Agenda Work Group
Meeting Minutes
January 17, 2002

ORRHES members:

Barbara Sonnenburg, Chair; Kowetha Davidson, Chair, ORRHES (phone); Jeff Hill; Susan Kaplan (phone); James Lewis

Public members:

Linda Gass (phone)

ATSDR staff:

La Freta Dalton (phone); Jack Hanley (phone); Bill Murray

The meeting was called to order by the Chair, Barbara Sonnenburg, at 4:00 PM.

The minutes of the Agenda Work Group (AWG) meeting on November 6, 2001 were reviewed by the Chair. A motion to adopt the minutes as amended was made and seconded. The motion passed with one abstention. Linda Gass said she would not vote on the minutes since she had not read them.

Barbara Sonnenburg said that the minutes of the January 3, 2002, meeting were not completed yet.

Barbara Sonnenburg said the agenda for the February 11, 2002, ORRHES meeting is the first item of business.

The AWG wanted to schedule a discussion on the DOE worker medical and exposure surveillance program. Bill Murray called his contact at DOE and Dr. Steve Markowitz at Queens College about making a presentation to ORRHES. They will not be able to make a commitment until next week. Because the February 11 meeting is only 3 ½ weeks from now, it is not practical to schedule their talks until the March 26 meeting.

James Lewis thinks their activities need to be reviewed to identify issues and questions for the presenters to address so they can determine what the ORRHES wants to hear from them.

Kowetha Davidson said we should have an overview of all the surveillance studies.

James Lewis said he had a videotape that the Paper, Allied Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) union (a collaborator with Queens College) has developed to describe their Worker Health Protection Program (WHPP) for medical surveillance on their members.

Jack Hanley mentioned that there were two projects - the PACE WHPP and one being done for construction workers by the University of Cincinnati. Oak Ridge associated Universities (ORAU) is also doing surveillance on beryllium-exposed workers at several DOE sites. He suggested that they come and present any findings of their work and that DOE present the background information on the program. Although not related to the public health assessment (PHA), it would inform ORRHES members about this issue. The members should develop a list of concerns and questions similar to what they did for the talk by Dr. Jackson of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

James Lewis suggested the talks be spaced out over two meetings.

Barbara Sonnenburg disagreed and wants to have all speakers together.

Barbara Sonnenburg also inquired about the speaker from the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) to discuss their cancer registry.

Jack Hanley has not yet completed this task.

Barbara Sonnenburg asked whether the TDH talk would be in March and where on the agenda is there a slot for follow up with HRSA.

La Freta Dalton said the HRSA would be covered under correspondence.

Kowetha Davidson had requested Dr. Jackson to provide follow up on the issues raised in her thank you letter to him.

La Freta Dalton returned to the agenda and stated that she had given Jerry Pereira a 30-min slot. The PHA discussion by Paul Charp and Karl Markiewicz were separated and Charp will also give a talk on radiation (I-131) screening.

James Lewis asked if the issues for Dr. Jackson were captured in the Action Items and recommendations.

La Freta Dalton said they were not and that Bill Carter will review both the minutes and the videotape to identify them and will report to ORRHES at the February meeting.

Barbara Sonnenburg read over the agenda since some of the people on the phone did not have a copy of the latest draft. She covered all the topics including radiation screening.

Jeff Hill asked what radiation screening was.

Jack Hanley replied that it applied to I-131.

There was a motion made and seconded to adopt the agenda. The motion passed unanimously. There was no response from Linda Gass. (Bill Murray later learned that her phone had gone dead.)

The discussion turned to future topics for the agenda.

Barbara Sonnenburg remarked that the Local Oversight Committee Citizens Advisory panel (LOC-CAP) had reviewed a document entitled “Agenda for HHS Public Health Activities (for Fiscal Years 2001-2006) at U.S. Department of Energy Sites” (copies have already been sent to all ORRHES members) at ATSDR’s request. The LOC-CAP sent a response to ATSDR regarding activities at the ORR site. She would like a representative of the LOC-CAP present their comments to ORRHES.

Kowetha Davidson said the AWG should review and update the Program of Work the AWG had developed for activities.

James Lewis remarked that the work group needs to change its process for setting the agenda because the time between meetings has been reduced to 6 weeks and the meeting is only one day. A time line and tracking document is needed.

Jeff Hill suggested that they have a rough draft for the March 26 meeting and can discuss it at the February 11 meeting.

The date for the next meeting was not set.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM.