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 


THIRTY-EIGHTH MEETING 


ADVISORY BOARD ON 


RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 


VOL. I 


DAY ONE 


ABRWH BOARD MEETING
 

The verbatim transcript of the 


Meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and 


Worker Health held at the Marriott Metro Center, 


Washington, D.C., on June 14, 2006. 

 

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C O N T E N T S
 

June 14, 2006 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR 

DR. LEWIS WADE, DESIGNATED FEDERAL OFFICIAL 

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NIOSH PROGRAM STATUS REPORT 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH 

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DOL PROGRAM STATUS REPORT 

MR. PETE TURCIC, DOL 

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCUSSION 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

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PUBLIC COMMENT 120 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 134 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND
 

The following transcript contains quoted material. Such 


material is reproduced as read or spoken. 


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


an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 


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


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


word(s) when reading written material. 


-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 


of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 


reported. 


-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 


the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 


available. 


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


"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 


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


without reference available. 


-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 


failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

 

 

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


(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 


BOARD MEMBERS
 

CHAIR
 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


School of Health Sciences 


Purdue University 


Lafayette, Indiana 


EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D. 


Senior Science Advisor 


National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 


Washington, DC 


MEMBERSHIP
 

CLAWSON, Bradley 


Senior Operator, Nuclear Fuel Handling 


Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory 


DeHART, Roy Lynch, M.D., M.P.H. 


Director 


The Vanderbilt Center for Occupational and Environmental 


Medicine 


Professor of Medicine 


Nashville, Tennessee 


GIBSON, Michael H. 


President 


Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union 


Local 5-4200 


Miamisburg, Ohio 

 

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GRIFFON, Mark A. 


President 


Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 


Salem, New Hampshire 


LOCKEY, James, M.D. 


Professor, Department of Environmental Health 


College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati 


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


Director 


New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund 


Albany, New York 


MUNN, Wanda I. 


Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired) 


Richland, Washington 


POSTON, John W., Sr., B.S., M.S., Ph.D. 


Professor, Texas A&M University 


College Station, Texas 


PRESLEY, Robert W. 


Special Projects Engineer 


BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 


Clinton, Tennessee 


ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D. 


Professor Emeritus 


University of Florida 


Elysian, Minnesota 


STAFF
 

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

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SIGNED-IN AUDIENCE PARTICIPANTS
 

AL-NABULSI, ISAF, NCRP 


BEHLING, HANS, SC&A 


BEHLING, KATHY, SC&A 


BISTLINE, ROBERT W., SC&A 


BOWE, DAVID, SPFPA LOCAL 66 PORTS 


BROEHM, JASON, CDC WASHINGTON OFFICE 


CHANG, C C, HHS 


CHANLOW, MICHAEL, WASHINGTON POST 


COHEN, SANFORD, SC&A 


DEHART, JULIA, OHA INC. 


ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS 


FITZGERALD, JOSEPH, SC&A 


FUORTES, LAURENCE, UNIV OF IOWA 


GRANDE, JAMES, DOL 


HAUGHLY, MINDI, NIOSH 


HEARL, FRANK, NIOSH 


HINNEFELD, STUART, NIOSH 


HOWARD, JOHN, NIOSH 


HOWELL, EMILY, HHS 


ISHAK, LAURIE, NIOSH 


JOSEPH, TIMOTHY, ORAUT 


KENOYER, JUDSON, DADE MOELLER & ASSOCS. 


KIMPAN, KATE, ORAU 


KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL 


LEWIS, JOHN, OMBUDSMAN 


LEWIS, MARK, ATL 


MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A 


MAURO, JOHN, SC&A 


MCCOY, EILEEN, OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE 


MCDOUGALL, VERNON, ATL 


MCKEEL, DANIEL, MD, SO. IL NUCLEAR WORKERS 


MILLER, RELADE P., NIOSH 


MILLER, RICHARD, GAP 


MOSIER, ROBERTA, DOL 


NESVET, JEFF, DOL 


PARKER, TREY, OMBUDSMAN 


PLATNER, JAMES, CPWR 


POTTER, HERMAN, USW 


PRESLEY, LOUISE S., WIFE OF ROBERT PRESLEY 


RAFKY, MICHAEL, CDC 

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RAMSPOTT, JOHN, SO. IL NUCLEAR WORKERS 


SAMPSON, BOB, GAO 


SCHAEFFER, D. MICHAEL, SAIC 


SCHAUER, DAVID A., NCRP 


STEPHENS, VICKIE, IAM CREST 


TENFORDE, THOMAS S., NCRP 


TURCIC, PETE, DOL 


WALBURN, JEFF, SPFPA LOCAL 66 PORTS 

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P R O C E E D I N G S
 

(1:05 p.m.) 


WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS
 

DR. PAUL ZIEMER, CHAIR
 

DR. ZIEMER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 


I'm going to call the meeting to order. This 


is the 38th meeting of the Advisory Board on 


Radiation and Worker Health, meeting here in 


Washington, D.C. We're always pleased to be 


back in this location, always an exciting 


place, and we're certainly pleased to have a 


number of visitors from this area be able to be 


with us today. 


Our usual reminders are necessary. First of 


all, a reminder to register your attendance 


with us, if you've not already done so. The 


registration book is on the table in the foyer. 


If you are interested in providing public 


comment during our public comment session, we 


ask that you sign the separate book for public 


comment that's there, simply for planning 


purposes so we have some idea of how many 


people wish to participate. 


There are various documents on the back table, 

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including the agenda for today's meeting and 


various documents relating to agenda items, and 


related materials as well. So please help 


yourself to those as you find appropriate and 


necessary. 


I'd like to introduce our Designated Federal 


Official, Dr. Lewis Wade. And Lew Wade has a 


few opening comments as well. 


 DR. WADE: Only to welcome you, and again to 


thank the Board for its service. Being in 


Washington, it's possible that some people from 


the Hill will visit us, and if that happens 


we'll accommodate them and really break our 


proceedings and let them speak to us. We do 


think possibly Senator Clinton will join us, 


and also possibly the chairman of the sub-- the 


subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee 


who's been holding hearings on the program, 


Chairman Hostettler, I think will visit us 


tomorrow. And we -- we welcome those visits 


and others as they take place. 


I have one small administrative change in the 


agenda, and let me walk you through it. If you 


take note of the Thursday, June 15th item 


scheduled for 2:00 p.m., that's SC&A report on 

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SEC review procedures, we're going to change -- 


swap that out with the Friday, 10:45 item that 


says SC&A initial presentation on 4th round of 


dose reconstructions. We're making that switch 


to accommodate some people's schedules. And 


rather than to put out another draft of the 


agenda, I just decided to make note of that for 


you today. 


So that's the only change in the agenda that I 


know about. We have a packed agenda, as 


always, and I look forward to the Board making 


significant progress in its -- its most 


important missions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for those comments. Now 


Board members, you should have at your place at 


the table three sets of minutes. First of all, 


October 17th, minutes of the Subcommittee for 


Dose Reconstruction and Site Profile Reviews; 


the January 24th minutes of the Subcommittee 


for Dose Reconstruction and Site Profile 


Reviews; and thirdly, the summary minutes of 


the March 14th meeting of this Board. Since 


these minutes have just been provided to you 


this morning, then I'm going to recommend that 


we defer action on these minutes, so without -- 

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without objection, we will defer these till the 


work session on Friday. 


NIOSH PROGRAM STATUS REPORT
 

MR. LARRY ELLIOTT, NIOSH
 

Now we're going to begin our session this 


afternoon with a status report on the NIOSH 


program. We're pleased that Larry Elliott is 


going to make that presentation. Larry, 


welcome back to the podium. We look forward to 


hearing the latest statistics from NIOSH. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer, ladies and 


gentlemen of the Board, and interested members 


of the public and my colleagues in federal 


service -- public service, we certainly 


appreciate this opportunity to provide a status 


report on the dose reconstruction program that 


NIOSH administers for claimants who have 


acquired cancer in their work activities in the 


development of the nuclear weapons arsenal. 


We sincerely appreciate this opportunity 


because I think everyone would agree that this 


was a daunting, huge challenge that was 


presented to NIOSH in the passage of this law. 


And in a -- what I would consider, and I'm sure 


the claimants do not consider, a short amount 


of time we have, I hope, made considerable 

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progress. We have considerable progress yet to 


go, but I believe and I hope that at the end of 


this presentation you will find some 


information to your benefit that will show how 


much progress and how much contribution NIOSH 


has made to the program. 


 Overall there have been 21,754 cases that have 


been sent to NIOSH from the Department of Labor 


for dose reconstruction. Of those, 15,026, or 


about 69 percent of the cases, have been 


returned to Department of Labor for a decision 


on their compensability. And you see in this 


breakdown that we have submitted to DOL 13,325. 


By the way, all these numbers that I'll be 


reporting in this report are as of May 31st, 


2006. If you go on our web site you'll see 


that we've actually surpassed 14,000 returned 


to DOL as of today. 


 The Department of Labor pulled from us when -- 


from dose reconstruction 632 cases. And why 


would they pull those. Well, they were cases 


that were inadvertently sent to us. They were 


cases that may have had a chronic lymphocytic 


leukemia, a case that's not covered currently 


under this dose reconstruction program, or they 

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were a -- what at the time was a Subtitle D 


case that should have been retained in that 


part of the program and should not have been 


sent to us. So they were pulled away from us. 


There's also been 928 cases that have been 


returned to Department of Labor for a Special 


Exposure Cohort class decision. And currently 


we have 141 cases that have been 


administratively closed. I'll talk a little 


bit more about those on another slide. 


This leaves about 31 percent of the total load 


still with us, 6,728 cases that remain in dose 


reconstruction at some point in the progress of 


that. 


I think it's important for you to understand 


that -- and recognize that there are 324 


covered facilities in the program. And I 


passed out to the Board, and it's on the back 


table, some statistics that -- that you won't 


see in this slide that I'm referring to at this 


point in time; 188 of those facilities, whether 


they're DOE or AWE, Atomic Weapons Employer 


facilities, represent our case load at NIOSH. 


In other words, we have at least one or more 


claims for 188 of those facilities. Out of 

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those 188, we have 144 DOE or AWE facilities 


for which we have 40 claims or less. I think 


that's important to note. That presents a 


problem to us where we have a small number of 


claims, but yet we -- our whole dose 


reconstruction mechanism is geared toward use 


of site profiles, use of exposure models, use 


of some type of technical document that will 


allow a dose reconstruction approach on a mass 


basis. So that presents us some additional 


challenge. 


There are 21 of these 188 facilities where we 


have completed all the dose reconstructions, 


100 percent of the dose reconstructions have 


been completed. And there are 34 of these 


DOE/AWE facilities for which 80 percent or more 


of the compensation -- or the dose 


reconstruction claims have been completed for 


compensation decision. 


Of the 13,325 dose reconstructions that have 


been returned to Department of Labor for 


adjudication, there's been about 27 percent, or 


3,637, that had a POC, based upon the dose 


reconstruction, greater than 50 percent where 


they were found to be compensable. And about 

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73 percent of those cases were less than the 50 


percent compensability decision. 


 Approximately a half a billion dollars, or $472 


million, has been awarded for dose 


reconstructed cases. 


In this graphic we try to give you a sense of 


where we stand with our dose -- completed dose 


reconstructions for all of the cases. As you ­

- as you know, we assign a tracking number to 


the cases and those tracking numbers are broken 


out into increments of 1,000 on this axis, and 


then we show -- within that 1,000 -- how many 


we have completed. The blue indicates a 


completed case. The red indicates those cases 


that have been pulled by the Department of 


Labor for the reasons I stated earlier. And 


the green shows the cases that we have pended 


for some reason. They're -- they're in a 


status in the dose reconstruction process where 


we cannot perform any further work until some 


issue is resolved. And that may be a technical 


issue, it may be an SEC issue, it may be an 


issue of claim demographics that DOL has asked 


us to pend the claim until they further develop 


the case history for the claim. 

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Of the more than 6,700 cases remaining at NIOSH 


for dose reconstruction, we show you here that 


916 are assigned currently to a health 


physicist for dose reconstruction. Another --


we have a number of health physicists who have 


a large caseload and they are working on more 


than one at a time, and so 916 are actually on 


the desk of some health physicist performing a 


dose reconstruction for that claim. 


We also have 607 draft dose reconstructions in 


the hands of the claimant as of May 31st. 


Those claimants are reviewing those and they 


have an opportunity to provide us additional 


information, and we ask them -- if they do not 


have any additional information -- to sign what 


we call an OCAS-1 form which so indicates that. 


And then with that form in hand, we can move 


the case back to the Department of Labor for 


the decision. 


As I've spoken to the Board in past Board 


meetings, we have a concerted effort to get our 


oldest cases done, and we look at those in a 


block of the first 5,000 cases. And here we 


show where those cases stand: 4,681 out of that 


first 5,000 have had a final dose 

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reconstruction report sent to Department of 


Labor, so those folks have had a decision. We 


have 319 out of the first 5,000 that are still 


active, and we break those down in this way. 


We're looking at 22 claims where there's a -- 


that the dose reconstruction draft is held by 


the claimant, being reviewed, and 244 claims 


that are active, undergoing dose 


reconstruction. And some of these may be held 


-- are being pended for technical resolution of 


some sort. 


We've also taken a step to augment the 


technical support on dose reconstruction by 


adding a contractor, and we have awarded a 


contract -- a one-year task order contract to 


Battelle, and they are performing dose 


reconstructions on a specific type of claim, 


those being some typically AWE, Atomic Weapons 


Employer, claims where uranium was processed, 


and some DOE sites. They're going about this 


by providing to us a technical basis document 


that will address similar types of process 


across those kinds of sites, and then they're 


going to treat those claims under those 


particular technical basis documents. To date 

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we have seen three drafts of a technical basis 


document, two drafts are fairly close to being 


approved for use. We have seen about I believe 


30, I'm told, dose reconstructions that have 


been drafted under the use of those documents, 


and so we're evaluating and internally 


reviewing those. 


 This contract is set up and designed so that 


the first part of the contract work is to 


develop these technical basis documents. And 


then once those are standing as approved 


documents, they will be used in -- to treat the 


cases that they so address. 


 I've shown this graphic I believe at every 


program status report, but I'm going to give 


you some more details about it because I think 


it shows a lot that I haven't spoke about 


before in my presentations to you. As you 


know, the -- the law prescribed that claims 


could be accepted on July 31st of 2001. It was 


passed in 2000, of course, but claims 


processing and the submittal of claims and a 


full DOL treatment and development of claims 


started on July 31st, 2001. 


We received our first set of claims October -- 

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mid-October of 2001. And as you can see under 


this part of the curve, that totals up to about 


5,800 claims that were received in these first 


few months, about seven months. We published 


our first dose reconstruction in late May of 


'02, I believe -- about in here. This was our 


backlog. So the blue line shows you the cases 


we received from the Department of Labor, this 


being our backlog when we really started and -- 


putting out these dose reconstruction reports, 


and you see we're pretty flat-lined all the way 


up through April of '03. 


