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 

WORKGROUP MEETING 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

PART 2 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

Workgroup held in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Aug. 4, 2005. 
 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

Aug. 4, 2005 

WORKGROUP DISCUSSION 6 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 67 
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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 

(In Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D.

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

MEMBERSHIP 

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 

OTHERS: 

ALLEN, DAVID, NIOSH

BEHLING, HANS, SC&A

BLOOM, CINDY, MJW

BROCK, DENISE, UNWW

CASE, DIANE, DOL

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS

GUIDO, JOSEPH, MJW

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS/OGC

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS/OGC

KATZ, TED, NIOSH 
 

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KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

LIPSZTEIN, JOYCE, SC&A

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MILLER, RICHARD, GAP

NETON, JIM, NIOSH

SAMSON, BOB, GAO

SHEFFITS, SANDRA, GAO

TAULBEE, TIM, NIOSH 

STAFF/VENDORS

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter

JONICA MUELLER, Certified Court Reporter 
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 P R O C E E D I N G S 

(Whereupon, the following occurred after the 

break. See transcript, Part 1.) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Hans, are you still there with 

us? 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) Yes, I am. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. We --

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

my question is does everybody have a copy of 

(unintelligible). 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yes, we -- we've got your -- 

we've got the copy now, so -- 

 DR. BEHLING: (Off microphone) Let me 

(unintelligible) what I believe is a 

(unintelligible) of what the problem may be, 

and I'll (unintelligible) confine myself to the 

(unintelligible) first set of (on microphone) 

conversions which (off microphone) converts the 

HP-10 or (unintelligible). 

(NOTE: An apparent malfunction of the 

telephone connection rendered only random words 

intelligible to the reporter, but were not in a 

sequence sufficient to provide any context to 

Dr. Behling's statement.) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I -- Jim, if you want to 

respond now, I -- I think, Hans -- this is Mark 
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Griffon. I feel like this is a task three 

issue that's going to cut across a lot of 

sites, and I'm not sure that it really is in -- 

I mean even if -- even if this values are 

incorrect, I don't think it limits us from 

being able to do dose reconstruction. They 

just have to correct them if -- if that comes 

out of our task three review. But I don't -- I 

don't know that it holds up -- I don't want it 

to sidetrack our Mallinckrodt process. 

Jim, if you wanted to respond briefly -- 

DR. NETON: Well, I'm -- we -- we've seen this 

comment before in the task three report and 

we're -- we certainly feel that it's -- it's a 

significant issue that we need to address. 

We're not prepared at this meeting to address 

that because, frankly, this is not one of the 

issues raised in the site profile review. I do 

agree this is more of a generic issue that 

certainly demands attention, but I'm -- I'm 

frankly just not prepared to address it here at 

this meeting. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think we'll -- we'll save that 

for our task three review, which I think is 

going to be sooner rather than later, so -- 
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Arjun has one point. Hold on. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, Mark and Jim, the -- the 

reason that John and Hans and I talked about it 

-- I've -- just going over all the issues and I 

was trying to get a grip on what all there is 

to address, is depending on how the Board acts 

in Mallinckrodt, if the dose reconstructions 

are going to be done for Mallinckrodt in an 

expeditious way, then it presumes that this 

very major issue will be sorted out and if in 

fact Hans is right that things need to be 

adjusted and there's another factor of two 

because of angle and these dose conversion 

factors need to be changed, then obviously it 

needs to be addressed reasonably soon and 

presumably in principle it can be addressed, I 

don't know. It's -- it came up in that context 

and that's why -- I don't know, John, if I'm 

out of turn, but that's why we thought it was 

appropriate to introduce it here. 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, basically it was my call from 

talking to -- and look -- you know what really 

triggered it, when we saw the 2.1 adjustment 

factor to account for the geometry that was 

part of your TIB, that's when we decided to 
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talk about well, are there any other adjustment 

factors in this -- said well, yeah, but -- and 

-- and we thought, given the expedited nature 

of this particular process, we needed to alert 

the Board as early as possible to this issue 

and -- as opposed to waiting until October when 

our task three expedited review would start. 

So I -- I -- I think we've accomplished what we 

wanted to --

DR. NETON: Right. 

DR. MAURO: -- just simply to alert the Board 

that we think we have an important issue here, 

two points that Hans made, the orientation and 

the dose conversion factors. And I think we -- 

 MR. TAULBEE: (By telephone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, sure. 

 MR. TAULBEE: (Unintelligible) couple of things 

(unintelligible) briefly touch on 

(unintelligible) we did not (unintelligible) 

dose reconstruction (unintelligible). 

 DR. BEHLING: And I agree with you, Tim, but 

(unintelligible). 

 MR. TAULBEE: (Unintelligible) particular 

comment and (unintelligible) appropriate 

(unintelligible). 
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 DR. BEHLING: (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think we're -- I -- I think we 

need to address this under task three. I do 

understand the question of, you know, it does 

roll into feasibility. It's not within these 

priority issues, though, as laid out. 

I would say on -- on John's point, I don't know 

that it has to wait for this October review. I 

think this was in the initial task three 

procedures review, so I think some of these 

items we'll be able to address and I -- I think 

this will be on the schedule for the next 

meeting coming up in St. Louis at the end of 

the month. So you know, I think it needs to be 

addressed sooner than later, I agree with that. 

I don't think it's within the scope of what 

we're discussing today, so -- any other 

comments on... 

 (No responses) 

Maybe we can move on to item four? 

DR. NETON: (Off microphone) Okay. Item 4 is 

related to the use of the chronic exposure 

intake assumptions versus acute intakes that 

may have -- may have occurred in the course of 

the workplace. And I put together -- actually 
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Dave Allen, with my oversight, has put together 

a -- a workup on this to provide some example 

cases. We're passing around to the Board -- 

and there's certainly copies available at the 

back of the room -- these examples, but they 

really lend themselves to presentation format. 

I just provide them for -- for the record, and 

what -- what we've done is -- and I'll set the 

stage and then I'll let Dave explain the logic 

sequence behind what we have here. 

But we tried to take a worker who had a fair 

amount of bioassay data, and that's what you 

see presented on the screen here and in Table 1 

of -- of the handout. Clearly this person had 

a fairly high amount of uranium excretion over 

a decade period. This is actually Mallinckrodt 

data. It's -- I'm wary of using hypothetical 

data anymore so this is real -- a real worker. 

And what you see here is a combination of 

fairly large exposures coupled with some nondetectables, and then some -- you know, much 

higher exposures by a factor of five or six, 

these 43 picocurie per day intakes. So this 

is a mixture of a -- what you might think as a 

chronic and acute exposure scenario. 
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I think what we have here is scenario number 

one, which is if NIOSH were to take and model 

this person's exposure using a complete chronic 

exposure sequence. In other words, just assume 

he was chronically exposed from day one, and 

you see the fit curve through the -- through 

the analyses. And that -- that results in a -- 

an intake of 1.94 time ten to the seventh 

picocuries of uranium. Now that's ignoring all 

of those acute intakes that occurred that are 

above that line -- it doesn't ignore them, it 

just -- it just does not model them explicitly. 

