Presidential Advisory Committee
 

Department of Health and Human Services
 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


(NIOSH)
 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health
 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the
 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held
 

telephonically on December 12, 2002.
 

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
 

Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
 

Proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
 

Board Discussion of the scope of work and


evaluation plan for the procurement of technical


consultation to the Board on dose reconstruction . . . 8
 

Public Comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
 

Court Reporter's Certification . . . . . . . . . . . 162
 
 

 

3 

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

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
 
4 

GIBSON, Michael H.


President
 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union


Local 5-4200
 

Miamisburg, Ohio
 

GRIFFON, Mark A.


President
 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.


Salem, New Hampshire
 

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


Director
 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund


Albany, New York
 

MUNN, Wanda I.


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)


Richland, Washington
 

OWENS, Charles L.


President
 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union


Local 5-550
 

Paducah, Kentucky
 

PRESLEY, Robert W.


Special Projects Engineer


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex


Clinton, Tennessee
 

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.


Professor Emeritus
 

University of Florida


Elysian, Minnesota
 

STAFF/VENDORS
 

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH


TWILA SAITOW, NIOSH


MARIE MURRAY, Writer/Editor


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Court Reporter
 
5 

AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

Bistline, Bob


Homoki-Titus, Liz


Katz, Ted


Kieting, Sylvia


Klemm, W. Jeffrey


Kotsch, Jeffrey L.


Makhijani, Dr. Arjun


Miller, Richard


Mauro, John


Naimon, David


Neton, Dr. James


Potter, Herman


Sundin, David


Tabor, Robert G.


Toufexis, Rose
 
6 

TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. 


Such material is reproduced as read or spoken.
 

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

unintentional or purposeful interruption of a sentence. An
 

ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech or an unfinished
 

sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of word(s) when reading
 

written material.
 

In the following transcript (sic) denotes an incorrect
 

usage or pronunciation of a word which is transcribed in its
 

original form as reported.
 

In the following transcript (phonetically) indicates a
 

phonetic spelling of the word if no confirmation of the
 

correct spelling is available.
 

In the following transcript "uh-huh" represents an
 

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

response.
 

In the following transcript "*" denotes a spelling
 

based on phonetics, without reference available.
 

In the following transcript (inaudible) signifies
 

mechanical failure or speaker failure.
 
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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

1:00 p.m.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Cori, would you go ahead and do
 

a roll call of the Board members, please.
 

MS. HOMER: Okay. Henry Anderson?
 

(no response)
 

Tony Andrade?
 

(no response)
 

Dr. DeHart?
 

DR. DEHART: Yes.
 

MS. HOMER: Richard Espinosa?
 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yes.
 

MS. HOMER: Michael Gibson?
 

MR. GIBSON: Yes.
 

MS. HOMER: Mark Griffon?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes.
 

MS. HOMER: Dr. Melius?
 

DR. ZIEMER: He was on I thought.
 

DR. MELIUS: I'm still here.
 

MS. HOMER: Okay. Wanda Munn?
 

MS. MUNN: Yes.
 

MS. HOMER: Charles Owens?
 

MR. OWENS: Present.
 

MS. HOMER: Robert Presley?
 

MR. PRESLEY: Here.
 
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MS. HOMER: And Gen Roessler?
 

DR. ROESSLER: Here.
 

MS. HOMER: Okay. And Dr. Ziemer.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Here. And Larry Elliott's
 

aboard.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: I'm here.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And who of your staff, Larry,
 

is on deck here?
 

DR. NETON: Jim Neton's here.
 

MR. SUNDIN: And Dave Sundin.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And in D.C. we have?
 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz Homoki-Titus and
 

David Naimon.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. KATZ: And in Atlanta you have Ted Katz.
 

MS. HOMER: And Cori Homer and Twila Saitow.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, and we have our recorder
 

aboard, right?
 

MS. HOMER: Yes.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And let's see, we have some
 

members of the public.
 

MS. TOUFEXIS: Oh excuse me, this is Rose
 

Toufexis from the Department of Labor.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh good, there's some other
 

federal people. Any other fed -­
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MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch is here from the
 

Department of Labor.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others?
 

Let me ask any members of the public who are
 

on the call to please identify themselves.
 

MR. MAURO: My name is John Mauro. I'm a
 

health physicist. I'm with Sanford Cohen and
 

Associates.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you.
 

MS. KIEDING: Sylvia Kieding with PACE
 

International.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani with the
 

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you.
 

MR. BISTLINE: This is Bob Bistline from the
 

Department of Energy, Rocky Flats field office.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


MR. POTTER: Herman Potter, from PACE
 

International.
 

MR. MILLER: Richard Miller from GAP.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. KLEMM: Jeff Klemm, SAIC.
 

MR. TABOR: Bob Tabor, from Fernald Public
 

Trade and Labor Council.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Any other members of the public
 

aboard?
 

Okay, someone just came online. Is Tony
 

Andrade or Henry Anderson on yet, either?
 

WRITER/EDITOR: May I have the name of the
 

first person from the Department of Labor, please,
 

the woman?
 

MS. TOUFEXIS: Yes, that's Rose Toufexis.
 

WRITER/EDITOR: How do you spell your last
 

name, please?
 

MS. TOUFEXIS: It's T-O-U-F-E-X-I-S.
 

WRITER/EDITOR: Thank you very much.
 

MS. TOUFEXIS: You're welcome.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Ziemer, would you like me
 

to have my secretary try to reach Tony and Henry?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I think it would be good
 

if we try to call both of them and see if there's a
 

problem with them getting on the line.
 

Let me, in case some weren't on the line at
 

the time, announce Sally Gadola has resigned from
 

the Board at the -- I would say basically at the
 

request of White House legal counsel who has -- were
 

concerned about potential or perceived conflicts of
 

interest, and so Sally resigned just within the last
 
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two or three weeks. Whether she will be replaced
 

right away or later is up in the air. That's the
 

White House's call.
 

Let me make sure that everyone is aware of
 

the agenda. The agenda as distributed is a one-item
 

agenda and that is to discuss the scope of work and
 

evaluation plan for the procurement of technical
 

consultation to the Board on dose reconstruction. I
 

would like to add that we will provide, following
 

that, a period for public comment so that you can
 

consider that an agenda item. It didn't show up on
 

the published agenda, but we do always allow time
 

for public comment.
 

And then, with the permission of the Board,
 

I'd like to just add -- at the end of the meeting,
 

also -- just take a few minutes and make you aware
 

of the proposed agenda for the January meeting. 


That agenda is -- we'll try to finalize it this week
 

and then it'll be published, but I just want to
 

raise a question or two about the content of the
 

agenda and get the Board's advice. So we'll do all
 

of those things, but the main thing is this work
 

scope item that's before us.
 

BOARD DISCUSSION
 

Now I want to be sure that all of us are
 
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looking at the same documents, and the documents
 

that we should be looking at today were the ones
 

that were publicly distributed. They are on the web
 

site and they should all have -- the first document
 

is called actually Attachment A -­

UNIDENTIFIED: No, I think it's Attachment C
 

is -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, okay, depending on which
 

one you call first.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Okay, I'm sorry.
 

DR. ZIEMER: There is an Attachment C which
 

is the Statement of Work and that is the main
 

document. There is an -- there is an Attachment D
 

and E, which are two examples that follow Attachment
 

C, and then there is an Attachment A called
 

Technical Evaluation Criteria. Does everybody have
 

copies of those -- and the copy -- if you have the
 

correct copy, every page is stamped as "Draft." If
 

you do not have a copy whose page has stamped on it
 

"Draft as of 12/9," you may not have the right copy. 


And I know that there were some materials that some
 

folks were looking at that included some boilerplate
 

that's used in the request for contract that NIOSH
 

or CDC uses, and some of those pages are not part of
 

what we have to deal with today. So if any of you
 
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don't have what I just described, then you should
 

pull them down immediately from -- on your -- either
 

your e-mail or your web site.
 

Now, with that as background, let me first
 

express my appreciation to Mark Griffon and the work
 

group for the -- and the NIOSH staff for the time
 

and effort they put in in pulling this material
 

together for us. I know it was a substantial task
 

and we appreciate the work they've put in on this.
 

What I'd like to do here is outline what I'm
 

proposing as our method of reviewing this. I'd like
 

to -­

DR. ANDERSON: Hi, it's Henry Anderson.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Henry, we -- this is
 

Ziemer here. We just got underway. We took the
 

roll call and we now will add you to the roll here.
 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I had a little trouble
 

dialing in. I don't know what was going on.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Just making sure that
 

everybody has the documents to review that were -­

DR. ANDERSON: I do.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- distributed. These should
 

all be marked as "Draft," if you have copies that
 

are stamped "Draft," that's the right version -­

draft of 12/9/02.
 
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I'm going to ask Mark to kind of give us an
 

overview of everything, just -- Mark, if you would
 

be willing to do that, and then after we do the
 

overview we'll go back and go through in detail,
 

section by section, to try to identify issues or
 

concerns that individuals might have. And then if
 

there are proposed changes, we need to see if we can
 

come to agreement, if there are such, what those
 

changes should be. And then having identified any
 

issues or concerns and tried to outline any proposed
 

changes, the hope would be to come to final approval
 

on the document by the end of this conference call.
 

I do want to ask one question and that is -­

and I ask this of the Board and of the staff -- is
 

there any reason why additional changes could not be
 

made at the January meeting of the Board if we
 

decide there are additional tweaks that need to be
 

made?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. There
 

is certainly opportunity for the Board to make
 

changes in January at its meeting. I think what the
 

goal -­

DR. ZIEMER: We don't want them to be
 

substantial at that point.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: No, we don't want them to be
 
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substantial because what the goal of today is is to
 

try to get Board's consensus agreement on the
 

statement of work and a technical evaluation
 

criteria that we can start the procurement process
 

with.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We won't have -- it'll be at a
 

point in the procurement process in January 7th and
 

8th when you meet here in Cincinnati that you can
 

still make some changes, but they have to be -­

DR. ZIEMER: They couldn't be major changes.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: They couldn't be major
 

changes.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: They couldn't -- a major
 

change in direction would be problematic.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: A language change here or
 

there which retained the same direction of the scope
 

is no problem.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. Okay. Everybody okay
 

on that?
 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. Just to
 

clarify and -- I really don't have an example in
 

mind, but what extent would we be able to, if we
 
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needed to, to modify the evaluation criteria in
 

January? When you say scope, Larry, I'm just a
 

little unclear about what parts of the proposal
 

you're -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, I will try to clarify
 

that. The statement of work is what I meant by
 

scope. You certainly would be able to revisit the
 

technical evaluation criteria and make changes to it
 

in January.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Inaudible)
 

DR. ZIEMER: What's that?
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Did everyone hear me or -­

DR. ZIEMER: No, you got a blast of static
 

there for a minute.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, the scope that I
 

referred to is in the statement of work. Major
 

directional changes to that would be problematic. 


You will have the ability and the opportunity at
 

your January meeting to make changes to the
 

technical evaluation criteria.
 

DR. ZIEMER: That would be easier to change,
 

in other words, is what you're saying.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. Yes.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is everybody okay on the
 

proceeding and the method that I've just described? 

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Any concerns on following that approach? This is
 

just a suggested approach for getting through the
 

document, so if somebody has a better idea, we're
 

open to hearing that.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Good.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then Mark, if you want
 

to proceed and I -- of course, the main thing that
 

we're focusing on here is Attachment C, the
 

Statement of Work, but Attachment A, the Evaluation
 

Criteria, is also important.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, I was just going to
 

say, just to put this -- this whole thing in
 

context, maybe -- the boilerplate language that I
 

did send out in Word format to the Board initially,
 

that -- that was boilerplate from a previous task
 

order contract and some of it wasn't applicable and
 

so NIOSH is working with -- with me and with the
 

working group to modify that as we need to. But
 

that really -­

DR. ZIEMER: That's really not the scope of
 

work.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but in that boilerplate
 

language it cites Attachment A, B and C, and D and E
 

as the two examples.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: Attachment A is the evaluation
 

plan, as we said -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and it specifies how the
 

review panel will evaluate the bidders, what
 

criteria, what percentages and so forth. Attachment
 

B is actually not -- we haven't done anything with
 

that, but it is a list of potential bidders, I
 

believe. And then Attachment C is the actual -- as
 

Larry and Paul pointed out correctly, is the main
 

body the statement of work. And D and E are sample
 

tests which the bidders will be asked to bid -- bid
 

against. And they're not necessarily the tests that
 

will be issued once the contractor is selected, but
 

they're just sample, representative tests, sort of.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And that's the overview. And
 

I was going to also recommend that we probably
 

should start discussions with Attachment C -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and then Attachment A,
 

which on our working group we have had some things
 

that we could not resolve on Attachment A -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and we -- you know, they
 
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may be more substantial, to the point where we may
 

need to, you know, redraft some language and bring
 

it up at the January meeting.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

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

DR. ZIEMER: Right. So Mark, are there some
 

overview things that you'd like to talk about in
 

terms of Attachment C or any sort of general
 

statement before we go through it in detail?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I'd like to ask
 

one question of Mark before we go on. I don't know
 

whether I was dreaming, but I wanted to make sure
 

that the Attachment B that I had is the Attachment B
 

you were talking about. How did you describe it?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Attachment B is actually -- it
 

doesn't exist. We didn't -- we didn't -- it's
 

referenced in the initial scope as a list of
 

potential bidders.
 

MS. MUNN: Oh, so -­

DR. ZIEMER: And Wanda, we won't be
 

reviewing anything today called Attachment B -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- so that's not on the table.
 

MS. MUNN: So the Attachment B that I have,
 

which is the site profile and worker profile review,
 
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is not applicable to our conversation today?
 

MR. GRIFFON: That's actually Part B of
 

Attachment C.
 

MS. MUNN: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. And that is on the
 

table today, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, don't confuse "attachment"
 

with "part."
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: Oh, I see. I see what I'm
 

looking at. Yes, all right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I'm sorry about that.
 

MS. MUNN: That's why B was not where B was
 

supposed to be. Okay, thank you.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I can just -- I can give you
 

an overview of (inaudible) focused on Attachment C,
 

which is -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, give us an overview of
 

that, Mark.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- statement of work. Just to
 

go through the sections, the front end is really
 

background information -- purpose of the contract
 

and then background and need.
 

DR. ZIEMER: That's all historical stuff.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. If you go down to page
 
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three, that's really where we start talking about
 

the contract tasks, and A, B and C are the primary
 

tasks. There is one difference that we -- from our
 

-- from my presentation in Santa Fe. I believe I
 

had another task D, which included a review of
 

methods and procedures. And we haven't eliminated
 

that. We've sort of rolled it into -­

DR. ZIEMER: Tried to incorporate it.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Incorporate it in sections A
 

and B, right. So you'll see some of the same
 

language from the previous draft that we discussed
 

in Santa Fe included -- incorporated in sections A
 

and B.
 

Section A, as we've discussed it the past
 

couple of meetings, is the individual dose
 

reconstruction review. And if we go down to page
 

four, we've broken this down to basic review, which
 

-- all the criteria laid out for the basic review. 


And advanced review is on page five and then at the
 

very bottom have a blind dose reconstruction review
 

-- blind dose reconstruction.
 

Going on to page six, just to overview this
 

whole document, page six is the NIOSH OCAS site
 

profile and worker profile review. And site
 

profile, if we all remember these definitions, NIOSH
 
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is -- as part of their database they're putting
 

together profiles on all the sites which would
 

incorporate other data other than personal dosimetry
 

data, which may be needed during dose reconstruction
 

activities. And the worker profile -- and I guess
 

they all link to the same database -- would include
 

more of a -- sort of coworker analysis of if they
 

had job exposure, a matrix sort of data where they
 

might need to use where an individual didn't have
 

much of their personal available. They might rely
 

on coworker data, so those are the site profile and
 

worker profile, and Section B talks about the review
 

of those by the -- this independent review team.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: At the bottom of that page is
 

the review of SEC petitions, and this language at
 

this point, for Section C -- which goes from the
 

bottom of page six onto page seven -- is very broad
 

and intentionally so because the regulations, as we
 

know, are not finalized yet, so -- but we felt that
 

it was an important thing to at least keep as a
 

placeholder in the future so that, you know -- we
 

know that the Board is going to need technical
 

assistance in reviewing some of these petitions, so
 

we have this scope item left there.
 
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And then Section C.4, which starts in the
 

middle of page seven -- all this is work assignment,
 

sort of the requirements of the contractor on
 

submittals and paperwork, and a lot of this is from
 

boilerplate language from previous task order
 

contracts with NIOSH. On to C.5 the same way,
 

preparation of reports -- modified slightly, but for
 

the most part boilerplate language.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And then we get on to page 10
 

has Attachment D and then Attachment E is page 12, I
 

guess, and there are two different examples for them
 

to bid against. One is a basic review and the other
 

one is an advanced review and, you know, tried to
 

give them specific information on number of cases
 

and what types of cases.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And Mark -- Ziemer here again
 

-- these two are intended simply to help the bidders
 

understand what we're asking for. Is that correct?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, and also to evaluate
 

their approach and their personnel, you know,
 

expertise -­

DR. ZIEMER: In terms of being able to do
 

these.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Ziemer, this is Larry
 

Elliott. If I might, what Example 1 and 2 in
 

Attachment D and E provide is a level playing field
 

for the proposers to bid their work against.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Sure.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Thank you, Larry.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Shall we go ahead with
 

Attachment C then, or do you want to say anything
 

about A at this point?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, yeah, Attachment A, if
 

you want to just flip through that, I suppose. It's
 

the evaluation plan. It's very much like the
 

previous one we looked at. The only additions is
 

Section A has conflicts of interest language in
 

there to -- that they would be evaluated against,
 

and I should say that there were a couple of items
 

in here that the working group couldn't -- that we
 

couldn't resolve, couldn't come to consensus on -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and therefore needed to
 

come to the full Board for these.
 

