Minutes of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division Executive Committee Meeting

Radiation Protection

and

Shielding Division

Minutes of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division Executive Committee Meeting, 13 Nov 00, Washington, D.C.

Space Sciences and Technology wants to be involved with us for space shielding issues. Already a group, they would like to become a division. RT Perry pointed out that other divisions are consolidating at this time, and a new division might dilute the membership of other divisions. Bernadette Kirk pointed out that cosmic radiation is a concern now with increased airplane travel. Tom Jordan related that it can be difficult to submit papers in this area when they don’t readily fit into a present division. Hamilton Hunter adds that there is the possibility of increased funding in the future from NASA in this area. Tom Jordan reports that the IEEE has already incorporated a division in this area.

Bob Little was presented an award for appreciation of service during the past year.

$100 and award certificated were sent to the best paper recipient from Long Beach.

ANS Strategic Plan (copy submitted for the minutes) – Bob Little and Kim Kearfott are on the ANS strategic planning committee. Bob Little related that the board of directors would be voting on a strategic plan this week. There are 32 strategies and 5 goals, the fifth goal being new. The overall mission statement has been modified and simplified. If there are any objections to the new strategic plan, they should be expressed by Wednesday, 15 Nov 00, to allow time for our input. An action plan for the division:

Kim Kearfott states that there is a $300k proposal for funding strategies. Laurie Waters states that she will open up a dialogue on the division list-server for further comment on the strategies.

Larry Miller requests input for the newsletter. Dave Anderson agreed to submit an article about the Spokane topical, and Bob Little will submit an article about the 2002 topical in Santa Fe.

John Bennion submitted the treasurer’s report. Laurie reported that there is already adequate money for the Los Alamos students, so the division will be able to retain the money earmarked for student textbook aid. Bob Little points out that a deficit budget should not be submitted to ANS. RT Perry then moved to reduce the awards and plaques budget from $750 to $250. This passed unanimously. Ray Klann suggested that the budget be revised accordingly. Larry Miller asked about the support to the Texas A&M student conference. Bernadette Kirk stated that $300 is normally budgeted for each of two student conferences each year, and that all $600 was budgeted to the Texas A&M conference because it is the only conference scheduled this year. This proposal was moved and passed unanimously. Ray Klann suggested that we do not need to show the Blizzard scholarship at this point. Bernadette Kirk stated that at this time, we do not need the full $2000 allocation. Bernadette then moved that only $1000 be allocated for the Blizzard scholarship. This passed unanimously. The proposed budget, with changes, was approved unanimously.

Jess Greenborg (through Dave Anderson): 130 attendees at Spokane (compared to 170 at Nashville). Health Physics Society members submitted 40% of the papers. The conference realized a small profit. Expenses for 3 foreign attendees were paid by the conference.

Bob Little requested technical program committee members. He stated that preliminary approval for the conference would be voted on at the Milwaukee paper review conference, with a final approval vote at the Milwaukee conference.

Dave Anderson reported that 13 papers were submitted to the Washington, D.C. Conference. One paper was rejected. There were two RPSD sessions, nondestructive testing and glove boxes, chaired by Ray Klann and RT Perry. For the summer 2001 conference, all papers will be submitted and reviewed electronically. Copies of the call for papers for Milwaukee were passed out. Theme for the Reno conference: research and development. The plenary session will be divided into three days. There will also be poster sessions with complimentary food and beverages. Dave Anderson asked for electronic review volunteers.

Bernadette Kirk stated that certificates were sent out for the fall 99 awards. She added that we need to make sure that there is a best paper award for the Santa Fe conference. She said we also need to sponsor a fellow nomination, and suggested Peggy Emmett to be nominated as a fellow. Service award nominations are also needed. To sponsor Bob Little as a candidate to the ANS board of directors will require 200 signatures. Copies of a signature sheet were passed out to all present.