And I think what you'll see is as you try -- as 

you go closer and closer to reality in modeling 

this person's intake -- I won't -- don't want 

to give away the story here, but the intakes 

actually drop as you start getting closer to 

reality. Maybe Dave won't have to talk. I'm 

doing pretty good so far. 

MR. ALLEN: (Unintelligible) 

DR. NETON: He'll be the judge of that. He'll 

answer any of the questions after I muddle the 

works here. Oop, I skipped a scenario. 

All right, scenario number two is an -- is the 

same urine data where we've said okay, well, 
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what if we do model one of these acutes 

specifically -- or explicitly, and I think this 

scenario included an intake on January 15th, 

1950, which is the mid-point between the 

highest sample on June 6th and the previous 

sample, so you'll see that here graphically 

depicted, the high spike that goes off the 

scale what the predicted excretion value would 

be. But we've added -- Dave has added one 

acute intake into this chronic exposure 

scenario to model the worker's case. And what 

you end up seeing here is the intake is 1. -- 

about 1.8 times ten to the seventh picocuries 

lower than what you'd expect just using a 

chronic model. 

 Okay, chronic intake number three -- or number 

three was the same -- and by the way, these all 

assume a chronic intake, and then we're adding 

in acute intakes on top of that. So intake 

scenario number three, we have a chronic 

intake, but we also had an acute intake -- I 

think it was -- was it on the first day of 

employment, Dave, or -- 

MR. ALLEN: (Off microphone) Halfway between 

the start of employment and the first sample. 
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DR. NETON: Okay, so halfway, which is the 

traditional intake analysis. You pick at the 

midpoint and you -- you model it, and what ends 

up happening here in scenario three is the dose 

-- the intake is 1.4 times ten to the seventh 

picocuries per (unintelligible). Remember the 

first exposure scenario was 1.9 times ten to 

the seventh. These are all variants of ten to 

the seventh, I think. 

 Scenario number four says okay, well, there -- 

there are a lot of datapoints above that 

chronic line. Let's model two acute intakes in 

here, and you can see that we're starting to 

connect the dots more and more, and this is 

really the ultimate game of bioassay analysis 

intake is to connect the dots and you get the 

total intake. As you connect these dots even 

more with two modeled explicit intakes, the 

intake now projects to 1. -- about 1.3 times 

ten to the seventh picocuries, so that's 

scenario number four. 

Scenario number five says let's take the 

chronic intake and I think what happened here 

is we moved it around to do a little better fit 

to some of the data. It's a similar situation, 
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but what you end up with is -- let me see here 

-- again, 1.4 times ten to the seventh. 

What we're trying to show here is it's fairly 

insensitive to how you model these -- these 

intakes -- acute intakes in the middle of these 

scenarios. 

Now number six is a little different. We said 

well, what -- what happens if we just throw 

these datapoints out? We took the two highest 

datapoints that are on this graph here in 

scenario six and said they never even occurred; 

we didn't even know about them. And then you 

fit a chronic intake. 

 The first intake, the pink graph that you see 

on the screen is -- is the first intake that we 

got, which is 1.9. You throw those two 

datapoints out completely, you end up at about 

1.4 picocuries per liter, which is very cons-- 

1.5 -- not per liter, times ten to the seventh 

picocuries, which is not that different from 

the intakes when we started to model those 

separate acute intakes. 

So the whole point of this analysis, and we can 

look through it, is -- is the -- this is a 

fairly -- the chronic intake scenario that's 
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selected is fairly insensitive to all these 

acute intakes that -- that were modeled. 

And I think the last part of this presentation 

speaks to -- the total intake that you want to 

project from a bioassay analysis is really 

related to the area under the curve. In other 

words, if you collected all -- connected all 

the dots of a person's excretion pattern, you 

would end up with a unit of picocurie per liter 

days, that's the -- an integration of the 

entire person's urinary excretion. That's not 

exactly what their intake was, but their -- 

their dose is directly related to how much 

uranium they excreted. So the more you connect 

the dots, the more accurate picture you get of 

that person's intake. 

When you start using and applying these 

chronics that overestimate a lot of points, you 

end up over-predicting the intake using the 

chronic model -- as in this demonstration -- 

rather than connecting all the individual dots, 

and that's really the point of this Table 2. 

It shows as the goodness of fit gets better to 

the individual points, the intake goes down -- 

the projected intake goes down. And that's 
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because these chronic, over-arching values, 

these little -- the blips of acutes above the 

chronic intakes are not so significant that 

they -- they make up massive amounts of extra 

dose or -- or intake. 

I think that's it in a nutshell, Dave. If 

there's anything else you want to say here that 

-- that I've missed, then please do. 

MR. ALLEN: No, you did a good job, Jim. 

DR. NETON: Thank you. 

MR. ALLEN: I just wanted -- I think Jim 

pointed it out. I just wanted to basically 

reiterate, it's that from all the modeling 

we've done so far in this program it just 

always seems like the -- the chronic is where 

the big bang for the buck is, so to speak. It 

just takes a small change in the chronic intake 

rate and you're essentially multiplying it by 

thousands of days 'cause we're modeling 

careers. So even a small change in the chronic 

intake rate can make a large difference in the 

dose. Any time you add an acute intake or an 

assumption to modeling the urinalysis, that 

chronic intake rate drops. And even a small 

drop can make a huge difference in the total 
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dose that this person's getting. 

DR. NETON: Right. In other words, there's 

competing interests going on here. As you add 

acute intakes, the assumed chronic model has to 

drop to accommodate the residual excretion from 

the acute intake and therefore you're 

subtracting from your long-term total intake by 

-- by explicitly adding these chronics. So 

it's been our experience, and Dave summarized 

it well, that the -- it really is -- at the end 

of the day, the chronic models are -- and I 

think most dosimetrists that you'll talk to 

that do this on a day-to-day basis would agree 

with that. 

DR. MAURO: Jim, I have a question, and this is 

-- when we're in a situation like this I'd like 

to sort -- I take my hat off and say -- and 

just step away from our roles and ask ourselves 

a question. This is certainly a very 

compelling argument. There's no doubt about 

it, the example you have here. And I like to 

ask the question that says well, are there 

certain circumstances where we could be 

surprised. In other words, certainly in this 

example, bulletproof. 
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But as -- let's say a person's sort of 

exploring the idea of (unintelligible) IMBA and 

dealing with the real world of people who get 

exposed to different radionuclides and using 

the bioassay data, are there circumstances that 

you -- you -- you folks as experts and they say 

well, you know, there are certain circumstances 

where spikes could really result in a surprise 

and we'd better watch out -- 'cause I don't 

know of any, but I was wondering if you folks 

have any thoughts on that. 

