THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 


CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 


NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 


convenes 


MEETING 46 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


DAY ONE 


MAY 2, 2007 


The verbatim transcript of the 46th 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at The Westin Westminster, 


Westminster, Colorado on May 2, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN AND ASSOCIATES 

NATIONALLY CERTIFIED COURT REPORTING 

404/733-6070 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

May 2, 2007 

WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

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DOL PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. JEFF KOTSCH, DOL 

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DOE PROGRAM UPDATE 

MS. ELIZABETH WHITE, DOE 

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SELECTION OF 8TH ROUND OF DR’S 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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WORKING GROUP UPDATE 

WORKING GROUP CHAIRS 

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119 

ADDRESS FROM SENATOR OBAMA 

SENATOR OBAMA 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

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COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 294 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

BEACH, Josie 


Nuclear Chemical Operator 


Hanford Reservation 


Richland, Washington 


CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 


GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 

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LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


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


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


SCHOFIELD, Phillip 


Los Alamos Project on Worker Safety 


Los Alamos, New Mexico 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS


 ABILA, EDMUND, MET OP. 


ABILA, JUAN, RF WORKERS 


ADKINS, LEONILA, SPOUSE 


ALBERG, JEANETTE, SEN. ALLARD 


ALLEN, WILLIAM, ROCKY FLATS 


BARKER, CARL, RF RETIREE 


BARKER, KAY, ANWAG 


BARNETT, WILLIAM, RFES 


BARRIE, GEORGE, ANWAG 


BARRIE, TERRIE, ANWAG 


BLAKESLEE, JACK, ROCKY FLATS 


BLAKESLEE, JOANNE, ROCKY FLATS 


BOLLER, CAROLYN, CONG. MARK UDALL 


BRADSHAW, CHARLENE A., RADIATION ORG. 


BREYER, LAURIE, NIOSH 


BRITTON, CAKER J., WIFE 


BRITTON, LESSIE S., RFETS 


BROCK, DENISE, NIOSH 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC 


BUCHANAN, DENNIS, RCT 


BUFFO, RON, SON RF WORKER 


BUTZ, JR., REINHOLT, S.O.E. 


CALDWELL, NANCY, RF WORKER 


CARLSON, AUDREY, SPOUSE 


CARLSON, ROBERT I., RADIATION 


CARRELL, DENNIS 


CHANG, CHIA-CHIA, HHS 


CLARK, DEBBY, RFETS 


DEFORGE, CLIFF, RF RETIRED 


DELFORGE, DOUGLAS, ROCKY FLATS 


DIENST, JOHN, ROCKY FLATS 


DIGIACONO, RON, SELF 


DOBROVOLY, MICHELLE, ENGINEERING 


DURAN, BEA, DOE 


DURAN, SAM J., RF 


ELLIS, ANN, ROCKY FLATS 


ELMLINGER, RON, PCM 


EVASKOVICH, ANDREW K., ICUA LOCAL 69 


FINLEY, B., DPOST 


FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A 

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 FOX, CAREY, RFETS 


FOX, MARY, RFETS 


GADSON, CURZIE, ROCKY FLATS 


GAFFNEY, RICHARD S., RFETS 


GAHOR, PATRICIA A., RFETS 


GARRIMONE, YVONNE, DAUGHTER OF DECEASED 


GOMEZ, DELMA G., RFETS 


GOMEZ, ERNA, ROCKY FLATS 


GONZALEZ, JUAN, ROCKY FLATS 


GONZALEZ, NORMA, ROCKY FLATS 


HANKET, JOE, ROCKY FLATS RETIRED 


HANKINS, LARRY, RETIRED UNION 


HARLAN, RONALD A., ROCKY FLATS RETIREE 


HARLAN, S., SPOUSE 


HARRISON, CONSTANCE, NIOSH 


HARTMAN, ALAN, RF RETIREE 


HEWITT, JAMES, ROCKY FLATS 


HEWITT-BALLOU, CHERYL, DAUGHTER 


HILLER, DAVID, SEN. KEN SALAZAR 


HINNEFELD, STU, NIOSH 


HOFFMAN, GAYLE, RF WORKER 


HOLGERSON, ERIC, ROCKY FLATS 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS 


HUEBNER, LIZ, ROCKY FLATS 


IMSE, ANN, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS 


JACQUEZ-ORTIZ, MICHELE, CONG. UDALL 


JENSEN, DIANE, ROCKY FLATS 


JOHN, PADIA, ROCKY FLATS 


KESSLER, MIKE, 5280 


KLOTZ, JIM, RF 


KOHLER, ROMAN, R.F. HOMESTEADERS 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


KRULL, WARREN S., SAIC 


KUBIAK, MICHAEL S., ORAU/MJW 


LAHTI, ROSE, ROCKY FLATS 


LEVALLEN, BETTY 


LEVEN, TIM, PCM 


LINK, RICHARD A., ROCKY FLATS 


LOGAN, MICHAEL D., ROCKY FLATS 


LUCERO, GENNY, RADIATION ORG. 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MARQUEZ, MARK W., STEELE WORK 

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 MARSCHALL, HANNA, RF WORKER 


MARTINEZ, LADONNA, RFLATS SPOUSE 


MARTINEZ, MATTHEW A., RFETS 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MAYES, CALVIN, RF WORKER 


MCALLISTER, ROBERT J., ROCKY FLATS 


MCCARTHY, BILLY, RETIRED 


MCCARTHY, DIANN, SPOUSE 


MCCLURE, ROB, KCNC-TV 


MCDONALD, SEAN, DENVER POST 


MCFEE, MATTHEW, ORAUT 


MCKEEL, DAN, SINEW 


MEANEY, CHERYL, RFW & SPOUSE 


MEZT, RICHARD, ROCKY FLATS 


MILLER, DUANE R., ROCKY FLATS 


MILLER, HYMAN, ROCKY FLATS 


MILLETTE, RON, RF WORKER 


MILNE, CHARLES, MSU 


MILNE, LINDA, ROCKY FLATS 


MOBLEY, JERRY, ROCKY FLATS 


MOBLEY, WALTER M., CONSTRUCTION 


MOSELEY, HENRY, RF 


NEWBY, KEVIN, RF EMPLOYEE 


NEWBY SHERRY, SPOUSE 


NORMAN, JOAN, ROCKY FLATS 


OLDS, RICHARD, RF WORKER 


PADILLA, JUDY, FORMER RFP WORKER 


PALIZZI, TOM, ROCKY FLATS 


PAZIER, LARRY, HUSBAND OF RF 


RAMOS, LARRY, RF RETIRED 


ROMERO, DENNIS R., RF WORKER 


ROSE, WILMA, SELF 


RUIZ, HARRIET 


RUPP, MARYANN, SPOUSE OF DECEASED WORKER 


RUTHERFORD, LAVON, NIOSH 


SABEC, DONALD, ROCKY FLATS 


SCHULTZ, JEFFREY W., ENGINEERING 


SCHULTZ, LAURA, RF CLAIMANTS 


SHEPARD, SALLY, SELF 


SHORT, DEBORAH, RF 


SINGER, GARY L., ROCKY FLATS 


SPENCER, BETTY, RF SPOUSE 


STEELE, MARYJO, ROCKY FLATS 

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 STEPHAN, ROBERT, SENATOR OBAMA 


STICKERMAN, CHAD, RF ENGINEER 


THIELEN, JEREMY, RFETS 


THIELEN, JOHNATHAN, RFETS 


THIELEN, TODD, RFETS 


THIELEN, VAL, RFETS 


THOMAS, RHONDA, ROCKY FLATS WORKER 


TINKLE, ANN, ROCKY FLATS 


TINKLE, DALE, ROCKY FLATS 


ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH 


VAUGHN, JIM 


VAUGHN, LINDA 


VIGIL, DENNIS E., ROCKY FLATS 


WEAVER, JACK, RETIRED RF WORKER 


WHITE, LIBBY, DOE 


WILLIAMS, RHONDA, FOR PARENT 


YEATER, JADYA, ROCKY FLATS 


ZIEMER, MARILYN 

 

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MAY 2, 2007
 

1:30 pm
 

 P R O C E E D I N G S 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, everyone. We've had our 


customary 30 minutes of preparation, which is 


the sort of warm-up time where you get 


reacquainted with friends and colleagues, and 


now I will officially call the meeting to order 


of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 


Health meeting here this week in the beautiful 


Denver area. 


 We're pleased to have a number of guests with 


us today and I would like to remind you, as 


well as our regular Board members and other 


staff people, to register your attendance with 


us. There's a registration book in the foyer. 


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


For members of the public who wish to speak 


later today, there is a signup sheet and we ask 


you to avail yourself of that, as well. 


There are a number of documents on the rear 


table of this room, including the agenda and 


other documents that will be used as part of 


the deliberations this week. 

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I should point out for the record that Mark 


Griffon will be joining us later this 


afternoon. He is out -- out, he's away 


momentarily, will be rejoining us in a little 


bit. Dr. Melius will be joining us tomorrow, 


is not able to be here this afternoon. And --


 DR. WADE: Dr. Poston. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Dr. Poston will not be with us. 


But I'll call on our Designated Federal 


Official, Dr. Lewis Wade, to declare that -- I 


think, that we have a quorum and make other 


comments. 


 DR. WADE: We indeed have a quorum and a noble 


quorum it is, as well. As always I begin by 


thanking you for your service, members of the 


Board. It's -- it's hard work. I could seven 


SEC petitions on the agenda for this meeting. 


We knew we were coming into a phase when SEC 


petitions would be a big part of your work and 


I think this marks the -- the beginning of that 


period. 


I bring you warm regards from Secretary Leavitt 


and Director Gerberding of CDC, and 


particularly from John Howard, NIOSH Director. 


They are all well aware of your efforts and add 

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their thanks to mine for your activities. 


Nothing more to say than that, Paul. Thank you 


again, and we need to begin. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I would add one additional 


comment, and that is really to thank the Board 


members who, working in various workgroups 


since our last meeting -- and I guess I'd have 


to go back to our own web site and count the 


number of meetings that we've had since the 


last full Board meeting, but I can tell you 


that these Board members have been extremely 


busy over the past couple of months meeting, 


and almost all of them are in two or more 


working groups that have been very active, 


addressing a variety of issues including dose 


reconstruction issues, including site profile 


issues, including SEC issues. So I -- I thank 


all the Board members for the extensive effort 


and time that they have put in in addressing 


those important areas. 


Now we're going to move to our regular agenda. 


I do want to point out just for the record that 


there is one time-certain item on our agenda 


today. At 4:05 there will be a phone call from 


Senator Obama of Illinois. I think by phone 

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call it will not quite have the level of 


excitement as the personal appearance did when 


we met in Naperville, but that is a time-


certain, so at that point in the agenda we will 


interrupt whatever we are doing so that we can 


hear remarks from the Senator. 


 DR. WADE: Stephan. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And Robert Stephan is just joining 


us here -- welcome -- and I was just pointing 


out that the -- the Senator would be calling 


later this afternoon. 


NIOSH PROGRAM UPDATE
 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH
 

Now we will have a program update from NIOSH, 


and Larry Elliott will present that. Larry, 


welcome. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, members of 


the Board, ladies and gentlemen, members of the 


audience. It's a pleasure to be with you all 


again here in beautiful Colorado. 


 My program status report will be very -- same 


as you've seen in previous meetings. We will, 


however, add some new things that I hope will 


benefit the Board in planning your -- your work 


for the future meetings. 


At your last teleconference meeting I made note 

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for you that the dose reconstruction program at 


NIOSH and the SEC petition processing program 


at NIOSH for this fiscal year, FY '07, we were 


-- we found ourselves in resource-limited 


straits, and I made comment as to why that -- 


that environment exists for us in this fiscal 


year. We had lost nine percent of our budget 


for the last three years to what is called a 


CDC indirect rate that is assessed to our 


budget. The Congress had -- and -- and OMB, in 


the appropriations cycles, had advised that CDC 


should not take that nine percent and had 


excluded the nine percent from our FY '06 and 


FY '07 budget. And yet we were -- we saw nine 


percent removed, so a total of 18 percent for 


each year for three years was lost to us, and 


now we are really feeling the effects of that. 


I would note at this point in time for you, for 


the remainder of this fiscal year, things are 


going to get very difficult. What do I mean by 


that? We will see a scale-down in our 


contracting support across the board. 


 The Battelle contract that some of you are 


aware of will end at the end of this month, at 


the end of May. It will not be renewed. There 

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is no more money to put into that contract and 


so Battelle and their efforts will conclude at 


the end of May. 


 The ORAU contract, which is due to expire 


September 11th of this year, we will only see 


enough money for that contract, the ORAU 


technical support, to maintain the capacity 


that we've enjoyed of late going through this 


month of May, and then they'll start scaling 


down in June and virtually stop work in July. 


So our efforts to support your Board work will 


diminish dramatically as we approach your July 


meeting. We will not see new funds come to us 


until the next fiscal year, FY '08. So I would 


just like to make note for that -- for you on 


that point, and if there are any questions, 


I'll be happy to answer them at the end of my ­

- my comments. But I think it's important for 


the Board to realize and understand what's 


going on budget-wise. The Board's budget of 


$4.5 million was requested each year and has 


been -- is in place, and you have carryover 


money from the prior years, so you should -- 


you know, Dr. Wade perhaps knows more about 


your individual Board budget. But as we put 

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forward a budget request, we include the 


Board's budget and it has not diminished. 


 DR. WADE: Possibly I could add some to Larry's 


comment. Yes, the money for the Board and its 


contractor are in place. It -- you could well 


see, though, the -- some of the pipelines that 


feed into your deliberations slowing, and that 


might slow the activities of workgroups and it 


-- it might slow the demands that are placed on 


your contractor, for example, if -- if we're 


not able to engage in sort of the six-step 


process with the timeliness we would like. But 


the impacts upon the Board and the -- and its 


contractor would be derivative effects, but you 


need to be mindful of them and, you know, we'll 


see how it goes. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: As of April 25th of this year the 


Department of Labor has forwarded 23,871 cases 


-- claims, individual claims -- to NIOSH for 


dose reconstruction. We have completed 83 


percent of those claims, or 19,834, and those 


have been returned to the Department of Labor. 


As you can see here in this subset of bullets, 


there have been 17,800-some-odd claims returned 


to DOL with a dose reconstruction report. 

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There've been 599 claims that have been pulled 


from us by the Department of Labor -- again, 


for various reasons; an ineligible claim that 


was improperly inadvertently sent to us, they 


pulled them back. That ma-- that's the main 


reason. 


There are 1,391 claims at DOL right now being 


evaluated for eligibility across the classes 


that have been added to the Special Exposure 


Cohort. This leaves about 16 percent of our 


case load at NIOSH for dose reconstruction or 


SEC claim processing. That equates to 3,813 


claims. 


We have currently, as of April 25th, 224 -- 


about one percent of our cases are 


administratively closed in dose reconstruction. 


This means that we are awaiting other -- 


additional information from the claimant or the 


signage of their OCAS-1 indicating they have no 


more information to provide us. And so we ha-- 


we see 224 of those standing right now. 


In 2006 we reopened 57 claims and provided 


additional work on a reconstruction or we got 


the OCAS-1 and there was no more work to be 


done and we forwarded those 57 on to DOL for a 

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decision. 


Here's a new little graphic for you. It's a 


pie chart, as you can tell, and it just shows 


the -- the distribution of the claims by these 


categories -- the cases complete, the cases 


pulled, those pulled for SEC consideration, 


those that have been administratively closed, 


those that are active, and those cases that are 


pending for various reasons -- various 


technical reasons, various demographic reasons 


relative to the claim. Maybe additional 


employment is being validated by DOL, maybe 


another cancer's being validated by DOL, or 


maybe there's a technical obstacle that we're 


working on to remove and resolve so that we can 


move the claim forward. Those are the pended 


cases. 


Again as of April 25th we've sent back to DOL 


17,844 dose reconstructions for decision, and 


you can see the breakout as to whether or not 


they were found by DOL to be compensable. 


Twenty-eight percent of those, or 4,934, were 


greater than 50 percent and were found to be 


compensable. 12,910, or 72 percent of the 


cases that we have reconstructed, were found to 

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be less than 50 percent in their probability of 


causation and were denied. 


Another new graphic that we're sharing with the 


Board this -- this time is this distribution of 


probability of causation for all of the claims 


we have completed dose reconstructions for. 


There's a difference in numbers on this slide 


than the one you just saw. That's because the 


OCAS-1 claims that we're awaiting conclusion on 


are counted in this set of numbers. So we've 


broken out this distribution in deciles, zero 


to ten percent, 11 to 20, that was up to 


greater than 50 percent. And you can see here 


how the distribution looks if we look at it in 


a -- in the probability of causation for all 


those claims that have been completed to date. 


Of the cases that are remaining at NIOSH for 


dose reconstruction, we can break those down a 


little further and we show that 662 cases are 


currently assigned to a health physicist and 


are in dose reconstruction. There are 779 


other draft dose reconstruction reports that 


are currently in the hands of the claimants at 


this point in time, and we're waiting the 


return of that OCAS-1. There are 2,372 claims 

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that have not yet been assigned to a health 


physicist and are waiting some development work 


before they can be so assigned. 


We make special note of those older claims that 


are in our case load, and here we show you that 


of the 3,813, 42 percent or 1,586 are one year 


or older in age. 


We continue to pursue with great strength and 


vigor our efforts on completing the first block 


of 5,000 claims. These are our oldest claims. 


And you can look at the bottom line here, the 


claims awaiting dose reconstruction in this 


first 5,000 are 66. The other numbers that you 


see here -- final dose reconstructions sent 


back to DOL in that first 5,000 are -- equate 


to 4,358. There are 55 administratively closed 


cases in this first 5,000. There were 246 


claims pulled back from us by Department of 


Labor. There are 172 claims in the first 5,000 


that are being considered or have already been 


considered and found to be eligible for a class 


in the Special Exposure Cohort. There are 24 


dose reconstruction reports with claimants 


right now in this first 5,000 and we're 


awaiting their OCAS-1. And the DOL has 

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returned 79 cases out of the first 5,000 to us 


for additional work, mean-- it may be, again, 


work on -- because an additional cancer or 


additional employment has been found, or 


there's a technical aspect that have we (sic) 


been called to provide additional work in and 


consideration on. 


A different type of graphic here to show you 


the full case load from -- split out in 1,000 


increments of claims to show you where in that 


1,000 increment the claims stand. The -- this 


-- I don't know what color that shows to you, 


it looks a little red or fuschia to me, and 


that's the cases that are pending. That would 


be this line through here. The yellow 


represents those SEC cases in that 1,000 set of 


claims, and the green are administratively 


closed claims in each block. The active cases 


within each block are shown in gray, and then ­

- this may be orange, I hope, or -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: That's red. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Red, maybe that's red. And for 


those of you who are color blind, we apologize. 


One of my staff is color blind and I'm sure 


he's seeing purple, maybe, here, but -- we 

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tested this with color blind people and they 


said they could distinguish between the colors, 


they just couldn't tell you what color some of 


them were, so -- but at any rate, that's red, 


that's cases pulled. And then cases completed 


are in the blue. 


Here we show by quarter the number of cases 


that have been received from DOL in blue, and 


this was our backlog; and the number of draft 


DR reports in green that have been sent to the 


claimants, and then in red we show the final 


dose reconstruction reports that have been 


provided to the Department of Labor. I call 


your atten-- again, this is by quarter, broken 


out by fiscal year quarter so you can see how 


the trends look. You can see a slight trend 


here on DOL submittals to us, it seems to have 


been going up since the last quarter in -- in 


FY '06. 


Talk a bit about reworks in this particular 


slide. We received from the Department of 


Labor 2,197 claims total that they've asked us 


to do some level of rework on -- again, it can 


be a variety of reasons, technical or demo-- 


claim demographic reason as to why we're being 

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asked to do a rework. We've returned to the 


Department of Labor 1,810 of these claims. And 


you can see those we've received in red, by 


quarter, and those we've returned, in blue, by 


quarter. Again, this was as of March 31st. We 


broke it at the quarter -- fiscal quarter time 


frame. 


As you know, when we receive a claim from the 


Department of Labor we immediately turn to the 


Department of Energy and we ask them for all 


available exposure monitoring information 


relevant to that particular claim. Right now, 


out of all of the claims that we have, we have 


667 outstanding requests; 44 of those 


outstanding requests are greater than 60 days. 


As I've mentioned to you before, we follow up 


with DOE on a 30-day basis on where these 


individual requests stand, and we seek some 


level of response on how soon or how long or 


whether or not they feel they are going to find 


any information, or whether there's some unique 


set of circumstances around the claim that 


present problems that we need to be aware of. 


I can tell you that there is -- of these 44 


that are greater than 60 days old in age at the 

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DOE, we don't see any particular trend or any 


problem. They all have individual 


circumstances around them. The highest number 


of claims that -- for a given site that they're 


waiting -- we're waiting on information is from 


the Oak Ridge facilities, all four -- all four 


or five facilities down there grouped together 


to total I think about 20 -- 23, some -- some-


odd claims out of that 44. 


We're also -- it doesn't show on this slide, 


but we're also in very close coordination and ­

- and work with Department of Energy on several 


coworker datasets that we really need for 


certain sites -- like Sandia, Los Alamos to 


name a couple. I don't -- they all don't come 


to my mind right now, but we are working with 


DOE to -- to pursue collection of those 


coworker datasets. 


Talk a minute in two slides here about the 


Battelle activities which I mentioned are 


coming to close at the end of May, this month. 


Two Technical Basis Documents have been 


approved; one that describes the processing of 


uranium metal in the Atomic Weapons Employer 


facilities where there were similar operations 

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or aspects performed on that particular 


radionuclide, and also a Technical Basis 


Document on uranium refining processes. There 


-- associated with this are to be 16 site-


specific appendices that will accompany these 


TBDs and allow us and allow the dose 


reconstructors to focus specifically on a given 


facility and understand from the appendix for 


that facility what other types of dose 


components need to be reconstructed. 


If you recall when we awarded this particular 


contract to Battelle we did so because we had a 


block of claims that were essentially not 


receiving adequate attention. These were 


Atomic Weapons Employer claims, a lot of claims 


for -- a small number of claims per site for a 


lot of sites; 1,400 claims across 256 covered 


facilities, which represents 15 percent of the 


claims -- of our population at that time and 85 


percent of the covered facilities that we -- 


that we were addressing. To date we've gotten 


395 dose reconstructions that have been 


submitted for technical review, and we have 


turned over 308 dose reconstructions to 


claimants so that we can move those on. We're 

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starting to see the fruits of this labor from 


Battelle now. 


As of April 25th of this year we've had 88 


petitions that we have received. And if you 


try to add these numbers up below that, it 


won't come up to 88 because before our rule was 


passed we had five letters which weren't 


petitions but we have counted them as letters 


of interest or petitioning. And so we included 


that in this number, 88. Thirty-nine of that 


88 petitions have been qualified for 


evaluation, and 17 classes have been added to 


date from those 39 petitions. Eight petitions 


are currently under the development for 


qualification to evaluate; 36 petitions did not 


qualify. There have been 1,391 claims that -- 


that repre-- are represented in those 17 


classes that have -- we have added. Four sites 


have been added under the 83.14 process that -- 


that -- these four sites have been identified 


to be added under the 83.14 process. They 


include Y-12; Kellex Pierpoint, a Battelle 


site; MIT, Massachusetts Institute of 


Technology, also a Battelle site; and Lawrence 


Livermore National Lab. 

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The Y-12 piece, let me speak just a moment 


about that. That is an 83.14 effort that we're 


taking under way, not based upon a -- a 


identification that we can't reconstruct dose 


for a claimant, but as an identification of the 


previous class that was added and the language 


interpretation that that definition has been 


given by the Department of Labor. So we're 


going to provide them in this -- this 83.14 for 


Y-12, a clear understanding of what dose can 


and what dose cannot be reconstructed. If you 


recall, in our first attempt at -- at 


specifying that class at Y-12 and what dose 


could be reconstructed or could not be 


reconstructed, we said "other radioactive 


materials on site," and that's created some 


problems in how DOL's handling that particular 


class so we're going to correct that, we hope. 


There are, as I mentioned, 1,391 claims at DOL 


for class member eligibility determination and 


final adjudication, and I won't read through 


this, but these 17 classes are shown here on 


these next two slides, and the number of claims 


represented for each class. 


We've talked to you before about Program 

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Evaluation Reports. This is where we've 


identified a change in our procedures or our 


methodology in dose reconstruction, or some 


change in applying our cancer risk models. And 


in that case, we need to go back -- according 


to our regulation -- and evaluate all 


previously-completed dose reconstructions that 


have been found to be non-compensable by the 


Department of Labor. That constitutes a 


program evaluation review and a subsequent 


report. And the reports that we've done in 


program evaluation review are listed on these 


slides. We've -- we've completed a Hanford 


bias factor, this -- these are all located on 


our web site. You can check them out. We've 


completed a -- the -- a misinterpretation of 


the dosimetry records for Savannah River Site 


dose reconstructions. We've completed a -- an 


error that was committed in the use of a 


surrogate organ assignment for Savannah River 


X-ray dose reconstructions. We've completed a 


photofluorography modification for the Pinellas 


Plant. We've completed an external dosimetry 


target organ for prostate cancer. 


We've completed an evaluation of the effect of 

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the Revision 2 of the Bethlehem Steel site 


profile. And I might mention a little detail 


on this one since it will be taken up in your 


discussion at this meeting. This particular 


evaluation report, you can see it on our web 


site, we -- we've explained it to the 


petitioners and to the New York delegation 


staffers. There were seven claims that were 


previously -- be-- because of the changes that 


were made to the site profile as a result of 


our review, the Board's deliberations and -- 


and advice to us, these changes have resulted 


in seven individual claims that were previously 


compensable now being shown to have a POC of 


less than 50 percent. Department of Labor will 


decide what they do with those. There were 


three claims that are -- were reconstructed 


with the new changes from the site profile 


revision that would go over 50 percent now, and 


DOL will decide what they're going to do with 


those. We've advised them on those particular 


claims. 


 We've also completed a Program Evaluation 


Report on the target organ for lymphoma. We've 


presented this to the Advisory Board in your 

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previous meetings; I think you're aware of this 


one. 


 We've also completed the mod-- a -- an 


evaluation of the change in the NIOSH IREP lung 


cancer, another one that we've presented to 


you. 


And finally, we've completed the -- an 


evaluation of the effect of the Rocky Flats 


Neutron Dose Reconstruction Project data and -- 


and looking at claims that were previously 


worked under reconstruction and found to be 


non-compensable. I think, just to summarize, 


since this was also on your -- your agenda for 


discussion, Rocky Flats, for this meeting, if 


you look into that program evaluation review I 


think you'll see that there were 88 claims 


found that, once the change was applied, it 


still didn't change the outcome of the -- of 


the claim. It was still found to be noncompensable. 


Some of our program evaluation reviews are 


large efforts, and we have decided that it 


makes a lot of sense for us to put together a 


plan on how to go about doing the evaluation 


review, so we call these Program Evaluation 

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Plans, or PEPs. And a PEP is simply a 


description of the affected claimants, claimant 


population and the technical approach that -- 


that's used to evaluate those cases against the 


-- the change. Now I would make note here for 


you that not all program evaluation reviews are 


going to require a plan. Some can be done just 


straightforward. Others that are huge and 


require intensive amount of effort and 


resources will require a plan. 


Currently we have six plans issued, and they're 


listed here. We're looking at the adoption of 


the revised risk model for lung cancer and what 


change that has made on some non-compensable 


claims. We're looking at the lymphoma target 


organ selection. Another one, the evaluation 


of insoluble plutonium compounds. The fourth 


one is an evaluation of the impact of changes 


to the isotopic ratios used in the Paducah 


Technical Basis Document. We're also now 


looking at a number five, the impact of the 


construction workers' T-- Technical Information 


Bulletin. And then number six that's currently 


a plan underway, we're looking at the 


incomplete internal dosimetry records that we 

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received from INEEL, Argonne National Lab East 


and West. 


There are many program evaluation reviews that 


we have on our schedule ahead of us. These are 


just the ones that I can report to you today 


that are either completed or a plan that is on 


our web site showing the work that we're doing. 


As you know, we have revised the conflict of 


interest policy. It has now been fully 


implemented. The policy was approved on 


October 17th in 2006. You can find it posted 


on our web site. The NIOSH employee disclosure 


statements are located at this URL on our web 


site, and a link under related links on our web 


site can be found for the contractors 


associated with this program and they'll take 


you to their web sites and you can see their 


disclosure statements. 


There is a -- I know that ORAU is doing an 


internal assessment of -- of the implementation 


of this policy and their whole disclosure 


statements. That's coming up soon. I know that 


the conflict of -- conflict or bias officer at 


NIOSH is also taking -- starting to take a look 


at all of the assembled disclosures and trying 

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to decide, I think, himself how to go about 


assessing this implementation. Hope to have 


more to report on -- on those efforts at your 


next meeting. 


 Our Special Exposure Cohort ombudsman and 


counselor are scheduling outreach meetings. 


Denise Brock and Laurie Ishak Breyer have 


started to organize these meetings. They've 


got the first one set up for May 23rd and 24th 


in Idaho Falls for the INEEL site, and they're 


looking at Los Angeles area in mid to late 


June. Again, the purpose of these meetings is 


to discuss, with SEC -- potential SEC 


petitioners, the process and guide them through 


that process and to give them a better 


understanding of what it will take for them to 


be successful. 


 These meeting locations are determined 


essentially on -- based upon requests for such. 


So if you know folks who would like to have 


such a meeting, please contact Denise Brock or 


Laurie Ishak Breyer. 


I give you some new slides here. You've seen 


one of these for the whole set of cases that 


have been reconstructed. But since you're 

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talking about certain facilities at your 


meeting, I thought it might be helpful for you 


to see these distributions of probability of 


causation for claims completed. 


This one is of Rocky Flats, and there have been 


1,210 claims received from the Department of 


Labor that have Rocky Flats employment; 123 of 


those claims are active right now; 21 of those 


1,210 have been pulled back from us by the 


Department of Labor. We have completed 1,066 


dose reconstructions for the Rocky Flats 


claimant population. We're 94 percent done 


through that -- that claimant population with 


our dose reconstruction efforts. We see here 


that 66 percent of those dose reconstructed 


claims have been found by the Department of 


Labor to be non-compensable, and 30 percent or 


345 have been found to be compensable. 


Let's move on and look at Bethlehem Steel. 


You're going to see a different shape of curve 


in each one of these. This -- this Bethlehem 


Steel represents, as you know, an exposure 


model. Whereas Rocky Flats, there's a variety 


of dose, a variety of -- of dose reconstruction 


scenarios it has to go through for each claim, 

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whereas at Bethlehem Steel it is an exposure 


model. And so you can see here that we're 97 


percent done with the 740 claims that we have 


for Bethlehem Steel; 42 remain active, three 


have been pulled from us by the Department of 


Labor, 695 dose reconstructions completed. 


Fifty-five percent of these completed dose 


reconstructions are non-compensable, 45 percent 


have been found to be compensable. 


We'll move on to the Los Alamos National Lab, 


and in this similar slide you'll see a 


different curve -- 848 claims have been 


received from Department of Labor; 145 remain 


active. There have been 236 claims pulled from 


this -- this group of claims, and 467 dose 


reconstructions have been completed, or 60 


percent of the LANL claim population completed. 


Of those, we see 79 percent less than 50 


percent or non-compensable, and 21 percent have 


been found to be compensable. 


The distribution of POCs for Chapman Valve is 


shown in this next slide -- 127 claims have 


been received; 52 remain active, one has been 


pulled. Seventy-four dose reconstructions 


completed, which represents 76 percent of the 

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cases done; 64 percent of these are noncompensable and 36 percent are compensable. 


W. R. Grace, we have had 62 claims from W. R. 


Grace; 33 remain active, four have been pulled. 


Twenty-five DRs have been completed. We're 43 


percent done on this particular site. Seven of 


these 27 have been found to be non-compensable, 


or 26 percent; and 74 percent, or 20, have been 


found to be compensable. 


Sandia National Lab at Livermore, we've had 79 


claims; there are 40 active, five have been 


pulled. Thirty-four DRs have been completed, 


and I'm sorry, I didn't break down the numbers 


for that slide. I just didn't get ri-- didn't 


get to it on the plane, evidently. 


I don't have a chart similar for -- as this for 


the other site that you'll be talking about, 


and that's Dow Chemical. There've been two out 


of 118 claims reconstructed, both of which were 


shown to be compensable. So as we get into 


that site we will -- as we -- as we reconstruct 


non-presumptive claims, if that's the way it 


goes, we'll develop one of these charts for 


that site. 


That's the end of my slides for today. I'd be 

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happy to answer any questions you might have. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, let me begin the 


questioning by asking you a question relating 


to the budget issue that you raised. As far as 


immediate impact on NIOSH, does the budgetary 


problem mainly impact on the work rate, or do 


you anticipate layoffs as well -- staff 


reductions or -- or both or --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, cer-- certainly the 


technical --


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm just talking about the NIOSH 


piece now. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. Okay, the NIO-- the contr­

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 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not talking about contractors. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- contractors are going to feel 


this -- feel the brunt of this. The NIOSH 


staff we don't envision seeing a layoff. We --


we maintain our personnel support budget to -- 


to maintain as much work as we possibly can 


with that core staff, so they will still be in 


the traces working. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions at this time? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, thank you very -- oh, yes. 

