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 1

 TOWNHALL MEETING #3 

 RICHLAND, WASHINGTON 

 AUGUST 7TH, 7-9 PM 

 RED LION HOTEL RICHLAND 

 802 GEORGE WASHINGTON WAY 

 RICHLAND, WASHINGTON 99352 

 

 * * * * * 

 The following transcript of the above-mentioned 

meeting was produced by Steven Ray Green, National 

Merit Court Reporter, of Nancy Lee and Associates, 

Certified Court Reporters.
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 2 TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

 The following transcript contains quoted material. 

Such material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

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

unintentional or purposeful interruption of a sentence. 

An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech or an 

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

when reading written material. 

 In the following transcript (sic) denotes an 

incorrect usage or pronunciation of a word which is 

transcribed in its original form as reported. 

 In the following transcript (phonetically) indicates 

a phonetic spelling of the word if no confirmation of the 

correct spelling is available. 

 In the following transcript "uh-huh" represents an 

affirmative response, and "uh-uh" represents a negative 

response. 

 In the following transcript "*" indicates a word, 

often a proper noun, without exact spelling available. 

 In the following transcript (inaudible) represents a 

portion in the proceedings where reporting became 

impossible due to audio/technical difficulties. 
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 3 P R O C E E D I N G S

 (7:05 p.m.) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Hello. If you could just bear with us 

for a few moments, we're trying to get everybody 

seated and -- gee, I grew up in a good Presbyterian 

church and everybody always tried to sit in the 

back. I'm glad to see that that's not a culture out 

here and y'all want to sit up front. But if you 

could do this for me, please, if you're sitting next 

to an empty seat, if you could move in toward the 

middle, we have a lot more folks that we're going to 

have to seat and we also are going to open up the 

side panels over here and try to get some more room. 

 We truly did not anticipate this great interest 

that you all have in this program. 

 (Pause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We're going to open up these side 

panels so that we can get some chairs seated in 

there. There are still a couple or three chairs up 

here on the front, some in this row over here. I 

see some over there. 

 If you haven't signed in, you don't need to worry 

about signing in right now. Get everybody seated. 

If you didn't sign in, you can sign in at your 

convenience. 

 (Pause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Let me go ahead and start. We're 
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 4 doing this quietly enough on the side, I think we 

can get started and I think we do need to get 

started. A lot of you have come a distance, I'm 

sure, to spend a couple of hours here and learn 

about this compensation program and the piece that 

we're going to talk about tonight. So ladies and 

gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you tonight and I 

certainly do appreciate your interest and I'm 

overwhelmed by your -- by the level of interest 

you've shown. 

 This is the third meeting that the Department of 

Health and Human Services has held to present its 

notice of proposed rule-making that's currently 

available for public comment on how additional 

classes will be added to the Special Exposure Cohort 

under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program Act. 

 Let me introduce myself. I'm Larry Elliott. I'm an 

employee of the National Institute for Occupational 

Safety and Health, which is an agency within the 

Centers for Disease Control, a part of Health and 

Human Services. I'm also the director of the Office 

of Compensation Analysis and Support at NIOSH, which 

is the new office that's been given the 

responsibility of doing dose reconstructions for 

cancer-related claims and providing a -- you can't 

hear me? -- providing a regulation on probability of 
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 5 causation which the Department of Labor will use in 

adjudicating cancer-related claims. 

 Those two rules, two regulations that we are 

responsible for were promulgated on May the 2nd of 

this year and we have been processing claims, doing 

dose reconstruction on claims since they were first 

announced back in October. We have sent over to the 

Department of Labor about a total of seven claims 

for final adjudication at this point. 

 Tonight we're here to talk about something 

different. We're here to talk about another 

responsibility that the Department of Health and 

Human Services has, and that is how to develop and 

design procedures for handling petitions that come 

forward for classes of workers to be added to the 

Special Exposure Cohort. 

 This, as I said, is the third meeting out of four 

that we're going to hold to make this presentation 

and to get comment, to answer questions about this 

proposed rule. The next meeting will be tomorrow 

night in Espanola, New Mexico. The public comment 

period for this rule concludes on August 26th, and 

so we're interested in hearing your comments, 

concerns and your issues. They will be captured 

tonight by this court recorder. The transcript of 

this meeting will be located on our web site, and if 

you have no access to the web, then you simply may 
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 6 ask us for a copy and we'll send you a copy. Okay? 

 That's why we wanted your name and your address, 

your phone number at the back. 

 We're not here tonight to talk about individual 

claims. We do not have the ability to do that. We 

don't have the staff. We don't have -- this is a -- 

individual claims are a privacy issue and so we need 

to have those kind of discussions separately with 

each individual. We do have a 1-800 number that you 

can call us to talk us about your claim. We have an 

e-mail and a web site, as I mentioned, where you can 

monitor the status of claims that we're handling. 

And very soon you'll be able to monitor a claim that 

you have in with us right from that web site. 

 If you send us an e-mail, we have a 24-hour response 

commitment. We will send you a response to your email within 24 hours and answer your questions to 

the best of our ability. 

 So that is a brief introduction of who I am and why 

we're here tonight. We're here to make a 

presentation of this proposed rule. Mr. Ted Katz, 

who is a policy analyst with the National Institute 

for Occupational Safety and Health, who essentially 

was primary author in writing this rule -- and the 

other two, as well, with some technical staff 

support -- will make a presentation. And I'd ask 

that we keep your questions till the end of his 
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 7 presentation, and then we'll take questions for 

clarification of what was said. 

 We'd like to hear your comments, and so we'd like to 

offer everybody a fair opportunity to come to the 

microphone and speak about what your thoughts are 

about this proposed rule or whatever might be on 

your mind tonight. But we'd ask you to be concise 

and succinct and recognize that we have a large 

audience here tonight. We'd like to give everybody 

a fair opportunity to have their voice heard. 

 If you don't have the opportunity to speak or you 

don't feel comfortable in coming to the mike, please 

use our web site or our e-mail address, or our 1-800 

number and get to us that way. Okay? 

 Now there's one other person I'd like -- two other 

people I'd like to introduce here tonight. From my 

technical staff, Grady Calhoun is a health 

physicist. If we have issues or questions related 

to dose reconstruction methodology, I'm going to 

look to him. I'm going to serve as your moderator 

tonight and try to keep us on track and keep us 

moving through the evening, and obviously I haven't 

done a very good job of that up to this point 

because we're a little late and we still have people 

standing, and I don't particularly feel very proud 

about that. 

 The second person I'd like to introduce is Ms. 
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 8 Christie Long who is with the Department of Labor 

from the Seattle District Office, so any claims that 

would come out of this region would go to her 

office. She's here tonight and I'm very pleased 

that she's with us tonight to answer any questions 

that are related to how DOL processes and 

adjudicates a claim. That will be -- we'll direct 

those to her. Okay? 

 So those are kind of the ground rules and as well 

we're going to try to make a presentation, answer 

any questions you might have about the presentation, 

and then we'll open it up and if you could at that 

point queue yourself up behind the mike and I'll try 

to keep us moving through to hear your comments. 

 Before we start, any questions about what we're here 

to do tonight? 

 Yes, ma'am? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: I don't know if anybody else is 

having trouble hearing, but I can barely hear you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry. Okay, we have the audio 

staff working on that. This might be better. I'm 

sorry. 

 Okay. Without then further ado, I'm going to turn 

it over to Ted Katz, and he's going to have to speak 

a lot louder that I am then. 

 MR. KATZ: So welcome, everybody. Can you hear me? 

 Now is that good enough or should I be holding this 
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 9 up to my mouth? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Hold it up. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay, I'll do that. How's this, is this 

better? I'm trying not to get too much feedback 

here. 

 Okay, I'm going to have to speak from here so I can 

change the slides on the computer. I'm going to run 

through this rule, not exactly how it's written, 

which is sort of technical -- legal approach to 

writing rules, but try to give you sort of the 

substance that's in the rule, how it works and so 

on, a little background up front. Now this 

background may be redundant, old news for a lot of 

you, but I'm not sure that everyone in this audience 

knows -- is starting from the same place, so just to 

make certain everyone understands where we're 

beginning here, I'm going to start at the beginning. 

 So first of all, let me just talk about what is the 

Special Exposure Cohort. This was established by 

the Energy Employees Occupational Illness 

Compensation Program Act by Congress, so it was 

established by Congress. And initially Congress 

added -- had four groups to comprise the cohort. 

These are the three gaseous diffusion plants and a 

nuclear test site in Amchitka, Alaska. And the way 

it works for these is members of the cohort can be 

compensated for any of 22 what are called in the Act 
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 10 specified cancers, under certain conditions. For 

example, there's issues of latency, whether they got 

the cancer at the right time period. There's an 

issue of whether they were working at the facility 

for the required period. For the gaseous diffusion 

plants they had to be working at the facility for 

250 days to be part of the cohort, in effect. So 

there were limited conditions. 

 But beyond those conditions, the important issue 

with the cohort is that for members of the cohort 

who develop a specified cancer, the Department of 

Labor does not have to determine whether that cancer 

was likely to have been caused by their radiation 

exposure. In place of that, in lieu of that, 

basically there's just a presumption that if they 

have the right kind of cancer and they're part of 

the Special Exposure Cohort, they meet the 

qualifications for that, then they can be 

compensated. Which is different from all other 

cancer claimants who have to have their doses 

estimated, first of all. And secondly then have to 

have a determination as to whether it was likely 

that those doses caused their particular kind of 

cancer. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: What's the basis for specifying that 

the workers at the gaseous diffusion plants incurred 

cancers? 
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 11 MR. KATZ: The basis for -- excuse me, can you 

repeat that, please? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Why do we think that they are a group 

who might have gotten cancers from their work site? 

 MR. KATZ: So I understand, so why did Congress name 

those groups that it named to the Special Exposure 

Cohort initially, why did they do that? Well, I 

mean this was a determination by Congress and 

there's some history that you probably have all 

heard of of findings about what occurred at these 

work sites, but Congress -- you know, Congress made 

this determination. This wasn't a determination by 

HHS, which now has the responsibility for adding 

members to the Special Exposure Cohort classes, so 

this -- the basis is -- you know, you can't find a 

legislative history that really fleshes that out in 

great detail, how that was gone about. 

 So what's the purpose of this rule, though, which 

leads right on from there? I mean Congress and the 

administration which enacted this law -- and this 

was the Clinton administration -- determined that 

there may be other circumstances -- there may be 

other workers at the sites or at the AWE's, the 

Atomic Weapons Employers, for whom we are not able 

to do dose reconstructions. And if we can't do dose 

reconstructions, they should be considered for being 

added to the Special Exposure Cohort. 
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 12 So what they did was they required that the 

President set up procedures for considering 

petitions to add employees to the cohort. And the 

President then delegated these responsibilities, 

assigned these responsibilities to the Secretary of 

Health and Human Services because Health and Human 

Services is doing all the sort of scientific, 

technical work related to this compensation program 

specific to radiogenic cancers. 

 Now EEOICPA set out certain requirements. It didn't 

simply say consider adding members, classes to the 

cohort. It set out specific requirements that we 

would have to consider in going about that. And on 

a substantive level, the two requirements are, one, 

that NIOSH can't estimate radiation doses of 

employees with sufficient accuracy, so that is a 

requirement that has to -- we have to pass that 

threshold before we can consider adding a class to 

the cohort. And second, that it's reasonably likely 

that the radiation doses that that class, that group 

of employees incurred endangered their health. 

 Now the law also set out some procedural 

requirements we have to go through to add classes to 

the cohort. First of all, the class -- the classes 

have to petition to be added. Second, that HHS has 

to obtain the advice of the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health in deciding to add a 
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 13 class to the cohort. 

 Now this Advisory Board is a Presidentiallyappointed advisory board. It includes 

representation by scientists, physicians and 

workers, and it is advising HHS on all its technical 

responsibilities, on its dose reconstruction 

program, as well as this. And it advised HHS on the 

two rules that we already promulgated on dose 

reconstruction and how to do probability of 

causation or make this link between radiation doses 

and specific cancers. 

 Oh, let me just -- one last point. They also 

required that Congress have 180 days to consider a 

decision by HHS to add a class to the cohort. So 

once HHS decides to add a class to the cohort, 

Congress wants that decision to rest with it for 180 

days. I'll explain more about what the implications 

of that are when I get to it. 

 So the HHS proposal, what guided our decision. Of 

course you know we were given these requirements 

that were set in the statute, as well as we 

considered the existing procedures we have for doing 

dose reconstruction and probability of causation. 

Those end up being relevant and useful in this 

process. Beyond that, our goal is very simple. We 

want to have fair, openly-considered decisions. By 

openly considered, in other words, we want you to be 
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 14 able to see how we came to our decisions, what went 

into those decisions, and for you to have an 

opportunity to be involved in that process. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Excuse me -- 

 MR. KATZ: Let me -- if I could carry through -- if 

I could carry through the presentation, there'll be 

-- if you can hold your questions till then, that 

would be great. Thank you, sir. 

 Now this last point I just want to make is dose 

reconstructions, adding a class to the Special 

Exposure Cohort is a very important decision, for 

one reason in particular. And that is, members of 

the cohort can only be compensated for those 22 

specified cancers. If you have a different cancer 

-- for example, if you have skin cancer or you have 

prostate cancer, it doesn't matter what your 

radiation dose was, you cannot be compensated under 

the Special Exposure Cohort -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That's real nice. 

 MR. KATZ: -- law, and that is something that was 

established by Congress and we're -- we have to live 

with that. And so -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: We have to live with it? 

 MR. KATZ: -- so -- well, my point is is that we at 

HHS has to work within that framework. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: We already went through this three 

times. What are they trying to do to us now? 
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there'll be plenty of opportunity for comment. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: How come you have to have cancer to 

get compensated? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Really. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: How about if you've got your body 

full of heavy metals? 