DR. NETON: You know, certainly, you can always 

be surprised. I mean Dave -- Dave might be 

able -- he's done a lot more cases than I have, 

but you can be surprised. I think, you know, 

we need to look at the totality of the picture 

here. I mean we're talking about a case file, 

a worker with bioassay. We -- we've done some 

interviews. Could there have been an intake of 

-- an acute intake of sufficient magnitude to 

completely rock this whole premise and -- and 

make it errant -- I've tried to do that. I 

tried to think -- and this is -- I got together 

with Dave. I tried coming up with my own 

scenarios. One could come up with these in 
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scenarios, but they're extremely implausible. 

You end up having -- let's say, for instance, 

we were just showing ten to the seventh, ten to 

the sixth picocurie per year intakes from a 

chronic model. That's microcuries per year 

intakes, huge. For one then to speculate that 

there may have been a -- an -- a couple acute 

exposure scenarios that would completely negate 

that analysis is pretty hard to project. You 

know, you would -- for uranium, for example, 

you would have to get into hundreds of MAC air 

for a very extended period of time, which at 

some point I'd argue would become chronic. But 

to have like a one-hour -- what -- what you 

hear anecdotally from workers a lot is there 

was an incident that -- and I left the area. 

Well, there you're talking about a one, maybe 

two, three-hour exposure. It would have had to 

have been -- in relation to this ten to the 

fifth, ten to the sixth, ten to the seventh 

picocurie intake -- somewhere close to that to 

even make it -- a huge difference, and we've 

already demonstrated that even that in itself 

would bring the chronic model down. So I -- I 

think it's hard -- it's hard to come up with, 
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but never say never. I mean I'm sure one could 

-- could finagle some calculation that would -- 

would maybe show this is not perfect, but I -- 

I think it's -- it's reasonable. I think 

that's as far as I can go. 

DR. MAURO: Thank you. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) I didn't hear 

everything. 

DR. NETON: Uh-huh. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) 

MR. ALLEN: What we're saying is if you assume 

there was no acute intake and you model the 

urinalysis as if it was a chronic, then that 

chronic ends up being increased because of the 

-- any samples that were taken after that acute 

in that chronic modeling ends up giving you 

more total dose than if you realized you had an 

acute intake and you modeled that in there with 

it -- in general. There --

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) modeling the 

results (unintelligible) intake 

(unintelligible)? 

MR. ALLEN: We're modeling the samples as if it 

was a constant chronic. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) lower 
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(unintelligible) and after (unintelligible)? 

MR. ALLEN: Well, the example on the -- on the 

-- I know you can't see it, Joyce, but the 

example here is basically the individual's 

urinalysis for his whole career, and we simply 

threw a chronic intake over his entire career. 

Some of those spikes are -- are most definitely 

a chronic -- or I'm sorry, an acute type of 

intake but we just modeled it as a chronic. 

Then we started to get a little more exact on 

this individual and modeled some of these 

acutes along with an underlying chronic for his 

career, and as we modeled these acutes the 

chronic drops because the chronic was driven by 

all the samples. And now when you throw some 

acutes in there, the chronic is driven by the -

- the lower samples. So with the chronic 

dropping and multiplying that by an entire 

career, in this case over 4,000 days, you end 

up subtracting quite a bit just by adding in 

the acutes. It's kind of counter-intuitive. 

And in general what we've seen before is the 

more exact you get in your fitting, the closer 

you get to connecting the dots, the -- the 

lower it's going to get compared to just 
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modeling the entire career as a chronic. It's 

something that's easier to show than to 

demonstrate empirically. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) you have to 

(unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: Sorry, I missed your last sentence 

there, Joyce. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) I'm saying 

that (unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: Yeah, and that's what we're saying. 

 DR. LIPSZTEIN: (Unintelligible) not sure 

(unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: Okay. Okay. Boy, does that mean 

we're down to number five? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think we're down to number 

five, yeah. 

DR. NETON: Wow. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 

DR. NETON: That was -- oh, four, is there 

another part of four? No, that was done, four. 

Okay, number five, (unintelligible) of dose for 

unmonitored workers. Okay, this -- this is 

related to the site profile evaluation that -- 

that SC&A did where there was some data that 

indicated there were environmental releases of 
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at least uranium out the stack. And we -- we 

went back and did locate the -- the report, 

it's a couple of pages of data that were not 

air sample data but were stack emissions, I 

believe. And, you know, like most facilities -

- especially uranium facilities -- there are 

stack emissions and so then the question is do 

we assign nothing to people who were not 

monitored, or what do we assign them. 

And we've looked at that and in discussing this 

among ourselves, we believe that it's going to 

be unlikely that we can assign zero dose to 

anybody. I mean many people walked through the 

plants. They -- they frequented areas, the 

controls were not as good, so -- I'm stretching 

here because I forgot exactly what our position 

was. I think that we're -- it's -- it's in the 

document that we provided, but I believe that 

we're going to provide the distribution of -- 

of exposures for the workers to the unmonitored 

workers. Is that right, Cindy? Is that what 

we came to that con-- that would be our -- the 

distribution itself, because we just don't -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Instead of the 95th. Right? 

DR. NETON: Instead of the 95th. We just don't 
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know. We just really don't know in a 

particular -- a person could be recorded as a 

secretary one day, but then have an unmonitored 

period somewhere else and you wouldn't -- an 

unrecorded -- you wouldn't be able to 

definitively at least defend what we've done, 

so we're proposing the best we're going to be 

able to do, we believe, here is to assign the 

distribution for the doses for the facility. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Did -- did you -- did you in any 

way consider that proposal against some of the 

environmental data that Arjun was discussing 

and whether the --

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- you can defend the fact that 

it --

DR. NETON: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- be a claimant-favorable 

approach compar--

DR. NETON: Well --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- comparatively? I -- I -- it 

seems like if --

DR. NETON: You know, we haven't done that 

definitively, Mark. I think you raise a good 

point. We probably need to do that, although 
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we have stack emission data and it's hard for 

us to imagine that the stack releases would 

result in higher doses walking about the site 

than some of these process air -- you know, 

data -- intakes that we're projecting based on 

working with the raw material itself. But we -

- you're right --

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

Arjun (unintelligible). 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: I -- again, I did a little 

back-of-the-envelope check because the 

Mallinckrodt situation was a little bit 

different than many facilities or the normal 

stack dispersion modeling that you would do 

because you've got lots and lots of buildings, 

and pe-- the workers would be -- when they're 

outside and therefore susceptible to getting 

some dose from the stack releases. They'd --

they'd be near buildings and so you wouldn't be 

able to do dispersion modeling. At the 

institute where I work, Institute of 

(unintelligible) Energy and Environmental 

Research, we had -- in the context of a study 

we did for assessing doses near a building, we 

had actually the thing modeled with the wind -- 
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wind tunnel tests that were done with the 

building modeled and the stacks and -- and 

cons-- and dispersion factors calculated very 

nearby for accidents. So if you have an 

accidental release that -- you could get pretty 

high doses because the dispersion factors are 

very large. Our -- the largest wind tunnel 

calculated dispersion factor near a production 

building -- of course different geometries, you 

had more buildings and, you know -- was 3.9 

time ten to the minus three seconds per cubic 

meter. And if you assume even a small release 

of K-65 type material, you have -- I think you 

could get pretty significant doses. 

