Meeting Date: 

September 12, 2007 

Town Hall Meeting with: 

Former Blockson/Olin Chemical Company workers and survivors of former workers in Joliet, 

Illinois 

NIOSH Team: 

James Neton, PhD, Associate Director for Science, National Institute for Occupational Safety 

and Health (NIOSH), Office of Compensation Analysis and Support (OCAS) 

Laurie Breyer, JD, MA, Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) Petition Counselor, NIOSH/OCAS 

Thomas Tomes, Health Physicist and Document Owner of the Blockson Chemical Site Profile, 

NIOSH/OCAS 

Mark Lewis, Senior Outreach Specialist, Advanced Technologies and Laboratories International, 

Inc. (ATL) 

Mary Elliott, Technical Writer, ATL 

Proceedings: 

Dr. James Neton opened the meeting at approximately 7:00 p.m. He welcomed the attendees and 

explained that OCAS is tasked with performing radiation dose reconstructions under the Energy 

Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA or The Act). He 

introduced the other members of the NIOSH Team: Tom Tomes, the health physicist who 

revised the site profile for Blockson Chemical Company; Mary Elliott, who takes the minutes 

that will appear on the NIOSH Web site; Laurie Breyer, the OCAS Special Exposure Cohort 

(SEC) Petition Counselor; and Mark Lewis, the Senior Outreach Specialist. Dr. Neton also 

introduced Dr. Genevieve Roessler and Mr. Michael Gibson, members of the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH) working group that is reviewing the Blockson site 

profile and the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) Petition Evaluation Report. He asked whether 

there were any Congressional staff present. A representative from the office of U. S. 

Representative Jerry Weller (Illinois, 11th District) stated that she was also representing U. S. 

Representative Judy Biggert (Illinois, 13th District). Robert Stephan, from the office of U. S. 

Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois), was also in attendance. Dr. Neton asked whether anyone 

from Sanford Cohen & Associates, Inc. (SC&A) was present, explaining that SC&A is a 

contractor to the ABRWH that reviews the work being done by NIOSH. 

Dr. Neton stated that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the revisions that had been made 

to the site profile for Blockson Chemical. The site profile is the technical document used as 

guidance in reconstruction of radiation doses for former workers from the Blockson site. The 

most recent revision was approved on June 20, 2007. He explained that the document was 

revised after SC&A reviewed it and found issues that NIOSH agreed needed to be changed. 

When the SEC petition was being reviewed, NIOSH recognized that all of the potential radiation 

exposures at Blockson Chemical were not being covered in the site profile. By definition under 

EEOICPA, Building 55 at the Blockson facility was specifically cited as the covered facility; that 

is the information that the original site profile was based on. The definition was recently 

modified to include other operations at the Blockson facility, such as the oxidation operations in 

Building 40 and the calcining operations. NIOSH now recognizes that all operations within the 
facility need to be covered. Dr. Neton stated that all of the EEOICPA dose reconstructions that 

were done using the previous edition of the site profile that resulted in denial of compensation 

will be re-evaluated using the information in the new site profile. 

Dr. Neton said that questions regarding the site profile and the SEC petition would be entertained 

during the meeting, but questions about specific claims could not be addressed. He directed the 

attendees to three questions in the handout and stated that NIOSH is seeking additional 

information on these issues: 

• What process steps were used in Building 40 to convert the phosphoric acid to the 

monosodium phosphate liquor that was pumped into Building 55? How was the liquor 

filtered? What was done with the filtered solids? Was filter aid used and, if so, how 

often was the filter aid discarded? 

• How was the waste from Building 55 handled? Filter aid (e.g., Hyflo) was reported to 

have been used in Building 55 to help remove the uranium from the monosodium 

phosphate liquor. The filter aid was reportedly reused after the uranium was removed 

from it. When the filter aid was used up, how was it handled and discarded? A liquid 

waste was reportedly discarded after removing the uranium in the final step of filtering in 

Building 55. What was done with the liquid waste? Was it treated or processed? 

• What was done with the monosodium phosphate liquor that was pumped out of Building 

55 after the uranium was removed? How was it processed to produce other products? 

Dr. Neton asked the attendees to review the questions and said that any new information would 

be considered and reviewed. He turned the program over to Mr. Tomes to discuss the revisions 

to the Blockson Site Profile. 

Mr. Tomes explained that, based on comments from SC&A, NIOSH modeled the external doses 

to workers in Building 55. NIOSH also recognized that other radionuclides would have been 

present at the site, such as radium and thorium isotopes. The doses were re-estimated, which 

resulted in an increase to the doses of the workers in Building 55. NIOSH also evaluated the 

chemistry at Blockson to estimate the thorium exposure that workers in Building 55 may have 

had. (Thorium is an isotope of natural uranium that is present in the ore as it comes out of the 

ground.) Mr. Tomes stated that thorium could pose an internal hazard to the workers because 

they may have inhaled some of the material. NIOSH updated the profile and added the exposure 

to those elements in this revised site profile. When the radiation doses are re-evaluated, there 

will be assigned doses from uranium as well as thorium. Doses that were assigned during the 

previous dose reconstructions will be higher based on these added exposures. 

NIOSH also evaluated the workers’ radon exposures throughout the plant, due to the radium that 

was present in the phosphate rock. NIOSH increased the estimated doses to allow for the 

uncertainty in the results. There is some radon data from Olin Chemical, but it was taken after 

the uranium operations ceased. In order to assign higher values for radon exposure, NIOSH used 

radon studies from other phosphate operations and assigned the high-end value for all of the 

workers at Blockson to allow for the uncertainty in the results. All of these changes result in 

increases to the external and internal doses, as well as the radon exposures, for all of the claims 

that have been processed to date. 

When the U. S. Department of Labor (DOL) forwards a claim from Blockson, there is no way of 

knowing how much time a worker spent in Building 55, so NIOSH assumes that every employee 
worked in Building 55 all the time. Previously, NIOSH did not evaluate doses outside of 

Building 55. The assumption was that the doses in Building 55 would be higher, but the site was 

not evaluated specifically as a whole to determine what those doses would be. Radiological 

studies from other phosphate plants that evaluate the workers’ maximum radiation exposures 

were used to estimate an external dose for workers outside of Building 55. Either the external 

dose from Building 55 or the external dose outside Building 55 will be used for all workers, 

depending on which is higher. 

Question from the spouse of a former Blockson worker: 

How do you handle the dose reconstruction if a worker was exposed in Building 55 and then was 

also exposed in other parts of the plant? 

Mr. Tomes: 

NIOSH assumes that the worker was in the area that results in the highest dose for the entire time. 

Question (from another attendee): 

Are you saying that the radiation could have been higher in other areas than it was in Building 55? 

Mr. Tomes: 

In an effort to be favorable to the claimant, NIOSH modeled the external doses for workers in 

Building 55 to be much higher than those reported from other sites. 

Question from the spouse of a former Blockson worker: 

Are the doses from working inside Building 55 and also working outside Building 55 cumulative? 

Mr. Tomes: 

The worker would not be exposed in both places at the same time, so the higher dose is assumed. 

NIOSH has looked at what the estimated dose would be outside Building 55. If we looked at the 

doses that are assigned for Building 55 and at the worst case scenarios for doses in other areas of 

the site, if we assumed that you worked at Building 55, you would get a higher dose. 

NIOSH also looks at internal exposures when doing the dose reconstruction. The internal dose is 

from inhaling or ingesting uranium or other elements that are present. NIOSH has some air 

sampling data that was done at Olin during the 1970s-1990s, but there is not a complete set that 

includes data from the contract period. NIOSH has looked at data from air quality studies that 

show the exposure to workers at other phosphate plants. Because those air concentrations were 

much higher than the data from Olin, NIOSH selected the highest concentration reported from an 

indoor calcining operation with a high dust concentration that was included in a study of 

phosphate plants done the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In an effort to be favorable 

to the claimant, NIOSH assumes that the individual worked in the highest dust concentration 

reported by using the highest value in that study as the “bound.” 

Question from a former Blockson worker: 

Does phosphate rock contain traces of uranium? That was our basic ingredient. 

Mr. Tomes: 

Yes, it is present in very low concentrations. Typically, everyone in the plants using phosphate 

rock from Florida is going to get some dose. 

NIOSH takes two approaches to the dose reconstruction: (1) What would be the highest dose, 

both internal and external, if the individual worked in Building 55; and (2) How would it 

compare if he worked inside or outside Building 55? NIOSH will use the highest dose. 
The Blockson workers who spoke at the January meetings here gave NIOSH a lot of new 

information about the processes and the working conditions at Blockson during the contract 

period. NIOSH considered the information and incorporated it into the site profile. NIOSH also 

had follow-up conversations with some of the workers to better understand how the plant 

operated. 

Dr. Neton responded to an attendee who asked about compensation for family members who 

were exposed to the dust that came into the homes when the workers brought their clothes home 

to be laundered. The EEOICPA legislation only provides compensation to workers; it does not 

include family members. The attendee stated that it was unconscionable for Blockson not to 

have conducted any monitoring for their employees, either air sampling or dosimetry. The 

attendee said that his father, a former Blockson employee, has bladder cancer. 

Dr. Neton introduced Robert Stephan from the office of U. S. Senator Barack Obama to make a 

statement on behalf of the Senator. 

