Supreme court filing format

I. THE LIKELIHOOD THAT MRS. KENNEDY'S DISEASE WAS CAUSED BY A SUBSTANCE FROM DEFENDANTS IS THEORETICAL OR NEGLIGIBLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A. Assuming that Mrs. Kennedy was exposed to a fuel flea, the dose was negligible . . . 4
B. Any calculated harm to Mrs Kennedy from a dose of less than one microrem, or even a dose 10,000 times larger, would be completely theoretical . . . . 6
C. The Panel confused Risk, Contingent Rrisk and Probability of Causation . . . . 7
D. The postulate that a fuel flea existed in the Kennedy home is theoretical . . . . 8
E. The probability that a fuel flea large enough to cause exposure reached the Kennedy home is small . . . . 8
F. Amici are appalled at the acceptance of irrational fears as a possible basis for decision. . . . . . 10

II. THE PANEL MISUNDERSTOOD THE PRINCIPLE OF MULTIPLE CAUSATION AND MISCONSTRUED CALIFORNIA LAW . . . . 12

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed. 2d 469 (1993) . . . 1, 4, 11

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 43 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 869 (1995) . . . 3, 12, 16

Rutherford v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 16 Cal.4th 953, 67 Cal.Rptr.2d 16, 941 P.2d 1203 (Cal.1997) . . . 12

F.A. Mettler and A.C. Upton (eds.) "Medical Effects of Ionizing Radiation" 350-372 (2nd ed., 1995) . . . 5

National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, Statement No. 7, "The Probability That a Particular Malignancy May Have Been Caused by a Specific Irradiation" (9/30/92) . . . 5, n.2

United Nations Subcommittee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), "Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation," Report to the General Assembly 15, Table 1 (1993) . . . 5-6

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Information Circular 87-39, "Control of Hot Particle Contamination in Nuclear Power Plants . . . . 9

Amici are scientists, including four Nobel laureates in Medicine, Physics and Chemistry, who have studied the issue of the role that scientific issues play in public affairs and in particular the way in which they can illuminate disputes between different persons or elements of society in the courts of law. Amici include physicians, chemists, physicists, epidemiologists, environmental scientists, public health experts, specialists in radiation protection, and experts in risk analysis and risk assessment. Several of the amici submitted a brief in the Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) (hereafter "Daubert"), the seminal case discussing the rule for admissibility of expert scientific evidence. Amici support the principles enunciated by the Supreme Court in that case, and believe that those principles should have wide applicability at the interface between science and law and policy.

Amici were professionally astounded to learn that the three-judge panel consisting of Judges Hawkins, Boochever and Thomas of this Court (hereafter "the Panel") held in substance a small radiation dose, less than a year's "background" dose, might be a "substantial factor" in causing a disease. Amici were equally astounded to read that the Panel held that "It would not be unreasonable for a juror to conclude that a one in one hundred thousand chance of developing a fatal cancer was more than a mere theoretical possibility." (Kennedy v. Southern California Edison, 2000 WL 991836 at *11 (July 20, 2000)). This statement shows the Panel's lack of understanding of basic epidemiology and risk calculation. A risk of "one in one hundred thousand" is merely theoretical because radiation risks that small have not been, and probably cannot be, measured. Any such risk is merely a theoretical extrapolation from measured risks many orders of magnitude greater than one in one hundred thousand caused by doses many orders of magnitude greater than the largest dose Mrs. Kennedy might theoretically have received.

2000 WL 991836 at FN8. We believe that this observation contributes to and encourages irrationality as a basis for decisions, precisely what scientists and, we submit, the Supreme Court in Daubert and its progeny seek to avoid.

In this case a claim was made that a particular exposure to a substance or agent caused a medical outcome -- Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) -- which outcome is indistinguishable from an outcome caused by natural, or unknown, processes. In the absence of any evidence of specificity, it is well accepted in epidemiology and risk analysis that some estimate of the relative probabilities must be made.