DR. NETON: Right, I guess and that sort of 

confirms our -- you know, our wariness of 

trying to model these stack emissions and -- 

and using those to -- to come up with -- with 

doses, so I think -- you're right, there could 

be high instantaneous concentrations on-site, 

but I think if we apply a chronic exposure 

model for -- for the year to these people and 

use the distribution for the workers -- I'm -- 

I'm having trouble thinking why that would not 

be claimant-favorable. 
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MR. ALLEN: I think the examples that Joe Guido 

went over earlier demonstrate that the coworker 

data is also pretty high and -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

MR. ALLEN: -- I mean when you're talking stack 

emissions you're talking about the ventilation 

system removing air from these people were 

working, so by definition, essentially the 

coworker data should be higher than what you 

would get outside the building from the 

environmental --

DR. NETON: Well, maybe not. 

MR. ALLEN: -- but it's -- almost by 

definition, especially when you talk about over 

the -- the entire year versus a -- you know, a 

short, episodic event. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, I think on the basis of 

an annual average and annual average dispersion 

factors, I wouldn't -- in a normal situation 

with continuous releases, I think that you 

would be right. However, we do know that there 

are episodic -- I mean even in November, 1984 

there was a release of 200 kilograms from 

Fernald, and that's what started the whole 

argument about, you know, Fernald and its 
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neighbors found out about -- and so on. So 

releases of hundreds of kilograms from 

Mallinckrodt type of facility in -- as an 

episodic release is certainly possible. And 

releases of tens of kilograms are certainly 

possible when you've got a total source term of 

14,000, 15,000 kilograms that's partial because 

not all the plants were taken into account in 

the one sheet that I found. So I -- I'm happy 

to kind of share some of the numbers after my 

colleagues have had a chance to look at them 

because I kind of, you know, just did a backof-the-envelope calculation preparing for this. 

But I -- I think -- what goes up the stack and 

what's in the workplace are not correlated 

because --

MR. ALLEN: I would agree with you -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- in fact they may be anticorrelated. 

MR. ALLEN: I would agree with you it's 

possible to get a higher intake rate outside 

the building from some sort of event like that. 

But you have to miti-- I mean you're example's 

a good example, the 1984 Fernald was actually a 

dust collector that released all this up the 
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stack, a dust collector problem. But you've 

got to remember, everything that got into that 

dust collector came from the work area where 

workers were working. It might have taken 

months for it to get there and then released in 

one shot, but it was -- it came from there. So 

the urinalysis from the people working in Plant 

-- Plant 9, I believe it was for 1984 -- for 

that year or so ahead of time, you know, for 

the few months to that event, should be 

sampling the same kind of air, just over a 

period of time versus an episodic event. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Actually that's exactly what I 

don't agree with because when you have a wellventilated workplace, what winds up in the dust 

bags is what's not in the work area. Because 

if you don't have a well-ventilated workplace 

then the workers are breathing it and then it 

settles on the plant floor. And of course that 

was a problem at Fernald. It was all caked up 

and everything. But -- but what com-- what 

goes in the dust collectors and the stacks -- 

so you could have dust collectors that are very 

dirty and have a relatively clean workplace, 

provided you've got good ventilation. And the 
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two things are not necessarily related. 

MR. ALLEN: But I think from the -- the worker 

interviews you talked to, I don't think there 

was any hint that there was good ventilation at 

Mallinckrodt, that they collected -- collected 

all the dust very well. 

DR. NETON: Can't -- can't have it both ways. 

But I think -- what I'm hearing you, Arjun -- 

I'm having trouble grasping this -- is that you 

seem to be contending that the 50th percentile, 

the average worker assigned intakes, would not 

sufficiently bound an unmonitored worker who 

was an administrative -- in administrative area 

on a full-time basis. Is that what you're 

suggesting? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, since we're talking about 

Missouri, this is a Show-Me State issue. 

Right? So I'm not suggesting that -- that this 

is the case. I'm saying if -- it's not a 

priori given that what -- I think that -- that 

-- that it's important to run some numbers, and 

I -- I did some numbers and I was surprised, 

and I'm not ready to share them because maybe I 

was wrongly surprised. Right? So I mean it's 

important to put those numbers on the record, 
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and I just -- and I -- so maybe I'm not quite 

right, but I do think that -- that assuming 

that coworker data inside the plant covers an 

outside accident exposure where you've got lots 

of radium, thorium, so on -- I'm not sure. You 

may well be right and I'm -- I'm not saying 

that -- I think some little bit of work needs 

to be done here, and I don't know exactly -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think -- I think that this can 

be an off-line discussion -- 

DR. NETON: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- but I think that we -- I mean 

the issue of the environmental samples came up 

in our prior discussions, so I think you should 

address it head-on and -- and make the case -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- for why this is more -- I tend 

to agree with you. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I know Arjun has some questions. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: But I think -- maybe not 

quantitatively but at least qualitatively make 

a -- make the case. 

DR. NETON: We -- we can do that. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Direct-- directly, instead of 

saying, you know --

MS. BLOOM: Well, I think the case is made from 

the environmental numbers at the DOE sites 

where we do have monitoring and we do have some 

DOE sites where we had information in the early 

years, and you don't have anywhere near the 

intake rates that you're assuming for workers 

inside buildings as you do outside buildings. 

DR. NETON: Well, and I also think that Janet 

Westbrook indicated in our last call there -- 

there are a few, albeit small, number of 

environmental samples taken in areas where 

security guards may have been stationed and 

what-not, and we can look at those. 

MS. BLOOM: (Off microphone) We call them 

outdoor (unintelligible) samples. 

DR. NETON: Now that would -- those are going 

to be small and -- and maybe only cover a few 

day periods, but it would certainly indicate 

that constant emissions were not well above 

that of the average plant that we're assigning. 

I mean we're talking intakes of hundreds of 

picocuries per day by workers in the plants, 

and it would be difficult for me to imagine 
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those values to get higher than that outside 

the plant on a -- on a constant basis. But --

but you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, 

Arjun's a show-me type guy today and I think we 

need to -- we need to do our homework and 

demonstrate that. 

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

also -- I mean I think to the extent you can 

use Mallinckrodt-specific data, it would -- it 

would be better, right, 'cause we've gone down 

that path before, too, but... 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. Okay, is there anything 

else on number five? 

DR. NETON: I think there are a couple other -- 

additional points here. The issue was raised 

about the SLAPS workers and -- and we've 

investigated that to some extent, and I think I 

covered this briefly on our last call. The 

SLAPS workers were not permanently assigned 

there, so we would -- we propose to use the 

plant data for SLAPS workers, although we do -- 

are doing some -- some (unintelligible) lastminute refinements on that. Cindy has some 
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data on some SLAPS -- air concentration data? 

MS. BLOOM: That's only the radon, we have -- 

DR. NETON: The radon issue. 

MS. BLOOM: -- no air concentrations, though. 