I remind you that our rules for dose 


reconstruction weren't finalized until I 


believe back in May of '02. It took us a while 


to get everything -- get the machinery all put 


together and developed so that we could really 


start producing quality dose reconstruction 


reports. 


The green line indicates those reports that 


were sent to the claimants for their review, 


and the red line are the reports that we've 


provided to Department of Labor. And so 


there's a little bit of lag behind those two 


lines. 

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I mentioned administratively closed reports 


earlier. Here you have those reports that have 


been administratively closed. Why do we do 


that. We do that -- when a claimant receives 


our draft dose reconstruction report they have 


60 days to evaluate it, seek any consultation 


or assistance in their -- in the review from 


either us or from an expert that they might 


want to engage. And then they are asked to 


provide a signed OCAS-1 so that we can move the 


claim over. We've had 133 individual claims 


that have not seen or produced OCAS-1, have not 


indicated that we could move the dose 


reconstruction on to the Department of Labor, 


so we have administratively closed that claim. 


We can reopen that at any point in time if the 


claimant so desires to have it reopened and 


wishes to provide us with an OCAS-1, or provide 


us with additional information that might 


inform the dose reconstruction for that claim. 


So this represents about one percent of our 


claims, and you can see whatever trend you 


might want to ascribe to that over time. 


Oop -- now I'm in trouble. I went too quick. 


(Pause) 

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This graphic presents the number of reworks 


that we have developed. This is a second or a 


different process stream that we have in the 


dose reconstruction program. Those cases that 


have gone over to the Department of Labor and 


the Department of Labor has returned them to us 


for some type of rework to be done on the dose 


reconstruction. This represents about 11 


percent of the claims that we have completed. 


Nine percent of this 11 percent -- nine percent 


of these that you see in this graph were 


returned to us because the claimant or the 


claim itself had additional information 


developed by DOL that caused us to have to 


rework the claim. That is, they may have had 


an additional cancer from the time they 


submitted the claim to the time we have 


provided them a report. They may have 


additional employment that was identified and 


we'll have to reconstruct that, or that other 


parameters or criteria within the claim status 


caused the rework to happen. 


Two percent of this 11 percent has been 


returned to us for technical modification, 


something that we didn't attend to properly in 

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our dose reconstruction effort. I think that 


speaks fairly loudly and clearly about our 


intentions to provide a quality product. 


We want to talk a little bit about the support 


we receive from the Department of Energy. We 


submit a request to the DOE facility points of 


contact where the claimant worked. We ask for 


specific types of exposure monitoring 


information. Our preference is to get the 


original data, not cumulative dose data. We're 


seeking actual badge readouts, bioassay 


readouts, urinalysis readouts, whole body count 


data. That's what we go for. 


To date -- well, as of May 31st, we have 412 


outstanding requests, and 87 of those are 


beyond the 60-day mark. Now we follow up on 


these specifically in each case, and we're 


documenting where things stand at this point in 


time with those cases where we've got a request 


to DOE that's gone beyond 90 days. We provide 


a report to DOE headquarters and to each DOE 


point of contact at the facilities on a 30-day 


sequence on each case and where things stand, 


and we are now asking them to provide us a 


clear and concise status report on what they're 

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doing to try to find this information and 


whether or not they feel that it is 


retrievable. And then we'll make a decision on 


what has to happen at that point if it's deemed 


that there is no information or it's not going 


to be retrievable. I can -- I have the 


statistics on individual sites and the 


particular delays in those responses if -- if 


the Board wants to hear more about those after 


I get through my presentation. 


 The Special Exposure Cohort process has been 


fully implemented, as you know. Six classes of 


workers have been added to the Special Exposure 


Cohort, and they are listed here -- two from 


the Mallinckrodt Chemical Company, Destrehan 


Street in St. Louis for those years specified 


in the slide; the Army -- Iowa Army Ammunition 


Plant, also two classes there, and those are 


the dates; Y-12, the early years at Y-12, '43 


through '47, a class has been added. And one 


petition was recommended to add a class, but at 


the time of the designation -- the Board's 


deliberation and the designation by the 


Secretary -- it was deemed that the National 


Bureau of Standards was not a covered facility. 

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Three petitions have been evaluated and 


provided for Board review and are under 


deliberation within the Board's process and 


procedures: Ames, Iowa -- Ames University 


Laboratory; Rocky Flats and Y-12, and they are 


on this meeting's agenda. 


 Five petition evaluation reports are under 


current development. Actually this should -- 


this slide should read six. I would add 


Harshaw Chemical to this slide now for you, if 


you'd write that in. That happened just -- I 


signed it yesterday as it went out, so I didn't 


have time to change this slide, but add Harshaw 


Chemical and make this six. Harshaw Chemical 


is another facility where we're suggesting and 


recommending to add a class under our 83.14 


process where we identified that we cannot do 


dose reconstructions. That will be the fifth 


class so designated. 


There are 11 current requests to add a class 


that have been submitted to us, and they are -- 


those are in the qualification process. They 


include Bethlehem Steel, Blockson Chemical, two 


for Hanford, the Los Alamos National 


Laboratory, Nuclear Metals, NUMEC, multiple 

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facilities covered in one request -- one 


submittal, Sandia National Laboratory at 


Livermore, and two petition submittals for Y12. 


There have been 28 requests or submittals to us 


to add a class that have been administratively 


closed. And SEC petition submissions are 


administratively closed for these three 


categorical reasons: The submissions do not 


meet the criteria as specified in 42 CFR 83 


Section 83.9, or the facility in the submission 


is already a member of the -- of an SEC class, 


or the petitioner voluntarily withdrew the 


petition. 


928 claims are currently with -- with the 


Department of Labor for class status and 


determination of eligibility for that class. 


You see them listed here. Mallinckrodt in the 


early years, '42 to '48, we sent over 94. The 


Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, 341 cases; Y-12 the 


early years, 388; the Iowa Radiographers, we 


had one case that was returned to DOL; 


Mallinckrodt 1949 to 1957 class period, 58 


cases; Linde Ceramics from October '42 through 


October of '47, 46 cases. 

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We have taken some action upon our realization 


and recognition that our -- people are having 


trouble understanding what it -- what criteria 


they need to meet in order to submit a 


petition. I've asked Laurie Ishak -- Laurie, 


if you'd stand. I'd like to introduce Laurie 


Ishak, who's on my staff. She will serve as 


the Special Exposure Cohort petition counselor. 


You'll see her introduced on our web site, and 


her -- her task, her role, is to assist 


potential petitioners in -- in their 


maneuvering through this process, their 


understanding of what it takes to provide a 


valid petition. Our intent here is to decrease 


the number of administratively closed 


petitions, to fully assist the petitioners in 


the development of their petition. She's going 


to stand at the ready to answer questions in 


that regard, as well as questions about how a 


petition is processed through the Board 


recommendation and to a Secretarial 


designation. She's going to assist the 


petitioners as they so request, as they so 


desire, in their preparation for a Board 


presentation and their preparation for making 

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sure that their petition is fully supported, as 


best we can. 


So I think that's the end of the slides, but I 


had a couple more -- I believe I'll stop there 


and see -- see if we have some questions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Very good. Thank you, Larry, for 


that update. I'll open the floor first with 


Gen Roessler. 


DR. ROESSLER: Larry, on page 3 you talked 


about the contract awarded to Battelle. What 


special capabilities or background do the 


people in this group have that led you to 


choose the group to award this special 


contract? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: They had health physicists 


available to them on staff that could be 


brought to bear, knowledgeable experts. They 


were -- they also -- Battelle, as a contractor 


to NIOSH, had an existing task order contract 


and we could make available use of that rather 


than taking an additional amount of time to 


compete, and we really had an interest in 


serving a -- a population here. These -- those 


1,200 claims -- 1,200 some-odd claims represent 


I think around 74 sites, so you can imagine 

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they're very small-numbered claims per given 


site, and so we were interested in providing 


special emphasis treatment in that -- in that 


regard. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions? Mark Griffon. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Larry, can you tell -- you said 


28 were administratively closed, SEC petitions. 


Do you know a breakdown on the reasons why -- 


you gave the regulatory reasons of why they 


would be administratively closed, but do you 


know a breakdown or approximate breakdown of 


why... 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't off -- I don't have that 


at my disposal right now. Those are the three 


categorical reasons that they fall into. One, 


they -- they didn't meet the -- they could-- 


didn't -- evidently could not meet the criteria 


specified in the rule, or they withdrew or they 


-- they made an error in submitting because 


there was already an existing class. Those are 


the three primary reasons. 


 MR. GRIFFON: If -- if -- I'm just trying to 


understand the closeout process. If a -- if a 


petition comes in and -- and your process is to 


administratively close it out, do you contact 

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the petitioners ahead of time if there's 


something that's --


 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, yes, thank you -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- a minor issue or something 

that --

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, no, thank you, very good 

question --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- to talk about the process 

here. We -- we receive a submission, and the 


first order of business is -- it's put on a 


parallel track. We have folks in our ORAU 


support team who make contact with the 


petitioner. We have a group of folks who 


review the contents of the submission, they 


coordinate their efforts, they talk to the 


petitioner about what they see there, what are 


the deficiencies, what -- what can we do to 


help the petitioner provide a good petition, 


meet the basis of the rule. There's a number 


of telephone conversations that go on. We 


document all of that. It's -- it's -- there's 


a quite a document trail here where the 


exchange between ourselves and the petitioner 


is carefully documented. The petitioner's 

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given a 30-day period to respond to 


deficiencies. We -- we follow up on that. We 


extend it quite often. So it's not just we get 


it in the door and we say no, it doesn't meet 


it. There -- there's a lot of intense effort 


to work with the -- with the petitioners trying 


to achieve a valid petition. 


 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Larry, do you recall the original 


predicted number of claimants -- or if you 


don't recall, I wonder if Pete Turcic might. 


notice that the number from Department of 


Labor, the number of claims coming over seems 


to be at kind of a steady state, and -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: It has been steady state for a 


good --


 DR. ZIEMER: For a while. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- period of time, around 200 or 


a little less. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I'm trying to recall. At the 


front end of the program there were some early 


predictions on sort of what was out there in 


terms of potential claimants, and I'm -- I'm -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, that question's -- 


I 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Do recall that number -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- best posed to somebody other 


than me. I'm just dealing with the reality of 


our situation --


 DR. ZIEMER: I understand. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: -- on that. I'm not... 


 DR. ZIEMER: Pete, is that a number that you 


would have at your fingertips at all? What --


originally when the program was first put in 


place, early predictions of the numbers of 


claimants, and this would be something like the 


number of employees and something along the 


lines of expected cancer rates. We're talking 


about Department of Labor has sent over 20­

some-thousand cases, but is this a large 


fraction of what you early on predicted, or 


not? I'm just trying to get -- 


 MR. TURCIC: (Off microphone) (Unintelligible) 


we didn't get -- (on microphone) I don't have 


the exact number with me --


 DR. ZIEMER: No, I understand that. 


 MR. TURCIC: -- but initially we didn't get 


quite as many as we thought, but then the 


ongoing, you know, exceeded considerably what ­

- what we originally predicted. We could 

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probably dig some of that up and get that for 


you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I was just trying to get a feel 


for -- based on the steady-state numbers, does 


it look like you're getting close to the end of 


the numbers of claims, or are we far from that? 


 MR. TURCIC: I think we're far from it. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Yes, Mike. 

 MR. GIBSON: Larry, on these SEC petitions, the 

administratively closed, if one of the reasons 


is that the petition cannot get their hands on 


additional information within 30 days, if they 


do so later on, 60 days, 90 days, can they -- 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes. 


 MR. GIBSON: -- reapply? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, they -- they -- we work with 


them on that, and we explain to them we -- we 


have a time schedule we're trying to meet and 


we want to get these qualified if we can. If 


they find some information after that 30-day 


time period, all they have to do is come back 


to us and say can we reopen this, and we do. 


They understand that as we work with them. 


It's documented in our letters to them. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Lew Wade. 

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 DR. WADE: A comment and then a question, 


Larry. In order to paint the complete picture 


here, you've neglected to talk about the Nevada 


Test Site and Pacific Proving Grounds. Those 


are two petitions that the Board has acted upon 


and the Secretary is preparing to act upon, so 


we don't need those numbers, but just so people 


realize that those two are moving their way 


through the system. And I would expect quite 


soon the Secretary would act consistent with 


the Board's recommendation, although I don't 


want to limit the Secretary's prerogatives. 


But my second question, and it follows up Dr. 


Ziemer's probing. As this Board starts to 


imagine its activities over the next years, 


year or so, it needs to start to get a sense of 


dose reconstructions and the through-put that 


will be realized in their desire to audit two 


and a half percent of the cases. And could you 


talk to us a little bit about what you see the 


future, and then maybe the Board could start to 


imagine its roles and responsibilities relative 


to that future? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Surely. Surely. And I 


appreciate your comments on Nevada Test Site 

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and PPG. I had a note here. That was what I 


was looking for earlier and I couldn't find it, 


but -- and we anticipate those designations 


coming very soon. 


We are managing the dose reconstruction program 


right now with an intent to achieve what we 


con-- what we consider to be a steady state, 


where we have reduced the backlog and we are 


producing dose reconstructions at a rate more 


than -- we're already doing this -- at a rate 


higher than those that are being referred to us 


where we don't have a backlog at all. So if we 


can get down to where we're doing 4,000 dose 


reconstructions a year and only 3,600 are 


coming in, we think we will be at that point, 


we hope, by September of next year. 


 The ORAU contract concludes on September 11th 


of 2007, and we are managing the completion of 


that contract and the -- we certainly want to 


recognize and show our appreciation about the 


quality of technical support ORAU has given us. 


But we anticipate that at the conclusion of 


that contract award we are going to need still 


some technical assistance in certain areas and 


we will complete those task-related areas. 

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Unless -- unless there's some unique event that 


shows -- that -- that develops where claims 


increase in their -- in their filing and in the 


development of those claims and DOL starts 


sending us more, I anticipate that by next 


September we're going to be -- we'll be at a 


steady state. 


 DR. WADE: And if I do the arithmetic, at that 


point that you realize a steady state, we're 


talking about a population of about 25,000 


claims. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: That's right. 


 DR. WADE: So the Board can start to understand 


its audit responsibilities relative to that 


population when you reach steady state. 


Now in terms of site profile generation, is 


that process now also slowing? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We are working through the 


development of the final site profiles that we 


feel we need. This Battelle effort is -- is 


dedicated in support of that. The ORAU team is 


dedicated in support of that. It's our hope 


that, you know, at the conclusion of the ORAU 


contract we'll have very few, if any, site 


profiles that need to be developed. We'll at 

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that point be, you know, enhancing or providing 


additional quality in the existing site 


profiles. So that -- that's our goal and 


that's what we're trying to manage this program 


against. 


 DR. WADE: And none of us have the crystal ball 


to predict the -- the flow rate of SEC 


petitions, but we assume that that will become 


a -- a significant part of the program as we 


look forward. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: We're assuming that. We're also 


-- in that assumption, we are looking very hard 


at situations where we cannot reconstruct dose. 


As I mentioned earlier, we've got five of those 


situations identified now and -- and we're 


looking at -- through this Battelle mechanism 


and through the ORAU screening of cases, we're 


looking very hard for those situations where we 


can't reconstruct dose. And we certainly are 


going to entertain and work hard with the 


petitioners who feel that they have an eligible 


petition for a class. 


 DR. WADE: And for the Board's consideration 


then, when you reach steady state, the 


population that the Board should be prepared to 

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audit, given this two and a half percent, would 


be about 625 individual dose reconstructions, 


so it starts to give us an idea of the work in 


front of us and then we can sort of decide on 


our time lines and -- and flow rates. Thank 


you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Any other comments? 

Questions? 

 (No responses) 

Okay. If not, thank you, Larry, and we'll move 


on to the next presentation which is a status 


report from the Department of Labor. And Pete 


Turcic is with us today -- welcome, Pete. 


DOL PROGRAM STATUS REPORT
 

MR. PETE TURCIC, DOL
 

 MR. TURCIC: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. It's a 


pleasure to be here this afternoon and to give 


you a status update from Department of Labor's 


activities under the -- under EEOICPA. 


As you may know, Part B became effective July 


of 2001, and since then we've taken in some -- 


over 74,000 claims on over 52,000 cases. Now 


of those, the vast majority -- well, 33,720 -- 


are cases where they're at least claiming 


cancer, and 21,000 -- nearly 22,000 cases have 


been trans-- referred to NIOSH for dose 

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reconstruction. 


Now under the new Part E that was enacted in 


October of 2004 and became effective in June of 


2005, we have -- now have some 52,000 claims 


under Part E on nearly 40,000 cases -- 25,512 


cases -- of those cases were transferred -- 


they were under the Part D program for -- the 


Department of Energy administered. 


Now to shed some light on the question Dr. 


Ziemer asked, I just looked up some of the 


numbers. So far this year, Paul, we have -- 


we've gotten in about 5,500 new Part B claims, 


and we have referred about 2,800 cases to NIOSH 


for dose reconstruction. And the one thing we 


need to point out, since -- since we now 


administer both Part B and E, the Part B cases 


are truly only -- we just take a -- a case now 


and then evaluate it for whether it's benefits 


under B or E or both. So the 5,500, you know, 


that's -- those are more than likely all cancer 


cases and not the other conditions. 


 In administering the program we have set goals 


under the Government Performance and Results 


Act, under the GPRA goals, and basically, in 


addition to the GPRA goals, we then have a lot 

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of operational plan goals, you know, that add 


up to -- to meeting the GPRA goals. Our GPRA 


goals are based on timely initial decisions, 


and the way we set that was we looked at it 


from a timely decision, initial decision would 


be either a referral, do the development work, 


make a determination of covered employment, 


covered illness, make the referral to NIOSH or 


issue a recommended decision. And the 


breakdown of that was for cases that came from 


a DOE facility or a RECA case, we had a 


standard of 120 days, and 180 days for cases 


that came from AWE or a subcontractor. 


 Now the reason we had that split, it's the 


employment verification involved a lot more on 


AWEs and subcontractors, so, you know, that-- 


those cases tended to take up a little bit more 


time. And our percentage, under GPRA, it 


ranged from 75 -- we started out at 75 percent 


of the decisions made would be -- meet those 


timely goals, and then that slowly ratcheted up 


to 80 percent, you know, as performance 


improved and -- as the goal. 


Then we also had a timely decision for final 


decisions, and that's based on the type -- 

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whether, you know, the -- whether objections 


were waived, or if -- if there's a waiver of 


objection-- of objections, then the final 


decision, the goal -- the timeliness standard 


is 30 days after we receive the waiver. And if 


it's going to be a review of the written 


record, then it would be 75 days after the 


recommended decision. And then if it goes to 


hearing, then it goes to 180 days after the 


request for the hearing, and that's because you 


have to give the claimant 30 days ahead of 


time, you know, notice of when the hearing is 


and so forth. And again, in -- for our final 


decisions we started out at 75 percent timely 


and in-- increased it over time. 


For Part E, in the first year, in FY 2005, we 


set a goal of making 1,200 payments by the end 


of that fiscal year. And then for this year we 


-- our timeliness goal for initial decision for 


both Part B and Part E is the timeliness -- the 


180 days on initial decision, and we are going 


to focus -- because of the huge backlog that we 


had, we are focusing and trying to put, you 


know, more emphasis on the backlog that we got 


from DOE, so we lowered our timeliness goal to 

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50 percent for -- for this year. And then we 


also have a goal of making decisions in 75 


percent of the cases that we can work on that 


we got from DOE, the Part D program. 


 And the results over time -- you can see the 


first year, that in FY 2005 (sic) we had a goal 


of 75 percent timely initial decisions and our 


-- we only achieved 48 percent in that first 


year. But then in the second year, in FY -- in 


2003, we exceeded our 75 percent goal and 79.1 


percent of the initial decisions were timely. 


2004 we went up to 92 percent of them were 


timely. 2005, once -- when we got the Part E, 


then in 2005 our results were 81.5. But see, 


our standard in 2004 went up to 77 percent and 


then 80 percent in 2005, and so we met all of 


those timely goals. And so far this year, in 


2006, we're at 56.4 percent of the initial 


decisions meet those timeliness standards. 


Same -- same thing for our final decisions, and 


again, it ranged from -- started out at 75 


percent and ratcheted up to 80. And the 


results -- in 2002, 76 percent were timely, 


exceeded the goal, and we've exceeded the goal 


in each of the years in meeting the timeliness 

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standard for our final decisions. 


The 2006 -- this is for Part E. The 2005, we ­

- we had set a goal, as I said, of making 1,200 


payments. And what we did was we found -- our 


regulations were out in June, but we did find a 


number of certain types of cases that we could 


make decisions on prior to having the 


regulations, and so we started earlier than 


that. We got a jump on that. And then our 


goal of 1,200 payments, we actually made in 


2005 1,535 payments under Part E. 


And where -- here's where we're at with, you 


know, 2006, working on the 75 percent of the 


backlog, and it's -- I hate to say we're on 


track, but we're working to be on track there 


to exceed that goal, also. 


And -- but just to give you some idea of the -- 


the change, just in Part E, for example, in 


2006 just in Part E we've now made recommended 


decision -- because many of those cases may 


have multiple recommended decisions. You know, 


you could have a recommended decision on 


causation and on impairment or wage loss. We 


made 19,712 recommended decisions in Part E, 


and 11,014 final decisions in Part E. 

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 Now what that translates into is, the total 


compensation, EEOICPA compensation, is -- and 


again, this data is as -- as of May 31st, $1.98 


billion. And as of last Thursday, we crossed ­

- and over $2 billion has now been paid in 


EEOICPA compensation. The breakdown of that, 


$1.52 billion is Part B. So about 77 percent 


of it is Part B compensation. Now of that, 


$1.1 billion is for cancer. Now that would be 


a sum of the compensation that was awarded 


based on dose reconstruction plus any 


compensation for cancers at SECs. And of that 


total amount, that $1.2 billion, $200 million 


is -- were RECA benefits. 


Part E, $358 million has been paid in Part E, 


and $101 million in Medical benefits. 


 Now looking at the payees, total EEOICPA payees 


is now approaching 22,000. 19,000 -- over 


19,000 are Part B payees, with 7,440 are cancer 


cases, payees based on cancer cases. 3,778 


were NIOSH case payees, so the case was at 


NIOSH, ended up in payment. Some of that would 


include the newly-added SECs. The total of 


cases that ever went to NIOSH for a dose 


reconstruction and now have been compensation, 

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3,778 payees, and 6,439 RECA payees, and 2,886 


were payees under Part E. 


Now to focus, you know, more on just the cancer 


cases, of the cancer cases, the 33,720 cases, 


51,000 claims, 21,000 -- over 21,000 or 63 


percent have final decisions. There's another 


2,751 that have -- they're in the process. 


They have a recommended decision and they are 


between a recommended decision and a final 


decision. 7,118 are at NIOSH. Now that number 


is slightly different than what Larry showed, 


and a couple of reasons for that. If -- if we 


send a case back for a rework, our data is sort 


of a snapshot in time. That case then is 


counted back at NIOSH. And then there's also ­

- what wouldn't be in there would be any cases 


that -- when they're coming from NIOSH, until 


the claims examiner looks at it, you know, with 


a dose reconstruction and then codes it, so 


there's some delay time and there's always a 


couple of hundred, you know, cases difference 


there. And 2,740 are pending DOL action. 


Now looking at the final decisions, again, 


there was 7,674 approved, 13,437 denials on 


cancer cases. And here's the breakdown of what 

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those denials and why they were denied. 2,541 


were denied because it was non-covered 


employment, and that could range from -- you 


know, we've gotten claims from facilities that 


just aren't facilities. It could be, you know, 


that they were at AWEs outside of the covered 


time period. It could be a number of reason, 


but they were -- strictly employment was the 


reason of the denial. 7,372 were cases where 


the probability of causation was less than 50 


percent. 2,083 was insufficient medical 


evidence; 361, ineligible survivors; and then 


1,100 were, you know, all other denial reasons. 


 (Whereupon, Dr. Melius joined the other members 


at the table.) 


Now looking at the NIOSH referral status, of 


the 27,700, 14,794 have been returned, while 


1,059 were withdrawn. And that could either be 


withdrawn because now that site, you know, was 


involved in an SE-- an added SEC class; could 


be withdrawn because, you know, a claimant died 


and there are no survivors -- a number of 


reason, but 1,059 have been withdrawn. 13,735 


with dose reconstructions, with -- there's 855 


where reworks were needed, and then we're 

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showing about 6,926 of the initial referrals at 


NIOSH. And a percentage breakdown, about 63 


percent with dose reconstructions and about 5 


percent of those that came back were without 


dose reconstructions, and that would be the 


withdrawn number. 


And the case status of those, of the dose 


reconstruction cases that we got back, there's 


a total of 12,880 with a dose reconstruction. 


Of those, 10,262 have final decisions. So we ­

- our -- the standard that we apply to our 


district offices, once we get a dose 


reconstruction back, is to have a recommended 


decision issued within 45 days, but on the 


average of 21 days. So -- and that's showing 


you 79 percent of all the cases that we've 


gotten back from NIOSH have final decisions. 


Another 1,902 have a recommended decision but 


no final, so it's in that in-between, and 716 


are pending a recommended decision. 


Now the results -- of that 10,262 with final 


decisions, we have 2,813 have been approved for 


benefits, and now a breakdown I thought you 


might be interested in, this breakdown is -- 


shows -- the yellow are cases with dose 

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reconstruction that have at least one specified 


cancer being claimed. And then the 922 are 


cases where only non-specified cancers -- dose 


reconstruction came back, was approved, but 


only non-specified cancers, you know, were 


involved. And then the same thing on the 


denial, 7,449 denials with the breakdown 4,336 


were specified cancers and 3,113 only non-


specified cancers were claimed and considered. 


The cases from the newly-added SECs, 846 have 


been withdrawn for SEC review, and of those 526 


of those have final decisions, with 478 


approvals and 37 denials. And the final 


decisions, 62 percent of all of the newly-added 


SECs, the cases that came back, 62 percent of 


them have gone all the way through and had 


final decision already. Another 269 have 


recommended but no final, and there's only 51 


cases that are pending of all the newly-added 


SECs, all the cases that were involved that 


came back, they've all -- all but 51 -- you 


know, some of them we may have to send back 


because they don't have the 250 days or things 


like that, but only 51 remain without some kind 


of decision. 

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And looking at the compensation based on what 


I'm referring to here as NIOSH case related 


compensation, the total is $472 million in 


compensation, with 4,645 payees in 3,154 cases. 


Now that would be total compensation of cases 


for which a referral was made to NIOSH. Now it 


has a final decision to approve benefits and 


compensation paid. So that would include cases 


that were at NIOSH for dose reconstruction, 


then a class may have been added. Those cases 


came back, you know, as part of an SEC class. 


Of that $472 million, $402 million are based -- 


was paid out strictly on cases with a dose 


reconstruction, with 3,878 (sic) payees in 


2,686 cases. And then the other $70 million 


were on the new -- newly-added SEC classes, and 


there's 867 payees in those 468 cases. 


In looking at the agenda, just to give you some 


idea of some of the sites that are going to -- 


going to be discussed, I just put together some 


overall statistics and, you know, if you have 


questions, we can get into, you know, more -- 


more details, but looking at the ones that were 


listed in the agenda as discussing the SEC 


petition sites, Ames -- we had 114 cases with 

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155 claims. We're showing four dose 


reconstructions returned, 40 final decisions 


under Part B, 15 approvals under Part B and 


eight approvals under Part E, compensation to 


date at Ames is $2.3 million. 


Rocky Flats, 2,896 claims in 2,412 cases, with 


723 dose reconstructions, final decisions in 


1,715 Part B cases, 543 approvals under Part B, 


416 approvals under Part E, with total 


compensation of $65.2 million. 


Y-12, 7,222 claims in 4,855 cases, we've gotten 


back 1,396 dose reconstructions from Y-12, 


3,184 final decisions, with 1,673 approvals 


under Part B, 668 approvals under Part E, and 


total compensation at Y-12 $242.8 million. 


Some of the other sites -- Savannah River, 


again, 5,474 claims on 4,135 cases, with 2,029 


dose reconstructions, over 3,000 final 


decisions in Part B, 627 approvals -- Part B 


approvals, 212 Part E, $110 million in 


benefits. 


Hanford, again, the number of cases, 1,692 dose 


reconstructions returned, 2,321 final 


decisions, 531 approvals -- Part B approvals, 


365 Part E, $77.7 million in compensation at 

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Hanford. 


 Nevada Test Site, again, 3,381 claims, 617 dose 


reconstructions, 236 approvals, 121 approvals 


under Part B and $33.8 million in compensation. 


And Bethlehem Steel, 2,074 claims, 1,300 cases, 


577 dose reconstructions, final decisions in 


1,124 cases, with 1,673 approvals under Part B 


and -- I'll have to check on that number, it's 


-- and the total compensation at Bethlehem 


Steel is $38.6 million. 


And now I'll just open it for questions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Pete. Any 


questions or comments? Dr. Melius is reaching 


for his sign. You barely got into the room, 


Jim. 

 DR. MELIUS: I know. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Go ahead. 

 DR. MELIUS: I like your new colored slides, 

Pete. 

 MR. TURCIC: Thank you. 

 DR. MELIUS: You know, get inside the Beltway 

here and everything gets clearer. Well, I have 


about three -- three questions, so the first is 


on your payment totals. The medical numbers I 


believe were quite small. 

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 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: And is that simply 'cause there's 


so many -- or the program really only works -- 


you only get compensated for medical if you've 


already -- from the point that you file the 


claim. Right? 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah, that's -- yeah, medical 


would be paid from the point -- 


 DR. MELIUS: So it's because there's so many 


survivors, or is there still difficulties 


getting people to submit information on -- you 


know, the needed medical information? 


