THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

TWENTY-SEVENTH MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

DAY THREE 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health held 

at the DoubleTree Club Hotel, 720 Las Flores Road, 

Livermore, California, on December 15, 2004. 
 

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C O N T E N T S 

December 15, 2004 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME: 9 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

SEC PETITION PROCESS PROCEDURES: 9 

MR. TED KATZ, NIOSH 

SEC PETITION REVIEW PLAN WORK GROUP: 59 

MR. ROBERT PRESLEY, MEMBER 

BOARD WORKING SESSION: 74 

ADMINISTRATIVE HOUSEKEEPING: 123 

MS. CORI HOMER, NIOSH

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ISSUES UPDATE: 167 

DR. BRANT ULSH, NIOSH 

PUBLIC COMMENT: 208 

BOARD WORKING SESSION: 221 

ADJOURN: 276 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE: 277 
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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. 

In the following transcript (off microphone) 

refers to microphone malfunction or speaker's neglect 

to depress "on" button. 
 

 

 

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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 

ELLIOTT, Larry J.

Director, Office of Compensation Analysis and Support

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Cincinnati, Ohio 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY (PRO-TEM)

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D.

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

MEMBERSHIP 

ANDERSON, Henry A., M.D.

Chief Medical Officer 

Occupational and Environmental Health

Wisconsin Division of Public Health 

Madison, Wisconsin 

ANDRADE, Antonio, Ph.D.

Group Leader

Radiation Protection Services Group

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos, New Mexico 
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DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H.

Director 

The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental

Medicine 

Professor of Medicine 

Nashville, Tennessee 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Espanola, New Mexico 

GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio 

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire 

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

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York 

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington 

OWENS, Charles Leon

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-550 

Paducah, Kentucky 

PRESLEY, Robert W.

Special Projects Engineer

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex

Clinton, Tennessee 
 

 

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ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 

AGENDA SPEAKERS 

(in order of appearance) 

Mr. Ted Katz, NIOSH

Mr. Robert Presley, Member

Dr. Brant Ulsh, NIOSH 

STAFF/VENDORS 

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 
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AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS 

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A

BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A

BISHOP, STANLEY

BLAKE, PAUL K., DTRA

BLASZAK, MARK, WKBW TV

BLEWETT, BERYL, SUPPORT GROUP

BLOSSER, FRED, NIOSH

BRAND, ANSTICE, CDC

BRANDAL, LYNDA, NIOSH

BROOKS, JOYCE

BUMGARNER, ROBERT L., SAIC

CASE, DAVID R., SAIC

CHEW, MELTON, CHEW AND ASSOCIATES

CISNEROS, LEROY

ELLISON, CHRIS, NIOSH

FITZGERALD, JOE, SC&A

FULK, M.M.

GLENN, H. DAVID, LLNL

GUERRIERO, JUDIE, UNIV. OF CAL.

HALLMARK, SHELBY, LABOR

HEISTER, MELANIE, NCRP

HERBERT, NICHOLE, NIOSH

HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH

HOEY, STEPHANIE, WKBW TV

HOFFMAN, OWEN, SENES

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS

KATZ, TED, NIOSH

KOTSCH, JEFF, LABOR

MAIER, HILDA, NJPR

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCDOUGALL, VERNON, ATL

MCGOLERICK, ROB, HHS

MILLER, RICHARD, GAP

MORAN, FRANCINE A., LLNL

NEELY, KRIS, CA RESOURCE CENTER

NESVET, JEFF, LABOR

NETON, JIM, NIOSH

NUGENT, MARIAN, U.S. GOV’T ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

OLSON, INGA, TRI-VALLEY

PORTER, DIANE, NIOSH 
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RICHARDS, JOE, IGUA LOCAL 3 OAK RIDGE

RINGEN, KNUT, CPWR/BCTD

ROBERTSON-DEMERS, KATHY, SC&A

SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, DTRA

SCHAUER, DAVID, NCRP

SWEENEY, THERESA, BSAG

TOOHEY, R.E., ORAU

TURCIC, PETE, DOL

TYLER, SHARON, DOL

ULSH, BRANT, NIOSH

WALKER, ED AND JOYCE, BSAG

WOOSTER, BEVERLY 
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P R O C E E D I N G S

 (9:00 a.m.) 

 REGISTRATION AND WELCOME

 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. We'll 

call the meeting back to order. I'd like to 

remind you to be sure to register again your 

attendance. In fact, now that I have done 

that, I realize that I didn't register my 

attendance yet, but you can join me at the 

registration table at your convenience and 

we'll make sure you're registered. 

Again, if -- just remind you, and particularly 

for those who haven't -- were not here on 

Monday or Tuesday, there are a variety of 

documents on the back table, including the 

agenda and other handout materials. Please 

avail yourselves of those. 

 SEC PETITION PROCESS PROCEDURES 

We begin our session this morning with a 

presentation on the Special Exposure Cohort 

petition process procedures, and that 

presentation is going to be made by Ted Katz 

from NIOSH. Ted, welcome to the podium. 

 MR. KATZ: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and 

members of the Board. Thank you for having me 
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again. 

Is this working? Yes, it is? Okay. 

And I'm going to summarize the internal 

procedures for evaluating Special Exposure 

Cohort petitions. 

(Pause) 

So these procedures are sort of the initial 

nuts and bolts for how we're going to implement 

the SEC regulations which we promulgated last 

summer and which you had a large role in 

reviewing. 

Just to make a point, these are -- these are 

our, you know, beginning point for how we go 

about this, but we are surely going to learn 

quite a deal as to what's practical and how we 

can efficiently process these petitions as we 

go, as you have experienced with us serving you 

in this process and -- and as the Secretary of 

HHS has experienced our work here. And we'll 

be apprising the Board and the public in the 

Federal Register as we make changes to these 

procedures. 

Now an initial point. This Board's been very 

vigilant about issues of conflict of interest 

with respect to NIOSH, and the procedures 
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include provisions addressing this. The 

primary reviewer for each petition, as the 

procedures lay out, will never have been 

employed at the facility for which the petition 

addresses. And the same goes for principal 

authors. For some of these larger petitions 

there are likely to be a number of people 

involved in producing the evaluation and the 

response, and that'll be our standard for -- 

for all of them. 

Now there are two phases to the -- to the 

petition process, as you know. The first phase 

just involves NIOSH and the petitioners, and 

that's the petition qualification process. And 

the second phase is the evaluation process. 

And as you know, that's NIOSH and the 

petitioners, and the Board and the Secretary of 

HHS all have a role in that. So I'm going to 

start with the petition qualification process. 

It's so far been more time-consuming than we 

expected. We have several things to do in the 

qualification process. The first question is 

is the petitioner a member or representative of 

a member of the class. We have to answer that 

question and in effect, you know, for a 
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representative that might be, as you recall, a 

survivor or an empowered representative -- as 

we allow for under the rule -- or a union which 

represents or had represented that class. 

 Now the verification process. You know, 

wherever we can, when we have a petition that's 

come in on a person who's been a claimant we've 

already had experience with or are working with 

with respect to their dose reconstruction, you 

know, the verification that they're qualified 

to petition is, you know, going to be in our 

hands. But in cases where we have a petition 

from an individual who we haven't seen through 

the dose reconstruction process we're going to 

be relying on that well-oiled machine that DOL 

has to help us with the qualification process, 

and that's in these procedures. If it's a 

union, then it's -- that's an issue there we 

handle. 

And as these procedures have -- we just need 

one qualified petitioner to proceed with the 

process of beginning the evaluation. 

And just to note, as with everything else, you 

know, the petitioners are protected by the 

Privacy Act. 
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So the other part, qualifying petitioners is 

the first part of this. Qualifying the 

petition content is the second part of this 

enterprise for this first phase. And the 

question we're addressing is is the scope of 

the class, you know, legal and appropriate. 

Now legal is sort of shorthand for -- really, 

the main issue there is is the class from a 

single facility. As you know, it needs to be. 

And appropriate is a matter of whether -- 

whether the -- the justification for the 

petition suits the class that's -- that's 

proposed. 

And the second part of this is is the basis for 

the petition adequate. And you'll probably 

recall from the SEC regulations, there's a 

variety of different evidence that serves as a 

sufficient basis for a petitioner to believe 

that a dose reconstruction may not be feasible, 

and they have to address that -- that 

evidentiary requirement. 

 And OCAS, when it comes to incidents that are 

claimed and are at the basis for the petition -

- I mean OCAS has a -- has a sort of front-end 

role in confirming that the exposure incident 
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occurred, and that -- and that involves the 

petitioner where OCAS runs short on information 

to be able to confirm such an occurrence. 

 Another point to make is that OCAS will combine 

petitioners and petition content, you know, for 

overlapping petitions. And this, you know, has 

bearing -- bears on you, because when you see 

these petition evaluations, the petitioners 

from each of the petitions where we combine 

would then have the opportunity to address the 

Board concerning their petition. 

Now I mean, as the procedures lay out in -- in 

some detail, there's a -- as we were speaking 

in the past couple of days about iterative 

processes, there's an iterative process for 

NIOSH to work with the petitioners to ensure 

that their petition addresses the requirements 

it must address. But at the end of that 

process, then the petitioners would receive a 

formal notification of whatever deficiencies 

may still stand, and have the opportunity to 

address those. 

 If the petitioner disputes a deficiency as 

being a deficiency, there's then the 

opportunity for the NIOSH director to run a 
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review, using independent HHS persons, of -- of 

that dispute and resolve it. 

And at the end of having a petition that's 

fully qualified content, we'll date the 

petition accordingly. And this -- this is 

within -- having in mind the Congressional 

interest in timeliness, which is, you know, now 

-- and I'll get into this issue further with 

the EEOICPA amendments. It's -- it's been sort 

of formalized, and so this will be important 

that we sort of have a -- have a schedule that 

relates to when we have a proper petition. 

So once we have a qualified petition, OCAS will 

prepare an evaluation plan. We'll provide a 

notice to the petitioners, to the Board and to 

the public of these qualified petitions -- the 

public through the Federal Register notice. 

The Board has, as it already has had, will have 

an opportunity to evaluate our plan for -- for 

reviewing the petition, for doing the research 

on the petition and give us input on that, 

since we're serving the Board in this sense by 

preparing an evaluation that the Board -- so 

the Board can consider the petition. 

And OCAS or NIOSH, as appropriate, will provide 
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notice of unqualified petitions to petitioners, 

and will publish summaries of these unqualified 

petitions on our web page, with explanation as 

to why they didn't qualify. 

 Now the second phase is the petition evaluation 

process, which involves the Board, as well as 

HHS. 

You know, we're applying the standard dose 

reconstruction hierarchy to evaluate these 

petitions, starting with the most specific data 

-- personal monitoring data -- and going 

through the gamut as need be, area or group 

relevant monitoring data, and then general 

information on process and source. 

 And we'll begin this -- again, this is -- there 

are several -- you know, efficiency is very 

important and has been emphasized by Congress 

in these amendments, which I'll get to at the 

end of this presentation. 

So we'll begin this process by mining our inhouse data and our in-house dose 

reconstructions. And to the extent we can 

address petitions without going to DOE for 

data, we certainly will because time will be of 

the essence here. 
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 The other efficiency issue that's addressed in 

the petition guidelines is that we'll address 

the petition according to the scope of the 

petition basis. So the depth of the petition 

basis as provided to us, the details, we'll 

address those fully, but -- but we're not going 

to go on a fishing expedition to evaluate 

issues, attempt to discover issues that -- that 

aren't raised. Obviously any of those that 

come to -- you know, come to light in our 

process of evaluating the petition, we will 

evaluate. But our point here is to address the 

petition -- petitioner's basis and to address 

the issue of whether, in -- in light of that 

basis and in light of the data we have, can 

dose reconstructions be done. 

And through this process, as we learn -- if we 

learn -- that there are actually more than one 

class covered by a petition, we'll separate 

those classes, in effect, and evaluate them 

individually. 

 Now for classes that are found -- for which we 

find that we can't do dose reconstructions, we 

will then address the issue of health 

endangerment and we'll evaluate the sources and 
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circumstances of exposure to do that. And 

OCAS's business here is to determine, you know, 

whether exceptionally high level radiation 

exposures were likely or unlikely, based on the 

qualitative evidence. And I should probably, 

you know, more correctly say not likely, 

because it would require affirmative evidence 

of such exposures. 

So as a result of this, we'll define one or 

more classes. We're going to define the class 

specifically as possible, of course. This will 

be important for DOL's role in adjudicating 

then claims as to whether they belong within 

the class. And we'll be working with DOL to 

address practical constraints there may be on 

identifying class members based on the records, 

you know, despite what might be the scientific 

evidence as to the scope of the class. 

 For classes defined with the 250-day employment 

criterion, you know, we'll also provide a 

provision, as is in the rule, allowing members 

to be defined by the sum of their SEC work 

history. So in other words, as you recall, if 

an individual worked in more than one class for 

portions of a 250-day period, they can sum 
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those portions together to be qualified to be a 

member of that class. 

 Now evaluating petitions under Section 83.14. 

You may recall things are handled somewhat 

differently in cases where NIOSH finds that it 

can't do a dose reconstruction, and that leads 

to a petition process. And we've charged ORAU 

with -- with beginning to look at its -- at our 

stock of dose reconstruction requests to 

identify likely pockets of classes, in other 

words, potential classes, individuals for whom 

we can't do dose reconstruction. Where we find 

that's the case, the feasibility issue's 

already determined for that class of employees 

and the procedures lays it out pretty clearly. 

There's no more to do in making a determination 

about feasibility. Our work is really to 

define the class and then address the health 

endangerment question. 

And the second part of our work would be to 

determine, based on that evidence, whether it's 

-- it's possible that there are other classes 

that are in the same position, that -- for whom 

we can't do dose reconstruction. Because as 

you recall, we're making this initial 
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determination based on having attempted to do a 

dose reconstruction and all the evidence we 

collect in trying to do that. But that 

evidence may also indicate that the class is 

actually broader than can be supported by just 

that evidence. If it is, then we'll sort of 

initiate in parallel an evaluation of that 

broader question: Is that class bigger than 

that evidence specifically supports on its own. 

Now reporting evaluation findings, we'll 

transmit the petition evaluation report to 

petitioners, the Board, and summarize the 

findings for the public in the Federal 

Register. When a petition results in multiple 

evaluations -- in other words, concerning 

multiple classes -- the evaluations could be 

reported together or in separate evaluation 

reports, so you're probably going to see a bit 

of both of this in this. If we can quickly 

determine there's one class that should be 

added, for example, and there's more work to do 

to evaluate other classes covered by the 

petition, you know, we'll bring forward to you 

as soon as possible the evaluation of the class 

that we can already determine. And we won't 
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hold that hostage to our work addressing other 

elements that are, in effect, covered by the 

petition, are there other classes. 

The petitioners, as you know, will have an 

opportunity to address the Board. This may not 

always be in person. It may also be by phone 

or writing, as circumstances require. You 

know, as you can imagine, as we get going in 

this process and build up a number of petitions 

that we're dealing with in parallel, we will 

not be able to, as a Board, be in multiple 

places at one time. And so if a petitioner 

can't make it to the Board meeting and wishes 

to, we'll have provisions for them to 

participate by phone and they'll have the 

option always, of course, to participate by 

written comment to the Board, as well. 

And just, again, to reiterate, the Board and 

OCAS will protect the privacy of the 

petitioners and others whose information is 

covered by the petition evaluation process. 

Then I'll -- the next step then after the Board 

-- and I haven't presumed to lay out the 

Board's nuts and bolts for their evaluation of 

the NIOSH report and work and deliberation, but 
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subsequent to that, NIOSH will propose 

decisions based on its evaluation and the 

Board's work. And again, we'll propose 

multiple decisions responding to a single 

petition if the petition were determined to 

cover more than one class. 

 And petitioners will be notified of the 

remaining steps of the process and their right 

to contest certain decisions. Now they can 

contest two elements sort of of the decision. 

That's -- we considered at first. They could 

contest proposed decisions obviously that deny 

adding a class. They could also contest the 

250 work day health endangerment criterion that 

might be applicable to that class. 

 And their challenges must show that the 

contested decision relies upon a record of 

substantial procedural or factual errors. This 

is just sort of standard criteria for such 

challenges. 

 And these challenges, when we receive them, 

will be reviewed by a three-person panel by 

HHS, which will make its decisions on a 

majority-rule basis, and provides for -- if 

they should need it -- a minority report, as 
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well. 

 The final decisions, the Secretary of HHS or 

his designee will make these final decisions. 

They'll be summarized in the Federal Register 

and transmitted to petitioners. Affirmative 

decisions will be transmitted to Congress for 

its review. As you know, they previously had 

180 days. That's changed, and I'll talk about 

that in a second. And NIOSH will work with DOL 

-- I said DOE, but that's really out of date 

now that the DOL is -- is in charge of the 

whole program of EEOICPA now -- to publicize 

the addition of classes to the Cohort. 

Now let me just talk a little bit about the 

EEOICPA amendments 'cause they have -- in 

effect will change some of this I've just 

talked about. The amendments require that 

NIOSH submit to the Board recommendation on a 

petition within 180 days, so that 180-day clock 

will begin when we have a petition that meets 

all the requirements. And it also requires HHS 

to submit to Congress decisions within 30 days 

following the Board's recommendations to add a 

class. And it requires NIOSH to report to 

Congress concerning the status of petitions 
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that were filed before October 1st. 

There's also another -- I think maybe Jim 

pointed to this -- also another provision in 

there, which is I'm sure of interest to the 

Board, which is for the same group of 

petitions, petitions filed before October 1st, 

there's a provision that -- that if NIOSH 

completes its evaluation report more than ten 

days before a scheduled Board meeting, then 

there's a provision for us to convene -- and 

it's titled I think an emergency meeting of the 

Board to address that petition. 

The other important change that I just -- I 

hinted at earlier was that the amendments 

reduce that Congressional review period from 

180 days to 30 days, which is, you know, great 

really, because it means the decision by the 

Secretary to add a class to the cohort will 

become effective much sooner. 

Now as I noted, these changes to EEOICPA are 

going to require for us to make some changes to 

our procedures. They're also going to require 

us to make some changes to the rule. And just 

to give you a prime example, if -- as is now -- 

the Secretary has only 30 days upon your action 
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to -- to make a decision and inform Congress of 

that decision, we're not going to have time to 

have a process of NIOSH proposing a decision, 

doing the deliberation and proposing a decision 

on the basis of the Board, and then having the 

petitioner with an opportunity to contest that 

decision and then for the Secretary to go 

through the process of deliberating on that 

contest and making a final decision. So this 

is going to mean changing the rule, and we've 

already begun that work. 

And I think that -- thank you. So I'll be 

happy to take questions now on this or -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Ted, and let's open the 

floor for questions now on Ted's presentation. 

Yes, Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have multiple questions, 

so if you want to interrupt and move on at some 

point --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, others can get their -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- but -- but I mean I'll start -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- get their tents put up here in 

the meantime. We'll intersperse them if 

they're there. 

 DR. MELIUS: Could you or someone speak to the 
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issue of how you deal with multiple petitions 

on -- that come in -- I won't say 

simultaneously, but close to simultaneously on 

a given site? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I have some follow-up 

questions after --

 MR. KATZ: Sure. So -- and we have that, 

actually, when we have that -- maybe not 

simultaneously, but within the same span. It 

really only matters that they come in during 

the period before we've finished with an 

evaluation report. And -- and where they cover 

the same class, as I noted, they'll in effect 

be merged. Providing that each petition, you 

know, is qualified in its own right as a 

petition, then it'll be merged in the sense 

that the petitioners will together be treated 

as, you know, one group of petitioners and the 

content of their petitions will be considered 

in its entirety in the evaluation process. 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- and if I recall right -- I 

may not recall correctly, but there was also a 

provision where you can turn down petitions if 

they're sort of duplicative of another petition 
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that had come in or had been dealt with, even 

to the point of being evaluated earlier. 

 MR. KATZ: The --

 DR. MELIUS: And let me just give you -- what 

my concern is is that there may be a sort of 

weak petition that comes in that you've turned 

down, and then someone -- another group puts in 

a much stronger petition, essentially covering 

the same potential class of -- and so forth. I 

think it'd be a concern that you not be -- that 

the second, better petition, so-called, not get 

turned down simply as being duplicative of the 

earlier petition. Now when they come in at the 

same time, you can sort it through easier, but 

-- but some people have raised concerns about 

this -- this issue. 

 MR. KATZ: That's absolutely true. I mean we 

did provide for that -- very clearly for that 

scenario, which is a petition that comes in 

later that provides a better basis, that 

additional information is why it wouldn't be 

turned down on -- sort of presumptively, just 

because we turned down the previous petition. 

So that would be considered in its own right, 

and with that better basis, it would go 
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through. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Second question's concerned 

conflict of interest. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: Are we going to have a process -- 

a transparent process for this in the sense 

that everybody that works on a petition would 

be listed in some way so we'd all be informed, 

as well as the petitioners be informed, of 

people that contributed to the evaluation of 

that petition? And secondly, can you sort of 

give me a little better sense of who -- what do 

you mean by primary reviewers and primary 

authors as how those are going to be defined? 

 MR. KATZ: Well, I think -- I mean the -- you 

know, we're just getting started and things 

will develop as we go, but -- but at this point 

at least, when the petition comes in it'll be 

assigned to someone who has sort of management 

responsibility for the process of -- of 

considering the petition as to whether it's 

qualified and the evaluation process and so on. 

Authors, there may be -- there may be several 

experts that actually author the evaluation of 

that petition. All of them -- all of them -- 
-- 

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would be held to the same standard of not 

having worked. As far as -- as information for 

the public about who's working on the 

petitions, I mean that's a detail -- I don't 

know, but I assume that -- that NIOSH will do 

as it does with dose reconstruction and make 

those identities known and their -- as well as 

-- so you'll be able to see transparently that 

they don't have that conflict, that they don't 

 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe Larry --

 MR. KATZ: -- have employment history at the 

site. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- can add to that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I think this is a good 

point and we need to work on this as we 

proceed. Certainly we envision that the 

authors will -- names will be presented on the 

evaluation report itself so that everybody can 

see who worked on it. But we need to look at 

and consider how we make that even more 

transparent as the -- as the report is being 

drafted. And maybe that's an entry on our web 

site, maybe it's -- maybe it's simply talking 

to the petitioners and revealing to the 
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petitions who's initially been assigned to work 

on their report and where -- what their 

backgrounds are. Again, these folks -- all 

their conflict of interest disclosure is on the 

web site, so we can direct them to that -- to 

ORAU's web site. But I think it is a good 

point you raise, Dr. Melius, and we will have 

to be looking at how we make this as 

transparent as possible. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Again, it's -- again, 

trying to be sort of preventive in our approach 

so we don't have questions raised later. 

In your slide on evaluating health endangerment 

you used the term -- let me quote -- OCAS will 

determine whether exceptionally high level 

radiation exposures were likely or unlikely -- 

you changed it to not likely -- based on the 

qualitative evidence. 

 Where does the exceptionally high radiation -- 

high level radiation exposures comes from? 

 MR. KATZ: I mean this --

 DR. MELIUS: I don't remember that in the rule 

and --

 MR. KATZ: Well, it is actually in the rule, 

and it -- and it relates to -- and there's the 
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example given in the rule of criticality 

incidents. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 MR. KATZ: But these are occurrences where it's 

-- we're talking beyond sort of mediocrity or 

whatever you may have in terms of a safety 

program to really the failure of protections. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, are those the cases where 

the 250 days is also waived? 

 MR. KATZ: That -- exactly true. That's what 

this relates to. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: As I recall it -- well, but the 

slide doesn't relate to that necessarily, and 

I'm just asking for -- the -- the test -- you 

don't have a test for exceptionally high level 

radiation. I think you used an example -- 

 MR. KATZ: No, there's no litmus test, exactly 

right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- you used as an example, and 

that's just what I'm -- 

 MR. KATZ: That's right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- trying to clarify, that's still 

just an example and --

 MR. KATZ: That is just an example. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Okay. Thank you. This is -- may 

be an observation I'm not sure you can answer. 

Your next slide called defining the class or 

classes, we have this -- the 250-day rule and 

so forth. I don't believe we still have come 

to grips with -- though we talked about it 

many, many meetings ago -- this whole issue of 

the overlap. You have somebody that's got 240 

days and then has -- as part of the -- of a 

class, and then has, you know, whatever, six 

months of -- or three months or something or 

six years where they are not part of a class 

but have radiation exposure, we still have to 

sort of come to grips with how to deal with 

those people in terms of how -- how you 

evaluate and qualify them. Say if they don't 

qualify under their, you know, five years of 

non-class exposure and don't qualify under 

their 240 days of SEC class exposure, 

reasonably one might expect them to -- to be -- 

I mean there's going to be a cutoff there 

someplace, but it's just an issue that may come 

up, I don't know. 

 MR. KATZ: I mean it -- I mean I understand 

exactly what you're saying about being an issue 
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that we will -- I mean these will go -- their 

claim will go to the Department of Labor. If 

their claim doesn't meet the parameters, the 

250 days, it'll come to us for dose 

reconstruction, and then we'll have the 

enterprise of reconstructing the dose. And all 

of -- to the full extent we can. And as we --

you'll see in the procedures themselves, as 

opposed to this presentation, we're going to be 

very clear that because we add a class, it 

doesn't mean that there aren't doses within 

that class that we can reconstruct. And so for 

a given individual, though we may not be able 

to reconstruct the doses for everyone in a 

class, we may be able to reconstruct the doses 

within that class period for that individual, 

if that makes sense. 

 DR. MELIUS: Let me -- I've actually got some 

more, but if somebody else -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's go to Mark --

 DR. MELIUS: -- wants to ask some questions, 

then come back to me -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I just -- on your slide on 

evaluating feasibility, I was just a little -- 
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and I understand the logic behind this, but it 

says OCAS will match the scope of evaluation to 

the scope of the petition basis. You know, my 

-- I guess my concern there would be that -- 

and we'll obviously learn as you go forward 

with some of these petitions, but my concern 

would be that it seems like it's a burden going 

back on the petitioners. Oftentimes you're 

going to have -- probably going to have groups 

of people that have their own personal 

information, personal datasets, personal 

experiences from their -- from their jobs at 

the site, and together they've -- they've 

realized, you know, whatever, this area that we 

worked in, they can't, you know, possibly 

reconstruct this dose. But they don't have a 

lot of support documentation. They're unable 

to get that documentation. So I think 

obviously -- and I think this is your intent, 

too, but obviously NIOSH has to pull those 

threads, so you might have a fairly thin 

proposal that has good merit, and if the 

thread's not pulled, you know -- 

 MR. KATZ: Absolutely, and --

 MR. GRIFFON: I just wanted to draw attention 
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to that. 

 MR. KATZ: I mean the point in that is that -- 

is that the issues that are raised by their 

petition basis are the issues that we'll 

address, not the depth of evidence they have 

regarding to -- regarding that particular issue 

or issues. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Henry Anderson? 

DR. ANDERSON: Just kind of responding to the 

new, you know, review and calling special 

meetings and things like that, I think it'd be 

real -- I'm assuming you will have this, but it 

would be nice to have a time line so that now 

that you have, you know, a couple of these in, 

what -- you know, you aren't going to have a 

firm date necessarily, but as we now look 

forward three months out scheduling Board 

meetings, if you anticipate that you'll have 

something done at a given period of time, if we 

can get some sense of that in advance so that 

we don't get caught of -- all of a sudden it 

comes out and we have a -- have to meet very 

quickly, I think that'd be -- be helpful so 

that, even if it's between meetings, if you're 

going to adjust a completion date to -- so we 
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have as much lead time as possible, I think 

would be very helpful. 

 MR. KATZ: Right. I agree. I mean it'll be 

hard for us to pinpoint exactly -- 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah, you know, it is --

 MR. KATZ: -- when we'll complete an 

evaluation, but the thing that ought to put 

your heart a little bit at rest, in terms of 

this, is that this -- this applies -- this 

provision applies to petitions that were filed 

before October 1st. It expire-- so this is not 

going to be a condition for all petitions for 

all time. We will certainly want the Board to 

meet in an expedient manner when we have a 

petition evaluation done anyhow, regardless of 

this Congressional requirement. But the 

specifics of when we're -- if we complete one, 

you know, more than ten days before a planned 

Board meeting convening an emergency mem-- 

meeting of the Board, that -- that sort of 

provision expires March 1st and applies only to 

petitions filed before October 1st. 