DR. NETON: But again, we believe that the 

SLAPS, being a storage facility and the 

material was already drummed -- at least for 

the radium material, the K-65 material -- it 

appears to us, and we'll do a better job 

documenting this -- that these SLAPS workers 

spent a bulk of their time at the plant. This 

was not a full-time, assigned position. They -

- they moved over there, took care of some -- 

whatever activities they needed to, as far as 

drumming and -- and maintenance -- 

MS. BLOOM: They were actually restricted from 

being there more than a couple hours a week. 

Certainly by -- I can't remember the exact date 

when that happened, it was around '49 and '50, 

where they were --

DR. NETON: Right, so --

MS. BLOOM: -- '48 to '50 where they were 

changing the requirements, so... 

DR. NETON: We -- we will have a little better 

detail on the SLAPS workers 'cause they don't 
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necessarily fit into this unmonitored, 

secretarial/maintenance type -- type workers. 

MS. BLOOM: For the -- for the intakes, those 

workers are monitored. I mean we -- you have 

monitoring data. They -- they're included in 

that population of coworkers. 

DR. NETON: That is true. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Anything else on 

number five? 

 (No responses) 

You want to do another presentation of the 

cases? No, I was just kidding. 

DR. NETON: I'm ready if you are. 

 MR. GRIFFON: How about some new cases? No... 

Okay, I was just going to try to summarize a 

couple of things that -- that are going to 

happen in the next week or so as far as followup items, and here what I had and maybe we can 

just flesh out the final -- I think there's 

only actually a few issues that we really need 

to -- to hone in on. 

One was the issue that we just discussed, the 

environ-- you know, the justification for the -

- for not using the environmental data for 

those that were outside the plant. 
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The second one that I had is an outline of the 

approach -- or I guess a -- the argument that 

the radon breath data will actually bound the 

radon exposures, as well. It'll be a bounding 

factor, the argument that Dave made earlier. 

 The third item, which I think is the most 

critical item -- in my eyes, anyway -- is the -

- the thorium question as Jim has been 

describing it and the -- the approach that 

you're going to use to bound I guess the 

thorium, actinium and protactinium, but -- and 

whether those -- whether those ratios -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- have to be adjusted or how -- 

yeah, so... 

And I don't know, I might have missed -- are 

there other issues on the table? 

 DR. WADE: You might put one -- and this goes 

back to Denise's issue as to the policy 

question as to an SEC process versus a site 

profile process. That's an issue that really 

NIOSH has to take up, and then the Board will 

have to take up, but I think that's a major 

issue for us to address leaving this meeting. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I agree, yeah, yeah. 
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MS. BROCK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 DR. WADE: We'll discuss it leading up to the 

August meeting and then at the August meeting 

NIOSH will have to either present the 

supplement to the SEC report or not, and then 

the Board will have to deliberate based upon 

what NIOSH presents, as well as this working 

group reporting now. So I think that's the 

process we'll follow. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Arjun. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Mark, was there anything to be 

done on the missing radon breath data? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, I did -- yes, thank you. I -

- I would like -- and I don't know if this is 

possible, but I still have that issue of the 25 

to 30 percent either not analyzed or lost 

datapoints. And it -- it goes to the 

reliability of the breath radon data and -- and 

I don't know if there's any documentation in 

the HASL literature that might give us a good 

reason why -- why those samples were, you know, 

quote/unquote, lost or -- and I -- and I agree, 

it might be a lost in processing kind of thing. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, we'll certainly look -- look 

into that. I think -- now you're saying that 
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these were indicated as missing or lost on the 

HASL analysis sheets? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Uh-huh, yes. 

DR. NETON: Okay. There's a few things we 

could -- I could think of to try to do to give 

you some comfort. I think, you know, looking 

at possibly the -- if we -- if we could find 

the job categories of the workers and -- which 

were lost and to -- to get a feel that those 

are no different than the ones where we have 

samples for -- you know, that kind of thing -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, right, right. 

DR. NETON: -- that there was no selective -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's --

DR. NETON: -- censoring of the information, 

that sort of thing (unintelligible) -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I should say I did a 

preliminary look at this and it -- there don't 

-- there don't appear to be any trends -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- but that might be something to 

look at, are --

DR. NETON: I think that's what we would look 

at --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- are there trends by job titles 
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(unintelligible) --

DR. NETON: -- 'cause really --

 MR. GRIFFON: -- something like that -- 

DR. NETON: -- really then what we have is more 

of a truncated dataset, not many as numbers, 

but -- but what we have are -- we would -- we 

could demonstrate possibly that they are not 

that different than the distribution of the 

ones that were missing, you know. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: But let's say if we came up with 

some -- some job category that was just 

selectively gone, we may -- it may cause -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Exactly, or --

DR. NETON: -- cause reason for concern. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. And I didn't see that, 

but I -- yeah, I would ask for a little followup on that. 

DR. NETON: We'll do a follow-up on that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think -- anybody have 

anything else that I missed that we -- 

DR. NETON: No, that's enough. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- we agreed to do? Denise has 

something else. 

MS. BROCK: I just wanted to maybe ask a couple 
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of questions, if I could, and perhaps read 

something from the document that NIOSH had came 

up with, I think it was like the '75 -- yes -- 

notes and summary, a visit by Mont Mason -- or 

I mean Mason, August, 1975. And I don't know 

if this actually is relevant, but I -- I found 

it interesting. It was page 13 and it says 

number two, I quote, (reading) Exposure to 

radon in the work space air. There are 

fragmentary measurements of air radon beginning 

about 1946 and continuing through about 1955. 

I view them as having little if any use as a 

measure of the magnitude of individual 

exposure. These data can be used to show that 

certain jobs or job categories did entail 

possible exposure to radon within a 

(unintelligible) range. Any interpretation 

beyond that would be erroneous, in my opinion. 

I've done nothing to date to organize air radon 

date for the purpose of entering it into the 

exposure history as a job stress. Note, these 

have been taped for future reference. In 

general the air concentrations did not exceed 

the range of 0.1 to 0.1 times ten to minus ten 

Curies per liter of air. Although a few spots 
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were chronically in the 1.0 to 10.0 range from 

1946 to 1949, occasionally single samples 

exceeded 100 times ten minus ten Curie per 

liter. 

I really don't know what that means, I just 

thought it was interesting and I don't know if 

that has to do with the surrounding air -- I'm 

assuming that's what that means. Oh, I'm 

learning, that's great. 

And the other thing I wanted to ask is in 

reference to the cases that have already been 

dosed and denied because, if I understand 

correctly, the methodology of dose 

reconstruction, if I'm understanding correctly, 

has changed now, I would assume that the dose 

reconstructions that have been denied will now 

be pulled back in for redose. Is that correct? 

DR. NETON: If these approaches are adopted, 

that is true. Dave Allen has some words of 

wisdom. 

MR. ALLEN: Before you commit to something 

there. 

DR. NETON: Okay. 

MR. ALLEN: We've said all along that the TBDs 

are living documents and there's been minor 
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changes to other TBDs, and our standard 

approach has been to write a -- an evaluation 

report. Essentially we're committed to 

evaluate, which I think is what you want, the 

previously done ones. But we're not 

necessarily committed to opening it back up. 

