30 August NIRS Letter on BEIR VII

[Michael S Ford <MFORD@pantex.com>]

Apologies for the length of this letter which was sent out in late
August by NIRS.  Provides a good view (although lop-sided) about
the goings-on at the NAS.

My own personal/non-corporate thoughts,
v/r
Michael
mford@pantex.com
TX Radiation Advisory Board


<<<<<<<<<<<<<
PLEASE review the following letter to the National Academy of
Sciences which criticizes the REVISED BEIR VII Panel appointed to
review low-dose radiation health effects. 

DEADLINE: SIGN-ON by Monday Aug 30 Noon Eastern Time at 

nirsnet@nirs.org   or   dianed@nirs.org

Provide your 

NAME
ORGANIZATION
ADDRESS
PHONE/FAX
EMAIL Address

Apologies for the length-some cuts (to remove redundancy or
confusion) may be made in the final version. 

Apologies for the fast turn-over. It took time to compile and review
information on the 5 new members. And our extension request on
comment period was denied late last night.

ATTEND AND COMMENT: SEPT 2 (2 PM-5 PM) and SEPT 3 (10 AM
-12 noon) the BEIR VII Committee meets at the National Academy of
Sciences Building 2100 C Street NW Washington, DC with time for
public comment at both meetings. If in the DC area, attend! 

You can make your own comments directly to NAS using the BEIR
VII website at

www4.nas.edu/webcr.nsf/CommitteeDisplay/BRER-K-98-02-A?OpenDocument 

Thanks, Diane D'Arrigo/NIRS 
202-328-0002

_________________________________________________
THE SIGN-ON LETTER:

Comments on the National Academy of Sciences Revised BEIR VII
Panel
Reviewing Low Dose Radiation and Health

August 30, 1999
 
Dr. Rick Jostes, Study Director, BEIR VII
National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW Suite 342
Washington, DC 20418

Dear Dr. Jostes,

Several weeks ago, more than 70 organizations and numerous
individuals wrote to you expressing concern about apparent
violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in the
formation and composition of the Committee on the Biological
Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII, Phase 2 (BEIR VII) which is to
review the health effects of low-dose ionizing radiation. In particular,
dramatic failures in complying with the balance, conflict-of-interest,
and openness provisions of FACA were noted.  Letters expressing
similar concerns were sent by, among others, the Alliance for
Nuclear Accountability, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Congressman
Henry Waxman, and Dr. Edward Radford, Chairman of the
Academy's BEIR III committee.

A campaign is underway by the nuclear industry and nuclear
agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) to further relax already
weak radiation protection standards. BEIR VII is a critical component
of that effort. 
If BEIR VII can be packed with proponents of reduced risk estimates
for "low dose" ionizing radiation, resulting in recommendations for
further weakening of worker and public protections, the nuclear
industry and the associated agencies can save billions of dollars in
operation and  cleanup costs for contaminated sites.  At the same
time, leaving more contamination behind will result in untold
increases in cancers, genetic effects, and other radiation-induced
health impacts.  

A great deal is thus at stake in whether NAS staff strictly follow FACA
in setting up a balanced BEIR VII committee free of
conflicts-of-interest, or instead permit a significant biasing of its
composition favorable to powerful institutions with large economic
and other interests in the outcome of the study.

By law, no agency may rely upon the recommendations of an NAS
study that is formed in violation of the requirements of FACA.  In
particular, agencies are precluded from utilizing the fruits of an NAS
committee (1) where there is not genuine balance in the panel
composition, (2) where any member has a conflict-of-interest, unless
that person's participation is demonstrated to be so significant as to
outweigh the conflict and the conflict is promptly and publicly
disclosed, or (3) where the committee violates requirements
regarding openness and opportunity for meaningful public
comment on nominees for membership on the committee prior to
their being named to the committee.

Our review of the initial composition of the BEIR VII panel led us to
conclude that the NAS had violated all three requirements of FACA,
and in a dramatic fashion.  In short, the committee is dominated by
people on one side of the very scientific debate that it is to examine,
the side favorable to nuclear industry and agency interests, with not
even a single respected scientist from the other side of the issue in
question represented.  Additionally, people with conflicts-of-interest
(e.g., ties to institutions with major economic interests in the
outcome of the study) have nonetheless been appointed.

These concerns remain unresolved and may have been worsened
by the changes made in the composition of the BEIR VII panel. The
removal of one member and addition of five, none of  whom balance
the one-sided perspective of the remaining 15, does not improve the
credibility of the committee.

Furthermore, the requirement for an opportunity for meaningful
public comment on panel nominees has been made an empty shell. 
NAS has refused to release panelists' curricula vitae or
conflict-of-interest "disclosure" forms.  NAS has scheduled a
meeting of the committee with only one day lapsing from the close
of the comment period--making clear it will not take seriously any
comments that may arise about the committee composition.
Although the panel is charged with reviewing the
Linear=No-Threshold (LNT) model of radiation risk, to the best of
our knowledge, the NAS has not appointed a single supporter of the
strict LNT model  to the panel.  NAS staff filled the panel with people
who have staked out positions, often very vigorously, that the LNT
model overstates risks, simultaneously excluding all scientists who
believe current risk estimates understate the risks. 

Numerous panelists have serious conflicts of interest, i.e., close ties
to the nuclear industry and associated agencies with a vested
economic and political interest in lowering radiation risk estimates.
The panel is also heavily weighted with people who have served as
defense (nuclear industry) witnesses in radiation cases, rather than
those who have testified on behalf of radiation victims.  In short, the
panel was packed with proponents of lowering current radiation risk
estimates and saving the nuclear industry large amounts of money
by the relaxed radiation and cleanup standards that flow therefrom.

Changes to BEIR Committee  Fail to Improve Imbalance,
Conflicts-of-Interest or Openness Violations 

We were initially heartened by the decision of the NAS, shortly after
receiving comments expressing concern about these matters, to
suspend the panel and consider reconstituting it in light of the
imbalance and conflicts of interest. However, as we noted at the
time, mere cosmetic changes to the panel composition would do
nothing to resolve these fundamental violations of FACA.

After review of the changes to the proposed BEIR VII committee, we
are profoundly disappointed. The conflicts of interest are unaltered,
and the imbalance is in no way rectified:

1.  No one who represents the views of that portion of the scientific
community that thinks current risk estimates are too low has been
permitted on, let alone a comparable number to balance the
numerous panel members who have been vocal advocates of the
opposite viewpoint. 
None of the radiation epidemiologists who have performed studies
showing risks greater than currently assumed in official estimates
has been added. Not one of the distinguished scientists
recommended by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability last year
has been appointed to the panel.

2.  Of the panel members identified with conflicts of interest, only
one has been removed, and he has been replaced with someone of
equal or greater conflicts and virtually identical viewpoint. 

3. None of the other panelists with conflicts has been removed.
4. The people who have been added to the panel do not remedy its
imbalance, and in a couple of instances, worsen it.

Continued Violation of FACA Balance Requirements

In our  previous letter, we expressed skepticism that any additions to
the panel would represent the positions in the scientific community
that counter those of the bulk of the committee.  We stated:  

"Even were those [additions] to be the strongest representatives of
the viewpoint that current risk estimates are too low, the panel would
remain dramatically skewed.  This would be even more true were the
additions to be people that were neutral on the key issues, or in the
center of the debate.  Given the dramatic bias in the current
committee composition towards advocates of relaxing rather than
strengthening risk estimates, cosmetic changes would be grossly
insufficient to remedy the problem.  The Academy should start over
again and establish a balanced committee, free of
conflict-of-interest, and compliant with law."

It would appear that our original fears were well founded.

On the plus side (the only positive development), two people (Drs.
Bingham and Abrams) have been added who have sympathy for
workers and the public, as opposed to primary sympathy for
industry and agencies so thoroughly represented by many of the
rest of the panel.  However, neither has done much, if any, work in
the area of the effects of low dose radiation. Neither has, to the best
of our knowledge, taken the position that current radiation risk
estimates are too low and should be increased, in contrast to the
numerous panel members who have long pushed for relaxing
radiation risk estimates.  They are centrists or agnostics on the issue
to be examined by this committee, and therefore cannot balance off
the many vigorous proponents of relaxing risk estimates already
appointed.

On the other hand, the three other people who have been added
appear to worsen the imbalance on the panel.  One (Dr. Moeller) is a
vigorous proponent of the position that risks from radiation from
nuclear activities are overstated. Another (Dr. Lindahl) is an
advocate of the controversial arguments about radiation damage
being repaired and cells "adapting" to carcinogens, adding to the
several other members already on the committee with this
perspective. The third is a statistician (Dr. Stefanski) with no
apparent experience in radiation issues but who has worked in the
area of "non-linear models," raising questions as to whether he was
put on the committee to add to the critics of the
Linear-Non-Threshold model for radiation effects.

The main concern remains the heavy imbalance in positions on the
central issue being examined, the risks of low dose radiation.  Drs.
Hoel, Howe, Gilbert, Kellerer, Monson, and Sankaranarayanan,
among a number of others on the panel, have previously taken
positions that current risk estimates overstate radiation hazards. 
Again, no scientist whose position is that risks are in fact
understated has been permitted on the panel to balance them.