 MR. TURCIC: It's a little bit of both. The 


big reason there's this split between survivors 


and, you know, employees is -- you know, you're 


talking about maybe -- about 50 percent, so 


that's -- that's a large part of the reason, 


and another part of the reason is that -- you 


know, depends on the specific illness and, you 


know, what the status is. 


 DR. MELIUS: Second question is you presented 


some data on specified and non-specified 


cancers. And would you know off-hand, among 


the non-specified cancers, what are the major 


types of cancers? It's skin cancer that's -- 

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covers most of those or would you -- 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah, skin cancer is -- is a large 


one. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. TURCIC: We could get you the --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I --


 MR. TURCIC: I could get you the total 


breakdown, John (sic). 


 DR. MELIUS: That would be --


 MR. TURCIC: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I would be curious to see that and 


so forth. 


 MR. TURCIC: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: I mean there is the -- among the 


specified --


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- the rate of compensation is 


higher, as one might expect. 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: Among the others, it's a little 


hard to sort out because of the skin cancer 


issue, which affects that. 


 And finally -- final question, among the Part E 


claims that you've handled so far for cancer, I 


assume most of them are Part B claims that are 

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simply transferred over -- 


 MR. TURCIC: Most of the cancer would be, 


although there is quite a number of like 


asbestosis --


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. 


 MR. TURCIC: -- you know, things like that that 


-- where lung cancer was involved. 


 DR. MELIUS: Okay. I was going to -- I guess 


my question is are you seeing cases now where 


there are sort of mixed chemical and -- 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- radiation expo-- 'cause one -- 


one of the concerns I think we've heard at many 


of the sites are people concerned that these 


other exposures aren't taken into account, and 


Part E provides a basis for doing that so -- 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- so those are start -- come -- 

 MR. TURCIC: Yeah, uh-huh. 

 DR. MELIUS: Good. Okay. Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Lew Wade? 

 DR. WADE: Not a technical question, Pete, but 


thank you for coming, and you were very 


important to the Board's deliberations last 


time when it talked about certain SEC 

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activities. And tomorrow -- I believe it's at 


3:00 -- the Board is going to take up its 


discussion of the Y-12 petition. 


 MR. TURCIC: Okay. 


 DR. WADE: 3:30, and I think it would be 


terribly important if you could join -- 


 MR. TURCIC: Yeah, I'll be -- I'll be here the 


whole time, so --


 DR. WADE: Thank you very much. 


 MR. TURCIC: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: You'll be -- you'll be welcome at 


8:30 tomorrow for Ames, also. 


 MR. TURCIC: Fine, I'll be here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, other comments or questions? 

 (No responses) 

 Apparently not. Thank you, Pete. 


(Pause) 


CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCUSSION
 

DR. LEWIS WADE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY
 

We're a little ahead of schedule, but that's 


fine, we'll -- we'll proceed with the conflict 


of interest discussion. And to kick it off, 


Dr. Wade will give us some introductory 


remarks. 


 DR. WADE: Thank you very much, Paul. If you 


recall, at the last Board meeting we presented 

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-- I presented, almost ad nauseam, policy to 


you that has been updated and is in your tab 


"Conflict of Interest" and there are copies of 


it in the back. Based upon comments we've 


heard from people, we've modified that policy 


and it exists as it's presented here. 


What I was going to do today is just walk 


through some of the highlighted changes that 


we've made and, you know, use that to -- to 


stimulate some discussion. We would very much 


like to hear from any and all involved on this 


policy as we continue to evolve it. We'd very 


much like to hear from the Board as a whole. 


That could happen either today, it could happen 


during the Board's working time for the Board 


to take an action and speak to us. There's a 


Board call scheduled for early August. If the 


Board feels it appropriate, we can put on that 


call the need to discuss this policy, as well. 


We'd always be willing to hear from individual 


Board members, and would look forward to 


comments from individual Board members. 


We have a public comment period following the 


Board's discussion today. We can hear from 


anyone at that point on any topic, but we 

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certainly would like to hear from those who 


have advice to us as we move forward on the 


conflict of interest policy. 


The intent of NIOSH is to take all that it 


hears during this session and subsequent 


interactions and try and continue to evolve the 


policy. NIOSH would like -- in oh, six weeks 


from this meeting -- to -- to be close to 


finalizing that policy. Again, it depends upon 


what we hear and the depth of comments we hear. 


But let's set as a goal six weeks from today we 


would like to present to the world the final 


policy. We'll bring that to the Board when the 


Board next gets together, and we're always 


prepared to hear from the Board on those 


issues. 


This is a terribly important issue for the 


agency. It receives a great deal of public 


scrutiny on this issue. And again, our 


approach has been to put together this holistic 


policy that can be the fountainhead that all 


other policies would flow from. 


Let me walk you through, briefly, some of the 


changes that we've made since the last time we 


were together. Again, I can point out and go 

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through the entire policy again if you would 


like, but we walked through that fairly 


completely when the Board was last together. 


So if you have the policy in front of you, the 


first major change would come on page 3, and 


that would be in Section 3.11. This is where 


we were trying to deal with issues that related 


to financial or supervisory types of conflicts. 


 And I'll point to you two footnotes that we've 


added to 3.11, based upon comments that we've 


heard. The first is a familial definition, and 


there we talk about would encompass a current 


spouse, child, parent, sibling or grandparent 


that worked, as defined in our definition of 


work in this document, at or for the site, or 


any survivors of same that are eligible to file 


claims under the program. 


It's come to our attention that we need to -- 


to deal with issues of -- of family and -- and 


family involvement, and this is our attempt to 


do that. I point that out to you as a 


significant addition since last we talked. 


Footnote 9 tries to deal with the definition of 


"financial," and it's really an exclusion. The 


term "financial" does not include work, as 

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defined above, for DOE of less than four 


months' continuous duration as a student 


intern, graduate fellow, or in another 


primarily educational capacity. It also does 


not include having received a financial stipend 


from DOE for graduate study, or a fellowship in 


the context of an established DOE fellowship 


program intended to support graduate-level 


work. 


A change based upon comments we have heard and, 


again, I raise it for your attention to 


stimulate discussion on that change. 


On page 4, an entire new section was added at 


4.0, "Corporate Disclosure and Exclusion". In 


our document the last time, we were remiss in 


not dealing with corporate issues. We were, 


again, trying to collect a thought-piece that 


defined conflict of interest. It was pointed 


out to us that we needed to deal with corporate 


disclosure and exclusion, and we've added that 


section for consideration of those who would be 


reviewing the document. 


I take you on then to page 8 where we talk 


about the definition of a site expert. 


Remember now, a site expert is someone who has 

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knowledge and is conflicted at a particular 


site. It was pointed out to us that possibly 


we weren't as clear in our statements of what 


site experts can't do than we needed to be, and 


in fact people pointed to previous policies 


where there was more specificity, and the 


second paragraph was added. 


I'll quote from the second session -- second 


sentence, "Site experts are not permitted to 


serve as document owners or authors, or to make 


public presentations on key program documents. 


They may serve as a source..." and you can read 


on yourself. Again remember, this program is 


trying to strike a balance -- this policy -- 


trying to strike a balance between the need for 


information and the need not to have people who 


are conflicted in control of important 


documents. And again, "site expert" becomes a 


vehicle for living very close to that line, and 


we felt it important to add those restrictions 


verbatim into this document. 


On page 9 we've added to the section on 


verification, and really tried to be more clear 


on the section of penalties. One of the 


additions we made to the verification section 

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is, again, in the third sentence, "Any errors 


discovered in forms filed at or after the time 


this policy statement takes effect shall be 


created (sic) immediately at the filing 


employer's or contractor's expense. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Corrected immediately. 


 DR. WADE: I'm sorry? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Corrected immediately. 


 DR. WADE: Corrected immediately at the filing 


employer's or contractor's expense. Again, 


we've tried to be more specific in that regard. 


And then on page 10, the last section on 7.5, 


"Compliance Information Contacts", we've added 


that section based upon comments that had been 


made. 


The document's been modified in other areas 


based upon comments, but those were the 


principal comments that I thought worth 


pointing out. Again, we're hoping for a full 


airing and a discussion of this document in the 


deliberations today. We've allowed a 


significant amount of time. We would also like 


to hear from you about our strategy that one 


document would serve as the fountainhead for 


all policies that would flow from it. 

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61 

There can be arguments made that the Board 


possibly should be held to a different 


standard. There are arguments that the Board's 


contractor should be held to a different 


standard. All of those are fair game for 


discussion, and we would certainly like to hear 


comments that people have to make on those 


issues, as well as any that occur to you. 


What I'd like to do now is just stop talking 


and let the discussion proceed with the Board's 


deliberation, and then move into a public 


comment period where we could collect comments 


from all who have interest in this topic. And 


the only thing I can promise you is that the 


drafters of this document will take those 


comments to heart and issue a final version of 


the document based upon what we hear here today 


and hear from others who would like to 


communicate with us over the next weeks. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you, Lew, for 


introducing the document to us. This document 


actually was distributed I think to the Board 


earlier by e-mail. At least I -- I think we 


all saw copies of it before today, so we've had 


a little chance to digest it. So let's open it 

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up for -- first of all we have general 


comments, or we can focus on specific sections, 


or you may have questions as to what things 


mean. Wanda? 


 MS. MUNN: My concern from the first has been 


the wording of the new 3.11. Broadly 


interpreted, that would encompass almost anyone 


who has ever worked at or been professionally 


associated with any DOE contractor or their 


site for a long period of time. For example, 


(reading) Based on your knowledge at this time, 


do you, or did you -- did you, we're going back 


into the past here, essentially -- ever have 


any familial -- even if you marked that out -- 


financial -- mark that out -- supervisory or 


subordinate relationship with DOE, the 


operator, any former DOE operator or employees, 


employee survivor, or attorney representing 


anyone on these matters. 


It's hard to imagine having worked on a DOE 


site and not having had some supervisory or 


subordinate relationship with someone who has a 


claim here. I just don't know how that's 


possible. So I'm not questioning the 


reasonability of the familial, or even 

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financial. But the realistic nature of this 


"supervisory or subordinate" clause covering 


all time for anyone who knows or has worked in 


any of these areas is essentially going to 


exclude everyone that I know from working on 


these matters. And my personal feeling is 


that's much too broad. If you're going to be 


specific about it, then you have to recognize 


the difference between the reality of a 


conflict and an imagined conflict, because 


those of us who sit on this Board know people 


who are involved in these -- in these specific 


areas, and who have worked for them or have had 


them work for us. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Also as some of these 


questions are raised, if -- if there is anyone 


here, including counsel, who can answer in 


part, that would be helpful as well, or explain 


in part. If I might superimpose a little bit 


on what Wanda talked about, it's not completely 


clear to me how this plays out in terms of the 


time frames. 


 For example, suppose you had all of those 


issues, but they occurred, for example, after 


the period for which say an SEC is being 

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considered. Does that still count as a 


conflict? There's something in here that 


suggests that the time period does come into 


play, and there are certain words in here that 


currently suggest to me that I have a conflict 


on every site. But the time frame becomes very 


important because that conflict is -- is not in 


play during at least most of the SEC petition 


periods. So that -- that time issue -- at some 


point I'd like to be educated about that a 


little more. 


 MS. MUNN: But our COI is not limited only to 


SECs. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, yes, right. 


 MS. MUNN: That's -- that's -- therein lies the 


real problem. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Right. Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, just along those lines, I 


also think it's clear in that section as to 


which sites it refers to, so in terms of, you 


know, the relationships and -- and so forth, 


it's such a broad area that it -- like in your 


instance, Dr. Ziemer, one thing -- does it mean 


working with other people you've worked with 


and now work at another site or something? It 

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certainly implies it -- it's quite broad. 
I 


think some of those areas need to be covered. 


I just think there's some more specificity in 


terms of time and place --


 DR. ZIEMER: You're saying if the person I 


worked with -- let's say at Oak Ridge -- is now 


working at Hanford, do I now have a conflict at 


Hanford? Is that --


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, that's what --

 DR. ZIEMER: Yes. 

 DR. MELIUS: -- well, one reading of it would 

be that. I mean that -- do that. I don't 


think in the case of someone who's worked at 


one site it's as much of a problem 'cause 


normally you're conflicted at that site. But 


it's -- the question is -- is -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: How does it carry --


 DR. MELIUS: -- over a time frame, how does 


that carry over in terms of a time frame and 


how does it carry over from site to site. Or 


in your case where you have broader 


responsibility, how -- how do you figure -- 


figure that? It's very confusing. Potentially 


in terms of how do you make it operational. 


 DR. WADE: I'm just a --

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 DR. MELIUS: I have another point. Lew or 


someone-- could someone clarify Section -- the 


new Section 4.0, Corporate Disclosure and 


Exclusion? Because as I read -- read it, it is 


all disclosure and no exclusion. 


 DR. WADE: Yeah, I mean that -- that issue has 


been raised to us. I think 4.0 needs to have 


sentences added that deal with an exclusion. 


would refer you to page 1, Purpose, the second 


paragraph where the policy tries to deal with 


that issue generically. It says it is NIOSH's 


policy to require each employee of each entity 


covered by this statement of policy, as well as 


the entity itself, who performs any program 


function as described below in 5.0 and 6.0 to 


undertake the following two actions: One, to 


disclose; two, to be excluded. So we're trying 


to establish the fact that a conflict would 


result in an exclusion at the -- the integrated 


level, but that -- those words need to appear 


in 4.0 and we were remiss in not including 


them. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Other questions -- or concerns, 

comments? 

 DR. MELIUS: I have another. 

I 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. This policy, though it's in 


some ways better than the previous draft in 


this regard, puts a lot of onus on the document 


owner to police conflict and to certainly weigh 


evidence that would come in from site experts 


and other people who are conflicted who would 


be contributing information to -- let's call it 


a site profile. And you know, frankly, we 


haven't seen evidence of that. In the sites 


where we've raised concerns about conflict 


among the people providing most of the input 


into the documents, we've not seen any strong 


evidence of -- that their work is being 


reviewed, and we've raised questions about 


that. And I really think that if you're going 


to follow that path, then really need to see a 


much stronger implementation of that, as well 


as questions of how are you going to go back 


and deal with past problems with conflict of 


interest on many of the documents that have 


already been -- are currently in use, so to 


speak. And -- but we really -- I don't know 


whether this needs to be some better structural 


program for how that would -- person would be 

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appointed and what their -- their role would 


be. But -- but certainly -- I mean I have 


concerns simply because -- in general it's -- 


it is something that might be workable, but we 


certainly have no experience of seeing strong 


document owners, certainly in the face of a 


strong site expert, in terms of dealing with 


their issues. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, let me make sure I understand 


your comment. I think I do. So you have a 


document owner, and they're gathering 


information. And in one sense, every site 


expert they use is conflicted, 'cause they're a 


site expert. 


