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 


SUBCOMMITTEE FOR DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEW 


MEETING 2 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


The verbatim transcript of the Subcommittee 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held in Mason, Ohio on February 7, 


2007. 

2 

C O N T E N T S
 

February 7, 2007 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 6 


DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO 


WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS 7 


MR. MARK GRIFFON, CHAIR 


SELECT 7TH ROUND OF DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS 14 


TO BE REVIEWED 


STATUS OF ONGOING REVIEWS 41 


ADJOURN SUBCOMMITTEE MEETING 75 


COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 76 

3 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 

5 

IDENTIFIED PARTICIPANTS
 

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


ZIEMER, PAUL, ABRWH 

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 (10:00 a.m.) 

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WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DFO


 DR. WADE: I think we're ready to begin. Ray, 


are you ready? Okay. 


Well, welcome to a meeting of the Subcommittee 


on Dose Reconstruction of the Advisory Board. 


With apologies, my name is Lew Wade and I serve 


as the Designated Federal Official for the 


Advisory Board. I apologize for my -- my 


waning voice, but I'll do the best to be close 


to the microphone and speak loudly. 


I would like to determine -- is Mike Gibson on 


the line? Mike, are you on the line? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, Lew, I'm here. 


 DR. WADE: Can you hear us, Mike? 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I can hear you fine. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, fine. Is Dr. Poston on the 

line? 

 (No response) 

Okay. This is a subcommittee chaired by Mark 


Griffon. Its members are Gibson, Poston, Munn. 


There are two alternates. First alternate is 

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Clawson, second alternate is Presley. As Dr. 


Poston is not with us, I would ask Brad Clawson 


to participate as a member of the subcommittee. 


Mark? 


WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS


 MR. GRIFFON: I apologize for my late arrival. 


I got canceled last night so I got in as soon 


as I could. We're continuing with the -- the 


case review process here, and I think I -- I 


made a mini agenda to go through for this 


meeting, which was not posted but I -- I just 


did it on the plane, but the items include the 


seventh set of cases, we want to try to select 


the seventh set of cases and I think we've got 


more information not that NIOSH has provided to 


us. We've got a handout which I believe is 


also in -- in the back. It might be slightly ­

- it -- it is de-identified for the public 


copies. This handout includes the extra -- 


additional information that we requested on the 


cases, so we -- so we went through kind of a 


two-step process this time in our selection, as 


everybody recalls. We -- we -- we pre-screened 


some cases and then we said give us some more 


information so that we're not -- we're not 

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ending up reviewing cases that aren't really of 


interest to -- to the Board. And we wanted to 


-- the additional information included the date 


the DR was approved, and this was important 


because a -- a lot of the cases that were done 


in -- using early versions of procedures, we 


didn't want to re—re-look at those issues 


again. We -- they've come up again and again 


in our process, so we wanted to look at the 


date of approval and get the more recently 


approved dose reconstructions, if possible. 


We also wanted to get information on the 


methods for external and internal dose 


reconstruction. Sometimes the simple ex-- 


explanation of overestimate or -- or full 


internal/external is -- is not telling the full 


story of -- of what was done for the dose 


reconstruction, so we wanted more -- a more 


descriptive field there of what -- how the DR 


was conducted for that individual case. 


We also wanted information on work area. We 


weren't sure how productive this was going to 


be, but the idea was -- especially for some of 


the bigger sites, Savannah River, Hanford -- we 


wanted to make sure we were getting a 

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distribution of not only -- some of the 


criteria we were looking at is types of cancer, 


things like that, but we also wanted a 


distribution amongst the work areas, if 


possible, so we wanted to see that -- that 


field in our pre-selection criteria. 


And of particular interest in the neutron dose 


reconstruction aspect, pre- and post-1973; and 


then job information, job title information. 


I will say, you -- you know, to some extent 


this information was and was not useful, 


depending on the case. Sometimes there was a 


number of jobs listed. Sometimes work areas 


was, you know, various, things like that were 


in the field. But I think overall it was 


helpful. I really appreciated the information 


on the DR methodology particularly. That was 


helpful to me in looking at these cases. 


So in -- in front of us we have this -- this 


matrix. It includes the -- and I don't have a 


count on this, but the cases that were selected 


at our -- at one of our Board meetings. And 


then if you go to like page 5 in this matrix, 


at the very bottom it says the second preselected set. And if you recall in our January 

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11th phone meeting, I -- I had mentioned that I 


went through, after talking with -- with Lew 


and Stu Hinnefeld, I went through the remaining 


cases that we hadn't selected and -- and gave 


Stu and NIOSH some more cases to give us more 


information on. This was basically because Stu 


had -- had looked at the ones we provided to 


him and said there were a lot of instances 


where you have -- for instance, you look at the 


first ones on page 1, there's a lot of -- maybe 


it's not all on page 1, but -- yeah, it does 


fall on page 1, there's a lot of TIB-2s again 


and again and -- and a lot of these -- these 


TIBs that we've been over and over again on the 


-- on the workgroup and now on the 


subcommittee. So we thought we might be going 


over ground that we've already covered, so he 


added on additional cases for us to select 


from. So -- so out of these, my goal -- I -- I 


sort of went through on my electronic version 


and I think our goal as a subcommittee now is 


to come up with a -- a list of -- I would say 


at least 20. I know that SC&A has mentioned 


that they would like to possibly get 30 out of 


this batch to keep sort of on -- on process on 

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-- on -- as far as production goals go for -- 


for annual cases completed. In looking through 


these myself I think I came up with 20 that 


look very good, and -- and I had some that were 


-- that were -- that I thought needed possible 


discussion here on the subcommittee. So I 


think we sh-- that's our number one thing that 


-- that I want to go through here, and we'll do 


that in a second. 


Other things on the agenda just -- just that we 


can complete, and I think we can wrap this up 


in an hour, but I want to update on the fourth 


set matrix, and I have a -- a brief report on 


that, as well -- just to -- to catch people up. 


I mean I know it's been a while since we've 


looked at this, but the fourth set of cases, we 


had a matrix which NIOSH provided responses to 


the matrix. We had a meeting where the 


workgroup -- or now the subcommittee, along 


with SC&A and NIOSH, went through item by item 


and I've now added a resolution column and -- 


but I will say there's several items that are 


outstanding. I know that NIOSH indicated in 


several instances that they were going to 


rework certain cases or redo certain 

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calculations and provide them back to the 


subcommittee. So what I want to do on that is 


just to -- to give an updated matrix to SC&A 


and NIOSH and -- and get back on -- on track 


with that and bring it back to the next 


subcommittee meeting and -- and com-- you know, 


work on comple-- work towards completion. The 


fifth and sixth set of cases are also out 


there, and I just want to do an update on that. 


And the last -- last thing I wanted to discuss 


was -- and this might be something for the 


eighth set of cases that we cover, but it's 


been mentioned in previous meetings that we, in 


our original scope, talked about blind reviews 


but we have not yet done any. So I think we 


might want to, if -- if we have time today, 


talk amongst ourselves about the process by wh­

- you know, if -- if we're going to do blind 


reviews, and then how are we going to go about 


it, you know, in terms of how do we select the 


case, how do we de-identify it so that SC&A has 


a truly blind case in front of them and -- and 


so forth, so... 


So that's sort of a sketch of an agenda. And 


like I said, the meat of it is the selecting of 

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the seventh set of cases. 


