MR. FALK: Thank you very much.

My name is Henry Falk and I work at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. I will not try to pass on my credentials. I caught that point this morning. In fact, I'll take the opposite tack and try to de-credential myself here.

I was introduced as a Director of the National Center for Environmental Health, which I am not, definitely not. And so I work there. I've worked there for a long time. I'm happy to work there. Proud of it. But not the director.

I was struck this morning as I am every time I go to a meeting like this by all of the very forceful, articulate and impassioned comments and I hope I can respond as well.

Let me just start by saying that may first involvement at CDC in these areas was in the work on the follow-up to the Smokey Test. I actually worked for Glen Caldwell as his assistant when the first call came in from a man who was at the Smokey Test saying that he had leukemia and could it possibly be related to his having been at the Smokey Test. And that led to several years of work to try to put together the cohort and try to actually find the doses and do that study.

So I have some appreciation, I think, for just how difficult it is to do that type of work. And I know there are many frustrations that go along on your end and it probably was equally different I think for us at CDC at that time. But I think that study at CDC did trigger a considerable amount of follow-up efforts and work and much that you'll hear about.

I think the main points that I'd like to speak about this morning are the CDC involvement with the Hanford study and the work we're doing with the Department of Energy, state health departments and others, citizen groups and others in the Pacific Northwest, particularly.

Our involvement with Hanford began with the Hanford Health Effects Review Panel in 1986 and working with the state health department to review newly declassified data. And the result of that review was that it was recommended that a thyroid disease study be conducted and that a dose reconstruction for Hanford be conducted. And Congress authorized the CDC to work on the Hanford thyroid disease study.

We contracted with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and are very actively involved in working with them on the thyroid disease study at Hanford.

One of the things we have tried hard to do -- we may not have succeeded fully, but we have tried very hard from the beginning to have significant public involvement in that study, to work with people in the area. There was a considerable effort to review the protocol with groups before the study got started and we have tried to have public involvement on various advisory groups.

I think this has made a difference, certainly from our end. I will give you one example.

There was considerable discussion as to whether ultrasound tests could be included as part of the thyroid disease study with some of the scientists feeling strongly that that might not be the best way to go. And I know that Judith Chergy, who at that time was liaison to our advisory committee, passed on the feeling of a number of downwinders that the ultrasound test should definitely be included.

We then called together a group of outside experts in a workshop, reviewed the whole issue, and decided that yes, the ultrasound test should be included in the study and they were added to the protocol and they're being done on all participants in the study.

So, I think that all through this we've tried to do that and I think it has actually made a significant differences for the better.

In addition to that, starting in 1991, CDC began involved in the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project and as you know, that's involved many groups in the Pacific Northwest and one of the things we are trying to do, to follow up on the notification discussion this morning, is that as that study ends, in addition to using the information on the doses for the thyroid disease study and comparing thyroid disease with doses, we were also working with the state health departments and the information network and others to actually set up a system whereby the dose data will be accessible, available, to people in the area so that one could actually bring one's personal information and history and actually be able to get a sense for what one's own dose would have been.

This is not just for people in the thyroid disease study. This would be for people in the area.

So I hope that that system will work and will actually in some way at least assist the notification process.

We do have a citizens public advisory committee which is working both with HESDR and CDC and is advising ATSTR on the medical monitoring issue and my hope is that out of these studies will come information that will be helpful, in particular on the Recommendation Number 5, working with Congress to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990.

So, let me just stop at that point.

Thank you.

MS. MATHER: Okay. I commend the government panelists for saying within their time frame because I think now we have the folks that we really are here to hear from. And as we've said, these two recommendations address really persons who were exposed to ionizing radiation during military service and persons who were downwind from nuclear activities.

And so the downwinders, as I guess they've become shorthanded to include those groups, are to go first. And then we have a larger group of veterans' advocates here. And they'll go last.

So I don't know. Brenda Weaver, you're really in a position where it's difficult for you to talk. Are you --

MS. WEAVER: You want to change places with me?

MS. MATHER: For the time being, yes. And then maybe we can move down.

MS. WEAVER: My name is Brenda Weaver and I'm a downwinder. I lived and was raised just across the river, seven miles downwind from Hanford.