 MR. KATZ: Well, there's -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay? And they ask to release his 

body so they can put it in transuranic waste when he 

dies. Now is that fair? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That you pay all these other people 

for cancer -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: -- and he's a miracle, a medical 

miracle, but he's carrying heavy metal through the 

marrow of his bones. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: And he was told by officials with 

Rockwell that it had gone to the marrow of his 

bones. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: DNL* has even asked so they -- to get 

his body so they can look at it and do autopsies on 

it, because it's a miracle. 

 MR. KATZ: I think these are -- this -- you know, 

that's clearly a very important -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: It's a farce. 
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 UNIDENTIFIED: This is a big farce. 

 MR. KATZ: Our limitation is that we have to work 

within the framework given -- 

 (Applause) 

 MR. KATZ: Let me carry on, please, 'cause really -- 

I mean I think some people probably want to know 

about this rule, despite the problems that you see 

in the whole program. And it would benefit at least 

some of you, I think, to hear what this rule's 

about. It'll help you at least if you want to 

comment on this rule to hear a little bit more, I 

think. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: I doubt it. 

 MR. KATZ: So in our rule, first of all, who can 

petition on behalf of a class? We set the 

parameters as wide as imaginable, I think, possible. 

 An individual worker can petition on behalf of a 

class. It's not like a class action suit where you 

have to get together people's names on a petition 

and get them to agree to petition. In this case, an 

individual worker or a individual survivor of a 

worker can petition on behalf of a class. And 

likewise, a union can petition on behalf of a class. 

 And how do you petition? Well, you decide whether 

you can meet the requirements, which I'm going to 

get into, of a petition; complete and submit a 
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 17 petition form -- that's going to be on-line on the 

web. You could complete it electronically, or of 

course it's going to be available in paper version. 

 And NIOSH will be working with you to help you with 

that process. 

 What are the petition requirements? The 

requirements depend -- they're bifurcated. They 

depend on whether or not you're already a cancer 

claimant, you've already submitted a cancer claim to 

Department of Labor and NIOSH was unable to complete 

your dose reconstruction. That's the most important 

sort of distinction for two different approaches to 

petition requirements. So if you've already 

attempted to have a dose reconstruction and we find 

we can't do your dose reconstruction -- in effect, 

the records aren't there to support a dose 

reconstruction -- that's one situation. 

 And then if you have not been a claimant yet, if you 

-- you don't even have to have cancer. No one in 

the class has to have cancer. There are other 

requirements that allow you to petition even though 

no one in the class that you're petitioning for may 

have incurred cancer yet. So you don't have to have 

cancer to petition. 

 Now if you did submit a claim and we couldn't do 

your dose reconstruction, your requirements for the 

petition are simply to indicate that we were unable 
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 18 to complete your dose reconstruction. There are no 

other substantive requirements. In fact, if we were 

unable to complete your dose reconstruction, we're 

going to come to you and notify you that -- 

encourage you to submit a petition, and we're going 

to provide you with the materials to submit the 

petition. We're going to encourage you to do that -

- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: What kind of time frame are we 

looking at for these dose reconstructions? How long 

does it take? You said only seven out of 5,000. 

How long does it take to do a dose reconstruction? 

 MR. KATZ: I'd be happy to get to that after we get 

through this presentation. I think it's a very 

important issue and we'll explain that at the end of 

the presentation, if that's okay. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: We're tired of waiting. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay, let me just -- I can answer the 

question briefly, if that's -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, let me just -- we need to go 

through this presentation. Okay? I know you don't 

want to hear it. I can see faces that say you don't 

want to hear it, but this is a very important aspect 

of this program for you to understand, and then 

we'll try to answer your questions. Okay? 
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 19 UNIDENTIFIED: Wouldn't it be easier to answer the 

questions and then -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We'll get bogged down and we'll never 

get through this presentation, and I have a mandate 

that we have to get through this presentation so 

that the rule has been interpreted for you. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: We ain't going to get out of here 

before midnight, then. 

 MR. KATZ: The other reason -- the other reason -- 

please. The other reason for you to hold off until 

I've gotten through this presentation, which I could 

do relatively quickly if I'm allowed -- the other 

reason to hold off is because we really -- if we 

don't get your name and if you don't speak into the 

mikes, we can't record your comments. If we don't 

record your comments, then they don't get considered 

in -- when we have to revise this rule in any way we 

have to before we put it out as an effective rule. 

 Now I mean of course if you're commenting on things 

that don't relate to this rule, then I suppose it 

doesn't matter, but to the extent that you comment 

on this rule, it will matter for you. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: So what will it take to make Congress 

stand up and listen to the rest of us? I mean hell, 

you've got 300 people here. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: More than that. 
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 20 MR. KATZ: Yes, we do. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: More than -- you've got over 100 

left, at least. I counted 300 with no problem. 

 MR. KATZ: Indeed, and your -- your comments here 

will be recorded and part of a public record, so 

that's one way of letting your views be known, 

indeed. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, I don't trust you by getting 

our names down. 

 (Laughter) 

 MR. KATZ: Well, and if you don't want your name 

recorded, I suppose you can withhold it and still 

make your comment to the microphones. 

 Let me carry on, really, because some people at 

least are going to lose by not hearing about this. 

 So, I've told you the requirements for someone who's 

attempted to get a dose reconstruction. Now there's 

the other circumstance where perhaps there've been 

no cancer cases yet in the group that you're 

concerned about and you still want to petition to be 

added to the class. It doesn't mean you can be 

compensated until someone incurs cancer, but it 

makes you established as part of the class. 

 In this case there are three elements to your 

petition. One is of course defining the class, who 

is it you're talking about, who are you petitioning 

for. That needs to be defined in the petition. And 
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 21 then documenting the reasons that you have to 

believe that there was a health-endangering 

radiation exposure. And thirdly, documenting the 

reasons to believe that doses couldn't be estimated. 

 And here we're not asking you to prove -- to have 

the burden here to say doses can't be estimated. 

That's our burden at NIOSH to do that. All we're 

requiring of you is that you document that an 

attempt was made to determine that records were not 

available and that indeed they weren't available. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: File 13. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: There you go. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: You're covering up your -- 

 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. Will your petition be 

evaluated is the next question. So in the first 

case, if we attempted to do your dose 

reconstruction, you're through the gate. Your dose 

reconstruction will be fully evaluated by the Board 

and HHS, and I'll explain more about that -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Can you get another mike? Boy, that 

one's sure breaking up on you out here. 

 MR. KATZ: Maybe I'll try this one. How's this? 

Hello? It says on, but it -- I think I'm going to 

have to make do with this. It's -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That one there is really crackling 

away. 

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 22 can do. It's a question of how far it is from my 

mouth. 

 So for other petitions, if there were no cancer 

cases, you haven't already attempted to get a dose 

reconstruction, you'll submit your petition. HHS 

will look at that, see if it meets the requirements, 

the basic requirements that I just laid out. If 

not, we'll get back to you and we'll explain to you 

whatever shortcomings there are and help you work 

through those shortcomings. And then at the end of 

that process -- 

 Is this working now? It's still not working. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Now it's working. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: There it is. 

 MR. KATZ: Hello? Hello? 

 (Pause) 

 MR. KATZ: Can everyone -- anyone hear me on this 

mike? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 MR. KATZ: How about now? Can anyone hear me now? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 MR. KATZ: Can anyone hear me now? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: Can everyone hear me now? Great. I'll 

talk louder, too. Okay. This was -- 

 (Applause) 

 UNIDENTIFIED: You've got better speakers back there 
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 23 in the back than you have up front. 

 MR. KATZ: Sorry, this is much better. Okay. Let 

me turn me on here. 

 How does NIOSH evaluate your petition? It'll be 

NIOSH's burden, not your burden, to go to DOE, to 

speak of course with you, the petitioners; to speak 

with co-workers, to go to DOE and get whatever 

records are available or to the AWE in the case 

where we have an AWE instead of DOE, and obtain all 

the records available to get the basics of what kind 

of radiation exposures occurred. And recall in the 

case of a Special Exposure Cohort, we're dealing 

with a situation where the information is poor, of 

course. 

 And then we take that information and the first 

thing we do is determine whether dose 

reconstructions are feasible. Can we do a dose 

reconstruction? And then the second step there is 

to determine potential radiation dose levels and 

whether they're likely to have endangered health. 

And the third step is then taking all that 

information to define the class or classes of 

employees that result from that analysis. 

 Let me just explain that for a second. You may 

petition on behalf of a class and we may find that 

in fact it's not one class, it's several classes. 

There's records -- good information available for 
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 24 part of the group that you've identified and not for 

another part. Likewise, you -- we may get several 

petitions for what are ostensibly different classes 

and we may find in fact that they're all one big 

class, not recognized by the individual, separate 

petitioners. And NIOSH will report the results of 

this research and analysis to the petitioners and 

the Board. 

 Now let me just go in a little deeper on these 

issues of how we do this. How will NIOSH determine 

potential radiation dose levels? Again, recall this 

is a situation with the Special Exposure Cohort 

where the records aren't good. The information 

isn't good. But what we'll be determining is pretty 

crude facts here. The radiation sources potentially 

present, their possible quantities, the possible 

characteristics of employee exposures and the use of 

radiation protection. We're not -- in a case that's 

going to succeed as a Special Exposure Cohort, the 

information is not going to be good enough to go 

beyond that 'cause if it could take us beyond that, 

we could be doing dose reconstructions. 

 Then NIOSH technical staff will judge whether the 

radiation doses could have reached the level 

determined to endanger health. And how do we do 

that? What does that mean? 

 First of all, we've interpreted this, endanger 
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 25 health, as likely to cause specified cancers. Why? 

 Because those are the only outcomes for which you 

can get compensated as a member of the Special 

Exposure Cohort. The Special Exposure Cohort 

doesn't cover any other health problems, only 

cancers, and only the specified cancers, as I noted 

earlier. And we have ways of going about 

determining this likelihood of cancers. 

 Now some of the important points to make. One, the 

minimum dose levels can differ for each petition 

because it's going to depend on the source and type 

of radiation. It's going to depend on the type of 

cancers related to the exposure. It's going to 

depend on characteristics of the class and other 

factors as to what -- so we're not talking about one 

dose level for all petitions. It's going to depend 

on your specific petition what that dose level would 

be, and NIOSH staff will calculate that. 

 And the most important variable or one of the most 

important variables in how we come up with that is 

which kind of cancers we consider for coming up with 

that dose level. Different kinds of cancers are 

differently sensitive to radiation, have a different 

likelihood of being caused by radiation. And what 

we'll be using is the cancer or cancers that are 

most readily caused by radiation to establish this 

benchmark. Right? We're establishing a benchmark. 
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 26 And if we judge that radiation exposures could have 

been higher than that benchmark, then that meets 

that qualification for being added to the cohort. 

So we're using the type of cancers that are most 

readily caused, caused by the lowest levels of 

radiation. 

 We go through that, we produce a report. We provide 

that to you, the petitioner, as well as this 

Advisory Board I told you, and the Board will then 

meet in public to review that report to consider 

whether NIOSH has done all it should have done -- it 

considers it should have done to evaluate that 

petition. The Board may come back to us and say you 

haven't done enough now, you need to do more work on 

this petition. And if they do, that may be 

something we do. And this will all be done in 

public. The petitioners will have an opportunity -- 

these are public meetings -- to be in that meeting. 

 And these public meetings have an opportunity, just 

like this one, to comment on what proceeds during 

that meeting, as well. 

 At the end of this process, when NIOSH has done all 

the research that it ought to have done, the Board 

then has a role, a responsibility to advise the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services on whether or 

not to add the class to the cohort, and furthermore 

to define the class or classes and speak to the 
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 27 substantive issues that it had to address to come to 

that decision. So that's advice from the Board to 

the Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

 Based on the NIOSH report and advice of the Board, 

the Secretary of Health and Human Services will 

evaluate all this information and come to a 

decision, a recommended decision whether or not to 

add a class to the cohort. And petitioners, based 

on that decision, will have 30 days to contest the 

decision. Obviously this is a situation where the 

Secretary decides not to add a class, petitioners 

will have 30 days to contest that decision. 

 Once whatever that process of dealing with that 

contest is finished, the HHS will report the final 

decision to the petitioners, and if it's positive, 

to Congress. This goes back to what I said earlier 

about Congress's role here. Congress has 180 days 

in which it can do two things. It could expedite 

the decision so that the class could be added sooner 

as opposed to at the end of the 180-day period. Or 

it could reverse the decision. It could reject the 

decision by the Secretary of Health and Human 

Services. 

 At the end of that process, a class is added to the 

cohort. NIOSH will then have a substantial role to 

reach out to the class and let them know that 

they're added to the cohort. And as you can 
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 28 understand -- I mean there may be just an individual 

who petitioned for the class, but a large group of 

people who are part of that class, particularly in 

the cases where you have an individual who couldn't 

have a dose reconstruction done. Right? They 

petitioned based on their not being able to have a 

dose reconstruction, but we will have filled out 

basically the class, figured out who all the others 

are who are in their shoes who ought to be part of 

that class, as well. All those individuals will 

have to -- we'll have to try to reach them. 

 Now there's also a provision in this rule to cancel 

a cohort addition down the road. And this provision 

is here for the single circumstance where we find 

that there are records that nobody knew existed, and 

these records -- and this information and records is 

sufficient to do dose reconstructions. In a 

circumstance like that, once we know we could do 

dose reconstructions, we go through a process -- a 

public process again of explaining that these 

records are there, making a judgment about their 

availability. That would be done in public just how 

the petition's handled, in effect. The Advisory 

Board would have a say in this. At the end of that 

process, however, if we could do dose 

reconstructions, from that point forward that cohort 

class would no longer be a cohort class and they 
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 29 would be regular cancer claimants under the Act. So 

they would have dose reconstructions and they would 

have a probability of causation determination to 

receive compensation. 

