Agenda Work Group
Meeting Minutes
August 20, 2001
Attendance: ORRHES Members attending:
William Pardue (Work Group Chair), Alfred Brooks, Kowetha
Davidson, Robert Eklund, Karen Galloway, David Johnson,
Susan Kaplan, James Lewis, Barbara Sonnenburg (conference
phone)
Public Members attending:
Gordon Blaylock, Linda Gass, Margaret Herring, Timothy
Joseph, Bob Peele, Suzanne Baktash
Press attending:
Paul Parson
ATSDR staff attending:
Michael Grayson, Bill Murray, Jack Hanley (conference
phone)
The meeting assembled at 5:30 pm and was called to order.
Agenda: Pardue presented two agenda items.
Item #1. Issues that need to be resolved in regard to
iodine-131. Lewis and Brooks have developed a system for
sorting out these issues and organizing them so that they
can be addressed in a defensible manner. Similar techniques
will be used for the other Contaminants of Concern (COCs)
under review.
Item #2. Discussion of Lucy Peipin's review of the "Mangano" Report.
Peipin will present on either August 28 or 30. There is
a need to decide how this discussion will be conducted.
The Work Group is planning to deliver a report on the Mangano
paper to the full Subcommittee.
Eklund proposes an additional agenda item.
Item #3. Discuss "Statements of Clarification" being entered
into the minutes.
Pardue proposed that Item #3 be expanded to include the
whole process of taking minutes. At a previous meeting,
there was uncertainty among members of the Work Group about
how and why minutes are taken and approved.
Issue #1: Lewis presented an organizational scheme (developed with
Brooks) whereby PHAWG will first collate technical information
about each COC near the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) and
then will summarize this information for use by the public
(Attachment I). Each COC will be considered separately.
It was proposed that information dealing with each COC
be divided into the following categories:
• A generic toxicology profile
• Site-specific source data
• Off-site exposure scenarios
• Off-site estimated concentrations
• Off-site human exposure estimates, and
• State and local government health data (e.g., cancer registries).
There was discussion of how to respond to other comments
and concerns that the public sends to ORRHES.
It was moved that the document presented by Lewis be adopted
as a working document. All voting members but Gass voted
in favor.
Members of the Work Group identified issues that they
want to address at a later date:
• Combining I-131 doses to thyroid from Nevada
Test Site (NTS) with those from releases at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory [ORNL] (X-10). Later, this issue
was expanded to include doses from weapons testing at
the Marshall Islands, Chernobyl, etc.
• Should the central value of the dose value be used in the public health
assessment (PHA)? This was later expanded to include which central value would
be used.
• Are children more sensitive to I-131? What model will be used? Standard
child? Standard man (70 kg)?
• Propagation of errors using Monte Carlo techniques.
• Range of limits on the uncertainty vs. central values.
• Other sources of I-131 at X-10, other sources at the Oak Ridge Reservation
(ORR).
• Use of thyroid dose vs. total body dose from I-131.
• Have all releases been estimated to the best of ability and included in
the Oak Ridge Dose Reconstruction (ORDR)?
• Understanding what uncertainty means and how it affects ORDR conclusions.
• Non-cancer thyroid effects, hypothyroidism, non-malignant nodules.
• Conservative efforts in source term.
• Is this an issue for workers at ORR, or just the public?
The Work Group agreed that it will prioritize these issues
and assign someone to report on the top priority issues,
subsequent to the September ORRHES meeting (at which a
presentation will be given on I-131).
Issue #2:
Hanley reported that Peipins is offering to present to
the Work Group a review of the Mangano Report on the 28th
or 30th of August. PHAWG will conduct a review under her
guidance. She plans to mail her review worksheet to the
Work Group in advance. Following this meeting, Peipin will
come to the next subcommittee meeting. Everyone will go
over the findings of the PHAWG regarding the Mangano Report.
Work Group members should read the review and fill out
a review evaluation form before going to Peipin's presentation.
The group decided on August 28 as a date for this meeting.
The Work Group considered the idea of notifying the entire
Subcommittee, or even the general public, of Peipin's upcoming
presentation, and decided to give it wide publicity. The
Communications and Outreach Work Group will prepare a press
release for the meeting. The meeting date was set for Tuesday,
August 28, 2001, at 5:30 p.m.
Issue #3:
The Work Group discussed the procedures for taking minutes
at meetings. What are they for? How can they be corrected?
How should they be maintained? Pardue distributed a draft
document describing a possible minute-taking process for
the Work Group. The purpose of minutes is to provide an
accurate historical record of the meeting that will last
longer than the individual members of the group. The question
arose of whether or not people should be allowed to correct
statements made in error by appending "statements of clarification" to
existing minutes that have already been approved. This
issue is in specific reference to the wishes of Owen Hoffman
to clarify a statement which he was recorded as making
in a previous meeting. There was debate about whether or
not speakers have an absolute right to clarify a statement
which has been subject to question or whether or not speakers
must receive a positive vote from the Work Group to add
new statements to the Work Group's minutes.
A motion was proposed that:
If an issue arises about a statement made in a meeting,
the speaker in question can make a statement of clarification
at a subsequent meeting. If the speaker cannot be at
the next meeting, he or she can submit a statement of
clarification to the chair of the Work Group. This will
be read into the minutes of the current meeting. Minutes
will not be changed, they can only have a new statement
of clarification appended to them.