I'm here to tell partly my story and also I'm here in representation of all downwinders, regardless if they're from Hanford from not, downwinders. I want to represent those persons.

I was raised on an ranch that my father raised sheep and cattle and we farmed and used all of the natural resources, water, food and so forth from that area. I want to kind of start of start out with a story of another reason that I'm here is because I had very many medical problems and so forth, losing an ovary when I was 14. But then when I became pregnant I had a daughter born to me and she -- I want to show you, first of all, my daughter's eyes. And I want to tie that into --

(Pause.)

My father, in that length of time that we've lived there, there were many farmers who had sheep and animals born without eyes, without part of their heads. It was referred to many times when these birth would go on, we'd refer to as the nights of the little demons.

And I never got to see any of them because my father wouldn't let the female women to the barn at this time. But we knew about it in the community it was well known. And a number of years later in 1965, I had a daughter born without eyes, just like the sheep that my father had born.

I'd like to present -- this is my daughter's eyes.

(Pause.)

Let's you see what we have to deal with. My daughter now is 30 years old. Her name is Jamie. She is college educated and hopes to go on to get her doctorate. She's a taxpaying contributor. She is not on a disability. But still, at this time, is not able to make enough money to provide her own health care and a member of our family has to provide her health care.

I know that's a little shock factor but I kind of wanted you to see with what we deal with on a daily basis in our home, as well as my own health problems which I'm not going to go into that now because I've already done that in front of the President Committee and I just feel that I represent and Jamie represents those people born with birth defects that are not being acknowledged.

And as downwinders, we feel that we've been ignored. That we are really being not acknowledged at all. That we're nonexistent. That we're not citizens. We feel that we've been totally ignored in the report and we're told that we don't exist. That we really -- these people are not radiated. That we don't have affects. And that isn't the case.

And we just represent those persons. There are many thousands of us with all kinds of problems and health problems and birth defects that I don't think can be ignored, that we don't exist.

And I didn't really write out a formal -- because I'm just a housewife and a mom. I'm not really a professional person. But I do want to -- I feel that we're being ignored similar -- not being seen, you might say, just as my daughter has to use these eyes to see. I feel that the Committee didn't open up their eyes and to really see what -- and look at those people that have been affected in communities, large communities that were radiated that have had these effects throughout the United States, like Laguna and Alaska and New Mexico and all of the places -- Oak Ridge.

Those are communities. And our fault in this is just being -- living in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think. And now we're told that we weren't there and that these things didn't happen. I mean, that's a little hard to live with.

I think that I would like to see, at least in my daughter's case -- we'll use her as an example. I'd like l to see some sort of health care program because she doesn't have one. As long as she's on a disability and is a second class citizen on a disability, then she can have the health insurance that goes along with having a disability from the states. But if she's a hardworking person like she is and she pays taxes and she works but doesn't make quite enough money to pay for health care, so she's in a Catch 22.

Also, her artificial eyes cost a great deal of money and she's now paying for that herself because they say it's cosmetic.

Well, it's difficult. You can see the dilemma that she is in. She is one of hundreds and thousands of people. And I'm just using her as one example of what goes on. And I am personally offended and deeply hurt and I know the community that I represent feels the same way. That we've been put aside as being not -- I don't know. Not important enough but simply not even existing. That we're not there.

And I think that his issue is one issue that needs to be addressed. I think it comes in under -- the President himself has said that these victims, human beings that have been -- I can't directly quote. I think Walter will be saying something about that. That we'll be taken care of or not.

And I know why. I know everybody says, oh, they all want restitution and so forth. But I think we even want to be recognized and we also, if there's wrongs been done, we want to have them right. We are taxpaying citizens of the United States and I think that we need to be recognized.

Like I said, I hadn't prepared a direct forum, but -- and I up on time? Oh, I am up on time.

Thank you for listening.

MS. MATHER: I think it's very important that we did hear that and I thank you for -- I know it's not an easy thing to come and talk to these people but a more sympathetic audience I'm sure you'll never find. And I'm glad, and thank you for coming.

Now, even though -- I think because the downwinders have not been heard, it's important that in this particular forum they are heard. So I'm going to have Walter talk now and then we can have the comments from the audience after the Atomic Veterans have finished. But I'll give you this.