Mark Blumberg submitted a membership report stating membership has decreased 1.4%. Laurie Waters stated she has the full ANS membership report.

Bill Hopkins reported on the reorganization of the ANS standards committee. (Copies of the overheads were supplied for the minutes.) Nolan Hertel is the ANS liaison with HPS on standards. Bill also suggested that we not get out of step with the Health Physics Society on the issue of the linear no-threshold subject. He related that he had a PowerPoint file of the overheads to provide any of the executive committee who desired them. Bill stated that as of the San Diego meeting, benchmarks could become standards. RT Perry and Laurie Waters asked how could a benchmark be considered a standard. Bill responded that the establishment of a problem in itself could now be recognized as a standard.

Mathematics and Computation, Reactor Physics, and RPSD have a committee of 12 members, 3 from each division, for benchmarks. At this time, they are working on the formats of the benchmarks. It was decided to submit two benchmarks from each division this summer. Ham reported that Rich Sanchez has two benchmarks ready. From RPSD: NRC benchmark, H.B. Robinson, pressure vessel benchmark is done. Ham stated that SINBAD2k has new benchmarks, a total of 44 now; there are ENDF/B-V benchmarks; 5 benchmarks from Laurie Waters for accelerators (from Nolen Hertel). He also stated that there are several benchmarks available to be considered on the web site. There will also be a session on benchmarks at the 2001 winter meeting. Hamilton also asked for any personnel who might be interested in working on benchmarks.

Hamilton Hunter reported that the policy on public effects on low-level radiation was revised in August. Herb Fontecilla sent a request for division response on the policy. (See item 14.(d) below.) Laurie Waters read the resultant letter discussed at the ad hoc lunch meeting in Spokane (copy supplied for the minutes and included as Appendix I).

Bob Little supplied the overheads of the presentation to the ANS RPSD program committee for sponsorship of the 2002 topical in Santa Fe (copy supplied for minutes).

Laurie Waters moved to reconfirm Hamilton Hunter as the public policy liaison for RPSD. This passed unanimously.

Laurie Waters asked for volunteers to be placed on the expertise list for ANS. Kim Kearfott volunteered to be an RPSD representative. It was also noted that laboratory personnel cannot make policy statements. University personnel are needed for this capacity.

Herb Fontecilla attended the executive meeting and briefly explained the background of the current ANS policy: In the last year the public policy committee has tried to update all ANS policy statements with one of the goals being standardizing them. The PPC was concerned that the low-level radiation effects policy was not a true policy statement, so they decided a new statement should be drafted. This new policy statement was passed by the PPC 18 – 2, but it requires a technical paper to back it up. Herb sent email out to find the division that wrote the original technical paper behind the old policy statement. The PPC found that the Biology and Medicine division wrote the original technical brief and they also supported the new policy statement. Herb had originally planned to present the new policy with the Biology and Medicine division’s backing, but stated that he would be glad to report our hesitancy with the policy statement as it stands. Kim Kearfott related that she had spent on the order of 250 hours reviewing materials on the original policy statement. She indicated that a backlash occurred when objections were raised about supporting this policy and related a brief history of the policy. She then asked what would be the effects of the reversal of the old policy statement. Herb Fontecilla responded that the PPC identified that the policy didn’t read like a policy statement and attempted to revise the statement to look more like a policy statement rather than an action plan. Larry Miller then proposed that the email letter draft from Laurie Waters be the official RPSD response to the PPC proposal. RT Perry stated that there was now new evidence to support the new policy of a linear threshold. Kim Kearfott related that stochastic effects (cancers and hereditary DNA damage) are a no threshold effect. Non-stochastic effects (cataracts and skin eurythemia) are threshold effects, but repair mechanisms might make it non-linear (stochastic). Kim Kearfott also added that the statement should be modified to reflect effects “in an organism.” The motion of Larry Miller to adopt Laurie Waters email letter as our official position on the low-level effects of radiation passed unanimously. Bob Little added that his policy is too important to rush into, and might be changed in the future. (This email letter is included in Appendix I.)