 When can you petition to be part of the class? 

These procedures that we put out, these are the 

notice of proposed rule-making. It does not have 

the effect of law. We can't consider petitions 

based on these because we need -- what do we need? 

We need public comment on these as part of this 

process, so we will have public comment by the end 

of August. August 26th is the deadline and it'll 

take through the fall to revise the rule and get the 

rule cleared through the government and produce the 

final rule that allows you to petition. And so, as 

I say here, it's unlikely before early 2003. 

 Some final points just to make. If you have cancer 

or you're a survivor of an employee with cancer, 

then you should file -- be filing a claim now. You 

shouldn't be awaiting these petition requirements. 

 The main -- a main point just to make about that is 

if you do file and we attempt to do a dose 

reconstruction and can't do a dose reconstruction, 

you've already done three-quarters of the work for 

evaluating that petition. You've gotten all that 

work going now as opposed to having to wait -- to 

delay. That would not be in your interests. 
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 30 And finally, we want your comment, which is now why 

I'm wrapping up here. Thank you. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. We could take some questions on 

the presentation. I'm going to rotate this around. 

 You need to be at a mike. You need to announce 

your name so that we get you on the record. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: I never spoke into a mike. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Never spoke into a mike. Well, we'll 

help you learn how to do that. Okay? 

 So why don't we start over here with this gentleman 

right here. If you would, give us your name and 

affiliation. There are a lot of people here tonight 

so if you could be concise in your comments. 

 MR. WERST: My name is Ken Werst. My NIOSH number 

is 1348. It's been over a year that I've been -- 

you know, sent the application in. I noticed on 

your primary cancers you've got one here for 

esophagus cancer, you've got one for salivatory 

(sic) glands. How about cancer of the vocal cords? 

 There's some fellas out here that can't even talk 

to you tonight because they don't have vocal cords. 

 Has that been considered or is that something 

that's going to be -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You're quoting from the cancers that 

are -- the specified cancers for the Special 

Exposure Cohort. There are 22 cancers there and 
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 31 those are the only 22 that if you're in the special 

cohort you could receive compensation for. Tonsil 

cancer, tongue cancer, that's handled as a regular 

claim that comes to us for dose reconstruction. 

 MR. WERST: I'm asking you about cancer of the vocal 

cords. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's my answer to your question. 

Vocal cord cancer -- vocal cord cancer would come to 

us as a claim from the Department of Labor to do 

dose reconstruction on that type of cancer. Okay? 

 Over here, I think. We'll go from mike to mike to 

mike. Okay? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Go ahead. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Go ahead. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: You sure? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: I'll get up there eventually. 

 MR. GROFF: Well, my name is Cliff Groff of 

Kennewick and I worked out there 18 years. I was 

all over that site for different things. How can 

they know where I was? I doubt whether DOE or 

Rockwell, where -- I worked for Rockwell, 

Westinghouse, -- how do they know? How can they do 

a dose reconstruction on somebody? I don't think 

they could do it on most of these people. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, that's a good question. It's 

not one relevant necessarily to the rule that Ted 

presented to you, but I will answer that question. 
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 32 The dose reconstruction that we are doing at NIOSH 

factors that in, that there might be situations like 

yours where you may not have even had a badge to 

wear for certain years. We allow you to conduct an 

interview with us that tells us what your concerns 

are in that regard. Tell us where you worked. Tell 

us which years you didn't wear a badge. Tell us 

which years they told you to park the badge at the 

gate rather than wear it in inside to where your 

workplace was. Okay? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: What about when they throw them away? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: When they throw them away, we want to 

know about that. We're going to ask you in that 

interview can you tell us some -- one of your coworkers that can verify this and we'll get an 

affidavit and it goes into the record. Okay? 

 Now we're going to move back to this -- yes, sir? 

 MR. LARSON: My name is Danny Larson. Two years -- 

I represent my mother. My father died out here and 

two years ago she's applied. I'm wondering how much 

longer are you people going to give us the runaround 

and start cutting some checks. My mother'll be dead 

before you ever get her any money. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. LARSON: Because Congress can 180-day us to 

death and we're -- you know, let's get on with it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I appreciate your frustration, sir. 
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 33 This program's only one year old as of July 31st -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No, no, no. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No, we -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No, no. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: July 31st was the first time you could 

submit a claim through the system. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: July 31st it'll be one year old. 

Okay? It typically takes, in a compensation 

program, a year to get a claim through. Look at the 

other compensation programs -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Are you going to -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You have to give us the benefit of the 

doubt here in starting this program up, and I don't 

cut your checks, sir. 

 MR. LARSON: This money was supposed to have been 

given out in April. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That's right. 

 MR. LARSON: Now are you going to respond to these 

people that have applied? And as far as your 

cohorts, what about our area here, our people here, 

you know? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: If you feel that you have a class of 

workers -- 

 MR. LARSON: I don't care -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that dose reconstruction cannot be 

done on, you will be able to -- 
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 34 MR. LARSON: We have submitted a form -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- petition. 

 MR. LARSON: -- for my mom a long time ago. I want 

you to respond to it. I want you to pay my mom and 

I want to get on with her life before she dies. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand your comment. Thank you. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. HARTLEY: Hello, my name is Hank Hartley. I am 

office manager for the Hanford Building Trades 

Medical Screening Program. To date we have about 

5,000 Hanford workers in our program. Primarily 

they are building trades construction workers. I 

have a statement to make and I do have a couple of 

questions. 

 The statement would be, I should think that the 

effort ought to be to support our reviews, that 

these proposals are complicated and would take a 

long -- far too long to help people with their 

claims. 

 Further statement is, it is also important to keep 

reminding NIOSH that the records for the 

construction work force aren't too likely to exist 

for the NIOSH analysis. Many workers out there, 

myself included, worked out there and I don't think 

you would ever be able to reconstruct my record as a 
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 35 construction worker or these two fellas right here 

that are sitting beside me who are part of my 

program. We don't have reconstruction available. 

I've asked for my dose records and never got it. 

 My questions will start out with how much more time 

will it take for this process to add to resolving my 

claim? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Do you have a claim in? 

 MR. HARTLEY: Yes. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You have a claim in. Do you know if 

the claim is with us? Is it in dose reconstruction 

yet? 

 MR. HARTLEY: I'm not sure. I'm not speaking 

specifically for myself, sir. I represent about 

5,000 people and the general question would be how 

much more time will this process add to the people 

who have a claim? How much more time will it take 

to resolving their claim? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: This process that we talked about 

tonight, that Ted presented, additions to the 

Special Exposure Cohort, won't add any time to those 

claims that have already been submitted. If your 

question is how much more time is it going to take 

for a given claim to get through the process, which 

is this gentleman's question and concern over here 

and one I share with everybody I talk to of the 

6,000 plus claims we have in our hands, we're doing 
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 36 the best we can. We have -- it's a legal process. 

We have to treat every claim fairly and be as 

competent about the dose reconstruction as we can 

be. We're working toward that end. 

 MR. HARTLEY: Well, the proposal does seem to be 

complicated. And it's difficult to understand. 

 My next question would be, if there is not job 

activity or radiation exposure records, what will 

happen under your proposal? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'm sorry, if there's not... 

 MR. HARTLEY: If there -- I'll read it again. I 

want to be clear. If there are not job activity or 

radiation exposure records, what will happen under 

your procedure -- under this procedure? 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, wait, so let's take the first part -

- 

 MR. HARTLEY: Yes. 

 MR. KATZ: -- records on radiation exposure. Well, 

we will have information, we expect, from 

individuals at least, even if there aren't records, 

about radiation exposures. What was the radiation 

source, characterizing the source, just to start 

with. So we don't have to have DOE records to deal 

with the situation. Okay? We're going to -- as I 

explained, we'll be taking affidavits if we need to 

from people who can inform us if the information 

isn't there. 
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 37 MR. HARTLEY: That's what I'm primarily concerned 

with because oftentimes the DOE records are not 

available or cannot be found. Or, as in the case of 

many of my participants who have been in my program, 

the records are in a cardboard box somewhere in 

Seattle, and God knows where that's at. 

 MR. KATZ: Right, and we're -- 

 MR. HARTLEY: And who can find it. 

 MR. KATZ: Right, and we are actually -- we've been 

finding boxes of records as part of this process in 

starting the dose reconstruction program exactly as 

you say. We've been finding files and records. 

You're right, there's all sorts of states of 

records, from non-existent to inaccessible, even if 

they do exist, and we have to deal with all those. 

And in a circumstance where the records may exist 

but we can't get to them, it's as good as them not 

existing. Isn't that correct? So in those 

circumstances, again, we have a situation where 

you're probably looking at a Special Exposure Cohort 

petition. 

 MR. HARTLEY: Well, Ted, I don't mean to take up so 

much of your time. I do have another question. How 

long is it going to take to do these dose 

reconstructions? I mean do you have a clue on that? 

 MR. KATZ: And I think we have sort of a -- you 

know, every dose reconstruction will require a 
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 38 different amount of work. It all depends on how 

complicated the work history was and the 

availability of records, our ability to get those 

records from DOE, how timely that is, our ability to 

get those records and so on. And so it's going to 

be all over the map from -- I mean NIOSH has a lot 

of -- from our health research we have a lot of 

records in-house, so certain dose reconstructions -- 

we're going to be able to get to certain dose 

reconstructions very quickly. We're going to have 

the sufficient records in-house. And as we go along 

with this program, we're going to be developing a 

record base that gets better and better and makes 

these dose reconstructions more and more efficient 

and quick. So it's -- if you look at it in a 

snapshot of time, it's going to change as this 

program progresses and we're going to get faster. 

 You know, at the front end of this program, if we 

don't have any records, we're starting from scratch 

and the records are difficult to get, it could 

readily take six months for us to do a dose 

reconstruction. It could take longer for us to do a 

dose reconstruction. 

 The other thing I should just explain to you all is 

that right now, as you know -- because it's been 

reported in your newspaper article, for example -- 

we've done very few. The situation there is, we're 
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 39 right now doing dose reconstructions with our 

limited staff of health physicists in-house. And as 

you all, I think, would recognize clearly, you can't 

run this program this way, with a handful of health 

physicists. Isn't that right? And so we've been 

working very hard and pushed the system as hard as 

it can be pushed to get out a contract to get a 

whole lot of help in doing the dose reconstructions 

and obtaining these records from DOE. DOE is also 

trying to get its house in order to be able to 

supply records where it has them and so on. All 

this sort of front end work of getting this program 

working -- this is what Larry was explaining, that 

there's a lot to do to get this program up and 

running. There was a lot to do. 

 We're at the end stage now of having our contract in 

place, and that contract in effect has a contractor 

getting to work right away. There's not a lot of 

lag time for the contractor to get going. But we've 

gotten our best and finals and analyzed those bests 

and finals, so we're actually reaching the point 

where we actually can start to do dose 

reconstructions at the volume that's required to be 

able to address your claims, so that your claims 

aren't sitting idle. And we understand how 

frustrating that is. I can't tell you -- you know, 

other than you, who know it better than anyone -- I 
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 40 mean the second people in line there are us who 

suffer you being frustrated. That's not the kind of 

service we want to provide all of you, but that's 

the situation we're in without -- until we can bring 

on board these other dose reconstructionists, we're 

stuck in the situation with you. 

 MR. HARTLEY: Thank you. I think that would 

conclude my questions. I just wanted to remind you 

again that many of the construction workers not only 

worked at Hanford, they worked at Paducah, Kentucky; 

Nashville, they worked -- not Nashville, I'm 

thinking of -- Savannah River, Nevada test site, 

Rocky Flats. My father and the speaker before me, 

his father, were on all these sites. Some other 

were these gentlemen sitting to my right. They were 

in very many different places and I'm really curious 

as to how you're going to be able to reconstruct the 

dose records for these people. 

 MR. KATZ: That's right -- 

 MR. HARTLEY: And it bugs me. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: They can't find the records. 

 MR. KATZ: That's right, and -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: They're incomplete records. 

 MR. KATZ: -- as we discussed, where the records 

aren't there, we obviously can't -- if we don't have 

information and we don't have records, neither, 

that's where we lead to a Special Exposure Cohort 
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 41 petition. 

 Oh, sorry, so does that -- 

 MR. HARTLEY: That's -- 

 MR. KATZ: -- answer your question? 

 MR. HARTLEY: It gets close to it. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. Thank you. So -- yes, sir? 

 MR. SALINAS: My name is Eustulio Salinas. I'm a 

nuclear process operator at Hanford. I've been out 

there about 15, 16 years, worked at PUREX, uranium 

trioxide tank farms. I unfortunately was one of the 

people who came down with cancer. A little over two 

years ago Dr. David Michael and his whole entourage 

came to town, nice big circus banners flying, we're 

going to help you people. Unfortunately, we see how 

things get dragged down, and then the law gets 

involved and then we're really in trouble. 

 I happen to have caught -- contracted chronic 

lymphocytic leukemia -- unfortunately one of the 

ones you guys don't cover. Why is that? 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is not 

recognized scientifically as associated with 

radiation exposure. There is no risk -- cancer risk 

models that can be used to -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Wonder if that's the same with 

asbestos. 

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 42 be used in probability of causation. 

 MR. SALINAS: Right here. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand -- 

 MR. SALINAS: Here's your model. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand your perspective, sir. 

 MR. SALINAS: You know, I applied to the state and 

they tell me that it's hereditary. I come up from a 

family of nine sisters and three other brothers. 