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 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. Robert 


Stephan -- last name is S-t-e-p-h-a-n. Larry, 


can you tell us about the Battelle contract 


along Dr. Ziemer's question in terms of the 


budget impact? If Battelle's contract is 


finishing up and the budget is going to -- 


reduction's going to affect the contractors, 


it's going to affect Battelle. Are there 


things that are not going to be getting done by 


Battelle that would be if they had -- if you 


had that nine percent -- or 18 percent, I guess 


-- and if they are, what -- can you describe 


what they would be? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure, sure. The -- Battelle's 


contract ends the end of this month, May. 


There is no money to put into that contract to 


continue them and they will not have any money 


left at the end of May. They will essentially 


go away. The remaining work will be dose 


reconstructions on those sites. There are some 


AWE sites in that list that are probably going 


to go 83.14 and those require what we call 


professional judgment documents developed. 


What -- if they don't have those dose 


reconstructions done, the professional judgment 

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documents done for the 83.14s -- and a third 


component would be any of these appendices, of 


the 16 appendices, that are not completed -- 


that work will be shifted over to either 


another contractor or my staff, the OCAS staff. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, any other 

questions? 

 (No responses) 

DOL PROGRAM UPDATE 

MR. JEFF KOTSCH, DOL
 

Okay. Thank you very much, Larry. Next we'll 


have a program update from Department of Labor. 


Jeff Kotsch is here with us today. Jeff -- oh, 


is Jeff -- yes, here he is. 


 MR. KOTSCH: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


(Pause) 


 MR. KOTSCH: Good afternoon. If you haven't 


had enough numbers, we'll -- we'll do some 


more. 


The program is divided into two parts. The 


Part B program -- oops -- the Part B program 


became effective in July of 2001st and that's 


basically the program that NIOSH dose 


reconstructions deal with. It's the portion of 


the program that deals with cancers, chronic 


beryllium disease, beryllium sensitivity, 

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silicosis and the RECA claims for the -- for 


the uranium miners, millers and ore 


transporters. 


Of that, we've had 57,087 cases, and that 


corresponds to 82,183 claims. For those who 


haven't heard this before, there's always more 


claims than cases because in the -- for the 


cases that have survivors, there may be more 


than one of those, so there will always be more 


survi-- claims than cases. Of that number, 


36,938 are cancer cases and 23,864 of these 


have been referred to NIOSH. Now I think we're 


getting better, but we still can't get all our 


numbers to -- to match up betw-- we have this 


every time, and I -- I give this caveat, or 


whoever presents, every time. Our numbers are 


a snapshot as of April 25th, but it's just the 


-- it is idiosyncracies of our -- I think of 


our -- the way we just account for these cases 


between our two systems, but I think we 


actually get -- get better. I know we share 


some of the numbers between ourselves and we 


try to synchronize them as much as we can. 


The other portion of the program is the Part E 


program, that's the old Part D program that 

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came over from DOE. The Act was amended in 


October, 2004 to give Department of Labor this 


portion of the program, which is the toxic -- 


toxic exposure portion of the program. That 


became effective in June, 2005, with the 


transfer of 25,742 cases from the Department of 


Energy. Currently there are 46,186 cases and 


the corresponding 63,040 claims that are 


associated with that number. 


To date the Department has issued $2.5 billion 


dollars in total compensation, $1.9 billion of 


that is in Part B compensation and of that, 


$1.4 billion is cancer claims, $229 million for 


RECA, and the remainder would be the -- you 


know, the -- the chronic beryllium, the 


silicosis-type cases. $636 million are Part E 


awards and 142 are for the medical benefits 


that are associated with those claims. 


 There were 29,305 program payees as of April 


25th, and 23,951 of them were Part B payees. 


Just looking at the pie chart, the cancer cases 


account for 35 percent, RECA 16 percent, other 


Part B -- again, the chronic berylliums and 


silicosis -- are 21 percent, and Part E claims 


are 18 percent of that total. 

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This chart is probably better read from the 


bottom up. We have a total of 36,938 cases 


having 56,187 claims. The way the process 


works is the claims come in, they're -- they're 


-- they're developed for medical conditions, 


they're developed for employment, survivorship, 


things like that. So starting at the bottom, 


we have 2,966 cases that basically are in the 


pipeline, the front end of the process. 


They're in for DOL initial action, the 


development of the case. Then they get passed 


on to NIOSH for dose reconstruction and we have 


4,514 cases in that category. Then next, after 


the cases are -- or after the dose 


reconstructions are returned by NIOSH, our 


district offices, our four district offices 


write up recommended decisions based on those, 


so we have 2,282 cases with recommended 


decisions, but they're not final yet. 


That process is left to our Final Adjudication 


Branches to -- to do. After the recommended 


decision is given to the claimant, they have 


the opportunity to either waive objection to it 


or to object to it, ask for a review of the 


written record and/or -- or a -- an oral 

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hearing. FAB reviews that information and 


renders a final decision. For -- as of April 


25th we have 27,710 cases with final decisions. 


This chart is just a breakdown of the final 


decisions -- 10,073 have been approved, 17,097 


have been denied. The bars to the right on the 


-- on the right side are the general 


distribution of the -- the general categories 


of why the cases were denied. The yellow bar 


is the non-covered employments. Those are 


2,841. The green bar, the 10,434, the ones -- 


the dose reconstructions with POCs less than 50 


percent. The light blue is 2,391, insufficient 


medical evidence to support the cancer claim; 


1,129 non-covered conditions, which in the 


early days of Part B were conditions -- it 


could be anything other than a cancer, 


respiratory-type conditions, cardiopulmonary 


type things -- things that now basically, for 


the most part, are covered under the Part E 


side of the program. And 302 ineligible 


survivors -- cases. 


 Quick overview of the referral status for -- 


for -- to NIOSH. We've had 23,864 referrals, 


18,114 have been returned from NIOSH. We've 

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withdrawn 1,420 for -- for reasons primarily -- 


in the early days, because there were elements 


of the case we couldn't support. More recently 


they've been withdrawn because new classes of 


SECs have been identified and we withdraw the 


case to review those to see whether we can just 


go forward with the SEC award. 16,694 dose 


reconstructions have been -- have been 


provided, 757 reworks were needed. This number 


is total -- totally unsynchronized with the 


NIOSH numbers, and I -- I know that the 


number's somewhere in between there, but I 


don't know exactly why -- why those numbers 


don't agree. And we have 4,267 initial 


referrals at NIOSH. 


 The dose reconstruction case status shows 


17,351 with dose reconstructions. Those are 


dose reconstructions and reworks, in our 


accounting system. We've had 14,768 final 


decisions; 1,912 recommended but no finals; and 


671 pending a recommended decision. That is, 


we have a dose reconstruction back, the 


district office is -- is -- are working on the 


recommended decisions. So that's 85 percent 


are in final decision status, 11 percent 

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recommended but no finals, and four percent 


pending action. 


Related to the new SEC classes, we've withdrawn 


1,183 for SEC review. Again, if they meet the 


-- the criteria for the class, they go forward 


as an award. If they don't either meet the -- 


for -- for whatever reason, primarily it would 


probably be the 250-day requirement at this 


stage -- they'd go back to NIOSH for a -- to 


continue the dose reconstruction. 843 final 


decisions have come out of this, 784 of those 


are approvals, 59 are denials. We've had -- we 


have 124 recommended but no final decisions, 


and 132 are pending the re-- the initial review 


back at DOL. 


So related to NIOSH compensation for -- for -- 


I'm sorry, for NIOSH cases for dose 


reconstructions, $729 million have been paid in 


compensation. That's for 4,882 cases. That 


breaks down as $632 million for dose 


reconstructed cases, which would have been 


4,232 on our accounting system; and $97 million 


for the additional SEC classes, or 650 cases. 


The next couple of slides were developed just 


to give you a feel for sites that will be 

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discussed at this meeting and the activities 


that have -- that are related to those sites. 


Rocky Flats total cases, both Part B and Part 


E, we've seen -- or we have 5,149 cases; 1,043 


of those have NIOSH dose reconstructions. 


Final decisions under Part B are 2,070; Part B 


approvals, 684; and there are 656 Part E 


approvals. Total compensation is -- as of 


April 24th -- $95 million. 


 The Los Alamos National Lab -- I'm not going to 


go through all of these, but 4,256 cases, 468 


dose reconstructions. We've had 221 Part B 


approvals, 233 Part E approvals, for a total of 


$33 million. 


Bethlehem Steel has 1,338 cases. NIOSH did 696 


dose reconstructions; 285 Part B approvals for 


$41 million. The Part E doesn't apply to -- it 


only applies to DOE facilities; it does not 


apply to -- by statute, does not apply to AWE 


or the atomic worker (sic) employee -- employee 


facilities. 


 Sandia National Lab, this would be Livermore, 


924 cases, both Part B and E; 114 dose 


reconstructions, 29 Part B approvals, 27 Part E 


approvals and $5 million in compensation. 

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W. R. Grace, there were 64 cases, 15 dose 


reconstructions, 13 Part B approvals and -- 


which translates to about a million -- a 


million dollars for the Part B only. 


 Dow Chemical Madison, 277 cases, two dose 


reconstructions, two -- two Part B approvals 


and that's a hundred -- I'm sorry, that's 


$300,000 in compensation. 


We had Y-12 here. I think when the slides were 


developed we were -- we thought it might be on 


the agenda. It's not, so we'll just -- we'll 


skip over that one. 


Chapman Valve, 215 cases, Part B and E -- I'm 


sorry, Part B; 73 dose reconstructions, 34 Part 


B approvals, $5 million in compensation. 


I put this slide in to remind me that we had 


promised -- Mark's not here, but we had 


promised, when I was on a call for the working 


group for Chapman Valve, to provide a status 


update. NIOSH had send DOL and DOE a letter 


saying that they had received information or 


gotten information from employee -- worker 


interviews indicating the potential presence of 


enriched uranium at the Chapman Valve site 


prior to the covered period, which is '48 

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through '49. The status of that is -- is that 


DOE -- or DOL is -- when I left, anyway, the 


letter back to NIOSH was in the final signature 


phase, basically asking NIOSH to provide all 


the available documentation and information so 


that we could go through the formal review 


process. DOL and DOE designate and determine 


the -- and DOL determines the covered periods 


for facilities, so we need that information. 


It's not me, it's other people in our 


organization that -- to look through that 


information and weigh the -- weigh the evidence 


to determine whether the covered period should 


be expanded. 


 The other issue that I was asked to bring up 


was that Larry had mentioned the PEP for 


evaluation of insoluble plutonium compounds. 


This recently went up on the NIOSH web site, I 


think within the last couple weeks, and any 


time things go up on the NIO-- NIOSH web site, 


we -- claimants that are observant and appear 


to read these things daily and start asking us 


questions, but aside from that -- but that's 


the -- the general nature of the beast, with 


all the -- all the things that go up on either 

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of our web sites. But as an example for this 


one, in response to the PEP that was issued, 


that PEP defined 38 sites as potentially 


affected by the -- what we call super S or the 


insoluble plutonium compound issue. DOL did a 


-- pinged our computer system and determined 


that there were about 1,000 cases -- it's less 


than that, but there were about 1,000 cases 


that were in the process, had not yet reached 


the final decision, and the decision was made 


that all those cases will be remanded -- 


returned to NIOSH for reworks because we can't 


proceed with adjudication in instances where 


something has been identified that would affect 


the final outcome. In this case it's the 


determination by NIOSH that there is some 


impact of -- or -- or could be some potential 


impact of a change in that situation. 


We also identified another 7,000 claims among 


those 38 facilities that are potentially 


affected that were denied previously, and those 


cases we will -- and I'll just read, those ca-- 


for those cases that were final decision 


denials for those 38 sites, the Department of 


Labor will work with NIOSH to get each 

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potentially-affected case evaluated by NIOSH 


for its impact. DOL will do this in a manner 


that is least burdensome to the claimants, is 


most efficient for the Department of Labor and 


NIOSH. This is a situation we found. We've 


been working with other -- on other PERs and 


PEPs. Recently we just -- NIOSH completed 


giving us the lymphoma -- cases that were 


affected by the lymphoma change, the target 


organ risk models, and we are in the process of 


completing -- what we have to do then is 


develop a bulletin so we can implement in the 


field the impact of that change in that case. 


I forget the numbers, but there were a 


significant number of them that became 


compensable, so we're in the process of then we 


would then have to remand those -- send them 


back for reworks so they can be -- basically a 


-- you know, given compensation, but we have to 


go through the process of -- you know, the 


logistics of doing those things. 


I think Larry mentioned Bethlehem Steel. There 


were five that -- there were eight affected by 


that change. Five went from compensable to 


non-compensable, which are technically 

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overpayments. I think the Department has a -- 


I don't know how we're going to -- hasn't 


actually determined how we're going to handle 


those yet, but also three were -- went from 


non-compensable to compensable, and they're in 


the process of being submitted for rework so 


they can have a rework done and a dose 


reconstruction formally done and then com-- 


compensation will be paid. But that's how --


that's what happens with all those PER/PEP type 


things -- things like the prostate cancer 


change had no effect ultimately so we just 


required documentation to put in each case file 


that was affec-- that was evaluated so that the 


case files were consistent and -- and then 


stood -- you know, stood as far as historical 


record, the fact that things were evaluated and 


reviewed and potentially could have been 


affected but evaluations determined that they 


were not. 


Anyway, that's the shape of things to come, and 


unfortunately the -- I mean a -- I guess a 


source of -- of recurring work for -- for both 


NIOSH and DOL as we cycle some of these cases. 


That should have been questions. Any 

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questions? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Board members, any questions for 

Jeff? 

 (No responses) 

 MR. STEPHAN: Dr. (sic) Kotsch, can you help me 

understand page 4, your top slide there, 


talking about total amount of money paid out on 


SECs, the $97 million on added SEC cases? So 


we're talking here about SECs that have been 


passed, but not including the original SECs in 


the original legislation. 


 MR. KOTSCH: No, it doesn-- yeah, it doesn't 


include those. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. So since then, the ones 


that have been passed, $97 million. 


 MR. KOTSCH: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it does 


incl-- where -- am I at the fourth slide? 


 MR. STEPHAN: It's page 4, the -- the top slide 


there, titled "NIOSH CASE RELATED 


COMPENSATION," so it's the -- about fifth 


bullet point down there on the bottom. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's labeled as "added SECs," I -- 


 MR. STEPHAN: Cer-- certainly that doesn't 


include the original ones. 


 MR. KOTSCH: No, I -- if -- I'm not finding it, 

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but if it's the added ones, that's -- I know 


we've had -- yeah, it's -- I'm sorry, yeah, 


it's just for the added SEC cases. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Okay. Okay. We -- we just want 


to make the point that, you know, there's been 


a lot of concern expressed about the -- 


particularly with the Department of Labor -- by 


the Department of Labor about the runaway costs 


potentially of the SECs. And so -- certainly, 


you know, we have several SECs before the Board 


that are, quite frankly, expensive. But you 


know -- and $97 million is a lot of money, no 


matter how you look at it, but comparatively, 


it's -- it's not all that much when we look at 


the concern that has been expressed about, you 


know, the cost of SECs by the Department of 


Labor, so I just want to point out that, you 


know, there -- there seems to be some dis-- 


some discrepancy between the -- just 


anecdotally, I'm adding -- some discrepancy 


between the concern expressed and actual amount 


that's been paid to date. I understand we have 


several before the Board now, but -- so I just 


wanted to add that. 


 MR. KOTSCH: Oh, okay. 

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 MR. STEPHAN: So thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Did you 


have a comment? 


DOE PROGRAM UPDATE
 

MS. ELIZABETH WHITE, DOE
 

We'll also have an update from Department of 


Energy, and Libby White is with us today 


representing the Department. Libby, we're 


pleased to have you back with us today. 


Welcome. 


MS. WHITE: Thank you very much. Can everyone 


hear me okay? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now -- now you're on. 


MS. WHITE: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Get close. 


MS. WHITE: I am here today and speaking really 


on behalf of Glenn Podonsky*, who was our chief 


health, safety and security officer, and 


unfortunately could not be here this afternoon 


due to a hearing that he has on the Hill. So 


he sends his regards and his regrets. 


I have no overheads, but I do have two fact 


sheets which are in the back of the room on the 


table and also should be in the Board members' 


materials. One is on the Los Alamos Medical 


Center and one is on the Mound records issue. 

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Glenn wanted me to mention that in his position 


as chief health, safety and security officer 


for DOE, one of his highest priorities is 


ensuring that the Department provides thorough 


and timely records, research and retrieval 


activities in support of this program. DOE is 


now, as I think you all know, in purely a 


support role, and we want to ensure that -- 


that we're as responsive as we can be, and that 


will include being more timely with those 44 


outstanding requests that we have from NIOSH 


that are over 60 days old. 


This program continues to be an extremely 


important activity, not only within the HSS 


organization -- that's Glenn's organization -- 


but within the entire DOE complex. To this 


end, management and staff throughout our 


organization are engaged in -- in activities 


related to this support work that DOE does, and 


I'll just mention a few. 


Glenn and Pat Worthington, who is my 


supervisor, have worked with our budget 


organization to secure significant increase in 


funding for fiscal year 2007 over what we 


thought we'd have. We were really in danger, 

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because there's a year-long continuing 


resolution, but they were able to find more 


funding. We really desperately needed this to 


ensure that we can continue responding to both 


the individual claims requests and large-scale 


claims requests in a timely manner. 


The office of classification at DOE has led an 


effort with our program offices and the DOE 


sites to resolve some issues regarding the 


transmission of official use -- official use 


only information that's needed for both the -- 


the DOL site exposure matrix projects and also 


other projects. And we also continue to work 


to assure that classified documents that are 


requested by the Advisory Board, SC&A, 


Congressional delegations, NIOSH and the public 


can be reviewed both in their classified form 


by individuals with clearances and in their 


redacted form by individuals without. 


In fact, just last week there was a review set 


up in Glenn's office of a document -- 


classified document from Los Alamos on nondestructive testing of uranium. And it was 


thought that this -- this document might 


provide insights on dose reconstruction for 

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employees of Granite City Steel. We -- we had 


a member from the Board, SC&A and also NIOSH at 


this review. And then it's my understanding 


that Senator Obama's office will be sending an 


individual this Friday to review the document. 


 We are working -- Larry mentioned the coworker 


data and the information that DOE is -- is -- 


rather NIOSH is waiting on from DOE, and we're 


working with our general counsel's office to 


make sure that the sites understand that they 


can submit this identified information and that 


they need to do so in a timely manner. I 


understand it's Los Alamos that we -- we really 


sort of need to still get you some information 


on, but I think the other sites are -- are 


doing okay. 


 Regarding the one fact sheet that I mentioned, 


the Los Alamos Medical Center, we continue to 


work with the New Mexico Congressional 


delegation, with the Los Alamos Lab, 


organizations within DOE and then the private 


hospital -- which is the Los Alamos Medical 


Center -- to plan for DOE to take possession of 


records that are currently owned by the 


hospital but were once owned by the Atomic 

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Energy Commission. We believe these records 


may be useful to LANL rec-- LANL workers who 


are filing claims under EEOICPA. 


In terms of specifics of progress, we do have a 


tentative plan in place. There are a couple of 


things we're -- the Department is working on, 


and thanks to Michele, who's in the back of the 


room, we -- we're addressing some of the 


issues. She submitted a letter on behalf of 


Congressman Udall to DOE, which is with our 


general counsel's office, regarding questions 


about scope of this review. And so we are 


working -- I hope that the general counsel's 


office will get something back to the New 


Mexico Congressional delegation within the next 


week or two. 


What we are in agreement about is that the pre­

'64 records -- pre-1964 records which were once 


owned by the Atomic Energy Commission, those 


definitely can be repossessed by DOE. We are 


also fairly certain that records that were 


created when Los Alamos has referred people to 


this medical center over the years, that we can 


obtain copies of those test results if we don't 


already have them. In some cases we did sort 

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of a mini-review of -- of worker records and 


found that in some cases we've got the complete 


file; in other cases we do not. And so we're 


going to work on trying to get copies of those, 


as well. 


But there are some other questions that -- that 


Michele and others had had which we're working 


on -- on responding to. 


Also we are worried because they're 


anticipating a Hantavirus outbreak in New 


Mexico, so we're working with a Hantavirus 


expert from University of New Mexico to make 


sure that the protocol that we have for 


decontamination is truly appropriate, given the 


fact that this outbreak is expected to -- to 


occur. 


We're working on a radiation sampling plan, and 


we are -- we're using plans that have been used 


throughout the complex in the past, and should 


have that pulled together shortly. 


 Another -- the other issue that I had mentioned 


was the Mound records issue, and that is 


records buried at Los Alamos that were -- Mound 


records buried at Los Alamos. The fact sheet 


in the back goes -- summarizes all the detail, 

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sort of the history and where we are today, and 


I'll just mention a few key things that Glenn 


wanted me to bring up today. 


And that is that both Glenn and Pat, my 


supervisor, are very concerned about this 


issue. They certainly want to ensure that 


workers do not lose the ability to obtain 


deserved compensation due to inacces-- 


inaccessibility of records to support their 


claims. Unfortunately there's no detailed 


index of the records that were buried, and so 


we -- we won't know with 100 percent certainty 


whether there are any critical records in that 


collection for which copies are not also 


accessible from Mound or other locations in the 


DOE complex. 


What we do know, however, is that there is 


already a significant amount of information 


available to NIOSH within the DOE system. And 


NIOSH has indicated that it believes it has the 


information it needs from these DOE records 


collections to complete dose reconstructions 


for the Mound employees. 


So where do we find ourselves at this point? 


Glenn is reassessing the situation. He hopes 

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to make a determination within the next month 


or so on how to proceed based on the 


information and input that we are receiving and 


that we have received to date. We've shared 


this fact sheet that I mentioned with the Board 


and, you know, we are open to continued input 


from -- that -- that any of you may have -- or 


questions, certainly. 


 The other thing we're doing is we're working to 


actively ensure that -- that this doesn't recur 


in the future, situations such as this. We've 


begun coordinating more closely with the DOE 


chief information officer, with the records 


officers and EEOICPA implementers throughout 


the complex. And these are individuals who 


regularly assess current records disposition 


authorities and modify them as needed to assure 


that -- that appropriate records are preserved. 


So we want to make sure that we're more 


actively involved in this process. 


We're also soon going to issue a memorandum 


that reminds individuals of the 1990 


epidemiologic moratorium and the fact that it's 


still in effect. The moratorium was expanded 


in 2003 to include additional categories of 

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records that were potentially useful for 


EEOICPA, and we want to just make sure that -- 


that individuals throughout the complex are 


reminded of this. 


And as we're doing currently, we will continue 


to assist DOL, NIOSH, the Advisory Board, SC&A 


by providing copies of all existing records and 


information needed to support the adjudication 


of claims and the large-scale records retrieval 


activities. 


In closing I want to reiterate DOE's commitment 


to this program and the workers served by this 


program. We certainly look forward to our 


continued work together, and I'd be happy to 


take any questions that you have on any of the 


specific items that I -- that I mentioned. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Libby. Let me ask a 


question pertaining to the Los Alamos records. 


You indicate under "next steps" a number of 


what are called anticipated roles. Is there a 


formal memorandum of understanding in place 


that delineates specifically these various 


roles; have the parties agreed to them or is 


this still sort of in the planning stages? 


MS. WHITE: Specific memorandum of 

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understanding between -- sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, there's a number of agencies 


that have anticipated roles. I'm basically 


asking have they all agreed to those roles, or 


is this still in the planning stages. For 


example, do we know that the Medical Center of 


-- Los Alamos Medical Center is not going to 


destroy any records before this gets into 


place? 


MS. WHITE: They have agreed that they won't 


destroy any of these records before this -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: They've agreed --


MS. WHITE: -- is in place. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So there's some kind of an 


agreement in writing that -- 


MS. WHITE: We do -- we do have a memorandum of 


understanding in draft between the -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


MS. WHITE: -- Medical Center and DOE. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, that's a start. 


MS. WHITE: Which -- which is a start. We 


haven't finalized it yet because there's one 


question that we still have, and that is 


whether the actual review of the records will 


be done at the Medical Center -- once the 

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decontamination takes place -- the Medical 


Center had offered that we do the review at 


part of their facility that's not currently 


being used. There's some concern that if 


there's a Hantavirus outbreak -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MS. WHITE: -- maybe we should be a little 


more cautious and do this review elsewhere, but 


we haven't come up with a location, but there 


is a draft memorandum of understanding in 


place. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


MS. WHITE: And we'll make sure that's 


finalized before we proceed. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Phillip. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) question for you. What about 


the individuals who are claimants or potential 


claimants filing for their records -- medical 


records that are probably in that trailer? Say 


I want to file for my medical records that are 


there --


 DR. WADE: Real close, Phillip, real close to ­

-


 MR. SCHOFIELD: -- (on microphone) how is DOE 

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going to handle this? 


MS. WHITE: What -- do you mean once this 


review is complete? 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: Yes, or in meantime, can a 


person get a hold put on those records so they 


cannot be destroyed because they want to use 


them for their -- potentially look at them for 


a potential claim? 


MS. WHITE: In the short term, before the 


decontamination and review takes place, I'm not 


quite sure how that would be handled because 


the records -- I -- I just don't know how -- 


how the Lab is currently handling that. I'd 


have to -- I'd have to check into that. But 


they're under the ownership of the Medical 


Center currently, so presumably the Medical 


Center would be responsible for -- I don't 


know, for trying to look for those records. 


After, though, the decontamination takes place, 


then DOE takes possession of the records. 


Again, they will go to the Denver Federal 


Records Center and we will have an index of 


every individual whose records are included in 


that center and be able to access the records 


at that time. Either -- if an individual 

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directly requests -- requests the records or 


the claim is sent -- and a request sent by 


Department of Labor to Los Alamos, and that 


request is made to -- to pull all the related 


records that exist. Does that answer your 


question? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Josie? 


MS. BEACH: Was there any determination made on 


the Mound records? Are we going to uncover 


those, unbury them, or have we decided not to 


pursue that? 


MS. WHITE: Sorry not to have been clearer 


about that. That determination has not yet 


been made. We are -- Glenn is looking at the 


information that we've received to date, and 


over the next month we'll make a determination 


as to how to proceed. 


MS. BEACH: Thank you. 


 MS. JACQUEZ-ORTIZ: Chairman Ziemer and members 


of the Board, Michele Jacquez-Ortiz with 


Congressman Tom Udall's office -- thank you, 


Mr. Elliott -- just want to touch on -- first 


of all, Libby, thank you very, very much for 


your ongoing advocacy and persistence in 


dealing with this complex and difficult issue. 

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One thing that I just wanted to add to the 


report, and this goes to the question that was 


raised, which is the other stakeholder, the 


Department of Labor. Up until now the 


Department of Labor has not taken an active 


role in this assessment, and there will be a 


need for their assistance in terms of notifying 


the claimants of their right to retrieve some 


of these records and request them from the 


Medical Center. So we will be, as a -- as a 


follow-up step, we will be formally requesting 


the Department of Labor's advocacy in that 


regard. And I just -- I feel like that's a 


really important piece here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Good point, because 


they aren't mentioned in the list of 


anticipated roles here, so that's a good added 


component. 


MS. WHITE: Thanks, Michele. We had actually 


talked late last week and she had brought that 


up, and I neglected to update this fact sheet. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Others? 


 (No responses) 


 Okay, thank you very much. 


MS. WHITE: Thank you. 

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SELECTION OF 8TH ROUND OF DR’S
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR


 DR. ZIEMER: The next item on our agenda is a 


report and recommendations from our 


subcommittee on dose reconstructions. That 


subcommittee met this morning in formal 


session. The chairman is Mark Griffon. Mark, 


we'll give you the floor for both 


recommendations and other comments. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, many of you were here this 


morning. We had a subcommittee meeting and we 


-- we brought -- we were able to pass two 


motions in the subcommittee unanimously, and we 


-- we bring them to the Board for the Board's 


full consideration. They're both before you. 


The one is regarding DR guidelines, and we 


discussed these at the past meeting. And these 


are these -- DR guidelines are instructions 


that are used as -- as sort of templates or -- 


or -- I -- I guess templates is the best word, 


to assist the dose reconstructor in how to 


approach a certain case and they're -- for most 


of the large DOE sites, they -- they are 


available, sometimes several of them, 


addressing external and internal dose, for 

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instance, for many of the sites they -- they -- 


they don't seem to be available, they don't use 


that approach. But we felt like, from a case 


review standpoint, these would be very 


beneficial for our review process to have these 


available for the cases that we're going to -- 


that SC&A is reviewing and that the Board is 


reviewing. So this -- this motion is -- is 


made to sort of address that going forward, and 


also for at least all the current outstanding 


cases that we have in the hopper. That would 


be anything from the fourth set of cases 


onward. And I -- you want to -- should we read 


the record for the motion or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think we need to read it into 


the record. I don't know if we have copies 


available for the general public yet. The 


Board has copies. 


 DR. WADE: And they're on the table. 


 DR. ZIEMER: There are copies on the table. 


simply suggest, Board members, take your pen 


out and write a date at the top of your paper 


because a year from now you're not going to 


remember --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


I 
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 DR. ZIEMER: -- when this piece of paper first 


showed up in your files, so -- but I'll ask 


Mark to read the motion into the record and 


then we'll open it for discussion. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, the -- the motion reads as 


(reading) NIOSH should make DR guides, 


parentheses, guidelines, instructions or 


similar documents, close parentheses, available 


to the Board for all future cases, parentheses, 


included as part of the analysis record, close 


parentheses. Additionally NIOSH should make 


appropriate versions of DR guides, parentheses, 


guidelines, instructions or similar documents, 


close parentheses, where possible available to 


the Board for all cases currently under review 


by the Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That is a recommendation from the 


subcommittee. It does not require a second 


since it comes as a formal recommendation from 


a committee. And it is on the floor for 


discussion and action. 


 DR. WADE: Wanda. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda Munn. 


 MS. MUNN: We do need to assure that, on the 


permanent record, "DR" is spelled out as "dose 

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reconstruction." 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank you, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So we'll take that as a friendly 


amendment, the first sentence will read "dose 


reconstruction guides." And I'd like to ask 


perhaps Stu Hinnefeld or -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: He's the... 


 DR. WADE: Here comes Stu. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- I was going to say or -- or 


someone else from NIOSH, in terms of 


implementing this, are there any -- other than 


the fact that your budget squeeze is on, any -- 


any impediments to implementing this? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, it'll -- I have to --


it'll have to -- contact our contractor to 


really -- in fact, that's what I was doing was 


sending an e-mail to the contractors to see, 


you know, what does this sound like in terms of 


implementation. You know, what's this going to 


do and is this going to be particularly 


difficult because these guides are -- you know, 


they're contractor-prepared, they're 


instructions to the contractor employees. And 


so I don't really know, sitting here today, you 


know, the difficulty. It doesn't sound as if 

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it would be particularly onerous. I mean if 


there was a particular instruction that the 


dose reconstructor is following -- I mean it 


must be out there in some format, and since we 


aren't going to be too worried about the format 


of this -- it can be a Word file or an e-mail 


message or whatever that would probably be put 


in the DR development folder. So it doesn't 


sound to me, on the face of it, to be that 


difficult, but I don't know that I can speak 


definitively along that... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay, other comments or 


questions --


 MR. GRIFFON: We --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on the --


 MR. GRIFFON: We also just -- we did consider 


that this morning, Paul, and the -- the second 


sentence we added in that phrase "where 


possible" for the cases going backwards, just ­

- just because of that because some of these 


cases we've reviewed were probably done in the 


early periods of the NIOSH program and they may 


not be able to find the correct version or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- whatever, so --

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 DR. ZIEMER: Understood. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- we understand that, as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Board members, are you 


ready to vote on this motion? It appears we're 


ready to vote. 


All in favor, say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


Those opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


 Any abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


Then the motion carries. 


 DR. WADE: For the record, unanimously. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Proceed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. The second motion that -- 


that we came up with from the subcommittee is 


regarding the blind reviews, and basically we ­

- in the original scope of work we did task 


SC&A with doing some blind reviews. We thought 


that we needed a -- a little more defined 


instruction on how to proceed on that, the 


purpose of the blind review as well as the 


mechanics of how we're going to do the blind 


reviews. And we -- we -- we've yet to select 


any cases -- today when we looked at the 8th 

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set, we did not yet select any blind review 


cases -- but we at least outlined an -- an 


approach in this motion of how to proceed. And 


I think that's -- I guess I can read this for 


the record, as well? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Please read the motion, then we'll 


discuss it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. (Reading) The purpose of 


the blind review is to determine if required 


assumptions, application of tools, 


interpretation of data and treatment of data 


yield consistent and scientifically-defensible 


results for the dose to the organ of interest. 


