U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Designation
 

of Additional Members of the Special Exposure Cohort
 

under the
 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 

Designating a Class of Employees
 

Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue
 

Columbus, Ohio
 

HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation:
 

Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio (SEC Petition 00229)
 
I. Designation 

I, Sylvia M. Burwell, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

(HHS), designate the class of employees defined in Section II of this report for addition to 

the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC), as authorized under the Energy Employees Occupational 

Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 (EEOICPA), 42 U.S.C. § 7384q. 

Date 

February 18, 2016 

Sylvia M. Burwell 

[Signature on File] 

_____________________________ _____________________________ 

 

II. Employee Class Definition 

 

 

 

 

All Atomic Weapons Employees who worked at the facility owned by the Battelle 

Laboratories at the King Avenue site in Columbus, Ohio, during the period from July 

1, 1956, through December 31, 1970, for a number of work days aggregating at least 

250 work days, occurring either solely under this employment, or in combination with 

work days within the parameters established for one or more other classes of 

employees included in the Special Exposure Cohort. 

III. Designation Criteria and Recommendations 

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, for the class defined in Section II of this report, the Secretary 

has determined, and the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (Board) has 

recommended, that 

(1) it is not feasible to estimate with sufficient accuracy the radiation dose that the class 

received; and 

(2) there is a reasonable likelihood that such radiation dose may have endangered the 

health of members of the class. 

The SEC final rule states in 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1) that it is feasible in two situations to 

estimate the radiation dose that the class received with sufficient accuracy. First, the rule 

states that radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient accuracy if NIOSH has 

established that it has access to sufficient information to estimate the maximum radiation 

dose, for every type of cancer for which radiation doses are reconstructed, that could have 

been incurred under plausible circumstances by any member of the class. Alternatively, 

radiation doses may be estimated with sufficient accuracy if NIOSH has established that it 

has access to sufficient information to estimate the radiation doses of members of the class 

more precisely than a maximum dose estimate. 

NIOSH determined that there is insufficient information to estimate the radiation dose of 

individual members of the class with sufficient accuracy under the two abovementioned 

situations. The Board, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384q, advised the Secretary to designate the 

class as an addition to the SEC in a letter received by the Secretary on January 19, 2016. 

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HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: 

Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio (SEC Petition 00229) 
 

 

 

IV. Designation Findings 

Infeasibility of Estimating Radiation Doses with Sufficient Accuracy 

The Secretary designates the class of employees covered by this report based upon the 

findings summarized below. 

•	 The principal sources of internal radiation exposures for the proposed class of workers 

included exposures to uranium and thorium and their decay products. The modes of 

thorium exposure were inhalation and ingestion during the research and processing of 

thorium metal, ceramics, solutions, and concentrates, and during the subsequent resuspension of thorium 

•	 NIOSH concluded that due to insufficient personnel and workplace monitoring and 

source term data, NIOSH is unable to estimate with sufficient accuracy potential internal 

exposure to thorium and their progeny for the evaluated time period. 

•	 NIOSH concluded although there are limited air-monitoring data for thorium during the 

period from 1961 through 1969, these air monitoring data may not be representative of all 

thorium processing at the Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue site. Furthermore, the 

available data indicating dates and quantities of thorium processed during the 1960s may 

be incomplete. 

•	 NIOSH determined that it is not feasible to reconstruct internal dose for thorium 

exposures with sufficient accuracy for the period from July 1, 1956, through December 

31, 1970. However, NIOSH has identified sufficient information and data to support 

internal dose estimates after December 31, 1970, when no thorium-related operations 

took place. 

•	 The principal sources of external radiation exposure for the proposed class of workers 

included exposures to beta and photon radiation resulting from the processing of uranium 

and thorium and their decay products. 

•	 NIOSH found that it has sufficient external monitoring records to reconstruct external 

dose with sufficient accuracy for the Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue workers for the 

time period after December 31, 1950. 

•	 NIOSH has determined that it has sufficient information allowing it to reconstruct 

external and the occupational x-ray dose for Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue workers 

with sufficient accuracy after December 31, 1950, using information in the Site Profile 

for Battelle Memorial Institute, King Avenue and West Jefferson Sites, Columbus, Ohio 

(ORAUT-TKBS-0058). 

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HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: 

Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio (SEC Petition 00229) 
 

 

 

 

 

 

•	 Although NIOSH found that it is not possible to completely reconstruct radiation doses 

for the proposed class, NIOSH intends to use any internal and external monitoring data 

that may become available for an individual claim (and that can be interpreted using 

existing NIOSH dose reconstruction processes or procedures). Therefore, dose 

reconstructions for individuals employed at the Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue site 

during the time period from July 1, 1956, through December 31, 1970, but who do not 

qualify for inclusion in the SEC, may be performed using these data as appropriate. 

•	 Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(1), NIOSH determined that there is insufficient 

information to either: (1) estimate the maximum radiation dose, for every type of cancer 

for which radiation doses are reconstructed, that could have been incurred under plausible 

circumstances by any member of the class; or (2) estimate the radiation doses of members 

of the class more precisely than a maximum dose estimate. 

•	 The Board concurred with NIOSH’s recommendation to add the proposed class of 

workers to the SEC. 

Health Endangerment 

The Secretary established the health endangerment determination for the class of employees 

covered by this report based upon the findings summarized below. 

(1)	 Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3), NIOSH established that there is a reasonable 

likelihood that such radiation doses may have endangered the health of members of 

the class. Pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(ii), NIOSH specified a minimum 

duration of employment to satisfy this health endangerment criterion as “having been 

employed for a number of work days aggregating at least 250 work days within the 

parameters established for this class or in combination with work days within the 

parameters established for one or more other classes of employees in the Cohort.” 

(2)	 NIOSH did not identify any evidence from the petitioners or from other resources that 

would establish that the class was exposed to radiation during a discrete incident likely 

to have involved exceptionally high-level exposures, such as a nuclear criticality 

incident, as defined under 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c)(3)(i). 

(3)	 The Board concurred with NIOSH’s finding that the health of the class may have been 

endangered and defined the class according to the 250-workday requirement specified 

under 42 C.F.R. § 83.13(c) (3)(ii). 

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HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: 

Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio (SEC Petition 00229) 
V. Effect and Effective Date of Designation 

The Secretary submits this report on the designation of one additional class to the SEC for 

review by Congress, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 7384l(14)(C)(ii) and 7384q(c)(2)(A), as 

amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 

2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.). 

Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 7384l(14)(C)(ii), as amended by the Ronald W. Reagan National 

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-375 (codified as amended 

in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.), the designation in this report will become effective 30 

days after the date of this report’s submission to Congress “unless Congress otherwise 

provides.” 

VI. Administrative Review of Designation 

The health endangerment determination of the designation provided in this report may be 

subject to an administrative review within HHS, pursuant to 42 C.F.R. § 83.18(a). On the 

basis of such a review, if the Secretary decides to expand the class of employees covered by 

this designation, the Secretary would transmit a supplementary report to Congress providing 

the expanded employee class definition and the criteria and findings on which the decision 

was based. 

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HHS Special Exposure Cohort Designation: 

Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio (SEC Petition 00229)