Not a single one has cancer. Well, it can jump a 

generation. Well, those answers are nice and well 

for you guys and that's a good way to explain it, 

but when you get an operator out there -- not just 

myself, anybody; and not just cancer, but like this 

other gentleman that was wheeled out of here, 

obviously very frustrated -- you know, you package 

this up very nicely, radiation. That's not all we 

deal with out there. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand. 

 MR. SALINAS: All these other people at the 

diffusion plants and all, they did great work, too 

-- understandably so, but we're not running a lunch 

counter out there, either. A bunch of us got 

involved with some other work and a bunch of us are 

sick. Now you want to pare it down and you want to 

cut costs or whatever, say that. But don't come up 

with these rules that now you've got to apply for 

this cohort and now you've got to do this and now 
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 43 you've got to do that. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. SALINAS: The only thing in my favor, gentlemen, 

is that I'm only 47. Hopefully this disease doesn't 

get me, because although it's not recognized as a 

risk model for you guys, it's a very big risk for 

me. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand. 

 MR. SALINAS: Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comments. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. SWEITZER: My name is Gary Sweitzer. I'm here 

to represent my father. Out in 300 area he received 

a lifetime dose of cobalt. Now within six to eight 

months -- he died -- he had cancer in every part of 

his body. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Amen. 

 MR. SWEITZER: I've gone through all of the 

paperwork. I sent it to DOE and I got a package 

about an inch thick and they were concerned about a 

band-aid on his finger. There wasn't another 

goddamned thing. I hope you have better luck. And 

I'll make you another offer. If you don't get it -- 

I will make a bargain -- we'll dig him up, you can 

check him. If he's hot, you pay for the digging and 

if he's clean, I'll pay for it. 

 (Applause) 
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 44 UNIDENTIFIED: I want to ask you first, do you 

recognize -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Could I have your name first? 

 MS. OGLESBY: It's Gaye Oglesby. I've lived here 

for 43 years, worked at Hanford and my family worked 

at Hanford and all that stuff. Do you recognize 

this document? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Looks like it's got a NIOSH logo on it 

-- 

 MS. OGLESBY: Uh-huh. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- what's the title of it? 

 MS. OGLESBY: It's called NIOSH summary of findings, 

and it was written -- it was released January, 2001. 

 Let me just read you some of your responses and 

I'll tell you why this is a waste of everybody's 

time in here in coming to NIOSH 'cause you wrote 

this. I didn't write it. 

 (Reading) Complete rosters of current and former 

remediation* workers do not exist. Reconstruction 

of rosters from multiple data sources at the site is 

labor intensive, may exclude some groups of workers. 

 Although radiation exposure records appear to be 

complete, the centralized responsibility for 

chemical exposure assessment and other records has 

led to gaps in exposure, work history and medical 

data. The storage of data and records in hard copy 

format on incompatible software platforms and on 
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 45 media-produced by now obsolete hardware has 

diminished the ability to identify workers and link 

them with their work history, exposure and medical 

data. The failure to standardize data collection 

and archiving both within and among DOE sites will 

hinder linkage of individuals to their data. The 

absence of worker rosters, the difficulty of 

creating such rosters with currently-available data, 

gaps in work history, exposure and medical data and 

data linkage problems limit the ability to conduct 

accurate and comprehensive studies of mediation 

workers. 

 The next question is, how many people are you 

working on 8,000 cases 'cause I was told -- my 

number's 586 on the NIOSH roster. I advocate for 

150 people nationwide. You are working on the fifth 

number and you told him he's going to be another 

year before he gets a response from you. 

 Now that means that I'm going to probably not have a 

very good chance of staying alive 'cause I'm number 

586 and this gentleman ahead of me was number 1,000-

something. So why isn't it better for all these 

people in here to massively go to court and wait in 

court and this -- you know, get out of this mess, 

because then you have to use the fair rules of civil 

procedure and you have to go by the Ninth Circuit 

Court to set some precedents. 
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 46 Have you read the Ninth Circuit Court ruling, the 

three-panel judge (sic)? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I believe it's in a file that we have 

in our office, yes. 

 MS. OGLESBY: Yeah, I sent it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: And if I might remark, while you -- 

 MS. OGLESBY: Wait a minute -- you know what? I 

want you to just let me finish so I don't lose my 

train of thought and then you can answer. You keep 

everything straight. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Good for her. 

 MS. OGLESBY: I'm going to give you a copy of 

everything that's sitting in your boss's office, Mr. 

Thompson. I don't know how long it's going to take 

him to get through it, but in the records are -- 

it's been sent to the President and the Congress and 

everybody else, and a lot of people nationally 

worked on it. There's testimonials in there of what 

went wrong here. It's called The Rise And Collapse 

of the EEOICPA. And in those records are things 

that you people have done to delay this situation, 

like there's -- I'll give you an example of two of 

the people that I work with. 

 They're people who are buried. After they -- not 

buried, but they had autopsies when they died. 

During the autopsy and into the grave, they 

developed cancer. They were dismissed because they 
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 47 didn't have cancer before they died. That's what 

the records say. 

 (Laughter) 

 MS. OGLESBY: Pretty silly, huh? Now I do have the 

special cohort thing in mind. There's 20 people 

and there's probably a lot of people and I want 

people to come forward in a special cohort to match 

this one, because I found 20 people already. We're 

all special cohorts. It's just a matter of finding 

somebody to match up to. 

 This man died of acute radiation poisoning. It's on 

his death certificate. He was a function manager at 

Hanford. There are 20 other people that had body 

burns all over their body. One man was buried in a 

confinement with his vehicle overnight and when he 

came out he was burnt all over his body. I think 

that's murder. And you know what? He died of heart 

failure. That's what's on his death certificate. 

He was acute -- and he's in the special cohort. 

 And so is a person that you have dismissed twice who 

was -- came up with first, second and third body 

burns and like everybody else. Nobody has paid any 

attention to this special cohort and I know about 

every one of them. And I also know the fellow that 

was trying to get rid of the evidence. 

 Now everybody should know that this happened between 

1951 and 1974, and you're all in the special 
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 48 maintenance cohort. Now I couldn't find my record 

tonight but I promise you I will. You've already 

done a dose reconstruction and it was delivered this 

year in front of a HHES* audience, the Yakima 

Indians -- the Chief of the Yakima Indians and me. 

They didn't know we were in the audience. You've 

already done a dose reconstruction doing header on 

all these people in here, and the down-winders, and 

I have a copy of it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 

 (Applause) 

 UNIDENTIFIED: I guess your comments are on the 

record, Katie. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Respond. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Are you waiting to respond to her 

questions? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I have nothing to respond to them. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Why not? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, okay, I will respond, because 

there was so many different points there and many of 

them are confused. The first point that she raised 

when she was reading from a NIOSH report is a report 

about the clean-up workers across the Webbins 

Complex and the difficulty in trying to do 

epidemiologic studies on clean-up workers because of 

the many layers of subcontractors that DOE employs 

to do that work. We shed light on that. I take 
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 49 pride in that. You guys should feel like we're 

doing the right thing by saying those things. 

That's what she was reading. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Why don't you get it done? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It's not in the Department of Health 

and Human Services' or NIOSH's responsibility to 

make that change. That's the Department of Energy, 

if they feel they need to make that change. You 

need to take that issue up with that Department. 

Okay? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: It says DOE sites mediation workers. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Your turn. Your turn. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know what dose reconstruction 

she might be referring to, but it's not on 

compensation, I assure you. It's probably the 

Center for Environmental Health's work on the 

Hanford environmental dose reconstruction survey 

that was done on thyroid. That's not my work. 

That's not a compensation dose reconstruction. 

Okay? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: So it sounds like everything works 

around in a circle and forget about the people who 

are actually injured. But anyway -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, I'm very much concerned about the 

people who are injured -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No, you're not. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- and I'm much -- 
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 50 UNIDENTIFIED: None of you guys grew up here and 

were raised here. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Ma'am? 

 MS. MIXON: My name is Teresa Mixon. I'm here 

representing Pace International Union, as well as 

myself. I am a Hanford worker. I've been out here 

since 1990. My grandmother worked out here. My 

grandfather, and they both died of cancer. I have 

one question or comment regarding to -- to Hank's 

comment. You keep saying that we're going to do 

this dose reconstruction, each dose reconstruction's 

going to get a little better, we're going to -- when 

do you finally say you know what, we don't have 

enough records to do any dose reconstruction and 

therefore, you know, what -- why waste our time, why 

waste the time of the people, why waste our money 

and be a little bit more efficient and say hey, 

look, let's go ahead and set up a second cohort. 

When is not enough record enough to actually get 

something done? 

 And along that same line, how can NIOSH accurately 

reconstruct exposure doses at Hanford when neutron 

monitoring wasn't done before 1988 and internal dose 

estimates were not done before 1989? You talk about 

the clean-up workers, that's us. You talk about the 

nuclear weapons workers, that's us. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We're aware of the dosimetry practices 
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 51 over time at this site, and we are also aware of the 

lack of dose information that was collected over 

time and in certain jobs. Okay? 

 MS. MIXON: Okay. Why is Hanford -- why are the 

other weapons facilities -- DOE facilities being 

held to a higher standard than the four cohorts that 

are currently in the SEC's, the four members that 

are currently in the SEC? 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: All I can say to that is Congress made 

a decision when they passed this law to put those 

four groups into that special cohort. 

 MS. MIXON: Did Congress make a decision to exclude 

other groups? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: By so doing the way they did it, they 

set it up where we, the Department of Health and 

Human Services, have a responsibility of putting 

together these procedures, and that's what we're 

here tonight to try to do, to try to share with you 

our thoughts on them, get your thoughts before 

they're final. That's why we're here. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: And then Congress under-staffs. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Ma'am? 

 MS. HANRADY: My name is Jennifer Hanrady. My 

father, Charles Hanrady, died of a disease called 

myelodispostic* syndrome. Now my mom has not heard 

back from you guys, but I imagine she's going to get 
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 52 the same response that a fellow nurse -- I'm also a 

nurse -- that I work with at the hospital got from 

her dad, who died of the same disease. They said 

that myelodispostic syndrome is not considered a, 

quote/unquote, cancer. Okay? 

 My dad knelt down on a rake soaked with strontium 

90. As a nurse, with all the chemistry, all the 

classes, I know what strontium 90 does to the bone 

marrow. It takes about ten years to show up. They 

sent him home. Boom, ten years later he develops 

myelodispostic syndrome which he ends up dying of, 

kills the bone marrow, stops producing red blood 

cells. Why are you guys saying that it has to be, 

quote/unquote, cancer? And why are you saying that 

only certain cancers? As a nurse, I see patients 

day after day after day who've had radiation 

exposures and you prove to us that their radiation 

or their working out there did not have -- cause 

what they died from. And also, why are physicists 

reviewing this? Why aren't there MD's there? 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. First of all, it's not us. 

It's not NIOSH saying it's cancer, only disease -- 

 MS. HANRADY: Who is going to get money? Can you 

give us a class case of somebody who's going to 

qualify -- boom, boom, boom -- 'cause anything they 

have, you're going to disqualify something so that 
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 53 no money is going to have to be given out. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, that's not true. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That is true. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's not true. 

 MS. HANRADY: It is true. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it's not true. Do you have any 

more comment for the record? 

 MS. HANRADY: No. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. Sir? 

 MR. SAMSON: Well, my name's Ray Samson. I guess 

you can hear me. 

 (Laughter) 

 MR. SAMSON: And I been here three times and he says 

this just started last April. I remember two years 

ago over in the other building over there the same 

thing, going to promise this, promise that, get all 

your paperwork done and we'll get it sent in. 

Mine's been in a year and a half. I ain't never 

heard a word from nobody yet. Finally I got mad and 

I called Seattle. I said where's my paperwork, 

what's happened to it? Well, Mr. Samson, we sent 

yours back to Washington, D.C. That's fine, I don't 

want to get onto my problem. The problem I got is 

why can't we get some of these people, including 

myself, to get a little money to take care of the 

doctor bills? I've had five operations on my nose 

and they ain't no money left in Medicare or ARC*. 
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 54 They've spent it all. Now couldn't I get a little 

bit of help or some of these other people? I'll 

probably be gone in another six months anyway, so 

what's the difference? They could still let me get 

my nose looking a little better so maybe I could go 

out and chase the girls a while. 

 (Laughter and applause) 

 MR. SAMSON: That's all I've got to say. I think we 

should have money for these people that need it now. 

 They're going to take care of the medical anyway, 

so let them have some of it. I think that's only 

fair. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comment. Sir? 

 MR. LEACH: Yes. My name is Bud Leach and I worked 

on the Hanford project from 1947 to 1987, and in 

1951 -- now if I'm off-base here, let me know right 

now 'cause all I've heard about is radiation. There 

are several people here that worked with materials 

that were just as bad if not worse than radiation. 

I became a glass blower, and from 1951 to 1987 I was 

a glass blower, and on my bench, every day that I 

worked, I had a roll of asbestos. Now I've never 

heard anything about asbestos at any of these 

meetings and I used it. We had to use it. It was 

part of our equipment. You had to wrap some glass 

in it that you didn't want to get hot while you were 

working somewhere else. 
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 55 Okay. Now what I have to say is that about -- oh, 

four or five years ago, I got a phone call or a 

letter from Seattle, and a regular chest X-ray will 

not detect minor amounts of asbestos. And any time 

within 30 years, I've been told, it can turn into 

cancer or asbestosis. Are you aware of that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir. 

 MR. LEACH: Okay. So I got a grid X-ray, and this 

is the only way they can tell. So about the last 

three times I've called -- and a grid X-ray is far 

more expensive than just a common X-ray over here at 

the clinic. I've asked for another grid X-ray and 

that's from the university and you people, and you 

say well, hey, you have one; the rest of them you 

pay for yourself. Why? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't answer you because it's not me 

that said that to you. It's -- 

 MR. LEACH: I know, but -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It's not my department. Must be 

Department of Labor's answer to you with that 

question. 