DR. ZIEMER: So when we get to that point -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: -- we can just raise those.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Well, let's go back
 

then and proceed with Attachment C, and if it's
 

agreeable then, let me just walk us through this
 

section by section and ask for issues or comments or
 

questions that any of the Board members may have,
 

and if there are not any, just move ahead.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Ziemer, this is Larry
 

Elliott again. If I could just suggest this -­

DR. ZIEMER: Is there a phone ringing in the
 

background or is that -­

MR. ELLIOTT: There sure is, but it's not
 

here.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: In addition to what your
 

proposed process, I would ask that any typographical
 

items or, you know, editorial items, if you -- we
 

could just agree to send those in to us -­

DR. ZIEMER: Absolutely.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- we'll attend to those. If
 

there are issues regarding language, like a word
 

that means something to somebody but may not mean
 

the same to somebody else, we should take those up.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. We won't discuss commas
 
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and dangling participles. Okay.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: And so anybody that has
 

editorial or -- you know, they caught
 

typographicals, if you would just get those -­

DR. ZIEMER: Send those in, right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- to Cori Homer, she'll make
 

sure that we get those and we'll collate them and
 

put -­

DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Okay. Then let's
 

start with C.1, Purpose of Contract. Any issues
 

there for anyone? Fairly straightforward.
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: C.2, Background and Need. And
 

that's a number of paragraphs on page one and page
 

two. Anything in Section C.2?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. The only comment
 

that I have on that page was the next to last
 

paragraph, just following the quotes "at least as
 

likely as not." I didn't go back and check the
 

actual language of the regulations, but what I
 

thought it related to, I reacted to it negatively. 


I thought we were after only causation, and I'm not
 

sure that "related to" is one of those words which
 

you just mentioned, which may mean one thing to one
 

person and something to somebody else. Am I -- am I
 
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DR. ZIEMER: You're saying that the language
 

may have said "at least as likely as not caused by"
 

rather than "related to"?
 

MS. MUNN: Yes, uh-huh. I thought that that
 

was the language of that -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, it is a probability of
 

causation.
 

MR. GRIFFON: But I thought it was -- I -- I
 

check that, although you can -- we can double-check
 

it, but I -- I checked with the statute.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, your quote doesn't
 

include the word "related" so -­

MS. MUNN: No, it doesn't.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- I think Wanda's asking if
 

the -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- if the original does use the
 

word "caused by," then we should use that.
 

MR. GRIFFON: It's worth checking.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, and I haven't checked it
 

personally. It's just a question in my mind.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And maybe that's -- Mark, you
 

could either check that or maybe the staff could.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Just make sure -­

MR. NAIMON: This is David Naimon. We have
 

the statute in front of us if you're interested in
 

hearing what the statute -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, what does it say?
 

MS. MUNN: Thanks, Dave.
 

MR. NAIMON: Individual with cancer
 

specified in sub-clause et cetera, et cetera, shall
 

be determined to sustain that cancer in the
 

performance of duty for purposes of the compensation
 

program if and only if the cancer specified in that
 

sub-clause was at least as likely as not related to
 

employment at the facility specified -- specified in
 

that sub-clause as determined in the course of the
 

guides established under subsection -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, the "related" there is to
 

the employment.
 

MS. MUNN: To the employment, yes, not to
 

the dose.
 

MR. GRIFFON: That's true, yeah. I remember
 

"related" then, and -- but that's right, it's to the
 

employment.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: So I think probably that
 

sentence needs to be fixed up so it parallels -­
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MS. MUNN: Just tweaked a little.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. We understand it and we
 

don't have to get into the wordsmithing of it here. 


It just needs to parallel the language of the law. 


Right?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We will certain-- this is
 

Larry Elliott. We'll just make that -­

DR. ZIEMER: Just make it match up.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, we'll make sure from our
 

general counsel that it is -­

MS. MUNN: Thanks.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Wanda. Any others
 

in that section? Let me -- let me just -- without
 

calling for formal action, is there any objections
 

to the change that Wanda just suggested?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: There appear to be none. Okay. 


Thank you.
 

Let's go on to Section C -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Could I be -- Larry Elliott. 


On page two of this first section -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yes.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- and just for the Board's
 

edification, there is some language here that we
 
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will be changing because this was lifted out of
 

language that was used in a contract that we had, I
 

believe, because the fourth paragraph down, "On May
 

2nd," we'd like to put that in the proper tense,
 

that the rule is being used here. The second
 

sentence, the methods are not proposed. They are as
 

they are.
 

DR. ZIEMER: The methods, cite rather than
 

proposed.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, I did try -- I did
 

edit that a little bit, but I missed some of the
 

tense there, yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: So we'll work to put it in the
 

proper tense.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I put the final rule citings
 

in there, but I missed some of the other occasions.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right, okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. Ready for
 

Section C.3, Contract Tasks, any -­

UNIDENTIFIED: But have we done A on page
 

three yet?
 

DR. ZIEMER: No, we're still on -- we're on
 

the top of page three.
 
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UNIDENTIFIED: Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Item C.3, Contract Tasks.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Any -- and that's just the top
 

-- oh, two-thirds of the page, I guess. Any issues
 

there?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Are you ready for
 

Section A under C.3, individual dose reconstructions
 

review?
 

UNIDENTIFIED: I have one -- I don't think
 

it's editorial -- in the second paragraph -­

DR. ZIEMER: And everyone should identify
 

when they come on, but that's Gen Roessler, I
 

believe.
 

DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. Second
 

paragraph under A, second line, we list one, two,
 

three -- one, two or three. Should that be and? I
 

think we're asking for all three and they don't have
 

a choice.
 

DR. ZIEMER: On a given case, it's -- it's
 

one of three.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I thought it was -­

yeah, I see what you're saying. I thought that was
 

on a single case they would be asked to do one type
 
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of review or another.
 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay. Okay.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. In the
 

paragraph above that that started this Part A, that
 

first paragraph, where it reads in the
 

parenthetical, "at least as needed to determine
 

eligibility," I think that the word "determine" is
 

-- is -- it should be evaluate rather than
 

determine. You're going to have this contractor
 

evaluate for you, the Board -­

DR. ZIEMER: And the eligibility's already
 

been determined is what you're saying.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Right. And I would also
 

propose that that parenthetical would -- should read
 

"as needed to adjudicate the claim." Eligibility
 

has got a definition here meaning the claimant -­

it's an eligible claim, not a compensable claim, so
 

we would be making those edits.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, everybody understand
 

that? The intent has not changed, but you're making
 

the wording more legally correct I think here. 


Right?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, we'd change "determine"
 

to "evaluate" and that one -- that parenthetical
 

would read "as needed to adjudicate the claim."
 
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DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun Makhijani, I
 

have a question about the last sentence in that
 

first paragraph, "Contractor shall determine whether
 

or not the dose reconstruction was performed fairly
 

and in a manner consistent with other cases." Now
 

if your opinion is that other cases may not be
 

properly done, other cases in this particular dose
 

reconstruction or other jobs of dose reconstruction? 


It's not clear to me.
 

DR. ZIEMER: They're comparing to others,
 

but -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Makhijani, this is Larry
 

Elliott -­

DR. ZIEMER: Let me insert at this point
 

before you answer -- I'll let you answer this one,
 

Larry -- but we've not asked the members of the
 

public to participate in the discussion -­

DR. MAKHIJANI: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- but you're certainly welcome
 

at the public comment period to make any comments or
 

questions. We're not -- but -­

DR. MAKHIJANI: Sorry about that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- the rules of the game here
 

require this to be the Board's discussion.
 

DR. MAKHIJANI: I'm sorry.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: That's all right. But Larry,
 

maybe you -- I don't object to answering that
 

question if you wish to.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, you've answered it. And
 

just so everybody understands the ground rules here,
 

the Board needs to hold their discussion on these
 

draft documents and make their decision about moving
 

them forward or not, and if there's anybody in the
 

-- in attendance from the public here that has
 

questions or concerns, they certainly can express
 

those during the public comment period. But you
 

should be aware that you might not receive an answer
 

-- you probably should not receive an answer at this
 

time for your questions -­

DR. ZIEMER: If they're on the document.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- if they're on the document. 


This is predecisional effort and once the document
 

is formalized into a procurement, then there will be
 

an opportunity for individuals to raise questions
 

regarding the procurement -- regarding the intent of
 

the procurement.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for that comment. I
 

have -- I want to ask an additional question -- this
 

is Ziemer again -- Mark or a member of the working
 

group. It seems to me that part of what we're doing
 
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here, since this is a sort of quality control issue,
 

and I don't see this item that I'm going to raise
 

explicitly mentioned, but maybe -- maybe it is
 

covered indirectly. And that is, is there included
 

in the determination the issue of whether or not
 

NIOSH in fact followed its own guidelines in the
 

reconstruction? Do you know what I'm asking here? 


You've said -- okay, you're going to determine
 

whether they did it fairly, you're going to
 

determine whether they had appropriate data and so
 

on. My question is, are we also looking at whether
 

or not NIOSH in fact followed their own guidelines?
 

-­

MR. GRIFFON: 

DR. ZIEMER: 

Right, I think -­

Is that inherently built in or 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm looking for -- and I 

remember actually having a clause at one point, but 


maybe it got lost in the various drafts, where we
 

said was -- you know, was done in a manner
 

consistent with a, you know, CFR, blah, blah, blah. 


And I'm missing it now -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that's exactly what I'm
 

asking.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: As part of the quality control, 

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it seems to me that we have to -- have to step back
 

and say and in fact did they follow their own
 

procedures, which is not necessarily the same
 

question as saying yeah, they had enough data and
 

they did this and that, but maybe they still did it
 

differently than the -- than the regs call for. So
 

is that something that should be added?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I think, if
 

memory serves correctly, I think that Mark and his
 

group culled that out under the SEC portion, but
 

perhaps not in the general dose reconstruction
 

reviews. I remember -­

MR. GRIFFON: True, at least -- I know
 

you're right, Wanda, it is still in the SEC.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, I saw the reference to -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

MS. MUNN: But I guess I didn't probably see
 

it in -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm wondering if anyone
 

would object to us making it explicit. I know you
 

haven't intentionally excluded it, and maybe in a
 

sense it's kind of built into the other questions
 

because they are based on the guidelines, but I'm
 

wondering if it wouldn't be useful to have it
 
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explicit.
 

DR. DEHART: I don't know if this answers
 

the question under basic review, which is a few
 

pages -- Roy DeHart.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Roy.
 

DR. DEHART: And it says "review the NIOSH
 

methods, procedures and performance in evaluating,
 

analyzing and validating all contractor work
 

products."
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's see -- where are
 

you?
 

DR. DEHART: That would be on page five, I
 

believe, top of the page.
 

MS. MUNN: Perhaps all that would be
 

necessary is to add the specific reference of the
 

CFR and then -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we could say regulation,
 

methods and procedures.
 

MS. MUNN: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that would be easy
 

enough. Either way I think -­

DR. ZIEMER: Where would you be putting
 

that?
 

MR. GRIFFON: We could put it in the -- we
 

could put it in the front end, or I think better
 
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would be to put it in the basic review, part 5(h).
 

DR. ZIEMER: 5(h)?
 

MR. GRIFFON: I think, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Can you again suggest a
 

wording?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Review the NIOSH dose
 

reconstruction regulations and then -- I don't know
 

the citation, comma, methods, comma, procedures -­

you know, add in -- after "review the NIOSH" I would
 

add in dose reconstruction regulations.
 

DR. NETON: Mark, this is Jim Neton. I
 

thought item (h) addressed a different issue, which
 

was us overseeing the contractor, the quality
 

control aspects of the contractor. That was my
 

take.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, yeah, you're right. 


You're right. So it shouldn't go in (h).
 

DR. NETON: Not really. It's similar to but
 

not -­

MR. GRIFFON: You're right. You're right.
 

DR. NETON: You know, we're supposed to have
 

strict control over our contractor, and I think just
 

to go in there and make sure that, you know, we've
 

done what we've said we're going to do in that area.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Maybe it should go in item 5
 
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then, right before all the (a) through (h).
 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I think it should go
 

higher up and just change -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, in item 5, you're right,
 

Jim. I'm sorry, I was reading quickly on my brain
 

here.
 

MS. MUNN: Mark, this is Wanda again. 


Should it appropriately go in the introductory
 

verbiage that we were -- we had on page three and
 

the top of page four so that it would cover not only
 

basic review but -­

MR. GRIFFON: That's fine, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I think you could state it
 

actually in that first paragraph after A., just as
 

one of the -- you're talking about the things you're
 

going to determine. It's more generic.
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, I'll add that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: So maybe something like -- and
 

let me just give you a phrase here and you can
 

wordsmith it, but the contractors -- in the last
 

sentence in that paragraph after A., the contractor
 

shall determine whether or not the dose
 

reconstruction was performed fairly and in a manner
 

consistent with other cases, comma, and whether
 

NIOSH followed its own guidelines in the dose
 
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reconstruction. Would that do it? Did you catch
 

that?
 

MR. GRIFFON: And whether NIOSH followed
 

its -­

DR. ZIEMER: What's that?
 

MR. GRIFFON: This is Mark Griffon. And
 

whether NIOSH followed its own guidelines?
 

DR. ZIEMER: In the dose reconstruction. 


Something, I'm -- and you know, you can wordsmith
 

that. That's -- that would be the intent.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that's a
 

reasonable first draft, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Now let me ask you, is
 

there any objection to that or concern with adding
 

that anyone has?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Just change "determine" to
 

"evaluate."
 

DR. ZIEMER: Whether or not -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Contractor shall evaluate
 

whether or not the dose reconstruction was performed
 

fairly and in -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, evaluate.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- (inaudible) and whether
 

NIOSH followed its own -­

DR. ZIEMER: It's own guidelines in the dose
 
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reconstruction. That gives the intent and maybe,
 

again, we can tweak it a little bit later, but if
 

there's no objection, let's add that then and make
 

it explicit.
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let me ask if -- are
 

there other items under that big section, individual
 

dose reconstruction review?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let's move on a little
 

bit, under Basic Review, anything under -- this is
 

item 1 under that section, the basic review, A, B, C
 

and so on? Any items? None?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes?
 

MS. MUNN: I don't know whether it's a valid
 

point, but in reading C.1 -­

DR. ZIEMER: C.1 on the middle of page four?
 

MS. MUNN: -- middle of page four. When I
 

go to the phrase "if and to what extent the benefit
 

of the doubt was resolved in favor of the claimant,"
 

my first thought was that's a good thing to do. If
 

I were asked to do it I'm not sure I would be able
 

to identify to what extent the benefit of the doubt
 

was resolved, other than high/low, somewhere in the
 
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medium. And as I said, I don't even know if it's a
 

DR. ZIEMER: In other words, are there
 

degrees of that or it either was or wasn't? Is that
 

what you're saying?
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah. I guess I'm not sure
 

whether we're asking them to quantify it or whether
 

we're asking just...
 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, can you respond?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Maybe -- I mean I don't think
 

I'd have an objection to saying "if the benefit of
 

the doubt was resolved in favor of the claimant."
 

MS. MUNN: Uh-huh.
 

DR. ZIEMER: That's really what you're
 

asking.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: That's -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I (inaudible) -­

DR. ZIEMER: It either was or it wasn't.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- point and to what extent,
 

how do you -- how do you, you know -­

MS. MUNN: Yeah, I didn't know how to do it.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Any objection then to just
 

deleting that phrase?
 
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MS. MUNN: Or changing it?
 

MR. GRIFFON: So it should read -­

DR. ZIEMER: It should say "if the benefit
 

of the doubt is resolved in favor of the claimant." 


Just delete the words "and to what extent."
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Okay, let's
 

continue down that page. Any other questions or -­

MR. NAIMON: Dr. Ziemer -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yes?
 

MR. NAIMON: -- before you continue down the
 

page, could I ask a question about B.2?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes.
 

MR. NAIMON: B.2 says "Assure that interview
 

information is consistent with data used for the
 

dose estimate." I was under the impression that the
 

data used for the dose estimate comes from a number
 

of places and not just from the interview
 

information, so I'm wondering whether it's possible
 

to assure that and whether that's even a -- you
 

know, whether that's a goal.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I think we'll let Mark
 

answer that, but it seems to me that they're only
 

asking -- they're not asking whether -- clearly the
 

dose estimate comes from a lot of places. They're
 
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asking whether or not it's also consistent with
 

what's in the interview, as in -­

MR. GRIFFON: What was that again? I'm
 

sorry, I was -­

DR. ZIEMER: B.2, I think, on -- near the -­

toward the top of page four. It currently says
 

"Assure that the interview information is consistent
 

with data used for dose estimate." That's not to
 

say that the dose -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- estimate is based on
 

interview data. It's asking whether or not there's
 

something in the interview that does not sort of
 

match up with -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. And maybe -­

DR. ZIEMER: In other words, if the person
 

says, you know, I was involved in a serious
 

criticality accident, and there's nothing in the
 

dose data to indicate that, that would be an
 

inconsistency. Is that the sort of thing -­

MR. GRIFFON: Maybe we need to just clarify,
 

like -- and if inconsistent -- inconsistencies were
 

justified or evaluated or considered, you know. I'm
 

not sure of the words right now, but -­

DR. ZIEMER: The original question was what? 