Dan Todd from the Texas A&M student chapter of ANS attended and formally requested funding for the April 2001 ANS Student Conference to be held at Texas A&M University. He related that this would be the only student conference held this year and additional funding was being solicited in order to provide support for the increased travel costs incurred from students traveling farther to attend this year’s conference.

Dave Anderson brought up the 2004 topical. He stated that bids would need to be taken in the spring. He also related the options available to the local sections for the format of a topical: co-located with another topical; an imbedded topical; co-host a topical; or the normal method. Larry Miller related that care should be taken in the future to lowering the cost of future meetings. Peggy Emmett related that last year was bad in that three west coast meeting were planned that reduced the participation in all three. Larry Miller also brought up the fact that there is a price differential for non-members versus members. It was decided that Dave Anderson should notify the local sections of the options available for bidding on a future topical. This could be done through the newsletter.

The next meeting will take place at the same day and time at the summer meeting in Milwaukee, Monday night 6pm to 8pm. Embedding the program meeting in the executive meeting was discussed, but the general consensus was to leave the format as it stands. It was decided to move the program committee meeting time to 5pm to 6pm prior to the executive committee meeting.

Appendix I - RPSD Response on the ANS Position Statement on Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation

Many of the RPSD executive committee attended our September Topical meeting in Spokane, and we discussed your request to the Division. We did not have a quorum to officially sanction what we say below, however we will bring this up at our executive meeting on Monday, Nov 13th (6:00 PM, Taft Room). We invite you to that meeting to clarify certain questions that we have.

The exec members present in Spokane asked me, as the current Chair of RPSD, to draft this message to you. We have examined the present ANS Policy Statement on the Health Effects of Low-Level Radiation, and the accompanying Technical Brief, dated April 1999 as distributed on the ANS Web site. We endorse the current Policy Statement as a reasonably cautious statement, particularly calling for further research into the issues. Without a formal review of the Technical Brief (which we did not produce as a division), we are unable at this time to say whether it contains sufficient technical basis to support even the present Policy Statement. As a Division, we would like to conduct our own review of the Technical Brief in light of the present Policy before endorsing it as applicable to any proposed Policy changes. We have approached key members of the Division as to how to undertake such a review, and their response indicates that a several month effort would be necessary. There is no time to complete such an activity before the Washington meeting.

We have also examined your proposed statement revision, in the several forms you have sent around. Although your initial request to this Division was for technical review of the Brief, we do wish to make a statement on the proposed Policy changes. The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division does not currently endorse the proposed changes, for the following reasons:

1. We find some unduly inflammatory language in the proposed revision, and we are concerned about potential legal impact for the ANS should this Policy ever be used to support Federal or State regulatory requirements. In particular, we believe that the statement '... there may even be health benefits at lower doses' lacks specificity, and as such, cannot currently be defended to the technical rigor that our members require in their own everyday work.

2. RPSD, reflecting the views of most of our professional community, has serious concerns with the application of the Linear No Threshold Hypothesis to all situations. However, we caution about taking an extremely opposite stance. We have not adequately defined a 'threshold' concept, nor discussed threshold values or applications to specific situations. We caution against applying a too broad, simplistic approach to a complex situation, which can be just as bad as the current one.

3. We would very much like to see a collaborative effort with the Health Physics Society on such statements, or at least be assured that those drafting the policy are aware of the current HPS position, so that professionals in closely related fields are coordinated in the position they present to the public.

I know this isn't the ringing endorsement that you would like, and as I mentioned, we will discuss this further at our meeting on Monday. Please join us to answer questions and present your case. We appreciate the opportunity you are giving us to become involved in policy-making statements; it is largely unprecedented that we as a Division are consulted outside of the PPC meetings. Thanks for your consideration, and I will talk to you further at the meeting.