Anybody have anything to add to that that I -- 


Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: No, not an addition, I just did a 


quick count to know what we had from our random 


selections here. And by my count we have 32 in 


the first set and 29 in that second set, from 


which we ought to be able to get 30 okay. 


And then one last question. Do we -- do -- do 


we have the copy of your -- you said that you 


had done some review response on -- on the -- 


on the case four set? 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I don't --


 MS. MUNN: I don't have that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, and --


 MS. MUNN: So there's no point in my searching 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, I just --


 MS. MUNN: -- my database for it? Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I was just in -- working on 


that yesterday, so --


 MS. MUNN: Oh, okay. Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But I want to get -- yeah, I'll 


get that back around, people. 


 MS. MUNN: Thanks. 

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SELECT 7TH ROUND OF DOSE RECONSTRUCTIONS TO BE 


REVIEWED


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. So looking at the fourth 


set, the -- just pulling it up on my computer. 


I actually... 


 MS. MUNN: That was a long time ago. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I was going to say, I -- I ­

- it -- I'm not sure how we want to proceed, 


but my inclination would be to start on page 5, 


because I found several in a row that -- on 


page 5, if you look at the methodology, we're 


at best estimate cases, but I -- I guess we can 


start right from page 1. It might be easier. 


Did other members of the subcommittee have a 


opportunity to go through this matrix or -- I 


know it was provided electronically earlier on. 


 MS. MUNN: My review's been very incomplete, 


but I'd be interested in knowing what your -- 


your --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MS. MUNN: -- choices were out of that second 


pre-selected set. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I can go --


 MS. MUNN: And why. 


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too? 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Yeah, I can go 


through mine. Let's see, if we start on page 1 


then --


 MS. MUNN: Oh, I thought you were going to page 


5. Page 1. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I'll just do -- I'll start 


with page 1 and give you mine and then we can 


go back -- I have 79, then I go down to 63, 


which I think is on page 2. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, it is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm trying to work from the hard 


copy, as well, here. Okay. Then 55 -- 455, 


I'm sorry, right below that, 455. Then 335, 


next one after that. Then 337, then 322, which 


is at the bottom of page 3. Then 375, halfway 


down page 4; 17, at the top of page 5 -- 


 MS. MUNN: I have pages --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- 306, then we're into the next 


-- second selections, and I have 428, 377, 379, 


470 and 370, the -- the whole first five of 


those. 


 MS. MUNN: Whole batch. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And 352, which is on the next 

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page; 340, 360, 58, 421, and the last one, 


which is 001, I think -- what if -- yes, 001. 


So that -- that gives me, if I did this 


correctly, I counted 20 before. I'm not sure I 


did --


 DR. WADE: I think 19. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You counted 19? 


 DR. WADE: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. But now I -- I should 


say, that was -- I have my computer here color-


coded. That was my yellow ones, which means 


that I was pretty convinced that we should do 


them. Then I have another category of pinks, 


which were maybes, and I probably have another 


15 or so in the maybe column, which I certainly 


think we -- you know, we should go through. 


But maybe we can start with these if you have 


any discussion on these, whether we should or 


should not include these. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, it looks like a good spread of 


sites. On 322, Kansas City Plant was what -- 


who, what, which site? 


 MR. GRIFFON: 322, which page is that one? 


 MS. MUNN: Page 3. 


 DR. WADE: Three, bottom of page 3. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: 322 -- it -- it -- I -- I don't 


know much about the Kansas City Plant. 


 DR. WADE: Stu? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe Stu can speak to this 


better, but --


 MS. MUNN: Stu will help. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I knew we hadn't covered this 


at all, Kansas City Plant -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so... 


 MR. HINNEFELD: From my memory -- am I on? 


From my memory, the Kansas City Plant did 


largely instrumentation -- assembly type of 


things, some modest amount of radioactive 


material there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it was limited radio-- 


radioactive --


 MR. HINNEFELD: It was largely a --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Most of their products were -- 


did not involve radioactive material. There 


was some limited radioactive material there. 


 MS. MUNN: Is that -- is that -- was that its 


name, just Kansas City Plant? 


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City Plant. It's --


 MS. MUNN: Who ran it? 


 DR. WADE: There were 20, Mark -- 20. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I can find out. I can find 


out. I don't -- I don't recall right off-hand 


who ran it. I used to know -- 


 MS. MUNN: A short-term AWE? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Bendix. 


 MS. MUNN: Huh? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Bendix ran it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: My sense was that it wasn't 


really considered much of a radiological 


operation, but I know we haven't looked at it ­

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 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- in any other venue, so -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I thought we might want to at 


least do one case from that -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- facility, you know. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Correct. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I noticed we had two on the 


list, and I --


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 MS. MUNN: No, you didn't, but there were two 


on -- on this list here. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: They made mainly non-


radiological items. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Components and -- but there was 


some -- some limited amount of radiological 


work done there. I believe the company that 


ran it was named Bendix. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The other thing --


 MS. MUNN: Oh, okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that caught my eye was -- was 


none for internal, so obviously there's the 


assumption that there was no internal exposure 


at all. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So it -- you know --


 MS. MUNN: That's --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I just thought it would be 


worth looking at one of those -- one case from 


that plant, probably not -- 


 DR. WADE: But for the --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- probably not more. 


 DR. WADE: For the record, Mark's first list 


was 20. 

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 MS. MUNN: Yeah. Good. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I can count. 


 DR. WADE: I can't. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's hard counting those things 


on a commuter plane with the -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, it is. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Anyway -- and the other -- my 


other criteria, generally, Wanda -- I don't 


know if you have other specific questions, but 


there were instances where -- for instance, the 


-- on page -- I'm having trouble cross-walking 


these, but number 55 and -- and 35, they were 


Savannah River and Mound, and -- and part of my 


interest there was -- was at least for the 


Mound plant I saw something in the work areas 


that was -- it seemed like the individual was 


ov-- over quite a bit of -- number of areas, so 


I wanted to -- even though it was an 


overestimating approach, I wanted to see how 


the overestimating approach compared to a 


potential for all those work areas where he 


would -- you know, whether it was truly 


bounding that kind of thing. So I looked at -- 


ver-- I -- I skipped a lot of the TIB-2 cases, 


especially if they were -- at the very top I 

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think we had a lot of TIB-2s that were -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I think we did. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that were used, and this is 


what -- I just used a hypothetical set of -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- for the intake, so -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, if I saw that, I -- 


I generally skipped a lot of those. 


 MS. MUNN: Just went over them, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And then sometimes, for 


ones that aren't -- aren't obvious why I picked 


them, sometimes it was a matter of picking the 


site, because I didn't think we had a lot of 


cases from that site. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, it looks like there's a good 


site spread. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: And I guess just no deeper into it 


than I went, the job titles looked like they 


were a good spread, too. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Now the other -- the -- you know, 


there are definitely -- if -- if you want to go 


through other potential ones, 'cause I think we 


can probably get the list a little higher, I'm 

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not -- I don't want to focus on the number 30. 


If -- if we don't have enough good cases, maybe 


we can get to 26 or 8 or whatever, and then get 


the balance the next time. But there -- there 


were a number of cases that I was, you know, 


looking at -- you know, they were potentials, 


but not -- I wasn't convinced that we should or 


should not do them. I'll read down those. 


On the first page, number 28 I had as a 


potential. 


 DR. WADE: On the first page? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I'm sorry. It's not on the 


first page, it's --


 MS. MUNN: I have --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- top of page 3, sorry. I'm 


going from the screen without page numbers 


here. 