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Can you give your original question again? Was it
 

Dave or -­

MR. NAIMON: Yeah, my question was whether
 

that was -- I mean I think that Mark has kind of
 

gotten the gist of it, whether that was an
 

appropriate goal that it be consistent because there
 

may be situations where it's determined that it's
 

not consistent and there's a reason -­

MR. GRIFFON: There's a reason for it,
 

right, right. Right, I get your point.
 

MR. NAIMON: It could be a survivor who does
 

the interview and just is misinformed.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: So it's more determine if it's
 

consistent, and if not, you either find that there's
 

a justifiable reason that it isn't or something,
 

huh?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, there -- yeah,
 

reasonable justification or something like that. 


We'll work on the language, but -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- I think it's -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, everybody understand the
 

issue there? That needs to be clarified. Right? 


Okay, good. Good point. Is that something we can
 
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do right now or everybody understand we're just
 

going to try to clarify that?
 

MR. GRIFFON: I don't know if -­

DR. ZIEMER: We're not required to assure
 

that they're consistent. We're trying -- we're -­

we want to determine, if they're not, why they're
 

not. Right?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Or -- or -­

MR. GRIFFON: Not only why not, but that
 

there was reasonable justification why the -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right, right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. So for now I just said
 

assure the interview information is consistent with
 

data used for dose estimate and, if not, there is
 

reasonable justification. I'm not sure I'm -­

DR. ZIEMER: I think that -­

MR. GRIFFON: -- stuck on those words.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- covers the intent, does it
 

not?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Everybody okay on that?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, good.
 

MR. GRIFFON: At least for a placeholder.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's proceed. Any
 

others through that section on page four?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: I hear none. Let's -- ready to
 

go to page five, basically to the Advanced Review? 


Okay, questions on Advanced Review, or issues?
 

I want to raise -- well, I have a question
 

on item B for the subcommittee. There's -- in 1 and
 

in 2 they're talking about interviewing the
 

individual.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And I guess in my mind, I'm
 

wondering if that is an appropriate role for an
 

audit, as opposed to ascertaining that the interview
 

-- from the record that the interview was properly
 

conducted. In other words, I can see going to the
 

interview, which we have a record of, and
 

ascertaining whether or not the questions were the
 

right ones and so on. So I'm -- maybe you could
 

help me understand why we would interview the
 

individuals.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think part of -- part
 

of this was to test whether the tool was capturing
 

all relevant information that the claimant was
 

provid-- you know, with -- capturing all relevant
 
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data the claimant or widow was trying to provide and
 

if, you know -- initially I was thinking if these -­

if there was transcripts of all of these, then
 

reviewing the transcript was a means to achieve
 

that. But I know at least in the earlier interviews
 

that wasn't done. And the other part is the -- the
 

satisfaction. I think that's an important part of
 

this process is to determine whether the claimant
 

feels that they got -- that -- that NIOSH fully
 

explored all avenues in their -- in their
 

occupational history -- relevant -- relevant
 

avenues.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I
 

would -- I know we talked about this in the working
 

group, Mark. I know you all know my position on
 

this. I don't see how we can accommodate this and
 

make this happen. We're going to protect
 

confidentiality and the privacy of these
 

individuals. We're not going to institute a -- a
 

way to seek release. All the claimant population
 

knows that they have recourse to express their
 

concerns or issues in writing to the Advisory Board
 

or present it in public comment. This -- I see no
 

need for this, to interact with the interviewees. 


If that -- they sign the OCAS-1 form informing us
 
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that they have provided us all necessary information
 

and that is all captured in the interview report
 

that is part of the administrative record. And so I
 

think this is a moot -­

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, and you know my feeling,
 

too. I mean I edited it back in because I thought
 

it was more of a -- what we were running up against
 

was sort of a -- a Privacy Act restriction and -­

but I think if we request consent through NIOSH,
 

NIOSH contacts the individuals and says that this
 

independent review process is going on, they're
 

doing your case -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, there's more than
 

Privacy Act issues here. There's the fact that it's
 

a obligation burden that is put back on the claimant
 

population, and we'd have to go before the Office of
 

Management and Budget and get a review and a
 

clearance to interact this way.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, okay, I think -­

MR. ELLIOTT: There's many issues -­

MR. GRIFFON: Larry, I think -- I think one
 

is this is an important item, you know, and the
 

other is the burden, I guess. That seems like it's
 

-- it may be a burden that we have to go over that
 

hurdle to get that approval and all that, but the
 
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first question, in my mind, anyway, is -- is this
 

something that we -- that the review team -- that
 

the independent auditor needs to be looking at. And
 

you know, I think it is. I'd like -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, maybe we should get some
 

views of the other Board members. I don't know what
 

satisfaction here is -- in other words, if -- if a
 

person's claim is unsuccessful, there's I suppose a
 

high likelihood that they might not be satisfied
 

with the interview process. If their claim is
 

successful, then probably for them it's a moot
 

point. And I'm not sure how you evaluate
 

satisfaction on an interview proc-- in other words,
 

it's one thing to say yes, I was treated -- people
 

were nice to me. I gave them all the information. 


Versus I was treated rudely, the pro-­

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, but I think -- you know,
 

there's -- there's the question as to whether they
 

-- they had a lot of information to give -­

DR. ZIEMER: That wasn't taken?
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- that wasn't taken because
 

it didn't specifically fit into the form and the
 

person that interviewed me was sticking to the form
 

and I didn't really give them a chance to tell them
 

about this, this, this, this or this, you know. And
 
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I think also -- Paul, your point's well-taken that
 

if someone's claim is denied, they're likely to be
 

not satisfied. But I also -- you know, you've got
 

to remember -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I'm more asking that -­

is -- is the process -- is the interview process
 

such that we can determine whether or not there was
 

a thorough opportunity for the person to vent or air
 

their views or give their concerns or not? Can we
 

do that without going back to the person, that's
 

what I'm asking. I know that -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I know.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I know that, for example, when
 

I get my car fixed, a few days later I get a call
 

from somebody and they call me to ask me if I'm -­

if I am happy with the way the dealership handled my
 

repair.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: If we're talking customer
 

satisfaction here, that's -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- something we're interested
 

in very much here at NIOSH.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: But people handle that through
 

another mechanism.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: And certainly report it to the
 

Board. I don't see it as being a part of review of
 

scientific validity and quality of dose
 

reconstruction.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, it would be if in fact
 

the interview process did not in fact get at the
 

right information -­

MR. GRIFFON: That's exactly what I was -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- as opposed to the person's
 

treated nicely. My -- I can be treated very nicely
 

when I take my car in, and if they don't get it
 

fixed, I don't care how nicely they treated me. I'm
 

not happy with -- with the situation, you know -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, that's what we were
 

trying to -- that's what I was trying -­

DR. ZIEMER: So I can't -- I wish we could
 

do an audit without having to go back to the person. 


In other words, if there's -- if we don't have
 

sufficient records to ascertain whether or not the
 

right information is being extracted, then -- then
 

I'm thinking there must be a flaw in the interview
 

process to start with.
 

DR. NETON: I think, Dr. Ziemer -- this is
 

Jim Neton, and I'd like to reiterate what Larry
 
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said, and maybe elaborate on it a little more. The
 

OCAS-1 form was specifically designed to capture the
 

claimant's agreement that we addressed every single
 

piece of evidence that they brought forward during
 

the interview process, or at any time during the
 

dose reconstruction process, and they -- they review
 

the draft dose reconstruction before it's ever moved
 

forward. And once they sign that, they have agreed
 

that we have captured in essence everything that
 

they've said. Not necessarily that we've addressed
 

it to their satisfaction in a dose reconstruction
 

manner, but we've at least brought it up in the dose
 

reconstruction itself. So I think that aspect is
 

covered.
 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I would I
 

guess sort of agree, in the sense that -- I think
 

we're putting a -- this process puts a lot of burden
 

on the claimants who are not the -- sticking to dose
 

reconstructors, and they are going to have, I think,
 

difficulty understanding what is important
 

information, what may not be important information. 


I think they're going to have difficulty
 

understanding, in some cases, the process. And this
 

is not to say that NIOSH's interviewers or the
 

contract interviews are treating them in a wrong
 
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fashion or anything like that. I think it's just
 

the nature of any encounter with any sort of health
 

professional or other professional. It intimidates
 

and it's difficult for a lot of people to, you know,
 

handle that encounter and understand what is
 

important and what is not important in terms of what
 

should be told. And I think having some process
 

that would allow -- because the history -- pieces
 

where -- we know that there'll be many cases where
 

there will not be complete information or records
 

may be missing and so forth, so I think it is a
 

critical part of the dose reconstruction process,
 

and we ought to have some evaluation method in place
 

in order to determine, you know, was the appropriate
 

information sought from the person, was it
 

appropriately followed -- followed up on. And I
 

can't see -- be able to do that without a -- without
 

going back -- and at least having the opportunity to
 

go back and interview the person.
 

MR. GIBSON: Well, this is Mike Gibson. I
 

don't think I agree with Jim that -- you know, just
 

being a worker at a site, I know workers get forms
 

from the company, their annual dose statements, a
 

lot of different things on RWP's that -- they
 

basically don't even understand them after RAD-2
 
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training and everything else, so you know, I'm not
 

sure that they would be bringing all the relevant
 

information to the table in an interview, would be
 

my concern.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And how would that be solved by
 

this process? If they don't know that to start
 

with, if you go back to them and say did you bring
 

all the relevant information, are you suggesting
 

they suddenly now will have -- they will have that
 

information?
 

MR. GIBSON: No, but once maybe they start
 

getting these site profiles built stuff, we would
 

have some inherent knowledge that we could say, you
 

know, were you involved in this thing in this area
 

or, you know.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And I think -- I mean -- this
 

is Mark Griffon -- the way I was envisioning this,
 

too, also, was, you know, in a similar way, that if
 

-- if the -- and you know, the -- I'm hoping that
 

the interviewers, you know, are going to be astute
 

at this, but -- and they may capture all this, and
 

we hope they do. But you know, it may be that we
 

interview -- if the interviews go forward, they may
 

say hey, listen, I told the person on this phone
 

interview that I worked in such and such building
 
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and such and such building and, you know, they have
 

this -- there is a listing of radionuclides in part
 

of the questionnaire and maybe they might not
 

mention anything there, they weren't sure, but they
 

mention two buildings which end up being, you know,
 

very high potentials for exposures that weren't
 

really considered in the form at all. And we want
 

to make sure at least to track that back to make
 

sure that that was considered in the overall
 

reconstruction.
 

DR. NETON: Mark, I don't want to be
 

overbearing, but I -- we do provide the interview
 

draft to the claimant after the interview for them
 

to completely review and add additional information
 

they think is missing. We send them -­

MR. ELLIOTT: All the OMB-approved scripts
 

are out there, and if there's an issue, you know -­

the way the scripts are developed as, you know,
 

identified in the review of a dose reconstruction,
 

that could -- that could be identified, I think,
 

readily and changed. I don't think -- I just -­

this is -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, my view of an auditor was
 

more like that, but you're looking at the process
 

and identifying -- if there are weaknesses in the
 
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process -- how you correct them, as opposed to going
 

back in -- we look at specific cases, but you're
 

looking at those in order to evaluate the process. 


We're not looking at those in order to specifically
 

redo individual claims per se. So in other words,
 

it seems to me we shouldn't be -- we're not -- we're
 

not recalculating these things in order to redo
 

people's claims because in many cases they will have
 

already been adjudicated. But we are looking for
 

something in this system that's not working right,
 

and -­

MR. ELLIOTT: In all cases you will only
 

look at adjudicated -­

DR. ZIEMER: That's right, the decision has
 

already been made.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Right.
 

DR. MELIUS: But the interview -- this is
 

Jim Melius. The interview is, you know, a critical
 

part of the process and it needs to be evaluated.
 

DR. ZIEMER: To what?
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Somebody just opened a door
 

and -­

DR. ZIEMER: Background noise, I couldn't -­

Jim, could you repeat what you just said?
 

DR. MELIUS: That the interview -- I mean I
 
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agree with what you were saying, Paul, in the sense
 

that we're not re-adjudicating the claims, but the
 

interview is a critical part of the process that's
 

going on and we need to be able to evaluate the
 

interview in some way.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I agree with that. I'm
 

trying to see if there's a way of doing that without
 

necessarily going back to the claimants. They end
 

up getting the feeling that somehow that we're
 

redoing their case or something like that. I think
 

you can open some Pandora's boxes if you're not
 

careful there, too. I don't know how to do this at
 

this point.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: I think it's pretty -- this is
 

Larry Elliott. It's very straightforward in our
 

mind. You have the interview questionnaires that
 

are standardized, these are what are used. The
 

report of the interview is in draft form, given back
 

to the claimant. They review that. That draft, as
 

well as the final version, as well as the OCAS-1
 

form that they sign off on, is in the administrative
 

record. And those are your tools to make use of and
 

evaluate. You'll -- you may gain additional
 

information in some cases that might go through an
 

appeal process. And if -- you know, in that process
 
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they identify -- one of their -- their complaints is
 

the interview was not completed satisfactorily or
 

the information they provided was not used
 

appropriately, there's another indication to you
 

that something's afoul. But again, you -­

DR. ANDERSON: To me, one of the questions
 

is are we involved in validating the tool? I mean
 

is the tool effective at capturing all available
 

information? Now you have a process for the
 

claimant to look at it and say yes, that's what I
 

said or yes, that captures what I said. But it -­

the question really comes down to do you have a
 

different process to interview an individual to see
 

whether or not -- would trigger some additional
 

memory that the current structured interview does
 

not do and whether the person's signed or not, the
 

issue is how does one improve the questionnaire, how
 

does one validate that in fact it had all the bells
 

and whistles in it so that it will trigger every
 

possible memory the individual may have and has a
 

mechanism to capture their -- those thoughts. So I
 

don't know what your -- you know, your validation
 

process -- what that is, but it seems to me -­

that's how I was looking at this, is that we may go
 

back to some individuals and, after having all the
 
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information, one might ask some additional questions
 

or in a more free form interview see whether
 

anything else comes out of it.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Roy (sic), this is Ziemer
 

again. It seems to me that if you do something like
 

that, you're saying well, actually the interview
 

process then should have contained those questions.
 

DR. ANDERSON: Well, that's right, you -- we
 

-- that's -- I don't know how else you'd go about
 

trying to improve the questionnaire without
 

having -­

DR. ZIEMER: But my -- see, my question is
 

how do you know which questions those should be to
 

start with, a priori? If you can think of those
 

questions now as part of the review process, then
 

you can put them in the process.
 

DR. ANDERSON: Well, we don't have any
 

experience up to this point.
 

MS. MUNN: Well, this is Wanda. I have
 

considerable sympathy with the point that I think
 

Larry is trying to make, which is this is not just a
 

simple question of interviewing anyone. My
 

assessment from here is, if one can believe even
 

one-fourth of what is reported in the newspapers,
 

we're going to have people who want to go back over
 
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and over and over again on the one hand, and on the
 

other hand we're going to have people -- especially
 

survivors -- who insist that they know absolutely
 

nothing about anything that happened to their family
 

member. And if -- I don't have the OCAS-1 form in
 

front of me. I remember looking at it at one time
 

and I felt that it was very comprehensive at the
 

time that I first looked at it, many, many months
 

ago.
 

If there is in fact a final section there
 

that says do you feel that -- that everything that
 

needs to be covered has been covered or do you have
 

suggestions, would you like the interview to have
 

been conducted some other way -- if there is that
 

kind of question that a person signs off on, then at
 

some juncture we have to accept what we have. And
 

if that -- if the person who is making the claim has
 

in fact agreed that they've done the best they could
 

and they don't have any suggestions, otherwise
 

they've had full opportunity to say anything they
 

wanted to say, then I am not at all sure that there
 

is any way that one can verify that -- reverify that
 

statement, short of going back to them, and going
 

back to them is not desirable. Larry has pointed
 

that out and I think he's absolutely accurate. Most
 
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people I think would resent being called back to
 

talk about it again.
 

DR. ZIEMER: This is Ziemer again. Let me
 

add one other thing. If you want to validate the
 

interview, it seems to me you ask the same questions
 

and see if you get the same answers.
 

MS. MUNN: Uh-huh.
 

DR. ZIEMER: If you are going to ask
 

different questions under the sort of guise that
 

maybe -- or you know, if you're saying we're not
 

sure the right questions were asked, therefore we're
 

asking -- we're going to ask some different
 

questions, it's quite true you might get different
 

information. But my point is that if we can think
 

of those questions ahead of time, whatever they
 

might be, and if we think they're important
 

questions to ask, then that should be part of the
 

process. So what is it we're trying to validate? 


And it shouldn't be that if we go back six months or
 

a year later that the person now has remembered
 

something they didn't remember before. That can
 

always happen, but that's not how you validate a
 

system.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, that -- I mean there's
 

two things, Paul. This is Mark Griffon again. One
 
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-- one is that we did roll in the idea from methods
 

and procedures review and one -- one arguably
 

procedure or -- or, you know, process is this
 

interview process and use -- and the use of the
 

questionnaire.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: So I think to an extent we do
 

want to evaluate that tool for the effectiveness and
 

whether it gets at everything that's relevant for a
 

dose reconstruction.
 

The second is, I think if -- you will want
 

to evaluate, also, whether the report that's created
 

by the operator, the interviewer, matches up with
 

the answers that you get as an independent auditor
 

when you ask the same questions 'cause I -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that becomes an audit
 

versus -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- a review of (inaudible) -­

MR. GRIFFON: (Inaudible)
 

DR. ZIEMER: (Inaudible) -- and we do that
 

in the dose reconstruction. If two different people
 

do it, do they get the same results. And I think in
 

principle that's what you would say about an audit,
 

do you get the same results.
 