Comment from Robert Stephan: 

For the last two years, Senator Obama’s office has been bombarded with many questions 

regarding this program with respect to Blockson Chemical. There are a couple of questions that 

we can ask that, when answered, will provide beneficial information for the people here – 

questions that we already know that they have. 

First, I would like to introduce Kent Bennett, who is Senator Obama’s State Director in our 

Chicago office. The point that I want to make is that this has been a very frustrating process for 

all of you. We are working with Congressman Weller and Congressman Biggert. We don’t have 

any clear answers, but we continue to work on the issues. 

The first question we have is related to using the radon data from other sites. I appreciate the 

change that NIOSH has made, that they have bumped up the exposure for Blockson Chemical 

beyond the data you have from all of the other sites. But the question that we have is: How do 

we know that the exposure levels for Blockson are as high as they should be for the work that 

was done at Blockson, even though they may now be higher than all the other sites for which you 

have data? From our point of view, if there is an admission of no data, then obviously that helps 

us with the SEC process. Can you walk through that for us? We certainly appreciate that it has 

been adjusted to be claimant favorable, but how do we know that it is as claimant favorable as it 

can be? 

Dr. Neton: 

As Mr. Tomes mentioned, the phosphate industry has been well studied for a long time because 

it has been a known fact that radon evolves from the processing of phosphate ore. There a 

number of measurements from a number of facilities that had very similar processes. There are 

only so many ways that you can crush ore with a certain concentration and process it. NIOSH 

has taken the distribution of all of those values of the radon measurements and chose the 95th

percentile value and assumed that was the concentration that occurred at Blockson Chemical. 

NIOSH sees no indication that there is any difference in Blockson’s processing properties that 

would increase that radon concentration higher than what is assigned. Mr. Tomes, do you have 

anything to add to that? 

Mr. Tomes: 
NIOSH has compared that with the Olin data from 1978-1983 and the value that is assigned is 

higher than what we have seen. 

Dr. Neton: 

The ore itself has a very low concentration of uranium and, therefore, a low concentration of 

radium. There is only so much radon that can come from that processed ore when you are 

moving it through the system. 

Mr. Stephan: 

Thank you. We requested that the next ABRWH meeting that you have be located in the 

Chicago area so the claimants and the families from Blockson Chemical can attend that meeting, 

as they did when the meeting was held in Naperville in December 2006. The most recent 

information that we have on the SEC petition, which – if approved – would potentially cover 

many people, is that the Board will not vote on that petition at the next meeting in October. Is 

that your understanding, or will the Board be voting on this petition at the October meeting? 

Dr. Neton: 

That really is in the purview of the Advisory Board, not NIOSH. As you know, we presented 

our evaluation report in July at the meeting in Richland, Washington. The working group 

continues to meet. There are still some issues remaining that need to be resolved before they can 

vote. There is a good chance that it may not be voted on, but I don’t want to speak for the 

Advisory Board. 

Mr. Stephan (to the attendees): 

The point I want to make for all of these people is that the Advisory Board will be meeting in 

Naperville in October. Whether or not the Board votes on the petition at that time, certainly 

some Blockson business may take place and you are encouraged to come. You can make 

statements or introduce documents or whatever you want to do. The meeting was moved from 

another location so you can be there. 

Dr. Neton: 

That is correct. The Board meeting will be in Naperville on October 3, 4 and 5. The agenda will 

be published on our Web site and you can look for specific days and hours during which the 

Blockson petition will be discussed. There will more than likely be a working group report as to 

where they are in the resolution of the final issues. 

Mr. Stephan: 

Could you take back a request to Larry Elliott, who is the Director of OCAS? We would like to 

ask that everyone in the claimant database be notified via mail of the meeting. 

Earlier, you talked about the information you got from these folks when you were here in 

January. You stated that changes have been made for some doses. Can you tell us if any of 

those changes has brought about compensation to any claimant? 

Dr. Neton: 

Those cases have not been reworked yet. At the beginning of the meeting, NIOSH will ask DOL 

to send back every case that had a compensation decision of less than fifty percent (<50%) to be 

reworked. Every single one of those cases will be reworked and you will receive a new dose 

reconstruction report that outlines the new value. 

Mr. Stephan: 
I just want to make sure I understand this, because this is a question that Senator Obama’s office 

hears frequently. For those of you here who are workers and you have filed your own claim, or 

if you are a family member who has filed a claim as a survivor, and you have been denied for 

that claim, your claim will be reopened and reworked. That does not mean that the changes will 

bring about compensation, but there is that possibility. 

Dr. Neton: 

I don’t want to mislead anyone. It doesn’t mean that they are all going to change to over fifty 

percent (50%), it means that we are going to rework them. As Mr. Tomes indicated, some doses 

will go up. 

Mr. Stephan: 

This is my last question: Is NIOSH satisfied that it has received all of the documentation needed 

from Olin? 

Dr. Neton: 

I believe that NIOSH has sufficient information to make a satisfactory dose reconstruction for 

the cases we have. 

Mr. Stephan: 

Thank you. 

Dr. Neton stated that he had 10 copies of the revised Blockson Site Profile available for those 

attendees without internet access. The site profile is also on the NIOSH Web site at the address 

in the handout. Dr. Neton opened the floor to questions and comments from the former workers 

and other attendees. 

Question from the son of a former worker: 

How can you put a dose on any one person when the conditions in the building – the airborne 

radiation – could change from day to day, hour to hour and minute to minute? A person could 

work in there every day and have virtually no dose. Another person could work in there the next 

day and get a year’s worth. 

Dr. Neton: 

That is a very good question. NIOSH has taken the “worst case” conditions that could exist at 

the plant and assumed that every claimant who comes through our shop breathes the highest 

concentration for every hour of the entire year for every year that they worked there, from the 

time they started working there until the time when they developed cancer. 

Response: 

That is how you consider what their dose is from when they started working to when they 

developed cancer. Blockson preferred not to supply dosimetry or measure the airborne radiation. 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH does have some dosimetry data. We have bioassay samples for (interrupted). 

Question: 

They did not wear any film badges or TLDs (thermoluminescent dosimeters). Were air samples 

taken in the building continuously? 

Response from a former Blockson worker: 

No, no and no. 
Dr. Neton: 

The urine samples that we have are better indicators of exposure than the air samples, because 

those actually measure what was breathed in – what is excreted in the urine is directly 

proportional to the amount that was breathed in. 

Response: 

What troubles me is that you allowed the worker to take the radiation home with them. That is 

what bothers me. 

Dr. Neton: 

I understand that that happened, but NIOSH did not do that. That is not a good practice and I 

feel for those people. 

Comment/Question from the son of a former worker: 

Radiation clothing was not supplied to the workers. I worked in a nuclear power plant. When I 

worked in a radiation area, I had to strip down to my skivvies and put on a radiation suit. When I 

came out of there, I left that radiation suit behind and scanned out on a portal monitor. If I had 

any radiation at that time, I was sent to the showers. The Blockson workers didn’t have that 

benefit. How can you even begin to fathom how much radiation they got? 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH understands that. As I explained, we have urine samples from the workers who were 

doing the drumming of the uranium itself, which is the highest exposure. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

How did you get those samples? 

Dr. Neton: 

Those samples were taken at the facility during the time that the uranium was being processed. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

How many people gave those samples? 

Dr. Neton: 

This is all documented in the site profile. To Mr. Tomes: How many samples were there? 

Mr. Tomes: 

NIOSH has 122 urine bioassay samples from approximately 25 workers that were collected from 

1954 to 1958. According to the records we have, that includes the period when Blockson was 

producing the largest quantities of uranium based on the production data that we have. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

I thought that all of the records were destroyed. 

Mr. Tomes: 

The records are from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Health and Safety Laboratory in 

New York. Those are the people who did the work. 

Comment from the spouse of a former Blockson worker: 

Mr. Tomes, we are not trying to be combative with you. But the fact is, there were people in the 

building that did not have urinalysis prior to that time. You cannot determine what their levels of 

exposure were if you do not have that information. 

Mr. Tomes: 
One way that NIOSH accounts for that is to make certain that the period for which we have 

samples would be representative of the highest production, and it is. The highest urine bioassay 

results and the highest production, as far as pounds of uranium produced, occurred in late 1955 

and early 1956. NIOSH analyzed the results as a set and has taken a value larger than the highest 

result. That is how NIOSH accounts for the variation. 

Question from the survivor of a former Blockson worker: 

Do you have the names of those workers? 

Mr. Tomes: 

Yes, we do. 

Question: 

Are those names available? 

Mr. Tomes: 

If you have a claim with NIOSH and request your data through the Privacy Act, you can get the 

data. 

Comment from the spouse of a former Blockson worker: 

Let me explain something else. What I see here is that the government announced this program 

(EEOICPA) and asked people to submit claims. But what has been happening here is a 

screening out process instead of screening in. In other words, these people have submitted their 

claims, but they are not going to be awarded based on what happened to them individually. This 

is something that the government has re-created and it is not based on fact because you cannot 

account for those people who were not monitored who were not subject to those doses. It seems 

to me that the individual is not taken into consideration either. You and I are different. Our 

physical makeup is different. I may be exposed to something and you may be exposed to the 

same thing, and it may not affect you. 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH believes that, in general, there were no more than 20 people who worked in Building 55 

during the uranium operation itself. I think that is a fairly close approximation. 

