THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

TWENTY-SIXTH MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

VOL. I 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held at 

the Shilo Inn Suites, 780 Lindsay Boulevard, Idaho 

Falls, Idaho, on August 24, 2004. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

Certified Verbatim Reporters 

P. O. Box 451196 

Atlanta, Georgia 31145-9196 

(404) 315-8305 
 

2 

 

 

 

C O N T E N T S
 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

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

Mr. Larry Elliott, Executive Secretary . . . . . . . . ....7 

PROGRAM STATUS REPORT 

Ms. Laurie Ishak, NIOSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..11 

STATUS AND OUTREACH - DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Mr. Pete Turcic, DOL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 

STATUS UPDATE – DOE PART D PROGRAM 

Mr. Tom Rollow – DOE . . . . . . ....79 

PRIVACY ACT AND FACA REQUIREMENTS 

Ms. Liz Homoki-Titus, OGC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST, QUALITY ASSURANCE PLAN, ACCESS ISSUES 

Dr. John Mauro, Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald, Steve Ostrow, SC&A 146 

SITE PROFILE STATUS AND DATABASE USE 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 

INTRODUCTION 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 

PUBLIC COMMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 

ADJOURN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .266 

COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 

Legend of the transcript: 

[sic] Exactly as said 

[phonetic] Exact spelling unknown 

-- Break in speech continuity 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
3 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

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 

48 

49 

4 

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

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

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
 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D. 

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health 

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

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 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

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 

48 

49 

5 

GIBSON, Michael H. 

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A. 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I. 

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 

Richland, Washington 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida 

Elysian, Minnesota 

 AGENDA SPEAKERS
 

(in order of appearance) 

Ms. Laurie Ishak, NIOSH 

Mr. Pete Turcic, DOL 

Mr. Tom Rollow, DOE 

Ms. Liz Homoki-Titus, OGC 

Dr. John Mauro, SC&A 

Dr. Joseph Fitzgerald, SC&A 

Dr. Jim Neton, NIOSH 

Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

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 

48 

6 

 STAFF/VENDORS
 

Cori Homer, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 

Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

 AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

ANDERSON, BETTY A. 

BEATTY, EVERETT RAY 

BODNAR, LOUIS Z. 

BRAILSFORD, BEATRICE 

BRANDAL, LYNDA 

BRASWELL, TODD 

CASE, DIANE L. 

CHANG, C.C. 

CODDING, SHIRLEY 

COLVIN, J.C. 

DEEP, HEIDI 

EGBERT, H. DOYLE 

ELLISON, CHRIS 

FRY, DAVID 

HEISTER, MELANIE B. 

HENSHAW, RUSS 

HOSS, LARRY A. 

JENSEN, CLINTON 

JONES, BERTHA 

KATZ, TED 

MCCURDY, PEGGY 

MCCURDY, WILBERT 

MILLER, RICHARD 

OSTROW, STEPHEN L. 

OSWALD, ELEANOR 

PETERSON, HENRY K. 

POWELL, STEVE 

PRESLEY, LOUISE S. 

QUINN, JOHN D. 

RICH, BRYCE L. 

RINGEN, KNUT 

ROCKWALD, LYNN 

ROHRIG, NORMAN 

SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL 

SCHAUER, DAVID 

TENFORDE, THOMAS S. 

TOOHEY, R.E. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
5 

10 

15 

20 

25 

7 

1 

2 

3 

4 

6 

7 

8 

9 

11 

12 

13 

14 

16 

17 

18 

19 

21 

22 

23 

24 

P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(9:00 a.m.) 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'd 

like to call the meeting to order. My name is 

Paul Ziemer. I'm the Chair of the Advisory Board 

on Radiation and Worker Health. 

This is the 26th meeting of this Board. 

We're pleased to be here in Idaho Falls. If 

you'll indulge me, I'm going to begin with a 

little story. 

My first visit to Idaho Falls was in the midsixties. I spent a week here early in my career, 

and at that time had two daughters. I 

subsequently ended up with four daughters, but at 

that time I had two daughters and my wife and two 

daughters accompanied me here. Now Linda, who 

was at that time the youngest daughter, had a 

special doll that went with her everywhere. And 

if you think back to the mid-sixties, the popular 

doll was a doll called Heidi-ho. So Linda 

brought Heidi-ho with her and she -- we told her 

where we were going and from that point on this 

town became known as Heido-ho Falls. And even to 

this day, when I told Linda where I was going 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

8 

this week -- and Linda's in her forties now --

she said Oh, you're going to Heidi-ho Falls. So 

we're pleased to be here in Heidi-ho Falls for 

this meeting of the Board. 

I need to give you several pieces of 

information. First of all, we ask that everyone 

-- Board members, staff people and members of the 

public -- please register your attendance with 

us. There's a registration book at the entryway. 

If you haven't done that already, please do that 

sometime this morning and we'll have a record of 

your attendance here with us. 

Also you will find on the table over here on 

my far left copies of various documents, 

including today's agenda, plus various handouts 

from this meeting as well as documents from some 

previous meetings of the Board, and please avail 

yourselves of those material, as well. 

If you're a member of the public and would 

like to address the Board during the public 

comment session, we ask that you sign up, also. 

There's a sign-up booklet back there at the 

registration table. The public comment period 

today will be an evening session. It begins at 

7:00 p.m. We welcome any of you who wish to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

9 

participate to do so at that time. The meeting 

at that point is very informal, and you're 

welcome to address the Board at that particular 

point. 

Also, I call your attention to the fact that 

on the agenda for Wednesday, the second day of 

this meeting, we inadvertently omitted the public 

comment period from the agenda. We always have a 

public comment period every day of our meeting. 

And in addition to the evening public comment 

session, we certainly welcome additional comments 

for individuals who may not be able to attend 

Tuesday evening. And you'll have to insert that 

into the agenda. The plan will be to do the 

public comment period Wednesday right after 

lunch, so that would show up at 1:30, just prior 

to the Board working session. So if you would 

insert that in your agenda, please, and the time 

for that will be dependent on the number of 

individuals who sign up and wish to speak at that 

point. 

I believe that's all of the general 

announcements and information that I have. I'm 

not going to introduce the individual Board 

members to the -- those who are here observing, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

10 

but you'll see the placards that have their names 

and you'll be able to identify who the various 

participants and members of the Board are. 

I do want to, however, introduce the 

Designated Federal Official, and that's Larry 

Elliott. And Larry, I'll let you add any 

comments you wish at this time. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. On 

behalf of the Secretary of the Department of 

Health and Human Services, the Director of the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 

the Director of NIOSH, I wish to welcome all the 

Board members and the public to this meeting here 

in Idaho Falls. We have a very full agenda and I 

look forward to a productive and informative 

session. Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: As is usually the case, the 

first item on the agenda refers to the minutes of 

the last meeting, and some of the Board members 

did not see these minutes until last night or 

even this morning, perhaps, in some cases. The 

minutes are rather lengthy -- 68 pages, small 

print, singly-spaced. I ask the Board if you 

wish to take action on the minutes now or, as has 

become your custom, do you wish to defer action 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

11 

until tomorrow's work session? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Tomorrow. 

DR. ZIEMER: I hear one tomorrow. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I -- definitely tomorrow. 

I haven't even received them yet, so... 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

DR. MELIUS: I have to catch up with my 

materials. 

DR. ZIEMER: They should be -- oh, you 

haven't got your packet even? 

DR. MELIUS: My packet, no. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. It's probably at the 

desk. We'll make sure you get it. Okay, we will 

definitely defer action on the minutes until 

tomorrow. Again I'll remind the Board members, 

look particularly at those parts of the minutes 

that -- where you are specifically identified as 

making comments or making motions to make sure 

that there's accuracy and a good reflection of 

what was done, and we'll have an opportunity 

tomorrow to take specific action on those 

minutes. 

 PROGRAM STATUS REPORT 

We'll move on then to the program status 

report. This month's -- or this meeting's report 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

12 

is going to be given by Laurie Ishak from NIOSH. 

Laurie, we'd be pleased to hear from you now. 

MR. ELLIOTT: While we're loading up her 

presentation, let me introduce you to Laurie 

Ishak. She is a Presidential Management Fellow, 

just recently come to NIOSH in the Office of 

Compensation Analysis and Support, and she's 

serving as a communications specialist with us, 

and I'm sure that you will see more of her in the 

future. 

DR. ZIEMER: And this is a test. 

MS. ISHAK: I'll see if --

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Laurie. We're 

pleased --

MS. ISHAK: -- I can pass with flying colors. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- to have you here. 

MS. ISHAK: Thank you. Well, good morning --

or for those of you still on eastern time, like 

myself, I should say good afternoon. As Larry 

mentioned, my name is Laurie Ishak. I am a 

Presidential Management Fellow, a recent addition 

to the OCAS team, and it's a pleasure to be here 

this morning and I look forward to my future work 

with both OCAS and the Advisory Board. 

Now we'll move on to slide number two. As 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

13 

you can see, slide number two represents the 

amount of submittals from both the Department of 

Labor and the OCAS rate of production. The blue 

line is representative of claims received from 

the Department of Labor. The green line 

represents the number of draft reports to the 

claimants, and the red line represents the final 

draft dose reconstruction reports to the 

Department of Labor. 

I want to take a moment here to point out a 

tremendously misleading visual effect of this 

graph. This sharp downturn at the end of the 

graph occurs because it only takes into account 

up until August 13th, so it looks like there's a 

drop-off right there at the end, but there really 

isn't. We strongly anticipate that when the 

numbers come in at the end of the month they'll 

be consistent with the numbers from the previous 

months. And with the green line we anticipate 

not only consistent numbers, but we anticipate 

much higher numbers, as well. 

Now looking at the past few months you can 

see by the green line that we have increased 

production every month. And in April and in June 

we broke the record of 500 dose reconstruction 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

14 

reports sent to claimants. While it does fall 

short of our goal of 200 dose reconstruction 

reports to claimants a week, it does indicate two 

important facts. One, our team is remaining 

consistent. As you can see from the green line, 

since March our team has steadily remained above 

the 400 mark in dose reconstruction reports sent 

to claimants. Secondly, as the green line 

clearly indicates, over the last few months our 

team is steadily increasing production every 

month. So you see both consistency and progress. 

Also, by looking at the blue line on this 

graph you can see that the number that -- for the 

most part, the number of submittals from the 

Department of Labor is also decreasing. We're 

averaging 200 to 250 claims a month from the 

Department of Labor. 

Now to mention the red line, you can see that 

the number of final dose reconstruction reports 

to the Department of Labor is also increasing. 

However, it is important to note that OCAS has 

little control over the red line. Once we send 

out the dose reconstruction reports to claimants, 

we cannot send a final report to the Department 

of Labor until they sign the OCAS-1 form and send 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

15 

it back to us. But overall you can still see 

from the graph that the number -- the trend is 

increasing. 

So in summary of this graph, you can see that 

as Department of Labor submittals decrease and 

OCAS production increases, the gradual decrease 

in backlog cases becomes an even more tangible 

goal. 

Now I move on to slide number three, which 

shows the cases received from the Department of 

Labor by district. As you can still see that 

we've received the majority of our cases from the 

Jacksonville district, which is -- includes both 

the Savannah River Site and Oak Ridge National 

Laboratories. Together those two sites combined 

make up almost 6,000 claimants, so most of 

Jacksonville's claims right here come from those 

two sites. 

You can see that Seattle comes in second with 

5,186 claims; Cleveland comes in third, 3,485 

claims; and you've got Denver coming in with 

1,871 claims. 

Now we move to slide number four. Slide 

number four represents the number of the 

Department of Labor cases received by quarter. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

16 

It's kind of a summary of the first line graph 

that we saw and just presents the information in 

a little different way for you. Now again let me 

start out by pointing this visual discrepancy 

here at the end of quarter four. Quarter four --

the fiscal year quarter four doesn't end until 

September 30th, so there's going to be a lot more 

information added there. So remember when you're 

looking at this graph, it hasn't decreased. It 

only includes numbers as of August 13th, so I'd 

like you to keep that in mind. 

But you can see, this chart starts out at 

quarter one of '02 and goes through quarter four 

of 2004, and you can see that there's a general 

downward trend of cases received from the 

Department of Labor. 

Let's go on to slide number five. Like slide 

number four, this slide represents the line graph 

that I first showed you in a little different 

way. Again -- I hate to harp on this matter, but 

this little visual drop right here is only 

because it only takes in the numbers for the 

first two weeks of August. It doesn't mean that 

production has dropped. And by the time we get 

the numbers in at the end of August, we expect 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

17 

those numbers to be as high, if not higher, than 

the previous months. 

I like this chart because it kind of shows 

how hard we've been working. You can see that 

between February and March there was a huge 

increase in production, and you can see that 

since April we have continuously increased 

production every month. And in June we broke the 

500 record of dose reconstruction reports sent to 

claimants. In total we have sent 4,588 draft 

dose reconstruction reports to claimants. 

Now you can see here in slide number six --

again, same presentation of the information in a 

different format than the line graph -- and this 

represents the draft reconstruction reports -- I 

mean the dose reconstruction reports sent to the 

DOL monthly. And this chart, like I said, 

coincides with the slide number two with the line 

graph. And again you see that drop-off right 

there, keep in mind it's only the first two weeks 

of August and that's why you see that drop-off. 

But you can see here that some -- to point 

out again that OCAS has little control over the 

bars on this graph because we currently have 400 

to 500 average OCAS-1 forms out a month, so we 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

18 

can't send any final dose reconstruction reports 

to the Department of Labor until we get those 

OCAS-1s back signed, and then send them off to 

DOL. And we're averaging about 400 to 500 OCAS-1 

reports out a month, so you can see the trend 

there. And you can see that, while we don't have 

much control over it, there's still a general 

upward trend in the increase of the reports --

final reports sent to the DOL. And as of August 

13th we have sent out 4,097 final draft dose 

reconstruction reports to the Department of 

Labor. 

Slide number seven represents the DOE 

response to requests for exposure records. As 

you can see, we have sent out 16,653 requests for 

exposure records covering 14,981 cases. At the 

risk of pointing out the obvious, let me say that 

the reason there are more requests than there are 

cases is because many of our claimants may have 

worked at multiple sites. Therefore you might 

have more requests than you do what represents 

the actual cases. 

The responses from the DOE total 15,985 

covering 14,226 cases. Again, more requests 

because claimants may have worked at multiple 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

19 

sites. I also want to point out that the slide 

uses the word responses received, and not 

necessarily information received. And that's 

important to remember because sometimes when we 

get responses back from the DOE there may not be 

information about exposure history on there. But 

these are the number of responses we've received 

from the DOE. 

And on the bottom you can see the age of 

outstanding requests. Anything 60 days or more, 

90 days or more, 120 days or more, 150. And as 

an FYI, for the site that we're at now, the 

number of requests that we've sent to DOE for 

Idaho National Engineering Laboratory -- we have 

sent out 669 requests for exposure history. We 

have received from the DOE 651 responses, which 

equal about 90 percent of the requests that we 

sent out. There are 18 requests outstanding for 

greater than 60 days, which equates to about 3 

percent of the requests we sent for the Idaho 

site. 

All right, slide number eight pretty much 

breaks down the telephone interview statistics. 

Here you can see cases for which at least one 

interview has been completed is 16,230. And you 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

20 

can see "one" is emphasized because in several 

claims you might have multiple claimants and 

therefore more than one interview has to be 

completed. But you can still see that there's a 

large majority of cases where we've completed one 

interview. 

And then the interview summary reports sent 

to claimants, you can see the drafts equal almost 

22 hundred (sic) -- 21,813. And currently we're 

doing about 200 to 300 interview -- telephone 

interviews a week, with about 20 staff members 

working on that. 

We now have slide number nine, and slide 

number nine breaks down the number of telephone 

interviews conducted by month as of August 13th. 

The blue bars represent 2002, the yellow bars 

are representative of 2003, and then you have the 

green bars which represents 2004. Again, this 

chart shows that we are currently achieving 

approximately 200 to 300 phone calls a week on 

the telephone interviews. 

All right. Slide number ten provides you 

with the dose reconstruction statistics as of 

August 13th. The first bullet shows you that 

there are 5,123 cases staged for dose 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

21 

reconstruction, "staged" meaning that ORAU has 

gone through the file and that the DOE response 

has been received and a profile has been done. 

The second bullet highlights that there are 

1,466 cases that have been assigned for dose 

reconstruction. The assigned number of cases 

differ from the staged number of cases because 

while the file on its face might look complete, 

the information is actually not complete. For 

instance, the DOE response may not have any 

information on exposure history, or the site 

profile might not be complete for that individual 

claimant. 

Now the third bullet shows you that the dose 

reconstruction draft reports sent to claimants is 

at 4,588, and then the final DR reports sent to 

claimants, DOL and the Department of Energy is 

4,097. 

Now this next chart breaks down the number of 

cases completed by NIOSH tracking numbers, and 

you can see the tracking numbers ranging along 

the bottom from 1,000 to 17,000. Now we're 

currently working with ORAU to reduce the cases 

with numbers below 5,000 by 20 percent in the 

next ??? period. There's a group at ORAU who's 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

22 

actually working on these cases going through 

case by case to see why they can't be completed 

and to try to complete those in a timely manner. 

Now I move to the next chart which shows the 

amount of administratively closed records as of 

August 13th. As you can see, the numbers are 

relatively small -- along the top there -- and 

most of the-- or all of these become -- the dose 

reconstruction becomes administratively closed 

when we don't receive the OCAS-1 forms back. Now 

remember, we don't have the authority to close a 

case. We only close the dose reconstruction 

process, send that to DOL and it's their 

responsibility whether or not to then 

administratively close a case. 

Now the next graph I have here, slide number 

13, depicts the number of reworks that we're 

getting back from the Department of Labor. 

Currently that number is staying at 7 to 8 

percent a month being sent back to be reworked. 

The green bars are representative of the dose 

reconstructions received from the Department of 

Labor to be reworked, and the blue bars represent 

the reworks that we finish and send back to the 

Department of Labor. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

23 

Now it looks like on this chart -- and it may 

not be obvious. It looks like on this chart that 

the numbers of reworks is increasing because 

obviously the green bars are increasing. But 

what's not apparent from this chart is that we're 

also sending more reports to the Department of 

Labor, which means that the percentage is still 

staying the same. We're still getting about 7 to 

8 percent back, not that we're getting back any 

more reworks than we were getting before. So the 

percentage is really what matters, and I don't 

think that's too obvious from this chart so I 

wanted to point that out. 

Now let's look at slide number 14 -- we're 

kind of moving into a new area here -- the SEC 

petitions. As you are probably aware, the final 

rule 42 CFR 83 was published on Friday, May 28th, 

2004. And this rule describes the process 

through which HHS will consider designating 

classes of employees to be added to the Special 

Exposure Cohort rule (sic). 

Now the requirements for classifying a group 

under the SEC are intended to ensure that 

petitions are submitted by authorized parties, 

are justified and receive uniform, scientific and 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

24 

fair consideration. You can see here that we 

received the first petition on June 15th, 2004, 

and that was actually personally handed to Larry 

Elliott at the meeting in Burlington, Iowa, so a 

little bit of background information on that 

first petition. Now we have nine active SEC 

petitions as of now. 

Now you can see on the next slide what the 

breakdown is of these nine petitions. We have 

one from the Hanford site, three from the Iowa 

Ordnance Plant, one from K-25 at Oak Ridge, one 

from Los Alamos, one from Mallinckrodt, one from 

Paducah, then we have one various multiple 

facilities rounding out the nine active SEC 

petitions we have. 

Now the SEC petitions that we have are 

currently in the process of being qualified, 

making sure that they qualify as a SEC petition, 

and we work with the claimants to make sure that 

it's done right. Under 42 CFR 83.6 through 83.11 

there's a detailed process through which a 

claimant has to go through to file a petition 

under the SEC as an SEC class. Now we work with 

those groups to make sure that they're providing 

all the information, so there have actually been 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

25 

several conferences -- phone or e-mail -- with 

some of these claimants to make sure that they're 

getting in the petitions in the format to meet 

the current rule. 

Also you can see that for each qualified 

petition, once it becomes qualified, then we 

publish a notice in the Federal Register which 

will notify the public of NIOSH's decision to 

evaluate a petition. Now remember, it's a 

multiple-step process. First we have to qualify 

the petition. Now that's not saying once we 

qualify the petition that it becomes an SEC 

class. We're just saying that the petition, on 

its face, is appropriate and then qualified. 

Then we provide a notice to the public, and then 

we go through the process of seeing if it 

evaluates or if it qualifies as an SEC class. 

And again, all of our petitions are currently in 

the process of being qualified. 

And then lastly, all qualified petitions will 

be evaluated by NIOSH in accordance with the 

provisions of 83.13 or Section 83.14. 

All right. This last slide number 17 shows 

the number of phone calls and e-mails received 

from OCAS -- or received to OCAS and ORAU. Now 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

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 

you can see that OCAS is receiving -- or has 

received 32,276 phone calls, and you see that 

ORAU has 111,616 phone calls. And there's also, 

you know, a big discrepancy between those two 

numbers, and a lot of that occurs because it is 

ORAU's responsibility to conduct the telephone 

interviews, so they're going to be getting more 

phone calls trying to set up these telephone 

interviews, conducting the telephone interviews 

and doing follow-up calls concerning the 

interviews. And most of the OCAS phone calls 

that we receive are status requests, people 

wanting to find out the status of their claim. 

And this last number -- last bullet will show you 

the number of claimant e-mails to OCAS is at 

3,466. 

This next chart is going to point out some of 

our accomplishments, and the first thing I want 

to point out is that the number of final dose 

reconstruction reports sent to the Department of 

Labor exceeds 4,000 now. It's hit its milestone 

of 4,000 and continues to grow, and as of today 

we've sent out more than 4,000. 

You can also see that we have sent out 

activity reports. We're still doing that. We 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

27 

sent out over 19,000 activity reports in July. 

And the activity reports, just to refresh your 

memory, is -- the first two page-- it's about 

five pages, typically. The first two pages are 

claimant-specific information where it gives the 

claimant information about their specific case. 

And then the next three pages are hot topics, if 

you will. Every claimant gets pretty much the 

same in the last three pages, and it covers 

information that maybe a lot of claimants have 

called in about to the PHAs or something that we 

want to share with the claimants. And like I 

said, we sent out over 19,000 of those in July. 

We also continue to have the web-based status 

requests from claimants. We started that 

program, setting up the status base, in March. 

And since then we get about two to three webbased requests for status a day. Since then 

we've sent back 73 denials for requests. What 

happens is they might not have the specific 

information because of the Privacy Act. The 

status-based -- web-based status request requires 

specific information, and if they send the form -

- the request without giving us specific 

information, we cannot send them back the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

28 

information. But Chris Ellison, our 

communications specialist, looks over each of 

those denials personally to make sure that we 

can't actually give them the information and that 

the computer's not making some sort of error. 

Then we send back a denial and, you know, telling 

them that they're missing some information, and 

then they have every chance to send back another 

web-based request for status -- or to call in, as 

well. 

And we also have -- I want to add a point 

here that's not on the slide of accomplishments. 

Actually I have two more to add in here, and the 

first one is that under subsection (d) of the 

EEOICPA -- I still get tongue-tied on that one --

under subsection (d) it's our responsibility to 

appoint physician panel -- or physicians to the 

panel for the Department of Energy. So far we 

added 73 new physicians, bringing the total over 

300 physicians that we have appointed. 

And then I also want to mention that we have 

worked with ORAU to change our conflict of 

interest policy. Now it includes site profiles, 

as well. So if somebody has worked at a site and 

they're conducting the site profiles, the lead 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

29 

site -- person doing site profile cannot have 

worked at the facility where the site profile is 

being done, and that's a recent addition to our 

conflict of interest, which -- make it a little 

stronger. 

And then we also have OCAS staffing updates. 

We had a few changes here, including myself. 

We'll go through this quickly. This is the OCAS 

organizational chart. The yellow squares 

represent positions that are filled. Then you've 

got the white spots, white boxes where there are 

open positions that you can see on this chart. 

First I'd like to announce that Jim Neton has 

moved from Technical Program Manager to the 

Associate Director for Science, as you can see on 

that chart, and Jim will be monitoring existing 

and emerging scientific issues relating to dose 

reconstruction and risk models. 

We also have two new fellows to the program. 

First Heidi Deep is -- joined us as the ASPH 

Fellow, and the second you have myself, Laurie 

Ishak, joined as a Presidential Management 

Fellow, so you have two new fellows added to the 

program. 

There are also ongoing interviews for the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

30 

research epidemiologist and the health 

communications specialists. The announcement for 

the Technical Solutions team leader has been 

closed, and there's also going to be two new 

positions for health physicists and one for the 

technical program manager to replace Jim after 

his move. 

So that concludes my program status report 

and I am open for any questions that the Board 

may have concerning some of this information. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Laurie. Let's open 

the floor now for questions. Jim Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have several questions. 

On the DOE -- requests for information from DOE, 

some of the past meetings you've presented 

information on which sites have the largest 

backlog. You didn't this time, though. Could 

you tell us -- update us a little bit on -- there 

were some sites that have been problematic in the 

past and it seems to me the numbers have gone 

down, so -- just trying to figure out if that's 

across the board or if there are still particular 

sites where there are difficulties getting 

information from. 

MS. ISHAK: Well, I received some information 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

31 

as of August 15th, 2004. I think typically the 

numbers are going down. I know that there was a 

problem with the Los Alamos National Laboratory 

sites, and of course I wasn't a part of the last 

meeting, but I'm not sure if that's the site you 

may be referring to, and there was a database 

problem with that site. We have currently worked 

with the DOE with the Los Alamos site and we've 

kind of corrected some of the problems, so that 

should be speeding up the requests that sent out 

there for that information. 

Now I have -- my list is kind of long. Is 

there any site-specific questions --

DR. MELIUS: Well --

MS. ISHAK: -- or are you just asking for a 

general trend --

DR. MELIUS: -- just -- no --

MS. ISHAK: -- and some of the problem sites? 

I know it was Los Alamos, but that's been --

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, particular --

MS. ISHAK: -- corrected. 

DR. MELIUS: -- sites. 

MS. ISHAK: Okay. 

DR. MELIUS: If you could share that maybe 

for future updates, just -- it would be easier if 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

32 

we could just see the presentation that's -- you 

know, matches up with what we've received before. 

MS. ISHAK: Okay. 

DR. MELIUS: I also have a question on the 

backlog issue and this program -- I think you 

talked a little bit about last time, also -- or 

Jim Neton did -- about this program to focus more 

resources on the early cases. Now again I think 

you've made some progress on those cases, but not 

a lot, and you seem to -- it seems where you get 

stuck around -- you get a quarter of the cases 

done in each thousand and then it seems to slow 

down. And I don't know how many are out -- how 

many are out for review and so forth so that the 

number actually may be higher. It may be a third 

of them or something. But what -- what's the 

process and -- and so forth? It seems to me that 

you're doing 20 percent a quarter for those first 

-- seems to me you're not getting at those very 

easily. I know it's hard, but I'd be curious how 

you're doing that. 

DR. NETON: Laurie, if you don't mind, I'll 

field that question. 

MS. ISHAK: Okay. 

DR. NETON: We are aggressively pursuing the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

33 

backlog and -- and in particular the cases with 

numbers -- ID numbers 5,000 or less. Laurie 

mentioned that we have incentivized (sic) ORAU, 

in the last performance award ??? period which 

ends this September 11th, to reduce the backlog 

of claims below 5,000 by 20 percent. We believe 

they're on target in doing that and are going to 

be very close, if not meeting that -- that 

incentivized goal. 

Starting September 11th will be the two-year 

anniversary of the contract of ORAU and we are 

working closely to develop the incentive language 

for the next six months, and it will be heavily 

incentivized to eliminate the backlog below 

5,000. In other words, we're going to try to 

continue to complete all the cases below 5,000. 

Now whether that's a reality or not, I don't 

know. There may be some issues -- and this may 

come -- become a little clearer when I talk about 

some of the things that we're doing with ORAU to 

develop coworker profiles and such so that we can 

start attacking those cases. 'Cause frankly, up 

until this point, we haven't had the technical 

tools, the ability to work those cases and that's 

why they're sitting. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

34 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. Wouldn't some of those --

if I could just continue on this -- wouldn't some 

of those cases also be SEC candidates because --

I mean at what point are you going to, you know, 

determine that you can't do a dose 

reconstruction? I mean you're going to make them 

wait until --

DR. NETON: Well --

DR. MELIUS: -- you know, till you've 

exhausted all... 

DR. NETON: Well, I would -- I'm kind of 

getting into my presentation on tomorrow --

DR. MELIUS: Then that -- then that's fine --

DR. NETON: -- relating to certain dose 

reconstructions. 

DR. MELIUS: -- if you'd rather -- if you 

want to answer that tomorrow, that's fine. I 

don't --

DR. NETON: I think I'd be better prepared in 

the context of my presentation. 

DR. MELIUS: That's fine. That's fine. I'm 

just raising the questions that came up now. 

DR. ZIEMER: Do you have any additional 

questions? 

DR. MELIUS: Somebody else can go if they 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

35 

want --

DR. ZIEMER: Henry has --

DR. MELIUS: -- but I may have some more. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: You were first. 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm sorry, I didn't see -- Mark 

Griffon, then Henry. 

MR. GRIFFON: I have one just -- just 

preliminary one, which is you gave a lot of case 

statistics -- claims and case statistics. 

MS. ISHAK: Uh-huh. 

MR. GRIFFON: But I didn't see -- you 

mentioned how many dose record requests have been 

made for Idaho, but you didn't mention how many 

claims have been submitted for Idaho and I 

thought that the audience might be interested in 

that -- claims for Idaho and the completed cases 

for Idaho. 

MS. ISHAK: I actually don't have that 

information with me. It is on our public web 

site. 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Those two 

numbers (Inaudible) or whatever. 

MS. ISHAK: Okay, equal to the DOE requests, 

and those numbers --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 -- 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

36 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

cases. 

MS. ISHAK: Okay. If you'd like to hear them 

MR. ELLIOTT: I think -- I think Pete Turcic 

will speak to the statistics locally and 

regionally, as well as nationally, so I think 

that's where you'll find -- you'll get his 

presentation and I think that's -- we were 

relying on him to present numbers like that. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, my question is, it 

looked as though -- where you're processing about 

500, it seemed, dose reconstructions a month, and 

do you see that as kind of now the -- your basic 

status? I mean are you up to speed and sort of 

running ahead at what you'd do is be kind of 

maintenance mode of this -- this is what your 

plan is and that's -- that's where you're at and 

now it'll just continue along at that, or are you 

-- is the goal of -- to get it up to how many 

a... 