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Now one of the sensitivities is that it's
 

one thing to mechanically, on paper, to do a dose
 

reconstruction, have two people do it from the same
 

database or checking each other. It's quite another
 

thing to go back to a person and ask them the same
 

questions over again. That can in fact be very
 

irritable or a point of irritation. Wait a minute,
 

I already asked -- answered these question; why are
 

you back here asking me again, didn't you believe
 

me? I -- you know.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I know, I -- it -­

DR. ANDERSON: I think -- this is Andy
 

again. I mean the way you do that is like you -- we
 

do with all these. You call a person and you say we
 

have this function that is an audit function. Part
 

of that -- it involves asking you the same questions
 

again. Are you -­

DR. ZIEMER: Or some of the same question.
 

DR. ANDERSON: Some of the -- are you
 

willing to go through that? You get an informed
 

consent. They aren't going to be -- you aren't
 

going to be calling them and telling them they have
 

to do this, this has to be a voluntary activity. 


And you say, you know, as part of our trying to
 

improve this system, you know, we're going through
 
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this again and are -- you've been selected randomly
 

or whatever and would you be willing to be re-


interviewed? And if they say no, I am fed up with
 

it and don't call me again, fine, that's -- that's
 

that. So I don't -- I wouldn't worry about them
 

saying you've asked me this before, because I would
 

tell it to them up front. I wouldn't do it as a
 

here we are calling you again, and then they -- I
 

would certainly think they'd be angry. They'd say
 

well, you already got that, somebody did that and
 

you must have, you know -- rather than explain what
 

-- what this is, why we're doing it. I think many
 

of them would say gee, I'm glad, you know, you're
 

going to the exhaustive extent.
 

DR. DEHART: This is Roy. We have discussed
 

this two previous times in some depth with more or
 

less the same conclusions, but I strongly feel that
 

this is a critically important area to audit and
 

audit directly with the claimant. Filling out
 

paperwork, whatever, has a certain depressing mood
 

to it. People oftentimes aren't as forthcoming as
 

they might be. But with an oral interview that's
 

structured, it's much more highly valuable. And to
 

go back and ensure that we are hitting the high
 

points I think is really important. We're not
 
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talking about that many as we go through. But I do
 

think there should be a method found to satisfy this
 

requirement.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, could you clarify -- this
 

is Ziemer again. Could you clarify -- or others on
 

the subcommittee -- on this -- your thinking on
 

this? Were you thinking in fact of confirming the
 

thing by asking the same questions over again, which
 

would be more like an audit function? It seems to
 

me if you ask different questions, you're not
 

auditing.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I was thinking of both, but in
 

a broad sense right now because I think, you know,
 

we have -- under this task order approach we have a
 

opportunity to refine this task when it goes out to
 

the -- select a contractor, you know. That's the
 

way I understand it. But I was thinking of the
 

review of the method, but also the review of the
 

specific -- you know, and so the first question
 

asks, you know, does the questionnaire ask the right
 

-- did it get at the right stuff. And I think -­

you know, that is a valuable tool for the overall
 

process because if you get considerable feedback
 

from the auditor that it doesn't ask the right
 

questions, then that can be modified and as you move
 
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on with the program.
 

The second is to say did the interviewer
 

capture the relevant information from the
 

interviewee during the questions asked. You know,
 

so go down their form and make sure that the report
 

matches with what the interviewee had -- how it had
 

answered and the relevant information that they had
 

answered in those questions. And you know, that
 

could maybe -- maybe that could -- you can get
 

around that if there were transcripts of the
 

interview, if it was a phone interview and there
 

were transcripts, you maybe able to review and just
 

say wait a second, you know, here's an instance
 

where they talked about something and it didn't make
 

it into the final summary report of the interview
 

and we think it's pretty important. I mean it
 

wasn't captured in the -- in the final report. So
 

that's the question of whether the -- you know. So
 

I think both, to answer your first question, Paul,
 

that...
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Larry.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Let me -- point of
 

clarification. There will not be any transcripts -­

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay.
 
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MR. ELLIOTT: -- of these interviews. 


There's not any recordings going to be captured of
 

these interviews.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I thought it was brought
 

up as an option, but I -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, current policy and
 

decision on that is no.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: That's been informed by legal
 

counsel.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 

DR. ANDERSON: Larry, this is Andy. I mean
 

one -- if we only want to do this once, I mean one
 

option would be to -- to preselect some of these for
 

that audit function and again explain to the
 

individual would they mind having it recorded
 

because of this audit function.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: No. No, we're not -­

DR. ANDERSON: And it would only be those
 

that were part of our audit.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We're not going to use
 

transcripts to record the interviews. We have this
 

system in place. I appreciate the Board's debate on
 

this. My advice to the Board at this juncture would
 

be to -- for you to delete in B.1 and B.2 the
 
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parenthetical, and in B.1 delete from the point of
 

"transcript" on.
 

Now I'm proposing that because if you leave
 

it in here, I'm afraid it's going to take us longer
 

to get this into the procurement process because I'm
 

not sure that we're going to get sign-off in the
 

Department to do this piece this way. You can make
 

this -- you can put this statement of work out as a
 

scope of work without that, and you can add it as a
 

task later once we work out these details on if and
 

how and whether or not claimants may be recontacted
 

regarding their interviews. That's my -- that's my
 

suggestion and proposed solution on handling this at
 

this time.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other comments
 

by any of the Board members on this issue, pro or
 

con? Clearly you have a number of different views
 

on this and various gradations. Some of you we
 

haven't heard from. Do you have any points to add,
 

anyone?
 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Bob.
 

MR. PRESLEY: I agree with -- as somebody
 

that sat in the committee that went through here, I
 

would like to see it done. But I can see what Larry
 
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has, too. We're getting ready to probably open a
 

bigger Pandora's box than we think here on this if
 

we don't work it out.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Anyone else?
 

MR. ESPINOSA: Yeah, this is Rich Espinosa.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Rich, uh-huh.
 

MR. ESPINOSA: The audit should be done from
 

beginning to end, in my opinion, including the
 

interview.
 

DR. DEHART: This is Roy DeHart. The
 

proposal by Larry of being able to re-establish a
 

specific task order to develop this would satisfy -­

satisfy me without delaying the procurement process. 


That's a major concern I think that we all feel,
 

that time is critical. We need to do it, we need to
 

do it right. But with the task order system we can
 

always come back in and plug in things that we feel
 

are not properly addressing the issue. So I would
 

suggest going with what Larry has suggested.
 

MR. GIBSON: Well -- this is Mike Gibson. I
 

guess my question would be if NIOSH is so opposed to
 

that in this particular document, why would they be
 

willing to reconsider at a later point in time,
 

inserting it somewhere else in the task order?
 

DR. ZIEMER: I thought Larry was just saying
 
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it would take longer. Larry, do you want to clarify
 

what -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. Well, you certainly can
 

sense my reluctance to do this, Mike, and it's based
 

on a number of sensitivities that I tried to cover
 

in the working group discussions. First of all, the
 

sensitivity that we have here about going back onto
 

the claimant population with another burden. That
 

is one sensitivity. But we have sensitivities
 

beyond that. For example, if we make a call back
 

after the claim is adjudicated and the person that
 

was interviewed is deceased, and you talk to the
 

wrong person, we have already experienced this in
 

this program. We have made contact and realized
 

that the person has passed away, and it's not a very
 

pleasant experience. It is fraught with
 

difficulties, as well. For you to do something like
 

this takes and OMB clearance, and I can't guarantee
 

that OMB will even support this because it is an
 

obligation placed upon a public population. So my
 

proposed solution allows us to proceed with this -­

putting this into the procurement process and at the
 

same time exploring the -- for everybody interested
 

and concerned, exploring the sensitivities of doing
 

so, weighing out the advantages and the
 
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disadvantages of doing so, and having the
 

opportunity that if it is something that needs to go
 

forward, we don't lock ourselves into something
 

right now that will delay this procurement for an
 

OMB clearance.
 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius. I'm -- I
 

think this -- doing these interviews is a very
 

important part of this review process, and I think
 

it's important that the Board go on record up front
 

as seeing this as integral to being able to do a
 

satisfactory and appropriate review of the dose
 

reconstruction process. And I'd be very reluctant
 

for us to send something forward at this point
 

without the interviews in it. I'd much rather see
 

-- get a response from the Department saying they
 

don't want to do that or whatever, rather than us
 

sending forward a incomplete and inadequate dose
 

review -- dose reconstruction review process. So I
 

would really strongly object to taking that -­

compromise it in the way that it was suggested.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any other comments, pro
 

or con, anyone?
 

WRITER/EDITOR: Who was just speaking?
 

DR. ZIEMER: That was Jim Melius.
 

DR. ROESSLER: And this is Gen asking the
 
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question.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler.
 

DR. ROESSLER: Yeah. Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Did you have a comment, Gen?
 

DR. ROESSLER: No, I just -- I wanted to
 

make sure it was a member of the Board.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah.
 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm looking down the list to
 

see if there's -- has everyone had a chance to give
 

their view on this?
 

DR. ANDERSON: This is Andy. It seems to me
 

we still will have January. I mean it would be nice
 

to move the procurement forward, but we're really
 

setting up a system that's going to operate for a
 

long time and so I guess I wouldn't -- you know, the
 

question, to me, would be can we get further
 

information at the January meeting that will help
 

us? I mean at this point we're hearing from Larry
 

and we're trying to second-guess OMB and other
 

legal-related issues, so I don't know, is there
 

something that could be done between now and then
 

that would -- might get us some more information as
 

to, one, can we do this; does in fact it require, as
 

part of its function, to have an OMB approval of
 
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this. You know, we have worker representatives on
 

this Board so we could certainly say well, how would
 

your membership react to this added burden, or is it
 

a burden if it's a voluntary thing? Most of the
 

other paperwork is not voluntary. I mean if we
 

could get some more information on it, that would be
 

helpful. And then we could have further discussion
 

in January. The option would be write a letter to
 

the Secretary and say, you know, here's some of the
 

Board issues and NIOSH is strongly opposed to us
 

moving forward and would like to get your opinion on
 

this.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott again. 


Let me provide some clarification here. First of
 

all, I'm speaking for the Department. The
 

Department has concerns about this interview that
 

you're proposing. Secondly, for clarification,
 

there's not a question on the table as to whether
 

this would require OMB approval. It will require
 

OMB approval, and that will take time. How much
 

time, I don't even want to hazard a guess.
 

DR. ANDERSON: You also said that your
 

impression was they would not approved (sic) it. 


That was my understanding of what you said as oppo-­

MR. ELLIOTT: I said I don't know whether
 
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they'll approve it or not. I can't second-guess
 

OMB. I know there is concern about claimant burden
 

at OMB. There's concern about claimant burden in
 

the Administration. That's all I can tell you. 


Whether I can have a decision for you on behalf of
 

the Department on whether they'll even put this up
 

in front of OMB by January, I can't predict.
 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes.
 

MR. OWENS: Leon Owens.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Leon, go ahead.
 

MR. OWENS: A comment I'd like to make.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. OWENS: We are faced with calling
 

survivors all the time here in Paducah. We have
 

retirees who do follow-ups in conjunction with the
 

Worker Health Protection Program. They call to see
 

if a physical was satisfactory, call and see if the
 

early lung detection scan was satisfactory. We're
 

faced all the time with similar situations where
 

individuals have passed on. My experience is, even
 

though it causes grief for a lot of these survivors
 

and the widow, they are most appreciative that we
 

have at least called. And that also gives us an
 

opportunity to ensure that they have been treated
 
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satisfactorily and to ask if there is any additional
 

information or anything else that we might be able
 

to provide to them. That's been our experience in
 

regard to follow-ups. I think that it is very vital
 

that a follow-up is provided. I think we all need
 

to keep in mind the clientele that we will be
 

working with or that will be worked with in this
 

program. The longer that we wait, promulgating
 

rules and regulations, the more that people are
 

getting older and they're dying. So it's very
 

important that they have credibil-- that the program
 

have credibility and that they also have a sense of
 

fair play in this process.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So Leon, you're speaking
 

in favor of some sort of an interview follow-up, it
 

sounds like.
 

MR. OWENS: Yes, sir, I am.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. And we need to keep in
 

mind that there has been -- the process itself has a
 

fairly extensive interview follow-up process. That
 

is, not as quality control, but as part of the
 

interview. Larry, is this not a correct statement
 

that there is -- there is the follow-up with the
 

individual to try to confirm that they have provided
 

all the information that they think is critical and
 
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so on, leading to the signing of the document?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that is correct. There's
 

actually -­

DR. ZIEMER: So -­

MR. ELLIOTT: -- two times that we talk to
 

the person being interviewed; once when the
 

interview is done, and then after the interview
 

report has been drafted and sent to the individual,
 

another follow-up call is made to verify that all
 

the information that they shared was -- was captured
 

and recorded in the questionnaire and in the
 

interview report. If they have -- they're given
 

another opportunity to provide additional
 

information at that time if they know of any that's
 

come to light. They're walked through the OCAS-1
 

form and asked to sign it if they are so ready.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask a question then. 


Let me -- I'm going to ask this in the framework -­

'cause I don't know the answer to it, but number
 

one, if we did this, we're talking about a small
 

enough sample that from a scientific point of view
 

I'm not sure how valid our results would be in terms
 

of saying whether or not the interviews were in fact
 

effective. In terms of -- for example, if you asked
 

the same questions, do you get the same answers. 

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Are there studies -- I would think somebody would
 

have made a study on these kinds of procedures or
 

processes as to eliciting interview information from
 

people, what -- what works, what doesn't and how
 

repeatable it is and so on. Is there anything in
 

the literature that we could use as a benchmark to
 

see whether or not our interview process meets some
 

kind of a gold standard for eliciting such
 

information? Seems to me that that might be an
 

indirect way to get at the question, because I would
 

-- I would guess if you were to take the number of
 

follow-ups we propose and were to go to the folks
 

and ask the questions over and determine, you know,
 

how good a match did we get on eliciting the same
 

information and then tried to publish that in a
 

journal, they'd probably tell us we didn't have a
 

big enough sample size or something like that.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott -­

DR. ZIEMER: So would we really do a proper
 

quality control on that with this very limited
 

sample?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: There is a literature of
 

research on this type of question, how survey
 

instruments are used and their effectiveness. And
 

we certainly can provide references to that for you
 
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all if you wish.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm just wondering if this is a
 

question we could at least leave open until January
 

and get some additional -- I'd like some additional
 

background information that would tell us how -- how
 

effective and reliable, if we did do this, and what
 

-- you know, did -- went through all the hoops with
 

OMB and so on, if in fact we will be able to elicit
 

the information that we're really after with this
 

small sample size with any degree of confidence.
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I'd like to
 

comment on that. I think that Paul's suggestion is
 

probably the best one that I've heard so far. I
 

trust Larry when he says OMB is going to throw us
 

out, and if OMB is not going to -- it doesn't make
 

any difference how right we feel we are. If we hit
 

the iron wall in terms of approval to do what we'd
 

like to do, then it's not going to be possible for
 

us to do it. If, on the other hand, as Paul points
 

out, there is a gold standard against which we can
 

assess the value of what's been done, then if we
 

incorporate that into what we anticipate from an
 

advanced review, then we could even change the
 

sample size at will without any great grief to
 

anyone, and probably with a minimum cost, certainly
 
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far less cost than will be required to return to the
 

individuals who were interviewed in the first place.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Let me -- this is Larry
 

Elliott again. You know, we've been -- we've been
 

going round and round on this and let me see if I
 

can provide a proposal for your consideration
 

that'll work us around the OMB issue, the going back
 

afterwards to claimants. What if your technical
 

consultation contractor here reviewed an interview
 

while it was in progress, while it was happening,
 

and then that case would become one of the cases
 

that you would identify for that person, that
 

contractor, to evaluate under your criteria here,
 

after it was finally adjudicated? You have this
 

interview piece done up front, and nothing further
 

would happen till the dose reconstruction was
 

completed and the case was adjudicated. Then he
 

would be able to put the piece together with the
 

remainder of his review effort.
 

In other words, we could have your
 

contractor provide -- looking over the shoulder of
 

the interviewer, observing.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Someone would have trouble
 

publishing that paper. Seems like it wouldn't be
 

very representative. This is Mark Griffon. I mean
 
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I -- if you have an auditor over your shoulder, I'm
 

not sure that the end -- the way they're con-- the
 

interview's conducted would necessarily be
 

representative of the way it's conducted every day.
 

DR. NETON: Mark, you know -­

MR. GRIFFON: I mean that would be one
 

question.
 

DR. NETON: Mark, I've got another issue,
 

though.
 

MR. GRIFFON: What?
 

DR. NETON: If you go back and you interview
 

someone who's claim's been adjudicated and then been
 

denied, you think (inaudible) -­

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I know -- yeah.
 

DR. NETON: That's hardly representative, in
 

my opinion.
 

DR. ANDERSON: What about the option of
 

recording and then having somebody at a later time
 

listening to it and then filling out the form?
 

DR. ZIEMER: We have the issue on recording
 

them already that's been -­

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I mean it's not the
 

same as a transcript. I mean if you just record
 

it -­

MR. ELLIOTT: We're not recording any
 
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interviews.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Maybe we should -­

again, we may not be able to come to closure on this
 

today, but maybe could have that on the table and
 

consider that. I think it's a suggestion -- we
 

might look at how that might be done in a way that
 

preserves the randomness of a -- of a review
 

process, does not at the front end give the
 

interviewer a heads-up that somehow this -- you
 

know, that they're somehow going to do this one
 

differently. I don't know if that -­

MR. GRIFFON: To put -- I mean -- this is
 

Mark Griffon again. One response to Jim, I agree
 

that that's a potential, but that's a potential that
 

you, as an independent auditor, you can account for
 

that if you review 40 cases and 20 of them were
 

awarded and they're all happy, and 20 were not
 

awarded and they're all angry, you know, obviously
 

you're going to take that into account. I mean we
 

-- we're hiring a group that's pretty astute in -­

you know, we -­

MR. NETON: Right, but I would -- I would
 

submit -­

MR. GRIFFON: But on the other hand, the
 

other, when you're over the shoulder, you don't have
 
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that other pool to look at is my point, I guess, you
 

know.
 