 DR. MELIUS: You can rest easy, Henry. It's 

December 15th. I think we at least are -- 

don't have to meet again till after Christmas. 
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DR. ANDERSON: That's what I don't want to hear 

-- this oops, oh, by the way, you know, between 

Christmas and New Year's we have to meet. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Talk a little more about that. So 

the drop-dead date on that has passed. It's 

October 15th? 

 MR. KATZ: October -- for -- it's for petitions 

that were filed before October 1st, and the -- 

and the legal provision -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Do we know how many that is then 

and which ones those are? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, so --

 MR. KATZ: And -- and in --

 DR. ZIEMER: So we'll know when the clock 

starts on each one. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, and then the provision expires 

March 1st -- I think it's March 1st. 

 DR. ZIEMER: While we're talking about that, 

let me insert -- I'm going to ask Leon, could -

- could you address the time issue, too, that 

was a concern to you at this point? Or does 

that address it, actually? 

MR. OWENS: I think the issue that I had, Ted, 

was in regard to the dose reconstructions and 
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also the timing of reviews for the SEC 

petitions. And -- and it gets back to what 

Henry had said earlier -- also Dr. Melius -- 

when you receive the SEC petitions, I'd like to 

think that there may be some type of 

notification mechanism to the Board so that we 

would also be aware that petitions had been 

received, and then some type of time frame for 

when the Board might be expected to consider 

those. 

 MR. KATZ: There -- there is provision for us 

to notify you as soon as -- as a petition is 

qualified, which makes more sense than us 

notifying you for petitions that you wouldn't 

see. But absolutely. The question as to how -

- sort of estimating how soon you would receive 

the petition evaluation, you know, that -- 

that's probably going to be hard to do at that 

point, initial point. But this Board meets 

frequently enough that, you know, certainly I 

think you're going to get plenty of heads-up as 

to, you know, when it's likely you're going to 

see an evaluation report. And we can obviously 

do that by e-mail, as well. It doesn't have to 

be only when we meet with you. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And let's go to Wanda next. 

 MS. MUNN: Our Chair knows things that I don't 

know, and when he says we know how many there 

are --

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I --

 MS. MUNN: -- and everybody nods their heads up 

and down --

 DR. ZIEMER: This is -- this is a --

 MS. MUNN: -- this "we" does not know how many 

there are. 

 DR. ZIEMER: This "we" doesn't include me. 

This is a kind of encompassing "we" -- all of 

us. 

DR. ANDERSON: The royal NIOSH "we". 

 MS. MUNN: Oh, that "we". 

 DR. ZIEMER: Ye know. Ye know. 

 DR. MELIUS: It's not "we"; it's someone knows. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Someone knows. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Larry knows. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Chair knows less than anyone 

else here. 

 MS. MUNN: May -- I am aware of only two. Are 

there more than that which are involved in this 

up-to-October-1st issue? 

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now off the top of my head. I'm sorry, I 

should know this, I guess. I don't know how 

many we're talking about. It is -- it's very 

dynamic, these numbers. I mean they change, as 

our dose reconstruction statistics change. I 

know some of those we received before October 

1st have already -- we've qualified and you 

have their evaluation plans in your hands for 

two of them. And some of those have found to 

be not qualified and they're on our web site, 

and I think we did notice the Board about that. 

If we have not, we will. Our intention is to, 

by e-mail, let you know when a petition has 

qualified or not qualified and placed on our 

web site. We'll notice you on that. But I 

don't have those numbers right today with me. 

 MS. MUNN: Okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know what -- what they 

are off the top of my head. I can say this, 

that at the February meeting it's our full 

intent, our plan, to have a evaluation report 

for Mallinckrodt and for Iowa in your -- in 

your meeting in February for your evaluation. 

We are working very hard toward both of those 

sites. 
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The Iowa site we have Q-cleared folks going -- 

working with DOE security experts looking at 

information that we were not able to put into 

our site profile originally and so we're 

working with that aspect on Iowa to determine 

whether or not we can get our hands on the 

information in a timely fashion in a content 

that makes rational sense in whether we can do 

dose reconstruction or not, so we're working 

toward that end. 

 And for Mallinckrodt it's a different set of 

circumstances. As you know, we had a -- had a 

portion of the site profile that was reserved 

because of the early years when we couldn't 

find enough data, so we're looking at that very 

-- very critically right now. And so we're 

planning to bring those two before you in 

February. 

 MS. MUNN: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Richard? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Just a point of clarification. 

The only people that have received the SEC on 

the Army ammunitions and the Mallinckrodt was 

the working group, not the whole Board. 

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copy of the evaluation plan and the petition 

submittal, yes. But the whole Board should 

have been notified, I think, by e-mail -- or 

noticed that we had qualified those two and put 

them on our web site. 

 DR. MELIUS: I think it came in a Chris Ellison 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, it came --

 DR. MELIUS: -- the web site update e-mails. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It's a web site update e-mail 

from Chris Ellison. 

 DR. MELIUS: Which I never open till the next 

day 'cause the web site isn't up-- she always -

- I mean which is good she notifies -- she 

always notifies us in the morning saying it'll 

be ready, you know, later in the day or the 

next day, and so I always ignore them until, 

you know, a few days later, so... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Go ahead, Jim, you have another 

question. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. I have a few more 

questions. Under -- you had a slide called 

evaluating petitions under 83.14 and then you 

referred to the fact that ORAU was going -- 

these are the ones that you would generate the 
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evaluations or the classes by not being able to 

complete the individual dose reconstruction. 

You said ORAU was going through your claims now 

trying to identify potential classes -- I think 

that's the right term -- under this provision. 

Could you talk a little bit about what criteria 

they're using for making that evaluation? 

 MR. KATZ: Well, I -- I don't know what 

specific criteria they're using, but -- but 

their -- I have some knowledge of those claims 

for which they have little information and I 

think --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I'm not looking for names or 

places, I'm just trying to get -- sort of 

understand the process -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me answer that question, if I 

may, and maybe Dr. Toohey will stand up and 

help me here. But you know, we've charged them 

with screening all the cases that we have in 

our hands that are not being worked on, trying 

to determine what information is necessary to 

complete a case. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And along with that effort, we've 

asked them to look very diligently and very 
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critically at whether or not a dose 

reconstruction can be done for a case. 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And if it can't, let's get that 

on the table right away. So I don't know if 

Dick wants to add to that, but I think -- you 

know, he might be able to embellish my comment 

a little bit there. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Yes, we are actively working on 

that. In fact, it's worth some points in our 

six-month evaluation plan we have. It's been 

incentivized and we owe NIOSH the report by the 

end of December. And just to tell you what we 

area doing on it is just creating a matrix of 

all the sites, and the first thing we are 

reviewing is the information, the data we 

already have on hand for that site and is that 

adequate to support at least an exposure model, 

like -- like we generated for Bethlehem Steel. 

Second thing to look at is if we don't have 

data for that specific site, do we have enough 

process knowledge to use data from another 

site. For instance, Simonds Saw and Steel, 

Bethlehem, other rolling mills, like that. 

And then the third thing to look at is okay, in 
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our data capture efforts that we've done so 

far, even though we don't have all the data, we 

have some idea of the data that are out there, 

even if it's not in hand, and we'll crosscompare against that. 

So the final product that we hope to have will 

be this matrix of what our best guess is, the 

data we have on hand, data availability, other 

ways to characterize exposure, and do we think 

we can in fact at least be able to put what is 

required for the SEC evaluation, an upper limit 

on exposure. So that will be the product and 

hopefully we will have that in. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I would presume the process 

would work the other way, too, that if we have 

identified -- approved a class and went through 

the whole process and so forth, you'd then be 

going back through and pulling the people 

already through the system and -- into -- into 

the class. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, we would, absolutely. As 

soon as a class is identified, we'd be looking 

at our case load, working with DOL to notify 

all people who fit into that class, so they're 

aware that they may have a status in the class. 
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 DR. MELIUS: The other -- and this is a comment 

more than a question. You indicated that when 

you're evaluating a petition that would concern 

potentially multiple classes that you would -- 

might divide that petition up and do part of it 

first and then -- because the second part might 

need further evaluation that you would split it 

up. And I think that -- that's good, 

particularly if there's going to be a long time 

period before you're going to be ready with the 

second evaluation, though given the 

Congressional deadline, I'm not sure that 

there's a lot of time -- do that, and how often 

this will practically fit. I do just think 

early on in this process that there's some 

advantage to not splitting up too much and 

letting you work through the process, and also 

the Board, look at these in a broader sense at 

least that -- that we don't look at six 

different evaluations of Mallinckrodt, for 

example. And I don't remember what's in the 

petition. So that as we're -- as we're 

figuring out how to evaluate this, we're not 

sort of evaluating one class in one way and 

then suddenly saying well, gee, if we had 
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thought about that, maybe we need to think 

about another class in a different way. And in 

some sense we're setting precedent with these 

early ones, and I get worried that we -- if we 

try to divide it up too much we're going to -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, I don't think that -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: There are going to be some 

differences, though --

 DR. MELIUS: Oh, yeah --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- as well as some similarities. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And are there any separate time 

clocks then that are established once the 

splitting is done? Well, I mean --

 MR. KATZ: No, I'm -- that's a fair question. 

The 180 days -- I mean --

 DR. ZIEMER: I mean I can see one subset that 

might take considerable effort to, in a sense, 

qualify -- or maybe it's qualified at the front 

end and then you split it, I'm -- 

 MR. KATZ: It's really --

 DR. ZIEMER: It seems like a practical question 

there. 

 MR. KATZ: It's really -- yeah, and it's really 

also a legal question as to how you would 
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interpret that 180-day requirement as to 

whether it is for addressing all classes 

covered by a petition or whatever we find are 

covered by a petition, or that we at least 

address one within the 180 days. That's a --

also a legal question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. I'm sorry, go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- but -- I guess maybe before 

you -- Liz -- I guess I would also see you 

coming to the Board with an evaluation for, you 

know, three sort of classes, say -- this 

group's -- and the Board saying okay, two of 

them -- this is fine. Three, it really would 

be helpful to have this kind of -- 

 MR. KATZ: That's why I say --

 DR. MELIUS: -- evaluation done or further 

information or something and -- and splitting 

off. And then I guess how we deal with 180 

days in that and so forth... 

 MR. KATZ: But -- I mean I think -- and then 

I'm going to let Liz go, but in that term, in 

that case, where the Board sends us back to the 

drawing boards, in effect, I certainly think 

that the 180-day would have been fulfilled by 

coming to you. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. KATZ: Because the Board is not under a 

time limit in terms of its work and its sending 

us back to the drawing boards is sort of a 

component of that. 

 DR. MELIUS: We -- however, we shouldn't take 

too long or I'm sure -- I have a feeling 

Congress might --

 DR. ZIEMER: Liz might have some additional -- 

 DR. MELIUS: -- tighten up the Board --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- input on that. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, all I was going to say 

is that those type of issues will be addressed 

in the new rule, so you'll see HHS's 

interpretations coming out in the new rule on 

that, which I believe is going to go through 

public comment and all that kind of stuff. 

 DR. MELIUS: And if you could stand there, 

'cause I think my final question is about the 

new rule. What -- are you going to do that as 

a draft rule for public comment? Have you 

decided where that stands? What's the plan? 

 MR. KATZ: That'll ha-- that -- we can't decide 

that on our own, so that ultimately will be an 

HHS sort of -- it needs a lot of legal advice, 
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the decision, but just at NIOSH we're assuming 

at this point that it -- that it might be an 

interim final rule because -- because we have 

these requirements and right now our rule is 

out of sync with them -- these statutory 

requirements. I'm sorry, Liz. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I'm not sure I have an 

answer for that question right now 'cause it's 

just not a decision that HHS has made, and all 

I can go off of right now is what NIOSH is 

working on. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes --

 DR. TOOHEY: May I make a comment? 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Dr. Toohey, yes. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Regarding Dr. Melius's earlier 

question on conflict of interest, I just want 

to clarify one point on that. The same thing 

applies to dose reconstructions, site profiles 

and SEC petitions. You do not prepare, review 

or approve any of these if you worked at the 

site. But that does not preclude us, in the 

case of site profiles and SEC petition reviews, 

from having people who did work at the site 

serve as site experts and contribute their 
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knowledge and expertise to that preparation. 

 MS. MUNN: We need that. 

 DR. TOOHEY: And of course we can list that -- 

 MS. MUNN: We really do need that. 

 DR. TOOHEY: -- on the report, which is what I 

think you really want to see. We would have 

author, contributors, site experts. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I would also hope to avoid 

that very awkward situation where we had -- 

where we were implementing new conflict of 

interest -- in the rules and in your contract 

that got hung up for a long, long time and -- 

 DR. TOOHEY: Well, that -- the new policy is in 

place and, as you know, it's on the OCAS web 

page. You'll -- before too long you'll see it 

in slightly different format. We're entering 

it into our controlled document system as an 

ORAU team policy, but won't really change 

anything in there except maybe the ordering of 

the paragraphs. And that does apply across the 

board. 

When we implemented that policy, you'll also 

recall we did grandfather in some of the site 

profiles that were already in preparation at 

the time, but I think all of those are due into 
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NIOSH by the end of this year. And on our 

second round of site profiles that we're 

currently doing, those COI requirements are in 

effect. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

 DR. TOOHEY: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Gen Roessler. 

DR. ROESSLER: Ted, you have a bullet in your 

slide on reporting evaluation findings that 

woke me up, and I think now that I've read it 

several times I understand it. But let me read 

the bullet and tell you what my first reaction 

was and then what I think it really means. 

It says (reading) Petitioners will have an 

opportunity to address Board in person, by 

telephone or in writing, as circumstances 

require. 

Well, I'm sure that "by telephone" part means 

that the telephone will be in the middle of our 

room, and my first reaction was the petitioners 

would have a list of the Board members with 

telephones, but I'm sure that means it'll take 

place in teleconference or during a meeting. 

 MR. KATZ: Yes. 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: I had another comment. Thank you 

53
 

for reminding me. But I would just -- I think 

I've made this at other meetings, also. To the 

extent that it's feasible, and it may not 

always be feasible 'cause we may be reviewing 

multiple petitions, so forth -- I think to the 

extent that we can be holding our meetings when 

we're reviewing the evaluation in geographical 

proximity to the petition site, I think it 

would be helpful. There -- there is a role for 

the petitioners and we should try to provide 

them with access to the meeting in person 

rather than by phone or otherwise and -- now 

again, it may not always be practical, but I 

think it would be helpful and helpful for the 

credibility of the process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just --

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just one last thing. Your last 

bullet, Ted, that 30-day statutory deadline may 

prevent HHS from providing petitioners with 

opportunity to contest decisions, is that sort 
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of an unintending consequence of the 

amendments, or... 

 MR. KATZ: Well, I don't know -- I don't know 

the intent. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, and the second thing -- I 

guess it's just for consideration. And the 

second thing is, is there any vehicle by which 

you can say if petitioners contest, then that 

clock stops or something like that? Is there a 

way to keep the ability for petitioners to 

contest in there 'cause I think -- 

 MR. KATZ: There's sort of a -- I mean that's, 

again, in a sense a legal question. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that might come out in 

the regulation --

 MR. KATZ: It'll certainly be addressed -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. KATZ: -- you know, in the regulation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If there were some way for the 

rule-making to abide by the intent of the 

legislation and still provide a mechanism for 

that to occur, it seems to me it would make 

sense. But we don't know -- or maybe we do 

know how rigid that -- it certainly seems rigid 

as it's defined in the law. Is that correct, 
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the 30-day? 

 MR. KATZ: It seems pretty clear, plainspoken -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I mean 30 days is pretty -- 

 MR. KATZ: No, I mean --

 DR. ZIEMER: It's not 29. 

 MR. KATZ: No, I understand what you... 

 DR. ZIEMER: But is there any wiggle room -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- because --

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess that's what I'm asking. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we don't know the intent, but I 

think Mark has suggested that it might in fact 

be an unintentional -- what's the word we want 

-- unintentional consequence of -- unintended 

consequence, really. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: We're not in a position to 

answer that right now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, I know, we're speculating 

here, but just pointing out that that might be 

in fact something that wasn't realized at the 

time. 

 MR. KATZ: And you certainly understand it's 

not in our interests to -- I'm sorry. 

 MR. MILLER: I had some proximity to this 
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provision and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Richard, we'll allow you to 

speak. We'll make an exception -- 

 MR. MILLER: Very briefly, just on the 30-day 

question. All Congress is doing is rolling it 

back. Right? From 180 to 30 days? Merely 

what's called a notice and review provision, so 

when you have notice and review, it's only if 

they want to take legislative action to stop a 

Special Cohort petition, say through some 

suspension calendar bill. Am I wrong on that? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: (Off microphone) I think 

(unintelligible) talking about the 180 -- the 

provision that the Board makes a recommendation 

and then HHS has to --

 MR. MILLER: Okay. I stand corrected. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Okay, any further 

comments or questions on -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the procedures? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I just have one last one, but I 

think it rolls into our next working session, 

so it'll probably be a pre-break kind of 

comment. The -- you said Mallinckrodt and Iowa 

would be ready for -- likely ready for the next 
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meeting, or hopefully ready for the next 

meeting. The question I have is, you know, do 

-- do -- this brings up the contractor 

question. I'm -- I'm concerned that when we go 

to review these petitions that we may need 

technical assistance, and we don't have a task 

for the contractor. We have a provision in the 

task order contract, but we never created a 

task for SC&A to help us -- and specifically I 

can see situations where we run into this 

"sufficiently accurate" sort of dilemma, and 

I'm just wondering -- I don't think at this 

point we have time to get a task out and have 

it ready by the next Board meeting, but I'm 

just -- I think we might want to at least 

discuss that in our next -- next -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can certainly do that, and 

perhaps having one of these that comes to us 

directly and we can make a determination to the 

extent that we think we need additional 

assistance on that effort. But we don't know a 

priori what we're going to be looking at and -- 

and the extent to which we might need, or not 

need, such assistance. Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I would just say, if I 
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understand the deadlines in the process 

correctly, is that NIOSH could present its 

evaluation to us. We're then going to decide, 

you know, do we need assistance, and at least 

hypothetically I suppose we could try to do a 

task order to do that. I think the delay in 

there is probably too long and I think we're 

much more likely to be in the position of doing 

it for future evaluations. So I think having 

the -- the other test of this in some sense, we 

should -- I hope -- have the site profile 

review for Mallinckrodt by the next meeting, 

which would tie it -- and I think would be -- 

help us sort of inform us about how to -- how 

to handle future situations, as well as they 

hopefully would be helpful in evaluating the -- 

NIOSH's evaluation of the Mallinckrodt 

petition. Now for Iowa we're not going to have 

that same -- we're going to have to decide, but 

it may -- sort of have to wait and see. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then we're pretty close to 

being on schedule. We'll take our 15-minute 

break and then reconvene. 
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 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 10:00 a.m. 

to 10:20 a.m.) 

 SEC PETITION REVIEW PLAN WORK GROUP

 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready to reconvene our 

session. The Board has had a work group called 

the SEC petition review plan work group which 

was chaired by Robert Presley, and that group 

has met by e-mail or telephone between -- 

between our last meeting and this meeting to 

review the SEC petition review plan. And Mr. 

Presley's going to tell us briefly what the 

work group did and what their recommendations 

are. And as he does that, let me remind the 

Board -- I think all of you received a copy -- 

or did they all receive a copy? Yes, of the --

of the petition review plan -- should be in 

your file -- in your book here somewhere. 

 MS. MUNN: It is. It is. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, it's in the tab. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Our findings are in the book. 

 DR. ZIEMER: SEC petition review plan and work 

group report. Let's see, the work group report 

is there. I'm looking for the plan itself. 

 MR. PRESLEY: The plan itself is not in there, 

I don't think. 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it's not, it's only the 

report. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Was the plan -- the plan 

distributed to the --

MS. HOMER: What's in the binder is what I 

received. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the plan itself, was that 

distributed to --

 MR. PRESLEY: That was only --

 DR. ZIEMER: Board members got the plan, either 

on the web site or --

 MS. MUNN: I think it was on the web. The 

committee received it in hard copy, but I 

believe it's on the web. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I don't think the -- the Board 

didn't get it, just the committee. It went to 

-- just went to four members on the Board is 

who's addressed at the bottom of them. 

 MS. MUNN: It's very brief. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The evaluation plan is simply a 

two-page document. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is it available here? I don't 

have a copy. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And I want to make sure that Board 

members are -- I have a copy. 
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DR. ROESSLER: We just have a letter. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: My apologies, I thought this -- 

the two-pager was going to be prepared for you, 

and we'll get it prepared and get it copied and 

submitted. 

DR. ROESSLER: We have a memo. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You have a memo from Mr. Presley, 

which is -- which is the -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: That's our findings. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The group evaluated NIOSH's plan 

as to how they would evaluate the petition. 

That plan is a two-page description of what 

they plan to do. This work group has reviewed 

that plan and has developed this set of 

recommendations. 

 But Robert, why don't you proceed and we'll 

make sure that the plan itself is in your hands 

here momentarily. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Okay. We are called the petition 

review working group. We had a conference call 

on November 23rd at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard 

Time. Those present were Wanda, Jim Melius, 

myself. Richard was unable to attend but did 

get back for a comment, and also Dave Sundin 

was our government official for the meetings. 
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The topics of discussion were use of available 

data. It was noted by Wanda that the Technical 

Basis Document from the Iowa Army Ammunition 

Plant referred to information on medical 

screening data collected and archived by the 

University of Iowa, College of Public Health, 

on IAAP workers, but that no summary or comment 

regarding that data was evident in the report. 

Second, use of records and documented 

information from other production and assembly 

facilities, in addition to Pantex, PNNL -- 

Pacific Northwest -- may be used to complete 

the qualification process for SEC and the 

petition evaluation plan. 

Third, the Advisory Board on Radiation and 

Worker Health experience and knowledge is 

critical to the evaluation of each petition for 

the SEC. 

 Those were our discussion points as noted by 

the people on the committee. 

Recommendations and findings were we, the 

specified working group, have no major findings 

with regard to petition evaluation, SEC-00006. 

However, the working group does have 

recommendations that, number one, the Advisory 
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Board request NIOSH to be diligent in obtaining 

and documenting all available data on their 

worker population, particular including any 

statistical significant -- and there should be 

data seen at the University of Iowa research 

data -- or Iowa research data. 

 Number two, any records or documented 

information that may exist for similar 

production activities from other nuclear 

weapons production and assembly facilities 

throughout the United States be used in the 

review process. 

 Three, if classification or declassification of 

records becomes a hindrance, the Advisory Board 

urges -- the Advisory Board urge DOE to 

undertake, in a timely manner, whatever action 

is necessary to provide the required 

information in a usable format. 

 The conference call was conduc-- was concluded 

at 3:21 p.m. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I will say that I think that 

every one of these items that we discussed in 

our discussion about the evaluation plan was 

discussed in the last three days, about NIOSH 
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coming up with -- talking to the outside people 

and gathering all the other information. 

Are there any questions before I make one last 

comment? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Appear to be none -- oh, yes. 

Yeah, Leon. 

MR. OWENS: Bob, in regard to recommendation 

number three, is that the issue relative to 

clearances? 

 MR. PRESLEY: No, sir, that's not. That --

that problem arrived when -- we have -- NIOSH 

goes into a place to get records and they say 

you can't have those records, they're 

classified. Then we urge DOE to do whatever it 

takes to either redact those records or get 

them declassified in a timely manner so that 

NIOSH can use them. That's what that is. And 

they're -- they're having some problems -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's not -- it's not the -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: No, it has nothing to do -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- individuals, it's the material. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Right, this is the material is 

what this -- what this represents. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? We'll act on 

this in a moment. You said you had an 
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additional comment, however. 

 MR. PRESLEY: I have -- I have one more 

comment. We've talked about this. We have the 

Mallinckrodt petition review in our hands. It 

came in last -- mine, I think I got it 

Saturday. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Review plan, not --

 MR. PRESLEY: Review plan. I think this one 

came in Saturday before I left on Sunday. I 

read it on the way out here. I've gone over it 

one time. What we're doing is evaluating the 

plan that NIOSH uses to evaluate these things. 

My estimation, the plans are going to be almost 

all the same each time we do this. If you go 

through the two plans from Iowa Army Ordnance 

and the evaluation plan from Mallinckrodt, 

they're almost the same. 

 My recommendation would be that we right now 

say that the plans look good and we not meet as 

a committee on each one of these petitions -- 

petition plans, and that we let them do their 

work and we spend our time and effort when the 

plan comes back for the full Board for review. 

Now that's not to say that I won't be more than 

happy to do this, and I would like some 
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discussion on this, but I -- I see the plan as 

being almost identical for each one of these 

things. There may be a few things that would 

be different, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: And that may ac-- that -- that 

will actually be a separate issue -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: Yes --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- from the recommendation -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: -- right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- here, but Larry, did you have a 

comment on that? And then I don't believe 

there's a requirement that the Board do an 

evaluation on those plans, actually -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: Right, there's not. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I believe NIOSH asked us to do 

that, at least on the first one, but I don't 

know that there's any requirement in either the 

regulation or the procedures that require that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct, there is no 

requirement that the Board approve the plan. 

We felt that it was important to us to hear the 

Board's input and comment on these plans, 

seeing this is the first one. We do see these 

as -- the plan you have looked at and the rest 
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of the Board will soon have a copy of that 

plan, as well, I hope, this morning. These are 

generic in their structure. They're basically 

an outline of our approach to evaluating the 

petition and coming up with an evaluation 

report. 

We agree and find your recommendations on this 

first review to be very important to us and we 

will address those. We have addressed those. 

Perhaps we didn't factor those into the outline 

as best we could to let you know that yes, we 

do have DOE's full support. We have our Qcleared folks working through the data. We did 

not specify in the plan the type of documents 

that the University of Iowa holds, but we 

understand that's of interest to you. 

We can do this however you wish. You know, if 

you say today that you don't want the working 

group to continue in evaluating the plans, we 

can still provide the evaluation plans for each 

petition to the full Board, just so that you 

can see what we're -- what we're doing and what 

we're approaching. And if you have any 

comments, you -- we still would love to have 

them. It's your choice. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Jim and Wanda? 

 DR. MELIUS: Just to follow up on that, the 

evaluation plan -- not everybody has seen it -- 

it's very general. I'm not sure that at this 

point in the process that we could expect a 

more detailed evaluation plan. And some of the 

genesis of this group was trying to -- would 

our evaluation -- evaluation plan assist if we 

were going to be confronted with a full 

evaluation at this meeting. It turns out we're 

not. 

I think we may, as a next step, want to come 

back and look at this issue after we've seen a 

couple of evaluation plans, and we may have 

some general recommendations at that point in 

time as to what should be the content of the 

evaluation plan. As well as NIOSH may -- as it 

gains experience doing these evaluations, you 

know, decide to organize them differently or -- 

or whatever, and --

 DR. ZIEMER: So you concur with Bob's statement 

that probably the working group doesn't need to 

look at each of these evaluation plans as we go 

forward, at least for now? 

 DR. MELIUS: At least for now, correct, yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: I guess I have a slightly different 

perspective. It appears to me that even though 

the general template may be the same for most 

of the reviews that we can anticipate, it's 

also very obvious to me that every petition is 

going to have some uniqueness to it. And until 

we have a few of them under our belt, it would 

seem wise to me that we have a working group 

that does in fact try to evaluate how large 

those differences in approach might need to be, 

given the unique nature of each of the 

petitions that we get. I think in the long 

term I probably will agree with Bob. But at 

this juncture, this is too fresh, too new, in 

my view, for us to make that step quite so 

completely. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me raise, though, in that 

connection, a practical matter. And maybe the 

working group can help us with this. Let's 

take, for example, the Mallinckrodt plan, which 

is the next one in line, and the work group has 

that plan. Now if you were -- if the work 

group were to meet and do what you did on this 

one and come back to the Board and the Board 
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have to approve that before NIOSH proceeds, it 

seems to me we have a very practical problem 

because we're looking toward having the 

Mallinckrodt evaluation at our next meeting. 

