2016 HPS61 Roundtable | U.S. Transuranium and Uranium Registries

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Meet the Roundtable Participants!

The USTUR’s special session at the 2016 Health Physics Society meeting finished with a roundtable discussion on “50 years of USTUR history.” It was led by a panel of former directors and scientists who were involved with the Registries when its predecessor organizations were established.

Bryce Breitenstein – unable to attend

USTR Director
(1976-1982)

After high school, I attended the University of Montana School of Pharmacy. After graduating and becoming a Registered Pharmacist, I worked at the Missoula Drug Store. Subsequently, I applied and was admitted to the University of Oregon School of Medicine. After graduation, I completed an internship and an Internal Medicine Residency at L.A. County Hospital (residency interrupted by being drafted into the Army and serving two years of active duty in Germany). I next practiced Internal Medicine in Missoula, Montana for seven years, and then left medical practice to start a fellowship in Environmental Medicine at the Public Health School at the University of Washington in Seattle. After completing the fellowship and earning a MPH, Hanford Environmental Health Foundation (HEHF) in Richland, WA hired me as an Occupational Medicine Physician. In addition to clinical work, I was assigned to head the Research Section at HEHF. At that time, the early 1970s, there were two research studies being performed, The Long Term Hanford Worker Study and the U.S. Transuranium Registry. These studies were performed collaborative with Pacific Northwest Laboratories. Later, the U.S. Uranium Registry was added. These research programs were funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies. In 1979, I became the Chief Executive Officer of HEHF. I took early retirement from HEHF in 1989. I was then hired to be Head of the Occupational Medicine Clinic at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., and part-time clinical faculty in the Preventive Medicine Department of Stony Brook Medical School. I retired from these positions in 2001. Next, I worked for about ten years as a Center Medical Director for Concentra Occupational Medical Clinics in Orange County, CA. I stopped full time medical practice in 2013.

I knew that the Registries were and are providing important evidence for Health Physics modeling, and were the best way to understand the bio-distribution and evidence of pathology of the actinide and uranium isotopes of interest in humans. Also, it was a pleasure to work with all the people that were directly involved in the Registries or affiliated with this effort.

I have been away from the Registries for nearly 30 years. I think this question is better answered by one of our Health Physics Colleagues.

Currently, I take a very early morning two-hour hike up and down the nearby mountains three times a week. I am in a writing class for writing my life story, and a class on short fiction stories sponsored by Learning in Retirement affiliated with the College of the Desert. I like doing Sudoku. I have time to do reading, both fiction and non-fiction. I play Barons Bridge on my iPhone 6 plus.

Dealing with the completion of specimen collection of the first whole body donation to the USTR in 1979. Details of this case are described in a special issue of the Health Physics Journal published in October 1985.

Robert Bistline

SAC Member
(2007-2016)

Robert W. Bistline received his Ph.D. from Colorado State University in Radiation Biology in 1973, his M.S. in Radiological Sciences from the University of Washington in 1970, Graduate studies in Radiation Biophysics and Atomic Physics at the University of Kansas, and his B.A. in Physics, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences from Westmar College in 1959. He taught and coached in high schools in Kansas and taught and served as Admissions Director at Westmar College prior to entering the fields of research and Health Physics at the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in 1966. Dr. Bistline did research and development of lung counting of transuranics elements, conducted radiation worker cytogenetic studies, conducted radiation health effects studies and epidemiologic studies of radiation workers, served as one of 3 prosectors assisting in approximately 120 autopsies of workers for the U.S. Transuranium Registry, established a former worker recall call medical surveillance program that is now used by the Department of Energy, and was one of the pioneers in the DOE Chronic Beryllium Disease Prevention Program. He has more than 50 scientific publications and has given several hundred presentations. Dr. Bistline was appointed to an Excepted Service position by the Secretary of Energy in 1994 and joined the staff of the Rocky Flats Field Office of the Department of Energy in 1995 where he served until retirement in 2005 as a Program Manager of the Internal Dosimetry Program, Occupational Medicine Program, Radiation Protection Program, and the Beryllium Worker Protection Program at Rocky Flats. He supported the DOE Headquarters on numerous technical committees, workshops, and the development of program guidance. Dr. Bistline has served on the Department of Energy Central Beryllium Institutional Review Board since its beginning. Upon retirement he has been consulting for the National Institute of Health, the Department of Energy, and as a technical advisor for the President’s Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health that provides oversite of the NIOSH OCAS dose reconstruction project for the government’s Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. He has received numerous awards that include the Department of Energy’s Pride Award.