 MS. MUNN: I can't follow your page numbers 


because I printed mine out at home. My page 


numbers are different -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, sorry. 


 MS. MUNN: -- but --


 MR. GRIFFON: So it's -- it's this -- 


 MS. MUNN: -- you --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- K-25/X-10. 

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 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Even though it's a overestimating 


approaches, TIB-2, it was 30 years of 


experience. It was a pipe-fitter, interesting 


job at -- at this -- at these two plants, 


actually. In terms of exposure potential, I 


think the pipe-fitters at these places had a 


fair potential for exposure, so this one was 


interesting from that standpoint. But I think 


what -- you know, again, we're looking at the 


TIB-2 model used here, for the most part. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, and we have the same sort of 


thing in one that I was a little interested in, 


076. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Where is that? 


 MS. MUNN: Pinellas -- it's on my page 4, 


probably close to your page 4. I guess the 


combination of lung and esophagus looked 


interesting, but it's also a TIB-2. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm still look-- okay, it's at 


the bottom of --


 DR. WADE: Bottom of 4. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- bottom of 4. 


 MS. MUNN: So I have no strong feelings about 


that, it's just one that caught my eye. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I actually had that as a -- 


a potential one, too, Wanda, so -- for -- for 


those reasons you just listed, 21 years of work 


experience --


 MS. MUNN: And maintenance. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It was al-- it was also Pinellas, 


that we haven't --


 MS. MUNN: Well, we have -- we so often have 


issues with maintenance. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And maintenance, right, right, 


and maintenance. So I could certainly add that 


on our -- our potential. 


 MS. MUNN: I guess I'd appreciate that if you 


would add that as a potential. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let me read down some of these 


other potential ones and we can just highlight 


those and then go through everything and -- and 


sort of vote up or down whether we want to 


include them. 


I'm trying to get back to my -- here it is. 


Okay. 


So I said 28, then I have 99. I -- this was 


just from an intrigue -- this is really 


intriguing, .2 years of work experience. Again 


it's a hypothetical model, but if it was an 

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actual test -- I don't know the history on this 


site, either, but if it was a test -- 


 MS. MUNN: I don't either. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- even though it was .2 years, 


would this be bounding, this approach. That 


was sort of my question. 


 MS. MUNN: That would be very interesting, I 


think. He's shown as a drill machine operator. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So that's -- that's 99, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm going to circle these 


potential ones -- 56, which is Los Alamos, 22 


years. This was TIB-18 as opposed to TIB-2, 


and I was trying to remember what the 


difference was between TIB-18 and TIB-2. I --


I don't recall TIB-18 being discussed as much 


in our case reviews. I -- Stu, can you help me 


out there? Is TIB-18 very similar or... 


 MR. HINNEFELD: TIB-18 is based on -- it's used 


at sites or places where there was -- it's 


based on radiological monitoring that was 


performed at sites, and it has to do with 


assigning either intake at the exposure 


standard for people who are radiological 


workers, or some fraction of the exposure 

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standard --


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- for the duration of their 


employment. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I don't -- I don't think we've 


discussed --


 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't think there've -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that a lot on the -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- been many --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't think many TIB-18s have 


been reviewed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't believe they have. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So I think that might be a good 


one for that reason. That's 56. Going on down 


two cases from there, I have 302, this was just 


a long history. Huntington Plant, I don't 


think we've done a lot of reviews for -- 


 MS. MUNN: I don't think so. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- the Huntington Plant, you 


know. 


 MS. MUNN: I don't remember it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Multi-- multiple cancer, also, so 


those were the main reasons I was looking at. 

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54 and 354, two in a row right there, 


Bridgeport Brass and Aliquippa Forge. 


 MS. MUNN: Hmm. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I couldn't recall offhand whether we had done any Bridgeport Brass 


Adrian facility. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I thought we did, the last go­

'round. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We did? Okay. So --


 MS. MUNN: I think we did one, at least one. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that's probably not as 


intriguing then, if we've done one, because 


it's --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- probably a --


 MS. MUNN: I'm pretty sure we have, and I know 


we've done bone. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. BEHLING: Excuse me, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yes. 


 MS. BEHLING: This is Kathy Behling. We've 


done three Bridgeport Brass. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay, so --


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- I would probably take that off 

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my potential list. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 'Cause it's probably the similar 


approach --


 MS. MUNN: That's a lot for that facility. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. And Aliquippa Forge really 


-- this was a -- the -- the thing that caught 


my eye here mostly was this -- the job, not so 


much the --


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know, the -- the site, but 


the job as furnace operator, so I'll leave that 


on our potential list. 13 -- if you go two 


down from 354, there's number 13, Brookhaven. 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: This was just because I don't 


think we've hit Brookhaven. 


 MS. MUNN: I don't think we have, either, and I 


don't think we've had a lab tech, as such. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, and it was from the '50s a 


lab tech --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- 32 years experience, you know, 


a fairly long work cycle. All right, then I 


had 76, as you mentioned, Wanda. 

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 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I skipped the next one 


because I think we've done Bridgeport Brass 


Havens Lab, too. 


Then I'm way down to 315, this is into the -- 


the second set of selections, 315 was a 


Savannah River case, pipe-fitter, some 


interesting work areas. That -- that's sort of 


what -- you know, I'm not completely convinced, 


but it looks rather interesting. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Then 342 and -- and number 60, 


right in a row there, which are Savannah River 


and a Paducah case. The Paducah case was 


actually one I was mo-- more interested in the 


work areas, but it --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- doesn't tell you a whole lot. 


 MS. MUNN: No, it doesn't tell you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Sounds like he might have been all 


over. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. And I think I have 


one more -- one or two more potential -- 174, 


which is down a ways. This is a Y-12 case, 29 

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years experience, again the various buildings 


and an engineer, and it was 1970s, so -- 


 MS. MUNN: All right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And you know -- and last one I 


have is 344, which is a Hanford case. This was 


a -- in the -- from the 1940s, started work I 


guess. It might be a --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- could have been out there in 


the '40s? Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, the work --


 MR. GRIFFON: 32 years --


 MS. MUNN: -- descriptions are really 


interesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, radiation monitor caught my 


eye. 


 MS. MUNN: It really covers the -- a lot. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so 344. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I -- I think that would be a 

good one. 

 DR. WADE: So on the pink list we have 12. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Twelve -- 12 in addition to -- 


 DR. WADE: Twelve in addition to the 20. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So the -- the first 20 I 


mentioned, were -- were there any objections to 

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-- to including -- or should I go through them 


all one by one? If -- if we can agree on the 


first 20 that I mentioned, then I'll go through 


this last set of 12 and --


 DR. WADE: Okay. Mike, any reaction to the 


first 20? 


 MR. GIBSON: No, sounds good to me. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: Looked fine. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So you want to go through those 


last 12 and see if we can -- 


 MS. MUNN: Last 12 maybe. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, let's go through them -- 


 MS. MUNN: Do we -- we specifically want to aim 


for 30. Right? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well --


 MS. MUNN: Or not? 


 DR. WADE: I -- no, the reality is we -- we've 


asked for 60 a year. SC&A is suggesting that 


it would help their work planning if we could 


give them two groups of 30, and I think we'd 


like to accommodate, although not and 


compromise the quality of what we're doing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I think if we had 32 -- 

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if we end up with 32, I don't think it's going 


to be a problem. 