Comment from a former Blockson worker: 

What about the workers who went in and did all the maintenance? 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH is going to give everyone who files a claim the dose as if they sat there drumming the 

uranium for every time it happened. A maintenance worker would get a very small fraction of 

the total dose that NIOSH assigns, but the assumption is that everyone who worked there was 

under the “worst case” conditions. That is for every claim being evaluated. Plausibly, it cannot 

get any higher than that. 

Comment from an unknown attendee: 

That would make it more than fifty percent (50%) then. 

Dr. Neton: 

There are some claims that will be more than fifty percent (50%). I think there already are. 

Question: 

Why wouldn’t that take all the claims to more than fifty percent (50%) then? 
Dr. Neton: 

We are going to the highest exposure. Then that exposure has to be converted to the probability 

of causation (POC) that represents the chance that the cancer that developed is related to that 

exposure. That depends largely on the type of cancer. Some cancers are more easily caused by 

radiation exposure than others. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

What are those cancers? 

Dr. Neton: 

Some examples come to mind. It takes a fairly high dose of radiation to cause prostate cancer or 

brain cancer. The age at which the exposure occurred also matters, because if you were younger 

and developed cancer at a younger age, it is more likely that the radiation exposure caused the 

cancer as compared to the same person developing cancer at a more advanced age. All of these 

factors are considered in a risk model called IREP (Interactive RadioEpidemiological Program), 

a computer program used to determine the POC. You can look at the program on our Web site. 

It was produced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and was modified for use in our program. 

Comment from the survivor of a former Blockson worker: 

My father started working at Blockson in 1956. I have done some research on radiation 

exposure. Some forms of radiation damage occur when the total radiation exceeds a certain 

threshold. It can cause different types of problems, such as dermatitis and skin disorders. I have 

lost more than half of my family. My father did not die from a cancer. He died from heart 

problems. Five years after leaving Blockson, he had his first major heart attack at the age of 40. 

I have a sister who was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder called Sweet’s Syndrome. They 

really aren’t sure what causes it. She passed away in 2003 from lung cancer. My mother passed 

away in 1998 from heart problems. I have had ministrokes. It says that typically 5 to 15 years, 

you can get leukemia, certain types of skin cancer, breast cancer. There is also the possibility of 

inheritable genetic damage. The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) 

has concluded that the total risk factor of death from radiation-induced cancer is about 1 in 100, 

with hereditary disorders occurring within the first two generations. 

This gentleman said that his mother had passed away from cancer. My father would come home 

and go into the basement to take all of his clothing off before he even came up into our home. 

My sister and I were just babies, two and three years old. My father’s three brothers also worked 

at Blockson and they all have passed away from different cancers and disease. 

My question is, through all this radiation analysis that you have done, have you physically gone 

out to the property to make sure that there are not any of these uranium drums hidden in the 

ground on that property? Has anyone thought to do that? Things may have been hidden during 

those days and not followed the proper criteria for disposal. Can any of the old-timers here help 

me out? 

Response from a former Blockson worker: 

There are no drums buried out there. (Another former worker concurred.) This new outfit that is 

digging the rock has gone out there with machines and is digging the whole place up. 

Response from another former Blockson worker: 

There is a place where drums are buried, but some of the drums that are buried were insulation 

that was put into black drums that originally held caustic. There could have been a lot of other 
things put into them, but I’m just going on what I saw. Even when they were running the Pilot 

Program, there had to be some waste, but I don’t know what they did with it. They could have 

dumped it out there, too. I could show you where it is at. 

Question from the same attendee: 

That is what I’m getting at. How was the waste from Building 55 handled? I think that should 

be investigated. They should go out to that property. Take them out there and show them where 

it is. 

Response from the latter Blockson worker: 

I don’t think it was put in a drum from there. No. You would have to find out where the mud 

and slurry went. I don’t know if the slurry went back to the fertilizer, or if it went down into the 

ditch and out into the river. 

Response from the same attendee: 

What I am saying is that you should be working with the people who worked there. I understand 

that you’re trying to do an analysis, but these are the people who can help us. 

Comment from an unidentified attendee: 

You’re spending a lot of money, too. 

Dr. Neton: 

I have a specific question for the gentleman here in the front. You said that the material that left 

Building 55 was slurry. Was it ever dried into a powdery form at some point before it left 

Building 55? 

Response from a former worker: 

Outside of the uranium material itself, when they washed down the presses, it was a liquid. But 

where did the liquid go? 

Dr. Neton: 

The waste product itself – were they ever dried and drummed up? 

Response from a former worker: 

I don’t know what they ever did with the dust collectors, either. To another former worker: You 

should know something about that, (name withheld). 

Response from another former worker: 

I would say that everything wound up in the “gyp” (phosphogypsum) pile. There are 160 acres 

out there, and if you went out there and checked it, you would find uranium in it. All of the 

product from the plant went into the air, the Desplaines River, or the “gyp” pile. 

Comment from another former worker: 

I labored there (Blockson/Olin) for many years. We used to take the waste in a wheelbarrow and 

dump it over by Building 40. From there it was hauled out to the dumpsite. 

Dr. Neton: 

What did the contents of the wheelbarrow look like? Was it slurry or sludge or a dry powder? 

Response from the former worker: 

It could be anything that came out. 

Response from another former worker: 
It was a solid after it had been filtered. When it was in Building 55 it was solid, then it was 

slurried and pumped out to the “gyp” pile. 

Dr. Neton: 

So the solids were slurried and pumped out. That is helpful. Thank you. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

You keep saying dose. Can you give me numbers? 

Dr. Neton: 

Every case is different. We do individual dose reconstructions. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

Was a whole body count ever done on any worker out there? 

Dr. Neton: 

Not to my knowledge. There are some lung cancers that have been compensated. For a lung 

cancer to be compensated – and this is a ballpark number – a worker would have had to receive 

somewhere in the vicinity of 70-80 rem of radiation to the lung. 

Response from an unidentified attendee: 

Is that per day or per month or per year? How much could you get in a week? 

Dr. Neton: 

That would be the individual’s total lifetime dose over the career. You can get a fair amount to 

the lung in a week. The allowable limit at present is 5 rem per year to the lungs. 

Response from another unidentified attendee: 

How about to the skin and the eyes? 

Dr. Neton: 

Fifty rem per year is the allowable limit to the skin under present Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission (NRC) regulations. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

Are all of these numbers in the model? 

Dr. Neton: 

No, some of these could have been higher than the current regulatory limit. In the late 1950s, the 

allowable limit was 15 rem per year. Whether it was allowable by law or not is really not part of 

this program. What you need to understand also is the compensation decision is not based on the 

best estimate of whether the cancer was caused by radiation or not, it takes one of the highest 

values – the 99th percentile – of the risk calculation and uses that to make the decision that it is 

“as likely as not” to have been caused by the worker’s radiation exposure. There are additional 

generosities built into that calculation to account for some of the uncertainties. 

Question from the spouse of a former Blockson worker: 

Once the product is ingested or inhaled, what is the life of this product in the body? 

Dr. Neton: 

It stays in the system for quite some time – years. The standard models that we use account for 

how long it stays in the lung, and when it gets into the bloodstream, and if it concentrates in the 

kidneys. Those calculations are done in very standard models that are accepted by the IRCP. 

Radiation is very well studied, so we have some very detailed models. 
Response from the former worker’s spouse: 

You are looking at optimum conditions; that is, if these people were monitored and everything 

was handled the way it should have been in that building and they got some of this into their 

system. Then you use those calculations, based on optimum conditions, right? 

Dr. Neton: 

I’m not sure what you mean by optimum conditions. 

Response from the former worker’s spouse: 

Well, there were no optimum conditions when they weren’t monitored. What I am saying is, 

once the product enters the system, it has indefinite lifetime, right? 

Dr. Neton: 

It is not indefinite. It has a lifetime of years. I don’t know the numbers off the top of my head 

for the different organs, but they are known and established in our documents. 

Response from the spouse: 

If you are monitoring these people, once it gets into the system you have a way of knowing when 

they have reached that maximum dose, right? 

Dr. Neton: 

Yes. 

Response from the spouse: 

But if you did not monitor them, you would have no way of knowing if they had reached the 

maximum dose or were overexposed. Is that right? 

Dr. Neton: 

We have monitoring data for the uranium, as we mentioned. We have about 120 urine samples 

from the workers. We have taken the highest of the values and assumed that every person who 

filed a claim breathed that high value of uranium. 

Response from the spouse: 

That is an assumption. That is what bothers me about the whole thing, because there were 

people. You said these results were from 1954. Is that right? 

Dr. Neton: 

The results are from 1954 to 1958. 

Response from the spouse: 

What about those people who were working there before that? 

Dr. Neton: 

Uranium samples are cumulative. Once you get uranium in your body, it will continue to be 

excreted from your body for a long time. For instance, if you weren’t monitored for the first two 

years, but left a urine sample the third year, you could still tell how much uranium you were 

exposed to for the first two years because it would still be being excreted in the urine. 

Response from the spouse: 

I’m not talking about the workers who you have the results for, I’m talking about the ones who 

you did not have test results for. You have no way of knowing what their exposures were. 