 DR. MELIUS: Correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: So the issue then becomes how do 


you weigh the credibility of that information 


from the various site experts. You're -- you 


may be even getting conflicting information 


from them. Is that what you're -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Well, they -- to show that this is 


an active program, that it is being weighed. 


think what my perception has been, at least on 


sites where I've had concerns about the 


information from the site expert, is that I've 


I 
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seen no one really overseeing or questioning or 


-- or having an active role in the document, 


other than that site expert. So all questions 


are referred to that site expert when -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Rather than the document owner. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- the document owner seems to be 


playing a very passive role. It's more than 


just editing a document, so forth. I think 


that conceptually what's laid out here, you 


know, would be workable or could be workable. 


But however, it -- we -- I don't see evidence 


that it's been put into practice to date. And 


in fact, we've seen the opposite, where the 


site expert has dominated on a particular -- 


particular site. And again, it's not 


necessarily questioning their work, but 


certainly the perception would be that -- that 


that person does -- you know, perceived to have 


a conflict and there needs to be a stronger 


oversight and review function -- really needs 


to be someone that does own it and plays a very 


active role in that ownership, which frankly 


takes a lot of investment in terms of time and 


effort. It would be -- to have someone who 


puts in the time to learn about the site and to 

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-- do that. 


I mean the second part of that is to have a 


meaningful program where -- that does seek 


input from people other than one -- a single 


site expert or one or two site experts. In the 


past where we've seen this, particularly the 


early site profile documents have relied on one 


or two site experts -- again, many people have 


had a long history of working the site and are 


very knowledgeable, but without any meaningful 


way for others to have input into that site. 


And unfortunately, the outcome of that is that 


often questions aren't raised until we're 


dealing with a -- either a site profile review 


or more commonly with an SEC evaluation, at 


which point another -- you know, our contractor 


-- the Board's working group then raises a 


whole number of questions that -- that probably 


should have been dealt with and explored at the 


time the site profile was developed, because -- 


but simply it's relied on one person, and I 


think -- or one or two people, and I think 


important questions have not been asked. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 


 DR. MELIUS: And if this is the route that 

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NIOSH wants to go, then I think they need to 


show some evidence that they really will 


implement a strong program for review and 


document ownership, so to speak. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you. Wanda? 


 DR. WADE: Could I react to that just briefly? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, sure. Go ahead. 


 DR. WADE: And I couldn't emphasize more the 


importance of Dr. Melius's point. Again, from 


the very beginning we -- we've talked about 


this policy tries to walk that fine line 


between saying there are people who have 


knowledge, we want to hear their knowledge, and 


yet we don't want them to overly influence the 


document. 


We could have taken another approach is to say 


those people with knowledge are not welcome 


here; we don't want to hear from them. So 


we've taken this middle ground approach. But 


for it to work meaningfully, we have to assure 


Dr. Melius -- or the thought that Dr. Melius 


raises is appropriately administered. And I 


would very much appreciate thoughts from the 


Board or individual Board members of how we 


might implement that. If we don't implement 

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that effectively, then the policy falls and the 


desired goal, which is to have people with 


knowledge present, has to be walked away from. 


We don't want to walk away from that if we can 


help it. But unless we deal with this issue in 


some way that satisfies all, then we -- we have 


failed. So it's a very important issue to us 


and we would very much like to hear suggestions 


-- it doesn't have to be today -- as to what it 


would take to assure those that say the 


document owner is really just a front for a 


process that is dominated by site experts. How 


do we -- how do we administer it to assure that 


that's not the case. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. Wanda. 


 MS. MUNN: And that is my primary concern, that 


we not develop a conflict of interest statement 


that is so restrictive that it essentially says 


anybody who knows anything about this can't 


serve on here. And one question that I have, 


it's not really crystal clear in my mind, is 


how broad is the coverage of this COI. Is this 


only for NIOSH employees? If you read the -- 


if you read the first paragraph of the purpose, 


it gets to be pretty broad and includes us and 

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a whole bunch of other people, in that any 


persons or entities carrying out responsibility 


for the NIOSH dose reconstruction program -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think it's intended to cover our 


contractor, the Board, NIOSH's contractor, the 


whole --


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh, and therefore that -- that 


even magnifies the concern about if you know 


anything about this, you can't possibly serve 


here. We have to be very careful, I think, 


that we don't get to the point where 


individuals, for any purpose, can point to a 


specific portion of our conflict of interest 


statement and say therefore you have no right 


to be here. 


 DR. WADE: Just to -- because this is so 


important to me, that's the -- that's the nub 


issue. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. WADE: You want people with knowledge, but 


then again you don't want people who authored 


these programs back 30 years ago to be the only 


people who have the ability to produce these 


documents, without independent review at many 


levels. So finding that middle ground is the 

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challenge for us, and this is our attempt at 


doing it. Dr. Melius's point that there needs 


to be an administrative system in place that 


develops confidence in those who would question 


how this will be implemented is critical to us. 


 MS. MUNN: Uh-huh. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Other comments? 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I have --


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: -- a separate comment. I would 


also -- it was one of the questions you raised, 


Lew, when you made your presentation. I 


actually think it would be helpful to include 


more specificity about the different groups 


that are involved in this program in your -- in 


this policy. I've found that the section on 


the Advisory Board to be helpful, 'cause it -- 


'cause it takes into consideration some of our 


-- our functions and what we do, and also some 


of the areas where -- some of the gray areas -- 


gray area -- how do we deal with situations 


when we're dealing with 40 or 50 or 20 dose 


recon-- individual dose reconstructions where 


probably everybody on the Board could 


potentially be disqualified in one or two, and 

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issues like that. And I think that -- that 


would be helpful. I think having one that -- 


that covered NIOSH, covered the contractor, 


covered the Board and probably covered the 


Board's contractor separately would be -- would 


be helpful because I think all of those groups 


have specified rules and -- and there are gray 


areas or areas that, in terms of their 


functions, we could probably get greater 


specificity and clarity from and it might help 


address I think some of Wanda's questions she ­

- she raised, also, on... 


 DR. WADE: An excellent suggestion. 


 DR. ZIEMER: And let me follow up on that. 


There may very well be a parallel set of things 


-- for example, our contractor looks at 


individual dose reconstructions, they look at 


SEC petitions. We might start to look at these 


in a similar way and say under what conditions 


is one of their people conflicted or not, just 


as in the case of the Board. So a parallel 


kind of structure might be worth at least 


thinking about. I think it's a great 


suggestion, and perhaps it would carry over to 


ORAU as well. I'd have to think about that, 

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but -- I see Kate is nodding her head there, so 


perhaps some differentiation of -- of what 


those functions are. 


Other comments? Roy. 


 DR. DEHART: As I look through the document, it 


appears to me that the majority of information 


is provided by the individual as to his or her 


experience at the various sites. I don't see 


anything in here that would assist someone in 


challenging, and I think it would be 


appropriate to have -- have a method 


established so if there is issue, it can be 


formally brought up within the structure of the 


document. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Can you clarify -- Roy, are you 


talking about someone who is said to be 


conflicted and wishes to challenge that 


decision? 


 DR. DEHART: Not -- that wasn't the direction I 


was heading in. Someone who has not identified 


an area in which they may be conflicted, and 


others -- for one reason or another -- wanting 


to get clarification on that. 


 DR. WADE: We have tried in 7.3, Verification, 


the last sentence, to begin to develop a 

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mechanism for people to -- to raise concerns. 


Possibly we need to expand upon that, though. 


I understand. Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now you've heard some verbal 


questions, comments and concerns here. My 


understanding is that this is a work in 


progress. NIOSH is developing this. The 


procedure -- or maybe you can clarify the 


procedure -- is the next step a new draft, and 


that would come -- this is a NIOSH procedure so 


I don't think the Board has to necessarily 


approve the draft, or the procedure, but we 


need to be involved in -- in your keeping us 


informed as to how it's developing. But what ­

- what is the final route that this takes 


through the system? It goes up through HHS, I 


presume. Is that correct? 


 DR. WADE: Most certainly, yes. I mean NIOSH 


would, based upon the comments it hears here 


and subsequent to this, develop the final 


document. It would go through various reviews 


within HHS in terms of Office of General 


Counsel and -- and by policy people, and then 


it would become something we would live 


consistent with. Certainly we would bring that 

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document to the Board when next the Board 


meets. And no matter how final it might 


appear, we would always take comments from the 


Board and be guided by the Board. We -- we 


want to crystallize something sooner rather 


than later so we can start to see that we are 


all living consistent with this. But certainly 


we would be prepared the next time the Board 


would like, be it at the phone call in August 


or at the September meeting, to say here is 


what we've come to and ask for the Board's 


opinion and comments. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now Dr. Wade, you mentioned that 


you would like to get some public comment on 


this, and although our public comment period is 


scheduled for later, I -- I'm going to suggest 


that we might invite some public comment now, 


or at least as soon -- soon as the Board -- 


we'll get -- get -- okay. 


Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see Mike, then we'll 


catch Mark and we'll take Jim. Okay, Mike. 


 MR. GIBSON: Just kind of a comment, then maybe 


a question or clarification. It seems that 


most of the site experts are people who have of 


course knowledge, but they have ran (sic) a 

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program or overseen a program at the site, and 


I realize that NIOSH has done some limited town 


hall meetings, so to speak, with the workers to 


get input from them after the fact. How many 


site experts that have written portions of 


these documents have been hourly workers that 


have been out in the field doing the work, as 


opposed to overseeing the program? 


 DR. WADE: I can try to get you an answer, 


Mike. I don't have an answer. That's a valid 


question. I don't have that answer. I doubt ­

- I don't know if anyone in the room would have 


such an answer, but I'll try and get you an 


answer to the question of how many people who 


have been identified as site experts in the 


process have been hourly workers. 


 MR. GIBSON: Correct, have actually been out 


and potentially been the ones exposed, as 


opposed to the ones running the program. 


 DR. WADE: I'm sure it's heavily weighted 


towards the -- the latter rather than the 


former, but we'll get you an answer. 


 MR. GRIFFON: I'm just wondering if -- I -- I 


know this is draft, but has ORAU and/or NIOSH 


done any sort of impact assessment on -- on 

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this policy? You know, what would it -- how 


would it impact your current program, would you 


expect a lot of review or rewrites of 


documents, site profiles, et cetera, based on 


this new policy? I know that if I were sitting 


in the wings as a site profile document owner, 


I think I'd be probably re-evaluating what I'd 


put into print, given some of the ones that 


I've looked at from the outside. So I'm just 


wondering if anybody's assessed -- is this 


going to create additional work that has to be 


done with a lot of these documents? 


 MR. ELLIOTT: Is this on? 


 MS. MUNN: It's sounding a little bit. 


 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know where to turn it on 


here. Well, I'll talk loud -- there, it's on, 

okay. 

Okay. Yes, we've shared each draft of this 

policy with all of our contracting staff and 


asked that particular question, is this 


something you can't live with or you can live 


with; what -- what obstacles, what problems 


does it present. And some of the -- some of 


the feedback from those individual contractors 


-- it's not only ORAU. We've asked Battelle, 

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we've asked EG&G also to -- to review and 


comment on these various versions, and some of 


that feedback you see in this current version. 


And for the ORAU team -- and Kate could speak 


to this if she so desires -- but they are very 


much interested in what the final version is 


going to look like. They're very much 


concerned about the amount of work that it is 


going to take to review all of the existing 


documents and make sure that they have a 


document owner that is in place that is serving 


as the policy -- this current policy -- 


requires them to serve, and whether or not 


there are individual site experts and subject 


matter experts that are conflicted that have 


not been fully disclosed, et cetera, et cetera, 


et cetera. So I appreciate your comment. 


That's where we stand. We're constantly 


sharing the various versions as they come 


forward to make sure that our contractors have 


an opportunity to express their -- their 


thoughts about the language. 


I'd also take it back to what Dr. Melius said 


earlier about the document owners, and I agree 


with Dr. Wade's summation on that, as well. 
I 
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can't enhance that any more. That is an 


important, a very critical issue that -- that 


we all need to be very cognizant of and work 


together on. But I'd offer this and remind 


everybody that the term "document owner" in 


this parlance and the way this -- this version 


presents it has just been very recent and -- 


and yes, we have been remiss perhaps in -- in 


coming to that position and coming to that 


philosophical and intellectual state about how 


we need to manage and control perceived 


conflicts. And we are working hard to achieve 


what is -- the intent that is written here. 


And no, a year ago we weren't -- we weren't 


focusing on that, and perhaps we should have. 


We were remiss in that regard. 


 DR. WADE: And I would like to add a comment to 


Larry's. I've been close to the drafting of 


this document and have watched each of its 


iterations. In my opinion, the document has 


not been directed based upon a consideration of 


the amount of rework that would be necessary 


based upon the direction the policy takes. 


We've been mindful of that consideration, but 


we are not trying to steer down a path of least 

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resistance in terms of the amount of rework. 


The policy as I believe it to be reflects the 


thoughts of the leadership as to what the 


appropriate policy should be. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Jim, are you okay with giving Kate 

the floor --

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, sure, I am. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- on this issue? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 

 DR. ZIEMER: We'll hear from ORAU here. 

 MS. KIMPAN: Hi, thank you very much for the 

opportunity to respond to this. As Larry said 


and Lew said, I think that Jim's question is of 


absolute import to our team, the whole process. 


Let me give you -- because there are many 


different things under discussion here, I'll 


reiterate what I've said at the last two 


meetings, but it's beginning to become clearer 


what we're doing. 


 One thing that the ORAU team is doing for every 


document that we have created thus far is going 


back through and doing full annotation and 


attribution. However the total final policy 


lands, and whatever small number of documents 


for which a retrospective review would yield a 

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conflicted owner, we will -- as we've said -- 


conduct a thorough review of all findings to 


assure that we've made all the right scientific 


findings. 


I will say again here, we don't expect -- I 


heard the word "rework" and "redo". We don't 


anticipate reworks or redo's of any of our 


conclusions or documents, although we are 


always open to changing documents to make them 


better, and will be into the future. We 


anticipate that you'll -- you'll benefit a 


great deal from our first fully annotated and 


attributed document, which will be the entire 


Rocky Flats site profile. At that point -- and 


that's irrespective of the finalized policy, of 


course, so this is something we're working on 


right now. The first -- the first thing we're 


intending to do is assure that there's a great 


deal -- as Lew has asked for, Dr. Wade has 


asked for in the past, Larry has asked for -- a 


great deal of sunshine on what we've done. 


We're proud of the folks that we've used, the 


conclusions that we've made. It's been a 


cooperative process, working with and for NIOSH 


and other scientists. As we annotate and 

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attribute every one of these findings in every 


one of our documents, we believe that will help 


in the realm that Dr. Melius has raised, and 


others. 


