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Declassified record · U.S. Department of Energy

Osteoporosis Seminar Meeting Minutes (Hre 985) (Encl: Newspaper Articles, Memos, Reports)

Dated
Oct 30, 1986
Document type
Conference
Length
56 pages
Open the original scanArchive record OSTI ID 16109546 · public domain

Document text

Machine-read from the scan, so expect some errors. Lines that couldn’t be read are left out.

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iie :lad a nuate; cf requests { or vi dect s pos of the5eaina ? . How do k a 0 d nuck.er o ioe op ' ie requested arj d it iona it aik s ijr s rr in ars.Should as BEST COPY AVAILABLE coLLE

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Oak Ridge Nafional Laboratory Westinghouse Hanford Co. Organization Comnittee Distribution List West inghouse Hanford Co. Westinghouse Hanford Co. Hanford Environmental Health Internal Eedicine Associates of University of Washington School of Hedicine Westinghouse Hanford Co. Pacific Northwest Laboratories Westinghouse Hanford Co. U.S. Department of Energy Westinghouse Hanford Co. Westinghouse Hanford Co. West inghouse Hanford Co. Battelle Pacific Northwest

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temperature of a steam I?ose before cleaning out a core 3 at Gas Works Park. The Geological Survey began drillmtnatcon caused by residues from the gas plant that o p closed now but is expected to reopen by Nov 10 before the vote- who will beBy Rlta Wibbrd P-l R e w w -ked to urst their ballots on UI initiative that asks if voters want state officials to continue to fight selection of the Eastern Washington nuclear reservetion as a site In the of a barrage of bad publicity about the Hdord Nuclear br v ation, the US. & sion of osteoporosis. a bone-thnning disease afflicting about 20 million a gram, about the weight S5.OOO wonh. is enough to power That's the good news about Here's the bad news: In went weeks, a congresqiona1 inwstigation has revealed that about lbo people were the subjects of six radiation experiments b e tween 1951 and 1973 at Hanford. or in cooperation with Hanford scientisb. Documents re!eased in March revealed masive releases of radiation from Hanford in the late Most recently. evidence was made public that the Energy Department selected Hanford BS one of the top contenders for storage of the nation's high level nuclear waste despite indications that the site would be unsale. Next week, Hd or d will go vanced bon&&nning device that we rence. Sponsors ot the conference. which drew about 700 people & the Seattle Center and featured several p rent at ions of a 15minute promotional film about Hariford, included the Department of Enerp and depiu-rnent contractom Battelle Pacific Sot,hwest Laboratories, the Hanford Enbironmental Health Foundation and \vestinghouse Hanford Co. Other listed sponsors did not contebute money and appeared to have a minimal role. The IVashington State Medical Association included an item a!wl;: the conference in i t j OctoThe University of Washington School of Medicine lent a List of "Our role in s nsoring this cians could earn continuing education credit by attending the conThe Washington State Governor's Council on Health, Physical Fit nes and Sports. a new pup which has had one official meetSee KANFORD, Page 02

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tures: High 95 a t Yuma, &i~;low n rusu ir ciobav .................... Strait of Juan de Fuca EaYterly winds 5 to 15 knots today, increasing to 10 to 20 knots tonight. Areas of night and moming fog with afternoon cleving Southerly winds 5 to 15 knots tbJ0Ug.h tnnight. Partly cloudy today and tonight after ape(u of UOY Z Yor. 9. Yer 14. Mer. 74 Seattle tides today Aberdeen tides today Seattle tides tomorrow Aberdeen tides tomorrow .,--Brown, who is coordinator of -''fin& one of the Department of Energy's biggest contractors, Mid 1 stein, an employee of the Hanfoni . nuclear mdiation and Hanfod ---- had no effect on the cwncil'e Rep. Sid Morrison. a Republican congressman whose district includes Hanford and who ir a longtime ally of nuclear energy, delivered the keynote address at He said alterward that the conference helped point out the positive side of nuclear energy but was not dajgned ae a propaganda. effort to promote good news about "We're going through a lot of "But this conference is not to Morrison said, however, that he is "delighted that it comes at a time when a lot of people am The potential to obtain gad* hum fm n the Hanford Fast Flux Test Reactor illustrate that the Word resemation is only putially directed at production of plutonium for defense purpclses, Wlyn Druby, an employee of Wdnghouse Hanford involved in public relations for the conference. said the conferena wan put together hurriedly, beginning in July. But the haste was not because of Hanford'o resent bad pres, she said. "Hanford is big. it can take *-I- . marily to alert the public nnd.C m-Trlple Choic.: Saturday night's winning number in the Was .. The winning numbers in the Washington State Lotto ga - .-'- the week ending e t . 25 were 2. 3.4. 18, 22. 44. One person ...- ...: all six numbers. T i s week's jackpot will be about $1 million. conference w a d have come up State Lottery was 244.