MS. ISHAK: Well, our original goal and still 

our goal is 200 a week. And we finally hit the 

500 mark, which we see as clear progress. And I 

think that, seeing the charts from the previous 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

37 

months, that getting to 500 was an 

accomplishment. And then of course we would like 

to get to 200 a week, and I think that we're 

moving towards that way. Again, we expect the 

numbers in August to be a little bit higher than 

they were from even the previous month, so I 

think the trend upward is not only what we're 

hoping for but what we're expecting in the next 

few months. 

DR. ANDERSON: So you do expect it to -- to 

ramp up to the --

MS. ISHAK: We do. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- 800 a month, about, 

roughly. Yeah. 

MS. ISHAK: That's what we're aiming at. 

We're expecting that climb up there, and I think 

the trend shows that's where we're getting. So 

we went from 200 to 400 to 500, and --

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, yeah, it seemed to be 

sort of that -- 500 and I wondered if you'd --

MS. ISHAK: Yeah, we expect that to --

DR. ANDERSON: -- reached sort of a -- yeah. 

MS. ISHAK: -- go up, clearly. Clearly 

expect it to -- and like I say, we expect the 

numbers for August --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

38 

DR. ANDERSON: That's a lot of paper. 

MS. ISHAK: -- we expect the numbers for 

August to be higher, as well. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We hope that this is not a 

plateau. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, that's what --

MR. ELLIOTT: It's our full expectation to 

reach 800 a month or 200 a week. And if we can't 

do that, we're asking serious questions as to why 

and trying to investigate exactly what is 

preventing that accomplishment from -- from being 

recognized and achieved. 

DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: I think Mark was ahead of me. 

MR. GRIFFON: Go ahead. I've got another 

one, but... 

DR. ROESSLER: Laurie, your last slide was 

informative, but I have two questions about it. 

This is the organizational --

MS. ISHAK: The organizational chart? 

DR. ROESSLER: Yes. One is -- it would be 

helpful I think to the Board to see names 

associated with those boxes so that when we hear 

presentations we can see where the person fits in 

with the organizational chart. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

39 

It would also be helpful -- now I can read 

that, but I can't read it in the notebook. Maybe 

I need new glasses, but --

MS. ISHAK: It was difficult to get all those 

boxes --

DR. ZIEMER: You know what that's a sign of 

though, don't you? 

DR. ROESSLER: I know that's what --

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

DR. ROESSLER: But most of us are in that 

position, probably, so it would be helpful to 

have this chart readable as a handout, and with 

names on it as much as you --

MR. ELLIOTT: We will provide that. We will 

provide you a chart you can read and we'll have 

names in the boxes. 

MS. ISHAK: It's hard to get all those boxes 

on a slide. We worked a long time on that. 

DR. ZIEMER: I want to interject here -- I'll 

take my prerogative as Chair to interject a 

question. On the nine or ten SEC petitions -- is 

it nine? 

MS. ISHAK: It's nine --

DR. ZIEMER: Nine? 

MS. ISHAK: -- active. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

40 

DR. ZIEMER: Can you remind us of the time 

table when -- when your review is -- on adequacy 

is completed, what's the time period in the 

Federal Register and what's the time period 

before the Board sees these? The procedure calls 

for the Board to review all these petitions, and 

when will we expect them to first hit the Board? 

MS. ISHAK: I think Larry better would answer 

that question right now. 

MR. ELLIOTT: That was not a planted 

question, but it was a welcomed question. Yes, 

we're -- we're dealing with nine right now. We 

actually have a total of 13, but those -- the 

others are representative of requests that were 

sent to us by mail before the rule passed, and 

some of those are duplicate of the nine. 

We are diligently working hard at evaluating 

all nine, at the same time qualifying all nine. 

As Laurie pointed out, we -- the first step in 

the process is to work with the petitioners to 

qualify the information that is initially 

presented and make sure that it is in the form 

required by the rule to move it to the next step. 

I anticipate and I expect -- and I'm fairly 

adamant in this expectation -- that at your 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

41 

October Board meeting in San Francisco -- prior 

to that Board meeting we'll announce in the 

Federal Register that several petitions have been 

qualified and are proceeding under research 

evaluation and a research evaluation report will 

be presented to the Board in October at your 

meeting in San Francisco. It's my expectation, 

my anticipation, that the -- two of those nine 

are very critical to us because we've done a lot 

of work on those two sites, the Iowa Plant site 

and Mallinckrodt site. And as you know, in our 

site profiles we had sections reserved where we 

had minimal, if any, data. And so that gave us 

an advantage and a leg up to start our work in 

evaluating those particular profiles and -- with 

regard to whether a class should be established 

for those two sites. 

At the same time, we're not sacrificing the 

other petitions. We're working on those in an 

evaluation effort at the same time as 

qualification, so I think for Mallinckrodt we'll 

be presenting to the Board a research evaluation 

report that speaks to the early years, the 1942 

to '46 years, and -- and I hope to see that 

announced in Federal Register before the Board 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

42 

meeting and we will present that evaluation 

report for the Board's review and comment and 

decision in October. 

The Iowa site presents us a little bit 

different set of problems in that the information 

that we're seeking to evaluate for that 

particular petition and a class that might come 

out of the Iowa site is constrained by national 

security information. We need our Q-cleared eyes 

on that information to determine its relevance, 

or lack of relevance, to the petition. And I'm 

fully prepared and ready -- as the rule provides, 

at my discretion -- to determine that it may not 

be a timely retrieval of information if it's 

bound by security constraints to move forward 

with a designated class for that particular 

facility. 

So just to give the Board some insight into 

your future endeavors here in October, I fully 

expect that you'll be seeing one, if not more, 

evaluation report on SEC petitions. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Mark, then Roy and 

then Jim. 

MR. GRIFFON: This question's related to 

some-- Jim just gave a response about making up 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

43 

for the backlog, and I guess the phrase that 

struck me was he said that there will be --

"heavily incentivized" I think is the term he 

used, or heavy incentives for clearing that 

backlog. I'm wondering if that means a contract 

modification with ORAU and -- and is ORAU 

currently within -- within their existing -- you 

know, we had a five-year budget, I guess, that 

ORAU had initially. Are they currently operating 

within budget, over-budget, you know, sort of --

I was wondering what the status was on... 

DR. NETON: Okay, there's two questions 

there. The first question is what did I mean 

when I said heavily incentivized, and I guess 

maybe I -- heavily is relative term, I suppose. 

What I meant by that is ORAU's contract is --

includes a provision for a cost plus an award 

fee. That award fee is awarded every six months 

or evaluated every six months, and there's a pot 

of money available based on some pre-set amounts 

when the contract was awarded. The higher the 

score, the higher the total number of dollars out 

of a total work fee that they can receive. 

The cost plus award fee provision is in the 

contract, but -- so it does require a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

44 

modification every six months if we do tweak it. 

But we anticipated that when the contract was 

awarded that we could not have a generic set of 

award fee every six months to be meaningful. You 

know, for instance, the first award fee period we 

had had a lot of information related to start-up 

-- start-up timeliness and that sort of thing. 

So in this last period we have modified the 

contract to incentivized by more award fee points 

directly tied to finishing cases below 5,000. 

can't -- I can't give you a dollar figure or 

anything, but that -- that's the -- that's the 

idea behind that. 

And in the next six-month award fee period 

we're going to more heavily incentivize finishing 

cases below 5,000, in addition to incentivizing 

reaching 200 dose reconstructions per week. So 

that's -- that's what that's about. 

MR. ELLIOTT: If I could add to that, this 

current cost performance award fee that we have 

negotiated with their contractor addresses not 

only the backlog of the first 5,000 cases and 

trying to get those cleared and answers given, 

rightfully so, to the claimants, it also 

addresses this rework stream -- process stream, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

45 

if you will -- which was not in the previous cost 

performance award fee and we felt it needed to be 

recognized, it needed to be incentivized, and it 

is a separate process stream that we don't want 

to overlook or miss. So when reworks come back 

to us from the Department of Labor -- and I want 

to make a comment on why we're getting reworks. 

In a lot of cases -- the majority of the 

cases it's because the claimant -- the 

circumstances of the case have changed. Another 

cancer has been recognized and diagnosed or 

additional employment has been developed by the 

Department of Labor, and we have to factor that 

back into a revised dose reconstruction. The 

minority of those reworks deal with how we did 

our work. And I don't have a percentage on that, 

but it's a very small -- small percentage. 

The other incentivized aspect of this 

performance award fee that we're currently 

working under deals with our goals, our 

Government Performance Results Act -- GPRA --

goals, our -- our program target goals of 200 a 

week, trying to get 8,000 -- at least 8,000 done 

in a year's time. I know those two numbers don't 

equate, but -- but we are -- we're -- we're 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

46 

incentivizing 200 a week to get to 800 a month, 

with the hope that by the end of a year's worth 

of time we can show progress and hopefully 

achieve 8,000 completed in a year's time. And as 

you see, we're not there yet. 

So we've tried to put those incentives before 

our contractor and we'll continue to modify these 

performance award fees on a six-month basis to 

try to target aspects of the program that need 

attention and -- and devotion and energy. 

DR. NETON: Okay, I think that answers the 

first question. The second question was where is 

ORAU in relation to their original budget 

estimates in the contract. They have gone over 

fairly significantly in cost on this contract in 

relation to the original budget. We are in a 

process right now of renegotiating where -- where 

that might be, but I don't have the figures 

available with me to discuss where they're at in 

particular, but -- but they will be over-budget. 

DR. DEHART: Roy DeHart. The question I have 

goes back to the SEC petitions. Among those 

activities or sites was K-25, and K-25 is already 

recognized as an SEC site. I was wondering if 

there's any clarification as to why another 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

47 

application -- or is it premature to even begin 

to ask that question at this point? 

MS. ISHAK: My -- Jim, did you want to answer 

this question or... 

DR. NETON: Yeah. I don't recall the 

specifics, but it's more than likely related to 

covered exposure outside of certain time periods. 

I mean I think K-25 had -- you know, the SE--

the original SEC sites had certain prescribed 

time constraints, and I think it is either 

outside of that -- it must be related to that. 

That's the only condition I can think of that 

would... 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have two questions. One 

quickly, the conflict of interest on the site 

profiles for ORAU, is that the same conflict of 

interest policy as exists for the other -- for 

the -- you sort of described it briefly, but is 

it the same as for the other dose 

reconstructions? 

DR. ZIEMER: I think Jim Neton can --

DR. NETON: Yes, I'll answer that. This was 

just signed I believe Friday, very timely. It 

took some going back and forth, and -- you know, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

48 

legal --

DR. ZIEMER: Incentivized. 

DR. NETON: -- folks involved, but in essence 

what we've done is it's exactly -- ORAU has 

placed language in their conflict of interest 

policy that is -- parallels almost exactly the 

exact language for the dose reconstructions. And 

in fact, we took the opportunity at this time, 

since we had it opened up, to add the same type 

of provisions for evaluation of SEC petitions. 

So you know, we were trying to be a little 

proactive there and be ahead of the curve, so 

principal reviewers on SEC petitions cannot have 

previously been employed at the site and that 

sort of thing. It's out there on our web site. 

I have copies that --

MR. ELLIOTT: Aren't the copies in the 

Board's book? 

DR. NETON: They should be in your book under 

my site profile presentation. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. 

DR. MELIUS: Second question has to do with 

the SEC petitions. Are those going to be -- do 

you have a task order with ORAU for doing the 

technical work on those or are those being done 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

49 

internally? What's the plan on that? 

DR. NETON: Oak Ridge Associated Universities 

is -- is doing the bulk of the work on this. 

They are actually performing almost all the 

technical work. But NIOSH, just like with the 

dose reconstructions, maintains full 

responsibility and review over the final product. 

We work very closely with them. It's an 

iterative process, very much like dose 

reconstructions. Drafts come over, we vet them 

internally and review them and cycle them through 

the process. But they have right now -- I 

believe there's up to a dozen health physicists 

available to work on the SEC process within ORAU. 

Now they're not all actively working right now 

because the work load's not there. But they have 

been identified as sort of a matrix type process 

that they'll be available to work on them. 

DR. MELIUS: So that's a separate task within 

the contract, or -- I'm just --

DR. NETON: Yeah, the original contract 

itself -- I mean the title of the contract was 

dose reconstruction and SEC petitions or 

something. What's happened now is ORAU, to track 

cost and progress under that task, has created a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

50 

task ten within their organization that will --

Dave Peterson*, a former NIOSH employee, is 

heading up that task for ORAU and so it's tracked 

as a separate task at this point. 

DR. MELIUS: And so that won't -- it's not 

going to be a problem in terms of contract issues 

(Inaudible) --

DR. NETON: No, this was totally envisioned 

within the scope and the budget of the original 

contract language. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. Do that. I don't know if 

now's the time, but it certainly may be during 

the work session. We as a Board are going to be 

presented with SEC petition, you know, review --

I forget what you call it; evaluation, I guess --

at our next meeting. We need to, I think, sort 

of think through how we're going to review that 

and what procedures we want in -- in place and so 

forth, and I'd certainly like to talk about that. 

DR. ZIEMER: During our work session we can 

address that issue specifically. I think it's 

appropriate that we do so. 

Incidentally, as we talk, a copy of the ORAU 

team conflict of interest policy now has been 

distributed to the Board members, a document 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

51 

dated August 23rd. And I presume these are also 

available to the public if -- if others wish to 

see them, so they'll be on the table. 

Okay, additional questions? Laurie, thank 

you very much. 

MS. ISHAK: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: You have passed the test and --

MS. ISHAK: That's good to know. I'll sleep 

well tonight. Thank you. 

STATUS AND OUTREACH – DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

DR. ZIEMER: The Chair feels like we've 

barely gotten underway and the schedule already 

calls for a break, but we're a little ahead of 

time. I'm going to exercise the prerogative in 

suggesting that we proceed with Pete Turcic's 

presentation, if that's okay with Pete. 

So, status and outreach report on -- from the 

Department of Labor, Pete Turcic. Pete? 

MR. TURCIC: I just want to give you an 

update on the status of the program at the 

Department of Labor, and to date we've gotten up 

to -- we've now exceeded 57,000 claims. And of 

that, the largest proportion, again, remains to 

be cancer claims, with some 40,000 -- over 40,000 

cancer claims. Beryllium sensitivity has kind of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

52 

leveled off at about 2,500. We get very few 

beryllium claims anymore, as well as the chronic 

beryllium disease. It kind of leveled off at 

3,700. Silicosis remains at about 1,100 claims, 

and RECA has stabilized at about 6,200. Most of 

our RECA claims now are reworks that the 

Department of Justice is doing on previous 

claims, you know, under the new regulations. 

They modified some regulations. And fortunately 

our -- the category of non-covered conditions, 

that has -- we've seen a dramatic drop in that 

and we're attributing a lot of that to, you know, 

some of our outreach efforts where we tend to --

we don't get as many -- anywhere near as many 

non-covered conditions as we used to. 

Looking at the overall -- the status of the 

overall cases, the status -- the pending cases at 

NIOSH, there's been a significant reduction 

there, showing that we're down to 12,490 cases at 

-- at NIOSH. And pending at our district offices 

we have a working inventory of about 2,600 claims 

at any given time. And pending a final decision, 

the claims of -- the claims that have received a 

recommended decision, awaiting a final decision, 

either a hearing or a review of the record, is 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

53 

about 2,300. And we've made final decisions 

issued in nearly 25,000 cases now of the total of 

42,000 cases that we have received. 

Some of the program statistics, the 

recommended decisions -- and again, the split --

to date we've had, you know, nearly 14,000 claims 

-- recommended decisions to approve benefits and 

22,000 to deny benefits. Final decisions, 13,000 

to approve and about 18,000 to deny. And 

payments issued, 11,600 payments for -- in 875 --

nearly $875 million of benefits and nearly $40 

million in medical benefits paid. 

DR. ZIEMER: Pete, while that slide is up, 

could I interrupt --

MR. TURCIC: Sure. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- since the slide is here, 

could you clarify now on the final decisions, the 

13,046, for example, that's a subset of the 

13,800 --

MR. TURCIC: That's correct. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And likewise on the 

denies then? 

MR. TURCIC: Well, it's -- it's -- that is a 

subset, but there could be a few cases -- there's 

not a whole lot, but there may be a recommended 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

54 

denial, but then when it goes to a final 

decision, it's reversed at the FAB, but that's a 

very small number. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MR. TURCIC: The breakdown of -- and this --

there is some changes in -- in this chart. This 

is starting to change some. The final decisions 

to approve, 13,800; 18,000 to deny -- the noncovered conditions as a reason for denials, that 

has been going down. In fact, in -- in the last 

year it's been probably less than 2,000 added in 

that category. And naturally the cancer -- the 

1,922 cancer not related, the POC of less than 50 

percent naturally has been, you know, going up. 

And -- now this gets to also the issue on the 

backlog. As I said, there's been a significant 

reduction in the backlog. But we've been --

we've been averaging in the neighborhood of 200 

to 300 cases per -- you know, claims a week, and 

with the non-covered conditions going down, you 

know, that means that of those 200 or 300 cases, 

more and more will be, you know, going in for 

dose reconstruction as time goes on. So that's, 

you know, something to think about as time goes 

on and whether the 200 is going to -- a week will 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

55 

really cut into the -- into the backlog. 

The status of the NIOSH referrals -- again, 

4,597 cases have been returned from NIOSH with 

4,375 with completed dose reconstructions and 222 

did not need dose reconstructions. Cases with --

of those, cases with recommended decisions, 733 

recommended decisions to approve benefits and 

2,686 to deny benefits. Of those having final 

decisions, 660 with final acceptances and 1,534 

with final denials, and 80 -- about $87 million 

have been paid in benefits in compensation from -

- directly from cases from NIOSH with dose 

reconstructions, so that's -- that's starting to 

grow dramatically and increasing now on a weekly 

basis. 

Now just look at what happened in the last 

year -- as it turned out, the Ohio meeting was 

about the same time -- and to show what -- I mean 

I think we want to really compliment NIOSH on a -

- on a job well done and what was achieved. In 

that last year, from -- since the Ohio meeting, 

DOL -- we sent an additional 3,400 cases to NIOSH 

for dose reconstruction. NIOSH returned 41 --

over 4,100, so that made a significant reduction 

in the -- in the backlog that NIOSH needs to be 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

56 

complimented on. 

Of those, the recommend-- in the last year 

the recommended decisions, 618 to accept benefits 

and 2,539 to deny. Final decisions, 560 to 

accept and 1,496 to deny, and that's what the 

status of the -- what happened over the last --

the last year, since last August. 

Now I just want to take some time to maybe 

give a better understanding -- now that we have, 

you know, thousands of cases that have come back 

and gone through the process -- of what happens 

because I don't think there's -- you know, I 

think it would be good for the Board to 

understand what happens when a claimant gets a 

recommended decision based on a dose 

reconstruction and what can they appeal. And so 

once we get a case back from NIOSH and we've been 

meeting our goal -- our goal is to, once we get a 

dose reconstruction back from NIOSH, to issue a 

recommended decision within an average of 21 days 

after receipt of that dose reconstruction report, 

and we've been exceeding that standard. So we 

have been -- we -- we have been issuing -- we've, 

you know, recommended decisions in -- within 

three weeks after receiving a dose reconstruction 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

57 

report. 

At that time the claimant is given the 

opportunity -- they can request the -- a hearing, 

an oral hearing. If they so choose, but only if 

they choose, the hearing can be a telephone 

hearing. They can request a review of the 

written record and state objections. Or they can 

waive objections. And if they waive objections, 

then we immediately process the claim. Usually 

that's an acceptance. We'll process it and in a 

very short period of time we can, you know, have 

a final decision and issue -- issue payment. 

And to explain what happens in the review 

process, the review of the dose reconstructions 

at our Final Adjudication Branch -- first let me 

just talk about the scope. And again, this is 

all in the regulations. The regulations specify 

what portions -- what is the scope of the review 

that the Final Adjudication Branch would do on a 

objection of a dose reconstruction. 

Number one, we will look and it is DOL's 

responsibility to adjudicate factual information. 

And that's very important because, you know, for 

consistency and, you know, lot of -- lot of times 

claimants will claim that something happened. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

58 

Well, there has to be a -- we have to weigh that 

evidence, and there has to be some probative 

evidence, some reason and rationale to accept 

that as a factual piece of information. So we 

will accept objections on factual information. 

You know, if a claimant comes in and says an 

incident occurred or a practice occurred, NIOSH 

did not address it in the dose reconstruction, we 

will adjudicate that issue and we will weigh the 

evidence and make a determination of the veracity 

of that evidence and whether that evidence is 

accepted or not accepted. 

Then we also look at the application of 

methodology, and that's a fine line between --

there's a fine line between application of 

methodology and actual methodology. But the 

methodology is basically a regulatory issue and 

would need -- an objection to it needs to be 

handled through the normal channels of, you know, 

objecting to a regulation. The normal court 

channels of, you know, here's what NIOSH put in 

the regulations; here's the methodology that is 

used. If there's an objection to that, that 

challenge needs to go to a court. That challenge 

cannot be addressed in the final adjudication 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

59 

process. However, the application -- you know, 

it could be -- they can come in and argue that 

the wrong model is used. And then we would go to 

NIOSH, we would look and make sure and -- and 

again, any factual information, any objections 

raised are addressed -- would be addressed in the 

final decision. 

Based on those objections, the potential 

outcomes is that the -- at -- the Final 

Adjudication Branch could affirm the recommended 

decision. They could reverse the recommended 

decision. Now they cannot reverse a payment, so 

the rules that go on that is that the claimant --

the FAB would never take an acceptance, reverse 

that to a non-acceptance, without doing another 

recommended decision that would explain in detail 

why the denial so that the claimant could object 

to that denial. 

But there have been cases where -- you know, 

if it's a denial -- recommended denial, the FAB -

- goes to the FAB; it could be reversed, made 

into a -- an acceptance, without going back to 

the claimant. And most -- most frequently, if 

there is an issue, it would be remanded, either 

to the DOL district office for another 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

60 

recommended decision, or to NIOSH for handling 

some issue. 

More than likely it would be a factual issue. 

If a claimant made a factual objection, the FAB 

accepted that factual objection, we would remand 

that case back to NIOSH -- and that is some of 

the reworks. But like, you know, Larry pointed 

out, most of the reworks are a new cancer, a 

second cancer was diagnosed, you know, in the 

intervening time. But there have been some 

remands where it would be remanded because the 

claimant was able to raise a factual situation, a 

set of facts that we would then remand it back to 

NIOSH to have a rework to address that set of 

factual information. 

And then naturally the claimant -- at that 

point in time, at the final decision, they do 

have a further review -- appeal. They have the 

option -- at that point in time they have 30 days 

in which they could ask for a reconsideration. 

Now a reconsideration would be that that case 

would go to a separate -- a different claims 

examiner, hearing rep, who would re-look at the 

whole case and make sure that they would come up 

with the same conclusion as the first hearing 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

61 

rep. 

After that, they can request a reopening to 

my office, and it is a discretionary reopening. 

It could be -- well, they have a year to show, 

you know, new information, but there's no time 

limit on -- at any time then I have the 

discretion to reopen any case based on new 

information or if situations, you know, have --

have changed. 

Just a review of some of the objections that 

we have gotten to this point, so far -- and this 

is in the last year, in FY 2004, so it's not even 

a whole year -- we've received requests -- 420 

requests for hearings. We have conducted 311 

hearings. We've received 653 requests for review 

of the written record, and that's where the 

claimant may file an objection but just ask for a 

review of the record. And to date we've done 567 

of those. And we've received 2,925 waivers of 

objections. 

And here you can see what's happening with 

our hearing -- requests for hearings. As you can 

see, our requests for hearings are increasing as 

-- as we expected. And to be quite honest -- I 

mean prior to this last year, most of our 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

62 

hearings were -- I object that, you know, heart 

disease is not a covered illness. Now we're 

starting to get a lot more substantive, you know, 

objections and requests for hearings. And NIOSH 

just did a great job of a training of some of our 

hearing reps with a more in-depth training and 

explanation of the dose reconstruction process so 

that they'll be able to better address those 

issues when they come up in the hearing process. 

DR. ZIEMER: Pete, just a question here from 

Larry. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Are all 420 of these dose 

reconstruction cases specifically? 

MR. TURCIC: That's the majority, but there -

- there would be a few that, you know -- that 

might be RECA cases or -- or beryllium. 

The waivers -- again, it's pretty constant. 

We've got -- been getting about 1,000 waivers a 

quarter. 

The NIOSH cases that have been remanded, just 

to cover some of those issues -- total remands, 

328. Recommended decisions -- of those, 75 had 

recommended decisions to approve benefits, and so 

far 36 of them have remained as final approvals. 

Then there were 263 that were recommended 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

63 

decisions to deny, and to date the status of 

those, two of them have been changed from a 

denies to final approvals, 37 remain final 

denials, 216 are still pending final decision, so 

that means that they've been remanded. They're 

either back at the district office for further 

development -- it may be development of 

employment, it could be development of a -- you 

know, there -- there could be a -- we could have 

gotten an indication that another cancer -- so 

there could be medical development, it could be 

employment development or it could be, you know, 

sent back to NIOSH for -- for a rework for some 

other reason. And eight of them have -- are 

cases that were closed or withdrawn. Most of 

those would be that the claimant has passed away 

and there -- we're in the process -- either in 

the process or we cannot find a survivor. 

And just briefly and, you know, maybe at a --

at another meeting if you -- if you want, I can 

go into, you know, more details -- just some of 

the issues that we are getting at the hearing 

level, objections at the hearing and review of 

the written record on dose reconstruction cases. 

Probably the vast majority were that information 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

64 

was provided in the interview and not addressed. 

To date, the vast majority of those are that it 

-- the issue was addressed in the dose 

reconstruction. It -- we probably, you know, 

need to do a better job of, you know, putting a 

few sentences to explicitly say how, you know, so 

really, you know, the claimants may not be able 

to read -- if you're not a health physicist, you 

may not be able to see how it was, but it -- it 

really -- vast majority of the cases, that they 

were. 

There have been several cases that it was 

not, and those cases have merely been remanded 

for NIOSH to rework and to address that -- that 

specific issue. So here -- this is an example of 

a factual situation where, you know, the process 

-- there's a process to address these issues and 

work through them. 

We have a number where cases -- objection 

have been made saying that unmonitored dose was 

treated as missed dose, and we're working through 

a -- through a number of those cases to -- to see 

and -- you know, exactly what the status and --

and whether that's the case. And there -- there 

-- again here, you know, oftentimes it's a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

65 

confusion as opposed to, you know, whether 

something was done or -- or how it was done. 

In several locations we got objections that 

exposure from ingestion was not addressed. And 

again, the final -- you know, one case that I'm 

aware of that it really was, because of the --

you know, the monitoring, the -- the biological 

monitoring, so that would be addressed -- in a 

case like that, that would be addressed and 

explained -- further explained in the final 

decision addressing that objection. Each of the 

objections in our final decisions are addressed 

specifically. 

Another -- we get incidents were not 

addressed, and again, the process -- I don't, you 

know, have the breakdown but I'd be glad to give 

a more detailed explanation at a future meeting. 

Another one that's growing is inappropriate 

cancer model used. Now that goes directly to 

methodology. You know, that's a direct 

methodological issue, and so -- I mean we would 

adjudicate the por-- the part that -- what was 

the diagnosed cancer, was it appropriately --

based on the diagnosed cancer, the ICD-9, was 

that all appropriate, and then how does that, you 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

66 

know, fit in -- you know, into which model needs 

to be used. 

And one that we're -- this is a new one that 

we're, you know, working with NIOSH on, and 

what's happening is in the use of the efficiency 

model, the worst-case scenario, sometimes it goes 

to such an extreme and -- I mean that's another 

issue that we need to look at, that are we 

getting assumptions that are really too far in 

the other direction. And you know, that really 

gets to accuracy, also. But an issue we're 

dealing with now is -- and procedure and how 

we're going to come down on a policy issue is 

that when you get -- you may get a 40 percent or 

more based on efficiency model. Then another 

cancer is diagnosed. You send it back for a 

rework. NIOSH does a rework, now they're no 

longer maybe using the efficiency model and now 

the combined comes out at 20 percent, of the two 

cancers. So that's an issue we -- we have a 

number of objections raised on that we're working 

through. 

And just briefly, some of the statistics from 

the local area, 1,179 cases filed; 40 recommended 

decisions to approve, 487 to deny. Final 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

67 

decisions, cases -- 37 to approve, 395 to deny. 

There have been 14 payments made and -- for 

compensation of $2.1 million. 

The status of the NIOSH referrals, 707 -- 153 

have been returned. Of those, nine have been 

accepted -- have recommended decisions to accept, 

114 recommended decisions to deny; eight with 

final decisions to accept and 51 with final 

decisions to deny. 

Looking at the denials, the number of denied 

cases -- now this is total, it's not just the 

dose reconstruction -- is 395 cases have been 

denied. Of those, 51 were because the 

probability of causation was less than 50 

percent; 235 were the conditions was not covered; 

48, the employee was not covered; 53, 

insufficient medical evidence; and eight that the 

survivor was not eligible. 

And with that I'd take any -- try to answer 

any questions you might have. 

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

floor now for questions. Richard, then Jim. 

MR. ESPINOSA: In concerns of the outreach, 

I'm just wondering what the Department of Labor 

is doing to get out the word of the SEC rule? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

68 

MR. TURCIC: Of the SEC rule? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah. 

MR. TURCIC: We've -- naturally we've talked 

about any -- any outreach meetings, any public 

meetings we have, we talk about the SEC petition 

route. But we have not had any outreach that 

targeted specifically and only SECs. 

DR. MELIUS: Interested in a little bit more 

information on this issue -- I guess you call 

them remands and Larry calls them reworks. 

MR. TURCIC: Uh-huh. 

DR. MELIUS: I think they're roughly the 

same. Is that --

MR. TURCIC: No, no, they're -- like Larry 

said, most -- most -- a rework -- usually a 

rework would be a situation such as an additional 

cancer diagnosed, and basically it would be just 

to send it back so that that additional cancer 

could be included in the dose reconstruction. 

A remand would be -- there's a factual --

information that may have changed or a call made 

on a factual situation, and then that would be 

sent back to include that specific -- and address 

that specific issue. 

DR. MELIUS: So then the -- that was for --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

69 

some of the confusion. The data that Larry -- or 

was presented here about -- from the NIOSH 

program on reworks, does that include the remands 

or is that --

MR. TURCIC: Probably. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

MR. TURCIC: And that's relatively new. I 

mean this is something new. 

DR. NETON: I'd like to address that issue 

'cause I deal every day with these. The real 

cut-point in my mind is a rework is typically 

before even a recommended decision goes out. 