 Specifically regarding the policy, we will 


accept willingly the policy that NIOSH gives us 


to work within, and will endeavor to 


immediately report out to the Board how many 


documents -- and we've looked through the lens 


of this draft, as Larry said. We received it 


when others at the Board did. We'll look 


through the lens of this current draft and 


immediately report out when the policy is 


finalized how many documents we have where, 


under this new policy -- prior drafts were made 


without this policy of course in mind -- where 


they require additional scrutiny. We'll be 


pleased to report out what those documents are, 


who the expert was, who the owner was, the 


question about how many experts have been 


workers at the facilities, we're more than 


pleased to give you all that information. The 


entire purpose of the annotation/attribution 


exercise is to assure that people know where 


our information's from, that we agree, as -- as 

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Lew said eloquently, we're trying to strike the 


balance between people who know what we need to 


know to do this well, and assuring that people 


are, as Dr. Melius noted, comfortable and 


confident in the work that we've done on behalf 


of these workers and this program. And we 


believe that we'll have Rocky out well in 


advance of the next Board meeting, make certain 


that that gets to NIOSH and to you all for any 


input, advice you might have. You know, we're 


-- we're developing the annotation/attribution 


methodology ourselves in advance of the policy 


being finalized, but we absolutely welcome any 


input, advice, guidance that the Board and 


others may have to assure that we're doing it 


the right way and getting the right facts out 


there for folks to evaluate. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Kate. Dr. Melius. 


 DR. MELIUS: Uh-huh. One -- one comment that 


related to that issue and another comment 


related to sort of how the Board should proceed 


in handling this. 


I think the most difficult situation going back 


-- and I'm pleased to hear that you have 


started to go back and annotate the documents 

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


critical to sort of evaluating what's going on 


and -- and undoubtedly then we're going to -- 


you know, we may -- may or may not find some 


that -- where further evaluation for the work's 


going to be needed because we may have some 


where a site expert who has some potential 


conflict may have been, again, the dominant 


author and we annotate that, show that, then 


the question is, you know, how -- how do we go 


forward with that document. It may be through 


a revision or -- or through further review, and 


I think that probably has to be done on a case 


by case basis. 


I also think it's important to keep in mind, 


sort of separate from the issue of going back 


and looking at it from a perspective of, you 


know, who was the site expert, who was the 


document owner and potential conflict, is 


another aspect of this is sort of the peer 


review of the information in the -- in the 


document. And at least my personal perception 


is based on the review that's been done by SC&A 


is that that's another sort of parallel area 


that needs to be addressed. Has nothing to do 

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with, you know, site experts necessarily or 


people with conflicts, but rather we need to 


have a -- a stronger program to review these 


documents so we're not sort of being surprised 


or finding out issues that have significant 


impact on dose reconstruction, ability to do a 


dose reconstruction if you're going the SEC 


context, at such a late point in time. And 


some of that I think was just a -- a -- what 


happened and we needed to get this program 


moving forward and get the site -- dose 


reconstruction program going for each site. 


But I think we also need to be able to look at 


ways to, you know, buttress that in some way, 


make -- have a rob-- more robust internal peer 


review internal program that will address some 


of these -- these same issues. And maybe those 


two working together may be what'll be needed 


to sort of make sure that the documents that 


are in place are as strong as possible, both 


from a technical point of view as well as from 


a conflict of interest issue -- point of view. 


My second comment is just sort of Board and 


NIOSH procedure. This -- these documents have 


been hard to review because NIOSH keeps 

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changing them. In some ways it's good you keep 


changing them because it shows that you're 


actively involved and want to get this done, 


and I don't think the Board wants to be in 


place of sort of continually reviewing and then 


-- we'll never get anything implemented. But ­

- so what I would suggest is that maybe there 


be a period of time after this meeting where 


individual Board members can submit comments to 


you on -- on this current -- this current 


draft, in addition to what we've said here or 


to amplify on that. And then, if this is 


feasible, before our August meeting we could 


have the next draft, maybe then -- which I 


think would fit the timetable I've heard you 


speak about in terms of getting done, and at 


least have it presented to the Board and we 


have, for that conference call, some discussion 


of this, as appropriate. Whether the Board 


then wants to take formal action on it, I think 


we can -- can decide. But -- but I think that 


would be a reasonable time frame and would be ­

- rather than us trying to gather comments for 


a document that -- that's continually changing. 


And I think it should be in much more of a 

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final form from -- just prior to our August 


meeting, which is mid-August, I believe. 


 DR. WADE: We have a call on August 8th. So if 


we were to say a month from today we would 


begin our redraft based upon comments received, 


and if we could do that -- a month from today 


would be what, the 7th -- no, the 14th? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Of July. 


 DR. WADE: Of July, then we would take ten days 


to draft, and we would commit to getting it to 


the Board before that call. Is that 


reasonable? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Now I asked about the process, and 


it seems to me that -- although NIOSH has their 


own internal processes, it seems to me that 


since this policy basically impacts greatly on 


everything that's done in this program, that 


the Board may wish to go on record in some way 


-- for example, the ideal thing would be if 


it's a policy that the Board can endorse in 


some way, or ascribe to, or say that we agree 


that -- with this policy, some kind of position 


on the policy as you go forward within the 


agency. That seems to me would be useful since 


this policy has great impact on everything we 

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do. 


 DR. WADE: Understood. Would we want to try 


for that in August or -- 


 DR. ZIEMER: Or alternatively, if we're unable 


to reach such a point, I think it says that the 


policy's not ready. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. So we will strive to have 


this discussed, reaching some Board opinion, in 


the August call. If we don't succeed at that, 


then we set our sights on September. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Does that sound reasonable to the 


rest of the Board? Jim. 


 DR. MELIUS: Given how difficult it is to draft 


something over -- in a teleconference call -- 


short duration, may I suggest we set up a small 


working group of the Board that would just 


draft some comments based on the draft -- if we 


received it what, you said about ten days or so 


beforehand, maybe five days or so -- on the 


conference call August 3rd or whatever, I don't 


have the calendar in front of me -- that would 


-- at least we'd have something ready for the 


Board to consider at the -- the -- our meeting 


in -- something in writing to work off of 


rather than trying to do something over the 

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telephone. 


 DR. ZIEMER: You're suggesting that once we 


have the -- the next draft -- 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that there be a working group 


to review this, and that working group could 


either develop a statement or suggest changes. 


 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, we would --

 DR. ZIEMER: Or both. 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, right, if -- a potential 

statement that would -- or even if that working 


group -- through some differences of opinion or 


whatever, people have different views -- could 


lay out some of the options that people wanted 


considered so that we'd have something in front 


of us to discuss at that conference call. 


 DR. ZIEMER: It certainly is an appropriate 


suggestion. The Chair is willing to appoint 


such a workgroup. It's pretty clear to me who 


would chair this. I'll take that as a 


volunteer; when you make the suggestion, you're 


in the workgroup. I would --


 DR. MELIUS: It's what I get for coming late. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The penalty. I would entertain 


two other volunteers to participate with that. 

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I'm not going to entertain them; I will 


entertain suggestions. Who would like to work 


on that workgroup with Jim? 


 MR. CLAWSON: I will. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Brad is one, we'll get one 


other person. 


 MS. MUNN: That will be so much fun. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Brad and Mike will work with 


you, Jim. 


 MS. MUNN: Okay, fine, we'll get the union 


crowd to do it, that's good. 


 DR. WADE: Could I massage the time frames a 


bit? 


 DR. ZIEMER: You certainly can. 


 DR. WADE: Okay. Rather than giving you a 


month, let me give you three weeks. This way 


we'll have more time to schedule the working 


group. So three weeks from today, which would 


be the -- what, the 35th -- the 5th of July -- 


we will close the docket. We will -- we will 


have comments from you. We'll then turn around 


and we'll set our goal at ten days to prepare a 


draft. Again, we can start on that right now 


based upon things we could anticipate. So that 


means the middle of July would exist the draft 

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that the working group would comment upon. We 


would leave to the working group chair 


scheduling such a meeting, but that would give 


you a broader window, I think. 


 MS. MUNN: So they'd have it to you by the 17th 


of June -- of July, yeah. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. So for the record, the 


working group will be Jim Melius, Brad Clawson 


and Mike Gibson. 


 Wanda, additional comments. 


 MS. MUNN: To slightly complicate what Dr. Wade 


has already volunteered to do, the comment that 


not all individuals who are involved in the 


actual work on site and who are on the floor 


doing the actual work are always hourly 


workers. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. I'd like to provide an 


opportunity for any members of the public who 


wish to comment on this issue, conflict of 


interest, please address us, if you wish. Any 


members of the public. I see Mr. Miller 


walking toward the mike. I'll interpret that 


as a desire to address the group, Richard 


Miller. 


 MR. MILLER: Good day. Thank you. My name is 

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Richard Miller. I work for the Government 


Accountability Project, and I'm pleased to be 


addressing you in yet another ballroom in 


another hotel in another city. And I'm very 


pleased that the Board is meeting here in 


Washington, and I also want to commend Dr. 


Howard and Lew Wade for their efforts to 


grapple with the conflict of interest policy. 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) the microphone. 


 MR. MILLER: I'm sorry. I want to -- I want to 


commend Dr. Howard and Lew Wade and others for 


working on this conflict of interest policy, 


because it's been a longstanding issue since it 


was first rumored that Battelle and SAIC were 


going to be competing against ORAU and MJW for 


-- and that the pool of their four contractors 


competing for this work raised some concerns 


about their longstanding histories. And I 


remember when deliberations were under way 


about which contractor to hire, one of the -- 


one of the deliberations was, you know, who had 


less of a conflict. And the refreshing thing 


was that ORAU's conflict of interest policy 


said right up front, on page 1, conflicts a 

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reality here. We can't escape it. The 


question is can we effectively disclose, manage 


and have a plan to deal with it. Whether 


that's been effective or not is another 


question. 


But let me just walk through what I think is -- 


is -- is -- from my perspective, looking at 


this new policy, as well as the experience of 


having gone through the earlier policies, what 


the -- why conflict of interest plays seemingly 


such a knotty issue. I mean we're still 


dealing this. I mean for those of you who are 


there on the Board a long time, I mean this was 


a topic of discussion almost from the first 


Board meeting forward. And I think that what 


happened is when this program started there was 


a presumption that when one looked at the site 


health physics data and information and the 


history of the radiation protection programs, 


that the data was not necessarily going to be 


presumed to be either complete, reliable or 


necessarily adequate, and that that presumption 


of skepticism at some point slipped away. And 


it became formal actually in a November, 2005 


Board meeting where NIOSH stated no, we are 

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actually presuming that what we get is valid 


and credible unless shown otherwise. 


And so that presumption flipped, and in the 


course of that sort of skepticism about -- 


which was really the very purpose for NIOSH 


getting this program instead of leaving it in 


DOE -- there was a flip, and I don't know when 


exactly it happened. It may -- it may have 


happened when -- when -- when NIOSH approached 


this Board and asked for permission to waive 


conflict of interest rules in preparing site 


profiles. 


But let me just get to the -- with that as a 


framework, let me just go through a couple of 


the specifics on the policy. 


In terms of the covered entities in section two 


of the June 7th draft, one of the issues that 


is not explicitly stated but I think should be, 


and maybe it -- maybe I've over looked it, is 


that both subcontractors and consultants should 


be included. I think all of us remember when 


Auxier & Associates had -- didn't have an 


adequate conflict of interest clause flowing 


down from the ORAU level to the Auxier level, 


that they had to wait for their con-- 

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subcontract to expire rather than terminating 


it, and -- because none of the subcontractors 


and -- and consultants were explicitly included 


in the COI policy and in the contracting 


documents. So I would just want to make sure 


that was explicit since we've already gone over 


that rocky road once before. 


Secondly, I think it would be worth asking 


whether the Department of Energy's laboratory 


employees -- in other words, people who work at 


the labs today, who are working on these site 


profiles -- should be included. And the reason 


I bring this to your attention is that EEOICPA 


in itself, in the statute, the organic statute, 


says that there is a prohibition on DOE 


employees developing dose reconstruction 


methods. And yet site profiles, which are 


really method documents on a site basis -- you 


know, we -- we see laboratory employees, most 


recently in Los Alamos, helping to prepare the 


bioassay databases and the fundamental 


underlying documents while working for DOE. 


The point was to pull this out of DOE and give 


it some independence here, and so my question 


is whether that would be covered under your 

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policy or not. We've seen certainly some 


conflicting information about the views of ORAU 


on that subject, and I think it's worth 


clarifying that in this policy and resolve it 


one way or another. Maybe that's something the 


workgroup can take up, but -- but this has to 


be addressed, asked and answered. 


The question should be Sanford Cohen Associates 


as the Board audit contractor be included in 


this policy or not. I mean having sat through 


the endless meetings y'all had on drafting the 


RFP, and for those members who've been on the 


Board a long time, I think it took you close to 


a year to hash out all of the incredible 


details in that RFP, from scope, the conflict 


of interest discussions went on for literally 


many, many, many meetings and workgroups. The 


Board's already set the conflict policy, and my 


sense is SC&A right now is held to a higher 


standard even than the proposed contract -- I 


mean proposed COI policy that's in front of you 


today. If you were to go look at the RFPs and 


the contracts that govern them and their work 


for you on the Board, I would be reluctant to 


see the audit contractors COI restrictions 

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watered down. 


This is a balancing document, as Lew Wade 


pointed out, that -- that seeks to capture site 


knowledge, while at the same time trying to 


create some boundaries and some clarity. But ­

- but the audit contractor should be beyond 


reproach. There -- there shouldn't necessarily 


have to be this same balancing test applied 


with them, and I -- I would hope that you would 


retain, not water down, your audit contractor's 


provisions. And to give you some examples, 


there are time limits on previous DOE 


employment. They couldn't bid if they had 


other NIOSH contracts. Battelle obviously is a 


NIOSH task order contractor, as we heard today, 


and then this -- an in the next breath, they're 


also being brought in to do dose 


reconstruction. We need an audit contractor 


that's not afraid to give unbiased advice 


because they're going to be worried about 


biting the hand that feeds them. And it's that 


integrity that they brought to this process 


that is really the thin thread, from my 


perspective, that -- that lends much 


credibility because of -- of -- of -- of their 

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independence. So I would urge you to pull them 


out of this. And if you want to reassess that, 


that may be fine, but I -- I would not want to 


see their provisions watered down to this 


balancing test that's played out in this 


document. 


I'd like to question whether these conflict of 


interest policies as we see it here are 


actually going to become part of the binding 


contracts for NIOSH's many contractors and 


subcontractors. Is this a policy out here, or 


is this woven in and become a contractual 


requirement so that it's a condition of your 


deliverable that it meet this test? Seems to 


me that it has to be built in as a condition of 


the contract or it's happy talk. 


 The question brought up here was why DOE 


employees -- why employees who were on DOE 


stipends would be excluded in footnote 9 from 


the conflict of interest policy. I mean I 


understand people who were graduate students, 


but -- but it seems to me if you're on a DOE 


stipend, I'd like some explanation. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I think that -- it was intended to 


apply specifically to graduate students. 

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 MR. MILLER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Was my understanding. In fact, it 


probably was intended to apply specifically to 


the Chairman of this Board. 


 MR. MILLER: Oh, excuse me, Mr. Chairman. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, look, we're --

 MR. MILLER: I didn't know --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- we're talking --

 MR. MILLER: I didn't understand --

 DR. ZIEMER: -- for example, about DOE fellows 

who are graduate students at the laboratories. 


