR. ZIEMER: -- just give us either a 

259 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

copy or just send us an e-mail and say 

they're ready and we can download them or --

MR. PRESLEY: Send -- no, send them, 

please. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- or send them. 

MR. KATZ: Yeah -- no, I'm sorry, I 

just -- I just -- I just assumed they were 

out, but I'm -- I apologize. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

DR. ZIEMER: Roy DeHart. 

DR. DEHART: Two inter-related 

questions. I realize you've been pretty 

well consumed with getting this all taken 

care of, but have you or others considered 

what the impact is going to be in the near 

term over the next six months or so, any 

feel for how many petitions you're going to 

have, any concept of what the workloads are 

going to be? 

MR. KATZ: No, I mean -- in reality, 

no. I mean I -- in reality we don't know 

how many petitions we'll receive and what 

scope they'll be. I mean we do have some 

information. We have a variety of people 

who have already notified us of their intent 

260 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to petition. And if Larry were here, he 

could probably rattle off, you know, what 

the numbers were, at least. 

DR. NETON: I can speak to that 

briefly. I think we've received somewhere 

on the order of three petitions -- potential 

petitions early on. We're in the process 

of drafting letters to notify those people 

that the SEC rule has been published and to 

evaluate whether or not the petitions that 

we received were valid under the construct 

of the regulation. 

Other than that, we've been working 

very closely with Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities to develop the infrastructure 

and the computer resources to handle the 

petitions. That's in place on a fairly 

rudimentary basis. And we've actually gone 

through and done some mock petition 

evaluations to try to flesh out the details 

as best we could. That's about the extent 

of what we've done. 

DR. DEHART: That was basically my 

other question, and that is -- I -- is there 

an issue of staffing? Do you have -- are 

261 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

you going to have adequate staff? Is this 

going to be something that's going to have 

to be addressed by the Board or any 

recommendations coming from us? 

DR. NETON: We hope we have adequate 

staffing. But as Ted indicated, we just 

can't predict the volume of the petitions 

coming in. Right now I believe Oak Ridge 

Associated Universities has identified three 

health physicists that will be doing the 

petition evaluations. A lot of the initial 

effort's going to go into the qualification 

phase to determine if, you know, more 

information is needed to become a valid 

petition, so we're working up that end, but 

until -- until we start receiving them, we 

really just can't predict. 

DR. DEHART: I think my concern would 

be that of the same concern that the Board 

might have, and that is that -- are we going 

to see a bleeding-off of manpower from the 

thrust that we have ongoing in doing 

reconstruction, et cetera, and consequently 

slow that down in order to start addressing 

the -- the petition drive. 

262 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: We share that concern, and 

again, until -- until we see what's coming, 

we can't really, you know, staff to -- to 

handle the petitions until we know what --

what the level is going to be. I think -- I 

personally believe that what we have right 

now is adequate. I don't expect thousands 

of petitions. I mean given that we have 

16,000 cases, if every 16 people apply for 

SEC status, you'd have 1,000 petitions. I 

don't think that's going to be the case. 

We're hoping that, you know, the valid 

petitions, the ones that are qualified, stay 

in the fairly low numbers, but it's 

anybody's guess. 

DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: Ted, you mentioned that 

NIOSH has identified a number of situations 

in which they cannot do dose 

reconstructions? 

MR. KATZ: No, no, I -- I said that --

DR. ROESSLER: That wasn't what you 

said? 

MR. KATZ: -- when we do identify --

when we attempt a dose reconstruction and 

263 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

can't complete it, that meets the 

requirement with respect to evaluating 

feasibility. 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Then my question 

would be have there been any where you've 

identified that you can't do dose 

reconstruction? 

MR. KATZ: Well, I mean the issue is --

right now is, the way we've organized our 

efforts to deal with dose reconstruction so 

far, almost avoids that because we're --

been dealing with the dose reconstructions 

we could do, as -- as Jim mentioned earlier, 

for example, the cases where there wasn't 

monitoring, we're not even -- you know, the 

profiles, for example, are not addressing 

the non-monitoring issue at this point, so I 

mean we've been doing dose reconstructions 

that are sort of the low-hanging fruit, the 

ones that can be the most expeditiously 

addressed at this point. 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay, so that's not an 

area where you could predict what might come 

up. Then my next question would be what 

factors -- and maybe this is something that 

264 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

comes up in the future. What factors would 

go into determining that you can't do dose 

reconstruction? I can see no monitoring. I 

guess I'm just trying to -- this is naive, 

but I'm trying to figure out where a 

situation where you'd say they qualify, 

which means they must have some sort of 

source term, and yet you can't do dose 

reconstruction. I guess this is addressed 

probably to Jim to kind of get a feeling for 

the -- you know, the impact of this on -- on 

all of us. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, it's -- it's a 

difficult process. Without, you know, going 

through a detailed example of a real life 

condition, which we probably -- I'm not 

prepared to do here -- it's hard to 

envision. If -- if there were -- you know, 

there has to be two conditions, one of which 

is we can't -- we know there was radioactive 

materials present -- material were handled, 

but we really don't have a feel for the 

quantity, the upper limit of the amount of 

material that was processed, but we do 

believe that it -- you know, it was a very 

265 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

large amount that we just can't put a cap 

on. Given that there are no cancer-specific 

exposure scenarios now, though, one could 

envision certain cancers -- particularly 

lung cancer, maybe -- not being able to put 

an upper cap on some exposure scenarios for 

a lung cancer. That would of course bring 

in all 22 cancers, so that -- I think that's 

a requirement -- right, Ted? -- that if one 

-- one cancer -- one particular cancer 

cannot be quantified, dose reconstruction 

can't be done, then all of the rest are in. 

And so, you know, you'd have to look at 

organs where there's a large potential for 

dose. And clearly for inhalation exposures, 

that would be the lung cancer-type 

scenarios. But it's hard to --

MR. KATZ: Well, it's -- it's 

circumstances -- I mean in general it's 

circumstances where there -- where you don't 

have source term and process information, 

which, you know, is -- is not unheard of. 

DR. NETON: And I could say that we're 

looking through this right now. Some of 

this is work that we've done -- we've done 

266 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

so far with ORAU. We've actually been 

looking through, you know, where these 

situations might exist. But it's too early 

for us to comment on anything that we've 

done so far. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. I think Gen's 

question's very good because I think the 

chief problem with what you've done -- and 

maybe we haven't seen everything -- is that 

you've never -- you have yet to define 

sufficient accuracy, and so you're doing 

that on a case-by-case basis, which then's 

going to throw it back on the Board to try 

to make some determinations as to the 

quality of your dose reconstructions through 

our contractor's review. And secondly, the 

-- the quality or the qualifications of the 

Special Exposure Cohort petitions, you know, 

based on some set of arbitrary guidelines --

I -- since we don't have them in front of us 

and you're not presenting them today, it's 

hard to talk about them, but it seems the 

burden's on us. Now we had requested in our 

comments that we have an opportunity to 

267 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

review those guidelines, and I'm a little 

confused as to where that stands. My 

understanding from -- this draft was -- or 

this final rule was that we were not going 

to be given that opportunity, or at best we 

were going to be given it in parallel to the 

petitioning process. But it also would seem 

to me that people applying for petitions 

would have to know something about those 

guidelines 'cause those are what are going 

to determine whether they qualify or not. 

MR. KATZ: Well, I mean actually they 

don't. Let me just address a couple of 

those thing-- both of those issues you 

raise. Start with the petitions. The 

petitioners don't need to know that, because 

what they need to know is simply that low 

benchmark that gets the petition -- what is 

required for a petition to receive a full 

evaluation, and that is the only information 

that -- they're not required to prove the 

case that -- of feasibility whatsoever. And 

they're given full and complete and clear 

information about what the requirements are 

for submitting a petition that's valid and 

268 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

gets evaluation. So there's no -- this --

it doesn't raise any problems for the 

petitioner. 

I'd also say that I think, despite the 

fact that it's qualitative, it'll be --

it'll be very clear. It's not -- there -- I 

don't think there is a problem with the 

Board making determinations -- different 

determinations about when it's feasible 

because in every case it's -- if you can't 

put -- if you can't estimate maximum doses 

in the worst case, that's when you determine 

that it's not feasible. And those 

situations, despite the fact that it's murky 

as to how much source term information do 

you need to be able to do that and proc--

information you need to do that, I mean 

it'll be very clear that you can't --

DR. MELIUS: Well --

MR. KATZ: -- you can't estimate --

DR. MELIUS: -- yeah, but then the 

corollary -- the corollary of that, as I 

pointed out many times, is that that means 

that you're being -- that there's -- it --

going to be an error in terms of doing your 

269 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

dose reconstructions then. Either your 

actual dose reconstructions aren't going --

being done with sufficient accuracy, which 

we would pick up in the re-- you know, the 

review process and have to make some 

judgment on because you're basing them on 

maximum dose and does the maximum dose 

really provide a sufficiently accurate dose 

reconstruction I think is the question. And 

if your guidelines don't address that -- and 

I can't tell now, you've got me even more 

confused -- then I think we're going to end 

-- the Board is going to end up having to 

make that assessment 'cause we're reviewing 

both the petitions and your -- and your 

program. It's either one or the other is 

going to be faulty 'cause there's a direct 

trade-off between -- between the two. 

MR. KATZ: If we've completed a dose --

if you're reviewing dose reconstructions and 

we've completed a dose reconstruction -- I 

mean you can have issues about the dose 

reconstruction. If it happens to be a dose 

reconstruction which is in effect -- or 

prac-- you know, a maximum dose or 

270 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

thereabouts because it's relying entirely on 

source term and process information -- I 

mean then -- you know, you will very clearly 

have laid out for you the assumptions, the 

scientific basis for making that maximum 

estimate, and whatever is questionable about 

that you will have the opportunity to 

scrutinize. So I mean actually in reality, 

in practice, it's not going to be sort of a 

mystery as to what to do or what to 

recommend in those cases. But you know, 

we'll see. 

DR. MELIUS: That's correct, and I 

think the Board's going to have to see it on 

a case-by-case basis. And rather than 

having a set of guidelines and regulations 

to follow, we're going to have to be 

determining it as -- as we go along and I 

think there's a lot of potential problems 

there and I think a lot of potential 

unfairness to the -- the claimants. And I 

think you're also wrong about -- I mean I 

don't think claimants are going to want to 

submit petitions without an understanding of 

whether they qualify. I mean who wants to 

271 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

spend the time and effort and wait around 

for at least a year to get an answer back 

when chances are that, you know, you may or 

may not qualify 'cause you don't understand 

the criterion. Simply because the initial 

criteria for qualifying as a petitioner are 

low does not mean that, you know, the 

probability of the chances of success for 

your petition are -- are going to be high 

or... 

MR. KATZ: But the rule very clearly, 

though, specifies the likely circumstances 

in which feasibility becomes an issue. I 

mean where there isn't source term 

information, where there isn't process 

information, it pretty clearly expresses 

those -- those -- those basic general 

guidelines. So the petitioners have those 

in the rule and they will -- there -- there 

isn't more -- you can't turn the petitioners 

into health physicists to take them further 

and know their, you know, probability of 

success. But it's -- you know, we've 

limited the burden of what it takes to 

submit a petition -- I think -- low enough 

272 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that we're not taxing the petitioners with 

an inordinate amount of work to submit a 

petition. And from there, you know, the 

petition process -- you know, the burden is 

on NIOSH and you and the Secretary -- you, 

the Board. 

DR. MELIUS: Exactly, that's the 

problem. 

DR. ZIEMER: It sounds like the 

guidelines that they're talking about here 

are more in the way of operational 

procedures on stepping through the right 

steps, more like a checklist. The -- you --

your point, Jim, that we may indeed end up 

looking at these on a very individual basis, 

almost like individual dose reconstructions, 

is probably true. I think we were hoping 

that there would be some -- little more easy 

way just to say if you meet these criteria, 

it's pretty straightforward. But it sounds 

like that's not going to be the case, that 

the guidelines are not -- I don't think they 

were what we were thinking about at the 

time. 

MR. KATZ: Well, there is --

273 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: At least it appears that 

way to me. We need to see them, I suspect. 

MR. KATZ: I mean there have -- let me 

just -- the guidelines do, for example, 

reference the parts of the dose 

reconstruction guidelines addressing 

technical issues of how you do dose 

reconstructions, when you are limited to 

source term and process information and so 

on. But I have to say that the Health 

Physics Society, which represents all the 

professionals -- health physicists in this 

country and -- and all public commenters and 

the Board, they're -- and our entire staff 

have not been able to come up with litmus 

test type approaches, little sort of simple 

tests that would work. And if we could have 

done something like that, that would mean 

just checking a box, we would have loved 

that. I mean that -- that's wonderful. But 

-- but this, I don't think, is a situation 

that gives itself to that. It's going to 

take judgment. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tony. 

DR. ANDRADE: I'd just like to state 

274 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that -- I'll address three items here. 

Number one, in the rule it is stated that 

NIOSH/OCAS will provide a report to the 

Board for its consideration. So by default, 

we will see every single one of them. 

That's part of our jobs. 

Number two is that with the detailed 

procedures going on the web, and if people 

feel like it will do them -- if it will 

provide them some advantage, then by all 

means go and read them and -- and seek 

advice and -- and use them if -- if you will 

and -- in the petition process, although I 

doubt seriously if those detailed, step-bystep procedures for review are going to help 

-- personal opinion. 

And third is let's not mix apples with 

oranges. If a report comes down to this 

body and says that NIOSH has looked at these 

-- has looked at an individual petition and 

they believe that it may qualify -- and by 

the way, they let the petitioners know 

what's going on -- then that has no bearing 

whatsoever on the quality of dose 

reconstructions that have been done in the 

275 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

past. In other words, that does not bring 

into question the whole issue of sufficient 

accuracy. That means that they have 

identified -- not the types of cases that 

they're working on now, but the more 

complicated cases that are going to come up 

in the future. That will bring around 

complicated questions that perhaps they and 

we will determine insofar as the issues of 

feasibility are concerned. So I -- I just 

want to make that clarification. There is 

no connection between sufficient accuracy 

and ruling on an issue with respect to 

Special Exposure Cohort status. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? Yes, 

Leon. 

MR. OWENS: Ted, have any plans been 

made to provide educational assistance to 

claimants from the standpoint of going to 

the different sites where we have met and 

having workshops for claimants or other 

interested individuals who might want to 

submit a petition? 

MR. KATZ: As far as I know, we don't 

have any plans for that. 

276 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. OWENS: And I guess a follow-up 

question then -- I think that the Board, 

when we look at all the sites that are 

listed per EEOICPA, I think there could be a 

great concern from the standpoint of 

resources. And I don't know exactly when 

that question would surface for NIOSH, but 

if we look throughout the country at -- and 

if we take a look at the definitions, 

whether it's a facility or a site, of all 

the possibilities that we could encounter, I 

think it lends itself to resources for 

NIOSH. And of course that's a -- my own 

opinion, but I guess the question is, at 

what point in time would the Board be 

informed of the need for additional 

resources? 