The Board will select cases for the blind 


review. NIOSH will provide the Board and SC&A 


case information on a CD for review. The Board 


and SC&A will not ac-- will not access the 


NOCTS database or any other claimant databases 


for such review. 


The blind review will be conducted using 


available tools developed by NIOSH/ORAU but 


without any case-specific analytical files. 


These blind reviews will be focused on best 


estimate cases, to the extent possible. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Again, this motion comes from the 

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committee and does not require a second. It is 


open for discussion. I'd like to ask a 


question. Mark, where -- it says the Board and 


SC&A will not have access to the claimant 


database. They will have information -- well, 


what -- what information will they have in 


terms of -- they certainly have to know the 


time since exposure, there's -- there's certain 


pieces they --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, they'll be provided certain 


claimant files, but they won't be -- usually in 


a DR file that's on the NOCTS or -- or the R 


drive on the da-- on the server, they have the 


-- all the DR development tools, including the 


IREP input files which would give all the 


specific doses by year, IMBA runs that they've 


done, all those analytical tools. They'll also 


have the -- the workbooks that they use to 


calculate various types of doses and for this 


analysis I think we'd say that on a CD, SC&A 


would get that workbook, but it would be a 


blank workbook. It wouldn't have anything in 


it. So then it's up to them to -- you know, 


how to use the workbook. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. It would have the basic -- 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- information on the claim, what 


the nature of the claim --


 MR. GRIFFON: So they're getting the raw data 


and the tools, but none of the -- none of the ­

- the -- how to fit the raw data into the tools 


or how -- what assumptions to make in fitting 


those things together. That's basically my 


understanding. 


Stu or John, if you want to clarify that, I 


don't know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Stu. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: What I envisioned would be that 


whatever was in the claimant file at the time 


the dose reconstruction was prepared -- you 


know, before the actual dose reconstruction is 


done --


 DR. ZIEMER: Whatever a constructor would start 


with. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, whatever the dose 


reconstructor would have had available when 


they did the dose reconstruction would be 


copied onto the CD, so that would include any 


response from DOL, any correspondence from DO-- 


let's see, well, response from DOE, any kind of 

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referral information or -- or amended 


information from DOL, any correspondence -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: With the claimant, correspondence 


-- yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, including -- I mean we 


can put everything in there just by date, you 


know, up until the date. The claimant 


interview of course would be in there. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: So -- just whatever the -- 


whatever would be available to the dose 


reconstructor when he did it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And I think, in fact, what we'll 


have to do is -- is try a number of these and 


determine whether or not we think we're really 


doing a blind reconstruction, and we'll know 


that fairly fast, but -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- this sounds like the right 


approach. 


SC&A, did you have any input on this at that 


point? You understand what we're talking about 


here, too? 


DR. MAURO: Yes, I do, I -- I'll just have one 


observation and I'll certainly ask Kathy 

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Behling if she has any other comment, too, 


since she's very close to this, but when you 


say that the tools will be provided, typically 


when a dose reconstruction is done by NIOSH and 


a -- and a workbook is used or a -- normally 


that workbook is available for that particular 


case. What I'm hearing is -- and it's usually 


populated --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I'm saying not populated 


(unintelligible). 


DR. MAURO: And so -- so what we would have is 


a workbook that would -- that was -- so the 


only information that goes above and beyond 


what I would say DOE would provide would be 


information that yes, in fact NIOSH did use a 


workbook in this particular case and this is 


the workbook that was used, but it would not be 


populated. 


 MS. MUNN: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


DR. MAURO: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's my understanding, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I would even ask 


whether you want to tell them that or have -- I 


mean where does the dose reconstructor start? 

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Who -- who decides what workbook to use to 


start with? May-- maybe you want to -- maybe 


you want the --


 MR. HINNEFELD: It might be more blind if we -- 


if the library of available tools was made -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Here's the --


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- available to SC&A. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- tools; you -- you decide what ­

- I mean that -- isn't that what happens for 


the --


 MR. HINNEFELD: That's what happens with the 


dose reconstructor. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, somebody doesn't hand him 


the workbook and say this is the one to use. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so can we do it with that 


understanding? It seems to me he's got to 


start from the same place -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think -- I think so, as long as 


the -- the library of tools is -- is readily 


available -- findable, I should say. I'm not 


sure those are always -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, we don't -- we don't 


want them to spend their whole time trying to 

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figure out where the tools are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You know, here's where the first 


clue is, and --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I think that maybe when I get a 


better idea of what exactly the library looks 


like and where it is, we can develop a place, 


make sure it's well understood what -- the 


tools are available and where they are. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And I -- and I agree, Paul, that 


I think we need to do a couple of these, the 


first round, and just see if we really are 


getting what we think we're getting -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- you know --


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so we'll -- we'll take that 


as sort of the sense of the motion as we 


proceed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments or questions? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, I think we're ready to vote then. All 

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who are in favor of this motion, say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 And those opposed, say no? 


 (No responses) 


 And any abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, ayes above the noes, as they say. 


 DR. WADE: Unanimously. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think the -- the next items, I 


-- in the subcommittee I -- I did give an 


update on the status of our reviews. And just 


for everyone's purposes, we -- we had a 


subcommittee meeting in Cincinnati in between 


the last meetings and we did make progress on 


the fourth set of reviews and the fifth set of 


cases, which would be up through 100 cases. 


And we haven't closed them out completely so 


we're still in the resolution phase for both of 


those matrices, but we have -- the fourth set, 


we have some very -- we -- we have some cases 


where NIOSH has agreed to -- to come back to 


the subcommittee with some detailed written 


responses. These are questions that couldn't 


sort of -- couldn't be quickly answered in a 

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matrix spot on -- on the matrix and we need a 


little more detailed backup analysis to support 


their argument in the matrix. So we're hashing 


through those. 


And in the fifth set, at the last meeting we 


took our first run-through of the matrix and we 


had some first discussions after NIOSH's 


response. We had SC&A's findings and NIOSH's 


response, and then we took a first crack at a 


resolution. I've -- I've edited that matrix 


and -- in draft form, certainly. It still has 


some question marks from my own notes, but I 


will circulate that, but those two items are 


still outstanding and the -- and I imagine 


we'll just proceed in the subcommittee. We're 


working through those matrices. I hope to 


close both those, the fourth and fifth set, out 


by the next subcommittee meeting, which I -- I 


plan to schedule in between the next -- this 


meeting and the next Board meeting, so I think 


that works well for going through the details 


is to have the subcommittee meeting in 


Cincinnati to work through that matrix level 


sort of information, so I think we'll plan to 


do that again. 

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83

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask a question also at this 


point. On set seven, during our last phone 


meeting, we were trying to get the teams 


identified for that. I want to make sure all 


the Board members now have got the team 


assignments which Lew and I actually did with 


Kathy's help after the meeting since we had 


some issues on how the cases were numbered. Is 


there anyone that did not get the final set of 


assignments? Apparently --


 MR. GRIFFON: Stu didn't. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't think I got them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're -- we're trying to 


keep this from you, Stu. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: It would make my life simpler. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Last -- last (unintelligible). 


 MR. HINNEFELD: It would make my life simpler, 


but to burn the CDs to get the case files to 


those -- to the Board members -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, I -- I will hand you some 


of the copies here today yet. Yeah, thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, proceed. 


 MR. GRIFFON: And then I guess that brings us 


to the eighth set, and this morning in the 

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subcommittee NIOSH, Stu's group, generated two 


lists again, similar to what we did last time. 


We have a -- and I assume everybody has copies 


of these. 


 DR. WADE: Yes. 


 MR. GRIFFON: One of the spreadsheets says full 


internal and external, and the other one is 


titled "Random Selections," and we took a first 


crack at the subcommittee level of going 


through and selecting cases. I think we came 


up with 43, is that --


 DR. WADE: Forty-three. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- 43 cases. Our goal is -- now 


this is the -- we -- we're proposing this two-


tiered approach again where we have 43 cases 


here. If we agree on these at the Board level, 


then we'll ask NIOSH to go back and give us 


that more detailed information, which included 


like information on the DR approach. If you 


recall, we asked the -- that -- that more 


detailed information. After we get that back, 


my -- my goal would be -- assuming we have 


another Advisory Board phone scheduled, then we 


can make a final determination on that phone 


call meeting with the full Board selecting the 

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final. And our goal is to get 32 cases out of 


these 43 for the full eighth set. 


 DR. WADE: The phone call is scheduled for June 


12th. 


 MR. GRIFFON: June 12th, so in -- from now till 


before June 12th, NIOSH will be able to give us 


a more detailed matrix with the other 


information, and then we can select our 32 from 


these 43, assuming that these are accepted by 


the full Board. So I would say if we can 


indicate which ones we pre-selected, everyone 


on the Board might want tonight to look them 


over like we did last -- at last meeting and 


then we can maybe vote on them tomorrow or 


whatever, you know. 


 DR. WADE: Uh-huh. 


 MR. GRIFFON: You want -- Lew, do you have the 


numbers? 


 DR. ZIEMER: That would be good. Do you want 


to go through and give us the -- the -- 


 DR. WADE: I'm going to start with the full 


internal and external, and I'm going to only 


read you the last three numbers in the 


selection ID. That's to save you time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: These are all in reverse order. 

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 DR. WADE: Yeah, they're --


 MR. GRIFFON: They're -- they're not in 


numerical order, so it takes -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- it's a little harder to follow 


when they're not --


 DR. WADE: They're in some reverse order, 


sometimes they get a little bit out of order 


but that's part of life. 


So on page one --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. WADE: -- of full internal and external -- 


 MS. MUNN: Dr. Wade, before you continue, for 


the rest of the Board that was not privy to our 


conversation this morning, it might be helpful 


for them to understand what our rationale was 


as we were going through these. We -- would 


you like to give that -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: You can go ahead, Wanda. You're 


right. I'm sorry. 


 MS. MUNN: Because of the statistical 


information that we had received from our 


contractor just last week -- 


 DR. WADE: And that's all in front of you -- 


hard copy in front of you at your workplace. 

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 MS. MUNN: Yes -- they had made it very clear 


to us that we were off of our goal a little bit 


on some of the initial percentages that we set 


out to achieve. Whether those are going to 


hold to be accurate and what we want to 


continue to do in the long run is questionable, 


but for the time being, because there were 


shortages in some of these arenas, very 


particularly we -- there was a shortage in our 


review of POCs between 45 percent and 50 


percent. We hadn't done quite enough of those. 


Nor was there an adequate number for work 


periods that began in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. 


So as we were going through these, we were 


looking primarily at those two items rather 


than at sites or at type of cancer, which we've 


reviewed in the past. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Thank -- thank you, Wanda. I 


forgot to... 


 DR. WADE: And also along the -- on the altar 


of stage-setting, we have 60 reviews a year. 


This year we decided to do them in two bites, 


so we did 28, now we're looking at 32. The 


blind reviews are over and above those 60, and 

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Mark will talk more about those later. 


So now I'm going to try and read you 43, from 


which 32 need to be drawn. And again, starting 


with full internal and external, on page one, 


starting at the top, 295. Next, 289 -- if you 


get bingo, just yell it out -- 260 -- 


 MS. MUNN: What's the page? 

 DR. WADE: -- 257, 254, 249, 240, 239 -- 

 MS. MUNN: Next page. 

 DR. WADE: -- 236, 227, 226, 224. 

 MS. MUNN: Next page. 

 DR. WADE: On to the next page, 210, 209, 195, 

187. On to page 5, 172. On the bottom of the 


page there are three, 157, 156, 155. On page 6 


just one, 153. On page 7, 120, 101. On page 8 


just one, 083. On page 9 just one, 045. None 


on page 10. 


We'll then move on to the matrix headed "Random 


Selections," on page 1, 690, 684, 678. On to 


page 2, 666, 661, 649, 644. On to page 3, 632, 


627, 623 and 613. On to page 4 there's just 


one, 588. On to page 5 there's just one -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: 588 is -- oh, no, that's one of 


those. Okay. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, some -- sometimes they're out 

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of order. On page 5 there's just one, 562. On 


page 6, 551, 545, 528 and 525. And the last, 


hopefully, of the 43, on the last page is 514. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, therefore from this group 


then, this is 43 total. Correct? 


 DR. WADE: I believe. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we -- we'll need to select 32 


and the suggestion Mark has made is to do this 


during our working session later in the week, 


after you've had a chance to look at these in 


more detail. 


 DR. WADE: Mark --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we want -- we want to know 


if these 43 are acceptable to then give to 


NIOSH to get more information. Then we'll --


 DR. ZIEMER: And then you would -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Then we'll go --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- select the 32. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- to the next step, right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So basically we'll be 


looking for perhaps two things. One is 


anything that you don't -- any of these that 


you don't think should be on the list, and do ­

- you want others that someone may wish to make 

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a case for adding to the list. So this --


this'll come as a recommendation for feeding 


back to NIOSH for that additional information. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And we can take action on that 


then later. Any questions or comments? 


 DR. WADE: And the expectation is that once 


NIOSH brings that information back, then on the 


Board call on the 6th of -- the 12th of June, 


we'll finalize those 32 and then SC&A will have 


their 60 for the year. And then, Mark, you'll 


be requesting information -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah --


 DR. WADE: -- on blind reviews. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we were going to -- Stu 


actually recommended this so I want to make 


sure I get it right, but the notion would be 


then after we select those cases out of this -- 


these available best estimate cases, they could 


give us another matrix of best estimate cases, 


but this time give us ranges of POCs so we 


don't have an exact POC number output, and then 


we can use those to select the blind cases, I 


think -- is that -- that's sort of the sense, 


Stu? 

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 MR. HINNEFELD: We can do it however -- however 


you want. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: But what I -- what I thought 


I'd suggested was we could -- since you're 


interested in cases that are essentially close 


to the cut point, is to generate the list of 


all the 40 to 50 percent cases that have not 


already been selected from the full internal 


and external list, and then remove the POC from 


the table --


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and then make that entire 


table available for the blind selection. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine, too. Yeah, either 


ranges or just -- just all the 40 to 50, that 


would just --


 MR. HINNEFELD: I could -- I could put --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- make it even simpler, you 


know. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah, we could put in there 


just what decile -- you know, like ten to 20 or 


20 or 30 --


 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I was thinking. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- we can do that, as well. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: For the blind reviews? 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm going to -- I'm going to 


raise a question as to whether you even want -- 


that's a clue. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well -- well --


 MR. HINNEFELD: That does --


 DR. ZIEMER: That's a peek through the 


blindfold. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: If it's full blind review, the you 


don't want --


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you don't want the contrac-- 


 MR. GRIFFON: We got around to how do we select 


cases then, that's the question, but -- go 


ahead, Larry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You know, I -- I guess I would 


argue as a starter, you might want to do it 


completely at random and then -- I don't know, 


but as soon as you put a constraint like okay, 


here's -- here's the ten to -- what will 


happen, the contractor knows that in advance 


and if they don't get that answer, guess what 

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happens -- well, maybe not. 


 DR. WADE: Maybe if they do get that answer, 


that's (unintelligible). 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well --


 MR. ELLIOTT: I suggest -- I suggest that you 


take it beyond 50 percent. Don't stop at 50 


percent, because we're talking about best 


estimates --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and if you go to 52 or 53 or 


55 POC, let's say you take ten -- a ten-point 


spread, 45 to 55, when we put everything on the 


plate for you there, that gives you a broader 


spread, but we can do it however you want. But 


I wouldn't stop at just 50 because if you're 


looking at how -- how well we've done our job ­

-


 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- why not look at the 51s as 

well. 

 DR. WADE: Or all best estimates. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Or all best estimates. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that's what I was getting 


down to was all best estimates, and maybe just 

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leave the POC out of it completely. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: That's okay with us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, even knowing all best 


estimates gives another clue. I -- here --


here's another idea -- to think about; we don't 


have to decide this today -- but suppose we say 


okay, Stu, give us like -- what -- what number 


are we talking about, total number? 


 DR. WADE: Six. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Six. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Si--


 MR. GRIFFON: Maybe for the first go-round, 


probably two or three, I think. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: That they would actually 


review, but what about selection pool? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to use the number ten. 


Give us -- give us seven best estimates and 


three that are something else, but don't tell 


us which are which --


 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- and so the contractor has -- 


they may know that most of them are best 


estimates, but wouldn't know which ones they 


were, so that --


 MR. GRIFFON: Then you're --

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 DR. ZIEMER: -- they've got to --


 MR. GRIFFON: -- then you've got NIOSH picking 


the cases? 


 DR. WADE: Or randomly selecting, I guess. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Or randomly selecting, based on 


those fields, best estimate or --


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, you can instruct Stu on -- 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- on something -- I'm just trying 


to figure out a way --


 MR. GRIFFON: I know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to make it a truly blind thing. 


If it's truly blind, we don't even know what 


the -- what the range is. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, wouldn't know what the 


range was. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But we could instruct -- give us a 


certain percent of these and a certain percent 


of those, but mix it together. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know. Think about it. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I don't even know how easy 


that is for NIOSH to select, 'cause as we've 


seen, sometimes when it says best estimate on ­

- in that one field, it can mean different 

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things, you know --


 MR. HINNEFELD: It can, it can mean dose model 


and it can mean other --


 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- things as well, so... 


 MR. GRIFFON: And we -- we also wanted to get ­

- it is difficult, yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, if we make it -- if we 


make it truly blind, then the reviewing -- SC&A 


would have -- you know, this is what the dose 


reconstructor faced when they did, you know, 


the dose reconstruction -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- not knowing what decision 


they made, not knowing if they decided to do an 


overestimating approach for efficiency. I 


don't know if you want them to -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: It would --


 MR. HINNEFELD: -- have that in their 


repertoire. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- it would just seem to me you 


would want them to go through the whole 


process, to decide which it is, to -- you know, 


what -- what do I do with -- think about that. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, whatever (unintelligible) 

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 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- I don't think we have 


to select the cases today, but that -- it -- it 


-- it -- yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: No, we don't, I just want to -- 


you know, if it's blind but you're peeking 


around the corner, then that's not quite blind. 


Okay. 


 DR. WADE: If we look forward then, we have a 


call on the 12th --


 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: -- and then we have a face-to-face 


Board meeting in July. I mean this issue could 


be discussed again on the 12th and moving 


toward selection of the blind cases at the July 


meeting. Is that acceptable? 


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


 DR. WADE: Is that acceptable, John? 


DR. MAURO: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. GRIFFON: We wanted to push the ball 


forward. I know there's some -- some things to 


work out, but we'll get there. 


 DR. WADE: It's a good discussion. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

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 DR. WADE: It's a discussion that needs to be 


had. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 


 MS. MUNN: Do a Monte Carlo selection. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other -- anything else 


from the subcommittee, Mark? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that's it. Other 


subcommittee members have anything else to add? 


 MS. MUNN: No. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I think that covers it. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're going to go ahead and take 


our break here in a minute. Do we have any 


other housekeeping items we need to -- 


 DR. WADE: I don't --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- address? 


 DR. WADE: -- think so. I mean I think it 


might take a little bit longer for the 


workgroup reports so I'm glad we have some 


time, and we do have Senator Obama at 4:05, so 


I think (unintelligible) -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Let's come back promptly at 3:45 


so we can get underway and be -- be into our 


work at least before the phone call. 


 MR. PRESLEY: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we're scheduled to resume at 

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3:45. 


 DR. WADE: Be ready to work at 3:45, in your 


chairs ready to work. 


 MR. GRIFFON: All right. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:15 p.m. 


to 3:45 p.m.) 


 DR. WADE: Back in session. 


WORKING GROUP UPDATES
 

WORKING GROUP CHAIRS


 DR. ZIEMER: Our -- our session this afternoon 


is going to involve some updates from our 


various working groups. Some of the working 


groups are going to be involved in reports 


relating to SEC petitions later in the meeting, 


so those will come up as they occur on the 


agenda later. For example, the Rocky Flats 


working group and others. So we'll confine 


this to the working groups that aren't part of 


those other action items later. Lew, do you 

have the list there of --

 DR. WADE: I do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- working groups? And may--

maybe we could start with Dr. Lockey's group, 


even though it's not necessarily first on your 


list, but he has a definite report for us. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. This is the workgroup to 

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review SEC petitions that did not qualify, 


chaired by Dr. Lockey, members Roessler, 


Melius, Clawson and Munn. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Thanks. Our working group met on 


November 9th and again on March 28th. The last 


meeting was in Cincinnati and we have 


summarized our findings and our 


recommendations. It was sent out to the 


working group as a final summary a number of 


times. We refinalized it again last week and 


it was sent out and accepted by the working 


group. 


 Generally what we found in relationship to this 


was that NIOSH seemed to be -- was doing a good 


job in relationship to this particular subject. 


Our recommendations were -- a number of 


recommendations were to make it more user-


friendly. Other words, make it more accessible 


to the population that we're trying to serve, 


make the language more user-friendly, et 


cetera. 


What I can do, if you'd like, is review each of 


these points in detail, or summarize each of 


the points if you'd like. Chair, I'll leave 


that up to you. 

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101

 DR. ZIEMER: Before you do that, let me make 


sure -- Board members, do you all have a copy 


of the -- hard copy of Dr. Lockey's report? 


And this is on the table in the back for 


members of the public. There's a number of 


specific recommendations. I think most of the 


Board members had an earlier version of this -- 


 DR. WADE: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- also, so I -- I ask you, Board 


members, do you want Dr. Lockey to go over 


these specifically in detail? Basically this 


comes as a recommendation from a workgroup. It 


constitutes a motion before us -- 


 DR. WADE: That's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- for approval and so I'm going 


to interpret it as that. And then if you wish 


to either hear all the individual 


recommendations, or to ask questions about 


specific points, we can do it that way. I'm 


inclined -- I'm inclined to not have you 


reiterate every point since the Board members 


have had this in advance and have had 


opportunity to look at it, but we -- we can 


certainly do that if -- if the assembly so 


wishes. We'll make sure everybody's got a 

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copy. 


I believe we had an earlier version of this -- 


perhaps at our last meeting. 


 DR. LOCKEY: Does an-- does any member of the 


Board have any questions about our points and 


recommendations? In our last meeting we had 


the ombudsman participate, Laurie as well as -- 


 DR. WADE: Denise. 


 DR. LOCKEY: -- Ms. Brock, and that was very 


helpful in finalizing this and adding some 


additional points to our recommendations. We 


found particularly that Laurie and Denise 


concurred with our recommendations, and through 


their input we added a few additional ones at 


our last meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I'm looking around to see 


if -- if the sort of lack of comments means 


everybody is satisfied with the report or 


they're so stunned with your recommendations 


they're unable to react. 


 DR. WADE: No, it's the former. It's the 


former. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Many of the -- many of these 


points are simply statements. For example, 


phone consultation by NIOSH personnel, 

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consultations were comprehensive, informative 


and well-documented and so on. They are not 


requiring action, they are simply observations. 


Others are recommending certain things to make 


the process more user-friendly. 


It's my impression that many of these have 


already been incorporated into the -- the 


process by NIOSH. Is that correct? 


 DR. LOCKEY: That's my impression, too. Larry 


is --


 DR. WADE: Maybe LaVon can come up. LaVon, can 


you join us? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Is there -- are there any 


recommendations here, LaVon, that are so 


difficult that you just aren't going to be able 


to do them? 


 MR. RUTHERFORD: Make sure this is on -- no, 


none of them. In fact, we -- we were very much 


in agreement with the working group 


recommendations, and we are implementing those 


now. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. If -- if there are no 


other comments, then the Chair is inclined to 


ask the Board to endorse the working group's 


recommendations here by an affirmative vote. 

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All in favor of this report, please say aye? 


 (Affirmative responses) 


 Are there any opposed, no? 


 (No responses) 


 Any abstentions? 


 (No responses) 


Then the Board endorses this report. We thank 


the working group. In -- in essence, this 


completes the work of that working group. We 


hate to see working groups fade away, but -- 


 MS. MUNN: No, we don't. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Dr. Lockey, I declare that the 


work of your working group is done and you need 


not meet further, at least under this guise. 


 DR. LOCKEY: We appreciate that. Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Hear, hear. 


 MS. MUNN: As agreed, hear, hear. Yes. We are 


officially disbanded. Good night. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's proceed down the list. 


Lew, could you just --


 DR. WADE: All right, I will --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- go through the roster there? 


 DR. WADE: -- skip the subcommittee on dose 


reconstruction as we've heard their report 


earlier. Next is the workgroup on the Nevada 

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Test Site site profile chaired by Presley; 


Munn, Clawson and Roessler. 


 MR. PRESLEY: We have met twice, once in person 


and then as a -- on a conference call, since 


the last Board meeting. What we are in the 


process of doing -- we're going to group some 


of the 25 issues into subgroups. I guess two 


of the big things that has gone on -- SC&A has 


agreed with NIOSH's presentation on the 


resuspension model -- with a few modifications, 


and I don't think there's anything on there 


that we can't live with -- so that will be 


done. 


 The other ongoing problem that we had was with 


monitoring -- people not wearing their badges. 


And as I understand it, this is going to be a 


site-wide problem or a complex-wide problem and 


that each case is going to be dealt with 


individual, as a case-by-case-based issue. 


And the last thing that we have ongoing is 


interviews. We have had a -- five to eight 


interviews done sometime back from -- NIOSH 


interviewed some people and we're having a 


problem kind of getting those passed on to SC&A 


and then back to us and giving SC&A time to 

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comment those interviews, so we're waiting on 


those interviews -- comments from SC&A, and 


then we will be ready to hopefully come with 


some type of a recommendation to the Board. 


Any of the Board members or working group 


members have any comments on this? 


 MS. MUNN: I have one question, whether we have 


a feel for when our next meeting can occur once 


we've cleared the air on these latest 


interviews? 


 MR. PRESLEY: If we can find Arjun and find out 


where he stands on the -- on that, then we can 


come up with a date for an interview (sic). 


We'll try to do that this -- this -- in the 


next two days. 


 MS. MUNN: He's in the building. Maybe we can 


put that in our -- our -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: Some -- we can -- we can find out 


when we get that done. 


 MS. MUNN: -- housekeeping issues on Friday. 


 MR. PRESLEY: And then we can come up with our 


next meeting. Anybody have any questions? 


Mark. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Just one on that -- the second 


item, I think you mentioned the -- 

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 MR. PRESLEY: Badging. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- policy of badging, yeah, and ­

- and I think -- I think you're right, there is 


a site-wide approach being developed. You 


mentioned that it was going to be handled case-


by-case basis, though? I'm not -- not sure I 


understand what that means or -- 


 MR. PRESLEY: Jim. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- Jim can follow--


DR. NETON: I think -- testing. I think we --


we are addressing this as a complex-wide or, as 


you'll see on Friday, we're calling them global 


issues now. But you know, we're still in the 


process of doing that. It would be applied on 


a site-by-site basis once the -- once the 


technical position has been fleshed out. 


 MR. GRIFFON: A site-by-site? 


DR. NETON: Yeah, site-by-site, not case-bycase. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, not a case-by-ca-- okay. 


 MR. PRESLEY: I'm sorry. 


 MR. GRIFFON: That clarifies, thank you. I'm 


sorry. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 DR. WADE: Go ahead. 

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 MR. PRESLEY: That's all I have, Lew. 


 DR. WADE: Oh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Next. 


 DR. WADE: Workgroup on the Savannah River Site 


site profile chaired by Mike Gibson; members 


Clawson, Griffon, Lockey. 


 MR. GIBSON: We haven't had any other meetings 


yet. We were still waiting around for the 


notes that were taken during the classified 


records review to be finished, looking -- 


Savannah River Site, the classifier to look 


over them and get them back to the -- the 


authors of those notes. I understand that -- I 


believe they've been sent back to NIOSH rather 


than to the different subcommittee members or 


working group members, and so we're looking 


into that. And once we can get the notes back 


together we plan on getting together and trying 


to update the matrix and we should have a 


little bit more for the Board at the next 


meeting. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Questions for this 


workgroup? 


 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I can actually just -- just 


to add on, what -- we did go down to Savannah 

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River for -- to review, which -- a database 


which I guess could have been or is considered 


classified right now, and I -- and I haven't 


gotten these notes back to Mike yet, but we did 


have a series of actions in addition to -- we ­

- we took some notes which had to be reviewed, 


certainly, and Mike's correct on that. But we 


did have a series of actions to sort of move 


along on -- on clarifying -- it -- it was 


apparent that the database we were looking at 


was not the database we thought we were going 


down there to see, so we have documentation 


that doesn't seem to be consistent with the 


actual physical database that we were looking 


at, so we're trying to sort out, you know, 


exactly what databases -- sort of the universe 


of databases that exist and make sure we can 


find the -- the -- the one of most interest, so 


it wasn't quite -- it -- you know, it wasn't a 


complete successful trip, but I -- you know, 


we're -- we're -- we've got a path forward for 


sorting out that concern over the database and 


I'll -- I'll get those notes to you, Mike. I'm 


a little tardy on that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I -- I'd like to ask either 

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Mike or Mark, is this going to be an ongoing 


problem with the Savannah River Site? Are 


there going to be other sets of data that are 


going to require this kind of classified 


review? The classified review process seems to 


take long, simply logistically, and then the 


issue of figuring out what can be shared with 


the workgroup and so on. What -- what do you 


see down the road? Is this going to be a 


continuing issue there or is this a one-time 


thing? 


 MR. GIBSON: I'd -- I'd probably defer to some 


of the members that have the clearance that 


have seen the database. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. I -- I mean I think we 


might need another trip down there, but my -- 


my sense, and I think -- I don't know if -- Sam 


Glover's not here from NIOSH, I don't think, 


but you know, my sense is it was sort of a -- 


it -- the database we were looking at was -- 


was termed classified for precautionary 


purposes and -- but I really think that we did 


do some queries to sort of ascertain what we 


were interested in and -- and narrow down the 


request, and then I think that requested 

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information can be declassified fairly easily. 


I -- I actually don't think most of the stuff 


we're interested in even is classified, but -- 


so that was -- that was our goal was while we 


were down there to try to do some searches on 


this database, even though it wasn't the one we 


were looking for, see if there was anything 


there of interest and try to keep the search 


narrow enough so that anything we wanted to 


request we could have redacted fairly easily 


and -- and simply and not be a massive volume 


of -- of -- of -- you know, of records. So I ­

- the answer is I think maybe a limited amount 


of additional classified review, maybe one more 


trip down there to -- to do a final figure-out 


on which databases we're looking at, and then I 


think we'll have what we need and it'll be 


declassified. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Pick up one more. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, now we're going to skip to -- 


we have the workgroup on Rocky Flats site 


profile and SEC petition. We'll be hearing 


from that workgroup tomorrow. Then the 


workgroup on Chapman Valve SEC chaired by Dr. 


Poston, we'll hear from that workgroup 

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tomorrow, but Gen Roessler will be presenting 


as Dr. Poston's not with us. 


Then we have the workgroup on SEC issues, 


including the 250-day issue and a preliminary 


review of 83.14 SEC petitions. That's chaired 


by Melius; members Ziemer, Roessler, Griffon. 


Melius is not with us now. We can either wait 


his report until he's with us or, if you would 


like to, Dr. Ziemer... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the workgroup has not met 


since our last meeting, so I have -- I have 


nothing to report. Dr. Melius may have some 


additional comments, and we might want to hear 


from him tomorrow as well. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Similarly, the workgroup on 


the Hanford site profile chaired by Melius; 


members Clawson, Ziemer, Poston, I assume we'll 


hear from Dr. Melius either tomorrow or during 


the Board working time. And also Schofield is 


a member of that, I'm sorry. 


Then we have the workgroup on conflict of 


interest policy for the Board chaired by Dr. 


Lockey, who's looking for work now, along with 


Melius, Ziemer and Presley. Dr. Lockey, what 


are you going to do for us now? 

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 DR. LOCKEY: I appreciate that. We have a 


meeting scheduled I think -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Next week. 


 DR. LOCKEY: -- next week. I was going to look 


at the date and I didn't have it with me. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It's --


 DR. LOCKEY: We have a meeting scheduled -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- May 11th. 


 DR. LOCKEY: -- May 11th. That's our first 


meeting, and all the information has been 


already sent out in a working folder for the 


working group members to review prior to the 


meeting. 


 DR. WADE: We have three minutes before our 


speaker joins us. I -- I'd like to raise a 


question that will come up later, and possibly 


now is the time to put it on the list of this 


workgroup. The Board has its operating 


procedures for how to deal with members who 


have conflicts, and we -- we all know what they 


are. The Board has not dealt with the issue as 


to whether or not a conflicted member can be on 


a workgroup that relates to that site. We have 


one case where we have a conflicted member on a 


workgroup. The Board has no policy on that. 

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Since workgroups don't make motions, they don't 


vote, there's no need for exclusion. But I 


think that might be something to have this 


workgroup look at. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 


 DR. LOCKEY: No, I would agree with that. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So I think it would be wise 


to --


 DR. ZIEMER: Add that to the agenda. 


 DR. WADE: -- to put that issue on your -- on 


your list. 


Next we have the workgroup on procedures review 


chaired by Ms. Munn; members Gibson, Griffon, 


Ziemer, Presley as an alternate. 


