PRESENTATION BY GENE BARNHAM: MR. BRANHAM: It's Branham, B-r-a-n-h-a-m. Thank you for the opportunity and the invitation. THE CHAIR: Mr. Branham, would you try that other one? I think it's a little louder and the audience wants to hear you. MR. BRANHAM: How's this? THE CHAIR: Much better. MR. BRANHAM: I thank the panel for the invitation and the opportunity. I've been asked by Dan Guttman, one of your associates, and I think I have to say without Mr. Guttman's invitation I would not be here. He has the integrity and the character that impresses me. And I feel comfortable that this will not be another charade as we saw in the past; that something may come of this. As I said, my name is Gene Branham, and I work at the Fernald Atomic Nuclear Site which is located approximately 20 to 25 miles northwest of Cincinnati. I've been employed there 42 years. I'm currently a union representative, the vice-president of the Labor Council. Have been a union official in some capacity for 34 years. I might add that we represent all the in-house union labor in the 14 international unions. I've been asked to speak on the, what we commonly refer to as the DOE body-snatching program. You probably hear it more commonly referred to as a Federal Transuranic Rads Unit. I understand you've had other speakers on the West Coast, and I see other members on the panel which have more knowledge. So some of your questions might be more appropriately addressed to him when the time comes. This concept was covert. It originated in San Diego, California, 1956. The originators were the Fernald employees, Mike Bowback (phonetic), Bob Heatherton (phonetic), and Dr. Quicken (phonetic). Bowback and Heatherton didn't have no knowledge nor any history of the medical background whatsoever. From the outset, one of the big problems was, and they recognized it early, not being able to get nuclear workers' bodies prior to interment or embalmment. They had no value once these two processes took place. So the body parts and the diseased organs were extremely important. The plan failed in the early stages for the mere reason they couldn't get enough nuclear workers' bodies, and they couldn't get them behind them. Realizing this, in September of '63, in Seattle, the same three took a lead position in modifying the program. In doing so, the modification was to enlist the aids, the aid of local coroners to enlist assistance from pathologists and Emergency Room attendants; in addition, have their own employees monitor those coroners, those inflow workers who they knew had terminal disease. By doing this they could claim the body parts prior to embalmment and interment, and this would certify studies that they would pretend to be involved in. As you know, for a study to be certified it must have peer review in order to qualify for grants. In addition, they attempted to avoid the liability in pursuit of Worker's Compensation by the workers. And if those diseased organs are never available, it is extremely difficult for medical people to testify as to the origin of your sickness or to your illness. In order to get credible participation, people of coroners' staffs, Hamilton County, for example, the county you're in right now, Dr. Frank Cleveland has been the Coroner here for the past 28 years. He has a great deal of knowledge, and you should remember the name. And he's well aware of the documents that I have to support my position. Otherwise I'd be faced with liability calling the name public of this nature. His participation had been unmasked. The mere idea of him lending this effort has influenced others, although to my knowledge there is no written contract. He was approached from a patriotic perspective, doing your part for the country, supposedly the right thing for the right reason. And as a result, they've had a great deal of success. I should point out, in the state of Ohio it is not against the law under the Atomic Act of '54 to do these sort of, of medical experimentations if you get the body before it's buried. And if you share the results with all parties that it may tend to help, including groups of workers, agencies, and what have you. But they have, the Oak Ridge Association of Universities, -- And you want to mark that one down, don't let these fellows get away. I'll catch that in a moment. -- they have a policy, it's in the last paragraph of Page 26 of their charter, which tells you that as long as one nuclear worker is alive, you don't have to share the information. In creating that charter it associated me with the body-snatching program at the taxpayer's expense. Thirty-five and 40 years of it could be most people now, we've been deprived of. That within itself should be enough to motivate you to, to go all the way, the whole nine innings. In 1981, in order to get more bodies, the DOE made an appeal to the workers throughout the country to, it was in May of '81, to buy our livers. They offered us $500 each. We would sign an agreement that upon death they could claim the body, without any legal obligations to perform a nuclear autopsy. And I won't take a lot of time going into the difference between a standard autopsy and a nuclear autopsy, because I'm sure you guys all know what I'm talking about. In doing so you could name a beneficiary that would receive your money, but upon your death, in claiming the body, performing a nuclear autopsy, and then determining the value of it, you may receive, or your beneficiary may receive a lesser amount of money, depending on what they thought the value was. I'm glad to say that the workers, the workers took no part in that. We, we were against that. DOE did all these things without the workers' informed consent, nor the knowledge nor approval as surviving spouse or the nearest living relative. Now, I understand that a, one of the priorities on your job is to determine informed