MR. DASHENO: Thank you, Susan.

Good afternoon to members of the audience. I welcome you to the session that we're all here to listen to, the concerns of the people of the United States of America.

Ironically, on October 5th, President Clinton, as leader of the free world, gestured at least five times to state that American must, quote, "Do the right thing for the subjects of radiation treatment."

In addition, he stated, quote, "Our greatness is measured not only in how so frequently do right but also how we act when we know we've done the wrong thing. How we confront our mistakes, make our apologies and the actions."

I think these words are appropriate for the statements that are being made by the men and women on behalf of their communities, on behalf of their constituents, on behalf of their children, on behalf of their future generations to come.

We, as native people, have suffered many injustices. This is just one of the injustices that many of you as not Indian people are feeling today and are making statements on.

Jokingly, someone made a statement last evening that now we know what it's like to be an Indian person. Now you know what it is to be an Indian, as a second class citizen. I hope that in the time of mankind that these types of mistakes are never made again. That these types of mistakes that all of us are accountable for will never be again addressed before another committee such as the one that you have today.

Importantly, as native people, we've tried to uphold our trust as caretakers of Mother Earth, of the land and the resources that we have, of the people that we encountered when they first conquered us in 1492 and whatever we'll see that will come to all of us in the future, more importantly we must accept our responsibilities.

And to all of you that are in the service, you all took an oath. And one of the oaths that we all accepted, also me being a veteran, justice for all. This has not been applied to many of us. This has not been applied to us, as we all are citizens of the United States of America.

Whenever we accept our responsibilities as either servicemen or as federal workers, we are held in trust by the taxpayers that pay your salaries or that are paying for you to keep the integrity of the United States of America.

I hope with the examples that we've given you these next two days that you will take that responsibility.

I was fortunate to have met President Clinton prior to him being elected to President and also on the 5th birthday or the 7th birthday of my daughter in Albuquerque. I told him that one of the things I wanted to see was a better life for her than I would have seen for myself.

So those are the same words that I instill in all of you. I hope that all of us will see a better world from the vast past bad examples that we've encountered through today.

Today and tomorrow, we as citizens of the United States will address and present our concerns. We ask that all of you, not only you as employees or as citizens, give us the truth and give us answers that more importantly help us and the victims of the most unjust actions that have been taken against these individuals.

Being that type of person, one of the things that my wife has always told our children is never to tell secrets -- or never to hold back any secrets. I feel that this is the type of incident that the United States government has to the veil of secrecy and unveil and tell the job and provide justice to the citizens of the United States.

I hope that these opportunities that many of us will be given these next two days will allow us to make the type of statements that will allow us to address our concerns on an open basis, so that the information that we gain today and tomorrow will be provided back to our Indian people in our Indian communities.

Lastly, if you ask for justice, what I would like to see done for our Indian people, I ask of the United States of America, the Department of Energy, to provide the resources to build us hospitals, to provide us monies for health services and health care, to return many of our lands that were taken back from us for purposes of experimentation and lastly, to recognize the sovereignty of our Indian tribes, a government-to-government relationship that must be created.

Seneca, as one of the few tribes that has signed an accord between the Department of Energy and our people. There are three other tribes in addition to other tribes, and I hope that that will be an example from which we can start from and begin to address those issues.

So with that, I extend my appreciation to all of us for being here to hear our concerns and I hope, again, that this is not an example that will be addressed by our future generations. I think we've learned our mistake. Let's correct the mistake. And what Colonel Bailey said today, let's all do something about it and correct it and not just talk about it but do and take the action.

Thank you very much.

MS. MATHER: Thank you.

I think we'll move along because we want to have some time for comments from the audience but I think we're pretty much on schedule. So our next speaker will be Lincoln Grafhis from the National Association of Radiation Survivors.

Mr. Grafhis?

MR. GRAFHIS: Hi. My name is Lincoln Grafhis. I wear several hats. I am an atomic veteran. I am also President, currently, of the National Association of Radiation Survivors. As such, I represent a broader constituency. I am concerned for the downwinders, as well as the uranium miners, the atomic veterans and everybody who is affected.