 DR. WADE: Or 28. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or 28, but let's go through and 


just -- there's a couple of those I was a 


little bit unsure on whether it's wor-- worth 


it. So the first one I have on the list is 28, 


if I'm correct. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 28 is -- again, is a K-25/X-10 


case with 30 years experience and a pipe-


fitter. 


 MS. MUNN: I guess I would not find that one 


particularly interesting. We've done a lot of 


-- of work on the Oak Ridge Y-12/X-25 (sic) 


complex. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I would actually probably 


eliminate that one, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: And yeah, I -- I wouldn't -- and 


we've done that --


 MR. GRIFFON: And Mike -- Mike, if you have any 


reaction to any of these, just speak up. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay? All right. And Brad, any 

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reaction to that one, or... 


 MR. CLAWSON: I agree, I think we've done quite 


a few of those. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. All right, 99 is the next 


one. 


 MS. MUNN: Now there you have the same cancer 


but a very different situation, and that's 


interesting just from -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- the point of being interesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I -- I like that one. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. We'll keep 99; 56 -- 

I think I'd vote for 56. 


 MS. MUNN: Same character-- same cancer, but 


very different work experience and -- yeah, 


that's interesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And the TIB-- and the TIB-18, we 


haven't really --


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- focused on that a lot, so I 


think that's a good -- all right. So that 


gives us two. 302, Huntington Plant -- 


Huntington Pilot Plant, have we done -- we've 


done -- we have done one of these or multiple 

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ones or -- couple -- couple of them? 


 DR. WADE: Kathy, could you help us with that, 


Huntington? 


 MS. BEHLING: This is Kathy Behling. We've 


done two Huntington. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I imagine the approach is the 


same. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, it's --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, so I think we can skip that 


one. I wasn't sure if we'd done it. Okay, 


we'll -- we'll eliminate that one. 


Brook-- or I'm sorry, I skipped one, 354, 


Aliquippa Forge --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, interesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- furnace operator. 


 MR. CLAWSON: I think -- I think that's one'd 


be interesting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, we'll keep that one. 


Thirteen, Brookhaven. 


 DR. WADE: A lab tech, yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I think that would be 


interesting. We haven't done a Brookhaven case 


yet, I don't think. 


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still, yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It is an OTIB-2, but it --


 MS. MUNN: But it's a different thing. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 76 --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Pinellas Plant. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, already --


 MR. GRIFFON: You know, the other interesting 


thing to me on this one was the -- the 


description involving the use of coworker data 


as opposed --


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to -- yeah, so --


 MS. MUNN: Several things there that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MS. MUNN: -- caught my eye. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right, 76. I'm moving on. 


have 315 as the next one -- 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Savannah River case. 


 MS. MUNN: And as you pointed out, the only 


really unusual thing there is all the different 


work areas, and that's -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the areas and the job 


title, but other than that I'm not sure -- 


I 
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 MS. MUNN: We've done a lot of Savannah River 


and --


 MR. GRIFFON: We have, I could go either way on 


this. 


 MS. MUNN: -- done a lot of fitters. I --


despite the interesting work areas, I -- I 


wouldn't put that on my priority list, 


personally. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I -- I agree. Brad, I 


didn't --


 MR. CLAWSON: I -- I agree, I think we've done 


quite (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 342, another Savannah 


River, a lung cancer close to the 50th 


percentile, but overestimates on both sides, 


so... 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm not sure why I put that on 


there. 


 MS. MUNN: I don't know. I wouldn't. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, cross that off. Next one 


is a Paducah case, number 60, 32 years 


experience starting in 1970. 


 DR. WADE: Groundskeeper. 


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maintenance, so -- I wish I knew more about 


buildings or areas, but I was also -- well, I 


don't know, that --


 MS. MUNN: Why don't we probably find out more 


if we review the case. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Yeah, I think we can 


include that. 174, this is -- is Y-12, 29 


years, 1970s --


 MS. MUNN: Overestimates, very low probability. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Low probability, yeah, 


overestimates. It's not -- probably not that ­

- all right, we can eliminate that one. 344, I 


think you already expressed interest in this 


one -- right, Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: Yes, I did. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's -- that looks like 


a pretty good case. 


 DR. WADE: That's seven, so 30 -- 27 total. 


 MR. GRIFFON: 27? So that gives us 27 and of 


course we're going to present this to the full 


Board, but are there any others on the list 


that you -- anybody's -- thinks we should have 


included that I missed or -- we can at least 


have this to present as a proposal to the full 


Board. 

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 MS. MUNN: Yeah, the other one that I found 


very interesting just because if we've 


encountered -- 166, even though the probability 


is relatively low and -- and it's another OTIB2, I haven't seen that particular type of 


cancer before. I don't know whether that's -- 


 DR. WADE: What page of yours, Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: The first --


 MR. GRIFFON: Page 1. 


 MS. MUNN: -- very first page. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it is an eye cancer. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: It was only .7 years, th-- yeah, 


a number of factors steered me away from that. 


 MS. MUNN: And don't know anything about the 


job title. I guess I just -- you know, I can't 


help but wonder, when you don't know the job 


title and there's such a short employment 


period, what -- you know, why was -- was there 


a specific incident involved here? I guess --


it just raised a lot of questions. But I don't 


know whether it's worth the effort to review it 


or not. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, my -- my sense was that -- 


 MS. MUNN: It's clearly an overestimate. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah, my sense was that it 


was the generic model approach and .7 years. 


 Any others, Brad? Any --


 MR. CLAWSON: Well, on page 7 I was interested 


in 100, and only reason is 'cause it -- he 


calls out that he's -- personal monitoring, 


kept radiation records, photographs, but it 


calls out several different buildings. Most of 


these that I see are in Hanford, but I see none 


of these that -- in Idaho. It's a multi-site. 


I kind of wanted to see -- it's another OTIB-2. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it's an OTIB-2. Hanford 


and Idaho. Does have 26 years in the early -- 


early period. 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, it's in the '40s and 26 


years of experience. 


 MS. MUNN: The Federal building, the 300 area ­

-


 MR. CLAWSON: I guess I've never seen that -- I 


guess I've never seen that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: And it does involve the -- the -- 

 MR. CLAWSON: -- (unintelligible) description. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- neutron exposures prior to 

'72, so -- yeah, I guess I could go either way 


on this one. 

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 DR. WADE: Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: Well, I -- I agree, the -- the 


combination of sites makes it kind of 


interesting, but familiar as I am with the -- 


the sites listed there -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: The areas are not -- yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- the areas really -- the Federal 


building doesn't count for anything except the 


granite, but I guess --


 MR. GRIFFON: It does have the early year 


neutron thing, which I -- 


 MS. MUNN: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- that was the one thing that 


intrigues me, kind of. 


 MS. MUNN: Well, and -- and the other thing 


that might be of interest is the last item on 


the -- the work-related stuff. Those folks 


went all over, and that might be a little more 


interesting than the average bear. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we can add that one. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, that's 100? 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Let's add that one. 


 MS. MUNN: I -- I think yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Does that give us 28? 

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 DR. WADE: 28. Now the full Board, at 3:15 


this afternoon, will take up the issue that -- 


the proposal you bring to them. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm sorry, okay. Okay, so I 


think we'll -- we'll present that as a proposal 


then, the 28 cases from -- for the seventh set, 


and take it up this afternoon with the full 


Board. 


STATUS OF ONGOING REVIEWS
 

Now I just -- I want to go through some updates 


on the other items, primarily updates. 


The fourth set of -- fourth set case review, I 


do have an updated matrix. And as I said, I 


added in a resolution column. In -- in a 


couple of places I think I have question marks. 