The last thing we want to do is to take 

somebody who's been denied, tell them we're 

going to redo their dose reconstruction, then 

deny them again. So --

MS. BROCK: Absolutely. I just want to make 

sure that the opportunity is there for that to 

be -- if this is adopted, that that -- that 

that would possibly be looked at again. I mean 

DR. NETON: That's --

MS. BROCK: -- I never --

MR. ALLEN: Again --

MS. BROCK: -- want to give anybody false hope, 

but if there's been a mistake and -- not even a 

mistake, but if there's another methodology 

that would allow them to come at a higher POC, 

absolutely I would like for that -- 

DR. NETON: Right. 

MS. BROCK: -- to --
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MR. ALLEN: Yeah, and it very --

MS. BROCK: -- to happen. 

MR. ALLEN: Our standard approach is to reevaluate when there's a change, but not 

necessarily to open it up or even tell the 

claimant about it. 

MS. BROCK: Oh, okay. 

MR. ALLEN: Like you say, we don't -- 

MS. BROCK: Right. 

MR. ALLEN: -- want to do the false hope thing. 

MS. BROCK: Okay. And another thing I'd like 

to ask, I have -- and I think we've maybe 

discussed this before. I have obviously 

certain claimants -- workers, that are in very 

poor condition and I would hope that possibly 

those could be expedited, as well. I'm 

assuming that NIOSH is moving quite 

expeditiously on a lot of these, so I'm hoping 

that maybe if -- if you know or somebody from 

ORAU would know that maybe somebody's not doing 

real well, that they would be gracious enough 

to maybe, if they could, push those ahead. 

DR. NETON: Well, our standard approach here is 

to do dose reconstructions for the oldest 

claims in our possession first. I mean those 
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are -- it's a first in, first out type of 

approach. Right now we're working on the 

backlog of the first 5,000 cases, so any lower 

numbered cases would be given priority at this 

time. That's -- that's our approach. 

MS. BROCK: Okay. And I -- I know I had one 

more. For some reason, I wrote a note and I -- 

I can't find it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think the -- to speak to your 

first question, I think Dave's analysis might 

address some of that concern over the radon 

data because it sounds like you're not 

(unintelligible) -- you may not end up 

assigning radon doses. Right? 

DR. NETON: Right, but I think what -- what 

Mont -- the Mont Mason reference that Denise 

was referring -- to which she was referring is 

really the radon in air concentration data. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, that's --

DR. NETON: Oh, I see what you're saying is the 

radon breath would bound -- possibly bound 

those exposures. I think what Mont Mason was 

talking there is the ability to give 

individually-assigned radon doses would be 

unlikely, and it's -- that's -- that's why you 
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see us adopting the 95th percentile approach. 

And in his little statement there he even 

acknowledges that we -- one can put maximum 

values on these things, but you'll -- it is 

very difficult to go and assign Worker A X 

radon exposure, but we do know what the 

distribution was and we would assign the upper 

end of it, lacking any specific information. 

 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) But it may all 

be moot (unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: And Dave's technique may actually 

end up --

MR. ALLEN: (Off microphone) For systemic 

(unintelligible) --

DR. NETON: For systemic organs. In fact, as 

we've indicated previously, the lung cancer 

cases that we've analyzed -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right, that's --

DR. NETON: -- to date have been over 50 

percent by Department of Labor, so adding 

additional radon doses is not really critical. 

MS. BROCK: And I have one more statement to -- 

oh, I'm sorry, Arjun. One more statement about 

the unmonitored workers. I just know from my 

experience with some of the workers that I 
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speak with, or maybe even some of the spouses 

of these workers, that sometimes the job title 

does not always match the job description. For 

example, I had a gentleman that was called a -- 

an -- like an office boy or mail clerk, and 

part of his job description or part of what he 

did was to actually take open containers -- now 

I don't know if that was liquid or sol-- I 

don't have any idea, but he would transport 

this waste back and forth from downtown to 

maybe -- I think SLAPS and just back and forth. 

I don't know that this person was monitored. 

The case has been denied. The gentleman had a 

glioblastoma. I haven't got a chance to look 

completely at the dose reconstruction myself. 

I don't know if his actual records were used, 

if they were -- if there were actual dose 

records or if that was coworker data. But as 

you read through that -- and again, it puts a 

spouse at a disadvantage, too, because they're 

just not really sure what all that job 

entailed. 

Another thing that I would like to talk about 

is a particular claimant that has recently been 

denied. She was a secretary, had a double 
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masectomy (sic), worked downtown St. Louis and 

also at Weldon Spring and she actually was 

within the plant. Now I don't know which plant 

it was, whether it was Destrehan or Weldon 

Spring, but she was actually in the plant area. 

Through the phone interview there was 

discussion about of course the dust being all 

over the paperwork and the desk and the floor, 

stockings coming off her legs -- which I'm 

assuming maybe have been acid -- but I'm 

wondering if in fact that's all taken into 

consideration. And I wonder if someone like 

that, if they're within that facility and 

there's -- in the dose reconstruction report it 

actually states that she had exposure to 

thorium and radon, and even though that case 

has been denied, I -- I wonder if that would 

possibly change the numbers on that. 

DR. NETON: That's difficult to tell. I mean 

we can't envision, you know, what the -- what 

the do-- without looking at the dose 

reconstruction there's no way that we could 

really make a judgment -- 

MS. BROCK: Got it right here. You want to see 

it? 
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DR. NETON: Not -- not during this meeting, but 

maybe after this meeting we can sit down -- 

MS. BROCK: Okay. 

DR. NETON: -- and look at it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. All right, Arjun. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Just a brief follow-up on what 

Denise just said -- or a little bit earlier. 

There are a few measurements of like ten to the 

minus eight picocuries per liter. Are they --

are they in your distribution, all of -- and 

how do you deal with that and to -- ten to the 

minus eight seems -- it jogged my memory 'cause 

I'd seen those numbers and I'd forgotten about 

them. 

MS. BLOOM: We do --

 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's a pretty huge radon 

concentration. 

MS. BLOOM: It is a huge radon concentration. 

Those were usually measured either at SLAPS or 

in the scale house or in the ore house. Some 

of it's associated with opening drums. There 

was also a drying oven, I think -- a drying 

furnace, I believe, that sometimes had high 

values. For Mallinckrodt they don't actually 

have -- I didn't see very man-- I think one -- 
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one boxcar measurement, but I know from looking 

at other sites that those can be very high, the 

radon concentrations can be very high in the 

boxcars when they're first opened up. 

DR. MAURO: Along those lines, one of the 

interesting things I've run across with I work 

with these statistics, sometimes the average 

actually is higher than the 95th percentile 

when you're -- I've seen distri-- 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

DR. MAURO: Yeah, when -- no, and the only 

reason it's triggered is because -- see, we're 

talking about numbers on the order of 100 

picocuries per liter, maybe 1,000. Now ten to 

the minus eighth is 100,000 or -- 10,000 

picocuries per liter. Right? So where -- what 

we're talking about is --

MS. BLOOM: (Off microphone) 1,000 

(unintelligible). 