 MR. LEACH: I don't know who it was, but -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: You're their representative. 

 MR. LEACH: -- I cannot get a grid X-ray unless I 

pay for it myself after using asbestos from 1951 to 

1987. Is that not a hazardous material now? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It is a hazardous material. It is -- 
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 56 unfortunately it is not covered under the Federal 

program for Energy employees. It's covered under 

the state program and you need to take that up with 

the Department of Energy, their physician panels, 

and put your claim in to the state program. 

 MR. LEACH: I put it in. I put it in. I've called 

and I've gotten material that thick saying oh, well, 

we'll get around to you, you know, whenever -- 

whenever we're ready or -- if you do get cancer -- 

lung cancer from asbestos, then we'll do something 

about it. But I cannot get a grid X-ray paid for by 

the state or anybody. I've got to pay for it 

myself. I don't even -- I've been told Medicare 

won't even pay for it and I'm on Medicare. How can 

I get an answer? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't have an answer for you sir, on 

that, other than to tell you you need to keep 

working through the state, use the Department of 

Energy's physician panel to help you get what you 

need. 

 MR. LEACH: Yeah, but my 30 years are getting to an 

end, believe me. Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comments. Sir? 

 MR. DODD: I'm Aubrey Dodd for Richland, although I 

have worked virtually every laboratory operated for 

the United States government. In 1990 the Congress 

passed a public law to compensate U.S. atomic 
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 57 workers who were injured or killed in their service 

to their country. They specified where they must 

work, what they must have done, where they lived, 

the different states. I have met all of those 

requirements. Now you come along and introduce new 

requirements. You're talking about classes without 

even defining what you mean by the word class, but I 

think from the context I can get the understanding 

so don't take time to do that. But Mr. Katz gave a 

clue to why things aren't going reasonably rapidly 

because the system doesn't have a competent staff of 

health physicists or whatever it takes to do dose 

reconstruction. So don't be surprised, all of you, 

if this program just dies on the vine. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Uh-huh. 

 MR. DODD: He's already admitted it's a faulty 

system, so why -- what good comes from a faulty 

system? 

 Now in my own case, I'm wondering if I'll have to 

establish a separate class for myself because the 

two major contractors or employers for -- in my 

service have written me they're sorry when I say I 

got certain exposures. For example, the Nevada 

atomic bomb tests in the early forties, the 

laboratory director had mentioned that they're sorry 

they did not keep exposure records back when I was 

there. Now since I don't have the data to prove 
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 58 that I got a multi-decade of rad radiation exposure, 

I had a dosimeter on and I remember -- and there's a 

friend of mine living over on the west side in 

Washington who was with me when that happened. Now 

I'm serious about this. What do I do? Do I have to 

get an attorney to sue the laboratory, the 

University of California at Los Alamos? I wonder 

what I might be required to do. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: What you're required to do is simply -

- you've filed a claim evidently under the veterans 

-- the atomic veterans -- 

 MR. DODD: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- program -- 

 MR. DODD: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's the one you mentioned earlier 

about being -- 

 MR. DODD: So why do we need more classes added to 

that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We're not adding a class to that. 

This compensation program is separate from the 

atomic veterans. It covers all the Energy employees 

that worked through the weapons complex. Maybe you 

have coverage under that program, as well. If you 

do, you should file a claim additionally -- 

 MR. DODD: I was one -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- through that program. 

 MR. DODD: -- of the first who filed with the 
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 59 Department of Labor here in Kennewick. It's been 

about a year now. I haven't heard anything from 

them. They writ and told me that it's in 

Cincinnati, Ohio where they're setting up a program, 

new models, mathematical models, to see if the kind 

of cancer I had -- incidentally, you've named some 

here tonight. I've never seen a list of kinds of 

cancer that one must have. Could you tell me where 

they are listed? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: They are listed on our web site. I 

can tell you that it includes all cancer except 

chronic lymphocytic leukemia, so any malignant 

cancer -- 

 MR. DODD: Those are ones it does not cover. I'm 

asking you to say what kinds of cancer are covered. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- are covered. All cancers are 

covered except chronic lymphocytic leukemia, so 

cancer -- I'm sorry, for dose reconstructions. 

 MR. DODD: And is lung cancer for chronic smokers, 

is that covered or not covered? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Lung cancer -- 

 MR. DODD: The original -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Lung cancer is -- 

 MR. DODD: The original law said no. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Lung cancer is covered. If you are a 

smoker, that is factored into your risk. If you're 

a non-smoker, you don't have that risk associated 
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 60 with the lung cancer. 

 MR. DODD: Now when I worked for the Federal 

government directly, the Atomic Energy Commission at 

Idaho reactor test site in 1961, a prototype 

military reactor exploded, killed all three 

operators. I was in on the clean-up from that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: SO-1. 

 MR. DODD: My employer, AEC Idaho, does not have a 

record of my exposure. The monitor with me refused 

to go up to the operating level. His instrument was 

off-scale. I had to go in to retrieve a dosimeter 

and now they tell me they have no record of that 

exposure. If that was added to my Nevada test site, 

I should have been retired -- or as the common 

expression is, I should have been put out to pasture 

and not have worked the last ten or 15 years of my 

career. And due to those exposures together, I'm 

sure that my early retirement due to failing 

eyesight is the effect of radiation. The law 

doesn't even mention that as a debilitating health 

condition, but anyone who doesn't know that 

radiation can affect the lens of the eye should not 

be in the business of evaluating health effects. 

It's one of the earliest known effects of radiation 

affecting the lens of the eye. 

 The Federal government even has radiation exposure 

limits for workers to keep their eyes protected from 
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 61 radiation, so that proves that it's dangerous. So I 

had to retire early and missed a lot of normal 

income and virtually -- I'm in virtual poverty now 

and I'm sure that nothing has happened in Cincinnati 

on this dose reconstruction bit. Mr. Katz has 

already told us that the program is improperly 

staffed, so I just wonder why you're looking for 

more classes. Maybe the class of '49 or '50 or 

something like that? 

 MR. KATZ: Just to respond to that about what I 

said, just to be clear. What I said is that we have 

not had on board sufficient health physicists to be 

doing -- keeping up with the volume of claims. But 

what I expounded on was that we have to contract for 

a lot of more help to do that and that we're at the 

end of that process of contracting for more help. 

So indeed, I am not saying that we will not be 

competent. I'm saying exactly the opposite, that we 

will have the resources to be able to deal with the 

volume of claims that we are seeing here. 

 MR. DODD: I'm sure your excuse is budget, so nobody 

gets what they think (inaudible). 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: My name's Daniel (inaudible) from 

Benton City. I come here I guess under a 

misconception 'cause I thought this was talking 

about chemicals and radiation and all I'm hearing is 
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 62 radiation. My question is, what's being done about 

the cancer-causing chemicals that we have been 

dealing with out there and that we're dealing with 

daily? I know at least six people that are sick 

from them now and all we're getting out there is the 

runaround, so where does the cancer-causing 

chemicals that we're dealing with fall into this 

program, if at all? And is there a program that 

they do fall into? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: There is an aspect of this program 

that chemical exposure-related diseases fall under. 

 That's the state plan. So whatever your state 

compensation plan covers in that regard, that's 

where you would have to file a claim. We're here 

tonight to talk about the Federal plan which covers 

cancer. I'm sorry. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: There's a lot of chemicals that cause 

cancer out there that we're -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand that, sir. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: -- we're dealing with daily out 

there. We're breathing the fumes of them. We're 

coming in contact with them and they cause cancer. 

That's a Federal site, that's not a damned state 

site. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I understand your point. Thank you. 

Yes, ma'am? 

 MS. MILLER-COLLINS: My name is Barbara Miller-
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 63 hyphen-Collins and my husband, Alan G. Miller, a 

Ph.D. chemist, graduated with his B.S. degree and 

went to work out at Hanford as a young man and made 

that his career until 1983 when he left 

Westinghouse. And ultimately he established his own 

business, Chem-Check Instruments. All the time he 

was suffering with Hodgkin's disease. He built his 

business, had two bone marrow transplants and all 

the misery that goes with it. I'm humbled to listen 

to the people. I'm not going to talk about that 

anymore. 

 But the reason I want to get up here is 'cause I 

want to go on record. I know a company manufactures 

a trace uranium analyzer, and it's not looking at 

radiation. It's looking at chemical toxicity, as 

recognized by the EPA and the AESTM* methods, and 

our uranium analyzer is in most of the DOE sites, 

concern applied to clean-up of the waters and 

drinking waters. And I just want to say that I 

believe that it's in -- that this program should be 

careful about just limiting this to radiation. I 

want to go on record and say that chemical toxicity 

of not only plutonium but americium, all of those 

toxic chemicals that my husband has documented 

research papers on, that he exposed himself to and I 

believe that he ultimately became ill from that. He 

died at 43. 
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 64 And when he died -- I don't mean to whine or 

anything, but the company was so generous that they 

made me take his $5,000 retirement, and that just 

sort of didn't sit too well. And now -- I thought 

oh, wow, you know, I can't believe the generosity 

and the good-heartedness of a move like this. And I 

thought huh, I wonder why? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. Yes, sir? 

 MR. CHANDLER: My name's Jim Chandler and I have one 

of the covered cancers, and I filed a claim and my 

files were sent to you people in March of this year. 

 And it says you're going to try to do a dose 

reconstruction, and I'm wondering how you're going 

to do that dose reconstruction when they weren't 

exactly honest about our exposures out there. 

Everybody that was on the elevator with me that 

afternoon, our dosimeter -- they all went off-scale. 

 The howlers come on, control room operator ordered 

us off the elevator. Yet when they checked our 

TLD's, they told us we all got zero. We always got 

200 to 300 on a normal job. When something went 

wrong, we got zero. Makes no sense to me. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's why we think it's important to 

have an interview with you and for you to tell us 

about anybody else you think we should talk to to 

find out about those things. Appreciate your 

comment. 
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 65 MR. CHANDLER: And I was wondering how much longer 

before I hear about my dose reconstruction. You say 

in here it could be a matter of weeks, but on an 

extreme serious one, six months. And it's been five 

months now on mine. I think mine's pretty simple. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, we're not here to talk about 

individual claims tonight. If you want to talk 

later, I'll be -- I can meet you outside and we can 

discuss your situation. 

 MR. CHANDLER: I just want to know how long do we 

need to wait before we find out? This -- this says 

I don't have to wait any longer. Where's the 

answer? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Don't hold your breath, fella. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It says there -- I think you're 

quoting from a -- you have my signature at the 

bottom of that? 

 MR. CHANDLER: (Indicating) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Oh, it's a Labor one. Maybe we don't 

even have your claim yet. 

 MR. CHANDLER: It says you got my claim. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: That's why we need to talk to you 

separately off-side. Yes, sir? 

 MR. COOPER: Good evening. My name's Richard 

Cooper. I'd like to speak just for a minute before 

I get into the -- your 42 83. I got this off your 

web site on the 19th of July and it says that this 
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 66 page was updated on July 19th. And at that time you 

had acknowledgement letters sent to 5,649 people. 

That's probably the Labor Department that did that. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No. 

 MR. COOPER: Was that you guys that did that? And 

you had some dose information on 2,830 people, and 

you had conducted phone interviews with 116 people 

and you had done dose reconstructs on four people. 

And I thought I heard you say seven now, so I don't 

know when you -- how long it took you to get to 

four, but July 19th, now if you've got three, that's 

looking pretty good, you know. I mean you guys are 

picking it up. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We're not moving fast enough. 

 MR. COOPER: Really what I'm sort of curious about, 

you talked about this -- this coming -- about 

possibly around January, February or March of 2003 

if everything goes well after this rule. Okay? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

 MR. COOPER: Now when this rule does become in 

effect in 2003, January, February or March, and I 

petition at that point in time, I'm not eligible to 

petition at the moment, and which I would also like 

to discuss if I can withdraw my claim and file a 

petition because it's sort of a matter of timing. 

And I'm not so sure but what -- how long will it 

take from the time someone petitions, and if they're 
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 67 successful from the initial petition, to the end? 

Approximately how long a time frame? 

 MR. KATZ: Well, again, that's going to depend on 

your -- you said you were going to withdraw your 

claim. 

 MR. COOPER: No, excuse me. Excuse me. Forget that 

for a minute. 

 MR. KATZ: Okay. 

 MR. COOPER: The question is, if a person petitions 

-- 

 MR. KATZ: I understand. 

 MR. COOPER: -- in January, February or March, once 

this becomes enacted -- 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, sir. 

 MR. COOPER: -- from the time -- and they have good 

information -- 

 MR. KATZ: Yes, sir. 

 MR. COOPER: -- there's no glitches, fast-track it, 

how long before -- we know we got the 180 days at 

the end. We know Congress can reverse that. If 

Congress doesn't and runs the 180 days, how long? 

 MR. KATZ: Right, that's what I understand, and the 

reason -- what I was going to say to you, sir, was 

that if it were a person who had already attempted 

to get a dose reconstruction, it's one thing. If 

it's a person who has not attempted to get a dose 

reconstruction, it's another thing. If you'd 
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 68 attempted to get a dose reconstruction, at that 

point we would already know that the records are 

inadequate to do dose reconstruction. So you 

remember I said there were two sort of criteria that 

Congress gave us that we have to satisfy to add a 

class to the cohort, and you would have already 

satisfied that first criterion about we can't do 

dose reconstruction. What we will be doing from 

that point forward then is simply finding out how 

many other individuals are in your shoes, how many 

other individuals can't we do dose reconstruction 

for, which is a lot simpler than finding out the 

first issue, that is simply can't do a dose 

reconstruction, and secondly, that that could have 

endangered their health. 