Oftentimes we'll send over the dose 

reconstruction. In the time -- from the time 

that it was sent to us for dose reconstruction, 

gone back to the claims examiner, they're making 

a recommended decision, they notice that an 

additional cancer has come up or the employment 

is different or anything like that -- this is 

before the claimant ever sees a draft dose 

reconstruction or a recommended decision. 

Once it goes to recommended decision, though, 

then you get into the remand area where a 

statement of factual accuracy has been challenged 

or something like that. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

70 

MR. TURCIC: And the remands can take a 

multi-faceted -- you know, there could be a 

number of things that require a remand to NIOSH. 

For example, if there is something in the 

medical evidence that would indicate a -- say a 

cancer that was not originally identified, then 

in the final decision process that information 

comes out, that could be remanded to the district 

office to further develop the medical evidence 

and then return it to NIOSH for a dose 

reconstruction for that new -- that additional 

cancer. Or it could be that the district office 

counted employment that they shouldn't have, or 

did not count employment that they should have. 

And again, that same process. So the -- the 

reason for the remand could be, you know, a -- a 

number and it could be something that happened at 

the DOL district office, it could be a change in 

a situation or it could be a change in the 

factual information. 

DR. MELIUS: But I think -- well, I 

understand that. I think -- there are a couple 

of areas, though. One Larry mentioned earlier, 

or someone did, in terms of there -- there are 

some quality assurance issues that you're dealing 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

71 

with with -- NIOSH is dealing with their 

contractor. And so I'm assuming some of these 

are -- someone's not doing something right or 

something's getting through the system. Is that 

-- I'm trying to get a handle on -- I think those 

numbers are small, but you implied that it was a 

growing issue and that --

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I was indicating that in 

our cost performance award fee, incentive there, 

there -- we had -- we drew attention to what we 

were calling reworks. 

DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

MR. ELLIOTT: When ORAU sees them, they don't 

know whether it's a remand or a rework. Not all 

remands -- or not all reworks are remands. If we 

catch it during our review or we catch it in 

conversation with the claimant during the OCAS-1 

phase, before they sign it, we deem that as a 

rework. If DOL has the case and it's a 

recommended decision and it's caught at that 

point, it's a remand and it becomes a rework if 

it's brought back to us for rework. 

DR. MELIUS: Right. 

MR. ELLIOTT: So -- does that help? I mean -

-

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

72 

DR. MELIUS: No, it helps. It's just that 

we're mixing a lot of numbers here and it's --

MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 

DR. MELIUS: -- there's different levels at 

which -- some of it's new factual information. 

Some may be errors that are made in the process -

- doing that. 

I would also be interested in further 

information -- maybe this is for another meeting 

-- on some of these what I call more policyrelated issues where there's this -- the one you 

mentioned with the additional primary cancer 

causing some difficulties. I don't know if --

are there other sort of -- that are --

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, I --

DR. MELIUS: -- issues that are -- that 

you're having to decide that -- that, you know, 

reflect on the dose reconstruction process. 

We've had some earlier issues with the -- I don't 

know if it -- it was one of -- it was the third 

question I usually get to ask and now down to 

two, and is the -- is the issue with phosphate 

processing and so forth with -- you know, what is 

a -- exposure related to this program as opposed 

to an industrial exposure and how that gets 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

73 

counted. 

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, those are policy, Jim, and 

that -- and exactly -- we're still trying to work 

out the policy framework to apply and to have our 

FAB apply in these cases where the -- you know, a 

second cancer may end up the combined POC less 

than the -- you know, the first, using the 

efficiency model. And so we're looking at, you 

know, what -- what assumptions and what can 

happen to assumptions as it goes through that --

as it goes through that process. 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is a very complicated 

issue right here. I mean -- and I want to make 

sure everybody in the audience understands what 

we're talking about. 

Through our efficiency measures, when we 

attempt in that effort to show that it's totally 

unreasonable that a cancer was caused by a 

radiation dose experience, let's say -- and let's 

take prostate for example. I started seeing some 

cases coming through in my review queue that were 

at 40 percent for prostate, 44 percent. I 

started raising a flag. I raised it with ORAU, I 

raised it with DOL. I talked to Pete and I said 

we've got to get our eyes on this because I am 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

74 

concerned that we're going to see a case or two 

come back at us from the FAB, after a recommended 

decision, where additional cancer has been 

identified and we go back and reconstruct a dose 

on the prostate and the new cancer and our new 

probability of causation resulting from that 

reconstruction is lower than what the claimant 

saw in their first report, and we need to be very 

cognizant of this as a concern to the claimant 

and confusion to the claimant. Because we're 

trying in our first attempt, through efficiency, 

to show that it takes a lot of dose to get a 

prostate cancer over the 50 percent bar. And so 

if we come in at 44 percent and then we have a 

skin cancer, and then we resharpen our pencil and 

do a reconstruction on both cancers and it comes 

back out at 38 percent, they're going to go 

"What?" So that's the issue and that's what 

we're dealing with and we're working together to 

try to make sure that we avoid confusion among 

the claimants, get out point across, make sure 

the science supports the dose reconstructions 

that we're doing. 

We're concerned, as Pete indicated, what our 

assumptions are in the efficiency process when we 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

75 

see a non-radiogenic cancer come in with a 

relatively high POC that might be truly a lower 

POC if we'd done, you know, the full-blown dose 

reconstruction to get down to a very accurate, if 

you will, probability. 

DR. MELIUS: Well, just -- I guess -- at 

least I, and I don't know if other members of the 

Board would, but I think some discussion of that 

at the Board level 'cause -- does it relate back 

to the process to what's in our regulations, 

whatever, and it also I think goes -- sort of the 

other side of this issue of sufficient accuracy. 

We've been -- you know, as relates --

MR. TURCIC: We'll have a --

DR. MELIUS: -- to the SEC. 

MR. TURCIC: By -- by the next Board meeting 

we should have a precedent case on that issue, 

and I'd be more than glad to say at least where 

DOL has come out on it and what the precedentsetting case --

DR. MELIUS: And maybe --

MR. TURCIC: -- established. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. Maybe if NIOSH -- you 

know, if you could present also and where --

where these issues are coming up and -- what is 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

76 

it, sort of new factual information, when is it 

new -- is this efficiency issue. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Roy DeHart. 

DR. DEHART: Just a point of clarification on 

the NIOSH case -- cases that are reprimanded 

(sic) to them. In the slide you showed 328 cases 

that had been forwarded to them and that 75 of 

those cases had gone to a decision for approval. 

Is it NIOSH that is making that decision? 

MR. TURCIC: No, what that means is that of 

those cases 75 started out as a recommended 

approval, then it was remanded. Of all -- of all 

those cases, of all the remands, 75 of them was a 

recommended decision to accept benefits. It was 

then remanded by the -- by the Final Adjudication 

Branch. 

DR. DEHART: So something had happened in the 

review in Department of Labor that questioned --

MR. TURCIC: Exactly. 

DR. DEHART: -- the approval. 

MR. TURCIC: Exactly. 

DR. ZIEMER: And this is before the claimant 

sees the recommended decision. 

MR. TURCIC: No, the claimant would have seen 

the recommended decision. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

77 

DR. ZIEMER: Would have seen it. 

MR. TURCIC: Yeah. It could be a number of 

things. I know that we've had cases where the 

district office used the incorrect ICD-9 code for 

one of the leukemias. 

DR. ZIEMER: So this makes it a little more 

difficult for you since the claimant has seen the 

recommended --

MR. TURCIC: Right, exactly, so we had to --

we had to remand back because, based on the code 

that the district office used, the incorrect 

code, then the incorrect model was used for the -

- for the IREP. Once the --

MR. ELLIOTT: Or the organ was --

reconstructed to the wrong organ. We do not 

develop the claim with regard to the cancer 

diagnosis. That's the Department of Labor's 

responsibility. They give us a set of developed 

facts and that's what we're required to use in 

our work. And if that changes once the -- the 

claim has gone back over to DOL and they've --

they have a different set of eyes look at it, 

whether it's at the FAB level or at the 

recommended decision level by another new claims 

examiner, that could get kicked back to us. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

78 

MR. GRIFFON: I think I have a fairly 

straightforward question. From early in your 

presentation you -- you mentioned that your 

backlog had significantly gone down, and I was 

just wondering what the current backlog is of 

cases, and how do you define backlog? Is it more 

than 30 days old, more than 60 days old or --

MR. TURCIC: No, what -- what -- what I was 

referring to there was the cases pending at 

NIOSH. 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh. 

MR. TURCIC: If you look the previous year, 

that's down by, you know, nearly 1,000 cases. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, how about the -- how 

about the other question, your claims received 

backlog, is there --

MR. TURCIC: We have --

MR. GRIFFON: -- a backlog --

MR. TURCIC: No, ours --

MR. GRIFFON: -- there? 

MR. TURCIC: Ours is just a working -- we're 

at the point where we have a working inventory; 

99 percent of our cases have either a NIOSH 

referral or a recommended decision within well 

less than 120 days. So the 20 -- we -- we 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

79 

normally have about 2,300 to 2,500 cases at any 

time that are under development. You know, the 

cases come in and, based on the 200 to 300 a 

week, you know, you're talking about less than a 

three-month working inventory. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tony. 

DR. ANDRADE: Yes, a quick question. When a 

second cancer's -- is diagnosed and that comes up 

as new information, is this sent back to be 

reviewed by a physician as to whether or not it 

is likely that it was metastasized from the first 

cancer? 

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, all -- we -- when we say a 

second cancer is diagnosed, then that -- as part 

of that diagnosis, that must be a primary. We 

don't send metastasis -- the only time we would 

send metastasis to NIOSH would be if it was a 

metastasis of unknown primary, and then, you 

know, the procedures are that they would run all 

the potential -- all the probable primaries for 

that given metastasis. 

DR. ANDRADE: Then I would just like to 

submit this statement for the Board to consider, 

perhaps chew on. There are many processes that -

- that are -- workers have been involved in. A 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

80 

lot of those involve manufacturing and processing 

of materials that include both chemicals and 

radiation. And so primary cancers can result 

from either chemical toxicity and/or radiation. 

Hence, even though we try to be very clear and 

very meticulous in reviewing these cases, it 

seems to me that that's always going to be a 

questionable -- that's always going to be a 

question mark. And that is perhaps one reason 

why I submit we will never ever really be fully 

satisfied that we can differentiate between the 

two and, because you use efficiency measures in 

one case, it tends to -- it tends to build a gray 

area. And if you -- if you do have to go back 

and do a rework, I can understand why a POC may 

actually come down and be lower. 

MR. TURCIC: Absolutely, uh-huh. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. It's time 

for us to take our break. We'll recess for 15 

minutes. 

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.) 

STATUS UPDATE – DOE PART D PROGRAM 

DR. ZIEMER: We're ready to reconvene. The 

next item on our agenda is a report from Tom 

Rollow of Department of Energy. We're pleased to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

81 

have Tom with us again. Tom is going to report 

specifically on the subpart D program, which is 

the DOE's worker assistance program, I think is 

the terminology. So Tom, we're pleased to have 

you back with us today. 

MR. ROLLOW: Good morning. Thank you. While 

Jim Neton -- well, I was going to say while Jim's 

getting this set up I'll tell you a short story, 

but I'll tell you the story anyway. 

I spent most of my 30-year career working in 

the safety business. I started out the first 

half of my career working for the father of 

nuclear power. I was on Admiral Rickover's staff 

in Washington, D.C. And even though we did 

nuclear design work and nuclear operations, 

anybody that ever worked in the Rickover program 

knows that safety is job one. And in the latter 

half of my career I have the opportunity to work 

for DOE, about the last 14 or 15 years, in the 

safety office doing safety things. And so I have 

a hard time walking into a room without looking 

for things like fire exits and stuff. 

And so when I walked into this room today and 

the first thing I did -- this drives my wife 

crazy when we go to dinner parties -- but the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

82 

first thing I did today was I walked in and I 

surveyed the doors, and I think of things like 

okay, if you go through that door, what's behind 

that door? Is there a hallway and a 50-foot run 

this way and then out to the left? What's behind 

that door, which looks like -- sounded like a 

loading dock when the truck backed up so I think 

we're okay to get out that door over there. 

When I figured out all the fire exits, my 

mind started wandering to the ceiling, and I 

looked at these light fixtures. Anybody want to 

take a guess how much those might weigh? I think 

it's fortunate that the room is set up this way, 

that most of the weight would land on the floor, 

not on the chairs. Except for --

DR. ZIEMER: They're very light. That's why 

they're called "lights". 

MR. ROLLOW: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. I'm 

going to give you a status today of Part D or 

Subtitle D of the EEOICPA program. This is of 

course the sister program to Part B, which most 

of your attention is addressed towards. This 

program covers the Department of Energy operated 

program, which is aimed at providing assistance 

to apply for Workers Compensation, and generally 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

83 

includes not only the illnesses that the Part B 

program includes, but is extended to any 

illnesses caused by toxic substances. 

I apologize for the size of the print here. 

Hopefully most of the Board members are sitting 

close enough that you can actually read this. 

noticed in the handouts not only would you need a 

magnifying glass, but you'd probably need some 

trifocals to read it in the handouts. But for us 

it's all about production. It's been about 

production for a year and a half. The bottom 

line is that we feel that DOE now has a good 

handle on production and we are moving along and 

cooking pretty good right now, and so I wanted to 

share with you some of these observations. 

The right-hand side in the box is our weekly 

statistics. They're actually on our web site. 

If you're ever interested you can go to our web 

site and look at these on a weekly basis. But we 

are still producing positive and negative 

physician panel determinations at a little over 

100 a week. We are preparing cases for panel --

cases currently in the physician panel process 

are cases going to panel, we're preparing those 

at over 100 cases per week and we've hired a lot 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

84 

of employees over the past couple of months. 

I'll show you the -- kind of paint the picture 

for you as to -- as to how that sets up, and we 

expect to be at well over 300 cases prepared for 

panel this fall, in the next probably four to six 

weeks. And we expect to be -- our goal is to be 

-- be issuing -- get -- getting cases back from 

physicians panels in excess of 100 cases per week 

right now, and moving that up above 300 cases per 

week by next June. And it looks like right now 

we'll greatly exceed that goal and I'll talk a 

little bit about that, also. 

The bottom line on this slide is that there's 

about three categories up there that have to do 

with case preparation. And we basically develop 

cases in this part of the process -- the process 

kind of goes from bottom to top, the top being 

completed. We develop cases and send them out to 

the applicants and allow the applicants 30 days 

to look at the case file to see if they want to 

add anything or make any changes to it. And 

there's also a 15-day review in there for the 

employer. But the case is basically developed 

and the DOE work is largely completed at that 

point. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

85 

The next step in the process as you move up 

this chart is cases currently in the physicians 

panel process. They're either at the physicians 

being reviewed or they're in a queue waiting to 

go to the physicians, and you can see there 

there's another 3,000 some-odd cases in that 

category. 

And then there's cases completed, and of 

course cases are completed by either finding 

people not to be eligible or they have a positive 

finding or a negative finding, are generally the 

categories. And if you add all those up, DOE has 

-- has processed or completed its work -- largely 

completed its work in over 7,000 cases. We have 

of course 25,000 total applications to date for 

this program. That's kind of the big picture. 

Let me just show you something graphically 

here because it's all about resources. And as I 

talked to you before, DOE underestimated the 

scope of this program early on. And you know, 

other organizations also shared in that 

underestimation -- not to make excuses, but we 

didn't -- we didn't rustle up the resources 

necessary to properly set up and manage this 

program early on, and so we're still playing 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

86 

catch-up on that. 

The chart on the left-hand side has to do 

with preparing cases, those 7,000 that I just 

showed you on the previous slide. The chart on 

the right-hand side has to do with physician 

determinations, getting the physicians' 

determinations. The Y axis here goes from zero 

to 200, so they're on the same scale, so you can 

just let your eye kind of drift across and you 

can see that we're still preparing cases faster 

than we're getting them through the physicians 

panel. 

But if you look on the left-hand side where 

we're preparing cases, you can see where we had 

inserts of resources, courtesy of the Congress, 

to give this program a boost. And basically in 

about September, October of '03, a little less 

than a year ago, we received reprogramming 

approval from Congress for $9.7 million, which we 

were able to add to our budget and we increased 

production of cases threefold. And I shared this 

with you before, I think. 

We just received -- in June received another 

reprogramming of $23.3 million. We actually 

asked for $33.3 because that's what we needed to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

87 

do to make our goals, but for several reasons 

Congress allowed us to have $23.3 million. And 

you can see the solid line on the left -- lefthand side of that dotted vertical line is 

remarkably going up, and then on the right-hand 

side it's kind of -- they're kind of confused 

there, but there's a dotted line that goes even 

higher. This is the metric that will actually 

get up well above 300 cases per week, probably in 

the next four to six weeks. 

Now what happened to get us here? We 

basically hired about 200 case processing people 

over the last 12 weeks in Washington, D.C. And -

- and the reason that that actually -- that curve 

takes a little dip right there where it says 

$23.3 million received is because we took some 

people off-line to train the new people, so 

there's some inefficiencies associated with 

training the new people and we're starting to 

shoot back up. And my contractors tell me that 

they're confident that actually by the end of 

August they should be over 300 cases per week. I 

would give them a few more weeks beyond that. 

On the right-hand side is physician panel 

determinations, and physician panels have always 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

88 

been a challenge for us because we needed --

we've had a hard time getting the resources, 

getting the physicians or the physician time --

the FTE, if you want to call it that --

especially when they're working on a part-time 

basis. We made a couple of changes to the 

program. I think I mentioned last time I met 

with you folks, we changed the physicians panel 

rule to allow a single physician to make a 

determination. And that single-physician 

determination is if it's a positive. 

So the first look at any case is done by a 

single physician, and if that physician finds in 

the positive, then that physicians panel review 

is done and that person will get a positive 

determination. If that first physician rules in 

the negative, then it would go to a second and to 

a third physician, if needed, to make sure that 

we get the two out of three negative. Or if it 

got another two positives, then it would turn 

into a positive determination. That change alone 

has made a dramatic increase in our physicians 

panel production, and you can see that shown 

there on the right-hand side. 

We estimated that mathematically we would 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

89 

roughly double our production, given no new 

physicians, and we're coming pretty close to 

tripling our production with that change. Our 

physicians give us feedback that hey, now I don't 

have to coordinate with two other physicians 

across the country electronically. We have 

several physicians -- from five to seven every 

week that are working in Washington full-time, 

and they're, you know, very, very much more 

efficient. In fact, we give a lot of the second 

and third reviews to the physicians that are in 

Washington because the coordination is much 

simpler when you're sitting across the table from 

the person you need to coordinate with. So we're 

seeing some tremendous increases there. 

And I'll talk later on, too, about the great 

job that NIOSH and the American College of 

Occupational Environmental Medicine have done in 

recruiting new physicians for this program. 

This chart is a chart of cases unworked. I 

can't -- I can't paint it any prettier than that. 

In September of '02 we had about -- a little 

over 12,000 cases -- applications for this 

program, and we had not started working those 

cases. When I took over this program in -- gee, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

90 

I forget when it was now -- March '03 I guess it 

was, that number had actually grown to about 

13,000. We turned the tide -- I can't quite read 

that -- turned the tide around October to 

November of last year and are starting to work 

those off, and you can see this rapidly 

approaching zero. And this means that there are 

still about -- at the time of this chart, about 

7,000 -- I think the number's actually down to 

about 5,000 today -- there's about 5,000 cases 

that have come in -- some of them could have come 

in last week, some of them could have come in six 

months ago, but they're cases that basically have 

not been worked yet. We haven't requested 

documents from the sites and started that 

process. 

We're in the process now, based on the 

reprogramming, the $23.3 million that I showed 

you that we got last June, we're requesting all 

data on all cases from the sites, and that'll 

drive this number to zero and move all those 

cases into a currently-worked part of the 

process. 

We have what we call a path forward plan. 

think I might have shared this with you last 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

91 

spring when I last met with you. It basically 

has four elements to it. The bottom line is that 

this is the plan that's going to get us to 

reducing the backlog of Part D cases to zero by 

the end of calendar year 2006. At that point in 

time we'll be where the Department of Labor is 

today, and that means working cases as they come 

in the door, working them as fast as we can to 

get them back out the door. But to work the 

backlog off will take us to the year -- into the 

calendar year 2006. 

Now that's not 25,000 cases that I have 

today, but it's about 33,000 because there'll be 

another 8,000 cases that'll come in over the next 

couple of years while we're working off the 

backlog, so that's the total number we're talking 

about. 

The four-part plan -- first part is 

regulation changes, and that's done. Basically 

it was changing the number of physicians on the 

panels from three to one, which I've already 

talked about, and also the -- to do multiple 

reviews for the negative physicians panel 

determinations. 

The second element, down here in the lower 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

92 

left-hand corner, is legislation. We need some -

- what may look like minor changes made to the 

legislation, but they'll help us dramatically, 

one of which is to remove the pay cap on 

physicians. I've mentioned this before, that 

we're limited to a certain dollar amount or a 

certain executive schedule amount that's not 

reflective of the market value of these 

physicians' time, and we've had some challenges 

getting physicians to work for this program at 

that low pay cap. Also there's some language in 

the legislation currently that kind of restricts 

our hiring authority for physicians, and so we 

need some changes there to expand that hiring 

authority. 

There's also a requirement that we have an 

MOU, a memorandum of understanding, with every 

state before we process applications in those 

states, and that -- it's kind of an artifact of 

the program. At one time we thought we were 

going to actually do evaluation for every state's 

claims, and at that point in time we would need 

to have the agreement from the state to do that. 

The program is not designed that way now, and 

hasn't been run that way for two or three years 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

93 

since our rule came out, so the MOU is really 

unnecessary. And we've got a couple of states 

that are a little bit reluctant to enter into the 

MOU with us because they're not sure of their 

liabilities. And so if we remove that 

requirement, I can -- I can commence processing 

claims in those -- those states. 

The third element is budget. I mentioned 

it's all about resources. It's about DOE's late 

start identifying the resources, but it's about 

the challenge -- the uphill challenge that we've 

had in the last 18 months getting the resources 

agreed to, I guess I'll say, by Congress. The 

reprogrammings we did this past year were all 

moving money inside the Department of Energy from 

one type of an account to another type of 

account, but you still have to have Congress's 

approval to do that, and there's a lot of steps 

you have to go through to make that happen. It's 

been very slow in coming. Not blaming Congress 

at all, it's just a very detailed bureaucratic 

process. We needed in '04 $33.3 million to 

accomplish what we wanted to accomplish, and 

we've only gotten $23.3 in that last 

reprogramming, so I'm still $10 million short. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

94 

We have to do a little bit of quick dancing to 

figure out how to catch up that in later years, 

in '05 or '06, but we're still holding to our 

commitment to process all backlog claims by the 

end of calendar year 2006. 

Our '05 budget that we've requested, the 

President's budget that's on the -- it's in 

Congress now requests a budget of $43 million for 

FY '05. And with that budget we'll have 

sufficient funds to continue this -- this path 

forward plan. 

The fourth and final element in the lower 

right-hand corner, process changes, many of which 

have already been implemented. We continue to 

look for opportunities to optimize and be more 

efficient in our processes. We've brought in 

outside reviewers. Others have brought in 

outside reviewers for us, but we learned from 

those, such as the GAO reports. But -- so we've 

made those -- those increases in production. 

We're looking to produce what we call a tiger 

team to do a top to bottom scrub of the program 

here in the near future, something that we really 

ought to do probably about once a year, look for 

opportunities to make changes. We reprioritized 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

95 

claims. I think I probably touched on this the 

last time I met with you, but basically to put 

living applicants before survivor applicants 

because living applicants get the greatest 

immediate benefit from the Workers Compensation 

program. And then we also have reconstituted the 

advisory committee, although that committee 

probably will not have its first meeting until 

after some of the uncertainness of the fall 

Congressional schedules clear, so the advisory 

committee will probably meet in October or 

November time frame. 

This is just simply a chart to show you how 

we'll work off the backlog, and you know -- as 

you recall, I mentioned about 33,000 applications 

will be the end number. This is how those 

applications get worked off. Basically a small 

number in July '04 -- well, I say a small number 

but we've got about 3,000 under our belt now and 

we'll work them off on that schedule. This 

requires us to process somewhere between 300 and 

350 applications per week between now and the end 

of calendar year 2003 -- 2006. 

Switching gears for a moment, there was some 

discussion earlier about the support that DOE 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

96 

provides for NIOSH and radiation dose 

information. We do track that and -- and NIOSH 

tracks it very closely, and actually this is 

their data that they provide to us. We take 

great pride that we have much improved over --

from a year to two years ago. One percent is 

still one percent that we're not getting done 

within the 60-day time period that we agreed to 

provide them data, and we continue to -- to 

attack those. And I think there's been 

sufficient discussion earlier today on some of 

the reasons for those differences, but they have 

to do with database. In some cases we can't find 

the data and so people are still looking for it, 

when at some point they may need to just give up 

and say we can't find the data on this 

individual. And then there's a couple of cases 

where we're still waiting for records to be -- to 

be found or retrieved from archives to provide 

that -- that data. 

I talked about additional physicians. NIOSH 

has provided DOE with a total of 250 physician 

panel nominees -- and the number may be plus or 

minus. I apologize to NIOSH if I don't have the 

number exact today. About 190 of those are 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

97 

actively working. The other 50 to 60, for 

various reasons, are not working. In some cases 

it could be the pay, but in other cases they're 

just busy with their own personal agendas right 

now and so they've asked not to review cases. 

Some never started. There's just different 

reasons, which we try to deal with and increase 

that number. 

We did just receive 73, 77 -- something in 

the seventies -- new physicians from NIOSH just 

in the past few weeks that are a result of new 

recruiting activities through ACOM, and I think 

that's really working out well. And I understand 

that NIOSH has another 20 potential appointees 

that they're reviewing right now at NIOSH, so the 

numbers are getting up there. And also I'm happy 

to say that a significant number of these new 

physician nominees are interested in working full 

time, and boy, do we really get out bang for the 

buck out of the full time physicians, more than 

having to mail the stuff back and forth across 

the country. 

It's all about money and compensation. And 

although the DOE is not -- does not pay claims 

and the DOE is not in control of how claims are 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

98 

necessarily paid, except that we can order our 

contractors not to contest them, we do track the 

money. And this is where the claims actually sit 

today. These are not large numbers, so we've 

basically completed our work on 7,000 cases. 

About 3,000 are complete in the program. These 

are not large numbers, but the pipe is full of 

product and it's just starting to come out the 

downstream into the pipeline, if you will forgive 

me for using that analogy -- 378 people as of 

this date, which was July 31st, have received 

positive determinations from our program. That's 

over 400 now, but it was 378 then, and at the 

time this snapshot was taken, 87 people had 

applied for Workers Compensation. And we -- we 

actually -- when people get a positive, we call 

them up after they get the letter, explain to 

them what the letter said, ask them if they 

understand how to apply for state Workers 

Compensation. In many cases it's go back to your 

employer and -- and file a claim with your former 

employer, and we walk them through those 

processes. Of the 87 that have applied, 31 at 

the date of this slide had actually received some 

compensation, either medical or a settlement 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

99 

payment. 

We are concerned and we will continue to be 

concerned and continue to work the gap between 

the 378 and 87. Some of that's time lag, but 

some of it is people don't want to apply for Work 

Comp. Sometimes they're exhausted from the 

process, and that's not good and we need to get 

them beyond that. In other cases, they -- they 

have knowledge that there's not much benefit 

there for them because either they weren't out a 

lot of medical expenses or they're survivors that 

have reached majority age that won't see a lot of 

benefit from the program. So there's -- there's 

reasons for that gap, but we continue to study 

that because we want to encourage as many people 

as we can to apply for -- for state Workers 

Compensation. 

This is the dollar amount, and I wish I had a 

little more granularity on this for you. I can -

- I can kind of talk you through a little bit of 

it, but at Oak Ridge we've paid out $415,000 and 

as -- I'm just remembering from my memory, I 

think that's about a dozen applicants. Pantex, 

$895 -- I'm going to assume that's one or two and 

it's probably small medical payments. At 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

100 

Savannah River Site, $161,000, and I think that 

was like less than five applicants. I think 

there was one case in there that was up around 

$100,000. At Hanford, $62,000, I think that 

says. I just don't remember the numbers for 

Hanford, but I'm thinking it's low -- low teens, 

so these must be low awards. And then Rocky 

Flats, $62,000, and as I recall for Rocky Flats, 

I think that's four applicants and it's medical 

payments for Rocky Flats. 

We hope this chart gets big quickly, and 

we'll continue to -- to track that. So we've 

paid out thus far over about $703,000 in -- in 

claims. And also we have about another $750,000 

in reserves for future medical costs, so thus far 

the liability for these 31 applicants is up 

around $1.5 million. 

There's always questions about locally here 

at INEL (sic), what are the numbers here. Total 

cases we've received here is a little less than 

1,000 cases for INEL. We've completed 139 of 

those; 29 of those were positives. If we go back 

to the chart for Work Comp payments, you saw no 

Work Comp payments for Idaho -- for the Idaho 

Engineering Laboratory, and as best we can tell 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

101 

thus far from our communication with applicants, 

none of our positive applicants here have yet 

applied for Work -- Workers Compensation as a 

result of the EEOICPA program. We do think we 

have information, and we're still clarifying 

that, that about three or four of the people that 

got positives, three or four of these 29, had 

received Workers Compensation payments prior to 

the existence of this program, so in addition to 

having already received compensation, they may 

have applied for the program just to get the 

paper and the physicians panel determination that 

-- that clearly shows that the DOE work was 

responsible for their illness. 

We have a total 180 cases for Idaho that are 

currently in the physicians panel process, so 

we'll be seeing those come out in the next 30, 60 

days kind of time frame; 87 cases are still 

awaiting development, and we expect those to be 

pushed to zero in the next month, month and a 

half. 

With that, I'll be happy to answer any 

questions. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tom, do you see many cases where 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

102 

individuals start out in the Subpart D program 

and clearly should be in -- into the dose 

reconstruction, NIOSH, that you kick the other 

way, and vice versa? How -- how much is there 

back and forth between --

MR. ROLLOW: We've done some data matches 

with the Department of Labor over time, and I 

think our data matches are somewhere in the 90 to 

95 percent -- people in our program are also in 

the Part B program, so there's about a 90 to 95 

percent data match. 

Generally the resource centers are where most 

of them do the applications, and the resource 

centers serve both the Department of Labor Part 

B, as well as the Department of Energy Part D, 

and so the people in the resource center counsel 

them -- what kind of illness do you have, where 

did you work? Oh, gee, you might want to apply 

for this other program, also. So I think we're 

getting a lot of good front end service on the 

application process to take care of that. But 

yes, we do see on occasion where there's an 

individual that just is in the wrong program. 