In the case at issue, "probability of causation" can be calculated only theoretically, because (a) it was not established that Mrs. Kennedy was in fact exposed to fuel fleas from SONGS, and (b) there was no measurement of the quantum of exposure. More importantly, even the hypothetical maximum exposure is very small and can only be assumed to lead to a medical outcome by a theoretical calculation.

The postulate that a fuel flea existed in the Kennedy home is theoretical; there was no evidence that a fuel flea was ever present in the Kennedy home. Moreover, the hypothetical exposure, even if it occurred, was negligible. Any calculated harm to Mrs. Kennedy from such a dose, or even a dose 10,000 times larger, would be completely theoretical. In fact, the probability that a fuel flea large enough to cause any harmful exposure to radiation reached the Kennedy home is very small.

Moreover, the Panel confused the concepts of "risk," "contingent risk" and "probability of causation."

The Panel's apparent acceptance of irrational fears as a possible basis for decision is directly contrary to this Court's decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 43 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 869 (1995) and the Supreme Court's decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), and, if allowed to stand, would undo the salutary teachings of Daubert and its progeny.

Finally, the panel misunderstood the principle of multiple causation and misconstrued California law with respect to the burden of proof in toxic substance exposure cases.

THE LIKELIHOOD THAT MRS. KENNEDY'S DISEASE WAS CAUSED BY A SUBSTANCE FROM DEFENDANTS IS THEORETICAL OR NEGLIGIBLE

A. Assuming that Mrs. Kennedy was exposed to a fuel flea, the dose was negligible.

Plaintiffs claimed that Mrs. Kennedy contracted CML from radiation emitted from "fuel fleas" -- fragments of nuclear reactor fuel -- that were allegedly carried home by her husband, who was a machinist at Southern California Edison's ("SCE") San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station ("SONGS"). Even assuming the presence of a fuel flea in the Kennedy home, the plaintiffs presented no estimate of the radiation dose received by Mrs. Kennedy from the hypothetical fuel flea.

All of us are exposed to radiation: from the stars in the universe, from minerals in the Earth's crust, and from man-made objects and processes.

The probability of causation can be related to the risk of an individual getting the disease from a given dose by the formula:

Probability of Causation = (Risk calculated from exposure to the particular agent)/(Risk calculated from all causes including those without the particular agent present)

F.A. Mettler and A.C. Upton (eds.) "Medical Effects of Ionizing Radiation" 350- 372 (2nd ed., 1995). This procedure is generally accepted in the field and was used by the National Cancer Institute in preparing a set of "radioepidemiological tables" in response to Congressional Mandate under section 7(b) of the Orphan Drug Act of January 4, 1983 (PL 97-414) (NIH Publication 85-2748).

It seems uncontested that the dose would have been no more than that estimated by the defendants' experts -- less than 200 microrem (0.2 millirem). This is more than 500 times less than the natural background dose of 100 millirems per year at sea level (and exposure is greater as one's altitude increases, as for example when flying in an airplane or skiing or living in the Rockies or Sierra Nevada mountain range), or 250 millirems per year if radon gas, which is known to cause lung cancer but not known to cause CML, is included. See United Nations Subcommittee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), "Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation," Report to the General Assembly Table 1 at 15 (1993). This Report shows elevated levels of exposure to radiation in large geographic areas that are more than twice the above figure, and shows a large variation in this annual natural background dose, often susceptible to alteration by changes in behavior. There are few, if any, Americans who adjust their behaviors to reduce background doses, as, for example, by avoiding airplane flying, foregoing mountain vacations or by moving from locales at high altitudes. In this sense, doses of this magnitude are accepted by the American people.

B. Any calculated harm to Mrs. Kennedy from a dose of less than one microrem, or even a dose 10,000 times larger, would be completely theoretical.

