A Review of the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 5-14
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From page 5... ...
Possible radiation exposures of military personnel during the atomic testing program have been of concern since the middle 1970s. Efforts to develop a program of dose reconstruction for atomic veterans began in the late 1970s, and a compensation program for atomic veterans whose diseases might have been caused by radiation exposure began in the early 1980s.
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From page 6... ...
In August 1998, the Senate committee asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to review available information related to dose reconstruction to determine its reliability for measuring veterans' radiation exposures and to assess the completeness of historical records that are used to assign radiation doses.
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From page 7... ...
Most important, veterans are to be given the benefit of the doubt in the estimation of their doses. That requirement led to the policy of the NTPR program that estimates of doses to atomic veterans should include an upper bound that is intended to represent at least a 95% confidence limit or that the dose estimates themselves should be sufficiently "high-sided" that they represent an upper bound.
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From page 8... ...
Most of the committee's effort in reviewing the program of dose reconstruction for atomic veterans was directed at the first part of the statement of task concerning whether doses to atomic veterans estimated by the NTPR program are "accurate." Because dose reconstruction is not an exact science, the committee has interpreted the question to be whether uncertainty in estimating dose has been appropriately addressed in dose reconstructions and whether credible upper bounds of doses to atomic veterans have been obtained. That interpretation is consistent with the policy of giving the veterans the benefit of the doubt in reconstructing their doses and with the intent of the NTPR program that the dose reports provided to VA for use in evaluating claims for compensation include upper bounds (95% confidence limits)
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From page 9... ...
Nonetheless, in some exposure scenarios, the committee believes that inhalation doses assigned to atomic veterans are credible upper bounds. That is probably the case, for example, when veterans received inhalation exposures mainly from descending fallout at the NTS or in the Pacific or from resuspension of activation products in soil at the NTS.
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From page 10... ...
8. As a result of problems identified by the committee in scenario development and estimation of external and inhalation doses, as summarized above, total doses reported by the NTPR program do not consistently provide credible upper bounds, and the degree of underestimation of upper bounds is substantial in many cases.
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From page 11... ...
There is little evidence of quality control over the work, and many calculations in dose reconstructions are illegible or lack an explanation of their meaning or use. The committee also noted that information presented in dose reconstructions should be sufficiently complete and understandable to allow a knowledgeable individual to reproduce the calculations, but the committee found too few instances where this expectation reasonably could be met.
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From page 12... ...
The committee appreciates the frustrations of the veterans who willingly performed their duties under extraordinary circumstances and who are confronted with the burden of seeking compensation for diseases that they believe are related to the service they performed for their country. Although the number is probably small, the committee has concluded that some veterans would have been compensated if more-credible upper bounds of dose had been estimated in their dose reconstructions.
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From page 13... ...
with the more extreme lower-bound estimates of doses associated with a 50% probability of causation of various cancers is highly favorable to the veterans' interests. If credible upper bounds of dose are obtained in dose reconstructions, atomic veterans can be compensated for nonpresumptive diseases even if the true probability that radiation exposure caused the diseases is substantially less than 50%.
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From page 14... ...
8. The community of atomic veterans and their survivors should be notified when the methods for calculating doses have changed so that they can ask for updated dose assessments and re-evaluation of their prior claims.
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