And unless this Board wishes to meet again, 

either by conference call or in person, to act 

on that individual item, then we have a 

practical issue as to what to do -- unless the 

Board wishes to authorize the working group to 

review it and to pass their comments along. 

Anyway -- yeah, so could you respond and -- 

 MS. MUNN: Yes, that latter suggestion was what 

I had in mind, that the Board review -- report 

to all the members of the Board essentially the 

-- what we just saw, that that go to the Board 

as soon as possible after the working group has 

looked at it, just our -- our statement that 

we've looked at it and this is -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: But the Board cannot act on that 

unless we formally meet. That's my point. 

Jim, you had a comment. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that was just what I was 

going to reiterate, also. And I guess I would 

see more utility to -- if I'm -- I'm sort of 

guessing at the number of evaluations we're 
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going to be seeing and how soon we're going to 

be meeting again, but that -- that we may again 

want to empower another working group, after 

we've seen a couple of evaluations, to sort of 

review what ought to be the content of the 

evaluations and make recommendations at that 

point in time, rather than -- I think that 

might be more useful than an ongoing process to 

review each evaluation plan. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there any reason, however, that 

the plan, such as this plan, the plan for the 

next -- the Mallinckrodt petition can be made 

available and Board members individually 

comment, or are you able to use that if they 

don't represent any kind of consensus? I'm not 

sure --

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, first of all, we didn't give 

you this for approval. We're moving forward. 

Okay? And anything you give us is going to be 

considered in our effort to research and 

evaluate the petitions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, but I'm asking -- you don't 

necessarily need consensus -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, no, I do not. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- comments. You can utilize 
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individual comments. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can utilize -- we can -- OCAS 

can utilize individual comment on these 

evaluation plans if that's your pleasure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We'll take that up in a 

moment then, in terms of what the Board wishes 

to do. Let's take action -- the recommendation 

from the working group represents, in itself, a 

motion. It doesn't require a second. It's 

those three recommendations that Bob 

enumerated. Is there any further discussion on 

the recommendations of the work group? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: If there are not, are you ready to 

vote on accepting those recommendations? All 

in favor, say aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are there any opposed? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are there any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then those become our 

recommendations and we thank the work group for 

taking that issue and preparing this 

recommendation for us. 
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Now do you wish to discuss the issue any 

further on providing input on the Mallinckrodt 

-- Larry's already indicated that the -- the 

plan -- the review -- what's the proper name? 

The petition review -- petition evaluation plan 

for Mallinckrodt will be provided to all Board 

members. He has indicated that they will be 

glad to have individual comments. Does the 

Board wish to proceed in that fashion? It 

doesn't necessarily take a motion, but I'd like 

to get some feel -- if this is how you wish to 

proceed. 

 In the absence of any action to the contrary, 

that's basically what will happen, because you 

will get the document and you're welcome, of 

course, to provide individual comments. So 

unless we have a motion to act in some other 

manner on this next one, that's basically kind 

of the default position. Does that seem to be 

agreeable? 

Well, one or -- one or two are agreeable, I -- 

 MR. PRESLEY: Well, we'll go -- we'll go do 

them, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: The rest are still numb. Okay, I 

think -- I think we're going to proceed on that 
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basis. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So has the working group 

concluded its effort? 

 DR. ZIEMER: The working group has concluded -- 

and keep in mind, working groups, in a sense, 

are ad hoc. They have -- they have carried out 

the mission that --

 DR. MELIUS: The working group has expired. 

 DR. ZIEMER: They have carried out the 

responsibilities that -- for which they were 

appointed. I think they can be reactivated 

later, but they -- they cease to exist, I 

believe. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. So I'll make sure that we 

get the other Board members who weren't on the 

working group a copy of what the working group 

got. And if you individually have comments, 

you can send those by e-mail or however you 

wish to us and we'll carefully consider those. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much. 

 BOARD WORKING SESSION 

I'd like to outline for the Board very 

quickly items that we have to address 
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during our working session -- or 

sessions -- so that we can kind of judge 

time and so on. And I believe -- Henry, 

you're leaving at noon? 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we need to select those issues 

that we want to address -- those things we want 

to do once Henry leaves. 

 DR. MELIUS: Form a new working group. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I have on my list the following 

items. I want to make sure that the charge to 

the new working group that's going to monitor 

the -- the final dose reconstruction report, 

that the charge to them is clear. I have it 

written out before me, based on our minutes -- 

or our comments yesterday and I want to make 

sure that's clear. 

We need to address the handling of future site 

profile drafts. I believe that's the one that 

we wanted to address while Henry was still 

here, actually. 

We need to talk about future meeting times and 

places. 

 I actually have on my notes that we still need 

to act -- take final action on SCA's quality 
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assurance and conflict of interest plans. You 

may recall at our last meeting there were some 

primarily editorial changes, but there were a 

large number of changes that SCA wished to make 

-- just some wording things, mainly. There 

were no substantive changes, but we deferred 

final action on those till we got the clean 

copy. That clean copy -- I'm not sure it's in 

the book. Maybe it is, I haven't looked, but I 

know it was distributed by e-mail earlier. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It is in the book and you were -- 

it was submitted to each member by e-mail. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we also need to take action on 

that. I don't anticipate that that will be 

long or prolonged, but just to outline those 

items that have to be taken care of, and then 

there may be some additional housekeeping 

issues that Cori wishes to take care of, as 

well. 

 DR. MELIUS: I have one --

 DR. ZIEMER: Are there some other items that 

I've overlooked in terms of this working 

session? 

 DR. MELIUS: I have one, and I may have missed 

it 'cause I didn't attend the subcommittee 
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meeting the other day. But I believe that SC&A 

had raised some issues about access to -- site 

access about Q-clearance issues and about 

getting some information, I believe from NIOSH, 

I can't recall specifically -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I don't think that was part 

of that session, but those -- those issues were 

raised, I think in some separate letters that -

-

 DR. MELIUS: Right, and my question is that do 

they need to be discussed or have they been 

resolved or -- I guess I'd like some feedback 

on them and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, let's --

 DR. MELIUS: -- at some point that could be -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- have that as an item, the 

status -- I'm just going to call that status of 

SCA access. That's -- I think basically has to 

do with -- it's more in the Q-clearance issues. 

I'm looking for John -- it's the Q -- the Qclearance issues, is it not, John? 

DR. MAURO: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So we'll put that on the agenda, 

as well. And -- other items? Mark, did --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, just -- I think we need 
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more discussion on the function of the dose 

reconstruction subcommittee. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We've done one item out of eight 

scope items, at this point. We're down to case 

selection is all we really have been doing -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- and I want -- you know, going 

forward, how --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Let's start with 

going forward on this site profile drafts 

issue. That's one that Henry wanted to be 

present for. Let me begin that discussion by 

outlining what I think are the issues, and then 

the rest of you can help clarify it. 

Perhaps the overriding issue has to do with the 

status of the contractor's report to the Board 

in the interim period from when the report is 

completed to the time of the open meeting where 

the report is discussed. The report is 

identified -- at least has been identified, I 

believe from kind of a legal point of view and 

from the Department's point of view, as a work 

product that is subject to certain kinds of 

constraints. One of the issues, as I 
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understand from the discussion that arose, was 

the extent to which those legal aspects 

completely bind us to a certain kind of action, 

or is the Board in fact in a position -- if it 

wishes -- to allow the document to be viewed 

sort of in the open market prior to the Board's 

having discussed it or indicated any kind of 

position on it and that sort of thing. Is that 

-- that's the nature of the issue, I believe, 

is it not? Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: My understanding of the issue was 

that it is a HHS policy, and so I think the 

nature of any action we would take would be a 

recommendation I guess to the Secretary that 

that policy --

 DR. ZIEMER: If we -- if we wished to somehow -

-

 DR. MELIUS: -- if we wished to do -- yeah, 

there's a conditional -- maybe Liz can -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Liz, can you -- can you speak 

further to that maybe? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, actually I can't. 

That's what I was going to say is the 

Department doesn't have a policy on that right 

now. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Does not have a --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: There's a legal 

determination that has to be made and the 

Department's going to have to take it up -- 

well above NIOSH. But Dr. Melius is absolutely 

correct, if you all have a position on that and 

want to make a recommendation to the Secretary, 

you're welcome, but we can't give you guidance 

on that right now. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Do -- we don't know whether 

or not there is a policy or... 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I'm not sure that they have 

-- as far as these documents go, I'm not sure 

that they've established a policy. But I can 

assure you that we don't have a legal position 

on them yet. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I understand then. Okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: But -- but you did take an action 

on these, so --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: We --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: We did take an action on 

this first set of documents, but you know, this 

is a learning process for everyone and the 

Department now realizes that this is an issue 
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and it's something that we need to legally 

consider, as well as determine what our 

policy's going to be, and that hasn't been done 

yet. But you act as an advisory board and if 

you want to advise the Secretary on it, we 

would --

 DR. ZIEMER: Sure. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- obviously welcome your 

input. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Thank you. Okay. So that 

-- that's sort of the framework, and before 

maybe even getting a motion before us, maybe we 

can have some general discussion and kind of 

learn where people are coming from on this. 

Henry and then Jim. 

DR. ANDERSON: I guess my issue was one of 

there were public comments, critiques, 

rebuttals by Department of Labor and NIOSH to a 

document that, you know, others had not seen so 

that you have basically a critique by -- a 

public critique without the public having an 

ability to review what are they actually 

critiqueing and are those critiques -- do they 

make sense. I think that -- to me, that was 

one of the issues. It's sort of like having a 
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medical journal write a negative editorial 

about a manuscript that hasn't been published 

yet. It isn't out there in the public yet. 

Now if the NIOSH comments and other comments 

were similarly not going to be anything but 

communication to the Board, then I see it a 

little differently, but it just seemed to me, 

on a fairness issue, it's very hard to judge 

the -- or assess the credibility of critiques 

if you haven't had an opportunity to see what's 

being critiqued. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh, To-- no, let's see, we had 

Jim and then Tony, okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: And just in follow-up to that, I 

think there's that point. There's also -- I 

think Tony made the point yesterday that -- I 

think he used the term real world, I don't 

recall specifically, but that we were not in 

the real world, but we're -- part of the real 

world we're in is a Federal advisory committee 

that's supposed to operate in the public, that 

-- I think we've operated in the sense -- and 

NIOSH has -- that this -- given some of the 

past issues with DOE and this kind of a program 

that it was very important that we operate as 
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open as possible, that our processes and so 

forth be as transparent as possible, and that 

we try to maintain, you know, openness with the 

public and with the people affected by this -- 

this program. And having a document labeled as 

not being available to the public raises issues 

and I'd just like to pass to the Board -- I'm 

not sure everybody got a chance to see this, 

and I believe there are copies in the back for 

the public, also. I mean this issue on the 

Bethlehem report made the -- an editorial on 

the Buffalo news. I'm sure you've read it in 

Wisconsin or --

 DR. ZIEMER: It's one of those papers we all 

read on a regular basis. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- you know, what's new in 

Buffalo, but -- but I mean they raised I think 

legitimate concerns, at least their perception 

was that this is an issue that people should be 

open about and so forth. We also had, you 

know, a group come from Buffalo by train all 

the way out here to listen to us review report 

and -- that they hadn't seen yet, they hadn't 

had an opportunity to see until they got to the 

-- the meeting. It's a long enough report that 
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it took many of us some time to struggle -- 

struggle through it. And I just think in the 

interest of the credibility of this program of 

being open that we should, you know, in the 

future let these reports be in the public 

domain. I think we probably should indicate 

that they are a draft report, indicate that the 

Board has not accepted them yet or endorsed 

them yet, however we want to view that process, 

but that we would have a process where we would 

make the reports available or -- through NIOSH. 

Again, there may be privacy concerns, so there 

could be a review for Privacy Act issues, make 

those available. And as NIOSH completes its 

review, that document would also be -- become 

available. And then at the next meeting, you 

know, we would discuss and take whatever 

action's appropriate. But I think it would 

improve the credibility of the process and make 

the public less concerned about -- that there's 

some secret information that we're withholding 

from them or that is not going to be allowed to 

be -- be available. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: I suppose I wouldn't be -- I 
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wouldn't be as concerned as I am currently 

about making predecisional drafts available to 

the public if -- if there was some sort of 

very, very strong communications process at our 

disposal that would ensure that everybody -- 

everybody, from the senators on down to the 

worker at any of these facilities, or claimant 

or whomever, public in general, knew darned 

well that anything that is written in these 

predecisional drafts is subject to being 

completely erased, completely voted out, that 

anything there is only the opinion of an 

assessor. Okay? I don't like the fact that we 

had to go into -- well, okay, that's a 

different issue, and that's the fact that, you 

know, we had to debate this -- at least the 

site profile stuff publicly because that turned 

into the sort of thing that you expect at a 

closeout meeting after any assessment. And so 

they even go -- even -- I think that even if 

they had had the information available, I think 

they would have walked out of here just as 

confused and frustrated as -- as perhaps some 

of us were. 

So I still see that there is, without some sort 
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of proviso process -- okay? -- in place, the 

potential for misinterpretation and for misuse 

of data -- and frankly, I don't trust the 

senators and I'm -- or let's say politicians in 

general. I'm not going to point to anybody in 

particular. There -- there could be, quote, 

errors that have been pointed out in -- in a 

predecisional draft by an assessment team, 

which in-- which indeed turn out not to be 

errors, and they're really only indications 

that there need to be further clarifications 

made in the way approaches are taken by NIOSH 

in determining some aspects of a site profile. 

Some of those data that are -- are brought to 

light by the assessing team are norm-- are 

normally, the first time out, taken by 

newspapers and editorial and newspaper people 

who are not technically qualified, taken to be 

the final product and put out as though that is 

going to potentially be the policy that is 

adopted. 

And then raw data and/or scientific -- new 

scientific methods for looking at data, these -

- these really can be used to further the 

political agenda by allowing politicians to use 
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these to make statements that are derogatory to 

our work. And frankly, I am really, really hot 

under the collar to hear that we're supposedly 

an obstructive body -- okay? -- that we are not 

doing our -- last night it was made clear to us 

again that we're not doing our jobs -- not by 

the senators, but by a member of the public. 

In other words, the data is taken and twisted. 

And so, again, I am not against completely -- 

or completely against hiding this stuff, but 

there has got to be something that is put right 

on the front cover that if you take this then -

- at face value and you think this is a final 

product, you are really stupid. I mean it's 

got to be just about that strong. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Leon? 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, I think everyone on 

this Board knows that the members serve at the 

pleasure of the President of the United States. 

And for that reason and that reason alone, this 

Board is political. I think that we hear the 

word transparency used just about every 

meeting, and I think it's incumbent upon the 

members of the Board to ensure that the public 

perception of this Board is maintained and -- 
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and the credibility of the members of this 

Board is maintained. 

If a document is stamped "draft" and is 

provided, each of us have no ability to change 

the perception of individuals who read that, 

but we are aware that it is a draft. And then 

once a document is stamped "final," I think 

that individuals are of the intelligence to 

recognize that that means it's a final product. 

So I'm hopeful that in the future documents of 

this nature can be provided to the public for 

their purview, along with the responsible 

members of the Congressional delegation who 

created and enacted this legislation that 

allows us to have these type of debates. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: If we lived in a perfect world or 

had no basis for making a judgment on issues of 

this sort, I would have no qualms with what we 

did with any predecisional document. We do not 

live in a perfect world, and we have more than 

adequate evidence of what happens when 

predecisional documents are made public. Given 

that background, it seems to me that the old 

adage that those who do not recognize history 
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are doomed to repeat it is one that applies in 

every respect to what we are deliberating here. 

A predecisional document is a predecisional 

document. Individuals who seek to identify any 

single statement in any document that will 

support a contention that they hold closely, 

whether it is factual or not, will use that 

information in every way that they can. 

Predecisional documents should be treated as 

predecisional documents and published at the 

time that they have been fully vetted by the 

organizations responsible to do so. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Roy? 

 DR. DEHART: I don't think there's any other 

way to word the audit report other than saying 

it's quite negative to the NIOSH dose 

reconstruction process. That's the way the 

report is written and comes across, at least to 

me. It will probably be misinterpreted or 

interpreted as being a very negative slam to 

NIOSH, and to anybody who has had a dose 

reconstruction done, particularly if it is a 

dose reconstruction that does not reach the 

50th. 

We can argue that we can clarify that, that we 
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can take care of some misinterpretations, that 

we can bring intelligence and science to bear 

that will soften that. But once it's in the 

press, once it's in the mind of the worker that 

they are being had by an unfair dose 

reconstruction, you're not going to change 

that. And I would hate to see us go forward to 

publicly release that document until we've been 

able to resolve the issues as best we can and 

know exactly what that document is saying with 

regard to the dose reconstruction that NIOSH 

has been performing. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Roy. I'm not 

sure who was next. 

 DR. MELIUS: Mike was next. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mike? 

 MR. GIBSON: Thank you. It appears to me that 

based on most of the comments I hear from the 

general public and constituents around my area 

that they already think they're had. And I 

think the more that we keep documents that 

people know that may be in draft form and we 

keep them behind a closed door, so to speak, 

until we get them finished, I think that's 

going to further the case to make them feel 
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like that they're being had. 

A second issue I have here is in this -- this 

report, and maybe it's just the way it was 

written by the reporter. In the fourth 

paragraph it says that NIOSH and the 

compensation board agree that until the draft 

has been reviewed by the Board as a whole, 

releasing any information would pose an 

unnecessary confusion. 

 "Compensation board," is that referring to us? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're not a compensation board. 

I'm not sure who that's referring to. I don't 

know where that comes from. This Board never 

made such a statement, that I'm aware of. 

 MR. GIBSON: I would hope not 'cause I was 

never polled on anything like that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No. 

 MR. GIBSON: But I am in support of -- of 

making our working documents and drafts 

available to the public. Again, I agree with 

Leon. This is nothing but a political 

environment and there's nothing we can do to 

help that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, a couple of clarifications 
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on this issue. I think one is that the drafts 

we're talking about are not -- it's not like 

writing a series of drafts of a final report 

and releasing. We're talking about a report 

that -- it is a -- has not been reviewed 

officially by the Board, but that same report, 

once we get to a meeting, is released. I mean 

it -- so we're talking about from the time the 

report is completed, sent to -- sent to the 

Board and the next public meeting. The next 

public meeting, it's -- once we take it up as 

an action, it's released. So it's not like 

we're -- it's a series of drafts and we'd be 

releasing each draft or that we're taking 

action that actually changes what will be 

released to the public -- and do that. 

And secondly, to Wanda's point of repeating 

past mistakes of history or not remembering 

what's happened to history, well, you've got to 

remember a large part of the history here has 

been a -- what many people view as a cover-up 

of information about their exposures and -- and 

about the potential harm from that exposure. 

So there's a high degree of suspicion out there 

that this Board and this whole program is just 
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continuing that cover-up. And while we all can 

-- may disagree with that, I think we have to 

recognize that that is a pretty strong 

perception. And again, I can't see the risk of 

harm -- I believe that the risk of harm from 

not releasing the report greatly outweighs the 

risk from any harm from -- from the report in 

terms of misperceptions and so forth. You 

know, providing that we release it in a way 

that clearly indicates that it is not a -- that 

it is -- the Board has not reviewed it, that 

it's something that's going to be discussed at 

the next Board meeting and we may very well 

take action that would reject or refute certain 

findings of the report. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Gen? 

DR. ROESSLER: I think we have no choi-- I 

don't like this microphone -- no choice but to 

release it, make it open and available to the 

public. But I think -- think there's a down 

side that, in view of what -- our experience 

with this one, is that once we do that, I think 

the discourse that scientists normally have to 

-- to discuss something and reach a consensus 

will become less forthright. It'll become less 
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detailed. It'll -- maybe fewer pertinent 

points to be discussed will come up. And this 

-- this might be because we understand that the 

public doesn't under-- really understand how 

scientists discuss things. It seems more like 

a debate rather than evaluating different 

points, and so I think we might lose some of 

that value that we would normally get. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll come back to Tony in a 

minute. We've heard a lot of items. If I 

might have permission from the group -- 

normally Chairs don't enter debate, but I'd 

like to weigh in myself, if -- with your 

permission. 

At the front end of this process I felt that it 

was important that things not be released 

because of the possible misuse and things that 

have been described. I'm now pretty well 

convinced that any such misuse will occur 

regardless. The document is now released. And 

honestly, the Board does not have a defined or 

an ultimate position on the document that would 

be very useful in quelling any misuses. We 

can't say well, that's what the document said 

but here's what the Board thinks. Anyone who 
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is going to put that forth as the right answer 

to whatever issues they want to be addressing I 

believe will do that anyway. So that the issue 

of its being available a couple of weeks early 

-- it was a little longer period this time, but 

in general, we're talking about a few weeks 

earlier before either -- either the proper or 

the improper uses get underway. And therefore 

it seems to me that the -- the only thing that 

we would have to do, from a -- kind of almost 

like fiduciary point of view, being 

responsible, is to make sure that it's clear at 

the front end that this is not the Board's 

report at this point. This is the contractor's 

view that we are going to consider. In that 

sense, if people end up misusing it, which I 

would -- I'm pretty well convinced if someone's 

going to misuse it, they would do that anyway. 

They would say well, here's this document -- I 

mean regardless of what action the Board took 

later, and the misuse might occur. 

But it seems to me, in light of some of the 

things we've heard and seen, if we can find a 

way to make it possible for the information to 

be out there, almost like -- almost like a 
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rule-making, which is out there and people can 

comment on it, and it may end up very 

different. If someone wishes to use earlier 

versions of things on down the line, they do 

that to their own peril. But the process may 

in fact be iterative. It is turning out to be 

iterative on this first document. So that it's 

not clear to me as I look at what's happened 

that it would have made much difference, 

honestly, if the thing had come out a couple of 

weeks ago because regardless of what happens -- 

say in New York and amongst the senators -- we 

would be saying well, that's not the Board's 

position yet. That's just a piece of 

information that we're going to consider. 

As far as the proprietary stuff, if the 

contractor knew that it was going to be out 

there on the street right away, I'm sure 

they're not going to put any proprietary 

information -- they wouldn't, anyway. I don't 

believe there is any, so it doesn't seem to me 

that that's an issue. 

So -- and I share all the concerns that have 

been raised by the folks, and you know, I sort 

of polled the Board early on when I got the 
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letter from Senator Clinton to -- and then 

realized I still couldn't respond to it, under 

our operating rules -- and we were honestly 

split. And I think there's valid concerns on 

both sides of this, the concerns for misuse and 

all of those, and yet the concerns for 

transparency. And if we can find a way to say 

look, we do want to get the document out there 

-- and to some extent, this puts an additional 

burden on the contractor because they don't 

want to end up looking stupid, either. That's 

not a good way to do it, but they don't want to 

look like they've completely missed the boat by 

putting out stuff that is not factual and is 

not well-thought-through. So they're going to 

-- they're going to be extra cautious, too. 

They had a little protection in this round 

'cause the product's not going to come out till 

there's these iterations, kind of before it's 

out there in the real -- real world. But it 

seems to me that it puts an extra burden on the 

contractor to make sure that they've covered 

all the bases, too. And maybe that helps give 

a better product, also. I don't know. These 

are just -- they're kind of top of the head, 
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but I've been mulling this over for several 

weeks 'cause I've had all kinds of folks after 

this thing and, you know... 

DR. ANDERSON: Going through your garbage, 

things like that? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. And you know, in a way, we 

can't accommodate everything, but we need to 

find the best way to do this that protects the 

integrity of the product and yet provides a 

level of transparency that we need so that we 

have credibility in the process. So -- now --

 MR. PRESLEY: I agree with that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I'll get back into my role as 

moderator. Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Actually what I've heard from -- 

from Jim and from yourself, Paul, is something 

akin to what I was trying to bring forth in my 

first comment, and that is that if there is a 

strong enough cover page, set of provisos, what 

do you call those things that -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, the caveats that -- 

 DR. ANDRADE: The caveats --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- explain exactly what this is -- 

 DR. ANDRADE: Exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We could probably leave out the 
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statement about being stupid if you use it. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Exactly. I mean almost to that 

degree. I would not be against -- I think that 

we would all agree that we would -- I would not 

-- we would not be against releasing this to 

the public. And we know that there are shady 

characters out there that would use it to their 

own -- for their own purposes, and that's too 

bad. But at least the well-informed and the 

well-thinking citizen will probably act 

responsibly. 

But just throwing it out there without any such 

caveat I think would be dangerous. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Robert? 

 MR. PRESLEY: I've held my comments. As 

somebody that's worked with audits and 

assessments for the Federal government for 

probably about the last 30 years, I do know 

that if you send things out prematurely that 

they will be used wrong. There's people out 

there that that's all they look for to tear 

groups and officials down. But I do think that 

there is a way that we can put these documents 

out with some type of caveat on them that this 

is a preliminary draft, preliminary, draft, 
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whatever you want to put on this thing, and get 

them out to the public. 

I do think it's going to open up some 

discussion down the road, and we as a Board 

will probably have to defend some of the 

actions in that, that people are not making the 

right decisions and things like that. But as 

long as we do these with the right caveats, I 

have no problems with putting them out. But to 

just open them up to the public the day they 

come out, no. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. I guess I'd like to get 

ready to offer a motion here if it's timely, 

but let me sort of describe the process to make 

sure that everyone's in agreement and that it 

covers certain issues, is that I would be ready 

to offer a motion that we do reco-- I guess 

recommend to the Secretary that we release the 

-- these draft reports to the public; that that 

be done in a manner that includes on the cover 

page a statement describing that this is a 

draft report that has not been reviewed nor 

accepted by the Board yet, nor -- and that 

NIOSH has not had -- yet had the opportunity to 
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comment on factual or other information that's 

in the report or -- in the report. 

Then I think we have to modify our process for 

these reports so that rather than having -- us 

receiving them directly from the contractor, 

that when a report is ready to be transmitted 

to us, it would go to NIOSH; that there be an 

opportunity for review of that report for any 

Privacy Act or other proprietary information; 

that then at that point it be transmitted to 

the Board and at the same time that NIOSH make 

it available on the web site. And I believe 

the best place for that would be under the site 

profile documents where you have a space for -- 

where you -- for -- for public comments on the 

site profiles, where you sort of collect those. 

Now you may have to -- probably should label it 

some way, but I think that's the best place to 

put it and would also link back to the -- to 

the Board, Advisory Board part of the web site, 

also. 

So that would make it publicly available, would 

have appropriate disclaimer on it, and I think 

would satisfy a need for Privacy Act and other 

-- other review. I guess I'm concerned that if 
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we receive a report from the -- our contractor 

and -- directly and then it goes to NIOSH and 

they find a Privacy Act issue, then we're going 

to have two versions of the report and that's 

just going to open ourselves to problems as to 

-- you know, somebody asks us for a copy, we 

give them the wrong copy or something like 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Could I ask, Liz, is -- is that, 

the Privacy Act review issue, a -- is that a 

required step or can the contractor agree to 

have it waived? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: No, the contractor can't 

waive the Privacy Act. That would have to go 

through our privacy office to be cleared. They 

-- I don't know why they -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's to make sure that they're 

not --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Right, and they --

 DR. ZIEMER: It's not their -- it's not 

business confidential issues, it's -- 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Yeah, if they --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- issues that can -- I'm with you 

now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Mark and then 

Roy. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Just one more before he makes the 

motion there. I -- I'm just reflecting a 

little on Gen's comment, too, and I think, you 

know, the really -- I -- I agree, by the way, 

that I think we need to release this, and -- 

and two or three weeks staggered is not going 

to make a difference and so forth, but I -- I 

think of the -- this iterative process and I 

think that Jim makes a good point that -- and I 

think we -- we see it spelled out in this 

Bethlehem Steel site profile process. The --

there was an iterative process before a report 

came from the contractor to the -- to the 

Board. In other words, NIOSH was involved in a 

factual accuracy review meeting with SCA, I 

believe --

 DR. ZIEMER: That was separate, and I think 

factual accuracy --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- would still occur --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- no -- no -- yeah, but --

-- yeah, the only -- the only point I wanted to 

make was that there was no iterative process 

where the Board was purviewed (sic) to those 

discussions and I think maybe we -- sort of 
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like that iterative process that we just set up 

with the dose reconstruction case reviews, we 

might want to have some sort of Board role -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Actually, let me correct that. 