DR. NETON: I would suggest that the
 

interview, if there were to be a second interview -­

I'm not sure that's even on the table -- if it were
 

to be conducted before the claim is adjudicated.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. NETON: One would call up the claimant
 

within a week 'cause these things take time. Those
 

dose reconstructions take time, and say hi, I'm
 

following up. I'm doing quality control as a
 

contractor, and then you're going to get -­

MR. ELLIOTT: That -- if the OMB clears -­

DR. NETON: I'm not saying that that's the
 

solution, but I'm saying it may be a more fair
 

process -­

MR. GRIFFON: I agree with that if that's -­

do it -- yeah, I agree.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: If you're going to do it,
 

you've almost got to do it before the claims been -­

MR. GRIFFON: I don't disagree with that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: It seems to me we have a number
 

of ideas on the table, some of which -- or partially
 

-- some of which might meet the -- I think we have
 

to address both the concerns of the Agency and the
 
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concerns of the Board in terms of getting the proper
 

audit. And there probably is a way to address both
 

concerns in a -- in a way that protects from the
 

potential that we see in both areas. So I'm
 

wondering if we could for the moment just leave this
 

issue and look at what else we have and then use -­

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I just -- this is Mark
 

Griffon. Just one final point on this, Paul, 'cause
 

you mentioned this and I just wanted to remind -­

you know, the idea that this sample's awful small to
 

make any conclusions on -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- the effectiveness of a
 

tool, and it just reminded me, as I go through these
 

drafts of this thing, how -- how I was persuaded to
 

eliminate the first test, which was a review of the
 

methods and procedures, which in fact was going to
 

cover the method for the interview process overall,
 

not -- and I rolled it into individual cases, you
 

know, and therefore -- okay, you're right. But if
 

I'd kept that first tack where we specifically were
 

reviewing the overall method, then we would, you
 

know, might (inaudible) -- you know, that sort of -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, yeah, I see what you
 

mean.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: Just as a historical -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- context -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- then I agree with you, we
 

should move -- probably move through -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let's see what other
 

issues we have and we can either come back to this
 

yet this afternoon or -- or as a possibility, say
 

okay, this is an item we're going to have to -- we
 

all need to give it some additional thought and
 

think about some of the options that have been
 

raised here. And some of these have been off the
 

top of our heads and I think we all need to think
 

about them. And I would like to see us come to some
 

kind of closure that is -- you know, we're not going
 

to be able to maybe fully satisfy, but we may become
 

-- we might be able to come pretty close.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: But that takes -- that always
 

takes some creativity -- say okay, how can you -­

how can you accomplish this in a way that meets all
 

the concerns that -- we've -- we hear what the
 

concerns are. I think we all have to be sensitive
 

to those issues, whether they are regulatory, the
 
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Agency's sensitivity, our need to do a good job and
 

meet our charge to, you know, to be faithful to our
 

-- our responsibilities, so -­

MR. NAIMON: Dr. Ziemer?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. NAIMON: This is David Naimon. I just
 

wanted to add one more possible consideration -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, uh-huh.
 

MR. NAIMON: -- and that is, I wasn't sure
 

when we talked about the claim being adjudicated if
 

we're talking about all the way through any possible
 

court challenges.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think in general we
 

have talked about our process.
 

MR. NAIMON: The reason why I mention that
 

is that I think there might be some legal issues
 

about contacting people who are involved in
 

litigation -­

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh, sure.
 

MR. NAIMON: -- without their attorneys
 

being involved.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Sure. Right, right. Right. 


Thanks for adding that into the mix, as it were.
 

I'm going to suggest that we move on and see
 

what the rest of the document looks like. Is that
 
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agreeable?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: We go to item B, which is the
 

site profile and worker profile review. And let's
 

open this up for questions or comments or concerns.
 

MS. MUNN: Larry, before we go there, one
 

last final question with respect to the advanced
 

review -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, this is Wanda, I think. 


Right?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. -- under A.3.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh.
 

MS. MUNN: Where we indicate the folding in
 

of records, research programs, research
 

publications, et cetera. When I hit that, my first
 

thought was how and who is going to do that? I know
 

there is all sorts of additional reports and
 

research that's been done at various sites around
 

the country, and can I safely assume that there will
 

be a special team somewhere who will already have
 

this data accumulated at the time any advanced
 

review is taking place?
 

DR. ZIEMER: This is B.3?
 

MS. MUNN: A.3.
 

THE COURT: Oh, A.3.
 
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MS. MUNN: Yes.
 

DR. ZIEMER: On page five?
 

MS. MUNN: On page five. That's a lot of
 

stuff.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I
 

think, Wanda, your question gets at whether or not
 

-- well, the dose reconstruction is completed, and
 

what this gets at is was all of the information that
 

is available, that's identifiable, was it used.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: And that -- if we -- if we
 

felt we had found everything that is necessary to
 

adjudicate the claim, then that's the boundary that
 

is put upon it.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, I guess my -- you can
 

understand why I'm -- I quail at the prospect of
 

having to identify all relevant sources of data. 


It's -- it's an overwhelming task, and especially
 

once we get outside of the realm of official records
 

and go into other research programs, et cetera. So
 

I guess my -- my bottom line question here was will
 

we be looking -- is this expectation that it will
 

relate to data which has been accumulated and which
 

was used, and if so, I guess the wording is to
 

determine whether all relevant sources of data were
 
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used. I'm not at all sure how -­

DR. ZIEMER: How do you ever know whether
 

you -­

MS. MUNN: How do I identify whether all
 

relevant sources of data were identified? How do I
 

determine that? And it's -- it may be just a
 

rhetorical question, but it's one that came to my
 

mind and I would not like to go -­

DR. ZIEMER: It's an interesting question to
 

raise, though, and I guess you never know whether
 

it's all, but I -­

MS. MUNN: No.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- I'm wondering if we're
 

really asking whether sufficient sources have been
 

used.
 

MS. MUNN: I think -- I was wondering
 

whether adequate would be a better -­

DR. ZIEMER: A better word, yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: -- than having all.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, you want to -­

MR. GRIFFON: I'm just laughing at the words
 

"sufficient" and "adequacy." Boy, that -- that
 

rings a bell from somewhere, sufficiently -­

adequately sufficient.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: And how do we know that?
 

MS. MUNN: I know.
 

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

was -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- what I was struggling -- I
 

mean maybe "all" isn't appropriate in there, but -­

DR. ZIEMER: 'Cause you never know if it's
 

all.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean I guess what I
 

was trying to get at was the term whether a
 

reasonable effort was made to get at -- to get at
 

all those relevant data.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, that's -­

MR. GRIFFON: And I think that first word,
 

"determine," I mean maybe it's evaluate, as Larry
 

has brought up before.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, maybe those words could
 

be tweaked a little bit.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I'll take a crack at that,
 

yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: It's sort of asking an
 

impossible question, have you identified every
 

source.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: You never know the answer to
 

that, truly.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, good point.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: Okay. Sorry to throw that out.
 

MR. GRIFFON: That's all right.
 

MS. MUNN: We have the same -- a similar
 

kind of question in B.3 where we're -- we're back to
 

the what is adequate -- has there been an adequate
 

effort to research collated workers -- co-located
 

workers -­

DR. ZIEMER: That's a judgment there.
 

MS. MUNN: It's a judgment, and I'm
 

wondering if it would be wise for us at some
 

juncture, when we get down to the nitty-gritty -­

not today -- to sort of establish a rule of thumb
 

for that, but that's not for today's issue. That's
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 

MS. MUNN: Thank you.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, item B,
 

beginning on page six. Any issues anyone wants to
 

raise there?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: I have a question on that one. 

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Again I'll address this to Mark or to the
 

subcommittee. The second paragraph, first sentence,
 

says (reading) The contractor shall investigate the
 

conditions, processes, practices and incidents at
 

DOE sites.
 

Is there an expectation here that they would
 

-- when I -- when I see the word "investigate," I
 

envision somebody going out to a site and doing a
 

site investigation. Is that -­

UNIDENTIFIED: (Inaudible)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Is that what we're talking
 

about here?
 

MR. GRIFFON: No, no, not -- on-site
 

investigation wasn't the intent. That word might
 

not be the best.
 

DR. ZIEMER: It's to review?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Review -- yeah, I was thinking
 

review might be a possible word there or the whole
 

sentence might need wordsmithing, but...
 

DR. ZIEMER: It's not the investigation. 


You're really reviewing what has been uncovered
 

already.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I
 

think the second sentence feeds from the first and
 

actually says -­
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it does say it -­

MR. ELLIOTT: -- "review."
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, "investigate" was a bad
 

-- yeah, that was a -- and on-site was never the
 

intent, as we've discussed before.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Here on this second sentence,
 

we will edit this to read: The review should focus
 

on whether the approach NIOSH assured completeness.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We'll strike out "/and
 

contractor" -- "/contractor."
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. But then at the end of
 

that paragraph there is a task that looks like
 

you're going back to talking to employees and
 

contractors and so on, and my question is at what
 

point is the -- is our Board audit doing the work
 

that should have been done by the -- by the
 

contractor? In other words -­

MR. ELLIOTT: By NIOSH.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Or by NIOSH directly, yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: So they're trying to find out
 

if this work was done, I suppose. And what I -- I
 

clarified this on another conference call that the
 

meeting -- that these meetings -- it -- they -- "onsite" I think I struck, because on-site had
 
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everybody thinking that -- you know -- yeah, these
 

could be meetings conducted in the area of the site,
 

you know, or at a hotel, for instance, not
 

necessarily on a DOE facility site. This is -- this
 

is to determine if -- if they, you know -- they made
 

that reasonable effort to find all relevant reports
 

to include in the site profile. That's sort of the
 

intent.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And you know, if they miss
 

something, may -- I mean, it -- and you know, what
 

they may conclude is hey, you missed this small
 

report, but it really was a, you know -- I mean I
 

think the word's reasonable are important to put in
 

there. Obviously you're never going to get 100
 

percent, as we've discussed many times, but -­

MS. MUNN: Yeah, this is Wanda. This is the
 

same kind of issue that we had with the preceding
 

page -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: -- with respect to what
 

constitutes all relevant data sources.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I just want to make sure
 

that we're not doing the task of the staff. That
 
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is, at some -- at some point -- if you're talking
 

about somehow doing a spot check is one thing, but
 

going in and saying okay, we're going to do our own
 

site profile and see how well they match up, that's
 

a daunting task.
 

MR. GRIFFON: No -- No, I -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, so -- okay, I just wanted
 

to make sure I understood what the subcommittee was
 

actually suggesting there. But you haven't really
 

fleshed out how that would be done, I guess. Right?
 

MR. GRIFFON: I think it's -- well, it's
 

fairly broad, yeah, both B and C are definitely
 

broader than -- than A -- A was fleshed out more.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And is this something that you
 

would do if there's some reason to believe when you
 

did the paper audit that there's holes or something? 


Or how -­

MR. GRIFFON: I think we were thinking of
 

that in both ways, but we left the selection of the
 

sites sort of up to the working group or the Board,
 

but we could -- we had some discussions where we
 

said it might be based on individual dose
 

reconstructions for review -- in other words, you
 

know, you might flag something that see -- you see a
 

trend where you might want to go to a certain site
 
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and do a site profile review and/or, you know, a
 

random selection of certain sites or a non-random
 

selection of certain sites. So we -- we sort of
 

left that like that, but you know, with -- with -­

we didn't think it needed to be part of the task
 

order contract necessarily.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And we didn't have all the
 

answers to that, but -- so -- and the language is
 

surely broad for that reason, too.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: We don't know exactly what
 

these profiles look like yet, either. They're -­

NIOSH is beginning to -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- put it together, but not --


you know.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So right now this again
 

is kind of a marker in here that alerts a contractor
 

that they might have to do something like this. Is
 

that where it stands at the moment?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, or with -- you know.
 

DR. ZIEMER: As far as this -- this -­

MR. GRIFFON: With -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- this statement of work?
 
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MR. GRIFFON: With some indication on -- on
 

what kind of depth it might involve, you know,
 

trying to give them -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. When you talk about the
 

-- in the bottom paragraph, the site profile -- the
 

ten profiles, you're not necessarily saying that
 

they would do this on all ten.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I was, yes.
 

DR. ZIEMER: They would -- they would have
 

these sort of on-site or near-site reviews of ten
 

facilities?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, that -- on-site
 

interviews with the group is only one -- one part of
 

their review, you know.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: But yes.
 

DR. NETON: Is that -- is that -- my -- I
 

would not -- that was not my understanding, Mark,
 

that you were going to do all ten site -- site
 

visits for each -- each of these -- so you're going
 

to do 20 site visits in the first year.
 

DR. ZIEMER: See, my impression was that -­

is that is a really formidable task. First of all,
 

ten -- ten is a big -- there really are about 35
 

major DOE sites, so you're talking about almost a
 
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third of them. And each of those sites is a big,
 

big facility.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, you're thinking DOE
 

sites, right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think it says -- well,
 

let's see, there's ten and ten here, the number of
 

worker -- oh, worker profiles is ten. Oh, what is
 

the -- okay, my question is what's the distribution
 

between DOE and AWE site -­

MR. GRIFFON: We didn't make that
 

distinction.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay.
 

DR. NETON: But the thing I'd like to bring
 

up, though, for consideration is that we -- this is
 

Jim Neton. You know, I don't think that you should
 

be evaluating a site profile unless we're using -­

doing dose reconstructions at that site. I mean
 

these things will be fleshed out as we go in a yetto-be-determined sequence. If you're going to start
 

doing ten, we might not even have ten that we've
 

actually, you know, felt we've had -­

MR. GRIFFON: I know, Jim, that's -- yeah,
 

so in the first year maybe that's not realistic.
 

DR. NETON: My original thing was to make -­

Mark, was down to five, but you know -- and just
 
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because a site profile is not completely fleshed out
 

does not mean -- I think I brought this up at
 

previous Board meetings -- that we couldn't do dose
 

reconstruction. You know, the site profiles are -­

are specific locations where we've got to go the
 

whole, you know, distance to evaluate a claim and -­

and you know, the early ones are not being done in
 

that fashion. They're the ones that we can do
 

without site profiles, so -­

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I think we -- that's -­

maybe we need to -- I may need to look a little
 

closer at that language in here, but I -- you know,
 

I think the way we've addressed that in the past and
 

in discussions was that all relevant data necessary
 

to make a determination, you know -­

DR. NETON: Right, but that -- that's when I
 

get confused when you say you're going to visit ten
 

sites. I mean you've already said -- we may not
 

even have to get to this site. We may have enough
 

profile information -­

MR. ELLIOTT: You may want -­

MR. GRIFFON: No, yeah, yeah, I -- I -­

MR. ELLIOTT: You may want to -- this is
 

Larry Elliott. You may want to think about using
 

some phrases like "as needed" or "as necessary," "as
 
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deemed appropriate" or whatever, but -­

DR. NETON: Yeah, I -­

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I'll look at that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And you're still going to have
 

individual task orders for these -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, that's right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Is ten realistic for the first
 

year in any event, and that's sort of my starting
 

question.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I would suggest that
 

they -- these two sentences be struck out, because
 

you're -- the playing field that you set for the
 

proposers to this work is Attachment D and E.
 

MR. GRIFFON: That's right. And that's the
 

-- you make a good point, Larry. That's why I
 

didn't put examples for these two because I didn't
 

think we had them fleshed out enough to really make
 

bidders bid against them. So we can -- we can say
 

the number of profiles to be done. I don't know, I
 

thought it had to be included for the overall
 

budgeting process.
 

DR. NETON: No, no, no, no.
 

DR. ZIEMER: So we don't have to have the
 

number in here at this point.
 

DR. NETON: No.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: But if we're going to have an
 

executive session discussing budget and we would at
 

least have to consider amongst ourselves a number on
 

that. Right?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: That's left for January 8th.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, it doesn't have to be in
 

this document is what you're saying.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's -- I guess that's
 

reasonable to me.
 

DR. DEHART: Paul, this is Roy. I'm going
 

to have to back out. I have two attorneys waiting
 

to take a deposition. I'd rather stay with you
 

guys.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think you should if
 

you've got attorneys waiting.
 

DR. DEHART: I'll get back to you if I can.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay. Any other -­

any other comments on item B?
 

MS. MUNN: Only one suggestion -- this is
 

Wanda.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh.
 

MS. MUNN: When, in the second paragraph,
 

you refer to site experts in quotes, and I -- again,
 

not now, but at some juncture, I think we're
 
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probably going to have to identify what kind of
 

criteria we look at when we decide a person is a
 

site expert. That's a -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I see where you're -­

MS. MUNN: I know several people who
 

consider themselves experts on several items that I
 

don't believe they're expert in, so -­

MR. GRIFFON: All right, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: The intent there, as I
 

understand it, would be people who are pretty
 

familiar with the site. Right?
 

MS. MUNN: That's my understanding, right. 


I guess -- I just think we're -­

DR. ZIEMER: They know what's -- what's gone
 

on there over a period of perhaps number of years or
 

decades, yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, I think we have to
 

establish some minimum benchmark.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, okay. Shall we go on
 

with item C?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Now I had a general question
 

here, and let me address this first to the staff. 