 So how much time that could take, it could take -- 

depending on how much research we dredged up when we 

attempted to do the dose reconstruction that we 

failed at, I mean it could take weeks. It could 

take a month. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Nine months. 

 MR. KATZ: It could take -- it could take -- okay, 

it could take nine months. I don't think in that 

circumstance it would take nine months because we 

already know we can't do dose reconstructions. You 

know, the things that are going to eat some time in 

this process beyond that -- 'cause our analytic 
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 69 process in effect, it's all about seeing who else is 

in your shoes and whether the dose was -- could have 

been high enough. But that could be taken care of 

quickly. So the rest of the work is simply getting 

this before the Advisory Board that I told you 

about, getting the Advisory Board's advice to the 

Secretary of Health and Human Services and getting 

the Secretary of Health and Human Services to 

recommend a decision. And if it's an affirmative 

decision, of course there's no 30-day wait for 

contest 'cause no one's contesting it. 

 MR. COOPER: No one would contest it. 

 MR. KATZ: So you have an answer and then you have 

the 180 days. So it could take -- at a -- you know, 

it depends on when the Board is meeting and so on, 

but it could take months, it could take two months, 

it could take one month, it could take six months, I 

really can't answer you. 

 MR. COOPER: Okay, that's good enough. You know, 

you've rattled on that a little while. 

 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. 

 MR. COOPER: Now let me take you to a little -- get 

a little more specific here. I'm looking for a 

denial then. I'm looking for someone that's been 

denied, and as soon as that person is denied, then 

three-fourths of the work's done. Correct? 

 MR. KATZ: That's correct. 
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 70 MR. COOPER: That's correct, so then we can move 

forward faster. 

 MR. KATZ: That's correct. 

 MR. COOPER: Now most of the workers out here have 

worked at more than one facility, so you could -- 

and in fact I believe if you worked at N* Reactor, 

you could petition. If someone who worked at N 

Reactor had dose reconstruct, they could petition 

for a class of people that worked at N Reactor to be 

inclusive for that. Only you could just class the 

petition of all of Hanford or it could break down 

into individual facilities throughout the place. So 

the sooner a few denials comes in, the quicker that 

the process can move along for the cohort law. Is 

that correct? 

 MR. KATZ: That's completely correct. And just the 

one issue to understand there is that -- well, you 

could petition for all of Hanford, absolutely true. 

 But it may not be true that the record 

availability's the same for everyone at Hanford. 

Because in effect you're saying that there aren't 

good enough records and information from the coworkers and workers and so on to do a dose 

reconstruction on anybody at Hanford, and that may 

not be true. 

 MR. COOPER: That may not be true, but N Reactor may 

be true, for example, with the neutron radiation and 
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 71 stuff and you might go down that path. You might go 

down multiple paths. The union, for example, might 

-- might assume multiple paths to go down and be 

successful on one path and then later get engulfed 

by a larger -- by a larger group. Okay? And you 

know, so it's looking across on this, of -- 

 MR. KATZ: That's exactly right. 

 MR. COOPER: -- covering this right on down to, you 

know, get it to happen. 

 MR. KATZ: That's exactly right. 

 MR. COOPER: Okay. I think that's about all I got 

on that. 

 MR. KATZ: Thank you for the question. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir? 

 MR. CONAN: Joe Conan, instrument tech, been out to 

Hanford for 17 years. I got one question is Federal 

government's been doing campaigns about cigarette 

smoke's got 1,001 -- or 101 chemicals, and they 

spend money and they sue tobacco companies, but to 

NIOSH standards in that, second-hand smoke is below 

your standards anyway. There ain't nothing above 

that would put anybody in jeopardy. But then where 

we're working out there at tank pumps, you'd have 

1,001 different chemicals that is above standards. 

And why is the government's dragging its legs on 

getting these people -- why do they even have to 

worry about a dose rate? If second-hand smoke's 
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 72 below the average, why do they have to worry about 

dose rates? They worked out there at Hanford. 

They're sick. Why ain't they getting the job done? 

 These people worked out there. 

 And then another thing is, with the stuff out there, 

you have chemicals, you got Kingsford* and that's 

very toxic that a lot of people's been exposed to 

that. They didn't have MSDS's at the time. That 

was a red oil. If you smelled it, you was overexposed to it, .1. Then you had asbestos in your 

boots out there, in your high-back systems that was 

ragged, so if you were in a building, you guys got 

exposed to asbestos. And we all know we've been 

exposed to radiation. 

 Now for some of these people who are sick right now, 

I see that we're rebuilding some country to bomb 

this quicker than what you're getting these guys 

money. And I ain't blaming you guys, but somebody 

needs to start helping these people out. Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comments. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir? 

 MR. STALEY: Well, I don't have -- my name's Ken 

"Steamboat" Staley. I looked around the room and 

I've seen quite a few people here that recognize my 

fat body. I've worked out there at this project 

since 1946. I have worked in every one of their 100 
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 73 areas. I worked in the P-10 project at 108-B in 

1952. They have burned stuff off of me, cancerrelated, before the sun come up and got some. My 

question is this. This highly radioactive 108-B 

area where the P-10 project spread this stuff across 

the river to the down-winders. 

 1953 I had a daughter born, after I had worked there 

in this contaminated sweet ol' base. She's been in 

a wheelchair with MS over 26 years, born the next 

year, nine months. 

 One of her close girlfriends born the same time with 

MS is buried. This gentleman right here and I have 

attended every meeting from time one. There's 

nobody -- nobody can tell you what has happened to 

that or if it did happen from that, and I'm sure you 

two standing there can't tell me, either. But 

somewhere along the line these people out here have 

worked in this contaminated stuff, and why have -- 

it's been two to three years for them to even be 

compensated to get something done? You can't 

answer, but that's why both of you are here, to try 

and fool us. 

 You can't even get through to our Congress people 

because they'll have someone else talk it and they 

miss you. So the only way to do it is to go right 

to the head, but that don't work either 'cause 

there's too many people a-guarding them. Thank you. 
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 74 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Hey, Steamboat! 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir? 

 MR. SHAWTELL: I'm Charlie Shawtell and I've worked 

out there at Hanford -- I just -- 35 years. And oh, 

in between -- sometimes I might not have been there, 

basically when I was in the Army. But anyhow, I've 

got my dosimeter records from the Department of 

Energy and it's about like a Sears Robuck catalog, 

that thick, for 35 years. 

 But anyhow, there's -- the time that I've worked out 

there, six different times I've been involved with 

people that's made mistakes and have got a lifetime 

dose of radiation. And it never showed on my 

dosimeter thing at all. But it wasn't me so it 

didn't show on it. And this dosimeter badge that 

they have that they talk about will not tell you how 

much radiation that you took. And at N Reactor I 

know I had hundreds of guys working on the valves in 

the N Reactor and their dosimeter badge they had was 

up here on their shoulder, and their radiation they 

were taking was in their -- down in their stomach 

and someplace other than up on their badge. So I 

requested a hearing for my part of it, but it looks 

to me like they're not going to -- not going to 

allow it. But I guess they have it up at -- 
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 75 someplace up here in the college where -- up between 

here and Seattle, what is it, the college up there? 

 Anyhow, I would like to have a hearing on this 

particular thing because there's a lot of people 

that -- that are going to get turned down because of 

the cancer because of the fact that they had it 

after they retired. And if they don't -- that's the 

reason I'd like to have hearing, so we could bring 

those things to light. 

 And if we have to, I'll get my doctor to come along 

and -- and another thing is, I may have to give you 

the bill for the doctor, but still at the same time, 

I think that this dosimeter badge, everybody's 

putting their hats on that thing and saying well, 

this is if you didn't have this, well, you didn't 

have any. But that's not the case, not the case at 

all. So I'd like to have a hearing so we could 

bring that to light in front of this NOASH (sic) or 

whatever they're going to. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comment. 

 MR. SHAWTELL: You bet. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, ma'am? 

 MS. STROUP: Yes, my name is Cheryl Stroup and I've 

worked here on the Hanford site for 23 years and I 

had a question on -- is this form just for 

radiation-induced cancers or can it be for 

radiation-induced other diseases? 
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 76 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it's only -- this program only 

covers radiation-induced cancers. It also covers 

beryllium disease and silicosis, so any -- any other 

diseases that you might be concerned with, chemical 

exposures, that has to be dealt with under the state 

compensation program. 

 MS. STROUP: Is the state compensation program also 

for radiation exposure-induced -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't -- 

 MS. STROUP: -- diseases? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- answer that question. You're -- 

 MR. KATZ: Let me just -- this has come up so many 

times, let me just explain -- I'm not from the 

Department of Energy, but I understand a lot about 

the program that they're setting up and this answers 

a lot of questions that have been raised here about 

chemical-related exposures that result in cancer or 

other outcomes or non-cancer-related health outcomes 

related to radiation exposure. We've heard a number 

of these tonight. 

 And the Department of Energy, under this same law -- 

when Larry talks about the state program, what is he 

-- what he's talking about is the Department of 

Energy, because of how they performed over the years 

with respect to state workers compensation claims, 

they're required under this law to set up a new 

program that didn't exist before and it isn't 
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 77 operating yet, but they're getting it operating now. 

 They're just finally getting approval now for a 

final rule so that they can proceed with this. But 

this is a program where they're going to have an 

independent panel of physicians that are going to 

look at -- they're going to look at your claim with 

respect to that you were exposed to either radiation 

or any kind of a toxic exposure -- and it doesn't 

have to be radiation and it can be a mixture of all 

these things, and of course many of you have had a 

mixture of exposures. But this physician panel, if 

you have an illness as a result of that, will look 

at the illness, look at the things that you were 

exposed to, all the things that you were exposed to 

and make a determination as to whether it is -- it 

could have contributed to your illness, contributed 

or caused your illness. And this -- then this 

physician panel, if it makes its determination, it 

is going to provide this determination to the state 

workers compensation program in your state, which 

will be of assistance because its finding then would 

be that your illness was related to your exposure -- 

toxic exposures, radiation, both, all the above. It 

could be -- which will help you get over the hurdle 

of getting state workers compensation, whereas in 

the past many of you have had no luck getting state 

workers compensation for illnesses related to your 
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 78 toxic exposure. So this is a new program. It's 

getting set up now and it's going -- and it was 

intended to address these non-radiogenic cancers. 

 MS. STROUP: Thank you. I believe we do have that 

here in Washington because my claim is supposedly 

going to be reviewed under that, but I just wanted 

to make sure. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: If you -- you should file a claim 

under both programs. 

 MS. STROUP: This one? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The Federal program -- if you have 

cancer, you should file a claim under both programs. 

 Yes, ma'am? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: I'm here representing my mom, who I 

believe is case number 538 -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Could I have your name, please? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: My mother's name is Anna Blair. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Your name. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: You told me before I didn't have to 

give it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay, you don't have to give it. We 

won't have your name on the record, but -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That's just fine by me. Okay. Now 

I'm possibly, to everybody in here, going to sound 

just like a raving lunatic, and I apologize ahead of 

time for that because I have quite a few varied 

items and they don't look maybe as if they're going 
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 79 to come together, but if you think on it, pay 

attention, maybe you're going to see that it's got a 

little bit of a kind of a web and it does come -- to 

congeal together. Okay? 

 I worked since '63 and I was out at GE, and then I 

was for Douglas United Nuclear where my father 

worked. My dad has been gone now for five years. 

For 19 years and a half, he changed a bag every 

three days. There was no more erection, and I don't 

think Viagra could have corrected it because he had 

a kind of a cancer that caused him to have a new 

hole have to be built so that he could have his 

urinary stuff. I'm supposing that this kind of 

cancer, bladder cancer, is not covered on -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: No, it is covered. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: It is? Well, this one didn't kill 

him. He lived 19 and a half years. He also had his 

mouth cut on. He had his nose cut on. He had lots 

of sores and stuff that were cut off on his head. 

 Now he got mesalthelioma (sic). Is that covered? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Mesothelioma is generally caused by 

asbestos. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, and I believe it was this 

wonderful young man, Bud Leach, in here who spoke 

about asbestos. And my father, in the early years -

- before he went to 105 N Reactor control room -- 

was sweeping asbestos up with a broom in the other 
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 80 reactors, D, B, et cetera. 

 Now, my own experience. This is a real aside, but 

try to pay attention. I had a little bit of extra 

help on filling out my secret documents, and it 

seemed -- according to my manager back then -- that 

the numbers that I had accumulated for the entire 

month were a little bit higher than what some of the 

other 184 stack emissions counted up to, so to be in 

the competitive mode, he changed the numbers to 

lower. What went up the stack, might I ask you, and 

where did it go? I don't know, I was only 19. 

 The next thing, 1969 about, I worked at 313 building 

in 300 area and the men enjoyed watching my legs 

very much, and in the sixties we women -- a lot of 

us, at least I did -- wore very short skirts. And 

by noon hour one day, my nylons had dissolved off of 

my legs. Now what was in the air that day, and did 

it bother anybody? I don't know. 

 I had -- I got chronic fatigue syndrome in 1991. My 

younger sister of a year got it five years ahead of 

me. I'm sure that's not covered. But I've got two 

aunts, one was 108 and one was 106, and I'm still a 

bit of a pistol. And I was in bed for three years -

- '91, '92 and '93 -- and I'm sure that some of that 

DNA from those pistols is what's kept me kind of 

going. 

 Now I wanted to say about the asbestos that that's a 
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 81 problem, and that is what killed my dad because that 

one cannot be treated any way at all. I wanted to 

say that there were 50-year-old -- I'm 59 now, but 

at 50 I lost several of the men that I went to 

school with in Benton City. And they have been 

putting their arms into solvents, and this is a 

chemical issue, out at this project of ours, and 

they're gone. And the one had varices, which means 

he could have a little break in a blood vein 

anywhere, anytime and just try to get something 

caught like your throat starts to bleed or your 

kidney starts to leak, and try to save a life from a 

poor thing like that. 