The instruction before was that the Chair of 

the Board would be informed of the issues, 

which I was, that were raised by NIOSH. And I 

was provided actually with that and a 

transcript by SCA of the meeting with NIOSH, so 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that information -- and that 

was on the instructions of this Board to -- 

that the Chair be informed of the exchange, so 

we had an independent paper trail of what -- 

what discussions went on between the contractor 

and NIOSH so they're not just working off here 

by themselves. So I was --

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, I guess --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- provided with that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I guess my -- my hope was that 

maybe in the -- going forward we can alter, 

strengthen that iterative process so that 

hopefully we can have, at that level, some -- 

some comment -- some resolution to -- to the 
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first publicly-released report, and that may go 

to -- what I'm trying to get at is Gen's 

question of some -- you know, real dialogue 

between -- over -- over differences in 

findings, and it might happen easier prior to 

two publicly-released positions that -- that 

differ greatly, so I'm thinking, you know, 

maybe there's a different iterative process 

that can go on, but I think it's critical that 

we have Board involvement in that somehow, but 

it couldn't be subcommittee or full Board 

because then it's a public meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: You know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So the work group --

 DR. ZIEMER: A comment from Jim here. 

DR. NETON: I just wanted to comment on the -- 

the iterative process, which was really just a 

factual accuracy review. And under the ground 

rules laid out -- I think by the Board -- and 

adhered to by SC&A, we -- we had very limited 

opportunities. Factual accuracy was just that, 

and we were not requested to comment on any 

conclusions that were drawn or any assumptions 
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that were made in the document itself. So this 

was really just a -- a calculational data type 

review or a misinterpretation of the 

regulation, and we had a very limited time -- I 

believe it was five days or something like 

that. I think we met it in seven, but you 

know, to review an 80-page document in five or 

six days is not reasonable. 

And I would also comment that the day that it's 

released as -- by the Board, I can guarantee 

NIOSH is going to be asked for their comment on 

a document that they have not had a chance to 

look at the final version, and it's going to 

put us in a very difficult position. But 

that's just my opinion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And it's even pos-- the iterative 

process that you're talking about might include 

a step which allows NIOSH to develop comments 

so that they can be released together or 

something like that. That's also a 

possibility, which would -- which -- but does 

that occur before the Board sees it? Because 

at the point the Board sees it, we're talking 

about that's presumably the release date that 

we're talking about, the date that the document 
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comes to us. 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I just comment on that? Roy, 

if you don't -- I just think we -- we also have 

to remember we have to avoid a perception that 

NIOSH is somehow involved in censoring the 

report from SC&A and so forth. So I -- as much 

as we would like to get resolution, I don't 

think we can expect complete resolution without 

running into other dangers. 

I would also think the factual -- there's a -- 

attached to this report was a memo describing 

the factual exchange and so forth, that when 

NIOSH does have its comments prepared on the 

document and it -- that those would also be 

posted on the web site, and those don't 

necessarily need to be a complete set of di-- 

and if you, you know, want to be split in parts 

in order to be more timely on certain issues or 

something that, you know, that NIOSH has 

prerogative to do, I don't see a problem with 

that. And I think if we keep them together 

that once -- you know, we -- again, depending 

on the timing of some of these issues, we may 

get them two weeks, you know, before the Board 

meeting, whatever, but at that point NIOSH 
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would -- they'd be there. They'd be in the 

same place on the web site. People would be 

able to read both of them. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, in fact the Board will be in 

the same position, in principle, because that's 

what happens. Reporters call and they -- they 

want to know what the Board's position is on 

this, you know, and I would have to say well, 

the Board has not reviewed this yet. And you 

would end up in the same position. I know, 

it's -- it's tougher for the Feds. 

DR. NETON: Right, I got the distinct 

impression from the first round of this, 

though, that what's going to happen is when the 

Board receives the report they'll conduct a 

meeting and forward a copy to us for review and 

say please provide your comments. So I'm not 

sure whether it's -- at that time it's 

appropriate or just to pre-stage it and get 

your comments at the same time. It's sort of -

- you know, if you get the copy and then 

forward it to us and we comment, does it really 

make a difference? I mean we're not editing 

the document, we're just commenting on it. We 

would not be allowed to do any revisions at 
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all, but just to prepare some comments so the 

Board could get them in a more timely manner. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. Okay. Roy? 

 DR. DEHART: A point of clarification. We keep 

referring to the SC&A audit of the Bethlehem 

site as a draft. Was it a draft? Wasn't that 

a final report to us? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I believe that was SCA's final 

report. 

 DR. DEHART: Yes, so I think that's important 

that we -- it's not a draft. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're using it I think here in our 

discussion -- the word draft in the context 

that we're actually envisioning some kind of an 

iterative process. But in fact the 

contractor's report is the contractor's report. 

Under our task, that's the deliverable, and 

they deliver their report to us. And in fact, 

at some point -- we've gone through a process 

which we didn't envision at the front end, but 

down the road, perhaps at the next meeting 

after we have the exchanges that we've 

described in our motion, this Board is going to 

have to come to grips with specific items. We 

cannot just say you guys go off and work this 
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out and let us know what you decided. We will 

have NIOSH's view on those issues. We will 

have the contractor's view. We -- we will then 

have to say to the Secretary we agree with this 

or we don't agree with that, or we would like 

additional emphasis put on this or that. We 

will have to specifically take a position of 

some sort. 

Now keep in mind that doesn't mandate that 

NIOSH necessarily do anything. It's a -- it's 

a recommendation to the Secretary. But we're 

not off the hook by saying you guys get 

together and work out these scientific issues. 

If there -- there can be very valid, good 

scientific disagreements. That's the nature of 

science, and I -- I always take a little 

exception to people who try to characterize 

those as adversarial things. It's the nature 

of science. It's a kind of collegial 

adversarial relationship where we argue our 

positions. I don't know who had said something 

like that, but the point is that I don't think 

we should expect that somehow all of these 

things are going to go away by the groups 

talking to each other. There are some valid 
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different points of view, which could very well 

remain. That's the nature of the process. 

Actually it's one of the reasons that the 

audits are done is to bring in another possible 

perspective that may or may not eventually 

change the final product. Preach it, Brother. 

Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: How about a motion? 

 DR. MELIUS: I'll make a mo-- okay. We're 

ready. I move that the Board recommend to the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services that the 

contractor -- our -- SC&A -- our contractor's 

reviews -- report on the review -- site profile 

reviews be released as a public document at the 

time that they are -- the final report is 

conveyed to the Board; that that public release 

include a statement advising the public that 

this is a report that's not been accepted by 

the Advisory Board and there's not been an 

opportunity for full review by NIOSH of the 

report; and that the Board will be reviewing 

the report and may have findings and 

recommendations relevant to the report at 

future public meetings; that the process for 

doing -- making the report public would also 
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include a Privacy Act and -- review of the 

report before it be made available to the -- to 

the public. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Is that it? 

 DR. MELIUS: That's it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there a second? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is there discussion? We've 

had a lot already that, in essence, pertains. 

Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: I'd like to offer an amendment. 

Rather than include all of the wording with -- 

that detailed what -- what the provisos might 

be, why don't we just say with appropriate 

caveats, and between now and say our working 

time this afternoon I'd be willing to work with 

anybody here or I could do it myself in 

developing a cover sheet that would have a list 

of caveats. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you offering that as a 

possible amendment right now? 

 DR. ANDRADE: The amendment would be to strike 

the specific wording on what would go on the 

cover sheet from -- from Jim's statement -- 

from Jim's motion. 
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 DR. MELIUS: Can I offer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Is that a friendly amendment, Jim, 

or --

 DR. MELIUS: It's a friendly amendment, but I 

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would just like a clarification. I was not 

trying to specify the wording of the cover 

sheet. I would expect it to be lengthier. 

was trying to describe in general the wording, 

but not specify the wording, that it could very 

well be longer and I have no objection to -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Here's a -- here's a way you could 

include those, to include appropriate -- or 

have appropriate caveats, including -- 'cause 

you have two -- you at least want it to 

indicate that it hasn't been accepted by the 

Board, whatever words that takes, nor that it's 

been reviewed by NIOSH. There may -- and 

you're saying yes, and there may be some other 

caveats. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So perhaps I'll interpret the 

motion as -- as including the words 

"appropriate caveats, including" those two that 

you mentioned. Is that agreeable as a friendly 

I 
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 DR. MELIUS: As a friendly amendment, yes. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's agreeable. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that we're sure that at least 

two topics are addressed in the list of 

caveats. And it would be understood that the 

exact wording of the appropriate caveats would 

be worked out and would not necessarily be part 

of the motion. Is that correct? 

 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the motion is that the Board 

recommend to the Secretary of Health and Human 

Services that future SCA site profile reviews -

- review reports be released to the public at 

the same time as they are released to the 

Board, with appropriate caveats, including a 

statement indicating or advising that the 

report has not yet been accepted by the 

Advisory Board, nor has the report been 

reviewed by NIOSH. Prior to the release a 

Privacy Act review by NIOSH would also take 

place. 

Is that the motion? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Further discussion? And 

this -- this, if it's passed, would become a 
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recommendation to the Secretary of Health and 

Human Services as a policy -- as a policy for 

the Board or for the agency, and it would -- 

basically we would be asking then that the 

policy allow this, and the Secretary could say 

yea or nay. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's understood then? 

 DR. MELIUS: And just another -- another 

clarification is that I'd leave it up to NIOSH 

to decide how to make it publicly available, 

where on the web site and so forth. I don't 

think we should specify that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: At this time. 

 DR. MELIUS: At this time. Let -- they may 

want to think about it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's a mechanical thing that can 

be -- and this doesn't address other process 

issues, such as the one that -- as this stands 

now, Jim, I think this says it's going to be 

out there before you have a chance to do 

anything about it. 

Let me ask also this question. Is there now an 

acting person who could actually do something 

about this before -- is confirmation going to 
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come pretty fast? This is almost off the 

record. We don't know, but I guess 

confirmation will be coming pretty fast, from 

what I read in the papers on the new candidate 

for --

 DR. MELIUS: But somebody is acting, so I 

think... 

 DR. ZIEMER: By the time this gets up and into 

the system --

 DR. MELIUS: You may have trouble how to 

address your letter, because it could happen 

while it's --

 DR. ZIEMER: To whom it may concern. 

 DR. MELIUS: Be careful, Paul. 

DR. ANDERSON: Dear Secretary. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I have a bit of a concern on 

the timing issue, although actually there won't 

be a big lag time before our next meeting and 

the other reports. This -- the chance of this 

being approved before our next meeting may be 

fairly slim. But I don't think there's a big 

time lag involved between when we would get it 

and when our meeting occurs. I mean we may -- 

we may need to operate under what we think the 

policy is now, unless it can -- unless we can 
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find out one way or the other, we don't know. 

We don't know. 

Are you ready to vote on the motion then? 

Okay, all who favor this motion signify by 

saying aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And those who oppose, say no. 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And any abstentions? We have one 

abstention. The record will show that Wanda 

abstained. The Chair has voted yea. 

Then I declare that the motion has carried. 

Thank you very much. 

 Yeah, Larry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think you do need to come up 

with whatever the cover sheet will say and give 

that to your contractor. I -- I don't know 

where they're at with regard to the last -- to 

the next three site profiles. My understanding 

was Mallinckrodt, Savannah River and Hanford 

were very close, should be at the next meeting 

-- is that right, February meeting, Dr. Mauro? 

DR. MAURO: The only proviso is we are awaiting 

certain documents with respect to -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You're not on there, sir. 
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DR. MAURO: The answer to your question is yes, 

regarding the three site profile reviews, with 

the exception of Savannah River, which might be 

delayed. We are currently awaiting certain 

documents that we requested in a letter that we 

submitted to you folks. As soon as those 

documents come in, we will move expeditiously, 

so it may be possible to have all three 

reports. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: But the point being is at least 

one or more are coming for the February 

meeting. 

DR. MAURO: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And in order to comply with the 

intent of your -- of your consensus here, 

you're going to need to provide that so that 

your contractor can put that on the cover to 

effect the transmittal to us. 

Let me just explain -- my reaction to the 

Bethlehem Steel site profile, when I sent out 

my e-mail, was that it come as a final report, 

which it wasn't. It is final for the 

contractor, perhaps, but it's not final as a 

decisional document. That's why I sent you the 

e-mail. That's why it was labeled 
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predecisional, do not disclose. I remind the 

Board that this is -- you had a pilot process 

here. You agreed to a process, and I think we 

all can go back to the transcript and look and 

see where you talked about it being a pilot, a 

learning experience. 

I have been dismayed by this process, actually. 

I think it has been disjointed and I look 

forward to working together with this Board to 

make it a more transparent process, a more 

informative process. But taking this motion 

now, we're going to have to go back and Liz and 

the general counsel team are going to have to 

look at what can be done and what cannot be 

done. And we're going to have to do that very 

quickly, because we're anticipating that in 

February you're going to want to deal with the 

next set of site profile reviews that come 

forward. And whether we can get anybody in the 

Secretary's Office to respond -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, that's why I asked -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- to your -- to your motion, I'm 

not sure --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- the question because I'm not 

sure it will be in place in time for that 
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meeting, which means that we're under the 

present conditions. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: My intent here is -- I've heard 

you out, and we want to proceed as best we can 

here. So please come forward -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: And we can go ahead and get the 

language that we'll --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- yeah, come forward with the 

language so that your contractor can put that 

on there, and that's going to I think go a long 

way toward putting a document out there that 

would be construed by the public as a decision 

of this Board. And that's what you want to 

avoid until you have your deliberation and you 

come to consensus, and that's what we're 

waiting on, your consensus. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Jim and then Wanda. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, two things. One is that I 

agree on the language and we should be ready to 

implement this. I'm not sure where the 

decision point is in the Department and whether 

-- you may very well be able to reach a 

decision at -- at some level while this is 

going on, and maybe by the time it comes back 

down from the Secretary it's -- the point may 
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be moot. It may have to go up through the 

Secretary and sit there. It's hard to tell -- 

and do that. And I think we have to recognize 

we're putting you in an awkward position of -- 

you know, if someone raises a fuss about the 

next report, you know, you're going to have the 

Board on record saying it -- it should be this 

way, so hopefully it could get resolved sooner 

rather than later, but I think we recognize the 

frustrations with that. 

I think it's also we may look at this process, 

you know, a few site profiles down and maybe 

want to change it in some way. I think this is 

the best we can do at this point in time, and 

we'll have to continue to look at how to best 

work this -- this overall process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: In the interest of collegial 

discussion and suggestion, it would be awfully 

nice if the individuals who were very strong in 

their concern with respect to how we approach 

these things and worked to make sure that -- 

that the Buffalo News and various elected 

officials saw our deliberations as being 

inadequate, it would be very nice if those same 
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individuals now pointed out to them what 

efforts the Board had made to bring the light 

of day to the transparency that was so 

desirable, and that perhaps the same kinds of -

- of effort could be shown in a positive light, 

now that what we have undertaken today is in 

fact complete. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much for that 

comment. 

Are there any other comments? After lunch, 

during our work session today, if we're able to 

we may be able to work on some wording. And 

Tony, if you want to do a straw man for us 

between now and then, that would be great. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Then let's recess for lunch for -- 

until 1:00 o'clock. 

DR. ROESSLER: Do you have Henry's travel 

schedule? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh --

DR. ROESSLER: He's going to leave. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Henry, we're -- yeah, you need to 

make sure Cori has your availability dates when 

we talk about... 

 (Whereupon, a lunch recess was taken from 11:45 
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a.m. to 1:05 p.m.) 

 ADMINISTRATIVE HOUSEKEEPING

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll continue this working 

session for this Board meeting. We have some 

housekeeping items to take care of, the first 

of which will be scheduling of future meetings. 

I think many of you already know that, 

partially as the result of non-availability of 

room space in the Tampa area, we're not able to 

schedule our February meeting in Tampa, as 

originally anticipated. 

Plan B I believe was St. Louis, and we need to 

re-examine calendars so that we give Cori some 

flexibility in trying to find some time there. 

We actually are thinking about looking a little 

later in the month for St. Louis, because if we 

go first week of February, we're only six weeks 

off, which really pushes some of the things 

that are in the chair -- pipeline for us that 

might not otherwise even be ready. But we're 

wondering how the calendars are the second and 

third week of February. 

DR. ROESSLER: The third week is the Health 

Physics Society meeting in New -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I have it down for the second. 
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DR. ROESSLER: I have it down for the 13th 

through the 16th and 17th. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I do, too, is that the third week? 

DR. ROESSLER: Well, I call it the third week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. So when you said second 

week is a possibility, then -- 

MS. HOMER: I was meaning the 7th through the 

11th. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, 7th through the 11th. Well, 

let's check -- 7th through 11th, let me see 

who's got serious conflicts 7th through the 

11th. 

 DR. MELIUS: I have them at the end of the 

week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Early in the week is okay? 

 DR. MELIUS: Early in the week is okay. 

MS. HOMER: 14th, 15th and 16th are okay? 

 DR. MELIUS: No, no --

MS. HOMER: I'm sorry, 7th, 8th and 9th are 

okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: 7th, 8th and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Others have conflicts earlier in 

the week there? And you have Henry's calendar? 

MS. HOMER: I do, but not in front of me, 

unfortunately. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: He's no good for February. 

 DR. MELIUS: He's said February's bad. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Regardless, so we may have to go 

ahead without him. 

 DR. MELIUS: I mean I -- well, those following 

weeks are bad for me. 

 DR. DEHART: The following weeks I'm out of 

country. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, country, and I mean I don't 

see what we gain by moving a week. 

MS. HOMER: We gain a week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We gain the ability to find a 

hotel. This just gives you some options. 

Right? 

MS. HOMER: It gives me some options, yes, and 

it gives a little extra leeway for, you know, 

preparation and working through the holidays. 

 DR. MELIUS: I mean I don't mean to cause a 

hard time about this, but we all work our 

calendars around these dates. I've changed a 

whole bunch of things that would have been the 

week of the 31st in order to keep that week 

open for you, and now you change it and -- and 

you change it -- you know, you changed it two 

weeks ago it would have helped me a lot. 
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 MS. MUNN: It is a problem. 

 DR. MELIUS: I mean I understand your problems. 

I don't want to minimize those. But... 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, my -- my personal issues 

around changing this California meeting were 

just enormous, affected every member of my 

family. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, you have the information. 

MS. HOMER: I do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're not --

MS. HOMER: I do. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- locking that date in, we're -- 

MS. HOMER: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- simply trying to provide some 

options in terms of --

MS. HOMER: Did we --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- flexibility. 

MS. HOMER: -- want to look anywhere in the 

future? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Cori, before we go there, though, 

can we just --

 DR. MELIUS: Cori --

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, Jim. Go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: I just was going to speak to Henry 

Anderson. I know if we're going to keep it 
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that first week in February, 3rd and 4th are 

bad for him. He's got an IOM committee meeting 

that -- that week. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. MELIUS: Those two days. I thought he said 

he was bad -- be bad the rest of February I 

guess for... 

MS. HOMER: Okay. So we might want to look at 

the 31st, 1st and 2nd? 

 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. 

UNIDENTIFIED: That'll work. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And then those other -- 

MS. HOMER: I was trying to avoid a Monday 

start date for some -- I didn't think anybody 

cared to travel on Sunday, so... 

 DR. MELIUS: Are we doing a three-day meeting, 

a two-day meeting, subcommittee? I mean that's 

also --

 MR. GRIFFON: To be determined. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think we also need to discuss 

thoughts on agenda items -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Agenda items. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and let the agenda items kind 

of drive --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: -- how we --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, we can identify -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- construct the days. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can identify a number of those 

right away. We know that we have the first 20-

case -- the next step of that first 20 cases to 

handle. We have -- I believe we'll have the -- 

 MS. MUNN: The Mallinckrodt SEC. 

 DR. MELIUS: And Iowa. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Special Exposure Cohort -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We hope to --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we may have --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- we hope to have two site 

petitions for you -- evaluation reports for you 

to review. 

 DR. ZIEMER: For evaluation. What else? 

 MR. GRIFFON: At this point I'm assuming that 

that 20-case process comes back to the full 

Board. You know, originally -- Originally it 

was a sort of a scope item for the 

subcommittee, but we haven't really -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, you -- the first 20? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. I mean the -- if you look 

at the items on scope for the subcommittee, one 

of the intent was to avoid that the whole Board 
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had to be involved in rolling those -- those 

things together and presenting -- you know, it 

was to save -- so that everybody didn't have to 

travel three days --

 DR. ZIEMER: We can still ask that that be the 

case. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: So if the subcommittee met on 

either Monday --

MS. HOMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- and then have a two-day Board 

meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can still do that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Is there enough work for the 

subcommittee to work all day or do they need a 

half a day? And we also need to determine 

whether or not the subcommittee and/or the full 

Board needs a closed session in those reviews 

or are we going to redact those reviews and 

you'd have an open session. You need to come 

to grips with that. 

So I'm sorry to lay out so many question at one 

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

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 DR. MELIUS: Since you've already redacted the 

original reports -- is that my understanding? 

Not -- not from when we looked at them, but 

there's a redacted version out there. Is that 

 DR. ZIEMER: If you deal with the redacted 

version, you will --

 MR. GRIFFON: Of the individual case reviews. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- have much more limited 

information on individual cases. One of the 

issues will be --

 MS. MUNN: You won't know what you're looking 

at. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- at this point, having reviewed 

them individually and then looking -- looked at 

their kind of the first wrap-up, do you still 

need the individual cases or can you deal with 

the wrap-up plus having redacted information as 

reference material? 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I ask procedurally a --

whoever can answer this is -- I presume you 

could have a -- say a subcommittee meeting that 

would be partially open and reserve an hour or 

two closed again? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, we could do that. We could 
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-- we can do that, yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: So that you'd leave --

 MR. ELLIOTT: You can have an open session, and 

then you have a closed session. 

 DR. MELIUS: So if there were issues from the 

summary reports that people felt it was 

necessary to refer to the individual case 

reports --

 MR. GRIFFON: We could go into closed after and 

 DR. MELIUS: Go into closed --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- we could table them for the 

time and go into closed. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that makes -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, you could do that. 

 DR. MELIUS: And that would avoid the re-- 

having to redact everything -- prepare a 

redacted version. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The only difficulty would be that 

when we go forward for a determination to close 

for a closed session, we have to put in when 

the time is, and we can't change that time -- 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. No, you're --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- once we get the approval. 
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You're locked into that time. And if you don't 

need it, that's okay, you don't have to use it. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I'm thinking half a day 

would be enough, but that's intuitive. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I think we need a -- I -- I 

would say a full day and leave the aft-- leave 

like 2:00 to 4:00 for the closed session, but 

have the regular open meeting start in the 

morning, 9:00 o'clock or whatever. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're thinking you would look at 

individual cases after you looked at the wrapup? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, I'm thinking that we can do 

it without looking at individual, but we leave 

that --

 DR. ZIEMER: But if you're unable to --

 MR. GRIFFON: We reserve that --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we'd go to closed? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- yeah. I mean I guess you 

could --

 DR. ZIEMER: But then you're -- then you can't 

really tie things up, can you? Unless you go 

closed/open -- open/closed -- closed -- 

open/closed/open. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I mean we have -- we have 

redacted versions of these reports anyway -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- so I don't know why we can't 

just deal with that. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: If you guys are going to 

have a closed session, we have to know about it 

because it has to be properly announced in the 

Federal Register --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We understand that. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: -- and we have to do the 

determination to close and the holidays are 

coming up and there's a lot of work to be done, 

so you guys are going to have to decide now or 

you don't get to have a closed session. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, we don't even have a date 

yet, so this makes it even more complicated. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I would argue that we have 

all these cases redacted. We have redacted 

versions available. Right? For these first 20 

cases? 

 DR. ZIEMER: They can be made available -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, they -- they are. I mean 

they're ready, they're done, they went through 
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the process, so we can --

 DR. MELIUS: I thought you had --

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: We would have -- you have to 

-- is this on? 

We have to finish up the redactions on the 

documents that SC&A gave us yesterday that we 

hadn't seen before, but the first report I 

think we have done. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So -- so I would -- I would say 

let's just force ourselves to use that and -- 

and --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're suggesting we schedule a 

day? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Open. 

 DR. ZIEMER: With some closed time? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, forget the closed time if 

we have --

 DR. MELIUS: I would leave some closed time at 

the end of the day -- I think... 

 MS. MUNN: But --

 DR. ZIEMER: Are --

 MS. MUNN: -- using fully-redacted cases really 

reduces the amount of information you can get. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 MS. MUNN: It really does. It's not just a 
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matter of taking out -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're going to lose the job -- 

job title information. 

 DR. DEHART: You'd lose time of employment. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, time of employment and -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It depends upon the case. You 

may lose job title, you may lose -- there's 

various information that you could lose, which 

the Privacy Act officer could deem -- if it was 

still in the report -- could be used to breach 

the confidence, so... 

 DR. MELIUS: Can I -- can I recommend that one 

thing the subcommittee might look at is -- is 

schedule a closed session and that the 

subcommittee do the comparison and -- and with 

both the open and -- the redacted and the nonredacted in the closed session so that you can 

-- we can make a determination how to do this 

in the future. 'Cause I mean this is a -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- it's a lot of work for NIOSH to 

redact, and it causes obviously problems -- you 

want to be open in terms of the committee, but 

I mean it's just -- but I think we really -- if 

we'd take a real look at, see how we could 
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operate with and without, I think it might be 

helpful. 

 MS. MUNN: Well, yeah, if your decision isn't 

going to be a scientific one anyway, then... 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: So does that mean you want a 

closed subcommittee meeting, but not a closed 

meeting for the Board? Well, you guys just 

need to --

 DR. ZIEMER: No, we're still -- we haven't 

decided yet. 

 DR. MELIUS: So I guess it would be an open 

subcommittee, leaving an hour or two at the end 

of the day closed, I think would... 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm still having a little trouble 

seeing why you would put the closed part at the 

end. It seems to me you'd want to be looking 

at the --

 DR. MELIUS: Either way, it doesn't -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- at the front end of the 

process, discuss whatever issues you had with 

the individual cases, and then go out and talk 

about the rest. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that makes sense. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right, why don't you do it 

that way -- but I'd say do the morning closed -
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-

 DR. ZIEMER: And you could -- you could also at 

that point examine whether or not -- what you 

would have to work with in the open session. 

 DR. MELIUS: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me propose this, see what 

your thoughts would be. We start at 9:00 on 

the first day with an open session that would -

- for the subcommittee and whoever wants to 

show up for that. It could be the entire 

Board, if they wish, or it can be -- as long as 

we have a quorum for the subcommittee, and you 

take care of the minutes from this meeting for 

that subcommittee, which will be very short -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- so we maybe have -- have the 

open session only open for a half an hour or an 

hour. Then you'd go into closed session, say 

10:00 o'clock to noon. You come out of that 

and you have an open session for the remainder 

of the afternoon. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That sounds fine. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay? Does that work for 

everybody or does that seem palatable? 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's perfect. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Seems to be consensus. This would 

involve the individuals that were sort of on 

that original subset -- I'm trying to remember 

who they were, I think five individuals. You 

remember who you were? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It could be anybody that shows 

up. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Everyone else could show up. But 

as a minimum, those individuals would have to 

be there. Who -- who was in that group? I 

was, Mike was, Tony, Mark -- 

MS. HOMER: Dr. Anderson. 

 DR. MELIUS: Henry. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and Henry. 

UNIDENTIFIED: And Wanda? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or Wanda, were you in that group? 

 MS. MUNN: I'm not sure which subcommittee 

we're talking about. I'm not that much of a 

politician, you've lost me. I don't know where 

I am. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can look it up, I think it was 

Henry. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Henry --

 DR. MELIUS: I know it was Henry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, Henry was in there. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Rich? 

MR. ESPINOSA: I believe it's just a minimum of 

five, that you don't have to have the same 

members. 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, you don't have to, right. But 

as a starting point, we -- we had that 

particular group because it had some broader 

representation, which we wanted. 