 MS. MUNN: The procedures review group has not 


yet met. We have been postponing our first 


meeting until some of our larger projects that 


the working groups were involved in were -- 


would be at a point where they wouldn't be 


taking quite so much time. It's my expectation 


to pull that group together for the first time 


if not this month, then certainly early in 


June. So we have -- have before us a list of 


material which the contractor has already 


completed review for, and we'll have plenty of 

115 

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meat for our plate at that time. So we will be 


perhaps looking at a good date on Friday when 


we do our housekeeping issues. 


 DR. WADE: You might want to ask if the 


Senator's with us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: My watch shows that we are at five 


after 4:00. I wonder if Senator Obama's office 


is on the line yet. 


 (No responses) 


 Apparently not. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 


ADDRESS FROM SENATOR OBAMA
 

SENATOR OBAMA


 DR. ZIEMER: Hello? 


(NOTE: This telephone connection was somewhat 


muffled and, although great effort was made by 


the reporter to capture every word, accuracy 


required some portions to be deemed 


unintelligible rather than guess at the 


Senator's words.) 


SENATOR OBAMA: Hi, this is Senator Barack 


Obama. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, thank you for being with us. 


We appreciate your taking the time to comment 


again to the Board, so the floor is yours, 


Senator. Thank you very much. 

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SENATOR OBAMA: Well, thank you so much. First 


of all, we thank you for the opportunity to 


speak to you today. I also enjoyed meeting 


with the Board last September in Naperville. 


At that meeting you may recall that I expressed 


my support for the Dow Chemical workers in 


Madison, Illinois, many of whom I've met with 


personally. My office, together with 


Congressman Shimkus and other members of the 


Illinois delegation and Southern Illinois 


Nuclear Workers group, has invested hundreds of 


hours investigating what went on at the Dow 


plant. I know NIOSH has, as well, and I think 


we can all agree it was a dirty, dangerous 


place to work. This is why I want to commend 


NIOSH for recommending to the Board that we 


felt the workers should be compensated, and I 


urge the Board to approve the Dow SEC petition 


before you without delay. The workers have 


waited long enough. The evidence is clearly 


(unintelligible). Now we need to do the right 


thing and give these workers the small measure 


of justice our country owes them for their 


service. 


These men and women responded to the call to 

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duty during the Cold War. They sacrificed 


their health to defend us, and they've spent 


decades without recognition of their sacrifice, 


decades without compensation to help pay for 


their treatment. All of you have the 


opportunity to (unintelligible) ease the burden 


on these workers and families and acknowledge 


the (unintelligible) and dangerous work 


(unintelligible). 


 (Unintelligible) urge the Board to look closely 


at extending coverage -- extend the coverage 


period from 1957 through 1960 to 1957 through 


1998. This extension will allow for the 


coverage of at least 23 more workers who were 


exposed to residual contamination that were not 


(unintelligible) covered under the Dow SEC 


petition you will vote on tomorrow. I hope you 


will consider (unintelligible). 


My staff will provide a more detailed 


explanation tomorrow for the extended coverage 


period. Also I understand that the Department 


of Energy has not produced one single document 


which establishes why the covered facility 


description is drawn the way it is. It would 


be unfortunate if you failed to compensate 

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these additional workers simply because you've 


heard only (unintelligible) assertions and not 


the testimony of these workers, the very people 


who know more about -- more than anyone else 


about what actually happened at Dow Chemical -- 


Dow Madison. And that troubles me, and I will 


simply urge the Board to (unintelligible) 


compensation program in the first place. 


In closing let me briefly touch on an issue 


that I also addressed last December in 


Naperville. That is the issue of timeliness of 


this (unintelligible). I appreciate your 


willingness to put this (unintelligible) on 


your agenda for this week, but I also hope that 


you consider implementing changes that will 


provide closure to (unintelligible) workers and 


their families as quickly as possible. I think 


that we as a nation owe them (unintelligible). 


With that, thank you very much for taking the 


time to listen to me, and I wish you well in 


your continued work. Bye-bye. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Senator. 


Again, we're -- we're pleased that you took 


time to address the Board today and we will be, 


as you know, working on this issue tomorrow and 

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we'll be in close touch with your staff as well 


in that process. 


SENATOR OBAMA: Thank you so much. Okay, talk 


to you soon. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Now we'll return to 


our -- oh --


 DR. WADE: Robert, did you want to say -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Robert, additional comments? 


 DR. WADE: It's not necessary. 


 MR. STEPHAN: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we'll catch you tomorrow. 


 MR. STEPHAN: Thank you. 


WORKING GROUP UPDATES


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. We'll return now to 


our agenda item, which is the workgroup reports 


and updates. Let's continue. 


 DR. WADE: Workgroup on the Blockson Chemical 


SEC, chair Munn; members Roessler, Melius, 


Gibson. 


 MS. MUNN: The Board will recall that the site 


profile was withdrawn for revision, and at that 


time we had anticipated that revision would be 


forthcoming fairly promptly. To this date it 


has not been. The working group cannot 


continue until we have that document in hand so 

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that SC&A can review it. I sincerely hope that 


the budget problems that we're having are not 


going to in any way affect the completion of 


this particular document since it seems to me 


to be -- we've reached the point where time is 


of the essence. 


 DR. WADE: I think you were talking of a 


petition evaluation report -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Dr. Neton --


DR. NETON: I could shed some light on the 


status of the revision to the site profile that 


the working group is waiting for. It is in 


draft form. We have -- I've reviewed it 


internally and we expect it to be ready for 


release fairly shortly, within a matter of a 


week or so. 


 MS. MUNN: Good. 


DR. NETON: So it's very close to being 


finalized. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jim. 


 MS. MUNN: Thank you. We will convene a 


meeting of the working group as soon as that 


document is in hand, and SC&A has promised a 


very rapid turnaround of their review. 


 DR. WADE: For the record, we're speaking about 

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the Blockson Chemical SEC petition, but you're 


-- you need that site -- 


 MS. MUNN: Site profile, yes. 


 DR. WADE: -- profile to do your work. Okay, 


thank you. 


Next we have the workgroup on Fernald site 


profile and SEC chaired by Clawson; members 


Griffon, Ziemer, Presley and Schofield. 


 MR. CLAWSON: One of the things we'd like to 


bring up now, and I think maybe I could refer 


this to John, because what -- what we're in the 


 DR. WADE: Microphone, please. 


 MR. CLAWSON: -- what we're in the process of 


right now is, since we've made this an SEC 


petition, SC&A's got to go through and they're 


creating a whole new matrix dealing with those 


issues. NIOSH has not yet been able to review 


that at this time. As soon as we do, then 


we'll convene. Is that fair to say, John? 


DR. MAURO: Hans Behling is our lead on the 


full-blown SEC review for Fernald. He is --


last I spoke to him, he's in the home stretch. 


Soon as that document is drafted, it will be 


made available as our standard work products 

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are made available. Of course it has to go 


through, in this case, the PA process. But you 


will receive it at the sa-- at the same time, 


according to our procedures. Part of that work 


product will have an attachment to it which 


will have a new matrix specifically geared 


toward the -- the SEC review that's going on 


right now. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you. Next, the workgroup on 


the LANL site profile and SEC chaired by 


Griffon; members Beach, Presley, Munn and 


Poston. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, we -- we've yet to convene 


-- I have yet to convene this workgroup and -- 


but it's -- it's going to be a high priority, 


pending tomorrow's activities. Rocky Flats 


occupied a lot of time for a lot -- for several 


of us, so -- but LANL will be high on my 


priorities after that. I expect a meeting May 


to June -- a first meeting maybe. I think we 


need to -- we do have -- we do have at least a 


preliminary review from SC&A, I believe, so I 


don't know if -- I -- I'm looking to John to 


know where -- what the status of your review of 


the site profile is for LANL. I know we 

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have... 


(Pause) 


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah, we -- we certainly -- 


the site profile has been submitted and there's 


the, you know, this issue resolution associated 


with that. The issue of reviewing the SEC 


evaluation and certainly we've reviewed that, 


but we haven't gone any further than that at 


this point, I think just pending, you know, the 


-- the wishes of the workgroup and what the 


workgroup would like us to do. So we're --


we're not moving, I think, until we've had a 


chance to have that interchange, but we've 


looked at all the documentation and have in 


fact provided the site profile. That's been 


issued already. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. And -- and -- yeah, I -- I 


think once -- after tomorrow's discussion on 


the LANL --


 MR. FITZGERALD: Yeah. 


 MR. GRIFFON: -- SEC petition, we might have 


better direction for a path forward for the 


workgroup, as well, so... 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Workgroup on the Linde site 


profile, chair Roessler; members Beach, Lockey, 

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Gibson. Gen? 


DR. ROESSLER: Thank you, Lew. Before I start 


on my brief report, I'd like to find out if 


Antoinette Poncinore* is on the line. 


MS. PONCINORE: Yes, I am. 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, I'm glad -- glad you could 


make it, and did I -- would you pronounce your 


last name? 


 MS. PONCINORE: (Unintelligible) 


DR. ROESSLER: Okay, my name is Genevieve, but 


that doesn't mean I can pronounce French very 


well. 


Antoinette is with Linde Ceramics SEC Action 


Group, and she has been corresponding with us 


by e-mail. We're keeping her up to date on our 


meetings and on her actions. 


 Our working group met in Cincinnati, or at the 


Cincinnati Airport, on March 26th. We had I 


think a productive meeting with Steve Ostrow 


representing SC&A; Chris Crawford, NIOSH; and 


then other ORAU people working on the project 


on the telephone. We discussed items in the 


matrix. I think the biggest item that we 


discussed is that there have been 700 newly-


found bioassays, and NIOSH will work with ORAU 

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on this to develop a new exposure model. This 


model will supersede the use of air 


concentration data for internal dose 


estimation. 


The fact that this came up resolved maybe 50 


percent of the items that were in the matrix. 


Another item that NIOSH and ORAU are going to 


look at is the use of a geometric mean of a 


distribution versus the 95 -- 95th percentile 


values. 


And then there are a number of other things 


that need to be looked at and resolved. 


There's quite a bit of work here for ORAU to 


do. I understand that ORAU is assigning their 


resources as available to work on the -- this 


bioassay information and other issues. 


 The working group has been told that we should 


get a response to this from ORAU/NIOSH by June 


29th, or at least ORAU will have it to NIOSH by 


June 29th, and then it'll come to the working 


group. We're committed then to have a working 


group meeting as soon as possible after that. 


I will have to -- I looked at the schedule. 


I'll be at a Health Physics meeting in early 


July. We have our next Board meeting July 17th 

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through the 19th, so I'm not sure that we'll be 


able to hold a working group meeting after we 


get the information from ORAU and before the 


Board meeting. We'll try, if -- if we can do 


that. 


So I think that brings you up to date then on 


the Linde workgroup progress. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good, thank you. It sounds like 


the Linde group has made some good progress 


since our last meeting. We appreciate that. 


DR. ROESSLER: Yes, with the help of NIOSH and 


ORAU, and SC&A, too. We've had a good working 


group. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, questions, Board members? 


 (No responses) 


 Okay, then let's proceed. 


 DR. WADE: And then last, the workgroup on 


worker outreach chaired by Mike Gibson; members 


Beach, Schofield, Munn. 


 MR. GIBSON: We've not -- I have not had the 


time to schedule a meeting for this working 


group. I've -- just based on the other 


workgroups we got going, but it's in the 


pipeline. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Remind me, though. On this one, 

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Mike, was your group going to be reviewing the 


existing outreach program or -- I'm trying to 


recall what sort of the charter of this one 


was. 


 MR. GIBSON: That was to be part of it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It was pretty open-ended, but -- 

 MR. GIBSON: Right, that -- that was to be part 

of it. It was also to include how workers have 


input into the process of -- of site profiles 


and to what extent they've been involved in 


having their -- their knowledge put in the 


process. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and -- and to what extent 


has the input from the workers impacted both 


the dose reconstruction process and the site 


profile descriptions and so on. I guess it was 


pretty comprehensive from that point of view. 


 MR. GIBSON: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- I think that task probably is 


more difficult than it sounds at the surface. 


That is, assessing not only what's been done 


but what difference has it made. 


 MR. GIBSON: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I suspect it's going to be 


important for this group to get together pretty 

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quickly and maybe set forth a process by -- I ­

- I think -- I think this is a -- this is a 


tough one. Our other -- our other workgroups ­

- we sort of know what to do 'cause we've done 


it before. We know how to review a site 


profile. But how are you going to go about 


doing the assessment, and I sort of want to 


challenge the -- who's on that workgroup? 


Okay, Josie and --


 DR. WADE: Beach, Schofield and Munn. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- Schofield -- okay, Munn. I --


I think -- I think that's a real challenge for 


you to come up with a method for assessing not 


only what's being done, but what difference 


does it make; is it having an impact on -- on 


how things are -- are done, how decisions are 


made, how we evaluate SECs and site profiles 


and dose reconstructions; are -- are we 


utilizing to the -- to an optimum -- in an 


optimum way the input from our workers. I know 


there's been a lot of input. We have it on the 


individual cases. We have it at -- when we go 


to meetings. There's a lot of information 


collected, but how well are we utilizing it, so 


that's -- that's my challenge to you. 

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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I wonder just -- I 


know in the site profile documents, the various 


revisions, a lot of times at the front of it 


you'll -- you'll see, you know, a -- a revision 


and -- and it was modified based on comments 


from so-and-so and the essence of the revision 


was -- and they describe it a little bit. I 


wonder if the worker outreach meetings are -- 


are ever sort of targeted in those. I mean 


that might be one thing maybe to look at. I 


don't even know if those have been used in that 


way, if -- if -- in other words, if a site 


profile Rev. 0 was out and you had a worker 


outreach meeting, and then Rev. 1 actually 


considered some of the stuff said in the worker 


outreach meeting and was modified based on 


that, would that be accounted for in that sort 


of cover page where you -- where you note why a 


revision was made, so... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Brad and then Josie and then 


Phil. 


 MR. CLAWSON: If I understand right, one of the 


things that this workgroup was set up for was 


many times as petitioners and so forth they 


felt like that their comments were not making 

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it into the site database. And if -- if I'm 


not mistaken, part of this -- it's like when 


Wanda went to the worker outreach up there -- 


to be able to actually track to make sure that 


this is getting -- the information is getting 


put into the database, the technical database 


of -- and that it's being used. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Josie? 


MS. BEACH: And I guess one of my questions I 


asked at the last meeting was where would I go 


to find documentation on exactly what Mark was 


saying, how worker outreach is used. Where 


would I find it if I wanted to review 


procedures or -- 'cause I don't know at this 


point, so you raised a good question. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Well, the -- I mean I -- I think 


-- someone from NIOSH can probably pinpoint to 


you where on the NIOSH web site there -- there 


are -- all the worker outreach meeting minutes 


are there -- correct, Larry? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 MR. GRIFFON: It's just a matter of finding the 


right subfolder, but Stu can -- 


 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I might suggest that I 


believe we have a database of worker outreach 

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comments and resolutions, which would be a 


place to start. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. HINNEFELD: I mean that, coupled with the 


minutes from those meetings, you can see from 


the minutes has really an attempt been made to 


capture the -- the comments from -- from those 


meetings and is there a satisfactory resolution 


of those comments systematically. And I 


believe there's a database that would -- that 


contains that. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Phil. 


 MR. SCHOFIELD: One thing I've been doing is 


trying to let people know that I'm available to 


them. I've gone to several different meetings, 


met with different groups about how -- what the 


Board actually does and about -- that their 


input is important and about how the SEC 


process is actually carried out. So in that 


respect, by having the Board -- let them -- a 


lot of people don't realize that they can have 


input to the Board or to NIOSH, so I -- I've 


kind of tried to establish -- to let people 


know that I'm free to call, e-mail -- I have 


this advantage of not being a working person 

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anymore. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Well, my -- my 


challenge then to the workgroup is to get going 


on a brain-- I think you're going to have to do 


some brainstorming and say -- 


 MS. MUNN: Oh, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- just how are we going to go 


about this task, 'cause that's got to be the 


first step. But I think it's a -- a 


challenging thing. We kind of know intuitively 


what we're after, but I think you need to set 


forth a kind of road map, so Mike, that'll be 


in your hands to I think get this group 


underway and -- and you have a kind of 


different challenge than the other workgroups, 


but there's a lot of information there you can 


look at and make at least an early assessment 


of -- of whether it's been effective. And --


and once you do that, then you'll be in a 


position to -- to make some good 


recommendations on what else can be done to 


assure not only that we get the input, but that 


we have some good solid ways of putting it to 


use and -- and feeding into the system, so I 


simply challenge you to -- to do that, and keep 

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us posted as you go along. I think that will 


be very useful. 


 DR. WADE: I think the good news is that under 


Mike's leadership this workgroup has passion 


for the issue and -- and I think that will go a 


long way towards making this a very productive 


workgroup. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Lew, I think that completes 


our reports --


 DR. WADE: Right. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- from the working groups except 


for those that we will hear from tomorrow in 


connection with the various SEC petitions. 


We're going to have a public comment session 


beginning at 5:00 o'clock. We're going to take 


a little break before that just to allow you 


all to catch your breath and -- 


 DR. WADE: We might could use a couple of 


(unintelligible). 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- we'll have -- yeah, we'll give 


you a couple of minutes here, Lew, and I'll 


need to get the list of individuals that are 


going to speak. 


I do want to point out, although the -- the 


agenda says that it's 5:00 to 6:00 o'clock, I 

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have assured members of the public who've 


expressed concern to me that that perhaps is 


not a lo-- enough time, particularly for some 


of the Rocky Flats folks who may wish to speak, 


that we're not bound by that time frame. I'm 


quite willing to go beyond that to allow all 


those who wish to speak this evening. 


Now keep in mind also that tomorrow during the 


SEC petitions session there will be additional 


opportunities for the petitioners to officially 


make presentations, as well as individuals that 


they may designate to provide supporting 


statements. But we do want to be flexible 


tonight and allow as many to speak as they are 


able to, so -- Lew, some additional comments -- 


 DR. WADE: I just --


 DR. ZIEMER: -- before we take a break? 


 DR. WADE: Just in the three minutes left, to 


tee up an issue possibly for you to talk about 


on Friday during your work time. There has 


been a proliferation of workgroup meetings, and 


-- and with that, the demand on having 


transcripts available in a timely way has 


grown. What we've tried to do is a commonsense approach to -- to meet everyone's needs 

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as best we can. And if there -- if a workgroup 


feels that it needs its transcript very quickly 


and therefore they would move ahead in the 


queue of some other workgroups or a Board 


meeting that has taken place, then we -- we've 


done that. I don't know if the Board wants to 


develop more rigid rules about that. Right now 


I think the court reporter is doing a marvelous 


job and we're trying to use common sense to 


make these materials available. Sometimes that 


means that a meeting that happened in May will 


not have its transcript available as quickly as 


one that happened in July, and it's just 


because we're making assessments as to the 


importance of those materials. So something for 


you to think about and talk about during your 


work time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. We're going 


to recess then until 5:00 o'clock, at which 


time we'll begin the public comment session. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 4:35 p.m. 


to 5:00 p.m.) 


PUBLIC COMMENT
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

 DR. ZIEMER: We’re going to start in just a 


couple of minutes. There's still others 

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registering. Just take maybe three or four 


more minutes and we'll get underway. Sorry for 


the delay, but... 


(Pause) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, everyone. This is 


the public comment session of the Advisory 


Board on Radiation and Worker Health. I've 


been asked to announce that our session this 


afternoon is being videotaped by CBS and by 


Denver Post On-Line. Apparently if we have a 


good program here we'll replace American Idol 


or something, but... -- or CSI, right. 


I'd like to ask if there are any members of the 


Congressional delegation -- Colorado delegation 


here tonight? 


 DR. WADE: Staffs? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Would -- would you just quickly 


identify yourselves for the folks that are 


here? 


MR. THIELMAN: Jason Thielman with 


Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave's office. 


MS. MINKS: I'm Erin Minks with Senator Ken 


Salazar's office. 


 MS. BOLLER: Carolyn Boller with Congressman 


Udall's office. 

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137

 MS. ALBERG: Jeanette Alberg with Senator 


Allard's office. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And... 


 MR. (UNINTELLIGIBLE): My name's Greg 


(Unintelligible) with Congresswoman Marilyn 


Musgrave's office. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any others? And we 


thank them for being with us tonight, as well. 


I'm Paul Ziemer. I serve as Chair of this 


Advisory Board and I want to remind you all 


that this is an advisory board. We are -- we 


are not part of the government. We are 


independent individuals that have been 


appointed to this task. We are not the ones 


that make the decisions on dose reconstruction 


compensation. We are advisory for the program. 


One of the things we do is we do give advice, 


for example, on whether or not there should be 


addition to the so-called Special Exposure 


Cohort, but we do not make that determination. 


We are one of the groups that give advice to 


the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 


So your input to us helps us in giving advice. 


We're not the guys that make all the decisions. 


Sometimes we're glad we're not; sometimes we 

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wish we could, but we do have the opportunity 


to provide input to the program, particularly 


the dose reconstruction program and the Special 


Exposure Cohort portion of the program that's 


administered through Health and Human Services 


by the National Institutes for Occupational 


Safety and Health. 


 But the individuals that you see before you 


here are individuals who are not connected with 


those agencies. We do not work for them. 


We've been appointed separately by the 


President of the United States to serve in this 


capacity. 


 The Board recently established a time limit for 


public comments, a ten-minute per person time 


limit. Now that's -- that's sort of an upper 


limit. It's not a goal to be achieved, 


necessarily. I have over 30 individuals who 


have indicated that they would like to speak 


this evening, so you can do the math. And 


although our agenda says that we are meeting 


from 5:00 to 6:00, we are quite willing to stay 


here much longer, if needed. But if we stay 


here, we want you to stay here, too. So we ask 


that those who are speaking -- that you be 

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cognizant that there are others. 


I'm -- I'm usually not a very nasty guy, but 


I'm going to try to be nasty in the sense that 


I've asked Lew Wade -- Lew is a Designated 


Federal Official. And although the rest of 


these are Board members, appointed Board 


members, Lew is the Designated Federal 


Official. He does work for the government, and 


all of these boards are required to have one of 


those government guys around. But I have to 


put him to work and make him earn his money, so 


he's going to help me keep track of the time 


tonight. And when Lew nudges me and says ten 


minutes are up, I'm going to try to stop you if 


you're still talking. I hope I can be somewhat 


successful without hurting your feelings, but ­

- in fact, if you have 20 minutes worth, we're 


willing to give you the other ten at the end of 


the line, so you know, you can do half and half 


-- if anyone is still around to hear you at 


that time. 


 But nonetheless, be cognizant of other 


individuals who may wish to address the Board. 


In general, we looked at this as -- as it's 


called, a comment session, simply for you to 

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make your comments. Some of you have provided 


written material for the record. Everything 


that -- all of these comments are transcribed 


by our court reporter. They will go on our web 


site. Everything is -- is open to the public. 


This Board does not do anything in private, so 


any comments you make will be on the web site 


very soon for all the world to see, as well as 


your written comments. 


So I'm just going to go through the list in the 


order given. You can come here and use the 


mike, and if you need any assistance, let us 


know. We do already have handout materials 


from some of you. If others have materials for 


the Board members, you can make them available 


at that time. 


So we'll begin with Kay Barker, who's a Rocky 


Flats claimant. Kay, you can kick us off this 


evening with your comments. Welcome. 


 DR. WADE: I'll point out that there are chairs 


up here, too, if people need to sit. We have 


some chairs up here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Additional chairs in the front. 


We're -- we're running out of space. I don't 


know, the fire marshal's probably cringing 

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somewhere, but -- and maybe -- maybe NIOSH is, 


too -- or the OSHA people, but anyway, we're -- 


we're packed in here, but there is room -- if 


you're standing and want to sit, there are 


seats back... 


 MS. BARKER: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer and members 


of the Board. Thank you -- thank you for 


allowing me these few minutes to speak. I'd 


like to address the one Board member who hates 


to hear from the same claimants offering the 


same comments Board meeting after Board 


meeting. If you would listen and try to 


understand what we are saying rather than 


shutting us off, we wouldn't have to continue 


saying the same things over and over again. 


You think we like having to repeat ourselves 


all these times? No. But until you accept and 


understand we are telling you the truth and 


that we have proof, we'll have to continue. 


My repeat comment is that there is a conflict 


of interest here in allowing NIOSH to go 


forward with the dose reconstruction project 


per the ORAU OTIB-0058 effective January 8th of 


2007 that was released on March 30th, 2007. As 


I told you in September of 2006, the NDRP was 

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written by Roger Falk, co-authored by J. M. 


Aldridge and Nancy M. Daugherty, all of whom 


once worked for Rocky Flats and have a major 


conflict of interest on anything that has to do 


with Rocky Flats. 


 Approximately 2003 NIOSH developed a COI policy 


which stated that no person who worked at the 


site would be involved in performing dose 


reconstruction or authoring technical documents 


used in the dose reconstruction, yet you have 


Roger Falk, Jim Aldridge and Nancy Daugherty, 


who did just what NIOSH said they wouldn't 


allow. 


I understand that it is NIOSH's policy not to 


have health physicists who have testified 


against employees in a Workers Compensation 


claim participate in site profiles where the 


claim originated. Well, I would like to bring 


to your attention that Roger Falk was an expert 


witness for Rockwell International and 


Travelers Insurance against George Barrie's 


Worker Compensation claim in 1996, which is 


another conflict of interest that NIOSH said it 


wouldn't allow. 


In any science field this would be considered a 

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conflict of interest. How many of these 


conflicts do the Rocky Flats claimants have to 


accept that are SEC issues that NIOSH said they 


would never follow? The NDRP is not only a 


conflict of interest, it is not accurate. 


NIOSH never had the NDRP independently reviewed 


before accepting and using it for dose 


reconstruction. Dosimety (sic) records are not 


complete nor present for 1997. Now isn't that 


the definition of an SEC petition? 


The NDRP, under 2.0, Application and 


Limitations, states except for the application 


of the NDRP ratios as described in section 


4.1.6, the methods described in this TIB apply 


only to workers at Rocky Flats Plant plutonium 


facilities during the period of 1952 to 1970. 


There are three important cavets (sic) or 


limitations. The final NDRP neutron dose for 


1997 may not be accurate. Recorded dosimeter 


data was not always complete. The gamma dose 


information for 1997 may not be present. The 


information on gamma dose was collected only 


when applicable to the NDRP effort. 


 If the original NDRP lists these cavets (sic), 


how can NIOSH assume they can use it for dose 

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reconstruction? 


I gave each one of you a copy of my late 


husband's NDRP showing that he has doses for 


two years before he even started working at 


Rocky Flats, which in itself makes the NDRP 


inaccurate. Not only does his report show the 


two years before, but of the 316 incidences, 15 


of those exposures were for years he wasn't at 


Rocky Flats. How can Lawrence's NDRP be 


accurate, or anybody else's as well? I'm still 


waiting for an answer as to why my late 


husband's – Lawrence Barker -- NDRP is so 


inaccurate. 


The second area I wish to address tonight is 


your allowing NIOSH to have answers for all the 


zeroes in the claimant files, claiming they are 


applying claimant-friendly dose. In Lawrence's 


dose reconstruction NIOSH has listed, under 


external dose, 143 dosimeter cycles recording 


zeroes for a 30-250 keV photons. They also 


listed his missed neutrons as having 163 


dosimeter cycles of do-- zeroes, yet NIOSH 


feels they can give him accurate, claimant-


friendly dose for these missed cycles when they 


don't even know where he was working during a 

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missed cycle as his work required him to be in 


the plant all the time and not just sitting at 


the desk that was in another location. 


 Lawrence worked in the hot -- following hot 


buildings: 991, 771, 776, 777, 778 and 444. 


You don't even know why the cycle was missed. 


According to Brian with NIOSH, who stated -- 


during my final interview before NIOSH rendered 


its first decision to DOL in November of 2004 ­

- that Lawrence's file seemed to have a lot of 


missing data. I would agree with this, 


considering he has a total of 306 dosimeter 


cycles reporting zeroes. 


In SC&A's report on the completeness of records 


there is a chart on page 4 and 5 of the report 


which I've enclosed in the packet you have been 


given. As you know, they found that for 1969 


and 1970 approximately 36 percent of the 


records are missing. However, this is also 


noted in the report. From 1977 onward to 1989, 


the percentages of missing data are equal to or 


greater than the ones for '69 and '70. 1981 


has a whopping 63 percent missing. SC&A has 


not investigated the reasons for so much 


missing data. You cannot reconstruct dose with 

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reasonable accuracy without reliable data. 


 On Friday, September 1, 2006 I e-mailed Mr. 


David Sundin of NIOSH a FOIA request asking for 


a search of the logbooks in NIOSH's possession 


for a copy of each entry, including badge 


destruction, contamination incidents, trip to 


lung counter, references to contaminated scrub-


downs and any other entries the logbooks might 


show. On that same date at 10:56 a.m. Mr. 


Sundin replied, stating we will respond to your 


request when we obtain images of the logbooks, 


which I am told will be very soon. I am still 


waiting for this information and today is May 


2nd, 2007. I'm wondering how much longer I'm 


going to be waiting for this information. 


My third and final comment is that, without 


good reason, you accept the credibility of 


NIOSH/ORAU, but yet you refuse to accept the 


credibility of the very people who worked at 


Rocky Flats. They know what they did, where 


they worked, what chemicals, toxins, solvents 


and metals they worked with or around. I know 


all of them would be more than happy to tell 


you about some of their frightening experiences 


and what it was like to work at Rocky Flats. 

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Yet you refuse to accept their word, but would 


rather take the word of somebody who never set 


foot on Rocky Flats soil. 


I hope you will give the Rocky Flats workers 


your full attention and be open to what they 


have to tell you. I hope you will really 


listen and take the witness seriously. If you 


do, I believe you will understand why you 


should vote in favor of the Rocky Flats SEC 


petition. 


In closing I want to remind you that the NDRP 


is a conflict of interest, as well as a 


conflict of NIOSH's own rules, which makes it 


an SEC petition issue and a positive vote for 


the SEC petition. Also you can't reconstruct 


dose with reasonable accuracy without reliable 


data. This makes it an SEC petition as well. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Kay. Next 


we'll hear from Dr. Charles Milne, representing 


a claimant. Dr. Milne. 


DR. MILNE: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I 


got my PhD in entomology from Ohio State 


University. My master's is in genetics from 


the University of Washington in Seattle. I 

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worked with [Name Redacted], Nobel laureate, 


and he is now the current head of the Fred 


Hutchinson Cancer Institute. I teach biology 


at Mountain State University in West Virginia, 


so I'm a long way from home. I teach human 


genetics and genetics, as well as some other 


biology courses, and one of the topics I do 


cover is the relationship between cancer and 


genetics. 


I'm the son-in-law of Allen Lahti, who was a 


contract worker at Rocky Flats from 1963 to 


1991. He died of male breast cancer in 2005. 


His [Identifying Information Redacted] and I 


attended his first hearing because he was 


denied compensation because of a calculated 


probability of causation of 36.36 percent. He 


did have exposure to radiation. It was 


documented in the few radiation records that 


they have, dosimetry readings. 


There's a number of other known risk factors 


for male breast cancer. He didn't have any of 


those, but he had exposure to radiation. The 


incidence of male breast cancer in the white 


American population is eight in a million 


males. And if you take the -- I don't know how 

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many people actually worked at Rocky Flats. If 


we just assumed 20,000 workers at Rocky Flats, 


half of them male and only eight in a million 


get male breast cancer, that would be only an 


eight percent chance that a male at Rocky Flats 


would contract male breast cancer. You'd have 


to have 12 Rocky Flats facilities spread across 


this country to reach the probability of having 


one person die from male breast cancer. That's 


how rare breast cancer is. 


Now I'm a scientist and I've been looking at 


the dose reconstruction, the assumptions, the 


models, and I -- I'm not an epidemiologist, but 


I have the ability to look at these kinds of 


things and to study them and to make some 


comments. 


The reason we're here today is because the 


government wrongly assumed that there was no 


threshold for exposure to radiation. There has 


been no proof that there is a threshold. A 


threshold would mean there's a level below 


which you can be exposed to a certain amount of 


radiation and not have a detrimental effect of 


some -- of some kind. Government assumed there 


was a threshold. There's no proof that there 

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is a threshold. In fact, a threshold would be 


very difficult to measure because you'd have to 


expose a large number of individuals to 


radiation and then follow them to find out what 


fraction of them might have contracted cancer. 


That experiment would actually be fairly 


unethical to run on humans. If we did it on 


lab rats, you may be able to get enough rats to 


do it and to run it, but it would be 


questionable as to whether you could take that 


an apply it to humans being exposed to 


radiation. 


But I would argue that actually the U.S. 


government's actually done the experiment at 


Rocky Flats of taking a large number of 


individual humans and exposing them to 


radiation. I'm not an epidemiologist. I've 


not looked at the known cancer rates among the 


U.S. population and among workers at Rocky 


Flats. Is it higher than the normal population 


or is it the same? I don't know. But if it's 


higher, that would indicate that the experiment 


has been successful in showing that there 


probably isn't a threshold for radiation 


exposure. 