Of course, my prog-- everyone -- almost 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

103 

everyone that's eligible for the Labor program is 

eligible for my program, but not vice versa. So 

we see a lot of referrals come over from the 

Department of Labor. 

DR. ZIEMER: Roy? 

DR. DEHART: Tom, last time I raised a 

concern about the radiation issue, that 

physicians who are reviewing these cases in Part 

D may not have the background, and yet have a 

case that is a cancer case with radiation 

implications. What are we doing to assure that 

the physicians are aware of this NIOSH program, 

that they know how to interpret the data that's 

coming through NIOSH? Not every case that I've 

seen has been reviewed because the applicant has 

chosen to move forward with Worker Comp rather 

than wait till there has been a dose 

reconstruction. 

MR. ROLLOW: All right. Several issues 

there. I'll take them one at a time. First of 

all, originally in this program -- let me back 

up. 

A subset of applicants for this program are 

also getting dose reconstructions done at NIOSH 

for radiogenic cancers. And originally in this 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

104 

program those cases were sent forward to the 

physicians panels for the physicians to determine 

if they felt that their injury -- the applicant's 

injury on this was caused by their work. 

Obviously it would have been easier for the 

physicians, if they had the information from the 

NIOSH dose reconstruction, to make that decision. 

We changed that policy about six or nine months 

ago. Some of those cases still did go through 

the program. In some cases -- a few cases, 

people got a positive determination from our 

program for radiogenic cancer and they had not 

yet gotten a determination from the Department of 

Labor. In some cases they would get a negative 

from our program, and what we do there is if the 

dose reconstruction comes through and if the 

Department of Labor gives them the equivalent of 

a positive for that program, they would be 

reconsidered in our program. So we're trying to 

be applicant-friendly there. 

The second part of your question, though, 

refers more directly to the physicians. And the 

physicians now -- a larger population of 

physicians who are not necessarily experienced at 

radiogenic cancers, and we are continuously 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

105 

trying to provide resources and information to 

those physicians to satisfy their need to make 

these decisions. And the most recent request, 

which we've actually been working on for a couple 

of months now, it's not fully well-resolved or 

developed, is to provide them some training in 

the details of the NIOSH dose reconstruction --

and I assume that's what you're referring to. We 

are working with NIOSH to try to figure out what 

we can do in that area to provide them more 

information on those NIOSH dose reconstructions, 

and it'll probably be in the form of either 

national conference calls or televideo, VCR tapes 

or that kind of information. 

DR. ZIEMER: I didn't see the order these 

came up, so let's just go around the table. 

Rich, and then Mike and Jim. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Two questions. Under the MOU 

and the states that are reluctant to get under 

this -- basically I'm kind of concerned on what 

are the specifics, and also applicants apply for 

Workers Comp. Does the state statute of 

limitations have anything to do with the big 

change in numbers? I mean there's 376 and only 

87 that have applied? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

106 

MR. ROLLOW: Right, those are both very good 

questions. First of all, as far as the MOU goes, 

let me just give you an illustrative example that 

worked out well. The State of Florida we did not 

have an MOU with until about two months ago, and 

I think our issue there was just a lack of 

communication and understanding with the State of 

Florida as to what their liability would be with 

our program. Generally our program -- I want to 

say pays its own way through the State Comp 

system, because most, if not all -- well, most --

99 percent of DOE contractors do what's called 

retrospective insurance. And that means that at 

the end of the year they end up paying --

reimbursing their insurance companies for the 

cost of a Work Comp claim and the U.S. Department 

of Energy ends up reimbursing the contractors for 

the cost of that claim, so the money actually 

comes out of the DOE's pocket. And so the states 

in many cases have little to worry about where 

there is what's called a so-called willing payer. 

Another state where there's a challenge is in 

Missouri. There's some questions about the 

Mallinckrodt facility as to whether there's a 

willing payer or will be a willing payer at the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

107 

Mallinckrodt facility in Missouri, and so the 

State of Missouri is a little bit reluctant to 

sign an MOU and -- and -- and sign on to some new 

liability that they're a little bit unclear of, 

and so that's -- that's the issue in the state. 

Your other question was... 

MR. ESPINOSA: Applicants apply for Workers 

Comp. There's -- there's... 

UNIDENTIFIED: Statute of limitations. 

DR. ZIEMER: Statute of limitations. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Statute of limitations. 

MR. ROLLOW: Oh, statute of limitations. We 

are not -- we're -- when we order our contractors 

not to contest a claim we're also telling them 

not to raise administrative defenses, which the 

statute of limitation is. In most states they'll 

leave that up to the -- and I'm going to -- I'm 

going to define this wrong, and you -- some of 

you are experts in workmen's compensation, but in 

most states the states would leave that up to the 

employer and the employee to resolve a settlement 

on a claim. And so we're -- statute of 

limitations does not enter into the case. 

In some states, however -- for example, I'll 

use Ohio as an example -- where there's a state 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

108 

fund so that the State of Ohio is actually the 

insurance company, they're required by law to 

raise statute of limitation defenses in these 

claims. And so we may have some problems in 

Ohio. The first few claims are just starting to 

hit Ohio soon, working very closely with Ohio to 

figure out creative ways to not only help them 

get around their statute of limitations that 

they're required -- the defenses that they're 

required to raise, but also look for creative 

ways that we can reimburse the state, and we're 

getting close on that. 

We're getting close in two ways. One way is 

that there's some legal things we can do in our 

insurance arrangements in the state of Ohio. And 

secondly, there may be some legislative fixes 

that might be made on the Hill, in the Congress, 

on that subject. 

MR. ESPINOSA: How is that working out with 

the -- well, say contractors -- site contractors 

that are not self-insured? 

MR. ROLLOW: Right now, as far as I know, for 

the claims that have been filed in the DOE system 

where we have a contractor that we can make a doNANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

109 

not-contest order, I know of no contractors that 

have raised a statute of limitations 

administrative defense. And if we find those, 

we'll go work those on an individual basis. 

We'll go remove them, basically. 

MR. GIBSON: You mentioned Ohio, and I 

noticed on your slide nine the cases that have 

been paid. Have there been any cases at all paid 

in the state of Ohio? 

MR. ROLLOW: Ohio -- there sort of have, and 

let me explain to you how that works. You're 

probably familiar with the settlement fund for --

the Fernald Settlement Fund I think it's called 

in the State of Ohio -- where there's a program 

that actually we modeled a lot of our program 

after. It's where physicians look at illnesses 

that Fernald workers may have received from their 

work at the Department of Energy facility in 

Fernald. And a lot of those claims have -- have 

received positive findings from the Fernald 

Workers Settlement Fund, and then have gone 

forward to the State of Ohio and been paid -- not 

as a direct result of the EEOICPA program, but 

those workers may have been paid for the same 

illnesses that they've applied to our program 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

110 

for. So the State basically has paid that out of 

the State fund. DOE at this point has not 

reimbursed that State fund for those payments, 

and has not yet found a legal way -- we're 

working with Ohio, on the phone with them twice a 

week right now, but we have not found a legal way 

that we can reimburse them for those compensation 

costs. So I know those claims have been paid. I 

do not know whether any Portsmouth, Ohio facility 

or Mound facility claims have actually made it to 

the State process. 

MR. GIBSON: So that the Fernald payments 

were based on a out-of-court settlement from a 

lawsuit. 

MR. ROLLOW: Well, no, no, the payments --

let me clarify that. The settlement fund pays 

for the physicians to look at the cases, but does 

not pay the compensation cost. The State fund 

pays the compensation cost. So the State of Ohio 

Workers Comp fund, that $2 billion fund, that 

great big insurance fund, if you will, paid the 

claims, not the settlement fund. 

MR. GIBSON: But under EEOICPA, there have 

been no funds -- no claims paid in Ohio. 

MR. ROLLOW: That's correct. We're working 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

111 

with the State to find a way to get around the 

state law, basically, in Ohio. 

MR. GIBSON: So in essence then, there's no 

willing payer in the state of Ohio. 

MR. ROLLOW: We're willing, but -- but -- I 

mean -- this is -- it's kind of a -- a challenge 

of words here. The Department is willing, but 

the state law does not have a way to get around 

it right now. And I think we'll end up with a 

solution to that soon. 

MR. GIBSON: Lastly -- and I've brought this 

up before because of these cases pending and 

stuff -- does ??? still -- is ??? still resistant 

to transferring this -- this portion of the 

program to the Department of Labor so that it --

you don't have to work with each state and these 

people can get their compensation? 

MR. ROLLOW: Yeah, we're -- of course what 

you're referring to is the Senate Defense 

Authorization bill, which has adopted an 

amendment, I think sponsored by Senator Bunning*, 

which would transfer the program to the 

Department of Labor, make some rather dramatic 

changes to the nature of the program, and also --

basically transfer it and make some dramatic 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

112 

changes to it. The opinion -- the position of 

the Administration -- the Department of Labor, 

the Department of Energy and the Executive Branch 

of the government -- is that this would not be a 

good idea to transfer the program from Department 

of Energy to the Department of Labor. 

The reason are several-fold. One is the 

Department of Energy, as I'm showing you here, 

has fixed the production problems, so the numbers 

are coming up in those areas and we have a plan 

to work off the backlog. Secondly, it's very 

inefficient to uproot a program from one agency 

and move it to another agency. And then thirdly, 

there's some tremendous challenges, complications 

-- and some of them may not even be workable, the 

way the legislation is written -- for the 

Department of Labor to actually run the program, 

the way the legislation is written. And it's a 

little more complex than I probably ought to be -

- ought to go into with you here today. 

MR. GIBSON: Well, I -- you know, with all 

due respect, it just seems to me, with -- you 

know, $20, $30, $40 million requested next year 

for this program and $700,000 put out to workers, 

it obviously seems like there's some serious 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

113 

impediments with this. 

MR. ROLLOW: And -- and I don't disagree with 

you about the slow start. I think what we all --

do ask you to focus on the fact that the pipeline 

is full and there's product coming out the tail 

end of it, and you will see that go up 

dramatically over the next few months. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm trying to understand 

the -- just -- just to get a sense of this 

production that you described. Your one table, 

the second slide, versus a couple of the graphs -

- I mean if I look at -- if I'm looking at this 

right, it seems like there's about 25,000 cases 

overall. 

MR. ROLLOW: Uh-huh. 

MR. GRIFFON: And the backlog is around 

22,000 -- I guess it depends on how you define 

backlog. 

MR. ROLLOW: How you define backlog. We're 

working --

MR. GRIFFON: Cases that haven't gone through 

the physicians panels. 

MR. ROLLOW: There's 20,000 cases currently 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

114 

being worked -- 5,000 that are not being worked, 

but 20,000 are currently being worked. 

MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 

MR. ROLLOW: Of those 20,000 currently being 

worked, DOE has finished assembling the case file 

on 7,000 of those. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MR. ROLLOW: Has finished assembling the case 

file, so the case now is sitting either in an 

applicant's mailbox waiting to be reviewed by the 

applicant, or it's sitting at a physicians panel 

or waiting to go to a physicians panel, or it's 

complete and done. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And -- and there's --

and if I'm looking at this right, there's been 

about 1,100 that have gone through the physicians 

panels? 

MR. ROLLOW: That's correct. 

MR. GRIFFON: Because I -- I'm trying to 

interpret this total cases completed. It seems 

to me that -- that set of ineligible applicants 

over -- I'm sorry, I need a magnifying glass --

MR. ROLLOW: Yeah. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- or cases withdrawn by 

applicant --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

115 

MR. ROLLOW: See if I can --

MR. GRIFFON: -- if those two categories -- I 

think those are kind of exhausted right at the 

outset, I would think. In other words, that --

that you're -- you're rolling them into the total 

cases completed --

MR. ROLLOW: Right, but -- but --

MR. GRIFFON: -- but I think they don't go 

through the physicians panel at all. 

MR. ROLLOW: That's right, but -- but --

MR. GRIFFON: That's a one-time hit, I 

believe. Right? 

MR. ROLLOW: But not unlike the Department of 

Labor program. I mean ineligibility, once that's 

determined, that is a completed case. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, I don't dispute --

MR. ROLLOW: Obviously it makes more sense 

for us to try to disposition those at the front 

end of the process, and we do try to pick up as 

many of those as we can when they first come in 

the door. In fact, what we've actually done is 

we've rolled back to the resource centers where 

we take applications, and we're trying to do a 

little better job there of figuring out if people 

really are eligible for the program before they 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

116 

apply -- make sure they worked during a covered 

time period, worked at a covered DOE facility, 

and that they're actually ill -- or have an 

illness. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- I guess what I'm 

trying to -- to understand is that those seem 

like one-time hits out of the 25,000. 

MR. ROLLOW: Yes, absolutely. 

MR. GRIFFON: And when you roll them into 

that percentage completed by the -- com-- you 

know, already complete process --

MR. ROLLOW: Uh-huh. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- it looks a little inflated 

there at 12 percent. Really 1,100 have gone 

through the physicians panel. So I'm trying to 

get a sense of how -- it looks like you're 

scaling up significantly on the physicians 

panels, and I understand you've hired a lot more 

physicians, so that --

MR. ROLLOW: Uh-huh. 

MR. GRIFFON: But if I look at the -- one of 

the graphs right, your sixth overhead there, it 

looks like you're going to be up to around 800 

cases per month --

MR. ROLLOW: Absolutely. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

117 

MR. GRIFFON: -- going through the physicians 

panels, and that's a realistic estimate you've 

looked at? 

MR. ROLLOW: Yeah, we -- we -- our -- our 

plan with -- that we -- that we put in front of 

Congress for our last funding committed to doing 

300 -- 300 cases per week -- actually 15,000 

cases in a year, which averages 300 a week; 200 

cases per week starting -- for the first year up 

to the panels, and only 100 cases per week 

through the panel. And that first year started 

last June and would end next June. We actually 

expect to be up to 200 cases per week totally 

completed, out of the panels, probably in the 

November time frame, because we're getting 

sufficient numbers of physicians and physician 

hours right now. So we'll -- we'll greatly 

exceed that goal. 

MR. GRIFFON: And you said you've hired 200 

or so other case processors? 

MR. ROLLOW: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: Are those -- what -- what kind 

of entities* are those? 

MR. ROLLOW: Well, a case processing team 

consists of a medical person of some type, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

118 

generally a nurse, and then that nurse is 

supported by technicians and administrative 

helpers that get the information together, work 

with the sites to retrieve the information, 

assemble it according to certain protocols, and 

then the nurse -- or the nurse equivalent; I 

think they're all nurses in our program --

actually have the final say on the case before it 

moves forward to the final part of the process. 

MR. GRIFFON: Are there any industrial 

hygienists or health physicists in that team of 

200? 

MR. ROLLOW: I have several on my staff, the 

DOE staff. Most of our -- a large number of our 

nurses are -- have occupational medical 

experience, but not necessarily industrial 

hygienists. So I would have to say probably not. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And I have one other 

question, but this is switching gears completely. 

It's -- out of your budget I'm curious how much 

-- I think it was either in NIOSH's presentation 

or in this one there was a discussion of when 

NIOSH requests information of -- from DOE --

MR. ROLLOW: Uh-huh. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- I think you -- does that go 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

119 

through your office? Am I correct about that? 

MR. ROLLOW: Well, it -- it --

MR. GRIFFON: Data (Inaudible) --

MR. ROLLOW: -- my office facilitates it, but 

we've arranged it so they communicate directly 

with the sites, so we've cut out the middle man. 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay. But does that come out 

of your budget, the --

MR. ROLLOW: Yes, I --

MR. GRIFFON: -- cost of that down at the 

site level? 

MR. ROLLOW: -- I pay for that service, 

that's correct. 

MR. GRIFFON: And that -- this is -- this 

will come up maybe later in our discussions, but 

does that also cover the cost of our auditor --

audit contractor requesting records? 

MR. ROLLOW: I don't know -- I don't think 

NIOSH is providing any additional funding to our 

sites to support your auditor, so I'd have to say 

that right now either the auditor's -- servicing 

the auditor at our sites either comes out of my 

funding or it's coming out of the sites' 

overhead. 

MR. GRIFFON: Has that come up yet to your 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

120 

office, to --

MR. ROLLOW: Not to me. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- your attention, to --

MR. ROLLOW: Not to me. 

MR. GRIFFON: Hasn't come up as an issue yet. 

MR. ROLLOW: I think it's probably better 

addressed by NIOSH and -- and by the contractor. 

I have -- my people have had some discussions, I 

think at Savannah River Site, to make sure the 

doors are open to the auditor at the Savannah 

River Site. I don't know any of the details. 

just know we were involved in some discussions on 

that subject. 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- I think we -- I 

think we need to get this on the -- the scope of 

our discussions somewhere, especially why Tom is 

here, maybe, because my understanding at a 

previous meeting was that there would be no 

problems as far as access for the --

MR. ROLLOW: Absolutely. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- for the auditor coming 

directly --

MR. ROLLOW: Our MOU, which is signed by the 

Deputy Secretary of HHS and the Deputy Secretary 

of DOE, provides for full and open access to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

121 

NIOSH and anybody that's supporting NIOSH. And 

so my -- you know, our courtesy or whatever you 

want to call it goes to Larry Elliott and to his 

organization. How he turns around and -- and 

extends that to contractors that support the 

Board or that support him is up to him. We just 

sent a letter out to the field -- to all field 

offices and copied Mr. Elliott on that letter, 

that reflected the letter I think that you folks 

actually sent to the Secretary of Energy and --

and reiterated that to our field offices, and 

said if you have any question on that subject to 

call Larry Elliott, because NIOSH has to actually 

open the door with their key, and if there's any 

DOE problems, to call somebody in my office. 

DR. ZIEMER: I might insert that this Board 

sent a letter to the Secretary of HHS, who in 

turn made contact with the Secretary of DOE and -

- and based on that letter, which Tom provided to 

his field contacts very recently to underline the 

need for access, specifically by the Board's 

contractor, so --

MR. GRIFFON: I guess I'm -- I'm getting back 

to the point where I believe -- I don't want to 

put words in Tony's mouth, but I think he raised 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

122 

this at one meeting that a question at the site 

level of an unfunded mandate sort of, that they 

get these requests all the time from various 

researchers and everybody, and they want to know 

who do I bill to. And it is -- I was just 

wondering --

MR. ROLLOW: Well, I think we have to take 

those --

MR. GRIFFON: It's your impression that 

that's also --

MR. ROLLOW: Well, I can't --

MR. GRIFFON: -- access and -- and costs are 

covered. 

MR. ROLLOW: Yeah, I right now fund the 

Department of Labor employment verifications, and 

I also fund NIOSH radiation dose -- requests for 

radiation dose information. I can fund a little 

bit of access to your contractor. But if it 

becomes a larger burden, that may be something 

that NIOSH and the Department of Labor may have 

to take up with us to work out some kind of 

solution. Generally overhead at the sites can 

accommodate some of this. It just depends on how 

much time it takes to service the request, and I 

just can't speak to that 'cause I'm not sure what 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

123 

your contractor's doing. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mike, and then Tony. 

MR. GIBSON: You mentioned that your office 

funds the records search and all that. 

MR. ROLLOW: Uh-huh. 

MR. GIBSON: Does the local DOE office have 

the right, once the funding gets to that level, 

to do something else with it and take the monies 

out of the contractor's operating fund? 

MR. ROLLOW: I don't know whether they have 

the right, but they haven't done it yet and we 

watch it pretty closely. 

MR. GIBSON: Watch the Ohio sites --

MR. ROLLOW: We --

MR. GIBSON: -- (Inaudible) in particular? 

MR. ROLLOW: Yes. The Ohio sites don't get a 

lot of money from us, but yes, we watch it very 

closely. 

MR. GIBSON: And secondly, just as a comment 

--

MR. ROLLOW: If you know something I don't 

know, send me an e-mail tomorrow and let me know, 

'cause we're always chasing down the dollars. 

MR. GIBSON: And then secondly, there are 

some DOE contractors that are vigorously fighting 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

124 

Workers Compensation claims to this day. 

MR. ROLLOW: Okay. 

MR. GIBSON: They are -- they are putting 

employees who get injured on the job under the 

sickness and accident plan and fight -- if they 

choose -- if the worker chooses to go Workers 

Comp, they're -- they're appealing it all the way 

to the top. 

MR. ROLLOW: If they involve EEOICPA claims, 

which is -- I mean I hate to put blinders on, but 

of course my area is EEOICPA. But if they 

involve people who have positive determinations 

from the EEOICPA process, I'd be very interested 

in -- in the details of those and we'll go after 

them. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Tony? 

DR. ANDRADE: Yes, I just had a comment. I 

just wanted to remind the Board that during 

whatever meeting it was that I did mention that 

researchers or even our contractor going into DOE 

contractor's site would be considered an unfunded 

mandate. My statement was the basis for -- or 

was actually to be used as the basis for asking 

the Department of Energy to support that. 

Now that the letter has gone out and I know 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

125 

that it has certainly arrived at my site and I'm 

sure at all the other contractor sites -- active 

contractor sites -- the order is given, and in 

many cases overhead is used like for record 

centers to provide services and support the 

contractors. And then sometimes it's even 

programmatic funds that come out of say radiation 

protection programs to provide information 

directly to the subcontractor. And so it is a 

combination of dollars, but the contractors have 

been ordered to do, so therefore they will. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Tony. Roy? 

DR. DEHART: Tom, you alluded to the fact 

that there are some differences here on 

reimbursement. For the benefit of the Board, 

would you again give a little explanation to why 

the death of the claimant and the compensation 

thereof may be entirely different with the Worker 

Comp versus what we are seeing from cancer? I'm 

primarily talking about the siblings, the 

children. 

MR. ROLLOW: Okay. Now are you talking the 

difference between Part B and Part D? 

DR. DEHART: Yes. 

MR. ROLLOW: Okay. Well, Part B obviously is 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

126 

a -- is a set -- set amount, $150,000. For a 

survivor who has made an application to this 

program because say a parent may have succumbed 

to an illness caused by their work at the 

Department of Energy, if they have reached 

majority age -- in other words, over 21 or 

whatever majority age is in that state, and I'm 

not real well-versed on this, so there's probably 

people in this room that are a lot more 

knowledgeable on Workers Comp than I am. But if 

they've reached majority age say at the time that 

that person had expired, they were not dependent 

perhaps on the income from that worker, there 

would -- there may be very little compensation 

due to them, say other than maybe a burial 

payment or something of that sort. So in some 

states we might see an award -- several thousand 

dollars, basically just a burial payment to that 

-- to that person. In other cases, if the worker 

succumbed to an illness and died during their 

working career and it's a -- it's a widow that 

was dependent upon that worker, they're making an 

application to the program, there may be lost 

wages, there may be a large death benefit in the 

six figures. Is that the explanation you're 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

127 

looking for? 

DR. DEHART: One of the points is the 

minority issue of the children, which we don't 

have to deal with with the cancer --

MR. ROLLOW: Right. 

DR. DEHART: -- issue. And if -- and we've 

all heard comments about the time criticality in 

dealing with the cancer issue. It's even more of 

a critical issue in dealing with the Worker 

Compensation. 

MR. ROLLOW: It -- it can be, although 

generally most of our -- a large percentage of 

our applications are survivor applications, and -

- and that person expired even before the program 

was passed into law, many cases. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tom, could you address very 

briefly sort of the quality control issue on 

physicians? Now I recognize that, maybe with the 

exception of the physicians who are on this 

Board, there are some whose judgment may not be 

faultless. And how do you -- when you have a 

one-person decision point, how do you assure --

well, let me ask it this way. Do you go back and 

say is physician A always judging for the 

claimant or against the claimant; is there a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

128 

pattern that suggests other than objective 

evaluation? Or do you see the things -- do you 

send out an application, a duplicate one, to 

several and cross-calibrate them; or is there 

some kind of quality control on those judgments? 

MR. ROLLOW: You're really putting me in the 

hot seat here. We do not score our physicians. 

We do not try to pre-judge or to judge, based on 

their performance, which way they're going to go. 

We do try to educate and communicate to them if 

we see them constantly leaning in one direction 

or the other. The single physician case is going 

to always be applicant-friendly, because if a 

single physician leans one way or another, the 

only way it can -- it can do -- the only thing it 

can do is help the applicant, because if they're 

always negative, there are two other physicians 

that also would have to -- well, one other 

physician would have to be -- have a negative on 

that same case, and that's why we retain the 

review from two or more physicians to get a 

negative. But we --

DR. ZIEMER: I'm more concerned about the 

luck of the draw for someone who's always 

positive. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

129 

MR. ROLLOW: Well, there may be some of 

those. What we do is we try to look for those. 

We do review every single case in detail, both by 

a panel of physicians that -- that were -- excuse 

me, not a panel, bad terminology -- by physicians 

that are under my employment, and I also have a 

medical director, Dr. Mike Mentopali*, and we 

review 100 percent of all the decisions. And if 

we see things skewed, we will go back and work 

with that physician to -- to clarify either 

policy in the program, to provide them additional 

technical information, medical information to 

help them make better judgments. 

On the other hand, the process is set up by 

law for an arm's-length relationship between DOE 

and the physicians. And I have to be very, very 

respectful of that distance. And as a result 

there may be a program that we might want to run 

here that has more consistent results, but that 

won't end up with that consistency because of 

that arm's-length relationship. 

DR. ZIEMER: Any further questions? 

 (No responses) 

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

appreciate the update on that part of the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

130 

program. 

It's now 12:15. We'll -- we'll shoot for --

let's say 1:30, if possible. I'm not sure how 

convenient lunch places are here. Do we have a 

list or anything of -- there's not much choice is 

what I'm hearing. Okay. Shoot for 1:30. Thank 

you. We're in recess. 

(Whereupon, a luncheon recess was taken.) 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, we're going to go ahead 

and reconvene. Our regular Designated Federal 

Official is not present, and we have to have one, 

so the Acting Designated Federal Official is Jim 

Neton, and when Larry arrives they will play 

musical chairs and trade. 

PRIVACY ACT AND FACA REQUIREMENTS 

But anyway, we're going to begin the 

afternoon session. Liz Homoki-Titus is going to 

in a sense update us on Privacy Act issues and 

bring us up to speed on anything new in --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Well, I think I am. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we think Liz is going to do 

that. So Liz? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. One piece of news 

that I want to share with you all, and you've 

probably noticed that David Naimon is no longer 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

131 

with us. He has been promoted to the Associate 

Deputy General Counsel, so he'll no longer be 

attending Board meetings or working with this 

program, which has left me as the acting team 

lead, and at some point in the future you may see 

a new team lead who will be introduced to you, et 

cetera. But for right now, if you have any legal 

questions, any questions about the Privacy Act or 

anything else, you're still free to contact our 

office at the same number but you'll probably be 

dealing with me instead of David Naimon. 

As I indicated to you at the last meeting, I 

wanted to go a little more in depth on the 

requirements of the Privacy Act. Now that you 

all are going to start reviewing individual dose 

reconstructions through your work groups and the 

subcommittee, and also as a committee, as well as 

beginning work on SEC petitions, this is once 

again very, very important for you to consider 

and remember. 

What is the Privacy Act? It is Federal 

withholding statute, which means -- withholding 

means the Act prohibits the disclosure to any 

third party information about a person without 

that person's written permission. If you all 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

132 

receive a request for a disclosure of a Privacy 

Act record, which is just basically anything that 

deals with an individual, please have that person 

contact OCAS, and please let OCAS know that 

you've received that request so that they can be 

aware of it and take care of it properly. 

HHS also has their own Privacy Act policy, 

and it is the policy of the Department to protect 

Privacy Act information to the fullest extent 

possible. That means that we do allow the 

disclosure of records -- i.e., you all will be 

receiving full dose reconstruction reports -- for 

employees of the Department to do their jobs. 

But we do not disclose records to other people 

unless it's proper under Freedom of Information 

Act or we have received a proper Privacy Act 

release. 

I do want to remind you that there are civil 

and criminal penalties that you will be held 

personally responsible for if you are found to 

have wilfully violated the Privacy Act. And 

please be aware that the criminal penalties can 

be up to $5,000, which you would be personally 

responsible to pay if you were found guilty. 

There are some permitted disclosures with the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

133 

Privacy Act. These are disclosures that would be 

handled by the Department, not handled by you 

personally. If the government has a record that 

pertains to an individual, they have a stat--

they have the right to have that record. And 

then there's some other special interests that 

have access to records, especially at the 

Department of Health and Human Services where we 

have medical records. 

And of course there are prohibited 

disclosures of the Privacy Act-protected 

materials. And basically you cannot disclose 

Privacy Act-protected materials to anyone unless 

the Department of Health and Human Services has 

received a written release for the release of 

that information to that particular person. For 

example, this includes dis-- precludes 

disclosures without written permission to family 

members, medical personnel and members of 

Congress, with certain exceptions that are 

statutorily set. 

You've probably seen these before, but I'll 

run through them for you one more time. They're 

Privacy Act rules for special government 

employees, and I'll remind you again that each of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

134 

you is a special government employee who is an 

employee of the Department of Health and Human 

Services each time you're working on Board 

activities. So generally, avoid discussing or 

disclosing the merits of individual claims and 

SEC petitions. Stick to giving out public 

information. The public does view you as 

representatives of the Department of Health and 

Human Services because you are in the public eye. 

And you are allowed to share publicly-available 

information, but you can't share information 

specific to a person that you may have learned in 

their dose reconstruction report or in an SEC 

petition. When y'all are having dinner and stuff 

like that, avoid speculating about the identity 

of claimants, SEC petitioners or SEC class 

members. Avoid speculation about dose 

reconstruction and SEC issues that the Board may 

be considering, or that you may know that the 

Department is considering. Try to avoid 

predicting Department and Board future actions. 

You know that you're supposed to avoid assisting 

with the filing of individual claims, but you may 

be a fact witness, because we know that a lot of 

you have worked in this area and you may have 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

135 

friends that -- or coworkers that you worked with 

for whom you can be a fact witness. And if you 

have any questions about that or you've been 

asked to be a fact witness, please feel free to 

contact OCAS or us to discuss what if any 

limitations that your Board role may have for 

you. 

DR. MELIUS: These aren't all Privacy Act 

issues, though. 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, some of them aren't. 

DR. MELIUS: Most of them aren't. I think 

you need to be clearer about that. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Well, the first one's a 

Privacy Act informa-- is Privacy Act. 

DR. MELIUS: For SEC petitions? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: It can be because you've 

got three individual -- if you have three 

individual --

DR. MELIUS: (Inaudible) --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- petitioners. 