Can we include this in the statement of work even
 

though the rule is not in place? Can we have a
 
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marker like this? It seems to me it's okay, I just
 

wanted to make sure.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Are you at the top of page
 

seven?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Bottom of six, top of seven,
 

Review of SEC Petitions. Since the rule isn't in
 

place, we can't -- I think Mark said that this is in
 

here to sort of be a place-marker to give them a
 

heads-up that this is something coming down the road
 

that we may ask their assistance on, but we can't
 

flesh it out since the rule doesn't exist.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: That -- you're absolutely
 

right and this is -- this is appropriate and okay to
 

leave in here, except we will strike out number 2,
 

review of SEC petition to determine adequacy of
 

determination of health -­

DR. ZIEMER: Since that doesn't exist at the
 

moment.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Doesn't exist at the moment. 


It just needs to say review SEC petitions that come
 

before the Board.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And that -- that just puts the
 

marker in. That means the intent. Mark, does that
 

-- does that sound okay to you?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I guess it does. I was
 
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trying to be more specific with the reference. I
 

know it -­

DR. ZIEMER: It seems to me once the rule is
 

in place, you know, we can -- we can alter this
 

statement of work at any point, and then the task
 

will be very specific at that point. Right?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: That's right.
 

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

just to be more specific, I suppose, so I think
 

that's okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, and in fact, a point I
 

was going to make -- maybe I should have made it at
 

the beginning -- that even -- even if we were to
 

accept this whole document as it is today, we can
 

always -- the Board can -- this is not a rulemaking. 


We could change it.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: We can change it at our next
 

meeting. But in any event, Section C mainly becomes
 

a place-marker, and until the rule's in place, we
 

can't say that they -- that they're going to do
 

this -­

MR. GRIFFON: All right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- since the rule doesn't
 

exist.
 
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105 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay. Are you ready to
 

look at C.4, Work Assignments?
 

MS. MUNN: Uh-huh.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I think we were already told
 

that a lot of this is sort of boilerplate, but are
 

there any questions or issues on work assignments?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: I -- this is Ziemer again. I
 

want to raise one. It's on the very last page, on
 

the reports. This requires the contractor to send a
 

copy of the report to the project officer and the
 

contracting officer. It seems to me that since this
 

is a contractor who is the Board's, quote,
 

contractor, I would like to see the Chair get a copy
 

of that report, as well. Is there any legal issue
 

with that? I'll ask Larry or -­

DR. NETON: Yeah, this is Jim Neton, Larry,
 

there's -- no, there's no issue with that at all. 


In fact, I think you can have the report sent
 

simultaneously to the project officer and the Chair. 


I don't think there's an issue at all.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Well -- okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Mark, are you -­

DR. NETON: Or whoever, I mean the Chair and
 
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whoever on the Board.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, or -- yeah, and it could
 

go to the -- it could go to the head of the working
 

group, I just wanted to make sure we got direct
 

feedback -­

DR. NETON: A copy does have to go to us,
 

though, as -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, it has to go to you, as
 

far as -- from the Federal point of view and the
 

legal point of view. But on the other hand, it is a
 

group that we're putting together on behalf of the
 

Board, so I think we want to get the report, too -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- very directly.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Where did you add that in,
 

Paul? That's what I -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, it's on the last page,
 

C.5, preparation of report.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: It says the report's due ten
 

days after the end of the -- I'm talking about the
 

monthly reports.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And it would be really -- those
 

monthly progress reports. It would really apply to
 
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all reports, really, but I think we want to be
 

apprised ourselves directly of the progress.
 

Are there any other issues on this whole
 

section C.4 or C.5?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now since -- since we
 

have some open issues and we have a few things we've
 

sort of brought to closure, but -- I think I'm not
 

going to ask and I don't think we have to, Larry,
 

that we approve this today. I think it's pretty
 

well spelled out, but let -- is it spelled out
 

enough, even with the parts that we have problems
 

with, for the thing to stay on track internally? Or
 

is the issue of the -- of the interviews going to
 

cause a problem at this point? Or is that an
 

answerable question?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: The interviews are -- this
 

matter of doing the interviews is a problem, and I
 

would not put this into the procurement process if
 

you voted on it today until I had a read on where
 

the Department stands -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm really asking if we
 

don't -- if we don't vote on it today -- you know
 

the nature and -- I think I lot of things we sort of
 

-- the other changes we sort of know where we're
 
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108 

going on those. The big issue that we haven't
 

really fully resolved is this interview of the -­

review of the interview process. We have some
 

possible solutions that we've been thinking about
 

and that we sort of agreed we would take up again in
 

January. My question is that -- does that mean that
 

nothing can happen in the meantime, or -­

MR. ELLIOTT: Certainly there -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- or can it go forward and -­

with the caveat that that -- there's an item there
 

that either is going to be dealt with separately or
 

we're going to -- or what, I don't know how we can
 

-- I don't think we're ready to vote on the
 

document, but we seem to have general agreement on
 

most of the other stuff except for that.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We certainly can go forward
 

and work with Mark in making the edits and putting,
 

you know, the changes that have been discussed.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We'll have to identify this
 

one area that is an issue yet with regard to the
 

interviews. I can't -- I can't speak right now
 

whether or not that will be -- that will prevent us
 

from moving this into procurement or not. We can
 

put this back together, making all the edits and the
 
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109 

changes, and then I'm going to have to get some -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- direction from the
 

Department and from General Counsel on how we need
 

to deal with this.
 

DR. ZIEMER: But are you okay in proceeding
 

on that basis?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: I'm okay with -- I understand
 

-- I understand both sides of the argument. I have
 

heard them loudly and clearly, and I think I can
 

very fairly articulate.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Mark, are you
 

comfortable with that?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. The rest of the
 

committee? We're not actually voting on the
 

document, but we sort of know what the issues are. 


It's where we have to go with it.
 

DR. MELIUS: It's Jim Melius. And this may
 

not be the appropriate time, but I think we do need
 

to discuss exactly what we want to be on the agenda
 

for the next meeting in relationship to this issue
 

so that we're -- you know, that we can try to
 

resolve it at the next meeting and not -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 
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110 

DR. MELIUS: -- this off again.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and I want to talk about
 

the agenda here in just a moment. Okay?
 

Now, let's see, how are we doing? Okay. 


Can we move to Attachment A?
 

MR. GRIFFON: There's going to be -- we have
 

from 1:00 to 4:00 for this call? Is that -­

MS. HOMER: That's correct.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I think we have -- yeah, and
 

it's just 3:00 here, right? A little after 3:00?
 

MS. HOMER: Uh-huh.
 

DR. ZIEMER: We okay still?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: On Attachment A, are there any
 

issues on A on personnel?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: B, management approach?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: C, technical approach?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: If I'm moving too fast, just
 

stop me. D, past performance?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: E, conflict of interest?
 
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111 

MR. GRIFFON: I think the working group -­

yeah.
 

DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton, I do have to
 

add, on past performance we are going to have to
 

change some of the boilerplate language in there to
 

be consistent with some guidance received under the
 

Federal acquisition regulations from procurement. 


They had reviewed this and they made some
 

suggestions.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Anything substantive or -­

DR. NETON: No, no, it has -­

MR. GRIFFON: It wouldn't really change the
 

intent. Right?
 

DR. NETON: It wouldn't change the intent at
 

all.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. You'll bring us the
 

right wording next time then.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's fine.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then conflict of
 

interest. This was an area -- as I understand, now
 

there was some sort of non-concurrence within the
 

subcommittee or -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- some different point of
 

view.
 
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112 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and we'd -­

DR. ZIEMER: Does that have to do with the
 

years of -- away from contractors or something like
 

that?
 

MR. GRIFFON: There -- I guess there were
 

two primary ones. One is the -- if you look at the
 

second paragraph -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- at a minimum the contractor
 

and key personnel shall have no prior work history
 

and so on in the past five years. And then on down
 

where we talk about additionally no personnel may
 

have been employed under this contract who have
 

served as an expert witness, so I guess the work
 

history and the expert witness were the primary
 

areas of disagreement on our -­

DR. ZIEMER: We'll look at the first one and
 

that -- it's the issue of the five years then, I
 

assume. Right?
 

MR. GRIFFON: I think so. I did -- I did
 

try to clarify a little from the previous draft,
 

just for the working group's information. I don't
 

know -- I don't know if this is going to resolve
 

people's concern on this, but I think -- I put in at
 

a minimum the contractor and key personnel, and I
 
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113 

have a note -- and actually started some draft
 

language on defining key personnel, but I underlined
 

key personnel for a reason, because, you know, the
 

idea was this provision would only be required of
 

the contractor and key personnel, and it would give
 

them -­

DR. ZIEMER: The key personnel might not
 

necessarily be all the dose reconstructionists.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right. They might -- the
 

flexibility -- for instance, if you need an expert
 

who -- for a neutron dosimetry or something -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- it doesn't prohibit you -­

it doesn't have a strong restriction on them being
 

(inaudible), so you know -­

DR. ZIEMER: Is there -- I had made myself a
 

note, and does the five-year have any particular
 

basis? Is it semi-arbitrary? I would ask the
 

question why not say three years or -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- or six or -- why five? 


Where does that come from?
 

MR. GRIFFON: I think it's fair to say it's
 

semi-arbitrary. I mean recent work activity was
 

kind of in the -­
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114 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I would be nervous if
 

somebody just jumped off from let's say a DOE lab
 

and went to this, but when you -- and in fact,
 

sometimes there are restrictions the other way that
 

the Agency has on working on projects, also. But -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we had -- in my
 

mind, Paul, I think I didn't -- you know, I said
 

ever worked at DOE, we were going to lose probably
 

every possible -­

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, yeah, yeah -­

MR. GRIFFON: -- and so I -­

DR. ZIEMER: I think we all know that
 

there's just any number of people who had worked for
 

them in the past that don't feel any particular
 

loyalties or anything like that, and even some of
 

which have been working there recently. But again,
 

I would ask, where does the five-year come from? I
 

-- I might -- I personally would tend to relax that
 

a little bit, but I'm not -- you know, I'm not real
 

-- you know, I feel -­

MR. GRIFFON: I probably -­

DR. ZIEMER: I would feel comfortable with
 

two or three years, myself. But -­

MR. GRIFFON: Five years is semi-arbitrary. 


Part of the reason for even having any kind of year
 
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115 

minimum in there, I think you make a -- a good point
 

that -­

DR. ZIEMER: Perception-wise it's good to
 

have -­

MR. GRIFFON: Exactly, perception-wise, that
 

was the -­

DR. ZIEMER: I just don't know what the time
 

should be.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: How do others feel about that?
 

DR. ROESSLER: This is Gen. As Mark knows,
 

we discussed this during work group and I really
 

don't understand the purpose of the statement,
 

particularly with regard to that idea that -- I
 

understand perception, but I'm afraid that by
 

putting something out to give the perception that
 

we're trying to avoid conflict of interest, we may
 

eliminate the most technically up-to-date and
 

capable contractors, for really no valid reason.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Were you suggesting no
 

restriction, Gen, or a shorter time or -­

DR. ROESSLER: Well, a shorter -- I guess I
 

would have to be convinced even on the shorter time. 


Mark at one time had a statement I thought was
 

better in that it didn't have an actual restriction,
 
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116 

left it more up to the contractor to show that they
 

-- you know, to provide their conflict of interest
 

plan that could be evaluated with regard to this
 

particular point. I'm just afraid that by putting
 

in five years -­

MR. GRIFFON: I think -- I know -- and I
 

certainly have spoken with Gen and on our working
 

group we spent about an hour and a half on this, so
 

we've been around on this. But I think part of it
 

was, you know, the notion of we could put something
 

in this document that said the bidder would be
 

evaluated on their previous work history with DOE,
 

et cetera, in the past five years. And that would
 

say -- well, that doesn't draw a hard line in the
 

sand. You know, it doesn't -­

DR. ZIEMER: Exclude, but if they have in
 

the past five years -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- you would really look at it
 

closely to see -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right, and I guess the concern
 

that I had on that -- or one concern I had on that
 

was, you know, there is a concern that I've heard -­

I mean I guess we just -- this notion of having this
 

independent reviewer be as squeaky clean as we can,
 
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117 

while being technically competent, also -- and the
 

other part of this is that NIOSH is doing the
 

hiring. And potentially the review panel is set up
 

by NIOSH, so to the extent that we can spell out the
 

criteria and be more proscriptive in the -­

DR. ZIEMER: It may help.
 

MR. GRIFFON: It may help the public's
 

perception of the hiring process, you know. That
 

was part of why I was sort of proscriptive. I
 

understand the flip side, but that was part of the
 

thinking that went into that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: What about other members of the
 

Board? What are your feelings on this issue?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda, and I agree that
 

five years is just simply too long. Even elected
 

officials are only proscribed for one year, are they
 

not, before they go to the legal firm that's going
 

to be filing the claims against. And I certainly
 

don't think any longer than two years is reasonable
 

at all, simply for the reason that Gen stated. 


It'll eliminate the -- if not significant fraction,
 

probably the majority of the people who are best
 

qualified to do this work.
 

DR. ZIEMER: What about having something
 

where you had a -- at least the minimum of one or
 
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118 

two years, plus you had a statement similar to what
 

Mark talked about earlier where you also said but -­

and we also want to look at the five years or
 

something? You know -­

DR. ROESSLER: I like -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- both ideas together?
 

DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, I like that approach.
 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob Presley. I went
 

back and looked at a couple of contracts we'd had
 

out here, and most of them are one year. But I like
 

what Paul just said.
 

DR. ZIEMER: You would have an absolute -­

you know, there's got to be at least one or two
 

years, whatever the number is -- and again, I think
 

there's some arbitrariness -- but then you say -­

and I forget what your words were, Mark, but you
 

would ask for some sort of review of anything in the
 

last five years or -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that it would be
 

reviewed, right.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Who would do the review?
 

MR. GRIFFON: It should be evaluated based
 

on the degree or extent of the work that has been
 

performed on behalf in the past five -- that's the
 

language I have written down here.
 
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119 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's get some other -­

who else has input on this?
 

DR. ANDERSON: This is Andy. I guess I like
 

the -- that it would be considered. I mean the
 

other thing that I think is important -­

DR. ZIEMER: You liked it what?
 

DR. ANDERSON: That you would look -- they
 

would list and you -- as part of the evaluation you
 

would consider it. The other thing we might -- and
 

I don't know what percentage you'd use, but for a
 

lot of people who are consultants, they might have
 

multiple contracts. And just because they have a -­

you know, a minor component of their overall work is
 

a DOE contract, I think what we're looking for is
 

the conflict of if your major funder over the last
 

couple of years has been DOE, that is potentially a
 

conflict. Whereas you can get one or two short-


term, small projects out of, you know, 20 such
 

multiple projects, it's of less concern. So I think
 

to have it listed and then as part of the evaluation
 

it's considered, and I think -- back to what Mark
 

said earlier -- it's kind of who is going to be
 

vetting and choosing the contractor and what's going
 

to be the role if -- if the Board is only going to
 

have a minor role in that, then I would want to
 
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120 

have, whatever the selection is, a confidential
 

discussion with the rest of the Board as to the
 

rationale behind the selection of the person and
 

why, if they did have some potential or -- I would
 

do it as much as anything as a perceived conflict
 

rather than a -- an actual conflict.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

DR. ANDERSON: But we would know why -- why
 

the decision was made to go one way or another.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other views?
 

MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson, and just -­

DR. ZIEMER: Mike.
 

MR. GIBSON: -- speaking from the field and
 

from workers, people don't trust DOE. I mean that's
 

a -- I think I've said it before, that's why we're
 

-- we're all here, because they haven't monitored
 

and done doses right, but -- so since we've got -­

you know, ORAU's the contractor that's going to do
 

the dose reconstructions, I just think it's real
 

important to have someone completely divorced of DOE
 

that's going to audit the work that this contractor
 

does for NIOSH. It's -- just add credibility for
 

the claimant's sake.
 

DR. ZIEMER: They certainly will be that. I
 

think the issue is here if they ever had any DOE
 
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121 

work in the past, how long ago does it have to be
 

and, you know, is it ever or is it a year ago or two
 

or five or what. See? And how much?
 

MR. GIBSON: Yeah, I guess I'm just -- I
 

don't think five's out of the question.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Okay.
 

DR. ROESSLER: I guess the point that Mike
 

just brought up -- to me, the perception of mistrust
 

goes back. If we're going to say they're not
 

allowed to -- have no prior work history during the
 

past five years, it should go back more than that,
 

or maybe shouldn't even include the recent years. 


It's back in the days when these workers were at the
 

facilities that the mistrust may have developed, not
 

the recent years. I don't quite -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, no, Gen, but they still
 

don't trust DOE now.
 

DR. ROESSLER: Well, I know that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And now is when the dose
 

reconstructions are being done, so I think there is
 

that -- at least perceived in people's minds that if
 

they somehow have a close relation now, that you
 

still have a problem, real or not. But I think
 

Mike's probably correct in that issue.
 

MR. GIBSON: And I'll just -­
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DR. ZIEMER: It's true that the doses go
 

back that far.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: I think reconstructions are
 

being done now.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, and Gen, I think, also,
 

part of it -- the -- you know, I agree, five was
 

rather arbitrary, but part of the rationale was also
 

that people that -- or key personnel contractors
 

that have recently been involved in other studies
 

where they may have done dose estimates for epi
 

studies or something like that, you know, if they -­

and that's gone on fairly recently, so if they've
 

been involved in those activities recently, then,
 

you know, they may be conflicted.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. I'd
 

like to make two points of clarification for the
 

Board's understanding. One is that it's not ORAU
 

that you're evaluating. It is NIOSH.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? So back that -- back to
 

Mike's comment, it's NIOSH. Second point of
 

clarification is that there is -- on the evaluation
 

panel that will be formed, there will be one Board
 
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member that will be designated by the Board to serve
 

in that -- in that role.
 