Okay. So we're looking then at one day that 

would involved the subcommittee, two more days 

for the rest of the items -- those items to 

include Board action then on that final 

document on those first 20. Presumably that 

group might also be looking at some things on 

the second 20 during that first day. If SC&A 

has the second 20 available, they would have 

those possibly to deal with, as well. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Is that possible? I don't know 

if Dr. Mauro's here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We don't know for sure 'cause 

that's coming up in less than two months. 

 DR. BEHLING: Dr. Mauro's not here so I'm going 

to have to speak in his behalf, and I guess one 

of the key factors here is the time. And I 

guess we have not yet decided firmly on a date 
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for this next meeting, or have we? 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's -- at the earliest, it's the 

first week of February. It could be the first 

week of February, which might be a problem, or 

the second week. 

 DR. BEHLING: That will certainly be a real 

pressure cooker for us --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- to get both the first and the 

second set of --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, 'cause you're going to be 

working on this first -- 

 DR. BEHLING: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- set. So perhaps the likelihood 

of the second 20 is not so great then. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I agree, Dr. Behling -- 

 DR. BEHLING: I would certainly put that on 

hold. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I agree with you, I think it 

would be unlikely. But just so everybody 

knows, we will get the 20 cases to you and -- 

and --

 DR. ZIEMER: You can be on your way with them. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- as we did, in CD's and to the 

Board members as soon as we're back in the 
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office. Those will be out the first of next 

week, I hope. We'll work towards that. 

 DR. BEHLING: And could I ask for some 

clarification? In the event that you're going 

to be asking for the second set of 20's, would 

you also want to have a preliminary draft 

report of those 20's that we can advance for 

you to review, which would certainly add 

another dimension to the limited time that's 

available. 

 DR. DEHART: Plus the conference call. 

 DR. MELIUS: Plus the conference call. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah --

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't think it's doable. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- it looks like it's going to be 

unlikely. The answer's yes, we would want all 

those intermediate steps, yeah. 

 DR. BEHLING: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, so the focus is going to be 

on those first 20. On the agenda for the 

general meeting would also be the Mallinckrodt 

Special Exposure Cohort petition. We would 

have -- we'd -- we'd have some more things on 

the Bethlehem Steel site profile to follow up 

on. What else? 
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 DR. MELIUS: I would ask that we have the 

Mallinckrodt site profile review on the agenda, 

and that we have it on the agenda prior to 

discussing the SEC issue, 'cause I think doing 

it the other way's going -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, right. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- to be difficult. Larry, are we 

going to get our diskettes under our Christmas 

tree? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We have a number of our regular 

reports, as well. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Remember -- again, I'd ask Dr. 

Behling to help us out here, but I think 

there's a deliverable on task two -- or the 

procedure reviews. That should be ready by the 

February meeting, you think? 

 DR. BEHLING: I think task three is ready, and 

if we can schedule that for the next meeting, 

we'll be prepared to provide you with a draft 

report. And again, I would ask your guidance 

as to how soon you want a draft copy made 

available both to NIOSH or to you, or both, so 

that you'd have a chance to review them prior 

to the meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think on a procedure 
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review, probably a week before the meeting 

would be adequate. I think that's -- my take 

on it. Anyone else? It seems to be -- a week 

before the meeting is a final, drop-dead -- or 

earlier. 

 DR. BEHLING: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Were there other items 

that we should consider on that agenda, Gen? 

DR. ROESSLER: We often have an update on some 

scientific issue, and I think in view of our 

past discussions we might want to have somebody 

talk to us about ICRP-30 and 68 and 66 and 

whatever it -- I don't remember the exact 

titles, but I think in order -- if we're going 

to have to make a recommendation -- prefer to 

make a recommendation to NIOSH about which 

models they use as a result of the Bethlehem 

Steel profile, I think we need an update on -- 

ourselves on the two models that are under 

discussion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's ask Jim if that's something 

that... 

DR. NETON: I'm a little confused as to what 

the discussion topic is, the use of ICRP-30 

versus ICRP-66? 
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DR. ROESSLER: It's 68, I think. 

DR. NETON: 68 -- in relation to what issue? 

That was not brought up in the Bethlehem Steel 

review. There was an ICRP-74 -- 75 issue, 

which had to do with air sampling. 

DR. ROESSLER: Okay. 

DR. NETON: I think you might be thinking -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: It came up in Savannah River. 

DR. NETON: The Savannah River high five 

approach --

DR. ROESSLER: Yes, yes. 

DR. NETON: -- and that was not so much a 

debate about the use of the models, but the 

fact that we would -- we relied on data that 

were analyzed using ICRP-30 when we committed 

to using 66. 

DR. ROESSLER: 66? 

DR. NETON: Right, the lung model. It has to 

do with the lung model, class S solubility 

versus class Y and that sort of thing, and we 

believe that we made an appropriate adjustment 

and that would be a topic of discussion for the 

next --

DR. ROESSLER: So we don't have to have an 

update on --
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DR. NETON: I don't think there's an issue 

there that is beyond that, which is did we 

properly use -- was it appropriate that we used 

ICRP-30-derived values when we committed in our 

rule that we'd use ICRP-66. 

DR. ROESSLER: Yeah, okay. 

 DR. MELIUS: And -- and can I just weigh in on 

that? I think when the Savannah River Site 

profile review is complete may be the time to 

make a determination, do we delve into that 

further or not to --

DR. NETON: I don't think that that's covered 

in the Savannah River profile. 

 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 

DR. NETON: This is sort of one of those side 

Technical Information Bulletins. It may 

actually be covered in Hans's procedure review. 

Is that one of the procedures? 

 DR. BEHLING: No, the -- the procedure review 

is not covering the site profiles. It's 

strictly the 30 procedures that were identified 

to us by -- by NIOSH. So the issue that is 

under discussion from Dr. Roessler with regard 

to this ICRP-30 versus 66 will probably be 

addressed in the review of the Savannah River 
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Site profile. 

DR. NETON: It's not in the profile, though. 

 DR. BEHLING: Well, it makes indirect 

reference. 

DR. NETON: Okay. If not then, I think it will 

certainly be covered in the review of the first 

20 procedures -- dose reconstructions, because 

it was raised in two or three of them -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- and we prepared a slight draft 

response for your -- your information, but 

we'll be prepared to talk about it in much more 

detail at the next meeting. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I think a more useful -- or 

maybe not more useful, but something that the 

Board had talked about before was -- was 

training in Cincinnati to go -- and I -- I was 

talking to Gen earlier about this. I thought, 

you know, if people were briefed on IMBA and -- 

and also at the same time brought through that 

SRS spreadsheet that I have that -- that is not 

completely user-friendly. I mean I've waded my 

way through it, and then there's another one 

for the 28 radionuclides, I think it's called a 
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max dose calculation spreadsheet or whatever. 

Those both are where you get your intake 

numbers to put into IMBA, and the how IMBA 

works, and that sort of ties into the ICRP 

models and, you know, you could -- that would 

be a good -- I think a good way, just so 

everybody's up to speed on what's going on with 

the --

 MR. ELLIOTT: So let me be clear. Are you 

asking for kind of a walk-through of IMBA -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, but not -- not --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- for the Board in front of -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- in the Board meeting. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- with the public --

 MR. GRIFFON: I don't know that --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- at another Board meeting? 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- it needs to be at a Board 

meeting. I thought we'd talked about training 

in Cincinnati where we could go -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Wasn't that more on an individual 

or --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- small group basis for those -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Not -- not everybody on this Board 
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is going to be interested in running IMBA, is 

my impression from talking to some. 

 MS. MUNN: I tried and failed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, but -- but can't that be 

arranged on an individual basis? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It can -- it certainly can be 

arranged on an individual basis. We welcome 

any of the Board members to our offices at any 

point in time and we'll, you know, give you 

whatever training or access you need. 

 DR. DEHART: It can be done by phone with -- 

with computer --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 DR. DEHART: -- back and forth. That's the way 

I -- I worked it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It could be done that way. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I mean I'm not saying at a Board 

meeting. I'm saying -- yeah, on small groups 

or individually based on -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Sure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- however, but I think -- you 

know, there's -- it -- it sort of helps to 

translate some of the summary reports, 'cause 

you say 28 nuclides, assuming worst case, and 

it refers to the Technical Basis Document, but 
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the spreadsheet's not part of that document. 

You've got to go -- you've got to get the 

spreadsheet and look at the -- you know. I 

don't know, I found it useful to wade through. 

Others might not want to. 

 DR. MELIUS: Just to follow up on Gen's 

suggestion, though, I think it -- that type of 

a session where we'd bring somebody in for a 

briefing and so forth on particular technical 

issues, maybe a way we want to follow up and 

try to resolve some of the issues that were 

raised, for example, in the Bethlehem site 

profile, so bringing in someone to talk about 

ICPR-75 (sic) or this -- the triangular 

distribution issue and so forth may be a way we 

can think about resolving it. I don't think 

it's ready for the next meeting, but at some 

point after that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, there may be issues that 

that would be helpful. 

 DR. MELIUS: Exactly, and those may not be the 

ones. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let's go back and see if we've 

identified all the main -- aside from the 

regular reporting things, are there other 
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issues for this next meeting that -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think I heard yesterday Dr. 

Mel-- or maybe it was today Dr. Melius 

suggested that -- and I believe you brought 

this up before at the last meeting that you 

wanted to hear more about our modifications to 

site profiles and what's the status. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Or the schedule for --

 DR. MELIUS: Your process for and schedule -- 

sort of discussion of that, yeah, on how site 

profiles are to be modified and what's the best 

process for doing that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And Roy? 

 DR. DEHART: We've talked around the issue of 

inadequate budget for continuing audit. Is 

this a time to begin to address that or try to 

find out whether we're going to have to go 

forward and recommend that additional -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think Lew told us that at 

the next meeting he would have additional 

information on when and what needs to be done 

on those audit -- or budget issues, and so I 

assume that Lew will follow up, or David will, 

and we'll have some -- and that certainly ought 

to be on the agenda. 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, I -- I don't know that it'll 

be a standing item on the agenda, but I 

certainly think that next meeting you'll have 

an agenda item that talks about the task orders 

and the status of the task orders and the costs 

associated with those. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And remember, Dr. Wade is going to 

be working with the folks from SC&A to look at 

the incremental budget changes associated with 

these additional tasks -- they're sort of subtasks that the Board has placed upon our 

contractor in lieu of -- or in light of the 

handling of the first 20 cases and so on, as 

well as the -- the site profile review, so 

there are some additional costs. And Lew is 

going to work with them on that and he will be 

reporting back, as well. 

Okay. And Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: No, I actually don't have 

anything. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Cori, could I ask you when you 

think you're going to have a final 

determination on which week is going to work 

best for the hotel? 

MS. HOMER: I hope to have that today. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: So we'll --

 MR. ELLIOTT: That'd be great. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- know very soon then. 

MS. HOMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now what I'd like to do 

today, if we can do this, is identify dates for 

the whole year. 

MR. ESPINOSA: There's not much year left. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yeah, we're going to run 

out. We can identify dates for this year, 

can't we? There's the 15th, the 16th. 

I'm wondering if the Board would like to do 

time set-asides now at the front end of things 

so we don't get into this situation of having 

to rearrange calendars on down. 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I asked -- I asked Dr. Ziemer if 

he would bring this to the Board, because we 

think -- from our perspective -- it makes a lot 

of sense to schedule -- have a schedule, a set 

schedule for your meetings so that we can plan 

our work to deliver our work in that schedule. 

And the way we've been functioning up to this 

point is look at everybody's calendars, figure 

out when we can meet and get it -- get it done. 
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If we have a set schedule, I think it's going 

to aid us in getting our work planned better 

and getting it in front of you. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, my only caution is if we get 

too far ahead, try to -- just -- we don't know 

when certain meetings take place now, so we try 

to do next April or something -- not -- April 

2006, that's too far into -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm talking about 2005. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: One year. One year. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The next handful of meetings, 

number one. Number two, and do it with the 

recognition that there may be situations, 

particularly on the Special Exposure Cohorts, 

where we have to have a, quote, emergency 

meeting, a one-day meeting, perhaps going to a 

location where the petition comes from, and 

addressing that as a single item on a -- on a -

- like a one-day meeting. 'Cause that -- that 

could happen anyway, and we'd have to allow for 

that. 

Let's see -- Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Yeah. I was going to say that 

actually I was prepared, but I didn't bring my 

calendar along. I know more or less when my 
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other professional society meetings are and so 

on for pretty much the rest of the year, but if 

you could hold off until next meeting, I think 

maybe it'll give everybody a chance to prepare 

for such a thing. I don't think that we can do 

it right now, not today. 

 DR. ZIEMER: At least your day, you'd rather we 

didn't. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Not me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Rich --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Are you amenable to this concept, 

though? 

 (Multiple affirmative responses) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So -- so if we do that, could you 

send your availability to Cori -- 

 MS. MUNN: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- so that we could lock it in on 

-- let's say a quarterly basis? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Come back at our meeting and 

identify those slots that appear to be good 

ones? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We could use your availability to 

identify --

 DR. ZIEMER: For the whole year. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- which weeks the majority of 
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the Board, if not everybody on the Board, is 

available, and then come to you in February and 

say here's the weeks we've got planned for 

February, May -- or February's taken care of, 

so we're talking May, August and... 

 DR. MELIUS: I don't think we need to wait to 

February, though. I think we can do this by email --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- and do some and then go back 

and forth, and if we respond to -- reply to 

everybody, then everybody can sort of -- we can 

sort of work out some things. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Cori can work that out with us. 

 DR. MELIUS: 'Cause there may be some that -- 

that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Additional --

 DR. MELIUS: -- Dr. Ziemer's going to have to 

make the call on. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Additional guidance, 

though. How many times a year -- I said to 

Larry I'd sort of like to see us do four times 

a year, and then have some space for those 

special meetings if we need to. I don't know 

from a staff point of view -- they may prefer, 
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for example, six times a year, like every two 

months. Because as we move forward, we're 

going to be now in a position where we're going 

to be looking at some very specific things -- 

the dose reconstruction reviews, the site 

profile reviews and the Special Exposure Cohort 

reviews. Those are going to be the driving 

items before us, and that's going to be a 

fairly regular thing now. 

I don't have a good feel for it. I'm -- I'm 

looking -- you know, I'm saying would four 

meetings of three days each be better or -- 

three days in a row is a pretty rugged 

schedule, actually. Or is six meetings of two 

days each better? But even on the two-day 

meetings, we end up with at least part of the 

group maybe having to do three days because of 

the preliminary reviews of the dose 

reconstruction reviews, and that's -- so a 

little feedback, what's your feeling on 

frequency? 'Cause we need to say to Cori, find 

four slots or six slots or something like that. 

 DR. MELIUS: Well, my view is that -- I think 

four three-day meetings may be workable. I 

think we have to have a real functioning 
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subcommittee, though, that could meet in 

between. And we're going to have to be willing 

to vest that subcommittee with some real powers 

to make some decisions on our behalf, to the 

extent that they're allowed to, in between -- 

at least to keep some of the processes moving 

and -- particularly with our contractor and so 

forth. 

 Secondly, that there has to be -- we can't wait 

until a meeting takes place, say in -- February 

1st and then say well, our next emergency 

meeting or in-between meeting -- one-day 

meeting's going to be, you know, February 21st 

or something. I mean sched-- trying to 

schedule something, at least for me, and I know 

for Henry and some of the other people have -- 

with like three or four weeks notice -- is 

impossible. Now if we do it -- you know, set a 

date aside in between, or a couple dates aside 

for --

 DR. ZIEMER: Identify emergency dates is what 

you're saying. 

 DR. MELIUS: Emergency dates, I think that 

would be -- be helpful, recognizing that we may 

or may not use them, but at least we'd have 
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them on the calendar and we'd know that they 

were available. And albeit there may be -- 

because of our contract, because of this SEC 

process, we may have to try to schedule 

something in between without a lot of notice. 

But to the extent we can avoid that, I think 

we're better off. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other input? Yeah, Roy? 

 DR. DEHART: I would suggest that we look at 

the three-day meeting four times a year. That 

-- if we did it six times, actually it's going 

to take more time out of the office because it 

-- we have to travel. We're killing two days -

- at least in my case -- almost every meeting 

we have, the beginning and at the end, for 

travel. So instead of two days, it become four 

days out of the office, versus five days if we 

have a three-day meeting. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So as you send your availability 

in to Cori, please look -- I think, if you 

would, at -- like we're going to -- we've got 

February set aside, but look at -- target May, 

target August, target November, and then look 

at the months between each and say here's a 

couple days where we could -- I could be 
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available for emergency meeting or a special 

meeting. Does that seem reasonable? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Say those --

 DR. ZIEMER: February, May, August, November, 

and --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Quite frankly, meeting in 

December --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- I think we need to avoid -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- is just not good for us --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- December. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in the government. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think it's good for most 

people. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: There's too many people with -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: You have folks trying to burn up -

-

 MR. ELLIOTT: We've got folks trying to burn up 

leave that they're going to lose, and it's so 

hectic with the holiday season, December is not 

a good month for us. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is that agreeable then? We 

need to -- Cori, you want that information 

ASAP. Right? 

MS. HOMER: Absolutely. Do we want to discuss 

locations or is that up for discussion at a 
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later time? 

 DR. ZIEMER: The key point here is to -- is to 

get the calendar --

MS. HOMER: Dates, uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- reserved. We're focusing on 

St. Louis for the February meeting. 

MS. HOMER: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You want to -- you want to try to 

identify location for the one following that? 

MS. HOMER: I don't know that that's possible. 

I guess OCAS will have to tell us what the... 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it's enough for us to 

know that this Board wants to meet in the 

general vicinity of the sites that we have 

claims at. Is that -- that's true. Right? 

That's your --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- consensus. 

 DR. MELIUS: And the second point is, we would 

like to be near SEC sites at the time we're -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Understood. Understood, 

recognizing full well that we may be dealing 

with multiple SEC petitions and we can't visit 

everybody's site in that one meeting. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: We might pick one of them. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We can pick one of them. That's 

why we're looking at St. Louis for Iowa and 

Mallinckrodt, but yes, we understand that, too. 

So if -- if that's a general understanding that 

we have, could you allow us then to look at the 

work load in this context and see where those 

things are going to come to fruition and then 

strategically plan the meeting in that -- in 

those --

 DR. ZIEMER: Any objection --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- locations that --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to doing that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that merit that meeting? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't think there's any 

objection. Let's do that. 

MS. HOMER: Okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We've heard you mention a number 

of sites -- Tampa being one that we weren't 

able to go to. But we'll work with that, if 

that's -- if that's okay with the Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay? 

MS. HOMER: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You have enough at this point on 

that issue now? 
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MS. HOMER: On that issue, yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So please get your calendars -- 

information in. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Just -- with that issue alone, 

you know, depending on where we travel to, also 

kind of makes the -- my calendar go back and 

forth 'cause there's some -- there's some 

places that I can fly back the day of the 

meeting and other places that I can't. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, this is true of many of us, 

I think. I know it's true of Wanda. 

 MS. MUNN: Always, no matter where you decide. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Always, yeah. Thank you. Okay. 

Other housekeeping things? 

MS. HOMER: Other housekeeping items. Please 

write down your prep time, work group time, 

subcommittee time and divide your prep time -- 

or identify your prep time as closely as 

possible to what you spent it on, work group, 

subcommittee, et cetera, and provide that to 

Larry so he can initial it. I want to be able 

to submit your salary requests this week, if at 

all possible. 

I've already recorded your Board and 

subcommittee time, so the prep time and work 
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group time is really all I need. 

 And also -- 

 DR. DEHART: Could we have some blank paper? 

There's no pads on the table. 

MS. HOMER: They're on the corner. Sorry about 

that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You can give them to me on paper 

now, or you can e-mail them to me -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Either way. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- at your convenience. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Get them in, though. 

MS. HOMER: I'd prefer -- yeah, I need to have 

them by Friday -- Friday morning. 

 I've provided you with your earnings 

statements, and I want you to check your 

address on the bottom of your earnings 

statements. The human resources office has 

asked for address updates. If that is not 

where you want your W-2 to be mailed, fill out 

that home -- change of home address record form 

I've provided in your binder and just give that 

to me before we leave today. I want to make 

sure that you get your W-2s to the correct 

address. 

The annual report to GSA is scheduled to be 
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approved by GSA and released this week. I 

don't know for sure that it will be 'cause I 

haven't spoken to committee management about 

it, but as soon as I receive it I will forward 

it to you. 

If you have your CDs from IMBA and the analysis 

records, please provide those to me. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We need to know who's given up 

their CDs 'cause we --

MS. HOMER: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- have to check this off, so... 

MS. HOMER: I have to provide those to -- I 

believe Paula Coker*. 

And for those of you that did not attend the 

INEEL tour last August, we were -- it was an 

interesting tour, for one. But the -- we were 

watching an SL-1 accident tape, I believe it 

was. We didn't get to finish it, so they 

provided us with a copy. If you want to check 

that out, let me know and I will be more than 

happy to send that to you on loan. 

 DR. ZIEMER: What format is that in? 

MS. HOMER: VHS. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: VHS. 

 DR. ZIEMER: VHS? Okay. 
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MS. HOMER: I guess that's about it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We are -- as many of you know, we 

are going through the annual disclosure of 

conflict and conflict waiver generation. Many 

of you have been working through this with us. 

If you haven't, that's because your anniversary 

hasn't happened yet, but it will shortly 

happen, I'm sure, so we're -- just to let you 

know, we're working on that. So if you -- if 

there's any -- if there's any difficulties in 

that process, let us know because we seem to 

have a number of these floating -- they -- they 

route all around through CDC and the 

Department, and so we're trying to do our best 

to keep track of these, but if you don't get 

your waiver letter as soon as you think you 

should, let us know. Just drop us an e-mail. 

MS. HOMER: Please let me know as soon as 

possible. I've been working with committee 

management to make sure that everything is on 

time and to where it should be. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: These become very important now 

that you are engaged in reviewing individual 

dose reconstructions and SEC petitions, as you 

know. That's what your waivers speak to, so we 
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want to make sure we're up to date on those. 

 DR. MELIUS: If we're -- you think -- some -- I 

received something in the mail recently, I 

think it's the ethics sign-off annual thing, 

isn't it? 

MS. HOMER: Your 450, I'm sure. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, but like it had a date on it 

that was -- on the letter or something that was 

like a month ahead of when I got it and, you 

know, it's overnighted to you. I mean they --

MS. HOMER: That's interesting. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, something like -- something 

struck me --

 MR. ELLIOTT: A month ahead of when you got -- 

like it was dated June 4th and you got it 

August 4th? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, something like that -- or 

July 4th. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So it had been laying around 

somewhere for a month? 

 DR. MELIUS: Somewhere it'd been -- somebody'd 

run them off at a time and then they mailed -- 

which isn't -- you know, nobody bugged me or 

anything. But you know, if you hear one of us 

-- if like I'm in trouble or somebody's in 
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trouble for not re-- being responsive, e-mail 

us or something and see if we got it. 

MS. HOMER: I'll definitely do that. 

 MR. GIBSON: I got the same thing. 

MS. HOMER: Did you really? Isn't that 

interesting? I'll have to -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's why I brought this up. I 

want to know where these things are at because 

they're floating all over the place. 

 DR. MELIUS: Either way, it was plenty of time 

before it was due, so it wasn't -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- that one wasn't an issue. I 

worry more about this other one where you've 

got more people involved and... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, any other housekeeping 

items? 

MS. HOMER: That'll be it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Cori. 

 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ISSUES UPDATE 

We're going to move along here. We have 

a scientific research issues update. 

This is the one that Russ ordinarily 

brings us, but I think today we have 

Brant -- is it Ulsh? How do we 
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pronounce -- close enough, right, Ulsh? 

Brant, welcome. 

 DR. ULSH: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Give us the update. 

 DR. ULSH: I answer to anything close. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Anything close, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Brant -- Brant is a health 

physicist who applied for a position in Jim's 

science team as a senior research scientist, 

and so he's moved from being a -- strictly a 

health physicist doing dose reconstruction 

review to now aiding the scientific aspects of 

our programs, so Russ was not able to be with 

us today and this gave Brant an opportunity to 

present to you. 

 DR. ULSH: Well, there went my first three 

slides. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry. 

 DR. ULSH: I'll be able to contribute a little 

bit to getting us back on schedule. I know 

it's been a pretty tough haul for -- for all of 

us. 

As Larry mentioned, I am the new research 

health scientist for OCAS, and before that I 

was serving in a health physics capacity. 
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And if you'd allow me just a couple of seconds 

to give a couple of personal words, I managed 

to fly in last night in time to get to the 

public comment session. And this is only my 

second Board meeting. I went to the one in 

Cincinnati some time ago. And speaking for 

myself only, I found it very useful to get that 

perspective from the public, to hear all those 

stories last night of your experiences. And 

so, at least from my standpoint, please know 

that you've been heard, and it was valuable to 

me. I changed the way I'm going to deliver 

some of my comments today in light of what I 

heard last night. So thank you for -- for 

providing those perspectives. 

Like I said, I know it's been a tough haul, so 

I'll keep my remarks pretty brief. But I would 

encourage any members of the Board to interrupt 

at any time -- I'll survive the interruption -- 

if there's a clarification that you need or if 

I'm not being clear. 

So here's a list of the topics that I'm going 

to discuss with you today. I'm going to start 

with an update on compensation rates, and this 

will look very familiar to you. Russ Henshaw 
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gave you some numbers back in April and I'll 

just update those. 

I'm also going to talk to you about some of the 

adjustments to the risk models that we use in 

our risk tables in IREP, some that we're 

considering and some that we're in the process 

of implementing. 

Then I'm going to move on to tell you a little 

bit about what we're doing with regard to CLL 

and also a re-examination of the target organs 

that we use for dose reconstruction with regard 

to certain cancers of the lymphatic and 

hematopoietic systems. That's the blood 

cancers like leukemia and also lymphomas. 

And I'll close with some remarks on our 

activities looking at occupational studies and 

what we might be able to do with those, and 

also a re-examination of how cancers are 

grouped in the risk models in IREP that we use. 

Okay. So let's start with the compensation 

rates. As I mentioned, this is an update. 

These numbers that I'm going to present in the 

next few slides reflect the data that we have 

through September 30th of this year, and they 

include only claims for which we have heard 
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back from the Department of Labor about a 

compensation decision. So you might notice 

some discrepancies in the total number of 

claims that we say we've completed and the 

numbers that I present here because these are 

only the ones that DOL has given us a 

compensation decision on. 

The results are going to be skewed by the 

efficiency process. As you know, our early 

case selection was impacted very heavily by the 

efficiency process, so we picked cases at 

either end of the compensability spectrum -- 

those that were most likely going to be 

compensable and those at the other end of the 

spectrum, as well. And so, as they say in the 

financial world, past performance is not an 

indication of -- or it's not predictive of 

future results. 

So these results -- I've got written here they 

may not be predictive of future results. I 

would strengthen that and say that they are 

definitely not going to be predictive. If they 

are, it's just coincidence. We've moving into 

the middle of that compensability spectrum and 

so we can't really expect that the rates that 
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we see now are going to hold. 

 Unless otherwise noted, the numbers that I'm 

going to present to you show only those cases 

for which there was only one primary cancer, 

and I'll explain -- I'll point out a couple of 

situations where that'll make a big difference. 

So with those caveats, here's the first set of 

cancers. They're listed by ICD-9 code, that's 

the first column there. In the second column, 

that gives you the number of cases that we've 

completed for each of those cancers, and then 

the third column tells you the compensation 

rates. 

So you can see in this first group we've 

completed a fair number of colon cancers, and 

those have tended not to be very compensable. 

They -- the compensation rates for the rest of 

the cancers on this page are also fairly low, 

with the possible exception of oral cavity and 

pharynx where about ten percent have been 

compensated. 

In this next group we come to lung cancer, and 

lung cancers comprise a very large percentage 

of the cases that have wound up being 

compensable, with about three-quarters. You 
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also see that liver cancers have been very 

compensable, but we have not done a lot of 

liver cancers yet. And about ten percent of 

the gallbladder cancers, as well. 

