Division of Compensation Analysis and 

Support

Program Evaluation Report

Document Number: DCAS-PER-035

Effective Date: 10/31/2013

Revision No. 0

Lawrence Livermore National Lab TBD Revisions Page 1 of 3

Author: Signature on file Date: 10/31/2013 _ 

 Dave Allen, HP Team Leader

Approval: Signature on file Date: 10/31/2013 _ 

 J.W. Neton, Associate Director for Science

Supersedes: None

RECORD OF ISSUE/REVISIONS

ISSUE 

AUTHORIZATION 

DATE

10/31/2013

EFFECTIVE 

DATE

10/31/2013

REV. NO. 

0

DESCRIPTION

New document to determine the effect of 

revising the Lawrence Livermore 

National Lab TBD on previously 

completed claims.

1.0 Description

The Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) Technical Basis Document (ORAUTTKBS-0035) is written in six separate sections. Sections one and two (Introduction and 

Site Description) do not provide any assignment of dose. The current versions of the 

remaining sections are:

Section 3 – Medical – revision 1 – issued 8/27/2010

Section 4 – Environmental – revision 1 – issued 3/16/2010

Section 5 – Internal Dose – revision 2 – issued 12/13/2010

Section 6 – External Dose – revision 2 – issued 2/26/2010

This PER considered the effect of these revisions on claims that were completed using all 

previous versions of the TBD.

2.0 Issue Evaluation

A few changes were made to the medical section of the TBD, including an increase in the 

assigned dose for some organs in some years. There was also the discovery that not all xrays records were being sent to NIOSH from the site. That situation was corrected, but 

could result in additional assignment of x-ray dose to some employees. The situation was 

corrected prior to the release of the last revision of the medical section of the TBD.
Division of Compensation Analysis and 

Support

Program Evaluation Plan

Document Number: DCAS-PER-035

Effective Date: 10/31/2013 Revision No. 0 Page 2 of 3

The environmental section of the TBD was revised to change the dose assigned for 

various years from various sources. Both internal and external dose assignments were 

affected.

A variety of changes occurred in the internal dose section of the TBD. These changes 

include providing co-worker intakes for some isotopes previously not assigned. The 

revision also includes a change to the minimum detectable activity for some bioassay 

analyses. 

External dose assignments based on the external dose section of the TBD are subject to a 

variety of changes. These changes include the methods associated with assigning neutron 

dose as well as new information about assigning film badges that affect missed dose 

calculations. Also the detection limit associated with film badges was changed.

As a result of numerous changes (not all outlined in section 2) it is not possible to 

exclude any category of claims from further evaluation based on the changes that were 

made to the TBD alone. Therefore, it is assumed that the TBD revisions could affect any 

previously completed claim and no more detailed evaluation of the changes is necessary 

for this evaluation. It is, however, possible to determine that some claims would not 

benefit from the changes based on criteria other than the dose assigned (such as already 

compensated via an SEC).

3.0 Plan for Resolution or Corrective Action

A text search of previously completed dose reconstructions was performed that searched 

for “LLNL” or “Lawrence Livermore”. From the list generated:

 A search was conducted for reference to the current revision of TBD sections 3 

through 6 (Medical, environmental, internal and external). If references to all 

current sections were found, the inclusion of these references was verified and the 

claim was eliminated from further review because it was completed using the 

current version of the TBD. 

 Next, any claims with a status of “pulled” were removed from the list. These 

claims were removed (pulled) from the dose reconstruction process for various 

reasons (e.g., such as meeting the criteria for a SEC). It should be noted that 

claims compensated under an SEC could be returned for a dose reconstruction to 

determine medical benefits for a non-SEC cancer. Those claims would not have a 

status of “pulled”.
Division of Compensation Analysis and 

Support

Program Evaluation Plan

Document Number: DCAS-PER-035

Effective Date: 10/31/2013 Revision No. 0 Page 3 of 3

 Next all claims with a probability of causation greater than 50% were removed 

from the list.

 Claims completed after the last TBD section revision and referenced some but not 

all of the current TBD sections mentioned above were reviewed to determine if 

there was a valid reason for the missing reference. An example of a valid reason 

would be a case assigned only environmental dose would not need to reference 

the internal or external sections of the TBD. Claims found to have been 

completed using only the current TBD sections were eliminated.

 Next, all claims for which the Lawrence Livermore TBD was not actually used 

were removed. An example would be a dose reconstruction report that only 

mentions a test conducted on behalf of Lawrence Livermore but does not use the 

Lawrence Livermore TBD.

 Lastly, those claims that qualified for compensation under the LLNL SEC were 

eliminated unless there was a potential a dose reconstruction was necessary for 

medical benefits.

This process resulted in a total of 373 claims to be further evaluated under this PER. 

3.1 Determination of claims which will not change due to TBD revision.

No further evaluation was performed on two of the 373 claims identified above because 

the Department of Labor returned the claim to NIOSH prior to any further evaluation. A 

new Dose Reconstruction was to be performed on those claims using all current methods.

Additionally, seven claims were found to be unaffected by any of the changes in the 

TBD. This is due to the fact that most changes did not affect all claims but most claims 

were affected by one or more changes. In the case of these seven, none of the TBD 

changes affected the original dose reconstruction. No new dose was recalculated for 

these claims.

Dose for the remaining 364 claims was recalculated using all current dose reconstruction 

methods including those in the current version of the TBD. From the recalculated dose, a 

new probability of causation (POC) was determined. The POC remained below 45% for 

344 claims. The POC fell between 45% and 50% for 6 claims. For those claims, IREP 

was run 30 times with 10,000 iterations for each run in accordance with NIOSH 

procedures. As a result, all 6 claims remained below 50%. The remaining 14 claims 

produced a POC greater than 50%. NIOSH will notify DOL of all the results and request 

a return of the 14 claims that would now result in a POC greater than 50%.