They are not employed by DOE, really. They get 


their stipends through their university, but 


the money's DOE funds. They're -- they're not 


working for the contractor. They're not 


working for DOE. They are on site learning, 


and they're students. I believe that's -- 


 DR. WADE: Yes, that's correct. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- that's the context in which 


this is written. This is not a stipend in the 


case of, you know, the visiting scientist who's 


 MR. MILLER: I see. 


 DR. ZIEMER: -- you know, there for a year and 


gets a stipend or a --

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 MR. MILLER: I see. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah. 


 MR. MILLER: Okay. 


 DR. ZIEMER: But maybe this needs to be 


clarified or --


 MR. MILLER: That would be helpful. This gets 


to the question of the Advisory Board's role in 


the conflict. Currently under Title 18 you all 


go through, as Board members, you know, a COI 


review. Title 18 also provides for waivers for 


people with conflicts of interest. The 


question is, will this policy, if it applied to 


the Board, control in lieu of the Title 18 


review, or would the Title 18 review be 


overlapping, separate, and how -- if there were 


differences between this and what came out of a 


Title 18 review -- would they be reconciled? 


But it's not clear to me you have the authority 


to come up with a policy that preempts Title 


18, although you interpret Title 18 through 


your own internal policies and whether and 


where and how to create -- and I'll give you a 


good example is that, you know, I've -- having 


had a chance to -- reviewed all but a couple of 


the waiver letters for -- for Board members 

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here 'cause they are public documents, is that 


-- that the -- you know, some individuals have 


no business relationships working at or for a 


facility, but say may have been affiliated with 


a labor union, like Mike Gibson was at the 


Mound facility. He doesn't meet the at or for 


test necessarily -- or maybe he does, I don't 


know -- but if it's -- if it's a labor union 


coming in and files an SEC petition and he had 


previously been a member of that union and the 


question was whether, you know, under Title 18 


you may or may not conflict him as an 


individual, but under this policy it doesn't 


appear you would, and then it's not really 


clear how you would reconcile Title 18 letters 


with this policy. So it seems to me it would 


be useful to figure out what the intersect is 


between the two of those. Maybe you've already 


figured that out, I don't know. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, certainly Title 18's got to 


be adhered to in any event. 


 DR. WADE: Correct. 


 MR. MILLER: That's right. The question is 


where do you draw the lines. I mean there's so 


much ambiguity in Title 18. I mean it itself 

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seems to be a table rase that gets written 


fresh each time, doesn't it? It's a -- the -- 


the -- the other... 


Let me just jump to the question of -- kind of 


the site expert issue in the draft document and 


-- and -- you know, one of the things that I 


think has provoked NIOSH to kind of revisit the 


conflict issue for the umpteenth time now was 


what happened at Paducah, and most of you are 


familiar with it so I don't want to restate the 


whole history. But you know, what we know is 


that data that was prepared by Carol Berger was 


cut and pasted into NIOSH documents that had 


previously -- and there was subsequent reports 


that seemed to cast doubt on conclusions of her 


previous work, but nonetheless it went in a 


NIOSH document and thus it was -- went up 


through four tiers of review somehow of ORAU 


and NIOSH and went out the door and didn't get 


caught. And -- and -- and -- and so the 


question I guess is what are the consequences? 


When we get to the consequences section of the 


policy here -- you know, Carol -- it's my 


understanding -- I may be wrong here, but from 


talking to people at Livermore and elsewhere -- 

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that she's working on the site profile there. 


Now I don't know if she is or still is, but she 


was, and the question is, you know, do you sort 


of -- you know, was the message here that well, 


you know, poor performance is going to be 


rewarded with newer and more lucrative 


contracts. And if that's the case then, you 


know, how seriously is NIOSH taking these? I 


mean I -- I mean I don't know, NIOSH may have 


concluded she had no conflict of interest 


there. That was certainly the conclusion of 


the -- of the contract oversee outside team 


report, and yet public comments have come out 


of NIOSH to the contrary saying there was a 


conflict. I mean I -- I -- you know, I don't 


know, I -- I don't know whether people can see 


a conflict with her situation at Paducah, 


having worked for Marietta, or not, and then 


having written the bulk of the site profile. 


But the question is, what do you do when people 


are in breach, if they are found in breach, and 


do you give them new assignments at other sites 


to reward them for (a) not self-disclosing, 


which she didn't do; and (b) should have been 


in the database of ORAU flagging this, which 

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should have clearly made it evident to everyone 


that this was a problem, or -- or -- you know ­

- I think the point's made. And -- and so then 


the question is, who really owns the site 


profile? I mean at Paducah what we learned is, 


thanks to the oversight team report, she wrote 


the bulk of that document even though she was 


listed as a subject expert. 


Who owns the Rocky Flats site profile? That 


was a question that crossed my mind. Now, 


although he's not listed as an author, Roger 


Falk, we have now discovered, has written at 


least half of the internal dose TBD by virtue 


of having crafted the entire sections on the 


MDLs for lung counting and urinalysis. And --


and -- and the question was, was his work on 


this disclosed, and the answer is no. The --


other than being listed as a subject expert. 


Yet word for word, half that internal dose 


document is his. But curiously, somebody 


stripped his name off of the two key documents 


that they cut and pasted, and I have those two 


key documents here. They're marked draft. 


They're -- one's the MDL for the lung counting 


and one's for the bioassay, and -- and the 

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question is, so how did you figure that out? 


Well, 'cause, you know, it seems to me if this 


had been disclosed his COI would have been 


transparent. 


Turns out that buried in this document is an 


acknowledgement, a one-paragraph 


acknowledgement thanking other people for 


helping (unintelligible) prepared the document, 


so this author says I want to acknowledge the 


work of others in helping me prepare this, but 


who's the acknowledgement from? And until you 


follow it back and figured out who the 


acknowledgement originated from, you would 


never have known. So the warning to ORAU is, 


strip out acknowledgements so we don't catch 


them again. Okay? I hope that's not the 


lesson that's taken away, but there was the -- 


the clue was buried in the document that the 


document owner obviously, who was listed -- Ed 


Skalsky, I think it was his; no, maybe I'm 


wrong -- whoever it was who was the document 


owner on that clearly was not the document 


owner. And -- and -- and so it's not that this 


is a gotcha game, it's that -- what's going on 


here. Why was there a necessity to do that. 

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And you might say well, what difference does it 


make. I mean this is all about -- we're all 


going to disclose this retroactively, says 


Kate. Well, here's what matters, because when 


you read the site profile document itself, lots 


of questions come up. Now fortunately this has 


been a subject of the SEC petition and an 


extensive review in the working groups, and 


we've discovered, for example, that the high-


fired oxides issue was grossly under-scoped in 


the site profile. Cases have been adjudicated 


with lung cancer in the 771 building, as we 


heard at the Rocky Flats meeting out in Denver. 


If you worked in 771, as a building that 


handled high-fired oxides, you would hope -- 


you would kind of hope that the super S model 


might apply to lung cancer cases and you 


wouldn't be bypassed in that, and yet this 


document, this early site profile at least, 


clearly under-scoped the breadth and the degree 


and the extent to which high-fired was, beyond 


just a fire in '65. It was actually part of 


the production process. It was part of the 


furnacing. So I just bring this question, 


which gets to the next issue, which is somebody 

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could help us understand what is Karin Jessen's 


true role in the Rocky Flats SEC evaluation. 


And having sat in on a number of these 


conference calls and having heard it raised at 


the last meeting in Denver, she's listed as the 


SEC evaluation report author, but at least when 


I listened to a number of these conference 


calls, she's not spoken or defended the 


technical issues on the Rocky Flats SEC. Now 


maybe she has written the entire thing and 


she's just a quiet gal, but seems to me that 


Roger Falk and lot of other people do the 


talking and defending of this document, or can 


speak informatively about the research that 


underpinned it. And I just -- question is that 


Dr. Melius I guess has raised this is how do 


you avoid titular heads. And maybe she isn't a 


titular head. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm 


misreading it and someone's going to show me 


the number of hours she put in and that Roger 


Falk just happened to stop by to chew some gum 


by the water cooler, but I'm not sure that's 


the case. And I'm not sure Rocky Flats is the 


only place this is a problem. 


In the -- section four of the June 7th draft 

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I'd like to just bring your attention -- 


something which -- which sort of came to my 


mind, which is that in the existing today 


conflict of interest policy there are sets of 


do's and don'ts regarding organizational 


conflict of interest, and I'm going to bring a 


couple of those to your attention shortly. And 


these are not in the June 7th draft. All of 


this is sort of a general statement of policy, 


and Lew Wade just recently mentioned that this 


is something that was on their radar. And I 


guess I would respectfully request that you 


think about reinstating, at least for purposes 


of clarity, and maybe even more importantly so 


that no one can ever misconstrue intent that 


when you take something out it's meant that it 


doesn't apply anymore. If there's a reason to 


have those clear do's and don'ts on OCI, put -- 


I would recommend that you put them back in. 


And let me just give one that comes to mind. 


There's a -- and this is right out of the 


existing policy that's in place today. It says 


no contractor element will participate in a 


review -- dose reconstructions or participate 


in research supporting site profiles or 

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determinations of whether or not to add a class 


of employees to an SEC for those DOE sites or 


activities where it is the prime contractor -- 


like and M&O or an M&I -- a team member 


(unintelligible) prime contractor, a program 


manager or subcontractor managing dosimetry 


programs, or otherwise intends to be employed 


as such within 12 months of starting this 


contract. That's a very strong OCI provision. 


What it says to me as I read it is is that it 


would bar contractors managing DOE dosimetry 


programs from writing site profiles at a given 


site. And this is really in a sense what the 


statute I think intended. But here's an 


example where I'm not sure whether it was ever 


implemented quite rigorously, and I'm open to 


hearing different points of view on this, but 


let me just lay out a concern that -- Battelle 


runs the dosimetry programs under contract to 


the Department of Energy at Hanford. That's a 


given. And it's also composed -- Battelle 


employees, (unintelligible) Northwest Labs 


employees -- also compose the majority of the 


teams preparing the internal and external dose 


site profiles at Hanford. Not one or two, the 

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majority of the teams. 


So while you may have a gentleman from ATL as 


the team lead, the rest of his team is all 


Battelle or pretty much Battelle folks. So you 


kind of -- you know, you try to apply some kind 


of substance over form and you -- then you look 


a little further and you find out that some of 


these same people who prepared the site profile 


at Hanford also served as expert witnesses 


defending litigation for worker compensation 


claims at Hanford. 


Now, you know, from my perspective, you know, 


Battelle wrote these site profiles. I don't 


care that Ed Skalsky's name is at the top from 


ATL. That doesn't mean anything to me. And it 


-- and it -- and it means something because I 


want Jack Fix, I want Don Peel*, I want all 


these people who have great expertise to have 


their knowledge on the table. But they're an 


active contractor at the site. You think 


they're going to turn around and say hey, the 


work that we've done here has been insufficient 


in the past. Here's how we've underestimated 


dose for employees for decades, but now we've 


been forced to confront it because of NIOSH 

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regulations. I mean where their professional 


judgment comes to bear in reviewing their own 


past work is important. It's what happened 


with Carol Berger. It's an -- I'm not saying 


it happened, I'm not saying it didn't happen at 


Battelle. What I'm saying is that prohibition 


in the ORAU contract does not, at least as I 


read it, appear to have been honored in 


substance. Maybe it was -- maybe some lawyer 


can lawyer their way out of it, and I'm sure 


there's plenty who can. But my question is is 


was it a violation of the contract, and legally 


are payment for services in a situation like 


this proper if in fact you're not performing 


under the terms of your contract, which is to 


produce documents at least as free from bias as 


your COI policy dictates. 


Which that gets me to the enforcement issue, 


and I'm sorry to go on so long. But the -- one 


of the things that came to my attention was the 


correspondence between Dick Toohey and OCAS 


staff a while back which raised concerns about 


conflicts of interest for two site profiles, 


one involving Idaho and one involving Mound. 


And Dick asked well, what should we do about 

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it, and the answer that came back from OCAS was 


do nothing. And that left me with a very 


queasy feeling that it never really was treated 


very seriously. In fact, I remember when -- 


when Larry Elliott came before this Board and 


asked for permission to waive COIs on site 


profiles, and the Board said no. But it looked 


to me then, going forward -- at least it's my 


observations reviewing some of these cases -- 


that OCAS decided to honor the COI policy in 


the breach, that if you could get away with it, 


you'll look the other way. So when we brought 


the -- over a year ago, 15, 16 months ago now, 


we brought the Paducah conflict to the 


attention of NIOSH, no meaningful actions 


really got taken on it until Senator McConnell 


began to prod NIOSH to assess the conflict and 


the quality of the science here, and we're 


grateful to him for that, and we're grateful 


that Lew and Dr. Howard have now started to 


focus more critically on it. But it took a 


year to get this really crystallized under 


people's microscope again. 


So the question is, what is or will NIOSH do 


differently this time with this revised policy 

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meaningfully. If you slow up this long enough, 


you can get through the program and you don't 


have to deal with it. That's kind of the fear 


we have. And simply putting footnotes and 


annotations on pages, without dealing with the 


substance -- as we heard today -- might not cut 


it, either. So who is going to be assigned to 


NIOSH to oversee both the NIOSH federal staff 


as well as the contractor's COIs -- who? And 


who will audit and validate the disclosures? 


Well, we heard in New Mexico in October of 2002 


that there was going to be an audit conducted 


of conflict of interest compliance throughout 


the program within nine months of that meeting. 


It never happened. So I just bring that to 


your attention from historical perspective. 


In addition, you know, as -- as was discussed 


this morning, the question arises about what to 


do if Board members had familial relationships. 


Lew's raised this, and I know Dr. Poston has 


this on his radar screen and has -- has flagged 


it accordingly and appropriately. But should 


somebody, when you deliberate on a COI policy, 


who's going to be rendering a judgment on COI, 


if it affects their own family members, be 

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included in that COI discussion. I just flag 


that as a question because at least, you know, 


one of Dr. Poston's family members is -- is -- 


is -- has done a very large number of dose 


reconstructions, as I've been told, and -- and 


he himself has two conflicts of interest sites, 


Argonne and X-10. And further it's been 


brought to my attention through certain dose 


reconstructions that have been brought to us at 


GAP that he's actually conducted dose 


reconstructions at sites where he's conflicted. 


And so the question then becomes how do you 


deal with this conflict, and is it so 


instrumental -- as it was with Sally Gadola 


when Sally was, you know, a member of the Board 


here -- for those of you who didn't know her, a 


nurse and a real asset. But you know, when 


ORAU won the contract, Sally was unfortunately 


required to leave, and -- and so I just -- I 


flag the question here because although I think 


Dr. Poston has a creditable reputation as an 


academic and as a member of the health physics 


society, I think the White House didn't 


necessarily do him a service by putting him in 


harm's way here, because the standards that are 

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expected of this program have really got to be 


high enough that nobody's worrying too much 


about family ties and financial relationships. 