About a third of the other respiratory cancers 

have been compensated, and we've done a fair 

number of those, in the fifties. About a 

quarter of the non-melanoma skin cancers, the 

basal cell carcinomas -- and this is the cancer 

for which that caveat I told you where we only 

consider the cases with one primary cancer, 

that's very important for the BCCs, basal cell 

carcinomas, because we frequently see with skin 

cancers there are multiple primary cancers. 

And those are not reflected in this -- this 

number here. And we've compensated about a 

quarter of the BCCs. Excuse me, DOL has 

compensated about a quarter of the basal cell 

carcinomas. 

 The squamous cell carcinomas, on the other 

hand, the SCCs have tended not to be very 

compensable. And none of the other cancers 

listed on this slide have been very 

compensable, either. I would point out the all 

male genitalia includes prostate cancers, and 
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we've done far and away more prostate cancers 

than any others. And those tend to be very low 

compensability. 

Here you can see some more of the cancers. 

About ten percent of the urinary organs, 

excluding the bladder, have been compensated, 

and the rest have been pretty low. 

And here the other endocrine glands, about a 

third have been compensated. And then we move 

into leukemias, which tend to be very 

radiogenic cancers, so as you might expect, a 

higher percentage of those have been 

compensated. We have not done a lot of 

leukemias yet, though. 

Here's a few more leukemias, and finally the 

unknown primary cancers. You'll notice we've 

compensated about three-quarters. That's very 

reflective of lung cancer, because in cases 

where we have only a secondary cancer listed 

with no known primary, very often it reverts to 

the assumption that the primary site was lung 

cancer, so that's why those numbers are very 

similar. And finally for the multiple primary 

cancers, a large part of these are skin 

cancers, but not only skin cancers. There's 
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also a fair number where there are other types 

of cancers involved. About half of those 

claims have been compensated. 

 And that gives you a total of 3,731. I think 

our total now is about 6,000 that we've 

actually completed, but for the remainder we 

have not yet heard back from DOL. And that 

gives you a final tally of about 20 percent 

having been compensated. 

Okay. Before I move on, this is a good place 

to stop and ask if there are any questions 

before I move on to the next topic. 

 (No responses) 

Okay, seeing none -- well, I jumped the gun a 

little bit. Here's the big picture. I'm going 

to present this in graphical form for you. 

This is limited only to the cancers -- the 

types of cancers where we've completed greater 

than 30 claims. And you can see -- these are 

listed in decreasing order, so starting with 

lung, we've compensated about three-quarters, 

and moving down through the rest of the cancers 

down to about ten percent of the thyroid 

cancers. 

About ten percent of the oral cavity cancers 
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and lesser numbers of the malignant melanoma, 

bladder, esophagus and squamous cell 

carcinomas. 

Lymphoma and multiple myeloma, colon, breast, 

male genitalia are pretty low. 

And there have been no claims compensated for 

this list of cancers: stomach, rectum, 

pancreas, connective tissue, female genitalia 

and nervous system. 

Okay. So now I'd like to move into some of the 

adjustments that we're making to a few of our 

risk models, starting with the lung cancer 

model. We're evaluating this at the moment. 

The National Institute of Health has a new 

vers-- has a version of IREP where they have 

updated the lung model, and we are currently 

evaluating that for applicability to the NIOSH 

version. This update changes the way smoking 

is handled, and it also changes the methodology 

for considering alpha radiation. Basically the 

NIH model includes four more years of follow-up 

on the Japanese atomic bomb survivor cohort, 

and it assigns more weight to an additive model 

versus a multiplicative model. 

Now our NIOSH -- our NIOSH version of IREP does 
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not presently include these updates because it 

came out before the datas that -- the studies 

that initiated this came out, a study by Pierce 

and Preston. 

Now what does that mean to an average claimant, 

multiplicative versus additive? Our friends at 

SENES pulled together some numbers, and here's 

what it looks like. Just for a hypothetical 

claimant who received an acute exposure of high 

energy gammas, 50 rem -- and this is a male, 

exposed at age 20 and diagnosed with lung 

cancer at age 40. And what you can see here is 

that for non-smokers, the current version -- 

the current NIOSH version of IREP tends to be a 

bit more -- tends to yield a bit higher number 

for probability of causation. But for all of 

the smoking categories, the NIH model yields a 

higher probability of causation. 

Now if we change this to a chronic exposure of 

alpha -- to alpha radiation, but keep all the 

other parameters the same, you see a similar 

pattern but less of a difference. For the nonsmokers the NIOSH version is very slightly more 

claimant-favorable, and for the smoking 

categories the NIH version tends to yield 
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higher PC results. 

 The differences between the two models. NIOSH 

-- the current NIOSH version is more claimant 

favorable for people who have never smoked and 

for females exposed at older ages. The NIH 

version gives higher PC results for male 

smokers and for females exposed at younger 

ages. 

I might also mention here that the NIH version 

includes a dependency on age at exposure, and 

also at attained age. 

And so in response to this update to the NIH 

version that the National Cancer Institute 

recommended, OCAS has commissioned five experts 

to review whether or not we should also adopt 

this model. We expect to have those 

recommendations back in mid-February. 

We're in the process of adjusting our thyroid 

model, and the reason that we're doing this -- 

this gets down in the technical weeds a little 

bit, and I'll try to make it understandable. 

But if I don't, please let me know. 

The IREP -- the thyroid model includes data 

from two types of studies, first the Japanese 

bomb survivors, and also from childhood X-ray 
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studies. When we combined those datasets or 

when NCI combined those datasets, they applied 

a reduction to the effectiveness of the 

childhood X-ray studies, based on the 

assumption that X-rays are more carcinogenic 

than the high-energy gamma rays that the atomic 

bomb survivors were exposed to. 

 Here's what this update means to a typical 

claimant. There are a couple of points I want 

to point out here. First of all, notice that 

this affects a very limited age window, between 

-- I think the youngest exposures that we have 

are about 15 years of age, and it only goes up 

to age 20. 

The second thing to notice is that the 

adjustment results in a higher -- slightly 

higher PC in all cases. The reason that we see 

that is because the update removes that 

reduction that was applied to the childhood Xrays. The reason that we're doing that is 

because, upon examination, NCI discovered that 

the risk coefficients that they were getting 

from the childhood X-ray studies were in fact 

not different -- not significantly different 

from the Japanese atomic bomb survivors. And 
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so applying that reduction was inappropriate, 

they decided. And so the reason for that is 

possibly fractionation. 

 If you compare an acute exposure of X-rays to 

an acute exposure of high-energy gamma rays, 

the X-rays will be more efficient. But that's 

not what we have here with the childhood X-ray 

studies. They got a little bit of dose today, 

a little bit tomorrow, a little bit next week. 

So the dose was fractionated. We know that 

that type of exposure regime is less efficient 

at causing cancer, and so that's probably why 

they didn't see any difference, so they're 

removing that reduction. 

 And this update that we're in the process of 

making will bring us into alignment with the 

NIH model. It is al-- it is claimantfavorable, and it also only affects a very 

small number of cases. 

 We're also updating our bone model in IREP. We 

previously modeled the latency period -- the 

latency relationship for bone cancer to that 

for other solid tumors. But upon reexamination, NCI decided that in fact the 

latency relationship for bone cancer more 
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closely resembled that for thyroid, and so they 

changed that so that the latency period now for 

bone cancer will be modeled on the thyroid. 

This is also a claimant-favorable adjustment in 

all cases, and it also will affect a very small 

number of cases. 

 Okay, chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This is a 

topic that has generated a great deal of 

interest, I think. In response to that, the 

Health and Energy-related Research Branch of 

NIOSH, HERB, held a public meeting this past 

July in Washington, D.C., and they empaneled a 

group of experts to look at the assumption that 

there is no relationship between ionizing 

radiation exposure and CLL. And that's pretty 

much conventional wisdom in radiation 

epidemiology. 

 And this group of experts took a look at the 

data, and they decided that the evidence is 

actually inconclusive. It doesn't say that 

there is a relationship, but it doesn't say 

that there's not a relationship. 

They identified some real problems with the 

data. First of all, inappropriate lag periods 

were used. Other forms of leukemia tend to be 
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very fast-developing, and they have lag periods 

typic-- on the order of about five years. 

Well, that's not really appropriate for CLL. 

It's a very slowly-developing disease, much -- 

it's distinct from the other forms of leukemia. 

There's also a classification and diagnosis 

issue. Up until recently, diagnosis of CLL was 

based on cell morphology. In other words, you 

looked at the cells under a microscope and, 

based on what they looked like, determined that 

you were looking at CLL. But the problem is 

that there are other related types of leukemia, 

for instance, hairy cell leukemia -- which, by 

the way, is a covered condition under our 

program. So it's not too hard to see that 

someone who might have had hairy cell leukemia 

had a non-trivial chance of being mis-diagnosed 

with CLL, and they would not be eligible for 

coverage under our program. So that's a real 

problem. 

That has changed recently with the advent of 

molecular biology techniques. It's much more 

definitive of a diagnosis, but in the early 

days it was a bigger problem. 

There's also the problem of transference 
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between the two populations, between Japanese 

atomic bomb survivors and the North American 

population that we're dealing with. The 

problem there is that Asian populations have a 

very low background incidence of CLL compared 

to North American populations. So there is a 

question of relevance there. 

In light of those problems we are reconsidering 

our exclusion of CLL from EEOICPA. And we have 

commissioned five experts -- you can see a 

pattern here; we like to commission experts to 

get their opinions -- to review the basis for 

exclusion of CLL. Those reports are coming in 

now. We expect to have them this month. 

 If appropriate, once we've received all those 

opinions, we will initiate rule-making to 

change the PC rule and include CLL, if 

appropriate. If we do that, that would be very 

significant because we would be the only 

radiation compensation program in the world to 

cover that condition. 

Okay. Target organs for hematopoietic and 

lymphatic cancers. These are the leukemias and 

lymphomas. We are re-examining which target 

organs we use in these cancers. What I mean is 
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-- take for instance external radiation 

exposure, radiation that comes from outside the 

body. It's measured on a film badge, but we 

don't apply that number directly. We apply an 

organ dose conversion factor. So we figure out 

what fraction of what was measured on that 

badge actually reached the organ of interest. 

So you can see it's pretty important to pick 

the right organ 'cause we have different 

factors for different organs. 

And the question that's motivating this reexamination is how does the site where you find 

a lymphoma, for instance, relate to the site of 

the original radiation injury. In other words, 

if you find a lymphoma in a lymph node in your 

armpit, do we use the lymphatic tissue as the 

target organ? Might it be the lung? Might it 

be the bone marrow? The bone marrow is where 

lymphocytes start as stem cells, so where did 

the actual radiation injury occur? 

Well, these are pretty technical questions, so 

we've secured the services of a hematologist to 

help us review the target organs we pick for 

lymphomas. As long as we have a hematologist 

on board, we decided to throw in the leukemias, 
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as well, although we don't really have as many 

questions there. We're much more confident in 

our target organ selection for the leukemias. 

Okay. We're nearing the end here. Just hold 

with me for a couple more minutes. 

 Occupational studies. This is also a topic 

that has generated great interest among the 

Board, I think also the public. We are in the 

process of assembling a database of worker 

cohort studies, and we're looking specifically 

for dose response data that we can use to 

either modify our existing risk models or to 

come up with entirely distinct risk models. 

I did a first cut on the literature search for 

these studies, and I found very easily 167 

studies, but I guarantee there will be more. 

did this right before I started getting ready 

for this meeting and kind of put it on hold for 

that. Once I start digging into this first 

group of 167, I will find more. That total, 

that 167, includes 153 peer-reviewed journals 

and about a dozen NIOSH reports. 

Here's how it breaks down by populations 

examined. Far and away, about -- at about 

three-quarters, the largest group of these are 

I 
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nuclear workers, about three-quarters. And 

that's a good thing, because that's of course 

the most relevant type of study that -- that we 

could have, all other things being equal. 

We've also included an equal num-- about an 

equal number of uranium miners, radiologists, 

air crew type studies, and a few more general 

studies. 

Dovetailing with that last project, that 

occupational study project, is a re-examination 

of the way cancers are grouped in IREP. This 

was originally done with the Japanese bomb 

survivors. Biological plausibility was 

certainly considered, but the motivator was, 

for certain rare types of cancer, there weren't 

enough numbers to come up with a risk model. 

And so they were combined together to come up 

with a workable risk model. 

We're taking a new look at that, a fresh look 

at the way that was done. And there are three 

criteria that we're using. The first thing 

that we're going to look at is the availability 

of risk coefficients for individual cancer 

types. And an example here is salivary gland, 

can we parse that out from the oral cavity and 
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pharynx model? Might we be able to split up 

multiple myeloma and lymphoma? And of course 

prostate, we're interested in whether or not we 

can split the prostate out from the other male 

genitalia. Those are just examples. They're 

not meant to be exhaustive. 

A second criteria that we use -- that we're 

looking at is transport between populations. 

mentioned that with regard to CLL, but the 

question also applies to some other cancers, as 

well. And the question here is -- we're 

looking at the appropriateness of transferring 

groups of cancers from the Japanese population 

to the North American population versus doing 

that on an individual basis. We're taking a 

look to see whether that was appropriate in all 

cases. 

 And finally the application of more recent or 

different risk coefficients for individual 

cancer types. An example here is a study 

published a couple of years ago by Dale Preston 

looking at nervous system cancers in the A-bomb 

survivors, and also some melanoma numbers that 

Elaine Ronn* put out a few years ago. Those 

are just a couple of examples. 

I 
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And so that concludes my prepared remarks, and 

I'd be happy to entertain any questions you 

might have. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Brant. 

Let's open the floor for questions. Gen 

Roessler? 

DR. ROESSLER: Before you started I thought I 

was going to have a lot of questions, but you 

answered every one of them. I guess my 

impression at this point is that -- well, I'm 

impressed that NIOSH indeed is keeping up to 

date very much on the scientific developments, 

and it looks to me like it's -- most of the 

changes are claimant friendly. 

 DR. ULSH: Yes, yes, they are. We would 

certainly have a higher bar to jump if we were 

going in the opposite direction, if we were 

making it less claimant friendly. Although 

keep in mind, with the lung model it's not an 

across-the-board claimant-favorable move. I --

DR. ROESSLER: But what you're doing is valid, 

and I --

 DR. ULSH: I hope so. 

DR. ROESSLER: I mean my interpretation is that 

everything that you've introduced as new 
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science is valid --

 DR. ULSH: Thank you. 

DR. ROESSLER: -- based on more data and more 

evaluation and more expert evaluation. 

 DR. ULSH: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Brant, many of these epi studies, 

even the larger ones, are still seen as lacking 

the statistical power, for example, of the 

Japanese studies. 

 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In fact, that's one of the main 

shortcomings, and perhaps one of the reasons 

they have had less stature as sort of 

benchmarks. 

 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: However, there are some groups 

that are doing -- I guess you would call it 

sort of meta-analysis, combining many studies 

and pulling those together. I think there's 

maybe some European groups doing that, as well 

as US. Are the one -- articles you're 

reviewing, are you -- you're going beyond those 

individual studies and looking at those pooled 

studies, as well? 

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check out whether or not we can do some metaanalysis. I think the study -- the European 

one that you mentioned, you might be thinking 

of the IARC 15-country study -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. ULSH: -- which is --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, exactly. 

 DR. ULSH: -- expected -- I don't know exactly 

when, but yeah, it's on the horizon. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Some of those studies reach pretty 

large population groups when you pool them. 

 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And hopefully the statistical 

power will be there and allow us to have a 

little more reliable risk coefficients. 

 DR. ULSH: Well, you hit it dead-on. The 

problem with occupational studies is they -- 

because of the lower numbers involved, they 

don't typically have the power of the Japanese 

studies. On the other hand, they tend to be 

more relevant in terms of the types of exposure 

that the --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. ULSH: -- populations receive. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, they are more chronic 
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exposures of the type that we have in the 

workplace, so that's --

 DR. ULSH: So there are pluses and minuses 

there, you hit it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Other -- Gen Roessler 

again? No. Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I just have a question about the 

CLL. 

 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: In the cases -- the early -- you 

mentioned potential for mis-diagnosis -- 

 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- especially among the earlier 

cases. Have you made any policy decisions to 

view them as hairy cell -- or --

 DR. ULSH: We haven't really got that far. 

We're still wrestling with the question of 

whether or not to include CLL, but -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, but in that case you could 

-- you know, it would be claimant favorable, 

obviously. 

 DR. ULSH: One would think, yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ULSH: Those are ideas that we have talked 

about in terms -- if we do decide to include 
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CLL, the next question of course becomes what 

risk model do you use, and that's -- that's the 

hard part. We haven't really begun to wrestle 

with that yet, but yeah, those types of 

considerations will come into play, for sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Brant, what -- what sort of 

general results have you seen from the worker 

studies insofar as the miners -- the miner 

population is concerned? In general what sorts 

of things are you seeing -- 

 DR. ULSH: Higher lung cancers. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Higher lung cancers or --

 DR. ULSH: Oh, yeah, for sure. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- a lower threshold for lung 

cancer? 

 DR. ULSH: I'm not quite sure what you mean 

when you say that. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Well, for a given exposure -- 

okay? -- for an inhalation exposure -- 

 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- chronic, over a long period of 

time --

 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- how shall I say it, lower 
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concentration to the point where you see the 

onset of cancer? 

 DR. ULSH: I'm not quite sure how to answer 

your question. What I can say is that in the 

uranium miner population there is definitely -- 

it's pretty well accepted that there's 

increased incidences of lung cancer. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

 DR. ULSH: In terms of a dose response 

relationship, I haven't dug into it yet enough 

to -- to be able to say what they're seeing, 

you know, and whether we'll find any useful 

data in terms of a dose response relationship 

other than that they do have a higher 

incidence. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Higher -- well, okay, yes. I 

mean we knew that, but is there anything new 

coming out of that? The other -- the other 

problem with the miner population was that a 

lot of -- a lot of miners tend to be smokers, 

as well. 

 DR. ULSH: Right, right. 

 DR. ANDRADE: And so when you mix the alpha 

radiation with the smoke, that's always a 

deadly combination. Even in dog studies that's 
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been shown to be the case. 

 DR. ULSH: Sure. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Is there -- is there anything new 

emerging? 

 DR. ULSH: Jim has jumped up. He might have 

more to add than I do. 

DR. NETON: The uranium miner data has a unique 

conundrum in the sense the irradiation of the 

sensitive cells is very different than you 

might experience from say a uranium-exposed 

cohort working in a rolling mill, for example. 

Typically the lung cancers in uranium miners 

show up in the third and fourth bifurcations of 

the tracheobronchial tree, and that has more to 

do with physics and aerosol deposition patterns 

of the ultrafine aerosols than -- than what you 

experience with the particle size distribution 

in an occupational environment. The point is, 

it's not necessarily -- the risk -- the risk 

coefficients are not necessarily relevant to 

our -- our population other than the uraniumexposed population, which we do have some. 

 DR. ULSH: Well, and the radon -- the radonexposed population, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I noticed Owen was about to make a 
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remark. Can you add to that, Owen? 

 DR. HOFFMAN: (Off microphone) Yes, Brant 

(unintelligible) --

 DR. ZIEMER: For the record, Owen, give the -- 

 DR. HOFFMAN: Owen Hoffman. Brant, really fine 

presentation. I just wanted to add an item of 

clarification. When you showed the bar graph -

-

 DR. ULSH: Yes. 

 DR. HOFFMAN: -- of the probability of 

causation and the comparison between the new 

update to be consistent with the NIH approach 

and the old -- or the current approach with 

NIOSH-IREP for lung cancer in smoking 

categories, of course that's the comparison at 

the upper 99th percentile -- the upper 99th 

credibility limit of PC. The differences 

between the approach are marked at lesser 

percentiles of the -- of the distribution of 

PC. But because there is -- there is always 

some fraction of the interaction of either 

approach that's multiplicative, they tend to 

come closer together and that's why they look 

so similar throughout those categories. 

 DR. ULSH: Thank you, Owen. I should mention -
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- I should have mentioned this earlier. Those 

numbers were prepared for us by SENES, so Owen 

is really the expert on -- on those numbers. 

Thanks, Owen. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We should talk a little bit about 

process here. According to our rule, 

probability of causation rule, we're required 

to bring to the Board any substantive change 

that we would make or propose to make in our 

risk models. And what you've seen here today 

in Brant's presentation is some of the -- some 

imminent effort in that regard. We are 

tasking, as you've seen indicated in his 

slides, subject matter experts to bring 

scientific opinion to bear on these particular 

questions. We will bring that forward with our 

proposal, if there is a proposal, for 

substantive change to this Board and get your 

thoughts and your comments on that. We're not 

at that point yet. 

 We're probably as close as we're going to get 

for thyroid, I think. We're probably looking 

to you today to say what are you -- what's your 

thoughts about thyroid. We don't -- we didn't 

commission any subject matter experts. It's 
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pretty straightforward in our mind that that's 

something we ought to do and we ought to make 

that change and incorporate it immediately. It 

is for a small group. Those very -- people in 

our case file load that would have started work 

at a very young age, and it's a very limited 

number. 

But the other -- the other issues that Brant 

has raised on CLL, that's a rule-making effort. 

Once we get our subject matter experts' 

comments in place and we work up our rulemaking effort, we'll come forward with pub-- 

you know, public comment in that per-- in that 

effort and seek the Board's comment as part of 

that like we've done in our other rule-making 

efforts. 

And then lung cancer model adjustment, we'll 

see what our subject matter experts say about 

that, bring a proposal to the Board on that. 

 DR. ULSH: Bone cancer's in the same category 

as thyroid. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, bone cancers -- as I said, 

we're seeing nods around the table about bone 

and thyroid. I think we're ready to make those 

changes happen. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, are you asking for formal 

action on those --

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think it's --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- today or is this a heads-up for 

next time? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, you -- you can -- you could 

-- you have an option here, I believe. You 

could say to us that you want to see more -- 

more informative work done on -- on either one 

of those, or you could be satisfied with what 

we presented. Basically you've heard about the 

lung for a couple of other sessions from Russ, 

so it's not a new topic. The thyroid I think 

you've heard once before. You haven't seen 

these data that SENES helped generate for us. 

These are new. But they show you the slight 

changes that these modifications would result 

in, so you have an option I think to say to us, 

if you're satisfied with what you see, they're 

-- we think they're based on sound science, I 

mean limited as it is. But what's your 

pleasure? 

 DR. ZIEMER: While you're thinking about your 

pleasure, the thyroid model adjustment, as I 

look at it, doesn't really look to be an 
-- 

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adjustment -- at least -- or maybe in that 

little window of age 18 to 20 there's a slight 

 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- nudge on the midpoint of the 

range, but -- and it's all captured within the 

error/era* of it, so it might have a little 

effect on a few cases. 

 DR. ULSH: It's very slight, and it is a very 

low number of cases, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that's the only -- that is what 

your recommendation is then on the -- on the 

thyroid model, to basically alter that factor 

for that -- what is it, people who started to 

work before age 20? 

 DR. ULSH: Yeah, they were exposed before age 

20. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Only the exposure -- years it 

occurred before 20. 

 DR. ULSH: Exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Which for --

 DR. ULSH: There's not many. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Not many people and it's a very 

small number of -- a couple years at most for 

those for whom it's in operation. 
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 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Who had a comment on that? 

Yes, Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: I was just curious as to when the 

jury's supposed to be back in insofar as your 

SMEs on the other research efforts that are 

going on. Or -- well, not research, but their 

efforts to consider the data. 

 DR. ULSH: CLL, we expect to have them all back 

this month. The lung cancer SMEs, back by midFebruary. The lymphatic target organs, that's 

not a panel. That's just one -- 

 DR. ANDRADE: Person. 

 DR. ULSH: -- one hematologist, and it'll come 

back pretty quick. I can't say exactly when, 

but pretty quick. 

 DR. ANDRADE: I would like -- I would like to 

suggest that we either have an update or 

perhaps the result of their consideration 

presented at our next meeting in February, if 

that is possible. 

 DR. ULSH: I have no objection to that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The update on these others? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Please consider what we would 
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bring you as -- what we would like to bring you 

would be our proposal, and so yes, we can 

certainly give you an update, but my intent 

would be --

 DR. ZIEMER: That would be the update. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: My intent would be to come before 

this Board and say here's our proposal, our 

recommended -- recommendation for modification. 

And it's -- we're not trying to put any 

criteria on what substantive is here -- a 

substantive change. We see these as fitting 

that model. We want to bring them before you 

and have the public observe this process and 

see what changes are being proposed here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The thyroid probably is just on 

the borderline of being substantive, but -- 

comment? Jim and then Roy. 

 DR. MELIUS: Comment I guess is -- one is sort 

of practical, and I'm -- our next agenda's 

already pretty tight and I'm not sure there's a 

lot of time there, particularly if we're going 

to be discussing these and a procedure in some 

detail and so forth, but we -- we can see. 

The other one -- question I have is a practical 

one. From your point of view and perspective 
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in terms of adopting these, is it easier to do 

them like as a group, so you know, do -- do we 

wait and do them all -- or is it easier to do 

them incrementally --

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think --

 DR. MELIUS: -- and just adopt them as we -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think we're ready to take on 

thyroid and we're -- and bone. We can make 

those changes if -- if there's no objection. 

That's what I'm looking for. Is there an 

objection to us doing that? 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll take formal action here in a 

moment. Roy, did you have a comment? 

 DR. DEHART: I felt prepared to comment on 

thyroid, having some familiarity with the 

literature. I think that the direction you're 

proposing is appropriate and I would suggest we 

go forward. 

A second question I would have, as well, do you 

automatically go back into the records that you 

have where thyroid has been an issue and 

recalculate? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. ULSH: For those cases for which this 

change would -- would have an impact, we would 
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definitely go back to look and see if it might 

change anyone's decision, definitely. 

 DR. ZIEMER: For the record, I'd simply like to 

call for a motion to have the Board endorse 

these modifications, first to the thyroid model 

and then to the bone model, as described. Is 

there such a motion? 

 DR. DEHART: I would move that we adopt the 

thyroid adjustment as provided. 

DR. ROESSLER: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. You're wanting to act 

separately on them? 

 DR. DEHART: I'm not as comfortable to go 

forward with the -- with the bone. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We'll do the thyroid first. 

Discussion on the thyroid model? 

 (No responses) 

It seems to be fairly straightforward. All in 

favor, say aye. 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Opposed, no? Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the Board endorses proceeding 

with the thyroid model. 

Just for clarification, on the change to the 
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bone model, this has to do with the latency 

period --

 DR. ULSH: Yes, it does. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- where previously they used for 

the latency period an ill-defined or -- 

 DR. ULSH: It was other solid tumors. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- a generally defined... 

 DR. ULSH: I can give you a couple more 

details, and if you --

 DR. ZIEMER: How -- what will be the new -- 

tell us how it changes then so -- 

 DR. ULSH: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- under the new latency period, 

what... 

 DR. ULSH: Before, with the other solid tumors 

-- and Owen, perhaps you can correct me if I 

say anything wrong -- for the cancers that 

occurred very shortly after exposure, so we're 

talking about within a -- what, two, maybe 

three years, Owen? -- the PC value was zero. 

It was a zero. When we switch it over to the 

thyroid, it gives a very low but still positive 

PC result. That's the major impact. 

Do I have that about right, Owen? 

 DR. HOFFMAN: Yes. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, and didn't we have one like 

that before where we went from a zero step 

function -- or is this the one? 

 DR. ULSH: I think that was the thyroid -- the 

thyroid used to be that way -- 

DR. ROESSLER: We had a leukemia one, I think, 

that was similar. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, this is a similar sort of 

change. 

 DR. ULSH: Yes, a similar sort of change. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It actually takes that period 

between exposure and onset of the tumor and -- 

it's sort of like under the old system. If you 

were a day early, it didn't count -- 

 DR. ULSH: Yes, exactly. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and then the next day it was 

okay to count it. And they're saying well, 

let's make that more of a -- 

 DR. ULSH: Smooth function. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- smooth function. 

 DR. ULSH: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's the nature of the proposed 

change. 

 DR. ULSH: And it is claimant favorable in all 

cases. It doesn't result in a penalty for 
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anyone. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, Leon? 