MR. KATZ: I think you -- we -- we 

would recognize it and act on it as quickly 

as we could, and without even requiring the 

Board to -- to ask us to address a resource 

problem like that, but I mean we of course -

- I think as we come in -- you know, we have 

Board meetings very frequently and if we're 

in a situation where we're deluged with 

277 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

petitions, you'll know it, as well, because 

we'll be posting information about petitions 

and so on and we'll be informing the Board 

as this goes along as to how we're doing. 

MR. OWENS: I understand the point that 

you made from the standpoint of not knowing 

exactly how many petitions you might 

receive, but I was just interested as to 

whether or not any projections have been 

made, because again, we're looking at over 

300 possible sites. And I think there are a 

lot of people who are very upset and I think 

a lot of people also are interested in SEC 

status. So I can then surmise that there 

might be a tremendous number of groups of 

individuals who might petition. 

MR. KATZ: I think that's entirely 

possible. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: I tend to remember a 

phrase, "feasible to estimate with 

sufficient accuracy", so I think sufficient 

accuracy is a part of this equation. I just 

wanted to build on something that Jim was 

saying. The feasibility test seems to be 

278 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

laid out in this with this maximum dose, but 

the sufficient accuracy I don't think is 

laid out at all. And you know, I saw some 

of the examples that were in the text. You 

know, I can come up with an example on my 

own where you say well, I know something 

about the source term, I know very little 

about the -- how much this class, these 

individuals accessed near the source term, 

what the particle size was, what the solu--

you know, there's a lot of unknowns, but I 

do know a little about the source term, so I 

can come up with a maximum -- you know, 

let's say 4,000 rem to some organ. But when 

I -- you know, there's no condition in this 

that says well -- so I -- so I got to 

maximum this, I get some sort of maximum 

dose, but there's no condition on this that 

says anything about how you're going to use 

that in the individual dose re-- so it's 

feasible that I can do a dose reconstruction 

there at that point. Then for the -- all 

those people in that class, theoretically 

you would go back and do your normal dose 

reconstruction process. But there's no 

279 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

condition that says that you use -- so 

you've got all -- maybe all you have is one 

datapoint, so you're going to say that the 

dose is somewhere from zero to 4,000. 

Where's your -- where's your median, you 

know? There's no condition in the Special 

Exposure Cohort that requires you to know 

anything more other than zero to 4,000. You 

have -- you know a maximum, that's good 

enough, they don't qualify for Special 

Exposure Cohort, they're back in the dose 

reconstruction process, and then you can say 

well, you know, yeah, we know 4,000's the 

max, but it's very unlikely that the 

individual spent much time there. For all 

these scenarios we believe that it's more 

toward the zero so we'll skew our 

distribution with a median toward 20 rem, 

with a tail going out to 4,000. It's a 

little different than the example presented 

in the text, but I think --

DR. NETON: Well, they're -- if I can 

just address that --

MR. GRIFFON: Go ahead. 

DR. NETON: -- briefly. There is no 

280 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

requirement that would put a distribution 

about the exposures, first of all. If it 

were so insufficiently known --

MR. GRIFFON: But there's no 

requirement to put a maximum dose, either, 

is what I'm saying. 

DR. NETON: Well, you couldn't. That's 

what I'm saying. So if we knew what the 

maximum potential could have been, based on 

the source term, we could put a maximum dose 

and assign that to each and every -- maximum 

exposure, let's put it that way, 'cause the 

dose would come later -- to each and every 

claimant. 

But let's take the scenario where there 

is a time period where there were some very 

rudimentary monitoring measure-- rudimentary 

measurements taken, and so we would feel 

fairly comfortable putting a maximum dose on 

that time period. 

Now let's go back further in time and 

let's say that no monitoring occurred before 

a certain date. This is very hypothetical. 

There was no monitoring at all occurred, and 

we know that the exposure potential was at 

281 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

least as great as that monitoring period, 

but we have no basis for what -- what it was 

maybe above and beyond that, no basis to 

extrapolate backwards. That may be an 

example of a type of situation where you 

know that they were large, you have a period 

with some very rudimentary data that you're 

comfortable putting a maximum, but you're 

not comfortable or it's not with sufficient 

accuracy to go back in time and put a cap on 

the upper limit going backward in time. I 

mean those are sort of the situations that 

may apply here. I mean there's other 

situations, obviously, but that's an example 

of what I might offer. So you could put a 

maximum at one time period, but you have no 

idea how great -- how much greater it could 

have been or the lack of engineering 

controls may not have been there, so you 

just can't put a cap on it at that point. 

It's just not possible. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: And so NIOSH could not come 

out with a credible exposure model for that 

time period. That's the kind of situation I 

282 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 -- 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

believe we're addressing with this -- this 

regulation. 

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

saying -- I mean this goes back to -- to our 

discussions in previous meetings about 

accuracy versus precision, I know that. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, sure. 

MR. GRIFFON: But you're saying that 

any -- anything you can cap is basically 

adequate for a determination of a Special 

Exposure Cohort. 

DR. NETON: If we can put a cap on it, 

it -- it's -- it's not necessary -- it --

MR. GRIFFON: I'm sorry, I --

DR. NETON: To not put a cap on it is 

necessary to become a part of the Special 

Exposure Cohort. If we can put a cap on it 

MR. GRIFFON: If you can put --

DR. NETON: -- and put a maximum dose 

on that time period and in fact if we 

applied it to all cases in that time period 

-- now it's not a dose, it's an exposure 

model that would be that -- what is the 

maximum air concentration, for example, that 

283 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

could have possibly been in that facility in 

this five-year period. If we can do that, 

then it is -- we're not required to, but we 

could put a maximum dose -- a maximum 

exposure to each and every claimant in that 

time period. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, and if you can't 

calculate a maximum, that's the only time --

DR. NETON: And if going backwards in 

time, or even forwards in time, if 

engineering controls or process streams 

change that we don't know and we -- and 

there's no way of extrapolating -- when 

there's no monitoring data and there's no 

way to extrapolate into those periods that 

is reliable, then that may be a scenario 

where we would -- we would possibly say we 

couldn't put a cap and would recommend it 

for Special Exposure Cohort. 

DR. MELIUS: So is that in your 

guidelines? 

DR. NETON: Is that in the guidelines? 

Not exactly those words, no. 

DR. MELIUS: Well, we're not expecting 

you to quote them. 

284 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: I think that there are a 

couple of examples that were going to be put 

in there and I'm honestly --

MR. KATZ: Their guide--

DR. NETON: -- not sure what --

MR. KATZ: The guidelines address -- I 

mean they really -- they refer to the dose 

reconstruction guidelines that tell you what 

to do when you are limited to source --

source term and process information --

DR. NETON: If one runs through --

MR. KATZ: -- which --

DR. NETON: -- the gamut -- I'm sorry, 

Ted. 

MR. KATZ: -- which is the --

DR. NETON: If you run through --

MR. KATZ: -- scenario the (Inaudible) 

is talking about. 

DR. NETON: -- (Inaudible) and you end 

up with source term and you -- you have an 

idea, and the source term is not there, you 

just don't know and you don't know about the 

engineering controls, then that's where --

that's where you're left. 

DR. MELIUS: But does it say that, 

285 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

though? I guess --

MR. KATZ: Yes. I believe --

DR. MELIUS: It seems to me there has 

to be some posi-- some positive guidance as 

to when you don't have sufficient accuracy. 

I mean that's -- at least what I would refer 

to as sufficient accuracy. 

DR. NETON: I believe they do address 

that. 

MR. KATZ: It's -- but it's not --

DR. NETON: We're descriptive in that -

-

MR. KATZ: Yeah, and it's not --

there's -- there's no bright line with one 

item or another because, for example -- I 

mean you could have a relatively small 

amount of source term and not know -- have 

to know any process information. If it's a 

relative small -- you could cap doses -- you 

don't need to know a whit about the process 

or the environment or anything. You could 

just do --

DR. NETON: But there are some 

facilities --

MR. KATZ: -- (Inaudible) case... 

286 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: -- that we're saying, you 

know, uranium metal that may have had some 

surface oxidation and they processed it for 

a period -- this is an example -- maybe a 

week, we could put a surface oxidation model 

on that and generate the entire amount 

airborne and probably demonstrate -- you 

know, I mean assign a maximum dose, and 

process those dose reconstructions. 

DR. ZIEMER: One of the issues I think 

that reoccurs is the use of the word 

"accuracy", which is probably not being used 

accurately, and that is -- it appears to me 

what they -- when they talk about capping 

the dose, in my mind it's probably very 

inaccurate. It's a worst-case thing. It's 

probably not accurate. It's probably very 

inaccurate. But they're talking about 

ability to make a judgment on causation or 

probability of causation and therefore if 

they have sufficient information to make the 

judgment, then it's, quote, sufficiently 

accurate to make the determination. 

Scientifically it may be very inaccurate, as 

I see it. The real number is virtually 

287 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

never that maximum thing. I mean I've seen 

-- I've seen accident cases where you -- you 

take a source and it's completely airborne 

and look at -- look at what a person intakes 

from that if they're standing right there, 

and if you said they took in the whole 

thing, you would be orders of magnitude off. 

But if it's sufficient to make the decision, 

that upper cap number, that's -- may be 

sufficiently accurate. I don't think it's 

necessarily -- if we're talking scientific 

accuracy, I don't think (Inaudible). 

MR. KATZ: But it's -- it's just --

DR. ZIEMER: It's sufficiently accurate 

to make the determination. 

MR. KATZ: Which means, in effect, that 

we're assured we're overestimating, not 

underestimating the person's dose, which 

means that they'll be treated fairly when it 

comes to --

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

MR. KATZ: -- having their probability 

of causation determination. 

DR. MELIUS: But fairness is -- meaning 

that two people working side by side or in 

288 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the same area are going to be also treated 

equitably in that -- that process, and 

that's what I worry about and that's where I 

think, you know, having a set of guidance 

for doing this I think is -- is important. 

DR. ZIEMER: That they all get the same 

treatment. 

DR. MELIUS: They all get the same 

treatment, so either they're -- that's why I 

think there's a trade-off between the 

individual dose reconstructions and the --

you know, and the Special Exposure Cohort 

side of things, and I think a set of 

guidelines is... 

DR. ZIEMER: Let's -- Richard's been 

waiting to have input in --

DR. MELIUS: Well --

DR. ZIEMER: Rich. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Looking at the rule, one 

of the things that I don't see is the 

definition of site and facility, and with --

with concerns of the 250 days with contract 

employees and maintenance employees, you 

know, I know that we can add 250 days from 

one SEC to another SEC, but what about 

289 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

classes of employees that work in multiple 

facilities? You know, right here it says 

that multiple -- multiple facility --

EEOICPA does not allow multiple facil--

facility classes, but what about building 

and construction trades, maintenance 

workers, RCTs, security guards? 

MR. KATZ: Exactly, so -- so I mean in 

their cases, they would -- you know, where 

they worked at three different facilities, 

they would petition for each of those 

facilities, a class in each of those 

facilities. You have a class in each of 

those facilities and they worked 250 days 

over the course of working at each of those 

facilities, they'd be covered, even though 

there isn't one class covering all three 

facilities. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Okay. 

MR. KATZ: Do you understand? 

DR. ZIEMER: Does that answer the 

question or --

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, it kind of answers 

the question. And also the burden of proof 

over this. For one example, within my area, 

290 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 -- 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

TA54, there's several areas of -- of this 

specific site, but if one -- if -- if one 

area of the site is classified as an SEC, I 

don't know how they could prove the 250 

days. The burden of proof just doesn't make 

sense to me on some of this stuff. 

MR. KATZ: How the individuals when 

they --

MR. ESPINOSA: Well, yeah, or the class 

MR. KATZ: -- seek compensation could 

prove that they were --

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, or the class of 

people. Like I'm saying, TA54, you've got 

area G, you've got multiple areas. 

DR. ZIEMER: Some areas may be --

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, one area --

DR. ZIEMER: -- SEC and some may not? 

MR. ESPINOSA: -- of TA54 might be 

considered under an SEC status, but yet all 

the employees there are assigned to just 

TA54, not area G. 

MR. KATZ: I mean this is -- I mean in 

fact, this is sort of touching on an issue 

that you'll see when you read the -- the 

291 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

internal procedures, but -- but -- I mean we 

will be working with DOL because they will 

have to -- when we define a class, they will 

have to be able to make that operative so 

that they can make determinations of whether 

someone is in or not in, based on the 

information that's available. So we'll be 

working with DOL to ensure that -- if they 

can do that. 

MR. ESPINOSA: And that goes back --

you know, goes hand in hand with my 

question. You know, I don't see the 

definition within the rule of site versus 

facility. 

MR. KATZ: The rule -- the rule relies 

on the definitions that are in EEOICPA. It 

doesn't create its own definitions. What it 

does have is a footnote explaining that you 

could have multiple buildings, multiple 

areas within a site at DOE, for example, and 

they could all be classified as one 

facility, come in under one petition. 

DR. ZIEMER: But they may not, also. 

Right? 

MR. KATZ: They may not. It just -- it 

292 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

depends on the case. 

DR. ZIEMER: Let's see, Jim and Mark. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, one comment for our 

own deliberations is I think we need to 

decide as a Board sometime soon how we're 

going to handle these petitions and what 

kind of help we're going to get -- need or 

require from our contractor. It's something 

I think that was complicated (sic) in the 

original contract but I think we didn't have 

a rule to work off of. But given the lead 

time it takes to do that, I don't want us in 

the position of having to delay the process 

any more that -- than is necessary to -- to 

work that through, so we're going to have to 

start thinking about a task order or 

something that would tie into what -- how 

NIOSH is going to present their review and -

- and so forth so we can review it and --

and facilitate that review. 

DR. NETON: I would just like to remind 

everyone that there is a cutoff date for 

task orders this fiscal year -- new task 

orders -- and I can't remember, it's either 

June or July. I can look that up and -- and 

293 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

have that available, but it's coming soon. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark. 

DR. MELIUS: Take your time on the 

petitions. 

MR. GRIFFON: One last bite at this 

apple with the sufficient accuracy thing. I 

mean I just wanted to follow up on what Paul 

said, that -- that actually this upper max 

is actually very inaccurate. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: But you went on to say 

but it would be the conservative estimate --

claimant-friendly estimate. But when we 

listen to Jim -- I mean the point I'm making 

is that that upper maximum, according to the 

SEC rule, may -- Jim says may -- be used in 

the individual's dose reconstruction. It 

may not be used, either. They can use a 

distribution from zero to that upper 

maximum. And -- and my -- you know, my 

point there is that, you know, that's not a 

very bright line. If you're going from zero 

to 4,000 rem on an organ dose, accuracy or 

precision, that's not -- and you know, I did 

discuss off-line some of the -- the 

294 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

potential sort of semi-quantitative ways to 

-- to make decisions on that, but if you're 

getting a different POC when you use the 

upper maximum dose versus the distribution 

that is entered in the individual's dose 

reconstruction, if you're getting one that's 

higher than 50 and the other cite comes out 

lower than 50, is that sufficient accuracy? 

I guess that would be a way I'd pose it, you 

know, 'cause I agree with you that -- and --

and not to be completely cynical about this, 

but someone can come up with a outrageous 

upper bound on something and -- and just say 

okay, it's feasible. We can do some sort of 

dose reconstruction for this class. I'm not 

saying that would get past our review and 

all that, but that -- that's just the -- the 

cynical view of it. You can al-- you can 

probably come up, in most cases, with a very 

drastic upper bound to some dose. That --

that estimate -- according to this, if I 

read it correctly, that estimate of the 

maximum, even if it's the only thing you 

have, it doesn't have to go in the 

individual's dose reconstruction, does it? 