DR. MELIUS: -- names, but --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right. Public 

information's not. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, okay. I mean you don't 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

136 

have to go through them all, I just --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Okay. As I've mentioned 

throughout the presentation, there is no reason, 

as a member of the Advisory Board, that you 

should be disclosing Privacy Act-protected 

materials to anyone. You are not an appeals 

board, so therefore people will not know if 

you're reviewing their dose reconstruction, so 

therefore you shouldn't be discussing with 

anyone, including -- if you're talking to the 

person whose dose reconstruction you're reviewing 

-- their information with them. 

SEC petitions that you all are reviewing 

should not be discussed outside of the Board 

meeting. And once again, if you get a request 

for a disclosure of any type of Privacy Act 

information, please direct them to OCAS and let 

OCAS know that you've received that request. 

Now moving on to the role of the Advisory 

Board under the Federal Advisory Board Committee 

Act, which is FACA, you'll hear me refer to it. 

In 1972 Congress felt that it was important to 

regulate the role of advisory boards within the 

Executive Branch. And the law has special 

emphasis on open meetings, chartering, public 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

137 

involvement and reporting. 

Congress there was a need to share 

information that advisory boards were giving to 

the Executive Branch with Congress and with the 

public. They also determined that the role of an 

advisory board should be advisory only. 

Under the advisory functions of the advisory 

board, unless there's a Presidential directive or 

your statute specifically provides for you to do 

so, then the role of the board is only advisory. 

For this specific Board, Congress nor the 

President gave you authority to make 

determinations on the behalf of the Department of 

Health and Human Services. You advise the 

Secretary, and that's your only function. 

FACA also required there be a charter filed, 

and it needs to be filed with the head of the 

agency with whom -- to whom you report, which is 

the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You 

all do have a current charter, and you also now 

have a charter for your subcommittee, which will 

be important in a few minutes. 

The law also requires that you have a 

Designated Federal Official at all of your 

meetings, so therefore for the Board to have a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

138 

meeting, Larry Elliott needs to be present. This 

will be very important when we get to talking 

about public open meetings, because the Board --

if six of you get together and start discussing 

Board issues, you have a majority and you're 

having a Board meeting, so you need to be careful 

about that if you're having dinner together and 

you start discussing Board issues. And also now 

that you have a subcommittee, which all of you 

are a member of the subcommittee on that roster 

and you have five members that sit that 

committee, if three of you get together and start 

discussing subcommittee issues, you once again 

have a majority. And so therefore you need to be 

conscientious of discussing Board issues and 

subcommittee issues in small groups outside of 

the public forum. 

Closed meetings are going to be very 

important for you. Closed meetings have to be 

announced in the Federal Register, which 

committee management handles on your behalf. And 

the Department is the one who makes the 

determination as to whether or not a meeting 

should be closed. Now you all will be having a 

number of closed meetings because protection 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

139 

under the Privacy Act is a reason to have a 

closed meeting, and you all will be reviewing a 

great deal of Privacy Act information. 

As I mentioned before, the Government in the 

Sunshine Act is referred to by FACA and it 

requires open meetings. And this is once again 

where it weighs in that a majority of your 

members -- if you're meeting outside of the board 

room, three of you, six of you, and discussing 

issues specific to the subcommittee or specific 

to the Board, you are having a meeting that is 

not in the public, and it's illegal under these 

statutes. So please be aware of what you're 

discussing when you meet outside of the board 

room. 

Once again, closed meetings (Inaudible). GSA 

has also put forth FACA regulations. They're 

interpretive guidelines for the management and 

control of FACA committees, which you all are a 

FACA committee, and HHS and this Advisory Board 

follows those regulations. We can provide you 

copies of them if you're interested in reviewing 

them. I assure you that we have a great 

committee management and they do keep us all in 

line, but I want you to be aware that you're 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

140 

bound by those, and if you're interested in 

seeing any of them, we can share them with you. 

As you know, EEOICPA established -- directed 

the establishment of the Advisory Board with 

certain duties, and the President established the 

Advisory Board through Executive Order 13179. 

And just a quick review of your duties under 

EEOICPA and the Executive Order, EEOICPA required 

for the dose reconstruction methods be reviewed, 

as well as what you are about to undertake, which 

is a -- to verify a reasonable sample of the dose 

-- doses estimated, as well as reviewing and 

advising on the scientific validity and quality 

of dose estimation. So just a review of what 

y'all are doing, and then that was also 

reiterated by the President in his Executive 

Order. 

And finally, the EEOICPA SEC duties is to 

advise the President whether there's a class of 

employees at a DOE facility who were likely 

exposed to radiation. And just as a reminder, 

the President reiterated that in his Executive 

Order, and also just a reminder that you all do 

report to the Secretary of Health and Human 

Services, you give advice to the Secretary of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

141 

Health and Human Services, not the President, in 

accordance with the Executive Order establishing 

the Board. And I will take any questions, and 

hopefully that was short enough to get us back on 

time track a little bit. And all the better if 

there are no questions. 

DR. ZIEMER: Questions for Liz? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I know you guys have seen 

this a few times, so I was trying to keep it 

quick and just give you a refresher. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Henry Anderson has a 

question. 

DR. ANDERSON: Could you go back one? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: That might be beyond me. 

How do I go back? 

(Pause) 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: What's your question while 

I'm getting back to it? 

DR. ANDERSON: Basically my question was 

about the appointment, and it says all of the 

duties were assigned to the HHS Secretary except 

the appointment of Board members. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, the appointment of 

Board members --

DR. ANDERSON: And we have ac--

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

142 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- and the Chairman. 

DR. ANDERSON: We've actually gotten two 

appointments. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: You've gotten two 

appointments? 

DR. ANDERSON: I mean we got a White House 

appointment letter and notice, and then we also 

got a Secretary appointment, and for some of us, 

this is our last meeting, so --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: The Secretary's 

appointment was -- or wasn't an appointment; it 

was a welcome to the Board. The -- your actual 

appointment comes from the White House. The 

White House makes these determinations. Larry 

may want to address that, as well. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I would like to speak to this a 

little bit. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, if you can. 

MR. ELLIOTT: The White House appoints the 

members to this Board. The President retained 

the authority and didn't transfer that or 

delegate that in the Executive Order. That comes 

from the statute. The appointment letter that 

you got from the Secretary just confirms --

reconfirms, I guess, that the White House has 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

143 

appointed you and you're serving on this Board. 

Now Dr. Anderson, you made a comment a moment 

ago that this may be the last meeting for some of 

you. That's not the case, until you hear from 

the President or from the White House that you 

have been relieved from service and somebody else 

is appointed to take your place. You serve at 

the pleasure of the White House until they 

appoint a new person or you decide you want to 

resign from the Board. 

DR. ANDERSON: So will we get a new letter 

from the -- from HHS? 'Cause it said my 

appointment expires in -- in August. 

MR. ELLIOTT: It said your appointment 

expires in August, but you're Presidentially 

appointed, and that supersedes the comment or the 

sentence in that HHS appointment letter. So 

until you are replaced by Presidential 

appointment, you continue to serve. Or unless 

you decide, as Sally Gadola had decided that she 

could no longer serve. 

DR. ANDERSON: So will we get new appointment 

from the HHS for our four-year term? 

MR. ELLIOTT: That's unknown until the White 

House determines what they're going to do about 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

144 

the appointments that are up at this point in 

time. They could decide not to do anything at 

this point in time and just let that ride. They 

can let it ride into next year, and next year 

there'll be eight members of this Board that 

would be sitting at the table that were beyond 

their appointment, perhaps. You un-- see what --

understand? 

DR. ZIEMER: Could I also comment, and I 

think this has been a point of confusion to all 

the members of the Board. Other advisory groups 

within HHS, most of which are appointed by the 

Secretary of HHS, have specific terms. It was my 

understanding that the Secretary of HHS had 

intended for that pattern to be the case for this 

Board, as well. But as Larry's indicated, the 

overriding determination is -- lies with the 

White House. So maybe Larry is reluctant to say 

this, but regardless of what the Secretary of HHS 

would like to do, it gets overridden by what the 

White House actually does. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: That's exactly right. 

DR. ZIEMER: I think that's the case. So in 

a certain sense, the letter from the Secretary of 

Health and Human Services assigning you a term 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

145 

has very little meaning if the White House 

ignores it. 

DR. ANDERSON: The only difficulty is, in 

order for me to attend -- as a State employee --

I have to show that I have a legitimate 

appointment here and to share -- the letter I got 

from HHS, which I then shared with the Wisconsin 

administration, says I end in August. 

DR. ZIEMER: Wisconsin doesn't recognize the 

President's appointment as being legitimate? Is 

that what... 

DR. ANDERSON: Well, I mean the --

DR. ZIEMER: Just kidding, just kidding. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We can work with that. 

DR. ANDERSON: I need to have some kind of an 

indication that in fact what the letter said --

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we'll let --

DR. ANDERSON: -- that term doesn't end. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Right. We can work with that 

and get committee management office to give you, 

for the State, a reading that will say that the 

White House takes precedence over what the 

Secretary's appointment letter says. 

DR. ANDERSON: That would be helpful. 

MR. ELLIOTT: They use standard language in 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

146 

the Secretary's appointment letter for all HHS 

FACA appointments, and that's what caused this --

this confusion. The way I think this will 

happen, the White House is considering now what 

it's doing -- going to do, is my understanding, 

with regard to the first four members whose 

appointments expire this month. I don't know 

when they're going to make a decision on that. 

They work at their own pace. So --

DR. ZIEMER: But the absence of a decision --

MR. ELLIOTT: The absence of a decision means 

you're serving at the pleasure of the White House 

and you continue to serve until you hear 

otherwise. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I guess I just need some 

written confirmation of that because they log it 

in. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I understand. 

DR. ANDERSON: It's just like with a grant, 

your grant expires, and if you don't tell them 

you got a new grant year, they close it out and 

the staff get notices, everything goes. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I understand. We'll -- we'll -

-

DR. ANDERSON: You know, just some --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

147 

MR. ELLIOTT: We'll work with committee 

management on that and get you what you need. 

DR. ANDERSON: Some -- just something brief. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Back to Privacy Act issues, it 

seems to me that -- I'm trying to understand how 

this affects us procedurally, 'cause there's a 

balance between us functioning open to the public 

and -- and transparency to our process at the 

same time we have to deal with in-- you know, 

individual claims records that, for example, 

we'll be reviewing as part of our review of the 

dose reconstruction activities of -- of NIOSH. 

So --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I believe a lot of that 

will be addressed when the subcommittee makes 

their presentation on the procedures that they 

have agreed to and are asking the Board to 

approve. We did have a discussion about that 

yesterday during the subcommittee meeting. So if 

you can hold your question until that point, we 

can come back and readdress it if you're still 

concerned. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay, that's fine. 

DR. ZIEMER: Insofar as individual cases are 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

148 

being dealt with and you have that issue. If 

you're talking about a broad report, the 

statistical numbers and so on with no individual 

cases being dealt with, then it'll be a different 

story. 

DR. MELIUS: No, no, I --

DR. ZIEMER: We're prepared to make some 

recommendations. 

DR. MELIUS: Okay, that's -- my understanding 

-- I was just saying that there's a balance there 

and we've got to --

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- understand how Privacy Act 

works. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other questions? 

Comments? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Liz. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Thank you. 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST, QUALITY ASSURANCE PLAN, 

ACCESS ISSUES 

DR. ZIEMER: Now we actually have three 

presentations from the Board's contractor, SC&A. 

John Mauro's going to kick this off, and then 

Joe Fitzgerald will follow. Is Steve here, also? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

149 

DR. OSTROW: Yeah, I'm here. 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, there he is. Okay, so we 

have -- we have three presentations, and John I 

believe is going to kick it off and then he'll 

pass it on. Or are you going to kick it off? 

DR. MAURO: Joe will start off. 

DR. ZIEMER: Joe is going to kick it off, 

okay. Very good, okay. Thank you. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, thank you. I know you 

have a tight schedule so we wanted to try to make 

this as efficient as possible, and I appreciate 

the opportunity. 

We last spoke to the Board in April about an 

issue we felt some concern over, which was the 

question of information or data access. And you 

know, we now have a few months of experience. We 

have three out of I think four site profile 

reviews that we've been working on that are near 

completion. And we felt it would be a good 

opportunity to come back and mostly give you the 

on-the-ground perspective and experience, and 

also I think raise some issues that we would 

certainly want the Board to be aware of and to 

perhaps address in order to expedite these 

reviews. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

150 

This just comes from our background 

documentation, the task order, the procedures. I 

won't go through this in detail, except to note 

that, you know, the charter that we're operating 

under -- and we discussed this before --

certainly was to look comprehensively at the 

completeness of the records. But more -- maybe 

more importantly, to probe in a vertical sort of 

way, talking to workers, talking to site experts 

and looking at secondary documentation to provide 

the kind of validation which I think would be 

value added to the site profiles and the work 

that's been done by NIOSH. 

And I'd like to report, after several months 

of doing this work, even though we're yet to 

deliver a report and we expect to do that soon, I 

think the charter is very sound. I think the 

insights that we're gaining, the feedback we're 

getting and the -- I think the documentation that 

we're reviewing is going to be particularly 

valuable in providing the Board I think with the 

kind of feedback, and NIOSH with the kind of 

feedback, that's going to I think be a asset to 

the process. So I think this is something that -

- you know, in designing this I know there was 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

151 

some thought put into it in terms of our 

procedures. You know, there was certainly some 

forethought of how this would work. But you 

never really know, I think, until you actually 

get in and start implementing. I think it's 

proven to be a very sound approach. I just want 

to make that clear before we go into some of the 

speed bumps that, not surprisingly, we're trying 

to grapple with and for which we certainly would 

like your guidance and -- and wisdom on. 

Not surprisingly, access continues to be an 

issue that we're grappling with. It's -- it has 

slowed us down -- hasn't stopped us, but I think 

it continues to be a challenge that -- that keeps 

us from going as fast as we'd like and keeps us 

from perhaps probing as much as we'd like to 

probe in terms of some of these verticals that 

we're talking about. And again, we -- we did 

brief up on this general issue back in April. 

think the Board agreed to ask that a letter be 

drafted for the Secretary at HHS and that has 

since gone over to DOE in July. And I think the 

real purpose of the letter certainly was to alert 

DOE that this is sort of a new group, new 

category, new activity that had started and that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

152 

certainly we would need to have access and 

clearances and what-not. And it's useful to have 

Tom here as a facilitator. It certainly helps 

us, as well. 

The other -- certainly the other issue -- and 

we're picking this up certainly from the DOE 

sites, like Savannah River is -- they have spent 

a considerable amount of time and effort and 

resources to generate records in response to 

NIOSH's request. And before we can actually get 

any additional records or documentation, they 

certainly -- and rightfully so -- want to 

ascertain that we have cross-referenced our 

request against what's been already sent over. 

And so one thing that we've been pushing for for 

a couple -- two, three months, is to certainly 

have ready access to the NIOSH recovered database 

-- recovered file database. And as of last week 

we've been pretty much read into it and can 

navigate the search engine for those files. And 

that's going to certainly make it possible for us 

to do that and to then, you know, determine what 

records we don't have. So that's been, I think, 

a major milestone. 

And certainly we've been looking at some of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

153 

these specific sites like Savannah River, and one 

issue that's coming up very quickly is we 

certainly need to make use of the process laid 

out by the MOU, make sure that we can ask for 

these records and ask for the interactions at the 

sites and have that supported by the resources 

that have been set aside for the MOU. Very 

clearly, and not surprisingly, but we're hearing 

back from points of contact is that, you know, 

want to cooperate, but someone has to pay the 

contractors for the time that they're going to 

spend with us. And I think (Inaudible) you 

raised this issue a couple of meetings ago, 

that's very real. I think in the DOE land that 

the margins are such that the contracts do not 

permit interaction without certainly exercising 

the MOU. So certainly talking to Tom, his office 

is ready to facilitate. I know, based on our 

conversations with Larry and NIOSH and the MOU's 

in place, so there's a mechanism for that. 

A key issue I want to raise, though, is 

certainly the Q clearance is going to be a very 

real, on-the-ground issue. We have three sites -

- Y-12, Rocky Flats and the Nevada Test Site --

for which Q clearance is almost a must in order 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

154 

to be able to access and really go through the 

records, if not even get on site. I know for a 

fact, having been to Y-12 in my past lives, that 

certainly that's going to be a requirement to 

really be able to look at much there. And of 

course that's on the schedule that the Board has 

given us in terms of these reviews. So I just 

want to alert -- you know, the -- I just went 

through the DOD clearance process last week. 

NIOSH has set -- you know, put this thing in 

motion. It's moving ahead. Okay? We went 

through and certainly went through the clearance 

process with DOD. I think the top secret 

clearances are forthcoming. But that's a 

prerequisite to going to the Q. And as Tom has 

reminded me, since I've been out of DOE for a few 

years, that takes some time. That may take six 

to 12 months. So I think certainly a factor in 

our ability to do some of the secure sites, 

either that gets facilitated, walked through --

'cause based on our experience, you can do these 

things in terms of Q clearances faster or you can 

do them in sort of routine time. There's a big 

difference between routine time and expedited. 

So -- but unless something happens in terms of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

155 

relieving that, we're going to have some 

difficulty in being able to accomplish reviews at 

this time -- at those two or three locations, 

anyway. So that's sort of the practicality. 

It's moving probably as fast as it can, but 

it won't move fast enough I think to get to those 

sites in the near term, so we -- you know, there 

may be some consideration of, you know, how we 

schedule or pace those things to reflect that 

reality. And I heard that a little earlier, that 

we're not the only ones that have to deal with 

the national security questions. So it's not 

really an uncommon issue, but a real -- real 

issue for us. 

So the real -- I think the bottom line 

question is the team is up and running. Analyses 

I think have been very fruitful. The 

discussions, interviews and documents that we've 

looked at have been very useful and valuable and 

I think they'll prove useful and valuable to 

NIOSH, as well, and to this Board. But we do 

have some impediments that will probably delay 

the schedule that we've been talking about. 

We will be able to deliver two or three 

essential reviews. Savannah River is nearing 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

156 

completion. We have somebody on site this week 

conducting final interviews. Bethlehem Steel and 

Mallinckrodt both -- being AWEs, of course, there 

isn't as much in the way of site access issues; 

there's no sites -- and the interviews I think 

are more straightforward, so there really isn't 

as much of a barrier there. Hanford may be 

somewhat of an issue. And certainly the balance 

of the sites, the ones I mentioned, will have 

some security questions that may prove to be a 

problem. 

In terms of status -- this is a couple of 

weeks old. Actually whenever Cori requested 

these things to be sent in, and as I was saying 

earlier, we now have free and unencumbered access 

to the electronic database that NIOSH maintains, 

and that's going to make it much easier I think 

to look at some of the reference documents that 

are in site profiles. However, we still have the 

DOE access issues, and we'll certainly want to 

work with NIOSH and DOE and Tom's office to make 

sure that we can actually get any additional 

documents and site access. 

Finally, this is the last slide, what it sort 

of comes down to is that we have in fact gotten 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

157 

access to recovered data files. I think we're in 

fairly solid position to wrap up the three site 

profile reviews that we're doing now. However, 

the clearance issue's going to be a problem for 

at least three of the next four or five sites 

that we're looking at in terms of the Q 

clearance. 

The other issue is that there may be some --

not may be, there will be some issue as far as 

being able to touch all the bases as far as the 

scope that's been laid out for the reviews in 

terms of, you know, what information we can get 

to without clearances and what's readily 

available to us. And I don't think the answer is 

certainly to limit what's been planned in terms 

of the scope for the reviews. The reviews 

certainly are working out where they in fact are 

very sound and the approach is one that certainly 

we think is a strong approach. 

However, this question of deliverables, what 

we in fact can give this Board, is very specific. 

We can give this Board a final review, 

quote/unquote, and we're interpreting that as 

pretty much a key, one-time deliverable. And if 

we come up, you know, ten percent short, 20 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

158 

percent short, whatever is the impediment because 

of the data access issue or security issue, the 

conundrum that we have and one that we want to 

kind of ventilate with you is how do we handle 

that in terms of providing you the analyses that 

you've requested, but not having what I would 

call the final assessment, the final review, 

something that, you know, we will still need some 

additional work -- maybe awaiting clearances. 

You know, maybe it'll take four or five months 

before we have the clearances. So we want to 

certainly tee that issue up and say we are right 

now obliged to give you a final review with the 

full spectrum of interviews, vertical assessments 

and everything else that's called for. If that 

cannot be accomplished to the full extent because 

of these constraints, where does that leave us in 

terms of your intent and how this should be 

handled -- 'cause right now we're sort of looking 

at a couple places where yeah, we might have a 

good portion of the analyses, but not all the 

analyses. And we don't want to presume to give 

you half a loaf or hold something back 

indefinitely without certainly making you aware 

of that issue. And I guess this says it all here 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

159 

in terms of timeliness and resource issues. 

We're looking at the efficiencies. We've talked 

to NIOSH about the cost efficiencies. And we 

want to really control what right now is sort of 

uncontrollable, because I think that's going to 

be a factor in increasing the cost and time and 

certainly that needs to be addressed. So -- and 

that's pretty much it. 

What we would like, frankly, is maybe a 

deliberation on the snapshot of today in terms of 

the actual experience that we now have on this 

issue and to sort of solicit a collective, you 

know, what -- what path would make sense in terms 

of preserving the feedback you need, but 

recognizing the practicalities of -- of just 

dealing with the information issue, as well as 

security issue. Thank you. 

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

floor now for questions. It looks like Tony is 

ready to ask something, then Jim. 

DR. ANDRADE: Okay, a few points here may be 

helpful -- hope they're helpful. You mentioned 

something about going back and looking at items 

called incidents. Okay. Let's be very specific. 

I'm not sure if you're familiar with the DOE 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

160 

parlance, if you will, but incidents have a very 

specific meaning versus reportable(recordable)* 

occurrences. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDRADE: Okay. And occurrences -- and 

occurrence reports you should have access to once 

they're closed out to -- it's public information. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDRADE: However, if you ask for 

incident reports, some people in some of the DOE 

contractor sites will be much more sensitive to 

that and they'll say okay, these are sub--

occurrence reporting type incidents and we hold 

these for our own use in developing lessons 

learned, perhaps, and -- or trying to correct --

self-correct issues. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDRADE: Okay? They could become 

(Inaudible) self-reportables or that sort of 

thing. So when you ask about incidents, you 

might expect that sort of push back. And that's 

just a word to the wise. Okay? 

MR. FITZGERALD: Okay. 

DR. ANDRADE: Clearances. If you go the 

classical DOE route, right now it's taking DOE 75 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 -- 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

161 

days to turn a request and the final adjudication 

back to the contractor -- 75 days. That is on 

top of an OPM* or even FBI investigation that 

might take a year. Okay? So we're looking at 

two years, practically speaking. 

Now, you mentioned that you had DOD sponsors 

that you might actually get secret or top secret 

MR. FITZGERALD: Top secret. 

DR. ANDRADE: -- clearances from? Okay. I'm 

not suggesting this as a way around, but if you 

can provide a compelling reason to a DOD 

sponsoring agency that you need access to special 

caveat of information, the way it's held in the 

DOD circles, called CNWDI -- Critical Nuclear 

Weapons Design Information. Okay? That is the 

equivalent to having access to DOE -- a DOE Q 

clearance with access to signals(signas)* one 

through ten type information. That includes 

design information. 

So if you can get access to CNWDI, or have 

your sponsor give you the CNWDI caveat, once 

you're -- you can actually transfer your badge 

from your DOD sponsor to a DOE contractor site 

and it will be recognized as you having access to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

162 

Q information. Okay? 

So a little complicated there, but 

nevertheless, it's -- it's the way we work with 

all branches of the services, the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, et cetera. Okay? So it 

may be a little bit easier than you think, if you 

have that DOD sponsorship and that compelling 

reason for the caveats of CNWDI. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, I would have to defer 

on the -- sort of the protocol and processes. 

I'm -- I'm unfamiliar outside the DOE side as --

DR. ZIEMER: It'll be easier if you can 

figure out what he's talking about. Otherwise --

MR. FITZGERALD: If it works, I'm for it. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I need to provide a point of 

clarification here. I'm not sure, Joe, where 

you're coming in with a DOD sponsor. You've got 

a DHHS sponsor to get you the top secret, so you 

may have mis-spoken that earlier. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, it's D-- you said DOD 

sponsor. Actually it's -- the DOD is the one 

that responds to the HHS sponsorship to get the 

top secret. They're just the mechanism by which 

the investigation's handled. It's just -- the 

sponsorship comes from --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 -- 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

163 

MR. ELLIOTT: DHHS. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Yes. 

MR. ELLIOTT: I don't think DOD is involved 

anywhere in this process. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, they are in terms of 

actually conducting the investigation itself, but 

DR. ZIEMER: On your behalf, though, so --

MR. FITZGERALD: On your behalf. 

MR. ELLIOTT: That's news to me 'cause we've 

been dealing with OPM/FBI. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

MR. ELLIOTT: DOD has never entered into the 

HHS realm. I need to check on this. 

MR. FITZGERALD: 'Cause DSS, the Defense 

Security Service, actually handles a lot of 

domestic investigations, so --

MR. FITZGERALD: With the new Department --

with Homeland Security we're seeing a whole 

watershed change here in process, so this is news 

I need to follow up on. 

DR. ANDRADE: If you -- if you could -- you 

know, like I said, this is a potential mechanism 

to be able to access -- at least get some 

information from the Q-cleared regime*. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

164 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, we can follow up on that. 

DR. ANDRADE: Yeah, if you would. I think 

that -- that would be really good --

MR. FITZGERALD: I guess before we leave the 

topic, since you have first-hand experience at 

Los Alamos, would you agree, though, that even 

for a place like Los Alamos, lack of a Q or 

equivalent would pretty much handcuff you in 

terms of your ability to even move around, let 

alone get information? 

DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. You'd be a prisoner. 

MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) Do you have 

any form of a clearance? 

MR. ELLIOTT: Speak in the mike, please. 

MR. PRESLEY: Do y'all have any form of a 

clearance now? 

MR. FITZGERALD: No, we do not, and this 

process that NIOSH instigated with HHS 

sponsorship actually will lead to a top secret 

clearance probably within days, which is quite an 

accomplishment in itself, but will fall short --

which I think is what Antonio was saying -- fall 

short of what's required for the DOE complex at 

the weapons facilities. They require a Q and 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

165 

nothing less than a Q, and that's -- that's the 

issue we probably have to resolve if we're going 

to do Y-12, Los Alamos and some of these other 

locations. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim, you have a question? 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it's not on security, so 

if that's -- we're done with that, yeah, I have a 

couple of questions. And one is I guess for 

Larry. In terms of this issue of what's a 

report, how should the subcontr-- or the 

contractor report their findings and what if they 

sort of -- I guess you're sort of asking, Joe, 

should you -- because of access or other issues, 

cannot complete a review, would there be 

possibility for an interim report being part of 

the process. Is it possible like to modify their 

task orders or something to include that? I'm 

just trying to think within the contractual... 

MR. ELLIOTT: Certainly. Certainly, that --

that -- you know, what -- you know, I think that 

it is certainly appropriate to effect a 

modification on a task order for a due cause, 

just reason. And I think the Board has to come 

to grips with -- with all of that and make some 

decisions on how to manage this audit process and 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

166 

-- and conserve the resources at hand. 

DR. ZIEMER: The question of what constitutes 

a final report is not a well-defined thing. I 

think SC&A, for example, may say we -- we don't 

consider it final until we've reached some level 

of comfort in what we've been able to look at. 

And we haven't spelled out exactly what that is. 

We've spelled it out in very general terms, but 

it doesn't say that you have to have a certain 

number of site interviews or this or that. It's 

a kind of a fuzzy end point, which is somewhat 

dependent on Joe's group and others saying yes, 

we have completed that and now we bring it to the 

Board. Or if we have to do it without certain 

components, we don't feel it's complete. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, and my -- my --

DR. ZIEMER: And so that -- that's kind of 

part of the issue, what's complete. And you can 

go to extremes on this. You know, I had a 

faculty member once who we kept urging him to 

publish more. The papers were never complete. 

Why not? Well, they were -- he was never quite 

satisfied that he had achieved perfection. But 

somewhere between that and doing a really sloppy 

job, there may -- there may have to be some point 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

167 

at which you say I'm done with this; I can't do 

any more. Within whatever the constraints are, 

whether they're time constraints, resource 

constraints, access constraints, there may be 

some point where you have to say that's as good 

as it's going to get, folks, within some reason. 

And you know --

MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, the other reality, 

too, is site profiles are living documents and --

DR. ZIEMER: They're changing. 

MR. FITZGERALD: -- sort of begs the question 

at some point -- for example, the construction 

workers are added as a component, you might want 

to at least come back with any assessment of that 

component. But this -- this issue is -- what 

we're looking at is going forward and seeing a 

certain unevenness. You know, a certain -- you 

know, we take the list that you gave us very 

seriously as far as the agenda of site profiles 

that -- reviews that are expected. Certain ones 

clearly, because of the clearance issue, are 

questionable in the near term. So those will be 

ones that we probably can't give you much at all. 

There were others that -- like Hanford, where 

that won't be as major an issue, but will be a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

168 

issue. So we may be able to do let's say 70 

percent of what we think would be an adequate job 

of providing that feedback. 

My question -- and then there's others like 

Mallinckrodt and Bethlehem Steel I feel pretty 

comfortable that we're -- we'll be prepared to 

give you something before your next meeting. So 

it's that sort of in-between situation where, you 

know, we're not able to do what we have looked at 

in terms of our procedures and your charter as 

being that, you know, full analysis. And you 

know, we're sitting here thinking well, on one 

hand we've expended resources to produce this --

this much work, but we can't share it if it isn't 

the analysis we think it should be. But you 

know, what do we do with it in the meantime? Do 

we wait until we get access or do we give you the 

best we can? Certainly we don't want to do 

damage to the scope that's been laid out. I 

think, as we said earlier, the scope has proven 

to be I think a valuable scope, and certainly we 

want to be able to give you as much as we can. 

But you know, the reality is that -- I guess it 

wasn't foreseen in the beginning that the access 

is not going to be uniform and comprehensive. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

169 

It's going to be uneven and it's going to be 

time-based. We'll probably be okay next year, 

maybe even sooner than that. But you know, I 

think as Antonio was saying, the vagaries of 

being able to get the unencumbered access to a 

high secure site -- anyone's guess. And I -- you 

know, the stakes may have gone up. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but -- but it seems to me 

that -- certainly I'm personally more comfortable 

with some of the review not being done because of 

a security clearance issue. That's a relatively 

straightforward --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: I think when it becomes an issue 

of the resources necessary to pay the contractor 

for the time of their personnel and so forth 

involved, if that becomes an issue I think it --

I guess I would have more concerns about that. 