consent, and you should know that there was none, and there is none as of today in this particular area. And this function is still being carried on today. Mortuary was in Hanford, Washington. Parts of it is still there with the vets operating. As we talk, they've now affiliated themselves with the University, Washington University. And as you know, you've got to have a comparison factor. That means a body from the private sector. There's a document, Dan Guttman and Mr. Klaidman, Mr. Steve Klaidman, I think is his name, -- MR. KLAIDMAN: About as close as he got yours. THE CHAIR: Thanks a lot. That's my friend. MR. BRANHAM: I'm sorry about that. THE CHAIR: We're going to have to have, to start to bring it to closure, but -- MR. BRANHAM: Well, it, you want to say, it took me 40 years to get there. You could let me chatter on for 30 damn minutes. A SPECTATOR: Go ahead, Mack. MR. BRANHAM: I won't take long. THE CHAIR: Go ahead. I'm sorry. MR. BRANHAM: Well, Dan said if I could quote, if I could cite one outstanding example, that may be most helpful to you. Then I may cite one. A worker 45 years of age, a welder by trade, Millersburg, The Mounds, which is approximately 50 miles north of here, the B.J. Carpenter, he was six-foot-six, weighed 300 pounds. He could have played for the Dallas Cowboys. He was built that way, too. He was the fire chief of the local town, Carlisle, Ohio. Part of his job was to work on the moon buggy, the shields on the Challenger, as you recall, that, the heat reflectors, the problems there. And he dealt with, with, thorium, tritium, plutonium. He became ill. His family, knowing the business that he was in where we oftentimes had requested the family to have a vigil to guard the bodies to make sure the DOE can't get ahold of them before we can bury them properly, asked us, and with Mr. B. J. Carpenter's consent, that we do something to help his fellow workers. And this man's legs were amputated, and I don't want to get too descriptive here, but it was the worst case I ever seen. But I've been in this for a quarter of a century. When he asked to be let to die and he did so within three hours and 40 minutes, and along with the help of some others. And I want to give you a name. It's a Judge in Warren County, Judge Powers, to give source for you to get information. We were able to get his body and pack it properly and get it out of the country to the Third World, that performed the nuclear autopsy, did the analysis, and preserved the results. Those are available, and we're waiting for the right time and the right place, hoping you guys are the right place. If you ain't, we've already gone through all the cutting, shooting, and gunsmoke. And as a result, people like you have taken it to its new level. And if you fulfill your part as, as well as we did ours, we'll get some results. And maybe we can, this won't happen to the next generation. We recognize that it's absolutely necessary to do worker studies. We only want them done completely with the consent and the knowledge and willing participation. We want the results shared with the people it will help. I made myself one note on the back of these things here. It says, "Don't let Oak Ridge Associated Universities escape." This fellow came up here to tell you, and he was sent here to tell you, check with Dr. Carl Lesbaum (phonetic), the University of Cincinnati class of standards. Check with Shirley Frye (phonetic). These people work with Associated Universities and know exactly what are going on as knowing participants. Get them. I'm through. Thank you for your time and your patience. THE CHAIR: Good. Good. Hold on. Even though that's why -- I wasn't trying to rush your testimony off, but I knew the clock was running out and we wanted to ask you a couple of questions. We'll just have to try to ask them real quickly. Let me make sure that I completely understand. This is a new area for, for me to hear about. First of all, just for folks to say, Dan Guttman, who is, what's his title? The Executive Director of the Advisory Commission, it's very comforting for me to know that he's connected with you. And so that means that the Committee will certainly have a, an easy opportunity to get the information from you. You're one person we don't have to work on getting to speak with the staff that's here. If Dan is involved with you, that's great. MR. BRANHAM: That's true. In addition, I meant what I said. When he asked, you had instant credibility. THE CHAIR: That's great. But I don't think we, the three of us, are familiar with this particular activity. What, what, so what you're saying to us is that even today there are people associated with the company or with the Department of Energy, which is the three people you mentioned, -- MR. BRANHAM: Those three people have since, Dr. Quicken has died, Mike Bowback and Bob Heatherton have retired. The program is still in tact and as we talk. THE CHAIR: And so the program is where there are people who are doing a, desire to do studies on nuclear workers on, when they die, to get at those bodies to be able to conduct studies prior to being buried or, or, or cremated, and that the concern is that, that you do not feel, and the members of the union do not feel that appropriate consent and consultation with family for approval is being done prior to, to the, the, the researchers getting access to those bodies? MR. BRANHAM: It isn't being done. I oftentimes, along with other union officials, have to guard the bodies to make sure they're put into proper hands. THE CHAIR: And in fact you're saying you have personal experience with at least one case recently when, where you had to guard the body and then actually have the body taken out of the country to protect the interests of that person and that family? MR. BRANHAM: It's for multiple reasons, but Carpenter knew what his source of, of