MR. OWENS: Dr. Ziemer, I'd like to make a 

motion that the Board allow NIOSH to move 

forward with the bone adjustments. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Is there a second to that 

motion? 

 MR. PRESLEY: I'll second it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded. Discussion? Yes, Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: And I apologize, I had to take a 

phone call and got -- missed some of this, but 

I think it would be helpful to these future 

discussions of these, and even maybe to this 

one, to actually have a written proposal from 

NIOSH on what the changes are going to be, 

rather than just slides and then your verbal 

description, captured in the record of the 

meeting. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's fair and we can do that. 

We just thought you'd seen these two -- 

 DR. MELIUS: And I'm not --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- several times before and knew 

the background on it, so -- but I understand 

your point. 

 DR. MELIUS: And I'm not saying that would 
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change how I would vote or feel on bone, but I 

just think for future -- if you want -- feel 

ready to take action, come -- let's have a 

proposal so we -- that we can refer to and 

adopt and I think it would be easier for 

everybody. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It appears the Board is ready to 

act on this one. All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any opposed, no? And any 

abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Then NIOSH will 

incorporate these changes right away, and also 

go back and check previous dose reconstructions 

to determine if there are significant changes 

to probabilities of causation for other cases. 

DR. ROESSLER: Take a break. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that completes this 

discussion, and we're on schedule for a break -

- 15-minute break and we reconvene at quarter 

of. We have a public comment session coming 

up. 

 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 2:35 p.m. 

to 2:50 p.m.) 
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 PUBLIC COMMENT

 DR. ZIEMER: Know that the sooner we go -- 

started, the sooner we'll be finished. It's 

been a marathon for many of the Board members 

today. Thank you for bearing with us. 

At this time on our agenda it's the period for 

public comments. The first commenter this 

afternoon will be Joyce Brooks from Livermore. 

Joyce, are you here? 

 MS. BROOKS: (Off microphone) Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, please take the microphone. 

Thank you. 

 MS. BROOKS: (Off microphone) Right here? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's fine right there, sure. 

Thank you. Just make sure that it's on. 

 MS. BROOKS: Thank you. Okay, I am Joyce 

Brooks, a claimant and the co-leader of the 

Sick Worker and Family Member support group 

here in Livermore. My husband Carl worked at 

Livermore Lab for 32 years. He did everything 

from machining beryllium, uranium, and other 

substances, to engineering work. I knew he was 

very smart, even though he did not have a 

college degree. And when I reviewed his 
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records, I saw the commendations he received. 

I was truly amazed. 

I also need to tell you that one of the most 

difficult things in my life was watching the 

person I love die because he was unable to 

breathe. I won't go into details about my 

case, because it is a beryllium case, except to 

share a couple of details that I think apply to 

dose reconstruction work. 

 While working at Livermore Lab Carl traveled to 

many sites to work, such as Rocky Flats, Y-12, 

Pantex, Bendix, Paducah, and for long periods 

of time every week on the corporate jet to 

Nevada Test Site. He was exposed to radiation, 

as well as beryllium. Although he believed in 

the end that the beryllium killed him, I also 

saw that his immune system was weakened, and I 

believe that was due to the radiation exposure 

that he had. 

The reason I bring this up is that the Lab 

supposedly gave me all of his records, but many 

of his records from these other sites, 

especially dose readings, are not available. 

Therefore, if I was filing under cancer claim, 

the dose reconstruction would not be complete 
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without all these records. This is an 

important point because so many in our support 

group are in this situation. 

Although my claim has been denied three times, 

I now feel fairly confident because of the 

medical evidence that I put together about 

Carl's lung problems prior to 1993. The only 

reason I am currently in this position is 

because of the help of Tri-Valley Cares, the 

Government Accountability Project, and Dr. 

Lawrence Fortas* at the Medical Screening 

Program at University of Iowa. 

The programs that are being funding (sic) are 

not really helping us. Because of this, many 

people have given up and many will not apply 

because they feel it is impossible. 

I want a fair hearing. I can accept whatever 

the result, payment or no payment. I just want 

a fair shake for myself, my family, and for all 

the families. And I want to fulfill my 

commitment to Carl to find out what happened to 

him. 

I appreciate so much that you have held this 

meeting in Livermore so that so many of the 

support group who are older and sick could 
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come. I feel optimistic if we all work 

together we can come up with a model here for 

service, for the site profile, and for 

cooperation between the community and the 

government. 

Thank you for allowing me to speak. I 

appreciate the important work you are doing, 

and I hope that we can build something together 

that helps the sick workers and their families, 

and that we all feel proud of. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much for your 

comments. I'm sorry, I turned off here. 

 Thank you very much for your comments to us 

today. Next I have Beverly Wooster, I believe 

it is. Beverly, are you here? Thank you. 

 MS. WOOSTER: I'm not prepared like my 

predecessor, but my husband, David Wooster, 

worked for the Livermore Lab from 1958 until 

1991 when he died of lymphoma, which I 

personally know was brought on by his exposure 

to radiation. Much of that time he was working 

at Nevada Test Site, but was also mentioned by 

my friend that the people from the Lab travel -

- traveled a lot. And they went to a number of 

places that are not on your list of where -- 
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the places that you use for checking the amount 

of radiation and so forth. 

I do recall one trip that he came home from, a 

field trip -- sometimes he was gone for weeks 

at a time. And when he came home he told me 

that they'd been working in a tunnel, that 

there was a geiger counter put up outside the 

tunnel and when he came out he set off the 

geiger counter rather loudly. Now they're not, 

so far as I know, given any extra clothing. He 

continued to wear whatever he took with him on 

the trip, and this was just an example of some 

of the other things that could happen besides 

all the radiation from the test site. 

 That's all. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much again for 

sharing that with us. Those two individuals, 

Joyce and Beverly, are the only ones that had 

signed up, but I do want to give opportunity if 

there's -- yes, sir, please. And identify for 

the record your name. 

MR. GLENN: Okay. I -- I'd like to sit down, 

if I may, because --

 DR. ZIEMER: You certainly may, yes. You can 

sit right there and they'll provide you with a 
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mike. That's good. 

UNIDENTIFIED: I'll hold it for you. 

MR. GLENN: Okay, thank you. My name is David 

Glenn. I'm a health physicist. I'm also a 

Ph.D. in physics, experimental and theoretical. 

I was a Lab employee from 1966 to about 1991. 

I had a -- there was a three-year break in 

there, but at that time I also worked at the 

Test Site. During that time I was a physicist, 

devoted almost entirely to containment of 

underground nuclear tests, and I directed many 

of those efforts. I published almost 100 

papers in that area, 60 or 70 are out in the 

open literature. 

Review of the NTS test schedule is 

approximately -- I'd like to review that for 

you. Approximately 1,000 tests have been 

conducted there. Prior to -- prior to 1963 

several hundred nuclear air blast tests 

occurred. In that time -- this is in the open 

-- there's -- there's a pamphlet that shows you 

the announced tests -- as many as six in one 

day occurred there on -- on an occasion -- on 

one occasion. This is published in the open 

literature, as I mentioned. 
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Now that -- tests were suspended because of the 

contamination in the populated areas in the -- 

like in Utah, and I think you're probably well 

aware of that. Then we started underground 

tests, and I became intimately involved with 

that effort. And I worked -- and I'm going to 

give you an example of what the test site is 

like. 

After you've had these hundreds of air blast 

tests, there's no effort at all made to contain 

those because, being air blasts, you know, 

there's no way you can do that. The radiation 

just spreads over whichever way the wind blows, 

and it's deposited typically on the surface, 

what doesn't blow off the site. 

An example, because I worked in a high yield 

series of tests, a selected group of wives were 

granted the opportunity to make a day tour of 

the test site. The tour director was Roger 

Ide*. He took them to the Sedan Crater, and he 

told them they can only spend five minutes 

there because -- for viewing on the viewing 

platform because of the high level of 

radiation. 

Now I was on a committee that evaluated -- on 
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many committees, I should say, that evaluated 

nuclear test sites for many, many years at -- 

at the -- at the LLNL, never considered whether 

a site was unacceptable because of 

contamination levels. What was the primary 

concern was whether or not that site had 

characteristics, geologically speaking, for 

containment. That was the only goal -- only 

site -- only reason. 

 Finally applied in July of 19-- 2001 to this 

program, submitted eight years' blood tests and 

an oncologist's findings. Application rejected 

as not recognized cancer. I cited the fact 

that my high mitotic index in fact proved it 

was a cancer. They submitted my application 

then and my appeal to the National Institute of 

Health, and they agreed with me that both forms 

of cancer that I have, polycythemia vera and 

thrombocytosis, are cancers. So one and a half 

years later they accepted my application and 

resigned -- assigned me an ID of 10,643 -- 

which, to a certain extent, I should have been 

accepted a year and a half prior to that. 

Now they talk about here as a bone marrow not 

being accepted, but in fact is -- the cancer 
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that I have often progresses into leukemia. 

About a year and a half ago my white count 

started up and my doctor was somewhat 

concerned, and he gave me what's called bone 

cores out of my hip, and I've had three since 

because of the high level of my white count. 

Fortunately I did not have any sign of 

Philadelphia chromosome or of one other "blast" 

so that they could not identify that. I had 

not progressed into leukemia yet, but that is a 

natural progression from my disease that'll 

occur over probably the next few years. 

And so what I'm speaking now -- actually I have 

no recriminations about my service at the Lab, 

that they have done this to me, because if I 

could do it all over again, I would in fact do 

it. Because I feel humbled when I see, every 

day, young men that are killed in Iraq. I have 

given very little in comparison. Yet I feel 

that I would like some remuneration because of 

the expenses associated with my treatment. 

Sometimes they are in excess of $1,000 a month. 

And so I'm sorry to have taken up your time and 

I'm not in better voice. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much. You 
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certainly don't need to be sorry for sharing 

your story with us today. Thank you. 

Are there any other members of the public who 

do wish to speak to the Board today? Yes, 

ma'am, please -- and identify yourself for our 

recorder, please. 

 MS. BLEWITT: My name is Beryl Blewitt and I 

live in Stockton. I'm here to speak for my 

son, David Dwight Blewitt, who as a very young 

man went out to Livermore Lab and was a 

driller. He drilled the soil and I'm not sure 

that I can really describe in an intelligent 

way what his work was like because I wasn't 

there and I'm not trained in that. But he is -

- he's unable actually to come here and speak 

to you himself because he is not emotionally 

able. 

He went to Lawrence Livermore Lab as a young 

married man and would have done anything that 

they told him to do. And in drilling for -- 

drilling the soil, much strange substance was 

spewed into the air and they all touched all 

this stuff and there were many chemicals 

around. And we feel quite sure that beryllium 

was one of them because he continued to do this 
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work for quite a long time, maybe four years, 

until he just wasn't able to continue. 

And now he has a very short memory. He is not 

able to focus on things. He has -- he is very, 

very depressed, constantly, every day. He has 

been given by this group, or was given about 

two years ago, this -- these forms that he was 

told to take to the doctors whom he visited 

with, and he has visited with at least 15 

different doctors and has told them that he 

doesn't feel well. He doesn't know what's 

wrong with him. His stomach constantly hurts. 

He has no drive, no ambition, nothing. He's 

depressed, and he wants the doctor to help him 

find out what is wrong. And the doctors all 

said oh, I understand you worked at Lawrence 

Livermore Lab? Yes, sir. Well, try these 

pills, and if they don't help you, try these, 

try these, try these, try these. He must have 

had between 50 and 100 different kinds of pills 

-- which made him more ill. He would throw up. 

He would sleep for 20 hours at a time. He 

would be completely disoriented and have no 

memory. 

One doctor -- and we asked -- I said David, ask 
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the doctor if he can put you in touch with 

someone who can diagnose you more specifically, 

because none of this is helping. It's making 

it -- it worse. David would fall on the ground 

unexpectedly. He was in his thirties. His 

children were frightened. What's wrong? We 

don't know. Well, take these pills, these 

pills and these pills. And he would vomit. He 

would sleep. And nothing made him better. So 

I said see if you can find a doctor who knows 

something about the action of those chemicals 

on the human body and maybe we can trace down 

and see what's wrong. And if they say no, 

there's nothing here, it's all in your head, 

that's one thing. But I don't think that it's 

in his head 'cause I have seen his reactions. 

His wife threw up her hands and said I don't 

want any more of this. She divorced him. 

Because of the heavy financial impact on -- all 

the drugs, buying all these drugs and throwing 

them out, they were not able to keep their 

house, so they lost their house. 

What does David have now? Two sons who wonder 

about him. Are you a druggie, Dad? That's all 

he has -- and me. I'm not an eloquent speaker. 
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I have prepared nothing. I just know this from 

first-hand experience. If you have a question 

you'd like to ask me, I'd like to help by 

answering. But unless you direct me, I don't 

know how to expand further except to say that 

one doctor found a lump about that big around 

at the base of his skull. He didn't know what 

it was and he said well, we'll watch it for a 

while. So three or four months went on and 

nothing changed. They continued to take brain 

scans and that sort of thing, and it didn't 

change in its diameter or in any other way 

within that three or six-month period, so they 

didn't know what it was. They didn't want to 

operate because it would be possibly fatal if 

it were incorrectly done and they didn't know 

what it was all about anyway. 

So my request is, is there some way that I can 

reach someone here to put me in touch with some 

doctor somewhere who will help me and help my 

son? Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 MS. BLEWITT: Is there a question? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Your -- your remarks have been 

heard by a variety of folks from different 
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agencies, and perhaps after the meeting someone 

may be able to direct you. I -- I don't know 

the answer to your question at this point, but 

we've heard what you've said and it -- it 

appears to me that this may be a Department of 

Labor issue. It's apparently not involving a 

cancer case, which we're dealing with here, but 

perhaps there are some here -- but thank you 

for sharing that with us, yes. 

 Were there any others -- members of the public 

that did wish to speak today? 

Okay, thank you very much. We'll proceed with 

our agenda items. 

BOARD WORKING SESSION 

 We're going back to our Board working session. 

We have a number of -- a variety of items we 

need to finish up here quickly. 

First of all, the quality assurance and the 

conflict of interest plans for our contractor, 

SC&A. Those are in your notebook. These are 

the final versions which, as I said, had mainly 

editorial changes from the -- from the versions 

that we looked at at our previous meeting. I'd 

like to ask Hans or any of the SCA people, can 

you confirm for us there are no substantive 
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changes other than those editorials that we 

talked about last time? 

 DR. BEHLING: To my knowledge, no. I think 

we've pretty much discussed the issues that we 

need to address in our revised version here, so 

 DR. ZIEMER: And most of those changes were 

labeling some -- can you remind us of what 

those changes were? The notebooks have the new 

version but not the old. Or do you recall what 

the changes -- just describe the changes. 

 DR. BEHLING: Well, I'm not sure which document 

we're referring to. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The conflict of interest plan -- 

 DR. BEHLING: Well --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and the quality assurance plan. 

You had some --

 DR. BEHLING: -- there were some -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- a number of places where you 

were changing some minor wording things. 

 DR. BEHLING: The person who could probably 

address that better than I can is Steve Ostrow, 

who is one of our SC&A team members, but I'm 

not really sure -- I've signed all the 

documents he's asked me to sign, but quite 
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honestly --

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 DR. BEHLING: -- the specific changes that have 

been incorporated I'm not that familiar with, 

so I'm going to defer to Dr. Ostrow, perhaps in 

writing, if there's an issue that needs to be 

resolved here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm not aware of any issue that 

needs to be resolved. I'm simply pointing out 

to the Board that we had -- we had in essence 

agreed with the substance of the documents and 

we wanted a clean version -- 

 DR. BEHLING: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- for final action, which is what 

you have provided for us, so then -- 

 DR. BEHLING: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is the Board prepared to actually 

take action today? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, we are? Okay. Motion to 

approve the quality assurance and the conflict 

of interest plans? Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: So moved. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And seconded? 

 DR. DEHART: Second. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Are there any questions or 

discussion on those? Apparently not. 

All in favor, say aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: And any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, then those two stand 

approved and are in effect. For all practical 

purposes, they were in effect anyway, the 

quality assurance and the conflict of interest, 

but we needed to finally approve them. 

I wanted to clarify or make sure that the 

working group -- which is Tony Andrade, Mark 

Griffon, Rich Espinosa, Wanda Munn and Mike 

Gibson -- that you have a formal wording of 

your charge for -- this is the working group 

now that will be in place before our next 

meeting. We're calling this the -- it says 

here case and audit review work group. This is 

the work -- it's the dose reconstruction -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Case review work group. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Case review, yes. The charge is 

to meet with NIOSH and SC&A personnel on an ad 
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hoc basis as they carry out their activities to 

resolve and to clarify issues that have arisen 

in the dose reconstruction reviews, and to 

conduct preliminary review of the SCA report 

that addresses the issues raised by NIOSH. 

That -- that's the charge that comes from the 

Chair to you for your work. 

 The implication is that if the two groups meet 

in person -- that is, face-to-face -- that you 

will be there pres-- we want a Board's presence 

there. You are not making any decisions on 

behalf of the Board, but you are there to 

provide a Board presence as they seek to 

resolve or deal with differences. And then any 

subsequent report that comes out of that -- 

that is, revisions the SC&A may make -- you 

will do a preliminary review of that prior to 

its coming to the Board for action. 

So this is mainly to assure that that presence 

is there. If it turns out that NIOSH and SC&A 

find that they need to meet by telephone rather 

than in person, then we want to make sure that 

you are involved in the teleconference, as 

well. 

It was also agreed that -- for example, on a 
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face-to-face meeting -- that at least three of 

the five would be present there. We weren't 

mandating that all five be present, but if -- 

if possible, but at least three of the five. 

So that's just to clarify the charge to the 

working group. 

Any questions on that? This does not require 

any action. I'm just clarifying -- the Chair 

has established the work group and is giving 

this charge for them for the next meeting. 

 MS. MUNN: Will you be chairing it, Dr. Ziemer? 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, that -- Tony will be chairing 

it, yes. 

 MS. MUNN: That's what I remembered. I wanted 

to be sure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And Paul, I guess -- I'm just 

sort of -- it's probably going to happen in 

January, so will we have e-mail contacts from -

- from you to --

 DR. ZIEMER: Tony will take the lead and make 

sure -- and -- and -- and I want to make sure 

that both NIOSH and SC&A are both aware of 

this, that Tony needs to be kept informed, and 

please inform the Chair, as well, if and when -

- or when such meetings occur. I'd simply ask 
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that that be done. Okay. And NIOSH will -- 

NIOSH will actually make sure that it occurs. 

Right? 

MR. ESPINOSA: Tony, would you like a list of 

available dates, maybe for January? 

 DR. ANDRADE: That would be helpful. However, 

I think that really we're going to be kind of 

at the mercy of when it's most convenient for 

NIOSH and for SC&A to meet. So I will -- I 

will try and get that information out to you as 

-- as soon as I can. I will either be calling 

Larry and/or Jim for NIOSH and John or Joe for 

SC&A. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Let's proceed 

then. We had a question on the status of the 

Q-clearance access. Who raised that issue? 

Was that -- Jim had raised it. Maybe -- maybe 

-- I think it was just a request for a report 

on that, and is there anyone here that can tell 

us where that stands? I know that -- I believe 

either John Mauro or Joe had written a letter -

- Larry does --

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can help out, I think. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Can you tell us the status of 

that? 
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 MR. ELLIOTT: I hope. I hope I can. The two -

- two individuals from Sanford Cohen & 

Associates that applied for Q clearance have 

now received their background checks and have 

been, I believe, granted the top secret 

clearance necessary for HHS. We have sent a 

letter to DOE asking them to expedite transfer 

of the Q based upon the background check and 

top secret status of those two individuals. 

Both individuals are with one of the teaming 

partners with Sanford Cohen & Associates, so 

Salient has to go forward to DOE and -- and 

explicitly make the request to make this happen 

and make the transfer, but we have entered a 

letter on their behalf to make sure that that 

is expedited, so it should be forthcoming. It 

should be imminent. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So that's moving along then. 

Thank you. And I think all that we asked for 

was that status report. Next --

 MR. GRIFFON: Before we get off that, were 

there any issues -- I think it's only Savannah 

River where there's been -- where SCA is still 

having data access issues. Are those -- is 

that an ongoing issue or is that -- most of 
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those been resolved? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Jim, can you speak to that -- or 

Stu? Stu's got that? 

 MR. HINNEFELD: Are we on? Yeah. It's not 

resolved, but we're resolving. We're engaged 

with Savannah River. There is an open request 

for documentation that I kind of put into three 

categories, mentally. There was some copied 

information apparently at Savannah River that 

the understanding was Savannah River was going 

to send to Sanford Cohen & Associates that 

didn't get there. And I don't have an update 

on that, but I'm -- have asked the question. I 

think I -- I know who had the custody or who -- 

who had control of the documents at Savannah 

River, so I -- I'm pretty confident that will 

be pretty soon. 

There was an itemized list of documents in the 

letter that they -- that Sanford Cohen & 

Associates sent to us saying can you help us 

get these things. Some portion of that is 

being burned onto a disk and should be 

available shortly after Christmas. A portion 

of it -- there was apparently some 

misunderstanding about what the request was 
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for, and so I have clarified the request back 

to Savannah River in terms of what exact 

documents are -- were being asked for. 

And then there were some microfilm images that 

were requested, certain specific microfilm 

images off of certain specific spools of 

microfilm, which is proving pretty problematic 

for Savannah River to obtain and pull off. And 

so a suggestion from Savannah River was that 

perhaps the principal from SC&A could go to 

Savannah River. They would make access 

available to the film machine and copying so 

that that person could select the images 

desired and -- in that fashion, and they 

thought -- Savannah River thought that would be 

quicker than -- than having the specific person 

at Savannah River who had to go look at it, who 

could interpret the images and knew what was 

being asked for, to have time to go do it. 

Okay? 

 Third category in the letter was actually a new 

request within the past week and a half having 

to do some things that we do have control of, 

and we should have that from our contractor 

relatively -- relatively straightfor-- 
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relatively soon. There was a request for 

minutes of a meeting where no minutes were 

taken, no minutes were generated, so I don't 

know exactly what we do about that, but -- I 

don't know if there's some notes that can be 

compiled or not, but that is the status of the 

Savannah River request. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Stu. Yes, Hans? 

 DR. BEHLING: Could I ask Mr. Elliott to 

clarify who the two individuals are whose Q 

clearance is imminent, because I think -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'll do that off-line with you. 

Okay? I don't do that in public. 

 DR. BEHLING: Okay. But there are multiple 

people and on -- on -- and I just -- you know 

what my role is. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Understood, but I --

 DR. BEHLING: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: If you're familiar with national 

security interests, these people with Qs are 

supposed to protect that information, so I'll 

share that with you before we depart. 

 DR. ZIEMER: John Doe and John Smith. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Are there -- are there -- just to 

follow up on that, are there any other out-- 
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outstanding data requests that -- that are 

problematic, I guess, either SCA or... 

UNIDENTIFIED: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: It sounds like no is the answer, 

I don't know. 

 DR. BEHLING: That I'm not sure of. The people 

who are requesting that information are members 

of the SC&A team, and two of them were here, 

but I'm not really party to that particular 

request so I'm not in a position to comment. 

 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't know of any outstanding 

questions, although there was a request for 

access for site experts at the Hanford facility 

for -- as part of the profile review, and the 

contact at Richland, how-- or DOE Richland 

office, for SC&A to make contact with to 

arrange those discussions has been provided to 

SC&A, and that should proceed -- they will run 

into vacation issues for the rest of December. 

It'll be unlikely that they'll have very much 

success at all talking to anybody at Hanford 

until after the first of the year. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you. Another 

carryover item we had from our earlier work 

session was the wording of some caveats that 
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would appear on future copies of our 

contractor's reports -- dose reconstruction 

review reports. We had tasked Tony during the 

break to come up with those caveats, which 

would include the statement that the report had 

not yet been accepted by the Board and that it 

had not yet been reviewed by NIOSH, or 

something to that effect, and you were going to 

-- you perhaps had some additional -- do you 

want to tell us what you are proposing, Tony? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Sure. Of course this is my 

draft. I have -- it certainly can be edited as 

-- as you see fit. However, it does 

incorporate the elements that I also brought up 

during the discussion of develop-- about 

developing this particular set of caveats and 

disclaimers, if you will. What I can do is 

read it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes --

 DR. ANDRADE: The recorder can take it and -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- you're going to propose this 

and let's see. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- we can either act on it now or 

I can send it around by e-mail to everybody, 

but --
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 DR. ZIEMER: No, we need to act on it in open 

session, so --

 DR. ANDRADE: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we'll either --

 DR. ANDRADE: All right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll either accept it or reject 

it or do something with it. We're going to --

 DR. ANDRADE: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're going to propose and we'll 

dispose. 

 DR. ANDRADE: All right. There are some 

abbreviations here, but these could be spelled 

out. The ABRWH and SC&A note that the attached 

report is predecisional -- all in caps. This 

implies that the contents regarding NIOSH 

methods herein have not been reviewed by the 

ABRWH or NIOSH for -- first dash -- scientific 

accuracy -- and second dash -- or applicability 

within the context of the provisions of -- and 

I think this is correct -- 40 CFR 22. Is that 

dose reconstruction? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: 82. 

 DR. ANDRADE: 82. 42? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: 42 CFR part 82. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Incidentally, I believe the 
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statement on technical accuracy probably won't 

be correct. That will have been done, will it 

not? Or factual accuracy. 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Not technical 

(unintelligible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: What were the words that you used? 

 DR. ANDRADE: I said scientific, but I don't 

know if factual is even there. I thought that 

we had agreed that it would be reviewed for 

privacy information. Okay? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Okay. So I'll reread the last 

phrase there -- has not been reviewed by the 

ABRWH or NIOSH for factual accuracy or -- 

second dash -- applicability within the context 

of the provisions of 42 CFR 22, dose 

reconstruction, period. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 82. 

 DR. ANDRADE: 82. 82, okay. This also implies 

that once -- that once reviewed by the ABRWH, 

its conclusions are subject to change, comma, 

or deletion, period. Hence, this report is for 

information only and notice is given that 

premature interpretations regarding its 

conclusions may be irresponsible. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And that is your proposal? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And you're making that as a motion 

then --

 DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and I'll ask for a second, and 

then we'll discuss it. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Second. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Seconded. Actually I believe 

there's three different sort of parts to this, 

the first part being that this is -- you said 

the Board and SCA note that this is 

predecisional? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And has not been reviewed for 

factual accuracy or applicability within the 

requirements of 10 CF -- not 10 -- of 42 CFR 

82. Is that -- am I correct so far? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's -- that's part one. 

 DR. ANDRADE: One. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Part two, this also implies that 

once --

 DR. ANDRADE: Reviewed. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- reviewed, the -- what, the 
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content or the --

 DR. ANDRADE: By the ABRWH --

 DR. ZIEMER: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- its conclusions are subject to 

 DR. ZIEMER: The report's conclusions here, 

you're --

 DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- not the Board's. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Are subject to change or 

deletion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: All right. And the third part is? 

 DR. ANDRADE: Okay. Hence this report is for 

information only and -- well, we can throw this 

other stuff out -- that premature 

interpretations regarding its conclusions -- 

the report's conclusions -- may be 

irresponsible. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now what I'd like to do, I 

think, is -- with your permission, is divide 

the motion into three parts, because I can see 

-- at least it appears to me that one might 

favor portions of this and be concerned about 

other portions and -- or want to handle them in 

a different way. 
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Is that an agreeable approach or do you want to 

do it as one whole fell swoop? 

DR. ROESSLER: I'd like to try the first -- all 

in one... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let me open the floor for 

discussion and we'll just do it that way. It's 

one motion right now. 

Let me point out something, just as kind of a -

- sort of informational item here. I believe 

that the report is the report. That report is 

not subject to change -- I mean that's the -- 

they -- they will be delivering to us the 

product. That's -- the task says bring us your 

report. What is -- I'm trying to differentiate 

here between what we do with it. 

Now it's true, we could say go back and give us 

a different report, or we could say the -- the 

conclusions may not be accepted or may -- or 

whatever. I'm not sure we want to necessarily 

say that the report itself is going to change. 