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Now I want to address dose reconstruction, the 


whole process. Missing doses -- the previous 


lady addressed missing doses. Apparently they 


exist. They exist for Allen Lahti's exposure 


record, and they just assumed -- as far as I 


can understand, assumed claimant-favorable 


averages that were among individuals at a 


facility. But that ignores the fact that 


individuals at the facility -- I never worked 


at Rocky Flats; I'm a university professor -- 


but those that worked at the facility did 


different jobs and they had different 


exposures. That ignores that entire fact and 


making assumptions like that is -- is really 


unwarranted. 


Let's look at the models of how we are able to 


arrive at -- after dose reconstruction to be 


able to say an individual had enough radiation 


exposure to say there's at least a 50 percent 


probability that it was caused by the -- by the 


radiation exposure. To do that you must 


develop what's called a -- a dose response 


curve, and it's a curve for a cancer that 


represents how much dose and the chances are of 


causing that cancer in a population of 

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individuals. And then when you determine how 


much dose an individual had, if you can do it 


accurately, then you just -- you'd use the 


curve and determine the probability of -- of 


causation from that curve. 


 The dose response curves are arrived at by 


looking at a cohort of individuals that 


survived the atom bomb blast in Nagasaki and 


Hiroshima. And first of all, their doses -- 


they weren't wearing badges, but their doses 


were estimated based on the distance from 


ground zero. But again, that's an estimate 


based on how far they think they were from 


where it hit. That's not that accurate. 


They also are -- have a different genetic 


makeup than do the U.S. white male population. 


I refer to white males because -- not because 


I'm one, but because my father-in-law was one, 


and the cancer rates in different populations ­

- such as Japanese-Americans, Filipinos, white 


Americans -- are going to be different for 


different cancers. And that's not taken into 


account in this procedure. 


The radiation that was received through those 


atomic bombs was probably different than the 

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radiation that was received by different 


individuals at Rocky Flats, and we're trying to 


compare apples and oranges here. 


 The NCI/CDC working group to revise the 1985 


NIH RadioEpidemiological Tables wrote that, 


quote, “The choice of the transfer model 


involves considerable uncertainty. 


Transferring information about the Japanese 


cohort to American workers involves 


considerable uncertainty. 


And also it's possible that the workers that 


were -- that survived the atomic bomb might be 


healthier than the average American that was 


exposed and working at Rocky Flats. We're 


taking average Americans and those that 


survived. They may have been healthier and 


that's the reason they actually survived. 


After locating this group of individuals that 


survived the atom bomb blast, they were 


followed for a period and determined basically 


the rates of occurrence of various cancers. 


The dose response curves that were developed 


were for a massive, acute dose of radiation. 


My father-in-law, and other individuals that 


worked at Rocky Flats, most of them had chronic 

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exposure, low levels of exposure over a long 


period of time. We're trying to compare 


massive exposure to chronic exposure. There's 


no evidence that acute and chronic exposure to 


radiation are equivalent, or that dose response 


curves for cancers developed from acute 


exposure cohorts are appropriate for chronic 


radiation exposure. You need proper dose 


response curves for chronic exposure to be able 


to really calculate any accurate probability of 


causation. 


Probability of causation calculations are based 


on a large number of assumptions. And for a 


scientist, the more things you assume, the less 


certain your result becomes. And there's a 


large number of assumptions in the calculation 


of reconstructing the dose -- I don't care if 


it is claimant favorable; we're talking about 


assumptions here. The calculation for the 


probability of causation for a cancer involves 


numerous assumptions for dose, and assumptions 


in the model which render the calculated PC 


value one with great uncertainty. 


Also there's a whole principle of anytime you 


measure anything in science, it has an error 

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that's associated with it. I don't care if 


it's weighing a lab rat, it's going to have a 


certain amount of error associated with it. 


The more error you have in calculating an end 


result, the more error that end result has 


associated with it. 


I took my -- the matrix of exposure, went to 


the IREP -- the NCI web site, put it in and 


calculated my own probability of causation 


based on the values that was provided from the 


dose reconstruction. His matrix had over 1,000 


input variables, each with an associated error, 


and there are numerous internal values. The 


probability of causation that was calculated -- 


36.66 percent in mine, 36.36 -- has a huge 


error associated with it. You have to 


understand that 36.36 is being used to deny my 


mother-in-law's claim, and yet it has a 


tremendous error. There's no confidence 


interval given on this value. Is it 36 percent 


plus or minus two, or 36 percent plus or minus 


40? That is a serious shortcoming in the 


calculations. 


There are also -- somehow, I'm not sure how, 


but there's uncertainty distributions involved 

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in calculating the probability of causation. 


And those are also part of the uncertainty, 


assumptions and errors that goes into 


calculating probability of causation. 


It's -- with -- with the numerous assumptions 


made, compounded errors and uncertainties that 


are used, the calculated PC value has little 


confidence, in my mind, as a scientist. I'm 


not trying to disdain those scientists that 


came up with the science behind it, but you 


have to understand that every value that's 


calculated has a certain amount of confidence 


associated with it. It just doesn't convey any 


confidence to me as a scientist. 


I have two quotes to read. I'd like to read 


two quotes. One is from the 1985 Oversight 


Committee report by the National Academy of 


Sciences, National Research Council, 1984. 


They held that the ratio called the probability 


of causation applies to populations and not 


individuals, and cannot be interpreted as a 


probability that a given cancer was caused by a 


given radiation exposure. You cannot -- 


according to these individuals that developed 


the probability of causation, you can't use it 

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to determine if an individual's cancer was 


caused by it. 


 Here's another one. The NCI/CDC working group 


to revise the 1985 NIH RadioEpidemiological 


Tables wrote that the PC is not intended to 


represent the probability that a particular 


individual's cancer was caused by his or her 


radiation exposure, but rather the fraction of 


cases of a particular kind of cancer in a 


populations (sic). 


The PC calculations were never intended to be 


used this way. It is scientifically 


inappropriate to use the PC calculations to 


calculate and to deny the claims of 


individuals. I'm addressing this to the whole 


approach that NIOSH uses. It's scientifically 


invalid. And of course Special Exposure Cohort 


-- these apply also. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Next we'll 


hear from Richard Olds, a claimant. Richard. 


 MR. OLDS: Thank you. My name is Richard Olds. 


I'm the owner of NIOSH [Identifying Information 


Redacted]. Basically I'm probably rehashing 


things that you've already heard. I started 


work at Rocky Flats in 1984. I worked as a 

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security guard. I talked with the Department 


of Labor and everything else about the numbers 


that NIOSH came up with. I told them I had no 


argument with that. I said they had their 


numbers, where they got them, what they -- how 


they used them. They knew what they were 


doing. The only part about it was that it 


didn't take into effect all of the other areas 


of exposure that we dealt with, that we didn't 


have dosimetry badges. We were in offices, we 


were in hallways. We were in cafeterias. We 


were in break rooms that were right next to 


contaminated areas. We picked up background 


radiation that you people wouldn't want. We --


the exposures, even to myself, I wanted to tell 


somebody about -- I sat in a hallway as a 


security guard, with a conveyor belt running 


over my head that took contaminated parts from 


one building to the next building. My job was 


to get off -- get up off my chair and turn the 


alarm off, so I -- obviously I was exposed. 


Another job that I had was sitting in a 


hallway, supposedly a cold hallway, which meant 


there was no radiation in that area. We didn't 


wear dosimetry badges. I leaned on a wall for 

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about three and a half to four years. Then 


somebody decided to check the wall and found 


out it was low level contamination from the 


americium that was behind the wall. So, I get 


the cancer. 


Right now I'm sitting on basically a -- my 


claim has been deferred. Eventually it may be 


heard. Probably some of that depends on your ­

- ladies' and gentlemen's -- decision to 


forward their recommendations. 


The other numbers -- if they're missing data 


and the other information that's necessary, 


that's not even in their info-- in their data 


or other exposures, I can't see how you can use 


their information. Thank you, I'm -- take up 


your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And thank you, Richard. Then next 


we have Terrie Barrie. Terrie. 


 MS. BARRIE: Good evening, Dr. Ziemer and 


members of the Board, and thank you once again 


for listening to our public comments that we 


feel that -- must be -- keep on going. 


Tomorrow you will be tasked with deciding the 


Rocky Flats SEC petition. There are so many 


issues that need to be addressed -- tenth-hour 

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discovery of documents, NIOSH is adopting NDRP 


without independently verifying that the data 


is valid, not accepting affidavits as the truth 


from the workers. 


But I'm going to focus basically on just one 


issue tonight, and that issue is I get very 


upset and disturbed when I hear that an issue 


discussed among the working group is not an SEC 


issue but is rather a site profile or TBD 


issue. An excellent example of this is the 


thorium issue. Now I have a whole lot of 


issues going on in here. 


 SC&A's report, as far as I know, says that this 


is an SEC issue. The reason for this decision 


is that NIOSH stands by using the NUREG-1400 as 


the model to reconstruct dose for thorium 


workers. NIOSH objected to the status as a SEC 


issue, and there was quite a lively debate on 


April 19th working group meeting. NIOSH and 


some Board members thought that this issue was 


resolved and that it would be designated a 


technical bulletin issue. 


I wonder if you realize what it means to have 


an item classified as a TBD issue. Once the 


scientific debate is over and NIOSH and SC&A 

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come to an agreement, with the Board's 


approval, claims will need to be reopened. I'm 


aware of two such revisions, the NDRP and the 


target organ for the lymphoma procedure. These 


revisions were finalized at two separate times, 


the NDRP I believe in 2005 and the target organ 


for lymphoma this year. 


 Theoretically, a claimant who worked in the 


early years who has lymphoma, has had his dose 


reconstructed three times already -- once by 


submitting the original claim, once again -- 


once to have the NDRP applied, and lastly to 


have the target organ procedure applied. 


Hanging out there of course is the concern of 


the OMB pass-back memo, the memo that wanted to 


control the cost and growth of benefits for 


this program. Has any federal official 


considered controlling the growth in 


administering this program? Do you realize how 


many times the claims will need to be reopened 


each time NIOSH revises a procedure? For the 


high-fired oxide calculations that was agreed 


upon, if the thorium issue is ever resolved, 


when someone finally realizes the Building 881 


did have a foundry in it. I have, by the way, 

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a copy of a DOE document about this. 


It sounds to me and a lot of other claimants 


now because it -- there's a pretty nice 


bureaucratic empire that has been set up. 


According to the Rocky Mountain News article 


last Saturday, approximately $4 million per 


month goes to ORAU to reconstruct dose. Yes, 


let's make most of these issues TBD issues that 


have nothing to do with the SEC petition. 


Let's have prolonged scientific debate on which 


methods are the best to use to reconstruct 


dose. And yes, let's be very, very thorough. 


God forbid one person who worked 250 days at 


Rocky Flats is allowed to receive compensation 


that may not deserve it. 


 And while this debate goes on, workers die. 


This program was not set up to give job 


security to dose reconstructors and the 


administrative personnel. It was set up to 


compensate the workers. If any document used 


in dose reconstruction is in error today, and 


there are, then NIOSH cannot reconstruct dose 


with reasonable accuracy. That is true now, as 


well as when the petition was first filed. 


Please, vote yes tomorrow to compensate all the 

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workers who have one of the 22 cancers from the 


Rocky Flats facility, and make them an SEC 


cohort. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Terrie. I'm 


hesitating here because I don't want to mess 


this name up too much. I think the last name 


is Padilla --


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Judy Padilla. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) Judy Padilla. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you guys know who it -- who 


it is, okay. And yes, that -- that -- I got to 


work on my -- maybe my Spanish pronunciation, 


Padilla -- Padilla. I stand corrected -- it's 


P-a-d-i-l-l-a, for the court reporter, who 


probably is worse than me in Spanish. No? 


Okay. Thank you. 


 MS. PADILLA: Hi, I'm Judy Padilla. I worked 


out at Rocky Flats for 22 years. I saw this 


written on a wall during the demolition of 


Building 771, considered the most dangerous 


building in America. We walked with the dust 


of plutonium, which cannot be shaken away. It 


lives deep within us for we've breathed it 

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every day. 


I think that I'm one of the fortunate ones. My 


cancer was diagnosed early, and so far I'm a 


survivor. But with a lot of people, by the 


time their cancer is diagnosed, there's nothing 


they can do because it's terminal. 


As a nuclear worker at Rocky Flats Plant, I was 


a Cold War veteran. I feel that I sacrificed 


my health, even my life -- like the soldiers in 


Iraq are doing -- and we got no acknowledgement 


from our government, no thank you. We don't 


even get the courtesy of a flag on our coffin 


when we die. 


I would like the advisory panel to know my 


story. In 1983 I came to Rocky Flats as a 


metallurgical operator in Building 707, the 


foundry. The first six years I handled 


thousands of grams of weapons-grade plutonium 


on a daily basis. My specific task was to put 


pure plutonium buttons in tantalum crucible and 


place the loaded crucible in the melt coil of a 


Stokes* furnace. After the temperature of the 


furnace reached the classified degrees, the 


molten plutonium metal was poured into a 


graphite mold to cool. The plutonium ingot was 

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then broken out of the classified-shape mold 


and transferred via a chainveyor into a storage 


vault, or to the rolling mill for processing. 


These operations were performed in an inert 


gas, oxygen-free atmosphere glovebox. Glovebox 


work consisted of placing your hands and arms 


into lead-lined gloves fixed onto a box so that 


you can manipulate the radioactive material 


safely. Your face and chest are pressed 


against the window inside of the box so that 


you can see what you're doing. 


Due to the fissile nature of weapons-grade 


plutonium, high gamma and neutron exposures 


were created. We were expected to turnover 


each furnace at least three to four times per 


shift, three shifts a day. These were 


production days, and we had a tight schedule to 


maintain. The interior of the furnaces were 


regularly cleaned of splashed metal particles 


and oxides with carbon tetrachloride and 


perchlorethylene chloride, perc, known 


carcinogens. 


 Two coworkers, [Name Redacted] and [Name 


Redacted], died from brain stem tumors. My 


foreman, [Name Redacted] had breast cancer -- 

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very rare in men. He has also passed away. My 


cancer was diagnosed in June, 1998. I had 


worked there for 15 years. I had a radical 


mastectomy, which is an amputation, of the 


right breast and I had aggressive chemotherapy. 


I returned to work in eight months, March of 


1999. 


You may wonder why I would go back to work 


there if I thought my job had caused this 


cancer. Well, my husband [Name Redacted] and I 


had three children in college, so I went back 


to Rocky Flats Plant and I stayed there till 


they demolished the whole plant in 2005. I 


received genetic testing twice for the BACR4 


gene, with negative results. My oncologist, 


stated that [Name Redacted] my ductal 


carcinoma in situ was most probably linked to 


my radiation exposure. 


It is well known that Rocky Flats Plant records 


were notoriously sloppy, and the results of our 


dosimetry badge analysis were frequently 


returned stamped no data available. The RCT 


training manual states, on page 1.08 through 


.09 in the biological effects section, and I 


quote, cancer is a non-threshold disease. 

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Which means stochastic effects, those in which 


the probability of the effects occurring, 


increases with dose, without a limit or 


threshold. Any dose, therefore, no matter how 


small, has a certain probability of causing the 


effect. Carcinogenic cancer inheritable 


effects are examples of stochastic effects. 


Cancer may be shown to exert an almost 


universal carcinogenic action, resulting in 


tumors in a great variety of organs and 


tissues. The main sites of solid tumors are 


the breasts in women, thyroid, lung, and some 


digestive organs. These tumors have long 


latent periods, approximately ten to 30 years, 


and occur in larger numbers than leukemia. 


Leukemia has a much shorter latent period, and 


I close quotes. 


But I'm singing to the choir here. You are all 


scientists and doctors, so you know these facts 


to be true. If -- if not, why would they be 


taught to all radiation control technicians as 


part of their DOE training? 


 Realizing these facts to be true, I applied for 


the compensation for nuclear workers in August 


of 2001. Imagine my surprise when a mere four 

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and a half years later my claim was denied. My 


dose reconstruction was determined to be 43.19 


percent, 15 years worth of exposure. What kind 


of bogus statement is "as likely as not"? How 


can there be a 50 percent limit on a non-


threshold disease? 


 I appealed this decision, but was told that 


NIOSH has the final say in these matters, 


another denial. I have read that dose 


reconstruction is an inexact science. It is 


also hugely expensive, and NIOSH takes many, 


many shortcuts, with only 80-- 88 quali-- semi-


qualified employees. How can this 


scientifically-invalid equation stand up to 


scientific scrutiny? Ask yourself, is it 


really worth it? 


Put yourself in our shoes for one moment. Is 


it worth mere money to be cancer-free or pain-


free? How much is it worth to be able to see 


your children grow, to graduate or get married? 


Boy, what some of us would give to be in your 


shoes. You have your health and you have all 


that power. Our lives and peace of mind rest 


in your hands. We -- we're like the men on 


death row waiting for the governor's phone 

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call. 


I believe in my heart that people are basically 


good. And given the chance, they want to do 


the right thing. But I have a few questions 


for you. Is there any truth to the newspaper 


article of February 18th, 2006 in the Rocky 


Mountain News that the Bush administration has 


proposed a 44 percent reduction, $686 million, 


from the program for the sick nuclear workers? 


Can you honestly say that that's fair? 


And just who were the lawyers that got $350 


million for the property owners downwind of 


Rocky Flats Plant? Are we less than property? 


And who will be the one with the integrity to 


step up to the plate, the one with true honor, 


who loves his fellow man as much as himself, 


the real American? America is watching and 


waiting and wanting a hero. Is it you? Will 


you give yourself an honest act of courage? 


Will you take the -- or will you just take the 


coward's path? Is the American spirit still 


alive, or have we been corrupted beyond all 


hope? This is a priceless opportunity for a 


selfless act. What goes around comes back to 


you. We Cold War veterans did the right thing 

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for America. Now it's your turn -- all of you, 


it's your turn. 


 In conclusion I would like to say that I feel 


my government has stooped to a new low to prey 


on cancer victims, to promise compensation, 


delay for five years, and then to deny claims 


based on trumped-up estimations. It's not only 


cruel, but it's also criminal. 


The Reverend Martin Luther King once stated 


everything that Hitler did was legal, but it 


was still wrong. 


 Your conscience will tell you the truth. 


You'll be able to look at that person in the 


mirror with clean, clear vision. And when 


accounting for your life you can credit 


yourself with a pure act of genuine generosity 


and kindness, a real American. Let us live so 


that when it's over we can all look each other 


in the eye and know we have acted honorably. 


 Judy Padilla, nuclear worker, Cold War veteran, 


cancer survivor and American citizen. Thank 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Judy, and very well 


said, with great passion. 


And now we'll hear from Robert Carlson. 

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Robert's a claimant. Robert, welcome. 


 MR. CARLSON: Ladies and gentlemen, in 1961 -- 


my name is Robert I. Carlson. In 1961 when I 


came out to Colorado, I quit drinking and quit 


smoking, so that has no effect on the cancer I 


had. I worked at Rocky Flats for 27 years. I 


worked as a janitor, assistant chemical 


operator, monitor and experimental operator. I 


worked in every building they had out there. 


When I first put my application in for a job at 


Rocky Flats, I had to pass a test consisting of 


math, chemistry, physics and mechanical 


aptitude. If you passed this test, you had to 


get a Q clearance, that was the top secret 


clearance in the country. If that -- if you 


had any kind of a act against any law in the 


country, you would not be hired. At a place in 


Michigan where I worked I -- the government 


checked everyone that I worked with back there. 


There was about 28 people. So the people at 


Rocky Flats were the top of the working class. 


They did not lie, they did not steal. They --


even today they do not lie or steal. What they 


tell you is the truth. 


What we have in our body is like a stick of 

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dynamite, and each one of us seems like it's 


going to explode at any time. This dynamite is 


plutonium. 


In a square mile -- in -- in a -- in a square 


mile, in each square inch there is a 149 


trillion, 956 billion, 796 million, 500 


thousand, 357 atoms if one gram of material was 


spread evenly over this square mile. 


[Name Redacted] and [Name Redacted], head of 


health safety and environment, trained the 


monitors and said it was far worse to have 


internal contamination than external 


contamination. 


I have 50 disintegrations of plutonium per 


second in my body and five disintegrations of 


americium in my body. That is 3,300 


disintegrations per minute. That is 188,000 


disintegrations per hour. Disintegrations 


means that an alpha particle is given off, so 


in an hour 198 (sic) alpha particles are given 


off in your body. An alpha particle is an ion. 


It extracts two electrons from a body cell and 


kills that cell. Killing body cells cause 


cancer, according to four cancer doctors on 


Charlie Rose last week. 

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 Working at Rocky Flats for 27 years as a 


monitor for more than 17 years, I was exposed 


to many accident, fires and alarms. Every time 


plutonium was in a building, accidents 


happened. Reversal of fans, gloves stood out 


straight, no vacuum on a dry box, more 


contamination. I was there. Glovebox burned 


off and fell on the floor contaminating room 


149. I was there. Holes in dry box gloves 


contaminated yourself. I was there. Changing 


filters on the incinerator all upstairs of 771 


building got contaminated. I was there. Nash 


pumps leaked and caused contamination. I was 


there. Snake pit or the infinity room where 


Nash pumps leaked was highly contaminated. I 


was there. Floors in 771 building were 


contaminated and I threw a lot of booties away 


when I was a monitor when they were over 20,000 


counts per minute. SAAM alarms went off 


frequently in 771 building, indicating 


plutonium was in the air. 776 building, trying 


to take tape off the underside of a dry box 


contaminated a large area of 776 building, 


including three workers and myself. They had 


insulation on a dry box in 776 building, and 

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they were trying to remove the insulation, but 


it was foam. And every time you touched that 


foam, the SAAM alarms went off. I was there. 


776 fire contaminated all of 776 building and 


could have contaminated Denver if it wasn't for 


the fire department, the monitors, guards and 


helper -- helpers. I was there. Drums outside 


the helicopter pad leaked plutonium and oil in 


the ground. I was there. The evaporative 


ponds outside had plutonium in them and -- 


because I checked a bulldozer that was -- had 


10,000 counts on the tracks from mixing this 


sludge in this pond. This was outside now. It 


was like a big egg beater. Someone missed the 


stainless steel cans that was brought over to 


the monitor station at 776 being to smeared out 


(sic). It was highly contaminated and it 


contaminated me and the person I was training, 


along with our desk and monitoring equipment. 


More internal contamination. 


I was there and got contaminated 100,000 counts 


per minute on my head and face in 71 -- 771 


building, and breathed some plutonium. I was 


taking drums to 80 building. It was named 


something else later on. And my film badge was 

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overexposed and health physics told me not to 


go back in the 80 building, but the supervisors 


made me an exception because I knew where 


everything was in 80 building. I went back 


into 80 building, even though health physics 


tell me not to go back in the building. 


If you got contaminated, you washed off what 


you could in the building you worked in. You 


couldn't get the rest off, you were sent to 


medical where they washed the rest of it off 


with Clorox. I was there. The original amount 


was not noted because the -- it could be 


infinity. Only the contamination you couldn't 


get off in the building where you worked in was 


recorded. 


They were checking the film badges by the color 


of the film for gamma, and had to actually 


count the tracks for neutrons on the film. How 


accurate was this? I was one of the first 


people to check out the new TLDs for accuracy. 


I followed the worker around all day, testing 


him for radiation, comparing it to the TLDs. 


I was there and did everything that was 


required of me. When I first worked at Rocky 


Flats they had Frieden calculators that were 

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mechanical. I ran a computer program later on 


in 865 that the results were very critical in 


every unit that left Rocky Flats. 


I had to stop at a place that Rocky Flats had 


that had in Broomfield and was amazed by what I 


saw. There were items that had purple tags on 


them that were contaminated. How did they get 


to Bloomfield? Purple tags meant that they 


could not get out of the building. How did 


they get out of the plant site? 


Every chemical that they had at Rocky Flats I 


was exposed to. You can look at the list I 


have. 


When wearing respirators for any length of 


time, you could dump liquid out of the 


respirator. If you were in an area where 


plutonium was in the air and a SAAM alarm was 


ten feet away, you could inhale some plutonium 


before the SAAM alarm went off. If you coughed 


wearing a respirator, you swallowed what you 


coughed because you couldn't take your 


respirator off. This is how plutonium got 


throughout your whole body. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. And Bob, do you have a 


-- could you provide our court reporter with a 

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copy of your remarks? 


 MR. CARLSON: Sure. 


 DR. ZIEMER: That would be helpful. Thank you. 


The next person will be Laura Schultz. 


(Pause) 


Would you like to use a chair there, Laura, or 


-- you're okay? Okay. 


 MS. SCHULTZ: It's -- I have something quick to 


tell you. My name is Laura Schultz. I worked 


the majority of my working life at Rocky Flats 


Plant. I started in the process engineering 


and design, and later become a technical 


support for Building 771. I spent a lot of 


time in the process buildings. I found out 


that my designs would be successful if I did 


extensive field work and met the users, the 


people that installed the equipment specified 


in the designs. 


While my records may say that I was an 


engineer, I was really a 771 resident. I had 


numerous medical problems. I've had cancers 


that are li-- covered listed. I applied for 


compensation under this program in May of 2003. 


I have been denied. 


It is not normal for a woman my age, I'm 49 

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years old, to have all the medical problems. 


The NIOSH model apparently says that my 


radiation and chemical exposure had nothing to 


do with my current condition. I got 39 percent 


-- 39.9 causation. Do you believe that they 


are current -- the current model is biological 


-- system, a human body was -- with bad missing 


data. I certainly do not. 


NIOSH has gathered a wonderful group of 


mathematicians and scientists together to model 


an extremely complex set of daily exposures to 


both radiation chemicals. Listening to them on 


the teleconference yesterday you can tell that 


they really enjoy technical challenge and their 


work, and each other. They seem to really like 


their jobs. Unfortunately, they never set foot 


on Rocky Flats Plant site. They can only guess 


at what it's like. What they didn't seem to 


realize is that there are human beings 


associated with these calculations. 


We have been more than patient and 


understanding. Two years for dose 


reconstruction? Sure, why not? By now, years 


later, we see that DOL has a plan to deny our 


benefits because of the high cost of paying 

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claims to so many people from Rocky Flats. We 


waited many years assuming that you would not 


(sic) deal with us fairly. We are now 


approaching the point we cannot believe 


anything that you say. 


We come from a very secret, private community. 


We are the invisible fighters of the Cold War. 


When something in the plant was broken, we 


fixed it. When there was a fire, we put it 


out. When there was a spill, we cleaned it up. 


Our weapons were needed to defend our country. 


Do you believe that our plant was 100 percent 


cleaned after a spill or a fire? Our health 


was affected by the past and present events. 


We were trained to do our jobs safely. We were 


given equipment to protect us from the hazards 


of the workplace. We were surrounded by 


support personnel whose sole job was to monitor 


our safety. We were told that we were safe. 


guess they were sadly wrong. 


Years ago I never would tell anybody about the 


working and the operations of the plant. We 


were all part of a working -- a very difficult 


and dangerous job. If something went wrong, we 


considered it to be our business on the plant 


I 
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site, and we fixed it. Why would we involve 


our neighbors or the press, or who would co-- 


who were against us? 


Today the table is turned. My friends and 


family are getting sick and are denying -- are 


dying at an alarming rate. My own government 


has offered me compensation for unknowingly 


giving me cancer, but is turning to weasel out 


all their promises. They have gathered a group 


of high-dollar scientists to prove that the DOE 


is innocent and that our cancers are just a big 


coincidence. They have us beat. 


They have people who speak in babble, a 


language that only the people in their fields, 


the years of experience could ever understand. 


I believe they are wrong. Unfortunately, it 


would take a lifetime for me to come to up a 


speed (sic) in their field to try to show them 


that their calculations are wrong. 


The claimants do not have an unlimited amount 


of time and budget like NIOSH does. When NIOSH 


is informed they have a problem with the 


neutron dose recalculation, the answer is 


simply make the claimants wait another six 


months and give us more guys and money and 

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we'll work out the problem. 


 Well, claimants are faced with a problem. DOE 


is not our friend. NIOSH is certainly not our 


friend. Our plant has been flattened. Our 


friends are res-- and our colleagues are sick 


and dying. What do we do next? 


 Our senators and congressmen say they're trying 


to help us. The press is very interested and 


compassionate about our dilemma. I think I 


have no choice but to start telling the really 


embarrassing stories about the plant that the 


public really never needed to know. It's time 


to seek legal help and counsel class action 


suits against the government and operating 


contractor. If we had been dealt with fairly, 


this probably -- subject would have never came 


(sic) up. The public has a right to know how 


many people from that plant has been sick and 


are dying across this country. Well, let them 


decide who is at fault. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And thank you, Laura, for taking 


the effort to be with us today. 


 MS. SCHULTZ: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jeff Schultz -- Jeff, you also 


have -- oh, okay. 

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182 

Kevin Newby, and I think I have some written 


comments also. Kevin, I'll distribute these. 


MR. NEWBY: I want to start by thanking the -- 


you for giving me the opportunity to share this 


story. My name is Kevin Newby and I worked at 


Rocky Flats for 22 years. I was 25 years old 


and very healthy when I started working at 


Rocky Flats. I had various jobs throughout my 


22 years with the Flats. I worked in buildings 


883, 865, 444, and in gloveboxes in 707, and 


also at the warehouse. 


 On January 21st, 1994 and April 20th, 1994 and 


March 6th of 2001 I had positive blood tests 


showing beryllium ac-- sensitivity. This 


entitled me to enter into the beryllium 


program. At that time I had no idea the price 


I would pay for working in this environment. 


In June of 2002, on a routine visit to my 


beryllium doctor in Philadelphia, I had a CAT 


scan that concerned my doctor, nothing serious. 


He did a blood test the day of my procedure 


that came up negative, which meant I was not 


showing beryllium sensitivity in my blood. But 


the doctor thought it was a good idea to do a 


lung biopsy, as long as I was okay with it. 

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The procedure is called a bronchostomy (sic). 


This is only true way to prove chronic 


beryllium disease. When they do the blood 


work, they have both false negative and false 


positive readings. This is the only way to 


diagnose beryllium sensitivity, even though the 


test is flawed and false readings, they have 


not come up with a better way to do this. The 


bronchostomy (sic) or lung biopsy did show 


lymptocycius (sic) in my BAL cells. The 


conclusion is I have chronic beryllium disease. 


Remember the day of this procedure I had a 


negative blood test. 


When I got back from Philly I filled out the 


paperwork and a claim under Section B. This 


was in 2002. And of course I was denied. They 


did not feel disease was far enough along to 


entitle me to compensation under Subsection E 


(sic). My problem was I was still alive. 


In 2004 I resubmitted my claim and all the same 


information and I was approved. 


In summary, I -- had my doctor not offered the 


lung biopsy, I never would have been found out 


that I had chronic beryllium disease. There's 


only a certain stage that they can do the lung 

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biopsy. This is not a standard procedure. 


Remember, the blood test for beryllium 


sensitivity is flawed with false negatives and 


false positives. 


Had I not had the fortune to persevere, I still 


would be sitting there thinking I was denied. 


We worked in a adverse situation. If you, like 


me, were exposed to metal poisonings, you need 


to know. This does not just affect you. This 


affects your entire family and down the road 


when they take care of you and you can come 


incapacitated. Being in the program has opened 


many doors that would otherwise have been 


closed. The average doctor does not understand 


metal poisoning. You need a specialist, and 


they're expensive. 


 I'm not advocating the system is set against 


you. All I'm saying is that most health care 


situations you need to be your own etiquette 


(sic). Get informed, don't settle for no. 


The moral to this story is persevere. I felt 


it was my moral obligation to share this story 


with you. Please do not give up hope. If I 


can help anyone with their paperwork, please 


let -- feel free to call me. Thank you. 

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185

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Kevin. Next, Walter 


Mobley. Walter Mobley. 


 MR. MOBLEY: Good evening, and thank you for 


taking the time to listen to us. I began 


working at Rocky Flats in February, 1991. 


Before we had any training, my foreman took 


myself and three carpenters down to Building 


991. We were uncleared at that point. He took 


us down a hallway and told us to build a 


scaffold. We started building the scaffold. 


He left. A yellow light started flashing and 


an alarm went off. We continued building the 


scaffold for another five, ten minutes before I 


walked down the hall to find someone to ask 


them what this yellow light meant. We were 


told it was a faulty SAAM alarm, that there was 


no problem. The SAAM alarm was the problem, 


not that we had actual airborne radiation. 


We didn't know what that meant at that point 


anyway. 


I did receive extensive training over the next 


year, teaching me how safe Rocky Flats was. 


And they convinced me that Rocky Flats was a 


safe place to work. 


A year and a half later, it was about August or 

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September, 1992. We were working in the 


vaults. We were working in high radiation 


areas. We were receiving dose greater than 100 


millirem per hour. I, as a carpenter, did not 


work in there a lot, but I did do some work. 


The electricians in our group worked in there a 


lot. They were getting close to their annual 


dose limit. We came to work one morning. In 


the pre-evolution briefing we were told all of 


the dosimeter records have been lost. Your 


dosimetry reading is zero. Go in and go to 


work. 


One of those electricians was [Name Redacted]. 