295 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 -- 

24 

25 

I mean it -- you said "may" be used. 

DR. NETON: Well, it depends on what 

information we have available. I mean if --

MR. GRIFFON: You may have more. 

DR. NETON: If there's more information 

for us to estimate a mode, a central 

tendency of the distribution, we would 

probably use that. But if there was nothing 

other than the source term and we knew that 

some grinding operation was going on --

MR. GRIFFON: Then you --

DR. NETON: -- there's nothing that 

would prevent us from saying we don't know 

anything except there's probably less than 

1,000 times the maximum air concentration. 

I mean that would be what we'd do, but we've 

done --

DR. ZIEMER: And everybody would get 

that --

DR. NETON: Yeah, yeah --

MR. GRIFFON: My point there is that --

DR. NETON: -- (Inaudible) exposure for 

MR. GRIFFON: My point there is if it's 

so inaccurate, you've got one -- you've got 

296 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

one assumption that you're making that you 

think is the worst case, but you're working 

with so minimal data you may not even be in 

the ball park then, so maybe --

DR. NETON: And that's where the 

individual -- you know, that's where 

scientific evaluation comes in, that's where 

the Board has a contractor to evaluate to 

determine if we're on the right track, if we 

-- if we've cut too many corners, that sort 

of thing. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: But there are judgments 

that are made here. 

MR. GRIFFON: I think we -- I think --

you know, we want to have an opportunity to 

weigh in on the procedures, too, because 

then I think we could -- I think we need to 

have a little br-- if possible, some -- some 

slightly brighter lines before we go into 

the review phase. I mean I'd like to have 

some better... 

MR. KATZ: I just -- I didn't get a 

chance to -- I mean 'cause Jim raised the 

issue of the Board not getting the 

297 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

procedures, but that we intend for the Board 

to have the opportunity to review them, and 

we express that in the rule. Obviously we 

couldn't give you the procedures until the 

rule was published because we were in 

rulemaking. We couldn't give them to you in 

advance. We certainly expect that you will 

scrutinize the procedures and give us any 

advice you can on those procedures. All we 

say in the rule is that we will not hold up 

beginning the consideration of petitions 

until you're done with your review of those 

procedures. But you know, everything is 

going to take some -- some time, so... 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

DR. MELIUS: Well, it just -- to that 

point -- I mean, Ted, I find it hard that it 

-- suddenly the burden's on the board to 

suddenly complete something that's taken 

NIOSH over three and a half years. And 

while you may think it's a joke, I don't 

think many of the claimants out there who 

have been promised an SEC petition process 

in the original law would consider it to be 

something to joke and laugh about. And I 

298 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

think it's a major failing of this program, 

of NIOSH and of the Department that this 

process has taken so long to get a final 

rule, and I would hope we could expedite and 

get things done quicker in the future. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tony? 

DR. ANDRADE: I think the final rule as 

written is an excellent piece of work. I'm 

sure that lots of people really sweated over 

the details on how to come up with it and 

the internal procedures that will be seen, 

I'm sure. 

But I want to make something absolutely 

clear here, because it seems like we're just 

not connecting insofar as the equity that --

or the difference that -- of the procedures 

that go into dose reconstruction versus what 

we're going to do with respect to potential 

Special Exposure Cohorts. 

If there is sufficient information to 

derive from -- sufficient information say on 

a source term to derive a maximum exposure, 

then all people who have been exposed to 

that, barring differences in jobs and other 

exposures they may have been subjected to, 

299 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

will be -- are applied that same exposure. 

Okay? That same -- same exposure is applied 

to them. In other words, there is equity. 

There is -- if a maximum can be constructed, 

that maximum is applied all across. There 

is no distribution of doses. 

When -- believe it or not, when we had 

more data -- okay? -- when we had more data, 

not only source information but CAM* 

information, dosimetry information, et 

cetera, et cetera, and those data can be 

attributed to an individual, that's when it 

becomes a little bit more murky because you 

can calculate an individual dose that may 

not be the maximum dose to that person. 

So different people under different 

scenarios, when you have a lot of data, can 

have different doses, even if it -- even if 

they're working at the same facility. Okay? 

Let's not confuse that -- let's not 

confuse that issue. I think people are hung 

up on that, and unless you've done health 

physics work in the past, I guess it's --

it's hard to comprehend that, but the more 

data you have, the easier it is to assign a 

300 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

dose to an individual that may not be the 

maximum dose that one would assign if all 

you had was a source term. Okay? I just 

don't know how to make it more clear than 

that. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Wanda? 

MS. MUNN: I guess I just felt it 

necessary to comment that I have not heard 

anyone making jokes about anything that we 

have done here. If -- if anyone has done 

so, it certainly has not been in my hearing. 

To the best of my knowledge, both staff and 

the members of this Board have been very 

serious and very dedicated in their approach 

to what we have to do. 

I appreciate this rule particularly. I 

know we've all waited for it a long time, 

and I spent a lot of time going through it 

since it was made available to us on the web 

and highlighting items that made the changes 

clear to me. I'm very pleased to see the 

process outlined that the Board is going to 

have to address because it appears that this 

is what we have been primarily constituted 

for. Up to this point we have been awaiting 

301 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

this rule so that we would know how to move 

into this last -- what I believe is the last 

stage of the requirements of the law. 

So thank you to the staff for getting 

this to us before this meeting so we have an 

opportunity to see it, look forward to 

seeing the procedures. Would seem wise to 

me that we not allow our imaginations to 

place us in a position where we are prejudging what may occur now that the rule is 

available. I for one would like an 

opportunity to see what is going to occur 

now so that we may better evaluate what our 

actions need to be in the future. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, then Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: Just a -- maybe Tony was 

-- was pointing to me on that misunderstand-

- I don't think I'm misunderstanding the 

difference between maximum dose and the 

estimate. But anyway, the -- you know, my 

point, again, was that -- and I think we can 

deal with this in the guidance stuff, but my 

point was that you may have a couple of 

datapoints that suggest very low exposures 

for certain people in a class -- or for the 

302 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 -- 

25 

whole class, and one datapoint that suggests 

a potential for a very high exposure, and 

then you ha-- then you will have a 

distribution and -- but is it sufficiently 

accurate? In other words, there's so little 

data on either side that is that 

sufficiently accurate, and this SEC rule 

says if I can calculate a max, I don't care 

about the rest, it's sufficiently -- it's 

feasible -- it's feasible to estimate a 

dose. How that gets played out in the 

individual's dose reconstruction from there 

on is a different issue. But I won't harp 

on this anymore. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, unfortunately we are 

dealing with a lot of theoretical or 

hypothetical cases here, and the proof of 

the pudding will come down to actual cases. 

And the Board will have the opportunity to 

look at every one of these and make a 

determination on the very issues we're all 

talking about here, and then we will have 

real data, real situations, real facilities 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but I --

303 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: -- and I think we can 

construct a lot of what-ifs that may or may 

not be realistic. So we are going to have 

to look at actual cases and determine the 

extent to which these issues are really 

problems. And then we'll have to deal with 

it. 

MR. GRIFFON: I disagree to some extent 

'cause I think we have some real-world 

experience, and all I'm saying is in the 

guidelines we may be able to develop some --

some better sort of -- of maybe not brightline tests but some sort of indicators of 

sufficient accuracy. And I -- I've thought 

through some possibilities and I think we 

should have some dialogue with NIOSH on that 

in the gui-- you know, maybe as a second 

draft of the guidelines. That's all I'm 

saying. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: The only other point I 

wanted to raise before we break 'cause I 

know we've got a break coming soon here, is 

there's a section in here on the health 

endangerment. You talk about the 250 days, 

304 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

but there's also a condition in the preamble 

part or whatever that talks about internal 

versus external exposures, and that for 

internal exposures it'll be assumed all 

cancers are covered but for external not 

necessarily the case. Am I reading that 

wrong? 

MR. KATZ: No, you're -- you're not. 

MR. GRIFFON: Give me the 

interpretation of that. 

MR. KATZ: There's no -- for health 

endangerment there's no issue with respect 

to internal/external doses whatsoever. 

There's nothing -- there's nothing in the 

rule, there's nothing in the preamble 

addressing that. 

In the preamble there was a discussion 

-- which you may be thinking of -- of when 

the Board considered the issue of 

feasibility on a case-specific basis of --

of what were real scenarios where it would 

be feasible for some cancers and not 

feasible for others. And in effect -- I 

mean what we discussed is -- is those 

situations really involve external exposures 

305 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

where it would be feasible for some cancers 

and not feasible for others. 

But when you're talking about internal 

exposures, there would be some amount of 

dose that would get to other organs, even 

though you can't, you know, quantify very 

minimal -- it may be very minimal, but since 

you can't quantify the -- and this is an 

issue that you actually raised in that 

discussion. You can't quantify the total 

dose coming into the lung, then how can you 

quantify the sequelae, the resulting doses 

to other sites. 

And we acknowledge that in the -- in 

the preamble and said so --

MR. GRIFFON: What I'm -- I'm talking 

about is this -- I'm sorry, I have this 

older version, it's page 19 in this older 

version. It -- as a result --

DR. ZIEMER: What section is it? Maybe 

that will help us. 

MR. GRIFFON: It's under -- in the 

preamble, I guess, section (b), feasibility 

of dose reconstructions, relevance of type 

of cancer to feasibility determinations. 

306 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. KATZ: Right, which is --

MR. GRIFFON: Right. And I mean it 

says (reading) As a result -- this is after 

the theoretical discussions. 

(Reading) As a result, the scientific 

finding concerning the feasibility of 

estimating doses in cases involving internal 

exposures -- internal underlined, emphasized 

-- would have to apply to all cancers. 

So that led me to believe that -- that 

the same principle was not --

MR. KATZ: In other words --

MR. GRIFFON: -- used for external --

MR. KATZ: -- feasibility determination 

-- if -- if we were going about a cancerspecific feasibility determination, it would 

have to apply to all cancers --

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 

MR. KATZ: -- but we've taken that out 

of the rule --

MR. GRIFFON: You take --

MR. KATZ: -- so it's not an issue. 

MR. GRIFFON: So it's --

MR. KATZ: It's not an issue. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- (Inaudible) is 

307 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

straight, I just wanted to clarify that --

MR. KATZ: That's just a discussion of 

-- of the reasons --

MR. GRIFFON: A variety --

MR. KATZ: -- how our thinking went as 

to why we eliminated the cancer-specific 

provision. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I -- okay, thank 

you. 

MR. KATZ: Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Mike. 

MR. GIBSON: Just a clarification for -

- from NIOSH for the record. You know, 

we've had a lot of talk back and forth here 

about determining worst case exposure to 

determine if someone's eligible for the 

Special Exposure Cohort. I will tell you I 

am one from the field, I have health physics 

experience, I've been involved in 

rulemaking, policy/procedure review, et 

cetera. Is NIOSH stating to us here now 

that if they have enough data, whether it's 

one datapoint or several, to determine a 

maximum dosage to determine eligibility for 

Special Exposure Cohort, will you use that 

308 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

same maximum dosage for their individual 

dose reconstruction if they're denied their 

Special Exposure Cohort status? 

MR. KATZ: If they're -- if they're 

denied. Oh, and that's where -- there was 

some discussion here about the difference 

between maximum exposure and individual 

doses, those are different. So you would be 

applying the single exposure model to the 

situation, but you wouldn't have as a result 

the same doses to each individual because 

those doses would depend on other factors, 

including what type of cancer they have and 

-- but -- Jim, you want to --

DR. NETON: More than likely this would 

occur in a situation where you've had an 

estimate of air concentration and NIOSH was 

able to determine -- it more than likely 

would not be based on a single measurement, 

but if we have multiple measurements where 

we could estimate the maximum air 

concentration that could have possibly 

occurred, that air concentration then would 

be used and people, based on their occupancy 

time in the area and other factors, would be 

309 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

-- their internal dose would be calculated 

using that air concentration that was 

estimated to be the upper limit, that's 

true. It could be. It doesn't have to be, 

but it could be. 

MR. GIBSON: Could be, so you're not --

that's applying what -- on the record, NIOSH 

is saying that you won't specifically use 

the worst-case dose estimate to deny someone 

SEC status as you will to apply to their 

dose reconstruction. 

MR. KATZ: And it depends on whether 

you have other data to do better than that. 

If that's the -- if that's the limits of 

your data, to use that worst-case exposure -

- I mean then you're using it. Right? 

DR. NETON: That would be the last --

would be the last piece of data we would 

have that -- before we would go to SEC or 

before we say we can't do it. We have to 

have something. You know, we're not going 

to make this up out of thin air. We're 

going to have to have some kind of data that 

would substantiate the air concentration in 

the example I used that we apply. And it 

310 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

would be up to review to determine if that 

was sufficient -- you know, was -- did NIOSH 

have sufficient data to make that upper 

estimate. 

MR. GIBSON: I understand that. I'm 

coming from the back -- back end. If 

someone applies for Special Exposure Cohort 

and you go through what data you have and 

determine a worst-case exposure, say no, 

this petition doesn't qualify. Will you 

take that same determination, that highest 

level, and use it as their dose 

reconstruction (Inaudible) for the 

probability of causation or whatever? 

DR. NETON: I don't know that in the 

SEC petition evaluation that we would 

necessarily flesh out the exact details of 

how would we do the dose reconstruction, you 

know, down to the model we would use, but we 

would have to ascribe the data that were 

available to do the dose reconstruction. In 

other words, I don't -- I don't think we 

would do dose reconstructions to say we can 

do dose reconstructions in an SEC petition 

evaluation. We will -- we will outline the 

311 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

type of information that we believe are 

available to allow us to estimate doses in 

that cohort. 

MR. GIBSON: Worst case. 

DR. NETON: Worst case, yes. 

MR. GIBSON: So the ans-- if I can get 

an answer for the record, it's that the 

estimated dose used to determine whether or 

not someone qualifies for SEC status is not 

necessarily the exposure or the dosage that 

will be assigned to them when you do dose 

reconstruction. There is a difference. 

DR. NETON: Well, I think what I'm 

saying is I don't know that we will ac--

we're not going to actually calculate doses 

to members of the SEC petition cohort. 

We're going to describe as clearly as we can 

the information that we believe is available 

to allow us to do those dose 

reconstructions, so -- and that may involve 

some -- some spelling out of air samples 

that were available and the concentrations 

that would be used in the exposure models, 

so you know -- but we're not going to 

develop an entire exposure model to -- to 

312 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

document that we believe we can do dose 

reconstructions. 

MR. GIBSON: I understand that. Let 

me try --

MR. GRIFFON: It gets back to the same 

thing I was discussing. I really think it -

-

MR. GIBSON: Right, I mean there's 

health physicists discussing it, now I'm 

trying to say -- you're trying to take --

take a worst-case scenario to see if they 

qualify or not for SEC. That wouldn't 

necessarily be the dosage -- if they're 

denied SEC status, that wouldn't be the 

dosage applied to them on their dose 

reconstruction. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, you wouldn't 

necessarily --

MR. GIBSON: Not necessarily --

MR. GRIFFON: (Inaudible) 

MR. GIBSON: (Inaudible) 

DR. NETON: That would be the worstcase scenario, but we may be able to do 

better than that, depending on what 

information was available. I'm sorry, I 

313 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

misunderstood --

MR. GIBSON: So there's a difference. 