Dr. Neton: 
We don’t know that there were uranium operators who were constantly exposed to uranium that 

were not monitored. We have samples from people who processed the uranium drums, the 

highest amount of uranium that gets into the air. If they worked somewhere remote from there, 

their values would be lower. 

Response from the spouse: 

I am talking about people who worked in that building. Are you saying that there were no 

people working in that building before 1954? 

Dr. Neton: 

What I am saying is the uranium exposures were given to the workers who took shovels or the 

pans of uranium and dumped them into the drums. Those are the people who we have urine 

samples for. 

Response from the spouse: 

I am talking about the people who worked in that building that you do not have samples for 

because you did not take those samples at the time they should have been taken. 

Dr. Neton: 

I would like to hear a mechanism of how their exposures would be higher than the people who 

actually dumped the uranium from the pans into the drums. That is the question. 

Response from the spouse: 

I have to go back to my original thought. Those are all assumptions on your part. What I said 

before, and what I maintain today, is that we do know that those people worked there. We do 

know that a certain number of people did not have monitoring devices to wear when they worked 

in there. We do know that they developed those illnesses. That we do know. There is an 

assumption on your part as to what happened in Building 55 because the whole idea of 

reconstructing it tells us that you really don’t know what happened in that building. And the 

building was taken down. 

My next question is: What kind of site remediation was done for those people that worked at 

Blockson? Doesn’t the government do site remediation if they have materials that were at a site? 

Dr. Neton: 

There is a site remediation program that is run by the government. 

Response from the spouse: 

Was there a site remediation done at Blockson? 

Dr. Neton: 

I don’t believe so. 

Response from a former worker: 

Yes, 16 years after the place shut down. 

Response from the spouse: 

I want to thank you for taking things a step further because this is better than it was before. But 

what I am telling you is that there is a certain amount of frustration because you haven’t covered 

all the bases. There was no site remediation done by the government. These people worked in 

that place for years. My husband worked there for 40 1⁄2 years, then add overtime. What would 

that be? 
Response from her husband, a former worker: 

That would be 80 years. 

Response from the spouse: 

I think that these people can attest to the fact that he was one of the better workers that they had 

at Blockson. He was very conscientious and would do whatever it took to get the job done. Am 

I right, people? (Several former workers concurred.) I feel that the government owes these 

people the consideration that they did not protect them. They introduced a program to say, 

“Come and submit your claim.” But then you go through a process to screen them out. 

Somehow that does not seem fair to me. 

Dr. Neton: 

I would like to point out that NIOSH did not write this law. We are following it as closely as we 

can. We were tasked with doing the dose reconstructions. If we had bioassay samples and 

badges for every single worker, there would be no need for dose reconstruction. In fact, 

Congress tasked NIOSH with doing dose reconstructions, implying that there are missing data. 

We have done the best job that we can, technically and scientifically, to fill in those gaps. We 

feel that we have put a plausible upper bound on the doses of these workers. If you hear what we 

are saying about the claimant favorability of these values, I think that you would agree that we 

have done a very good job at bounding what the possible exposures could have been; so that if a 

person has a probability of causation (POC) less than 50%, there is a very unlikely chance that 

the cancer was caused by that exposure. I think NIOSH has done that. 

Response from an unidentified attendee: 

Then shame on Congress. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

My dad worked there from 1951 until 1969. He has been gone for six years now. He was 

diagnosed with cancer and lived for 5 years after his diagnosis. He had lung cancer. Jerry 

Weller’s office called to ask my dad to help with names of people who worked in Building 55. 

They said that the family would get this settlement. He had lung cancer. He had prostate cancer, 

and then it went to his brain. The claim was denied. His dose reconstruction was 29%. What 

more could my dad have done, having worked there that long and died from three different 

cancers and was denied? I am confused that it was 29% instead of 50%. I don’t understand that. 

I have heard that there are eight people who have gotten settlements and they are still alive. Is 

this true? Out of eight people that have gotten settlements, they still have families and haven’t 

died yet? 

Dr. Neton: 

It depends on the years that you worked there and how young you were when you developed the 

cancer – there are a lot of factors. 

Comment from a former worker: 

Fourteen people have gotten settlements now. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

Are all of these people still alive? 

Dr. Neton: 

We have another question in the back. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 
First of all, my sister would like me to say that our father was 39 years old when he died of 

cancer. We were denied with the smidgen of dose that you assumed he got working in Building 

55. 

Dr. Neton: 

When you inhale uranium, it goes to various different organs. You can inhale a lot of uranium 

and, if you have prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, or stomach cancer, it does not concentrate in 

any of those organs. It only concentrates in a few organs. It is an element, so when you breathe 

it in (inaudible). NIOSH uses a metabolic model that has been scientifically demonstrated over 

the last 50 years. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

Why was it that my father was notified and told that if he had been diagnosed with lung cancer 

he should apply for these so-called monies that were allotted by the government? Why was my 

dad notified by Congressman Jerry Weller’s office to even file for this if he wasn’t going to get it? 

Dr. Neton: 

I cannot respond to that question because I do not know. 

Comment from the survivor or a former worker: 

At the first meeting we went to about Blockson Chemical, a gentleman whose name I don’t 

remember stated that it doesn’t matter what kind of cancer it is, it will be covered. And now they 

are telling us only if they had multiple cancers. Well, he did, but yet he died from lung cancer. 

Dr. Neton: 

Only primary cancers are covered. Secondary cancers that have spread are not considered in the 

calculation. 

Comment from a former worker: 

I asked that question last time and you said it was. Well, you might not have said it, but DOL 

did. 

Comment from the same attendee: 

The primary cancer was bladder cancer. They didn’t put it in the paper that way to begin with. 

Dr. Neton: 

In general, secondary cancers are not covered. There are a couple of exceptions. 

Question from the same attendee: 

We filled out paper after paper, year after year. Where did all the money go that was spent by 

your people, or whoever it was? 

Dr. Neton: 

Please allow me to explain how this program is funded. The administration of the program is 

funded entirely separately from the compensation fund, which is replenished by Congress every 

time it gets down to a certain level. The funds used for the administration of the program in no 

way affect the amount of funds available for compensation. 

Ms. Breyer: 

The meeting is getting a bit out of hand. We have a lot of people talking over each other, so 

some of you are not getting the chance to finish what you are saying. If you wish to speak, raise 

your hand and I will come around with the microphone so you can all have your turn. That way 

we can answer your questions one at a time. We can make sure the meeting stays productive if 
you all have a chance to say what you came here to say. Once you are done with your comment, 

please sit down so we can move on. 

Question from Mr. Stephan: 

Dr. Neton, can you help us understand something? The SEC petition is a document that NIOSH 

has developed and submitted to the ABRWH with an opinion on whether or not to include 

Blockson workers in the SEC, which would compensate everyone as a group if they are eligible. 

As I understand it, the opinion thus far is that the SEC petition be denied. My question is: If 

anyone has specific questions about the site profile itself, which is the document that NIOSH has 

developed, or if they see something that they do not agree with, whether it be rems or any of the 

data included – is that not some of the specific information that would be useful for the Board 

members? Is that correct? 

Dr. Neton: 

That is correct. 

Comment from Mr. Stephan to attendees: 

First, it is very crucial for you to make any comments you have about that site profile. Second, 

so that you are aware, on this SEC group petition, NIOSH has developed an opinion and given it 

to the Board. But Congress has asked the Board to seek an outside opinion from SC&A. The 

reason that is available to the Board is so the opinion of NIOSH is not the only opinion that they 

hear. They essentially get a second opinion, much like you would if you were going to the 

doctor. Speaking to Dr. Neton: My question for you is this – knowing that you speak only for 

NIOSH: Do you know where they are in the review process? Do you know if they have issued a 

document? Do you know when they will issue a document if they have not issued it yet? 

Dr. Neton: 

SC&A has reviewed both the site profile and the petition evaluation report. These documents are 

at the working group level with ABRWH. We had a meeting several weeks ago and they were 

discussed then. Dr. Genevieve Roessler is here from the working group. Maybe she can give us 

an update. 

Dr. Roessler: 

Thank you, Mr. Stephan. The one very important thing that you have brought up is that SC&A 

did have some comments on NIOSH’s work. Our Board Working Group is looking at those 

comments and we have some questions that are being distributed tonight. We would like to get 

answers to them from some of you here. I would encourage you to look at those questions. We 

have begun to get some answers. The gentleman over there who worked at the plant knows what 

happened to the waste and knows how things were handled. This is the kind of input that the 

Board Working Group is looking for from those of you here who actually worked at the plant. 

So please look at the questions and maybe sometime tonight you can give us the answers that we 

are looking for. 

Comment from Mr. Stephan to the attendees: 

Along that point – and I am not trying to diminish all of the comments that you have – we have 

to work within the parameters of how this program has been set up. You have a significant 

opportunity next month to go before the Board and give them answers to the questions that they 

have given you tonight. There most likely will not be a vote that day. We would encourage the 

Board not to vote if SC&A’s report has not yet been made public. Between now and then, it is 
very important to review those questions and to review those documents and comment tonight, 

and if not tonight, then sometime before the Board meeting next month. 

