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Declassified record · U.S. Department of Energy

Briefing Book Materials for Advisory Committee Members (Includes: Human Radiation Experimentation Search Group Meeting Minutes April 5, 1994)

Dated
Apr 12, 1994
Document type
Correspondence
Length
6 pages
Open the original scanArchive record OSTI ID 16384350 · 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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Human Radiation Exoerimentation Search Grouo Meeting Steven Gal son Energy 202-586-6151 Lori Azim Energy 202-586-5319 Heather Stockwell Energy 301-903-3721 Neil Otchin Vet .Aff. 202-535-7057 David Law Vet .Aff 202-535-7393 James War e Energy 301-903-5982 Denny W i sely Defense 703-602-1365 Gordon Soper Defense 703-697-5561 Update on Advisory Committee Staffinq (Galsonl Dan Guttman, Executive Director Anna Mastroianni, Director Committee Affairs, Deputy Staff Director, Jeff Kahn, Acting Staff Director Steve Klaidman, Pub1 ic Affairs Director Senior Pol icy and Research Analyst Interactions with Advi s o u Commi ttee A meeting is needed between Search Group and Advisory Committee staff and Ruth Faden before the Advisory Committee's first meeting on April 21, 22, Congressional and press briefings by the Search Group are needed before the public meeting (no date is yet set). Number of documents examined Number of documents relevant to human radiation experimentation What agencies are doing t o ensure no conflict of interest, What agencies are doing with the documents comprehensiveness and integrity of search Tentative activities for Advisory Committee public meeting: April 21: Breakfast greetings with Cabinet Secretaries and Interagency Working Group Press Avai 1 abi 1 i ty Evening reception with the President April 22: Search group briefings on records collection activities Advisory Committee meetings are open to the public.

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Advisory Committee may not make specific compensation decisions. They can make broad recommendations on compensation strategies, relevant to groups Advisory Committee plans t o meet monthly. Committee staff will do most of the research and review. Who will "charge" the Committee, if Vice President Gore does not? O'Toole will find out. Packages containing information in a uniform format must be prepared for the press, public and others who attend the public meeting. O'Toole will provide. Could include: Status of records collections activities at each agency Documents exami ned Interactions with Advisory committee Briefinq materi a1 s , oral and written, for the Advi sorv Committee Briefing materials must be in a uniform format.0 We should ask Advisory Committee to help us with specific problems we are Each agency must provide a coherent, comprehensive status of ongoing information gathering activities and the information retrieved. (Soper) Agencies should have a reasonable number of records to give to the Advisory Committee on April 21, 1994 at the public meeting. Also consider giving Advisory Committee materials they can sink their teeth into, such as articles which may involve experiments. - Soper offered University of Cincinnati experiment records from O'Toole offered plutonium experiments and Markey records. Defense and possibly information on native Alaskan O'Toole will discover what Advisory Committee wants for their briefing Advisory Committee/Ruth Faden i s in charge of public meeting agenda. - Spokespersons could be assigned on each topic or each agency can make a presentation.0

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- O’Toole prefers individual agency presentations on paper in Agencies should not orally discuss experiments because briefing book and spokespersons for oral presentations. of 1 iabil i ty issues and agencies should not second guess the Advisory Committee. - Soper prefers individual agency oral presentations. Another possibility is that the primary four agencies (DOE, DOD, VA, HHS) could each speak, for brevity’s sake. - Questions for oral presentations: 1. What agencies have done, found What agencies need from Advisory Commi ttee What agencies face in their records searches Toll free teleohone number strateqies Problems existed with the referral decision tree and HHS received the lion‘s share of the referrals. Now, algorithms have been changed and all Military calls are divided: VA - Callers who have filed or want to file claims for benefits or DOD - Any other military callers were exposed while a patient in a VA hospital Oual itv Assurance stratesies for document search techniques Need integrity o f documents and comprehensiveness of search. (Wisely) Search Group must find out how Advisory Committee will know the study is Quality Assurance should be top item for meeting between Advisory Committee and Search Group. Three needs t o be met to create a database: 2 . Reporting formats need to be standardized. Reported information needs to be as complete and comprehensive as possible given time, money, and personnel constraints, and the condition of the records .serving as the basis of the 3. The reporting format has t o be compatible with existing hardware and software, and easily transferable by electronic means to facilitate reporting and information management.

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Technical staff on Advisory Committee should contact Defense for Additionally, Defense i s sorting their information by various populations. Timinq of information releases to public and Dress DOE has problems with timing. Defense problems include investigative reporters knowing more than the agency does. Defense not getting many Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Search Group should discuss this issue with Advisory Committee staff, so no FOIA violations or other legal violations occur. Advisory Committee should be in close contact with other investigating committees, such as those at universities (eg, MIT and UCSF). Nothing to report. * Has located University of Cincinnati medical files search. Advisory Committee will want these files. - University will not release. - Defense must talk to their General Counsel because Mi scell aneous White House must coordinate between Search Group and Interagency Working Phil Caplan o f White House Cabinet Affairs will begin attending Search Group meetings to aid communication.

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O’Toole: Information kit for press, pub1 ic, Congressional staff Discuss public meeting agenda with Ruth Faden Ask Advisory Committee staff to contact Admiral Wisely for Set up Search Group meeting with Advisory Committee staff and Determine Advisory Committee needs for briefing book Ell i s : General information on informed consent General information on benefits of radiation in medical