DR. NETON: Okay, sorry. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tony. 

DR. ANDRADE: Okay, one more time. I 

think I now fully understand where Mark and 

Mike are coming from, and I think what --

where Jim is coming from and where we're all 

having a little bit of difficulty in 

understanding each other is the following. 

If we don't have enough information 

available on all of the things that normally 

are considered in a dose reconstruction --

dosimetry, source term, process information, 

et cetera -- if there is not enough 

information or that information is very 

sketchy about the source term and therefore 

the range of doses that people could have 

received, then indeed that thing -- that 

particular situation would point directly to 

a special cohort status. 

MR. GRIFFON: But that's not what the 

rule says. That's my point. 

DR. ANDRADE: But I -- I think that's -

-

314 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, maybe I'm -- maybe 

I'm being too cynical, but that's not the 

way the rule is written. It's if you can 

get a maximum, it's feasible, you're done. 

The question I'm grappling with is 

sufficient accuracy. And like Paul's 

pointed out, you can get a maximum that's 

very inaccurate. Maybe in the guidelines --

I'm saying I have some ideas on it and I've 

-- I've brought these up to NIOSH -- not on 

the Board, but off-line -- ideas of maybe 

ways to look at a brighter-line test for 

sufficiently accurate 'cause I think that --

you know, you can have -- you can have a 

max-- just to be cynical, you can put that 

wide distribution out just to say well, we 

don't want to do an SEC for this group, you 

know. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, folks, we're 

starting to recycle discussions that we've 

had a number of times. I think -- I think 

we all realize there's an issue here that we 

may have to grapple some more with, but it's 

going to be harder and harder to grapple 

with it on an empty stomach. 

315 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

No, in reality we now -- we do have an 

evening session. We need to allow some time 

for a break and for folks to eat their 

dinner, so we're going to recess until 7:00 

o'clock. 

Well, I'm skipping site profile status 

because if we do site profile status 

tonight, we're going to skip supper -- well, 

maybe I should call for a motion on which 

you'd rather skip, but I --

DR. MELIUS: The only question I have 

is does Jim Neton want to present the 

Bethlehem slides from that -- he has some 

overheads on -- before the session tonight? 

Not now, but before the session tonight --

DR. ZIEMER: Well, that --

DR. MELIUS: -- sort of an up-- an 

update --

DR. ZIEMER: -- would depend on how 

long that will take. We need to allow time 

for the public. 

DR. NETON: Oh, I see, you'd like to 

have an idea what the Bethlehem Steel --

DR. MELIUS: Well, I think -- I think 

you have three overheads on -- I mean --

316 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 -- 

DR. NETON: I could literally do that -

-

MR. KATZ: Turn the mike on. 

DR. NETON: -- (Inaudible) minutes. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Turn the mike on, please. 

DR. NETON: I'm sorry. I could 

probably do that in ten or 15 minutes, it's 

two slides or a slide and a half, so it's up 

to you all. 

DR. MELIUS: Do it at 7:00, that's what 

I'm --

DR. ZIEMER: Is there any objection to 

doing that at the front end for the -- and 

the -- it would be beneficial for the 

members of the public, as well. 

DR. MELIUS: 'Cause it's going to come 

up and I -- I figure --

DR. ZIEMER: Sure. Jim --

DR. NETON: I can do that. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- let's plan on that. 

DR. NETON: So that would be the 

beginning of the public -- we're not going 

to start the public session early. Right? 

DR. ZIEMER: No, we'll start it at 7:00 

317 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. NETON: Fine. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- and go from there. And 

then the rest of your presentation we can 

work in tomorrow. So we will recess until 

7:00 o'clock. Thank you. 

(Whereupon, a dinner recess was taken 

from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.) 

(7:00 p.m.) 

INTRODUCTION 

DR. ZIEMER: I feel like you're so far 

back here, I have to come back and see who's 

here. 

Welcome to the public session of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health. Actually all of the sessions are 

public, but this is the public comment 

session. 

My name is Paul Ziemer and I Chair this 

Board. I want to introduce the other 

members of the Board. I'll point out to you 

first of all that the program that we're 

involved in is administered by four Federal 

agencies. That may or may not be a good 

thing. You would have to decide for 

yourself, but these are the four agencies 

318
 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

involved. 

This particular Board works closely 

with NIOSH, which is part of the Department 

of Health and Human Services, and we provide 

our advice to the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services. So that's the group that we 

work with closely. The National Institutes 

for Occupational Safety and Health is part 

of NIOSH -- or a part of Health and Human 

Services, that second agency that you see 

there. But also the Department of Labor, 

the Department of Energy and the Attorney 

General's people are all involved in this 

program. 

Now the members of the Board -- they 

all have placards up here, and I do have 

their names listed, and these individuals 

are appointed by the President under the 

requirements or under the provisions of this 

particular law that has put this whole thing 

in motion. The law says that the Board 

consists of no more than 20 members. We 

actually have 12 members of the Board. The 

members include affected workers, their 

representatives, and representatives from 

319 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the scientific and medical communities. And 

we have that kind of a spectrum of 

individuals here in this group represented 

today. 

(Pause) 

So here are the members of the 

committee. Larry Elliott is the Federal 

officer and he serves as a member of this 

Board, and then the others as you see listed 

there -- Henry Anderson is not here tonight, 

An -- we call him Tony, really, Antonio --

Tony Andrade. Tony, indicate who you are --

and I hope you can read these. Tony's at 

Los Alamos. Roy DeHart, Rich Espinosa, Mike 

Gibson over here, Mark Griffon, Jim Melius, 

Wanda Munn, Leon Owens -- Charles Leon 

Owens, Robert Presley and Genevieve 

Roessler. So these are the members of this 

Board. 

And finally I want to tell you or 

remind you of what the responsibilities of 

the Board are, as defined by law. We have 

been involved in developing some guidelines 

that this program uses. Those have to do 

with what's called the determination of 

320 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

probability of causation, the likelihood 

that a cancer was caused by radiation 

exposure. And also involved in reviewing 

and assessing the guidelines for what are 

called the dose reconstructions which are 

done for individual claimants. 

Now the Board itself does not do the 

dose reconstructions. Those are done by the 

Federal agencies. But we have had input on 

developing the guidelines that are used to 

carry those out. 

You also notice that we have a 

responsibility to assess the scientific 

validity and the quality of the dose 

reconstructions. For the Board that is a 

kind of audit responsibility. We are just 

getting underway with that. We will go back 

and select a number of cases that the --

that the agency has assessed, and number of 

dose reconstructions, to evaluate -- in a 

sense, audit them and see whether or not we 

concur with their methodology and their 

findings on those. But we do not go back 

and review all of the dose reconstructions. 

This is a sampling to see if we note any 

321 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

errors -- systematic errors or other kinds 

of issues that might arise -- or is the 

agency carrying things out the way that the 

rules say that they should. So it's an 

audit type of function. 

And then the third thing or the third 

main thing on the bullet -- or third main 

bullet here is the determination of what are 

called the Special Exposure Cohort groups. 

They're -- the legislation allows or 

provides for certain groups to petition to 

become part of what is called the Special 

Exposure Cohort, whereby separate individual 

dose reconstructions no longer would have to 

be done for those individuals if they so 

qualified, or groups of individuals. And 

that process -- the Board is also involved 

in those determinations. 

The rule on how Special Exposure 

Cohorts -- or additions to what is called 

the Special Exposure Cohort, the rule on how 

that is done just came out two days ago, 

basically. I think it was the day before 

yesterday. So that process is just getting 

underway. 

322 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

So the Board really confines itself to 

those issues. We do not get involved really 

directly in people's individual cases. 

Now there may be a number of you here 

today that want to talk about your 

individual cases, and that is fine. We're -

- we typically hear a lot from people around 

the country about their experience with the 

program, positive or negative. And the 

benefit to the Board is not so much knowing 

what your personal case is about -- although 

we're glad to hear that -- but it is more to 

learn what your experiences are with the 

program, where you think changes could help, 

what difficulties you might have encountered 

that might be indicators of bigger problems 

in the program, that sort of thing. 

We are not here to answer questions 

about your specific cases. In fact we could 

not do that, because of privacy rules, in an 

open forum anyway. So if you have 

particular issues about -- if you're a 

claimant or a person who is involved in a 

case, if you have specific questions, you 

may want to talk to some of the staffers 

323 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

afterwards and they can follow up on 

specific things for you if that is an issue 

for you. 

But we -- we do welcome hearing 

information about your experiences. We 

can't necessarily answer questions -- you 

may have some questions, and if you do have 

questions we will try to find individuals 

who can answer them for you. But mainly 

we're here to learn what you have to say. 

BETHLEHEM STEEL SITE UPDATE 

Now before we actually start with your 

comments, one of the staff people here, Dr. 

Jim Neton -- Dr. Neton is on the NIOSH staff 

and very much involved in the dose 

reconstruction process and the development 

of site profiles for various facilities 

around the country. And Jim has prepared 

some information about the Bethlehem Steel 

site and that site profile, and we thought 

that would be of interest to many of you 

tonight. He just has a few slides about 

that and we'll use that at the beginning 

here, and then have the opportunity to hear 

from you. So I'm going to turn the pointer 

324 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

and the mike over to Jim Neton. 

DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I 

just have a couple of slides on the 

Bethlehem Steel profile. It's my pleasure 

to be here this evening to talk about what 

we've been doing on the Bethlehem Steel 

profile. I recognize some familiar faces in 

the crowd from the town hall meeting we had 

less than a month ago here, and I did 

indicate at that town hall meeting that 

we're working on this and I'm happy to say 

that we finished our analysis -- at least of 

the profile. 

I have some other slides that we won't 

get into this evening. This is more for the 

public meeting tomorrow, but since you guys 

were all -- since the general public is here 

specifically to talk about Bethlehem Steel 

tonight, we thought we'd go over where we 

are with the ingestion pathway. 

Just as a way of reminder to the Board 

and some members of the public why Bethlehem 

Steel is an Atomic Weapons Employer and 

included in the compensation program, 

Bethlehem Steel is a facility that obviously 

325 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

processed steel, but between 1948 and 1952 

was under contract with the then Atomic 

Energy Commission to attempt to take billets 

of uranium -- big round hunks of uranium --

and roll them, in a very vigorous rolling 

process with a lot of pressures, into rods -

- uranium rods that could be shipped to 

Hanford and inserted in the reactor and --

and make fuel for the war effort -- or 

plutonium for the war effort. 

During that time frame, this -- '48 to 

'52 is the time frame that the site is 

acknowledged to have a contract, and we 

developed an exposure model for those four 

years. And we determined that -- the model 

was an air -- air concentration model. We 

had no bioassay data there that -- we 

assumed that 12 rollings took place each of 

those years between 1948 and '52 for a total 

of 48 rollings, and developed an air model. 

And we said this is -- these are the air 

concentrations that people breath, and the 

upper limit of the air concentration was 

somewhere around 1,000 times the maximum 

acceptable concentration at that time, which 

326 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

roughly equates something in the vicinity of 

50 milligrams of uranium per cubic meter --

huge, huge dust loading. I mean a very 

thick cloud of uranium dust at those levels. 

What's been pointed out to us, and 

rightfully so, is that we did not explicitly 

include the ingestion pathway. We did a 

pretty good job, I feel, of addressing the 

inhalation of uranium, but there was no 

model in that profile that talked about what 

the doses were to the general worker in the 

vicinity of the rolling operations from 

eating -- ingestion or -- eating or drinking 

contaminated material and touching material 

and transferring it to their -- their mouth. 

So as I said, the pathway was not explicitly 

addressed, although we did consider it. And 

from health physics perspective, usually 

ingestion pathways are very small as far as 

delivering dose to the worker. But you 

know, we do -- we do need to address it. 

So to consider this model we assumed 

that there were three ways that people could 

ingest uranium in the facility. First is 

when you inhale material, the lung is pretty 

327 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

good at clearing particles from your -- from 

your -- from the lung, you know, 

contaminants. So you would inhale uranium 

and your mucociliary latera*, the clearance 

mechanism of the lung, will clear the 

uranium up into your throat and you'll 

swallow it. That is one mode of ingestion. 

That model is addressed in the ICRP model 

that we use, the lung model that's a 

standard model for our process, and so we 

didn't have to address that. That was 

inherent in our analysis. 

The second two issues weren't though, 

the settling of airborne uranium on food or 

drink, and then the transfer of contaminated 

surfaces from the hand. One touches a 

contaminated surface and goes to your mouth 

and will ingest a certain amount of uranium. 

What we've committed to do, and we do 

this with any profile and dose 

reconstructions that we perform, if we do a 

reanalysis, we will go back and evaluate the 

previously processed cases that had been 

denied by the Department of Labor to see 

what effect that new pathway or that new 

328 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

analysis may have on the compensation 

decision, or in our case, on the dosimetry 

calculation and ultimately Department of 

Labor would make a re-evaluation and 

decision on that new pathway for 

compensation. 

Okay. Just briefly -- and this is only 

the second slide I have so I'll try to be 

fairly brief so you guys can have time to 

ask questions, but settling on the food or 

drink was modeled using continuous settling 

into an open container. We assumed that a 

person would have a coffee cup or some type 

of beverage container and the uranium in the 

air, as I mentioned, went up to 1,000 times 

the maximum allowable air concentration. So 

we took that exposure model and based on 

what we know about the settling properties 

of uranium -- it has a certain velocity that 

it settles down on the surfaces -- we 

assumed that this container sat out in the 

work place the entire day and was open to 

the atmosphere and accumulated all the 

uranium that was in the air that would 

settle into the container, and then assumed 

329 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that 100 percent of the settled material in 

that container was ingested. 

Now this is a kind of a nice analysis 

because we don't have to worry about how 

many cups of coffee a person drank. We just 

assumed that that coffee cup was open to the 

atmosphere and the air concentration for the 

entire day, so that's the first model we 

ran. 

The transfer to hand allowed for the 

ingestion of ten percent of the uranium 

transferred to the hand. In other words, if 

you touch a surface and it's on your hand, 

we assumed that ten percent of what 

contaminated your hand became ingested. 

It's a fairly, we believe, favorable --

claimant-favorable analysis. We found some 

literature indications that one percent may 

be more appropriate, but we wanted to be 

conservative and we chose ten percent. 

We also -- this model also was based --

and we -- on the settling of the uranium in 

the air, this up to 50 milligrams per cubic 

meter over a full 24-hour day, and assumed 

an equilibrium concentration -- in other 

330 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

words, what settled and what's removed, 

there's a -- there's an equilibrium value 

that would be eventually established that 

the air -- air concentration would -- would 

account for, and the only removal mechanism 

that we considered. We didn't consider 

housekeeping or, you know, dispersion by 

wind or resuspension. We just assumed the 

only -- the only mechanism for removing that 

material from the surface was contamination 

of the hand. So the hand is constantly 

picking up this ten percent of the material 

that's deposited. 