Those are my thoughts (unintelligible) 


questions. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you for those provocative 


comments, Richard. Let me ask if any other 


members of the public wish to address this 


issue of the conflict of interest? 


If not, I -- Board members, any final comments 


on this? And Lew has set out the timetable, 


you've all heard it. I think it's time for our 


break and then we'll return for the rest of the 


session. 


DR. ROESSLER: What time do we return? 


 DR. ZIEMER: Well, let's reconvene at 4:00. 


 (Whereupon, a recess was taken from 3:38 p.m. 


to 4:14 p.m.) 


 DR. ZIEMER: We're ready to resume our 


deliberations. Just before we start the public 


comment period, we have a housekeeping issue, 


Board members. 


 DR. WADE: Okay, we'll get some more Board 


members. 


 DR. ZIEMER: The housekeeping issue simply has 

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to do with your calendars. There's been a 


calendar distributed which covers the period 


from September through May of '07. So Lew, 


tell us what we need to do here. 


 DR. WADE: Well, we have a -- as you recall, we 


have a call scheduled for August 8th. You have 


a Board meeting scheduled for September 19, 20 


and 21. I would suspect that we would have 


another face-to-face Board meeting early 


December, possibly another one late February. 


And in between those meetings we would schedule 


a call. So given the fact that, you know, 


February might spill into March, I would ask 


you to mark your dates of non-availability from 


October, November, December, January, February, 


March, and hopefully before we leave here on 


Friday we'll have two more Board meetings 


scheduled and two calls scheduled. 


Last time I told you we would sched-- I would 


have the geographic location for the September 


meeting, and I will have that to you by Friday. 


It just seems to me prudent to see how some of 


these discussions go before we decide where to 


be. We're leaning towards Nevada. 


 MR. PRESLEY: Henry and I been talking about 

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Amchitka. 


 DR. WADE: That's early December. 


PUBLIC COMMENT


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, let's proceed. We're now 


ready for our public comment session. I have a 


number of individuals who have signed up. 


First -- and let me see if they're actually 


here in the assembly -- Robert Steffan* from 


Senator Obama's office, is Robert here at the 


moment? This basically is the Illinois 


delegation. If -- if they've already left, we 


can put them on tomorrow. Dan McKeel was here 


earlier, I -- is Dan here? 


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Oh, okay. I -- I think, and Dan 


is also representing the southern Illinois 


Steelworkers. John Ramspott with the Illinois 


group, so --


UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) 


(Unintelligible) 


 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. There is another public 


comment session tomorrow, and we can take them 


then. Then let's see about Jeff Walburn, is 


Jeff here? Okay. Jeff, welcome. You can use 

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the mike right there. 


 MR. WALBURN: How do you do, I'm Jeff Walburn. 


I'm speaking today in behalf of the SPFPA, 


Local 66, at Portsmouth. That is the security 


union. It's the Security, Police and Fire 


Professionals of America. I'm with my union 


president, David Bowe. And the comments that I 


have for you today is concerning our site 


profile, and the fact that we feel there is 


criminal activity on our site dealing with 


falsification of our dose. 


Now, DOE has been taken out of this system, and 


rightly so. But many times they sit on the 


very documents that you all seek to verify the 


activity that was done on each site. Now I can 


only speak for Portsmouth, but many places you 


have no buildings and no documents. That is 


not the case at Portsmouth. 


Now you've given people 30 days, and I hear in 


your process you had to pick some sort of date. 


You got 30 days. If you can't come up with a 


document -- I'm here to tell you today that 


this 40-plus group of documents that I have 


that I'm going to give you, and have a list 


that I want entered into the record, it took me 

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12 years to get. 


I was injured on the site. It took me 12 years 


to get these documents. It has been -- every 


kind of obstruction that you could think of has 


been thrown in my way by DOE, by the 


subcontractors. The latest letter that we have 


from Gregory Friedman, the IG, to Congresswoman 


Schmidt March 22nd of this year, is that there 


was no systematic changes of dose at 


Portsmouth; that my badge was the only one 


changed; and that everything was done 


administratively proper. Once you read these 


documents, gentlemen, you will know that Mr. 


Friedman is obstructing the -- the dose 


recreation. He is injuring further people that 


are ill there at Portsmouth. He is -- he is 


standing in the way of proper diagnosis of 


those individuals because he is not forthcoming 


with documents that he knows exist on that 


site. 


Through a federal subpoena that I filed myself 


through my attorney, we got 5,000 documents 


that came out. But I met with Mr. Elliott and 


Mr. Zimmerman* in Piketon in a meeting recently 


-- I believe it was November of last year. 

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They signed for documents that also Dr. Wade 


has gotten. These documents show systematic 


change of dose there at Portsmouth by the 


subcontractor. They also show that USEC, who 


was on the dual path to success -- that's what 


they called it -- who became the privatized 


group, sent a falsified document to the Senate, 


who was in pursuit of the dose there at -- at 


Portsmouth, with the cover letters and talking 


points -- they had two sets of talking points ­

- we have them -- one if I had the document, 


one if I did not have the document. Now this 


is the kind of things that are going on that 


you all should be suspect, but you don't have 


subpoena powers. So it sort of makes you a 


toothless tiger to roar at DOE, and you don't 


even have the subpoena powers to get the 


documents. 


Now one thing that you do have is the right to 


file Freedom of Information Act documents. And 


if you would do so to Idaho Falls, as I have -- 


I'm not going to give you this document; I'm 


asking you to do this -- you would find out 


that Lockheed Martin didn't even have their 


DOELAP certifications between '93 and '95, so 

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they were criminally out of certification at 


the site. They did not have DOELAP, which 


presents quite a problem for people who are 


injured in the process there, and then the 


documents are being covered up. 


This -- you take the IG report versus the POEF 


report, that is the report of Portsmouth. 


There are two. One has a February 9th date on 


it. That's the one that went to the Senate. 


It has about 12 pages in it. It was married, 


altered, blacked-out to look as though my badge 


was the only one changed. Then the full report 


which starts out -- the first two pages, it has 


February 16th on them, and then changed to 


February 9th thereafter, and in interviews 


tells how they systematically changed the 


badges, how they changed the dose, that -- when 


Mr. Friedman says they did everything 


administratively proper, the two individuals 


that came forward to testify or to say that 


they had done this deed there at Portsmouth 


were systematically crucified, in print, ad 


hominem attacks on their sexuality, on their -- 


the heritage of their children and the fact 


that they may even want to kill themself (sic), 

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and it's in the POEF report, 150-96-0008. Read 


it. I've provided a key for you. That 


document was on the site when Vernon McDougall 


came to do the site profile. He did not get 


that document. He didn't get the other 5,000 


documents. He didn't get the documents that 


would show that moderators was blocking the 


casts*, and we had scenarios for deep tissue 


dose. 


Now, I hear dogma and I hear rhetoric. I even 


heard from the Justice Department whenever they 


were investigating, said you didn't get any 


deep dose or deep tissue dose there. I said 


really, where you getting that from? Said they 


were getting it from DOE. But we've got 


scenarios that there were, so the point I'm 


making -- if you use data in dose 


reconstruction that was criminally altered, I 


don't think there's a scientific community in 


the world that would warrant that. And -- and 


you say you've added this other realm that you 


say when you got a problem, you -- that's a go-


to. It should be call the cops, call the 


authorities, call the Senate. Because we are 


asking for a Senate investigation on this 

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matter at Portsmouth. I can't speak for 


anywhere else, but I can speak for Portsmouth. 


I'd like to go through this and see if there's 


things that I have left out, but when we met 


with Mr. Elliott and Mr. (sic) Neton, his 


comments -- Mr. Elliott -- was that that was 


conspiracy. You know, when you got one company 


do it and the other one covering it up, that's 


conspiracy. Dr. Neton says well, of course the 


IH and your procedures, you post that first 


dose, then you do your changes, but you always 


leave that posted dose. At our site we have a 


letter from Mr. Paul Bransford that suggests, 


under Goodyear, that he was ordered to destroy 


the tape backups. Now if you look at that as a 


single point document, it means nothing. But 


if you put it with the other 40 and watch it 


run, it means plenty. 


And I don't have any doubt that any of you 


gentlemen are smart enough to read these 


documents and see the ramifications and 


implications. But that's what we live with at 


our site. We're being turned down 


systematically. 


Now I saw -- and I appreciate all those bar 

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graphs, but they don't answer me one question 


for how I'm being done at Portsmouth. I want 


to know how I'm being done for Portsmouth, and 


that's -- that's the performance that I'm most 


interested in. Not that I don't care about the 


rest of the people in the country and their 


plight. I do. And I think that if they see 


this documentation which I'm going to give you 


and you're not going to -- I hope you're not 


going to suppress it, because they need to see 


it, because the methods that DOE has used and 


the subcontractors have used at these sites 


needs to be called into question, and it makes 


you very -- your very program suspect if you 


use that type of data. 


But my -- my question is, we've had -- I can 


speak to -- to both parts, Part B, Part E on my 


part. The IG of DOE, along with Patricia 


Warren, who has this report -- they have the 


report. Jill Siegel*, who's now Under 


Secretary of Energy, when she was legal counsel 


for DOE, refused to give this report to 


Congressman Portman, who was in the pursuit of 


answers on sick workers. What right did she 


have to refuse her boss, a Congressman, that 

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report? DOE had that report. She -- they had 


it through an investigation that Patricia 


Warren, who worked for the IG, had. The IG 


asked for the reports, and he says that he sees 


nothing. But -- so I don't think that you all 


are part of the problem, and I think there's 


certainly a responsibility to report to the 


authorities that we're suggesting that these 


facts do exist, and we have supporting 


documents. We don't have a single-point 


document. We have a body of evidence. 


If health hazard evaluation is the limit of 


your scope, and if there's evidence of criminal 


wrongdoing, you know, when will you go to the 


authorities? Part E -- in my part, Friedman 


says well, these badges weren't of a dangerous 


level, not to worry about it, they were 


changed. That was the third thing they did. 


They changed the work product document where I 


was injured. DOE was lied to. They've never ­

- they've never completed the investigation. 


They have the evidence that the IG has refused 


to see it. They've since rehired the 


individual that perpetrated it. They're 


promoting him through the system. 

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Then they changed my medical records. I have a 


copy of them. So they changed the work product 


document when I was injured. They changed my 


medical records, then went into Workers Comp 


and argued that, because they'd wiped it out or 


put a semicolon and added a bunch of things, 


that I didn't even have inhalation injury. And 


since they'd hid the work product document so 


well, no one was ever going to find out. So 


two union safety reps come with NIOSH 


investigators, Aaron Holtz* and 


(unintelligible), and they happened on this 


hidden document and everyone reads it, and in 


your health hazard evaluation you mention they 


were doing this work, but you don't tell how 


you come by the document. You don't tell that 


there was surreptitiously-produced documents 


that were hidden, you don't come by it. So 


here the story goes out through DOE that no 


work was being done. They intimidate the 


hourly workers at the site, and they won't even 


come forward -- I'm laying in the hospital for 


11 days with a chemical uptake and possible 


rad, and the other workers won't come forward 


because they're afraid of their job, they'll be 

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fired if they tell the truth. Ask them. 


Herman Potter's here today. He was a -- he was 


the safety rep that helped find that document. 


But also that morning an argon gammagraph went 


off. Someone's suggesting that the argon 


gammagraphs at our site didn't work. I say 


they do work. But if they -- if they -- the 


scenario is is that they spike a 


(unintelligible) and if the cast didn't go off, 


it just may be an anomaly. But then we have 


the documentation that you all have signed for, 


and I -- I trust that Larry Elliott has shared 


that documentation with you all that it may not 


have been an anomaly. 


Why is DOE setting on site profile documents 


that will determine how people got sick and why 


they are sick and why they may be being 


misdiagnosed? I realize that you don't have 


the authority and powers to hold hearings, but 


you can request that, and I think that many 


times you've -- you talk about that you had 


Presidential appointments to these jobs here. 


Would the President listen to you if you asked 


for hearings on this matter at Portsmouth, when 


it may cast a reflection and shadow against the 

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entire program? If documents exist that are 


not produced, is this program a sham? DOE 


knows they would be held accountable if these 


documents are produced. 


You can proceed if you wish, but we wish to go 


on record calling for a Senate investigation of 


criminal activity at Portsmouth. NIOSH needs 


subpoena powers. Without it, once again, 


they're a toothless tiger. You can't get to 


the bottom of the truth. No one fears you. 


You come and knock on the door and they say go 


away, we're not home. 


I -- I think I've said enough here, but I'm -- 


I'm asking you at Portsmouth, start at Idaho 


Falls. That's Freedom of Information Act, you 


don't even need -- you don't even need a 


subpoena to get that information. And I 


guarantee you, you will find where I found -- 


they said they went to NVLAP, but they were so 


criminally out of compliance with DOELAP, they 


let their -- their -- they let their license 


lapse, and then they lied going in the door to 


NVLAP, and that's right in the report. 


I'm going to give you this set of documents 


today. Like I said, there's about 40-plus 

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documents. There is a list of the documents 


there. The top one would be the -- the letter 


from Dave Bowe that went to Mr. -- or Dr. Wade, 


clear back in October. And John Howard, MD 


answered that letter, but we've met with Larry 


Elliott -- one -- one thing that stuck in my 


mind, they said -- someone said why -- why, we 


even gave you more dose than you're supposed to 


have. And I said -- some of us are old enough 


to remember Foghorn Leghorn -- I don't accept 


comments like that, that I got more dose than I 


was supposed to have, when the dose I was 


supposed to have -- I know why I didn't get it, 


and I want someone to get to the bottom of it. 


Thank you. 


 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you very much, Jeff. Yeah. 


These -- Jeff, these documents will, with your 


permission, all end up on our web site under 


the Portsmouth document list, so they will be 


public documents at that point. 


Now let me check again to see if Robert Steffan 


-- has Robert come into the assembly? Or -- or 


Dan McKeel? Or John Ramspot? 


 (No responses) 


Okay, apparently not. So I will -- we'll plan 

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to reschedule them for the public session then 


tomorrow. I assume that -- now -- you know, 


sometimes -- sometimes people sign this 


thinking they're signing the registration 


sheet, but -- but these individuals have 


indicated the amount of time they wish to 


speak, so I think they knew what they were 


doing. So I'll -- I'll assume that they do 


wish to address the assembly. 


I suppose the Board members won't object to 


finishing a little early. 


 DR. WADE: You might see if there's anybody 


else who wants to. 


 DR. ZIEMER: I -- we -- yes, we can open the 


floor, if there's anyone else who wishes to 


make public comment that didn't have a chance 


to -- to sign up for that, we can certainly 


accommodate. 


 (No responses) 


If not, we'll recess till tomorrow morning. 


Thank you -- 8:30. 


 (Whereupon, the day's business was concluded at 


4:35 p.m.) 

______________________________ 

134 

1 CERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 


STATE OF GEORGIA 


COUNTY OF FULTON 


 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 


Reporter, do hereby certify that I reported the 


above and foregoing on the day of June 14, 


2006; 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 


8th day of July, 2006. 


STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 


CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 


CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102