DR. ZIEMER: In the selection process.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: The selection process.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: And that -­

DR. ZIEMER: So we will have that input.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: You can appoint that person
 

and that person can come back to the Board and
 

explain how the process worked. They will be -­

they will be unable to speak to certain aspects of
 

what they -- you know, what they reviewed and what
 

they saw and how that decision came to be, but
 

that's -- that's your inside participant -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- in the evaluation panel.
 

DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius -­

DR. ZIEMER: Jim.
 

DR. MELIUS: -- follow-up to those comments. 


Two things. One is that there are perceived
 

conflicts of interest we have to worry about here. 


One is the one Larry just pointed out, is that we -­

this review will be reviewing -- evaluating NIOSH's
 

work, so having -- to the extent that NIOSH isn't -­

selects the contractor who is doing this, without
 
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criteria, opens up to a, you know, perception that
 

there was some bias in the way that that contractor
 

was selected, so we need to guard against that in
 

some way. Secondly is the perception of -- to the
 

extent that the contractor may have worked in the
 

past for Department of Energy, so I think it's very
 

tricky to come to a balance there that will meet the
 

test of perception, you know, albeit with the good
 

intentions of everybody involved. I would think
 

that if we go to the compromise language that Paul
 

put forward that we need to have some combination
 

of, you know, at least two years without having -­

not having worked for DOE, but that -- it's their
 

history of having worked -- a longer period of time
 

than five years needs -- evaluated in terms of again
 

potential or perception of conflict of interest,
 

that we go back further in time. And I think we're
 

balancing the conflict of interest versus technical
 

expertise and the other criteria, so there will be a
 

balancing. I also think -­

DR. ZIEMER: Jim, you're suggesting that you
 

could use a threshold like the two-year, and then
 

not put a time limit on -- and just say you would
 

look at other involvement. You could -­

DR. MELIUS: Right.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: -- go on back, not necessarily
 

restricted to the five years.
 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, and that would be both -­

looking at both the type of involvement -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

a -­

DR. MELIUS: You know, somebody working in 

DR. ZIEMER: 

DR. MELIUS: 

Type and extent. 

-- yeah, lab or -- I think a -­

doing laboratory work or quality control laboratory
 

work would be different that, you know, a person
 

that was more directly involved in -­

DR. ZIEMER: Dose recon-­

DR. MELIUS: -- radiation protection or dose
 

reconstruction.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Other
 

comments?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: I'm trying to get a feel for
 

whether we have any consensus on this idea of using
 

the combination. Is that -- that is the threshold
 

plus looking at longer term involvement is -- is
 

that something people would be comfortable with or
 

are you -- feel more comfortable with an absolute
 

number?
 
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MR. GRIFFON: This is Mark Griffon. As I
 

was drafting this, this -- and I had this compromise
 

sort of language written out to offer, but I was
 

thinking of the question of the review panel and the
 

composition of the review panel.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And I don't know if there's
 

any flexibility in having other government people -­

other people on that review panel other than NIOSH
 

and one advisory committee member. I don't know if
 

that's even an option, but I -- I raise it as a
 

question to -- because that -- I think that might
 

help in assuring to the public that, you know, we -­

we specify as best we can in this evaluation plan
 

and then this review panel is -- you know, we
 

created it and make it as dependent as we can, you
 

know, again, for the perceived -- perception.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Well, Mark, this is Larry
 

Elliott, let me respond to that. It's -- yeah,
 

we're certainly sensitive to this issue you all are
 

talking about and have raised and very concerned
 

about, you know, maintaining our credibility and
 

integrity here. We plan to look at just -- your -­

that, your proposal, but I need to offer this, that
 

the people who sit on the technical review panel,
 
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that is usually maintained as confidential
 

information. Those names are not shared. In the
 

case of the Board member you appoint, that of course
 

will be known, but the other individuals who serve
 

on these evaluation panels, that's -- that's not
 

something that's made public. So -- but we hear
 

your suggestion -­

DR. ZIEMER: But nonetheless, whoever we
 

have on the panel, the Board can charge them to, you
 

know -- particularly to assure us that this issue is
 

addressed, however we finally word it.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Absolutely.
 

DR. ROESSLER: Well, since I brought it up,
 

I do like the -- what we might call the compromise
 

language, the one to two years, and as Mark -- I
 

think Mark had it worded really quite well. You
 

could read that again and we could discuss that
 

part.
 

MR. GRIFFON: The contractor and key
 

personnel shall be evaluated based on the degree or
 

extent of work that is or has been performed for DOE
 

or DOE contractor, AWE or AWE contractor to
 

eliminate the appearance of potential conflict of
 

interest.
 

That was sort of -- instead of putting in
 
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the five -- five-year or two-year in there, that was
 

just -- you know, be evaluated -­

DR. ZIEMER: But then you would still have
 

the minimum in there -­

MR. GRIFFON: Yes, and your first -­

DR. ZIEMER: -- and have a minimum -­

MR. GRIFFON: I've edited that first -- what
 

we had in there already to say in the past two years
 

instead of five -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- and now is -- you know.
 

DR. ZIEMER: How do others feel about that? 


Is that something that -- I'm trying to get a sense
 

of whether we would concur on that and that could
 

move it forward to a final adoption at our next
 

meeting.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I added another phrase onto
 

that last part, just as we were discussing here,
 

that the -- that the bidder -- and this is just to
 

get the concept out. The wording may not be very
 

good. The bidder should include justification for
 

key personnel in their conflict of interest plan, as
 

necessary. Meaning that if -- if key personnel had
 

an extensive work history with DOE in their recent
 

past, then they should -­
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DR. ZIEMER: They'd have to -­

MR. GRIFFON: -- and like Jim Melius pointed
 

out, it may be that they were tangentially involved
 

and nowhere near radiation protection, but you know
 

-- and they can justify it fairly easily, yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's certainly in
 

keeping with the idea here.
 

Are we okay with that? Any major
 

objections?
 

MS. MUNN: Yeah, this is Wanda Munn.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: I'm certainly -- I'm certainly in
 

favor of the compromise language. I still think
 

even two years is perhaps more restrictive than
 

necessary, but yes, I'd certainly go for that and -­

in comparison to what we started with.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: If there's no major objections,
 

Mark, let's move it forward and, you know, will
 

expect the document next time to sort of reflect
 

that, with the -- with the fixed-up wording. Right?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Now did -- Mark, did you say
 

there was also an issue -­
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MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, there -­

DR. ZIEMER: We talked about this one of
 

previous litigation actions. Right?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And last time the question was
 

whether or not they -- did it cut both ways? What
 

about people who litigated for an individual? And I
 

thought we had sort of come to closure on that, but
 

maybe we hadn't. The idea -- well, let the Chair
 

express his view. I felt like since this is a -­

it's sort of like DOE is the defendant here, that it
 

would be clear that they -- if they had adjudicated
 

for DOE, then they shouldn't be involved here. The
 

other side was always for an individual, and unless
 

they're -- unless they're an individual claim here
 

that someone has worked on that person's claim
 

before or been in adjudication for that person, then
 

they clearly have a conflict, but otherwise, what's
 

the problem if they testified for somebody that's -­

that's a different person?
 

MR. GRIFFON: The same question was raised
 

for balance again. I -- I actually was of the
 

opinion that we had sort of vetted it through, too,
 

but -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: -- I think Roy -­

DR. ZIEMER: Is it still an open issue?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Is Roy on the phone still?
 

DR. ROESSLER: No, I don't think Roy's on,
 

and I think he was the one that -­

DR. ZIEMER: Roy felt there should be sort
 

of parity, I think.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, and he raised -­

I think the same concern this time in the working
 

group.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and we want to honor
 

that. I just wanted to get a feel for -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- how -- is that -- how do
 

others feel, though? I mean is -- is the parity
 

issue a significant one for others or is it just -­

was it for Roy?
 

MS. MUNN: Well, this is Wanda. I have
 

trouble with the entire concept of automatically
 

eliminating -- I don't know how many people this is
 

likely to affect in terms of actually finding the
 

folks that we want, but I would -- I -- I was a bit
 

appalled when I first read this, thinking that any
 

litigation, any time in which you served as a key
 

witness, or even if you were a non-testifying expert
 
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witness, why would we want to eliminate such people
 

simply because they have come forward on behalf of
 

anybody with respect to science? That seems -- I
 

guess it just seems like an automatic dismissal of
 

-- of credentialed people, to me.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- part -- part of the
 

rationale also here is that ORAU has adopted this
 

language and they have 90 people on staff, as I
 

understand, that met this criteria. And -- and -­

DR. ZIEMER: And indeed it's more
 

perception, Wanda. I think all of us feel that
 

probably for most part those individuals who
 

testified are honest scientists. But if they
 

testified in behalf of the DOE, there is a
 

perception -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right, right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- out there that they are the
 

-- I don't know, the lackeys of the DOE or however
 

somebody characterizes it.
 

MS. MUNN: Well, I guess -­

DR. ZIEMER: And that's really what the
 

problem was. It's a -- clearly a perception problem
 

rather than a real one.
 

MS. MUNN: If we have a perception problem,
 

then I guess I would agree that if an individual has
 
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testified on behalf of an individual who is making a
 

claim -- of that individual, or anything that
 

referred to that individual or group that individual
 

was involved in, then I can see that that person
 

should be excused from any participation. But if
 

the preceding case was 25 years ago and it had to do
 

with something at -- Kerr-McGee, for goodness sake ­

- then I -- it is difficult for me to see that even
 

if someone complains about that that it's a valid
 

rejection of that individual. I can understand if
 

it were -- if it were in any way coordinated or had
 

-- had any connection with the claim that is before
 

us now, but I -- otherwise, I can't see that.
 

MR. GIBSON: Well -- this is Mike Gibson -­

on the other hand, from my point of view, if there
 

was someone involved at Kerr-McGee 25 years ago with
 

Karen Silkwood, I'd still have a problem with that
 

person, even on a case that's unrelated today. So
 

there's -­

DR. ZIEMER: If they were -- if they were
 

testifying for the Agency is what you're saying,
 

Mike. Right?
 

MR. GIBSON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GIBSON: I mean, you know, there's -­
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there's some deep-rooted mistrust in the Department
 

of Energy and anything to do with the Department of
 

Energy, and any contractors they've used, from the
 

workers out in the field. I can just tell you. And
 

our -- I believe our job is to make sure that we
 

even remove the perception of conflict of interest
 

or any bias for the claimants.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any other comments on
 

that issue?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: We need to -- we need to -­

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda again.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Wanda, yeah, uh-huh.
 

MS. MUNN: Does Mike have the same feeling
 

about anyone who was an expert witness against DOE?
 

MR. GIBSON: No, absolutely -- absolutely
 

not, 'cause I don't believe the DOE has done the
 

right thing throughout history.
 

MS. MUNN: Okay.
 

MR. GIBSON: And I -­

MS. MUNN: Just trying to verify where you
 

were. Thank you.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me see if we can get some
 

feel -- how -- how many are concerned with the
 

language as it stands, which basically indicates
 
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those who witnessed in the past on behalf of DOE or
 

its contractors or AWE's in dose -- this would be in
 

dose-related or radiation-related claims. There
 

could be cases that had nothing to do with radiation
 

doses where they were somehow in the legal system,
 

but this specifically has to do with claims, that
 

they would be excluded. That's how it reads right
 

now. It does not exclude individuals who testified
 

on behalf of other individuals.
 

MR. GRIFFON: And Paul, again -- I mean I
 

know that -- you know, I know we -- this auditor
 

will be auditing NIOSH -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- ORAU being the contractor
 

for NIOSH. I understand that we're -- that would be
 

an audit of NIOSH.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: But ORAU has accepted these
 

criteria, and part -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- of my thinking in this was
 

that this auditor should be at least as stringent in
 

their -- in their selection as the initial or -- you
 

know, the initial contract.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: So that's -- you know, not
 

that that -­

DR. ZIEMER: The language.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right or wrong, thought that
 

that -- you know -­

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: That was part of the
 

rationale.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MS. MUNN: That's a good rationale.
 

DR. ZIEMER: My sense of it is at this point
 

that probably the current language can go forward. 


We may hear from Roy again on the issue in January.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think we should -­

DR. ZIEMER: But you know, unless there was
 

some indication that the majority of the committee
 

felt that we needed some kind of parity here, I -­

and I don't sense that at the moment -- that we
 

probably can let it go forward as it is.
 

Those were the two main issues I guess under
 

conflict of interest. Are there any other issues in
 

this section, which is Attachment A, that anyone
 

wishes to raise?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: It appears that there are not. 

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Do we need to do anything with the other two
 

attachments, which are simply examples?
 

MR. GRIFFON: D and E?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, D and E are simply
 

examples.
 

MR. GRIFFON: They were fairly -- you know,
 

cut and paste from the basic criteria and the
 

advanced criteria, and I just outlined a number of
 

cases and sites where they would -- the proposers
 

would be bidding against -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. I just have one issue on
 

item E, and I think this is clarification. I think
 

it meets your intent, but in the footnote on page
 

12, which is Attachment E, where it says (reading)
 

Review the entire administrative record to determine
 

if relevant information exists which was not
 

considered by NIOSH.
 

Keep in mind that there -- in fact, we have
 

been shown cases where there's relevant information
 

which is not considered, and it doesn't have to be. 


For example -- and the one example, the person who
 

was in the criticality accident where the dose from
 

the criticality accident itself -­

UNIDENTIFIED: Alone was enough.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- was enough. So there's a
 
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lot of -- there's a lot in the record that was nota
 

considered. So I think -­

MR. GRIFFON: You understand the intent -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah -- what is needed here is
 

was not considered but should have -­

MR. GRIFFON: Should have been, right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: That's what we're after here. 


Is there -­

MR. GRIFFON: Give me that -- Paul, tell me
 

where that was again, I'm sorry.
 

DR. ZIEMER: It's on page 12, it's the
 

footnote 1, review data gathering.
 

MR. GRIFFON: All right, I'll find it and
 

I'll make -­

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda, so that the end of
 

the first line after "exists" you should -­

DR. ZIEMER: Determine if there's relevant
 

information that was not considered. Well, the
 

issue's not whether it was considered -­

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- but whether it was
 

considered and is -- was not considered but should
 

have been.
 

MS. MUNN: Exists or -­

DR. ZIEMER: I think that's what you meant.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: Yes, that's true. Yes.
 

MS. MUNN: Or should have been considered
 

but which was not.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I'll change that in the above
 

statement of work.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right. And then the other
 

thing is recognizes that on page 13 in -- on item B,
 

all of the words about the interview reappear there
 

MR. GRIFFON: Right.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- so that will depend on how
 

we resolve the interview issue, but that would have
 

to be parallel to whatever -­

MR. GRIFFON: A lot of duplication, yeah,
 

yeah.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Everybody recognize that. Are
 

there any other items on the attachments that we
 

need to look at?
 

MR. GRIFFON: No, I don't think so.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Now with that then is everybody
 

in agreement that we will revisit all these
 

documents at our next meeting. We've identified
 

that the primary issue that we're going to have to
 

wrestle with is that issue of the critiqueing of the
 

interview process. We have some other items that we
 
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identified but I think we have agreed as to how they
 

might be reworded and Mark will develop a revision
 

for us that we'll have at our next meeting. Can we
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'll work with NIOSH -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- to have the (inaudible).
 

DR. ZIEMER: Right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Okay.
 

DR. ZIEMER: So hopefully we'll have the
 

wording in all the other items and then we'll have
 

to deal with the -- again with the issue of the
 

interview critiqueing process.
 

Now let me just tell you -- is that
 

agreeable with everyone and so -- we're not voting
 

on the document today, but we're trying to move it
 

forward. And Larry understands the issues and
 

internally we'll try to keep things on track as far
 

as the procurement process is concerned. Is that -­

are we on the same page there, Larry?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. Now -- so if that's
 

agreeable, we'll leave this topic then and quickly
 

just transition into a brief discussion of the
 

agenda for the January 7th and 8th meeting. I've
 
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talked with Larry about some -- we'll have a program
 

status report. We'll have an update on dose
 

reconstruction. We'll have the latest version of
 

this -- these documents we've just been reviewing,
 

and then we'll have to spend some time working on
 

those and come to closure on this whole set of
 

documents that is -- the work statement
 

particularly.
 

The other thing that I'd like to have us
 

consider if we can come to closure -- we may need
 

more time than I think on this issue, but if we're
 

able to come to closure on this issue on the first
 

day, I'd like to have us set aside a fair amount of
 

time on the second day to go over -- going over as a
 

group with the NIOSH staff the -- some of the dose
 

reconstructions that NIOSH has finished in the
 

meantime, and maybe -- and I know that, you know,
 

the contractor's just getting up to speed, but in
 

the meantime NIOSH has gone ahead -- Larry, how many
 

dose reconstructions do we have done now, 1,000 or
 

more?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: What I think you're talking
 

about there is the Board reviewing those dose
 

reconstructions that have -- have gone through the
 

adjudication process.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Right, that are really
 

completed.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Are really completed, we're
 

not prepared to give a number on that right now. It
 

could be as -- it may be seven that we have DOL
 

decisions on out of -- out of the 13 we sent over
 

there. By the time January 6th, 7th, and 8th rolls
 

around, numbers may grow. I don't know.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, let me ask the
 

Board, would -­

MR. ELLIOTT: (Inaudible) dose
 

reconstructions that have had a final decision
 

levied.
 