 DR. ANDRADE: I didn't --

 DR. ZIEMER: You know what -- how I'm trying to 

distinguish between --

 DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- what we do and what our 
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contractor's done. They bring us a report, 

which I think in a sense is the final product. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can always go back and say we 

don't -- we didn't like that report; we want a 

different one. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's why I said the report's 

conclusions, I didn't say the report was 

subject to change. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I gotcha. 

 DR. ANDRADE: But maybe conclusions is too 

closely tied to the report, hence there -- 

there may be a better word. 

DR. ROESSLER: Interpretations? 

 MR. GIBSON: Content of the report? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Interpretation of the report. 

 MR. GIBSON: Content or its findings? 

 DR. ZIEMER: The thrust of what we want to 

accomplish, I believe, is to indicate that the 

Board may accept, may reject or may change what 

it believes its con-- the Board's conclusions 

may be different from the report's. That's 

what we're trying to point out. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Why don't we state it that 
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simply? I mean, you know... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Once reviewed, the -- once the 

report is reviewed, the Advisory Board may 

reach conclusions that differ from those in the 

report. 

Is that -- is that the thrust of it? You're 

simply trying to point out that this -- at this 

juncture it doesn't represent the Board's view, 

and the Board's views may or may not be 

different. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's fine. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And then the last part of Tony's 

sentence there would be -- and therefore this 

report is for information purposes only. I 

agree with that. The part after "only" I have 

a little bit of heartburn about. I could agree 

with everything up till the "only", probably. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's where I... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 DR. ANDRADE: The part after that is... 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- let me take the second part and 

see if you want -- you're regarding that as a 

friendly amendment? Do you want to just say 
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this also implies that the re-- the report's 

conclusions may not -- or the Board's -- the 

Board's positions -- position may not be the 

same as the --

 DR. DEHART: May differ. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- may differ from the report's 

conclusions. Okay. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the second part would be the 

Board's position may -- after review, the 

Board's position may differ from the report's 

conclusions. 

And then the third one -- Mark, you're 

proposing, I think --

 MR. GRIFFON: The Board's positions or the 

Board's recommendations? 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Board's position -- positions 

and recommendations --

 DR. DEHART: There are no recommendations in 

there, per se, are there -- in that report? 

 MS. MUNN: The Board's conclusions. 

 DR. DEHART: But the conclusions. 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, the Board's conclusions. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Positions is fine, I guess. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Board's positions may differ 
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from those -- from the report's conclusions. 

And then the third item would be this report is 

released for information only, and that 

premature interpretation regarding its use may 

be irresponsible. 

Mark, you're proposing that the last phrase be 

dropped, and I think I'll interpret that as a 

proposed amendment and ask if there would be a 

second to dropping that phrase -- and it's 

seconded. Any discussion on dropping the 

phrase? Yes. 

 DR. ANDRADE: That was my whole driver. Okay? 

That was my bottom line driver for even 

volunteering to put this together. That, I 

believe, has to be in there. I am sick and 

tired of personalities taking things out of 

context. I believe either that word stays or 

we just change the word. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other -- other comments on that? 

Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: I think a statement of that type 

definitely needs to be there. I would tweak 

the words a little bit, but from my 

perspective, this statement is part and parcel 

of the message that needs to be conveyed. 
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In the same tone, I would begin that statement 

with the reader should be cautioned, or the 

reader should be warned that -- before the rest 

of the words flow. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Be cautioned that what? 

 MS. MUNN: That this document has not seen the 

light of day. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, we basically said that in 

the first two items. 

 MS. MUNN: I know, but I'm -- I'm speaking to 

two different things here. First I'm 

responding to the question with respect to the 

final statement, and I'm also saying in 

addition to that, before any of the beginning 

statement, I would have added the reader should 

be cautioned or the reader should be warned. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the reader should be 

cautioned that this report is for information 

only? Is that still friendly? And that 

premature interpretation of its conclusions -- 

 MS. MUNN: And interpretation of its 

conclusions is unwarranted and unwise, I would 

say. 

DR. ROESSLER: How about unprofessional? We 

need to tone it down maybe a little bit. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

DR. ROESSLER: Shouldn't have quite so much 

emotion. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- unprofessional, irresponsible, 

all are pretty judgmental. It seem-- why can't 

we just say please don't do it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And interpretation of -- of -- I 

was just going to stop it at "is premature", or 

 DR. ZIEMER: The reader should be cautioned 

that this report is for information only and 

premature --

 MR. GRIFFON: And drawing conclusions from this 

report at this point -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is unwarranted --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- is premature or is --

 DR. ZIEMER: How about drawing premature 

conclusions is unwarranted? How would -- is 

that --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) That's fine. 

 MS. MUNN: How about just drawing conclusions? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is that strong enough, Tony, 

without being too harsh, or -- 

 DR. ANDRADE: That's like -- that's like 
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putting a really big fat boxer's glove my right 

hand instead of letting me hit it with a fist. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's sort of what I'm trying to 

do. 

Well, look, can I make the glove any smaller 

and still... 

 DR. ANDRADE: I'll accept that. That's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Drawing premature -- drawing 

premature -- what was it? 

DR. ROESSLER: Interpretations. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- interpretations, I can't read 

my own writing at this moment -- 

interpretations regarding its content is not 

warranted -- is unwarranted? 

 MR. PRESLEY: Is unwarranted. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Either way. Paul, can I -- can I 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to send Tony after you. 

 DR. ANDRADE: One of my cousins. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask to go back to the 

beginning part again, just to -- just to hear -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: I will read you what I have, and I 

may need help. 

The Advisory Board -- ABRWH, the Advisory 
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Board, and SC&A note that the attached reports 

-- report is predecisional and has not yet been 

reviewed for factual accuracy or applicability 

within the requirements of 42 CFR 82 -- is that 

the right one? 

This also implies that the report's -- this 

implies that the report's conclusions -- I'm 

trying to read my writing. This -- this 

implies that the report's conclusions have not 

been reviewed by the Advisory Board -- wait a 

minute. I've made so many changes I'm having 

trouble reading this. This implies that until 

reviewed by the Advisory Board, the report's 

conclusions are subject to change or deletion. 

The reader should be cautioned that this report 

is for information only, and that premature 

interpretations regarding its conclusions are 

unwarranted. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm con-- now I'm a little 

confused 'cause I thought you were going to 

change that part of subject to change or 

deletion to the Board's positions may differ. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's where I -- I've made so 

many changes that I can't read it. Yes, I 

found it. Yes, the wording is the Board's 
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positions may differ from the report's 

conclusions, rather than subject to change or 

deletion. 

Now do you want to see this before you 

somewhere on the board or... 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) I don't know 

(unintelligible) time but... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you comfortable enough, with 

some -- some polishing, that -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just that front end I wanted to 

discuss for one more -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- one more --

 MS. MUNN: And me. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The factual accuracy review, I 

thought -- I thought that was going to take 

place prior to --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that's why I asked that 

question originally when -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Was factual accuracy the words you 

used in your -- or was it technical -- it's 

factual. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Okay, I said scientific. 

 MS. MUNN: Scientific. 
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 DR. ANDRADE: But I mean --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- it implies factual. When Dr. 

Melius was here, I --

 MR. GRIFFON: That was different, though. 

 DR. ANDRADE: -- thought it was agreed that 

this process --

 DR. ZIEMER: Factual accuracy would -- would 

occur. 

DR. NETON: There is a factual accuracy review 

by NIOSH, but the Board certainly hasn't done 

any factual accuracy review, and that's what I 

was interpreting that to say, but... 

 DR. ANDRADE: Exactly. And I thought that key 

in the review process would be that SC&A sends 

the report to NIOSH, and there is perhaps a 

factual accuracy review, but most importantly, 

there will be a Privacy Act review, and then 

it's sent out --

 DR. ZIEMER: So you're talking about a review 

by us. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, understood. Are you ready 

to vote on the motion? Yes, Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: One more requested word change. In 
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the very first line, instead of "note", can we 

say "warn" -- "warns" rather than "notes", 

because this is intended -- the entire 

statement is intended to be a warning, a 

cautionary statement. 

 MR. GRIFFON: How about "cautions"? 

 MS. MUNN: We've used "caution" down below, but 

-- I really have no objection, I just think 

"notes" is kind of a -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Does "cautions" --

 MS. MUNN: -- weak... 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- sound okay with everybody? 

 MS. MUNN: "Cautions" is fine with me. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. We ready to vote on this? 

We may have to do a little polishing, but you 

understand what the content will be. Okay. 

Yes, Leon? 

MR. OWENS: Would you read the entire language, 

please, Dr. Ziemer, for my -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is just a test, you 

understand. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'll try to read --

 MR. GRIFFON: We want to see if you can. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Somebody take notes. 

 MS. MUNN: Someone write this down. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. One, the Advisory Board and 

SCA caution that the -- that the attached 

report -- attached -- or that this report -- 

UNIDENTIFIED: 

attached. 

(Off microphone) It should be 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) This is a 

cover... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, doesn't this have to 

be stamped on the report? It should be in the 

report, not a -- not a -- not as a cover 

letter. I think it should be stamped on the 

report. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Caution that this report is 

predecisional and has not yet been reviewed for 

factual accuracy or applicability within the 

requirements of 42 CFR 82. 

Two. This implies that the report's content, 

until reviewed by the Advisory Board, is -- 

until reviewed by the Advisory Board, may 

differ -- this is the one I'm having trouble 

with all my mark-up. This implies that the -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Board's positions may differ. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That until reviewed by the 

Advisory Board, the... 
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 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, no. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The positions in the report may 

differ from -- or the -- wait a minute. 

 MR. GRIFFON: One -- this implies that once 

reviewed by the Advisory Board -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes, that -- there's the word, 

once reviewed --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- the positions may -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: This implies that once reviewed by 

the Advisory Board, the Board's positions may 

differ from the report's conclusions. 

That's the word I missed, once. Okay, thank 

you. 

Three -- we okay, Leon? Okay. 

Three, the reader should be cautioned that the 

report is for information only and that 

premature interpretation regarding its 

conclusions is unwarranted. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And just one question that I just 

thought about. At the very beginning we say 

the Board and SCA caution. I don't know that 

we can speak for SCA in our -- in our -- just a 

-- just a question I have. 

 MR. PRESLEY: Shouldn't it just be the Board 

cautions? 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We're asking SCA to put this in 

the report. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's true. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We can ask them to do that, and so 

this caution would come from us and from our 

contractor. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I just wanted to point 

that out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I believe we can do that. Anyone 

disagree? 

Are you ready to vote on this then? Mike, you 

have a comment? 

 MR. GIBSON: One more comment. I think we may 

be better served -- it's just my opinion -- 

that we turn this around to make it positive 

and say that it's the Board's intention to 

share all information that we're legally 

allowed to share with the public until we have 

to enter into deliberations, yada, yada, yada. 

However --

 MR. GRIFFON: The Board cautions, yeah. 

 MR. GIBSON: I mean make it -- make it that 

we're trying to make ourselves -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's a good point. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: It's certainly a good point. Do 

you regard that as a friendly amendment, or you 

can add that -- we could add that as an 

addition, as a separate motion, if you wish? 

You just want --

 MR. GIBSON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. ZIEMER: I -- it sounds like -- does it 

sound like a friendly amendment that we don't 

go through the voting process here? Give us 

your wording on that. Now you have to do it. 

 MS. MUNN: We the members of the Advisory Board 

 MR. GIBSON: The Advisory Board on Radiation 

and Worker Health strongly believe that the 

public has the right to information -- public 

information, and we will -- has a right to 

public information. This report is 

predecisional -- this report has not been 

reviewed by the Advisory Board -- and however 

you want to finish it up. 

DR. ROESSLER: Just tie it together with the 

however. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, go into the however. The 

Board --

 DR. ZIEMER: The Advisory Board strongly 
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believes that the public has a right to early 

access to its --

 MR. GIBSON: To public information. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, the public has a right to 

public information --

 MR. GIBSON: That's right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to early access to the Board's 

 MR. GIBSON: Work products or predecisional -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Board --

 DR. DEHART: This information, just -- early 

access to this information. 

 DR. ZIEMER: To the information herein. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's fine. 

 DR. ZIEMER: However, and then the rest of it. 

We okay on that? 

 Thank you, that's a good suggestion. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Can you just read that over? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know if I can. 

MR. ESPINOSA: Motion to adjourn? 

 DR. ZIEMER: You want everything or just this 

last addition? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Just the new part. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The Advisory Board on Radiation 

and Worker Health strongly believes that the 
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public has the right to early access to the 

information contained herein. However -- and 

then we can continue with the cautionary stuff. 

 MS. MUNN: Can we not say in accordance with 

the strong position of the ABRWH -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 MS. MUNN: -- regarding --

 DR. ZIEMER: That's a better --

 MS. MUNN: -- public access --

 DR. ZIEMER: That's a better way of saying the 

same thing. In accordance with the -- 

 MS. MUNN: Strong position --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- strong position --

 MS. MUNN: -- of ABR--

 DR. ZIEMER: -- of the Advisory Board -- 

 MS. MUNN: -- on Radiation --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to provide the public with 

early access --

 MS. MUNN: To provide all possible access -- or 

you know, all -- it's -- it depends on which 

way you want to cast the light. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In accordance with the Advisory 

Board's strong position that -- 

 MS. MUNN: Regarding open access -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- that the public should have -- 
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 DR. DEHART: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

use transparent? 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- have what, open access? 

 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- to the information contained 

herein --

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now I've lost some continuity 

here. In accordance with the Advisory Board's 

DR. ROESSLER: Well, saying the Advisory Board 

unanimously -- something and make a sentence 

out of it. 

 MS. MUNN: In accordance with the na, na, na, 

na, na, na, na, this material is made available 

for public viewing, then period. However... 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now this is -- this is starting to 

get a little thorny for a last-minute -- would 

you like the Chair to simply -- I think we know 

the intent of this. Do you want to do the 

wordsmithing at the table or do you just want 

to authorize -- and if you don't like the way -

- and we're going to -- this is going to appear 

-- what -- what we'll do is get a version that 

you can see and look at and really embrace. I 
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think we're going to get too fragmented here. 

We'll have something that they can use before 

the next meeting, if necessary. And if it 

isn't quite right, we'll -- is that agreeable? 

I want you to vote on this and tell us this is 

the idea, and we may have one or two words that 

aren't quite right --

 MR. GRIFFON: But the intent will remain. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Huh? 

 MR. GRIFFON: The intent will remain. 

 DR. ZIEMER: The intent is there. Allow us a 

little bit of -- of wordsmithing. Wanda, you 

can help me get that sentence before you leave 

today. 

 MS. MUNN: I will. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now let's vote on this and 

move forward. All in favor, aye? 

 (Affirmative responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any opposed, no? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any abstentions? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. ZIEMER: Good, we'll -- we'll polish that 

up. Thank you. And -- and Liz, we'll get you 

a -- some kind of clean copy before we leave 
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here. Okay? Or do you need it today? 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Just whenever. It doesn't 

have to be today. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: I was just a little lost on 

it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Now the other item I have on this, 

but we -- we may have already solved it, at 

least for the next meeting. That's the dose 

reconstruction subcommittee's role as we go 

forward. 

 MR. GRIFFON: We've solved it for the next 

meeting? 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, we haven't, for the long 

range. But Mark, that was -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You asked that that be on the work 

group agenda at least, so -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I mean understanding that 

it's a little late in the day to -- to wrap our 

brains around this, I -- I think that -- you 

know, the original intent had about eight scope 

item -- as we pointed out the other day, and 

especially -- you know, I don't mind the idea 

of four Board meetings a year, but with that in 
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mind, I think we're going to have issues about 

what goes on in those three-month periods. 

There -- there could be activities where we 

need some sort of Board process to take place 

to keep things moving along, you know, and I 

think that was part of the original idea of the 

formation of the subcommittee, that we could do 

-- do some of those functions on behalf of the 

Board and --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: You know, some of those scope 

items I think involved even the interaction 

with the contractor on issues -- clarification 

of scope was one thing. Certainly the notion 

of trying to do some of these roll-up reports 

ahead of time, then to bring to the Board so 

that everyone didn't have to go through every -

- every piece. And I think also the original 

intent of the subcommittee was to sort of have 

a rotating -- and I know now we have everyone 

on listed, but I thought we were -- originally 

intended to have initial five people, and then 

sort of rotate it so we rotated the burden of -

-

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: -- of that work. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And also to use them as the teams, 

as we did before. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: One of the issues now that will be 

an ongoing issue with that is that any time 

that subcommittee is going to meet, we have to 

go through the announcement process. It's an 

open meeting. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And the only -- only way to 

authorize that group to act on our behalf is to 

specify, I believe in advance, what they're 

authorized to do and --

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- Liz or somebody -- in other 

words, they do not have a free hand simply to 

act for the Board -- sort of an ad hoc basis. 

It has to be specified in advance, you are 

authorized to make a decision on our behalf on 

this particular issue. So that all has to be -

-

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, no, you cannot authorize them 

to make decisions. You can authorize them to 

perform work --
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 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and bring a recommended 

decision to the Board -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, it's to perform work. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- or recommended product to the 

Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: They cannot act on behalf of the 

Board then -- I mean --

 MR. ELLIOTT: They can act on behalf of the 

Board in doing work --

 DR. ZIEMER: But not decisions. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- but not making -- not coming 

forward with a decision that the rest of the 

Board has to swallow. 

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

-- you know, I almost think that what we've 

done for this -- between now and next meeting, 

by setting up the work group to work with NIOSH 

and SCA with those first 20 cases, I sort of 

originally viewed that as sort of a 

subcommittee task, that that's what the 

subcommittee would be doing. Now maybe -- I 

mean -- you know, the only thing -- the only 

reason I wouldn't want to continue that 

function with a work group is actually two-
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fold. One is that work groups aren't supposed 

to do ongoing work, as we've heard before. And 

secondly, that it -- you know, it would appear 

maybe to be as these behind-the-doors process 

that we want to -- you know, we want to try to 

keep this as --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, and if it's --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- as much open as possible. 

 DR. ZIEMER: If it's a subcommittee, if you're 

going to have, for example, three or four or 

five people do all 20 cases for a particular 

batch, then there's a tremendous burden on -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No. If you have the subcommittee 

do this, you have to have a Federal Register 

notice. It has to be available to the public -

-

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, I -- I understand. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- in an open forum --

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm trying --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- or a closed forum, depending 

upon --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- the discussion topic. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I understand. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: If you have a work group do it, 
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it doesn't have to be publicly announced. I'm 

not --

 MR. GRIFFON: I know. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- steering you one way or the 

other, I'm just trying -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- to remind you of what a work 

group can do versus a subcommittee. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I understand. I --

 DR. ZIEMER: Our understanding was the ongoing 

routine handling of these, in essence, removes 

it from being eligible for work group kinds of 

activities. It's --

 MR. ELLIOTT: That is correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's a repetitive kind of function 

that is --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: But I understood this work group 

is to deal with this first -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, this --

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- 20 cases. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, this one, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, this --

this work group that we just described was to -

- to deal with those first 20 in the sense of -
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-

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- getting that final report in 

place. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But I'm saying for future -- 

yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Moving forward, but --

 DR. ZIEMER: But moving forward in terms of 

handling on-- upcoming cases and so on -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I mean can we -- can we assign a 

new work group each time we -- you know, I -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think the answer no, since it's 

a reoccurring --

 MR. GRIFFON: Because it's a --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Because the charge you're giving 

is the same charge, you're just realigning the 

work group. That's not going to work. FACA 

won't let you do that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I mean, so this is 

what I've been struggling with for the last 

year is how can -- you know, we want to have 

the ability to work with the contractor, but 

the subcommittee process makes it difficult. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Very difficult. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: On the other hand, we -- you 

know, you want to -- openness to the process. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right, it's very difficult. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So it's very difficult, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But I think, you know -- one 

reason I think we have to do something is, you 

know, we've got -- I guess I'm getting tired of 

throwing up our hands and saying -- you know, 

'cause we're going to have train wrecks like we 

did the other day at every meeting, where we 

come with 20 cases and as a full Board we try 

to sort through them and we -- we get nowhere. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We've been over this ground and 

over this ground, and I thought you'd come to a 

decision that a subcommittee was the way you 

wanted to go, that -- that it would be a public 

forum --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- unless you needed to have a 

disc-- closed session discussion on Privacy 

Act-related --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- stuff. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So that's what I'm saying. I 
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think we just have to set up some in between 

the meetings prob-- or I don't know if we -- if 

it's premature to set them up, but we have to 

try to time that --

 DR. ZIEMER: To set up what, though? 

 MR. GRIFFON: So --

 MR. ELLIOTT: I think that's the key. I think 

you have to come -- I think what's -- what's 

being missed here is you have to tell the 

subcommittee what it is you want them to do at 

the next -- their next scheduled meeting. Of 

the eight -- eight tasks within their charge, 

they have to understand what they're to be 

working on. That's the authority the Board 

gives them. You go work on task three this 

next meeting. That's what we want you to do. 

Come back with --

 MR. GRIFFON: And I'm saying -- I'm saying the 

charge would be similar to what the work group 

is charged with this time, that the charge 

would be to -- you know, it -- I'm not saying 

for the subcommittee to do all 20 cases. I'm 

saying we have the same process where we assign 

cases to all -- all members of the Board, and 

then --
-- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: And then take the wrap-up and then 

 MR. GRIFFON: The member -- all -- each twoteam group submits their comments to the 

subcommittee, and the subcommittee meets with 

SCA/NIOSH and goes through this deliberative 

process to come out with a final roll-up report 

to bring back --

 DR. ZIEMER: To the full Board. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- to the full Board, yeah. 

That's the notion -- that's what -- sorry, 

maybe I wasn't very clear with that. And then, 

you know, I -- I mean it's -- certainly we have 

everybody on the subcommittee -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: So the only real difference in 

what we did this time would be that that sub-- 

that part of the subcommittee would get the -- 

the stuff from each of our teams and -- and 

assist in the wrap-up process -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- prior to the full Board. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And that could either be done in a 

separate meeting -- you know, a couple of weeks 

before the meeting --
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 MR. GRIFFON: Or the day before. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- or it could be done the day 

before. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: In which case it would be doing 

what we did Monday of this week. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, but we -- we -- but we 

didn't do it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: That's what I'm saying. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: I mean where you're putting that 

middle step in there to get some of that work 

done, the real work where you take 20 cases and 

you look for tren-- I mean summarize all -- you 

summarize what you can from the 20 cases. 

You're not going to go case -- you're not going 

to come back to the Board and say okay, let's 

go through case one, case two, case three. 

You're going to say out of this batch, here's 

some of what was found. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's function number seven of 

your --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- subcommittee ta-- charge. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: I remember writing it, yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Function number seven says 

compile the review panel's recommendations and 

findings, including dose reconstruction review 

summary reports, site profile review reports, 

for submission to the Board. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. So that -- yeah, that was 

the original intent of the way we worked this 

up. And I think one thing we'll have to deal 

with in the subcommittee meeting is probably 

part of it, at this point, is going to have to 

be closed because we are going to be dealing 

with the -- the case -- you know, the 

individual cases and the Privacy -- you know, 

the identifiable information. We might be able 

to draft -- in that meeting I think we have to 

try to draft a summary, and then maybe have a 

second part of that meeting -- maybe it's only 

an hour or so -- that -- that we reveal that 

summary and go over that summary. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You're still seeing this as the 

meeting that occurs the day before the full 

Board, as opposed to somewhere back -- 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Either way. It could be back or 

it could be the day before, right. So I'm -- I 

guess -- I don't know, do -- I didn't know that 

we had to make a motion to task the 

subcommittee with something that's already 

listed as a task. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's already there. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay, that's what I was -- yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's already tasked. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: My point was just that the 

subcommittee needs to have a general 

understanding from the Board as to what it's 

going to do at that meeting, that's all. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I agree. I agree. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I mean which one of these things 

-- you know, I think it's covered, but if what 

we're talking about is rolling up reviews into 

a general summary, that's number seven. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right. Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay? So no actual -- no 

particular action is needed here. I mean it 

basically is covered, but we have to do it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. We have to schedule it. 

We have to do it, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Have to schedule it. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry this is so complex, but 

to -- one thing we have to be very careful with 

is when you decide you need to close session, 

we have to provide a determination to close, 

and the only thing that can be discussed in 

that closed session is what is announced as 

being the purpose for the closed session. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: So you're saying we can't lay out 

a long-term schedule because we won't know 

exactly what's going to be covered in -- 

 DR. DEHART: Well, you don't need closed 

session for that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, I don't think I'm saying 

that. I'm just saying that if you know you're 

going -- your subcommittee is going to have a 

closed session to do this type of work, then 

that's the only thing that can be done in that 

closed session. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's all I'm saying. 

 DR. ZIEMER: You would have to announce that 

for each one. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: In the open session of the 
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subcommittee, you can take on any number of 

these --

 MR. GRIFFON: I gotcha. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- these charges. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I gotcha, okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You know, as long as that Board 

knows that's what the subcommittee's going to 

do. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I gotcha, okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: But for the benefit of the 

public's understanding and getting at this 

issue of transparency --

 MR. GRIFFON: This is what's going on. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- just the whole idea of going 

into closed session just gets -- is a burr 

under people's saddle. And we're required to 

make sure that the determination to close 

speaks specifically to why it's -- why the 

meeting is being closed, and that's the only 

conduct of business in that closed session. 

 MR. GRIFFON: No, right, I understand. I 

agree, yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay? 

 MR. GRIFFON: So I -- I think we're set -- I 

mean the next meeting we have a subcommittee 
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meeting set up. Right? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And we have a closed session that 

we're --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- talking about. Have we 

decided what the closed session item -- 

discussion item is? It's those 20-case roll-up 

report that --

 DR. ZIEMER: It's basically --

 MR. GRIFFON: We're covered for the next -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's my understanding. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, right. And it's covered 

under that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Any other -- are there any 

other items that we need to discuss today? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just -- well, just related to 

this whole thing. I mean the only other thing 

is, in between -- in be-- I'm just trying to 

think of the communica-- ongoing communication 

questions. While SCA's working on these 

obviously the subcommittee can't, as a body, 

communicate or direct or -- so right now I 

think what -- what's -- Paul, you've been 
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speaking on --

 DR. ZIEMER: You're talking about the work 

group or the --

 MR. GRIFFON: No, no, I'm talking about ongoing 

work by the subcontractor on site profiles, on 

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- case reviews --

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- whatever, if -- if there's -- 

there's a request to you for -- I -- I guess 

all the direction for the subcontractor between 

these meetings has to come from you at this 

point. Right? 

 DR. ZIEMER: There will be some direction for 

the subcontractor that actually will come from 

Dr. Wade, who will --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- and David Staudt, who will work 

with them on establishing whatever incremental 

cost increments are associated with what looks 

like some additional work within the task, and 

-- and we --

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- basically authorized Mr. Wade 
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to proceed to do that on our behalf, so that -- 

that will occur, and I think he's already set 

up some time to -- to work with them and define 

what that will be, and identify the cost -- 

incremental costs associated with that. 

 Other than that, the contractor has its scopes 

of -- scopes of work for the various tasks, 

which it's following, I'm -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: And if the -- I guess the things 

I was thinking about is if -- if, down -- if it 

becomes an issue of access to records at a 

certain site or certain --

 DR. ZIEMER: Oh --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- other work they're doing -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- when those things occur, what 

actually happens is that John Mauro typically -

-

 MR. GRIFFON: Notifies --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- send -- or -- or one of his 

staff, but usually it comes through John. I 

get noted on it, Larry gets noted on it. 

Usually the action involves NIOSH people in 

assisting, for example, in getting these 

clearances and so on, that -- that sort of 

thing. But typically I'm notified as these 
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things occur. When these -- when these 

contacts occur or there's access requested, 

they're supposed to keep me notified on that so 

we know what the contractor's doing relative to 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just trying to think through 

things that --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- that would unnecessarily hold 

up, you know, their work or their progress, so 

I -- but I think we're -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- okay. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. You may not really believe 

it 'cause you're all tired, but we're actually 

early. Anyone have some other things they want 

to talk about for 20 more minutes? 

If there's no further business to come before 

us, we stand adjourned till next time. 

 (Whereupon, an adjournment was declared at 4:15 

p.m.)