The Academy recognizes that there is significant scientific debate on
the very question of low dose health impacts; that is what the
committee has been set up to review.  The complete exclusion of
one side of that debate from committee membership violates
fundamental principles of science, and conclusions so-reached will
have no credibility.

NAS staff have created a panel with imbalance in membership
positions on the central question. They have also created imbalance
in the choice of arenas of inquiry to review. The addition of panel
members who have not been active proponents of relaxing radiation
risk estimates still contributes to the imbalance in the committee by
virtue of the area of expertise they have been chosen by NAS to
represent.  Three or more members of the panel work in the area of
cellular DNA repair, an area pointed to by proponents of relaxed
radiation standards.  However, no members of the panel work in the
areas pointed to by proponents of strengthened radiation standards,
such as the apparent increased sensitivity to radiation in older
adults. 

Continued Violation of FACA Conflict-of-Interest Requirements

Dr. Mossman, a former president of the industry advocacy
organization Health Physics Society (HPS) and a vigorous advocate
of relaxing radiation standards in order to save industry money, has
been removed. 

He has, however, been replaced by Dr. Moeller, also a vigorous
advocate of relaxing radiation regulations in order to save industry
money, (and, ironically, also a former president of the same Health
Physics Society, although longer ago.)  Formerly, he was at Los
Alamos and Oak Ridge.  Currently, Dr. Moeller's consulting firm
works heavily for DOE, on matters such as Yucca Mountain. He,
until recently, held long-term senior positions with the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. While associated with the USNRC, he was
instrumental in the formation of agency positions that would be
affected by the BEIR panel's review, such as the USNRC's revised
standards for protection against radiation, controversial policies for
BRC (Below Regulatory Concern--waste deregulation), and the push
for relaxed radiation standards for Yucca Mountain.  He has publicly
trivialized radiation exposures from nuclear activities, comparing
them to risks from eating Brazil nuts. (This was in an editorial for the
American Council on Science and Health, an industry-funded
organization with which he is associated, that generally opposes
environmental restrictions on industry.)   In short, Dr. Moeller is as
conflicted and as much a proponent of efforts to relax radiation
standards as was Dr. Mossman, whom he replaced.  Indeed Dr.
Moeller has publicly associated himself with the views of Dr.
Mossman, by name.  We do not see this change as progress.

Aside from Dr. Mossman, none of the people with
conflicts-of-interest have been removed.  For example, Dr. Hoel, a
strong critic of the Linear -No-Threshold model, remains on the
panel.  As a trial witness for General Public Utilities, which operated
the Three Mile Island reactor that suffered a meltdown in 1979, Dr.
Hoel attacked studies by Dr. Steven Wing and colleagues
suggesting greater health effects resulting from the accident than
previously presumed. As a consultant to the Rocketdyne
Corporation, operator of the DOE Santa Susana nuclear testing
facility, site of a 1959 partial core meltdown, he attacked the study by
a team from the UCLA School of Public Health (Drs. Morgenstern,
Ritz, and Froines) demonstrating significantly excess cancer deaths
among radiation-exposed workers at the DOE/Rocketdyne site. Yet
Dr. Wing and
the Morgenstern team are excluded from the panel, while Dr. Hoel
who appears to have  conflicts-of -interest on the issue, is included. 
He will be involved, despite those conflicts, in judging (or even
preventing consideration of) the very studies he has previously
attacked on behalf of nuclear industry clients. (Presumably, Dr. Hoel
received remuneration from the nuclear companies involved for his
services on their behalf, although the refusal to release
conflict-of-interest forms precludes the public from confirming the
nature of this and other associations.)

The NAS's most perplexing response, or lack of response, to a
conflict we identified, may have to do with Chris Whipple.  NAS
identified Dr. Whipple, when first named to the panel, as Vice
President of ICF Kaiser, a major nuclear contractor.  We pointed out
the conflict-of-interest this posed, as well as the conflict from his
previous employment at the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI).  In response, NAS has apparently conceded that an
association with ICF Kaiser would be a conflict, but asserts Dr.
Whipple has no connection with ICF Kaiser, working instead for ICF
Consulting, a supposedly unrelated entity.  This was puzzling. 
However, upon checking, it was confirmed that NAS had itself
identified Whipple as an official of ICF Kaiser when it originally
announced his appointment to the committee, and that he, for years,
has so identified himself.  In checking ICF Consulting on the
internet, one is in fact taken to ICF Kaiser's web  page.  From there
one is transferred to a temporary website for ICF Consulting, which
contains a note saying that as of June 30, ICF Kaiser Consulting,
after thirty years of association with ICF  Kaiser, was now to be
known as ICF Consulting, separately owned.  Can the Academy
possibly think that a man who has spent his adult life working for
the nuclear industry--first with EPRI and then ICF Kaiser--is
suddenly free of conflicts of interest?  Surely those conflicts don't
disappear  simply because in the last few weeks, after his
appointment to BEIR VII, his firm's name and ownership have
changed slightly.  