 Now I've got an attitude, and I apologize for my 

attitude. Okay? Because I know that an awful lot 

of you people really need some of that money, and 

this is a big carrot being waved in front of you. 

And I got an attitude that because lots of records 

can get altered 30-some years ago, that records can 

still get altered. And I also have a bad attitude 

because I don't have as much energy as I used to 

have and my mom is pursuing this thing and she's 

using up the precious energy that I have by having 

me help her with this. And I don't appreciate 

something that looks like now it's going to be a 

whole bunch more paperwork to go and put it into 

something called a class, which I totally don't 
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 82 understand. I'm not on the web. I don't intend to 

get on the web, and I certainly am telling everybody 

here that I believe that this is another experiment. 

 And the reason I want to say an experiment, also to 

try to say that you're all guinea pigs and that 

you're just turning all the information in they ask 

for is because of thalidomide. And now you call all 

call me lunatics if you please, but in '61 I was 

pregnant with my son and I was vomiting for seven 

months out of nine, morning, noon and night and I 

was sick. And they offered me thalidomide and I 

didn't take it, and the next year a whole bunch of 

women in the United States gave birth to children 

without arms and legs. They had feet coming out of 

the torso and fingers and hands coming out of the 

shoulder. 

 And after our young men and women went to the Gulf 

War, here comes the Gulf Syndrome, and I'm familiar 

enough with it because of my chronic fatigue 

syndrome studies and I was involved in a lot of 

information, being a support group leader at the 

neurological center for 22 months for the tricities. And all of a sudden, out of this Gulf War 

we have this thing called Gulf War Syndrome. And 

when some of these young men and women came back and 

had children, they have had children that don't have 

arms and legs. 
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 83 And may I top it off by saying I have a Funk & 

Wagnall dated something like 1954 and it says in 

1888 they knew how bad asbestos was. Why was my dad 

still pushing a broom? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 

 (Applause) 

 MS. JOHNSON: I'm Fiora Johnson and I'm talking on 

behalf of John Gress. I don't know what year it 

was, but anyway, he worked out in the area and they 

took his boots away from him because they were so 

full of radiation, but it was never put down on 

record. Why? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't answer that question for you. 

 MS. JOHNSON: He comes home in his stocking feet, 

and that -- to me, that should have been put on 

record because when we got all the information, 

absolutely nothing. And he's filled out all these 

papers and all this other garbage -- which I think 

is garbage. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comment. Yes, sir? 

 MR. DAVID: My name's John David. I'm a sheet metal 

worker, and one of the gentlemen that got up here 

earlier, he talked about his father being exposed to 

plutonium and he offered you that -- to prove that 

he would allow somebody to exhume his father. So I 

guess that and all these other comments that we've 

heard here tonight are really going to I'm sure 
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 84 solidify the seriousness of this. 

 Now you are from NIOSH and this study is conducted 

with the Department of Labor and the Department of 

Energy, so I'd suggest to you in the future when you 

come here, you bring those folks so that you can't 

say hey, it's the Department of Labor and they can't 

say hey, it's NIOSH, and NIOSH can't say hey, it's 

the Department of Energy. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We have the Department of Labor here 

tonight. The Department of Energy was invited. 

 MR. DAVID: Okay. They're not speaking, but thank 

you for including that. 

 Now this lady that spoke to me previously, you're 

talking to a lot of people here that are not 

necessarily involved in the information age, so what 

I'm suggesting to you is -- and I applaud you for 

the fact that, one, you're saying you can e-mail me, 

and two, you can look on my web site -- but you have 

to get this information to people and make it 

accessible to them in a medium or a method that they 

can understand -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 

 MR. DAVID: -- so you're going to have to get in 

your nog* and you're going to have to call people. 

And when they put paperwork in to you and they send 

this in, they have to be able to get some 

information back from you and not get this continual 
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 85 circle of these other entities. 

 Now if I was you and I was trying to get information 

to people that were of the age of these people, I'd 

be putting something on Kona* radio station. You 

don't live here, but that's what that's called. I'd 

be putting some information in the senior section of 

the newspaper. I'd be calling those people up and 

I'd be telling them that their claim went from the 

office over here on Kellogg Street to NIOSH and now 

it's at the Department of Labor. And I would be 

sending them something in a letter form, because 

that's the only way you're going to get to them 

information-wise. And if you don't do that, you're 

blowing smoke up their ass. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Amen. 

 MR. DAVID: Okay? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We are doing that. 

 MR. DAVID: Okay. Well, the last thing I'd like to 

say is, one, I'd like to thank you for coming here. 

 But two, until you can actually show these people 

that something is going to happen from their 

efforts, you are going to be included in one 

government program after another that is absolute 

and total bullshit. Okay? 

 Now these people don't want anymore bullshit. They 
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 86 want an answer. 

 Now I'd like to thank you for the fact that you said 

that you're subcontracting this ability to be able 

to discern this information and get them an answer. 

 But somehow or another, you have to do something to 

help these people so that this doesn't go down as 

another situation that is another program -- that 

guy said he got started in 1990. Now I'm guessing 

that he never got any compensation out of it. Now 

that's not your program and I'll give you that. But 

what is it that we can do to help you, 'cause you 

say you have no staffing -- right? Now you say you 

have a subcontractor. Okay? How is it we can help 

you get this information so that these people can be 

helped? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That's right. 

 MR. DAVID: Now that's what we want you to also tell 

us. As part of your closing comments, would you 

please tell those -- these people that? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. 

 MR. DAVID: Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you for your comments. Yes, 

ma'am? And we're going to -- 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- conclude with these two ladies 

right here. 

 MS. ERICSON-MURPHY: My name is Marie Ericson-Murphy 
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 87 and my father -- I'm a survivor -- who hauled 

uranium in the forties. And I also came to speak to 

a friend who wouldn't even come down here. He said 

you're just wasting your time. His name was Reuben 

Sheifley and he worked from '47 on into the fifties, 

and when he was on the job his thyroid blew up. He 

got into something he shouldn't have got into and 

the nurse on the site said you have to have that 

checked. And the next two or three days they 

removed his thyroid. Then he went to labor and 

industries because he had six children, needed some 

help. He never got any help from labor and 

industries. That was in the forties and the 

fifties. 

 Well, anyway, now he has cancer and he should have 

passed away seven years ago, but because of good 

diet and prayer and everything, he's still here. So 

as I say, I certainly appreciate you guys being here 

and if I can help in any way to help this situation, 

please ask me. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank -- thank you very much. Okay, 

this gentleman over here. We're going to have to 

wind this up, so if you'd be brief. 

 MR. CARTER: My name is Roy Carter. I've forgot my 

number. I am one of 92 people that have made it to 

the reconstruction -- go to their list. I have not 

made it through that. My original question was, how 
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 88 do I help you get more people in the HP's or 

whatever they want to be called today so that they 

can hurry up the program so before I croak I -- my 

wife gets some money? How do we do this? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I appreciate that offer, and I assure 

you, we're working as diligently and as hard as we 

can to put this contract in place. I think in the 

next six weeks we'll see that contract awarded and 

then we're going to see a big turnaround in how many 

dose reconstructions are done over the next few 

months. And I appreciate you -- for your offer. 

 MR. CARTER: For the record -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Have you had your interview yet? 

 MR. CARTER: Oh, yeah. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Okay. 

 MR. CARTER: I'm up the -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You're close. 

 MR. CARTER: I'm close. But for the record, there's 

a whole bunch of people in here I recognize, which 

is scary. We're all -- I don't know, I've got 20-

something years or whatever. We're all in a lot of 

trouble. I've gone through -- I had to take my 

401(k) out and ate that. For the people that are 

listening to the tape on this, you guys try to live 

without -- without any money for a while, and you 

ought to cut the red tape. It's already been 

straightened out through the Congress, and yet 
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 89 unfortunately there's a lot of middle men. We all 

know -- all of us sitting in here know that hey, 

it's another government project. Which if you work 

for the government for a long time, you realize 

you're had. We're just sitting around here because 

we're curious. What has happened in the last couple 

of years? The official statement was it was a year 

ago. We knew about it a year before that. We even 

knew about the Cold War Act. 

 But bottom line is, we're all dying off, and we 

can't wait. And so whoever "they" are, which we've 

gone through a lot of classes on who "they" are, you 

guys have a good time, but hurry up 'cause we're 

running out of time. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Right. 

 MR. CARTER: And I appreciate it. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, sir. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Ma'am? 

 MS. ALECK: My name's Beatrice Aleck and I'm from 

the Wanapum* Tribe. I come to -- I get nervous 

talking when it comes to things like this. My 

mother was born here by the White Bluffs area in 

1936 and she was exposed apparently to cancer in the 

thyroid. She was diagnosed November 3rd, 1998 and 

she died January 3rd, 1999. And she's been with 

this coalition with Hanford and she was afraid to 
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 90 speak because she didn't talk very good English. 

She was a full-blooded Wanapum Indian and I'm sure a 

lot of the tri-cities people are aware of the 

Wanapum Tribe and she told me when I was -- first 

moved home here, 'cause I just recently moved home 

here in probably 1994. I grew up here as a child 

from 1957 to 1963 and then my father relocated me to 

the Yakima Reservation. But my mother, she had 

dreams about this sickness that was coming to this 

mother earth, we call mother earth, and her elders 

was trying to teach that and it was just like the 

chickenpox and stuff like that and then they found a 

cure for that and she says well, some day you're 

going to get really sick and nobody's going to cure 

you or bring you back. And the only one that's 

going to suffer is the ones that are left behind. 

And I understand now what she means. No money and 

no study and no disease is going to bring these 

people back. And I had to learn this five years ago 

-- probably seven years ago in 1996 when this 

research was starting. My mother said that I don't 

want you to work at Hanford. I don't care how much 

protection they give to you and tell you that you're 

exposed, and then a year or two later they send me a 

letter with your emblem that you may be exposed to 

asbestos. And I says well -- and I know I had a 

poor attitude back then about it, that we're all 
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 91 going to go sometimes, and I watched my mother die. 

 And I can see all these people dying. And I hope 

and pray that this coalition will, you know, get on 

its feet because you're running out of time. And 

that's all I have to share tonight on behalf of my 

mother. 

 (Applause) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. Ma'am? 

 MS. JANKEY: I'm Elizabeth Jankey. My father worked 

out in the area in the late forties into the 

fifties. He died of stomach cancer in 1958, leaving 

seven children and a wife. I was two years old at 

the time. We've had our claim in for one year and I 

don't think we're up to the dose -- dose 

recommendation yet -- or reconstruction yet. 

 But I do have a question about the petition. First 

of all, I'd like to refer to your overhead about how 

-- or will your petition be evaluated, and it says 

it will receive a full evaluation by NIOSH, the 

Board and HHS. Who is the Board? 

 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry, that was the Advisory Board on 

Radiation and Worker Health, which is this group I 

discussed earlier that's appointed by the President 

and it includes representatives of workers. It 

includes scientists and it includes physicians and 

they advise HHS on its various activities, including 

which classes to add to the Special Exposure Cohort. 
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 92 MS. JANKEY: And is this a nationwide Board? 

 MR. KATZ: So it's a national -- right, it's a 

national Board appointed by the President. 

 MS. JANKEY: Okay. And the comment that I want to 

make for the record is that we've jumped through all 

the hoops that we were supposed to jump through. 

We've sent lots of paperwork and made lots of copies 

of lots of things. It was 1958. We were babies. 

We know nothing. And if -- and I believe it is true 

that some things maybe got swept under the carpet. 

I am a little concerned that I have to file a 

petition when, in my opinion, if you cannot 

reconstruct the dose that you should pass that on -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah, uh-huh. 

 MS. JANKEY: -- and say this is one that we can't do 

by trying to get the dose information. It goes 

right here in this class. Why -- I don't understand 

why I have to fill out more paperwork to plead with 

you for this -- you know, more magic from the 

Federal government. 

 MR. KATZ: Just in terms of paperwork, there's 

really nothing to it. What you're doing is just 

giving a thumbs-up that you would like to petition 

on behalf of a class. 

 MS. JANKEY: But I think I've already said, by 

filing this paperwork, that I want the claim to go 

forward. And for the record, I'm not understanding 
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 93 why I have to put -- do anything else as far as 

affirming that -- 

 MR. KATZ: Right, and let me just explain why that's 

in there is because the law -- Congress required 

that there be a petition on behalf of a class, by a 

class, to consider a group to be added to the 

Special Exposure Cohort. So it's just a legal 

formality, but it was one established by Congress we 

have to live with. It shouldn't burden you because 

-- because in effect all you're doing is checking a 

box saying I want this petition on behalf of the 

class. 

 MS. JANKEY: And you're going to send me the paper 

that has the box on it? 

 MR. KATZ: That's correct. That's exactly right. 

We will send you the paper. Or if you do use the 

web, you can do it without even seeing a piece of 

paper, but -- either way. You're giving us a 

thumbs-up basically to go forward with that class. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. We're going to try to 

conclude shortly, so just try to keep your comments 

brief. 

 MR. BELL: Certainly. I'm Norman Bell, Jr. and I'm 

here on behalf of my father, Norman Bell, Sr., and 

my mother, his wife, who (inaudible) in 1988. We -- 

I think that I -- Jankey, I think her name was, 

asked some of the same questions I had. I sent my 
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 94 first letter on June 22, 2001, the complete packet, 

all the dose records that we had that my mother had 

given to me over the years. I recall the days when 

they picked up the urine from the front porch, the 

bottles that (inaudible) here since '44. There was 

acknowledgement that they received it and then an 

acknowledgement that it was turned over to you, and 

then I haven't heard anything since. 