I'll get together probably with Stu during this 


meeting, resolve those and then send that out. 


And I think -- my goal is to have another 


subcommittee meeting prior to our next Board 


meeting, in between Board meetings if we can, 


where we can have a full day to do more of the 


item by item discussions that we have to have 


to go through the resolving of the findings. 


So I'd like to take up the fourth set at that 


next meeting. 

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The fifth set -- we have a matrix from SC&A. 


Right? And I don't -- Stu's questioning that. 


I know I have a matrix from SC&A. 


 MS. BEHLING: Excuse me, Mark. This is Kathy 


Behling again. I provided you the matrix on 


December 8th. However, I have not provided 


that to NIOSH yet. I was waiting on your -- 


your direction. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. I apologize. Okay, so 

I --

 MS. BEHLING: That's all right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- I have a draft in -- in my 

hands, then, and I think we'll -- we'll take 


another look at that quickly and -- and -- but 


get it -- get it to NIOSH, so I'll get back 


with you, Kathy, and the next step'll be to get 


that to NIOSH and get NIOSH response to the 


findings. 


 MS. BEHLING: Very good. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'd also like to be in a place 


where we can bring that one to the next 


meeting, if possible. So we'll try to turn 


this around in the next week or so, Stu, and 


give you a month and a half or whatever to, you 


know, come back with a NIOSH response. Is that 

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-- I think that's probably doable. Okay. So I 


would like to be in a spot where we could have 


a subcommittee meeting in between the next two 


Board meeting-- in between this meeting and the 


next Board meeting where we can discuss the 


fourth set, hopefully close most of those out, 


and the fifth set begin our -- begin our 


resolution process. 


 DR. WADE: Now we have a Board call scheduled 


for April 5th, and then a face-to-face meeting 


of the Board May 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in Denver. 


 MR. GRIFFON: So -- yeah, we might be able to 


do it even before that Board call. Maybe we 


can schedule a face-to-face subcommittee 


meeting, but I'll check in for times later. We 


don't have to do that here. 


And then the sixth set -- what's the status on 


that, Kathy? 


 MS. BEHLING: The sixth set I'm planning on 


hopefully conducting the conference calls with 


the two-member Board teams the week -- either 


the end of next week or possibly the week of 


the 18th is -- that's probably more doable. 


I'm going to contact the Board members and 


hopefully have conference calls that week, and 

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then we'll be ready to put a draft report out 


thereafter. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Okay, so that's -- we're 


well into the works there. 


 MS. BEHLING: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And -- and we -- we probably need 


the time to catch up anyway on the fourth and 


fifth sets so it sounds like our timing's 


pretty good here. 


The -- the other item I have left was the blind 


reviews, and you know, our original scope 


called for blind reviews. I think we've --


we've had comments over the last year or so 


that we should include these, and we have yet ­

- have yet to do that. You know, my -- my 


inclination is to do so. I just think we need 


to probably figure out how. I think it would 


make sense to have it for the eighth set of 


cases, maybe, and then how many we can -- we 


can decide. But I think we -- you know, in 


terms of how to do it, I think it would 


probably make sense if the subcommittee worked 


with NIOSH and selected a case for blind 


review, but -- just thinking through how to do 


this, I -- you know, the subcommittee operates 

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in a public forum. We want to keep the 


identification of this case -- we want to have 


it go de-identified to SC&A, so you know, we 


could work on the selection and then provide -- 


John -- John, go ahead. 


DR. MAURO: This is more from the point of view 


of notwithstanding which blind review is 


selected. It has more to do with a 


conversation Hans and I have been having 


regarding the -- what we're hoping to 


accomplish with a blind review, which will 


affect the status --


 MS. MUNN: John, ex-- excuse me, I don't think 


that mike is --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: It's not coming through up here. 


 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, it's not. 


DR. MAURO: It is on. I'll speak into it. I 


guess it is on. You can hear me okay? It's 


on, yes. 


 MS. MUNN: There you go. 


DR. MAURO: Okay, I just was a little too -- 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


DR. MAURO: Let me see if I can explain the 


distinction. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


DR. MAURO: My perspective, and this is -- and 


Hans has a different perspective and I think 


I'd like to put before the subcommittee, is a 


blind review could take one of two forms. 


Let's say you pick the case. One approach 


would be SC&A -- here are all the raw data from 


DOE on this case regarding bioassay, regarding 


job description, regarding film badge, et 


cetera. In other words, the fundamental raw 


data. Here's your starting point. Reconstruct 


the doses using your own sensibilities and 


skill sets and resources, starting from 


scratch. Okay? And this way, we would do it 


the way we would do it. Okay? 


 The alternative is, no, don't do it that way. 


Do it the way NIOSH would do it, using all 


their workbooks, all their procedures, all of 


their tools that they -- that you believe they 


would use, which would test something a little 


different. Other words, in one way it's really 


do we come out in the same place if we were to 


do it our own way from the raw data, which 


would -- which would really answer one kind of 


question. The other approach would really test 

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the entire process, which includes all the 


workbooks, all the procedures, all -- you know, 


there are 60, 70 procedures -- and test those, 


because we would actually apply all of that to 


it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


DR. MAURO: And so there really are two 


different ways we could come at this. In 


theory, we could do both and -- and see what 


happens. So I just want to leave that with you 


as a think piece when you make a decision. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, my sense -- you -- I was 


just about to say the same two distinctions. 


That's -- that's -- that's the way I saw it, as 


well, it's either you work from the raw data or 


you -- you follow NIOSH's procedures. My sense 


was that we're -- we're testing the workbooks 


in many of our other audit functions and many 


of our other reviews, and my inkling was to 


lean toward the work from raw data, with the 


understanding that -- that you're not 


necessarily going to come up with the same 


exact answer, but if -- that -- that's where 


it's going to be a little bit subjective on our 


part to say, you know, they're -- they're in 

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the sa-- you know, all health physicists know 


that you're not going to -- you know, two 


people do internal dose calculations, you could 


come -- you know, what -- what is a reasonable 


closeness, I guess, is -- is going to be the 


subjective part of this. But I think that -- 


that has some value. Go ahead, Hans. 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah, you're exactly right, and I 


think that's was my comment. You have to 


accept the fact that if we deal with first 


principles, totally independent -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- the level of sophistication 


will not be there. We will probably not have 


the statistical models to do -- run Crystal 


Ball equivalencies. We will not run all kinds 


of statistical models that deal with the 


uncertainty. We will probably deal with 


deterministic values. And of course under 


those conditions, when you use lognormal 


distributions versus a deterministic model, 


you're going to end up with significant 


differences. Now --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- the question is, what are we 
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willing to accept as a difference that's 


acceptable, recognizing that we're dealing with 


a very different approach. 


On the other hand, if we do use their method, 


which we have obviously reviewed and -- and 


scrutinized, the question is, given the option 


of using the same methodology -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- that NIOSH has used, we should 


in principle become very -- get very close 


results. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I --


 DR. BEHLING: And -- and -- and so you have to 


look at those two options and say which one do 


you really want to look at. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I think -- but I think John 


raises a -- another -- a third option, which is 


we could select both, and I think that ha-- 


that has some merit to -- 'cause I think on the 


one hand you're -- you're right, Hans, you're ­

- in -- in this scenario you're sort of testing 


the application of the tools, you know, so 


you're going to use the same tools, but how you 


take the -- how you go from your raw data and 


use those tools, is it consistent with what 

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NIOSH did, and that's a good test, that's a 


good thing to test. 