Furthermore, the conflict continues.  Faced with an internal financial
crisis, ICF Kaiser was recently forced to break up into three parts,
one of which is ICF Consulting. ICF Consulting retained work it was
doing for DOE and continues to have active support contracts with
DOE. To take a position on the BEIR VII radiation risk issues
contrary to that taken by his company's clients could be
economically hazardous to Dr. Whipple's firm.  The charade by the
Academy that a minor name change in recent weeks somehow
eliminates what the NAS appears to concede had been a conflict
flies in the face of FACA's requirements to take seriously potential
conflicts-of-interest.

Continued Violation of FACA's Requirements Regarding Openness
and Meaningful Public Comment 

We also remain concerned about the continued disregard by the
Academy of the requirements in FACA for openness and meaningful
opportunity for public comment on nominees being considered for
such advisory committees.  The Academy's continued  refusal to
make public either the curricula vitae or conflict-of-interest
"disclosure" forms for panel members makes it extremely difficult for
the public to fully assess and comment on the qualifications and
conflicts of panel nominees.  

The decision to announce the reconstituted committee membership
in August and require comments to be received by the end of the
month, given people's summer vacation schedules, further creates
the appearance of attempting to preclude effective public comment. 
It simply isn't possible to fully research the new panel members in
the time available, particularly with people away on holiday.  We
regret that our immediate request for extension was denied, just a
few days before the deadline.(Because of these factors, many who
had signed the previous letter have been unavailable to review the
new appointments and this letter during this period.)

Lastly, having a comment period that expires on August 31, with the
BEIR committee set to meet on September 2, gives the Academy all
of one day to review the comments.  This sends a very clear signal
that the NAS views the comment period required by statute as a
nuisance requirement not to be taken seriously, rather than a legal
obligation to be vigorously followed.  Whatever information is
received by the 31st, the Academy is intent on going forward with
the committee on the 2nd, again making a mockery of the
requirement for effective opportunity for public comment before the
appointment of committee members. 

These actions violate the statutory requirement that review of the
information provided must be completed prior to people being made
committee members. The fiction that committee members are merely
provisional members is an attempt to evade the clear intent of the
law.  The committee meets on September 2, to conduct committee
business.  Committee business cannot be conducted by
"provisional" members.  How do you undo influences by members
later removed from the panel for conflicts-of-interest or balance
reasons?  Jurors do not sit on juries prior to voir dire being
completed and their being formally approved as jurors.  The
Academy recognized this by cancelling the first public sessions of
the panel in Philadelphia (although permitting the committee to meet
in secret), saying it needed first to resolve balance and
conflict-of-interest issues raised by public commenters.  Now NAS
has gone ahead and re-scheduled the same business meetings of
the committee, prior to completion of review of public comments on
its proposed composition.  There appears to be a continuing attitude
of being above the law, of not having to live up to the commitments
made to Congress and incorporated into statute when the special
NAS provisions of FACA were adopted last year.

Conclusion

In conclusion, despite very serious imbalance and
conflicts-of-interest in the initially named BEIR VII panel, and failures
to comply with openness and public comment requirements, the
problems with the committee remain essentially unaltered.  We urge,
once again, that the NAS start over and form a BEIR VII committee
that is balanced and free of conflicts-of-interest, one that is formed in
compliance with law.  The current committee is lopsided with people
from one side of the scientific debate that is to be examined, with the
other side of that debate entirely excluded.  Such an imbalanced
process can have no credibility.  

In so saying, we must make clear again that we are not criticizing the
scientific competence or integrity of any of the individuals appointed
to the committee, but rather the imbalance in the panel as a whole. 
The fault rests with the NAS staff who permitted their own biases on
the issue to affect the selection of the panelists, not with the
panelists themselves who, presumably, had nothing to do with the
selection.  

The NAS should not permit members with conflicts or the skewing
of panels so as to be favorable to the economic interests of powerful
institutions with an economic stake in the outcome of a study. 
Permitting such a bias puts at risk the health of the public, workers
and the environment. 

As currently constituted, the BEIR VII panel, process and future
recommendations are not credible. We continue to urge that BEIR VII
be reconstituted, this time in compliance with FACA.

Sincerely,

Diane D'Arrigo 
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Washington, DC 

Dan Hirsch
Committee to Bridge the Gap
California
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