And it certainly I think puts NIOSH in a very 

difficult position because in some sense, if the 

resources aren't being made available for our 

contractor to do their work, it would certainly -

- raises the -- you know, the appearance that 

NIOSH is, you know, holding back and somehow 

impeding our review of the NIOSH dose 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

170 

reconstruction process. And I think that is --

puts NIOSH and puts us in a very uncomfortable 

and very difficult position. So if -- if we're 

going to be cutting back on what's being done in 

terms of them having appropriate access to the 

site and appropriate resources necessary for that 

access in context of the MOU and the other 

procedures worked out, then I think we -- we have 

to be very careful about that. I think the Q 

clearance issue is much more clear-cut and -- you 

know, we get at some point and say well, you 

know, 70 percent of this site profile review can 

be done, but 30 percent we can't because without 

the Q clearance access we just can't really 

review certain parts of the site profile or 

certain parts of the site. Then I think, you 

know, modifying the task order in a way that 

would allow an interim report and then, you know, 

a final report at some point when the -- you 

know, the Q clearance issue has been addressed, I 

think that makes -- it's pretty straightforward 

to do. 

I also would say that -- I mean there's no 

doubt once some of these are -- for example, the 

site profile reviews are done, that we may want 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

171 

to look at see what overall our procedures are 

and then -- and learn from that experience. I'd 

rather learn from maybe having done a little bit 

too much than cutting back, then, you know, being 

in a position of not having had, you know, 

complete access and not doing all that you 

originally thought should be -- should be --

should be done for that. 

I also have a concern that -- in terms of 

scheduling. And if I understood you right now, 

your slides are -- what's been updated, it's 

Mallinckrodt you now have access to the documents 

and so forth? That's been... 

MR. FITZGERALD: No, we -- we are still 

waiting for additional documents from NIOSH on 

Mallinckrodt. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. FITZGERALD: We don't have everything 

that we need to finish Mallinckrodt. We have 

done quite a bit on Mallinckrodt and feel 

confident we can wrap things up probably within 

weeks, but we're still looking for some 

documents. 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh, but -- 'cause I think 

one of the -- I mean we're going to talk about 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

172 

this more tomorrow is this SEC petition review. 

And if we're in the -- I mean I would hate us to 

be in the position of having a site profile 

review pending from Mallinckrodt at the same time 

being in which we haven't got a report from our 

contractor on the original site profile, and 

NIOSH be in the position of reviewing a petition 

based on the site profile, and us reviewing the 

NIOSH SEC petition review. And maybe they'll not 

be connected at all, but may be they will and it 

would be, you know... 

DR. ZIEMER: Larry, did you have a comment on 

the Mallinckrodt? Or... 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

we're not aware of any documents that we owe you 

at this point in time. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I mean -- again, 

things are breaking pretty fast and to be fair, 

Jim, we have -- actually now that we have access 

to the NIOSH database as of last Thursday, we 

have done searches against it on Mallinckrodt 

just to see what reference documents in the site 

profile we had -- you know, actually had access 

to and which ones we didn't, and there are some 

documents that we want to look at that aren't in 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

173 

the database apparently. I think actually John 

has the list. 

But you know, again, this is breaking -- I 

mean what's today, Tuesday? We -- we did the 

search this Friday and, you know --

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) It sounded like 

you were awaiting documents that we -- you had 

asked us for and I just wanted --

MR. FITZGERALD: No, no, the question --

DR. NETON: -- to make sure --

MR. FITZGERALD: -- was were we all set with 

Mallinckrodt, and my answer was no, we actually 

needed some additional documents. But again, in 

terms of timing, we just got access to --

DR. ZIEMER: It's just a matter of finding 

out exactly where they are. 

MR. FITZGERALD: -- the NIOSH database and 

finding out what was in there, and then compare 

it up against the site profile. And of course 

what we established where there was a delta. 

There were some documents referenced that were 

not in the database, and certainly two days later 

we're now prepared to ask NIOSH if we could 

certainly have access to those documents. So you 

know, again, a lot of this is just --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

174 

DR. ZIEMER: Just in real time it's just --

MR. FITZGERALD: -- mostly real time we've 

gotten the ability to know what NIOSH actually 

has in its database, so... 

DR. ZIEMER: Let's see --

DR. MELIUS: I have another --

DR. ZIEMER: -- Mark? Oh, you have one more, 

Jim. 

DR. MELIUS: -- one more question, final 

question. Is -- and this may be more for Larry, 

but Tom Rollow's -- I think referred this to you 

this morning, but could you explain to us this 

issue regarding access to the sites and this 

Memorandum of Understanding and the payment 

mechanisms and so forth, 'cause I'm just trying 

to understand if there's an issue or if there's 

not an issue now or if it's a short-term issue, 

long-term, what -- what's going on? 

MR. ELLIOTT: There is no issue that has been 

brought to my attention at this point in time. 

We have been as cooperative and collaborative as 

I think we can be in trying to respond to 

requests. I'm a little bit disconcerted here 

that this was -- that, Joe, you just portrayed 

that you had -- awaiting documents from us that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

175 

you haven't even requested of us yet, but there 

are -- you know, I -- the arrangement that we 

have with DOE under our MOU is that we will 

facilitate access. If we hear that there is a 

push-back because of funding, a need to support 

the access request, we'll work that out with DOE. 

But to date we have not heard any of that, or no 

instances have been brought to my attention. And 

I don't believe to Tom's attention at this point 

in time, 'cause if they were, I'm sure he would 

have talked to me about them. 

DR. ZIEMER: Tom seemed to indicate that the 

-- that the field was prepared to assist in our 

effort here, so --

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, with one caveat. I 

mean -- make it very clear that understandably 

the DOE field operations want to be assured that 

we have cross-referenced our document requests 

with the NIOSH database, which we were unable to 

do until last Thursday or Friday. And it will 

now be possible to give them that assurance and 

actually send a request through and know that it 

hasn't been already requested and recovered. So 

yeah, with that caveat, I think we're in a 

position to do so. But without being able to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

176 

provide that assurance, understandably the field 

office -- or field operations were unwilling to -

-

DR. ZIEMER: Well --

MR. FITZGERALD: -- to respond. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- they didn't want to do double 

work. 

MR. FITZGERALD: No, no, and that's 

understandable. I don't disagree with that. 

DR. ZIEMER: Henry? 

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

for the Board, it would seem to me that a interim 

report -- what we want to do is be sure that you 

don't expend the resource, that you don't put 

extra effort into what you can do on a site --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- and then say well, we can't 

do the rest of this, and then if --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- subsequently access becomes 

available, you then turn around --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- and say well, we need more 

resources. I'd rather say let's reserve the 

resources and when the clearances -- which 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

177 

ultimately they will come through -- then you 

would complete that, but we would just --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- kind of hold your -- your 

contract resources, but we would perhaps want to 

know what you had to date. Now we'll have the 

first ones coming up so we'll get a sense of, you 

know, how -- you know, where -- where was the 

confirmation strongest --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- if it was on the interviews 

or whatever. And you may say gee, you know, on 

the basis of the three we've done or two you've 

done, that seems to be a very important component 

of the assessment and when we talked to people on 

site, that --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- you know, the blinders came 

off and it was very obvious as to what was going 

on, so --

MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 

DR. ANDERSON: So that's -- I wouldn't -- I 

wouldn't want you to --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

DR. ANDERSON: -- redeploy resources to do 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

178 

your site, you know, profile assessments, put 

more effort onto this, and then -- because you 

can't do it here. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, we -- we -- we do --

you know, we have a challenge, and I think that 

challenge has been re-emphasized by NIOSH that, 

you know, we have a explicit budget that we have 

to operate within, and so essentially it's a zero 

sum game --

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 

MR. FITZGERALD: -- that we have to find a 

way to conduct these reviews within that set 

budget. And if we expend those resources, those 

resources are not available to review other sites 

or to do a broader scope. So you know, that -- I 

don't disagree. I think it's going to have to be 

managed very carefully or otherwise it's going to 

truncate the entire process. 

DR. ZIEMER: Robert, then Mark. 

MR. PRESLEY: You had two or three more down 

here before me. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Oh, okay. Mark, 

(Inaudible)? 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I just wonder -- I guess 

the funding question has been answered here, but 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

179 

I -- I'm looking at the first bullet up hereon 

your considerations, and the last phrase there 

concerns me a little bit that there seems to be 

some questioning of the comprehensive scope of 

the reviews. Is that -- I mean are there issues 

about what kinds of -- of data or the extent of 

data that you're looking to access as compared to 

the scope within the task order, or is that 

becoming an issue? Because we -- we as a Board 

haven't been put in -- that issue hasn't been 

raised to us and I'm just wondering how -- if 

there is that issue, how does that get resolved? 

It seems --

MR. FITZGERALD: Well --

MR. GRIFFON: -- seems there like you're 

referring to you -- you've had these 

conversations with NIOSH staff -- I don't know, 

I'm... 

MR. FITZGERALD: -- NIOSH is the contracting 

organization, and what we have to look at is the 

expenditures and the burn rate and certainly one 

issue is to sort of compare scope in terms of 

what's being addressed and the depth as it's 

being addressed. Obviously this could be -- each 

profile review could be, you know, months and 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

180 

months and months, you know, so you have to draw 

a line. And so the discussion's been pretty much 

to assure that there isn't -- I think the term of 

art is a scope creep where you're not necessarily 

beginning to move out of what is a defined scope 

for the review itself. And so those discussions 

have been involved in terms of, you know, what is 

in fact this scope that we're trying to 

accomplish. 

Now the scope that we're operating against is 

the scope that's been laid out I think very 

clearly in the original task order and in the 

site profile procedures which this Board 

approved. But you know, again, they have not 

been tested in the field, so to some extent this 

is the sort of proof in the pudding of, you know, 

how this actually is going to be implemented. 

We're finding of course some things take more 

resources than originally envisioned. 

Interacting with site experts not surprisingly 

takes resources. And so we're gaining this 

feedback and passing that feedback to NIOSH, 

making sure they're aware of, you know, how this 

is going along. So there's been some I think 

discussion on scope, but certainly that's one 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

181 

issue that clearly the Board should be aware of 

and certainly that's going to be something that 

will come up in the reviews that you'll be seeing 

over the next month or two in terms of what 

should be the model, as far as how deep you go in 

these verticals and what kind of analyses is 

appropriate for these audits. But... 

DR. ZIEMER: And let me add to that, also, 

Mark. I think at the front end of the process, 

this Board or those who were acting in our behalf 

in terms of the original cost estimates, did an 

estimate that for a certain number of dollars you 

could do a certain number of reviews. And 

likewise, I think the contractor bid sort of in -

- I don't want to say in the dark, but at least 

without all the information available as to what 

that would entail. Now as we get into the real 

issues and what it takes to do it, we may find 

out that the resources available are only 

sufficient to do -- let's say ten instead of 12, 

or something like that. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, certainly --

DR. ZIEMER: We're sort of learning as we go, 

both of us, the Board and the contractor, as to 

what it takes in time and effort and resources to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 -- 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

182 

do these reviews. 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess part of what I'm --

what I'm inquiring is what's the decision-making 

process? 'Cause I don't think the Board's 

learning very much about that process. I mean I 

-- you know, we -- we've seen maybe that there's 

some questions on the complexity or the depth of 

the scope, you know. What -- what in particular 

and who -- who makes those -- I understand 

there's budget constraints and that NIOSH has the 

DR. ZIEMER: No, I think --

MR. GRIFFON: -- is the contracting officer -

-

DR. ZIEMER: -- the Board has to make --

MR. GRIFFON: -- but we've been very clear on 

this Board that we -- we --

DR. ZIEMER: The Board has to determine --

MR. GRIFFON: -- have the say on the scope. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- if the tasks go -- is to 

change, and I think --

MR. GRIFFON: Right, so we can't --

DR. ZIEMER: -- Joe's giving us kind of a 

heads-up that -- what issues are emerging and --

MR. GRIFFON: But I don't know if we can wait 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

183 

for final reviews to come out and then -- I mean 

maybe that goes back to that question of interim 

reports, but I -- I mean I think if there's 

issues on scope creep -- is that the -- you know, 

potent-- word you use, you know, if those issues 

are there now, I think we need to maybe resolve 

them or clarify what -- you know... 

MR. FITZGERALD: Well, I think the 

considerations really touch upon I think some of 

the factors, one of which is the zero sum on 

resources, that we have to plan within those 

resources. That's -- that's one issue. The 

other issue is -- you know, again, we're -- we're 

establishing on the ground this issue of, you 

know, what the scope should be. It's defined 

certainly in the procedures, but in practice, how 

far do you go and all that? And certainly this 

question of what do you do as a contingency if in 

the interim you can't touch those bases? And 

certainly -- I think Jim was mentioning, you 

know, certainly some approaches to -- but there's 

many -- probably many more. That's why it sort 

of left it as considerations, but those are all -

- those three or four factors are all key factors 

that I think constrain what that solution would -

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

184 

- would be. And I -- we just didn't want to go 

so far and -- and presume what the Board would 

want to give us as guidance on this. You know, 

right now we're at the juncture where it would be 

very helpful to understand what -- what would 

make sense. 

DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

MR. PRESLEY: Joe, you might think about 

changing your clearance from a Q to an L. In my 

estimation --

MR. FITZGERALD: I haven't got the Q yet. 

MR. PRESLEY: If you -- if you've got a Q, 

then you're fine. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

MR. PRESLEY: But the people that are there 

really don't have a need to know for design data. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

MR. PRESLEY: Most of the documents are 

accessible at a lower level. It takes a whole 

lot less time to get a L than it does a Q. 

MR. FITZGERALD: I guess I would defer to 

those who have crossed that line and had -- my 

experience with -- I had a Q for two decades, and 

my experience is certain places in the complex, 

even with a Q, without a need to know, I would 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

185 

sit out in the waiting room for hours. And so 

can you imagine not having a Q? I suspect you 

couldn't get past the gate, particularly these 

days. I'm just saying from practical experience, 

for certain sites like Y-12 and what-not, it's 

going to be very difficult to accomplish our 

mission without Q clearance, and I think that's 

all I can say about that. Other sites, not so. 

MR. GRIFFON: My experience is similar. I 

mean I had the L and then had to wait for an 

upgrade to the Q. The problem I ran -- a lot of 

the records that I had to review didn't need more 

than an L clearance. The problem is that they 

were in file cabinets or --

MR. FITZGERALD: Right. 

MR. GRIFFON: -- placed in with Q-cleared --

right -- so you couldn't have access to those 

areas, you know. 

DR. MELIUS: Nobody told them when they set 

up the filing system. 

DR. ZIEMER: Jim, did you have another 

comment? 

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

comments. One is a contracting one and somebody 

from NIOSH can correct me, but if we did modify 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

186 

the task orders for -- allow for an interim 

report, I would foresee -- and let's use the Q 

clearance issue 'cause I think it's the most 

straightforward -- that our contractor could make 

the case that when they originally bid on this, 

they assumed they could do this all in one visit 

or two visits or whatever it is, that there would 

be extra costs involved if they had to spread 

these out over -- over time. So I think we have 

to, you know -- you know, laying the burden on 

them is to show that that was their intent in how 

they made their original bid, but I think we'd 

have to be ready to allow for some modification 

in the -- the cost of the contract, should these 

get split up into -- especially if it gets split 

up in more than one interim report, if there's --

some of this comes across piecemeal in some way 

or whatever. 

The other issue I'd like to get at is sort of 

the schedule for when we will be, you know, 

seeing some of the reports from the contractor, 

because I think some of these issues are going to 

be easier for us to deal with going forward once 

everyone's seen a report and we've had some time 

to discuss it. So you know, can we assume that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

187 

for our next -- our October meeting that 

Bethlehem Steel and Mallinckrodt will be 

complete? How about Savannah River? 

MR. FITZGERALD: We are on site this week. I 

think that's a possibility, although -- you know, 

again, you know, the review process through --

we're going to send the report through NIOSH and 

then to the Board. That takes time and that 

process itself may, you know, take weeks, so that 

part of it I can't account for. I think we'll 

certainly have the drafts that can be transmitted 

to NIOSH for review by then. 

DR. MELIUS: Are we going to talk about the 

review process tomorrow when we're talking about 

-- okay. Then I'll -- I'm just trying to figure 

this out in terms of -- 'cause I think once we 

have, you know, one big site like Savannah River, 

and then the two smaller sites, I think we may 

have a better handle and better able to talk 

about some of these issues going forward and so 

forth. 

MR. FITZGERALD: Small sites like the AWEs 

are much different than the larger, more secure 

sites -- DOE sites. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

188 

MR. FITZGERALD: I mean just by nature, we --

we have much more ready access on the AWE 

information. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. And -- but Savannah River 

I think would be a good -- if that's the first 

one done, we can work from there. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 

 (No responses) 

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

appreciate that and Steve -- well, we're flexible 

here and Steve --

DR. MELIUS: You have 30 seconds. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- Steve's going to do both the 

organizational conflict of interest plan and the 

quality assurance plan. Right, Steve? 

DR. OSTROW: (Off microphone) Yeah, 

(Inaudible). 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

(Pause) 

DR. OSTROW: Okay, first of all, I'm not John 

Mauro. I'm Steve Ostrow and I work with John, 

and I'm going to speak first of our conflict of 

interest plan. 

(Pause) 

All right, we have a conflict of interest 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

189 

plan. It's a little bit misnomered. It's not 

just an organizational conflict of interest. 

It's also personal conflict of interest. And the 

-- it's basically a formal plan to assure that 

everything is done aboveboard and we don't have 

any conflict of interest with the organizations 

involved, SC&A and subcontractors and individual 

people involved in the project. 

The basic mandate for the conflict of 

interest goes back to the government FAR 

regulations, and we translated it then into a 

procedure that we can follow. And the purpose is 

to basically assure that we can render impartial 

judgment and impartial advice to the advisory 

committee. 

And we have -- the organization 

responsibilities, we have -- the plan's fairly 

long, but it boils down to a few things, that --

we committed that we're not going to bid on or 

perform any work for NIOSH or ORAU or any of 

their contractors. We won't accept any work from 

DOE or DOE contractor that has to do with 

radiological issues. And that we will -- if any 

gray areas, we'll consult with the Board for 

guidance to resolve them. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

190 

The individuals -- as part of our procedure, 

everybody on the project -- we have 36 total 

member -- individual members on the project. Not 

everybody's working and giving time, but 

potentially we have 36 people who could work on 

the project. Everyone was given a copy of the 

OCI plan. They have to acknowledge that they 

received it and they understand it. And they 

sent to the plan administer a questionnaire that 

they filled out about their past activities 

related to things like what sites they worked on 

and what projects they worked on. The 

administrator then makes a determination of 

whether they can have basically unlimited 

clearance to work on anything in the project or 

whether there's any restrictions on what they can 

work on. 

These are just copies of the -- on the left 

of the acknowledgement form that the person fills 

out to acknowledge they read the plan and 

understand it. On the right-hand side are the 

five questions that people have to answer, and 

it's probably easiest to read this in the handout 

than on the screen. It's a little bit difficult. 

But basically any "no" responses -- or any "yes" 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

191 

responses have to elaborate with attachments. 

And some of the criteria that we have that 

individuals -- if they have served as an expert 

witness on any Worker Compensation cases, 

radiation-related, on behalf of DOE or DOE 

contractors, they're precluded. If they're 

currently working for NIOSH, ORAU or contractors 

under that, they're also precluded from working 

on the project. If they have worked for NIOSH, 

ORAU or companies teamed with ORAU on dose 

reconstruction in the past, we look at it 

carefully. If they worked for DOE or DOE 

contractors in the past, or have worked on DOE 

sites or contractor sites, we have to look at it 

carefully at what they were actually doing. 

The -- we document this pretty well. We 

maintain -- after we make a determination, we 

maintain in our files in the SC&A headquarters --

we have a secure file -- all sorts of information 

about the plan, the individual responses, the 

findings on the individuals, what sites they 

cleared for or not cleared for. And the idea is 

to have it sort of a transparent process, that if 

there -- anyone wants to -- authorized wants to 

look at it, we have all the information available 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

192 

for audit. 

In addition to the individual, we also have 

corporate conflict of interest certifications 

that the different -- SC&A and its 

subcontractors, that they're not engaging in any 

outside -- different contracts or work which may 

conflict with the work we're doing on this 

particular contract. 

And we maintain two summary lists that are 

available to the Board -- or will be, if... The 

first one is just a summary of the yes and no 

responses to the five questions that we ask for 

each individual. We have it by individual, and 

I'll show -- one of the last slides shows this 

and their yes and no to the five questions -- and 

the certification review results -- restricted, 

unrestricted or precluded from a particular site. 

And the other list is restricted site list, so 

all -- so it's the same information, but in a 

different format -- for each of the 36 

individuals, where they may -- the sites where 

they may not serve as the lead reviewer. 

Just a little statistics that -- these are 

the five questions, and I just will summarize 

them -- the questions are longer, but the first 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

193 

one, has a person worked -- or working now or 

have worked on the dose reconstruction contract, 

and two people had worked on it in the past. 

Second one, anybody an expert witness in 

Worker Comp, and zero, which is the way it should 

be 'cause that person wouldn't be able to 

participate in anything if they did do that. 

Third, working for a DOE, DOE contractor, 

AWE, et cetera. Not surprisingly, a lot of the -

- 27 out of 36 have, because pretty much anybody 

in the nuclear industry who would work on the 

project had in the past some experience with 

contractors or DOE, otherwise they wouldn't be 

qualified now to work on the project. 

And same thing number four, working a DOE or 

AWE site, and in the past a good fraction of work 

-- done some work on the site. 

And finally, five, current or past contracts 

or financial relationships resulting in actual or 

perceived COI. That's also zero because you 

wouldn't be able to work on the project if you 

said yes to this one. 

Also in statistics, this has been -- this is 

two weeks old -- so right now, out of the 36, we 

have 21 unrestricted and they can work on 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

194 

basically any -- anything; 15 restricted, zero 

precluded, and nobody's pending review. 

The plan also has sort of a general provision 

it has to be somewhat self-policing because you 

can't anticipate, when you're filling out this 

form ahead of time, exactly what you're going to 

be reviewing in the future, so people have to use 

-- and task leaders have to use a little bit of 

judgment. Obviously you can't review any work 

that you have personal knowledge of, that you had 

worked on, you know, in one of your past 

assignments, so you have to be sort of selfpolicing, the people on the project (Inaudible). 

We stress that if there's any doubt, they have 

to consult with the COI officer and then if that 

can't be resolved, then we'd take it to the Board 

for a determination. But people have to be 

vigilant on this. 

This is a first summary list, just a quick 

look where we have the five ques-- all the people 

in the project, organizations they're from, yes 

and no to the five questions, date of the reviews 

and whether it's any restrictions on their 

participation in any aspects of it. This is like 

a quick list you can go down. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

195 

There's always backup information of course 

in the files. If you pick a particular person, 

he has a folder in our files that has all the 

backup that exp-- you know, goes into the details 

on this. That's the second page of it. 

This is the second list. This is also by 

person and lists the particular projects where 

people -- or sites where people may not have 

access to serve as a lead reviewer. So you can 

see, for example, one person is precluded from 

working on Fermilab and Los Alamos, for example, 

because that person had past experience at that 

laboratory. The person can still be a subject 

expert. You know, it's a valuable resource to 

have somebody who actually worked at one of these 

sites, but that person cannot be a lead reviewer, 

responsible for the review. This is the second 

page of the same list. 

And finally, this is also going to the list, 

this is just the different site acronyms that we 

use and the organizations involved. So that was 

-- that's a quick overview of the conflict of 

interest draft plan that we've been operating 

with. 

Before I go into the QA portion, this is a 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

196 

good point to ask for some questions now on the 

conflict of interest stuff. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let me point out to the 

Board that the conflict of interest plan is a 

deliverable, and requires our acceptance and 

approval. The slides are not the plan. The 

slides are a summary of the plan. The plan was 

e-mailed to you earlier. I don't know if you've 

brought copies with you or -- and if you -- what 

we need to do -- we'll have questions and so on, 

but we'll need a motion to accept or approve the 

conflict of interest plan. But let's open the 

floor for questions first. 

DR. OSTROW: I was going to make a comment. 

In addition to the comments of the Board, we 

personally would like to make a couple of 

modifications, mainly of the housekeeping things. 

We read it and looked it and there's a couple of 

things --

DR. ZIEMER: On the actual document itself. 

DR. OSTROW: Yeah, it's mainly in the 

editorial --

DR. ZIEMER: We'll need to know what those --

DR. OSTROW: Of course. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- changes are, of course, but -

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

197 

-

DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) I 

believe --

DR. ZIEMER: John, you'll --

MR. ELLIOTT: Use the microphone --

DR. ZIEMER: -- need to use the mike for our 

recorder here. Or use one of those mikes there. 

Just grab one there. 

DR. MAURO: I just wanted to make a point 

that I believe eventually material that we've 

been summarizing here by way of conflict of 

interest will be going up on a web site. 

(Inaudible) I believe there's conflict of 

interest information regarding your -- regarding 

NIOSH's contractors. There's certain information 

that's on the web site as full disclosure. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MAURO: We will be doing the same thing 

once we reach the point where it's appropriate. 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MAURO: So for example, the lists --

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think once the Board 

accepts it as the plan, then it's -- would 

certainly be appropriate at that point. Yeah, 

thank you. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 -- 

25 

198 

Are there questions at this point? Henry? 

DR. ANDERSON: I'm assuming that NIOSH has 

looked at it. I don't -- I mean -- I would be 

interested to know if you have any comments about 

it. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We've read it --

DR. ANDERSON: You've got a lot of 

experience. 

MR. ELLIOTT: We've read it, but it's your 

decision --

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- it's not ours. We have no 

input to this. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

DR. OSTROW: Well, could I just make one 

little statement? We -- the plan itself 

basically is very similar to what we put in our 

proposal. We made a few modifications to it, 

it's basi-- it's 95 percent the same, just maybe 

better English, hopefully. And the... 

DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 

MS. MUNN: I'm assuming we will have hard 

copies of the plan and whatever changes have been 

DR. ZIEMER: Cori --

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 -- 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

199 

MS. MUNN: -- undertaken. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- just went to check to see if 

there's hard copy available for you now in case 

you didn't bring your e-mailed copy. 

MS. MUNN: No, I downloaded it, but I didn't 

even print it. 

DR. ZIEMER: We can defer action on the plan 

until the work session tomorrow and (Inaudible) 

sure that we have hard copy by then. 

MS. MUNN: I would prefer that. 

UNIDENTIFIED: I have a hard copy. 

DR. ZIEMER: You have a hard copy there that 

UNIDENTIFIED: It's got some mark-ups on it. 

DR. ZIEMER: -- could be made -- but let's --

let's -- is it agreeable, we'll just defer the 

action to the -- tomorrow's working session so 

that we make sure everybody has a hard copy and 

then we'll get the what, editorial or minor 

modifications? 

DR. OSTROW: I haven't actually made the 

editorial comments yet. I thought we would do it 

the other way around and see if the Board had any 

comments, then the final product of the editorial 

stuff. I thought I'd do it the other way around. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 -- 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

200 

MR. ELLIOTT: Tony, is yours clean? 

DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

DR. MELIUS: I have a clean one, too, if 

you... 

MR. GIBSON: Both this and the QA plan, as 

well. 

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

let's defer action at least till we make sure 

everybody has a hard copy and then we can mark in 

-- who has your changes then on this one? 

DR. OSTROW: No one has, I didn't make them 

yet. 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you haven't made them yet. 

DR. OSTROW: I mean I have in the mind 

something I want to do, but I thought I'd do it 

the other way around and get the Board's comments 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but we really need to 

approve what we approve and what's --

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- final, and --

DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. MELIUS: -- either -- you know. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, we'll get -- we'll get 

this copied. You'll tell us what changes you 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

201 

want to make before we approve it then. 

DR. OSTROW: Okay. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So we'll defer the actual 

action till either later this afternoon or 

tomorrow then, if that's agreeable. 

DR. OSTROW: Fine. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. You want to proceed 

then with the other -- quality assurance 

information then? 

DR. OSTROW: Sure. Okay. This is the second 

presentation on quality assurance on the project. 

And this basically is nothing new or novel, that 

all the work we do and I'm sure the work other 

people do in organizations is governed by a 

quality assurance plan. You have to have a -- we 

wrote a project-specific plan that is --

basically governs how the process is done and it 

reflects the job requirements, in addition to the 

regulatory requirements that are on the project. 

And basically it controls and documents all 

aspects of the project. 

The goal is to do everything consistently, 

according to the contract requirements and 

regulatory requirements, and also to provide a 

record of what's been done so that in the future 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

202 

if somebody asks well, why did you do this and 

this or how did you do this and this or what did 

you actually do, the record is there. You can go 

back and take a look and the process is clear and 

transparent. And it also provides an order trail 

for our work to do, so that's the basic purpose 

of a quality assurance project plan. 

The -- I'm not going to go into all the 

details, but as part of the plan we have --

(Inaudible) applies to everything on the project 

and -- and it includes -- we were talking before 

about confidentiality and security provisions, as 

part of the quality plan also mentions that --

what we have to do to comply with the -- with any 

security or confidentiality provisions. It also 

outlines the organization, who does what. And in 

the SC&A organization, further down, which person 

does what, what -- what the different functions 

are so you work together. This is like project 

management 101 a little bit, but who's 

responsible for different things. 

The -- it ensures also that all work's done 

to -- according to approved procedures, and we're 

talking about approving procedures and that the 

right people have the right procedures, and that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

203 

they acknowledge they have the procedures and 

they're up to date with the latest procedures. 

And these are the -- altogether right now we 

have five procedures listed on this page. We 

were talking earlier -- Joe -- something about 

the site profile review procedure, that's one of 

them, so all work is done according to the 

approved procedure that we wrote and the Board 

approved. In part of the QA process we make sure 

that if Joe has ten people on his staff doing 

site reviews that all of them have the procedure 

and they acknowledge receipt and understanding of 

it, and they have the latest copy of the 

procedure. 

It also outlines the management process about 

how we manage the project. This is the task 

order process, how we receive task orders from 

the Board and we respond with task order 

proposals and manage the -- you know, the budget, 

the -- the time and the work product. 

I mentioned the training and documentation. 

Everyone has to basically sign off on the QA plan 

in the project. And the final -- we have a QA 

file also at our headquarters in the same NIOSH 

file room. It's a secure file. And that's 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

204 

available for inspection -- proper inspection 

also at any -- any time the Board would choose to 

do so. Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The 

quality assurance plan also is a deliverable to 

this Board and will require a similar action. 