The lowest dose at which any professional body is willing to say that radiation definitely causes cancer is about 10 rems. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) stated in a June 29, 2000 report to Senator Peter Dominici that "according to a consensus of scientists there is a lack of conclusive evidence of low-level radiation effects below total exposures of 5,000 to 10,000 millirems". GAO/RCED-00-152 Radiation Standards.

The effects of radiation on people, and in particular any increase in CML, is known from epidemiological studies in which a group of persons exposed to additional radiation is compared to a group of persons exposed only to natural background radiation and other cancer inducing processes. It is not possible to distinguish an effect where the probability of developing cancer, even in a large population, is changed only a few percent.

Any estimate of risk caused by radiation exposure below 10 rems is completely theoretical. The hypothetical dose to Mrs. Kennedy from the hypothetical fuel flea was 50,000 times smaller than 10 rems.

The Panel acknowledged the uncontradicted testimony that the probability that the CML was due to radiation form SONGS to be one in one hundred thousand. But this was merely the contingent probability -- contingent upon the hypothetical existence of a fuel flea at the Kennedy home to which Mrs. Kennedy might have been exposed. The real probability that the CML was caused by SONGS would have been far less -- 1 in 100,000 multiplied by the small probability that the fuel flea existed in the Kennedy home and that Mrs. Kennedy came into close proximity with it.

The Panel also confused the Probability of Causation (that the disease was due to the postulated cause) with the Risk of developing CML. The latter is smaller than the former by the natural incidence of CML. The Panel stated:

If the Panel had not confused the two concepts ("Probability of Causation" and "Risk") they would have calculated that, under their assumptions, fewer than 10 peoplewould contract CML in their lifetimes, or less than one case in approximately seven years.

No evidence was presented that a fuel flea was actually carried out of the SONGS facility by Mr. Kennedy, or even if it was that it was carried into the Kennedy home that it was a source of exposure to Mrs. Kennedy. The postulate that such a fuel flea existed is based upon no data whatever and in the ordinary sense of the word is, therefore, merely theoretical.

E. The probability that a fuel flea large enough to cause exposure reached the Kennedy home is small.

Radiation detection devices existed at San Onofre power plant to detect any radioactivity on persons and clothing. Employees and visitors were not allowed to leave the radiation area without radiation monitoring, and indeed it was physically difficult for them to do so. That the fuel fleas might escape was evident to everyone in San Onofre. According to the trial transcript [RT 3037-3090], 22,000 radiological surveys were taken and showed that the fuel fleas were not widely dispersed beyond the radiation area in the plant or beyond the plant. Although one fuel flea was found in the carpet of one SONGS technician's home, whole body radiation counts showed that no member of that worker's family had ingested or otherwise internalized a fuel flea [RT3641]). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ("NRC") circulated an industry- wide advisory about fuel fleas (US NRC Information Circular 87-39, "Control of Hot Particle Contamination in Nuclear Power Plants") and later observed that "[n]o plant has reported inhalation or ingestion of hot particles [fuel fleas] by any worker" [RT 3630-31 and RT 3666]. The fuel fleas found outside the plant were very small -- 0.02 to 0.08 microCuries [Excerpt of Record 5870-589].

The NRC had the regulatory authority to order SONGS to formally search every worker's home for fuel fleas. It declined to do so, implying that such searches were not deemed necessary. Therefore the probability that a fuel flea escaped detection when Mr. Kennedy left the plant and that Mrs. Kennedy was exposed to it, while difficult to quantify, must be very small. The plaintiffs made no attempt to quantify that probability.