 DR. BEHLING: And there's still -- still 


variables. I mean in many instances -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- NIOSH has options for choosing 


which guidance, which documents, which protocol 


they want to use --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- so it's not cast in stone, 

either. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, I know. 

 DR. BEHLING: There are certain options 

available for NIOSH to do a dose 


reconstruction. And -- and even there, there 


are likely to be variables, depending on 


subjective selection of which guidance document 


do you want to use. 


The second down side to the use of -- of that 


particular approach is that some of the 


guidance documents and books -- workbooks are 


quite sophisticated and would probably require 


some training on the part of some of the people 


who will do the blind dose reconstruction 


because we have not had that benefit. So I do 

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want to caution you that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- probably different training 


will be necessary for us to do that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Wanda, go ahead. 


 MS. MUNN: No, go ahead, Larry. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, I feel compelled to come to 


the mike and speak. I think that both 


approaches bring useful information to us. 


They have their utility, and we would look 


forward to the use of either approach. Just 


would say that we stand ready to help in 


providing what information you wish, whether 


it's just the raw data solely or it's raw data 


and the workbooks and all of the tools that are 


used in -- in the way we go about doing this 


dose reconstruction program. I think that 


certainly all of the reviews of claims and all 


of the reviews of the procedures that the Board 


has conducted have really looked -- in my 


opinion, have looked at are we applying our 


methodology as -- as we say we are. And to 


look at a blind dose reconstruction that starts 


with raw data and uses professional judgment, 


uses deterministic values and approaches and 

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assessments and states assumptions and how 


they're treated I think goes more toward is 


there another method, is there another way of 


going about doing this work, and that's 


certainly of interest to us as well. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm -- I -- I actually -- 


you know, and I don't think we -- we ever 


planned on doing a lot of these blind reviews, 


but I think there might be some usefulness in ­

- in doing both approaches, but -- go ahead, 


Wanda, what --


 MS. MUNN: This is really a fairly thorny issue 


if you parse it and really get into the guts of 


it. It's not like doing trigonometry. You 


don't have a set of -- of theorems that you're 


going to work by. You have processes, but all 


of us who've done any kind of calculations know 


your calculation is likely to be different than 


your colleague's calculation, even though 


you're using the same methodology. And I'm --


I personally am very comfortable with the work 


that SC&A has done reviewing the procedures and 


approving and commenting on how those are done. 


Doing it an entirely different way would give 


us information; I'm not sure whether that's the 

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information that we want when we're analyzing 


our basic reason for wanting blind reviews. 


Perhaps it would benefit us to think for a 


little bit about exactly what we want from the 


blind review before we try to decide how to go 


at it. My first instinct is, if we really 


wanted to thoroughly analyze this, that we 


would do -- use John's suggestion to use both 


methods. But as Hans pointed out, this is not 


just a cut and dried issue for SC&A folks. 


That would require -- depending on the case 


that we chose for blind review, that might 


require some extensive training, and I don't 


have a feel for how extensive that training 


might need to be. I know that -- that the 


NIOSH folks have spent a great deal of time in 


training on their -- on -- on some of these -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: -- more complex issues. So it might 


-- I -- I guess I'd like for this subcommittee 


to have a little better grasp of precisely what 


we want out of these blind reviews. What do we 


want? 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 


 DR. WADE: It's always good to go back to the ­
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- the charter, and let me read from the charter 


and I don't know if it'll inform the discussion 


or not. Under "Function," (reading) The 


Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 


shall (b) advise the Secretary of HHS on the 


scientific validity and quality of dose 


reconstruction efforts performed for this 


program. 


So really that's your chartered responsibility. 


You have to think about that as you decide what 


you want to do here. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, and I -- I think 


when we were drafting the scope -- I mean part 


of -- part of the thought process was -- was 


just the -- instead of rev-- reviewing a 


prescriptive approach that -- understanding 


that -- that -- especially with -- with a more 


complicated case, we could get fairly -- fairly 


good differences in the doses that we come up 


with, but it -- it was this -- this sort of 


question that -- that Larry talked to and that 


Hans mentioned, that, you know, even if -- 


without the aid of some of these tools, you 


know, I would still expect that, given the same 


set of raw data, that SC&A, our -- our 

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contractor is going to come up with something 


close to -- and I'll put that in parentheses, 


or in quotes, close to the dose that NIOSH got. 


And then that -- that -- that sort of gives us 


the reassurance that, you know, the approach -- 


you know, now we're -- we're testing sort of 


the scientific validity of all the models, I 


guess, more than the quality side of it. You 


know, we're saying, you know, sort of just a 


total different approach from a different 


standpoint and they got -- you know, the answer 


came close or didn't clo-- you know, and that's 


more reassurance that the methods -- you know, 


it's just another reassurance. I know we've 


reviewed the procedures and we're reviewing all 


the site profiles. You know, this is just 


another step to say let's go back to the raw 


data and see -- you know, put me in a room 


alone and, in a vacuum, what would I come up 


with without the -- without using pre-existing 


tools to -- to work from, and I would hope I 


would get, you know, pretty close to the dose. 


Hans, you were about to -- 


 DR. BEHLING: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to get up. 

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 DR. BEHLING: I think the validity of doing the 


first principle approach would also depend on 


the case selection. For instance --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- you wouldn't be able to select 


an AWE case --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- for which there is no data. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, no. 


 DR. BEHLING: You wouldn't be able to select a 


case for which coworker data is essential, 


because then --


 MS. MUNN: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- we would have to go to 


coworker data --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: -- in order to make that 


accommodation. So part of the credibility of a 


first principle approach would be based upon 


the type of case that is being selected. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree, the --


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 DR. BEHLING: There is a complete dataset of 


external/internal dosimetry, I think that's a 

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doable approach, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I agree, I --


 DR. BEHLING: -- it has to be --


 MR. GRIFFON: I was thinking of a best estimate 


with both --


 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- with both sets of data. That 


was sort of in the back of my mind, but I 


didn't know we were that far. But yeah, I 


think you're right, the case selection's very 


important and -- and we can even do -- you 


know, we can even -- you know, to keep this 


blind to SC&A, I think we as the subcommittee 


can select a case and -- and you know, we're 


not going to -- I mean John, Hans, you guys 


will have the opportunity to come back to us 


and say we've looked at this and we don't think 


this is a -- appropriate case for blind review. 


We don't want to do this one. You know, you 


can throw it back at us and say bad selection. 


I think that would be another, you know, sort 


of way to triage this. We don't want to -- you 


know, we want something that's going to be a -- 


appropriate for a blind review, you're right, 


so --

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 MS. MUNN: Yeah, Brad has... 


 MR. CLAWSON: Yeah, I just wanted to say that I 


think it's kind of critical that we -- we do do 


this because, going back to the charter, we're 


supposed to be able to say that this is what 


we're doing, and we've got to be able to take ­

- I agree that we've got to pick out a case, 


we've got to sit down with both sides. But you 


know, even in my work, it's always good to have 


another set of eyes run through what I've done. 


We may get a little off there at the end, but I 


believe that we gain knowledge from each side 


of the process and better understand how we're 


getting into it, and I think that's quite 


important. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- I think we still -- we 


still have our same resolution process where, 


you know, if the number looks quite a bit 


different, when we get down at the table and 


start going through the resolution process we 


might -- we might find out that in fact, you 


know, they're not that far off given that you 


didn't have the -- the Crystal Ball approach 


and you -- you know, we can probably discuss 


through why -- if there is a difference, why. 