In 2004 [Name Redacted] was diagnosed with 


stomach cancer, and he was dead in three 


months. 


I thought the electricians might have been 


over-reacting a little bit. I was still new at 


Rocky Flats. I'd been there for a year. They 


were way below the -- the DOE annual dose, and 


the Rocky Flats annual dose is half of that, so 


I think they're just making a mountain out of a 


mole hill. Well, I find that that's not true. 


In 2001 I contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I 


began doing a lot of research on my own. I 

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found that the Department of Energy, on their 


web site, admits that they do not know what the 


biological effects of a chronic low dose of 


ionizing radiation will do. 


I was more fortunate than [Name Redacted]. I 


had a pain in my back. I had this pain for 


five months before I went to the doctor. When 


the doctor found out where I worked, he began 


looking for cancer. He wasn't looking for 


other medical problems; he began looking for 


cancer. I don't believe that was a lucky 


guess. I believe that was an educated 


diagnosis. He found my cancer on the first 


visit. Because of the early detection, I am in 


remission right now. But I don't know when 


it's going to come back. 


 All through my medical treatment the nurses and 


the doctors that I talked to all agreed that 


there was a good chance that I contracted 


lymphoma because of where I worked, at Rocky 


Flats. 


I applied for compensation through the EEOICPA 


in 2001, shortly after the program was 


initiated. After five years I have become 


fatigued with the bureaucratic process, 

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constantly asking for more information, asking 


for phone interviews. After five years I was 


denied. I appealed the denial. 


On the notebook that we signed up on tonight it 


asked if we had a written statement to submit. 


I didn't know that was going to be on the form. 


I feel like I have submitted my written 


statements more than once. 


Six months later, after my first appeal, I was 


denied again. A year later I was denied again 


under Part B. I believe that DOE, DOL, NIOSH, 


Oak Ridge University -- I believe pretty much 


all of them have probably spent considerably 


more denying my claim than it would have cost 


to pay my claim and let me enjoy my life. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Walter. Next I have 


Ron Buffo. 


MR. BUFFO: Thank you for letting me speak 


before you tonight. My name is Ron Buffo. I'm 


here to speak on behalf of my father, William 


Buffo, who worked at Rocky Flats from 1952 


until 1987, one of the original guys who 


started out there. He was a machinist. He was 


a tool grinder for at least 23 of those years, 

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those first 23 years, and he worked in 


buildings 44, 881, 776 and 460. 


He has had prostate cancer. He has skin 


cancer. At this point he's 75 years old. And 


just to sort of reiterate some of the things 


that some of the other people have been saying, 


and I think it's very basic stuff -- I mean 


this -- this isn't global warming. This is --


these are real things that we know are 


happening to these real people. 


My father was a machinist working with uranium 


and working on a lathe where he was shaping 


uranium. Uranium has a tendency to catch on 


fire without proper ventilation, and when it 


caught on fire he was breathing in the fumes, 


of course, and I think certainly has shown the 


effects of what's happened with that. 


Along with that -- he was exposed to that on a 


daily basis, but he was also exposed to a thing 


called perchlorethylene, a cleaning solvent. 


He cleaned machines every day when work was 


done, with his bare hands and this cleaning 


solvent. And we know that to be carcinogenic 


in nature, as well. He also lost his hearing 


because there wasn't adequate hearing 

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protection. So I mean there are just a variety 


of things that -- that all of these -- these 


wonderful people had to go through. 


I will tell you this. A true patriot, like all 


of these people. When I was growing up in 


Lewisville, not too far from Rocky Flats, I 


knew my father worked at Rocky Flats, but I'll 


tell you what, I didn't know what he did until 


about five years ago. He said no, that's -- 


that's -- I don't talk about those things, I 


signed a security clearance. And I had no 


idea. Kids at school would ask what does your 


dad do? He's a machinist. Oh, yeah? I don't 


know what he makes, but he's a machinist, 


that's for sure. It was strange coming to my 


house when I -- you know, I'd go down to the 


bathroom and I saw all these little bottles 


down by the toilet and I -- what the heck is 


that stuff for? I had no idea. You know, the 


fact of the matter is, very few of these people 


in the early stages, and I'm sure for many, 


many years, really had no idea what 


radioactivity could do to them. I really 


believe the safety training programs were 


inadequate. These men and women were not told 

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what these kinds of things could do to them, 


and today they are suffering because of that. 


So I'm here on behalf not of just my father, 


but -- but of all these people. You know, we 


talk about the bureaucratic red tape that is -- 


that has been going on for years now. He made 


a claim five years ago. Last fall he was 


denied. We wrote a letter back to the 


Department of Labor -- and I'm not kidding you, 


we got a response back in one week on the 


appeal -- denied. It took five years to get 


that first one, but it took about a week to get 


that second one. And when I -- I helped my 


father sit down and write the letter, and what 


we said was, you know, you need to look at 


this. You're denying our claim. You say that 


prostate cancer is not caused by his exposure 


to radiation. We don't agree with that, and 


that's why we are not going to sign this claim. 


We consider our case to continue to be active 


and we're going to see what happens here. 


Two months later he got a phone call from a man 


with the Department of Labor who said hey, 


what's this letter all about? My father said 


it's about my claim. And he says well, you 

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know, where you going to go with this? He goes 


well, it's pretty obvious I can't go too far 


with it, but he said I'm not signing it. And 


that's the way that it's going to be. We are 


going to stay with this and we're going to stay 


the course on -- on fighting for what we think 


is right, and these are from people who are 


very patriotic. They have no huge beefs with 


their patriotism and what they've done for this 


country. These are the original Cold War 


warriors, and -- and we have to honor them and 


we have to show them that we are responsible 


for the things that they were exposed to. 


And I think -- when I look at all these 


wonderful people here, I think we have to ask, 


if not us, then who? And if not now, then 


when? Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Ron. Next I 


have Charles -- Charles Milne -- didn't we have 


a -- I think we already had Charles Milne, 


somehow got on the list twice. 


Dennis Romero -- is it Romero? 


 MR. ROMERO: Romero. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Correct. 

 MR. ROMERO: Yeah, I'm pretty short. My name's 
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Dennis Romero. I worked out at Rocky Flats as 


-- four years as a building trades pipe fitter, 


18 years as a steel worker. I've had three job 


classifications out there, as a production 


welder, chemical operator, radiological control 


tech at the end. 


My first job was 444 as a production welder. 


Worked with beryllium, uranium, stainless, 


titanium, machining it -- not machining, but 


welding it, plating it, coatings. While 


working in that building we would often have 


air reversals because we'd have a power 


(unintelligible). Instead of the air coming 


out of the main vents, it'd be coming out of 


the return air vents that were filthy. We'd 


have dust everywhere. We'd get the evacuations 


and evacuate the back area because they don't 


know what's in the air. 


We'd have fires, just like the gentleman 


mentioned about uranium. They'd have uranium ­

- 55-gallon drums where the machines would 


throw the shavings in there. Occasionally 


they'd throw a hot chip in there. When they 


would machine this uranium it would glow red, 


red under the liquid. That's how hot it was. 

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And they would throw a chip in there that's too 


hot, it'd catch on fire and then we'd have a 


fire in the back area and they would say if 


you're not in immediate danger, stay where 


you're at; if you are in danger, evacuate the 


area. Be smoke in the air. 


I worked in that building about five years as a 


production welder and then went down -- 707 as 


a production welder. Worked with plutonium, 


beryllium, uranium assembling the pits that we 


used for final product to ship off site. 


Every month we'd have a thing we'd call IP, 


that we'd meet a certain quota every month to 


get parts out. If we didn't get the parts out 


on time, management would say well, we're going 


to lose our funding, maybe be layoffs, so we'd 


have to work the overtime to meet our quota 


every month. 


At times our dosimetry badges would be peaking 


out, and if they peaked out they would pull us 


out of the area and then we couldn't meet our 


product every month. So naturally management 


would make a suggestion -- put your TLD in your 


back pocket. Don't have it up on your chest 


where it's getting the right exposure; put it 

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in your back pocket. Or there were times when 


we'd leave them in our lockers because 


management did not want to lose their funding, 


did not want the trucks not to be able to come 


in and DOE would be unhappy with their 


progress. So we would do whatever we could to 


meet IP every month, and that went on for years 


out there until they finally shut us down. 


When I was done being a production welder, I 


went down to 771 as a chemical operator. Our 


job down there was do (unintelligible) 


inspections, decontaminate floors, gloveboxes, 


tanks -- basically the cleanup people for the 


building. That's our job is to clean up, decon 


workers. We'd go in the back area, we'd have a 


spill. Of course everybody knows 771 was 


(unintelligible) with all kinds of chemicals -- 


hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, 


numerous other chemicals been on my shirt right 


here. 


When we'd go back in the areas and decon the 


floors 'cause there'd be a tank leak, spill. 


Recontainments on the valves were leaking, 


flanges were leaking, gloveboxes were leaking 


because everything's been taken out of service, 

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wasn't maintained. It was set -- 'cause they 


thought they were going to start back up, but 


it never did happen so we'd have to go back 


there and baby-sit the place. 


We'd go back there in a full-face respirator, 


particular air purifying filter, cleaning up 


chemical spills. The only people in the 


building that had chemical respirators were the 


painters, because they did the epoxies. 


Workers in the back area were doing decon 


coverage, did not have chemical respirators. 


We'd have a particulate and that was it. 


 Times we'd have SAAM alarms. 771's notorious 


for having a lot of SAAM alarms. Problem with 


771 during thunderstorms, we'd have a high 


concentration of radon. The SAAMs would not be 


able to distinguish between radon buildup or 


plutonium particle, so it would go off and we'd 


have to deal with that. We'd go out in the 


hallway and wait for RCTs to come, see what the 


problem was. 


At that same time I had went across to be an 


RCT so I'd learned a lot more. I went through 


rad con training, radiological training, and 


they -- what we'd do is we'd have SAAM papers 

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that were contaminated with Pu or radon. We 


would let them sit for four hours. We'd count 


them initially, wait for four hours, take the 


people's names that were in the rooms at the 


time the SAAM went off 'cause we didn't know if 


they were positive or negative SAAM alarms. 


We'd wait for four hours, wait for the decay, 


see how much decay would happen on that sample. 


If there wasn't enough decay, we'd give it 


another four hours. There was times they would 


wait up to maybe a day and a half to two days 


to count that sample to see if enough decay 


would drop out so we could blame it on radon, 


because the room was posted and the workers 


were having a hard time getting the work done 


because working in a full-face is hard. 


Management wasn't happy with that scenario, 


they'd make us go back and do additional air 


samples so we could de-post the room and get it 


down to less than a tenth of a DAC. A DAC was 


a Derived Air Concentration of plutonium in the 


air. It had to be less than a tenth of a DAC. 


One DAC equates to 2.5 millirem. 


When we started doing D&D out there, we had 


procedures -- even production had procedures. 

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Full-face respirators, 50 DAC; you exceed it, 


you shut the job down till you increase your 


engineering controls, your PPE controls -- keep 


it down to less than 50 DAC because the 


respirator's only certified up to 50 DAC. 


Anything above that, they couldn't quantify how 


much of it was getting in your respirator. 


They needed to be, we'd go to PAPRs, PAPRs were 


good for 1,000 DAC. We couldn't keep it down 


below 1,000 DAC, supplied breathing air, in-


line supplied breathing air was used. That was 


still 1,000 DAC protection factor. 


 When management couldn't control the back areas 


properly when D&D happened because everything 


was going on, piping's being cut, gloveboxes 


being dropped off, the DAC started going out of 


control. It would exceed 50 DAC. They just 


changed the RWPs to warrant what they wanted to 


get done, because our training told us anytime 


you exceed protection factor respirator, a 


certain amount was getting in the respirator. 


When we exceeded 1,000 DAC on PAPRs, that 


happened quite often -- they'd be 100,000, 


200,000, maybe even up to 500,000 DAC on an air 


sample they would be counting. We was told in 

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training that for every DAC that you exceeded ­

- the protection factor 1,000, for every 1,000 


that you exceeded at, one DAC was 


(unintelligible) be in your respirator. So if 


you're in a DAC atmosphere of 500,000, you tell 


me how much DAC was probably -- how much 


plutonium might have been inside your 


respirator. 


 They would wear these respirators on 10, 12­

hour days. There was a job going on in 774 


that guys were in DAC atmosphere about 100,000 


DAC. They were cutting out these four large 


tanks, using a plasma cutter. They used liquid 


-- a fixative to spray on the linings of these 


tanks, the gloveboxes, to try to keep the 


airborne concentration from going higher than 


that. The problem with when you're using 


liquid, spraying in the atmosphere where using 


a air-purified respirator, it's a paper filter. 


That paper filter starts degrading when it gets 


wet. And they would use liquid or water to try 


to keep the concentration of the plutonium 


down. 


 Workers would come out of the back area after a 


12-hour day, take their filter cartridges off 

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their respirators, dump the respirator in a 


bin, dump the cartridges. They would look in 


their cartridges on the inside of that 


cartridge where -- that's the closest part to 


your face and a lot of times they'd be green. 


That was the color of the fixative they were 


using inside the tanks. So if that respirator 


was filtering, how much of it was it really 


filtering? 


We would survey respirators on a daily basis so 


we could send them back off to laundry. Wasn't 


no -- no big deal to find 10,000, 500,000 on 


the outside of the respirator. Was that person 


given a PI factor worksheet to find out how 


much of it they got inside their lungs? Was 


any incident reports done? 


Management, towards the end, starting not 


documenting things because of a thing called 


Price Anderson out there. Price Anderson was a 


group that went around when companies could not 


do radiological control practices safely, they 


would fine them. People have skin 


contamination, internal contamination, they 


would get fines. Well, in order to not get 


fines, you don't do the documentation, so you 

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didn't have the PI factor worksheets. You 


didn't have the radiological deficiency 


reports. You didn't have any logs to denote 


that this stuff happened on the job. 


There's so much more information that your 


dosimetry cannot tell you because a lot of the 


information wasn't done -- or it's scattered 


all over the place, 'cause we did records. We 


did DAC hour tracking whenever the DACs were 


too high. But my question is to you people, of 


all the records you got, do you have all of 


them? I don't believe you do. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Dennis. 


Now we'll hear from Richard Olds -- Richard? 


 MR. PRESLEY: He's already spoken. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe he -- yes, was -- 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, he's ended up on the list 


twice, too. Sorry. 


 Let's see, then next I have Larry -- Larry 


Pazier or Pazier -- P-a-z-i-e-r. 


 MR. PAZIER: That's close enough. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Close enough? You can give us the 


correct pronunciation, Larry. 

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 MR. PAZIER: It's Larry Pazier. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Pazier, thank you. 

 MR. PAZIER: My wife Cheryl was a Rocky Flats 

employee, and I -- I'm not a Rocky Flats 


person, and all I did was hear these things 


second-hand, but I know that she was exposed at 


least twice. Five years later after she was 


exposed, she was diagnosed with colon cancer 


and two months ago she passed away. 


She was a vegetarian. No -- no cancers in the 


family, went to the gym five or six days a 


week, only exposed twice. And I hear the 


probability and the statistics that some of the 


people are saying, including a doctor, but what 


does it really mean? One in a thousand? What 


if you're the one? One in 100,000, what if 


you're the one? 


My -- my concern is really not for what's going 


on here today. The money, sure, is going to 


help the people out that are living, help them 


with their doctor bills, et cetera. What I 


would like to do is suggest and somehow get out 


to the public that there needs to be more 


testing done. It's my understanding that -- 


you know, that they had testers -- test 

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indicators that give you an idea if you've been 


exposed. But when the people leave working for 


a nuclear facility, are they getting PET scans 


and CAT scans to test, if they have been 


exposed, if they have cancer? If this could 


have been done, it may have saved my wife. 


The other thing I'd like to say is, you know, 


to -- to just -- to get the word out to other 


workers in nuclear facilities of the risks 


they're taking. I don't believe that they 


understand the total risk that they're working 


under. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. I have what I think is 


Larry -- Ramos? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Rands? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or Rand, maybe it's Rand -- Larry 


Rand, yeah. Okay. 


MR. RANDS: Hi. As Paul said, my name is Larry 


Rands. I spent 20 years at Rocky Flats. I had 


the opportunity last year to provide you with a 


summary of my jobs on the site and my lung 


cancer that was diagnosed in 2003. I donated a 


lung to the cause, went through chemotherapy 


after and I'll play with the side effect of the 


chemotherapy the rest of my life. 

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It's my understanding that you folks are an 


advisory board to tell health and safety or 


someone to -- that's going to make a decision 


on the outcome of the future of the workers of 


Rocky Flats. And I thank you for that 


opportunity to talk to you last year, and I'm 


happy to be able to be here this year. I would 


ask, and I implore you, to unite to advise the 


people that are going to make the decision for 


the efforts that are being expended and for 


these people that have suffered and are 


suffering, please help them. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Then Cheryl Meaney. 


 MS. MEANEY: Hello. My name is Cheryl Meaney 


and I worked at Rocky Flats for 21 years. At 


the present time I am not ill due to working at 


Rocky Flats. [Identifying Information and Name 


Redacted], also worked at Rocky Flats for 32 


years as a security guard. He couldn't be here 


this evening so he asked me to come and speak 


for him. 


In 2005 he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. 


As a result, he had surgery to remove his 


thyroid that same year. His physician says 


there are only ways to get thyroid cancer. 

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Heredity is the first reason, and the other is 


radiation exposure. There isn't any known 


thyroid cancer in my husband's family, so one 


must assume that his cancer is the result of 


radiation exposure at Rocky Flats. 


He is missing quite a lot of his dose records 


due to poor radiation record-keeping at Rocky 


Flats. Records show he worked in Building 123 


for the majority of the time, but that was only 


his base building. He went to Building 123 


every day to change into his uniform, get his 


gun and have his morning meeting for the plan 


of the day. His regular job duties consisted 


of the following: 


He walked routes throughout the entire complex, 


including the radiation and contamination 


areas. He was required to sit on the docks in 


close proximity to all radioactive material as 


it was loaded onto trucks for shipment. He was 


required to watch people and guard material in 


the various vaults. Even if the alarm sounded, 


he had to stay to guard the vault he was 


assigned to. Everyone else could evacuate. He 


was part of the team that loaded trucks for 


transport to other facilities. This material 

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was the completed product, so it was very 


radioactive. He had to crawl on and around the 


radioactive drums in order to secure them 


properly. He also had to transport radioactive 


material samples in his security vehicle right 


in the seat beside him. 


All of this was done without wearing a lead 


apron or shielding of the samples. 


He took great pride in the job he did to 


protect our national security, and now hopes 


his government will take care of him. We pray 


that [Name Redacted] cancer does not reoccur. 


But if it does, it would be helpful for him and 


his family to have a little financial security 


to help cover the medical bills as a result of 


his radiation exposure in his work at Rocky 


Flats. 


 Please vote yes and give all Cold War veterans 


peace of mind. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Cheryl. Next, Juan 


Abilu -- Abilu? 


MR. ABILA: The last name's Abila, A-b-i-l-a. 


 DR. ZIEMER: A-b-i-l--


MR. ABILA: A. 


 DR. ZIEMER: --a. 

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MR. ABILA: Right. I really don't have much 


more to say, other than what everybody else has 


said. The only thing that I would like to ask 


is why are we having to prove what, in most 


cases, a DOE or Rocky Flats doctor has verified 


or diagnosed us with? I think -- I think 


everybody else has covered what I had to say 


and I appreciate it and thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, thank you, Juan. 


And then Jack Weaver. 


 MR. WEAVER: Good evening. Thank you for 


letting me speak. I also want to thank the 


people that are here in the audience, my 


brothers and sisters that worked with me at 


Rocky Flats. 


This is an emotional time for everybody that's 


here, me included. I happen to be in fairly 


well -- fairly good health, but I have some 


relatives that worked at Rocky Flats for a 


number of years that -- that are not in such 


good health, so hopefully I'm here to represent 


them. 


I -- I started to work at Rocky Flats September 


the 5th, 1961. I left there June 5th, 2002, so 


you know I've been there a long time. I worked 

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in just about -- well, I did work in every 


building on the plant site at one time or 


another in some capacity. I worked 12 years as 


a hourly individual and the rest of my time was 


spent in various supervisory positions, all the 


way up to a deputy AGM under EG&G, so I've been 


the gamut from all the way at the bottom to all 


the way to the top. 


I also participated in -- in -- starting in 


2001 on the oversight committee for the ORISE 


dose reconstruction. I was asked to come and 


participate in that, and after talks with Joe 


Aldridge and his group, I decided I would do 


that. And the main reason I participated in it 


was because the people -- very intelligent, 


very smart individuals -- didn't have a clue 


about Rocky Flats, and my job was to try and 


make them understand, teach them what we did, 


how we did it, why we did it and what the 


consequences of some of that stuff were. 


Just like everybody said, I -- I understand 


that there are missing pieces of information in 


the -- in the dose and stuff. I think they did 


the best they could with what they had, they 


just didn't have everything, as -- as people 

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have said before. 


The other issue that I have that -- that 


doesn't seem to get across at these meetings is 


that Rocky Flats was a chemical processing 


facility to recover plutonium from scrap and to 


produce the final product, pits. Okay? The 


plutonium processing in these buildings was -- 


was a -- a -- primarily a nitric acid process, 


although there were a lot of other chemicals. 


And when we were doing the cleanup in -- in the 


'90s, or preparing for the destruction of the 


plant, one of the things that we did was a -- 


was a chemical inventory -- and at the time I 


was working in 71 building; I spent 32 years in 


71 building. And I have this document. I 


provided it to the -- to the group last year 


when we met. It's a 53-page document of excess 


chemicals. It has 5,700 containers listed on 


it of everything imaginable. 


And with [Name Redacted] permission -- I was 


working in the building with [Name Redacted]. 


She was doing part of the -- the inventory. We 


were working on the inventory with [Name 


Redacted] and a lot of other people, names that 


you are familiar with. Exposure to these 

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chemical -- I mean there were things that -- 


that -- I'll give you a for instance. One of 


the things that -- that people don't associate 


too much wi-- or don't know about at Rocky 


Flats from the outside is hydrogen peroxide. 


Most people think of hydrogen peroxide to be 


put on -- on a cut on a finger, color your hair 


or something like that. We used hydrogen 


peroxide in the plutonium processing to make 


plutonium peroxide precipitate. We used 50 


percent hydrogen peroxide. That's the same 


stuff they use in rockets to fire them off, you 


know? And after a couple of explosions, we 


went to 35 percent because it wasn't quite as 


volatile. 


But we had numerous ex-- explosions. We had 


fires. We had everything you can think of 


under the sun. And as these people have 


already stated, and I don't -- I don't think 


you want to hear all my war stories 'cause you 


ain't got enough time left in this week to hear 


all the stories that I could tell you about 


Rocky Flats and 71 and 371 and all those. 


I just want to say that -- that Abe just made a 


very good point. We worked under the AEC, IRTA 

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and DOE, and yet when it comes down to this 


issue that we have here on the table today, the 


burden of proof is on these people here to 


provide something. 


Now when I went to work at Rocky Flats you were 


supposed to keep records, and I always thought 


there should have been a place where all the 


records that were kept -- everything from a 


piece of paper that somebody scratched on, a 


note or something, all the way up to plans, 


procedures and everything -- should have been 


kept in a place where they could be gotten to. 


That never happened, so a lot of stuff got 


lost. And all these exposures to -- to 


radiation and the exposures to chemicals, 


they're -- there are missing records for -- 


primarily with the chemicals, because there was 


no -- there was no activities on the site until 


1986 when we put in an HF monitor to monitor 


hydrogenfluoride gas, there was nothing that 


monitored releases to the atmosphere of 


chemicals. So these people were exposed to 


concentrated nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, 


hydrofluoric acid, everything you can think of. 


And to me, that's just as dangerous as the 

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plutonium. 


So I'm not going to stand up here and spout a 


bunch of war stories right now 'cause you don't 


need to hear those tonight. I've taken up 


enough of your time on that. I'd just like to 


say that Rocky Flats provided a service to the 


United States of America during the Cold War, 


and we handled a lot of the most dangerous 


chemical in the world, as the -- as it's been 


called, plutonium. What we pushed out the door 


was a product for the government to use as a 


deterrent to keep the rest of the world away 


from our doors. Some of those were used at 


Nevada for tests. I recently read in the paper 


where Nevada got their SEC. Those people 


handled the final product, had very little 


radiation connected with it. And when I go to 


Nevada and talk to those people, and I have 


many times, they're scared to death of anybody 


from Rocky Flats 'cause they know that most of 


the people at Rocky Flats were exposed. You 


know? So they -- they don't understand why we 


ever did what we did and why we would continue 


to work at Rocky Flats when -- they thought 


they had issues; they don't even begin to 

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compare to Rocky Flats. 


So I'd just like to say please consider what 


all of these wonderful people have told you 


about their experiences at Rocky Flats. And as 


I told the people last year when we met and I 


gave them the documents, you've got my name and 


address and phone number. If you want to hear 


any story from the time I got there, 1961, to 


the time I left in 2002, I'll be glad to sit 


down with you and tell you any of it. I was 


involved in the fires and the cleanup and all 


that. I have an extremely large -- for most 


people -- radiation exposure. But I'm just one 


of hundreds of people that had large exposures 


-- larger than what was allowed by the DOE 


regs. Those -- those, to me, aren't being 


considered. 


The arbitrary number that's been set is -- is 


another thing that's of great concern to me 


because -- again I'm going to use [Name 


Redacted] as a -- as a for instance because we 


worked side by side. What affects me maybe not 


affects her. What affects her maybe does not 


affect me. Our genes are different, our 


backgrounds are different, everything. So how 

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can you set an arbitrary number on somebody 


who's had the problems that she's had? 


I thank you for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Jack. I -- I want to 


find out how many would like about a ten-minute 


comfort break or -- we have quite a few folks 


to go yet, but --


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Shall we keep going? We'll keep 


going, and individually if you feel like you 


need to slip out -- Board members, too, just 


don't stay out long -- but we'll keep going 


then. Okay. I -- I don't want any of you to 


feel like you -- if you really need to slip 


out, please do that. 


 Hannah Marschall. 


 MS. MARSCHALL: Hi. I'm Hannah Marschall. 


This is the first time I've been in front of a 


board like this, so don't have any notes. I 


worked at Rocky Flats from the early 1980s 


until they -- Kaiser Hill declared physical 


completion in 2005. I think all of us that 


worked out there knew that we were working 


around danger-- dangerous materials. However, 

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we trusted our government to keep us safe. And 


I -- I just think it's incomprehensible, to me, 


that our government now is making those of us 


that are sick grovel for such a stippance (sic) 


of money. There aren't that many of us left, 


and it's not that much money. And it just 


seems as though the government could take the 


high road and admit that possibly they put us 


in harm's way and those that -- of us that only 


have a couple years left to live, that they 


could approve our claims and allow us, our 


spouses and our children to have whatever time 


we have left to live it with dignity and with 


some peace of mind. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Hannah. Mary 


Ann Rupp. 


 MS. RUPP: Hi. I also want to thank you for 


the opportunity to address this Board. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Mary Ann, pull the mike down just 


a tad. Thank you. 


 MS. RUPP: Thank you. 


UNIDENTIFIED: Us short people got to stick 


together. 


 MS. RUPP: I want to thank you for allowing me 


to address the Board, as with everyone else. 
I 
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am here tonight on behalf of my husband, who 


could not be here as he died 11 years ago at 


the age of 49 from lung cancer. I've had a 


hard time with this because when he was 


diagnosed his diagnosis was -- the primary site 


was lung. However, it metastasized to the 


brain. 


I'm here to put a face to his claim tonight, 


because he was a vibrant man, a family man, a 


patriotic man -- as with everybody else in this 


room -- and he believed in what he was doing, 


also. 


He was diagnosed and he was considered terminal 


as soon as we had his diagnosis. He was a man 


who -- he -- he was active, and I -- as I said, 


vibrant. He lost his ability for speech. He 


wa-- suffered paralysis. We spent a lot of 


time playing charades because he couldn't 


communicate with the family like he wanted to 


do. 


I have here which is what many of these people 


have heard from NIOSH and it's called findings 


of fact. The evidence of record does not 


establish that exposure to toxic substances 


experienced at the DOE facility was a 

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significant factor in aggravating, contributing 


to or causing the lung cancer of Martin C. 


Rupp. Therefore, Mary Ann Rupp is not entitled 


to the benefit because she did not establish 


that he developed a covered illness through the 


toxic substance at the Department of Energy 


facility, pursuant to 42 USC 7385S-4. And I'm 


sure many of you are familiar with this very 


same letter. 


This is my third appeal, and I'm not only 


appealing on behalf of my family, but on behalf 


of everyone in this room. You can do little to 


help my husband now, but you can do a lot to 


help the people that are left here. 


 I just basically wanted to tell you how I came 


to this. Martin worked at a pipe fitter out at 


Rocky Flats. He was also out there as a field 


engineer and an iron worker. He was there from 


1983 till approximately 1992. The first two 


years that he was on site he had absolutely no 


dosimetry monitoring. We've -- you know, we 


received -- I, as the other lady did, talked to 


David Sundin, requested all the dosimetry 


records, and I received a partial list -- and I 


do stress "partial". He was there for nine 

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years and the dosimetry records I have 


consisted of approximately three pages, the 


majority of which said zero because there was 


no monitoring, as I said, for the first two 


years. 


What brought me to this was that Martin was 


exposed while he was working on the plant site. 


He was not in a building. He was working 


outside of building 776, along with a coworker. 


They unearthed some contaminated items there. 


And I had not realized this had happened until 


this whole program started and his fellow 


worker, a [Name Redacted], who was the 


[Identifying Information Redacted]for pipe 


fitter Local 208 out of Denver, came to me and 


he says I think you and [Name Redacted] who was 


the wife of the other exposed worker, need to 


put in a claim. And then he told me why. 


And when I first started the whole process with 


NIOSH, you know, I went through the interview. 


I told them that I -- I had come to this for 


this reason, that I'd found out of his 


exposure, and it was never considered a valid 


reason. In all the times that I spoke with 


NIOSH, all the interviews, all the letters, 

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other meetings I've been to, I -- I always told 


them that this was what was in the forefront. 


This was why I was here. But they never once 


investigated it, which to me is unbelievable. 


And I'd like to read to you just basically what 


I've sent to them, and hopefully, as I said, 


it'll put a face to my claim and help put a 


face to many of the other claims and that the ­

- that you will consider Rocky Flats for the 


SEC. 


I am again objecting to the fact that my 


husband was on site from July of 1983 to 


September of 1992, as corroborated by the 


District Office of NIOSH. Information obtained 


from the Freedom of Information Act on partial 


dosimetry records -- and I stress partial, as I 


have supplemental badge reports that were not 


listed on the dosimetry badge report in the 


dosimetry and radiation monitoring. Those 


records, which I have included, state that they 


absolutely had no monitoring data for -- in 


1983 or '84, and the first dosimetry readings 


on Martin did not begin until September of 


1985. The two -- the two full years without 


dosimetry monitorings of any type. 

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I am also objecting to the lack of 


investigation of an incident that initially 


prompted me to file the claim in 2003. It 


involved both my husband and another employee, 


whose wife has also filed a claim on his behalf 


as he is also deceased. They died 


approximately a year from one another. [Name 


Redacted] cancer was cancer of the brain, brain 


was primary site; Martin's was lung that 


metastasized to the brain. 


The incident of exposure was witnessed by their 


supervisor/coworker, who is also [Identifying 


Information Redacted] of the pipe fitter Local 


208 in Denver. No interview regarding the 


incident was ever conducted. It appears to 


have been totally disregarded by NIOSH 


investigators. 


During my telephone interview of March 3rd, 


2006 in which I stated in section six, 


radiation incidents, that yes, there had been 


an incident of contamination; and in section 


eight, identify coworker and other witnesses, 


in which I identified the coworker and also his 


former owner and operator of the company for 


which he had worked. He was one of the 

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subcontractors who Martin worked with at Rocky 


Flats for many years and had detailed 


information on job sites and locations, which 


specified buildings and specific duties. 


According to the NIOSH report of dose 


reconstruction under dose from radiological 


incidents, the record of the telephone 


interview was evaluated carefully, and while 


the telephone interview was used to assist in 


determining whether Mr. Rupp worked there, 


there had been no mention of any incident of 


exposure -- which was not true, I had mentioned 


that several times. The events of the 


contamination were mentioned several times 


throughout the course of the process. The job 


of NIOSH was to investigate any and all forms 


of the -- throughout the course of the process, 


phone interview and witnesses to look at all 


the data, gather from all possible sources and 


then determine its validity. Without adequate 


investigation into this incident and without 


interviewing the witnesses who could give 


insight into the circumstances of exposure and 


the background to Martin's activities while 


employed at Rocky Flats site, I don't feel the 

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claim was given credence it deserved. 


NIOSH has based its evaluation of potential 


exposure on inadequate and incomplete 


information supplied by Rockwell International, 


a company that was allowed to plea bargain out 


of their culpability into alleged environmental 


crimes to the tune of $18.5 million, to forever 


seal from the public the information uncovered 


by a grand jury in 1992. 