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OSTEOPOROS[S- BONE THINNING DISEASE A SEMINAR ON PREVENTION, EARLY DETECTION AND MEDICAL TREATMENT u s Demammlt of € new Letters to the Editor Please print the attached statement in your "Letters to the Editor" section o f your newspaper.

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P - I reporting on medlcal seminar distorted and untrue. The article entitled, 'A Hanford - linked me dlc al meeting raises suspicions,' appearing Inthe October 28, 1986 edition of the Seattle Post - Intelligencer contained a large number o f erroneous and misleading statements about the intent and content of the free public seminar on Osteoporsis. The seminar which occurred a t the Seattle Center on October 27, 1986 was primarily about the latest advances i n detection, treatement, and prevention of this critical bone-thinning disease. The timing of the seminar had absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming elections and ballot issues on November 4. The opinions and comments ofthe over 700 attendees and 1 7 member organization comnittee were dither ignored or taken out of context by the reporter of the story. The focus ofthe article came from 'suspicions' of a single non-participant. . I would strongly urge that that the true story of what really happened a t this very important seminar be made available to your readers. Os teopor os is Seminar

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Assistant Hanaging Editor Hanf ord-L i nked Hedi cal Hee t in g Ra is esS us p ic id ns, . I was quite dismayed to realize that Ms. Rita Hibbard takes her REPORTER a s .one employed by a newspaper to gather and write news" and NEWS i s defined as "material reported in a newspaper", The only items that Hs. Hibbard omitted i n her write-up of the October 27, 1986 Osteoporosis Seminar inthe Rainier Room af: the Seattle Center were the facts presented atthe meeting. In her article entitled "A Hanford Linked Hedical Meeting Raises Suspicion", she completely ignores the genuine concern that at - risk individuals (thin, white females) showed regarding this very real disease. About 700 people, all who had pre - registered by phone o r mail, . measure, of elderly at - risk individuals. They asked many specific and personal questions that were answered by the speakers who were The conference featured eight speakers. The topics of the first speakers were planned t o be ~ eners li n nature and were designed t o provide information suited more for the non-technical portion of the audience. The topics included prevention,detection and treatrn2nt o f osteoporosis. One-third ofthe scheduled time for each presentation was set aside for questions. Hicrophones \ JCI - ~ setup in the aisles so that everyone could hear both the questions and the answers. tlidway through t h e conference, the speakers presented jnform3tion of a more technical nature that was directed primarily to physicians and technicians.The topics covered the princip a i osteoporosis machines and techniques being used for detection and treatment. One of the four- speakers described details in the use o f dual photon absorptiom2try -- t h e technique which used €id153 which is an isotope being produced at the FF T F. ' This remark brings up one of the principal errors made i n your article and pertains to the staten ent that "gadolinium i s not yet produced a t generated over 1000 curies of Gd153. medcon Nuclear Society. Richlorid Section Honford Envlronmental Hsalth Foundonon Untverslty d Woshinglon Schd of Mediclne