Votes in favor of this motion were unanimous among voting
members. A revised writeup of the minute-taking process,
reflecting this change, is attached (Attachment II).
A motion was proposed that:
The previous motion be made retroactive to the meeting
of August 6 so that Owen Hoffman could submit a statement
of clarification in regard to his previous remarks.
Votes in favor of this motion were unanimous among voting
members.
At 9:15pm, the meeting adjourned.
Attachment I
OAK RIDGE RESERVATION HEALTH
EFFECTS SUBCOMMITTEE (ORRHES)
Public Health Assessment Work Group (PHAWG)
Proposed Procedure for Reviewing Issues/Concerns Related to the
Public Health Assessment (PHA) for Each Contaminant of Concern (COC)
at the Oak Ridge Reservation
I. Compiling Contaminant Files
A. Collect, organize, and assemble all of the pertinent
technical health information supplied by the Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and other
individuals, groups, and sources for each contaminant
of concern (COC). The proposed categories for the files
are:
1.) Generic toxicological profile for each COC.
2.) Site-specific source data.
3.) Off-site exposure pathways.
4.) Off-site measured or estimated concentrations.
5.) Off-site human exposure estimates or calculations.
6.) State and local government health data (e.g., cancer registry).
B. Once the file is assembled for each COC, a Public
Health Assessment Work Group (PHAWG) team will be assigned
the task to review and summarize the file. The primary
goal of the team is to generate a lay summary of the
findings identified in the technical health information
file for each COC.
C. When the file and summaries are completed, the PHAWG
will begin its review. All information will be evaluated
for technical merit before it is incorporated into the
technical health information file. All items that are
not deemed to be appropriate for the technical health
information file will be transmitted to ATSDR or ORRHES
for disposition.
II. Case History File
A. The Needs Assessment Work Group (NAWG) is responsible
for identifying, compiling, and categorizing all of the
public health issues and concerns. The concerns file
is not limited to off-site issues because it is difficult
to separate on-site and off-site issues.
III. Categorization of Concerns
A. The NAWG categorizes all of the concerns/issues based
on the following:
- Relationship to the specific contaminant under investigation.
- The generic implication of the concern to the specific
concern under review.
- Documented public health concerns from ATSDR and
the Communications and Outreach Work Group and the
NAWG.
- Identification of concerns that should be directed
to other health agencies for review.
B. The NAWG Summarizes the concerns into a specific
issue list for evaluation and review by the PHAWG to
determine what recommendations are required.
IV. Final Report and Recommendations
Attachment II
Process for Developing
PHAWG Minutes
Background: Quality minutes of meetings
are absolutely critical to the operation of any organization.
In the case of the PHAWG of the ORRHES, this is especially
true. The Work Group deals with complex technical issues,
many of which have a high emotional content and are of
interest to a widely diverse and geographically scattered
audience. Further, the results of the PHAWG deliberations
will result in a major portion of the ORRHES recommendation
to ATSDR. Participation in the PHAWG will likely vary over
a time frame that may be measured in years, and attendance
may not be uniform by the ORRHES members and members of
the public. Finally, these minutes must be maintained with
a high degree of integrity to permit anyone who has an
interest in the meetings to satisfy that need.
Purpose: It is the purpose
of this document to define the PHAWG policy on minutes
of their meetings.
Details: Minutes must
have the following characteristics:
- actual account of what happened
- sufficient detail to allow understanding of the proceedings
- action items, major conclusions, and recommendations
developed shall be recorded verbatim and read back by
the note-taker prior to voting
- include the vote count (by individual) on each vote
taken
- be backed up by some electronic recording (audio or
visual) which will be a permanent part of the PHAWG files,
as will be approved copies of the minutes
- be approved by the PHAWG membership
Process: The minutes
will be prepared by a party who is not an ATSDR staff member
and who will be present at the meeting. All notes, etc.
used in the preparation of the minutes will be supplied
to ATSDR for the record, along with the electronic record.
Draft minutes will be reviewed by the PHAWG chairperson
and supplied to the PHAWG distribution list via e-mail
one week in advance of the next meeting for review.
Approval: At the following
meeting, the chair will entertain a motion for approval
of the draft minutes. Discussion of any proposed changes
will be held. Proposed changes can be made by any member
of the PHAWG, including members of the public, who were
present at the meeting for which the minutes were taken.
Comments may be submitted in writing to the PHAWG distribution
list prior to the meeting or raised orally at the meeting
during the discussion of the minutes. After reasonable
discussion, the chair will call the questions and the minutes
will be approved as written, or as modified.
If an issue arises about a statement made at a meeting,
the speaker in question can make a statement of clarification
at a subsequent meeting. If the speaker cannot be at the
next meeting, he or she can submit a statement of clarification
to the Chair of the Work Group. This will be read into
an addendum to the minutes. Minutes will not be changed.
They can only have a new statement of clarification appended
to them.
If questions of fact arise, the minute taker will be instructed
to check the accuracy of the minutes against the electronic
record and report such at the next meeting. Action on approval
of the minutes will be postponed until that report is received. |