Dr. Roessler: 

I have one comment. The Board works within these working groups. I am on the Blockson 

working group. I am not here as the Chair. She could not be here tonight. We are hoping that 

the working group will have a teleconference before the actual meeting and that you will be able 

to call in to the meeting and participate. Again, we are really looking for input from those of you 

who were there and know what happened to various materials. 

Question from Mr. Stephan to Dr. Neton: 

I have to make another request. These working group meetings often happen with those of us 

within the federal government knowing about them. That would be just another question from 

NIOSH to the Chairman of the Board that the local media be notified so these people do have an 

opportunity to come. The only other way that they are going to find out is if we notify all the 

claimants. We don’t have all that information to notify them, so we need to know the time, the 

call-in information, etc. Is that reasonable? 

Dr. Neton: 

Yes. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

The reason why we are so frustrated is that when this program started, you only had to prove that 

you worked in Blockson Chemical in Building 55 during a certain period of time and you were 

automatically compensated. Then the rules changed and you got to do your dose reconstruction. 

In my eyes, your program is showing me the way it failed because you have insufficient 

evidence – you didn’t have correct data, so I am saying that your program has failed. If this was 

a court of law, that would be a mistrial. Once it is a mistrial, you cannot continue to try to prove 

your case. I don’t understand why you keep getting the chance to go back to the drawing board 

to try to prove us wrong. 

Dr. Neton: 

There is a trade off here with timeliness of dose reconstructions. We need to get answers out 

there. As new information comes out, we are committed to using the best information we have. 

I will say that this is not the first time that we have heard that people were told at the beginning 

of the program that if they applied, they would get paid. I am sorry for that misconception. 

NIOSH did not have anything to do with that. I have been with the program from the very 

beginning and it has not changed. The program began six years ago and it has been a 

requirement to have a dose reconstruction from day one. There was possibly miscommunication 

from other agencies. 

Comment from Robert Stephan: 

In fairness, it is important to note that this process has been prolonged, to some degree, by 

members of Congress. The reason is that, had we not asked for the process to be prolonged last 

December, people would not have been compensated. At that time it only nine people had been 

compensated, and now it is up to 14 people. To raise the point that the dose reconstructions will 

be re-calculated, no case will be done backwards so that you have a lesser exposure. That is the 

reason that Congress asked that to happen. 

Dr. Neton: 
NIOSH will only re-calculate the dose reconstructions on the ones that were less than 50%. 

Anything that was over 50%, we don’t look at. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

For all those employees that you have the results of what happened to them, cancers and who 

was affected, which body parts were affected, etc., did the government or Olin know all that 

information when these people were hired? 

Dr. Neton: 

I cannot speak to that. I do not know. 

Response from the same attendee: 

Don’t you think that it would have been a fair thing for them to know? Apparently, people know 

what extracting that uranium would cause. It could cause a lot of problems, but I don’t know of 

anyone who was ever informed that working with it was dangerous. There must have been a lot 

of benefits because they were selected people that had government clearances. Were they aware? 

Dr. Neton: 

It certainly would not seem fair by today’s standards. I will certainly agree with that. I do not 

know what the knowledge level or the perception was about the harm of uranium exposure back 

in the 1950s. It certainly was a lot less than what we know today. 

Response from the same attendee: 

Don’t you think that Olin wasn’t fair to the workers by not informing them? 

Dr. Neton: 

I cannot speak for Olin. That is separate from the purpose of this meeting. I cannot comment on 

that. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

In the Technical Basis Document, how many hours per week does the program base the workers’ 

exposures on right now? It was 40 previously. What did you change that to? 

Mr. Tomes: 

NIOSH assumes that the maximum dose rate was at 40 hours per week, but there is an 

uncertainty implied, too, because there is a probability that they could have worked longer hours. 

Question from attorney for the Blockson SEC petitioners: 

When you first spoke, you said that the TBD considers “the worst case scenario possible.” Do 

you want to reconsider that statement if you say it was based on a 40-hour work week? Alright, 

we’ll go on to the next question. What is the production quantity in the revised document over 

the contract period? Originally, it was based on 40,000 to 50,000 pounds. Is that total or per 

year? In the USA Today article, which was researched and gave rise to this whole thing, it 

suggested that there were 2,000,000 pounds extracted during that 10-year period. That was one 

of the issues that NIOSH was supposed to resolve. I’m wondering how much that increased or if 

it did. 

Mr. Tomes: 

We looked at that. We requested that they provide some additional information in reference to 

that. We have multiple documents in the TBD with reference the production numbers. 

Question from the same attendee: 

Did the numbers increase or not? 
Mr. Tomes: 

No, they did not. 

Question from the same attendee: 

Who took the urine samples? What entity – was it the U.S. Government? 

Mr. Tomes: 

Blockson Chemical requested that the samples be taken. 

Question from the same attendee: 

Do you know what entity was responsible for taking them? Who analyzed them? Who took 

them? Something that we look at, as attorneys, with everything is bias. If somehow this was 

government involved, you have to consider that bias may play a factor in there. 

Dr. Neton: 

If you can provide us with the subject, we would be happy to look at it but we cannot provide 

any negative speculation here. You are asking us to speculate on an entity here. The samples 

were taken and analyzed by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Laboratory in New York 

City on those workers. If you have evidence that there was some fraudulent activity that 

occurred here, NIOSH would be more than happy to look at it. 

Response from the same attendee: 

I don’t have evidence that there was. 

Comment from a former worker: 

Sir, the plant nurse took my sample. I was a lead burner. This nurse took samples once a month 

of our urine and blood. She thought that she was part of the institution. She worked for the 

company. When she got laid off, she called me up to the office and told me that we were never 

supposed to have more than 50 parts per million (ppm) of lead in our blood. She told me that if, 

in the past, we were to get any more than that we were not to do any lead burning until it got 

back down to 50 ppm. There were three lead burners and we all went over. I was at 420 ppm 

and the other two were at 380 and 100 ppm. I was at 8 to 10 times more than allowed and the 

company never told us. This had gone back about a year, but she called me into her office and 

told me that they had withheld this information from me. Whoever took those samples, they 

didn’t necessarily get to the right place. They lied to us. That’s all I’m saying. We never did 

anything about it, but that is what she wanted us to do. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

I lost my father back in 1992. He died from lung cancer. I’ve been going through this for 

approximately five or six years. Both my mother and my sister have died from cancer, too. 

They called me on the phone three years ago to tell me – they had me on tape – “You will be 

compensated as a family member. The money is there. All of the lung cases are going to be 

compensated.” All of a sudden about three months later, I get this deal with the dose 

reconstruction. What is it? They lied to me. 

Dr. Neton: 

I’m not sure who told you that you would be compensated. If you can provide me with the name, 

I would like to see that. 

Response from the same attendee: 

I can come up with a name. 
Comment from a representative of Congressman Jerry Weller’s office: 

I am with Congressman Jerry Weller. I am also representing Congressman Biggert tonight. I 

just have one comment. Back when they agreed to let SC&A conduct a review, both 

Congressmen and Senator Obama asked for a copy of that report. To my knowledge, no one has 

received it. I want to ask you if you can make sure that they all get copies of that report. 

Dr. Neton: 

I really do not know if they were provided copies. 

Comment from Mr. Stephan: 

The request was made in writing. Could the Board members who are here answer the question? 

Dr. Neton: 

I do not know the Board members’ answer either. The problem is that these documents need to 

be reviewed for Privacy Act information and redacted. I honestly do not know if the redactions 

have been cleared yet. They may have, but I am not aware at this time. 

Response from Congressman Weller’s representative: 

I understand the Privacy Act issues. I wanted to make sure that the request is noted and that we 

are kept informed of what is going on. 

Dr. Neton: 

We can post a copy on our Web site for the world to see after it clears. 

Comment from a former worker: 

I worked in Building 55 from day one. I was a millwright on the assembly and during the 

construction. I worked with the Ironworkers steady. Blockson Chemical did not hire outside 

millwrights. I was [identifying information withheld]. When Building 55 went into operation, I 

got my government clearance so I could go in there to work on the equipment. I specialized in 

Durco Y-valves – Durco cock valves. They were made of a special C-20 material that was put in 

the operation. It was a control valve. At the same time, I also specialized on pumps and they 

had a lot of them in there. Any time a pump failed or a valve needed to be replaced, I was in 

there. We modified a lot of those valves to be air-operated instead of hand-operated. When I 

went into the building, I never knew if I was going to be working on one of the Kelley presses, 

down in the tanks, or doing something else. I went in through the security doors, did my work 

and got out of there. 

In October 1957, Blockson/Olin went on strike. Since I already had a security clearance, I went 

down to work at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL-E) as a junior reactor operator in the 300 

Area, which was the reactor area. When the strike was over four months later, I went back to 

Blockson because I knew I would be going into supervision. After four years of letter writing 

and verification, I finally got the government to confirm that I worked at ANL-E and was 

exposed to radiation there, too. 