F. Amici are appalled at the acceptance of irrational fears as a possible basis for decision.

The court further aggravated its errors in footnote 8, relating specifically to radiation exposure:

This footnote apparently means that a disproportionate fear of nuclear power is rational merely because otherwise rational people hold that fear. This reasoning could be applied to many other products, such as electric power lines, microwave ovens, etc., and would increase both the frequency of groundless litigation and the likelihood of false verdicts. In the complex system of resolving factual disputes that the courts manage, the jury is the final arbiter. The jury is supposedly selected from a reasonable cross-section of the public and it is the jurors' perception of the matter at issue which will normally control the decision. It is possible, even probable, that individual members of the jury will have opinions about nuclear accidents before sitting on a case such as this. The process that the court goes through seems to amici to be one in which various witnesses give their version of the facts, and experts of various kinds are brought to explain the scientific and technical basis and thereby to add to, or modify, any thoughts that the jury might hold a priori. The supposition is that a jury will render a decision as closely based upon facts as possible, and not on an a priori guess or impression as to these facts. We submit that if a judge were to mention any "generalized fear of nuclear accidents" at all, it should be to warn the jury againstacting on such a fear unless it is justified by evidence presented to them in the case at issue. Quite astoundingly, footnote 8 to the Panel's opinion seems to suggest the reverse -- that a fear of nuclear radiation (or in other cases, perhaps, fear of asbestos, electric power transmission lines, fluoride in drinking water, etc.) could support a jury's finding of liability when scientific or other generally accepted knowledge -- uncontradicted by competent evidence -- is to the contrary.

This, we suggest, is precisely what the Supreme Court's decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharamaceuticals, 509 U.S. 679 (1993) and its progeny, and this Court's decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 43 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 869 (1995) seek to avoid.

THE PANEL MISUNDERSTOOD THE PRINCIPLE OF MULTIPLE CAUSATION AND MISCONSTRUED CALIFORNIA LAW

If it were accepted that a cancer were caused by a particular agent, be it asbestos or radiation, and there are several entities contributing to that cause, it might be appropriate to apportion the probability of causation according to the doses of the agent at issue, as was done in Rutherford v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 16 Cal.4th 953, 67 Cal.Rptr.2d 16, 941 P.2d 1203 (Cal.1997).

But that is not the case here. It is important to realize that it has not been proven, and indeed it is highly unlikely, that Mrs. Kennedy's CML was caused by any radiation exposure. Even if it had been proven that her condition was caused by radiation exposure, the probability that it was caused by radiation from fuel flea would have to be addressed. Then, and only then, would it be sensible to apportion blame to various manufacturers of the defective uranium fuel rods that caused the fuel fleas. But in this case it is all moot because there was only one manufacturer of the failed fuel: Combustion Engineering. The issue therefore is not a question of how to apportion probability (or blame) among many contributors to the exposure as the Panel suggests, and is the basis of the reasoning in Rutherford.

The Panel seems to have confused general and specific causation. The court confused a plaintiff's burden of demonstrating that a substance is known to have caused the disease at issue in the past (general causation), with the additional burden of showing that the particular defendant's product containing that toxic substance caused or contributed to the plaintiff's condition (specific causation). Properly applied, Rutherford would lead to the conclusion that plaintiffs first had to prove that radiation was more probably than not the cause of Mrs. Kennedy's CML, and that if, and only if, they met that burden, they would further have to show that radiation from SONGS contributed to Mrs. Kennedy's risk of contracting CML. As we explain above, this the plaintiffs did not do in this case, and cannot do, because radiation is known to cause only a small percentage of cases of CML.

The Panel's description of plaintiff's reduced burden of proof is especially troubling. According to the Panel, a plaintiff has the burden of proving only:

This "increase in risk" standard is substantially easier for a plaintiff to meet than the traditional burden of proving that the exposure actually caused her disease. The Panel reduced the plaintiff's burden even further when it explained its understanding of the phrase "substantial factor":

This statement shows the court's lack of understanding of basic epidemiology and risk calculation. The natural incidence of CML is 1 in 200. A Probability of Causation of 1 in 100,000 represents a Risk of less than 1 in 20 million, and is only theoretical. It is theoretical because radiation risks that small have not been, and cannot be, directly measured. They are merely theoretical extrapolations from measured risks many orders of magnitude greater than 1 in 20,000,000, caused by doses many orders of magnitude greater than the largest dose Mrs. Kennedy theoretically might have received.