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A nearby snatl room (the Shau Room) was setup to allosw printed li kr a tut - e3rd information on osteoporosis to be available to medical personnel and tothe public. Two weeks before the sym?osium, i t was decided by Dr. R. E.Sch enter, symposium general chairman, toshw an unedited VCR tape of a previous presentittion on osteoporosis mainly containing the fine work by Dr. Chestnut (University This tape was t o be presented at the Seattle Center prima r fly in the expectation that there would be en overflow audience inthe Rainier Room. Registration for the symposium was stopped the week before due tothe very high Interest and the limited capacity of the Seattle Center seating. [The Rainier Room is the largest room that the Seattle Center has.] Therefore, peopie \qho could not finds eating at the seminar could atleast be exposed t o some ve1-y relevant information on osteoporosis. The week of October 20, 1986, I called the audio-video company to rent the VCR-TV unit used for the day of the seminar, MS. Hibbard's statement that the conference " featured several presentations of a 15minute promotional film about Hanford" i s just a blatant lie. The symposium features were the presentations which were all given inthe Rainier Room. If MS, H-ibSardhad attended all of these sessions she might have- learned something that would be of interest to the P-I readers -- something with which a reporter should The symposium was on os teo poi z s is -- a very real disease. ' I t was not ab&t Hanford. I t was only. marginally on dual-photon absorptiometry - 0a detection device that uses GdlS3. The reporter appears t o be trying to find.a smoking gun 'under every page o f every book on every subject.in any way related to Hanford. I f a ' smoking gun cannot be found, then the "educator" Dr. Tauben, who \vas reported as not attending the symposium, can be quoted to hint that something Nearly ten percent of Ms. Hibbard's article was taken up in trying top lar down statement that "other listed sponsors did not contribute money In fact, the first of the other sponsors, the American Nuclear Society - Richland Chapter, contributed $500.00. I f Ms. Hibbard had taken the time t o pick up one of hundreds of copies of the mzeting schedule and lcok at the list Of names of the symposium cornnittee, she could figure out some of the news about the syrnposjun sponsors.A principal reason that the University of Washington School of Redi cine is i! sponsor is that Dr. Charles H. Chestnut -- a committee member and princip a ? .speaker -- felt that the University of Washington should be a sponsor and he made i t happen. Dr. Brice Br cite nste in who proposed that the Washington State Governor's Council on Health, Physical rit n css and Sports be a sponsor i s the Symposium Program Chairmn. He certainly is an employee, and is in fact. t.hC while few things are done in a leisurely pace, even a t Hanford, it would appear that t;;e statement that the .conference was put together hurriedly, beginning i n July " was possibly taken out o f context. I f Ms. Hibbard had taken the tirne'to check, she would find a letter dated June 13, 19136 (License 121,451) from. the Seattle Center regarding the room rental Licensing Agreement for the Osteopwnsjs Symposium. This letter was written before Harilyn Druby joined the symposium committee. The start of the con it tee activities predates this letter by more

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Scientist at Uestinghouse Hanford Company, who isthe symposium general chairman', He has personal interest in both the generation o f 64153 atthe FFTF and inthe detection and treatment of osteoporosis. He calculated that the epi-thermal neutron spectra of the FFTF isa near optimum facility for efficiently producing Gd153 compared with thermal neutron reactors. He also is taking medication that decreases the amount o f calcium inhis body thereby making him ' a t - risk " for biggest problem was getting an available date for the Rainw ~ oom. As I recaii, the Rainier Room was available only about five or six days i n October and none near the end of September. We couldn. ' t start earlier since we needed enough time to organize the committee, get approval for the seminar, select general topics, get a list of potential authors,get acceptance froin the authors,advert ize the symposfum, 0 . We didn ' t want t o be any later due tothe problem of poor weather later in the year. Believe i t or not,the timing Of the symposium relative to any other date,election or otherwise, was never discussed. Sometimes there really isn ' t a smoking gun. why didn ' tHs. Wbbard ask any cjf the symposium committee members-about why the meeting was being put on? Any one of us could have helped answer this or other questions or directed her t o nr. Schenter. Raybe Hs. Hibbard didn ' t listen to the answer that Hs. Oruby provided? Sometimes it is possible to find out that preconceived notions are not correct. A news reporter might want t o try presenting factual information instead of One's own opinions or the opinions of those who are ignorant of the fact shut can provide a desired " suspicious " srnoking gun innuendo. I'm sure that the approach that was used by Ns. Hubbard t o " report tt the Osteoporosis Symposium was intended t o help sell newspapers. 140idever, i t is tlie blatant disregard for the facts that is making the newspaper a very difficult source for finding factual information on, i n this case,a benign let alone a con trove is i al subject. Osteopcrosis Seminar Committee Rita Hibbard, Reporter, P.I.

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1. Thank you for letting lay person attend. My knokrledge i s increased. 2. Very informative - learned a lot. Mished you h a d given something on 3 . Great program. Hope this kind of program becomes a regular occurrence. 5. The morning program was highly relevant and well presented. afternoon program was highly technical and o f little interest to the The morning session was very informative - the afternoon not as useable 7. Excellent presentation - Would have liked longer period for questions/ answers, plus handouts for local resources for bone mass measurement (in addition t o Virginia Illason). 8. Please sent me additional information - It was excellent. 10. Very informative. Very well presented. Progress bieng made is Terribly difficult ot have both medical (detailed info) given a t the conference where you a l s o invited the general publ ic. encouraging. At least there is hlpe which I did not have before. Thank you for this …

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