In regards to the equipment in Building 55 and how it was cleaned, it was taken to the engine 

room in the machine shop and washed out in a dip tank, then washed off with a water hose 

before you worked on it. Many times, the keg material accumulated on the valves in the pump 

and it had to be chipped off before the piece could be cleaned up and put back into the 

warehouse supply to used again somewhere in the plant even though the pump had come from 

Building 55. I changed the stockings in the dust collectors. We did whatever needed to be done 

in that building. 
What more? I had colon cancer. They took 12 inches and hooked me back together. I have had 

heart problems and vascular problems, but I’m in perfect shape. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

My father worked in the labor gang. I appreciate the fact that at the last meeting everyone was 

able to tell you what happened in Building 55. Unfortunately, he had a heart episode that 

morning, so he wasn’t able to be here that night. I don’t understand why all of my dad’s 

information, including what they did with the waste, etc., was in the original application. It is 

sad that people have filled out forms, applications and had telephone interviews. Is all of that 

available to you? Is that available to SC&A? All of that information that you are asking for in 

your handout was in my dad’s original claim application. Did you have all of the information 

that we gave to the original group? I understand that there are divisions of government. Do you 

have access to all of the information? 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH and its contractor have access to all of that information. 

Response from the same attendee: 

Were they read? You’re confusing me. 

Dr. Neton: 

If we can get your name and claim number after the meeting, we can certainly look at it. We 

have looked at all those cases. 

Response from the same attendee: 

You ask a lot of the questions again and again. I’m glad that you get different comments that are 

important that probably help with the dose reconstructions. My question is this: Were any of the 

original applications read and were any of those transcripts of the phone interviews read? I am 

sure these workers have told their stories before. 

Dr. Neton: 

The comments have been very helpful. NIOSH gets every piece of information that is sent to 

DOL and collects it with the information that we gather from other sources. The dose 

reconstructors look at all that information. If we missed something, we would certainly like to 

hear from you. 

Response from the same attendee: 

All of these questions that SC&A has listed in this questionnaire were definitely covered in the 

original application. I appreciate that you hold these meetings so that people have the chance to 

speak out, but obviously no one ever hears anything. As years go by, my dad can’t speak a 

whole lot for himself and can’t hear a whole lot, and there are only so many years that these 

people are going to have to give this information. 

Dr. Neton: 

I encourage you to come up after the meeting and provide that information. We would love to 

have that. Thank you. 

Questions from the survivor of a former worker: 

I am [name withheld] and my dad was [name withheld]. I have a couple of questions about the 

technical basis document. I think I also have an answer to one of these questions, so is [name 

withheld] in the crowd tonight? No? He worked with my father and provided me the 

information. Your question in the handout is: “When the filter aid was used up, how was it 
handled and discarded?” When I interviewed [name withheld] on the phone, he said that he and 

my father were truck driver helpers at the time. There were three men who worked on this truck 

and I can’t think of the other gentleman’s name because he is also deceased. They used to go to 

Building 55 and other locations around the plant picking up the waste and the discards. They 

took it to a dumpster at the other end of the plant. So, hopefully, there is one of your answers. I 

have some other questions on the TBD. I read the whole thing three times – all three documents. 

Questions on other possibilities of carcinogens: When you talked about the chlorination process 

for the oxidation on page 6, isn’t chlorine a carcinogen? 

Dr. Neton: 

I am not aware that chlorine itself is a carcinogen. 

Response from the same attendee: 

I thought that in high concentrations that it could have a carcinogenic effect. 

Dr. Neton: 

If it is, carcinogens outside of radiation are not covered under this program. 

Response from the same attendee: 

Even if it was used in the process, just like the sulfuric acid, etc.? That doesn’t seem logical 

because you use the sulfuric acid to wash the phosphate rock. 

Dr. Neton: 

The Act specifically requires us to reconstruct the radiation exposure, not the carcinogen 

exposure. The fact is, we have looked at this and the models for the carcinogens causing cancer 

are not nearly as well known as the ones for the radiation. There is no way to model that 

properly. 

Response from the same attendee: 

What about the effect of the radiation on the plant and the water in the plant? Was the water 

tested? 

Dr. Neton: 

We don’t know if the water was tested. Are you talking about an on-site well? I am getting a 

nod from one of the workers down front that the on-site wells were tested. 

Response from the same attendee: 

What happened to the water that left the plant? I read an EPA report on their Web site that stated 

“the risk from radon in drinking water confirms that there are drinking water-related cancer 

deaths, primarily due to lung cancer.” 

Dr. Neton: 

Was that at Blockson? 

Response from the same attendee: 

If you are working with high doses of radiation, couldn’t it contaminate the water? Of course, 

we read about that all the time. 

Dr. Neton: 

The question then is “Was there a local well onsite at Blockson and was it contaminated?” I do 

not know the answer to that. 

Response from the same attendee: 
Isn’t that something that could be followed up? 

Comment from a former worker: 

Blockson had six wells. 

Dr. Neton: 

As far as the uranium goes, NIOSH does account for ingestion because of the bioassay samples. 

It was being excreted in the urine, whether it was inhaled or ingested. Typically, it is a higher 

dose to assume that it was inhaled. 

Questions from the survivor of a former worker: 

I have couple of questions related to that. I read that there were 25 people sampled. How many 

employees were there at the time at Blockson – 200? I’m guessing. I don’t know. So that’s 

about 8 % sampling? Why didn’t you sample more workers? 

Dr. Neton: 

As we just heard from this gentleman, the area was controlled with security clearances. We have 

indications that there were 20 people who worked in Building 55. NIOSH didn’t take the 

samples. Blockson Chemical Company did. First of all, you have to sample the people that were 

exposed and we believe that the samples were representative of the population of workers 

exposed to the uranium in Building 55. There were no exposures of concentrated uranium 

outside of Building 55. To compare it for 200 people just doesn’t make any sense. 

Response from the same attendee: 

But it is a small representative sample, when all of the other 200 people may be exposed. What I 

am getting at is an 8% representation in the bioassay. What about the unmonitored people? 

Dr. Neton: 

No, almost all of the people who were exposed were monitored. The unmonitored workers were 

less exposed, because they may have walked through the plant. We have samples from the 

people who actually drummed the uranium itself. 

Response from the same attendee: 

I have a question related to that. To the proximity of the drum, it goes down significantly. The 

assumption is two feet (30 cm) from the drum. That is on page 25. If I am touching the drum or 

if I am handling the filter, my exposure is 160 mrem in that one incident. If I am at 30 cm, it 

goes down to practically nil. It looks like a couple of mrem. The assumption that you use in the 

TBD is at practically nil, where someone touching and handling is getting a megadose at 150 

mrem, and the math is much more significant. I did the math for my father’s exposure, touching 

and handling the uranium; it comes out exponentially different. 

Dr. Neton: 

If you have skin cancer of the hands or forearms, you would get that touching dose. But to 

actually get it on your hands or forearms, you have to be actually touching or hugging the drum. 

Response from the same attendee: 

What if you are holding the drum, how are you going to be carrying it out? Are you going to be 

holding it at arms length? No, I’m going to carry it in close proximity. That is the way you 

carry something if it’s a heavy load. 

Dr. Neton: 

I would have to look at the specific case you are talking about. 
Response from the same attendee: 

Why are you only taking inhalation or ingestion? Why are you taking only one or the other? 

What if you have both? Isn’t it feasible to both inhale and ingest uranium if you are holding it? 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH assumes whatever is the higher form of exposure. If the dose per unit intake of 

inhalation is higher, we will give you the inhalation does. If it was for ingestion and is lower, it 

would not make any sense to give you both. If the bioassay sample excretes a certain amount, 

we will take the value that gives you the highest dose per intake. What is excreted in the urine is 

representative of what you’ve either ingested or inhaled. Typically, you get a much higher dose 

when you inhale uranium rather than ingest it, partly because when you ingest it, it passes right 

though the system and about five percent or less is absorbed into the system. When you inhale it, 

most of it is directly deposited into the lung itself and leached into the bloodstream. But you are 

measuring the amount of uranium that comes out in the urine, so you have to assign it to one 

mode or the other because what is coming out in the urine is the combined excretion of ingestion 

and inhalation. NIOSH picks the outcome that gives the higher dose. 

Question from the same attendee: 

On page 36 of the TBD, what is “type F?” We talked about “M” and “S” solubility, but for the 

lead (Pb) and polonium (Po), it talks about “F” particularly for Pb-210. What is “type F” 

absorption? 

Dr. Neton: 

“Type F” means fast clearance. There are three types: “F” is for fast, “M” is for medium, “S” is 

for slow. “F” means that is clears quickly from the lung. 

Question from the same attendee: 

Doesn’t the lead cause scarring in the lung like all the other heavy metals? I don’t know how 

that would clear quickly from the lungs. 

Dr. Neton: 

That particular chemical form would clear quickly from the lungs. These are not visible 

quantities of lead. These are microscopic quantities of lead that we are talking about, not the 

massive amounts that it would take to cause a toxic reaction. 

Comment from the same attendee: 

Finally, I have two questions on pages 13 and 14 in the TBD. On page 13, the last sentence in 

the third paragraph: “This may not, however, be a valid assumption if some thorium (Th) 

isotopes are bound in a different matrix in the phosphate rock. FIPR 1995 reported in their study 

that unreactive minerals in the matrix accounted for 5-10% uncertainty in the fraction of the 

radionuclides reported in the phosphogypsum.” What I get out of this, and what I take it that 

SC&A got out of this, is the uncertainty of the thorium and where it is going. 

Dr. Neton: 

That is entirely correct. 