 I have attended several of the neighborhood 


meetings that have been held by the Department 


of Labor, and the same information rings true, 


that Rockwell International has falsified 


information regarding dosimetry readings of 


former Rocky Flats workers. Over and over I 


have listened to individuals tell their own 


experience of -- of readings from wrist 


dosimetries that were never assigned, and 


reports that for many years they were required 


to wear their dosimeters under lead aprons, 


with no reading to cover their heads and 


extremities. 


Martin worked on the water main building in 


771, the plutonium production building, which 


has been labeled by the Bulletin of Atomic 

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Scientists in 2001 as the most dangerous 


building in America. Microscopic particles of 


plutonium were extremely toxic if inhaled. 


Martin and his coworker were both exposed when 


working outside of Building 776 while digging a 


trench with a backhoe, and they unearthed 


something hot -- a direct quote from my 


witness. According to the EPA Superfund 


record, USEPA Region 8, Congressional District 


Number 2, EPA ID number 890010526, bore hole 


data indicated that radioactive contamination 


is generally contained in the top 12 inches of 


native soil. That plutonium, uranium and 


americurium (sic) contaminated soil in the 


central and eastern portions of the site, with 


the most contaminated areas being on the 


eastern edge of the industrial area. That 


alone should have strongly suggested that 


further investigation of the incident of 


contamination should have been conducted. 


It is also stated that significant amounts of 


plutonium were in liquid form contained within 


the deteriorating piping systems, which is what 


Martin did as a pipe fitter. He also worked on 


process piping systems, water heaters, flumes, 

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exhaust fans, heat exchangers, steam 


conversions, cooling towers, plenums, heating 


and air conditioning. 


I respectfully ask that -- that reconsideration 


of my claim -- claim be seriously reconsidered 


due to the lack of investigation into incident 


of exposure and all the areas that Martin 


worked in on plant site. 


I am not confident in the fact that NIOSH has 


estimated his exposure adequately without 


investigating all the facts I have submitted. 


I believe that many of the people in this room 


have the same problem. I have dosimetry 


readings that were scrawled on pieces of paper, 


just handwritten, no scientific data, nothing 


to back it up. And I believe that along with 


my husband and everyone in this room, they 


deserve the right to have everyone consider 


this and take it out of the hands of NIOSH and 


the Department of Labor, and please consider 


their claims. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Mary Ann. Next we'll 


hear from -- I think it's -- could it be Chet 


Stickelman? I'm have a little hard time 


reading the first name -- Stickelman? 

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 (No responses) 


Okay. Yvonne Garrimone -- Garrimone? Yvonne? 


Okay. 


 MS. GARRIMONE: Hi. Yes, my name is Yvonne 


Garrimone and I'm here to speak on behalf of my 


[Identifying Information Redacted], who passed 


away [Identifying Information Redacted]. 


He started at Rocky Flats in October of 1981. 


There he was a NDT tech, and I only know these 


things second-hand and just through talking 


through it with his coworkers, speaking with 


people from the steel workers' union and trying 


to do research on my own through the incomplete 


records that was provided to me and my mother 


from the Rocky Flats Plant. 


Every time -- he first -- when we first found 


out he was ill, it was April, 2001. After an 


extensive stay in the hospital in ICU and 


trying to recover, he placed his claim for -- 


with -- with NIOSH. He -- we -- we actually 


received his dose reconstruction I believe a 


month after he had passed away and to which my 


mother got a phone call asking her if she 


wanted to stay with what [Identifying 


Information Redacted] had gone on record as 

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what he believed, which we do believe, what he 


was exposed to. And just having to go through 


this fight and be denied time after time after 


time is a slap in the face, not only to us, the 


survivors, but to people who are living with 


the illnesses and various diseases that they 


got through their exposure at Rocky Flats doing 


their job, doing what they thought was right to 


protect, you know, not only their country, but 


to protect their families and to provide for 


them. 


I know that not only did [Identifying 


Information Redacted] -- was he diagnosed with 


pancreatic cancer, but two other people in his 


group, as well. He never once, through the 


whole ordeal that he was put through, 


complained. But the one thing that he did make 


me promise and as well as [Identifying 


Information Redacted] is that we would fight, 


not only for him, but for everyone else that 


has been put through this whole ugly, ugly 


mess. 


The only thing that I really want, more than 


anything else -- not the money. It doesn't 


matter. But for [Identifying Information 

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Redacted] to be able to see his ten-month-old 


granddaughter, to see everything that he's 


missing. When [Identifying Information 


Redacted] died at the age of 47 from pancreatic 


cancer, and I will tell you, that is the most 


horrible way to watch somebody die. 


[Identifying Information Redacted] was a very 


active man, and that ugly disease took him away 


from me, my mother, my sister, his grandson and 


everybody else who loved him and knew him. And 


I did not mean to get this emotional, but 


please, for -- not just for me, but for 


everyone else and anyone else who gets sick 


from this place, pass the special cohort status 


for these people so that we don't have to do 


this fight and get slapped in the face every 


single time. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Yvonne, and for being 


brave enough to share that. 


 Don Saber. 


MR. SABEC: Sabec? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Could be Sabec, S-a-b-- S-a-b-e-k, 


is it? 


MR. SABEC: C, c, c. 


 DR. ZIEMER: B-e-z. 

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MR. SABEC: S-a-b-e-c. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, S-a-b-e-c, get it on the 


record here correctly. Thank you. 


MR. SABEC: My name's Don Sabec, as you well 


know now. I started at Rocky Flats in April of 


1961 and I retired the end of June of 2004. 


What I want to talk to you about is these dose 


recalculations. You know, it -- it took 33 


years before I finally got a true dose 


assessment. And July 28th of 1994 they 


notified me that they did a dose reassessment 


on me and had to add 30-- 36,108 millirem to my 


exposure. And at the time I had a calculated 


dose of 71,415, and when you add it all up I 


ended up with 107,523 millirem. 


But 23 years later is -- or 33 years later, 


excuse me, is just a little too late on -- on 


that. And during that calculation they 


happened to add in two years that I missed 


Rocky Flats -- I got to go to work for the 


Department of Army for a couple of years -- and 


they did give me a dose for that. And I 


brought it to the attention in the meeting -- 


the summer meeting at Jefferson County Airport 


that they added that two years that I wasn't 

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even at the Rocky Flats, and I don't know what 


-- the numbers they come up with or how they 


come up with it. And there was a gentleman 


there from NIOSH that heard me make that 


statement. Well, again, I was down at the 


Marriott with -- with [Name Redacted] last -- 


in the -- in the -- I guess it was the fall 


that we went in there, and said something about 


it when I made a testimony again, and he got me 


after I made my testimony and says Don, he 


says, I -- I remember doing yours 'cause I 


remember the two years that you said that you 


had an exposure from Rocky Flats that you 


weren't even there, he says, and I did a dose 


recalculation on you. But he said I had to add 


another eight rem to your exposure. And I said 


well, that -- not too good. He said -- and I 


thought he was going to mail me a -- a copy of 


that -- that exposure value. I never received 


anything from that, and I kept telling 


everybody I'm pretty lucky, I haven't had any 


symptoms at all from Rocky Flats. Until 


October -- it was early October they found 


cancer in my eye -- I don't remember the date. 


Anyway, October 11th they removed it and I -- I 

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don't know, I go back tomorrow to see if it's 


coming back again, but when I talked to the 


Department of Labor when I -- I made a claim. 


That's the first time I've ever done anything 


like that, and I told them it wasn't malignant; 


it's very hard to get malignant cancer in your 


eye, they said well, if it's not malignant, we 


don't even compensate you for it. But I did 


have an interview over the telephone, thought 


everything was -- they would contact me and 


make -- have a hearing. That -- that didn't 


happen. They -- they sent me another form to 


fill out that they want to know my entire 


history of the jobs I performed. 


Well, in 44 years of work out there, I don't 


know if anybody could remember the jobs -- all 


the jobs they performed. I -- I was a chem op 


for seven years. That's when the -- I probably 


got my -- most of my neutron excess, but -- and 


I really feel that this dose recalculation 


thing is -- is just about like a dart board 


effect. You -- you throw a dart, hit a number 


and that's what you're going to get, because 


there's so many incidents that we had that was 


not reported -- spills, contamination. We'd 

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take them in -- in 771 we'd taken them in there 


if they had their hands contaminated and their 


face contaminated, we -- we'd wash them down in 


the area in a decon room and there -- most of 


the time there was never even a record made of 


it. So I -- I don't know how you people can 


make an intelligent decision on the exposures 


of people at Rocky Flats, when -- when I can't 


even get records -- I -- I had to really cry 


the blues to get my own records. Rocky Flats ­

- when I retired I requested a copy of them. 


It was two and a half years before I even got 


anything from them. 


So I just want to say that the dose 


reconstruction is -- is almost impossible for ­

- for the lack of record keeping Rocky Flats 


did because the number one game was production. 


When you're in production, you know, it's damn 


the torpedoes, full speed ahead. And -- and 


the same -- same criteria, same mentality, was 


the same way when we're in D&D. That's one of 


the reasons I got out as early as I did 'cause 


I felt very healthy and felt I could keep 


working, but the way things were going, I 


thought -- you know, somebody's going to 

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really get hurt -- which they didn't; they 


lucked out. 


Anyway, I appreciate you people coming down 


here and looking at this and -- and hopefully 


that you -- you can come up with something that 


is going to compensate people for what they 


really deserve. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Then Jack -- is it 


Blakeslee -- Blakeslee, or --


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) He left. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, he left? Okay. How about 


Dale Tinkle? Dale? 


 (No responses) 


 Michael Logan. 


MR. LOGAN: I just want to thank you for 


hearing us and all, and hopefully we can get 


things squared away. But I started at Rocky 


Flats in October of 1978, worked there until 


June 19th of 2003, got laid off and took the 


early retirement. In the meantime, in '94 I 


left for ten months and then came back, take 


care of some family business. And there's so 


many stories you can hear, you know, starting 


out out there. 

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For example, I started out as a janitor, then I 


progressed to a service attendant, working in 


the garage servicing the fleet vehicles. And 


then I went to a metallurgical operator working 


in the foundry with the plutonium and dealing 


with all the castings and material with stuff 


like that. 


Some days we'd have SAAM alarm go off probably 


ten, 15 times. The way they did the air flow 


is that the air may be flowing towards you, the 


SAAM alarm's behind you, and by the time it 


goes off you've already got an uptake. A lot 


of times if you request to go to body count, if 


you're fortunate enough to let someone agree to 


send you up there, it come back as background. 


But yet if they do nasal smears or anything 


like that, it comes out that you've got an 


intake. 


Far as the radiological records, I've been 


fighting for three months now trying to get 


mine and I keep getting the runaround. I 


talked with a gal in Washington, D.C., her 


name's [Name Redacted] at Rad Records, and she 


keeps referring me to someone else, they refer 


me to someone else, but I -- I keep getting the 

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runaround. I don't know what else to do. 


A lot of the people here have very, very viable 


complaints, issues over it that needs to be 


addressed. You know, we hope everything will 


come out okay and everything's done right. You 


know, it's kind of like when I was brought up 


as a kid, you know, you -- you're taught to do 


right and do the right thing, but it doesn't 


appear that it's either, one, it's the system 


or the people handling the system. 


Every time I get on the computer I just -- I 


get real angry, looking at the different issues 


with Rocky Flats. [Name Redacted] has 


diagnosed me of having asbestiosis (sic). 


National Jewish says it is inconclusive, but 


all the symptoms are there as far as the 


thickening of the pleural lining of the lungs, 


which also has the same consistency as 


berylliosis, which I've worked with that also. 


Now [Name Redacted] also wrote an article on 


the beryllium testing, the program, and gone 


into great detail on how it works. But there 


was another partner with them, another doctor, 


and this kind of scares me to death, he was a 


doctor of veterinarian medicine. Now either, 

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one, he does have some knowledge of the 


background of radiation or beryllium; or two, 


were we guinea pigs? I mean I don't mean to 


sound nasty, but there's a lot of 


inconsistencies of them losing records, records 


come back incomplete, or they're changing our 


dose to zero when we've been in the area. So 


what you're saying is by waving the magic pen, 


we don't -- we automatically don't get any 


radiation, we don't have no dose? 


Right now I'm fighting with a tumor in my 


spinal cord. I haven't had any comment back on 


that from the Department of Labor. Far as the 


asbestos of that, I've been denied the 


financial. They say they would like to do the 


medical surveillance on it, but I haven't seen 


anything on paper. 


I had to fill out some paperwork the Department 


of Labor sent me far as have I ever filed a 


suit against any labor department or workmen's 


comp or do I have any claims pending, which I 


don't. We FAXed it to them. I get a call 


today, where -- where's the paperwork? Well, 


you guys have -- it's been FAXed to you. 
I 


have the paperwork that shows that you have it. 

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I hate to see it, it's kind of scary, but 


either, one, they're hiding stuff, which I 


would not like to believe; or two, somebody's 


just not doing their job. 


I don't think we're asking for every -- you 


know, there's no way that DOE can come up and 


just wave their magic wand and everything's 


right. We want them to stand up and at least 


make an honest effort. You know, at first, 


when I was really scared and mad about the 


tumor in my spinal cord, I thought that the 


Department of Energy didn't care about us. I 


thought we were just a piece of meat and a 


number, but a piece of meat's a precious 


commodity. I'm not sure, we were just doing 


our job, what we were told to do. We were also 


told that the radiation exposure that we got by 


going to the dentist or having a couple of X-


rays a year -- you know, chest X-rays -- you 


know, you get more radiation exposure there 


than you did at Rocky Flats in a full year. 


I'm still at the point now, there's only two 


things they've told us: Lies, and more lies. 


If I was to go out and get drunk and run over 


somebody, I'm held accountable. But is our 

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government held accountable for what they do? 


It's got to be a two-way street. I was brought 


up to do things right and do the right thing, 


and I've done my best to do that, working for 


Rocky Flats doing what I felt was in the best 


interests of my country. I cared. And a lot 


of these people here, you -- you won't find a 


more dedicated group of people. We're a honest 


bunch of people, and more caring. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Michael. Cheryl 

Hewitt-Ballou. 

 MS. HEWITT-BALLOU: Good evening. [Identifying 

Information Redacted]is why I'm here. His name 


is [Name Redacted] and he was diagnosed with 


berylliosis chronic disease and asbestosis. He 


was one of the first people that actually 


helped build Rocky Flats in the late '50s and 


going through the '60s and into the '70s. He's 


been in every single building on the facility. 


His job was working for the sheet metal workers 


Local Number 9. He would crawl in and out of 


ductwork that had been contaminated with 


beryllium dust. He had it covering him. There 


was no security. There was no OSHA, if you 


will. There was nothing to let him know that 

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the dust that he carried home to his family was 


actually radioactive dust, and that he had 


inhaled it, he had also ingested it. He had it 


all over his lunch pail. 


As a child growing up and watching [Identifying 


Information Redacted] come home from this 


facility, I would of course greet him when he 


came home with loves, kisses and hugs. He also 


had a little trick that he did every day for 


me. He'd always leave a little tidbit in his 


lunchbox for me to eat. Well, I did this every 


single day that he brought home his lunchbox. 


This box was covered with dust. We had no clue 


as to what the dust actually was until many 


years later. 


Now I am as mad as hell, and I don't want to 


take this anymore -- if I may quote a famous 


actor in a movie. He yelled out the window. 


All of these people that are here, and the ones 


that did not get the information that this 


meeting was being held this evening due to lack 


of correcting themselves and making sure that 


you address the people the correct way with 


notification of ample time to get them here to 


this meeting. One newspaper article isn't 

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enough. 


These people are sick and they're dying. I'm 


sick and I'm dying. I went through a double 


mastectomy at the age of 49 years of age due to 


the beryllium poisoning that I have in my 


system. I documented this beryllium poisoning 


in my system when I was pregnant with my son 


that is now 16 years of age, because I was so 


concerned of it being transmitted. I realized 


[Identifying Information Redacted] had brought 


the dust home. I realized that we had contact 


with it physically, by inhaling it and 


ingesting it. I was so concerned I went to 


National Jewish Hospital with [Information 


Redacted] on a specific appointment, and I 


asked the doctor specifically, is this 


transferable to my child that I'm carrying. 


And of course he could not answer me. But now 


at this point of my life, at 51 years of age, 


after going through a double mastectomy, I am 


now looking at where it's involving my liver 


and my kidneys and my lungs. 


 Now these beautiful, wonderful Americans stood 


by the country and they did their job. They 


were screwed. I'm sorry, I'm not very polite. 

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I like to put things black and white. They've 


been screwed by the government by lack of 


keeping records, by lack of truth, by lack of 


supplying ample, complete records for them to 


be able to go to doctors that should be 


supplied by the government to take care of 


them. They did nothing wrong but to do their 


job. 


We're not asking for any miracles because we 


already know that we've been contaminated. We 


already know what our outcome is. You're not 


one of those people. You're being paid to sit 


here and listen to the sob stories and then 


you'll walk away and you'll dismiss it, just 


like all the rest of these meetings have done. 


All of these years we've talked, we've begged, 


we've pleaded and we've asked nothing but to do 


the right thing by these people, the Americans 


that supported the country that we believe in. 


I don't think that's too much to ask. 


The families have been affected so much that 


they've been basically put back on the shelf, 


shut up, nothing to do about it, the government 


will eventually get their act together. Well, 


you know what? I don't believe that the 

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government's going to actually get their act 


together. And the reason why? You haven't 


done it yet. How many more years do you wait? 


You'll wait long enough for every one of these 


people and their family members to die, and 


then you'll go oh, guess what? I guess we were 

wrong. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Cheryl. Diane Jensen? 

Is Diane with us? 

 MS. JENSEN: As you stated, I'm Diane Jensen. 


I spent 22 years out at the Flats, and my first 


eight years I spent as a chemical operator. 


That meant hands-on processing with plutonium. 


And as a chemical operator, we went through 


progression period. That meant we learned how 


to handle plutonium in a liquid form, a solid 


form, a metal form. We bagged in, we bagged 


out. We touched it hands-on every day, moving 


it from one glovebox to the next. 


The remaining years I spent in technical 


support in a production building. I was always 


within 50 feet of the production area. 


In 2003 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. 


I'm currently in -- was in remission. I now 


have a growth on my thyroid. 

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I want to thank you very much for this venue to 


tell you about our concerns, the inaccuracies 


that I've found in struggling with this huge 


system. I want to address my concerns to you 


because you are the audience that can make the 


decision. You are the decision-makers for our 


future, so that we can quit fighting and get on 


with our lives. 


 Special Exposure Cohort status is extremely 


important to those of us who have been ill, but 


I need to let you know that the system that's 


in place is broken, how it is broken, and that 


the administrators of the program cannot fix 


it. They do not have the expertise, the 


ability or the resolve to handle the issues. 


 The Department of Labor is currently tasked 


with administering this program. They have no 


knowledge of radiation. I spent some time with 


a hearing officer for the FAB board. My report 


from that meeting lists my exposure, measured 


in grams. Now I was under the impression it's 


millirem, rem -- again, they have no concept of 


radiation. 


The hearing officer is not the least bit 


concerned that they don't understand radiation, 

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because NIOSH is the determining factor. They 


are only in place to make sure that the NIOSH 


determination is enforced. And they hide 


behind that law. It is on-- and it is the only 


tool they have to make their determination 


because NIOSH is the rule that determines least 


as likely or not. It is not their job to 


understand, but only to implement. They have 


no idea of the relevancy of radiation dose. 


And to make it more frustrating, you cannot 


question the methodology. You cannot question 


the numbers they use, because only NIOSH can 


handle that. They can send questions back to 


NIOSH, but they can't address concerns, and 


they forbid you from questioning the 


methodology because NIOSH is the governing 


body. 


Well, I have many questions, and they have a 


common theme for many of the people here. I 


have missing doses. I have zero readings, and 


I have inaccurate readings. 


NIOSH also makes assumptions about the readings 


they have, and -- for example, they assume that 


if you have a zero reading, or if you have a 


missing dose, that the dose was too low to 

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calculate, so they apply a small value to your 


dose to say this accounts for the missing dose. 


Well, they had it wrong. The assumption is 


wrong. They are adding a small value, when in 


actuality the dose that is missing is high. 


Many doses that I have missing in reality came 


back as no data available from times that I 


spent inside vaults, times that I've spent 


looking for cans or buttons that we had to find 


during inventory, so you spent hands-on time in 


a room that has 400 millirem for exposure. And 


your dose comes back zero or no data available? 


I'm sorry, that's wrong. 


 This statement also translates into a statement 


they put on your dose reconstruction that says 


everything applied is claimant favorable, so 


this small factor that they added for a dose 


that was too high to calculate was used to say 


it is claimant favorably (sic) because they 


added something for that zero. 


These statements are also like a narcotic to 


the claims administrators. Though they have no 


knowledge of the questions about radiation, 


they falsely believe that the system is built 


to compensate the employees with a foreseeable 

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air factor, and that it's been applied. 


They're confident this mechanism's in place. 


I also have concerns about the inaccurate 


reading due to the process, the procedures to 


subtract background from actual readings. What 


if an employee actually received background? 


In 1991 when I was an office worker, my dose 


went down drastically from when I had hands-on 


experience. My dose for the year was 46 


millirem. But to be claimant favorable, they 


gave me 100 millirem. My office was room 101 


in building 771, and my wall -- my desk was on 


-- was adjacent to the abandoned americium line 


in 771. In 1993 the Department of Defense said 


hey, we have 300 millirem at the badge board, 


and this has been adjusted downwards for 2,000 


man hours. One, we worked 50-hour weeks, so 


there's no concept of 2,000 man hours. And my 


office is here, between the source and the 


badge board. A badge board's 300? The source 


is constant. Tell me how I got 46. I don't 


know a physics book that comes up with numbers 


like that. 


 In the mid-1990s the operator realized that had 


issues with dose in 771. They'd placed metal 

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shielding in the wall for what was my office. 


We had people here who'd mentioned the guard 


posts, the vestibule in 771. The radiation 


dose coming off the americium line, the 


abandoned americium line, was so high it was 


setting off my monitors. They had to install 


metal shielding. Give me a break. How can you 


tell me I got 46 millirem? 


This affects all office workers in production 


buildings. By definition of the term "office 


worker", someone who was not required to wear a 


badge, we were assigned 100 millirem because, 


by definition, we were supposed to receive less 


than 100 millirem. 


In the mid-1990s Building 371 housed the 


majority of the plutonium on plant site. 


(Unintelligible) said it was 12.9 metric ton. 


And you can move that plutonium all you want. 


You can move drums from one location to the 


next to change doses in areas, but you still 


have office areas exposed to dose because the 


office areas are adjacent to the vaults and are 


positioned directly above the vaults. 


I actually brought with me tonight things I 


would like to submit, which are dose records 

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for 1996 and 1997, and the dose records for the 


office areas in Building 371 and 374 you will 


note significantly the bottom mark is 100 


millirem. The bars on the right are 371 and 


374 office areas, doses ranging from 200, 300, 


400, 500, 600 and 700 millirem, office areas. 


Us office workers got credit with 1,000 (sic) 


millirem to be claimant favorable. There's an 


error here. Something is wrong. We were 


short-changed. NIOSH's assumption is not 


claimant favorable. The numbers are wrong, 


whether intentionally manipulated to meet 


corporate bonus structures, due to company 


policy to bring them down to 2,000 man hours, 


or the natural inclination to disbelieve your 


indicators when you have high doses. No matter 


what the reason, the result is the same: The 


numbers are wrong. 


Office workers got significant dose. The 


numbers they use are not claimant favorable. 


And the Department of Labor is not experienced 


enough to know the difference between a gram 


and a rem. I have very little confidence in 


their ability to administrate the system. 


When you're voting tomorrow, please consider 

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the accuracy of the numbers that were used to 


determine our destinies. Think of the false 


assumptions that contributed to our assigned 


dose. Think about the consequences of your 


decision. Special Exposure Cohort status will 


not make us well. We do not want sympathy. 


want acknowledgement. I want to get on with my 


life. I don't want to spend it fighting the 


system. So tomorrow please vote yes on the 


Special Exposure Cohort status for Rocky Flats. 


Thank you for your attention. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Thank you, Diane. 


Next, Dennis Virgil (sic). Just for planning 


purposes, folks, we've got Dennis and then 


Jerry Mobley and Liz Huebner will complete our 


list. So Dennis... 


MR. VIGIL: Members of the panel, workers -- 


hi, cuz -- my wing man, another wing man. Not 


real good at this kind of talking. I'd like to 


thank the Board. I appreciate your patience. 


I don't know that I would like your job, either 


-- paperwork and all that's involved. 


Dennis Vigil, I was a Navy electrician and a 


Seabees lineman, and I came to work. I wor--


and we're part of elite groups, construction, 


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mine workers, maintenance people, production, 


monitors and operators. We are the band of 


brothers and sisters. We learned our trades 


and did our jobs well. Rocky Flats, we gave 


you the best years of our lives. Along with 


other families, I was a lineman electrician at 


Rocky Flats. I have a blood brother that was a 


'lectrician at Rocky Flats. He lost a kidney 


to cancer. I myself have been learning medical 


terms as far as lung nodules, nodules in the 


lung, cysts in the kidneys and the National 


Jewish Hospital has brought some of these 


records out. Our claims have been denied. All 


I ask is that we take time so that America, you 


need to hear our cry. Thank you very much. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, and Jerry Mobley? Hi, 

Jerry. 

 MR. MOBLEY: Hello. First I want to compliment 

all of you. I'm almost amazed that you have 

eye contact with the people talking. None of 


you have fallen asleep or become bored, that I 


have seen. I've been watching you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I hope we don't start now 


then. 


 MR. MOBLEY: In a minute, with your permission, 

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I'm going to ask for a raise of hands of the 


people -- I don't know if it's appropriate or 


not, but I will. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Depends on how embarrassing the 


question is, I think. 


 MR. MOBLEY: My name is Jerry Mobley. I was a 


stationary operating engineer in Building 371 


for 13 years. I came down with a skin cancer 


on the scalp -- the worst kind you could have. 


Then it went into my lymph nodes as mestastic 


(sic) malig-- anyway, it went into my lymph 


nodes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


 MR. MOBLEY: Shortly after that, I had a real 


balance problem. I still have a balance 


problem. But they did a CAT scan and 


discovered I have a ping-pong-sized tumor in my 


left cerebellum. When the doctor came to the 


house, which was unusual, to tell us about 


this, that I was going to have to have some -- 


see a brain surgeon the next day, he told my 


wife and I that we needed to get my affairs in 


order. And my wife said so then this next 


month we should, you know, get things set up. 


And he said no, this week, before the surgery, 

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'cause he's not likely to make it. Well, I'm 


still here, thank goodness. 


It wasn't a tumor. You know what it was? 


Severe radionecrosis. When the surgeon came 


out to tell the family after the surgery -- 


which lasted one-fourth of what it was supposed 


to last in time -- the surgeon was quite 


baffled. He said how did -- Jerry hasn't been 


exposed to radiation. And what did my family 


say? What did my family say? Yeah, he's been 


at Rocky Flats. And the surgeon says huh? 


'Cause this is his first radionecrosis that 


he'd ever seen as a brain surgeon. They 


thought it was going to -- they were going to 


find mestastic (sic) malignant melanoma in my 


brain. 


 Well, anyway, to make a long story short, they 


didn't. 


Now, I'm still here, thank goodness. But this 


last January I had to file bankruptcy. I have 


been fighting medical bills -- every time I go 


for a PET scan, they want $400 from me. When I 


went to work at Rocky Flats, one of the 


benefits was you're going to have lifetime 


medical. They're going to take care of all 

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your medical bills. Has that happened? 


THE AUDIENCE: No. 


 MR. MOBLEY: No. $86,000 I had to file 


bankruptcy on last December. I told the doctor 


last week when he wants to do another PET scan 


coming up 'cause I'm having breathing problems, 


where's the $400 going to come by? He's 


working on it. Hopefully he can come up with 


it. I don't have it anymore. I'm busted. 


Now, what I wanted to ask for a raise of hands 


was, there are 12 of you here, the exact number 


that was in my group in 371 for the 13 years. 


They weren't all the same group, but when we 


finished up there were 12 SOEs. Of the 12 


SOEs, five have skin cancers, the worst kind. 


But wait a minute, that doesn't fit the profile 


for natural skin cancer according to NIOSH 


because I'm not even supposed to have skin 


cancer from radiation. It doesn't happen. 


Right? 


Okay, the numbers are telling me something 


different. Now when I was going to ask for a 


raise of hands, how many of you are from -- not 


from Denver here in Colorado? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not from Denver -- not from 

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Denver. 


 MR. MOBLEY: Not from Denver. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Not from Denver. 


 MR. MOBLEY: If you were told when you came 


here that if you go to this Denver, you're 


going to have -- five are you are going to come 


down with skin cancers -- oh, but it's not 


connected with anything up here; it's just that 


the probability is so high if you go to Denver 


-- would you come? 


When I -- no, you -- right, you wouldn't. You 


wouldn't take that risk. I wouldn't take that 


risk if I'd known what was happening. We 


didn't know we were coming -- all coming down 


with skin cancer until all of a sudden it's 


happening. 


And so when you vote tomorrow, a yes -- I don't 


know if it's going to affect me because they 


say melanomas are not covered, even though it's 


cancer. This doesn't make sense. And severe 


radionecrosis isn't on the list because it's 


not supposed to happen, but I hope that -- I 


doubt honestly that I will ever see any of the 


benefits. I don't think I'm going to live that 


long. But I would hope for my wife, who has 

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supported me completely, will be able not to 


have to sell the house. We've mortgaged the 


house to the hilt to try to -- 'cause I feel 


that -- I've always felt that I want to take 


care of my debts. I never wanted to go out and 


establish a debt and then walk away and say you 


figure out how -- so with that, thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, Liz Huebner. 


Liz? 


 MS. HUEBNER: I -- I'm Liz Huebner and she's 


helping me here because the other day we made 


some posters that we were going to put around 


on our behalf and I started at Rocky Flats 


February of '98 and halfway through the '98s 


the doctors told me that my body was starting 


to be the body of a 90-year-old and I had a lot 


of things happen and a lot of muscular and 


different things. And I worked in 883 building 


and [Name Redacted] came in and said well, the 


chairs don't match, we have to take them away. 


And so we sat on the uranium ingots and the 


LIPS project and all that and the engineer came 


through and says well, you shouldn't be setting 


on that because that affects your production 


organs and so I've had a full hysterectomy and 

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all that. 


But a couple things I'd like to bring up about 


this reconstruction is we have MSDS sheets, 


which everybody knows is material safety data 


sheets, and for chemicals and all kinds of 


things. That stuff on there gives you things 


that it affects in your body. Now these 


manuals were written and so I don't understand 


why all of a sudden these manuals are in 


question about chemicals and how they affect 


your body because some of the chemicals we 


used, like say in 883 building, when the fans 


went down the chemicals caused a -- it was as 


tall as this -- it was a white wall, to turn 


yellow, and we were told to continue working. 


We never had respirators. It was a uranium 


facility and when we left the building for 


breaks, we had to take all of our clothes off ­

- we had our boxer shorts and our T-shirts -- 


and then we'd go to break. But all the carpets 


would come up hot all the time and so forth. 


 And another thing is when we went to body count 


working in the uranium -- and they had 


beryllium in there, also, because it was the 


foundry building -- we took two showers to get 

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body counts. We had to take one at the 


building, and we had to take another shower at 


the medical building before we took our body 


count because they knew that the dust would be 


on us and the dust got in the offices on the 


second floor. They had to replace the carpets 


many times because they would come up hot. And 


so like -- I don't understand the 


reconstruction part. 


The same with radiation. The radiation -- they 


had standards for those radiation things, and 


it gave what effects it does on your body. And 


some of the medical problems I had at the time, 


I would bring this up and they would say oh, 


no, it can't be that. Now I know they say it 


was chronical (sic) over a period of time, but 


during production periods people got acute 


doses. You take the doses over a whole working 


time, that doesn't matter. They should be 


taking the times when we got the high doses. 


When I worked in 707, every other month I had 


to be taken out of G module because I'd get 100 


millirem. They'd take you out a month, then 


they put you back the next month. You'd get 


your next 100 millirem, then you're out a 

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month. 


Another thing was they used air flow patterns 


for wearing respirators, so when we worked in D 


module, if a SAAM alarm was going off at one 


end of the building, at this end we would 


continue to work in the gloveboxes and not 


required to wear a respirator because the air 


flow supposebly (sic) kept all the radiation at 


that end of the building, so we continued 


working. 


Then we had another time when the bellows had 


been leaking, and nobody knows how long, in one 


of the gloveboxes. And one day they had the 


janitors come in and do the floor, so they were 


supposed to clean the floor, and the procedure 


was supposed to be that you had the floor 


surveyed first. Well, the survey was not done. 


The floor was swept. And that one sweeping 


contaminated the whole room because there was a 


bellows leaking that nobody had any inclination 


that it had been leaking all this time. And 


once it got spread around the room and we had 


to decon 24 hours straight for three days we 


deconned that room. 


