Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health: Meeting

In accordance with section 10(a)(2) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announces the following committee meeting.

Name: Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH).

Times and Dates: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., October 15, 2002; 8 a.m.-5 p.m., October 16, 2002.

Place: Inn at Loretto, 211 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, telephone 505/988-5531, fax 505/984-7988.

Status: Open to the public, limited only by the space available. The meeting room accommodates approximately 65 people.

Background: The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (“the Board”) was established under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 to advise the President, through the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), on a variety of policy and technical functions required to implement and effectively manage the new compensation program. Key functions of the Board include providing advice on the development of probability of causation guidelines which have been promulgated by HHS, advice on methods of dose reconstruction which have also been promulgated as an interim final rule, evaluation of the validity and quality of dose reconstructions conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for qualified cancer claimants, and advice on the addition of classes of workers to the Special Exposure Cohort.

In December 2000, the President delegated responsibility for funding, staffing, and operating the Board to HHS, which subsequently delegated this authority to CDC. NIOSH implements this responsibility for CDC. The charter was signed on August 3, 2001, and in November 2001, the President completed the appointment of an initial roster of 10 Board members. In April 2002 and August 2002, the President appointed additional members to ensure more balanced representation on the Board. The initial tasks of the Board are to review and provide advice on the proposed and interim rules of HHS.

Purpose: This board is charged with (a) providing advice to the Secretary, HHS, on the development of guidelines under Executive Order 13179; (b) providing advice to the Secretary, HHS, on the scientific validity and quality of dose reconstruction efforts performed for this Program; and (c) upon request by the Secretary, HHS, advising the Secretary on whether there is a class of employees at any Department of Energy facility who were exposed to radiation but for whom it is not feasible to estimate their radiation dose, and on whether there is reasonable likelihood that such radiation doses may have endangered the health of members of this class.

Matters To Be Discussed: Agenda for this meeting will focus on dose reconstruction contract award information, dose reconstruction examples, site profile development, residual contamination study, Board member interaction with claimants, and the dose reconstruction workgroup report.

Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate.

Contact Person for More Information: Larry Elliott, Executive Secretary, ABRWH, NIOSH, CDC, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226, telephone 513/841-4498, fax 513/458-7125.

The Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, has been delegated the authority to sign Federal Register notices pertaining to announcements of meetings and other committee management activities for both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.