The other piece of information that's 

relevant is that when you ingest uranium, 

only a certain percentage of it becomes 

absorbed by the body. The rest of the 

material will be excreted in the feces. 

There are two choices in the models that we 

use. One says that only .2 percent -- twotenths of a percent is absorbed by the 

gastrointestinal tract, and the other model 

says two percent. The choice is depending 

on whether the uranium is in a very 

insoluble form or slightly more soluble. 

331 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

There are indications that Bethlehem 

Steel -- this may be -- is more likely 

insoluble uranium, but we chose the more 

claimant-favorable value of two percent, 

meaning two percent of what a person 

ingested was absorbed and 98 percent would 

be unabsorbed and passed through the body. 

The end result of all this -- this is 

documented in a Technical Information 

Bulletin that we've incorporated into the 

Bethlehem Steel profile. It is out there on 

our web site for viewing and you can look at 

the -- the mathematical model that we used 

to do this. But the end result is, with 

these two pathways taken into consideration, 

it works out that about 20 percent of the 

air concentration -- the value ingested is 

equal to about 20 percent of what is in the 

air concentration per cubic meter per day. 

So that's what we've assumed in this model. 

We have gone back and looked at the --

a couple of cases. We have not completely 

finished the reanalysis, but we've looked at 

a couple of the claims that were pretty 

high. As some of you know, there were some 

332 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that were in the upper 40 percent range for 

probability of causation. We've looked at 

those and there's been very little effect on 

the change in the probability of causation 

calculation, primarily because the dose that 

we assume from the air concentration model 

overwhelms the dose that is a result of this 

additional ingestion pathway that we've 

added. 

If you think about it, at the upper end 

of the distribution we are having a person 

inhale air that has 50 milligrams of uranium 

per cubic meter. And with the -- if the 

cancer is not in the lung but an organ 

distant from the lung, we assume that that 

material is fairly soluble and rapidly 

clears to the other organs, so a lot of that 

inhalation ends up going into the 

bloodstream and circulating through the 

other organs. Where this model allows for 

some ingestion, but much smaller amounts of 

-- a much smaller degree of this material 

reaches the body than via the inhalation 

pathway that we modeled previously. 

I'm not comfortable right now saying 

333 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

that this will not change any claims that 

have been processed thus far, but our 

original suspicions are that this would not 

add much dose and would not likely change 

many claims appears to be well-founded. But 

I will caution you and say that we're still 

looking at this and I can't say -- in this 

program -- you can't say with any certainty 

until you look at all the data, and so we'll 

be doing that in the next week or so and 

notifying the Department of Labor of any 

cases we believe that it may have affected 

to be compensable. We will write this up in 

a program evaluation report -- this is 

standard practice for us. When we do a 

reanalysis like this we document this and 

publish it -- put this out on our web site 

so it will be available for viewing by the 

general public, as well. 

With that, I think I'll stop, and if 

there's any brief questions, I'd be -- if 

there's time -- I don't know, Dr. Ziemer, do 

you want to answer any questions or --

DR. ZIEMER: Any questions from the 

Board we can delay till tomorrow, but if 

334 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

anyone in -- amongst the general public 

wishes to ask Dr. Neton a question on what 

he just talked about -- yes, sir, please 

approach the mike and you'll need to state 

your name for the record. 

PUBLIC COMMENT 

MR. KOCHANSKI: My name is John 

Kochanski. I'm from Niagara Falls, New 

York. My father worked for Carborundum, a 

NIOSH (sic) site. I would like to know the 

expertise of NIOSH in detecting radiation? 

How long has NIOSH been doing this, and what 

is their expertise? Do they have scientists 

from MIT or Harvard? Do they have geiger 

counters? Do they understand what radiation 

is and have they been to the sites to see if 

there's still radiation today because all 

the buildings are sitting there. What is 

NIOSH's job? It's to determine if this 

caused death. There is sites that are still 

there. They have radiation -- residual 

radiation in them and there's tight 

neighborhoods, there's articles of high 

cancer rates. It's not only the workers. 

It's everybody who lives in the area 

335 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

forever. What is the life of radiation? It 

doesn't go away in one day. You have a lot 

of work to do. Please, if you need money, 

if you need more workers, you will get it. 

And I would like to know why I wrote a 

letter to NIOSH five weeks ago about my 

father's case and I didn't get any 

information in five weeks. If you need 

someone to answer your mail, maybe you can 

hire them. But radiation is exact. There's 

a lot of experts that you can consult. 

There's a lot that you can do. These are 

neighborhoods. These are poor people. We 

don't want to see the spilling of radiation 

forever. Has the EPA even been contacted 

about these sites? Thank you very much. 

And by the way, my father was in the Pacific 

Theater. He couldn't go to college. He 

didn't have the money. That's why we're 

standing here. Have a good day. 

(Applause) 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. And 

in terms of responding to the letter, I 

think we can ask the staff to follow up --

they have the name -- and find out that 

336 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

particular thing. 

Also, I would point out to -- to the 

gentleman that in fact NIOSH and their 

contractor, Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities, have in fact over the past 

couple of years hired many of the top health 

physicists in the country to assist in the 

program. So indeed they have many, many 

experts, including Dr. Neton himself, who 

won't tell you this, but he is a very wellrespected expert himself in these areas. 

We have received a written letter from 

Elsie Owens, a letter which included a 

number of questions for the NIOSH staff. I 

think a letter which Ms. Owens did not wish 

to have necessarily read in the public arena 

here, but her letter has been made available 

to the NIOSH staff and they will be 

addressing, Ms. Owens, your questions. 

I do want to give you opportunity, 

though, if you have any additional comments 

or questions that you want to raise with 

respect to the letter, which we are having 

the staff follow up on -- Ms. Owens or the 

individual accompanying her, do either of 

337 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

you have some additional questions you want 

to raise? 

MS. OWENS: (Off microphone) I can't 

stand up. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, could we bring --

MR. ELLIOTT: Take the mike to her. 

MS. OWENS: (Off microphone) 

(Inaudible) hear me from here? 

DR. ZIEMER: We'll take the mike or the 

lavaliere mike. Just a moment and we'll 

bring the mike to you there. 

(Pause) 

MS. OWENS: Hello. What I'm wondering 

if on the extension of the time frames where 

the Department of Labor had the cutoff date 

as 1948 for workers at Hooker Chemical 

Company and my husband started there early 

1950, and I don't think any cleanup was done 

at that time, that there was a lot of 

residual left there, and I -- to this date I 

don't even know if any cleanup was done 

there. Do you have anything on -- comment 

on that? 

DR. ZIEMER: I don't see any of the 

staff jumping to respond, but we will 

338 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

certainly be able to check on that and --

MS. OWENS: And also Louise Slaughter 

from Niagara Falls and Schumer were -- had 

taken to Washington to try and get the 

cutoff date increased to two to four more 

years, and I haven't heard anything more on 

that. 

DR. ZIEMER: Representative Slaughter's 

office had someone here earlier today. I 

don't know if she's still here or not. 

MR. ELLIOTT: She's left. 

DR. ZIEMER: She's left, okay. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Let me --

DR. ZIEMER: Let Mr. Elliott respond. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, ma'am, with respect 

to the cutoff date, that is not decided by 

NIOSH. That's a decision that's made 

jointly between Department of Labor and 

Department of Energy, I believe. You 

certainly can avail yourself of your 

Congressional support, though, to seek that 

change, I guess. But NIOSH has no control 

over the cutoff date. 

MS. OWENS: (Off microphone) Who does? 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, Department of Energy 

339 
1 -- 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MS. OWENS: Oh, the Department --

DR. ZIEMER: -- and the Department of 

Labor. 

MS. OWENS: Oh, and you don't know if 

anything has -- if that's been brought up at 

all? 

DR. ZIEMER: We do have a Labor 

representative here. 

MS. MOSIER: Yeah, I'm from the 

Department of Labor, Roberta Mosier. The 

dates that we use for these claims is based 

on the wording that is in the Act, which 

defines covered employee as someone who was 

working at a covered facility during the 

period of time when they were performing 

work for Department of Energy. So it's our 

interpretation that absent legislative 

change, without the law being changed, we 

would not be able to cover someone who only 

worked after a covered -- after a period 

when DOE work was being done. So at Hooker, 

if -- you know, the work for Department of 

Energy stopped in 1948. Even if there were 

residual contamination, the way the law is 

340 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

currently, we do not believe that we would 

be able to extend coverage. 

Now I know that there have been a 

number of legislators who have been working 

on legislation to make a change, to cover 

people during a residual contamination 

period. But that hasn't -- you know, it 

hasn't been passed yet. 

MS. OWENS: Was that ever cleaned up? 

MS. MOSIER: Was it -- I -- I don't --

I don't know that information. That's 

probably in the residual contamination 

report, I would think, isn't it? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, it would be, but I"m 

-- and I'm sorry, I don't -- don't remember 

what Hooker -- our entry on Hooker Chemical 

had to say, but it's -- we'll -- we'll work 

to get you that answer. 

MS. OWENS: I was reading in our 

Niagara Falls Gazette that so far Hooker 

Chemical, Linde and none of those cases have 

been settled, and I was wondering, is there 

some reason -- it said they -- none of the -

- anyone from Niagara Falls has been 

settled? 

341 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MS. MOSIER: Right, the reason is most 

of those claims -- there are some that --

where there have been decisions and those 

are mostly the ones that were not eligible 

because they worked outside the covered 

periods. The rest of them have been 

referred to NIOSH for dose reconstruction. 

And since they don't have completed site 

profiles for those locations yet, we haven't 

gotten them back from NIOSH. So once --

once they've finished the site profiles, 

we'll be able to -- Department of Labor will 

be able to make a decision on those. 

MS. OWENS: I understand they were 

cutting a lot of that stuff -- this was for 

-- during the Manhattan Project --

MS. MOSIER: Uh-huh. 

MS. OWENS: -- for Hooker and other 

companies, and disposing of that material in 

Model City, waste. You know anything about 

that? 

MS. MOSIER: No. No, I don't, sorry. 

MS. OWENS: Lake Ordnance, that's --

MS. MOSIER: Okay. 

MS. OWENS: -- LOOW --

342 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MS. MOSIER: Right, right. 

MS. OWENS: Yeah, that's where it was 

dis-- that's in the Model City. 

MS. MOSIER: Okay. Right, okay. 

MS. OWENS: You don't know of anything 

--

MR. KOCHANSKI: (Off microphone) Does 

the Department of Labor have any labor law -

-

DR. ZIEMER: You'll need to approach 

the mike if you have a question. And also 

we didn't get your name here so we can --

MR. KOCHANSKI: My name --

DR. ZIEMER: -- follow up on your other 

question, so if you would repeat your name 

for Mr. Elliott. 

MR. KOCHANSKI: My name is John 

Kochanski, K-o-c-h-a-n-s-k-i, long Irish 

name. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MR. KOCHANSKI: Now for the woman from 

the Department of Labor, have any labor laws 

been violated? Under Roosevelt's New Deal 

there were stringent laws that applied to 

the safety of the worker. Has the Justice 

343 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Department looked into the facts of 

unnecessary risks to employees? You have 

laws. You are with the Labor Department. 

There are clear-cut laws and if you would 

send me a response, I would be very 

interested to know. My father didn't see 

his 60th birthday. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Now the next 

person I have on my list is Ralph Krieger or 

-- is it Krieger? 

MR. KRIEGER: Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Ralph, who's with 

PACE and from Alden, New York. 

MR. KRIEGER: (Off microphone) It's too 

bad a lot of people (Inaudible) my wife 

(Inaudible) dose reconstruction, but the 

first thing I want to ask the Board (on 

microphone) I'd like to a have a round table 

discussion and a Linde site profile. I'm 

requesting you out of the Board. 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, restate the 

question. 

MR. KRIEGER: I -- it's not a question, 

it's a request. 

DR. ZIEMER: Request to --

344 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. KRIEGER: Respectfully given, we 

would like a round table discussion and a 

Linde site profile. 

DR. ZIEMER: A Linde site profile. 

MR. KRIEGER: As a matter of record. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MR. KRIEGER: This afternoon I listened 

to a number of issues that were brought up 

about dose reconstruction and one of the 

things that they came -- along the line and 

I have an article here that I got out of one 

of -- one of the books that I get from the 

Congress, and the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services, in accordance with section 

3513, 21 specified cancers. Specified 

cancers means the following -- and it goes 

down to the bladder, bowel and brain, you 

name it, all the way down. But one of the 

ones that came up to mind that came today 

that was in discussion was that the 

possibility of prostate cancer being 

eliminated. My question is, being that the 

prostate is located next to the cayunes 

(sic) and the cayunes is very susceptible to 

cancer, which organ is -- is -- is -- organs 

345 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

would be more susceptible, prostate or the 

cayunes? 

DR. ZIEMER: We probably need a medical 

doctor to answer that, but the organ's 

location itself is not the determiner of 

susceptibility. I believe I'd be correct to 

-- as --

MR. KRIEGER: When you're being exposed 

-- excuse me, sir. When you're being 

excused to all the irradiation elements --

gas, because it's decaying product, and the 

radi-- radiation that's coming off, and the 

dust, you're being exposed to all the 

elements of nuclear contamination -- gamma 

radiation, for one. And we know what the 

gamma radiation was at Linde because our Xray technicians put down a film on the floor 

with a lead pencil and covered it. The next 

day it was exposed. That was in building 

30. 

Now another issue that you brought up 

that was discussed here, Department of Labor 

kind of said that they didn't have any 

information on this. I don't know if they 

got this report. This is kind of an older 

346 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

report, not this year, October of 2003 by 

Louise Ginzbergen*, MD, MPH, director, 

Trinity Engineering Association, Cincinnati, 

Ohio, report on residual radioactive and 

beryllium contamination at atomic weapons 

employees (sic) facilium -- facilities and 

beryllium vendor facilities. This document 

has all the sites. Many of them are marked 

out. Linde's marked here; Chandler Street, 

which did the barrier product -- barrier 

development for Oak Ridge; (Inaudible) 

Products and it was in Buffalo, New York; 

Utica Street Warehouse where they warehoused 

it. And then we come to the Linde site in 

Tonawanda. This is your document by my --

Congressman sent to me. 

Linde Ceramics Plant, Tonawanda, New 

York, 1940 to 1950, DOE. Then it's got 1996 

on there. This document-- this 

documentation reviewed indicates that there 

is a potential for significant residual 

contamination outside of the covered period 

in which weapons-related production 

occurred, 1940 to 1997. Well, they're still 

on the site. They're still cleaning it up. 

347 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Probably won't have it done, if they're 

lucky, by 2007. 

Since the beginning of the first of 

this year, six of my men, my former members, 

have come down with cancer, were operated 

on, two of them are dead since the first of 

the year. As of today, one of my best 

friends, who worked with me for the 

organization, is in the hospital today being 

operated on -- which makes seven so far this 

year. That ain't counting last year, seven. 

The year before that, the year before that, 

the year before that, the year before that. 

It's ironic, as I listen to you talk 

today, the Board, discuss this dose 

reconstruction where most of the men worked 

in secrecy -- absolute secrecy. You opened 

your mouth, you were gone. Absolute 

secrecy. Very few people at Linde ever wore 

dose badges 'cause they were afraid if they 

wore the dose badges they would give away 

the secret 'cause other people -- the 

employees -- want to know why they were 

wearing dose badges. This discussion on 

dose reconstruction is the most ludicrous 

348 
 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

thing I have ever heard in my life. 