A lot of procedures were in place but not 

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followed, and we were told to go ahead and do 


the work anyhow. Things -- I was an inspector 


out there in the machine shop. I worked all 


the buildings except of course 111 and 115 -- I 


didn't work those -- but all the others, and we 


had training as inspectors and I was an RCT. 


was in the labs. In the labs we were working 


without gloves and that happened to be the time 


I had my hand surgery. You know, I was getting 


a lot of radiation exposure to my hands, but 


they said no, you know, that can't be. But yet 


you look at the books and the books say with 


this amount, this can cause this kind of health 


problem. 


So I do not understand. They wrote manuals. 


They were supposed to be god. We were supposed 


to follow them, but all of a sudden these 


manuals are incorrect and they're not to be 


used. 


The dose out at Rocky Flat was spread among all 


the people, not just the workers, but they took 


everybody on site so they would keep our dose 


down per individual. So all the workers -- 


you're getting high dose. 


My husband -- he was diagnosed with the Be, had 


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the lavages, and he couldn't -- he wasn't 


supposed to, during the days of -- of decon and 


cleanup, he wasn't supposed to work around 


beryllium. And he was on the beryllium 


program. Now the last lavage they tried to 


perform on them, they couldn't finish it 'cause 


they couldn't extract anything back out. Now 


here all of a sudden he's not in the program. 


He has to start over. They say you're not in 


the program now, we -- you have to reapply. 


And then they said well, your papers aren't 


original, they aren't this and that, and we're 


finding that papers are getting shredded, 


documents, documents that were legal according 


to the law. I just don't understand how all 


these documents can be denied. 


And I'd like to bring up about a man out there. 


He lives in Ohio now because he used to be a 


machinist. He worked in 707 with me and one 


night the machine got some plutonium in his 


arm. He waited over 45 minutes for the rescue 


-- or the rescue team to come and take him up 


to medical. He now has MS so bad he's 


wheelchair-bound and nobody's putting anything 


together for him. I -- I feel that with all 

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the muscular things that went on, those should 


be considered also because bones and muscular 


were in the books, too. 


And let's face it, Rocky Flats did a lot of 


things that were illegal, 'specially at the 


end. I had people that I checked out on the 


step-out pad that had infinity on the 


respirators and on their clothes, yet they were 


not given nasal/mouth smears. There was no 


record kept of this. I said aren't you to get 


one? They said it's not required in our work 


package. So there's all these young people 


said oh, when I get sick down the road, I'll 


come and claim. I said there will be no 


company. 


So I just want to make a point that you had 


things in writing, and they were connected to 


things, yet you sweep them under the carpet. 


Everybody was put in one pot and things were 


split among 5,000, 6,000 people, when the 


people who got the exposure -- it -- sure, you 


know, they say it's chronic over a long period. 


But there was a lot that was right then and 


there and it was acute, and that was 


overlooked. 

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How can just one month being out of a room help 


your dose? You get 100 millirem. Okay, we'll 


keep you out a month, then go back. I mean the 


things were black and white, yet now they have 


to be reconstructed and I just don't understand 


how the government is two-faced. 


 But anyhow, that's -- oh, one other thing. 


Bioassay was never taken seriously, either. 


had positive bioassay. I never found out for 


four or five months that I had been in positive 


bioassay. And so there's so many things, so 


many loopholes that were made out there that 


are not being put in the reconstruction, and 


the workers that were out there -- we were made 


to look like we were saints, that we came to 


church, we just did our thing, no harm was 


there, yet there was harm all around us. 


A bag-out that was done, over 100 millirem of 


material bagged out and just left to set. The 


rules were -- were supposed to be in place, but 


towards the end they weren't, and people were 


getting acute, not just chronic doses, and 


we're paying the rest of our lives. 


I pray that I don't live to be very old. 


don't want to suffer anymore. I live on 


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morphine and pain pills and this and that. 
I 


go every two months to get shots in my spine. 


I don't want to live old. But still I think 


people should be compensated. We thought we 


were helping keep America safe. Those bombs 


were to keep America safe, and now it's like it 


didn't matter. We're just like the soldiers 


that they throw aside, too. We want to be 


considered just like soldiers 'cause that's 


what we were. We were civilian soldiers, but 


we were like soldiers. We were keeping America 


safe. 


Thank you for your time. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Liz. Now I had 


indicated that Liz was the last on the list, 


but now I have another list. There -- there 


are a few more, if you'll bear with us. 


Henry Mosely? Is Henry still here? There you 


are. Henry. 


 MR. MOSELY: I'm a little bit unorthodox so 


you'll have to deal with me. They're used to 


it, you're not. Everybody stand up. Every 


once in a while during this lecture to these 


people, a few of you sit down. The ones that 


are sitting down are the ones that are dying. 

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I want you to look at these people up here. 
I 

don't want you people to look at me. These are 


the people we're talking about. These are the 


people that, rather than the government say no, 


we're not going to help you -- excuse my 


language -- go to hell, you come up with a dose 


reconstruction. It's BS. I know it. 


Everybody else -- shake your heads when you 


agree with me -- it's bullshit. 


You can't -- everybody out here worked at the 


Flats. Very, very few people did the same job 


day after day. Very, very few people did the 


same job from 9:00 o'clock to 10:00 o'clock. 


To say this is the dose they got that day, you 


don't know. Nobody knows. We don't know. I 


was an RCT out there. I was supposed to know. 


I tried to know. There's no way. There's too 


many buildings. There's too many different 


procedures. There's too many bosses that 


didn't care. There's too many people that just 


went and did what they were told to do, whether 


it hurt them or helped them. So dose 


reconstruction -- that's a joke. 


You need to consider this. Now look at these 


people out here. These are the ones that 

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you're saying no, they're just here to whine. 


Well, I'll tell you what. We worked out there 


-- I worked out there a long time. I probably 


met 20,000 people, the same 20,000 people that 


you'll meet through your life, but the number 


of people that are sick, the number of people 


that are dying, the number of us that are going 


to die, the percentage is so much greater than 


what you'll ever see in the 20,000 people 


you'll meet in your lifetime. To say okay, 


let's do a dose reconstruction -- just tell us 


no. That's a lot -- that's a lot more humane 


than to say okay, get out there and work, get 


out there and do this job. We need to close 


this down. We'll take care of you. And then 


when we come up sick, to say, you know, we're 


going to do a dose reconstruction. You know, 


that's wrong. I think it's wrong. I think my 


cohorts think it's wrong. And I think you 


think it's wrong. 


Vote the way we need it to vote tomorrow. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for a very 


articulate presentation, Henry. Donna Quinlan? 


Is Donna here -- uh-huh. 

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 MS. QUINLAN: Yes, I'm Donna Quinlan. My 


husband survived World War II, but he didn't 


survive Rocky Flats. Dick, as he was commonly 


known, worked out there for 27 years. He was 


in industrial engineering. I knew he did -- he 


was an industrial engineer, but I had no idea 


what he did. I didn't know what Rocky Flats 


did, and I still don't know. All I know is 


what I've heard from these people at -- a 


couple of times, some of them. 


Dick was a very active man all his life, in 


extremely good physical condition. He was a 


loyal employee, he worked hard. He -- I never 


heard anything from him about Rocky Flats, 


other than it was where he worked. That's all 


I knew -- until it came out in the newspapers. 


And even after that, he didn't talk about it. 


He didn't ever discuss anything. All I have 


learned is -- trying to fill out this 


paperwork, I talked to fellow employees and 


learned some horrible things after his death. 


He, as I said, was very active, very physically 


strong and was into everything -- skiing, 


bicycle riding, motorcycling, running. He 


could outrun a man half his age. He was still 

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very -- going strong until 70. Then he began 


to -- I don't know, what's going on with me, 


you know; I'm sure feeling my age. And then 


toward the end of his 70th year really had 


trouble. He'd go out biking and come back and 


say I can't imagine what's wrong with me. He 


says it's so hard just to ride a bike anymore. 


And so -- and this goes on for a while. 


Anyway, then in the early -- his early 71st 


year he -- that's when he was experiencing the 


problems with bicycling and walking, 


everything, and just not himself. This is the 


man who could figure out how to do anything 


anytime. And yet when he was trying to get 


ready for our children to all come back and we 


were all going up to Pearl Lake for a week, we 


had rented a cabin, and he couldn't even figure 


out this -- he'd finished a bathroom, except 


the shower door. And all of a sudden he 


couldn't understand the directions, what he was 


reading. And he just wasn't himself. He just 


kind of was off in his own world and every time 


I'd turn around he'd be lying down someplace in 


the house on the floor asleep. 


So we went to the doctor. He sent us on to a 

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neurologist. The neurologist sent us that day 


for an MRI but without contrast, and called me 


that night saying that Dick had a brain tumor, 


and he had probably had it for 26 years. Dick 


had worked at Rocky Flats at least 26 years -- 


up to 26, whatever. Anyway, he could have had 


it for a very long time because it was on a 


silent part of the brain. It was on the part 


that affected his coordination and balance, and 


thus his problems with all he'd been having 


problems with. 


And so then he sent us on to a neurosurgeon and 


he -- oh, he said it looked bad. So he sent us 


on to a neurosurgeon. He took a look at it and 


said he would have to send us right on for 


another MRI, with contrast, but he was sure 


that it was malignant -- a tumor in the last 


stages. And that's what we found when I 


carried the X-rays to him. 


 He had scheduled that -- first appointment, he 


scheduled -- this was on August 5th he -- that 


he was -- the -- the first MRI. He set --


scheduled surgery for August 12th and it was 


very lengthy surgery, and he had said that it 


was just so far advanced, he told Dick all he 

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could do was buy him a little time. There was 


no way he could get it all. It was too 


dangerous and surgery was very lengthy. 


And anyway, Dick -- he pulled through. He was 


then put on steroids, which kept him alive for 


a while. We had hospice that -- home care, and 


the steroids made him -- at first made him 


bounce back, you know. He was doing -- the 


hospice advised him to live his life as fully 


as he could, so -- he still had problems all 


the way, though, and this, like I say, was 


August 12th when he had the surgery. Hospice 


said he would never make it to December or even 


Christmas. And he says oh, yes, I am. He died 


January 1st. 


I forget what I was going to say. Anyway, my 


family do-- our family doctor had a very large 


practice in Arvada at the time, and he told me 


-- after Dick was diagnosed he said, you know, 


he says every single patient who has prostate 


cancer works at Rocky Flats -- and he had a 


very large practice. So he didn't tell me any 


numbers, but he said that he hadn't kept -- he 


hadn't done any studies, but it made him very 


suspicious and other things. 

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So in all this, Dick never talked about it. He 


never gave any reason. But in talking to a 


former worker, he did have occasions where he 


was exposed and he -- in his early years out 


there all he did was time studies, at first, 


because he was in training. He hadn't gotten 


his degree as an industrial engineer yet. He 


did go to school at nights for years and years 


and years. Anyway, he -- he was not in the big 


fire and I -- I don't know, I'm not familiar 


with terms, I think it was Building 71 or 76. 


Anyway, but talking with his coworker, who also 


has very serious cancer, lives in Texas, said 


that yes, they were not in the fire that day, 


but they were in there next day. And it's been 


proven in the cleanup it was in the ducts, it 


was everyplace, so how did this keep from 


affecting everybody all the time? And yet he ­

- he was working in all the hot spots all those 


early years. 


Anyway, I just ask you to seriously consider 


all these things these people have said. 
I 


don't know where to go. The last line of the 


NIOSH claim said you can reopen or you can -- 


you -- you cannot -- you cannot reopen unless 

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you have medical facts. Where do I get these 


medical facts? I don't have any access to 


records. 


And I have another thing. Listening to all 


these people at other times, every single one 


of them say yes, that first NIOSH dose 


reconstruction was nearly 50 percent. The 


second one is way down. And that's exactly 


what happened with Dick's. 


And another thing. Later, after I had filed, 


then later I thought, after -- I don't know how 


many interviews I had, there were several -- 


after I hung up I thought oh -- so I called 


back and said Dick was sent to several plants 


over the years. I don't know what he did. I 


don't know what he did there, but he was sent 


to Oak Ridge, he was sent to Albuquerque, Los 


Alamos, Lawrence Livermore -- those are the 


ones I can remember, yet -- so they reopened. 


They did another -- they contacted all those 


facilities. There's no record of his even 


being there. 


 So anyway, please consider SEC for Rocky Flats. 


Some -- Las Vegas was just -- is it, Nevada or 


someplace was just given this status. Rocky 

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Flats should, too. 


My grand-- my kids miss my husband, their 


grand-- their father. My grandkids miss their 


grandfather. My great-grandkids will never 


know him. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Got two more folks here, Leslie 


(sic) Britton and then Richard Gaffney. 


Leslie? 


 MR. BRITTON: Lessie. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 MR. BRITTON: Lessie. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, I -- L-e-s-s-i-e, I -- 


 MR. BRITTON: I'm just sort of a newcomer. My 


name is Lessie Britton and I worked in Building 


707 in G module, and I contracted beryllium 


there. And the gentleman the put the beryllium 


in the building, or helped put it in 


(unintelligible), he's sitting outside there, 


he told supervisors and managers that we need 


tiebacks and PAMPRs (sic), and he told them 


like for six months every day. It never 


happened. 


But see, for me, I have a two-fold thing about 


the people in this country and the people that 


run things in this country. The first one, 

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then I'll get back to the last one, is that 


there were Viet Nam veterans. Okay. Now when 


we come home, we were the only veterans that 


got spit on and talked about. All right? When 


we came home from this war. Saw a lot of my 


friends die. 


Okay. So like I go to Rocky Flats to help 


close it down, and same thing. I don't 


understand is that when you have people that go 


and put their lives on the line to help this 


country do something, help people in -- that 


run this country do something good -- other 


words, like close the plant site down or where 


they get rid of some of the nuclear waste -- 


you throw them away. 


Why do you throw them away? I mean I -- this 


thing about any of your children or your uncles 


or uncles or dads or aunts was any of these 


positions, would you want to throw them away? 


But you do. And it doesn't make any sense to 


me. And you sit on a board and you sit and you 


talk. Now it be somebody on that board going 


to say one thing, they knew the job was 


dangerous when they took it. Now that didn't 


run across everybody's mind in here. 

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 But anyway, being patriotic and being part of 


America, you want to try to help do things 


right, but we do people so badly once they get 


a job completed, once they put their lives on 


the line for this particular job, and then you 


turn your back on them. I never understood 


that. 


And I never understood anybody that sit in a 


high place to dictate policy that haven't done 


any of this, haven't been in any of the wars or 


haven't come out and went to these plants and 


been exposed to any of this junk that we 


created. 


I asked an engineer one time, I said well, you 


know that that piece of plutonium has a half-


life of 21,000 years. And the first thing come 


out of his mouth -- well, we had a cold -- we 


had a war going on. You didn't think about how 


you're going to get rid of this junk when you 


invented it? Never crossed your mind. But 


then when you have people to put their lives on 


the line to get -- or to try to neutralize it 


some kind of way, you know, you throw them 


away, or you hide them or you kill them. 


I been fighting the VA for ten years. But I 

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surprised them. I'm still alive. I'm 62. And 


they're wondering when are you going to die. 


Only when God says for me to die. 


But like when you get ready to vote on 


anything, you think about how folks have 


sacrificed themselves, you know, and how people 


are sitting in places that make decisions and 


write policy have not participated in any of 


these dilemmas, you know, just sit and talk 


about it and have your -- your peons or 


whatever sit off to the side there, get a 


earful and come back and give you information. 


You are not going to get all the information 


that you need. 


And this lady said that her husband went to six 


different facilities. Now we have to sign in 


and sign out, some of them with computers, and 


all of a sudden you're not listed? I mean just 


think about it, now who -- who is the jackass 


here? You know -- you know, I'm serious. You 


know, how can you lose those records, and how 


can you be so proud to stand up and say that, 


well, like, you know, something sharp or smart 


about that they knew the job was dangerous when 


they took it. 

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But then all of a sudden, like this gentleman 


up here the way he -- he asked -- he made one 


statement, why do you have to prove something 


that's been already designated that you have? 


Why do you have to do that? 


I've had two bronchoscopies. The last one I 


had was in January. I call it a wash and dry, 


but the (unintelligible) -- the first one 


didn't hurt, the second one did. And like, you 


know, this young doctor, he made a statement 


about being forgetful or having hallucinations, 


and he's 39 years old, he was talking about his 


mom. I said, you know, your mother has to love 


you because you're an idiot, you know. We tell 


you something is wrong with us and it hurts us, 


but yet we're hallucinating. I don't know what 


happened to this man's neck, but I know he's in 


pain sometime. I have no idea what happened to 


him, and I'm going to sit and look at him and 


say oh, you just got that around your neck to 


look cute, you know, and try to draw some 


money. 


 People sitting in this chair -- when I left Liz 


-- Liz, she was walking up straight. She used 


to watch over me. She was RCT. Charlene 

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(unintelligible) back here, that lady took care 


of me, literally took care of me. She worked 


there 35 years, from what I understand. 


Tonight I asked her, I said are you sick? She 


said no, ain't nothing wrong. She got blessed. 


But you have people to take care of -- we took 


care of one another as best we could with what 


we had, and then we have people sitting in high 


places that's going to throw us away. 


However you vote, think about how you got here. 


Think about why you're here, and look at the 


people around. You've got folks dying like 


flies. 


Now one other thing I just don't understand, 


and I'm going to leave it alone. You spent $93 


million on some paperwork. Tell me what -- 


about that paperwork. How did that happen? 


When they first started this thing about -- 


during -- trying to get the paperwork together 


for the people that had beryllium and whatever, 


berylliosis, you spent $93 million for people 


sitting on their behind shuffling papers? I'd 


like to know who -- I'd love to have that job 


because you're making good -- you threw away -- 


you threw away good money on some BS, and you 

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lose records purposely. You deny yourself the 


things you shouldn't deny yourself. You lie to 


yourself, and how do you do that, I don't know. 


So whatever you decide to do, you know -- 


because I figure that God will keep me around 


here. Whatever you decide to do, think about 


your -- think about your country. Think about 


when you wake up in the morning and shave your 


face and put your lipstick on or whatever it is 


you may do, look in the mirror and look at 


yourself. And when you walk -- if you -- all 


of a sudden you grab a hand and all your hair 


come out. That's not happening to you, but it 


happened to your friend or somebody you know. 


Think about what you're going to do. You know, 


you need to tell these people that's in charge 


of this stuff you all are BS-ing the public. 


Very serious. You make bad decisions and you 


stand on it and you compound it with bad 


decisions. 


Only thing I ask you is don't throw us away 


again. You did that in '65. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Lessie. Richard 


Gaffney. Richard? 


 MR. GAFFNEY: Yeah, hi. My name is Richard 

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Gaffney. I spent 23 and a half years at Rocky 


Flats. I started out as a chemical operator 


and moved up into management and managed 


maintenance and utilities. I was probably one 


of the last production managers before 


production shut down in Building 771. 


And first of all, I just want to say to all you 


guys here, I really love you and, you know, I 


don't know if anyone else in the world 


appreciate us but I just appreciate the hell 


out of you guys for the incredible job that you 


did. And I got to tell you, thank God you guys 


were doing that job and not the people that 


have been supposed to been taking care of you, 


or we'd have lost the Cold War and we'd be 


speaking Russian right now. 


Yeah. You know, I am -- other than Jack 


Weaver, I think I'm (unintelligible) people 


that can say that I'm not sick -- at least, you 


know, not right now. And you know, knock on 


wood or -- or whatever -- thank you, Jack. He 


was pointing out the wood for me. We -- 'cause 


we have -- every, you know, two or three months 


we'll have a party and all us old guys'll get 


together, and everybody's sick. You know, it's 

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not, you know -- you know, like your regular 


place that you go to, you know, that you 


socialize where this person's sick or that 


person's sick. Everybody's sick. 


And the whole idea -- you know, I'm just a 


simple country boy, but the idea of a dose 


reconstruction, when you're talking about 


tritium, uranium, plutonium, a whole bunch of 


other things that are classified that I can't 


talk about, thousands of different chemicals 


used in hundreds of different conversation, I'm 


not too bright but I can tell you a dose 


reconstruction is impossible. And anybody with 


an eighth-grade education can tell you that. 


You know, I mean it's just impossible. I can 


sit down and just, you know, start doing the 


math with, you know, trying to combine a 


hundred -- can't be done. 


The second thing is, we are sending our stuff 


to the wrong agency, 'cause I got to tell you, 


I wrote a check for $10,000, sent it to the 


IRS, it was taken care of within a week. 


The -- and then -- I was a shift manager, shift 


tech-- you know, a technical advisor. People 


probably remember me from 771 and 991. It was 

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my job to determine whether a job was safe. 


And if I shut down a job, which I did many, 


many times and people here are probably still 


mad at me for that, but if I shut down a job, I 


could take a look at my watch and it wasn't two 


minutes before a vice president or a manager, 


you know, a building manager or facility 


manager would be in there wanting to know why I 


shut it down. And you know, that was a lot of 


pressure -- that was my job. I got paid to do 


that and basically if I shut it down I just 


could look at the requirements and say this is 


why. 


And you guys all remember the work packages. 


Right? Okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) you used them. 


 MR. GAFFNEY: Yeah. Well -- you know, 'cause I 


-- you know, someone would bring 


(unintelligible) that packages and there -- 


there would be signoffs for nuclear safety and 


radiological engineering and health and safety. 


And I got to tell you, maybe one in a hundred 


packages, if that, you know, do I personally 


believe that anybody read. They just signed 

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them off because I would look at the job that 


was going to be done, and I kind of knew what 


all these people would be doing because I've 


probably personally handled enough plutonium to 


blow this world up two or three times. I'd go 


-- do you got any idea what you're sending 


these people in to do without having properly 


reviewed this work and the safety controls. 


And it was -- it was not, you know, like, you 


know, one out of a hundred package. It was 


like the majority of the work packages that 


were done, the reviews were incredible. I mean 


it was just non-existence (sic) because people 


-- I don't know if anyone ever got to be in one 


of my closed-door meetings when I pulled 


somebody in from health or safety or 


radiological engineering and our nuke safety 


and did the old famous ass-chewing, but it just 


-- it just didn't -- it just didn't happen. 


The controls weren't there then, and obviously 


they're not there now because I can't believe 


we're talking about reconstructing a dose when 


everybody knows, that's got any kind of brain 


at all, that's impossible, can't be done. But 


I'll tell you what, you know when you have 

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emphysema. You know when you've got cancer. 


You know when you have an autoimmune disease. 


And this is just a point. Everybody knows 


that's been working there, they're -- you know, 


they're -- probably got a little time bomb 


clicking. Ain't nobody saying this is what you 


could do now to be proactive to keep me from 


getting sick. 


And I got to tell you, I will never file a 


claim. If I got a cancer and my doctor says 


you've got two years left, the last thing I'm 


going to do is waste my precious time trying to 


get benefits that are obviously impossible. 


So that's all I've got to say, and like I say, 


love you guys and I hope we all see you at the 


next get-together because we're dropping like 


flies here. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, there's a couple 


of individuals who've already spoken that maybe 


have a question or comment. We need to, with 


respect to everybody here, respect the time. 


But go ahead, a quick question or comment. 


 MR. ROMERO: My name's Dennis Romero. I've 


already talked once, so -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

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 MR. ROMERO: -- bear with me. We talked about 


our stories and stuff happened at work. 444 


building, prior to me getting there, people had 


berylliosis, for whatever reason. They used to 


eat, smoke and drink in the back area of 444 at 


their work stations, and then they'd take the 


stuff home to their kids and families. Like 


the one woman said, her daddy's lunchbox was -- 


BE on it. Well, there's why. We used to have 


this stuff in the back or you'd eat in the back 


area. 


771, 750 cafeteria, 771 cafeteria, 371 


cafeteria, the locker rooms -- Don could access 


(sic) to this -- these areas would 


predominantly come up contaminated. Somehow 


somebody got the rooms contaminated. 


 Common work areas, people working there don't 


even go in the back, they went to the 


cafeterias and they went to the locker rooms. 


They took the stuff home. 


There's been numerous times, you don't see it 


on TV, people's homes were gutted, people's 


cars were taken away because they found 


contamination in their homes and their cars. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

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 MR. ROMERO: What kind of doses are you going 


to give the people and their families for that? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 


 MR. ROMERO: Oh, I got one question. I forgot 


to mention my medical problems. I've had two 


prostrate (sic) surgeries, two knee surgeries, 


reconstructed shoulder surgery. In year 2005 


when I had to leave the plant I came down with 


Graves disease. I want to ask Dr. Lewis, can 


Graves disease be caused from working at Rocky 


Flats? I want an answer. 


 DR. ZIEMER: He doesn't know. 


 MR. ROMERO: Is that your answer? Can Graves 


disease be caused from working at Rocky Flats? 


 DR. WADE: I don't know. 


 MR. ROMERO: That's all I want to know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


MR. LOGAN: Mike Logan, I've already spoken 


before, but when I left for ten months and went 


back to work for British Nuclear Fields, which 


is part of the national conversion pilot 


program, a private firm, upper management -- 


not all management, we had some decent managers 


out there, but some of those select upper ones 


had a really bad attitude about the hourly 

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workers. They didn't really care. And one of 


the British guys from British Nuclear Fields -- 


and I'm going to quote word for word -- the 


American worker is the most unsuccessful, 


unmotivated, laziest bastard on the face of 


this earth. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


MR. LOGAN: Yeah, we do. Now we had to clean 


up places of nitric acid baths that had dried 


powder in the bottom. They put us in full-face 


with chemical respirators, all the proper anti-


Cs. And you're cutting it up with wood saws 


that's got metal blades in it, and after five 


minutes you're going -- you're tasting it in 


your mouth. The people who manufactured those 


respirators, the full-face -- or anyone, even a 


chemical, whatever it is -- it will not protect 


you. The only thing that'll protect you is 


supplied air. They wouldn't do it because of 


the money. 


Now why is it now -- okay, they've got it 


closed. They got it done ahead of schedule. 


Certain management got up to $3 million per 


person bonus, but yet the hourly people who did 

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the job, who were in the trenches, got maybe 


between $1,000 and $4,000 a year for maybe four 


years as a bonus. Isn't the success of any 


company, any business, is the people in the 


trenches? 


 DR. ZIEMER: I hear you. 


MR. LOGAN: Why do we get kicked to the curb? 


I mean the whole key -- doing things in life is 


attitude. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


MR. LOGAN: How can you expect to have a good 


attitude when we keep getting beaten down, 


getting turned down and getting treated like 


second-class citizens? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


MR. LOGAN: I mean put yourself in our shoes. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Understood. 


MR. LOGAN: I mean I'd sure love to be able to 


stay around and watch my grandkids grow up -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


MR. LOGAN: -- see my great-grandkids. 


Wouldn't you folks? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. Sure. 


MR. LOGAN: I mean -- but we've been put down. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We've got another -- try to 

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make it quick, want to respect people who 


haven't had a chance to address us yet. 


 MS. RUTTENBER: My name is Margaret Ruttenber 


and I'm a research scientist, epidemiologist, 


who studied this worker cohort for the last ten 


years, from 1990 through 2000 -- both my 


husband and I did. And I don't really want to 


address the dose reconstruction. I think 


enough has been said about that. 


What I would like to address is a missed 


opportunity that the Department of Labor had, 


and just give you one example of several, and 


I'll be brief. 


Two years ago Brady White from the Department 


of Labor came to my office and asked for my 


assistance in doing a new match with the cancer 


registry at the State Health Department to 


identify those workers from our -- the Rocky 


Flat cohort, of which we have the database for 


it -- who were -- who had cancer, and then also 


do a match with our vital records department at 


the health department to make -- to see who -- 


you had to do a mortality match to see who was 


still living so we would not -- we were 


sensitive to the issues of either contacting a 

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worker or survivor. This was two years ago. 


We concer-- we designed a letter. It was to be 


sent through the University of Colorado Health 


Sciences Center to the workers. We contacted 


them several times and have heard nothing more 


from the Department of Labor. 


I was contacted by a reporter last week 


questioning what I knew about the worker study 


and -- and you know, I've done the definitive 


study on this cohort, as I said, with my 


husband as well. And it appears that the 


Department of Labor has kind of dropped the 


ball in terms of communicating. And if they 


really wanted to identify and connect with 


these people, they've had many opportunities, 


both through our databases with the registry. 


Today the director of our cancer registry came 


to me and said didn't that letter already go 


out? And I said no, it never did. So there 


are certainly -- probably a large number of 


people aren't even aware of this compensation 


program, but they -- both NIOSH and the 


Department of Labor have been given ample 


opportunity and access to our data and 


information and have not chosen to use it. 

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Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Very quickly, a 


comment here, and then I think we need to come 


to closure. Go ahead. 


 MS. NORMAN: My name is Joan Norman and I 


worked for Rocky Flats for 21 years. I, like 


the rest of us, voluntarily went to work for 


Rocky Flats and the United States Department of 


Energy. Ironic that three of us in this room 


have had -- been diagnosed with breast cancer, 


and breast cancer happens to be on the list of 


no pay, no claim. 


And in 2005 I was diagnosed with colon cancer. 


Again, the doctors had asked for medical proof 


that this was related. I did receive 


information from my gastroenterologist. I will 


read one sentence, and it says this is based on 


a scientific review journal article by a Dr. 


Sandler in gastroenterology in 1983, volume 


four, page 51, radiation-induced cancers of the 


colon and rectum, assessing the risk, and I was 


told this is merely a study. 


Excuse me, but as I said, I'm not repeating 


what everybody else said because what everybody 


else said here is true. We gave of ourselves. 

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We gave to the government. Why is the 


government not supporting us? I am going to 


continue to be a little gnat on the 


government's head, and I will not go away until 


the government -- until we get our justice. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MS. NORMAN: Please vote for us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Folks, I want to remind -- oh, I'm 

sorry, do -- okay. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: You'll have to use the mike. We 


have a -- everything's being recorded, so we 


need to be able to hear you through the ear 


phones here. Give us your name and... 


MS. BOWIE: My name is Marie Bowie and I'm here 


as a representative for Albert Echels, who was 


my father. He worked for Rocky Flats from 


January of '58 until September of '73. 


In 1979 he was diagnosed with pancreatic 


cancer, and within nine months he was gone. He 


went through two major surgeries, bypass 


surgeries, because the pancreas was unable to 


be removed and the first bypass didn't take. 


He was only able to go through one session of 

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chemotherapy treatment due to the fact that his 


body had deteriorated so badly from the 


penetration and the continued growth of the 


cancer cells throughout his body. By the time 


they did his second surgery, which was two 


weeks after the first one, it had already 


infiltrated into his lymph nodes. 


So he passed away in 1980 and unfortunately the 


program was not initiated until 2000. Along 


with that information, by the time 20 years had 


gone by, there was very little access to 


additional medical information, other than what 


I could get from Pacific Records. 


We just received the first denial of my 


mother's claim on behalf of my father, and his 


dose reconstruction -- that took time to do -- 


was at 43.77 percent probable cause, which was 


exclusively done just for the pancreas itself. 


I would like to know how I could possibly get 


that extended, with the limited time that I 


have, to continue his claim with the 


infiltration of the cancer to the other organs. 


 DR. ZIEMER: We have some NIOSH people here, 


they may be out in the corridor, but we can -- 


we'll -- after the meeting we'll hook you up 

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with someone who can help you with the next 


steps for you --


MS. BOWIE: That will be great. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- to follow that up. Yeah. 


MS. BOWIE: I also have a couple of articles in 


here, the very first one when President Clinton 


was the one who initiated -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MS. BOWIE: -- the program. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 


MS. BOWIE: And also of a family that, together 


combined, has 130 years of service out at Rocky 


Flats. And in the article that was written 


they said that in the beginning, in the '58 


into the early '60s, the only protection the 


men had in -- going into hot spots -- my father 


was a maintenance person, pipe fitter -- was 


double coveralls. So --


UNIDENTIFIED: (From the audience and off 


microphone) (Unintelligible) 


MS. BOWIE: Yeah, exactly. So I just -- you 


know, I'm hoping that -- that this Board will 


vote for the people, all of them here, all of 


them that have gone beyond that are family 


members hoping to be benefited in some form or 

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fashion for the loss of their loved ones. My 


father served eight years in the Navy. And 


hope that you guys will see that this gets 


pushed through for us. I know that other 


plants that are still standing have been given 


this benefit, and it would just really be nice 


to see Rocky Flats get that benefit as well. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. Folks, I 


want to remind you that tomorrow morning at 


8:15 this Board will begin the official 


deliberations on the Rocky Flats SEC petition. 


So -- and that -- that part of our agenda will 


consume most of the morning. That will be 


presentation from our workgroup. There will be 


presentations from the petitioners, as well as 


from NIOSH, and then deliberations by the 


Board. So -- and the -- the meetings are open, 


so you're welcome to be back at that time. 


Thank you all very much for being here tonight. 


 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded at 9:00 


p.m.) 

______________________________ 

294 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of May 2, 2007; 


and it is a true and accurate transcript of the 


testimony captioned herein. 


 I further certify that I am neither kin 


nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 


have any interest in the cause named herein. 


 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 


15th day of July, 2007. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102