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And you know, I think -- I think it does just ­

- just gives another tool to examine the 


scientific validity of -- of NIOSH's 


approaches, so... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Hans brings up a very interesting 


point about doing a blind review and working 


with the raw data, and not -- not -- not 


looking at AWE cases in that regard because 


AWEs typically don't -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- have data for us. In some 


cases they do, but the majority, they don't. 


And I'm not -- I don't -- I don't -- I would 


not argue with that point. But I would suggest 


that it still -- it still merits discussion and 


consideration about should a blind review be 


done for AWE approaches where you're only 


dealing with the process information and the 


source term and how you -- how you go about 


trying -- attempting to reconstruct dose for 


that. I -- I just -- you know, I don't want to 


be argumentative, but I think it does merit 


some -- some further consideration. I wouldn't 


just select them out and say we're not going to 


do blind reviews on them. I'd ask you to 

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consider the -- the AWE situation in that 


regard. 


I think it also needs to be said here that the 


-- the tools and the various approaches that we 


use at NIOSH in dose reconstruction, there -- 


there's a -- you know, there's an underlying 


premise for why we have developed what we have 


developed in order to reconstruct dose, and 


that is -- that underlying premise is that we 


want to make sure that a variety of health 


physicists who are brought to bear on doing 


dose reconstructions do so in a consistent 


manner. Because if you put 100 of these good, 


fine fellows in a room and let them have their 


will at it and their way at it, they're going 


to come out with 100 different ways of doing 


this job. Some are going to come out with the 


same -- same answer and some are going to be 


farther away from -- from what that answer is. 


So you know, our intent was is to provide some 


consistency in approach and how we go about 


doing our work, and so that leads me back to 


saying what I said earlier. If there's another 


way of doing our work, we'd like to see that 


brought to bear and identified for us, so... 

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 MR. GRIFFON: We've got a couple of -- John and 


then Paul. 


DR. MAURO: I'll be very -- I'll be very brief. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I don't disagree with the AWE 


point, by the way. I don't know that we 


necessarily are ready to -- I think we just 


have to be careful in the case selection, but I 


would point out on the AWE side that I think -- 


when we do the site profile reviews, if it's an 


AWE site profile review, we do spend a fair 


amount of time looking at those models. So 


that sort of is a review in of itself, so -- 


you know, but anyway... 


DR. MAURO: Another dimension to the selection 


of the cases that might undergo blind review, 


whatever scope and approach is used, is right 


now before us there are a number of issues that 


we're engaged in and closing out on site 


profiles, and SECs. An example -- as we all 


know, there is some discussion about to begin 


regarding neutron dosimetry, neutron-to-photon 


ratios in the early years of Hanford. We all 


know we're going -- we will be meeting on that 


subject. There are issues certainly that 


emerge from Fernald. I know that we -- you see 

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our report. We have certain issues that we've 


raised related to thorium, internal dose from 


thorium. There are many of these types of 


technical issues that are before us and that we 


will be discussing. The degree to which 


selecting cases or selecting a blind dose 


reconstruction with an eye toward will that 


help inform the other aspects of the program 


that we're involved in -- in other words, in 


the process of engaging in a blind dose 


reconstruction or a selection of a particular 


case, the degree to which going through that 


case will add value to help achieve closure on 


some of the issues we're dealing with on the 


site profile or SEC is another way to look at 


it. It's almost like an integrating factor. 


So I wanted to sort of leave that with folks. 


That's another way to think about it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Paul, did you... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Just want to make two points. One 


is that in the case selection process I think 


it'll behoove the subcommittee -- and the full 


Board, 'cause I guess the full Board will have 


to recommend this -- to identify the parameters 


of the type you describe and whether it 

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includes AWEs and so on. But we've got to do 


the selection in the open, so I think at some 


point we're going to have to have Stu or 


somebody come to us with a -- a list of just 


items, with no specs on their characteristic 


other than the general characteristics that we 


provide for the preliminary selection process, 


and then choose some of those at random so that 


there's nothing known to us or -- other than 


whatever parameters we -- we determine, and 


particularly to the contractor, about the case 


in advance 'cause -- if they're really going to 


do it blind. 


My second point is that whether you do it by 


first principles or by NIOSH process, you're 


probably going to get a different number. Hans 


has suggested how close is close enough. It 


seems to me we've got to focus on -- the 


ultimate criteria is would the number change 


the decision, because -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- if you give a health physicist 


a dose problem and tell him to solve it first 


principles, they will get a very different 


answer unless they make the kinds of 

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assumptions we do, which are claimant friendly. 


Most of those aren't done by health physicists 


when they do dose reconstruction. So we'll 


have to think about --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- those parameters, but 


ultimately I think that question is would it 


change -- if it's going to change the decision, 


then we really have to look at what's being 


done. If it's not going to change the 


decision, that's ultimately the focal point I 


think we've got to get to, but I just want to 


make sure we don't --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- lose sight of that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: No, you're right, you're right. 


Couple of good points there. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah, very. 


 DR. BEHLING: And one more thing, and I guess I 


would like to have some understanding -- what 


are the bottom line limitations. For instance, 


we might receive a dose reconstruction for 


blind review. Would we know where that person 


worked, which is highly essential, because we 


have to have some understanding when we talk 

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about urine data involving uranium, what type 


of uranium was used, where was the facility. 


So we would ultimately end up still with a TBD, 


which in itself has at least the fundamental 


approach for dose reconstruction embedded in 


it, so that there is always shades of 


differences that separate us from a total blind 


review where you know absolutely nothing, only 


the data sheets that DOE provides with regard 


to bioassay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. BEHLING: But in this case, that's not 


enough. We would have to also know where he 


worked and a few other things because they're 


very pertinent in making a decision when you 


look at a bioassay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. I -- I agree with you 


there. There's shades, because I -- I also 


don't thi-- you know, if -- if you think about 


that, you want to know -- you have to have some 


baseline information such as the site they 


worked at, the jobs they wor-- either the areas 


or jobs they worked at, but also I don't think 


we want to have you reinvestigate to find out 


what the badging protocols or urinalysis 

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program was for that time. It's in the site 


pro-- you know, so there is some baseline 


information I think that we would say you 


should use, you know, and -- and state those 


assumptions in your review that, you know, we ­

- we took this from NIOSH's site profile that 


the MDA for this time period was X, you know. 


So I -- you're right, there -- there's degrees 


which we have to work through. All right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I think Hans makes a very good 


point as well. Here again, from my 


perspective, I've always thought your blind 


reviews would start with the claimant file, 


without our dose reconstruction report in it. 


So you would have all the things that the 


claimant submitted to the -- to the file at 


DOL, plus the things that have been developed 


at NIOSH, such as the interview. You want 


that. That would aid you in understanding 


where the person worked, as best we could -- 


could develop that. I would think that would 


be your starting point. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I -- another point I need to make 


here is that when we talk about methods -- 

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methodology as -- and application of the 


methodology, where do you draw the line on 


methodology and the way we go about doing our 


work in dose reconstruction at NIOSH with 


regard to what the law and what the regulations 


say about methodology for these claimants. I 


think it's important that you understand that a 


claimant can appeal on whether we applied our 


methodology correctly. But there is no appeal 


on whether our methodology -- they can't 


question the methodology. The methodology has 


been developed from the law and in -- into the 


regulations that have been publicly commented 


on and reviewed. Okay. That's not to say that 


we're not interested in is there another way of 


going about doing this work. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: But if you -- if you delve into 


the methods to -- you know, to the point of 


trying to prove the methodology wrong, that -- 


that -- I think that's going to cause some -- 


some issues legally. 