This is not the plan. This is a summary of the 

plan, so we have the same issue on hard copy 

here. And are there -- do you anticipate any 

modifications to the actual plan before we take 

action? 

DR. OSTROW: No, I -- I didn't have anything 

other than there's a typo here or there, maybe, 

but I -- which I don't think there is, though. 

DR. ZIEMER: No, okay. Let's open the floor 

for questions. Tony? 

DR. ANDRADE: Steve, your last bullet said 

that you had a section in there on problem 

resolution. 

DR. OSTROW: Yes. 

DR. ANDRADE: I read -- I read the QA plan a 

few days ago, but I must admit it's getting a 

little hazy now. Does that include a section on 

-- on problems that could exist between the Board 

and SC&A? For example, the one that was 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

205 

described at the very beginning, you know, that 

we may have to change tasks or change the scopes 

of tasks as -- as time goes on. 

DR. OSTROW: It deals with problems between 

the Board and SC&A, but I'd have to reread that 

myself in more detail to see exactly what the 

extent is of the -- how much detail we went into 

in the plan --

DR. ANDRADE: Okay. 

DR. OSTROW: -- to see if it covers a 

situation like that. 

DR. ZIEMER: Other questions at this point? 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Again, we'll defer action 

on this for -- temporarily till we are sure that 

everybody has a hard copy and we have that before 

us for action, which probably is going to be 

tomorrow's work session, based on where we are on 

our agenda right now. Thank you very much. 

DR. OSTROW: Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Can we take a very quick break? 

Let's take ten minutes and then we'll hear from 

Jim, which will be the last item on our agenda 

for today. 

(Whereupon, a recess was taken.) 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

206 

SITE PROFILE STATUS AND DATABASE USE 

DR. ZIEMER: We’re set for the last 

presentation, and that will be a report on the 

site profile status and database use, by Jim 

Neton. Jim, you're set to go? 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Yes. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Too much going on. Too much 

going on. 

(Pause) 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Thank you. 

(Inaudible)? 

DR. ZIEMER: I think you may have to click 

the button, Jim. 

DR. NETON: Got to be a little closer --

there we go. Is that better? Okay, thank you. 

Let me have a chance to catch my breath here. 

was trying to juggle several tasks at the same 

time, which seems to coincide with my new 

position. 

DR. MELIUS: We need more water here. 

DR. NETON: I'm here to present what's sort 

of become a standard presentation as of late, 

which is to talk about the site profile status, 

where we are and where we're going with those 

documents. As well as -- there usually seems to 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 

I 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

207 

be a little twist on that, there's a little extra 

kicker that goes along with the presentation. 

And today I'd like to address what the Board 

asked about last time, which is a little 

description of the database; more specifically, 

the site research database. And concomitant, 

what goes along with that, is I'd like to touch 

on a fairly exciting area that we're delving 

into, both feet first, which is the coworker 

database and the analysis of claims using 

coworker data. 

Okay. As far as the site profiles go, if the 

Board remembers, we had 16 profiles that were 

targeted for priority treatment for DOE 

facilities. The idea behind that was, we picked 

-- ORAU and us -- ORAU and OCAS together picked 

the sites that had the highest number of cases. 

And once we completed those 16 site profiles, we 

would have data available to begin processing 

approximately 80 percent of the claimant 

population base at -- at that time. And that's 

been holding fairly steady, even since -- for the 

last year. 

I'm pleased to report that we have nine 

complete site profiles at this point, which 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

208 

represent almost 10,000 cases. That would --

that comprises roughly 60 percent of our claimant 

population base. The two asterisks that you see 

on this slide indicate the two profiles that have 

been completed since the last Board meeting. 

That would be the Oak Ridge X-10 facility, which 

has 1,126 claims, and the INEEL facility with 669 

claims in our possession. 

I would remind the Board and the public that 

a site profile is, in most cases, a compendium of 

six chapters. Each chapter represents a specific 

aspect of the site, ranging from the site 

description to internal dosimetry, external, 

medical, those types of topics. So when we say a 

profile is completed, we mean that all six of 

those chapters have been reviewed and signed off 

by our office. 

I will also remind the Board, though, that 

for expediency purposes we issue some chapters 

with sections that are labeled reserved or where 

information is missing, the idea being that if it 

is substantially complete we will approve it so 

that we can start processing claims that only 

require that portion of the data that we have at 

hand. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

209 

The next slide I men-- there were nine on 

that page. There are seven here listed. These 

are the seven remaining profiles out of the 16 

that we targeted for completion. And this slide 

actually shows the individual chapters and where 

-- what the status is of those chapters, a green 

box meaning it's green, good to go, it's been 

signed off by OCAS and is in field use. The blue 

boxes are those that are in comment resolution. 

All chapters have at least one draft completed. 

There -- as I mentioned previously, there is a 

fair amount of give and take between us and ORAU 

in the completion of these chapters. And in fact 

I think since I put this in my presentation, 

Paducah section four is now complete, so the 

occupational environmental dose section has been 

signed off by OCAS, so there actually remains 16 

out of -- out of 72 chapters, if you will, that 

are -- that would need to be completed. Which 

indicates that we've completed about 70 percent -

- 77 percent, almost 80 percent of the individual 

chapters of those 16 site profiles that we had 

targeted. 

One might wonder what's the holdup with these 

that are marked blue. A number of reasons. I 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

210 

think you'll notice fairly readily that K-25, 

Paducah and Portsmouth are gaseous diffusion 

plants that are SEC sites by definition. Those 

are problematic sites. They were granted SEC 

status because of some issues of transuranic 

contaminations, among other things. We are 

taking our time and being very careful to turn 

over as many stones as we can so that we have a 

fairly accurate portrayal of those sites. 

In addition to that, most of the cancers that 

we'll be getting from those sites are skin 

cancers and prostate. Skin cancer reconstruction 

-- skin dose reconstruction can be problematic at 

some of these facilities. We want to make sure 

we have certain factors like the geometry and 

those sort of things nailed down. 

The other remaining sites that are not SEC 

sites -- Mound tends to be a compendium of the 

periodic table of isotopes. If any of you are 

familiar with Mound, they did a lot of plutonium 

work, but there's also a large number of legacy 

isotopes out there that require -- required to be 

fleshed out. 

And then you've got some national security 

sites -- Los Alamos, Pantex possibly -- where 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

211 

we're -- we're still digging for documents and 

making sure that we've got a fairly accurate 

portrayal given that some of the information 

there is -- is classified. 

Okay. AWE site profiles -- a slightly 

different story. Did I skip a slide or two? No? 

DR. ZIEMER: This is the next one in the 

book. 

DR. NETON: Okay. These are additional DOE 

sites that are under development -- nine extra 

sites that we're working on. These are outside 

the original 16 we had targeted. I think I 

reported on these. They are in development. The 

two that are added to the list that had not yet 

been listed as under development since the last 

Board meeting are the two Argonne facilities, the 

one in -- near Chicago and the one -- actually 

Argonne West here in Idaho. 

AWE site profiles, there's been no movement 

in approved site profiles. We've issued four --

Bethlehem Steel, Blockson, AWE complex-wide and 

TVA Muscle Shoals. The Bethlehem Steel profile 

we have used to complete the overwhelming 

majority of the cases that were in our 

possession. They moved through the process 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

212 

nicely. Sanford Cohen & Associates is, as you 

heard earlier today, is well under way of 

assessment or an audit of that profile, and we 

look forward to hearing the results of their 

findings within -- well, certainly it sounds like 

before the next Board meeting. 

I'd like to say a little bit about the AWE 

complex-wide. We've done a fair number of cases 

with this profile. Just to remind the Board what 

this is, we have developed some generic --

generic's probably not a good choice of words --

some overestimates, what we believe to be 

overestimates for certain processes at AWEs that 

used uranium. And in particular they're 

overestimates for organs that don't concentrate 

uranium, what we call non-metabolic organs, so 

cancers of the pancreas, of the bladder or the 

prostate, those type cancers. And we're fairly 

confident that with these overestimating doses we 

assign that we have covered the range of 

exposures at those facilities. And these -- this 

has been fairly successful in freeing up a number 

of claims, particularly at those AWEs where we 

don't have any profile completed. 

These are additional AWE profiles under 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

213 

development. There's 20 additional sites listed 

here. We talked a little bit last time about the 

point of diminishing returns with development of 

site profiles. I believe -- I'm fairly confident 

in saying that it's unlikely that we're going to 

add many more individual site profile documents 

to this list. I think if you go through the list 

of cases that we have in our possession, we're 

down to 40 or below. Once you get below that 

target line, it's our opinion that it's really 

not worth going down and writing a specific 

document. We prefer to either modify an existing 

document to accommodate the unique nature of that 

AWE, or simply write a larger dose reconstruction 

report that includes all the relevant 

information. And the fact of the matter is 

that's why we have site profiles, so we don't 

have to publish 80-page dose reconstruction 

reports. I mean the profile can be referenced 

and people can get it on the web site. But for 

these smaller -- what I call mom and pop AWEs --

I mean we have five or six claims that were 

little machine shops out in the hinterlands. 

We'll probably adopt that kind of approach just 

to include the entire explanation in the dose 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

214 

reconstruction report. Might make the report a 

little less readable, but it would probably be 

more time-efficient for our purposes. 

I'd like to talk a little bit about the 

worker outreach meetings. That's been, I think, 

a pretty good success story. Bill Murray, some 

of you may know, heads that up for us in ORAU's 

organization, but we work very closely with him. 

In fact we've had a NIOSH representative at each 

of these meetings. We feel it's important to 

have our staff and our position covered there. 

We've had 13 meetings since we had the 

original one in Savannah River in 2003. And 

you'll notice that we've had multiple meetings --

there seems to be a pattern emerging where we're 

going back to some sites. This has principally 

been at the request of either the work force or 

just -- we had a feeling at these meetings that 

there was some information that we didn't 

capture. So we've actually had three meetings at 

Hanford, two at Portsmouth and, you know, we're 

considering wherever it's possible -- INEEL may 

end up having an additional meeting. 

It depends, but when you go to the site, you 

work with the union reps, construction trade 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

215 

folks, oftentimes you'll hear much more from them 

than you can capture in an individual setting. 

And particularly in the way the meeting is 

formatted, which is almost sort of a town hall --

mini town hall format. When we go back we've 

adopted sort of a workshop format where we'll sit 

around a round table and try to elicit from the 

folks any additional concerns they might have. 

I would remind folks that we do take meetings 

of all of these minutes -- or minutes of all 

these meetings, excuse me. And as they are 

approved, we send them to the attendees to make 

sure that they're factually accurate. Once those 

have been vetted, they will appear or do appear 

on our web site. 

All right, let me get into the site research 

database a little bit. This was brought up at 

the last Board meeting that -- you know, what is 

this site research database. And I think in 

particular it was -- it was brought up more in 

the context of where are these incident files 

that you guys have been talking about. So I'd 

like to just take a step backwards and talk about 

the site research database first, what it's 

intended to be. And you heard -- I believe it 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

216 

was Joe Fitzgerald just mention that I think they 

had a training session within the last few days 

on this. This is the database that we are 

providing access to Sanford Cohen & Associates. 

This is our entire database of all the records 

that we have captured from the inception of this 

project. 

It doesn't mean all the records that may be 

out there because some of the records that are in 

the public domain we just haven't bothered to put 

on there, and we can do that and we will do that. 

But these are the data capture efforts where 

we'll go out to a site and we'll bring them in, 

scan them and put them into this database. This 

contains images and data files for -- it's 

intended to contain images and data files for all 

covered facilities. I don't know that we 

actually have a populated image for each of the 

215 facilities or whatever we have claims for. 

But wherever we have captured them, if they fit 

into one of these 215 pigeonholes, that's where 

they go. 

So it's organized by facility, so if one 

wants to look at all the records we've captured 

for Hanford, you can do that. This is a SQL 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

217 

server database that is linked in the whole NOCTS 

scheme of things, and it has -- it's recently 

developed a very nice front end -- what we call 

front end or an application interfa-- user 

interface so that it has keyword searches 

available, all kinds of nifty things that people 

who do this type of work like to have to be able 

to expedite their work. Frankly, when it was 

originated it was on our network drive. It was 

the O drive and it was just a bunch of files 

listed by facility. Now it's much more userfriendly and -- and, you know, more efficient for 

us to be able to do work. 

What happens is when data capture efforts go 

out, there is -- there is a standard form. It's 

a yellow form, two-sided, that are -- is required 

to be filled out for each file that is captured 

out in the field. These files are indexed by 

keywords. They are indexed and reviewed by 

someone somewhat knowledgeable about the 

operations of facilities, and a little miniabstract is prepared that kind of tells you what 

the content of that file relates to, and also the 

time frame and -- sort of the key parameters that 

you might want to know about this file rather 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

218 

than waste your time having to read through the 

whole contents. 

There's almost 10,000 references out there --

reference documents, as they call them -- that 

represent almost 45,000 files. I tried to get a 

page count because I know -- I relate more to 

page counts, and it wasn't easy for them to give 

me that, but I think anybody who does anything 

with computers will recognize that 65 gigabytes 

of data is a fair -- fairly large database. It's 

fairly robust. 

Of course the larger sites have more files. 

If you go out there and look at the Savannah 

River Site, I think you'll find 380 files out 

there or something like that, and it varies from 

there. 

Just one thing I'd like to point out is this 

was originally intended to be the research 

database that was used, and it was used, for site 

profile development. But it has also since 

morphed, if I can use that term, into a database 

that contains key links to capture coworker data. 

It kind of takes me into my next phase of 

presentation. 

In capturing these data files -- in the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

219 

beginning they were just raw captured and put 

into these bins because, you know, we're just 

trying to collect these informa-- then it became 

fairly obvious that many of these files had 

information that could be used for coworkers --

bioassay monitoring data, TLD results, air sample 

-- you know, whatever type of information there 

was. The database now is being linked so that 

when information is available that could be used 

in dose reconstructions, there is a link 

established -- and in fact if there is unique 

data for a claimant, there is a link established 

to that claimant to alert the dose reconstructor 

that there is information in the site research 

database that could be used to process that dose 

reconstruction. 

That effort is nowhere near complete, but 

it's ongoing and they're fairly -- they're well 

into it, but it's not -- it's not as complete as 

we'd like it. 

Since I broached the subject of coworker 

data, I'll delve into it. Coworker data exists 

in the database here, which is the captured 

images that we've -- we've got in our data 

capture efforts at the various facilities. But 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

220 

there also is claimant data that can be used as 

coworker data. That data is also being keyed in 

to the database -- the worker profile database, 

if you will -- so you have a combination of 

captured data that may be the universe of 

monitored people at a facility, but -- or pieces 

of that facility. Then you also have keyed in 

information. The 16,000 responses we've received 

from DOE that has external monitoring data is 

actually keyed in at the Richland office of Dade 

Moeller. So that information then is also become 

-- becomes available to reconstruct coworker --

coworker data. 

We've spent a lot of time in the beginning of 

this project -- and frankly, most of the first 

4,000 claims that we reconstructed relied 

predominantly on individual monitoring data --

external badge results, urine samples. People 

who were -- I don't want to necessarily 

characterize it well-monitored, but were 

monitored and characterized some way in their 

work environment using personal samples. The 

site profiles speak to that almost exclusively. 

There is some coworker data in some of the site 

profiles, but by and large the site profiles that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

221 

exist today speak very directly to interpretation 

of individual monitoring data and the exposure 

conditions at the facility. 

We are now at the point where coworker data -

- we've done a lot of the claims -- I don't want 

to say we're done with that, but we're working 

through those and now we are poised to develop 

the coworker database for people who were not 

monitored at all, or very poorly monitored and we 

need to supplement their data files. 

So we're going to use the data from the 

capture efforts that we took out there at these 

sites, and the individual monitoring data from 

the workers, and there's a couple other sources 

of information here that I'll talk about. The 

Oak Ridge Associated Universities Center for 

Epidemiologic Research database; there have been 

a large number of epidemiologic studies done in 

the past evaluating workers at these facilities. 

These epi studies have catalogued a large 

portion of the available records. I'm not saying 

they're perfect, but we need to take -- I think 

we should look at them. We are looking at them 

to make sure that we take full advantage of those 

efforts. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

222 

In addition to that, we also have -- I 

mentioned the claimant data -- the Health-related 

Energy Research Branch within NIOSH also has 

conducted a number of epi studies, and there is 

coworker data for them. To some extent that 

overlaps with what the Center for Epidemiologic 

Research holdings have, but there are some unique 

facilities that the HERB database has. INEEL 

happens to be one of those. 

And then lastly there is the CEDR database, 

the Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource is 

actually a DOE-funded activity where all -- not 

all -- epidemiologic studies, as they are 

published, the de-identified data, the stripped 

data of personal identifier information, is put 

out onto a facility -- by and large accessible to 

the public, with some minor restrictions -- for 

use in further analysis and epi studies. And 

there may be some use that we can put to that 

dataset. 

So this is the compendium of information that 

we intend to be looking at or ORAU is looking at 

to develop these coworker datasets. 

Y-12 facility is actually our first completed 

profile for external dose using coworker data for 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

223 

the '51 to '65 time frame. Actually it's 

complete. We haven't -- OCAS has not signed off 

on it yet as of yesterday, I don't think, but --

but we're that close. I mean we've gone round 

and round and I expect that that will be issued 

within the next few days. 

So what are we going to do with all this 

data? We've got these datasets out there of 

monitoring information. They're going to take 

these sets and develop external -- for external 

dosimetry we're going to develop dose 

distributions for time periods for work-- when 

workers were not monitored, or even for when 

workers were monitored, workers that were not 

monitored. We can develop these distributions. 

We're going to pay attention, though, to job 

categories as they are available. I mean clearly 

the best coworker data would be a perfect match 

for a chemical operator who worked in 1956 in 

plant two with a chemical operator side-by-side, 

that would be idea. That's unlikely to happen in 

very many cases, so we have to come up with some 

sort of a distribution that describes what is the 

reasonable characteristic exposure of these 

folks, and then put some uncertainty bounds about 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

224 

them to allow for the fact that we really are not 

100 percent certain what their exposures were. 

By and large these will end up -- those of you 

who are statistically oriented -- lognormal 

distributions. Most occupational exposure data 

tends to be that. We'll be evaluating these as 

we go. 

Internal bioassay data is a sort of a unique 

set. We have a lot of -- as I'll show you later, 

some of the volume of data that's out there --

internal bioassay, that is urine samples, are not 

directly informative of what the exposure was 

because those are unique to the person and time 

and place of where they worked and how long they 

were exposed. But what they can tell us is give 

us an estimate of what the effective air 

concentration was in those work areas. So if we 

have a whole population of workers, let's say we 

have 5,000 air samp-- 5,000 bioassay samples for 

a work force over a three-month period. We 

should be able, using that data, to establish at 

least let's say the maximum conditions of 

exposure that existed in that facility, because 

we have a lot of urine data. And where we don't 

know process information -- solubility type, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

225 

particle size -- if we make some fairly claimantfavorable assumptions, then we'll at least be 

able to put some bracketing conditions about 

those exposure scenarios. That's the plan. 

This is -- this is actually a fairly exciting 

area of investigation. I'm not aware of anybody 

that's actually kind of done this before at this 

level of magnitude. 

I have one additional point here, though. As 

with dose reconstructions, a standard hierarchy 

of datasets is employed. That is, you know, 

personnel monitoring data would be our -- not a 

gold standard, but our best indication of the 

workplace exposure, followed by area monitors --

you know, TLDs that are hung about the buildings 

-- followed by the air samples, that sort of 

hierarchical approach that we use for dose 

reconstructions. 

This just -- I'm just going to go through a 

few slides here to give the Board a sense of the 

magnitude of the data that may be out there. And 

this is above and beyond the 16,000 sets of data 

that we have from the claimant population that 

we've received from the Department of Energy. Of 

course there may be some overlaps here, as well. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

226 

These are the holdings that the Center for 

Epidemiologic Research at Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities has. I've got two slides here. I 

just did a rough addition. We -- there's over 

4,000,000 records of bioassay monitoring results 

in the possession of Oak Ridge Associated 

Universities. So for example at the Y-12 

facility, external dose -- that's TLD, film badge 

measurements, there is -- this is all 

computerized already. This is not going back and 

pulling stuff out of files. There are 834,000 

TLD film badge results. There's a million urine 

samples from the X-10 facility in ORAU's 

possession on a computer database right now. 

Again, I can go through the litany, but you know 

-- external dosimetry, 330,000 -- 329,000 at K25; 671,000 urine samples. There's whole body 

counting information, which if we can -- we can 

determine to be an accurate estimate of course is 

a very good indication of what the workers 

actually were accumulating over the long haul. 

Insoluble material over a long work period tends 

to accumulate in the lungs, so if we have, you 

know, 100,000 whole body counts at Y-12 -- is 

that right? Yeah -- we should be able to come up 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

227 

with some sort of estimate of the upper limits of 

exposure. 

And by the way, these values go back to the 

earliest days of operation of the facilities --

1950's, 1945, that sort of thing. 

Here again is the last four sites that we 

have computerized information at ORAU. Savannah 

River Site, almost 30,000. Mallinckrodt's sort 

of an interesting mix of information. Much of 

this was already discussed in our site profile, 

but some stuff that people might not be too 

familiar with, there's almost 2,400 breath radon 

samples. Breath radon analysis was an 

interesting technique -- not sure it's used too 

much anymore, but if you breathe in radium, 

radium eventually decays to radon gas, and so you 

will be -- if you have a significant body burden 

of radium, you will constantly be breathing out 

radon gas. So it's an indirect measurement. If 

you breathe how much radon gas is in a person's 

breath, you can infer how much radium is in their 

body. So given the pitchblende ore that was at 

Mallinckrodt, there was some concern at that time 

of what the radium burdens were, so we have 

breath analyses for that facility -- 5,000 radon 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

228 

air sample measurements. So a lot of good data 

out there, already in computerized form. 

Of course all this data -- these data need to 

be vetted and validated to make sure that the 

monitoring technique used gives the -- we have to 

give the values some sort of credibility. We 

just can't blindly use these datapoints. That's 

understood and recognized by us. 

This is the CEDR resource holdings I 

mentioned. That's the DOE-funded cite that's out 

there for the public to use. And not quite as 

many, not quite as rich a dataset, but they are 

out there. There is some overlap. A couple of 

interesting ones that weren't there -- LANL-Zia, 

maybe, and -- this is the United States 

transuranic registry where people can -- workers 

can donate their body to science at the end of 

their lives and they can either do a whole body 

donation or a tissue. There are tissue analyses 

stored here that can be used to evaluate 

exposures. 

Now I mentioned that when we -- when ORAU, 

for the most part, goes out and does data capture 

efforts, they do find individual monitoring data 

from various sites. And this is just a listing 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

229 

of the individual data sheets that were collected 

from data capture efforts, and this happens to be 

facilities where we've retrieved film badge or 

TLD measurements, estimates of external dose. 

These range from fairly large holdings all the 

way down to small numbers of measurements at some 

of these smaller facilities. By and large, a lot 

of the smaller facilities -- early on these --

these film badge measurements were done by the 

Health and Safety Laboratory of the Department of 

Energy as part of the AEC back then. And we have 

some pretty good records, including the original 

calibration measurements that were done. So 

these, again, are another source of information 

for coworker data. 

These are sites where there were actually 

bioassay data that were captured in these files, 

so we do have some. Again, these tend -- a lot 

of these tend to be AWE type uranium facilities -

- Chapman Valve, Hooker Chemical, Ajax 

Magnathermic -- a lot of these just AWEs. Mound 

facility is interesting. There's a fair amount 

of polonium data hanging out there. 

Okay. That's all of what I (Inaudible) 

wanted to cover on the coworker data. If there's 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

230 

any questions or comments, I'd be more than happy 

to talk about them. 

DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Melius. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have a few questions. 

The -- I think I was the one that originally 

brought some of these issues up regarding this --

this database, and so refresh my memory 'cause I 

-- was a few meetings ago and so forth, but my 

understanding was that the site profile documents 

don't necessarily reference everything that you 

have in the database. Is that -- and... 

DR. NETON: That's true. That's true. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. So would an individual 

dose reconstruction that was -- would -- I assume 

it would reference the database -- it would 

reference the site profile -- you know, worker X 

someplace -- and then would also -- if one of 

these documents were used in their dose 

reconstruction, would it reference it in the dose 

reconstruction? 

DR. NETON: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. 

The Y-12 criticality incident is a very good 

example of that. We have a Y-12 document. It 

may mention the criticality accident, but it's 

not going to go into any elaborate detail because 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

231 

there's an entire report. And the six or so that 

we've done, we have referenced the individual 

report. That's a good example. I can't think of 

other instances, but... 

DR. MELIUS: Would it be helpful in terms of 

the transparency of the program and maybe dealing 

with some of these issues regarding questions 

people have about their individual dose 

reconstructions to have some sort of public 

access to a listing of what documents are 

available, or maybe the short abstract of that --

along with that short abstract of that document 

available to --

DR. NETON: Yeah, I think that's a very good 

suggestion. We'd talked about that before, I 

think even. 

DR. MELIUS: I just seemed to me with some of 

the issues that Pete Turcic brought up this 

morning and --

DR. NETON: Well --

DR. MELIUS: -- the questions people have are 

well, did you look at everything or --

DR. NETON: -- I think abstracting 10,000 

documents would be difficult, but publishing a 

list of the documents that are contained on the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 -- 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

232 

web site certainly would --

DR. MELIUS: I thought you already had a 

brief abstract --

DR. NETON: Well, you're right, there are --

DR. MELIUS: -- from your description. I'm 

not asking you to do extra work. I was just 

thinking of would it be helpful --

MR. ELLIOTT: I don't see it as extra work. 

The dose reconstruction report provides the 

reference. If the individual claimant or 

claimants want to see that reference in its 

entirety, they're entitled to it. We provide it 

DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- upon request. If they want 

to see the abstract, we'd provide the abstract. 

If they want to see the whole document, we 

provide the document. They can do that either 

by, you know, requesting it of us through the 

closeout interview process, by e-mail, by a 

telephone call, or if they want to come into the 

offices we have a public reading room that they 

can view those things from. 

DR. NETON: I agree with that. I don't think 

putting out a listing of what's on the web site 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

233 

would be that -- that large of a challenge. And 

frankly, we -- I talk to claimants a fair amount, 

and some of the con-- people call up and say are 

you aware of this document -- it may be easier if 

they could access the web just to see that we had 

it and we've already covered it. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: A lot of these documents that 

people think are super-relevant may or may not 

be, it depends on --

DR. MELIUS: No, and there's a danger it 

could sort of lead to extra work. People think a 

document should have been used and it isn't. But 

one would presume that you would have already --

you know, when you do the dose reconstruction, 

that would have -- you know, if somebody 

(Inaudible) bit knowledgeable about that, so I 

just think it would help --

DR. NETON: Sure. 

DR. MELIUS: -- sort of people understand all 

the work that you're doing on the program. 

Second question I had was -- I think at the 

last meeting or the meeting before you brought up 

that you were working on the construction worker 

aspect of the site profiles. Where does that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

234 

stand and how is it affecting the processing of 

those claims? 

DR. NETON: We continue to work on the 

construction worker profile, although admittedly 

much more slowly than we'd like. We are having a 

meeting in August at the Savannah River Site that 

has been organized by some folks -- Knut Ringen 

is involved in that -- where we're going to meet 

with construction workers. One of the issues 

we're having is just trying to get access to some 

construction workers to work with us a little bit 

on these issues so that we really do capture the 

unique exposure characteristics. And it's slower 

getting us together than we'd like. We have not 

made a lot of progress. And the reality of that 

is that that is delaying completion of 

construction worker claims -- not all 

construction worker claims. We feel in some 

cases with construction workers with certain 

circumstances that we may be able to complete 

them using either some maximizing assumptions --

if they were in facilities where we feel 

comfortable with the exposure characteristics, 

we'll do that. 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, it's just that -- I mean 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

235 

it's just very hard to evaluate that until you've 

looked at the other, and what's going to be in 

this site -- construction worker site profile. 

DR. NETON: Right. I think I fleshed out the 

last Board meeting that general topics are going 

to be covered, but reality is we have not gone 

very far. 

DR. MELIUS: Third is more of a technical 

question. It may be something for a future 

presentation, but to me, with this issue with the 

coworker data is -- a lot of the issue is sort of 

what uncertainty do you assign to that 

extrapolation or the use of that thing. And if I 

recall right, I think it was in Rocky Flats we 

had some testimony about -- at least in some of 

the processes there, I think it was some of the 

plutonium exposures, where coworker data wasn't a 

very good predictor or -- of -- you know, two 

people doing similar processes standing side by 

side or close to each other, it was not, so --

DR. NETON: That's a good point. I think 

very rarely would we use side-by-side exposures. 

We would tend to use a distribution. 

DR. MELIUS: Right. 

DR. NETON: And I'm going to talk a little 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

236 

bit about that tomorrow, how we're assigning 

uncertainty to some of these things. You know, 

we try to craft the distribution and it'd be nice 

to match job categories, job titles. Reality is 

that we don't have that for many of the 

claimants. Then we end up developing these 

larger distributions where we put in a fair 

amount of uncertainty to accom-- we believe, to 

accommodate the lack of knowledge -- our lack of 

knowledge. 

DR. MELIUS: My final question's on the site 

meetings that you're holding. Have you thought 

about holding any of these meetings earlier on in 

the process? 

DR. NETON: Yes. 

DR. MELIUS: I guess I think -- particularly 

the Linde site, where there was a fair amount of 

comment up at the Buffalo meeting that --

DR. NETON: Yes, that's a good point. We 

actually end up sort of tailoring when we visit 

the site based on the individual needs. Some 

sites want us to come later in the process. 

They'd like to have a document that they've 

reviewed and they can comment on it. It's easier 

to form comments if you've got something to read. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

237 

 Some sites would rather have us come in at the 

very front, and Linde I think is probably a good 

example of that, that would like us to come there 

and capture their story before we go too far down 

the line. So it really varies depending on the 

site. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Roy? 

DR. DEHART: Perhaps you could remind us 

about how you take the recommendations, the 

concerns from the various sites and incorporate 

into the site profile. For example, while we 

were at Hanford there was considerable 

discussion, and this was followed by a letter --

a multi-page letter from one of the union 

activities. How do you use those concerns 

expressed in that letter in looking over the site 

profile, adapting it if necessary? 

DR. NETON: Several ways we do that. In the 

cases where organized labor folks would provide 

us a fairly detailed document, that is passed 

over directly to the site profile team for 

evaluation and possible use in modification of 

the profile itself. Again, these are living 

documents, we like to say, where the book is 

never closed. If there's something there that 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

238 

really casts doubt on what we've done and the 

generosity that we thought we put in there, we'll 

put it in. 