I'm here primarily because I'm an atomic veteran. And if I have any real claim to being here, I think it's because I've just completed a study which is to be published in book form later this year of atomic veterans, in which I did an extensive interview and mail survey study of the attitudes and opinions and recollections of atomic veterans.

And prior to doing this study, I thought I'd had it pretty bad, but hey, I'm real lucky. Some of the things I learned from the respondents, from other atomic veterans, from widows of atomic veterans, are really -- they even surprise me, and I thought I was beyond surprise.

And some of the most outlandish stories -- I can't think of a better word. You know, I had a tendency sometimes to dismiss out of hand in the beginning. When I get them over and over again from people who've had no contact with each other, I begin to say, hey, I was the one that was wrong in doubting this information.

Let me go back to my initial statement that, as I say, I wear several hats. And let me hook that into something I heard this morning.

The remark was made, I think by Mr. Miller, that, you know, if you take it out of one pot then you're taking away from somebody else. This is way I think my role as President of the National Association of Radiation Survivors is important.

We want everybody to get the same benefits. We want everybody who has been affected by this to be treated equally. And I know I put myself at the risk of offending somebody but I've looked at the list of presumptive conditions that are allowed for radiation exposure for the Marshall Islanders. Why don't the atomic veterans have the same presumptive list? And I would recommend that the Congress look at that.

I'm reminded of a story. I spent 32 years as a college professor and in the state of Wisconsin, college professors cannot -- in the state institutions -- cannot form a union or at least they cannot bargain collectively. So what happened there? The maintenance people in our building had a union. Every time they got a benefit, we got it a year later. And so we were very much interested in their getting their due because we'd get it later.

And I think we're in the same sort of a thing. What affects the downwinders, what affects the veterans, what affects the minors affects every one of us. This divide and conquer business is crap.

I tend to be a little blunt with my language occasionally.

Let me -- one of the problems of having been a college professor is I'm programmed to speak for 50 minutes, so it's kind of difficult.

(Laughter.)

Let me see. I have -- the veterans that responded to my survey had some interesting things to say. One of the things that I got over and over and over again on these responses was, in one form or another -- you know, I was an 18-year old kid. What did I know what I was getting into?

I was 20 when I joined the service and I was still naive. And the problem is what you sign up for when you're 18 or 20 affects us for the rest of our lives. The problems that I have today stem from that.

The other thing I'd like to say before my time runs out -- and I haven't even begun to get into some of my remarks -- there are two other things I'd like to say. And I'm interested in the government looking at what happened in the past and giving us our due for that. But I'm even more interested in seeing that it doesn't happen in the future.

I want to see the government build in some kind of protection for my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. And yes, I'm a great grandfather.

There was another point I was going to make and it eludes me. Maybe I'll come back to it in the -- I thought it would be self-serving to mention that, but since you bring it up, my daughter belonged to NARS before I did. She got me into NARS. These issues that we're concerned with were very important to her. She is a victim of my participation in nuclear testing. She has had in her lifetime problems from her teenage years on with her endocrine system.

She had half of her pancreas removed when she was 20 years old. Right now, she's dying of cancer. And I talked to my grandson on the phone the other day and I said, you know, I'd like to be there but I'd also like to go to Washington to this meeting. And my grandson said, "Go. Mom would want you to."

I guess I've used up my time.

MS. MATHER: Thank you, Mr. Grafhis.

We do, I think, appreciate the personal sacrifice that many of you have made to be here and it is important to hear about those sacrifices and to recognize them. However, we do want also the people in the audience to have a chance, so I'm going to have to move on and ask Dr. Rosen if he will speak for the next seven minutes on some of the concerns that he brings to the Working Group.

DR. ROSEN: May name is Oscar Rosen. I'm the National Commander of the National Association of Atomic Veterans. I'm an atomic veteran of Operation Crossroads at Bikini in July 1946, and I think Anthony was there also, so Crossroads is well represented here.

I was planning to speak about the radiation compensation legislation but I want to comment on a couple of other things first.

Epidemiological studies. Dr. Galson spoke earlier this morning, mentioned that an epidemiological study that was contemplated was considered too expensive, too complex and so forth, so the idea wasn't followed through. And we came across the same thing with regard to a children's study that we hoped would take place.