The Panel then combined its liberal definition of "substantial factor" with the low burden of proof of causation it inferred from Rutherford, and concluded:

Amici submit that the Panel misconstrued Rutherford in two fundamental ways. First, it applied Rutherford, which was decided in the context of a known and demonstrable causal relationship between a substance (asbestos) and a specific disease (lung cancer), but where the precise source of the substance was not provable, to this case, where there is no demonstrable causal connection between Mrs. Kennedy's disease and a substance that only hypothetically came from defendants. Second, it stretched Rutherford to conclude that liability would attach if there was anything more than and "infinitesimal" or "theoretical" chance that a hypothetical exposure to a hypothetical fuel flea in the Kennedy home. The Panel was saying, in effect, that a jury could find for a plaintiff even if there were a 99.999% probability that plaintiff's injuries were caused by something other than exposure to a radioactive fuel flea. We believe this reasoning creates an absurd result, one that stands tort law on its head. It is also in direct conflict with this Court's holding in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 43 F.3d 1311 (9th Cir. 1995), in which the Court wrote: "There is a converse unfairness under a regime that allows recovery to everyone that may have been affected by [the defendants' conduct]. Under this regime, all potential plaintiffs are entitled to recover, even though most will not have suffered and injury that can be attributed to [defendants' conduct]." Id. at 1320, n.13.

We respectfully submit that the Panel's opinion was so flawed with regard to the scientific concepts that underlie radiation exposure and CML, as to the proper application the legal principles enunciated in Rutherford, and as to the mischievous consequences of its misunderstanding of both the science and the law, that this Court should grant defendant-appellees' petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc and should reverse the judgment of the Panel.

_________________________________
Martin S. Kaufman [MK 0814]
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Attorneys for Amici Curiae
Robert K. Adair, Bruce N. Ames, D. Allan Bromley, Patricia A. Buffler, Bernard Cohen, Bernard Gittelman, Sheldon Lee Glashow, Michael Gough, Ronald Hart, Dudley Herschbach, Lawrence Litt, A. Alan Moghissi, Rodney W. Nichols, Robert V. Pound, Norman Ramsey, Joseph P. Ring, Frederick Seitz, Edward Thorndike, Lynn H. Verhey and James D. Watson

Robert K. Adair is Sterling Professor of Physics at Yale University and formerly the chairman of the Department of Physics at Yale University. He was previously Associate Director for High Energy and Nuclear Physics of the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Bruce N. Ames is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center, University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and he was on their Commission on Life Sciences. He was a member of the board of directors of the National Cancer Institute, the National Cancer Advisory Board, from 1976 to 1982. He was the recipient of a leading award for cancer research, the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Prize (1983), a leading award in environmental achievement, the Tyler Prize (1985), the Gold Medal Award of the American Institute of Chemists (1991), the Glenn Foundation Award of the Gerontological Society of America (1992), and the Lovelace Institute's Award for Excellence in Environmental Health Research (1995), the Achievement in Excellence Award of the Center for Excellence in Education (1996), the Honda Prize of the Honda Foundation, Japan (1996), the Japan Prize, (1997), and the Kehoe Award, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (1997), the Medal of the City of Paris (1998), the Joseph Priestley Award (1998), and the U.S. National Medal of Science (1998). His over 400 publications have resulted in his being among the few hundred most-cited scientists in all fields.