 I have a couple of questions. One is has there been 

any compensation yet to anyone? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't speak on a site-specific 

basis, but there's been about $300 million awarded 

in compensation across -- for employees across the 

weapons complex. I don't know if -- 

 MR. BELL: You don't know if there's been anyone in 

the Hanford atomics works has been -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't know that number (inaudible) 

will have to give you that information. 

 MR. BELL: (Inaudible) the number, do you know if 

there's been anyone? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: (Inaudible) 

 MR. BELL: Well, okay, so we don't know for sure on 

the record whether there's been anyone at Hanford. 

Is that correct? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't give you that information. 

(Inaudible) Department of Labor's responsibility 

(inaudible). 
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 95 MR. BELL: Well, it sounds like I need to just get 

on the web and check a box. I was under the 

impression -- 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You can call us (inaudible). 

 MR. BELL: (Inaudible) the cohort since you have 

pretty complete records since 1944 to 1978, and then 

a couple of years after retirement. I don't know 

what else you need. I guess I'll just check a box. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: We'll have an interview (inaudible). 

 MR. BELL: Okay. But one other question. How -- I 

haven't heard whether (inaudible). 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You have a letter from me that says we 

received the claim. And did that letter also tell 

you what the next step in the process is, that we 

request (inaudible) beyond what you supplied in your 

claim -- from the Department of Energy. We review 

(inaudible) -- 

 MR. BELL: (Inaudible) 

 MR. ELLIOTT: -- that we needed from DOE to fill in 

(inaudible). I'm assuming that that's the stage 

your claim (inaudible). Once we get that back -- we 

wait a certain period of time. If we don't believe 

they're going to be responsive (inaudible) start 

from that point on moving your claim forward. 

 Yes, ma'am? 

 MS. MORRELL: (Inaudible) 

 MS. LAIN: (Inaudible) The others had more 
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 96 seniority. He wasn't exactly a new man. He might 

have got on about the time -- two or three years or 

so later, you know, than they did. He went to work 

in '54. And so he said to one of his friends, he 

said -- he knew that he was going to lose his job. 

Well, his friend said yes, you're going to lose your 

job if you don't study. And my husband thought that 

over. Well, he wasn't wanting to study, you know, 

at his age. What's more, that man told him you'll 

have to study. Well, to say it just before I 

forget, that man died of cancer, I think it was. 

Well, my husband got a job out there, being a 

reactor operator, and he didn't tell us he had other 

jobs to do. I never found that out until -- well, I 

guess after he died. I called one of his friends 

and he was the one that told me your husband had 

other jobs to do besides running that reactor -- 

reactor operator. He was one of the top ones. They 

had his -- great big picture of him in the paper out 

on the job, how well everybody was doing, and that 

was the first I knew about he had the other jobs is 

when the man told me he does other jobs. And there 

were other things -- 

 Oh, yes, and he had cancer of the bladder and he 

wanted to retire, and he knew that -- well, who's 

going to hire a man that had disabilities. Of 

course Congress or somebody passed that you've got 
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 97 to hire those guys and so he had to get back to 

work. He even tried to get disability. They said 

no, you can't have disability, so he had to go back 

to work. 

 Well, he wasn't supposed to get in polluted places 

and so on. He wasn't supposed to have radiation, 

but he got it. They assigned him to work and what 

they told him to do, that's what he did. I never 

knew all that. I found all that kind of stuff out 

later. Very little did he say. Right at the very 

last he didn't mind speaking up, and somebody upset 

some polluted water and the boss -- I don't know who 

he was -- just -- he chewed him out for spilling 

that water. And I don't know what my husband said, 

but anyway, he said something about he didn't do 

that and somebody behind said he did it. I guess he 

wanted to keep him from arguing. My husband didn't 

mind speaking out being that he was going to retire 

pretty quick. 

 And they still had him working after he didn't 

study. He was supposed to study every two years to 

keep your job at what he was doing, and he said 

well, I didn't take the test. I don't care, they 

told him, you get back to work. He was going to 

visit with everybody being as he was retiring in 

just a couple of days, so he got to -- he got to 

work some more. He didn't mind, I don't think. 
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 98 And he didn't even attend his own retirement party. 

 He planned the party and then he didn't stay. 

 Well, I guess I've told it all except, like I said, 

I didn't know anything about what he was doing until 

after he retired, but -- in '82. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. Appreciate those comments. 

 We recognize that there's been a culture here of 

not (inaudible). 

 MS. LAIN: He had the strength and energy and all 

that to work overtime and all that after his cancer 

operation the first time. He had cancer the second 

time, too, but he didn't get the second cancer until 

-- well, he didn't know about it yet -- '96 or 

somewhere there. He died in '97. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you, ma'am. 

 MS. LAIN: And it was -- well, I don't know what it 

was. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Yes, sir? 

 MR. CALLAWAY: My name is Tim Callaway. I'm a 

second generation Hanford worker, and I've been 

pretty well blessed. I don't have any bad stories 

to tell right now, thank God. I do have a couple of 

concerns, though, that I'd like to testify in front 

of the -- in front of you guys. And I've read where 

the preamble to the rule states that if NIOSH can 

successfully reconstruct radiation dose -- doses of 

members of the class under the requirements of 42 
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 99 CFR part 82, then the dose of the class members can 

be estimated with sufficient accuracy for the 

Department of Labor to adjudicate claims. Okay? 

 I have a concern with this and I can -- what I can 

do is I can testify to one example that I've been 

through out there. I didn't -- I forgot to tell you 

that I've been out there since about 1988. I worked 

for the -- at first for Battelle, worked for the 

National Toxicology Program for a couple of years 

and then I moved on to work for Westinghouse with 

the Department of Energy as a nuclear chemical 

operator for -- since '90 till present. 

 My testimony has to do with an experience that -- of 

inaccurate dose reconstruction. Pretty much since 

I've worked out there I've worked around transuranic 

waste, mostly in barrels. When I -- like I say, I 

started there in '90 and I worked with waste and 

there was one particular project around the time 

periods of 1994 through 1995 where I had to spend a 

lot of time with some transuranic waste and I was in 

close proximity to this waste for long periods of 

time, I would say, for that -- you know, for that 

period of a year. 

 At the time I only wore beta/gamma external 

dosimetry. Okay? And what happened was that when I 

got my dosimetry readings back, my readings were 

unusually high. Okay? So our organization at the 
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 100 time did a little investigation and they came back 

with -- what they told me was that I was getting 

unusually high readings, according to the rest of my 

class. I'm using my -- in my words right now, my 

class being my organization that I worked with. 

Okay? 

 Now they did a little investigation and they decided 

that since I was only wearing beta/gamma dosimetry, 

that what I should have been wearing -- kind of like 

with the PFP operators wear -- I should have been 

wearing -- I should have been wearing a combination 

dosimetry, a neutron/beta/gamma PNAD -- personal 

nuclear accident dosimetry, although it probably 

wasn't that important. But still, you know, I 

should have been wearing that. So after that 

incident I started wearing -- this is not very far 

back in the future, too, you've got to recollect. 

After that I started wearing the whole PNAD. And so 

this is just one example of how I have some -- I'm 

skeptical of dose reconstruction. 

 Now one more -- one more thing and I'll -- I know 

you -- we're all ready to go home. My experience 

with the National Toxicology Program also has shown 

me that there's -- as we all know that -- you know, 

smoking, if we all -- and a lot of us probably have 

smoked in this room -- that if you smoke and you're 

exposed to radiation, it increases your risk of 
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 101 cancer. Likewise, if you're exposed to chemicals 

and you're exposed to radiation, it increases your -

- it probably increases your chance of cancer. My 

experience with the National Toxicology Program has 

been that hey, the combination effects of toxic 

chemicals and radiation, it really intensifies the -

- or increases your chance of chemical exposure. 

 I've heard you briefly touch on the subject, but I 

do have some major concerns that this is a new 

program in the proposed legislation, but this is not 

being addressed. I guess that's about it. Thank 

you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Thank you. And yes, sir? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, I don't know where to start. I 

have beryllium, asbestos, cancer, and I've been 

insulted and assaulted by all those who are supposed 

to be representing me. I also have a broken back. 

Now I have a very high pain threshold. I can stand 

a hell of a lot of pain. But I am also proactive 

and I try to mitigate the problem with the pain as 

much as I can. I found that when the beryllium is 

burning through your skin, you can take colostrum* 

and knock the pain down and eventually it will close 

up the lesions. I only have one little spot there 

right now. Normally this whole back of my hand here 

would be a good example. 

 Because I'm taking colostrum to kill the pain and 
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 102 I've only got one positive beryllium test -- they go 

for the test that shows that you have had a reaction 

to it, and it's very obscure and it's a dumb test -- 

I could peel the skin off my hand right here and 

peel out the membrane that's caused by the body 

covering the beryllium and have that tested, I'm 

sure -- somebody should be able to tell, put it in a 

-- in something that burns it and tells you what it 

is. I think that -- what do they call them, mass 

spectrometer, something like that? 

 But the problem is, I don't like the pain and I have 

taken the proactive -- 'cause I'm -- I couldn't wait 

around for the government to come around and give me 

help. You know how -- they don't ever give anybody 

any help anyhow, I know that, but I have been 

proactive and I'm being punished for it. I have all 

these things in my body. And I -- I got a 

wheelbarrow full of mail from -- I'm dealing with 

ten different groups and they're threatening me. 

Every time I turn around they're saying well, you 

waited too long or this or that or the other. 

They're not trying to help. You getting this? Now 

what's your answer here? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't answer your question, sir. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: No, you can't. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You're talking about beryllium and I'm 

not here to discuss beryllium tonight. 
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 103 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, I've got -- I've got it all. 

I've got cancer. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Then you should file a claim. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, nobody's told me I could file a 

claim till tonight. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, you have a resource center here 

in town. I think you should visit that resource 

center. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: But the people I'm dealing with -- I 

mean they don't want to give anybody any help. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I can't help you anything other than 

that, other than direct you to the resource center. 

 They can help assist you in filing your claim. 

Okay? 

 We're going to conclude over here with this 

gentleman and then we're going to quit for the 

night. Yes, sir? 

 MR. COLEMAN: Good evening. My name is Randy 

Coleman, and I didn't realize how important it was 

to come down here until I had to help a couple of 

people fill out the paperwork for this. I'd like to 

make a point that I've heard some discussion earlier 

in the week from one individual said well, you know, 

that really doesn't affect me because I worked at 

Paducah so I don't have to go through what you folks 

go through. It's a shame that all cohort records 

are not being treated the same. 
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 104 With regard to your dose reconstruction, you have a 

lot of confidence in how that's going to go and you 

-- you know in your mind it's going to work great. 

Well, I've worked at Hanford since 1982 and I'm 

confident that you could not accurately reconstruct 

my dose. I think it was probably about '83 me and 

another electrician were working on a project and 

later that week they discovered that there was a 

piece of equipment had an extremely high dose. They 

pulled our dosimeters and they said no, it's okay. 

 Well, it's a coincidence that both of us during the 

summertime were the only two on the crew that 

experienced flu-like symptoms for about seven to ten 

days. You know, we didn't feel very good about 

that. 

 Also it was common to work in an area that had 

equipment that had very high doses, a place called 

Amsel*. Later on, in the late eighties, I found out 

administrative (inaudible) confident in your dose 

reconstruction, those things will not be brought up, 

and I'm sure that other people are probably in the 

same situation. 

 So when I listen to what you describe about dose 

reconstruction, you're saying we can look where you 

were at, we can see where you were at, see what type 

of radiation was there. We can also take a look at 

your work group and come up with some kind of 
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 105 estimate and lack -- if we have a lack of records, 

some kind of estimate as to what your dose is. 

Well, that sounds like an average to me. 

 So that would kind of be like if the two of you were 

to order a steak dinner medium well and one showed 

up rare and one showed up burnt, you say hey, this 

is not right. You send them back to the cook and 

the cook brings them back, says you know, we -- we 

reconstructed how we cooked them and that's on the 

average. You're going to have to take these two 

steaks. So that's -- I don't have the same 

confidence with your reconstruction. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I do. You'll just have to hold us 

accountable and watch -- watch our work. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Hold it. I want to answer your 

question. I was the site and facility at large 

coordinating chair. I am in the Special Exposure 

Cohorts, every one of them, because I was around all 

these workers and walked around with them while they 

-- while they did their work. Okay? 'Cause you 

said something while I was sitting down about that 

that was just a maintenance group that you took the 

survey on or something, whatever you said. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: You mentioned so many different things 

in your account there, can you -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: Then it's up to you to listen. Okay. 

 Well, you know what? This is sitting on your 
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 106 boss's -- your secretary's desk (inaudible). 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, thank you. 

 UNIDENTIFIED: (Inaudible) so you can sit down. 

Right? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Fine. Well, I appreciate everybody's 

patience and perseverance to sit through this all 

night long, and we hope we've been somewhat 

informative and helpful to you. Please, if you have 

any questions you didn't feel got answered tonight 

or you want to direct questions to us, you can give 

us a call, you can go on line if you do have that 

ability. We have a 1-800 number. You don't have to 

expend your money. We'll call you back. Just let 

us know through the 1-800 number that you need to 

talk to us. 

 Thank you for your time. 

 (Meeting concluded at 9:45 p.m.) 
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 107 C E R T I F I C A T E

STATE OF GEORGIA :

 :

COUNTY OF FULTON :

 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court Reporter, 

do hereby certify that I reported the above and 

foregoing on the 7th day of August, 2002; and it is 

a true and accurate transcript of the proceedings 

captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin nor counsel 

to any of the parties herein, nor have any interest 

in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 15th day 

of August, 2002. 

 

 

___________________________ 

 STEVEN RAY GREEN, 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102