Last year, Senators Rockefeller and Wellstone got the approval of the Congress to request that the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine form a committee to study the need for an epidemiological study on the children and grandchildren of the atomic veterans. And we testified. Pat testified, I testified and other people testified and we had very high hopes that the committee would approve it. But we noted when we saw who was on the committee that it was stacked against us, like most other committees.

So in June, the committee held a press conference and Dr. William Schull, who was the Chairman of the committee and an ABCC alumnus -- if you don't know what that means, it's the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission that was set up in Japan two years after the bomb were dropped and then they proceeded to study the effects on the Japanese, including the genetic effects. And they came up with a deliberate blank on the genetic effects.

So Dr. Schull announced that the committee had decided to turn down the need for an epidemiological study on the children and grandchildren, and the first reason he gave was that information provided by the DNA, the Defense Nuclear Agency, convinced him that the veterans weren't exposed to enough radiation to have caused any effects on their children, as well as themselves.

So seeing Joan Ma Pierre of the Defense Nuclear Agency is on this panel, I would like to ask her a question because she's with the DNA and she holds a very high position.

Was it three years ago Pat and I and Joan testified at a hearing conducted by the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Compensation and Pensions on a bill that we were supporting. And this is not intended to be an ad hominem remark but she did testify, and I have a copy of her testimony at home, that the veterans, the atomic veterans, were not exposed to enough radiation to cause them any harm and there was a Roselyn Yallow, a Nobel laureate on the committee who also testified the same way.

So, I want to ask Joan if she still stands by her testimony that none of the veterans were exposed to enough radiation to have caused them any harm, because I think that ties in with what I've just been saying about the epidemiological study.

MS. MaPIERRE: I feel a little bit like the people who get quoted on 60 Minutes sometimes, Oscar. Let me just say that the Defense Nuclear Agency's role with regard to atomic veterans satisfies two functions.

Number one, we are -- to answer the question to a veteran was I there -- we are supposed to be able to answer that question to the best of our ability.

And the other one is in the absence of measurement data that was taken at the time, two scientific methods, the best that are available to establish the doses that were received by the veteran, I believe if you look in that testimony, what I said was based on the historical documentation in the records as we have them, which are open to the public, the majority of the veterans, you know, many did not receive exposures that are greater than say what the exposures are at the occupational worker level.

At no time have we ever said that no veterans received large doses and in fact, I'd be happy to elaborate on that in a separate forum, but I don't think now is the time that I want to get into the details of the Nuclear Test Personnel Review. But I do want to say here we fully acknowledge the radiation exposure of the veterans and what I did say was that a large number of them did not receive doses that are large compared to occupational exposures.

DR. ROSEN: Thanks for your answer.

Well, when I and others at the press conference complained to Dr. Schull that we couldn't accept the reason that he gave concerning the DNA dosage information provided to his committee, he said, well, that's not important. The fact that there are so many veterans, it would be difficult to locate them and so on and so forth.

And that, of course, brings to mind the fact that the National Academy of Science has paid millions and millions of dollars --

MS. MATHER: We're running out of time.

DR. ROSEN: Oh. One minute left? Okay.

The National Academy of Science has paid millions and millions of dollars to do epidemiological studies that for the most part have been found to be flawed. And now they're doing them over again and getting paid more millions and millions of dollars.

I have just one more comment to make.

Very recently, I learned that the Veterans Administration has a Department of Veterans Affairs Environmental Epidemiological Service that has been doing its own epidemiological studies and coming up with findings of for the most part that, again, very few of the veterans were exposed to harmful amounts of radiation.

And then on page 76 of a study that was published in 1994 -- and one of the authors is Dr. Hon Kang, who is with this service, Health Risk Assessment of Veterans, he says on page 77, "No threshold dose is required for induction of radiogenic cancer." And this was quoted in anew book that just came out in October called "Hot Spots: The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," which I urge everyone here to read, because it blows the lid off the coverup. It blows the lid off the denial that there was residual radiation on the ground at the Nevada Test Site and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and so on and so forth.

And with that,I'll stop and wait for the discussion period to say more.

MS. MATHER: Thank you.