(Applause) 

And I'll tell you what, today you heard 

that big loud noise in the building? That 

was General Groves turning over in his 

grave. For the information of the public, 

General Groves was in charge of the 

Manhattan Project. From the day he started 

to the day the bombs were dropped was three 

and a half years. This program was 

instituted in Washington in the year 2000 

and it hasn't been completed yet. 

(Applause) 

And that's a damned shame to the 

veterans that worked and came back after the 

wars, and I'm talking World War II, World 

War -- the Korean War and Viet Nam, that 

came back to Linde and other sites. Not 

just to Linde sites, other sites to work --

Carborundum --

UNIDENTIFIED: Hooker Chemical. 

MR. KRIEGER: -- came back to work --

UNIDENTIFIED: Carborundum. 

MR. KRIEGER: -- in a site that they 

didn't know it was left contaminated. Or 

349 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

when they asked questions, they said don't 

worry about it. That's what they told us at 

Linde when I was president here, don't worry 

about it, it ain't going to hurt you -- as I 

was watching the bodies pile up. 

It's a damned shame that General Grimes 

(sic) could create three nuclear bombs and 

we can't even get our own people taken care 

of. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Very good. 

(Applause) 

MR. KRIEGER: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for your 

comments. Let me point out also, in --

there's a lot of frustrations on many of 

these things. This -- this Board of course 

is trying to do what it can, as mandated by 

law. We are not able to address all the 

issues. Those that we're responsible for, 

we are trying to address to the best of our 

ability. 

Sir, we have some other people that are 

before you, and I'll give you the mike again 

at the appropriate time. 

We have Linda Burgess from Bethlehem 

350 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Steel, who's a resident of Lancaster, New 

York is next. Linda? 

MS. BURGESS: Good evening. Thank you 

for the opportunity to speak with you. I 

speak on behalf of my mother. My father, 

John Cruiser*, was a brick layer in the hot 

gang at Bethlehem Steel from '48 to '78. On 

July, 1987 he was diagnosed with pancreatic 

cancer and he died 15 months later. He was 

63 years old. He was a husband, father to 

three of us, and grandfather to six. 

He served in the Army during World War 

II. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge 

and received two purple hearts. He survived 

one war, only to be sent into another, the 

Cold War. Unknown to him, he worked with 

uranium in the furnaces of Bethlehem, which 

caused his death. 

We applied for compensation to the 

EEOICPA in 2001 and were subsequently 

denied. Probability of causation that 

killed him was 3.13 percent. Since the time 

that my mother's claim was denied, I have 

had the opportunity to study the matrix for 

Bethlehem Steel. I have many questions 

351 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

regarding the dose reconstruction and that 

document. Reports indicate that all work 

was done between '49 and '51. But reports 

also indicate that seven additional rollings 

took place in 1952. I also have a letter 

from Paul Kasanovich*, compensation agent 

for Labor Union 2603, stating that in 1955, 

for a period of six to eight months, one day 

a month the ten inch bar mill rolled steel 

rounds of the uranium lead content for the 

Atomic Energy Commission. 

The matrix determined that the number 

of exposure hours per year, by assuming 12 

ten-hour work days per year for the 1949 and 

'50. That is without any documentation 

regarding rollings. Yet the same assumption 

is not made for 1955, when rollings were 

also reported. If the assumption can be 

made without documentation for '49 and '52, 

why isn't the same assumption made for '55? 

The dates of the rollings are listed in 

the document. In documents obtained from 

the Department of Health and Human Services 

I discovered an experimental rolling that 

was not listed in the matrix. This rolling 

352 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

took place on November 17th, 1951. Perhaps 

the reason that it was not listed was that 

it was canceled because there were not 

enough good billets made. Out of 

approximately ten ton of conditioned billets 

rolled, only three ton of billets were 

produced. There is no record regarding the 

other seven ton of uranium ore. That's 

seven ton of missing uranium ore. 

I also have documents from National 

Lead Company of Ohio reporting on the 

rolling of 222 uranium billets at Bethlehem 

on April 12th, 1952. It states that round 

billets lose an average of six pounds per 

billet. The square ones, however, because 

they're harder to roll, they lose an average 

of 11.5 pounds. Now since I don't know 

whether each billet was square or round in 

Bethlehem, I can't for any certainty tell 

you how much uranium was lost, but if you 

take the 1,637 billets that were rolled 

between April 26th and -- April 26th of '51 

and September 22nd of '52 and you double 

that, because in 1949 and 1950, that would 

be 3,274 billets for a four-year span. 

353 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Between six and 11.5 billets were lost --

pounds, excuse me -- were lost per billet, 

so the loss would range, for the years 1949 

through '52, from 19,644 pounds to 37,651 

pounds of uranium ore lost. That's not 

recovered. That's lost uranium. 

In addition, the 1955 rollings were not 

accounted for. Based on Mr. Kasanovich's 

letter, approximately seven rollings took 

place. He said six to eight, but I'm going 

to be government-friendly and, you know, 

give you the seven. If we take six -- 1,637 

billets for a two-year period, that's 24 

rollings, this averages out to 68.5 billets 

per rolling. We can estimate that there 

were 475.5 billets rolled in '55. The loss 

of this uranium then ranges from 2,853 

pounds to 5,462 pounds. So the total loss 

of uranium is 22,497 to 43,113 pounds. 

That's lost, not recovered. 

In the matrix there were several 

assumptions made. One of them was that 

there were no records at Bethlehem, so they 

used Simonds Saw. This assumption was made 

because the air quality was better at 

354 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Bethlehem than at Simonds Saw. But Simonds 

Saw was production and Bethlehem was 

experimental. Now if you've ever made a 

cake and you're experimenting with it, you 

know that when you do it, it makes a mess. 

But if you know what you're doing, you don't 

make a mess. Now they were experimenting on 

this, so my assumption is that they made 

more of a mess and lost more uranium. 

At least 24 various assumptions are 

made in the scientific document. If you are 

assuming most of the conditions, then there 

are several assumptions missing. My 

father's dose reconstruction never took into 

account many of these items. They assumed a 

ten-hour day. He worked double shifts. He 

ate on the job. There was no cafeteria for 

the men to go for lunch. He took his bag 

lunch. He sat down, he ate on the job. He 

used to tell us that the iron ore dust would 

get into the food. Little did he know that 

it was uranium ore and not iron ore. 

Also not noted in the dose 

reconstruction is the fact that his clothes, 

hands and shoes had uranium ore dust all 

355 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

over. Again, he was exposed to more uranium 

-- more radiation than is accounted for in 

his dose reconstruction. 

My father met all the regulations 

regarding exposure dates and onset of 

cancer. My mother should have automatically 

received compensation. But the Department 

of Energy is focusing all their attention 

and assets to prove that he could not have 

gotten his cancer from the radiation 

contamination on the job. 

The matrix makes many assumptions. 

Perhaps one of my own that I can make, out 

of 15 men who worked in the hot gang, 13 of 

them are dead from cancer and the other two 

also have cancer. 

Oak Ridge Associated Universities were 

awarded a contract for $70 million to do the 

constructions. MJW in Williamsville got $20 

million to do the Bethlehem Steel matrix. 

Their entire focus from the beginning of 

this process has been put together 

scientific facts to deny my father was 

exposed and that my mother is entitled to 

compensation. 

356 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

The spirit of the law is that 

compensation be given to those who 

unknowingly gave their lives for their 

country. My father survived World War II. 

He couldn't survive the World -- the Cold 

War. I truly believe that the matrix and 

the dose reconstruction are flawed and 

should be nullified, and I continue to 

search for answers to my questions. My 

father was not a quitter, and neither am I. 

I will get the answers. Thank you. 

(Applause) 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Then 

I have Reverend Jerome Livingston, Bethlehem 

Steel Action Committee, Buffalo. 

REV. LIVINGSTON: Yeah, I'm glad you 

gentlemen came here today. As I listened to 

the presentations today, that's where I 

pulled my questions from. I listened to 

Professor Neton when he gave -- when he did 

about the site profiles this morning, and he 

depends on records from Bethlehem Steel that 

don't exist to make up the dose 

reconstruction. 

Then I heard Ms. Mosier from the 

357 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Department of Labor. When she got to page 

four of her presentation, she said we can 

produce information, and questions the real 

validity and the amounts of radiation that 

the workers have been in touch with. 

Then when Mr. Calhoun gave his 

presentation about the dose reconstruction, 

he got to page five of his handout and he 

said the sites that -- providing data for 

the dose reconstruction and Bethlehem Steel 

wasn't on that list. Then he went to page 

six of his handout and he said the -- the 

next tier of sites that were producing 

information, and Bethlehem Steel wasn't on 

that list. And so if Bethlehem Steel is not 

on the list that's providing data, how can 

you actually give a good dose reconstruction 

with produced data or with actual data, this 

is the question. 

But then I went on and I came in 

contact today with a report that was written 

in 1985 and the name of the report is the 

Elimination Report of Bethlehem Steel 

Corporation to the U.S. Government. And in 

that -- in that document, when it gets to 

358 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the section that says site description, it 

says the ten inch mill was in use in August 

of 1976 and has been taken out of service 

and dismantled. Well, I can take you out 

there now and that mill is still standing 

there, and there are people working in that 

place. So if you are using documents from 

Bethlehem Steel that are not reliable and 

they lied to the government that we have 

those copies of this information, how can 

you use some produced and not qualify -- you 

know, Bethlehem Steel is bankrupt, and that 

property has been razed, so how can you use 

information that does not exist? Are you 

producing information to make these dose 

reconstructions? Evidently. This is the 

questions that I would like to have you 

answer. 

(Applause) 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The 

gentleman approaching the mike, we can take 

you next. 

MR. KOCHANSKI: My name is John 

Kochanski. I would like to know if I could 

get access to every single page of your 

359 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

records that you have in so-called boxes all 

over the country. I am a U.S. citizen. I 

have rights. If it takes a Freedom of 

Information, I would like to -- I would like 

to see a copy of each paper, just for my own 

well-being, to know what information you are 

acting on. Dose reconstruction is a very 

fancy term. It sounds official. This is 

radiation. Go to the person's burial spot, 

check the radiation in their bones and you 

won't have a problem. Have a good day. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I have no 

additional names of people that have signed 

up, but we can certainly take additional 

comments. Sir. 

Oh, I also have one on -- is this Mr. 

O'Brien? 

MR. O'BRIEN: My name is Eugene 

O'Brien. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I do have you. 

MR. O'BRIEN: And I was with the 

Reverend here before at a previous meeting, 

and during that meeting I was -- I was 

amazed. And I'm not blaming you people, but 

I was amazed that Bethlehem Steel got away 

360 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

with it, that they said the mill was 

dismantled. So therefore, you didn't go any 

further with it. It was eliminated because 

it was dismantled. But now it's still 

there. You have workers from a new company 

that's taken over that plant and the stuff 

is still there. 

My discussion last time -- I think it 

was with you, sir -- was that the stuff is 

on the beams. It's on the floor. They 

cleaned up the floor. They -- it's like you 

-- housecleaning, your mother just didn't 

clean up the floor here. If there was a 

second floor, you went upstairs and cleaned 

that. And if there was a third floor, you 

cleaned that. On the cranes that were going 

overhead, they all had this dust on them. 

That's the second floor. The third floor 

has got like large, 24-inch beams crossing 

that whole mill. Nobody's ever checked 

that. 

They said that they cleaned after every 

rolling. They only did it on weekends and 

then they were ready for the crew to come 

in, it was all cleaned up. How could that 

361 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

possibly be? On Monday morning they had a 

crew in rolling so-called regular steel. I 

just -- and the people who were handling 

that steel, did anybody ever pick up -- they 

were -- it's a hot mill and it's reverse --

wasn't a reverse mill. They had to turn 

them. 

Their instrument they had -- the 

catchers they called them -- those are 

contaminated. Nobody's ever said a word 

about that stuff, not a thing. 

Now we're talking about a walk-through. 

What's the sense of it if you're not going 

to do anything about it? If this company 

that has workers there now -- because I have 

a nephew that is working there now. I 

called him up and I asked him, are you using 

the ten-inch mill, the old ten-inch. Well, 

yeah, he said, we -- all our motors and 

stuff are over there. I said have you ever 

gone over and -- get your motors out? He 

said yes. I said you ever notice any dust 

coming down? Oh, a lot of it. So the dust 

has been up there all these years and nobody 

has looked up to the heavens, never in the 

362 
 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

rafters, nobody's looked up at all. That's 

my opinion, because Bethlehem Steel lied. 

They out and out lied and said that the mill 

was dismantled. 

So instead of this going -- it could 

have gone into a -- a -- I don't know what 

you call it, but we wouldn't have to go 

through all this had it been classified like 

all the rest. But no, Bethlehem said it was 

gone, therefore they stopped. So then they 

-- then they turned to dose reconstruction 

and it -- we shouldn't have done -- they 

should never have been. I mean that's my 

opinion. You tell me I'm wrong? I mean I -

- I can't see where I am. But I -- I'm 

saying you've got men working there now. 

May not -- it's not in the mills, but I 

also will back up what this woman said. I 

know a guy that worked there. I gave the 

name on some of the papers I filled out --

Bill Nysbeth*, his name was. He worked down 

there -- I was electrician. We worked all 

over the place. When I got laid off --

actually it saved my life. I got laid off 

on a disability, so I'm glad I'm out of 

363 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

there. But he had to work in that bar mill, 

in the new one. I said did you ever get 

into the old one? Yeah, all -- dust all 

over the place. So it's still there and 

you've got workers -- I have a nephew that 

went over there. He's working there now. 

He told me well, yeah, we go over there and 

pull the motors out. I said do you operate 

the crane? Yeah. Everything is up there. 

But they didn't tell you people, so 

therefore you're treating this as a case 

different than any -- the other ones. Am I 

right or wrong? 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MR. O'BRIEN: I don't get an answer. 

DR. ZIEMER: No, I say I don't know. 

We're hearing it, and we -- we... 

REV. LIVINGSTON: One other thing, Dr. 

Neton is a solid scientist. That's not to 

be quibbled with. Mr. Calhoun is a solid 

individual in the work that he does. In the 

dose reconstruction that I have a copy of 

from my father-in-law who passed away who 

worked there during the covered periods, 

there are 27 times in the dose 

364 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

reconstruction when the word "assumed" is 

used. Any scientist worth his salt will not 

put his name on assumptions. Anybody knows 

basic science knows this. But we are 

putting people's lives under assumption and 

we know -- I just told you that the 

information that you got from the -- the 

Federal government received from Bethlehem 

Steel was an out and out lie, and it was a 

classified document, which you can't get a 

copy of. So if they are giving the Federal 

government classified documents that are a 

lie, what kind of information are you using 

to protect these people's lives? The 

information that you give them might let 

them give accurate dose reconstruction with 

the information, but the information is 

faulty. If you're going to do dose 

reconstruction, you ought to do it right. 