Comment from the same attendee: 

Also, the statement in the middle of the first paragraph on page 14: “The samples were analyzed 

by gamma spectroscopy and results were reported for radionuclides in the U-234, U-238, and 

Th-232 (natural thorium) chain. Soil sample results were typically low. The four soil samples 

from inside Building 55 were taken from spots that were identified as contaminated based on 
scan results. These data are insufficient to form a quantitative conclusion on the ratios of the 

various radionuclides that were present, but the data indicate elevated uranium with some natural 

thorium, but at much lower concentration.” I guess there are still some unknown questions. 

Dr. Neton: 

This is definitely one of outstanding issues that NIOSH has with the SC&A report and the 

ABRWH working group. “Where is the thorium?” That is the crux of the questions that you 

were handed today are attempting to deal with that issue. NIOSH assumed that all of the thorium 

went into the uranium barrel and the workers breathed as much thorium as they did uranium. 

NIOSH contends that that is still a very claimant-favorable approach. 

Question from the same attendee: 

What if it went with the sulfuric acid into the other slurry in that retention pond? 

Dr. Neton: 

If it was a slurry material, then it would not be available to generate an aerosol. Wet materials 

typically do not become airborne. NIOSH has not seen a higher concentration of Th-230 per 

gram of material in any other process than what we have assumed the workers breathed from the 

uranium drum. We have assumed probably 200-300 nanocuries per gram. Of all the other 

processes in the DOE complex that process this type of material, it is typically around 60 

nanocuries. We have not seen a chemical process than we are enhancing more than that. We are 

looking very closely at that issue and we are here to see if people can help us with that. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

My father worked in Building 55. Our claim was denied, but the cancer that he died from was of 

the pharynx. The first paper that was put out by NIOSH listed the cancers at the bottom and 

pharynx was one of them. They have beat around the bush so they could deny the claim. Before 

we even got a denial letter, I talked to one of the head people – and you know him – who took 

me into a room where there was a computer. He had someone look up my dad’s claim and he 

shook my hand and said, “I am very sorry, but your claim has been denied.” We hadn’t even 

gotten a letter yet. I think that is very inappropriate for professional people. I could tell you who 

it was. 

Dr. Neton: 

I agree. I would appreciate that information. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

Is the dose reconstruction based on a 40-hour work week? 

Dr. Neton: 

We just talked about that. Time is not necessary to know because when you are excreting 

uranium in the urine, the time factor is accounted for in the excretion. How much you excrete is 

dependent on how much you breathe in. For some scenarios, such as external exposure, the 

central estimate was a 40-hour week, but there was an uncertainty placed about that to allow for 

more time. This is in the model. When the samples are put into the calculation, it assumes 40 

hours as a default, but it will allow for more time depending on the uncertainty factor that was 

applied. 

Comment from an unidentified attendee: 

I have been to a lot of meetings throughout this whole ordeal. This is the first time I have ever 

heard that they found urine samples. 
Dr. Neton: 

That information has been in the site profile since 2003 when the first site profile came out. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

Last week, I received more questions from the dose reconstruction. I cannot answer these 

questions because my husband is already dead. They wanted me to fill these out myself and then 

I am supposed to call them and tell them when I have this filled in. I can’t answer these 

questions because he is already dead. 

Ms. Breyer: 

This letter is from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). It is asking about medical 

screening X-rays, etc. 

Dr. Neton: 

ORAU also does medical screening programs. Have you just filed a claim recently? 

Ms. Breyer: 

We will talk to you individually after the meeting. 

Comment from an unidentified attendee: 

I think that the goal of the meeting is to collect specific information for the Board working group 

and for NIOSH about the site profile and the SEC evaluation. I am looking at the three 

questions that were specifically targeted for tonight. It seems to me that very little of this 

information has been elicited. A gentle suggestion: For these meetings and for this meeting, 

there needs to be specific outreach and identification of the people who have specific knowledge 

of this information. 

Dr. Neton: 

We did send those questions out in advance of the meeting to selected people who we thought 

could help us provide information. 

Question from the same attendee: 

This also relates back to something that was alluded to several times this evening. That is 

whether the CATIs (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews) with the claimants have been 

mined with respect to these questions specifically. Has that been done? 

Dr. Neton: 

We have been through this before. The CATIs have to be cleared with the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) when you start interviewing large numbers of people. It is 

impractical for us to have a tailored interview for every site. I think your first suggestion has 

merit though. 

Question from the same attendee: 

But have the CATI interviews with workers who are knowledgeable about the subject of these 

questions been mined for the information? Somebody said that these questions about the waste 

were in their specific CATI and it would be useful to get that information. 

Dr. Neton: 

It is standard practice to review the CATIs when the site profile is being constructed, although 

this information might not have had the same significance then as it does now. It may benefit us 

to go back now and take a second look at those interviews. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 
I have two questions. First, is there a specific timeframe for the new dose reconstructions using 

the revised site profile? This one took about six and a half years. 

Dr. Neton: 

That is a very good question. The only answer I can give you is that we will do them as soon as 

we can. Keep in mind that we have a competing process going on, which is the SEC. To some 

extent, if the site became part of the Special Exposure Cohort – and I am not saying that it will – 

it would not be relevant for us to reconstruct all of these doses. Right now, we are moving 

forward because we cannot prejudge. We are going to ask for the cases to be returned to us. 

Once we get them, they will go quickly because the site profile is one size fits all. It is fairly 

easy to do them once we get the cases back. 

Question from the same attendee: 

I have one other question for the informational process. My father worked a lot of overtime and 

if you are going to base his dose reconstruction on 40 hours, it would not be accurate for that 

external dose. In that time frame, he was the sole breadwinner for the family so he worked a lot 

of overtime. How will you decide dosage? 

Dr. Neton: 

Blockson did not produce a lot of uranium. On average, it was about one drum per month. 

NIOSH assumes that they were exposed to this drum of uranium, but it wasn’t sitting there full 

the entire month. There are a lot of other considerations that go into this calculation. 

Response from the same attendee: 

It didn’t leave the area though, did it? 

Dr. Neton: 

NIOSH is assuming that there was a full drum of uranium there and that they were in contact 

with it for 40 hours per week. If you make one drum of uranium per month, presumably at the 

beginning of the month there is almost nothing and by the end of the month you get this 

maximum dose rate. There is some generosity built into the calculation that maybe we haven’t 

conveyed properly. I understand your concern about work hours. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

My father worked at Blockson/Olin from 1934 to 1968. He had colon cancer, a three-pronged 

tumor. They removed 18 inches of his intestines. As a little girl, I remember being at Olin and 

seeing a sign on the fence that said “Manmade Quicksand.” To this day, I am still curious as to 

what “manmade quicksand” is. 

Dr. Neton: 

I have no idea. Perhaps someone here can tell you. 

Comment from a former worker: 

I worked in Building 55. I was never monitored. I didn’t give urine samples. When the building 

went up, I sensed that it was a chance for me to get in there first and get what I could and get out. 

I worked a lot of overtime, and the comparison of that against a 40-hour week doesn’t seem right. 

The dose reconstructions are all based on a 40-hour week, right? If I worked 60 hours a week 

and I worked 20 hours more than another person, I should get a higher rate because I was there 

longer. 

Dr. Neton: 
Not all of it, some of it. I don’t disagree with you. One thing I will caution you about, though. 

Most of your exposure would be relevant for skin cancers only because that is the highest source 

of exposure from uranium. 

Response from the same former worker: 

I had bladder cancer and prostate cancer. I went all the way up to the adjudication with this 

claim. The man who made the decision told me that I was still ineligible. 

Response from his spouse: 

Somebody mentioned that they were told that certain cancers were covered under this program 

and you replied that bladder cancer isn’t one of them. It sounded like you said that. 

Dr. Neton: 

Hopefully, I did not convey that. All cancers are considered for eligibility with the exception of 

chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Every other cancer is eligible. I’m sorry if I did not make that 

clear. 

Response from the spouse: 

I stand corrected. Thank you. There was a point in the process where he was wondering if he 

should continue with his claim. Someone from NIOSH encouraged him to stay with it because 

his cancers definitely qualified. 

Dr. Neton: 

They qualify, but that does not necessarily make them compensable. We will recalculate all of 

these dose reconstructions using the current document. 

Question from a former worker: 

Are only the workers from Building 55 qualified? 

Dr. Neton: 

All areas of the plant are now considered to be eligible. 

Comment from the same former worker: 

Everyone was exposed. I worked in the area where the soda ash was kept. You can ask these 

guys. We worked more than a little overtime. I was going to say that if you base everything on 

Building 55, 98% of us can walk out right now because we are not going to get anything. 

Dr. Neton: 

What Mr. Tomes said earlier is that the highest exposures to uranium that we can calculate are in 

Building 55. NIOSH assumes that everyone worked in Building 55. We are talking about pure 

uranium in a drum blowing in your face versus 0.2% uranium by mass in the phosphate ore. The 

exposures are much higher by assuming that you breathed pure uranium. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

You said that NIOSH bases the cancer on the age of when you started working there, right? My 

grandfather was 46 years old and in perfect health when he started working at Blockson. He 

worked there for 20 years, from 1951 to 1971. In 1976, they opened him up and found that he 

was full of cancer. The doctors closed him up and told my mother and grandmother and said he 

would be dead in a couple of months. I want to know how you can base it on age for someone 

who worked in perfect health and when they quit, got cancer. I want to know how you can base 

it on age and previous health. 