D. Allan Bromley is the Sterling Professor of the Sciences and Dean of Engineering at Yale University; during 1989-1993 he was The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Professor Bromley was founder and director of the A.W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale from 1963 to 1989 and served as chairman of the physics department from 1970 to 1977. He has carried out pioneering studies on both the structure and dynamics of nuclei and is considered the father of modern heavy ion science, one of the major areas of nuclear science. He has published more than 450 papers on science and technology, edited or authored 19 books. Dr. Bromley has received numerous honors and awards, including the National Medal of Science, the highest U.S. scientific award. Prior to his appointment to the Bush Administration, Dr. Bromley served as member of the White House Science Council throughout the Reagan Administration and as a member of the National Science Board in 1988-1989. Dr. Bromley has been a leader in the national and international science and science policy communities. As chairman of the National Academy's Physics Survey in the early 1970's, he contributed in a central way to charting the future of that science in the subsequent decade and as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest scientific society, and of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the world coordinating body for that science, Dr. Bromley has been one of the leading spokesmen for U.S. science and for international scientific cooperation. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the Royal South African Academy of Sciences. He is also Academician of the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences, Moscow, a Benjamin Franklin Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England, and was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Patricia A. Buffler is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley and Dean emerita of the School of Public Heath at U.C. Berkeley. She has served as the President of the American College of Epidemiology, the Society for Epidemiologic Research, and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. She was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences and as a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Bernard Cohen is Professor Emeritus of Physics and the Environment and Occupational Health at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of six books and approximately 275 papers in scientific journals in his field. He was chair of the American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics and the American Nuclear Society Division of Environmental Sciences. He is the winner of the following awards: the American Physical Society Bonner Prize (for research in nuclear physics), the Health Physics Society Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award, the American Nuclear Society Public Information Award, the American Nuclear Society Walter Zinn Award, and the American Nuclear Society Special Award.

Bernard Gittelman has been Professor of Physics at Cornell University for over 30 years. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the American Physics Society and a Fellow of its Particle Physics Division. He is the author or co-author of over 100 published articles and papers in the field of particle physics, including a paper on monitoring radiation hazards. Sheldon Lee Glashow is a Nobel Laureate in Physics and Mellon Professor of Physics at Harvard University.

Michael Gough earned a Ph.D. in Biology at Brown University. After a decade-long academic career at the University of Michigan, Baylor Medical School, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and two years at the National Institutes of Health, he joined the congressional Office of Technology Assessment in 1977. At OTA, he began a career in health risk assessment and environmental health policy and directed and contributed to OTA reports on subjects ranging from environmental causes of cancer, occupational health and safety and Love Canal through corn genetics and biotechnology to oil shale mining. Until OTA's closing in 1995, he managed its Biological and Behavioral Sciences Program. In the early 1980's, Gough directed OTA's congressionally mandated oversight of Executive Branch studies of cancer in veterans of atom bomb tests and of the health of Vietnam veterans. He chaired a Department of Veterans Affairs advisory committee (1987-90) about the health effects of herbicides used in Vietnam and the Department of Health and Human Services committee (1990-95) that advises the United States Air Force study of the health of Air Force personnel who sprayed Agent Orange in Vietnam. During his academic career, he was a Fulbright Lecturer in Peru and India, and published two dozen papers in molecular biology, genetics, and microbiology. He is the author of Dioxin, Agent Orange (Plenum Press, 1986), co-editor, with T.S. Glickman, of Readings in Risk (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), co-author, with Steven J. Milloy of Silencing Science (Cato, 1999) and author of more than 40 papers about environmental and occupational health as well as numerous newspaper op-eds. He has testified about three dozen times before Congress. He is a fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis and Vice-President of the International Society for Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology (1999-2001). Dr. Gough's current interests focus on replacing assumption-based risk assessment practices with scientifically sound and justified methods, promoting biotechnology and other advances in agriculture as means to preserve biodiversity, and restoring the credibility of science as a method to obtain objective knowledge.