DR. ZIEMER: And maybe this would even be a
 

good transition into the process that we're working
 

on here, which is the -- sort of the review process. 


But would the Board be interested in having NIOSH go
 

through those dose reconstructions that have been
 

adjudicated to date, just giving us a complete
 

review of those? It would be -- they'd have to be
 

de-identified. Right, Larry?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, that's correct. You want
 

us to review them or do you want -- do you want to
 

review them?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well -­
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MR. ELLIOTT: Using the criteria you've
 

established in this scope of work.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's a good question. 


Maybe we could review them using our -- we could try
 

out our approaches, just as a straw man approach.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: I just -­

DR. ZIEMER: We can break up into groups
 

and -­

MR. ELLIOTT: I wanted to be clear on what
 

you were asking because the last Board meeting, as
 

you recall, we -- examples of completed dose
 

reconstructions in a summary for -- format, and we
 

could do that again, but -­

DR. ZIEMER: Well, what about breaking up
 

into smaller groups and working with your staff
 

people to go through some of the individual ones?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We can do that. We can have
 

the information that was used to do the dose
 

reconstruction for those claims that were -- that
 

have achieved a final adjudication. We can have a
 

staff member assisting your review.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask the Board if you
 

would like to set aside some time to do that. I
 

think we would have time. Let me just tell you why
 

I think that.
 
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Currently as we've constructed the tentative
 

agenda, there is going to be the closed session, you
 

know, for going through the independent government
 

cost estimate on this material that we've just been
 

reviewing here. That is at a fixed time. It's 2:00
 

to 5:00 p.m. in the afternoon. That's fixed. It's
 

on the -- been publicized in the Federal Register. 


Folks, that's a fixed time so we're locked into
 

that.
 

Most of the reporting and even the work on
 

this dose reconstruction contract support and the
 

scope of work is scheduled for the first day, the
 

7th. Currently I have set aside basically the whole
 

morning Wednesday morning for Board discussion
 

working session, and the question is, what is it
 

we're going to do? And so one of the ideas would be
 

to actually go through some dose reconstructions in
 

more detail.
 

I'd like to get some feedback from the Board
 

to see if this is something you would like to do at
 

this point. These would not be randomly chosen. 


They would be the ones that have been adjudicated so
 

far. We would just have an opportunity to take a
 

look at them, maybe in subgroups of three or four
 

persons with a staff member and go through some of
 
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those in detail.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess part of the quest-­

this is Mark Griffon.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: I guess (inaudible) to it if
 

-- is this something you envision doing at NIOSH,
 

since -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. GRIFFON: -- where we could see the
 

whole -- how they tied into the data, if they used
 

the site profile, if they -­

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we could go out to the
 

site, couldn't we, Larry? Or could we?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is a little bit
 

complicated because it's a public meeting.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Contract-- oh, yeah, yeah,
 

that's right.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Since it's a public meeting -­

DR. ZIEMER: We'd have to have it such that
 

members of the public could join any subset group
 

that we did this with, that would be fine.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: You would have -- you would
 

have technical support from staff to answer
 

questions about well, what -- what level of site
 
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profile did you use? We'd have that available, as
 

well. You'll have the whole administrative record
 

in a redacted form.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Is that something we could do
 

at the meeting site?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: I believe we can set it up and
 

arrange it so it could be done at the meeting site.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's ask the -- let me
 

ask the Board members, is this something you'd like
 

to do if it can be physically done? Yea or nay?
 

MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. Yes.
 

MR. PRESLEY: This is Bob. Yes.
 

MR. GRIFFON: Mark, yes.
 

MR. ESPINOSA: Rich Espinosa, yes.
 

DR. ANDERSON: That's fine with me, Andy. 


It all depends on how long it'll take.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, we would -- we would set
 

aside a fixed amount of time. We have several hours
 

available.
 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, I think that -- I think
 

it would a useful -­

DR. ZIEMER: I can't move the afternoon
 

session. That's fixed. It's locked in. It's been
 

scheduled and it's in the Federal Register, so -­

now it may be that if we don't finish this scope of
 
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work thing on Tuesday, if we go all Wednesday
 

morning, then we're not going to get to that, but
 

I'm hoping that, you know, if we can't solve that in
 

a few hours on Tuesday, then we've got a problem.
 

But if this is something the Board thinks
 

might be useful, we'll ask the staff to try to set
 

it up and give us a chance -- as I would envision
 

it, we'd be able to go into a little more depth than
 

the examples that were shown before, which are just
 

really summaries.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, you will. I would also
 

offer that it might be useful for you to work
 

through a couple of these in a review of your -- and
 

using your evaluation criteria that you've
 

established here and then deciding how you want to
 

report on your findings.
 

DR. ZIEMER: It might help us as we develop
 

procedures for ourselves. Yeah. I think there's a
 

general agreement that we might want to try to do
 

that then, Larry, it appears.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, we'll take that as a -­

go ahead and try to figure out -­

DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead and try to figure it
 

out if we can do it logistically.
 

MR. NAIMON: And Larry, this is David
 
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Naimon, we're also going to talk about what it is we
 

can and can't discuss publicly from the
 

administrative record. Right?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: That's right.
 

MR. NAIMON: Okay. Thank you.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We'll have to do that at the
 

start of the whole effort.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay, with that in mind
 

now, I now want to allow some time for any public
 

comment, so we'll open the floor for anyone from the
 

public who wishes to comment at this point. And if
 

you do want to comment, just give us your name and
 

proceed. We'd like to ask you to -- to some extent,
 

to be as concise as you can. We -- I don't know how
 

many members of the public do wish to comment, but
 

assuming that there may be others in addition to
 

yourself, why let's try to keep it as concise as you
 

can and still make your point. So who would like to
 

start? Don't be bashful, just jump in. Don't wait
 

DR. MELIUS: This is Jim Melius, can I -­

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, Jim. Go ahead.
 

DR. MELIUS: -- on the agenda issue?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

DR. MELIUS: I just want to make sure that
 
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when we meet to discuss evaluation contract that we
 

-- two things included, and one Larry will have to
 

(inaudible), but there are legal issues that need to
 

be discussed in relationship to the interviews. I
 

would hope that somebody from the legal staff -­

there to present those issues to us.
 

Secondly, I also think it would be helpful
 

for Larry or staff -- do for us what their current
 

plans are for phone evaluation of the interview
 

process. What is the internal evaluation process
 

that is currently underway for the interviews, both
 

when NIOSH does them and then when the contractor
 

does them, 'cause I think that would help to inform
 

our recommendation on this particular issue. So if
 

those two could be done, it would -- I think it
 

would be helpful.
 

Secondly, I -­

DR. ZIEMER: Is that any problem there,
 

Larry?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We'll try to do our best.
 

DR. MELIUS: And the other thing is, I'm
 

just assuming now that -- by the way you set up the
 

agenda that the SEC redraft is not going to be ready
 

for that?
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, I'm -- I didn't mention
 
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that, but Larry's indicated to me that it may be the
 

end of the month -- Larry, is that correct?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: The NPRM on the SEC will not
 

be ready for the January 7th and 8th Board meeting. 


No, it won't be.
 

DR. MELIUS: Just a follow-up, (inaudible)
 

rulemaking?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Pardon me?
 

DR. MELIUS: There was an announcement of
 

(inaudible) making, as opposed to a final rule?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We will be going out with a
 

notice of proposed rulemaking. We mentioned that at
 

the last Board meeting in Santa Fe.
 

DR. MELIUS: Okay, I apologize. I thought
 

there was some discussion it might go out as a
 

final.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you remember there was that
 

discussion about the interim final and so on, but -­

DR. MELIUS: Exactly, exactly.
 

DR. ZIEMER: -- a lot of revisions, I
 

gather. Right, Larry?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, there is -- we have
 

addressed the public comments and the Board comments
 

and the comments we received from the town hall
 

meeting, and we feel that there has been -- because
 
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of that, we have substantively changed the language
 

of the rule that was proposed this summer, and so we
 

have to go out with a new notice of proposed
 

rulemaking.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay? Now we're ready for
 

public comment. Any?
 

PUBLIC COMMENT
 

MR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. I have -­

DR. ZIEMER: Okay, John. For the record,
 

identify if you're associated with any particular
 

group or just yourself.
 

MR. MAURO: It's John Mauro, M-a-u-r-o, and
 

I work at Sanford Cohen & Associates and I'm a
 

health physicist.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you.
 

MR. MAURO: My interest is that it sounds
 

like there will be a procurement coming out sometime
 

in the early spring. Have you scheduled a date for
 

when this will be coming out?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: This is Larry Elliott. We
 

have not scheduled a date, but certainly any -­

anyone who's interested in receiving the
 

announcement of this request for proposals can
 

simply call in here to the OCAS number or send us an
 

e-mail on the web site and we'll put you on the list
 
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for notification.
 

MR. MAURO: Second question. Has any
 

consideration -- since this sounds like a task order
 

contract, has any consideration been given to
 

actually specifying in the RFP the level of effort,
 

the number of work hours, or is it going to be left
 

really open-ended for the bidder to just make his
 

best estimate of what it will cost to do various
 

tasks?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: It'll be a not-to-exceed, and
 

the Board will have a discussion about the
 

independent government cost estimate at its January
 

8th meeting in an executive session.
 

MR. MAURO: Thank you.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Uh-huh.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other comments?
 

DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun Makhijani from
 

the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Go ahead.
 

DR. MAKHIJANI: I again think this
 

"performed fairly in a manner consistent with other
 

cases" is kind of ambiguous, especially given that
 

the official dose reconstructions of what the DOE
 

did or did not do is of -- often of indifferent
 

quality, so this is -- this is quite ambiguous as to
 
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what -- what standard is going to be used to judge
 

this performance. I do think that there should be a
 

more scientifically thought through statement here.
 

Secondly, regarding the discussion about
 

what workers have to say in cases that they are
 

denied, I do think that if you look historically,
 

workers, veterans and so on have generally been more
 

right than the establishment when they have claimed
 

problems and that establishment had blanket denied
 

that there have been problems, and then decades
 

later have admitted that there have been problems. 


Whereas people who have raised complaints have been
 

pretty consistent and in the end shown to be right. 


So I think the amount of technical credibility given
 

to workers should be great and I believe that those
 

who don't have a history of giving credibility to
 

the complaints of the public and simply dismissing
 

the complaints of the public as paranoid or
 

hysterical or afraid of radiation, that should be a
 

pretty big issue in the evaluation of who's going to
 

do this. I think the process of evaluation should
 

recognize that the DOE has deserved the loss of
 

public trust because it's too late, after 50 years,
 

to say we screwed over 650,000 workers and put them
 

in harm's way, so -- and that is what has happened,
 
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after repeated denials. And the same thing happened
 

with atomic veterans and so on. So I think the
 

amount of technical credibility given to workers and
 

what they have to say, what they did, should be, I
 

believe, higher than the amount of technical
 

credibility given to establishment views, and
 

sometimes to establishment measurements because even
 

officials have testified that some of them are
 

fraudulent.
 

Finally, I do thing that some -- some way
 

and criterion for establishing whether some of the
 

data are fraudulent, in the technical sense of -­

scientific sense of the term, should be included
 

because I think there have been instances of data
 

fabrication and fraudulent data and Tower Two and
 

the GAO have found this. I myself have found this.
 

And so if it is not present, then I don't believe
 

that the process of dose reconstruction or its audit
 

can be very credible. I do -- I do think that a
 

more straightforward process of putting people in -­

in the special cohort has to be considered in view
 

of this. Thank you.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for those comments. 


Are there any others?
 

MR. MILLER: It's Richard Miller.
 
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DR. ZIEMER: Richard.
 

MR. MILLER: And I'll be brief. I sent an
 

e-mail around in an effort to try to get to the
 

chase on this sort of small set of recommendations
 

on your technical qualifications, but in reviewing
 

the technical qualifications for the personnel, what
 

struck me was that nobody -- at least it appeared -­

had to have done any dose reconstruction before. 


And so we had suggested that whoever you select or
 

select -- I assume there's going to be more than one
 

auditor selected. Is that still a correct
 

assumption, given it is a blind review?
 

DR. ZIEMER: More than one -­

MR. MILLER: One auditor selected, one audit
 

contractor -- more than one audit contractor, is
 

that still correct as an assumption?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We can't -- we can't respond
 

to that.
 

DR. ZIEMER: No.
 

MR. MILLER: Okay. Can you tell us how a
 

blind review is going to get done if you don't have
 

more than one contractor who's -- who's performing
 

reviews? You don't have to answer it now, but it -­

if you don't -- if you don't have more than one
 

contractor, I don't know how you're going to do a
 
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blind review.
 

DR. NETON: Can I answer that?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, go ahead, Jim.
 

DR. NETON: A blind review just means that
 

they're going to start from scratch and do a dose
 

reconstruction as if NIOSH had done it, without
 

having any prejudice up front as to what the outcome
 

is.
 

MR. MILLER: I thought -­

DR. NETON: No report in front of them, it's
 

a carte blanch.
 

MR. MILLER: I get it. I thought the
 

purpose of a blind review was to have both auditors
 

simultaneously -­

MR. ELLIOTT: No, that's a double blind.
 

MR. GRIFFON: That's a different question,
 

yeah.
 

MR. MILLER: Oh, I guess I'm out of the loop
 

then. So that's -- has that been put by the wayside
 

then, this concept of a double blind, as you label
 

it? Is that -- is that not going to be what the -­

is that not going to take -­

DR. ZIEMER: That was not the original -­

it's not been put by the wayside; it never was on
 

the road to start with.
 
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MR. GRIFFON: Oh, it was in an early draft,
 

Paul.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Oh, it was?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we had talked about
 

multiple contractors.
 

MR. MILLER: Oh, yeah, this was very much on
 

the table. I honestly didn't make this up.
 

DR. NETON: Yeah, that -- you know.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: You -- let me -- this is Larry
 

Elliott, I need to jump in here -­

MR. MILLER: Sure.
 

MR. ELLIOTT: -- for two reasons. One is,
 

we're past 4:00 o'clock. We're going to have -­

we're going to be cut off if we don't cut ourselves
 

off. But secondly, we can't provide interpretation
 

at this point in the process of what this language
 

means or doesn't mean as we move forward to
 

preparing this full scope of work and the evaluation
 

guide. You can make your comments and the Board can
 

consider those, but we cannot enter into an
 

interacting debate about what should or should not
 

be here.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Yeah.
 

MR. MILLER: That's fine, Larry. I
 

appreciate that, but let me just lay it out on the
 
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table then. It seems to me, given the huge scope
 

that's in front of the audit, and given the
 

desirability of a double blind audit to be done in
 

order to sort of test the veracity of your auditor,
 

in effect, and it provides a sort of level of QA
 

that almost makes it bulletproof, I would certainly
 

suggest that we have multiple contractors.
 

Secondly, as I mentioned and respectful of
 

your time, and you all will have this on your e-mail
 

and maybe you can take it up in January, one, I'd
 

really think somebody -- whoever gets selected
 

should have dose reconstruction experience, actual
 

experience and not just a sort of academic
 

understanding of it. Two, some experience dealing
 

with contradictory and suspect records. Fraud -­

fraud is one, contradictory records is another. 


We're discovering this in every dose reconstruction
 

we've looked at. And third, what's not included in
 

the key personnel criteria is people who have
 

experience in dealing with both uncertainty analysis
 

and bounding (inaudible), and I think that all of
 

those are germane to the -- what -- are in many ways
 

central to what has to be looked at here. So I
 

just would offer you those as three suggestions. 


You can see them -- the wording in your e-mail and
 
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if it's useful, please feel free to use it as you
 

see fit.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Richard. Any other
 

comments?
 

MR. KLEMM: Jeff Klemm, SAIC.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you.
 

MR. KLEMM: Under section E, conflict of
 

interest, assigned key personnel and contractor. 


Does contractor mean the prime contractor or the
 

contractor affiliation (inaudible) team member?
 

MR. ELLIOTT: We cannot respond to your
 

question, Jeff. Once you see the RFP released on
 

the street, then that would be the time to ask those
 

kinds of questions.
 

UNIDENTIFIED: Excuse me just a second,
 

Larry. Did -- is Mark Griffon on the phone?
 

MR. GRIFFON: Yes.
 

WRITER/EDITOR: Who's that?
 

UNIDENTIFIED: You mentioned at the
 

beginning, around three hours ago -­

WRITER/EDITOR: Could you please identify
 

yourself?
 

UNIDENTIFIED: -- key personnel?
 

MR. GRIFFON: I said that I had drafted
 

language defining key personnel, but it's not on the
 
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table yet.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments?
 

MR. KLEMM: I have a comment, also.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Who is it?
 

MR. KLEMM: I was interrupted. Given rule
 

83 as proposed claims for which NIOSH finds dose
 

reconstruction to not be done should be reviewed by
 

the Board and its contractor (inaudible) claimants
 

the delay of the SEC petition process.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is that a question or a
 

comment?
 

MR. KLEMM: Comment.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you.
 

WRITER/EDITOR: Who was that, please?
 

MR. GRIFFON: That was Jeff Klemm. That was
 

a continuation, I believe.
 

DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments or members
 

of the public?
 

(No responses)
 

DR. ZIEMER: There appear to be no other
 

comments. 


Let me thank all the Board members and the
 

staff people and the public participants for their
 

participation today, and we will look forward to
 

seeing many of you at the meeting in January and
 
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this session is adjourned. Thank you very much.
 

(Teleconference concluded at 4:05 p.m.)
 
 

 

 

___________________________ 

162 

 

C E R T I F I C A T E
 

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 12th day of December,
 

2002; and it is a true and accurate transcript of
 

the proceedings 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
 

22nd day of December, 2002. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN,


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER
 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102