Dr. Neton: 
There are very well-studied people who developed cancer following radiation exposures, most 

notably the survivors of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings. The models that we use are 

primarily based on those studies. Those adjustments for age at exposure and how long it took to 

develop the cancer are all based on the several hundred thousand people who were exposed to 

the radiation from the atomic bombs. That doesn’t mean that it is right for every specific case. 

That is why this program allows for picking almost the highest value that comes out of the model 

rather than just some middle value. It allows for the uncertainty that we have. Outside of that, I 

am not sure what else I can tell you. 

Question from an unidentified attendee: 

How many claims have there been for Blockson workers so far? 

Dr. Neton: 

There have been 116 claims filed on behalf of former Blockson/Olin workers. That is the most 

recent figure I have from DOL. I printed it out yesterday. The first claim that we received from 

Blockson Chemical was received on November 12, 2003. 

Question from the same attendee: 

When did NIOSH come into this program? 

Dr. Neton: 

I have been working on this program for about 6 years. 

Question from the same attendee: 

How many people are working in your program? 

Dr. Neton: 

There are about 40 federal employees plus a large number of contractor employees. 

Comment from the same attendee: 

My remarks have nothing to do with what you people have done. My remarks go back to the 

representatives here from the offices of Congresspersons Biggert and Weller and Senator Obama. 

If you take the figure of 100 people and multiply it by $150,000, what do you come up with -- 

$15,000,000? We have these politicians that are telling us that we are going to throw $160 

billion into a war where we don’t know what in the world we are doing it for and we are standing 

here arguing about $15,000,000? This could have been over a long time ago. How much have 

they been paying you guys in six years? All of you are probably PhDs and you are welleducated and obviously you have done a great job. But the bottom line is that we are arguing 

about money that I could go out there in the middle of Jefferson Street and throw up $20 and 

watch it blow away and it would be the same thing. Where are the politicians at in this deal? 

Response from the representative of Congressmen Biggert and Weller: 

Because of your Congressmen, these cases are all being looked at again. That would never have 

happened if they had not stepped in. 

Dr. Neton: 

All of the denied claims will be reviewed. 

Ms. Breyer: 

Dr. Neton stated that NIOSH received its first Blockson claim in November 2003 and I heard a 

lot of rumbling back there. Many of your frustrations that you have talked about this evening, 

such as not giving you the right employment, or when you filed your claim, or being told that 
you were going to get paid as soon as you filed, much of that is done through different agencies. 

The way the law was written, NIOSH is not the only government agency on the project. There 

are many agencies involved in this program. For example, the remediation you talked about is a 

DOE responsibility. The people who did the outreach to help you file your claims when the 

program first started were with DOL. The DOL may have received claims in 2001 when the 

program first started. However, DOL is responsible for verifying your employment and your 

medical conditions. I heard one gentleman state that they only gave him 10 days to get them the 

information. Again, that is DOL. When you were told that all you had to do to be compensated 

was to file your claim, all that outreach was done through DOL. Dr. Neton’s comment that 

NIOSH received the first Blockson claim in 2003 means that that was the first claim that DOL 

sent to NIOSH. Again, we are two completely different government agencies. That is 

frustrating for everyone because it is DOL, DOE, and NIOSH. But again, that is the way the Act 

was written. It assigns each branch a different responsibility. We are here to talk about 

NIOSH’s role under the Act. 

Question from a former worker: 

I want to go back to radon. How did you come to that conclusion? What did you base it on? 

The reason I am asking this question is that in Building 40, there were four different lines 

running, so the amount of radon coming off those units was probably higher than where you 

went to get your figure. 

Mr. Tomes: 

Our figure was based on a study of phosphate plants that did processes similar to what Blockson 

did. 

Response from the same former worker: 

How many lines did they have running? At Blockson/Olin, they had four lines running. 

Mr. Tomes: 

I don’t have that information. I do know that there were some radon studies done at Blockson 

and I have looked at those; but they were not comprehensive and that is why we used the higher 

numbers from those other operations. 

Comment from the survivor of a former worker: 

My father had bladder cancer. Why have I spent all of these years waiting to have my claim 

denied when bladder cancer is not covered? 

Dr. Neton: 

I am sorry that I gave you the wrong impression. Bladder cancer is a covered cancer. I did not 

mean to imply that. What I was saying was that uranium does not concentrate in the bladder; 

therefore the POC will typically be lower for a bladder cancer than a lung cancer, given the same 

amount of uranium inhalation. Bladder cancers do get compensated periodically. I don’t have 

the numbers in front of me, but bladder cancer is covered. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

We still haven’t said anything about anyone who was involved in the Pilot Program. My father 

was involved in that program. We recently filed a claim and we went into detail regarding the 

work he did in the Pilot Program. Are they going to make any adjustments for the people who 

worked on that program like they did for Building 55? They were doing the same process that 

they were in Building 55. 
Dr. Neton: 

Exactly, the adjustments are for all workers. It is NIOSH’s opinion that the Pilot Program is 

bounded by the workers who were in the production area and drumming the quantities of 

uranium that they did. They would get the same dose as the workers who were drumming the 

uranium in Building 55. 

Question from the same attendee: 

Have we really answered all of the questions that you wanted to get answers for tonight? I talked 

to Dad and he told me that, in answer to Question 2, the monosodium phosphate lines went to 

Building 55 and the waste lines went back into Building 40 and back into the slurry pits. From 

there, the waste was pumped back out to the 200-acre mountain (the phosphogypsum waste pile). 

Dr. Neton: 

That is very useful. Thank you very much for that information. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

Has NIOSH or SC&A, or any of the former employees gone out to the Blockson property itself 

to do any type of investigation? I would like to make that suggestion again, as I did at the last 

meeting. It has not been done. Can that be done? I would like you to go out to that property to 

see exactly what our fathers and grandfathers worked in and what they were exposed to in their 

work. Take one of the former employees with you so they can show you everything. I think that 

this could be resolved instead of just continuing on and on. 

Dr. Neton: 

No, we have not gone to the site. We will take that under consideration. I understand the 

suggestion and the thought process behind it, but as far as the levels of uranium in the air in the 

plant during the production era, it has been our experience that those types of visits don’t inform 

us very well of what went on in the plant during the production operations. 

Response from the same attendee: 

I understand that NIOSH has done a lot of work. I can understand that. But go to the property 

and see what we saw as children. I used to go in there every Thursday with my father to get his 

paycheck. I remember going in that place and the smell of it. I remember the nurse. See what 

they were exposed to; they didn’t know to wear masks to protect themselves down the road or 

their families. My father didn’t die from cancer. The rest of my family has had problems, too. I 

don’t think it is just cancer related, it is health related. Would you go into a place now without 

any type of radiation protection and think about getting cancer in the future? 

Dr. Neton: 

Frankly, this program is in place now for the very reason that you just stated. People were 

exposed to radiation with very little protection and were not told that they were being exposed. 

Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

My father’s POC was 29%. What would that be? Would it be like a coffee can full? Would you 

feel safe yourself to breathe that if it is a coffee can full? 

Dr. Neton: 

I can’t answer that question, but that 29% is related to many different factors that are built into 

that calculation, including the fact that we are picking the highest value of the probabilities. I 

worked in uranium facilities quite a bit and I have breathed uranium. I don’t feel unsafe for 

having breathed uranium. 
Question from the survivor of a former worker: 

My father also worked at Blockson and had lung cancer, which metastasized to the brain. I am a 

nurse and I realized that certain cancers metastasize to a certain organ. Everyone in this room is 

in agreement. Their parents or some other relative worked at Blockson. Why is this going on 

and on and on? What did that person have to do or where did he have to work to be eligible, or 

the family. You people started this all by sending the letters out to our parents, to our mothers 

and whoever. We filled them out the claims and some of them have been compensated. And 

now you say that they are all going to be reworked. Why did the ones who were compensated 

get money? What kind of cancer did they have? Where did they work? My dad breathed in 

everything and he had to quit working there because his lungs couldn’t take it. There are no 

answers ever, just numbers. 

Dr. Neton: 

The Act provides for claims to be considered on a case-by-case basis and that is what NIOSH is 

doing. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to that question. 

Response from the same attendee: 

The whole area was contaminated. It is not just one thing. The workers didn’t have the proper 

anything. He had to shower there because he couldn’t bring some things home. We keep going 

over this. What constitutes a sufficient claim? Are there specific cancers that are compensated 

more? 

Dr. Neton: 

The site profile accounts for all of that. There is no simple answer for that. We will have a 

comprehensive list of the cases that have been completed to date at the October ABRWH 

meeting that will show a summary of what percentage of different cancers have been 

successfully compensated in this program. All cancers are eligible. Some cancers are more 

easily caused by radiation exposure than others. Lung cancers are far and away the most 

frequently paid cancers in this program and account for probably 70% of the compensated claims. 

Response from the same attendee: 

My dad had lung cancer. Why wasn’t our claim compensated? 

Ms. Breyer: 

We can’t answer questions about individual claims here. If you have questions about your claim, 

we will discuss them individually after the meeting. 

Dr. Neton thanked the attendees for their participation in the meeting and adjourned the meeting 

at approximately 9:15 p.m.