Ronald Hart is Director Emeritus of the National Center for Toxicological Research; Distinguished Scientist in Residence, United States Food and Drug Administration (retired). He is currently adjunct professor of Cancer Prevention at the Strang Cancer Research Institute of Rockefeller University. Dr. Hart developed the first direct proof that DNA damage was causal in cancer causation (1974), established much of the modern basis for the role of food intake on aging, degenerative disease occurrence and chaired, among many others, the White House Consensus Policy on Chemical Carcinogenesis. Dudley Herschbach is a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He is Baird Professor of Science at Harvard University, where he was previously Professor of Chemistry, Chairman of the Chemistry Department and Chairman of the Chemical Physics program. He is the recipient of the Pure Chemistry Prize of the American Chemical Society, the Linus Pauling Medal, the Michael Polanyi Medal, the Irving Langmuir Prize of the American Physical Society, the National Medal of Science and the Jaroslav Heyrovsky Medal.

Lawrence Litt is a Fellow of the Division of Biological Physics of the American Physical Society. He received his Ph.D. in physics at Harvard University and was on the faculty of the Michigan State Physics Department. He then earned an M.D. degree and redirected his research and clinical career into medicine. He is a tenured professor of anesthesia and radiology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where he is also an attending physician at the Moffitt-Long Hospitals and a member of the UCSF/UC-Berkeley Graduate Program in Bioengineering. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology. His research in brain metabolism is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Litt has also served through membership on numerous research review panels of NIH. At Moffitt-Long Hospitals, Dr. Litt has been the Radiation Safety Officer of the Anesthesia Department since 1983.

A. Alan Moghissi is President of the Institute for Regulatory Science (RSI), a non-profit organization dedicated to the idea that societal decisions must be based on best available scientific information. Dr. Moghissi received his education at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and Technical University of Karlsruhe in Germany, where he received a doctorate degree in physical chemistry. Following his immigration to the United States, he joined the U.S. Public Health Service, which upon the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), became a part of that agency. Dr. Moghissi served in a number of capacities at the EPA, including Director of Bioenvironmental/Radiological Research Division, Principal Science Advisor for Radiation and Hazardous Materials, and Manager of Health and Environmental Risk Analysis Program. He was Assistant Vice President at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, and Associate Vice President at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a visiting professor at Georgia Tech and the University of Virginia; he has also been affiliated with the University of Nevada and the Catholic University of America. Dr. Moghissi has over 300 publications, including several books. He is the Editor-in-Chief Technology the continuation of Journal of The Franklin Institute, one of America's oldest, technical journals. Dr. Moghissi is a member of the editorial board of several other scientific journals and is active in a number of civic, academic, and scientific organizations. He is an officer of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is an honorary member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, is a member of International Academy of Indoor Air Sciences and is an Academic Councilor of Russian Academy of Engineering. Dr. Moghissi's research has dealt with diverse subjects ranging from measurement of pollutants to biological effects of environmental agents; a major segment of his research has been on scientific information upon which laws, regulations, and judicial decisions are based, notably risk assessment. Rodney W. Nichols is President and chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government and was the principal author of the Commission's report "Science and Technology in U.S. International Affairs" (1992). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Organizations and Programs. He is the chair of the Committee on Science and Technology in Developing Countries of the International Council of Scientific Unions.

Robert V. Pound is Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics (emeritus) at Harvard University, former Chairman of the Department of Physics and former Director of the Physics Laboratories at Harvard University. Professor Pound was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1990.