DR. MAURO: Well, it's ten to the minus 12? 

MS. BLOOM: (Unintelligible) Oh, no, I'm sorry, 

ten to the minus eight --

DR. MAURO: 10,000. 

MS. BLOOM: I'm sorry, I haven't seen them that 
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high. I've seen 2,000. 

DR. MAURO: 'Cause I've seen ten to the minus 

eight in one of --

MS. BLOOM: Yeah. 

DR. MAURO: -- your reports. Now it might have 

been just one reading. I just rai-- triggered 

because I've seen the situation arise. When 

you have a distribution and you have a couple 

of really big outliers, even individual values, 

that -- what that does is it drives the average 

all the way off the scale, and it's higher than 

your 95th percentile. 

DR. NETON: Right. 

DR. MAURO: I'm not quite sure, what do you do 

with that? 

DR. NETON: Well, and one needs to look at 

those huge, huge values and determine whether 

they're relevant for -- for continuous exposure 

scenarios or not. I mean that -- that's -- I 

think we have to apply some reasonableness here 

to those values. And if they are, if there was 

positions like that, then you're right, but the 

likelihood of anyone being in a furnace -- 

drying over for 2,000 hours -- who knows. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, but this -- this is the 
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kind -- you know, rail cars, opening drums, 

there would be episodic exposures, but frequent 

for the people who were doing that job, 

presumably. I mean I don't know, because if 

they were that high, then -- and radon breath 

is only being taken once every six or eight 

months -- sorry -- then -- then this whole 

systemic radon thing -- you wouldn't catch 

that. 

MS. BLOOM: They -- there -- I misspoke, I -- I 

did the math wrong in my head. The highest 

results I've seen are 2,000 picocuries per 

liter, and that's looking at 1949 forward, 

which is the period we're talking about. The 

other part is that if you're having radon 

concentrations that high, the gamma exposure 

rates are huge, and so these workers were 

restricted from being in those areas for any 

length of time because they were concerned 

about going over tolerance levels. So there --

they were -- the occupancy factors need to play 

into that, as well. 

DR. NETON: And we also need to look -- you 

just jogged my memory, this ten to the minus 

eight may be pre-1949 data. I don't know. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: (Off microphone) Denise, you have 

(unintelligible)? 

MS. BROCK: Yes, I do. As far as the workers 

being restricted, that may have been what 

should have happened, but when I talk to the 

workers, that's not exactly what happened. 

There were many times when these workers were 

basically put in these positions and had to 

finish what they were doing, no matter how long 

it took. And by the own admission of the AEC 

or the AE standards, I think sometimes we're 

talking about 15 rem to the lung, and that's 

different than the radon exposure, but they 

were actually letting these people get way 

beyond that, way beyond that before they'd ever 

even pull them out, but some of them were 600 

to 1,000 rem to the lung. So I don't 

necessarily believe that, just because they 

should have been restricted, they necessarily 

were. 

MS. BLOOM: And I certainly agree with that, 

but I think we're looking at the -- the total 

program to see what was going on there, and we 

are looking at external doses, as well. And I 

think for the most part, if they -- and I've 
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read a lot of correspondence for Mallinckrodt 

on that that indicates that, you know, they 

might have worked -- if they were only supposed 

to work two hours, maybe they did work four 

hours to finish the job. But on the other 

hand, when we're going to apply this data, 

we're going to do that in a -- you know, in a 

claimant-favorable way. 

MS. BROCK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: Go ahead, that's --

MS. BROCK: I promise this is my last one. I 

want to know if -- because this -- and this is 

a policy question. If in fact, due to all of 

the -- the new things that have arisen, will 

the Board and NIOSH be able to come -- come to 

a conclusion whether or not this set of workers 

in this second part of this SEC will be able to 

be dose reconstructed? Will you know that by 

the next Board meeting, or does this -- is this 

going to require additional research? I mean -

- and as far as the policy question, I know Dr. 

Wade said that it will be discussed whether or 

not this can even be adopted. Will I be 

informed prior to the meeting as far as the 

issue of whether it's adopted, and then by the 
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next Board meeting I guess I'm asking if in 

fact there will be a decision made. 

 DR. WADE: Well, you asked the hard questions. 

Certainly you'll be informed if NIOSH is going 

to submit a supplement to the SEC evaluation 

report. You would be informed of that. And as 

a courtesy, if we're not, we will call and tell 

you that. God knows, Denise, if this issue 

will be resolved at the next meeting. I think 

it is all of our hope, and I think everyone in 

this room is working as hard as they can to 

bring this to closure. I don't think there's a 

member of the Board that doesn't feel the pain 

of the claimants as this process goes on and 

they're weighing that pain against the desire 

to do a complete job. 

I think it is all of our expectation -- hope -- 

that this issue will be resolved. Again, none 

of us can say that for sure until it's actually 

done and sent on. 

MS. BROCK: I would just like to tell everybody 

thank you again for including me and thank you 

for all of your hard work. I know it's -- it's 

-- it is very hard for everybody involved and I 

appreciate it. 
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 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And we've got two weeks. No... 

Arjun? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: That's what I was going to say, 

we've got -- I've got what, today's August 4th. 

I've got 12 days. Right? So really I've got 

ten because two days before I have to send it 

to Nancy and -- and three days before I have to 

send it to John, so I've got nine days. And --

and so these four issues that we've got -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- I think obviously have to 

have a much closer -- I mean just for my own 

sanity, I'd like -- I'd like some -- some idea 

of, you know, by when we're going to have some 

cutoff date that I can start writing about that 

it won't require -- I don't know what the 

process is of coming to closure on those four 

points, and whether there are going to be any 

dates or -- because for me to really do justice 

to sending you a report -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- by the 16th, I -- I've got 

to have the information much earlier. 

 DR. WADE: And let's talk through that. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 DR. WADE: I mean that -- I want us to talk a 

little bit about that, so let me paint a broad 

picture, Arjun, of this and then we can maybe 

start to get more specific on some of the 

issues that remain. 

I think that what's going to happen starting 

now is that you can expect to see from NIOSH 

certain augmentation or documentation on 

selected issues. We'll go back and talk about 

what those are and maybe we can talk about 

dates. 

Then you're going to see a process of dialogue 

between SC&A and NIOSH. And this working group 

has asked that we encourage a free discussion 

between the two parties. We'll try and let the 

working group know of those discussions. We'll 

certainly let the petitioner know, but we'll in 

no way limit the ability of those two groups to 

work together to bring this to closure as 

quickly as possible. 

Then we'll be seeing an SC&A report to the 

Board on the 16th of August. 

Then the Board will meet on the 24th and 20-- 

excuse me, the 25th and 26th. Either in 
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subcommittee or in the full Board meeting the 

issue of the Mallinckrodt site profile will be 

discussed and the review of that site profile. 

Then in a full Board action the Board will take 

up the issue of the Mallinckrodt SEC petition. 

And as we said earlier, hopefully we'll bring 

that to closure. 