Ronald Filipy

USTUR Director
(1999-2005)

I have a Ph. D. degree in Radiation Biology from Oregon State University. After completing degree work, I spent 17 years in the Biology Department of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. My work, there, involved evaluation of the effects of inhaled uranium ore dust, radon daughters, cigarette smoke, and plutonium in beagle dogs and rodents. During that time, I acquired much experience with gross pathology and histopathology of the experimental animals. The USTUR had an opening for a scientist with such qualifications so I applied and was hired. I was with the USTUR for 15 years, with the last five years as director.

Not known to us until 1995, the USSR had a program similar to the USTUR, underway for nearly as long a time. In 1995, The USTUR and the Russian registry at MAYAK (the Russian equivalent of Hanford, located 1000 miles east of Moscow) came together in a collaborative research program, comparing plutonium dosimetry data. Several publications resulted from our working relationships and personal relationships developed between Russian and American scientists. This occupied 5 years of my time with the USTUR, involved many trips to MAYAK, and it is among my fondest memories of my career.

The USTUR data are most valuable for the verification of actinide biokinetics and organ dose models. These early models, proposed by the ICRP, were based primarily on data from animal experiments. USTUR data, especially from whole-body donations, have resulted in verification and/or modification of those models.

Read fiction and non-fiction,
Play golf (up to 4 times/week),
Babysit with 3 beautiful and brilliant granddaughters (aged 6 mo. to 6 yr.), and
Travel and any opportunity.

Summed up in two words: time management. This was especially true because of unexpected demands on time such as registrant deaths.

Ronald Kathren

USTUR Director
(1989-1999)

Roger McClellan

SAC Member
(2010-present)

Roger O. McClellan is currently an advisor to public and private organizations on inhalation toxicology and human health risk analysis issues. He received a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree with Highest Honors from Washington State University (1960). He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology and the American Board of Veterinary Toxicology and a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, American Association for Advancement of Science, Society for Risk Analysis and American Association for Aerosol Research.

He is an internationally recognized authority in the fields of inhalation toxicology, aerosol science and human health risk analysis. He is also well known for the leadership he provided to the Lovelace Inhalation Toxicology Research Institute (1966-1988) in Albuquerque, NM and the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (1988-1999) in Research Triangle Park, NC. Both organizations are internationally recognized for their research on the mechanisms of action of pollutants and assessing human health risks. He has authored over 300 scientific papers and reports and edited 10 books. He frequently speaks on risk assessment and air pollution issues in the United States and abroad. He is a Past President of the Society of Toxicology and the American Association for Aerosol Research. He serves in an editorial role for a number of journals, including continuing service as Editor of Critical Reviews in Toxicology. He serves or has served on the Adjunct Faculty of 8 universities.

McClellan has served in an advisory role to numerous public and private organizations including service on senior advisory committees for 8 federal agencies and on many committees of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. He is past Chairman of EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and served on Panels that have reviewed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for all of the Criteria Pollutants.

McClellan’s contributions have been recognized by receipt of a number of honors. He was elected in 1990 to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He received the Society of Toxicology Merit Award and Founders Award and the New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Award. In 2005, The Ohio State University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Science degree for his contributions to the science under-girding improved air quality. In 2008, Washington State University presented him the Regents Distinguished Alumnus Award, the highest recognition the University can bestow on an alumnus. He is a strong advocate of risk-based decision-making integrating information from epidemiological studies, clinical investigation, laboratory animal bioassays and mechanistic studies using molecules, cells, tissues and intact mammals.