Norman Ramsey is a Nobel laureate in Physics. He received his A.B. and M.A. from Columbia University and similar degrees from Cambridge University. In 1940 he received a Ph.D. from Columbia University for molecular beam studies with I. I. Rabi. He was awarded an Sc.D. by Cambridge University in 1954 and by Oxford University in 1973 as well as honorary doctorates from numerous colleges and universities. He was Executive Secretary of the group scientists who established Brookhaven National Laboratory and was the first Chairman of its Physics Department. Since 1947 he has been Higgins Professor of Physics at Harvard University. Dr. Ramsey's experimental work has ranged from molecular beams to particle physics and has concentrated on precision measurements of the electric and magnetic properties of nucleons, nuclei, atoms and molecules. He and his associates discovered the deuteron electric quadrupole moment, have studied proton-proton and electron-proton scattering and have measured many nuclear magnetic moments including those of the proton, neutron, and deuteron. He has studied nuclear interactions in molecules and the electron distribution within molecules, has proposed the first successful theories of the chemical shift in NMR and of the electron coupled spin-spin interactions in molecules and has developed the theory of thermodynamics at negative absolute temperatures. Dr. Ramsey and his associates have invented high precision methods of molecular beam spectroscopy including the atomic hydrogen maser and have set low limits to the electric dipole moment of the neutron as a test of time reversal symmetry. He and his associates observed for the first time parity non- conserving spin rotations of neutrons passing through matter. Dr. Ramsey's books include Experimental Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Moments, Molecular Beamsand Quick Calculus. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, was the George Eastman Professor at Oxford University in 1973-74 and visiting professor at many colleges and universities. He was Chairman of the Physics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1977-78 and President of the American Physical Society 1978-79. From 1966-81 he was President of Universities Research Association, which operates the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He was a Trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and of Rockefeller University. From 1980 to 1986 he was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Physics and from 1985 to 1988 he was President of the national Phi Beta Kappa Society. Professor Ramsey is a member of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and is a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences. He has received the following honors: Presidential Certificate of Merit, E. 0. Lawrence Award, Davisson-Germer Prize, Columbia Award for Excellence in Science, IEEE Centennial Medal, IEEE Medal of Honor, Monie Ferst Award, Rabi Prize, Rumford Premium, Compton Medal, Oersted Medal, Pupin Medal, Erice Science for Peace Prize, Einstein Prize for Laser Science, Vannevar Bush Award, Alexander Hamilton Award, National Medal of Science and the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Joseph P. Ring is Radiation Protection Office at Harvard University, a Lecturer in Health Physics at the Harvard School of Public Health and an Adjunct Professor of Radiological Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Health Physics. Dr. Ring is chair of the American National Standard Institute (ANSI) Committee N13 on Radiation Protection.

Frederick Seitz is President Emeritus, and was formerly President, of The Rockefeller University, a leading medical research institution. In addition to an earned Ph.D. in physics, he has been awarded 30 honorary degrees from such institutions as Princeton University, Northwestern, University of Michigan, Brown, N.Y.U. and University of Pennsylvania. He has received numerous awards for his work as a scientist and educator including the National Medal of Science, the Franklin Medal, the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Award and the American College of Physicians Edward R. Loveland Memorial Award. He served two terms as president of the National Academy of Sciences and has been Chairman of the Board of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research.

Edward Thorndike is Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester and a Visiting Fellow of the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of Energy and Environment, A Primer for Scientists and Engineers(1976) and the author or co-author of over 350 scientific articles; he was Director of the University of Rochester 130 Inch Cyclotron Laboratory and spokesman for the CLEO Collaboration/Cornell Electron Storage Ring. His primary field of research is in elementary particle physics. In 1999 he was awarded the W.H.K. Panofsky Prize of the American Physical Society. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 1960. Lynn H. Verhey is Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Verhey has a Ph.D. in Physics, and has held academic appointments at the University of California at Los Angeles, Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and UCSF. Dr. Verhey has also held clinical appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. Dr. Verhey has also been Chairman, Report Committee on Proton Therapy, International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU), a Member of the Medical Physics Advisory Committee (MEDPAC) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Reviewer of Quality Management Plans for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Dr. Verhey is the author or co-author of dozens of articles in the field of radiation oncology.

James D. Watson is a Nobel laureate in Medicine (1962) (with F. H. C. Crick and M. H. F. Wilkins), and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. Dr. Watson has also been awarded the John Collins Warren Prize of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Albert Lasker Prize of the Public Health Association, the John J. Carty Gold Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He earned his Ph.D. in Zoology, and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees. He is director and president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of the National Institutes of Health.