So those are how things will -- will play out 

in the long term. Let's try and deal with 

Arjun's issue of timing on a -- on a case-bycase, and let me start with the issue of -- of 

radon breath bounding radon exposures. And 

Dave, that's your issue. Let me put you on the 

spot. When might these fine people have 

something to -- to discuss with you? 

MR. ALLEN: I'm --

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

MR. ALLEN: Yeah, thanks. I'm thinking early -

- well, I'm thinking next week, that it might 

be -- the more I've thought about it, the might 

-- the best bet might be for me to simply 

document a few calculations and then I guess 

send it to John Mauro and if I -- if I feel I 

can get it documented well enough to put it to 
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bed, and I think I can, then next week at some 

point. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) The 11th? 

(Unintelligible) the end of next week? 

MR. ALLEN: The earlier, the better. 

DR. NETON: Early next week, he's saying. 

MR. ALLEN: Early next week. 

 MR. GRIFFON: How about the 9th? That's 

Tuesday. Close of business on the 9th? I mean 

everything's tight here, so... 

MR. ALLEN: Yeah, I'll commit to that. I'll 

commit to something by then. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, do the most that you can do. 

And I think there's been a good intellectual 

agreement reached here. I think this is a 

matter of sort of documentation, give and take 

and discussion, so let's move on to the next 

one. 

And we sort of categorized this as the thorium 

or the ratios kind of issue. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. WADE: Jim, how do you want to proceed with 

that? 

DR. NETON: Well, SC&A colleagues are going to 

have -- or ORAU colleagues are going to provide 
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some support here on this. I don't want to 

speak for their schedules, but I don't see 

anything forthcoming until maybe the middle of 

next week. Is that reasonable? 

MS. BLOOM: I would say at least the middle of 

next week, and it may be toward the end of next 

week. 

DR. NETON: That doesn't give you a lot of time 

MS. BLOOM: I'm happy to --

DR. NETON: We'll do what we can do. 

MS. BLOOM: I can give you preliminary 

information, but I know you're going to beat me 

up on that, so... 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 

(Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm -- I'm hoping also there will 

be some phone calls prior to like a -- a 

report, so... 

DR. NETON: Well, that's what I'd -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: -- like. I think I'd -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: -- like to engage in some dialogue 

earlier in the week --
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 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: -- as -- as we develop our 

positions, rather than throw something over the 

bow and then get it back. I think we can sort 

of get some tentative feelers out as to where 

we're heading and see if that's going to -- I 

think some of these dose calculations -- my -- 

my sense is some of these calculations we've 

shown have helped maybe alleviate some of -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: And --

DR. NETON: -- the concern, and -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I'd also -- I mean I'd also 

maybe recommend that -- that Arjun, you can be 

drafting a tentative report while they're -- 

you know, while you're doing these phone calls, 

and -- and -- only to say that, you know, as 

you iron out issues, then -- then NIOSH knows 

where you're coming from, too, so you can have 

these phone calls --

DR. NETON: I think a report that says we agree 

would be very easy to write and very quick -- 

very -- very quick to produce. I mean I can't 

see that to be a very difficult position, 

but... 

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don't sign blank checks, so... 

 MR. GRIFFON: Again -- so you said the 10th on 

the -- that issue? 

 DR. WADE: Could -- could -- well, let's say a 

call -- let's imagine a call on this issue 

before the 10th. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, Dr. Wade, that's what I 

was about to suggest is if -- if Cindy could 

let me know what the approach is maybe on 

Monday as you're writing it or something, I'm -

- I'm not going anywhere from Washington 

between now and the 15th, by the time -- by 

which I imagine I will be done with this, and 

so that I can be looking -- 'cause I really 

like Mark's suggestion is that if I can be kind 

of writing a re-- drafting a report, and then 

all my colleagues -- see, I have to tell my 

colleagues what I'm doing and they have to sign 

off on it, to do some calculations or 

something, so that would be very useful. And 

then of course I understand that you could 

change your mind -- put different data or 

whatever. 

MS. BLOOM: At the last minute. I -- I don't 

intend to do that. I do see the beginning of 
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approa-- an approach. I do have more data on 

the airport cake, and that's really my first 

place to look. I have been working these 

issues night and day for the last 14 days, and 

I have some personal issues that I have to deal 

with, so that's my concern about meeting your 

deadline. It's certainly not my goal to impact 

your dates, but there's just -- I'll do -- do 

it as fast as I can. I'll let you know my 

thoughts on it. They -- but actually having 

the actual numbers, I think the approach that 

we've taken so far is going to be similar to 

what I propose, but we will have adjusted 

numbers in there based on better data. 

 DR. WADE: So a contact early next week. 

MS. BLOOM: Yeah. 

 DR. WADE: With the only promise being complete 

-- complete and candid disclosure, and then 

hopefully a follow-up of information later that 

week, but we'll see how that first phone call 

goes. 

MS. BLOOM: Correct. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 

MS. BLOOM: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. What about the lost data 
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issue, Mark? The lost data issue? 

DR. NETON: I think -- I think this is 

something we can address fairly quickly. I 

would say early next week we can have something 

out. That's a different set of philosophies -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: August -- August 9th too 

(unintelligible) --

DR. NETON: August 9th I think is fine. You 

know, we -- we're not -- we're not creating any 

new models here. We're just sort of reviewing 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just --

DR. NETON: -- and sort of evaluating. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Just for the record, it's not 

lost data necessarily, it's just what was 

recorded in (unintelligible) -- 

DR. NETON: Yeah, missing -- missing -- missing 

or lost, yeah. I think we can have some -- 

some position or some document on that. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. And then what I categorize as 

the environmental issue? 

DR. NETON: Yeah, that, on the surface, does 

not seem to be a real tough problem, but we're 

-- we're going to need to -- to -- you know, 

there's always surprises when we look at these 
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things, but seems like everything is 

gravitating towards the 9th, but can we have 

till the 10th on that, just in case we -- we 

need an extra day to -- to coordinate the 

effort (unintelligible). 

Okay. Well, that -- that's -- that'll be 

interesting. And that gives Arjun an entire 

week to generate a report. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That says we agree. Right? 

DR. NETON: That says we agree. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Lew, did you have any 

other closing remarks? 

 DR. WADE: Only just to thank everyone for 

their -- their effort, and particularly to 

thank Denise for her willingness to travel here 

and to tolerate our processes. Please 

understand that -- that we understand how 

important this is to -- to real people who have 

given their lives and their health to these 

things, but those real people deserve quality 

effort on our part and that's what we're trying 

to give you. 

MS. BROCK: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I'd like to thank everyone 

around the table, too. I know -- and -- and 
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back at the offices. I know a lot of effort 

was put into this analysis and I think we're 

getting there, so we're really close. And I 

think with that -- are we adjourned? We're 

adjourned. 

(Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned.) 
_____________________ 

67 

C E R T I F I C A T E OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I transcribed 

the above and foregoing from the day of Aug. 4, 

2005; and it is a true and accurate transcript 

of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

23rd day of August, 2005. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102