That's... 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

(Applause) 

DR. ZIEMER: And let me affirm to you 

that the Board believes exactly what you 

just said, it needs to be done right. We --

365 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

we are all -- all struggling all over the 

country with information and how to evaluate 

it and its validity, so this is not an issue 

that is strictly Bethlehem Steel. It's an 

issue everywhere. The staff, NIOSH, is 

doing its best to try to ascertain the 

validity of that information. And insofar 

as we're able to determine that there's 

better information -- and sometimes that 

better information comes from folks such as 

yourselves -- that we -- we can learn some 

things that perhaps is not -- are not in the 

official records. So many times these --

what seem to be small pieces of information 

lead to revelations, if I might call it 

that. But I can assure you that the folks 

that you're talking to want to get at the 

right answers. It's not always easy. 

I have another person who has signed up 

and then I'll come back to -- I may have 

missed Ed Walker from Eden, New York. Ed --

yes. 

MR. WALKER: Well, I signed up first, 

and I kind of wondered if -- maybe they 

don't want me --

366 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm trying to be Biblical 

here, the first shall be last. 

MR. WALKER: Well, my name's Ed Walker 

and I'm with Bethlehem Group, the action 

group, and there's about -- I believe around 

200, and I'm one of the claimants. I'm a 

survivor claimant. I've got cancer. I got 

it in the year 2000 and I'm going to kind of 

briefly go over how I looked at this thing. 

You're doing a good job in what you're 

doing. I -- I was down to Cincinnati last 

week and I was so impressed and it was a 

great -- I got a lot of information from it, 

so that was great. But I'm going to just 

kind of briefly tell you what -- how, as a 

claimant, and many of the people that I 

represent that I've talked to have the very 

same -- same situation as I had. 

In 2001 we were told -- we heard on TV 

that if you go sign up, you could get -- if 

you had cancer and you worked at the 

prescribed time, that you could get 

compensation. So I called up, everything 

went fine. I went in and I signed up. I 

worked with a group at Bethlehem at the 

367 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

prescribed time, from '51 to '54, and I 

worked with the special -- with Linda's 

father in the hot gang, and I was 18 years 

old. I'd just come out of school. And it 

was about 15 of us in this hot gang and we 

worked on specialized -- any place there was 

a burnout or nobody else would go, we would 

get called in to patch the holes and work on 

hot furnaces, whether it be in a bar mill or 

the coke ovens, wherever it would be. 

Well, we've looked up -- there's 

another fella and myself that are alive. 

Norm isn't here tonight. I tried to reach 

him, I think he's out of town, but him and I 

are the only two left on that -- on the gang 

that worked steady in this hot gang. And 

we've tried to find the other 15, and from 

everyone that we've talked to -- there was -

- they've all died of cancer. And when I 

called Norm to be my witness, he says well, 

why? And I says well, there was uranium at 

the plant when we worked there, Norm. And 

he says you're kidding, and I says no. And 

he says well, why are you, you know, 

concerned about it? I says well, I've got 

368 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

cancer. And this was like -- just a little 

over a year ago. He says Ed, I have cancer, 

too. So that's the first I knew that Norm 

had cancer after these 50 years. So he 

signed up, by the way. 

And I worked with a lot of these heroes 

that came -- came from the war and fought 

for the country. I was 18. There was one 

fella that fought in Corregidor. He was 

captured by the Japanese. He ran around in 

the jungle for two -- he escaped from the 

Japanese, ran around in the jungle for two 

years. And I told this to Mrs. Clinton --

Hillary Clinton when she was up, and she was 

quite moved by it, and I worked with this 

fella and he was shell-shocked. Obviously 

being chased around the jungle for two years 

before he escaped, he was shell-shocked. 

And I sat down at the plant, in the 

plant that we worked in, and I was talking 

to him and two railroad cars clanged 

together, and this poor fella sat right up 

and the sweat poured off his face. I knew -

- I knew what I was dealing with in that and 

I felt so sorry for that man to come back, 

369 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

fight -- and his whole life he was -- he was 

like that. He was just -- he was just a 

physical wreck, really, but he -- he could 

work and he had a family. He had to work. 

And to think that the government put 

somebody like this, never told us there was 

any uranium there, there was -- there was 

never any badge. There was never any mask. 

There was nothing. When we went to work on 

these hot jobs, we worked with asbestos, so 

naturally -- you know, I -- I'm very moved 

by these veterans and I know -- I talked to 

Larry and he was in the service and he knows 

what it's all about. 

But anyway, we signed up with -- a lot 

of other people went and signed up at that 

time, and I felt there should be no problem 

working with the group and being exposed to 

this uranium like most of the people in the 

plant were. 

Well, that was in November when I 

signed up, in 2001, and this is -- this is 

the feeling of the claimants that happened 

and this is what's happened to these --

these elderly ladies where their husbands 

370 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

have died, same thing. They went in and 

somebody would tell them about it, they 

signed up. 

That spring, the following spring, it 

was written in the paper that it was 

reported from -- I believe the Department of 

Labor -- that the claimants that signed up 

would be getting their awards in two to 

three months. Now you've got to remember, 

these women are in their seventies. I'm in 

my 70, and they look forward to this. Their 

husband's obviously gone. Bethlehem Steel 

is broke, they don't have no health 

insurance, they have nothing. So they look 

forward to this. 

And lo and behold, ten months later we 

get notices that we got a dose 

reconstruction coming. Well, what happened? 

It's all we -- when we signed up, the people 

told us it's all you got to do is have 

cancer and work there at that time, and 

nobody said -- in my case, bladder cancer 

wasn't -- wouldn't get paid, that that 

wasn't one of the cancers. We were led to 

believe that we were going to get paid. I 

371 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

thought we'd get paid. 

I wish I had known. I wish that man 

would have told me the day I went to sign 

that you're not going to get paid because 

you've got bladder cancer and the dose 

reconstruction isn't going to let you 

through, because truthfully, I would have 

got up and walked home and I would have been 

happy for the last three years. I wouldn't 

have -- I would have just -- when I do die, 

I'd have died happy. I didn't have to go 

through this thing. And there's a lot of 

women in the same case. 

Well, when we come up with this dose 

reconstruction, we get this questionnaire. 

This is no problem. You know, I get cancer 

and -- we get cancer, and they give me this 

questionnaire. I look at it. I can't 

answer a question on there. What badge did 

you wear, what kind of accidents went on? I 

haven't got a clue. I didn't even know I 

was working with uranium, how do I know 

what's going on? 

So the last three or four pages on 

there asked some questions that I could 

372 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

answer. But one of the important questions 

was when we're talking about coworkers is 

they asked if you had any coworkers, and 

obviously the other fella that had cancer, 

and I know a couple of guys that didn't have 

cancer that weren't claimants, so I put 

their names down. And I says I got like 

four witnesses that I worked there, there's 

no problem with it. So I wrote the names 

down. 

They never checked the coworkers. I 

called them up later when I was going to 

have my hearing. I called them up and I 

said did anybody ever check about where we 

were and what type of work we done? Hadn't 

heard a word. So I'm -- and this has 

happened to a lot of other people. I say 

what's the sense of asking me for coworkers 

that can prove what I done and where I 

worked if you're not going to listen to 

them? Why even do the questionnaire? As it 

was, the dose reconstruction comes up and I 

don't stand a chance. Nothing that I said 

made any difference at all on whether I get 

paid or not. 

373 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

So -- now you got to put yourself in --

you're a 70, 80-year-old lady. She -- she 

may have -- her husband is gone. She don't 

know what he done in the plant. She can't 

find the coworker. She can't answer any 

questions. We get many calls -- our group 

gets many calls, what can I do, Mr. Walker, 

I don't know anybody, nobody's alive that 

worked with my husband. This questionnaire 

thing is -- and this dose reconstruction, to 

me, is a joke. You might as well not send 

it out. Just send me a letter and say Ed, 

we're not going to pay you. Simple as that. 

We figured that you didn't take enough 

inhalation that you should be getting paid 

for this cancer thing, and -- and leave me 

alone. It's fine, I can -- I can accept 

that. But when -- when you get people like 

one lady at this meeting we had on the 4th, 

and I know Larry was there and Jim was 

there, stood up and they called this lady 

and told her -- got her check account number 

because they were going to deposit the money 

in her account -- and I talked to this lady 

since then, I found out who it was -- and 

374 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

two weeks later, nothing happened. Three 

weeks later they send her a notice that they 

changed their mind, she's not getting the 

money. That woman is living on $300 a month 

pension. She has no insurance. She had to 

move in with her daughter, and she was 

promised that. Now there's something -- to 

me, there's something wrong with this 

program. 

And then I find out that on the site 

profile you used the air samples from 

Simonds Saw. How about Bethlehem Steel? 

How about talking to the people that worked 

there? How about going into the plant and 

seeing where -- where this work was done and 

talk to the people, what they went through? 

If -- if they had uranium there, you can bet 

-- and I've got quite a few guys that --

that have worked there at that time that'll 

go through and verify this, and nobody seems 

to care. Nobody called on the site profile. 

I talked to I don't know how many guys, guys 

that aren't even in my group, just that I 

know that worked at the plant at that time, 

did anybody ever contact you about going to 

375 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

the plant or talk to you about what kind of 

work you done or how you could have been 

exposed? Nothing was ever done. 

So my question is -- I just -- I feel 

the program is really bogus. I know you 

worked hard and you've -- people got the 

knowledge, the technology and everything, 

but if you're not going to go around and 

find out what actually happened and what 

happened to these people and treat people 

like that, it isn't even so much -- it's the 

way the people -- the human side of the 

thing. How can you do that to -- to your 

mothers, your grandmothers? I don't 

understand it. 

(Applause) 

MR. WALKER: That's all I got, though, 

to say for now. Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. I 

don't know, Ed, if you were here earlier 

today when we had a discussion on those --

those forms, those survey forms, but we've 

had some concern about how they were viewed 

and the concerns that they raised with some 

of the folks. We're trying to address that 

376 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 -- 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

because the -- the form is to try to elicit 

any information that -- that we don't know 

about. The staff has the site profiles and 

other information, and they're trying to 

find out if there's other things, but it may 

-- it -- it appears at the other end that 

the expectation is that you have to provide 

all the information, and that can be very 

difficult for some of the folks --

MR. WALKER: Well, the forms, to an 80-

year-old woman --

DR. ZIEMER: That's my -- exactly our 

point, yeah. 

MR. WALKER: You may just as well print 

it in Chinese, really. And for me, too. I 

mean it didn't mean nothing. I -- when you 

can't fill the thing out, and I went to high 

school --

DR. ZIEMER: We appreciate knowing that 

MR. WALKER: -- didn't go to college, 

but --

DR. ZIEMER: -- and we have that same 

concern and --

MR. WALKER: -- when I get a form that 

377 
1 -- 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

DR. ZIEMER: -- (Inaudible) figure out 

how to make those more user-friendly some 

way. 

MR. WALKER: Yeah, it's just why send 

it out? 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

MR. WALKER: Why put the people -- why 

put these old women through that -- and me, 

the young man. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Thank you. 

MR. WALKER: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, another comment over 

here, and then -- yeah. 

MR. O'BRIEN: I said we all admit about 

the mistakes that have been made. Right? 

This didn't happen -- and I'll come right 

out and say that Bethlehem Steel, they lied 

about it. They put everybody on the wrong 

track. Otherwise they would have went 

through there and it would have been a 

different thing. But there's people today 

that are still in danger. But now I 

understand -- we were supposed to have a 

walk-through. We were going to get together 

378 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

and have a walk-through with some of your 

people and some of this committee here. 

Well, what is it going to accomplish if we 

can't go to the Labor Department, and who is 

going to enforce something? I mean I want 

to know what's the sense of -- the place is 

still there. Nobody went through it, but 

Bethlehem Steel said they ripped it down. 

But the Labor Department -- there's people 

working there now. They sold it to another 

company. They're not using it, but they're 

using it for storage. But men are going in 

there and they're getting stuff out, running 

cranes, and they're -- they're all around 

that stuff. But nobody has checked into it 

-- I may be wrong, but nobody has checked 

it. Who do we go to? I don't know. Can 

you -- anybody tell me? I guess not. 

DR. ZIEMER: I understand that -- I was 

asking Larry about the walk-through. I 

understand that the local folks have invited 

some of the NIOSH staff to come and see the 

facility. The enforcement of current health 

standards -- whose --

MR. ELLIOTT: That's the Department of 

379 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

Labor Occupational Health and Safety 

Administration, OSHA. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) That's 

an agency within the Department of Labor 

that does --

DR. ZIEMER: So if there are current 

health issues --

MR. O'BRIEN: Can anybody here notify 

them or make -- nobody? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) You 

want us to? I mean (Inaudible) --

MR. ELLIOTT: The work force who's 

there currently can exercise their right to 

approach OSHA. They could also exercise a 

request --

MR. O'BRIEN: I called -- I called my 

nephew. I asked him, do you go in the old 

ten-inch mill, are you using it at all? He 

said yes. I said do you know there could be 

a possibility of uranium dust over there on 

the -- on the beams, on the cranes, and do 

you know that? No, I didn't know it. Well, 

I told him, but you know how it is with 

workers and management. I know a fella that 

told me in one of my investigations on this 

380 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

they shut off all the cleaners on the newer 

mills. They have the scrubbers. He was 

given orders by the main office to shut the 

scrubbers off at night 'cause then people 

wouldn't see the junk that was blowing out. 

In the daytime, shut them -- put them back 

on again. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, it sounds like 

there's some current concerns that perhaps 

have to be raised by the local folks. Mike, 

you wanted to add something to this 

discussion. Mike Gibson from... 

MR. GIBSON: This is an Advisory Board 

meeting on Radiation and Worker Health, but 

it's going on the record, it's going to be 

in the Federal Register, the transcripts. 

Are you telling me there's not a Federal 

agent in this room that could get ahold of 

OSHA to tour the plant this gentleman's 

talking about? 

DR. ZIEMER: I assume there is. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I'm sure that 

Roberta Mosier can pass that along to OSHA. 

But I would also -- I was ready to offer to 

the gentleman that another way to approach 

381 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

this is through a health hazard evaluation 

request where if -- and this can be done 

anonymously -- if three or more or an 

organized -- representative of the organized 

group at Bethlehem Steel simply made a 

request to NIOSH to come and evaluate the 

situation and -- and do sampling and 

whatever else is necessary to make a 

determination if -- as to whether uranium 

contamination exists today in the -- in the 

mill. So there's two mechanisms, and I'm 

sure that -- you know, I have confidence in 

Roberta that she'll take this back and 

within DOL they'll put it in front of OSHA. 

And any worker who wants to talk to me about 

how to initiate a request, I'd be happy to 

walk them through the process. 

MR. KOCHANSKI: Thank you. The same 

should go for Carborundum in Niagara Falls. 

There are 300 or 400 workers at the same 

buildings that this radiation was processed 

in. Thank you very much. And one question, 

how do I get a copy of the minutes of this 

meeting today? How do I do it? 

DR. ZIEMER: There's two -- two ways. 

382 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

You can request them -- we have a request 

book -- and they will also be on the web 

site --

MR. KOCHANSKI: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- as soon as they're 

ready, so you're welcome --

MR. KOCHANSKI: I can't afford a 

computer. You saw to it. 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm not sure any of us 

can, but you can -- you can get a written 

copy. There he goes. Sir? 