So for instance, the Hanford site that you 

mentioned -- is it Ed Skolsky* I think, Dick --

help me out, Ed Skolsky is Hanford or no? Well, 

no, he's -- he's not -- we -- we fed that through 

the loop and they're actively -- there's been 

meetings held on these issues and we will get 

them back into the profile, and also feed back to 

the people that originated the document what --

what we found. When we post these minutes, we 

also want to get back to the workers -- you know, 

when we have verbal comments, even -- so we've 

constructed a database. There's a database that 

exists now of all the concerns that we've 

captured at all the meetings we've had. So it is 

out there. We can track and trend common themes, 

issues, that sort of thing. And we're working 

hard to address those things. 

Is it going as fast as we'd like? Probably 

not, but we haven't forgotten. And I mean Bill 

Murray at the helm over in ORAU, I know he's a 

tiger on this. We meet very frequently to figure 

out how best to address these comments. I don't 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

239 

know what else to say. 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

MR. GRIFFON: Jim, I'm just curious, if --

along the line with the coworker data, I'm just 

curious, given our discussions with the case 

selection process and the variables that you have 

in the database for your individual claims -- I 

mean it doesn't seem to me that some of the key 

variables to linking workers are even being 

collected in your claims files. So -- so I'm 

curious how your --

DR. NETON: I'm not sure what you --

MR. GRIFFON: -- established cowork-- for 

example, job -- job category. Right now you 

don't have that as a -- a searchable field. 

DR. NETON: Right. Yeah, when I was talking 

about the job categories and stuff, those are --

those are typically more present in the 

epidemiologic databases. I mean you'll -- you 

know, they go to a great extent in epi studies to 

-- you know, laborers, you know, administrative 

folks and that sort of -- that's what I was 

really referring to. 

MR. GRIFFON: So you're going to go -- you're 

going to rely on those? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

240 

DR. NETON: We're going to rely on those. 

You're right, though. With the 16,000 that we've 

had in-house where we've keyed them, we don't 

have the linkages in place at this point to track 

those -- those datasets. 

MR. GRIFFON: And I'm just wondering, even at 

the -- I mean I don't think you capture anything 

sort of at the sub-facility levels as far as 

where they worked within the -- just thinking of 

the way these things --

DR. NETON: Right, they're not -- they're not 

captured discretely, but you know, these are 

certainly searchable fields. As you know, doing 

this kind of work, though, you would have to 

envision up front some categorization that would 

work, and there are any number of ways to 

characterize a facility. Some people call it 

plant one, some people call it the green salt 

factory. You know, so to categorize that within 

our own database is actually more work than we've 

been willing to take on at this point. I think 

that's all I can say. Ideally, that would be the 

best way to go. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Further questions, 

comments? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

241 

 (No responses) 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. Appreciate that 

input. We're going to recess now for a bit and 

we'll reconvene this evening at 7:00 p.m. for our 

public comment session. Thank you very much. 

(Whereupon, a recess was taken to 7:00 p.m.) 

INTRODUCTION 

DR. ZIEMER: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 

the evening session of the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health. This is the public 

comment portion of today's meeting. We're 

pleased to have many members of the public here 

with us this evening. 

My name is Paul Ziemer. I serve as Chairman 

of this Board. In a moment I'm going to 

introduce the other members. I would like to 

make a couple of announcements. 

First of all, we ask that everyone in 

attendance today register your attendance with us 

in the registration book at the doorway. Many of 

you have already done that, but this includes 

everyone -- Board members, government staff 

people, members of the public. If you would 

please register your attendance, if you've not 

already done that. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

242 

Those of you who wish to speak this evening, 

to address the Board, we ask that you also sign 

up in the sign-up book. Some have already done 

this. But if you do wish to speak and haven't 

already signed in the book, please do that in the 

next minutes so we have some idea of how many 

individuals will be speaking this evening. 

Before we actually open the floor for public 

comment, I thought it might be useful if I took a 

few moments to acquaint those of you here in 

Idaho, those members of the public who may not be 

as familiar with the operation of this Board, to 

tell you a little more about what we do so that 

you don't misunderstand what we are able to do 

and what we are not able to do. So with that, 

let me proceed. 

This particular program that we're involved 

in actually involves a number of Federal 

agencies. These are listed here -- the 

Department of Labor, Department of Health and 

Human Services, Department of Energy, and of 

course the Secretaries of each of those are the 

key people that are -- as well as the Attorney 

General -- that oversee this particular program, 

the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

243 

Program. 

This Board, by statute, consists of up to 20 

members. We actually do not have 20. The full 

Board is here before you. These individuals have 

all been appointed by the President of the United 

States. The statute calls for the membership of 

this Board to be made up of a variety of people 

with different backgrounds, as you see indicated 

here. These are the words from the statute, the 

representatives from these various groups: the 

affected workers or their representatives, and 

others from the scientific and medical 

communities. 

Now in addition to my position as the Chair, 

let me introduce the others. Our Designated 

Federal Official is Larry Elliott -- and I'll ask 

each of these -- they have a placard, but if you 

wonder who's who, here they are, and their titles 

are indicated here for you to see; Dr. Henry 

Anderson, Antonio Andrade, Roy DeHart, Richard 

Espinosa, Michael Gibson, Mark Griffon, James 

Melius, Wanda Munn, Leon Owens -- Charles -- oh, 

Leon isn't here; I'm sorry, Charles Leon Owens, 

who goes by Leon -- Robert Presley and Gen 

Roessler. So these are the members of the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

244 

Advisory Board. 

So what is it that this Board is responsible 

for? And here is the information, again pretty 

much quoting from the statutes. We're 

responsible for advising the Secretary of Health 

and Human Services, and we are an Advisory Board, 

and our advice goes to the Secretary of Health 

and Human Services. And that advice takes three 

parts, advising on the development of some 

guidelines -- and those guidelines have been 

developed. The one guideline has to do with 

what's called probability of causation, which is 

the idea of is it more likely than not that a 

cancer was related to the individual's radiation 

exposure. 

And then advising on the guidelines for dose 

reconstruction. Those guidelines are in place 

and have been published in the Federal Register. 

We have some responsibility on evaluating the 

validity of the dose reconstructions that are 

being done by NIOSH, and that is a sort of audit 

function which we have underway. 

And then finally we are to be involved in the 

determination of whether or not there are 

individuals who should be added to what are 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

245 

called -- or what is called the Special Exposure 

Cohort. There are guidelines on this that were 

recently published, and there are petitions now 

that are coming into the system, as it were, on 

the Special Exposure Cohort. The Board then will 

review those and have advice on those particular 

petitions. 

So that is what the Board is responsible for. 

We do not do the dose reconstructions. We do 

not adjudicate the findings. We are not a board 

of appeals. We -- we do like to get feedback 

from people. We do like to learn of your 

experiences insofar as they help us understand 

how the system is working or not working. And I 

know many of you -- and our experience has been, 

as we've talked to groups around the country at 

various sites, people do have their stories to 

tell us. And as I say, we don't get involved --

the Board does not get involved in your case, but 

whatever you tell us may help us understand what 

may be working or not working in the system. So 

you're welcome to tell us your story -- or any 

other observations you wish to make. 

We're not necessarily here to answer 

questions. We're here to listen. So we are here 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

246 

just to hear what you have to say. If you have 

questions about your particular claim, if you 

have a claim, we do have an individual here --

Lynda Brandal is here this evening and she is the 

public health advisor for the program, and Linda 

is going to be back at the table back there at 

some point. And if you have specific questions 

on a claim, she will be the one to direct you to 

get what information you need. 

Also, the Department of Labor has a table --

many of you saw it when you came in -- near the 

entrance that has other information about the 

program that you might find helpful. 

 PUBLIC COMMENT 

So with that as background, we'll proceed to 

the public comment portion of the meeting. I'm 

going to return to my seat and get the list of 

those that have decided they would like to speak. 

Now I should also tell you that there are a 

lot of folks that sort of want to speak, but they 

don't want to go first. But it's sort of like 

getting olives out of a jar. You know, the first 

one -- once you get it out, the rest come pretty 

easily. So we're going to get the first speaker 

going, and if you then change your mind, it's not 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

247 

too late. I'll give you the opportunity to 

speak. Okay? 

So let me get the list here and see who the 

first olive is. And I may have a little trouble 

reading the writing. It looks like Clinton -- is 

that right, Clinton Jensen -- Johnson -- Jason? 

Could you approach the mike, sir? And also for 

the record, indicate -- I believe it says Faith, 

Idaho or --

MR. JENSEN*: Firth. 

DR. ZIEMER: Firth, Idaho. Thank you. 

MR. JENSEN: Well -- well, to give you just a 

little bit of history about myself, I worked at 

the INEL and I worked at the SMC project, which 

is depleted uranium. That's all I'll say about 

that, other than the fact that I burnt -- I 

incinerated depleted uranium for two -- 18 months 

and during that period of time I became severely 

ill and I still suffer with the same symptoms. I 

had cancer spot removed. There's several 

different problems that I have. I take morphine 

and other medicines -- several of them a day --

just to get by. 

DOE hired a doctor out of Bethesda, Maryland 

-- Dr. Melissa McDermott* -- to come out here and 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

248 

kind of see what she could find out what was 

going on because I raised employees concerned 

about the safety and health and the radiation 

where -- and I'd like to read a couple of things 

that she found out. And this is -- this was the 

attitude that SMC had from 1985 till 2002. They 

-- they had a doctor in charge here in Idaho 

Falls that never stepped in the area from 1985 

until after my court in 2002, and he was in 

charge of the IHs* there. And he never knew what 

was going on, but yet he was in charge of it. He 

never had a clearance. He couldn't talk about 

things -- supposedly. And he never stepped in 

the area. 

Her observation of the SMC project, and this 

was in -- let me -- a date -- this is 2001, but 

this -- this went on from 1985 when the project 

started. (Reading) The lack of the on-site 

experience and industrial hygiene, the SMC IH had 

neither training nor the experience to carry 

fully (sic) responsibility for the program. A 

corporate CIH present for my visit was unable to 

answer basic questions about the major -- the 

majority -- major facility hazards and concerns 

to him. A cookbook mentality of the IH 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

249 

management was observed where complacence with 

TLD was the only benchmark being used to gauge a 

potential haz-- health hazards. No truly 

competent person was identified by me who would 

have the working knowledge and experience to 

know, without looking at an MSD, which hazards to 

expect in a new operation or with the 

introduction of new things. 

That's one of her comments on -- on the way 

that it was run. I had several things happen to 

me. I had a spill. Management at SMC tried to 

hide the facts. DOE went in and they found the 

log of the log book. DOE did a pretty -- pretty 

fair investigation of what they did investigate. 

I had several -- different times during the 

periods of the years, I had spikes in the 

urinalysis. The urinalysis was not being ran 

right. That was one of my concerns, too, that 

urine samples were being lost. The day that I 

took this one sample supposedly that had spiked 

at 2.7, I had -- as you know, urinate in a quart 

jar and they take the jar and they do the 

samples. I had to cap it off, which probably 

took about an ounce during that sample in the 

quart jar. My urine -- or my internal 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

250 

contamination was supposed to be 2.7. I believe 

that it was higher than that because if you put 

two ounces in a quart jar and it affects the 

whole thing or whatever to 2.7, it must be pretty 

high, in my opinion, from what little bit of 

chemistry I have that I don't know whether the 

saturation point or whatever, but it -- it takes 

quite a bit to raise it to that, as far as I 

know. And I was made sick at that time on 17th 

of December, 1998, and my life has been turned 

upside down. 

I was called a traitor and everything else. 

I was pegged as a whistle-blower because of these 

safety things. They were incinerating this 

depleted uranium. They were -- only had a permit 

to construct. They never did pre-sampling. They 

never did sampling during the thing -- during the 

operation. These were never carried out. And so 

it was not an airtight unit. It was not a 

boughten* one. It was built on-site from -- from 

sheet metal and angle iron and plexiglas, and it 

was -- it was -- it was not a safe thing. And as 

soon as -- as soon as they could, they destroyed 

it. They got rid of it, so at least nobody else 

has to do that. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

251 

This is about all I have to say. If anybody 

wants to ask me any questions, I'll provide you 

with my medical record. I filed a claim with you 

guys. My number's like 10,065 or something. I 

was advised to wait till my court case was over 

with in order to file because I did win because I 

was right and I never lied, and usually the truth 

prevails. And what I say here is not a lie. 

This lady, she did down -- down -- she did 

mark them down in -- in her visit on the way they 

-- they do business out there, and it wasn't 

safe, and this was still going on in 2001. So 

it's kind of like teach an old dog new tricks. 

They might -- you might think that they are 

learning, but it takes a long time after that 

before they ever do, so this is not something 

that -- that is ancient and stuff. I may have 

been sick for a long time and still am sick, but 

like I say, they might have changed now, but 

during the records and the past, this needed to 

be brought out that things were not quite kosher. 

And I can read here where management -- well, I 

already told you that management tried to cover 

it up. 

They did everything they could to silence me. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

252 

 They -- they forced doctors into keeping me off 

work. They wanted to get rid of me. They had a 

Army investigation. They tried to lock me up --

anything they possibly could to silence me. So 

I've taken this opportunity, I've taken others, 

to speak out for those that have been affected 

like this. I don't think it's right. I don't 

think it's right that the government can do this 

to people and get away legally, and managers and 

can sit there and lie and get out of it, and DOE 

backs them up by paying their bills and lawyers 

and everything else. And it's your taxpayers' 

money that's being wasted by them people frauding 

(sic) people. So I think that there's a lot of 

things that have went on that you people will 

never ever know about unless people like myself 

will get up and bare their souls to you and tell 

you some of the things they've been through. 

So thank you very much for letting me have 

the time to express myself. Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. The next 

speaker will be David Fry. David Fry. 

MR. FRY: Okay, I just have a couple of 

questions for the Board. On April 28th we had 

those site profile meetings here in Idaho Falls. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

253 

 There was one at -- for the building trades 

people and there was one at PACE union hall, and 

I'm with PACE. And at that time we didn't have 

the internal dose report to review. And also at 

that time we had a lot of current and former 

employees that were in the room that made 

comments to the site profiles that we had. And I 

just wanted to -- and then we received the 

minutes from that meeting, and I just wanted to 

ask, will our comments be incorporated into the 

site profile? Will the site profile be redone 

or... 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask one of the staff 

people -- Larry, or Jim Neton perhaps can respond 

to your specific inquiry. 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Yes, when we 

receive comments --

UNIDENTIFIED: Use the mike. 

DR. NETON: We receive the comments 

informally through the organized --

MR. FRY: Through the local? 

DR. NETON: -- local that came there. We 

have passed them on to the profile team, and they 

are considering them, at which point if any of 

them may -- will come to make a difference in the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

254 

profile that's out there, it will be revised to 

reflect that information. 

MR. FRY: Okay, thank you, 'cause the first 

profile -- there were some critical processes and 

buildings that we as employees and former 

employees felt like were missing. And also will 

there be another meeting in Idaho Falls, another 

site profile meeting when it's been revised and 

when the internal dose report's ready? 

DR. NETON: The internal dose report is 

completed and it's on -- it's on our web site, 

available to be reviewed. We are certainly -- we 

don't have a meeting planned in the near future, 

but if one were necessary or you felt that you 

would like to have one, there was enough concern 

about the information that's out there on our web 

site, we would be more than happy to discuss --

to make arrangements to --

MR. FRY: I think the general --

DR. NETON: -- conduct a meeting. 

MR. FRY: -- consensus that day was most 

people wanted a second meeting, but... 

DR. NETON: Okay. And I think I mentioned 

earlier that there was some interest in a second 

meeting out there, but we just have not yet 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

255 

planned to make that happen. 

MR. FRY: Okay. That's all I have. Thanks. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, David. The 

next -- Knut Ringen is with the building trades. 

MR. RINGEN: (Off microphone) Now if you have 

any other local people who want to speak, I'll be 

glad to forego my time. 

Okay, I didn't think so. First of all, I 

want to thank the Board for holding these evening 

sessions. I think it was when you had your 

meeting in Las Vegas that I asked for these 

sessions, and you've done so since then and I 

think it's been very useful. And I'd like to 

make one more request of you today. That is to 

do a better job of advertising the meetings 

earlier. For instance, we didn't get notice 

really of this meeting until about two weeks ago, 

and didn't have time to notify our members in 

turn. And I think we -- a better job could be 

done of advertising them so that -- where we've 

had more time and been able to prepare -- for 

instance, for the meeting at Hanford, you know, 

we had a much, much larger participation, and we 

would very much encourage you to do that and we 

would like to help you also in doing that. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

256 

The main things I wanted to talk about here 

today are really fourfold. First of all, I think 

most of us think of this Board as being the 

conscience of this program, and it's very 

important that it's -- performs its functions 

effectively and with support from NIOSH. We have 

a problem, which I believe stems from a lack of 

credibility in the overall program, and which has 

led to a relatively small rate of applications 

for compensation. Here at Hanford -- no, here at 

INEL, only about 1,500 workers so far have filed 

claims out of an estimated, I would guess, 

roughly 20,000 workers who have been here and who 

had cancer since they have been here. So that's 

a very small rate of applications compared to the 

people who generally should be eligible for 

compensation. And I ascribe a lot of that lack 

of response -- and it's something that we see 

across the complex -- to the low level of 

credibility that the program has right now. And 

I don't see any group that can help fix that 

problem more than this Board can, so your 

function is very, very important. 

The second issue I want to bring to your 

attention very briefly is how data are presented 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

257 

at these meetings and by NIOSH in general. And I 

think it could be presented somewhat more 

effectively if you -- obviously you can slice and 

dice data all kinds of different ways, but if you 

were to do it in three different ways. First of 

all, by site, which you do on the web site. But 

when it's presented here, you don't see any of 

the data by -- by site, and if you'd known the 

data by site -- for instances, the data that were 

presented up through the first quarter of this 

year were heavily skewed by the results from the 

Bethlehem Steel facility, and then the last three 

months it's been heavily skewed by the results 

that have happened because a large portion of the 

dose reconstructions that have been done in the 

last three months have been for Savannah River. 

And if you just see the results more by site, I 

think that becomes more readily apparent. 

The second way that I think it would be 

incredibly important to see these data -- at 

least from our point of view -- is by occupation. 

We would very much like to see a breakout by 

construction. I think there should also be a 

breakout by people in production, maintenance, 

administration and science and technical kind of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

258 

work. I realize that there are problems in 

trying to define things by occupation because 

people move from occupation to occupation. But 

if you were doing this as an epidemiological 

study, you'd have to find a way to define a 

person's principal occupation. There's no reason 

why you couldn't do it in this case, as well. 

And if you did present the results by occupation 

-- the reason it would be interesting to me would 

be to look at how many construction workers have 

you done dose reconstructions on so far, and what 

has the result been, given that there are many 

problems with the site profiles still when it 

comes to construction workers, and we have no way 

of judging that, if you're making lots of dose 

reconstructions for construction workers in the 

absence of adequate dose reconstruction 

materials. We'd like to know more about that. 

And the third thing that I think would be 

useful -- and you can argue about this -- is if 

they could be presented more by probability of 

causation. And by that I mean there are roughly 

three groups of workers that we have out here 

file applications. There are those people --

those workers with obviously not enough radiation 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

259 

exposures. Let's say those who have a 

probability of causation that's less than 20 

percent. Then there's the group that's obviously 

compensable. Let's say the people with a 

probability of causation over 60 percent or 

whatever it is. And then you have the middle 

group, the people who cause NIOSH the most work 

and who lead to the most difficult decisions. It 

would be very good to see for these different 

groups how many claims are being filed in each of 

these categories and what the results are of 

them. I think that would give us a much better 

idea about -- is, for instance, the majority of 

the claims that you're putting through right now 

the easy claims, and are you leaving out the 

people in the middle category by and large, and 

this kind of thing. 

Finally, I'd like to also say something about 

the site profiles, and Jim Neton today said that 

we're working on and we're trying to work 

together on doing a better job of developing site 

profiles for the construction workers. And the -

- that's been a little cumbersome from 

everybody's point of view, but I think 

everybody's trying to work towards that end. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

260 

But I'd caution you to think about something. 

Jim referred to site profiles that were 

completed. And as far as I know, there isn't a 

single completed site profile. These are works 

in progress, even though they've been published 

on your site. And I think maybe saying that --

implying that they're complete suggests to me 

that you're never going to do anything more with 

them, while in reality you continue to change 

them periodically -- or may change them 

periodically, in the sense that you call them 

living documents. And I would be a little bit 

more careful with this. And I certainly don't 

think that you can say that any of them are 

complete when it comes to information on 

construction workers at this point in time, and 

maybe there should even be a caveat in them on 

that subject. 

And let me just make finally one more request 

of you, also, and that has to do with SCA --

Sandy Cohen Associates -- review of these site 

profiles, 'cause they've started to ask if we 

could organize meetings with workers so that they 

can go out and interview workers and talk to them 

about it. And that's a time-consuming and very, 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

261 

very important function, but it's very hard for 

us to organize a lot of these meetings with 

workers and provide them with the technical 

support they need and so on without some funding 

to pay for the time of these workers, because at 

least construction workers, if they come to a 

meeting, they're not going to get paid for that 

time. So if you will consider, as you look at 

the contract -- contractor that you have 

available to you and the scope of work that's in 

that contract, I would just ask you to consider 

making available some funding in the -- in the 

effort to assess the site profiles, or anything 

else that requires the involvement of the local 

workers, to provide some reimbursement for those 

-- for those costs. We don't expect NIOSH staff 

to work for free. We don't expect DOE staff to 

work for free. I don't think we should expect 

workers to do that, either, and I'd like you to 

take that into account. Thank you for your time. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for your comments. 

Now I go to page two, but there's only one page, 

so do we have a page two? 

MS. HOMER: No. 

DR. ZIEMER: There's no page two. Now's the 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

262 

opportunity for anyone who's not signed up that 

still wishes to addresses the Board. Sir? 

MR. HANSON: My name is Gaylan Hanson. I 

work at the INEL. I'm the PACE union health and 

safety rep. I work closely with retirees, and I 

have a retiree that, because of illness, was not 

able to attend tonight. But in a very short 

note, I'd like to read what he put here. It's a 

statement. I'll leave his name off. (Reading) 

Undocumented radiation exposure to worker. In 

the summer of 1957 I was working for Phillips 

Petroleum Company as a yardman. I was watering 

lawns at TRA. I was called to MTR reactor 

building and told there was a high radiation beam 

coming from the reactor through an experiment 

insertion hole. I've heard this many times from 

other workers of a beam that shot like two miles 

out toward the highway with a particular 

experiment they were doing there. They said they 

couldn't use their operators because they 

couldn't have them get burned out. I was to go 

into this sort of tunnel and lay lead brick 

shielding to stop the beam. I went in, laid two 

lead brick, came out. They said I had been there 

too long and was overexposed. I never found out 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

263 

what the exposure was. Another time I was called 

in to decontaminate the manipulators in the hot 

cell. I got very contaminated and overexposed 

there, too. I had no dosimeter or film badge to 

record dosage levels. 

And I think this is what a lot of former 

workers and workers is -- they do a pretty darned 

good job of documentation of what they have, but 

what about the unknowns in the area that wore the 

badges, et cetera? Is there anyone I can leave 

this letter with? Thank you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Gaylan. 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and again, have the 

opportunity for others who wish to comment? 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) You mean 

(Inaudible)? 

DR. ZIEMER: Anyone from the public who 

wishes to comment -- yes, please --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

DR. ZIEMER: You'll have to approach the 

mikes for our recorder to get the information. 

UNIDENTIFIED: On that same line, there was -

-

DR. ZIEMER: Would you state -- state your 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

264 

name, please, for the record? Thank you. 

MR. EGBERT: I'm H. Doyle Egbert. I worked 

at CPP for 17 years as an operator. But for 

instance, we had to go into the west vent tunnel, 

which was a very contaminated area, to roll up 

lead shielding that covered up a 50-R field. 

Anybody that worked out at CPP knows what it was 

all about. It was a nightmare. Another time I 

had to go into a deep tank, retrieve a camera out 

of the WG waste tank, which is on the east site, 

very hot waste that would go to the (Inaudible), 

50-R fields. They give you two weeks' dosage to 

go in and do it. You're in there maybe five 

minutes, but you still are in a 50-R field. And 

now they won't even think of over a 3-R field, I 

-- I think, out there now. I could be mistaken 

on that. They put robots in the cells for those 

things. But I just wanted to relate that 

experience that I had and -- and they weren't 

recorded. I passed out in the vent tunnel. They 

pulled me out of there, took my respirator off 

and then I come to on the -- outside the vent 

tunnel. It wasn't recorded. So just a insight. 

Thank you folks. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

265 

 (Pause) 

MS. CODDING: My name is Shirley Codding and 

I was really going to keep quiet till I got to --

DR. ZIEMER: Could you spell that for the 

recorder? 

MS. CODDING: Oh, C-o-d-d-i-n-g -- and after 

hearing Knut(you)*, everything he said is 

absolutely true. The chem plant was known as the 

garbage dump of the world. It really was. It 

was dirty. It was a roped area from back of 601 

just to even walk to an office in the early days. 

Now granted, everything is a whole lot better 

now. I think public concern has forced it. But 

we used to do things that the primary feeling of 

the chem plant in the sixties and seventies and 

eighties was do whatever it took to get the job 

done. And there were a lot of times -- I can 

tell you many times that my dosimetry badge was 

not on because we had to get the job done, just 

throw on the NICs* and get the heck in there and 

do it. 

We had a blowout, blew out the bottom of the 

batch still, and I was one of the three operators 

that went into the cell. It was right at shift 

change. Not one of us had a dosimeter on. And 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

266 

even if we did, the INEL did their own recording. 

They didn't send out for an unbiased opinion. 

It was unrecorded -- it was unrecorded by a 

independent. And I don't know of anybody out 

there that believes what's on their dose is a 

true reading. There -- I've talked to a lot of 

operators. I'm in operations, too. I've talked 

to HPs. And there's not one person that believes 

that INEL's been honest and true, and it's been 

that way -- and I've been out in operations 23 

years, and I know for a fact that some of my dose 

in the rare gas plant is higher than what it 

shows -- sometimes for a whole yearly dose. So 

that's just my opinion. That's my say. Thank 

you. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Anyone 

else? Sir? 

MR. JENSEN: I guess I don't need to state my 

name again since you already know it, but one 

thing I'd like you to know is that SMC and 

everybody hides behind national security. I 

think that's just a big fraud, due to the fact is 

people's health is more important than a lot of 

things. And when you're putting people's health 

on the line, not telling them what they're being 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

267 

involved in, working them without the proper 

protection, without knowing what they're working 

around, it's like sending you blindfolded into 

something. And then -- and then they have the 

gall to say it's national security; we can't tell 

you. That's denying me the -- the ability to get 

proper medical health care to try and help me. I 

don't -- if I -- if I had something -- I knew 

something that would you -- help you and I denied 

you of it, how would you feel? And I know other 

people feel the same way because they've been 

denied the truth about what they've been around, 

what the radiation count was. It's not been a 

pretty story for a lot of people. Thank you very 

much. 

DR. ZIEMER: All right. Thank you again for 

those added comments. Yes, sir? 

MR. QUINN: I'm John Quinn. I'm a retired 

worker at the site. I worked at the chemical 

processing plant for 27 years. The lady that 

spoke back there, I was there before -- I guess I 

was one of the original ones, I guess, that kind 

of started at the chem plant. I went there 

shortly after the SL-1 incident when they formed 

the decontamination facility to take care of 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

268 

those who lost their lives in that reactor 

incident. I worked in that facility for seven 

years, with equipment that they originally put 

there. And they had lots of problems. And I got 

my dose reconstruction Saturday from NIOSH. I'm 

not totally convinced of their findings and the 

results and the dose that they had given me 

because, just like a lot of them, we went into 

these areas back in those days, in the early 

sixties, it was half-face respirators with just 

plain paper filters. And there was a time when 

they all -- money was an issue. To keep those 

operations going out there, when I first went to 

work there, we decontaminated in that facility 

the half-face respirators that the workers that 

went in the hot cells to do the jobs, and we was 

instructed to monitor those. If they read less 

than 60 min-- counts a minute, we would reuse 

them. We did that for two or three years, as I 

remember. 

Then they come out with a charcoal filter, 

lot more money, and they said we got to use 

these, you know, in hot areas. Well, sometimes 

those hot areas, they was so hot that, you know, 

we just had to throw them away. 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 -- 

22 

23 

24 

25 

269 

And I come up through the years in this to 

where we kind of got up to full-face respirators. 

Finally got into air lines, finally got into 

bubble suit. I've been through the whole works. 

But the first seven years in my work out there, 

I didn't see that. 

We had ventilation problems. We had 

monitoring problems, and I -- just like the lady 

back there said, we went in to do the job. And 

I'm just wondering if the people who are 

estimating these NIOSH reconstruction, if they 

really know and saw the places that we had to 

work in, maybe they would -- we might get a 

different evaluation. That's all I got to say. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, sir. Again 

open the floor for anyone else that wishes to 

speak. 

(Pause) 

DR. ZIEMER: If not, we are going to adjourn. 

I feel like an auctioneer -- going once. Let me 

MR. GRIFFON: Paul --

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, there is? Okay. 

MR. GRIFFON: No, no, we --

DR. ZIEMER: Comment or question? 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

270 

MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to say as a 

reminder, we're having another opportunity --

DR. ZIEMER: 

MR. GRIFFON: 

Oh, yes --

-- tomorrow afternoon. Is that 

--

DR. ZIEMER: 

MR. GRIFFON: 

-- thank you. 

Yeah. 

DR. ZIEMER: The Board meets tomorrow again 

all day. As you may know, our sessions are open. 

You're welcome to attend. Although we did not 

put it on the printed schedule, there is a public 

comment period tomorrow afternoon right after the 

lunch hour. I believe it's at 1:30. So if you 

or any of your colleagues do wish to make public 

comment tomorrow, you're welcome to do that. The 

Board will be here at that time and will welcome 

hearing from any of you that -- or others that 

may not have been able to attend tonight, if you 

know someone that wishes to comment, you might 

let them know that, as well. 

Let me thank you again all for coming. We 

appreciate the input and will wish you goodnight 

and hope to see many of you again tomorrow. 

(Whereupon, the proceedings were adjourned at 

approximately 7:45 p.m., to reconvene the next 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

271 

day at 8:00 a.m.) 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES 
 

272 

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 _22nd_ day of 

September, 2004. 

___________________________ 

 STEVEN RAY GREEN, CVR-CM 

 GA CCR No. A-2102 

NANCY LEE & ASSOCIATES