 MR. GRIFFON: But when -- when you say methods, 


you're talking about sort of the hierarchy of ­

-

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 MR. ELLIOTT: I think you start with -- the 


methods are our regulations and our two -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- implementation guides. 


Everything else below that, all of the site 


profiles, the Technical Basis Documents -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- the coworker data 


distributions, the Technical Information 


Bulletins, these are -- these are tools to 


apply the methodology that are -- that is 


stated in the regulations and in the 


implementation guides. And some might argue 


that you take the implementation guides out of 


that picture, and that -- that may be okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: But the regulation is what's been 


publicly commented upon and, like it or not, 


that's what we're operating under. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, we're not -- yeah, I agree 


with that. We're not going beyond that. We're 


not questioning that. That's a -- that's a 


starting point, I agree. 


And that -- you know, the other -- I think Paul 


raised that question. I mean I think a big -- 

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a critical thing in this review is did -- did 


you get the deci-- decision correct, and that 


was sort of why I was leaning toward, you know, 


best estimate on internal/external with 


something near the 50th percentile 'cause 


that's where you're going to see -- yeah, 


that's going to play out, so -- but -- but -- 


but let -- you know, at least we got some 


discussion on this. I'm not sure we're going 


to -- I know we're not going to resolve it 


today, but my goal in the subcommittee I think 


is to develop a written sort of protocol for 


our blind reviews, and -- and maybe we can 


start to -- you know, I can draft something and 


bring it to the next subcommittee for -- for 


further discussion. 


 DR. WADE: Right, and then while the issue of 


did the -- did the decision change, I think 


it's also valid to say did the blind review 


point out anything that would raise issues or 


concerns relative to the scientific quality -- 


scientific validity or quality of the dose 


reconstruction. I think you have to focus on 


that. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Wanda? 

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 MS. MUNN: Remind me how many blind reviews we 


said we were going to do. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think we said two per year -- 


two per year, and we haven't done any yet, so ­

-


 MS. MUNN: We haven't done any, yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we could probably do six -- 


DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but we don't -- you know, 


like I said, we -- we might want to do two in 


the -- in the eighth round and see how it -- 


see how our process works, you know, something 


like that. That would be my goal would be for 


the next -- the eighth round of cases to 


include two blind reviews. Which means we have 


to, in that time, outline our protocol for -- 


for selection and for conduct of those blind 


reviews. So I think this was good today. We 


got a -- we had a good initial exchange of 


ideas. We can -- you know, I can -- I can take 


a crack at an initial draft of some protocols. 


I'll circulate it and get some feedback on it. 


I think we can get feedback on the protocol 


from -- from all parties, SC&S, NIOSH and -- 


and internally, you know, just in -- in terms 

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of what's -- what's the best way to do this. 


And then we -- I -- I have to -- I think we 


also have to think through more of the process 


of -- of the selection 'cause we have to have 


enough information there to make sure we're 


going to get the kind of case we want, but like 


Paul indicated, we do -- we're doing this in a 


public forum. We want to keep the case blind 


to the -- to -- to us and to the subcontractor, 


so how we -- how we meet that goal we might 


have to talk through a little bit. 


 MS. MUNN: Protocol is crucial I think to what 


we're going to do. How we're going to do it is 


-- is almost more important than -- than the 


other issue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: But one of the things that comes to 


my mind is whether blind reviews should always 


be necessarily new cases that we have not 


looked at, or whether they should legitimately 


be drawn from the pool that we have already 


reviewed in other aspects. It would be a 


double-check sort of to do some of those blind. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that -- that's a good 


point. I haven't -- hadn't thought of that, 

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but we could pro-- could possibly not exclude 


those cases we've previously reviewed from the 


pool of candidates, so... 


 MS. MUNN: It's a possibility. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Anything else on blind 

reviews? 

 (No responses) 

The -- the last thing I'll mention, and I know 


Wanda has a workgroup coming up, but I'll -- 


I'll just --


 MS. MUNN: We won't take much time. 


 MR. GRIFFON: The -- the -- the only other 


thing I wanted to -- to ask about was -- if you 


go back to the scope, which -- which I haven't 


done, I'm mentally going back to the scope of 


work, we had the basic and advanced review 


difference. And I'd like to take that up 


again, too, in our subcommittee deliberations 


because I -- I think that the -- thus -- I 


think there's some components of the advanced 


review that we haven't really gotten into in 


our -- in our case reviews thus far. I think 


that -- the other side of this is I think that 


-- and -- and I know we-- we've discussed this 


with SC&A, but I think -- my sense is that I -- 

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I don't need to see every line item of the IREP 


input sheet calculated by SC&A to make sure 


every line item was -- was -- was correct. 


Sometimes there's hundreds of these line items 


going into the IREP input file, different doses 


by year, segregated out by different radiation 


types. 


On the other hand, I don't think that -- in a 


lot of cases on the advanced review, for 


instance, if -- if we've gone back to the raw 


data in our review, I don't know that we've -- 


I -- I -- and maybe I'm wrong on this, but I 


don't think we've taken that next step of -- 


you know, if -- if there were gaps in certain 


types of data, and this is an example but I 


want to explore the advanced protocol and see 


if we're -- if we're missing some of these 


other scope items. But if there were gaps in 


external or internal data, NIOSH used a certain 


approach to -- to fill in those gaps, different 


methods, coworker, LOD over 2, whatever. And ­

- and I think our audits sort of looked at that 


and examined whether that was applied 


correctly, but I don't think that we took the 


next step to go back and say -- questioning 

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whether those people should have been monitored 


at the time, was this missing data, was this -- 


you know, was it a blank or a zero, exploring 


whether the -- the -- the requirements for the 


site -- this does get into our site profile 


reviews to some extent, but the requi-- did the 


-- did the site require that that person should 


have been monitored, and if they -- if the site 


did require monitoring, why were there four 


years of no data, you know, notwithstanding -- 


you -- you know, so -- so then that sort of 


leads to the question of was LOD over 2 the 


appropriate way to fill in the gap. I don't 


think we did that sort of drill-down to see if 


-- if the approach used was consistent with 


sort of what -- what's in the site profile, 


what's in other documentation about the site 


procedures and protocols at the time. So that 


-- that's sort of one example. I want to --


and I'm not going to get into that much here 


because we're running short on time, but I 


guess I want to take up that question of let's 


go back to our original scope and sort of 


examine the scope items within the advanced 


review versus basic and see if we didn't miss 

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some and see if it will be worth including 


those in some of our future reviews. That --


that -- I'll just leave that out there as a -- 


unless you want to respond now. I would just 


offer -- let's continue that discussion at our 


next --


 DR. WADE: Right, we'll capture that as an 


agenda item for the next subcommittee meeting. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


(Whereupon, Dr. Poston joined the group.) 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right? 


 DR. WADE: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Any parting thoughts? I'm going 


to leave Wanda time for -- 


 DR. WADE: I will adjourn the subcommittee then 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: -- and take a stretch break and 


reconvene the workgroup in five minutes, Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: Five minutes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Subcommittee's adjourned. 


Thanks. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 11:24 


a.m.) 

______________________________ 

76 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of February 7, 


2007; and it is a true and accurate transcript 


of the testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


12th day of April, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102