Jim McInroy

In charge of USTUR Radiochemistry Work at LANL
(1975-1992)

I received a MS and PhD from Colorado State University, majoring in Health Physics. I began working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1972 to lead their Human Tissue Analysis Program. Tissues were being collected from deceased LANL workers that had volunteered to donate their organs and tissues to the program. These data were shared with the USTR and we became actively involved with their research.

I particularity enjoyed the interaction and collaboration with the members of the USTR and their willingness to contribute to our research efforts. Many helpful discussions were held concerning our joint experiences in tissue collection, preparation for analysis and analytical techniques.

The research and analysis of the data obtained by our joint efforts with the USTR have resulted in specific knowledge of the internal distribution and retention of the transuranium elements in the human body of exposed nuclear workers and researchers. This has resulted in much improved computer models for estimating body burdens of these elements using in vivo techniques such as urine analysis.

Since my retirement, I have developed an interest in wood carving ducks, song birds, fish and Santa Clauses, golfing (not very good at it), and fishing. My wife and I have enjoyed taking a couple of cruises, one to Alaska and one to the Bahamas.

Margery Swint

USTR/USUR Director
(1982-1989)

1951-61: Medical Technologist and medical school (University of Michigan) with some autopsy experience.
1963-76: Anesthesiologist in private practice in Milwaukee, WI and Oak Ridge, TN.
1976: Moved to Richland with husband and 3 children. Declined offer of anesthesiology work nights and weekends.
1980: My pathologist neighbor introduced me to Dr. Breitenstein who risked employing me part time at Hanford Environmental Health Foundation to work for USTR. This morphed into full-time employment as an Occupational Physician and USTR. All of this was more interesting than anesthesiology and the hours were much better.

The people involved with the USTR made the work most enjoyable. They were enthusiastic, innovative, cooperative and goal-oriented. They brought their expertise together for the solution of problems If the workers and families were willing to give their records and their bodies to help solve problems, my colleagues were willing to give their weekends to do the “take downs.”

This was accomplished through my colleagues’ dedication as well as all the workers who prepared our bare bones facilities for this work to be done. Eventually enough data on distribution, retention, metabolism and excretion became available as well as the effect of DTPA to determine the accuracy of our measurement of worker exposure.

Enjoy my 5 grandchildren
Continue on Medical Education Committees (both local and state)
Hanford Advisory Board Member
Gardening and Reading (historical and medical)

The subjects of our investigations were members of the “Greatest Generation” during the Cold War…but on the home front. We thrived on challenges and I can only say, for myself, that there was never disappointment or anger or competition…there is only teamwork, lifelong admiration and friendship to remember. We couldn’t imagine the present facilities so I can only admire how much more efficient this is today.

Richard Toohey – Roundtable Chair

USTUR Associate Director (1992-1993)
SAC Chair (2011-current)

I first became involved with the Registries in the late 1970’s, when I was working at Argonne’s Center for Human Radiobiology, following up the radium dial painters and also cases occupationally exposed to actinides. I brought some bone samples from one of the plutonium injection cases from the 1940’s out for measurements at PNL’s whole-body counter to aid in detector calibration. I was also invited to assist on measurements of Case 102, a whole-body donation of a worker with an intake of Am-241. In 1993 I become associate director of the Registries, compiling the post-mortem data on Case 246 for a special issue of Health Physics, and was subsequently invited to join the SAC in 2011.

The Registries are an unmatched resource for scientific investigation of actinide biokinetics and validation of the standard models we use to compute internal radiation doses. Registries data have led ICRP to make appropriate adjustments in their models. Now with new genomic and other techniques such as the pseudo-Pelger-Huet anomaly, the Registries are contributing in was unimagined when they were established.

In my spare time, when I am not involved with HPS, NCP, ICRP, and IRPA, I am a voracious reader, with physical sciences probably in the lead, but psychology, history, and economics close behind.

The hard part of working with the Registries is that there are so many important and interesting things to do, and simply not enough time to pursue them all.