death was and he wanted to try to, to help people so nobody else would ever have to go, go through what he was doing. DR. STEVENSON: Can you at this time reveal at all the nature of his illness? You mentioned his limbs were amputated and some of it was very, very raw. MR. BRANHAM: He was one of the most ill persons that, anyone with lesser strength could never survive what he underwent. The amputations were minor compared to the necessity to split his insides and five intravenous feeds from the shoulders down. And he looked like a butchered cow. The man tolerated more than any man ever, ever. DR. STEVENSON: But was it an underlying malignancy? MR. BRANHAM: All internal organs were diseased beyond repair: stomach, liver, kidneys, lungs. DR. STEVENSON: And another, I know you said it was the DOE who approached the Union at one point offering $500, or a certain amount of money for permission to perform autopsies. So they sort of at one point tried to approach in an open way; is that right? But when it didn't work, or concurrent with this they were conducting their own sort of program? I was just confused about the different avenues that they were trying to pursue. MR. BRANHAM: It's been a covert activity from Day 1. They never proved anything with any degree of ethics. Buying of the bodies was merely to satisfy the grant money. You had to have a number in order to certify your study for a peer review, and they weren't getting enough bodies timely, prior to, to being put in the ground. Now, in this case you don't understand. If you do, forgive me. A nuclear autopsy versus an autopsy on someone who has expired is totally different, mainly because thorium, plutonium are bone seekers. In order to verify their existence in the bone you have to do core drilling, bone drilling. You can't do that on a living person, so they must have these bodies. THE CHAIR: Lois. MS. NORRIS: Once again a very brief question. Do I understand you have documentation that you have turned over to Dan or to, to the staff members, or that you are withholding until you determine if, you know, it's appropriate that we receive the documentation? MR. BRANHAM: I've shared it with Senator Glenn and Markey and his staff, and Dingell, who's aware of all this stuff. And I've testified in Congress a few times. I'm old and I'm tired, and I want you guys to pick the ball up and run with it. If I can help you I will. I've got documents. I've got them hid, they're just too unique, to be made available if something happens to me. In today's life, in the '90s, that may be hard for you to understand, but going back two decades it was a reality. You're going to be talking to people later on that can, can tell you that one hell of a life. These people have been easy on us, but don't lighten up because -- No slack. Go for, for the jugular. DR. STEVENSON: Is this, do you know where all of this is stockpiled, this biological information? MR. BRANHAM: Ronnie Kathrin, the President, and I can take you to Hanford where you can find body parts and diseased parts, or gangs, and what have you. THE CHAIR: I know in another couple of weeks we'll be up in Spokane, and so if you can alert folks that we're coming so they'll be there to test-, to talk to me. MR. BRANHAM: As people call me I'll give you the name and number of those people. THE CHAIR: And we're going to hear from others later, -- Is that right? -- who also have the -- MR. BRANHAM: I don't think so. They have another agenda. But J. C. Jefcee (phonetic) has -- THE CHAIR: We do need to move on if, but one other thing I guess I just don't understand about, this is more of a question of why. It would seem to me, this may be naive on my part, that, that the, that, that the workers would want to, that would have an interest in, in making sure that as much as possible were known about their, you know, exposures and the appropriate scientific risks, and so forth, to protect the best interests of the employees in the industry. And it would seem that it would be, it would make sense for those in the industry to, to know as much and to get at that appropriately and fairly. What's hard to understand is why now in 1994 there would be this degree of, of difference and anger, though. And with, with everyone, seems like the interest of all would be to do it right, to do it good, to, to do everything good. I mean, why this late in history would there be this much tension on an issue like this? MR. BRANHAM: Well, with all due respect, with this particular presidential group, we have had other charades for the past two decades. None of it have done a hill of beans, you know. When you come across this Glenn Markey response there's some political positive effort; still no results. The workers do not oppose. In fact, we recognize it's essential that you have worker studies. But you must do it legally, ethically, morally, and with the worker's consent and willing participation. And we will participate. THE CHAIR: So, at no time -- and this, I promise this will be the last question, but at no time then are you saying that the desires of the studies, the sponsors of the studies have not sat with members of the industry and gotten your advice and counsel on how to create the mechanisms, the principles, the practices of doing this study in a way that would be acceptable to you and further the aims of the scientists? They've never sat with you and talked with you? MR. BRANHAM: Sir, they extend the existence of this even as we've talked now. You heard the man from the, the Oak Ridge University give a politically motivated justification for what they did. These people in '46, in this Nuremberg trial tried Jeffrey Lawrence and sentenced him to hang just as he did eleven of those people. THE CHAIR: Thank you for your time, and thank you for your patience. MR. BRANHAM: Thank you for the opportunities. Good luck.