MR. WALKER: I don't want to take up 

much more time, there's other people got 

questions, but the one -- another thing that 

bothers this group is that it was -- it was 

published in the Buffalo News that there was 

four government sites down south that had a 

special cohort and just simply having cancer 

and working there, there was no questions 

asked, they got paid. Now --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Inaudible) 

MR. WALKER: Was it at Oak Ridge? I 

don't know all -- all the sites, but if that 

special cohort -- it's all you had to do was 

383 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

prove you had cancer and worked there, now 

it's being modified for us and it's 

altogether different than what they had, why 

did the government sites receive it; when 

they got up to Bethlehem Steel, the rules 

changed? 

DR. ZIEMER: This is a legislative 

issue that is imposed on all of us here. 

You need to be speaking to your 

Congresspeople --

MR. WALKER: And we have. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. I mean the law is -

- we're following the way that our 

Congressmen wrote the law, and they had some 

of those groups --

MR. WALKER: But it's very troublesome 

to these people. 

DR. ZIEMER: We understand that. 

MR. WALKER: They hear that, where they 

got it. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. There's a --

there's a --

MR. WALKER: And there's no -- bladder 

didn't make it, this didn't make it --

DR. ZIEMER: No --

384 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. WALKER: -- you got it, across the 

board. It even stated in the paper, even if 

you smoked cigarettes, you got it. 

DR. ZIEMER: We understand the issue. 

MR. WALKER: Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: Sir? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Good evening. My name 

is Kevin Espinosa, spelled the same way as 

Mr. Espinosa on the Board. I just had one 

question for Dr. Neton, hopefully you can 

answer my question. I believe earlier 

tonight in your presentation you said that 

you assumed that 20 percent had settled onto 

the food that was eaten, 20 percent per 

cubic meter. Could you clarify what you 

were saying on that? 

DR. NETON: If I gave that impression, 

that's not what I meant to say. I said that 

20 -- 20 percent could be used -- after you 

look through the whole model, the 

calculational method that we used, the 

mathematics worked out such that we could 

assume that 20 percent was -- what was in 

the air per cubic meter ended up being 

contamination being eaten by touching a 

385 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

surface or by ingesting food or coffee that 

was in the area. Now that's not -- that's 

the way the math worked out, but there's a -

- there's a long derivation on our web site 

that you can look up that describes how --

how we got to that -- that ultimate result. 

I don't know if that answers your question 

or --

MR. ESPINOSA: It does. I should also 

-- is there any idea of how long it took for 

these particles to settle out? I mean we're 

saying that it settled in one day and was 

vacuumed up -- it was vacuumed up actually 

immediately after it was -- after the 

contamination fell to the ground. I don't 

think it fell in an hour. I mean I think it 

took a couple of days to fall on these guys 

who were working there during the week 

Monday through Friday. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, you can give your 

criteria --

DR. NETON: If you look at the web 

site, again, I think it's .00075 meters per 

second is the settling velocity of uranium 

in air, but it's continuously settling, so 

386 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

once it's dispersed in the air, it settles 

continuously throughout a 24-hour period is 

what we assumed. 

MR. ESPINOSA: And when was it vacuumed 

up, then? 

DR. NETON: No, it doesn't matter 

whether it was vac-- we assumed it never was 

vacuumed up for this calculation. It just 

settled during the whole operation of those 

derbies, and then when the operation was 

done, we assumed that there was cleanup done 

after that. But during the op-- during the 

24-hour period we assumed constant 

generation of up to a 50-milligram per cubic 

meter air cloud, and that 50-milligram per 

cubic meter air cloud settled out of the air 

and deposited on the surfaces over 24 hours. 

MR. ESPINOSA: (Off microphone) And the 

particles that were on the beams that 

settled down the next couple of days 

(Inaudible)? 

DR. NETON: Well, that's another issue 

that was raised by this gentleman, and that 

was actually part of the motivation for us 

to go and do the tour of the facility, to 

387 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

look at the logistics of where things were 

in relation to the bar mill, to see the 

height and everything, to see if our 

exposure model actually addressed settling 

of contamination up on the beams. So we 

were going there primarily from a 

perspective of validating our exposure model 

rather than looking for additional 

contamination. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Thank you very much. 

It's nice to get some answers. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Another 

comment? Yes. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Hi, I'm Janice 

Bartosyek. I'm with the Bethlehem Steel 

Action Group. I have a few questions that 

I'd like to ask of you. First of all, I'd 

like to make a statement. 

I agree with Ed that the way the 

program was presented to us initially in 

2000 -- 2000 or 2001, it was I think blatant 

government misrepresentation. I mean he's 

correct when he said if a person had cancer, 

basically they -- and worked at Bethlehem 

Steel in the mill, they would be compensated 

388 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

for what happened. And it never was 

presented to us in a way that it had to be 

proved through all of these other methods 

that the cancer was caused by exposure to 

radiation. 

Now I want to thank Larry for the 

packet of information that I received from 

the -- after the last meeting, and I read 

everything within it. And there was a map 

of -- in the Bethlehem Steel profile there 

was a map that was included in it. I'm not 

sure who's best familiar with the Bethlehem 

Steel records or profile. I'm looking at 

this gentleman, presuming that he's maybe 

the best qualified. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Unfortunately, Grady 

Calhoun was the --

MS. BARTOSYEK: Okay, well --

MR. ELLIOTT: -- most knowledgeable 

about that and he's --

MS. BARTOSYEK: Well, on this map --

MR. ELLIOTT: -- left for the day. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: -- there was a -- okay, 

it was a -- it was Lackawanna, New York and 

all of the buildings of Bethlehem Steel. 

389 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 -- 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

There was this certain area that was right 

next to the lake that was circled on this 

map, and I don't get it. I don't know why -

- ah, thank you. I don't know if the circle 

is representative of the bar mill ten, 

supposedly. I mean it's not, but does 

anyone know what this represents, the 

circled area? 

MR. ELLIOTT: No, why don't you -- if 

you would, Janice, would you -- would you 

either -- we'll send you an e-mail about 

that. We'll try to provide some 

clarification. I don't have an answer for 

you tonight. I don't know --

MS. BARTOSYEK: Okay, 'cause I was just 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- I'd have to look into 

this. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: -- wondering if this is 

the area or the mill that supposedly they 

presume was torn down or --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) No. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Oh, no? Something 

else? A different issue? Okay. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Let me follow up on that 

390 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

and I'll get back to you. Okay? 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Okay. Now in 2000 or 

2001 there was a list on the -- of beryllium 

vendors on the internet site for -- I think 

it was DOL. And now that has been pulled 

off. And at one time Bethlehem Steel was 

listed as a beryllium vendor, and later on 

it was said that they never were a beryllium 

vendor. Can somebody make a comment about 

that? 

MR. ELLIOTT: I have no idea what 

you're talking about there. There was --

there was -- I think you're referring to the 

residual study contamination report, but it 

included beryllium vendors as well as 

radiation-exposed AWEs, and there was an 

error that was inadvertently made in the 

Bethlehem Steel determination. We talked 

about this back last month. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Uh-huh. 

MR. ELLIOTT: And the documentation 

that we have indicates that there was a full 

cleanup done so that there was not 

significant residual contamination. That's 

based upon our document review. We're 

391 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

anxious and interested in making a site 

visit if we can and looking at it from that 

perspective. But I'm not clear on where 

your information is coming from that this 

was a beryllium vendor site and then it 

wasn't. I don't know -- I have no idea what 

you're talking about there. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Well, because it was on 

one of your -- the government internet sites 

as -- and Bethlehem Steel was listed as a 

beryllium vendor. And I happened to get --

print out that information and I've reviewed 

it numerous times, so I don't feel that I 

misinterpreted what I printed off the 

internet at that time. And I pursued the 

beryllium/silicosis type of thing because at 

that time my dad -- he did not have any 

identified cancer problems so I presumed 

that maybe he had a emphysema and, you know, 

whatever, other -- other type of problems. 

And the government at that time mentioned to 

me that Bethlehem Steel was not a beryllium 

vendor. 

Now the other question I have is what 

is the total number of pages retrieved of 

392 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

government records on Bethlehem Steel? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Here again, I don't know 

that -- answer to that question 

specifically. 

DR. ZIEMER: You can probably get the 

information. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I can get that and have 

it -- you know, have it delivered to you. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Okay. In reviewing the 

information you had sent to me, I compared 

it with the information I had gotten off of 

one of your internet sites before the last 

meeting and looked at all of the rollings, 

the dates of the rollings, and I noticed on 

the information you sent me there were five 

that were not listed previously on NIOSH's 

site profile for Bethlehem Steel. And I 

wonder if it has since been added? That 

information was extrapolated from what you 

sent to me and I compared it to the list to 

see if it was already on that list, and I 

saw that these -- well, they were the 

experimental rollings, but they were not on 

that list from -- I don't know, April or 

May, that was on your internet database. 

393 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Neton --

MS. BARTOSYEK: Does that --

DR. NETON: I'm not sure --

DR. ZIEMER: If we don't know the 

answer to that, again, we can ask the staff 

to follow-up and get that information. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Okay. I'm sorry I 

didn't bring that information with me. I 

had done a comparison and I could have 

easily shown it to you but I left it behind. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MS. BARTOSYEK: Okay. Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We 

have another individual signed up or 

requesting --

MS. OWENS: (Off microphone) 

(Inaudible) use the mike. (Inaudible) 

thirsty for Manhattans by now. 

(On microphone) I just wanted to say 

just one thing of talking. My husband died 

of cancer in 1998, which started in his 

kidneys and metastasized to his brain, bone 

and lungs. He was a wonderful man and a 

proud -- proud, patriotic American. He 

served in the United States Air Force for 

394 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

many years and spent time in World War II, 

the Korean Conflict, the Berlin Airlift and 

Viet Nam. Although the risks were 

phenomenal in all of these military 

missions, he fortunately survived them all, 

only to fall victim to what I strongly 

believe was disease caused by the 

radioactive contamination he was exposed to 

in the production of these weapons of war. 

One thing else here I wanted to -- I 

think I did say he started to work at Hooker 

in early 1950. Now according to the 

Department of Energy, they had assigned 1948 

as the last year that they were willing to 

compensate the victims at Hooker 

Electrochemical. The Department of Energy's 

position is that their contractual 

relationship with Hooker to produce these 

lethal materials ended in 1948; therefore 

they are not responsible for any damages to 

employees after that in time. However, if 

the contamination is so extremely difficult, 

or even impossible to remove completely, how 

can -- and by no means be accomplished 

swiftly, how can they be absolved of 

395 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

responsibility simply because the actual 

production had ceased? And if not the 

Department of Energy, should not some 

governmental entity be accountable for the 

damage inflicted on these innocent 

Americans? 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you and --

MS. OWENS: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- the gentleman has 

another comment here. 

REV. LIVINGSTON: (Off microphone) This 

is the question that I --

DR. ZIEMER: This is --

REV. LIVINGSTON: -- for maybe --

DR. ZIEMER: -- Reverend Livingston. 

REV. LIVINGSTON: -- Dr. Neton and the 

rest of the panel. From what I -- the 

information that I can gather, that the 

scientists who work in this field is such a 

small gene pool, don't -- isn't it a fact 

that the people who work at Oak Ridge also 

work for NOSHA (sic) and vice versa? So 

isn't it a case of the people who are doing 

the research -- isn't it government checking 

government? Don't we have such a small gene 

396 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

pool of the people who are doing the work 

that they -- I mean half the people who work 

for Oak Ridge used to work for NOSHA (sic). 

Either they work for NOSHA or they work for 

Oak Ridge. How can we get a true accounting 

of everything that's going on if you have 

government checking government? 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me partially answer 

that. We do have the conflict of interest 

rules that we follow, which also make known 

what the previous associations of various 

folks are because in a sense you're right, 

there's a somewhat restricted group of 

individuals who have sort of expertise, some 

of whom are around this very table today. 

So the -- about the best we do on this is 

make known what those associations are and -

- and also try to -- try to get honest 

people who are willing to, in some cases, 

stick their neck on the line if they have 

to. The fact that they have worked 

somewhere previously does not necessarily 

mean that they can't do their job. It could 

raise some issues and we're aware of those 

perception problems and try to minimize them 

397 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

to the best that we're able, really. 

A gentleman here, identify yourself, 

please? 

MR. LAWRENCE: Just a quick follow-up. 

I'm not signed in but my name is David 

Lawrence. I'm from West Seneca, New York. 

And I don't know if you're going to have 

anything further -- as I was standing here 

you -- you addressed it. It gets into the 

potential conflict of interest issue, and 

you may have covered this today in your day 

meetings. I was not here. 

I assume there will be a firm hired to 

participate in work on the audit -- auditing 

the --

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that firm has already 

been hired and identified and --

MR. LAWRENCE: And that firm is? 

DR. ZIEMER: SC&A Associates, and they 

will be participating in the meeting 

tomorrow, giving a report to the Board 

tomorrow. 

MR. LAWRENCE: And what would -- how 

would you characterize the status of 

potential conflicts of interest? Have they 

398 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

or do they receive contracts from Federal 

government agencies, the firm hired to do 

the audit? 

DR. ZIEMER: Other government agencies? 

I don't recall what their current -- I'm --

I don't think I know the answer to that at 

the moment. I think they certainly have in 

the past. 

MR. LAWRENCE: I think for the record I 

want to make that known that that is an 

issue that we are concerned about. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

MR. LAWRENCE: With Oak Ridge and --

please, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but 

I believe Oak Ridge Associates who prepared 

the dose reconstruction regularly receives 

government contracts from various agencies. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Other 

comments? We do have -- I forget the exact 

wording of the requirement, but SC&A is not 

permitted, I don't think currently, to have 

any major DOE contracts. Is that how it's 

worded? Maybe, Jim, you can help me out. I 

forget the exact requirement. There are 

some requirements on that. 

399 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

DR. NETON: SC&A does not have any 

Department of Energy, nor will they 

entertain any contractual work with NIOSH on 

other projects during the five-year 

performance period of this contract. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. NETON: To my knowledge, they do 

not have any Department of Energy contracts 

at this time. 

DR. ZIEMER: They may have had in the 

past. Are there any other members of the 

public that wish to make comments this 

evening? 

 (No responses) 

If not, let me thank all of you for 

coming. We appreciate your input. We will 

try to be responsive to it and do our best 

to make this program successful. Again, we 

appreciate your time and effort to come out 

here tonight and we're recessed till 

tomorrow. All of you are welcome back to 

our sessions tomorrow morning. 

(Whereupon, the meeting adjourned at 

8:45 p.m.) 

400 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

C E R T I F I C A T E 

STATE OF GEORGIA ) 

) 

COUNTY OF FULTON ) 

I, STEVEN RAY GREEN, being a Certified Merit 

Court Reporter in and for the State of Georgia, 

do hereby certify that the foregoing transcript 

was reduced to typewriting by me personally or 

under my direct supervision, and is a true, 

complete, and correct transcript of the aforesaid 

proceedings reported by me. 

I further certify that I am not related to, 

employed by, counsel to, or attorney for any 

parties, attorneys, or counsel involved herein; 

nor am I financially interested in this matter. 

WITNESS MY HAND AND OFFICIAL SEAL this _____ 

day of June, 2004. 

___________________________ 

 STEVEN RAY GREEN, CVR-CM 

 GA CCR No. A-2102 

401